renewal of vows.

[Danicka] Last year this time Danicka only vaguely remembers. She was exhausted. The trip to New York City had ended with the two of them walking a razor wire between finally having each other and losing each other entirely. Mere days later they were dragged underground and there was silver around Lukas's throat, there was that tall, hooded thing with the rings of knifelike teeth in its mouth, there was Danicka telling him she wasn't ready, not now, not anytime soon, but she wanted his children. She'd welcome them.

There really wasn't time in the middle of all that to stop and recognize a day that's been a part of her upbringing, a cornerstone of how her father grounded her in his culture from childhood. Danicka learned Russian because her mother spoke it, because her mother demanded it, but it wasn't the casual, at-home tongue that Czech was. She knows she's a quarter Polish and she appreciates the food and the vodka and makes raunchy jokes about her own heritage along with the rest of them, but her life at home was Czech. Special candies at Easter, presents on Christmas Eve and visiting with family and friends on Christmas Day, and Všechno nejlepší k svátku!

When she was a child, handmade toys from her father, a card from her brother, a kiss on the head from her mother. When she was older, a little box of candies or chocolates, a kiss on the cheek from her brother. Other Czech kids from her father's work with immigrants or a few at school calling it out to her as she passed. A young Fianna boy who liked her sent her flowers once on her name day, but that was before he took her virginity, and long before she miscarried his child.

There are nights when Lukas spars with Sinclair, or confers with Katherine, or fights Wyrmlings near the Brotherhood, or so on and so forth, when once upon a time he would have gone to his little room and his narrow bed to sleep. He would take a room at the Loft and crash there. But nowadays it's easy to feel the weight of Danicka's key hanging from its ring and think

she doesn't live so far. His pack is bonded close and tight and they live in his thoughts even if he's not sleeping in the next room. Look at Kate and Sinclair, teasing each other like sisters. The Brotherhood is safe tonight, those who live there are protecting it. And so he goes looking for her, tracking down his mate to her high-up den in the sky or all the way out to their warm place in Stickney, and on Sunday night he finds her in her bed at Kingsbury Plaza, smiling at him when he comes in and setting her book aside and wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him down over her and breathing him in, smiling against his cheek, whispering

m&+367;j lodní d&+367;stojník,

like it's a hello.


Lukas wakes there on Monday morning, on 'his' side of 'her' bed. Kandovany is not allowed to sleep in here. The under-sink cabinets in the second bathroom have been repurposed, actually, one door taken off and replaced with a fabric curtain. The cat's litter box is there, out of sight. Her soft pillow is between the side of the couch and the windows, where she can curl up and sleep or sit and stare at the world below. She is not permitted in the study at all. When Danicka goes to sleep, she's kicked out of the bedroom. So when Lukas wakes, he's alone with his mate, alone with the rainbow cast on the carpet from the prism in her window, alone with the zen-like quiet of this room, now lacking the bookshelves and desk it once held. It is minimalist and light-colored and peaceful.

And Danicka is in one of those little t-shirts she has -- this one is black, the design on the front proclaiming that Green is the new Purple, and he gets that joke now, having seen Outland -- and her panties, which have little cherries all over them and are trimmed in red lace. It isn't exactly an ensemble she wore thinking he was coming over. But then, now that he's here so much more often, there's some quiet pleasure in that. That he's welcomed here, wanted here, and he is seeing her and her apartment as they are, not as the rest of the world would be introduced to them. She's nuzzled up against his side, one leg draped over one of his, her foot nestled between his calves, her face against his bare chest.

Something about his stirring wakes her, too, but she keeps her eyes closed at first. She breathes in deeply, stretching her entire body out taut next to him, a low growl of satisfaction stifled in her throat. When she relents, her eyes open blearily and she smiles up at him.

"Všechno nejlepší k svátku," she murmurs sleepily, then gives a halfhearted, thin, pitiful-sounding cough into her fist. "I don't think I can go to class today. I'm sick."

Her slender arms wrap back around him, pulling herself closer to his body once more. "I'll have to stay here with you."

[Lukas] Sick, she says, and accentuates it with a pitiful little cough.

If Lukas were in another form, she'd see his ears prick up and his nose twitch. Even like this, she can see the sudden alertness in his eyes: mate not well? mate sick? i fix? before it occurs to him that -- no. She's not really sick. It's pretend.

He relaxes then, eyelids drooping half-shut. It's still early, and he's just so lazy. She pulls herself closer to his body, as though they were adrift in some ocean and he were some sort of flotation device, some gnarl of driftwood, some raft, something.

"Mmm," he says. It's too early for words. He nuzzles her instead, rubbing his nose and cheek and jaw roughly against her forehead, her temple, her cheekbone. "Mmmph."

He opens his arms, then: stretches around her, hard, his body tensing under her arms. Not a quiet subtle little stretch, either. Lukas flexes his arms outward, then up -- bangs his knuckles on the headboard -- stretches his legs, wiggles his toes. Strains and grunts and growls and sighs, and when he's all done,

relaxes, boneless with pleasure, drawing and releasing a deep breath before wrapping his arms around his mate and tumbling with her under the covers, over-under, until somehow they've switched places and she's in the larger, warmer hollow left by his body and he's in hers.

Facing her now. Eyes open, smiling. He cups her cheek. Rather aware of morning-breath, he kisses her forehead. "Hi," he says. "I can't believe you remember these things."

[Danicka] Sometimes Danicka wonders if Lukas had these reactions, these kneejerk worries for her well-being, when they were first together and he was so cold, working so hard to pretend that he didn't care. She remembers noticing the way his head snapped towards Sam when the Modi backhanded her in the Brotherhood, even if the last thing on her mind at that moment was looking deeper into his motivations and emotions. But nowadays she wonders if he always felt these things and just repressed them as hard and tight as he controls his rage.

In any case, she would have to barely know him, not know him at all, to miss the way he perks at that little, fake cough. She would have to be blind not to notice that even if his thinking mind knows it's just pretend, instinct rides to the fore. Or at least, it feels like she would have to be blind. Maybe, Danicka thinks, she just doesn't miss it because Lukas doesn't hide it. Doesn't have to.

He's an animal. And she knows it.

Her hand scritches softly against his chest, fingers curling and uncurling, stroking aimlessly on his skin, through the soft hairs scattered across his body. She breathes him in as he settles once more, closing her eyes and moving easily with the nudging as he nuzzles her. She holds onto him even as he stretches out hard and athletic, just like she did, tips of his fingers to tips of his toes, arching his spine, arching his feet. She smiles against his skin, laughs into it, and holds him tighter when he relaxes.

A little yelp leaves her when he starts tumbling them around, tangling them in the sheets and comforter. Lukas can feel her legs move towards him as though to wrap around his body and hold on, has her slim arms around his neck for a moment, and then she's under him, then beside him, gold hair spread over her pillowcase. His pillowcase. There's a faint depression in the bed from his greater weight, and it's warm from his sleep. She's smiling at him, and her eyes are twinkling from it.

She gives a faint huff of laughter as he kisses her forehead, and nuzzles against his cheek. It's the human parts of them that are aware of things like morning breath. It's the animal sides that know how to kiss without kissing, how to speak without talking. Like this.

"It's easy," she insists lazily, wriggling down under the covers a bit more. "Every Lukáš has the same name day, but not every Lukáš has the same birthday." Her toes work their way over to him, tucking under his calf. She wiggles them, as though to tickle him. "Also, if you have your calendars properly synced and alerts set up then there's this pretty chime the day before telling me not to forget. That also helps."

Danicka leans over, kissing his cheek. "I would remember anyway. I thought today we could go to a pumpkin patch." She grins. "When we're done being lazy." And she leans over to him, opening her mouth and setting her teeth in his bicep, gnawing gently.

[Lukas] They've never really discussed that single, tumultuous night. The kolaches. The misunderstanding that Mrena understood as some sort of dreadful conspiracy. The closed-door discussion with Sam, which was privately torturous for Lukas, though he hid it so well. The utterly inappropriate, unnecessary joke the Modi cracked upon emerging that finally snapped Lukas's tolerance, sent him for a late-night snack.

What Danicka wanted to talk about. What truths finally emerged. Sam's knuckles flying across her cheek, then, and that singular flash of Lukas's eyes to his brother.

They don't talk about it; there's no point. What's done is done, and there's little reason to dissect it. For her to tell him, I came to see you, you blind fool. I made those kolaches for you, and I came to see you. For him to tell her, I defended you when Mrena was sure you were there to bring us down. I had to bite back the urge to smash Sam through the nearest wall when he hurt you like that.

They're Shadow Lords. Words don't matter. Actions do.


It's hard for Lukas to even think of those early days now, sometimes. How hard he was; how cold; how brutally he and all his pack snubbed her when all she wanted, all she ever wanted

was him.


That's not what he's thinking about, though. He's thinking about pumpkin patches, reminder chimes on his iPhone -- yes, that's a good idea, he'll do that for her nameday and her birthday -- and he's thinking about how he loves the way she touches him, gnaws on him, moves with him like what happened two, three months ago on the street never happened at all, and nothing ever changed, when he knows it did happen. He knows things did change.

There's a faint shadow on his brow when she looks at him again. It doesn't affect his smile, but it puts a touch of sadness in his eyes. He puts his hand on her face and he kisses her after all, gently.

"Thank you," he says softly.

[Danicka] Don't tell me not to be grateful, she'd told him, when he ached because she shouldn't have to be thankful for what they have, she shouldn't have a life so peppered with the awareness of and inevitability of loss that just being happy for awhile was something she knew she had to treasure.

Right now, lying with him in bed and watching that shadow of sorrow and memory flicker through his crystalline eyes, Danicka closes her lips gently against the urge to tell him no, don't say thank you, don't be grateful to me for this.

'This' being what they have. 'This' being name days, birthdays, mornings in bed, a silly trip to a pumpkin patch where Lukas and she will most certainly not be going on any sort of hayride because the mules or horses or whatnot would freak. 'This' being her love, and her comfort with him, even if they both know that sometimes -- not always, but sometimes -- it's going to be hard.

'This', which is wounded (but not damaged), changed (but not broken).

But what Danicka realizes she really wants to wash away from his expression isn't the gratitude, isn't the smile. It's the sadness in his eyes, the way that thank you is tinged with grief. She closes her eyes when he kisses her, her lips warm on his just for a moment, and when they part she opens them again. She's smiling gently, her brows drawn slightly together. Danicka puts her hand on his cheek as he pulls back from her face.

"You're welcome," she says quietly, and the shadow dissipates slowly from her brow, her thumb stroking across his cheek. She lifts her head, kissing him lightly one more time, and lays back down. "If you knead the dough I'll make kolá&+269;e for breakfast," she says with a smile.

[Lukas] The corner of his mouth tilts up when she promises him kolá&+269;e. Well; promises they'll make it together, which in truth is better in his mind than her making it, him eating it. "Okay," he says quietly, happily; so easily pleased sometimes. He doesn't move, though. He stays where he is, arms wrapped around her -- wrapping tighter, if anything. A moment later he adds, whispering, "Ten more minutes, okay?"

And he closes his eyes. And he lays his brow to hers, and rests.


Ten minutes don't quite go by. Two or three do; five or six, even. Then his eyes open a little, pale blue barely glimpsed behind a weaving of black eyelashes. He nuzzles her face gently, as though asking without words for a little more attention.

"I'm sorry," he says, "that when you brought me kolá&+269;e that night -- the second time -- I snapped at you for laughing." A small pause. Then, "I love it when you laugh. I love seeing you happy."

[Danicka] Never, not once, has he wanted her to serve him. Not to wash his feet, not to make his meals, not even at the beginning did he want to use her like a little fuckdoll, his because of her breeding, because he was a Shadow Lord and she was even remotely willing. Lukas has never lacked in gratitude when Danicka has made him dinner or given him gifts, done something especially for him --

except a long, long time ago, when he didn't even realize it was for him

-- but he has never expected her to be the sort of kinswoman she was raised to be. Able to get bloodstains out of clothing, mend a tear, buy new clothes and keep a home and cook and survive and submit. Bear his children. Bear him.

Danicka laughs softly, kissing him again (again, again, again). She nods. "Okay," because she's 'sick', after all, she's playing hooky with her boyfriend and so ten more minutes, well. What's ten more minutes? She nuzzles his cheek, tucking her head down, curling up with him to drowse for a little longer.

They don't really sleep, though. They laze, they tangle. Her feet rub gently against his, her body warm and pliant next to him. She drapes her arm over his waist at one point, stroking his back. He nuzzles her with gentle, quiet insistence, and her eyes open slowly to him, her lips curling in one corner into a fond smile.

And he says he's sorry. She doesn't cut him off, kiss him to make him stop, tell him baby, stop being so sad. She stays right where she is, stroking his broad bare back with her fingernails, looking into his eyes from perhaps only a few inches away. "Baby..." she starts, and shakes her head slightly. "I just thought you looked so cute, peeking under the lid like that. You thought I was laughing at you. Mocking you." She readjusts her head on the pillow. "You didn't know me."

There's a beat. "You were also a lot more immature." Which doesn't sound like a judgement, so much as an acknowledgement: he was almost like a teenager, tangled up in thinking that the girl he liked didn't and wouldn't ever like him back, and howling inside because of it.

Danicka leans forward, rolling over, and pushes against him. She couldn't physically move him if she used every drop of her strength, but she doesn't seem to expect him to resist. She knows, in fact, he'll understand her body language. He'll roll onto his back in a way he never would have when all this first started, in a way he would have resisted just because it might look like submission, and to a Kin, unthinkable. And she'll crawl on top of him, large as he is and slender as she is, and she'll fold her arms on her chest

just like she's doing

and rest her chin against her forearms and look lazily at him, feeling his heartbeat through her palms. "Don't be stuck in the past today," she whispers finally, gently. "Okay?"

[Lukas] She's right, of course. He doesn't resist; doesn't insist on not rolling over for her because she's a kin, because he's Garou, unthinkable.

Lukas goes easily to his back. She's not trying to dominate him, anyway. That's never really been part of their interaction, except perhaps, and occasionally, in the bedroom. In bed. In the way they make love, which is somehow at once playful and intense and athletic and primal.

Not here, though. Not now, as he rolls on his back and she rolls atop; as he stretches again, flexing beneath her, before he folds his hands easily behind his head. They settle. Lukas smiles up at his mate as she rests on his chest. Like a cat, he thinks to himself, and then -- because she tells him not to be stuck in the past today -- does not think overlong of the time he called her that. A cat, no more faithful than a cat in heat.

"Okay," he whispers back. And then his smile quirks a little wider; he lifts his head and rubs noses with her, playfully; kisses her quickly but unshyly.

"You need to tell me something you like," he says. "So I can make it for you or do it for you or something on special days."

[Danicka] Danicka laughs quietly atop him at that nuzzle, the kiss, the fact that he is lazy and playful and open today -- even if some of what comes from that openness in him is sadness.

They never used to be open. So they never used to be all that playful. Danicka used to be so much more fragile than she is now, and so they never used to be all that athletic. Even now that isn't really her style, not most of the time.

That intensity, though. That primitive way they connect. That's always been there, even before they would allow themselves to set their teeth in one another, even before they could admit that they wanted to mate, that they were mating.

She tips her head slightly though, at what he says. "I'm not that hard," she says fondly, reaching up a hand to play gently with his hair. "I like strawberry kolá&+269;e the best," she tells him, "but I'm not really into sweets."

Of course she's not. Look at her. Look at how slender she was when he met her, how slim she still is. Danicka doesn't burn a thousand calories in an eyeblink by shifting shape; Danicka, to keep herself healthy and fit, actually has to eat thoughtfully. Danicka, because she grew up in a household where sweets were for special occasions and not everyday consumption, simply doesn't crave them much. She's thinking through it, though.

What he can do. What he can do for her, how he can make her happy. And that, in a way, is a gift, too.

Her fingertips twirl in a lock of his hair. "I like clothes," she says with a touch of wryness in her smile. He's seen her closet. Closets, plural. "And lingerie and shoes. I like going to the zoo and the aquarium and museums and galleries," but he knows all this, too, he's done these things with her, he's seen how when she's at these places she has a sort of quiet contemplation about her that is reminiscent of all that time he spent not knowing, not being able to tell at all, what she was thinking.

"I like books," Danicka says softly, her smile growing tender, warmer. Because he knows this, too: the way she reacted when he so much as offered to send her the books from his childhood and youth, how she cried and he thought she was upset but she didn't know how to explain how much it meant to her. Because he knows how books were a special thing she had to deprive herself of lest they be taken away again, and how she doesn't have to fear that anymore. Yet how the number of texts on her shelves still doesn't grow too greatly or quickly, as though it still isn't the first thing she thinks of buying for herself.

And there is, perhaps, part of the crux: there is nothing Lukas can give her she could not get for herself. She can make her own kolá&+269;e if she wants it, she can hire a goddamn chef if she likes. His mate lives very, very differently, but she's as wealthy as some of the Silver Fangs in the city. Maybe she doesn't live like they do because that is where her money came from: she knows the opulence her financial status can afford, she sees how it's used, and it reminds her of a breed of folk she generally despises.

"I like you," she whispers, wrapping her arms around him, sliding her hands under him, coming down close to him to lay her head on him with a smile. "I like spending time with you."

Which they have more, now. Never enough, maybe. In any case, probably the only thing she can't buy for herself on her birthday, should she want it.

[Lukas] In truth, he knows most of what she tells him. That she likes strawberry best -- because the first time he made kolace (or tried) she asked for some strawberry ones alongside his candied orange pastries. That she likes books because she told him, and showed him, and wept when he gave her those books that even now live in her study, and her bedroom.

That she likes clothes because she has two closets full of them. That she likes him, because he's here. Because they spend nights together now. Not always, but sometimes. More than before. Often.

And because she slides her hands under him, wraps him in her arms. And lays her head on him. And smiles. And tells him.

Lukas wraps his arms around his mate, too. They lie together a while, the male nuzzling the female gently. Then with a indrawn breath he sits up, shifts her on him until she's straddling his lap, the comforters falling down behind her.

"Okay," he says, sounding decisive. "Let's go knead dough and bake kolá&+269;e."

[Danicka] "Ack," is the first -- and not very ack-sounding -- thing Danicka says as he sits up, inhaling like he does. The comforters fall off her shoulders and she quickly gathers them back up around her body, locking her arms around his neck again. "No," she grumps suddenly, putting her face to his neck, "I changed my mind. We're staying in bed."

Perhaps the most ridiculous aspect of this oppositional behavior is how now she starts trying to push him back down. Again. "Nnngh," she says, pressing to his chest. "Nngh!"

[Lukas] It's a little bit absurd. Danicka is acting like a child; is playing at acting like a child. Anyone else, and Lukas would be annoyed, even disgusted. Anyone else, and Danicka would never show this face.

It's not anyone else. It's them. And when she pushes on him -- solid, brick-wall-like Lukas -- he laughs quietly and lies back down. "Okay, okay," he concedes. "We'll stay in bed."

And he folds his hands behind his head again. And smiles up at her. And leans up to catch her lips for a quick, fond kiss. "Happy Lukáš Day," he says, absurd himself.

[Danicka] No one else would ever see her like this, playful about her changes of whim and changes of mind. Childish in her resistance. Cuddly. She barrels him down to the bed, burrowing against him under the thick comforter, settling down quickly again to his chest. She smiles at him when he kisses her, absurd and absurdly happy, but she wasn't kidding.

Once upon a time Danicka woke before dawn as a matter of course. Nine years of governing Yelizaveta, waking before sunrise to prepare herself and prepare for dealing with the day and the girl. Nine years of waking when she was wanted, needed, called for, expected, roused before she was ready. Nine years had her waking up at five or six in the morning at the latest day after day. It lasted for awhile. She learned to be lazy. She learned to sleep in.

Then she started college, and learned to wake up early again so she could get ready for the day, get ready for class, rush down to the University of Chicago with a travel mug of coffee a miniature travel toothbrush and toothpaste set in her bag for later and making sure she had her ID so she could gt a snack later and the cord for her laptop and so on.

Danicka wakes without an alarm. She has an easily set internal clock, which woke her this morning. It's possible the decision to skip all her classes and spend the day with Lukas was a spontaneous one. In fact, given how drowsy she was when he came in last night, it's likely that there was no planning or consideration aforethought. Wake with the daylight. Look at his face, barely stirring because he felt her breathing change. Decide: I'm not going anywhere.

Not now, either. She settles down on his chest and rests. Closes her eyes, nuzzles his chest, and before he knows it she's asleep again, breathing steadily on his chest.


Somewhere during this morning nap she slides off of him and curls up at his side again, arm and leg over him, sharing his pillow, resting her head on his shoulder or his arm. Danicka sleeps lazily, and rather deeply. She's warm when she sleeps, though nowhere near the furnace-like temperatures Lukas reaches. It's an hour or two before she wakes again, stretches out again, yawns broad and relaxes with satisfaction. Another person, a year or more ago, anyone but him, anywhere but here and now, and she wouldn't do this. She wouldn't have any of this.

She smiles as she climbs back over him, nuzzling him hello, telling him good morning again, kissing his jaw. She laughs softly and shifts her body against his under the covers, murmuring

I like it sometimes when we wake up and you've got morning wood. It makes me wanna fuck.

There's a grin on her face as she says it, rolling her hips slightly against him. It's playful. It's sort of lazy and loose and careless, and that's the kind of love they make. His hand rucking up her shirt and reaching under her panties to open up over her ass, pulling her closer, turning those lazy rolls of her hips into something more deliberate, more rhythmic. Turning those soft laughs into gasps, til his hands are wandering and Danicka's quiet exclamations hit a slightly higher pitch, a more needful sound.

His hands on her breasts through her shirt, their mouths tangling, forgetting to care about morning breath, Lukas muttering to her to

get this off while he's tugging at the cotton, not clear whether he means her cherry-covered panties or her WoW-inspired t-shirt, just... get it off. Get naked.

They tussle in bed for awhile, Danicka squirming out of her clothes and trying to rub up against her boyfriend at the same time, sucking on his earlobe while he reaches between her legs, groaning when he finds her, as though the touch he gives her is granting him as much pleasure as it is her. That's how they fuck before breakfast, rolling around in bed with the sunlight streaming in through the windows and the prism.

His hands spread over her arching back when she takes him inside, her hands pressed to his chest to hold herself up while she sinks down on him. Her breast in his mouth, wet from suckling, nipple hardened from the flicks of his tongue, filling his palm when she starts to ride him slow and heavy and eager.

The yelp she lets out, followed by laughter, followed by a moan, when Lukas flips her over, putting her back on the bed, coming over her again and thrusting harder into her, his arms locked so he can look down at her, at all of her, at his cock moving into her.

The way their mouths brush each other in haphazard attempts at kisses as they start to fuck more vigorously, faster now. The panting, whimpering whisper when he's closer, his chest to hers,

I'm gonna come. Baby, don't stop, I'm gonna come, I'm gonna -- fuck -- fucking come, don't stop --!

And the way that devolves into the last, molten kiss he seals onto her mouth as his orgasm chases hers down, as he fills her in the last clenching, rolling pulses of her pleasure. The way they collapse afterward, his face to her shoulder, sweat on his back, her eyes closing as she tries to put herself back together again. The way he rolls to his side and keeps her close, keeps his arm around her and his leg over hers, their brows touching.

That's the way they make love this morning.


They shower together. She's still using that herbal-smelling stuff; he brought his own shampoo ages ago but they've never opened it up because she still uses the same stuff and it's not too girly. There's a bottle of body wash in her shower now, too, and a poof-loofah-sponge thing -- Lukas brought them, or one day she noticed that his use of her bar soap never seemed quite as automatic as hers, or the fact that the bars she's using now smell faintly of lavender which is kinda girly.

Danicka laughs when he reaches around her and 'helps' 'wash' her chest, insisting that she missed a spot, she's not clean. And neither of them seemed to expect it, and neither of them seemed unsatisfied

but she looks over her shoulder at him with a wry smirk and asks if he's saying she's dirty, and lightning flashes in his eyes well before he answers, well before she starts to bend forward to put her arms against the tiled wall, long before he leans over her and mutters in her ear, a long time before they're fucking again, faster this time, rougher, her cries and his groans a little louder.


So of course Kandovany is not pleased when the foodgiver finally emerges and feeds her. She pretends to be disinterested in the food, which makes Danicka's brow wrinkle, which makes her look upset, and normally she's very stern with the cat, but she coaxes her to come eat, don't be absurd. Kandovany gets a treat from her fingertips. Danicka picks her up, rubs her face against the cat's neck and shoulder, and lets her down again to eat.

They make kolache as though they have nowhere to be, noplace to go. Lukas knows how to knead, not too long because he's so much stronger than Danicka is, knows how to pay attention to the dough now to tell when it's had enough, when it's ready to rise. It takes a long time to make kolache. They make coffee and Danicka eats yogurt and Lukas makes a grilled turkey and swiss sandwich because Danicka's out of ham and cheddar. They make strawberry filling, candied orange filling, bake the kolache.

It's at this point that Danicka is on her computer, the pastries baking and her coffee finished, looking up directions to the pumpkin patch which closes in two hours and it takes forty-five minutes to get there we gotta go.

Lukas makes sure the kolache don't burn. Danicka does her hair and her makeup and dons a pair of rather fabulous boots and is urging him out the door while he's shoving a kolache in his mouth and his feet into his shoes and grabbing two more on the way out and two for Danicka because in his mind one surely won't be enough for her.

She saves the second in the car for later. He eats his birthday treat in the car while she drives. Danicka explains that she really just needs him there so she can get the biggest pumpkin there and will probably need him to carry it, so.


They stay away from the mules and horses. They visit the barn-turned-marketplace and Danicka buys kettle corn to carry around. It isn't just a hayride and patch: there's a cornfield maze where they steal kisses as though they're ten years younger. A contest where you try to guess the weight of various pumpkins. A kid passes by and says this one's not as good as the one a county over where they have a catapult. Lukas's eyes gleam, as though the hosts of ancient-born ancestors in his blood are all growing nostalgic for old battles at once. Danicka laughs.

They get caramel apples. And two big pumpkins. And a smaller one, because Danicka thinks it's cute. There's a bit of hay in her hair. And in his, more visible because of the contrast to his coloring. He carries the big pumpkins, stacked atop each other, and she cradles the little one on the way back to the car.

He drives, this time, supposedly so that she can eat her second kolache. But she ate kettle corn and an apple and a few bites of fudge at one of the booths so she doesn't. She carries it back upstairs with her wrapped in a napkin and does eventually eat it, while Lukas goes at the pumpkins with a heavy knife. No special tools for all this: carving knives, a metal ladle, a bowl for the seeds and the goop. The way she might have when she was younger. The candles are little scented ones from her bathroom linen closet.

The carvings aren't perfect. Or particularly artistic. A scary pumpkin. An angry pumpkin. A very small pumpkin with an upside-down smiley face. For awhile after all is said and done Danicka goes out to the balcony with Lukas and sits on his lap, curled up to look at the product of all their work. It's getting dark, proof of autumn's entrance into the world: it is still relatively early.

Danicka doesn't repeat when she told him earlier, doesn't wish him a happy name day again. Truth be told the kolache were really the only treat, her staying home from school. Normally it warrants no particularly large celebration: just a small notice, an acknowledgement, an expression of affection and friendship and so forth. Today wasn't, in the end, about Lukas's name day.

They have never gone for the most obvious rituals. Danicka has that in her life, celebrates solstices and equinoxes with pagans, has her own way of praying. It's personal. It's private, in a way, separate even from her relationship with Lukas. Perhaps that's because he can go fullbodied into the spirit world, step through the gauntlet and be one with that side of life in a way she never can be, and he can never really share that with her. She doesn't want him to try, and pretend that they aren't truly different. Nor does she try to share with him the paltry attempts at reaching past the boundaries between flesh and spirit that humans have, that she has. She has ritual in her life: it just doesn't apply to her relationship with Lukas.

No engagement rings. No wedding bells. No bridal showers, no honeymoon. Nothing like any of that for them. Their sacred moments are more subtle, the way she once told him that making kolache could be prayer, that making love could be worship.

The way that lazing in bed and cooking breakfast in the same kitchen and going to a pumpkin patch and curling up on the porch at nightfall and saying not a word, not a single word

can be a sort of renewal of unspoken vows that may take a lifetime to keep.