"Those will be somewhat harder to acquire before my harem here is complete, I don't think they're doable—well, the leather sickle is, but the other things—I don't think they're doable in this world's ontology and I think I'm not supposed to leave while there's still anything to do. ...I guess I don't know that the harem being complete is sufficient, maybe there's more stuff, but it's at least necessary, I'm pretty sure."

"...okay, at this point I'm actually joking, the shirt's fine. I don't think it's a Dragon Ball thing where you get a wish if you collect them all."

"I know that you're joking but I am the kind of person who is going to try to—I mean I am a hopeless romantic."

"You're extremely sweet. And I won't say no to any of it, just. You have already accomplished 80 to 90 percent of the romantic gesture."

"80 to 90 percent! I will call that an A-."

"You have a very American idea of grading. Which I suppose isn't unexpected."

"You know I don't really consider myself a very patriotic person but spending a couple of days attending an English boarding school sure has me going 'surely y'all don't really live this way' about everything."

"I don't see how clustering every grade that matters in the top quarter of the chart is better! If I've gotten seventy per cent of the questions correct, I've retained enough to understand the concept, and frankly, if you get one hundred per cent on anything you're spending too much time in airports."

"But the only thing grades are good for is getting into college so the only information you really need is 'is this a grade good enough for college' not what percentage of anything was right! ...plus the whole extracurriculars and whatnot but frankly that part I'm happy to leave behind forever, it was stifling."

"If you're just doing it for university, then... why does it matter at all? One arbitrary good enough seems as good as the other!"

"Americans can't count so you can't just give them numbers. ...wait this is Americans who are getting As, those should be able to count... Wait, I got it, the system is in place so that even the Americans who can't count can understand it!"

"Sure." Headpat.

He leans into the headpats. "I wonder if the medium we're in would let me purr. My guess is not and it'd be really embarrassing to try and fail but."

"I think if you allow embarrassment to prevent you from being the catboy you have always dreamed of being, you're not the man I know."

"A challenge, huh? Fine, fine."

So how would he even try it? He could... tell the narration to make him purr, in his brain? Did that work? 

That did not work. 

Uhhhhh.

He... he can try rolling his R for a few seconds? Yeah that's a similar sound he supposes but not, actually, a purr, and he doesn't have enough breath to do it very long.

Edmund makes a noise that... certainly doesn't sound entirely human, but is less a purr than a chuff. A very stop-and-go, middle-throat, uvular sort of sound.

"It's not easy," he concludes. "I suppose that's what I get for not being a cat."

"If I ever run into an actual cat person I'll make sure to steal their ability to purr but alas it seems that I cannot yet do it. —hey, are there any known nonhumans hereabouts, copying them could be useful."

"Not at the moment? Certainly none you'd have met. ...unless being some infinitesimal portion elf counts, in which case you've probably met... about three of them, statistically. There was a population bottleneck surrounding the sorceress-consort of Ogedei Khan, and no one's come out of it with magic in centuries but you do still get throwbacks with slightly pointy ears, or sharpened senses, or less need to sleep. I remember there's an old wives' test for if you've got any of her in you, where you shine a torch in your eyes in a dark room and... something? I think your eyes go the tiniest bit cat-shaped? I never tried it because it sounds unpleasant."

"—wait, you're kidding. How infinitesimal? Actually it doesn't matter, I can just try for it, is that a D&D sorceress—do you guys have D&D, or Pathfinder—we literally just talked about D&D, what am I even saying—okay gimme a moment. Do you have something? —again, it doesn't matter. I will try to be a sorcerer elf."

Has he met any sorcerer elves? Has he met enough sorcerer elves? Can he just Fish For Elves? Hell, can he just Fish For Something, Anything, He's Sure There Must Be Something Somewhere?

Can he Discover a Previously Unknown Heritage?

"You know, it figures that the ears would be more dramatic in person, if the attenuated version keep cropping up after fifty generations. You need a hat."

"...oh shit I did not think this through," he says, scrambling for his phone to take a look at his own face.

His ears are... long. Very noticeably long, actually, "go nearly up to the top of his head and out to the sides" long. They somehow make him look striking rather than goofy—maybe it's just his impression that his features have gotten slightly sharper and more elfin (heh) but for whatever reason it works—and a convenient angle of a street light at the most convenient time reveals the tapetum lucidum that must be what Ed had been thinking of.

Also he has low light vision now 

"Shit. Wait I can shapeshift, can you look away for a second—"

Yep.

Ears away?