The Greenhouse

“Are you sure you don’t want to stop for lunch?”

Anhelina stood at the door, ready to go get my lunch as soon as I said the word. As we rang in the new year, I expect the amount of work to stay. The string of paperwork would be different, but the workload would remain relatively stagnant.

I was tragically wrong. Everything increased as we had budgets to review, infrastructure to manage, and Creatures to make sure stayed happy. The winter was a good time to renegotiate land and territory with Woodland Creatures before the thaw since if they’d changed their mind and hadn’t thought it relevant to tell us, that would end poorly for everyone.

Most of the time it wasn’t an issue, but the dragon seemed to be moving around more than usual and they wanted to make sure she had the space necessary. Hunters had been venturing through more undiscovered areas and seemed to be creeping in too close. Muin and I had been passing ideas back and forth for the past few days to try and see if we could tackle it from different angles. I was familiar with Human-Creature interactions where they were fond of us, and he was familiar where they were more hostile than kind. I could almost feel us getting close to a solution.

“It would be okay if you took a break, my lord.” Anhelina said. I looked up at her, trying not to show how much my eyes were hurting just by doing that. “Besides, Lord Muin is also taking a break to eat lunch.”

I stopped tapping my pencil. “Really?”

She smiled, knowing she had me hooked. “He is. Fedir likely just finished making his lunch now if you’d like to join him.”

I bit my lip, looking down at the budgets. My head was starting to hurt, and my eyes were unfocused. I sighed, leaning back in my chair. “Fine. You’ve successfully pestered me.”

Anhelina high fived herself before moving to help me up from my seat.

Of course, the day he decided to take lunch outside of his office I would be severely underdressed. In comfortably thick pants and a large sweater, I hadn’t put much thought into what I was going to where. The snow had piled up so much in the week since the festival there was no way anyone was going to make it up the hill to the manor. It would have been too much work.

I was too tired to feel anxious as we made our way to the dining room. At least, I thought I wouldn’t be too anxious. I still found myself tugging at my shirt and trying to get my hair to behave better. At least I was wearing that pin Mom gave me.

The dining room table was a large, heavy, dark wooden table that could easily fit ten people. At least half of it, I noted as I walked in, was full of food. Chicken, beef, noodles, rice, potatoes, and broccoli were a few of the things I noticed at I walked in. Jurek had mentioned Muin ate a lot, but this was my first time seeing it. I found it hard to believe that he was going to eat everything, but from the ferocity of how he ate the wings on his plate, I was starting to believe it a bit more.

He looked surprised to see me, his face turning red as he realized I saw him.

“I didn’t realize we were hosting, my lord,” I said, taking the seat to his right. I smiled, leaning forward as he wiped his face. “If I’d known, I would have dressed up a bit.”

He looked at all the food, then back to me. “You can have some, if you’d like.”

“Oh, no,” I said as Anhelina came back in with a bowl of soup. “I’m sure you’d appreciate the food far more than I would. I think Fedir might have mentioned it since he hates it, but food is nothing more than fuel to me. Aside from bread, of course. I’d like to be buried with Esther’s bread, if possible.”

He laughed. A proper laugh, not the chuckles that he used when he teased me. His body shook, his mouth in a wide grin I couldn’t look away from. I quickly looked down at my soup, that familiar all-encompassing feeling that came with transformation started to rise as my emotions started to spiral out of control.

“I was told you were funny,” he said. “It was one of the few things my mother told me, but it’s interesting to witness it.”

That was a little odd to know. I didn’t remember meeting his parents until the wedding, and even then, I only saw them from where they sat. I usually remembered the pompous dickheads Mom and Dad had me meet. It was considered impolite if I couldn’t put a name to a face. Well, it was fine. Dad probably mentioned it. He always found a way to mention it.

“You know, if we ever had to visit my parents, all you’d have to do is mention that to my dad and he would talk your ear off about it.”

“Really?” He traded out his plate of wings for a plate of mashed potatoes, broccoli, and melted cheese. “Your father seemed…” He trailed off, searching for the right word.

“Spineless? Whipped? Unable to say no to my mother?”

His eyes went wide as he turned away. Anhelina snorted behind me, though she was getting good at turning her laughs into coughs.

“That’s, um, that’s not exactly what I was going to say,” he said. It was clear he was trying not to laugh as he cleared his throat. “I was going to say he seemed very amenable.”

“That’s so much nicer than what I said.” I looked at Jurek who was standing behind him and she quickly looked away. There was always one way to break Jurek: make direct eye contact. It worked every time, and I always took advantage.

“I was under the impression you were close with your father,” he said. Somehow, he was eating while we were talking without being gross about it. “Was that wrong?”

I shrugged, taking a sip of my soup. “I’m closer to him than my mom, that’s for sure. She had a favorite and it wasn’t me.” I wasn’t my dad’s favorite either, but he didn’t need to know that. “But he was… he…” I trailed off, looking at the trellis. How did I say he stood there and let Mom tell me I was worthless and isolate me for years until I convinced myself I liked being alone without saying it?

“It’s okay,” Muin said. He looked at me with a look of understanding and I realized my eyes were watering. I looked away, dabbing my eyes with my sleeve. “Parents are complicated. We don’t need to talk about it.”

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize I was…” My heart felt like it was being squeezed. I’d always thought of Dad as the ‘better parent’. The one who actually cared about me and didn’t put me down and liked to brag about me, unlike Mom who couldn’t even say something nice. I never really thought about how he would rub my knuckles after every full moon to make sure I was human or how he disappeared for two months after my curse was discovered or how he was insistent that I stay calm all the time since high emotions could trigger a transformation. Big emotions weren’t allowed since only Solas knows what I would change into.

“I don’t want to see you in pain,” he would say gripping my shoulders a little too hard. But thinking back on it, his fear was obvious, and his disdain was barely masked.

I took a deep breath and straightened my back. There was no point in dwelling on the past. It wasn’t going to do anything but make me sad or angry.

“I’m sorry, my lord. I’ll just have to agree with you that parents are complicated and move on.”

His smiled was sad as he said, “They sure are.” We sat in silence for a moment, though it wasn’t uncomfortable. Just the two of us sitting with the fact that our parents were a complicated topic to talk about. “If you wouldn’t mind a subject change, did you have any ideas for the greenhouse?”

“I was thinking of a plan of action,” I said, grateful for the segue. “Since it looks like you haven’t been able to work in there for years, I was hoping we could start small with just picking up and sweeping.” I paused, realizing how absurd that was. “If you’re too busy, though, I don’t want you to spend your free time cleaning. I can do it myself if—”

“I’d love to,” he said. He reached over, setting his hand on mine. “We can start that this afternoon if you want. We’ve been working nonstop since the festival; I think taking a break soon and doing something else would be good for us.”

I stared at our hands, realizing this was the first time we actually touched. Even when he helped me from the carriage, I was wearing gloves and when I fixed his scarf, I didn’t get close enough to touch him. His hand was even warmer than I expected and easily covered mine. I still had no idea how I didn’t notice at the wedding.

I turned my hand over, grasping his, though I looked down at my soup as I did it. If I looked at him, I wasn’t sure I could stay human and all I could think of, as Muin continued to talk about the greenhouse, was Putra’s smug face when I actually admitted it.

I had a big stupid, dumb crush on my husband.

<><><><><>

“Are you, or are you not, deeply attached the blue and green flowerpot over there?”

Muin looked over his shoulder, dirt smudged on his cheeks, as he hauled another bag of potting soil to the corner. With the amount of materials in greenhouse—pots, soils, seeds, watering cans—it was clear that he intended to work in here a lot but got sidetracked with more work than one person should have to do.

After lunch we pushed through a couple hours of work before Jurek and Anhelina announced our days were done and we made our way to the greenhouse. Now, an hour later, we were still sorting out and cleaning.

“No,” he said, tossing the soil onto the pile. “The pots were bought with the idea of being replaced.”

“Awesome. This one is shattered.” I managed to get most of the pieces into a pile, but the smaller shards were still scattered somewhere. I was picking my way over to the door to get a broom.

“Shattered?” He looked me over, eyes settling on my hand. He moved faster than I thought possible in the mess, grabbing my hand and pulling me closer to look at the scratch. “You’re bleeding.”

“It’s just a little scratch,” I said. “I’ve dealt with worse.” One time Liza broke my nose after putting too much force into her batting swing. I’ll never forget how disorienting it was to be standing upright and then be looking at the sky, my face swollen and throbbing.

“It should still be taken care of,” he said, his brows scrunching as he frowned, looking over the scratch. It was a little deeper than a scratch, but the bleeding had already stopped. This time I did reach up and smooth out the wrinkles of his forehead. He looked surprised but didn’t move away as I moved his hair from his face. His face softened as he said, “It’d be bad if it got infected.”

“I’ll be okay,” I said. “Wouldn’t want to send Anhelina into a tizzy.”

He laughed. “She does get really worried, doesn’t she?”

There was a soft cough behind us. Muin took a big step back, red climbing his neck and face. Jurek stood at the door, holding her hands behind her back with a wide smile on her face. She, Putra, and Anhelina liked to sit and gossip while Muin and I worked so I was sure he filled her in on his thoughts about us. I could only imagine the field day the three of them would have after this.

“Lady Hyran. You have a letter from Viscount Liza Notti.”

I tried and failed to hide my surprise. Liza was the last person I expected to hear from. She was always busy with some new business thing and hardly made time for Jiro, so it was shocking she’d made time for me, even just to write a letter.

It was more shocking that it was delivered with all of the snow.

“Thank you, Jurek.” She bowed, giving Muin a knowing grin, and left.

Muin was turned away from me, shuffling with some of the empty potters. Even his hands seemed red.

I smiled, thinking about how I could tease him about it as I opened the letter.

> January 2

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> Hyran,

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> I know it’s been a while since we last saw each other, but after my visit to Capsi with Verdi, I’d like to visit you sooner than expected.

>

> It’s custom to not visit in person for the first year of marriage as this is going to be your adjustment period. Getting the hang of leading, getting a schedule, all of that. It’s important. Solas knows I needed it after I married Jiro.

>

> This, however, I would like to ignore for a moment. Your birthday is coming soon, and it’ll be your first one not at Notti Manor. You and Verdi made sure I felt your love when my birthday passed before my year was up and we wanted to do the same. We took this opportunity to visit Marquis Muin’s home before coming to you in hopes that we would be able to find more information on him. You never met him before this so we thought it would be good.

>

> We didn’t find out much about him aside from the fact that he loves food. He used to travel around the region trying new food, though that seemed to be the only thing he was doing. Aside from that, he didn’t go out. He didn’t party, he didn’t compete, he didn’t play. He truly is a recluse, so I hope that you’ve managed to find some common ground.

>

> I meant to send this out sooner, but a lot things happened while we were here. The Dukes Nin are excellent hosts and treated us with such grace and kindness that it was easy for even me to lose track of what days were passing.

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> We’re leaving in the next few days, so we’ll see you soon.

>

> Much love from your sisters,

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>

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> Liza and Verdi

I looked over the letter again making sure I read it right. She wrote this a week ago, meaning they would be here soon, likely in the next few days. That was odd but not unwelcome. My feelings surrounding the two of them were as complicated as ever, but I did miss them still. I didn’t think any of them would think of me again once I left, but Verdi dealt with weeks of travel just to come see me. And, of course, get the royal treatment from the Dukes Nin.

“My lord.” He didn’t turn, just made a noise of acknowledgment. I grinned, walking up to him. I slipped around him, looking up as I leaned forward, putting my grinning face in front of his red, embarrassed one. He reeled back, looking like I’d caught him with his hand in the cookie jar. “We need to prepare for company. My sisters are coming soon.”