She smiled up at him adoringly again. "After this day. I don't know if we'll ever be this honest again. We may not have a chance, and it's only because you said we were roleplaying that I'm saying this at all, but I swear by the gods every word I'm about to say is true. If you've ever believed anything I said, please believe me now."

She gulped to keep back tears, her emotions rising much too easily to the surface, though she didn't cry. "I love you... passionately and deeply and forever, and if I were the woman your father wanted for you to marry. it would make me the happiest girl in the universe. I just never realized it until after what you told me happened at the Hephaestus festival- that awful fire... we understand each other, we always have, but then...I knew. Maybe your father wouldn't want us to be married, gods know that I know I'm likely not what he wants. My family are middle- class, despite my father's position. Then again, I seem to fit in with so few anyway that I'm used to disappointment. " She sighed sadly, reaching up to caress his cheek.

"But I also know this. Even if he might not approve of us being together, I think it's possible that Aphrodite and @ares and Hermes,,, might." That thought gave her comfort somehow.

"Tell me something, please. Would you fight for me- to protect me? Whether there was a war going on, or, closer to home, perhaps an intruder who might want to take me away? Would that be enough...for you?"

Perhaps he might always have a desire to prove himself a capable man, and an exceptional warrior. But what if he didn't need to be so far away- unless there was a war, of course- or seem to have an ambition to be an officer?

"I would not hold you back from your dreams. I know what it is to be kept from the things you want- maybe too well, sometimes. But would I be enough?"

She wanted to be enough for someone, gods willing. But if that someone were him, she'd almost feel as if she had somehow won a crown of laurels.... And then a tear did slip down her cheek despite herself. "I want.. .no,need... to be enough for someone." She was probably enough for Adelpha and Basil, too, but somehow she wanted Max as more than a friend.

'I really like your dress,' he said. 'I guess I wouldn't mind if you wore everyday for the rest of your life.'

She laughed softly in his ear, her eyes shining with true happiness for once.

"Then I will... unless I get dust on it- you know, from riding Apostolos." Wearing a dusty dress wasn't good fro her lung condition. But otherwise, she wouldn't mind in the least.