"I suppose tangentially. Has the poor girl been avoiding me on purpose for the last fifteen Years."

"She's been avoiding being around you and me at the same time, but there was no more reason for her not to be around you on her own than for me to be."

"She does not need to do that."

"Okay.

Ahya does the whole disreputable thing on purpose. Because it's less plausible this way that one of Calairo and Ercanis' daughters desires women and it's not her."

"That's thoughtful of her. I don't - think - Tyelcormo's doing that..."

"...Tyelcormo does--well, did, but..."

"And I don't think he knows."

"Knows--oh."

"I actually asked you here because I wanted to ask you to marry me.

Uh. As friends."

"This is one of the weirder things that's happened to me. Uh, tentatively yes, I'm going to want to talk to Vorondie about it before saying yes for sure."

Hug. "That makes sense. - be careful -"

"Be careful about what? As far as I know you're the only person who's ever figured us out. ...Ahya doesn't count, I told her on purpose."

"Then it sounds like you're being appropriately cautious but - keep being that, the royal family gets a lot of attention."

"Yeah. We will."

He squeezes her hand.

"...Is this why Findekano picked her glassworks' to get a present?"

"Wanted them to meet. It'd be convenient if that worked, we could travel as two couples with no questions, but it doesn't need to, they can decide separately."

"So you two--huh, that makes a lot of sense in retrospect. She liked him well enough, for the amount of acquaintance they had."

"He's lovely," he says fondly.

"Tell me about how he's lovely so I can talk him up for her when we get back."

He has a story about some tedious argument between their fathers, when Findekáno was still a child and Maitimo mostly grown but not yet sure of which rhetorical weapons had replaced innocent cuteness and had decided to handle it by feeding his little cousin lines. Findekáno went off script, but all for the better -

- they travelled together down south, back before there was anything to worry about raising suspicions about, they found a runaway seven-year-old, here's what happened -

- there's a song they wrote together, does she want to hear it -

She would love to hear it.

He sings the song. He has more stories. The lights change, silver to white-purple to gold, and they head home.

And Marille goes to see Vorondie.

"You'll never guess what happened while I was gone."

"Correct. If asked to do so I will guess something amusing that did not happen and then demand to know the truth when you confirm my guess's incorrectness."