It is traditional, in Smaragdalfar society, for the man, interested in initiating a courtship, to request tea from his object of interest. No expression of interest may be allowed except for this—it is forbidden to speak of it or act on it in any way. If the woman returns his interest, she will offer him thirty cups of tea on thirty different occasions. Only after the thirty cups of tea have been offered, is he then free to express interest in courting her.

Mora goes breathless, her heartbeat tripping into a faster rhythm as she considers Fyon’s odd tea fixation ever since he got back. Ever since they laid eyes on each other again. She considers his last words to her this evening as he took a step away when she was yearning for him to lean in for a kiss. I’ll come by tomorrow for more tea.

Mora tries to count how many cups of tea they’ve had. Twenty-nine? It has to be close to thirty occasions at this point. A giddy happiness bursts into being inside Mora, her heart taking flight. Well, we’ll just have to step up that tea-drinking, Mora considers, a laugh escaping her.

“Mora’lee?”

She turns toward the unsure voice to find Olilly standing there in the moonlight.

“Hello, lovely,” Mora says, beaming at the young teen and beckoning her nearer.

Olilly returns her smile with a bashful one of her own, and Mora’s heart aches again at the sight of the ragged tips of Olilly’s ears. At the idea of a mob holding this child down...

Hurry up, Xishlon moon, Mora prays to the Compassionate Vo and the Compassionate Oo’na, both. We need Your healing, loving light.

“Are you finding the room to your liking?” she asks, hopeful, having purposefully given Olilly a room on the port side overlooking the Vo River. So she can bask in the full effect when its waters are transformed into an astonishingly beautiful purple by the Xishlon moon.

“I like it very much,” Olilly replies with a broader smile.

Mora remembers something from earlier. She fishes a small, purple-parchment-wrapped package out of her pocket that Bleddyn dropped off between shifts for Olilly. “This is for you,” she says as she hands it to her, finding Bleddyn’s maternal protectiveness toward Olilly to be touchingly kind, brash as Bleddyn can be. “It’s from Bleddyn. She said to tell you that ‘you’re beautiful either way.’ She told me it was important for you to know that.”

Olilly shyly opens the package, then gasps as she views the paper box’s contents. Mora pulls in a hard breath as well, immediately realizing what this is.

Ear ornaments.

The kind the Wyvern-shifters wear during Xishlon. Silver sleeves to fit over their ear points, the Xishlon ear-cuffs covered in a riot of amethyst gems.