The Flower Thief and Other Tales of Yalda - 7. The Tale of Two Little Reeds - Sixth Scroll

Kitchen Light

Astra — Solrise to Duskgold

The morning after Auryn arrived with little ceremony.
No pronouncements. No omens. Just steam curling from rooftop vents and the hum of city carts rattling down stone streets.

Ailin and Jaren walked to the bakery side by side. Not hurried. Not hidden. The choice had already been made, and it walked with them now—quiet but solid, like a hand resting lightly on the shoulder.

Mistress Henla greeted them with a snort and a nod. “You’re late,” she said, though they weren’t.

The dough was ready. The ovens already warm.

Cedric appeared just after the first tray came out, brushing flour off the bench to sit as if he’d earned it. Lysander arrived ten minutes later, carrying two empty jars and a list Henla would ignore.

No one mentioned temples. No one asked where the boys had been.

They didn’t offer.

They didn’t need to.

Because some decisions don’t require explanation. They show up instead in the way two boys work the dough without stepping on each other’s rhythm. In the way their hands pass trays, touch briefly, and don’t pull away.

The rhythm of days at the bakery shifted subtly, almost imperceptibly, as Jaren and Ailin’s closeness deepened. Tasks once done silently and separately began to blend in quiet companionship.

In the early morning light, Jaren would knead dough while Ailin arranged fruit on trays, their movements synchronizing without words. When a batch of jam rolls threatened to stick, Ailin’s hand would brush against Jaren’s wrist—an unspoken signal that they’d solve it together.

At the front of the shop, they moved side by side, passing loaves and tarts between themselves with a new ease, their fingers often lingering a moment longer than needed. Cedric and Lysander noticed the change but said nothing, letting the boys find their own pace.

During breaks, instead of retreating alone, Jaren and Ailin sought each other out, sharing small smiles over warm mugs of tea or folding laundry together in comfortable silence. Ailin began to hum softly while he worked, a sound that made Jaren’s heart flutter every time.

Even the simple act of washing up became a shared ritual—the way they silently handed each other cloths, or dried each other’s hands, fingers lingering as if learning the language of touch anew.

At night, their talks grew less about the past and more about the future—whispered plans, hopes for a life beyond the temple’s shadow. Names and soft laughter filled the quiet spaces between them. Their closeness was no longer just a fragile trust but the foundation of a new kind of home—one built not on silence or fear, but on chosen connection.

The bakery was quieter than usual, the midday rush already spent, but the heat from the ovens still clung to the air. Jaren was carefully folding fresh dough into perfect rolls when Ailin approached, holding a basket of apples.

“Careful with the rolls,” Ailin said softly, eyes flicking to a slightly misshapen piece Jaren had just placed on the tray.

Jaren’s hands went still. “They’re fine.”

Ailin’s brows furrowed, but he said nothing else.

Minutes passed with only the faint sound of rolling pins and the distant chatter of customers outside.

Then Jaren’s voice, low but tight: “I’m not used to… how you do things here. I’m still learning.”

Ailin blinked, surprised. “Neither am I.”

Jaren looked away, the frustration tightening his jaw. “I don’t want to mess it up.”

Ailin stepped closer, the softest of smiles touching his lips. “We won’t. We have each other.”

Jaren met his gaze; vulnerability bare in the moment. “Sometimes I feel like I’m still the boy who ran from silence… not the one who can bake or laugh or live.”

Ailin’s hand brushed over Jaren’s. “You’re both. And more.” The tension eased as their fingers intertwined, the unspoken promise between them stronger than any mistake. Ailin squeezed Jaren’s hand gently. “Let’s do it together. I’ll help you with the rolls. We’ll figure it out, step by step.”

Jaren’s shoulders relaxed a little, a small smile breaking through. “You really think so?”

Ailin nodded, eyes warm. “I know so.”

They moved side by side to the worktable. Ailin took a lump of dough and shaped it slowly, showing Jaren the rhythm—press, fold, roll. Jaren watched closely, then tried again.

Their hands brushed over the soft dough. Jaren faltered, then laughed—a short, sharp sound. “I’m terrible at this.”

“Terrible?” Ailin teased. “More like artistically imperfect.” The smile between them deepened. No need for words beyond shared glances and quiet laughter. Later, as the rolls baked, the kitchen filled with their easy silence—the kind that only comes when trust has settled firmly in place.

The Ink Game

Vena — Starcall into Veilhour
Twilight mischief and early-night release. A time for endings, laughter, and quiet transformation.

It started with a dare.

Or maybe not a real dare—just one of Cedric’s grinning, elbow-jabbing suggestions, tossed out like a pebble to see where it would ripple.

“Ever played the Ink Game?” he asked, eyes dancing. “We used to play it behind the chandler’s shop. Mostly because the chandler hated kids.”

Jaren shook his head warily. “Is it legal?”

Cedric snorted. “What part of me has ever suggested legal?”

He dragged Jaren by the wrist to a side alley that smelled of warm stone and old candlewax. The late afternoon sun angled just right, casting their shadows like strange long creatures against the far wall. Cedric set down a little tin of dried ink paste, a flat stone, and a piece of broken tile shaped roughly like a fish.

“It’s simple,” Cedric said, kneeling. “One: smear ink on the tile. Two: throw it hard at the wall. Three: whoever gets the funniest splatter wins. No points for circles. Circles are coward shapes.”

Jaren blinked. “That’s it?”

“Victory is chaos.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“You’re not wrong.”

Cedric pressed the fish-tile into the ink and lobbed it at the wall with dramatic flair. It hit with a splat, leaving a black smear that looked vaguely like a startled chicken.

Jaren laughed—then immediately stifled it. The temple muscle memory was still there: joy followed by apology.

But Cedric noticed. Of course he did.

He paused. “You don’t have to laugh quiet here.”

Jaren looked away. “I know.”

“Do you?”

Jaren didn’t answer. He crouched beside Cedric and picked up the tile. His throw was clean but a little too careful—the result landed in a neat oval, smudged at one edge.

Cedric clicked his tongue. “Coward shape.”

“I like my coward shape.”

“Lies. You want to obliterate the rules. I can feel it in your shoulder tension.”

They played for nearly an hour. Ink smeared their fingers, their shirts, their faces. At one point, Jaren missed the wall entirely and hit Cedric’s leg. Cedric yelped like he’d been stabbed. Jaren burst out laughing.

This time, he didn’t stop.

He laughed loudly—ugly, snorting, head-thrown-back laughter—and when a passing shopkeeper peeked into the alley, Jaren froze… until Cedric waved her off with a casual, “Just two artists at work, ma’am. Spiritual business.”

The woman just rolled her eyes and kept walking.

Jaren turned to Cedric. “How do you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Not care what anyone thinks?”

Cedric grinned, but there was something sharper under it. “Easy. I used to. Then I got tired.”

He reached over and tapped Jaren’s chest. “But you—you still carry the rules like a splinter under your skin. I’m not here to pull it out, but I am here to make you forget it’s there.”

Jaren stared at him.

Then he dipped his fingers in the ink tin and smeared a dark line across Cedric’s cheek.

Cedric gasped. “You dare deface me? A scholar and gentleman?”

“You’re not a scholar,” Jaren said, grinning.

“I could be.”

“You taught me that the capital of Yalda was Yalda.”

“Technically true,” Cedric said. “Try again.”

Jaren threw the tile. It landed in a splatter shaped like a lopsided bird. Cedric clutched his heart.

“Victory,” he declared solemnly. “I have been bested. My reign ends here.”

They collapsed onto the cobbles, breathless and streaked in ink. Jaren looked up at the sliver of blue sky between rooftops. He wasn’t trembling. He wasn’t looking over his shoulder.

He felt warm. He felt… loud.

And for the first time in memory, he didn’t want to apologize for it.

After the Laughter

Vena — Veilhour to Nightdeep
The veil descends; silence and truth linger. A time of closeness, memory, and healing.

The ink had washed off easily enough—except for the smear along Jaren’s jaw that wouldn’t quite fade. He sat on the small balcony outside Cedric’s room, wrapped in a borrowed blanket that smelled like cloves and sun-dried laundry. The city murmured below: faint laughter, a flute in the distance, someone shouting for a lost hat.

Inside, Cedric moved around with his usual clatter—books being shuffled, a cup set too hard on a table, the unmistakable sound of someone trying to quietly eat a biscuit and failing.

Jaren didn’t mind. The noise helped.

He touched his jaw, feeling the faint crust of dried ink at the edge of his ear. He could still hear the way he’d laughed—his own laugh—echoing in the alley, bold and unrepentant.

He felt a little sick from it now.

“Was it too much?” he asked aloud, though his voice barely carried over the wind.

Cedric’s head appeared around the doorway, biscuit in hand. “What?”

“The game. The mess. Me.”

Cedric blinked. “You?”

Jaren didn’t look at him. “Sometimes I don’t know if it’s really me. The one who laughs like that. Or if it’s just something I’m borrowing for a while. From people like you.”

Cedric stepped out onto the balcony without a word and slid down beside him. The biscuit was gone. Jaren didn’t remember hearing him finish it.

“I get that,” Cedric said finally. “Sometimes when I’m loud, I’m trying to be something. Sometimes I’m trying to hide something. But tonight? You weren’t hiding.”

Jaren wrapped the blanket tighter. “I liked it. Too much. And now I’m waiting to be punished for it.”

Cedric didn’t laugh. He didn’t tease.

Instead, he leaned back and tilted his head against the railing. “You know, when I was little, I used to sit on this exact spot and try to be as quiet as I could. Thought if I could just stop being loud, my father might finally stop telling me I was exhausting.”

Jaren turned toward him. “Really?”

Cedric nodded. “Didn’t work. Just made me lonelier. So, I decided if I was going to be too much, I’d be too much on purpose.”

Jaren was silent for a while. “I want to be loud like you. But… I don’t know how to do it without feeling like I’m wrong.”

Cedric gave a crooked smile. “Then I’ll keep being loud with you. Until it feels like home.”

He nudged Jaren’s foot gently with his own.

“You don’t have to carry that temple voice forever, you know,” Cedric added, softer now. “The one that apologizes before it speaks. Let it go when you’re ready. I’ll wait.”

Jaren looked down at their feet—his bare toes next to Cedric’s mismatched socks. He wasn’t trembling. Not tonight.

“Thank you,” he said. Then, without thinking, “I love you.”

Cedric blinked but didn’t flinch.

“I love you too,” he said easily, pulling the blanket tighter around them both. “Don’t worry. I won’t tell Ailin. He’d get jealous.”

Jaren laughed—quiet, this time, but real.

They sat in silence, shoulder to shoulder beneath the early stars, the warmth between them not romantic, but not quite brotherly. Just true.

Joy could be loud. But it could be still, too.

And both, Jaren was learning, could be his.

Quiet as Sanctuary

Noxen — Veilhour to Nightdeep
The night of rest and secrets, in the hour when the veil descends and dreams take hold.

The apothecary had long since closed for the evening. The herb jars were turned inward on their shelves, and the little bell over the front door had been silenced with a twist of cloth. In the back, Lysander sat at the wide table beneath the skylight, sorting dried petals by lamplight. He didn’t look up when Ailin entered.

He didn’t need to.

Ailin padded in barefoot, a blanket draped over one shoulder; his curls were still damp from the bath. He hovered just inside the threshold, uncertain.

Lysander gestured—not summoning, just inviting—with a tilt of his chin.

Ailin crossed the room and settled beside him, sliding onto the bench with a soft exhale. For a while, they didn’t speak. Lysander continued his work: rose, calendula, chamomile, each placed with care into its own clay dish. The lamplight caught on the glass jars, casting soft yellow ovals on the walls.

Ailin watched, arms wrapped loosely around himself. His eyes tracked the movement of Lysander’s hands: steady, deliberate, never rushed.

Eventually, he whispered, “You’re good at silence.”

Lysander glanced at him, a hint of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Silence isn’t the enemy,” he said. “It’s just… a room. It depends what you put in it.”

Ailin’s gaze dropped to the table. “It used to be a cell.”

“I know.”

Lysander set a finished jar aside and folded his hands. “And now?”

Ailin hesitated. Then: “Now… it’s a garden.”

The words surprised even him. He hadn’t meant to speak them aloud. But Lysander nodded, as if it was the answer he’d been waiting for.

“You don’t have to fill every silence,” Lysander said softly. “Not here. You don’t have to perform calm. You don’t have to earn quiet. It already belongs to you.”

Ailin blinked, and the back of his throat ached a little. He nodded, once.

Lysander stood and crossed the room to the stove. He returned with a warm cup of lemon balm tea and set it gently in front of Ailin, then sat back down without a word.

They returned to silence—Ailin sipping slowly, Lysander sorting, the lamp flickering against the windowpane.

After a time, Ailin reached for one of the empty dishes and began to help.

His hands weren’t as sure, but they were careful. The petals responded to his touch. And Lysander didn’t correct him. Didn’t guide him. He just worked beside him, shoulder to shoulder, like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Later, when the table was cleared and the tea was gone, Lysander walked Ailin back to the sleeping loft. At the top of the stairs, Ailin paused.

He didn’t say thank you. He didn’t have to.

Instead, he took Lysander’s hand—just for a breath, just for a moment—and held it like a thread to anchor him through the night.

Then he let go and stepped into the quiet that was now his own.