Chapter 18 - Roan

Chapter 18 Roan

It had taken a few days for us to track down everyone who’d submitted a mission about the haunted library to the guild and convince any of them to meet the story spirits, but we finally did it. A determined old apothecary named Mabel who just wanted to gather her herbs again strode up the mountain behind us, walking stick and half muttered curses included.

“If these herbs weren’t so damn useful,” she said, huffing as she tried to catch her breath, “I’d never come up here. The climb is just too rough on these old bones.”

I glanced at Nyssa. “That’s a good point. Maybe we can figure something out for you. Make the climb easier?”

The apothecary barked out a laugh. “If you could do that, I’d convince the whole town to visit that creepy library of yours.”

“Hey now—” Nyssa shook her head, abandoning her objection. “I mean, that sounds like a deal!”

Her hand brushed against mine as she glanced back, her eyes questioning. It was like she thought I had all the answers when I was just doing my best not to stumble over my words with her the past few days. We’d been so busy that we hadn’t had time to really talk since that night, but something felt different between us.

I was more aware of her now than ever before and noticed her every move. It felt like once I’d considered the possibility of sticking around, the floodgates to my emotions had broken open. I had to be more careful now than ever. Be sure that if I took her hand, if I kissed those beautiful lips of hers, that I meant it. That I was here to stay.

She deserved nothing less.

“Are we here to flirt or to collect herbs?” Mabel asked harshly, but her eyes were twinkling. “Young love, so wonderful and annoying.”

“Young love?” I jerked away with an awkward laugh. “We’re not dating or anything.”

Nyssa’s lips quirked up. “I didn’t realize you felt so strongly about that. It must be horrible having people think you fancy a librarian of all things.”

“No, that’s not what I —”

She laughed. “I know, I was just teasing.”

“Careful, or I’ll start teasing you too,” I grumbled.

“Promises, promises,” she whispered, a devious look in her eyes.

The back of my neck warmed. When had we gone from innocent flirting to flirting with implications attached? But the idea of teasing her did sound tempting. Oh the fun we could have...

Mabel muttered a few more curses as the path got steeper and her breath grew ragged. This honestly was a pretty harsh hike so it made sense that not many people had visited the library even before the wild magic storm damaged it.

“Maybe we should take a break?” I asked.

Mabel shook her head. “It’s just up ahead.”

So we kept going forward as we moved around rocks and over tree roots, careful none of us fell. The way Nyssa kept glancing back at me, as if she was checking on me too, warmed my heart. Nobody had really ever watched out for me before, or worried if I’d fall on a rugged path. It was nice, those little backward glances.

“Ah, there it is!” Mabel shouted, springing forward with far more pep in her step than before. “The blazebloom has grown beautifully here.”

The plant she’d so eagerly rushed to had red leaves and soft orange flowers. I’d seen it somewhere before, but I couldn’t quite place it.

“These are for burn ointments, right?” Nyssa asked, kneeling beside the older woman to help her pick the red leaves. “I studied some of the plants on the mountain when we heard an apothecary came up here a lot.”

When had she managed to do that? Nyssa always went the extra mile, getting to know at least a little about everything we did. It was a useful trait to have, especially for a librarian who always needed to look things up for people. It was actually good for adventurers too.

“Yes,” the apothecary said, “it can also relieve anxiety and makes for a wonderful steak seasoning.”

“Steak seasoning?” I asked. Now that was my kind of herb.

As I knelt to join them, a tiny blue dragon head peeked out from the plant in front of me, almost making me fall over.

“What are you doing?” I whispered. “You’re supposed to wait at the library until after we’re done here.”

The dragon tilted its head, as if it didn’t understand me. They’d been responding to Nyssa lately though, so I knew they did. Well, whatever, as long as it didn’t scare the apothecary, I guess it wasn’t that big of a deal. It nibbled on the red-leafed plant contentedly, so I left it be.

“What other plants do you gather up here?” I asked the apothecary.

“Starlight moss, wind root, and all sorts of things,” she said, groaning as she shifted to another plant. “The mountain is a treasure trove of mystical plants and my stores are so low since it’s been harder and harder to gather them. Those damn spirits kept chasing me off, even when I hired bodyguards.”

She harrumphed, then shouted and fell on her backside as blue flames shot over my shoulder. Nyssa gasped as the dragon from before flew over us, dipping and spinning like it was drunk. Its flames turned purple, then green, before it finally fell to the ground, rolling on its back like a dog.

“The spirits are here!” Mabel shouted. “Those flames! That always happens when I come here. They’ve almost burned the forest down, forcing me to run away.”

Nyssa rushed to pick the dragon up, chastising it as she did so and bowed to the apothecary. “Sorry about that. These little dragons are a bit excitable, but they don’t mean any harm.”

The dragon belched a bright pink flame that made the old woman quiver. I sighed as afew more dragons munched on the blazebloom, rubbing against its leaves, rolling in them, and honestly looking kind of intoxicated by them.

Wait...they looked like cats when they found a patch of catnip.

I laughed, finally remembering where I’d seen these plants before. Nyssa and the apothecary frowned at me, but I just shook my head.

“Sorry,” I said, “but these plants actually go by another name. You might use them medicinally, but dragons use them recreationally.”

“What?” Nyssa asked.

“It’s like catnip to them,” I said, crumbling a leaf up so the smoky aroma filled the air for the little dragons. Their eyes widened with excitement. “See? It’s dragonnip. I saw some dragons high on it one time and let me tell you, they’re much less terrifying when they’re small like this.”

Mabel studied them, her keen eyes focused on the little creatures like they were a plant she was analyzing under a microscope. She nudged one with her walking stick and it just rolled over, cooing at her and wiggling its body around on the ground. A small smile touched her lips.

“I see,” she said, nodding, “I guess I was wrong then. These are just dragons looking for a good time and I was interrupting them. But why are they so small?”

Nyssa let out a breath. “They’re characters from inside a book, brought to life by library magic. I’m not sure why they’re so small though.” She tapped her chin, staring at them. “I should ask the knights.”

“The knights?” Mabel asked. “There are knights too?”

“There are all sorts of story spirits,” Nyssa said, grinning like she just hooked a big fish. “When you visit the Misty Mountain Library, the books literally come alive before your eyes. You can talk to all sorts of characters, learn more about their stories, and have fun like you never thought you could.”

That’s the pitch we’d been working on the past few days and it worked just as good as we’d hoped. The apothecary hung on her every word, nodding and smiling as she started to casually play with the dragons.

“But what do they want?” Mabel asked as she leaned down to pet one.

And that was my cue. I pulled a book from my bag titled Dragons Just Wanna Have Fun.

“Here’s a copy of the book they come from,” I said, handing it to her.

Nyssa smiled, nodding at her to give it a try. “We’ve already checked it out in your name, so feel free to take it home and read it. You can bring it back to the library whenever you have a chance. I hope it helps you understand them better.”

Mabel stared at the cover, glancing between the decorative dragon art and the actual dragons in front of her before finally cracking it open.

“Every young dragon knew that there was a time to be serious and a time to be silly,” Mabel read solemnly, glancing up at us. “Really? They just want to have fun?”

“As much as possible.” Nyssa grinned as a dragon landed clumsily on her shoulder.

The other dragons circled Mabel, as if summoned by her reading. Some curled up by her feet while others stayed in the air, but they were all focused on the book, giving it far more attention than I thought dragons high on dragonnip could do.

But then one of them fell from the sky in a plume of violet fire while the others did the dragon equivalent of giggling. Yup, they were still enjoying the nip.

Mabel smiled, looking like a weight had been lifted from her shoulders as the fear of this mountain drifted away.

“Okay,” the old apothecary said softly, “I’ll rescind my mission with the guild.”

“Really?” Nyssa practically jumped with joy. “Thank you!”

“On one condition.” Mabel held up a finger, staring at us both with utter seriousness. “You must find a way to make this wretched climb easier on these poor old bones of mine. Otherwise, I’ll never be able to return this book.”

“Deal,” Nyssa said with no hesitation.

I raised an eyebrow, but chose not to comment. This was her library, her mission to fulfill. Maybe we could build portals, buy self-driving carriages, or find the secrets to cloud transportation. Actually, this was right up my alley as an adventurer. There were so many wonders hidden out in the world if you were brave enough to look for them.

Maybe we could even search for the solution together and have our own private adventure...

“Okay, enough lollygagging,” Mabel said. “We’ve got three more herbs to collect before the sun goes down and these dragons aren’t going to calm down anytime soon.”

Nyssa nodded, but looked back at me. “Think they’re okay on their own?”

The little dragons were shooting multicolored fire now, lighting up the sky like a fireworks show as they dipped and twirled through the air. Honestly, I’d stay and watch them all day if I could. Maybe we should plant some of this closer to the library. Wait, no, they’d probably burn the library down if we did that. Better to have their fun far enough away that they couldn’t cause any damage.

“I think they’re fine,” I said. “Mabel did say they’ve been doing this for a while, so they probably come here a lot.”

“True...”

Nyssa leaned moved closer, watching the silly little dragons for another minute before tugging me after the apothecary. Every day with her was a wonder, a new adventure without even leaving the mountain. Maybe staying in one spot had its own perks if the place was full of people like Nyssa and these dragons.

The library really was a magical place and we were one step closer to revitalizing it.