"I am not sure anyone ever did high-quality studies on it, so it is hard to tell. My recollection is that violence has decreased in the rich countries over the last century or two, but it may just be from - better nutrition, or the fact that lead exposure was discovered to correlate with lower intelligence and worse impulse control and so it was phased out." 

"- Wait, what?" 

Carissa knows this because it came up while they were replacing lead with osmium for divinations. She lets Mhalir explain, though, while she scrolls through the list of Earth movies to see what the other James Bond ones are.

This is fascinating and also pretty alarming! Ma'ar mostly isn't alarmed about lead specifically, Predain doesn't use lead in many applications, but in general this is an entire area that no one in Velgarth is very aware of, even Urtho, and that in itself is terrifying. 

There are sixteen different James Bond movies, published between 1962 and 1989, including the one they just finished. She can look at whichever of those she wants! The titles are all listed conveniently.  

Dr. No (1962)
From Russia with Love (1963)
Goldfinger (1964)
Thunderball (1965)
You Only Live Twice (1967)
Casino Royale (1967)
On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969)
Diamonds Are Forever (1971)
Live and Let Die (1973)
The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)
The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)
Moonraker (1979)
For Your Eyes Only (1981)
Octopussy (1983)
A View to a Kill (1985)
The Living Daylights (1987)
Never Say Never Again (1983)
Licence to Kill (1989)

"Do you want to watch more Earth movies? If so I am most intrigued by On Her Majesty's Secret Service. I want to know about the Queen of - Earth? America? London?" 

Mhalir tries to retrieve his memories of Earth history that he read up on once. "- I am guessing of England, the country that London is in. America is sort of the centre of the global economy, in modern-day Earth, but England had a large world empire centuries ago and so has a certain old-fashioned mystique, or that is my understanding anyway. England still has a Queen though I think they are mostly a figurehead? America became an independent empire a few hundred years ago." 

"I would enjoy watching another Earth movie." Ma'ar, again almost without thinking, reaches out to take Carissa's hand. (He has the impression that it's mostly Carissa, right now, and Mhaliar is having thoughts in the background.) 

Carissa raises an eyebrow at him and puts on On Her Majesty's Secret Service. She is very curious what Her Majesty is the Queen of and whether she's a powerful caster in her own right or just has a lot of genies and geases keeping her in power and whether the Secret Service is internal security or what.

James Bond saves a woman who is trying to commit suicide by drowning! Then he meets the same woman again in a casino (a place where Earth humans make monetary bets on many kinds of games.) He goes home with her but is attacked! He fights back and then goes back to his hotel room and - the woman he saved and later went home with is waiting! She claims ignorance about the attack.

However, the next morning Bond is kidnapped! 

His kidnappers take him to meet the head of another polity's crime syndicate. The head of this organization reveals that the woman Bond rescued is his only daughter! Who has a troubled past, which her father/the crime boss tells Bond about, and offers Bond one million pounds to marry her! Bond refuses but agrees to court her in exchange for intel on the location on the head of an organization apparently called SPECTRE? 

[Scene skip] Bond...tries to resign to his boss? Then he heads to the crime boss's birthday party, where he begins a whirlwind courtship with the rescued woman/crime boss daughter. He obtains some information here and investigations on it follow. Bond then goes undercover to a medical clinic, where twelve women have been....cured of allergies??

Bond inexplicably decides to seduce a particular patient, but he notices that at midnight she and all the other allergy patients go into a hypnotic sleep and then receive instructions from the head of the organization called SPECTRE! Bond discovers that these patients are actually being brainwashed to distribute biological weapons!

Bond then tries to trick the head of SPECTRE into leaving Switzerland so he can - be arrested without their respective countries violating each other's treaties?? However, Bond is captured by the leader's agent! But he makes his escape by skiing down a mountain while others chase him! However he escapes! Bond finds the rescued-from-drowning woman he was courting and then it's suddenly a car chase! However, a blizzard forces them to take shelter, where suddenly Bond declares his love and proposes marriage to the rescued woman!

The next morning the head of the bioweapons syndicate SPECRTRE triggers an avalanche on top of them! Bond's fiancée is captured but he escapes. The head of the bioweapons organization wants to hold the world ransom with his brainwashed women/human weapons who can destroy it at his will; the ransom he wants paid is, rather than gold, being recognized with a particular British political rank. Bond's boss agrees to pay the ransom and forbids Bond from intervening. However, Bond recruits allies to destroy the base and rescue his love!

Bond and his lover are married in a country called 'Portugal', very romantically. However, when Bond pulls their car over as they drive away, one of his previous onscreen enemies (it's hard to keep track) shoots at them! 

Bond survives. His lover doesn't. Bond cries while holding her lifeless body. 

The plot frequently makes no sense whatsoever, but nonetheless, it's very vivid, and Ma'ar finds himself having emotions about it. He squeezes Carissa's hand as it begins to get tense, then pulls her into his arms as he watches. 

The woman is an idiot. James Bond is nowhere near competent enough to stay on top of all of the enemies he has, and while he clearly has magical evasion abilities that doesn't mean it's safe to be near him. On the other hand she started the movie meaning to die and then she died so maybe rather than being an idiot she was just trying to arrange for it to not count against her in the after- no, Earth doesn't even have one of those. She hopes that the woman's father doesn't pay Bond for the marriage even though it lasted two days, that'd be terrible incentives.

...despite these complaints she has a lot of fun. There's background music! And dramatic moments! And lots of impressive feats of acrobatics and violence! And Ma'ar being affectionate is...sweet? Slightly disconcerting, honestly, but sweet. She presumes she does not specifically give off the vibe that she expects people to be affectionate, and so he must just be doing it for his own enjoyment, which is cute.

Ma'ar's opinion is that nearly everyone is this movie is an idiot, but - that's not really the point, it's a story. 

He's never been good at stories. Winning in actual reality takes a different skill and he would've had to be stupid not to focus on that. Still, he's enjoyed noticing (if only via Carissa's thoughts) that the music and pacing and lighting and all of those artistic elements are well done and well incorporated into an overall arc. 

...He notices her discomfort, and tallies it up, to return to later. Carissa absolutely does not give off the vibe that she expects this; the opposite, if anything. 

"- What do you think James Bond should have done?" he says, when it ends. "If he were - actually trying to win...?" 

"I'm not an adventurer, most of the things I'd do would be...have institutions that do things...but if he were actually trying to keep the girl alive, in particular, he'd be in disguise when he saw her, and hire her some discreet bodyguards, and once he knew his enemies had discovered he was involved with her he'd change both their identities and have a wedding somewhere much farther away and travel in a carriage with a top. And maybe a body double."

Ma'ar runs his fingers through her hair. "- I mean, he was supposed to have an institution that does things, right, he theoretically worked for the - Queen of England, or of Britain, or whatnot. I am unclear to what extent he decided to protect her within the bounds of his standing orders, or against orders, or..." Shrug. "Either way, he was not especially strategic and neither is she - though the story made it less clear what either her goals or her resources were, so it is harder to judge." 

(Ma'ar does not especially understand or sympathize with the goal of committing suicide for any reason, but that also seems besides the point, here.) 

"He seemed very reactive. Things kept taking him by surprise. In real life if half that many things take you by surprise, you die."

"That is what I have always believed." Ma'ar turns, looks into her eyes. "- But you caught me by surprise, and - I considered running or fighting or doing any of the generally sensible things, and then I did not do any of them, and - I am not dead yet." 

"Well, see, Yeerks can afford to be nicer since it's pretty much always to their advantage to take people alive. ...that's how I figured it for the first couple of months, after Mhalir kidnapped me. Eventually I figured out there's ...something in addition to that, too... but it's more confusing."

"I am still confused by how - what - you and Mhalir...?" Ma'ar isn't even sure what the question is that he's asking. 

He takes a deep breath. "There is a way that you feel about Mhalir, that you - think ought transfer to me because I am the same person in some sense... And, that feels important, and - I am not sure how to put weight on it when I still do not understand what you..." 

He trails off, and just squeezes her hand, his other hand trailing through her hair. 

"Oh.

I mean... I trust Mhalir. He's nice to me. His people raised me from the dead. I'm - safer, here, even if sometimes it's very dangerous, because there's someone motivated to get me back. And I - like him, I like the things he cares about, I like how he's nice to me - I'm not naive, I know he'd be terrible if that was the way to win, but - but that's what it was like at first, and he still tried quite hard, to give me something I could work with, and anyway it makes less sense to be terrible if I'm his, and trying to work with him -

...and when you're - scared, or on edge, or trying to size up a situation, or being scary, I know what it's like to be you, because I know him, and I - want you to be happy instead, and I - want to establish that same thing that I have with Mhalir... partially because it's safer for me, if you see me the way Mhalir does, if you feel sure that it's better for you for me to have more resources, more options..."

Ma'ar feels like this is half something that makes perfect sense to him, and half - not the thing he's been searching for at all - and he isn't sure which is right or how he could even explain the difference - it seems like there's a coherent-whole she's gesturing at, a picture of how people can find their shared interests and work together, and that isn't at all the same thing as her wanting Mhalir to be happy...

"What would you do if you were me," he hears himself saying. "What do you want. If - if you were the leader, the most powerful, and could shape the world how you thought it ought to be..." 

" - I tried thinking about that. For a bit. A while ago. I decided everyone should be wizards and no one should ever die. And then - Mhalir - Aroden - everyone -"

- cities incinerated -

"I am sorry." The words come in rote and he isn't sure what else to say. He breathes quietly for a minute, thinking. 

"...I - I think you experienced a world where very powerful people with opposed goals were - competently trying to achieve them, and - and there was vast collateral damage in their fight - regardless of which of them you found more sympathetic, what was lost in the cracks between them is the most salient. And that is not the world I have experienced, and so - I am not sure how I would be, what it would be like to be a person who had been formed by your experiences..." 

"Aroden is a you. And he was a god, and will be again, once Pharasma's not mad at him. So that's - how you'd - deal with that, I guess. But I'm no Aroden."

"I do not think that I am either. Not–" His arm tightens around her.

( - cities turned to glass - Urtho, burning down the whole world to stop his former student - )

"Not yet." 

( - the chief's club slamming down on his newborn nameless not-sister's head - )

He turns so his face is inches from hers, his hand clenched tightly on her arm, and looks into her eyes again - 

- and kisses her, gently at first, barely a kiss at all, but opening his Thoughtsensing fully to see how she reacts...