Arc was blind to their ignorant love, not that he would be paying attention to it anyway. Merri brought him more food! This time it looked like fruits too. Meals were easily his favorite parts of his day, his palate had been made much more liberal by his early experiences.
Even though he knew he would have much more good food in the future, he couldn't help but savor the fresh fruits. He spent minutes just sucking on the outermost part before chewing a bit and getting more of the taste inside. Both Merri and Zerrin made small and relatively stiff conversation as they took turns feeding him bits of the fruit.
Of the selections in this serving, Arc found a certain fruit to be exceptionally delicious. It was a blue fleshed melon with green seeds. It was the sweetest thing he had eaten, but it was not stiflingly sweet. It was watery and helped quench his thirst, as well as had a little bit a sour aftertaste that left him wanting more. He also felt a bit of tingling around his core balance point as it started to dissolve in his stomach. He didn't think much of it, he was too enamored with the other fruits.
An apple-like fruit with a green center that tasted like a banana, an orange-like fruit that had a taste more akin to a pineapple without the sour aftertaste, a different type of melon with snow-white flesh that tasted like grapes. All of these fruity flavors and overwhelming colors were almost too much for him to handle. Almost.
"It looks like the Swedice Melon is his favorite..." Merri was the first to comment on Arc's fruit preferences. "That's gonna be fairly expensive."
"That may be true but it didn't look like he hated any of the other fruits. It may pay to only use the melon as a reward or for special occasions." Zerrin, ever the pragmatist suggested a solution. "Not like we are particularly strapped for money here anyway."
"It's not the price I'm worried about, the time and energy required to actually secure them are what is going to cost us." Merri sighed, she was already running a tight schedule as is. Trying to find time to negotiate a somewhat steady supply of the seasonal and exclusive melons would probably occupy one of her precious few off days, if not multiple of them. Of the things she would do to pay back her debts to Marlev, this was still pretty inconsequential.
"Let me handle that part then." Zerrin seemed to have a solution regarding the precious melons, but he didn't elaborate further.
Sensing an end to the brief conversation, Merri stealthily sprinkled some salt on a few of the fruits.
Arc didn't catch it, he had his eyes closed enjoying the punchy flavor of a yellow grape that tasted exactly like a strawberry.
Arc did catch the sudden change in flavor though.
All of the fruits took on different tastes and textures when exposed to salt, with his favorite the Swedice Melon becoming even more delicious. The salt took up a position on his palate that he had initially thought that it had lacked. He had the chance to eat such delicious food here, and he even hadn't gotten to eat meat yet! He wondered what it would taste like.
For now though, he was starting to get full. His quest for protein could wait another day. He signaled to his guardians that he was full by using his weak little arms to push the bowl away slightly. He liked how it tasted on the way down, he was not interested in it's taste coming up.
"I guess he's full. Not surprising he wouldn't be able to eat that much considering his size." Merri had little experience with kids. However she had read a few books and pamphlets on child birth and rearing in her rare free time as preparation for the day she hoped would come. "I wonder if he is still in the stage for burping..."
Zerrin couldn't help but be intrigued by her words. "Burping?" was the only word that escaped his lips.
"I don't know too much about it myself but I assume he isn't because of the lack of, well, burping." Merri didn't even try to feign competency on the subject. She felt like Zerrin could see through her. "Still, I find it strange that he doesn't need to be taken care of as much. He even requires less cleaning than I had thought."
She had cleaned his diaper multiple times at this point. Initially she had fumbled with it a little, almost dirtying her hand. She found that he peed and pooped far less than what the books said. She brushed it off as she attributed it to there being variance between babies. Maybe Arc was special? Who knew?
The number of people who knew the real answer to that question could be counted on both hands, the nine in Anima Operantium and Arc himself. Everyone else just had suspicions at this point.
Still, despite their pleasant, if a bit rigid, conversation, they had to go their separate ways.
"Well I must get back to work Merri. I have been gone for two weeks. Although I don't have much paperwork in the first place it would be bad to let it pile up too much. If only I could hire someone to do it for me..." He was thinking about how someone doing the few hours of busywork he had a day would free him up to cultivate a bit more. Maybe he would get to spend more time with Merri.
"You know you can't do that. As one of the leading figures of the peninsula you know how important it is for you to answer those queries and plan for the future. You can't just leave that to another. I on the other hand could really use some help with the cleaning around this place." She too had her selfish reasons for this. She wanted to have a it more time to cultivate so she could shrink that gap between them just a bit and maybe, just maybe, get a little bit more time to be intimate with him like this.
Without much more than a curt "Goodbye," they went their separate ways. They were still completely oblivious to the other's feelings, though Arc had started to pick up some clues.