WHO: Bridget Kluge and Penelope Rulli WHEN: Yesterday, 6/8th WHERE: The Woods SUMMARY: Penelope and Bridget go hiking. An interesting sight stumbles on them. WARNINGS: No. STATUS: Complete
The June heat caught up with the two girls as they neared the clearing of the woods. Bridget couldn’t help but retie her hair back with her bandanna, just as the trees gave way to pure sunlight.
“Hey, you don’t mind if we stop for water, do you?” she asked Penny.
Penelope squinted pointlessly against the sun. The bright ray that pressed against her face did it’s best to hinder her attempt to simply bask in its warmth, to take in the lovely way it teased the canopy. She pulled her attention from her distraction and shook her head.
“No,” Penelope stated with a small smile and as she readjusted the straps of her tank top. They had begun to stick to her skin. “Of course not. It’s a great idea.”
“Glad we’re on the same page,” said Bridget, as she fiddled with the straps on her backpack, this time to release the Nalgene from the side compartment. Whatever else she wanted to say was cut off by the water she downed.
Finally hydrated, Bridget stuffed her Nalgene in her backpack before she stood up, ready to resume their hike. “Welp, I’m ready to rock if you are!” she proclaimed. Dusting off the stray bits of dirt that clung to her legs, she looked up, to catch Penny’s eye but instead---
The dragon flew up. Bright, emerald-green scales dotted its body, massive even from the distance, as the creature turned its back, with the unmistakable flame on its tail.
Bridget squinted. “Penny, look--” she pointed weakly. “Look up--”
Her eyes caught Penny bent at the hip, foot against a rock, and tying her shoelace. Actually, they slipped past before the two women could properly share a gaze. And Penelope found herself twisting her head a few moments before Bridget asked her to. She almost lost her balance. The sight of it caused Penelope to gasp and gape in surprise as she stood then turned swiftly for a better look.
“Are you…” but Bridget’s voice drifted where words threatened to interrupt the sense of wonder that held the two girls.
Where there should have been nothing but blue sky was a castle, fortified by rock, and the dragon.
So instead she let her gaping silence finish that train of thought.
“You saw what I saw, right?”
“Yes.” Her response tight.
“I wasn’t just, like, dehydrated or hallucinating or suffering from a weird heat stroke, right? That was literally, legitimately a ---”
Say it. Say it.
“-- a dragon. And a castle.”
Penelope breathed in sharply. Bridget voicing their shared, almost unbelievable, experience made it feel solid. Before that moment she had been wrapped up in awe over what they had viewed. She knew they had dragons in town; although, she had never seen one. It was also difficult not to notice the crack, for all she tried her best to go about her day when it appeared.
Yet this was something entirely different.
“A dragon and a castle,” Penelope repeated, confirmed, as she wrapped her arms against her chest. “If you’re hallucinating, then I am too.” It had been brief but there was no doubting it was there. Penny dragged her gaze from the spot returned to regular and unto Bridget. “We should -- We need to, we should start moving. Again.”
The ‘in case it reappears’ went without saying.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah! I’m -- here, pinch me.” Bridget stuck out her arm. “Just in case I’m dreaming this stuff up.”
A small smile curved Penny’s mouth, as she managed to find some humor in Bridget’s action, and she gave her friend’s arm the softest of pinches.
Though they had completed the trail, flowers and trees and views and all, it was all Bridget could do to not talk endlessly about the castle and the dragon. Penelope, in turn, could only respond in absent-minded near silence. Her responses brief and vague and her nods distracted. Bridget knew an illusion when she saw one, and this particular image was one that clung to her mercilessly.