## Chapter 493 — Somewhere Ordinary

The Lifegiver had finished work before deciding she was finished.

Thirty-two beds remained. The number had once sat at the edge of every visit from Ian like an obligation waiting to be resumed. Today the spade leaned against a warm stone beside the channel, the fork had been rinsed, and mud still marked three of her fingernails because she had washed her hands instead of deciding them clean. One of the newer beds curved around a root she had chosen not to remove. She still disliked the curve.

Late light moved through the garden in broken strips. The flowering vine which had colonised the wrong support months ago had reached the top and begun searching sideways. A storm-broken branch remained dry at the end where she had left it to heal or fail without intervention. The plant had survived both the weather and her restraint.

The Lifegiver sat on the low stone beside the stream with a small cloth bundle at her feet. She had packed one outer layer in case wherever Ian chose was colder than her garden. She had considered taking food, then remembered that the outing was supposed to include food. Money had taken longer. Mortals exchanged it when they ate in places built by other mortals; she possessed none useful in Ian's world. Eventually she had decided that was Ian's problem, which improved her mood.

Waiting was proving less pleasant. After several minutes she caught herself looking towards the place where he normally appeared and frowned at the empty garden.

Ian appeared and waved at her. "Hey."

For an instant her face brightened before she remembered she had been waiting with some dignity. She stood and picked up the bundle. "Hello. I have discovered that waiting is mostly sitting somewhere while refusing to begin something else. I do not recommend it as a divine portfolio."

Ian walked up and hugged her. She returned it at once, one arm going around him while the bundle remained awkwardly trapped beneath the other.

"Two options: somewhere in the world you know, or somewhere in the world I'm from?"

The second choice caught her immediately. She drew back enough to study him. "Your world." The speed of the answer made her reconsider, though not withdraw it. "I know this one too well in some ways and badly in others. Yours would actually be somewhere I have never been needed."

That made it more tempting, not less. She had seen enough of Ian's external existence to know it was not simply another country across a sea, and crossing categories of world was not made trivial merely because he could make a door. "The world where the real you lives? And if I go there, am I going as myself in a way that can affect it, or are you proposing something safer and more limited?"

"Yes, the world I live in. I hope you're not going there to interfere with mortals, so you won't unless you try to." Ian looked down at the bundle beneath her arm. "What's in the bundle?"

The Lifegiver gave him a level look. "That is an interesting way to phrase reassurance." Still, the condition removed one worry: accident would not turn a careless impulse into somebody else's changed body. Deliberate interference would remain hers to choose or refuse.

She opened the bundle enough to show the folded cloth. "Clothes. One outer layer. I did not know what your weather would be, and I decided arriving somewhere completely unknown while dressed only for my garden would be foolish." She closed it again. "I considered bringing food. Then remembered the point was to go somewhere with food. I also considered money, realised I possess none that would be useful in your world, and decided that was your problem. I found that last decision particularly relaxing."

Ian told her what he had in mind. "A restaurant, fairly quiet, weather will be mild if you want to change first. I don't think you need to prepare really. We'll sit, order, eat and drink. And talk. We can then walk around the place a bit if you want."

The Lifegiver looked down at her cream and green garden clothes. Practical shoes, sleeves fit for work, dark hair tied loosely back. "I think I will stay like this." She placed the spare layer on the stone. "If the weather is mild, taking extra clothes because something might happen sounds suspiciously like the beginning of me trying to control an evening."

She looked once across the garden. Nothing needed a final instruction. "So: restaurant. Food I do not know. Music. Conversation. Then perhaps a walk. I can manage that." Her attention returned to Ian. "The people there won't know what I am?"

"Nope, just a lucky guy with a girl." Ian smiled.

Her eyebrows rose. "Girl." She glanced at herself and then back at him, amusement winning over the absurdity of the word. "I suppose if nobody there knows better."

Ian changed into the clothes he wore in his own world: plain black T-shirt, black jeans and the familiar black leather army boots. Then he held out his hand. "Ready?"

She looked around the garden one last time, left the bundle on the stone and took his hand. "Yes. And I am going to complain in detail if your ordinary evening is terrible."

"I would be disappointed if you didn't."

A door appeared. They stepped through together.

Warm air replaced the garden's pulse. Tomato, baked bread, coffee and something sharper from a kitchen reached the Lifegiver before the room itself settled into sense: dark wooden tables, cream walls, framed prints, glassware in afternoon light and a tiled floor worn by ordinary feet. Recorded music played softly from somewhere she could not immediately locate.

Beyond the front windows, a mild summer Sunday moved through a London street just outside the Square Mile. Cars passed in both directions. People walked by in clothes belonging to a world she had previously known only through Ian's explanations and a handful of images. The restaurant itself had fallen into the quiet space between lunch and dinner. Only a few tables were occupied.

Nobody recognised her. A man near the window continued reading a glowing screen. Two women farther back spoke over drinks. Someone behind the counter rearranged glasses. No prayer reached her, and no mortal went still because something older than their civilisation had entered the room.

The host greeted them. Ian asked for a quiet table for two, and the request received exactly the amount of importance it deserved. They were shown to a table a little apart from the others and given menus.

The Lifegiver watched the host return to the front. "I like him."

Then she opened the menu and lost some confidence. Spoken language had reached her cleanly enough since crossing, but rows of written English remained rows of unfamiliar marks. Ian changed that without changing her: the menu's meaning presented itself in Common where translation existed, while names such as *lasagne*, *tagliatelle* and *tiramisu* remained names attached to descriptions.

Ian smiled at her. "That might help but things will still be a bit confusing, they usually have partial descriptions of what the dish is. I suggest we have a main. Then maybe a dessert."

"Dessert already has my support." The Lifegiver turned to that section first and read with increasing interest. Coffee, mascarpone and cocoa beneath *tiramisu*. Cooked cream, vanilla and fruit beneath *panna cotta*. She looked mildly offended by the need to choose later rather than immediately.

When she returned to the mains, the descriptions became a series of ingredients she mostly understood arranged into shapes she did not. Her finger stopped at a beef ragù served with broad ribbons of pasta. "Slow-cooked beef, tomato, wine, herbs, cheese. That sounds difficult to object to. And I want the coffee one afterwards. Unless you tell me it tastes terrible, in which case I may order it specifically to test your judgement."

"Most people like coffee, I don't, but I've known many people enjoy it."

That seemed to make the tiramisu more interesting. Ian found spaghetti with beef-and-pork meatballs in tomato sauce among the pasta dishes, then cheesecake farther down the dessert list.

The Lifegiver read its description. "Cheese made into a sweet. That sounds less sensible than mine." She smiled. "Good. We should definitely get different things."

Ian shifted in his chair. His leg came to rest against hers, genuinely by accident at first. He held it there a second longer than the accident required before moving away.

"Shall we order? Do you want anything to drink? Wine is always popular."

"I know wine." The Lifegiver read just enough of the drinks list to confirm that Ian's people had also discovered several thousand ways to make fermented grapes sound complicated. "A glass of red with the beef, I think."

When the host returned, she ordered the ragù and wine herself. Ian blushed and arranged his face into an expression of innocence, then placed his own order for spaghetti and meatballs with a still lemonade and confirmed hers.

The Lifegiver waited until the server had gone. "That expression was much less convincing than simply admitting you liked touching my leg." Her amusement lingered, but she let him keep the fiction of innocence.

The restaurant settled around them again. Cutlery clicked somewhere near the kitchen. The man with the glowing screen stood, put on his jacket and left. Another song began without either of them noticing exactly when the first ended.

The Lifegiver watched the street through the window. A couple passed outside arguing mildly about directions. Neither looked in. "Nobody here needs me to be anything."

"Big cities are like that, there are millions in this one and it isn't the biggest. It's easy to be anonymous."

"Millions." She said the word softly, testing its scale. Everything beyond the glass was new to her: vehicles larger and faster than any road carriage she knew, clothing without local context, buildings layered above shops and offices, strangers flowing around one another without introduction. The density interested her more than the machines.

Her wine arrived. She turned the glass by the stem after seeing how the server handled it, examined the red against the light and took a cautious sip. Her eyebrows rose. "That is better than some offerings I have received. Which is probably unfair. Most worshippers were not trying to impress me with the quality of their wine."

Ian nodded and smiled. "Sorry for touching your leg, an accident with non-accidental lingering."

The Lifegiver's mouth curved. "That is a much more accurate confession. And you may stop apologising. I noticed. I chose not to move."

Ian paused. "Would you like a walk around after food?"

"Yes. Very much." Her attention returned to the window. "I have spent several minutes trying not to stare through the glass like someone who has never seen a street before. Which, unfortunately, is exactly what I am."

"New experiences must be rare after aeons, I hope this isn't disappointing."

She considered that over another sip. "Rare, yes. But rarity and value are not the same thing. I have encountered new plagues, new prayers, new ways for people to injure one another and several extremely inventive religious arguments. Novelty can be exhausting."

Outside, a man stopped to check something on his phone, changed direction and disappeared back the way he had come. The Lifegiver watched him go. "This is different. Nobody arranged that man for me. He has somewhere to be, changed his mind about how to get there, and will probably never know I watched him do it."

She rested a hand around her wine glass. "I don't think I want you to show me the important things after we eat. I want to choose the walk. You may stop me if I misunderstand one of your enormous metal carriages and attempt to walk through it."

Ian chuckled. "You're the boss after all, so you may lead."

"That title again." This time she did not wait for accidental contact. Under the table, the side of her foot settled deliberately against Ian's boot and stayed there. "If I am leading, I should probably establish that I am allowed to choose badly. We eat. Then I pick a direction because something looks interesting, not because it is important. And if we end up somewhere dull, you are forbidden from rescuing the outing by producing a better street."

"Reality will present itself in all its underwhelming normality."

Ian left his foot where it was. The Lifegiver smiled into her wine and left hers there too.

Their mains arrived before the contact had time to become a subject. Steam rose from her broad bowl carrying beef, tomato, wine and herbs. Ian's spaghetti came in bright sauce with meatballs considerably larger than anything she had imagined from the description. She stared at his plate first. "That is an unnecessarily entertaining shape for food."

She copied another diner's grip on the fork and attempted her broad pasta. One ribbon slipped back into the bowl. The Lifegiver looked at it with offended concentration, tried again and managed a proper bite with ragù and cheese. Her expression changed slowly as she chewed. "Oh."

The second forkful came more easily. "I approve of your world's decision to spend this much effort on beef."

Ian cut a meatball, speared the portion to his fork, then twirled spaghetti around it until the meat sat inside a loose coil before eating.

The Lifegiver stopped halfway through lifting her own fork. "That was much more organised than what I have been doing." She tried another ribbon, but her attention returned to his plate. After a moment she set her fork down. "I want to try one of those. May I?"

"You may." Ian smiled at her.

She reached across with her own fork rather than waiting to be served, cut off a piece and brought it back. Her first attempt to wind spaghetti around it loosened before reaching her mouth. She frowned, tried again and succeeded.

"That is very good. And annoyingly satisfying to assemble." She adapted the trick to her own ragù, gathered a small mouthful and held the fork across the table. "Try mine."

Ian opened his mouth slightly, testing whether she would take the hint. Her eyebrows rose. Then she moved the fork the rest of the way towards him. "Oh, so that is what we are doing. Go on, then."

Ian took the bite without looking away from her. The Lifegiver held his gaze until he finished, then drew the fork back slowly. "Well. That made feeding you considerably less innocent than I expected." She looked at the fork, gathered another mouthful for herself and ate. Her foot remained against his boot beneath the table.

"That was good."

Ian paused just long enough to make the next part obvious. "The food also."

The Lifegiver stared at him for one beat and then laughed, properly enough that the sound escaped before she could decide whether the line deserved dignity. "You are becoming bold."

She took another bite, still smiling. "And I think you knew perfectly well what you were doing when you opened your mouth like that. For the record, I liked feeding you."

A few bites later her attention shifted to his lemonade. "That looks completely unlike wine. I want to try that too."

"Please do, although I'm not sure I can feed you that successfully so you'll have to take charge."

She took the glass herself. "That sounds dangerously like permission." The first sip brightened her expression. She took another before returning the glass slightly closer to her side of the table than it had been.

"I'm not that keen on alcohol, which does limit choice when out."

The Lifegiver glanced at her wine. "I can understand that. This is pleasant, but I don't think I would miss it if everything else tasted like that." When the server next passed, she caught her attention herself and ordered a still lemonade.

Once it arrived she tasted it again with obvious satisfaction. "I have been in your world for less than an hour and have already abandoned wine for lemonade. I think I am adapting well."

"Well it stops you getting drunk, as amusing as that would be."

"You say that as though you have already imagined it." She studied the remaining wine. "I don't actually know how much this body would need before drunkenness became relevant here, and I don't particularly want to make finding out the purpose of tonight."

Her foot nudged his boot once. "If I embarrass myself, I would prefer to accomplish it while fully capable of remembering your reaction."

"You didn't strike me as someone needing the courage inebriation brings."

Ian ate another meatball while she considered that.

"No." The Lifegiver turned the lemonade slowly between her hands. "Courage has rarely been my difficulty. Knowing when wanting something does not entitle me to take it has been considerably more educational."

She reached across the table and placed her hand over his. "But this? I want this."

Ian blushed a little and smiled, pressing his hand more firmly into hers. They continued eating with their hands joined between the plates. The arrangement made using a fork slightly inconvenient. The Lifegiver solved that one-handed and showed no interest in revising the decision.

After a while she slowed, most of the ragù gone and her lemonade disappearing faster than the wine ever had. "This is very good. And very strange." She glanced towards the window and then at their hands. "I thought the unfamiliar part would be your buildings, or the machines outside, or having millions of people around me. Mostly I am sitting in a restaurant, eating too much beef and deciding I like lemonade. I think that may be the best part."

"I'm glad you're enjoying it, and we haven't even had dessert yet."

Her attention moved at once to the dessert section. "I have not forgotten. The coffee one. I came to your world to try things I don't know. Ordering the dessert you dislike seems an excellent use of the opportunity."

She released his hand. When the server passed, she ordered the tiramisu herself. Ian's cheesecake remained his responsibility.

The tiramisu arrived first. The Lifegiver leaned closer, caught the coffee properly and gave Ian a sideways look. "So that is the part you dislike."

The first spoonful made her brows rise. The second was larger. "Oh. I understand why people forgive the bitterness."

Ian ordered his cheesecake while she continued. When it arrived, pale and dense over a crumb base with fruit sauce across the plate, she inspected that too. "I criticised that one before seeing it. I may have been premature."

She offered him a spoonful of tiramisu. Ian raised his hand. "No, I don't like coffee. I'm unusual in that. But you may take what you wish from me." He smiled at her.

The Lifegiver's spoon stopped halfway back to her plate. "That is an extremely broad permission to offer someone like me."

Amusement overtook warning. She set the spoon down, reached across with her fork and cut a small piece from the edge of his cheesecake herself. The first taste changed her expression immediately. "Oh, that is excellent. I am going to interpret your permission narrowly and steal only dessert." A beat passed. "For now."

Ian made an innocent shrug whilst smiling and ate some cheesecake. "Which do you prefer?"

She tested the tiramisu again before taking a second piece of cheesecake without asking. "The cheesecake. The tiramisu is more interesting. The coffee makes everything around it taste stronger. But this is better." Her fork hovered over his plate. "And apparently I am the sort of person who steals the dessert she mocked five minutes ago."

"Oh no, dessert theft," Ian said with mock shock.

"Terrible." She ate the stolen piece anyway, then pushed the tiramisu slightly towards the centre. "You may steal mine in return. Although since you dislike coffee, I admit this is not an especially generous offer."

Ian placed his hand over hers. "It's nice to see you enjoying yourself."

The Lifegiver looked at their hands and then around the quiet restaurant. A spoon touched china behind them. Music carried softly above the room. Traffic passed beyond the glass without either of them needing to understand where it was going.

"I am." She turned her hand beneath his and threaded their fingers together. "And I think I would have enjoyed this even without all the impossible parts. Though those helped."

She stole one final piece of cheesecake, finished her lemonade and looked towards the street. "I want to stay until we are actually finished. Then I want to see what is outside."

Ian nodded, and they finished their desserts. "Shall we?"

The Lifegiver looked once around the restaurant: empty plates, abandoned wine, the quiet tables and the ordinary host near the front. She smiled. "Yes. Now I choose the direction. And you are not allowed to tell me what is interesting until after I have found it."

Ian paid and followed her outside. Once they were on the pavement, he took her hand.

The Lifegiver stopped long enough to take the city in without glass between them. London offered no cooperation. Traffic moved in both directions. A bus rolled past with people visible through its upper windows. A cyclist slipped between slower vehicles. Somewhere farther down the street a siren rose and faded without anyone nearby treating it as apocalypse. Old brick stood beside newer glass, signs competed with windows and doorways, and the crowd appeared to know where it was going even when individuals plainly did not.

Her grip tightened around Ian's hand. A woman walked past speaking into a small device near her mouth. Two men stood outside a pub with drinks in hand. A family negotiated a pushchair around a badly parked bicycle. Across the road, a delivery rider stopped beneath a tree and checked his phone.

The tree held her longest. It grew from a square cut into the pavement, roots hidden beneath compacted soil and stone, leaves moving above exhaust and brick. Nobody prayed beneath it. Nobody seemed particularly interested in whether it was thriving beyond a vague civic expectation that it should remain there.

The Lifegiver smiled, then chose a narrower street where trees softened the view. She tugged Ian gently towards it before stopping at the crossing and watching the signals.

"All right. I know you said I could choose the direction. But I would prefer not to discover the rules for crossing your roads experimentally."

Ian pointed at the red or green light in the shape of a person. "Green means go, you press one of these buttons to request and wait." He pointed down the street at a zebra crossing with blinking amber lights atop. "Pedestrians can cross there but you need to wait for the cars to stop, the black and white on the floor tells them they have to, but you still need to look and listen."

He added, "Sometimes there are neither and you just have to judge based on what you can see and hear."

The Lifegiver looked from the signal to the striped crossing farther down. "So even here, eventually the rule becomes pay attention."

She pressed the button herself and watched the acknowledgement light. "I asked. And now the road is apparently considering my request."

A car passed, then another. The red figure remained. The people around them did not object: one man checked his phone, a woman adjusted a shopping bag, and an adult hand caught the back of a child's shirt before he could lean into the road. When green appeared, the Lifegiver looked both ways anyway.

"Well done."

She gave Ian a sideways look. "Do not sound too surprised."

They crossed. A bus passed close enough on the far side to move the air against her clothes, and she turned to watch it disappear. "Your roads are much more organised than ours. Also louder."

The narrow street beyond held cafés, bicycles, shopfronts and planted boxes. The Lifegiver slowed at each thing that caught her attention, then chose a smaller side street without asking where it went. The pavement narrowed enough that Ian let her walk ahead.

For a little while she seemed not to notice his attention. From behind, away from the pulse of her realm, there was remarkably little to announce what she was. Dark hair was tied loosely back, a few strands working free around her neck. Cream showed beneath green as the layers of her clothes moved. No roots lifted beneath the paving. Nothing flowered in her wake.

A shop window caught her reflection and his behind it. She saw where he was looking.

The corner of her mouth rose. She let him have another couple of seconds before looking over her shoulder. "I can see you."

She turned fully, smiling. "If you are going to admire me, you could at least come close enough that I get something from the arrangement too."

Ian caught her up and took her hand, and the Lifegiver resumed walking, choosing the pace. A little farther on, buckets of cut flowers stood outside a shop under a striped awning. She slowed and then stopped.

Dozens of stems stood in water, arranged by colour and shape. Some blooms were tight, others already beginning to open past their most orderly form. A woman emerged from the shop carrying another arrangement, placed it among the others and went back inside.

The Lifegiver looked at the cut ends beneath the water. "They cut them while they are alive. And people buy them because they are beautiful?"

"Yes, they become a gesture, an act. A moment. An apology, an anniversary, a token of affection. Or just something fleeting of beauty."

"Fleeting." She looked back at the flowers. A rose near the front had begun loosening at its outer petals, and nothing about the display pretended permanence. "I have received flowers before. Usually from people who thought giving the Lifegiver something alive was symbolically appropriate. They rarely seemed to consider that somebody had cut it off a plant first." The contradiction amused her, but not enough to settle the question. She stepped closer and studied a single pale stem carrying one open flower and several buds. "I don't know whether I like this. But I think I understand it better when you call it a moment."

She pointed. "I want that one. For myself. Not as an offering." Then she looked at Ian. "I did say money was your problem."

Ian bought the same and gave it to her. "Very demanding," he said, smiling.

The Lifegiver accepted the flower with both hands. "Yes. I am practising."

She tried to thread it into her hair, failed once, then secured the stem through the loose tie at the back so the pale bloom sat near her temple. The result was slightly incongruous with practical garden clothes. She looked at herself in the shop window and seemed delighted by that.

"I chose it, you paid for it, and now I have absolutely no useful purpose for it. I think I am getting very good at this."

When she looked at Ian's reflection, he was somewhat lost looking at her face and smiling.

Her amusement softened. She turned and lifted one hand to his cheek. "You have gone very quiet."

For a moment she studied him in return, apparently deciding that if he was entitled to lose himself looking at her, she could take her time too.

"Sorry, I started staring, didn't I?"

"Yes. I noticed." Her thumb moved once against his cheek. "You may continue. Although if you stare too long, I may start doing the same thing back."

The shop glass held both reflections for another moment: Ian in black behind her, the pale flower at her temple, and a London street moving through them. The Lifegiver let her hand fall, still smiling.

"I won't stop you, although, only one of us is the goddess." Ian glanced along the street. "Where to next?"

"Here, apparently, that is the least interesting thing about me." She looked past him rather than asking for suggestions and spotted a small public garden between the buildings. "That. I want somewhere we can sit for a while and watch people without buying anything from them."

She took his hand again. "And after that, if I see something else I want, I reserve the right to change the plan."

Ian followed. The garden was smaller than it had appeared from the street: mature trees, clipped grass, paved paths, planting beds and several benches. An elderly man read a newspaper. Two teenagers shared headphones from one phone. A woman pushed a sleeping child slowly beneath the trees while speaking through an earpiece.

The Lifegiver chose an empty bench beneath a tree whose roots had lifted one edge of the paving. She sat, shifted towards one end and patted the space beside her.

Ian sat next to her, following her instruction, and they watched the garden for a while. A pigeon marched towards the teenagers in search of food. The sleeping child stirred beneath the shade and settled again. Traffic remained beyond the trees as background rather than the whole city.

The Lifegiver shifted closer until her shoulder rested against Ian's. A few seconds later, the side of her head settled lightly against him as well, the flower brushing his temple when the breeze moved it. "I like this. Not being welcomed. Not being ignored either. Just being allowed to occupy a bench because there was space."

A man crossed the garden carrying two takeaway coffees and disappeared through the opposite gate. "Do people really come to places like this simply to sit?"

"Very much so, especially in this big city I think. It has lots of hidden places like this, it's very crowded. People want to escape, or see some green, or be with someone...." Ian paused. ".... plenty of reasons. London, as this place is called, is quite good at doing beauty encased in concrete."

"London." She tried the name once and attached it to the city beyond the trees. "Beauty encased in concrete. That sounds like something the Worldsmith would say accidentally and mean as praise."

A quiet laugh escaped her. Her eyes settled on the roots lifting the paving. "In my world, people usually build around living things or remove them. Here you seem to do both at once. And then make small places where people can come back and remember they like trees."

Her hand found Ian's beside them on the bench. "I think I like London."

"You wouldn't be the first, many people from many different lands of my world live here. It is the capital of this country, and historically a former empire."

The word *empire* caught her more than *capital*. She lifted her head slightly from his shoulder and watched a group pass on the path speaking a language she did not know. "So some of the variety came here because this place once reached outward. What happened to the empire?"

"I'm not a historian, I think it was the largest the world had seen. But two so-called 'world wars' indebted the country, amongst other things, and so many of the colonies became independent. Varying levels of peaceful transfer I think. Possibly more peaceful than when they became a colony."

The Lifegiver listened without interrupting. "Two wars involving the whole world." Her expression tightened briefly at the scale implied. "And an empire large enough that losing it still leaves people from many of those places here."

She looked across the garden. "I think I would rather learn this place from what remains than from a list of its conquests. Today, at least."

"History makes everyone look bad. At least when you look at countries."

"Gods do not improve under close inspection either." She let that sit. Across the garden, one teenager dropped a crisp packet, noticed, went back and put it in a bin.

The Lifegiver watched the small correction. "Countries are difficult things to judge. They last longer than most of the people who made their worst decisions, then inherit both the harm and the stories people tell about it."

She stood, still holding Ian's hand. "Come on. I want to keep walking."

"Yes, goddess." Ian smiled and followed hand in hand.

"That title is considerably more tolerable when nobody around us knows what it means."

Music reached them before the source did. A guitar and a woman's voice carried between buildings, imperfect enough that traffic swallowed parts of the song before the melody returned. The Lifegiver slowed, brightened and drew Ian towards a pedestrianised square where a musician stood with an open case at her feet. People passed without forming a proper audience. One couple stopped near a wall. A child pulled an adult closer for half a song.

"You promised music."

They stopped at the edge of the square. The Lifegiver became still in a way she had not been anywhere else that day.

Ian rested his chin on her head as she watched and put his arms around her. Almost immediately he realised where they had settled and moved them higher up her chest. "Oops, sorry."

Her attention left the music long enough to glance down. Then she laughed softly. "You are having a difficult day with accidental contact."

She reached up, caught one of his hands and moved it herself to rest comfortably against her upper chest below the collarbone. Her fingers stayed over his for a moment. "There. If I dislike where your hands are, I am capable of moving them."

Then she leaned back against him and listened. The musician's voice was good without being polished smooth. A few notes caught rougher than the others; the guitar carried tiny changes in pressure and timing that would have vanished from something corrected into perfection. The Lifegiver seemed to like those most. One foot began keeping time, corrected itself once, then settled where it wanted.

A woman slowed for half a verse, dropped a coin into the open case and continued. The child returned on the other side of the square and waved at the musician, receiving a wave without the song breaking. When the first song ended, the Lifegiver joined the scattered applause a fraction late.

They listened on. During the third song, her attention began wandering towards an old building across the square, its front window filled with books. She watched it through most of a chorus.

When the song ended, she turned within Ian's arms. "I think I have had enough music." Her eyes went back to the shop. "I want to see what your world keeps in places like that."

Ian let her decide how the day continued to evolve. The Lifegiver slipped free, took two steps towards the shop, then looked back. "And after that I may decide something completely different."

Ian kissed the top of her head, took her hand, and let her lead him into the bookshop.

A small bell sounded over the door. Shelves climbed almost to the ceiling on both sides, some filled with bright new covers and others with books whose corners and spines had softened through previous ownership. Paper, dust and wood hung faintly in the air. A man behind the counter looked up, offered an afternoon greeting and returned to the book in his hands after she answered.

The Lifegiver looked at Ian, delighted. "I continue to approve of your people ignoring me."

She let go of his hand because she wanted both of hers free. The reading aid Ian had given her carried through the shop's signs and pages. **History. Travel. Food and Drink. Gardening. Biography. Fiction. Poetry.** History received one glance. "Not today."

A large travel book held her longer. Photographs showed mountains, deserts, cities and coasts from places whose existence she had not known that morning. She turned several pages before putting it back carefully. The gardening shelves then produced a volume on fruit-tree pruning which she read with increasing severity.

"I disagree with some of that."

She returned it with unnecessary precision and was distracted by a cookbook whose cover showed pasta. Inside were photographs of dishes unlike either of the ones they had eaten, with ingredients and instructions written for people expected to make the food themselves.

"So the restaurant wasn't doing something inaccessible. People make these at home." She turned another page. "And apparently argue about the correct way."

The cookbook stayed under her arm as fiction occupied more space than she expected. She pulled out one paperback and read the description on the back. Two people had inherited part of the same house, disliked one another and were apparently expected to become romantically entangled while renovating it.

The Lifegiver stared at the summary, then at Ian. "That seems extremely avoidable."

She opened it anyway. Several pages later, she was smiling. The novel joined the cookbook.

An illustrated book about London stopped her again. It ignored famous buildings in favour of courtyards, alleys, gardens behind churches, passages beneath railway arches and benches beside old walls. One photograph showed a single tree in a cramped paved square between tall buildings.

"We might have walked past somewhere like this and never known."

She added it to the stack and only then seemed to notice what she had accumulated. "I seem to have developed a shopping problem."

"I look forward to tasting your cooking experiments. If anyone can grow good ingredients, I think it is you." Ian held his hand out for the books. "Shall I go pay for them?"

The Lifegiver looked down at the cookbook. "That is unfairly persuasive. I could grow the ingredients."

Several ideas plainly began organising themselves before she stopped. She passed him the books. "Yes. And before you say anything, I am aware that this is becoming an expensive lesson in having wants. I am coping remarkably well."

Ian went to pay and returned the books. "There you go."

She accepted them with satisfaction, rearranged the stack twice and hid the romance beneath the other two. "That one is going underneath when we leave. I refuse to let strangers believe I chose it first."

The man behind the counter glanced up at exactly the wrong moment. She met his eyes. He returned to his book. She waited until they were outside before laughing.

"I want to keep walking. No destination yet."

Ian looked at her. "Would you like to stay the night?"

The Lifegiver looked back. He let the ambiguity ride for one moment too long, realised it and reddened. "I mean you, here, in a hotel. Er, alone." His attempt to recover made the explanation longer. "Would you like to stay here tonight in a hotel, explore around yourself this evening, and I can come back and meet you for breakfast?"

Her smile grew slowly. "That recovery became considerably more elaborate than the original question."

She shifted the books against her chest and looked down the street. Staying alone would be different from spending the day with him. That was precisely why the idea interested her.

"Yes. I think I would." The answer surprised her slightly as she said it. "But I want it to actually be mine. A room I can leave. A way back to my garden that I control if I decide I have had enough. No invisible escort. No watching me because you are worried about what I might do. And enough of your money that I can buy dinner without needing to explain divine economics to a hotel clerk."

She adjusted the romance novel so its cover faced inward. "I would like to find out what I choose when you are not beside me. Can you give me that?"

"I can, please don't start using divinity with the locals though."

The Lifegiver's expression became serious. "I won't. If someone falls in front of me, I may still have an argument with myself. But I am not staying here to practise being their god."

Ian asked, "Shall we find you a hotel, and then some clothes for tomorrow?"

"Yes. But I choose the clothes." She shifted the books. "And I want money I can actually spend myself. Enough for dinner, breakfast if you are late, and whatever else I decide is interesting without having to summon you every time I want something. You may help me understand what things cost. You may not turn this into you buying everything while I point. Hotel first. I would like to know where I am sleeping before I start acquiring another wardrobe."

"Of course, and I wasn't going to start dressing you up."

They headed towards the nearby hotels.

The first had a stone frontage, polished brass, uniformed staff and cars pausing beneath an awning. The Lifegiver slowed, looked through the doors and rejected it before Ian suggested anything. "No. It looks like somewhere important people go to be reminded that they are important."

The second was smaller and newer, built into the lower floors of a glass-fronted building. She considered it longer, but the rooms appeared to look directly into other buildings. "I am going to spend enough time inside tonight. I want to be able to look out and see something."

The third stood on a quieter side street behind an older brick façade. Its lobby was small, with several chairs and potted plants somebody had kept alive without divine assistance. The upper floors looked across roofs, mature trees and surrounding streets.

"This one." She studied it for another few seconds. "It does not appear to expect me to be impressed. And there are trees."

She looked at Ian. "I want a room high enough that I can see the city from it, if that is a normal thing to ask for."

"Yea, let's go in," Ian said.

They booked her a room, asking for the top floor if possible. There was one available. Ian handled the practical booking while the Lifegiver watched the ordinary exchange with close attention, then accompanied her upstairs to show her the room and the facilities her own world had never given her reason to learn.

The lift delighted her first. The doors closed, the enclosed room rose and her stomach registered the acceleration. "So this is a room that climbs."

At the top floor, Ian showed her how the key card unlocked the door. The room beyond was modest: a broad bed, desk, chair, lamps, kettle, television and a bathroom. The window claimed her before any of them. London spread below in roofs, chimneys, trees and taller buildings farther off, with traffic moving in fragments between streets.

"Oh, yes. This was the correct room."

Only then did she let Ian explain light switches, heating controls, taps, shower, toilet, kettle and the television. She tested each thing carefully. Hot and cold water pleased her; the shower pleased her more.

"You have hot rain inside the room."

The toilet earned a practical nod after one experimental flush. The kettle nearly offended her. "So I can make hot water here without fire."

The television lasted less than a minute. Ian turned it on, a presenter appeared, and the Lifegiver stared at the moving image before switching it off herself. "No. I have enough new things outside the window."

Ian handed her the spending money, which she folded beneath the room card on the desk. He also enabled the room door as her way back to the garden for this stay and explained how to use it: if she deliberately chose the garden as she opened it from inside, it would take her home. Otherwise it opened onto the hotel corridor as usual. The choice would remain hers while he was away; the arrangement would end with this stay.

She checked the card lock twice, operated the taps and shower on her own, then returned to the window. "I think I understand enough. And now I want clothes that do not make me look like I escaped from a very well-maintained forest."

They left the books and pale flower in the room and headed out to find a shop that sold women's clothes of all layers.

The first two windows did not survive her judgement. One appeared to sell clothes designed primarily to be looked at. Another offered expensive variations of black. The third was larger, more practical and organised by type rather than occasion.

The Lifegiver stopped inside beneath bright lights and stared across several floors of clothing. "This is more clothing than some towns contain."

She began with trousers. Denim earned cautious handling. Lightweight cotton pleased her more. Stretch fabric made her pull gently at a waistband, release it and stare at the result. "Oh, that is useful."

A sales assistant approached. The Lifegiver told her, truthfully enough, "I have never bought clothes here before."

The assistant took that to mean the shop. Sizing took several minutes to explain and even longer to disprove itself across different garments.

The Lifegiver held two pieces together. "Your numbers are lying."

The assistant laughed. "They vary a bit between brands."

"A bit." The Lifegiver looked towards Ian. "This civilisation has built machines that move rooms between floors, but has not solved trousers."

She carried several options towards the fitting rooms, then looked back at him. "I am choosing everything. You may have opinions afterwards."

Ian awaited the divine display. The first curtain opened several minutes later. The Lifegiver had chosen straight-cut dark-blue jeans and a soft cream T-shirt, still wearing the shoes she had arrived in. At five foot seven, the modern cut changed her silhouette more than the colours did. She looked less like a divine figure adopting mortal clothes than a woman who could plausibly have walked in from the street.

She inspected herself in the long mirror, crouched, stood, raised one knee experimentally and finally pushed both hands into the front pockets. Her face changed.

"They have pockets."

The sales assistant nearby laughed. "Proper ones."

The Lifegiver pushed her hands deeper. "This may decide the entire civilisation in your favour."

She returned behind the curtain before Ian could offer the opinion she had forbidden.

Her second choice was a dark-green summer dress falling just below her knees. It drew gently at the waist without restricting movement, with short sleeves and a modest neckline. She turned, walked several paces and moved more quickly to test whether the dress objected to a person with somewhere to go.

It did not. The assistant said the colour suited her. The Lifegiver looked at herself in the mirror. "Yes. I think it does."

The third combination was sharper: loose charcoal trousers, a deep red sleeveless top and a light cropped jacket. She studied herself, then looked directly at Ian with mischief in her face. "I look like I know what I am doing."

The assistant, sorting returns nearby, said, "That's usually enough."

Several more pieces accumulated. The Lifegiver chose practical underwear after a frank conversation about sizing, soft cotton sleepwear instead of satin, a light cardigan, another pair of trousers and plain tops. She rejected heels after one attempt. "These are a trap."

Simple white trainers changed her mind about shoes. She walked a circuit of the fitting area, rocked from heel to toe and smiled. "Oh. These are excellent."

She returned to the green dress, this time with simple dark flats. She stopped in front of Ian rather than the mirror.

"Well?"

Ian looked from feet to head. The flats left her at her own five-foot-seven height, several inches shorter than him. Bare ankles showed beneath the hem. Dark green moved lightly around her knees, drew at her waist and followed the natural line of her hips and torso without looking designed to restrict or display. Her forearms were bare beneath short sleeves; the neckline sat simply across her upper chest. Dark hair remained loosely tied, with a few strands escaped around her face. Without soil, pulse or living cloth, she was still recognisably the same woman who had worked beside him in the garden.

Ian smiled. "You look bea... great." He paused, then added aloud, "I liked the outfit with the jeans as well."

The Lifegiver caught the stumble at once. "You almost said beautiful."

She turned once towards the mirror and looked at the jeans and cream shirt waiting nearby. "I like both. The dress is prettier. The jeans have excellent pockets." Her eyes returned to him. "And apparently both make you forget words. I am buying both."

"I fear my inability to speak has become a factor."

Ian paid while she changed into whichever she preferred. When she emerged, she had chosen the jeans, cream T-shirt and white trainers. She put both hands deeply into the pockets and looked entirely satisfied.

"I have decided that if I am going to explore your city alone tonight, I want the pockets. And the shoes. These may be your civilisation's greatest achievement."

She took the bags from the counter herself. "You may attempt speech again when ready."

Ian looked at her. "I'm not sure I'm ready." He glanced towards the shopping. "Shall we drop these off at the hotel?"

"Yes. I would rather not spend the evening carrying half a shop." She rocked one foot experimentally inside the trainer. "The pockets stay."

They returned to the hotel. Ian sat on the edge of the bed while the Lifegiver arranged her possessions.

The books went onto the desk first. The romance lay at the bottom, the London book above it and the cookbook on top. She found a drinking glass for the pale flower, filled it with water and set it near the window. "That is better."

The dress went across the chair rather than into a bag. Flats beneath it. Sleepwear and underwear disappeared into a drawer without ceremony. The spare tops were folded. When she finished, she stood in the middle of the room in jeans, cream T-shirt and trainers, hands finding the pockets again almost automatically.

Her eyes settled on Ian sitting on the bed. She walked over, stopped between his knees and rested both hands lightly on his shoulders.

"You are staring again."

Ian looked up at her. "I'm sorry, it's fascinating to see you in such a normal setting. And ..." His voice drifted, somewhat ashamed of his feelings.

The Lifegiver's amusement faded. She did not step back. One hand left his shoulder and came to rest against the side of his face. "And?" Her thumb moved once against his cheek. "You were bold enough to stare. You may as well finish the sentence."

"And..." Ian paused, hesitating on the verge of an admission he might regret. "... I like you."

The Lifegiver went still. Her hand remained against his cheek while the easy amusement left her face. She looked at him for several seconds without reaching past the words for some hidden answer.

"I know." She grimaced almost immediately. "No. That sounds terribly arrogant." Her gaze dropped, then returned to him. "I hoped."

Her thumb moved once against his cheek. "I like you too. More than company. More than somebody interesting who visits my garden." Saying it appeared to make her both pleased and wary. "I have been trying not to decide too quickly what that means. I am very good at wanting something and then behaving as though wanting it settles the question."

She leaned closer, one hand still on his shoulder, and stopped before the last distance disappeared. "I want to kiss you. Do you want me to?"

"I do... very much. I... don't know if I should." Ian placed his hand on her waist. "Maybe I should go."

The Lifegiver's mouth tightened. She stepped back enough that his hand fell away. "All right." For the first time since the restaurant, irritation showed through the warmth. "I am also a little angry with you. And with myself."

"Because of Lethira, I'm afraid if I stay I will do something I will enjoy, and then regret. Despite all my power, I am very weak."

Her eyes closed briefly. "Don't call yourself weak so I have to comfort you." She looked towards the window and back. "We both knew Lethira existed. I still fed you, touched you and asked to kiss you. You still let this get far enough that leaving hurts."

She exhaled and some of the sharpness left her. "I want you. That has not changed. But if you already think staying means betraying her, then go. I would rather be angry tonight than have you here while part of you is wishing you had left." A small, unhappy smile appeared. "And I do not trust either of us to become more sensible if you stay."

Ian stood and embraced her. "Thank you."

She wrapped both arms around him and held him firmly, face against his shoulder. After several seconds she ended the embrace herself, deliberately rather than abruptly, leaving clear space between them.

"You should go before either of us decides restraint was an excellent idea in theory." The humour did not hide the desire beneath it. She touched his hand once. "I meant what I said. I want you. And I am still going to have my evening."

Her eyes moved towards London beyond the window and back to him. "Come back for breakfast. And try to arrive capable of speaking."

"I shall try." Ian smiled at her and disappeared.

The Lifegiver stayed where he had left her. Water moved through a pipe in the wall. A door closed somewhere along the corridor, followed by voices fading towards the lift. His absence did not make the last several minutes less real, and she found herself remembering the weight of his hand at her waist with irritating precision.

She sat on the edge of the bed. The place beside her was still slightly depressed where Ian had been sitting, and she smoothed the bedding with her palm before noticing what she was doing. She was pleased that he wanted her. She was also annoyed with him for the afternoon's encouragement, although remembering the offered fork, her foot against his boot and her own question about kissing made it difficult to enjoy the annoyance properly.

Lethira's name had been absent from most of those moments. Now the Lifegiver pictured her at the western house and remembered the Elf refusing an unwanted examination without apology. She wished she had asked Ian a very obvious question several hours earlier, and swore softly under her breath at herself for leaving it unasked.

She sat with her hands on her knees until the city drew her back to the window. A delivery rider below was fighting a strap on the back of a bicycle, while a group outside a restaurant studied a menu. London had not changed because Ian had gone. She had wanted an evening of her own; spending it entirely on him would be an unimpressive start.

The green dress waited on its chair. She considered it, then put the room card and money into the jeans pockets. The pockets won again.

At reception she asked for the hotel's address on a card. The woman behind the desk supplied one and pointed out a nearby junction as a landmark. The Lifegiver put it in a pocket separate from the key card and walked outside.

The city had shifted towards evening while they were upstairs. Restaurants had begun filling. Pubs were louder. Small groups moved without shopping bags or obvious errands. She chose left for no better reason than the street looking interesting.

At the first crossing she pressed the button, waited for green and looked both ways anyway. Two streets later there was no signal close at hand. Traffic moved steadily and the marked crossing lay farther along. She walked to it.

A small food shop stood open beyond the next junction. Its doors slid apart as she approached, making her stop so abruptly that the man behind almost walked into her.

"Sorry," he said.

"So am I."

He went around her. She stepped backwards and watched the doors close, then forward and watched them open again. The experiment delighted her enough that she had to repeat it once before entering.

The shop contained more food than its frontage suggested. Fruit, bread, chilled cabinets, packets, bottles and shelves devoted to sweet or salty things filled the bright aisles. The Lifegiver spent several minutes in produce because that part required the least translation. Then she found lemonade.

She chose two bottles, one for now and one for the following morning, and a packet of biscuits which contained no coffee. On her way towards the tills an older man passed with a pronounced limp, taking weight off one leg quickly and touching the end of a shelf as he moved.

Her attention followed him. How long? Joint or bone? Nerve, muscle, old injury? Her awareness began to reach before she recognised what she was doing.

She stopped it. The man took a tin from the shelf and read its label. He had not asked her anything. She had promised Ian she would not use divinity on the people here, but even without that promise, the man's limp had not become hers simply because she could see it.

The questions remained. That was the irritating part.

She went to pay, where a self-service machine rejected her attempt to use cash. A member of staff redirected her towards a staffed till without treating the mistake as important. The cashier scanned the bottles and biscuits, stated the amount and counted change back into her hand. The Lifegiver checked the coins carefully before moving aside.

Outside, she opened one bottle. The lemonade was sharper than the restaurant's and slightly less sweet. She liked it anyway.

She became lost gradually enough that she resisted naming the condition for nearly forty minutes. At first every unfamiliar street was simply a successful choice. Then the buildings became less familiar instead of more, and she realised she could no longer reconstruct the hotel from her turns.

The card in her pocket gave her an address, not a direction. She stood at a corner beneath a sign she could read perfectly and achieved nothing useful by reading it twice.

A woman waiting for a small dog to finish investigating a drain seemed in less of a hurry than most people nearby. The Lifegiver approached her, showed the card and asked for help. The woman explained a route involving the second right and a larger road. The Lifegiver repeated it, accepted one correction and thanked her.

The directions worked. When the hotel appeared from an angle she had not seen before, she recognised it before reading the sign. She stopped on the opposite pavement and smiled.

She did not go in. The street beyond the hotel opened towards a broader patch of sky. There was still daylight to spare. This time she kept the return turns in mind.

The river surprised her. She smelled water before seeing it, mixed with the city rather than replacing it. Then the buildings opened and a wide brown-grey river carried evening light between dense banks of stone, glass, roads, rail and bridges.

The Lifegiver rested her forearms on the wall and watched a boat pass below. Some people came to look at the water. Most did not. A man nearby divided his attention between the river and chips wrapped in paper while a gull studied him with professional patience.

Ian returned to her thoughts whenever her attention loosened. His hesitation before saying he liked her. Her pleasure at making him blush. The almost-kiss in the hotel room.

Ian loved Lethira. He had stopped before the kiss and gone, and the Lifegiver still wanted him.

The gull made its attempt. The man jerked the food back, lost one chip and swore as the bird escaped. The Lifegiver laughed loudly enough that he looked over.

"Been waiting for that one," he said.

"It was very patient."

He folded the paper more securely around his food. She smiled and returned to the river.

By the time she left, street lights were beginning to matter. She bought a fruit pastry from a bakery, returned to the hotel without asking for directions and exchanged an ordinary evening greeting with the receptionist.

The room accepted her card. Nothing inside had moved.

She put the unopened lemonade into the small refrigerator after investigating the humming cupboard long enough to establish its purpose, then showered. The hot water remained one of the world's strongest arguments in its own favour. She adjusted the temperature by small turns until it was exactly what she wanted and stayed there longer than practical necessity required.

Afterwards she put on the cotton sleepwear she had chosen. Her damp hair left dark patches on the shoulders until she rubbed it with a towel and eventually gave up. The flower had opened farther in its glass. She changed the water and moved it back from the edge of the sill where her elbow had nearly caught it.

The cookbook offered ingredients she did not yet know how to obtain and instructions she was already tempted to argue with. She put it aside and drew the romance novel from beneath the other books.

The first chapter irritated her. By the third, both protagonists had separately reached conclusions about the other's motives without asking a useful question. She lowered the book.

"You live in the same house."

They continued to behave badly. Several chapters later, one almost said something honest and stopped.

The Lifegiver stared at the ceiling. "Ian managed better than this."

The book was ridiculous. It was also, annoyingly, good. One argument was clearly about something else. A secondary character understood the problem and declined to solve it for them. The house renovations created practical reasons for the two people to remain together even while they insisted on misunderstanding one another.

She ate the pastry without noticing she had finished it. At some point she looked up and found London reflected in the darkened window. The pale flower stood near her elbow, the cut stem still cut and the bloom relaxing slightly as the hours passed.

She could keep it perfect. She left it alone and returned to the novel and read until the same sentence failed to stay in her head twice. She used the shop receipt to mark her place, put the room card beside the book and turned off the lamp.

Breakfast with Ian came to mind in the dark, carrying anticipation and a smaller unease she did not try to remove. She shifted the pillow beneath her cheek and eventually slept.

---

Morning came pale through the curtains. The Lifegiver had been awake long enough to shower again and dress in jeans, cream T-shirt and trainers before a knock sounded at an hour reasonable enough that she had no complaint prepared. Her hair was loose and dry. The romance novel lay face-down beside the receipt marking her place, and the flower had softened at the edges in its glass.

She looked at the door for one moment before crossing the room and opening it.

Ian stood outside. Warmth reached her face before the uncertainty from yesterday had time to organise itself. "Good morning." She stepped back. "You came."

Ian smiled back. "Of course, I can't have you enjoying breakfast without me here to see it."

He hugged her, a little more friendly than sensual. The Lifegiver returned it in the same spirit. When they separated, the small tension in her shoulders had eased.

"Two options - continental, as it is referred to here, or traditional 'full-English'." Ian gave her enough of the details for each to be a meaningful choice: breads, fruit, pastries, preserves and cheese on one side; eggs, bacon, sausages, beans, mushrooms, tomatoes, toast and sometimes black pudding on the other.

"The continental one sounds closer to food I already understand." The Lifegiver considered that for only a moment. "Full English. I did not stay overnight in another world to begin the morning with bread and fruit I could have eaten in my garden."

Black pudding interested her rather than repelling her. "You make a sausage from blood." She smiled. "Yes. Definitely that."

She collected her card and money, glanced once at the novel and left it where it was. "I also need something substantial after spending part of the night being angry at fictional people for refusing to speak clearly."

Ian took her hand and led her out of the hotel, searching for the smell of freshly cooked bacon as favoured by people with healthy appetites.

The morning street was cooler and slower than the previous afternoon. Coffee drifted from one doorway, warm bread from another, and then bacon reached them from a side street where several small cafés occupied the ground floors of older brick buildings. The Lifegiver caught the smell at nearly the same moment and increased her pace without comment.

One café offered pastries and careful small plates. Another looked too polished for what Ian had described. The third had condensation low on its front window and a handwritten board listing eggs, bacon, sausages, mushrooms, beans, tomatoes, toast and black pudding in several combinations. A server carried a plate past the window containing enough breakfast to answer most of her questions at once.

The Lifegiver stopped. "I think that one understands what I was promised. Also, if I am going to discover whether blood belongs in breakfast, I would prefer to do it somewhere that smells this good."

"This looks perfect," Ian said.

They went inside. Ian ordered two full-English breakfasts, with English breakfast tea and fresh orange juice. They sat near the window to await them.

The café had a different rhythm from the restaurant the day before. A man in work clothes ate quickly at the counter while reading messages on his phone. Two older women occupied a corner table with tea and no evident intention of leaving soon. Bacon hissed somewhere behind the kitchen hatch.

The orange juice arrived first. The Lifegiver took one sip, looked down at the glass and tried again. "That is much better than I expected from something so obviously made from fruit."

She rested both hands around the glass. "I got lost last night."

Satisfaction made the admission sound almost like boasting. She told Ian about the woman with the dog, the river, the gull and the automatic doors.

Eventually she mentioned the man with the limp. "I started trying to understand why. I stopped. He never knew I was there."

The memory still bothered her in both directions: because she had wanted to know, and because she still did not know.

The tea arrived while she was thinking about it. She watched the server arrange pot, cups and milk between them, then looked at Ian. "I think I had a very successful evening."

"That sounds perfect, I'm glad I suggested you stay. I hope you are too?"

The Lifegiver turned the juice glass slowly between her hands. "Yes. I am glad you suggested it. And I am glad you left."

There was no edge in the second part. "If you had stayed, the evening would have remained something we were doing together. I liked yesterday very much, but after you went I had to choose where to walk, what to buy, who to ask when I was lost and when to come back. Nobody was there to make the unfamiliar parts easier unless I asked an ordinary stranger."

She glanced through the window at a city which had already become fractionally less strange. "I think I needed that more than I knew."

The smell from the kitchen grew stronger. Her mouth curved. "And now I am also glad you came back."

"Me too." Ian smiled at her as they awaited breakfast arriving.

The plates arrived broad and crowded. Eggs, bacon, sausages, mushrooms, tomatoes, beans, toast and the dark round of black pudding filled most of the available space. The Lifegiver stared for several seconds.

"This is not breakfast. This is several meals forced into an alliance."

She began with the more familiar parts. Bacon won immediate approval. The sausage required a second bite before she decided the seasoning justified its existence. She broke the egg yolk and used toast to catch it. Only after sampling everything else did she cut a small piece of black pudding.

She chewed slowly, then took another piece. "Oh. That is much better than the description suggested."

"It goes very well with the yolk or beans."

The Lifegiver deliberately dragged the next piece through the broken yolk and added a few beans. Her eyes widened slightly. "Yes."

Another bite followed almost immediately. "I withdraw my earlier suspicion. This meal has structure."

Ian smiled, captivated by her seemingly innocent, or perhaps naive, exploration of things so normal to him.

The Lifegiver eventually caught him watching. She finished the bite in her mouth and looked down at the plate as though checking whether she had broken some rule, then understood.

"Oh. You like watching me discover things."

Amused, she rested the fork against her plate. "I suppose I like being able to discover them without already knowing what they are for. But if you start treating me like a child because I have never seen baked beans before, I will become very difficult."

"I wouldn't dare, treating your employer that way would be foolish."

She laughed. "Your employment arrangement is disgraceful. Irregular hours, your wages paid in advance, and your superior occasionally makes you dig up boulders."

Ian added, "And yes it's really nice to see you find joy in these things."

That softened her. She looked around the café: tea steaming between them, somebody turning a newspaper page, plates moving behind the counter. "I like that nobody here expects the joy to be important. Yesterday I bought a flower because I wanted one. Then books. Then trousers because they had excellent pockets."

Her eyes returned to Ian. "And this morning I am apparently very pleased by beans. I think I am doing ordinary life extremely well."

Ian picked up a piece of toast and squashed some black pudding on to it, then took a bite. "You could live here."

The Lifegiver's fork slowed as she looked through the window at pedestrians moving beneath a sky which had never carried prayer to her. Yesterday she had enjoyed that anonymity greedily. A room of her own. Money in her pocket. Getting lost. Being wrong without consequence beyond mild inconvenience.

"I could stay here," she said after a while. "For longer than one night, certainly."

She ate a piece of sausage before continuing. "But live here? I have a garden I chose to keep. Work I have not finished. People in my world I care about, even when caring for them has been one of the ways I became dangerous."

She looked down at the remains of breakfast and then back at the street. "And I think part of why I like this so much is that it is somewhere I can visit without owning anything. Ask me again after I have survived more than one night and one excellent breakfast."

"Then, maybe you could, work here, and return to your realm? Afterwards, split your time, part-time work here with normality and people, vs. your realm and the divine purpose?"

Ian shrugged. "It was just an idea, something that might give you a counter view, a different purpose."

The Lifegiver broke a corner from her toast and used it to gather yolk while she thought. "Perhaps."

She liked the part where her authority meant nothing to anybody around her. Yesterday a stranger had given directions because she asked. Cashiers cared whether she had the correct money. A shop assistant had corrected her understanding of trouser sizes without any idea whose judgement she was contradicting.

"I don't want to come here and turn everyone I meet into exercises in becoming better," she said eventually. "They are already doing their own things. I like that about them."

Ian corrected her. "I wasn't thinking about it for being a bad goddess, sorry. I was thinking about creating you an identity, enough to plausibly exist here... then. Well, that would be up to you. Find a job, a vocation, volunteer, travel, whatever really. I'm sure you'd get a job as a gardener or sex therapist."

He chuckled at the extremes and the creative interpretation of a fertility goddess.

The Lifegiver stared at him, then laughed hard enough that one of the women at the next table glanced over. "Those are not adjacent professions."

She covered her mouth for a moment and failed to recover. "Although I admit the second one is an inventive interpretation of fertility."

Ian added, "Anyway just a thought."

That version interested her more. An identity rather than a purpose. Enough ordinary existence that she could rent a room, spend her own money, travel or apply for work without Ian standing beside her to make every practical interaction possible.

"I think I misunderstood you," she said. "An identity sounds useful. Not a life already written around it. Just enough that I can choose what to do here without being dependent on you for every door."

Her eyes brightened. "And if I become a gardener, it will be because somebody hires me after I convince them I know what I am doing. If I become a sex therapist, I am blaming you forever."

"Let's not decide now whilst we're in love with cooked blood. Next time I visit we can discuss?"

The Lifegiver looked down at the black pudding. "That is probably wise. I have made worse decisions under less convincing influences."

She took another bite anyway. The idea could remain possible without becoming a plan before breakfast ended. "Next time."

Ian's expression shifted. He took her hand across the table.

"I'm also sorry if I led you on. I like you and enjoy spending time with you, I am a normal man and I doubt I'm the first in history to make decisions with the wrong organ. You look very attractive." He held her hand. "Sorry. I hope you can forgive me."

The Lifegiver looked down at their joined hands. The reference to the wrong organ pulled briefly at the corner of her mouth, but she did not let the joke carry the apology for him.

"Yes. I forgive you. You also did lead me on." Her fingers turned within his instead of withdrawing. "And I helped. I put my foot against yours. I fed you. I asked to kiss you. Do not make me innocent now because you feel guilty."

She looked towards the window, visibly annoyed with the memory as well as him. "I knew about Lethira. I liked making you blush enough that I did not ask the obvious question. That part belongs to me."

Her gaze came back to his. "I still like you. I still want you. Breakfast has not made either of those things convenient." She squeezed his hand once. "What are you going to tell Lethira?"

"Nothing about that, if we'd kissed, I would have."

Ian continued before she interrupted. "I will say we met, had dinner, and the shape of the rest of it."

"And I didn't think the tempting was entirely down to my wit and charm."

Ian smiled. "I do consider you a friend and someone I care for, that won't change because I got close to crossing the boundary."

"And I don't think you need to stop making me blush, it is amusing."

Ian squeezed her hand. "Now, let's finish this feast."

The Lifegiver regarded him for a moment before reaching for her fork. "I won't tell you how to manage your relationship with Lethira. But if she ever asks you directly about me, don't make what happened smaller to protect either of us."

She left the rest with him and returned to breakfast. She discovered that fried tomato worked better mixed with sausage than alone, rejected the idea that mushrooms improved everything merely because they improved several things, and finished most of the black pudding before noticing how little remained.

Her eyes moved to Ian's plate. "You have some on your plate."

There was no request in it. Only intent.

"It is yours ..."

"Excellent."

She reached across, claimed the last piece from his plate and drew it back to her own with the solemnity of a negotiated territorial transfer. Then she cut it in half.

"One for greed." She ate the first piece with beans and yolk, leaving the second beside her toast. "And one because apparently even I can practise restraint. Briefly."

Ian laughed, and the Lifegiver smiled at the sound and ate the remaining piece. "There. I have now exercised restraint and still eaten all the black pudding available to me. I think that counts as balance."

"I would agree. Walk after tea then home?"

She looked towards the window and then at the teapot. "Yes."

The last of the tea went into her cup with a little milk. Outside, the morning had brightened enough that pedestrians were beginning to linger rather than merely move between destinations.

"I want one more walk while this still feels like somewhere I am visiting rather than somewhere I understand. Then home." The word came easily. Her garden waited, as did thirty-two unfinished beds and every unresolved difficulty of being herself.

She smiled. "And I want to take the long way back to the hotel."

They took the long way back. The Lifegiver chose turns because a row of trees looked promising, because a painted sign caught her attention or because a narrow passage offered no clue what lay at the other end. She no longer stopped at every traffic signal or automatic door, though a street cleaner's rotating brushes held her for long enough that Ian eventually noticed she had fallen half a pace behind.

At the hotel she collected her books, clothing, flower and the small collection of ordinary things which had accumulated across less than a day. The pale bloom had softened further. She kept it.

When it was time to leave London, she looked once more from the top-floor window before turning away.

Later, back in her own realm, the garden received her without ceremony. Water moved through the channels. The crooked bed was still crooked. The vine had continued beyond the support she once would have corrected before noticing herself doing it. Thirty-two beds remained exactly where she had left them.

The Lifegiver carried her new books to the low stone beside the stream and set the cookbook on top. The flower went into a small cup of water there rather than being preserved by divine power. Its outer petals had begun to loosen.

She sat beside it in jeans and a cream T-shirt for several minutes before changing back into garden clothes. The pockets made that decision less immediate than it should have been.

Ian came to mind. The hotel room came with him: the unfinished sentence, his hand at her waist, the moment she had asked for a kiss and the moment he had chosen to leave. She still wanted him. Breakfast had not repaired that into something simpler, and she was not interested in trying to heal the wanting out of herself.

She picked up the flower by its glass and moved it half a handspan because the sun was stronger there than she wanted for it. The impulse to keep the bloom from fading followed immediately. She felt it, considered it and left the stem as it was.

Then she opened the cookbook. A recipe near the middle required tomatoes, garlic, herbs and a kind of cheese her garden did not contain. The Lifegiver read the method twice, found three places where she believed the writer was being unnecessarily dogmatic, and smiled despite herself.

She took a scrap of paper and began a list of ingredients she would need to obtain rather than create.

The romance novel remained underneath the London book. For now.