## Chapter 429 — Proof of a Person

Lunch ended without either of them discovering another divine problem.

Lethira seemed satisfied by that. They left the cookshop and stepped back into Merrowford's afternoon movement with the comfortable heaviness of a substantial meal and the less comfortable knowledge that somewhere nearby a woman was considering whether to accept their offer on a house.

"Identity next."

Lethira did not need to consult the increasingly abused collection of notes to remember that one. "The property clerk told us the attestation should be enough, but *should* is a dangerous word when the final deed depends on it. I would rather find out now whether Aelira has written what they actually require."

That meant a brief return to the Reed and Wheel for the royal document before they retraced part of the morning's route towards the civic offices. The contrast amused her once she noticed it. Aelira's attestation was fine parchment, formally written and sealed by the First Princess of the Wood Elves. It existed because an external human who could enter divine prisons and alter reality needed to convince a town clerk that he was sufficiently real to own half a rural house with a bad roof.

"I continue to think this is one of the better uses of your powers," Lethira said as they walked.

The civic offices were quieter after lunch. The morning queue had thinned, leaving several empty benches and one clerk using the lull to retie a bundle of records whose cord had apparently developed personal objections to public service.

The woman with polished lenses who had explained joint ownership earlier was still at her desk. She recognised them, then saw the parchment in Lethira's hand.

"Royal friend?"

Lethira smiled. "Royal friend."

The clerk accepted the parchment and began reading. Her amusement disappeared almost immediately, replaced by professional concentration.

Aelira's language was careful. She did not claim Ian belonged to any known human kingdom, settlement or lineage. She did not invent a birthplace, family or history. She stated that Ian was a living human personally known to her through repeated direct contact, that she recognised him as the same individual represented by the name in the attestation, and that she stood behind that identification under her office as First Princess.

The clerk reached the section specifying what the document did *not* grant.

"No Wood Elf status. No household claim. No inheritance standing. No citizenship equivalent."

"No," Lethira said to each in turn.

"Good."

That answer surprised neither of them anymore.

The clerk read the whole document again before setting it flat on the desk. "This is better than most noble attestations."

Lethira's eyebrows rose. "Why?"

"It says what she knows." The clerk tapped one line. "And what she doesn't."

That, apparently, was high administrative praise.

She turned the parchment towards them and indicated the blank line Aelira had deliberately left beneath the identification text. "This is the remaining part."

The line was for Ian's mark to be made in front of a recognised witness. The clerk pulled a fresh civic sheet from beneath the counter and laid it beside the attestation.

"We don't need the Princess to know what his signature looks like. We need a chain that lets a future clerk connect the person on the deed to the person she has attested."

"The Guild already has a signed aide record," Lethira said.

"Useful, but I don't want to rely on somebody else's copy when the man is standing here. We witness the mark now. Then I send a short verification request to the Guild branch: same name, same individual currently entered as your aide. They answer under their own seal. The royal attestation establishes identity. The Guild establishes the existing local record. This office witnesses the signature used for the land file."

She looked pleased by the neatness of the arrangement.

"No invented history required."

Lethira glanced at Ian. "I think Aelira would approve."

The clerk began filling in the civic sheet. Lethira Dawnleaf was straightforward: current Guild identity, historic archive and current tag. Ian's line required more room, but only because the town had so little to say about him. The record reduced him to exactly what Merrowford needed: a human individual; foreign origin not locally classifiable; personally attested by the First Princess of the Wood Elves; separately recorded by the Merrowford Guild as Lethira's aide; with a witnessed personal mark.

"Does this become some sort of general town identity?" Lethira asked.

"Not by itself. It becomes evidence this office can refer to again. If he later buys another property, inherits something, enters a substantial contract or has a dispute where identity matters, we do not begin from nothing. Assuming he keeps using the same name and mark."

The clerk placed the pen beside the blank line and turned the sheet towards Ian.

Ian signed with the same native signature he had used at the Guild and on the provisional offer, a compact unfamiliar mark whose shapes belonged to a writing tradition no one in the room had been taught.

The clerk watched it form, sanded the ink and added her own witness notation beside it.

"Is a royal attestation normal, and is a First Princess one even rarer? We weren't sure if she would have to ask her father."

The clerk looked up over her lenses. "For buying a modest house? No. Royal attestations are not normal."

Lethira's mouth began to curve.

"Most people prove who they are with much duller evidence. Family witnesses. Guild records. Settlement rolls. Merchant associations. A noble household if they've worked for one. Foreign traders sometimes bring letters from their own authorities." She laid one fingertip on Aelira's seal. "This is considerably stronger than necessary."

Lethira laughed quietly. "I suspected as much."

"A First Princess personally attesting someone is rarer still. I have seen royal-house papers attached to land records before. Usually through officers, stewards or household secretaries. I cannot remember one where the First Princess herself essentially says, 'I know this man; if you doubt that he is this man, you may bring the problem back to me.'"

Lethira looked towards Ian with open amusement now. "You wanted proof you exist."

The clerk continued before the joke could displace the question about authority. "As for her father, I don't know Wood Elf court law well enough to tell you every matter she must refer upward. I do know what this seal means here. The document is issued under her own office. It does not say 'by command of the King.' It doesn't carry a countersignature from another royal officer. And she has been very careful to attest identity rather than grant you some privilege."

That distinction seemed to please the clerk almost as much as it had pleased Aelira when she wrote it.

"If she were declaring you a member of her people, giving you inheritance standing among them, assigning land under Wood Elf law, or making some political claim on behalf of the crown, perhaps her father would matter. I have no idea." She tapped the line naming Ian as personally known to Aelira. "For saying she has met you repeatedly and is willing to put her office behind the fact that you are the same human each time? Apparently she considers that hers to say."

"She does," Lethira said. The clerk asked whether she had checked; Lethira confirmed that she had, yesterday. That settled the matter as neatly as anything involving royalty was likely to settle.

"Then I will defer to the First Princess on the limits of the First Princess."

Lethira laughed.

The clerk added Aelira's attestation as the primary external identification, Ian's Guild aide record as the existing local reference to be verified, and the signature he had just made as the mark witnessed directly by the town office. When she finished, she turned the sheet towards them.

It was remarkably plain. Ian's name. A description only detailed enough to distinguish the record from someone else's. The reference to the Guild. Aelira's authority. His strange signature. The clerk's witness mark.

No invented birthplace. No fictitious parents. No claim that he had lived anywhere in this world before the last several days.

"So if the house purchase proceeds?" Lethira asked.

"We cite this identity record in the deed. I will send the Guild verification request this afternoon. Assuming they confirm what I expect them to confirm, there is nothing further on identity unless the land itself turns out to carry unusual status."

The clerk slid Aelira's original attestation back across the desk. "Keep this until the transfer. I have copied its reference and seal details. If the purchase completes, we'll attach the attestation properly to the title record."

Lethira folded it carefully.

"You are now substantially more documented in Merrowford than many ordinary travellers," the clerk told Ian.

Lethira's eyes brightened. "Does that improve his Guild rank?"

"No."

The answer was immediate.

"Royal friendship still does not count as field competence."

Lethira tucked the attestation safely away and looked at Ian. "Tragic."

Her hand found his as they stepped out of the civic office.

"I am feeling that the entire universe is conspiring to keep me as your aide." Ian smiled. "i like the universe"

Lethira stopped just beyond the doorway and considered whether the joke deserved encouragement.

It did.

"Good. Because I have no intention of releasing you from the position merely because reality eventually discovers that you are catastrophically overqualified."

Outside, the afternoon had warmed. Merrowford's market traffic had thinned slightly from midday, though carts and pedestrians still moved steadily along the western road. Somewhere nearby metal rang under a hammer; farther away the river gave the town its broad background murmur.

Lethira began walking again. "I admit I am becoming fond of the arrangement. I get the rank, the professional reputation and the authority. You get to carry things, provide questionable commentary and occasionally confront primordial beings. Very traditional division of labour."

Ian's record had begun the day as a thin Guild entry attached to someone else's contract. Now Merrowford had his witnessed signature, a royal attestation, and a verification request moving between offices. None of that made him less strange. It simply gave the strangeness somewhere to sit on paper.

"I like the universe too," Lethira said more quietly. "It keeps refusing to treat everything important as the same kind of importance. You can do impossible things. The Guild still wants evidence that you can complete ordinary work. Aelira can recognise you under royal authority. The town still wants the correct signature in the correct place."

Her mouth curved.

"And I can love you without needing any of those systems to understand why."

They walked several steps with that between them before Lethira's practical attention returned.

"We should probably check whether the seller has answered before we invent another task. Although if the universe is truly committed to preserving your aide status, I expect the next message will contain livestock."

Ian gave a short laugh. "yes lets go check, and if positive, we should maybe get some of the provisional tradesmen arranged for checking the roof and the like."

"Inspection first," Lethira said. "Repairs can wait until somebody who knows roofs has insulted ours professionally."

They turned back towards the western market road.

The records-and-contract shop had become familiar enough that Lethira no longer checked its sign before entering. The younger assistant was alone at the front desk when they arrived, but he recognised them and disappeared through the rear doorway before either had to explain why they were there.

The grey-haired intermediary returned carrying a folded memorandum. Her expression gave away nothing.

"The owner answered."

Lethira's hand tightened around Ian's.

The woman opened the memorandum on the desk. "She accepts your offered price provisionally, on the conditions you wrote."

For a moment Lethira simply looked at the document. The seller's mark sat beneath theirs, witnessed separately, with a short acknowledgement that the agreed figure remained subject to the structural inspection, recorded rights, identity verification and final transfer. The house was still not theirs, but the price was no longer hypothetical.

"All right," Lethira said after a breath.

The intermediary glanced at her. "You appear surprised."

"I am."

The woman reminded her, dryly, that this was usually why people made offers. Lethira's mouth twitched.

The seller had also authorised the already-discussed building inspection. No earnest payment was due yet; the provisional memorandum remained exactly that until they had seen the inspection result and decided whether to proceed.

"The inspector you held for tomorrow afternoon has confirmed," the intermediary said. "He can do the dwelling, chimney, visible foundations, damp and the old outbuilding footing in one visit. He knows the property is under provisional agreement."

Lethira nodded. "Good."

"If he finds something needing a specialist—roof structure beyond what he can assess safely, chimney lining, hidden rot—he'll tell you which question needs answering. Don't hire five tradespeople today merely because you now have permission to worry."

That was a professional limit Lethira approved of.

"I would rather pay once for someone to tell us what we actually need."

"Excellent. You may survive land ownership."

The intermediary handed them a copy of the accepted memorandum. Lethira read the seller's acceptance herself, then passed it carefully towards Ian so he could see the added mark.

Their two signatures were still there.

Now there was a third.

The house had an owner willing, in principle, to let it become theirs.

The intermediary gave them directions to the inspector's own small office, only a few streets away, so they could confirm scope and payment directly rather than treating her as a permanent messenger.

Outside, Lethira remained under the awning for several seconds longer than necessary.

"She said yes."

Her voice was quieter than the market around them.

Then the practical part returned.

"Provisionally."

A smile.

"I am going to become intolerable about that word."

The inspector's office occupied the rear half of a joiner's yard, though the man himself was independent of the repair business operating at the front. His desk held roof sketches, measuring cords, a small plumb weight and several pieces of stone and timber whose purpose was not immediately obvious.

He was out on another job, but his clerk had the booking. Tomorrow afternoon was confirmed.

The scope matched what they wanted: roof covering and visible roof structure where safely accessible; chimney condition and draw-related defects visible without dismantling it; floors, accessible beams, walls, signs of damp or movement; visible foundation concerns; and an opinion on whether the surviving outbuilding footings looked worth retaining.

No promise to find what could not be seen. No repair quote bundled into the inspection.

Lethira liked that.

She paid the booking fee. The rest would be due after the inspection.

By the time they stepped back outside, the day had acquired a new fixed point.

Tomorrow afternoon.

Lethira tucked the receipt beside the accepted memorandum and Aelira's attestation.

"We have a seller who has said yes, a clerk who believes you exist, and a man coming tomorrow to tell us how badly our possible roof misbehaves."

She took Ian's hand.

"This is becoming dangerously organised."

Ian looked back towards the inspector's office. "Is there anything useful we can practically do today? Feels like we need to await the inspection, if that's OK, then... we own our .. home"

His words slowed towards the end.

Lethira did not answer the administrative question first.

*Our home.*

The phrase had appeared before, first beside the river and then increasingly attached to one particular pale stone house under old trees. This time it sounded less like imagining and more like something standing just beyond tomorrow afternoon.

"Almost," she said gently. "If the inspection is good enough, then we still have to tell the seller we're proceeding, complete the final deed, pay her, and make the clerks happy one last time. Possibly several last times."

She looked back towards the inspector's office.

"But yes. If tomorrow does not reveal something serious, we will be very close to owning our home."

The market carried on around them: afternoon voices, wheels over stone, bread from somewhere nearby and the occasional sharper sound of metal being worked farther down the street.

"As for today... the identity office is waiting only for the Guild to confirm what Brannock already recorded. We have the attestation. The seller has accepted the price. The inspection is booked. We know the water and access restrictions well enough for now."

She considered the bathhouse. "We could ask for the exact rebuilding procedure before we own the place, but that feels like administrative enthusiasm exceeding usefulness. I think we know enough to understand that a household bathhouse on the existing footprint is probably possible and that drainage will need approval. The precise plan can wait until we actually have a bathhouse to build."

The conclusion visibly pleased her.

"No. I don't think there is anything important we need to accomplish today. We could go back to the holding, but we would mostly be staring at a house we aren't allowed to enter again until tomorrow's inspection. Or we could go to the Guild and invent work because apparently neither of us knows how to tolerate an empty afternoon."

She shook her head.

"No. We have done enough. Yesterday we had no house. This morning we didn't know whether you could legally own one. Now somebody has provisionally agreed to sell us one. That is an unreasonable amount of progress before evening."

Her fingers interlaced with his.

"I vote we stop. Walk somewhere. Sit by the river. Perhaps buy something completely unnecessary for the room at the inn. Not furniture. I already know where I want the table in our possible house, and that is quite enough domesticity for one day."

Then, more quietly, she added, "But tomorrow, if the roof is fixable, the chimney isn't trying to poison us, and the foundations are sound... I think I am going to want to finish this."

Ian let the thought sit for a moment.

"Or, we could go back to the Inn room ...."

Lethira stopped walking.

The pause after *room* was not subtle.

Her eyes moved to Ian, and for a moment the seller, inspector, attestation, roof and final deed lost their place entirely.

"Oh."

A faint flush reached her ears. Then her expression became slower and distinctly less administrative.

"That is also a productive use of an empty afternoon."

She stepped closer, hand still in his, her thumb moving over his knuckles with deliberate attention.

"We have spent most of today discussing joint ownership, bedrooms, baths large enough for two, and moving in together. I was beginning to think you had developed an alarming resistance to implication."

She leaned down and kissed him once, lingering longer than she had in the street earlier. When she drew back, the colour in her ears had deepened.

"The inspector is tomorrow. The seller has accepted. The universe appears to have preserved your aide rank successfully. I think administration can survive without us for a few hours."

Lethira turned towards the Reed and Wheel, still holding his hand.

"The room," she said, with quiet satisfaction. "Our temporary one."

Ian followed her back.

The walk carried them away from the administrative part of Merrowford and through streets familiar enough not to demand attention. Lethira did not hurry, but the hand holding his remained firm, and every so often the corner of her mouth betrayed whatever she was thinking.

Caswick barely glanced up when they crossed the common room.

That, somehow, made Lethira's ears colour again.

Upstairs, their room was exactly as they had left it: travelling things, the bed, shutters open enough to let in the afternoon, Aelira's attestation safely among their papers. Somewhere west of town, a house they might soon own stood with a leaking roof and an empty bedroom whose window could hear the stream.

Lethira closed the door behind them and rested her back against it for a moment.

"We made an offer on a home. And the seller accepted. Provisionally."

The word had already become private comedy between them.

She crossed the room until she stood close to Ian. Her hands settled at his waist, unhurried now that they had nowhere else to be.

"I think I spent most of today moving between being very sensible and wanting to grab you every time someone said *joint ownership*. Apparently property law has unexpected effects on me."

She kissed him. There was nothing tentative in it, but no demand for escalation either. The kiss lasted, warm and unhurried, before she drew back only far enough to rest her forehead lightly against his.

"Tomorrow we can worry about roofs. Today..."

She glanced towards the bed, then back to him.

"We have several hours in which I have absolutely no intention of being a responsible B-rank adventurer."

Ian looked at her.

"Lethira, early today, you used the word lovers. I would like to make that more"

He blushed a little.

"factually correct."

He embraced her and looked up.

For a moment Lethira simply held him. The humour that had followed them back from the market disappeared, though the warmth did not. Her hands settled against his back, and she looked down at him with a stillness he had learned not to mistake for uncertainty.

"Oh."

A faint flush reached her ears.

"I did use that word. And I knew it wasn't quite factually correct yet. I think I was getting ahead of us."

She raised one hand to his face, fingertips resting lightly against his beard.

"But I would like it to be true too."

She kissed him, and when she drew away she stayed close.

"I don't want to because we made an offer on a house, or because today feels important and therefore something else should happen to make it more important. I want you."

No elaborate qualification followed.

"And I admit there is something extremely appealing about correcting the historical record. Especially before Isha learns any more terminology she can preserve forever."

Lethira laughed softly, then looked at him again.

"Yes, my love. I want us to become lovers."

"As do I"

Ian held her face and rose onto his toes to kiss her deeply, passionately.

"i love you."

Lethira's hands came up over his, holding them against her cheeks for a moment after the kiss broke.

"I love you too."

The answer was immediate now. No testing how the words sounded, no surprise at discovering that she meant them. She simply looked down at him with flushed ears and a softness that had survived everything from gods to property clerks.

Ian kicked his boots aside, then his socks, trousers and shirt. Without the boots he stood a fraction lower beside Lethira's still-clothed height. His excitement was already visible through his remaining underwear, and the vulnerability of standing before her that way pleased him.

Lethira did not pretend not to look. Her gaze moved over the ordinary middle-aged body she had already seen in the bath—the natural softness at his waist, dark body hair, legs that had carried him beside her to Merrowford—then returned to his face.

"Oh, Ian."

She stepped close enough that her clothes brushed his bare skin, hands settling at his waist.

"I like seeing you like this. Not because you're undressed." Her mouth curved. "Well. Not *only* because you're undressed. Because you trust me enough to stand here with nothing much between us and still look happy about it."

She kissed him again, then stepped back and undressed in the same practical sequence she had used before the bath, setting weapons safely aside before the rest. Soon she stood before him unclothed as well.

The novelty was not exposure. It was what they had decided this exposure meant.

Lethira crossed the small space between them and wrapped her arms around him. Bare skin met bare skin except where his underwear remained between them.

"Still factual enough for you?"

Before the question could become anything formal, the last bit of modern fabric solved itself in the tradition Ian had already established. His underwear disappeared and reappeared clean, dry and neatly folded with his other clothes, leaving him as exposed as she was.

Lethira looked down, composure lasting only a little longer than it had in the bath.

"I had forgotten that particular convenience."

Her ears coloured, but there was no embarrassment in the fact of his body. She stepped close and held him again, skin against skin, one hand spread across his back while the other settled lower at his waist.

"This feels different."

She drew back just enough to look at him.

"I've wanted you before. Rather obviously. But wanting this while knowing you love me..."

The sentence faded because it did not need explaining.

She kissed him deeply, then rested her forehead against his.

"I love you. And I am very, very glad we came back to the room."

Ian took her hand and led her to the bed. Unusually for them, he laid her down and straddled her. Looking into her smiling, physically ready face, he lifted one of her arms and carefully traced the long ridge of her ear. He bent down, his excitement pressing against her stomach, moved his mouth beside her ear and blew ever so gently across it.

"i want you"

He kissed the ridge, then the tip, before lifting himself back up.

Lethira's eyes stayed closed for several seconds. When they opened, the composure she normally carried so easily was gone, though she remained unmistakably herself.

"Ian."

Her hands moved up his sides and over his back, not pulling him down yet. She seemed to want the moment in which she could simply look at him above her.

"I've had a very long life, and nobody has ever kissed my ear quite like that. Which is irritating, because now I have to admit you may have discovered something before I did."

She raised herself enough to kiss him, one hand behind his head. When she settled back, her breathing was unsteady and her ears deeply flushed.

"I want you too. Completely."

Her hand came to his cheek.

"But this is new for us. So I want to hear you say it once without teasing me, without the house, without gods or clerks or sheep anywhere near it. Do you want to make love with me?"

Ian answered without hesitation.

"Yes, I do, so very much. I want to make love to you, Lethira Dawnleaf, in this place, in this very moment."

Lethira's face softened completely. She drew him down to her and answered against his mouth, "I love you too."

After that, they no longer needed to make every moment into a question spoken aloud. Their first uncertainty became kisses, laughter, pauses to learn what felt right and quiet corrections accepted without embarrassment. Sometimes Ian led, as he had when he brought her to the bed; sometimes Lethira's greater confidence and strength naturally took over. Neither mattered for long. What mattered was the almost overwhelming fact that after all the impossible things which had brought them together, this was simply two people who loved one another choosing to become lovers.

The afternoon passed around them unnoticed.

Hours later they remained tangled beneath the blankets, warm, tired and thoroughly disinclined to recover their clothes. Lethira lay close with Ian gathered against her, one hand moving lazily over his back while the light beyond the shutters had shifted towards evening. Whatever she had imagined their first time might someday be, it had not involved a leaking roof awaiting inspection, a provisional property agreement, a B-rank restoration and several ongoing jokes about sheep.

She seemed entirely content with the reality.

Eventually she kissed the top of his head and murmured, "Factually correct."

Ian faced her, their faces only a few inches apart. He brushed her cheek, then the long edge of her ear with careful tenderness.

"That was wonderful."

Lethira's eyes softened.

"Yes. It was."

Her hand came up over his, holding it gently against her cheek. She turned her face into his palm, kissed the base of his thumb and looked back at him.

"I thought I might feel different afterwards. Not regret. Just... transformed somehow. But I mostly feel like me. Me, in love with you, very comfortable, and significantly less interested in getting out of this bed."

A smile.

"And perhaps a little smug. Because after all that talk about whether we were moving too quickly, I remain extremely pleased with my decisions."

She kissed him softly.

"Tomorrow we may discover our possible roof is disastrous. The seller may change her mind. The chimney may try to kill us. The stream may vanish in summer. The neighbour may own twelve pigs."

She looked back at him.

"None of that touches this. We wanted each other. We chose this."

Then Lethira shifted closer beneath the blankets until there was hardly any space left between them.

"I love you. And I agree with your professional assessment. Wonderful."

Ian closed his eyes and pressed his forehead against hers.

"yes, my lady"

His face held pure contentment.

Lethira went very still. The title was familiar enough in other mouths. From Ian, here, beneath blankets with nothing resembling court authority between them, it landed somewhere entirely different.

"My lady," she repeated softly. "I might allow that. Privately. And only when you look this pleased with yourself."

She kissed him gently enough that the moment stayed where it was rather than beginning anything new. When she settled again, her eyes closed too. The room had cooled slightly as afternoon slipped towards evening, but neither seemed inclined to solve that problem yet.

"I like you like this. Happy. Quiet. Not trying to solve anything. Not even property law."

She brushed her nose lightly against his.

"We can be responsible again later."

Ian traced one finger down the line of her neck, between her breasts and over her stomach, the touch idle rather than searching.

"i want to do this again, in our bed, in our room, in our home."

Lethira's eyes opened. Her hand came down to cover his where it rested against her stomach.

"Our bed."

The words affected her more than the rest. The bed made the imagined future specific: waking beside him somewhere they had chosen, not in an inn room borrowed for a few nights.

"Yes. I want that too. Although I reserve the right to complain if you use impossible power to repair the entire house before I have the opportunity to become annoyed by at least one loose floorboard."

A quiet laugh escaped her.

"But I want to sleep there with you. Wake there with you. And make love to you there."

She kissed him softly.

"In our bed. In our room. In our home."

Ian turned onto his back.

"And, what if I lost my power? I was just an ordinary human."

Lethira watched him for a moment, thoughtful rather than frightened. She shifted onto one elbow beside him, one hand resting lightly against his chest.

"You are an ordinary human. An ordinary human with a catastrophically abnormal tool."

Her fingers moved idly through the hair on his chest.

"If the tool vanished and you were still here—still you—I would love you. I did not fall in love with you because you could change reality. If anything, that part made falling in love with you substantially more complicated."

She smiled faintly.

"I like that you can do impossible things. I won't pretend I don't. Going to other worlds, seeing gods, helping people, ridiculous conveniences with laundry... it is fascinating. But it isn't the part I miss when you're not beside me."

Her palm settled flat against his chest.

"I would still want to walk with you. Eat with you. Hear you make terrible jokes. Watch you attempt to reach my ears without jumping. I would still want that house. Perhaps more urgently, because then you would have to help fix the roof normally."

She grew more serious.

"There is one part I would be afraid of. If losing your power meant losing the way here. If you became an ordinary human in your own world and could never stand beside me again, that would hurt. A great deal. But that would be because I lost *you*. Not because I lost what you could do."

She lowered herself beside him again, fitting her body close along his side.

"If tomorrow you wake up powerless, unable to alter a pebble, and somehow still able to come home to me, then I suppose my unranked aide becomes significantly more convincing. I would still love you, Ian."

"Or if I stopped being there, and was only here, the normal human not the projection? i don't think that's likely. that would be quite surprising. plus i'd suddenly have no clothes on."

Lethira's expression shifted into genuine consideration.

"That would be different. If *this* stopped being a presence made for you, and suddenly became your actual body, I think the first thing I would do is make certain you were really here and not about to vanish again."

Her gaze travelled down beneath the blanket and returned to his face with considerably more amusement.

"And yes. You would be naked. I promise that would not be the part which troubled me."

The humour softened.

"What would trouble me is that you would have lost your other place. You would suddenly be subject to everything you currently choose to approximate. Hunger because your body requires it. Cold. Injury. Illness. Age. And no disappearing when the road becomes inconvenient."

A little smile.

"That last part would improve your field training considerably."

She became serious again.

"I would still love you. Of course I would. In some ways it would make several things easier. You would be here. We would no longer have to wonder how your time relates to mine, whether you will be away for an hour or whether I experience days while almost none pass for you. Our house would become much less theoretical as a place you actually live."

Then she looked directly at him.

"But it would also mean you had lost something enormous. I would not celebrate that just because it gave me more of you."

After a moment her mouth curved.

"Although after the initial existential crisis, I would probably find you some trousers. Eventually."

She kissed him and tightened her arm around him beneath the blankets.

"And until then, my powerless, stranded, entirely biological human could remain exactly where he is. I think I could manage the inconvenience."

Ian smiled.

"I would definitely stick to the sheep rescuing quests over dragon hunting"

He paused.

"and only if i had a rank B supervisor present for safety reasons"

Lethira's mouth curved. "That is the first sensible thing you've said about adventuring."

The joke was gentle. Her hand remained over his chest.

"your world is a lot more dangerous than mine, it would be quite difficult for me i think. i have thought about it. truly escaping"

Ian smiled again.

That took the amusement from her face.

"Escaping," she repeated quietly.

For several seconds she looked at him rather than answering. The late-afternoon light had thinned enough that the room felt enclosed now, their abandoned clothes and the bed's rumpled blankets becoming the whole immediate world.

"I can understand why you would think about it. This place gives you things your own life cannot. Not only me."

A small smile acknowledged the obvious without making herself the whole explanation.

"You can walk into other worlds. Meet people who should be fictional to you. Eat food your body elsewhere does not taste directly. Sleep beside someone in a place which, by the rules you grew up with, should not exist at all. And here, your power makes almost every practical limit negotiable."

That was precisely why she did not romanticise the thought.

"But *escaping* is a difficult word. It sounds as though whatever you left behind would become something you had fled rather than simply another home you visit less often. If you ever truly came here and could not return, I would help you live here. Obviously."

Her tone made that almost mundane.

"You would learn the roads properly. I would keep you alive while you learned which plants are harmless and which local men are lying about the quality of their horses. You could become a surprisingly competent unranked aide. Eventually."

Her hand slid down and took his.

"But I would not want you to choose that because this world is easier to love when you can leave it. Ordinary life here would include mud, illness, winters, people we dislike, work we don't want to do, and days when nothing interesting happens. If you escaped here permanently, this place would stop being the extraordinary place you visit. It would become your life."

Lethira held his gaze.

"And if you ever chose that, I would want to know you were choosing *this life*. Not only running from the other one."

She stayed close.

"When you say you've thought about truly escaping... what did you imagine?"

"escaping is the wrong word, most of my life here i like. but sometimes i just feel i want to avoid it."

Lethira's hand remained over his. Wanting distance from one's life sometimes was not the same as wanting to abandon it.

"i imagined shock, i imagined you, i imagined if my poor boots would survive, would i look different, would i be able to understand you. i have a somewhat active imagination"

Her mouth curved. The boots, apparently, were the part she found least surprising.

"there is no magic no power like that here, so i think i'm unlikely to suddenly be on a bed with an Elven beauty, hundreds of years my senior, lacking any useful body armour."

Ian kissed her.

Lethira returned it, smiling against his mouth.

"An excellent tactical assessment. Your current armour is particularly poor."

His hand remained close to hers when he continued.

"i think i'm hungry after... recent activities, is it dinner time yet? and yes, i still have no idea what time it is"

Lethira laughed softly. "It is becoming dinner time."

That was as precise as she had ever needed the answer to be. The light outside had shifted well into evening, and the inn below had been producing the unmistakable sequence of sounds which preceded feeding a common room full of travellers.

Ian had apparently reached the end of his tolerance for approximate temporal awareness.

"i am going to change that."

A plain leather bracer appeared around his wrist. Beneath a protective strap on the underside sat a small analogue clock, familiar to Ian: twelve hours marked with Roman numerals, its progression adjusted to this world's local day and whatever subtle differences would otherwise have made an Earth-style clock drift from it.

"there, i can never be wrong again"

Ian showed it to her.

Lethira raised herself onto one elbow and stared.

"You have used reality-altering power to defeat the phrase *approximately evening*. Finally, a proportionate application."

She took his wrist carefully and turned it enough to examine the face. The numerals meant nothing obvious to her, though the orderly progression made the idea clear.

"This tells *you* the time. You have solved your problem and placed a tiny foreign administrative system on your arm."

She smiled.

"I like it. And it looks sensible. If you had produced some glowing magical clock which announced the hour to everyone within twenty paces, I would have made you hide it."

Her fingertips traced the edge of the leather rather than touching the mechanism itself.

"The useful question is whether this improves your judgement, because now when you ask whether it is dinner time while food is already being cooked beneath us, you will have numerical evidence."

She rested her hand over her stomach.

"And since you mentioned hunger after recent activities... I am hungry too."

Lethira sat up beneath the blankets and looked at their scattered clothes.

"Your marvellous invention says it is time for us to become dressed people again."

Her expression suggested this was the clock's first serious defect.

Ian looked towards the clothes.

"with clean clothes, my lady?"

Lethira looked from him to the scattered clothing and back again.

"Yes. If your impossible little laundry tradition is available, I would very much prefer not to put today's road, civic offices, property boundary and several hours of... activity back onto my skin."

Her ears coloured.

She reached for her clothes, then stopped.

"Mine too, please. Clean. Dry. Exactly as they are. No improvements."

Then she glanced at the new bracer.

"And leave the clock. I want to see whether possessing exact time makes you any more punctual for dinner."

Their clothes were cleaned and folded to Lethira's specification. No improvement crept into the result. The weave remained slightly uneven where local cloth had always been uneven; wear remained wear; small marks earned through ordinary use were not quietly repaired away. The clothes were simply clean, dry and folded into neat stacks beside the bed.

Lethira looked at hers, then at Ian.

"I am becoming dangerously accustomed to this."

There was no real complaint in it.

She took her shirt from the top of the pile and dressed without hurry. Her belt followed, weapons last, each checked from habit before settling where it belonged. When she was finished, she ran both hands once over the clean fabric.

"Exactly right."

Her attention shifted to the folded clothes remaining beside Ian and then to the little clock hidden beneath his new leather bracer.

"I suspect this is how dangerous habits begin. First the laundry. Then exact time. Tomorrow you'll be solving mud."

She stepped closer and kissed him softly.

"I like that we're going downstairs after this. Because it means what happened belongs inside ordinary life."

Lethira rested a hand over the clock on his wrist.

"All right. Tell me, keeper of exact temporal truth. How late are we for dinner?"

Ian checked the clock.

"20 minutes past 6... which might mean nothing as i have no idea of your system, but we're not late. i, however, am naked on a bed in front of an Elven warden, standing fully clothed in her quite nice warden boots"

He glanced down.

Lethira followed his gaze to her boots, then slowly back up to him.

"Quite nice?"

She looked down at them as though reassessing equipment she had worn for years.

"They have survived rain, mud, bad roads, court travel, several unpleasant fights and one sheep investigation. I had hoped for *excellent*."

Her eyes returned to Ian, still entirely undressed while she stood beside the bed in full travelling clothes. The smile that followed was not especially innocent.

"As for the time, your twenty minutes past six tells me almost nothing useful. We use bells in towns where bells are convenient, daylight, meal hours, watches on the road, and people saying things like *after midday* without suffering existential distress. So I think your clock is mainly a device for reassuring one very specific human."

She turned his wrist gently to look at the tiny face again.

"And apparently informing that human exactly how long he has remained naked while I became fully dressed."

Lethira's gaze travelled over him once, openly appreciative.

"I admit, there is something appealing about this arrangement. Rank B warden. Properly equipped. Unranked aide. Not equipped at all."

She bent and kissed him.

When she straightened, the teasing softened.

"But if we intend to feed you rather than display you, my love, I suggest trousers. Eventually."

Ian blushed as he admitted something smaller and more private than most of the day's impossible revelations.

"We can explore the pressure of Elven boots another time, maybe"

Lethira's expression changed almost imperceptibly at first. Then she looked down at her boots, back at Ian, and understood.

"Oh."

The colour along her ears deepened, but her smile did not become mocking.

"Another time."

She let the words remain uncomplicated.

"I am learning a surprising amount about you today."

Ian retreated to the pile of clean clothes and dressed. Lethira gave him enough space to do it without pretending not to look at all. By the time his shirt and trousers were back in place and his boots had restored the small amount of height they contributed, she was leaning against the wall beside the door, arms loosely folded.

"Better. Properly equipped aide. Although now I have additional classified information concerning footwear."

She opened the door.

The smell from downstairs had strengthened while they delayed: cooked meat, onions, bread and something rich enough to suggest stew or gravy.

Lethira waited for Ian to join her and slipped her hand into his.

"Come on, my love. We have had a very successful day."

She counted none of it aloud.

Some things required records.

Others very much did not.

Ian followed her down to dinner.

The Reed and Wheel had changed since breakfast. Lamps had been lit despite the remaining evening light at the windows, and most of the tables were occupied by people who had finished whatever work or travel had justified the day. Road dust, boots and tired voices filled the room. Someone near the hearth was telling a story badly enough that three listeners were correcting him at once.

Lethira chose a table along the quieter wall, settled her bow where it would neither obstruct anyone nor disappear from easy reach, then looked across at Ian. For perhaps the first time since they came downstairs, she smiled for no obvious external reason.

It faded when she noticed him noticing.

"Don't."

Her ears coloured slightly. Then she laughed under her breath and reached for the water already left on the table.

"I am discovering that apparently becoming lovers means I can remember it while doing completely unrelated things. Very inconvenient."

She glanced towards Ian's bracer, then at the common room.

"I still maintain that all of this tells me the time perfectly well. Food being cooked. People becoming louder. Innkeeper beginning to look as though she regrets allowing customers. Evening."

The joke passed, and the day returned in smaller pieces: Aelira's attestation folded safely upstairs, the seller's provisional acceptance, tomorrow afternoon's inspection, Ian's signature beside hers, and Lethira's B-rank suddenly useful again because every clerk seemed delighted to have something concrete about at least one of them.

"I think tomorrow may be more difficult," she said. "Today we were allowed to imagine things. Bathhouse. Practice line. Table by the window. Tomorrow someone will point at parts of the building and tell us how much timber has quietly become unsuitable timber."

A small pause.

"I am oddly looking forward to it. Not the expensive part. The knowing part."

Caswick arrived carrying two small boards rather than bowls.

"Kitchen's doing beef and root stew tonight," she said. "Or roast chicken with barley, greens and onions. Bread comes with either. There's river fish left, but I wouldn't recommend pretending that's tonight's best choice."

Lethira glanced at Ian when the chicken was mentioned.

"No theft jokes. I'll take the stew."

Caswick turned towards Ian.

"Chicken please, I'm quite hungry after a very tiring day. Being an adventurers aide is exhausting, the things they get you to do!"

Ian delivered it with a straight face, then gave an innocent laugh.

Caswick looked at him. Lethira's expression went completely still.

There was just enough of a pause for the innkeeper to glance between them before deciding, with the practised wisdom of her profession, that whatever she had missed was none of her business.

"Chicken," she said, and added it to the order. "Bread comes with it."

"Thank you," Lethira managed.

Caswick moved away.

Lethira waited until she was safely beyond the next table before lowering her face into one hand.

"You are terrible."

The accusation carried no force. She was trying not to laugh, which made the attempt at severity considerably less convincing.

"An adventurer's aide. Exhausted by the things she gets him to do."

That was enough. Lethira gave up and laughed quietly, keeping the volume low enough that the nearby tables did not acquire a story they had not earned.

"I am going to have to become much more careful when discussing your professional responsibilities in public."

The food arrived before she could improve upon that threat.

Ian's chicken came with barley, greens, onions and a generous piece of bread; Lethira's stew was thick with beef, roots and dark gravy, the sort of meal intended for people who had spent the day outside or wished to convince themselves they had. The first few minutes passed mostly in eating. Whatever else the day had contained, they had walked a fair distance, crossed Merrowford repeatedly, inspected land, dealt with offices and found several hours of private exertion in between.

Lethira eventually leaned back, spoon resting inside her bowl.

"This is better."

Her attention drifted briefly towards Ian's bracer, then towards the common room.

"Your clock says something precise. The room says dinner. I think we can allow both systems to coexist."

Tomorrow afternoon now had a shape: the inspector, the house, the roof, the chimney and whatever unromantic facts waited inside timber and stone. For tonight, none of that required further action.

Lethira looked across the table at him, and the smile returned.

"Also, for the record... I thought my aide performed extremely well today."

Then she returned to her stew before her ears could become any redder.

Ian tried not to blush.

He only partially succeeded.

Lethira noticed that first.

The second thing she noticed was his bread moving towards her stew while her attention appeared to be elsewhere.

Appeared.

Ian dipped the edge into the dark gravy.

Lethira's spoon stopped halfway to her mouth. With centuries of experience behind her and senses far beyond a human's, the attempted theft had never been especially covert. She looked at the bread, then at him, her expression becoming very calm.

"You know, there are advantages to several centuries of field experience. And being an Elf. And sitting directly opposite the criminal."

The common room carried on around them, entirely unaware that a serious breach of dinner boundaries was taking place along the quieter wall.

Lethira allowed him the gravy.

That was the suspicious part.

She watched the bread come away richer, then returned to her own meal as though she had decided the offence was beneath prosecution.

For perhaps ten seconds.

Then, while Ian had his attention on the chicken, her spoon crossed the table. One piece disappeared from the edge of his plate with such smooth confidence that the theft felt less like an opportunistic grab and more like a demonstration.

Lethira ate it and chewed thoughtfully.

"Good. I believe this establishes precedent. Joint property. Shared resources. Apparently our legal preparations are already affecting dinner."

Her foot found his beneath the table, and the rest of the meal settled into comfortable appetite.

Every so often, though, she looked across at him and smiled for no reason she intended to explain.

Ian let the meal become quiet for a while before asking another question.

"May I ask you about relationships? Not your history of them, that's too much, more the Elven way vs the human one."

Lethira's expression softened at the qualification.

"You may."

She tore a piece of bread and let it sit between her fingers while she considered how to answer without turning several cultures and several centuries into a rulebook.

"I think the first difference is time. Not because Elves love more slowly. We don't, necessarily."

Her eyes flicked towards him with a faint smile.

"I believe we have recently produced evidence."

She dipped the bread into her stew.

"But time changes what feels urgent. A human couple may have to decide quite quickly whether they want children, where to live, whether one person's work will take them away, whether ten years spent uncertain is too much of the life they have. For us, ten years can be a period of uncertainty rather than a catastrophe."

A pause.

"Which does not always improve us. Sometimes it merely allows people to avoid saying something difficult for an impressive length of time."

Households, she explained, were different too. Humans often seemed to make the couple itself into the beginning of a new household: two people married, established a home, perhaps had children, and the household grew outward from them. Among Wood Elves, a household might already be very old. A partner might join one that had existed for generations, or two people might keep separate places for years and move between them. Someone could remain closely tied to a mother's household while spending most nights with a lover elsewhere.

"That doesn't necessarily mean the relationship is casual. It may simply mean nobody sees a reason to rebuild everyone's life around one romance."

Her gaze returned to Ian.

"That is part of why this house feels unusual to me. We are not taking my existing home and making space for you inside it. We are not taking yours and making space for me. We are making a third thing."

She liked that thought enough to pause over it.

"Marriage is not absent among Elves, but it is less automatic as the line between serious and not serious. The living-bough intention Thomas and Isha made, for example, mattered because it placed their future before family and witnesses. It was not simply a declaration that they were sleeping together or even that they loved one another."

Witness carried particular weight among Wood Elves. Not supervision. Memory.

"People remember. That matters when people live a long time. If you stand before people who may still be alive two hundred years later and say, *this is the life I intend*, the statement has weight because they may actually be there to remember whether you lived according to it."

She looked down briefly.

"That can be beautiful. It can also become pressure. Families can believe longevity gives them the right to wait out a relationship they dislike. Older people can become convinced that because they have seen several romances fail, they understand the next one better than the people inside it. Tradition can become very skilled at pretending patience is neutrality."

Exclusivity, she said, varied more than human cultures often seemed to assume. Some couples were entirely exclusive and would be deeply hurt by anything else. Some relationships were less possessive. Some people remained lovers without ever combining households or making a witnessed future.

"The important part is what the people involved believe they have promised. Among humans, I sometimes see the form carry the expectation. *Married* tells people a great deal before the couple has explained themselves. Among Elves, you may have to ask more questions."

Children complicated every version of it, of course. Long life did not make raising them trivial. If anything, relationships between households could become more complex when almost everyone involved might remain present for a very long time.

"So the short version is probably: less urgency about formalising, more variation in household shape, a very long memory around promises, and perhaps more tolerance for relationships which do not immediately become one home, one name, one legal unit."

Her foot touched his beneath the table.

"And then I meet a human, fall in love with him in an indecently short period of time, and immediately become enthusiastic about joint property. So apparently culture is not destiny."

She studied him for a moment.

"What is the human version you grew up expecting?"

Ian considered it.

"Human relationship is born from our biological strive to reproduce, I guess. There are 8 billion of us, our planet is the same size as yours - 30% land, 10-15% habitable. We are quite good at reproducing I guess. I suspect that problem, with the history of humans and elves, is also here... illness and whatnot probably fights against that. From what i've seen humans here and .. here. grammar is complicated when you're in two places. isn't that different. exclusivity is formally the vast majority, people's adherence to it ... that's excessively documented as less so, with many problems. children do change things of course. there is variance here, some cultures are much more likely to have multiple generations in a roof, my land, england is much more parents & children only, children tend to leave when mature and financially able to support."

Lethira had stopped eating somewhere around *eight billion*.

She held her spoon above the bowl for several seconds.

"Eight billion."

The number landed in scale without becoming easy to imagine. Her eyes moved briefly around the common room, perhaps assembling towns, kingdoms, forests and every road she had travelled, then discovering that the comparison failed almost immediately.

"That is obscene. And your world is roughly the same size. You really are extraordinarily good at reproducing."

There was no moral judgement in it, only astonishment.

"I think the difference here may be less that humans reproduce badly and more that this world removes people more efficiently. Disease. Birth. Winter. Bad harvests. War. Monsters, depending where you live. Travel itself in some regions. Humans can have several children and still spend generations barely increasing the number of people in a place."

The thought of eight billion returned to her.

"Your medicine and food systems must have changed that enormously."

She did not turn dinner into an interrogation about global demography. What interested her more was the household structure.

"So in England, the expected shape is parents and children until the children become independent, then the children make separate households. That would make romantic partnership structurally more important. If adulthood is expected to involve leaving the household that raised you, then eventually choosing someone to build the next household with becomes one of the main ways family continues."

She considered that against her own experience.

"Whereas for us, leaving the household is not proof of adulthood. You can be a fully independent adult and still have a room in the same living structure your mother has occupied for two hundred years. Whether either of you wants that is another question."

On exclusivity, she found the human arrangement less alien than expected: a formal expectation widely understood, people sometimes failing to live by it, and the failure becoming painful because the expectation had been real.

"So when someone in your culture says they are a couple, exclusivity is often assumed unless they explicitly say otherwise. With us, I would be more likely to ask what has actually been promised before assuming the entire shape."

A moment passed.

Then her foot pressed gently against his beneath the table.

"I think I prefer knowing. Not because I need every relationship to look the same. Because ambiguity is only pleasant when both people know it is ambiguity."

She took another bite of stew, then set her spoon down.

"And since we have somehow discussed joint title, lovers, households, children and cultural expectations in less than one day, I should probably not rely on implication. For me, with you, I want exclusivity. I want us to be together in that sense. I don't want another lover while I am with you, and I would not be comfortable with you having one either."

Her ears coloured a little, though her gaze remained steady.

"Flirting with a god for diplomatic purposes may require a separate treaty."

The smile returned briefly.

"Is that what *together* means to you too?"

Ian answered carefully.

"Yes, it does. Before you, i did briefly have an attraction to Kanno.. i don't mean in a physical sense, but i never pulled on that thread. Isha, I think was more "

He paused.

" i enjoyed her form, but obviously that wasn't even a thread to pull."

Another pause.

"i've said too much, haven't i. i just meant, there is just you"

Lethira did not answer quickly enough to rescue him from the embarrassment. She watched his face, then reached across the table and took his hand.

"No. You haven't said too much."

Her thumb moved once over his fingers.

"I asked what exclusivity meant to you. Telling me that other people interested you before we were together is not a confession of wrongdoing."

Her mouth curved faintly.

"And I have met both of them. Kanno is interesting. Clever, observant, occasionally very difficult in ways I rather like. I can understand an attraction that wasn't about wanting to take her clothes off."

Lethira's ears shifted slightly.

"As for Isha... I have eyes."

A quiet laugh escaped her.

"Her current human body is absurd. I knew her when she was already beautiful enough to cause problems, and then your reality somehow translated her into a human woman who appears designed to make humans forget what they were saying."

The joke faded naturally.

"But she belongs to Thomas in no sense that permits anyone else to pull that thread, and she chose him very thoroughly long before you met her. So noticing her does not trouble me."

Lethira lifted his hand and pressed a brief kiss against his knuckles.

"What would trouble me is if you told me there was just me because you thought that was the answer I wanted, while secretly hoping to keep another possibility alive. You didn't. You told me there were attractions before me. You did nothing with them. Now you are telling me what you choose. That is enough."

She let the words settle before her smile returned.

"Although I reserve the right to be amused that the man who worried about being flirted with by a god has apparently already accumulated attractions across multiple realities. And I am going to enjoy the phrase *there is just you* far more than is dignified."

The blush in Ian's face had not entirely gone. Lethira noticed, but this time she did not tease it further. Her foot found his beneath the table and rested against it.

"There is just you for me too."

Ian finished his chicken and sat back, comfortably full.

"When do you want to visit a god? I assume tomorrow is unlikely to result in a house purchase conclusion, so we could go then?"

Lethira's spoon slowed.

The question did not carry the alarm it might have a day earlier. *Visit a god* had somehow become something they could discuss over the remains of dinner, alongside leaking roofs and whether Ian's new clock had improved his understanding of evening.

"Tomorrow is possible."

She arranged the day in her head.

"The inspector is tomorrow afternoon. Even if he tells us the house is excellent, we still have the report, the decision to proceed, final paperwork, payment, whatever other clerk emerges from the walls. So no, I don't expect us to own the house tomorrow."

She looked back at Ian.

"But I don't think I want to meet the Waykeeper in the morning. I want to be fully present for the inspection. Not standing in our possible bedroom while half my mind is still wondering whether something a creator-god said about choice, home or you was true. And I don't want the first time I lead a conversation with one of the beings who helped make this world to have an appointment afterwards."

The absurdity reached her a moment later.

"*Excuse me, divine embodiment of roads and possibility, we must leave now because a man is coming to inspect our chimney.*"

Lethira laughed softly.

"Actually, I would enjoy saying that."

The humour passed, and her answer settled.

"After the inspection. If the house is structurally disastrous and we're disappointed, perhaps we don't go anywhere that evening. If it is merely flawed in all the ways we already expect, then yes. We eat. We make sure neither of us is tired or distracted. Then we go meet the Waykeeper."

A pause.

"With me leading. And you as my aide."

She still liked both parts.

"I have been thinking about what Aelira said. I don't want to arrive accusing her. I want to let her speak first. Ask who she thinks she is. What she thinks her relationship with this world is. Whether she believes people here owe her anything because she helped create it. And I want to ask her about home."

That question had clearly stayed with her.

"If the account is right and she genuinely cannot understand why remaining somewhere might be freedom, then I want to hear her explain that to me. Especially now."

Tomorrow there would be a house under inspection west of Merrowford. A house neither of them yet owned, whose attraction lay partly in the fact that they could choose it and still remain people with other homes, other roads and other lives.

"So tomorrow evening, if the day leaves us in a fit state for it. And if it doesn't, the gods have survived this long. They can wait another day."

Ian nodded.

"that's fine. Maybe a guild job in the morning then?"

Lethira's expression brightened.

"Yes. Something small enough that we can finish it before the inspector arrives. And preferably something which gets us out of town rather than placing us in another cellar. Also, perhaps not sheep. Not because I object to sheep. Because I refuse to let that become our entire professional identity."

She considered the board she could already imagine.

"An E- or D-rank job. Something where I can actually teach you a little. Tracking, reading ground, deciding whether something is dangerous before you walk into it. Perhaps gathering or a missing-person search if there is one that isn't urgent enough to require leaving tonight."

A smile.

"I would rather not manufacture danger merely to prove that my aide requires supervision. And if the board has nothing suitable, we don't force it. We can walk, practise, or simply arrive at the inspection without having spent the morning being chased by something."

The next day had somehow acquired a plausible sequence: breakfast, Guild board, perhaps a low-rank contract, inspect a possible home, eat, then consider entering the realm of a creator-god.

Lethira seemed to enjoy the contrast.

"Tomorrow morning, adventuring. Tomorrow afternoon, property. And perhaps tomorrow evening... divinity."

She picked up the last piece of bread from her side of the table.

"A properly balanced day."

By the time dinner ended, the common room had thinned. The new clock under Ian's bracer told him the evening had progressed farther than Merrowford's lamps alone would have told him, though he no longer needed a number to know they had time to themselves.

"A little lovers' evening walk then?"

Lethira's smile appeared before she answered.

"Yes. A proper one. No clerks. No deeds. No roofs. No gods. And absolutely no sheep."

She finished her water, stood and collected her bow. The motion had become familiar enough that Ian could see the difference between preparing for danger and simply not leaving expensive equipment unattended in an inn. Tonight it was the latter.

Outside, Merrowford had settled into the softer movement of evening. Shops were closing one by one, shutters coming across some windows while taverns and cookshops grew louder. Lanterns had begun to appear along the busier streets, their light catching cart ruts and worn stone.

Lethira slipped her hand into Ian's.

"River?"

The question barely needed asking. The quieter path beyond the warehouses gave the town back some distance without requiring them to leave it entirely.

She led them that way.

The wide river caught what remained of the sky, darker now, broken by the occasional slow movement of a barge or the ripple left by something beneath the surface. Farther downstream, warehouses thinned and willows began to replace walls.

Lethira's pace slowed.

For a while she said nothing.

Then she looked sideways at him.

"Lovers."

She tried the word again now that it was no longer theoretical.

Her ears coloured faintly.

"I like that too. Although apparently we have become the sort of lovers who spend the afternoon making love and the evening discussing property inspections. I think I prefer that to being dramatic."

She squeezed his hand.

"And tomorrow maybe we find out whether our roof is merely inconvenient."

Her gaze went briefly west, towards a house too far away to see.

"But not tonight. Tonight I only want you."

Ian held her hand tightly, and Lethira answered by tightening hers around his.

They continued downstream without hurrying. The last useful light faded from the river, leaving the surface to catch lanterns, windows and occasional moving reflections from boats farther out. Behind them Merrowford remained close enough to hear in softened pieces: laughter from an inn, a door closing, wheels somewhere on the bridge road. Ahead, the path narrowed beneath willows and long grass.

Once, they stopped where the bank widened into a patch of old stones and sat long enough to watch the river become properly dark. Lethira leaned against Ian, her head resting lightly against his. The day behind them and the one ahead could exist without being solved again.

Eventually she stood, still keeping hold of his hand.

"We should go back before your wonderful clock proves that we have accidentally turned an evening walk into tomorrow."

The Reed and Wheel was quieter when they returned. The busiest part of dinner had passed; Caswick was clearing the remains of the common room while a few travellers lingered over drinks and conversations that had become progressively less important.

Upstairs, their room welcomed them with the familiar smallness that had begun to feel temporary in a new way.

Lethira set aside her bow and travelling things. Her eyes lingered for a moment on the bed, and the smile that followed belonged entirely to the two of them.

The night did not need a plan.

Sometimes they talked. Sometimes they kissed until talking became inconvenient. The new ease between them carried none of the sense that they had crossed some final threshold and now had to behave differently. They were still Ian and Lethira: affectionate, teasing, occasionally awkward, curious about one another and capable of making a simple touch feel unexpectedly important.

Later, the lamps were put out.

Whatever else the night brought remained theirs.

By the time sleep finally took them, Lethira was curled around Ian again, one arm across him and her breathing slow against the back of his head.

Tomorrow there would be an inspector.

Tonight there was only the quiet room, the woman he loved, and a clock beneath a leather strap patiently measuring hours neither of them particularly cared to count.