It was a vast grove of cherry trees, and they were in bloom. Fairy lights draped their trunks, looped over their branches, lighting up a canopy of pink and white flowers. Their perfume was almost overwhelming. Petals sifted down like snow.
Jess gasped softly, overwhelmed. For a few moments, they both could only stand and look, and then they slowly walked deeper into the grove as the petals fell in a soft hush around them.
"How is this possible?" Jess's voice was barely more than a whisper. "How can they be blooming at this time of year? Aren't they a spring flower?"
"I have no idea," Reive said honestly. "Ever since Uncle Heikon found his mate, or I should say re-found her, the trees have been doing this. Even in winter." He held out a hand to catch a falling petal, white with delicate pink veins. "It's not all the trees all the time. But there are at least a few in bloom in every season."
"This is more than a few." She tilted her head back to look up into the blossom canopy above them.
"It is. I've never seen them like this at this time of year."
"It's like they're welcoming you home."
"Or giving me a proper goodbye."
Jess lowered her gaze from the trees to meet his eyes. There were petals in her curly hair, and her brown eyes reflected the fairy lights. She wore a gray shawl clutched around her shoulders, also frosted with petals. Under the drooping cascade of the blossom-laden branches, she looked like a queen in her bower.
"Are you sure you're all right with leaving?" she asked quietly. "Now that I've seen what dragon clans are like—and I saw you with the kids earlier. You really love them, and they love you."
He moved forward to take her into his arms. "Yes, but I guess it took almost dying to make me realize that my place isn't here with them. I love the kids, but I want to have my own kids. Everyone here will always be my family, but you're my family now too. I can always come back to visit. It's time for me to make my own home with you."
He kissed her full lips and the long slope of her pale neck, and unclasped her shawl, letting it fall to pool at her feet.
"Here?" Jess giggled, but it was delight, not nervousness. She laced her arms around his neck. "What if someone comes along?"
"They can find their own hideaway. Anyway, everyone else is busy. No one's likely to come looking for us for hours."
He lowered her down into the soft banks of petals under the trees, and for a while there were no sounds except soft gasps and their mingled, quiet cries of pleasure, as the petals fell like a pink and white snowfall, the first of the season.
In the morning, there was actually snow on the highest peaks. They said their goodbyes in the gold light of dawn, with promises to come back and visit soon, but for now they needed to get back to Newfoundland. Winter would be closing on the island hard, and Jess still had to tie up her affairs in Indiana, pack or sell her things, and figure out something to do about her car. She had suggested a road trip, driving up through Maine and the Maritime Provinces, then taking a ferry. Reive was less enamored of the idea, but wherever Jess was, that was where he wanted to be. Whether it was a viable idea at all depended on how late in the year they got on the road, though.
Heikon and Esme bid them farewell on the highest tower of the Aerie. The tall doors stood open to the bracing wind coming in from the outside. There was no balcony. This was a place meant for flying creatures.
"It was lovely to meet you, dear," Esme told Jess, who looked nonplused as she suddenly found herself enfolded in a hug, half smothered in green velvet and Esme's floating cloud of perfumed red hair. "You are welcome to come back any time that you would like." Esme let go with a smile and a wink. "We mates of the Corcoran dragons have to stick together."
"You make it sound like a burden," Heikon grumbled, but he didn't look at all upset. He turned to Reive and reached out for an armclasp, one clanlord to another. "In the long run, you know, something like this was bound to happen eventually. Gargoyles and dragons, living together, having children together—it's a new world, and sometimes it's hard for us older people to adjust to it."
"You seem to be handling it fine," Reive said. "We'll definitely be back."
"You had better. Oh, and I brought something for you, to take with you to your new lands. Where did it go ..."
Esme wordlessly took a small pot off a shelf and handed it to him.
"Ah. Yes. Thank you."
The pot was crudely made clay, lopsided with odd designs scratched in it. There was a tiny sapling in it, about six inches high.
Heikon cleared his throat. "The pot is a gift from the children. The sakura seedling is from me. Plant it in your new home. I hope it will grow well for you."
"Thank you, Uncle," Reive said solemnly, accepting the gift. "Please tell the children thank you as well." He had doubts that an ornamental cherry tree would grow in Newfoundland's harsh climate ... but they shouldn't have been able to bloom in a Colorado autumn either. Maybe a little of Heikon's magic would cling to them, even that far away.
This time, he didn't take Jess onto his back. The Corcorans would have to deal with her in her gargoyle form sooner or later. Reive took her hand, and they both stepped off the edge of the Aerie together, shifting as they went. His wings snapped out, and Jess dropped gracefully below him as she spread her own smaller pair. They soared up into the sky together, catching the morning breeze. Reive held the cherry tree in its little pot clutched against his chest, his large paw closed over the top to seal it away from the cold wind.
"Can't you just send it wherever your clothes go?" Jess asked, soaring up in front of him.
"I could, but I'm not sure what it'd do to a living thing. Probably better to carry it."
"I can take a turn if you need a break," Jess offered, as she hovered effortlessly with beats of her wings. She'd never had much practice at flying because of the need for secrecy, but she was getting better with every flight. The villagers on the island seemed to enjoy seeing more than one of their lucky gargoyles flying around.
"I'll definitely let you know if I need it."
Through the mate bond, he felt her pleasure. Their bond hadn't snapped into instant existence like most dragons' mate bonds, and their ability to sense each other, even to speak at a distance, was growing very gradually as well, weaving new little threads of connection with every passing day.
But that was more perfect for them, he thought, than an instant conduit of thoughts and emotions could ever have been. They were both guarded people. They could never have let down their guard instantly, and would only have ended up building new walls between them as they struggled to cope with it. This way, they had a chance to get used to it gradually, the same way they had gotten to know and trust each other at their own speed.
And wasn't that what it all came down to, in the end? Mates and the mate bond weren't one size fits all. It was about finding the perfect person for you, the missing puzzle piece that fit together with your own rough edges. Reive could never have handled the overwhelming presence of Esme's intense personality, but no one who was any less intense could have coped with his uncle.
And he could imagine no more perfect fit for his own puzzle piece than Jess, with her quiet demeanor masking a vast hidden wellspring of humor and intelligence that could nourish him for a lifetime. She was the bravest person he'd ever met, the most clever and curious. They had so much to learn from each other, so many things to do with each other. They had barely scratched the surface of the possibilities yet, and it seemed that there was so much left to do, endless new options opening before them with every passing day.