Instead of in any way engaging with this extremely dubious pronouncement, Lucette hugs him again. This time she can use her wings properly. It's difficult to properly winghug someone who isn't cooperating when they're already lying down. 

"Why are you like this." 

"Like what?"

He gestures vaguely as best he can with his arm mostly hug-pinned. "Normal people don't do the things you're doing." Not that being normal is desirable, but--he's so confused by her.

"...I'm not normal," she says, in the confused tone of someone explaining that the sky is blue to a five-year-old who has proclaimed that it is green because it is made of broccoli, "I'm a half-dragon. Practically nobody is half dragon. People are either dragons or they're not dragons, almost all the time." 

"You're half silver dragon. Silver dragons are the paladins of dragons, and paladins are no fun at all, so that doesn't explain anything." 

She perks up. "You think I'm fun?"

HE HAS MADE A TACTICAL ERROR. 

"I mean--I guess," he flounders. "You're not--I mean, you don't behave differently from a normal person in boring, paladiny ways." 

"I don't think my mummy is boring. Or paladins."

FINALLY he knows which one is Terendelev. 

"What paladins have you met?"

"Well...I've seen some paladins that were working with Mummy and Mama at the time...they weren't very interesting I guess but that's because they were very busy crusading and didn't have time. And I met Irabeth Tirabade of the Eagle Watch one time when she was talking with Mummy about cultists. She was nice! She gave me a piece of candy. And I saw the Queen one time! I don't know if that counts as meeting her, though, she was pretty far away." 

"The Queen is my cousin." And the only family he has left. He's pretty sure he's the only family she has left, too. 

Why hasn't she come to see him?

"She's your cousin and you think she's boring?" 

"She doesn't count. She's special." Maybe she can save him from thehorriblething. 

"That makes sense! I bet you've met her lots of times, if you're family." 

Awkward shrug. "I don't know about lots of times. But--that was before. She's--the only adult relative I have left--" ow ow ow "--that means she has to come see me, right?" 

"I think so. ...I'm really really sorry about your mom." 

He had expected that if she said it it would feel like it had when everyone else said it. 

It doesn't. It feels--different, somehow, and he doesn't understand why--her being sorry still isn't going to bring her back--it's not like she understands, even, she still has two mothers who are still alive--

But it feels different. 

He crumples, slowly, and starts to cry. 

She follows him down to the floor, still hugging him. She rocks slightly, and strokes his hair, because that is what Mama does when Lucette starts crying when Mama is home. 

...He appears to be hugging her back and actively crying on her. That's probably not great, but, like, also a problem for Future Daeran. 

Cuddle cuddle cuddle. 

Eventually he runs out of tears, and a little while after that he runs out of emotions intense enough to stop him from thinking clearly, at which point he is Future Daeran whose Problem this is. 

...Probably the safe smart thing to do is to tell her to go away again, but she didn't listen to him about that even before he broke down on her crying, so...maybe not? 

He's so tired. He's been so tired ever since it happened. 

He can't take down all his walls around her. That's fucking terrifying She would immediately get killed by thehorriblething. But...maybe they can be on hugging terms, for now. 

Maybe he can admit, to himself, that he likes her she's fun. 

Maybe he should feel a little bit guilty about trying to get her in trouble with her parents Nope, nope, absolutely not, stuffing that thought back in the repression drawer before he has to notice he had it. 

"Infernal doesn't have naughty words," Lucette says after Daeran has stopped crying for several minutes, "because devils are very strange, but it has words that mortals mostly only use if they would want to say naughty words if they were speaking a normal language, do you want to know what they are?" 

"...What?"

(He has, apparently, still not calibrated his expectations for weird enough when it comes to her.)

"I told Mama what you told me about naughty words, and she said you were wrong about how much sex she and Mummy have but you were probably saying it because you were mad that the demons hadn't been beat back before they could" she waves a hand, cognizant that explicitly describing the events at Heaven's Edge would be a bad idea, "and that that was pretty reasonable of you to be mad about. And she said if you liked naughty words I should bring some back to share, so she told me about Infernal."