[Hey, yourself!]

[I have a whole lot of email about you. How d'you want me to handle it?]

[...good question. What about me?]

[I had J pick out a sample of the emails - there are way more than I've read. Some of the emails are from your fans, since I have a public address and you don't. They want to know if that was really you, tell you that you looked hot in the pictures they saw, one person likes both you and that Celtic metal band and wants you to join them. People who don't know who you are want to know who you are, several of them are confused about your gender and consequently my orientation, one person is raving incoherently about how she can get an entrez to the fancy royal wedding she is presuming is in the works.]

[I did look hot! I am not going to join that Celtic metal band, adorable as that guy was. Do you usually bother answering stuff like that?]

[Usually J would do it, but J needs answers from me to learn on or policy or both, so I have to have a policy about discussing you before it can take over.]

[Eh, I don't have much of an opinion. You can tell people who I am and that I'm not a girl and all that, or not, whatever's convenient.]

[Do you care how flatly I inform people that there is not a massive royal wedding in the works?]

[Not at all.]

[Do that, then.]

[I love you too - was there something particularly cute about the FAQ?]

[Imagining you saying 'not for the forseeable future' is hilarious.]

She laughs. [Why?]

[I don't know. Because I love you?]

[I love you too. I still don't get it.]

[It's just, I don't know, very you.]

[Okay. I am very me.]

[You are! And I like you that way. Hey, are you busy?]

[Just teaching J how to handle this class of emails. I'll be all done in a minute.]

[I like the sound of that.]

And the door opens, and Ripper kisses her.

Coconut! What goes well with coconut? Ripper decides to be... pineapple. Yes.

Mmmmm pineapple.

Mmmmmmmmmmmm.

"What?" asks Bella, poking him in the chest and giggling with contagious amusement despite not knowing what's funny.

"Aianon just brainphoned me," he snickers. "He says he discovered tentacle porn today and he's wondering if I want to go have interesting new kinds of sex."

"Oh lord."

"Do I even want to know where he's planning to get the tentacles? Is he going to make a tentacle porn plant, I bet he is, wow, I am going to be the proud empress of a world that contains tentacle porn flora."

Ripper cackles helplessly. "I'm telling him you said that!"

"Of course you are. Please note the sarcasm in the word 'proud'. I'm not going to ban tentacle porn foliage but I would not want to be described as encouraging it."

He is giggling too hard to answer that out loud.

But apparently not too hard to brainphone Aianon, who inquires by conference call a moment later, [Is there something wrong with tentacle porn flora?]

[No. Just not my thing.]

[Then I will not trouble you with it. Except to borrow your boyfriend for... experiments.]

[How experimental are these experiments? Am I going to regret this?]

[D'you want me to hex you with teleportation so you can escape the flora if it goes rogue?]

[Good plan.]

She kisses his nose and spends the hex. [There you are.]

[I love you.] Snuggle-kiss! [And I'm off to get fucked by a plant. Wish me luck.]

Kiss. [I love you too. Good luck.]

He spends a few extra seconds snuggling her before he kisses her again, disentangles himself, and teleports away.