"I'm glad. Because I said absolutely not."

"Good.

"...I think right now I would like it if you kissed me."

Kissing's nice. She's not completely terrified of touching him while she does it anymore, either, probably she can run her fingers through his hair and nothing terrible will happen to her at all.

Nothing terrible at all unless surprised pleased noises are terrible.

That's not very terrible at all, no.

"Love you."

He pulls her in closer and kisses her again and doesn’t say anything.

That's good, too.

“I think that I probably love you,” he says later when they are done with kissing, “but I keep feeling like the definition I have isn’t the one you know and I’m not sure how I’d know if we were talking about the same thing. It made me very happy, when you said it.”

Eeee. She likes making him very happy.

"Lots of people aren't very sure what love is, I think. They write poems, sometimes, trying to capture what it is for people who haven't experienced it. But I think this must be the thing the other poets are talking about. I - I want you to stay with me, because you're good, and wonderful, and everything about my life is better for having you in it. And I want you to feel - valued and safe and warm and happy, the way I feel when I think of you."

“Something feels very strange about -

- it seems like you feel obliged to me in some way that’s separate from being indebted to me and I don’t know what to do with that.”

"Hmm.

"There are - people who I acknowledge have done more for me than I have ever done for them? My parents, obviously? And I love them, in the sense of wanting things to go well for them, but - you're someone I chose. Or at least - anyone could have trapped me here and made me indebted to them, if they could pretend to be good for long enough to feed me and answer my questions, but almost nobody would have been as good to me as you are. And that's - that's more important to me than whatever the magic thinks? The fact that you're good to me. And I want to be good back."

Hug. "It just...feels like cheating, to claim something I didn't pay for and won't ever have to."

"I think that - for humans, maybe, love is the part where we stop caring to keep track."

"I could tell you my name, and you could tell me yours. That's - entanglement forever, not because of debt but because you know each other now. It's - it's not the same thing but it's the thing we have."

"Yeah. We could do that. Do you want to?"

"Yes."

"Okay.

"My name is Catherine."

"My name is Tyelcormo."

"Tyelcormo. S'pretty."

"Thank you." Kiss?

Yeah. Seems like a good time for it.

And then they can continue trekking to Akershus. He's more careful about food now, even though Catherine is no longer the baby's only food source.  They try to avoid any days eating nothing but the nectar of flowers.

This seems good and responsible. They should still reach Akershus in pretty good time. And then they can look for fairy rings, and she can write her niece a note instructing her that it is of the utmost importance that she bring Sigrun and Tyr to one of them, if at all possible before their morning lessons, and certainly by the end of the day. 

And then they wait?

And then they wait.