"Ah, so you've decided to stay the night!"
At the sound of Griffith's voice, Rib willed his eyes to open. They took a moment to focus, but soon his vision of blurred colors sharpened into a clear view of the forest.
There, before him, he saw the king coming up the stone steps in a big purple robe.
"Tell me, is my Fairy Realm not enchanting under the moon?"
Rib blinked, looking to Gavin, who got up from the blankets given to him the day before by a couple of gnomes. Hesper lay on her side right by him, opening her eyes at the sound of Griffith's booming voice. Her wounds were now completely healed, but she was clearly still too weak to travel.
"Yes, it was grand," Gavin answered. "Thank you."
"When the mushrooms glitz in the moonlight, you can almost see the Fairies dancing among them." The King sighed dreamily, staring out over the meadow. "If only my mother could see what I've done to please them."
"The fairies?" Rib was confused. "You mean the fae servants? I didn't see them dancing."
"The fae servants? Oh, no!" Griffith laughed, hands on his stomach. "I mean the Fairies, entities of another world. Mother told me of them when I was young. Everything I've done, everything I do, is in honor of them."
This man is insane, Rib thought. How will we ever convince him to make us the cure?
"Well! I shall have a breakfast feast set out for us this instant," Griffith decided, and whistled through his fingers.
"Yes, Your Majesty?" Spryte amazed Rib yet again by how quick she was to arrive.
Doesn't she get exhausted flying everywhere like that? he wondered. Maybe Griffith gave her a potion to make her so tireless?and strong.
"The guests and I wish to dine in Favor Glade this morning," said the King.
"I will notify the cooks at once," Spryte replied. "The guards also asked me to tell you that there is someone outside requesting entrance. A young woman by the name Damara."
Damara! Rib had nearly forgotten about her. Has she been waiting all this time?
"Please let her in," Gavin said to the King. "I'm sure your forest would charm her."
Charm her? I doubt it.
The King sighed. "Very well. Let us see if the Fairies are pleased by her."
Rib and Gavin glanced at each other before following after the royal robed man, leaving Hesper to rest alone. Through the troubling forest they walked until they reached the iron gate, which was lifted for the King.
"Lower the drawbridge!" Griffith ordered, and it was done.
There's Damara! Rib looked at the young woman standing just on the other side of the moat, arms crossed, short hair ruffled by the breeze. What will she say when we tell her Griffith refused to make us the cure?
The moment the drawbridge touched the ground, Damara began to cross, but the King stopped her halfway.
"If you wish to enter my Fairy Realm," he said, standing in the stone archway. "You must first perform art."
Damara planted her feet. "Art?"
"Yes," the King said. "Art is what the Fairies enjoy. Please them and I will grant you passage."
What will she do? Rib wondered as Damara stared at Griffith, looking both furious and disbelieving. I've never seen her perform art before?
With an irritable sigh, the young woman searched the sky with her eyes. "Does poetry please the fairies?" she asked flatly.
"Aye, if it's good."
Poetry? Rib looked at Gavin, but his friend was focused on Damara as she opened her mouth and began.
"Hunting a fox, me and my son,
Dragon hounds have her on the run.
Chasing that vixen's all I know,
Come now, arrow, nock on the bow."
Damara stopped there, making eye contact with the King.
"Is that it?" Griffith asked, incredulous. "No, no, no. That was barely a taste! The Fairies demand more."
Even from where Rib stood, he could see Damara clench her jaw. Again, she looked up at the clouds overhead and continued on haltingly, as though coming up with each line as she went.
"Let it fly, hit her in the eye,
But alas! my son gives a cry.
I turn around to see him there,
Before a rearing, night-black bear.
My dragon hounds leap on its back,
But the beast shakes off the attack.
Nine arrows I loose in its coat.
God, it has my son by the throat.
It's too late now, my boy is dead.
Why'd I hunt the fox, and not the bear instead?"
Did she just make that up? Rib was aghast. What a terrible story!
He could hear the King grinding his teeth as he considered it. A gust of wind swept over everyone, whistling through the stone archway of the castle gate.
Reluctantly, Griffith stepped aside. "The Fairies accept your poem. Enter and dine with us, if you wish."
Damara barely dipped her head to the man, stalking past to join Rib and Gavin.
She hardly even glanced around at their freakish surroundings before targeting the young man.
"Well?" she hissed. "Where's the cure? Did you ask for it?"
Gavin scratched his ear, the corner of his mouth pulled up in a dour smile. "He refused," he answered quietly.
"What?" Damara stood bolt upright.
"Come!" the King interrupted them. "We have breakfast to attend!"
Rib hushed Damara, though she glared at him, and followed Griffith where he led down another path into the forest. On their way, many creatures crossed in front of them, including a red winged deer and a small beast that looked part-owl, part-lynx.
All these animals with wings! Rib thought. Why don't they fly away?
When they came upon a small opening in the forest, Rib saw that there was a stone table set with food in the center. Griffith went straight to the head of the table, seating himself down.
"Please," he said, motioning to the side with chairs, then the other. "Humans here, dragons there."
Dragons? Rib wondered, then started as Oriole flew in through the fluffy canopy above.
"Good morning!" she said, alighting where there were no chairs. "Oh, what a lovely feast!"
Hesitantly, Rib joined her as Gavin and Damara took their seats across from him. All looked down at the spread before them. Human food always confused Rib, but this utterly baffled him.
In the middle of the table was a smoked boar with antlers for tusks and twisted horns running down the ridge of its back. Set around it were dishes of sliced meats, breads, unusual fruits and vegetables.
Rib goggled at all this and wondered what such a feast must smell like.
From the treetops descended a number of fae servants. They alighted on the table top, their hair put up in buns and what looked to be a handkerchief tied around their waist.
"Hello," one greeted Rib. "What may I get for you?"
"Uh?" Rib blinked, gazing around the table to see the others with their own servants.
Lord Griffith was already ordering three of them around, pointing at every dish in sight. Gavin rolled a spoon between his fingers, his expression dubious as a winged girl waited upon him. Damara simply refused everything, lips sealed, hands in her lap.
Beside Rib, Oriole opened her mouth wide for a servant to drop a hunk of bluish meat in.
"Can I offer you a torg heart?" Rib's attendant prompted, fluttering over to a plate of dark red things sitting in a pool of blood. "Slightly peppery and garnished with a little squirrel kelp. It was the favorite of our previous dragon guest, Sir Clyde."
Clyde liked it?
"Alright," Rib said hesitantly.
Picking up a wicked-looking metal fork, the little female speared a heart and lugged it into the air towards Rib's partially opened mouth. Another fae servant flew directly below her, catching each drop of blood from the morsel with a cloth.
The girl struggling to carry the heart gave Rib a tentative smile and he stretched his jaws wider for her, fearful of what his tongue was about to encounter.
/>
The moment the heart was dropped into his gaping maw, he instinctively swallowed, only beginning to taste the juices after the morsel itself had traveled down his throat.
That's?disturbingly sweet.
Rib looked across the table to see Gavin and Damara watching him, clearly waiting for his reaction. He wished he could shrug at them, but could only flex his wings and tilt his head.
"I'll try a blackberry apple," Gavin told his fae servant decidedly and bit into the fruit with a crunch, looking surprised as dark juice flooded down his chin like a waterfall. The servant holding a cloth rushed to him, saving Gavin's tunic from the sure-to-stain liquid.
"Let the boar be carved!" the King declared, nodding to two fae servants wielding a thin saw. With faces set and determined, the girls each gripped an end of the tool and flew back and forth, cutting off one slice of meat after another.
At one point during the feast, Lord Griffith pointed down the table, exclaiming, "Look! There's my precious pegasus!"
Everyone looked to where the man pointed. Through the brush, a tawny horse with striped falcon wings emerged, head lowered to graze on the silver grass of the glade. It paid them little attention as the King went on to boast of it.
"She's just as the tales describe her. Elegant, beautiful, strong." Griffith gazed at the winged horse adoringly. "Ah, how I wish to give her a unicorn mate. Only, I can't find an animal with the right horn?Such a shame. Their alicorn foals would be positively fetching."
"Don't your animals fight?" Gavin asked.
"Of course not!" the King answered. "They're peaceful creatures, every last one of them."
When their breakfast at last was drawn to an end and the fae servants dabbed Rib's reptilian lips with a napkin, Rib and his companions excused themselves from the table.
"We would like to show Damara the wonders of your forest, Your Highness," Gavin said, standing after the King.
"Do so," the King agreed. "And, Oriole, take me to my workplace. Inspiration has struck me!"
"Yes Sir!" the feathery dragon replied with nearly as much enthusiasm.
Rib, Gavin, and Damara all watched him fly away on Oriole's back, then left the glade where dwarves and gnomes now came to clear the stone table. Rib walked behind his two companions, listening as Gavin told Damara of what had happened since they were separated.
"You're telling me now the kingdom will die because Griffith healed your pet monigon?" Damara asked dryly, shoving aside brambles tipped with seashells to get past.
"He never told me that would be my reward!" Gavin defended himself.
"Damara," Rib spoke, a thought just occurring to him. "You should have healed Hesper with the firesap fruit mag-"
Damara spun around and clamped her hands over his jaws, staring him in the eye.
"Think before you speak," she warned.
"Why?" Rib pulled away from her grasp. "I already told Griffith about it. He wasn't interested. All I'm saying is then we could have asked him for the cure instead."
"No." Gavin shook his head. "Nothing would get him to help Wystil. He made that clear."
"So what do we do?" Rib asked, stopping as Damara halted him and Gavin.
The young woman motioned them closer, until their heads nearly touched. Rib had to look down to the ground so as not to bump them with his muzzle.
"What we need to do is take Oriole and the potion book back to Wystil," Damara whispered. "Damon will craft enough cure for the kingdom and this ludicrous king won't be able to turn any more of his poor servants into freaks."
Our original agreement, Rib thought, lifting his eyes to see Gavin's reaction. His friend looked uneasy, which only increased Rib's doubt.
"Damara, I don't know," Rib spoke quietly. "Now that we're here, it looks even harder than I thought." He glanced up to see that she was glaring at him.
"Wait, you've been planning this?" Gavin asked, looking at the both of them. "How did you- how do you expect us to escape on our little boat with a firebreather and the King's property?"
"We'll create a distraction," Damara answered in all confidence. "Just think. We're inside the King's walls. We could do anything."
"That sounds like a good way to die," replied Gavin.
"Doing what we can to save our people?" Damara questioned. "It is."
"It'll never work!" Rib blurted, relieved when Gavin nodded his head in agreement.
"Fine." Damara broke out of the circle, stepping back into the underbrush of feathered twigs. "You two go on making people laugh while Wystilians die back home. I know I'll get killed trying to save them alone, but at least I'll pass with a good conscience."
She turned to disappear off the trail, until Gavin caught her by the hand.
"Please," he said, pulling her out of the underbrush. "Let's just think about this first, alright?"
Damara set her lips at a thin line, taking back her hand to cross her arms and wait.
Gavin looked to Rib, thinking.
"Oriole seems nice," he said after a moment. "I think we could convince her to help us."
Rib nodded hesitantly. "She did help Zheal?"
"And she tried to convince Griffith to make us the cure when we asked," Gavin added. "So we can count on her compliance. I wonder if she knows where the book is."
"We'll ask," Rib said.
The young man nodded. "Yes, but first we should think of a distraction. What would turn everyone's heads the other way while we escape?"
"Fire," Damara answered. "We burn the forest down."
"What?" Rib gaped at her, horrified. "No! The animals!"
"It would devastate Griffith," Damara pointed out. "We could burn down his ships, too, so no one could follow us."
She looked serious.
She's gone mad?
Gavin shook his head. "A flawless plan," he said, a hint of humor emerging in his voice, "but let's keep thinking, I wonder if there's something in this forest that could help us. Maybe we can get all these animals to revolt."
"Griffith said they're all peaceful," Rib started to object, but his friend's laugh proved he was joking.
"Gavin's right," Damara murmured, gazing around them. "There's no telling what we might find here. Let's split up," she decided out loud. "Meet me in the glade when the sun touches the far side of that cliff."
She pointed up at what she was talking about, then slipped away, the peacock feathered bushes waving in her absence. Rib stared after her.
"Well," Gavin sighed. "Hope I don't get lost in this place?"
"Wait!" Rib turned to him. "You're leaving me too?"
His friend shrugged. "Cover more ground that way."
Rib let his wings droop, but didn't protest as Gavin gave him a short farewell wave and ventured off the path, heading the opposite direction as Damara.
He listened to his friend's footsteps fade away, and found himself alone.
I don't even know what to look for! he grumbled inwardly, wandering his own course.
His eyes constantly scanning, Rib brushed through fishtail grass, a couple pear conifers, an entire slough squirming with furry tadpoles, and just kept on.
At one point, he came upon a clearing where small sheep, seemingly made of plant matter, trod in sluggish circles around the shrub they were attached to by a limp stem. Pink worms clung to some of them like scraps. Rib could see bare ground where they'd eaten all the greenery in reach.
What are these? Disturbed, Rib quickly padded across, avoiding the plant animals as best he could. Vegetable?lambs?
Still meandering through the woods, he witnessed a bounty of oddities, but none sparked any ideas of how he and the others could escape with Oriole and the book. When he found a field where countless animals gathered to be fed by gnomes and dwarves, he carved around, only to find himself back by the pool where mushrooms rings grew nearby.
Oh, there's Griffith. Rib spotted the King up on his rock platform, happily throwing things into his cauldron. I had better leave before he calls me over?
/> Just then, a cry of distress sounded from the grassy banks and Rib stared in the direction, his hide bristling. Who was that?!
Knee-deep in the water, a green eight-legged cow with a sea kelp mane fed on pond scum. Staring at the ground beside it, Rib focused his eyes to see a fae servant struggling with something among her mushrooms. Concerned, he went to her and crouched down.
The small girl was fretting over a large slug that leisurely champed on a mushroom cap, seemingly unaware when the fae servant attempted to grip it around the middle and heave it away. The girl failed each time she tried, losing her grip on the slippery creature and coming away with the entire front of her dress slimed.
"I can't stop it!" she shrieked, picking up a leaf and batting it over the slug's antennae-like eyes with no effect. Each bite the slug took, it seemed to grow a little bigger, as though by some magic in the mushroom.
"Here, let me help you," Rib offered as he extended one talon to move the oozing vermin.
But before he could do anything, Spryte zipped over, reaching into a small sack tied to her belt.
"Daenilei!" Spryte shouted, shoving the smaller girl out of the way.
From the bag, she drew a handful of white stuff and threw it on the slug, which soon began to bubble. Drawing back, the frothing vermin arched and rolled itself over, trying to rub off the harmful substance. As it did, Spryte flung it with a stick into the water and turned on the other girl.
"Where is your salt?" the head fae servant demanded, taking the girl by her insect wing and bending it so she squalled in pain.
"I gave it to Grythuey!" the girl blubbered. "Slugs were overrunning her fairy circle and I hadn't had a problem with them until now!"
Sneering, Spryte bent the girl's wing farther.
"Stop!" Rib said as the girl shrieked again. "I- I order you to!"
Immediately, Spryte let go of the girl, alighting atop Rib's snout with an arrow suddenly nocked on her bow. Rib raised his head and crossed his eyes to look at her, pink and blue dress shimmering, her wings lying flat against her back.
"You dare order me?" she asked, pointing her weapon at him. "I am Spryte- head of the fae servants! I answer to no one but Lord Griffith."
Something like pride rose in Rib as he gathered the courage to tell the tiny female, "That's no reason to hurt people! Now tell her you're sorry or I'll have you removed from your position!"
"Sorry?!" Spryte drew the string of her bow back in a flash, but Rib was prepared. Ducking right before the fae woman took flight and let loose, he heard the needle-thin arrow whistle over his head.
A loud, agonized sound erupted behind him and Rib whisked around to see the sea cow, its eye squeezed shut with the tiny arrow protruding from it. Still lowing, the large eight-legged animal charged blindly forward over the meadow, trampling mushrooms as it went.
"What!" Griffith's thunderous roar came from the rocks. He watched the cow reach the other end of the clearing, then spun around, facing Rib and the fae servants as he came hurtling towards them.
"Who's responsible for this?" he demanded, eyes wide with madness. "Was it you?" The King jabbed a finger at Rib.
"N-no!" Rib stammered. "It was Spryte! She hit the cow's eye with an arrow!"
"It's true, Your Highness!" the smaller girl said from the ground.
Spryte hovered in the air, face pale.
"Spryte!" Griffith bellowed, seizing the fae woman. "You anger the Fairies!"
"Please, Sir!" Spryte beseeched, but the man snapped her hummingbird wings between his fingers and she screamed in pain.
Firesap! Rib watched, horrified, as Griffith hurled her into the pool. What do I do?!
"Where will the Fairies dance tonight?" the King demanded and spun on his heels to stride over the newly treaded path across the meadow.
Spryte resurfaced, sputtering water and gasping. Rib was about to stretch out his neck to help her, but a fish or a frog, he couldn't tell which, flashed up from the depths and swallowed the fae woman whole.
"Spryte!" Rib stared at the rippling surface in shock.
The small winged girl beside him, however, laughed delightedly and sped away, cheering, "Spryte's dead! Spryte's dead!"
No. Rib couldn't believe it. I was going to save her!
Then, from the depths appeared something else. A nymph, hair flowing around her face as she lifted up a kicking, writhing fish-frog out of the water.
That's the thing that ate Spryte! he realized, gaping at the creature offered up to him. Could she still be alive?
The slippery fish-frog opened its mouth to croak as a sharp point rose under the skin of its exposed belly. All at once, a bright and shining blade pierced through the creature's flesh and slid down its body.
What?
Rib couldn't stop gawking as Spryte emerged, wet and covered in half-digested insects. She gripped the red knife in her hand, heaving for air with a savage look on her face.
"I'll ruin him!" she swore. "I'll ruin that man's life!"
Rib stepped back, stunned into silence as the nymph set the fae woman down on the grassy banks.
What just happened?
Unsure of what else to do, he turned and padded back towards the forest, the sun now touching the cliff Damara had indicated.
I guess I'll meet the others at the glade?
. . .
Rib found Damara and Gavin waiting for him by the stone table.
"There you are," the young man said, grinning. "How is it that the one with the compass in his head took the longest to get back? Did you actually get lost?"
Rib shook his head, still dumbfounded, until he glimpsed something horrifying.
"What happened to your foot?!" he cried, staring below the tattered hem of Damara's dress. The foreparts of her foot, including all her toes, were gone. He gawked at the muscle and bone of the rest, staggered by the lack of blood that should have been gushing from it and onto the flattened grass.
Damara lifted her foot off the ground with a smirk.
"It's there," she said, and stepped on Rib's foreclaw with the seemingly missing part of her foot. He felt it like an invisible force pressing down on him.
"I stepped in a strange pool that soaked through my flesh. The other foot," Damara lifted her skirt enough for him to see, "was also invisible until I bathed it in the stream."
Rib blinked in amazement.
"Strange, isn't it?" Gavin laughed. "And look, it even affected her sandal."
Damara kicked her shoe off, which looked likewise cut in half.
"We decided this was perfect for us," the young woman said. "Seeing as I can turn invisible in the pond and then steal the potion book unnoticed. I would take some of the liquid to turn the book invisible too, but that might damage it."
"Yeah?" Gavin droned. "So, I didn't get anything. Did you, Rib?"
Rib tilted his head uncertainly. "I think I got Spryte removed from her position??"
"You did?" Damara straightened up, staring at him. "How?"
In quiet tones, Rib told them both what had happened. By the time he finished, Damara was grinning and Gavin had a quizzically amused look on his face.
"That's perfect," the young woman spoke with her hands on her hips. "She's one problem I was concerned about. But not anymore." Damara laughed a little to herself.
She's happy. Rib felt good, having made Damara grin so genuinely.
And then her smile dropped, as though something suddenly occurred to her. "Please tell me you asked her where the book is kept," she said.
Ask where?oh.
Embarrassed, he shook his head. "I didn't think to."
Damara looked less pleased now. "Even after she said she wanted to ruin Griffith's life?"
Shed it, Rib cursed silently. She's disappointed in me again. And so soon.
Blowing a lock of hair out of her face, Damara crossed her arms. "Well, there's no way we could find that insect of a woman now. We'll just have to carry on with what we planned."
"R
emind me what that is, exactly?" Gavin requested, scratching his face.
Damara motioned them closer so she could speak softly as she told them, "We convince Oriole to come with us, we locate the potion book ourselves, I turn invisible to steal it, and we all escape without anyone knowing the better."
This sounds like it might actually work, Rib thought, his heart quickening. Can we save the Wystilians after all?
"Hold on," Gavin murmured. "Is there any reason why we shouldn't all turn ourselves invisible?"
Damara furrowed her brow, then smoothed her expression. "Yes," she replied. "You at least need to be visible so Mortaug doesn't think we've become ghosts. And Rib might as well be visible too."
"Why?" Rib complained. The idea of being invisible for some time excited him.
"Because that way if someone sees Gavin, it won't look like he's riding through the air with nothing underneath him. Besides, no one should suspect you, so long as you don't have the book."
"But Oriole should definitely be invisible," Gavin clarified.
"Yes." Damara nodded her head.
"So that's all?" asked Rib. "We can escape soon as we get Oriole with us?"
"Tomorrow, I think," Gavin said. "Hesper should be at full health by then."
Oh, right, Rib remembered. We can't leave without her.
"No," Damara said suddenly. "Here's the better plan. You two say goodbye to Griffith, thank him for healing your monigon, and walk out with Hesper. That way, when Oriole and I steal off with his book, it'll have been after you left. Griffith would have no reason to suspect you at all."
"But what about you?" Gavin pointed out. "He knows you're with us."
"Right?" Damara bit her lip, thinking. "I'll leave with you, then Rib can sneak me back in."
"Are you sure it will be that easy?" Rib was doubtful.
Damara cast him an irritable look.
"All agreed?" she asked, refusing to answer his question.
"Yes," Gavin said.
"Yes?" echoed Rib.
It'll all be fine?It has to be.
. . .
"Hey, Oriole, can I talk to you?" Rib asked, alighting next to the feathery dragon basking in the sun.
"Certainly!" she agreed, rolling over and facing him. "What is it?"
"Well?" He hesitated. "I was actually hoping to talk to you somewhere else."
"Oh." Oriole lay upright. "Where?"
"Would you follow me?"
Rib sighed in relief as the dragon flew into the air after him and left the clearing behind. They didn't come across any trouble soaring over the forest to where Damara and Gavin were waiting, by the magical pond.
"Hello," Oriole greeted the humans cheerfully. "You found the Pool of Mirrors!"
"You know of it already?" Gavin asked her, glancing back at the small but deep body of water.
"Of course," she replied. "I was here when Lord Griffith put a special potion in it."
He'll regret that, Rib thought.
"So what did you want to talk about, Rib?" Oriole turned to him, cocking her plumed head with a smile.
Rib hesitated before answering, "The plague in Wystil?you see, there are hundreds of people dying there and we really need the cure."
"And Wizard Damon can't craft it for us since Griffith stole his book and stamped out his fire," Damara said in an accusing tone from the crook of a tree where she perched.
Rib looked at her warily, silently begging her to let him do the talking.
"I didn't know His Majesty was going to do that, I promise!" Oriole said, her eyes big and soft. "Only, I was scared when he did, so I fled with him?I'm sorry, I really am."
Her expression was the same as that of a human about to cry, Rib thought, but naturally dragons couldn't shed tears.
"I understand," he reassured her. "But now we need you, Oriole. People will only continue to die unless you come with us."
"Go with you?" Oriole's eyes widened. "Why, Lord Griffith would never allow it!"
"I know," Rib agreed. "But we have a plan. We only have to sneak out of here, with the potion book, and get to Wystil so Damon can save the kingdom. Then you can return here, simple as that!"
Oriole shook her head, fearful. "His Highness would be furious with me."
"Please, Oriole," he begged. "We would be so grateful towards you. All of Wystil would be grateful towards you!"
The female ducked her head. "Sorry?"
She won't help us? Rib stared at her, trying to understand what was going on in her head. But we need her! Without her we'll-
"Do you know what the firesap does to dragons, Oriole?" Damara cut Rib's thought short, her voice condescending.
The dragon's eyes looked up at her. "You mean?"
"It takes hold of them and drives them mad." Damara suddenly leapt down from her tree in front of Oriole, causing her to flinch.
Rib wanted to tell Damara to soften up, but he was too afraid that her anger might turn on him. Instead, he watched as the young woman bent over the now cowering Oriole.
"I know Griffith hasn't any solution for it," Damara went on. "I know because the true wizard- Wizard Damon, whom His So-Called Majesty stole the potion book from, had no way to stop it without likewise taking away the firebreather's flame. And Griffith wouldn't dare do that, now would he?"
Oriole crept backwards a couple steps until the tips of some of her tail feathers disappeared in the Pool of Mirrors. It was strange to see the dragon tremble beneath Damara's narrow frame.
She really needn't be so harsh?
"Now would he?" Damara repeated in demand of an answer.
"N-no," Oriole stammered. "But he told me not to worry about it!"
"Because he's selfish," the woman hissed. "And foolish. But who will he blame when the day comes that you prove too weak under the firesap's power and go on to wreak death and destruction on his precious forest?"
Oriole gave a small sob. Rib was filled with pity for the poor, sensitive firebreather.
"No one but you," Damara answered her own question, now speaking in Oriole's ear. "And you know it, too."
"Alright, alright!" the dragon burst out. She scrambled out from under Damara's looming shape and actually cried on the banks of the Pool of Mirrors. Rib stared in astonishment at the real tears that spilled from her eyes.
Griffith must have made it so she could do that!
"I know it's true," Oriole whimpered. "But what can I do?"
"Stop crying," Damara snarled. "I'll tell you what to do, but you have to shut up."
She's never even talked to me that harsh before, Rib thought.
Oriole tried to compose herself, though her mouth trembled and tears still leaked from her dewy eyes. Gavin took a handkerchief out from under his vest, then made a face as he apparently reconsidered offering it to her and stuffed it away again.
"The only thing you can do," Damara said, now speaking somewhat gentler, "is help us so Damon can heal you. Whether you come back here after that or not, I don't care. But you can't go on acting as though you aren't a volcano ready to burst."
Voice of reason. Rib was amazed by how logical Damara's argument came across. She may have just saved us all.
Everyone watched Oriole as she closed her eyes, taking in one more gasping breath before she opened them again and answered, "Alright?What's your plan?"
Yes! Delight filled Rib. Damara did it! We're going to save Wystil!
Only?what of Memory?
Chapter 14