Vael came to the kitchen table on a Wednesday morning.
Not for tea — they had been having tea at the kitchen table most mornings for three months and the presence of tea was not itself significant. But the specific quality of this arrival was different from the morning tea.
Vael sat across from him with the clear eyes and the specific posture of someone who had been preparing to ask something for a while and had decided today was the right day.
He waited.
"I have been reading the documentation," Vael said. "Dael's pattern work. Calder's pre-System translations. Sera's history." They paused. "And Kel's participatory curriculum — the sections that are complete." They paused. "I have been reading everything." They paused. "I need to ask you something that the documentation doesn't address."
"Ask," he said.
