She wants to kiss him so badly but she isn't completely sure it's the right thing to do and she really really wants to be careful with him, so she instead squeezes him as hard as her squishy caster arms can (not very hard) "I - you really would be ok with that?" because even though he very strongly implied it and also his body language did too, it doesn't feel real -

"I don't want you to leave forever," he says softly.

Oh Blai

- she moves her mouth towards his, slowly, watching him carefully to see if it's too much for him -

wow he did not know this was the part of the example where this happened??

maybe he is just being delusional and she is going to do something other than what he thinks she's going to do

FUCK FUCK FUCK HE HAS NO IDEA HOW TO KISS

No need to worry! Venn will teach him!

It goes like this. 

DOES HE JUST DO THE EXACT SAME THING? MIRRORED OR WITH LEFT AND RIGHT PRESERVED??

Oh no he's so cute

"You can copy the things I'm doing or do similar ones," she says softly, lips moving against his as she talks. "I'll tell you if I want you to do anything differently."

Kisssss.

What counts as similar!

Still, he has settled on "guess madly" over "give up" as a strategy here.

Well, she's continuing to participate enthusiastically! So he's probably doing alright.

Implausible, but he cannot rule it out!

She's making happy noises, too! More evidence for the pile.

But eventually she is going to pull back a bit and look at him, smiling happily. "I am really enjoying this, but - when is your next commitment? I don't actually know how long I slept for."

"I'm taking a double patrol late and expect to be out overnight, but unless someone knocks don't have anything on until dinner and it's not dinner on my schedule yet."

She nods. "Before, uh, we get distracted with any more of that - I wanted to ask what you want out of your future, as you best understand it. I have some guesses" (he won't leave this fort unless Lastwall reassigns him, she's pretty sure) "but - they're just guesses, right, and they don't cover a lot of things."

"...in theory I could have put in for a reassignment to a domestic post after I'd been here for a few years but I... didn't do that... and I don't know the new regime's policies or indeed whether they have implemented any and am still presently the only permanently emplaced cleric of greater than first circle on the entire northern border. - someone close to the eastern end of our part of the line managed Gozreh, word came in earlier, and they're reassigning him two forts farther in so he can cover more, but - at any rate I do not know when if ever I will be dispensable here."

This is not an answer to her question because he doesn't have one of those.

She nods. "Presumably they'll get more clerics up here at some point, but I don't expect it to be especially soon. For now, we'll do as much as we can." (She's going the other direction than he is tonight with Txell's squad, so they can head two forts in the other direction.) Gentle smile.

(It's - an answer in that it tells her what she already suspected; he doesn't know what he wants. But he's already told her the important thing, which is that he doesn't want her to leave forever. And if it takes her a while to figure out what else he wants for him - well. The worldwound isn't going anywhere, and even if she is, she'll be back.)

Nod nod.

She should tell him - "I know the conversation topic has moved pretty far, but - I did want to tell you that, uh, Tural wanted to kiss me, yesterday. I turned him down. I'm pretty sure he was assuming that I was still not committed to anyone." Ah, wait. "Which was, I suppose, technically true, but - I already knew I wanted to have this conversation with you." 

"I don't know what I'm supposed to do with that information," Blai says, out loud with noises and everything.

" You don't have to do anything with it," Venn says gently. "It just didn't seem like something I should keep from you." 

She places her arm on his. 

She's very good and he does not want her to go away forever and it is absolutely insane that "not wanting her to go away forever" is a distinguishing characteristic. "...is it the sort of thing that will keep coming up?"

Venn is not visibly running through a mental list of people she's slept with in the past. (This is because she has very good control of her body language.)

"I think it's pretty unlikely? I could see it happening with one or two other people if I ran into them again, and last I heard one of them had finally gone ahead with her plan to settle down in Tian Xia and find a husband there, and the other was going to take a pause from his travels and spend several years writing up a collection of histories, personal accounts, and treatises - he's an elf." 

"I've never met a full elf," Blai says inanely. "- would you wind up going as far as Tian Xia, I don't have a sense of your - projected range of travel -"

"I've only met a few!" but she'll valiantly make her save against waxing poetic about elves.

Instead, she squeezes his arm and says "I don't want to be away for more than a season at a time. If I can find a way to go to Tian Xia and back in a season, safely, then I probably will, because I do want to see it. ...I know it's not especially likely until something big changes here, but I'd love to go there together, someday." She's blushing. 

"It's a long trip. Unless there's an obliging teleporter."

"I do wish Txell would hurry up and hit fifth," she says, with a completely straight face. "It would make my life so much easier."