A Scale of Sapphire

Erica

“Is that..?”

“Yeah… her name is Aoife now, but yeah…”

“I-” There were tiny hands on my shoulder. “Thank you… for taking care of her. I didn’t- When everything happened, I was just so small and so scared. I protected my house, and I hid…”

She trailed off, and we sat there in silence for a moment. Willow took one shaky breath.

“She really was looking for me this whole time, huh? From the start, she was trying to get to me, and I- I just hid in my little garden while she was-”

I cut her off, turning and staring at her sharply.

“Don’t.”

“But-”

“You aren’t the one who hurt her. You were scared, and for good reason. It’s a scary goddamn world out there. I’m not gonna blame you for putting on your own life jacket before trying to help someone else, and Aoife wouldn’t either. Besides, when it came down to it, you trusted me, and you came for her… that means something.”

She sniffled.

“Thank you…”

“Sorry to interrupt,” Cass had come up behind us both, placing a hand on my other shoulder, and ruffling Willow’s hair. “But we really should get going. If Cyrus is coming for us, we need to get as much distance as we can as fast as we can. If he really is as big as Aoife says, I don’t like our odds against him, especially if he starts getting in our heads.”

Willow

“No.”

We couldn’t run. If this Cyrus guy could fly, he’d catch up to us in no time. We had to make every second count, and as much as I’d love to kick the ass of the monster who’d hurt Aoife, staying out of sight was probably the right call right now.

“What do you mean, no?” Erica was looking at me incredulously. “We can’t beat him, Willow. We need to be gone before he gets here!”

“We can’t be! Maybe I could outrun him, but you two are stuck to the ground, Aoife’s unconscious, and you’re both clearly hurt too. We can’t outrun him! He will catch us! I have a plan. Just trust me, please!”

Cass gave me a long, measured look before nodding.

“Erica, bring Aoife to me. She said she was healing, right? I want to make sure everything heals up properly. Do what you have to, Willow.”

Ok.

How do you hide from a dragon? I had to cover as many of my bases as possible. Sight was the obvious threat, and it’d be the simplest to handle. We’d have to stay quiet. Obviously. I wasn’t sure whether scent would be a concern, but I’d probably want to deal with that just to be safe. I also knew that some reptiles were sensitive to heat, so I’d probably want to deal with that too. This would take a lot of magic. Fun.

Ah well, I’d rather have a killer headache than be killed.

“Spruce! I need your help!”

The massive treant lumbered over before crouching down in front of me. Their voice was deep and rumbling.

“What is it, ma’am? New orders?”

They were always so formal and to the point, the polar opposite of dewdrop. It meant they weren’t much of a conversationalist, but I appreciated it in situations like this.

“Y-yeah!” That didn’t make it any less awkward to be treated like a general or something, “I need you and a couple of the other bigger treants to open up, so we can um… hide inside of you?”

They could do that, right? Spruce seemed to think so, they’d stomped back over to the other treants the moment I finished speaking, and they all seemed to be talking among themselves, working out who’d be best for the job.

That takes care of sight, as far as sound is concerned, we’d just have to keep quiet. Now for scent.

“Can I get the flowers over here!?!”

I was quickly surrounded by dozens of massive flowers, each one was easily the size of a human. They crowded around me, twisting and bending in my direction.

“I need you all to get as fragrant as possible. Give me the strongest smells you can, ok?”

A couple of them started wiggling, and I knew they were trying their best. Without magic, there’s no way they could make that kind of change happen though. I closed my eyes, took a few deep breaths, and let my magic flow out in a wave. I smiled as powerful floral scents washed over me. Ok, now we’d just hide inside the treants, and hopefully we could make this place look like it’s just an especially verdant grove. Hopefully.

Aoife

I woke up somewhere dark and warm, pressed firmly against something soft. I could smell flowers, and I could hear breathing that wasn’t my own. As I slowly rose to consciousness, I let out a small groan.

“Aoife?”

A soft voice, barely more than a whisper. Erica?

“G’morning.”

I stayed quiet too, I wasn’t sure why, but it seemed like the smart thing to do.

“How do you feel, lil’ lizard?”

I stretched, or at least I tried to. There wasn’t a lot of space to move, wherever we were.

“Feelin’ ok. Tired, mostly. Those potions I drank when I…” The crunch of bone and the taste of blood flashed through my mind, and so did the sick pleasure I’d taken in them at the time… maybe I was a monster.

“A-anyways… I think I drank some kind of healing potion on accident. My leg is still feeling pretty messed up, but it’s not as bad as it was. My wings too. Even though they’re not even physically here, I can feel that they’re healing up a little.”

“That’s good. That’s really good to hear.”

“I’d be better if you promised not to call me ‘lil lizard’ ever again though.”

“Well now I just wanna call you that more often…” She paused, “Unless you’re like, actually not ok with it or something. I don’t wanna make you uncomfortable.”

I gave a quick peck to whatever part of her was closest to my head. I think it was her shoulder? It was hard to be sure.

“It’s ok, Erica. You’re ok… Ahem, so where are we anyways?”

Erica laughed nervously for a second.

“Aha, right. How much do you remember from when we got to you?”

Hmm. It was a little fuzzy, to be honest.

“I remember… I saw you, and you ran to me, and you caught me, and then I passed out. There were two others with you, right? Cass and…”

“A little fairy? Yeah, turns out Willow’s alive. She’s alive, and she’s some kind of pixie now, and she can talk to plants. She’s hidden us all inside some trees and masked our scents with flowers. So uhh… yeah. We’ll probably be stuck in here until tomorrow night at least, we need to make sure we’re in the clear before we get moving. Sorry.”

I wriggled around a little bit, giving her another little peck, and another and another. Yeah, that was definitely her shoulder, and that was her collar bone, and that-

I froze. My cheeks were on fire. I was suddenly incredibly grateful that it was so dark that even I couldn’t see in here. Erica had frozen too, her entire body felt tense.

"Did you just kiss my-?"

“S-sorry, I-”

“No! It’s um- You’re just, uhh…”

She trailed off, both of us slowly beginning to relax. We were both silent for a second. Ugh, I was about to be so goddamn smooth too, I just wasn’t thinking about where my head was going. 

“Oh you were, were you? Do tell…”

Oh shit. I’d said that out loud, hadn’t I?

“Umm..?”

I felt Erica shake underneath me as she chuckled for a moment.

“I’m not letting you get out of this one. What were you gonna say?”

I groaned.

“Well it’s not gonna be as cool anymore…”

“It’s ok. You can be my cringey dragon gf, if you want.”

“Oh fuck you.”

We both laughed at that, giggling softly within a tree. Strange how that’s not even the third strangest thing that’s happened this week.

“I was planning on kissing you a few times then saying, ‘I can think of worse places to be stuck’ or something like that. Like I said, it’s not as cool anymore…”

“Well, I’m glad I’m not the worst person for you to be stuck with.”

“Oh, you know what I mean!”

We sat there together, for who knows how long, just enjoying each other’s company. Resting in silence. For the first time in quite a while, I felt genuinely safe. I breathed out a contented sigh, smiling in the vague direction of Erica’s head.

“I do want that, by the way…”

Erica shifted somewhat.

“Want what?”

“Y’know… to be your girlfriend.”

“My cringey dragon gf?”

“Sure. I’ll be your cringey dragon gf. Happy?”

“Very.”

At some point, in the midst of our bouts of flirtatious banter, I fell into a comfortable sleep.