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.”