#bechstein

She swore to herself again. She couldn’t go back out the way she came which meant she had to go forward. She looked up at the now partially open dome and noticed a couple rafters. If she could just climb up there, she could sneak out through the hole between the glass and the dome shield. Then she’d be scott free.

She got to work on unscrewing the vent, as silent as a mouse.

–

Hilda admired the look on his face, her plan worked perfectly! He wasn’t angry anymore and now their friendship was strengthened thanks to her little pot-cup-thingy. “ Yeah, you’re a big grumpy dandelion now.” Her eyes passed to his hands who were carefully handling the present. Her thoughts were starting to mix again… the distant giggle of Gemini reverberated in her head. She stopped staring at Cagney and tried to focus on the stars. Venus was starting to be more visible shining with a golden light. “Hey, we can almost see Venus.”

She laid down comfortably between some pillows.

He watched  Hilda adjust herself on the blankets and pillows before realizing he had been insulted. “Hey,” he protested. “Well, I might be a big grumpy dandelion but you’re a…”

A determined sky witch.

A fiercely intelligent woman.

A beautiful sylph of the sky.

None-none of those were insults. Shit. He yawned instead, thankfully for real, allowing him to leave the rest of that insult to disappear into the air.

He cleared his throat. He should really ask about sleeping arrangements. Would it be weird if he asked about sleeping arrangements? It would probably be weird. Why was this weird now? Was it weird because she had given him some very thoughtful gifts without too much sass? That she set up this whole room as an apology? That they were under the stars? They had fallen asleep under the stars in the field before but never inside. With a bed. And privacy.

Maybe he should just try to lie down near her. Not next to her. Just near her. The thought of lying down next to her made his petals curl slightly. But then again, what if he lied down and she gave him a weird look. Oh, that would be even worse. Maybe he should just bite the bullet and ask.

“Uh, so, uh, there’s no dirt in the pot, so did you want me to uh…you know?”

Hilda chuckled when Cagney finished his insult with a yawn. After his question she blushed and looked at him confused.  “Did I wanted you to what?… Oh!” She finally understood that Cagney was asking for a sleepover and not for what she was imagining “You can totally stay here tonight, I mean, bed is pretty much made” She laughed nervously. What was wrong with her today?

Crap. It didn’t look Hilda had actually planned for him to sleep here at all. But…she did just say he could. That was good, right? “I don’t have to if you don’t want.” He tried to phrase it differently, “Don’t get me wrong, I want to sleep with you, but if you weren’t planning on it-” He stopped midspeech. “I mean, not sleep with you like that, not saying you’re not attractive or whatever and I wouldn’t not do it, just, I. Wouldn’t. Mind. Sleeping. Next. To. You,” he punctuated those last words, hoping it would make sense.

The constellations in her head got all riled up at the prospect of sleeping with Cagney in a ‘mature’ way. Hilda kept them under control and decided it was time to cut down the weird tension that was obviously building up for some reason. She seriously started to consider she might have gone a bit overboard with her surprise.

She frowned at the plant with a smirk in her face.

“Jeez Cags… How about you shut your fly trap and lay down already!” She patted the floor next to her. “We’re gonna miss Venus.”

–

They didn’t make vent grates like they used to. Amber finally managed to finish unscrewing the last panel before she quietly removed the cover and tucked it behind her. It looked like there was cloth on the walls. She could climb that easy. She started to sharpen her claws and readjust the two stolen goods in her bag that threatened to spill out.

–

“Alright, alright. I’m lying down already, ya stubborn blimp,” he managed. Cagney carefully laid down next to her, initially making sure his foliage wasn’t touching her. But he had to adjust himself quite a few times and by the time he got comfortable, he was definitely touching her. Not too much, but he was aware that his leaves were definitely against several parts of her body.

He gave up trying to readjust himself further. He was the only one making this weird. He relaxed as he looked up at the stars. It really was quite nice here.  “So, Venus. Goddess of love. Big yellow planet? Tell me science stuff about it.”

Hilda’s smile widened while the giant flower tried over and over to accommodate next to her.

“Well…Venus is also known as the Earth’s sister planet. They have almost the same diameter and Venus  mass is—OH MY FUCKING GOD!” She stood up and stumbled over Cagney when she wanted to reach the door.

He was just thinking about how nice she would feel if he was able to press into her a little bit more but at the sound of her explanation suddenly turning into a shriek, his heart stopped in his chest.

Cagney’s eyes widened. “What?! What did I do?!” He called after her.

–

Amber nearly lost her grip at the woman suddenly screaming and only the fact that she had the rest of her paws latched onto the canvas along the walls prevented her from falling and exposing herself. This was getting risky.

–

Hilda run through the door cursing loudly and made her way to the kitchen.

A black cloud greeted her when she opened the door.

“Oh! Shitshitshit!” She turned off the oven and opened a window. She grabbed a piece of cloth and took out her coal looking cupcakes. She stared at them sadly “Fuck.”

–

Cagney watched Hilda leave the room before he buried his face in his hands. “Get it together, ya dumb weed,” he argued with himself. “This is literally something you’ve been wanting to do your whole life. Don’t blow it.” He pulled his fingers off his face and stared up at the sky only to blink in confusion. It looked like there was something hanging from the wall. He peered at it closer. “What the hell is that? Is that a person?” He cupped his hands. “Hey!”

The shout startled Amber enough for that she missed the next notch to cling to it and slipped from her canvas perch. She fell but quickly readjusted herself so she could land on all fours and landed nimbly. She looked up to see herself face to face with a very confused large flower. Her satchel popped open with the impact and out fell the weird spaceman thing she had picked up. It skidded across the ground until it landed near a large flower pot. “Oh shit.”

Cagney’s eyes followed the object and he recognized it as one of Hilda’s displays. His eyes narrowed as they went back to the cat. “Thought you could just come in and steal from Hilda, huh?”

The cat hesitated. “Yes?” She squeaked and darted to the side, barely dodging a large swing of his limbs. Cagney attempted to dig his roots into the ground to grab her only to wince as the roots collided with the wood floor. Right. He was indoors. No access to the soil here.

Didn’t mean he didn’t have a trick up his stem. And by trick, he meant acorn seeds.

Amber breathed a sigh of relief from behind her cover of the big pot. She spotted the heavy metal thing near something equally small and tried to go around to grab it, only for her to dart back to her hiding spot - barely missed by a rocketing acorn seed. She felt the pot shake with the force of wind of the projectile and realized if that hit her, it would be game over. She stuck a paw out blindly and grabbed the item and shoved it in her satchel without another look. She eyed the wall. If she made a mad dash for the wall.

But there’s no way she’d make it to the wall. She could hear the flower approaching and suddenly decided on a distraction. Before he could nab her, she pushed the pot roughly, sending it shaking back and forth dangerously.

Cagney’s eyes widened as the big pot nearly tipped over and quickly reached out to cushion its fall before it could hit the hard floor. He breathed a sigh of relief but looked up, furious and another acorn in hand.

Amber was so close to the gap between the glass and the dome. She spotted the carnation taking aim and realized her treasures weren’t going to be much if she was in jail. And one treasure was better than none! She reached into her satchel and chucked the telescope at him. He dropped the acorn and managed to catch the relic before it could smash to the ground. She just reached the edge when her back paw became tangled within the canvas cloth, leaving her dangling right below the dome’s glass lens. Amber struggled with a desperate whine, like a fly caught in a spider’s web.

–

Hilda decided to improvise. She made a cake-like sandwich with a layers of bread and raspberry jam and lit a used birthday candle before walking back to the projection room.

“Haaappy biirthdaaay tooo–” she stopped at the door of the room at the sight of Cagney aiming at her glass dome.

“What the…?” Her eyes widened.

Cagney grinned evilly and placed the telescope down. “Looks like you ran out of lives, cat,” he chuckled quietly. And with that he chucked the acorn as hard as he could at the cat. However, with one last panicked pull, the cat pulled free and slipped through the crack and out of the observatory. Cagney’s eyes widened as his acorn now shot toward the glass. “No, no no no no! SHIT!” He gasped, staring up at the glass.

The acorn slammed into the glass and fell to the ground. For a moment, nothing happened and Cagney breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh man, that was cl-.” A loud crack spread out from the impact spot of the acorn. Cagney cringed but when nothing more happened, he relaxed and looked up. “Well at least the glass is still up there.”

The glass fully schismed and shattered, sending large pieces thundering down toward him. He managed a leap to safety just as the large chunks of glass came crashing down, obliterating the large pot with one final, horrifying smash.

Hilda couldn’t believe her eyes. Did Cagney just destroy her glass dome? She stood there with wide eyes and her jaw dropped holding the sandwich-cake like an idiot.

“What. The. FUCK!?” That last word sounded like a thunder. The woman’s eyes lightly starting to glow.

Cagney didn’t even have to look to know how angry Hilda suddenly was. He could feel it. He turned toward her frantically. There was a legitimate chance of her murdering him. “Hilda! I know this looks bad but I can explain!!!”

He pointed up. “There was this cat and it had some of your stuff and it was running away and I tried to hit it but it moved last second and…I…” He looked up. The cat was not there. He paled.

Hilda closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She looked at him very serious.

“Get out.” She said controlling the urge of turning into Taurus and run him over.

Cagney gaped at her before narrowing his eyes. “Are you serious right now?”

Taurus was getting stronger in her mind.

“GET OUT!” She shouted with another thunder sound.

Cagney realized she was serious. Deadly serious. He bristled angrily and stomped toward the entrance. If she said one more word, he was going to say exactly what he thought of all of this.

As the carnation passed by her Hilda looked at her plate, still frowning. All the work she put on this… ruined at a catastrophic level! How she was going to pay for a new dome? She grinded her teeth blinded by rage.

“ Hey Cagney!” She called him out.

That did it. He turned around, teeth sharp. “What?!”

Hilda threw the sandwich-cake right to his face.

“Happy birthday! ” She yelled, eyes glowing vividly.

Cagney saw red and it wasn’t from Hilda. He wiped the cake from his face and decided this was it. His roots desperately sought soil now and he had just barely touched them to the dirt at the front door when they practically drilled down into the Earth.

He turned around, sharp thorns covering his entire stem and arms, and loomed over Hilda. His manic eyes looked down at her with such loathing and contempt that it was almost poisonous.

“Happy Birthday, huh?” He snarled, his voice deep and warped, “You stupid, selfish husk of weather balloon. I should crush your traitorous little body in my coils.”

He emphasized that point by wrapping around  nearby tree and splitting it in half with a fierce squeeze. But that didn’t make him feel any better. It just made him feel angrier. “I can’t believe I even considered you a friend, much less anything more, you psychotic witch.”

The hateful language flowed freely now. There was no censor in this form. “If you didn’t believe me about the burglary, then believe this.” He leaned down so he could look her dead in the eyes. “I never want to see you again.”

Even full of rage, she stepped back at the view of Cagney turning into his monstrous form. Her rage immediately vanished as he crushed a tree with his vines. ´Holy shit´ said all the voices in her head -including hers-. She´ve never seen Cagney this angry before. Maybe she overreacted a little.

Cagney was getting closer and closer to her, she kept backing up until she felt the a wall on her back. That stare he gave to her, accompanied by those words make her freeze. Did he really just say that? The pain she felt was way too strong to bear it. So she turned it into hate.

Was he seriously giving her shit after breaking her dome? Inventing a stupid excuse for his clumsiness. After the lovely night she organised just for him!? ´Fuck this´ Taurus took over her mind… and body. Her eyes lighted strongly turning into stars, her body changed to a cloudy mist and in a few seconds she was Taurus.

“Then let me poke your eyes out!” She thrust angry towards him lowering her head and aiming for his stem.

Cagney knew two things about Taurus. One, the constellation was incredibly powerful and you had to be exceedingly careful about how you approached it. And two, its blind rage could make it a very easy target.

As soon as the bull was in striking range, a flurry of vines broke from the ground and wrapped around the charging constellation, suspending it in air. Cagney grit his teeth and smiled maliciously as he began to squeeze, feeling the air forced out of the creature of the sky. He almost continued but stop at the pained cry.

He remembered Hilda, and all the nice things she had ever done. How much it meant that she smiled and talked with him. That he enjoyed their time together even after gambling his soul. Is this how it really was going to end?

He sighed, despite every monstrous plant fiber urging him to finish the job, and released her, letting the semi conscious constellation drop to the ground with a thud.

“Bye, Hilda,” he managed to grit through his teeth before submerging underground.

Taurus turned back to a coughing Hilda trying to recover some air. She stared at the hole on the ground for a few seconds and rolled on her back. Softly, she lifted a shaky hand and rubbed her aching ribs.

Venus was shining beautifully, it felt like it was mocking her.  After seeing her friend like this, the broken dome didn’t seem like a big deal at all. Her eyes filled with tears but she was to stubborn to let them go. She gulp like trying to swallow her guilt and wiped her eyes.

She laid there a few minutes before painfully standing up and  and going home. She will have to think something very big for her friend to forgive her.

–

Cagney resubmerged in his field and collapsed to the ground with a bitter, pained howl. He gnashed his teeth, angry regret hitting him instantly. He wanted nothing more to go back, to check on her but there was no going back from that.

He broke the dome. The DOME. To stop some two bit criminal from taking things that yeah Hilda would have liked to keep, but ultimately would have rather lost. Anything but the dome. To even get it built had been a massive undertaking, having to carefully plan with Djimmi and Grim to even get the specs, heat and sand together. She stayed up for weeks to get it so she could share her love of space.

But to then turn on her. Because she kicked him out and threw cake at him? Because she didn’t believe him which he had to admit would sound like a rather flimsy reason if he hadn’t been there himself? Turning on her was unforgivable. There was absolutely no going back from that. He looked up and saw Venus. He sniffled. “That really is pretty,” his warped voice admitted. He clung to his tree for support, feeling wretched and now, truly alone. He swallowed the bile in his throat and continued to watch the sky until exhaustion mercifully took him.

–

Amber didn’t stop running until she was safely within the reaches of her own home. She panted heavily. She needed a shower and a drink after all of this. She placed her satchel on the table and stopped as it made an odd clunking noise. She turned around and open the satchel before reaching in to pull out her spaceman.

Except it wasn’t a spaceman. Instead she was holding a small clay pot. Crap. She must have grabbed this by mistake. It was definitely homemade judging by the imperfections and lack of holes. And it was worth literally nothing. Amber considered tossing it but decided against it, instead putting it in her kitchen and putting some apples in it. She wasn’t quite sure what she was going to do with it, but for now, it looked like it was happy enough to hold the apples.