THE APPLE OF SNAKES

i. sweet fruit

The sun nipped at Nerluce's exposed nape, the hair that typically covered that slot of skin tied tightly into a top knot. It was an unusually warm day, perhaps the last warm day of the year. The heat intensified the stench of the apple orchard. The sweet tang of fruit entwined with the rougher scents of baking earth and fallen leaves. It would've been more pleasant without the addition of Nerluce's sweat.

He strained to reach one of the apples, balancing on the balls of his feet, arm fully extended yet his fingertips barely grazing the sly fruit's red and yellow streaked surface. Nerluce wasn't small for his age — a proud fourteen years — but he was on the lesser side of average. If only he was a little taller, a little older, he might be able to reach the apple...

Glaring at the apple did little to make it budge.

Traditional methods depleted, Nerluce took a few steps back to survey his foe. The apple wasn't high enough off the ground that it would be worth the effort of climbing the tree, but it was still too high for Nerluce to reach. That left only one option. Nerluce groaned, letting the apple know just how displeased he was and giving it one final chance to lower itself. It, being an apple, obviously did not.

So Nerluce charged the tree. His palm connected with the waxy surface of the apple. Delight mixed with rushing blood as he stumbled, narrowly avoiding falling on his face. It didn't matter. He'd gotten it. He'd actually gotten it! He couldn't contain his grin or his gasping breaths. This level of exertion for just one apple wasn't worth it — Nerluce was more accustomed to spending warm days napping in the sun, not running and jumping around an orchard — but who cared?

However, as Nerluce turned his captured prize over, he saw what had priorly been hidden by the angle in which the apple hung. It was spoiled. The smile fell from Nerluce's face. Whether this was the result of the elements or some creature taking a bite out of the apple before a human could, the result was the same. All that effort wasted on rotted fruit.

Unless...

Nerluce sunk his teeth into the apple's flesh.

Stupid? Likely. Even eating around the rotten bits, Nerluce could get sick. However, if he didn't eat the apple he was certain he'd get sicker. Nothing made him more nauseous than putting effort into a useless task.

With the apple picked and eaten, the tree was now empty and Nerluce's basket was full. His muscles cried in protest as Nerluce hoisted the basket into the air. It was a good thing that last apple had been rotten. If it wasn't, Nerluce didn't know if he'd be able to lift the stupidly heavy basket.

Nerluce staggered out of the orchard under the beady-eyed watch of the elderly and somewhat haggard woman who owned the orchard. Her name had been forgotten by everyone — even herself — long before Nerluce was born. She had no spouse, no siblings, and no children but all of Yusatsu called her Aunty.

Nerluce was no exception. As he passed, he greeted her with a pleasant, "Aunty."

As Aunty was an old woman — one with no money to afford such luxuries as glasses — her eyesight was predictably bad and her manners were predictably worse. "Boy," Aunty said. "Why are you here? I thought you'd run off hours ago."

"Aunty promised me an apple if I filled the basket," Nerluce said, setting the basket by her feet so that she could examine it. Aunty did with a scrupulous gaze, lifting one apple and turning it over in her hand. There was something maternal in the way she looked at the apple, scouring for signs of abuse. She would find none. Nerluce had made sure of it.

That morning, Nerluce had woken up with a desperate craving for apples and so naturally he had wandered into Aunty's orchard.

Nerluce had spent more than a few lazy afternoons making himself sick on apples plucked from Aunty's orchard, entwined in the branches of one of the trees as if he were the Empress lounging on Itoroh's golden throne. He might as well have been. They were both eating the same fruit after all. If anything, the Empress ought to be jealous of him. Aunty's apples — plucked straight from the branch as Nerluce commonly ate them — were much fresher than anything the Empress ever dined upon in her far-off northern palace.