Savana was torn to be where she was. She sat in the first row of the clergy section of the funeral hall at the temple of Tenebor, in between the pontifices of Lady Shala and Lord Hayer. Pontifex De La Cornon’s seat, on any other occasion.

The late pontifex’s sister stood in front of all of them, tall and proud. The redness of the Shalan abbess’ tired, old eyes were the only thing betraying that her brave face was only a facade. For the last ten minutes, she’d stoically retold a story of how her then-young brother had gone against the traditions of his family by devoting himself to Lady Ishara, rather than Shala, and how proud she was that he’d done that.

It was only a wafer-thin pretense. The grief seemed to boil within the woman, and Savana couldn’t begin to guess at how badly it must hurt. To her, the late pontifex had been a teacher and a close friend, but had always been an elder. She’d always expected that she would take his place as pontifex eventually.

To this woman, it was clearly worse. She’d not seen him as someone to learn from so he could have a worthy successor. She’d seen him as a younger brother, as a boy she’d expected never to have to lose. It echoed through her every word, and laced the name Jacob every time she said it.

Savana hadn’t dared to talk to her yet. Hells, she’d barely been willing to sit in the man’s seat at the Convocation or here at his funeral. But that was her duty. As the terriarch of Ishara’s church, she was to speak and act on behalf of the pontifex. And that included attending his funeral in his place.

The funeral was big and busy, attended not only by the late pontifex’ friends, family, and peers, but by a great many of the wealthier citizens of Cornon and the surrounding counties. The Convocation was a political body as much as a religious one, and as such, the pontifices all attracted the wealthy like a lantern attracts moths. Everyone with a business, from masons to carpenters and from butchers to potters wanted to get in good with the leadership of the denominations, so that the clergy would be more likely to do business with them.

Savana had already had to swat several of them away. The cursed vultures were all too eager to make sure she noticed just how much they’d miss Jacob.

Fortunately, not everyone acted so crassly. A pale, white-haired elf Savana vaguely recognized as running one of the city’s Hightown-centric alchemical guilds stood out as having the decency to stay in his seat. But most lacked such tact. So as the funeral progressed, she made sure to stay in the area of the temple that had been sectioned off for the clergy.

She and the other touched, regardless of their denominations, all went through all of the rites as the priest of Tenebor in charge of the ceremony declared them. They recited the prayer to the Lord of Mortality and Death in unison, all of them begging him to preserve the holy man. The words thrummed with power as they echoed through the vaulted temple, the denominations unanimous in their remorse at Jacob De La Cornon’s demise.

That solidarity continued as the casket was carried outside, and placed on the neatly stacked pyre. The wood had been soaked in essential oils from a dozen aromatic plants long in advance. The smell was already overpowering even now, before it was lit, and lighting it would be a joint endeavor as well.

They all said a final, private goodbye. Savana heard some of them whisper halves of anecdotes from decades ago, as if reflecting on them with him still there to fill in the gaps. She herself quietly promised she would do her best to guide the church in his absence.

Where normally the priests of Tenebor would light the pyre themselves, the pontifices, Savana, and, Abbess De La Cornon now acted. They surrounded it in a wide circle, and as one they all intoned, “purgez au feu,” each of them appealing to their patron deities for the power to commit his remains to the hereafter.

Savana felt a surge of power the likes of which she’d rarely been gifted by her Lady, and the logs closest to her caught fire, burning with the pink and golden light of her power. At the hands of the others, the rest of the pyre was quickly lit as well, burning a brilliant rainbow of divine magic. Shala’s pure yellow light burned in two places, lit by both Pontifex Barath and Abbess De La Cornon.

Blood red flames of Lord Daray, black ones of Lord Tenebor, green and blue ones of Lady Nerielle, bronze ones of Hayer, purple ones of Lah, and close to a dozen others all joined them, the powers of the gods themselves mingling as if they too mourned the loss of one of their most devoted servants.

Perhaps they did mourn him, Savana thought. She hoped they did.

They all stood there in silent contemplation, breathing the overwhelming perfumes of the burning wood. They watched the flames dance around each other for hours as the pyre shrank, and the Sun set. As the casket and the body within it burned away, the weight of the responsibilities ahead of Savana began to settle heavily on her shoulders. She already bore them in all but name, and yet they seemed to grow even more daunting.

Slowly, over the course of hours, the fires began to die, the colors of the divine magics whittling away until only the black flames of Lord Tenebor and the pink and golden ones of her Lady Ishara were left, so interspersed that it became difficult to distinguish them from each other.

The pile of ashes that remained would be left out here, on the platform the pyre had been built on. They’d be allowed to be carried away as the winds and the rains saw fit. Now that the funeral was over, the attendees slowly started to trickle out, funneling towards the bridge that connected the Convocation to the Cornon mainland, where a wake had been planned in a restaurant the pontifex had been fond of.

Savana used the word wake very loosely. Just like the funeral itself, everyone under the Sun had been invited to it, not just those who might find solace there. And unlike the funeral, there wouldn’t be anything segregating the clergy from the merchants she was now supposed to glad-hand.

“So you see, terriarch, that’s why I truly believe Enderlif’s and sons would be ideal to help you realize his holiness’ memorial. Between our quarry’s granite being of a superior quality, and the color so closely matching your holy rose gold, you’ll agree we should obviously be the ones to provide the raw stone. But we could do so much more than that! We could not only provide the stone, but also sculpt the statue, as our artisans are some of the finest you’ll find south of the Astorian conservatories.”

Savana took a deep breath, and let her eyes wander across the wake, desperate to find something, anything more interesting than this dwarf’s talk about making a statue of the late pontifex. It wasn’t that he seemed malicious, or even inept. To her limited understanding of statue-making, he sounded perfectly competent and passionate about his company’s craft. No, the problem didn’t really lay with him at all.

The problem was that no matter how hard she tried to force herself, she absolutely did not care. She did not care about this man’s work. She didn’t care whether he failed at it, or succeeded, past how far she could influence it by wishing him well.

She raised her glass of the fruity, faintly-alcoholic punch they were serving like water at the wake, and took a deep gulp of it. It was pleasantly cold, a nice contrast against the heat of the summer. And as she drank it, she found herself wishing she’d not been roped into this. The Isharan embassy at the Convocation would be memorializing Jacob in their own way, by singing, dancing, and making love, and it was hard to understate just how badly she would have preferred to be there instead of-

“Terriarch?” Asked the dwarf, snapping her back to the here and now. Back to the wretched wake nobody seemed to want to attend, and away from her dreams of an actually appropriate remembrance of her mentor.

“Yes?” she asked. The dwarf was expectantly looking at her, obviously having asked a question she was supposed to have an answer to. Perhaps her Lady would understand if she were to cast some spells on the allegedly-mournful and made the occasion less unbearable. “I’m sorry, could you repeat that?”

“I asked whether we have a deal?”

Much to her dismay, Savana was drawing a blank. “About building De La Cornon’s statue?” she tried.

The dwarf sighed faintly, a sound that told Savana he was used to this kind of reaction. She felt a little bad about being so distracted now. Though, honestly—what did he expect, lecturing the up-and-coming leader of Ishara’s church on granite? Before he could say anything more, someone tugged on Savana’s robe.

“Your Eminence?” Percy’s voice asked.

Savana spun around to look at him. “Yes?” she asked.

“I’m afraid I’ve got an urgent missive for you. Could you come with me, please?” His tail hung low to the ground as he spoke, and his ears laid flat against the top of his head.

The dwarf huffed at that. “Now, listen here, young man. This is an important—”

“Urgent, you say?” asked Savana, eagerly grabbing onto the opportunity. “Lead the way, Percy,” she urged the beastkin. He quickly led her away, leaving her the barest sliver of an opportunity to half-promise she’d come back to this conversation after the crisis was dealt with.

A few moments later, they stepped out of the restaurant’s dining hall, and into a foyer that would lead out to the streets of Cornon.

“What’s the matter, Percy?” she asked him, as he led her outside. “Did one of the abbots get held up? Please tell me it’s not something worse than that.”

Only when they’d rounded the corner, and the Convocation appeared in her view down one of the long, narrow alleys that were Cornon’s specialty, did she manage to get him to stop. And that only with a thorough tug on his arm. She eyed him expectantly.

“What?” He asked, sounding almost as distracted as she’d been during the dwarf’s ramblings. “Oh, no. There’s no crisis.”

“What?” she asked, certain she had misheard the beastkin.

“I said there’s no crisis, terriarch,” he repeated, and his ears perked up a little. “I lied so you’d have an excuse to leave that awful affair.”

“You… You did?” Savana asked. She tried her very best to dredge up some anger with the blond-haired beastkin about the deception, but found that after the dreadful day’s affairs, she could only muster gratitude for the extraction.

“Yup,” he said with a nod and a boyish grin. “You looked like you needed it.”

Savana was dumbfounded, and not at all displeased. “Yeah,” she slowly found herself admitting. “I did.”

“I’ve got to say it. I’m impressed you put up with it for as long as you did. If I were you, and had all of those powers, I’d have used them to make sure everyone there had a great time together, rather than politely put up with that drivel about granite.”

Savana smiled at the younger man. “I’ve… considered it, once or twice.” She’d never actually do that. Would never abuse her powers like that. But she couldn’t expect her mostly-secular assistant to know about what even counted as abuse in the magical sense—he’d only been working for her for a few months, after all. “But Lady Ishara expects us to be responsible with the powers she grants us.”

He gave a dismissive wave, and gestured towards the Convocation. “Isn’t one of the gods all about being merciful? I’m sure they’d all understand if you occasionally spiced up something drab like that wake.”

Savana smiled, but shook her head. “I’ve got to get back to—”

Percy raised an eyebrow. “You’ve got to get back to your office to deal with that terrible crisis I’ve just informed you of. It could get even worse if you were to try to enjoy your party first, don’t you know.”

“Oh?” Asked Savana, exaggerating the intonation of what she said to match his playful demeanor. She’d wager Their Grace Mischief would love this game the beastkin had decided to play. “Well, if my trusty assistant thinks it’s that urgent, I suppose I’d be a very irresponsible terriarch if I were to try to ignore it.”

Percy nodded in grave agreement. “Oh, absolutely. It’s sure to spell disaster if we delay even a moment longer. This is a matter of the utmost urgency,” he said, before adding, “allons-y,” in a poorly-pronounced attempt at the divine language.

The sounds of the wider world became muffled as the door to Savana’s office latched closed behind them. The enchantments that were meant to keep sound from escaping the room activated with the pleasant thrum of magic, and now acted to muffle the sounds of the embassy beyond.

The office was perhaps a touch lavish when compared to the standards of the other denominations. But the plush cushions and many soft blankets were practically a necessity to the pursuit of her day to day… duties. An oversized chaise doubled as a bed for when she was too tired to shuffle to her real bed after work, which had been happening more often than not since she’d learned of the pontifex’s death. The office was exactly as she’d left it, with one major exception.

A shiny metal bucket stood on her desk. Two bottles bobbed in ice-riddled water. Condensation sparkled in the faint lights of her office as it ran down, leaving little stains on the leather and wood. Before Savana could ask, Percy strode over to it. He pulled out one of the bottles, dripping wet and ice cold, then turned to her. “Thank the gods we made it. Any longer, and the ice would have all melted already.”

Savana cocked her head at him. “You prepared bottle service?”

“Yes. And the ice was melting!” he sincerely said, as he stepped towards her, and offered her the bottle. According to the label it was an Abanian vintage, spiced with currants. “It was all very urgent that you get here as quickly as possible, you understand.”

“And what’s the occasion?” she asked him as he took the bottle back. He produced a corkscrew and a pair of glasses from where they’d been hiding in plain sight on one of her bookcases, and wasted no time in uncorking the bottle.

“Saving you from a dreadful evening, of course,” Percy told her with a wink. “You must be fiercely stressed after all of that.”

He poured each of them a glass of the wine and offered one to Savana. She accepted it and eagerly took a gulp of the cool beverage. “Daray’s beard, but that’s strong!” she complained as it burned the whole way down.

The beastkin shrugged, and matched her gulp with a few of his own. “Pandema must be more sensitive to it than beastkin,” he said. “The other bottle’s weaker sparkling wine, if you’d prefer that.”

Savana shook her head. “No, I… I think that was quite enough for me,” she said, already feeling her cheeks flush a darker gray than normal. “I need to keep my wits about me.” She sat down on the chaise, and Percy soon joined her.

“You do,” Percy agreed. “But you look so tense. Ever since you got the news about the pontifex, you’ve been winding yourself up more and more. You’re coiled up, and the stress is practically dripping from you. You need to relax,” he cooed, before he put his glass of wine down on a cabinet. He cautiously reached up, eyeing her keenly as his hands approached her shoulders.

He put a hand on either of her shoulders, and started to massage the muscles there, working them with more skill than she’d expected from the beastkin. She was apprehensive at first, but the slow sway of his tail, the sweep of his ears, and the gentle smile on his lips all came together to make his offer very appealing indeed, regardless of how far it might go.

“Maybe… Maybe just a glass of that sparkling wine,” Savana said, and his smile grew a little broader. She watched him rise and quickly gulp down the contents of her glass, before he rinsed it out in the bucket of ice water and handed it back filled with sparkling white wine.

She had a few sips of it, more tart than the other drink from the bubbles, then let him coax her down onto the chaise. “This will be a lot easier without those robes in the way,” he said. She nodded, untying the sash that kept them closed, then let the fabric fall away, leaving her in her underwear. The bindings around her chest and the custom underwear to accommodate her tail were both nearly the same gray as her skin.

Savana stretched out as much as the chaise would allow. The buzz of the alcohol was far stronger than she’d expected, but it was a pleasant accompaniment to Percy’s work. He started to massage her back, using his thumbs to work the knots and tension out of every muscle from the top down. She hummed happily, letting her eyes slip shut, and-

Is he purring? She thought. He was! A pleasant rumble of his raspy voice that waxed and waned with the rhythm of his breathing. It was so easy to listen to that sound, to get lost in it. She let her thoughts drift and fade. Before she knew it, she stopped clearly thinking outright as he worked at her back with just as much skill and grace as any Isharan priest.

“To think the future pontifex was so stressed that she needed her assistant to help her relax,” teased Percy as he worked down her back and eventually on to her tail. Gods, even Isharan priests tended to forget about the tail, unless they had one themselves.

“Tragic, I know,” mumbled Savana as she stretched under his ministrations.

“Though… I doubt that’s what your goddess wants for you,” Percy continued. “I bet she thinks you should do more things like this, spend more time enjoying life, and less time arguing with sculptors.”

“Probably,” Savana easily agreed. Percy did not let up once he reached the tip of her tail, instead moving in closer so he could put more weight on her back as he worked his way back up it. When Savana opened her eyes occasionally, she could see the shadow of his tail contentedly swaying back and forth. He was clearly enjoying this and obviously drawing it out, and every time she looked, his shadow was a little fuzzier as the candles lighting her office started to run lower over the course of an hour. “She’d probably like you, if you get so into giving massages.”

“Don’t give me so much credit,” he chided. “I’m doing this all for entirely selfish reasons.”

Savana chuckled at the joke. “Oh, is that so?”

“Oh, yeah,” said Percy. He put his weight on what seemed to Savana to be the perfect spot, and leaned forward on it. There was a slight crack that reverberated through her bones, and made her groan in satisfaction. He was very near to one of her ears as he said, “I expect you to return the favor if I need it, terriarch.”

“Call me Savana, Percy,” she mumbled. “And I’d be more than happy to return the favor. My Lady doesn’t approve of getting yours and leaving your counterpart high and dry.”

“Counterpart, huh?” Percy teased, repeating the word skeptically, but not slowing his efforts.

“Counterpart, partner, lover…” Savana said softly, listing off terms used in Isharan adages by rote. “A few racier titles, too. But you’ve really got to work to earn one of those.”

Percy giggled, a lovely sound that mixed with his purring. “I bet I can earn one of those,” he confidently said, pausing his massage to add, “you’re pretty easy to please, so far,” in a cocky tone.

“I resent that remark,” Savana mumbled good-naturedly as she rolled over to look up at him. He answered that by leaning in, and pressing his lips to hers. It was a gentle, even chaste first kiss, the roughest part of it being the scrape of his stubble against her chin and cheek. It tasted like the wine he’d had, and Savana supposed she should have seen it coming after all of that flirting.

She looked at him once the kiss broke. He had an eager look about him. The normally slitted pupils of his eyes were so widely dilated that they were nearly round, and he had a sly smile on his lips. “I don’t suppose you’d like to get ahead of returning that favor?” he asked, his tail eagerly flicking back and forth behind him, and his ears attentively perked up.

Savana blinked at him. She felt a little light-headed from the massage and wine, and… “Oh, you devious cat,” she said. “All of this charm, getting me out of the wake, all planned to get into my robes.”

“Don’t give me so much credit, ashface,” Percy teased, leaning a little closer. “So eager to follow your wide-eyed assistant out of there. I barely had to do anything.”

“Mangy stray,” Savana said.

“Hellspawn,” retorted Percy.

Savana grinned at him, and hooked one hand behind his neck, pulling him into another kiss as she started to unbutton the black dress shirt he was still wearing from the funeral. “Rough-tongue,” she teased, breathily.

“Hornhead,” said Percy, as he helped her shed his shirt, revealing a typically-beaskin chest, covered in hair that matched that on his head and tail, a little denser than a human’s. He took a few moments to unlace his boots before he kicked them off, giving Savana time to take off the band binding her chest, and work the laces keeping her underpants on over her tail. When he took his pants off, he revealed that he was more than eager to get started. She was, too.

“That was… fun,” mumbled Percy, dreamily. He laid on his side next to her, his eyes half-lidded and drowsy, his tail still for the first time Savana could recall.

Savana nodded at him. “It was,” she said, only for the rumble of his purring to fill the silence that came after. Personally, she could go for another round, but she supposed she couldn’t blame the younger man for not quite being able to keep up. If anything, he’d rather impressed her today. The seduction, the flirting, and the massage, they’d all been great. And the sex? Well, that had been even better.

She rose from the chaise that served as their bed, and stepped over to her desk. She fished a few vials from one of the drawers, kept on hand for just such an occasion. “What are you doing?” Percy asked, propping himself up just enough to see. She answered the question by opening one of the potion vials, and pouring it into a glass she further refilled with the sparkling wine.

She swirled it around for a moment, letting the magical concoction mix with the tepid bubbles, then downed the glass. It took mere moments for the magic to start to act on her, her muscles quickly relaxing, and a pleasant drowsy fuzz settling over her mind.

“Did you just… spike your own drink, Savana?” Percy asked.

Savana shrugged as she settled back onto the chaise. “If I don’t make sure I fall asleep, I’ll want to get back to work,” she said, then pressed her lips to his. “And then you’d have to drag me away from it again, and… uhm… Well, it’d just be a whole thing I’d rather avoid.”

He sleepily giggled at her pauses. “What in the hells did you just take?”

“Distilled sap of Ishara’s Bait,” Savana slurred. Her eyelids were already getting so, so heavy, and she decided it would probably be best to just let the potion help her settle in for the night. She snuggled a little closer to him, happily letting the purr that rumbled his throat and chest lull her to sleep.