By the time they'd finished the turnip, which did, admittedly, gleam impressively, helped mediate the pudding dispute, Marianne suggested they make two puddings, one with six ingredients and one with thirteen, and let people choose, and supervised the hanging of thehighstreet garlands, it was late afternoon.
They ended up in Marianne's kitchen again, both exhausted and covered in the detritus of the day's adventures. Marianne made tea while Alaric collapsed in a chair, trying to catalog his various aches and pains.
"I hurt in places I didn't know existed," he admitted.
"That's what happens when you fight geese and gravity in the same day."
"Not to mention dancing on structurally unsound platforms."
"You were actually quite good at the dancing. Once you stopped thinking."
"I'm always thinking."
"I noticed. It must be exhausting."
"It's safer than feeling."
The words came out before he could stop them, too honest for the light conversation they'd been having. Marianne turned from the stove, studying him with those dangerous eyes.
"Is it really safer?"
"Yes."
"But is it better?"
"I don't know," he admitted. "I used to think so."
"And now?"
"Now I'm sitting in a provincial bakery, covered in pine needles and goose feathers, having spent my day polishing vegetables and dancing on broken platforms, and somehow I'm... content."
"Content?"
"Happy might be too strong a word."
"But you're smiling."
Was he? He touched his face as if he could feel the expression. "Am I?"
"You have been all day. Even when you were falling out of the tree."
"That was grimacing."
"That was definitely smiling. I think you might be enjoying yourself despite your best efforts not to."
"That's a disturbing possibility."
"Or a wonderful one, depending on your perspective."
"My perspective is currently affected by the probable head injury from this morning's fall."
"You don't have a head injury."
"How do you know?"
"Your eyes are tracking properly, your speech is coherent, and you successfully polished a turnip. Those are all good signs."
"You have medical training?"
