Tales of Runeterra: Honeyfruit And Other Sweet Words

 

 Tales of Runeterra:

Chapter 9

 Honeyfruit And Other Sweet Words

 

For Seria, the Noxian warband didn’t arrive amongst pounding wardrum and the sonorous clinks and clangs of metal greaves.  They didn’t come as a hulking, black wave of military might, ready to overthrow her and her people and swallow them whole. No, for Seria, the Noxians came as a single messenger flanked by two impossibly large men in armor blacker than the night sky.

The messenger, who spared her but a single, uninterested downward glance, read off the terms simply and quietly, as if he were requesting a cut of meat at the butcher’s shop. The mayor, who had come to meet him, agreed without fuss. A small Noxtoraa, barely bigger than any of their houses but no less finely crafted than what she had heard about, was erected in their village.

And that was that.

Homble Village was never a place of interest. Travelers would march through on their way to bigger and more important places. This didn’t change when the Noxians came through. Seria and her village were simply along the way as the Noxians continued along their path to other, more important cities. The conquest of her village, the entirety of all the world she had ever known, was reduced to just that. A passing fancy that the Noxians had decided that they might as well have taken.

Seria wasn’t sure how to feel like that. It felt better not to. She gathered the honeyfruits that had gathered under the old tree on the hill and shuffled them into the straw-woven basket she had brought with her. The bright red fruits were rather bruised from having fallen from such a height, but cut up and stewed just right, they would make an excellent jam.

“I figured I would find you up here,” came a voice. Seria knew who it was before turning around. He was a stubborn boy—Noxian now but something else before. No matter how many times she asked, however, he would not give her an answer. “Aren’t you tired of these things, yet? You’ve been eating them all season.”

Seria turned, her eyes flashing a bit. Barely controlled mana tumbled just beneath her skin, but she was able to restrict it. Her magic wasn’t powerful, far from it, but it was still something that she needed to mind lest she moved the earth from under the boy’s feet.

“It is tradition,” she said. Her words were monotone at this point. At one point they were impassioned, blazing with the fury of a recently conquered culture. By now, however? By now she was tired. She hadn’t felt the need to justify herself anymore. “We normally eat it all season.”

Davol sighed, then shifted his shoulder plate. He wasn’t wearing the full Noxian set, instead opting for a simple chest plate and greaves. They were easier to move in and weren’t necessary for a frontier town with little military significance.

“Haven’t you grown tired of it yet?” he asked. It wasn’t the first time that he asked it. It wasn’t even the second. The annoying boy had found time to ask every week, as if his very life depended on whether he kept with the consistency.

“Haven’t you grown tired of asking?” she fired back. She crested her eyebrow, daring him to challenge her on it. When he was caught flat-footed, she smiled, then walked right past him. It would be a little difficult to make her way down the hill while holding all the fruits, but it was something she could manage if she took her time.

“Here,” Davol said. “Let me help.”

He took the basket from her with a practiced ease. This, too, wasn’t something new. He would somehow find her every time she made her way to the trees with the honeyfruits, and he offered to help despite the apparent issue he had with them.

She couldn’t understand his need, but she felt like she hadn’t needed to. If he felt the need to help, then he could. She couldn’t fight his presence in her village, but she could dictate how useful he was.

XxX

It wasn’t hard to make the sugared honeyfruits. Simmer them in a pan over a small flame, and they were soft and sweet and ready to eat. She snapped her fingers, and her mana ignited. A small flame lit in the stove heating up the iron saucepan she had left over it.

“I can’t believe this is the first time that you invited me for this,” Davol said. “Several seasons here and it’s the first time that I’m tasting this.”

Saria shook the wooden ladle she was holding at the boy. He didn’t seem disturbed by it in the slightest, but he still waved his hands in a faux attempt to disarm her.

“Maybe if you stopped mocking our traditions, we would welcome you to more of them.”

Davol chuckled. It was far too deep, too weary, for a boy as youthful looking as him. His mouth parted slightly, showing his jagged, crooked, teeth, and Saria couldn’t help but notice how Noxian it looked on him.

“There are no real traditions in Noxus,” he finally said. She had put her dangerous ladle down, so he had opted to continue resting his chin on his palm. “Power and ambition. Those are the only two things that matter.”

“It sounds lonely,” Saria responded. “And empty. There is no meaning in a life like that. No purpose.”

“I disagree,” Davol said, and for once his voice had foundation. It didn’t crumble away like it usually did amongst childish laughter and half-hearted attempts to woo her. No, this time it held, sticking around in the room and cementing his point. “I think that it is wonderful. Do you know what I did before Noxus liberated me?”

‘Liberated.’ Such a creative word for hostile takeover. “No,” said Saria. “You wouldn’t answer me no matter how many times I asked.”

“I was a woodcutter,” he said. And then he went silent. The sizzling of the honeyfruit in the oil was all that was left to fill the room for a few seconds. “My town was actually quite a lot like yours. There were a few butchers and hunters and carpenters, but everyone had more or less one job that they did well and their kids inherited it. Nothing new ever happened and nothing exciting ever occurred. Until Noxus showed up.”

“So is that all this is to you?” Saria asked. “Noxus was your chance at fun? To escape the boredom of your old life?”

And there it was, that chuckle that showed a little bit of teeth. It made him seem so much older than he was. She herself was about sixteen summers old, and he was much the same. When he made that chuckle,  however?

“Yes,” he said. Sizzle, pop went the honeyfruits. “I… suppose. But it was also more than that. I’m not saying that I hated my time in the village, but I didn’t get to choose what I wanted to be. I was born a woodcutter, and I was supposed to die a woodcutter. I didn’t know about anything outside of my village beyond what little news was brought through by the merchants.”

He took a sip of the water Saria had offered him. He seemed to let it wet his tongue before continuing.

“I wanted to go and explore, but there is danger everywhere these days. No one would take me away, and I would never have enough money to go out and explore myself. I could save up, but who knew when the next caravan would come through? There weren’t many men in my village, so if something happened, who would protect the men and women? If I left, who would be the next to be the village’s woodcutters?”

Saria didn’t turn around, instead choosing to focus on the steaming fruit caramelizing in front of her. She nodded, however. She wasn’t sure if Davel saw it, but it didn’t matter. He continued.

“But when Noxus came, it all changed! Defense of the village didn’t matter anymore if there were soldiers garrisoned there. Professional woodcutters came through to ship out lumber. A lot of that cut wood went to us as well. It took us a few days to walk them through how to replant the trees and how much they could cut each year, but once we taught them all that, there was no real need for us anymore.”

The fruits were done by now, and Saria had shuffled the cut pieces onto two plates. She placed one in front of him before sitting across the table. He stopped his story, and his eyes widened as the smell of the fruit hit him.

His eyes widened. “This smells… amazing.”

“Of course it does. You were saying?”

Whether Davel heard her or not was up for debate. His eyes were glued to the plate before him, and she could see how his mouth watered. Drool was practically overflowing from it. Saria snapped her fingers, bringing the boy back into focus.

“Right,” he said. He coughed into his hand. His eyes came back up, but it wasn’t hard to see the way that they continued to drift back down to his plate. “Anyway, where was I?”

“Noxus invaded. They wanted your wood?”

Davel’s wry smile was worth the jab. He shook his head before stabbing a fork into his treat.

“They took a lot of our resources, yes. But it wasn’t as if we were using all of it. The Noxian commander, Lieutenant Hargreeves, pored over our maps and ways for days before he set his woodcutters to work. He… I won’t lie. They cut down more trees than even I was comfortable with. But they planted just as many.”

He popped a piece of fruit in his mouth, and it brought a certain amount of pleasure to Saria to see the way that the boy’s eyes lit up.

“This is…”

“Delicious, I know. Continue?”

Davel took a moment to chew, savoring the juices as they bled out onto his tongue. He took his time swallowing, an action that Saria knew he was dragging out. The boy ate like every meal would be stolen from him. There was no way that he was doing this for any reason other than to mess with her.

“You’re awfully concerned about my past,” he finally said. “This is unusual for you.”

“I cannot agree,” Saria said in response. She nibbled at her own treat. As much as she wanted to refute it, she was starting to get tired of eating the honeyfruit. It was delicious, but to eat it every week was too much. “I ask about your village every time you ask about our fruit.”

“The fruit is rather curious.”

“So is your village. Continue.”

Davel smirked, then picked another slice of fruit from his plate. He ate it more vigorously, and it was gone before Saria could blink.

“I ran to my father,” he finally said. “I said ‘dad, they’re doing so well.’ He just nodded his head. He was gruff and tough and never spoke nearly enough, but he understood people. He understood me. He knew what I wanted.”

Saria nodded. She took a look at her companion’s plate and sighed. He had already cleaned his plate somehow. She offered her own, and Davel didn’t hesitate to swap.

“You wanted to join the Noxian army?” Saria pondered to guess. The boy was already halfway through her own treats. She didn’t have much longer left to contain his attention. “These people came to your home and took your livelihood and you wanted to join them?”

And it was here that the boy snorted. She could see the thick, brown syrup of the honeyfruit spurt out the corners of his mouth. He choked a bit on the stuff, pounding his chest all the while, before finally recovering.

“What?” he asked. “Are you insane? Why would I, a woodcutter, want to join a war? I might be big and strapping and strong and handsome…”

“… and modest,” Saria supplied. Davel nodded.

“… and modest! But I’m not stupid. I know what I’m capable of, and I don’t have a fighter’s bone in my body.”

“That’s a real nice thing to tell to the people that you’re supposed to be oppressing.”

“But are we?” Davel asked. He pushed away his finished plate and turned fully to her. “Do you think Noxus is really afraid of losing this town?”

Saria didn’t respond. There was no need to. There was no way for them to rebel in any meaningful way—they didn’t have a standing army of any kind and they didn’t have any important resources. If they did rebel, there would be no way for them to beat the few Noxian soldiers stationed there. Even if they did somehow manage to beat them, it would be trivial for Noxus to reclaim it once more.

And that was assuming that Noxus would even want to reclaim them in the first place. All things considered, it was probably for the best that they were absorbed into Noxus.

Not that Saria would admit to that.

“I just think that you should reconsider your opinion of them. Noxus doesn’t want you to lose your traditions. Different kinds of people add different kinds of power to the empire.”

Saria rolled her eyes. “And I’m sure your woodcutting abilities are helping them immensely out in the vast, treeless meadows surrounding little ol’ Homble.”

Davel chuckled. “You’re not wrong, I’m not much use to the Noxian warfront besides being infantry. I knew that, my father knew that, and the Noxian commander who took me in knew that too. They trained me, you know? A lot. But there’s only so much you can do for someone who just doesn’t have it. I can fight now, but I can’t be anything like Captain Riven.”

Saria nodded, her attention skipping over the names completely. There was no way that she could ever put a face to them, and Davel didn’t seem enthused to explain anything about them.

“But I wanted to see the world. I wanted to leave my little woodcutting village and see what was out there. My father knew that I couldn’t survive a day on my own, so he begged the commanding officer to take me along. Always needing more soldiers, Lieutenant Hargreeves took me in. He took one look at me and dropped me here.”

A soft breeze wafted in through the window. It was sweet, smelling of dew on the grass and fresh, summer sap from the few honeyfruit trees that dotted the plains.

“And are you upset about that?” Saria eventually asked. “You wanted to see the world, didn’t you? And now you’re just stuck here. You went from one tiny village to another.”

Davel shrugged. He rested his chin on his palms again.

“Is that how you see it?”

“Isn’t it?” Saria grabbed the plates. She rose to put them away. She would wash them later. “There are so many amazing lands out there to explore. I have books on places like Bilgewater and Piltover and Shurima. There are mythical books about the isolated land of Ionia, and some even speak of places like Bandle City and the Blessed Isles. Didn’t you want to see what those places were like?”

Davel shrugged again. “I guess those places are cool. Never heard of them before.”

Saria, who was arranging the dishes, almost dropped them. She turned to her companion in clear shock.

“Bilgewater?” she asked. She was expecting some form of recognition. What she actually got was a confused tilt of his head. “How do you not know about Bilgewater?”

“I wasn’t the son of the town’s merchant. It wasn’t my job to know such things. I could cut a mean tree and I knew where to plant the new ones. That was enough.”

“Then what about Demacia? Isn’t your town closer to there?”

“That you think I know where my village is on a map is precious.”

“And Piltover?” Saria asked. She was grasping at straws here and she knew it. She almost expected the slow shaking of the boy’s head.

“I’m pretty sure that it’s where some of the hextech gunblades were made?”

Saria nearly growled. “So you wanted to see the world without knowing what was out there? You were just blindly running out for adventure, willing to trip and stumble on every tree branch along the way?”

Davel’s calm, impish smile was like a taunt to her, and she almost fumed at the mere sound of his voice.

“Yeah,” he said. “Isn’t that the best part of adventuring? I mean, sure, it makes it more dangerous, but isn’t it more fun to come across something—to experience it wholly and fully—and not know what to expect? The first time I saw a hextech gunblade, I don’t think I was breathing. I like that feeling. I like that adventure.”

Saria frowned. She reclaimed her seat across from him before folding her hands in her lap.

“And now you’re here,” she said. “You’re trapped in Homble that doesn’t have anything of note except some farmlands and a single tree that sprouts honey fruit only once a year. Aren’t you disappointed? You took a chance on adventure and this is all you got.”

The signs of the setting sun had finally begun to show, casting an orange light through her kitchen window. Sunset seemed to settle on Davel’s face, highlighting freckles and laugh lines that spanned a face that had shown only scars before.

“All I got?” Davel repeated, mirth hanging off the edge of his tongue. “Saria, I don’t know half the things you do. I wasn’t expecting Bilgewater and Demacia or Piltover. I was just expecting something new. And I got everything I asked for.”

His fingers trailed a green honeyfruit, not yet ripened but still too heavy to remain on its branch. Saria had scooped it off the ground, like she had the rest of the abundant fruit, and brought it home. She had expected to let it ripen a bit—this wasn’t a honeyfruit that grew from a vine, after all. It was far too sour to eat right now.

Adventure? Saria smiled. The mana under her skin flexed, reacting with the juice in the fruit. She supposed she could see the allure in that. In a few seconds, her mana would spray the curious boy with something so sour she could already imagine the boy’s puckered face.

Perhaps, in a few months, however? Noxus could see a new enchanter.