ELRETH

It was late when the wise women left, but Elreth was humming with nerves, and with anger at Aaryn for being so hard on her that evening. But it was late. Too late to go looking for him. Besides, he always needed some time to calm down when he was pissed.

She wanted to sleep. She knew she needed to. But the cave was too big for her alone. And the bed, when she tried to force herself to rest, was too warm.

She considered the bathing pools, but she didn't feel like getting wet. So, she decided to take a walk. Except, as soon as she stepped into the meadow outside the cave, she saw lights glowing from her parents Tree.

They were still awake?

With a shrug, Elreth trotted across the meadow to knock on the door, then pushed it open. "Are you guys still up?" she called quietly.

There was a gasp, a thump, a curse, and several noises that sounded like someone had almost knocked something over, then caught it.

"Just a minute, El!" her mother's voice came, a little higher than usual. "Just let me get dressed."

"Oh, sorry. I can come back tomorrow," she said.

"No, no! It's fine. Just… just a second."

There was a low growl that she knew was her father, and a hiss of something she didn't catch from her mother, then a moment later the door swung open and her mother stood there, fully dressed, her face flushed and hair falling out of her braid, but she was smiling.

"Are you okay?" she asked a little breathlessly.

But it wasn't until Elreth told her she was fine and walked into the large, living area of the Tree House—a home on three levels, carved out of the inside of one of the Great Trees, where Elreth had lived for the past three years—to find her father sitting on her old couch, scowling at her, with a blanket pulled over his lap despite the warm night, that she clicked.

"Oh… Ew! You guys were… Ew!" she turned on her mother, mouth open in horror. "Why would you tell me to come in if you were doing… that?!"

"We weren't actually doing—"

"Speak for yourself," her father grumbled.

"Gross! Dad! Stop!" Elreth whirled back to face him. "You're so… you shouldn't… you're too old for this!"

Her father's eyebrows climbed towards his hairline. "Is that right, El? You can tell me that from your lifetime of experience, can you?"

"No, but—"

"Reth, stop teasing her. And El, you really need to relax. Your father and I have a very healthy mating life—and it looks like we're going to have a lot more time on our hands in the coming weeks, so… trust me, one day you'll be glad when you and your mate reach this point in your lives and you're still… excited by each other."

Elreth crumbled inside. She felt like she was fifteen again, and walking in on her parents in the bathing pools—an event that had traumatized her. But also left her feeling oddly hollow. It was the first time she'd really understood that other anima had an entire aspect to their lives that she didn't understand or experience. Then she remembered her argument with Aaryn and it all came crashing down.

She looked at her mother, pleading. "I'm not even excited now—how am I going to be excited when I'm old?"

"I think that's enough old talk tonight," her father said, pushing to his feet with a groan—still keeping the blanket clutched to his waist. "I'll go to bed and let you two talk."

"No, Reth, I really think you should be here for this," her mother said softly.

Her father looked back at both of them. Elreth couldn't even meet his eyes. But she couldn't deny that a part of her wondered what he thought. He was male. And he was always less… careful with his words than her mother. If there was something wrong with her, she wanted to know. And she trusted her father to tell her.

"Can you stay, Dad?" she said without looking at him. "But can you not… tell me about what you do with Mom, please?"

Her parents looked at each other, then her father grumbled something about going to the bathing room, but he would be back in a minute.

When he and his pouting grumbles were gone, Elreth turned to her mother, horrified to find she was swallowing back tears.

What was happening to her today?

She was tired. It had to be that. It had been a massive day, the biggest of her life. It was natural that she'd be exhausted. Right?

"What happened, Elreth?" her mother said softly, pulling back a chair from the dining table and gesturing for Elreth to sit there. Elreth sat, though it felt wrong to have her mother hosting her here, in what had been her own home just hours ago.

"I had a fight with Aaryn."

Her mother had just sat down, but she went very still. "About what?"

"About mating with Dargyn."

Her mother's eyes bulged. "You mated Dargyn?"

"No! I just… I thought about it. He was flirting with me tonight at dinner and it was after you said that this afternoon about needing to find a mate—I was nervous about that because I've never met anyone that I felt like could be that, you know? Then Dargyn was looking at me at dinner and it was different than he usually looks at me and I got the feeling, like I was curious to see what it was all about. And I asked Aaryn because he knows Dargyn when the females aren't there and I wondered if he was gentle, or if he was one of those guys who showed off. But Aaryn got really mad and all he would talk about was me "deserving better" and that I'd waited so long that it would be "wasting it" to just try it for fun now. But it's so unfair, because he's mated lots of times, so why is it okay for him and not for me?!"

Her mother was blinking, but when Elreth looked at her and didn't go on, she swallowed. "Just… I just want to make sure I understand correctly: You were thinking about mating with Dargyn just for fun… and you asked Aaryn if he thought Dargyn was a good choice?"

"What?" The word was quiet and bit off from behind her. Elreth turned to find her father standing there, looking stern. "You asked him what, Elreth?"