"I mean, he loves you, won't want to upset you, and can guess pretty much perfectly what would upset you..."

"Okay. And there aren't - cultural things I'll step on if I ask him a lot of personal questions -"

"I... guess I don't know what kind of personal questions you mean -?"

"I want to understand how the love thing works and what it means and what it's like from the other end."

"I don't see why that would bother him but I don't know him personally."

"Okay. Thank you very much." And back to where Cir was packing.

Here he is explaining where he's going to small siblings.

"Are you sure you don't want to stay here at least until they're grown up -"

"My parents are just going to keep adopting more and if I'm not taking clients I will wind up touching every single one sooner or later."

"Okay. I can ask Deronica to help you pack, if you'd like."

"I'm almost done, I don't have much, it just took a while to find my other shoes. Deronica?"

"My bodyguard." Gesture. Unless that's outside human sight range, he's not actually clear on human sight except that it's terrible. "Fairies can move things. Very fast, if they want."

Cir squints. "Oh. Well, I'm almost done anyway, Ma just wanted to pack me some snacks."

"Of course."

And eventually Cir's greenmage ma comes out and gives him a box of snacks and hugs him goodbye - he's changed into his uniform and has gloves on but she puts her hand on his neck with incidental hair contact that would be inappropriate if they were Elves.

His littlest brother collects a last hug too.

And then he goes over to Maitimo and smiles up at him.

He smiles back at him. "Okay. Deronica can fly us back to the palace, unless there's anywhere you've always wanted to go which we can visit first."

"Reasons I shouldn't go to the beach still apply," sighs Cir.

"We could find a deserted beach?"

"If you can find one and it's not out of your way..."

"Fairies kind of obviate the concept of out-of-the-way... Deronica, can we get in the air, look for deserted beaches along the shoreline?"

They can! There's one. Cir goes swimming in the nude until he gets too cold.

Awwww. Then they can head back to the palace.

Cir likes flying.

"It's pretty great, isn't it? If I could be a daeva I'd definitely be a fairy. When we have more free time we can go up above the atmosphere, see the stars more clearly."

"There's something in the way of the stars?"