“You’ll want to change,” Atheri – Lain’s aunt, still a strange thought to her – said gently. She was tall and strong-shouldered, her silver hair coiled with bright feathers, her tone carrying the soft authority of someone used to both work and care.
“Why?” Lain asked.
“For the dance,” Atheri said. “It’s a bonding night – first Heat for the younger ones. You may as well look part of family. I’ll wash your clothing so it will be ready for your departure tomorrow.” She studied Mallow with a furrowed brow. “I’ll get something for your human as well, I suppose.”
Mallow accepted the clothes first: a linen shirt, soft-woven and sleeveless, and a draped mantle dyed deep green. He kept his own trousers, tugging at the unfamiliar fit with mild discomfort. Lain tried not to smile at the sight.
Her own garment was a dress of midnight wool, sleeveless and cut high at the waist to leave her tail free. When she stepped into it, the fabric seemed to sigh against her skin. Instead of piping it was woven through with tiny threads of scale that caught the torchlight like constellations.
Word of their arrival spread fast through the village, and it wasn’t long before other families came by Soryn’s house, to meet their lost kin and get an eyeful of her human companion. She shook so many hands she was embarrassed to say how few of them she remembered, by the time they were finished crowding the door.
That evening, the village gathered by the central pool. Torches ringed the water, their flames glimmering on the surface in molten reds and golds. Music came softly from a circle of instruments: bone flutes, hollow drums, and the shimmering resonance of struck glass bells.
Lain stood with Mallow near the edge. The music was slow and rhythmic. A young woman stepped into the ring, her antlers gleaming pale blue beneath the torchlight, wrapped in ribbons that matched the hue of her dress.
Atheri guided Mallow and Lain to a place beside her at the benches. “We call it the Choosing,” she explained. “Every Kelthi woman dances her first Heat. It’s when she names the partner she’s already chosen – the rest is for show. The other suitors dance to honor her decision.”
Lain watched, transfixed. The woman moved in a circle while the men waited outside the ring, antlers strung with garlands of grass. When the music shifted, the woman stepped forward, eyes locking on one of the men. He smiled, shy but sure, and entered the circle with her. The others followed, each for a moment her rival, each falling away as she turned to the one who’d already held her gaze. Once they touched, the gathered crowd began to hum along, a single note beneath the music.
Soryn’s wife smiled faintly. “I believe her parents tried to convince her of another family, but she and Harvan have always had eyes for each other.”
Lain nodded, but her throat felt tight. She hummed anyway, carried as she was by the song the others sang. The air was fragrant with their happiness, but she felt an ache she couldn’t name, nostalgia for something she’d never had. The sight of them, free to choose, to touch, to celebrate what the world had taught her to hide, was both beautiful and unbearable.
Her Heat flickered faintly beneath her skin.
“I was taught to hide it,” she murmured. “To pray it away. I had to remain pure.”
“That’s what happens when someone who doesn’t understand you is deciding what’s sacred,” Atheri said with understanding.
“So will they… tonight. What happens next?”
Atheri smiled. “They’ve chosen each other. They may carry on to satisfy the Heat in private. There will be fresh Kelthings, many moons from now. But some of the young women may take herbs to keep it from catching this time.”
Lain glanced at Mallow, who seemed to be biting down on a comment.
“Do they stay paired forever?” Lain asked.
Atheri laughed. “No, not always. A woman’s first may be a good teacher in many things, but the world brings others. The bond fades with the Heat; they may reestablish when the season returns, or they may not.”
Mallow was quiet beside her. When Lain turned, he was watching the dancers too, the firelight soft on his face. Something in his expression broke her heart – not envy or discomfort, but a kind of awe, as though he were seeing the truth of what she was for the first time, not as a burden but something rare.
After a while he rose, murmuring something about needing water. Lain didn’t stop him. She sat still, watching the dancers choose their partners, one by one, until the final pair twined their antlers together in the ritual gesture of promise.
Then each pair was handed a bowl, and within were blackberries and raspberries. One by one, they fed the berries to one another, and the gathered crowd cheered.
The music softened. The villagers began to disperse, laughter tender, hands brushing as they passed.
Atheri turned to her. “You should stay for the feast. But if you need quiet, the grove paths stay lit.”
“Thank you,” Lain said. Her voice sounded far away in her own ears.
When Atheri had gone, Lain walked toward the edge of the pool. The last ripples of torchlight shimmered across the surface, breaking the reflection of the moon into a dozen scattered fragments. She wondered if her mother danced like this once, if she’d chosen her father under the gaze of the same stars.
The thought made her chest ache.
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
Footsteps approached behind her. She turned to find Mallow returning from the shadows, his hair tousled by the valley wind. His expression was uncertain but warm.
“You vanished,” she said.
“I needed a moment.” He hesitated, then smiled a little. “They don’t shame anything here, do they? I envy that.”
“You? I thought you were shameless.”
He shrugged. “Maybe it’s easier when everything sacred and everything Kelthi are the same thing.”
Lain laughed softly, though her voice trembled. “The Dagorlind say the wyrms made us to remind them how to feel. Our feelings are sacred.” She considered for the first time the contradiction in that. What was Heat if not her purest feeling?
Mallow nodded toward the torchlit ring. “Then maybe we should refresh their memories.”
Before she could ask, he turned and spoke quietly to one of the drummers. Then another man – older, with gilded tips on his antlers – and another younger one joined him. Atheri pushed Soryn forward, and he flushed, shaking his head a little. The men grinned, murmured agreement, and took their places outside the circle.
“What are you doing?” she asked, bewildered.
He looked back at her. “Giving you what they had. A real Choosing.”
Her heart stumbled. “Mallow –”
“You said you never had a chance to dance your first Heat. To choose. So –” he spread his hand toward the ring. “Choose.”
The music started up again in an ancient rhythm that was slow and pulsing. The watching Kelthi stilled, curious, but none interrupted.
Lain hesitated only a moment before stepping into the ring. The men bowed, acknowledging her entry. She turned slowly in the firelight, feeling the weight of every gaze upon her, attentive and reverent.
The first of the rivals moved toward her, graceful and sure, his eyes kind. He danced around her, circling with one hand to her own – she almost forgot to raise it, but he gestured and she did so, his hand flat against hers, their arms touching to the elbow. She felt her pulse slow to meet the rhythm. There was something humming there in her Heat, beneath her skin, seeming to taste this man who was not the one she’d bonded to, and just as easily it turned away as if bored.
He passed her to the next rival, the younger man, who gave a quiet “hi” before turning with her. Again her Heat gave him a curious sniff, and this time it arched its back a little, but just as quickly it sauntered off.
Her Uncle Soryn came last, and gave her a regal bow before sliding forward. She wondered briefly if he looked at all like her father. With one arm he turned her, and with the other he pulled a yellow flower from his collar, tucking it gently behind her ear before stepping aside.
And then she saw Mallow.
He stood apart at the edge of the circle, simple and still. No antlers, no ribbons, no flowers. Just the soft green of his borrowed mantle and the quiet steadiness in his eyes.
The others moved aside almost without realizing it. The song deepened.
Lain walked toward him. The moment she did, the watching Kelthi began to hum. Mallow stepped in to meet her, bowing slightly as the others had.
When she reached him, she lifted her chin, the way the women before her had done, and turned once with him, palm to palm, before pressing her antlers gently to his brow.
“I choose you,” she said.
Mallow smiled. “Terrible choice, really.”
Lain laughed.
Soryn pressed a small bowl of raspberries into Lain’s hand. She lifted one between her quavering fingers, and pressed it to his waiting mouth. He took it with his teeth, brought his mouth to hers, and kissed her, pushing the berry into her mouth with his tongue.
The hum broke into applause – laughter, cheers, a scatter of bells. The other dancers fell back, smiling, tapping their own antlers in salute.
Lain laughed, a sound that startled even her, bright and full. The ache in her chest cracked open into something large and luminous as she chewed the tart fruit, its little seeds cracking between her teeth, the firelight flaring behind her eyes at the taste of it. She had another, and so did Mallow, and together they finished the bowl.
Mallow reached for her hand. “You look beautiful in torchlight, Little Hooves. Especially with that flower in your hair.”
“Then we’d better learn to tend a garden,” she said. "So we can have more flowers."
He kissed her, there in the open circle, and the valley seemed to sing in approval, the hum of the wyrm far below rising like a distant, contented sigh.
The crowd drifted toward the feasting tables, laughter carrying over the music, the bells at their wrists chiming like rain. Someone pressed a cup of wine into Lain’s hand as she and Mallow found their seats. She took a sip, the taste bright on her tongue. They ate plates of seared vegetables and fresh breads and stews.
They walked together along the path that wound to Soryn’s house, the torches thinning until only the moon lit the way. Frost glimmered on the moss, and the scent of the valley flowers deepened with the cooling air. Beneath her hooves, the wyrm stirred, a long, slow exhale.
For a time neither of them spoke. The world seemed fragile with peace.
“That was…” Mallow broke off, then chuckled softly. “Well, that was a hell of a thing.”
Lain smiled, keeping her eyes on the path. “You pulled it off it perfectly. Even Soryn looked pleased.”
“He’ll be mortified tomorrow,” Mallow said. “But he’ll live.”
Their laughter faded into something gentle. The warmth of the draught still lingered in her body, steadying her, quieting the Heat’s usual urgency into something softer, a slow pulse rather than a fire. She could still feel it moving under her skin, but now it wasn’t hunger. It was awareness.
She glanced at Mallow. “It isn’t just the Heat,” she said quietly.
He looked at her. “No?”
“No.” She reached out, brushing her fingers against his. “It’s me. I thought before it was only what my body wanted. But it isn’t. I want you.”
He stopped walking. The moonlight caught the faint green threads of his borrowed mantle. His eyes searched hers, and wonder and relief softened there.
“I know,” he said. “But it’s nice to hear it from you.”
She laughed, startled and a little breathless. “You make it sound simple.”
“Nothing about you is simple. I’ve been trying to catch up.”
They walked on again, slower now. The music behind them faded, the valley carrying it in an echo that they shared. The wyrm stirred once more below, brushing faintly against Lain’s Tuning in curious approval. It quieted again as though it had rolled back into sleep.
When they reached Soryn’s cottage, Mallow opened the door for her. She hesitated on the threshold, looking back toward the valley. The torches were distant sparks now, and the night felt endlessly alive.