I dunno if I'd call it love, see. Don't rightly know if I know what's love and what it ain't. But me best mate...

[ How does he describe this. ]

Y'ever had someone ye knowed so well it was like they was another part of yerself? Someone who makes ye feel better 'bout yer worst parts. Who don't always say it, but ye know he's always lookin' out for ye. Someone who you don't know who ye'd be without 'im.

...Like that.

[ He gives a rueful sort of one-shouldered shrug. That's all he's got. ]

How 'bout yers?

Dunno if it's exactly common, as such. Might just be we got lucky.

[ 90% of Ragetti's life experiences have been down to luck, honestly, good or bad. He knows whereof he speaks. ]

Least ye know ye'd be someone. I ain't been on me own for... must be more'n twenty years now. Not sure I remember how.

[ You can't spell "Pintel and Ragetti" with just "Ragetti", now can you? ]

Yeah, but we was cursed skeletons for half of it, so. Dunno if that counts.

[ A normal thing you can be, for normal people. ]

Would've been sorter hard to forget, yeah. It wasn't too pleasant a curse.

[ As curses go. ]

But we didn't get no older. So if ye look at it from that point o' view, could be ye'd say no time passed at all.

[ Spoken like someone who's been mulling this question over in his head for a while. He's this close to developing the theory of relativity, probably! ]

Works fer me.

[ And thus the history of our understanding of the space-time continuum remains intact. ]