The days wound on, one after the other, and as they passed, Maitimo found himself slowly but surely growing stronger. Within a week, he was able to spend the time from sunrise to sunset awake and lucid, though he was so exhausted by nightfall that he fell into sleep too deep to dream in; after a fortnight, he was free of nearly all his bandages, and given leave to find things to do while he waited for the deep gash in his hip to heal. It was the last of his wounds to cling to what he supposed passed for life, rather than close up and turn to scars and scabs, and until it was no longer a great open maw of raw flesh, he was forbidden to get out of bed except to sit on the edge of it for a bedpan.
He had very nearly died getting that gash, and he had been attempting to die in the first place. It was one of the few moments when he was left with another thrall and they were not bound hand and foot by heavy iron shackles; he had whispered a faint plea for mercy and kindness in that elda's ear, and had been answered with welcome hands about his throat and a shove to the sandy floor. It had been a faint hope that death would find him quickly, and ultimately it was a doomed one, for their guards had noticed and had attempted to separate them. They had tried to move as one, scrambling back from the hands that might stop their mutually-sought end, but they were stopped. One of the orcs had thrown his weapon, a wickedly sharp lance meant for spearing defiant or escaping móli, and it had pierced through his hip and torn a ragged line down the curve of the joint.
The wound had gone untreated - he was informed that it was his own fault he had suffered it, and so it would have to heal or fester on its own - and now, Endanáro was worried that if he did not spare the limb from any unnecessary movement, he might lose the leg to rot as he had lost his hand.
"I do not want that," he had said at his last meeting with the chief healer. "I - I cannot imagine what sort of person I would be without a leg. How useless I would be."
Endanáro had looked at him sharply, eyes flashing beneath dark brows, and he had been reminded suddenly that the nér before him was at least as old as his grandfather.
"You are being self-deprecating," the healer had informed him, "and more than a little ridiculous. Even if you did lose the leg, you would not be useless. We are Noldor. Where there is no way forward, we make one. If your leg must be amputated, we will do so, and do all we can to ensure your recovery, and surely, there are enough craftsmen among our people to ensure you can ride a horse afterwards!"
They had parted ways with Endanáro convinced that their debate was over and he had been the winner, but Maitimo himself was unconvinced. I am named for my beauty, he had thought before losing himself in examining a bird that had perched on his windowsill. Without that, what am I?
It was a question he pondered over again and again, failing to reach an answer every time it surfaced in his thought. Findekáno was unhelpful, insisting that he would always be lovely in the eyes of his husband. Privately, he thought that his husband would find him lovely if he were a Maia who took the form of a large pile of dung, but he knew that this accusation would be fiercely debated for weeks on end if he ever bothered to voice it aloud. Endanáro was equally useless in this debate - he was unsure if the stolid, serious healer was capable of any emotion save "certainty of success". The only other people he had met were Amdis (brimming with furious determination that propelled her to attack everything in her path as though it were an orc standing between her and her weekly rations) and Súlwë (quiet, and kind, but reserved, with thoughts deeper than the deepest pits in Utumno) and his cousin Itarillë, and they had given him no sign as to what they thought of him as a whole nér, appearance and all. Amdis had focused exclusively on the work of changing his bandages while Endanáro saw to his hip and Findekáno looked on worriedly, and Súlwë he had only seen the once. Neither of them had given him any sign that he was particularly ugly, though Itarillë had stared wide-eyed at him in the unabashed way that all hínar did when they were surprised at something.
The staring did not bother him - it would have, before the Darkening, or perhaps even before his capture, but he had been a spectacle for orcs and thralls and Úmaiar and even for Moringoþo himself, and he was used to prying eyes taking him to pieces. Besides, she has not seen me in her living memory, and here I am all wrecked and patched together.
Súlwë stared too, he thought in response, and then sighed. But he would probably tell me he was dismayed to find me so reduced from my former self.
That is probably the only answer I will get from any of my ordinary visitors, husband included.
He let the thought drop for a moment, instead counting the stitches in the seam of his blanket and noting where the maker had run out of one sort of thread and been forced to use another. If I were a poet, he mused, I would write a few lines on that, and treat it as some sort of metaphor for new beginnings after great loss, or as the grand truth of life, that even if you must make some sort of great change, you can still be someone who is valued and loved and no one will mind the differences, just as I do not care that the thread is now white rather than cream.
Thankfully, I am not a poet. That would be an absolutely dreadful piece of verse. No, if I am going to be satisfied, truly satisfied? I must see more people, and gauge their reactions. They will tell me whether or not I am hideous, and do so honestly.
This satisfied him, and he nodded to himself, returning his attention to the blanket. He did his best to ignore the quiet, persistent but what if I am ugly? that was suddenly growing at the back of his mind. That was, thankfully, a problem for another day.
Findekáno was in surprisingly high spirits. It had been sixteen days since his marriage-bond had sparked anew, and in that time he had managed to master walking well enough. Gone were his large, awkward, twisting steps, and in their place was the gait that he had known for so long before. That morning, Amdis had finally taken the cast from his ankle, and proclaimed him as close to healed as he was likely to get, and he had spent the day wandering through their encampment and observing what he had missed in these last frantic weeks.
The excavated cave for the forge was finished, propped up and supported by beams of wood cut from a tree that had been felled by lightning in a recent storm, and Isilórë, who had been placed in charge of the project, had told him that they were ready to begin the serious work of making tools and nails and weapons just as soon as they could find some way to trade for an anvil.
"The Artaran will not let us fell any trees, or take any living wood unless out of uttermost need, or quarry for stone," he said, "but we can fortify our tents, and we can expand our plowing, and we can perhaps build fences for paddocks and coops. I have been told that any trees that were brought down by storms or disease or disaster are ours, more or less, and there were several oaks that last week's lightning left on the ground."
"Why are we so cautious?" Findekáno asked. "I know that my father is concerned about the Sindarin King, since these lands are under his claim, but we must live, surely!"
"It's in case we are asked to move," the youth told him. Isilórë was dark-eyed and dark-haired after the fashion of so many of the Noldor, though his skin was pale and betrayed some measure of Telerin ancestry, and his expression was bright and animated as he spoke. "We have not yet had any formal negotiation with the Sindar, though they have been gracious and permitted us to dwell in what was once a hunting-ground, and so Aran Nolofinwë has asked that we only take those steps that can be sincerely argued to be necessary for our survival. He says that we are meant to be - well, different from our estranged cousins."
Findekáno sighed, and found himself glancing across the lake towards its southern shores and the far-off walls of the Fëanárian stockade. His thoughts had turned more and more towards his cousins as the days wore on and Russandol grew stronger and more like himself, but now he was envious of what they had built rather than nervous at what their nearness meant. If they knew their brother was here, he thought for what must have been the hundredth time, they would come and take him from us, and set him up as lord of his own House again. And I know - I know I cannot keep him back from his doom, only…
He never knew what the great ache was in his chest when he considered the looming future, he only knew that it left him frightened and desperate and desiring nothing more than the comfort of his husband's arms.
"Haryon-nînya?" Isilórë asked him, and he blinked suddenly and realized he had lost himself in thought.
"I'm sorry," he said, and smiled somewhat self-deprecatingly. "I am wishing that for once we were a little more like them, and not so determinedly apart."
"Proper houses would be nice," the youth said, and shrugged. "If the cold comes again, we can weather it, and - !"
"Again?" Findekáno asked, alarmed. "Why would it come again?"
"I am only repeating what I have heard, from some of us who have bothered to speak to the trees here," Isilórë said. "And there is - you can feel it, in the earth, if you let yourself. Things here move in cycles and in rings, ever progressing and doubling back on themselves. I think there will be another cold, and then another thaw, and then warm days like these, and then a cooling time, and then the whole thing shall repeat again."
"And this will just - go on, for always?" Findekáno asked dubiously.
"That is my guess, though of course I cannot be sure."
"I don't like it," he said, and then chuckled when Isilórë frowned. "I know I cannot change it, but I don't like it - how am I to do anything at all when in just a few weeks the world will be on its head?"
"Things move faster here, I think," the youth replied. "We have planted some, and you ought to go look at it - we only laid down seed this past thaw, before you arrived, and yet already our crops are ripening."
"Hm," Findekáno answered. "If that is the case, then the cycles may not be our ruin after all."
"My hope is that if there is another freeze, by the next thaw, we will have a plow," Isilórë told him. "Then we could have proper fields for true crops, and not spend all our time gathering and foraging and going more and more into debt with the Sindar. But where we will get the iron for it, and the tools, and the anvil - that remains to be seen." He grew suddenly serious, and his dark eyes seemed to grow darker with concern. "The anvil will be a problem."
"How so?"
"I don't know if the Sindar use anvils at all. It is the Arafinwëans who spearheaded the efforts to trade with them, and who speak their tongue fluently; we have gotten food from them, and some rope and a few things crafted of wood and bone and glassy stone, but nothing truly forged as you or I would know it. And even if they did have an anvil, I doubt they would give it to us. All we have that is valuable is already in their hands, and we are too different to offer up help in labor or in the pursuit of knowledge."
Findekáno sighed. Isilórë was right, of course, and he could see now why his father had been so keen on mentoring the youth, but hearing the truth from a reliable source did not make him any happier with it.
"There is somewhere else we might look for an anvil," he said, and even as he spoke he scoffed. House Fëanáro giving up the tools of their trade in the name of peace and alliance was roughly as likely as Moringotto turning himself into a fly and choosing to be eaten by a garden spider.
"Unless we steal it, we will not get it," Isilórë remarked, and for a moment Findekáno seriously considered sneaking across the lake at the dead of night and attempting such a heist.
"We need it more than they do," he said. "And they can always make another one. I have heard from Artaresto that they have a mine, and a quarry."
"If only we cared so little for land rights," Isilórë remarked, and then shook his head. "I have to get back to work - the excavations are done, but I am tasked with assembling a list of all we shall need for a fully working forge, and seeing what we can build ourselves." He smiled ruefully. "The rest will need to be traded for, though I don't see how we can manage it."
"I will do what I can," Findekáno promised.
"Thank you," Isilórë said, and then turned to go back into the low cave.
Findekáno made his way towards the single tilled field that Isilórë had mentioned, walking back along the shores of the lake and skirting the edges of the rows of tents that made up the bulk of his people's homes. As he passed by, he was greeted by smiles, and occasional shouts of welcome; he returned each of them with a matching grin and what words of thanks he could muster up. The problem of the anvil was vexing him - they had weapons, and some armor, though it was not enough for sustained war, and he knew it. If Moringotto decides to strike us first, he thought, we are doomed, unless the host across the lake deigns to help us.
They might, though, he countered, since Russandol is alive, and we saved him.
Or they will assume I rescued him only for his worth as a hostage, and not out of the kindness of my heart, and they will let Moringotto slaughter every last elda within our camp after taking pains to get him safe behind their stockade walls.
"Findekáno!"
The cry that brought him up out of his musing was high-pitched and eager; he paused and looked over his shoulder to see Itarillë and Írissë drawing close to where he walked. Itarillë was nearly up to her chest in the tall grasses, but she was gamely pressing on, and his sister bore a basket under one arm. He could see Turukáno behind the both of them, carrying his own basket and walking more slowly.
"Hello!" he cried, and when his hánoanel reached him and threw her arms around his waist, he returned her embrace with a wide smile.
"You're walking!" she said.
"I am," he informed her. "And thank Estë for it, I was getting tired of crutches."
"This means you can come with me tomorrow!" Itarillë informed him, smiling broadly.
"What?"
"I was going to have to with Írissë and Atya," she said, "because Artanís says there will be another storm in two days or so, and it will be too late for flower gathering if we don't go now. But you're walking, so we can go!"
Ah. Right. The memory of his promise to the wendë stung - he had tried not to say 'no,' when she had asked before, but he had not exactly said 'yes' either - and the thought of what he would have to say to her now stung even more.
"I - !" he began, only to be interrupted by Írissë.
"Were you telling Findekáno about your plans for tomorrow?" she asked Itarillë, who nodded excitedly.
"He can walk and carry things again, so it'll be fine," she said, sounding almost as airy and lofty as Artanís for a moment.
"I'm not sure I can - !" Findekáno tried again, but Írissë stopped him with a cold look.
"You should get out of that house," she told him. "And Itarillë has been looking forward to going with you for weeks now."
"But - !"
"No buts," she said, smiling faintly at him. "You have a life outside of a sickroom, you know."
Please, he thought silently, not quite speaking to her but hoping she could somehow understand him. He caught her gaze with his own, making direct eye contact and hoping that would somehow tell her what he meant to say. I cannot leave Russandol. I can't, not for that long - what if he needs me?
"What are we all talking about?" Turukáno asked, having finally reached them. Findekáno could see both his siblings' baskets piled high with roots and tubers and the pale bitter bulbs that had come to be the primary source of spice and flavor in many meals since their feast.
"Findekáno and I are going flower-gathering tomorrow, for the house," Itarillë told her father.
"Oh, you are?" he said, and he almost smiled. Turukáno was withdrawn, and stony, and quiet, and since Elenwë's death he barely laughed, but now and again he came close, and it was always because of his daughter. "And what about your embroidery lessons?"
Itarillë's face fell. "If we don't go tomorrow, Artanís says there won't be any more flowers!"
"And what does Artanís know of the weather on these strange shores?"
"More than you'd think," Írissë interjected. "She predicted that storm last week, and she even knew where the trees that were felled by lightning had fallen."
All four eldar fell silent, considering the eerie implications of this statement, and then Turukáno shook himself and half-smiled again.
"I was teasing, anyhow," he said. "There will be plenty of time for embroidery lessons later."
Itarillë let go of Findekáno to throw herself at her father, who came very near to a true grin when she hugged him.
"Stay close to your atarháno, all right?" he asked. "We are safe here, but that does not mean there is no danger. Even in Aman you could fall out of a tree and break your neck."
"As if I would let her climb that high," Findekáno said, almost sharply. He had not missed the unspoken don't let my daughter die, or I will never forgive you; he was rather annoyed that his brother felt it necessary to communicate such a thing to him.
"You can't be too careful," Turukáno answered, and when he looked down at his brother they very nearly made eye contact.
"I know," he answered, glancing down at the grasses and the sandy soil they sprung out of. "But she's family, Turvo. I wouldn't let her fall."
Another silence fell. Findekáno hadn't been near Elenwë when she had been lost, and so there was nothing particularly biting that either nér could say to the other; they stood awkwardly apart for a few moments before Írissë spoke up.
"Supper is ready, I think," she said, glancing up at the Sun and guessing from her proximity to the trees that it was nearing what would have been considered the seventh golden hour in Aman. "We won't be joining you - we have to get the fruits of our foraging to the kitchens, and then I at least want a bath. I'm covered in dirt from all this digging." She held up her hands, which were black at the fingertips, and Itarillë giggled when she made a face.
"We need a bath as well," Turukáno said, sounding considerably more lighthearted.
"I don't," Itarillë said, and then laughed harder when her father glanced down at her feet. They were bare, and streaked with dust and the green from the grass, and just as dirty in places as Írissë's hands.
"I will see you later, then," Findekáno said. "I'm going to go have a look at our crops, and then head into the house."
"We were just by the field," Turukáno said. "What were you meaning to do? There's no work being done there now."
"Mostly I wanted to see what we were growing," he admitted. "To get a better idea of it, and of what might be done to improve it."
"The soil isn't right for polë, so we're growing mulda instead," his brother explained.
"Mulda? For us, and not as feed?"
"The Sindar say you can eat it, and once it's grown, we won't have to trade with them for flour anymore."
"Is that why the bread is so different?"
"It's different because the yeasts here are different," Írissë cut in. "I can speak to that more than either of you - it's harder, now, to get a starter going. We have three or four people working on that and only that more or less day and night, until we can find out how it is done."
"I suppose it's lucky we aren't níssi, then," Findekáno said to Turukáno, laughing. "Else we would have to spend all our hours staring at flour and water."
"The Sindar have polë, though," Írissë continued, ignoring her brothers' jests. "Because the flour is like the flour from home. I don't know what sort of bread mulda will make."
"We could cook the grains and then eat them, perhaps?" Findekáno asked. "The Sindar have erdi, too, because it's in our porridge; we know how to cook that."
"You're asking that we eat all our meals Telerin-fashion?" Turukáno asked. "That's a tall order, Finno."
"Until we find a place that polë can grow, what choice do we have?"
"Are we going to stand here all evening, or may I go take my bath?" Írissë asked.
"Right," Turukáno said. "We'll see you later, then? Or are you going to vanish into the sanctity of Maitimo's chamber?"
Findekáno rolled his eyes, careful to avoid looking too closely at his brother. "I'll be around," he said. "If he doesn't need me."
"Hm," the other nér replied, but said nothing else, and his eyes were bright with curiosity and concern as he and his daughter began the trek toward the bathhouse.
When Findekáno sat down at the dinner table, he was not alone. His father was there, as always, blocked from view on three sides by stacks of thin, curling bark-paper that held the business of their government in their depths; what was surprising was the presence of his Arafinwëan cousins.
He had seen very little of that side of his family since the feast; they kept more or less to themselves, and had little to do with those members of his household that he saw most often. While he and his family had focused on building, and farming, his cousins had focused exclusively on cultivating good relationships with the Sindar. It was thanks to them that trade had occurred at all, and so everyone owed them a great debt, and yet despite this show of friendship they were still an impenetrable inner circle of five. Privately, he wondered if their standoffish nature had anything to do with the fact that they had been on the opposite side at Alqualondë, but he could not truthfully say that they hadn't always been aloof and over-burdened with gravitas. Now, though, Artanís sat at the end of the table to his right, with Findaráto and Artaresto to her right, and Aikanáro and Angaráto opposite them. The meal was hearty - venison and tubers and roots and bulbs all cut up and roasted in broth, served with bread made from Sindarin flour - and everyone seemed to be in high spirits.
"How are you, cousin?" Angaráto asked him, once their plates were more or less empty. "I have scarcely spoken to you since your grand flight out of the North."
"Hah," Findekáno said, smiling softly. "I am well enough. Better still now that I am no longer encumbered by my crutch."
"So you finally heeded the healers' instructions long enough to recover," Artanís said, an enigmatic smile of her own playing over her lips. "Good."
Findekáno shrugged, trying to dismiss how eerie she made him feel. His youngest cousin - younger even than Pityo, who had been the baby of the family before her - was a strange nís, taking after her father in the extreme, and she knew more than she said aloud. He was not sure why she had bothered to come to these shores at all, when she might have made a bid for the throne of the Noldor in Tirion, but he supposed she must have had her reasons.
"Now that you have your legs again," Aikanáro said, "what do you mean to do? Go back to hunting, as you did before?"
"I don't think so, actually," he replied, and took a drink of water from his cup. "It is time I started taking my responsibilities as Crown Prince seriously, I think. There are many things that our people need, or could stand to have more of. I want to have a hand in the labors that change that."
"If you are serious about such things, yonya, I have a series of agricultural proposals that could use your attention," Nolofinwë said from behind his barricade.
"At the moment, I'm trying to see how I could help Isilórë with the forge," Findekáno told him, "but as soon as I've either found a solution to their most pressing problem or given up, I'm planning on devoting myself to the question of staple crops."
"What's the trouble with the forge?" Findaráto asked in between mouthfuls of food. "I haven't heard anything about that."
"You've been busy helping to turn the trees to lumber," Angaráto informed him. "The forge is done, but there's nothing to go in it. That is the trouble."
"Yes, precisely," Findekáno said. "We are set to make tools, and weapons, and nails, but we have no anvil, and no metal to work with."
"That is a problem," Findaráto said. "How do you mean to fix it?"
"I don't know," he admitted. "Isilórë discussed trying to trade for it, but he didn't think it was possible."
"If we get an anvil at all, it will be through trade," Nolofinwë said. "I won't have my people digging for iron ore that might not exist, not when we have no guarantee that such an action will not be seen as impossibly rude. Do the Sindar use anvils?"
"I don't know," Aikanáro said, "and even if they did, I doubt they would trade something so valuable for what we have to offer them."
"That is what Isilórë said," Findekáno sighed. "I wish we were in a better position to trade with. I am grateful for their generosity, but I dislike living solely on charity."
"We are on their land," Artanís said, setting her fork down on her empty plate. "Charity is all we can hope for, until we can ask Thingol for leave to properly settle in this place."
"Exactly," Nolofinwë agreed. "That is why I have been so careful in our growth here. Nothing has been done that cannot be undone, and nothing has been altered that we did not need to alter for our survival."
"I cannot imagine Thingol cares very much, considering that there is an entire city across the lake," Findaráto cut in. "There have been no Sindarin armies marching on the Fëanárian stockade, or destroying their mine, or flooding their quarry."
"The Fëanárian host behaves as if they are entitled to all this country, though," Angaráto said. "We are not entitled to it - we are guests."
"But we must live," Findekáno said, agreeing with Findaráto. "If we could seek out metal of our own - just enough to build the anvil, even - !"
"And ruin what goodwill we have with our hosts?" Nolofinwë asked. "No." He looked sharply at his eldest son; Findekáno turned his eyes down and hoped it seemed respectful. "We trade for the anvil, or we do not have it."
"We could always steal one," Aikanáro said, and the table erupted into fierce discussion.
"No!"
"Yes!"
"They did steal everything from us, it's only fair."
"They will certainly kill whoever tries it - can you imagine smuggling a whole anvil past their guards? And from that House?"
"We will be stealing nothing at all," Nolofinwë answered, firm and unyielding. All fell silent, and everyone who had spoken seemed to be at least a little ashamed of the outbursts.
"I am not averse to negotiating for an anvil, or for the tools we would need for a well-stocked forge," he continued, and he turned his sharp eyes on the Arafinwëans. "But we will not be stealing it, not from them, not when it would only cause more bloodshed in the end."
"You're right," Aikanáro said. "Of course you're right." But Findekáno could tell that he was unsatisfied; a bright fire was sparking in his pale eyes.
"I have contacts deeper in the forest," Artaresto said, and Findekáno realized for the first time that Artaresto had not spoken at all since he had taken his place at the table. All eyes turned to him, even Nolofinwë. "They are Sindar, but they are not the hunters we usually trade with. They live in the forest, near what I suppose must be a hidden city of some sort. They trade with all sorts of eldar, and are willing to share much of that bounty in return for learning our tongue and the tongue of the Teleri. I have not spoken to them in some time, but when my father and I next meet with the hunters, I will give them a message to carry back, and I will see what I can find for us." He smiled, faintly but eagerly, as if seeing for the first time how important he had become. "I think I can manage an anvil."
"You are certainly welcome to try," Nolofinwë said approvingly.
"I will not be able to join you tomorrow," Angaráto told his son from across the table. "I have pledged myself to helping catch fish."
"That's all right," Artaresto said. "I think I can manage."
"Do you need anyone to go with you?" Aikanáro asked.
"You certainly can't," Artanís informed him, before her hánoyon could answer. "You and I have to work on covering the mulda before the storm breaks."
"And I've told Itarillë that I'll go flower-gathering with her," Findekáno said.
"You're finally leaving the house for longer than a few hours?" Findaráto cried in mock surprise. "Good! I am astonished, I thought you would never do so again."
"I am doing it under duress," Findekáno told the table. "I am already nervous about Maitimo, and what leaving him might mean."
"The healers did a fine job keeping him alive when he first arrived," Findaráto said. "I think that he can spare you for a day now that he can sit up in bed, or so I am told - I have not seen my cousin since that night." He paused, and nodded. "If it would make you feel better, Finno, I will keep him company in your absence."
Fear and shock and concern blended in Findekáno's gut until he thought he would freeze.
"You… you would?" he asked, and pretended that he had choked on his water.
"Of course," Findaráto said. "He's family. And even if he did strand us, he has certainly paid for it."
"He didn't," Findekáno replied quietly, setting his cup down and swallowing hard.
"Didn't what?" Findaráto asked.
"Didn't strand us. He tried to stop it. The first thing he did was apologize to me for failing."
"Oh," Artanís said, and her surprise seemed to echo back and forth between her siblings. "I… I suppose I've misjudged him, then."
"So have we all," Angaráto said. "And we ought to apologize."
Findekáno wondered if they believed him, if their quiet discomfiture and wide eyes meant that they suspected he was a liar, and then he wondered if this was how every shock went in the house of their father. His atarháno was a rather reserved nér to begin with, and he had only grown more mellow after moving to Alqualondë. I have no reason to think they do not believe me, he told himself, trying to stop his pounding heart. No reason at all. And… and I suppose I must model my father's call for openness and trust, if I am to take my place and lead my people.
Russo, I hope you are not furious with me.
"I'm sure he would love your company," he said, glancing up at his cousins. "Really. He has been very lonely, though he hasn't said as much aloud."
"It's settled, then," Findaráto told him brightly. "You can go have your fun with Itarillë, and we will look after Maitimo."
"That sounds just fine," Findekáno said, hoping that his smile didn't seem too forced. "I am looking forward to a day in the Sun, anyway."
He wasn't, but he supposed it couldn't be helped; he sighed again and focused on finishing his dinner.
Please, whichever Vala has decided that they like me enough to help me so far, don't let this turn into yet more unnecessary dramatics. One day. That's all I'm asking. One day.
Nothing too ridiculous can happen, can it?