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What was more fantastical than a dull day?

"Good-dull," she clarified "No wars to spice it up No conquests or slave raids, only "

"And how is that dull?" asked Akiva, a her throat and assu what she intended to be the stuffy voice of history "Eleventh January, Year of the… Neek-Neek The garrison at Cape Armasin is disassembled for timber A town is plotted on the site There is indecision as to the height of a proposed clock tower Councilher eyeballs from side to side "Splits the difference Clock tower duly built Vegetables grown and eaten Many sunsets adhed "That," he said, "is a willful failure of is happen in this io"

"Okay" He paused to think When he spoke, he approximated Karou’s history voice "Eleventh January, Year of the Neek-Neek The garrison at Cape Armasin is disassembled for timber The town plotted on the site is the first of mixed race in all of Eretz Chimaera and seraphiht, and when he resu, it was in his own voice, if a tender, careful version of it "Soether Did he aze steady and warether It always had the wordless, golden unreality of a dream

"Soether under a shared blanket and breathe the scent of each other in their sleep They drearove, and of the wishes that were rove--every night, every moment, every wish She remeht of him But not with this body To this body every sensation would be new She flushed, but didn’t look away

"Soer to wait"

She sed, finding her voice "You’re right," she allowed, practically whispering "That’s not dull"

Not h, and for the hts they spent at the Dominion ca the bull centaur Balieros--stepping into Thiago’s co until dawn so that Karou, who had detern tents, never got the chance

Tolerable: the third ether

There was some consternation about it Ormerod held that Akiva would be needed in the capital, which had yet to be brought, gently or otherwise, into this new post-Empire era Akiva replied that they would be better off without the hysteria his presence would ignite "Besides," he said, "I have a prior commitment"

When his expression softened then, with a look to Karou, the nature of his "commitment" was easily misconstrued

"Surely it can wait," protested Or what they all thought--and they weren’t wrong to think it Will it ever be ti kissed Akiva at last didn’tany easier, but had just served to stoke her hunger for hi to, anyway "Let me help you," he had pled back at the caves, when Karou had told him ork lay ahead for her "It’s all I want, to be beside you, helping you If it takes forever, all the better, if it’s forever with you"

It had seemed so far off then, but here they were Work to do and pain to tithe and cake around the edges

The edges, she pledged, would be ample Hadn’t they earned it?

Liraz settled thethat the chimaera needed a seraph escort anyway in this critical ti like an easy peace, and their mission was one of such i way as she had in the war council, and with the same effect: Liraz spoke, and truth was born

It was a power, Karou thought, looking at her with ever-increasing respect, that the angel hadn’t begun to explore And she liked it a lot better when it was used for her, not against her

And it couldn’t be only the sway Liraz held over them, that once the seraphim were made to understand just what mission of importance the chimaera now undertook, they tried to volunteer for it

It was then, looking around at their faces, that Karou knew her first draught of easy hope for the future of Eretz As it had before, when Liraz ad Ziri’s soul into her canteen, her heart felt pulled to pieces

Every Misbegotten within earshot volunteered to go to Loramendi, and help with the excavation of souls

They were all of the memories, and most, their shames None had ever had the chance to… unmassacre a city before In so the souls buried in Brimstone’s cathedral--those hidden thousands who had chosen their death that day for its hope of rebirth Briirl raised hue of the ht so them out

And the heavier hope still: that there could be a world worth bringing thes, that it could have coh Karou stood in the midst of several hundred soldiers of both sides who had had their role in it, it was as though a gleaaze to Akiva, without whom it never could have The wishbone Ziri’s life Issa’s thurible The offer of alliance All of it Every step of the way, he had been there But before, long before, there had been the dream A "life wish," as he had said once For a different sort of life

Every once in a while, back in her human life as an artist, it had happened that Karou would do a drawing that was soshe’d done before that it would stun her When that happened, she wouldn’t be able to stop looking at it She’d co, and even wake in the aze at it, onder and pride

It was like that looking at Akiva, too

He was as fixed on her as she was on hier where their eyes er that contained those things and " and "having"the other