"Okay then. I'm not complaining, just, when you get mad, I think that even if you did it wouldn't be a big deal so I shouldn't care if you're mad."

"Well, I think it would be horrible, and I'm not gonna do it. Anyway. I don't dislike you. I just, like - you keep expecting me to treat you horribly and being sad when I have standards for people that are not that, and saying things like 'I shouldn't care if you're mad', and it's depressing, and I don't know how to deal with it and I don't want to make things - harder - for you, but, like - it's really weird and uncomfortable, talking to somebody who expects you to be awful and doesn't tell you when they want things and doesn't seem to have any standards for their own treatment besides not wanting to go to school."

"- okay."

" - anyway, I don't know what to do about this, because you can't really just ask people to grow standards if they don't have them, but that's what it is. And it's weird having people in my house that I don't know how to talk to without it being awkward and terrible. But I don't think it's your fault, really."

"No, I think it's your fault, for not just taking the money."

"Well, sorry. I don't even think I could do anything with it if I did. Would it help if I just, like, accepted a check and then burned it, would that make you happy?"

"That wouldn't help, no. You could get it in cash and burn it, if you really want to burn money for some stupid reason."

"I don't want to burn money, I just - I want to be able to save people from zombies sometimes without this making everything terrible for them. And, I dunno, to ever be able to talk without this giant - whatever it is, here. Debt. And I don't wanna do anything that's - you can't just accept hundreds of thousands of dollars from people if you didn't, like, win a Nobel Prize or something."

"This isn't terrible. It's kind of frustrating but like - school is way worse and we make everyone do that for twelve years not even to save them from zombies just for no reason. And you can just talk, I won't bring it up if you don't."

Sigh.

"I think you're supposed to learn stuff at school. In theory."

"Then maybe they should make it have less torture?"

"Like what?"

"It could be outside. The teachers could sit under trees and you could go find one who was talking about something you wanted to learn. And there could be no tests or homework."

Much more wistful sigh.

"Yeah. That'd be nice. Seems like a bunch of people wouldn't learn anything, though."

"A bunch of people already don't learn anything and right now they get tortured!"

"I don't think school is torture. I would say your standards for torture are too low, except apparently you don't care if people hit you, so  - maybe it's just, like, way worse for fairies than for humans."

"I guess it might be."

"...do your brothers all think it's torture?"

"No, but they're really smart and do well in all their classes and their teachers all like them."

"Oh. I guess that'd make it easier."

"It really would."

Sigh.

"If I just keep saying 'I'd consider it a favor' every time I want something, can I, like, trust you to do the ones that are worth it to you for however much debt forgiveness they give you and not do the ones you think are awful?"

"Yeah."

"Okay. Good. I'd consider it a favor if you put together a scratching post for Zana. I gotta head out and probably won't get back until late again, so I'd consider it a favor if you played with Zana more, but if you want to head to the store and buy whatever then llittle Connor is totally competent to watch her for a couple hours at a time."

"Can I take her to the store?"