Staying out until the following morning wasn't a good look for Canelle, and to persuade Lior that nothing had happened would require brain power the young woman was presently short on.  

It was unfair of her to blame her poor decision-making on her lack of sleep. She had a habit of making rash decisions, regardless of her sleep patterns.

In an ideal version of this scenario, Lior would be asleep, forever unknowing the hour at which her squire returned to their tower. 

There was a chance that the noblewoman herself hadn’t returned to their suite. Liorit was last seen sharing a couch with both Onixe and Elvia, where the two women took turns feeding her fruit. A scene that nauseated Canelle. Both when she first witnessed it and again at the reminder. 

She inched the door open enough to slink through, then thanked the gods when it didn’t squeak. She shut it carefully with a muted click. 

In the case Lior was awake, she walked up the stairs without thinking too hard about it. There was no need to exhibit more gracelessness than usual. Focusing on being stealthy never worked in her favor and typically had the opposite effect than desired.

“Are you just now returning?”  Lior’s voice rang from the sitting area, muffled by the piece of toast in her mouth. The amusement in her tone was irking. “Is that what she meant by friendship, then?” 

Canelle winced, caught a few steps away from her room door. She tried to play it off coolly, despite not having a history with that adverb. “It’s not like that. We were talking.”

“Gross. Somehow that’s worse.” 

The offhandedness of her statement rubbed Canelle the wrong way. 

 “Why do you act like getting close to someone is the worst thing that could ever happen?” she sniped back at her. 

Had she proper rest she’d be better about hiding her annoyance from her employer. She even got a bit of a high from knowing—all colors aside—that Lior wasn’t brave enough to answer the question. 

And she didn’t. 

Canelle entered her room and shut the door behind her with a sigh, exhaustion wrapping itself around her like a blanket. She plopped onto the bed and fell asleep over the covers. 

Hours later, when she rose, the house was empty. 

At last, a moment alone to herself, a moment to breathe. It was an opportunity that she couldn’t take for granted. 

She promptly popped out of bed and poked her head into Lior’s room to make sure she wasn’t getting ahead of herself. The woman was gone and while she didn’t remember the exact wording of her earlier remark, she felt a short jab of guilt for saying it. 

Any other person would’ve fired her on the spot, and Liorit didn’t—or hadn’t yet. But Liorit wasn’t the sort of person to take what people said to her to heart, or at least she pretended that was the case. 

Canelle scrunched her face at the thought of apologizing. She’d do it. And Lior would pretend she didn’t know what she was talking about, or make her feel silly for making it a bigger thing than it was.  

In the meantime, she would enjoy her time alone while she had it. It was an effort to carry herself like a properly educated human, and it took a lot out of her. Even in Lior’s company, who couldn’t care less about her lack of professionalism.

An efficient use of her time would be to practice reading. Towards the end of their time on the road, she started adding books to her reading pile instead of waiting to finish some of her half-started ones. The tall pile taunted her, sitting on the short stool in the corner of the room. Her fingers fumbled through them with anticipation, tossing them one by one onto her bed. 

She had yet to find any books in the city that weren’t in Dofec. Buying a random book solely for the memory would be a waste of luggage space, but she was tempted to.

Thumbing through the books, skimming their contents, a good number of them were illustrated. She selected one with illustrations she deemed interesting. 

The creatures in them were tiny humans, either fairies or elves. And after pushing through the first couple of paragraphs, it delighted her that none of the words it contained were too complicated to understand or difficult to sound out.  

The story was about pond fairies that protected the animals from bigger animals. And in return, the animals would protect the fairies from the mortals. Due to the brevity of it, she could have read another, but she was wary of exhausting her enthusiasm and opted to take a walk instead.

The day was cloudless, and the sky a pale blue-green. The smell of fresh bread wafted through the air, its source, unknown. The foot traffic of the streets was moderate, well-dressed strangers greeted her as they walked by with the generic ‘afternoon’ greeting she would say back to them.

Minutes into her aimless walk, she had the idea of revising the garden Bahar showed her. She mistakenly cut through someone’s backyard, and an angry yard worker called out to her in Dofec. Nothing she could say in words or hand gestures would be enough to communicate her apology.

The entrance to the garden was easy to spot in the daytime, as a tall steel archway poked over the tallest of the hedges. The gold letters on the front of the open gates were from a different alphabet than the Bevij one. She admired the ornate shapes for a moment before walking up to a stone tablet off to the side that had a map printed on it. She was able to use the layout to figure out what direction Bahar and her had walked in, electing to walk in the other direction for a change of scenery. She followed a trail of similar stone tables. 

The gardens themselves weren’t labeled like the stone tablets were, so she would run to the main path to read the names of the gardens again and again. She recognized the ones that were the names of places she had heard about, like Idon, Golatia, Leklern, the nations that bordered Bevij. Other markers she made out by the icons, such as the exits and entrances. The rest was in Dofec and indiscernible. 

All the running had her sweating before she knew it, she was forced to return to her tower to take a nice cool bath. 

In a fresh, comfortable tunic, she sat down in the sitting room and took a few bites out of the dinner that had been delivered while she was out. Lior’s share was uneaten, and it was clear to her that she hadn’t returned from whatever business she was on. 

The hour was late too. But since Canelle had slept through the first half of the day, she wasn’t ready to call it a night. She considered returning to the garden. The temperature had dropped a couple of degrees after the sunset, so she wouldn’t be as prone to sweating—

The door slammed downstairs. 

Believing it to be Lior, Canelle called out to her. There was a worrying lack of response. The service staff was gone for the day, so it couldn’t be anyone else.  

She stood up to peek around the corner and sighed audibly at the sight of Liorit coming up the stairs. 

The woman stumbled rather uncharacteristically when she reached the top of the stairs. Canelle grabbed her arm instinctively, her mind going to the worst of places and immediately wondering if someone attacked her. 

“Hey!” she said, struggling to prop her up but managing to guide her to the closest wall for support. 

Lior slid down against the wall, sitting down on the floor. “I’m fine. “ She cleared hoarseness out of her throat,  “Valkom dragged me to a tavern and believe it or not he’s worse off. Give me a minute and I’ll be alright.” 

Canelle nodded. “I’ll bring you water.” 

Once in Bevij and a couple of times on their way to Dofev, Lior had returned to her rooms intoxicated, but never to the point of her stumbling around. She wondered if her comment from that morning got to her.

No, Canelle wasn’t that important. 

She took a glass and the pitcher of water from the dinner cart, poured the water and took it back to her employer. 

“Thank you,” said Liorit, taking a few sips and leaning her head back against the wall

Canelle was surprised, Lior hardly thanked her verbally for anything. She sat down in front of her, on the topmost step of the stairs, curious if there was more to Lior’s story. 

“What time did you end up waking?” the woman asked after some silence. 

“It was the early afternoon.”

“What did you end up doing?”

Canelle relayed the events of her afternoon to her, suspicious if there was an ulterior motive or if she was genuinely interested. If she was trying to fill in the silence, that would be very out of character for her, as she usually preferred the quiet. 

Perhaps her goal was to pass time until she could stand on her feet again. If there was ever a time to grovel, it was now. 

“Hey, what I said this morning was unprofessional and uncalled-for. I’m sorry.” 

Liorit opened her eyes, they were dark in the lighting. “Don’t be. I provoked you.” 

“Even if you did, it wasn’t my place to react like that.” 

Across from her, Lior grinned, resting her arms across her knees and shaking her head. There it was. Canelle was silly. 

She rested her head on her arms and spoke up after a while with a half-sober thought, “You were right though, I don’t like getting to know people. How do you… I—I don’t do the things that scare me.” 

Liorit… scared of things. In her whole time knowing her, Canelle, a bystander, thought she avoided things out of annoyance, not fear. She didn’t bother speculating what it could be that she was scared of. Of course, she was scared, the whole world was scary. It didn’t seem possible to get this far without facing these fears.

Canelle gauged her temperament, her analysis concluding that this was obviously the alcohol talking, and Lior would likely forget the conversation later. She decided to test her good humor. 

“Do you think you could help me buy a book about local folklore?”

Lior glanced up at the question with a face she couldn’t quite read. “Is this for Bahar?”

“No, it’s for me. I know I won’t be able to read it, but I kind of want it for the memory.” 

They studied one another’s expressions. Lior searched for god knows what, while Canelle was taking the opportunity to study Lior’s character in her state of bizarre neutrality. 

A color she didn’t recognize. A pale yellow? A burnt green? There was a vulnerability in her eyes that made her want to keep prying. To see how far she could go, how much she could get away with, as dangerous as she knew it was. 

“Yeah, I can help you buy a book.”  

She set her hands on the floor, which Canelle interpreted as her intention to get up. The squire rose and held out a hand to assist her. 

“Thank you,” said the woman for the second time that night. 

On her feet, Canelle was reminded of their height difference. A thought that took her back to their first encounter. Never in a million years would she have imagined that interaction leading to anything but a scolding. Her entire world had been warped, and she was unsure if it was for the better—no, she could say it was for the better. She was making her own story, one that she was becoming increasingly proud of. 

Lior squinted at her, likely due to the dumb face she was making while she daydreamed about her mediocre life. The pale yellow color shifted, and she felt the woman’s hand cup her face and was surprised at how quickly she readied herself for the ensuing kiss. There was a warmness in Canelle’s center that sprung to life. She braved to touch Lior’s face, drawing her back when she tried to break from her. 

She tasted like alcohol. A reminder not to take advantage of Lior’s current state. As much as her curiosity begged her to explore this side of her, her moral compass wouldn’t let it go too far. She only asked for one moment to take in Lior’s earnestness. 

In every last encounter, Lior had been courteous and respectful, and nothing had changed in that respect. What differed was her willpower. Either her resolve had changed or she let down a guard she previously held up high. 

Both sounded equally unlikely to Canelle. There had to be something else. Whatever it was, she would fret about it later. In the present, she was having a hard time concentrating on her doubts.

Both of Lior’s hands dropped to Canelle’s waist. The one that was more brazen slid further down her outer thigh, ghosted around, and slipped between her thighs. The moment escalated and it unraveled in seconds. Lior withdrew it and herself away from Canelle. 

“S—sorry. I shouldn’t—That was inappropriate.” She turned away from her, hugging her own arms. “I promise I won’t do that again.” Promptly, she entered her room without a second glance in the younger woman’s direction

Canelle blinked, her mind lagging. She cursed herself for sleeping in so late. Now she was wide awake, left to lay in bed and fixate on everything that had just transpired.

She wondered if Lior meant what she said, and tried to break down why this ‘not encounter’ bothered her beyond any of their previous encounters.