Even in the summer months, Asala couldn't bring herself to peel off her cloak. She was still unfamiliar with the climate, and summer in the mountains still held chilly by her measure. It would take some time yet for her to get used to it, if she ever did. Though the sun always felt nice regardless, and she took her time as she crossed the distance between the tower the medical facilities were located and the castle proper. There weren't any patients that required her immediate attention, and their reserves of potions and poultices were well above adequate levels. The mage's lessons for the day had already concluded, and that left her really nothing else to do on her time. So she decided to take the short trip into the castle and speak with Estella.
Asala had not seen much of the woman since she had become Inquisitor. In fact, Asala had not seen much of anyone since then. Instead, she mostly kept to her room and the medical station doing what she could to stay busy. The pain had... subsided, somewhat. It was not a sharp as it had been, but there still remained a hole. Every time her mind wandered back, a weight fell onto her shoulders and her mood darkened. She did what she could to keep her mind off of it, but it was inevitable that she would find her way back to it.
She took the stares leading up to the castle and the mainhallway slowly, so as not to tip over either side. They were without railing, she noticed, and she was surprised she hadn't seen more people with twisted ankles. Once in the main hallway, she was finally able to take in just how large Skyhold was. It was far larger than Haven, by a large measure. She found herself staring upward at the large ceiling as she drifted toward a side door. Apparently, Estella now had an office in one of Skyhold's towers, and by her guess, the door she was taking led her to it. At least, she hoped, else she would be asking directions momentarily.
Fortunately, that did not seem to be the case, as she entered a rather office-like area.
The door had been left cracked open, inviting entrance, and yielded easily to Asala, depositing her in a circular room of considerable size. Aside from a door about ninety degrees to the right, the only one out or in was the one sheâd just entered through. The walls were lined with a mix of bookshelves and bare space, most of the shelves still empty. There was a round table in the center of the room, with several chairs, and Estella herself sat at the twelve of it, facing the door, bent over a parchment, quill in hand. Her brow had a deep furrow to it, and she looked at the parchment as though slightly affronted by it.
Upon Asalaâs entry, however, she looked up, the crease between her eyebrows easing slightly, though soft shadows remained beneath her eyes. Estella met Asalaâs eyes and smiled tentatively. âOh hello. Itâs good to see you, Asala. Is there something I can help you with?â
"I, uh, um," she fumbled, making a series of unintelligible garbled sounds afterward, tripping over her own tongue. Asala then stopped completely, looked off to the side and felt very annoyed with herself. It was the first time she was talking to the Inquisitor, but not the first time to Estella. Maybe she was just choking on her words because she hadn't used them with Estella in a while. Once she finished being annoyed with herself, she turned back to Estella and smiled. "Let me... try again," she said, poking fun at herself.
With that, Asala took a few steps into the room and took it in. It was rather sparse, she noted, and the walls were... dreary. Letting her gaze fall back town to Estella, Asala shook her head. "No, not at the moment, thank you," she answered. Asala noticed the darkness under her eyes, and she couldn't exactly not worry, "I, uh, heard you're the Inquisitor now? Congratulations," she said, though the edge of the word had a tilt as if it was more of a question.
"I, uh, apologize that I was not present," she added, glancing away for a moment toward the bare walls. She tried to not reflect on the reason why she had been absent. Meanwhile, she had stepped close enough to hover behind a chair on the other side of the table.
Estellaâs smile inched just a little wider, and she shook her head with a gentle motion. âItâs⊠I understand why you werenât. Please donât let it bother you. And if you can, Iâd really like it if you just treated me the same as ever. I promise the only thing thatâs changed about me is the title.â She said it with a tone of weariness, and something else, a faint touch of something melancholy, or maybe disappointed, it was hard to say.
âYou can sit down, if you like. Iâm just⊠writing letters.â Estella made a face, wrinkling her nose slightly.
"To, uh... Whom? If you do not mind me asking?" Asala asked curiously. She took a seat and leaned forward, though she could not see the contents of the letter. Even if she could, she couldn't read it upside down without being completely obvious about it. She had thought Lady Marceline had managed most of the letters, though thinking on it, Asala supposed that the Inquisitor would be required to write a few of her own.
That wrung a short sigh out of Estella, and she looked down at the parchment she was working on. âMostly nobles. Lady Marceline does the business bit, but she says itâs best if I enclose something from me personally as well, because a note from the Inquisitor carries weight, I suppose. So I⊠end up reading a lot about peopleâs holdings and enterprises, so that I know what to talk to them about, because I canât bring myself to write a form letter.â Her expression turned rueful. âItâs nice when I get to write the few people I do know personally, but⊠most of the time it just feels⊠uncomfortable.â
Estella shifted uneasily in her seat, looking down at the parchment again, then pursed her lips and glanced up. âWould you mind taking a break with me? Lady Costanza sent along some coffee from Antiva with her donation, and I remembered you saying you liked it. We could share, if you want?â She tilted her head to the side, but made no move to get up, clearly unwilling to assume the answer would be affirmative.
Asala's expression perked up after that. "Oh yes, please," Asala said nodding. It had been such a long time since she had tasted coffee. In fact, the last time had been when she was last home. Noticeably, at its mention Asala now sat leaned forward, somewhat excited.
âFollow me.â Estella stood, moving to the door on the other side of the room, the closed one. As it turned out, it led to a staircase upwards, which the Inquisitor mounted with light feet, opening another door at the landing of the stairs. This one let out into another circular chamber. This one had a dark rug on the floor, rather plain in dark blue with a simple silver border. There was a bed on one side, its covers linen and folded with precise, military corners. The rest of the furniture was simple, and included a couple of chairs and a low coffee table, a cabinet and an armoire, while a standing screen sectioned part of the room off from view. It was all quite neat, and didnât even seem particularly lived-in.
âAll right everyone, letâs say hello!â Her inflection was oddly sing-song, and the exhortation seemed quite out of place, considering that there wasnât anyone else in the room. Or it didnât seem so, not until Asala walked further in and could see the three little kittens run out from behind one of the armchairs at the sound of Estellaâs voice. They twined several times around her feet, making her progress across the room much slower than it could have been, and one of them looked to be trying to climb her pant leg.
All three were different colors: one was smoky grey, another a pale orange with darker cinnamon stripes, and the third was white and calico. That was the one trying to scramble up Estellaâs person, and she bent to pick it up, easily able to fit it in one hand and set it on her shoulder. âMake yourself comfortable,â she said to Asala, moving to the cabinet and pulling down what looked like a jar of coffee beans and a grinder. âTheyâre quite friendly. This oneâs Elia, the marmalade one is Bibi, and the grey one is Gil.â
Whatever reservations she may have had went up in smoke upon first contact with kittens. Her eyes went as wide a saucers as she pressed her hands to her mouth, though a high pitched "Awww," warbled between her fingers. Asala only paid enough attention to Estella to catch the kittens' names, as she gently plucked the other two into her arms and pressed her face into their fur. "They are adorable!" she exclaimed as they mewled at her, which of course sent her into a giggling fit. She spun once, with the kittens still in her arms before slowly falling back onto a couch and burying her face into them once again.
The orange one, Bibi, playfully swatted at a slip of hair that fell from her face, causing yet another aww to fill the room. "Where did you find them?! And why did you not tell me you had kittens?" Asala asked excitedly. Eventually, she loosened her grip on them enough so that they had free roam over her lap, though she continued to play with them by taking a lock of her own hair and teasing them with it.
âItâs⊠a bit of a recent development,â Estella explained. She laid her hands on either side of a cast iron pot, holding it above the counter she stood at. Soon the sound of boiling water reached Asalaâs ears, and Estella carefully set the pot down again on a hand towel, moving the ground coffee into another container of some kind. âLeon found them, actually. The mother had the babies in his office, it seems, but she wasnât quite strong enough to make it.â There was a pause there, one slightly longer than it should have been, and it had a distinct heaviness to it.
But whatever Estella was thinking, she elected not to share, shaking herself a bit and turning back to her work. âThe three of usâhe, Cyrus, and myselfâhave been looking after them since. Though theyâre just about old enough that they donât need us for anything but a meal and water.â
She approached where Asala sat, a tray in both of her hands. The smell of it permeated the room, and she set the assemblage down on the low table between them. A slim carafe of cold milk stood off to one side, and several sugar cubes sat in a shallow dish next to it, matched by smaller dishes of what smelled like cinnamon and nutmeg. Plain metal spoons lay beside each of two mugs. Estella made a small noise as she caught Eliaâs attempt to jump down from her shoulder as she took a chair, likely in pursuit of the milk, and settled the kitten on one leg, where he remained, blinking large golden eyes at Asala and his siblings.
"Aww..." The intonation of this one was far more sad than the previous two. She was sad to hear that the kitten's mother hadn't made it. She frowed looked into the orange ones face before she scratched her under the chin. A soft mew came out as Bibi playfully swatted at her hand, bringing Asala's smile back.
Taking her hand away from the kitten, Asala reached over to the tray and took a mug in hand, but then set it back down to free up the saucer that it rested on. Careful not to disturb the kittens in her lap, whom seemed intent on watching what she was doing, she took the carafe of milk and poured a small amount into the saucer. At that point, she could feel the kittens' claws dig into her lap, and hummed a small admonishment as she took the saucer in hand and settled it on the couch beside her. The kittens scrambled out of her lap and to them milk, gently guided by Asala's careful hands to make sure neither tripped and made a mess. She smiled at them as they began to lap at the cool milk.
Turning back to the tray, Asala took the carafe again, though this time she poured it into the coffee until it almost reached the brim and turned a creamy tan color. "I am sure that they could not want for better caretakers," Asala said with a smile. Though the thought of Cyrus caring for kittens was hard to picture at first, once she managed it it was completely adorable she decided, and made her giggle. Finally, she took the warm mug into her hands and brought it under her nose so that she could smell it before she took a drink. The scent took her back home. Early mornings in the building where Tammy would teach the children of the commune. Asala could almost see her, standing over and open book with coffee in hand planning out the lesson for the day.
She took a drink, the cool milk having cooled it enough to not burn herself. She hummed to herself and nodded softly, so as not to disturb the kittens. "It is really good," she said, taking another sip.
âThank you,â Estella replied softly, leaning forward slightly, with a care not to disturb Elia, who remained in place on her lap despite the nearby presence of something to eat. The way The Inquisitor prepared her own coffee was fairly unusualâa lace of cinnamon and a dash of nutmeg followed a pair of sugar cubes into the mug, and she stirred it all with her spoon, reclining slightly against the chairâs back and sighing, the fact more evident in the easing of her shoulders than the sound, which was barely perceptible. The fairness of her complexion made the undereye circles she was sporting seem dark, but she didnât betray fatigue in her movementâeverything was as deliberate and controlled and careful as it always was. Even her face was bereft of any lines of discontent.
She took a sip of her coffee, lowering the mug to hold cupped in both her hands, safely away from Elia, who appeared to be settling himself in for a nap. Estella regarded Asala kindly for a moment, a flicker of concern passing over her face for a moment, and lingering in her eyes for longer than that. âHow are you holding up, Asala?â The questionâs tone demanded no answerâit was inflected about as gently as could be.
Asala's cup fell back to her lap and a thin frown appeared between her lips. She had really wished to avoid this conversation. Her eyes fell to the rim of her mug, and the debated within herself whether to answer or quietly wait it out and hope Estella would change the topic again. Eventually though, she decided. "... Better," she answered. Time had dulled the sting, but an emptiness replaced it. "It is still..." She trailed off, unsure on how to even form the words any longer. Instead, she closed her eyes and shook her head, adding only a single word. "Hard."
She felt something on her lap, and she opened her eyes to see Bibi staring at her coffee. The kitten looked up at her and mewled. She smiled and ran a finger down the kitten's spine, while at the same time pulling the coffee away from her. "Now, now. This is not for you," she said, scratching at a spot near her tail.
Estella hummed, a note of conciliation or agreement or something of the kind, but she seemed to pick up on Asalaâs discomfiture with the subject matter and pressed it no further. Perhaps sheâd never intended to. Instead, her eyes fell to Bibi, and her lips turned in a subtle smile. âYou know, it doesnât really make much sense to keep the three of them all up here. Theyâre old enough now that they donât need more than what the kitchens can provide⊠and someone to make sure they donât get into too much trouble.â
She took another sip of her coffee, then tilted her head to the side. âPerhaps the patients in the infirmary might benefit from having one of them around? Theyâre certainly very good at being distracting when one is trying to think.â
Asala beamed, though she tried to rein herself in. She was terrible at trying to hide her emotions, and she knew it. "Uh, yes. I-I-I think they would like that. Very much," she said tripping over her words out of excitement, not shyness. "The patients. I mean." She would too, but that much was obvious.
"Thank you," she said with another scratch under Bibi's chin.
âNo need,â Estella replied mildly, observing their interaction with a thoughtful expression. âThough I hope you wonât mind if I visit a little more often. Iâm rather attached.â
"You are always welcome to visit anytime," Asala said with a smile.
Asala had not seen much of the woman since she had become Inquisitor. In fact, Asala had not seen much of anyone since then. Instead, she mostly kept to her room and the medical station doing what she could to stay busy. The pain had... subsided, somewhat. It was not a sharp as it had been, but there still remained a hole. Every time her mind wandered back, a weight fell onto her shoulders and her mood darkened. She did what she could to keep her mind off of it, but it was inevitable that she would find her way back to it.
She took the stares leading up to the castle and the mainhallway slowly, so as not to tip over either side. They were without railing, she noticed, and she was surprised she hadn't seen more people with twisted ankles. Once in the main hallway, she was finally able to take in just how large Skyhold was. It was far larger than Haven, by a large measure. She found herself staring upward at the large ceiling as she drifted toward a side door. Apparently, Estella now had an office in one of Skyhold's towers, and by her guess, the door she was taking led her to it. At least, she hoped, else she would be asking directions momentarily.
Fortunately, that did not seem to be the case, as she entered a rather office-like area.
The door had been left cracked open, inviting entrance, and yielded easily to Asala, depositing her in a circular room of considerable size. Aside from a door about ninety degrees to the right, the only one out or in was the one sheâd just entered through. The walls were lined with a mix of bookshelves and bare space, most of the shelves still empty. There was a round table in the center of the room, with several chairs, and Estella herself sat at the twelve of it, facing the door, bent over a parchment, quill in hand. Her brow had a deep furrow to it, and she looked at the parchment as though slightly affronted by it.
Upon Asalaâs entry, however, she looked up, the crease between her eyebrows easing slightly, though soft shadows remained beneath her eyes. Estella met Asalaâs eyes and smiled tentatively. âOh hello. Itâs good to see you, Asala. Is there something I can help you with?â
"I, uh, um," she fumbled, making a series of unintelligible garbled sounds afterward, tripping over her own tongue. Asala then stopped completely, looked off to the side and felt very annoyed with herself. It was the first time she was talking to the Inquisitor, but not the first time to Estella. Maybe she was just choking on her words because she hadn't used them with Estella in a while. Once she finished being annoyed with herself, she turned back to Estella and smiled. "Let me... try again," she said, poking fun at herself.
With that, Asala took a few steps into the room and took it in. It was rather sparse, she noted, and the walls were... dreary. Letting her gaze fall back town to Estella, Asala shook her head. "No, not at the moment, thank you," she answered. Asala noticed the darkness under her eyes, and she couldn't exactly not worry, "I, uh, heard you're the Inquisitor now? Congratulations," she said, though the edge of the word had a tilt as if it was more of a question.
"I, uh, apologize that I was not present," she added, glancing away for a moment toward the bare walls. She tried to not reflect on the reason why she had been absent. Meanwhile, she had stepped close enough to hover behind a chair on the other side of the table.
Estellaâs smile inched just a little wider, and she shook her head with a gentle motion. âItâs⊠I understand why you werenât. Please donât let it bother you. And if you can, Iâd really like it if you just treated me the same as ever. I promise the only thing thatâs changed about me is the title.â She said it with a tone of weariness, and something else, a faint touch of something melancholy, or maybe disappointed, it was hard to say.
âYou can sit down, if you like. Iâm just⊠writing letters.â Estella made a face, wrinkling her nose slightly.
"To, uh... Whom? If you do not mind me asking?" Asala asked curiously. She took a seat and leaned forward, though she could not see the contents of the letter. Even if she could, she couldn't read it upside down without being completely obvious about it. She had thought Lady Marceline had managed most of the letters, though thinking on it, Asala supposed that the Inquisitor would be required to write a few of her own.
That wrung a short sigh out of Estella, and she looked down at the parchment she was working on. âMostly nobles. Lady Marceline does the business bit, but she says itâs best if I enclose something from me personally as well, because a note from the Inquisitor carries weight, I suppose. So I⊠end up reading a lot about peopleâs holdings and enterprises, so that I know what to talk to them about, because I canât bring myself to write a form letter.â Her expression turned rueful. âItâs nice when I get to write the few people I do know personally, but⊠most of the time it just feels⊠uncomfortable.â
Estella shifted uneasily in her seat, looking down at the parchment again, then pursed her lips and glanced up. âWould you mind taking a break with me? Lady Costanza sent along some coffee from Antiva with her donation, and I remembered you saying you liked it. We could share, if you want?â She tilted her head to the side, but made no move to get up, clearly unwilling to assume the answer would be affirmative.
Asala's expression perked up after that. "Oh yes, please," Asala said nodding. It had been such a long time since she had tasted coffee. In fact, the last time had been when she was last home. Noticeably, at its mention Asala now sat leaned forward, somewhat excited.
âFollow me.â Estella stood, moving to the door on the other side of the room, the closed one. As it turned out, it led to a staircase upwards, which the Inquisitor mounted with light feet, opening another door at the landing of the stairs. This one let out into another circular chamber. This one had a dark rug on the floor, rather plain in dark blue with a simple silver border. There was a bed on one side, its covers linen and folded with precise, military corners. The rest of the furniture was simple, and included a couple of chairs and a low coffee table, a cabinet and an armoire, while a standing screen sectioned part of the room off from view. It was all quite neat, and didnât even seem particularly lived-in.
âAll right everyone, letâs say hello!â Her inflection was oddly sing-song, and the exhortation seemed quite out of place, considering that there wasnât anyone else in the room. Or it didnât seem so, not until Asala walked further in and could see the three little kittens run out from behind one of the armchairs at the sound of Estellaâs voice. They twined several times around her feet, making her progress across the room much slower than it could have been, and one of them looked to be trying to climb her pant leg.
All three were different colors: one was smoky grey, another a pale orange with darker cinnamon stripes, and the third was white and calico. That was the one trying to scramble up Estellaâs person, and she bent to pick it up, easily able to fit it in one hand and set it on her shoulder. âMake yourself comfortable,â she said to Asala, moving to the cabinet and pulling down what looked like a jar of coffee beans and a grinder. âTheyâre quite friendly. This oneâs Elia, the marmalade one is Bibi, and the grey one is Gil.â
Whatever reservations she may have had went up in smoke upon first contact with kittens. Her eyes went as wide a saucers as she pressed her hands to her mouth, though a high pitched "Awww," warbled between her fingers. Asala only paid enough attention to Estella to catch the kittens' names, as she gently plucked the other two into her arms and pressed her face into their fur. "They are adorable!" she exclaimed as they mewled at her, which of course sent her into a giggling fit. She spun once, with the kittens still in her arms before slowly falling back onto a couch and burying her face into them once again.
The orange one, Bibi, playfully swatted at a slip of hair that fell from her face, causing yet another aww to fill the room. "Where did you find them?! And why did you not tell me you had kittens?" Asala asked excitedly. Eventually, she loosened her grip on them enough so that they had free roam over her lap, though she continued to play with them by taking a lock of her own hair and teasing them with it.
âItâs⊠a bit of a recent development,â Estella explained. She laid her hands on either side of a cast iron pot, holding it above the counter she stood at. Soon the sound of boiling water reached Asalaâs ears, and Estella carefully set the pot down again on a hand towel, moving the ground coffee into another container of some kind. âLeon found them, actually. The mother had the babies in his office, it seems, but she wasnât quite strong enough to make it.â There was a pause there, one slightly longer than it should have been, and it had a distinct heaviness to it.
But whatever Estella was thinking, she elected not to share, shaking herself a bit and turning back to her work. âThe three of usâhe, Cyrus, and myselfâhave been looking after them since. Though theyâre just about old enough that they donât need us for anything but a meal and water.â
She approached where Asala sat, a tray in both of her hands. The smell of it permeated the room, and she set the assemblage down on the low table between them. A slim carafe of cold milk stood off to one side, and several sugar cubes sat in a shallow dish next to it, matched by smaller dishes of what smelled like cinnamon and nutmeg. Plain metal spoons lay beside each of two mugs. Estella made a small noise as she caught Eliaâs attempt to jump down from her shoulder as she took a chair, likely in pursuit of the milk, and settled the kitten on one leg, where he remained, blinking large golden eyes at Asala and his siblings.
"Aww..." The intonation of this one was far more sad than the previous two. She was sad to hear that the kitten's mother hadn't made it. She frowed looked into the orange ones face before she scratched her under the chin. A soft mew came out as Bibi playfully swatted at her hand, bringing Asala's smile back.
Taking her hand away from the kitten, Asala reached over to the tray and took a mug in hand, but then set it back down to free up the saucer that it rested on. Careful not to disturb the kittens in her lap, whom seemed intent on watching what she was doing, she took the carafe of milk and poured a small amount into the saucer. At that point, she could feel the kittens' claws dig into her lap, and hummed a small admonishment as she took the saucer in hand and settled it on the couch beside her. The kittens scrambled out of her lap and to them milk, gently guided by Asala's careful hands to make sure neither tripped and made a mess. She smiled at them as they began to lap at the cool milk.
Turning back to the tray, Asala took the carafe again, though this time she poured it into the coffee until it almost reached the brim and turned a creamy tan color. "I am sure that they could not want for better caretakers," Asala said with a smile. Though the thought of Cyrus caring for kittens was hard to picture at first, once she managed it it was completely adorable she decided, and made her giggle. Finally, she took the warm mug into her hands and brought it under her nose so that she could smell it before she took a drink. The scent took her back home. Early mornings in the building where Tammy would teach the children of the commune. Asala could almost see her, standing over and open book with coffee in hand planning out the lesson for the day.
She took a drink, the cool milk having cooled it enough to not burn herself. She hummed to herself and nodded softly, so as not to disturb the kittens. "It is really good," she said, taking another sip.
âThank you,â Estella replied softly, leaning forward slightly, with a care not to disturb Elia, who remained in place on her lap despite the nearby presence of something to eat. The way The Inquisitor prepared her own coffee was fairly unusualâa lace of cinnamon and a dash of nutmeg followed a pair of sugar cubes into the mug, and she stirred it all with her spoon, reclining slightly against the chairâs back and sighing, the fact more evident in the easing of her shoulders than the sound, which was barely perceptible. The fairness of her complexion made the undereye circles she was sporting seem dark, but she didnât betray fatigue in her movementâeverything was as deliberate and controlled and careful as it always was. Even her face was bereft of any lines of discontent.
She took a sip of her coffee, lowering the mug to hold cupped in both her hands, safely away from Elia, who appeared to be settling himself in for a nap. Estella regarded Asala kindly for a moment, a flicker of concern passing over her face for a moment, and lingering in her eyes for longer than that. âHow are you holding up, Asala?â The questionâs tone demanded no answerâit was inflected about as gently as could be.
Asala's cup fell back to her lap and a thin frown appeared between her lips. She had really wished to avoid this conversation. Her eyes fell to the rim of her mug, and the debated within herself whether to answer or quietly wait it out and hope Estella would change the topic again. Eventually though, she decided. "... Better," she answered. Time had dulled the sting, but an emptiness replaced it. "It is still..." She trailed off, unsure on how to even form the words any longer. Instead, she closed her eyes and shook her head, adding only a single word. "Hard."
She felt something on her lap, and she opened her eyes to see Bibi staring at her coffee. The kitten looked up at her and mewled. She smiled and ran a finger down the kitten's spine, while at the same time pulling the coffee away from her. "Now, now. This is not for you," she said, scratching at a spot near her tail.
Estella hummed, a note of conciliation or agreement or something of the kind, but she seemed to pick up on Asalaâs discomfiture with the subject matter and pressed it no further. Perhaps sheâd never intended to. Instead, her eyes fell to Bibi, and her lips turned in a subtle smile. âYou know, it doesnât really make much sense to keep the three of them all up here. Theyâre old enough now that they donât need more than what the kitchens can provide⊠and someone to make sure they donât get into too much trouble.â
She took another sip of her coffee, then tilted her head to the side. âPerhaps the patients in the infirmary might benefit from having one of them around? Theyâre certainly very good at being distracting when one is trying to think.â
Asala beamed, though she tried to rein herself in. She was terrible at trying to hide her emotions, and she knew it. "Uh, yes. I-I-I think they would like that. Very much," she said tripping over her words out of excitement, not shyness. "The patients. I mean." She would too, but that much was obvious.
"Thank you," she said with another scratch under Bibi's chin.
âNo need,â Estella replied mildly, observing their interaction with a thoughtful expression. âThough I hope you wonât mind if I visit a little more often. Iâm rather attached.â
"You are always welcome to visit anytime," Asala said with a smile.