The Little Water Elf

13- Jelly Tarts

The scales had faded after Rayla poured a small bit of the potion Viren had given her onto them. She held up her hand, marveling at how the glimmering liquid was able to transform the scales into skin once more.

It was strange how much to color resembled the scale color of Runaan.

Remembering her old mentor hurt her heart, and she pushed the thought to the back of her mind.

Viren had told her to hide the potion away, to make sure no one found it to avoid suspicion.

She made sure that the cork sealing the bottle closed was secured, then moved the blankets on her bed, hiding it between the sheets and the side of the mattress, behind the bed.

No one would find it there.

She took one look out the window, peering longingly out over the sea, before climbing into her bed and drifting into a deep, restless sleep.

• • •

The passageway was hidden behind an old painting of a girl. Ezran had excitedly led her away after breakfast that morning, telling Rayla to make sure no one was following them before bringing her to the secret hallway.

"I can't believe you've never had a jelly tart before!" he exclaimed, for possibly the hundredth time that morning, "How could anyone live without them."

Honestly, Rayla didn't know. Upon discovering that Rayla hadn't yet decided to try one of the pastries that were often placed on the table at dinner time, Ezran proceeded to make it his personal mission to get one — or fifty — for Rayla to try.

"Here, can you take Bait for a second?" he asked, "I need to make sure the coast is clear for him to be a distraction."

With that, the small boy got down to his knees, and began crawling trough a small vent in the side of the passageway.

"The baker isn't looking," he whispered a few seconds later, "quickly, place Bait in his position!"

Rayla smiled, moving to the one window in the hall, quietly pushing the back of a painting out of place, and gently setting the glow toad onto the table in the kitchen before pulling the painting back to its original position.

If they had to go through this much trouble for a jelly tart, they must be even more amazing than Ezran promised.

"Okay, I'm going in," Ezran whispered, disappearing from the passage and into the kitchens, "The coast is clear, Rayla, I need backup!"

The elf grinned, following the child into the kitchen.

"Jackpot! They haven't stored them away yet! Bait, you're on guard duty."

The glowtoad let out a croak in response.

Ezran began piling several of the sweets into his arms, "Quickly, grab as many as possible!"

Rayla immediately began gathering up the jelly tarts, using her skirt as a bag in order to hold more.

"Ezran, is that you again?" a voice suddenly called from the side.

"Oh no, Rayla, run!" Ezran shouted, quickly dumping the jelly tarts that were in his arms into Rayla's skirt-basket and hurrying to grab Bait.

The three of them rushed back into the passage, Ezran pulling the door to it closed as Rayla burst into a silent laughter.

"We did it!" Ezran cheered, "Let's go find Callum!"

The child led Rayla through the hidden hallways, up several sloping staircases and past many exits and branching corridors.

Eventually they came across what appeared to be the back of a bookshelf. Ezran pushed it open, revealing a small bedroom.

"Come on, put them on the table!"

The elf complied, dumping the ridiculous amount of sweets onto a wooden table to the side of the room.

Ezran ran to a door on one wall, opening it and calling into the other room, "Callum, we have jelly tarts!"

Rayla peeked into the other room, surprised to see Callum sitting at a desk in there. The walls and floors were covered in drawings and stray pieces of paper.

Callum stood, "Oh, Rayla, I didn't know you'd be visiting here."

"We just raided the kitchen for jelly tarts!" Ezran piped up, seemingly oozing excitement from head to toe.

"Ez, you know you aren't supposed to do that. What if the chef comes up here looking for you and finds them?"

"We'll just have to eat them before then."

Callum rolled his eyes, standing from his desk and making his way into Ezran's bedroom.

"Oh, Ez..." Callum said as his eyes fell onto the pile of jelly tarts, "How on Earth did you manage to steal this many without getting caught?"

"Oh, Rayla helped me!" the young prince stated happily, "She filled his skirt with them, and brought them here."

"How on Earth do you plan on eating all of these?"

"You can never have too many jelly tarts. Plus, Rayla's never had them before. She needs to make up for her years without them."

Rayla laughed, picking one up from the ridiculously sized pile.

She took a bite, and a delicious foreign flavor exploded on her tongue.

"How is it, Rayla?" Ezran asked.

Rayla's expression was a good enough answer for him.

"Yes! She likes them!"

In response, Rayla grabbed another one of the sweets. It was incredible, there was nothing like this in the ocean. Her diet originally consisted on seaweed and kelp recipes, with sashimi and crustaceans filling most of her meals. Never before had she eaten anything so sweet.

Since this was their seaside palace, most of their meals was seafood caught recently since it was readily available, and Rayla just ate what she recognized from back home.

Bread and sugar was so foreign.

Ezran grabbed a few from the pile, eating them happily. Callum eventually gave in and grabbed one as well.

"How on Earth do you think we'll be able to eat all of these today?" he asked.

"They're jelly tarts, we'll just replace all of our other meals with them until we finish them."

Rayla slowly spelt out good plan in sign language.

Callum sighed, taking another jelly tart as he shook his head in disbelief.

"You two are ridiculous."

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Me: Oh wow I have a lot of stuff planned for the end of this fanfic, I should really start ending off all of this other stuff and actually get on with the plot

Also me: Lol imma just add a chapter where they do nothing but sneak into the kitchen and steal jelly tarts