Where Jahrae loved and grew up with sailing, llhaesa grew up with and loved to hike.

After she met Jahrae, llhaesa lured her new love into hiking, taking Jahrae mostly on day trips around the immediate periphery of the city, but with a couple of weekend trips further out thrown in for good measure.

Jahrae for her part suggested for their next hike a hill strewn world forest preserve area – J’luhre Forest Preserve – about 30 kilometres north of her parent’s home. There were countless trails, but there were also interesting rock outcroppings that rendered it possible for people to divert off-trail without causing ecological harm. Areas where there were very fragile mosses and lichens were well marked. Hikers would avoid these areas, though not all moss areas were off-limits.

The Preserve was the realm of the serious hiker, people who respected the rules for interaction with a world forest preserve. Llhaesa fell into this category, and welcomed the chance to explore along the trails. She knew of this forest, but something else always seemed to get in the way of her getting here.

Jahrae changed that, because it was the first place that came to mind when llhaesa threw out the phrase ‘weekend hike.’

The couple decided this was indeed a good place to spend a weekend, and llhaesa took charge of preparations, giving Jahrae a list of essentials that she needed or should bring. Each put together their own pack and supplies, – other than for food, which Jahrae claimed as her province – with suggestions from llhaesa.

Since Jahrae remained a student and llhaesa was a self-employed musician, they were free to leave for J’luhre at any point they wished, though they agreed Jahrae would first attend her one scheduled class for the day.

Actually, llhaesa insisted Jahrae attend her one scheduled class for the day. Llhaesa took schooling more seriously than the mildly free flowing Jahrae. Well knowing llhaesa’s perfect record of academic achievement at the world’s most prestigious school, Jahrae was not about to put up much resistance to llhaesa’s suggestion. Reluctantly, she set off for class whilst llhaesa immersed herself in practice.

Five hours later, the two set off in their new forest green and black personal transport, a sports model they both fell in love with from the moment they saw the vehicle. Sleek, yet with ample storage room, it proved exciting as well as practical.

When registering the vehicle, llhaesa tried to obtain the registration ‘equality,’ but the government bureaucrats would not allow its usage. She then tried a simpler approach, the ‘=’ sign, and that too was disallowed, and finally accepted a basic registration, assigned at random.

Llhaesa piloted the vehicle, claiming Jahrae had use of it to go class, so it was officially her turn.

Jahrae protested good-naturedly “That was only to run to school and back, now you get to drive for an hour! No fair!” to which llhaesa looked at Jahrae with her patented wide, toothy grin, then stuck out her tongue at Jahrae in the process. Jahrae returned the expression, then angled her head over onto llhaesa’s shoulder with an accompanying “I love you, you brat!”

The drive unfolded uneventfully. Llhaesa pulled into the transport holding and registration area at J’luhre, registered and paid, then moved into her assigned space. Already dressed for the hike and completely packed, the two young women grabbed their packs and slid into the holding frames and straps, then set out for the relatively short first leg of their trip.

Since it was so late in the day in terms of remaining light, their plan was to go in about ten kilometres before stopping for the night.

Initially the land overall was flat, with relatively few of the area’s famous up hills or down hills. This changed around 8 kilometres in, with a gentle but steady upslope, as well as a change to a winding pathway.

They noted the trees along the trail as mixed deciduous initially, but with the upslope came more evergreens. At the 10-kilometre mark, they reached the planned initial stopping point, a field with a mix of rock, sand and grasses that afforded a spectacular view of the setting sun, known to Arrhazonans as Arrhka.

The hikers deployed their tent in a sandy area, not that distant from a 4-metre wide stream, but above its flood plain. They placed their packs inside, tied their food high up on a branch away from the tent to prevent wildlife from getting after the food. With this done, they made their way to an overlook and watched Arrhka sink into the west beyond high-lying clouds, the clouds serving as fodder for the colour change to come. As llhaesa and Jahrae watched, the Arrhazonan sky changed through a spectacular array of hues, from violent to indigo to gold, now mixing with a bit of green, orange, and red. Finally, the sky began to settle into a creeping blackness.

The park permitted fires in marked areas of J’luhre, places identified on maps only. Llhaesa took care to start one within an assemblage of rocks that already existed for the purpose. Jahrae prepared dinner, savoury skewers of various Arrhazonan vegetables hand picked for both taste and nutritional balance, marinated since early morning in a special sauce of Jahrae’s own creation.

As the skewers turned over the moderately small open fire, juices slowly oozed and bubbled out, falling down into a narrow catch-tray designed for this purpose. Every few minutes Jahrae would baste the vegetables with the fallen juices.

Finally, Jahrae pronounced the veggies as done, while llhaesa took that as a cue to enter their tent, re-emerging with a bottle of wine and two unbreakable glasses. The wine was of reasonably rare vintage, and some 15 years of age. It also just happened to be a Sauvignon Blanc, Jahrae’s favourite. Llhaesa had packed in the wine for the occasion of their half-year anniversary, intentionally failing to mention this added item to Jahrae.

Jahrae set the skewers on an oval shaped camping plate, and then accepted the glass proffered by llhaesa. She sniffed the wine, her eyes seemingly lighting up by the glow of the flickering fire, then sipped for taste. “Ooooooh, yum!” she offered in approval. She reached for the bottle, read the label, offered ‘wow!” and then hugged llhaesa.

As they hugged, llhaesa whispered in Jahrae’s ear ‘Happy Six-Month Anniversary!” which caused Jahrae to pull back, her face displaying how she was doing the math in her head. “Happy Anniversary! Ohmygosh, I didn’t even think of this… forgive me?”

Llhaesa laughed, and then teased. “I don’t know, you have to do some serious work to make up for your forgetfulness, J-har. I am going to think on what might be appropriate. Suggestions?”

“I could think of a few, but then you are too old to endure such things without serious time to recover, and we are in the middle of a weekend long hike. Suppose we eat?” Jahrae was hungry, but she still needed to zing llhaesa. Priorities established, she reached for the empty plates she had ready to go, and handed one off to llhaesa. The two jumped up, with Jahrae placing a vegetable-laden skewer on llhaesa’s plate.

With dinner now served, it was llhaesa’s turn to ooh and ah. Jahrae’s preparation was nothing short of mouth-watering delicious, and she ultimately ate far more than usual. It helped that Jahrae prepared far more than usual, knowing they would be famished after the hike in.

After dinner was finished, all cookware cleansed, food and cookware stowed, they settled and nuzzled close by the fire, sharing a blanket that they draped over their shoulders. Llhaesa topped off each of their glasses with the last of the wine, and then softly began to sing.

Even in the middle of a forest clearing, even with her voice held to a very low level, there was no mistaking this was the voice of a professional songstress, a voice that any listener knew carried a huge amount of reserve power behind it. For Jahrae, it was a voice of ultimate love, and there existed no sound more beautiful on all of Arrhazon.