She doesn’t quite understand what’s happening, although there’s a part of her that desperately wants to.
She curls next to him, furrowing her brow and trying to put together puzzle pieces that were made for someone much older than herself—for someone who had significantly more mental capacity than she. There is a part of her that almost gives up, breaking it apart and throwing it on the floor, and another part of her that keeps at it, fingers working the knot, picking at it slowly, hoping that it will unwind before her.
She feels his warm breath across her back and it feels different than when she is curled up next to daddy, his smooth scales right against her own, but it also doesn’t feel wrong either—and in many ways, it feels the exact same. She can feel the same warmth, the same tenderness, the same protectiveness. It feels a little like the way it feels when daddy rests near her while she sleeps, enough to lull her into a sense of security, a young girl’s confidence that this armored stallion was just as good, just as loving as her dad.
I lose everything that matters to me.
She frowns at this, twisting up to look at him, her serpentine eyes thoughtful. Lost? She thinks for a minute before her face brightens with a smile, the expression causing her fanged mouth to widen. “I am really, really good at finding things!” she exclaims, although not too loud because he was so close. “I can help you find things. Whatever it is. I can even find my mama when she hides and she hides so good.”
A soft giggle.
“Although not that good. You can always see the red. But don’t tell her I told you that.”
The laughter leaves her eyes though when he tells her that they can’t be friends, a soft whoosh leaving her mouth. She wasn’t used to rejection. Had never experienced it before. She dims and looks down, brows wrinkling as she stares at the dirt. “Oh, okay,” she murmurs. “That’s okay. We don’t have to be friends.”
Something clicks in her brain though, a memory she isn’t even sure she remembers having and she looks back at him, reaching out to touch the bones arching painfully out of him. “You look like my mama kind of,” she says quietly. “Her wings sometimes look just like this when she’s sleeping. Isn’t that weird?”