CASIMIRA

dragon-shifting daughter of ashhal and ryatah

Things kept changing quickly, in ways that caused the tension in her chest to continuously grow tighter.

She had often kept to herself in Hyaline, with the exception of occasionally visiting with her mother. The behavior of Mazikeen and Gale had left her uneasy, and though she would not claim to know Maze well she thought she knew her well enough to understand that the way she was behaving was not within her character. It’s why she had been relieved when Gale had left, though the relief was short-lived after realizing he had moved to Tephra.

Tephra, her first home, and where the other half of her family lived.

To know that Savior had to stay there, that he was tied to this land by an intangible tether that nothing could break, was enough to twist that knot of tension even tighter. She had gone there, of course, to ensure that he was truly alright—Gale seemed to grow increasingly more chaotic, and she did not know what his plans for Tephra were.

Though his reign had been brief, that did little to soothe the unrest in Casimira’s chest. The murder of her mother had caused a ripple of shock to spread through her family, and while she had her suspicions—a few of them, truthfully, because her mother had a tendency to linger too close to the dark—none of them were confirmed.

She leaves for Tephra, thinking that perhaps if she left behind the turmoil that was Hyaline she stood a chance at clearing her mind.
That maybe if she could simply curl into Savior’s side she would not have to feel all of the things she feels right now.

When she finds him she is momentarily struck, as always, at how stunning he is; the way the sun glints off his fire opal skin, glancing off the hard angles of his body, and she is again left in disbelief that he is hers. Once she is at his side she presses into him with hesitation, her pale muzzle finding his mane and the familiar scent that clings to him, and she breathes a tremulous sigh. “I missed you,” she tells him softly, and for now, she says nothing else.

CASIMIRA

dragon-shifting daughter of ashhal and ryatah

She had not always believed in destiny or even soulmates, but she thinks there had to be something larger at work to bring her and Savior together when she had needed him most.

He had come at the perfect moment, that fine line that existed between the moment that she had realized Badden was gone and that she could not keep trying to love someone that was not there, and the other side of the grief where she would have surely hardened and convinced herself that love was not real. Savior, true to his namesake, had found her before that armor ever had a chance to fully form, before her heart became a fortress that she isn’t sure she could have ever let him inside.

He found her before she became so lost that she would have never let herself be found.

But there are parts of that old wall that will never disappear, crumbled and eroded though it may be. It has a way of trying to rebuild every time she is met with sorrow or pain, and she does not even realize that he can read her so well that he sees the shadows that such emotions cast across her face. It would be a relief to know that he could; to know that he sees all these things she does not know how to put into words.

“I missed you, too,” she breathes against his neck, gently pressing a kiss to the warm skin there, and when his familiar green eyes catch her pale blue own she cannot help but to mirror it, small though it may be.

His presence is enough to ease that knot in her chest, enough so that she might actually breathe around it. Enough so that when he comments on how she seems troubled she does not immediately shy from being caught in her emotions, and instead only answers him. “Someone killed my mother,” the words don’t feel real on her tongue, and she speaks them with a strange kind of detachment, as if she is afraid of actually tasting them. But when she looks up to Savior the pain and confusion is clearly on her face, bright and sharp in her ice blue eyes, and she says softly to him, “I don’t want to live in Hyaline anymore.”

CASIMIRA

dragon-shifting daughter of ashhal and ryatah

She is surprised at first when he pulls away, when the warmth of him against her suddenly disappears, and his absence makes even the humid Tephra air feel cold.

When he faces her he almost looks like someone else, the anger that hardens his beautiful something that she has never seen him wear before. It should not surprise her, knowing that she herself harbors a feral fury that tried to unleash itself any time she shifted, but seeing that such a thing can also live inside of her sweet Savior further cements that idea that he was a fire always meant for her.

He asks the question that she does not know the answer to, the one she had known was coming, and she shakes her head. “I don’t know,” she begins, her brow twisting in confusion and thought. “I have my suspicions. Carnage seems the most obvious, except it doesn’t seem likely that he would leave her dead— not like that,” because while she did not understand the relationship her mother shared with the dark god she knew it was something far more complicated than any outsider could fathom, and to leave her dead and heartless did not seem to fit. “Some also think it was Gale,” she offers hesitantly, her pale eyes glancing around as if she expects him to still be here. “I don’t know,” she repeats again, shaking her head. “But Hyaline feels alien to me now.”

When he asks her to live with him her eyes turn to him, finding his own searching her face. A hesitant smile lifts at the corner of her lips, and she closes the space that he had created between them, unwilling to let it exist any longer. “I wanted to ask you if I could,” she says as her lips brush his cheek. “Tephra is where I was born, and you are more of a home to me than any place has ever been or will be.”

CASIMIRA

dragon-shifting daughter of ashhal and ryatah

She can see as he weighs her words, as each cruel magician she names settles into place. She can almost see too the way his mind is trying to work out a solution, a way that he could take them on, and she feels a bubble of panic rise into her throat. “I don’t want you to do anything, Savior,” she tells him, quiet yet almost pleading as she reaches for him again. “I don’t want anything to happen to you,” she continues, searching his face, the worry pressed so cleanly onto her face. “If you see either one of them promise me that you won’t do anything, please?”

A tremulous sigh passes between her lips, and she lowers her head so that she can rest herself beneath his neck, relaxing beneath the feel of him against her. “If anything happened to you I wouldn’t survive,” she confesses to him, though it does not feel like a confession, but more like a confirmation of what she has known all along. She has had to watch Atrox survive without her mother, and while he wears his grief disguised as anger she recognizes it all the same, and it is a pain she hopes she never has to bear.

“I know,” she tells him softly when he reminds her she did not have to ask to live here. “I just feel…..strange, after having been away for so long.” She had told him once how Tephra had not felt like home when she was younger, despite the fact that she had died for it during the Loess-Tephra war. She had told him too how Hyaline did not exactly feel like home, either, and it was only recently that she had realized why this was — why no place ever felt like home.

If only she had learned to not be afraid of her love for him she could have been home all along.

She settles against his chest again, the weight on her shoulders feeling lighter now that he at least knew all that was troubling her. “Gale is gone from here, right?” she asks him, her lips tracing circles along his shoulder idly.

CASIMIRA

dragon-shifting daughter of ashhal and ryatah

She allows herself to feel relief when he promises her, though she can sense that it is a reluctant agreement, and she is not entirely sure if she believes him. She cannot fault him for his anger; she is always so secretive about her troubles that it does not surprise her that he feels her pain as if it is her own whenever she decides to share it with him. It was one of the many reasons that she found him so easy to be with; he never tried to pry anything from her, instead waiting for her to offer it to him. And when she did he took it, willingly, and made it his own. But this was one thing that she could not allow him to shoulder; she could not allow him to seek revenge against the nameless face that had already murdered her mother, not at the risk that they would take him too.

“Thank you,” comes her murmured reply, her slender neck curving so that she could press her lips against his jaw. It is only then that she truly settles, though they do not fall into their usual pattern of quiet as she had thought they might. She can hear the determination in his voice when he speaks, and when he pulls her in tighter she does not resist, letting herself be held against his chest. “The throne?” She repeats, turning the idea over carefully in her head, before surprising herself by saying, “I want to lead beside you.”

It made sense, of course.
They were both so intricately linked to Tephra—he being born here with a magic tied to it, and she having laid down her life for it.

But it is not so much the throne that interests her.
It is the newfound need to be tied to him, and a shared crown felt like the anchor she was searching for, as if her heart belonging to him was not enough. She is always in search of something more tangible, something that she can grasp, and this felt more real. “I don’t want to be apart from you again,” she continues, her breath catching in her chest. “Wherever you go, and anything that you do, I will be there with you.”