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Rayla saw them dancing to the rhythm of the music, they looked synchronized, happy, she saw them from her little corner in the darkness away from the festive scene that was unfolding before her.
"You should tell him." Said a familiar voice next to her, the little friend she had made years ago, now turned into a wise king as his destiny had predicted.
Rayla turned to see him with a mocking smile to try to hide the truth of her soul.
"I have no idea what you're saying."
The king looked at her, with that look of understanding he always gave her, a look that reminded her that he was not only the king of Katolis, but her friend who had traveled with her through Xadia, little Ezran.
"You know perfectly what I mean."
Rayla sighed and a smile appeared on her face, but not one of her mocking smiles but one of sadness, a smile that represented acceptance of reality, of her reality.
"It wouldn't be any use Ezran, it wouldn't change anything."
"How do you know?"
Rayla looked again at the couple who stood out in the dance, as Callum danced to Claudia's synchronization.
"Because they will fall in love, or they already are, I don't know, but... " Rayla sighed. "They will have their story and I will be the one who sees it in the corner, as it always has been, as it always had to be." Rayla stopped for a second to try to cope with that wave of sadness for her acceptance of her reality that filled her chest every time she saw them. "I know this because there are people who are made to be loved and there are people who are created to love, and I... I was created to love but that does not mean that what I feel does not have to be reciprocated, because it is not, I have been created to love but not to be loved."
A silence spread between them after the confessed reflection, the dance had already ended and the dancing couple had retired laughing as if they had just committed the greatest folly in the universe. Rayla looked back at Ezran, who was already looking at her.
"No matter what I feel, it will never be reciprocated, I am not made to be loved, I was not created to know or experience love, I was created for war,for struggle. And even if that were not true, I would never get someone to love me, I could love him in all the universes but he would never stop seeing me as his friend with whom he once traveled through Xadia."
Ezran looked at her for a few seconds, pondering what his friend had just said, until he finally granted her response.
"Many times what we assume we know is nothing more than a questionable theory that may be light miles from reality." Rayla looked at her friend without really understanding what he meant. "You think that you are not made to be loved, but I think you are wrong, Rayla."
And after those conversations Ezran retired to do whatever a king does at these holidays, leaving Rayla in a struggle of conflicting thoughts.
Would Ezran really be right? Could she be loved? Could HE love her the way she loved him? Or was it true that love had never been meant to be present in her life? She would never know.
Nights later after that night of partying where people danced and laughed and drank and where Rayla just drank and watched and drank again, Rayla was on one of the balconies of the palace watching the moon and indirectly asking it to get it out of her head the image of Callum dancing so happily with Claudia, that image had been playing in her head like a scratched CD for the days following that night.
She sighed, laughing at herself at the same time and wondering how the rules of this game called "love" worked, because she was the one who felt that feeling for someone, but was not even able to imagine someone feeling that feeling for her? Was she really that hard to love? Was it possible for someone to love her the way she loved?
Were questions like those, on nights like this that tormented her head, turning it into a troubled sea that took time to return to calm.
She was so focused on her own thoughts and prayers to stop loving that she didn't even notice that someone else had come out onto the balcony.
"Sorry Rayla, I didn't know you were here." Callum apologized when he went out to the balcony and noticed her leaning on the balcony railing.
The silver one turned around to see him with a soft smile that didn't reach her eyes.
"Do not worry, nothing happens."
The brunette hesitated for a few seconds, looking at her with doubt in his eyes.
Rayla just raised an eyebrow as she realized the High Mage was staring at her so intently.
"Can I stay?" Callum asked awkwardly, with a nervousness that he had discovered only appeared when it came to Rayla.
"Of course." Rayla responded with a reassuring smile.
Callum approached where Rayla was in silence and leaned up to get a better look at the moon that tinted the dark sky with a soft welcoming light, from Callum's point it seemed to him that it was a reminder that even darkness needed light and light I needed darkness to survive.
A peaceful silence flooded the two young people but that was not a inconvenience for either of them, they had always been comfortable with the silence between them, because they both knew that their understanding and comprehension of the other went far beyond words, like a connection neither of them could explain.
"The other night you left very early, I barely saw you." Muttered the young wizard who a few nights ago had hoped to be able to ask the elf who was currently accompanying him for a dance while he got rid of the silence that surrounded them both.
Rayla tensed next to him at his words while the memory of him dancing with Claudia flooded every space in her memories.
"I was tired," she responded in the same tone with a half-lie, lately she had been very good at saying them and she was better on believe them.
"Oh..."
The young elf grimaced at her friend's response and unconsciously spoke, letting her mouth go faster than her brain:
"I saw how you enjoyed with Claudia, you have improved in dancing by the way." Despite being calm outwardly, her brain was scolding her in every possible way and the feeling that she had to leave as soon as possible flooded her.
Callum startled at her words.
"Yes, well... thank you."
Although the elf had tried to avoid what seemed inevitable, the uncomfortable silence settled between them.
"It seems nice." Rayla said in a whisper, one that she hopes the mage hadn't heard because apparently tonight she couldn't control what came out of her mouth but she also couldn't find the strength to convince her body to run away from there.
Callum turned to her with confusion in his eyes.
"Who?"
"Claudia."
"She is." Said the mage while he allowed himself to observe the elf who at that moment seemed to pretend that she was very interested in the nervous play of her fingers, he looked away to see the moon that was above them, “but she is not really my type.”
Rayla turned her gaze towards him, watching him look at the moon, and noticing how the features of his face were so calm, as if he had never been stressed.
"Your type? " The silver one asked with a tone that not even she knew how to decipher. Callum turned to look at her and the green of his eyes met the purple of hers, as they had done so many times in the past.
"Don't get me wrong, Claudia is a very nice and kind girl, but she is not..."
"She is not... what?
"She isn't you"
Rayla hadn't had to hear him right, had she?
"What?"
"She. Isn't. You." Callum repeated, marking each word without taking his eyes off Rayla and daring to take a step towards her.
Rayla could swear to the moon that she was forcing her brain to say some word, to think of what to say, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't be able to say anything.
Callum sighed at Rayla's silence, a part of him, the most hidden and the most pessimistic, had whispered to him so many nights about the possibility that when he will confess she would remain silent or deny, that when that happened it didn't hurt him as much the blow that his heart would receive.
"I knew it wasn't going to be reciprocated, deluded me," he laughed at himself, running a hand through his hair, "but I had to tell you Rayla, I couldn't take it anymore, even if I risked this, but a part of me needed you to know, perhaps because a part of me hoped it would be reciprocated or because perhaps this way I could remove the doubt that occupies my mind most of the nights and then I could try to get you out of my head no matter how impossible it may seem..."
"Stop." Rayla interrupted him and she hesitated before continuing. “It's not that it's not reciprocated, it's just... I didn't expect it.” She said with all sincerity and a small smile.
"What do you mean you didn't expect it?" The young mage asked confused.
"I didn't expect you to feel the same way I feel about you, I thought... I thought you were in love with Claudia, you know, you look so happy next to her and when you left the dance floor laughing together, I thought..."
Before she could finish the sentence, Callum captured her lips in a soft and tender kiss that caused butterflies in Rayla's stomach. Rayla stared at him, half stunned and surprised by that kiss, about which her lips had fantasized more than one night.
"It's not for the reasons you think." Callum told her when they separated while he looked into her eyes and brought his hand to the elf's cheek. "That night while we were dancing Claudia told me that she had found a way to translate the ancient texts that could help in the fight of Lux Aurea, that's why we left like that, even though I later came back to look for you and tell you, but you were already gone."
"Did you come back to find me to tell me that you had managed to find the solution to the problem of translations of books from centuries ago?" Rayla raised her eyebrow, somewhat confused.
"And well, maybe also because I thought I would have the opportunity to ask you for a dance or two." The shyness returned to Callum's voice as he recognized his true intentions.
"So... there's nothing between you and Claudia? " The silver one asked directly.
Callum chuckled.
"No Rayla, there is nothing between Claudia and me and there will never be anything because I love you."
Rayla didn't know if that was really the product of some dream she was having for staying up late working on some file or if it was really true.
But when Callum leaned his head down a little and with a few seconds of silent questioning, and kissed her gently, she knew that that was really happening.
She looked at him carefully when they separated.
"What happens?" Callum asked.
"Nothing," Rayla responded with a silly smile, "I was just wondering if we could make up those two dances that I didn't know we had pending."
Callum laughed at that, and before one of them two could say anything else he had already given Rayla a spin as the start of a dance that not even they knew they knew.
And between spins and laughter, Rayla realized how wrong she was, no matter how much she had believed that she was not destined to love, life had shown her that it was not like that, that love was found in every little corner, and no matter how long it takes and it makes us think that we are not made for it, it will surprise us at the most unexpected moment and in the most unexpected way.