Between The Crystals

Ch 88 The Door Closes

It took me a few seconds to step through the doorway, simply because I knew they planned to close it. Citrine laid down on the same cushion as last time and patted the open spot in the middle of her half-way curled body.

Thankfully, the door was still open, which made it easier to sit. Citrine's tail curled around my legs, and pulled me close enough for my back to touch her side. With a yawn, she rested her head on her hands, her relaxed pose at complete odds with how my heart raced and my eyes darted between the door and the windows.

But nothing happened. The door remained open, and the airship didn't so much as shift. Slowly, my heart rate subsided as my confusion built. Had I misunderstood something?

Jasper came through the doorway and set the woven figures and maps on another cushion. With a glance at us, he touched the wall beside the door, and it slid closed. I couldn't pull my eyes away from it. Citrine shifted her head onto my knee and gave a comforting hum, although I barely registered the sound.

The door was closed.

It had been my greatest fear the last two days, and it had just come true. If it hadn't been for all the windows, I probably would have panicked. Even though I knew it wasn't possible to climb out through them, they gave the illusion that I wasn't completely trapped.

I took a deep breath in an attempt to control my breathing. I had agreed to this. We'd be coming back. Jasper ambled over and nudged my shoulder with a comforting hum of his own. The contact seemed to jar me out of my panic, and I patted his neck, unsure of what he wanted.

Citrine and Jasper exchanged a series of hums and hisses, and he went to the windowless wall. When he touched it, part of it slid aside, revealing a very different part of the ship. Two bizarre chairs were present—clearly meant for Saursunes. Under the big front window were all sorts of controls and stuff that looked vaguely similar to the magazine picture of an airplane's control room.

Small bluish-purple crystals were scattered all over, and an odd misty light thing created a map that actually hung in the air. It showed the airship and the area outside, right down to every big rock and tree. I could even see faint light silhouettes of two lions farther back.

The panel slid closed behind Jasper. To my surprise, I was disappointed. It might have been Saursune technology, but the controls and light map thingy had looked really cool.

Citrine nuzzled my knee and rested her chin on her hands. Outside, the leaves shifted on the trees, although I couldn't hear them rustling. In fact, I couldn't hear anything outside. Just some sort of faint, deep humming that seemed to come from all around us.

Then I realized the trees were moving down. No, the airship was rising. My breathing sped up, although it didn't feel like we were moving. It wasn't possible to see the ground while sitting, although that might have been a good thing.

The airship's hum deepened, but all I could see by now was sky outside the window. My weight shifted slightly, as if there was some sort of forward motion, and my hands moved to brace myself as it increased, kind of like when riding on a cart or wagon.

Citrine hissed faintly at Jasper's hidden door, and the feeling eased. The floor didn't quite feel solid, almost like when walking on the floating plant mats by the marsh. Perhaps because we were in the air?

Citrine curled closer around me, her body giving me more support than the soft cushion, but pushing my hands out of the way in the process. The urge to hang onto something—however much or little it would help if something happened—remained. I rested my hands on my knees as Citrine continued to hum comfortingly.

And...nothing else really happened. The cloudless sky outside the window gave no clues about how fast we were moving. I certainly wasn't about to stand up to check. Memories of the airships zipping along in the distance made my stomach do flip flops, and I really hoped we weren't moving that fast.