"Right now she's - curled up inside you asleep somewhere," Amariah says, "or you'd be a zombie, not a whole person, and right now she doesn't need things - affection, attention, people to talk to - except through you, because she's asleep. You'd be taking one very bad situation and making it a slightly less bad but duplicated situation, and it's not like you could put her away again after you had her out once. I'd recommend talking to Kas and Petaal about it."

"Okay," he shrugs.

"I'll go get them," Amariah says, and she releases Sue and heads for the door and sticks her head out. [Hey Kas! I found a fifteenish you and he's been locked up in solitary, come help me keep him company and be advicey on possibly bringing him briefly into our world so he can get a daemon and not be so lonesome?]

"Over there," says Amariah, pointing. "Sue! These are Kas and Petaal. Sweeties, this is Sue."

"Hi," says Sue, still hugging himself.

Kas teleports over and gives him a great big snuggly hug.

Amariah goes and sits back down where she was a moment ago. "Sue's got a Bell, but they attend school across the solar system from each other so they haven't seen each other in a long time," she says.

He leans on Kas and closes his eyes and just... pushes the mess that is his feelings.

"Book says the word is 'mutant' and not technically magical," Amariah says.

Sue shrugs, leaning into Kas's arms.

"You can hug back if you want," he murmurs.

Slowly, hesitantly, he does.

Kas hugs him closer.

"Ivy," he says whimsically.

"Why Ivy?" Amariah asks, getting up and heading for the door.

"Something Aegis said once," he says, detaching from Kas and trailing after her. "I forget."

Amariah holds the door for him.

"Welcome to existing," laughs Amariah. "...Is my 'curled up asleep somewhere' description accurate? It was mostly guessing, but now I can just ask."