Cleave demands attention more than he craves it, but the need is not entirely foreign to him.
He watches her from beneath hooded lids, his eyes nearly sleepy although anyone who was paying attention would be able to tell that the crimson, depthless gaze is anything but lethargic. Already, there is something that simmers beneath the surface; already, there is something that churns and bites and nips.
It is a small thing still though, much like him, and he is able to bring it to heel. Able to stay still and quiet and watchful as the sister of flame watches him. In his youth, there is a certain possessiveness that stirs in his belly—a need to own and collect and keep. It is draconic in nature, and watching her now, with her scales and colors of smoke and fire, he decides that she is his—in whichever way suits him.
“So you are homeless,” he says, blunt always, failing to find delicacy in the moment. He could beat around the bush, soften his words, but he doesn’t see the point of it. In some ways, he is homeless. Taiga is where his family lives (his sister and his brothers and his mother who is not) but it doesn’t pull at his heart, not truly. He yearns for something else. Something he cannot name. Something he has not seen.
Maybe she yearns for the same.
He tilts his head at her, studies her, his mane disappearing in a wave of flame up his youthful crest. There is something else that lives beneath her surface and the fire within him swells up his throat, almost as if it is reaching for its counterpart buried somewhere deep within her. It’s a confusing feeling, a pull of a magnet, a tug of gravity, and his eyes remain guarded, face impassive, the silence brutal.
“Tell me something you’ve never told anyone else,” he demands suddenly, reaching for some piece of her to stash away—some piece of her to hold, whether it be momento, treasure, or weapon.
@[Ember]