Ocellus snuggles herself into the plush fabric of the chair and closes her eyes.
Almost straight away Sugarcube Corner prods her with the scent of sugar and marzipan and warm dough. The other customers become beacons of lemon zest and lavender-soaked cotton, avatars of spiced cocoa and sea-salt rain. Professor Pie is an apparating beach of flavour; crashing waves of ginseng and smoke against intangible stretches of sherbet. Somewhere deep deep down, the sting of grapefruit is pushing back, wanting to be acknowledged.
As always, Smolder fills Ocellus' world with the taste of paprika. Ocellus chitters appreciatively whenever the flavour is smothered by nutmeg; she knows that if she opens her eyes during these moments, she will briefly catch the rarest one of Smolder's many gazes before her girlfriend can hide it.
The collection of flavours is heady and intoxicating. And at the end of a day full of exams, they are almost always the perfect balm.
But sometimes Ocellus needs something else. More importantly, she needs to be something else—just for a moment.
She snaps her eyes open and on cue Smolder looks away. Nutmeg savages her tongue and her heart. Ocellus licks her lips and waits for her girlfriend to stop pretending to read her book.
A textbook, no less.
Ocellus smiles back at the passage of time.
"Do you ever think," she says, "about how much fun we'll have coming here with a brood of our own?"
Smolder splutters, the orange of her face bleeding red. The taste of nutmeg burns.
Ocellus laps it up, smiles, and closes her eyes once again.