Are You Challenging Me?

( Send Me A Number and Some Characters )

This one made me go “awwww.” Because I don’t really write enough Bowman & Jiria. The little cuties need more love. Thanks for the prompt!

Near the end of summer, when temperatures finally relented and the cicadas were fat and happy as they sang, Wellwood saw more activity than ever. The knights trained more earnestly to prepare for the encroaching animals of autumn. Nestlings at the right age practiced their flying in hopeful leaps along the ground before the cold would make that impossible. The Big Oak at the heart of the forest saw more visitors to its platforms and boughs as the heat no longer threatened to dry out a pair of wings trying to gather sunlight.

Bowman might normally be out on his patrols at this time of day, but he hadn’t left yet. He lingered at the oak to share a platform and a few more minutes with his date.

He and Jiria sat side by side on a platform, with their legs hanging over the side. They each had a wing open wide to catch the sun while the wings closer to each other brushed together. Jiria’s head rested on his shoulder and he absently played with her pale green braids while she dozed in a suntrance.

He spotted some of the other patrolsprites already returning from their rounds. They couldn’t have gone out for an hour at the most and were already back.

Someone had to get out there and double check.

He gently shrugged his shoulder and patted Jiria’s side. “Wake up, sunbeam,” he murmured, kissing the top of her head. “Jiria, I need to fly patrol.”

She mumbled and turned her head so she could lean on him more heavily before she sat up. “Right now? “ she mumbled again, more clearly this time. She struck him with a tired mock glare, and Bowman grinned and brushed his wing against hers.

“Yeah, right now,” he replied. “Someone’s gotta do it.”

Jiria groaned and sat up straighter so she could stretch her wings out and wake up faster. “You always take so long to patrol,” she complained. “Lose your way out there, featherhead?”

Here we go. “Of course not,” Bowman insisted. “I fly farther than the others so I don’t miss anything.”

Jiria raised an eyebrow at him and leveled her accusation. “Lingering out there. I bet I could fly the same route in half the time.”

“Are you challenging me?!” Bowman asked with his best shocked expression.

Jiria smirked. “Maybe. Maybe I’m just encouraging you to prove you really are the fastest in Wellwood.” And with that, she pushed off the platform and glided away from it.

“Hey!” Bowman dove after her, rising to the challenge like he always did.