FSE

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Broken Secrets

Chapter Fourteen

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Written by Arian Mabe (Amethyst Mare)

Commissioned by Fyrdrgon

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The world was silent around them. Yet the echo of the slammed front door resounded in their hearts.

Sasha and Car froze where they had been trying to placate Fyr...though what in the world could they have said? They knew what they'd been doing was wrong, so wrong. There was nothing in the world that could have made that right again.

Standing, Car slumped forward, his head in his paws, lacing his fingers at the back of his back. He hadn't even been able to close the distance between them, his shoulders aching where her claws had dug into him, where she had bashed him about. It was not as if he hadn't deserved it. He would have rather had that than the aching, turning, curdling pain in the pit of his stomach, his cock finally soft. Fat lot of good that was going to do him then, not after all that.

"God fucking damn it."

As if that could change things. As if that could make things right again. He'd followed his lusts, taken care of his "needs" - and for what? To feel good? To end up hurting Fyr?

"I..."

Sasha dropped back, not realising that her paw had been lifted, extended in the direction of the open living room door, through which Fyr had escaped to the hallway.

The front door, she thought dimly. She had to close the front door. That meant that she had to put her clothes on.

That was the only way she was going to get through everything: one step at a time. One act at a time. One action at a time.

Panties back into place.

Her T-shirt pulled down.

Enough to close the front door.

Carenath fumbled for his clothes, blinking away moisture from his eyes that he refused to acknowledge, heaving, panting, no longer from a sexual means. All that was gone, out the window, the only thought in his head that he had to follow Fyr, that he had to catch up with her. Yet his clothes were scattered and he snarled and slammed his paws into the back of the sofa in an act of frustration that he was not due, fighting to remain in control.

Why hadn't he said anything? He could have done something, said something, stopped her from going. There wasn't any explanation that he could have given Fyr, not when he didn't even know what was going on with him anyway, but he could have at least fucking tried.

But what had he done? Fuck all, fucking nothing, nada, zip, thank you very much, sir, and goodbye!

"Car - what are you doing?"

Sasha paused in the doorway, coming back from closing the door, locking it again, though...well...she knew then that she had been the one that had forgotten to lock it. That was how Fyr had gotten in when they'd thought that they were alone, that they were going to get away with it. In hindsight, it was all too easy to see how they had been fools.

"Going the fuck after her, of course!"

He was relentless, not even getting his socks on, only shoes, staggering out the door while Sasha tried to find something. She'd have to follow him in her own car, even if the carnage there would have to be cleaned up before Carenath's parents returned. Sasha didn't know why that thought popped into her head, the dim awareness that there was something else to be taken care of so that they didn't get found out.

But the shit had hit the fan already, so what did she fucking care about any of that?

She chased after Car, hoping that he was driving safely even when he wasn't, his car swerving back and forth in front of her, though never crossing the white line in the middle of the road. She was grateful for that, not wanting to see any harm come to anyone, but the state in which Fyr had been when she had left the house...

Was...Fyr safe?

"Shit."

She swallowed hard, striving to quell the racing of her heart, other traffic on the road a mere inconvenience to her as she overtook a lorry, keeping up with Car, breaking the speed limits - but who cared about the rules? She'd already broken the cardinal one, the one that mattered more than anything else, and there she was not even able to keep her own daughter safe.

The white of the streetlights flashed across her muzzle, yet she would rather have remained shrouded in darkness. It wasn't for her. Not after what had happened.

She had to make sure her daughter was safe. Yes, that, she had to do that.

Her phone... Her phone...

She dragged it out of her pocket, balancing it on the dashboard, dialling Fyr's number. Of course, it only rang. And rang. And rang.

Of course, Fyr wasn't going to fucking answer. Sasha wouldn't have answered if it had been her mother who'd fucked her boyfriend...

Back to the apartment, the one that Fyr had only moved into recently with Car. Oh, how foolish an errand that seemed now that Car leapt out of the vehicle, cursing, stumbling, one of his shoelaces untied.

At least Fyr's car was there, Sasha hot on his heels as she screeched into the small car park behind him, slinging the car in against a hedge at an angle. As far as parking went, that would have to do.

"Where is she?"

Sasha all but shrieked as she leapt from the car, no more and no less than a mother in the dark of the night, fearful for her daughter's life. The quiet of the night seemed to turn all heads, even if there was no one there, towards them, her voice and sobs slicing through the air.

Car shook his head.

"Car's here. Looks fine."

He had to see Fyr, had to explain to her, had to tell her how sorry he was, how much he loved her. that was all he needed to do, everything he had to do, bringing to a close something between them that should never have come to pass. He didn't want to be forgiven, no, but he wanted the chance to make it up to her, to show her, in some way, every day for the rest of his life, that it was her, it was always her, that he loved her more than life itself.

The thing was, the drake knew too that it was never going to be his choice. Not even as he let himself into the apartment, fumbling to get his key into the lock, his paw shaking, breath catching, hitching in his chest.

No. No crying. That wasn't for him. No. Not after all that he had done to Fyr.

"Fyr? Fyr are you here? Please say something!"

She was there, of course, but that didn't mean that she wanted to talk to him. Her phone buzzed away, shoved into her pocket, the dragoness clenching her jaw as she locked her teeth together.

She packed. Only what she needed, the large holdall type bag on the bed. She was tempted to take the sheets too, but she didn't want to waste the time ripping them off the bed, not when they had followed her. She'd hoped they wouldn't, they were just going to make it more difficult for her. And didn't they see that they had already made things more than difficult enough for her? Had tearing her life and her love down to the ground not been fucking enough for them?

No. She blinked tears from her eyes, claws biting into the palms of her paws as she snatched and grabbed, intent on filling her bag. Clothes. Electronics. Everything that was hers. Fuck everything else. She had to get out, away from there, away from him. Nothing else was as important as that.

Fuck the bastard. Just because he was there, that he had come after her... That didn't mean shit. Nothing to her, nothing at all. He didn't have to be anything to her, not after all that he had done, everything that he had broken in her heart. She would spend years picking up the fragments of it, her trust broken, her life... Well, to say that everything she had hoped for was in shreds was an understatement.

Stupid, so fucking stupid. Hadn't she thought, earlier, that there were some things going on, something that she wasn't quite paying attention to? She'd thought that he was spending too much time around her mother - and wasn't it simply laughable that she had concluded, in the end, that he was trying to do no more than to be a good boyfriend to her and her mother? Well, the second was true in a way, but that kind of closeness was not what Fyr had anticipated in her mind, let alone her heart!

She wished she'd seen the signs earlier, everything coming together in the lesser glory of hindsight. There was no pleasure in telling herself "I told you so" when her suspicions, the dark seeds of jealousy that she had thrust down as deeply as she had been able to, had been proven right, all in the end.

She didn't want to be right. She wanted to be wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

She growled deep in the back of her throat as she snatched up one of her favourite ornaments, the little porcelain horse that she kept on her bedside table beside the lamp and nothing else. She made sure that she had her electronic chargers, the handheld gaming device where she played with Kao, even though she had moved out. He still liked to game with her in the evening and, ridiculously, she had been spending more time with him lately since Car had been so busy.

Guess there was no wondering what he had been busy with after all that bullshit then...

The door slammed open, a body bundling into the bedroom, a flurry of bronze scales and apologies that meant nothing to her. Her gaze hardened. Fuck him.

Damn. He'd found her. There wasn't language strong enough for him, but if she had voiced the words running around her head aloud, they would have begun with a "C" and ended with a "T". She had others to spill if she was ready to.

He grabbed her by the shoulders in the bedroom, though did not shake her. Fyr refused to look at him.

"Fyr, please talk to me, please say something."

Maybe she would have fallen for it, his pleading, the shine in his eyes, if he had not cheated on her with her mother. Maybe she would have wondered if she had done something wrong, if it had been because of her, if maybe she had not put out enough or been adventurous enough. Yet how the fuck could any of that be true when it was her own mother that he had cheated on her with? There wasn't much coming back from that.

"I didn't mean it, Fyr... I mean, I did it, I'm so, so sorry, I need you to hear that. I really am sorry, I fucked up, I should never have done this, I -"

"Fuck off."

The chill in her words appeared to draw him up short and the fury in her chest surged. Yes, let him be taken aback. He fucking deserved it.

If she never had to see Carenath's stupid muzzle ever again she would be a much happier dragoness for it.

"Fyr..."

He stepped back, spreading his paws, though his mind raced, grabbing at words and things that he could say, only to toss them all away a moment later. But he had to say something!"

"Fyr?"

Sasha joined him, entering with a soft knock, the time for privacy, however, long past. Respect, maybe, could be regained, if only they took care with it.

She watched her daughter as if from a great distance, her heart aching for her. It ached even more, knowing that she was the cause of it, that she was still causing her daughter great pain. There was not much in the whole world that could make up for being cheated on and she had done it, again and again, not thinking of Fyr. Yet there had been something between her and Carenath, she had been so sure of it...

It wasn't the time for that.

"Fyr, please listen to us," Sasha cut in, her paws shaking, glad that Fyr was safe but not ready to face the music just yet. "Please... I'm... We're so sorry. We never meant to hurt you. We didn't think..."

"Oh, so now you're a fucking we, are you?"

Fyr lashed out, Sasha recoiling as if she had been struck across the face. But her daughter did not follow up, turning back to her furious packing, shoving a T-shirt that Sasha had bought her a few years ago to the floor. The horrible thought crossed Sasha's mind that Fyr wouldn't need anything she'd given her anymore.

She wouldn't have wanted any reminders.

"No... No, we're nothing, a stupid mistake, I never wanted to hurt you, Fyr, sweetheart... Honey, please listen to me. Don't do this. Please, sit down, spend the night in your own bed. We can talk about this, we can all make it right again. There's so much to talk about..."

"Fuck. Off."

Fyr twisted away from her mother as she grabbed her arm, only to be faced with Carenath once again, the face that she had once adored now holding too many bad memories for her to come to terms with.

Car reeled, paws splayed, but what did he think he was going to be able to say, going to be able to do? He'd already done enough, but he had to try, had to do something, had to do anything.

"Fyr, I am sorry... I don't want to hurt you, that was never my intention. Things got out of hand, I should have thought them through more. Please, just sit, talk, I'll make you something to drink -"

"I don't want goddamn anything from you anymore!"

She wheeled on him, seeing red. There, that was it: her bags were packed, at least for the extent that she would need for the immediate future. And if the idiots were going to stand there trying to convince her that they were "so, so sorry" - like hell they were, sorry they got caught was more like it - she didn't have to sit around listening to it.

She was leaving. And Fyr was never coming back.

"Please, Fyr, it doesn't have to be like this, I can explain, I can do something!"

Car blocked her way, an arm flung out, though Fyr was not about to let him cut her off. He'd already done enough, her bag slung over her shoulder, another in her free paw, clenching her jaw.

"Move!"

"No!"

"Guys, I think if we all just calm down now, things..."

Fyr snarled, showing her teeth, her mother grasping her arm at just the wrong moment. She didn't think about what she was doing, acting in the heat of the moment, though it was not out of passion, not as she had considered such flaring, overemotional moments to be in the past. Yet she knew better than anyone else, as the victim of it all, that one moment could spiral and twist into something darker and deeper still, leaving those that had never consented to it behind.

Yet her mother was there, claws digging into her arm, and Fyr did not think as she struck, her fingers curled to use her claws.

"Let go of me!"

Sasha yelped, jumping back, a broken line of red across her muzzle, though she was fortunate that Fyr had only caught her with one claw. A strike like that so close to her eyes could be far more dangerous, yet her eyes were on Fyr and Fyr alone, even as her daughter shoved her way by, sending her stumbling back into the doorframe.

Car caught Sasha, steadying her even as he followed, yet Fyr was halfway down the hallway, heading back to the main apartment door, what would let her out into the main part of the building, never to be seen again. Despite everything he'd done, his heart pulled, blood roaring in his ears, the dull thump of his heart louder than ever.

Da-dum, da-dum, da-dum.

It wasn't sexy when it was that loud. It was not sexy like it could have been if it was throbbing that hard and fast during sex, a moaning dragoness under him, begging for his dick. It was not sexy like the trading of lustful kisses, of holding his lover tight, of never wanting to let it go.

With her back to him, memories flitted before his eyes, as if the moment was stretching out far beyond what the seconds could encompass. He saw the first time he'd met Fyr all over again, how she had laughed, how she'd smiled, when she'd tumbled into his arms like a crimson goddess from the heavens above. He'd been smitten with her from the first day - and for good reason too. Anyone with an ounce of good sense in them would be able to tell that Fyr was a catch, a sweet, kind, loving dragoness with a quest for adventure and a steely grit of determination that had her ploughing resolutely down her own path in life. Where there was not a set route for her to take, she forged her own way, determined to make her life her own.

He remembered the feel of her the first time they had mated, his shaft hard and ready, how she had arched up against him. The thought of the sweet tartness of her juices on his lips and tongue lingered, making him want to touch his lips all over again just to recall that memory, her cherry sweetness almost overwhelming at times. But above all else what he longed to hold close was the feel of her entwined with him in bed.

Softly sleeping, her limbs around him, locked together, tails twisted around each other. They were one and the same, parts of a whole being, knowing where they belonged, all that they were there to do. And that was to sleep, to be safe and warm and protected in one another's arms, no one there in the memory to disturb them. The night calmly shrouded them, the moon shining in through the bedroom window, a crack in the curtains, the stars watching on in his memory.

There, he was safe. There, he was calm. There, he had her.

And now all that had changed with his sweetheart's back to him, the light of his life that he had gone and snuffed out. He didn't think that talking would have changed anything, yet with his heart threatening to rend itself in two, he wanted to talk, he wanted to try. He wanted to do anything possible to take back and make right every last one of the wrongs that he'd done.

"Fyr... Please... Please talk to me."

He didn't check on Sasha. He should have. Fyr took all his attention. As she should have from the very beginning.

"Fyr..."

She hesitated there, one paw on the door handle, glancing back over her shoulder. Car's heart leapt, though he should not have been so bold as to think that, maybe just maybe, that was the turning point of it all.

He pressed on. Maybe it was his chance. Maybe that was where he could turn things around.

"Fyr, this was all so stupid, but I need to explain it to you and I don't even understand it myself." He snatched up her paws, holding them in his, though she did not hold his back, her fingers limp in his paws, like the paws of a dummy on display in a shop window, only looser. "It's... It's all wrong, so wrong, I'm so, so sorry and I can't even begin to tell you how sorry I am. I should never have done it, I should have thought about you, but...it's all so complicated."

He choked down a sob, not wanting to cry in front of her. It was wrong to show that kind of emotion when she was the one who had been so terribly hurt, her world turned upside-down. He had to remember that, as hurt as he felt too. He could be hurt, but it was a hurt of his own doing, despite everything that he thought.

She stared at him unblinkingly. Car strove, through stuttering breath, to plough on. He had to.

"I want to talk to you, please, don't go. I know I don't deserve it...but you do, you need this, but...I need to...make it right...with you..."

His words were cut off, though the silence on his part was not of the drake's choosing. His chest rose and fell shortly and sharply, forcing down his emotion.

"Carenath."

His heart leapt.

"Yes, Fyr?"

"I never want to see you again."

He dropped her paws, unable to stop the roaring in his ears. Shock enveloped him, sickness roiling in his stomach, though Fyr did not pause. All he could do was watch, dropping to his knees, as she turned her back on him, collecting the bags that she had dropped, hefting the biggest over her shoulder, not struggling with it at all.

Fyr had never needed him. And yet there he had been, worming and wriggling his way into her life anyway. For what?

The dragoness left, the door slammed on her heels. Maybe it made her feel better or maybe it didn't, but the silence left in the apartment with Carenath and Sasha was deafening.

The emptiness, the clawing in his stomach, the way his heart lurched and throbbed as if it was going to burst from his chest. Car heaved, pressing his paw to his chest, yet some part of him struggled up to his hind paws, stumbling over the untied laces of one shoe. Without thinking, eyes blurry with emotion, he kicked them off, shoving them to the side of the hallway with his foot.

Fyr had hated when he did that. He guessed that didn't matter anymore.

"Car?"

Sasha put a paw on his shoulder, yet his anger at himself had to go somewhere, shrugging her off, gritting his teeth. He stormed by her to the living room, throwing himself down on the sofa.

Some things were missing in there. Fyr's sweatshirt, which usually lay over the chair on the side where she usually forgot it. The photo of them on the side table, smashed. The gaming system, gone. Well, that had been Fyr's. He couldn't blame her. He wouldn't have blamed her if she had smashed up the one that he had brought to the apartment with him too, but he might have felt bad about it later.

The dragoness took a breath, a moment. They all needed a chance to breathe, but the fire she'd seen in her daughter... It reminded her of herself, a long time ago, though she had not been cheated on, not to her knowledge. Though there was no doubt in Sasha's mind, none at all, that she would have reacted the same as Fyr, with all the fury of the righteous spilling forth from her heart.

Was it wrong to be proud of her daughter at such a time? Maybe so. Maybe not. Not much about right or wrong mattered anymore after she had hurt Fyr so badly.

She took a moment, going to the bathroom, opening the cabinet with the mirror on it above the sink, a little antiseptic in the cabinet and cotton wool. Not the best for cleaning a cut, but it would have to do. Her scales were scuffed up where Fyr's other claws had raked across, but there was only one thin line of blood, which had not spilt or dripped at all. It was no more than a scratch that a pet animal might have given her, but that did not make it any less humiliating to be struck by her daughter. Regardless of why the reason she'd been struck was fair, that did not make it any less stomach-churning, sickening, something very, very wrong there.

Cleaning the cut meticulously, she hissed through her teeth at the sting. That was okay though. She didn't have to pay too much attention to it, finishing off with a dab of cream, just to soothe it. She could have just used that, but she liked to make sure that any wounds like that were scrupulously clean before soothing and softening them, helping them to heal up again as quickly as possible. That was why she had given that antiseptic bottle and some other medicine to Fyr when she'd moved out into the apartment, wanting her to be prepared. She'd never thought that she'd be using them on herself.

Slowly, she walked back out, though every fall of her hind paws felt heavier than the last, as if, in a way, she was walking to her doom. Yet had that not already happened?

"Car?"

She found him on the sofa where she'd left him, a can of beer in his paw, chugging it. His throat worked noisily, taking it all down, and she shook her head. She couldn't blame Carenath though, it had been one hell of a night. They were equally to blame there, for it, the time that they had spent with one another a joy and a terror, both at once. In the span of one evening, the scope of the world and the relationship they'd known had shattered.

Sitting gently beside him, she rubbed his back, the can set aside, empty, rattling on the old, second-hand coffee table.

"Car... Are you okay? I'm sure Fyr will calm down..."

The wobble in Sasha's voice said otherwise, but she had to hope. Car laughed shortly, no humour in his tone.

"Like fuck."

"We will talk to her in the morning, after things have cooled down. We have to work out...what we're going to do..."

"What we're going to do?" He growled, shoving her off him where her paw lay on his back, eyes narrowed, tail stiff and tight with contracted muscles. "That's not going to happen, Sasha. Just what the fuck do you think all of this is about?"

She blinked, drawing back a little.

"I would have thought that was obvious," she said, taking her words slowly and cautiously, rolling them around her maw and sounding them out before she let them fly. "This is about...our affair. Cheating on...Fyr."

"Yeah, that was me, sure, all me, nothing about you."

He had to have someone to blame, even if, technically, they were both equally to blame. Car shot her a look, cracking open the second can of beer, chugging it down, a dribble of alcohol leaking out the corner of his lips.

"What do you mean, Car?"

Her tone was short and clipped, holding her anger in check, the pain from where her muzzle had been struck only just catching up with her. Sasha shoved her fury down, striving to be the bigger dragon, to be calm, to be reasonable, though that was a bigger ask than ever when nothing at all was as they expected it to be.

Car laughed and shook his head.

"Fuck you, Sasha... She was your fucking daughter... You didn't have to sleep with me. You should have known better, should have done something. You're the one that led me on. Sure, I didn't have to do anything, but I was following your lead! I wouldn't have done anything at all but admire you from a distance if you had not initiated things!"

"Wait just a minute." She stood, anger flaring, unbridled, writhing and roiling within her like the snap of fresh flames devouring what gave them life. "That's not true - that's not fair! It was both of us, Car - and might I remind you that you're the one that cheated on her! With dragons like you if it wasn't going to be me it was going to be someone else! If your eyes were wandering, there's nothing that I could have done about that! Maybe you should have kept it in your pants and stopped ogling me!"

He roared, standing, fists balled up, blood roaring in his ears, the pound of his heart a deafening throb in the background of his mind. He was not angry at Sasha, not really, but he didn't know what else to do, who to blame for the hurt running rampant through him. And if he blamed himself that meant that there was nothing he could do, in that instance, to fix it. So maybe if he blamed someone else that might put things to rights in his mind in a different way.

Maybe. Probably not.

"You can't goddamn blame me for this, Sasha! I was lured on, I didn't know what to think! I should have been stronger, yeah, I should have turned you down and never looked at you twice. I should have known that it was a terrible mistake, but you were so much older, so much wiser, so much more fucking goddamn mysterious that I thought you were right! I thought you had all the answers! What was I supposed to fucking to with that, huh?"

"Oh, I don't know - not cheat on your girlfriend? Maybe that would have been a start." She put her paws on her hips, rising with fury, her chest filled with air and thrust forward with the pinching of her shoulder blades pushing back. "You think you're this big, strong drake - but, oh, you were lured in by an older seductress. It takes two to tango, sweet pea, and I ain't the one that cheated on my partner - that was all you!"

The twang of her accent came through a little more clearly when she was angry, though Car snarled, heaving himself up, the apartment suddenly too small, closing in around him.

Out, out...

"Fuck you! Fuck you for leading me on, fuck you for getting me wrapped up in this!"

It went on and on, Sasha blocking his way, refusing to let him leave when they could have done with some distance from each other. But flared tempers and snarling muzzles would not be subdued so easily, not with their hearts being wrenched free of their chests as if there was nothing there, nothing of substance, nothing that could lock them down where they were for a single moment longer.

Sasha shouted, gesturing wildly with her paws, but Car barely heard her, a dull roar drowning out her words, a bellowing in his ears. He was aware of himself shouting something back, but the words did not make sense even to him, insults wrapped up in pain and hurt, flung forth as if he could somehow separate himself from it if only he hurled it far enough away from him. If he forced another to take on the burden of his heart, perhaps things could have been different.

"And where the fuck do you think you're going?"

He couldn't say anything, his head so heavy that he struggled to hold it up, his movements wooden, his steps coming with a weight to them that had not been there before. But he deserved it, sickness roiling and twisting in his stomach like a pit of snakes, heaving, wanting to throw up. He doubted there was anything left in him to throw up, however, so it was a moot point.

Sasha hurled a cushion at his retreating back as he escaped, though it was a slow kind of escape, the kind of one that Sasha could have caught up to him in, if she had really wanted to. But maybe she knew too that they needed some space, that such emotions could not all live together in one bundled lump, tangled and ensnared in the mutiny of misplaced lust.

"Fuck..." She rubbed her temples, leaning back against the wall, slumping down. "What the hell are we going to do?"

Yet it was not for either her or Carenath to decide all alone, for it was a joint decision, one that could only come together when they sat down and talked about it. Maybe that was what they should have done from the beginning. It would have been the more sensible option, though who knew how far they could have gotten and what they could have done if that was so?

Mistakes were made and times had changed. They could only go forward and act on it from there, step up step.

Carenath drove. He didn't think about the direction, only looking ahead at the road, following the line in the middle, keeping it on his left. If he only looked at the line, everything could be okay. He only had to look at the next turn, the next span of road illuminated by his headlights. Yet the space in the car beside him yawned and snarled, empty, forlorn, lost to everything that he knew and had held dear.

His paws tightened on the steering wheel. That he had held dear? Did that mean that that was in the past? Had everything really gone tits-up so quickly? The answer was obvious, of course, it was, though he didn't want to dwell there, didn't want to linger.

The car was familiar. The empty space was not. It was not for him, not for his heart, the pain there radiating, clawing at the inside of his ribcage, snarling, beating against the cage that it had been locked into. For it was his to bear, that manner of pain, and his alone.

He grunted, trembling. No... No, it was wrong. He wanted her there, wanted her close to him. Yet what did that say about him when had pretty much just pushed her away? Well, not "pretty much" but "actually had".

The car slowed to a halt and he blinked. Where was he? In some kind of car park? There were no lines there, however, the sort of car park where furs just parked wherever they needed to, for it was a more casual affair than something in town.

His heart tightened, as if an invisible paw had dug their fingers in there, bearing in, slicing through flesh and organs alike. It may as well have been ripped from his chest for all the good it had done him in his chest.

But he hadn't meant to hurt her. They were pathetic words to think as he stepped from the car, moving like a puppet jerked around by the puppeteer's strings. The lake. Of course, he was at the lake. One of his first dates with Fyr, one of the first places where they had come together. It would have been a good memory, if they had still been together, though he wasn't sure... Well, she hadn't said anything about breaking up, but anything about not wanting to see him again was clear enough to him.

Water lapped at the shoreline, pebbles washed up, the beach a mix of those and sand, ground down into rough, coarse grains. In the autumn, it was not as nice as it was in the summer, though Carenath would not have minded walking around it in all kinds of weathers if only he had been with Fyr.

Or both. Fyr on one side of him and Sasha on the other. That was all he needed, all he craved, all that he longed for - not lust. There was a longing there, deep-seated, rooted so far down in his soul that it would have been impossible to claw loose.

Fyr had cast him aside and his heart couldn't take it. Better to stand with his back to the trees, to listen to the wind rustling through the leaves, clawing and picking at his scales. He only had a T-shirt on, but his mind did not register a shiver, that he had to find something warmer to put on. He didn't retain heat all that well, more one for summer than winter, but he no longer had someone to cuddle to tease a little warmth back into his scales.

The wind, the rain pattering over his scales, more of a cloying drizzle than anything else. It sent a worse chill into his bones, wings tucked down, his head bowed.

It was that he stood, eyeing up the lights flickering and glancing off the water from the restaurant on the other side of the lake. No boats were out, a couple of summer houses still with their lights on. Maybe they were making the most of the weather that they supposed was still there, even if he didn't think that it was all that nice. He, however, had a different perspective on it.

How long did he stand there for? Car could not tell. Seconds passed, minutes wavered, hours... Yes, maybe hours too. There was no way to tell, colder and colder, colder than he ever thought was possible. His tail hung, dragging in the grass and the mud, standing off to the side of the lake where ball games and the like may have been played in better weather. But he was not there for good times and pleasant dallying, standing, waiting, watching...yet for what?

What was the point of it? He would have to go back to his life, a life without Fyr, a life that he had had a fair paw in ruining. He was not angry at Sasha as much as he was at himself, yet he'd wanted to blame her so very badly. That might have meant that it could not be him, that he had not been such a terrible dragon as he knew, in his heart, he had been, however simplistic and childlike the words were.

He stood.

He waited.

He watched.

Ripples lapped at the shore, restless, yearning. The trees swayed in the wind where they were too spindly, though he would not have cared if a bough snapped and came down on him. In that moment, Carenath did not care much about anything anymore.

His phone dinged, though it took him a moment to respond, staring at the water, his paw slowly going to his pocket, drawing out his phone. Even that felt like it took a colossal effort.

Sasha: Where are you?

_ _

He answered her, not knowing why he did, but something had to come, something had to happen, something had to change. He couldn't stand out there staring at the water for further hours. Carenath didn't have any idea what time it was anyway, as it was.

Sasha trudged through the wet grass, cursing under her breath, taking longer to find him, some distance from the car park that was mainly used by families visiting the lake.

"Sugar? What are you doing all the way out here?"

He shrugged. There was no answer to give her that could make anything right. Nothing would ever be right again.

"Standing."

She swallowed, taking him by the elbow, his arms crossed over his chest.

"Come on. It's time we were going."

She took him back to her house, for at least Kao was not there, staying with a friend. He needed his space and independence, she said, rattling off dull chatter, just for something in the background. It was needed, even though it took a while to pull Carenath out of his stupor, the heat on in the car, though they would have to come back in the morning for his car.

That was okay. That was something that could be fixed.

Other things were more difficult to fix.

Not everything could be fixed in a night, her anger fading, fear and concern twisted around her heart. Still, she took the high road, took him in paw, led him into the house and wrapped him up nice and safe and warm in bed. There was no real need for secrecy anymore, not beyond ensuring that Kao didn't find out, but she still made sure that the curtains were drawn and the door was locked.

He came back to himself, slowly, warm through, blinking as he rested his head on Sasha's chest in bed - not on her breasts but a little higher. There was nothing sexual about it, not as she stroked his back and he murmured apologies - apologies for shouting, swearing, blaming.

"It was both of us," she breathed by way of reply. "We both have much to answer for. But...we'll have more answers in the morning."

She didn't honestly know how much she believed that, but she had to hold it close to her, dear, at least for the time being. That was all she could do, feeding the lines to Carenath, soothing him, even as the drake tried to tell her how sorry he was, how much he needed her, how bad everything was.

But there was nothing they could do about it that night but to try to soothe their hearts just a little, easing the pain of it all bit by bit. That was harder than ever, however, when it was that very pain that dragged at their chests with every breath.

That was the problem with pain. When it was linked with one's breath, it was not as if they could simply stop breathing.

Yet sleep could offer at least a temporary respite, in some way, or so they hoped. Carenath slipped off quicker than her, although she was dragged down, in the early hours of the morning. He'd been out for so long, she hadn't known what to do, looking for him. She'd hoped he wouldn't be far, but after she'd realised that he was not in walking distance, she'd raced back to the car, heart pounding.

She cared for him...more than she had admitted to herself. Though she didn't know what she could do anymore, whether that would ever be admitted out loud.

When their world was crumbling, what else was left?

In the morning... In the morning, she would try. She would try, in the morning.

Holding him tightly until she too fell asleep, the dragoness' breath fell slow and even in slumber.

Yet her heart ached more deeply than ever.