"I don't think he knows you like him."

"Well, good, things just keep getting more and more complicated and I need time to think - last time I was about to tell him I was, was seduced by an evil Elf -"

"Fuck. I'm sorry."

"It probably wasn't a coincidence, either," she says darkly, "thinking back. I should go slap him."

"...it doesn't sound like a coincidence, no."

"Are there nice Elons, too - I think I'm rather turned off Elons in general to be honest, just checking -"

"Yes. - honestly mine would probably also pick up a girl if I suggested it."

"Or if you didn't suggest it, if she had cool art magic -"

"But they're not evil. Not that I'd blame you for wanting to avoid them all."

Ranary huffs.

"Or slap them all."

"I'm not going to slap other Elons unless they have also been picking up girls for nefarious reasons."

"They have not been, or someone would have beaten you to it. I'm so sorry you went through that."

Sigh. "I might just focus on work instead. I feel like I'd be signing up for even more stress. And that'd be if he went for it. Which why would he, he's been through a lot and might want a break."

"Signing up for an interesting life is a valid concern. I expect he'd - at least be able to tell you how long he'll want a break if he wants a break at all."

"I'll think about it. Lot of work to do setting up the new planet and all though."

"I bet. How is that going?"

"Pretty good. I signed on to a couple of the volunteer committees."

"You guys are impressively organized."

"I think it helps that we were really spread out to begin with? There's no, oh, so-and-so died in the war, nobody knows what to do now... it's not that we're organized it's that we're redundant..."

"Because that was the government arrangement that made the most sense with your magic system?"

"It started like that but propagated to responsibilities without much risk of assassination."

"Is it going to be disruptive to resurrect the people who died in recent catastrophes, or will they integrate smoothly once they see how the culture's changed?"

"I think if they're recent it should be okay? We haven't changed that much."

Nod.