Kaia the Argent Wing

I said nothing about Chloe's flirtatious pet name for me as we cleaned up after the fight. I said nothing when we put foot to path, either. I couldn't. My whole fucking brain was scrambled, to the point that I had to not so subtly nudge Ollie until we were far enough away from everyone else to have a murmured conversation.

“What is it, Kaia?” She asked, curiously. “You're acting mega skittish.”

“I'm— I need your help,” I replied, idly hopping a ditch to get onto the road we'd follow for a while. “Chloe rizzed me up in the middle of the fight back there. I don't think she meant to, but she did, and… she called me ‘babygirl’ like, what? Is that weird? Should I be worried about like, being infantilized or whatever?”

Ollie stared at me, eyebrows raised as her lips crept up into a smile. “Wow. That's a little out of left field, for sure. Um… I guess the best question to ask is, uh, did you like it?”

I shivered as a wave of frisson swept up my arms. Did I like it? I don't think… maybe? Unbidden and fully formed, an image popped into my head of Chloe leaning over me in bed, a lazy smile on her face while she called me that, and I stumbled slightly in the snow. Fuck. What was happening right now?

“Yes…?” I said to Ollie, my voice very small.

“Awh, Kaia…” she replied gently, placing a hand on my arm. “At least we know she's into girls, right? You have a chance, and what she said was definitely flirting.”

I shook my head uncertainly. “I don't know. She seemed kinda surprised and almost… angry that she said it.”

“Huh,” said Ollie as we stepped over a fallen power pole.

The snow was fading now, with only heavy, dirty drifts still frozen in shadows and corners. All around us, gates gave access to winding driveways that led to pretty, rich houses. These were the houses that the folks down in Riddlebank could only dream of, and they were owned by the type of hegemonic wealth that only ever grew from generation to generation.

In the distance, grazing in a small herd, were a bunch of horses. They were definitely not the kind we could've tried to ride, however. Judging by the bone-bladed forelegs and sharp teeth, they'd gotten the monsterfying end of the Storm stick.

“Plus,” I sighed sadly, “I… would it be a good idea? Did I like the nickname and the smile and everything enough to like, do something about it? Oh and she doesn't know about my… other half.”

Ollie winced. “There's that. Gosh darn, that will not be a pretty reveal.”

I shrank inwards. “Yeah…”

We were quiet for a couple minutes as the few rich people's homes made way to real farmland. The grass was already growing out of control in the pastures, and there was a massive field of corn laid out on one of the few flat pieces of land. We'd have to make note of that. It wasn't ripe yet, but when it was, Edgewood could come out and harvest it.

The monotony of the walk began to calm my heart a little, thankfully. For a while, it'd felt like I needed to run up to her right there and confess my feelings to her. What feelings were those? I had no idea. She was definitely and undeniably gorgeous, and maybe that was just causing my head to spin off-axis. Really, though, it'd been the wild, soft look in her eyes and the playful smile on her lips, that sent me into full blown bi-panic. Hopefully that was all—I was just flustered in the moment.

A couple of hours later we were attacked by a flock of seed shooting birds, whatever they were called. I killed a few, but it was Chloe who shot most of them down with her bolts of green magic. Turns out, it was actually the cantrip I'd given her back in the Redcap Dungeon. She'd figured out how to power it up with hex bags, hence what I'd seen in the earlier fight. No power-ups were required for the seed spitters, though. They were blasted out of the sky just fine.

Birds weren't the only monsters we faced, but at this point we considered ferrals to be little more than speed bumps. There were also non-monster animals around, including a small troupe of raccoons we saw. After so long seeing evidence of them around, it was nice to get confirmation that the little dudes were still rolling.

Like all the non-monster animals, they'd gained a few new features. Namely, in their case, properly opposable thumbs. How did we know this? One of them clutched a little sharpened stick to its chest when they saw us, and soon they'd disappeared into the overgrown grass. I may or may not have left one of my spare knives stabbed into a fence post at raccoon height after I saw them. If they were starting to use tools… I just… I wanted them to succeed.

Eventually, close to midday, something truly magical happened—We saw the sun.

It'd been so long since we stood in direct sunlight that my eyes almost burned at the sudden brightness. We called a halt then and had lunch while we basked in the sun’s rays.

It wasn't until we finally stopped for the day that we truly left the range of the blizzard bird’s influence, though. That, in itself, was a sight to behold. With the sun setting, the massive swirling circular storm was lit with deep reds and oranges that faded into a dark, oppressive blue. That was the moment I realised just how right Cynath had been when she said we couldn't kill the bird. Anything that had the power to create that… we stood no chance.

Our camp ended up being on the once-manicured lawn of a farmhouse. We didn't use the house itself because something had burned it down. Weeds and grass were already beginning to claim the husk, but otherwise it stood naked and empty. We chose this place because around the farmhouse was a nice ring of windbreak trees that would shield us from outside view, while the lawn would mean the ground wouldn't be quite so hard under us as we slept.

As we were stomping down a circle of grass for the camp, Ollie made a surprise declaration. “Guys. There's three tents and one of them is bigger than the others.”

We all looked at her curiously. Where was she going with this?

“I think the three guys should have the big tent,” she said with a weird amount of determination.

Her eyes flickered in my direction. “And the girls should go two to each of the small tents.”

“That's fair,” Scotty agreed after a second of thought, and the other two boys nodded assent.

“I'll go with Immie, because we're used to each other…” she finally fixed me with a subtle but sly and secretive smile before looking at Chloe. “Since you're new to our group, I figure you'll want to share with Kaia, since you know her the best?”

Chloe kept quiet for a couple of seconds, during which time we made awkward eye contact. I quickly looked away.

She cleared her throat. “Uh… yeah, sure. If Kaia's okay with it.”

I felt like I'd swallowed a golf ball, but I nodded. “Yeah. That's cool with me.”

“Yay!” Ollie grinned, clapping her hands together twice.

Crap. This was going to be a difficult night.

We spent a little time chatting as I built a small fire, which we decided we needed because otherwise it wouldn’t feel like an actual camp. I had personal reservations about having the light give us away, but I guess morale was important too.

Chloe pitched our tent while I was doing the fire. I mean, everyone was pitching the tents, but… yeah.

“I feel like it wouldn’t be too hard to evacuate the school out here,” she said, sitting beside me.

Looking around, I could see why she thought that. Despite the many monsters we'd encountered today, we hadn't really been in any danger. I wasn't so sure a large number of people would have the same luck.

“The Storm Bird is intelligent… I think if that much food were to wander out in the open, it might decide to have a feast,” I said diplomatically.

She took a second to respond as she wrestled with a tough piece of dried meat. Once it was safely in her mouth, she took a sip of water and began to chew. “I guess you're right.”

“Hey!” Alec said, plopping himself down right beside me. I jerked in surprise and glared at him.

“Dude,” Chloe commented in a bored tone while she looked him over. “Personal space. You gave her a fright.”

Alec frowned, like he wanted to argue, so I shuffled my butt away from him. Of course, that took me closer to Chloe. She gave me a little smile, so I guess it was okay.

“I think we should do that watch thing,” he said, shrugging the previous interaction away as everyone else came to sit down. “You know, one or two people stay up a few hours each to make sure nothing bad happens.”

“Yeah,” Immie agreed. “We could do it by tent and rotate who has to do the middle shift.”

“Sounds good to me,” Scotty said, and we all echoed the sentiment.

Chloe and I ended up taking the dawn watch, so we'd get a full uninterrupted night of sleep. It did mean we had to get to bed quickly, though, so after food was done and we'd gone to the toilet, I pulled my sleeping bag out and wriggled into the tent.

Chloe was right behind me, and holy fuck but I was hyper aware of her presence. It was like every sense I owned was carefully calibrated to her.

I listened as she rustled around, getting comfortable, and then when she stopped and was quiet. What did I say? Should I say anything? Did she just want to sleep, or—

“You can stop holding your breath,” she chuckled quietly.

My breath exploded out of me when I realised that yeah, I’d been holding my breath. “Sorry.”

“Kaia,” she said, sighing wearily. “Relax. I won't bite.”

Yeah, that's not the problem, Chloe. The problem is that I kinda want you to bite.

“I'm going to sleep now,” she said, and rolled so her back was to me.

Tonight was going to be tough.