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i.
Briar crashed haphazardly through the swinging front door, out of breath and full of haste. It was nearing sundown, and the last vigilant rays of piercing light struck the windows of Discipline with a glare verging on obnoxious.
“Lark,” he wheezed. “I’ve just seen Dedicate Gorse on the path on his way to the Hub and he says your celebration dinner's ready so I said I'd help fetch it, but he told me to ask, so now I’m asking, and—”
The pair of women stood by the door to Rosethorn’s workroom, turned away slightly, heads bowed together. Briar wondered if they were even cognizant of his presence in the tiny kitchen. Rosethorn appeared absorbed in the tiny wrinkles crisscrossing Lark’s golden knuckles, and she stroked Lark’s palm with a callused thumb. They conversed, it seemed, in hushed tones that Briar could neither hear nor understand. He backed away, feeling voyeuristic in this intimate moment, but his elbow caught a pan on his way out, limbs grown lanky and uncontrollable in rapid development.
The dissonant clang startled all three of them. Rosethorn’s head whipped around, and she regarded Briar with a sort of vague disdain, mouthing something to Lark as he turned on his heel and fled. He could hear Rosethorn begin to cackle softly as his boot crossed the threshold.
Briar wasn't there to see a bare, garden-soiled foot creep its way stealthily up a bronzed leg, nor did he witness Lark’s secretive, protecting smile as she tugged her Rosie closer.
ii.
The Sun’s shadows were twice as long now in the garden where Briar stepped carefully, blinking in the honey-basked hue that near-twilight brought. He knelt in the dirt beside the bean pods, cradling them carefully in his hands.
He assessed his own jumble of thoughts for a few moments, and the beans quaked along with his blundering excitement. Did you know about them? he mind-whispered to the surrounding growth, stroking each leaf and tendril with a delicate hand. How long?
The beans shimmered with excitement and recognition. The bird one? they seemed to reply. Yes, we know her. She thinks about the bird one when she works, often, and the bird one always visits, bringing light. They are two branches of the same tree.
Briar grinned widely. He didn't know why he ever expected otherwise.
iii.
Briar was long gone to help Gorse when Rosethorn reached her garden, but she could still feel his magic quivering among the beans. She waved quickly to an approaching Sandry, dashing up the path for dinner, before crouching on the ground as the Hub clock chimed seven.
The boy wanted to know something, didn’t he? She was getting used to Briar asking the plants about her business as he grew more curious.
About the bird one, they snakily replied. We only told him the truth of what is there.
That’s fine. She exhaled, resigned, letting a handful of soil through her fist, velvet and cool. She recalled the touch of Lark’s fingers across her cheek, and blushed, bemused that something so beautiful could consume her thoughts just this well.
iv.
Lark still labored at her weaving when Rosethorn entered the room. A candle burned next to her loom, the sky beginning to purple in a late summer darkness. The soft clatter of shuttle nearly caused her to miss her counterpart’s quiet footsteps.
Rosethorn enveloped Lark from behind, wrapping her arms around Lark’s ribcage and settling her chin against a bony shoulder. She wiggled her jaw enough to make Lark squirm a bit.
“Rosie, don’t do that. You’re killing my concentration. Moonstream will be sorely disappointed if this doesn't get to her by midnight.”
“Mmmm.” Rosethorn nuzzled Lark’s neck, and kissed her hard on the side of the mouth. “Forget I’m here. Keep weaving. I like to watch you work.”
Instead, Lark turned halfway to face her, eyebrows furrowed and gaze downcast. She picked up Rosethorn’s hand, tossing it lightly with her own. “Why do you do that, love? Why haven’t we talked about Briar today? It was clear he was startled. I thought the children knew, or would guess. I never imagined we might have to explain ourselves to them.”
Rosethorn snorted, but kissed Lark’s fingertip all the same. “Explain ourselves? For what, exactly? Loving each other, and loving them? Firstly, you know I’m not above making goose pudding out of silly little mage boys who ask my garden questions about you and don’t expect me to find out. Secondly, the hurt we may have had before won’t be found in these four, I can tell you already. Thirdly, this is how we teach them that their bed-partners are nobody’s business but their own.”
“I figured it would be easier, this time, letting them discover or decide in their own time instead of telling them outright. But there isn’t a perfect solution, is there? Dornin left the day he arrived at Discipline when we said something ourselves, but Arayell’s mother took her away when she learned her daughter knew of her own accord, after living here and learning with us for years, and accepted it.”
Rosethorn didn't say anything more, just touched Lark’s hair while she wove, blending the same perfect hues to reflect the dazzling lavender to indigo sky.
“So Briar’s getting cooked up for tomorrow’s dinner, is he?” Lark broke the thoughtful silence casually, barely turning from the task at hand.
“It’s only metaphorical, darling. It’s not as if we’ve tried to hide a thing from those four, and if they’re only just now figuring it out they’ll barrage us with questions, sooner or later, if they even have them. I don’t think any one of them, Briar most of all, could be deterred from an inquisitive nature. And questions, we can handle. That's why we teach.” Rosethorn scratched the crown of Lark’s head, gentle. “Now just keep working your magic.”
v.
Wrapped around each other in Lark’s bed (as Rosethorn’s cot was really nothing more than a plank with a sheet), they breathed deeply. Lark propped her elbow on the pillow to rest her head on her fist. She surveyed the curve of her love’s knowing lips, reached out to brush a lock of hair from Rosethorn’s forehead, and flicked her on the nose.
“I’m angry with you.” Her voice was serious, but the playful lilt couldn't be missed. “And we said we don’t go to sleep angry if we can help it.”
“Angry, after all this?” Rosethorn quirked her mouth in a crooked smile and glanced first at Lark, then at the sweaty tangled bedsheets around them. “Whatever for?”
Lark swatted away a creeping hand. “Rosie, please, I’m at least trying to be serious.”
“No, I’m sorry. You are, and I’m being a dolt. Please forgive me. I know why you’re angry, too, and you have a right. It’s your birthday, and we haven’t spent a whit of time together beyond these few blessed hours. I kept trying to find time to whisk you away, but between Crane's greenhouse disaster this morning and godforsaken Briar and your celebration dinner and Moonstream needing you to finish that blasted temporal tapestry so quickly…”
"I know," Lark said, wrapping her arm closer around Rosethorn’s waist. "I had other obligations, and so did you, and your understandable discomfort in delaying my work for personal reasons doesn’t put you at fault. More than anything, I’m just unhappy with the circumstances. I miss you."
Rosethorn kissed her bare chest. "I didn’t say I wouldn’t take what time with you I could find. Think you can stay up a bit longer, bird? I arranged to let you sleep in tomorrow morning, so the night is ours. And besides, you’ve got a gift to receive yet. The midnight worship bells haven’t rung so it still counts. Come outside with me."
Lark grinned, and grabbed two light shifts for each of them to wrap around bare bodies. They crept out the door, and predictably, Rosethorn lead her further into the garden. The soil on their bare feet tickled with chill, and Rosethorn sent a vine of magic back through their entwined hands. It was laced with love; Lark knew that was how Rosie best made her thoughts known.
As they approached the wall of espadrilled apple trees, already budding with fruit, Lark noticed a large cluster of ivy vines that weren’t there before. With a breath and a movement of her wrist, Rosethorn coaxed them aside to reveal a new loom, wider than the one Lark already had, with varnish so new it gleamed in the moonlight.
Lark turned to her counterpart, eyes brimming over. Already she itched to wind thread as warp and weft, and feel the clack of the shuttle on fresh and solid maple. “Rosie, you shouldn’t have… how could you ever afford…”
"Nonsense. I’ve seen you pining over that carpenter’s booth for months at market. His wife needed some herbal assistance with a pregnancy, he was glad to make a trade. It was no trouble. I should have given you more.”
Lark looked at her disparagingly. “Do me a favor, would you, and learn how to take a thank you? You’re worse than Tris.”
Rosethorn scoffed. “Oh, you’ve just got given a gift, and now I’m the one who’s getting lectured in saying thank you.”
Lark’s firm kiss and kind hands settled her better than words ever could. Shut up, they said plainly. But if one read the subtext, they also said, I love you, beautiful, and so much more.
vi.
Stargazing on Discipline’s roof was something the children delighted in, and therefore something the two women hadn’t accomplished alone in a very long time. Careful not to wake the rest of the house, they shivered slightly against the cool breeze rippling through their light robes, and moved closer.
Lark, the taller of the two, rested her cheek easily atop Rosethorn’s head as they lay back against the thatch. She inhaled sharply, and smirked at what she found.
“You smell like soil, Rosie. Like plumb dirt.” And pine, and basil, but she didn’t say so. She also didn’t say how much she loved the healing constancy of her scent.
“I’m a gardener. Honestly, what do you expect? I’m up to my ears in plants all day. We’ve been together how long and my earthy musk is news to you?”
“Hush.” Lark sealed off her chatter once more with a delicate kiss, and thought she saw a flower written in the stars above them. “Rosie, do you ever think we may have tipped the scales too much in our favor? What we have… isn’t it too much? Sooner or later, I wonder if payday won’t come calling.”
“Why would you think a thing like that, bird?” Rosethorn replied, sensitive but unwaveringly sensible. “What do we have, really, beyond what every human should be satisfied with? We have a house, and a place for people like us. We’ve got our girls, and their teachers. And my boy, of course.”
Lark nudged Rosethorn with her knee in encouragement. “And Crane.”
Rosethorn grinned wryly. “Crane, but only when you need a break and I need an outlet. But mostly, I have you.”
Lark sighed. It was a rare night when Rosethorn was willing to entertain her wandering worries, often irrational. It simply wasn't in her nature any longer. But if Rosethorn had seen tragedy like Lark’s first love, and life, she might wonder, too, once things began to feel too safe.
As usual, it was as if Rosethorn could read her thoughts, and temper them with reason. “The way you taught me to see it,” she said, “we don’t ask for much. And we do more than our fair share to pay back what we’ve been given. We have a right to our little pocket of happiness. If anyone questions that…well, they won’t again after speaking to me.” Her eyes flashed and she held Lark’s gaze with sincerity.
Lark huddled closer, wrapping her arms and the light blanket around Rosie to protect them from the light summer breezes beginning to pick up. “I believe you, bloom. You believe for the both of us a fair amount these days, and I love you for that.”
“Love you too, bird. I will always help you believe, as you did for me. If you aren’t worth a life of comfort and kindness, no one is.”
Lark kissed her, suddenly, fiercely. They pulled together, close as possible, and let their eyes, chestnut and ebony, spark in each other’s gaze before turning together to look towards an infinite horizon.