In Kuroinu

"Haruto, it's burning."

"It's fine."

"It is literally on fire."

"That's steam."

"Steam is not orange, Filia."

I came downstairs to the smell of smoke and Llusse's voice at a pitch that suggested someone was about to lose a cooking privilege. The inn's kitchen was a disaster. Filia was standing over the stove in her shirtsleeves with her sleeves rolled up and her jaw set and she was holding a wooden spoon like a sword and the pan in front of her was producing a substance that might have been rice at some point in its life but had since transcended into a new state of matter.

"I followed the instructions," Filia said. She didn't look up. Her stirring intensified.

"What instructions?" Llusse was sitting on the counter with her legs crossed and one of Mila's breakfast rolls in her hand and she was watching the stove with narrowed eyes and her mouth pulled to one side. "Mila's instructions. She wrote them down."

"And you read them."

"I read them."

"All of them."

"The relevant ones."

"The relevant-" Llusse turned to me. She was in a loose shirt and her hair was down and her ears were pink at the tips, which meant she'd been up for a while and the color was from the heat of the kitchen or from irritation. With Llusse it was usually both. "She skipped steps. She read the first instruction and the last instruction and decided the middle was optional."

"The middle was clarifying detail," Filia said.

"The middle was the cooking."

Tianne came in from the pantry carrying a basket of herbs and a clay pot and she glanced at the stove and then at Filia and then at the pan and her lips pressed together and her eyes went carefully blank. She set the herbs on the counter and very quietly, while Filia was arguing with Llusse about the definition of steam, she reached over and sprinkled a handful of dried herbs into the pan and stirred twice and stepped back.

The smell changed. The smoke thinned. The substance in the pan stopped being orange.

Filia turned back to the stove. Stirred. Frowned. "It's better."

"It was always fine," Tianne said. Her voice was perfectly even.

Llusse opened her mouth. Tianne put a hand on her arm. Llusse closed her mouth.

I leaned against the doorframe and watched them work. Mila had set the table in the common room before anyone else was up. Five places. Plates, cups, a pitcher of water, a basket of rolls she'd baked before dawn. She'd put a small jar of wildflowers in the center that she'd probably picked from the garden behind the inn, a cluster of yellow and blue that were a little lopsided in the jar but still standing. Her tail was wagging at a steady background pace as she went back and forth between the kitchen and the table, carrying serving bowls, adjusting the placement of spoons, making sure everyone's cup was full.

She was wearing a clean dress, not her apron. Her hair was brushed and her ears were up and she was humming.

The last time I'd seen her she'd been naked in my bed with her tail wagging against the sheet and her face buried in my chest saying "Don't LOOK at it" while the tail kept going and neither of us could stop laughing. The soft fur of her ears against my jaw. Her weight on my chest. The dress she was wearing now fell just below her knees and it was a warm brown that matched her ears and when she passed me in the doorway her hip brushed mine and her tail wagged faster for a second.

She didn't say anything. Her ears went pink.

We sat. Filia at my left, straight-backed, already eating before anyone else had settled because she ate like she fought. Tianne at my right, spooning porridge into her bowl with careful precision. Llusse across from me, her bow propped against the wall behind her, kicking my shin under the table with the toe of her boot. First kick was probably an accident. Second one was a test. Third one was definitely on purpose.

I kicked back. She pulled her foot away and her ears twitched and she focused very hard on her food.

Mila was beside Llusse, and she spent more time filling everyone else's plates than eating from her own. She put an extra roll on my plate before I could reach for the basket. Then she ladled more porridge into my bowl while I was chewing. Then she pushed the jam closer to my side of the table with a casual bump of her wrist that she clearly thought was subtle and wasn't.

"Mila," Llusse said. "He has arms."

"I'm being helpful."

"You're feeding him like a pet."

"I am not-"

"You literally just buttered his bread."

Mila looked down. She was holding my bread in one hand and the butter knife in the other and the bread was, in fact, buttered. Her ears went flat.

"...I got carried away."

I took the bread from her hand and bit into it. "Thanks, Mila."

Her tail went berserk under the table, thumping against my knee.

The porridge was actually fine. Whatever Filia had done to it before Tianne's intervention had given it a slightly scorched flavor at the edges, and the herbs Tianne had added made the rest taste like something a real person might serve on purpose. The rolls were Mila's, which meant they were good. The jam was something purple and tangy that I didn't have a name for but Llusse was eating it by the spoonful when she thought nobody was watching.

A pigeon landed on the windowsill and sat there observing us with one eye. It looked unimpressed. Llusse threw a bread crust at it and it flapped away.

I looked around the table.

Filia on my left, eating steadily, her shoulder close enough to mine that her sleeve brushed my arm when she reached for her cup. Tianne on my right, a faint smile on her lips as she watched Llusse argue with the pigeon. Llusse across from me, green eyes sharp, ears at a defiant angle, jam on her thumb that she licked off when she noticed me looking. Mila beside her, ears up, tail going, leaning forward to slide another roll onto Filia's plate because Filia had eaten hers in four bites.

Four women. My women. All of them eating breakfast and every one of them knew about the others and the table was set for five because Mila had set it for five and nobody had commented on the number because the number was right.

Llusse's boot found my shin again. I looked at her. She was eating porridge and staring at the wall and her ears were red.

Mila's head came up.

Her ears went straight up and rotated forward, both of them, locking onto something I couldn't hear yet. Her tail stopped mid-wag. She set down her spoon.

"Someone's coming," she said. "Fast. On horseback. Coming from the palace road."

Filia's hand moved to where her sword usually was. It wasn't there. She was at breakfast. Her jaw tightened.

I listened. After the Blessing from Mila, my hearing was sharper than it had been, and after a few seconds I caught it too. Hoofbeats. Hard and fast on packed dirt, the rhythm of a horse being pushed. Getting louder.

"One rider," Mila said. Her ears were tracking the sound, swiveling in micro-adjustments. "Heavy. Armored. The horse is tired."

Ten seconds later the inn's front door banged open.

Leonora Ofallon walked in like she was entering a war council. Full plate armor, polished, her dark hair cropped short and still damp from being washed under a helmet. Her sword was at her hip and her hand was on it and her eyes swept the room and stopped on the table.

Filia on one side. Tianne on the other. Llusse across. Mila beside Llusse with her tail pressed flat to her leg. Five plates. Five cups. A jar of wildflowers and the remains of a breakfast that had clearly been designed for exactly this many people and no more.

Me in the center.

Her eyes moved from woman to woman. Then to me. Her chin was up and her shoulders were square and her grip on her sword pommel hadn't changed.

"Hero," she said. Low and clipped. "Queen Sophie summons you to the palace before your departure."

"Good morning to you too, Commander."

Her mouth tightened. She didn't sit. She didn't take off her gauntlets. She stood in the doorway looking at the table and her jaw worked for a second, the tendons in her neck shifting under the high collar of her armor.

"The summons is for today," she said. "At your earliest convenience, which Her Majesty would like to be within the hour."

"I haven't finished breakfast."

"I can see that."

Filia stood. "I'll accompany him."

"The summons is for the hero alone." Leonora's eyes went to Filia. Held. "Queen's orders."

Filia sat back down. Her mouth was pressed thin. Llusse was watching Leonora with the narrow assessment she gave anything she might have to fight later. Tianne's hands were folded in her lap and her expression was serene.

Mila's tail had started wagging again. Slow. Against my knee under the table. She was looking at Leonora and her head was tilted slightly and her ears were doing that thing where one pointed at the person and one pointed at me, tracking both.

Leonora hadn't moved from the doorway. She was tall enough that she had to angle her head slightly to clear the frame, and the morning light coming in behind her caught the edges of her armor and threw small reflections across the ceiling.

"Can I finish my roll?" I asked.

Her jaw tightened again. That was twice in under a minute. For Leonora, that was practically a tantrum.

"You may finish your roll."

I picked it up. Took a bite. Chewed. Swallowed. Looked at her. "Want one? Mila made them."

Mila's tail went from slow to very fast under the table. Leonora's eyes dropped to the bread basket and then came back up to my face and there was a fraction of a second where her grip on her sword pommel loosened and her jaw unclenched and she looked like a person who had ridden hard for an hour and hadn't eaten yet.

"No," she said. "Thank you."

She turned and walked back outside. The door closed behind her. The inn was quiet for a second.

"She wanted the roll," Mila said.

"She absolutely wanted the roll," I agreed.

"She's scary," Mila added.

Llusse snorted. "She's fine."

"You're also scary."

"I'm not-" Llusse stopped. Considered. "Thank you."

I finished my breakfast. Filia was already clearing plates. Tianne was packing the leftover rolls into cloth for later. Llusse was pulling on her boots by the door.

Mila caught my arm as I stood. Her hand wrapped around my wrist and her ears were flat and her tail had slowed.

"Be careful," she said.

I squeezed her hand. She let go. Her tail picked up again.

I walked outside. Leonora was standing beside her horse, a bay mare that was breathing hard and had foam at its mouth from the ride. She was adjusting the stirrup and she didn't look at me when I came out.

We walked toward the palace road. The morning was bright and the air was cool and Leonora's armor clinked with each step and she kept exactly two paces ahead of me.

I matched her pace. Pulled alongside.

"So," I said. "Just you and me."

She stared straight ahead. "I am your escort. Not your companion."

"Understood." I walked beside her. The road was dry and the sun was making the dew on the grass steam. "You rode hard. How early did the queen send you?"

"Before dawn."

"That's a bad hour to receive a summons."

"The queen's schedule is not subject to my preferences."

I looked at her. Her profile was sharp in the morning light, the line of her jaw rigid, her cropped hair just long enough to move in the breeze. Her armor fit her like a second body and the sword at her hip was worn smooth at the grip from years of drawing. She was looking at the road ahead and her stride was measured and her breathing was even and she hadn't looked at me once since we started walking.

Her jaw tightened. Again.

The palace road stretched ahead. The morning was young and Sophie was waiting and somewhere in the north, seven fortress-cities were running out of time.

I walked beside Leonora and didn't say anything else, and she didn't tell me to fall back.

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