"Use your words, Navethae," says Rylen, patiently.

"Um -" She rubs her forehead, then attempts to fit words together again.

"Tarakova was trying to tell me and I was being very dense and he, sort of, words are hard okay, they are very hard why do we have them at all."

"They are very hard," Tarakova agrees.

"We have them because it is better than playing charades and no one's managed to invent anything better yet. Do you need a minute?"

"Yes probably wow I am impressively dense!"

"I love you anyway," he assures her.

Awwww.

"I'm sorry," says Navethae, to Tarakova. "For being so dense. That must have been very frustrating."

Shrug. "It was - my fault too, a little. Words are hard."

"They are very hard," she agrees, sagely. "Still. Sorry. Um. Thank you, dear brother, for your timely intervention, who knows how long that miscommunication would have gone on for."

"Too long for anyone's patience, probably. You're welcome."

He smiles slightly at the viewing pool.

"Best brother," she says, fondly.

"You have another one? Mom'll be surprised."

"Oh, shut up," says Navethae, in a tone that says this means 'I love you.'

Tarakova can't help giggling at that.

Smile.

The door to the house behind Rylen opens.

He doesn't flinch, but he does close his eyes slightly in lieu of sighing. These people are nice, but they also have a five year old that once set their roof on fire with magic, and are not pleasantly disposed towards magic as a concept. He would rather not have to deal with trying to sell them on the concept of him talking to his sister right now. He kind of has a lot to deal with already, on account of his sister being trapped in the Cursed Valley with a several thousand year old once-Emperor that she's supposed to fall in love with in order to ever possibly get free. It's a lot to handle. Dealing with other people's problems is not going to happen unless it's as easy and straightforward to solve as chopping some extra firewood so the father can spend more time with a five year old that's terrified that he's ruined everything after accidentally setting things on fire.

"Love you," he murmurs softly, and then he turns and smiles at the nice woman that's probably about to invite him inside for tea.

"Yeah. Love you, too," Navethae murmurs. "I'll - cut this off then, and contact you later?" She glances at Tarakova. "I um. Probably need to have a conversation anyway."

Rylen is busy carrying on another conversation right now, but he smiles slightly at this without it entirely making sense within that conversation, and his fingers trace a small, subtle wave.

... Yes they do kind of have to have a conversation. It is going to be so awkward, isn't it.

Yes, probably.

She disentangles the connection and murmurs a soft, "Show nothing," so the pool can stop following Rylen around.

Navethae looks at Tarakova, then threads her fingers through her hair and looks away, shyly. "So, um," she begins, and then she stops.

"Um," he agrees.

Navethae lets out a soft, nervous laugh.

"This is going to get kind of silly if we just stammer at each other, I'm going to just set aside typical convention in favor of saying the first thing that springs to mind, sound good?"

"Yes, that sounds much better than just stammering at each other," he says wryly.