The full table had not been this full in weeks.
Not the crisis-gathering — the compound had been gathering during the weeks of rest, but with the specific quality of people checking in rather than people simply being together. This was different. This was the table at its natural capacity, everyone present because they wanted to be, the conversation running in the overlapping threads of a community that had found its rhythm.
Marcus at the corner with Neva beside him — not performing ease, having it, the specific ease of two people who have decided on their arrangement and are inside it.
Aldis and Soran across from each other — talking about the eastern route supply chain, which had become the ground on which they had built a working friendship, the shared language of logistics applied t
