When I thought about it, I realized how silly and artificial the things I knew about each of them were, but that was how it happened when nobody knew anybody and you tried listing off your interests and background in the hopes of finding people who would mesh with your interests and background.

Oen wasn't asking anything of her other than to listen and be interested, and in return Iria was able to pretend like she was any other person talking with a friend.

Out of habit and exhaustion, Iria’ssurprise did not show on her face. He had been worried about her. She didn’t even need the barest scraps of herreturning magic to know it. He’d been worried about her, and that was new, and it tugged at her. “Okay,” was her whole response, and she wondered if she would have cried had she had the energy for it.

Then she did that wonderful thing that good friends sometimes do when they look at you like you're hot shit and you should know it.