His Quest for Raine

The Call

Raine shook her head trying to regain her whereabouts. The bookshelf that had stopped her from zipping through the establishment and being found immediately, was sturdy and surprisingly made of iron, despite the wooden lips. It had her fooled, for sure. While it was painful to rise from, she did. Raine slipped with ease down to the foot of Peter’s date’s table, only to surprise herself, flying with ease back up and onto the table. There she found books stacked high about mythology, maps and fairy tales. Raine frowned at her selection, wondering what they all had to do with each other. 

She then allowed the idea to strike her that maybe the girl was interested in them, stories… her next connection was that maybe, just maybe, she knew where Peter was and that she could be the person that got her message through. 

Excitedly, Raine started looking for a way to communicate, only to decide that showing up in her human form would be too startling and furthermore, a tiny dragon with a human hand to write the girl a note with, sounded way worse. 

As she jogged her memory, Raine happened to remember the girl’s name as Kristin, possibly Kirstin. She wasn’t entirely sure, but she knew for certain that the girl was blonde and therefore, Raine’s gaze darted around at the coffee mug before her and then again at the paper below her, finally able to devise a plan. Raine pressed the heat of her energy on to collect the steam of Kirstin’s cup, Raine tried to press herself to remember as she moved. 

“That’s not it,” Raine argued with herself quietly. 

As the humidity from the steam made its way over to where it was needed, she then applied the other name she came up with while her syphoning the ink of her hair dye off of her golden strands and into a floating ink reservoir that she then dipped her tail into, sucking the globe dry before applying it to the paper below her. There she allowed herself to move freely between the books, sure to be caught, but sure to leave a message, the message that needed to be created and sent on its way into her brother’s hands. 

Kristin needed to do it. 

Kristin, Raine nodded to herself. It was Kristin.

She would do it, Raine told herself as the pull began all over again. 

Raine resisted once more, promising she would momentarily as she drew in mountains in the horizon, ever changing fields, the cliff she climbed down, and other landmarks. All the while she labeled them, unable to give them coordinates. Her final contribution was a burst of energy that laid seven crystal shards within the thin paper. They were specific to her, but when she tried to recall, Raine couldn’t remember why. 

Again she was pulled in another direction. Raine forced herself to finish as yet another wave of energy threw her forward, knocking Kristin’s cup from how she picked it up to hold it in her hands. Raine grimaced, first at the sound of Kristin’s mug crashing on the floor but it was quickly replaced as she hurtled through the glass as pure light instead of a physical form against her will. 

As Raine began to panic, she felt herself fall to the ground as her human form, twist her way back upright to stand, and then be pulled back into the twilight with nothing, not even a ribbon of blue light accompanied her as she flew across the night sky. 

========

Kristin

========

There’s nothing like accidentally calling attention to herself when she didn’t do anything out of the ordinary. Looks she received for breaking a mug and causing a stir only made it more uncomfortable. Kristin grabbed at napkins at her table to help her soak up the cooling liquid at her feet only to be startled by a fading drawing, one she did not create, beside her. 

Kristin gulped down her panic as she continued with her task before Joseph could make his way back to her. She tossed a napkin at a time to her foot so as not to waste materials. Wasting was nearly as bad as being labeled as someone that could see the shadowy figures. While she tapped the napkin down into the spill, soaking it immediately, she also reached across her table to make sure she didn’t happen to have splatter on the books. Kristin hoped it caused enough of a scene to scoop her single pages into one of them, only to close and stack each back in her bag before receiving a sponge and a bowl to help him clean it up with. 

“Done to day or just done with that mug?” he teased her. 

Kristin answered with a long yawn that eventually made him do the same, despite how hard he tried not to. 

“I think maybe I just need rest. I’m sorry about your mug,” she muttered, then added, “I can bring one from my house to replace it, but I think the only other one I have is a narwhal.”

“That’s… it’s fine,” Joseph replied, exasperated, she thought at least.

Joseph stopped mid-wipe, nodding at her hair.

“I thought you said you just did that.”

“What?”

“Your hair isn’t holding your dye properly.”

Kristin could only frown wanting to know more but yawned deeply again. 

“Yeah, maybe I just missed a step. Let me give you money for a new mug,” she pressed, wanting to at least fix the problem she created sooner than later. “What are they going for these days?”

“Same as they’ve always been,” he shrugged, only to find a fist full of a twenty. 

“Get this place some that sparkle then,” she smiled groggily. 

Once she happened to throw her bag’s strap across her body, she knew it was time to head out. 

“One,” she heard him grumble beside her.

Kristin couldn’t help but smile and agree. 

“One is fine.” 

The moment she walked out into the streets, she yawned again for good measure, dropping her shoulders as she rolled her neck around them. She then looked over at the spot where the bird flew into the window where two patrolling armed guards assessed the scene before heading off in the direction of her home.

Finding her bed truly sounded fantastic. The pillow embracing her face in just the right way and hiding under all of the blankets in the house just to calm her nerves sounded like the only way to get through the rest of the day.

Or at least, that’s how she sold her needs so that she wouldn’t be followed. 

Kristin set off in the direction of Peter’s house, expecting to find him and maybe actually talk this time. Stalking him really wasn’t her thing. Showing up unannounced wasn’t either but she hoped her intel was right and that he really still was living at home and leaving during extended hours when “normal” people were home.

It wasn’t that Peter wasn’t normal… he just believed in things very deeply. Going along with everyday life without bringing attention to himself was just a task he couldn’t handle. Kristin tries to remember that day and often but came up with several short, mixed up moments that she couldn’t get enough of a handle on to fill in the blanks for. It was just too spread out. 

She remembered how warmly he’d regard her when they were at the fair. Kristin can still remember the way he’d smile at her, the way he brushed her hair out of her face after a particularly strong gust of wind rushed the fairgrounds, the way she shied away from him every single time and looked away. Deep down she didn’t think she deserved his attention but he was still giving of it… and then there was nothing. 

She woke up to this new normal where she had to scurry around like the rest of those who survived. Her attention, while on him, wasn’t. She shunned him like the rest of them to protect herself and not a day went by that she could ever truly remove that pain. She shouldn't have done that… but how was she supposed to know he wasn’t being driven by one of those things?

How was she supposed to know anything back then?

How was she supposed to just trust him?

Kristin grimaced at the sound of her last question falling heavy on her heart. 

How was he supposed to just trust her now?

Would he even open the door? Hear her out?