Page 99 of Guiding Desire
SENLAS
Layer cake
A good layer cake is a welcome, but not just any welcome. It is acceptance, an invitation to let yourself be embraced, to be at ease for you have found your family.
The exact way of preparing one differs from one place to the other, in some cases from one end of a street to the other, and so, this book will not belabor any one recipe as the correct one.
Instead, remember that there is meaning in the preparation. It is said that if the pancakes are very evenly formed, it means the relationship will be like that, balanced and well matched. The same is said about the thickness of the layers. In contrast, a cake that is neither even nor perfectly round can still be delicious. That, too, is taken as a good sign, as something to look forward to, for passion is often found where differences meet.
A layer cake should always be shared among family and enjoyed together. Its component parts are nothing special, but together, they form a unique meal, much like the new family will be a unique union.
(From1,000 Recipes of Argentean Cuisine.)
Orreyseemedconflicted,tosay the least. Senlas hated that, but didn’t know how to change it, couldn’t. Through ingrained stubbornness, the new Conduit was still vigilant on their way back to Senlas’s place, likely making up for the still hungover Taros.
Once they got home, he excused himself, saying he was going to rest in his room.
“I’ll get another nap too,” Taros said about five minutes after Orrey had walked off. “Also, when you send out pensive vibes, it makes me uncomfortable. Don’t even know why, just does.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Senlas watched Taros walk toward his customary guest room, and once Senlas was alone, he wasn’t exactly sure what to do with himself.
Senlas’s mind was firmly occupied with Orrey anyway, an uncomfortable fear burrowing when he thought about whatever it was Alesa had planned.
Nothing good for my Conduit.
Sighing, SenlasLiftedhimself to one of the hanging tarps that held his book collection. They were neatly stored there, resting in their cushioned bags or with thin sheets of storage plastic between them to prevent dust from covering them or worse, mold to set in.
Senlas had promised to show Orrey all his poetry, but thinking about it now, he had a better idea. The book he found, safe in its own bag, wasn’t a big volume. The edges of the pages had been painted with stars and long-forgotten constellations, if they had ever existed in the first place, the images broken when the book was opened.
He likes art. I hope he likes this,Senlas thought and opened the book, admiring more stars printed between individual works.
SenlasFloateddown, the tiny book in his hands. The edges of the cover were faded, but only in the way something dear would be over time. This book, even before it had come to Senlas, had been cared for and carefully kept. It had been treasured, and Senlas, for the first time in his life, felt that he really understood what that meant: treasuring someone, loving them without expecting that love to be returned.
I wish I knew where the imprinting ended and my true feelings began. Then again, who can say there even is a difference? Maybe imprinting is just the express travel option toward love.
Senlas knew that pages were missing from the little book, the binding and cover itself was just colored cardboard paper without a title, and the title page was gone, leaving the name, the author, and the year of completion of this unknown.
Senlas had once entered the text of a few poems into the library search AI, and the book had come up in its digitized form, listing the title, author, and publication date as unknown. It was mysterious, something of unknown origin and thus less easily understood, not unlike imprinting or the way Senlas felt about Orrey.
He put the volume on the desk in the living space and started a set of simple stretches.
Fuck all this. Fuck the unknown and the poorly understood. That man is mine, and I want no other.The joints in his knuckles popped.But most of all, fuck Alesa and this shit about taking him on a fucking test mission to test his fucking loyalty.
HeReachedout with his power to all the weighted hunks of pseudo furniture he kept for just this purpose. The moldable pieces he bent and twisted, nearing their breaking point, all of which took him barely any effort, certainly less than it ever had before.
Minimal channeling from my Conduit, and that’s what it lets me do already.
Senlas grinned, feeling just a tad maniacal, which was fine, seeing as how everyone else was sleeping. He reached out for the object shelf by the door, the smaller version of which he had in his bedroom, pulled out everything on there as well.
The end result was a flurry of flying things orbiting him, and just because Senlas was feeling it, heLiftedhimself, took the center spot of a burning star around which he drew an orbit for everything he was handling.
All in all, this was no more straining than solving the simplest of quadratic equations, and just as satisfying. Senlas did it for a while, changing the orbits and reversing them, making them into an eight pattern and letting each thing spin around its own axis as it followed that orbit.
Senlas didn’t let himself get tired out, because there was a potential threat against Orrey, him, and the team out there, but he used his power until he felt the weight of it, the pooling of excess power in his every cell, a heat that wasn’t yet unpleasant but like an hour spent under the sun without a parasol.
He organized his weights back on the shelf and more neatly on the floor, then popped onto the couch with his screen out. WebSocial had groups and threads for Guardians who had imprinted and Conduits who were on the receiving end. Senlas hadn’t yet joined any, but he found he’d had several invites already.
“I hate WebSocial,” Senlas mumbled before clicking on the first invite, accepting it.
