Lynesse

Among Other Things

Temrode had made her a gift for the Holiday. Well. Not the current holiday; he’d made her a gift for the holiday that had just passed -- Love is in the Air -- the one holiday she hated because you shouldn’t need a holiday for that sort of thing. He never liked getting people flowers, he said, because they died. He asked if it was weird that he’d gotten her a gift. 

It was, a little. They’d only slept together a few times. It wasn’t like they were “a thing”. He’d wanted to do it, though, and he’d done it, so it wasn’t that weird at all so far as she was concerned. He’d made her a mechanical crane; It looked so intricate and delicate, but it was tougher than it seemed. Moving the wings and winding it up to watch it walk across the table was fascinating to her. Everything worked together in harmony, little cogs and gears falling into place with oiled ease to propel it along. She’d named it Pi’irya, after all, it was bad luck to name something after someone who’d died an unfortunate death (but you could change it just enough to keep the spirits from being upset).

He wanted to take her on a date, too. Like a date-date. A real one. That was weirder than the crane. She hadn’t said no, though. Why say no? She enjoyed his company. He was fun to be around. She never had to worry about offending. Now she was officially his Plus One at the promotion ceremony for Califor. Tem was going to wear dark plum to match her dress. He was worried Fair would ask too many questions about why he wasn’t wearing his dress armor. She probably would. That’s what Fair did, investigated. But, it was Tem. And if they matched, maybe it would be less suspicious. In reality it wouldn’t be less suspicious at all, and she knew that, but he was going to have to tell his sister what had happened eventually. 

It’s good that she has you, he’d said, she needs girls to talk to about this shit. Or something like that. There’d been whiskey and sleep, among other activities, between then and now. Lyn didn’t think Fair was lucky at all. If Fair wasn’t careful, she would end up like her. That would be terrible. Family-disowning-terrible, but maybe that wouldn’t be so bad. 

Lyn pulled her pillow up over her face to block out the light and shifted under Tem’s arm, his skin comfortably warm against her own. This was okay, for now. Dates and gifts didn’t mean anything, right?