Bahar and Canelle parted ways upon circling back to the garden entrance. The noblewoman wandered back in the direction of the party, and the visitor returned to her room at the Moonarc suite.

From where she sat on her bed, she had a decent view of what lay beyond the small balcony. For the next hour, she reminisced about the events that brought her to Dofev. Much like the last garden Bahar showed her, it felt magical and uncanny in a way. On the brink of losing consciousness, she promised to pay the garden at least another visit before leaving Dofev. 

Canelle didn’t hear Lior come in, so she must have been fast asleep by the time the philanderer returned to the tower. Her employer’s room was right across the hall from hers, and the door hinge ached softly whenever she came and went.

She woke up to the knocking at her door.

“Canelle, breakfast.” Lior’s voice rang from the other side. 

Palace staff brought them breakfast daily, setting up the meal in the Moonarc’s private ‘eating’ area. The nobles of the inner Court in Gaidos had a similar meal delivery system, but Dofev didn't have a traditional table and chair set up. 

They ate in a windowed sitting area, where they sat on tiny couches and ate off trays set on rolling carts. Bizarre as it felt, she was happy she didn’t have to eat with others around, being a culturally illiterate dolt.

Lior was rather put together, despite turning in late the previous evening. The silky fabrics of the traditional wear suited her body type. Not to mention, the golds and blues went well with her skin tone and hair color.

Her employer caught her staring, and it prompted her to inquire about Canelle’s night. “How did it go with Dietra Bahar?”

“Horrific,” she mumbled that part to herself, “but overall well, I think.”

“‘Horrific’ and ‘well’ don’t usually go hand in hand, Canelle.” 

“Lots of things are horrifying, but the end result isn’t always, is what I mean.” She looked away from Lior and began to poke at her food. 

“Do you often do things that frighten you?” she asked. 

Canelle wasn’t feeling the direction the conversation was taking. Why did Lior want to know, anyway? 

“Constantly,” she said flatly. 

“Why?”

She shrugged, “Ignorance? Stupidity? I don’t know, but I do know that usually the worst case scenario I create in my mind is way worse than the end result.” 

To that, Lior said nothing else, and that was embarrassing for some reason. 

“She invited us sightseeing,” she blurted. She’d forgotten to find a ‘natural’ way of working the invitation into the conversation. Her hope was that Lior would let her go without tagging along, and only felt compelled to extend the invitation out of respect to Bahar. 

 “She said she would introduce you to some swingers?” she added. Her phrasing was clear enough, even if it wasn’t a direct question.

Lior answered her subtle inquiry. “Swingers? Ah… they’re married couples that will sleep with same sex persons who are also married. That’s the brief version anyway. Unlike in Bevij, sleeping with the same sex isn't frowned upon under specific conditions. Obviously I’m not married, but seeing as we are visitors, it is less frowned upon. The idea is that you can sleep with whoever you want as long as you marry someone of the opposite sex to settle down and start a family with.”

Baffled by the audacious idea, Canelle said nothing at first. Sure, there were differences in culture, but as far as she knew, in no culture was that acceptable. “And if you are not married?”

“Well here in Dofev, sex before marriage, regardless of gender, is a big religious no-no. But it’s not illegal, and the younger generation is less inclined to follow those customs. Swingers that are unmarried are treated in the same way a paid whore would be back in Bevij.” 

“Oh… that’s…” Not that bad. She let the sentence die in her mind, instead Canelle turned back to her breakfast. 

Lior, not ready to drop the topic, took a sip of her hot drink and asked, “Would you marry a man? If it saved you from persecution?” 

Canelle thought carefully about her answer. It was a weighted question about a tricky subject. 

She felt bold to assume that she had more experience with men than Liorit, but she didn’t want to ask either. It wasn’t the conversation she expected to have with her employer during breakfast. However, she had other questions related to the subject, and this was a good segway into them. Besides… Lior had asked.

The squire had already mentioned her engagement in passing anyway. Her gauge had changed from when she was a maid. Before, voicing any opinion, she would have considered oversharing. Now, she has grown comfortable voicing some notions to Liorit, but explaining this one would dip into oversharing territory.

 “Uh, erm… I don’t know if I could. I suppose for a long time I assumed that marrying was solely for the purpose of bearing children.” 

“You don’t believe in love?”

“I didn’t say that.” She’d actually formed a solid idea on it long ago. She didn’t hesitate to explain, “I think lots of things misconstrue the idea of love. When you hear a story, the story ends when the character falls in love and marries. As if there are no problems afterward, or anything worth hearing about at least. 

“For most of my youth I was under the impression that I would marry a neighbor of mine and everyone in my neighborhood assumed the same. We were close in age. Friendly. He was a hardworking young man from a hardworking family. Neither of us were well off, but well enough. 

“And I wasn’t opposed to the implied arrangement. When we became engaged, I thought that was it. It was time to wrap up that story and prepare for the boring parts that weren’t worth telling. But it dawned on me that I hadn’t done anything yet. I couldn’t get married and stay in the same place doing the same thing for the rest of my life. So I left and took up a job in Gaidos.”

“I’m surprised,” said Lior. “You didn’t leave him because you were attracted to women?” 

Her response humored Canelle. “Oh, well, I didn’t think much about my attraction to women then. In fact, I thought my first girl crush was normal. I don’t know what logic I was using—clearly none. I assumed all women were attracted to women and married men to have children. It’s not like you can have children with a woman.”

Lior smiled at the casualness of that comment. 

“Anyway, I visited home a couple of months into service and my neighbor was engaged to my sister. You know what that made me feel?” she asked, expecting no answer. “Nothing. I ought to have felt something, right? But I didn’t. It was a logical thing to do on his part. He apologized profusely, and no matter how many times I told him that it was absolutely fine, he didn’t believe me. 

“Love is something that can be built with anyone really, and I might be completely wrong about that, but I felt like I could build that life with him, and it would’ve been fine, it would’ve been safe. I had that option, and I still could go back and build that life with anyone. I don’t know if I want to do that though.

“To answer your question, it’s not that I don’t think I would be unable to marry a man to escape persecution, it’s that I don’t think I want to marry anyone.” 

“That’s definitely not something I would have assumed about you, and I don’t know if it is true for everyone, but I suppose in most scenarios love has to be ‘built’.” The older woman took a sip of her drink again, this time returning to picking at her food. She was done prying. Canelle, on the other hand, was the curious one now. 

“I’ve been wanting to ask…”

“Then ask,” Lior said boredly.

“When I moved to Gaidos, despite my previous beliefs, it became clear to me that I was alone in my attraction to women. That I was an outlier and acting on it was a bad thing according to all the known ‘norms’. But you, when you’re around, suddenly some women are okay with it? They aren’t outliers though, right? There can’t be that many outliers in one place at the same time.” 

“Ah,” Lior nodded as if she thought the question was fair, even as personal as it was. “Well to start, Gaidos and Dofev have a different air to them than the rest of the world. Visitors get caught up in the idea of the world and do things they wouldn’t normally. They fetishize the ‘exoticness’ of someone like myself. I suppose playing into it on my part is probably a bad thing—it’s abusive on both sides—but there’s no redemption for us in their eyes anyway, regardless of the good or the bad.”

Canelle squinted, not fully understanding. What she did understand, she blurted out, “Seems unhealthy.”

Lior laughed and that was her response.

The squire had one last question, and with each additional question, she knew her chances of receiving an honest answer were narrowing. “Would you ever marry?”

Her answer wasn't as complicated nor as long as Canelle’s. 

“People in my position have to marry. I am the only heir of my father’s and will have to pass the title down one way or another. I am slightly envious that you don’t have to marry, and commend you for it all the same.” 

Canelle wanted her to expand on the subject, but in that moment Lior’s tone of voice had changed. The answer was a stock answer, rehearsed. 

She wondered how many people had heard those words, and how many had believed them. In those words, she heard something else, something contrary to what the words were telling her. Lior didn’t see herself marrying either.