To wyld_dandelyon‘s prompt.

Æowyn is a character from Addergoole: Year 9. This is set in Year 11.

The AC was broken in the halls of Addergoole, and the halls were, consequently sweltering.

Æowyn stripped off a layer, leaving her in a tank top and boxers, and tied her hair back in a ponytail. Things did not break in Addergoole, not like this, so it had to be someone’s idea of a prank.

Æowyn didn’t mind, not really. She wasn’t cold-blooded, not like some of the snakey Changes she’d met, but neither did she mind the heat. Some of the others, however, were clearly having a harder time of it. Eluned looked flat-out miserable, and Kendrew, a Cohort after Æowyn and Eluned and with a Change and power based on ice, looked as if he was going to melt.

“Holy Hot Hell Night, Batman.” She muttered it under her breath to amuse herself, and didn’t expect an answer.

“Holy hot snake ladies, Robin.”

“Holy… what?” she turned to follow a voice she didn’t recognize yet. Almost didn’t see him, as he’d managed to blend himself into a niche in the wall so well he was almost invisible.

“Holy hot snake ladies. Is Hell Night the day when they turn up the heat to see if we still sweat?”

Æowyn found a smile growing. He was cute, in a blonde-and-scruffy sort of way, if you could look around the edges of his apparent camouflage power. “In a manner of speaking. Do you?”

He wiped a hand over his brow. “Seems like it. You, too?”

“Despite the scales, yeah.” She looked at him, dripping in a corner. She could feel her fangs against her lips. “Something spook you?”

“Don’t tell anyone?”

“Cross my heart.” She made the gesture across the center of her chest, and felt the settling-in of a promise.

“I thought I heard horses galloping. When it turned out to be a centuar…. I freaked out.”

“Ah.” She smiled. “So you do sweat.”

“I just said… oh. Oh, it’s that sort of day.”

“Yeah.” Æowyn remembered her first Hell Night, and the way another blonde-and-scruffy boy had terrified her. “It’s that sort of day. Tell you what. ‘Come with me if you want to live.'” She held out her hand.

“Terminator. The heat really is on, isn’t it?” He studied her hand thoughtfully.

“I know a way to get out of the kitchen.” She kept her hand held out, not entirely certain what she was going to do.

“I’ll take it.” He slapped his hand into hers and squeezed. She squeezed back, and led him out of the heat.

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