"Well, it probably depends on what you wind up doing with the mollusks, but if I were a mage it wouldn't be my first or thirtieth choice, no."

"What would?"

"I'd go for healing and immortality first and then probably utility grade teekay after that."

"So, basically, the same thing I'm doing."

"Rather, yes, without the detour at shapeshifting, I like how I look just fine."

"Good, that makes two of us."

Kiss.

"I'd probably just look like Alex."

"Well, Alex is pretty hot, too, and the cane can only help..."

Snort.

"But I don't know that you'd look like him, you two aren't that physically similar."

"Yeah, I guess. I can't say I've ever given it much thought what I'd look like."

"...I have. A little."

"Have you."

"Well, when we met, you said you had a twin, and I thought, I wonder what a boy Isabella would look like, and then I was like, surely Alex looks nothing like a boy version of her, there's no reason for him to, but then my mind imagined two of you at the same time, and it went lovely places."

"Ha."

"I do wonder how you'd deal with another you, though. My mind keeps going, unstoppable force, meet unmovable object."

"I think we could cooperate. Probably not in the ways you were fantasizing about, but still."

"Aww, really? Because that'd be lovely."

"I said cooperate. Not share."

He lowers his eyes, smiling. "I'd be the envy of other you."

"Oh, probably. But he would have to just deal with it. I found you first and you're mine." She tucks a finger under the chainmail around his neck to tug his head into her lap.

His head is successfully and very willingly tugged!

Good. Possessive hair-tugging pet pet pet.