Dust (Of Dust and Darkness) - By Devon Ashley Page 0,4

my legs over comfortably. I jump and flutter just enough to reach the amber-colored cone, and yelp the moment my bum makes contact with the anther, losing my treats to the dusty dirt below. Laughter erupts, and I don’t have to turn around to know it’s coming from Meg. A few more pixies join in as I rub the spot that got pricked. I examine the flower and find a bee stinger sticking up, hidden well amongst the many stamens the coneflower has to offer.

Nutty Nutmeg.

I turn to glare at her because I know she did it. Stingers are her specialty. She even wears several around her neck, threaded on a string of moss so she’ll always have one available. I actually consider myself lucky. Had I been any other type of creature, I’d surely be itching madly by now. Meg loves to tip her stingers with poisons and venoms that make the victim either swell, puff out, burn, or break out in hives for a week. I’m particularly thankful she didn’t waste the scorpion stinger in the center of her necklace on me. I pity the poor creature she uses that on. At the moment, her eyes are crazy with excitement, and I shudder to think about the hysteric frenzy she must go into when she really gets to pull a prank.

I pluck the stinger free from the flower and flick it into the river rippling just a few feet away. That’s one stinger she’ll never get back. I retrieve my seed from the ground, dusting it clean, but I leave the moist berry for the ants. I return to the anther and successfully sit down atop the flower. The others stop laughing but Meg still wears a smug grin. Flippin’ pranksters. Yeah, I enjoy a good laugh, but I don’t go around setting up booby-traps just to get them.

My molars crunch down on the corner of the sunflower seed, cracking the shell, and I dehull the exterior for the edible kernel within. As I nibble on my prize, I grimace as Meg slowly saunters her way toward me, hands on hips with a wicked half smile. “So how’s the rump, Rosie?”

“Just fine, Meggy.” She scowls at the cutesy use of her name, but she can hardly say anything since she did it first. To bug her just a little more, I add, “Mustard sure is having fun with Poppy today, huh?” Her smile drops, her head whipping so fast you’d think it would snap off, just in time to see Mustard collecting a white flower that landed atop Poppy’s head. Poppy smiles as he gently tucks it behind her ear, his arm lingering longer than necessary. “I know you like both of them, but don’t you favor Mustard over Tin?”

Annoyed, Meg returns her attention to me, eyes pinched hard enough for skin to crease across her forehead in several waves. She swoops in fast and rams me, scooting my body sideways involuntarily. Taken aback, she squeezes beside me atop the anther before my defensive maneuvers can kick in. Now she’s sitting comfortably and I’m only half way on.

“You really shouldn’t be eating that, you know?” She says it with an annoyingly sweet voice, but her tone is smothered with snobbery. Meg crosses her legs and lays her hands on her knee, one atop the other, kicking out the upper leg rhythmically. “Two of us should easily be able to fit on this flower. And out of the two of us, you’re definitely winning in the hip department.”

Ugh! She doesn’t even see my evil glare because she’s so wrapped up in watching Poppy, but I know she feels my scowl when the corners of her lips slowly creep upward.

I need air. And not the air every living thing around me has choked on the past few minutes. Real air – fresh, from Mother Wind herself. I leap off the coneflower so abruptly it bounces Meg up and down, and a few of the purple petals break free. My wings take flight and I shoot through the air, dodging trees and swaying branches until the evil laughter coming off Meg fades away. Only then do I slow my flight and head for my place of comfort.

I burst through the treetops and my jaw drops in awe at the beautiful sight before me, immediately calming my irate manner. The coming storm creeps along the horizon, painting the sky with shades of grays and blues, the clouds tumbling toward me over a