Chapter 10 Garrik
GARRIK
The path into Fablegrove winds low through a thicket of flowering trees, branches arching overhead and dripping with blooms in every shade. Pan runs ahead, already shouting something about bug candy and paper lanterns, and Davrin’s trying—and failing—to keep up.
Flora and Ivarr stroll behind us, hand in hand, like they’ve done this a hundred times, bringing their family to Fablegrove for tea and flowers and books. And part of that family…
Part of that family are me and Iris.
And gods, she’s beautiful.
She’s wearing a dress Flora lent her—rosy pink with flutter sleeves, the dress drifting around her ankles even though it would hit closer to the knee on Flora.
Iris has her hair up in a messy bun, honey blonde curls bouncing, her glasses perched on her nose.
She smells like honey and lavender and Iris… and me.
She smells like me, and it’s almost too much for me to handle.
I still haven’t recovered from this morning.
“Garrik,” Iris asks, nudging my thigh with her elbow. “Are you staring?”
I flush from my ears to the tips of my antennae. “...yes.”
She laughs, ducking her head a little, but she doesn’t tell me to stop. She reaches out instead, sliding her small hand into mine, holding on like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
I think I could die happy here…
…if it weren’t for the fact that I haven’t had her yet. Not fully. Not in the way she wants.
Fablegrove opens around us like a storybook—wisteria-draped lampposts, wooden walkways strung with glowing blossoms, storefronts carved directly into massive, ancient trees. Spacecraft fly overhead every so often, but the sound is almost completely muted by the massive, sun-speckled canopy.
“This is incredible,” Iris breathes.
“It’s the Arborium’s hidden gem,” I murmur, smiling. “Away from the bustle of the main hub, with all the best stores and cafes…I can’t wait to show it to you.”
Pan reappears like a summoned spirit, cheeks sticky with something bright purple. “We’re getting fizzy fruit! Dad said it’s my turn to pick. Iris, do you want to try a popberry? They fizz in your mouth!”
“I absolutely do,” she grins.
“Come on!” he snatches her hand away from me and tugs her toward a berry cart, leaving me standing in the middle of the cobbled walkway with a heart too big for my chest. Pan is already almost her height, and it’s hilarious to see how mismatched they are…but she’s so beautiful.
So damn beautiful, and mine.
Davrin nudges me. “You’re so gone, it’s painful.”
I snort. “I know.”
Davrin tosses a berry into his mouth and chews like he’s settling in for a show. “So when’s the wedding? Do we start prepping the apiary for a reception or…?”
I shake my head, smiling to myself. “She’s not going anywhere.”
“Damn right she’s not. Pan’s already picked out her room and told the neighbors his uncle finally caught a ‘mate with library credentials.’”
I groan quietly, but it’s good-natured. “He didn’t.”
“He absolutely did. Old Myra down by the bonsai nursery said she expects a spring wedding.”
I rub the back of my neck, antennae twitching. “Well, I hope they’re not expecting invitations anytime soon. I’d at least like one uninterrupted morning.”
Davrin barks a laugh. “Yeah, good luck with that.”
I glance toward Iris again, and everything else disappears.
She’s crouched down now beside Pan at the berry cart, letting him pick out the fizziest-looking fruit while she listens intently to his rambling description of their relative pop-strength.
Her face lights up every time he says something absurd, like “This one explodes like a moonfire beetle!” and she just keeps nodding like it’s the most important science lesson she’s ever heard.
She looks like she belongs here.
Flora sidles up beside me, passing off a little bag of honey almonds she must have grabbed while I was staring. “You’re doing that thing again.”
“What thing?”
“That dopey ‘I’m in love with my best friend and I want her to stay forever’ face.”
I take the almonds. “It’s a complicated face.”
Flora laughs under her breath. “No…it’s a good one.”
I smile.
And when Iris returns, bag of fizzy fruit in one hand, reaching instinctively for mine with the other, my heart just about bursts. She falls back into step beside me like she was made for it. Like this is just…what we do.
And it is, isn’t it?
It’s what we did for a decade on Earth, even in very different circumstances. The two of us, side by side.
Meant to be.
“I got the extra-explody ones,” she says, cheeks flushed. “Pan dared me.”
“Pan’s gonna have sticky eyebrows for a week.”
“I’ll bring wipes next time.”
“Next time?”
Her eyes twinkle. “Yeah…for our next date.”
We wander for another hour, past a glassblower shaping bees from golden flame, a watercolor gallery built into the roots of an ancient tree, a book stall selling stories handbound with soft, painted leaves.
Pan gets a hat shaped like a moth, Davrin chases him into the toy store, and Flora and Ivarr peel off to find coffee and give us ‘privacy’ in the most unsubtle way imaginable.
By the time we round a curve toward the end of Fablegrove’s Main Street, Iris has one hand in mine and the other holding a flower-pressed journal she bought at a cart. She’s flushed and laughing and drunk on sunlight…and I’m in love. I’m so in love that it takes my breath away.
We pass under an arched trellis woven from wild bloomvine and wisteria, and there it is—my favorite place in all of Fablegrove.
The Bloom & Quill.
It’s tucked at the end of the street, nestled beneath the wide, low limbs of an ancient storytree.
The whole shop looks like it grew out of the earth itself—its curved doors carved into the natural knot of the trunk, the roof blanketed in moss and flowering vines.
Roses spill from the window boxes in a riot of pink and cream, and wisteria dangles from the eaves in long violet curtains.
The windows glow with soft light and stained glass, and through the door, the faint scent of paper and pressed petals drifts out to meet us.
Iris gasps softly. “Is this…”
“It’s a romance bookstore,” I tell her, a little shy. “All genres, all species. The owner specializes in hand-translated Jotunbei novels…they do a lot of floral binding and archive-quality preservation too. First editions. Artisan bookmarks. Sappy poetry scrolls.”
She turns to look at me, eyes huge behind her glasses. “You brought me to a romance bookstore in the middle of a flower forest?”
I nod, rubbing the back of my neck. “Well…I thought you might like it.”
Her whole face lights up, and then she’s leaping into my arms, flinging her arms around my neck. She kisses me softly, chaste—but it’s our first time kissing out in the open like this, for anyone to see, shameless.
She pulls back, biting her lip. “Garrik, this is the nicest date I’ve ever been on.”
My heart stutters in my chest. “Not a lot of opportunities for dates on Earth, I guess,” I mumble.
She swallows a giggle. “Don’t sell yourself short,” she says. “I mean it.”
I don’t know what to say to that…so I put her down, then I open the door for her. “Come on,” I say. “Let’s go find you something smutty and floral.”
She laughs, bright and joyful, and I swear I could live in that sound.
The Bloom & Quill is small, but cozy and lush, every surface covered in books or flowers or little magical lights that hover midair like fireflies.
Low wooden shelves spiral out from the center, each one carved with tiny motifs—hearts and vines and quills and bees.
A little bell chimes over the door as we step inside, and the scent of rosewater and aged paper wraps around us like a hug.
A hybrid Joten–Mlok female behind the counter glances up and smiles, antennae quirking from a scaled head. “Welcome to the Quill!” she says. “Can I help you find anything specific?”
“Just browsing,” I grin.
Iris is already wandering into the shelves, her fingers skimming along the spines of books.
There are novels from every corner of the universe here—re-prints of salvaged human romances, Merati courtly love novels, Jotun gardening guides for how to “grow” a healthy marriage.
Iris touches each book gently, reading the titles aloud, grinning when she finds one with a glittery cover or a ribbon-bound spine.
She looks like a kid in a candy shop—or a librarian let loose in an archive with no curfew—and I want to bottle the way she looks right now and keep it forever.
“You should pick something,” I say. “Whatever you want. My treat.”
She turns, one eyebrow raised. “Garrik…is this your secret plan? Lure me in with romance novels and then seduce me over annotated smut?”
I shrug, completely unrepentant. “Would it work?”
She makes a show of pretending to think. “Yes.”
I grin. “Then yes. It was absolutely the plan.”
We wander the aisles together for what feels like hours. She reads me snippets from the backs of books, makes fun of overwrought titles, and presses the occasional one into my hands with a whispered, “This sounds like us.”
One of them is The Beekeeper’s Bride.
Eventually, she settles on three books—one cozy, one spicy, and one she refuses to tell me about. She’s got them cradled against her chest like treasures as we make our way to the counter.
The shopkeeper rings them up with a knowing smile. “Date day in Fablegrove?” she asks.
I nod. “Trying to impress her.”
“You’re doing very well.”
Iris blushes.
We step back into the sun, and she tucks her journal under her arm, lacing our fingers together again. Her steps are lighter. Her smile is lazy and full of contentment.
“Thank you,” she says quietly. “For all of this.”
“You’re welcome,” I murmur. “But I was just trying to keep up with you.”
She leans her head against my arm. “You make it really easy to fall in love with this place.”
I stop walking.
She stops too, looking up at me.
“Iris,” I say, voice barely above a whisper. “You make it really easy to fall in love.”
She stares at me, stunned for just a second. And then she smiles—soft and slow, like she already knew.
And maybe she did.
Because when she rises on her toes to kiss me, right there beneath the storytree’s hanging vines, I know two things:
She’s already mine.
And I’ve been hers since the day I was born.