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"Are you coming?" Callum leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed.
"Huh?" Rayla mumbled around the ribbon between her lips. She pulled it out, scraping her teeth across her lips to relieve the tickle the motion had caused. She smoothed her hair back and into a ponytail, securing the tie.
"Ez told us to come to his room tonight, remember? Soren called it a, 'hang-out sesh,'?" he snorted, blowing hair out of his face.
"That I do remember," Rayla chuckled. "But, yeah—I forgot." She twisted her lips apologetically, gesturing down at her pajamas. "I already changed."
"That's okay—actually, I think that's the idea." He approached the desk where she was sitting and leaned against that too. In a lean-y mood, Rayla supposed. "It's, like, a casual-type thing. I think."
Rayla hummed in consideration.
"We don't have to go," he added. "Or, y'know, you don't have to go, if you just want to be alone. I wouldn't blame you—I think Soren was saying something about games, and, uh… Yeah, I've played games with Soren before, and, trust me—"
"It's fine, dummy." She stuffed her toes into her slippers, shrugging on her way to the door. "I'm sure it'll be fun." The past few weeks at the castle had been… a lot—for Rayla, anyway. She was still reeling from her sudden banishment from the only home she'd ever known, as well as so-much-and-yet-not-enough new information about her parents, and she had been having some nightmares… but Callum and Ezran and, evidently, even Soren had been making a real effort to make her feel included.
Or this was just how they were. A random game night? On a New Moon? She supposed she shouldn't be surprised at this point.
"And, y'know," she added. "Wouldn't hate a chance to beat you at something."
"And that's another three points for us!" Ezran cheered, high-fiving Soren as he sat back down beside him. Bait crawled into the young king's lap with a grunt.
"That was total rubbish!" Rayla fumed, pouting profusely. "That last one was totally over time."
"Not according to the timekeeper," Ez shrugged.
"He's a toad!"
The timekeeper in question gave an affronted grumble. Ezran drew him closer as if to protect him from her words. "And he is just as reliable as any of us, Rayla."
Callum snickered, and was met with a dagger-armed glare from Rayla. He couldn't help but be amused by how cute this sudden competitive side was, even if he was starting to get a little concern with her stress level.
"Can't argue with results," Soren boasted, flexing his biceps like that was the thing giving them an edge in Word Hands. "First one to twenty, and we have nineteen points. If you want to just give up now," he shrugged, "I mean, it would save us all some time—"
"In your dreams, you blonde-haired bell-end!" Rayla practically snarled, Callum holding her back before she jumped the Crownguard.
"Jokes on you—I don't even know what means."
She clenched her fist tight in front of her face, one eye squeezed shut. Callum could only assume she was pretending to strangle the man. "And we do not need to tell him, yeah?" Callum whispered into her ear, then exclaimed, "Okay!" with facetious cheeriness. "Well, this has been fun, but—"
"What?!" Her head snapped to him so fast he could've sworn he heard a crack. "Oh, nonononono. No—we are not surrendering."
"Rayla." He placed two hands on her shoulders. "It is a game."
"Yeah, a game that we should win."
He stared long and hard into her lilac gaze—at the ardent flush on her cheeks, the small quirk to her lips on one side, the flame burning blue-hot behind her eyes. Maybe her passion was simply contagious—he'd never won one of these games and had thus never been particularly convicted to trying—but he was suddenly filled with the determination to seize their victory.
For the sake of drama, he narrowed his eyes at her, took a deep, deep breath, and nodded resolutely. "Let's do it."
Her smile was as thrilling as it was insidious. "Let's."
Rayla then clapped so loudly in the space between them that he jolted back, but she was unfazed, springing up and stretching her arms over her head. "You two ready for a butt-kicking?" she asked Soren and Ezran.
"Huh?" They both looked up from where they had been rubbing Bait's belly, having been entirely unconcerned with the theatrics of their opposing team. But Ez shook himself, sliding Callum's sketchbook, open to the page where they were tallying scores, and pencil over. "Good luck." He gave them two thumbs up.
"Don't wish them luck, they're the enemy!" Soren hissed in a "whisper" that was likely louder than it would've been at normal volume.
"Don't wish us luck," Rayla huffed, "because we don't need it." Ezran shook his head in fondness while Soren scoffed, clearly unintimidated.
She sauntered in front of the group, the fireplace to her back, and cracked her neck on either side. "We have seventeen points; every correct guess is half a point, so we need to get six in one minute to win."
No one said anything. Soren coughed, Bait hiccuped. Callum was almost positive that they'd never heard crickets from this room before, and, yet…
He finally spoke up. "Rayla, we—we knew all of that, already. You didn't have to, uh… "
She waved him off, taking the jar of paper scraps from the mantle. "Oh, whatever. Bait?"
The toad grumbled in answer.
"Start the timer."
The small hourglass was overturned—by Ezran, because it was not within Bait's ability to do so in an efficient manner, but it seemed Rayla had been too preoccupied with the game to notice—and, in a flash, Rayla snatched a small strip and read the prompt.
She traced an oval in the air, then curled her fingers around either side of the imaginary shape, brought them down sharply, then turned her hands upwards and outwards, separating them.
"Uhhh…" Callum wracked his brain and came up empty.
She furrowed her brow hard, trying to come up with something new, and lighting up upon doing so. She pointed to Ezran, then made a cradling motion with her arms, and directed her finger to her mouth as she stuck her tongue out in a mock gag.
Ohhh. "Oh—egg!" he called. She had started with an egg-cracking motion, he realized, then evoked both Ezran carrying Zym's egg, and the fact that he hated to eat them. Obviously.
She pumped her fist and got right back to it, making the most of her Moonshadow speediness in this game.
Turning to the side, she pantomimed gripping something, then repeating the action above it, then again—
"Latter!" Callum guessed.
Right again.
Next, she acted out eating something with a utensil. "Uh—fork?"
Head-shake.
"Spoon!"
Nod.
"Thirty seconds," Ez announced.
Rayla confidently scoffed at the next one; she pointed to her ears, then to her horns and back again.
"Elf?"
A nod and the roll of her wrist, telling him to add onto that. She then gestured somewhere in the sky—
"Skywi—?"
—and held her hands over her face, squinting and blocking whatever she was referring to.
"Oh, Sunfire! Sunfire elf."
Nod.
When she read the next prompt, her nose scrunched and Callum prepared himself for a difficult one.
She opened her mouth and positioned her pointer fingers against her teeth like—
"Fangs? Or, uh, just teeth?"
She changed course, instead stretching out her hands over an imaginary pole of some kind, then pretended to eat it, jaw chattering loud and fast.
"Is it an animal?"
"No yes-or-no questions!" Soren reminded. But she didn't need any standard visual cues to give an answer—Callum knew that the glint in her eye meant yes.
"A, uh—Oh! A beaver?!"
Nod.
She planted her feet firmly, ducking behind her held-up forearm.
"Shield!"
"Fifteen seconds."
He saw her eyes flash in panic as she grabbed the next piece of paper. When she read it, she rolled her eyes. She pointed at herself and stuck out her tongue.
"Uh—?"
She frowned, her expression disgusted—
Oh! Something she didn't like…
"Um… I don't—" Callum stammered, feeling the pressure. "I don't know, uh—meat… water—?"
"YES! Woo-hoo!" she screamed, properly leaping into the air.
"Time!"
Callum laughed, admittedly very proud of their victory. He found Soren's mouth agape and Ezran smiling like it was a victory he shared.
Rayla dropped to her knees in front of her teammate, grinning wildly and holding up a hand. He folded his pinky and high-foured her so hard that his palm burned.
"Did I or did I not just let you trick me into smearing mysterious goop on my face?"
Callum laughed. "Come on, it's gonna be fine." He spread some more with the small, flat-headed spoon and giggled some more as she scrunched her nose up. "I told you, I already tested it—"
"You put it on your arm—not the same thing as my face," Rayla rolled her eyes.
"Well, how does it feel?" he asked.
She sighed. "…Good."
"That's what I thought." Her pout turned to a snicker when he bopped her nose with the instrument, leaving a drip he quickly caught.
What exactly had she expected, commenting on how dry her face was in this Katolian winter? The chilly winds—which she was unaccustomed to—had left her lips cracked and bloody and her skin flaky and raw. She never complained much about her own condition, per se, but when she'd mumbled it the other night, voice just the tiniest bit pitchy and uncomfortable—he was just supposed to leave it alone? No, he was not, and despite her air of reluctance, she, too, had known that.
It certainly was lucky that he'd just been reading up on old Del Barian holistics.
As an evening shower pattered against the windows of the Banter Lodge (it wasn't quite cold enough for snow yet), Callum smoothed out the mask into an even layer and set the concoction aside. He regarded his work with pride, the laughter immediately catching back up to him at how adorable she looked—face covered in the pale mint substance, lips quirked to the side, eyes wide before she narrowed them with a single raised eyebrow.
She reached for the bowl and gathered the goop across her thumb; he, of course, could see where she was going, but only pretended to fight her off as she smeared it across his forehead.
Rayla smirked, satisfied, cradling his jaw just so she could wipe the remnants on his cheek. "Hey, why don't you join the party? All that flying today dried you out a bit, too."
He considered—Hell, why not?—and then reached for the mask, only for Rayla to snatch it up first.
"Nuh uh," she tutted with a grin. "You did me, I do you." She looked around the room, mumbling, "Now, where…?" Without making her intentions any clearer, she sprung off the bed and popped into their washroom. She came back holding one of the strips of cloth she used as wrappings around her ankles.
"And what are you doing with that?" he chuckled, only slightly scared of she might've been about to do to him. She didn't answer, just looped it under his chin. "Uhh—?"
"Calm down, dummy. Just wait." She knotted it at the top of his head.
"I hope this is clean," he teased, lightly caressing her waist as she went about whatever it was she was doing.
"Pfft, like you would actually care," Rayla scoffed. "You're obsessed with me, you weirdo."
He didn't bother arguing. He had been known to remove her clothing with his teeth before—in the name of efficiency, of course.
She pulled the fabric down around his neck, then brought it up his face and over his forehead, with the knot positioned at the nape of his neck. "There."
He felt around and found that she had succeeded in smoothing his hair down and out of the way. "Ah, good idea."
The bowl and spoon were in her hands before he knew it. She asked, "Ready?" and then dabbed a healthy glob of the mask on his face without waiting for a reply.
He jolted back uncontrollably at the sudden coolness. "Cold," he remarked.
"Yeah, I know." She rolled her eyes.
She went about the work and he let her. He found her testament about the treatment to be true—it did feel good, refreshing and slightly tingly on his skin.
After a while, he asked, "How was your day?" Callum had spent most of his flying over to nearby patches of forest, searching for the ivory root he needed for this recipe.
"I read," she shrugged.
"Ooh, have you finished The Rose of Dusk yet?"
"No, I just got to the part where Elodie takes off for the woods. Is Heron even there, or is she just doing all that for nothing?"
"I'm not telling you," Callum snorted.
She lobbed on the next helping of goop with an extra smack in retaliation. "Oh, whatever. Can you at least tell me if the love triangle is going to resolve itself soon? You know I hate those."
"Yes, I know, and I told you: it pays off in the end. Besides, it's hardly a love triangle."
"Ugh, but it honestly should be—"
He grabbed her wrist so the spoon didn't end up in his mouth when he laughed loudly at her. "You just said—"
"I know, I know," Rayla snickered. "Like, yeah, she obviously loves Heron, but Alix…" she trailed off, sighing a little dreamily.
"Hold on—you think Alix is better?!"
"They've been there for her the whole time!" she protested, pointing the spoon at Callum. "Sure, that doesn't mean El has to be in love with them. But, I'm just saying: it's a waste of one fine individual."
He caught the cheeky bite of her lip, understanding dawning. "Oh, so you're saying you would pick Alix, huh?"
"Maybe," she trilled, passing over his brow.
"And what do they have that I don't?" he mock-pouted.
"Hand-to-hand combat skills."
"Okay, fair."
Rayla snorted, then grew wistful again. "And those freckles."
"Yeah, but Heron has that thick black hair…"
She stopped dead, her expression somewhere between glee and disbelief. "Don't tell me…"
"What?"
"You think Heron's hot, don't you?"
Callum blushed—though, fortuitously, it wouldn't be visible under the mask—and brought his hand to the back of his neck—Oh, no. She was looking at his ears. Those were red and giving him away, weren't they—?
"Oh, Callum." Rayla rolled her eyes fondly.
"Look, I just think he's—"
"—so handsome with that hair and those baby blue eyes and—Ooh! All those toned muscles—"
Groaning her name, he went to bury his flushed face in his hands, and—
Oh, right.
Face mask.
"Uh…"
"Callum," she scolded, crossing her arms.
"Oops?"
With a ruffle to his hair, Rayla got up to grab him a rag. He wiped down his hands, and she smoothed out the coating on his skin without another word—just smug glances.
She flopped back onto the bed when she was done, adjusting the pillow under her head and grabbing another to grip atop her stomach. Callum followed, sitting up against the headboard. He experimentally tapped her cheek, pleased to see her mask had dried.
"So," Rayla began. "Is that your type, then?" Her grin was nothing less than devilish.
"You mean a loyal, caring, self-actualizing man?" He asked, giving up on the denial. "Then yes, he is."
The smile was a lot more genuine now and she didn't attempt to hide it, but still waved him off. "Oh, whatever, you just like him because he's buff." She giggled as he flicked the side of her head.
"Alright." Callum planted his fists on the table. "Are we going to do this the easy way? Or the hard way?"
"Bah," Sarai babbled, crossing her chubby arms and looking about as unimpressed as a baby could.
"That would be, 'the hard way,'" Rayla supposedly translated, grinning from their daughter's other side. "And I'm pretty sure we knew that the second she started throwing stuff."
Callum sighed, slumping down into his chair. "Yeah, I know. I've just always wanted to say that."
The couple sat there for a few moments more, both leaning their faces on a fist as Sarai mocked their momentary defeat, gleefully swinging her feet and licking her fingers from her high chair.
"So," Rayla tried. "Changed your mind yet?" She presented the fork holding the broccoli to her child, whose demeanor changed in an instant; Rayla had to snatch the food back before Sarai whacked it clear across the room. Again. "I'll take that as a no."
Callum tried to activate the Good Plan part of his brain. "Okay, uh… How about, um…? Oh, okay—Let's switch up our approach," he declared, tapping his temple.
"Go on." Rayla leaned back in her chair, skeptical, if amused.
"Maybe we try to distract her instead? So she doesn't even realize she's eating it. Eh?"
She shrugged. "Worth a shot." Her chair squeaking across the floor caught Sarai's attention, and she looked towards her mother with wide eyes as she scooted in close.
"Hi, baby," Rayla crooned, bopping her on the nose and immediately earning a giggle and grabby hands. "Yes, hello! Oh, you love your Mumma, don't you? Yes, you do. Yes, you—ahem."
She directed the throat-clearing straight at Callum and he realized he'd just been admiring. But, on her cue, he subtly slid the vegetables his way. Moving slowly, as to not alert the subject, he poised another fork, this time with a green bean, by the girl's face. Enraptured by her mother's silly-sweet baby talk, Sarai merely sensed the presence of the food and started to open her mouth, not sparing Callum a glance.
Right when he thought they had won, her gaze flickered briefly to the object in her periphery, and with reflexes only Rayla's child could have, she smacked the fork away. Callum ducked to avoid a vegetable to the face.
Rayla peered under the table, an eyebrow raised as she said, "Really?"
Okay, maybe getting completely down on the floor was a bit excessive. "She scares me, alright?" Either unbothered or directly satisfied by her actions, Sarai continued to babble along happily from above.
Once back in his seat, Callum folded his hands over the table in intense consideration. Rayla had her eyes narrowed at the baby, resting her head on the back of her chair.
"Okay," he said. "Any ideas for Plan B?"
She tapped her chin. "Oh, I know—you make up an illusion to distract her."
"So, we're sticking with the distraction thing?"
"Might as well. She loves those things, anyway."
Callum conceded; it was true that the fanciful Moon-magic pictures he conjured absolutely delighted her, able to soothe even the worst of meltdowns.
Rayla leaned back over to her. "Hey, Rai-Rai," she smiled. "Wanna see one of Dada's illusions?" It still wasn't clear whether she recognized the word and its associations, even with how much they'd used it, but she started happily clapping her hands regardless.
After drawing the curtains shut for atmosphere, Callum darted to the sitting room for his sketchbook, as it was the easiest method he'd found for making animated images. He flipped through to where he knew he'd made a sketch of her current animalian obsession: cappycorns. Cracking his knuckles, he focused on the drawing and cast his spell—thankfully, because his audience was starting to grow impatient.
Immediately, her big blue eyes lit up, partially in wonder, and partially because they were reflecting the sparkly display in front of her. The dreamlike image of a cappycorn bounded through fields—which Callum was fairly sure they didn't actually do, but it made for a more engaging visual—and rolled around in a patch of flowers and whatever other whimsical activities wild animals may or may not have done. Sarai laughed and tugged on Rayla's sleeve to ensure she was paying attention, pointing and waving at the picture.
It was so beyond precious, Callum felt a twinge of guilt over it merely being a trick. But, a job was a job, so he repeated the technique of hovering the vegetable around her mouth. She noticed quickly this time, batting it away and protesting loudly as she tried to stay focused on the illusion.
He backed off, not wanting to upset her, and gave Rayla a shrug.
"Why don't you make the illusion about vegetables, or something?" She proposed, whispering across the table. "Y'know, make them exciting."
He nodded, locating an empty space in the sketchbook and quickly drafting a rough depiction of broccoli. Predictably, Sarai began to whine when the cappycorn faded away, but the intrigue of what was now forming in front of her was overriding her displeasure.
She sat with rapt attention, the shine of drool dripping from her agape mouth.
And then she saw it: a cute, friendly looking piece of broccoli smiling down at her—
—and then she started screaming.
Sarai thrashed furiously, swinging her fists in front of her like she was trying to personally fight the being. Callum quickly scattered the spell and Rayla attempted to soothe the infuriated infant.
"Shh, shh. It's okay little one." Smoothing back her daughter's pale hair, she looked back at Callum. "Honestly, I'm with her on this one. That thing was kind of freaky."
He huffed. At least he hadn't given it big, burly arms like the Moonberry Surprise. Shuddering—both at that memory and at the baby—he rebuttled, "She's not even scared. She's just angry."
Indeed, Sarai sat gripping the arms of the high chair, chest heaving with rage.
"She's your daughter, alright," Rayla laughed, wiping the corner of her mouth. "So, what now?"
"Hm…"
Rayla suddenly perked up. "Wait a minute. We're idiots."
"Don't let her hear you say that," Callum said, tickling Sarai's cheek. "She prays on weakness."
With a brief eyeroll, she continued. "I mean because we were thinking of the wrong kind of illusion!" She lowered her voice, seemingly out of caution by the words the baby may or may not have known. "Disguise the vegetables as something she likes. You know, like Lujanne does with grubs."
Callum frowned. "That feels kind of evil, Rayla."
"Oh, come on," she waved him off. "What she doesn't know can't hurt her, right?"
"Well, I've never done it before—I don't know if I could get it to actually taste like something else. And I feel like she's too smart to be fooled by appearance alone. And what if we end up ruining her favorite food for her?"
She sighed. "Callum, you're sweet, but she's six-months old. I doubt she'll resent us for the rest of her life if she bites into a cookie and it tastes like asparagus."
"Whatever." He raised his hands in surrender scooting back from the table. "Just know that if it happens, I'll tell her it was your idea."
She snorted and he just caught her kissing Sarai on the forehead as she ducked into the kitchen with a singular brussel sprout. "Like you could stay mad at me."
Having done the dirty work, he returned with a delicious-looking jelly tart—an instant favorite of the little one. Callum practically started sweating as he presented it to her, an unmistakeble skepticism on her squishy face even at Rayla convincingly gushed at how tasty it appeared to be.
Still, a jelly tart in front of her was a jelly tart in front of her (as far as she knew), and Sarai picked up the pastry in whole and looked it over. She stuck her tiny tongue out for an experimental lick—
Callum and Rayla watched with bated breath.
—and prompty dropped it, screwing her face up with a, "Bleh!"
Rayla groaned. "So I take it the flavoring wasn't very successful?" She broke off a piece and answered the question herself, seemingly very conflicted and somewhat disturbed. "Ah. Well, if it didn't look so wrong it'd be fine, but I guess this one knows her jelly tarts."
"Maybe this will make her stop liking them so much," Callum wondered. Their plan to keep her away from desserts for the first good while of her life had failed when Soren split one with her without her parents' knowledge. For his part, the guy was very confused why they would be so cruel to begin with.
"Are you kidding?" She reached out and pinched Sarai's cheek between the flat sides of her fingers. "No way. She has her namesake's sweet tooth."
Callum shook his head fondly, then let it fall to his arms on the table. "What now?"
"Now," she sighed, "I think we throw in the towel for the day."
He agreed silently. They sat in their defeat for a while, Sarai occupied with chewing on her mom's finger. At some point, Stella wandered into the room and made eyes at the now-cold veggies laying abandoned in front of the baby.
"Go ahead," Rayla chuckled. Hanging onto the high chair, Stella snagged a green bean and started munching.
Sarai, the cuddlemonkey's current biggest enthusiast, watched her intently. Without so much as a sound, she closed her fist around a piece of broccoli and began eating it.
Callum and Rayla slowly turned to one another, gobsmacked and open-jawed, making choked noises of disbelief as she continued to willingly nibble the vegetable alongside Stella. She gave her parents a funny, almost knowing smile.
"Woo-hoo!" Callum cheered softly. "Good job, team." He extended his fist across the table. Laughing and grinning and peering at him with adoration as if it really had been their effort, she met his knuckles with her own.