J'mon was quite a bit less flustered by the sudden, unexpected reunion. They hadn't held out any hope that anyone they knew might arrive and had been quite content with the companions they had found here. But on the short-list of people they might have liked to see, Gilmore was quite close to the top. It may have been a small complication that Gilmore did not remember the time they had spent together, but it was not so complicated that they couldn't overcome it easily. And that was where the excitement was. Rarely did they get the opportunity to meet someone again. To know them at an earlier time in their life. To know how stories may change with just a couple of months of experience. It was a rare opportunity and they were thrilled.
They had dutifully warmed a kettle while they waited and had only just dropped a bundle of herbs into the steaming water. The scent of Marquesian mint filled the room, with just a hint of gunpowder black tea beneath it. While it steeped, they idly fussed with tidying up the already-tidy room: fluffing pillows, straightening blankets, putting books back on their shelves. They had also let their hair down from the pair of bone pins keeping it in a high knot. Now it fell straight and jet-black past their waist, highlighting the contrast between their warm features and the cool, slightly-faded fabric twisted and wound around them.
Recent days had made them slightly more confident about other features as well. Besides the vague scale-patterned embroidery on the edge of their clothes, they no longer bothered suppressing the natural color of their eyes or the forked-shape of their tongue. The scent of heat and oil and metal still wafted around them. And a subtle brassy shimmer dusted the deep hollows and softer dips across their body. It was, for the most part, how they would have appeared in Ank'harel. It was the truest version of them that Gilmore could see, here, for a while at least.
The knock was proceeded by a few seconds with a soft tinkling of bells that only J'mon, at the moment, could hear. The alarm was unnecessary in this case, but it did give them a head start. Gilmore's knuckles had barely fallen against the door before it swung open and J'mon leaned against the doorway, smirking softly at him. "Hello, precious," they purred, the Marquesan accent perhaps not as heavy as one might expect. "You are... genuinely a relief and a delight to see. Come in." They pushed the door the rest of the way open and shifted just enough to let Gilmore brush in past them, gaze hard and heavy on him all the while.