Chapter 2: Sweet

After dropping off the outspoken cleric at the healer's tent, Jaffar tries to leave, but Serra's obviously not going to allow it, judging by the annoyed look on her face. "Hey! Where do you think YOU'RE going?"

Where else can he be going? Away, obviously. "No need to stay here..."

"How rude! What about at least saying goodbye first? You're just leaving a lady without properly sending her off?"

"..."

"OOOOOOOOOOOH! That's not very nice, Jaffar." Suddenly, she gets an idea. A devilishly wicked idea... one that only an angel can conjure up, of course. "Don't you say goodbye whenever Nino leaves somewhere? Or vice versa?"

This isn't something that Jaffar's ever thought of before, so he's unsure of how to answer. Serra notices this pretty quickly, and decides to capitalize on it. "So, I'm your friend now, and friends say goodbye to each other."

"You said equals."

"Yes, you said that already. Well, we might as well be friends now, so no need to discuss that anymore," Serra decrees, and Jaffar has no option but to accept it. "You know what else friends do? Look out for each other! So, tomorrow, I'm going to help you see something so exciting that you'll never forget how great I am!"

This is clearly a ruse, of course. Serra's plan is to attempt to do something to get Jaffar in trouble and embarrass him at the same time. But she's not completely cruel; she'll let him get some enjoyment out of the situation...

"So, Jaffar," Serra starts, walking to Jaffar's side and wrapping her arm around his shoulder, "what do you find attractive in a woman?"

That's the last question Jaffar expected to hear from Serra.

And frankly, he doesn't have an answer.

"...I'm not sure."

Serra gapes; how can he not know?

"It's just something I've... never... thought of," he mumbles, uncharacteristically averting his eyes.

Serra appears to think about the statement for a moment, until she suddenly comes up with an idea. "Okay, let's try this. Wait here," Serra instructs, and she runs to the nearby kitchen tent. A few minutes later, she returns with a large bag filled with what Jaffar assumes to be food, but from the little bit of time that he's spent with Serra, anything could be inside there. There's obviously something somewhat heavy in there, for she's having a difficult time carrying it.

Let's see if I can subtly get an answer out of him...

Nevertheless, Serra opens the bag, and she takes out various types of round fruit; a pair of raspberries, a pair of oranges, and a pair of cantaloupes, placing them all a short distance away from each other. When she is finished, she grins.

He's a man. He MUST have a preference about a woman's...

"So, Jaffar, considering our topic of conversation about your taste in women, let me ask you this: which of these pairs of fruits are the most APPEALING to you?"

Jaffar studies the fruits for a minute, and eventually, he points to the cantaloupes without hesitation, causing Serra's eyes to bulge.

He likes them BIG? I never would have expected that, especially considering he's always with Nino, who would clearly fall under the raspberries category...

Serra's disbelief is difficult to mask, but she somehow manages to pull the wool over Jaffar's eyes, so to speak; he has absolutely no idea what she's conjuring. After all, she is sneaky. And considering the fact that she's an agent of St. Elimine, nothing she does can fail. Before she can put her plan into effect, though, she just needs to satisfy her curiosity a bit...

"Perfect. So now that I know your preference..." she starts, stifling a giggle, "what is it about... cantaloupes that appeal to you the most?"

"...the taste."

Serra's jaw drops. That response sounds... really dirty. There's no way he's taking this seriously! How can a man say something so filthy in front of a lady? A lady like Serra, no less?

"You're horrible! You should learn better manners! You shouldn't just spew out something so... so..."

Unable to come up with any more words, Serra looks at her own chest with a whole new meaning. After a massive blush covers her face, she growls angrily before storming off, only barely hearing Jaffar's next words...

"...they're sweet..."

"Jaffar is a pervert!" Serra yells out to nobody in particular, but thankfully, nobody hears her. Jaffar's reputation is already bad enough, and anything else bad said about him would make things worse. But regardless, all Serra wants to do is blow off some steam, so she starts stomping around the camp for a few minutes until Lyn eventually finds her huffing and puffing from stomping too much.

Meanwhile, Serra's bad mood is not a good sign in Lyn's eyes. Just a few minutes earlier, Serra and Jaffar were actually getting along quite well, but clearly something happened after stepping away for a few moments. Nino decided to go off somewhere, so it's only Lyn who decides to come back to see how things are going. "Hello Serra... did something happen with Jaffar?" Lyn asks gently, and she puts her hand on the annoyed cleric's shoulder. "Did he do something to you?"

"Jaffar likes your chest because it tastes sweet."

Lyn is at a complete loss of words. That statement makes absolutely no sense without context. Although, she's not entirely sure whether she wants to understand the context or not. Nevertheless, it sounds funny for some reason, and she just starts laughing quite enthusiastically. "I don't at all understand what you're talking about, but perhaps an explanation might help?"

Serra seems to notice what she just said, and she starts laughing too. "Sorry, it's just your chest is the closest to cantaloupe size in this army right now."

The statement seems to confuse Lyn more, so Serra finally explains what happened, allowing Lyn to somewhat understand the situation. "And you needed to know this information because...?"

"I wanted to embarrass him somehow, just to tease him. The plan was have someone catch him watching someone bathing, but I needed to know his preference to know who else to use. If everything went according to plan, I would have asked you."

Lyn chuckles. "I'll take that as a compliment. But, again, why did you..."

"What's with that 'sweet' comment he made?" Serra now fumes, her mood immediately turning frustrated again as she ignores Lyn's inquiry. "Was he just being stupid? Did he do lots of dirty things with women in the past? I don't know; Lyn, do they taste sweet? I have to know now for some reason."

"Why are you asking me?" Lyn inquires, no longer entirely certain about Serra's intentions. "Why would you think I would know?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Serra responds. "You're one of the few people in the army sizeable enough to be able to taste..."

No, Serra, that's not the obvious reason... that's not even a logical reason...

Before Serra can speak further, a cheerful humming can be heard nearby, and eventually, Nino walks up to the two girls and hands them each a flower; Serra gets a pink flower, and Lyn gets a green flower. "Hello! How's everyone? I missed the conversation, so I'm not sure what you're talking about."

Lyn and Serra look at each other with a mutual understanding of the fact that Nino is probably too young to be listening to what they're talking about. "Just discussing fruits," Lyn finally comments. "Thank you so much for the flower. What's it for?"

"Just thinking of you two! I'm getting flowers for everybody!" she announces, and after waving goodbye, she leaves the vicinity and starts humming once more. As she gets farther and farther away, Lyn has a hunch about something concerning Jaffar's statement, so she causally makes this comment: "Nino is such a sweet girl, isn't she?"

"Yeah, she is," Serra agrees, and she can't help but smile at the flower in her hands. It matches her hair perfectly.

I don't think Serra got the hint there...

Lyn tries another comment: "Hey, Serra, just out of curiosity, how would you compare the tastes of those three fruits you showed Jaffar?"

Serra thinks for a moment, momentarily taking her attention away from her pink flower. "Well, raspberries are kind of sour," she starts, and her mouth puckers just thinking about it, amusing Lyn. "Oranges can be good, but sometimes they're a bit tangy. And cantaloupes, well, those taste really good. They're quite..."

Suddenly, Serra's eyes widen, and she just barely mouths the next word: "...sweet."

It appears that Serra has finally figured out the correlation between Jaffar's actions and Lyn's comments, and now that this revelation has hit her so suddenly, she feels very guilty. All she can do is look at Lyn and quietly mutter, "I... I think I owe Jaffar an apology..."

Lyn nods reassuringly to Serra, and patting her back lightly, informs the cleric, "I believe Jaffar's still where you stormed away from him."

Nodding back to Lyn with determination in her eyes, Serra gets up and walks back to where she shouted at Jaffar, and to her relief, the assassin hasn't moved an inch, although he does appear to be concentrating more than usual about something. When she sits down beside him, he glances in her direction, but his expression doesn't change, and she knows she needs to speak.

"Jaffar," she starts, her voice very slightly betraying her, "I want to apologize to you."

The Angel of Death merely continues to watch the cleric, but even he can see that Serra feels guilty. Even though Jaffar himself doesn't really feel or express emotion, he can still notice it from others. In the past, before many of his victims died by his hand, they would try to plead for mercy, often expressing words like, "I'm not normally like this!", or "It's not my fault!" Some even had the audacity to utter the words, "I'm sorry, please forgive me!" and expect him to take them seriously. They would then be cut down without another word.

But Serra... Serra's words are different. Serra may exaggerate about herself and praise herself, but Jaffar can tell that she is truly sorry. Her normally bright smile is gone, and in its place is a frown that frankly looks out of place.

"I didn't really consider the fact that there might be more to you than meets the eye," Serra admits, and her eyes droop even more than they already are. "I didn't really think about your statement, and I assumed the worst... but now, I've figured it out. Concerning your taste in women, it's about what's on the inside that appeals to you, right? Nino's such a sweet girl, so you made your choice based on that, didn't you?"

He doesn't respond.

"Can you forgive me Jaffar?" Serra asks sincerely, and she holds Jaffar tight in a hug, hoping he understands her heartfelt words.

And to Jaffar's surprise, he does understand.

"Yes..." he quietly replies, "but, I must..."

He falters for a moment; he is not much for communicating words, but for some strange reason, he feels an overwhelming need to properly articulate what's he's thinking. Serra notices this, and she understands. She doesn't want to force him to speak, though, so she speaks for him: "You don't need to say anything... I can tell speaking out makes you anxious..."

Jaffar stays quiet. It probably won't even help if he tries to speak. His role in the Black Fang was always to be the silent killer anyway. His opinion was never asked for; in fact, even though he knows that his fellow Four Fang members respected him and his ability, he was usually instructed to sit and wait for further instructions, meaning they never wanted to hear his opinion in the first place. In fact, even though Nino always felt comfortable enough to talk to him and ask him questions, Serra's the first person who's ever wanted him to keep silent... because she understands that he is not comfortable speaking in the first place.

And that's intriguing to him.

After a few minutes, Serra lets go of the assassin and merely sits on the log beside him, looking out at the campsite in front of them. "You know, we've only known each other for less than an hour, but I feel like I understand you more than some of the people I've known for much longer. Is that weird?"

Jaffar doesn't answer, but clearly she wasn't waiting for one, for she simply continues to talk about a variety of topics, ranging from her prowess as a cleric to more stories about what "Erky" (as she likes to call him) has done to annoy her in the past. They sit like this for at least an hour, and Jaffar doesn't say a word the whole time. He doesn't seem to mind, though, and apparently neither does Serra. He feels like there is no obligation for him to contribute to the conversation, and that's surprisingly calming.

But of course, all good things must come to an end, and Serra yawns and stretches when she seems to have run out of things to say about an hour or two later. However, this time, she actually notices that she did all of the talking again, and it shows on her face. "Sorry, I guess I talked all about myself again... not that that's anything new, ha ha!" she jokes, laughing at her own comment. "You must be bored, so I'll just leave you be..."

"I'm not."

The words surprise Jaffar even more than they surprise Serra, except the surprise is much more evident on Serra's face, since Jaffar doesn't express emotions. "You're... you're not?"

Serra can hardly believe it, and neither can Jaffar for that matter. The words are quite encouraging, though, and Serra smiles warmly at her quiet companion. "Well, there WAS one more story I wanted to tell you..."

As Serra starts talking once again, Lyn walks nearby and notices the two unlikely friends together again, and she's happy that it seems Serra's made up with Jaffar. She's genuinely happy the two of them get along so well, but it's strange as to why. She thought the friendship would work; that's why she suggested Serra to Nino in the first place; but she didn't expect it to work out this well.

She'll have to wait and see what happens in the future. Maybe, the relationship will eventually flourish into something else...

Author's Notes

Hurray for slow updates!

Wow, this was SO LATE. Things have just been so busy. I've been away on vacation, I got a costume ready for the Aikon, (Aikon is Winnipeg's yearly anime convention) and life has just been hectic. Glad I've finally updated!

This is kind of a weird chapter. What in the world was Serra thinking? Honestly, I'm always up for laughs, but this is still just really weird. The main goal was just to draw Jaffar and Serra closer, and I believe I succeeded, so YAY. I hope I'm portraying Jaffar correctly, for he's obviously the much more difficult character to work with. I fear I'm making him too emotional or expressive. And I guess Lyn is taking more of a lead in driving the relationship than Nino is?

Oh yes, and considering cantaloupes, they ARE quite sweet and tasty. The fruits, anyway. I have no experience concerning... OTHER cantaloupes. :p In case nobody noticed, Vaida wouldn't have joined the army at this point, which is why she was not considered at all in this whole strange scenario.

Hope the next chapter of AGOH doesn't take two months to write! And then I hope the next chapter of this fic doesn't take two months to write as well!