"Okay."

Hibiscus straightens her shoulders, leans in, and kisses Sable, soft and chaste. 

"I love you," she breathes, barely more than a whisper. 

She kisses again, gentle and slow. 

"I love you." There's iron in her voice now, a strength forged over so many tries and failures. 

She kisses again, and this time tangles her tongue with Sable.

When she pulls back, tears stain her cheeks. Her voice breaks as she says the words: "God, I love you." 

Surprise widens her eyes even as her cheeks flush with color. She meets every kiss tenderly, steadily. 

"I love you too. So much. I have needed this, needed you. You fill me with so much light, so much need to love and live and give and share. I promise to talk about any challenges we face, to work through things together rather than knuckle down and solo them like an idiot."

She threads her hands through Hibiscus's hair, pressing her forehead to hers, meeting her eyes.

"Stronger together," she murmurs.

"Stronger together."

She lays her head in and smiles very smugly, tears still staining her cheeks. 

"How did I get this lucky..."

A gigglefit overtakes Sable. "I think we got matchmade by a certain meddling SAI."

She squeezes Hibi tighter.

"Well thanks, May, if you're watching this."

Hibiscus giggles too and hugs Sable close. "What a world we live in."

"It brought us you, so for all the exceptions we take with it, we can't hate it too much," Sable replies with a fond grin.

"Awwwww. I was right. Besotted girl." She giggles, then she leans back a little and dabs at her tears with her hands. 

"So good to be yours."

Sable kisses the tears away softly. "So glad that you're mine, and so glad to be yours."

Hibiscus giggles, then hiccups, then giggles again. 

"All-alright. Enough of this mushy crap. We've got breakfast to make and foes to slay and a whole wide world to explore." 

She takes Sable's hand in hers and pulls gently. "Up you get."

She giggles and grins and follows Hibiscus upright. "True that, lovely. True that."

Off to the kitchen they go, Sable's tail curling around Hibi's naked hip as they walk.

Hibiscus stops at the preservation compartment in the kitchen and has a look through for anything nice, while her own tail wraps around Sable's hips in return.

Sable peers over her shoulder at the contents as well: bread, beef, mutton, venison, pork, all in various cuts, along with bacon, sausages, eggs, milk, assorted cheeses, butter, jam, and some vegetables. "How do you feel about eggs, love?"

"Sausage and eggs with hashbrowns?" Hibiscus waggles her eyebrows. "That sounds like a fun time."

"Ooh, that sounds great. And if we do the eggs sunny or over easy, we can can reuse the sausage grease for all of it, which'll add flavor. Perfect. Start on the potatoes while I get to work on the rest? How do you like your eggs?"

She gets out some sausages, eggs, two pans, and some spices. The sausages go into one pan that immediately goes over the fire.

"Scrambled. Also, I can't believe we've just done the 'how do you like your eggs in the morning' pick up line." 

Hibiscus gets out a potato and starts cutting it into little cubes. "I've never made hashbrowns before so you'll have to judge for me if I'm getting these fine enough," she says. "I mean, if you have. If you haven't then I guess we'll learn together."

"Hailey has." She reaches up to a cabinet and grabs a bowl. "Just need to rifle through shared memories for a sec."

She tilts her head for a moment, then looks over at the potatoes.

"Right. You'll want to peel or scrub those first, depending on whether you want the peels on, and then cut them into thin strips. Length isn't important, thickness is. Aim for not much more than roughly half a centimeter thick."

The eggs get cracked on the edge of the bowl, dumped in, and the shells tossed into a garbage can. She adds a healthy splash of milk. "Do you like your eggs cheesy?"

"Normally no, but it's virtual food, so I don't need to worry so much about what it'll do to my body, yeah? So sure, I'll try cheesy eggs."

She peels the potatoes into the sink, and cuts them down to the proper size... well, more or less. Her cuts are a little inconsistent getting it that fine, so she ends up taking a couple passes. No biggie though, it's all good.

"Awesome."

She sets the second pan over the fire to start warming up a bit, and shakes some paprika into the eggs, then starts whipping them vigorously. Once they're good and fluffy, she pours a bit of sausage grease off the first pan into the second, spreads it around the pan, then pours in the eggs with a bright sizzle. 

"Okay, as soon as you've got those done, you can add them to the sausage pan and start stirring that every so often."

And then she starts shredding cheese with a knife, first slicing it down into big slices, then slicing those into strips, finer and finer. The first slice's worth get tossed atop the scrambled eggs, which get stirred up in their pan.

Hibiscus pops the hashbrowns into the sausage pan and starts stirring them casually. 

"This is kinda fun, honestly. It's been a while since I've tried something new in the kitchen."

Sable smiles warmly at Hibiscus as she shreds cheese. "Yeah, it is. And doing it with someone we love is even better."

Okay, that's enough cheese. She sets it aside and goes back to stirring the eggs, which are turning out quite fluffy.

She sprinkles some cheese atop intermittently.

Hibiscus stirs the hashbrowns until they start to turn golden brown. "This looks more or less right to me?" she asks. 

Sable looks over, then nods. "Yeah, that's about right. The sausages look good too. Plate 'em up, the eggs are almost done."

She keeps stirring the eggs periodically, adding cheese once more.

She plates them up with a small smile, one portion each for her her and Sable, the sausages split evenly between them. 

It looks and smells delicious. She can hardly wait to eat.

And then Sable scoops the eggs onto the plates, adding a last sprinkle of cheese atop them, before sitting down at the table.

"Looks like you did great with the hashbrowns," she says as she takes her seat.

Hibiscus takes a seat too and meets Sable's gaze, a flutter of pride going through her even from such a simple task. It just feels right to support Sable like this. 

She picks up her fork and digs in to the scrambled eggs. 

"Mmmmm. Oh, wow, that's a lot of cheese. S'good though." She tries a little sausage, then her hashbrowns. They're slightly crunchy, but that's how she likes them, so it works out. 

She beams across the table at Sable.