The cosy and dimmed mess hall is merry with roasted boar and laughter.

Long tables groan under cider jugs, smoked fish, and ordinary Polish apples that will never taste as good as the marzipan ones Arkion remembers: one perfect bite from a childhood autumn before the fruit rotted overnight.

White silk curtains drift from the rafters. Hidden fans brush the fabric against necks, setting the mood.

Eysin sits wedged between Arkion and a wall of noise.

Across the hall, the artist—Valen Rozenbäer tunes a silver-stringed kantele the size of a small boat. Charcoal dress, hair twisted up with a plain wooden pin.

She still lights the stage the way only people who have never been hungry can.

Valen begins.

The first note lands warm, honey-thick in the breastbone.

The second makes half the room forget their legs.

The third turns dancers to wind, to fire, to everything beautiful anyone here ever lost.

Valen slips offstage. The remaining musicians ease into something looser, made for background instead of attention. The hall exhales, and the noise level climbs back to ordinary levels of plates and cider.

Ten minutes pass.

Arkion feels a cold hand at the back of his neck, Valen drops into the empty space to his left. He offers the other half of the hug in return with a hi.

Eysin notices the added company, and then finds something urgent in the scraps on her plate.

Valen attempts to speak to him, but the music climbs a notch. Sighs, leans closer again right in his ear, tugging at his trimmed face hair, “You got rid of that hideous thing.”

“I was smuggling birds in it.”

Valen leans back a little. Seems confused and sceptical, “were you? You’ve still got some left in your face.”

“It’s my only keepsake from the trek,” Arkion winks at her.

Cassius, across the table, is mid-argument with Morris about something involving a fork. Neither Valen nor Eysin is introduced. Too loud, too far, not the moment.

“How’s the elbow,” Arkion asks. Not really a question—a checked box.

“Barely remembers it happened.” She rolls her wrist once to prove it. “You?”

“Lake Baikal to Reval, Reval to Dago. I’m allowed to look like something dragged me the whole way.”

She studies him a beat too long and doesn’t say what she was going to.

The band bids the room for a dance in three chords and a flourish. Something shifts in Valen’s face under it.

“I need an hour,” she says. The music chose a dumb time to go quiet for a sec, anyone at the table must have heard it, “Come visit the troupe room.”

The band blasts their chorus. Arkion feels Eysin chuckling at the absurd replique.

Valen looks intently at Cassius (a complete stranger to her), shaking her head slow with unbelieving eyes—that came out wrong.

Arkion shoulders her gently, “could a note handle it?”

Valen looks down, shakes her head, then leans back closer to speak quieter, “This one needs a room, not a message.”

He studies her face, “an hour,” he grumbles, then a white approaching projectile draws his attention.

A crumpled napkin sails across the table—Cassius, wrist-flick, aimed with total confidence. It bounces off Eysin’s collarbone. She catches the rebound on reflex and sends it back harder than she means to; it lands dead center in his empty plate. They have a muffled chuckle about it.

Just as Arkion turns back to face Valen—

Valen is looking at him with a weird, clever look. “I see,” she says.

“You see?” Arkion tilts his head.

She sees his slightly flustered look—a faint blush in his cheeks that wasn’t there before—maybe cider, maybe the girl sitting next to him. Arkion sits straighter than she remembers, a little puffed up even. It’s confidence she’s looking at. Cassius throws napkins at the girl like it’s an old game between them. Arkion’s old buddy Morris laughs without checking who’s watching. Nobody’s minding their manners.

“I see…” She mumbles, glancing that girl Arkion so snugly sits next to. A face Valen could swear she’d seen before. The face that stopped looking at her way minutes ago, arrested by the plate, Cassius, Morris, the window behind them, anywhere but here. A flinch dressed up as good manners. Something old and tired in her answers before she can think better of it—then releases it with a short sigh. Valen looks back at the faint grey now threaded through Arkion’s temples, at the weight the long trek left on his face.
“My ask is not-not urgent,” Valen sighs, “but… You deserve the rest.”

“Not-not urgent. But please, for now, join the…” Arkion looks at the table, to see if they’ve got anything special still left on it—not really, “rounds anyway?”

Valen stands, presses a quick kiss to his cheek. “My ears are burning, I need to get out from here. And you—Sleep, Arkion. Actual sleep.” Then she’s threading back through the crowd, gone.

Eysin gulps her mulled wine like medicine.

Arkion leans back closer to her, a light shoulder nudge. He’s back.

“She asked you out before I could make a move?” Half joke, half not so much.

Arkion snorts, “you know what, I’m not so sure?”

Eysin turns away slightly, holding on to her empty cup.

Arkion pokes her rib, “need a pacifier? No, it wasn’t going to be a date.”

“Just give me more of this.” She hands the empty cup to him.

He can’t tell whether she’s bitter—because she is smiling, too.

He sniffs, raises an eyebrow, finds the right jug, pours the last half-glass. Hands it back to her, “I’ll take you on a date, though, how about that?”

“Okay?” She takes the cup, holds it near her mouth, but doesn’t really feel thirsty anymore.

“Come help me wrangle algae tomorrow,” he says.

*

Later, in the washroom, all tile and soft lamplight, Eysin hides in a stall, waiting for whoever just entered, to leave.

There’s a new scent in the air. Orange blossom, amber and expensive. Unmistakably, Valen.

Water runs. Runs longer than necessary.

Then something strangles under it. It’s over almost before it starts. Not crying, exactly. Something working very hard not to be.

Eysin waits it out, counts tiles, mind locked on the big plan for tomorrow: wrangling algae with the pretty guy who smells like a greenhouse. When the water and feelings finally go quiet, Eysin eases the latch—except leaving without washing her hands, in front of this classy disaster, feels somehow worse than the possible awkwardness of revealing herself as a witness. So Eysin goes to the sink. Eyes down to ignore the mirror. Soap, water…

“You can stop pretending you didn’t hear that.”

Eysin looks up. Valen’s mascara, run clean to the jaw, one long black smear like something clawed at her.

Fire. Something’s on fire. Do you need—

Whatever her face does with that thought, it isn’t fast enough to hide.

“I’m fine,” Valen says flat, before anything gets asked. She grabs a paper towel, dabs, checks the mirror, finds it insufficient, tries again harder.

Eysin stops her tap, “I wasn’t going to—” She’s ready to walk out… As soon as she could get access to some paper towel.

“Weren’t you.” Valen gives another pass at her jaw. “You’ve had that thankless, braced look on you all night.” A short laugh, no warmth in it. “Whatever they’re giving you here—the room, the welcome, him—you haven’t earned a second of it.”

Eysin gulps quick. The intent underneath these words stings. She’d like to grab and squish that jaw. Doesn’t trust her wet hands not to shake if she tried. A sharp sigh, instead, “I’m just a student. Like I’d done anything to you—”

Something in Valen’s face catches. Not softer, exactly, but the anger loses its aim. He’d hear about this eventually. He’d hate it. She balls the paper towel, places it in the bin underneath the sink as gracefully as serving macarons to aristocratic kids.

Honey smile, honey voice, “this one’s occupied,” Valen says, already back to the mirror. “Troupe business. Go find your own.”

Eysin sniffs, gives up on gaining access to towels, and dries her hands in her hair as she takes her leave.

*

The next afternoon the greenhouse is purple-lit and quiet.

Arkion is wrist-deep in green sludge, harvesting the hobby spirulina to press the algae into tiny edible pellets.

Eysin sits on an overturned crate. Her task was to offer company and witness competence.

She’s been quiet.

Valen’s encounter still pokes her ears: this one’s occupied—this one’s occupied—this one’s occupied—

Maybe this is all it is. A week in a locked house with the occasional company to an occupied man. Occupied, but still kissed her goodbye two years ago and sent letters that stopped. Who sent one last letter to which he never received an answer.

The occupied man who’s probably too good to be true anyway.

Arkion notices her fresh haircut. Must have done it this morning.

“New cut?” he asks to break the ice.

Eysin straightens up, tries to keep her voice light. “Date and all. The least I could do is show up like a civilized man… Woman, right?”

Arkion chuckles, “looks lovely.”

He stops speaking for a while while cleaning up his hands a little to get back to pressing the fresh load into pellets. He gives a handful of completed pellets to Eysin, “those won’t taste like apples, but are ten times as healthy, you can trust me on that one.”

Eysin tastes one with careful reservation. Not bad enough to grimace, but it does make her think of apples to neutralize the taste.

She smiles to herself, almost whispers, “here’s a silly idea…” Then speaks up, “wanna go score some marzipans when you’re done here?”

Arkion presses the lid of the pellets and snorts, “silly idea indeed…”

She lifts one shoulder, eyes not quite laughing.

“That would be a three-day hike under an irritated swarm… For apples that rot in a week.” He shakes his head, almost smiling, he pulls the lid up and the machine automatically tilts so the fresh pellets roll onto the drying plate, “silly. Very dangerous. Cute joke.”

The refusal lands like a stone on her shoulders. Not so upright anymore.

“Half-joke,” she whispers. “The other half already has her boots on.”

Arkion gets the next load ready, pulls the lid on.

It’s quiet for a while.

Just the soft plop of pellets and the low hum of the tanks.

Arkion works. She watches purple light play across his shoulders, across hands that used to correct her stance, that wrote letters she memorized. Letters among which the last came with a serious proposal.

And he sighs, eyes wandering around the neglected greenhouse, as if looking for vacant time, or ideas on how to fill it. He’s supposed to sit down with Gen before she gets out of the house. They were supposed to go over some stuff on the oncoming Anomaly Mission, though, he’d been doing this the entire last week as he had nothing better to do—until he heard she was here. Now…

He pulls the last press.

Decision made.

“7A basement door. Twenty-three past twenty-three.”

She straightens up again—not just her back, her face, her eyes. Even her hair looks a ton fresher all of a sudden, “Od—Oddly specific time…”

“All time is specific,” Arkion offers a wink and a warm smile, “the trees are quite a way from here, though. So, pack for three, maybe four days outside.”

She sparks up. Now she wants to laugh. Wants to cry. Wants to ask are you serious and why me and did you mean it all at once.

Instead she grins, wobbly and bright, and whispers in full approval a happy, “okay.”

Somewhere high in the rafters a single lace panel rustles like it just heard the best gossip of its life.

*

The ēfenmete turns feral.

Cassius—currently orbiting a slightly higher plane—has brought a single enormous wheel of something that smells like grace left too long in the sun. He’s losing a noble fight with a dagger.

He nods at Arkion without pausing. “Offer her some cheese! It’s basically confession in dairy form!”

He leans in. “Also—my door’s open tonight. Brought something special from the monastery. Real vision quest material.” A knowing grin.

“Raincheck,” Arkion says. “Headed to the Orchard.”

Cassius slips him a small pouch anyway. “Ah, gonna see if you can score some Marzipan. Nice. But still—for the road. Bison dung shrooms. Best on an empty stomach, sunrise view recommended.” He waggles his eyebrows. “Lighthouse, too?”

“We’re a bit old for the Lighthouse, Cassius.”

“Nobody’s ever too old for the Lighthouse.”

Arkion doesn’t take the bait. “Morris and the guys around there this week?”

“Oh, no-no, they’re at the Temple.” Cassius cuts a small piece of cheese, entirely unaware he’s just handed Arkion the one piece of information he actually needed.

Arkion steals that corner, offers it to Eysin.

She takes it off his fingers, and neither hand quite pulls back in time—half a second of warm skin and cheese and nobody mentioning it.

The cheese itself is nothing special. What she can’t stop noticing is the rest of it—Cassius elbow-deep in his wheel, a jug passed down without anyone asking, the room folding her in like she’s always sat here. She leans into it before she decides to.

She still hasn’t come all the way down from the couch. He turned down two or three days of the whole house for this. For her. Flattering enough that she wants to be careful with it.

Under that, quieter: letters are easy to be kind in. She doesn’t know yet what he’s like when it costs him something.

The band strikes up something with more bounce than the last set.

“One song,” Eysin says, tipping her head at the floor. “Just to watch.”

“One song,” he agrees, and doesn’t move from beside her.

They watch from the edge while the dancers stomp through something old and half-broken with syncopation. When it ends, loud and pleased with itself, the band doesn’t rest—just slides straight into the next.

Eysin grabs Arkion’s hand and drags him into the circle.

The music explodes into stomping thunder.

Bodhrán like war drums.

Someone sawing a kantele drunk on cider and fury.

Tarantula.

Old shanty gone wild—festival fever, conquest, plenty, booty. The room roars the chorus:

Stomp so hard the floorboards turn to waves,

make the house a ship, the ship the sea!

Dance like curtains watch and laugh and praise,

like every ghost in lace is drunk on thee!

Eysin grabs Arkion’s hand and drags him into the circle.

They vanish: tramping, spinning, sweat and laughter and cider steam.

Every turn she loses him for three heartbeats and finds him again, reaching.

The rhythm builds, wilder, faster, until nobody’s dancing with just one partner anymore—hands catch whoever’s nearest, spin them, let go, catch the next.

Then mid-spin, mid-collision, Arkion catches her hand and doesn’t let go. He pulls her out, through the edge of the circle, away from the music still climbing.

She’s breathless, hair stuck to her temple, laughing before she’s sure why.

He leans close through the noise.

“Time,” he says against her ear.

*

They separate—each to their own space to grab packed gear.

Twenty minutes later they meet at the 7A basement door. Zerk armor laced tight over her leggings, his under his deer hunters (pants), both of them zipped into bombers against the cold. He’s got a duffel slung over one shoulder; she hands him a smaller pouch—a change of clothes, just in case—and he takes it without a word, slings it over the other.

Eysin shoulders her pack, eyes shining.

“What’s in the baaaaag?” she sing-songs.

Arkion winks, taps the side of his nose, and opens the door to the night.

Outside, the air is cold and sharp. The new umbrella tech hums softly overhead—barely two years old, still rare enough that the world outside can sometimes feel like theirs alone.

---

From the limp lace a small, absolutely plastered vaudeville voice croaks toward the reader:

Next: 8-bit forests and exploding dragonflies, Goomba trucks flipping in the rain, bandits learning physics from angry plumbers, and a cathedral-sized worm that swallows light, dignity, and maybe your soul.

Five veils left.

Bring coins and an umbrella. Don’t touch that dial.