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When Rayla left, it felt like a storm had grown in his stomach.
Most people think of growth as beautiful. Hopeful. Most people would think it was a metaphor for change.
Callum felt like violent winds were tearing him apart from the inside, hot and painful. Every time the sky shifted just so, or the moon reflected off the clouds- the storm struck another blow, and a new hole was driven into his anatomy. It was a barren, ugly scene, with no shelter and no eye, just a cold, bitter mess tangled inside of him.
It swirled for two long years.
—
We have to hold pain and love in our hearts at the same time.
When he sees her, something takes flight. The storm in his stomach must have been hiding life, because it gets lighter for just a moment. All the brightness, all the feelings crash together at the same time as they rake across the layers of his flesh.
He loves her.
He wants her gone.
He wants to kiss her senseless.
He wants to throw her out and slam the door.
The clouds twist, swelling, but strike a blow somewhere he can’t detect.
They sit, and don’t talk.
—
“I need you to kill me.”
His nose stings from her pinched fingers. The storm twists, growing more turbulent and complicated.
—
And yet; when Viren shows tail, Rayla leaves Callum to follow him. The lightning that strikes burns heavy. But through the rubble she’s alive, bright and soft in his arms.
—
They’re camped out on a hidden ridge. A little dizzingly high for Rayla’s taste, but not unmanageable. Their procession across Xadia has stopped to deal with a particularly bothersome nuisance: a Grammimet. Or so she thinks. Honestly, Rayla’s only half listening, twirling her blades against the grass and tracing her eyes up Callum’s frame as he takes charge. All she knows is their progress has been repeatedly halted by waking up in the morning to find their food stores dug into and extras supplies strung out. Normally a wild animal intervention is a one-off annoyance, but it seems this one has taken a liking to them, tracking across the area for repeated thefts. She had informed them that a Grammimet was probably the only Xadian critter smart enough to keep that up and Soren had immediately recommended he wrestle with it to “teach it a lesson about theft”. Ezran objected loudly to the violence, Callum stepped in to broker peace, and somewhere along the way they ended up formulating a ten-step plan to capture it and release it just outside the Earthblood village that had captured Soren. Two songbirds with one stone, she guesses. Again, Rayla isn’t really paying attention.
“Rayla, could you-“ Callum is looking at her with those earnest green eyes.
Caught, she stumbles to correct. “Yes! I would love to. Yep. Yeah.”
“Wow,” even Ezran can’t hide his amusement.
“ Can it ,” she hisses his way.
Callum is too busy finishing the rest of his muttered plan to notice. “And then we can… if he… hmm…” He turns back to face the group, “Okay. Right. Rayla can run it around- she seemed to do just fine with those Drakeriders. Soren, if you could-“
The rest of his speech trails out of her awareness. Despite everything, his (by the loosest definition) praise makes her glow, watching his eyes furrow as he thinks out loud. Seeing his mouth move without hearing a word coming out of it.
This moment of indulgence backfires somewhat severely when everyone starts dispersing to whatever predetermined stage directions she completely missed. Sheepish, she grabs Ezran by the arm. “Er, could you, um- remind me what I’m doin’ again?”
“We’re stopping the Grammimet so we can keep moving and meet the next dragon!” he smiles into his answer.
He’s so genuine that it’s impossible to be frustrated with him. Rayla sighs, “No, I mean my part specifically. Slish? Maybe a slash instead?”
He blinks, and then remembers, laughing, “Not this time. More like…” Ezran mimes a wide arc, and then wiggles his fingers. “Swabam? Just jump around the trees and keep it busy until Soren gives the signal.”
“And the signal is…?”
“Wow, it’s good that Callum isn’t the one giving it. Otherwise you would probably miss it entirely!” he chirps, incredibly, humiliatingly void of anything other than plain observation. Mother of dragons, even Ezran sees right through her. “He’s going to flash Bait!”
Rayla quirks, “Isn’t Bait the one givin’ the signal, then?”
Ezran leans close to conspire, “Yes, but we had to let Soren do something. It’s good teamwork!”
Rayla shakes her head, fond, as the young king scrambles off to wherever he’s needed in their grand scene.
Businesslike, a voice asks from a ways beside her, “Rayla, are you ready?” Distant in more ways than one.
“Ready to blow your stupid human socks off,” she flirts catastrophically.
He doesn’t respond, just looks to confirm with the rest of the team before casting Stratum Calig.
The Grammimet is downed within three minutes. It’s a far cry from flash, woof, zap, slash.
—
Rayla is distracted.
The man she can pretty reasonably call the love of her young life is only steps away from her, all day every day, making extended travel very strenuous on her emotions.
Which is how she ends up having her epiphany. She’s tired, she’s grumpy, she wants to sit quietly and do something embarrassing like watch Callum draw and find roundabout ways to tell him how incredible he is. But she can’t, so she settles for sticking one blade in the dirt and hacking the skin off an innocent tree with the other. Rayla is swallowed wholly by her anger at the world, at Viren, and mostly at herself.
It’s so overwhelming she doesn’t know what to do with it, where to point it. Crossing Xadia is not exactly a high-action situation, more like prolonged endurance than adrenaline rushes. It leaves her without any viable outlet.
Thus the desecration of this innocent tree.
She needs a mission, something to focus her output on to keep her busy, otherwise she’s just gonna think about-
Rayla sighs, falling against the stripped bark. She needs Callum. The two of them could talk for hours about nothing and everything. His warm hands on her shoulders always brought her back to the moment.
Across camp, she watches him sleep. His breaths track evenly- in, out, up, down, with the rise and fall of his chest. He’s drooling again. Gross. She realizes she can catch her Grammimet and get revenge on the Drakeriders, too. Two songbirds, one stone.
She starts plotting a mission.
—
Rayla is missing when Callum wakes up.
He’s not exactly an early riser, and she is, so at first it’s not deeply concerning to see her bedroll empty from the camp at midmorning. But mid turns to late, and morning turns to afternoon, and still no sign as they finish foraging the area and prepare to move on.
No one else has said anything. His pride sticks in his throat as he swallows it, asking “Hey, has anyone seen Rayla?”
“Ohhhh! Rayla !” Soren exclaims, far, far, too quickly to actually be surprised. “You know, I forgot about her.”
Callum raises one eyebrow.
He doesn’t notice, “You know, you should probably go find her. I need to stay and protect the king and Bait. Plus I… forgot what she looks like?”
“Soren. What’s going on.”
“On? Nothing is going. On. Except the world is…doing stuff, like plants. Or not doing stuff, like rocks. But rocks also do stuff. Hey, doesn’t that particular direction look suspicious?” He says, pointing to an apparently random crop of bushes.
“I’m getting Rayla, and we’re getting out of here,” Callum grumbles, stomping through the undergrowth.
Irritation aside, he can’t unknot the worry in his chest. It’s unlike her to not be the one pushing them to move, go go go, and keeping up the pace. He breaches a particularly thick tangle of flora and finds a sunny clearing with a few large boulders thumbing out of the ground.
An idyllic picnic waits patiently under the treeline canopy. An idyllically beautiful Moonshadow elf is half-snoozing in a sunbeam, so comfortable there it seems she’s forgotten her natural element is the nighttime.
Callum clears his throat. “Rayla.”
It doesn’t take much to wake her; battle instincts and all that. He’s able to follow the split second of panic and calculation before she remembers where they are. And then pretends to notice the set-up for the first time.
“Oohh, no, how did that get there? Some villain must have tried to trap me while I was sleeping with-”
Callum, who can obviously very clearly tell how it got there and who set it up, utilizes his deft new control of Aspiro to sweep it into one package, wrapped up by the blanket spread underneath. “Dunno, but we should return it to town. Someone might be missing their stuff. And then we really need to get moving.”
Rayla hits her head on a tree.
—
They’ve made it a day or two towards Tidebound territory. The path loosely follows a local river; Rayla has caught Callum eyeing the water once or twice, but fortunately they’re traveling the opposite direction as the flow so she never has to find out whether or not he’d have her get in a boat again.
As it stands, they’ve made it to a bustling fishing city somewhere along territory lines. Rayla doesn’t know exactly where the borders lie, but figures this is something of a neutral ground because a mixed population of Earthblood and Tidebound elves mingle around.
Being an assassin is almost as entirely about planning as it is execution. You have to know where your target is set up, schedule for rounds, if they have any guards, if so who they are and what their weaknesses are… on and on. Rayla was never very good at the preparedness part (maybe that’s why she’s an assassin without a kill under her belt?) but Runaan would be turning in his coin if he ever thought his pupil/daughter hadn’t inherited some sense of forethought from his teachings.
So when she sees an opportunity, she pounces like a killer to its prey.
Ahead rests an opulent stall, dripping in watery jewels and rippled with silky fabrics. Rayla never fancied herself a scholar, but knows enough about the other elves' traditions to get by. That is, when she sees the twisting symbol that crests the stall awning, she knows it means ‘ Love Stones’, but deliberately slows down a few feet from it and juts her thumbs toward the glittery marks.
“Callum,” she asks innocently, “What do you suppose this is?”
“Hmm, not sure,” he responds, not even looking up from his sketchbook as he walks. He’s been dutifully recording all the lettering and detail work on the mixed Tidebound architecture. Rayla violently stomps down the warm goo swelling in her throat, hooking instead onto the note of irritation she finds at being ignored. “Wow, Callum, when did you grow eyes in the side of your head? Really advanced stuff for the Sky primal.”
Callum’s eyes roll so violently she can see it from the distance between them cut by Ezran and Soren. Ezran, bless his heart, saves her plan whether on purpose or accident she’s not sure. “Come on, Callum, can we look at the pretty Tidebound stuff?” he pleads.
“Ez, we’re on a mission here,” starts Callum, but if there’s one thing Rayla knows the High Mage to be fantastically bad it, it’s denying his little brother small pleasures. “So…keep it short, okay?” He relents, sighing.
“Woo-hoo! Come on, Bait!” He urges, as if the glow toad could have done anything else from his position wrapped up in Ezran’s arms. He croaks excitedly anyway.
The rest of the group follows behind, running upon the tail of the merchant’s explanation to Ez. “…So it became a symbol of intention. You engrave the name or initials of someone you want to keep in your life. It can be platonic or romantic. And the coinpearl will carry them with you in a sense, bringing good fortune to your relationship.”
Ezran looks at Callum, and once those baby blues are locked on, there’s no escaping. Sighing, he hands a few bits of Xadian currency to the merchant, who trades it for a few small coinpearls and some engraving knives. Rayla pinches one in her fingers- small, but intensely shining. Soren is hovering over Ez, carefully supervising the king’s use of the sharp tool while trying to mark up his own small token. On her other side, lightning-focused, Callum is meticulously carving an artistic pattern. She’s unable to make out exactly any name or letters due to a conveniently placed hand over the edge facing her, steadying the stone.
She’s a little antsy, undeniably curious and craving a very specific answer, but the main point of her scheme is up to her anyway. She digs a big, thick “C”, into the soft mineral, accepting the merchant’s offer of a small hook to mount the sphere on. The glimmering coinpearl comes to hook off the collar of her half-coat. It’s a completely inefficient decoration, dangerous for an assassin, and only an act of sentiment. It goes against all her training.
Rayla wears it proudly, loving to hear the twinkle of the metal chain as she walks. She finds Callum eyeing it once or twice, but she can’t catch sight of where he stashed his little treasure, or if it has the “R” she so quietly hopes for.
—
Rayla is on a mission. And let many, many things be said about her: She is stubborn. She is perhaps a little too defensive. She may slightly, somewhat dislike water. But she is determined.
Callum must be getting the hint. She’s exhausted. Her emotions aren’t trained for long-term open exposure like this. Rayla’s heart is on her sleeve, and it’s not used to the weather out there.
Callum’s speaking to Soren about their next stop. “We could make it to Elodia by the next day, I think…”
“I could make your day, pretty boy,” she winks.
He doesn’t even look her way.
—
He’s making his way through a collection of spell books in a dusty Skywing shop deep in Tidebound territory. “Oh! Is this a Lourve Facetis?”
“I love your face-tis,” Rayla mutters, half-hearted.
“Lourve Facetis” Callum corrects absently.
She sighs, “Right, that’s what I said.”
—
They’re crossing a turbulent river on an animal-made bridge when she turns to him and asks, “Hey, are you a beaverfish? ‘Cause dam. ”
Rayla then attempts to throw finger guns, loses her footing, and is dragged miserably out of the water by Soren. At least Callum is finally laughing.
—
Wall after wall after wall. It’s like trying to hit on a Moon Moth.
She’s shuffling across their second civilized stop- this time more of a settlement than a city. Everyone has been tasked with collecting different resources while they’re in town. It’s mostly food and supplies, but knowing Callum, he won’t be able to resist hunting down some local spellbooks while in the area.
She shouldn’t have entertained that line of thinking, because a few minutes later Rayla finds herself subconsciously drifting to a mage’s shop. Before she can decipher her end goal, a small doorbell is twinkling as she sweeps in. The line of Callum’s shoulders is rigid, for once not because of her. He hasn’t noticed her come in, too busy haggling with the shopkeep.
“I mean no disrespect- er, sir. I just don’t think this is exactly the most rare collection of spells out there.”
“Oh, it is,” the elf nods, their fins swaying. “There’s only one copy left, I just happen to have it!”
Callum drums the counter. “I can literally see a stack of backstock behind you.”
“Illusions, to ward off those who would hurt me for it.”
Rayla smiles with mirth. Callum had probably been mistaken for a regular human tourist who didn’t know Sun from Star primal, though unfortunately for him that made him a target for scammers.
He’s about to say something- probably completely destroy the keeper’s argument, honestly, but Rayla can’t resist getting involved. “Oh, so the Ocean primal can do illusions now?” She saunters up to the counter. Impossibly, Callum’s posture makes room for even more irritation.
The elf can clearly recognize a Moonshadow elf when he sees one. “Er, it could be. You know-”
“I understand the Ocean primal is quite transformative,” she continues, “But Moon magic can reveal illusions. Care to see a demonstration?” Rayla asks, innocently twirling her fingers around.
Callum, a mage, knows that that is absolutely not how a spell starts and that she doesn’t even know any anyway, but the merchant, not a mage, has no greater clue of this particular fact. They slide the tome across the counter toward themself, wrap it in brown paper, and pass it back. “Thank you for your business.”
Callum tosses a few coins their way as they make for the exit. “I had it handled.” The tiny doorbell tinkles merrily.
She’s casual as they weave through the thicker crowds outside, “Sure, but an elven face never hurts when hagglin’ in elven lands. They were a natural grump, anyway. Would get along swimmingly with Bait.”
“Rayla-”
“Do you think we just approached it wrong? Maybe they have a specific Tidebound greeting, like…trees to meet you?” She winks, but he just looks at her. Rayla’s sure he remembers, though, because his shoulders tense up in that way they do when he knows he’s in trouble, or when he messes up a spell. But otherwise, he doesn’t react, and she can’t decide if it would hurt more or less if it was because he had forgotten entirely. He starts to walk ahead of her.
Still, Rayla’s always been obnoxiously persistent when she knows what she wants.
“No need to be salty. ” She sputters, tripping to catch up to him. “ Water you leaving for? I’m shore- ly just getting started.”
Callum bites his lip. He’s still moving staunchly, though, so she’s fallen behind when she says, “It was tide- bound to happen?”
Rayla wishes she could see his face- she could swear that one elicited a tiny nose-chuckle and is about to needle him on it further when he asks, “Rayla, what were you here for again?”
It’s a rhetorical question. He knows she’s supposed to be at the West end of the market tracking down gorsnipper shells. “Saving your butt from an angry shopkeep,” she grumbles, kicking a pebble in his general direction before darting back into the throng of shoppers.
—
They’re all sitting around the evening campfire when Soren’s stomach grumbles.
“Euch. Got a Banther in there?” Rayla asks.
“Listen, to keep this spectacular primal muscle magic in shape takes a lot more fuel than the average person,” he says defensively, “I’m gonna go see what I can find.” He stands up, pumps his knees, and starts for the treeline.
Ezran looks between his brother and elven friend, clearly seeing an opportunity, and makes to follow. He mutters some unconvincing excuse about missing breakfast that morning, tugging Bait along.
“Not very subtle, is he?” Rayla laughs. Callum doesn’t. He’s staring resolutely at the flickering embers like they’ll unlock a connection to the Sun primal. “Oh, come on, Callum. You in there?”
“Don’t.”
And damn it all, that’s her last straw. He’d been warming up on the way to Umber Tor, yet they’re back to this constant game of hot and cold. “Don’t what? Speak? Look at you? Breathe in your general area?”
“Rayla, we don’t have to do this.”
“No, I think we do. You’ve barely said a word to me all week! Can’t we at least be civil ?”
“But you don’t want to just be civil. You’ve been hitting on me. Relentlessly. ”
“…Yes?”
“Did you ever consider just talking to me?”
“Um.”
Callum finally looks at her, before anxiously picking a fight with the seams of his coat. “Rayla, I get it. You’re ready to pick back up the way things were. But you left me . You ran away from your problems, from your past, from your feelings, and into a fight. Gods, how could I not see it? We only met because you were fleeing from dealing with Runaan until you could do it on your own terms. You ran so far around you came back to the other side. I’m just another thing to run to when you want to escape something else. Your failed quest for vindication, I’d guess in this case. Well, I’m not gonna be that for you! I won’t, I-” and here, his voice breaks, “I can’t.”
She feels cracked open, hearing his façade break, but not enough to let go of her pride. “What do you want me to say? That I’m sorry? I’m not. I’d rather have you hate me than be dead.” Her chin juts up, protective. “I’d do it again.”
And this hurts to say, not because it’s untrue, but because of what it costs. She can handle rage. She’s quick on her feet in a fight. But though Callum’s fists tighten and his brow furrows, bright tears reflect the cold moonlight across the corners of his eyes when he asks, ever so quietly. “You would?”
“I-” It’s a lot easier to fake conviction when he’s asleep. “Until… until Viren is gone. And you can be safe.”
“I’ll never be safe, Rayla. I could screw up a spell. I could eat a poisonous berry. I could get the common cold, or fall down a flight of stairs. Are you going to eradicate every threat on the continent?”
“You don’t understand-”
“No, I don’t. Enlighten me. Viren is running loose, and you would run him down on your own. If you really cared so much, why would you leave my side unprotected? Is he just really, really good conversation? Do you guys have chess matches on Wednesdays?” he sneers.
She scoffs, “I don’t just follow Viren around like some sick wolf pup”
“Don’t you?! At Umber Tor, what did you do, when you had to choose between escaping with us or throwing yourself at Viren?”
Stunned, she stalls, “I- I wasn’t-”
“It’s like you want to die, Rayla, and it’s killing me. Is that it? You can’t stand to be around unless you’re running into certain death?”
“ No! No. I don’t want to, I have to! Do you think I enjoy-”
“ Yes! I think you enjoy every second of it, throwing your life at Viren like it’s worthless.”
“ It is worthless! In the grand scheme of things, you and Ezran are human royalty, Soren can help stop Viren, and Zym is the dragon prince. I’m just some elven assassin. A coin a dozen in the Silvergrove.” She’s storming around, cracking branches as her boots beat the forest floor. “If I die and Viren lives, nothin’ changes. But if Viren dies, everythin’ is different. There can be peace, and hope. And whether one nobody elf that got Ghosted by her own people is there to see it or not doesn’t matter- it won’t change anythin’.” She has to stop to catch her breath, her back to Callum, eyes spearing the bark of a heavy tree in front of her. “No one would miss me.”
Callum screams.
Night birds scatter. Leaves spin off their stem-hooks, and wind stirs the evening in a rise of sympathy. It’s a good long scream, lasting a few seconds at least. Obviously, it startles her into turning around, if out of fear he’s hurt more than anything, but when she finds more tears spilling out the edges of his eyes they’re not ones of physical pain.
“I would. I would fucking miss you, Rayla, and don’t ever again even come close to implying I wouldn’t. I-” he stops to run a hand through his spiked-up hair. “I would.” He says again.
It’s not like Rayla to be meek. But she feels so small in that moment when she says, “I didn’t… I thought you might hate me now. For what I did.”
He laughs, rueful. “I don’t think I could, even if you did something unspeakably awful,” and Rayla’s breath catches on the uptake, “But I am extremely mad at you. Like, stupid mad.”
“Okay. Okay, hey, it’s okay,” she hovers around him, an invisible barrier keeping her from making contact. She’d like to blame some magic wind he could have stirred up, but that’s just an excuse. “I’m here.”
“For how long, though? Until you make the decision on your own that I’m not worth it?
“Hey, that’s not what I—”
“Until you see a flash of a hint of what could be Viren, and take off running?”
“That was Viren!”
“Just listen to me Rayla! Can’t you see I’m scared for you? If you run off to protect me, who’s protecting you?”
And just like that, she’s off the offensive. Stupid how this boy can take down 17 years of honed assassin training with one pair of puppy-dog eyes. “Hey, okay, I’m listening. You’re scared. And you’re in a right state of mad. Crazy mad. I’m sorry I just… I dunno. How mad are you?”
He just sighs, rubbing his arms. She yearns, stupidly, embarassingly, to be holding him instead.
She swallows. “Mad enough to…not…”
The thing is, when you travel with someone for weeks and months, bearing frigid ice and searing lava, you get to know them. When you wake up by their side, go to sleep hearing them breathe, and tune your day to the tempo of their footfalls, it becomes a sure thing you understand the meaning behind the meaning. Neither of them had to say out loud what they both knew Rayla was trying to ask.
Mad enough for us to never be like we were ?
She doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t have anything to say. For a long time, the only sound is the whispering crickets observing the drama of misery unfolding on their grassy stage.
Callum can’t seem to stand it. “Why. Why did you come back now? After two years?”
“I- I’m not sure.”
She knows this is the wrong answer as soon as it takes flight from her mouth, and seeing the look on his face only further clips her wings. He hardens, like stone, like pain, like the massive statue of grief forever grasping at the bottom of the Storm Spire. “I think we should get to bed,” he finally says.
Rayla doesn’t have a good argument against that. The insects chirr, applauding the end of the scene.
—
Unfortunately, Rayla gets the hint.
Callum hadn’t meant for her to completely icewall him, though he guesses he can’t blame her for thinking that’s what he wanted. She hasn’t spoken to him all day except to exchange pleasantries and coordinate plans.
To tell the truth, he was kind of enjoying her weird displays of affection. They’d always had a kind of banter-based dynamic, and while swapping wits was a lot of fun, he couldn’t deny being so openly pursued was…nice?
Besides, it conveys something she would never say in so many words: Rayla wants to get back together. After two years, he hadn’t been sure if she was alive, much less if her feelings were unchanged, but she’s made it pretty obvious lately. As juvenile as it sounds, it brings a little thrill down Callum’s spine. He gets the same quiet electric feeling as when he casts Fulminis, and isn’t that just fair? She’s a force of nature, after all.
He doesn’t regret what he meant, just how he said it. Callum’s temper definitely gets the best of him at times, and while he does genuinely think his girlfriend/ex/partner/friend/whatever they are now is being stupid to the top of the Spire and back, he knows how important her loved one’s collective safety is. After not just her parents, but Runaan…
Still. Her actions, as much as he can run them through a mental calculation and make them make sense, are infuriating. She’s here, and he wants her, it’s undeniable, but he’s smart enough to know the pain if she left him again would outweigh the joy of having her for just a moment in time. It’s a risk he won’t take. She’s said herself anyway that it’s actually more of a certainty.
As it stands, his heart is pulled in two excruciating directions: the self-defense of pushing her away, and the tidal wave of longing to pull her in. There’s a trench between the two.
He glances across the group to see her arguing animatedly with Soren on the mechanics of leg-sweeping, and lets himself smile just a fraction.
Over their shoulders, Ezran catches his eye and wanders over to his brother, Bait slung under his arm.
“Hey, your Highness.”
Ezran giggles, but chides, “Callum.”
“What? I was talking to Bait.” The toad glows proudly.
“Callum,” Ezran says again, more serious. “How did it go last night?”
“I slept fine, thank you.”
“Callum. ”
“Okay! Okay. I mean, okay I’ll tell you, not that it went ‘okay’. Because it…definitely didn’t.”
Ezran nods, “We figured. We actually heard you scream and ran back, but by the time we got here, you guys had already gone to bed.”
“What, did you think she finally snapped on me?” Callum jokes grimly.
“No,” his brother says earnestly. Ezran was always good at meeting his deflection with seriousness, forcing the root of the issue even when Callum was trying to avoid it. “Never. We were just worried some big monster found you and wasn’t friendly.”
“Nope,” Callum sighs, “just us.”
“So…why did you scream?”
Callum lets his gaze unfocus. The blobs of gray, blonde, teal and dark blue all melt together across their little camp. “You know when you have so many feelings that you don’t know what to do with them? They build and build inside you until you feel like you’re gonna pop?”
“And you have to let them out,” Ezran says, understanding.
He nods. “We…let a lot of feelings out. I don’t think they went anywhere, though. They’re just lurking around.” He looks back up at the empty sky, as if he could grab the pain they exchanged and stuff it in his satchel. “I’m not sure it’s possible to put them right.”
“But why not, Callum?” His big blue eyes swim with uncomplicated possibility. It’s difficult to deny when he sees it reflected so plainly in his brother’s face. “You love her. She clearly loves you. Stop being a big doofus and chase what makes you happy!”
“Oh, she makes me happy,” he grumbles, “But she also makes me want to tear my hair out.”
Ezran laughs. Despite everything, he’s still able to find joy in small moments, and Callum can’t help but smile along at his own misfortune. Fallen for a girl forever a step ahead of him.
Soren and Rayla have moved to exchanging blows, each trying to demonstrate their point via sparring. Rayla catches the edge of his foot with her blade, and he goes down, disturbing a small mountain of dirt as he falls. She’s laughing hysterically.
“Well, hair grows back.” Ezran says after the stretched moment.
“Was that an attempt at kingly wisdom?”
“I think so. How’d I do?”
“Very wise. I’m convinced of my path in life.”
Ezran beams and leans into his side. Callum wraps an arm around his brother and lets the evening pass in quietude. The sky is clear. The stormclouds thin, just a bit.
—
She was always so far away.
At first, she was from an entirely different world. Different expectations, different culture, different mission. And then they were walking the same path, but she was still so far from him, so far from understanding each other.
Eventually they had started to get it. They were closer, close enough to whisper assurances and to touch in ways that meant more than words, but she was still so far away. Chasing a mission, a meaning, a purpose, always heading to the next threat. He thought he was close enough to get by, but she proved him wrong quite resolutely on his birthday that year.
So she was even farther away. He pushed that distance. Nurtured it to grow even wider. And when she finally came to close it, he didn’t know how to mend the gap he had intentionally torn wide. He just let it fester. It was easier than pulling it shut, anyway.
And that’s where it stayed. Chasm plus pit plus canyon plus gorge forever and ever until the distance between Callum and Rayla was unchartable. He’d curated that distance.
He wanted that distance, some time to think. But this- not this, anything but this. It was so much easier to reject her when she was right in front of him, and so much simpler to want her when she was far away.
On the brittle rock shelf cresting a hidden cove, Rayla is unconscious, maybe worse. They’d been trying to find a rumored entrance for non-water-inclined guests of the Tidebound city said to be under the waves in this area, but had instead discovered the very unhappy creature that called it home. It went significantly worse than their Bait rescue in the Katolean river- Rayla had been clocked under for several minutes, monster teeth and elven blades flashing against another, until one stopped abruptly but they couldn’t tell which until she was spit upon the shore by an uncaring wave, streaks of red trailing in the saltwater.
He wanted to shake her. Rayla, you idiot, you can’t go out like this. Water, really? You can’t lose to your arch nemesis. Boats are stupid. Water is stupid. I’m stupid, for thinking I had all the time in the world to be mad at you.
The sky is completely clear. The clouds rumble with strike after strike of white-hot thunder and beating rain. The sun shines ruthlessly.
Rayla still doesn’t stir, and the same gust of stormy panic swirls within him as their escape from Umber Tor, when he thought…
Rayla coughs, and thank the Primals, he doesn’t have to think about anything other than how she feels, cold but solid, with his arms wrapped around her again. Despite everything, despite himself, he can’t help but linger in the excuse to make contact an extra few moments before pulling back. He misses her lips by an inch, not a mile, turning to face the group. A lingering dusting of pink crosses the bridge of his nose.
The downpour settles to a drizzle.
—
He’s staring.
“You’re staring.”
“What! No, who? Staring? I don’t have eyes! To look! With. Um. I was staring.” Callum finally admits.
“I know. That’s why I said, ‘you’re staring’.” Soren sagely replies.
“At Rayla.”
“Yes. It was very obvious,” he adds, helpful.
Callum just groans, reminiscent of a banther dying ungracefully.
“Listen, step-mage, the heart do what it do and don’t what it don’t.”
“Soren, what-”
“And right now, it do . It do big-time. I know she hurt you,” and here, somehow, Soren looks at him like he’s the most complicated battle plan ever seen. Like he’s something to be taken seriously. “So really, it’s up to you. Or it’s up to her. Or it’s up to both of you,” and despite his roundabout words, Callum gets the picture.
Choose a different path.
“It’s up to us,” Callum summarizes.
Soren smiles, any trace of his graveness vanished. “Right! I mean, who else would it be up to?”
Callum looks at the darkening evening sky. The first few constellations are beginning to peek out. One star twinkles, cold and silent. He thinks it looks hideous. “I’ll talk to her.”
—
She’s not hard to find, but she is hard to keep up with. The second Rayla notices him approaching, she busies herself with sharpening her blades, intensely focusing on pretending to be intensely focused.
He stops, almost toe-to-toe, and waits.
Schhhing. Schhhing.
The silver glints, lightning-bright.
“Rayla,” he breaks.
“ Oh! ” her weapons drop. “I didn’t see you there! Hello. Hi. Good evening. Night.”
He supposed her nerves are fair. They haven’t spoken one-on-one since their bitter match last week, bruises from that still purple and fresh on their egos.
“We need to talk.”
She mumbles, snark falling through, “Right, cause it went so hot last time.”
He wants to be irritated. He should be irritated. But all Callum can see when he looks at her is the water streaming off her in rivulets, and the potential that she would have never met air again. He won’t let another two years go by on merit of pride alone.
“No, it didn’t. And I take partial responsibility for that. I’m sorry for yelling. And I’m sorry I-” deep breath, “said you.. wanted to- to die.”
Rayla is quick on her feet. Rayla is good in a fight. This is not a fight, so she’s deeply, terrifyingly out of her element. She can’t wield her cruel, effective but reliable weapons. She can only be honest. “I’m sorry. For everythin’. For…”
The meaning behind the meaning. For leaving.
“But you’d do it again.” A question and a statement both. She doesn’t answer or refute. Callum sighs. He looks as tense as when he’s working up to some great spell, all power and potential. “Rayla, I need you to-”
“To kill you, yeah yeah, look, I wasn’t goin’ to, but you’re making me awful tempted with all the times you’re askin’ the same stupid thing.”
Callum laughs. Maybe it’s her predictably snide answer. Maybe it’s the way she says, schtew-pidt, a way he’s heard a hundred times before, or maybe it’s the leftover magic lava fumes swirling around in his head. It’s like they’re fifteen and simple again, transported back into the dark oasis that felt like it could hide all their secrets if they tried.
He mirrors her steps from then, careful and slow, putting only a breadth between them, but doesn’t follow the script. He stops, and there’s those months of travel letting him read the slight tilt of her shoulders leaning into him.
“No,” he breaks the moment, and Rayla is quick to stumble backwards, apology clearly fighting to escape her tongue. He spares her the effort. “No, Rayla, I don’t need you to kill me. Or, well… to be honest, that hasn’t entirely left the table. But! But, but, but- that’s not what I’m talking about right now.”
She points a speculative stare his way, but doesn’t interrupt again.
“I need you to… to be…here. With me.”
“I’m doin’ that right now, wise mage.”
“No, I-” Frustrated, he tugs on his scarf. Her eyes follow his hands. “I mean really. Spirit, body, and mind. Not chasing some quest for justice. Not as a second option. If you want to be…” He blushes here, undeniably, “With me.”
“With you,” she repeats, a little breathless.
“Yeah,” he goes on, “I… missed you. A lot. Probably an amount you’d tease me for.”
“Soren hinted at it,” she smiles asymmetrically.
“I bet,” Callum grumbles, “But I haven’t, so…”
He squares his stance to be head on, wearing a painfully genuine expression. “I missed you so much I cried. Multiple times. Actually probably regularly, for the first, um, week or so. Don’t ask Ezran how long, he’ll say a different number that is definitely a lie. I missed you so much I drew you, even more than I did before, just because I was scared I’d forget your face. I was already forgetting your voice, which made me feel even worse but Opeli told me when people leave your life that’s the first thing to go. I missed you so much I started talking to myself in your accent so I wouldn’t forget it. Ezran definitely walked in on that one time. Ha.
“I missed you so much that… that I was mad at you. I mean, I could have been mad at you without missing you, but I also could have missed you without being mad at you, but I was both. Because it sucked, Rayla. It sucked that you left to chase a villain alone. It sucked that you ran away from me. It sucked for two whole years, because as hard as I tried I couldn’t ever stop missing you because I still loved you that whole time. And I still do.”
She could cry, hearing that. She could climb the Cursed Caldera and fight a hundred armies, hearing that, but he has more to say, so she doesn’t do any of that just yet.
“It sucked because I know you don’t regret it. I know you’d… you’d do it again. You’d do that to me again.”
She finally speaks, “I mean, you asked me to kill you. How’s that much worse than just leavin’?” The meaning could be hostile, but she sounds so defeated they both understand it’s only pain.
“That’s different. That’s something out of my control.”
“Sure, and Viren is out of mine, but it’s still my problem.”
Shaking his head, Callum starts, “You don’t-” and stops again. Looks at the ground. Looks at her. “Huh.”
“Were you about to say I don’t understand?” She can’t help but lace a note of wryness.
He flushes. “Okay. So maybe we both could be handling things better. But… at least I included you in the decision?” he attempts.
Rayla’s just so lost without him. She searches his hopeful eyes for a map to the next move, but finds overwhelming uncertainty instead. So she forgoes planning. She forgoes common sense, training and instinct lost somewhere back in the Katolean dirt when she came up his tower weeks ago. Rayla forgets everything except how to wrap her arms around Callum and push her face into the crook of his shoulder.
His scarf tickles her nose. He smells like smoke and rain.
Callum sighs into the hug. “Just…stop running from me, okay?”
Rayla’s silver-white hair bounces as her head shakes, “You’re wrong. I mean, you’re right, I do a lot of runnin’. Got to stay in assassin shape, you see,” she smiles a little, “But you’re wrong about what I was runnin’ from. I wasn’t running from you, I was afraid of what you meant to me.”
“You said you loved me, Rayla.”
“I do,” she says. Simple and unwavering. Then, less elegantly, she kicks a rock across the clearing. “Let me try again. I-” Ever-fast, ever-moving Rayla stops to look across the tree line and takes a deep breath. “I wasn’t scared to love you. I was scared of what the world would do to you, knowin’ I did. I’d take on a hundred dragons to protect you, and there were too many enemies, too much stupid war and history for me to trick myself into fallin’ asleep to it. I had to- well, I told myself I had to- get rid of everythin’ in the way, and then I would come back to you. I will always come back to you. I know it was stupid to leave, but at the same time, I still don’t have a better option.”
The moon is forever changing. It changes its face, changes the light, almost its whole shape. It changes the tides, the weight, the shape of the world in its cast shadows. Here, in the curving halfness of dark evening, Callum can see that change in her, too.
All the cycles, all the years, and the moon looks different each time, but the heart of it never changes.
He smiles. “You’re still a hero, aren’t you?”
She shifts, “That was always what you thought of me.”
Callum shakes his head. “No, it’s what you are. Whether you or I like it or not. And I do, Rayla, so much. But I also hate that you feel like you have to go out there and be my hero.”
“What, I can’t be a knight for my sweet prince?” Rayla teases.
“Hey, I know some pretty mean spells now!”
“You can handle yourself,” she says back, softly, “I know.” The meaning within the meaning. “I trust you. I never didn’t trust you, I just don’t want you to go through pain that you can be spared if I take it on myself.”
“Sounds scary.”
“Show no fear, remember?” Rayla smiles wryly. At his displeased frown, she corrects, “I’m working on it.”
He could have said something. He could have a hundred words for her, but actions speak louder anyway. His head finds a comfortable resting place against her side.
Their audience of crickets fills the intermission before he speaks. He sighs into her lightly armored shoulder, “I’m sorry I accused you of running away.”
“No,” she shifts him away to make eye contact, “I did. I was trying to run through some nasty stuff to you, but I ran anyway, even after we-” she chokes up, and doesn’t try to hide it. Callum feels something warm in his stomach. “After we promised. We’d face it together. That made me a pretty awful girlfriend, huh?”
His mouth quirks, “Maybe. Probably. Yes. And honestly, until I know you won’t don’t it again, I can’t-”
“I understand,” Rayla interrupts. She’d be lying if she said she wasn’t disappointed, but if going back to square one means she gets to be around him at all, she’ll take it. She just wishes she could take his face in her hands, too. “I can’t have my jelly tart and eat it, too,” she laughs.
“Amaya would just say to make two jelly tarts.”
“Don’t tempt me.”
He tweaks her nose, the same way she did when they were surrounded by lava and miserable uncertainty in the earthen lair. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
“Hey! Did you just ‘Big Feelings Time’ me?!”
“And if I did? You lived through it!”
She laughs, open and uproarious, and it puts the shine on the stars. “I guess I did, mage.”
Callum chuckles softly. “But, that night, when you first came back…and, you know, the other night, too. I never really got an answer. You didn’t find Viren. So why… why now?”
“I don’t know,” she says, but finds significantly more fear on her tongue than she expected.
Callum deflates, “Yeah, okay-”
“No, Callum, I don’t know. ” She forgoes manners in distress, grabbing his shoulders. “I thought it just felt right, but I think I really don’t know. I can’t even- I’m not sure I remember how I got back to Katolis. I just remember being there for a week or so before building up the nerve to come talk to you.”
“Okay- okay, that’s,” he pauses, putting on his calculation-face. Because as much as he’s personally frustrated by that answer, he knows Rayla isn’t one to lie that directly. He trusts her panic as genuine. “That’s probably not good.”
“Very wise observation,” she croaks. The choir of wildlife suddenly feels too hot, too loud.
Callum starts thinking out loud, “If Viren is alive now, we still don’t know how long he’s been active. Or how involved Aaravos has been. But it does seem like there’s been a spike in activity recently, right around… when…you-,” and then he stops. He’s more silent than should be possible, like even the weight of his soled boots have ceased to have impact. And then Callum looks up at her, because he’s realized something very likely and very horrible. “Does that mean…that’s why you came back?”
The meaning behind the meaning. You wouldn’t have come back to me unless something made you.
That can’t be right. The grevious pain that ripped her body, the cold determination that wrapped her up and carried her through the most miserable months of the last two years, they all sing for her, tell her this is him, this is why you felt us, so you could get back to him. She realizes something just as likely but far less horrible. “I think it is why. But it’s why I came back and asked for your help.”
Something was wrong and I fought it off. Enough to get back to you.
He sags, relief and understanding weighing off. “Okay. Still not good, but less bad. We know it’s something you can fight.”
“Something we can fight,” she corrects.
Despite everything that’s tainted their evening, this is what breaks his face into a smile. “Yeah,” his voice flutters, her heart follows. I won’t leave you for this. “Look, I don’t know what this changes-” You still left, even if you came back for me on purpose. “-But I do know you probably shouldn’t be unsupervised. For your own safety,” he clears his throat. “So, um. Yep. And it’s getting cold out anyway. We need rest, and we can solve this tomorrow.”
At first, Rayla just stares at him. Weird. Super weird. What is he talking about? And then she catches his eyeline as it skitters out to his bedroll and back at her. She unleashes a nervous smile.
They both crawl into his sleeping bag. Nyx would have a field day, Rayla’s sure. It’s a tight fit- after all, these things are only designed for one person- but she finds her limbs slot easily enough into the space between his. They’ve no choice but to face each other, noses brushing. Rayla’s face lights up, flushed. The reddish glow of the dying fire masks the worst of it, enough for her to muster up the bravery to remark, “Careful. Don’t wanna make a habit of usin’ me for my incredible cuddles.”
“I could get used to it.”
Can you ever forgive me?
I think I already have.