Rose gathered her basket of bracelets and headed out of her room, intent on giving each of her friends a token of affection. She was pleasantly surprised to find all her kingmates waiting on her.
"Happy Flower Fall, Rose," Havi greeted her, presenting her with a multicolored flower bracelet. "We each added our own flowers into this one, so this is from all of us to you."
Rose's cheeks turned red and her eyes started to burn a little as she took the carefully crafted item. Galio moved towards her and ruffled her hair.
"Sorry this year has been a bit hectic, but we're here for you."
"If you ever need us," Philip went on, "just ask."
Rose thanked them in a shaky voice and presented each of them with a poorly made bracelet of her own. Lanna gave her a tight hug, and then Rose headed off to meet with the rest of her friends.
As Rose left her dorm—intent on giving the flower circlets to her friends—she felt something touch the top of her head. Looking up, she saw a little tendril of black smoke slowly pull away from her. Following its retreat, she saw Mortem waiting for her. He gave her a small wave as the tendril retreated into his shadow.
"Good morning, Miss Rose."
"Good morning, Mortem," Rose responded. "Um—I have something for you." She held out her basket towards him. "Thanks for kinda being my friend."
Mortem eyed the basket then approached it. He reached inside and pulled out the flower crown. He held it up, looking at the crudely formed red flowers intertwined together.
Rose flushed. "I didn't realize what it meant, that flower crowns are only meant to be given to a boyfriend or girlfriend and stuff—I guess I forgot to take it out."
He then put it on top of his head. "Well. Have a good day."
"Wait—you can't—"
"It's only fair since I gave you one," Mortem responded flippantly.
Rose's cheeks burned and her hand reached up to touch the top of her head. To her surprise, she felt something soft circle her hair. "When—why—"
"I went ahead and enchanted it to stick," he continued rather cheerfully. "See you at the dance."
"But—what—but—I mean—but—"
Rose stammered out, partly confused and partly mortified. Then she set down her basket and tried to rip off the flower crown he snuck upon her. To her horror, the crown refused to budge in the slightest bit. She let out a little squeak, turned on her heel, and ran back inside.
"Havi! Havi! Mortem stuck a crown on me and I can't get it off!"
Havi looked up from having Lanna weave flowers into her hair. "Oh, dear."
"He what?" Lanna asked, her eyes narrowing.
Both girls approached Rose and began to pull and prod at the black flowered crown around her. After a few minutes, Havi let out a soft sigh. "That's some heavy enchanting. I don't think we'll be able to remove it."
"That jerk," Lanna growled. "Who forces a crown on someone?"
"I doubt it was intended to be anything other than sweet, and maybe a little ornery," Havi consoled. "If it bothers you so much, we can take it to a professor. They'll surely be able to remove it."
Rose felt a bit better about that. She'd ask Professor Nigel or Yūei to remove it, and then that would be that.
Rose headed back out to meet with her other friends at the cafeteria. Wisely, neither of them commented on the flower crown on her head, and gladly exchanged flower bracelets with her. She headed to each one of her teachers next and handed out her practically mangled flower bracelets. Each one was accepted with a fond 'thank you'.
The day was turning out to be such a pleasant one that Rose decided to spend it with her kingmates outside. One of the older students started up a rigorous game of tag that Rose delightfully joined in on, and the game lasted well into dinner.
Unfortunately for her, Havi took one look at her muddied and disheveled form and promptly stole her away after dinner to get her ready for the dance.
Much to Rose's ire, she was forced into the bath, shoved into a red dress, and her hair was mercilessly combed until the last of the tangles were gone. Havi was brutally efficient in turning her kingmate into a "presentable young lady".
If Rose didn't like Havi so much, she'd tell her exactly where to shove her "presentable young lady".
Not that that would faze the vampire princess in the slightest bit. Once she and Rose were ready, Havi sent her off to the courtyard to play with her friends with the final warning of staying away from Galio when he started dancing.
Rose hurried off, eager to get her hair away from Havi's menace of a comb. She practically sprinted outside, delighted to find that the courtyard was filled with happy students. The professors had even conjured floating islands to give some of the students more room and privacy.
Rose stretched out her wings and flew up to one of the many floating islands around the courtyard. They weren't very big—really only big enough to fit one or two students, maybe even three if they were small enough. As she flew around them to find her own private little island to watch the sunset and moonrise, she saw many of them were already preoccupied by couples or groups of friends. She flew by people she recognized—Lanna was in her natural form and cooing softly at Aella who was giggling at her, Havi was whispering quietly to Philip—and some that she didn't. She circled around the little islands for a few more minutes before settling on one that was well above most of them and away from the louder couples.
Rose gently tucked her legs underneath her, fiddling with Havi's old dress.
A soft wind blew around her, ruffling the petals on the flower bracelets she wore. Rose looked at them for an instant before her hand drifted up towards the crown Mortem placed upon her.
"Like it?"
Rose let out a startled shout, whipping her head around to find Mortem already sitting beside her, her own crown she made yesterday resting atop his hood. She made a growl and moved to grab it from his head, but he effortlessly ducked away.
"You shoulda asked first," Rose told him sternly. "I might've said yes if you asked. Forcing it on me isn't nice."
"Like shocking you isn't nice, either?"
That made Rose reluctantly smile. "Yes. Exactly like shocking people isn't nice."
He seemed to be smiling at her—or at least that was the impression Rose got—before he pulled out a little bag and opened it up. Inside were a handful of oddly colored fruits. He reached in and offered one to Rose.
"Think of it as my apology."
Rose took the offered fruit—it felt like a peach and smelled like a mango.
"Food doesn't make it right," Rose warned him, despite nibbling on one of the surprisingly sweet treats.
"Food makes everything better," Mortem disagreed. "Did you have fun trying to take it off?"
Rose merely shrugged, deciding not to tell him that she honestly didn't try very hard. While she certainly thought it was rude of him to place it upon her without asking, she felt a bit happy that she got to wear a flower crown like the rest of her kingmates.
She wasn't going to let him know that, though.
"You're surprisingly good at enchantments," came Rose's eventual reply. "Do you study them out of class?"
"No. Merely a genius."
Rose narrowed her eyes suspiciously at that remark. It was true that Rose never saw Mortem read a textbook, take notes, or practice, but—oh no, wait, that would kind of make him a genius, wouldn't it? Geniuses were the types that never had to try much to understand things. That's what Rose thought geniuses were, at least.
Rose asked him, "What's that like?"
"Boring, mostly." Mortem shrugged underneath his heavy cloak.
Rose tilted her head. "If you're a genius, then how come you don't use a human skin? Do you have trouble maintaining it?"
"I wouldn't say that. It's more like I don't care.��
"But—"
"Having a human skin is only good if you plan on being a part of human society."
"You don't?"
"You do?"
"Well—I mean, I don't know. I've never thought about it. Mother Mara always hoped for me to be able to go to college one day, so I thought if I got to do that, I would."
"College?" Mortem repeated, incredulous. "Is that all your goals are? Go to another school after school?"
"I don't know," Rose repeated. "I never thought about it."
"Do you have hobbies? Aspirations?"
"I-I read, and I—" Rose blushed as she caught herself.
She almost said I liked to play fantasy in my forest, but she couldn't very well say that to one of her classmates. Mortem didn't seem like the type who played, and Rose didn't want to appear as childish to one of her few friends.
Mortem cocked his head. "You?"
"Nothing." Rose's cheeks burned. "I only read, I guess."
Mortem turned his head away with a soft 'hum��. "Do you have any favorites?"
"Not especially," Rose admitted quietly. "I've never wanted to read something more than once, if that's what you mean."
"Preferred genres, perhaps?"
Again, Rose shook her head. Then an idea came to her. "I like to know things. I like to learn and ask questions. I-I've always wanted to experiment like those mad scientists you see in the movies."
Mortem laughed a bit at that. "A mad scientist, you say? An arcanist perhaps, then?"
"Arcanist?"
"An experimenter in the arcane," Mortem explained. "There is a—ah, university, I suppose would be the appropriate word, for arcanists in Atlantis. A place for intelligent individuals to work together in research of all sorts."
Rose smiled at that. "That sounds interesting. Do you know what you have to do to go there?"
"Oh, I doubt you'll have any issues of being invited there. They may want to experiment on you in exchange though," Mortem trailed off with a shrug.
Rose gasped. "What? Why?"
"You're the only dragon allowed outside of their home world," Mortem said. "Not much is known about dragons because of that, and any good researcher would long to turn the unknown into the known."
Rose flushed. "But I don't know anything about dragons myself. I wouldn't be of any help."
"Mn."
The two lapsed into silence. Rose thought over Mortem's words and hoped he was wrong about them wanting to experiment on her. She could only take so much, and the idea of being a lab rat made her feel uneasy.
"I like experimenting with Doctor Basileus," Rose said after a moment, wanting to lighten the mood. "I asked him to teach me to be a potions master."
Mortem let out a hiss of surprise, before catching himself and asking, "What are you working on?"
"We're trying to make a cleaning slime that'll last all year," Rose explained.
"Well, what have you tried?"
Happy to talk about her experiments, Rose launched into a detailed explanation. She hadn't realized how long she had been talking until it had become so dark that only the stars and a few bubbled lights floating around could be seen. She was embarrassed with herself, and impressed Mortem had listened so intently for so long over a subject she was sure he didn't care about.
As the moon rose high, white flower petals descended from the sky. Music filled the air and the big, beautiful moon shone done on the students. Bubbles of light lazily circled many of the conjured floating islands and Rose could see some students beginning to dance. Quiet laughter, giggles, and pleasant chatter could only barely be heard over the music.
Rose immediately noticed Galio who was doing a very weird breakdance kind of thing that involved whipping his tail around a lot. Like he said he was planning to do, he conjured a spotlight on him. On an island across from him was Deo mimicking Galio, but doing it way more spastically. There were a group of students cheering both and laughing.
The odd display made Rose giggle. "We have some silly kings."
"No arguments here," Mortem said, leaning back on the grass. "Are you wanting to dance?"
"I'm afraid I'm not a good dancer," Rose apologized.
"Well that's good, because I've been told I step on feet a lot."
"Probably not as much as me."
"I don't know. I broke Bassy—er—Basileus's foot once."
Rose gasped. "No, really?"
"Yep," Mortem said, nodding. "Was trying to learn the summer's sunset—a traditional fae dance—and I accidentally threw him down some stairs. He landed on his feet, but unfortunately he also impaled one of those feet on some rocks we had at the bottom of the steps. Split the bones into pieces."
"Oh my gosh," Rose said, giggling. "That's insane. Okay, yeah, you're the worst dancer between the two of us."
"Thank you. I wear that title proudly."
Rose grinned. "How come you were learning how to dance from Doctor Basileus?"
"Hm. Sorry, can't say. That's too good of blackmailing material to easily admit to."
"Oh, c'mon!"
"Nope," Mortem said, popping the 'p'.
Rose pouted at that, nudging Mortem's arm. "Fine. Are you wanting to dance?"
"I just told you how I broke that snake's foot, right?"
"You can be a bad dancer and still want to dance," Rose pointed out, gesturing towards Galio who was doing a very odd worm maneuver.
Mortem chuckled at that. "Fair. But… I'm good. Sometimes it's nice to simply sit back, and enjoy the night."
"I think I'll have to agree with you on that," Rose said softly.
Mortem laid back in the grass, patting the spot beside him. "Can you name all the stars?"
"Most definitely not, but I can give them new names."
"This I gotta hear."
Rose giggled as she laid back in the grass on the floating island. Her wings were put away along with her tail, but her horns stayed. She pointed up at the stars and said, "I'm going to butcher all of their real names and then give them better names, like Tinklewinkle."
"Tinklewinkle sounds like the name of a powerful Greek god. I love it."
"I'm just warming up."