Chapter Text
The purple and pink appeared on her skin like flowers. Slowly, they blossomed and bloomed into dark blue, before wilting away in shades of yellow and brown. Signs of trauma brought about by what Callum and Rayla were trying to accomplish. He tried not to stare at her bruises, but since entering Xadia they had consistently marked her skin and grown in number. And so he imagined them as flowers instead, softening the reality behind what they actually were … the product of violence.
Callum watched Rayla practice throwing. She was graceful and precise, performing what he often referred to as her deadly dance. The loud thunk of her twin blades hitting the tree bark reminded him of approaching war. All around them. Thrumming. And the things they were doing to try and prevent it from happening. He started drawing her hands holding flowers as a distraction. Channeling his anxiety over her pain into art. Rayla kept throwing her blades, retrieving them, then repeating the cycle. They were waiting until nightfall before passing through a nearby village she had told him wouldn’t be all that welcoming. Most places weren’t in Xadia. Her bruises were a clear indication of that. And so he drew while she honed her skills and Zym rested nearby in the tall grass.
“Why the sudden obsession with flowers?” she asked later, sitting across from him, examining his book. Zym stared at the pages with her. Rayla did this from time to time. Took his sketchbook without asking. He didn’t mind and her argument over why made sense.
If you’re gonna be sketchin’ me from now on then I should get to have a look.
“I think it’s a sort of therapy,” he answered, as she scrutinized an image of her fingers holding poppies. “Flowers are delicate, sweet, and calming. It’s to contrast with what we’re doing.”
“Not all flowers are delicate,” Rayla countered. “Roses have thorns. Oleander will even kill ya. And what do you mean by what we’re doin’?” Her back was against a tree and Callum was reminded of the repeated thunk, thunk from earlier. The sound of sharp blades cutting into bark.
“You know, looming war. Fighting.” He paused, staring at the bruises coloring the back of her hands as she held his art. “Well, mostly you fighting. It’s dark stuff. So I like to remind myself that there’s still beauty in this world.”
One side of her mouth quirked upward. “Callum, are you sayin’ you think my hands are beautiful?” She was taunting him. They’d already been over this, but she still liked to bring up his fixation with her hands and how his sketchbook was filled with them. Callum thought that maybe this was her way of dealing with the violence that enveloped their lives. He drew beauty and she dug deep into her sarcastic wit.
“Uh, I think you already know how I feel about your hands, so stop trying to get me to feed your ego.” He narrowed his eyes and went to snatch his book back, but Rayla’s movements were faster and she sprinted away through the trees before he even had a chance to stand. He followed her laughter, on a quest to find his book. It was a game between them. One that Zym happily joined, keeping Callum at bay with a snarl once he finally caught up with them.
“You always take her side,” he grumbled and Zym replied with a yip. “Don’t you realize she has the upper hand anyway? She doesn’t need your help. Now me, I need your help.” Zym seemed unconvinced.
“Maybe I have the upper hand because I have amazin’ hands.” Rayla held out one for him to admire, stretching her fingers wide, but only blue and purple flashed in front of his eyes. These particular bruises were from a nasty clash where Rayla was forced to fight off her own kind to protect the dragon and human in her company. The memory made him grimace.
“Fine, fine. I guess my joke wasn’t that funny,” Rayla said, wrongly interpreting his expression. “You humans have no sense of humor.”
She stepped closer and handed the book back, but Callum laid it aside once it was in his possession, and took hold of her hand instead. Gently, he cradled it. Human hand under elven. Five fingers holding four.
“What … what is it?” she asked, all playfulness gone from her voice. Callum’s abrupt seriousness had taken ahold of Rayla too.
Slowly, he lifted the portion of her sleeve covering the remainder of a bruise and brushed his fingers over the discoloration. His mouth felt thick with saliva and he swallowed. “All joking aside, you do have beautiful hands, a-and I don’t mean that in a- I like them, because they’re different from mine, kind of way- I like them because they’re a part of who you are. They show what you do, and what you have done for Zym and me.”
“Callum?” she spoke his name like a question, unsure, and if he were being honest, Callum wasn’t certain he knew what he was doing either or where he was going with this. How much did he want to reveal? Their moment was verging on becoming more and it felt like a long time coming, but also completely unexpected all at once.
His hand hesitated momentarily and he smiled, almost as if in apology for what he was about to do. “Rayla,” Callum said, his hand traveling up her arm where other bruises stained the skin, before settling on a slightly less noticeable bloom of yellow partially hidden by her raised collar. He brushed past it and then went to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear, revealing another bruise gracing her jawline. Purple like the Moonshadow markings under her eyes. “Your bruises. I’m sorry, you have to bear the brunt of what we’re doing. I-I wish it didn’t have to be this way. I wish I knew how to fight like you. It doesn’t seem fair that all I can do is move the air a little here and there, and I ...” Her breath hitched as if she were startled, and Callum felt the same. Similar to a fire being lit, and he became intensely aware of how close they were. “I-I want you to know that I couldn’t do any of this without you. None of it. And it’s just so hard watching you get hurt because I … I like you.” Like felt less intimidating than love.
Rayla pressed her lips together as she stared at Callum. A thick silence stretched between them as he waited for a response, and a terrible thought occurred to him that maybe he’d said too much. Maybe he’d made things awkward between them. But when her hand reached up to cover the one he was still pressing against her jaw, Callum felt blood rush to his ears. He imagined they were bright red.
“Callum … we …”
And then there was a sound, a disturbance rustling through the trees above. Rayla and Callum both gazed up to see a bird flying overhead. Nothing to worry about, and yet, it was enough to break the spell between them. Their fire was doused in cold water. “We … we have to pay attention,” Rayla said, and he suspected this wasn’t what had been caught in her throat moments before. The bird had offered her a diversion from Callum’s confession, and drawing her knives from her belt she moved away, trying to look everywhere but at him. “It’s too dangerous for us to be runnin’ around and playin’ games.”
Callum didn’t mention that it was her stealing his book and sprinting away from him that had begun their game. “You’re right,” he agreed, picking up his sketchbook and walking to where he’d been seated before. Rayla took longer to return, doing a sweep of the area before coming back to practice her knifing skills. Thunk, thunk. Over and over, until the sky shifted colors much like her bruises. Nightfall.
They made it through the village without incident and Callum sighed in relief, knowing that at least for now, Rayla wouldn’t have to fight. Although, her inner-struggles were another matter. She was quiet, even after they were safe from others and no longer needed to evade detection. Callum wrestled with whether he should say anything, but decided against it. He’d already revealed all he could. It was up to her to meet him halfway. And if not, then that was her choice. He’d try to live with it.