"There's nothing wrong with the way you feel about me," I told him. "You've never pushed me for anything, and I'm actually... pretty embarrassed that it took having the soulmate bond put your heart on display for me to see it." I unhooked my arm from the chair and leaned forward, resting my forearms on my thighs. "I'm really sorry that happened to you, Dain, and that I've been so wrapped up in myself not to pay attention to the evidence of my eyes." I tried out another smile, though my lips trembled. "Even soulmates get to have privacy, and I should have seen your heart and known better than to ask for love in part-measure."

The corners of his mouth twitched, and he took a shaky breath. "I don't think anyone has ever apologized to me for anything."

"An afternoon for firsts, then," I replied, and rested my chin on my hand. "But, seriously, Dain. Whatever people think about you, you're not a monster. You have definitely killed a lot of people, so I'll grant you the 'dripping with blood' bit, but being a soldier doesn't make you a monster, nor do scales and tails."

He exhaled sharply through his nose, a sound bordering a snort. "You don't consider slaughtering a city to be monstrous?" Dain asked like a taunt, something wounded and dangerous lying below the almost sing-song words.

"In my world, people have made the decision to destroy a city and tens of thousands of innocents in order to prevent the deaths of hundreds of thousands," I said carefully, thinking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. At the time, people had supported the action overwhelmingly, and scholars still debated whether it had been the right decision. "You ended a war that might have lasted a thousand years or more. We can't see the future, so whether it was the right decision or not is pretty hard to figure out."

I shook my head, talking less to him and more to myself. "People argue all the time about whether you have moral culpability for inaction. The laws get all twisted up about it on Earth, with all sorts of rules for when you have to take action. I guess I've always felt like getting stuck in a trolley problem is a nightmare, no matter what you choose."

I caught sight of Dain's raised eyebrow and made a disparaging face. "It's a philosophical problem," I explained. "You see a runaway trolley about to run over five people. If you pull a lever, the trolley will switch tracks and run over one person, instead. What do you do?"

"Pull the lever, obviously," he said.

"What if you have to push someone onto the tracks, so their body stops the trolley?"

"Then you push them," Dain said, sounding bored.

"Would you push me?" I asked.

He opened his mouth to respond, couldn't, and turned away with a snarl. Color rose on his skin, and I leaned back.