“You can try,” he replied stubbornly, but the sharpness has edged from his voice. Instead, it was in his eyes, narrowed and piercing as he watched her. The words were an immediate response, sure, but his mind was somewhere else.

“If she loved you, you shouldn’t be a secret,” he decided, firmly. “If she loved you, she would rejoice in your life and your presence and she would tell everyone how much she cared for you.” He’d burn Finn’s name into the sky, if he could.

“I haven’t seen him smile the way you made him smile in over a hundred years,” he hissed. “And I don’t care who wants to hide you in whispers. I refuse to deny that to him and I refuse to let anyone else deny it to him, either.”