The last Sunday dinner of the year.
Not announced as such — it was simply the last one before the Hold's winter administrative period would compress everyone's schedules. But they all came. The specific gravitational pull of this table, these people, this room.
Maren and Davan sat side by side. This had been Maren's arrangement for over a year and she enforced it with the serene authority of someone who had made a decision once and saw no reason to revisit it. Davan found this correct.
Draven had made something that required eleven minutes of explanation before serving. Sera had made the thing everyone actually ate. Both knew this and neither mentioned it. This was the equilibrium they'd reached.
Otto had brought sandwiches from three different places. The taxonomy of sandwiches had be
