Talk:Czcibor Kowal/Temp

MT04 -- Tamarack Falls - Meetinghouse Graveyard

One of the things that Czcibor might notice about this area, is that for whatever reason there's a bunch of bats flitting about overhead - if he's capable of seeing them at all in the dark. They likely won't be much longer, as their food supply is quickly dwindling, and the weather grows colder. In fact, it might be surprising that they're still out at all. Something has them livelier than usual.

Maybe it has something to do with the small figure that's lingering in the shadow of one of the taller obelisks, looking out over the rest of the graveyard and the church nearby. Ziv's, perhaps surprisingly, not actually bundled up for the weather. She's not even wearing shoes - though she is wearing an asymmetrical hoodie, oversized, with a very large pair of pockets and leggings. There's also a silver grey scarf for accent, down below which hangs a delicate silver snowflake pendant.

And it's the second place tonight that Czcibor Kowal has come to be alone and indulge in vices like misery and despair and self-loathing and temper tantrums and physical sensation, and found it already occupied by someone he knows. But-- she's winter. She's winter, she'll get it, won't she? Part of it. Or maybe she'll just make fun of him for his outburst, his chastisement at the cafe--

The entirely mortal-looking Elemental in what is unquestionably the Captain's greatcoat hesitates, uncharacteristically indecisive. He looks up at the flying bats, scrubbing at his eyes.

The bats are darting about overhead - it's difficult to tell whether they're really chasing insects or not. It could be that they're just glorying in the feeling of flight and being alive; like when a human runs for no reason other than the sheer thrill of it. For tiny, leathery winged mammals they're incredibly agile. Occasionally among them there's a flash of silver runes on wings - a hedgebeast, no doubt. If Kowal has seen him before, he might know the tiny fellow as Ziv's companion, Neville.

From beneath the obelisk, Ziv calls out, "'Lo. Are you... Hey, Czcibor, is that you? Wouldn't really expect you to be out here. It's not... much of a really Spring place. Or... for types like you." Probably, she means, it's more a place you'd find Darklings a-lurking. But Ziv isn't a Darkling. Is she?

"Typecast me already?" comes the Pole's voice with an unsteady laugh, to go with his unsteady tread as he approaches, pulling his coat closer around him, hugging his arms to himself. "Didn't expect anyone to be out here except--" His voice cracks a little bit. "--except ghosts," he tries again, still trying to sound genial, careless. Trying.

It might fool another elemental, maybe. Ziv can tell, however, that he's not only on the edge of tears, but on the edge of losing it completely; all that high-wyrd massive presence is coiled up in a tightly-bound knot of horror and grief and fury and betrayal, with a scathing side of 'because of COURSE' topping it off as a fascinating little insult.

Another shaky laugh. "Ghosts are pretty good company if you can't hear them except in your memory."

"...Think a lot of people would disagree, about hearing ghosts in your memory. Maybe that's the worst type of ghost, depending on what it says," offers up the small Windwing, from within the shadow of her obelisk. Dark eyes, gleaming in their depths like a nocturnal creature's, track Czcibor's movements. It might be a rather... eerie look, really. Or perhaps he doesn't notice, considering his current state of mind. "...Dunno, don't think I'd want them talking to me, too much. That's not really my type of memory-ghost, though."

There's a small shrug, that sends a ripple through her wings. Even though she's fairly lightly dressed, the cold doesn't seem to bother her very much. "So... I guess I know that you shouldn't respond too much to memory-ghosts. What's wrong, Chee?"

"In my memory's when they were still okay," Czcibor answers. That's what he answers even when she asks what's wrong, and the last word breaks, and he brings his hands up to his face to scrub viciously at his eyes, silver-irised despite the presence of his Mask. He turns away from her so she can't see, which is stupid, stupid; he doesn't leave because he needs to tell someone and he can't tell Petra and Ziv just called him 'Chee' and that's something he misses too.

After a moment, his voice is muffled, but it sounds so human; there's nothing echoey or resonant about it, it's just flat on the cold air like anybody else's. "And the dead ones are safe. They're safe. Maybe I failed to keep them alive, but I didn't fail in keeping them from getting Taken or taken back, and I didn't fail in keeping them from turning into the monsters... and on top of every-fucking-thing else, the guy I like apparently already has a boyfriend, which is exactly what I fucking get for letting myself start falling for someone again in the first place--"

Ziv's quiet for a little, and turned away Czcibor can't really see her, but then there's the scuff of her claws against the ground as she comes nearer. Until, suddenly, the batling is bringing her wings up around him and hugging him from behind. Should the wings contact skin, they're cold - and her mantle seems to drift around them, without Czcibor's mantle to push it back. With it comes the smell of a fresh winter morning, along with frost and mist, and a few snowflakes drift through.

Smol bat, attached wings-inclusive to tol soldier in enormous coat: there's not skin at first, because his hands are up by his face, but upon stealth-hug, Czcibor drops one of them down to hug Zig's arm/wing to him. He laughs a little again, and it comes out sounding wet and gets followed by a sniffle, and that just makes him laugh more. And then he gently detaches Ziv from him partway so he can turn and kneel, sort of, and she'll be taller than him by a bit, and he hugs her back and there are still things that are funny, like having his mask up means he can cry, but that also means he can get a sinus headache, but he really needs to let this one out. And in the middle of it, his face in her shoulder, there's a very muffled, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry-- you don't need this shit-- I'm sorry I snapped at you anyway-- now I'm really sorry--"

Ziv is steadier on her feet than might be expected, for being so small - for their size, bats are surprisingly strong. As Czcibor leans against her, she curls her wings up around him as a protective shield, patiently letting him get it all out for the time being. When he speaks - starts to apologize - she leans over and licks the top of his head a few times. It might be her version of a comforting head-kiss.

"You don't need to apologize," she says, soothingly, and when she does so there's something of an echo in her voice - it's an odd quality, that he might have heard before when she sings. "If you need to get it out... get it out... sometimes we all need a good cry. And I don't mind. It's why I'm Winter."

And it's actually taken as one: he has known so many Beasts; he has known so many kinds of affection and caring--

Czcibor takes Ziv at her word, and just cries, wrinkling her sleeves where he grips them too tightly, though he takes care not to grip her arms so. It takes him a while. It takes him maybe about thirty seconds, but thirty seconds feels like forever when you don't cry often and never let anyone see it if you do. And there's such loss in it-- but there's also such fury, helpless and desperate despairing rage, boundless and echoing like his voice doesn't, right now.

It finally winds down, and there's another laugh (how much hurt does he cover that way?) that sounds like it needs a kleenex, and there's him sitting back on his heels and fishing a handkerchief out and using it for himself for once, and laughing again. "Do I hate myself enough right now to wait through getting the headache, or will I chicken out on it and let my mask go?" He sounds wobbly, it's not quite gallows humor, but it's autopilot.

Ziv is patient, she's busy stroking Czcibor's back and hair, like a mother might a child, while he lets it all out. When the currently mask-wearing Elemental sits back from her she lets him go, unconcerned with any possible tears and snot he might have gotten on her shirt - or maybe her fur, as well. "Or you could..." Ziv offers, with a little wave of one of her wings, probably understanding that difference between the mask and Czcibor's usual Elemental state. "...Go somewhere warm and have something to drink and stuff."

The batling's head gives a small bob after this, and she reaches out to put the tip of her wing on his shoulder, the pair of fingers that make it up curving against his coat. "It's pretty cold here, and... Hot chocolate is -pretty- nice."

The Polish man -- he can't look any older than twenty-five; sometimes he acts like he's forty, sometimes he acts like ... god only knows -- gives Ziv a watery, silver-eyed smile, wavery and still upset, but heady from the ragged fit of release. "If that is a hint you would like hot chocolate, I would be happy to go get some with you. But I don't want to go someplace I can't tell you things, and I don't want to go someplace anyone else will see me."

"I have a house. It's... also for this," says Ziv, honestly, patting her wing on Czcibor's shoulder and remaining near to him for the time being. If he wanted to, he could rather easily lay back into her. "I know... a lot don't like to be upset in public. It's okay, I don't either. Or we can stay here if you want to." Her voice is soft, and she truly doesn't sound concerned in regards to where they go - even so, there is at least concern written into the lines of her expression when she looks at him, brows drawn upwards and dark eyes wide.

'I have a house' appear to be the magic words. Czcibor puts a warm -- warm despite the fact that it's ungloved, it's flesh, and it's cold out -- hand over the wingtip on his shoulder for a second, and his smile goes lopsided, looks laced with relief. "That sounds good. I mean, going to your house, not staying here. Staying here is in some ways comforting, and is in some ways merely more self-flagellation, and I am told that that's a terrible and pointless habit."

He starts to get up laboriously, then rolls his eyes and dissipates, and a warm spring breeze curls around Ziv and ruffles her fur, smelling of roses and gunmetal and wisps of smouldering sage. His voice is a soft sussurus in that wind. "Except fuck walking, I'm too tired."

"...Sooo, what are we going to do then? I'd usually fly, or are we doing something else...?" wonders Ziv, but there was a nod there when Czcibor said 'pointless habit' - as if she probably agress that self-flagellation is absolutely not going to do the Captain any good! Her nose shivers a few times, as she sniffs at the air.

The swarm of bats leads the Spring Courtier on towards the eastern side of Fort Brunsett, up near the hills where there are less buildings and it's more out of the way. Over one of the smaller ones they circle, and then settle, shadows spiraling off of Ziv as she drops back to the ground as her more humanoid self. The normal bats chitter and chatter among themselves, staying in the air and enjoying the warmer wind brought about by Czcibor's presence. He might notice a few of them have some sort of white markings on their nose...

Breeze, whoosh, drift, shoooosh, drift, follow, play. Czcibor does notice the bat-markings, but doesn't know what they mean-- and he remains air for now, letting them play in the warmth, and he whispers to Ziv as he ruffles her fur, "I kind of don't want to turn back, but I also want hot chocolate. Dilemma! Hashtag elemental problems. Why do some of your friends have white noses?"

"...Huh?" Ziv asks, in response to the hashtag comment, possibly, or something else. Her eyes lift to the bats zipping around overhead, and then she answers with, "They're... sick. I need to find someone that can help me treat them, soon, who knows about hedgefruit tinctures or something... It's why they're with me. The winter's not going to be good for them, if they don't have good access to food and stuff."

"Ohhhh," whispers the wind, and it resolves into a small man-sized tornado, which further resolves into a man-shaped one, and then all of a sudden finishes forming into a tin soldier, whose Mask is no longer strengthened. Still in all black, but with dark grey metal skin and its usual shining scars and abrasions, and no hint of the tears or puffy eyes. He does stagger a little on forming, hastily shifting all his weight to his right leg, but he doesn't pay it any mind, only looks up at the bats. "I don't know an awful lot about them, but I'm learning -- most of my healing's been through contracts. I do have a bunch of preserved fruit, though, which I'd be more than happy to give to tide them over. Can normal bats eat hedgefruit?"

"I... don't know. I figure if a mortal can, they can? But these probably shouldn't. They're insectiv... Insect... they eat insects," explains Ziv with a gesture up towards the bats overhead. She turns to move towards the door then, fishing a key out of one of her pockets. A quick glance back to Czcibor is given, and she pauses before starting to unlock the door. "You don't want to leave your mask up? It seemed to... do you some good."

The tin man waves a hand, and the Mask comes back up, zooping his snowdrops and petrichor back into the magical aether from whence they came. "It came undone when I turned into air," he says with a shrug. "I mostly put it up because it's easier to get hurt and it's possible to cry and I didn't want to see Spring all over the place when all I wanted to do was explode." It's all so matter-of-fact. "I still don't. But it's also just a very useful lie and I hate lying. So: pros and cons."

"Oh! Well... no spring here, at least for a while," indeed, Ziv's flower bed is quite barren at the moment, as is the window box, in preparation for the colder season. Opening the door, she steps inside to the comparatively very warm cabin, which carries with it the faint scent of cinnamon and other spices. "This, though, is a little more homey than a graveyard..."

"Well," whispers the wind, a laugh in its warm voice, "I'm not invisible, I'm the air. So fly away! I'd say we could play tag, but since I don't know where we're going, I'll just follow you."

A nod from Ziv and then she turns to call up, trilling, into the night air. One of the bats from above responds and drifts downwards in order to land on her shoulder. It's - perhaps surprisingly - not the hedge beast that's almost certainly up there. A stroke of its back and then shadows seem to wrap around Ziv, warping - and then reducing her size. A quick shake, and then the 'new' bat clambers upwards to take off, winging it into the air - but not so fast that air-Czcibor can't follow.

Air-Czcibor is, thankfully, also considerably faster than non-air Czcibor. He is only a light spring breeze in the middle of the oncoming winter chill, but it's still much more freeing than literally leaden feet. He rises up into the sky and tracks specifically Ziv-bat, focus on her, and for now, like this, he can forget how full of sorrow and anger he is, and just slight in ruffling fur and providing updrafts and downdrafts and flitting along beside and around and with Ziv and her gathering.

The bats do, in fact, all turn and follow the new one that's joining them from the ground. It could almost be a specific Contract, but this likely has (for the most part) a more natural cause. Soon there's the whole swarm of them, drifting through the spring breeze created by Czcibor. If he counts, there's about fifteen or so total - give or take.

The Captain lets out a distinctly embarrassed laugh. "Yes, well, when feeling gothy, where better to goth out than a graveyard?" As he steps in behind Ziv, then closes the door behind him, he's already shrugging out of his coat: it is comparatively warmer, and a renewal of the heightened sensations of a body that's not made of hollow-cast lead makes for distinctions in temperature. His silver eyes soften at, indeed, the hominess of the space. "Thank you for inviting me."

There are also, currently, icicle type lights draped along the upper bannister, which casts a soft glow over the cabin even before Ziv reaches over with her wingtip to flick on the lights and illuminate the... kitchen. So it's about half illuminated, leaving the rest in soft, pleasant light that's still partially shadow. "You're welcome," she chirrups, heading along into the kitchen before starting to fish around into the refrigerator. "It's why I have a nicer home in the first place, so I can have company... make yourself at home, and um... Anything you want to talk about?"

In the meanwhile, she's taking out some milk and putting it into mugs.

Czcibor's quiet for a moment, losing himself in the icicle lights. It's not quite long enough a silence to be awkward, but his voice is really quiet when he does speak. "The second problem is just... stupid. I'll get over it. The first problem-- is-- I met a girl who I think lives in Fort Brunsett? I met her in the woods when I was working up to the catch to turn into air, and I was just sitting on the mountainside near one of the entrances to the Looptrod. I'd just been killing briarwolves with Vorpal..." He shakes his head, then moves over to the futon and sits on the edge of it, still holding his coat. "She looked exactly like an old friend of mine. Someone I dated on and off, back in Vienna. Almost exactly like. Physically exact. A star-wolf, my friend had called herself, part wolf and part Telluric... she had a similar way of speaking around her teeth, she had the same constellations, the same mannerisms... but it wasn't her. She said she didn't know the girl I was talking about. She said she looked exactly like someone who was not... the girl I was talking about, but that it was not something to talk about, there; we'd gone back into the hedge so she could claim some of the biggest briarwolf corpse..."

Ziv listens to this while she stirs in one packet of powdered hot chocolate, and then puts the first mug into the microwave, letting it run for a while. A few steps are taken to put her nearer to Czcibor, and a little further away from the hum of the microwave, so that she can hear more easily. A small pinch comes to her brows, a line forming at the center of her forehead - it's there, but hard to see, considering her short, black fur.

Rather than giving her thoughts at the moment, she gestures with a wing for Czcibor to continue, dark eyes on him.

"...we used to be afraid," he finally says, voice low, not the resonant hum it is normally when this quiet. Just there, in the air with them, his words and his hands clutching the wool of his coat. "The lot of us, who were lost and new to all of this, in Vienna. We used to be afraid of what could make one of us into one of Them. We used to be afraid of what might make one of us finally snap. And we were afraid when we saw it happen to some of us in stages, piece by piece by piece, losing their minds or their hearts, and nothing we could do could stop it. No words we could say, no hopes or havens we could offer. She-- I knew her when she was human, and I tried to protect her from those of us who wanted to keep her locked away for her own safety, but I couldn't. She was Taken by one of Them, and I was there when she came back one of us." He looks up at Ziv, and his face is blank, and his eyes are distant. "I watched her go from small and afraid and powerless to one of the most powerful among us, as I lost other friends in other ways, and as we all grew in power and scope, and lost the things that we treasured. When my brother got Taken again, and my motley went after him... when I came back, she was gone, and so was her cat-man boyfriend."

He lets out a breath. "This girl looks exactly like her. And she says she looks like someone who is not my friend. And she doesn't like cats. And I know that if we lose ourselves, we become Them. What are the odds, Ziv? And that this girl should be here, in Vermont, new, just after I arrived?"

Ziv continues to look thoughtful, not immediately answering what Czcibor says. Eventually, her voice is very soft as she answers, "I'd be... really, really careful about this, Czcibor. In this case... it... it really sounds... fishy, in this case. Either she... could be the person and is lying, since... well." She kind of gestures with a wing, in indication of Czcibor. What could that mean. "...It could be she doesn't remember... or it could be someone made to... look like her. To trick you."

The last part is said very quiet, with an almost dire undercurrent to Ziv's tone. She seems about to continue, when the microwave chimes. That gets a blink, and then she goes to take the mug out, and add another packet of hot chocolate powder to it, mixing it up with the spoon held between her thumb and the upper ridge of her wing.

"I know," the Captain says miserably, hunching over on the couch, putting his head in his hands. "You haven't even-- it's not to trick me. She's not her, and she knows she's not her, she knows who she is. She has an accent from this area, even. I think it's worse. I think she's innocent, and that-- that the girl who was my friend, she's one of Them now, and she took this girl and made her to look like her. And put her near me. I'm terrified that she might know where I am. I'm furious that she might do this to an innocent girl. I'm-- I'm--"

Ready to explode, as he'd said before. "She's so new. So young. This isn't her fault. She was hurt just as we were. Whoever she is, she survived it just as we did. But she's too new to be Liane, this girl. She doesn't have the magic. But she has the same habits born of horror-- starving, being without-- and going for the liver first if allowed at the guts. If she's a trap she doesn't know it."

Leaving her own mug of hot chocolate on the counter for the time being, Ziv circles around to where Czcibor is sitting and reaches out to try to take one of his hands from him. If successful, she presses the mug into it, curling her own chilled, leathery wing around his fingers and holding it there. Her voice, when she speaks, is incredibly soft - scarcely above a whisper but fervent. "It is -not- your fault. You... you can't control everything that happens, Chee. You can't do it... you're just... part of this world like the rest of us. If you -could- control everything... you'd be one of Them, too."

The hand's successfully taken, the mug pressed into it, the wing curled around hand and mug both-- and bright, red-rimmed silver eyes, too canny, too aware, and far too present here in this moment as well as in too many others-- they look up to meet Ziv's warm gaze. "I know," he says heavily, "and that's how I get by. But sometimes it's too big. Sometimes..."

He trails off and looks away, tightness around his eyes and breath caught in a lump in his throat. His voice is even quieter when he finally continues, still not looking up, "...sometimes I think I must be part of the problem. Even-- determined as I am not to be like Them, not to ever, ever become one of Them, sometimes I think just connecting with people at all is dangerous for them. Normal human beings and Lost ones alike. There's an entire year-- I don't remember at all. I don't know what I did, in it. I know I went mad. And I know I deliberately forgot why, so that I could claw my way back out. Whatever I did that was so bad... was that like Them? Did I kill someone? Did I kill someone to prevent them from becoming one of Them? Because sometimes, in the blackest moments, it seems like that might be the only way to stop it."

His other hand comes up to wrap around Ziv's around his and he looks up quickly. "I wouldn't. I couldn't. Because until the moment it's too late, there's hope." And then his expression is this horribly lost thing, falling down and battered and broken and how long has he been standing against thoughts like this? "It just keeps being too late."

For her part, Ziv listens, ears oriented towards Czcibor and very, very quiet while she does so. Most of it, what would she even say? It is possible, that even inexperienced as she is, she knows what he's talking about - or understands it. Sometimes, when you've shut away entrenching yourself in higher functions, it becomes easier to understand some things.

"...If you did," she eventually says, very softly, keeping that melodic quality to her voice. "...You can't change it; and you probably shouldn't... all we can do is move forward. Looking at the past is like... like being stuck in a trap. Quicksand, maybe. There isn't anything you can... really do with it, except let it hold you back. Keep you from growing. Keep you from trying again."

Her tongue - mottled pink and black - slips out to wet her lips briefly before she continues, "I've... heard that you can't -really- make anyone do anything. Not really... I mean, I guess there's certain masterminds and stuff... but on our level? We can't. There's always... part of them there that's going to do it." An ear twitch. "...You can try to save someone. Pull them away from a path. But... if you do the best you can, and they still walk on it? It's... not your fault. Sometimes, things are just out of your hands." Which she gives a squeeze, a strange feeling considering the spindly state of her fingers and the cold webbing between them.

There's a very small laugh from the elemental on Ziv's couch, and he glances back up at her again, and finally, his eyes look a little less lost. He looks down at his cocoa, and gently disentangles his hands from hers after the squeeze. "But," he says, smiling a little lopsidedly, "hot chocolate is not out of my hands."

He takes a careful sip, and after the heat of it startles him, the taste of it is savored tremendously. He actually visibly relaxes. "This is better than stupid cognac and stupid filet mignon," he observes, tension melting away by stages. "I wouldn't want to make anyone do anything anyway. And-- you're right. About the past. Most of the time-- most of the time I don't even think about it. It's just that sometimes something happens and I can't help it, and it is quicksand. And I miss so many people... but all I can do is be the person they believed I am."

Ziv straightens out of the kneel she'd moved into, one wing stretching towards Czcibor in order to drape the first few fingers of it over his shoulder and allow him, however temporarily, to wear it like a half-cape. "Yeah... and I -know- it's hard. I've... not even been out, or seen as much as you have... and I still feel it, too. I kind of worry over people. Feel... certain things..."

Allowing that to trail off, the batling shakes her head with a small puff of breath, before pushing a smile to her dark lips. "But... you can't let yourself drown, too. Some of them... that's even what they may want. You may have believed them your friends in the past... but they aren't now... and they will hurt you. Or try to." Her voice grows more quiet towards the end of that, where the volume had increased prior. A small squeeze with her spindly wing-fingers is given.

Czcibor leans into that touch a little bit, still smiling, though it's even smaller now. "I know that, too," he says very softly. "I have killed Gentry who were once my friends. I know that too late is too late. That's-- it's why I mourn for them even if they still live -- because the people who were my friends are gone as surely as if they were lying in the ground. But--"

His hands curl more tightly around the mug. "But they were my friends. If I stop believing that, or if I think I was misled or lied to, that's the path that starts turning into no trust for anyone. That's the path that leads to insanity and murder, to preemptive, preventative deaths. And I won't. I won't do that. So I will mourn for my friends, and whenever I find out about one-- I'll either go get drunk in a graveyard or I'll rampage through the hedge and kill briarwolves until my temper's out of my system. I don't know. Or I'll cry on you, maybe," he finishes, looking up again with a much more wry smile.

Ziv sinks down onto the couch next to Czcibor, tucking her claws under and outwards, knees together. Thoughtfully, she puts her wings down on her knees, looking off around the room, "...I think that's... a good way to handle it." It's said agreeably, as she leans over to nudge her shoulder against human-Czcibor's, while the Elemental's busy allowing himself to feel and cry and whatever else he needs to do, at the moment. "You can... remember things, and wish that they'd turned out better... because there's hope there... but when you get stuck..."

One ear turns, and she nods, dark eyes moving back over onto Czcibor's face. "...Thinking about how things could have been different, being... bitter. That's when things get bad. Yeah. Sorrow's good, but only when it's kind of... I don't know. Transparent. Like ice." Leave it to the Winter. "Instead of all... black and confused and full of cracks and everything."

"Sorrow's good when it's real, and when it adds to the clarity with which you see the world," agrees Czcibor then, looking at the steam rising from his cocoa. A different, more distantly absent smile plays at his preoccupied face. "Nobody should be ruled by one emotion, anyway. But that's a conversation I have a lot." Finally, he focuses on Ziv again, and he smiles for real. "I don't get bitter. I don't even like black coffee. Thank you, Zivka. You just fished me out of a very awkward hole."

"...Zivka?" wonders Ziv, curiously, when Czcibor calls her that - one of her ears twitches. She looks to be kind of interested, though, even if it doesn't appear immediately familiar. A broader, brighter smile is given though and she offers up in answer, "You're welcome. I... I'm happy to do it." For just a second it looks as if she might say more, but instead the little Beast pulls her knees up, talons grasping the edge of the cushion on the futon, and she just reiterates. "You're welcome."

Okay, now, there's a bright smile, laughter behind it. "Diminutive. A nickname, even if it makes your name longer. Like you called me Chee." A pause, and then concern. "Is that okay?"

"Yes!" It might be a little overly enthusiastic when Ziv says it. She clears her throat, giving a firm nod of her head once, and leans over to bump her shoulder against Czcibor's again. "It's fine."