and then she said, "I want to make something for you."
"Really?"
"If I had some plants, I could make you the perfect ring."
"That would be great," he said.
"I always try to make the jewelry match the person. Your ring would be lots of fun to make."
That intrigued Eref. "How would it 'match' me?"
"I'd use three Bind Vines to make the ring itself," she said. "That's for the three different sides of you."
He tried to avoid giving her a quizzical look, but based on her response, he guessed he hadn't hidden it well.
"You're a protector," she said. "You want to take care of everyone even when you can't. I'd use the thickest Bind Vine I could find for that."
Eref bowed his head. That was true. Even if it wasn't reasonable, he wanted to keep his loved ones safe. Because of that, he sometimes made impossible promises.
"You're also a troublemaker," she said with a wink. There was that second, transluscent eyelid again, closing just before the white lid came down. Dark People must have grown extra protections to light. This sub-lid likely reflected light away when necessary. In normal light, though, the effect was just lovely.
"Hey," Eref said, grinning back.
"So I'd use a twisty Bind Vine to represent all the trouble you get into."
He laughed. "I like this ring already."
"The third vine would be a thin Bind Vine," she said.
"What is that one for?"
She smiled. "Your weaknesses."
"What?"
"That's for the way you're afraid of yourself," she said, and she must have seen him squint at her, because she added, "Everyone has imperfections."
"Yeah," he said. "But what makes you think I'm afraid?"
"Observation. You think you can't live up to your own expectations." She dropped her gaze to the sand. "And when you were asleep, you talked about being afraid."
"I did?" Eref was mortified. What had he said?
"Don't worry." Caer grinned. "I didn't listen most of the time."
Eref tried his hardest not to look embarrassed. The thought of what personal feelings he might have admitted while unconscious clutched at his heart. He wished he'd woken up first.
But Caer went on. "Bind Vines are really hard to get. Lots of the vines around here have different powers and rules about them. For instance, you can't cut a Bind Vine without sprinkling it with water first. It will be as hard as stone otherwise. There's even a kind of vine that will kill you if you make noise while you touch it."
"Wow," he said. Dark World was filled with natural beauty, but the land also held so much natural danger. The Bog Beetle had provided his first taste of that.
"But the vine isn't the prettiest part of the ring," she said. "I haven't told you about the flower petals I'd put in the center."
"Sure," he said, a little bewildered. "Tell me about that."
"The center would be beautiful. I would use a Liber Flower. Those are our rarest, most spectacular flowers. They come out only for half an hour every spring. They float around in the air, and then, when the thirty minutes are over, they just stop."
"They float in the air?"
"Yep," she said. "It's incredible. They have three petals, and they come in all different colors. You could choose which ones you liked best for your ring."
"How do they float around like that?"
"It's some kind of nature magic. They don't need roots or stems. They are all sizes and all colors, and I know it probably sounds impossible, but they just float through the air. They fill the sky. Kids come running out to play in them."
"That sounds amazing."
"You'd like them. It's too bad spring is so far away. Sometimes they appear out of season, but that's only when there's something really wrong in the world."
"Like what?"
"Well, I've never seen it happen. But there's a story about a plague that killed lots of children in the Gestator hundreds of years ago. Apparently Dark World was such a sad place then that the Liber Flower fell down as a blessing. They say the flowers cleansed Dark World and got rid of the plague."
"Why would you choose that flower for my ring?"
"Because you're like the Liber Flower," she said. "You come out of nowhere and make Dark World beautiful."
Eref looked at Caer, who had bent down to draw in the sand again. She was the most incredible person he'd ever met. No one in his life had taken such care to understand him before. But to say he made Dark World beautiful...he didn't deserve that compliment. He couldn't live up