"... I'm pretty sure Prime's trying? I don't - he's weird. I don't quite get him."

"You've got a better shot at getting him than us. One hopes," says Phix, stretching a wing and then unhaving the set thereof. "Like, if being Aya right now were not staggeringly unpleasant we could be a lot more leisurely about getting her the hell fixed, that would be nice."

"Yeah. It's - not like he's some weird freakish zombie version of me, or anything. But he's kind of hard for me to relate to because there's - he's really depressing."

"So, so depressing," sighs Cypress.

"Which would also be nice to fix but is even theoretically probably less amenable to magical breakage."

"I don't suppose we can find a therapist to talk to him?"

"He'd refuse. Because of course he would."

"Anyway, uh, subjectivity - ugh, this is all depressing enough to make me wish me and Aldaras had happened the other way around, because she's a me but like I keep saying I touched it and he already loved me and I can't make heads or tails of how Prime's feeling. Is Aya any better at reading him? The question's bound to be of exceeding importance."

"... I'd say she's in a better position to read him, rather than being better at reading him," muses Cypress. "If I'm honest, I'm probably the one best to analyze him. Hooray for that."

"Well, analyze away, if I'm going to have any insight on subjectivity I have to know what she's working with."

"Right, okay. Mmm. It's pretty obvious he's spent a very large amount of time being self sacrificing and - er, noble. And I believe that at some point he realized that he, personally, could not take any more self-inflicted punishment. So he's sort of. Doing whatever he likes, keeping people at arm's length, subtly lashing out, being really bitter about everything..."

"Don't forget the way he hates everything, I'm pretty sure he just secretly hates everyone now."

"Right. Yes. And he probably hates everyone now."

"...And by 'everyone' you mean...? Because that makes me want to ask Ice if she knows how to put Aya into a coma. Or we could skip straight to killing her, again, until we think of something."

"Okay, so he is capable of hate and what exciting second emotion?"

Cypress and Max look at each other.

"... Right, okay, step by step. If I hated everyone, was bitter and alone and hiding behind a wall of sarcasm, how would I feel if then met my wife?"

"No, I mean - I would be pissed that I didn't meet her - four hundred years ago."

"She's old but I think not that old," snorts Phix.

"Not the point," snickers Max.

"More of a... 'Why now, when I'm depressing and bitter and used to being alone?'"

"Because I didn't warn her about the necklace, that's why," sighs Annie. "But... he'd met her before that."

"I was talking about when he'd met her before that."

"We haven't worked our way up to the mess that is the necklace."

"Ah, okay, go on then."

"It's more... bitter and angry at the world than 'what are the reasons for this happening,' anyway."

"Right. So. Then he gets to deal with us." He waves a hand and motions to all of them. "Also allies that he could have used much sooner. That's got to be some salt in the wound."

"... Man, now I want to give him a hug."

"He'd turn you down."

"I know, but still."

"Anyway. So he's grateful we all exist, but is still sort of angry that it didn't happen sooner. And... There's a measure of pride involved, I'd say. With the - 'my time alone was not worthless without you folks and your magic.'"

"Nobody ever said it was," murmurs Ice.

"Right, of course not. It's aimed at himself, not us. Because obviously he hasn't been doing so well emotionally."

"... Soooo. Inferiority complex?"

"Oh, that's fun. Yeah, bet he has one. A subtle one, buried under the sarcasm."

"Is Conduit noticeably badly off?" wonders Phix.

"Lacking emotional stability seems like a sort of... self-defeating thing to have an inferiority complex about," remarks Ice. "Which I suppose doesn't help..."

"Conduit's pretty traumatized. She's handling it well, though, props to her."

"Yeah. For Prime, though... It really doesn't. So it's sort of a spiral of self-hating misery he's got going on."

"Depressing to see."

"But I can't see him not liking Aya, despite the spiral."

"Just about enough that we had better not put her in a coma and not a speck more, at least not so anybody would notice."

"... Nnnnno I don't think so."

"Want to take bets on if he's secretly in love with her yet?"

"If he's in love with her then they'd better be taking this trip to Tayane as a little honeymoon. She does not look Annie amounts of happy when we've seen her."

"... Yyyyes he is. Oh dear."

"Yes, but - think of it this way. You're surrounded by happy couples when you strongly suspect that you're incapable of being one half of a happy couple. Then the one person you suspect you could actually manage to pull it off with falls very much in love with you. Through a necklace. And every minute he's not flinging himself at her, she's - having less than she should, and isn't happy. And he can't even manage to fling himself at her, because emotional instability and being used to being alone and unsure of how to stop acting like he is."

"Iiit would probably hurt him a lot to do it anyway? He's already pretty messed up now..."

"... Not to mention his version of 'do it anyway' is probably 'go touch the necklace himself.'"

"Yikes."

"Well, he can't do that without convincing somebody to help him or sneaking into Alethia. And it would be unnecessary! I assume. Annie?"

"I mean, it's simplifying, but not necessary, if he loves her and will, you know, go above and beyond giving her the time of day."

"But he's not sure he can actually pull it off, he's - literally lacking the social skills for doing it."

"You're making it sound like uttering the words 'I love you' and," vague gesture in a nod to Adarin prudery, "are international diplomatic relations, possibly with spies and poised cruise missiles involved."

"... Kinda? He's a bit messed up, he's not going to..." Vague handwave. "Jump out on a limb and display his heart to someone."

"He might be able to handle it? He has genuine incentive to try. And we can always talk to him and explain the other side of things and see if that can poke him to say three words."

"Yeah. Do try that, in - whatever way might work, I guess - when they get back. I will hold off on drastic soul renovations until then."

"Shouldn't she?"

"I don't mean, is it true, I mean, will she be able to get anything out of this statement when he's under so much pressure and isn't necklaced and clearly feels somewhere between obligated to and affectionate towards her. Will she believe him?"

"But does she know that? I doubt she expects him to lie to her under ordinary circumstances, and it's in the little booklet that Adarins are bad liars, but - it is not an optimal setup for having total faith in the utterance, is it. Hearing exactly what you need to hear like that."

"Then we should tell her that he's not going to lie to her about it."

"I suppose she'd probably believe us. Still. Good to have caught that one in advance, unless he's, like, tried to say it while they're away..."

"... Really hoping the answer to that is 'no,' now."

"We could call."

"I vote for doing that. Calling sounds smart."

Phix goes and finds the mirror and calls its opposite number.

"Give the mirror to Spring and go back to sleep."

"Uh, hi?"

"Hello. This is a - not a public service announcement, I guess, but we have been gossiping terribly about you behind your back and thought you might like to know that it is Adarin-general-consensus that if Prime ever tells you he loves you he will not be lying to make you feel better or anything."

"... Also probably let her know that he likes her more than a little."

"Quite a lot. We'll go with quite a lot."

"They also strongly suspect that he does, in fact, have feelings for you, quite a lot even, but is - it's not really funny, so I won't say 'hilariously incompetent' - decidedly incompetent at doing anything about it, or at least expects to be, so he's not even trying."

"I think that's everything we needed to say. Sorry to wake you."

Nod, nod. Spring ends the call.

"I don't think it hurt, anyway, except for interrupting Prime's sleep."

"I'm not sure he'll even remember it."

"Good."

"Okay, so that will presumably cut down on certain particularly unpleasant scenarios under certain conditions. I do still want a plan for what if another - week or two goes by and they're still doing - that."

"Yeah. Mm. I'm - not sure how to manage that, though."

"Can I vote 'get Prime some therapy' again?"

"Where are we going to find a therapist who can hear this story?"

"... Good point. Hey, Cypress, can you hire a therapist who's allowed to know all of this stuff?"

"Uh. Maybe? But they'd almost certainly be thrown for a loop by the lack of daemons."

"Reading daemon behavior is a huge part of therapy on Chamomile," confirms Ice.

"I wonder how many summons it would take to find a therapist daeva or something."

"A lot, I'd bet. Possibly not worth the trouble. And I genuinely doubt that any members of the colony are therapists. They'd be used to not working with daemons, even if they have them now. I could always ask, I suppose."

"Would the colonials be too - Kystley for Prime to have good rapport with them, though?"

"... Probably. Or it could help? I - don't know, really."

"You'd know better than we would, so that's probably going to add up to 'no clue'. Anyway, therapy takes ages to work. We would still be into the period where it was time to deploy drastic solutions for Spring."

"There goes that idea."

"We could try getting him to get a daemon."

"Well, we can suggest it. But I don't see him being keen."

"No," sighs Cypress. "Probably not."

"It's not like you guys are only giving out tickets to Alethia on a limited basis, hundredth person to walk through the Belfry gets one, etcetera, he'd have one already if the idea appealed."

"I - it's sort of frustrating that none of my alts believe me that it's worth it."

"Um. Sorry? I mean, I believe that you think it's worth it, but I'm not - hopping aboard that train."

"Yes." Sigh. "I know."

"I'm tempted? I'll do it if we get desperate about Spring, anyway, and think the alethiometer could come up with something if it looked at me. But this isn't because I think it would be a good Therapy Animal, I just know that Aldaras would be happy to snuggle it and I don't expect it to interfere all that much with my daily life."

Cypress is kind enough to not voice his opinion of this sentiment out loud.

"... Sorry?" repeats Max, eyeing Cypress.

"Max doesn't have emotional stability problems. ...Do you?"

"I feel pretty emotionally stable? I mean, the dragon thing's still sort of distressing, But that's understandable. I'm not going to throw up walls of sarcasm or be a huge grump or act at all like Prime because of it, it just sucks. Um. I don't know, is there an - emotional stability test?"

(... Cypress privately suspects the emotional stability test is 'take away the Adarin's Bell' but obviously that is a very bad idea.)

"Put you in an emotional boat, see how long it takes you to get your sea legs? I dunno."

"I assume me and Aldaras both get heavily dinged on this scale just because we're necklaced. He flips out if I get a cold," says Annie dryly.

Max giggles and flops a wing on his girlfriend. "That probably dings you, yeah. But it's a - hard thing to guess. How are you so sure about it, Vern?"

"... It's a hard thing to explain," tries the daemon anyway. "But if something happens we both know that there's two of us instead of just him. So we're better equipped to handle various emotional turmoils."

"Right. I don't think everyone would be better off with a daemon. Just - us."

"Maybe Aldaras should get one if the alethiometer needs to look at a necklaced person."

"There's an idea."

"Sure. If he's willing, anyway."

"I'll ask him when he gets back from class. But with luck it won't come to that extreme and it'll be a more unpressured decision."

"So our back up plan is 'Aldaras gets a daemon, and we try to persuade Prime to get one, too' if things keep as they are?"

"They're separate - prongs. Aldaras getting a daemon is to see if there's a way to un-necklace Spring. Prime getting a daemon is for Prime's general emotional health. We shouldn't need both interventions at once."

"Right. Yes. That."

"And best case scenario he just stops tormenting her all by himself."

"Yes. Though, I'd say the necklace is tormenting her more than he is."

"The necklace makes her vulnerable. It doesn't hurt all by itself."

"... But it caused her to fall for a person that's in a very precarious spot, emotionally. Yes it doesn't hurt on its own, but it's responsible for the circumstances."

"True. Anyway, are we done here?"