notes: Hey, everyone. I think the first thing that I want to do is apologize. This story looked like it was going to be complete as I was in the midst of writing it, but I seem to have dropped off just as I was about to finish. Two general reasons for that: One, I think I've been a little discouraged from writing this story because I reached a writer's block point and I personally didn't like what I was doing with it. Two, I also felt like the story wasn't well liked, so I guess that also didn't help in terms of motivating me to continue writing this. And well...it sounds petty but I felt like I was talking to myself and that's uncomfortable, haha. *sweat drop*

Anyway, I'll be honest, I'm only coming back to this story because I want and need to finish it. I hope that the writing reads with the same color and passion that I once wrote it with. I hope you do enjoy, nevertheless, because I think I was once proud to have thought of the idea. (I've since moved onto other Jerza pieces, haha.)

the eggs

"Erza…"

When the redhead opened her eyes, she was startled to see his chocolate brown eyes gazing right at her, just a pillow's distance away.

Surprised, she pulled herself up and realized that she had fallen asleep on Jellal's bed. The last thing she remembered was him kissing her hand…

She ignored the deep blush that fell over her face.

"Did you still want to get your eggs for your shortcake?" he asked her.

Titania wasted no time at the reminder of her lifelong mission. She stood up straight, requipping into her casual Heart Kreuz armor. She helped Jellal fold up the bedsheets and blankets, lightly blushing when she felt the lingering warmth from his body on the fabric. She stacked up the bedding materials onto her unused bed and then turned around to watch Jellal—mostly his shirtless back—roll up the tatami mat and toss it into the corner of the room.

He swiftly pulled a top over his torso, the moment that Erza decided that she should peel her eyes away and pull out the recipe book that she kept in her armor. She opened it to the page that Levy had bookmarked for her—the instructions to her most perfect strawberry shortcake. After browsing the ingredient list, Erza realized that after collecting the eggs this morning, all she would need to get was the vanilla and then she could head back to the guild to bake the most perfect strawberry shortcake!

This meant that she could be done with everything by the end of the day!

She tucked her book back into her armor, noticing that Jellal had finished pulling on all his armor. They agreed silently that they were both ready to go and headed out of Simon and Kagura's home, heading straight to the milling room to bid the siblings farewell.

As expected, the siblings were already hard at work, having made many pounds of flour—and it was barely past the crack of dawn. Simon stopped when he noticed them coming into the milling room.

"Heading out now?" the brother asked.

"Yes." And Erza stepped forward to give her friend a firm hug. "Thanks for everything yesterday. I'm so glad that I know where you are now—I'll come to visit!"

When Simon pulled away from her embrace, Erza found Kagura standing right behind her older brother, looking a little bashful before asking for a hug from Erza, which the redhead gladly obliged her adopted younger sister.

"Please come back!" the two siblings called after them, and even Jellal waved back to them with a strong smile before the two of them left their friends' wheat farm.

Erza smiled, happy that she and Jellal were both able to connect to someone else from their past.

finding the wild chickens

Erza had heard that the best eggs came from those chickens that were free roaming and running wild. However, she had absolutely no idea how to track down these chickens, nor did she have any Chicken Armor that would help enhance her search of these chickens.

All she knew that the wild chickens were often found within these plains between Mt. Hakobe, where they had picked up their flour, and Shirotsume, where they were going to grab their vanilla beans from one of the street traders.

The two of them sat in the car, staring out at the plain plains.

After another long moment, Jellal admitted, "I don't know anything about wild chickens, either."

"We just have to find a nest and grab some eggs, right?" Erza asked, unsure herself. "Chickens lay eggs in protected places on the ground—they don't really like to make nests, so we just have to look for safe looking place, right?"

"Yeah. You're most certainly right," the other mage assured, smiling back at her.

She looked back at him, unable to help herself but smile as well, feeling all the more confident in what she was doing. Her heart skipped a beat when realizing that this was the first moment that they were acknowledging each other after his confession from yesterday, and she was relieved to see that the once heavy uncertain look that she got from his eyes was no longer there.

"Let's go get some eggs then," she concluded, promptly getting up. She looked back, biting her lip for a moment, before she settled on taking his hand. "Come on!"

after a few hours

As bright as the sun was, it certainly did not help the mages find their necessary ingredients for the most perfect strawberry shortcake. The sun rose to its peak and was about to circle back to the horizon when the two of them finally decided that maybe it would be better for them to take a short break before coming back to the mission.

"We'll find it before the sun sets," Jellal assured her, and she nodded.

She sat down, stretching her legs out onto the ground and making herself comfortable.

A moment of silence stretched out between them. She looked over in Jellal's direction, noticing that he was in deep thought. She didn't want to disturb him, but at the same time, he looked so unsettled that she had to ask:

"Is everything alright?"

He took a moment to reply, but when he did, he looked at her with solemn eyes. "I'm just thinking about yesterday," he finally said.

Her heart thumped. What part of yesterday was he thinking about?

"I was wondering if everything you said was true," he continued. "If you actually forgive me for everything I've done. You can be honest with me."

She blinked and tried to act like she was taking this lightly, even though his guiltiness actually tugged at her. "Of course, I do," she said, as whimsically as she could. She hugged her knees, feeling herself growing uncomfortable with her inability to make him feel better about himself.

"What…" and he took a deep breath before continuing. "What do you want me to do after this?"

He didn't need to explain for her to fill in the rest of the sentence. After the shortcake?

"I…" he suddenly began to answer for himself. "I can—"

"No," she interrupted him.

Whatever it was he was going to say, it was going to be something that she knew he didn't want to do and something that she knew she wouldn't like.

"I…" she started again, but she didn't know what to say.

Erza pondered on this for a moment. She looked off to the grass in front of her, feeling Jellal watching for her answer intently. After another moment, he turned his head away and looked off to the side. She returned her gaze away from him and concentrated on her answer.

What to say? How to say it?

She leaned backwards on her hands, thinking hard. She clawed at the ground behind her. To her surprise, however, she felt a very different texture than she had expected. What was this?

Straw?

She looked behind her, grasping onto the few odd strands before she rose it to her eyes to see what she had gathered up. Straw?

Her answer would have to wait.

"Jellal—"

He turned to her, having waited for her answer. But she showed him the yellow straw in her hand.

"I think we might be onto something!"

Excitedly, Erza got back up, following the trail of yellow straw behind her. She couldn't believe that she hadn't noticed this before, but she was equally astounded that she had come across this discovery. She ran up until she finally found—right there—on the ground behind a large bush, a large nest with six large eggs, looking glossy, shiny, a few speckles on their shells.

She clasped her hands together and gasped in awe before she pointed at the nest. "Look!" she exclaimed, motioning to Jellal, whose eyes also widened a bit.

"We found a nest," he agreed.

Erza nodded proudly, crossing her arms before she looked back down at her prize. The long search was over.

A cloud floated by in the sky, giving the two mages some shade and a much needed breeze. The two mages closed their eyes and took a deep breath, enjoying the small period of tranquility with the finally discovered eggs for Erza's most perfect strawberry shortcake, under the momentary shade from the hot sun, and with each other.

Erza sat back onto the ground, observing the large and perfect eggs in front of her. She smiled, turning her grin to her companion, who also sat down beside her.

The two of them looked up—and then realized that the shade they had been sitting in was actually not at all a cloud in the sky.

It was a monster-sized chicken.

Erza wasn't the type to be afraid, often showing a calm and passive face to anything that snuck up from behind her. However, the fact that she nothing on chickens and had never in her life seen a chicken that was almost as large as her guild house elicited some form of kya from her.

"BAWK!"

"Kya!" She jolted up onto both her feet, quickly and gracefully, albeit a tiny margin shaky as she unsheathed a sword.

"Erza!" Jellal called out. "Go grab the eggs—I'll distract the chicken!"

But the S-Class Mage was not used to backing down from a fight. She requipped into her Heaven's Wheel Armor within the next second and was already leaping towards to ward off the hard-beaked and frantic chicken.

Seeing that she had reacted before he had, the blue-haired mage quickly gathered as many eggs as he could from the nest before he running off—with help of a quick Meteor spell—to drop the ingredients a bit further in the distance from where Erza was fighting off the angry wild beast.

She raised her sword and pointed it at the chicken, threatening it.

"Dare you thwart my efforts from creating the most perfect strawberry shortcake?" she asked of the fowl.

"BAWK!"

Erza was undeterred, tucking a smile away. "Well then," she replied. "You leave me with no choice."

There was absolutely nothing getting in her way, after all.

The hen screeched with determined audacity, its wings unfurling into the air, beady eyes staring straight at her. The animal was many times larger than her and it probably thought her a worm, but oh she'd show this creature that it was no match for her likes of Titania!

She rose her sword, ready, but then was surprised to feel a hand around her sword, stopping her from advancing further into battle. She turned around and was surprised to see Jellal, holding her back.

"Come on, Erza," he suggested. "Let's get out of here really quickly!"

She blinked, offended. "I will not give up this fight!" she retorted, pulling back her hand from him.

"I'm not telling you to give up the fight," he chuckled. "I'm just saying that we don't have to."

"No! The chicken must be defeated!" she demanded.

He sighed. "This is one of the things I love and hate most about you."

His remark caught her attention—one of the things he loves?

"Besides, you'd rather spend that time baking your cake, wouldn't you?" he added.

And when he took her hand in his, she found she couldn't let go.

notes: Currently listening to Bryce Fox - Burn Fast (Louis Vivet Remix) on repeat, if you're as much of a music nerd as I am. :3

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