"...I don't think Bright hates himself but I admittedly have never taken advantage of unrestricted access to his thoughts."

"Okay, those of us who grew up in the worlds with a stigma on wanting men."

"So there's obviously a compromise option, which hopefully is not quite that path-dependent."

"I don't really want to be him? He spent a few days beating himself up over wanting the kid, and there's nothing wrong with it."

"He is quite young even for a human, but sure, you could say that's a false positive and that the interim of a few days would have been uncalled for regardless."

"I just don't want to go back by being governed by a back-and-forth between want and self-loathing."

"Is that all he was doing?"

"No. The rest is stuff I'd do, though."

"...That surprises me."

"...oh?"

"You said you would have delightedly squirreled him off and I wouldn't expect Bright to be refraining solely out of a desire to avoid self-loathing. Maybe I read too much into the phrase?"

"He was mostly refraining because he thought it was wrong, what other reason would he have?"

"One can think things are wrong and be motivated by that without self-loathing entering the picture at all; I don't know if it's in everyone's repertoire but it's possible in principle. Moreover one can think things are right and be motivated by that without self-loathing entering the picture at all, which is what I would anticipate he'd be concerned with when trying to find a responsible way to handle his surprise dependent."

"...that was different from how I'd have done it, but less so? I'd have done it by giving the kid presents and arranging for his family to be looked after, not by panicking about how to take care of a human - I thought the difference there was just that he didn't know anything about humans -"

"He also is more ignorant of humans than you are, yes, that's probably at least some of the discrepancy."

"I wouldn't have spent as much time worrying how to do right by the human but I would have seen to it that his family was taken care of and so on. I don't think the difference there is as significant as the difference in - negative emotions -"

"Hm?"

"He was - not going to make any effort at all to keep the mage, if he'd shown any inclination towards leaving. He didn't feel like he'd gotten lucky at all. He was just scared."

"He probably has higher ambitions than being somebody's least bad option."

"Yeah."

"Let alone not optional."

"This has occurred to me."

"Sounds like it was convenient he turned out to be okay with mindreading for you-compatible reasons."

"I can't just start over after four hundred years how do I - he got what he wanted anyway, he was silly and too careful and ignorant and didn't even want it and he got it anyway -"

"Why can't you?"