" - ah, highly adaptable, good at not lingering on things it isn't constructive to linger on, very stubborn, very internally constructed - you're obviously someone who'd have independently derived that there was something wrong in paradise - careful without being paralyzed, when it came to intervening in a war -"

"...all right, you may continue to observe my thought processes."

"Oh good." Mine mine mine mine mine mine. "You're terrifyingly smart, too - that was such a close game -"

"We gave my die roll one in thirty odds, that's not very likely."

"Usually doesn't come to chance at all."

"Aha. I will be smug accordingly."

"Oh, are you collecting reasons for smugness? I have twice in my life met someone I wanted so badly it was worth everyone being stupid about the gender thing. And I have met whole kingdomsfull of people."

"Twice?"

"He knows about you, I have been talking excitably about you nonstop for a week now."

"I'm not sure about that part."

"It'd be an unusual arrangement here, I couldn't guess about Gatesnest custom. Aesthetic reservations or pragmatic ones?"

"Gatesnest is customarily monogamous. I'm not sure aesthetics or pragmatics would be how to describe it..."

"Oh?"

"...I have not actually had reason to unpack my opinions on monogamy before so I will have to do so in real time or I can just get back to you later."

"I have confessed deep enjoyment of witnessing your thought processes."

"Fair enough. Okay, uh, I expect I would thrive on - being sufficient and central in a way that I think successful monogamous couples do with each other, and I'm not keen to abandon the ideal? ...I'm also not thrilled about the local stigma thing, how bad actually is that among people who have rejected the Valar's tutelage -"

"I think some couples still deal with unfriendly neighbors. We'd get 'well, the King can do whatever he likes', which in your place I'd find fairly missing-the-point. I think when people start having children again it'll mostly go away, it's that socially speaking we're rather frozen in time since we left Valinor."

"Yes, that does miss the point. My world has stigma of its own but Gatesnest was very liberal."

"Good for it. I've been hesitant - maybe too hesitant - I could order them all to never say a thing about it and they would but that seems entirely the wrong instrument. Do you care very much what stupid strangers think or is it about missing out on chances to be - publicly and openly living the life you want -"

"I have approximately the same reaction I do to people misspelling things or acting on misconceptions about magic except with more personal urgency, it's irritating."

"Sounds it. I expect you'd have to put up with an idiot every month, but not more than that, and - for all we know the next planet to need saving is going to take issue with men in positions of authority, or with your hair color, or with people who don't have walnut allergies."

"The walnut one sounds unlikely."

"There was a human tribe here who had that custom! For mundane reasons, admittedly - they were all allergic and a tribe they'd been warring with liked them."

"Huh. Anyway I could live with occasional bigots, I guess, but remain uncertain about the nonmonogamy thing, I don't feel strongly inclined to collect plurals myself..."

(No, of course not, that wouldn't be acceptable at all.) He grins at him. "I'm still planning to have you made immortal."