"I expect Milliways picks bettors with good priors and who'll abide by the standard oaths for bettors on therapy clients?  Probably in a lower layer of reality that can see our reality but not act on it except by outputting prediction market data."

"...What are the standard oaths for that?" 

Thellim describes the standard oaths!  They're very reassuring!  They imply a culture with VERY HIGH trust levels compared to Velgarth!

Ramona is watching to see how Thellim settles down Leareth about security things because that is in fact a recurring problem!

Leareth now has several additional questions about her world! It seems like it might be useful to understand better and he could learn a great deal from how they do things. It doesn't seem immediately relevant to his relationship with Ramona, though, so he won't ask yet.

He is reassured about the predictions markets of unexplained Milliways origin. 

Then she'll fire one up!

...

"Huh.  New prediction market up at the next layer of reality.  I'm in if you are."

"Yeah, I think I actually am that bored.  Oh hey I think this is an alternate version of me, that's probably why I'm tagged?"

"And... my author is Ramona's author's boyfriend.  Sure.  I'll roll with that."

Prediction market's starting estimate:  20%!

This is mainly based on an outside view of how many previous couples receiving couples' therapy at Milliways have chosen to stay together afterwards.

Sure, she'll put that number up on the main screen in her office.

Twenty percent! Ugh! Ramona hopes this is uninformed bullshit. They're just here to get Leareth some very basic information about relationships and then be on their way! Their case is so easy! Nothing to it!

She's been trying not to judge the way Thellim is doing the therapy, because she did cede the therapist role on purpose, after all, and it's best not to micromanage, but what the actual hell? Is Thellim just trolling them to get them to unite against her?

Leareth is now so curious how many couples have ever received couples' therapy in Milliways! If his and Ramona's circumstances are anywhere near typical, it seems like most of them might have been under particularly complicated and fraught circumstances? 20% still seems a bit surprising, but it’s not like “deciding to be non-romantic allies instead of allies who spend time together in bed” would be a disastrous outcome, if Ramona ends up deciding that’s what she would prefer. (He’s perhaps slightly upset about the possibility anyway, but he’s entirely capable of handling his own hurt feelings.)

He looks expectantly at Thellim, since he still has no idea what the next step in couples’ therapy is meant to be.

"To be clear, that 20% number is primarily a 'base rate' -- it's probably not based on the mysterious bettors knowing very much about you, yet, it'll be a low-liquidity early number centering on how many people who get couples' therapy in Milliways decide to stay together.  It doesn't mean the relationships end badly, either, rearranging your clients so that they all end up with equally good or better mates is a perfectly reasonable way to end a therapy consultation, and Milliways is unusually well-placed for that sort of outcome."

Ramona doesn't believe for a second that Thellim showed them "20%" because that was the base rate for Milliways. Even if that were true -- and it could be true -- that doesn't make it a good intervention. Maybe Thellim is just trying to heat things up in the room by starting out with something jarring and controversial? It's unorthodox, but if that's what Thellim's doing, Ramona doesn't want to mess it up for her.

"All right, so now that you've terrified us, what's next?"

"Next, we smile cheerfully and try out daring relationship-fixing schemes that won't take either of you down with them if they fail!  Only we don't actually do that because it's a pretty low-liquidity market, it'll probably swing up or down once the bettors have more information."

"I've been trying to think about how I'd do a from-scratch explanation of how relationships work for Leareth, and have a rough outline ready to go on that, but first I want to check if either of you have any higher-priority discussions than that one.  In therapy you're not supposed to just immediately dive into in-depth discussions of every interesting topic the way you would in a normal conversation!"

"In fact, we are here precisely because we want to hear you do a from-scratch explanation of how relationships work! That is the purpose of our visit! Let's go ahead and do that."

"I am certainly curious." At this point Leareth is starting to form an expectation that everything coming out of Thellim's mouth will be bizarre and counterintuitive and cause Ramona to make faces, but that doesn't make him less curious, and it's...likely to still be helpful? Probably? 

"Right!  Well, first, the basic concept of a relationship is that it's like any other kind of trade: each of you are providing something that the other person wants from you, and both of you are better off than if neither of you were in a relationship!  I'll pause there and check that I'm referring to concepts that already exist in both of your dimensions."

That is actually a lot less bizarre and counterintuitive than Leareth was expecting!

"I am following so far." 

"That is not at all how most people on my planet think of it, but it suits me just fine, so yes, please go ahead!"

"Just like any other job, as you stay in a relationship, you build human capital that makes you more effective at providing what your job context demands from you!  In a normal job this would give you more leverage to demand a higher salary from your employer in exchange for you spending your opportunity costs on staying employed for longer.  But in a relationship, usually, it's a more symmetrical arrangement than that; the other person is getting better at providing what you want, too!  This is the underlying reason why people stick around getting affection and love from particular other people, rather than just finding a whole new boyfriend or girlfriend every time they need a hug!  Still with me?"

....

Ramona will look at Leareth to see what his response is before she jumps in.

That....is also not normally how jobs work? Maybe it's how jobs work in wealthier and more technologically advanced worlds (or in non-secret organizations that come with less in the way of security compulsions) - it doesn't exactly sound bad - but it's not particularly a familiar model Leareth can take and map over to relationships. 

Someone should definitely tell Vanyel to use his leverage to demand a higher salary, though.

"...Is that mostly a more precise way of saying that relationships - if they are going well - usually become closer over time, because it helps to know each other well?" he says, carefully.