i'm never gonna feel that fire again [KINDLING]

[Oxytocin]

" I'd Rather Die Young , "

He was ashamed once. Ashamed of his failure as a king, ashamed that his lover had abandoned him as such, ashamed that he was alone and growing older by the day while still retaining a youthful appearance. The haggard once-king is anything but youthful. He feels his years as though they are shackles across his ankles, binding him to this forsaken place for an eternity or perhaps longer. He is no longer ashamed of his past--he has no reason to be ashamed anymore--but he feels it like a knife in his gut. He is not proud of his history but he bears his name and his title with no shame.

Everyday he loses a little more hope that he will ever see his beloved again. Does she even care anymore, or does she just think of him as gone, as he does of her? He, for one, will never forget the only love that will ever matter to him; her eyes, all fire and brimstone, still swim before him in his dreams. He misses the way she would press herself up against him and the way she felt when they joined to make their princess and he longs for her lips pressed to his neck, whispering words of love and devotion into his ear for only him to hear. Those days seem so long ago. She might not even remember them with the same fondness that he does.

She probably despises him.

He cannot blame her, of course. They were always running away from one another, only to crash back together like the joining of the tide with the beach. Whether it were moonhigh or the point of noon, they always found themselves crashing into one another, inexplicably drawn back together after seemingly forever apart. That was the sort of love they found and it is the sort of love they kept, and he cannot help but wonder if this is one of those times apart. Sure, they have never been apart so long as this before, but every great romance must have lulls. It is only natural.

Isn't it?

He finds her almost unexpectedly, and her steel gray coat has lightened so much over the years that at first, he almost does not recognize the fiery woman he had called his Queen for so short a time. His Queen, no one else's--that had been after she had given up her throne and given herself to him. They had given themselves to each other; nothing else had mattered. Bugger the Valley if they had one another. It had been enough for him, anyway. "Kindling," he rasps, voice rough from disuse (but isn't it always rough, hasn't it always sounded fire-branded, like their love?). "Where have you been, all of these years?" Who have you been with, if not me?

oxytocin

[Oxytocin]

@[Jet]

[Kindling]

She pities him. She pities him in a way that makes her angry for being so selfish. She is, after all, a master of narcissism. He has loved her, will always love her, and her heart is forever a wandering mess of loneliness.

You can only love someone as much as you love yourself.

Our dragon hates herself.

Kindling is beautiful, elegant as always. Her grey pelt has faded with age to a simpler shade, pale grey with dark marking along her muzzle, and legs. She still has deep brown eyes, young with fire and excitement. Her aura still buzzes “greatness” as she continues to blossom herself to a goal she cannot quite explain.

Her children must think she is the mother who just won’t die.

And then she smells him. A thick, masculine aroma that wafts into her nose like poison. Her stomach flips (not because of the recent impregnation, though that does play a firm roll), and her tail swishes lightly against her flank.

He will have no clue of her decision as of late. He will not be able to smell the musky scent of that strange stallion, he will not be able to notice any markings from rough “play” for that stallion was far more gentle than she wanted. He will have no idea that a seed had been watered and planted in the heat of the moment. He will just see her, as her.

He will see Kindling, and Kindling will pretend to be the Kindling he once knew.

What has happened to our darling grey mare? The fire breather, the independent bold one. What has happened that has made her so heartless?

The loss of children?

The rape?

The unfortunate death of her ex, Osric?

Perhaps the random disappearance of her… ex… lover… what is he even.

So she follows his scent, a trail she knows far too well to the man who meanders to her reach. And that feeling, that gut wrenching I am so sorry for being a complete whore feeling reaches into her stomach and churns her insides. She is not who he wants, not who he met.

She is so much worse than that.

“Oxytocin,” her voice is still so sultry, so full of feminism and father issues that it clings to the air like molasses on skin, “I missed you so much.”

Did she though?