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. . .
Anora had not been to the Departure County fair grounds since Ephemer took her to the spring festival. She almost thought they had gone to a completely different place seeing it now. One corner of the grounds was used for a corn maze, another for a pumpkin patch, and the rest held an orchard with at least three different apple varieties. It was rather impressive, but all of her interest was nearly drained at this point.
Going to the fair grounds had been Skuld's idea. She wanted to collect apples so she could bake pies later on. Which, of course meant that Ephemer had been invited by proxy. Anora wasn't exactly sure why Skuld wanted her to come along- but at least she had managed to convince her to allow Strelitzia to come along. The flower girl and the baker, no surprise, took to each other like they had been friends for years.
Ephemer said nothing to the girls on the ride over. Instead, he opted to look at the window with the purposeful intention of avoiding Anora. Skuld and Strelitzia didn't seem to notice- the two discussing baking techniques and fresh ingredients without a care in the world. Anora felt invisible as she sat by the other window. Her stomach was churning, just waiting for the moment when Ephemer would reach over Skuld and Strelitzia just to say hi, or poke her, or something.
He never did, so Anora went unseen.
The four of them got out of the taxi and were all but pulled by Strelitzia toward the orchard. With a wide smile on her face, she took a deep breath in before calmly letting it out.
"It smells so nice here." Strelitzia sighed. "The sweet apples, the greenery brushed with dew, the pollen..."
"Watch yourself, Zee," Ephemer, who was walking a good three paces behind the girls, bemused. "You're drooling."
"Am I?" she nervously squeaked before wiping her mouth with her sleeve.
"Don't listen to him," Skuld then told Strelitzia. "He's been super prickly recently."
"And with that," the young man announced, moving a bit faster to walk past the girls, "I'm departing from you lovely ladies. Have fun on your apple picking adventures without me."
"Coward!" Skuld warned him even though he was almost out of earshot. The young man gave a shameless shrug as he disappeared into the corn maze. His friend let out an annoyed huff. Strelitzia and Anora exchanged a small glance before the carrot-red haired girl clapped her hands together.
"Skuld, you and I can go look at the Granny Smiths." she suggested, trying to remain cheerful. "Anora, do you want to go pick some Golden Delicious for us?"
The youngest of the three girls carefully nodded her head in agreement. After this, the three of them bought three wicker baskets to put their apples in before going their separate ways. A small pit in Anora's stomach formed when she realized that she was alone. She should have brought her music player or something- anything to distract her mind as she walked along the rows of trees for apples.
She walked for a few minutes before turning her attention to an apple directly above her. It wasn't anything special, that apple, but something about it seemed a little off. Anora gave a small tilt her head in curiosity. She started to reach for it, but immediately stopped when she saw something move near it. Fully prepared to scream, Anora waited a few moments before realizing that it was a small green worm. She watched, almost unblinking, as the worm made its way from the branch to the apple. The corner of her mouth twitched as she considered something. Slowly, carefully, Anora plucked the apple with the worm on it from the tree, then set the apple down on the ground. The worm was now making its way through the apple's exterior, leading Anora squat down to watch it with interest.
A small smile appeared on the young woman's face. Her concentration was broken when she heard someone let out a long sigh. She knew who it belonged to- and it didn't surprise her in the slightest.
"You can come out, Ephemer." Anora said, loud enough to be heard, but still quiet enough that it could have been ignored. "I know you're there."
Coming out from behind a tree, Ephemer sheepishly chuckled as he rubbed the back of his neck. "Guess I should never play hide and seek with you around, huh?" he nervously noted.
Anora stood up and gave him a rather angered raise of her eyebrow. Ephemer visibly paled upon seeing it.
"I... uh, I guess I have some explaining to do..."
"You've been ignoring me all week."
Ephemer flinched. "Y-yeah... I have. I'm sorry."
"Are you?"
This time, Ephemer flinched as if Anora had hit him instead. He likely wouldn't have felt as guilty if she had.
"Anora," he finally struggled to say, "I... I love you. A lot. And I just... I just want you to know that at any given moment. I want us to go to different places. I want to see your face light up with excitement when something interests you. I want to see you happy, and in love, and... and so beautifully curious. But the longer we're together, the more I realize that I can't do that. I can't give you new places to go to. I can't keep you curious, and happy, and..."
"You shouldn't have to."
For a moment, Ephemer looked up at her and blinked. Anora took it as a sign to continue.
"We don't have to go places to be a couple." she told him. "I just want you to talk to me. I don't care what we do, or where we do it. I just want to know, to be sure, that you'll be there when I need you the most. This week? With you ignoring me just because you can't take me places? That's stupid, Ephemer."
Again, the young man flinched, wishing Anora would just hit him and get over with it. The expression she was giving him was still hard, but it was also starting to slowly soften. Anora took a large step toward him without so much a blink. She slipped her hands into his to further gain his attention. A jolt coursed through both their bodies at the touch. Could they really be that starved for each other after four days? Anora gently nibbled at her lower lip before pulling Ephemer closer to her.
"I love you." she quietly admitted. "But you don't need to bend over backwards to keep me happy. We're only teenagers; being happy all the time just isn't possible."
"Yeah, but..."
Anora shut him up with a quick kiss. Ephemer didn't resist- his mind suddenly feeling too sluggish to object. When they pulled away, Anora let out a thoughtful sigh.
"Remember how you felt when Skuld and I were in the hospital?" she quietly asked him, "That's how I'll feel if you hurt yourself while trying to keep me happy. And you will. Your determination is one of the reasons why I love you. But you shouldn't let it be the thing that kills you either."
Ephemer gave a slow nod. His eyes could barely stay open as he tried to steal another kiss from her; too bad Anora kept denying him the chance.
"I understand." he eventually agreed. "I get it. But if you keep talking, you're going to lose your voice tomorrow."
Anora gave Ephemer a funny look before realizing that he was joking. Seeing her confusion allowed Ephemer to let out a light laughter at her expense. It didn't last very long, though- a pensive expression then coming across on his feature.
"Let's... cool our jets a bit." the young man slowly started to suggest. "Try to work on our schoolwork, meet up when there aren't fifty different projects going on. Kinda like what it was before. We can still eat together at lunch and stuff, but maybe we could spend a little less time together after class."
For some reason, a small shot of horror ran up Anora's spine.
"Can you still spend the night?" she asked, almost too quickly. "On Saturdays?"
"Of course." he promised. "Always. We can even make Saturday our 'Just Us' day! Even if we don't see each other all week -and Ub Iwerks forbid neither of us are sick- then we can have Saturday all to ourselves."
"Well, I hope you two don't mind helping me bake later this week." Skuld cut in. She was now holding a rather full basket of apples, each one a bright green with very little blemishes. "There's no way I'm peeling all these apples by myself."
Ephemer and Anora gave each other a quick glance before looking back to Skuld.
"Why can't Strelitzia help you?" Ephemer questioned with a raise of his eyebrow.
"Because I promised Lauriam that I'd help him later." Strelitzia informed him. Her face was glowing with joy- her feet rocking against the ground in amusement. "Besides, Skuld told me that you never waste an opportunity to steal a taste test."
"Whose side are you on anyway?"
Before Strelitzia could even answer, the sound of Anora suddenly bursting into laughter caught their attention. All three of them asked Anora if she was alright- but she couldn't answer. Right now, in this moment, she was safe and surrounded by the people she loved. She was happy. Ephemer was the first to realize this, and in suddenly remembering what she had told him earlier, went into a laughter of his own. Skuld followed, then Strelitzia joined in as well.
Nothing in this world could have ruined their joy; absolutely nothing at all.