The way the ninja all rush in to surround Lloyd, turning themselves into a human forcefield to make sure nothing can hurt him or take him away from them...
There is just something about it: the winding down of summer, the cooler nights, and the promise of autumn in the air. "Life begins all over again in the fall," Fitzgerald wrote. A fresh new school year glimmers there, brand new and redolent with the promise of renewal and restart. A clean slate. She is ready for it, excited even. Counting down the days until she gets to be in her classroom with her students once again.
For much of the last year, that feeling of joy and excitement was one she was sure was lost to her forever. But after a spring and summer of careful, deliberate rest and work realigning herself with her job and her own sense of self, she is so fucking relieved to find it has returned. The excitement feels like an old friend welcoming her back.
The last Saturday night of summer vacation happens to fall on one of the hottest days of the year, and so does the teacher dinner Camina is hosting. Teacher dinners were Varric's thing. Once a month, he'd gather everyone at his home for a night of food and drink and commiseration. When he'd died, they'd stopped, and Camina had spent the last year wondering if she should bring them back. Wondering if anyone wanted them back as badly as she did.
Lucanis, of course, was thrilled at the prospect of hosting all their friends. Of getting to show off his garden that's fully taken over the side yard, and cooking a whole meal for them. He officially moved in two weeks ago, but if they're honest, he was basically living here most of the summer anyway. They're already talking about expanding his garden next year, and a potential addition to the house, to make it a bit more theirs.
"Okay, I just moved the cooler to the shade because all the ice was threatening to melt out there," she says as she comes into the kitchen.
Lucanis has an array of pizza toppings laid out on the counter, is busy getting his homemade sourdough pizza into rounds to throw on the grill once everyone has made the pizzas they desire. "Did you get the grill on?"
She nods. "Of course." Spite swims lazily from his spot on the counter, and Aphra watches him with interest, her ears at full attention.
Lucanis glances at the clock over the oven and then continues working. "Mierda, I should have started all this ten minutes sooner."
"Put me to work," Camina says. "What can I do?"
The look he gives her is fond exasperation. She has certainly learned a few things by spending time with him in the kitchen and watching him try new recipes. He's spent a whole month perfecting his grilled pizzas this summer, but she is still rather hopeless in the kitchen.
"You can set out all the packaged ingredients," he says, mouth an upturned grin.
"Are you sure you feel confident delegating such an important task, chef?"
He passes behind her on the way to the sink, but she feels his hand snake around her middle. "Calling me chef would imply that you ever follow my instructions, and we both know you don't."
She leans a little into him. "I thought that was part of my charm."
His chuckle is bright in the kitchen. "You're right, it is charming when you burn the food."
"That was one time!"
"Yeah, because I haven't given you the opportunity to do it since." She tosses the nearest towel in his direction, which he easily bats away, but they're both laughing now.
And then their friends begin to arrive. Aphra is thrilled at all the potential for attention from everyone who enters. Emmrich and Will arrive first, carrying a salad in a gigantic multicolored bowl. Davrin, Bellara, and Neve with drinks tucked into reusable totes and Davrin carrying a twelve-pack. Harding and Taash are late, but no one is surprised or bothered since they're too busy eating the bruschetta Lucanis made with tomatoes from his garden.
"This all looks just wonderful, Lucanis," Emmrich says as the group makes several pizzas, sprinkling toppings on their sections.
"And for dessert, he's got peach cobbler," Camina says.
The entire group 'ooohs' at that. "You're ruining the surprise," Lucanis replies with a shake of his head that does nothing to obfuscate how proud he is that everyone is excited for his food.
Camina watches him cook pizzas on the grill while their friends sit and talk and drink together on the patio, settling at the table or following Aphra through the grass. Emmrich asks Lucanis about work, and it no longer twists her gut to think about how Lucanis's time at the school district is rapidly coming to an end.
The audit is winding down. By mid-September, it will be over, and both he and Rana know their time is running out. Rana already has something lined up at a local nonprofit, so she'll land on her feet. Lucanis, meanwhile, plans to take a beat, reassess, to figure out where his heart wants to go next. He's never had that luxury. Whenever they talk about it, she can hear the uncertainty beneath his careful optimism. The fear of too much empty time, the fear of falling back instead of moving forward. He's more worried than she is; she'll be by his side either way.
Love, she's learned, isn't all grand declarations or impossible sacrifices. Sometimes, it's simply taking turns carrying the weight. It's listening and making space. It's buying something for the dog or helping the other person plant a garden. This love is quiet, gentle. If the road ahead feels at all uncertain, she simply remembers she's not alone in it.
A box waits in the kitchen. The books inside are nothing fancy, spiral-bound copies from the district printer, their covers plain and practical. But when she looks at them, her chest tightens anyway. Varric's book. And hers. Finished at last.
Lucanis is the only person who has read it. He'd called it phenomenal. She suspects he would have found something kind to say no matter what was on those pages, but she chooses to believe him. Some gifts are too precious to examine too closely.
She's not sure what happens to it now. Maybe nothing. Maybe it only lives here, passed hand to hand among the people who loved him. That feels like enough. She wants them to have it, that piece of him she's gotten to sit with this summer. To laugh with and disagree with and extend those through lines of his thinking into something that is also hers.
She'll hand them out at the end of the night, just before everyone leaves. No speeches or long discussions. She doesn't even care if they actually read it. Maybe they won't. But they'll have them, something he touched, something he left behind.
The pizzas have all just come off the grill, and everyone is gathered around them, laughing and talking over one another as they fight over pieces and cheese stretches out over plates. The evening hums with life, with friendship. It feels so reminiscent of those dinners on Varric's back deck that she almost wants to glance around, almost feels that if she looks hard enough, she'll see him just there. He'd be proud, she thinks, of the way they've survived it all. How even the worst years can't quite stamp out these ordinary joys.
This won't be the last hard school year in the same way it wasn't the first, but still, here they are, all of them excited for whatever the next might bring.
She's standing back, a bit apart from it all when Lucanis finds her. Of course, he does. His hand rests gently on her waist, and he presses a kiss to the side of her head.
“You adore him.”
Shen Qingqiu searched for a way to reply, but Yue Qingyuan continued:
“Qingqiu, Cang Qiong Mountain will always have its doors open for you if you ever tire of wandering the world.”
He spoke with the utmost sincerity and solemnity. Yue Qingyuan had always been like this. He fulfilled every promise he made without fail. And if he couldn't, he would strive to make up for it, no matter the cost.
[…]
“Go,”
Yue Qingyuan said. He remained in his place, calm and in good spirits. It was as if one represented the past and the other, the future.
—Chapter 21 Vol. 3
Thank you for having me. I had eye surgerie yesterday. Everything is well I am fine :DD
