Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Life hadn’t changed much in Emendeles ever since the mamono queen rose to our throne - or so I’d been told by my mom and dad.

Our ways of life hadn’t changed much at all, and in the span of a decade or two, it seemed like they were there from the very beginning - I certainly couldn’t imagine what the old city would be like without mamono.

My parents were both human, and so I happened to be born a baby boy into the new Emendeles, something I'm told was getting rare outside of the Order's dominion.

When I was little, I’d often run down the stairs from the attic-bedroom in our family’s shophouse, coming flying out the door and running down the sloped roads just to get to another family's estate to say hi.

Ours being a close-knit neighbourhood, we in the old quarter knew each other by name, and whenever I ran about in the streets, the kikimora running the general store would certainly rush out to chide me at full-name basis.

Exactly where I was running to, just two blocks down (but it felt like a long way for a little kid with a less-than-ideal constitution) was a young couple that’d come to settle in the old quarter - a chef, and his wife, a minotaur, Damaris - who took such great amusement at me calling her 'auntie' when I first introduced myself to her family. I don't remember ever calling her by her first name.

Why I went there, was to play with my childhood friend - that being, their daughter, Isabel (a minotaur like her mamono mother, of course.)

We’d challenge each other to the wisest things ten-year old idiots could think of (other than contests of strength - being of freakish strength compared to the average human boy, she pulled my shoulder on accident once trying to wrestle me, and cried for an hour straight as if she’d killed me when she realised what she'd done to me.)

With that in mind, I’d tried teaching her chess, as was the "classical" pastime in Emendeles. But as we (tried) to play, she’d accuse me of inventing rules - engaging me in heated 'debate' over the game; elaborating and explaining her points by her using the pieces as action figures, creatively incorporating the use of onomatopoeia and make-believe to stand her ground and defend the "right" ways to play chess that she'd made up completely, along with mortifying forfeits like "for every piece you lose you need to kiss me that many times."

Needless to say, I wasn't quite sure who exactly was "paying a forfeit" after she, having lost, being insistent on sticking by her invented "rules," - bruised my cheek with more way-too-forceful kisses than there were pieces on the board on both our sides added up together.

Now, it might’ve been mamono society (or it might’ve just been kids being stupid, looking back then,) but whenever our families happened to be together in town at a meal or something, be it to the patrons of the tavern, or simply to passers-by in the park, Isabel enjoyed lifting me up out of left field and proclaiming that "she’d gotten a husband for herself," much to my chagrin.

Of course, this attracted laughter from the crowd, seeming to only give Isabel a sense of pride as she put me back down, folding her arms with the widest grin on her face.

I’d bury my face in my arms and tug at my mother’s dress for her to say something, but her schadenfreude seemed to lessen the urgency of restoring my reputation in the public eye.

One day, I’d had enough being the butt of a joke I wasn’t in on.

On one of our playdates, I held Isabel's little hands angrily, looked her straight in the eyes with great courage, and stuttered that I’d marry her when I grew up, so she’d better stop-making-a-fool-of-me-like-this-because-my-friends-are-making-fun-of-me-and-I-don’t-like that.

I think.

And with no idea of the long-reaching consequences of my little outburst, I stormed off back to the family confitería .

But hey, it seemed to work - I really showed her then. And she’d mostly stop doing ‘that thing’ (barring sometimes threatening to do so, if I didn’t listen to what she wanted me to do.)

Lost in thought and nostalgia, I yawned out loud, flipping the sign on the confitería door from ‘open’ to ‘closed.’

There was a special kind of ‘sleepy’ that only a good afternoon nap could fix, and for that reason, it’d become something of a custom in the old quarter to close shop after lunch and reopen in the afternoon, at about the fifth bell, give or take.

The confitería was empty, of course, as were the streets. Typically no one would disturb you near closing time, unless it really was an emergency, or you were an ill-informed Lescatian (or, god forbid, Dragonian) traveler with an empty stomach. I’d let them in, telling them to shut the door behind them, gently.

Tiptoeing over to them with a cup of coffee and a cookie, I’d tell them - making sure no one was watching, looking around just to emphasize the importance of us being silent - about the will-o-the-wisps that wandered the old district at sunset with a taste for solo travellers they wanted to make not-so-solo-anymore.

Now, there was a third reason why someone would come knocking on my door.

Not so much a specific reason as it was a specific person that I’d come to associate distant panting and the rapid click-clacking of hooves against the rock pavement with.

For gods’ sake, we were reasonable, working adults with respectable things to do.

I sighed, knowing I wasn’t going to get to rest today. I didn’t even need to see who it was.

My seasonal stalker was a young lady in an outlandish, white-and-purple toreador’s outfit, standing at about a head-and-a-half taller than me with long, blonde hair, and a pair of two, smooth black horns, coiling like a wreath over her thick skull.

And all in all, if you ignored the pair of maroon hooves peeking out beneath her cuffed trousers, she didn’t seem all that ‘mamono-ish.’

Her blue-eyed mug graced (as in, stuck permanently, and infuriatingly to it,) a smile that seemed so proud it knew everything I didn’t.

Now this wasn’t possible, because I knew ‘tits-for-brains’ had a head filled with small pebbles from the very day I met her.

“Mi amor, mi amor! I managed to catch you before you closed up shop!!”

“... The usual, I’m guessing, Isabel.”

Chapter Text

“We’re out of yemas .”

“Then I shall have polvorónes or anything else you have, mi amor; anything you make tastes good.”

Tch. Isabel was a brute.

As and when she decided to barge into my confitería to pester me, she’d order a box of one of everything, and, instead of having it as the Chief God intended, in its little paper box with a gold ribbon, given it to her family, or her lover (if she was even capable of seduction,) like normal people do, she’d have them all piled up on a saucer asked far too much for its size, ripped cruelly away from its teacup, and beside that still, a cup of coffee and a cup of tea.

(Yes, both, at the same time. I didn’t want to dismissively suggest she mix both and put them in a single cup, because, knowing her, she might take me seriously and force me to commit a food crime.)

All those sweets, she didn’t take her time with at a seat and a table, no - she had them all right at the till, deliberately, in my presence, and expected me to entertain her until she finished everything.

But at least she payed for it. The business was welcome.

Whenever autumn came around, apparently, her sport would enter a cold period, so Isabel would make her way back to Emendeles to visit family and friends.

“So,” Isabel asked, through a mouthful of biscuit crumbs, “how’sh life, Fran?”

“Good. Business is good, family is good, apples and pears are back in season, but mamono realm jam is harder to come across now for some reason.

"I’ve not been able to make tarts regularly, but I’ve been working to get apple pie back on the menu."

“You remember auntie's wildhorn torte?” I mused, trying to make some conversation with my welcome-unwelcome guest.

“You mean my mother, mi amor, of course I do! It’d been ages since I had some proper hometown fare.”

She loaded another star-shaped biscuit into her mouth.

For someone who seemed like they’d made a hobby of… dismembering my handiwork between their choppers, Isabel was quite the epicurean. All she needed were some manners.

“... And in the big cities, catch this, Fran - they call it à la mode - on top of an oven-fresh slice of apple pie, they put a biiig scoop of this thing they call ice-cream, and on top of that, they put the most beautiful, bright pink syrup,” Isabel elucidated, with a great passion that I’d gotten used to taking as her normal tone of conversation.

“You know that stuff’s not good for you, right?”

“Holstaurean breast-milk?”

“No, the other- excuse me?”

“You’ve never had any?” Isabel exclaimed, so bewildered she stood up straight and slammed her hands onto the counter.

I pretended not to hear the faint wooden creaking underneath the sound of her teacup rattling against the table.

“As a baby? Maybe? But now that I’m cognizant enough to know where my food comes from - no thanks.”

“Oh well, it wouldn’t be exactly the same, but if the issue is not knowing where your milk comes from, well , we’re not strangers either - I wouldn’t mind you trying~” the minotaur cooed to me, a coy look on her face, making a (hopefully) tongue-in-cheek suggestion by propping up her bosom.

“No thank you.”

“Aww,” Isabel pouted, coming back to a hunch over the counter.

With a tilted head, she seemed to study the expression on my face - to which I simply gazed away from her.

I didn’t like being read - people came to conclusions all too soon about me whenever I simply hadn’t much to say.

“Say… you’re particularly stiff today mi amor , is something bothering you?”

“You,” I remarked tersely.

“I could be having a nap now, but instead I’m stuck entertaining a lady with nothing better to do but bother me at work.”

This only seemed to egg Isabel on with a smug, toothy smile as she leaned towards where I was looking away.

“We could have our siesta together if you wanted, mi amor.”

“Get out.”

“Okay, okay...” Isabel relented, finally satisfied with my level of frustration towards her.

Ours was an odd relationship, to me at least. I’d wave her off good riddance as she set off for the crown cities in the spring, yet by the summer, I’d foolishly miss her presence in the neighbourhood.

It seemed wholly at random when she’d arrive back in Emendeles in the fall, and I’d never been able to catch her first - almost always, she caught me at some inopportune time, and always right when I'd be about to close up shop.

“And how’s life for you, toreador, travelling the continent, amassing a following humbling knight after knight?” I asked.

“Like you wouldn’t believe,” Isabel exclaimed with gusto, stretching her arms wide out, to which I gave a mild smile and a nod.

If there was anything I admired in the minotaur for myself, it’d be her limitless energy. Minus the brainless extroversion.

“I couldn’t stand having to be on the move all the time, having to put on a performance for the masses wherever.”

“That’s where we’re different, mi amor,” Isabel pointed out with a finger, and she was right; “that’s exactly what I live for - being able to travel the continent and spread my name far and wide to a captive audience anywhere I go.

“For the roar of the crowd, for the musicians, for the challengers I get to put on a good show with, you should’ve seen me in the Dragonia colosseum, mi amor - they were fast - I went one, two, three and they went one-two- whoosh backwards into the air with a burst of flame, and they think they’ve got me, but they couldn’t see me anymore through the clouds of sand, and so I took my halberd in my right-

Precariously watching her gesticulate around and ducking from a swing directed towards her memories, I tried to stop her before she broke something by accident.

“- and I aimed with my left, and with a dash forward I sent that thing cutting through the air and it clipped that little wyvern’s left wing so hard, it made her spin! ”

All of a sudden, she slammed my counter yet again with an exasperated huff. It still held together.

"Now, if it weren’t for that pesky dragoon husband of hers, I could’ve pressed the attack and won - that - match! ”

“So you lost that match, then?”

“Worse! It was a draw by timeout, mi amor, a draw by timeout, can you believe that?!”

“C-certainly not, Isabel…” I answered with a nervous chuckle.

I derived my own amusement from seeing her so impassioned when recounting the past - like an angry bull, she really did kick her feet against the floorboards and grimace as she huffed and puffed catching her breath between sentences.

Facing her in the arenas must be terrifying, I thought, but my mind and memories simply refused to imagine her as anything but the brat living two blocks down from the confitería .

“I… am a warrior … like my mother - and her mother, and those before her! Rules make everything worse!”

In a single breath, Isabel downed the whole cup of tea that’d gone cold while she was ranting away.

“Anyways… what brings you back to Emendeles?” I asked.

“You,” Isabel said with a sultry tone of voice.

“Yeah, okay.”

“Also, your mom still makes excellent gazpacho.”

“Wh- are you bumming meals from my parents’ place again?! Hey-”

Before I could question her any further, Isabel suddenly got up and took a few steps back from the till with a cocky smirk.

“Places to be and things to do, adiós, mi amor! We’ll meet again,” she said, absconding the confitería with a spring in her step.

I tried to get to her, but she was simply too fast to catch up to.

And beside the empty teacups and the mess of crumbs littering the counter, Isabel’d left an oversized handful of coins on a napkin as payment.

Far too much payment for a box of cookies.

Some of it had better be for my patience.

Someday, she’d be the death of me.

Chapter Text

Two intersections upslope, there was a tavern that’d been part of the old quarter for far longer than any of us.

It’d been run by the same family five generations straight, and the current proprietor was a friend of my mother’s.

That being said, most of the time, he’d be in the kitchen, his old job as a baker for the town's Order garrison giving him the know-how to serve fresh bread and hot stew at just four coppers a meal - a godsend for a young, errand-running me, subsisting on nutritionally bereft leftovers and strong tea made in a soup kettle just so I didn't have to always top a little porcelain teapot up.

His wife would be the one running front-of-house, partnering her husband’s hearty meals with local wines she’d gone out of her way to stock in the cellar.

Quite often, she wouldn’t even let me pay, seeming to always have ‘the dregs of a usual bottle’ on hand to pour me half a glass of to accompany whatever was on the menu that day.

“Carissima mía, this is the first time I’ve seen you look so troubled.”

The cult of Bacchus was part of Emendeles long before the mamono came, an odd sect tolerated by the Order in the far reaches of their dominion.

One, particular Bacchanalia under the patronage of our new mamono queen, the women of the settlement were offered ‘communion with their true desires’ - monsterization, that is, for those who would partake from the queen’s goblet of their own volition.

Many withdrew out of fear - rumours from our time as a vassal of the Order were that the process would turn the unfaithful into a grotesque expression of their sins - there’d been tales of women given the bodies of snakes and centipedes for their ‘poisoned’ hearts as a result of them partaking of the cursed communion.

Not a certain older lady, though, whose curiosity more than anything, as she later told me, simply couldn’t stop her from living her life without trying a sip of wine that was worth selling her soul for.

“Francisco Romero Ortiz! Hello?!”

“Yes… why, haven’t you seen someone spend a little time thinking about nothing before, boss?”

I turned my head languidly to look at her, to which she sighed, exasperatedly, vigorously dragging along a stool with her to take a firm auntie-ly (not 'motherly,' she wasn't quite that) seat beside me.

The boss-lady Susana looked like she came out of an old fable - she had a pair of spiralling, caprine horns, tucked close to a head of shoulder-length, black hair.

Her eyes were still the light, mahogany coloured that I'd remembered them to be, but ever since 'that day,' her eyes seemed to have an ever so slightly luminescent gleam - she’d had her bodice altered to free her short, flowing tail, and she’d taken rather naturally to dressing in anasyrma (that is, pantsless) to show off her furred, hoofed legs, as the proud, satyros priestess she was always meant to be.

I spun a rose between my fingers that Isabel’d given me on her way into my confitería yesterday, careful not to touch the part that’d quite probably been in her mouth.

She’d been reading too many romance novels.

It was an Emendelesian tradition (to ‘exchange’ them, not the questionable ritual of holding them between your lips and giving said... lip-tainted flower to someone,) but I’d always wondered what people were expected to do with these after receiving these - roses wilted within the week. This one was already looking a little sad.

“Ah, so the topic of romance has finally gotten to Francisco the Serious Stone-faced Stoic himself?”

“Says who?”

“Says,” Susana said, enunciating every word to me, “a young man, holding a rose, deep in thought,

“All alone, looking at a flower like you’re waiting for it to speak! That’s who!?”

“It could be from home.”

“Then either you’re intending to give someone an old rose, or you’re trying to test the florist’s refund policy. And I know you’re smart enough not to try either.”

All of a sudden, Susana plucked the ageing rose from my hand - I wasn’t able to react in time, trying to snatch it back for a split second before I found myself wondering just why I wanted it back.

“Speak up young man. Who’s it for?”

“No... It, was for me.”

“Interesting…”

Susana was the one person no-one in town ever succeeded at fast-talking.

I could hear the corners of her lips curl up into a plotting smile - with the way the tips of her horns seemed to point towards my eyes, I felt like the devil was looking right at me, knowing just how she could corner people in conversation if they weren't careful with how they chose every next word after challenging her.

“Care to say from who?”

“... Not other than that it’s from… some… girl,” I said, trying to avoid answering her question directly.

“... Wait here.”

The lady-boss stood up from her seat, not saying much as she abducted my rose with her behind the bar and went down into the tavern cellar.

All I could do was… steel myself for whatever test was awaiting me.

... Eventually, the sound of hooves tapping against the wooden floorboards brought my attention back towards the satyros, this time, wiping what looked like an old wine bottle down with a spare cloth.

With a gentle thud against the table, she placed the bottle in front of me.

With the way she seemed to treat it with extra care, it was probably a costly one.

“You’re a smart young man, Francisco. Why don’t you tell me what this is?”

Gently, I cradled the bottle in my arms, with one hand firmly on the neck and the other on the base.

At its top was a large cork that protruded out of the bottle, a metal cage fastening it tight to the neck - I could tell this was sparkling wine.

We’d only ever bring those out on important feasts because of how hard they were to make.

It was heavy.

As my thumb felt for the indent below the bottle to get a better grip on the bottle, I was surprised by how far in it was.

A bit of insider knowledge told me winemakers only ever used bottles with pits this deep on their best vintages - wines they expected to store and age to the point where grape sediment would coalesce in the groove formed by the dome at the bottom of the bottle.

I gulped, noting how brown the cork was, and how dust had collected in the spots where Susana had missed with her cloth.

I had my suspicions as to just what this was, but before I could ask, she dragged a lit candle on a dish towards me with a sly grin.

She knew I knew that she knew I knew.

I stood the bottle on the table and brought it just a little nearer to the flame.

Behind the dark glass was a sea of clear, amber-coloured wine, with some little flecks floating around that’d begun to turn the wine slightly cloudy.

“If I’m not mistaken… this is aged espumante ,” I murmured, almost fearful to make my conclusion.

But I was enraptured.

“This… has to be one of the rarest bottles in your entire cellar, Susana,” I stuttered, voice shaking with excitement and horror in equal measure.

Dragonian négociants would brawl over getting their hands on a case of these.

“Hmm. Turn it around?”

I gingerly rotated the otherwise featureless bottle.

On the other side of the bottle were faded sigils of Bacchus, drawn by hand with white ink.

“This,” Susana said, prying the prized bottle away from me, “was the first vintage I made after becoming a satyros.”

“It was made with tithe grapes presented to our coven on that Bacchanalia - consecrated, with the mana of our dear papillon monarch - and since then, not a single person, but me, has ever been fortunate enough to taste this wine.”

The scheming proprietress cradled her chin with her gloved hands, looking straight into my eyes.

“That’s right, my little confitero. This isn’t just any wine, this is the stuff of old fables. Satyros wine.”

The lady-boss was still the lady-boss, but just how much monsterization had changed her personality, I couldn’t gauge.

I was reminded of her horns, her hooves, and how the pupils of her eyes seemed to ever so slightly dilate when I got her attention.

Something like fear crossed my mind for a moment as I realised I wasn’t dealing with ‘old’ Susana anymore. I never was.

“Let’s make a deal, Francisco.”

My mind wasn’t muddled anymore, and I started to take the situation at hand seriously.

I needed to survive, and I needed to outsmart her to get my hands on that bottle.

I told myself I wouldn’t be fooled into a mistake.

“... Speak.”

“Francisco... Romero... Ortiz,” she mused, reading my name out like she was savoring the sound, licking her lips.

“I’ll make a bet with you. Give me three questions. If I can’t figure out who your mystery admirer is within three questions, this bottle is yours for free - consider it a gift for being a lifelong patron of my tavern.

“But. If I do manage to figure out who they are… I will personally send an invitation to them to a candlelight dinner, and I’ll also tell them that I’ve invited you, too.

"Of course, you deal with the consequences of not showing up if you choose not to accept my hospitality gracefully.

“I’m a torturer like that, darling,” Susana said, sneering at me.

“... Ask away. I have nothing… of… great… importance to hide, Susana.”

“I’ll know if you’re lying.”

“I won’t be,” I said, putting as much confidence as I could into making myself look determined.

“Very well then,” the satyros sighed, leaning back in their chair to take a more comfortable position to start interrogating me from.

“First question. Do I know them?”

“Yes. Any more information, you’ll have to ask more questions. Just two left, Susana.”

“Hmm hmm. Second question then. Do they visit your confitería often, Francisco?”

Shit. I wasn’t sure how to answer that question without revealing too much about myself, but I didn’t want to hesitate for too long either. Not under that gaze.

Too many people visited my confitería to count anyway - I had tourists come back every summer to take my cookies back home, and I’d point them in the direction of Susana’s tavern to help her business.

“I… suppose they do. Yes and no.”

“Yes and no, yes and no… when a lady asks you a question, you ought to answer it with a bit more conviction, young man… but, I will accept your reply.

“After all, my question has served its purpose,” Susana said ominously, a hand propped against the side of her head, ruffling through her hair.

I felt like I’d gotten the message that I was doomed to fail from the beginning.

“Final question, then, Francisco… and I want you to give me a good answer this time, yes?”

I knew I’d already lost this one. I just sheepishly nodded at her to ask away and deliver the coup de grâce.

“Were they your first love, dear?” Susana asked, smiling, almost mockingly with a cooing tone of voice.

Sigh.

“Yes… I- I suppose in a sense, yes. Whatever.”

Well I wasn’t wrong now, was I. If you counted that ‘promise’ I made to her. Wait, how’d she-

“Awww,” the satyros replied, holding one of my hands in a false gesture of condolence.

“So? Who is it, then? You said you could guess exactly who,” I pouted, in a final act of defiance.

“If I remember correctly, when you first started to work in the confitería as a young, bucking teen, you had your sights set on the minotaur girl living just a few blocks down from your place.

“One time, we two happened to be at your place at the same time for coffee, me with your family, and hers with her own - and don’t think I didn’t notice how you were looking at her, trying to strike up your very first conversation with a girl you fancied… I remember it all like yesterday.

“And, if I remember, she seemed pretty happy to talk to a dashing lad like you, too, so handsome in your white apron and your new black shoes…”

“Please. Don’t say any more,” I weakly pleaded.

“You remind me a lot of my husband, that’s why I figured I might be able to guess who your interest might be… you seemed to have a thing for furred thighs and ample bosoms. I saw a pattern.”

I slammed a fist on the table in defeat. I could feel my face burning up at having my god-aunt, lecture me about romance.

And I felt like beating myself up for even agreeing to the bet in the first place.

I wouldn’t know what to do if I really had to sit down for dinner alone with that... dumb bull.

I’d actually have to teach her table manners. Provided I didn't have to teach her how to use a fork first.

“Now, if I remember, her name was María. She’s the daughter of the pharmacist three blocks down on the other side of the street. A beautiful and accomplished physician, just like her mother…”

“Yeah. María’s a close friend, I guess," I replied defeatedly.

"She comes to buy a box of cookies for her family every Saturnal-

- Wait.”

A bright flash of thought stopped my wallowing in its tracks.

“You said minotaur, right?”

“Yes, she’s a… haku-taku, isn’t she? They’re minotaurs, aren't they?”

Oh. Oh my god, she didn't figure it out.

I tried to hold in the excitement bubbling out from the bottom of my heart, but I couldn't help but laugh out loud at the unexpected victory.

“Then you’ve lost the bet, Susana! She’s not the person who gave me the rose! You’ve guessed wrong!

"Ahh, you were close, jefe. The way you described her, I almost thought you were talking someone else.”

I snatched back my rose, and I shifted the treasured bottle of satyros-made wine a little more towards me, away from the claws of the devil herself and towards my sweet, sweet embrace.

“Oh well. A promise is a promise, Francisco…”

“I’m glad you agree, Susana. Thanks for my new family heirloom.”

The lady boss cleared her throat, and I started to get a little self-conscious about acting a little too wildly for my usual self.

“Now. I’ve asked three questions. I won’t ask any more.”

“... Correct.”

“But that doesn’t mean that I can’t make another guess, hmm?

After all, you agreed that I’d win the bet if I could guess who your secret admirer was after asking three questions, and simply that.”

“Because if it isn’t María.

I know of exactly one other minotaur with a similar background, that fits all the questions I’ve asked,

- That’s also, stupid enough to chase someone as dense as you, young man.”

My heart sank.

“It’s the daughter of the Degracias, Isabel, isn’t she?”

“Okay, fine, look,” I rushed to say, exasperatedly, “this isn’t anything new, Susana.”

“Isabel has been pestering me ever since we were kids. There aren’t any serious feelings between us, and we’re both of real, adult age, and she - she’s a realm-renowned lady, she’ll meet adoring fans and- and dashing knights out in the field, and-.”

“Shh. Francisco, do you hear yourself speaking?”

“What?!”

“You kept a ‘dumb’ rose a ‘dumb’ girl gave you and now you’re getting all worked up over ‘dumb’ things.”

“Why, it’s almost as if something has made you ‘dumb.’ You’re not yourself. You’re flustered for once, boy.”

I just kept silent, not wanting to dig a hole for myself any further.

“It’s honestly as simple as she likes you, always has. And clearly you do, too, to some extent, Francisco.”

“How, boss? I always imagined my partner would be someone wise and beautiful and smart. Like María I guess.”

“You guess, but finding the answer to that question never occurred to you, did it.”

“Young man,” Susana said, sighing, “one doesn't always find the answers to the questions they have in life.”

“Sometimes the answers wait to find their own questions. Don’t throw away a key until you’ve tried it on every lock.

"Everything is worth at least a try, wouldn’t you say."

"You’re a smart man, but being a little more open could help.”

“I don’t know, boss…”

“Then you could start by finding out, Francisco,” the satyros said with a gentler, instructive tone, “and, I’ll tell you what - I’ll bequeath this dear bottle to you on one condition.

"In fact, I’d always intended to give it to you someday.”

“Really?” I asked.

“Really,” she answered.

“On the condition that you pick up your courage. Come here tomorrow with Isabel. And you open that bottle then and there for the both of you to enjoy.

"If anything, it’ll be a nice dinner to reminisce over.”

“But-”

“No buts. I’ll pair the wine with some nice food. And you’re not paying this time either.”

Chapter Text

“Emendelesians are lazy,” - a fact and a common complaint (or point of pride, depending on who you ask) by visitors to the city, be they merchants from the crown cities wondering why the mayor’s office was “closed for the day” at high noon, according to the sign hung up on its old wooden doors, a coating of dust collecting on top of the wording.

Of course, when said merchants returned to the town tavern to figure out just what was going on, from the next best person they could ask, Susana, her matter-of-fact answer was for those folks to simply go into the mayor’s office and wake him up. The door to the mayor’s office wasn’t locked in the first place, and “trespass” was a strange word in a town where people didn’t bar up their homes.

The point was, the clocktower bell in the old quarter only rang half the day. Six bells from the sunrise until the afternoon, then another six bells from then until dinner - at which point the bellkeeper simply went home, because there was no real need in Emendeles to keep track of time after that.

But how I wished the last song of the town bells told me I was done toiling for the day.

Or for anything to interrupt the deafening silence in the tavern, punctuated by the occasional chew, slurp and grunt which appeared to be Isabelese for “you have to try this.”

Between the both of us, there were several, large portions of dishes Susana had made that were typically only made for celebrations and important festivals. And of course, there were candles.

White candles, and a vase of red roses, as if the boss-lady had them put there to sneer at me even though no one else was in the old tavern at this hour except me and Isabel.
The other tables and chairs had been moved away beforehand to create an uncomfortable amount of space around us. 

Yes. Yes I knew she was enjoying the paella .

Half of the iron dish was already empty, the lopsided carnage facing her side of the table.
She had gestured with her spoon towards the dish several times over to tell me to eat, Fran, eat (but ‘with feeling’ this time or something.)

And there were broken, saffron-colored grains stuck on the side of her mouth that she hadn’t noticed.

This was a woman of twenty-one summers?

“Nuh-uh, Fran -gulp- you don’t even get how good thish ish.”

“No, I think I do.”

“No you don’t.”

I’d envisioned perhaps opening the bottle of satyros wine that I’d gotten from Susana (who had put me in this position, and cooked for it, to be fair) with my family or metaphorical future son on a more special, solemn occasion, and do the type of “showing off” only a father could do.

But right now, the only person admiring me was my own reflection, staring back at me through a glass filled with amber-colored regret. And through that, Isabel gorging herself on our candlelight-dinner-turned-meal-for-one.

And the yellow crumbs still stuck on her cheek. She still hadn’t noticed.

Qué asco. I couldn’t bear it.

I picked up her unused napkin from the table and reached out to brush the side of her face.

“-gulp- Fwanshishco, were you about to-”

“Just let me do it. You’re ruining my appetite.”

She made one of those smiles again. The kind that told me she was about to torture me. 

Part of me pulled back on instinct just from seeing her lips curl and cheeks flush the same way they did all those years ago, just before she’d try to scoop me up in her arms and lift me off the ground and publicly execute my dignity.

“Fran~”

“What?”

“Who knew you were a lover-boy like that, mi amor~ ”

“You- you’re an actual child, Isabel. You eat like one and you talk like one.”

“But I don’t remember you being this daring when we were little… oh, mi amor, has time deepened your feelings for me? Are you finally coming around?”

“N-no.” I stuttered, with a mild blush on my face I didn’t notice creeping up on me.

“No? Reeeallly? My shy, blushy-wushy Fran?” 

“I said, no…” I put the napkin in my hand back down on the table, fingers pressing down on it into the wooden surface, just to feel the texture of something to distract myself.

The minotaur put down her spoon and leaned forward, looming towards me and across the little wooden table with a toothy grin.

“Mi cielo, vida, mi amor Fwancisco Romewo O-”

“Shut up.”

“Francisco?”

“Cállate, Isabel, I’m tired. Please.”

“Fran…?”

Now the old tavern was silent.

I sighed, staring towards the half-finished plates of food on the table.

My eyes continued to linger on a spoon in a bowl of stew on the table - just so long as I didn’t need to look at Isabel.

I could tell she was looking at me.

But I didn’t want to see how she was looking at me.

“Please, just… we’re not children anymore, Isabel. Stop acting like this.

“Can you…”

Could she what? Not be Isabel?

Now I found myself looking for words to bury my outburst in.

Anything to continue the conversation so I didn’t need to feel guilty listening to whatever she said next in response.

I told myself I suffered Isabel. I suffered her making jokes at my expense, and I suffered having her around me instead of having anyone else better to keep my company.

She couldn’t be anything else but the brat living two blocks down.

“I’m… I’m sorry, Fran.”

I pretended not to hear the slight quivering in how she said that.

I sighed and looked up at her, only to see that she was doing the same - looking towards the half-empty paellera , her gaze now avoiding me entirely.

It was only now that I got to truly, actually just take a look at where we were and what we were doing, instead of just continuing to silently harp over how much I didn’t want to be here.

We were in Susana’s tavern, the lingering smell of cooking and of wine and old wood in the air, the “we’re open” sign hanging on the door now facing inwards, the windows flanking it showing the dim, empty sloped streets outside.

In the middle of the small establishment was the small table that we were seated at - a white tablecloth with floral embroidery had been used to set the table (or, in fact, two tables, but where they had been joined together was concealed by the tablecloth) and make it look a little more appropriate for a candlelight dinner.

The white candles on the left side of the table (from my side) weren’t the usual kind I saw around the tavern, either.

These were stocky, about the diameter of my wrist, designed to burn with a small, clean flame for hours.

The red roses in the little clay vase, sitting beside the open vintage of wine, were cut at different lengths, so that the fresh blooms didn’t squish into one another, and could be appreciated while fully open.

The night was quiet and quieter still where the both of us sat.

All that disturbed the silence was the faint sound of both of us breathing.

“... Isabel?”

I called out to her. She had been quiet for one too many moments without saying anything.

… Her gaze flickered to me, and her lips parted, as if to say something, before they braced back, as if to hold something in.

“Fran…”

Isabel sniffled.

Before I could say anything to apologise or comfort her, the minotaur stood up from her seat - hesitating at first, but each further step she took away from the table, she moved faster, turning away and bolting towards the entrance of the old tavern.

“Isabel-”

-SLAM-

The door nearly flew off its hinges as she yanked it to the side and ran downslope.

I saw her face.

She didn’t seem sad. Or hurt.

She seemed scared.

“Isabel!”

I stood still in my chair for a good few seconds in shock from it all before I ran after her.

I flung the door open and instantly felt a chill from the nighttime breeze - beside the door was a coat rack with both our coats on it - my fingers reaching out for hers first - then to mine - then back to hers before swearing out loud and snatching my own coat off the rack and flinging it over my shoulder.

There weren’t that many lanterns out on the sloped streets of the old quarter. The lights of every home and shophouse had since been blown out, leaving the streets in nothing but the dim glow of the moon.

As far I could look ahead in my section of the road, Isabel was nowhere to be seen.

All I could hear were the rapid clacking of hooves against the stone pavement somewhere in the distance, but that was enough.

I ran downslope just to follow and hope that I could eventually catch up to her.

Stupid girl.

“Isabel! Come back!” I shouted out, voice breaking in a way it hadn’t for a good while.

There was a good reason why the kikimora lady from the general store came out to scold children running along the sloped roads of the old quarter - it was dangerous, no matter if you were running uphill or downslope. Even I was having trouble running at any faster a pace than I was already moving at - if I just let my legs go, I’d probably trip on the uneven, rock-paved streets.

Let alone hooves?

-CRASH-

The hollow sound of something wooden being slammed with force.

The sound of hooves hitting the pavement stopped abruptly.

Shit.

As I turned the winding corner a little more downslope and a new section of the old quarter came into view, it had become clear what had happened.

Outside another shop, there was a stack of empty wine crates, the kind packed with hay, used to pack wine bottles a dozen at a time for trade in and out of Emendeles.

Which happened to be piled just out of view of someone running down the streets and making a blind, sharp turn.

Something or someone had run into them.

… I turned to look at the alley beside the shop, where Isabel was sitting on the ground, clutching the side of her face while crying silently.

“... Isabel? Are you…?”

The minotaur turned her face away from me.

I bent down, gently reaching for the side of her face, hoping that she hadn’t been hurt.

-SWAT-

Isabel nudged my hand away, the force from her deceivingly slender fingers strong enough to fling my arm right behind me.

I took a step back in reflex. Isabel looked up at me, not hiding the side of her face anymore.

There was a small patch of redness on the side of her face, probably grazed from her running straight into the empty wooden crates.

Her expression, sadness flickering to anger and just as quickly to worry, made me feel the worst I’d felt in my entire life.

“You’re… you’re a crybaby, Isabel…” - was all I could say, of all the things that made me feel the least like human filth.

I gently cradled the side of her face, careful not to let my fingers brush against the soreness.

“Fran…”

Isabel bawled.

Chapter Text

“WWAAAAHHH!! FRAN DOESN’T LOVE ME ANYMOHOORE!!”

Isabel sat on a wooden stool, bawling her absolute lungs out while a half-awake hakutaku physician dabbed her grazed cheek with a wad of cotton wool held between the tines of a pair of forceps.

Well, she wasn't just any physician.

She was the district’s sole physician.

… My ex. María.

There was a bit of a “struggle” to bring Isabel here earlier - it didn't matter what I said to apologise to or comfort Isabel as she just continued to tear her heart out, continuing to ignore me as she put her hands up to her eyes, facing away from me whenever I tried to take a better look at her.

Isabel. Please.  

At some point, her “crying sounds” began to get a little exaggerated, and despite guilt and worry still playing at my heart - I knew she was starting to mess with me. She had to be.

She always did.

Which, at least, gave me some leave to feel a little less bad right now.

Earlier, Isabel seemed to lean entirely limply on me as I helped her (hoisted, with great exertion) up from the ground and put my coat around her.

Or, I tried to. See, this woman was larger than I was. 

As much as the trope of “the guy putting his own coat around the girl and it sitting warm and oversized around her” happened in sappy romance fiction, reality loved to shoehorn comedy into inappropriate situations.

Meaning that my coat was a size smaller than hers, did not fit easily around her arms (and she didn't make it any easier, either, wrists fixed in bawling position), and after about a minute of trying to fiddle with the garment and figure out what to do before her lamentations attracted more unwanted attention, I just settled for tying my coat loosely around the her shoulders like a poncho and herding her towards the home of my nearest acquaintance.

“So. Care to explain what happened, Francisco?” María asked, eyes fixed on Isabel while talking to me.

“Not really.”

María was a hakutaku - a minotaur, just like Isabel (but it felt off-ish to say that.)  

Her legs were covered in the same white fur as her long, bushy tail, the strands ending in natural black highlights that drew the eyes to her glossy hooves. 

Her lineage was from the Mist Continent, and the tale of how her parents met and finally settled in Emendeles was a looong story.

She was beautiful, elegant, wise and well-mannered - everything Isabel wasn't - naturally, a younger, flour-stained Francisco fell for the pretty girl with exotic looks.

María’d been woken up from her sleep by the sound of Isabel wailing outside her apothecary-slash-home - the minotaur hadn't ever stopped crying (?) since the earlier incident.

From then until now spanned about fifteen minutes. I counted. With my pocket watch.

“Do you happen to have, like, anything in the back to stop children crying? Gripe-water? A drop of whiskey in a milk bottle?”

“Very funny.”

“It’s strange, Francisco. I’d always thought the two of you were made for each other, and yet the scene unfolding before me makes me all but certain otherwise...” María spoke dryly, putting the cotton wool and forceps back onto a tray.

“You’re certain now that we were never meant to be?” I scoffed.

“I’m doubly certain now that you’re horrible with women.”

María held Isabel’s hands, who by now had rested them down on her lap, sniffling while looking up at the hakutaku like a teary-eyed puppy.

“Does it still hurt, Isabel?” 

“It… it still hurts…” Isabel murmured in a low voice, gaze falling towards the ground.

“... Let me tell you something about us hakutaku, Isabel.”

“Hmm?” the minotaur responded languidly, little ears perking up before the rest of her followed.

“Hakutaku were made to be scholars and physicians - we can learn a lot about someone or something simply by touching them,” María remarked, gently running a thumb over a slightly dazzled Isabel’s palms.

Her hands moved up to the minotaur’s wrists, fingers feeling and measuring to take her pulse from an acupressure point.

“Right now… I can feel you’re deeply, deeply hurt,” María remarked, eyes shut in apparently meditative concentration.

“Mmh…” Isabel nodded, sulking.

I interjected.

“That doesn’t sound like a medical diagnosi-” / “Shh shh shh. Quiet.”

“Yours is a most terrible wound, Isabel. Invisible to the naked eye, yet running deep towards the heart… of course, someone like him-

María side-eyed me with a strange expression, one filled with both disgust and jealousy at the same time, keeping her almost storyteller-like cadence whilst facing me -

“- wouldn't be able to tell just how much this little red patch truly hurt inside.”

“Wouldn't you, Francisco? Hmm?”

I flicked my palm to the side. María made a point, but she was annoying and I didn’t want to acknowledge it any further.

“Ahh… but the irony of deep, hidden wounds like these, is that the person who caused them-”

Yes. Yes me, María, I got it.

“- is also often the only one able to close them.”

Now both of them were messing with me, with just enough plausible deniability to force me to play their game.

“Isn't that right?”

Isabel nodded eagerly. Her tail lashed once against the air.

“Alright. I get it. I shouldn’t have shouted at you, Isabel, I’m sorry.

“I was just… tired. Is that better?” 

Isabel responded to my apology with a single sniffle .

“... Isabel, dear. Close your eyes. Reach into your heart. Ask yourself, truly, what does he need to do to make it up to you?

“As a physician it will be my utmost responsibility to make sure that Francisco makes good on it. Hmm?”

Isabel slowly looked up at me, a sulky expression on her face that told me I probably wasn't going to like what I heard next.

“You…

… you need to kiss it better.”

snigger “Y-you need to kiss it better, Francisco,” María repeated, trying hard to keep a straight and decidedly angry face while addressing me.

“Really?” I asked in disbelief.

“R-really…” Isabel responded, sheepishly yet somewhat eagerly.

“Really.” María nodded, gravely.

REALLY?

“Ai shaid I’m showwy, Fwan, shtop it….”

I was going to pull Isabel’s cheek off of her, even if I had to do it physically, with my fingers pinched straight into the sides of her face where all of the butter from the cookies she ate went.

“I was worried about you, you stupid bull! Give me my coat and an hour of my life back!!”

“I’m sorry, Fran, stop shaking meehee…”

I let her shoulders go and took a while to catch my breath, winded from the whole debacle.

huff, huff “... What was that, Isabel…? Why’d you run off like that?! Do you have any idea-”

“I was afraid, Fran!”

Isabel rose her voice at me.

It caught me off guard. She didn’t ever shout back at me like that, not once in all the time I’d known her for.

“S-sorry, Fran…”

“N-no, I…”

…

“Ooookay, ciao, que dios te acompañe. My job is done here. Go have your little lover’s quarrel outside.

“I’m going to go back to sleep. Good night, Francisco. And good luck with the minotaur.”

"Lover's qua-"

“... Isabel?”

“Hmm?”

“Earlier you said you were… afraid? Afraid of what?”

Emendeles under the cover of night was a silent, yet not altogether eerie place. It didn’t feel like you were all alone amongst closed shops and snuffed lanterns - rather, it felt like you had the town all to yourself, and all the time in the world to see the little things that passed by your gaze in the midst of the daytime rush.

The both of us were slowly walking back uphill, not really sure of where we were headed - back to Susana’s tavern, perhaps, where a half-finished meal and Isabel’s coat still awaited us. Maybe.

“... You know. That you wouldn’t let me mess with you anymore.”

“That’s it?” I asked, somewhat nonchalantly, still hesitant to take her words at anything else but face value.

It wasn’t that I didn’t trust what she said, but that I’d never dealt with (never had to consider, I tell myself) the fact that her words held sentiment.

Isabel never meant anything “deep”. I’d learnt not to take her seriously at all when we were kids.

Or maybe I  was the one still stuck as a little boy running around the gardens of the Degracias’ estate.

“Well… that you wouldn't ever let me do it anymore.

It’s something I always look forward to doing when I come back home, you know. Fran.”

“Because you’re… you’re part of home. Home back in Emendeles.

I know you’re always there. And that I can always pester you. And that you’ll always entertain me when I return.”

“You always pester me, alright.”

Isabel chuckled. At least she sounded like she was her usual, cheery self again.

I hated seeing “sad” Isabel. There was something very wrong about seeing her be anything but loud and cocky.

“That’s why… that’s what I was scared of. That I’d lost that part of home.

“You mean more to me than you think you do, Fran. You know that?”

“... Isabel?”

I took another step forward before realising that Isabel had squeezed my hand tighter, standing still just beside me while looking up at the night sky.

“... It’s not nearly this starry in Lescatie.

Hey. Fran?”

My heart skipped a beat.

Isabel looked at me with a curious smile - one that whispered of mischief, but the look in her eyes, blue that seemed to make everything in the night sky glow brighter, said otherwise.

Said more than I was ever used to seeing.

“You know… I have a confession to make, Fran.” 

“... What is it, Isabel?”

“Hmm…”

“... Nevermind. You go first, Fran. Then I’ll tell you what my confession is.”

“Wh- you again with your…” antics. Isabel.

But this time, I held myself back from continuing to chide her right back.

I thought for a short while.

If there was anything that I always wanted to tell her, now that we weren’t kids anymore.

Anything embarrassing childhood secrets that didn’t matter anymore?

Well…

“... You, uh. Remember when… when I might’ve said that I’d marry you, when we were kids? That one time?”

“Ooooh. Of course I do, mi amor, ” Isabel leaned in, a gentle, yet smug smile on her lips.

I gazed a little away. I didn’t like being read. Especially not by Isabel.

Not right now when this time I could tell I was blushing a little, embarrassment and sheepishness welling up in me.

“Yeah…? Y-you know… my parents were kinda in on the whole bit, too. Said they didn’t mind if it really happened.

“... That you were a sweet girl. Our families were good friends anyway. That kind of thing.”

“Pfft. That isn’t a confession or a deep dark secret, Fran…” Isabel brushed off, blowing a raspberry at me.

“What do you mean that’s not a confession, Isabel?”

“Hey. My mom and dad were in on it too, you’re not special. You know what they got me to help out in the orchard?”

“What?”

“They told me… pfft - They told me I needed the work, because I need to be big and strong enough to be able to carry my husband back home.”

“Is that why you kept on trying to carry me back then?!”

“Yeah, could be…” the minotaur replied, twirling the tip of one of her hooves against the pavement.

”So. I have to ask, Fran.

Did’ja really mean it all those years back? When you said you'd marry me when we got older?”

“Why? Are you still waiting?” I retorted, with a pinch of confidence in the delivery.

“Well, a woman can dream.”

“A woman?”

“What, you said it yourself. We're not children anymore, Fran. So - listen up, mister Francisco,” Isabel perked up, raising a finger up to my face to make a strong point;

“Today onward, I’m not going to pester you like a little girl anymore!”

“H-huh? Just like that, you mean it…?”

I was in disbelief that the pebblebrained minotaur was apparently willing, herself, to stop the hijinks entirely as a result of all that had happened today.

“Yeah, I am. Really. Yup. You can count on it, Fran.”

Isabel’s tail swished left and right, and her ears wiggled in obvious mischief.

“So what are you going to do from now on then, miss Isabel?”

“Oh. Ehem. What I’m going to do from now on, señor? Well. 

“I’m going to pester you as a lady."

“A-as a lady…? How does that work?”

“Oooh, how does that work, mi amor…?”

The minotaur gestured with her finger for me to come closer - which I did, cautiously, arms folded, expecting some kind of prank any second now.

“... Well, you wanted to hear my confession, didn't you, Fran?”

“Yeah, duh. Come on, my half-secret has to count for something.”

“Mmh, okay. But you have to close your eyes, because this is kinda embarrassing, alright, Fran?”

Embarrassing? Tits-for-brains knew modesty?

Isabel cleared her throat. I shut my eyes.

“Okay. Here goes, Fran.”

…

First I felt the warmth of her breath beside my ear, the sensation doubly sensitive against the cool night air.

A ticklish tingle ran down my spine, feeling the light puffs of air from her giggling right beside me, like a young girl trying not to laugh while about to tell her friend a dirty secret.

My face instantly went beet-red, trying not to flinch first.

“Heyyy. Fran-cis-co?”

“G-get on with it, Isabel.”

“... I still think you're very, very cute, Fran.”