The echo of Elara's flustered outburst, "…you moron…?!", hung in the air like a thick fog. Mike looked as if he'd been slapped. Sam was actively trying to merge with the sofa cushions to escape the crushing secondhand embarrassment. Leo just watched Elara, his heart aching for the unexpected and profound vulnerability Mike had accidentally exposed.
Elara stood frozen for a long moment, her pale cheeks still tinged with that impossible blush. She took a slow, deliberate breath, the kind one takes after a great shock. It was a visible act of will, a thousand years of control and composure being methodically reassembled. Her mind, it seemed, was finally catching up with her mouth and body. The ancient, unreadable mask slid back into place, but it didn't fit quite as perfectly as before. The memory of the crack was still there.
She picked up her beer, her movements once again calm and measured, and looked directly at Mike. The anger was gone, replaced by a weary, almost academic tone.
"I haven't, Mike," she said, her voice even. The direct confirmation landed with the weight of a final judgment on the awkwardness. She was not going to hide from it. "And you, at a bare minimum, should have a bit more tact when asking questions like that."
Mike winced, mumbling a pathetic, "Sorry."
Elara waved a dismissive hand, not in forgiveness, but as if to clear the air of his foolishness. She took a sip of her drink, her silver eyes looking at something far beyond the walls of the apartment.
"My culture was… different than today's," she began, her voice taking on a distant, lecturing quality. "For my people, the union of two souls was not a sport. It was a sacred rite, a lifelong bond witnessed by the God of the Grove. It was something you prepared for, something you earned. I was a child. The thought had not yet begun to form."
She paused, a flicker of immense sadness in her eyes before it was suppressed. "And after… after the fire, my world was gone. The very concept of that kind of peace was a phantom."
She then fixed her gaze on the three of them, her expression turning colder, more detached.
"Besides," she continued, "I have no deep desire for the carnal desires of the flesh with some random mortal." The word 'mortal' was not an insult; it was a simple statement of fact, like a biologist classifying a different species. "Your lives are like fireflies in the dusk. You burn so brightly, and then you are gone. To form an attachment, even a purely physical one, is to invite a pain I have had my fill of. It is an unnecessary complication."
She took the last swallow from her whiskey glass, setting it down with a soft click.
"Nor," she finished, her voice flat and final, "did I have the time. For a thousand years, I have not been living. I have been surviving. I have been hunting the mistakes my enemies left behind. There are no quiet moments for romance or leisure when you are at war. And I have been at war for a very, very long time."
The explanation was so complete, so logical, and so profoundly sad that it left no room for further questions. Mike was silent, looking down at his shoes, thoroughly ashamed. Sam just nodded slowly, absorbing the brutal pragmatism of her existence.
But Leo saw it all. He saw the little girl who never got to grow up and fall in love in her sacred Grove. He saw the immortal woman who walled off her heart to avoid the pain of watching a firefly's light go out. And he saw the tireless soldier who sacrificed every semblance of a normal life for a millennium-long duty.
The awkwardness in the room was finally gone, burned away by the truth and replaced by a deep, somber respect. They understood now. It wasn't just her home and her family that had been stolen from her. It was everything.