Geology, task 8: Write about a snake or other serpent

Word Count: 707


"What a funny little snake."

Isolt looks up, head tilting to the side. It's hardly the first time she's ever heard that soft, hissing language, so she isn't startled. She simply wants to find the speaker.

"Hello?" she calls back, narrowing her dark eyes as she looks over the grass. "I can't see you."

The words come so naturally. She still remembers the first time she had ever heard her mother speak the snake language. Isolt had assumed it would be difficult to master. Instead, it's as easy as the English she's been taught, and far easier than the Gaelic her father insists that she must learn before she starts Hogwarts.

"Where are your scales?" the unseen snake asks, amusement clear in its tone. "And why have you got all those funny limbs? Snakes aren't supposed to have limbs."

Isolt folds her arms over her chest, shifting her gaze upward, trying to track the sound. "I'm not a snake," she says. "I'm a little girl."

She barely notices the movement overhead. An instant later, a green snake drops from above, its tail wrapped tightly around the branch and holding it in place. "Little?" it echoes, twisting its body around and lifting its head so that it is face-to-face with Isolt. "Have you seen yourself, girl? You're practically a giant!"

Isolt considers this for a moment. "I've never seen a giant before," she muses, taking her fingers through her mess of dark hair. "I'm almost certain that they are much bigger than I am."

"Well, how would you know?" the snake asks, flicking its tongue out. "Perhaps you are a giant."

"Perhaps." Isolt shrugs and makes her way to the trunk of the tree. She sits down, digging her bare feet in the dirt, sighing. "I don't think I am, though. Father says the giants live in colonies somewhere in the mountains. Do you see any mountains?"

The snake shifts its long, flexible body this way and that. "I suppose not," it concedes.

Isolt watches as the snake eases toward the ground, slowly unwrapping its tail. It drops to the grass with a soft thump before slithering closer. It keeps a safe distance, like maybe it doesn't really believe that Isolt isn't really a giant.

"Most humans run when they see me," the snake tells her. "If you are a human, you are, indeed, truly a strange one."

Isolt frowns at that. Snakes are grossly misunderstood creatures. Her mother says it's because of a Muggle story about a serpent in a garden who tells a woman to eat an apple. Isolt thinks that's a silly reason to call snakes evil. Apples are delicious!

"Why should I be afraid of a snake?" Isolt muses, plucking a blade of grass from the ground. "You have done nothing to harm me. Even the venomous ones don't strike for fun, only to the protest themselves. Do you have a name?"

"A name? What a human thing to ask!"

"So you admit that I am human?" Isolt asks, grinning broadly at her victory.

If snakes could scowl, she thinks this one might. "I do not have a name," it says.

"May I give you one?"

It seems strange to ask someone if she can name them. Still, Isolt doesn't want to be rude. Maybe the snake is perfectly happy to be nameless.

The snake wraps around itself, forming a green coil that blends in well with surrounding grass. If not for black eyes peering out at her, Isolt might have lost it.

"If you'd like," the snake answers.

"Are you a boy or girl?"

It makes an amused sound, and Isolt wonders if snakes can laugh. "I am a snake."

"Clearly." Isolt purses her lips. "May I simply call you Friend?"

The snake's head lifts, poking out between the blades of grass. "I like Friend," Friend decides.

"Then it's settled. I am Isolt, and you are Friend."

Isolt leans back, resting against the trunk of the tree with her eyes closed. She hears a soft rustle in the grass. A moment later, cool, scaly skin brushes over her exposed ankle.

"I am Friend," Friend says, resting its head on her foot.