Ranvir looked out across the forested grounds around his house. Most of it was his. Bought and paid for. The house was still being paid, but in a few years, he’d be fully free. He was set up. Better than his parents were. They have called his home a mansion. In some ways, it was.
Then how come he felt so unprepared? He was a father, had two children, ran a school — poorly, but he still did it. Yet this felt so far beyond him. Relax, man. You’re not getting married.
He shook his head and continued examining the terrain.
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“Your Dad?” Shiri asked, her fingertips barely grazing his forearms. “Why do I make you make you afraid of that?”
Ranvir swallowed, but he couldn’t turn away from her gaze. She’d gotten close to him. Or he’d gotten close to her. He couldn’t tell. Distantly, he heard labored breathing coming from the couch. Yet, his attention could not be torn away from the red-haired woman before him.
She glanced down at his hands, her fingers now firmly on his forearm. He shook his head. “I don’t know. It was-“ she placed a warm, wet, and wrinkled hand on his cheek. His breath froze, the words forcefully halted.
“I know what it means, Ranvir,” she said with a kind smile. He pulled his gaze away. Tried and failed. She reached up with her other hand, cupping his face in her hands. “I guess I always knew it would have to come to this. In all these years, you have changed little.”
She rose onto her toes, hands pulling him down. She kissed him. He kissed her. Slowly — he would say reluctantly, but even he wasn’t that good a liar — Ranvir wrapped his arms around her.
Then it was over. She pulled back, and he straightened. Everything was back to the way it was. Nothing had changed. Yet, he couldn’t hide from himself anymore. Memories of dark nights and tired eyes. I don’t want to hurt like that. Yet he could not batter down the feelings fighting for flight within.
Expansive blues and rapid yellows billowed like brilliant glowing ribbons. They danced in stories of excitement and trepidation. Danger and desire.
“Yes!” Laila howled. “Yes! Yes! Yes!”
Ranvir turned, finally torn from Shiri’s captive presence by the girl’s cries. Partially blue-faced, neck veined and striated, eyes wide and manic, she pumped her fists.
“No,” Vasso said, holding out a hand as she turned to him. He shook hand and head, backing away. “Don’t do it.”
She let out an in-cohesive yell and drummed her knotted fists on the couch cushion. Then she finally breathed, her color returning to normal. Ranvir couldn’t tell how he felt about the display. It was clear unhealthy attachment. Yet the sentiment, scary as it was, was mirrored in himself.
Laila took another few minutes to fire off her energy, including one close call when she attempted to access her tether. Thankfully, she failed for the first time in months. Excitement making her unable to concentrate.
Then she moved to Vasso and got a wide-splayed hand in her face when she tried to hug him. She staggered back, expression hurt and confused. “Why?”
Vasso glanced at Ranvir, then sat down on the couch. He looked down at his hand, finger tracing the scar on his palm.
“Maybe we should let them talk,” Shiri said, moments before Ranvir.
They were well down the hall before Vasso spoke and Ranvir only caught a bit before forcing Perception away from his ears.
“You hurt me.”
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What do I do now? Ranvir wondered, still standing on his roof. He had a date. And he had to do it properly. Which meant he couldn’t just ape what Vasso had done for his first time with Laila. He had to come up with something better. He was a grown man in his middle-twenties. A thirteen-year-old boy couldn’t outshine him.
“Shit,” he cursed. A flash of purple marked his previous location, though he was already racing away.
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Grev frowned, folding his arms and leaning back. “Did they get to you?”
“Who? The Purists? No, what’s that even supposed to mean? ‘Get to me’? Can you help me or not?”
“Nope.”
“Just that? No more?”
“Listen. I went on a few dates with Sansir, but he’s kind of… easy.”
“To date? You break up all the time.”
“Sure…” Grevor coughed and blushed. “I’ll just leave it here. We only went on basic dates. Dinner and then home. I got recommendations, but that’s it.”
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“I can’t just do that,” Ranvir said. He didn’t know whether to run away, hide, or bury Elpir in a bush somewhere. Judging from the equally flushed and lightly outraged look on Amalia’s face, she agreed with him.
“No look,” Elpir said, grabbing pen and paper from the pile in the middle of the table. “I’ll draw it for you.” At the other end of the table, children too young to understand were happily making little art pieces.
“That’s not the problem,” Ranvir said, hurriedly grabbing her paper. “You were… clear.” Disturbingly so. “I just can’t do that. It’s a first date.”
“Didn’t you make Frija on your last first date?”
“That was hardly a date, and not proper soil for a relationship.”
“Really? Worked for me-“
“That’s enough,” Amalia said, glaring at Elpir. She’d turned a red so deep, he was afraid she might pop a blood vessel. “We’re really sorry, Ranvir. Maybe take her to a show or something you know she’ll like. And good food, that’ll get your foot in the door.”
“Thank you for the help, Amalia,” Ranvir said. “I hope I never have to hear another word leave your mouth, Elpir.”
“Remember, warm her-“
Ranvir was away before she could finish her ‘advice.’
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Tent flaps billowed in the wind. The heat was a strange, smothering presence. Outside the cloth, the rare pale sand glowed with a fervor to match the sun overhead.
Sansir sat in his chair, bald head pebbled with sweat, as he examined the charts, maps, and figures before him.
“Ranvir,” he mumbled, flipping through some pages. “Shouldn’t they be down here… no, wait, this report’s old. Right, right.” He shook his head, apparently having forgotten Ranvir’s presence.
Clearing his throat, the bewinged man stepped closer.
“Oh, yeah. I appreciate you spacing me down here, but… I’m busy. Get her flowers or something.”
Ranvir sighed and looked at others in the tent. He’d tried to get them to leave, or Sansir to go with him, but neither budged.
“A pretty knife,” one suggested, in heavy accents.
“Sound good to be stabbed!” another replied, sending all five of them back in their chairs, laughing, snorting, and hammering the table.
Ranvir left.
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“I took your mother down to the pond, and I think that went pretty well,” Ranvir’s Dad said. Despite the rapid onset of winter, he’d shed his woolen coat during his labor. Only now, on a break, was he putting it back on. “No working on it alone, kid!” he yelled at his new partner. “You’re too young and single to meet a widowmaker.”
The young man, a couple years Ranvir’s junior, nodded eagerly, still hefting his axe. Gunnor shook his head. “These new kids. Ain’t got a clue what forestry’s about.”
“I can’t just take her to see some nature. Vasso’s already stepped up about as far you can in that field,” Ranvir said, cursing himself for helping his son so much.
“Well, you could always show her something exotic and magical.”
“That’s real specific, Dad. Thank you so much.”
Behind them, a thud of axe in wood sounded. Both turned to stare at the new kid. He shrugged. “Just one chop,” he smiled eagerly. “What’s that gonna hurt?”
A branch, the width of Ranvir’s thigh and twice his height, broke free of the canopy and slammed into the ground less than two meters from the young man’s unprotected skull.
“What did I say about widowmakers?” growled Gunnor. Stomping over, he tore the axe from the kid’s grip and pulled him aside. Ranvir sighed. His Dad would give the kid a piece of his mind for the next hour if, more if he talked back. Gunnor was very forgiving, unless you put yourself or others in danger.
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“Do not listen to anything your father suggested!” Frey said, turning a silver ring in the forge’s coals. The metal reddening.
“I mean, they weren’t great, but they didn’t sound that bad. He mentioned the pond.”
“Oh, he mentioned the pond? Did he mention throwing me in it?”
Ranvir paused on the bellows, looking at her. “He did what?”
She gave him a familiar questioning look that soon had him pumping wind. “He threw me in the pond. Thought it would be funny. Is that the man you want to take advice from?”
Ranvir breathed out sharply. “I mean, he married you.”
She gave him another sharp look.
“Which is a good mark,” he grinned sheepishly at her.
Rolling her eyes. “Do something genuine for her. You have power and money, but neither equal effort. If you’re serious, then do something for her she’ll appreciate.”
Ranvir smiled. “Thanks mom.”