"And pleading works better when you can talk."

"Well, gestural pleading. Elves can cry on demand, I suppose perhaps humans can't do that?"

"No. I bet Timothy can, I could try to pick it up." Hug.

Hug.

"I don't know what to tell Miranda."

"You can tell her what you told me and she'll understand. I could tell her for you, if you'd prefer. Once she has the details she'll mostly be worried about you, about how you're feeling and whether you'll be trapped in Ganymede for years - you're the one who might benefit from her worrying about them; your summoner isn't. I don't think she'll be disappointed at all."

"Disappointed is what I was worried about. Being trapped in Ganymede for decades would really really suck but if she was disappointed it'd be because it was the wrong decision and that'd be worse."

"It wasn't. You did what you could with what you had."

"Yeah. If you're not smart enough that's not always good enough."

"I suppose, theoretically, if you were infinite in your mental agility and learnedness you could have discerned from microexpressions precisely how to induce a minute of concentration from your summoner using only interpretive dance, but Miranda will not be disappointed in you for falling short of this standard."

Giggle. "Thank you, Ambela. Will you tell people? So they don't have to ask me - I understand why they'd have to ask me -"

"Yes, of course. Do you want me to tell Miranda, or would you rather do that yourself?"

"That one I'll do."

Nod. Squeeze.

"I don't like feeling like it's reasonable for people to be terrified of me and want me in jail."

"Cam seems to find it helpful to distract himself and spend time around people who, regardless, are not terrified of him and do not want him in jail."

"I can see the appeal." And he goes off to find Miranda.

Broomsticking about in the backyard with Karen! "Hi Minor!" she hollers from the sky.

He'll wait for them to land. "Hi!"

Down she comes. "- you okay?"

"There's a species of people who hatch from eggs and I killed my summoner."

"...your summoner who hatched from an egg?" asks Karen tentatively.

" - no - the egg people were just doing summons and dismissals with no task for the immortality, they have interdimensional transit and learned about it on their own and didn't know the implications - then I tried to come home and tell everyone but I grabbed another fucking kidnapping and that's the summoner I killed."

"Why do people keep thinking it is okay to kidnap daeva," says Miranda, and she throws her arms around him.

Hug. Sob. "I don't know. I don't know. Maybe - people are just like that, if there's someone it's easy and invisible to hurt -"