"Do you want to go visit them?"

"Yes, I - I would."

"We can do that, then. I - will leave it up to you whether I should visit your family with you or just bring you there and back."

"Um." She considers.

Serik is kind of. Inexplicable. 'Hey mom, dad, this is my boyfriend. I know he has the reputation for kidnapping and torturing innocent victims, which is totally true by the way, but he's in love with me and will only hurt me with my consent?' Her parents are understanding, but that is pushing it a bit.

".... Why don't you drop me off, and I can call you after the crying and explanations are out of the way, and I can introduce you to them if they're - not going to make it weird."

"All right." He kisses her forehead. "I can do that."

She smiles at him.

"This does unfortunately mean you miss out on getting to see me cry." Making a joke of it because she sort of expected she'd never see her parents again. And now she just - can.

He giggles. "I love you."

She kisses him.

"Thanks," she murmurs, because - there's really nothing else she can say, is there?

Kiss. "I want you to be happy. Where do you live exactly? I wonder if we'll beat your letter there?"

"Mairana, and - maybe. It's only been..." She counts the days in her head. It is the morning of day four, if she counts the not-precisely-kidnapping as its own day. Really? That. Seems incorrect. It felt like it had been much longer than that. "Three days. It could go either way, really, depends on if they sent a courier or if they waited to send it with someone else."

"Well. Let's find out."

He kisses her, stands up, conjures clothes onto himself, and offers his hand.

"Cheater," she mutters, but she's smiling. She takes the offered hand. "Let's!"

And then they're in the wind.

The length of the flight to the southern coast is non-trivial. But the landscape going by underneath them is very pretty.

When they reach Mairana, he materializes them standing on thin air and asks, "Where to?" with a sweeping gesture down at the city below.

She takes his arm, when they re-materialize. Being the wind: kind of scary. Having hold of him is comforting.

"East side of the city, follow that road from the large marketplace and it's right past that hill, near the orchards outside of the city." Pause. ".... I am probably going to want to see Mairana from up here again, but - later?"

"Later," he promises, and they dissolve and flow down on the breeze to her family's home.

She hugs him, once they're both back in physical form.

"You'll still be able to hear me say your name even though we're not on the mountain, right?"

He kisses her forehead. "I will now. I don't hear it from everyone in the world, that would be tedious, but I'll hear it from you."

"Okay." Extra hug. "I expect we'll be an hour or two, but if it stretches longer don't worry."

"All right."

She smiles at him, leans up to give him a quick peck, and then off she goes, to reassure her parents that she's not suffering a fate worse than death.

He flows away on the wind.

Rivethira turns out to have not beaten the letter. Somewhat frustratingly, she only missed doing so by a few hours. She spares herself the guilt trip in favor of reassuring her parents that she's okay.

They think the worst, at first, which is to be expected, really. She assures them that he hasn't hurt her - which, actually, is completely true, but she leaves off the 'yet' and the 'with my consent.' That's just not the sort of thing she is ever going to tell her parents. As to his sadism and various victims - well, she softens the blow as much as she can, but he does torture and kidnap people, and she's not going to pretend he doesn't. But she assures them that she's safe, that he wants her safety and happiness. Which they clearly don't find the most comforting thing ever, but she asks them to trust her and they do. That's enough.

Eventually:

"Serik?"

He materializes.

"Hi," says Riveth, smiling. "Things went well enough. Do you want to meet my mother?"

"Does your mother want to meet me?"