Shani

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As the summer cooled into autumn, it got easier to manage my feelings. I still loved Vida, still longed to kiss her again, but something else grew too. It wasn’t just that I was in love with her, though I certainly still was, but as I grew to know her better I more and more couldn’t imagine a life without her in it. How had I ever lived a life without her smile? Without her music? Without her as my friend?

She still flirted in every town we visited. There was a pattern to it. She’d choose a girl who seemed interested and spend time with her, then at some point they’d disappear and Vida would return with her makeup smudged and her cheeks flushed. Sometimes she’d deviate from the pattern, but more often than not I could predict what would happen.

I didn’t like it. I went to bed early on those nights so I wouldn’t have to watch her return or hear her talking to the twins and Dream about their respective adventures. Later, she’d slip into the tent we shared with Fin and Bloom and I’d pretend to be asleep.

One night, I really was asleep. The next morning I woke up to a note on my pillow written in practiced cursive: Are you avoiding me?

I sighed and sat up. Vida was still inside the tent, reading a book whose cover bore a colorful picture of a firebird soaring over a forest. She looked up, marking her place with a finger.

“I’m not avoiding you.” The words sounded hollow even to my own ears.

“Not all the time, but don’t think I haven’t noticed the pattern.”

I pulled my knees to my chest. “Sorry.”

“Love…” I heard the rustle of fabric and then she was kneeling next to me, the scent of roses and honey surrounding me. “Why? Are you– are you jealous?”

My cheeks burned and I buried my face between my knees. “No. I’m just– it’s only–” I didn’t know how to deny it.

“What if we find you someone to kiss tonight?” she suggested. “To put us on more even footing, and so I’m not your only one.”

Maybe that would be better. Vida wasn’t mine in any way, but I hadn’t been able to stop feeling hurt when I knew she was with someone else. Maybe finding someone else who wanted me the way she had that night would help, maybe knowing what she and Fin enjoyed about it would ease the tight knot of hurt and anger. I nodded. “Okay.”

So that evening, instead of looking for a girl who showed interest in her, Vida was by my side as she played her lute. I sang along, enjoying the sound of our voices in harmony, as I played a simple background melody on the second guitar. That was still all I could do with my left hand, and even less with my right.

“Don’t look now, but the girl with the braids over near the inn is watching you,” Vida whispered between songs. “Smile and wave in her direction when we start the next song, try to make eye contact. Soft smile or flirty smirk.”

I chose the soft smile, accompanied by a wave before my hand went back to the strings. The girl broke eye contact after barely a second, a smile flickering over her lips as she tucked a loose piece of hair back behind her ear.

“Find her at the end of the set,” Vida whispered. “Talk to her, flirt a bit, and if she seems interested try and get her to go off with you somewhere.”

“I don’t know how to flirt!”

“Compliment her eyes or her hair. Girls like that.”

“You didn’t,” I mumbled. “You just touched my cheek and said you wanted to kiss me.”

“I’m also better at this than you are, the tone and the knowing when someone’s interested in me. Baby steps, love.” Vida strummed a chord on her lute and spun over to Fiachra for the chorus. Their voices rose together, alternating lines seamlessly. Fionnuala caught me staring and rolled her eyes, jerking her head at her brother and Vida.

I looked away, back at the girl with braids, and my voice faltered mid-note. She gave me a shy smile.

After the set, as night fell and Seren and Fin went inside hoping to negotiate a better price for the second night at the inn, I learned six things in quick succession.

First, the girl wasn’t as shy as she’d seemed.

Second, her name was Shani. She whispered the introduction as she pulled me into the inn’s stable and then into a stall full of sweet-smelling hay. I whispered my name back, but I couldn’t tell if she heard me.

Third, she was remarkably enthusiastic and not at all apprehensive about kissing a girl.

Fourth, she was a good kisser. Between kisses her hand found its way into my curls, cupping my head to hold me closer. I did my best to reciprocate, kissing her nose and jaw whenever she pulled back for breath. Judging by her little breathy gasps, she enjoyed that.

Fifth, the girl Vida had kissed was Shani’s best friend. She told me that with a laugh as we sat together in the hay, our fingers interlaced.

“I didn’t think she loved girls,” she confided to me. “I knew there were others, but I didn’t think Rodi was one of them until I saw her go off with your friend last night. It’s no wonder we always got along so well!”

I giggled and squeezed her hand. “Yeah, you’ve got that in common with her, and with me.”

Shani leaned over to kiss my cheek again. “You’re going to leave tomorrow, right? Will I ever see you again?”

I didn’t know how often the pack returned to the same places. “I don’t know. I hope so.”

“I hope so too.” Her mouth brushed over mine. “I love you, Destiny.”

And sixth: I loved Vida. Kissing another girl felt disloyal even though she'd encouraged me to.

I pulled back, the pounding of my heart somehow making the hay in my bra prickle more. I couldn’t keep this going. “Shani, I– I’m sorry, I have to go. I can’t stay.”

Her lips pulled down into a pout. “Alright. If there’s time, will you kiss me goodbye tomorrow?”

I nodded. “If there’s time.”

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There was time, but only barely, for a quick kiss goodbye behind a house where no one could see us. Shani promised always to remember me. I promised her the same. I meant it.

Sitting on the wagon next to Vida, I watched Shani grow smaller and smaller, until we crested a hill and she was gone.

“Is it always like this?” I asked softly.

“Like what?” Vida asked.

I leaned on my right hand, placing my left over my heart. “It hurts.”

“Yeah.”

I turned to look at Vida. She was leaning back on her hands, staring off into the distance. She wore a careless smirk, but it was distant, and there was something sad about the angle of her wings.

I didn’t push. This time, I thought I understood. I set my hand on the boards near hers without looking down.

A moment passed, then her hand folded around mine and squeezed.

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“I’m sorry for being upset,” I murmured, still not looking at her. “It felt like you chose me and then rejected me. I think, maybe, I understand a little better.” If Shani had decided to come with us, I didn’t know what I’d do. I didn’t want to be with her the way I did with Vida.

And if that’s how she felt about me…

“I’m sorry for making you feel that way.” Vida matched my volume. “I never meant to hurt you.”

“I still love you,” I confessed. “More than I did the night you kissed me. I want to be friends first, I really do, but… I thought you should know.” Please don’t be angry.

Her voice was barely above a whisper now, tone unreadable. “Thank you for telling me.”

“I’m not going to be upset anymore.” I couldn’t seem to stop talking. “When you stay out with girls. And I’ll stop avoiding you. Just… don’t talk about it with me there, please? I, I don’t think I’m ready for that.”

“Alright.” I felt her wing brush my back, then her shoulder brush against mine. “I can manage that.”

A hand touched my other shoulder and Fionnuala sat down next to me, and suddenly the world was bigger than just my conversation with Vida. “Hey, Destiny. Vida, Da wants to talk to you about the performance.”

Vida nodded and stood gracefully.

“Wait, why?” I twisted to look after her as she threaded her way to the front of the wagon where Dream already sat next to Seren. “Is something wrong?”

“Nah,” Fionnuala laughed. “Vida and Dream and Da write the songs, he just wants to talk shop while it’s his turn driving the horses.”

“Oh yeah.” I shifted back to a more comfortable position, drawing my knees up to my chest.

“Heard you kissed a girl last night,” she said conversationally. “How was it?”

My cheeks heated at the memory of Shani’s lips on mine, and the more distant memory of Vida’s kiss. “Uh… Good, I guess. It was nice. She was nice.” I buried my face between my knees.

“Only nice? Don’t you want to talk about it more? Vida always does.”

“Well, I’m not Vida.” I shifted away, turning my back to her. “Do you do this everywhere? Kiss someone in every town you visit? How can you stand it?”

Her hand touched my shoulder lightly. “Only some of them. We all see it differently, I guess– for me and Fia, we always made friends easily, and then the kissing started as a way to experiment and gain experience without risking too much. Nobody really expects more than a day or two with a traveling musician.” She laughed. “I remember my first kiss still, we must have bumped noses a hundred times. We stayed two more days and he didn’t talk to me again after that attempt. Bruised pride, Da said.”

“Oh. I… I’m sorry,” I offered.

Fin waved that off. “Ah, don’t be. This is about you and Vida. I wanted to tell you…” She paused, checked over her shoulder to make sure no one was listening. No one was; Vida was deep in conversation with Seren and Dream, while Pryderi and Bloom were reading and Fia and Blythe had gone out to hunt. Softer, Fin said, “I think Vida’s always trying to run away. I’ve watched her with her trysts over and over again, she has a knack for choosing ones who want her, but it never lasts. When we go back to someplace she met someone, they’ve always moved on. Sometimes they barely remember her. The first time, she cried on my shoulder over it, but after that it never seemed to bother her.”

I managed a shaky breath. “I don’t understand. Then why wouldn’t she want me?” I could hear the hint of a whine in my voice and I hated it.

“She’s scared,” Fionnuala said frankly. “Her heart’s been broken before and she’s scared to let it happen again.”

Scared? Vida? “She never said…”

“Da thinks that she doesn’t know how to live without a mask, so when she left the court she made her own. It’s not you, okay?” She put a hand on my knee. “Okay, Destiny?”

I leaned on her. Beneath the wagon, the dirt road turned to muddy gravel. “Okay.”

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When we stopped that evening to set up camp in a copse of trees, I helped Bloom with our tent and then went to find Vida. She was sitting in the wagon with a notepad and pencil, scratching out notes and mumbling to herself. I dropped to the ground and crawled underneath the wagon until I could reach out and poke her foot. “Hey.”

She screamed and jerked her foot away. I heard the fluttering of her wings before she landed on the boards again. “Destiny!”

I popped out, grinning apologetically. “Sorry.”

“You’re not,” she accused, lips twitching. “Look, I’ve gone and half ruined the page.”

Brushing bits of dead grass from my pants, I stood. “I wanted to show you something. Come with me?” I held out my hand, trying for a winning smile.

“Oh, after you just tried scaring my wings off?” She stepped off the edge of the wagon and drifted down to the grass as light as a butterfly. “Love, I really do need to get this line figured out.”

I glanced at the notebook where she’d scribbled something about flying free. “It might help. Please?” I widened my eyes and clasped my hands under my chin.

Vida shook her head with a smile and took my hand. I grinned and tugged her past the tents, away from the fire Seren and Fiachra had going, and sat down on the grass. I could feel the cold earth through my pants; winter was coming fast.

I didn’t know what we’d do when it got truly cold. Winters where I was from never got dangerously cold, although I’d heard of places where it got so cold people could die from it, and we’d been traveling northward. But growing up, sometimes it’d get cold enough that even inside my mother’s house I spent the first weeks hunting down every blanket and scrap of warm clothing we owned. If it got that cold here, now…

…I hadn’t even brought any winter clothes when I ran away.

“What did you want to show me, love?” Vida sat next to me, crossing her legs under her skirt.

I pointed at the sky, where a handful of stars glittered against darkening blue. “Aren’t they pretty?”

“Ye-es…” She sounded puzzled. “They’re there every night.”

“Do sprites have stories about the stars?”

Vida shook her head. “Why, what are yours?”

Trying not to think about the cold, I traced the same pattern I did every night that I was out past dark– which, until recently, wasn’t many. “See those two? That bright one there is Vasistha, and next to him is his wife Arundhati. He was a sage, and she was the daughter of a different sage and…” I couldn’t quite remember the story the way my mother told it when I was small. “They fell in love and got married, and the legend says they never died but turned into stars instead because of how pure their love was. Mother always said she was the closest thing to a perfect woman that ever walked the earth, and I should always try to be like her.”

She’d stopped saying that around the same time I had to leave school. I hadn’t heard the story since.

“That’s beautiful,” Vida murmured. Her head came down to rest on my shoulder. “What do you think of the line A love pure as starlight shines brightest at night?”

My heart beat faster. “I love it. Is it for a new song?”

She nodded, the point of her ear brushing my neck. “Seren thinks we need at least five new songs by the new year. Dream thinks that’s overkill.”

“And what do you think?” I didn’t quite dare to stroke her curls, though I could feel an errant one tickle my side.

“I think one of mine is going to be about Arundhati and Vasistha.” Vida yawned. “If you don’t mind that.”

“I’d love that,” I murmured. My heart felt full to bursting, but with no other way to express it I just rested my head against Vida’s. We stayed like that for several minutes, watching the stars together before the cold forced us into our separate bedrolls.

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It wasn’t but a handful of nights later that Vida pulled me from my bedroll almost as soon as I’d lain down, her eyes shining with delight. “Come on, Des, it’s cold.”

“I know.” I pointed at my bedroll. “And my blankets will be warm soon.”

Bloom passed by me, carrying her spare blankets, her eyes sparkling. She caught my confused gaze and jerked her head towards the wagon.

“What?”

“Grab your blankets, love.” Vida scooped them up and pushed them into my hands, along with her own. “When it gets cold, we all sleep in the wagon and call it cuddle pile night. It’s a werewolf thing, and it’s much warmer that way.” She shrugged. “You don’t really have to, but you’ll be colder if you don’t, and Seren will worry so much he won’t sleep.”

“Well, if it’ll worry Seren, I’d better not.” I gestured at the tent flap as grandly as I could with an armful of blanket. “After you. Why did we bother setting up the tent?”

“It was sort of an impromptu decision.” Vida ducked out and held the flap for me. “They don’t plan it, it’s just when it gets cold.”

“I see.” I looked at the pile of wolves already in the wagon, flopped haphazardly over and around each other, and at Bloom and Dream climbing in to join them. “How does it work?”

Vida pulled a blanket from my arms and wrapped it over her wings like a cape. “Crawl in wherever you feel comfortable. Keep your face on the outside or all your air will smell like wolf, ask me how I know.”

“It happened to you?”

“Oh, too many times.” She shook her head and pulled herself into the wagon. “It’s worth it, for how warm it is, and they’re all careful of my wings.”

“That’s good.” I eyed the pile of fur, uncertain how to ‘crawl in.’ Then a golden eye cracked open and its owner– dark gold, so it was Fionnuala– shifted to make space. “Thanks,” I whispered. “Can I use you as a pillow?”

Her head lifted to look up at me and she let out a soft yip.

“Is that a yes?”

She dropped her head back to her paws and thumped her tail once. It smacked brown-furred Pryderi in the nose. He didn’t react, apparently sound asleep.

“It’s a yes,” Vida confirmed.

“Thank you,” I said to both of them, and wriggled in beside Fin. She made a pretty comfortable pillow. I pulled the blanket up to my chin as my feet got buried under another wolf. I was half asleep when an arm wrapped over my waist and a familiar honey-rose scent wafted over me.

“Hope you don’t mind,” Vida mumbled in my ear, sounding more than half asleep.

I snuggled into her and fell asleep with a smile on my lips.