Dax's POV
Orin leaves the portrait with us before he goes, setting it gently on the windowsill where the morning light catches it best, and once the door closes behind him, the room settles into a silence I didn't try to fill.
I've learned, these past weeks, that Sera doesn't need me to fix things. She's told me as much, more than once, in the particular way she has of naming exactly what she needs without softening it for my comfort. What she needs now isn't strategy; it isn't a plan for what we do with the grief Orin just handed her. She needs someone to sit in it with her without flinching away from how heavy it is.
So I sat. I don't reach for words I don't have. I keep my hand where it's been, resting against her knee, steady, and I let her grieve a woman neither of us ever had the
