In Stone

10: "I'll be your friend."

10: “I'll be your friend.”

Once again, there was tension in Caia's house.

She tried her best to alleviate it by smiling and bouncing around her house happily, trying to act like the conversation she had had with Caspian hadn't happened.

But it had happened and he would find himself staring at her as she cleaned or danced around. The only times he didn't see her was when she was at work or when she shut herself in her studio to practice her craft.

While it was easy to just sit back and think while she was doing the former, when she was busy with the latter he found himself worried. He was more than relatively certain that she wasn't doing anything, she was simply polishing a sculpture she had already finished, but it went against the grain to let an enchantress work with stone. That was how they gained their power, it was how they created their dark minions that obeyed without thought or morals.

The dark minion in this case being a sweet looking hummingbird.

The longer Caspian stayed around her, the more he was sure she had no idea of her powers. Her releasing him from his stony prison had been an accident, something that she likely couldn't repeat. If letting her play with her art kept her out of his way, then he should be grateful.

But she had denied him. He had thought Caia to be a weak person. She didn't seem to possess any strength of will that he could measure. Every time one of her parent's called – which happened at least once every two or three days – she cowered like a child.

Since she had refused his deal, he had not been talking to them in her place. However, she didn't once look at him like she was expecting him to. She talked to them by herself, long used to the abuse they heaped on her. He hadn't at all expected her to so openly defy him this way. It went against who he thought she was.

So for the next few days, he studied her more closely. He felt like if he was, essentially, living with this woman, he should know as much as he could about her. And if he ever was going to be successful at soliciting her help, he would need to know as much as he could about her personality.

What he found attracted him.

Not sexually. There was nothing that she was doing that could be attracting him that way. Not to say that she wasn't beautiful and alluring in her own way – and it had been five years since he had a woman – but that wasn't what he felt. At least, that wasn't the whole or even the majority of what he felt. There was something about her, something calming. Something about her innocence, her optimism, that soothed his heart.

He found himself staring at her without thinking or even worrying as she danced around and cleaned or attempted to cook.

She failed at many things. She dropped things a lot, nothing she cooked came out safe to eat, and she always missed something when she cleaned. Despite that, she threw herself into each activity with the sort of boundless enthusiasm that most people never had with anything.

It was pleasant to watch. Like a child that still saw all the wonder in the world without the shadows, she moved around. It was a joy to witness and it eased some part of Caspian that he didn't even realize was wound so tight.

Those rare times that she lost that brightness – usually when she was speaking to her parents – she awoke every instinct he had to protect. He felt compelled to defend that innocence, to shield that spark of wonder for the world. Much like adults sheltered children from harsh realities, he found himself wanting to do the same to Caia.

Even after talking to her parents, it didn't take her long to bounce back to herself. That time that he witnessed her crying on her couch was the exception, not the rule, he knew now. It didn't take but ten minutes for her to be back to herself after hanging up.