Aelric slept for three chants. Then he woke, slipped on his tunic, and creeped out of his room. He could hear his father snoring in their room, and moved quietly out the door so as not to disturb them. The night was cool but not cold, and the moon was out and a soft shade of pink. It was the perfect kind of night.

Aelric had apparently drank too much water during dinner and he rounded the house and watered a tomato plant in the garden that was having a hard time growing.

Just as he was tying the draw strings on his trousers, he heard a yowl and something butting him agianst his leg.

He looked down and found a small black cat sitting on its haunches behind him.

“Oh hey, Cheese,” Aelric said. “Haven’t seen you around in a while. Catch anything good lately?”

He kneeled and tried to give Cheese a head scratch, but as usuall, the cat skirted around his fingers and sat again, her large eyes watching him. She never allowed anyone to touch her.

Cheese was one of five cats that patrolled the farm, and the best ratter. The other cats were born into the village from previous generations of raters, but Cheese had showed up one day several years ago and stayed. Aelric never saw her with the other cats, but they didn’t seem to have any problems. Sometimes when cats from neighboring farms strayed too far, he would hear their territorial disputes loudly in the night.

Every now and then, Cheese would appear at the family door with a trophy. Aelric’s family had no use for dead rats, but the body was always accepted, and Cheese was praised with attempted pats and sometimes even a cup of milk.

The only problem they ever had with Cheese was her exuberant affection for the thing that she was named after. Cheese loved his namesake so much that the family never bought or made cheese anymore, for the cat would use every feline trick she knew to get at the food.

“Well, good seeing, Cheese. I’ve got to go meet Feyna now.”

Cheese gave him an unimpressed squeak. But despite this, Cheese followed Aelric part of the way before heading back to the farm after they’d gone too far outside of its territory. Cheese was polite like that and did not wish to disrupt the other cats of the village.

The moon was bright and so the walk was pleasant and easy. Soon he reached their meeting spot, a tree that sat on a hill overlooking her family’s farm. She was waiting for him beneath the tree, the wool blanket already laid out.

She turned to him and smiled when he arrived. Despite being together for two years, he was once again awe struck by her beauty. Her hair fell red and molten against her shoulders, and her skin seemed to glow as golden as the wheat fields before harvest as she stepped into the moonlight from beneath the tree. Tonight he thought he saw something unusual in her eyes. But before he could ask what was wrong, she had wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him.

His lips melted against hers, and for these moments, all was right in the world. It did not matter that the village elders mistreated his family. It did not matter that another season of meager yields had come and gone. His lost friendship with Brint. None of it. None of it mattered at all in the presence of the love he shared with Feyna.

✣ ✣ ✣

After they had made love, they lay beneath the tree, wrapped in each other’s arms and the wool blanket. The tree's roots reached out around them, holding them like a third lover. He could feel the cool fall breeze on his face, and his chest tightened at the thought of winter. They would not be able to meet so freely like this in the cold months. Feyna’s parents would never allow Aelric to visit their home, though they knew them to be lovers. He was uncertain what his parents would think if he brought Feyna home.

Feyna hated straw mattresses and the many insects that came with them, which feathers didn’t. But the truth was, he knew he could not bring his lover home because his parents would feel obligated to offer their guest food, welcoming her. There was already barely enough for the three of them. Feyna would decline, of course, but his father was too proud and his mother too kind, to allow a guest into their home without sharing food.

Aelric wondered if there was something he could do. Perhaps he could start building his own home in his spare time. He was nearly an adult. Then, he would have a place for him and Feyna to be together. But if they ever lived together, that was only a step away from the next step. A step that he couldn’t think about. Not yet. He had to figure out many other things first. Obstacles that he did not yet have solutions to.

He felt her hand clasp his chin and turn it to the side, bringing his gaze to hers.

“Aelric,” she said, in a voice that suggested she had been speaking to him.

“Sorry…” he said hastily. “Were you saying something?”

Feyna sighed. “Where do you go in that thick skull of yours?”

“I was just thinking about some things…".

Feyna’s expression was serious, different from how it usually was, but a smile formed on her lips.

“Oh? And what was my giant monkey thinking about?”

Aelric frowned. He hated that nickname. Many in the village called him "giant monkey" or some variation of it, even Feyna, but she always did so with wry amusement and love.

“I was just thinking I might start prepping a home of my own,” Aelric said.

The smile dropped from Feyna’s face. “Just preparing,” Aelric said hastily. He never knew when he said something wrong around her. “Just making the plans. I’ll need a place of my own soon once I'm a man, a place with a roof that will even keep us warm in winter…”

“Oh, Aelric,” Feyna said. He had trailed off because her stern expression had suddenly turned sad. “You big fool.”

“I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “I didn’t mean it.”

He wasn’t sure what he’d said wrong, but he had not meant to hurt her. And then, suddenly, she was standing and slipping her dress back on.

“Are you leaving so soon?” Aelric said. Not all the stars had come out yet. She turned away from him, and after clasping the belt at her waist, she took one long, deep breath. Then she turned to him with tear-streaked cheeks and a grim determination in her eyes. From her dress pocket, she withdrew a glowing arcana chit that looked to be worth several hundred arca. She pressed it into Aelric’s hands.

“Take this,” she said. “I’m sorry, Aelric, I–I can't see you anymore.”

Aelric suddenly felt impossibly cold. “What? What do you mean?”

“I mean I can’t see you anymore, you giant monkey," she said with frustration and hurt as more tears streamed down her face. She was sobbing deeply now.

"Feyna… I-I don't understand."

"I'm sorry," she said again.

Aelric's mouth had gone completely dry. "Your parents?"

She shook her head violently, flinging tears from her cheeks. “No. This is my decision, Aelric. I turn marrying age this season, and I can’t be keeping a lover.”

“But…”

What about us? he wanted to say, but it was as if his heart had stopped beating.

“Oh, don’t look at me like that. You had to have known this was coming.”

The thing he dared not think about was unraveling. But how could it unravel if he never thought about it? If it never existed because he knew it could never be, it shouldn't hurt so much. But that was not the truth of it. He had always held the hope in his heart. Never daring to think on it directly, only the shape of it—holding it close, so close, closer than anything else, a secret kept deep in his heart. A secret to his mind no more.

“I thought we would marry,” Aelric said, his voice breaking.

The look Feyna gave him was one of pure disbelief, and that hurt him more than anything she could have said or done.

“Aelric, how could you think that?” she said. “How could you put that on me?” Her disbelief was turning now into anger. “I want a family, Aelric. I want my children to grow up strong and happy. Do you really think I’d make the same mistake your mother did? You have nothing because of what she did. How can you ask me to put my children in the same position?”

Aelric was too shocked for words. It was as if he had been stabbed. It was as if she was shredding him apart. She must have seen it too. She took his hands together and closed them around the chit. It was a common tradition to exchange arcas between young lovers. They had never done so.

“I’m sorry, Aelric,” she said.

Then, she was gone.