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.
Without thinking, I reached for one that was yellow tinged with swirls of pink and crusted with dried flaky red bits. The vendor shifted, and I caught myself, realizing I'd just swiped something and instinctively I braced myself to drop it and run. I shifted backwards, and bumped into Ethat's bulk.
My heart beat crazy and hot. I tried to drop the sticky disc, Ethat grasped my hand and pinched my fingers together.
Oh no, oh no, what did I do? I just stole this thing!
Some of the ravens watching from their roosts cocked their heads and tilted closer, shifting their wings.
Soir would love an excuse to toss me into what passed for a prison in Haven.
Ethat looped his other hand around my belly and tugged me against him, still holding my guilty hand on his. He whispered, "Eat it."
"I guess it's too late now, isn't it?" I whispered, shaking.
He kissed my neck. "Silly love, you didn't steal it. You can pay for it."
Oh. It dawned on me I could pay for it and hadn't just stolen it.
Ethat, still holding me firmly against him, guided my hand to my lips, while Itek, the merchant, and every shifter-Raven watched with interest. Ethat kissed the nape of my neck as I brought the sweet to my lips and tasted it.
The sugar hit first, followed by a strange fragrant taste that hit me as roses. Under that was the fetid taste that pervaded everything, but I ignored that in favor of roses. The little crunchy parts on half of the disc were dried rose petals. "It tastes like flowers!"
"Yes, beautiful love," Ethat chuckled.
"We didn't have anything like this where I grew up," I said quickly, seeing the way the merchant looked at me like I was an idiot. "I've never seen a rose, now that I think about it..."
Then how did I know what roses were? I'd heard about them, of course, but nobody in enclave had had roses. I looked at the bitten disc with new interest.
"You have never seen a rose?" Itek asked.
"No, we didn't have roses either," I said.
"There are none in your twilight garden?" Itek asked with a wicked glint in his eye.
"I... don't know, actually. Wait. Are they--"
"Finish your treat," Ethat murmured, giving me a gentle nip on the nape of my neck.
I obeyed, puzzling over the sensation of eating flowers. It was probably divine if not for the fetid taste that was all that kept me from swooning with happiness.
"So," Itek prompted while he gestured to the trays of treats and the merchant somehow took this to mean what he wanted and started to wrap them. "Roses?"
"Are they a fat flower with many petals all crammed together?" I held my hands out to illustrate the flower I had seen in my twilight garden. The scent was similar to the taste of what I'd just eaten, but not quite the same. "The flowers were a pale shade of lavender tinged with blue?"
The merchant listened with interest.
Itek gave me a wicked look. "That's a terrible description. Ask Ormiss if there are roses in your twilight garden. Also, tell him you enjoy the taste of roses and why does your garden here in Haven have none?"
Ethat snickered against the back of my neck.
"You would think that a garden devoted to his love of you would have roses, the classic symbol of love," Itek said. "Perhaps Ethat can force-bloom some for you given the season is getting late."
"I could," Ethat murmured in my ear, "if it makes you happy. Or I could try."
"We think only of your happiness, my love." Itek winked as he accepted half a dozen columns of the various sugary discs wrapped up in broad, wafer-thin leaves and place them carefully in his bag.
"Sure you do," I replied. "And then you use that to torment the others."
"Obviously." Itek selected several more sweets. He was choosing gifts to take to Korr's family, as was the custom of mated gryphons: to give small gifts to their new in-laws. Korr had advised him that his roost loved exotic candies and treats, but that Itek would have to choose them himself and just make his best guess. Itek had also set out to procure various supplies for the march back to the mountain, along with various other treats from Haven, because returning to a dragon roost without gifts after having been gone so long was considered unspeakably rude.
Dragons loved treasure.
Itek pocketed what seemed like several hundred sweets, exchanged coin with the merchant, and moved on his hunt.
Ethat pulled me into the shadows of an ally while Itek argued with a merchant over the price of some bits or another. My green dragon gently pressed me against the chilly, damp bricks. The sunlight didn't touch here and the dampness clung to the shadows.
"Beautiful love," he told me, pressing close, holding my hip with one hand while the other caressed my cheek. Fireflies drifted around us. The beautiful spring-sunlight in his eyes had returned to its luminescent, other-worldly glow.
"How did you know I was afraid I'd just stolen something?"
"I just knew. My brother might make noises about the purse strings, but that's just him being responsible." Ethat's smile became tinged with sadness. "He is unfailingly responsible, even if he tricks everyone into thinking he is cavalier."
"I know," I said softly. I also knew Ethat's sadness was because Korr looked after his murder-prone brother. "Just an old habit. I've seen children lose their fingers for thieving."
He kissed my fingers instead. I shivered and breathed out, and he slid his tongue between two of them, teasing the delicate skin, then licking lower, gathering up the last traces of sweetness from my palm.
"Ethat," I whispered, trying to find the resolve to tell him to stop.
He kissed the soft skin of my wrist. I shuddered and bit down a whimper. With his other hand, he cradled one of my breasts, gently palming it through my dress and teasing the nipple with one of his fingertips.
"What are you doing?" It was a dumb question, but why was he doing this to us? His touch was exquisite fire, and every flick and lick made me press backwards against the cold stone wall and fight down moans the entire market would hear. And I ached for him to be inside me again.
"Marveling at you," he breathed, rubbing his cheek against my wrist.
"We're in public," I reminded him, but it sounded weak and half-hearted even to me.
Itek ducked his head around the opening to the narrow stone alley. "Naughty naughty."
Ethat growled at him.
"Tsk, tsk." Itek sauntered into the alley and wedged Ethat's hand off my breast. Ethat growled, Itek growled back, Ethat clicked his teeth. Itek didn't care. "She can't be riding your cock in public. That is very illegal in Haven. Very, very, very illegal."
"It is?" I asked, flushed and discombobulated. "Since when?"
"Since--well, a while now," Itek caught himself, glancing briefly up at a raven that had appeared to peer over the rocky ledge. "Come, love. Leave Ethat to compose himself. I'd rather not have to get either of you out of prison."
Ethat growled.
"Compose," Itek hissed, "not jerk off. That's also illegal, and you know it."
Itek drew me away from Ethat and back out into the main market. He leaned over and assured me, "Don't worry, love. We're almost done here."
"I'm fine," I said, although my pussy had other ideas and slick soaked my thighs.
His eyes briefly flashed bird-of-prey amber, but his smile was feline. "You can confess it."
"This has to be against the law."
"Public lavicious speech meant as a prelude to sexual contact? Also against the law."
"Haven is a bunch of prudes. When did this happen?"
He whispered, "About a hundred years ago, if my memory of Haven history serves."
"Oh." Well, that would explain it...
/*************
Peeps:
It WAS Rover the Cat! Holy carp, it's just so wholesome.
So I got hit with my first TikTok Standards violation. 🙄 I made a video the AI instantly deemed far too spicy. I didn't bother to appeal. I just posted a 2nd one with a different conversation (Taidc and Keiron discussing Chess' aversion to worms) and put the spicy video on my Patreon instead with some raunchy music. Leannnn into that spice.
Seems like my idea for videos (text conversations between my characters) are DOA and nobody likes them anyway. And I thought it was pretty cute. XD I still think it's cute, and I'm going to keep doing them even if all I get is...
::checks notes ::
8 likes.
😂😂😂😂😂
I'm also experimenting with photo collages because I have like hundreds of beautiful and fun stockphotos in my various favorite bins and I've never found a use for any of them.
Truth is, social media just doesn't come naturally to me (I feel like I've been strapped into a clown suit, herded on stage, and told to do tricks and make the audience like me OR ELSE), and I find it a soul-sucking experience overall. Last year I really, really burned myself out with TikTok. The videos took hours and too much brainpower, and whatever crumbs of extra sales come out of them wasn't worth it, and left me feeling so hopeless and drained it was hard to actually do any writing. Not to get too into the weeds here, but when you're already unhappy and overwhelmed and feeling like a failure, and it's easy to trap yourself in a negative validation loop that bleeds you alllllllll the way dry. So I had to get out from under that and regroup.
And besides, this week, it's been more or less confirmed that TikTok has a button that employees can mash to make things go viral. It's called "heating." So all of you who have always suspected there was something hinky with what went viral vs what gets ignored? YOU WEREN'T WRONG. 😂
YOLO.
Anyway. I've talked long enough. Must go write smutty words...
~Merry
(Performing Pantster)
****************/