we're very wide awake (the moon and i)

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Flora found that she quite enjoyed Minoth's presence around the house. It was a big house, and certainly too much house for two people who liked spending most of the day outside, but in the meantime, until Addam's wishes found purchase upon an agreeable group of people to live in the rest of it, she occupied the first floor and occasionally the library, leaving the rest to relative silence.

Minoth, too, was a silent type, but his was the music of silence, in a sense. Perhaps it was the Blade energy about him, and perhaps if she were Addam she might know, but Flora didn't much care about that one way or the other. She just knew that Minoth, the man, was here, and she was quite happy about that. He'd never professed to be less than polite and agreeable to have around, but something about him made one take pause all the same, didn't it?

Maybe someone of a different designation. But not Flora Origo, she'd realized, and with delight.

"Taking callers?" she'd ask him, more pointedly playfully than her usual, when she poked her braided head around the door stood ajar in the threshold. Filtering sunlight from the high rectangular windows illuminated a characteristic path of late-afternoon dust motes undisturbed by the writer working away in its shadow.

Bent head; furrowed brow; parted lips; the usual occupied posture. He was always writing. Always, always, always. Once, she'd asked him - they can't all be epics, surely? And he'd replied that, no- yes, some were poems.

Flora wagered it was a poem that'd make her first sight of one of Sir Cole's masterworks. Hard to tell stories around a campfire when you live on an estate in a sort-of state of isolation, right?

But when prompted, the diligent's gaze would lift, and would catch on the gilded accents of dusty pink and chestnut brown, and something would flicker in those brilliant blue eyes. Again, something of the ether? An aberration, or a reaction?

Much too much to think about. Flora found it confusing enough to flirt with clueless men when that was all they were.

She might have been afraid of such a man, at first, had she not had Addam's (and his) assurance that he was just as carefully-considered as they; that it was complex, his separation from Amalthus, and it was subtle, his views on guardianship.

It wasn't about judgement, no. Just about...understanding.

She and Minoth just understood each other.

He would take a caller, if it was Flora - indeed, he wouldn't always take Addam in the same infinite divine patience - and he'd almost - almost! - stumble all over himself trying to impress.

Something to be said about a self-made woman. Some core confidence she couldn't shake if she tried, if she wanted to!

He'd let her sit with him, of course. He wouldn't let her look at his work, not even because he was secretive, but because he couldn't do two things at once. Couldn't reconcile his admiration of her with the self-possession to ignore her gracious presence.

And that's too many favors for the invisible woman, isn't it? But Minoth could never find enough for her. A gentle touch at her elbow or her knee, below the heart-shaped birthmark; a word for the sheen of her hair in that same sunlight, making it almost appear as if she wore elegant hoop earrings; a simple, adoring "Hello."

"I was just thinking about you."

"Good things, I hope." A tired bit, but a classic one.

"It'd take more ingenuity than I possess to come up with anything else."

"And you're quite clever." To a certain definition of clever.

"I might answer to that description, on a good day."

"It's a good day, then." As one believes it to be.

"Because you're here."

Dreamy-eyed and dopey-hoofed.

Sometimes she'd knit. Socks, mostly. Dishcloths if she needed to swatch a new stitch or use up spare yardage. Creatures of various specifications, if she happened upon a scribbled pattern in the pocket of one of her old dresses. Certainly, not as dramatic and artful as Minoth's craft. But he'd sit there, pretending to occupy himself, just listening to the swish and click of her needles, until eventually she'd ask if he'd fallen asleep.

(Sometimes he did, certainly. Certainly! It was, after all, such a relaxing sound and setting.)

On those occasions when he hadn't, there was always a split-second decision: feint respectable, and avert eye contact to claim something about envisioning a scene, or just throw in for it, completely abashed?

Who could be blamed for wanting to share such a quiet, delicate moment with such a grounded, pleasant woman as Flora?

"I wouldn't mind it." The falling asleep, that was.

"If your lap wouldn't mind, either?"

"Nothing there to mind." A joke that would never get old.

"Good thing I'm the small one, then."

And then it was altogether much more comfortable, indeed, and her humming would fuse them together, from the link of his chin to her crown and his hands at her waist. Eventually, the sun would fully set, and it would be time to think about dinner, and other such unsavory things, but not for a while, yet.

Just as they had been. Just as they would be. Just passing the time, innocently. Just contemplating the situation, silently.

Almost the same as sitting there alone. Almost.

But oh, not nearly quite the same!