Sorry again for this coming out before ending Swapped. I've had a bizarre writer's block on it (despite having the entire end of the story plotted out), and what I have written I've considered rewriting because something's just not working.
However in the meantime I've been planning this for awhile. I thought it would be fun to release a story about a character's birthday on said birthday like I saw people doing for Rayllum month, and the best idea I came up with was for Ezran's. So here's a story literally months in the making about jelly tarts, sandwich talks, and just some wholesome funny fluff.
Night shrouded the town at the base of Katolis castle. All the buildings had turned off their lights and their occupants gone to sleep, save for the bakery. Illuminated by the shafts of light coming from the half open front door, Barius and the recently returned prince of Katolis stood arguing.
"Are you sure you don't want me to help?" Barius asked.
"No, it's fine," Callum shook his head, "We can handle this ourselves."
As Callum started to give a thumb's up, a cat screeched and raced out from the nearest alley. Shortly afterwards, Rayla backed out from the corner, dragging a massive burlap sack that oozed purplish red fluid.
"What is that?" Callum pointed to the sack.
"Ya said to bring as many moonberries as I can carry," Rayla answered. "Well, I can carry a lot of moonberries."
Barius narrowed his eyes at Callum.
"The celebration lasts a week," Callum said nervously, "so I guess we'll have plenty."
Rayla came to a stop in front of the door and let go of the bag to dust off her hands. She looked at the puddle forming beneath the sack. "Sorry, some of them got kind of smushed on the way. Stupid cat..."
"Again, I'd be happy to help you two with the baking," Barius stressed, holding up his hands.
"Making them ourselves will make the present more special," Callum explained.
Barius sighed. "Fine. But please, I'll be extra busy this week so don't mess up my kitchen."
"You have our word."
He walked off, taking one last look at Rayla and Callum while they dragged the sack of moonberries inside. Barius hoped he wasn't making a terrible mistake.
The idea had come to Callum shortly before he and Rayla left the Storm Spire to visit Ezran for his thirteenth birthday. Callum had come up with several potential gift ideas, but for such a big milestone he knew it would have to be something extra special. Something unique. Something that had never existed before. The idea hit him all at once: a combination of Ezran's favorite thing with a souvenir of Xadian culture. A moonberry flavored jelly tart, or a "moonjelly tart" as he decided to call it.
Now it was time to turn the idea into reality. Rayla hefted the bag of moonberries and slammed it onto the central island in Barius' kitchen with a wet squelch.
"Well, we'll need to squish them anyway," she shrugged. "Wha's next?" She began to search the cabinets for utensils.
Callum reached into his pocket and withdrew an old, crumpled piece of paper. It was a jelly tart recipe Ezran had given him years ago. While the Storm Spire wasn't equipped for baking jelly tarts, he'd kept the recipe anyway. At last it would pay off.
"Okay. We need flour, sugar, salt, cream cheese, cold water, and of course we need to turn the moonberries into jelly."
"I'm on it!" Rayla announced. She held up a cooking mallet in one hand and a mixing bowl in the other. "This is my favorite part!" Rayla smiled with a grin that looked a little too excited for the task, at least in Callum's opinion.
"I'll just leave you to it," Callum said. He gathered up the other ingredients from the pantry. The sound of mashing filled his ears.
"Just so you know, I've never baked anything before. So I'm glad you're here to show me the ropes."
Rayla ceased her mashing and stared at Callum. "Wha'? I've never baked anythin' either."
Callum frowned. "You told me you always helped Ethari bake moonberry surprise. You literally just said that making the jelly was your favorite part!"
"No, I said I helped him make moonberry surprise. By getting the moonberries and mashin' them up. I didn't have anythin' to do with the bakin'. If I knew how to do the rest then it wouldn't be a surprise!"
Callum was at a loss for words. He set down the containers of flour and sugar he'd grabbed.
"Alright. We can do this," Callum said, more to himself than to Rayla, while pacing back and forth. "It's just baking jelly tarts. How hard could it be?"
Three hours later, Callum carefully removed the tray of jelly tarts from the oven. This was a test batch, containing several practice attempts. It was surprisingly difficult to get the triangle shape right; these three were all lopsided to various degrees, along with a fourth that somehow ended up a perfect square. But their shape wasn't the biggest issue, that would be the fact that the tarts were charred black and emitting a foul smoke. Callum was seriously tempted to use aspiro on them out of concern they'd burst into flames at any moment.
"For a test run, it's," Rayla struggled to find a positive comment, "not as on fire as I expected."
Callum set the tray on the counter. He slid down onto the floor with his back against the counter and his head in his hands.
"I should've just drawn him a picture of Zym or something," Callum groaned.
Rayla sat down next to him and placed her hand on his knee. "It was just the first try. We've got all night to figure it out. And if we don't, ya could make him peanut butter and moonjelly sandwhich or somethin'."
Callum lurched forward. "Sandwiches! Oh no, Ez's thirteen now. That means I've got to give him ... the sandwich talk." He cringed.
Rayla stared at him. "Sandwich ... talk? Do-do humans have to wait until they're thirteen before they can make bread? Is tha' why its an important birthday!?"
"No!" Callum snickered. "It's just a-it's a long story. I meant that he's old enough to get the, you know..." he trailed off.
"Yes?" Rayla scrunched her eyebrows together, trying to figure out what he meant.
"You know," Callum shrugged, "the 'talk.'"
"Wait, as in the talk? Ya have to tell Ezran about..." Rayla's eyes widened as she realized what Callum meant. She snorted, then doubled over in gut-busting laughter.
Callum crossed his arms and scowled.
"Don't be like tha', Callum. Ya'll do great. Ya can use yer sketchbook to, to," Rayla strugged to get the sentence out in between laughing, "to draw him diagrams!"
"Yeah laugh it up," Callum got up off the floor. "I need to get started on the next batch."
Rayla wiped a tear from her eye and calmed down. Callum was out of his funk and Rayla smiled at a mission accomplished.
Attempt two came out slightly better. Still inedible, but they didn't look like pieces of charcoal. Attempt three had the bread rupture and spew hot moonberry jelly everywhere. Attempt four on the other hand looked very promising.
When Callum took the tray from the oven, a heavenly scent wafted out alongside it.
The two inhaled deeply while Callum set the tray down.
"I think we're onto somethin'," Rayla said.
Experimentally, Callum poked at one of the tarts with his index finger. He hissed and snapped his finger back at the heat. It was hot, but normal fresh out of the oven pastry hot, not burnt beyond edibility hot.
Rayla leaned forward and let the scent of the jelly tarts fill her nostrils. "It smells kind of like moonberry surprise, mixed with fresh bread."
"In that case, why don't you do the honors of trying the first bite?" Callum nudged one of the jelly tarts towards Rayla, using the opportunity to test its temperature. Still hot, but not tongue scorching hot anymore.
"And not just because I'm using you as a test subject in case it tastes awful," he joked.
Rayla gingerly picked up the jelly tart and bit off one of the tips. She chewed for a moment, then froze. Her pupils dilated and the corners of her mouth curved upward.
"I'm guessing you like it?" Callum asked. Rayla didn't answer. "Can I have a bite?"
Rayla shoved the rest of the jelly tart into her mouth.
"Okay then..."
"Callum," Rayla said after swallowing the jelly tart, "I think I'm in love."
Callum clapped and nearly jumped for joy. "Yes! We did it! Ezran, get ready for the greatest birthday present ev-" his joy was interrupted as he noticed the state of the kitchen, "-er..."
Moonberry juice permanently stained the island a dark reddish-purple. Flour coated the counters and some of the walls. A snow elf made from a batch of dough that came out too dry for baking was crumbling away next to the sink. Making all of those issues far worse, the first rays of sunlight were beaming in through the window.
Callum gulped. There was no way the two of them could clean all of this up by the time Barius returned.
Late in the morning, King Ezran was summoned to the dining hall. Ezran sat at the head of the table, bouncing in his seat as Callum set a plate with several moonjelly tarts in front of him. Rayla stood next to Callum, holding a box containing the remainder of the jelly tarts they'd baked.
"For your highness' birthday," Callum said in a mock-serious tone, "I present a most special dessert. Feast your eyes, and your mouth, on the moonjelly tart!"
"You invented a new flavor of jelly tart for me?" Ezran asked. He beamed at his brother and Rayla. "That's the coolest thing ever!"
"Less thankin' and more eatin'," Rayla said.
Ezran nodded and took a bite. He chewed it thoroughly, but his face was unreadable. He swallowed but neglected to take another bite.
"Well?" Callum asked.
"It's... good," Ezran made a poor attempt at a smile. "Deeeelicious." He rubbed his stomach.
From his expression, Callum obviously wasn't convinced.
"It's so good," Ezran repeated. He went to take another bite but thought better of it. "It was really nice of you to go through the effort. That already makes it a great present."
"You don't have to pretend to like them," Callum said, though he couldn't hide his disappointment.
"I'm not pretending. Well, I was pretending to like the jelly tarts, but I was telling the truth about how amazing it was that you made them for me in the first place."
"Well, I guess on the bright side, I can't make any more even if you liked them. Barius kind of banned me from his kitchen for life."
"Sorry ya didn't like them," Rayla added.
"I don't not like them, they're just kind of ... meh. They're still a great birthday present though."
Rayla's attention wandered to the extra moonjelly tarts in the box she held. "So wha' should I do with these?"
"You can have them if you'd like," Ezran smiled.
"Ya have no idea wha' this means to me." Rayla backed away from the table.
As she turned to leave, Rayla noticed that aside from the three of them and a few omnipresent castle guards at the door, they were alone in the dining hall. A devious smirk grew on her face.
"I'm just gonna go put these somewhere safe. In the meantime, Ez, I think there's somethin' Callum needs to talk to ya about."
Callum blanched as he realized what Rayla meant. He turned to respond to her but Rayla was already disappearing through the door.
"So what did you want to talk about?" Ezran asked. He looked up at Callum, totally oblivious to what was about to come.
There was no getting away from it. Callum took a deep breath.
"Ezran, you're thirteen today and when a boy becomes a teenager there's certain things they need to learn."
"What are you talking about?"
"I promised I'd tell you about ... sandwiches ... when you were older, and well, you're older now."
"Callum I don't like where this is going."
"The king gave me the 'sandwich talk' when I turned thirteen, and since he ... can't, I guess its my job to tell you."
"Oh no."
In the guest room assigned to her for the duration of her and Callum's visit, Rayla lay curled up in bed. The empty of box of moonjelly tarts lay overturned on the floor. Only crumbs remained inside. She planned to eat only a couple, but that idea went out the window almost as quickly as the contents of her stomach would at this rate. Rayla turned over and clutched at her midsection. It gurgled in response.
Her situation worsened when Callum stormed in.
"That was the awkwardest, most embarrassing moment of my life!" Callum slapped his forehead. "And to make it even worse, turns out Opeli already had the royal physician give Ezran the talk months ago! It was all for nothing!"
He failed to notice Rayla's current state. Callum was so caught up in his anger and embarrassment that he barely noticed her at all.
"You are so going to pay for this," he said.
"Oh, I'm payin' for it," Rayla groaned. She stifled a belch.
Suddenly, Rayla bolted up. Her hands clamped over her mouth while her cheeks ballooned. At this point Callum finally realized something was off.
"Are you okay?"
Rayla shot past him, sending Callum flying. She reached the window and threw the shutters open. The sounds of her retching drowned out Callum's questions on what was going on. A terrified screech came from below.
"Sorry!" Rayla shouted downwards from the window.
As Callum got up from the floor to check on Rayla, he took relief in the fact that at least things couldn't get any worse. Katolis tradition dictated the King's birthday be celebrated for an entire week. Given everything that happened today, the remaining six days should be smooth sailing in comparison.
While this is the complete main story, I'll be doing either two much shorter chapters (or one in two sections) of other mishaps that happened on the following days of Ezran's birthday celebration. Not all six, I don't have enough ideas for that, but stay tuned for two!