Ever Bound: Rebellion

Chapter 15: Adorable Savage

 I raised a hatchet high above my head and swung my arm downwards, destroying the coconut's outer shell as it split into two while my eyes followed the halves as they rolled off the table and stopped by Talathong's feet.

"Try not to completely crack the coconut into two," he said. "We still need to save the water."

I grunted, wiping sweat from my brow, "This is a lot of fruit. Are Tajorans vegetarian or something?"

Talathong sealed the top of a large clay jar he'd been carrying on his head and sat it under a wooden shelf.

We sat there working under the shade of palm fronds beside a large grass hut. For a village built in the middle of a rainforest, the structures here are constructed really well.

They've got a set of huts on the ground; they're mostly shops and used for storage. Then the 'residential' structures are usually on stilts or appear as treehouses in the canopy. Despite that, I've been told that a few families live independently on smaller islands nearby and on piers along the beach.

"The people of Tajora strive to live in harmony with nature; aside from fishing, we usually refrain from killing any of the creatures that reside in the forest. Fish and vegetation are all we seem to need," he said "Although we will put a creature that is nearly dead out of it's misery and salvage whatever we can; usually the furs and skins, only meat if they died recently and were relatively healthy."

He handed me a large basket and looked towards the thick wilds behind me.

"I have a quest for you," he grinned. "Bring this back full of pomegranate and dragonfruit."

I stood up and fastened it on my shoulders "Sure," I mumbled while turning to begin my trek through the forest.

It was really sunny, and hard to distinguish the sweat rolling down my face and arms from the huge mosquitoes crawling on them.

*Shudder*

After only a few moments of wandering I came across a cluster of shaggy cactus-like trees, all bearing large fuchsia bunches of dragon fruit and blooming flowers.

I remembered doing something like this in the orchards of Monica. The large multicolored bevy of apples and how it felt to bite down as my teeth broke the skin and forced their sweet juices to burst inside my mouth...

That sounded really inappropriate...

If fruit tasted that great in America, then how amazing would these? I can still practically taste that raspberry in my mouth! These islands are a chef's paradise!

I ripped one from a tree and sliced it in half with a knife from Talathong's village. After peeling away the thick skin I bit into the white flesh. The taste was strange, it wasn't very sweet and the consistency was like that of a kiwi, although it reminded me of eating a pear...

I finished and continued to suppress the urge of eat any more. I plucked, dropped in the basket and continued to repeat. That's when I saw it.

Golden Pitaya...

Pitaya would be the dragonfruit's fancy scientific name, this one was golden yellow as the name implied. It was only in cooking shows I'd watched where chefs and tasters alike would stress it's sweetness...

I grabbed one and cleanly sliced through it. The inside was a darker white compared to the other dragonfruit, and also unlike the others, I don't remember finding any that bore a bright magenta color on the inside either.

I sunk my teeth into it and instantly felt my satisfaction be fulfilled. The sweetness coated my tastebuds as I put more of this golden-colored delicacy in my woven basket along with the others. I wouldn't eat it in the wild, something as good as that should be savored properly...