AN: Merry Christmas! This is a gift fic I wrote for Rozteka, the author of the AO3 series Momentary Weakness. The original characters here (Milly and Vahn, who respectively are Mythra and Pyra's kids) were created as part of that series (which you should totally read, because it's great, just like the rest of her fics).
This takes place at an unspecified time between XC3 and XC2. Also, like all my works, this is cross-posted from AO3/Archive of Our Own.
Cloudclear Candy
Today was Cloudclear Day; a heartfelt celebration of the day the Cloud Sea left, and the new Alrest had been born. Friends and families gave each other gifts as part of the celebration, and, well…
Mythra obviously loved the things her wonderful children made for her; cute trinkets crafted by Vahn, wild scrawls drawn by Milly, and very, very glittery—and sticky—cards with heart-touching, pasta-rendered messages about love, from Mio…
But Mythra did always have a bit of a sweet tooth, and she got choclits.
A lot of them.
From her very comfortable chair, she stared longingly at the boxes, and tried to resist reaching over and nabbing another treat. Again. She'd already eaten too many; where was her self control?!
Her fingers itched and curled, and she bit her lip. Damn it, she couldn't make the saliva stop flowing…
Maybe just one more.
She plucked out a Ferron Rocher, not knowing at all how many she'd gobbled down already—7; her mind had counted for her—and relished in tearing away the crinkly golden wrapping.
Freed from its gilded prison, she cracked the outer layer in between her teeth. She didn't crunch all the way through, no; she just broke the rough, chocolatey shell, and pried it away with her teeth. It crumbled into different chunks, and with the structure of the sphere compromised, the other half was easy to crack away too, without harming the smooth inside.
She held up the result between her fingers; a thin wafer shell, making it look more like an actual ball, instead of a rocky boulder. A little sticky on the inside too.
She put it in her mouth again, and this time crunched all the way through, to swirl the smooth, hazelnut-flavoured filling around her mouth, and crushing the actual nut at the centre… Mmm, so decadent and delicious…
Maybe one more…
Look, it wasn't her fault she got so many, okay? They had to go somewhere!
Rex loved the smell of salvage, and still enjoyed the occasional dive. His wives loved for him to take a break from paperwork and Princely duties.
So mostly he got salvage equipment—and cologne; his wives weren't as fond of 'salvage smell' as he was. But right now, he enjoyed snacking on a couple of things here and there; a man's gotta eat, especially if he wanted the energy to help run a kingdom, to play games in the courtyard with his kids, and to spend time with three wives. He was the luckiest fella in the world to have his family, but nobody said it was easy!
One: A collage of sea ponios, from the same people who made Vahn's shells.
Very nautical, and a bit on the milkier side.
Two: Gormit-Kats. Simple bars that you could snap in half lengthwise. Nia thought it was funny to give him a gormotti-themed snack.
They tasted good though; they had a nice crunch to them, and hey! Reminded him of one of the women he loved.
Three: Coffee.
Just… Ah. Pyra's coffee. Best in Alrest, or anywhere else.
Four: He had the solemn duty of 'putting down' Mio's choclit bunnits.
Poor girl loved the smooth, high-quality taste of 'em—understandably so—but it broke her heart to have to bite in, when they had their cute little faces. So he'd break them up a bit, and make sure he took the pieces that used to be the head.
The brilliant rascally 'Pirate Queen Wonder Milly', had a most valuable treasure of a gift; nay, a bribe!:
Gold doubloons! A big old pouch surreptidly handed to her by none other than the Condiment Queen. And another pouch from All Gogol, handed with a wing and a playful jiggle of the gold.
No doubt they intended her to turn a blind eye to some crime, but Milly would not be tainted by villainy! She wouldn't let this stop her from defending Gardell City to the best of her abilities—which were, like, really strong abilities.
She would however, pretend to accept the bribe, just to take it from the funding of evil.
Safely in her room hours later, she very carefully clipped at the edges of the coins with her nails; gently, and evenly across the sir-cumference. It took a few seconds each, but when she was done? Each half of the wrapping came off intact, untorn, and un-bent. Sill looked like a coin!
With a fiesty smile, she stashed the 'coins' in one of her drawers—th-that is, 'Vaults'.
Now, she had a stack of brown coins that certainly weren't legally tender, in Gardell City anyway.
She licked her lips. Oh, if she couldn't spend it, what in the world could she do about the pile?
The resounding snap they made when she bit a piece off was so much fun, as was leaning back and letting it melt in her mouth, or cracking it in half again.
Yum. Bribery never tasted so good.
… Except when it was the Bonbonbonbon's kind of bribery.
Vahn delicately and most politely picked out of the tray of neat, nautical-themed choclits.
Most looked like seashells of different kinds; some conical, some muscles or clams; a couple of conches… Stuff you'd find in the depths of the former cloud sea, or the now watery one. A few pretty rocks in there, too.
They had a swirl of colours to them. Well, two colours: brown and white. The combination was mellow and milky, and the consistency? They usually crumbled or snapped, but had a softer inner core you could squish in the top of your mouth with your tongue.
Sena's jaw rolled along a fiery, juicy sweet in her mouth, and schlllurped down the fruity saliva every few seconds.
"Do you wanna have a Chew-Choo?" Sena offered her bestie, Mimi, while she herself chewed on the choo—a More Adrian treat her Mama and Papa gave her today, along with a pretty hairband, and pair of attachedable 'it's not Mimi, it's Auntie Nia!' ears. "I have a lot!"
They came in very tough to open tin; Chew-Choos were a bunch of pretty little train-shaped sweets that came in all sorts of colours; she sometimes pretended to like the blue ones most, because they looked like Mama—and her beautiful flamey hair, just like Sena's!—but the truth really was that she liked the orange ones orangey tang the most. Or the zesty pop of the yellows that exploded in her mouth. The blues were lovely! A lingery flow of blueberry that lasted forever, but something about the others just got to her more.
Mimi nodded, her pretty ears going all a-flicker. "Okay! What can I have?"
Sena beamed—and blushed—at the chance to give her bestie a candy, and pulled the tin over. "You can have any of them you want, Mimi. I still have all the colours left!"
Mimi peered inside, and her nose did that cute scrunchy thing it did when she was thinking…
Sena's heart went funny and smiley when Mio went right for the blue ones. Even more when she said: "They look a bit like your hair, Sena!"
"Come on, my prince… It can't have been that bad." Pandoria said, trying to soothe and pull Zeke out of his sulky mood. "It's probably all gone now!"
"It was that bad," he pouted from his chair. "Never eating choclit again now…"
Pandoria placed two fingers against her forehead and groaned. Those damn wrappers… She'd handed her prince a bar of choclit—one of his favourites, a Hero Bar with a badass picture of Addam on the front—only for him to yelp at the touch of it.
Turns out Hero Bar wrappers collected a lot of static; who knew?!
Uncle Roc's greatest pleasure on Cloudclear Day? It had to be watching the family enjoy his speciality: Sky-High Hot Roclit. Always had been, always would be.
Young Master Vahn's pleased smile as he spooned the whipped cream into his mouth; Young Lady Mio and Her Majesty Nia's ears twitching with delight as they slurped up the choclit cream; Her Highness Pyra taking light, measured sips and inhaling the steam in-between…
He peered into his own mug; the kids attempt—with their red-haired mother's help—at copying his recipe, as thanks.
It was clunky compared to his; the swirls not as neat, and the balance was off; Young Lady Milly had ensured an excessively sized whipped cream mountain, and far too many sprinkles.
That, and with his beak, drinking even his own creations could be an awkward affair.
But it was deeply sweet of them, nonetheless.
After a sip, he wiped away the coating of cream on his beak, and probably missed some of it, but that was fine. He'd seen Young Lady Milly catch some on her own nose enough times, after all.
Everyone drank from the mugs of joy a different way, and all the ways were uniquely wonderful.
"Goodness, Pyra! Yer in a real state."
She did look a mess, with her apron—and little of her face—covered in powders and stains from Architect knows how many ingredients. She'd spent most of Cloudclear morning in the kitchen, only pausing to fuss at Mio's ears when she wandered through; actually, Nia wasn't sure Pyra even noticed that bit; she'd kept stirring and watching the bowl of choclit mix, and her spare hand skeeter-lined for the ears out of nowhere!
Pyra looked down at the ground, running a hand through her hair, breathless. "Yeah… I got a bit carried away… But I did it!" she said, presenting a little facsimile of the Queen herself, about the size of a hand. "Tada!"
Nia's eyebrows raised in interest; she could smell Pyra'd been brewing up a storm of choclit in here, but she didn't expect a little her! It wafted off a sweet smell, both from the main portion, forming Nia's body and face, and the very fluffy, cotton-candy ears.
She licked her lips. "That's fer me, eh?"
Pyra looked apologetic. "I'm sorry it didn't turn out to be much. It was supposed to be a full cake, but with the dinner for everyone else, and the other choclits, and pasties, so I was up late until you told me I should just rest and finish up in the morning…" she rambled, sounding disappointed in herself. "And even this isn't really as fancy as I'd hoped. I just ran out of time…"
"''s alright, Pyra." Nia stepped closer and pressed a single soft kiss on her fretting wife's lips. "Might not be as big as you dreamed up in yer head, but you still made it for me, an' that's the important bit. I love it—and you—all the same."