Wardrobe

Villager: Opal

The young raptor staggered toward the sea. Her feet hurt. Her feathers were tattered and worn. Finally, her legs gave way and she collapsed on the sand.

The last thing Opal saw before her world tipped into unconsciousness was a dark shape slithering toward her.

She wasn't sure how long it had been when she came to, several days later.

"Oh, you're awake!" A snout was poked in her face, a pink tongue peeping in and out. "I was starting to get worried!"

Opal sat up fast. "Where...where am I?"

The ball python slithered backward a few feet, so she could look around. "You are in my house! My name's Baxter."

The home was small, with maps and scrolls scattered everywhere. Candles lit the space with a soft, flickering light. Through a skewed window, Emerald could see sand, and patches of seagrass.

"I must be on the beach. Right?" She looked at the python.

"Ah, not quite." He gave her an adorable grin. "You're under the sea, in Oceandome!"

Opal started. She'd heard of this place. It was said that only fish and sea animals could live here. But this python was clearly not an aquatic creature, and he seemed right at home down here.

"Where are you from?" Baxter pulled a scroll off a desk with his tail. "Dragonsmaw?"

"Actually, I'm from Tiger Eye Peak." Opal rubbed at the wound on her arm, surprised to see it covered with a bandage.

"Ah, I hear it's, uh..." he shuddered, "very cold there."

"It is." She felt dizzy suddenly, and lay back down. "Oooorgh, my head hurts."

"That happened to me my first time down here, too," Baxter touched her forehead with his tail tip. "You get used to it."

She grunted. "I'm not staying."

"O-oh." Baxter's face fell into a sad python frown. "O-okay."

She immediately felt terrible. "No, no, no sad faces. Stop the sad face," she demanded.

He looked up at her with the most woeful expression she'd ever seen. "Please don't go! Nobody talks to me down here...they're friendly enough, but none of them want to be my friend, and I'm so lonely..."

"Why don't you leave, then?" Opal suggested bluntly.

He shook his head. "I can't. My dad's last wish was for me to stay here. To carry on his legacy or something."

"Was he important or something?"

"He never liked me much, but he took good care of me when Mom left. He was one of the best cartographers Oceandome has ever seen. I...I just owe him." The python gave a little nod, as if solidifying that in his mind. "I owe him," he whispered again.

Opal felt a tremor of pity. She put a forepaw on his shoulder---or, where his shoulder would be, anyhow---and looked into his eyes. "I lost my parents, too. My father fell off a cliff in Tiger Eye, and my mother was killed in a skirmish with Dragonsmaw."

He looked back at her, the light returning to his eyes. "We orphans gotta stick together, right?"

She smiled and nodded. "Yes, we do."

Hey, it's me, the author. This is just how I imagine Opal and Baxter's meeting to go; Opal being her bluntly honest self, and Baxter being adorable and precious about the whole thing. From here, their friendship bloomed into a platonic friendship. They spend time together whenever they can, and the other villagers in Oceandome often tease them about their wanting to be together. They don't care. They're just happy to have found each other, another orphan to have in their lives.

Opal thinks Kalvin is a stuck-up brat who cares only about himself. She finds his commanding demeanor slightly alarming and annoying. She doesn't mind having him around, so long as he stays out of her greenhouse (she also doesn't like that he doesn't love plants).