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Wild Flowers and Summer Strawberries.
Callum lays back amongst the meadows soft grasses and watches the trees sway above him. His eyes, half-lidded and lazy, study how the rich green leaves dance in the warming breeze. He smiles, his arms pillow beneath his head as he fills his lungs with the aromatic scent of the seasonal warmth and summer wildflowers.
Wildflowers that are currently in the hands of his companion. Her nimble fingers, skipping merrily among the stems, weaving together blooms of gold and whites and periwinkle blues.
“Hey, Rayla?” He murmurs. Shifting over onto his hip, Callum reaches out his hand to press his fingers against her knee. A gentle bid for her attention. And it’s attention that is swiftly granted to him with a simple inclination of her head and subtle shift in her line of sight. “I’m sorry that we couldn’t find any moonberries.”
The Moonshadow elf lifts one shoulder and then drops it in a half shrug. “S’fine.” She mumbles quietly. A hand comes up to idly return the braid, slipped free from her shrug, back behind her ear. “Moonberries are out of season now anyway.”
Confused, Callum frowns. “Really?” His eyes follow his finger as it traces over the embroidered details, delicately lain into the teal highlights of Rayla’s combat vest. His lips twitching as she squirms away from the light, skimming touch tickling over her ribs. “But it’s summer. The hight of berry season.”
“ Moon berries, Callum.” Rayla sighs. Putting emphasis on the word ‘moon’ as though that were enough to clarify the youth’s misunderstanding. Though, when she glances up again, the pucker between his brows proves otherwise. She sighs again. Leaning over to place the flowers that she’d been weaving together atop his head and press her lips to the tip of his nose, the elf adds. “Moonberries only grow when the nights are longest. Winter through spring.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.” Rayla eases herself back to her original position as she brushes her fingers together. Knocking away the pollen that had collected there. “It’s not an issue in Xadia. The Silvergrove is enchanted by an ever-night illusion and the Moonshadow forest is, well, y’know.”
“Magic and naturally illusioned?” Callum offers a tentative and rueful smile.
And Rayla returns it, just as sympathetically, as she parrots his words in confirmation. “Magic and naturally illusioned.”
For a moment, the young couple simply look at each other. Comfortable with simply being each other’s presence. Then Callum shifts. Rolling himself onto his knees, he leans away from the she-elf and reaches for something within his satchel, hidden beneath his discarded scarf and jacket.
“Well, these might not be moonberries,” He says cryptically, sliding a little cardboard carton toward himself. “But, I can promise that they’re delicious all the same.”
Pivoting around on his knees, Callum flops down onto his rear with a thump hard enough to dislodge the flower crown perched on his head. It slips down one side to sit skewed and tickling against his ear. As he straightens the gift given to him with one hand, he pushes the carton toward Rayla with the other.
Curious, Rayla pops open the carefully folded top to reveal perfectly crimson and scarlet fruits, topped by green crowns and decorated with little cream-coloured stars. She tilts her head toward Callum, one silvery eyebrow curving high as she asks. “What are these?”
“Strawberries.” Callum grins, helping himself to one of the dozen or so fruits. “You’ve never had them?”
“No.” Following Callum’s lead, Rayla selects a fruit of her own. Her eyes find his just as he pops the berry into his mouth, his teeth easily slicing through the flesh just beneath the stem which he discards. Turning her attention back to the deep red fruit in her fingers, Rayla eyes it curiously. “They do kinda look like the fire-heart fruits that the Sunfire elves grow, though. Do they taste like them too?”
Callum shrugs, swallowing his mouthful before snagging a second. “No clue.” This time, he breaks the green part off before pushing the rest into his mouth. “What do fire-heart fruit taste like?”
Still analyzing the strange new fruit, Rayla turns it around in her fingers. “Somehow dry, despite being juicy. Bitter, sour.” She sniffs it, prods it with the tip of her tongue. “A bit like that burny bitter, sour fruit Ez made me try a couple of days ago.”
Chuckling to himself, Callum recalls the fruit that Rayla is not so fondly recalling. Recalls the twisted up face she pulled as she’d bitten deep into the whole, yellow fruit that Ezran had assured her made that sweet and tangy curd that she had grown fond of smeared over buttered bread.
He ignores the glare that she shoots him as he steals the berry from her fingers and eats it himself. “So, fire-hearts are kinda like our lemons?”
“Kinda.” She agrees. “But also kinda like those little oranges with those hidden stones in them that tried to break my teeth.”
“Clementines?”
“Yes, those,” Rayla grumbles. “Why is human food always so difficult and complicated? What’s wrong with foods that you can just grab and go?”
“Well, that’s what these are like, Rayla.”
“You pull the green bits off!” The elf argues back.
“Yeah, but you don’t have to. Most humans choose to.” He selects another, leaves it intact and eats it just as quickly as he had the others as though proving his point. “Mmm,” He murmurs. “Sweet.”
He moves in for another but pauses. Lifting his eyes to Rayla’s, he grins, the expression full of gentle teasing and boyish mischief. “You really should try these, Rayla. You’re missing out.”
“Jerk,” Rayla sighs through her smile as she takes another strawberry from the rapidly shrinking pile. Curious brows twitch upwards as she eyes the fruit again. “What are all these little cream specks?”
“Seeds.”
“And you eat them?” She queries, horrified as she remembers how her ears had rung when her teeth had crunched down on the seeds in the clementine segments. “That doesn’t sound like a good idea”
Lowering her eyes, she ignores Callum’s sniggering as she begins to meticulously scrape the seeds out with her fingernail. “Gross.” She grumbles under her breath. Frowning when the flesh splits and leaks its sticky red juice over her fingers, she wipes her hand in the grass. “And sticky”
Hiding his growing laughter behind his hand, Callum collects himself and smiles. “Rayla,” He says softly. Waiting for her to glance up at him from her task of deseeding her strawberry before he adds. “Instead of mangling it, please, just eat it.”
Sighing, the elf pops the fruit into her mouth. Her eyes screw shut and her face creases as she prepares for a repeat experience of the crunch of seeds against her teeth, like with the clementine, or the bitter, sour taste like she’d experienced with the lemon.
But it doesn’t come.
She chews slowly, as though contemplating the textures and flavours filling her mouth. Once, twice and then by the third, her tongue is coated with a fresh sweetness that she’d not expected. Swallowing hard as the part chewed strawberry slides sluggish down her throat, Rayla’s eyes suddenly snap wide.
“Oh.”
She snatches a second and plucks the green stem with nimble fingers, tossing it aside as she throws the beheaded fruit into her mouth and reaches for a third. “Moon and stars…” She’s barely finished chewing before shes cramming a third and fourth into her mouth. Her jaw aches as she struggles to chew and talk. “These are amazing.”
Her cheek bulges comically, like a moon squirrel feasting on the last of the pine cones of fall, and all the cognitive resources that Callum seems to possess is just enough to have him sit and watch, slack-jawed, as Rayla somehow finds enough room to push in a fifth strawberry.
“Uhhhh, Rayla.” He tries lamely, concern edging into his river-water eyes. “You might want to slow down a-”
But Rayla barrels on. Her lavender gaze analyzing the remaining few strawberries, as though assessing how best to force them into her mouth too. “Are you sure that these are human frui-”
Then she coughs and her eyes water. Her hand comes up to clap her chest and force the cluster of berries to migrate back out of her lung and onto their proper path toward her stomach.
Within seconds, Callum is on his knees at the Moonshadow elf’s side. His own hand thumping between her shoulders and a mild expression of panic on his face. Finally, after an agonizingly long moment, Rayla takes a loud gasping, breath and jabs an accusatory finger toward Callum’s nose.
“You,” She wheezes and glares. “And your damned human fruits…” Then she pouts. “Are going to be the death of me. With all their seeds, and their hard cores and their white, stringy bits that taste more bitter than bogweed roots.”
Offering the former assassin a limp smirk, Callum catches the hand stabbing in his face and presses his lips to the tip of the weaponized fingertip.
“Well,” He says softly. Peppering butterfly kisses along the side of her palm. “If you had chewed instead of inhaled,” He turns her hand wrist up so that he can brush his lips over the pulse point there, the limp smirk gathering strength as the flutter of her blood tickles against it. “Then maybe you’ll live a little longer.”
Slowly, Rayla’s embarrassment - and her temper - wane The delicate presses of Callum’s mouth distracting her from her folly just enough to coax a ghost of a smile to her own. “Just maybe?” She sighs softly. “No promises? Not even with all your mage-y talents?”
“Magic won’t save you from yourself, Rayla.” He smirks. Plucking one of the last remaining strawberries, Callum brings it between them, his smirk deepening as he watches Rayla’s gaze shift away from him to stare longingly at the fruit. “Or from your apparent lust for strawberries.”
The she-elf clicks her tongue against her teeth, slating her gaze up to peer at Callum through her lashes. “Fat lot of good your breath spell is then.” She chides. Then her face falls as Callum slips the fruit into his mouth. “Hey.”
Callum blinks slowly at her quiet protest. “You can’t be serious.” He laughs around the berry in his mouth. “You’ve just finished killing yourself on five that you crammed in your mouth at once. And just finished complaining about almost killing yourself on human fruits.”
“But, I do like them, Callum.” Rayla’s eyes fall away from the human primal mage and shift to the last strawberry sitting happily in the now empty container. The last and the reddest and plumpest looking strawberry of the bunch, and she can’t hide the little excited gleam dancing through the lavender. “And there’s only one left.”
Rolling his eyes, Callum heaves a sigh, removes it from its nest and offers it to Rayla. But before the grinning Moonshadow elf can retrieve it from his fingers, the prince jerks his hand back and holds it just out of her reach.
“Callum!”
“Do you promise to not choke this time?” His tone is serious but his eyes are playful, and his hand is teasing as it dances the strawberry in front of Rayla’s nose. “If you promise me that you’ll actually chew, then you can have it.”
Rayla sighs, rolls her eyes even, but she can’t fight down the smile that presses the edge of her mouth up into her cheek. “Fine, I promise.” She holds out her hand. “Now hand it over.”
Callum hesitates, but only long enough to remove the green crown before placing the crimson fruit into Rayla’s palm. And then watches, horrified, as said palm shoots toward her mouth. “Rayla!”
But, this time, Rayla doesn’t throw the berry down her throat. Instead, she holds it between her sharp little teeth and grins seductively around it. Flashes a wink at Callum’s wide-eyed stare as her lips wrap closed at the same time as her teeth sink through the flesh. She works her jaw slowly and in exaggerated movements, clearly making a show of how carefully she’s chewing.
Finally, she swallows and licks her lips. Catching and lapping up any of the lingering sweetness still clinging to her mouth as she sighs. “Well, they’re definitely not the same a moonberries.”
Callum blinks. The bewildered haze dissolving from his gaze as he croaks a soft, “Oh?”
“Nope.” Rayla shifts closer. Leaning against his side, her fingers sliding between his as she lays her head on his shoulder. “But I think I might grow to like them. In time.” She slants a coy glance his way. “Like I did with you.”