A Scale of Sapphire

A’s POV

Traveling with Erica was nice, really nice, in fact. I’d never really had many friends before, it was basically just me and Willow. Having someone new to talk to, someone who didn’t mind waiting as I put my thoughts together and who didn’t judge the whispery way I spoke. It was good. Most people just didn’t have the patience for someone like me before all this, so I guess I have the end of the world to thank for that.

As the day had gone on, I’d really grown to appreciate the changes I’d been through as well. I felt agile and light on my feet, fully prepared to start putting out some real gremlin energy, and having to look up at things rather than down was pretty nice too. Something about it just felt more right.

Now, it was starting to get dark out, the sun was slowly beginning to set, and we needed a place to sleep. We had just arrived in a clearing of some sort, it looked like it was once a 4 way intersection, so the two of us split up and began cautiously exploring some of the nearest buildings. The first one I checked out was an immediate hard pass. A tangled mass of vines and lichen with a powerfully sweet scent had at least two human corpses wrapped tightly within it, and I didn’t want to know how they’d gotten there. The second and third seemed better, but certainly not without flaws. Option number 2 was a coffee shop, but most of the windows had been shattered, and it looked way too exposed. Number 3 seemed to be relatively intact, but part of the floor appeared to have erupted, with a mound of dirt and debris rising up from the center. I didn’t know what that was, and at least there weren’t any obvious threats, but I didn’t trust it. 

I was about to start checking across the street when I heard the sound of hoofbeats jogging towards me.

“Hey A! I think I found a good spot!”

“Good, I haven’t had much luck over here. I keep finding decent looking places, but they all have something going on in them that makes me nervous…”

“Well come check this out, you’ll love it!”

I followed Erica back across the intersection to a fairly small store. It was lined with shelves and racks of all kinds of clothes in all kinds of sizes, and there was an employee’s only area in the back that Erica walked purposefully into. I followed her close behind, and found myself in a small cozy break room with no windows and a sturdy door. She was right, this was perfect. 

As I set my backpack on the ground, I was struck by a sudden idea. I dashed back out into the store proper and gathered all the soft comfy clothes I could carry, dumped my loot into the corner of the break room, and made myself a little nest. I buried myself in the softness with a smug grin on my face.

Erica gently shook her head.

“You know we could wear some of those too.”

“Oh yeah, they’d probably be better than some restaurant uniform, wouldn’t they?”

She sat down beside me.

“Yeah, they probably would.”