Rosewater knew it wasn’t right for her to want to keep everything bottled up. She knew that on an intellectual level, that her very own culture railed against the idea of keeping personal pain to oneself.

But not all personal pain is meant to be shared. Some pains…

“Tomorrow,” Collar said quietly, “you’re going to return to the garden?”

They were sitting in her office, the paintings of Rosemary and Carnation watching her, telling her, shouting at her with their still, silent gazes, to share everything. With him. With Rosemary and Cloudy. With Budding and Seed and Petal.

But she could still hear her own voice whimpering in her empty bedroom, telling her to keep it in. To hide it so it wouldn’t hurt anymore. A six year old filly’s voice.

“I am,” Rosewater said quietly. “And I’m going to relax with Petal and help her go over the garden’s plans for the Winter Commoner’s gala, and their plans for the Autumn Gala. And my plans for…” For declaring for you. Rosewater swallowed, her eyes darting to his. There were still hurdles to cross before then, before their courtship was done. Or done in the Dammer sense.

Their version of sharing was more formal, but deeper than it was in Merrie. It was rare that ponies married somepony they hadn’t known their entire lives, and hadn’t shared secrets that whole time. It was a part of the furor surrounding Collar’s courting of Cloudy, and him adding her and Rosemary to the mix would only complicate things even further.

They didn’t know everything about each other. Cloudy and Collar came closer, but even there, he’d only known her for two years.

Part of their dates had been trying to foster that understanding and acceptance of each other that they lacked. Now…

Collar touched her hoof lightly. “Your plans for us. It’s okay to say it, Rosewater. We need to plan for that. We need to plan for… almost too much.” He sighed. “And in such a short time.”

Rosewater ruffled the paper in front of them and dipped her quill into the ink, then hesitated before the nib rose above the rim of the pot. “Our first step should be—”

Collar took the quill gently. “Sharing.” He wrote it down slowly, giving her every chance to interrupt him… and take back her word. It terrified her, sharing those oldest childhood fears. They weren’t rational fears. They weren’t… they shouldn’t have been fears she held onto. “It will be okay, Rosewater. Whatever it is, we can work through it as long as you let us help.”

I want to. She did. But it scared her to let them in. Rosewater took the quill back and added a line underneath. ‘Death of my father.’

Collar leaned into her. “We’ll help.”

“After that,” Rosewater said brusquely, her control over the cellar in her mind wavering. “We need to talk, the four of us, about—”

“After that, you’re relaxing. You and mother and father can talk about the treaty, but you’re not going to push yourself. You can’t know how letting that out will hurt you, Rosewater. You can’t.”

The quill quivered, then settled tip-first against the paper and began to move. ‘Negotiations.’ “Because I’ve never let it out.” It was a fight within herself she was used to and pushed back the wall. “We should still hold to the agreement. I don’t want my reports to the Office, or yours, to look like negotiations are stagnating. We must always be seen to be moving forward.”

“In more than one way,” Collar added, his voice a low whisper in her ear that sent a thrill of delight down her back. “I want to show you little affections, Rosewater. In public.”

“So romantic,” Rosewater whispered back, ducking to the side to avoid his nipping teeth and laughing. “Affections,” she said as she wrote the word. Already, the feeling of weighty oppression was fading, and she felt the tension fading from her shoulders. This was what she wanted. This lighter feeling, even if it was a facade.

“Rosewater?”

“I want this to be real,” Rosewater murmured. “I want all of this to be real.”

Collar nuzzled her cheek. “It is real. This isn’t a dream, Rosewater.”

“I know it’s real. I know.” Rosewater drew in a sharp breath. “I said that wrong. I want this to be our reality, Collar, that everypony sees. Not something we act out as a play for others and go backstage to have our real life.”

“I want that.” Collar nipped her ear and took the tip between his lips, teeth barely grazing the edge. He wrote, ‘Shows of affection in public.’ “We can have that. Grow into it.”

While she couldn’t deny the growth of natural affection would help grow their romance in the eyes of the common pony, she wanted it for herself now. “It… will help your ponies not see me as a monster,” Rosewater murmured. “I can be patient, Collar. It will be easier when I don’t have this opportunity to kiss you whenever I want to do that.”

She flicked her ear away from the gentle abuse he was lavishing on it and turned to meet him in a kiss, briefly brushing her tongue against his before they parted again.

“I can be patient, too,” Collar murmured, resting his muzzle against hers. “We’re playing for a greater prize.”

“Marriage,” Rosewater said softly.

“Uncontested approval,” Collar corrected her gently. “Of a marriage. We already have love. Marriage is the formality, ‘Water. But an important formality.”

“I know.” Rosewater took a deep breath. “And… a child.”

Collar stilled, then nodded, and wrote down, one letter at a time, ‘Declaring for Rosewater.’

A moment of surprise washed over her before the conversation from the night before flashed through her mind. Dazzle had told him some of the details of what declaring meant. She wanted to ask when. It was something that only ever surprised the ponies outside a social circle, not to the ones declaring for each other. Normally, it was something planned for months.

Months she felt she didn’t have. It would be nearly spring for a normal declaration to take its course. By then, she’d have only a month to ensure that a child was growing in her womb before she could announce it before Rosemary would be out of her guardianship.

Even if the facade of guardianship held and her adoption of Rosemary wasn’t made public, it would pass the responsibility of negotiation from her to the city. If she hadn’t completed negotiations by then, if she didn’t have a solid reason not to participate in the war, Rosewater might be coerced into resuming hostilities against Damme.

Erasing any progress she’d made in winning over the city’s populace. That Roseate would brag about the captures she made and attach her name to them was doubtless, and she would be back to being The Terror.

What coercions she might use, Rosewater couldn’t imagine. They would be horrible. Roseate had a unique imagination for cruel punishments—she lacked imagination at all otherwise, as if she wrote her poetry in watching her daughters squirm as the heart of their worlds fell under attack.

Rosewater took the quill and wrote a one-word question underneath. ‘When?’

Collar, who’d been watching her, his ears ticking, nodded. “A good question. When…”

“Cloudy was your first love,” Rosewater said softly. “It would be unfair to her—” Rosewater swallowed the rest. Custom often said the first pair in a marriage between stallion and mare would have the first child. It wasn’t always the case, but it was more normal. A single stallion marrying three mares was also somewhat rare, but not as rare as all stallions or all mares.

“She is also scared of being pregnant,” Collar replied just as softly. “She never thought she would.”

“Then… we need to have a talk.” Rosewater wrote ‘Talk with Cloudy.’

“And Rosemary,” Collar added, writing her name at the end of the sentence. “We all need to talk about how this will work, Rosewater. The three of you might have an idea of what will happen, but I need a crash course in Merrier marriages.”

‘Merrier relationships.’

“Rosemary and Cloudy can teach you a lot,” Rosewater said, pausing before she wrote in ‘Lessons’ indented under the last line. “I can give you a more formal explanation of the customs and history of how our society grew into what it is today, but they, and especially Rosemary, can teach you what that means in more practical means.”

Collar’s ears ticked for a moment before he took the quill back. “You… have seemed rather more Dammish to me, if I’m being honest. Even were it not for… other things. You’ve never spoken of, nor has Rosemary…” His voice trailed off as he dipped the tip into the inkwell again. “Have you had as many relationships in your youth as she has hinted at?”

“No.” Rosewater eyed him briefly, then sighed. “I’ve never been able to form the same kind of loosely intimate connections that she’s been able to. I took more after Carnation, I believe. And my father. I… did partake in my lusts, but it often felt… not quite right.” She couldn’t ever put a thought to the exact reason why simple intimacy, the spice of friendships in Merrie, hadn’t attracted her. More, she desired the deeper relationships, the ones that formed long and held strong.

She loved sex. That much was true, and she hadn’t ever denied herself the pleasure when coincidence and desire came her way. Or delved into it on her own. She wouldn’t ever call Rosemary’s sexual partnerships shallow, but it was harder for Rosewater to form those partnerships, to find the depth that she needed so easily as Rosemary.

“I’m not sure I’d call that Dammish, though. I still see sex as separate from committment. Sex is fun, intimate, connecting, pleasurable, and loving. All at once. But it’s not something I share with only one.”

“I’ve always thought of sex somewhat the same,” Collar said, his ears ticking as he thought. “That’s not something I’ve thought very much about. But I can feel that from Rosemary. She encourages me to open up, and I can’t help but feel like by not opening up, I’ll disappoint her. She is… I don’t want to disappoint her.”

“She’s attractive,” Rosewater replied, pushing gently back against his shoulder. “In more ways than the obvious. She attracts ponies to her, and she leads by example to show them what she wants from them.”

Collar nodded. He wrote, ‘Talk with Rosemary more.’ “I can see her more each day. It will cause more talk, but… I doubt it will raise above the level of the Commoner’s Gala, or the coming Quarterly Gala.” He wrote down ‘Gala.’ Then, to her surprise, he wrote down, ‘Kiss.’

“It’s going to be busy for you coming up,” Rosewater replied quietly. “Will we have time for all of this before the Gala?”

“No.” Collar sighed and started ticking off items on the page. “These are the most important to me. The most important, I think, to us.”

Shows of affection in public.

Declaring for Rosewater.

Talk with Rosemary more.

Merrier relationships lessons.

And the one that made her stomach flutter because of what it meant. More than their private kisses, their private lovemaking, it would be a step to making everything she had wanted a reality. The end of the war. The end of fear.

Kiss.

A simple word that meant so much.

It was strange for Rosemary to sit in Lace’s office. She hadn’t been there since that first day when Rosewater had told the pony sitting across the desk from her that she was Rosemary’s mother.

A shallow tumbler of golden brandy sat in front of her, and a taller one sat in front of Lace while she perused reports that looked like economic summaries. Columns of figures and products marched down the page in orderly rows. Arrows marked whether they were up or down over previous years. It was the kind of thing that Rosewater pored over for her business. A standard accounting practice that she was starting to use for her own burgeoning apothecary business.

A business that had withered on the vine in the last two months.

Cautiously, Rosemary sniffed the brandy. It came from grapes, but what kind she couldn’t tell. A brief draw on her heritage answered the question. Two types of grape had been distilled into the brandy. A sweet and a tart, though the exact strain wasn’t something she could determine. It’d been too distilled, but that nature told her the vintage.

“This is from the Rosewine Vineyard,” Rosemary murmured. “But it’s not the same you shared with me the first time. Brightfire Brandy?”

“Close. It’s the same process, as I understand, but from the prior year. The char hadn’t settled into the barrel staves quite as deeply.” Lace chuckled. “I had a good conversation a few years ago with Budding Rose about the process. They fire the barrels after every batch to deepen the caramelization layer. It deepens the color a little more every year. She was quite excited to have it reach its fourth layer the next year.”

Throughout it all, Lace didn’t raise her eyes from the figures in front of her, quill darting here and there to mark figures for further review or approving them for final recording. How Lace decided which was which, she couldn’t figure out yet. Experience seemed the likeliest explanation. She’d been the ruler of Damme for longer than Rosemary had been alive, and surely knew more about the ponies that lived and worked in her city than Rosemary did of her own.

There would be patterns of behavior that she could follow and understand, know to question.

Ponies, after all, didn’t change much over the course of their lives.

Your mother is changing, a small voice in her head said. She’s been changing. Ponies could change, she decided, sighing. And Collar had changed. And Lace.

Dapper, though remained much as he always had been, from all she’d heard from Collar.

Maybe there’s something to that. Dapper was where he wanted to be. Who he wanted to be. Collar… had been shown another way, and another side of her mother. Rosewater had been forced to confront the fact that her plans weren’t going to work as she’d thought and learned to improvise more than she usually did.

And me? Rosemary sipped the brandy, the beverage burning a thin line down her throat as she swallowed, the aftertaste of the vintage doing more than warming her tongue. How am I changing? Am I changing?

More, she wondered idly if the change was conscious or if it was happening while she wasn’t aware and every step forward was a change to her that she would have to sit and examine before she found it. It would take time to find it.

Time she didn’t have. Every step forward came in its own time, sometimes before she was ready for them, and stopping time to examine what was happening wasn’t something she could do.

Even with as much time as she had as a prisoner, so much of it was spent reading, thinking about other things. She might go insane if she spent all that time in self-reflection.

She took another sip and nearly coughed when the door behind her slapped open with a woosh. She hadn’t smelled Dapper’s approach with her nose so close to the brandy. It effervesced slowly, its fragrance filling the air around her with a near-intoxicating scent of alcohol blended with the richness of the caramelized, distilled flavor.

“Ah!” Dapper drew in a deep breath through his nose. “That’s some good brandy. Have a glass, love?”

Wordlessly, Lace flicked a look at him, then slid her glass across the desk to him. “You’re late, Dapper. We were supposed to start ten minutes ago.”

“Ah, well, I had to check on something before I got here.” Dapper ruffled his wings, bringing the scent of clean air and a hint of chill air. “That lady still hasn’t left her house.”

Which means Collar is still there. Rosemary glanced at the shadows on the north-facing window in the office. It was nearing evening. They’d spent most of the day together and all night last night. She only knew when Cloudy would come back. Tomorrow afternoon. Whether Collar would leave before then or not, she didn’t know.

This was unplanned for both him and Rosewater.

Lace gave the sheet one more look, set it aside and put a ruler and a paperweight down to mark her place. She silenced the room after a moment, and a spell shimmered on the door. “The situation is complicated.”

Dapper snorted through his nose, not taking his lips from the glass.

“Is there any news?” Rosemary asked, glancing between them.

“There is, somewhat. A family of farmers displaced by selling their land to the Garden is seeking to have their three-way marriage recognized in Damme. They don’t have anything to go back to, even if the Garden might take them in.” Lace leaned to the side, glancing into a cabinet drawer and pulling out a thick folio. She drew a pair of sheets of paper from it dense with writing, though it had a sidebar with some cramped notes on the side. “They only recently pooled the resources to hire a solicitor with the reputation and lack of prejudice to help them file their petition.”

“You left out the best part,” Dapper said, grinning.

Lace rolled her eyes. “The resource pool was the community they settled in with. From what I understand, they helped doggedly to bring in the harvest, and the community even brought it all in early with their help. The community,” she said, pausing to glance at the paper, “Dammeridge. They’re all chipping in a few bits for the solicitor fund, but they’re having trouble finding a solicitor. Every one that normally handles Low Court cases has turned them down, and Middle Court solicitors are quoting prices far above what they can afford, even together.”

“Can we… or I help? I don’t have access to my money-keeper from here, but if I could get them a message, I have a hundred bits or so I can lend. It can be made anonymously.”

“Not anonymously enough,” Lace said with a sigh. “We’ve already filed our amicus brief with the court supporting their right to have their marriage recognized. We might appeal to the treaty on the grounds that families shouldn’t be broken up, but that’s fragile ground. Canterlot is majority monogamous. They might view polyamorous marriages as… wrong.”

“Wouldn’t Princess Celestia stand in judgement?”

Lace considered for a moment, tapping the feathered end of her quill against her chin. “For something so small, I doubt it. She’d send an adjudicator to settle the matter. It would also take until Spring at least, given the overland is closing soon, if not already. We’re expecting Merrie to see its last overland caravan in the next few weeks, but they may have turned around already.”

“Bandits?”

“Rains. Even the old imperial road isn’t so well cared for that it can support a caravan of carts this far north. Where it exists above the ground at all.” Lace twirled her quill. “Firelight has let me know that he has had reports of Equestrian anti-banditry patrols this far north. They’ve already retreated to the south, but it should have been enough for the bandit clans in the hills to the southeast to settle in or find greener pastures.”

Rosemary sat back to process that, taking another sip of her brandy and letting it sit in her mouth, swishing back and forth, building heat upon heat on her tongue before she swallowed it. “Then we have no worries about bandits raiding Dammehollow and Merriehollow?”

“Nor the granaries there,” Lace agreed.

“Enough of business,” Dapper said. “What’s our boy up to right now, do you think?”

Lace winced. “I’d… rather not think about that. I hope they’re having a pleasant day together, whatever that may involve, and whatever he may have been encouraged to do.” She rubbed at her cheek. “It’s still hard for me to accept that he’s courting three mares, even as much as I accept that it’s valid. It was never the future I envisioned for him, even if I’d been successful in reaching out to Rosewater.”

“When she was young?” Rosemary waited for the mare to nod and nodded in turn. “I think… this will be better. It’s a blending of both. Rosewater isn’t likely to have many lovers outside the bond, and neither is Cloudy. Collar isn’t, from what I understand of him.”

Dapper was nodding throughout her speculation, then glanced at Lace and spoke up. “I think you’re right. It’s a blending of traditions. I think, if it would be possible, that once the betrothal is formalized, it would be a good idea to keep any outside lovers more secretive.”

Lace quirked an eyebrow. “That’s not very Dammish.”

“It’s very Dammish,” Dapper replied evenly, his eyes twinkling. “Affairs happen even in Damme. The only difference is that there is shame attached to them, and they stay quiet for the most part, except when divorces happen.”

“In Canterlot, affairs are often major scandals that result in the downing of one or more houses,” Lace said drily.

“We have a temperance across the river. So our ponies can always say ‘We’re not that bad.’” Dapper chuckled at Lace’s clucking tongue, though Rosemary could see the amusement in her eyes. “So they brush the affair under the rug, make promises, and pretend like it never happened at all.”

“I can be very secretive,” Rosemary said with a wink. “I’ve been making love to two of your guards for the past month, for example, and—”

“Cloudy doesn’t count,” Dapper said with a laugh, holding out a hoof.

“And thus I didn’t count her,” Rosemary answered, winking once more and savored the surprise in usually unflappable Dapper’s eyes. “I’ve recently accepted an offer from another who was quite nervous, but agreed to my gentle pushing. I don’t know how long she will stay a lover, as I suspect she’s interested but not looking for something longer term.”

Lace raised a brow. “Sunrise certainly has pushed past her concerns quickly.”

“She has. We… we had a good time together, talking, sharing. It was my 18th birthday celebration. I… fell in love with her as we talked over Dammerale.” Rosemary sniffed at the little bit of brandy left. “We didn’t share names. She, a Dammer in a private’s uniform, me a Merrier with barely a hint of my marks showing over the deep pink of my coat. It wasn’t something we consciously decided on. And when she took a room, and I followed, we still didn’t share names. Only words. And love.”

“That her parents haven’t raised a furor is a sign that you can keep it secret,” Lace said, nodding. “I understand that Rosewater is with Primrazzle Dazzle for the time being. I have been hesitant to ask my son how he has taken that, despite his obvious infatuation with Rosewater.”

“I,” Dapper said, raising his nose in the air and pressing a hoof to his breast, “have no such compunctions. He is conflicted, but accepts that Rosewater’s relationship with him is an important part of her recovery. They, the entire garden, and Dazzle in particular, seem to be helping her find her balance. He’s jealous, yes, but until today, he couldn’t be there for her when she needed the support. Friendship, love… and sex, yes. Passion.”

Lace’s cheeks had grown heated during the explanation, to the point that she tossed back half of her remaining brandy. “Stars.”

“As if we didn’t have our own passions, love,” Dapper said more gently. “She has different passions and views them as less connected to commitment than you and I do.”

“Yet Collar…” Lace rubbed at her cheek. “He does have our views, doesn’t he?”

Rosemary took another sip of her brandy and set down the tumbler with a soft thump, drawing both of their attentions back to her. “His views are shifting. As are hers. She loves sex, yes, but she’s not so bound to it that she can’t constrain herself. But he encouraged her to pursue her passions.”

Lace drew in a breath as if to refute that, then sighed and nodded. “I won’t question my son’s reasoning for asking her to do that. In so many ways, he’s already becoming more Merrier than I thought was possible for him, given his upbringing.”

“Cloudy started it,” Rosemary said gently. “She was torn from her home and made no apologies for her own preferences or cultural upbringing. She’s been changing hearts since she arrived here, albeit only a few, and Collar’s was one of those. He’s never begrudged her the lovers she gathered to her, though she has started to settle down with Collar, Rosewater, and I instead.”

Lace nodded slowly, though her cheeks still glowed. Whether all of that was from her discomfiture talking about her son’s sex life or from the brandy, Rosemary wasn’t certain. “That will help the perception that she is settling down into a hybrid relationship. Dammer in style, Merrier in scope. It will help settle our ponies minds, and remind Merrie that she has not lost her heritage. Nor,” she added with a smile, “that we intend to erase their heritage, as Roseate is so blatantly claiming.”

“The Commoner’s Gala will likely put lie to that.”

“We can hope. Roseate has not been happy. She’s probed at our defenses in three different incursions, but we’ve either scared them off or they were scouting parties. It’s getting difficult to adjust patrol patterns to keep coverage the same without staying predictable, and Captain Pink is starting to complain about shift rotations.”

“Would it help if my guards were returned to the rotation?”

“Sadly not.”

“Then… what can I do?”

Lace chuckled. “Much, and little.”

Silk and Vine waited outside their mother’s office, waiting for their turn to get lashed by the whip-like tongue and given their orders. The days after Rosewater’s blatant display of cooperation with the Primlines over the terms of the treaty had not been kind to any of them, and even the most favored sisters tread softly when Roseate scowled.

Her plans seemed to be falling apart, and Rosewater was in an actual relationship with Collar. There could be no other explanation for them going off alone in the middle of an intimate dance. The only thing that kept Roseate from actually frothing was that there was no sign that a declaration had been made of Rosewater’s intent to carry a stallion’s child.

Not that she needed to make it public. But neither were there the signs that a private agreement had been made and signed. Rosewater still appeared alone with Dazzle, and had even gone to dinner with him alone, without a witness to attest they were alone.

Small comfort that it was, it still prickled at Silk’s nerves. They couldn’t be far from making such an agreement, and what Roseate would do when the signs came about, always with a mare in attendance, never with a stallion alone aside from her chosen.

The door across from the waiting room opened, and Rosary stepped out, her ears flat, her eyes haunted. But only for a moment. Too fast for Silk to be certain it wasn’t a figment of her imagination. She filed it away for later.

Anything that bothered Rosary would be… dangerous. And not only for Rosewater. Things that upset Rosary would also upset the keepers of the Treaty, and might draw Celestia’s attention and ire.

Ire, for Celestia, was often followed by fire. At least in the stories about her from the past. She was more subdued now, more even-keeled, or else she would have long ago given up the game of the treaty and simply incorporated both cities into her growing nation.

“Vine,” Roseate’s voice snapped out. “Come.”

Silk rose with her sister and started forward.

Roseate’s growling voice caught her before she’d made another step. “Not you, Silk. I have a different task for you.”

Almost, she made the step across the invisible boundary of her mother’s will. Except there was her signed confession of incest. It would be not only her that bore the impact of Roseate’s rage. It would be Vine, and her sister wasn’t so strong that she could withstand the impact of all of their friends turning on them in disgust. Their lovers abandoning them.

They would need to exile themselves to find solace, and that would break Vine. Her home was her life.

Silk slunk back to her seat in the waiting room and tried not to fret.

Her mother did it to torment her. Leaving stained dishware, stained mugs and a crystal goblet with a dried crust of wine around the midline, dark red against the blue-tinted crystal.

Vine swallowed the revulsion at the filth in Roseate’s office. She knew, from talking to Silk that Roseate normally kept it as clean as she herself would. But tempting her to clean, to do a small extra service for her mother, was another cruel barb.

She wasn’t even sure the stains and dishes were real. They could have been cast in mist and magic for her alone.

This isn’t your home. Vine pushed away the urges, the need to clean, and sat down in front of Roseate’s desk as her mother empowered the silence spell etched into the ceiling, a far more visible show of opulence and power than the neatly hidden gems she and Silk employed in their home.

“Your task, Vine,” Roseate began without preamble, “is to get in close with Rose Seed. Use your horticultural talents to tempt him, and talk to him about plants. Stay close, and remember everything you hear.”

“A-and…” Vine swallowed, her eyes darting from her mother to the plates unbidden. “He doesn’t trust me. Why not Hip? She and he have a rivalry, and it would be easier for her to get in with him. They share as much of a talent as is possible.”

Roseate tipped her head to the side, as if considering, then shook her head. “No. Hip, I have on another task. She is too young.”

And I’m not!? Hip was barely two years younger than she was. It wasn’t the age, of course, but the leverage. Roseate only had Hip’s gardens and the stipend she drew on to keep them up year-round. Without that, the chill would have been sending her plants into hibernation already. Heat enchantments, especially in winter, were expensive to upkeep, and the demand high. Those that could do them were rare, and those that could do them well could demand nearly any price they wanted. And get it.

Hip’s roses would regrow the next year.

Vine and Silk’s reputation would be torn apart. They lived together. The word on the street would be that they had been sleeping together every night since. They wouldn’t be able to leave their home without being glared at. It was one of the most taboo of offenses in Merrie culture.

“I know it will not be easy,” Roseate said in a gentler tone than she’d ever heard her mother speak, but rather than being put at ease, it set off warning bells. “That’s why I’ve given you two months to accomplish this task. That will put us well into winter, and it will be harder to keep you at tail’s length if you are in his confidence. Do not attempt to force your way into anywhere, or I will be most displeased.”

Two months? That was… it was well past Mare’s Night.

It wouldn’t be close to ships arriving in harbor again, but it would give her the chance to earn more coin. They would need as much as they could before she was claimed to be a failure, their secret ousted, and they were exiled.

Two months was a lot of time, especially if she could work out an arrangement with Seed to use his greenhouses to make wreaths or other ornaments for sale. It wouldn’t be much compared to what Silk made, but the galas coming up would let them scrimp and save and add to their savings when the inevitable happened.

“I’m…” Vine cleared her throat, her eyes darting to the plates and goblet again, then back to her mother. “I… can do it.”

“Dismissed.”

Crown sat on her balcony overlooking the river later that night, staring east along the slow-twisting curve of the river. From here, she could just make out the roost of the place where Prim Note usually made his nest for the night, listening for the signs of her sisters or their minions.

Normally, they sparred with song and silence, poetry and prose, each attempting to find a new height to the game they’d been spending months playing and perfecting, discovering the rules as it went on.

It had started before their first meeting, with him appearing faceless and voiceless in her place of business, sitting silent in the crowd listening, and only tapping his hooves once in appreciation. For her reading.

The next time, she noticed him, the same faceless face, now given a name and a voice, different from the one that she sparred with. He toyed with her at night, playing events from her night-time readings, her afternoon gatherings helping writers and poets tease out their plots and wording.

She’d only put events together after weeks of teasing, after she’d put name and voice together with the events and cut through the game to find who he really was. Then had begun her game, though her game had lasted only a week before he’d overtaken her and made it their game. As deft as her with poetry, with sound and its manipulation.

The times they’d met face to face, the game melted away. The first time they’d met as more than friends was months gone now. Then he’d met her lovers without his masking, nervous as a robin mother dancing on a branch. Friends only.

When he’d come to see her in prison after her capture during the failed raid on Damme, he’d been contrite, and read to her her own poetry, collected over the months prior when they’d only been faceless voices on the wind, sparring and sharing their writings in duels of poetic philosophy.

And they had fallen into discussing not only the philosophical differences of their cities, but of authors they had both read and quoted at each other through the spring and summer nights leading up to her capture. It was as if they’d known each other half their lives instead of only as friends for barely two months, arguing both sides of the same argument that drove their cities to opposition in different ways.

For three nights, he came to her in prison, then a pause, then another four. Seven nights before her release they had spent with the only barrier between them the bars of the Gilded Cage, and that only a formality.

She had had her first kiss with him through the bars, confessed that she’d been falling in love with her mysterious philosopher dueling partner for months, and found that he had felt the same.

Then, barely a week past her release, she had met him again, and kisses had turned to more under the open summer night east of the city. They had to be careful, lest they be discovered, and time their moments for when they weren’t expected to be where they were. More and more, he had taken to a disguise and met her at a poetry and prose reading she’d hosted at the bookshop she’d built up into a partial cafe and gathering place for those that loved books. That, too, became a game. If she could pick him out of the crowd, it would earn her a kiss. If he remained undiscovered, it earned him a promise or a question.

It was her anchor in Merrie, and the hammer her mother held over her. Revocation of licensure was possible, but rare, and she would have to close the shop, sell her books, or face fines, jail time, or other inconveniences for not following the laws of the land she was expected to uphold.

It was also the only place that Note could come safely in disguise without drawing attention to himself. It was a place where common folk from Damme came sometimes to shop, to discuss books, and to spend time in the late evening listening to other up-and-coming poets, authors, and musicians test out their latest creations.

There were few places in Merrie or Damme where all of those existed in the same place, and Crown had worked hard to keep her reputation clean. Her capture in Damme had even served a purpose. She had served her time, and the costs of her crimes had been covered. While, technically, she was still an enemy combatant, she had no open warrants that were not covered by the herdgild payment agreement.

Now, she waited for his opening act tonight, only so she could know when he was alone and she could break in and… talk. She needed to talk to him, to get his reassurance that she would be okay. That he would be okay whatever came to be.

She had her orders, after all.

Capture their aural mage. Her lover.

Author's Note

Evil horse mom starts setting up the board.