Work Text:
“Neimi!” Amelia waves to her from across the encampment with utterly rotten timing.
“Hey!” Neimi looks for an excuse or an escape, and finds none.
The thing is, she was trying to figure out a way to confess her feelings to Amelia. How is she supposed to do that when she keeps winding up talking to Amelia? She really needs some kind of romantic gesture to make sure Amelia considers her properly, but Neimi doesn’t know what.
Resigning herself to another day of failure, Neimi heads over.
Amelia has found a log to sit on, and has a jar of berries in her hands. “Look!” she says. “I was talking with some of the mercenaries who joined the army recently. One of them mentioned that if we liked michew berries so much, we should make jam.”
“Michew berry jam…” Neimi crouches, awed by the idea. “I’m certain my grandpa used to know how to make that kind of thing.”
“Not something he taught you?”
“He taught me all that I know… But I can’t say I learned everything he knew.” Neimi looks up, sighing. “I wish we’d had more time.”
Amelia accepts that statement in an understanding silence. She has a few extra supplies with her. After a moment, she offers, “Want to try? Before we do anything to cook it, we want to really mash the fruit up.” She hands Neimi a mortar and pestle.
Neimi accepts the tools. At Amelia’s nudge, she reaches into the jar and grabs a few of the berries to work on grinding up.
After bit of work, she finds that it’s surprisingly fun. When she was younger and tried using this kind of tool, she found it much harder. These days, she’s much stronger, physically and mentally, and it shows. The arm muscle she developed by stringing and shooting bows is definitely good for something, from time to time.
She glances up. Amelia is watching her - judging her technique, probably. “Am I doing it right?”
Amelia reddens, ducking slightly into the collar of her gambeson. “C-crush!”
“Not good enough? They look pretty crushed to me,” Neimi says, looking at the pestle dubiously.
“I mean, um, yeah! You crushed it!” Amelia takes a deep breath, then shows Neimi her own pestle, which holds a handful of mangled berries, with plenty of lumps. “You’re better at this than me, actually. Can you share any tips?”
“Sure,” Neimi says, smiling. She always appreciates Amelia’s friendliness and humility. It’s nice to have someone else to learn with, particularly in times as troubled and an army as vast as this. She wants to help, especially when it’s over something as wonderful as michew berries.
Confessing can wait another day, surely.