It didn't take Ahri long to realize she had no choice but to trust Lana and Caleb for the time being. She could still keep her guard up, but she wouldn't last a day if she chose to go rogue. She was in the middle of the southern woods, too far from home to find her way back.
Besides, Lana, Caleb, and Leah made a beautiful family, and they welcomed her home like few others could. Lana was overjoyed to be reunited with her only daughter and couldn't stop thanking her. Ahri was dying to ask how that separation happened, but she knew better than to pry into what was probably a devastating moment for them.
It became even more clear how traumatic it had been when the four of them stepped outside to show Ahri the lake, and Lana refused to let Leah out of her sight. She kept running after the girl when she strayed to follow a small animal.
"Isn't she precious?" Caleb voiced by her side. The man had an easy smile and an eye on the girls ahead as he stopped by her side.
"She is. Leah is one of the smartest kids I ever met."
"Young dragons are taught to fetch for themselves from a very young age," he explained.
"Why?"
Caleb stood silent for a while, and when he talked, he didn't answer her question.
"Your mother didn't tell you much about us, did she?"
"She didn't tell me anything," Ahri replied, bitter.
"We looked for her everywhere." Caleb's voice was lower at that point, and a furrowed brow indicated his displeasure.
"She was kept in Lightbridge."
The man nodded a couple of times.
"It was my fault. I travel too much. I should have been here." He began to raise his voice in agony, and Ahri touched his arm to calm him down.
"It's not your fault. She's home now."
Caleb took a deep breath and went back to that easy smile that probably won Lana's heart in the first place. She was having a hard time keeping up with his expressions, but it was only fair after everything he's been through.
"She is. Thanks to you, Ahri. Thanks to you."
***
Ahri woke up feeling a feverish chill course her body. Her head was heavy and throbbing, and her whole body felt weak. She tried to call for Eleanor, but her voice didn't come out. Instead, a jolt of fire coursed her throat as she swallowed.
The blanket that covered her was heavy against her chest, but she quivered from the cold that crept into the sheets. Sleep kept pulling her in, but she fought to stay awake as morning made its way to her window.
With the blanket still wrapped around her body, Ahri slumbered to the living room of that sweet little house that hosted her for the past couple of days and found Lana drinking a cup of tea by the fire.
"Jesus, Ahri, you got worst!"
She vaguely remembered going to bed with a persistent sore throat and a headache that she was sure would be gone by morning. Lana got up and touched her forehead, widening her eyes as she felt her temperature.
"Can you help me make an infusion?" Ahri asked, knowing she had to drop the fever soon.
"Of course, just tell me what you need."
Eleanor had packed a few things for colds and the flu, but her pain medicine stock was already running low from tending to Leah's wounds and her own when she arrived.
"Can you make some willow bark tea? Just don't make the water too hot. And let it simmer, don't take it out right away."
While Lana prepared her infusion, Ahri tried to ration what she had in stock. If her cold lasted more than a couple of days, she'd have to restock. Looking out the window, she'd probably have a hard time finding the familiar herbs from the evergreen forests of the north. She was not her mother and didn't have half the knowledge the woman had on the subject.
Lana helped her to the chair by the fire and sat across from her in comfortable silence. She drank the bitter tea watching the snow fall outside. It had begun the day after they arrived, trapping them inside for the time being. The forced isolation kept them away from the impending subject of Ahri's future, and for that she was glad.
Lana and Caleb said she could stay with them indefinitely, but she knew it was not realistic. Her hope was that Eleanor would send word about things cooling down in Lightbridge, allowing her to return. But perhaps that was also wishful thinking.
Reality was far more complicated than the winter's dream she had lived in the first two days, watching Leah play, and learning about earth dragons. For starters, she couldn't really bear the cold. He had learned that dragons withstand lower temperatures because of their inner fire, but she was no dragon, and Lana's clothes could only do so much.
Her cold was almost inevitable, and she was surprised her body allowed her a few healthy days. Her ribs still hurt when she moved too much, but from the way Leah described her fall, she virtually got out unscathed.
"Ahli, want to play outside?" Leah woke up with her usual cheerfulness, and Ahri wondered how a girl that went through so much at such a young age could remain as undamaged as she had.
Even her scars had faded faster than she expected, and Ahri wondered what properties her blood had that guaranteed that sort of healing. She tried to ask Caleb one day, but his expression closed off so fast that she dismissed the topic before it unsettled her host.
"I can't today, Leah. I'm not feeling well."
"Oh, no! I stay inside with you."
Then, in a further display of the amazing child she was, Leah turned into her dragon and laid by Ahri's feet, warming them with her body heat. Her green scales shone against the light from the fireplace, and Ahri got lost watching the patterns reflecting on the walls.
"Lana, I haven't seen your dragon yet," Ahri asked, curious to know if her scales were similar to Leah's. Caleb had shifted the day before to get some work done even further south, and Ahri noticed his green scales were just like Leah's, but in a much larger version.
"Oh, I can't shift anymore," Lana replied.
"Really? Why?"
The woman seemed uncertain about the explanation, and Ahri thought maybe it was yet another subject she was not supposed to talk about. But before she could change it, Lana spoke.
"Leah told you she's an earth dragon, right?" She nodded. "Caleb is one too, as you must have guessed. But I was a fire dragon." She pointed to her red hair and smiled.
"A fire dragon?"
"Yes! I was a bright mix of red and orange, and my fire could scorch the soul out of its target." There was pride in her voice and a glow in her dark grey eyes that could only be reproduced when she looked at her daughter.
"What happened?" She was just too curious not to ask, but Lana didn't seem to mind.
"Well, I got pregnant. And there is an old tradition about mixed dragons. They say it confuses the young to have more than one element in its blood or whatever. I never really believed in it, but Caleb is a bit old-fashioned, you know? So I had to give up my dragon to have this beautiful young girl by your feet. I'm just glad she got my red hair, even if doesn't mean anything."
"Why were you the one to give it up?"
Lana frowned, as if the question never crossed her mind. But Ahri wondered how she could ever choose to give up a part of herself for the sake of a child. Perhaps that just meant she was not meant to be a mother yet.
"It was logical, you know? Caleb already had this cute little house in the woods, and fire dragons are complicated…" Her voice died on her lips, and Ahri decided not to pry any further.
The conversation served to ease her mind of the pain that crossed her body at each shiver, but she knew what she had was beyond a light cold. The tea was working, and she began to sweat the fever away, but it was just a temporary solution. If she couldn't keep warm to allow her body to recover, she'd run out of medicine before the fever broke for good.