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Callum’s slumber is uncomfortably disturbed by an incessant tickling at his face, accompanied by the lightest kiss to his forehead. His eyes slowly crack open, nearly blinded by the sight in front of him: Rayla, leaning down, hovering above his face with an eager smile on hers, the morning summer light outlining her loose hair like a halo.
He shuffles back slightly so that he leans against the headboard as he wipes the sleep out of his eyes; when he finishes, Rayla is positively buzzing with excitement.
“Happy birthday Mr. Mage!”
His eyebrows briefly shoot up as he remembers the date before his face settles into a dumbstruck expression. He takes in her presence, all her warmth and life, and he realises that this will be the first birthday of his that they will spend together. The first birthday where he doesn’t have to feel that soft ache in his heart constantly calling him beyond the border to wherever she lies. He finally smiles, one of the easiest of his life, and moves to embrace her. She seems shocked by the force of his affection, stiff for a moment in his arms, but quickly melts into his touch.
He nuzzles into her shoulder slightly as he hugs her just a bit tighter, not entirely ready to let go of her yet. “Thank you so much”.
“For staying” goes unsaid.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Once they’re both dressed, since Rayla had wasted no time in rushing to his side the moment she woke, they head to the dining room.
Ezran, Soren, Corvus and Opeli have already taken their places around the table, with Ezran situated at the side for a change, a mouthwatering breakfast spread before them. There’s eggs cooked in all sorts of ways, sausages, potatoes, cakes, and of course, fresh summer fruit.
Callum gently tugs on Rayla’s hand in his palm, and they sit next to Ezran, taking in the food’s fresh aroma. Callum takes a moment to give the table his thanks, and promptly digs into a plate of fruit, the others following his lead. There’s light discussion about the weather, and the upcoming festivities, everyone feeling hopeful about this new era of harmony, with the Katolis and Evrkynd building efforts going smoothly.
As they finish up, people begin drifting out of the room slowly, Rayla lingering behind waiting for Callum to finish cleaning up his plate.
“So? Any other special plans for the birthday boy?” There’s a teasing glint in her eyes, but he knows she’s asking earnestly.
He shakes his head. “Honestly, I was just hoping to spend some time with the people I love. That’s all. I told Ezran I didn’t want a party but… they’ll probably get me a cake in the evening.”
She starts to bounce a little on her toes, oddly excited. “Ok! Meet me in the gardens in let’s say… 15 minutes?”
Callum’s eyes widen for a moment, not having anticipated that and even more clueless as to what they’d be doing in the gardens. “Sure, but what are you-”
At that, Rayla cuts him off with a kiss to his cheek. “Great! See you there!”
He watches as she leaves confidently, leaving him trying to make sense of the scene.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When Callum finally strolls into the castle gardens he is surprised to find Rayla sitting patiently on a rug under a tree, tapping her feet in anticipation. As soon as she notices him, she looks up and her eyes crinkle.
“Hey, you.”
For a second he stops and stares because well, he can. The daylight adds a golden hue to the tips of her head, making her look like one of the princesses in the story books he read as a child.
She promptly springs onto her feet and brings his hands into hers, her smile wide and her cheeks flushed from the sun. She steps closer to him as she starts, “So…”
“So?”
“So, remember how three years ago, I’d told you that I’d teach you the Moonshadow birthday dance?”
He nods, recalling their excited brainstorming; how much she had looked forward to his birthday, to celebrating it with him, being able to share that piece of her culture with him, before her doubts pulled her away.
She mutters the next part under the breath bitterly, like the words tasted foul in her mouth, allowing her eyes to sink to the floor. “And then I’d left you without saying bye…”
He brightens and cups her face, bringing her gaze to his, and smiles encouragingly. “You’re here now.”
She shakes off the sour memory. Her words are shy, still ruminating over the could-have-beens, shrugging her shoulders meekly as she forces herself to not look at the ground again. “I’d thought…I could teach you now?”
He pulls her flush to him, jolting her out of her self-deprecating state. She looks like deer startled by the town noise. “Yes!” He chuckles at her still-expression, realising he has no idea if they’re even supposed to be this close. “Umm. So, how are we supposed to start this again?”
Rayla snaps out of her trance blinking a few times before she begins her instructions, finally laughing along with him. “So for starters, we don’t need to be this close.” She steps away and giggles as he dramatically pouts at the lack of contact, before deciding to lean in for a moment and give him a quick kiss on the lips, earning her a smile. She takes her position again and gestures at the space between them. “This should be ok distance-wise. It’s not usually a partner dance, it’s more done in a circle with a few close friends and family? But since it’s just us, we can still stay fairly close.” She winks at him. “Ok. We usually have accompanying music, but since we don’t have it, I’ll just hum.”
She begins to hum, testing a few notes before finally settling on an up-beat melody reminiscent of the music played at square dances in the city. After a few beats pass, he frowns pensively, and raises his finger as a question leaves his lips. “Uh, so do we just freestyle this?”
Rayla stops the tune she has going and chortles, throwing her head back and half-heartedly chiding him, “Patience, love.” Once she’s gotten her giggle out of the way she clarifies. “It’s a circle dance, like most of the Moonshadow dances you’ve seen actually, just a lot less proper.”
She moves to correct his form, lining his arms and showing him how his legs should be. It’s not lost on him how similar this is to the first time she taught him a dance, when they were much younger, and much less wounded, but still not as happy as they were now.
Eventually they find a rhythm, spinning around each other and clapping with each twirl. They pick up the pace with each circle, trying not to trip over each other and laughing all the while, aiming to complete eighteen cycles for Callum’s eighteen years of life.
Once they finish, Rayla spins out gracefully, coming to a stop just outside their impromptu dancing ring, whereas Callum all but flops onto the grass, panting. “If it’s already this hard for an eighteenth birthday, I can’t imagine what it’ll be like when we’re thirty.”
Rayla takes a seat next to him, and threads her fingers through his. “I’ll find ways to keep you fit. Don’t worry.”
He would try to sit up, but he’s still too out of breath from his birthday dance. His breath has a rasp to it when he asks “Is that a threat?”
There’s a hopeful glint in her eyes as she responds, “No, it’s a promise.”
Dancing, or any kind of physical activity, wasn’t his forte as a child. But spending the next few years doing it all with Rayla?
There’s not a trace of sarcasm when he tells her “I can’t wait.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As evening falls over the unfinished castle, the residents gather in the dining room once again for dinner. There isn’t as wide of a spread as there was for breakfast, but there’s an assortment of meats, vegetables and of course: bread. The family devours the meal; after the day of work and birthday celebrations, they were starving.
The room is filled with warmth and love and all of the feelings Rayla wishes Callum had for all the past birthdays that she probably ruined.
After dessert, caramel flan and birthday cake galore, Callum steals Rayla away to their room, gaining a few teasing comments from Soren.
Once the door is shut firmly behind them, and Callum exhales in relief at being done for the day, looking up to share a smile he’s saved just for her eyes only, he notices Rayla pouting. Her face is scrunched up in a way that makes it look like she wants to cry but is holding it in.
He is at her side immediately and rubs her shoulders in an attempt to soothe her. “Hey, what’s wrong?”
She hiccups. “It’s just– Your last birthdays weren’t that nice, right?”
He makes an awkward face and rubs the back of his neck sheepishly. “Yeah… Well, they weren’t the best.”
“And it was my fault.”
She looks so guilty.
A year ago he would’ve been inclined to agree, he would’ve fed off of that guilt, rolling his eyes and telling her that it was. That happened when you ditched your boyfriend on his birthday.
They weren’t like that anymore, though. He wasn’t like that anymore. As much as a small piece of him does feel that, yes, his birthday was so drab those years because she left, it’s in the past and it’s not worth her beating herself up. She’s the reason this birthday was so wonderful.
“Not exactly,” he starts. She looks at him skeptically in response, still wiping her eyes. “When you left, it hurt a lot, and that pain didn’t just go away. It would calm down for a bit… and then hit me like a wave on my birthday.”
“Callum, I’m really sorr–”
He holds up his palm, shushing her. “None of that. You’ve already apologised enough, yeah?”
“Ok…” She sounds disbelieving but lets him continue anyway.
“And that pain… It’s not really gone, but it’s not really important anymore? And that’s not to say it didn’t affect me, because it did, but there are other feelings that are stronger now– right now: feelings that you give me.” He takes her hands, rubbing his thumbs over her knuckles, looking at the different shades that lie just on the backs of her hands. Her breath hitches, already shallow from the small crying session. “Like how I love you. I love you so much, Rayla, and you being here with me means everything.” He lifts his hands to brush her tears away before she can do so herself. “It’s everything I’ve ever wanted.”
She smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “I’m glad,” and then she adds with more potency, “and I don’t intend on leaving you again.”
“I know. I believe you.”
She searches his eyes for any uncertainty, any small inconsistency in his expression that would confirm that he still doesn’t trust her.
She doesn’t find it.
He opens his mouth to keep talking but it occurs to Rayla that he will not stop if he starts again, and then won’t be able to receive his present before the end of the night, so she lovingly cuts him off.
“Ok, loverboy. I need to fetch something really quickly and then I’ll be back, yeah?”
He nods meekly, a blush tinging his cheeks at having rambled to a point where Rayla had to intervene.
She presses a short kiss to his cheek. “See you in five minutes!”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When she returns, she’s hiding her arms behind her back, and tells him to cover his eyes. He figures that she’s trying to give him a birthday present and he tries to protest, but she beats him to it.
“No complaining! You get me nice stuff all the time. There’s no harm in me returning the favour one time.”
He knew it wouldn’t only be this time. It would be next year and the year after that, but he supposed she could have this.
What’s placed into his hands is leathery, and surprisingly heavy. He wiggles his fingers around and swipes against what feels like the edges of pages on one side: it’s a book. That makes sense. He didn’t know exactly what kind of book it was, though. It could be a tome of some kind, given the dusty feel to it, but that wouldn’t have been easy for Rayla to acquire.
Whatever it was, it was definitely old.
“Okay,” he hears, “you can open your eyes now.”
Once he does, he’s not quite sure what he’s looking at. He squints at it. The cover is dark and the title seems covered over. Any attempts to remove the soot seem futile. She probably got it from the castle’s rubble.
“What is it?”
She blinks, forgetting that it wasn’t particularly obvious. “Oh! Look inside. It’ll make more sense.”
He opens the book and gasps when he reads the words inside, or rather, the name.
It’s one of his father’s poetry anthologies.
“Wha– How– How did you find this?”
She kicks her leg self-consciously. “Well… I did some digging, pun not intended, and I found something. So, surprise!” She moves out her hands and wiggles her fingers on display.
Now it’s Callum’s turn to start tearing up (except, happily) and he hugs her again, just as intense as he had this morning, maybe more so. She can feel the comforting weight of the book against her back as he does it.
“Thank you so much. I love it.” He leans back and kisses her forehead. “I love you. You’re amazing.”
“Coming from you that’s–”
“I really mean it, Rayla. You wouldn’t have had to get me anything, and this would still be one of the best days of my life. Do you know how long I’ve wanted to spend a birthday with you? You make my life that much better by just being in it.”
He didn’t want to spend another second without her.
As they walk, hand in hand, back to their rooms—Opeli had given Rayla her own, and even though it was hardly used, they agreed the extra space could be helpful—Callum thinks over a talk he had with Harrow when he was around twelve.
He’d asked his step-father how he knew he wanted to marry his mother. There were stories from the fairy tales he read as a child, but they always seemed a bit unrealistic. He liked Claudia, but it wasn’t like he wanted it to go that far, at least, not at this point. They were both still young, after all. He just wanted to know what it played out like in real life.
Harrow had told him that he had courted Sarai for a few months, very soon after meeting her, which was somewhat strange for a royal. Usually they married a noble that they had seen in functions or generally around high society for years before deciding to formally court. He was enchanted by her spark, he had said. There was a liveliness about her, something that encompassed all of her other attributes: her kindness, her humour, her strength. She felt real, like a human being he could connect with and not just someone who was reasonable to marry.
As their relationship progressed, he found himself more and more smitten by her. Callum had asked what changed. He seemed to have always been smitten by the way he was telling this story. As Harrow thought, scratching his beard like the wizards Callum read about as a young child, he arrived at a conclusion that stuck with Callum.
He knew he wanted to marry Sarai when he had realised that he wanted to be with her for every moment of their lives, that she was now an integral part of his life and it didn’t feel like separation was even a possibility anymore. It was also when he realised that he was the best version of himself with her. As wonderful as she was on her own, two spouses should be good for each other, he told Callum. They should make each other the people they wanted to become.
They were all the things Callum knows he feels for Rayla today.
As much as he knew as much when he was fourteen, and in the past few months after getting her back, there’s a new sort of weight to it today. It’s like all the pieces have finally come together and struck in the heart like the arrow of the fated matchmaker, leaving him with barely any thoughts other than her.
They change into their pyjamas and lay in bed after washing up. The dancing must have tired out Rayla more than she let on (or maybe it was the stress) because now she’s out as a light.
Watching the rise and fall of her chest, snuggled under the summer blanket they have on his bed, he feels more sure of nothing other than her.