[	Tags	|	kohath, sketches	]
[	Current Mood	|	miserable	]
[	Current Music	|	Jadon Lavik - My Father's World	]

On a cool April day, with the sun shining with a softness of color that pastelized the world, Kohath was shopping. His movements were those of one touched by love: a spring in his step, a tune being hummed, and an unselfconsciousness that only comes from focusing on someone else.

He moved alone through the shops till he caught the warm scent of baking bread. He found the bakery quickly and approached the counter.

"Good morning, wolf," said the baker, a short boar in a flour-covered apron. "What can I get for you today?"

"Bread!" He said, grinning. The baker rolled his eyes. "One of those sweet breads. And half a dozen of... nah, just the one loaf."

He paid two nummi for the bread and headed back out to the street. He put the loaf in his bag and headed down to the square where the fruitsellers were. There was a luxurious smell of citrus, of apples and grapes, making Kohath's belly rumble. But, time enough for eating later, right?

The first stall belonged to a very small tiger selling very large berries. Kohath passed these by--there should be novelty today, surely, but not in the food.

In the second stall a raven was busy shooing children away from his pyramids of melons meticulously piled. Kohath passed by this as well.

The third stall held no fruit, but an elderly wolf lady surrounded by racks of bottles.

"Come for juice, young wolf?"

He smiled and sat facing her. "I'm having lunch with someone special," he said. "I thought fruit would be a good idea, but I think I will make it juice."

"Much more convenient," she said. "No messing with seeds, or rinds, or sticky paws." She felt for a bottle on her left. "For someone special you'll want something special," she said, pulling the bottle from the rack. "My son makes this from his best grape. For a boy in love, one nummo, and I'll throw in cups for free." She pulled two tumblers from a stack behind her; one was blue, and the other pink.

Kohath took it as a sign, and paid the nummo, thanking her sincerely. Bottle and cups went into his bag and he was back in the street. A simple lunch being provided for, he set off towards the park he was meeting his fox at.

On the way there he got distracted by a used book store on the corner of Joli and Short that he had never noticed before, by the name of "The Joli Raja's." He had plenty of time, so he figured he'd give it a look.

Just inside the doors was a bargain bin, ten books for a nummo. An attendant said they were worthless because they were so heavily marked, and if he just wanted one, it'd be free.

Kohath burrowed through the pile. There were elementary math books with the answers written in; copies of Ayn Rand with every page marked 'Nonsense,' even the blank ones; two Bibles and a Koran with pages ripped out or sections painstakingly cut out.

The gem he ended up walking away with was a heavily annotated book of Shakespeare's sonnets. The text itself was unscathed, but the margins were full of drawings, simple icons, and thoughts of love answering to or explaining the poems. It was perfect.

He reached the grove in the park with plenty of time to spare, and started laying everything out. He couldn't find a red-and-white checkered tablecloth, for some reason, and was making do with a surprisingly ugly plaid. He set down his bag, leaving it closed up to keep the bugs off the food, and sat back against a tree to wait, thumbing through the book.

He had only known one of the sonnets before. It was the one that began--

"My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun..."

In the margins of this the annotator had written:

"Not because you're beautiful, not because you shine, just because you're real, that's why I am thine..."

A tabby and a fox went by, holding paws. Kohath took a deep breath, enjoying the cool air and the scent of the food, and read both poems aloud.

"...and yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare."

He flipped through the pages and picked another at random.

"The other two, slight air and purging fire..."

He read the sonnet through, imagining the elemental influences. The facing page was unaccountably blank, until he noticed it was a separate page the same size as the book that the annotator had inserted. He pulled it out and unfolded it.

It was a fairly decent drawing, done in colored pencil. In it two foxes were standing at opposite sides of a canyon, reaching out to each other. He felt the deep loneliness compounded from the poem and the image and checked his timepiece.

Late, and still no sign, no word. He pulled his phone from the bag--no missed calls. He considered calling, figured it'd be smothery at only ten minutes late.

He went back to the book, hunting for a more uplifting message.