Tayyib chuckles, a beautiful, happy noise, as warm as sunshine. Drawing his own journal from his robes, he scratches the lyrics onto the first blank page he turns to so he can take the verses back to the station. "He will not be the first poet to have a rivalry with me."

He says nothing else about Degar, continuing his letter and, letting Andy field that one. She has had more time on the station.

As for Andy, she's quiet for a moment. "I don't think unions need to be blessed to be meaningful." But she's biased, having seen the idea of marriage and anything like it change over and over, to be someone so utterly divorced from holiness. If there is one thing Andronika (Andromache, the name seems to blur especially in this little house) understands, it is loss, and it hangs on her here. "It's a toil, to be the one left behind. I know she isn't in Alydhion anymore, but I hope the two of you are still able to come together, for each other. What's left for her here is you."

Where would she be, without Joe? Without Nicky, in reality unharmed by any potions?

She's not sure how to tackle Degar yet, not sure if others have already, not sure if it would ruin what they've managed to cultivate with Nina and maybe Ellia from afar, so she simply doesn't. Not yet.