Freezing Wings

Chapter 25

After I cleared the Kymari staring contest, I kept going, until we reached the lowest peak of the eastern mountain. Only after I touched down did I slow down enough for Jordan to slide off my arm. She crumpled slightly, her eyes dilated and her breathing pattern abnormally quick.

After a while for her to breathe, she looked up at me, her eyes back to normal and her face slightly annoyed. "What was that for? You nearly gave me a heart attack.."

I snorted, laying down on the precipice. "I don't like how they're looking at us. When we were flying over, they stared at us and it creeped me out," I bumped her head with my snout, "Sorry if it scared you.." 

Her face softened significantly after she heard my reasoning and she huffed slightly, "Okay. Next time, can you please tell me, just so I don't have a stroke every time you speed up like that."

I nodded slightly, laying down on my side. Jordan walked over to a tall snow dune off to the side and patted it into a firm bed with her tail before diving into it. She snuggled into the snow and covered herself from head to toe in an exact replica of the pose I had had the day prior next to the lake. 

I copied her actions, though my pile was about three times the size of hers. We turned into just two huge lumps of snow with dragon heads sticking out the top. A comfortable silence fell over us, both of us half-dozing in the sun and snow. When I said we were going out for a walk, I didn't exactly mean this, but it was close enough. 

We both fell into a comfortable quiet, listening to the sound of the wind and the occasional conversation between birds. Jordan fell asleep but I stayed up, keeping myself awake enough to react quickly if anything happened. My ability to just sit still and think about nothing and do nothing, just sit there and stare at a pile of snow, had improved exponentially from when I was a human, and in a blink of an eye, two hours had passed. 

Jordan had apparently woken up at some point, and she stood up, shaking off her pile of snow and sitting down in front of mine. She stared at me, seemingly gathering her thoughts. 

"Auntie, when are you and that 'Lucas' guy mom is always saying is your husband going to get together? I want a cousin." 

My ears went back and I glared at the dragonette in front of me, the fog around my snout thickening until it was like a cloud of smoke. She shrank back slightly, a tiny smile on her face, "Mom told me to ask." 

I clicked my tongue, "Throwing your own mother under  the bus, tsk tsk. When someone tells you to do something in secret, unless it goes against your morals, always keep your word. Snitches don't get chosen to keep secrets."

She nodded vigorously, a her smile widening. "Seriously though...I want a cousin."

I sighed heavily, shaking the snow off of my back and looking her in the eye. "Thank you for telling me about your mom wanting to know, but, you won't be getting any cousins any time soon. As for Lucas, we won't be getting together, either."

Her face fell and she jumped up and onto my back as I stood up. She sat on the spot right between my wings, curling up into a half-circle. "Why? He looks like he really likes you." 

I craned my neck and down on the meadow again before taking off, "Because, although it may look like that to you, it doesn't look like that to me." 

She went silent for a moment before another question popped out. "But, mom says he does."

A small smile appeared on my face, "Well, sometimes she's wrong. It happens to us all at one point or another. Even I, with all my amazingness, am wrong sometimes." 

"But what if you're wrong this time and she's right? What happens then?"

I coasted down to my balcony and walked through my cave and back into the hallway, "Well, we'll never know then."

She jumped down to the floor and walked alongside me, half-jogging to keep up with my pace, "Mom says that when you don't know something you should ask someone else about it and then go try it out yourself. You should just ask him first then try him out just to make sure." 

At 'try him out' my mind gallivanted off to places it should not have and I huffed, covering my face with one hand. I shook my head, half-laughing and half-sighing to myself. Jordan looked up at me, her head tilted to the side. "What's wrong?"

My shoulders shook and I found myself laughing, my entire body shaking as I tried to keep the smile off of my face. I bumped her head with my snout and picked her up, twirling her in the air once before setting her back down. A broad smile covered my face and I grinned, failing at keeping a straight face. "Nothing's wrong, nothing at all."

I put my wing over her back, her small body dwarfed next to mine as we walked. I led her down the hall and we went back into her home, back to the spot where we started.

In less than five minutes of us hanging out, gazing at Jordan's collection of finished sculptures, Sarah and Gabrielle came back, looking blissfully happy. Their tails were entwined with each other like two vines and the bundle they had brought with them was completely empty, both of them having satisfied smiles on their faces.

Jordan immediately shot up from her seat and careened into the couple, barreling into their chests like a scaly artillery shell. Gabrielle got the first hug, then Sarah. Both of their faces melted into even deeper puddles than before and the small family gathered around each other, ignoring the rest of the world while they talked. I just stood awkwardly off in the corner like a black hunk of stone while they had their moment.

After about five minutes of me being ignored, Gabrielle finally realized my existence, her head ducking slightly as she nodded to me. I nodded back and she looked me in the eye for a moment before walking past me and into their bedroom. As I said before, she wasn't really much of a talker.

Sarah, on the other hand, was, and apologized profusely at their actions. I just nodded, smiled at her and tried to escape before she remembered. I knew exactly what was coming next, and wanted to be on my way before it crossed her mind. Thankfully I was able to make my goodbyes and hightail it out of there before any uncomfortable questions were asked. 

Although Sarah didn't think so, Lucas and I really were just friends, and have been for years. I didn't know when she got it in her head that anything extra was going on, but it didn't stop her from having a smug look on her face whenever Lucas and I were in a half-mile radius of each other. 

I shook my head and slunk my way up the stairs to my room, already thinking about the next project I would start, and mentally organizing the materials I would need.