Author’s Note: So I was supposed to be getting additional prompts to help me fulfill the ones for Sunday Scribblings or Carry On Tuesday, but I managed to be inspired in ways that didn’t have anything to do with the prompts from those sites. Oops?

Anyway, this picture led me to this brief exchange.

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Choices and Chocolate

“You know what irritates me?”

He looked at her, not sure why she’d bothered talking to him since most of the time she was content to pretend he didn’t exist. It didn’t matter if they were alone together or not. She could do a better job at the cold shoulder than his sister, and that said something. “Everything?”

“Shut up, Sherwin.”

He shrugged. “You asked. It’s not my fault you’re a brat, you know. That’s your choice.”

Terra gave him a thin smile. “Does that mean that being an airhead is your choice?”

“Very funny.”

She grinned. “I thought so.”

He grunted. She was living up to her reputation as a brat right now, but he was too tired to let her bait him. Not this time. “All right. What frustrates you?”

“With all the things that I can grow, I can’t grow chocolate. I’m earth. I’m plant girl. I can make gardens sprout and blossom in ways that defy nature,” she said, gesturing rather wildly, and he ducked so that she didn’t take his head off. “Still, I can’t grow chocolate. I love chocolate.”

He laughed. She smacked him. He smiled even though it hurt a little. She could be amusing sometimes, and he liked seeing her—the real her—show through. So she was a chocolate lover, was she? He knew a thing or two about rare, expensive chocolates, and he bet that would cheer her up. “Would it make any difference if we got you some cocoa seeds?”

“I tried that. It didn’t make a difference. They wouldn’t grow.”

He shrugged. “Then I guess we’ll just buy you all the chocolate you can eat.”

“Really?”

“Yep.”

She smiled—a real smile this time, not a smirk, not one that mocked him. “Maybe you’re not such a jerk after all.”