Memory and Desire
Before . . .
Flash
Darkness.
Empty darkness.
Thoughtless.
Numb.
Void.
Wet.
Damp.
Rain.
_It's raining . . .
It's warm._
Someone there . . .
I love . . .
After.
I'm saying something, he thought sluggishly. I'm saying something. What . . . What am I saying? Reality called him as if from a great distance on a foggy morning.
"Please stop it, please, it hurts . . . "
Can that be me? he wondered. I sound drunk. Or ill. Very ill.
A ray of agony pierced the fog, nauseating in its intensity.
"OH, CAN'T YOU STOP IT? NO!"
For a time, consciousness was featureless and gray again. The next time the waking world approached him, he found it more tolerable, and allowed it nearer. He discovered his arm first, sending sticky threads of pain into his shoulder and his wings. His head was located somewhere above it, grown large with a thumping, rotten ache. His other limbs gave him better information, though not with such enthusiasm. He lay in softness, under a heavy blanket and between two clean sheets. He was warm, but shaking sporadically with chill. Something was brushing across his face, like a branch or a fingertip. Vision and scent weren't reporting in just yet, although he had a suspicion one of his eyes was open, at least half way.
Something warm flowed past his lips and his throat closed down on it instinctively. He began to choke.
"Oh, no, oh, dear, no . . . " A soft cloth that must have belonged to the voice rubbed his mouth and muzzle clear of the liquid that had come back out.
His unfocused eye reported hazily back that the cloth was white, and then tried to go back to sleep on him. He blinked, once, then again. On the third try, his other eye came open, too.
He became frightened.
The scene was not particularly frightening. He was in a little hovel, or a cave. He knew it was little, because there was only one lamp in it, and he could still make out the walls in the distance, although not what they were made of. His bed was a pallet, neatly assembled on the floor. There was a quilt over him, and another quilt covered a smaller bed, which was not quite so neatly assembled near the far wall. There were some shelves over there, too, but most of the distance was shadow.
Nearer, in the full glow of the lamp, crouched a dragoness with a teacup and a saucer. She displayed a thin muzzle with blue scales, a finely-sculpted, almond-shaped ear, and a single green eye. Her head was bowed and canted to one side, and he could not make out more.
He did not need to make out more. He knew that he and she were alike in kind, that if she moved and showed herself she would reveal a fine nap of pinions running from the crest of her brow to the nape of her neck and a tufted, feathered tail. And he knew that if he examined himself that he would find the same. But he did not know her.
Worse than that, he was finding that he did not know himself. His first memories, apart from the fragmented impressions of his injury, were of this room and of this female and he did not know them. He did not know them, and he did not know anything. His name? It was laughable. He couldn't remember the color of his eyes.
She removed the cup from the saucer with a single, delicate clink and leaned forward to have another try at him. Her hand began to tremble, and she set the cup back with a clatter, spilling some. "Are you awake now?" she whispered, almost to herself. "Really awake?"
"Thh-thhink sso." The words had that thick and slurry sound to them. He didn't like them. "S'hhard."
"Do you remember me?"
He bowed his head, shamefaced, and shook it.
She turned away from him, and might have shivered, but when she spoke to him her voice was calm. "I shouldn't expect you to. You've been delirious. You're still feverish now, but I think we're past the worst of it. Infection," she explained. "But it's gone down some. You're going to keep the arm."
His throat began to close again. Apparently in the recent past there had been some question as to whether or not he could "keep the arm", and what might she have done to him if the answer had been no?
"I need you to drink this down." She collected the cup, but did not give it over. "I'm going to hold it for you, don't move around."
He shut his eyes and drank as she bade. It was a bitter tea that made his tongue shrivel up in his mouth, but he got it down within a few swallows and spilled very little.
She smiled at him. There was a peculiar pride in that smile. He tried to reply in kind, but that was when he saw it, and his jaw fell slack in horror.
She had one green eye. The other was dark brown, dead, and divided neatly by a pink finger of gnarled scar tissue.
"No." Her hand came up and hid the side of her face. She took the cup and saucer with her to the far side of the room, where she leaned heavily on the shelves. The dishes made her trembling audible. After a long while, the tinkling sound ceased, and she spoke softly, to the floor. "When I can leave you for a few hours, I'm going to find you some meat. If you're not able to eat it now, you will be soon. I can make more stock from the bones and try you on that first . . . "
There was no part for him in this conversation, but he could gather he hadn't been very talkative lately. Even now, the right words eluded him. It wasn't really horrible, only surprising. She was still awfully pretty around it, the dead eye, maybe that's what made it so surprising. It was just a different color, why would that be? Wasn't anything to be worried about. Didn't bother him like like the roof. . . What?
A dull undercurrent of fever was making his thoughts as slurry as his words. He wished she would come back over. He was still so frightened, nothing made any sense, and . . . Ohh, and it was cold.
"If you can sit up now, maybe you can have some cereal. Rice or wheat . . . " she was saying.
"They'll nest up there if you let them," he muttered querulously.
She turned. "Hm? What's that?"
"The birds," he explained. "In the thatch." By the gods, she was stupid.
"The roof isn't thatched," she murmured. Her words were slow and she wasn't paying attention to them. "I don't mind birds."
"I'll have to do it myself if you won't . . . "
Something broke in her expression, and she slid down beside him quickly enough to hold him in bed. "No! Listen to me. No."
His voice was childish now and completely alien to him. "If you don't thatch the roof, it'll get cold." His eyes betrayed abject incomprehension.
She took some of her weight from his shoulders but did not let him up. "I'll do it tomorrow," she said gravely.
Tomorrow. That would be okay. Except it was cold . . .
Another chill seized him and he moaned at the ache that spread throughout his body. By the time it had departed his head was clear again and she had smoothed the second quilt, the sheets, and all the cotton ticking from the other little bed on top of his shivering form.
"Fever's breaking," she told herself. "Sorry. Sorry it hurts. I'm sorry."
He was getting better, then. So why did it feel so much like dying? Cold wracked his body again and he was too weak to keep from sobbing.
"Shhh, don't . . . Shhh, oh, please. Please don't." The blankets were drawn away, and the icy inrush of air was an inexpressible misery. Something warm slid down beside him, something he could not identify, but his sense of smell checked in at last and told him it was all okay. It was more than okay. Something good and normal and soothing. Her smell.
She enveloped him. Her scales, her warmth, her smell. He shivered less.
She spoke again, murmured comfort, "Okay, it's going to be okay now. You're getting better. You're going to get better. It hurts now, but you're going to be okay." It became a litany that made very little sense, a babble of instinctive mother-speech, and yet, somehow, it eased him.
Eventually, he slept.
Oh, and her smell . . .
He buried his muzzle in her throat and licked there, open mouthed, drawing her scent in repeated gasps. He was drunk on her smell, crazy with it. His erection was a constant, thudding warmth between his legs. She was flushed, squirming, but pliant. Ever so pliant. He dropped into a predatory crouch and rested his weight against her. She hissed and began to mouth at his neck. Her claws were brought to bear on the fabric of his wings and they rattled over the scales there, causing a vibration he could not be expected to stand. His arousal was so great he could not find his place within her. After a few abortive thrusts, she leaned back into his hips and drove him inside her with a snarl.
They coupled madly, and when her body curled beneath his in orgasm, he came and seized her feathered neck between his teeth.
"Ow," she said, distantly. "Oooh, my feathers. Oh, honey." She giggled.
"Thorry," he said.
"Mmm, never mind." She rolled on her side and covered him with a wing. She began to groom him, and he purred. She smelled so good, so good. He was beginning to feel warm and crazy again. Oh, her smell . . .
It was all over the bed, and all over him as well. He raised his hand to his mouth, expecting to taste feathers there. Except there were no feathers and his arm wouldn't move when he asked it to. He remembered then, not much, not everything, but enough. He was in a small room, with a female, and he was not okay, not yet. He had been cold, and she had been holding him.
That explained the smell then, sort of. She was gone now. She had said something about going to get him some meat. Maybe she went to get him some meat.
He still wasn't exactly thinking clearly. Of course, he had been very ill for a very long time and things were naturally going to be a little jumbled. And he still didn't remember who in the hell he was, that was bound to be disorienting. But he couldn't shake the idea that the confusion in his mind had something to do with the smell on the sheets. After a brief struggle, he managed to push himself part-way out of them and sit up against the pillows.
There was sunlight, streaming in through an open doorway. There was a thing in the sunlight, a black and shapeless thing. It writhed, and then was still. He squinted, and his eyes adjusted painfully to the brightness. It was the dragoness. She was swathed in a cloak of black. It hung unevenly and looked quite uncomfortable. He found himself thinking that she probably ought to take it off.
There was nothing wrong with that, she was probably wearing something underneath it.
Maybe.
Maybe not.
How could she wear that thing outside? It was hot in here. He wriggled until the sheets fell away from his shoulders, then pushed at them with his left arm, which still worked halfway right.
The scent retreated along with the bedding and his mind cleared somewhat. What was she doing out there, anyway? Watching something?
She gave a half-heard sigh, tensed, writhed, and was still. The blue sheen of her tail showed briefly out the back of the cloak, slithering. It was curled in on itself.
Instinct slapped him on the back of the head, then. Hard.
She's in SEASON, numb nuts. That's why your sheets smell. That's why you dreamed about those things. She's doing that so her body will shut up and leave her alone for a while.
I need to get out of this bed, he decided. Oh my gods, I really need to get out of this bed.
His instincts thought that was a very good idea. They thought he ought to get out of the bed, and then go over there and bang her so hard her scales fell off.
Ohhh, no.
As much as he would have liked to, there were many reasons why that was not an option. Chief among them, at least at the moment, was that even sitting up for this long had his head spinning. He sank back under the covers with his hand cupped between his legs.
Oh, no no. Shut up. Go away. Go away!
The smell was not going away. His instincts were not going away. On top of all that there was something coming on that he really was not looking forward to.
She was going to come back inside. Eventually. Soon. And if she was doing what he thought she was doing, when she came back in she would probably be clear-headed and not in the least bit interested in sex. Certainly not with him. She would not want to find him panting with the covers sticking up in a tell-tale way.
At least, he didn't want her to find him like that.
Well, not really.
Okay, he told himself. In that case there was really only one option, wasn't there? And even if he didn't want to (even if he did want to very, very badly) it was really the only reasonable thing to do and he just ought to get it over with.
After a quick struggle upwards for some reconnaissance (she was still outside, at least that seemed to be her at the edge of his vision) he scrunched himself under the covers as far as he could go and began to rub his fingers over the outside of his sheath. Quick little touches, and carefully, he was still sore . . .
This was humiliating.
No, this was worse than humiliating, it wasn't going to work. He let out a strangled whine and then clamped down on it. He froze there, holding himself, waiting for her to come in and ask if there was anything wrong, would he maybe like a nice bowl of soup, and by the way what the hell are you doing to yourself?
She didn't come in and he released a snickering breath through his nostrils. He didn't know where he'd been before he was injured, but he was sure he never suspected he would end up here, doing this.
He had to think about something else, anything else. He tried to remember his dream, but that was far away and dim. He thought of the dragoness, outside, touching herself, and that was better. She was probably in worse shape than he was. In her season, she would've wanted some male, any male. Maybe even him, whether he was in any shape for it or not. He really would've liked to oblige her. She wouldn't be wearing anything under that cloak and she would be very warm. He thought of her tail, sliding in and out, and his own tail lashed and writhed under the blankets. He wanted, oh, he only wanted to help her through it. He was feeling very, very . . . helpful. More so by the moment.
Maybe she would come in, and it would be all right. It would be all right, he would . . . touch her . . . Those perfect blue scales, he would, oh, he would test them, taste them. On her throat, finer and more tender, fading to a different color on her wings. Lighter or darker. He would remove that shapeless cloak and investigate the color and the texture of her wings. Always so delicate, in a female, so delicate and sensitive. Her neck, her scales, her wings, and maybe then, inside . . .
He turned his muzzle into the pillows and groaned. He had never needed the release so badly in his entire life, but it wasn't . . . It wasn't . . .
He was beginning to grasp the fact that he was not left-handed. The fact that he was not left-handed was weighing very heavily on his mind.
Slowly, painfully, he eased his right arm down out of the sling, intending only a few quick strokes, and then . . .
But it didn't even take so much, and when he finally came he rocked back into the pillows and the smell of her was heady and wonderful and all-encompassing.
And then it didn't mean quite so much anymore, and he was faintly embarrassed at what he had imagined, and what he had done. But he smiled, at least it was over with. He could feel the spattering of seed between his belly and the top sheet, and his shaft was wilting and contracting back into his sheath, promising to be much better behaved in the future.
Now, the dampness on the sheets might be a problem. He felt vaguely horrified that she might think he had wet the bed. Certainly, he might have done so before, he doubted he had been in any condition to have gone outside, but he didn't want her to think he had done so now. It wouldn't be fair, he was supposed to be getting better. And he hadn't wet the bed, anyway. There was the other possibility, of course, that she might think he had done exactly what he had just done, and that was marginally worse.
He was trying to roll on his side and clean the majority of the damp off where he could hide it beneath him when his right arm began to complain to him that it had been ill-used. It had been very ill-used indeed and it was complaining very loudly. By the time she came back inside to check on him, it was screaming.
When she pulled back the covers and saw the evidence of what he had done, it was not at all sexy and he didn't get to touch her or pull off her cloak. In fact, the twin concepts of sexuality and impropriety had been driven completely from his mind by the pain. In fact, she cried at the sight of him.
"Oh, my gods, no, why did you do that? Why did you do that, why did you do it?"
"I . . . " he managed. But he couldn't think why he had done it. He must have been out of his mind. Oh, his stupid arm! "Gods be damned! . . ."
She shook her head and left him for a roll of bandages and a jar of yellowish salve. "It's going to hurt now," she said miserably. She stood slumped and helpless and wept again.
He wanted to tell her that it was hurting quite enough already and if whatever she wanted to do to him was going to hurt more, then she could take that roll of bandages and cram it, and fit the jar up there behind it, if there was room. But he was much too weak and far too ashamed.
"I'm sorry," she said. She rubbed each eye dry with the back of her hand and sniffed back a few more tears. Even the dead eye had wept, a slow and slightly-bloody trickle. She knelt beside him. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
He saw then that she wasn't apologizing because she had cried. Nothing so sweet or poetic. She was apologizing for what she was going to do to him. She was going to do it whether he wanted it or not. It was going to be awful, and it was going to hurt. It was really going to hurt. He shrank from her and shook his head. "Please . . . "
"Please!" A sob choked off her plea, and she raised her hand and shook her head at him in hope of his continued silence. "The infection . . . " she explained. "They have to be changed every day. The dead scales . . . Oh, I'm sorry!" She hid her face. That seemed to make her very small, her head buried beneath her arms and her shoulders wracked with sobbing. The cloak hung on her, as big as a tent. Bandages and salve lay forgotten to either side.
He sent his left hand out. It was like operating a machine he had only read the instructions for. It drifted out of his vision and secured possession of the jar. Stretching more, to his limits, he was just able to nudge it against her knee. "Okay," he whispered. "Okay. Don't cry. I . . . " He did mind it. He was going to mind it. A lot. "I'll try not to cry either," he finished. "Okay?"
She lifted her head and nodded, "Okay."
But he did cry. She peeled away seemingly miles of red-stained dressing from his cracked and bleeding scales, peeled away dying and healing flesh along with it, and he sobbed. When she squeezed his arm with both hands and forced out the clotted, yellow detritus of the infection, he howled. By the time she was painting him with salve and rebinding the wound, he only had strength enough to whimper.
"It was the season for storms," she murmured, over the sound of him. Her throat was so dry that it clicked when she swallowed. Her tears had dissipated when she began to tend his wound, but her composure seemed to hang on the delicate thread of having something to do. She started over, "It was the season for storms, and they come out of nowhere. Once you're over the forest, there isn't anywhere to put down until you come to the clearing, here. Wasn't your fault," she bowed her head, "they just come out of nowhere."
She tied the last of the bandage snugly around his wrist and tucked the loose ends inside to keep them from raveling.
"What happened?" he croaked. He was hoarse and dreadfully thirsty. She left him and took down a cup from the shelves of dishes, then busied herself out of his field of vision.
"You were struck," she said. "Lightning. It's a mercy you were limp when you fell. The trees grow closely, they would have torn you if you tried to land."
"Lightning," he moaned. "In the arm." That would explain why all of his pain seemed to radiate from that point. It would explain the electrical black marks he saw creeping all the way up to his shoulder, too.
"Yes," she answered, beside him once more. "Here."
The cup was full of clear, cool water and he reached for it.
Her expression became stern. "No. Not with one hand, you're too weak now." And he was. "You can drink on your own when you've rested. When it doesn't hurt so much."
So she held the cup for him and he gulped the water down. It was blessedly cool, fresh and wonderful. She had to bring him two cups more, before he was sated.
She put the cup aside then, and she looked past him, out the doorway and into the sun. "You mustn't do that again," she murmured. "Promise me you won't."
For a moment, he couldn't think what she was talking about. There was a great sea of pain between him and everything else that had happened that morning. When he finally realized, a flush of mortification crept into his face.
She continued, not looking at him, before he could speak a word of apology. "You aren't strong. You have to let me tend to your needs." She swallowed. "All of them."
He was about to say something about not intending to do it and not meaning anything by it and never ever wanting to do it again, and all those things and many more tangled together in his throat and blocked each other from coming out. He made a strangled sound that was actually a futile attempt to breathe and stared at her.
"It's my fault you did it, my season," she sighed. "I don't want you to hurt yourself again, not because of me. You only opened the wound a touch this time, but if you moved so again you might start to bleed, or worsen the infection, or, or, I don't know. I don't know enough about healing. But it's dangerous and I don't want you to do it!"
"I won't do it again," he insisted, mystified. "I don't . . . There's no reason I have to."
"We're creatures of instinct," she murmured, as if that made it all okay.
"We're not animals!" he cried.
"Most of the time," she agreed. "But I still want you to promise me. You mustn't hurt yourself. I want you to get better. You have to get better."
Yes, that much was true, he had to get better. There were some things he needed to do, and some things he needed badly to remember.
"I won't hurt myself," he said.
"Promise me," she whispered, pleaded.
He wanted to crawl under the bed and hide. Perhaps, with all the covers between them, he wouldn't have to see that desperate look in her eye, in her eyes.
But he would still know it was there.
How could she demand this of him? How could he agree to it so easily? They were not animals, though their instincts were strong, and he thought he remembered, when he had dreamed . . . Someone, someone was there. He loved . . .
But the dream was faded and very far away. She was here, and she was in season, and she was offering, she was insisting . . .
"All right," he relented, ashamed. "If I have to, I promise, I'll tell you. I-I'll let you."
"Thank you." She kissed him gently, between the eyes. He saw her crest of pinions was white, tipped with gray, soft and beautiful. She was beautiful.
"I have to know your name," he said. "If you're going to . . . Even if you never do, I have to know. You saved me."
She turned from him and drew the cloak tighter around her shoulders, shivering. He was beginning to think he had done something to offend her (something else) when she responded, "Araganth. I'm Araganth."
"Araganth," he nodded, satisfied. Araganth was beautiful.
Then she looked to him, her gaze pleading, expecting.
Now he turned away. "I don't know. I can't think of it, I don't know." He ransacked his brain, but there was nothing, nothing, only the flash of light, then agony. "I-I'm very tired."
"You should rest." Araganth touched his shoulder as she rose. "You'll have to rest a lot. I'll find you something to eat."
She made him a bowl of hot cereal, heavy and bland. Though he could not finish it, he kept it down easily. The warmth in his belly made him drowsy, and he drifted.
_He was stalking her. Not in earnest, she was just over there, but the greenery hid her from him, and he hoped it concealed him as well. His flanks displayed a pattern of green and black marks that did well to blend him with the shadows. His feathers were unfortunate, red, but he was crouched and she was busy. He could stalk animals, anyway; his wife should be no difficulty for him.
Her back was to him. She was fishing. They had come to this meadow to share a meal, and maybe other things.
He closed his eyes and scented her. Ahhh. She was always happy to indulge him during his season, and he in hers, but more and more often now, they overlapped, and that was something wonderful. That was something special, shared between lovers, between mates.
But even so, they had to eat, and she was fishing. The feathered tip of her tail made a fine lure; it attracted all sorts of things.
He wriggled and made a trench of dried leaves for himself. Oh, yes, all sorts of things.
A predatory scream escaped him as he leapt. Her eyes grew wide and her mouth slackened satisfyingly as he soared towards her, a look of utter shock and horror! But then, that was strange: a smile. He definitely caught the beginnings of a smile, a flash of silver scales, and then somehow he was sailing up and beyond her head and into . . ._
??the sky??
What, what happened? How in the hell did he get here? He couldn't breathe . . .
He gasped and snatched the quilt against him. The dream was like a glass bauble, it shattered in so many pieces, each so fascinating, but impossible to piece into the whole.
Where was he? He could breathe. Why had he been worried he wouldn't be able to breathe?
The door was shut and the only light slanted vaguely from an unseen window. Dust and cobwebs danced in it.
"A-Araganth?" his voice was weak and anxious. He called her twice more, with increasing desperation, before he was able to collect himself and remember.
He had done well with the addition of solids and stock to his diet, now she wanted him to have meat, real meat. It would strengthen him. When he was stronger, she could let him out of bed, and it would be easier to train the motion back into his arm. She had gone to hunt for him, after breakfast. He had not slept long, though working his arm tired him awfully.
He flexed his fingers slightly and was rewarded with only a mild increase in the dull ache of his muscles. Better. Every day a little better. The season of storms had passed in his delirium and the season of snow had encompassed much of his recovery. Now, if he could make it out of this bed for more than a few minutes to sit on the floor, beyond the doorway the trees would be budding. He wanted to make it out in time to see them bloom.
She pushed him, though not as much as he pushed himself. This morning she had insisted he rest, and forced something on him to quell the pain. He was tired, and still a little bit foggy from the medicine. It was dim in the hovel, and warm. Araganth would be back, later. He slid gradually back under the covers, his eyes drifting unfocused, and then closed, without permission.
If only she'd left the door open, he thought hazily. It would have been colder, but at least he could've watched for her to come home . . .
_He was in the lake.
He pushed up from the shallow bottom and surfaced like the great sea-dragons of old. "Graaaaah!" The water shot out of his nostrils and poured away from him in sheets, pasting his feathered crest unevenly over his eyes.
"Ooh, you big dummy!" she cried. "The fish won't be back for a week!" But she was laughing.
"It wasn't my idea!" he protested, snorting out more water. "I didn't throw myself into the lake!"
"As near," she giggled, her hand demurely over her mouth. "I suppose we'll have to get a rabbit, now."_
"Get a rabbit?" he repeated, latching first on to one ankle, then the other. "Get a rabbit? I'm gonna get something, all right!"
She squealed as he dragged her into the icy water. "Eeee! I'm not a rabbit! I'm not a rabbit!"
"As near!" he caroled, and he sank his teeth into her shoulder with a growl. "I think I'll eat you all up."
She shuddered, and the shock of the cold couldn't be blamed now. He grinned at her wolfishly, dripping.
She grinned back, and rested her finger lightly against his muzzle. "Not in the water, oh no, not in the water. You'd drown." Flanks shivering, she dragged herself on to the bank, and waited for him, the base of her tail lifted ever so slightly. The tip swished back and forth and flicked a little water at him.
"Drown?" he murmured, following her. "Happily, m'lady, in your service. Happily."
She led them back into the greenery, and the half-nest of fallen leaves that he had made while scenting her.
"I'm cold," she whispered, and she kissed him. "Warm me up, okay?"
"Okay." His hands slipped around her hips and nestled in the small of her back. His wings enveloped her. A clawtip strayed and brushed against the base of her tail. She lifted it and pushed back in a most gratifying manner. "Okay . . ." he breathed. His sheath flushed with a little warmth, made timid by the sudden plunge into cold water. He kissed her muzzle, and then her throat, and then the slight bump of her collar bone. He sank, and she sank with him. Her hands found his shoulders, his hips, his tail, and stroked each one in turn. His scales prickled. The leaves rustled beneath them.
"Oh, Shanaugh . . . "
What's that? What is that? Can that be me? Can she mean me? But his wakeful mind drifted back into unconsciousness before it could disturb the surface of the dream.
_"Shanaugh . . . "
"Shhhh . . . " She hissed and tensed as he caressed her flanks. He licked her muzzle and quelled the hiss, then her chest, and then her belly. She was as tight as a drumhead, barely breathing in her anticipation. He nudged her and she shifted back on to her elbows, her legs still curled beneath her.
Oh, but they were parted.
He nosed her sex and they shifted further, offering his muzzle admittance. She smelled of the fresh, cold damp of the lake, and beneath that the darker, earthier scent of a female. He sought it out, nuzzled, and pushed his tongue inside her. She shivered, her body flexed, her head tipped backwards. Her throat was vulnerable, exposed, and he would not ignore it. He seized her with his teeth and guided her down to her back in the leaves. She had gone limp. When he eased his tongue over her jawline, she moaned. The moan buzzed in her throat and he felt it in his teeth. He answered it with one of his own, slightly muffled._
One of her hands slipped up between his legs and caressed him until his shaft slid into her grasp, red and slightly sticky. He shuddered and pushed his hips to her attentions, teeth still embedded in her scales, a growling purr disturbing his own throat. The desire to simply take her as she was, belly-to-belly, was growing intolerable. He reached down for her hand, brought it to his muzzle and kissed it.
Dear hand . . . But he had other ideas.
He crept down her body and bumped his muzzle between her legs. She nodded, hissed, and lifted her sex to his attentions. He pushed his tongue inside of her, light little licks that made her squirm. He stroked her flanks with his hands, held them down, apart. He sat on her tail to keep that quiet, nevertheless the feathered tip continued to thud the ground behind him, beating counterpoint to his pulse.
Still, she wriggled in his grasp, and she was beginning to mewl and press her hips to him. Grinning, he slowed the strokes of his tongue until she groaned and went limp again. He knew her, he knew just how far he could press her. He lifted his head for a peek at her, panting and twisted with leaves piled on either side. He remembered his own need, and it was great. He dipped his head and began to pleasure her again, this time in earnest.
It took some time for her to press against him again, and he was beginning to wonder if perhaps he really had gone too far, when she yowled and grabbed the back of his head with her hands, shoving him deep. He was able to quicken his pace to her demands, but just barely. There was an ache growing in his jaws, but it was unimportant. There was her taste, her silken feel, the motions of her tail and his own throbbing need; they were important; they were wonderful.
Her hips arched suddenly, breaking contact with the ground, and froze there, shuddering. A thin howl trilled out of her throat. He could feel the climax within her, too. Pulsating, warm. It drew it his tongue. She slumped and was silent for a time.
When her tail pushed up between his legs, he nearly snarled.
"Your turn," she whispered, scooting a full circle in the earth to lay her head in his lap. She kissed his belly and each thigh. "Your turn, oh, my, yes . . . " She drew him into her maw and he dug up dirt with his claws, hissing ferally.
She knew him, too. The pressure of her tongue was slow and deep. He pressed to her but she would not increase it, not until he moaned. She snickered around him and some moisture drifted down her chin. Her motions became lighter, slithery. The tongue of a dragoness was truly a wonderful thing. She began to move her head, back and forth along him. His tail lashed the dry leaves, accompaniment to his own damp hissing. Her mouth was drawing at him, he was going to fill it, soon. He writhed. Her head moved, but the suction was constant, constant . . .
His pleasure swelled within him, blossomed from between his legs, it crested, enveloping him. He cried out and shot his seed into her eager maw. Still she drew on him, forcing him higher, farther, until the wave of sensation finally subsided, leaving him weak.
She held him, and when she kissed him, he could still taste himself faintly on her lips.
"Oh, oh, my dear, my . . . "
Don't wake up, don't take it away, DON'T TAKE IT AWAY!
When the dream-memories shattered, he grasped at them wildly. He had to remember, it was very important that he remember! Something, something . . . ANYTHING!
" . . . lunch. Your lunch is ready. Are you okay?"
He was clutching the pillow. He released it, reluctantly, leaving pinprick holes where his claws had dug in. "Shh-Shanaugh . . . "
"Huh?" She blinked as if struck.
"Shanaugh. My name, I . . . " He cried out and pounded the sides of his head. "I have to remember, I have to remember it, why can't I remember?!"
She held him by the wrists and forced his hands down. "Don't. Don't do this to yourself, please."
"It's important," he pleaded.
"Then it will come," she told him, pressing his hands into his lap. "In time. Don't force yourself, don't . . . " Her expression became pained. "You promised me you wouldn't hurt yourself."
He ran a brief and guilty touch over his healing arm and subsided.
"Shanaugh," she said, firmly. "At least you have that much. I made your lunch. Let's sit you up for it."
He shifted to let her get at the pillows, and then he cringed. "The bed . . . "
He was becoming inured to the dreams. Her season had ebbed away with no further incident. His season had come and gone twice now, about a week each time. Females could gauge their time by the sun, a few weeks when the days were waxing, again when they waned, twice more near the equinoxes. Males were on a lunar cycle, shorter, but no less intense. And he, well, he had made it through his times at least without needing her, if not without wanting her. But there had been moments . . . And there had been dreams. Not like this last one, simple ones, memorable ones, more often than not with Araganth in them. They had been wet.
They were embarrassing, but he was getting used to them. Better that than to take advantage, to force her, just because she felt responsible. She had nothing to do with his season, anyway.
But now he realized, with a horrified fascination, that the days and nights were becoming even, just as his dreams were returning. They were synchronizing. They had lived together, like mates if not lovers, long enough to sync up.
And why should he feel so horrified, at that?
She giggled and pushed him upright. "Well, then I guess you get to try eating at the table while I change the sheets." She knew it still embarrassed him. She took pains not to notice.
The table was low and small. It fit the surroundings. There weren't any chairs in the whole house. She helped him to it.
"Now you sit here . . . On your butt, don't kneel, you'll fall on your face. There. You should be all right like that for a while." She set the bowl in front of him.
His expression slackened in mute revulsion. Real meat, for the first time after months of thin broth and soft vegetables . . . "You made soup out of it." It was unforgivable.
She snickered as she yanked the sheets away from the straw mat. "Oh, now, don't look at me that way. There's another outside for dinner. That's if you eat this all up and don't get sick. Take it slowly!"
He poked through the cloudy substance with his muzzle until he found a solid chunk and this he devoured eagerly.
Potato.
He began to poke around again. "What is it, anyway? You can at least tell me what it was before you cut it up."
"Rabbit."
Eee! I'm not a rabbit! Eeeeee!
He shook his head. "Did you . . . say something?"
"I said it's rabbit. That's what's in there. There's enough soup left to have tonight, too, if you're going to be pouty about it," she teased gently.
"No. It's fine. Fine." He continued his search for the meat. It was all at the bottom of the bowl, damn it. He sipped at the liquid until the ingredients became a little more visible. "Ah!" He snapped up one bite, then another. Tender animal flesh, both of them. His eyes dropped shut and he made ecstatic noises as he chewed.
"Found some, did you?" she murmured, over his shoulder. "Slowly, now."
He nodded. He was very hungry all of a sudden, but he did not want to rush this experience. He took another bite, larger, and savored it. A little meat made even the potatoes tolerable.
By the time she had the bed changed, he was snuffling and licking at the bottom of the bowl.
She tipped it towards her and looked inside. "Thoroughly, if not very slowly," she murmured.
"Is there more of it?" he implored.
Araganth took the bowl with her outside, along with the soiled sheets. "Not if you're going to snork it up like this last," she called back.
"Oh . . . " He frowned. "But it's good for me!"
"In moderation," she replied, returning. "You wait for dinner."
He sighed.
"Do you think you could sit there for a while longer?" she asked. "We could play cards or something. You need the exercise."
Shanaugh did not consider sitting up playing cards to be much exercise, and he did feel stronger. "I want to try to stand up," he said. "For a little. If I can."
Araganth chewed her lower lip. "I guess . . . For a little." She crouched behind him and the sweep of her cloak tickled his tail. It twitched compulsively. Her hands slid under his arms and wings and clasped around his chest. "Okay. At least you won't fall and hit your head."
"Perish the thought," he mumbled. This whole business of getting his legs under him was harder than he anticipated. They were trembling, not a little wasted. He could see bones at the joints. He worked his way on to his knees, and then to a crouch. "Okay," he echoed, and stood.
His balance was poor, but Araganth held him tightly. Eventually, he stabilized. "Let go of me, let go a minute."
She released him with a quiet whine and backed away no more than half a pace.
He smiled down at himself. His legs had locked in straight and true, perhaps a little thinner than they ought to be, but serviceably stable. "I think I could walk a bit," he said to his legs. "I really do."
"Shanaugh . . . " Araganth protested, but he waved her off.
"No, let me try. Please."
She acquiesced. He wobbled, stretched out his arms, and then his wings. They weren't very strong, but they helped his equilibrium. He tottered one cautious step and then another, braver.
"Ha," he smiled at her. "It's actually easier than -- Ugh!" One of his knees had failed to lock back in. He snatched at her as he fell, caught one corner of her cloak, and she shrieked in surprise.
(But it sounded so much like pain.)
He banged his shin on the low table on his way down. "Oh, gods be damned, piss up a tree!" He sat on his tail and rubbed the bruise ruefully. "Mother-sucking bastard . . . " Araganth was crying. She was holding her shoulders, backed against the wall and crying.
She hadn't cried since it had stopped hurting so much to change his bandages.
"A-Araganth . . . " He tried to find his feet, to approach her, but she moaned and warded him off with extended hands. "Araganth, did I hurt you?"
She shook her head, sobbing.
"I did hurt you, what's the matter?"
"No . . . " She wiped her face and gasped a breath. "No, just scared, just got scared. I-I clawed you."
"You what?" He touched his cheek. There was a little dampness there and it stained his fingers slightly red. "That's nothing. It's nothing." Should the truth be known, his shin hurt worse. He had cut himself worse hunting, he was sure of it.
"Your eye," she whispered, pointing. "I could've got your eye."
Oh.
He touched his face again, confirming it. "But it's all right. You didn't. Not even close. Really."
She didn't acknowledge him. She had slid down the the wall, and now she was rocking herself, still shaking her head.
At least that meant he could reach her, now. He knelt, ignoring his shin, and licked at her tears. She cringed when she felt him, but she let him, and eventually the wetness stopped coming.
"Shanaugh . . . " She licked his scratch, and then she kissed him.
It was a warm kiss, wet, and he could feel the tip of her tongue at the edge of it. When she withdrew he fell back on his tail.
She giggled and wiped her face on her sleeve. "Sorry. I'm sorry. My season's coming on. I don't know what I'm doing."
"I know," he said. He made no effort to right himself. It was a long time before he could speak again: "We should play cards."
She blinked, then nodded. "Okay."
They played cards, while he could still sit up. When he had to lie down again, she dragged the table over and dealt him a hand of solitaire. She washed the sheets, and cooked the rabbit on a spit for dinner. They ate, and it was good. She paced, and Shanaugh had a few more hands of solitaire.
The onset of their shared season was low and threatening on the horizon, like a gathering summer storm. They did not speak of it again.
_It was a picnic. Araganth was the picnic. She was stretched out naked, like a blanket laid over the grass. Her wings were spread to either side of her, angel wings, they framed her body in a corona of pale flesh. Someone had scattered strawberries over them, over her. Careless. They lay on her throat, on her belly, her legs, everywhere.
Her scales were strangely metallic, strangely colorless, but that was all right. He wanted her that way.
He wanted the strawberries.
One of them lay on its side, perfectly centered, over the mound of her sex. It was ripe and visibly moist with dew. He panted for it, drooled over it. He crawled up her body, to get it, and removed it with his teeth.
She moaned.
And, oh, it tasted of sweet things, of good things, of wine drunk on am autumn afternoon, of love made repeatedly in dark and secret places, of her. Oh, of HER! And he was . . . He was . . ._
Shanaugh groaned and curled over himself, both hands pressed up between his legs. The sheets were damp, but with sweat and longing. Only his scent, nothing else. His shaft was like a bar of iron.
He needed release, he needed . . . Araganth. The dream Araganth. Oh, why had he woken? He could never sleep now. He couldn't do anything now, only whine steadily at the sound of . . .
It was a soft sound. Regular and rhythmic, the tick of a clock, or the drip of a faucet.
The lap of a thin, reptilian tongue.
His eyes adjusted to the dark. Araganth was sitting up in her bed, sitting flush against the wall, her head bent, shoulders stooped. She was . . . licking . . .
He went to her, there was nothing for it. If he hadn't been able to walk, he would have crawled. He would have crawled, and begged to be let inside her.
But he didn't have to beg. She lifted her head and opened to him with a sigh, a night-blooming flower. He entwined his legs with hers, sat against her, around her, inside her. They shared a moan of deepest contentment, of unrequited longing fulfilled. Eventually, they shared a climax.
She clung to him, heedless of his injury, of his memory. Silently, she wept. He felt the dampness of her tears against his throat. "Oh, Shanaugh, how I've wanted you!"
He held her. His arm would hurt, it would not thank him for this experience, but that was later. That was so much later and so unimportant. "Araganth, oh, my dear Araganth . . . "
They made love.
Sometimes she held him down. Once, and how sweet it was, she tied him. She never let him move much. She insisted he keep his strength, for other things, for healing, for walking. She had an aversion to being taken from behind, or laid out on her back; he learned to respect this and stopped trying. She made him eat, but sometimes it was only one meal a day, albeit a large one. The rest of the time, they fed from each other.
His season stretched out eighteen days, but it felt much longer. She lasted the entire month, and then two days more. They loved each other without surcease, and it was wonderful. It was bliss.
It might have gone on longer, if she hadn't brought him the strawberries.
He was stronger by then, but the constant activity had left him a little spent. He sat on the stoop in front of the hovel like a little old man. For entertainment, he occasionally poked the dirt with a stick. It was restful, and he was enjoying the first afternoon in what seemed like forever that his body had made no demands on him. The trees had bloomed, and the blossoms were beginning to fall. Araganth was hunting.
The dreams, the ones he could never remember, had subsided, and he was glad of it. They made him feel uncomfortable, ashamed. He still had questions, and they gnawed at him (Why won't she ever take that cloak off? What happened to her eye? Why won't she lie beside me?) but more and more often he pushed them away, in favor of the peace he felt at moments like this.
When she came home, she had a dead rabbit by the throat and a mischievous expression. "Guess what's back in season?"
His eyes grew wide. "You're not . . . "
She giggled. "No, no. Oh, no no no!" She deposited the basket in his lap.
It was full of blood.
No.
"Strawberries."
She frowned. "You like them, don't you?"
He shook his head. "Yeah. Yeah, I guess."
"You don't have to have any, I just thought . . . "
"No, no." He took one, then and there, to prove it to her.
I could still taste strawberries when . . .
He couldn't swallow it.
Silver scales. I saw her silver scales. So beautiful . . . THE LIGHT!
"They're better in late summer," he murmured. "Season of storms."
She took the basket from him, "Shanaugh . . . ?"
Someone there. I love . . .
He was sick. He was going to be sick. He spat the berry out, but the taste remained, and the memory . . .
"Araganth . . . "
She began to cry before he even got the words out. "You were picking berries. You were picking berries and someone else was there, weren't they?"
"I have a mate. I'm married. Married."
Araganth tensed and hugged her shoulders. "Do you remember her?"
He tried, tried hard, but it was only bits and pieces. Silver scales, a feathered tail, all the emotions, but no face, no name. "No," he whispered. "But I loved her. I-I love her."
"I love you," she pleaded.
"I love you, too," he murmured in absent reply. There was suddenly so much he could not do. He could not touch her, he could not hold her, no matter how much he knew she needed it. "But I love her. I love her."
"You're going to leave me," she whispered.
He could not tell her he was going to stay.
His wing muscles were faster to return to him than his legs. Perhaps they had deteriorated less, or maybe it was just that he had a goal, now. She washed and mended his trousers, the pair he had been wearing when she found him. He asked her about that, grilled her about what she had seen that day, but she could tell only so much, and it always made her cry. He could not bear making her cry.
"She must've loved you very much," she always said. "She must've wanted to save you. But she would've been a fool to land, a bloody fool. The trees wouldn't have let her. You were limp when you fell, barely a scratch on you. But if she had tried to land, her wings out, no, no . . . "
"The closest clearing is where your home is, isn't it?"
"Yes. The lake is a just a little farther, but yes. She wouldn't have found me if she landed here. I was out, and it was days getting you home. I couldn't carry you."
"She must've tried looking for me. Did you see anything? Or hear her, or smell her?"
"No, Shanaugh, no. I was only thinking of you." And then she would cry, she always cried.
And then he would promise her, "Araganth, listen to me, listen. I am going to come back. I don't know what we'll do. Maybe she won't want me anymore. Maybe, maybe we'll all live here together. But I'm not going to leave you. I love you and I'm not going to leave you."
"Take this satchel with you, then," she told him on the last morning. "When I see you again, I want to know you've been eating, and you still have to take care of your arm. Three more changes of dressing in there. You shouldn't need more."
He bowed his head and let her hang it across his chest, the same way the sling used to set. He had no need of that now, only a single layer of white linen, to protect the growing scales. They were coming in green and perfect, with hardly a hint of a scar. They belonged to Araganth. It was her arm now, she had saved it. And his heart . . .
He didn't know. But he would know soon, and then he could come back. He really, sincerely and honestly meant to come back!
Araganth kissed him on the forehead, a chaste kiss with no hint of the passion they'd shared. "I think I always knew," she told him. "You didn't want to make love to me and I . . . I didn't want you to touch me. I always knew you loved her more."
"That's not so!" Shanaugh pleaded. "I don't know yet, but I will know soon." And he hoped, oh, how he hoped . . . "Then I'll come back. Once I know, I will come back. I do love you, I-I always will!"
She embraced him, then. He nearly hugged her back, but he remember she didn't like to be touched that way. It was a chaste hug, but it was more than that. It was . . . Hopeful?
"Find her then," she said. "Find her, and remember."
"I will." He stretched his wings. They were good and healthy and strong. They would take him far (and back again, oh, please!). "I will."
Later . . .
Araganth watched the sky where he had disappeared for a long time. She almost fancied she could still see him, just over the peak of the roof. The shingles were gray and weathered, but that was only natural; they had been on for almost a year. Maybe he would come back, maybe even in time to help her when they needed changing.
Maybe . . .
Her fingers slid to the clasps that held the cloak around her shoulders and undid them, one by one. The dark fabric slipped, it puddled around her feet. She had no need of it now.
Tears threatened, but still she smiled.
It was good. Let him have his perfect mate. He might even find her, someday. She would be kind to him, and beautiful, yes, beautiful. Maybe he would keep his promise, or maybe he would search forever, but it was good. He would be happy, with the memories he had left. She would not go after him.
She could not.
Her wings were skeletal, fleshless and shattered. The wounds had been too many. In the end, she had cut away the dying skin and scales herself, inches above where the scent of gangrene threatened. She had taken a little at first, and then a little more. Now they could not heal. They were hideous, worse than the eye where the branch had caught her. She was blind in that eye, now, and she was crippled, forever.
A stray scale still clung to the denuded bone. As she stood naked in the sunlight, they gleamed a faint, bright silver.
Yes, let him have his perfect mate.
Araganth watched the sky for a long time.