Gaffriel 27

Niala was upset, and clearly, Thanus and Kiromir had something going on. Everyone took the sign to leave, and I just followed Niala as I usually did. I didn’t even realize I followed her until we were a ways away.

“Ni, sorry, but can I go with you?” I thought to ask this time. It was a little late for it but better late than never.

She shrugged and wandered through dark trailers and over to an abandoned children’s park. Her feet crunched over recycled rubber mulch as she made her way to the dried, cracking loop of a swing seat. Picking one of the swings, she hopped into it, and I took the one next to her. The bar above us creaked. She looked at me for a moment, then up at the bar. We’d never gotten to spend this night of the migration together. So, we just swung in quiet. I wanted to wait for her to speak, but she didn’t.

Summoning her black fire in unsteady flickers, she held it out towards me, and I looked at it for an excited moment. I let my fire take mine and took her offered hand. It felt like little scratches drawing over my skin, gentle little teasing pricks, and prickles. She felt a rippling warmth. Our swinging synched so we could hold hands.

Where the first time, it had been a flicker, a moment of realization. This was… this was nicer, though I did have to release her hand. I suddenly had that feeling that I was intruding on something, crossing a boundary, and I wanted so much more.

“Ni?” I said, my voice cracking in my throat as it clenched. Shame ran through me, deep seeded and angry as I tried to find the courage to ask for something I’d wanted for months.

She looked over at me and I to her. It was nice, better than the second time, slow and easy. It filled a need I hadn’t realized I had. I mean, I thought I needed her fires. When I actually had them, I could care less about them. I wanted to be sharing the touch and the sensation with her.

No urgency welled within me, no desperation. We were fine here, just the two of us, best friends, wondering what would come next. This was our stolen summer moment, chasing fires in secret under a blanket of stars and away from prying eyes.

I had to ask, to ruin it, though. The moment was special, and I shouldn’t have asked for more, but I wanted something far more than her fires. I wanted us back. I wanted the simple and complex of it.

“Can I scruff your wings, all of you, especially your tail? I want to…” I just blurted it out and winced as I said it. It had been a year, and I missed that intimacy.

I remember getting my fire, being so eager for her to get hers, and that moment where I had scruffed her wings, my fires were begging me to try them on someone, something, anyone. My cheeks were flushed, and I was so nervous, gangly, and confused. I had changed so much so fast. I felt like my mind was still a kid, but my body wasn’t. I acted a fool, but I never once tried my fires on her like that until yesterday.

She didn’t let go of my hand, but she didn’t look at me either. No expression crossed her face, just quiet contemplation.

“Okay,” she said with iron certainty and crystal clarity. “I’ll get yours after,” She added, and I was filled with a shy excitement. I kept my wings pristine but having her touch them was something I couldn’t pass up.

I had tried my fires on other girls and found myself a match for quite a few, but it all seemed hollow, like our fires were superficial, that they didn’t go deeper than the skin. Niala’s cut to the bone.

I turned my head to stare back at her and found her face turned towards mine this time, glancing at our conjoined hands.

“Don’t take it the wrong way, Gaff, or read anything into it, but I love you,” She said, then looked away, “you know, not in a weird way.”

“I’m okay with weird,” I said in a stumble of words over my tongue.

She looked back at me and quirked a perfect eyebrow.

“Maybe not weird weird,” I corrected myself.

She winked. “Just a marginal amount of weird.”

“A substantial margin or a moderate one?” Hope blossomed within me.

“I’d say a considerable margin of notable size.” Her lips twisted into that impish smirk she got when she teased me.

We stood, hands still holding and leaned into one another, shoulder to shoulder.

She laid her head to my neck, and I went contemplative.

“What do I smell like to you?” She asked before I could go about quantifying a subjective margin of weird.

“Since the first day I met you… You’ve always smelled cold and sharp. It’s like winter and citrus—steel. I can’t describe it,” I told her.

“Huh. You smell like the sun and leather,” She said.

“What does sun smell like?” I asked because both of those were good things. Most people said I smelled burned like an old grill.

She leaned into me and sniffed lightly over my arm. I got goosebumps as her breath danced over my skin.

“You.” She pulled away.

We turned our heads as a clatter of noise rang out. We released our hands and rounded a trailer to the tent we left. The light gleamed within canvas walls before us.

The shadows told a story.

I pursed my lips and tensed as I decided to avert my eyes.