Despite his silly threat and the cheeky grin she can sense, Yseult is teetering on the edge of seriousness still. She's had too many recent opportunities to fear never hearing his voice again and, perhaps worse she's realized, to think on what the reverse could mean for Darras. More than a few of her sleepless nights in late summer were spent rewriting the letter she's always kept in a drawer for him against that possibility, but all the drafts ended up ash in the office hearth. There's an even older version that's lived in the linen chest here, pocketed when she unpacked their things earlier, but the intervening months haven't given her any more idea how to say the things she needs said.

Eyes shut, she listens to Darras's heart beneath her ear, and all at once feels again the sun on her back, the breeze tickling at her hair, grass beneath a toe. It's ridiculous to be maudlin in the midday sun, alive and well and lazing on their lawn. She focuses on the rising heat of the day, the buzz of insects in the tall grass, the distant crash of waves at the base of the cliff, lets the drone of it fill her mind and pour out of it again like air through a bellows.

She sits up and with one improbably sinuous motion tugs her blouse up and off. Her chemise beneath is worn thin and soft with age, all but translucent in the sun. She reaches for his shirt buttons and cocks her brows. "Tell me more about these dreams."