The water is not frozen over in the heart of the lake, though at the edges it remains thick enough there’s no swimming even for weather-tough people like ahzself and Setka. Patterns of freeze and thaw makethe ice shaded gray and white in waves, and beneath it, dark water ripples in strange shadows. It’s easy to be drawn into the rhythmic pattern, attention pulled toward the center of the lake. The sky above is clear, with only the most threadbare clouds so high they merely fade into the pale blue. And the sun is a cold white star, its light turning golden only where it glares against what remains of the snow.
“Will Maimeri leave with Lyric and Setka?” Setka asks quietly. She’s staring at the ice, too, her alliraptor green eyes darting eagerly for signs of catfish.
“A journey down the mountain is called for,” Rabbit hedges, aware she doesn’t mean a visit to Hehet for supplies.
Setka scratches her rear claws against the stiff mud frozen against the bank. There are pockets of melted water here and there along the water, especially in the southeast, and inside them, ripples make cute slurping sounds that remind Rabbit of sex.
“Will Maimeri go with Lyric?” The chimera cuts through ahz mincing.
Rabbit sighs. “Yes. Lyric asked.”
She nods. “And Maimeri won’t hurt Lyric.”
“Hurt him?” Rabbit echoes, surprised enough that ahz mother’s language slips out. It’s been good speaking it quietly with Lyric this winter.
“Setka sees what Maimeri does,” she says with a growl in her voice. “Bruises, bites. The—the distance in Lyric Aharté now. Lyric used to be…” Setka shakes her head in frustration. “Not so quiet. Silent, not quiet.”
Rabbit stares at her in growing horror. “Setka thinks Lyric is hurt? By—” Az puts ahz hand over ahz chest.
“Setka thinks…” She shifts both her clawed feet against the hard mud again. Her tail thumps. “Setka should be careful with Setka’s claws and teeth.”
Curling ahz fingers into a fist against ahz chest, az frowns at her, thoughts flying.
Az reaches with ahz other hand and rubs ahz thumb against the thick scales at her brow. They’re cool and smooth, and az turns ahz rub into more of a pet, soothing ahz and hopefully reassuring her. “Lyric does not seem hurt,” az says.
“Good.” She looks at ahz, allowing ahz hand to smooth down her scaly cheek. Her thin lip pulls back in a grimace. “This chimera does not know all the”—she waves a hand at ahz and back at the house as if to indicate ahz and Lyric—“things between two… adults.”
“But Setka worries.”
She nods decisively.
Rabbit lets ahzself smile very slightly. It feels like a wide-open admission to ahz. “Good. Maimeri is glad Lyric has friends.”
Setka answers with a very satisfied expression. It makes her look older, and Rabbit feels slightly manipulated. Az huffs, adding, “Setka is welcome to remain in the valley instead of returning to the crater city, if that is pleasing. Maimeri knows the fate of many chimeras in the Moon-Eater’s city.”
“Thank you,” she says, obviously delighted. Some of her scales on her neck seem to shift as if she can ruffle them like a preening bird.
“Turo would enjoy the company,” Rabbit adds, knowing it to be true. The old unicorn spends quite a bit of time plodding after Setka.
“Setka will stay with brother.” She says it tentatively while staring very pointedly out at the center of the lake.
Rabbit nods, thinking Lyric would allow the familiarity. Then Setka says even more quietly, “Brothers?”
Shocked, az whips ahz head down to stare at her. Those scales are still perked up, and Rabbit wishes az had some physical way of imitating it, because ahz skin feels like it’s trying to peel off ahz body. Not quite in discomfort but something much more slippery.
“Ready?” calls Lyric as he crunches down into the last crust of snow near the house porch.
Setka catches Rabbit’s gaze and az nods to her, and she nods back, so they’re nodding together like it’s an answer to Lyric and not each other.
“It isn’t about the equinox,” Lyric says cheerfully as they trek around to their respective quarter markers. They already left Setka in the east, ready at her rising marker. She’s sitting on it, perched like a tiny dragon. If Rabbit glances back az can see her, like a deposit of dark green granite on top of the gray stone. Lyric had gone over her job with her twice, and she’d repeated it twice back to make a solid four, Lyric’s favorite number. Then he’d kissed her head and promised it would feel very clear and balanced when they finished. She said, “Thanks given to brother,” and while Rabbit still trembled a bit internally at the epithet, Lyric huffed a laugh and smiled at her, agreeing.
“It isn’t a coincidence,” Rabbit answers, because Lyric insisted on waiting for today, though they’d been ready for a handful.
“Symbolically it is relevant, though the forces shouldn’t be affected in any noticeable way for it.” Lyric frowns thoughtfully as he climbs over a muddy bluff of dead grasses. “There are theories, philosophies really, about the motion of the sun and moon and stars making a difference for large-scale arrays especially, and even maybe how forces work over water, but they’re just unproven theories. Apostasy, even,” he adds softly.
“Against Aharté’s Silence?”
He nods absently. “It’s impossible to say, at least for me. The moon… Well, it moves, and so even if true Holy Silence requires… It doesn’t matter. And today, it can’t matter. I just wanted to see where the sun rose this morning, to confirm our best calculations.”
