“I doubt it,” he said simply before going into the elaboration of his question, reasking it in a way that drew an extensive answer from Elann.

It was likely Elann would’ve ended up with someone else, more so than Noah with anyone. As she saw, he had a hard time letting anyone else into him personally. No one was spared from him treating them with distance, and only when the distance was overcame were they allowed to see Noah’s inner-self. He was unsure how he would have felt about Elann being with someone else, not that it would have mattered then when they weren’t bonded. He would not have wanted to share her until he could rule her out as interesting entirely. With another man in the picture, a new distance may have formed between them, preventing the bonding and anything else but distant friendship, occasionally seeing one another in the halls of their apartment if he didn’t leave as he initially planned to the day he met Elann.

She said she saw through his initial rudeness and inhumanity. It seemed she loved him long before he did her, sticking around because she felt she could trust him. She said she needed that protection to which he hummed in remembrance and agreement. He recalled how he felt about her when she was still settling into Syliras, how he believed she did need protection if she were to survive the transition into the bleak city. He hummed again when she went over the fight, saying he revealed to her she wasn’t dealing with a normal human. That was the point of him revealing his Kelvic secret to her, and she was the first in which it was revealed in that way, speaking to her growing specialness in his heart.

At the time he did seek to become more human, more normal, at the detriment of his animal roots. His motivation was to avoid any other conflicts with her, to have her aid him in the transition from animal to human, as he was seemingly incapable of doing so himself. It could be said he was seeking a guide,  someone to coach him in the ways of humans, all along, and found that in Elann. Like she said, they grew closer because of it. She recalled the letter and he recalled the date: the 25th of Winter. What she ended with was curious though.

“Why were you trying to separate it?” he asked. “Did you not want to love me romantically? Or did you not want to… fall for me?”