all the beautiful conditions of a man up in flame; shiya

[magnus]

desire consumes me like a fire consumes me

It seems like another lifetime ago when he first met Shiya.

He had been living in the Gates, and she had been visiting, trying to find a home. What had followed had been easy conversation as she had asked of his past and he had shared his story with her—at least pieces of it. He had not known that she was a mole, brought forth with a magician’s help. He had never known. So her memories of her are fond and when he sees her in the meadow, the sunlight glinting off her scales, his gold-flecked eyes warm with recognition. “Shiya,” her name comes easily to him, as he walks up to her, his handsome face washed clean and open. “It has been so long since that day in the Gates.”

So much time has passed.

So much has happened.

He remembers her last words to him (Please don’t forget me.) and if it brings a pang to his heart, an ache that had spread in him even then, it doesn’t show. Instead he reaches over, closing the distance between them with ease. “I have not forgotten you,” his whiskey voice is low and something stirs in the back of his mind as puzzle pieces click into place. She bears such a striking resemblance to Vulgaris, to his great niece who he had recently picked up from Tephra’s shores, but Magnus doesn’t comment on it.

It is not uncommon for family members to spread across Beqanna.

Instead he looks for her serpentine eyes, studying them quietly for a moment. “How have you been?” He remembers her fears, her struggle with memory, but he doesn't mention such things now. Instead, he just gives her a small smile, the wind pushing the tangled mess of his forelock across his forehead to hang on the opposite side of his heavy-jawed head, and he remains silent, content to be in her presence.

good shouldn’t need to tempt us above

@[Shiya]