"I'll let you maintain some of your dignity from that time, I suppose, if it makes you feel better. Besides, everything transpired the way that it was meant to, in the end." She settles in against him, her head notching atop his shoulder, her fingers drawing invisible shapes and sigils across the unmoving plane of his chest — and a faint smile lingers behind, even as she starts to feel the pull toward torpor, like a train approaching from a distance while she stands in wait on the platform.

"I don't have much power afforded to me, and likely even less as a submissive, but if this is what I can offer — the security of something permanent, and lasting, where so much can change instantly and without warning — then you have it. You had it even before you asked for it."

The rest she can't necessarily ensure won't occur, but at least in this he has the certainty of her presence where the city's rules are concerned — and even beyond that, where they are. "I've never stopped to dwell on what I would do without you," she says, barely louder than a faint whisper.