Scyelen sighs. That didn't last long.

"No, um, it's your way that insists more people get married. Which is bad, for the reasons you just said. Our way means people only have to marry to have children; two people who fall in love can just be together without... anything else intruding on that."

"Why do you think that's bad?"

"You just said why it's bad. It makes people miserable."

Or, wait, is... Scyelen may be losing the thread of her argument, but she isn't sure. Arguing with Raafi is exhausting.

"Mm." Squeeze. "Sweetheart, I think what's going on here is that you shouldn't get married, and you know it's going to make you miserable, and you're assuming it's just like that, for everyone. Most people want to get married, when they're in love."

"Um, well, you're correct that I'd probably be really terrible at raising a child, that much is true, but. That's... a separate issue."

"It's not what I meant, yeah. I'm not sure what marriage means to you, though, so I can't really guess what parts would be bad for you, I just know what it looks like when someone has that sort of problem."

"It... doesn't mean anything? It's... a set of rules; a set of legal obligations. The part that would be bad for me is the part where I'd be really bad at raising a child. Um, maybe also the part, where because I'm betrothed I'm not allowed to... with a boy..."

"So it means that there's things you can't do, because of the rules, that you want to. I think that's pretty important. And it's not surprising that it's making you miserable. But not everyone does marriage like that - the rules aren't part of the world, like the sun or the sky, they're something that people made up, and people in different places make up different ones."

Scyelen shudders in existential dread.

"Maybe I shouldn't go to your world after all."

"Oh?"

"I... don't think I can handle... a whole new set of weird scary rules. I think I'd break under the strain."

He shifts to hold her more protectively. "People wouldn't expect you to, mostly. Not with me right there, anyway, everyone knows clerics of Fharlanghn guide foreigners sometimes, and not with Kat, either, she's good at that sort of thing."

Scyelen curls in on herself apologetically, but, "I don't think I can trust you to be right about that."

"Well, you don't have to come. I bet Kat'll come here to meet you, if you want, but we don't have to do that, either."

"Kat doesn't like any rules, just about, that's why I'm sure she's safe. She might complain about the rules here but she won't try to make you follow any extra ones, unless you ask her for the kind of help where that's the best sollution."

"Okay," Scyelen says, noncommittal.

Hug. "I can say more about all of that, sometime, if you want me to. Lots of places are very different from this one, not just in what rules they have but in how they think about rules at all."

Scyelen shakes her head. She doesn't know how to make him understand.

The gnawing pain of the unbridgeable distance between them twists in her gut. For all the good her words do, she may as well just grunt. She may as well just cry on him since making her want to cry seems to be what he's best at.

He'll just hold her, then.

(She needs to be out of here so badly, out to see just how big the world is and how many choices she has if only she chooses to take them, how many ways to live and thrive, and he has no good way to make it happen at all, not if she thinks she can't, not stuck in a world he's barely explored at all to even know where they could try to go.)

Eventually, dinnertime rolls around.

Scyelen is mostly back to her usual self.

Between courses, Kirche saunters over, not merely to flirt with Raafi but also to actually ask/tease him about his plans for the upcoming Exhibition in a flirty manner, and to brag about the fire tricks she's been teaching Flame.

The flirting gets the same 'not interested, Kirche' that it's been getting for the last two weeks, if maybe in a slightly less dismissive tone. 'We'll see,' he says of his plans for the exhibition; he doesn't seem to mind letting her talk about her familiar.

After the last course, Miss Vaux shows up, shoos Kirche away, and says, "Miss Vallière, Princess Henrietta will be touring the academy and has requested that you accompany her."

Scyelen's head jerks up. She hastily puts her fork down and stands, nearly tripping over her chair in the process.

Raafi'll stand too, then, more gracefully. He gives her a moment to say something, not really expecting her to, and when it doesn't happen - "We'll be there."

She raises an eyebrow, then smiles at little at Scyelen's awkward enthusiasm for the princess.

"Alright. This way. The headmaster has decided to begin with the Hall of Alumni."

Miss Vaux leads them across the ground floor of the main tower to a gallery of small statues, where the princess and her entourage are listening to Old Osmond blather on about the schools' prestigious history in a rehearsed manner.

Raafi shadows Scyelen again, a pace behind and a pace to the left. He gives the princess a little grin when they meet up with her.