I may not always know what's right, but I know I want you here tonight.

The fresh scent of newly-fallen dew evoked, with crystal clarity, a hearth of warming memories. Mallos always associated water with Croe, right from the early days of their courtship – if intermittent sex and bickering could be referred to as such. Then, she had always smelled of the sea: fresh with a sharp edge, like the tang of salt or mint. She’d tasted like adventure.

Now he still felt the thrill of adventure when they kissed, but she smelled more like home.

Croe’s gentle request, invoked in a husky voice which he felt beneath his fingertips, pierced the pleasant haze which had begun to settle over Mallos. It did not require a genius to guess where she might recently have heard about his childhood carer, which triggered a vaguely suspicious curiosity about what else Lorraine may have referred to. The Russian goddess rarely acted or spoke without precise calculation. What reason she may have had for raising that subject, and others, Mallos could only imagine. With another person he may have felt the need to provide reassurance, to emphasise how beautifully Lorraine lied and drove wedges between people, but Croe seemed not only unperturbed, but enthused, by her encounter.

Not with discomfort but more a deeply ingrained habit, Mallos shifted a little more onto his back so that his gaze fell naturally towards the stars instead of his companion. Talking about personal matters was always easier shoulder-to-shoulder rather than face-to-face.

“My earliest memory is of walking into a little village Aura, Thoth, and Tsi. The rest of us turned up in other settlements relatively nearby.” The worlds felt rusty, disused; Mallos couldn’t remember ever saying them out loud. The only person he would have spoken to about such intimate life events was Aura, and she would remember this one better than he did. “The others were older so they could fend for themselves, but I was only about four, and blind. The village elders put me into the care of an old widow called Nadja.

“She was…” How did one reduce Nadja to a few sentences? Time had eroded the precise details of his recollections, but some still burned as sharply as ever. He’d never had sight while she’d lived, so had no idea what she looked like, but the workings of her shrewd mind and the firm undertones to her creaky voice still clung to his memories. “She was good.” It felt inadequate, to call her that, but that’s what she was: a good person, in her heart and soul. “She was calm, firm, wouldn’t accept charity, valued manners. Never tried to coddle me and always gave me a whack whenever she caught me stealing.”

He rubbed his ear subconsciously, as if that memory still stung.

“And yours?” He asked, quirking an eyebrow at her.