throbbing light machine

Saffron and Tyrian purple (2072 words) by lotesse
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Numair Salmalín/Veralidaine Sarrasri
Characters: Numair Salmalín, Veralidaine Sarrasri
Additional Tags: Travel, Food, Romance, Established Relationship, Homecoming, Cross-cultural
Summary:

Arram Draper had been a very small boy when he'd left Tyra for the first time. A decade in Carthak, a decade in Tortall, and he kept only a dark olive-brown complexion, a head of curling dark hair, and the recollected tastes of cakes flavored with saffron and sesame, and aromatic bread heavy with olive oil on his tongue.

Now, twenty-five years after that small boy had first left the city at the mouth of the river delta, Numair Salmalin approached Tyra again. He was to sail down the River Drell along the Tyran border, carried along on the inexorable human wave of King Jonathan IV of Conte's royal progress, in the eigheenth year of that king's reign.