"Hey, my pain nanites are dialed down, thank you very much," Rowan says with a chuckle and an amused gleam in his eyes. It's not something he's mentioned before, out of some abundance of caution, out of fear of the unknown, but it feels okay to say it now. With Daine.

"I suppose my ego can take a bruising and I can bow. If the situation calls for it. Everybody likes me, though. I'm quite charming."

He watches her with arched brows and that same gleam of good humor in his eyes as she attacks her coffee with cream and sugar.

"I didn't realize," he says, lifting his own mug -- black -- to blow on it then take a sip. "I would have ordered you tea. Or hot chocolate."