our breath is weak & our bodies thin [scorch]

[Hestoni]

press my nose up to the glass around your heart i should’ve known i was weaker from the start As suddenly as it came, it disappears. The Jungle’s magic seeps into his bones, giving him a thrilling sensation from within him, and then leaks back out – whispering words of ‘man’ and ‘impossible’ and ‘worthy but of the wrong gender.’ His brows furrow together, but he is caught in the storm that is Scorch and it forces the confused thoughts out of his mind. They separate harshly, the storm abruptly blowing away and leaving them both stranded to recover from the damage. But both of them are thinking about the Jungle’s magic and neither of them is too worried about never being together again to seek out the storm and call it back. They always make time for each other, in all its ways of being together. She admits the Jungle won’t let her (something he sensed while it was moving through his muscles and between his blood vessels and among his bones) and he nods. “I am a man in a women’s kingdom. She is right to not allow me something that is intended for the women.” His shoulders rise and fall in a massive shrug, hiding the disappointment behind his serious facial expressions. And then she is going on about Kaida and Noori (their dragon-bred twins, their first children, their magnificent accidents, their painful failures) and finding them and amending the shattered relationships. The titan’s mind grows loud and his body stills, puzzling over their two eldest children. The rest of their family is close, a tight bondage formed between the fires of love and Jungle-bred fierceness. “You’re right,” he whispers. Her coldness toward their two children is a confusing factor, when she is the one to formulate the idea. Curious fire and brown eyes turn toward the Jungle queen and he smiles in a lopsided way. “But you will have to let go of the cold in your heart in order to make things better with them, Scorch.”