"Mhm."

You know, I'm not totally sure where we go from here, but I'm really glad the answer isn't 'of necessity, nowhere.'

Yeah. Nice to - be able to figure it out.

Marille says Maitimo thought there was a chance we were going to come back already married.

Wanna?

Tempting, but I already told Marille we hadn't and she would be really upset if not only did she not get to come to my wedding party, I next thing to lied to her about it.

Fair. It'd just be such a dramatic fuss.

And the idea of going through with a Year-long separated engagement sounds like a huge hassle in and of itself, but if we were going to elope I think I would still want to have, like, a nice dinner for the occasion with my sister and parents and maybe a couple of other friends who would know not to make a fuss over it and could testify afterwards that it might have been hasty but it was definitely deliberate, that'd satisfy the people I care about satisfying and also I mostly don't care what people say about me but when I'm an embarrassment to society I do it on purpose and people thinking my potentially unwise marriage was an accident would be deeply annoying.

Okay, fair.

And also you're wonderful but, like, before marriage should probably come--figuring out how our lifestyles fit together? Like, this trip has been fantastic but I definitely don't want to default to being away from my sister for this long.

Yeah, I know you've missed her. Go find her, I will tolerate endless public fuss.

She grins and kisses him on the cheek and dashes off to find her sister.

Her sister: is findable. There are hugs. Lots and lots of hugs.

Good. A Year apart was too long, really, even if it was fun.

It was.

A few days later she goes to visit Maitimo again.

"Hey!"

"Hey! Our siblings did not get spontaneously married while they were gone, yay not having to deal with the fallout."

"I noticed!"

"I still haven't gotten Ahya to tell me exactly how she got him to kiss her, which would worry me less if what I had gotten out of her wasn't 'dinosaur-related stupidity' and she didn't have a new scar."

"Are they planning to do it again?"

"Traveling, traveling for a Year, or acquiring most likely dinosaur-related scars?"

"The latter."

"Well, I hope not, and seeing as how she described the event as stupidity I rather don't think she's planning on a repeat."

"Then I think I'll try not to lose sleep over it."