Zorroku and Peaches

New Beginnings

"Does the tree itself fruit? Or just flower?" You asked him.

"It does fruit, if you leave the flowers on the tree, and don't harvest them at all, there is something like a bunch of long bean pods that grows when the flower shrivels and falls off on it's own. The mouras call it vanilla. It's used to make sweet food. It's...it's very good. Especially when put with ice cream and yogurt. Not so much cheese though. But many make sweet baked goods with it and you can add it to liquor and it'll flavor the liquor very well, very delicious. But inside the pod are seeds that you can plant or you can graft the branches and make new trees that way too." He expounded.

"Oh! I've been given vanilla beans before! I had no idea what to do with them. But they were apparently very valuable, and you do have to be careful with the pods, because a little goes a long way." You realized.

"Yeah. You should have at least one bunch of them in the kitchen though." Zorroku nodded in it's general direction.

"Do the flowers need bees though?" You asked him.

"Yes, bees and usually birds. Mouras are bird shapeshifters. They transform into very tiny, little birds that drink nectar and between the birds moving from flower to flower from tree to tree, the flowers get pollinated." He expounded.

"So is it like a peach or apple tree? In that, they will need more than one? Because with those other trees, the more you have, the better they do." You asked.

"Yes." He nodded.

"Well surely, after today, I should be able to afford a second." You muttered.

"Yeah, you should be able to afford to have your own grove after today." Zorroku nodded with a soft chuckle.

"Well, thank you for telling me that. Kids, we should be careful with it and the others ok?" You urged them.

"Yes Mama." They all nodded as Becina slid from the couch to the floor to fold her arms on the table and stare adoringly at the little sapling as you could already tell she was going to probably be the biggest help for it.

Then you heard a bell ring before Bully looked over the high roof banister to see Cleo at the door again, with bundles of things in her arms.

"Oh, it's Cleo to get the rest of the letters, I got it." Bully immediately jumped to his feet and rushed down to the door.

"Hey, I just got done sorting through all those letters, I have more for you." Bully greeted as he came to the door.

"Actually, um, I need to return these to you and apologize for imputing bad motives onto my family when I assumed they were one thing, when they clearly weren't." Cleo apologized as she handed him all the stacks of letters that had all been resealed in new envelopes.

"What did they end up being?" He asked as he took them.

"Gifts." She answered.

"Did you want to come in? And help me with all of this?" He asked before Cleo nodded and stepped through the door and followed him as he walked back to where they had been earlier as he seemed to have gone through all of them and had already organized and sorted them.

"My family placed bets in your honor for the purpose that the winnings would be paid out to you and your siblings and pay for your care and education, regardless of the outcome." Cleo clarified as Bully used a letter opener to open the others, noting Cleo's handwriting on the new envelopes that were bigger than the first to show that she simply put the old envelopes and their contents into new envelopes but, hopefully didn't disturb the contents.

"Oh, that was nice of them." He smiled as he put them down before he sunk down into the sofa as she did the same.

"I'm really sorry for making such a scene when I was here earlier, I had no right to do so. I just...it would have been better if I had stayed out of it and just asked my parents what they were writing when I noticed that they were." Cleo murmured quietly as she fidgeted with her fingernails before she noticed that Bully had made seven stacks as he pulled out the various stacks of bills and began sorting them.