Derivan had to admit to himself that he felt a little lost. Of all the things that he'd had practice doing ever since leaving the dungeon that had spawned him, harvesting magical crops wasn't one of them — nevermind the intricacies that apparently went into harvesting these particular magical crops. It wasn't that it was overwhelming, exactly; he just didn't understand why there were so many steps.

"The leaves of the Heuna maloris need to be plucked one by one," Emily instructed. Apparently, even Vex didn't know about some of these plants; the lizardkin was watching Emily in fascination, his eyes glowing with his version of mana sight. Derivan wasn't sure what he saw; his own skill wasn't advanced enough to show him the way mana was moving within the plants. "Only pluck the leaves that have turned green, and keep in mind the leaves might change color once you start plucking them."

"Fascinating," Vex murmured. "The mana's moving around every time you pluck a leaf. The green ones are the ones with the most mana?"

"You can see that?" Emily raised an eyebrow, impressed. "Yeah, that's basically what's happening."

"Is that a defense mechanism or something?" Vex asked.

"It's hard to say." Emily shrugged. She plucked another leaf carefully, and Derivan watched as the entire plant shifted hues; some green leaves turned a deep red, and red leaves shifted into a vibrant yellow. It would have been startling if he hadn't seen it a few times already. "It's not a very good defense mechanism, if that's what it is. It might be able to confuse some insects and pests that prey on high-mana leaves, and make them waste energy moving around, but it's not going to stop other animals from just eating the whole plant."

Vex was frowning, tapping a finger on his chin. "But it's pretty good against those specific pests," he said, more to himself than to Emily, and she nodded.

"A lot of these plants are only magical because I worked on them, though," she said. "So it's not like there's evolutionary pressure to force it to be a certain way. Maybe magic guides it to behave in ways to protect itself? But I'm mostly interested in growing the plants better, and not the why of the magic."

"That's where I come in," Vex said cheerfully, and Emily laughed a little.

"Sure, if that's what you want," she said. "You're welcome to try to understand, and if you figure it out, let me know. I'm not telling you how I make them, though."

"Don't, don't." Vex waved her off. "I want to figure it out myself!"

Derivan hummed, pleased, watching the two of them interact. He didn't feel a need to step in, nor did he have much to contribute to the conversation. Emily led them through a few more of the plants that Vex wasn't familiar with harvesting, and each time had Derivan try harvesting the plant at least once while they both observed to make sure his armor didn't mess with any of the intrinsic magic of the plants; fortunately, it didn't.

There was a flower that needed to be watered right before being picked, or else it would explode into flames. There was a strange, long flower, embedded with red beads that Emily said was her attempt at recreating 'corn', though if plucked too violently each bead would puff up and release a cloud of water-aspect mana, drenching the harvester. There was a root vegetable that needed all its aboveground leaves to be pulled together, or else the leaves would detach and it would jet all the collected mana straight up into the air.

Very, very strange plants, all in all. Derivan could practically hear Sev complaining.

"Aw, man," Emily muttered, looking a little bit put out once she was done. "I just realized I should've kept you four together explaining those. Now I'm going to need to explain these to your friends all over again."

"Good luck," Vex said sympathetically, hiding a grin.

"...Why good luck?" Emily squinted suspiciously at Vex. "Am I going to have problems?"

"Oh, no reason." Vex kept his expression as straight and innocent as possible. Emily stared at him for a moment, narrowing her eyes.

"Right," she said, and then straightened. "Well, I'm going to go teach them how to harvest plants, then. And you better be half-done with your section by the time I'm done!"

There were quite a lot of plants in their section. Derivan was about to protest, and then Vex just shrugged and said that was fine, and that made Emily narrow her eyes all the more... but she turned and left anyway, and Vex almost immediately burst into giggles once she was out of earshot.

"Sev is not going to like this," Derivan said, sharing in Vex's amusement.

"And Misa's going to want to try so many things." Vex grinned. "I mean, I have questions too, but I want to try to figure this out myself, first. There's so much new here! And I still have the glyphs to figure out — I dunno, maybe I can find some place where magical plants intersect with glyphs, natural mana seems to interact with the environment in mostly the same way when the system isn't involved — and now that I think about it, we don't actually know how mages in Teque figure out the glyphs at all. I mean, what counts as 'a great artwork'? How do they know when the mana decides something is worthy of being remembered? How do they figure out what the glyph to represent that art piece is?"

"There are many questions to answer," Derivan agreed. They were good questions, though he found himself instead watching Vex carefully. The lizardkin was buzzing with the questions he always had when he found something new, but this time without the pressure of a mystery on his back, and for just an instant he let go of everything he was worried about; Elyra, his brother, his parents, Teque and Fendal...

It wasn't intentional, exactly. It was just Vex getting excited over something like he always did. But the moment felt significant to Derivan, and he wasn't sure why, until he searched his own emotions and realized the answer:

He wanted Vex to live in a world where he could just do this. Where he could ask a million questions about anything that intrigued him, and pour all that excited love and energy into whatever new project came of it. He wanted Vex to be able to do this without the stress and worry that came with others being in danger, or blaming himself for whatever new thing was going wrong, or having his heart broken by a stray cruelty from a stranger.

He wanted to protect him.

And what a strange thought that was! He wanted to protect all of his friends, of course; Vex was not special in that regard, and yet his feelings felt different, when it came to the lizard.

"Deri?" Vex said, looking up at him, and Derivan blinked, suddenly realizing that Vex was standing on his tiptoes and trying to wave his hands in front of his face — though he could barely reach, even with the tiptoes.

"I was distracted," Derivan said by way of explanation, and smiled kindly down at his friend. "I apologize. Shall we get on with the harvest?"

"Oh yeah, definitely," Vex nodded. Sev's voice echoed across the field to them, a dismayed cry of 'but what's the point of exploding if it's harvested wrong?!', followed by Misa laughing boisterously. "We only have like two hours before those two are done, probably."

Derivan chuckled. "I feel you may be underestimating them."

"Three hours, then?"

"That is not what I meant." But Derivan smiled, and Vex grinned back at him; the lizardkin suddenly ran forward and gave him a hug for no reason at all, and then went straight back to looking at the plants.

"I'm going to start in this row, okay?" he said. "And you can start in the one next to me, and let me know if you forget how to harvest anything, or if you get to a plant Emily didn't cover."

"Yes," Derivan agreed.

And so they got to work.

They worked in a companionable silence for a while; there were words to be spoken, but neither of them knew what to say, and so they distracted themselves with the harvest instead. They'd been supplied with handwoven baskets that were not unlike the ones that Emily used for decoration in her home. Vex kept a whole half-dozen of those baskets floating behind them, using some odd spell he refused to name, citing embarrassment because it was 'too specific'.

Derivan was careful to sort his pickings into those baskets. It was repetitive work, but it drew him into a peaceful lull, enough so that he was surprised when Vex broke the silence. "Hey, Deri?"

Derivan looked up to find the lizardkin watching him with an inscrutable expression. Well, inscrutable to most. Physical Empathy told him the lizardkin was nervous, determined, and a little bit scared, all at once. "Yes?" he asked, not knowing what else to say.

Vex took a breath. "I've been meaning to talk to you about this for a while, but it never felt like it was a good time," he said. "And now is... maybe the best time we're going to have in a long time. So I wanted to say it now."

"Say what?" Derivan asked. He'd gotten an inkling before, back down in Teque, but he'd dismissed it as something he didn't understand; even now, he only thought he understood.

"I like you a lot, Deri," Vex said, and he hesitated a little bit, as if searching for the right words to explain himself. He'd stopped with harvesting the plants, and instead stepped up close to the armor; Derivan noted with some amount of surprise that — for the first time in a while — Vex wasn't being shy. He was nervous, certainly, but there was a determined sort of look in his eyes.

He'd been thinking about saying this for a while, it occured to Derivan. It was on his mind while they were harvesting, and it had been on his mind even before that. He recognized this countenance, the look in the lizardkin's eyes, even if he didn't have the words for it.

"I want to try to be more than we are," Vex said quietly. He looked up at Derivan, his gaze earnest. "If you're okay with that, I mean."

Derivan was silent, and Vex waited. Oddly, he didn't seem nervous anymore. It was like all of his nerves had gone with finally saying the words that he'd been wanting to say, and now he was simply waiting for a response.

So Derivan finally found the words to speak.

"A few moments ago," Derivan said, "I was thinking about how I feel differently for you than I do for Sev, or Misa, or any of the other individuals in our lives. It is... difficult to put to words. I care for all of you, and I wish to build a future with all of you, strange as that may seem.

"Sev and Misa are — the closest analogue is 'family', I believe. They are family to me. And yet you are the one that comes to mind when I think of who I wish to protect. You are the one I wish to comfort and hold, the one I do not wish to see hurt, and... I do not know more than that. These feelings are unfamiliar to me. But I do know that you are important. And so I would like to try, so long as you know that I have much to learn."

Derivan gazed at Vex for a while after he finished speaking. The lizardkin had started to fidget as Derivan spoke, and now he avoided the armor's gaze entirely; whatever confidence he'd gained in his confession had slowly slipped away as Derivan spoke, and now he seemed shy again.

It was cute.

Derivan reached out to take one of Vex's hands, and made a small, surprised sort of hum.

"You are very warm," he said.

"Yeah, well," Vex muttered, still not meeting his eyes, but managing a barely-held-back smile. "That's what happens when you say romantic things to me."

"Was that romantic?"

"It was to me." Vex tugged on Derivan's hand, and the armor knelt down obligingly; he leaned forward to press his forehead against Derivan's helmet. It was a small moment of intimacy. They had shared similar ones, too, before — and yet this one somehow felt closer than all the other times they had shared those small touches and quiet moments.

"Thank you," the lizardkin said to him, softly. And it was only now, stripped away of all the nervousness and fear and awkward shyness, that Derivan felt Physical Empathy ping with the emotion underlying it all: not love, for it was still too early for that, but hope. A simple joy in sharing in his company.

And in that, at least, he knew he felt the same.