It was raining.

It was cold AND raining.

Despite that, Fleck seemed to like it.

Fleck shrugged. He was from a desert. This kind of thing was a new experience, and he was more than willing to run across moss in the rain, feeling the small droplets from the sky, and the big droplets from the trees.

Fleck was out enjoying the weather. Harmoni was inside, in the girl’s dorm. The fire was lit, and she was reading a bad romance book from the library. The sound of the rain outside made her feel all the cozier in here.

Harmoni’s only class for the day was done. There were the stables to clean, but Fleck had checked them recently and they seemed fine. As in, no sabotage. As long as that stayed true, she had plenty of time, and could clean them at the end of the day. Maybe by then, the rain would die down a bit.

Fleck shrugged again. If it hadn't, and getting wet really bothered her that much, he could use his wings as an umbrella.

In the meantime, Harmoni could just relax.

Then the door opened, shutting with a slam, before Harmoni even got the chance to look up.

Rasha was there. She was leaning against the door, trembling slightly. Her expression seemed pretty blank, or maybe Harmoni was just bad at reading it, but her breath was ragged. Harmoni could see that was obvious, even as Rasha tried to compose herself.

“What’s wrong?” Harmoni asked, setting her book aside and sitting up.

“I-you-you see. . .” Rasha grabbed at her horns as she spoke. But then she swallowed, pushed herself off the door, and looked around. Harmoni could see her physically move her head. “Is anyone else in here? Or the bathroom?”

Harmoni shook her head. “No. It’s just us.”

And Rasha could probably see that for herself by now.

“Something terrible’s happened.”

Well obviously.

“The potions teacher . . . he. . .” Rasha grabbed at a horn again.

“I can’t read your mind,” Harmoni pointed out. She said it as gently as she could, but she really wasn’t sure what to do.

“He tried to saw off my horns!” Rasha snapped.

“What?!” Fleck froze, snapping his head towards the castle with a growl.

“He-I went to one of those special potions classes of his. This was the second one, actually. And he just. . .that was the reason he had those lessons. So he could take my horns.”

She sounded bitter, but she was still trembling.

Harmoni didn’t have anything like a horn, but Fleck did.

On the outside, horns were just a hard dead layer. But there was soft skin underneath, and even if there wasn't, those were slow growing, permanent fixtures. You didn't just wack them off like hairs or nails.

Rasha wasn't the only one going through some emotions. Fleck clearly was as well, and he was pushing them onto her.

‘No shit,’ Fleck thought, heading towards the castle. ‘Man’s an organ harvester. From living people.’

And with the lovely description, Harmoni was getting an uncomfortable feeling in her stomach.

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And she could see a dent at the base of one of Rasha’s horns now. Had that always been there, or had the potions teacher been more successful than Rasha implied? Harmoni hated that she wasn’t sure. Hadn’t paid enough attention until now.

“What happened?” Harmoni asked. "How did you escape?"

Rasha took a deep, shuddering breath. "He slammed my head into the table by grabbing one of my horns. Something about being easier to take off from that angle." Her voice flip-flopped between being wobbly and nervous, and bitter. "He-he had some sort of tools on the table. When he brought a hand down to grab one, I bit him with my pointy teeth. Then I ran out."

It was lucky the teacher hadn't used some sort of potion on her first, to make her weaker. Or maybe he had, and that was how he'd been able to slam her into a table.

Also, taking horns off someone might not be fatal, but Harmoni had to wonder what the plan was there. What was the potions teacher going to do to make sure he didn't get caught?

She didn't share either of these thoughts with Rasha.

'Definetly don't.' Thinking of the possibilities just made things worse.

Rasha rubbed at the base of her horns again. It looked like she was squeezing kind of hard on the one that wasn't injured. “He’s a teacher. Am I going to get in trouble? He’s bleeding. Maybe . . . maybe I should go to the headmaster.”

Harmoni’s concern got stronger as Rasha spoke. It hardened into . . . something else, then.

“He won’t help,” Harmoni said firmly.

After all, he hadn’t helped with the map, or Rasha’s diet, or Daphon. They would handle this on their own. She had an idea.

Harmoni got up and headed for the door. “Come on.”

~~~

“. . . Well, I must say you’re creative.”

Evin stared down at the group. Harmoni and Fleck stood side by side at the front, Fleck having used his sense of smell to track Evin down. Rasha stood behind them. If you didn’t count her horns, she was shorter than Harmoni, and she was slouching right now.

Thunder rumbled outside the stables. That was not where they'd found Evin, but he had been out in the rain, and Harmoni did want a bit of shelter. They'd need it for this plan, if Evin agreed to it.

“You think it won’t work,” Harmoni said bluntly.

“Oh, I never said that. People like your teacher sound like they could use my curse. That would be funny," he sighed wistfully. "Anyway, there's a very good chance he will get scared off at the first sign of trouble. But I'll warn you, the next most likely thing he'll do is double down like he's got something to prove. There's not much in between with his type."

Harmoni frowned. She did believe Evin's expertise on this one. She turned around.

"Rasha?" It was her situation after all.

Rasha pressed her lips together and looked at the floor. She looked up a moment later. "I-I'd like to try your idea," she agreed. "E'in? Are you going to help?"

She didn't look or sound any more confident than before, but she was agreeing to it, even taking some initiative, so Harmoni believed her. And it seemed Evin did too.

"Of course I am. We're friends." Well that was new, even if he clearly just meant Rasha. "Well then.”

Evin held his arm out over Fleck. Small amounts of slime dripped off onto the dragon. Evin frowned, Harmoni could tell from the changes to the visible parts of his face. He swung his arm like when you didn’t have a towel to dry off, and a much larger pile of sludge fell onto Fleck.

Fleck glowered at the open space ahead of him. Had he mentioned how much he hated the smell?

‘A few times.’

Luckily it was for a good cause.

Harmoni didn't believe the headmaster would help them. She'd cooked up a plan using the people and resources they did have. She'd thought it up so fast she surprised even herself in hindsight, but Fleck approved, and it seemed the other two did as well.

They would cover Fleck in Evin’s dark green slime. Make him an unrecognizable, and terrifying, monster. The potions teacher had done some self sabotage there. Potions Class was the one Fleck was least likely to join Harmoni in, because of what had happened their first day. That meant the potions teacher had seen him the least often, and was least likely to realize who it was.

Anyway, Fleck would then scare the teacher into leaving Rasha alone. Fleck was pretty large these days, and had the sharp teeth and claws. The slime might even contribute to the fear factor.

And the potions teacher wouldn’t necessarily think Rasha had anything to do with this, not directly. After all, how could she? Meanwhile, there were many unexplained phenomenon in the galaxy. From his perspective, this could be one of them.

And if it didn't work? Well, she doubted Rasha would go around completely defenseless after this. They'd cross that bridge if they had to.

“How are you going to communicate?” Evin asked. At Harmoni and Rasha’s blank expressions, he scoffed and explained. “Well, you need him to know this is in some way connected to his attack on Rasha, yeah? Or at least that's it's not a random attack from one of the monsters out there, and won't go away as easily. That’s not intuitive. But he won’t understand Fleck and he’d recognize both of your voices. You have some sort of visual that will make the connection?”

Harmoni felt herself slouch. She, again, had thought of this plan fairly quickly. And once she'd had it, she hadn't worked out many details.

“I expected something like this,” Evin said, flicking his hand and dropping more slime on Fleck. “Don’t worry. I can’t handle that part as well.”

“Really?” Harmoni asked.

“Sure. Watching this go down will be funny.”