Meelo vaulted across the dining hall to slam into her for a hug. It took all of her combat training to keep from falling backwards and breaking her back over the duffle bag slung over her shoulder.
“Meelo, we’ve talked about this. I’m getting too old to catch you like that.”
Rather than reply, Meelo went running off down the hall toward his father’s study.
She greeted Pema and the girls, even getting a red bean bun fresh from the steamer. Pema’s side-eye wasn’t even really very aggravated.
She was beginning to turn around when Pema warned, “Watch your step, Meelo! Don’t crowd up behind people like that.”
Kya looked behind herself to see her nephew managing to keep his grumbling almost under control.
He looked up at her. “Dad says he’s in the middle of something. Can you go find Lin down the hidden stairs? He says to bring her back up here for dinner.”
Kya shrugged. “I can do that. I haven been down that way in a long time.”
Meelo snapped his fingers. “Oh yeah. Dad said you should watch your step. He said those stairs got broken a while back and he never got them fixed.”
She looked up to see Pema’s face fall from a smile into sadness. When their eyes met, Kya knew just when those stairs got ‘broken.’
With a calming breath, she patted Meelo on the shoulder, nodded to Pema, and went off to find Lin.
Outside, the late afternoon was beautiful. The breeze was light, and the scudding clouds overhead gave a dappled quality to the sunlight. She looked around and made sure none of the children or acolytes were paying any attention when she hopped over a fence and oriented herself to find the stairs Bumi and Izumi had originally laid out so many years before.
Once Lin had started bending, she had worked over the years to shore up the stairs and make them sturdier and safer. Su had contributed some decorative motifs when she was small, but by the time Kya left to travel, Su was already not coming to the Island very often.
And then, she gathered, it had been how Lin and Tenzin had escaped from their duties or other unwanted attention.
But when she reached the first stair, it looked fresh and clean.
In fact, there was a yellow lily that had clearly been recently cut laying there.
Kya picked it up. There was no note, nothing to indicate why the flower was there. She argued with herself, but decided to hold on to it. She glanced further along the winding stone stairs, and thought she spotted another.
By the time she got to the bottom of the stairs, she was holding more flowers than she could count. Pink, blue, yellow, red… she didn’t even know the names of several of them.
But they smelled wonderful, and she was having a nice time rearranging them the more she gathered on the walk down.
Once she reached the bottom of the staircase near the shoreline, the line of flowers meandered away past a rocky outcropping.
And at the top, Lin sat with one knee bent in front of herself, her arms wrapped around her leg. She was gazing away to the horizon, apparently oblivious to Kya’s approach.
It took her breath away, looking up at her. Lin’s hair was looser than usual, and longer than Kya typically got to see it (out in public anyway). The yellowing rays of the sun illuminated her left side, nearly making her glow against a bank of storm clouds far off to the east.
Kya walked a little further toward the water, hoping to cross Lin’s line of sight, even if it meant leaving some of the flowers on the ground a little longer.
The smile on Lin’s face was so soft, yet so distinct. Kya felt her heart race when Lin turned her face to meet her eyes.
“You’re early.”
Kya chuckled.
“Only by a few hours. You look awfully prepared to me. Were all these,” she lifted the spontaneous bouquet in her arms, “all for me?”
Lin inclined her head, still smiling. She shifted to her right, opening some space. She waved her left hand over that face of the rock, spilling a set of stairs down to the sand.
“Care to join me? Just leave the flowers and watch your step.”
Kya leaned in to take another lungful of the flowers’ perfume before finding a spot where they weren’t likely to get swept away if the tide came in. She kept her right hand on the rock’s face as she toed her way up to meet Lin.
When she was at eye level, Lin leaned over for a kiss.
The relief of it swayed her until Lin reached over and grabbed her left elbow, helping her edge closer and take a seat. Once Kya was settled, they linked their hands and turned back to watch the waves in the distance.
“You fixed the stairs,” Kya ventured.
Lin squeezed her hand.
“I should have a long time ago.” Her thumb rubbed against Kya’s hand. “They never complained, never asked. They just let the trees grow, and these kids never found them.” She blew an amused scoff.
Kya leaned over to steal another kiss. “Meelo might start asking questions about the ‘hidden stairs,’ after tonight.”
Lin’s smile turned a little sharp.
“Who do you think helped me set out all those flowers?”
Kya blinked. “Really?”
Lin dropped her hand long enough to lean over to the other side of the rock. When she straightened, there was a small red box in her hand. She twisted it until a latch was visible.
She extended it to Kya, her face a mix of relaxed and intense. She extended the box, clearly inviting Kya to open it. Inside was a pair of silver earrings with red jewels.
“A bit off your usual blues, I know. But I made them from some red jade Poppy left for me.”
Kya reached out and swapped them for the ones she had been wearing.
The change in Lin’s expression told her how they looked.
“Watch your step, Beifong, or I’ll be expecting gifts like this all the time.”
Lin’s smile brightened further. She reached around the box and lifted a tab, revealing a ring.
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