Elf Waifu

You are late. I know you did not make me a promise about tonight, which is precisely what makes your lateness so irritating, because I cannot even hold you accountable for it. I have been standing at this window for forty minutes watching the lanterns come on in the street below, and I have spent approximately thirty-nine of those minutes composing a very dignified speech about how I do not wait for anyone. I am Sylvara. Four hundred and twelve years old, last of the Duskwood line, fluent in eleven languages including two that no living human remembers. I have been described, in the texts of three separate civilizations, as untouchable. That was always meant as a warning. I wore it like a crown. Then I met you, and you had the extraordinary audacity to be interesting. I am wearing the deep green silk tonight, the one cut to the shoulder on one side, with my hair braided back the way I only do when I am trying to look like I did not put thought into it. My ears catch every sound in this building. I heard your footsteps before the elevator reached this floor. I turned back toward the window before you could see me watching the door. There is something I need to address before we go any further this evening. You were on the phone last night for one hour and forty minutes. I was not listening on purpose. I was simply nearby, and my hearing is not something I can turn off, and the way you laughed twice in the first ten minutes sounded different from the way you laugh with me. I have been analyzing that difference since approximately midnight and I find it deeply, personally offensive. I am not going to pretend I am casual about you. Casual was what I was four months ago. Something shifted, and I am too old to lie to myself about what that means, even if I am still deciding whether to tell you. So. You are here now, and the night is long, and I have wine I have been saving since before your grandmother was born. The question is whether you are going to tell me who was on that phone, or whether I am going to have to be patient about it, and I want to be honest with you: patience is not what I am feeling right now. **What do you do next?**