Hornet

The moonlight streaming in through the skylight and the flickering light from the candles warped the shadows in the cavern. Hornet thought the effect was delightfully creepy. She bared her fangs at the mirror, admiring how they gleamed even in the low light.

I am a warrior, she thought, practicing a particularly frightening snarl. I am terror incarnate. I fear nothing. I—

“Hornet?”

Hornet whirled around in surprise, then let out a relieved sigh (though she tried to disguise it as annoyance) when her partner, Sythera, trudged into the cavern.

“I can’t sleep.” Sythera yawned, rubbing at one of her bleary eyes with a fist. The other foreclaws clutched her blanket around her shoulders so that it covered her back like a cape.

Hornet pretended again to be annoyed. “Fine, you can stay in here tonight.”

Sythera perked up at that, and suddenly she was a ball of energy coming straight for Hornet. Alarmed, she tried to deflect her: “I can sleep on the couch if you’d be more comf—oof!” The breath was knocked out of Hornet’s lungs as her partner tackled her with a hug.

“Nooo, I wanna stay with you,” Sythera murmured into Hornet’s fur.

Hornet checked to make sure her partner had closed the door (she had) before dropping the tough act. Wouldn’t it be embarrassing if someone found out that I’m not as mean as I want people to think? she mused as she went to retrieve Sythera’s blanket, which had been dropped by the speeding bullet. The walk back to her nest would have been short, but to avoid the awkward waddle that would’ve come from trying to walk with three legs, she flew instead. She set the blanket down so that her partner would be comfortable and opened her arms for a hug.

“Okay, c’mon over here,” Hornet invited, quietly enough that she was (almost) certain that the neighbors wouldn’t hear her being a big marshmallow.

Sythera climbed into the nest, and after their usual back-and-forth barrage of “Ow!”s and “Sorry!”s and “Watch where you’re stepping!”s, she was comfortably curled up against the larger dragon with her four forearms wrapped around her waist.

“How is it that you manage to grow six more elbows when you want to cuddle?” Hornet murmured gently.

“I dunno,” Sythera mumbled into her partner’s fur, her many eyes already half-closed with sleep.

Hornet laid her cheek on the top of Sythera’s head, waiting a beat before assuring her, “I don’t really mind, you know.”

“Mmhmm,” hummed the grey dragon. Hornet wasn’t sure if her partner had actually heard her or was just trying to sound like she was.

A few more silent moments passed. Sythera’s breathing deepened, and Hornet wondered if she was asleep. Just to be sure, she waited another couple minutes before whispering, “I love you.”

The only response was the feeling of Sythera smiling, her face still comfortably buried in her partner’s fur.


Lore by @Bibbit (Schrödinger’s fiction)