“Mm I like that better,” Balthier agrees. And it feels true. It’s not a sense of being tied down, it’s a sense of having a safe harbor he wants to return to. He’s spent so long looking for something he couldn’t name and hes beginning to suspect it was this. A sense of home.

“I think me from a few years ago would have admitted the value but been too scared he’d never find it himself to really indulge, and I think a younger me, like the one you met, would have found it beautiful.” He can still feel that boy in him sometimes, and there’s something lovely about making him proud.

To the coffee he laughs, shaking his head as he pours it. “I’ll have a little, but whatever you need.”