## Chapter 443 — Saturday and Six Chairs

Saturday, 29 April, began for Kanno with the coffee filters she had forgotten the day before. She bought the same kind she usually bought. The supermarket offered alternatives with diagrams about extraction and paper structure; Kanno read half of one, realised she had no Saturday-morning interest in comparative filtration, and added milk and onions to the basket instead.

At home, the shallow archival box containing Aelira's portrait sat on the workroom shelf. Kanno passed it while putting the shopping away, then again on the way back to the kitchen. The print had been requested, made, checked, sleeved and labelled. It could remain a finished object for a while before becoming a delivery.

She made coffee and took it to the kitchen window. Below, somebody had chained a bicycle to the wrong side of the building rack so that its front wheel projected into the path. Kanno considered photographing it, decided the thought was better than the picture would be, and left the camera where it was.

By ten she was outside again with a cloth shopping bag and a plan no more ambitious than bread.

---

Thomas's archery session produced one red, several blues, more black and white than he wanted, and a single arrow in the backing below the target face. Nakahara received the distribution with the complete absence of surprise available only to someone who had watched beginners for years.

The eighteen-pound bow felt familiar now. Thomas assembled it himself, though Nakahara caught him checking the upper string loop for a third time.

"Twice is enough."

Thomas looked at the groove, saw that the string was properly seated, and let the third check go. Most of the morning followed that pattern: his sight moved, his body wanted to wait for stillness, and waiting too long made his shoulder creep upward. When he accepted the movement and kept the draw cleaner, the arrows usually landed somewhere less embarrassing.

The miss below the face came after he held too long. Thomas retrieved it with the others, checked the shaft and went back to the line. On the next end he put one arrow into red, smiled, and followed it with white and black.

Near the end Nakahara watched three shots from behind him. Thomas lowered the bow and waited.

"Your shoulder was better."

Thomas looked towards the target. "The arrows disagree."

"The arrows don't know why they went there."

Thomas thought about that while he packed the bow away. His shoulders were pleasantly tired; eighteen pounds remained plenty.

When he reached flat 202, Isha was on the floor beside the low table with coloured paper spread around her knees. The hanging she had been making had acquired another loop, attached at an angle that made the whole thing lean when she lifted it.

Thomas set down his archery bag. "Crooked."

"Yes."

"Keeping it?"

Isha turned the hanging once and watched the pieces settle. "Probably. I like what it does when it moves."

Isha lowered the hanging into her lap. "How was the archery?"

Thomas loosened one shoulder. "Mostly mediocre. One arrow in red, one below the face, and enough in between that Nakahara-san didn't seem concerned. I think that counts as a normal session."

"Did you enjoy it?"

He thought for a moment. "Yes. More once I stopped trying to make every arrow justify the previous one."

Isha nodded and returned to the paper. Thomas changed clothes. Lunch was cold soba assembled from what they already had in the refrigerator; afterward Isha kept working at the low table and Thomas took a book to the sofa, his bow resting in its bag by the wall until the next session.

---

In another world, a different morning announced itself with cart wheels in the western lane.

Lethira heard one wheel fall into a deep rut and went to the front window. By the time the horse came between the trees, she had opened the door. The old table rode under two tied blankets, its shallow scar and repaired stretcher hidden for the journey.

Ian came to stand beside her. "That looks like table authority arriving."

"Table authority already paid for it. This is table logistics."

He stepped aside as the joiner and his assistant brought the table through the door. Lethira had moved the temporary table towards the kitchen earlier, leaving the front room open. Daylight from the window caught the old grain as soon as the blankets came away.

The first placement narrowed the route to the kitchen. Lethira walked it once; Ian pointed out the offending corner, and the two delivery men shifted the table towards the window and turned it slightly. On the second attempt she could pass comfortably even with an imagined chair occupied at the near side.

"There," she said.

One foot rocked. The joiner fitted a thin shaving beneath it and tested the table again. Lethira leaned against the top with both hands. Nothing moved, and the scar lay beneath her left palm.

Ian crouched to look at the newer stretcher. "It feels like it was always meant to be here."

Lethira glanced around the sparse room. "It has been here for half a minute. Give the house time to object."

The joiner reminded her that the plain chair was still at his yard, then left with his assistant. When the cart noise faded down the lane, Lethira moved one of the temporary chairs to the table. Its seat had been tolerable against the temporary surface; here her forearms met the thicker edge at an angle she immediately disliked.

She looked across the table at Ian. "We should go and test the chair before impatience makes me buy six."

"I thought I was here to provide knees."

"Today, yes. Try to bear the responsibility with dignity."

They walked into Merrowford after the busiest morning carts had cleared. The recent rain still darkened the deeper wheel ruts, and the trees along the western road carried enough water to shake a cold drop loose whenever the breeze moved them. Lethira spent most of the walk talking about the chimney stack and whether the roofer would agree with the cleaner's suggestion once they were already up there.

The joiner's yard smelled of cut timber and old shavings. Lethira's chair waited against the inside wall: broad seat, plain back, the edges shaped for hands and bodies rather than display. She sat once to make sure yesterday had not improved it in memory, then stood and offered it to Ian.

He settled his feet, leaned back and shifted his hips once. Lethira waited long enough for politeness to stop being useful.

"Well?"

"My back is quiet, my knees are making no threats, and I can imagine eating a long dinner without eventually blaming you for the chair."

A smile pulled at her mouth. "Then I want six."

The joiner had seasoned stock for a matched pattern, though the grain would vary from chair to chair. That suited them. Lethira paid the deposit, and they agreed that four would normally sit at the table while the other two waited against a wall until visitors made them useful.

Outside, Ian looked at the folded receipt in her hand. "I remain impressively decorative in the local economy."

Lethira hooked her arm through his. "You supplied the knees."

He accepted that limited economic function, and they turned towards home.

Their next problem waited upstairs. The temporary bed filled part of the largest bedroom beneath its two windows; it had been created to serve immediately, and neither of them had chosen it as something they wanted to keep. Lethira fetched the marked cord and measured the room with Ian holding the far end. They left space to walk on both sides, checked the window and the route from the stairs, then compared the remaining width with the current mattress.

"Wider," Lethira said.

Ian studied the space. "Enough for a stretching elf without exiling me."

"You survived last night."

"I am planning for expansion of Elven territory."

She handed him the cord again before the discussion could become constitutional.

By early afternoon they had seen two beds worth refusing. One had beautiful carving and a headboard so elaborate that Lethira could imagine catching her hair on it while half asleep. The other had good proportions and a loose corner joint that would need rebuilding before it could be trusted. The third almost escaped notice because it stood in pieces against the back wall of a second-hand furniture room.

Lethira saw the headboard first. It was broad and modest in height, two darkened boards held inside a heavier frame, with a shallow curve along the upper edge. Near one corner an old split had been pinned and worked smooth. Whoever repaired it had left the repair visible rather than cut away good wood for the sake of appearances.

She stopped, and Ian came back the half-step he had gone ahead.

"That one?"

Lethira touched the pinned split. "Maybe."

The seller helped them lay out the rails. One side rail was newer than the rest, though years had darkened it towards the same colour. The joints were substantial and the pegs showed the wear of repeated assembly. Their marked cord said the frame would fit the room, so Lethira asked to see it standing.

Another pair of hands came from the back room. Lethira watched the joints draw together while the frame took shape. When the final peg seated, the bed looked simpler than the merchant frame and more convincing than the loose-jointed one.

She braced both hands against the headboard and pushed. The whole frame shifted slightly across the floor; the joints stayed firm. Ian tested the far corner, then sat on the bare slats. The wood gave one low creak and settled under his weight.

"I like this," he said.

Lethira sat beside him. Their shoulders touched. The seller knew nothing useful about the frame's history; it had arrived through a storage dealer years earlier, stripped of names and anecdotes. Lethira found that she preferred it that way.

She ran her thumb over the old repair. "I still want something Wood Elf in this room. I don't want to wake up one day and discover I furnished the whole house by choosing whatever happened to be closest to Merrowford."

Ian looked along the headboard, then towards the space where the room walls would eventually stand around it. "Then we don't. We can ask someone from the settlement for the chest or the shelves—something made for that room, because you know what you miss from home and I don't. This bed doesn't have to carry all of that by itself."

Lethira looked at him for a moment before returning her hand to the repaired wood. "Good. I want the house mixed. I just don't want my part of the mixture to happen accidentally."

They bought the frame.

A bedding maker nearby took its measurements and spared them a tour of every mattress in the shop. Two examples were enough to choose the construction: dense wool beneath, a softer upper layer for shoulders and hips. Lethira rejected the firmer version after lying on it for less than a minute; Ian's lower back reached much the same conclusion. The finished mattress would be made to the old frame rather than a standard size.

By then the afternoon had begun to thin. They walked west carrying only receipts, which made the amount of furniture they now owned feel oddly theoretical until the scarred table appeared through the front window.

Inside, Lethira put the chair order and bed receipt together at one end of it. She adjusted one temporary chair, sat down, then shifted it again by the width of her hand. Ian took the chair opposite.

For a little while they looked at one another across the old tabletop. The scar caught the late light near Lethira's wrist.

"We bought a bed," Ian said. "And six chairs, apparently. I realise that this is a very ordinary sentence, but I like saying it."

Lethira's expression softened. "A frame, six future chairs and one table that has been in the house for less than a day. We are becoming dangerously established."

Ian glanced towards the stairs. "I was hoping the old bed would become more romantic the moment we ordered its replacement."

Lethira came around the table and stopped between his knees. Sawdust clung to the hem of her coat, and there was a pale line of road dust above one boot. She put her hands on his shoulders.

"Has it?" she asked.

Ian smiled up at her. "I may need to conduct a comparison."

She kissed him before he could turn the afternoon into research. His hands settled at her waist, and the kiss lost its original purpose after a few seconds. When Lethira drew back, the tips of her hair brushed his cheek.

"Come upstairs."

They left the receipts where they were.

The temporary bed had acquired no new virtues while they were shopping. Lethira lay diagonally across it anyway, one leg stretched almost to the far corner, occupying most of the mattress and making their morning measurements feel justified.

Ian stopped beside the mattress. "I see the territorial problem has begun early."

Lethira stretched one foot a little farther. "You specified enough room for a stretching elf. This is the test case."

"I was hoping the test involved sharing."

"Then solve it."

He climbed in beside her, found the remaining strip of mattress insufficient, and drew her back against him by the waist. Lethira laughed as she rolled, ending face-to-face with one knee between his and her hair spread across the pillow.

"Better?" Ian asked.

She considered the question from very close range, one hand resting against his chest. "For this bed, yes. The new one still needs to be wider."

"I accept the ruling."

Lethira kissed him slowly, until the answer stopped needing words. The new frame would arrive when it arrived. For the moment the temporary bed held.