Elizabeth found the cups and the pot and poured herself a cup of coffee, then stood at the counter, drinking the first sip with the contained relief of someone who truly needed it rather than simply wanted it.

Mara had returned to her peeling, continuing her task without glancing at Elizabeth. This was the unspoken understanding of someone who recognized that a person entering the kitchen at this hour, still in last night’s clothes, required a moment to be present without the pressure to engage in conversation.

Elizabeth valued this moment of silence. She sipped her coffee and surveyed the kitchen, which was arranged with the practical logic of a space used daily. Everything was positioned for functionality rather than aesthetics.

"Is Marceline up yet?" Elizabeth asked, having seen the woman often at Starlight household functions and Academy-adjacent events, which made her feel that asking was appropriate.

"She’s in the back garden," Mara said. "She goes out there in the mornings to sit and think."

"She insists it helps her process her thoughts."

"I’ve suggested that she could think just as well inside where it’s warm, but she believes the garden is essential for her."

"Well, it’s true... Some people find the outside useful for thinking," Elizabeth said.

"Some people have unreasonable aversions to the cold," Mara remarked, maintaining a pleasant tone.

The back door opened suddenly, and Marceline came in, her cheeks a little flushed from the brisk air outside. Her expression was one of someone who had been thinking hard while she was out.

She saw Elizabeth and stopped, just to look a moment longer at the unexpected detail in the familiar scene. Then she smiled, a smile that showed her intrigue at the detail she had noticed.

"Oh my, you are up early as usual, Elizabeth," she said. "Good morning."

"Good morning, Marceline," Elizabeth said. "I was just borrowing coffee."

"I’ll be out of your way shortly."

"You’re not in anyone’s way," Marceline said and crossed to the stove for her own cup. "Is Rex still asleep?"

"When I left the room, yes," Elizabeth said.

There was a brief pause.

Elizabeth then realized something. ’I forgot... why did I answer that spontaneously?!’

Mara continued peeling without looking up or saying a word. Marceline focused intently as she poured her coffee.

Elizabeth took a sip from her cup while trying to maintain her professional expression.

"You two seem close," Mara said to Marceline.

"Well, Elizabeth is Helena’s sister after all, and I and Helena are great friends." Marceline replied with a giggle.

"Ahh... I see..."

Marceline looked at Elizabeth. "Anyway..."

"When you left the room," Marceline said.

"Y-Yes," Elizabeth said.

"His room," Marceline said. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

Elizabeth set her cup on the counter and then asked a question to change the subject. "Is there another coffee available, or is this the only pot?"

"That’s the only pot," Marceline said. "It’s a good pot, though."

She leaned against the counter across from Elizabeth and held her cup with both hands and looked at her with the warm, unhurried attention of someone who had nowhere to be and an interesting morning already happening. "You look well-rested."

"Thank you," Elizabeth said.

"Better than you looked when the expedition returned," Marceline remarked. "You had that expression people get after enduring something challenging without a restful night to help them recover."

"Expeditions are tiring," Elizabeth said.

"This one clearly had a restorative conclusion," Marceline said.

Mara made a sound that was technically not a laugh but was occupying the same space that a laugh would have occupied.

Elizabeth glanced at the coffee pot and then at her cup, concluding that it wasn’t empty enough to warrant a refill. As a result, she found no reason to shift her focus.

"You’re both being very—" she said and then stopped, because the word she had located was going to make the sentence worse rather than better.

"We’re being very what?" Marceline asked, her tone feigning innocence while clearly implying otherwise.

"Attentive," Elizabeth said.

"We run an inn," Marceline said. "Attentive is what we do."

She took a sip of her coffee. "Rex has many guests coming to his room almost every night."

"We’ve gotten attentive to it."

"A lot of... guests," Elizabeth said.

"People come and go," Mara said, and she had apparently decided to join the conversation from her position at the table, setting down the peeling to look at Elizabeth with the direct, unsentimental warmth that Elizabeth had noticed was her natural mode.

"You look like someone who’s trying very hard to seem like this is a normal morning."

"It is a normal morning, though," Elizabeth said.

"Of course it is," Mara said. "We have normal mornings here all the time."

"I don’t think that word is doing the work you want it to do," Marceline said to Elizabeth.

Elizabeth looked at both of them with the expression of a woman who had faced down senior review panels and Apostle network administrators and was currently finding this particular kitchen substantially more difficult to navigate than either of those things.

"I am engaged," Elizabeth said.

"We know," Marceline said.

"To Alexander."

"We know that too," Marceline said. "He’s been in for breakfast a few times before."

"Nice man. Very enthusiastic about his eggs."

"I don’t know what that means," Elizabeth said.

"It means he orders them the same way every time, and he seems very pleased about it," Marceline said. "It’s good quality."

"Decisiveness about breakfast indicates character."

"His character is not in question," Elizabeth said.

"Of course not," Marceline said, in the tone of someone who had not implied that it was.

Elizabeth put her cup down and then picked it up again because she didn’t have anything better to do with her hands, which was an unusual problem for her to have.

Mara said, "You don’t need to explain yourself to us."

She said it with the direct simplicity of someone who meant it. "We’re not keeping score."

"That’s not what this is."

"I know," Elizabeth said. "I’m not explaining myself."

"You’re doing something very close to it," Marceline said, not unkindly.

"I am professionally explaining the context," Elizabeth said.

"To us," Marceline said. "In the kitchen at five in the morning."

Elizabeth opened her mouth.

"While holding your coffee with both hands," Marceline added, looking at the cup.

Elizabeth glanced at her hands, which were unwittingly cradling the cup with both of them. This gesture conveyed an unintended message she hadn’t meant to send.

She adjusted her grip to one hand with the deliberate naturalness of someone making a correction they wish had not been necessary.

Marceline’s expression became, if anything, warmer.

"I’m not embarrassed," Elizabeth said.

"No," Marceline agreed.

"I simply think that the situation benefits from clarity."

"Very sensible," Mara said.

"Professionally speaking," Elizabeth added.

"Obviously," Marceline said.

Elizabeth looked at the window. The pre-dawn light was becoming the thin early-morning kind, the shift from dark to the first grey that happened before the actual brightness.

The kitchen was warm, and the coffee was good, and she was standing in it, trying to point out something to two women who were not asking for an explanation and clearly had no intention of judging her for needing to give one.

"He’s very—" she started and then stopped.

Marceline and Mara both waited.

"Straightforward," Elizabeth said.

"He is," Mara said.

"About what things are," Elizabeth remarked. "Most people aren’t as straightforward when it comes to defining things."

"They’re not," Mara said. "It’s something you notice."

"I noticed it," Elizabeth said. "Professionally. In the canyon context."

"The canyon," Marceline said. "Right."

"The whole expedition was professionally significant," Elizabeth said.

"I imagine it was," Marceline said.

"And the subsequent analysis work will also hold professional significance," Elizabeth said. "That’s why I’ll be in the Academy area for the next week or so, focusing on the analysis."