Chapter 2 Aisling
“And how’s your little oven, my songbird?” Dad asked.
Aisling winced. Did he have to make it sound so patronizing? Standing here among her family’s latest model steam engine and all its requisite parts, Aisling felt her technical inferiority keenly enough, thank you very much.
“It’s a great oven, Dad.” Darra, Aisling’s older sibling by two decades, came to her with their arms open.
She rolled her eyes but hugged them, planting her face briefly in their shoulder.
Darra smelled of grease and the sharp tang of copper.
Not only was Darra taller, like their father, but they’d also followed in the family footsteps; they were an engineer.
An engineer with a very pretty wife about to give birth.
Mum looked up from the contraption on which she was working. She flipped up two magnifying lenses hovering over her right eye, leaving her looking at Aisling through her regular spectacles. “There you are! We wondered if we’d see you!”
“I brought some bread,” she said, taking the burlap sack from her tail and into one hand.
Darra chuckled but Mum couldn’t help but look askance at the extra limb.
Aisling was aware that this was not because she minded, but because she’d offered to build Aisling a mechanical limb from automaton tech.
Aisling had demurred, opting for body modification from a pioneering anatomancer, the unmistakable Laurel Lushroot.
Mum had never quite forgiven her for that.
Tails didn’t need regular maintenance and repairs beyond what Aisling’s body already required. Mechanized prosthetics, while often stronger, did. At least, the kind Mum could build, since no one in the family had a lick of magic.
“Oh, good, I’m starved.” Dad accepted the bag with no more talk of the “little” oven that’d baked them.
“Did you bring the mushroom one I like?” Darra asked.
“Of course. I assumed you’d be here by now,” she assured them.
They dug into the bag, passing out favorites to everyone.
“Where’s Minala?” Aisling wondered.
“She’s too uncomfortable to travel. She’s having twins, did I tell you?” Darra grinned.
“Well… congratulations,” Aisling fumbled.
Apparently, that was the correct response, because Darra looked chuffed as they bit into their mushroom fougasse. “Mmm, amazing. How do you do it?”
“My silly little oven, of course,” she couldn’t help responding.
Mum set her Copperford pie on the sideboard, flicked her magnifying lenses back into place, and went back to work. She looked like an automaton, with that thing on. “Smells lovely, Aisling.”
Aisling smiled, though she wasn’t looking up to see it.
“You entering your little oven” –Darra said the phrase ironically, at least—“into the Innovation Awards?"
It was the only thing that could convince the family to leave the sanctity of their Copperford workshop and make the trek north to the Everend Market: The Innovation Awards.
The midsummer market was famous for its competitive spirit as well as its amorous one, especially among the engineers and tinkerers of Gearwick.
“I am.” And it’ll beat your silly little engine. And then you’ll all stop patronizing me.
“Best of luck! This really is delicious, Ash. Don’t worry,” Darra said, mouth full of herbed mushrooms and bread. “You’ll get a stall inside the market some year soon. They couldn’t keep you out, with this bread.”
She sighed. “I have a stall inside the market now.”
“You do?” Dad asked, his cheeks full of pie.
Aisling’s tail swished behind her fitfully, betraying her irritation. Traitorous thing. Maybe she should’ve gone with the prosthetic; at least it wouldn’t have a personality of its own. “Well, I just stopped by to bring dinner. Come by the stall if you want more tomorrow. I’ll be busy!”
And before they could ask her any other insulting questions, she ducked out the tent-flap and into the buzz of Inventor’s Row.
It was still light out, but the globes over the pathways had been lit, like massive fireflies leading the thinning crowd back to their tents and cabins.
Most elves were moving north to the village or south to the camping at Portage Point, where her own wagon was parked.
She should get some sleep. But seeing her family always left her feeling like a silly child, invisible and unheard. They loved her with all they had and in the only way they could. She just wasn’t one of them and never would be.
But she had a stall at the Everend Midsummer Market, by the goddess—a very successful one, if the last two days were any measure. And she was only just getting started.
She took a deep breath, steadied herself, and started down the path.
A few of the Copperford contingent recognized her, and she said hello and kept walking, as if she had somewhere to be.
She stopped by her stall to make sure her bread was rising for tomorrow morning.
The smell of yeasted dough and sweet baked goods lingered, though she’d shut up an hour ago. It soothed her.
She replaced the cloth over her rising dough, then checked the mechanical bellows on the back of the oven.
It was similar to the one her mother had invented for the metal shop back home, but Aisling had shrunk it to a portable size.
The mechanism, along with her two-tier racks and forced air system, allowed her precision most bakers could never dream of—not without magic, anyhow.
With her tail, she snatched up a little bottle of oil and applied some to the bellows joint.
“Oh, you’re still here.”
Aisling jumped, dropping the oil, which began pooling at her feet immediately. “Bugger!” She fell to her knees, trying to sop it up with her apron.
“Sorry!” The raven-haired beauty from the lunch hour rush—Brook, wasn’t it? –entered and joined Aisling on the floor. “I thought you must’ve heard me knock.”
“I didn’t.” Aisling pulled her apron off over her head to get a better angle on the mess. At least she hadn’t spilled all of it, so she wouldn’t have to go borrow some from her parents.
“I was just wondering if you were, uh…” Brook sat there, hands out as if she wanted to do something with them but had no idea what. “Well. I clearly interrupted you in deep thought again. I heard you clanging around, is all.”
Once the mess was contained, Aisling wiped her forehead with the back of her hand.
Her hair was everywhere, askew from the apron, and her shirt wasn’t much better.
She tried to set herself to rights, suddenly very, very aware that she was alone in her deserted stall with perhaps the most beautiful elf she’d ever seen.
Brook even smelled good. Like warm smoke and perfume from wood and herbs.
“Can I help with anything? Closing up for the night? Preparing for tomorrow?” Brook asked, her eyes black as the night sky and almost as wide.
Aisling swallowed the lump forming in her throat and shook her head. She wrapped her tail around the brace beneath the counter and stood with as much grace as she could muster. “No, thank you. I’ve done it already. I have a system.”
Brook smiled, slow and lazy. “Yes, I noticed. Fascinating stuff.”
Aisling barked out a laugh that seemed far too loud in the growing quiet. “Do you, ah, have a stall this year?”
Brook sat back on her heels and tilted her chin upwards.
Her hair fell in long, silken tresses, brushed back from her forehead and over one shoulder.
Her clothing was of the finest leather, with intricate, decorative stitching and pins and buckles of precious metal.
“Not exactly. I’m more the wastrel type than you productive elves. It’s why I admire you so much.”
Aisling snorted out another laugh. “Admire! If you can afford to come just to shop, I should be admiring you.”
Brook winked.
And that was when Aisling noticed that Brook was still on her knees, looking up at her through thick, dark lashes and grinning as if she knew a great secret.
That damned lump appeared in Aisling’s throat again as she tried to think of something to say. “Er, or maybe you’re here to find a match?” popped out somehow.
Brook’s nose crinkled up far more adorably than it had a right to. “No. In fact, my family comes every year, and every year I spend the entire time ducking the marriage market.”
Aisling’s laughter came more easily this time. “It’s ridiculous, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” Brook held out one hand. Aisling took it and pulled, though Brook unfolded with the grace of a dancer.
She drew herself up to her full height, half a head higher than Aisling’s, and tossed her hair over her shoulder.
“I prefer playing things by ear. Letting love come naturally rather than over a contract table. Don’t you? ”
Brook lifted Aisling’s hand as if she’d kiss it, holding it just a few inches from her lips. Her fingers were as long and elegant as the rest of her, dark brown and soft as silk. Aisling’s stubby, pale fingers looked almost child-like in comparison.
Brook cocked an eyebrow.
Aisling realized she’d quite forgotten the question. Wait, had there been a question? “Uh, you were saying…?”
“Love, Aisling. How do you feel about love? The very reason for this market, according to most elves.”
“Oh.” Aisling considered this seriously. “Well…”
Brook smiled as if something was funny, finally releasing Aisling’s hand.
Aisling wrung it with her other hand, tail lashing behind her. “I suppose I don’t have much time to think of it, really,” she admitted. She’d had a few flings since adulthood, of course, but nothing that really stuck.
Brook nodded. “I can see you’re a very busy, ambitious elf. Hence my admiration.”
Aisling couldn’t help but smile. Brook was laying it on thick—and it was working, judging from Aisling’s physical response. Let alone how her brain suddenly felt full of butterflies. “And you… are here to shop and avoid matrimony. Must be simple, with magic like yours.”