💘 fake relationship / mutual pining / dared to kiss rayllum? 👀
I finally finished it! Been dealing with sick kiddos, so not much time to write. 😓
This takes place in a continuity where Harrow, for whatever reason (probably Sarai's influence, let's be honest) reached out and started peace talks with the Moonshadow elves... and it kinda worked! He and Sarai are still very much alive. There's definitely still very tentative trust on all sides, but one of the things they decided on, for whatever reason (read: I think bodyguard romance is cute) is that they'd do a kind of guard exchange and see if they could find someone the princes vibed with.
I am gonna say they're more their post-timeskip ages here because I don't see the Moonshadow elves sending a 15-year-old, even a prodigy, but they sent her as an assassin in canon, so 🤷🏼♀️
(ask game can be found here)
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What am I even doing?
Rayla marveled at the idiocy that had led her to this point. Most of it hadn't been hers.
Most of it.
It was usually Soren or Callum who started trouble. When it wasn't them, it was Ezran, except on one memorable occasion when the Crow Master had excitedly demanded a demonstration of her abilities. Rayla had—stupidly—obliged, stepped into moonlight... And every single bird in the loft had lost its mind, including Seluna, the crescent hawk that Rayla used to communicate with her family back home. (Her father had returned her next communication saying that Seluna was bred for speed rather than intelligence, and it showed.)
Much as Rayla would have liked to blame anyone else, it truly was her own fault for developing a crush on a prince (not by blood, not that that seemed to matter) of Katolis. This whole guard exchange had been a stupid idea, not that she'd ever tell King Harrow that. Sure, fostering trust after so many generations of animosity was all well and good, but an elf even thinking about romance with a human prince? She'd be sent back home, and she wasn't sure she'd be all in one piece. There was no way for her to get a different assignment either. No; she'd been sent specifically because the princes seemed to elude every other guard they were given, and King Harrow and Queen Sarai had thought that a bodyguard closer to their age might develop a better rapport.
Well, it had worked quite well. Too well, where Callum was concerned. Even Soren had noticed. Perhaps it was his responsibility to notice when someone was trying to get too close, but if his goal was to prevent that, this certainly wasn't a good way to address it. If Soren were anyone else, Rayla would suspect an underhanded, brilliant plot to get her sent back to the Silvergrove for good. As it was, she suspected he missed being able to torment his sister, who was currently studying magic in Xadia. Would he have dared his sister to kiss Callum like he had dared Rayla? Claudia would probably have had the nerve to on her own, if she was anything like Soren.
Hurried footsteps at the other end of the hall pulled her attention from her thoughts.
"Rayla! Rayla, I figured it out!" Callum was beaming.
He was always on about something these days. He'd wanted to go study magic instead of Claudia, but he'd been deemed both too inexperienced and too much of a target. Even the peace with the Moonshadow elves was tenuous. He'd settled for pestering Rayla to explain it to him instead. She hadn't considered herself to be any kind of teacher, and she'd sighed more than once that she'd been brought in as a guard and not a governess, but Callum was persistent.
She had to admit he was also bright. He'd been able to piece together what Rayla said with what he'd learned from letters Claudia had sent and the scant few books in the library that had anything useful to say, and while he hadn't been successful at forging a connection on his own, he'd been able to use the materials Xadia was willing to trade to the human kingdoms—mostly rocks and a few plants—in ways Rayla hadn't thought of before.
He'd been working on several projects recently. One of them must have worked out. If nothing else, it was bound to be interesting.
Rayla blinked, remembering she was actually supposed to ask. "Figured... what out?"
Callum grabbed her arm and dragged her over to a window. "Look!" He stepped into the moonlight and sketched a rune in the air. "Vitreus."
He didn't go completely invisible, but if someone wasn't looking carefully, they wouldn't see him.
Rayla was already imagining the myriad ways this could go wrong.
"It doesn't really work if I'm not in moonlight—" Callum stepped forward and he mostly reappeared, but slightly blurry "—but I can do something that you can do!"
Rayla wanted to point out that he'd already capably performed several small spells beyond any ability she had, but that wasn't the point. Callum's infectious enthusiasm had her smiling back at him, anyway.
It had her heart pounding, too.
Maybe if she just did it now, when the time felt right, he'd never know it was a dare? She wanted to do it anyway—Soren was annoyingly right about that—so it wasn't as though she was doing it out of malice...
Nobody had to see them, she realized. Rayla yanked Callum back into the moonlight, waiting only just long enough to be sure he'd disappeared again before she leaned in and pressed her lips against his for just a moment. She drew back quickly, careful to stay in the light of the moon.
"Did you just... Was that..." Callum blinked. "Rayla, did you mean that? Like, did you mean that?"
She should have shoved him back out of the moonlight so she could see him clearly. She thought his voice was hopeful, but she couldn't be sure she wasn't just imagining it. He had taken her hands in his, though, which seemed to be a good sign. "Yeah, I did," she said quietly.
Callum sighed, and Rayla could hear his grin in his voice. "Oh, that's a relief, because Soren told me I should if I wanted to but I didn't think you actually wanted to and—" he was cut off as Rayla pulled him back in for another kiss.
After a long and rather pleasant moment, she drew back just far enough to speak. "Right now, less talk and more kissing."
She was glad Callum had never been particularly picky about his status or title. She was ordering a prince to kiss her!
He was, apparently, entirely willing to oblige. If only I'd known.
Well, she knew now. There were certainly still bound to be hurdles, but this, at least, was simple enough, and for the moment, Rayla was content with it.
