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Rayla paused; her arm frozen in the air before it could knock on the door. She and Callum hadn’t spoken since coming back from Umber Tor; not properly at least. Oh, there’d been the occasional quip or shared glance, largely during conversations with Ezran. The young king had thankfully done most of the talking for them on the ride home on Zubeia’s back; something for which she’d definitely thank him later. Besides, it probably wouldn’t have been smart to hash out personal stuff with the queen of the dragons listening in.
But now, they were home, safe, and waiting on said dragon queen to decide their next move. They were all probably going to be sitting around in Katolis for the next couple of days, and there was never going to be a better time than right now. Steeling herself, she took a last, deep breath, and knocked.
No answer. A part of her had expected as much; the silent treatment was probably more than she deserved; it was basically what she’d given him for the past two years after all. Still, this was too important for her to take this as a reason to walk away. Callum had seemed a lot warmer towards her on the ride back; surely he wouldn’t have just gone back to blanking her now?
She pushed the heavy wooden door; thankfully Callum didn’t keep it locked. Slipping inside, she found his study in the same cluttered state as the night she’d first returned. Papers, tomes, and various magical…things, were strewn over every surface. She couldn’t make heads or tails of most of it herself, but Callum had clearly been busying himself studying them. As she leant down to examine one particularly ancient looking volume, a snort from behind her caught her off guard.
Rounding the pile of scrolls obscuring her view, she found Callum, hunched forward in his seat, fast asleep at his desk, drooling onto a spell book. The palace librarian probably wasn’t going to thank him for that, but Rayla on the other hand couldn’t help but smile at the sight. He always looked so cute like that… in a gross, wet kind of way. Part of her wanted to just leave him in peace, but she didn’t see herself being able to sleep that night if they didn’t have this talk.
“Whoo boy. Okay Rayla… let’s just… do this” she whispered to herself.
“Hey… Callum?” she whispered, gently shaking his shoulder. Callum groaned for a moment, and she could swear his previously neutral expression got slightly happier, but that was all the reaction she got.
“Hmm, okay… now what?” She wondered whether to shake him again, when she felt a bump against her ankle. Looking down, she met the eyes of her favourite glow toad. “Bait! Oh, you’re a lifesaver!” Picking up her perpetually grumpy-looking friend, she held him out in front of Callum’s face. “Ah’d really appreciate if you could help me out with this” she asked. Bait let out an obliging grunt, before bathing the entire room in an intense light.
That did it. Callum shot awake, almost falling back over his chair. “Woah, woah, I’m up! Am I late for-” His eyes met hers as he came to his senses. “Oh… uh, hey... Rayla”.
“Hey…” she managed to reply as she set down bait and allowed the toad to scurry back to his basket. “What’re you doin’?”
“Oh, just trawling through the castle’s magical history collection for anything to do with Aaravos. I’m… not getting anywhere fast. Guess I fell asleep.”
“Ah see. Well, Ah’m sure you’ll find something!”
An awkward pause followed that threatened to break Rayla’s courage. She’d been so sure of what she wanted to say before coming in, but now, staring Callum in the face, the words hung in her throat. Still, she forced herself on.
“So… Ah’m sorry to bother you, but ah was wondering if, since we’ve got some free time now, it might be okay if we… talked a wee bit?”
Callum was silent for a moment. She searched his eyes for something, anything, but couldn’t parse the look in them. After a second, he thankfully broke the silence. “Yeah… yeah, ok. I… think I’m ready for that now.” He sat back down, and gestured to the chair next to him. Wordlessly, she took it.
He looked at her expectantly. Fair enough, she thought; the way things were between them was her fault; it was only fair she started. Swallowing the lump in her throat, she tried her best to put the tangle of emotions inside her into words.
“Callum, ah… ah know that me leaving the way ah did… hurt you. Ah was just so angry, and scared. We’d already almost died so many times trying to get to Xadia and… ah was just terrified of losing you. Ah know that doesn’t make it okay but… ah just didn’t want you to get hurt.”
“But I did” Callum muttered. There wasn’t any anger in the way he said it, just a… hollowness that made Rayla’s heart feel like it would just shrivel up in her chest.
“When I woke up that morning” Callum continued, “and I found that letter you left me, it was like… a part of my world just disappeared overnight.” He wiped his eyes before meeting her gaze. “One second you were there, and the next, you were gone, and I was left with what? A letter? A few nice words?”
Rayla knew that ‘a few nice words’ was underselling it a little. She’d poured her heart and soul into that letter, and the tearstains on the page were obvious enough that she knew Callum knew it; but she also knew that that wouldn’t have softened the blow for him all that much. “Callum, ah didn’t-”
“And then nothing! For two years Rayla, nothing. You could have written, or, or, sent a messenger, or something! But all I got was silence. How could you?”
There was the anger. She was almost relieved now that he was shouting at her like she deserved. “Callum” she sighed, “if ah’d told you anything about where ah was, or what ah was doin’, you’d have figured out how to follow me somehow, and the whole thing would’ve been pointless. Ah wanted to keep you out of danger.”
“I didn’t even know if you were alive, Rayla” he bit back. “Do you have any idea what that was like? Not knowing whether you’d be back tomorrow, or not at all? I had to live every day, wondering if you’d been killed.”
There was so much Rayla wanted to say, but she resisted the urge to speak up. She could tell from the look of Callum’s face that he wasn’t done.
“and the worst part is” he continued “you knew. You knew how much it would hurt me; you apologised for it over and over in that letter. If something you’re doing is so bad that you have to write an apology before you even do it, maybe you just shouldn’t be doing it! I felt so powerless, Rayla. The whole reason I learnt magic was because I was tired of feeling like I couldn’t do anything, or be useful to anyone. You leaving brought that right back. I had all my spells, all my power, but I couldn’t do a thing for you. You could have been dying somewhere on the other side of the world, and I had no way to help you. That was you, my best friend, making me afraid.”
Callum finally stopped and took a series of shaky breathes as he turned his eyes to the floor. Against all the forces rooting her to the spot, Rayla stepped forward and put a had on his cheek. Mercifully, she saw his shoulders relax slightly at her touch. “Oh, Callum. Ah’m so, so sorry. Ah know ah shouldn’t have done it, ah just… wasn’t strong enough to cope with the thought of something happening to you.”
Callum lifted his hand, and for a brief moment she was terrified it was to pull hers away, but he just rested on top of hers and relaxed his face further into it. She almost broke down there and then, but willed herself to hold together.
“I… feel like I can’t look away from you” Callum murmured.
“Callum…” Rayla whispered, feeling heat rising in her face.
“N-no” Callum blurted out, clearly seeing how she’d taken it. “I mean like I literally feel like I can’t look away. It’s taking so much just to let myself believe that you’re back, that you’re staying. I feel like I don’t wanna close my eyes, or fall asleep, because if I do, when I wake up you’ll be gone, and it’ll be just like that morning all over again. I don’t know how to feel… normal around you anymore, y’know? I want things to be the way they used to again, and I want to believe that you’re back for good this time, but I just can’t seem to… make myself believe it.”
She couldn’t hold herself in one piece any longer. Her chest shuddered slightly as she felt warm tears begin to run down her face.
“This is all mah fault” she blubbed. “When we first met, everyone thought ah was a failure; that mah whole family were the kind of people who turned and ran when things got tough. You were the one who helped me prove them wrong; helped me clear mah name. And how did ah repay you? Bah doing exactly what everyone thought ah’d do. Meeting you was the best thing that ever happened to me, and ah messed it up all on mah own.”
Callum stayed silent, but his eyes weren’t on the floor this time; they were locked on her face, as if searching for something unspoken. Rayla took that as her cue to keep talking.
“Callum… meeting you was the best thing that ever happened to me, and ah was a fool to throw it away just because ah got scared. It was the worst mistake of mah life, and ah won’t ever make it again. Ah’m not sure how to prove that to you, but ah promise that ah’ll do anything, everything ah can to make you believe it, no matter how long it takes. All ah’m asking is that you let me try. So please… please just let me try.”
Callum was silent for that could only have been a brief moment, but felt to her like an agonizing eternity. She was about to open her mouth again when he finally rose from his seat. His face was still steelier than that of the emotional boy she’d met all that time ago, but his eyes carried all the emotion they always had. The sadness was still there, but he seemed to be looking at her more softly than he had been a minute before.
“Okay” he answered in a low, tone, his voice now slightly hoarse. “I’ll trust you.”
Rayla smiled as she let out a sigh of relief. It felt as though as a previously unnoticed weight was lifted from her shoulders. “Thank you Callum”.
“I… can’t promise that thing are gonna be able to go back to the way they were” Callum cautioned her, “but what happened at Umber Tor made me realise that I couldn’t bare losing you again, so… I really hope you’ll stay for real this time.”
“Ah will, ah promise ah will” Rayla beamed through a fresh onslaught of tears. “Ah’m not going anywhere”.
Reaching out her hand, she hoped to caress his face again, only to be caught by surprise when he pulled her into a gentle hug. She could feel the still shaky rise and fall of his chest as he held her. She froze for an instant, unsure if she had the right, or permission, to return the affection. When he didn’t let go though, she allowed herself to relax into the hug, resting her face against the fabric surrounding his neck and taking in the familiar scent.
“Still not washing the scarf very often then” she giggled.
“Shut up” he murmured from beside her ear, his voice tinged with happiness for the first time that night.
Rayla didn’t know how long it was going to take to rebuild what they had lost, or if it was even possible at all, but in that moment, even being given the chance to try was enough.