by Jean Johnson
When the fourth bird was properly painted and the lot carried to the cave mouth, inked, and released to flap their way high into the sky, Kenyen was ready for a real meal. Accompanying Solyn to the back of the cave, they sat down on the stools at the table and set about slathering sauce on the rounds of flatbread, layering it with greenvein cheese, vegetables, greens, and meat, then folded each roughly in half.
Eating the food Corredai-style put a crick in his neck, since it required holding the folded flatbread upright in both hands and tilting the head to one side, but Kenyen couldn't deny the combination was worth the effort. Though perhaps not the embarrassment. Solyn giggled at him when he dropped a chunk of cheese on his lap.
"Now that is more like the real Traver," she snickered. "He definitely isn't the most graceful when eating flat-folds."
He rolled his eyes, chewed, and swallowed. "... Laugh all you want. It's delicious. And the sauce goes with the cheese."
She smiled at the compliment. "Thank you. I made it myself."
"Speaking of cheese..." Kenyen muttered, plucking the sauce-smeared scrap off his lap and tossing it in his mouth. She wrinkled her nose at him, but didn't comment. Kenyen lifted his chin at the sliced round sitting patiently on the table. "When I ate that stuff, I stopped sneezing. It even quelled the itching deep in my nose, practically from the first taste. If that thing does quell the magic-itch plaguing a tenth of my people, you'll have a brand-new market for it as soon as we can get a couple rounds back home. A huge market."
She blinked at that. "Really? It stopped your sneezing? And your people would want to eat it, enough to import it in a high quantity?"
"Not just the shifters married to our few mages," Kenyen told her, "but the warband shifters as well. We've had a number of sticky moments going up against renegade mages. A sneeze or three at the wrong moment has put several lives in danger over the years."
"Huh." Solyn considered the possibilities. "I suppose it makes some sense. I never really considered the other potential properties of greenvein mold, nor do I think has my mother..." Shrugging, she lifted her flatbread fold. "Well, here's to your good health!"
Grinning, he took another bite... and dropped a bit of meat on his lap this time. Wrinkling his nose at the spill, he ignored her snickers and kept eating. When they finished, Solyn pulled over the last two pieces of paper and showed him how to fold the square sheets back and forth, this way and that, until a paper bird emerged.
His bird was lopsided, one wing sticking up high and the other angling off low, but it was still recognizably a paper bird. The wings even flapped... sort of... when he pulled on the tail. More on one side than the other, but both of them flapped, which Solyn kindly pointed out, though her mouth did curl up on one side a bit too much.
Peeking at him as they cleaned up the remains of their lunch, Solyn kept doing a double take. He was wearing Traver's face, and practicing some of Traver's mannerisms, but most of him was, well, Kenyen of the Shifting Plains. She sighed. "You know, we are alone. You don't have to wear his face all the time around me."
"I know. I just... keep expecting your mother to come back." He shrugged and turned it into a ripple of flesh. "I hope you don't mind how I hid my face, earlier."
She blushed. "Well, I kind of mind that it wasn't the best kiss ever, but... I didn't mind that it was a kiss."
He flushed as well, feeling awkward. Part of him didn't like her pointing out it was a kiss, but part of him wanted to prove he could do better. "It's... awkward. We only kiss the earth-priestesses, back home. Or our wives. So it's sort of... forbidden. The lure of the taboo. Except it's not forbidden with willing outlanders. But I want to respect you, to show you the same level of respect I'd show a maiden of the Plains, and yet..."
Smiling, Solyn stopped his babbling with a finger on his lips. "It's not forbidden in Cora's Mountains. It's just a matter of discretion, and, um... wearing the right amulet. It's not encouraged to twine fully with someone unless there is an intent to wed, but it does happen."
He liked the touch of her hand on his mouth. Kenyen puckered his lips in a kiss, then pulled back. "Well, if I ever do anything you don't like, tell me and I'll stop."
She blushed again. "I'll keep that in mind. In the meantime, we still have more cheese rounds to protect. I'll go light the tripod to remelt the wax. Having magic is useful for that."
That reminded him of her mother's quip. He chuckled, picking up the ledger, ink jar, and pen. "I still can't believe she said that. 'Waxing the cheese,' indeed. I have never heard it put that way, before. And we make plenty of cheese on the Plains. Most of it fresh or soft cheeses, though. We don't have nice, cool tunnels like these for ripening and storage."
"You make it sound like you've led a very different life from mine," Solyn offered, heading for the shelf-lined alcove where he had left the wax.
"In some ways, yes," he agreed, raising his voice so she could hear. He lingered at the table, cutting off another slice of the wax-wrapped product of their efforts in this cave. "But, we still have pesky siblings, and nosy mothers, and all the little details that are the same. And a fondness for greenvein cheese. I think it's growing on me."
Chuckling, she quipped back, "Just so long as it doesn't turn you mottled green."
Impulsively, Kenyen shifted the color of his skin. He poked his head around the shelving, and grinned at her startled shriek.
"Ack!—Ohhhh... you!" Flapping her hand at him, she ordered, "Turn back this instant! You almost looked like a corpse, just now, and corpses do not get up and walk around."
He complied, shaking off the webwork of greenish veins. "I think that would be a very strange sight. Alarming, even. Thank the Gods such things don't actually happen."
As he set the ledger and writing implements on the low table, she murmured a word, sparking the wicks back to life. Another word softened the skin of hardened wax that had formed inside the pot. Solyn gave him a rueful look. "I have to be careful with that spell, so it doesn't set the wax on fire. Not that it'd burn all that well without a wick, but one can never be too careful. It's the same one I use to heat bathwater, too—and the bedsheets on cold winter nights."
"I'm sure it's useful in many ways. And I'm still not sneezing," Kenyen added, giving her a smile. Fetching the stools, he positioned them around the pot, then gestured for her to take her pick. Settling onto the other one, he accepted the drop cloth she passed to him, then stretched for the nearest dry-wrapped cheese on the shelf behind him. "Here you go... and one for me... Is the beeswax ready?"
She stirred the pot with her brush and nodded. "I think so. Ready to wax the cheese with me?"
The absurdity of her mother's comment caught up with him. A wheezing snort escaped Kenyen, his face scrunching with laughter. "Waxing the cheese! Ha! Ahahaha..."
His mirth was infectious. It was absurd. Biting her lip to stifle a giggle, Solyn unwrapped her round and dipped her brush in the green-dyed beeswax. The moment she stroked the goop over the cheese in her lap, however, she burst out laughing. The first splotch looked like a pair of puckered lips to her, and it was too much. Snorting, she finally gave up and dropped cheese and brush on the table beside her, laughing heartily.
Grinning, Kenyen wiggled his eyebrows at her. "Hey... wanna wax the cheese with me?"
Flopping the back of one hand over her forehead, draping the palm of the other over her heart, Solyn quipped right back. "Oh! Oh! Such eloquent words, such passionate words! How can a maiden resist!"
"But you cannot resist! This is greenvein cheese!" he retorted, snickering at their overblown dramatics.
"Oh, Goddess, yes—greenvein cheese, and green wax!" she shot back, arms flinging wide. Rising from the stool, she mock-stumbled to his knee. Collapsing across his lap—still giggling, she clung to his shoulders. "Wax me, my dearest darling! Wax me now!"
Her husky, fervent exclamation suited the over-the-top moment. He wrapped his arms around her quickly, catching her before she could overbalance from the gi
ggles spasming through her curves, and growled back, mock-leering at her. "My dearest darling, I'll not only wax you, I'll ripen you, too!"
Solyn laughed so hard, she cried, kicking her feet and squeezing him close as she writhed. He laughed hard, too, wheezing for breath. They clung to each other, rendered so breathless from mirth that it was a wonder he didn't drop her or fall off the stool. Eventually, they wound up with their foreheads touching, brown eyes gazing into hazel, noses brushing lightly together.
Kenyen grinned at her. Solyn grinned back.
The mood shifted. Solyn felt her smile fading, replaced by wonder. This wasn't Traver, yet there was a definite feeling of being comfortable in his arms. At ease, but with an underlying tension. Excitement. This wasn't Traver, and that made all the difference. Taking a deep breath, she seized her courage and kissed him, this near-stranger holding her on his lap.
Her kiss wasn't unexpected. A pleasure, that she gave it so quickly, but a part of him did anticipate it. Thrilled at it, since it still felt semi-illicit, for all that she initiated it. This was a woman he respected, someone he was coming to care about. How deeply, he couldn't yet say, but he did care. Still, he didn't resist when the tip of her tongue tasted his bottom lip, coaxing it open. Nor did he resist the urge to deepen it.
Wrapped in the warmth of his arms, Solyn shivered. The old mining tunnel was cool, this deep into the hill, but it wasn't the temperature that made her shudder. It was the slow way he suckled her lower lip, the slanting of his mouth against hers. Even his scent, male, confident, ensnared her senses. It was the taste of cheese on his tongue that made her laugh again. Pulling back a little, she rested her forehead against his once more.
"You even taste like greenvein," she murmured, sharing the reason for her mirth.
"At least I don't taste like wax," he quipped, smiling back. The mood between them shifted a little. Kenyen cleared his throat. "Do you, ah, actually want to wax the cheese now? Or...?"
"I don't know," Solyn whispered, though she smiled as she said it. "I do know I'm enjoying this twining thing with you, right now. And you are supposed to be seducing me, right?"
"Not for their sake," Kenyen quickly denied. He flushed a little at the revealing words but didn't deny them. Licking his lips, he confessed, "I'd rather court you for your sake. They just... they caused me to stumble across you, like an unexpected detour that led me to a treasure hidden in the grass. They don't have anything to do with how I'm feeling about you."
The smile she gave him was a shy one. For a moment, Kenyen thought her friend Traver was a fool, then realized the other man actually wasn't. This was just how all their lives were playing out. What he chose to do from this moment on would define their future directions.
What he chose to do was taken from him. Instead, Solyn kissed him again. Disinclined to argue the point with a beautiful, confident outlander woman, he kissed her back. With his right arm tucked behind her back, supporting her on his lap, he used the fingers of his other hand to caress the soft skin of her cheek. They brushed back the fine, curling wisps that had escaped her braid, and cupped the curve of her neck, supporting her head.
In response, Solyn slid her own hand from his shoulder to his chest, feeling the warmth of his chest through the linen of his tunic. She wanted to feel the real warmth behind the fabric, but refrained. At least, for the first moments. As their kiss grew more heated, her fingertips played with the buttons holding his chamak in place down the side of his chest. His hand tilted her chin up, giving his mouth access to her throat. The shivers returned with each caress of his lips.
Her fingers worked at his buttons, pulling down the upper corner of the panel. A twist of her head let her return each nip on her neck with a taste of his own. Now it was his turn to shudder, his turn for his breath to flow unsteady and fast. Smirking, glad she could make this confident man tremble, Solyn daringly licked the side of his throat.
"Ohh... Mother Earth!" An earth-priestess might do that, wise and experienced, but a maiden? He shuddered again when she suckled on the base of his throat. The cool air of the tunnel wasn't the only cause of the shivers prickling at his skin. With the side of her thigh brushing against his groin, Kenyen was aware that it had been too long since his last intimate encounter. Catching her fingers before she could unbutton more of his tunic, he whispered, "That... should be enough. For now. Or this will go a lot farther than just... aheh... waxing the cheese."
The humor banished some of her disappointment. Smiling, Solyn snuggled closer to him. He shifted on the stool, adjusting their positions, but held her close. It took her a few moments to realize why he had shifted, and what, exactly, that lump at her thigh meant. Blushing, she sought for a safer topic, though she didn't leave his lap. "Sooo... our last topic was what sort of horse we'd want to ride. How about... oh, what sort of pet we'd want in the house?"
"Not a dog," Kenyen murmured. There were two at Traver's home, and both of them had growled at him, rightfully acting wary of his not-Traver scent. It had taken him some care and patience to get them to grudgingly accept him. "They don't always get along with shifters. I'd rather have a cat."
"Well, I like cats, but I wouldn't mind a pet fish," she admitted.
Craning his neck, Kenyen peered at her. "A pet fish?"
She nodded, temple resting lightly on his shoulder. "My father's mother—Bennia Del Non—had a beautiful blown-glass bowl filled with sand, and little plants, and tiny little stream fish with little red and silver streaks down their sides. She'd feed them bits of biscuit and of course the plants. They were fascinating to watch, as a child. She lived two valleys over. She was an herb-Healer, and I remember her telling me watching the fish helped calm her patients while they were waiting for her to fix up an herbal posset. They moved so slowly, yet swiftly, and it's such a different environment from our own..."
"You have a lot of Healers in your family," Kenyen observed.
She shrugged. "Mostly herbal, a few magical. You?"
"My mother's a good cook, and knows a few common remedies, but that's about it. Magic is very rare on the Plains," he reminded her. "Non-shifting magic, that is."
Solyn smiled and tickled the patch of skin bared by his half-opened tunic. "I meant, would you mind having a pet fish?"
"Life on the Plains is life on the move, three seasons of the year. Carting around a fish-filled bowl every dozen days would be hazardous to the glass," he told her.
That wasn't a pleasant reminder. Sighing, Solyn asked wistfully, "Do you have to go back to the Plains?"
"Well, we always..." Kenyen broke off, considering her question. "I mean, no one... Shifters are Shifterai. It's awkward growing up a shapeshifter when you don't have that kind of support. My sister-in-law didn't have it. Her mother escaped from the curs now plaguing these mountains and gave birth to Atava in a remote Mornai village. Atava managed to figure things out on her own—she's very smart—but it's easier growing up a shifter among your own kind. We even get cross-kin from the Centarai, since they birth the odd shapeshifter now and again, and we trade them non-shifter sons in return."
"Yes, but you make it sound like your kinswoman didn't have any other shifters in her life, just herself. You're fully grown, and I'll presume fully taught. Surely you'd be around to teach your own children?" she pointed out.
"I'd hope to be," Kenyen allowed. He hadn't seriously considered finding a mate and settling down before now, but her words stirred his thoughts. "I suppose, if I lived near the Plains, it wouldn't be so bad... Being able to visit would make things bearable. What about you? Could you consider coming to live among us?"
"I suppose..." Solyn admitted. It was only fair of him to ask her that, since she'd asked her own version. "Except I really do need to go learn how to be a better mage. And I'd like to travel. I suppose that could extend to visiting the Plains. But living in a tent three seasons out of the year doesn't seem quite as nice as living in a house for all four."
He shrugged. "It's not as bad as you might b
e thinking. Our geomes are soundly built, and we make them as pleasant as possible inside. Our homes in the winter are communal, everyone sharing a building, with each couple having their own sleeping rooms. If we could safely transport a bowl filled with fish, it wouldn't be a bad idea. Or stay constantly in the city year-round. But mostly we have hunting cats for pets. They get along with shifters better than dogs do."
As much as she wanted to stay on his lap, Solyn was aware of their surroundings. Sighing, she straightened on his lap. "I think we really should get back to waxing the cheeses. Actual waxing, that is."
Smiling ruefully, he let her rise. "Your mother has completely ruined that phrase for me, you realize."
"You're not the only one," Solyn muttered, settling onto her own stool. She draped the wax-spattered cloth back over her lap, then smiled. "But while we'll only have enough cheeses to wax today... we still have to come back for a few hours tomorrow, and the day after that, and a dozen more after that, to rewrap the fresh rounds in clean cloths. And then we'll have to wax those cheeses, too, once they finally stop seeping out the last of the whey."
His mouth quirked higher on one side. Kenyen reached for his own supplies, copying her movements. "Well, then, we'll have plenty of time for more twining as well as for cheese-binding, won't we?"
She blushed, but she still smiled. Picking up her fat-bristled brush, Solyn stirred the wax and started painting it onto the round sitting in her lap once again. Kenyen followed suit.
"You really are different, you know?"
The comment from Traver's younger brother, Tellik, snapped Kenyen's eyes open. No longer sleepy, he worried over what the boy meant. The candles had long since been blown out, leaving their attic room dimly lit at best from the glow of the hearthfire embers down below. Mentally checking his disguise, he asked in Traver's voice, "Uhh... how so?"