[Freezair]

Angie and Daire woke and ran out of the barn to see if anything had changed.

It was always so hard to tell in the gloom of the barn and the newness of the dawn light. Everything dim looked gray to begin with. Two weeks now this nightmare had gone on, and for all fourteen days of those two weeks, they had run outside at the first crack of sunlight, hoping against hope things had changed.

Day fifteen. Maybe today was the day.

[Freezair]

Angie had taken to sleeping right between Daire's wings just to be outside quicker. Despite growing up on the farm, she was the slower riser--and Daire, who'd only come to farm life recently, could be awake in a blink.

His claws tore up the old straw on the floor as he ran out. Angie blinked the stickiness out of her eyes and raised her twitching nose. Maybe there would be a different smell on the morning air, if things had fixed themselves.

But as they burst outside and dawn crested the mountains, it was clear they hadn't. Nearly everything was still gray.

[Freezair]

Daire let out a long, whistling sigh that sounded as if he'd been holding his breath since he woke up.

"Alas, disappointment beckons yet again. Two weeks in, and our torment seems unending." He craned his neck backwards to peer at his friend. "I hope your spirits are not bending, though I too greet this with disdain."

Angie hopped from his back with a plop into the earth.

It was becoming routine. The colors weren't back yet. Having seen that, Angie immediately fell to the one place left in her world that still had color.

[Freezair]

Admittedly, if you'd asked Angie to pick a color to remain, she couldn't have picked a better one. The rich soil of the Sekudui farmlands had remained entirely itself: still a rich, loamy brown that promised strong harvests and smelled of life itself. She breathed in that smell and tried to spread it throughout her body through her lungs, as if that itself could bring her color back. Admittedly, a few of her spots did still look fairly brown.

But, if things hadn't changed, that meant there was still work to be done.

[Freezair]

Angie fluttered onto Daire's back. "I guess we'd better get started with our chores," she said.

"Assent," Daire said.

The great Paragon began to amble towards the fields. With surprising delicacy, he moved among the furrows, keeping his tail gently lifted so as not to topple any plants. In this late part of the year, many crops were near harvesting, and it would be tragic to see them toppled so close to ripeness.

He bent his head low, opened his mouth, and very gently breathed over the soil.

[Freezair]

Some Paragons breathed fire. Some breathed ice. Daire's breath, however, was full of life-giving minerals that enriched the soil itself. Any earth he breathed upon was rich and fertile, perfect for plants of all sorts.

Angie hopped off his back to do the legwork of farming--pulling out weeds, culling any worm-eaten parts, and generally inspecting them for health. But these days, her eyes were always more on the soil.

She swore it glowed after Daire had breathed on it. She'd always known he was special, but with everything around so dismal, it seemed more luminous in general.

She knew what she hoped for--what they both hoped for--but they hadn't yet dared to speak it aloud.

[Freezair]

A plant that grew in poor soil could lose its color.

So what if...?

They shot glances at each other as they worked, both knowing it was pointless. But Angie secretly thought--and knowing Daire, he did as well--that maybe... just maybe... if the soil was rich enough, and the plants grew in it long enough...

She almost daren't think it to herself. It was too silly--and there she went, almost missing a squash that had attracted some kind of worm gnawing at it. See? She was distracted from her work.

...But what if they could bring the colors back?

[Freezair]

Angie flinched as she thought it. Daire paused, feeling her tense. He looked back at her with a Paragonic frown. She shook her head and he went back to his work.

It was silly. This loss of color had nothing to do with nutrition. This wasn't the chlorophyll fading from a plant's leaves because it didn't have enough minerals in the soil. This was something different. Something supernatural.

But Daire's breath is pretty supernatural too.

She paused again. So did Daire.

[Freezair]

Angie inhaled.

"Daire..."

He watched her intently and waited for her to continue.

"Are... are we crazy?"

"Evermore there is work to be done, my dear. As long as there is growth upon our soil, we must tend it."

Angie swallowed.

"But... you know what I mean. What we're doing. It... it's not about keeping the plants healthy any more. It... it's because..."

Daire's body went rigid with anticipation.

"...The colors. But... but this can't possibly, actually work. ...Right?"

[Freezair]

Daire stopped in his tracks. Gently, so as not to trample the plants, but swiftly, he turned around to face her.

"Thou and I are both aware that this task may fruitless be. Impenetrable is this gray infernal."

He bent his head down low to hers, a gesture beckoning comfort. She sprung up and placed her paws on the rounded edge of his snout.

"But thou knowest that to inflect a change is not our goal." His dragon mouth twisted into a smile. "'Tis the notion of a change that buoys up thy soul."

Angie wrapped her paws around his nose and hopped up into his horns.

The point of it isn't actually to change things. The point is to be doing something that FEELS like it's helping. It did make sense. And somehow, the fact that it made sense made Angie not worry about the fact that it wouldn't change anything.

She looked down at the warm tan ground and spoke. "I guess, you could say... hope springs eternal."

[Color Harvested]