The Gardenkeeper's Daughters

Lotus- 7

I have never seen anyone ditch a carefully made plan as quickly as we dropped ours. At once, nervous laughter fills the room and eyes flit to each other carefully with a quiet sense of we really messed up, didn't we?

Despite this, Aislyn, who may or may not know what we tried to do, turns and with a flick of her fluffy tail turns to leave the room.

"Where are you going?" I ask, scampering after her. She locks her wings and plummets down the stairs with tremendous gusto, releasing into a steady glide at the end of her descent.

She looks back up at us and calls, "Outside! We need to get training!"

Vivian runs after. "Of course! Come on, I think I see what she's doing. How do you two feel about learning to fight?"

"Awful. Why would I want to fight anyone?" Natrina asks.

"I don't think we have a choice. We've gotten pulled into this somehow and there's probably no way out." I say, tiptoeing after, trying not to fall down the stairs which have turned from ridiculously fun to jump on to a nightmare to walk down without sliding like an idiot.

Aislyn races through the halls like she owns them (which I suppose she does) and flapping desperately to balance herself out at the high velocity she's running at, turns a corner to a small pair of doors. She throws them open and rushes out into what appears to be a small garden, elaborately decorated and surrounded by the castle on all four sides.

Tentatively, I step outside into the light. The sun beams down on me and I feel my body flood with warmth. Some part of me has already forgotten how great the sun was in the short time I had spent away from it in the enormous castle. My tongue lolls as I pant a little, letting the heat soak through my whole being. It feels so amazingly good to be out here and I just want to be in this moment for as long as I can-

Fur brushes my side and I'm snapped back to reality. There was something else in there for a second, something foreign, but it wasn't a bad foreign. Some of these thoughts seem like they could be coming from some being besides myself, and my whole body yearns to stay here in the perfect warmth forever. It could all be part of my transformation. Those petal wings are probably just that- petals. Any plant is going to want a good deal of sunlight, won't it?

Honestly, I'm still just getting used to this strange new world of adventure I've been plunged into. If you asked me half a spin of the moon ago what I planned to do with the rest of my life, I would honestly tell you that I wanted to stay with my sister and mother to tend to the plants as long as the pack was there. I would take my seeds with them when they finally moved and start a new harvest elsewhere.

Now all of that has been burned to a crisp.

"So." Natrina asks, "What are we going to do out here?"

"We're going to spar, of course! If we're going to be adventurers, we have to be able to defend ourselves. Dreamland is a new world. Our customs are not yet set in stone, and that means we get to fight any way we want! It's doubtful that the enemy knows your tricks. Anything that you can do might work. Trust me, any ability that you have can be weaponized." Vivian says, her face bright with excitement.

"Even growing plants?" I ask meekly.

"Sure! I mean, I don't know how you'd do it, but I could only teleport liquids and semi-liquids for a long time, and so I learned how to do this." Vivian closes her eyes and without warning, two portals open up on either side of her and two giant streams of molten rock, burning with pure rage as bright as our forest fire if not brighter, cascade down from above, propelled by gravity. Before they hit the ground, another portal opens and they disappear, creating two molten pillars of the substance suspended in midair.