"Thanks."

Hmm. He hugs her again.

Ɛ>~Hugs~<3

"You're so huggable."

"Well, good. So're you."

"Mhm.

...Does this place have a name?"

"—hmm?"

"The--castle, the lake, the mountain."

"It's known as the Howling Mountain. I didn't pick the name but I haven't come up with a better one and insisted everyone switch."

She nods. "Is it--I don't want to presume on your hospitality, but--"

"You really don't need to worry about presuming on my hospitality - what?"

"...If I get her back this seems like--maybe the safest place to raise her."

"I mean, if you don't mind her being near the swans - and, uh, me - then yes, you can do that if you want to."

"It's better than raising her somewhere there's a nonnegligible chance of her walking in on the curse unexpectedly taking effect."

"—there's actually doubly no chance of that here, I have a spell on the castle specifically to prevent anyone walking in on things they might not want to see. So even if the curse dragged someone all the way up the mountain, as long as you were on the castle grounds..."

"That is really good to know!"

Hug. "Yes, you can raise your daughter here if you want."

Hug!!!

He grins at her and kisses her forehead and hugs her some more.

"It's not the greatest world out there," she says. "I'm not afraid of her knowing that suffering exists, or that evil exists, or that evil people can be also really great if they happen to like you. And, you know, on every other level it's really nice here."

"Yeah, I guess I see what you mean. Although it still seems - silly - that 'evil' is a category like that."

"I mean, you do torture people."

"Oh, I'm not going to argue that I don't fit the category, just - I think that it's worse than useless as a way to think about what people are like and how they work."

"Well, I don't know about worse than, but..."