[ She gasps quietly at the beauty of it, leaning back along with him to settle into his shoulder, wanting to see it as close to the way he does as she can.
A moment of consideration, then— ]
Like water droplets come together when they touch?
[ That doesn't seem right. Water doesn't become smaller like this. Two droplets joined to become one are still the size of two. She hums and discards the thought to look for another one like it, furrowing her brow as she tries to understand the concepts of a larger universe through the earthly ones she knows, then tilts her head up to look at him when she does. ]
Like making a ball with snow?
[ On another occasion she might wait for an answer, but on this one the words are hardly from her mouth before she is distracted by looking back at what he's made. A moment later she is reaching out to touch it, making a soft delighted sound when it shimmers around the disturbance of her fingers. Her hand stills for a moment, and then she is making curving paths in it as she used to through her husband's, drawing the light of the illusion's breaking and reforming behind her with a childlike look of wonder in her eyes.
And then an equally childlike look at him to check and see if she is misbehaving followed by the soft spread of a shy smile. ]
Yes, but... they create their own gravity well, that pulls everything in towards the center, like how a ball dropped from a tree rushes towards the ground all on its own. Imagine that from all sides, a perfect sphere causing matter and dust from between the stars to orbit it.
[ He shifts and resettles so that one arm goes around her back, hand settling at her waist, as Alexandrie draws her fingers through the illusion, causing the green and gold sparking in her wake.
When she looks at him with that impish expression he can't help but smile, shifting the illusion to one of a closer image of a star's birth. He loves her fascination, her glee in the wake of his magic. It feels loving, and important, and he can't imagine a better audience to share his knowledge with. ]
Something similar happens when a star dies, as well.
[ The image above them changes, filling the room with bright light before he slows the illusion down so she can look more closely. ]
Sometimes they become black holes, little punctures in the fabric of time and space.
[ Like a ball dropped from a tree, or the matter that will make up a star, Alexandrie obeys his law of gravity: the moment Loki opens a space closer to himself with the wrap of his arm around her she is shifting into it, wriggling a little until she is tucked against him and letting one of her hands settle over his.
She is watching something made, watching something unmade; darkness turning to light and back again, darker than before there was nothing. Already it weaves itself into allegories for her— she cannot help the way her mind connects the things she learns— and she feels a little less alone, knowing even time and space can be broken by the loss of something beautiful and bright. ]
It depends wholly on the age and size of the star in question. If they don't become black holes they become neutron stars, which sometimes end up close to one another and collide like these. They're called kilonovas, when that happens.
[ She tucks herself in and he leans over to kiss her forehead. This is a lovely, perfect sort of moment, and he shifts from watching the illusion to watching the light spill across the planes of her face. ]
The light from the stars we've seen has traveled so far through space to reach our eyes here in Thedas — or on any planet really — that the light itself that we see is actually in the past, instead of showing the stars in the present.
[ Hushed with awe, and as much to herself as it is to him: ]
They are like us.
[ Alexandrie turns her face to look out the window for a moment, to find those points of light outside the illusion. They are no less beautiful for her new understanding of them— are, perhaps, more beautiful because they too are born and die and turn around each other and collide. Have children, in a way, with other stars. Linger bright in memory after they are gone. Are grieved for by the fabric of all things.
All of this is happening in the sky, far away. Farther away than she can understand, to a number of stars far beyond her ability to count them, this has been happening without her knowledge and suddenly everything in the world is something worth wonder.
But most of all him.
When she turns her face back, it is to look at Loki the way she did the stars. To follow him in watching not the illusion he had made but its light on him. She cannot keep from reaching to touch his face any more than she could keep from reaching for the stars he'd made. She cannot keep from shifting so she can kiss him any more than that. ]
[They are like us, she says, and Loki just smiles, soft and just for her. He doesn't disagree, really. They create their own cosmic weight, the two of them together, in a synchronous orbit until the moment at which something grand will change and the both of them, together, will alter the fabric of the very space that contains them.
That smile increases, warms, when she moves to touch his face. Leaning in to kiss her back is as easily done as breathing, his free hand coming up to touch her cheek in a mirror of her own gesture.
Above them, the illusion shifts to a slightly different image of stars and stardust. ]
I love you, [ Loki murmurs against her lips. Because it's true. Because in this moment it's a thing of wonder, not terror. Because he'd like to remember this moment for as long as he can remember anything. ]
[ In his closeness, with her eyes closed, Alexandrie finds herself surprised by the sea-smell of Loki's hair, the salt-roughness of his shirt against her skin. How long has it been, since she'd awakened to his return? A few hours? No. Hours are something for others, not them. They have a small infinity, something that feels as if it has no beginning or end, and all it takes is a single moment of shared attention— of her looking, of him looking back— and they can step into the slipstream of whatever in the cosmos paves their way. It's simple, right, and his love reaching to meet hers feels like a keystone settling into place between two stacks of stones that would have fallen on their own. That now will be a door long after all the walls are gone.
She kisses the words from his lips so she can keep them with the kind of care that means she thinks them precious; means she thinks he is. Wants to speak, wants to say her own for him, but cannot pull herself away for even the moment it would take to murmur. For now he will have to feel it in the way she leans farther into him, the turn of her body to better seam itself to his, the small and quiet sound that leaves her nose. ]
[ It's strange, to know someone enough to understand the things they don't say. Words don't escape her but he hears I love you, too in the sound she exhales, the press of her body against his, the feel of her lips as he smiles into their kiss. There's desire in the pit of his stomach but there's always desire when he's around her, he knows, and thus the ember is left alone for now.
He'd rather enjoy kissing her for a while more before he has to decide for or against taking a bath as the next step in the evening.
That doesn't mean he won't intensify the kiss, lips parting across hers. He breathes out through his nose, soft but a touch needy, wanting her to remain there kissing him for as long as possible. ]
[ Which she will; wanting for the moment, as he does, to simply breathe shared air. To linger in each touch of lips like she walks through the halls of a gallery, that slow pace that means she has all the time she could want to experience the art displayed for her.
It is art, in a way. Her kind. Spaces wide and beautiful by their nature; their light, their wind. It is always summer in her paintings. Not the sultry evenings, but the clarity and quiet of early morning. The slanting sunlight later in the season. Ripe wheat, flowers in full bloom, the light making verdant Serault glass of the leaves.
It is like this in her heart. With her fingers spread at the side of his face— their tips delicate at his ear, along his jawline— she kisses him like summer.
[ During the time they kiss the illusion fades, fading away in a light shower of green and gold sparks that settle in their hair before dissipating completely. Later Loki will have feelings about how long he could maintain that before it vanished entirely but for now, he's too busy kissing and being kissed for it to matter even a little bit.
His lips tingle and his breathing is heavier by the point that they break for air, Loki rubbing the tip of his nose alongside Alexandrie's. ] I've missed you terribly, [ he admits. ] The next time I leave I'll have to take a token along with me, and hide it.
[ Alexandrie makes a pleased little hum to have been missed and returns the rub with her own nose. Another hum, thoughtful this time, for what she might give.
A moment, and then she smiles. Disentangles herself enough to sit up— with a kiss for his forehead on the way— so he can better see her as she unties the ribbon that secures her braid and fingercombs free the bright copper of her curls, pulling them forward over her shoulders when she is done and separating one out to tickle the tip of Loki’s nose with. ]
You must pick the one you like the very best and take it with you.
[ She is so prideful of her hair, so careful in its keeping. The ready willingness of the offer speaks louder of her heart than words could ever manage. ]
Then any time I am combing my hair in the mornings and come upon one which is shorter than the rest I shall remember there is part of me with you and I, too, shall feel a little less alone.
Not just because of what it means, to have someone who is as particular about their hair as Alexandrie clearly is (and he knows this, has watched her morning routine more than once now, and each time is astounded by the work and the care that goes into it), but because it reminds him of Sif, and the terribly cruel joke he'd played on her in regards to cutting her hair.
So he blinks a little, tilting his head and smiling sweetly after a moment, looking away from her face to take in the shape of her hair cascading around it. He reaches out and pulls his fingers carefully through a section of her hair, shaking his head a little bit. ]
An entire strand of curls? [ Loki asks, voice full of wonder. If Sif could see him now, she'd laugh in his face, he thinks, and he'd deserve it. ]
Of whatever length you like, [ she answers, glowing a little under the wonder the bare thought of it had birthed in him.
It's an impetuous thing, perhaps, but somehow it does not feel like anything of the sort. It is simple: he had wanted something of her for his travels, she wishes it as much as he does, and it is the most intimate thing she can give. Far more than a handkerchief, a ribbon, even if she were to soak it in the summer rose of her perfume. Those things are hers, but they are not of her. This is.
It is for them when one of them is gone, and for them when they are together. She might find those missing strands in the mornings, as she'd said, but when he is here with his hands in her hair Loki will sometimes find them too; a reminder that one night she'd made a choice and it was him. ]
[ A strand long enough to braid, he thinks, or at least decorate around a ribbon or a small hooped earring, and one from closest to the center as opposed to something that will immediately be spotted when Alexandrie has her hair put up.
He separates one set of strands out, looping the hair around his index finger. ]
The last time I cut someone's hair it was to be unkind. [ He shakes his head a little; no one's ever given him a token like this, much less offered to allow him to choose it himself. ] Do we have scissors?
[ He has his daggers (one, at least, always, hidden away and summonable; the second is in his pack) if not, and they're definitely sharp enough for this business. ]
[ There are scissors somewhere, surely— with her embroidery perhaps— but Alexandrie doesn't wish to break apart the moment with a search, and she knows she doesn't need to. ]
What was it you used the last time, [ she asks, looking down for a moment with a smile at the soft shine of the hair he'd chosen that wraps his finger, the private little pleasure it gives her to think it already his, and then back to his eyes. ] When you were being unkind.
[ Every time she smiles at him it's some new wonder. He marvels at that, at how she can be so soft with him in so many circumstances. ]
A dagger, certainly.
[ He sets his other, unoccupied hand in his lap, summoning the dagger there and turning it by the handle so that the blade points towards his leg and doesn't point towards Alexandrie. ]
Edited (good lord where did all that extra space come from) 2021-09-23 00:25 (UTC)
Then use it now, [ she says, her voice like the smallest feathers of a bird that trusts itself to touch, ] so you may remember ever after that something that has only ever harmed can love as well.
[ Her eyes are luminous as she reaches for the dagger, lifts it with care, and deftly turns it in her hand to offer him the hilt. ]
[ He blinks his surprise at her choice of words; she could mean the dagger, she could mean either of them from what she's told him about herself before she met the Loki from Tevinter. It's probably for the best that he presumes she means all of it.
His expression softens as Loki takes the dagger from her. ]
I don't know how I could forget, having met you.
[ There's a great measure of care as he lifts the blade to her hair, holds it steady, and shears off the curls wound around his finger. With a small flourish the blade is set aside on the bedspread and he brings his hand into the space between them to show her what he's cut. ]
Thank you. It means... so much. No one has ever granted me a token before.
[ It's strange— and oddly thrilling— to see it parted from her; she can't remember having her hair cut at all. Not once, save for little trims of the ends to keep it healthy. And now there it is, separate and wrapped around Loki's elegant finger much as she is. ]
It means much to me as well.
[ Alexandrie smooths out the ribbon she had tied her braid with, folds it in half to shorten it, and finds the end of the strands he holds so she can tie them neatly together. Smiles at him again, a shy little curve. ]
[ Loki tilts his head at that admission; he's clearly having a difficult time imagining why those who have missed her would not have asked for something to keep with them, amongst their things, close to their heart as they're separated. It seems so easy and she's yet to have turned down any request he's made of her. Surely others have known her to be the same. ]
Then the others are fools, [ he states simply, uncoiling the hair from around his finger now that she's fastened it with the ribbon. There's clearly no other explanation. ]
[ Her eyes drop demurely for a moment, the corners of her smile twitching higher along with a little huff of mirthful air from her nose.
A gentle chide— ]
Do not be unkind to them.
[ —but she leans to kiss his cheek to show she's thankful for the thought all the same. ]
I am sure Byerly has his reasons.
[ It may well have been trained out of him, the keeping of sentimental things. Or perhaps he does not think himself important enough to ask. She doesn't know. It doesn't hurt, but nor does it joy her as this does. ]
And he... [ A pause, and then there is the heart-pierced ache in her eyes that belongs to her husband. ]
He might have kept something without telling me. I did so. If he did not, I— [ she shakes her head slowly— ] we were so sure. So sure that any distance or time was only temporary, that we were already together again because every return was already promised.
[ It had been so true that truth itself had broken the moment she first began to consider that he wasn't coming back. It is still a tenuous thing, her belief that anything can stay, and what little exists is cobbled together of faith and hope. No trust. ]
If there are to be fools, let them be he and I.
[ Alexandrie pauses then, her breath catching as it is drawn through a smile that trembles. She raises a hand to cup his cheek, stroke it gently with her thumb. ]
I do not know what to do, now. It feels my choices are to be a fool again or be afraid.
[ Loki accepts her kiss with grace, letting his eyes close briefly and only raising his eyebrows at the mention of Byerly. He's a very strange man, by his measure, and is made even stranger by the impossibility to get a good read on, but he's important to Alexandrie and so he won't repeat himself about it.
The rest of it...
He feels a little bad, for being flippant about her husband's lack of foresight. In his position, Loki definitely would have stolen something of Alexandrie's to take with him across the continent. There's no reason to presume it hadn't been the same for d'Asgard.
His hand comes up to cover hers at his cheek. It isn't fair, the things she's lost to war. That she doesn't know one way or another.
The wish that he could do something about it is in his bones, but what, exactly, escapes him still. ]
I would rather you not be afraid.
[ He knows he has very little control over that reality. ]
[ And she is. Trying. Trembling near tears or not, Alexandrie still wears a smile, and her eyes are full of those remnants of faith and hope she has collected rather than despair. ]
It helps, to have your songs to reach for when I miss you. To know you miss me enough to wish to carry a remembrance from me. To be close to you when you are here.
[ She shifts now, seeking after that selfsame comfort of leaning against him, tucking her head at his shoulder. ]
[ He can see it in the way she holds herself even when she's near tears, hears it in her voice even when they've been separated. They are both creatures that have grown too accustomed to their own suffering for their own good, but that doesn't mean either of them wants to be afraid of the future, of what might happen to them.
As she leans he wraps his arm around her again, tucking her head beneath his chin and breathing out softly. ] I know.
Time is probably our best bet.
[ He likes the idea that they have that time to work with. ]
[ She is quiet like this, tucked against him. Even though she can't quite think of 'time' without a little spike of anticipatory loss, or allow herself to see the future spreading for them like bright fields without pulling back as if touching it will burn, he makes her quiet.
She will have to learn again to feel safe in other than the present, but for now— ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
A moment of consideration, then— ]
Like water droplets come together when they touch?
[ That doesn't seem right. Water doesn't become smaller like this. Two droplets joined to become one are still the size of two. She hums and discards the thought to look for another one like it, furrowing her brow as she tries to understand the concepts of a larger universe through the earthly ones she knows, then tilts her head up to look at him when she does. ]
Like making a ball with snow?
[ On another occasion she might wait for an answer, but on this one the words are hardly from her mouth before she is distracted by looking back at what he's made. A moment later she is reaching out to touch it, making a soft delighted sound when it shimmers around the disturbance of her fingers. Her hand stills for a moment, and then she is making curving paths in it as she used to through her husband's, drawing the light of the illusion's breaking and reforming behind her with a childlike look of wonder in her eyes.
And then an equally childlike look at him to check and see if she is misbehaving followed by the soft spread of a shy smile. ]
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[ He shifts and resettles so that one arm goes around her back, hand settling at her waist, as Alexandrie draws her fingers through the illusion, causing the green and gold sparking in her wake.
When she looks at him with that impish expression he can't help but smile, shifting the illusion to one of a closer image of a star's birth. He loves her fascination, her glee in the wake of his magic. It feels loving, and important, and he can't imagine a better audience to share his knowledge with. ]
Something similar happens when a star dies, as well.
[ The image above them changes, filling the room with bright light before he slows the illusion down so she can look more closely. ]
Sometimes they become black holes, little punctures in the fabric of time and space.
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She is watching something made, watching something unmade; darkness turning to light and back again, darker than before there was nothing. Already it weaves itself into allegories for her— she cannot help the way her mind connects the things she learns— and she feels a little less alone, knowing even time and space can be broken by the loss of something beautiful and bright. ]
Only sometimes?
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[ She tucks herself in and he leans over to kiss her forehead. This is a lovely, perfect sort of moment, and he shifts from watching the illusion to watching the light spill across the planes of her face. ]
The light from the stars we've seen has traveled so far through space to reach our eyes here in Thedas — or on any planet really — that the light itself that we see is actually in the past, instead of showing the stars in the present.
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They are like us.
[ Alexandrie turns her face to look out the window for a moment, to find those points of light outside the illusion. They are no less beautiful for her new understanding of them— are, perhaps, more beautiful because they too are born and die and turn around each other and collide. Have children, in a way, with other stars. Linger bright in memory after they are gone. Are grieved for by the fabric of all things.
All of this is happening in the sky, far away. Farther away than she can understand, to a number of stars far beyond her ability to count them, this has been happening without her knowledge and suddenly everything in the world is something worth wonder.
But most of all him.
When she turns her face back, it is to look at Loki the way she did the stars. To follow him in watching not the illusion he had made but its light on him. She cannot keep from reaching to touch his face any more than she could keep from reaching for the stars he'd made. She cannot keep from shifting so she can kiss him any more than that. ]
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That smile increases, warms, when she moves to touch his face. Leaning in to kiss her back is as easily done as breathing, his free hand coming up to touch her cheek in a mirror of her own gesture.
Above them, the illusion shifts to a slightly different image of stars and stardust. ]
I love you, [ Loki murmurs against her lips. Because it's true. Because in this moment it's a thing of wonder, not terror. Because he'd like to remember this moment for as long as he can remember anything. ]
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She kisses the words from his lips so she can keep them with the kind of care that means she thinks them precious; means she thinks he is. Wants to speak, wants to say her own for him, but cannot pull herself away for even the moment it would take to murmur. For now he will have to feel it in the way she leans farther into him, the turn of her body to better seam itself to his, the small and quiet sound that leaves her nose. ]
no subject
He'd rather enjoy kissing her for a while more before he has to decide for or against taking a bath as the next step in the evening.
That doesn't mean he won't intensify the kiss, lips parting across hers. He breathes out through his nose, soft but a touch needy, wanting her to remain there kissing him for as long as possible. ]
no subject
It is art, in a way. Her kind. Spaces wide and beautiful by their nature; their light, their wind. It is always summer in her paintings. Not the sultry evenings, but the clarity and quiet of early morning. The slanting sunlight later in the season. Ripe wheat, flowers in full bloom, the light making verdant Serault glass of the leaves.
It is like this in her heart. With her fingers spread at the side of his face— their tips delicate at his ear, along his jawline— she kisses him like summer.
no subject
His lips tingle and his breathing is heavier by the point that they break for air, Loki rubbing the tip of his nose alongside Alexandrie's. ] I've missed you terribly, [ he admits. ] The next time I leave I'll have to take a token along with me, and hide it.
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A moment, and then she smiles. Disentangles herself enough to sit up— with a kiss for his forehead on the way— so he can better see her as she unties the ribbon that secures her braid and fingercombs free the bright copper of her curls, pulling them forward over her shoulders when she is done and separating one out to tickle the tip of Loki’s nose with. ]
You must pick the one you like the very best and take it with you.
[ She is so prideful of her hair, so careful in its keeping. The ready willingness of the offer speaks louder of her heart than words could ever manage. ]
Then any time I am combing my hair in the mornings and come upon one which is shorter than the rest I shall remember there is part of me with you and I, too, shall feel a little less alone.
no subject
Not just because of what it means, to have someone who is as particular about their hair as Alexandrie clearly is (and he knows this, has watched her morning routine more than once now, and each time is astounded by the work and the care that goes into it), but because it reminds him of Sif, and the terribly cruel joke he'd played on her in regards to cutting her hair.
So he blinks a little, tilting his head and smiling sweetly after a moment, looking away from her face to take in the shape of her hair cascading around it. He reaches out and pulls his fingers carefully through a section of her hair, shaking his head a little bit. ]
An entire strand of curls? [ Loki asks, voice full of wonder. If Sif could see him now, she'd laugh in his face, he thinks, and he'd deserve it. ]
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It's an impetuous thing, perhaps, but somehow it does not feel like anything of the sort. It is simple: he had wanted something of her for his travels, she wishes it as much as he does, and it is the most intimate thing she can give. Far more than a handkerchief, a ribbon, even if she were to soak it in the summer rose of her perfume. Those things are hers, but they are not of her. This is.
It is for them when one of them is gone, and for them when they are together. She might find those missing strands in the mornings, as she'd said, but when he is here with his hands in her hair Loki will sometimes find them too; a reminder that one night she'd made a choice and it was him. ]
I give it freely.
[ Then a quiet chuckle. ]
Perhaps leave me a little at the top to pin.
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He separates one set of strands out, looping the hair around his index finger. ]
The last time I cut someone's hair it was to be unkind. [ He shakes his head a little; no one's ever given him a token like this, much less offered to allow him to choose it himself. ] Do we have scissors?
[ He has his daggers (one, at least, always, hidden away and summonable; the second is in his pack) if not, and they're definitely sharp enough for this business. ]
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What was it you used the last time, [ she asks, looking down for a moment with a smile at the soft shine of the hair he'd chosen that wraps his finger, the private little pleasure it gives her to think it already his, and then back to his eyes. ] When you were being unkind.
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A dagger, certainly.
[ He sets his other, unoccupied hand in his lap, summoning the dagger there and turning it by the handle so that the blade points towards his leg and doesn't point towards Alexandrie. ]
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[ Her eyes are luminous as she reaches for the dagger, lifts it with care, and deftly turns it in her hand to offer him the hilt. ]
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His expression softens as Loki takes the dagger from her. ]
I don't know how I could forget, having met you.
[ There's a great measure of care as he lifts the blade to her hair, holds it steady, and shears off the curls wound around his finger. With a small flourish the blade is set aside on the bedspread and he brings his hand into the space between them to show her what he's cut. ]
Thank you. It means... so much. No one has ever granted me a token before.
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It means much to me as well.
[ Alexandrie smooths out the ribbon she had tied her braid with, folds it in half to shorten it, and finds the end of the strands he holds so she can tie them neatly together. Smiles at him again, a shy little curve. ]
No one who has missed me has ever asked.
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Then the others are fools, [ he states simply, uncoiling the hair from around his finger now that she's fastened it with the ribbon. There's clearly no other explanation. ]
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A gentle chide— ]
Do not be unkind to them.
[ —but she leans to kiss his cheek to show she's thankful for the thought all the same. ]
I am sure Byerly has his reasons.
[ It may well have been trained out of him, the keeping of sentimental things. Or perhaps he does not think himself important enough to ask. She doesn't know. It doesn't hurt, but nor does it joy her as this does. ]
And he... [ A pause, and then there is the heart-pierced ache in her eyes that belongs to her husband. ]
He might have kept something without telling me. I did so. If he did not, I— [ she shakes her head slowly— ] we were so sure. So sure that any distance or time was only temporary, that we were already together again because every return was already promised.
[ It had been so true that truth itself had broken the moment she first began to consider that he wasn't coming back. It is still a tenuous thing, her belief that anything can stay, and what little exists is cobbled together of faith and hope. No trust. ]
If there are to be fools, let them be he and I.
[ Alexandrie pauses then, her breath catching as it is drawn through a smile that trembles. She raises a hand to cup his cheek, stroke it gently with her thumb. ]
I do not know what to do, now. It feels my choices are to be a fool again or be afraid.
no subject
The rest of it...
He feels a little bad, for being flippant about her husband's lack of foresight. In his position, Loki definitely would have stolen something of Alexandrie's to take with him across the continent. There's no reason to presume it hadn't been the same for d'Asgard.
His hand comes up to cover hers at his cheek. It isn't fair, the things she's lost to war. That she doesn't know one way or another.
The wish that he could do something about it is in his bones, but what, exactly, escapes him still. ]
I would rather you not be afraid.
[ He knows he has very little control over that reality. ]
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I am trying.
[ And she is. Trying. Trembling near tears or not, Alexandrie still wears a smile, and her eyes are full of those remnants of faith and hope she has collected rather than despair. ]
It helps, to have your songs to reach for when I miss you. To know you miss me enough to wish to carry a remembrance from me. To be close to you when you are here.
[ She shifts now, seeking after that selfsame comfort of leaning against him, tucking her head at his shoulder. ]
Perhaps the rest is time.
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[ He can see it in the way she holds herself even when she's near tears, hears it in her voice even when they've been separated. They are both creatures that have grown too accustomed to their own suffering for their own good, but that doesn't mean either of them wants to be afraid of the future, of what might happen to them.
As she leans he wraps his arm around her again, tucking her head beneath his chin and breathing out softly. ] I know.
Time is probably our best bet.
[ He likes the idea that they have that time to work with. ]
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She will have to learn again to feel safe in other than the present, but for now— ]
Thank you, [ she says, ] for the stars.
And for coming back.