Let The Chaos Continue

Aspen

After a prisoner swap, Cyan was locked inside the cell, and Prism had been gratefully freed of it.

"Traitorous motherfucker," Aspen was still laughing. "I knew I was gonna like you."

"So you're the dragon who was chanting EVIL EVIL EVIL in my head?" Prism questioned. Aspen bowed with a dramatic flourish.

"That's me," He confirmed.

"Huh," She crossed her arms. "Well here's a tip for the next time you try to help someone with mind control. Just say HEY, YOUR FRIEND CYAN IS AN EVIL ANIMUS, GO GET HELP. Don't CHANT SOME RANDOM WORD AND ASSUME I'LL GET THE MESSAGE!"

"Noted," Aspen smiled at her.

"Stop smiling."

"Why?"

"Because I'm yelling at you and you shouldn't be happy when someone is VERY ANGRY AND YELLING AT YOU." Aspen tried. He really did try to at least dull down his grin, but it only forced its way back on his face, wider than ever. "WHY ARE YOU SO HAPPY?"

"Because you're talking to me," Aspen insisted. "And no more mind control. That's always a nice feeling, helping someone. Helping you especially, because you seem sweet. Sure, sweet makes you easy prey for manipulation, but you're feisty, so that makes up for it. Still. Sweet." Prism narrowed her eyes. "Right. Yes. I'll stop talking now." He bounced on his feet, still grinning.

"Parch," Rosella started, staring at Aspen and Prism.

"I know," Parch insisted. "I agree."

"Their children would be so colorful."

"I KNOW."

"We gotta find Permafrost. She'll tell us if they're meant to be and what the ship name should be." 

"Let's deal with the murderous animus first, okay?"

"Fine." Rosella ran off to find Rainkeeper, or any guard that could quickly inform Apple, Ember, and Joy of what had gone down, and that Prism appeared to be mind control free now.

"Thank you, by the way," Prism admitted.

"For what?" Aspen tilted his head. 

"You saved me,"

"Whaaaat? That? That was," Aspen scoffed. "That was nothing."

"Uh huh."

"Just typical animus mumbo jumbo. Curse-breaking 101 or something," 

"....You don't have many friends, do you?"

"No." Aspen fiddled with his talons. "No I do not."

"Well, now you've got one more!" Prism proclaimed.

"Wait really?" 

"YEP!" She punched his in the arm playfully. "I'm your new best friend! Just don't mind control me like Cyan did, okay?"

"I would never hurt you like Cyan did," Aspen said seriously. "He's quite sinister. I try not to be. I don't like sinister things. Or things that hurt dragons. I mean, I know how to stop dragons from hurting others, but that doesn't mean I like doing it." Prism slowly smiled at him.

"I think we're gonna get along fine," She guessed.

"Moons I hope so. I feel kinda bad. I saw a lot of stuff in your head, you don't really have the walls up like Glory supposedly does, so I know more about you than you know about me, that's not really fair. Well, mind readers aren't fair either, but at least you can shield yourself from those. Animus magic is a bit trickier to get around in that aspect. I'm talking too much, aren't I? Father says sometimes I ramble on too much about nonsense things, but he says I get that from Mother, which I suppose makes sense. I once listened to Mother ramble about how stupid a palm tree was for a whole hour, and she never went off topic. It was quite fascinating, really. I should stop talking. I'll stop talking now." 

"I don't mind if you talk too much," Prism said. "I tend to ramble on sometimes too."

"Oh, good!" Aspen smiled. "Maybe... Maybe we could find a subject for both of us to ramble on about."

"That sounds fun." Prism agreed, grinning.