"Yes?" she asks, looking up from her latest attempt to persuade all of Mars to play nice with terraforming. It's by text, because audio communication at such a distance is a bit weird and not worth the trouble, at least not yet.

"Can you keep a secret?" Beat. "I'm not saying, 'I wish to tell you deeply personal information which I want you to keep in confidence' - I'm asking, 'can you judge whether something ought to be secret and keep it that way if so'."

"Considering telling you some secrets of the universe. I'm not sure what order to do it in."

"Then I will probably not post what I learn to the extranet, whatever they are. Uh - whatever order seems best, I suppose?"

She snorts with laughter. "I had an inkling of that one, by the way you talked about them. Also not really spiritual. Demons just - kept bringing them up anyway? Or are people just idiots?"

"Some demons think it's funny. I mostly haven't shared the information because nobody but you tended to let me talk, but the reason I hesitated to mention it to you when there was a moment is because - consider the situation when it ever actually comes up. Some mortal is desperate enough to offer their soul, or leave the price wide open. Some demon is enough of a dick to be amused by the prospect of 'taking' it. Now assume it's common knowledge that there's no such commodity. This doesn't undo desperation or dickishness one bit, but..."

"But suddenly someone loses something far more important than the 'loss' of a 'soul' and the world's a little more worse off. Yeah, that one should not be told to the world at large. It's good to know, anyway."

"Okay. Second secret of the universe: there is an afterlife."

"Dead people," he laughs. "This one I don't know why some fairy or angel hasn't fessed up, but my guess is that you're getting angels and fairies who are deeply uncurious people and don't know - it would be easily possible to miss the information - or who don't think this tidbit would be interesting. It goes by assorted names, at least in Hell; my favorite is 'Limbo'. It's not terrible but it's not great either."

She snorts. "You know what I meant," she teases. "So - not terrible but also not great how?"

"Limbo-ites don't get any magic powers, and you can't summon them - well, if you can I don't know about how to do it, anyway. And Limbo is natively dramatically less interesting than Fairyland. It's basically flat earth extending infinitely, about a gee of gravity, and besides dead people - who are about as indestructible as daeva, but otherwise human - there's not much stuff. Specifically, the going theory is that when someone appears in Limbo they get one thing, which is whatever tops their personal list of 'things an afterlife would be incomplete without' and is not itself a person. Opinions vary on whether you can get a copy of a still-living animal. So you get your childhood dog or an ice skating rink complete with rental skates or a pond or a burger joint that stocks itself obligingly with burger fixings. But there's only one such thing per person, and they can't move or edit them either, so they have extremely haphazard sorts of settlements built out of incidentals."

"That sounds incredibly annoying. I think I like Hell's haphazard - stuff all over everywhere thing more. I mean, that sounds nice in some senses but also - what about houses? There can't be enough for everyone, if people only get one thing. Not everyone's house is at the top of their list."

"Right. So people move into the ice skating rinks or just outside - there's no weather, so it's not intolerable, just unprivate."

"Ugh. I mean I suppose some people would bring hotels, but - still. It doesn't sound like enough. I should look into trying to summon them."

"Damn, what methods did you use, maybe I can -" Pause. Head tilt. "... I was under the impression that demons can't summon? Was I wrong?"

"We cannot."

"So how did you try things, did you get a summoner to help, or - wait, no, they wouldn't let you talk, so how in the world did you test it?"

"I'm now really curious to see if you're going to guess."

She laughs. "Uh, okay, I can try. Um. Okay, so no summoner helped, because demon, but you specifically tried to figure it out. Demons can't summon, but you would have had to be able to. So - wait, were you not always a demon? Can you become one?"

"I was not always a demon."

"... You were a summoner? Normal human? Or - something else?"

"I was a summoner. I was born in 1987 and I lived to be twenty-two and then somebody murdered me and next thing I knew I was in Hell."

She stares. ".... Oh fuck, that was why you said you'd wished I was around a hundred and fifty years ago, no one let you say goodbye, fuck I am so sorry. Does - do summoners go to Hell, or just random people or - or what?"

"Here's where we depart from 'secrets of the universe' and enter 'mostly speculation'. Although I'm going to mention as an aside that my parents are both long dead by now, were the only relevant humans, and I have managed to get letters to the both of them via concordances on a few occasions - fairies are shit with mail but sometimes something gets through. I think that all summoners, on death, become some kind of daeva. I don't remember getting to pick, but the consistency of personalities - limited, but present - within types suggests to me that it's about some kind of personal sympathy with the magic. I'd peg you for an angel-to-be. But the overwhelming majority of daeva just appear out of nowhere with wings already stuck on - ninety-nine percent of them, at a guess, maybe less overwhelming among the ones who take summons. Your one angel might really have a sister who is also an angel but I'd still bet on 'they adopted each other' to explain them. And a lot of the dead summoners are a hell of a lot older than me and keep less thorough diary entries. They might not remember."

"I'd like it if you landed in Hell, and have no track record with which to demonstrate the accuracy of my guess, but you feel like an angely person."

"I'm not sure if I should take that as a glowing compliment or a vague insult," she teases. "That I am an 'angely person.' You haven't gotten along with any of the summoned angels."

"They all despise me. I liked angels fine when I was alive."

"You are alive," insists Adana. "Just - with some cosmetic adjustments, reinforcement, and a large smattering of magic."

"All right, I liked angels fine when I was a human. The cosmetics aren't intrinsic to being a demon, by the by, the ones of us who land with human histories have to add wings on purpose. The natively demonic start out with them. I considered doing feathery wings just to screw with people but I decided against it."

"If I ever saw these off and replace them I will consider that," he says, spreading a wing and posing for easy inspection.

"Wait, saw them off?" asks Adana, completely distracted from inspection.

"Angels have it much easier in that department, they can just turn theirs into their cloud-fluff if they feel like it, easy as pie. But I cleverly anticipated this problem and right near the joins there's about a quarter inch with no pain nerves. It'll be sort of gross but not intolerable. And there's a limit to how much it would hurt even if I hadn't thought ahead. The indestructibility relaxes around deliberate body modification but there's still a cap on how much discomfort I can experience."

"That.... Is kind of horrifying, I'm glad you - have a solution to that problem. Have you had to - wait, no, I will not like the answer, nevermind. Are you okay?"

"This is my first set of wings and first tail, if that's what you were going to ask. Do I not seem okay?"

"Yeah, that was it. You seem fine, but I'm now worried for your safety and health."

"...What? Why?"

"Not - any specific reason, I am just - it's a different situation to have someone who has always been a demon to be a demon and for someone who was human to become a demon. Are you - happy? With it?"

"The lack of opportunity for career advancement was a bummer, but then you came along."

That catches her off guard. She smiles a little, and looks embarrassed. "I'm glad I could help," she says, laughing a little.

Adana cackles. "Of course it was. Well now I feel like I am talking to a historical figure, though uh - you got no credit, sorry. History books just say it fell apart then."

"Yeah, I didn't actually want credit, at least not right then. For reasons which turned out to be very good and a level of secrecy which turned out to be completely inadequate."

"... That was why you died?!"

"Somebody was making a killing by giving daeva tasks and selling the proceeds and figured out I was responsible for the suddenly reduced long-term economic prospects. I got a bullet in my head."

Hug.

"I'm extremely sorry that happened," murmurs Adana, petting his hair.

"Yes, well, it was still terrible."

"Yep. I haven't run into the guy, which is probably just as well, it'd be awkward."

"Maybe he became a fairy and got shit for powers."

"I would, in fact, peg him for fairy in roughly the same way I'd peg you for angel, but since I haven't encountered him, no way to be sure."

She laughs a little. "Okay, that makes me feel a bit better. He gets to spend the entire rest of eternity helping people move. Do you sort summoners into fairy/angel/demon idly? Just curious."

"Usually I don't get enough information on them, but I make guesses, yeah. I see a lot more maybe-fairies than the other kinds."

"Hm. What sorts of characteristics do you think coincide with each daeva? I'm - still kind of curious about what part about me comes off as 'angel-to-be.'"

"I think it's about the magic, not about the culture that's accreted around the magic. And it's kind of hard to put into words. But you seem like you're best suited to a changing power where you take something that exists and make it into something that also exists, but differently."

"Fair enough. And you were suited to - making things from nothing?"

"I could've rationalized it if I'd woken up an angel, but best suited - yeah. Building things myself from nothing. In theory angels could do the big grandiose stuff, just give them enough cloud or a giant rock or something, but demon power invites massive this-is-not-good-enough-so-let's-make-something-that-is projects."

She giggles. "Which I am not complaining about, by the way. You have corrupted me, I am all for demon's ability to make cool things."

"I still think you're gonna be an angel. Maybe I should corrupt you more and then you can come move in with me later."

"I could see the huge and tacky golden plane. It would be exciting."

"It's huge, it's tacky, it's gold, it's not that exciting."

"The lakes of fire, then? The mini black holes? Give me some tourist attractions to look forward to, if I get corrupted to demon-hood! Besides the company, I mean."

"There are lakes of fire, and mini black holes, and truly heroic efforts to make gardens and wildernesses in the absence of natural light."

"Ooo. Do they use some sort of artificial light? I would think someone would think to make a sun, if you've got eternity to make it."

"There are a few suns but they're not that near the tacky plane of gold. The airspace right above said tacky plane is full of demons who want to be within commuting distance of the plane and would object to a sun appearing a fraction of an astronomical unit away."

"Ahh. So no sun. How would you even get rid of it, do you throw a black hole at it and then put warning signs up?"

"Get rid of - the tacky plane? An intruding sun? In either case, pretty much yes."

"The sun, I already know why the plane wouldn't be destroyed. Because it is the tacky grounding point."

"Yep."

"Sort of comforting, huh?"

"Sort of. Zane and dad would be going to Limbo, and you're pretty insistent that I would probably end up in Heaven. So I'd be alone."

"You could convince them to each summon something once, I think that would probably do it."

"I probably will now, but it's still - probable that I wouldn't have anyone there."

"I haven't met your dad or your brother, so I can't produce guesses on them for you."

Adana nods. She snuggles Cam. "I mean, none of us are planning to die soon, so you've got time."

"...I was 22, recall."

"... Good point. I will ask them both to hear me out and summon a fairy."

"Yup. In, out, thank you for your fifteen seconds mister or miss fairy."

She nods. "That's all it takes to count as a summoner?"

"I think so. My parents haven't encountered anyone in Limbo who remembers doing even that much."

Adana smiles a little. "Okay, that makes it a bit better. I mean - two out of three chance that they will be in either Heaven or Hell, so - one of us would have someone there, probably."

"I do think fairy people are more common," Cam cautions.

"Well. Then they'd... Have each other, if they're both fairies? And not be stuck in Limbo?"

Cam nods. "It's not an ideal setup, but Limbo's kind of - disappointing. There aren't enough concordances."

"How often do they occur?"

"It's regular but doesn't match up to mortal sidereal time, but approximately every twelve years per pair of worlds. Hell gets Fairyland and Limbo on approximately opposite schedules, so I get to try collecting and sending letters and packages to my parents every six years ish and actually succeed every ten on average."

She winces. "... I'm sorry," she says. "That sounds terrible."

"It's not ideal. It's not terrible either though. At least I can get in touch with them and they know where I am and that I'm okay."

"True, but - still. I'll look into summoning people from Limbo, and if possible... Want to have a tearful reunion?"

"I will probably decline to personally cry, and my dad probably wouldn't either, but my mom can turn on the waterworks for all of us, I suppose."

Adana giggles. "Okay. One third tearful reunion and the other two thirds manly stoicism."

Cam snorts.

"So what sorts of things did you try on summoning people from Limbo? I can work off of that and try different angles."

Cam makes a tidy booklet of experimental notes and hands it over.

"The revelation of limbo does kind of suggest the revelation about souls, so maybe be a little discreet with it. Unless you determine that you can in fact resurrect the dead, in which case I support going completely nuts with it right away and getting lots of summoner-hours on the project."

"Right, I wouldn't ask on a public extranet forum or something, I would pretend to be asking about summoning fairies or something and then use that in the case of Limbo. Unless I actually manage it, in which case, I will happily cause lots and lots of tearful or stoic reunions."

Cam smiles. And hugs her.

She hugs him back, smiling. "It has been added to my long, long list of projects. I'm starting to think that list will just be endless and I'll be working on it for the rest of eternity."

"You will most likely lose a certain amount of practical input if you take that long. Medical immortality is not yet a go, as far as I've heard."

"I am not planning to take that long. I am planning to make quite a lot of progress and live to be two hundred, and shortly after I die for my kids to immediately summon me back so I can keep up the good work. But obviously that might not work, so I will just go as fast as humanly possible."

"Um. Eventually, I guess? But honestly it could be replaced with like - summoning apprentice or something, it's just someone who is younger than I would be and therefore be able to resurrect me when I die of old age."

"Mmm, right."

"Humanity still hasn't solved all the various problems that necessitate adoption, huh?"

"No. But I'm not complaining about needing adoption, I love my dad to bits."

"I'm glad."

"It wasn't a huge priority for me, really," he assures her. "Always a 'maybe someday but maybe not'."

She nods. "Okay. That reminds me, if I get resurrection down I will also want to start campaigning for daeva rights, along with the resurrected dead."

"That's nice of you."

"Thank you! It has always sort of bothered me how mortals do not treat daeva properly. I mean, angels and fairies they treat okay, but I never realized just how badly demons are treated until..." She motions to Cam.

"Until you met one worth treating nicely?" he teases.

She giggles. "Yes. That. Though I would want to treat even the nasty ones nicely. Because morality."

"Because morality," nods Cam sagely.

"I actually have a long argument for why we should treat all daeva with respect, but I kept throwing it at my brother and he started summarizing it as 'Because morality' so - unless you want to actually hear the long argument, I will stick with that."

"I think I can probably guess its contents. Am I ever going to meet your brother or your dad or would I be awkward to explain?"

"You will actually get to meet them, I have just been exceedingly busy. For obvious reasons."

"Yes. I noticed."

Adana giggles and says, "I hope I haven't been overworking you? I will let you have vacation days, because morality."

"I'm fine. I like being busy. The last hundred and fifty years of my life have been mostly vacation. I have learned six demonic languages the long way and studied a lot of subjects and learned to fly and learned to swim with wings on - second thing is harder - and read many books and now I get to be busy."

"Fair enough! I am probably a good summoner for you, then, because I also like to be busy. With fifty thousand projects going on concurrently that I can bounce between at will. Let me know if you want to go back to being on vacation, I will still get things done without you, just a bit more slowly."

"You'll be the first to hear about it."

"Good! It would upset me if you told someone else first and I found out through the grapevine. I would feel bad for doing that to you by accident."

"You're kidding. What, not even your dad tells you you're beautiful? Makeup salespeople? Small children? Have you never met a person with taste?"

"Dads don't count, they always tell their daughters that they are beautiful. Makeup salespeople also don't count, because they are trying to sell something. Met a person with taste?" Adana giggles more, looking down. "I mean - good looks are in the eye of the beholder? So they can have taste and not think I'm beautiful."

"Not good taste."

"Me, I say so. I'm in charge of these things."

"Are you? Well, I am very happy to have your favor, oh judger of good taste."

She giggles some more and squirms a bit under his gaze. "I feel really self-conscious now, are you judging my looks...?"

"Yes. Positively. Do you want me to stop staring at you?"

"What, the fact that it'd be really easy for you to kick me out of your place?"

"The binding, too," says Adana. "I mean, I would continue to keep it as loose as humanly possible, but there's - I would still worry about it."

"I assure you, if you resummon me in the future and you're all business and you tell me that the deal is that I can have one kiss if I make you a sandwich every day for the next decade or anything weird like that I will 'no summoner' you without hesitation. I mean, then I might be unhappy and eat a pint of ice cream, but you can't actually make me do arbitrary things."

"I am not elsewhere committed. And I want to kiss you. What's the rest of your sentence?"

Cam tucks his hand under her chin and lifts her face up and kisses her.

Unsurprisingly, she kisses him back.

Presently she is being wing-wrapped in addition to being kissed.

How delightful! She will drape her arms around his shoulders so he doesn't feel left out. It's not like she has wings of her own.

"Of the two of us, only one is laughing, so if somebody's hilariously terrible I surmise it's me. You are not any adverb of terrible at this."

"Oh, I'm some other adverb of terrible, then?" He kisses her neck.

Adana gasps a little at the neck kiss. "N-Not... Not any adverb of terrible," she murmurs, shivering.

Cam gets a shivery near-boneless Adana snuggling him as a result of neck-kisses.

"I-I um..." (shiver) "haven't - had any sort of... experience with anything involving, um - sex or... or anything..."

"Well, that may be useful information but it's not -" (nibble nibble kiss) "technically an answer to my question."

She make a little sound in her throat. "Probably - should wait until after - after I -" (shiver whimper) "- get... more accustomed to this."

Nuzzling along with the shivering and bonelessness. She's not up for much else. "M-Might not... be today, fair warning..."

Kisses!

Kisses! She's a bit more enthusiastic about them! She wasn't unwilling before, but now she's a bit less shy about it.

Yay! Best thing. Shy was cute, but this is more fun.

She thinks so, too. Mind you, there's still some shyness present. Occasionally she breaks the kiss to giggle and be generally shy, but it's an improvement.

Well, when she's busy giggling he can work on her neck a bit more, so that's all to the good. Yummy pretty summoner.

Adana is so pleased that he considers her such! She nuzzles him, and murmurs, "I'm glad it was you that I summoned in a blind panic..."

"I am too. Some demons would have been very awful to you and others certainly wouldn't have been as nice."

"Yeah," she says. "Though I was thinking more along the lines of 'I never would have met you' but, those too."

Kiss! More affectionate than hungry, this time.

Cam has plenty of both those things.

Aww! That's cute. Kisses, they can have kisses.

"I have been thinking about kissing you for rather a while, I feel I should mention," he murmurs, during a lull a ways in to Prolonged Makeouts.

"Have you really?" she laughs. "I've had a vague sort of crush but haven't known what to do about it."

"I don't know where you got the idea that I'm that delicate."

"Not so much thinking you're delicate, I just... Treat everyone like they are because I don't want to hurt people."

Nuzzle. "You are very responsible." Nibble. "And tasty."

She giggles some more. "Thank you! I like being both, it's nice."

"Very," Cam agrees. Om nom Adana nom.

"Pick one," he invites, squeezing her and pressing his face into her hair.

"At random, or by preference?" laughs Adana.

"By preference, I'd imagine, I can't see what the advantage of flipping a coin would be."

"Neither can I. Actually dating it is, then! If you have no issues with that, I mean."

"If I had issues with that I would not have told you to pick," he points out.

"You might have secretly not voiced them but still had them! I don't know, I am worried about technically being your boss and also dating you, I am being careful!"

"Aww." Nuzzle.

Nuzzle. "Better to err on the side of caution, and all."

"You're very careful with me. It's well-motivated but you can relax."

Adana giggles. "But then what if I am accidentally terrible and you end up saying 'No, summoner' and go eat a pint of icecream?"

"Then probably you summon me all afluster while I'm still mid-pint and you let me talk and ask me what's wrong."

"But you might not want to be summoned."

"I'd let you explain unless you trapped me in a circle gagged and without an agreeable task for a while, I think. So, don't do that."

"That isn't the kind of thing I'd want to do," snorts Adana. "So I guess I can relax a bit."

Kiss!

"I'm glad you find them so. I'm pretty fond of them."

"I like the color choice, it's pretty," Adana compliments. "I can see why you're fond of them!"

She giggles at the nibbling. "If it bothers you I can try to find a non-racist angel so you don't have to saw them off."

"I think I could probably change the color without removing them. I'd just bleach out the pigments and then add new pigment."

"Okay," he says, sneaking a last kiss pressed to the center of her forehead and unplastering his wings. "A worthy task. I think I'll catch a nap and then I can work on that all night if Mars is suddenly cooperative."

"Mhm," she says, affectionately. "They probably won't spontaneously stop kicking and screaming as I try to drag them to accept, but it could happen. Have a nice nap, Cam."

He kisses her again and then goes off to where he's been catching his sleep. "Will do."

Adana smiles at him, then heads back to her computer to pick up the very neglected conversation with colonies of Mars.

Cam naps, and gets up a few hours later to see what's up with Adana.

"Hey," she says, brightly. "Mars is still being uncooperative. It's almost like they don't even want you to terraform it. Idiots."

"What do they think I'm going to do, sabotage it somehow? Don't you have a license proving you can control me?"

"Some colonies are worried about that part, others are arguing about what conditions would be best for Mars to have and won't agree to it until they have decided. Understandable, but still a bit annoying."

"I could put atmo without much consensus, surely? Just blanket the place in air."

"They're basically not letting us near Mars until everything is all nice and neat and decided beforehand. Because they think I need to give you a specific task." She sounds smug when she adds, "When you are just awesome and don't need it."

"You are smart."

She giggles. "I try! You are, too, I like that about you."

"Good. I should be valued for my intellect and not just my prettiness and my ability to make arbitrary material objects."

Adana laughs a little, then touches his cheek. "You weren't worried about me wanting to date you for your ability to make arbitrary material objects, were you?"

"No. That does not mean I will not cheerfully listen to a complete list of why you do want to date me, though."

"I'll... do science to it?"

"All your fault. Probably I was terrible before I met you. Collecting souls and whatnot."

"Mhm." She sounds very unconvinced. "Well, in that case, how do you know that I wasn't terrible before meeting you, too? You are also quite huggable."

"Ooh, maybe you originally wanted me to suck the entire moon into a black hole for revenge purposes, but then I won you over and you decided to have me save people instead."

Adana giggles some more. She keeps being embarrassingly giggly around him. "The space station was originally designed to be the modern equivalent of the Death Star. I was going to be empress of the solar system, it would have been grand!"

"I could make you a crown if you like!"

"No, no, it's okay. I have changed my ways, that's all behind me, now. Your hugs have changed me!"

"Aww, it doesn't have to be an evil crown. I can make you the prettiest tiara."

She laughs. "What would I even do with it, I'm not going after empresshood anymore. Honestly I'm not even going for 'major historical figure,' if human society runs better overall once I am done with it I will be pleased."

"If I had not been murdered I probably would have angled for eventual rulership of some manner of political unit. I could have got in very early on space colonization."

"Awwww," murmurs Adana, nuzzling her demon boyfriend. "I am having more reasons to hate that you were murdered, I'm extremely sorry."

Kiss. "It's okay. It worked out surprisingly well compared to what results I would have expected from murder."

Kiss. "Well, yes, but still. I'm sorry you got thrown into retirement so soon, knowing you... You would have gotten a lot of good in the world done. Also, horrific early death, also bad."

"I would have done so much stuff. I used to let demons talk, I would've found a decent-enough one eventually and gotten so much stuff made."

"Like your own space station?" offers Adana. "I suppose this must be a strange switch, considering. Going from summoner to daeva."

"It is a little odd. I don't think I'd have kept any demon around long enough to make a space station without going 'but why stop there?' and terraforming - well, Mars. Not that I fault you for your caution, you had more background noise about what demons are like in your history than I did."

"I might have terraformed Mars rather than gone with the space station if there was no one actually on Mars, but I was also under a time constraint." She shrugs. "There are less problems making a space station that benignly orbits Earth than with trying to terraform Venus instead. It's an option, I suppose, but I think Venus would require an angel, instead of a demon."

"Yeah, I agree."

Adana affectionately boops his nose. "Good, because I value your opinion and if you didn't I would want to know why and be sad if you didn't tell me."

Well, if she's going to say things like that he's going to have to kiss her.

"Yes. Yes you do. Stay alive, angel, or I will have to miss you."

"So I guess summoner meet and greets go on the to-do list."

"Pretty much. Or I find someone to be an apprentice and tell them to summon us both if I die."

"What's the state of the art for matching summoners to students now?"

"There are schools for that kind of thing, but there's also still some informal stuff where if a person who wants to grow up to be a summoner they can go find someone who is one and learn that way. I think there are forums on the extranet for that kind of thing. It's possible that now that I'm famous, some precocious kid will run up to me and ask me to teach them. I'm not entirely sure, I wasn't an apprentice, most of what I know is from books."

"Do you want the kind of kid who'll run up to you because you're famous?"

"I would have to meet them. Some of them might just not have any idea of who to turn to and pick me because I am recognizable, or because they like the space station in particular. So, maybe?"

"I learned everything out of books too."

She giggles. "Did you really? Where on Earth did you find them?"

"Abandoned house in my dad's town."

"Ooo, congrats. I had to go and buy mine."

"I thought they were bullshit, but cool bullshit. Drew my first circle when bored in my dad's garage and was very surprised. Very glad I didn't get creative, got a very unpleasant fairy."

Adana giggles. "That could have ended badly. My first was also a fairy, literally about ten minutes after I got my summoner license. I had her move some furniture, but it was mostly because I could do it and I was excited."

"I didn't have mine do anything, I got rid of her to make sure I could and then read the whole stash before drawing anything else."

"That is very smart of you! I am not surprised by this in the slightest."

"And thus began my five year career in summoning and the efficient use of parlor tricks."

"I focused less on efficient use of parlor tricks and more on how I could use angels and fairies the most effectively per summon. I can do a bit with the little tricks, though."

"Well, for most of it I was in the magical closet and did not have the option of dragging daeva around in public."

She pets his hair. "Thank you very much for removing the magical closet entirely, I like being able to have daeva in public."

"I like you being able to have daeva in public too. It'd be inconvenient if you had to keep me in a shoebox."

Adana giggles. "I would carry the shoebox everywhere and occasionally take you out to pet you. Right after I finished buying a factory to mass produce the shrink ray necessary to make that even possible."

"I thought you said I wasn't a pet. And here you are talking about petting me. I'm shocked. Shocked and hurt, Adana."

"Noooooooo, I'm sorry, don't be shocked, hurt, and leave to eat a pint of icecream!" Hair pet, hair pet, big blue eyes that beg for him to stay. "It won't happen again, I'm sorry."

"B-But...." Sadface, but she keeps petting him. "But you're so you and your hair is fun to pet! Do you want me to stop?"

"I am but a wretched demon. Wholly obedient to the whims of my summoner. Pet me if it be thy will."

"Awwww," says Adana. "Darling, I'll stop the minute you ask me to." She gives him a gentle neck kiss, and hair pets continue.

"Ooh, monogamy. Okay," he mumbles into her shoulder.

"I am okay with monogamy, possibly unless and until our contact is scaled down to iffy letters and care packages every few years which have to go through nosy fairies half the time."

Adana nods. "Makes sense. And if all goes as planned, that won't be an issue, we get to bounce around being summoned by helpful apprentices or family members. But if it is - I'm okay with it. Just um - as long as I'm not..." Pause, squirm. "A notch on a belt? Essentially?"

"My immediate reaction is 'of course you're not', but my not-immediate reaction is to wonder what that actually means to you and make quite sure."

"Just there to - distract you or be a toy to play with for a little while, or for the most obvious purpose of sex. Using me, essentially. Please don't do that."

"Are you one of those people who objects to serving purposes like that secondarily provided I am also personally fond of you and consider your interests important? I'm good at a lot of things but none of them is - fooling myself into believing the list of reasons I might want to do a thing is shorter than it really is."

"Nope, not one of those people. It's just being nothing else but those to you would - hurt. A lot."

She smiles, and snuggles him. "And you mean more to me than your secondary purposes, too."

"Good."

"I could make you a set right now, you know, although if you ever wanted rid of them you'd want an angel to do the patch job on the ex-joints. And it would get you odd looks."

She giggles. "Tempting, but it would be a bad idea to be mistaken for a daeva. If I were with you, someone could think we were both rogue and then react like I was invincible. Which would end badly. I'll just be patient."

Nuzzle. "I will do my best to get in the way of anyone who attacks you, but I have no supernatural senses and no supernatural reaction time."

"I know. My method is less 'be impregnable' and more 'be the type of person people do not want to attack' but, as you saw with killswitch lady, that's not always perfect."

"Yeah, I did see that."

Snuggle. "Hey, I've got you, you can make up the difference pretty well."

"What wound up happening to her, anyway?"

"She's in jail, the trial went exceedingly fast because I gave them part of my comm log. Kind of conclusive proof, considering."

"Most likely, yes," she agrees. "There was a bit of an argument about if I'd gotten an angel to doctor it myself, actually. That was about the only thing that kept them from immediately saying, 'Yup, guilty.' I think she also tried to argue that you'd made the killswitch, but everybody knows that you don't unbind demons." She winks. "So how could you have possibly managed that?"

She giggles. "I'm very glad she's in jail."

"It's a good place for her. Why didn't she just learn to summon her own damn demons?"

"... Honestly? So she wouldn't have had to pay the price for them, I think. She'd make someone else do it. Which means that if she'd succeeded..." Wince.

Snuggle, snuggle. "I'm all right," she murmurs to him. "Thank you so much for saving me."

"You're welcome." Pause. "What would you have done if I had killed her? Killing people started seeming a lot less off-limits when I learned about Limbo."

"I would have been upset with you and extremely worried that you were about to go on a killing spree. Now that I know about Limbo it's less... Off limits, but I still don't like it."

"Yeah, I don't like it either, but - what I didn't like about death before was that I thought people ended. Permanently unsalvageable streams of consciousness. And now I know they don't. Killing people now mostly seems highly impolite and reputationally unwise."

"Right. That's essentially my logic on the matter. I am having trouble imagining a situation where I would willingly destroy people that utterly, honestly. Send them to Limbo, maybe, if I had no other option, but actually ending people I don't think I'm capable of. It's more likely that I'd just - lock them up, make sure they have basic necessities, throw away the key and then ignore them."

"I think people who are purposefully living at the expense of other people living are excellent targets if you can't talk them down and don't have the wherewithal to lock them up, personally. But I haven't killed anybody myself, let alone destroyed them."

Adana shrugs. "Maybe. It's such a situation that I don't see myself being in that it's kind of alien to me. I can always figure out a way to lock someone up if given time and access to daevas. If those weren't options I honestly don't know what I would do."

"If you're going to have a large inhibition, 'no killing people' seems reasonable."

"I think so! Maybe it's easier to kill people, but I like playing life on hard mode. Where I have annoyingly crushing morals about everything."

"Do your morals in fact annoy you?"

She giggles. "No. I mean, sometimes I get annoyed that there is such an obviously easy solution at hand and I'm not taking it, but the morals themselves do not annoy me."

"Good. Sounds, I don't know, itchy."

"Itchy? How so?"

"Having a constraint on your behavior that actively annoys you is unpleasant. It's not intolerable, but it's unpleasant. I would know."

Well, now she just has to snuggle him more and pet his hair. "I'm sorry, Cam."

Pet, pet, pet. Snuggle, snuggle. "It's still bad, though. I'm sorry you have to go through it."

"Well, I don't, anymore, I seem to have picked up a full-time job with a very accommodating summoner."

Adana laughs. "Fair point. I'm happy to help, my dear."

Kisses!

Kisses!

Yaaaaay.