Autumn

There was a difference between ‘Autumn’ and ‘Fall’. Fall, as a season, stole in quietly, insinuating itself in the crispness of the air and the turning of the leaves. It was little things that built up to a big one, a time to feast on the bounty of nature and be merry.

Jaune’s sister, Autumn, was different. Certainly, she was merry. She definitely had bounty, although mainly in the chest. And she did indeed love little things, cute things that she could coddle and smother with affection.

But she arrived all at once, with no warning at all. One moment he had been walking along, QP’s hand in his, chatting about what to do on their next date. The next she had leapt from flatbed of a passing pickup truck, landing gracefully on the pavement in front of them. For a second, he was completely stunned. QP flattened her ears, growling at the sudden disturbance of her idyllic day.

“Hey there, little bro,” she says, with a bright, easy smile that’s impossible to hate. “Fancy meeting you here. You’ve found yourself a real cutie, huh?”

She’s wearing a cattleman hat, real leather from the smell, with a black tank top and an extra-large men’s shirt as a jacket rolled halfway down her arms. She still has the shaggy hair fashionable in the old country for its warmth; the tank top is drawn tight with sweat, like an athlete’s. Her long legs wobble a little as she draws to her full, considerable height.

“You look like you’re about to collapse,” he says, with the critical edge of a concerned younger brother. Then, a moment afterwards: “What’s with the hat?”

“Won it at a carnival,” she boasts, miming shooting targets. “Then I traded it to this cutie for a ride.”

The woman in the cab of the truck waves. Short, freckled, muscular arms. She isn’t, he points out, wearing a cowboy hat.

“Oh, turns out she didn’t want it. She just wanted to see me wearing it without anything else in the way,” she winks. Her grin is absolutely scandalous. “Of course, she didn’t know she wanted that until I told her she did. It always seems to work out that way.”

Jaune groans. For all his romantic entanglements, he’s never quite had his sister’s way with women. He very deliberately squeezes QP’s hand. “This one’s off limits.”

“Aw, and she’s just my type, too.” She takes off the hat, and presses it onto QP’s head, tapping it down over her ears. “Thanks for taking care of my little bro.”

QP looks back, stunned. He shrugs apologetically, and tells her this is how it always is.

As they stroll along and Autumn begins recounting the tale of how she travelled half the world with nothing but charm, barter, and a healthy dose of lesbian sex, he wonders about his other family in the old country.

All he knows right now is that his life is set to become a lot more interesting.