The few long moments between his question for Jah-Lilah and her response are gut-wrenching. Amet knows that he has asked more from the nomadic wytch than he ever has before ─ more, even, than his desperate plea all those years ago for her to care for the newly-motherless Takhar. Jah-Lilah is more soul than physical being; she cannot be contained or bridled, she cannot be asked to remain trapped in a cage no matter how ornate its gilded bars.

So when she had finally acquiesced, Amet knew that her agreement held more weight than she had let on. He had embraced her excitedly, had pressed his golden scales to her flame-red chest and squeezed her tight with his neck flung over hers. "I don't need you to grow roots, Jah, I would never clip your wings." And with that, they had journeyed from the quiet Beach and back to his first true love ─ the lake of Hyaline.

Days have passed since then and Amet has been content to roam the borders of his home with a full heart. Jah-Lilah's presence coupled with the familiar scenery of his long-loved home do wonders for the stallion who had spent the last few years full of strife and discontent. In fact, it slowly comes to remind him that he needs more excitement in his life ─ he has spent enough time reveling in all of the ways his life has been thriving over the last few weeks that he has not gone out and done anything to get his heart racing and his blood bumping.

Which means that it's about time to find Jah-Lilah again, partly to see how she is settling into the sanctuary and partly (mostly) to selfishly take all of her time for himself.

It doesn't take him long to find the soothsayer. He is drawn to her inexplicably. And luckily for him, her close vicinity to the lake today gives him the easy opportunity to increase the speed of his gait until his gilded akhal-teke frame is galloping across the clearing and bounding into the lake in front of the red wytch. His swift entry into the water splashes the liquid all around them, effectively coating the pair in the cool autumn lake.

With easy laughter, he spins his dragonhide body in a circle until he is grinning coyly at his closest friend. "You know what I was thinking, Jah?" He pauses for a brief second as a gruff nicker slips from his maw. "I think it's time we go for another vision walk."

─ don't get cut on my edges
@[Jah-Lilah]

Amet doesn't expect to catch the red soothsayer unaware, and he doesn't ─ but with her hooves planted firmly in mud and her bright eyes concentrating on the sand beneath the rippling lake, he's still able to successfully send a wave of cool water over her frame and soak her. He, of course, is not safe from the water either, but that's not the point.

Laughter falls loud and genuine from his ajar maw as he pivots to watch Jah's reaction, the water running in rivulets down his scaled face. He tosses his head skyward as he grants the red wytch with his first inquiry, removing a now-soaked forelock from his line of sight as he nickers gruffly at her. She snorts in response and he feigns an eye roll at the face she makes at him but beneath his playful exterior, Amet's heartbeat races with a mixture of uncertainty and excitement.

Unfortunately for the recently re-crowned King of Hyaline, the red wytch does not want to answer him right away. Instead, she motions for him to follow her and without hesitation, he does ─ though, admittedly, he lacks surprise at her response. Ever the mystery woman, she is, and it heightens his excitement. The dragon follows the flame, his ears pressed forward with intrigue and his chin tucked to his chest in a primal attempt to flex his rippling muscles. He watches Jah-Lilah as they move from the lake and towards the copse of cherry blossom trees that stand in the distance, though not just in an overtly sexual way.

He thinks of how they'd met, where they'd gone, how they'd each been there for each other through anything and everything. She had raised his eldest son as her own. She had been the Amet's support through his loss of Ciri, of Tangerine, of Eione... through his loss of Hyaline, and then through the ice age in Eternal.

Now, still, she is his support as he reclaims the throne in Hyaline.

And it's about damn time that she knows how he feels.

But she beats him to it, always one step ahead of him in her infinite wisdom and heat flushes simultaneously in his face and his groin at the way she purrs beneath the blossoming cherry blossoms. His nostrils instinctively flare at the scent of her and his own laughter echoes hers as she dances a playful tango away from him, but only briefly; the space between them does not remain for long as the red wytch raises her muzzle to his ear, pressed forward so hard that it nearly hurts, and whispers words that are just for him.

"I've never wanted anything more," he finally says when his heart starts to beat again, his words slow and thick and full of certainty. "But am I what you want?" He is almost hesitant to ask it ─ he wants her in her entirety, her body and her beautiful soul, but they both know that he is more grounded to Hyaline than any place he's ever been and she is tied down to no place. He could never ask her to stay, never keep her tied to one place, but he needed to know more than anything that he is what she wants.

─ don't get cut on my edges
@[Jah-Lilah]

Everything else falls away.

There is only Jah-Lilah and the love he feels for her. Her presence is intoxicating, overwhelming, all-encompassing. He follows behind her, a moth to flame, as she beckons him closer and closer to the den she had begun to build for herself within Hyaline. The over-the-shoulder glances the soothsayer gifts to him draw deep chuckles from the gilded stallion as he is coaxed further and further into her honeytrap, settling not soon after beneath the heavy boughs of the cherry blossoms.

The stallion reaches his copper and gold head out to the red woman, pressing his soft muzzle to her cheek with a gentle sigh as his concerns are finally vocalized and out in the open. Amet had always wanted someone to love fully and unconditionally, someone who could return the same feelings for him with no doubts or fettered emotions ─ and he knows that Jah-Lilah can be that someone. But he could never forgive himself if she felt caged by his own roots, the ones that keep him tied to Hyaline by choice of his heart more than any necessity or obligation that may exist.

And he knows she understands ─ she always does. She knows his heart and his soul better than even he does. But he still needs to know, needs to hear that he is not keeping her here with him despite a tiny voice in her head that wishes to run or remain really, truly free.

He needs to know that she will not resent him in the future, when his heart is tied to both her and Hyaline. He would follow her to the ends of the earth, but his spirit is not as free and full of wanderlust as the red wytch's; he wouldn't feel whole without the sanctuary, just as he wouldn't feel whole without her.

How difficult it will be to love a spirit so free and wild.

How ready he is for the challenge.

Her warm words, smooth like silk, float to his pricked ears and console the worries that had brought him strife. Incredulous, he raises an eyebrow at the red wytch and whuffs warmly against her neck at her confession. Aya's magic had opened his eyes to his true feelings for Jah-Lilah, ones that had been hidden beneath things that no longer matter ─ he had never considered that she had felt this way for him all along.

"I remember," he says gruffly as her blunted teeth work their way down his gilded neck and to his withers. He shivers. "So beautiful, so free, so wild..." his words are whispered and private, only for her, as he peers over his shoulder at her with molten amber eyes. "I will never tether you, Jah. I could never. Do you believe me?"

His heart aches with its love for her and suddenly the dam breaks, no longer able to withstand the strength of it. He pivots beneath the tree boughs to face her and nips gently, playfully, at her muscled neck as he moves his gilded body closer, nostrils flaring instinctively at the red wytch's primal scent. "Let me show you."

─ don't get cut on my edges
@[Jah-Lilah] ♥

Their path has been woven together for so long that it's nearly impossible for the king of Hyaline to think of a time before Jah-Lilah. He was a different creature before her, without dragon scales and nihilism. Without confidence and experience. Amet has transformed into an entirely new being under the woman's watchful emerald eye; he had grown into himself and into the ideas he had wished to feed into the world. He had learned love and heartache. He had learned despair and elation. And with each rise and fall of the tumultuous sea, Jah-Lilah had always been there.

But this experience, tucked away together in the red wytch's grotto, is not sullied by the years they have already spent together. Instead, it's enhanced by them. The soothsayer's microexpressions are familiar to Amet, easy to read and enticing. The small grin that turns the corners of her lips is full of guile and sensuality; he knows she's playing a game by hiding away the immensity of her feelings, and it's a game that he is happy to partake in. It pushes his excitement closer to the edge and generates a buzz across his bright dragonhide with each gentle touch or exhale that graces his skin.

And when she quells his worries without hesitation or pause, his own elation erupts into something more primal now that it does not have his uncertainties to hold it back. They melt into each other, molten gold and lava, as they begin nipping and teasing and marking. The gold dust woman's blunted teeth roam over his flank and to his unprotected underbelly, roiling heat in his loins and a greedy desire in his heart. Amet reacts instinctively, his own teeth tugging at the pieces of her that he can reach as he strides forward on lean legs ─ slowly, painfully ─ to reach further and further until the wispy strands of her tousled tail, flung over her croup, brush against his own maw.

"I love you, too, Jah," he tells her swiftly and with no preamble, with no hesitation in his gruff voice or in his own affirmation of truth. He had known it all along ─ it was about time that he say it aloud. And to hear her, his red wytch, speak the words brings him heightened joy that reflects in the fervency of his touch and the heat of his breath.

When he rounds her hindquarters and rises to cover her, he does so with an unbridled primal need. There is no reason for him to be gentle with the wild woman ─ he knows she will give just as she receives, with an unconditional wildness that he has only ever seen from her.

Amet, awash with moonlight and sweat, flags his long tousled tail and settles his weight upon her back as the tidal wave of their pleasure rises together and finally crashes. With her scent mixed together with his, he finally feels sated and contented, knowing full well that they are both finally in the right place.

─ don't get cut on my edges
@[Jah-Lilah] ♥