The observatory was where she found Thasmudyan, staring out over the lands from the large windows. "I... it didn't work," she began.
"How do you know?"
"A woman knows her own body," Sanria said with a chuckle. "Thank you for trying."
"Of course.. you're always welcome."
She studied him for a long moment and could tell that something wasn't right. "I've been.. feeling weaker," he finally told her, and the proposition that Sanria had come to offer suddenly seemed unfair.
"Weaker... from healing me?" she asked.
"Not from you.. just... in general." Thasmudyan shook his head as he looked out the window. "Might be something to do with how long I was in the Lifestream. But, I was fine for a while.. this only started recently."
"Do you think you need to go back?"
"...Maybe."
"I'm not sure where it is, but maybe Colin can help take you back?"
"I know the way. Perhaps I will go another day. For now, though... I am fine, really."
There was no way Sanria could ask him knowing he was weakened. She turned to go and he reached out, setting the butterflies in her stomach loose, "You don't need to go."
"I came up here to talk to you about certain things but you said you hadn't been feeling yourself. I think perhaps it's fate telling me that those things are best left unspoken."
"Don't mistake me. I'm still myself.. just concerned a bit, that's all. You're still welcome to talk about, well, whatever it was you wanted to talk about."
"It was about, well... you said that we'd made pregnancies go faster before by... you know..."
She knew immediately that he had not anticipated what she came to say. "I did... and likely they would..." Thasmudyan recovered.
"I just... I talked to Colin about it and though he doesn't agree... He thinks it might be very unfair to you. And that if my body remembered him... mine might remember you as well." Sanria let out a breathless chuckle. "He's very jealous."
"...I was thinking it'd be unfair to him. He's your husband, after all."
"Right. Unfair... to him," Sanria said, her mind on Arlenia.
"Well, why would he think it's unfair to me?"
"That I would not be able to be with you. To be together that way might raise your expectations."
"Perhaps so. I don't ...expect anything, though."
It suddenly came tumbling from Sanria's mouth - unbidden. The pain and hurt riding side by side with the realization of what she was asking, "He was kidnapped not long before you showed up. To get away from her, he slept with her. I heard them together... I have to know... I have to know if you can do something like that and not love who you do that with. I don't know you... and..." Sanria lowered her head. "I don't understand how you can do something like that and feel nothing, like he says. So I want you to help me understand. Only if you... want to. This is incredibly selfish of me to ask. I just..."
"I don't think it's selfish so much as you simply want to understand."
"Then... what do you think?"
"I think that the problem is that I might want to try and make you feel something."
