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[guinegreer]

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G.COLCHESTERMOORE

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[guinegreer]

There's always that risk. But that's also what a safeword is for.

[ she hasn't quite decided yet if she'll keep to the same one outside of ash — if it would be better to use something less personal with others, should the moment require it. ]

Then the trust goes both ways after that — trust that I'll use it if my limits are pushed too far, and trust that it'll be honored once it's used.

[snaggleteeth]

That trouble exists in every galaxy, I think. But won't with me.

[if he were centered, he'd consider the possibility it might be his that someone might ignore someday, but that would be the solipsistic narcissism of someone who's deliberately forgotten what it is to be victimized. usually, it serves him well.

in this case, he means it kindly.]

Is it easier for you to trust someone with your body than it is with your other gifts?

[guinegreer]

What would you consider those other gifts?

[ she's not fishing for compliments, just mostly curious about what he seems to have picked up about her over the course of their one and only conversation so far. ]

[snaggleteeth]

Intellect. Education. Your pride in both. And not that it's required for marriage, but I'm guessing you have a heart.

[guinegreer]

Some people would call that more of a weakness.

[snaggleteeth]

Yeah. Why I wondered if it's easier to trust people with your body than the other.

Is it?

[guinegreer]

Not always. But I think you know that too.

[snaggleteeth]

Disagree with respect, actually. If someone can hurt your body without marking anything else, it doesn't matter. Hardly impossible. The other way happens all the time. And nobody I've ever met has a safe word for that.

[guinegreer]

You're not wrong.

Ever since the commune, I'd much rather have someone hurt my body in all the ways I want them to.

[snaggleteeth]

I don't know a lot about that. Except it was a bad time for about everybody, powers changed. People died. Not you, I hope.

[this is even sincere!]

[guinegreer]

Unfortunately, yes. So you can understand how that might change a person's perspective.

[snaggleteeth]

I imagine. Don't have the arrogance to claim understanding.



Can I ask you a hypothetical question?

[guinegreer]

Honestly, I don't really have any memory of it, which is probably for the best.

Ask away.

[snaggleteeth]

You may not have an answer then.

Is it better to die alone, or in the company of someone who cared? Tried to stop it? Even if they couldn't?

[guinegreer]

[ she knows he's asking hypothetically, but the question immediately makes her think of ash, and the debate. ]

I'd want to be surrounded by my loved ones, at the end. But when it happened during the commune, I was sleeping. [ which explains why she doesn't remember the arrow that had gone right through her heart, doesn't have even the slightest recollection of pain before the end. ]

[snaggleteeth]

Do you remember going to sleep? That gone too?

[love is not—cannot be—part of the question. but he doesn't mind the analogue. he's curious about it.]

[guinegreer]

I remember going to bed, but nothing afterward until I woke up again, after being resurrected.

[snaggleteeth]

Were you alone?

Loved or unloved?

[guinegreer]

Alone in the room, but loved.

[snaggleteeth]

Would it have mattered to you, to have both?

[guinegreer]

It's hard to answer that. I didn't know I would die that night.

But I did know I was loved, and I suppose that made the difference on its own.

[snaggleteeth]

Love seems to come to you very naturally, Mrs. Colchester-Moore. You make it look very easy.

[guinegreer]

Truthfully? It's been years of hard, and we have to work at it every day.

[snaggleteeth]

What would it take for you to leave?

[he wouldn't normally ask. good manners are an important pretext in this strange world. but she just mentioned she did, so the bar is in a weird place.]

[guinegreer]

To leave them? If I had to, it wouldn't be my choice.