The forest was thick with mist. The kind that clings to your ankles like needy ghosts and turns every tree into a looming stranger. There was no wind. No birdsong. Just the soft squish of moss under bare feet and the distant sound of a confused squirrel trying to mate with a fungus.
I giggled. Not at the squirrel. At everything.
"I'm a princess," I whispered, stroking the side of a tree. "And this is my velvet throne. Moss couture. Fungal fashion week."
The tree didn't respond. Rude.
"—Saya," came the voice.
A deep voice. Dragging through the woods like a velvet boot across gravel. Familiar. Too familiar. Made the hairs on the back of my neck do interpretive dance.
"Saaayaaaa," it said again. Longer this time. Like an annoyed parent calling a child who's smeared goat butter on the good curtains.
I turned in a slow, wobbly circle. "Am I being summoned?" I asked a fern. It bowed politely. Such manners.
"Where are you, you absolute hazard of a woman?" The voice again. Closer. Growlier.
"Shhh!" I hissed. "You'll scare the moss. They're very sensitive."
There was a pause. A very long, very judgmental pause.
"I swear to the seven smoldering sins of Seebulba," the Dragon muttered, "if I find you licking mushrooms again—"
"I didn't lick them," I said, indignant. "I asked them. For permission."
Another pause.
"Of course you did."
The trees swayed slightly, or maybe that was me. I reached for a branch. It reached back. We had a moment.
"Your trail smells like honeyed socks and regret," the Dragon's voice grumbled through the trees. "I can smell you, but I can't see you. Are you under something? Inside something?"
I blinked at the bush I was half-cuddling. "I might be…in love with this shrub."
The Dragon's exhale was audible. A low, seismic rumble that shook a few leaves loose from nearby branches.
"I should've eaten you when I had the chance," he growled.
"Too late," I sang. "You're emotionally attached."
"Emotionally constipated, maybe."
"I'm emotionally naked," I declared. "And also, technically, actually naked."
There was a thud behind me. A wingbeat. The rustle of something large and grumpy shoving its way through the underbrush.
Then: "Godsdammit, Saya."
I turned slowly. He stood there—or loomed, rather—scales steaming gently in the mist, eyes narrow, nostrils twitching.
I smiled, arms outstretched. "Look! I found the meaning of life."
"You found a log with mushrooms growing on it."
"Same thing."
He stared. Long. Hard. Judging every life choice that had led him here.
"You're high."
"Spiritual," I corrected.
He didn't dignify that with a response. Just stomped closer and snorted a puff of smoke over my head. The warmth hit like a hug from an angry oven.
"Better?" he asked.
I nodded. Then toppled sideways.
"Gods," he muttered, catching me with one talon and hoisting me like a sack of sin. "You're lucky you're cute."
"And you're lucky I didn't marry the shrub."
He started walking. Carrying me like laundry.
"Next time," he growled, "I'm leaving you with the centaurs."
"They still send me letters," I mumbled into his chest. "One of them proposed. Very poetic. Lots of hoof metaphors."
"Shut up, Saya."
I grinned against his scales. "You missed me."
He didn't answer.
But he didn't drop me either.
He was grumbling again. Full pout. The kind he does when I ruin perfectly good plans by being half-naked, high, and covered in moss.
"I swear," he muttered, parting some ferns with his tail, "you dropped everything. Your tunic. Your pouch. Your bloody sense of self-preservation."
I wiggled my toes in the air from where I was draped over his shoulder like a giggling she-goat. "I dropped coins instead of breadcrumbs," I said proudly. "So I could find my way back."
"To what?" he snapped. "The fungus orgy you invented under that rotten log?"
"It was spiritual," I murmured, licking the sole of one foot. Tasted like forest floor and freedom. "Also… tasty."
"For fuck's sake, Saya."
"I think I was a mushroom in a past life," I announced. "A proud, fat little toadstool. Purple cap. Lived under a birch. Very popular with forest critters."
"Fitting," he muttered. "Some mushrooms are toxic too."
He turned his head, sniffed the wind, muttered something about spoor and squirrel piss.
I stretched my arms luxuriously, still dangling upside down over his shoulder. "I feel alive. Reborn. Enlightened."
"You're going to be wearing a skirt made of ferns if I can't find your tunic."
"Ooooh," I crooned. "Yes. I like that. Natural fashion. Maybe I'll stay. Live with the forest folk. Make love to dryads and nymphs."
His wings stiffened. "Forest nymphs are maniacs, Saya."
"You say that like it's a bad thing."
"They bathe in moonlight and flay their lovers for pillow talk."
"Spicy," I purred. "Maybe that's exactly what I need."
"Flaying?"
"Affection with consequences."
He sighed. The kind of sigh that shifted treetops and carried centuries of regret.
"Also," I added, twirling an imaginary flower in my fingers, "one of them offered to braid my pubes."
He stopped walking.
Turned his head slowly.
"What?"
I blinked at him, upside down. "She had nimble fingers."
He started walking again, faster now. Muttering about exile and divine punishment and whether it was too late to trade me to a convent.
"You are jealous," I sing-songed.
"I am cursed."
"You're just mad no one ever braided your pubes."
"Stop talking."
"I bet they're all wiry and lonely. Like sad little sea serpents with no sense of community."
"Shut up, Saya."
I grinned and let my fingers trail over the edge of his scales.
The world was swaying. Warm. Green. Beautiful.
I had no tunic, no gold, and moss in places moss had no business being.
But I was safe.
High as a minaret, naked as truth, and carried like the degenerate forest sprite I clearly was.
And he still didn't drop me.
Next thing I know, I'm on my knees, arms wrapped around a tree like it's a lover I deeply regret. My stomach clenched, betrayed me, and I puked my guts out in a violently unpoetic arc.
"Urrrgh gods," I groaned, spitting the aftertaste. "Stupid mushrooms. Stupid nymphs. Stupid me."
Another heave. Liquid regret and shame painted the roots.
"Stupid, stupid Saya. Stupid girl."
The dragon winced, audibly. Even without looking, I could hear the scales shift as he turned his head away.
"Watch your feet, Saya," he said gently, like I was a cat hacking up a soul. "You're kneeling in your own—ugh, too late."
I whimpered. Crawled a few wobbly steps on palms and knees, hands squishing into wet earth, until I found a moss-covered boulder that looked vaguely like a sofa if you squinted and had brain damage. I collapsed on it like a felled log.
Everything spun.
I curled into myself, cheek pressed to the damp green fuzz, and mumbled, "Please… please tell the trees to stop dancing."
"They stopped an hour ago," he said.
"Then tell them to stop staring."
The trees did not stop.
If anything, they started waltzing. Elegant bastards.
I buried my face deeper into the moss, ready to cry or pass out or both.
"Fucking mushrooms," I whispered.
Above me, somewhere between pity and exasperation, the dragon let out a long sigh. One of those ancient, tired ones.
He didn't say anything else.
He didn't have to.
I woke up with the kind of headache usually reserved for cursed relics and noblemen's weddings. My skull was pulsing like a bad drum solo, and my mouth tasted like regret and moss.
The stream was nearby. Clear. Sparkling. And cold enough to make my nipples retreat into another dimension.
I dipped a toe in and yelped.
"Penance," the dragon deadpanned from his perch above, coiled like a judgmental statue.
I stuck my tongue out at him.
He raised a brow ridge. "Scrub. All of it. I'm not letting you climb on my back with that filth."
I groaned and splashed water on my face, muttering something profane and extremely unladylike. Mud, leaf bits, and what I sincerely hoped was not nymph glitter clung to my thighs.
"And what did we learn?" he asked smugly.
"Drop dead."
He huffed, smoke curling lazily out of one nostril. "Spoilsport," I muttered.
"You could've caught pneumonia."
"A true partner would've covered me with a blanket."
"I didn't want to get puke on it," he snapped. "That's my good blanket."
I rinsed my arms, glaring at him with every splash. "I was spiritually vulnerable."
"You were high."
"Same thing!"
"You tried to seduce a squirrel."
"It had kind eyes."
He rubbed his temple with one talon. "You're impossible."
I sighed, dunked my head in, came up gasping. "And yet, here I am. Still your problem."
He didn't deny it.
Just turned slightly so I wouldn't see the twitch at the corner of his mouth. The one that looked suspiciously like affection.