Drakon’s mother taught him similar things, if not so gentle. She taught him the storms that he had swallowed and kept hidden in his belly. She taught him the fire that raced along his veins—the heat that was just barely trapped. She taught him the beginning and the end. The fury and the feast. She taught him how to sink his teeth into the meat of life and not let go until it had stopped thrashing.
She taught him hunger.
It’s that barely restrained hunger that urges him on today—away from his mother and his sister and his father. Away and to the Playground where children gather, gentle and kind and curious. He, too, is a child beneath it all, but his brand of childhood is not the same. There’s a maturity to the summer heat within him and he only barely restrains it, his body crackling and crumbling beneath the pressure of it.
And, immediately, he sees her. An oasis amongst the rest—a summer breeze to race along his summer storm—and he is both repelled and fascinated. Pupiless eyes watch her for a moment too long, the flames flaring along his childish back. He doesn’t understand the emotions that beat in his breast. The possessive need that blooms under his attention and so he doesn’t know fully how to control it. Just yield.
So he walks toward her, the air warming in his presence, the small flames flickering as they follow. When he is near enough, he thinks to open his mouth and say something, but the words leave him.
And he’s left standing there, glowering, exposed, and without a word to say in greeting.
