Apple Picking

There's no animosity. Everything is peaceful. Fiora doesn't make fun of Melia's apple beret, and Melia doesn't object to Fiora's insisting that she carry the singular pumpkin they picked up at the gift shop before getting on the hay-bale-lined truck with the rest of the tour-takers (wouldn't do to have someone else snatch up the best-looking gourd of the bunch, now would it?) and trundling out to the heart of the orchard.

Really, it's picturesque. The checker pattern tinted with the faintest flush of pink on Melia's petticoat-like dress makes a perfect counterpoint for the rich deep maroony reds of Fiora's flannel, likewise loafers and ankle boots with panels of color perfectly complementary, and bows and belts and buckles, rick-rack and frills and corduroy and rolled cuffs all, play in delightful harmony. There's not a mar on the day, crisp afternoon riding the gorgeous sunset into a mellow evening that will then in its own turn give way to a chilly night as the girls curl up on the couch together with cocoa, or cider, or what have you, and watch some old movie or other.

But that wouldn't be very interesting to read about, now would it? So let me just throw a carefully-crafted wrench into the works. It's simply what I do!

"Fiora, I thought we agreed that I could make the apple pie!" Melia exclaims with the slightest stamp of her delicate foot.

"Melia, I thought we agreed that it won't taste as good if you make it!" Fiora retorts, hand on the other girl's arm wavering between holding her down on the ground and shoving her gently back in the direction of the apple she was in the middle of reaching for before embarking upon this fresh new argument.

Now, Melia knows, intellectually, that Fiora means no offense, and is simply pointing out that a pie made with the fruit arranged in a painstaking rose-like swirl cascading towards the center of the tart dish won't have as much gastronomical oomph as one prepared with ooey-gooey raw-sugar maceration and chunky little cutouts of dough in leaf or heart shapes tossed on top for panache. The sentiment is not even quite unwelcome, because Melia loves Fiora's cooking just as much as anyone and everyone else, if not a little more because she's such a dutiful partner.

"I hardly think I'm a stranger to making a delicious dessert," Melia snips back, and jerks firmly down onto her heels again, stuffing the recently-collected apple into the basket hung over her elbow. "And these apples have all been hand-selected to be free of blemishes that will impede their use in such a preparation." Fancy words, but she's right, isn't she?

Fiora sighs, huffs, cocks her head to the side and reaches a gangly arm out to a branch behind her. "Oh, come on!" she proclaims, "Look at this one! I think it's cute, honestly!" Said adorable apple that has just been retrieved sight unseen is missing its stem and has a broad bruise covering its right hemisphere. Melia huffs, herself.

"If you're going to pick apples like that, we may as well just make applesauce. Really, Fiora."

Instead of batting back, with something like, "Really, Fiora, what?" the addressed girl simply grins. "Oh, why don't we? Then I can make pork chops, and everyone loves those!"

Of course. Everyone does. Raising a single gray eyebrow, Melia puts on her most princessive pout. Again, she likes pork chops as much as the next person, especially when Fiora makes them, with the perfect blend of spices that somehow manage to be not too spicy yet powerfully piquant, and the melon chutney that cuts against the richness of the pork and potatoes just so, and the carefully-cleaned clematis leaves she uses to garnish Melia's plate specifically...but- but this is just too much! "I know everyone does, but do you see everyone else here? It's just me and you."

To be precise, the others think that these two are off visiting Tyrea, and since none are quite willing or perhaps even able to fend for their own eyebrows with such a piece of inmitable if not inevitable work as she, they've let well enough alone. If Kallian knows, he's not betrayed to Dunban (let's not think about whether that's weird or not), and that's good enough for the day, at the very least.

So Fiora giggles, retracts her hand for good and uses it to cover her mouth (that's an odd tic, and then again it's absolutely adorable), before answering, "No, you're right. It is just the two of us. Ain't that swell?"

Swell. Peachy, it would be, if they were picking peaches, but they're not, it's apples, which get bruised all the same but aren't half as fuzzy, and suddenly Melia is reminded of how much she wishes she'd brought a jacket. She'll continually refuse Fiora's, though, if only so she can steal it in the car on the way back and cite the sudden excess of warmth as to why she'll fall promptly asleep.

But back to the apples. "I...I certainly am glad I'm here with you," Melia admits shyly. The promised, indeed merely apocryphal, pie has been all but forgotten, because there's no friend nor stranger about, and it's quite romantic there in the apple groves, isn't it? Wonderful. The sun keeps setting and setting and setting, purples mingling with myriad reds and oranges and golds, and oh, isn't fall wonderful? But Melia won't lose sight of that telltale twinkle in Fiora's eye.

"Good!" says Fiora, triumphant once more. "Then we'll make the pie together. That way we can be sure it'll taste great AND look amazing. Right?" With that, she thrusts her arm forward to loop around the crook of Melia's elbow and gleefully points out a suspiciously sleek fox lurking between a cluster of stumps just a little ways away; their new goal, so it seems.

"R-right," Melia, apparently appeased, gets out between her furious blushing, and steps to. After all, not all the apples can be kept perfect on the jostly rides back to first the farmhouse and then whichever of their houses they'll end up at for the night. Maybe Fiora's right. Maybe it is just better to...throw your lot in and hope for the best! That's what Sharla would say, too.

But Sharla's not here, then, is she? So while Fiora's busy petting the still-glistening fox, Melia sneaks off and gathers an extra basket of apples, each impossibly pristine, just in case. You know what they say - it pays to be prepared! For whatever little mishaps may come your way...