Trinket (Reverse Harem)

In Which Theia and Itek take a Murder Dragon to the Market

The late summer sunlight was burning hot, but the wind blowing off the ocean was cold.

"Autumn is coming," Itek said.

"Reading my mind?" I asked. We'd come down to the high market level--the open-air market that sat two tiers below the temple level of Haven. The winding, snaking road down the sprawling hillside led to a plateau which was the center of Haven's commerce. Well, there was also the open air market at the base of the hillside, where I'd original come in with the God of Barren Branches and his stick-cart. Behind us, Ethat drifted, looming and almost entirely green-haired again, with his face mostly restored, and fully dressed. It was still so unusual to see him in his human form... with clothes. Much less casually dressed to go to market, although he was wearing a light green long coat that fluttered in the breeze behind him as he walked.

Itek chuckled, recapturing my attention. He shook his head, causing his tawny braids to flash gold in the sunlight. "Just saw you gauging the sunlight."

"More thinking I don't even know what autumn looks like in Haven." I had those strange, stray memories of what was Haven--but Haven long ago?--but the fragments were bright, blinding sunlight.

"Like summer. There aren't any trees that change. Just becomes cold and wet." He flexed his arm, pulling me closer, and kissed my hand. "But we won't be here. You'll get to see the trees in the north."

A tiny fragment of a memory of golden trees (but I was looking up at them, and they seemed very tall) flitted through my brain, but disappeared as quickly as he'd said it. No emotions came with it. It barely existed. My mind contained nothing else.

"Theia?" He asked, his fingers entwined with mine and my fingers to his lips. On his other arm were the bags we'd brought.

"I'm fine," I said quickly, shifting aside as someone pushed past us. We weren't moving fast enough for them. "Marcus would be losing his mind if he knew we were out here."

Itek chuckled. "Don't let that bird fool you. He's probably doing some smug preening."

"He did seem pretty pleased with himself." Marcus had salvaged the situation with Perhon as far as dinner and accommodations had gone, and while he groused and fluttered about the chaos and us being wholly unprepared for the level of entertaining and hosting we were now socially obligated to and making noises about the Hippocamp would probably be useless when they arrived, the bird was all caws and wing flaps. Everything at Soir's house was probably well-established routine and neat and tidy. Everything in my family was an unprepared mess and he was just the bird to save us from ourselves.

My family.

"Marcus would be supervising whoever he sent here." Itek glanced upwards, spotting ravens roosting on ledges and walls and rocky outcroppings. It was difficult to tell which one was a Raven, and which one were just regular old ravens, crows, or blackbird. Shifter-ravens looked exactly like common ravens, like wolf-shifters looked like common wolves, and Pantere looked like very large cats. Up very close you could usually spot a shifter-raven, since they often had some sort of rings or adornments on their talons, or the especially lovely sheen on their feathers, and they tended to be bigger, but at a distance, it was hard to say. Especially when they were intermingled with the other sea-birds. "But I'm sure he's here more than he'd ever confess to us."

Marcus was fairly distinctive in raven-form, being larger, with an inky, smoldering aura that rose off his feathers. Like Soir was distinctive, with his be-ringed talons and so shiny black he sometimes looked like he'd been carved from black glass.

Itek turned his attention to the matter of candies and sweets arranged in long, orderly lines on trays, shielded from the sunlight by a bright white valance. Haven (being the crown of the world, according to the God of Barren Branches) had anything you could want to purchase, and what wasn't available today was probably in bound on a ship. These particular candies were little shiny discs of sweetness, with half dipped into some sort of crumbled bits or another. Some had been dipped in crushed candies of other varieties, crushed nuts, crushed flour petals, even dipped in yet more sugar or large crystal salt. They were in many colors and flavors, most I couldn't recall ever hearing of, but were still a little familiar.