Clover willow's Arc

Chapter 20 of 20

The dragon slept only two nights. On the third dawn, it woke restless again. It crept from the guardian's chest to his dragging wing and pressed its nose there. Its coat brightened. Silver sparkles spilled off its tail. Clover felt the ground hum. The bound willow answered with a shiver of new buds. The dragon had found the guardian's ruined wing and decided to mend it. "No," the guardian said. He tried to shift the wing away. It hung wrong, and the movement made him wince. The dragon only pressed closer. Its magic flared. A branch overhead swelled and cracked. Petals rained down. Clover had no power left to bind another bloom. If the dragon kept giving, the grove would wake and tear itself apart. Clover did not reach for the dragon. She had learned that grabbing only made it cling. Instead she sat close and spoke low. "His wing won't heal," she said. "You're pouring into a hole that stays open. You'll empty yourself and the grove with you." The dragon's ears twitched, but its glow held. It did not understand giving up. Lunaria stepped from the shadow of the willow. She had stayed with Clover through the worst nights, the moon-fairy with crystal antlers and hair that trailed to the ground. Blue flowers opened in it now. "The dragon knows one language," she said. "Giving. You can't talk it out of that. You have to give it a different thing to mend." Clover looked around the ruined ground. Broken buds. Fallen petals. Then she saw them near the stump at the meadow's edge—tiny butterflies with golden heart-shaped wings, wings torn and dragging from the falling branches. Hurt things. Real wounds. She cupped her hands and gathered them, slow and careful, and carried them to the dragon. "Here," she said. "These are broken. You can fix these." She opened her hands beneath the dragon's nose. The little creature stilled. It smelled the torn wings. Its glow shifted away from the guardian's ruined wing and settled on the butterflies. Sparkles drifted down. One torn wing mended. Then another. The butterflies rose whole and gold into the morning. The dragon chased them, delighted, its magic spent on something it could actually heal. The ground stopped humming. The willow's buds folded shut. The grove held. The guardian let out a long breath. His wing still hung wrong. "You gave it a wound it could close," he said. "You turned it away from me without a fight." He watched the dragon dart after the golden butterflies through the branches. "It will keep coming back to my wing." "Then we keep giving it real things to mend," Clover said. "Small hurts. Every day." She had no magic. But she had found the one way to live beside the dragon's wild power without breaking the peace. The guardian reached for her hand. He did not let go.