"And how does the math work, there? What exactly do you calculate?"

"The shape and placement of the engravings has... effects. I'd have a much more sensible explanation prepared if I'd been able to bring any materials with me, but as it is I'm making a lot of it up as I go along. For our next date I plan to draw up a huge variety of test designs for platinum half-wands, because it's really easy to test effect-shaping when you're firing freeze blasts at water, but unfortunately the shaping parameters don't work exactly the same way for any two metals."

"That's just bizarre," she says, then she decides she thinks Ashras' face is really cute so she kisses it.

He giggles and kisses back.

"It's also really hot when you're competent," she comments.

"Ooh. The other day Hookwolf attacked me and Leap on patrol and I drove him off with no casualties, is this an example of attractive competence?"

Does the kissing answer the question?

"Have we."

"We have."

"That's interesting. Whatever shall we do with all this free time?"

"I think it was your job to come up with the answer to that question, but if I were to guess, I'd say it's probably going to involve going back to your place!"

"Oh, I've been so busy I completely forgot to come up with something," she says, starting them back toward the city. "Perhaps your research has yielded something interesting?"

"My research has yielded all kinds of information," says Ashras.

"Has it. Would you like to share with the class?"

"What am I meant to be sharing? I thought you knew all this stuff already."

"Sure, but it was your homework, I can't tell you the answer!"

"What?"

"I think you lost me. What are we talking about?"

"Oh, you don't go to school, right. So uh, at school they give you stuff to do at home to make sure you learned the thing, and that's called homework, and if the teacher just gives the student the answer then they can't really know that the student actually did it and learned the thing."

"Aha. So, your actual purpose in wanting me to talk about my research is...? I'm assuming it's not to check whether I actually did it or not, because that would be silly."

"Part of it is wanting to see you blush. Another is to figure out which things you found most or least interesting based on body language. Another is that talking about sex is, I find, a good way to get in the mood. And the last is that I expect hearing you talk about it will be terribly, terribly sexy."

"If only I'd known, I would've been more organized about it. Well - my overall conclusion is that I'm not into particular things very much, but I like the concept of other people having particular things they're into, and being able to provide those things. ...One of my specific conclusions is that I am just fundamentally not submissive and shouldn't even try it."

"I can deal," she says, grinning.