He giggles and kisses her finger before it can get out of range.

She giggles and kisses him on the cheek.

Hug. "I love you. You're delightful."

"Thanks."

She kisses him again, just a soft peck that doesn't have time to devolve into anything more serious.

He hugs her. "Mm, back to spell design with me, I think. The immortality thing takes priority over duplicating the fountains, if I can manage it it'll work better for what you want anyway."

"Very much so, yes."

Pet pet. Forehead kiss.

"See you later," he says, and vanishes. His new toys vanish too.

Well.

That was a nice break. Time to go back to work.

She doesn't call on him the next day. The day after that she says, "Serik."

He appears a couple of minutes later. "Hello."

She looks rather different.

"I'm ready to face the music. Can I get a ride somewhere with people?"

"—huh, you look weird like this. Sure. Do you care where? City, village, something in between, nearby, far away?"

"City's probably better. Weird for me or weird in general, I don't really want to stand out as--alien--the way I would if I looked like myself. Not for this purpose, anyway."

"Weird for you, fairly normal for a local. All right. ...hm, in case of - whatever - do you want me to make it so that I'll hear you if you say my name no matter where you are -"

"That seems like it could be useful."

It's a pretty simple trick. "—There, done." He offers her his hand.

She takes it.

Whoosh.

He takes her past the first city they see and turns southwest, flying until they come to another, smaller, dirtier one with worse architecture. They materialize in a sheltered alley where no one is looking, near a bridge that crosses the river running through the city.

"Do you still not mind if I watch?" he asks, smiling down at her.

"I still don't mind if you watch."

"All right."

He hugs her and kisses her forehead and vanishes.

Yeah.

Sigh.

Minutes pass. A few people wander past the mouth of the alley, but no one comes in.

Then a group of five men - young, well-dressed, very out of place in this neighbourhood - comes by. One of them peers into the alley and says, "Found one!"

Welp. 

She gives him a curious look but doesn't otherwise react to his announcement.

"Ooh," says the second man to look into the alley. "Where'd she come from?"

"Straight out of a historical play, looks like," says a third.

The tallest and best-dressed of them, who is still shorter and shabbier than Serik, comes around to get a good look at her. He has a scar on his face, a nasty vertical slash that looks like it just barely failed to blind him in his left eye.

"Huh," he says. "What's your name, girl? You lost?"