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"I've always wondered," Tamarin said, her soft, rich accent filtering pleasantly through Anemone's ears. Her voice was soft and melodious, so different from all of the other tribes. "What color are your scales?"
Anemone looked over her friend with a bit of curiosity. The RainWing, who was comparatively massive next to the tiny SeaWing, was sitting with only her forepaws in the cool water of the cave. They were deep underground, in a hidden spot that Anemone had discovered that she'd started thinking of as her and Tamarin's hangout. The thought made her chest feel funny.
"Blue and pink," she said, swimming closer to her friend, not even moving her legs and letting her thick, powerful tail do the work as she simply kept her wings spread to keep her afloat. The water in the cavern went down so deep that only a SeaWing or particularly adventurous MudWing would be able to find the bottom. The only light was from Anemone's scales, which colored the room in strange warped shadows. Far below, at the bottom of the deep, deep pool, the jagged crystals that grew from the ground reflected the light from her scales. "Why?"
Tamarin hummed, her scales, which had been resting at a beautiful gold and blue, began to shift. Splotches of deep blue and dark pink began to creep in, until her entire body was mottled between the two colors.
"You look like this?" She asked, sitting up and spreading her wings to show her entirety, as if the SeaWing princess hadn’t already been staring at her. Anemone came to the edge of the pool, hauling herself out of the water.
"Not exactly," Anemone said, feeling a little bad that she was correcting her crush. The colors were all off, though. Too saturated, and the pink was scattered all over the place. Not that she'd ever blame the blind dragon, but she'd asked!
"Show me," Tamarin said, turning her head so that she was facing Anemone. They were so close that Anemone felt her breath on her muzzle, warm and smelling of sweet fruits. RainWings were mostly herbivores, she remembered, despite their deadly sharp teeth. The absence of meat meant that Tamarin’s breath was always far more pleasant than any of the meat-eating tribes’.
Anemone ducked, knowing that if she were a RainWing she'd be bright pink, the color of love and embarrassment. "I-- Okay!" She said, shaking the water off of herself in hopes of breaking the tension. It didn’t really help.
She pressed one of her front talons to Tamarin's flank, where the colors were all mottled and disorganized. It was beautiful, but not what the RainWing was looking for, Anemone knew.
"My primary scales are blue, here," she said, trying not to let her voice shake. "But a paler blue than you have. More um... White." She wasn't sure how to explain color to the blind, but Tamarin seemed to understand her. Anemone was amazed as underneath her paws, the colors shifted, going paler and shifting to a color remarkably similar to Anemone's.
"That's pretty close, so--" Anemone started, wanting to move on to showing her where the pink accents and even paler blues were, but she was cut off.
"I want to know your exact color," Tamarin insisted, her sightless eyes seemingly staring Anemone down. Anemone felt like she might faint. Her crush on Tamarin had only been getting worse with the amount of time the two were spending together. Every moment that they didn't both have classes, Anemone insisted on them being together. There usually wasn't anything this... Intimate involved, though. She felt like her heart might burst.
Unable to continue looking at Tamarin's beautiful, angular face, she ducked her head, instead trying to focus on the color of Tamarin's scales against hers.
"My blue has a tiny hint of green," she said, trying to ignore her treacherous heart beating as fast as it would if she were swimming full speed across the entire ocean. Tamarin's scales shifted subtly, coming even closer to Anemone's color.
After a few more instructions, Tamarin's scales were the same pale blue as Anemone's primary colors. Anemone swallowed hard.
"The scales on my back are pink, but not the pink you had. They're very pale, just like the blue," Anemone instructed, trying to ignore the growing warmth within her caused by being so close. "The same color is on the webs of my wings and the fronts of my legs, as well as a few scattered scales here and there," she said. She had a bit of a vanity streak, so she had spent a lot of time staring at her own scales in the mirrors of her home. She was glad for it, now, as that meant she didn't have to tear her eyes away from her beautiful friend.
"Show me exactly where," Tamarin said, and Anemone's mouth went dry. She began to trace the spots where she had scatters of pink scales breaking through the blue, and Tamarin copied her diligently. Anemone couldn't help but fixate on how delicate yet massive the RainWing was compared to her. She was nearly twice Anemone's size, yet looked so delicate that the heavy wind coming off the sea would surely knock her over. So different from Anemone's small, compact form.
It took a few tries to get the exact shade, but soon Tamarin looked uncannily similar to Anemone in color, if not in shape. All was there aside from her paler blue belly, which was easy enough to instruct. And then...
"I have a bunch of white patterns," Anemone stated, observing her glowing scales. "They glow, but you're obviously not going to be able to mimic that... Here, let me show you," despite her embarrassment, she was eager to have an excuse to run her paws over Tamarin once more. Unlike a SeaWing's sharp, hard scales, Tamarin's scales were small and soft, like a newborn dragonet's.
After what felt like hours, but was also over far too soon, Tamarin had every single subtle marking that Anemone had. She almost looked like a particularly thin, graceful SeaWing. The RainWing closed her eyes and smiled, a look of concentration on her face.
"What are you doing?" Anemone asked, feeling a bit of regret as she had to stop touching her crush. Tamarin hummed.
"I'm memorizing what you look like," she said, and then leaned forward and pressed her muzzle against Anemone's cheek. "Thank you for helping me. I've always wondered what SeaWings looked like, especially you."
Anemone stuttered, feeling her skin burning with embarrassment beneath her cool scales. "I-- Um! Most Seawings don't have pink, and are darker and-- Green! Lots of SeaWings are green!" She was a mess. Tamarin only chuckled.
"I see. The pink suits you," Tamarin said, letting her perfect imitation of Anemone's scales go as instead she allowed herself to turn fully pink with tinges of gold and yellow. She was so beautiful, Anemone thought.
"We should probably head back to class. I'm sure they're missing us," Tamarin said, pulling back from where she'd been touching Anemone so intimately. She mourned the loss immediately, wanting to press her entire body up against Tamarin and demand to be mates for life, but she controlled herself. She was a princess! She had to behave herself!
She nodded, before realizing that Tamarin wouldn't know she did. She let out a strangled, "Mhm!" before turning and hurrying out the cave.
She desperately hoped she could learn how to keep her cool around her crush. Tamarin was bound to find out at this rate!
--
Behind her, the blind Rainwing followed behind, amused lavender washing over her scales as a large grin formed on her face.
"Clueless SeaWing," she giggled once Anemone was out of earshot. She was probably being a little mean, but she'd already decided that Anemone would be the one to ask her out, not the other way around. She just had to play the waiting game.
She wondered whether their future kids would look more RainWing or SeaWing.