The day of the mission she woke up at the perfect time, stupid Oliver was going to have to watch her being even early to the appointment in front of the village exit. Tsk, Chloe liked to sleep in,  and still, she was also on top of her scores despite missing some hours of training, but only on some days. Night shifts got her badly, and as silly as it sounded she really was unable to sleep during the day, especially when she knew she had to stay up all night.

She washed her face and combed her long hair in a perfect braid, adjusting her clothes to make sure they were loose enough for her to fly comfortably but not too much to be annoying, her flying pants were very nice and flexible and her little top was nice too. It was a small corset top that left her abs out giving her some freedom in movements while keeping her breasts out of the way and well-supported. Definitely not good for battles but perfect for flying and training. It was one of the many similar ones she owned, it was leather with metallic clasps, to be worn over a small cotton chemise.  She put some useful things in her bag, like a small knife, a water bottle and a towel, then she was good to go. She had eaten a nice large raspberry for breakfast, that had left her lips a nice rosy shade, and that amount of sugar was probably going to help her get through the four hours flight. Perhaps bringing a piece of bread as a snack to eat before coming back from the mission was a good idea, but she made sure to cut the right amount just for herself, smirking as she put that in her bag. No way she was going to give Oliver free bread. 

She was about to leave the hut when she sighed and turned around to take another piece with her, in case that stupid Oliver had forgotten to bring some. Ugh. She rolled her eyes.

And finally, out she flew.

~

They met at the main exit, greeted briefly and simply walked out of the first rows of trees to the larger clearing before flying towards the dark lake. The morning breeze was cold, especially up there over the trees, but of course Chloe couldn’t show it, because she wanted to look strong. She peeked at her side to see if her companion was having any trouble flying and saw that the male fairy was perfectly fine. Yes, he was fine, in his thin leather sleeveless jacket that left his whole torso naked, yet no goose bumps on his skin. Very fine, yet so annoying. Ok then, apparently she was the only one feeling cold that morning. Oliver even forgot to put on a shirt!

“What?” Oliver asked “Checking me out? We are on a mission girl, focus,” he said chuckling, still his eyes fixed in front of him. Stupid. Making fun of her and not even looking her way. That was the amount of audacity that ma-child held in his tiny, muscular, body.

Chloe grunted as she flew more fiercely just to keep some distance from him. She knew that it wasn’t the right way to deal with that idiot, because probably now he was thinking she had flown away because she felt embarrassed, but she didn’t care. The further she was from him, the better. She wasn’t checking him out that way, but if he liked to think so, he was welcome to be delusional. She never…rarely, checked him out. Stupid brat, so self-centered, maybe you are too used to girls falling at your feet but I’m not one of them. I have taste. 

Chloe kept flying and grunting, muttering to herself and being all annoyed. Oliver was attractive, sure, but for her, it couldn’t be just a matter of looks. She preferred caring and intelligent fairies, she liked to have a conversation, not whatever he was known for doing with his countless partners. On top of that, he was too full of himself and he was always competing with her and commenting on her form, while he felt so good at his job.

The more they got away from the village the more they realized there was a storm coming. The sky was getting grey and the breeze was even cooler than before.

“We have to respect our schedule,” she said to the other, having to turn around to let the guy hear her. Oliver quickly flew right next to her again, he had been keeping his distance for a while, maybe the dislike was mutual.

“We are in perfect time Chloe, what are you talking about? We still got one or so hours to reach the lake,” he said staring at the horizon, he looked calm, even if he perfectly knew the clouds were big and menacing. She rolled her eyes.

“We are, in fact, in perfect time, but look, a storm is coming. I mean, we can make it, with this kind of wind we should be able to get back to our village in time before the storm comes. But we need to work quickly and not waste any time. You know it would be very hard for us to fly under such rain, my wings can’t take all that water.” Chloe explained it all, she was having one of her monologue moments but it was all true. Judging from the darkness of the clouds it was going to rain cats and dogs and sometimes drops were very large, so much they could have damaged their wings. Oliver shrugged and nodded. It was always all easy for him, but somehow Chloe had a bad presentiment.

~

As soon as they reached the lake they decided to split the area into two parts, almost identical parts, even if Oliver insisted on taking a slightly larger one…because he was faster and stronger. Chloe decided she didn’t want to argue, not to waste any time and finally, they began working. It was a simple job, quite a boring one too, to be honest, but it was so useful that she didn’t care. She saw a few bees working around her, but still, she had to check on every flower in the area to make sure the pollination was happening, at least for the trees she was instructed about. The job was only to work on the liriodendrons, probably the other plants in the area were already doing fine. Some soldiers often inspected the areas surrounding the village to make sure everything was in order and came back with reports based on how they could have helped Nature, without interfering too much. After the war ended their duty was to keep everyone safe and to manage their reign. It had been significantly reduced compared to the past, but that was the price they all had to pay for peace. Each clan and species had something to gain from keeping the peace, so they all made compromises.

She smiled looking at the hard-working bees and started from the first tree. The job was easy, she had to use her bare hands to collect pollen and then bring it to the nearest female flower. It was a bright yellow that was probably going to stain a bit in the following days but it wasn’t a problem. To be honest, she totally preferred such missions to the ones involving weapons. 

Of course, she grew up wanting to protect her village and Mother Nature’s balance, and that was the reason why she was one of the very rare female warriors, the only one of her age. She had been inspired by her mother and by great female warriors of the past and had decided to devote herself to protecting others. But violence wasn’t her thing. “A good warrior refuses to believe war is the only way”. That was what the wise Baile Ceann always told them, and that was the number one rule used to choose the royal guards and the regular soldiers. No fanatic was accepted, and that was the reason why she was able to cope with it all. 

She had been lucky, she only had to really combat in a long but isolated war that had occurred decades before. It had been very painful and so many lives had been lost that time, but after a while peace was restored and the attackers pushed back. She, just like the other warriors that survived it, had the signs of it on her skin.

The sky was getting greyer at the horizon, but she wasn’t too worried because she was almost done, a couple of flowers and she could have returned to the meeting point. Maybe she even had the time to wash her hands in the fresh waters of the lake before going.

When she arrived at the branch she and Oliver were supposed to meet on, she saw no one. She furrowed her brows, it was weird, he said he was going to be faster, and yet he wasn’t done? It made no sense. Chloe almost wanted to go and look for him, maybe help him if he wasn’t finished yet, but she disliked him so much that she preferred to wait there and then scold him once he came instead. After all, he was the one being all full of himself and always saying he was the best here, he was so strong there, and other crap he used to say. No, she wasn’t going to go help him at all, she was going to sit there and wait.

Oliver surely was about to return anyway, maybe he needed an extra half an hour since he had more trees to attend to, and of course, each tree was different in nature, not the same amount of flowers and not the same distance between female and male ones. He probably just miscalculated his job and was now rushing to finish in time.

She looked at the sky squinting a bit, they were still going to make it if he wasn’t too late, half an hour was still good-ish…a bit risky but still fine. The clouds had seemed to be getting slightly darker by the second, and a bit of wind had pushed them further along their way back home. So they were going to meet the start of the rainstorm in the first quarter maybe on the flight back home. It still sounded doable.

~

Chloe waited, fifteen minutes, then twenty, then half an hour, looking impatiently around her to finally see her colleague. Damn, stupid Oliver, I bet he ended up napping somewhere, I’m gonna kill him so hard when he appears. 

When forty-five minutes had passed and she heard a rumble in the distance she knew they were already too late. Late, of that kind of late, it was going to be impossible to actually fly back home without risking dying under the heavy rain. Where the hell was he? It was getting ridiculous and she was really about to go and look for him. No of course she wasn’t worried, he was the one that had to be worried because if she had found him…

“Sorry I’m late,” she heard coming from her back and she turned around like a fury, ready to punch him in the face. But she found him weirdly dirty, he had his arms covered in dust and mud, some tiny cuts on his hands and ruffled hair. He had guilt painted all over his face but still, she couldn’t simply fly a punch on his nose.

She calmly crossed her arms “Where the hell have you been?” her voice was slightly high pitched. She was actually infuriated because now they couldn’t fly back, no way she was going to risk her life, but surely enough they were going to be punished for not getting back. What made her even more annoyed was that someone could have made assumptions seeing they had spent the night together. Oliver was notoriously very popular with females and always surrounded by many fairies, plus there was this voice going around that he was a great lover, able to satisfy all their needs. There were also many other voices about his skills but she always tried to avoid even hearing them.

She grunted only at the thought of people talking about her and Oliver.

“I was doing my job,” he replied, trying to clean up some of the mud from his arms.

“Yeah right, and you are covered in mud …because?” She was very cold and sharp. She hated him, he was trouble and she knew it. That was the reason why she didn’t like to have missions that involved Oliver or his friends.

“I…” he muttered something incomprehensible and looked away.

He must have really done something if he was acting like that.

“You did what?” she pressed.

“I HAD TO SAVE AN EGG FROM A NEST, OK?” he burst “Happy now? I did something I wasn’t supposed to do, and it took me time and I was late. Punish me now if you want!” he said with quite an attitude, surprising her. And yeah somehow she wanted to push him to the nearest branch and tell him how stupid he was for doing something like that.

But she had to keep calm, not to give him any satisfaction in knowing he succeeded in making her mad.

The first thing was to collect her thoughts and act like an adult. She was superior so she was going to show him.