The riverbed had been dry for months.
Ochaco’s sigils always called for rain, but none came; the fields of tall-grass turned yellow and they went rough across her fingers when she stroked the blades. She saw a raven panting, hopping through the forest, flicking his feathers and wishing for cooler days.
Ochaco needed moonwater. She needed moonwater and her brew would not be complete without it. Out into the garden she went, tying up every metal windchime and tinkly thing she owned, all the mobiles and the like. She hid her iron nail-rings in a drawer under a doily her mother had made her.
Faeries did not like tinkly things. Not made of iron, anyway. It burned them. She knew they could only stand gold.
She stood at the barrier between the field and the woods, on the marble platform, and watched the darkness there. Cicadas droned in the heat. She felt sweat down her back as she gripped her golden-sun wand, painted brilliant copper.
It hardly took a minute as she held the wand out as offering; “Gold,” she whispered into the woods. “Gold of great power.”
There, as light as the leaves rustling in the wind, was a Fae. Ochaco shallowed, her chest swelling at the sight of the creature, magenta skin glowing in the sun.
The faerie held out her hands, and pixie dust poured from them. It was acidic, and it burned the grass around it, melting into the dirt, seeping into the earth, indigo and sparkling like hundreds of sapphires ground to dust.
The river exploded to life.
[image description: a digital drawing of Uraraka Ochaco and Mina Ashido from My Hero Academia. Ashido’s skin is a substantially darker pink than in canon, a warm magenta. Her horns have been interpreted as curling, moth-like antennae. Moth wings sprout from her back, which are purple, with a mint fur lining them, spotted with pale yellow eyelets, reminiscent of her hero costume. She is dressed in a yellow-green crop top made from a leaf, with black shorts and thigh-high yellow-and-green striped socks. She’s got a golden headband, which is decorated with indigo spots that look like the cross section of an agate geode, or perhaps, eyespots on a moth’s wing. A chain drips down from the side of it, decorated with teardrop shaped indigo jewels and a single golden medallion. A similar chain wraps around her waist. Ashido is sitting on the left side of the image, her hands filled with sparkly indigo pixie dust that spills from her palms and piles on the ground like sand would. On the right of the image, Uraraka sits on her legs, a purple-and-navy witch hat atop her head. It is decorated with stars and comets, with a ringed planet dangling from the drooping point. She’s wearing a simple navy dress over a white, short-sleeved, collared top. An orange ribbon is tied around her neck, under the collar. Her legs are unshaven and she is grasping a copper wand with a wavy shaft and a sun at the end. She is kneeling on a marble platform, and a statue of a swan is behind her. The two of them are on a bed of dark grass, and a transparent river circles them, splashing into being. Behind Ashido, a forest stretches out into the distance, and behind Ochaco, an orange cloud billows. End image description.]