[Fanfic, 100% OJ] Blackberries

Genre: Romance/Slice of Life

Length: 1801 words

B/D: I wrote this for Nath day, but finished a couple days late. It is pure, unfiltered indulgence, and not canon to the rest of the series. Warning: implied nudity and adult happenings.

They are roaming today, by land and by sky, gambolling through a world that has grown lush and beautiful in their absence. Ears of barley bristle in the fields they pass; groves of apple trees hang heavy with fruit softly ripening in the summer sun. But the finest bounty is to be found in the forest, and it is there they alight, to lose themselves in the shadows of the trees and the rich scents of the woods.

This place, Sora says, is her favourite, and she greets the landscape warmly like an old friend. On this stump she once saw a red squirrel, collecting acorns from the great oaks; over here there is a beehive, thrumming with activity, and a little further ahead she found the husk of an old log cabin. Under the forest canopy, her hair is the colour of honey and her eyes are ivy green, her easy stride the echo of the hunters of old. She is not of this place, but it has touched her, and the ever-watchful trees give way to a girl with bones older than their own.

Next to her, Nath feels like a large, lumbering thing. She has seen this forest a thousand times from the sky, and never once ventured inside; a virgin and untouched corner of the world is opening up before her. She is warm, but not uncomfortably so. A cool breeze whispers against the nape of her neck, where the collar of her summer dress does not reach, and somewhere ahead of them she hears the sound of a brook snaking its way through the undergrowth; even just the sound brings to mind the taste of clear water, cold enough to numb the lips.

Under her arm is looped a wicker basket, the handle coarse against her artificial skin. They’ll pick berries, Sora has promised, and make a pie of them. Nath wonders. To her it seems like a fantasy, a well-intentioned plan that cannot come to pass. If Sora finds berries, she’ll eat them. That’s the kind of person she is: somebody unafraid to try new things, to love them or to hate them. Nath has seen the world. She has walked deserts, climbed mountains, crossed oceans. But she was always too tired, too jaded, to open herself. She never wondered at the things she saw and felt, the way that Sora does. There is something beautiful in that openness, that willingness to embrace the world and its people even after seeing them at their worst. She loves that about Sora. She thinks she always has.

As they walk together they speak quietly about this and that. There is nobody to hear them, and no-one to disturb, but they keep their voices low by unspoken agreement. They don’t need to speak loudly because they are close, enough to bump shoulders every so often as they thread their way through the undergrowth.

As they pass away from Sora’s favourite haunts and into parts of the forest unknown, the talk goes from treasured memories to little exclamations of wonder at new sights, new sounds. They see stands of mushrooms and Sora asks if they are truffles; they’re not, Nath confirms, but they’re edible and a local delicacy, so they scoop a few into the basket to try later, fried with butter and garlic and breadcrumbs. The mossy ground underfoot gives way to tall grass as they advance and the canopy of leaves above them begins to thin; here and there are spots of sunlight poking down through the gaps in the trees, and as they walk they wind their path to pass through each one in turn, as if it were good luck.

Soon the canopy breaks entirely, and Nath knows it is here that their adventure will end. There is a toppled log, hollow but not yet rotten, big enough for three or four to sit on. A little way to the right of it, the long grass wanes and bulrushes tower over the edge of a small pond. Most importantly, there is a brace of hardy bushes, speckled with dark berries that glisten in the sunlight. They’ll go no further today, now that they’ve found this place; they’re unlikely to find an equal to it.

She smiles wryly as Sora begins to survey her new territory. She ignores the berries for now, and instead ambles over to inspect the pond; the water seems clean enough, and not stagnant. Next she tests the strength of the log, pushing down on it with both arms and then peering into the dark hollow inside. She wonders aloud if there are any frogs. She’d like there to be frogs, she says.

Nath agrees, but focuses her attention on the blackberry bushes, wondering if she’ll be able to pick them with her clumsy prosthetics. If she uses too much force, she’ll just crush the berries between her fingers. Even then, she can see dark thorns hidden behind the lush green leaves. If she pricks herself she will not bleed, but she’s loathe to damage the artificial skin that covers her hands. It’s a problem she doesn’t know she has the delicacy to solve.

But still, she reaches for them. She feels the thorns scrape against her knuckles and dig into the skin as she gingerly, almost tenderly, snaps a berry from the berry from the stem. She holds it up to the light and examines it: no discolouration, no mottling. Acceptable.

“Sora,” she calls softly. “Aaaahn.”

Obligingly, Sora trots over and opens her mouth. Nath smiles. Usually, this would be in reverse: Sora, with her healthy arms, feeding Nath. But it’s important, she thinks, that they’re prepared to do it the other way around as well. It’s fairer. More equal.

“Good?” she asks.

“Mmm.”

Together, they settle down to pick the berries, sampling as they go. Sora is faster, braver, more dextrous. Her hands soon find a rhythm: find, pick, deposit, repeat. She only interrupts it to toss the occasional berry into her mouth. Nath’s hands are clumsy and cumbersome, but they remember – however briefly – the feeling of her fingertips brushing against Sora’s lips. The berries she tries are delicious, sweet with only a hint of tartness.

They fill half the basket and stop, leaving enough berries on the bushes to feed other hungry visitors to this quiet place. The has climbed high in the sky; what was once a relaxed heat is growing fiercer. She leans back against the hollowed log, flattening the grass beneath her like a nesting cat, and lets the sun warm her bones while it’s still enjoyable. Sora sits down next to her, resting her shaggy head on Nath’s collar, where the metal recedes. She closes her eyes as she basks; she is soft, heavy, warm.

Minutes pass. The sounds of the forest envelop them.

One of Sora’s eyes flickers open. She tilts her face upwards to look at Nath’s, and her expression is so many things – tender, childish, wanting, all rolled up into one.

“You stained your lips,” she says, in her soft, dreamy voice.

Nath breathes deeply. The world contracts. “So have you.”

She’s not sure which one of them moves first – her, or Sora. But when they do, it is as though they’re being drawn together by something irresistible, like magnetism or gravity. The distance between their faces shortens, and then disappears; their lips clumsily brush against each other, and again, and then finally they are kissing, and Sora is filling up her senses, filling up her mind and her heart until there is no space for anything else. She feels elated, almost dizzy, and behind everything there is the taste of blackberries, the colour of honey, the warmth of Sora’s body pressing against hers. It feels easy, natural. Sublime.

When they part she is blushing furiously, breathing heavily. Her body feels somehow lighter, younger, than it did before. But most of all, there is a sense of freedom. She has loved Sora for a while, but now she is allowed to love her, openly and whole-heartedly. It’s not a problem she has to figure out the answer for. It’s not a weight to carry around inside her chest. It has become something greater, not just something she feels but something she does. She doesn’t know what to say, so she says “Wow.”

“Wow,” Sora agrees. Her smile has a note of triumph in it, like a runner finally completing a marathon and accepting their prize.

“Are we dating now?” she asks. Her mind is in a daze.

“We’ve been dating for a while,” is Sora’s serious reply. “Today was a date.”

“Was it?”

“We went somewhere, we ate together, and we kissed. That’s a date. Definitely.”

She smiles, and as if by prior agreement, they go back to kissing. Gradually, their positions change. Her hands naturally find themselves drifting, one to Sora’s waist and the other to stroke her hair. Sora gradually trusts her with more and more of her weight, always pressing closer, until, she is all but lying down in the long grass with Sora on top of her, her face so close it takes up all Nath’s vision. All she can see is the woman she loves.

“I’m going to get grass stains all over my dress,” she murmurs. The last little dregs of her grumpy facade, escaping into the forest. Sora makes no move to let her up, and Nath makes no move to unseat her. It’s not an option for either of them.

“If you’re worried, take it off.”

Nath smiles ruefully. “I’m not wearing anything underneath, though.”

“I don’t mind.” As always, Sora’s gift for understatement is astounding. Her smile becomes just a touch mischievous, and she gives Nath’s dress a playful tug, as if expecting to be scolded.

Nath breathes in, out. Her body feels warm.

“Well,” she says wryly, “we’ve been dating for a while,” and lifts her arms.

As the fabric slides across her bare skin, she wonders why they never did this before. It feels so natural. So comfortable. Meant to be. The boundary between friends and lovers, blurring so far that it ceased to exist. Maybe Sham was right. Maybe they always were an accident waiting to happen, a ‘when’ and not an ‘if’. As Sora looks down at her, her eyes half-lidded and her cheeks flushed, Nath reaches up to cup her cheek.

“Sora”, she says, in a whisper that feels so loud the entire world can hear it. “I love you.”

The sun is shining; a world once destroyed is thriving around them. After so many years of waiting, she has found the happy ending that was set aside for her.

She is happy, and complete. Here and now, in the blackberry grove, her heart, at last, is opened.

A/N: Aaaaahhh I love these two dorks. I just wanted to make a story where Nath was happy. This isn't necessarily the quote-unquote 'payoff' I'm aiming for with these two characters, but if I never get around to that, maybe this can be a prototype, alternate timeline epilogue for them.

Also, if it feels abrupt, it's worth mentioning that I put easily 60-70k words into characterising these idiots already, and I was blatantly teasing them most of the way. If I want to to write a one-off story where they smooch, then that's what I'm going to do, dang it!