Umbrella

Ooomg you’re so sweet! ;o; Thank you so much for the kind words!

The prompt is Hands from this list, with Jacob and Bowman. I really enjoyed doing this one. I’ll be working on more prompts that I didn’t get done in the last couple batches (hopefully) as well as any new ones that have come in for the 100 GT themes!

This is Fairy Tales canon, probably the spring after Jacob and Bowman first met.

Approx. Reading time: ~5 minutes

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The sky above Jacob’s clearing had been a murky grey all morning. The springtime brought with it new, vibrant green leaves to form a brand new canopy over the forest of Wellwood, and that green crown formed a ring around the steel grey overhead. Jacob had made the trip hoping for more sun, since it meant his small friend would have more energy to be out and about.

That hadn’t stopped Bowman. They’d met at the clearing as they usually did. Bowman had made it part of his routine to check the clearing every day just in case Jacob popped in for another visit to the forest. He didn’t live nearby, and so it was never certain when he would have the chance.

For a time, Jacob sat in the cool grass against a boulder jutting out of the earth while Bowman flitted to and fro in the air, and they swapped stories. Catching up with a best friend who lived a long way away was hard when one of them hardly knew what a phone was, let alone how to use it. Mostly, if Jacob tried to show Bowman how his cell phone worked, the sprite would frown critically and proclaim it some kind of human magic.

Jacob enjoyed a chance to come out here, where nature could flourish untouched by human influence. He and Bowman, despite being as different as they could be, had become easy friends after their first meeting.

Bowman might be the size of one of Jacob’s fingers, but he was brave. Brave enough to scold someone twenty times his size regularly, something that Jacob always met with an amused grin.

Of course, when a loud crack of thunder echoed across the sky and shook the very trees, both of them were startled.

Jacob jolted from the sudden shift in the air pressure, the warning of what the grey sky had in store for them. Bowman, in mid glide, twitched through his entire body so much that he dropped a few inches.

Over the last few visits, Jacob had noticed that the small sprite didn’t have any qualms about flying closer to him. This was no different. Bowman angled towards Jacob without any further prompting, and Jacob cupped his hands in front of his chest to give him a good platform.

Bowman landed on Jacob’s cupped palms with grace and ease, wings folding to his back in one smooth motion. It never ceased to amaze Jacob, the fact that someone so tiny would so willingly step onto his hands like that. Bowman shifted his tiny green boots and stared straight up at the sky almost accusingly.

“Blasted thunder,” he groused. “The sky has been grey for three days and only now does it decide to roar.”

Jacob smirked. “Gosh, I didn’t realize how much you liked my visits, Bowman,” he teased, curling a thumb inward to nudge at Bowman’s wing. He ended up swatted by a hand much smaller than his own, but still he moved his thumb away.

Bowman might not be strong enough to budge Jacob’s hands at all, but he would never be in danger from them.

Not even when Jacob shifted one of his hands so that it hovered over Bowman’s head when the first drops of rain started to fall.

Bowman glanced up as the shadow crept over him, and then rolled his bright green eyes. “Y’know you’re still gonna get rained on like that,” he pointed out.

“I’ll get my umbrella out of my bag if it gets too bad,” Jacob assured him with a smirk. “Just helping you keep your wings dry.”

Bowman rolled his eyes again. It was a common expression when Jacob was around. “Sure. Whatever,” he groused, stretching one of those wings up to smack it against Jacob’s palm overhead. “Blasted giant.”

“Stubborn sprite,” Jacob shot back. He grinned, thinking to himself that not a lot of people could keep someone out of the rain with just their hands.