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Jack supposed there was a reason why they called it monsoon season in this part of the world.
He was drenched and disoriented by the time he reached Tooth Palace, his arrival less a pleasant surprise and more of a resounding splat into the side of a marble parapet.
He laid still and dripping on the rim of an enormous spire, one of the many throughout the palace, and tried to imagine a more embarrassing situation. A chittering fairy landed on his nose. He heard Tooth exclaim high above him, “Jack are you alright?!”
Nope this pretty much took the cake.
“How do you stand this weather?” he groaned, shouldering himself up onto his elbows. The humidity weighed on him, his chest ached like it was full of hot lead. He felt likely to melt.
“Oh well, I mean it’s terrible on the wings, but one does what one must!” she fluttered down to kneel beside him, her fingers tentatively glancing across the large bruise forming on his forehead. He winced.
“Ooh, sorry,” she squeaked, and instead supported his head up with her hands, “Is this better?”
Already his damp clothes were beginning to freeze, creating crackling sheets of ice where the water had pooled. Yet Jack still felt hot, and his head was a dead weight atop his shoulders.
“Mff, nah just let me-” he sidled around, shifting his legs, and finally let his head drop into the soft down of Tooth’s lap. The feathers on her plump thighs tickled his nose, and he couldn’t help but smile to himself when he heard the ruffling of her tail-feathers.
“OH I UH-I MEAN I ER THAT…UM I mean if, if, ifyouneedacushionIcan-“
“No, this is good.” he said, low in his throat. The heat had made him drowsy, and perhaps due to exhaustion or a strange surge in confidence, he laid a hand on her knee, fondling the iridescent pinfeathers there. He could feel her heartbeat, like a frantic hum, pulsing through them.
She laid her hands on his head then, one stroking through his hair, the other cradling his brow. Under her breath, Tooth sang a song in a language he didn’t know.
She was warm, he thought, but not like the thick, oppressive heat of the summer air. Rather she reminded him of eiderdown and the smooth taste of honey.
Her thumb glanced fleetingly at his ear, and somewhere in the distance Jack heard the rolling call of thunder.