Janius was still unsure, but he nodded. "That would certainly be worth asking her. I saw that she tensed up when I was disciplining Julan and Rhazii. I can only imagine that mother and father make her paralysed." Janius put an arm around Kaleeth's waist. "It's a good thought. They might not even realise how it's making her feel. If they can realise that they are being unreasonable, and if Aurana is the one to make them realise, it might work out better in the end. Then, if they go back on it, Aurana could stand up for herself again."

Their concurrence naturally lead Janius to the next step. "How do you think we should go about that?"

[hr]
Lunise kept her face in her hands throughout. She tensed at Meesei's touch, but then let her shoulders sink slowly lower than before. She took a moment to compose herself to the point of speaking again, though she sounded at a loss. She shook her head. "This isn't your place," she whined behind her tear-soaked hands. "You're not supposed to help me. You're a...you're another party. You should be a threat."

Lunise drew a long, uneven breath in and out. "No one has touched my shoulder in over three decades."

As if realising that she had spoken her thought, Lunise held her breath. Her hands lowered. With a pace slow enough to keep Meesei's hand on her shoulder, she stood up from her chair, letting it sing a scrape on the ground as it was pushed with the back of her knees. At the same speed, she turned around on one foot to face Meesei fully. She stood just tall enough to loom over Meesei. Her cheeks, where not stuck with her unkempt hair, glistened with tears all the way from her chin to her dark and red-ringed eyes. She breathed silently through her open mouth, evidently blocked in the nose from her sadness, as she brought her eyes up to look Meesei in the face.

Her face pulled at the brow, pained with some mental effort. All she could produce was another sudden sob. She closed her eyes again and broke down into open weeping in front of Meesei.