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Callum can’t sleep.
Not with all the natural beauty around him that keeps his eyes darting around with awe and wonder. The night sky in particular constantly grabs his attention. With no clouds in sight to block his view, he can see the trillions of stars littering the sky, some of them clumping together to form recognizable constellations. He’s seen them all before, but there’s something about Xadia that makes them feel so new, so bewildering, so… magical. Too magical to just watch in silence. Callum needs someone to gush about them with, and there’s only one other person with him that’s available to talk.
“Hey - hey… hey, Rayla..? Are you still awake?” He turns to the Moonshadow elf next to him, lowering his voice to almost an inaudible volume. “I’m whispering so I don’t wake you, but… if you are awake… I thought - maybe…”
“I’m awake, Callum.”
Hearing Rayla’s voice instantly sends a burst of energy through Callum so strong that he completely forgets it’s the middle of the night. “Oh good! What’cha doing?”
Rayla groans quietly and rolls onto her back, shooting a weak glare in his direction. “I was trying to sleep, but I guess not anymore.”
He can hear the hint of salt in her voice, but he chooses to ignore it. He’s far too excited to keep to himself. “The stars are so bright…” His voice gradually lowers again, almost as if the star-speckled sky are trapping him in a trance.
“Yeah… it’s beautiful,” she admits, letting out a quiet huff.
“I can’t believe we’re in Xadia,” Callum continues, beginning to ramble on without a second thought. “Even though we’re - we’re kinda in a totally different world, the sky is still the same.”
Rayla falls silent for a brief moment. “That’s… poetic, Callum.”
Callum casts a glance at her and notices that she’s looking at him. Something about the way the gentle light from the stars bounces off of her features makes her look almost ethereal. Her violet eyes twinkle brightly as if they’re stars themselves. Her lips are curved ever-so-slightly into a small smile, making her entire expression look soft and carefree. Callum starts to wonder when he began to pay so much attention to those details. He also starts to wonder why his heart has started beating a little faster than usual.
For some reason, Callum suddenly feels the need to shift the focus of the conversation. “Look, you can see the Great Soup Ladle!” he remarks, redirecting his attention back towards the sky.
“Uh, the what?”
Rayla’s confused tone catches him off guard. Assuming she simply misheard him, he points towards a specific cluster of stars. “The - the set of stars right there. The five stars with the three and the other two.”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Just put ‘em together and shwoop! Soup ladle!” Callum grins, content with his bizarre yet accurate explanation. But a new thought forms in his mind. “Don’t you have constellations in Xadia?” he inquires.
“Well yeah, we do. But we don’t look at those stars and see a big spoon,” Rayla clarifies.
Callum sits up and tilts his head with interest, beginning to like where the conversation is going. “So, what do you see?”
“Garlath the Annihilator!”
Oh. Of all the possible ideas that he mentally skimmed through, Garlath the Annihilator never crossed his mind. He would be lying to say his curiosity isn't steadily increasing. “Oh! Oh, okay, neat! Uh… what about over there?” Callum points at another group of stars. “We call that the Feisty Crab. See the big ol’ claws?” As if it’ll help, he backs up his description by imitating claws with his hands and clicking his tongue.
His silly gesture draws out a few giggles from Rayla, much to his excitement. “Those are Garlath’s Fists of Revolution,” she counters. “The left one is the Fist of Vengeance and the right one is the Fist of Revenge.”
“There’s a difference between vengeance and revenge?”
Rayla scoffs, rolling her eyes as if he should already know this. “Oh yes. The distinction is really Garlath’s specialty.”
“Okay… well, uh…” Callum scans the sky for more constellations, finally settling on one that’s a little more obvious in appearance. “What about that one? The one that looks like a sled? We call it the Sled because it’s clearly a sled!” There’s no way Rayla can argue with that.
“Nope!” Nevermind. “It’s Garlath’s Blade of Sundering.”
Callum’s beginning to detect a pattern in Elven constellations. “The smiling bunny?” he tries again.
“Garlath’s Bandelier of Skulls.”
“The two fish who are friends?”
“Garlath’s Flail of Poison Thorns.”
Rayla’s smug grin is a clear indicator that she’s having a little too much fun with this. “So I’m - I’m sensing that Garlath kind of owns the night sky,” Callum sighs, furrowing his eyebrows slightly. “But what about those two over there? The mama banther and the baby banther? They’re adorable!”
“Oh yeah, you’re right! That’s not Garlath.”
“Really? Great! Okay, what is it?” Callum’s spirit is immediately lifted, looking forward to a little more variety in the sky.
“It’s a pile of Garlath’s broken enemies, see?” Of course, he spoke too soon. “They’re clearly being crushed beneath Garlath’s foot! We call it his Merciless Boot of Crushing.”
Callum deadpans. “Yeah, yeah, no that makes sense…” he sighs heavily, approximately two seconds away from giving up on the topic. He allows a brief silence to pass over them before he decides to try one more time. “Alright, alright, let’s try something different. What about that? It’s the brightest star in the sky, a single point of light. We call it the South Star. Humans use it to navigate— you know, to find their way in the endless darkness of the night.” Surely elves and humans would have to agree with this one.
“Uhhhh…” Rayla glances at him with an apologetic look.
“Rayla, just tell me.”
“That’s… Garlath’s Furnace of Souls where Garlath sends the spirits of his enemies to burn for all eternity.”
With an exasperated groan, Callum flops back down on the grass in defeat. “Ah, forget it,” he mutters.
“We do also use it to navigate!” Rayla pipes up abruptly, as if in an attempt to cheer him back up.
Callum glances over at her with a deep frown. “Are you just saying that to make me feel a little better?”
Rayla laughs softly at that. “Maybe so. Is it working?”
“Well… a little bit, yeah…”
“Good, then get rid of that frown before ‘Sad Prince’ becomes a permanent nickname.”
Almost on instinct, a small grin attempts to take the place of his scowl, but Callum holds back. “Only if you admit that the Sled actually looks like a sled,” he demands.
“It may look like one, but looks can be deceiving.”
“Raylaaaa!”
“Okay, okay, fine! It’s a sled!” Rayla finally gives in, much to Callum’s relief.
“Good, I’m glad we have finally come to an agreement,” he grins triumphantly.
Rayla snickers and shakes her head playfully. “Yeah, whatever.”
The two eventually fall into a comfortable silence, and it’s only now that Callum realizes that they’re laying a lot closer than they were when the conversation first started. When did that happen? Why is his heart picking up speed again? Unsure of what he’s feeling, he decides to channel his thoughts in a different direction. “I really hope this works…”
Rayla turns back towards him, a puzzled expression on her face. “Hope what works?”
“You know… the whole returning Zym to his mother thing.”
“I think it will. A human returning the dragon that was presumed to be dead for months should be a great sign of peace,” she responds.
Callum nods, accepting her answer. But he still feels the need to keep going with his train of thought. “I just - I really want to end this war between elves and humans. I just want everyone to be able to find common ground and compromise just like we did,” he continues. “In fact, I think you and I could be a great example of how humans and elves can get along!”
Rayla raises an eyebrow curiously. “Really? Even though our first encounter involved me trying to assassinate you thinking you were your brother?” she questions, a teasing grin tugging at the corners of her lips.
“Especially because of that,” he counters with ease. “Despite that, we managed to tolerate each other long enough to get to know each other a little more, didn’t we? I don’t know about you but I think we’ve become pretty good friends, dare I say even best friends!”
A stifled chuckle escapes Rayla’s mouth. “‘Best friends’ might be a bit of a reach, but I accept.”
Callum beams brightly. “So if we could get along, who’s to say everyone else can’t? Even if not all elves and humans are as close as we are right off the bat, just being able to be near one another without breaking out into a fight would be a great start! From there, we could slowly integrate again and everyone can be happy and… we wouldn’t have to worry about anything getting in the way of our friendship… we could be together as long as we want… it would be just great…”
“You've got a lot of faith in our friendship. That's admirable,” Rayla titters quietly.
There's something in the way she says that sentence that suddenly doesn't seem right. Friendship, in particular, is the word that throws him off. But why? He was the one to mention it first, so what's with the second thoughts? Did he perhaps overestimate how well they've gotten along? Callum quickly decides that can't be the answer. Everything about the two of them points towards friendship. The way they can confide in each other, the way they can easily crack jokes and make each other laugh, the way they can be so comfortable around each other, the way being together feels like home, it all shouts friendship.
But the more Callum tells himself that he's fussing over nothing, the more he hears a tiny voice crying out a different word. A stronger word, a more intimate word, a closer word than friends. It's a little fuzzy, but he starts to feel like he might have underestimated how far they could go. He tries to settle on best friends, but that no longer seems to fill in the blank.
Deep in thought, Callum glances at Rayla as if it'll offer a clue. Her attention is aimed at the sky, allowing him a little extra time to search for any answers. Once again, he makes a mental note of how flawless her skin looks reflecting the light from the moon and the stars. Her expression and body language give off a calm, relaxed vibe, a side of her that very few people are lucky enough to see. For the relatively short time they've been together, their relationship must have made remarkable progress for Rayla to let her guard down around him. Just thinking about it makes him feel fuzzy inside. Strange, that’s not the type of feeling he normally gets when thinking about a friend.
“What’s on your mind that’s making you look so anxious?”
Rayla’s voice yanks him out of his thoughts so fast his heart nearly comes to a complete halt. He didn’t even notice when she turned to match his gaze. How long have they been making eye-contact? The realization sends a flurry of heat rushing to his cheeks as he tries to look anywhere but at her. “W-what? Oh - uh, nothing! I just - I just zoned out!” Callum splutters out instantly. Although it's partially true, he doubts his excuse is convincing in the slightest.
“I don’t buy that, but I’ll let you off the hook for now,” she teases playfully before changing to a more serious tone. “But seriously, if it has anything to do with us, then you have nothing to worry about. No matter what happens, we’ll always have each other as long as I can help it.”
The genuine, reassuring tone of her words is enough to warm his heart… and his hand..? Looking down, Callum notices that Rayla has easily laced their fingers together. The way her hand seems to fit so perfectly in his feels like a missing piece has just been returned to a puzzle that’s nearly finished, like it filled a portion of the space he couldn’t figure out how to close. The way it happened so casually that he didn’t even notice it, the way it makes him relax, yet sparks a fire in his chest…
As if he has just been struck with a shooting star, Callum suddenly gets it. He still can’t find the right word, but he gets it. A gentle smile makes its way onto his face before he can even realize it, mimicking the one on Rayla’s. He squeezes her hand softly, taking her words to heart.
“Yeah,” he finally speaks up, reaffirming her promise. “No matter what.”