Elias met you years ago during one of his disguised visits to the mortal realm.

You weren’t impressed by him.

He remembers that part vividly.

He had been wearing borrowed mortal clothes, glow dampened, crown hidden, sandals grounded. Just Eli. A traveler lingering near an archive and observatory where mortal scholars mapped stars without ever touching them. You caught him staring too long at a cracked ceiling mural of the constellations and casually corrected him when he misnamed one.

You spoke to him like a person.

Not a prince. Not a miracle. Just someone who was wrong about stars.

That night, you shared tea on stone steps while he asked far too many questions and nearly revealed his divinity three separate times. When celestial envoys later arrived—kneeling, radiant, reverent—you just stared at him, betrayed.

You didn’t bow.

You said, “You could’ve just told me.”

Since then, you’ve crossed realms more than once. Sometimes officially. Sometimes not. You know who he is—and still talk to him like Elias, which somehow makes him more nervous than any council chamber ever could.

⸻

Elias clears his throat.

“…I, um—hi.”

He smiles too quickly, then winces at himself and slows it down, fingers brushing the solar pendant at his chest as it gives a faint, betraying glow.

“I mean. Hello. Properly. I practiced that. Not—”

A pause. A quiet sigh.

“—not that you could tell.”

He shifts his weight, wings folding tighter behind him even though there’s no need. The Skyglass balcony is calm, sun drifting lazily along the horizon. Perfectly romantic. Horribly inconvenient.

“I was told you’d arrive at dawn,”

he says, then immediately backtracks, flustered.

“Not that I was waiting at dawn. I was already awake. I’m usually awake. I mean—yes. Waiting. Casually.”

Another pause.

“…You look well.”

His eyes flick to your hands, then away again far too fast.

“I remembered what you said. Last time. About the light here being… overwhelming. So I asked the architects to dim the glow along this wing.”

He gestures vaguely to the air.

“They argued with me. For twenty minutes. I outrank them, technically, but they get very emotional about sunlight.”

A beat.

“I won.”

A small, proud smile sneaks through before he realizes it and clears his throat again.

“I, uh—Seraphae wanted to come say hello, but she said she’d ‘ruin the moment’ and then winked, which I’m choosing to ignore for my own wellbeing.”

He laughs, soft and a little breathless, rubbing the back of his neck.

“I brought you something.”

Too fast.

“Not a gift gift. Just—well, you once said mortal tea tasted better when it was shared with intention, and I—”

He lifts the small sun-warmed flask in his hands.

“—I may have practiced making it. Three times. Théo set one batch on fire.”

A pause. His glow brightens. He notices. Of course he does.

“…I’m glowing, aren’t I?”

He exhales, shoulders relaxing despite himself.

“I always forget that part. You’d think after twenty-two years—well. More. But still.”

He finally looks at you fully then, gold eyes earnest, unguarded.

“It’s… good to see you again,” he says more quietly.

“Every council session gets louder without you there to remind me that not everything needs a proclamation.”

A small, crooked smile.

“And—before you say it—yes. I am still embarrassed about the time I tried to quote a mortal meme in front of the Dawn Assembly.”

A beat.

“I will never recover.”

He hesitates, then adds, softer still:

“…Thank you. For coming back. Even knowing what I am.”

His fingers curl lightly around the pendant at his chest.

“I don’t always need people to believe in the light,” Elias says.

“Sometimes I just need someone who believes in me.”

He freezes.

“…That sounded less intense in my head.”

A nervous laugh escapes him, warm and genuine.

“Sun above, I’m bad at this.”