"Oh, I didn't realize. In that case Felix'll probably last. It has a slight mood effect but I think it might be one you wouldn't hate - it gives you - justified extraordinarily high self-confidence?"

"I can put up with that for a better shot at evil god killing."

"Thought so. You should come upstairs so I can pay you very detailed compliments."

"Okay."

He comes upstairs and sits on his tail.

He giggles. "I won't actually get distracted. Well, I will, but I have this lovely necklace, see, I can come up with things to say and find you distractingly delightful. I  doubt this was the intended use of the necklace but it was a me who invented it so I don't doubt it that much." Snuggle. "I love you, Cam. I love how good at using your resources you are, and how much fun you have with new ones - we grow up with magic, you know, I think sometimes we take it for granted, but even most people who discovered it in an abandoned house at seventeen would just see adventure, or maybe profit, not the opportunity to turn the world on its head as quickly as it could safely be done. When we figured out Miranda was a you I was glad there was a you who was a wizard, because it'd mean we wouldn't miss anything, wouldn't misuse what we had, wouldn't take careless risks - but also wouldn't be satisfied - there's a kind of person who considers everything a careless risk once things are pretty much all right for them and the people they love, or at least the people they have to see face to face. I'm not even sure I'm not that sort of person, just with a tendency to consider everyone everywhere mine. But you're not. And so even knowing already who Miranda was, and that she was delightful, and that she would be a tremendous asset in fixing everything within our reach, it was still reassuring to know she was a you, and so everyone in our reach could grow and grow and grow and what we wanted wouldn't change... I was so glad there was a you who was a wizard. And now you are actually a wizard and that's even better."

"Will you also not be prohibitively distracted if I kiss you occasionally during this exercise."

"Gosh, I don't know, I think I could cope but it might make it harder to definitively say how long it has been."

"I'm recording again, we can check the timestamps." Kiss.

Kiss. "In that case I find myself without objections. You have a very unshakable sense of yourself and it's adorable. I - find the alts thing vaguely surprising, if pleasantly so, I don't think I would always turn out all right, too much of who I am is wrapped up in what other people need me to be and what I need to be to accomplish the things I want done - maybe I just don't exist in societies that wouldn't raise a me into someone the rest of us would recognize, I don't know, but I feel like you could come in anything - more faces, more species, worse circumstances, weirder circumstances - and you'd turn out the same because you're not getting yourself from the world around you anyway. It feels very - solid, to be around. I can plan more confidently because you are so straightforwardly and irrevocably and unshakably you."

Cam's tail escapes from where it is sat on. Wag wag.

"I cannot believe you went so long without a tail, incidentally. It's a very important tail. I can hardly imagine you without it. I like how meticulous you are. Some people are careful because they want to be a careful person and some people are careless because they just want to get things done but you very much want to get things done and are still thoughtful and careful about all of the risks and drawbacks and complications of doing them. There are people I know around whom I now have the urge to grab them by the ear and drag them to you and say to them 'see, this is what being careful is for, and yes, it's supposed to be for something, not just a virtue divorced from the benefits of the mistakes you avoid and the costs of going slowly - you are very efficient, that is another thing I like about you, if you have something to move forward on you are moving forward on it. I would admire that even independent of admiring the projects you are moving forward on but your really excellent taste in priorities definitely helps. I think it is adorable that there is a demon medical school and you went to it, have I mentioned that? Demons are all indestructible and mostly do not get summoned for medicine but you had downtime and so spent it going to medical school. I find it tremendously satisfying whenever something you picked up during what must have been a very tedious century and a half turns out to be tremendously valuable to us now that we're fixing the multiverse as fast as we can reach it. I'm pretty sour on gods who like stories but if I had to be a god who liked stories 'and then everything he'd learned along the way was desperately needed on millions of worlds and they spent the next chunk of forever fixing all of them' would be my kind of story."

Giggle. Smooch. "I love you. You should be able to imagine me sans tail just fine, I looked like Kib."

"Kib's posture and movements and so on are very - I would want the person who did that to him dead off no more information than the way he moves his head when someone walks into the room. I assume you were not like that."

"...yes, true."

"I also, unlike some people we met today, think adults are prettier than teenagers."

"He's in his forties even if you don't count the past life, he just got stuck that way."

"Yes, I know, but eighteen's young to be stuck at. - what happens to summoners who die old, do they slowly deage or do they magically appear young -"

"Appear young. Somewhere between eighteen and forty, usually somewhere in that range they're reasonably happy with. Limboites work the same way. My mom looks twenty and my dad looks mid-thirties."

"Are deaf people still deaf? Insane people still insane?"

"No unless their self-concept can't accommodate working ears, and sometimes."

"Huh. But we were talking about you. I admire how consistent you are with your principles, even where they're inconvenient, and how you don't get tired of applying them or make excuses or exceptions. I admire how good you are at - finding where a confusion is, when you're encountering something new, and clarifying it in terms that the other person'll understand. I really enjoy your sense of humor - are you all as snarky as Kib all the time, quietly -"

"I'm less fatalistic about it but yes. You would have had to meet Miranda earlier to get her before she learned to self-censor."

"Maybe somewhere we will find a four-year-old you and Mingling will at last consent to share his Cadillac and everyone can appreciate being snarked at by a Bell who has not yet learned any tact."

"I'm not sure the snark has come in yet, age four. Might take a couple years past that to fully develop."

"Landlords," he says loudly, "if you're seeking inspiration I want to meet a tiny snarky Bell." And then more compliments.