“I’ve been thinking about baby names,” Avani commented as we sat relaxing before the fire after a long day of visiting the good citizens of Selphia, delivering New Year’s gifts to everyone. She had chosen to celebrate her first New Year’s Day in Selphia in that manner, and had done so every year since. And as usual, she had gone to great pains to give each person something that they especially loved or wished for. She had made each gift herself or had grown it in her own gardens, as handmade gifts were still preferred to purchased items in our town. It was a painstaking process that required days of preparation, gathering components as well as making everything, and she had spared no effort despite her condition. She did the same thing at Christmas each year, too, so by the end of New Year’s Day, she was exhausted from her endeavors, more so this year than ever.

I set my book down and put an arm around her shoulders to draw her closer. “Oh? And have you reached a decision, My Lady?” I smiled at her pensive expression.

“No… not exactly. But I was thinking that I’d like to name our child in honor of Venti,” she said, looking up at me. “I mean, she was such a dear friend to us both, and besides—she’s the reason we met in the first place. If it hadn’t been for her, our child wouldn’t even exist.”

“That’s true enough, and those are very good reasons for making her our child’s namesake, but are you actually proposing to name our child Ventuswill?” I frowned at the thought of a child with a dragon’s name—and a Native Dragon at that.

“Oh, no—that isn’t what I meant at all. I mean, I’d like to name the baby in her honor, not use her actual name. That would be strange and, well, kind of presumptuous, don’t you think? To give a human child a Native Dragon’s name? And even if it wasn’t, it would be a lot to live up to. I mean, just imagine growing up burdened with the name Fiersome! No, I just meant something that would kind of… commemorate her. So that if somehow… if there’s some way that she… that she can see us from the Forest of Beginnings… so that she knows that she’s still very much in our hearts and minds, you know,” she said, blushing as she struggled to convey her meaning.

“I think I understand,” I mused. “And I think it’s a lovely idea. Depending, of course, on what names you actually come up with.”

“I’ll think about it and let you know,” she smiled at me, nestling down against me.

I picked up my book and resumed my reading as she leaned against me, slipping into a light doze. The foxes wandered in from whatever crepuscular activities they had engaged in, phasing through the heavy wood door at the back of the room, and immediately leaped up onto Avani’s lap to soak up her surplus warmth while basking in the fire’s glow. They arranged themselves as best they could around her round belly as they resolidified, presenting themselves for petting.

I had been surprised by how quickly her belly had expanded, but Nancy reassured me that she was in perfect health. She also pointed out that some women just show more or sooner than others, and given how petite she was, it was not at all surprising that she already had a good-sized bump. Not that I minded, of course—watching the new life created by our union growing and thriving within her filled me to bursting with pride and joy.

After a while, Avani stirred and sleepily suggested we head off to bed. She was tired from the day’s activity, and she reminded me that the next couple of days would be equally busy for her. She’d met with Arthur and Volkanon before Christmas, and after a lengthy discussion, they’d all agreed to have a feast-day on Venti’s birthday—not a public festival, exactly, but rather a private commemoration for those who had known and loved her. So it was agreed upon that the town would close up early that day and gather at Porcoline’s restaurant for a party to celebrate her life—a birthday party at which the guest of honor would unavoidably be absent.

Porcoline was preparing most of the food, and Dylas would be assisting—that is, he’d mostly be standing guard to be sure his boss didn’t eat every dish as soon as he cooked it. In addition to Porcoline’s dishes, Avani was making the desserts for the party, as she had acquired quite a reputation for her baking skills. Furthermore, while Lumie offered to provide the flowers, it would be Margaret and Avani who would actually decorate with them, making garlands and floral arrangements to brighten up the restaurant. However, since Margaret was also in charge of the music, most of her time lately had been spent rehearsing with Deasún, who apparently had some skill with a small, end-blown flute known as a feadóg as well as with the mandolin, and had offered to share entertainment duties with her. That left her with little time for decorating, so most of that task fell to Avani as well. Fortunately, Nancy and Dolce offered to decorate the cakes for her, otherwise, she likely would have been too worn out to enjoy the event.

The next two days she was in a flurry of activity, baking up a storm, and in between, busily arranging flowers in large vases borrowed from the castle’s storerooms and tying more flowers into yards and yards of garlands. There wasn’t much I could do to help her, since my cooking abilities were far beneath hers and I had no talent whatsoever for flower arranging. So instead, I offered my services to her as errand-boy, running to the store when she ran low on ingredients, delivering messages, picking up additional flowers or other materials, and delivering things to Porcoline’s restaurant to be set aside under Dylas’s watchful eyes for the party.

At the end of each day, I forced her to sit back and put her feet up while I cooked a simple meal for us. And in the mornings, I made her breakfast in bed, and afterwards I did what I could to help with her chores. I had a black thumb when it came to growing things, but I did have some talent with animals, if less than her own, so I cared for her beasts while she tended her crops and orchards. Most of her monsters had come to accept me, even if they didn’t feel the deep affection for me that they had for her. One or two still held out against me, though, and could become belligerent at times when I entered their barn alone. But I could cope with the occasional aggressive cluckadoodle or wooly, though it did make grooming them a challenge.

The morning of Venti’s birthday dawned bright and clear—a gorgeous spring day. Signs went up in all the businesses warning tourists that they’d be closing early that day. Most had chosen to close at 17:00, an hour before the party was to begin, but Porcoline’s closed a few hours before everyone else to allow time for the last tourists to finish their meals and leave and for the restaurant to get cleaned and decorated before people began to arrive. And Lin put up a notice that the baths would be closing promptly at 16:00, to be sure the last patrons had time to finish bathing and leave before they shut the doors. She also set out a sign that no one would be available at the front desk after 17:00, in case any late arrivals came in search of a room for the night. Finally, Arthur posted a notice at the airship dock, cautioning tourists that businesses would be closing early, and he had warned the airship pilots that stopped in our town, as well.

Nancy and Dolce had picked up the many cake layers Avani had baked the night before and intended to spend the day decorating them together. I noticed that Nancy was radiant at the thought of spending the day thus occupied with her adopted daughter, and that Dolce, despite her sarcastic, cold demeanor, nevertheless seemed quietly pleased at the prospect, too. I thought it was wonderful that the two had found each other: the childless woman with a mother’s heart, and the orphaned girl who secretly longed for a mother’s tender care. Yet another example of the joy Venti had brought into our lives, both directly and indirectly.

After the morning chores were done, I helped Avani carry the last of the desserts and flowers to the restaurant. We left them with Dylas, then we hurried over to the inn to bathe, so that she could have a soak before Lin had heated it up all the way for the day’s patrons. Lin had been very obliging, refraining from heating up the ladies’ bathing pool until after Avani had her soak. Very few tourists came to the baths so early in the morning, and the few women in town that bathed early just waited a little longer if they wanted a really hot bath. I thought to myself that you’d never find that sort of consideration in a large city, where nearly everyone was a stranger. You needed a small-town environment to foster relationships of that caliber.

The final detail that Avani wanted to attend to before she began setting things up at the restaurant was an arrangement of gold vegetables. They’d been particular favorites of Venti’s, and she wanted to display some as a tribute to her. So after bathing, we took the airship to her winter field, where she grew all her golden vegetables—they seemed to thrive in the chill and heavy snowfall of that rugged mountain environment.

It was a spectacular sight, I had to admit—rows of shining golden vegetables poking up out of the thick blanket of pristine white. She carefully brushed away the snow from the glittering leaves of the crops, and selected a bushel of the finest specimens. Whatever she didn’t need for her display she could store for later use, as they kept remarkably well.

While she picked her vegetables, I wandered around nearby, scaring off a few curious snowies—large, animated snowmen—that had come to investigate our activities. Her auxiliary fields were, surprisingly, never disturbed by the local wildlife, but we always found monsters gathered nearby when we left, if we left by foot anyway. However, today we departed using the escape spell, returning to town just about the time the restaurant closed. We left the gold vegetables with Dylas, then we returned to the castle to change into our festival clothes and hurried back to start decorating.

As the last few patrons finished their meals, Avani arranged the display of golden vegetables. She arranged them artistically on a large platter, and placed it on a sideboard under a portrait of Venti borrowed from the castle. On either side, she placed urns with cascading arrangements of flowers, featuring large blue crystal flowers from her own fields. She then placed more flowers on the tables, the counter, and the grand piano. I balked, however, at her climbing up to hang the garlands, insisting that she stay on the ground and direct me as I hung them in her stead. Together, we completed the decorations just as the last customer paid his bill and left. Dylas quickly washed up the last of the dishes, and we pitched in with the tidying up, Avani wiping tables while I swept the floor. Soon the restaurant was sparkling clean.

Margaret arrived as we finished, and she stood guard over Porcoline while the food was brought out. Dylas pulled tray after tray of food from the storeroom while Avani set the dishes out and garnished them prettily with flowers, foliage, and decoratively cut fruits and vegetables. Deasún and Lumie arrived soon after we finished cleaning, and he and Margaret tuned their instruments while Dylas took over chef-sitting duties and Lumie helped us set out the food.

The rest of the townsfolk began to arrive at 18:00, and Margaret and Deasún began to play as they wandered in. Arthur, of course, had precedence as a Prince of the realm, but as was typical, he bowed out of the formalities and left Avani, as Acting Princess and the Baronet of the Selphia Plains, in charge. She stood in the center of the large room, flanked by Dylas and myself as her two knights, to welcome everyone as they arrived. She had chosen a charming frock made of a wispy fabric in a pale shade of cyan, and it clung to her, highlighting the new swells and curves of her body most attractively. Her initial morning sickness was already a thing of the past, and she had recovered the weight lost during that brief but turbulent time. In fact, she looked better than ever, at least to me—pregnancy seemed to agree with her, if her radiant smile and sparkling eyes were any indication, anyway. All the women and most of the men remarked on her appearance and her growing belly, all except Doug, who seemed a little leery, as if he expected her to go into labor any second despite being barely at the end of her first trimester.

**************

The party was in full swing, the speeches having given way to music and dancing while the drink flowed freely, when suddenly my keen ears caught the sounds of a commotion outside. I caught Dylas’ eye, and we headed for the door to investigate the disturbance. Before either of us could reach the entrance, though, the doors suddenly burst open.

Standing in the doorway was a small group of strangers, with some of the guards attempting unsuccessfully to restrain them. The group consisted of a man, a woman, and a third figure, whose gender I was unable to ascertain at first glance. The man was young—younger than me, anyway—and surprisingly beautiful. His shoulder-length hair was the pale greenish gold of partly ripened grain, and his eyes were such a light shade of green or blue as to be nearly white, except for the dark green rim encircling each pale iris. Half a moment later, though, I realized that as striking as his eyes were, they were sightless, or nearly so. His skin was a light amber color, and his clothing was strange, unlike any I’d seen before. He wore loose, almost baggy, trousers of a lightweight fabric in a sandy color, and a peculiar jacket of the same cloth that was tight at the wrists but ballooned around his shoulders and back, leaving his bare chest exposed. A loosely wrapped turban adorned his head, the ends hanging down one side. The trim of the jacket and turban and the sash tied at his waist were all dyed a deep forest green.

Clinging to his left arm was the woman, who was both beautiful and exotic. Long, pale lilac hair hung to the backs of her knees, and her eyes were a deep amethyst color. A worried look clouded her delicate features, and a faint blush crept over her the pale golden skin of her cheeks as she looked around at the crowd staring at them. She wore a long skirt, split clear to the top of her thigh on one side, and a loose blouse that left her shoulders and midriff bare, both of a very fine, semi-sheer, white fabric. Wide gold cuffs adorned her thin wrists, and gold armbands were clasped around her arm above the low neckline. Earrings of gold and amethyst hung from her small ears, and a gold chain hung with pearls and amethysts was fastened around the top of her skirt at her hips. Seeing so many strange eyes staring at her appeared to enervate her, and she clung more tightly to her companion as her eyes continued to search the crowd.

As I regarded the pair, the third stranger pulled free of the guards’ grasp and stepped forward to the man’s other side, though still remaining a step or two back. On a closer inspection, I saw she was clearly female. She was tiny—possibly even smaller than Xiao—and had a thick, unruly mane of silver hair. Her clothing reminded me a little of Dylas’s, all leather and buckles. She wore a crimson jacket over a black top and black shorts, and black leather boots that ended mid-thigh. But her most striking feature by far was her eyes. I had never before met someone with heterochromatic eyes, and I found it initially somewhat disconcerting as my gaze jumped back and forth between the two different eyes, one ruby red and one emerald green, trying to determine which to focus on. After a moment, I realized she was returning my gaze with a disdainful, proud look that actually brought the color to my own cheeks. She definitely impressed me as an interesting individual, perhaps even more so than her companions.

Hearing the commotion at the doors, Avani turned and looked with a frown at the gatecrashers. Setting down her glass of juice, she strode over to see what the fuss was about. I was startled when the two women quietly gasped at her approach, though they remained silent, apparently struck speechless as they stared at her. Standing before the pair at the fore of the group, Avani looked from the man to his companions and back again. “I’m sorry,” she said firmly but not unkindly, “but the restaurant is closed for a private party at this time. In fact, the entire town is closed tonight. Perhaps you missed the notice at the airship dock. Do you have pressing business in town? Or can you return tomorrow?”

Then, to my complete and utter surprise, the man's face lit up at her voice, and reaching out to her, he pulled her to him and enfolded her in a tight embrace, her face reflecting the shock I felt.

“Avani!” he cried joyfully, tears beginning to spill down his cheeks. “I’ve come to you at last, my love!”