One True Queen: A Wings of Fire fanfiction

13.

Clearsight

I know I don't really need to wait for him. I'm sure Darkstalker is perfectly capable of walking from his first therapy appointment to the morning meeting, shortly after, on his own—and maybe I should just give him some space. But it's hard not to worry, and it's been a relatively quiet morning anyway, so I get myself some tea (just to humour Heartfire, who keeps bugging me about cutting back on the caffeine) and stare out the window of a very nice makeshift waiting area, watching as my tribe wakes up and trying to finish up some paperwork from yesterday I didn't have the time to get to.

It's been about a week since the hurricane now, and I'm impressed at how quickly my tribe bounced back from the disaster. The Great Diamond has already started to function as its own kind of miniature city, with dragons setting up little market stalls, and decorating their designated sleeping areas. Dragons will volunteer to help look after the large population of orphan dragonets running wild around the halls, and I've even seen a few of my old colleagues from school trying to organize little mini-math lessons or whatever, with moderate success.

And even though it's not my accomplishment, watching it all unfold makes my chest fill with pride.

The door creaks open. "All right. I'll see you next week, at the same time," a soft-spoken, blueish-black dragon named Solstice says. "Let me know within forty-eight hours if anything changes in your schedule."

"All right, thank you." Darkstalker bumps his head on the doorframe and glares at it for a few seconds before his eyes catch on me.

"Clearsight! What are you doing here? You know you didn't have to wait for me, right?" He gently taps his snout to mine, which draws a few more whispers than there already were from the small crowd around us. But honestly, at this point, I've gotten pretty good at tuning it out. Darkstalker tenses up a little though, adjusting his satchel on his shoulder and lashing his tail back and forth. Getting the message, I grab my things and follow him out of the waiting room area, where we can get some privacy.

"I, um... I was just worried about you, that's all." I give him a small, tentative smile.

He laughs. "Of course you were," he says fondly, relaxing a little as we slip into a much more quiet corridor. "I'm okay, darling, really. That was super weird, though."

"Yeah, I bet. Did he... seem nice?"

Darkstalker nods. "Yeah. I think so. It's just a lot to get used to. Apparently this is gonna be a weekly thing now. I have these worksheets to go through, he wants me to learn how to evaluate my impulse reactions, whatever that means? I don't know there were a lot of words like radical acceptance and mindfulness and emotional regulation and blah blah blah and apparently I'm not even allowed to use my magic to just fix this stuff, which is dumb, but anyway." He sighs. "I'm so tired. Not, like, not-sleeping-enough tired, just bleh, apparently sitting around and talking about your feelings is tiring."

I smile a little, nudging him sideways. "Well, you know, I just thought I'd let you know, while you were in your appointment, Brilliance decided to come up, like out of nowhere and propose to me. So. Uh. Yeah, you know, I love you more than words can describe, but all my life I have dreamed of being rich guy's trophy wife, so yeah, the wedding is next week? If you want to come?" I fight off a wave of giggles.

He makes that adorable flustered face. "W-what? Really?"

"Really." I roll my eyes. "Apparently him and Starfire are splitting up. Like I said, super hard offer to resist... you, or a guy I've talked to about three times, who sent my best friend to a work camp, what a dilemma..." I sigh melodramatically.