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[Cezanne Abella]

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“I knew you still had them.” Cezanne grinned as she produced a kerchief, folded in on itself twice. Nestled inside lay three poppies, dried and pressed, and withered like old parchment. But they were still nearly perfect. She handed the precious parcel to Arahim.

Hours and days she had spent, pilfering this chest, and that armoir. Searching every book in his library. Arahim came and went as always, and she halted her total invasion of his privacy long enough to visit and take in the evening air with him under the maple tree whose leaves burned brightly but refused to fall. Long nights were spent talking before the fire, at perfect peace.

She never once tried to hide her excavation of all things private. And he never once asked what she sought. There lingered only the silent agreement that, when he was there, she ceased her search, and when he was gone, it resumed again.

She found old love letters. Some bearing names she knew, and some with names she did not. But there she drew the line. For whoever the author, those words were for Arahim, and she folded them up again, leaving them unread.

Finally, she found the prize she sought. Inside a gauntlet from his jousting armour lay the kerchief she remembered. And inside, the objects of her quest. She smiled, tidied up anything she’d left disheveled, and tucked them carefully away until he arrived from wherever he was again.

At this moment, however, he sat beneath the tree, holding the poppies thoughtfully.

Cezanne smiled solemnly. “I knew you still had them. Looks like they’ve weathered the year better than we have.”

He looked at them intently for a moment, then handed them back to her. “These are yours.” Cezanne was puzzled. She tilted her head, looking from them to him, before he continued. “I picked them for you.”

“But Ara. You picked them. You’ve saved them.”

Arahim nodded slightly and unfolded the parcel, choosing one of the poppies and holding the other two up to her. “This one is mine. You choose one too.”

Cezanne examined the two remaining dried poppies, and chose the one with a crease in its papery petals, leaving the perfect one unchosen.

Arahim smiled as he held the last one out to her. “And this one is yours as well. Each of us will keep one. Leave this one in a place of your choosing. Maybe it will bring something to someone else who finds it.”

Quietly, Cezanne nodded and took the poppy. The two sat in silence for a few moments before she lay her cheek against his shoulder. “I have to retrieve paints for the posters.”

Arahim nodded quietly as she rose, carrying the two pressed poppies as she retreated inside from the garden. She took only what she needed, and began the walk home to Ashencrosse as she had so many times before. Later that night, in the silence beneath the moons, a hooded figure reverently laid a faded, perfect red poppy on the ground at the Shrine of Sacrifice, in hopes that it would bring light to some soul as yet unknown.

Then, she made her way home.

[Arahim]

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Arahim rooted beneath the covers, wriggling on his side to cloister himself where the bed met the wall. The fire in the hearth carved shadow along the room's quiet surfaces, and washed the otherwise darkened space in a tangle of warm, dancing orange and gold.

Just past the heavy oak door, barefeet pattered across the thick carpeting in the hallway, and quickly receded.

Arahim shut his eyes slowly, and listened for the sound of the front door opening, then closing. Always followed by the tinny squeak of the front garden gate, and the faint scrape of wood on pavement.

None had come just yet.

Placing one hand upon the cold stone seperating his home from the world outside, he imagined Cezanne ghosting through collected things that could be said to sum up his life right up to this point in time. The implied permission he gave to her, through never mentioning her rummaging forays, not only lent a carefree ease to her coming and going, but an invitation she had accepted without discussion, or need for explanation.

The small parcel they had divided earlier that evening lay folded on his bedside table. His need to hide that piece of the past had long ago died. Almost as surely as the woman who had slept on the floor outside of her own bedroom door so long ago, had disappeared, and now sang a new song.

One of her own choosing.

Drowsing, Arahim started in the silence of the night's small hours, to realize he had missed Cezanne's departure, and sat up abruptly. Sighing to steady his breathing, and fighting down a fit of shivering, he carefully untucked, and pulled back the thick quilt and blanket beneath from the empty side of the bed before laying back down. Shifting slightly to again find his place, and holding the corner of the upturned blankets in his hands.