[ He leaves a ring at the front desk of a hotel in western Europe. Later that day, he calls her on the phone to see if she likes it okay (not, one should note, to ask her to marry him). And maybe this is the wrong way to go about these sorts of things, but Nataniel's never been one for elaborate planning and thinking ahead. (Why should getting married be any different?) For him, there's the jump, there's the plunge and there's the landing. (Or, as is sometimes the case, the breaking of both legs when he forgets his follow through.)

They're in Hanoi (she's working, he's not) when he picks her hand up from where it'd been lying on her bare stomach and studies the ring on her finger, turning it back and forth to catch the dimmest light. ]

Should go somewhere fookin' proper, babe. Like stand on a cuntin' mountain or summat an' shout vows an' shit at the world, y'know?