Cassarian One-Shot Collection

Apples (Part 1)

This is just a part one of Alderleaf07 's one-shot request. I'm sorry that I was late - there's just a lot of art commission that I need to finish. Anyway, I'll post the continuation later this afternoon (I think?)

I hope you like it!

--

The wind swept her now long hair as she spotted the kingdom of Corona. A smile made it's way to her lips. She's back. She can't help but let out a laugh of relief. She's finally back!

A sound of shuffling leaves made her jerk her head to the side. She got down from her horse, her hand ready to take out her sword if she find the person suspicious enough. The bushes were blocking her view but that can be managed.

She was about to took another steps when she heared Fidella let out a winning neigh. She frowned and turned to look at her trusted companion.

"What?"

Fidella gave another neigh and pointed her snout at the town. Cassandra sighed and rolled her eyes. She already knew what she wants. Fidella is probably hungry and tired, knowing that they've been travelling since last night with no rest nor break – too excited to arrive.

"Fine. You can go ahead. Say hi to Rapunzel for me."

The horse nodded her head and galloped as fast as she can towards the castle. Cassandra let out a soft chuckle and shook her head.

Honestly, she's having a second thought on going back to Corona, herself. She doesn't know how the people would react. After all, 8 years had already passed and her only connection to them this past few years were the letters being sent back and forth by Owl.

She snapped back to reality when she heard a twig snapped. Oh, right. The main reason why she was here in the first place. Her eyebrowd furrowed and took a few steps towards the bush.

"Who's in there?"

Slowly, a blonde man with blue eyes stood up. Cassandra examined the man, finding him familiar but she can't quite put a finger on it. She shrugged that thought away.

"Who are you and why are you here?" She asked.

"As far as I recall, I don't need to answer any questions just to be here," he mumbled and plucked out the leaves that was stuck in his hair, a pinched expression on his face.

The dark-haired girl furrowed her eyebrows, giving the man a stern look. Why does he look so familiar? And also, that was rude—but he's right. She really needs to stop making a fuss everytime she met an unfamiliar person.

Once he was finished plucking out the remaining leaves stuck in his hair, his eyes turned to her, folding his arms across his chest.

"Uh, have we met before?" Her asked, narrowing his eyes at her.

"No? But you do seemed familiar. Maybe we met on the street before?" She doesn't recall conversing with a blonde man before, but why does his eyes seemed so familiar?

"Yeah, we must've," he agreed, scratching the back of his neck. His cheeks turning scarlet in embarrassment. "Anyway, I'm sorry about my reaction earlier. I was just annoyed for tripping head first to a bush, third time this morning." He frowned.

Cassandra bit back a laugh and her posture relaxed but her guard is still up. "It's alright. It was actually rude of me to call out to you like that."

The man shook his head, a slight smile on his face. "No. It's fine. I understand that you only have your guard up." He once again scratched the back of his neck—is that a hobby of his? "Anyway, to answer you question, I'm here to pick up some apples for the occasion," he explained, pointing to something in the ground.

Casdandra leaned and saw a bucket half full of apples. She didn't notice it earlier because it was being blocked by the bush.

"Mind if I help you?"

"Not at all."

Cassandra took a huge step over the bush in order to get to the other side. There's a lot of juicy apples — too bad Fidella didn't wait.

Without uttering a word, she quickly plucked out some apples and threw them in the bucket. The atmosphere turned awkward. There's a deafening silence between the both of them, only the sound of the gush of wind and the swaying leaves could be heard.  Cassandra gulped, trying to find any topic in her mind.

Thankfully, the silence was broken by him. "Hey, I didn't catch your name."

"Because I didn't threw it," she deadpanned, plucking an apple from the tree.

The man pouted, his eyebrows furrowing and a pained look in his eyes. Cassandra groaned and rolled her eyes as she threw a apple on the bucket.

"Fine. You can call me..." she trailed off, hesitating. "Andra."

"You hesitated," he pointed out, plucking two apples. "Is that a codename?"

"You can say that," she answered, turning her head to the side.

"Fine. Then you can call me Ian."

She raised a brow. "Is that a codename?"

"You can say that," he said with a toothy grin.