Karissa returned to her garden the next night. She left her thoughts and memories of work and the day past at the start of the path. Her night clothes followed shortly thereafter. She lay on her rock, sunning herself for a time until she drifted into true sleep. No one disturbed her. The next night she explored the sprawling gardens beyond her lake. There were elaborate orchid-like flowers with too many petals and too vibrant colours. Hyacinths with tiny white-and-red blossoms, and trees with elaborate bouquets.
"We heard you had come back!" the faeries told her in their lilting voices, tiny wings beating at the air to keep them at head height. They chattered to her, to themselves, and to the sky for a while, flitting about or nestling in her hair. They told her what the weather had been like, how the flowers had grown, what one tree had said to another. What one woodland creature had done. Where the best nectar could be found. Gossip and practical faerie things.
Who had the nicest wings.
Karissa smiled and listened to it all with half an ear, stroking fingers over buds and flowers, leaves and stems. Admiring the variety of colours and scents, sizes and heights. It wasn't a carefully sculpted garden by any means, but a celebration of the diversity of plant life in this strange and wonderful place. One could find a deep green shrub with violently violet rose-like flowers keeping company with spindly daffodil-types. Or a tree cozying up to a hedge. It was all rather peculiar.
She returned to her pool after bidding the faeries goodbye, and insisting she would stop by to see them again soon, but was left to her peace and quiet.
The third night she swam and splashed and marvelled again how clear the water in her pool was. She eased herself over to the waterfall and slipped behind it. The cave was still there, and she pulled herself out of the water and into it. Soft moss covered the entire floor in a thick matt of green. She wriggled her toes and smiled.
There was plenty enough light feeding through the waterfall to see by, but it was entirely private, the water acting as a screen. She smiled a little more fiendishly and padded further in. The cave was high, stretching right up to the base of the pools below, well above her head. It was wide enough that she could lie stretched out twice over and still not touch the sides of the cave. It was deep enough that the end was almost too dark to see.
There she lay, at the far end of the cave where there was a gentle slope she could rest back on. She closed her eyes and let her head fall back against the moss. One hand brushed against her breast, lightly grazing against her sensitive nipple, while her other slowly inched its way down her stomach. Her fingers brushed against her folds. Spread them and slipped inside. She gasped as she tweaked her nipple, fingers reaching further in to rub her innermost walls. Whimpered as she pulled her fingers back out to graze against her clit. Sighed as she dove her fingers in once more.
She didn't notice when the waterfall parted. Or when clawed feet hauled a body out of the water. She only noticed when a tongue darted out and joined her fingers. Karissa yelped with surprise and shot upright. Yelped again and scooted backwards when she noticed who the tongue belonged to. The dragon's nostrils flared and he smiled.
"I do apologise for taking you by surprise," he said, teeth clicking. "Only you looked so delectable the way you were." Karissa pressed a hand to her chest in a vain attempt to slow her frantically beating heart.
"That's alright, but maybe announce yourself next time. I didn't expect to see anyone, let alone a dragon," she said. She slid back down the wall of the cave until she was seated once more. A long-buried memory crept to the surface. "You're the one I used to call Ezekiel, right?" The dragon looked incredibly pleased.
