"And Fredrick?"

"I'm not going to hurt him."

"I wouldn't expect it," she says sincerely. "I'm a little more worried that you will just - run circles around him."

"I had to have a lot of leverage to - encircle - mine. I'm not smarter than them, it's not a fundamentally unequal relationship -"

"Fredrick is a fifteen or possibly now subjectively sixteen year old human whose own Maitimo couldn't think of a better response than ignoring him when he found a different boyfriend."

"Sixteen."

"We should have some kind of collective calendar. It's possible I could convince Kib to design it, being as it would have no useful strategic implications for his war. Sixteen, then."

"I will not leave him worse off than I found him, in any respect. Promise."

Nod. "Do let me know if you need any help on that."

"I know how to make them happy.

But thank you."

"Not everything that makes people happy is good for them. Maybe I will tell you sometime about the month I spent trying to backpedal when I accidentally halfway convinced Nienna that wireheading people would be a good idea."

He giggles. "I would like to hear about that sometime."

"You will have to ply me with buttercream bonbons, but I am sure you can talk me into it."

"We haven't actually checked for Ardas where the Valar stumbled on that idea independently and went full bore with it. Maybe there are some."

"...I'll look."

"Thanks for stopping by."

"Of course." She pats his arm and departs.

He stares at the sky for a while then goes up to his room.

"We're about ready to unpause Godspring," he tells Cir a while later. "Has Ruviri decided what she wants?"

"She'd like to be bought out too. But she's not as urgent about it as I was - mostly because she has Ava - and won't mind much if you don't get around to it soon, she's not supposed to start this year."

"In that case I will wait a bit honestly mostly for reasons of reputation. Want to come with me when I meet with Liatsi again, or stay here?"

"I'll stay behind if you don't want me there for anything more than you want people not to make remarks." Smooch.

" - I take a lot of pride in people - trusting me that what I'm doing makes sense and if they go along with it they'll be satisfied with the explanation once they have it? And it hadn't previously occurred to me that what I've really purchased is license to be completely horrible and be accepted for it. But it's not really fair to - make that into taking issue with peoples' remarks.

I feel like I sort of seesaw between 'yes they are capable of moral reasoning and they're all terrible at it I hate being inside their heads' and 'they're all children of course they haven't got it figured out yet' and both of those are...bad ways to do it."

"- I think humans have different needs, and even the ones who could live like Elves if they tried it don't expect it of everybody else, and I do think it makes a difference that redmages do knowledge then love then sex. I mean, maybe I only think that because since I was five I have been given lots of stories about heroic redmages saving depressed people and stuff. But I wanted out because I don't want to forget everything - I don't want to forget the people I already have and miss them and not know what's wrong, that's what happens if they overshoot, they can be really precise with greenmages but with us too much depends on individual stuff about how we remember things - if it weren't for the side effect I wouldn't've minded."

"That does help, thank you.  I think I'd like it a lot without the cost."