Summary: "Hey, I like her too. But the thing is, she's... not telling us everything. I can feel it." Or, a oneshot in which Callum likes Rayla, against his better judgement. Set in between 1x03 and up until 1x06. [Rayla/Callum]

chapter title comes from edith wharton's, "the age of innocence"

(each time) you happen to me all over again

The first time Callum leaves Rayla alone with Ezran, he's nervous.

It's not that Ez is dumb, because he isn't, and it's not that Rayla's dangerous, even though she is, but because they've only been travelling through the woods for a day or two, and he can still remember the way her blades felt at his throat. His eyes track her as she plots out their path through the woods towards the Banthor Lodge, even if he's the one giving instructions, and he can't shake the feeling that she's in charge. Even if he and Ezran are princes and she's just an assassin, and it's their dragon egg, and they left everything behind to try and deliver it to the Dragon Queen.

The again, Callum considers, Rayla had too. And sometimes she smiles and teases him, and he can forget how they met. But then he looks at Ezran—there's only two targets tonight—and thinks of what would have happened if Callum hadn't talked long enough, if Rayla had been more impatient, if she'd found Ezran first, and he knows he can't forget.

He can't.

The thing is, Callum likes her. She's quick witted with a snarky streak, she knows her way around the forest and is kind to Ezran. Sure, she teases Callum a bit more than he'd like, but she also teaches him about magic, and calls him a mage. She's cool, too, with her dual swords and fast paced fighting moves. He knows that if any enemies show up, between her blades and his magic, they can protect Ezran and the Egg.

And as the days pass, he doesn't think she'll turn those blades on them again, either. She'd fought the older elf, Runaan, had offered to go into the tower with him to save his dad. She doesn't drink blood, she's not a monster, and she tosses his cube into his lap with a scowl, but she still got it even when her life was at stake. She's scared of water and her eyes light up when she talks about Xadia, and he wishes he could see what she does. She's brave and she saved Bait and she wishes her parents were dead. Callum swallows and doesn't hold it against her, because she doesn't know about his mother, and Moonshadow culture is different, anyway.

Every time he thinks he's got a good hold on things, that he's paying enough attention, has figured out something is odd, that she's keeping something from them, that she's an elf but not what he thought elves were like, that she's an assassin who's kind, every time he thinks he's being vigilant she'll smile at him and he drops his guard with all the grace of a buttery fingered buffoon. Each time, she happens to him all the time, and while his suspicion grows, so does his sadness that he can't let her in as much as Ezran has, as much as he wants to.

Because he does. He wants to.

When Callum wakes up and Ezran says Rayla is gone, his first fear is for the Egg, but his second—one he tampers down and holds close to his chest—is of her. They might be relatively safe in the woods, but they're still in a very human Katolis. Aunt Amaya likely wouldn't have given up the hope of 'saving' him and Ezran that easily.

"But I like her, Callum," Ezran says, and Callum sighs as his brow pinches.

"Hey, I like her too."

Because he does. A lot. He's never had a friend like her before. He's not even sure he can call her a friend. But he knows he feels like she's one, knows he'd rely on her if he has to. He know relies on her more than he currently has to. Callum purses his lips and raises his hands.

"But she's not telling us everything. I can feel it."

Because he can, in the way she looks away quickly sometimes, in how her jokes will fill the silence around their campfires until something in her eyes shift, and she falls quiet. In the way she herds them along quickly and rubs at her wrist, and he doesn't want to ask again because she technically gave him an answer even if it's not one he buys.

In a way, he's glad he spends the rest of the early morning infuriated by her, in the way she won't give him a straight answer and makes their lives harder, with the trek up the mountain. It's easier to be angry at her, and her strange stupid Moonshadow wristband. Because he hates that he likes her as much as he does, despite everything.

And he doesn't like that he has a growing feeling that if he had to save her or the Egg, he'd pick her, and he doesn't know what that says about him, at all.

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