64th of Vhalar, Arc 720
“How the fuck does one do this?” Cierne grumbled, losing her grip on the carving knife.
“Don’t let my mom hear you say those atrocious obscenities,” Diaval playfully scoffed.
Ignoring his attempted banter, Cierne dropped the knife and stared at the pumpkin before her. “No, seriously Dee. What the fu-“
Diaval’s mother suddenly walked in, stopping Cierne’s next curse before it had finished leaving her mouth.
“How are we doing in here?” She asked with a chipper tone.
Diaval chuckled. “Why don’t you ask miss incompetent over here?” He gesticulated to the Naer, a smirk adorning his flawless face.
Cierne rolled her eyes but couldn’t help smiling herself. It was true, she had no idea what she was doing, but it wasn’t like Diaval was any better. He had repeatedly stabbed his pumpkin over twenty times, trying to find the right angle to start carving the design he had picked out for his jack o’lantern.
Cierne eyed his warily as he held his carving knife with white knuckles.
“How are you one to talk?” She said in a shrill voice, bewildered by the fact that he hadn’t wound up cutting himself yet.
“Honey, I don’t think you should be holding the knife that way.” Diaval’s mother strode over to his position at the table. Like the mother she was, she carefully plucked the knife from out of his hands and set to work helping him get started.
“So whatcha gonna make your pumpkin look like?” He asked, using this momentary lapse in effort to bug Cierne.
She shrugged. She hadn’t thought that far yet. Hell, she hadn’t even cut through the thick layer of the orange vegetable to even begin to start carving out a design.
“You should do something creepy.”
She ran a hand through her hair, feeling the ethereal softness of it. Perks of being a Naerikk.
“What are you gonna do?” She asked, adjusting the topic so it was on him rather than her.
Diaval’s face broke into a wide smile. “I’m thinking about making my pumpkin look like a rabbit.”
Cierne couldn’t help herself- she burst out laughing. “How do you think you’re going to make it look like a rabbit when your mom is helping you with the first real incision?”
Diaval frowned, but she knew him well enough to know he wasn’t truly sad.
He leant closer to her so that she could hear him whisper. “As mama’s boy, I plan to coerce her-“ he pointed inconspicuously to his mother- “to do it for me.”
Cierne squinted her eyes and puffed out her cheeks, displaying a strange expression of confusion and frustration. “That’s totally cheating and you know it.”
Diaval laughed.
“Okay, there. I got it started for you,” his mother said, placing the knife into his very capable hands and walking out of the room.
“Is this part of your persuasive technique or-“
“Shut it, Ceer.”
The Naer laughed before returning back to her pumpkin. She picked up the carving knife again and set to work, nailing it into the thick tissue of the vegetable. She worked through the mass by way of elbow strength, carving an outline that could be used as a basis for whatever design she would choose.
“Figured it out yet?”
Cierne sighed. “Oh, the distractions are limitless with you today, eh?” She said, sticking out her tongue.
She watched Diaval carve out two large holes in the center of his pumpkin. Eyes, she assumed as she copied his terribly inept methodology.
Maybe she would design some sort of animal as well…
Once she had cut out two eye sockets, she dove into some softer flesh below, maneuvering her knife up and down so as to create large fangs. She did this repeatedly until she had made a long row of sharp canines on both the top and bottom of an ill conceived mouth.
“Not bad,” she heard Diaval say, though she wasn’t sure why he was praising the terrible job she was doing.
On the table next to them both sat a bowl filled with the innards of their pumpkins. Cierne had hastily thrown the pieces she had just cut out into the bowl when an interesting idea popped into her head. She reached into the bowl and extracted a large handful of orange sinewy mess and delicately placed some on the dips between the fangs of her pumpkin.
“Now that’s what I’m talking about!” Diaval cheered.
Cierne looked at him quizzically, an expression that asked him what the hell it was he was talking about.
He elaborated. “It’s looming creepier!”
Cierne smirked, continuing to put into motion the ideas that gradually flowed into her mind.
She stabbed the carving knife just above the left eye on the pumpkin and sawed back and forth.
Haphazardly, she extracted a thin piece of pumpkin, resulting in what looked like a thin, arched eyebrow that rested a little too close to the eye. She tried the same thing above the other eye, and just as everyone always preached, practice made perfect (even if the second eyebrow was nowhere near close to perfection).
After having sat back to observe the progress she had made, she heard Diaval clear his throat.
Out of the corner of her eye she watched him lean casually back in his chair.
“Gods, I don’t have the patience for this,” he moaned, setting down his knife and running a messy hand through his brown hair. Bits of pumpkin guts stuck themselves through some of his sandy locks which caused Cierne to attempt stifling a laugh. She failed.
“What’s so funny?” Diaval asked, raising one eyebrow.
Cierne motioned to her own hair by way of showing him why she was laughing when she felt a thick, wet clump land on top of her head.
Now it was Diaval’s turn to laugh.
“It sounds like you two are having some fun,” Diaval’s mother said, walking into the room. She gave one look at the two of them and sighed in that way that said ‘what am I going to do with you’.
Cierne paid her reaction no mind, for her attention was elsewhere, particularly on the scrumptious plate of food she was carrying.
“I thought you guys would want a snack,” she said, setting the plate down on the table in front of her.
It was a delicious pie with an aroma of pumpkin so sweet it made no hesitation in causing Cierne’s mouth to water. Diaval’s too apparently, for he was already reaching halfway across the table for the dessert.
His mother slapped his hand away gently, clicking her tongue at him. “Where are your manners?” She said with a tilt of her head. Her ebony hair and dark grey eyes sparkled with a hint of mischievousness.
“The guest takes the first slice.”
Diaval rolled his eyes. “I wouldn’t say she’s a guest anymore, ma. She’s, like, part of the family now.”
His mother was not swayed. She turned to Cierne and gestured with her hand to take a slice. The Naer hadn’t noticed the plates and silverware that had been set out for her convenience.
If anyone were to have described Cierne at that specific point in time, they would have chosen to describe her as greedy. She practically loaded half the pie onto her own plate, which left Diaval’s mouth hanging agape like gravity was working against it to keep it closed.
“You’ll catch flies,” mumbled Cierne. Her mouth was already stuffed with pumpkin pie, and boy did it taste heavenly.
“We spoil you too much,” Diaval muttered which made his mother stare at him sternly in response.
The two ate silently for the next several minutes, relishing in the divine flavors the food offered them.
Cierne had never experienced something quite like this. It was like her whole body had taken on this peculiar warmth, as though she were sitting right beside a hearth, fire glowing strongly inside it. Her taste buds seemed to be tingling from the excitement of being rewarded with such a delicious experience too.
All in all, she couldn’t have imagined being in a better spot than where she was now. Even Everton’s didn’t offer something quite the same as Diaval’s parents’ did. She felt loved in ways she would have never fathomed had she not met Diaval.
“Thank you,” she whispered to her friend in Vahanic. It was a phrase she had surprisingly learned after so many others when it probably should have been the first.
“You’re welcome,” Diaval said back, the sweet sound of the language dripping off his tongue (along with a little cream from the pumpkin pie).
Cierne paused and turned to give him her full attention. “I mean it,” she said, still using the foreign tongue. She didn’t think she could be any more sincere.
Diaval smiled. And then he crossed his eyes to which Cierne playfully punched him in the arm in response.
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