by Mary Dublin
"Good," Jon said, moving to his own bed where he began to at last shed his rain-soaked layers. "The gasher venom has basically turned its scales to tank armor."
Cliff hummed in reply, zipping up a dry pair of jeans. "Did you have to tell her about the werewolf?" He spoke quieter this time.
"You would have rather me waited until we come head to head with it in person?" Jon retorted. "Besides, she's a fairy. Who's she gonna tell?"
Cliff just muttered a, "Yeah, I guess," and grabbed the car keys off the dresser.
Jon folded his arms over his chest. "Don't tell me you still don't trust her. Cliff, she saved our lives."
For the first time, Cliff paused and considered this. "For something that shouldn't exist… she's not so bad." He gripped the car keys tighter, strengthening his resolve to battle the storm outside. "I should be back tonight. Late."
Jon glanced toward the bathroom door, as Cliff's footsteps retreated. Left alone, the distant sounds their conversation had drowned out became audible. He could hear the miniature sounds of water rippling and a tiny body rubbing against the glass. Inexplicable heat flooded him. Suddenly, hunting a giant alligator seemed a lighter feat than enduring the sounds of Sylvia bathing in the next room.
***
Sylvia heard a door close somewhere—the front door. She glanced in that direction, wondering for a fleeting moment if she had been left alone in the apartment. Knowing it wasn't likely, she brushed that worry aside and went back to rinsing foam from her shoulders. Keeping her wings dry had been impossible, but she couldn't complain about the sweet relief from letting them soak in the warm water.
Either way, flying wasn't the only method she knew to get out of the bowl.
Clean and ready to dry off, Sylvia moved to the center of the pool and focused on the edge of the water, where it met the curved wall of the bowl. She lifted her hands, fingers trembling. A slow breath passed her lips.
If she was going to be any help with the alligator, she needed to do better than affecting currents. There was no better time to practice, now that she was in more than waist-deep in water.
The incantation came out tentatively at first, and as her memory was jogged, became a tad more confident. A familiar chill ran through her, strangely pleasant. The chill reciprocated before her eyes. Frost built on the glass, touching the surface of the water along the edge. The magic was tentative, only allowing a thin layer of ice to build on the small section before stopping.
Dropping her hands, she eyed the result of her magic. The ice platform seemed solid enough to hold her weight. Her heart continued to pound as she waded through the bowl, barely even feeling the chill of her own ice when she climbed onto it. She could hardly believe she was still capable of producing the simple freezing spell after years of letting that form of magic go untouched.
She took a careful step closer to the rim, which was well within her reach, to climb out and hop onto the counter. But before she could so much as grip the top, she heard a crackle below her feet. Her eyes widened, and she didn't have time to make another move before the thin surface beneath her gave way. She cried out, crashing back into the water with a splash.
Even underwater, she could hear the telltale sound of frantic human footsteps. Sylvia surfaced, pushing her hair out of her eyes. "Damn," she sputtered, still struggling to right herself when a voice joined the approaching steps.
"Sylvia?" Jon called out uncertainly.
The door burst open, his vast frame filling the doorway like tidal wave of skin and denim. Their eyes met for only a split second, a frozen moment where both were too stunned to move. Then he was scrambling to shut the door halfway, talking to the doorknob instead of her naked form directly.
"Hey, are you alright? You screamed."
"I-I'm fine, I just fell." The words almost getting stuck in her throat. Her nerves were abuzz as she looked at him for a second longer and then focused on her pointing her gaze anywhere else. She crossed her arms, swallowing hard. If her wings hadn't been heavy with water before, they certainly were now. Shifting her weight from side to side, she said, "I think I'm going to need your help getting out."
There was a long pause. "Guess I should've used a smaller bowl," Jon finally said with a weak chuckle.
Sylvia's arms remained folded tight over her chest as the looming door swung open again and Jon walked over to her. Leaning over the bowl, the bulk of his upper body easily blocked out the rest of the bathroom from her view.
"I… um. Here." He dipped one hand into the water, tipping her gently into the center of his palm.
The sensation of being held while completely bare-skinned was surreal. The thick fingers and calloused palm had become a familiarity over the last days, but this was entirely new. She wasn't sure whether to laugh or keep her head down.
"Sorry about this," Sylvia said, settling on a self-deprecating chuckle. Aware of the warmth of Jon's skin, she realized she'd made the water much colder with her spell. She noted that goosebumps had risen along Jon's arm. Though, that could have been for a number of reasons. "I tried to, um… freeze the top of the water and climb out. Didn't make the ice thick enough."
"I find it hard to believe you're heavy enough to break through anything," Jon mused aloud.
He lowered his hand on top of a small square piece of cloth. It was a strange texture—patterned with a thousand pink colored fibers that resembled a soft field of grass. Sylvia crawled off with quiet gratitude, watching him out of the corner of her eyes as she started to dry herself off with the cumbersome cloth.
Jon leaned over the bowl, tracing one of those careful fingers over an array of frozen crystals that still clung to the side of the bowl. Thin ice was nothing special back in the village. Truth be told, it was a display of ineptitude that would earn tuts of disapproval from the any mentor. And yet Jon looked like his breath had been taken away by the mere sight of her faulty handiwork.
"Unbelievable," he murmured. "You just decide to freeze something into solid ice and… it happens." He straightened up a bit, his hands braced on the edge of the counter. "I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the fact that so much power is packed into such a small person," he admitted, stealing a quick glance in her direction. "Seems like nothing's impossible for you."
Attempting to dry her hair, she laughed openly. The praise made her insides flutter, though she knew she didn't deserve it, and he didn't know any better. She knew she could do better. The lack of strength of the spell had been intentional, and she couldn't help but wonder how would react to a true display of ice magic.
"I wish," Sylvia sighed, her smile dampening. Hesitation was her plain on her face. She tucked her hair behind her ears before moving to dry her arms. "Ice magic is my affinity. It's been a long time since I've frozen anything. A very long time. Magic isn't just… wanting something enough and then getting it. It's a force of its own with give and take. And ice magic can really take."
Jon frowned, breaking off a shard of the thin ice and watching it melt to dribbles of ordinary water between his finger and thumb.
"What do you mean?" he asked. "It hurts you?"
"It can. Pushing a spell too far can make it backfire if you're not strong enough. Well… even if you're strong, there's always the risk."
She went quiet for a moment, huddled in her towel. Her eyes slid from Jon to the counter, and she crawled forward to grab her clothes. It was strange to have such a casual discussion on the subject. It was even stranger to not receive a negative response about abandoning her affinity.
As she slipped her clothes on, she mused about how much safer she felt speaking to a human on the matter than to another fairy. "I had a mentor who helped me with my ice magic," she went on. "He took me out once, knowing it was going to rain. That's a good time to practice. But in the middle of it, everything went wrong. He wasn't careful enough, and a spell backfired. He passed out. His skin was so cold."
At the back of her mind, she could hear the raging thunder, see flash of lightni
ng pass through the tree branches.
She blinked hard. "We were under some thick roots, at least. All I could do was sit there and watch while the spell ran its course through him. When the storm settled, I went to get help." Wringing her short hair out one last time, she stared at the pink fibers of the towel. "He said it was like having your blood freeze in your veins. Everything hurts, even breathing, because it feels like the inside of your throat is iced. He survived, but I… I just couldn't do it anymore. Not after seeing that."
Once her cropped pants were snugly hugging her hips, the massive blur of Jon's body in front of her shifted. He hunched down, getting as close to her level as he could by folding his arms over the counter's edge and resting his chin atop them. His brown eyes reflected her mourning, attentive to the point of unnerving.
"You don't know that would happen to you." Jon sucked on his lower lip, wearing the look of a man treading on eggshells as he continued. "Now, I don't have a drop of magic in my body, so I might be speaking out of turn here… but it just seems unfair to hold back because of a what-if."
It certainly hadn't been the first time she had been urged to take up ice magic again. The difference was she would normally shut down and not listen. With Jon, she hung onto every word, hearing true concern rather than a haughty opinion that she ought to be practicing the magic that came naturally to her.
"I won't hold back anymore," Sylvia said, lowering her eyes guiltily. Even looking away, she was acutely aware of the enormous gaze pointed at her. "I could have tried to freeze the water around the alligator, or… or something. Maybe I could have stopped it from getting away if I hadn't been afraid of trying."
"Sylvia, this isn't about hunting!" Jon exclaimed, looking positively dumbfounded that she had jumped to such conclusions. "Neither Cliff or I expect you to jump in and take care of us while we're out there. Not that it hasn't been a godsend, but… you don't have to earn your keep here." Sylvia raised her head in response to a shifting sound: Jon had moved one hand closer to her, rubbing a curled knuckle against her upper arm gingerly. "I was just saying, y'know, for you."
She was stricken speechless for a moment, wishing she could hug him then and there so badly that she almost trembled. Silence stretched out between them as she relished the gentle contact to her arm. For the first time in a long while, the thought of ice made her eager rather than drive fear into her heart.
"It's still raining, isn't it?" Her voice was tremulous, but she was beaming at the idea that came to her. A way to show her gratitude while taking his advice to heart. "Can you take me to the window and open it? Let me show you something."
Jon smiled down at her, eyes lighting up with a new curiosity. "I'm not one to turn down a fairy," he said, turning his hand over palm-up beside her.
It seemed almost unrealistically causal for them both when Sylvia stepped aboard Jon's roomy palm once more, but as the days passed, Sylvia was growing more familiar with this daunting mode of transportation. It was even growing on her.
Jon carried her to the window by his closet. A steady drizzle continued beyond the pane of glass, painting the sky a darkened, dull grey.
"The paint is a little stubborn on the frame. Gimme a second." He set her down on the sill so he could pry at the window with both hands. Without warning, there was a juddering smack of wood against wood. The window flew open. "Ah! There we go."
The sound of rain amplified, its humid odor wafting over the threshold. Jon got on his knees behind her, waiting.
Not wanting to get soaked again just after cleaning and drying up, Sylvia was careful to stay out of direct contact with the rain as she stepped forward. She looked over her shoulder at Jon, eager to satisfy his curiosity. Turning her head back around, she focused on the clouds above.
After staring in quiet contemplation, she was ready. Tilting her head down and shutting her eyes, she whispered an incantation. Icy blue light glowed from her hands as she raised them halfway. She opened her eyes and exhaled a long stream of air, pushing her arms out to send pale illumination into the humidity surrounding the window.
A chill crept through the air, flowing from the outside. The light of the magic expanded and became more pronounced, adopting a foggy texture. What followed was the true magic. The raindrops changed as it passed through the fog in front of the window, slowing down and transforming into flakes of snow. The flakes reverted back to rain as they exited the magic haze.
Even locked in the mindset of her spell, Sylvia grinned.
Behind her, she heard Jon suck in a quiet gasp. The floorboards creaked under his weight as he leaned forward, looming just behind her. Though her gaze was concentrated on the target of her spell, there was no mistaking the look of awe on his face, so close to her.
Looking wasn't enough for him after a few moments. Jon outstretched a tentative hand, glancing down at Sylvia more than once as if seeking approval. But this magic was something far more gentle than a torrent of water aimed to maim a mutated dog.
Stretching his arm out into the cerulean mist, the newly formed crystals caressed his skin. The feather light snow never clumped. The snowflakes glided along and in-between his fingers like microscopic figure skaters before drifting down and transforming back into rain.
A white cloud of chilled breath fogged around her as Jon turned to face her with a smile she'd never seen him wear before. The proximity couldn't begin to bother her now.
"It's beautiful," he murmured.
Every instinct told her to deflect the compliment and make it clear that the simple spell was nothing special. Even the youngest of blossoming ice fairies could do it. However, there was no mistaking his look of wonder, and she knew deep down that she hadn't expected any less. The simple spell was special because it was for him.
"I've missed this," Sylvia admitted, dividing her attention between the snow and Jon's face. Soon enough, the latter won out. "But I should probably stop before I make myself sick."
She ran a hand through her still-damp hair, knowing it was a matter of time before the chilly atmosphere started forming crystals in it. Drawing in a deep breath, she positioned both hands in front of her and then swept them outward. The magic haze dispersed, and the rain proceeded to fall as normal.
Coldness lingered in the air, but it would have been far more prominent without Jon by her side. She faced him with a soft smile. "Shouldn't hunters be against this sort of thing? Messing with the natural order, or something like that?"
"Hey, it's not hurting anyone," he reasoned. His gaze shifted over toward the rain, watching the deluge of droplets fall with a renewed appreciation. "Maybe the natural order could use a little more of your magic."
Jon pulled away, mumbling a warning before wrestling the window shut again. The rain was locked out to a muted patter, and the stillness of the humans' apartment set in once more. Standing over her, Jon shifted his weight foot to foot.
"So, uh… Cliff is gonna be out late, meeting with a friend. I'm gonna crash on the couch for a while. Room for two, if you want," he offered.
Her face lit up before she could stop it, betraying any attempt to hide the delight swelling within her. She couldn't think of anything she would rather do than lay out on the couch with Jon, particularly after the stress of the hunt mere hours prior.
"It's been a long day," she sighed. "I think we deserve a chance to relax a little." Despite being flightless for most of the past few days, it was still a natural action to spread her wings. She stopped at the last moment and tilted her head back to meet Jon's gaze sheepishly. "Maybe it's best I still save flying for emergencies, at least for now."
Jon broke into an easy smile, bending down and gathering her up into his hands with no further prompting.
"It's not like I mind carrying you, y'know. You weigh like nothing," he told her. "I just feel bad, grabbing you all the time. You must be sick of me by now."
"I'm not!" Sylvia exclaimed, perhaps too enthusiastically. She slumped against the curve of his fingers, finding it truly
comfortable rather than something that needed to be begrudgingly tolerated. She looked up at him, raising her eyebrows. "Don't feel bad. Believe me, if I'm sick of you, I'll let you know."
Jon chuckled. "Fair enough."
When he reached the living room, Jon shuffled her into one hand. With the other, he grabbed the thick plastic wand off the top of the TV, jabbing at different buttons to maneuver the channels. Sylvia watched passively from her perch at his waist level, still intrigued by the variety of content that humans had access to at the mere press of a button.
Jon paused on a channel showing a scene in all blacks and whites and grays. He seemed to have made his decision, for the next moment he sank down on the end of the couch. She wound an arm around his middle finger to keep herself steady as he shifted to lay down.
Once his massive movements ceased, she found the surface of the couch waiting just beneath his hand. The strip of space was barely a fraction of the cushion, but there was more than enough room for her. Scooting over to the side of his hand, she slid off onto the roughspun fabric.
The exhaustion of the day, particularly the magic-use, came down on her when she lowered herself to sit with her legs tucked to the side. Her arms weren't being kind either, sore from clinging to the lip of Jon's pocket for so long. She heaved a sigh, turning over her shoulder and trailing her eyes up the expanse of Jon's chest to his face.
"How do you deal with doing what you do?" she asked, bemused as she rubbed her eye. "You must be exhausted every single day."
"I sleep when I can," Jon answered, clearly unused to be under such careful speculation. "Most injuries we get I can stitch up myself, or Cliff can. He's crazy good with a needle, once he's had a dose of whiskey to steady his hands."
When he tucked his chin to his chest to look down at her properly, Sylvia found some of her concern reflected back at her.
"I'm used to it. But you," Jon said, shifting his idle hand closer to her. "It's only your second time out there. I'm surprised you haven't conked out yet." When he was close enough, he uncurled a finger to ruffle her damp hair. Sylvia could see it coming, but it still rocked her forward a slight amount. He was just so big.