It was the same game they had always played, since the very beginning. That when they were together, it was a distillation of forever. A whole lifetime of love and affection concentrated into the work of hours. She had come to expect nothing more of him.
The leaf-strewn path they followed was the same as the one they had come by, as familiar to her feet as the sands of her cove. She could have walked it blind if she'd needed to. There was no need to focus on where she put her feet, and that left her mind free to wander to the greater picture of where they stood.
The heat of him, always so much warmer than her own body ran, kept her keenly aware of his presence at her side. In these captured hours, she got what she wanted. She could be selfish, and pretend that this was simply them, and there were no dragons or other lovers hanging just out of sight. When his lips ran their path along the length of her, as delicately as raindrops rolling off her scales, she could tremble at the feelings that stirred within.
He was not the only locking away pieces of himself to survive. The difference was, that it wasn't another lover she pushed away to the back of her mind. It was the concept of tomorrow. The thought that anything existed beyond the moment they were currently living in. She could sigh and lean into his touch because she knew better than to wish it would last forever. It had taken years, but finally, she had gotten wise enough to take what she was given and to ask for no more.
When his body broke away from their steady progress forward, and halted to corral her against him, she blinked in surprise. The warm push of his breath against her lips defined how very near each other they stood, how very much space he took up when he wanted to. He would go back. He always did. A slow nod of her gleaming head, eyes locked upon the deepest greens of his own as she did.
"Always," and it was true. She would always want him. The shining stallion who had so very easily taken her heart, added to the collection he kept to himself. She didn't know if he would ever give it back, or if she even wanted him to. Was it not worth it, these small shining moments they shared? They lingered in her mind long after he left, bright stars in the heavens of her mind.
He was the fleeting constant of her days, and she bowed the fin crested curve of her neck to rest her forehead on his shoulder. "I have and will always want you, Pteron. Maybe I am weak, but it's the truth." Her voice was a quiet song against the plain of his muscles, a quiet admission of things he already knew.
@[Pteron]