"You look very distraught and I am not sure how to make you not be distraught. You've probably already guessed that I'm a Transfer, yes?" And the capitalization is very definitely audible, there.

"Yeah. One of the - unusual ones. The ones who can... do. Things."

"—I suppose I must be. The sum total of what I know about this place's experience with Transfers is that the Dean told me I shouldn't advertise the fact too much, it happens sometimes, they often change history from what it would otherwise have been but history seems to have a tendency to try to pull itself back on track later anyway. I did not have time to look into any of that yet because I spent the whole day getting toured around the place and flirting with cute boys and one cute girl but rest assured I was planning to."

"Okay. Not... inaccurate. Incomplete, maybe. You said you're from America; is that true, to the extent it's true?"

"I have not lied at all to anyone here. Omitted and misled a little bit but everything I said was true. I am from the United States of America, yes. Why do you ask?"

He is getting a bad feeling about this.

"Did your America contain, at one point, a city called Detroit."

"...it... still does. As far as I know?"

Baaaaad baaaaaaaaaad feeling.

"Well. Good for it, I suppose."

It takes him a while to formulate the next bit.

"Changing history isn't always good. Sometimes, a Traveler comes through, and the world puts them in a position to do something that makes them happy, as it tends to, and the thing that makes them happy is bad. And that sucks, right? But - you can kind of handle someone who's happiest cutting people up in their basement. It's not good, but it's not worse than what you might get from nature and nurture.

"But. Sometimes, a Traveler comes through, and they can... do something. And, and people usually want to help, I don't want to overlook that, a lot of people have power and they make things better. But. Sometimes they can do something, and -

"He danced. He danced, and people fell in love. He could do other things, too, he had this great big sword and he could cut you in half with it, you could shoot him and it'd bounce, I heard somebody say he cut a skyscraper's top floor off - but the dancing, he'd dance and you were his. Forever. He could let you go, but nothing else would do it.

"And... he tried to stay under the radar, start an underground cult. But somebody filmed him, and it went out, and people saw it. And they fell in love. And the government sent people to kill him, and they couldn't, like I said, bullets bounced. And he started dancing, and the clouds above the city started gathering together, and they looked like a man, and the man started moving...

"But nukes go fast. It turns out."

"Oh what the everloving fuck."

"Yeah. Yeah, that's - you are correct."

"I, I promise I'm not doing that? I, I realize in retrospect that you might find it alarming that I, um, found my way into your pants so quickly but I am extremely very very much not doing anything like that."

"I did not actually think that you were the second coming of Invictus... okay, I mostly hadn't considered it, but I still think the actions I've taken today make sense given you've been - putting active effort into seducing me, which hasn't happened before. But you need to understand that that's. Something people think about. Travelers, they're, you're people, and I don't distrust you because you can do things other people can't but I can't - it's alarming. I am not angry at you but my equanimity is ruffled."

"Yeah, I mean. So is mine. When the Dean said that there had been some horrible things that happened here and didn't on the default timeline I was thinking, like, maybe wars, maybe something like, I don't even know if Hitler was a thing but. Not. Mind control dancing and nuking Detroit. I am very ruffled."

"Hitler... I'm going to assume you're not talking about the folk singer, but... oh, Peter's mentioned him, absolutely gruesome, yes. Um. Averted but known."

"Oh my God there are people who will have his name, aren't there, Jesus that will take a bit to get used to. Um. Anyway. Yeah I'm. Recontextualizing some things. Uh.

"...what do you want to know?"

"I don't need a catalogue. You don't owe me a catalogue. But - I'd be happier if I had a general idea of what it is you do, I think? So far I know time bends around you, and you've said a few odd things about... narrative?"

"Time Enough For Love is the name of that particular power. Not all of it is individual things that have names but that one is. It's, I don't remember the exact specifics but the gist of it is that so long as I'm pursuing a deep relationship with someone, love or friendship, I will have time for it. At, uh, the extreme end of things—which I am definitely going to hit because as I mentioned before I'm obligate poly, and also a huge extrovert—I'll be able to be in two or more places at once. If need be."

"Time Enough for Love... it's an odd name for a spell, I'll tell you that. And oddly scoped. But powerful. I think."

He laughs. "You don't know the half of it. The, ah, best way to look at it is in fact narrative. Less about individual things I can or cannot do and more about the story that's being told, if that makes sense. So, uh, things that happen to and around me are more likely to be able to be described as a plot than for most other people."

"Things like... falling into a new world, and landing at school, and having fun with a nice lad, and then having him reveal tearfully that you're a conspecific of the man who got a city wiped off the map. Perhaps."

Edmund closes his eyes tightly for a moment. "I don't mind romantic drama, but romantic melodrama is just offensive."

He covers his lips with a hand. "Sorry. I, ah, don't know what to say next because I have had approximately seventeen thoughts in a row that I am not sure I should say. Whoever's writing my lines has probably typed and then erased all of them while trying to figure out what I'm going to say and I feel very sorry for them. ...I feel only a little bit sorry for them."

"No, sorry, actual simulationism is a bridge too fucking far. I will accept there's some god-thing meddling with me but first of all fuck them, and second of all I'm a person with feelings and so are you and typing is not involved in that process. Okay?"

"Eighty percent of my thoughts about this subject are shitposting, you should not take me that seriously. But also I, hmm, I've had several weeks to come to terms with this that I'm not sure how to properly convey so what I'm doing instead of even trying to convey them is shitposting, you know?"

"...alright, I guess, I'll try not to bite you about it. This is probably even more stressful on your end."

"It's not, actually, I have come to terms with this stuff. The setting is a little bit grittier and darker than I'd initially assumed but it's day one, I don't want to imagine that the entire genre has already been established. ...shitposting again, sorry.

"Also speaking of things to maybe come to terms with I'm eighteen. By the way. I'm not even sure how old this body is but in terms of subjective years since the day of my birth it's been eighteen of them."