The birds fall quiet, and Janai fears for her faith. Another’s portion of bread sits uneaten on a clay plate they shaped and fired together. Janai’s own half of breakfast shared the plate until hunger drove her to eat it. Hunger, and the hope that if she started eating her lover would appear over the horizon. After all, it’s happened often enough.

Licham is often restless at night. She goes for long walks and flights that sometimes stretch into the morning hours. She claims it’s to burn off energy, but Janai knows that her lover is looking for something to do. It’s her nature. She helps. She’s a savior. If the day passes without Licham feeling satisfied with her work, she works through the night.

It’s never a surprise for Janai to wake to an empty bed. She’s used to making breakfast alone. But by some unspoken agreement Licham is supposed to be back in time to eat together. They sit at the front of their small log cabin and listen to the birds greet the morning. Hot, cold, rain, shine; they sit together and plan their day.

When the weather is nice they rush through the planning so they can sit and bask in the warm sun, until it’s time for them to leave each other. Licham would ask, “Is the Goddess not generous?”, and that would mark the end of breakfast and the beginning of their labors for the day. Standing, the angel would delicately stretch out her wings, one at a time, until she was extending each to its full span. Janai would sit and watch. There was nothing else to do then but wish her well. 

“I’ll wander far,” Licham would start.

“And do Her good work, let goodwill and peace follow in your wake,” Janai would finish.

Today the weather is fair, and yet Janai is chilly under the hot midsummer sun. There’s an open hole in her stomach filled with anxiety and worry. What could have happened to her lover? Surely no one would attack her. Did she get lost? That was even more ridiculous. Except for the days spent here helping with the larger projects that needed two sets of hands, Licham travelled each and every day for work. It was how they met.

It was a silly, mundane problem: a wild boar had broken the fence of her pasture. The repair was simple enough for Janai to manage by herself, but her flock had fled into the woods in the meantime. Janai had prayed. Something simple. A candle under the window- beeswax mixed with sage, the favored herb of the Goddess. Perhaps a single rushed sentence. Oh-Goddess-please-let-me-find-my-fucking-sheep.

The Goddess had indeed been generous that day.

Janai had barely finished mending the fence when she turned to see the light of her life for the first time. At the edge of the clearing, an angel stood with a sheep tucked under each arm. Skin pale like new paper, long auburn hair like a summer sunset, green eyes the color of the leaves of the trees surrounding them. Lanky and thin as a tree still growing into itself. Her wings as pure and fluffy as fresh snow, long and narrow like a seabird.

It would be their fourth night together before Janai had the courage to call her “my sacred string bean.” Their bodies couldn’t be more different. Janai’s skin was golden from the sun and she kept her blond hair shaven. While her arms and legs were powerful from a life of self-sufficiency, hands calloused by their work, the rest of her was shaped by love and care, especially after meeting Licham. Heavy around the middle, creases around her eyes, and a smile hiding behind every expression.

She’d always planned to live alone. The company of others was difficult for Janai. It had taken months of clumsy courtship for her to even realize the angel was hitting on her. Another couple months before they shared a night together. Licham moved in permanently after about a year of making excuses to stop by the cozy little cabin. Her usual was, “just to see if you needed any help with anything.”

Janai had been the one to suggest moving in together. A day of flying and a day of herding sheep made for a tired angel and an equally sore shepherd. Each night they cared for each other. Janai was happy to receive the shoulder and back massages that Licham was eager to give. While the shepherd grumbled every time about wasting the nice oil on a massage, Janai couldn’t deny the difference it made in how deeply she could relax and lose herself to the touch of her lover’s hands.

Licham had been much more hesitant at first to give her own preening over to Janai. Eventually one night, perhaps a month after living together, the shepherd took her angels into her arms like an unruly ram, sat Licham on the ground with her back turned towards Janai, held her between her knees, and worked through the ruffled feathers from the joint at the shoulders down to the pinions. 

“Oh, hush,” she’d said to Licham’s instinctual hiss and jerk away from her lover after Janai plucked a half broken flight feather. “You’re worse than a pregnant ewe.” 

Janai keeps the feather in a spare jar. It’s an awkward size, never quite finding a way into permanent storage of anything- until then. It smells like Licham. Peppermint, sharp and clean. The smell has never faded after all their time together. When she holds that feather, Janai is reminded of how full their life together is. On long days Janai holds it between her fingers while she waits for her lover to return from her work. 

Licham helps people. It’s her nature. She explained it just once to Janai: “I’m made from Her. The Goddess gives pieces of Herself to bring us into being. You know that prayer? ‘We give thanksgiving to You, for the gift of Yourself.’” The angel spreads her wings wide, nearly knocking over a vase as she continues in her musical lilt. “That’s me! One of Her gifts to the world. I can’t not be that gift anymore than you can choose to stop breathing. I need to wander and help the same as you’ll always open your mouth and draw in air. It’s my purpose to find the good work She has given me to do.”

She never needed to explain it again. Janai may never have felt a calling like that, but she saw the restless look in Licham’s eyes on the days that Janai asked the angel to spend the day with her. She asks rarely. Licham would grant the wish, but Janai could see how it taxes her.

Lately Janai was seeing that restless look more often in her lover’s eyes. Even on days when she comes home with many stories of good deeds and differences made. Licham sleeps less and less. Sometimes the angel gets lost standing at the window looking east, towards something that she can’t voice the name of.

Janai takes the half loaf of bread meant for her lover’s breakfast. It was the special kind: an offering of thanksgiving. Full of eggs, butter, oil, and covered in sticky honey.  Licham had asked her to make it. She said it was important that it was made with freewill. And if that wasn’t strange enough, rather than answering any of Janai’s questions the angel had only said, “We’ve had much to be thankful for, haven’t we? I’ve lived a full life. I should tell Her that. I think it’s finally time.”

The memory is interrupted by Janai’s fingers punching through the rich, sticky crust. She’s practically strangling the bread. She relaxes her grip and starts to tear off pieces to scatter into the clearing. Maybe the birds will come back and sing again. Then if Licham shows up, she won’t be late after all.

***

The angel kneels before the Throne of her Goddess, and is full of faith.

It is dim inside the Holy of Holies. While they’re far closer to the sun than the grove with its little cabin, many layers of red and gold silk are stretched between the Throne, and the sky bathes the interior in a muted crimson light. Licham had passed through many empty chambers to arrive at the Throne. Braziers and torches burned in the passages and spaces leading up to the innermost chamber. But inside that, there is only the shielded sun to light the stone Throne and its divine occupant.

Licham’s head is bowed, waiting to speak and share her offering of thanksgiving. The words are bubbling in her heart, nearly overflowing. After another minute of silence she can wait no longer. The angel speaks so quickly that her usual musical rhythm is absent. They are merely words spoken from the heart.

“My Goddess, I have so much to tell You. Since receiving Your gift of Yourself, I met a woman. We fell in love. She’s a shepherd, she raises sheep. We moved in together in this little cabin, and every night she preens me so I can fly and do Your good work in the morning. It’s hard work, as You know, of course, but with her, it’s easy. She’s so talented. Just for You, she made-”

Licham stops short. “The loaves. She made the loaves but I forgot them. My Goddess, I am so sorry, please, I can leave and return with them-”

“My angel,” the Goddess commands. “Look upon Me.” For the first time since entering the Holy of Holies, Licham looks up. She’s seen her Goddess before but not in many years. Her icons and statues are often thought of as exaggerated in size to communicate Her importance. The answer is much simpler: the Goddess is very large. At sixteen feet in height She towers over even Licham, usually the highest head in the room.

It isn’t just Her height, however. Her physique is beyond that of even the most dedicated athlete. Muscles on top of muscles, along with curves so enviable it would be miserly to call them ‘generous.’ She wears a simple robe of silk in colors that match the walls of the tent: crimson red and brilliant gold. For reasons beyond the angel, the robes are left loose enough to have fallen open, exposing most of Her body. She is an imposition. Her presence feels like a heavy blanket over Licham’s mind and body.

The angel becomes so lost looking at Her that it takes a snap of Her fingers to rouse her focus. “Yes, My Goddess?”

The Goddess smiles. It would be sinful to call it the grin of a predator but Licham has no other words for it. “Approach, My angel.”

Licham isn’t sure why her knees shake when she stands. It's a struggle to walk the short distance to Her Throne. When she reaches close enough to touch the marble of the Throne, she instead brushes her robe back to kneel again. She is stopped short by a hand atop her head. 

How strange to forget the loaves of thanksgiving, Licham thinks. She isn’t forgetful, generally. And why hadn’t she realized it on the flight? It was the entire reason she was coming, to bring that offering. Without the loaves, what has she to offer? The angel looks up into the golden eyes of the Goddess and sees nothing but hunger there.

Surely she has nothing to fear from Her. Yet she’s seized by an animal instinct to flee from this moment. To turn and run, take to the skies, return to her lover, to-

The hand on her head squeezes. It’s a gentle squeeze, but Her hands are the size of the angel’s head. Licham winces in pain. The Goddess puts a finger under her chin and brings Licham’s eyes back up. The nail digs into her chin. It’s painted golden and is as sharp as a knife. A trickle of the angel’s lifeblood runs down the point.

Without breaking eye contact, She swipes Her finger down the trail of golden ichor flowing from the small wound. “Your hand, My angel,” She commands. Licham extends her right hand. The Goddess writes Her sigil on it. The mark of Her holiness. A guarantee of goodness. “Did you know, My angel, that some call you My living altars?” She licks Licham’s blood from Her thumb. “You come before Me speaking of thanksgiving. And what do you have to offer?”

Licham squirms like an unflighted fledgling. The hand on her head is firm and allows for no space to grow between Goddess and angel. Licham curses herself again. How could she forget something so simple? Especially after Janai had doubtlessly woken up early to make the special loaves. Tears start to sting her eyes. Stupid little bird. So overcome with anticipation to see her Goddess again that she had taken off in the middle of the night, bringing nothing. Nothing to offer. Nothing but-

Oh, she thinks. That's why she didn't remember the bread.

The Goddess chuckles and tosses the curtain of her long black hair over the burnished skin of her bare shoulders. “Yes, My angel. You bring Me the greatest offering of all. You return to Me the gift of Myself.” The Goddess releases Licham’s head to instead grab the angel by the waist with both hands. Without question or hesitation She brings Licham into Her lap, still facing Her, still keeping eye contact. 

The lap of the Goddess is wide and accommodating. It’s roomy upon Her Throne even for a fully grown angel. It only makes the difference in their height more dramatic. Licham is perched on the wide right knee of the Goddess and still has to crane her head up, or else she would be staring at her Goddess’s belly. Licham can’t help but stare being this close. Especially after Her stomach rumbles, as if she hadn’t eaten in days.

It’s warm in the lap of the divine. The thin silk of Her robes do nothing to mask Her body heat as it creeps up Licham. The angel tries to keep her knees together to avoid feeling the presence of her Goddess too intimately but it proves impossible. Licham slowly splits her legs around the Goddess’s thigh. The smell of sage is overwhelming. It fills her nose and then her head. Her thigh is firm. It takes Licham a great amount of self control to keep herself still atop it.

The angel starts to speak but is brought short by her Goddess taking her hand in Hers. The difference in the sizes is stark. Licham tries to intertwine their fingers but the Goddess just chuckles again and instead wraps Her fingers over Licham’s hand. The angel makes a little paw with her curled fingers and lets the divine palm enclose them. Janai’s hands are tough, callused. The Goddesses’s is soft, like She’s never worked a day in her life. 

“Now tell Me your name.”

Licham starts to speak again and-

What is her name?

She can’t think of it. The angel has one, surely. Everyone has a name. In fact, she remembers picking it out. Her old name, before she changed, it was Kitrail, named after-

Wheat? Why was she thinking of wheat?

The confused angel looks at her Goddess, an unspoken question on her lips. She smiles patiently. “Tell me, Licham. Why did you pick that name?”

Oh. Her name is Licham. Strange. Why would she pick a name that sounds like bread? Unless…that poem Janai liked, about the Goddess giving us wheat instead of bread, and that was why some of us were born one way and become another. Like her, like she’s…

What had she been thinking about?

The Goddess squeezes the angel’s hand to return her attention to Her. “Bread. You were supposed to bring Me bread.”

Right! Two loaves, specially made, full of eggs, butter, oil, and covered in sticky honey-

Gone. Plucked from her aching mind like a bird picking at feed. The Goddess purrs deep in her chest. “Tell Me, My angel, who would you ask to make loaves for you? I want to know everything.”

That question is easy. Janai. The angel’s mind floods with the moments of their lives together.

The half-awkward negotiations of their first night together, her golden hand on her pale one, a small squeeze and reminder that she’s safe, always, when she’s with-

Chasing after her sheep, it should be easy with these wings, but the forests block the sightlines. At least there aren’t other sheep for them to get mixed up with. The one the angel is chasing is always the hardest to catch, Joash, with the speckled grey-

The first meal they shared together. It had been given to the angel by a farmer. The angel had carried his wife to the midwife when she went into labor sooner than expected. She hated taking payment but the farmer was insistent. “Share it with someone you love,” he said, so of course she brought it to that little log cabin, it had leeks, potatoes, leafy herbs with a name she didn’t know-

That cabin. Janai was capable but not even she could make something like that without help. She’d bought it, with the meager inheritance her parents left her, found under the floorboards after the raiders had fled with her mother, still alive, kicking, struggling. Janai wept so deeply the first time she’d shared the story with the angel, the first and only person she’d ever told-

Her first and only. The only lover she’d had. Angels are supposed to live forever, everyone knew that. They’d talked so often about how the angel would carry Janai’s memories forever and ever. She was already slowing down. Grey at the temples instead of blonde. Janai would never admit it, never acknowledge it, but the angel noticed, she remembered everything about her-

Her. Janai. A person in may pieces that all fit together, none forgotten-

Blonde hair kept shaved-

A soft middle, the perfect size for the angel’s arms-

Arms strong enough to lift her flock when the little beasts didn’t feel like walking, muscles corded like ropes-

Creases around her eyes from smiling and laughing, even the years alone didn’t stop her from laughing-

Her eyes, grey, but not sad, not stormy, bright and-

Legs used to walking all day, long-

Callused palms, strong fingers-

Full lips, a fuller smile-

Smiling-

Love-

Her love-

Janai-

The angel’s lover-

The Goddess withdraws a hand from the angel’s waist to cover Her mouth as she lets out a burp. “My. You have lived a full life, haven’t you, My angel?”

The angel sits, stunned. She is a hollow thing now. Cored of her most important pieces. She looks back at Her Goddess blankly. “Full…life?” she mumbles, a string of drool hanging from her lips. Tears are running down her face. She doesn’t remember why.

“Very full, indeed.” With a purr that rumbles all through Her body, the Goddess returns Her hand to Her angel. Not to her waist, however. Pinching the tip of a flight feather, She delicately stretches one of the angel’s wings out, extending it to its full span. The angel watches it unfurl with glazed eyes, understanding nothing in the gesture. 

“Wandering so far,” muses the Goddess, running Her fingers along the extended pinions. She takes little care in the action, ruffling the feathers out of alignment. They would struggle to catch the air and fly in such a state. “Doing My good work.”

The angel’s head lolls to one side, until it drops against one of the Goddess’s generous breasts. “Good… Wwwork…”

A throaty chuckle, trembling lightly through the Goddess’s vast curves and jostling the angel. “Just so.” She picks through the outermost feathers again, running Her gilded claw down the shaft of each. Finally She pinches another between thumb and forefinger, and plucks it out.

The angel twitches, but feels the pain only faintly. A twinge through a hot, suffocating blanket. The weight and its everpresent pressure dull any lesser discomfort.

“One of My little gifts,” says the Goddess, raising the feather to Her plush lips, “to the world.” Opening Her mouth, She runs her tongue up the shaft of the feather, leaving its vane twisted and dishevelled. “Am I not generous, My angel?”

“Generoussss…” The angel repeats the word with flat incomprehension.  A feast, watching as her Goddess begins to savor Her. Perhaps if any of her remained beyond the flesh, she would indeed be thankful.

“Just so.” Popping the feather into Her mouth and swallowing, the Goddess cradles Her empty angel tighter against Her body. A pale face wheezes into a breast larger than her head, one glassy green eye covered by loose red-and-gold silks and auburn hair. The other is still free to watch her Goddess reach over and move something from a shelf beside Her Throne to Her other thigh. A massive clay jug, its face inscribed with glyphs the angel once could read, and a strong smell of sage and sweetness rising from its uncorked mouth. “Let us pray, little gift, for this feast of thanksgiving.”

“Prrrayy.” A beautiful husk, echoing the word back.

The Goddess hums, deep and anticipatory. The growl of a lioness. “I thank you, My angel, for returning to Me the gift of Myself.” With a bare-toothed smile, She adds, “And I thank your Janai, for fattening you up so wonderfully for Me.”

The angel’s uncovered eye blinks. Slow. Uncomprehending.

Lifting the jug, the Goddess tips it over the angel’s head. Only slightly, to control the flow of the dense red-gold honey that oozes out. A string of it lands and spools atop the angel’s hair, before spreading out like one of the Goddess’s own golden hands, running cloying fingers down over her exposed ear and face. It's tacky and warm against her skin and smells so sweet it singes her nose. The Goddess pays no heed to the rivulets finding their way onto Her own scant robes, sticking them to the curvature of Her breast and midriff. If anything, it only further incenses the hunger in Her leer.

A quiet passes then as the meal is prepared. Dabbing Her fingertips in the honey, the Goddess slicks it down the angel’s hair and neck, sticking the wet twists of auburn to pale skin. She slicks it down the angel’s drooping wings, staining white feathers into mussed dark gold. She shifts the angel on Her knee to coat her other side. The angel’s eyes flutter and then glue shut as tendrils of honey flow down them. A little runs into her slack mouth. Even its sickly sweetness means nothing to her now.

“Welcome home,” purrs the Goddess, wiping a smear of honey from Her own stomach to lather onto the angel’s wrist. “My sacred string bean.”

“Sssstring…” The angel begins to echo it back. Before she can, her Goddess seals her mouth, spreading honey along her lips and kneading them together.

The Goddess’s smile can hardly be called such anymore. Silent. Hollowed. Anointed. The meal is ready.

Reclining, She yawns. It’s long and deep, Her mouth easing open wider, wider. More than should be possible. But She is more than should be possible, and holy work is hungry work. Taking the angel by her waist, the Goddess lifts her. Little of the gift remains white now. The honey has stained almost every inch of her with gooey gold-red, strings of it stretching to follow her from the Goddess’s knee. Her robe is more like a sugary crust, adhering to the thin curves of her body. She is narrow by design. Her head fits with space to spare into the Goddess’s waiting maw.

The Goddess takes Her time. Working the angel’s head down into Her gullet. Gaping Her jaws a little more to accommodate the angel’s shoulders. There’s a delicacy to the process of taking Her back into Herself. Not a tenderness- there’s nothing tender in the way the Goddess’s tongue lifts to skim the honey glaze from the angel’s breasts, nor the way She softly moans as She delights in the blend of sweet and earth. Little by little the gift is fed down through Her lips, into a throat swelling to accommodate her. Her stomach. Her waist. Her hips, leaving her legs and lower wings to dangle from the mouth receiving her.

And the angel does not struggle. She cannot. Tight, taut muscle churns her down deeper into the lightless, sweltering oblivion below, the blend of honey and saliva gumming against her body. At most she gulps for air that isn’t there, a body’s automatic reaction. Her mouth takes in only the mixture of honey and spit. A living sarcophagus, pulling her into itself. It would hurt, being crushed and kneaded like this, had she the capacity to feel it. Perhaps it’s merciful, then, that this capacity was pulled out of her. If so, it isn’t a mercy the Goddess intended. Her pleasured groans and gurgles fill the angel’s ears.

Lolling back Her head, the Goddess elevates the angel’s legs by the ankles. Body straightened, the little gift can slide right in now. Legs and ruffled wings slipping further down. Subsumed by inches. The Goddess eagerly suckles at her thighs, then her knees, then her ankles. The purpose of Her loose robes becomes clear as Her stomach distends. Soon all that remains unconsumed of the angel are the tips of her wings. Throughout all the feast, those have remained the purest white, their span so wide the honey had never trickled down so far. The Goddess closes Her mouth around them, lets them tickle Her lips and tongue a moment. This too She enjoys, even if the sweetness only lingers in Her mouth as an aftertaste now. Then She sucks them in as well. A last ballooning of Her throat and a final heaving swell of Her stomach as the last of the feast reaches and curls within it.

The Goddess reclines. Her breaths come slow and shallow. Her belly spills out into Her lap. Another long, languid yawn to pop Her jaw back into alignment. Then She heaves again and rests Her palm over Her mouth to stifle a thick belch. When She pulls Her hand away, She finds a smattering of loose feathers, stuck to the half-dried honey coating Her skin. She plucks them from the glaze and swallows them, one by one. There must be none of the meal left, consumed in entirety. Hence why She licks Her hands and fingers clean and scrapes the honey from Her breast and engorged belly- what She can reach over its protruding mass, at least.

Hence as well why She draws in a long, deep breath. So protracted that surely Her stomach must rupture under the expansion of Her lungs. It doesn’t. Instead, it grows further. Churning and tightening as it swells to almost reach Her knees. When She exhales again, it does not contract. Now the meal is completed. The gift is accepted in full.

Finally, She gives a rumbling, contented hum, coming from the pit of that well-sated gut. Settling back, She rests Her hands upon the crest of its swell and allows Her eyes to close. Once more, before they are digested with the flesh, She rolls her angel’s memories upon Her tongue. Savoring the earthy sweetness of them. They are gentler than usual. This angel had lived a warm life, fulfilled and loved. Hearts lifted when they saw her on the horizon. Goodwill and peace followed in her wake. Another belch escapes the Goddess. She was all the more satisfying for it.

***

The evening birds sing, and Janai forgets her faith.

They’d started just before noon, as she went out to do a check of the pasture fences. It had disquieted her a little, how they’d lapsed into a strange silence earlier that morning. But then they started their songs, and the air seemed to lighten in her lungs. Like there’d been a miasma filling her body which had finally found its way out of her. She opted not to dwell on it. She scattered the last of the extra bread she’d made for the birds and set out. There was still the day’s work to be done.

Nothing is amiss with the fences, all of them strong and standing. Throughout the pasture the sheep amble and graze, bleating senseless conversation amongst themselves from time to time. As the day rolls by and the sun’s heat becomes harder to bear, Janai takes a quick break to change into a lighter blouse, green like the leaves of the forest bordering the pasture. She finds the color faintly comforting. 

The scan of the fence takes a little longer than expected. Partly because the years are catching up with her. But a couple of her neighbours pass by the property as well, and given what a rare occurrence that is, Janai has to stop for a quick chat with each. Get caught up, make sure everything is well in their scattered little community. Much laughter and good will are shared. One of them, a hunter who frequents the woods, mentions he still hasn’t found one of his hounds that had wandered off after a rabbit the other day. A pup, really, undisciplined and overeager. All Janai can offer is a prayer to the Goddess that he finds the poor beast before any harm does.

The afternoon drags on, until it ebbs into a warm evening, scored by the faint buzz of crickets in the woods and fields. It has been a long day. Longer than most. Janai’s body throbs with a dull ache from the work of caring for the flock and doing some light maintenance on sections of the fence which had started to show wear. She knows she’s getting old, yet her aging muscles seem to protest particularly strongly today. Why had she tarried so long that morning? She’d needed to rush herself through her chores to make sure everything was finished by dusk. Hopefully that haste won’t cost her tomorrow.

But it’s done now. Exhaling the last of that weighty miasma the day seemed to carry, Janai retires into her log cabin. There’s a jar of good oil on a shelf in the kitchen, next to another containing a large white feather, bent in half at the middle. Stripping off her top, she lathers some of the oil in her hands to rub into what she can reach of her shoulders and back. It’s a little awkward, doing it herself, and her hands are unused to the motions. Besides, she normally dislikes using the oil for this. She’s wanting some creature comforts now, however, and it does help to loosen her knotted muscles. As she works them out, her eyes keep going to that other jar, with the broken feather. Why did she have that? At most, she figures it might have been a gift from the hunter. What sort of bird had it even come from, with feathers so long and large?

Savoring what relief she does feel, Janai changes from work clothes into more comfortable attire- but puts that green blouse back on- and lights a candle to say a prayer for the hunter and his lost hound. The scent of sage and beeswax cloy in her nose more than usual. Heavier, somehow. She chalks that up to fatigue. Next she fetches water from the property’s well for tea and dinner. The latter will be a stew of leeks, potatoes, and lentils. All gifts from a farmer who lives nearby, though her tired mind can’t recall for what. She allows her hands patience in peeling and chopping the vegetables, as they’re still aching and unsteady from her busy afternoon. 

Once the pot and kettle are both boiling, Janai fills the former with her meal and takes a moment to stir, before she pours herself a cup of peppermint tea from the latter. Its scent is also comforting in a way she can’t name. As it steeps, she sets the table, using the good clay plates she’d shaped and fired herself. Once that’s done, she turns back to the pot to stir it again.

And then Janai pauses. She looks over at the table, and for a moment finds herself unable to breathe.

She has set two places for dinner.

Drawing in a shallow breath, she scours through her memory of the day. Was she expecting company? No, there were no such plans made for tonight, and after working the pasture all afternoon, she’s hardly in a state to host. So why had she done that? After all, she has always lived alone.