("Peter," Susan says, trying not to condescend, "he's having fun. Was that not the idea?")

"Alright, now that those two aren't here to eavesdrop..." He switches back to his narration cadence, which isn't that different from his usual speech and accent, but he does enunciate his syllables a lot more and try to use longer, more complicated words. "You're in your hideout, a little nondescript nowhere hole in the city. The goblins are besieging so there is a whole mess of people out there, scared and disorganised, but despite their fear they are almost certainly going to recognise the Lord Mayor if you go out carrying him in broad daylight. But wait! What was that? Roll Perception."

"Oh! Perception, that's - wisdom add proficiency and a little since I'm an elf - d20 -"

The die rolls; it hits a 3.

"Bollocks. Lu, what'd you get?"

"Eh?"

"Oh, for - just roll your twenty, and I'll tell you what you got?"

She does.

"Eighteen. S'good, right?"

"Hmmm," says Eric, thoughtfully, as he rolls a d20 twice behind his DM screen hidden from the prying eyes of those two. "You don't notice anything out of the ordinary. It must've been just your imagination. Anyway..."

"...and I bet half the time you weren't really even rolling anything, you were just messing with them, you look like the type."

"I wouldn't say it was half the time," he says, trying not to feel kind of weirded out by just how uncannily accurate Pete's rendition of all of their voices was.

"So it did go something like that?"

"Something like that, yeah."

"Honestly, when you suggested a flashback I mostly anticipated you staring into the middle distance for about fifteen seconds and then saying well, that was fun. This was much more engaging. I want to see your rendition of Much Ado now."

"Of... what now?"

"Ed, are you dating a philistine?"

"Oh, I got to the bullying stage of our relationship, that's progress."

"I've only had him two days! Shakespeare's in the curriculum, but not until he has a firm practical grounding in anime I like."

"Oh, yes, I absolutely am a philistine, the only things I know of Shakespeare are Romeo and Juliet..."

"...and?"

"Those are the things. Romeo and Juliet, that's two things."

"He likes you," Edmund reports smugly. "He doesn't set up your punchlines like that if he doesn't like you."

"Of course he likes me, I'm so very likeable. It's even more impressive that I did it when I'm still very sure he's immune to my supernatural charms."

"...oh right this is going to come off horribly here, uh, there isn't any mind control involved I made very sure of that. To explain, I have a power that manages coincidences to make me come off as more alluring than mere chance by, like, making the light catch off me the right way so I look attractive or making my clothes look the right shade of nice or even making people only run into me when they're in a good mood or when it'd otherwise be good for it to happen. And I also have a separate—well, it was called a drawback but honestly I found it a perk—all of my powers only work on half the people I meet. And it's an all or nothing thing, either they all work or they all don't, for any given person. So that's what I meant, when I said he was probably immune to my Mysterious Allure."

"Yes, thank you, that was the obvious next question. ...Peter and Susan are subject, I know that much... Lucy? She's fondly exasperated by our panting after you, where she'd usually be more irritated, but she doesn't actually have a strong opinion of you personally..."

"I think she's immune too. And I'm on the fence about Sophie and Monika... Hywel and Tom and Tintin are definitely subject—okay, I guess maybe not Hywel but I think it's more likely than not, hmm. Anyway yeah."