Cameron To Candy

Candy sat at the small kitchen table with three Ministry pamphlets spread in front of her like evidence. One was titled Foundations of Hearth Competence, another Basic Salads for the Newly Married, and the third, ominously thin, A Woman’s Relationship With Fire.

She glared at the salad one.

She'd tried cooking under an instructor recently. The incident itself had been brief but humiliating. Lettuce, oil, vinegar, salt. That was it. No heat required. And yet, somehow, she had managed to scorch the plate. The Ministry assessor said it was the first time in her career she'd ever seen a salad catch fire, and had written “enthusiastic but misguided” in the margin and assigned her remedial reading before retrying.

Candy flipped a page and muttered, “Salads shouldn’t need instructions.”

Marcus had done his best not to rub it in. He was polishing a mug that was already clean, posture careful in the way he’d learned to adopt whenever Candy was one sarcastic breath away from earning another note in the ledger.

“Yet, here you are.”

“According to this,” Candy went on, tapping the pamphlet, “I’m supposed to ‘intuitively sense which greens are best for my husband.’ What does that even mean? They’re all leaves!”

“Well, I think-”

She closed the booklet with more force than necessary and folded her hands in her lap, consciously correcting her posture when she caught herself slouching. The habit annoyed her almost as much as the reading.

“Okay, well I have to change before Greg gets here. Watch the door for me.”

No sooner than Marcus had left the room then there was a knock at the door. Greg didn’t knock so much as lean, the door creaking open as he did. He took in the scene at a glance, the pamphlets, the expression on Candy’s face.

“Well,” he said cheerfully, “this looks domestic.”

Candy looked up to the 6’4 man's face, her posture careful now, hands folding automatically. She was taking a lax way of being with Greg, for sure, but she still needed to put on a bit of an act to sell her being Candy, a woman in Paddlewick. The fact that by pure virtue of him being male and her stuck in the female role gave him some station over her felt weird.

“If you’re here to ask me about vegetables, leave,” she teased.

Greg laughed and settled himself against the doorframe like he owned it. “Naw, just here to ax throw with Marcus.

“He’s just changing. He should be out in a few minutes.”

“Ah ok.” Greg took a lap around the dining room, admiring the china hut, testing one of the chairs for comfort. “I really shouldn’t tell you this,” Greg spat out, already grinning. “Cam made me promise.”

Candy glanced up from where she sat, posture careful, hands folded like she was still thinking about them. “Then don’t tell it, Mr Hemble.”

Marcus was in the other room, close enough to hear but far enough to pretend he wasn’t listening.

Greg laughed. “You say that, but you know I’m going to anyway. I just won’t tell you the whole thing.”

Candy sighed. “Greg.”

“Relax,” he said. “I’ll only tell the embarrassing part. The rest stays locked away.”

“The embarrassing part is the part you’re not supposed to tell!”

He took a breath, settling into the memory.

“This was back when Cam and I were stationed out near the old ridge pylons. The local anti-magic field kept flickering. Nothing dramatic, just enough to make compasses spin and charms go dim. No mage teams were available, so command sent us. Two guys with almost no magic experience, a small repair kit set up by the combat mages, to a problem neither of us was qualified to solve.”

Candy smiled faintly. That part was true. She remembered it not so fondly. Thank the gods they were the only ones there.

“So we find the power stone,” Greg continued. “It was a Moon glyph that got chipped. Not allot, just enough that the lines didn’t quite connect. You could see it plain as day. The field was distorted. Weak.”

He mimed the scene with his hands. “Cam takes one look and goes, ‘Well, that’s the problem.’ Which was about as helpful as he ever got with magic.”

Candy huffed softly.

“I tell ‘em to keep an eye on the stone while I grab the portable etching wand. Mage-made, thank the gods. No way I was freehanding that.” Greg shook his head. “So I turn my back for maybe three seconds.” He held up three fingers. “And that’s when this, blood-red bird lands on—”

“White," Candy corrected, without thinking, as she tended to do.

“…Right,” Greg said easily, not to be derailed. “It was a big white thing. Ugly and loud. Wings like sails.” He continued, unfazed. “It lands right on the glyph and lets out this horrible squawk. Cam jumps like he’s been shot, steps back, slips, and goes straight down into the mud. Flat on his arse. Arms everywhere.”

Candy bit the inside of her cheek.

“I turn around just in time to see him lying there, covered head to toe, staring at the sky like he’s questioning every decision that led em there.” Greg laughed. “I told em I’d never blab about it. He told me if I did, he’d deny the story, and ever knowin’ me.”

Candy muttered, “So what will you do now?”

Greg smirked. “Well, I won’t tell you the rest. I’ll keep some of the mystery. But that part?” He shrugged. “That part’s too good not to share. Your cousin is a good man to serve with. Fun, too, when he wasn’t being a complete disaster or claiming the military complex would be his death.”

Candy felt the familiar tug. Annoyance that he’d told it at all, but warmth that he spoke about Cam like that. Both at once.

Marcus stepped into the doorway. “You done?”

“Yeah,” Greg said. “Ready?”

"Yeah, I have the logs set up in the back."

As they made their way out the door and down the back, Greg added, casually, “By the way, I don’t care how plain she talks with me. She can correct me, argue, tease, whatever. She's basically family. But if she does that to a noble, even when she’s right, they’ll punish her.”

Marcus nodded. “I’ll remind her.”

“Good,” Greg said. “She’s too smart to get tripped up on somethin’ stupid.”

Later, after the games had concluded, Greg left whistling softly, the sound fading as he walked the lane home. Halfway there, on Munch Avenue, the tune died in his throat. The street was settling into evening, the kind of Paddlewick dusk that felt rehearsed. Shop shutters came down in careful sequence. Lantern hooks clinking as they were lit one by one, little squares of warm light blooming along the road. Somewhere, a bell chimed the hour, distant and orderly. The precision that was demanded by King Roderick.

Greg slowed his lengthy stride without meaning to.

Mud still clung to his boots from the yard, drying and cracking with each step. He watched it flake off, counted the stones in the lane, and told himself he was thinking about nothing at all. He was just walking, just heading home, but there was something gnawing at the outer part of his mind. He didn't even realise it. And then…

White.

He stopped.

The bird was white...