We will manage, [ he says, careless. ] There is a place between your reluctance and my familiarity with the absolute, and Gwenaëlle will scold us when we misstep, and we will come to not depend on her for that, I think.

They ought to. [ gwenaëlle has better uses of her time than playing mediator between the two of them, as good as she is at translating thranduil to adalia and vice-versa. it’s why they fell into this, into a pattern and then companionship and then love—she knows what he means, even if he does not say it in a wholly familiar way. she knows the shape of how he conducts himself, and she adjusts; fits herself in the absences he has. ]

You are good. [ ‘the natural state of elves’ and so on, but beyond that. he doesn’t hesitate to continue. ] You are effort itself.

[ some people might call that stubborn, but. ]

It is not earned. You are not asking for a thing that might be discarded easily. You needn't fear a fit of ambivalence.