Chapter Fifty-Five
As the tree showered them in petals, the scent of almonds wrapped around Frida and she couldn’t stop grinning.
All around them, there was the sound of life waking up.
Small rustles at first, a high-pitched bark, the coo of a bird.
Then a far-distant ear-splitting shriek.
A muffled rumble. A kraken-esque howl on the breeze.
Wordless, Frida and Dian sat amongst the flowers with their shoulders touching.
They’d developed a method of communicating that hadn’t required words.
But an electric feeling zinged between them, little sparks that Frida imagined she could see dancing in the atmosphere.
She craned her neck, dazzled to see the hawthorn continue to bloom, spreading white blushed with pink up into the cavern of the black forest sky.
‘Why couldn’t Mush wake you up?’ she murmured, leaning into Dian’s warmth. She still couldn’t quite believe they were warm, and they were here. ‘She was the one who really knew your name.’
Dian tilted towards her as Mush gave an amused snort.
A few stray blossoms decorated Dian’s hair.
The silver was still there, giving them an air of majesty, a mark of the years that had passed.
‘Well,’ Dian said as their eyes glittered.
A sheepish smile played over their lips and the tips of their ears turned pink.
‘I obviously cannot tell you that. I’d have to banish you to a fairy pool for the rest of eternity if I did. ’
Frida recalled the steamy warmth of that pool, the silken carpet of moss between her bare toes. Her voice was husky when she said, not quite knowing when she’d become so brave, ‘Well, that doesn’t sound so bad. Not if you’d be there too.’
Dian’s smile grew into something delicious. They looked down at where their hands were almost touching, lying adjacent across their laps. ‘I might be,’ they said hoarsely, their eyes blurring. ‘Would that make you happy?’
‘Oh, my skies,’ Mush interrupted dourly. ‘This flirtation between you is interminable. My ancestor Behemoth Night Weaver was right.’
Frida jumped, not having realised Mush was in the shell of her ear, tickling her eardrums. Then she burst out laughing, but the next moment, with a heated growl at the back of their throat that set Frida’s soul on fire, Dian purred,
‘Go away now, Mush.’
Without waiting for whatever droll reply Mush might have, Dian gently slipped their hand around the back of Frida’s neck, entwining in her loose hair.
Mush gave a dramatic squeal, vaulting away.
Frida barely heard it though as Dian trailed their callused thumb along her jawline, and up her lower lip.
The moan that came out of Frida was pure feral.
Dian’s lips curled, and then they kissed her.
Oh, sea and skies.
Their breath tasted of rain and mint and almond spice.
Their piercing dug into her chin, just as sharp as she’d imagined.
As her whole body tingled, they sucked her lower lip into their mouth, and grazed their soft, warm tongue over her own.
When Frida whimpered, raindrops seemed to explode, and burning heat blazed through her belly, sending glitter and cascading starlight in waves up her spine. She was undone.
Dian finally pulled away with a breathless laugh, and Frida opened her eyes. Dian was watching her, the deep dark pools glittering with desire. Frida was dizzy as she rested her forehead against Dian’s and wrapped her hands around the back of their neck and into their wild curls.
‘Dian,’ she moaned.
‘Frida Rose,’ they breathed back into her mouth, catching her lower lip again in their teeth.
‘I’ve missed you.’ And then she was lost again, in the fullness of their lips, the hard pressure of their body against hers, the feeling of their strong, rough hands on her cheeks, as she kissed them again, and again, filling her soul with the heady taste of rain.
‘What should I call you?’ she finally managed, the velvet softness of the petals bringing to mind soft sheets under the moon.
They pulled back just enough to see her face, plucking a rogue hawthorn blossom from her cheek, and flashing her a full, staggering smile: fairy charm turned up to a hundred.
It made Frida think she was going to have to work hard to hold onto her wits.
There was a wicked twinkle in their eye, full of possibilities.
‘Few people have known my name,’ they said, and the sudden vulnerability in their face almost broke Frida’s heart open anew.
‘Mush is the only one, now, I suppose. And she couldn’t wake me because, well .
. . ’ Dian stared down at Frida, their eyes very round.
‘Because although Mush and I are bound together, and we love each other very much, that was not enough to call me back.’
Frida’s mouth had gone bone dry. ‘What was, then?’
Dian chewed on their lower lip, pulling the thorn of their piercing through their teeth. When they finally answered, it was the huskiest sound Frida had ever heard. ‘What do you think, Frida Rose?’
The way they said her name, as if she was the answer to everything, Frida almost melted.
As it was, she flushed to the roots of her hair and, with a full, wild laugh, Dian pulled her up onto her feet.
Approaching the hawthorn together, there was a look of awe on both their stunned faces.
Eventually, after a few long moments, Dian placed their hands to the bark.
The ribbons of brown and ebony, copper and silver, darkest blue and palest gold were so similar to the colours that stained Dian’s skin that Frida had to look hard to see where their fingers ended and the tree began.
‘Thank you, my friend,’ Dian whispered to the tree. Then, to Frida, ‘As to what name you should call me?’ they murmured, gazing up into the cascade of blossoms. ‘When we are alone, I would like it very much if you called me Ioelwsthyithuaawn.’
Their name was the sound of a warm westerly wind, rushing through the forest. It smelt of rain and the open ocean, and their smile was world changing.
Frida’s heart became a gooey puddle, ice cream left out of the fridge on a sunny afternoon, and she was just trying to come up with an adequate answer – was there really any when a fairy looks at you like that?
– when Dian got down on their heels and began to dig between the roots of the hawthorn tree.