True to her word, Angela snuck past the inner wall the next day. Angela's sudden disregard for rules surprised Jesse, but he responded in glee at obtaining an accomplice. She mentioned that she was infiltrating the palace to visit the future-sultan, and although this mission intrigued Jesse, he was still more inclined to play with the eldest sprout of the Shimada family.

Of course the rest of the Shimada family did not know about Jesse. Jesse knew that the classes should not mingle, and was visiting Hanzo in secret. Having done this for several days meant that he had many tips to give Angela in staying hidden, including travelling among the shadows, and freezing next to potted plants if someone were to pass by. As sprouts, their leaves-to-body ratio was very large and they could easily be mistaken as normal plants if they played the part well enough.

Angela was brimming with confidence when she and Jesse parted but sneaking into a house undetected is very different from getting there in the first place. The trek to the palace seemed so much shorter when she was riding on Reinhardt's shoulder and listening to his story. Although she started her journey before the sun had risen, it was almost noon when she arrived at her destination.

Jesse's words of advice proved to be useful and she skittered across long hallways unseen, peeking past doors until she found a room that looked like it might belong to a wealthy, young sprout. There were tiny, fresh footprints of mud on the floor and toys were scattered everywhere. However, Fareeha was not there, and Angela continued searching until she arrived outside a large courtyard that was green with decorative plants and had a blue pool of water in the centre. Angela was thinking about diving into the pool, almost forgetting her mission, when she spotted a sprout climbing trees, statues, and anything that stood taller than a ripe ananas.

"Fareeha!" Angela's whisper travelled on the wind and it reached the sprout immediately. Although there were servants around, the name went unnoticed as nobody knew the future-sultan's given name.

Fareeha leapt from the plant she was playing on, tucked, and rolled when she hit the ground. She said something to one of the servants before heading towards Angela's hiding place. Once she knew nobody was watching, she bounded up to Angela. The well-rested Fareeha was a whole other sprout, compared to the day before. Fareeha was brimming with so much energy, surely she would be able to run to the wall and back before bedtime.

And they did. At first it was a struggle for Angela to keep up with Fareeha, having already made the trek once, but she was older and stronger, and Fareeha started slowing partway there. Angela showed Fareeha the little, red stick that Jesse had marked, and the two sprouts agreed to meet at that spot the following day. Angela told Fareeha all the little tricks she could use to escape unnoticed, and the smile that Fareeha showed Angela gave Angela's heart a gentle squeeze. She completely made up her mind, then, that being friends with Fareeha was worth the risk of being caught for trespassing beyond the inner wall.

Angela and Fareeha met at the wall the following morning, and Jesse finally got to meet the future-sultan. Her title didn't bother him, and he and Fareeha hit it off instantly. They tested each other's strength through a mock-wrestling match, and although Jesse was bigger than Fareeha, Fareeha came out on top. Angela thought that despite his natural gift at handling weapons, perhaps Jesse was just bad at wrestling. Or maybe he let her win.

After that, Jesse would not stay long, as his loyalty lay with Hanzo. He only played with Fareeha a little, and then left Angela and Fareeha alone. Angela had thought that Fareeha did not have much freedom at the palace, but somehow Fareeha had no trouble sneaking out every day. Of course, Fareeha could never stay too long. They had maybe an hour or two together before Fareeha had to head back, lest the kingdom shut down again due to her absence.

They continued meeting like this for two more growth seasons, until Angela and Jesse reached an age where they were expected to spend more time in lessons. They were forced to move their scheduled play time to the evening. But longer and stronger legs meant that getting to the wall was faster for everybody, so the sprouts still managed to get in a decent amount of play before they had to head home or risk being caught out at night.

Then, after two more growth seasons, when Angela and Jesse were ten, they became too large to fit through the passage in the wall. It was now Fareeha's turn to cross to the other side. Hanzo never came to the wall, and was apparently even bigger than all of them anyway, so Jesse cried for three days straight due to his inability to see his friend. Angela and Fareeha knew that this was a fate that would befall them one day, but they did not know what to do about it. In the meantime, Fareeha offered to visit the Shimada house and deliver letters between Jesse and Hanzo.

Luckily, before Fareeha could get too big to cross the wall, Jesse had his first hummingbird.

Society legally recognized ananases as ripe when they had reached sixteen growth seasons. But development varied from ananas to ananas, causing some to undergo sexual maturity earlier or later. And that sexual maturity is marked by the appearance of one's first hummingbird.

For Jesse, it happened when he was just twelve growth seasons old. His hummingbird was there when he opened his eyes, and his scream of excitement caused Angela and Reinhardt to rush to his room in concern.

As all hummingbirds, his was a combination of two colours: one vibrant, and the other the colour of a metal. Jesse's hummingbird was bright red with a copper belly.

"Congratulations", said Reinhardt, clapping his hand over Jesse's shoulder. "You have reached ripeness."

Angela watched jealously as Jesse's hummingbird flittered about him. She compared it to Reinhardt who had ten hummingbirds, all containing different patterns of orange and the colour of iron.

"Why did Jesse become ripe first?" said Angela. "I can read much harder tomes, and as long as I have my staff, I can best him in any duel."

"This and that are not related", said Reinhardt gently. "But goodness, I did not expect Jesse to become ripe so soon! I must buy him gauntlets as soon as possible! We don't want any accidents, do we?"

"No, sir", said Jesse, although he could barely contain his smile.

Jesse was instructed to stay at home until Reinhardt could purchase gauntlets for him. For once, Jesse obeyed, but Angela knew that he had a plan when his smirk would not leave his face.

"It's said that hummingbirds are both an extension of oneself, and a lifelong companion", said Jesse. "As a companion, they can travel as far from their ananas as they please, although they may grow weary from the distance. Regardless, they can be used to deliver letters…"

As an experiment, Jesse handed his hummingbird the letter he had written for Hanzo the day before, and although the hummingbird drooped in its altitude with the weight of the paper in its beak, it managed to stay afloat.

The meaning of Jesse's words started to dawn on Angela, and soon she smiled as brilliantly as Jesse.

"So when Fareeha becomes too large to fit through the passage in the wall, we can send your hummingbird through to pass letters between us", said Angela.

"That's exactly right", said Jesse, tapping his nose. "And just in time too, as Fareeha's been outright peeling herself trying to force herself through."

Angela knew the day came when she arrived at the wall and she did not see Fareeha waiting for her, sitting among armfuls of tarts and pies that she liked to bring along to share. Instead she heard pitiful whimpers from down the passageway, and her heart sank.

Angela would not see Fareeha's face again for another five years.

It irked Angela to no end that she and Fareeha were in such close proximity every day, separated by just a few feet's worth of vines.

To make things worse, she still had not had her first hummingbird by sixteen growth seasons.

Every year a tourney was held at the palace and every knight and knight-to-be were invited. The only requirements were that they were ripe and of legal age. However, sprouts were not allowed to attend the tourney, even as spectators, and they were weeded out at the gate due to the absence of hummingbirds. Since Angela did not have a single one, she was turned away from the gate the year she was sixteen, and she wallowed about at home all week until Jesse returned with tales of his first tourney.

Jesse had done well, having won several events for ananases under the age of twenty growth seasons, including the joust and one-on-one combat for the categories of one-handed swords and maces. Angela was actually surprised that Jesse did not win an award for archery, as he was an excellent shot, but Jesse explained that Hanzo Shimada was gifted with a supernatural ability to hit whatever he pleased, even with his eyes blindfolded.

"But it'll be a lot harder to win anything next year", said Jesse, with a twinkle in his eye. "The future-sultan put on a demonstration of her ability, and her skill is impressive, even by my standards. She could probably have taken on many ananases in their prime."

"Fareeha? You saw Fareeha?" said Angela, now even more jealous than she had been all week. "How is she?"

"She's huge now!" said Jesse.

"Does she… have her hummingbirds yet?" Angela could not look Jesse in the eye, and watched his hummingbirds instead. He had five now.

"No, not yet. She'd have told you by now if she did, wouldn't she?" said Jesse. "I guess you're both late bloomers."

So for another year, she and Fareeha kept exchanging letters through that their secret passage via Jesse's hummingbirds, until Angela reached her seventeenth growth season and Fareeha her sixteenth, when Fareeha got her first hummingbird.

Fareeha had told Angela in her letter, but there was no real need to as said letter was delivered by a blue and gold bird.

Angela pulled out her stationary and scribbled a "congratulations", and opened a box she had stored in the berry bush for this occasion. Inside the box was a pair of sturdy knight-grade gauntlets that she had purchased for Fareeha's coming of age. She had a matching set at home that she thought she would be using by now.

Jesse added his signature to Angela's letter, and she bundled the letter with the gloves and put it in the waiting bird's beak. Fareeha's hummingbird struggled under the weight, and Jesse's hummingbirds had to help fly it across.

"Thank you for the gift!" came Fareeha's reply. "I like these gauntlets more than the gloves Mama gave me. These won't tear in battle. I know I told you before, but Mama doesn't want me to know how to fight, even though she's famous for her skills. I'm glad Reinhardt came over so often to train me in secret! You should have seen Mama's face during my demonstration in last year's tourney. Angela, I hope you get your first hummingbird soon so I can show you what I have learnt so far!"

Angela wanted to be happy for Fareeha, but it was so hard to when she was so worried about her own ripening. Would she make it in time for the next tourney in just a few months?

Miraculously, Angela did get her hummingbird, and it happened the day before the tourney. Like Jesse's, it was just there, watching her when she woke up. She was still half-asleep, and did not even realize it was her hummingbird, thinking instead that she must have left her window open and some normal bird had found its way inside her room. Indeed, this hummingbird was white, and all ananas hummingbirds were colourful with a metallic trim… And then she saw that this hummingbird had a gold circle on the top of its head, and she knew that this was no ordinary bird.

She sat up straight in her bed and held out her hand, eyes widening when the hummingbird hopped right onto her palm. She gently smoothed the feathers on its back, and it was only when she felt the corresponding tingle across her own back that she mimicked Jesse's shriek from five growth seasons ago.

Of course she was stopped when she got to the gate. Her hummingbird was so abnormal, after all. The guard accused her of trying to sneak through using a charmed bird. But luckily Reinhardt was there to back her up, and the guard apologized profusely for disturbing a Wilhelm.

The road leading up to the palace was swarming with the stiff leaves of ananases for as far as the eye could see. Angela straightened her own leaves so that they stood higher.

"Hey", whispered Jesse, nudging Angela in the side. "Do you want to take the shortcut straight up to the palace? I'm tired of plodding along at this pace with all the others."

"No, Jesse, we shouldn't digress from the path set for us. We're not sprouts; we don't get that freedom anymo-" said Angela

"We might be able to catch Fareeha alone if we get there before everybody else", interrupted Jesse with a wink.

Angela lowered her voice and said "let's do it", almost in a growl.

Even if they were not sprouts anymore, Angela and Jesse still remembered how to be stealthy. They slipped from the progression line without even Reinhardt noticing until much later when the ananas turned around to say something and found his successors gone.

Angela and Jesse raced through tall grass. Jesse had outgrown her growth seasons ago, but Angela was still above average in height. They had to run stooped over as far as they could to stay hidden, and Angela only straightened when her thighs burned, and she figured they were far enough from the road anyway.

Unfortunately, when they got to the palace, there were already ananases everywhere and the entrance to the interior of the palace was blocked off. Angela recalled her memory of sneaking into the palace all those growth seasons ago and circled the building until she found the window to what must have been Fareeha's quarters.

She sent her hummingbird up to peak for her, but when the white and gold bird returned, it shook its head, indicating that the room was empty.

Angela and Jesse were disappointed, but there was not much they could do about it. They joined the queue to sign in for the Wilhelm family, and were greeted by a handsome servant draped in finer silks than they had. They were shown the tent they would be staying in, the temporary market set up where they could buy food, and were directed to the giant billboard that showed the schedule of the events for the week.

"Well, I'm going to be here until the end", said Jesse, noticing the way his many events were spread evenly throughout the week.

"Me too", said Angela, not caring to point out that the big melee event was always on the last day, and almost everybody competing always participated in the melee.

Other than the melee, Angela was going to compete in two staff combat events: one for ananases under twenty, and one for all ages. Jesse, of course, was signed up for everything.

"Look at the first event!" said Angela, pointing at the board. "A demonstration by the freshly-ripe future-sultan!"

"I almost missed that! It almost looks like somebody scribbled it in… isn't that Fareeha's handwriting? Whatever. It's before the opening ceremony, which is… starting in a few hours", said Jesse, reading the position of the sun in sky. "We should get something to eat and head to the courtyard early so we can get good seats."

Angela and Jesse went to the market, looking for something tasty to eat. They paid for a few cherry tarts with a small handful of pumpkins seeds.

"Reinhardt's going to be mad that we ditched him", said Jesse.

As Angela was paying for a few lemon tarts (her and Fareeha's favourites), and she grabbed a bag of coca leaves for Reinhardt to chew on. Hopefully he'd forgive them for leaving him behind.

Jesse stuck is hand in the bag and picked out a handful of leaves.

"I don't know why you two enjoy that stuff", said Angela. "It's so bitter."

"You still have a sprout's palette", teased Jesse. "No wonder you got your first hummingbird so late." He shoved the leaves into his mouth.

"Fareeha has a sweet tooth too", grumbled Angela, recalling the times they would swap snacks by the wall.

"Well aren't you two birds of a feather", commented Jesse, spraying some green juice from between his teeth as he talked. Angela shielded her face from the mess he made with her fingers.

"Can we get going already?" said Angela.

"Calm down, we're so early there probably won't be anybody there…" Jesse was corrected upon seeing hordes of young, ripe ananases running towards the courtyard. "Maybe it's just a coincidence?"

"Let's go!" said Angela.

The courtyard was full when they got there. At first Jesse and Angela tried to squeeze their way through the crowd, but when they were almost separated, they resorted to the complicated task of worming in between legs. All those years of wiggling through the passageway in the wall that was getting too small for them paid off.

Somehow, they made it to the middle of the courtyard and when they straightened, their leaves and clothes were in disarray. Angela and Jesse smoothed their clothes and helped each other fix up their leaves.

The crowd buzzed with electricity and ananases pushed in on all sides, suffocating Angela and Jesse. They were covered in sweat by the time palace workers came in to clear space for Fareeha's demonstration.

Someone announced the future-sultan's entrance, but Angela could barely hear it over the crowd's cheering. She heard the sighs and swooning before she could even see Fareeha.

"Look how high her leaves stand! It makes her look even taller than she already is!" Angela heard someone say.

"Only sixteen growth seasons old, and look at all of the hummingbirds she already has!" said another.

The crowd went wild and now servants had to join hands and form a living barrier to push back against the throngs of people. Angela and Jesse were pushed backwards by more ambitious ananases, but fortunately, due to their height, they could still get a good view as long as they stood on their tiptoes.

"I see her!" said Jesse and Angela eagerly followed his line of sight.

She was unprepared for what she saw.

Jesse had clearly been exaggerating when he said that Fareeha was huge. It was true that she was so tall now that she looked completely different from the tiny sprout Angela knew, but surely she could not have been taller than Jesse, who had gone through a massive growth spurt during his ripening. Gone were the days of a little Fareeha who played so roughly she was frequently covered in mud, or the Fareeha who let her leaves droop. Now her leaves stood up straight, proud and spikey, gleaming under the sun.

The clothing Fareeha was wearing was light, airy, blue, and familiar. Angela felt her breath catch in her throat, before her mind caught up to her body's instinctual reactions, forcing her to suck in fresh air. Fareeha's dress was eerily similar to the dress that Adaela wore in the picture book they read together upon their first meeting. But the sturdy gauntlets that Fareeha wore did not match well with the dress.

The spectators had been right, and Fareeha did acquire more hummingbirds in the few months since she got her first. They were all blue and gold, and those that rested on her shoulders took flight as Fareeha unsheathed her weapon of choice: an abnormally large scimitar that required two hands to hold.

Fareeha's actions were smooth and well-practiced, but all-in-all, her demonstration was more a dance than stances that one would realistically use in combat. The way her scimitar moved fluidly looked good, but the way Fareeha swirled them around her were too theatrical to do real damage to an enemy. It was unlikely that Reinhardt had taught this dance to Fareeha, as he had all the grace of snail. It must have been a performance passed down through the generations as a symbolic display of an Amari's prowess.

When Fareeha was done, the crowd roared with applause.

"Jesse, help me up!" commanded Angela, although she did not wait for his permission before she struggled onto his back.

Jesse grunted and fought to maintain his balance as Angela waved her arms enthusiastically from her perch.

"Fa-" started Angela, but was rudely interrupted by Jesse smacking her leg.

"Hey! Don't you remember that only the sultan is supposed to know the future-sultan's name?" said Jesse.

"That's just a technicality", said Angela. "Reinhardt knew Sultan Ana Amari's given name before she rose to power."

"And don't you know all the controversy that caused? Ananases are still talking about it! You'd think that after all the sneaking around we've done as sprouts, you'd have learned that discretion is a rule-breaker's best friend."

Angela humphed, but realized that Jesse was right.

"Who's discretion? Fareeha's my best friend", she said.

"I thought I was your best friend", said Jesse light-heartedly.

"Ew, you're different. You're my brother", said Angela with a laugh.

"Your memory is too good", said Jesse.

"You remembered it too!" countered Angela.

"Sure. But we're not sprouts anymore", murmured Jesse too low for Angela to hear.

Angela figured that if she could not use Fareeha's name to get her attention, she would not be able to do it at all. She prepared to get down from Jesse's back, but then she saw Fareeha pause and slowly scan the audience. The crowd across from Angela screamed when Fareeha's eyes ran over them.

"She looked at me!" shrieked someone nearby.

"She's so beautiful! I don't think my heart can take this", cried another.

And then Fareeha turned and she found who she was looking for. She made eye contact with Angela, and smiled.

If ananases could spontaneously combust, all the ones surrounding Angela would have.

And then at that moment, it was as if Angela had gone deaf. She could no longer hear the roar of the masses, only the sound of her throbbing heartbeat. The weather that day was not great, as there was no rain. But although there were a few clouds to dim the effects of the sun, all of a sudden Angela felt like she was burning.

She felt incredibly light-headed, and did not notice that she was toppling over until Jesse voiced his concern, and she snapped back to awareness, sound rushing back to her. She realized then, that Fareeha had turned and started to walk away. Disappointed, Angela climbed down from Jesse's shoulders.

"Let's go ba-" started Angela, before she noticed something out of the corner of her eye.

Her hummingbird had left the safety of her shoulder and was flitting around something else. It was investigating another little bird, one with blue feathers, a gold beak, and golden freckles across its back and wings.

"I'm going to look for Hanzo before the opening ceremony", said Jesse. "Want to come with me? You haven't seen him in a while."

Jesse had not noticed the blue and gold hummingbird amongst them yet. Angela considered telling him, but eventually decided to heed his earlier advice and be more discreet.

"I'm going to head to our room and lie down for a bit", said Angela. "I think this heat is getting to me."

Jesse did not suspect Angela of lying, for Angela almost never lied. He asked to be sure that Angela knew the way back, but ananases have an excellent sense of direction if they pay attention to their surroundings, and when Angela assured him she would be fine, he left and disappeared through the dissipating crowd.

Angela's hummingbird was still zipping around the one Fareeha had sent, curiously observing it from all angles.

"Ask it if it's going to take us to Fareeha", Angela told her hummingbird, as ananas hummingbirds could only understand the words of their master and other ananas hummingbirds.

Angela's hummingbird spoke to Fareeha's in a volume too low for Angela to hear through the noise of the crowd, and Fareeha's hummingbird nodded in response.

Fareeha's hummingbird darted away and Angela eagerly followed it. Whenever it got too far ahead, it would stop and wait for Angela to catch up. Angela never took her eyes off the little bird and bumped into many ananases as a consequence. Fareeha's hummingbird could have led her straight off a cliff and Angela would not have noticed until she had already stumbled over.

The hummingbird led Angela out of the palace. After a while Angela knew where it was leading them and as soon as she did she broke into a run, eventually outpacing the hummingbird.

She practically sprinted back towards the wall, and in what would have taken the six growth seasons old Angela several hours, it only took the ripe, motivated Angela half an hour to run.

Jesse's little red stick was still there, but Angela only had eyes for the grown ananas waiting for her. She stood as Angela approached.

"Fareeha!" squawked Angela, launching herself at the taller ananas.

Fareeha laughed and caught Angela in her arms, letting Angela's momentum spin them around, before setting her old friend on her feet.

"Oh Angela! It's so good to see again after so long!" said Fareeha. "I was worried I wouldn't recognize you. You're so big now."

"So are you", said Angela, who could now directly compare their heights. Fareeha was about half a hand taller than her. Where Angela was lean and wiry, Fareeha was bulky on levels similar to Jesse.

"Fareeha… your face…" Angela touched the mark under Fareeha's right eye.

"Yup!" said Fareeha, puffing up her chest. "I finally got an Amari tattoo a few days ago. It's not the same one as Mama's of course. Mama didn't want me to have it for some reason, even though I had my first hummingbird so long ago! I didn't tell you because I wanted it to be a surprise."

"Well, I'm surprised! It suits you", said Angela.

"We don't have that much time, but I wanted to see you before I have to be at the opening ceremony", said Fareeha. "Listening to your voice is so different from reading your letters."

Gone were the days of two squeaky voiced sprouts. Both ananases's voices had deepened significantly, but Fareeha's sounded richer to Angela. Angela mentally cursed herself for not bringing any books, because she felt it would only be fair if Fareeha read to her to repay her for the day they met, as Angela would have liked to do nothing else but listen to Fareeha's voice for a whole day.

The moment that Angela realized that Fareeha was still holding her was obvious, as Angela turned red and jerked away. She wondered why Fareeha's touch now bothered her, and why her heart was hammering away in her chest.

Fareeha looked disappointed. It caused a lump to form in Angela's throat, and as an apology, looked for Fareeha's hand. She touched her gloved fingertips hesitantly to Fareeha's gauntlet, and she noticed Fareeha blush slightly too.

"It's um, kind of hot today, huh?" croaked Fareeha. She cleared her throat. "Let's sit in the shade where it's cooler."

Angela nodded her agreement and wondered what was wrong with her.

"I'm so glad you got your hummingbird just in time", said Fareeha. "It would have killed me if I couldn't see you this year either."

"Yeah." Angela was not sure why her tongue seemed to twist into itself, but the short reply was about all she could manage.

"Speaking of your hummingbird… can I see it…?" said Fareeha.

Fareeha craned her neck around Angela, where her hummingbird was hiding in her leaves.

"Oh wow!" said Fareeha.

Fareeha's close proximity made Angela feel like shying away, but her hummingbird had the opposite instinct, instead flying out from the safety of its hiding place and greeting Fareeha face-to-face.

"I've never seen a hummingbird like this before! Its white wings are so beautiful…" said Fareeha.

And all of a sudden, Fareeha's hummingbirds swarmed Angela. There must have been ten of them, as many as any ananas could have. Some of them flicked in and out of Angela's vision, whereas others landed boldly on Angela's head and shoulders.

"Oh no! I'm so sorry, I don't know why they're doing this!" Fareeha screeched. "Come on, guys! Leave her alone!"

Fareeha waved her hands around Angela, trying to shoo her own hummingbirds away, but they refused to leave Angela alone.

"It's ok, Fareeha", laughed Angela. She looked at Fareeha sitting next to her, worrying about Fareeha ruining her blue dress. "They're not bothering me or anything. And you're beautifu- I mean! They! They're beautiful!"

Fareeha swallowed audibly and turned her head to face the opposite direction.

Angela felt a drop of sweat run down her neck, and she wished that she had not made such a big deal about the slip of her tongue.

They sat like that in awkward silence, feeling their clasped hands grow sweaty beneath their gauntlets, worrying that the other would somehow find out.

"Your hummingbird really is beautiful", said Fareeha. Like Fareeha's, Angela's hummingbird also would not leave Fareeha alone, and it constantly tried to keep Fareeha's attention by dancing around her face. It was truly odd behaviour. Angela had never seen Jesse's or Reinhardt's behave like this before. "White aside, gold is one of the rarest metallic colours there can be."

"Your hummingbirds are gold too!" pointed out Angela.

"Mmhmm. And… have you heard? The owners of hummingbirds that share metallic colours are said to be super compatible with each other and…"

"Oh!" interrupted Angela, suddenly excited. "Jesse's hummingbirds are red and copper, and Hanzo's are blue and copper! That must be why they're such great friends!"

"Oh… um, yeah", said Fareeha. She cleared her throat. "Great friends… um, us too, you know?"

"You're right!" said Angela, positively beaming.

She leaned her head against Fareeha's shoulder and sighed.

"On the day we met, Jesse said it was fate for him to find his way across the wall and meet Hanzo. But surely, our meeting was fate as well. I'm so sure that we were meant to be together forever", said Angela.

"Yeah", said Fareeha, somewhat distracted.

Her eyes were fixated on Angela's hummingbird hovering in front of her.

"Your hummingbird looks so soft", said Fareeha dreamily. "I wonder… I want to feel it…"

Fareeha let go of Angela's hand, removed her gauntlet, and started to move towards it. Angela's hummingbird saw this action, and dove straight down, trying to meet Fareeha's hand in the middle... before Angela swatted her hummingbird away. The poor thing careened straight towards the ground and bounced off it like a rubber ball. It was fine, of course, as ananas hummingbirds are part physical and part spiritual, but it glared and chittered at its master nonetheless.

"Woah, woah!" gasped Angela, face a beet red. "You can't just go around touching ananases' hummingbirds without protection! Put your gauntlet back on right now!"

"Huh? Why not?" said a startled Fareeha, who gave pitying looks at Angela's hummingbird.

"Why not!" repeated Angela. "Don't you… I meant, haven't you… I mean, you've heard of the… birds and the birds haven't you?"

"The birds and the birds?" said Fareeha. "Is that a euphemism for something? Are you sure you got the idiom right…?"

Even though there was nobody around, Angela still cupped Fareeha's ear and whispered into it, explaining the means of reproduction that ananases employed.

"Oh… OH", said Fareeha, suddenly blushing so hard that she turned violently purple.

She quickly pulled her gauntlet back on.

"Oh gods… I had no idea… Mama never explained it to me", said Fareeha.

"I'm actually surprised you didn't have an… accident sooner if you didn't know this!" said Angela.

"I…" Fareeha looked down at her hands. "I've never wanted to take off these gauntlets before. Because… I mean… you gave them to me after all."

Angela paid attention to Fareeha's gauntlets for the first time, and they were indeed the ones that she had gifted Fareeha on the day of her ripening.

She was about to start a friendly bout of teasing with Fareeha, but Fareeha stood and marched forward.

"Come on, we should get back", said Fareeha. "I need to be at the opening ceremony or else Mama will scold me."

Angela nodded as she stood. "Race you?" she said.

Angela had found Reinhardt and Jesse at the opening ceremony, which took place in a large arena. They asked her where she had been. Angela only shrugged in reply and munched on a lemon tart. She realized that she had forgotten to share some with Fareeha in her excitement and figured that she had lost her opportunity to do so; if they were back at the palace Fareeha would surely choose from much more extravagant foods.

The opening ceremony itself was quite long and full of speeches. Angela yawned several times. Because Reinhardt had saved a good spot in the front of the audience for them, Angela could see Fareeha clearly. Fareeha had to change her clothes because she had gotten her dress dirty. Occasionally her nostrils flared, and her eyes narrowed a bit. Angela and Jesse stifled giggles whenever they saw this happen, because they recognized it as Fareeha's attempts to resist yawning.

After all the speeches, the representative of each household marched formally around the perimeter of the arena, carrying a flag bearing their family crest. They were ordered by power and reputation. Reinhardt had already excused himself, but Angela wondered where he was after all the knights finished making their lap and the houses of nobility began filing in. She wanted to ask Jesse what might have happened to Reinhardt, but he became visibly tense as the representative for the Shimada Clan emerged.

"Look at that!" said Jesse proudly, elbowing Angela painfully in the ribs. "Hanzo is the representative this year! This is a huge honour for him!"

Angela lazily observed Hanzo. Jesse had taken her to the Shimada house before and played with the Shimada brothers. To be honest, she never saw what Jesse saw in Hanzo. If her seriousness when it came to studies annoyed Jesse, she couldn't understand how Jesse was so obsessed with Hanzo, who was serious about everything.

And then there was Hanzo's little brother, a sprout named Genji, whom she had helped by giving him a bandage when he scraped his knee once. Since then he tailed Angela every time she visited the Shimada House. Angela had only rolled her eyes and let it happen, but for some reason he and Fareeha never got along. The two's squabbles proved to be too risky and the little intruders were almost caught when Genji and Fareeha got into a fist fight. Angela and Jesse managed to hide in time, but Fareeha had been caught pounding her tiny fists into Genji's face. Of course the future-sultan was forgiven, but she had to be escorted home. After that, Angela and Fareeha never visited the Shimada House again.

Angela snapped back to the present when she noticed a change in volume within the arena. She looked down and saw Reinhardt appear, clad in a handsome set of armour and bearing the Wilhelm flag of a lion. She noticed that the majority of the audience was as calm as they were at the beginning of the ceremony, and the only ananases whispering were young: perhaps it was their first tourneys.

"Why is Reinhardt only coming out now?" Angela asked Jesse. "After all the nobles?"

"Oh, it was like that last year too", said Jesse. "Even though he's just a knight, he's the sultan's most trusted friend, so he gets to march second last. Freshly-ripe ananases get scandalized every year. Oh, look, there's the sultan now", said Jesse.

From her seat in the bleachers, Angela cast her eyes back down towards the arena. Sultan Ana Amari carried herself with as much poise and grace as Angela remembered when she met her eleven growth seasons ago. Like Reinhardt, she seemed to have acquired a few new wrinkles and was a little less green than when she was younger. Angela thought it was admirable how both Reinhardt and Ana's hummingbirds flew in a perfect arrow formation above their banners. They had excellent control of them. She could tell why Reinhardt and Ana got along so well; their hummingbirds shared an iron trim, albeit Reinhardt's were orange and Ana's were blue.

"Sultan Ana Amari and Fareeha look so similar, don't they?" thought Jesse aloud. "Looking at the sultan is like looking into Fareeha's future. I hope I age half as well as I know Fareeha will."

Angela did not respond. She imagined her and Fareeha in the future. In another thirty growth seasons would they look like Ana and Reinhardt now? Marching formally around the circular arena, the distance between them never getting smaller nor wider?

Angela felt something bump against her shoulder.

It was that freckled gold and blue hummingbird again. Angela's hummingbird looked at the second hummingbird with enthusiasm before inviting it to sit together on Angela's lap.

Angela looked to where Fareeha was.

Fareeha attention was fixed on her mother and Reinhardt. She seemed to be lost in thought.

Angela gently stroked the backs of the two hummingbirds on her lap.