Yzara was not sure. She had never actually had cake. In the Glimmers, her mother had disdained sweets, informing Yzara that it softened the mind and body. Indulgence of any kind was not tolerated, for it was a slippery slope to poor self-control. If her mother were here, she would have rolled her eyes.
But her mother was not here.
“I do like it,” Yzara allowed.
Eustis beamed. “Your enjoyment is all that I want.”
Eustis was fair-haired, soft-jawed and possessed a surprisingly deep voice despite his diminutive stature. Unlike his father Edmund the Handsome, Eustis’s features were unremarkable. Plain, even. Yzara knew his looks would not have influenced her to drag out the inevitable, but his mannerisms gave her an uncommon jolt of guilt.
“If I may be so bold, then perhaps I might ask of three events where I shall endeavor to make you smile,” said Eustis. “At the end of those three events, you can take my heart.”
Yzara agreed and Eustis began with the cake.
“You can take my life when you have eaten with me, for I cannot eat as a tree.”
When Yzara ate a slice of cake with him, she discovered flavor.
“You can take my life when you have read with me, for I cannot read as a tree.”
When Yzara read with him, she discovered calm.
“You can take my life when you have danced with me, for I cannot dance as a tree.”
When Yzara danced with him, she discovered love.
The day before the competition for his hand in marriage, Arris walked barefoot through the Grove of Ancestors. He was almost always barefoot despite his love of fine material and even finer clothes. So often, he imagined he was floating through his own life, but every time he touched the ground, a part of his mind went quiet.
The Grove of Ancestors was more like a gallery than a grove. The tree tops knitted together, forming an elaborate living ceiling. The air smelled of rich earth and fallen plums. With every step he took, Arris sank up to his ankles in the gold, scarlet and emerald leaves that carpeted the ground. This early in the day, most of Arris’s relations were still asleep. A few of them even snored, and their rumbling sent a tremor through the ground.
The Grove was a reminder of where he would soon end up, but Arris loved it anyway. It was a reminder of both the extravagant and the ephemeral nature of the senses. His ancestor trees could tap into the exquisite beauty of collective roots, stories and memories, but they could not feel new things. Arris had often peppered his grandfather Argento with questions. What did it feel like to grow fruit? Could he sense life budding? Were roots ticklish?
But Argento merely shrugged his limbs.
“It is what it is,” he would say.
There was so much Arris wanted to know and experience in this first life. He wanted to collect so many memories that he would not feel the lack of making new ones.
If there was one thing Arris had perfected in his eighteen years, it was the art of savoring. No taste nor texture escaped his notice. Every color and cacophony drew the full weight of his attention. Occasionally his devotion to the senses bewildered his family, like when he turned thirteen and decided to abstain from clothing for several months to appreciate the wind on his skin. Or when he went a week without salting his food to appreciate the mineral’s subtle power more fully.
Arris the Strange, the court called him when they thought he was not listening. “Arris the Appreciative,” he would have said. But no one asked his opinion on the matter.
Arris made his way to Argento the apple tree. Argento’s fruit was odd. The apples changed every year. Sometimes they tasted of custard, but the skin looked oddly knotted and gray. Sometimes they tasted of salt, but the skin looked burnished and red.
“’Tis a reminder of life’s surprises,” Argento liked to say.
Arris knocked gently on the bark. Gleaming in the boughs were pearlescent apples. They were lovely, but they also smelled faintly of rot.
“I heard you wished to see me, Grandfather,” he said.
The tree shook and a gruff, familiar voice rasped: “What is this nonsense about a competition!”
“It is not nonsense, grandfather,” said Arris, keeping his voice measured. “It is, to put it simply, my very last chance.”
“You’re like your father,” grumbled Argento. “He was a dreamer.”
“Heisa dreamer,” said Arris. “He still dreams because he is still quite happily experiencing his first life. I wish only for the chance to experience the same.”
“You’ve had several chances, from what I gather. A girl from the Ulva Wylds, another from the Vale. I believe this latest broken engagement was with a lady from the Famishing! What was wrong with any of them?”
