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A leaf floated into Kisara's line of sight, and her gaze followed it as it continued to tumble to the ground. Dohalim watched her stoop to pick up the leaf, twirling its stem between her thumb and index finger to spin the leaf, one side a vibrant red and the other fading to a muddy shade. She sighed.
"Are all of the leaves really going to fall off?" she asked, releasing the one in her hand and letting it fall to the wooden planks beneath her. The trees that closed in around the trails of Gilanne Woodland had become a gradient of cool greens blending into yellows, oranges, and reds. Some more muted leaves were strewn on the ground, but the trees still appeared full for the most part. With the world's astral energy being spread more evenly across it, the comfortable summer of Elde Menancia was changing for the first time in anyone's memory.
"Summer turns to autumn and then an inevitable…"
" Winter ," Kisara shuddered and pulled her cardigan closer. Dohalim smiled at the melodramatic flair - perhaps he was influencing her through all the time they spent together. It had been fascinating for Dohalim to watch as she filled herself with little changes while she continued to find her place in the new world. With the completed training of the new guard, Kisara had retired from her role as captain and was preparing to move into a home separate from Autelina Palace. Stresses of the move aside, Kisara also succumbed to Shionne's constant pressure to buy more clothes, and so each day Dohalim enjoyed the surprise of how she would look. He had noticed she was drawn to practical styles with little hints of flair, like a window of lace here or a metal chain there. Today she wore a fairly neutral combination of autumn clothes, but there was a pop of colour and pattern in her wool gloves, woven into a red and black plaid.
His focus turned from Kisara to the trees that loomed above them. He wandered to the side of the trail and rested his elbows on the railing that lined it, peering over to the tapestry of treetops below. "The aesthetics of the changing seasons are enchanting, though, are they not?"
Kisara sidled up next to him and tucked her arm around his. Her free hand reached up to guide his attention back towards her. "I do like red…" she said, curling a lock of his hair around her finger.
"Are we talking about the same aesthetics?" His amused inquiry was answered with her standing on her toes to kiss him. Dohalim leaned into her kiss so she needn't stand tiptoe, and she thanked him for his cooperation by parting her lips to deepen their kiss. By the way that Kisara wrapped her arms around him and clung to him as tightly as possible, Dohalim suspected part of this sudden affection was just a way of warming herself up. Not that he would complain.
Despite being wrapped up in the presence of the other, they could not ignore a deliberately loud set of footsteps approaching from the direction of the city. The thud of heeled shoes hitting the wooden path echoed loudly, and so Kisara and Dohalim parted to look towards the footsteps' source. Shionne and Alphen were several metres away, feigning some distraction seen past the trail's railing before they made eye contact with their old traveling companions. "Shionne, look, could that be our friends over there?"
"You're right, Alphen! I definitely didn't see them there enjoying a public display of affection."
Kisara set a hand on her hip. "Oh you two give it a rest - we're in the middle of a forest!"
"A public forest," Shionne emphasized, although the conviction of her rebuttal was lost as she began smiling. "This area has really cleaned up well, I've gotta say." She motioned back to the direction she and Alphen had appeared from, where a set of stairs had replaced the ladder leading from an upper platform to the one they stood on now. "Not a zeugle in sight, and the stairs will make it way easier for people to enjoy the woodland."
"Yeah it was a great idea to make this a hiking trail for people in Viscint," Alphen chimed in.
"I can claim no credit for it," Dohalim said. "It was Lagill along with the Gold Dust Cats who proposed greater accessibility within the Gilanne Woodland. Likely to make travel to their stronghold more convenient."
"Well it's convenient for us." Kisara slipped her hand into his and began walking, coaxing him to continue along the path leading further into the forest. "No one wants to lug boxes and furniture up ladders."
Alphen and Shionne followed their lead as they made their way through the trails of Gilanne Woodland, to the depths of the woods where the Gold Dust Cats' hideout lay.
"We're not using most of this stuff anymore, so help yourself." Lagill waved her arm dismissively, but Kisara could see that she wasn't looking directly at any of the items in the room. It was likely hurting her, letting go of such objects that housed many memories. With the world settling as it was and the political council listening to the voices of all people, the Gold Dust Cats and other revolutionary friends no longer visited the hideout as they used to. Lagill clung to the location, though, like visiting the tomb of a lost loved one. "Migal would have preferred his sister take it than just having everything collect dust."
Kisara rested a hand on Lagill's shoulder, prompting the older woman to look at her. "I appreciate it. If there's any way I can repay you, just say the word."
"I still want Migal's bracelet," Lagill answered without missing a beat.
Of course she did - she brought it up at any opportunity she could, often stretching topics in unnatural directions just to try and convince Kisara. She would never forget how Lagill had challenged her to a literal duel despite Kisara being captain of the guard while Lagill's personal strength was just spunk and attitude. Kisara could guess that her brother had appreciated that about her, and he would have laughed to know how the two of them were competing over his favour. At a certain point, though, Kisara knew he would have taken her aside and told her how she couldn't idolize him forever.
She removed her gloves and set them on the old dining table before slipping Migal's bracelet from her wrist. "It should be yours, Lagill," she said, holding it out.
Lagill's eyes were laden with suspicion as she looked at the bracelet in Kisara's hand. Like an untrusting animal, she stepped towards her slowly and after a few seconds of contemplation, reached out and snatched the bracelet quickly before retreating to sit by the table. She turned the bracelet over in her hands, smoothing her thumb over it.
"Why now?" Lagill asked.
Kisara touched the gold band on her index finger, a ring that had been Dohalim's that he had given her on a whim. It made her feel closer to him when he was away, and she found herself toying with it a lot as a kind of comfort she hadn't known she needed. "I have other memories of Migal," she said. "It will mean something more to you." She could still remember her brother when she used his old fishing rod, and now she would have pieces that belonged to the Gold Dust Cats that held his memories too. Lagill should have the bracelet, she knew - something to hold close to her always, to be able to feel when her distance from Migal felt unbearable.
"Thank you." Lagill's voice was small as she held onto the bracelet more tightly, knuckles turning white. There were tears brimming her eyes; she hastily brushed them away. "I miss him so much, Kisara. Hardly anyone comes here anymore. Sometimes I feel like everyone has forgotten about him except me."
"Lagill…" Kisara sat next to her friend and wrapped her up in a hug.
With her face hidden against Kisara's shoulder, Lagill let herself cry more openly. Kisara could feel the sting of tears in her own eyes; she didn't let herself think of Migal as often as she should, and when she did, the loss felt as raw as ever. Sometimes crying was the only thing to do.
"Um, should we…check on them…?" Shionne peered towards the pathway that led from the room she and Dohalim were in to the space where echoed sobs and sniffles were sounding from.
"They should be left alone," Dohalim answered with certainty. "This place is laden with difficult memories for them."
Shionne eyed him as he continued to browse through the collection of books on the shelf. The shelves weren't packed to the point of immobility the way those in his quarters were, instead being scattered with some fallen onto their side or sitting at strange diagonals. He plucked a book from the shelf and began leafing through it. Didn't it bother him to hear Kisara crying? If she showed even a hint of sadness, Alphen would be hovering around her like…well, like Zareh was hovering around Dohalim, weaving figure eights around his ankles.
He wasn't showing any signs of being distressed by the fact that Kisara was moving out of the palace either. Sure her new home would still be within the walls of Viscint, a cozy house next to the river that divided the city from the start of the Gilanne Woodland, but Shionne knew that the two of them had been sharing the Lord's quarters in Autelina Palace for a while now. This felt like a step backwards in their relationship from Shionne's perspective, and being impatient to see them move forward, she felt frustrated. Especially frustrated that neither of them seemed to be frustrated.
"Hey aren't you at all upset about Kisara getting her own house?" she asked, every bit of her frustration and impatience oozing into her tone.
Dohalim returned the book to the shelf. "Should I be?"
Answering questions with questions; he was so irritating, Shionne thought. She glared at Dohalim as he crouched down to offer a hand to Zareh, who headbutted it happily before he scratched behind her ear. "Yes," Shionne insisted. "You should be upset because you shouldn't be able to imagine a day without her. You should get it together and propose so you two can live a proper life as a couple, and not this weird palace intrigue."
"My you're certainly passionate about our relationship," Dohalim said, chuckling. He stood up and Zareh hopped up onto the bookshelf to continue demanding his attention. "You know we intend to reach that point, but Kisara leaving the palace and establishing a home is part of that. I agree that the palace is more of a place of intrigue, ill suited to the domesticity of marriage and raising a family."
Shionne felt herself blushing. Maybe he had been thinking about this more than she was willing to give him credit for–she and Alphen hadn't even gone down the family route when they discussed plans for the future. "I can't say I can picture you as a parent. Kisara yes, but you?"
"Agreed. I've not really had a positive role model for parenting." Dohalim pulled another book from the shelf, setting this one aside with a few others that had found his approval.
"You've never really talked about your parents," Shionne said. "I would have thought they'd be pretty doting, thrilled to raise a son who was a Lord candidate."
"Oh, they were thrilled. So thrilled that I have chosen to avoid them for years." Dohalim's voice dripped with irony.
He didn't appear particularly perturbed by the topic, continuing to browse the books and pet Zareh as was demanded of him. Shionne caught an implication in his wording: "Wait, your parents are still alive?" she asked.
"Yes, I'm hardly that old."
"I didn't–" Shionne huffed out a sigh. "I just mean everyone else has lost theirs, and since you never talked about yours I just kind of…" She sighed again, this time at herself. "It was a careless assumption. Why don't you talk to them?"
Dohalim set another book onto his assembled stack with a thud that echoed through the room. Shionne noticed that Kisara and Lagill's interaction had quieted to a pleasant conversation, punctuated with the clatter of some dishware as they scoured the dining space for items that would be useful to Kisara.
"They were as any other Renans, I suppose. Blinded by the allure of greater status, of fame and fortune. They had been the ones to teach me of poetry and music - my father a skilled manipulator of words, my mother a well-regarded violinist. That was when I was a child. They grew to resent my prioritization of such hobbies when my candidature for lordship became clear. Learn to fight, learn to lead, learn to betray…" He spoke the words as though they were poetry themselves, an expression of thought amplified through language. But they were true thoughts, Shionne knew. He must have spent enough time thinking of them, to the point that they weren't so much a weight anymore. "When my position as Lord was decided–when I had killed Tarnigen–they celebrated. That was the moment that I realized I would choose to remain estranged from them." His eyes widened suddenly, as if surprised out of his monologue. "Apologies," he said.
"I was the one who asked," Shionne replied. "But you know, what I got from all of that is that you know exactly where your parents went wrong. So maybe you wouldn't be half-bad as a father yourself."
Dohalim gave her a small smile. "Perhaps."
The stone facade of the Gold Dust Cats' hideout meshed seamlessly with the nature of Gilanne Woodland, Alphen thought as he rounded the front of the building. As the end point for the trail that was becoming more and more used by the general population of Viscint, he felt that the ground was too barren, the space underutilized and underwhelming considering the trek required to get there. He was sure that it must have been an accomplishment to the members of the Gold Dust Cats whenever they finally saw the hideout come into view, but what would become of it now?
Kisara appeared in the doorway, eyes blinking at the daylight for a moment before she noticed Alphen. "I was thinking this might be a nice place for my fishing pond," she said. "Of course I'll have to talk Lagill into it first…"
"That would be great!" Alphen could always be counted on for an enthusiastic response. He set his hands on his hips and turned away from the building to survey the space available to them. "Yeah, I was just thinking this place has a lot of potential! Like we could dig the pond over there, and set up some stalls for people's extra catches. Then lower income residents can come collect a meal. And maybe we could–"
"Hey come on now, I asked for your help because you wouldn't get out-of-hand." Kisara walked over to him and gave his shoulder a playful punch.
He sheepishly scratched the back of his head. "Whoops, I guess I was at risk of going full Dohalim there for a second."
"A little," Kisara said with a laugh. She strolled a little further towards the long unused firepit. Campsites had been their lifeline during their travels and it would have been nice to have encountered some with better accommodations than abandoned crates and decomposing firewood. "I'm reluctant to admit it, but sometimes his fanciful ideas really do lift people's spirits. Everyone loves the space for musicians he added to the palace's gardens, and I've heard people praising the installments of artifacts and artwork from Dahnan history."
Alphen nodded. "Autelina Palace really is a marriage of Dahnan and Renan culture now." He thought to make a joke about a different kind of Dahnan and Renan marriage, but he tried to leave all teasing on that matter to Shionne. "People enjoy the luxury of camping by Talka Pond now too, although that was something he did more for you than for the public, wasn't it?"
"I-I guess…" Kisara's face reddened at that.
He had known that Dohalim had brightened up the campsite at Talka Pond for Kisara's sake because the former lord had asked for his help–and unlike Kisara who still avoided admitting that she and Dohalim spent time there together, Dohalim had been rather straightforward in his intention of making a retreat for them first and foremost. Some days Alphen thought that they were all too aware of each other's relationships, but then again they had a closer bond than most people could ever fathom.
"We'll just start with a plain ol' fishing pond, then," Alphen circled the conversation back, "and we can see where it takes us."
"That sounds fair. I feel like that's how I'm approaching all aspects of my life these days."
He interpreted that as her speaking of her resignation from the guard and subsequent choice to leave Autelina Palace. When he initially heard news that she would have her own house he was excited for her, but Shionne's anxieties were getting in his head: What would she do next? Would she get bored or lonely, or get too comfortable being alone? What if she and Dohalim drifted apart? "Good thing?" he asked, just wanting to keep those worries at bay.
"Yes." Kisara gave him an easy smile. "Good thing."
And with that Alphen could trust that she would be okay.
Kisara lifted each mug out of the box with care, taking a moment to appreciate how each one had been shaped by hand with unique changes in relief and slight imperfections in the glaze that sealed them. On the underside, each one was etched with the profile of a cat's head and the letters 'GDC'. She wondered which member of the Gold Dust Cats had crafted them, and what they were doing now - had they committed to their interest in pottery and turned it into a career? She knew it hurt Lagill that they had all moved on in their lives, leaving her feeling quite alone in her visits to the group's old hideout, but surely Migal would have wanted them to find personal joy in this restructured world that he had given himself for.
With the last of her newly acquired dishes tucked away in cabinets that still had space for much more, Kisara moved to the sunroom where Dohalim was lounging, entirely focused on a book in his hand. The room smelled of fresh herbs with a hint of flowers, various potted plants resting on stands and hanging from the wooden frames of the windows that acted as the room's walls. The view outside was entirely nature, the room positioned on the side of the house closest to Gilanne Woodland. It was a room that went beyond the basics of what Kisara had planned her home to be, but Dohalim had talked her into it (and promised to keep the plants alive); she was glad for that because she could now see what a peaceful retreat it was. Even if the view outside was of those alarmingly red autumn leaves, and the cold could be felt more easily as the sun set.
Noticing her approaching, Dohalim sat up to leave room next to him. Kisara accepted his unspoken invite and tugged on a blanket that was draped over the backrest, winding it around her shoulders and hugging it close. The blanket held memories of a night she and Dohalim had huddled beneath it together and she had first dared to kiss him, happy to find the gesture returned with enthusiasm. Inspired by the memory, she wrapped part of the blanket over Dohalim's shoulders, pleased with the warmth emitting from him, even cozier than the blanket itself. He rested his head against hers but continued to look at the book.
"What are you reading that has you so focused?" Kisara asked, squinting at the pages.
"The Origins and Psychology of the Cat," he replied. "And the more I read it, the more convinced I become that you are a cat."
Kisara laughed lowly, her arms encircling him to better appreciate his warmth. "Oh? And why is that?"
His free hand settled on her head and fell into a rhythm of stroking her hair. Was he patting her like he would a cat? It was kind of nice… " Felis silvestris catus is often observed to be heat-seeking, choosing soft bedding, basking in sunlight, and allo-resting–that is to say, sleeping in proximity to others in their social group."
Hm. She was doing that, she admitted to herself. "You should get used to that with winter approaching," she said.
"Ah, that brings to mind my consternation of another matter related to you being suspiciously cat-like." He removed his hand from her hair to flip through the pages of the book. He halted as he found the section he was looking for. "In the chapter on reproduction, it reads, 'Cats are seasonally polyestrous and so there is a decline in mating activity during the winter months.'"
"Well I've never been through a winter, so who's to say…?" Kisara teased, trying to keep the laughter from her voice.
"Don't fuel my concern…"
She let herself laugh then, arms tightening around him. Although they joked, concerns did loom within Kisara. Some were heavy worries like how their relationship may change–not with winter, as Dohalim expressed, but with the distance. Some were more silly, like what would she do when her favourite fishing spots froze over when winter really did arrive in Menancia? And how would they sleep in a smaller bed after getting so used to the one in the lord's quarters?
"...Hey Do, are you staying here tonight?"
He set aside the book and returned his hand to her head. "Am I welcome to?"
"Yes." She lifted her head to meet his gaze. "Any night."
Relief–she recognized the expression in him. He had a way of concealing his worries until the instant they were resolved. "That may turn into every night quickly enough."
"Good."
Dahna itself may be changing in innumerable ways, the use of Viscint's outskirts may be changing to reflect a more lighthearted society, summer may be changing to autumn--but her relationship with Dohalim? Kisara didn't want it to change at all.