The wilds of the mountains were not a kind place, but I tried to become a part of them anyways. Enjoy the way the mist laid like a second skin across my face in the morning. Be grateful when the birds thought me quiet enough to sing overhead. Even with my pack filled with deliveries, I preferred being out in the elements.

Being a courier wasn’t a luxurious career, but it was more desirable than any of the other options I was given. I lacked the finger dexterity needed to be a seamstress, the instinct to make myself of any use in a kitchen, and no interest in politics or diplomacy. Seeing the flyer for mountain courier training was a godsend. It had been two years now of endless hiking, and I loved every minute of it.

The crescent shaped mountain range I grew to love spanned the entirety of the isthmus that connected Northeast Elus to its Southern prairies. For decades, hubs donated their gold, their brawn, and most brilliant minds to create the roads that to give safe passage to trader wagons and merchant caravans. It was a major feat of engineering. Plateaus carved out of boulders, slanted piers created to ease the descent down the highest peaks, and plain dirt roads where their once were none. It was creating (according to politicians) a more self-sustainable Elus; allowed it to become one of the richer countries on our vast continent just by virtue of needing to ask for very little.

However, such an ambitious network required near constant attention. Work details were assigned by season, spending months at their posts without their family or formal society. Couriers were their only connection to home. We carried letters, reports, and reserves across the range. I wouldn’t say it was thankless. If you worked year round you could make good money and keep your living costs in the city low. The longer I did it, the more I embraced every jagged tooth that the mountains offered me.

For a long time I worked with the mountaineer that trained me, Kala. Traveling with another woman provided certain assurances and understanding that the men of our vocation rarely did. But Kala called it quits right before the winter hit. She was getting too old for the harder routes my youth could afford me. She “retired” to city deliveries, but not before she found me a new partner.

Having couriers work in pairs (sometimes even trios), wasn’t only a safety precaution but insurance for all goods. If you succumbed to something, there was someone else to complete the mission. That’s how I came to work with Tal.

“You’ll compliment each other,” Kala assured me. I was skeptical. Skeptical of working with a man for the first time and of working without my mentor. Kala was confident though, and the trust I had in her overpowered my cynicism.

When she introduced him it was dawn, right before we were to head out with a load of jerky, coffee, and foodstuffs for a road paving team. He was oddly alert, even for a courier, not a single bag settled under his blue eyes. He’d already wrapped his wrists and hands for the climb, his calloused fingers scarred the same way mine were. With the pleasantries out of the way, Kala did everything but slap us on the ass to send us on our way.

Within the first 48 hours, I found that while I aligned myself with the woods, Tal saw it like a puzzle to solve. I’d build campfires like spring nests. His were feats of engineering. He preferred acts of precision, I valued subtlety. At first I found it grating, like he was purposefully making things harder for sport. I tried to shake him, multiple times, but partnerships between couriers were like iron. The links and loyalty to a partner were nearly unbreakable. I couldn’t find a single opening, even trying to sell myself as a third to pairs that took the hardest routes. Tal wasn’t bothered by this, if anything it amused him.

“Any luck?” he’d ask while adjusting the straps of his pack before we headed out.

“No,” I’d stoically reply.

“Aw, you’ll shake me off one day,” he’d say with a mirthful smile.

It took me the whole winter and then some to get to the crux of who Tal was. The truth—the truth about Tal’s very core—was that if there was a perfect method out there, he wanted to know it.

In the spring he said, “I like the way you did that.”

We had just picked honeygranates, a fruit with a hard husk to protect golden crescents of meat inside. They weighed heavy with vitamins and were one of the few native fruits that thrived at high altitudes. An essential part of any mountaineer’s diet. Kala and I would eat them by the bushels when we could, its multi-season yields seemingly unending.

“What?” I popped one of the perfect cloves into my mouth, the thin membrane vanishing on my tongue.

“That.” He pointed at the next piece I had poised to my lips. I paused and he gestured to his own. It was mangled and dripping in his palm, juice running down his sleeve. It was surprising, it was one of the first things Kala taught me.
 Quizzical, I tried to avoid raising a brow and said, “You just follow the skin.”


 “Show me.” Tal had already snapped his utility knife shut and grabbed another. When I didn’t react he nodded at my hands and said it again, adding a simple “please.”


 I shifted to face him properly and pointed to the crown.

“Peel that back to the bulb,” I directed.


 He took this simple direction seriously, watching carefully for my reaction to his every move. Still chewing, I told him to move to the other side and hashmark it with his thumbnail.

“Okay, now…” I said, stretching my hands over his, “push.” Together we pressed the foam rind out the bottom like a dart.


 “Gods, that’s satisfying,” he murmured. “Don’t you love that? That feeling?”

“Of what?”

“Getting it right.”

I did. And after that I noticed when Tal did too. I came to appreciate when his brows furrowed and learned to pause when he did that ever so gentle cock of his hip. When he complimented my work I stopped underplaying myself. There, on the ragged mountain range of Elus, our partnership began in earnest.

Our stays “home” as civilians became shorter. The wilds were unkind, yes, but architecture and politics were underhanded. Fences of bricks and silk to hide the true nature of the landscape and its inhabitants. And Tal, quietly, seemed just as perturbed by the constant hustle of the city as I was. He didn’t even have a “home,” instead renting a room at any inn that had a convenient vacancy. Even I appreciated the refuge of my own apartment, as small as it was.

So, we stayed busy. The more deliveries we took on, the more I relied on Tal. The idea of doing these hauls without him became unfathomable. Even when he’d fill my shoes with acorns or throw me, fully clothed, into a pond.

This excursion took us across an arid section of cliffs that barely even had a trail to follow. Couriers had traversed it enough that it had a scattering of dirt paths, but I doubted the cartographers would suggest building a larger road along it. The only virtue of this particularly rough stretch of terrain was that it rarely saw rain. But of course, as soon as I had commented on that fact, the downpour began.

Even when it stopped, the effects could be felt with every step we took. The ground had become waterlogged and unpredictable. As soon as you thought you had a solid grip on the earth it melted out from under you. We had taken to extending our arms like tightrope walkers, reaching for branches in the deeper pits of mud. But with our packs, we weren’t always in perfect balance.

I watched as Tal’s shoulders tensed whenever he had to rely on a tree for stability. While we never kept a strenuous pace, this was certainly slower going than he liked. I was less bothered, perhaps because it was my turn to carry the tent.

“Knew I shouldn’t have put off resoling my boots,” he mumbled, then louder, “doing okay, Rue?”

“I’m fine,” I said, hoisting myself up onto a fallen log.

“You’re really never bothered by any of this, huh?”

“I guess not.”

He stopped to turn, offering his hand for me to jump down. Normally I wouldn’t need it, but without the extra support I’d likely slip on the mud. His forearm tensed as I hopped down, the pan and tin cups tied to my backpack clattering.

“Hold still.” He pulled the straps tighter so the load sat more squarely on my back, then gave me a light shove to test my balance. I barely wobbled. Satisfied, he started back on the trail.

“What a pain in the ass,” he said as he sunk into the mud with a loud squelch. I secretly wondered if he used me as an excuse to take a breather. We were used to traversing dozens of miles, but even with our toned and practiced legs, we couldn’t help but get slowed down.

Dodging one puddle, Tal faltered on another. He recovered quickly, but I could hear a wince in his breath.

“You alright?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he said, picking up his leg and bending his knee. Following behind him though, I watched as he slowly began to favor is left side more and more. By the afternoon he had developed a full limp. Still, he insisted we’d easily make it to our checkpoint.

“It’s not that far off, we’ll get there well before night sets in.”

Tal unfurled the map from the side pocket of his pack. The weathered paper nearly matched the color of his hair, which was neither white nor blond. It was a tousled mess of papyrus, mourning dove, and cream. A color that seemed both too old for his bright eyes and too young for the stubble that stretched across his face. I was staring, which I tried not to do, but it was getting harder as the days passed us by.

“Rue?”

“Sorry.” I snorted, as if I was distracted by a sneeze that never came. “Go on.”

“The trail is narrow but straight from here on out. We’ll make it to safe camping before nightfall.”

“Right.” I followed the line his finger traced on the page, before looking up the path. I ventured a few steps ahead, balancing on the balls of my feet for a second, but it didn’t help me see much further. I reached out my hand to Tal, motioning to my shoulder.

“Come on then.”

“I’ll crush you,” Tal said, the scar that split his lip wavering against his smirk.

“You won’t.”

He tucked away the map and took a few weak steps towards me, draping his arm gently over my shoulder.

“Come on,” I grumbled again, before pulling his weight onto me. I held his forearm close to my core, and tried to stand as straight as possible to make up for our height difference.

Those first steps were clumsy as we tried to match stride. It was like we were two fools in a three legged race. Our packs kept knocking together, threatening to throw us off balance. We resorted to counting aloud, forcing ourselves to share a beat.

One, two. One, two. One, two.

We created a hybrid of walk and dance. Balanced steps paired with a slight nod of the head to mark each beat. Tal allowed me to lead, adapting his bounding gait to resemble mine: smooth, almost slithering, and springless. In this count, I found a serenade in the wilds that I had never noticed before. The whisper of a breeze sputtering across puddles like a hand drum. Rustling of tree, bush, and grass, replacing every string of a harp. I wondered if Tal noticed this gentle tune, if he could hear it the way I did. Let go of the mechanical count of perfection and just enjoy what was offered up to us so kindly. A few times I thought I heard a hum in his voice, but that could have been from the rumbling of his chest echoing through me.

I may have lead our steps, but his heart dominated mine. It broke through his ribs like a dam, sending a thumping ripple over the muscles of my back. It had been some time since I had been this close to someone. And though we slept around the same campfire, pulled each other up the same mountains, I never had never merged with Tal until now. I could feel my every chamber fill with blood and pulse with a deep, resounding force meant to mimic his. It made my body run hot, my arms squeeze around him tighter.

One, two. One, two. One, two. One—

“Oh shit.”

Tal stumbled against my sharp halt, repeating my exclamation like a mockingbird, “Shit.”

Ahead of us, a pile of mud and rubble was piled high on our path. The rain loosened the dried root system of trees and mountain rocks, triggering a landslide of weakened earth. I left Tal propped against a still standing spruce and scrambled up the pile of rock and sludge. Even with two working legs, I struggled to reach the top. There was no way I could ask Tal to do the same. Not in this condition and not when it spread far beyond what I could see.

He let out a little huff. I had learned that this was not his sign for displeasure. More accurately, it was provoked by consideration, like he needed to expel air out of his body to make more room for his thoughts. He had done the same thing when I showed him how I got the core out of the honeygranate. After consulting the map he announced we’d swoop down to a dip in the range called “The Mosaic.”

“The water will gather at the intermittent lake there,” Tal said. This time he leaned against me without a fuss, eager to get going. “We can catch the northbound trail from there.”

I had never been to The Mosaic, but on our decent I came to understand its name. Through the trees the micro valley with its magically appearing lake refracted light like a prism. The closer we got the more deliberate my pace became.

“Easy, magpie,” Tal teased. It was a sparkling geological wonder. Rich deposits of quartz and agate paved the lake bed, winking as fading sunlight scattered across the water. I wanted to bottle the smell: a glacial freshness tinted by something sweet like alpine sap and agave. If the sparkle of The Mosaic made me a magpie, I’d adopt the name proudly.

We decided to build our camp by a circle of saplings, their roots not established enough to create knots in the dirt. As the sun fell beyond the peaks, leaving us in constant shadow, I collected firewood and Tal massaged his leg. When I returned he had already laid out my sleeping bag for me and left a perfectly peeled honeygranate on a handkerchief.

“You don’t have to do it for me,” I said, beginning to prepare the fire.

“It’s satisfying.”

“Still?”

He nodded, dissecting the crown of another for himself.

There were plenty of things I liked about Tal. I liked the way the scar under his nose shot down like an arrow to his Cupid’s bow. And how he grumbled little secrets in his sleep. I liked how carefully he pressed flowers between the pages of a book he never bothered to read. That he diligently practiced hand-to-hand combat techniques every morning. How he developed a proud little flourish with his fingers when giving me a honeygranate. Like he was handing it off to me for inspection like one would present a freshly cut gem.

The smoke from our campfire rose and was swallowed, hungrily, by the sky. Owls flew unencumbered over us, cooing soft and dangerous lullabies to the lake. Soon it would be properly dark and only that echo and the lapping of water would remain. A perk of the wilderness I never tired of. I sat, silent, waiting for The Mosaic to swallow me. The glimmer of the water out shown the stars, the frame of the mountain serving up the cosmos to me like my own slice of sky.

Tal delicately opened his book, the pages gently billowing as he thumbed through the pages. While he shunned a lot of frivolity, this is one thing he allowed himself: plant pressing. He tucked specimens into the thick tomb for pressing with an uncharacteristic reverence as we traveled. Not quite secretive, but in a way that signaled that this was a hobby done just for him. He did it meditatively, his movements surprisingly slow, his breath held so as not to disturb a single petal. I could observe him from across the fire or while we both indulged in a morning coffee, but if I got too close I noticed he’d break out of his trance. Tonight he had a soft smile on his lips, observing his own work with a careful eye. I tried not to peek, unwilling to disturb Tal’s precious moment of peace during an otherwise hard day.

I was surprised when he asked, “would you like to see?” I felt myself flush ever so slightly at the invite, barely managing to nod before he crawled over to me. Synchronized, we leaned towards the fire together and he flipped to the middle.

“Cliff saffron,” he whispered, “It’s flavorless, so there’s no real use for it. ” Carefully he smudged a bit of pollen from the dried stamen across the page, leaving a ghostly brush of pink. “Barely any color either.”

“Hm…” I leaned in a centimeter closer and sniffed. The smell of the lake and the dozens of other dried flora pressed between the pages overwhelmed this tiny bloom. When I pulled back, I noticed Tal staring at me and I sniffled.

“Why do you do that?”

“Do what?” I doubled down and dabbed at my nose with the back of my hand.

He chuckled a little, closing his book, before saying, “pretending to sneeze.”

“I don’t,” I said straightening. I felt too hot this close to the fire—too close to Tal—and leaned back towards the darkness that surrounded us. Instead of letting me retreat he set his collection down and shifted his shoulders to chase my embarrassed recoil.

“When I look at you, you do.”

“You’re imagining things, Tal.” Even my deflection was weak.

“Rue…” He leaned in close, brushing the tip of his nose against mine. “Don’t sneeze on me.”

I inhaled sharply as his lips gently crossed mine before landing on my cheek. It was like he was trying to see if I’d listen. In a light tease, he added, “Don’t. Even. Breathe.”

Even as a joke, my heart and lungs were so choked up I couldn’t manage it if I tried. He playfully bumped against my forehead. I felt like a butterfly swept up in a storm, thrown back by even the smallest move he made. So, when his knuckle steadied my chin I leaned into it, eager to glue myself to this small pedestal of stability while everything else around me seemed to beat so wildly.

His scar was smoother than it looked. I expected it to pucker and resist when his lips parted and then came back together over mine. Instead all I felt was softness. Softness electrified by his tingling midweek scruff. And it felt so different on my fingers than against my face. As my hands glided past his jugular to the messy, feathered curls at the nape of his neck, I came up with at least a thousand things he felt similar to. But nothing that sounded as good as “Tal.”

“Now pay attention,” he whispered, pulling my hands from the back of his neck to his chest. He laid them against the tangle of strings that kept his vest and shirt tied together. My fingers wove under the leather chords, feeling them already loosen. “It’s like peeling a honeygranate.”