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First instinct screamed 'Danger' at the sound of what was undoubtedly his name and meant to catch his attention. It was a common enough name in Scandinavia, but Destiny City had turned up a lack of Björns, Beorns, Bjørns, Bjôrns, or Biorns. Hearing it meant someone who knew him. Someone who knew him who cared, unlike most of the student body or faculty at Hillworth, enough to be excited and call to him from a crowd.

The strongman's face turned back and forth scanning, finally finding a small person in among the other small people that was looking directly at him. It took his breath: sallowed eyes and thinned cheeks, jaw too carved out in prominence over a whisper of a neck. It was Orah, plain enough, and recognizable enough as though she'd been plucked from nightmare dreams and tents to place into the stage of skyscrapers and city parks.

I am sure she was in those dreams. Many of them. She was at those tents, too, but I don't know why. Never ate enough, or rested enough. The reasoning and connection to Princess Ida didn't occur. He took a few steps back towards her, having less trouble with people parting for his passage. Don't draw attention, not to me or that you know me. At least she has a hat. And there is a crowd.

"It has been a long time, " He tried to inject more warmth into the words than the worried pounding in his heart. The smile that decorated them was small, but genuine. He didn't have the social graces to try to dance around the obvious. "You have been unwell."

Sentences felt hard, long and cumbersome in his mouth. " Feeling good enough to be out and shopping today is a good sign. You have a lot to buy still?"

"I would, but you don't have to tell me today. I don't need to-" he looked up for a moment at the sky, as though the words for the right phrase might be there for him to reach and bring down like apples. A small sigh of exasperation came out on a single, laughed breath at the simple task taking so much. "To call clouds over a sunny day. A holiday day and healthy one. For you. "

"First hellos after a long time should be sunny. A warm drink sounds good though. I think I remember there was a booth that had benches near, and coffee, cocoa and cider. It was Slave to the Grind other years, I don't know this year. " He turned, which took one arm from her grasp, but he cupped the hand over hers on his other arm. "I do not live in the same apartment anymore. "

"Colin and I have not been together in a long time. He is big dancer at the Reve Driscoll Theatre now. Dancers have long hours. So do sports. How about you? You are still in school? In college now? "

"I am glad you have friends to shop for! " He noted that the brother was not mentioned with the father, and wondered at it. The boy had been sullen and trying to do badly by himself long ago- looking like the trying drugs, petty crimes and hurting the world for the sake of 'not being understood,' despite all the purposeful trying to prevent anyone from attempting to. Had the youth gotten himself arrested and sent to jail for years to be omitted? Disowned? Run away? It wasn't a sunny conversation either, so he left it alone while acting as a shield to her through the people.

Some of the seating was right next to the little holiday booth, in the lee and less visible. Less obvious. It would be a good place to remain more safe for conversation. "Can I buy you a drink? Or a holiday snack? It...looks like mostly cookies. "

"There is no sorrys, " He tried to reassure. His attention distracted for a moment, words spoken softly as an aside, "I cannot be sad from dreams I was honored to have. "

The contact of hands on his arm, simple and completely normal between people, sent thrills along his nerves. It wasn't skin to skin, given the weather, but the pressure was acute. Pleasant and terrifying. There were lots of people chattering at each other, meeting unexpectedly. they'd blend in more this way, rather than turning her away. Just two casual acquaintances. Just someone who looked like a friend from dreams that the young woman was thankfully spared from. Was she? Getting her seated at the bench that was right against the little hut allowed the conversation to continue even as he was in line behind all of two other persons. Cider and a Christmas cookie— that was easy to remember. " I am no good for college. Not smart enough, not even a half. Just work. "

And when was the last time he'd touched another person without being in uniform, without drawing energy from them? It had to have been...July. That Finn in the sauna? Queen Laurelite a few weeks ago? It was like finding air again. Or having it breathed into him to see color again after blacking out.

Black. Everything was always black. He tried to focus on any color on her clothes.


"Like yourself. It has been a long time, but it is only sorry to have not gotten in contact sooner. You are a bright star, Orah. I am glad to hear that you are learning nursing. You will help many people. There are lots of kinds of nurses, aren't there? Do you know which kind you will be? Will your practice rotate you through the regular kinds?"

A brief interruption as the order was placed because his turn in line had come up. Cider and a cookie, which seemed a choice of frosted sugar cookie trees or jam dotted wreaths. He picked one of the trees for her. For himself, he got a hot earl grey. It didn't have the excess sugar to make him feel jittery or sick.

"And this Laney. They are important sounding to you, ja? To work with your family, too. You introduced them to your dad?" He weighted the one word as it had a cultural significance in some parts of the USA. Introducing someone to one's parents was a specific step in a relationship, according to movies and television shows. And the eagerness that colored Orah's cheeks when she talked about this person, and what to get them spoke to the same sort of specific kind of relationship.

Björn brought the winnings over, cookie balanced on top of and being warmed from the lid of the hot beverage, to the young woman on the bench and took up the other part of the seating next to her. Not close to thighs touching, a contact reserved for close confidants and lovers, but conversational. The drink looked so much larger in her hands.

"You haven't asked? Are you waiting for her to ask? " A luxury of choices, of fears and butterflies. The first steps of love worried about the hurt of rejection, or the possibilities of ruining a friendship for the chance of something supposedly deeper. Movies treated friendship like it wasn't love. He didn't agree in his heart. Maybe she just didn't know what to say, and worried if it would be taken seriously. There wasn't really a way to be sure without asking her directly- they'd been long, long apart. A friendly acquaintanceship, admiration, and enjoyment of each other's presence, but he was no longer certain he could claim to be her friend.

He missed friends. "You do not have to tell me-"

"I wish I had good advice to give you. But you are smart and have a good heart, Orah. Being honest to your heart usually means a lot with love. Distance makes shadows and fears longer. Distance troubled mine. A present for Laney will be a good start to finding your way through your feelings. " He sipped his own drink. "If nothing to buy fits, made gifts are also wonderful. Or something you could do together- tickets to something you haven't seen. Or a class together."

She called seeking a relationship at all selfish. And the use of 'entice' he could understand from context more than knowing the word itself. It was avoidance, and underhanded seduction to avoid consequences. She even said it plainly-'so I don't have to risk.' Björn's heart wholly disapproved. Games of love were one thing when everyone understood the rules and goals, but the choice to withhold knowing consent led to a self-fulfilling toxicity. Sometimes it is more selfish when we do not trust our friends to help us. or when we make decisions for our lovers, without giving them a say for the fate of their own heart. But we have not met in a longtime. And to say that so? She is opening up, and nervous and plainly too anxious of risk and trust. She would think it was a slap across her face, and not hear it. How do I juggle the words...or which leaf of the branch is gentler...or most important?

"I worry that you call both love and yourself a bother. To any lover." Björn leaned back to her bump cordially and trying to be careful not to dump her over with his greater size. "Too much worry makes a heart sick. It is always looking for reassurance. Then it trusts nothing that is said. It doesn't listen, no matter how much it is loved, because the heart thinks it is a bother. You are not a bother, I think. "

" I hope you can find peace and a choice for your heart. To risk or not to risk asking outright, and to earn a lover and a friend, or keep a friend. Uncertainty is ....one of the hardest things." He sipped his tea, trying to keep his own pulse from leaping to a race from the uncertainties of danger. What they were doing was good: an unremarkable meeting between people who knew each other, chatting over drinks, nothing to suspect or connect further than that. It was perfectly mundane. Another group of people, at least 4 and looking like two couples, were greeting and embracing in similar serendipitous meeting. Possibly old work friends, and exclaiming that it had been forever. Just like Orah and himself.

He couldn't, in scanning the crowds and buildings ( as though taking in the holiday decor and spirit of the shoppers) fix upon anyone tailing or monitoring. She should be safe. It is not so good a heart that it has not pulled starseeds from others.

"Winter is a good time for kisses. It is like every snowflake. They melt so fast, but they are all perfect. Laney will be a very lucky person, if she says yes, she will date you. If she does not...it sounds like it will sting you. But I think you are right, and you will not lose your friend for asking. "

"You cannot take over what is honestly asked, " he squeezed his eyes over at her.
Don't do what I've done. There was such relief when she seemed to move further from isolating herself. What had happened in his short life with Obsidian, with Colin, with magic, the war, the knights and senshi, with his own family was so much secrets, isolation and devastation. It was a warning, not an example, and in that way he wished it could be known to those small bright lights and others. That even Orah could know and solidify herself against worries of loss.

There was no loss like isolation.

Rang true again as she asked about freetime. If he worked, and meeting again. She would be in danger by association. His stomach knotted, then dropped away. The tea would be impossible to drink. "It is busy season for personal training, and will get worse with the new year. I think....I don't remember it well, but I think the calendar had be scheduled through March. That is when people will start giving up their New Year's Resolutions. January and February are very busy, because they want to look good for Valentine's. "

"But if your invitation lasts until then? I will miss the winter flowers, but I would gladly call you and we can make plans for this restaurant. It is the same number? Or different now?"

The touch on his arm was like a drug, making the world dizzy and giddy as it only ever was when he'd been small and on a merry-go-round. Like when Colin found him, and placed hand's weight to muscle. I don't want to never call. I don't want to do that to her. Orah has been kind. She doesn't deserve that.

I don't want an officer finding her to interrogate her. One of Hessonite's own trained and more brute that Titan. Honorless.

"A good friend is worth their weight in ale or mead, ja?" He tried to joke of it, to push the bile-burn down. To reassure her how much she was truly worth to him, even though he had to dissemble such a wall between them. "You will have much more to drink that I do between us."

He considered long, mulling over the mention of the flowershop so long ago, with the sour brother and so many pots and plants all over. It seemed dreamlike, and in that quality as frightening and real as the sallow mirror of her cheeks to the nightmares that plagued his camping trip with family. "I have some shopping, but I think I may try a mall next. This market is very nice, but the items are mostly jewelry and baked goods. I don't have so many gifts to buy. I don't know when I will see people coming, so I have time to be ...."

What was the word he wanted? Specific about the choice. "Picky."

"Maybe I will be giving gifts even in July. Are you staying for a while? Have you seen each stall? I have been maybe an hour, and seen half I think."