Chapter 16 Eternal Vows #3

They flew back to Melbourne that evening.

The full assembled group, the various operational threads being closed and handed off to the local networks that would maintain them.

Aroha was staying in the South Island with the ongoing monitoring requirement.

The geological formation's ongoing status now that the command source was ended, the local intelligence maintenance that her presence provided.

Erik was returning to Sydney. Freyja was departing in the way Freyja departed, which was simply the cessation of her presence in one location and its presence elsewhere.

She embraced Elara before she left.

Freyja's embrace was the warmth that was not the physical warmth of proximity but the warmth of something that had seen a great deal and was not indifferent to what it had seen. "The decision," she said, against Elara's ear. "It's the right one."

"I know," Elara said.

"Not because I think so," Freyja said. "Because you know so. Which is the only thing that makes it right."

She went.

Heimdall departed with the relic. The Odin communication that had come through during the operational cleanup had confirmed the relic's destination and included a note for Elara: The council looks forward to its meeting with you.

She had filed this in the appropriate place and continued to work.

The Docklands warehouse, when they returned to it, had the feel of a space that has been waiting for the people who belong to it.

The operational materials were where they'd left them.

The maps, the intelligence files, the equipment.

The monitors showing the city's ongoing ordinary business, Melbourne doing its Thursday night thing.

Sif was going back to the United States, but to a different position within the operational structure, the repositioning that the post command source situation required.

She briefed this with the operational precision that was hers, and then she stood in the warehouse entry with the quality of someone who has something additional to say and is deciding whether to say it.

She looked at Elara.

"He's been" she started. Stopped. Sif deciding to be direct.

"In the centuries I've known him, I have not seen him as he's been in the last six weeks.

As he is now." She paused. "I want you to know that I see it.

And that it" another pause “it's the right thing.

Whatever you decide about the council. Separately from that. It's the right thing."

"Thank you," Elara said.

Sif nodded, the nod carrying everything that the words did and slightly more.

She left. And then it was the warehouse and the two of them and the city outside and the operational materials and Thursday night.

She sat down on the old couch that had been in the warehouse since before she'd taken the space, the piece of furniture that had witnessed every significant conversation they’d had had in this space, every late-night operational discussion, every moment of tension and the working through of it.

Thor sat beside her the weight of his presence on the couch, his warmth, the way the air felt different when he was this close, the frequency of him in her perception running at its familiar distinctive quality.

They sat for a moment in the warehouse quietly.

"How's the arm?" he said.

"Cast," she said. "I told them I'd comply this time."

"Will you?" he said.

"Mostly," she said.

"Elara."

"Significantly more than last time," she said.

He made a sound that was not quite a laugh but was adjacent to it, the low warm sound that she had catalogued and was fond of and that landed somewhere in her chest when she heard it.

She leaned against him. On the left side the careful geometry of two people who are aware of where the injuries are and have built their physical closeness around that awareness.

His arm came around her shoulders with the same careful touch, the hand at the top of her arm, the warmth of it running through the field jacket she still had on. "Tyr," she said quietly.

"Yes," he said.

"Tell me more," she said. "More about who he was."

And he did. In the warehouse with the city outside and the maps on the walls and the monitors doing their ongoing work, he talked about Tyr, the talking that you did about people who were gone, the talking that was the human and apparently divine way of holding someone, of maintaining their presence in the world through the act of speaking to them.

He talked about the long time and the things that had happened in it: the dry precision of his humor, which existed and was rarely deployed and was the more effective for its rarity.

The way he occupied a room's edge was not withdrawal but the most complete observation available from the most effective position.

The three centuries he'd spent in the South Island high country, his affection for that terrain.

The way he said with you, as if it were a complete sentence that contained everything that needed to be contained.

She listened. She asked questions when the questions were available.

She let the talking be what it was the holding, the maintenance, the act of love that was saying someone's name and their qualities aloud in the world.

After a while they were quiet. She looked at him in the warehouse light. "Hey," she said.

"Yes," he said.

"Come to bed," she said.