He asked me on a Friday.
Not a ceremony Friday. Not a significant Friday. A Friday where the morning light came in sideways through the east tower window and the coffee was the good kind and neither of us had anywhere to be until noon.
We had been at the Hold for two days — his limit met, mine honoured. The structural repairs were ongoing in the lower level. The outer territory committee had submitted three position papers. Cael Orin had organized all of it while somehow also finding time to correspond with Bettany about pharmaceutical access protocols in pack-adjacent communities, which was a development I had stopped questioning because it kept producing useful results.
I was reading.
Page twelve. The same page I had been on since approximately October.
He was at the window with his
