[ Ilias's brows knit, focus bleeding into memory — stars glimpsed through skylights; sunlight through a veil of pine and the season's last flowers; words sparking to life beneath both. Love. ]

To challenge one another, [ he decides, finally. ] To know and accept and protect the other, yes, but more than that, to help each other grow.

[ You know that if you had to, you would break it. (To give it a stronger shape.)

A bare touch sharper, ] In the ways one chooses, I mean to say; not in the ways anyone else might want.