>>5811434“Look, you two are obviously having a… Thing…” Zith-Zi began, with obvious awkwardness. “I’m just going to—HEY!”
No sooner had the goblin turned to leave than Hershy leapt from her shoulder. The golden-feathered little drake sailed on his old and ratty wings, with furious flaps to remain aloft, and alighted upon Izirina.
“H-hey,” Zith-Zi stammered. “What’s the deal? Hershy, come back…”
Hershy didn’t respond, though. He had landed upon your classmate’s outstretched arm, which the human (?) girl had extended automatically. As Zith-Zi protested weakly, her pet stared at Izirina with some animalistic recognition dawning in his milky eyes and simple mind. Izirina seemed more startled than anything, but gradually you saw it—her pupils turn from circles t slits as she met the drake’s eyes, a recognition dawning there as well.
“Wait…” she murmured, “I know you... Hirschel.”
Slowly, the golden drake scooted forwards and with a ratting croak butted his head against your friend’s chin and lips.
>17 for Sociability; DC +2 for your falling out, -1 for your persistent attempts to reconnect, and -1 for bringing Hershy>SUCCESSSomething changed in Izirina after that. When she looked back to you, her eyes were ‘human’ again. That wasn’t all, though: they were no longer the hard eyes of the girl who had refused to speak with you this last year, no longer like those of her adopted mother. They were those of the girl who had tried to befriend you in your early years at the Tower, who you had stood up for and studied with. Reflected in the mirrors all around you, you saw the face of the girl who had first called you here all those years ago, and who you had taken out to the fir and spent afternoons cuddling your chimera with, hidden away from the rest of the world. You saw the girl who buried her face in escapist literature, whose waning confidence and intellectual excellence had conspired to remove her from the school’s body politic and to elevate her to such alien heights that you had once chased her, envied and despised her, and had eventually fixated yourself upon a vision of her—of her mystery, of her hidden truth.
