Acylius/Aelia: Lubricious (lover100 Prompt #070)
TITLE: Lubricious
FANDOM: Insektors
PAIRING: Acylius/Aelia
RATING: G
SUMMARY: Aelia rescues Fulgor, but gets covered in koal juice in the process. As they, and Acylius, discover--koal juice doesn't affect Aelia in the normal way...
WARNINGS: Sibling bickering, and Fulgor being simultaneously helpful and a bit of an annoying brat.
NOTES: I'm glad to finally post this one; I've got scraps of it that go back to 2012...
“Another victory for the Joyces!” said Fulgor triumphantly, holding his guitar aloft. Aelia, struggling to stay aloft with koal juice coating her wings, glared. Unlike his sister, Fulgor had come through the most recent battle unscathed. There wasn’t a speck of dark fluid on his carapace.
Aelia tried to slick some of the slime off her arms. No such luck-of course. It was as sticky as sap, and the only thing she accomplished was to make her carapace crawl even more than it already had been. Koal juice didn’t drip so much as it slithered. It made her want to gag.
She pulled her hands free of her forearms with a sickening squelch. Fulgor turned towards her, making a disgusted face.
“That is gross,” he said.
Aelia redoubled her glare. “Yes, it is,” she snapped. “It would have been nice if you’d stopped to consider that maybe one pilot doesn’t mean one Yuk in the machine. Then I wouldn’t be covered in this ooze.”
“It’s not my fault that you came in at just the wrong moment,” protested Fulgor. “Besides, I told you not come. I said it was dangerous.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” retorted Aelia. “Next time, I’ll let them ambush you. ‘It’s only big enough for one pilot,’ you said, ‘this’ll be a piece of cake.’ If it hadn’t been for me, you’d be covered in this muck, and that thing-” she gestured to the latest Yuk contraption, lying in pieces in the bruised and torn ruin of her most recent floral creation, “-would still be on its way to the Great Flower.”
Fulgor bristled. “Hey, I’ve handled worse. I would have worked something out.” He slung his guitar over his back. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter.”
Aelia was going to strangle him. Of all the moronic, insufferable… “Doesn’t matter?”
Her tone would have warned anyone with a scrap of sense to consider their next words carefully. Of course, it didn’t work on Fulgor. He cocked his head, squinting at her like she was some kind of unfamiliar flower. “Shouldn’t you be…I dunno, more…” He trailed off, oblivious to the way she was glaring.
“More what?” Shoots and saplings, she was practically snarling and he still wasn’t paying proper attention-just kept on staring at her, head cocked and visibly confused. This was ridiculous. She was used to Fulgor not noticing what was right in front of his face, but this was on another level entirely.
“You’re covered in koal juice, shouldn’t you be more-”
“Oh dear. I see that I missed all the excitement-Aelia! What happened?”
“Kaboche happened,” said Aelia, tearing her angry gaze away from her brother. Acylius flew up beside her. He reached for her arm, but Aelia pulled away. “No, don’t! You’ll just get it all over you, too!” Acylius recoiled, and embarrassment made Aelia’s face heat. She looked away from her prince.
Which put Fulgor right back in her sights, reminding her of who was really responsible for this mess.
“And Fulgor happened,” she continued, anger replacing her embarrassment. “He decided-like an idiot-to take down Teknocratus’s latest monstrosity by himself. I went after him, and arrived just in time to prevent him from being ambushed, which is why I’m covered in slime and he’s as clean as morning dew.”
“That was…unwise,” said Acylius.
“I told her it was too dangerous,” said Fulgor defensively.
“He meant going all by yourself,” retorted Aelia. “And he’s right. Of all the stupid things you’ve done-and there have been a lot of them-”
“Oh yeah?” Fulgor finally seemed to have woken up to the fact that she was angry at him. “Like what? Name one stupid thing I’ve done that didn’t work out alright in the end.”
“It’s not about whether it ‘worked out alright in the end’,” returned Aelia, fluttering a little closer to her adoptive brother. Finally, he was actually starting to listen to her! “You never stop to think, and it always gets you into trouble, and then someone else has to come and bail you out!”
“If you’re still going on about the daffodil thing,” said Fulgor, fluttering a little closer in turn. They were almost nose-to-nose, voices rising. “That was your fault-“
“My fault! You invaded my lab, and decided to play keep away with my experiment! And you destroyed weeks of my research!” Aelia took a deep breath, which did nothing to calm her. Just remembering the amount of work that she’d lost that day... “I should have known then that you were a-”
“Enough!”
Acylius had appeared between them, shoving them apart with one hand on each of their shoulders. Breathing hard, Aelia stared at Fulgor. He actually looked shocked, and she felt absurdly pleased about it.
“Aelia,” said Acylius, drawing her attention. He was looking at her like she might sting, and his voice was low and concerned. “What’s gotten into you?”
Aelia gaped. Just because she’d had enough of Fulgor’s trouble-making ways, and decided it give him a proper piece of her mind-“Nothing’s gotten into me!”
“This isn’t like you at all,” insisted Acylius. “I know that Fulgor annoys you, and you have every right to be angry with him about his actions today, but-”
“There is no but! Just because I’ve finally gotten tired of just ignoring the way he makes everyone’s lives difficult-”
“That isn’t true. You’ve said yourself that Fulgor is a hero-”
“Then I must have hit my head before I said it, because all I see right now is a great big-”
Fulgor snapped his fingers. “That’s it!”
It was such an unexpected interruption that both Aelia and Acylius turned to stare at him. Fulgor looked ridiculously pleased with himself, so much so that Aelia’s hands itched to smack the stupid smirk off his face.
“Nothing’s gotten into her, but something has gotten on her,” said Fulgor triumphantly. “It’s the koal juice! I was thinking that she should be acting more depressed, but it’s just making her mad instead.” Fulgor patted Acylius’s shoulder. “Thanks for helping me figure it out. I couldn’t tell when it was just us. She gets on my case all the time, but when she starts thinking that you do anything but make the Great Prism shine, then I know something’s wrong.”
Aelia opened her mouth to refute his argument-then shut it again as the last few minutes replayed themselves in her memory. She had been arguing with Acylius. About Fulgor.
She stared down at her darkened hands. She’d forgotten about the koal juice in the heat of her anger. Now that her attention had been drawn back to it, she felt like she wanted to crawl out of her own carapace to get away from it.
“I need to get this off,” she said faintly.
Fulgor pointed. “Springs are just down there.” Aelia bristled. He still sounded smug, and she was fairly certain that her answering annoyance was not just due to the sludge still sliding slowly over her skin. But she held her tongue.
Acylius took her hand. “I’ll help you,” he said, gently. Aelia felt a fresh surge of shame, mingled with almost irritated gratitude. Apparently Acylius would not be holding a grudge, and she almost wished that he would. It would have been easier to cope with.
But that might have been the koal juice talking.
Fulgor hummed thoughtfully, a hand rubbing over his chin. “What about you wings? You won’t be able to scrape them off.”
It was a good point. Fulgor (and Acylius, for that matter) had tough, clear, membranous wings that held up to scrubbing. Aelia’s wings were scaled, and a cleaning scrape would strip away those scales and leave her flightless. She felt a chill at the thought, and then a fresh surge of anger. Dirty Yuks! This was all their fault!
“What about the Prism?” suggested Acylius, tearing Aelia’s thoughts away and making her glad that she hadn’t said that aloud.
“It won’t work,” said Aelia. “Teknocratus worked out a formula that resists the kolor energy of the Prism.” It was a relief to have an acceptable target for her formless anger again. “If I could get my hands on him…”
Acylius squeezed her hand. “Perhaps we should make plans after you’re clean?”
“We could just send her back to the Stump and let her tear her way through all of the war machines,” joked Fulgor. “That’d solve our problems for a while. She might even scare Krabo off.”
Aelia opened her mouth to retort, but Acylius got there first.
“Fulgor,” he said warningly.
The hero of the Joyces held up his hands in surrender. “Fine, fine. Look, you just go start scrubbing, okay? Before that stuff dries. I’ve got an idea about your wings. I’ll be back soon.”
He flew off towards the Great Flower before either Aelia or Acylius could reply. They hovered in silence for a long moment. Then Aelia took a deep breath, trying to think past the aggression that told her to follow her brother and get answers.
“Let’s go,” she said. “Before I say anything worse.”
They scrubbed in silence for a long time. Aelia didn’t trust herself to speak as she yanked the scraper back and forth across her arms and chest with as much force as she dared. Who knew what kind of ugly filth she might spout next? She couldn’t tell what was legitimate irritation-from the situation, from the cause of it-and what was induced anger.
Eventually, Acylius broke the silence. “I thought that koal juice produced depressive symptoms.”
Aelia chose her words carefully. “It usually does.”
“Then, why…”
“Aggressive symptoms are rare, but have been recorded.” It was easier to talk about as though she were making notes about one of her experiments. “It might be genetic. Papa is the same, when he gets hit.”
“Ah.”
They fell silent again. The only sound was the splash of the springs. Aelia was beginning to find it soothing, rather than annoying, and she hoped that this meant that the koal juice was starting to come off. Deciding to take a chance, she said, “I’m sorry about before.”
Acylius paused in his scraping, then resumed. “There’s no need to apologise.” He was much gentler than she was, and it would probably take him twice as long to clean her back as it would take her to clean her front. But the thought had a kind of affectionate exasperation to it, which Aelia found reassuring.
“I said some awful things,” persisted Aelia.
“I don’t think you could be considered responsible,” argued Acylius. “It was the koal juice.” He paused again, then went on in a conspiratorial whisper, “And Fulgor is irritating at the best of times.”
Aelia stifled an unexpected giggle.
“He didn’t seem to take offence,” continued Acylius, sounding more relaxed. “I wouldn’t worry. But…an apology wouldn’t hurt.”
“I think I can manage that,” said Aelia, pausing in her own scraping to check the results. Was it her imagination, or were patches of her true colouring starting to show through the sludge coating? “But first, you have to accept my apology to you.” It certainly seemed as though the koal juice was weakening; she couldn’t have sounded that playful ten minutes ago.
There was a snort from behind her. She didn’t need to look to know that Acylius was rolling his eyes. “Very well, I do.”
“What, he gets an apology before I do? I was taking the brunt of it.”
Aelia looked up. There was a splash from behind her as Acylius dropped his scraper. Fulgor was hovering above them, half reclined.
“How’s it going?” he asked.
Aelia didn’t trust herself to speak. All of her irritation had returned at the sight of her brother, and she still couldn’t tell whether this was natural or not. Surely most people would be annoyed if they’d had to save a family member, only to suffer the same fate that they had been trying to prevent?
Acylius, thankfully, answered for her. “Slowly. But I think we’re making progress.”
Fulgor squinted down at them. “Are you sure? She looks about the same to me.”
“Quite sure,” said Acylius, perhaps sensing Aelia’s returned irritation.
“Okay, then prove it,” said Fulgor.
“Prove it?” asked Aelia. The words sounded more accusatory than she had meant them to, but it seemed justified under the circumstances.
“You were talking about apologies, right? So how about giving one to me? You said some pretty hurtful things.” Her brother tried to make his eyes big and dewy, and succeeded only in making himself look like they were falling out of their sockets.
It was exactly the same thing that she had said to Acylius not five minutes ago. And she had said that she had thought she could manage an apology to her brother. So why was she faltering now, with Fulgor in front of her?
Acylius took her hand, as though to lend her strength, but even with that, Aelia just couldn’t do it.
Fulgor sighed. “Thought not.”
“It’s hardly fair if you don’t give her time to think about what to say,” said Acylius.
“What is there to think about? It’s two words.” Fulgor shook his head. “But that’s okay. I was ready for this.”
“Ready?” asked Acylius, with a shadow of the sudden horror that had grabbed Aelia by the throat.
“Yep.” Fulgor pulled one hand out from behind his back, revealing a globe of pollen half the size of his head. “This’ll fix you right up!”
He tossed it down to them. It struck Aelia between her antennae, and burst into a thick cloud. She shut her eyes automatically, clapping a hand over his mouth to stop herself from inhaling any of it. Her throat tickled with the need to cough. Behind her, she could feel Acylius muffling his own choking.
“I’ll consider this your apology!” she heard Fulgor shout, half-laughing. Then there was a buzz of wings as he fled the scene.
Sinking her hands in the spring to clean them of excess pollen, Aelia wiped her eyes and looked down at her hands. Thanks to Fulgor’s little surprise, she was now bright orange, the opposite of her natural colouring. In a more charitable mood, she might have been willing to dismiss it as her brother grabbing the first kolor bomb that he found in a misguided attempt to help-except that orange was much less common than blue or pink. He must have picked this one out especially for her.
She was sure that the anger that surged through her this time had nothing to do with koal juice.
She turned to Acylius, who was little better off than her. He had been partially shielded by Aelia’s body, but was still unevenly splattered with the same bright orange that coated her from antennae to toes. He was blinking rapidly, still processing what had just happened-or perhaps trying to clear the pollen from his eyes.
“I’m going to strangle him,” announced Aelia.
Acylius looked at her, then down at himself. Then back up at her, and this time she saw her aggravation mirrored in his eyes. “I’ll help.”
FANDOM: Insektors
PAIRING: Acylius/Aelia
RATING: G
SUMMARY: Aelia rescues Fulgor, but gets covered in koal juice in the process. As they, and Acylius, discover--koal juice doesn't affect Aelia in the normal way...
WARNINGS: Sibling bickering, and Fulgor being simultaneously helpful and a bit of an annoying brat.
NOTES: I'm glad to finally post this one; I've got scraps of it that go back to 2012...
“Another victory for the Joyces!” said Fulgor triumphantly, holding his guitar aloft. Aelia, struggling to stay aloft with koal juice coating her wings, glared. Unlike his sister, Fulgor had come through the most recent battle unscathed. There wasn’t a speck of dark fluid on his carapace.
Aelia tried to slick some of the slime off her arms. No such luck-of course. It was as sticky as sap, and the only thing she accomplished was to make her carapace crawl even more than it already had been. Koal juice didn’t drip so much as it slithered. It made her want to gag.
She pulled her hands free of her forearms with a sickening squelch. Fulgor turned towards her, making a disgusted face.
“That is gross,” he said.
Aelia redoubled her glare. “Yes, it is,” she snapped. “It would have been nice if you’d stopped to consider that maybe one pilot doesn’t mean one Yuk in the machine. Then I wouldn’t be covered in this ooze.”
“It’s not my fault that you came in at just the wrong moment,” protested Fulgor. “Besides, I told you not come. I said it was dangerous.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” retorted Aelia. “Next time, I’ll let them ambush you. ‘It’s only big enough for one pilot,’ you said, ‘this’ll be a piece of cake.’ If it hadn’t been for me, you’d be covered in this muck, and that thing-” she gestured to the latest Yuk contraption, lying in pieces in the bruised and torn ruin of her most recent floral creation, “-would still be on its way to the Great Flower.”
Fulgor bristled. “Hey, I’ve handled worse. I would have worked something out.” He slung his guitar over his back. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter.”
Aelia was going to strangle him. Of all the moronic, insufferable… “Doesn’t matter?”
Her tone would have warned anyone with a scrap of sense to consider their next words carefully. Of course, it didn’t work on Fulgor. He cocked his head, squinting at her like she was some kind of unfamiliar flower. “Shouldn’t you be…I dunno, more…” He trailed off, oblivious to the way she was glaring.
“More what?” Shoots and saplings, she was practically snarling and he still wasn’t paying proper attention-just kept on staring at her, head cocked and visibly confused. This was ridiculous. She was used to Fulgor not noticing what was right in front of his face, but this was on another level entirely.
“You’re covered in koal juice, shouldn’t you be more-”
“Oh dear. I see that I missed all the excitement-Aelia! What happened?”
“Kaboche happened,” said Aelia, tearing her angry gaze away from her brother. Acylius flew up beside her. He reached for her arm, but Aelia pulled away. “No, don’t! You’ll just get it all over you, too!” Acylius recoiled, and embarrassment made Aelia’s face heat. She looked away from her prince.
Which put Fulgor right back in her sights, reminding her of who was really responsible for this mess.
“And Fulgor happened,” she continued, anger replacing her embarrassment. “He decided-like an idiot-to take down Teknocratus’s latest monstrosity by himself. I went after him, and arrived just in time to prevent him from being ambushed, which is why I’m covered in slime and he’s as clean as morning dew.”
“That was…unwise,” said Acylius.
“I told her it was too dangerous,” said Fulgor defensively.
“He meant going all by yourself,” retorted Aelia. “And he’s right. Of all the stupid things you’ve done-and there have been a lot of them-”
“Oh yeah?” Fulgor finally seemed to have woken up to the fact that she was angry at him. “Like what? Name one stupid thing I’ve done that didn’t work out alright in the end.”
“It’s not about whether it ‘worked out alright in the end’,” returned Aelia, fluttering a little closer to her adoptive brother. Finally, he was actually starting to listen to her! “You never stop to think, and it always gets you into trouble, and then someone else has to come and bail you out!”
“If you’re still going on about the daffodil thing,” said Fulgor, fluttering a little closer in turn. They were almost nose-to-nose, voices rising. “That was your fault-“
“My fault! You invaded my lab, and decided to play keep away with my experiment! And you destroyed weeks of my research!” Aelia took a deep breath, which did nothing to calm her. Just remembering the amount of work that she’d lost that day... “I should have known then that you were a-”
“Enough!”
Acylius had appeared between them, shoving them apart with one hand on each of their shoulders. Breathing hard, Aelia stared at Fulgor. He actually looked shocked, and she felt absurdly pleased about it.
“Aelia,” said Acylius, drawing her attention. He was looking at her like she might sting, and his voice was low and concerned. “What’s gotten into you?”
Aelia gaped. Just because she’d had enough of Fulgor’s trouble-making ways, and decided it give him a proper piece of her mind-“Nothing’s gotten into me!”
“This isn’t like you at all,” insisted Acylius. “I know that Fulgor annoys you, and you have every right to be angry with him about his actions today, but-”
“There is no but! Just because I’ve finally gotten tired of just ignoring the way he makes everyone’s lives difficult-”
“That isn’t true. You’ve said yourself that Fulgor is a hero-”
“Then I must have hit my head before I said it, because all I see right now is a great big-”
Fulgor snapped his fingers. “That’s it!”
It was such an unexpected interruption that both Aelia and Acylius turned to stare at him. Fulgor looked ridiculously pleased with himself, so much so that Aelia’s hands itched to smack the stupid smirk off his face.
“Nothing’s gotten into her, but something has gotten on her,” said Fulgor triumphantly. “It’s the koal juice! I was thinking that she should be acting more depressed, but it’s just making her mad instead.” Fulgor patted Acylius’s shoulder. “Thanks for helping me figure it out. I couldn’t tell when it was just us. She gets on my case all the time, but when she starts thinking that you do anything but make the Great Prism shine, then I know something’s wrong.”
Aelia opened her mouth to refute his argument-then shut it again as the last few minutes replayed themselves in her memory. She had been arguing with Acylius. About Fulgor.
She stared down at her darkened hands. She’d forgotten about the koal juice in the heat of her anger. Now that her attention had been drawn back to it, she felt like she wanted to crawl out of her own carapace to get away from it.
“I need to get this off,” she said faintly.
Fulgor pointed. “Springs are just down there.” Aelia bristled. He still sounded smug, and she was fairly certain that her answering annoyance was not just due to the sludge still sliding slowly over her skin. But she held her tongue.
Acylius took her hand. “I’ll help you,” he said, gently. Aelia felt a fresh surge of shame, mingled with almost irritated gratitude. Apparently Acylius would not be holding a grudge, and she almost wished that he would. It would have been easier to cope with.
But that might have been the koal juice talking.
Fulgor hummed thoughtfully, a hand rubbing over his chin. “What about you wings? You won’t be able to scrape them off.”
It was a good point. Fulgor (and Acylius, for that matter) had tough, clear, membranous wings that held up to scrubbing. Aelia’s wings were scaled, and a cleaning scrape would strip away those scales and leave her flightless. She felt a chill at the thought, and then a fresh surge of anger. Dirty Yuks! This was all their fault!
“What about the Prism?” suggested Acylius, tearing Aelia’s thoughts away and making her glad that she hadn’t said that aloud.
“It won’t work,” said Aelia. “Teknocratus worked out a formula that resists the kolor energy of the Prism.” It was a relief to have an acceptable target for her formless anger again. “If I could get my hands on him…”
Acylius squeezed her hand. “Perhaps we should make plans after you’re clean?”
“We could just send her back to the Stump and let her tear her way through all of the war machines,” joked Fulgor. “That’d solve our problems for a while. She might even scare Krabo off.”
Aelia opened her mouth to retort, but Acylius got there first.
“Fulgor,” he said warningly.
The hero of the Joyces held up his hands in surrender. “Fine, fine. Look, you just go start scrubbing, okay? Before that stuff dries. I’ve got an idea about your wings. I’ll be back soon.”
He flew off towards the Great Flower before either Aelia or Acylius could reply. They hovered in silence for a long moment. Then Aelia took a deep breath, trying to think past the aggression that told her to follow her brother and get answers.
“Let’s go,” she said. “Before I say anything worse.”
They scrubbed in silence for a long time. Aelia didn’t trust herself to speak as she yanked the scraper back and forth across her arms and chest with as much force as she dared. Who knew what kind of ugly filth she might spout next? She couldn’t tell what was legitimate irritation-from the situation, from the cause of it-and what was induced anger.
Eventually, Acylius broke the silence. “I thought that koal juice produced depressive symptoms.”
Aelia chose her words carefully. “It usually does.”
“Then, why…”
“Aggressive symptoms are rare, but have been recorded.” It was easier to talk about as though she were making notes about one of her experiments. “It might be genetic. Papa is the same, when he gets hit.”
“Ah.”
They fell silent again. The only sound was the splash of the springs. Aelia was beginning to find it soothing, rather than annoying, and she hoped that this meant that the koal juice was starting to come off. Deciding to take a chance, she said, “I’m sorry about before.”
Acylius paused in his scraping, then resumed. “There’s no need to apologise.” He was much gentler than she was, and it would probably take him twice as long to clean her back as it would take her to clean her front. But the thought had a kind of affectionate exasperation to it, which Aelia found reassuring.
“I said some awful things,” persisted Aelia.
“I don’t think you could be considered responsible,” argued Acylius. “It was the koal juice.” He paused again, then went on in a conspiratorial whisper, “And Fulgor is irritating at the best of times.”
Aelia stifled an unexpected giggle.
“He didn’t seem to take offence,” continued Acylius, sounding more relaxed. “I wouldn’t worry. But…an apology wouldn’t hurt.”
“I think I can manage that,” said Aelia, pausing in her own scraping to check the results. Was it her imagination, or were patches of her true colouring starting to show through the sludge coating? “But first, you have to accept my apology to you.” It certainly seemed as though the koal juice was weakening; she couldn’t have sounded that playful ten minutes ago.
There was a snort from behind her. She didn’t need to look to know that Acylius was rolling his eyes. “Very well, I do.”
“What, he gets an apology before I do? I was taking the brunt of it.”
Aelia looked up. There was a splash from behind her as Acylius dropped his scraper. Fulgor was hovering above them, half reclined.
“How’s it going?” he asked.
Aelia didn’t trust herself to speak. All of her irritation had returned at the sight of her brother, and she still couldn’t tell whether this was natural or not. Surely most people would be annoyed if they’d had to save a family member, only to suffer the same fate that they had been trying to prevent?
Acylius, thankfully, answered for her. “Slowly. But I think we’re making progress.”
Fulgor squinted down at them. “Are you sure? She looks about the same to me.”
“Quite sure,” said Acylius, perhaps sensing Aelia’s returned irritation.
“Okay, then prove it,” said Fulgor.
“Prove it?” asked Aelia. The words sounded more accusatory than she had meant them to, but it seemed justified under the circumstances.
“You were talking about apologies, right? So how about giving one to me? You said some pretty hurtful things.” Her brother tried to make his eyes big and dewy, and succeeded only in making himself look like they were falling out of their sockets.
It was exactly the same thing that she had said to Acylius not five minutes ago. And she had said that she had thought she could manage an apology to her brother. So why was she faltering now, with Fulgor in front of her?
Acylius took her hand, as though to lend her strength, but even with that, Aelia just couldn’t do it.
Fulgor sighed. “Thought not.”
“It’s hardly fair if you don’t give her time to think about what to say,” said Acylius.
“What is there to think about? It’s two words.” Fulgor shook his head. “But that’s okay. I was ready for this.”
“Ready?” asked Acylius, with a shadow of the sudden horror that had grabbed Aelia by the throat.
“Yep.” Fulgor pulled one hand out from behind his back, revealing a globe of pollen half the size of his head. “This’ll fix you right up!”
He tossed it down to them. It struck Aelia between her antennae, and burst into a thick cloud. She shut her eyes automatically, clapping a hand over his mouth to stop herself from inhaling any of it. Her throat tickled with the need to cough. Behind her, she could feel Acylius muffling his own choking.
“I’ll consider this your apology!” she heard Fulgor shout, half-laughing. Then there was a buzz of wings as he fled the scene.
Sinking her hands in the spring to clean them of excess pollen, Aelia wiped her eyes and looked down at her hands. Thanks to Fulgor’s little surprise, she was now bright orange, the opposite of her natural colouring. In a more charitable mood, she might have been willing to dismiss it as her brother grabbing the first kolor bomb that he found in a misguided attempt to help-except that orange was much less common than blue or pink. He must have picked this one out especially for her.
She was sure that the anger that surged through her this time had nothing to do with koal juice.
She turned to Acylius, who was little better off than her. He had been partially shielded by Aelia’s body, but was still unevenly splattered with the same bright orange that coated her from antennae to toes. He was blinking rapidly, still processing what had just happened-or perhaps trying to clear the pollen from his eyes.
“I’m going to strangle him,” announced Aelia.
Acylius looked at her, then down at himself. Then back up at her, and this time she saw her aggravation mirrored in his eyes. “I’ll help.”