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Honestly, it was probably for the best that the Chosen themselves never require the assistance of Diryas' and Zebulon's expertise.

If they needed it, they were likely all in trouble.

He rubbed the back of his neck when she said that he had been understandably upset. It seemed she had put two and two together about Diryas and Zebulon's relationship, or at least had figured out they were very close. The sheepish reaction went away when she said she was glad she found him, though, and he just laughed. "Yes, thank you for pulling me off the metal s**t carcass. I think I woulda just kept smacking it otherwise."

At least until he lost his ability to keep going.

Zebulon had been glad Diryas had not been seriously injured permanently himself. All he walked away with, ultimately, were some interesting scars. He supposed it was related to the whole "godly protection" thing. Still, despite being pleased Diryas was alright, his expression had still darkened. "If Diryas had been less than okay in the long run after that, pretty sure I would have found a way to give Athena what for."

It would have likely failed, because Athena was a goddess, but faced with serious injury--or worse--to his partner would likely cause a lapse in logic. Less already had.

Zebulon cleared his throat.

"Just good everyone recovered alright I suppose."

Despite his desire to let everyone know that Diryas was his--and to brag about him, too--Zebulon could occasionally get embarrassed when his obvious affection was pointed back out to him.

Thankfully she didn't say anything about it.

"Ha! Good to know. The more people trying to turn that thing into s**t bird dust, the better." There was clearly no love lost between him and the mechanical vultures they had fought. There was no love to be found in the first place. He had been so annoyed he hadn't even run experiments on the droppings he had managed to gather yet...

The idea that others had his back was nice, even if he couldn't reliably say the same. After all, if faced with danger to himself or Diryas for helping everyone else, or if helping everyone else would put Diryas in danger, well, he wasn't likely to help everyone else out. He had his priorities, and what was important to him would always come first. Nevertheless, he offered a bit of an odd grin in return, and replied with a, "I appreciate it. Hopefully between all of us nothing bad will ever actually happen, hey?"

At least, nothing permanently bad.

He finished what he was eating, pushing his plate to the side once he did. "Damn but do I love the food here, hah! Mostly because it doesn't require any effort."

Most people either liked or despised cooking, for one reason or another. It seemed that Sylvia was in the later category, mostly because she couldn't cook.

He noted that and shoved it in a mental pocket.

Zebulon, though, didn't really fall on that scale, solidly indifferent to it the majority of the time. Sometimes he still wanted to cook, other times he definitely didn't, but most of the time it didn't bother him one way or another. That probably showed in his shrug. "Eh." Clear answer. "I don't really care for it?"

He gestured behind him vaguely at the rest of the Hearth. "It's one less thing I gotta do. Can focus more on science I'm interested in."

That being said, he was fairly sure his father would cry if he didn't know how to cook. He let out a small chuckle under his breath. "Cooking is just more science really. All about measuring. I wonder if this stuff," again, vague motioning at the Hearth, "is more magical than scientific, though."

Zebulon snorted, and indeed tucked that bit of knowledge in his mental pocket as well.

Not that he would use it right away, but if it was something that embarrassed her it might be useful later. (Also, he should probably make sure never to ask her to make or bake something. Would likely be a disaster.)

At her question, he shrugged. "I mean, Hestia is a god, right?" Zebulon glanced back at where the kitchen would be himself, looking it over as well as he could from this distance. It did seem like they actually enjoyed cooking, like Sylvia said, but they did have to make a lot of food for at least three different meals. It didn't seem like a stretch to him that at least some magic was involved. Honestly, it was much less of a stretch than a lot of the other magic they had already seen...

"We've definitely seen stranger already. It'd be pretty cool though if they could just have the food make itself, right? Maybe they could do some quick experiments with different ingredient combinations," of course, that was where his brain went, "without much effort. Conjuring ingredients from nothing seems pretty damn useful, though. Saves a lot of effort. Could solve hunger that way."

Honestly, it was pretty easy for Zebulon to reason why the gods hadn't solved world hunger, if they could.

From everything he had ever read about nearly any god, they were selfish, involved in a bunch of inter-god nonsense, and generally didn't show much kindness to people they didn't already favour for some reason. Why would they be nice to those little silly non-immortal humans if it didn't somehow benefit them?

Hell, he was fairly sure they were only Chosen because it benefited the gods. They did send them after Circe--

At the question about magic, Zebulon shrugged. "I imagine if we could do magic, people would probably have varying talent with it, right? Probably requires different types of skills than every day tasks. Perhaps cooking would come easier, because it requires you to do something different. It requires different knowledge, different skills." He seemed to be legitimately thinking about this. "At the same time, it could be a magic that requires you to already have some inherent skill; it just makes cooking a bit quicker or something, so perhaps then it wouldn't get much better for you or anyone else who can't cook well..."

Realizing he might have been getting a little carried away, he cleared his throat.

Considering he held a doctorate, he could probably go on with theories for hours if given the chance.

He figured Sylvia--and most people--probably had little interest in him theorizing about potential magic for hours, so it was best just to cut himself off before he got carried away. It wasn't like he was talking to his husband at the moment... "I'd love to pick the ear of the gods honestly. Perhaps ask them what they even chose us for. Or how magic works. Or how they work in general."

He spent most of his life surrounded by religious people, but he never thought that of all the stories he heard, the Greek ones would be true. Were others true, too?

"Hm?" His plans? Zebulon didn't tend to explicitly tell other people what he was doing, but Sylvia was nice enough and there was a way to be easily vague. "Gonna go to the labs, probably. They're probably my favourite places here. You?"

Planning for the next few months? That sounded like a lot of planning...

"Well, sounds like you'll be busy, then," said Zebulon, with a smirk. Honestly, he mostly came there during the weekend, as he and Diryas both still had a day-to-day job they both loved and needed to keep going. Unlike some of the others here, he had no interest in sacrificing his life in research to live and work full time at the Prytaneum itself. Since he was mostly there during the weekend, he generally was mostly there when he wasn't particularly busy.

Going to the labs was just for fun, after all.

He glanced towards the exit. "It was nice talking to you, but perhaps it's time to get to the day?"

At the offer to walk to the door with him, Zebulon snorted aloud, but he didn't tell her no, instead turning to head out of The Hearth.

It wasn't a long walk really, but Zebulon wasn't the fastest walker in the world either--especially since, over the years, he had learned to slow his pace to keep better step with his significantly shorter husband. He may have been very leggy, but he was still rather, well, short.

When he arrived at the door, he turned towards Sylvia and offered a hand to shake. "Well, it was nice meeting you. Officially. I'm sure I'll see you around, yeah?"