The Magic of Us (A Wings of Fire Fanfiction)

Meeting You

Disclaimer: Most of the dialogue in Willow's POV is from The Poison Jungle and belongs to Tui T. Sutherland.

Willow's POV, during lunch recess.

Willow walked around the park, looking for a quiet place to take refuge. Unfortunately quiet places were rare in schools, especially at recess, so she started walking towards the woods. It looked peaceful enough for her to escape the chaos.

She entered the forested area and took a deep breath. She had always loved trees. Her family lived in a house in the middle of the woods, where she had a small, cozy treehouse. Being near trees always felt like home.

She started walking deeper into the woods, basking in the calmness. That is, until she heard shouting coming from somewhere else in the forest.

Who is that? Willow thought.

Cautiously she stepped closer to the sound, which was coming from a small clearing up ahead.

Wow. That's beautiful.

The clearing had a small pond, which was fed by a trickle of a stream. In the middle of the pond was a boulder sticking out of the water, with a little bridge connecting it to the ground.

But that wasn't all that was in the clearing.

There was another girl that looked around Willow's age standing at the edge of the pond, yelling up at a tree. Willow quietly crossed the bridge to the boulder to hear what she was saying.

"-bite off your legs and feed them to a tarantula! I'm going to throw stinging nettles at the tree and tell them to poison you!" The girl was shouting.

"By all the trees," Willow interrupted. "Who are you talking to?"

The girl jumped back, looking startled.

Now that she was closer, Willow could see what she looked like. She had dirty blonde hair pulled into a ponytail with the tips dyed a forest green. Her eyes were a light grassy green and she was wearing a green long-sleeved shirt and leggings.

"My archnemesis," she growled, "who is hiding in this tree but NOT FOR LONG because I am going to DESTROY HIM. Or her. Whatever it is."

"Wow. What did this terrible, extremely doomed fiend do to you?" Willow asked.

"It STOLE my COOKIE, which I was—you know what, it doesn't matter," the girl said, probably noticing the amusement sneaking on to Willow's face. "What it DID is not the point. What I am going to do TO IT is COMPLETELY JUSTIFIED, trust me. I just have to catch it first."

"Are we...we're not talking about a person, are we?" Willow asked.

"Nnnooooo," the girl admitted.

"A crow?" Willow guessed. "A chipmunk? Oh, a raccoon! Those guys are cranky. I nearly got in a fight with one a few nights ago because I closed the lid to the garbage can it was eating from, but  I obviously needed to! Hey, maybe it's the same one!"

"It's not," the girl snapped. She scowled at the tree again. "It's...a squirrel," she admitted. "But a VERY BAD squirrel who deserves STAMPING ON."

"Oh, no. That's—oh dear." Willow covered her mouth to hide her laughter.

"Don't you laugh at me!" The girl yelped. "You would understand if you'd seen its stupid smug face! I can't stand smug faces. I just want to SMUSH THEM ALL FLAT. You should have been here five heartbeats sooner, then you could have seen it SMIRKETY SMIRKING its way up into the tree."