Cairis was, to put it quite simply, floored, with his speech. His words sank deep into her heart, even though they weren't grand gestures of ardour. What they were, however, was much more special. They were honest. He didn't think of them as just friends, which is what she had been afraid of. There were things about her that endeared her to him, that he cared, like he had said so many times before, for her happiness. And while he made no sure commitment to whatever it was between then, that's not what she had been looking for. All she had wanted to know for certain, was if the feelings she was feeling him were reciprocated in any way, shape or form. And it appeared that they were.
There didn't need to be a great big deal made about it. It was just them, sliding into each other's lives with so much ease, and being together. It was like a little intangible dance between them, bending and moving with the winds of time; not fixed, but fluid and so sweet, even if it may be a fleeting thing. Cairis realised in that moment that even if they did fall out of each other's lives, Raif would forever hold a certain cherished place in her heart, and she had the feeling that she would find a place of her own in his.
She let go of the breath she hadn't realised she'd been holding, reaching for his hand, and holding it lightly between both of hers. "I can't say I know what love is either, Raif," she began slowly, wanting to echo his words, even as they bounced around inside her mind, " I've never been in love, and never paid a whole lot of attention to it. What I do know of it, I learned from my parents, that simple giving without the need to receive, moving together through what life throws at you, bending your will so easily to fit around the other, without fear of losing the essence of who you are.
"It's like that for me, when I am with you. There is so much peace. Even with all that we've had to deal with, I find so much comfort with you. I only desire for you to be whole, and completely happy with yourself, and with the world. And you're right. I don't know how to define what it is between us, either. But it is as easy as breathing."