Elara asked Lyristae questions about Valdara's church structure that turned into a forty-minute discussion about theological policy that Damien mostly listened to while eating.
It wasn't seamless. There were moments of careful navigation, small pauses where someone chose their words slightly too precisely. The shape of four people figuring out how to be in the same room with all the attendant history and complication.
But it worked.
Imperfectly and genuinely, the way things work when people are actually trying.
At some point Lyristae ended up on the sofa beside Seria while they were still arguing siege logistics, both of them leaning over a piece of paper that Seria had started sketching defensive formations on.
Elara had migrated to the chair beside Damien and was quietly telling him about the theological conversation in the way she did when she was excited about an idea.
