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While a young prince hides from the unearned wrath of his father, his bodyguard and nursemaid lament the boy's situation. The bodyguard wrestles with his overfondness for his young ward and his forbidden feelings for the nursemaid. Tensions rise between the two caretakers as they press too close to each other in the secret darkness of the night, revelling too much in each other's warmth, until they finally surrender to the inexorable pull between them and become one.

---

The cold transmuted Ander's sigh into a fleeting cloud that rustled the page of the open book before him. His stomach twisted fitfully, but the noise of chatter and commotion from the street beneath the balcony was strangely calming. The babble soothed him. He liked that. He was grateful for it. He hated to cry.

Another sigh left his muzzle as a short-lived puff of fog. His eyes drifted with the puff, and his thoughts wandered from his studies, flitting away with far more ease than he could wrestle them back with. Even on good days, dates and names and feats of people that had been dead for centuries had no more power to hold his attention than he had to focus on the text that contained them. And today, too much else pressed on his mind to even hope. Too much else. Too much weight.

He sighed again. The book closed with a rather indifferent sound, content, apparently, to wait for some other time when the prince was less distracted. Deliberately, he huffed out a lungful of warm air and watched it float as a brief vapor. The sky above hung heavily, oppressive, seeming to push down on his little puff and force it to stay low. A storm, then.

The wind picked up confirmingly for a moment, and a cloud found its way in front of the sun. Ander shivered, finding the warmth stolen from his scales with its source so suddenly blocked. The air had been nippy already, but now it held the brisk edginess of scent that hinted snow. His gaze rose up again to the sky. Yes, snow. Heavy clouds had drawn themselves overhead in a sheet, coming from the east and finally overtaking the sun just before its setting. They hung deep and gravid with moisture, low but thick. The lingering cold promised snow indeed. The first of the season.

Such a prediction would have been exciting to him once, long ago. His brother had been friendlier to him then, when their father had only been a general. Before they'd become royalty. His eyes trailed down to the palace rising over the rooftops several miles away, pondering. Eventually, the pain became too great, and he had to close his eyes against the memories and the building pressures they brought. He hated to cry.

A slow, firm knocking at his door failed to motivate him to respond. The door opened anyway a moment later. Heavy footsteps touched the wooden floor of his room--silent, noiseless, but he could feel the vibrations in the floor. Ander let out yet another long, slow sigh. He didn't mind sighing nearly as much as crying. Sighing was alright. He was in control when he sighed.

"Was I wrong, Thrande?" he asked, turning to look behind him. His bodyguard let out a sigh of his own, looking down for a moment and shaking his wide head.

"Your father's reaction was uncalled for."

Ander stood up and turned completely around, meeting Thrande's gaze pensively. He shifted on his haunches, working his jaw. The thoughts that filled his mind and the confusion that twisted his heart would not form words. The lump in his throat would not be swallowed, he knew, and yet he tried to swallow it anyway. The effort was as pointless as ever.

"But, was I wrong? Was what _I _said uncalled for?"

Thrande stood for a moment, and then beckoned with a forefoot.

"Come in from the cold and sit with me," he said, voice gentle, "and we'll talk about it."

Ander nodded, tucked the history book under his wing, and walked in from the balcony. The door shut behind him with a heavy, unheeded sound. The book he set in its place on the shelf before turning his attention back to Thrande. The bodyguard--as befitted one with such a job--was much larger than Ander, broad shouldered and deep chested, his red scales laced with old scars, powerful and imposing. Without his armor on, he looked a little smaller than he usually did, less scary, but Ander hadn't been afraid of him for a long, long time anyway. He was the sort of big that made a boy feel safe.

Thrande seated himself on a rug and moved a pillow over next to him. He smiled that strange smile of his that Ander had come to recognize as affectionate and gestured to the pillow.

"Come sit with me, Ander."

The prince felt the urge to run to him, but he walked instead. The insane desire to lean against him and press close, but he repressed it. The fiery longing to bury his head in Thrande's chest and weep, but he did not. No, he would remain in control. He would not be ruled by his impulses. Not right now. He couldn't bear to. He hated to cry. Instead, he merely sat there, looking up expectantly at the adult, who stared for several seconds into oblivion before meeting the look with one of his own.

Thrande hefted a great sigh.

"You asked a question, Ander. There's nothing at all wrong with that."

Ander found himself unable to believe that, and he said as much. Thrande rewarded his candor with another sigh and a pitying look. The first flurries of snow drifted past the window, watching the prince and his bodyguard as they talked, watching the one of them try to ease the other's sadness. Their passing observation went unobserved. After a while, satisfied that Ander had been sufficiently soothed, Thrande left, telling him again that he'd done nothing wrong. Ander pulled another book from the shelf, a novel rather than a history text this time, and pretended to care about its contents for a while before eventually managing to let himself be pulled in by the story.

Outside, snowfall dampened the darkening world off into silence, leaving him, for a little while, at peace.

***

Hours later into the night, Thrande shook his head lightly as he pulled the door shut. Fast asleep. Of course, the prince had already been fast asleep. Ander really was a well-behaved boy, even left to his own devices, so long as one allowed him a modicum of latitude to breathe in. So long as one tried to understand him.

Ander would follow routine as if it were rote law, if allowed to, and so Thrande had really known that he would have gone to bed already. Still, he'd gone to check on the boy, telling himself that he was going just to check the wards about the room. The lie was feeble and laced only slightly with truth. The bodyguard cared deeply about Ander, feeling more and more of late as though the prince were his own son.

He tried not to think in terms like that. It really wasn't his place. Hence the lie, however weak it might have been.

The wards had indeed needed to be checked, of course, whether that had been his real motivation or not. While he had been trained quite well in the art, Thrande was no master wardier, and he knew the protective spells that he'd set on the place a few days before would have started to degrade by now. He had actually meant to check them earlier, but Ander had clearly needed someone to talk to then, and that had taken precedence. When he had checked them just now, he could sense where Ander had already found the worn, fraying places in the wards and patched them up quite nicely. Magically speaking, the room was sealed tight. Only one small break had remained for Thrande to mend. He smiled a light, bittersweet smile.

Ander had said that evening, as he often did, that he liked the arcane because it was clear and orderly, logical. Not at all like people. People were never so straightforward. The rules of people were confusing and contradictory. There was little concrete logic dictating how they behaved. For his part, Thrande had to agree. He'd learned to navigate society quite adeptly himself, but the logic behind propriety was rarely straightforward.

Still, he didn't believe Ander had earned such ire from his father. Not even close. The king had acted irrationally. Worse, the king had waited until the other nobility had left to become irrational. There was nothing at all reasonable about it. Especially when the other prince never seemed to attract any of the king's ire, even though he was always such a little...

He shook his head again, roughly this time. It wasn't his place to think such things of the royal family, even if they were true. His head bobbed with a dismissive sigh, and he padded down the dim hallway. Were he really the wealthy, pampered merchant he was posing as, he'd have lit the lamps to see his way, but he was a fighter by nature, a bodyguard by trade, and a veteran soldier by history. He could see well enough in the dark, and it bothered him none at all when he couldn't. He'd been here before, and the floor was clear of anything to trip over anyhow. Habit would suffice to move him.

And that was quite the useful thing, habit. It left him with his full concentration to devote to more important things, like listening for sounds that were out of place or mulling his quiet, potentially treasonous thoughts. He passed closed doors without more than slightly slowing, probing briefly into the wards across each room with his mind, feeling them out and making sure all was as he had left it. This, too, was habit. If anything was wrong, he would notice. It would feel different. It wouldn't fit into habit.

Standing before the window at the far end of the hall, he hooked one of the curtains with a claw and pulled it far enough aside to glance out at the street below, empty and silent, utterly still but for the dancing flurries set to golden flame by the streetlamps. With no other movement to draw his suspicion, he let habit carry him, checking that the latch was secured with a touch of his claws and feeling at the wards before dropping the curtain. He twisted himself and turned about in the narrow hallway with silence and grace that belied his size, never letting so much as a wingtip or errant flick of his tail brush the walls. Another habit. Back up the hallway he went, still half-listening, touching each ward again with his mind as he passed, but sensing nothing to draw him from routine. Habit again.

Thoughts swirled, hanging in the air about his head and trailing behind, only half-heeded as he mulled them. Familiar thoughts, habitual thoughts, the same thoughts that always crossed his mind in time with this step, or beside that door, or at the threshold of the stairway. Habit. His feet found the stairs and carried him down them with another sigh and a short, trotting gait, head held back and high to keep better control of his weight. Habits, all habits. So many habits. He snorted lightly as he crossed the middle landing and started down the lower flight of steps.

Too many habits, good or bad, were too many. Each new routine pushed him closer to the obscure threshold of predictability that would end up unnecessarily endangering himself and his young ward. That the prince should so frequently be forced to hide from his father's wrath that the very act of laying low should be one of those habits that pushed them closer and closer to that threshold... He snorted again, less quietly, less subdued, breaking from habit ever so slightly by allowing incredulity to grip a little more of his mind.

Utterly Ridiculous.

Lamplight flickered softly up at him from the lower floor, and he slowed his pace slightly to let his eyes adjust. Habit yet again. With the bottom of the stairs, though, came a spontaneous and unexpected shift in perspective, and a soft frown bent the line of his mouth. Ridiculous, yes, but also sad. He bit back another sigh, trying to prevent excessive sighing from becoming yet another habit, and trotted down the short hallway and into the parlor.

The lamps in the parlor itself were unlit, leaving the fire in the hearth to fight off the night all on its own. The fire was ill-suited to battle the darkness, but it fought quite well against the chill... the fire, and the minor wards woven into the very beams of the apartment. He chose to pretend the wards had faded so that the fire did more of the work, seeing how they had been laid when the place was built. His own wards faded over the course of days, and, while that didn't particularly bother him, it helped a little sometimes to nurse his pride by pretending, so long as he kept it to himself. Too much faith in enchantments could be dangerous, after all, but that justification was weak, and he knew it. Pretending didn't do anything for his mood tonight anyway, so he moved on with a silent frown and stepped into the parlor.

Nira lay on a mat of braided rope, strange one that she was, reading by the firelight reflected feebly from one of the small mirrors mounted on the walls. Sometimes the darkness seemed to be even less of a bother to her than it was to him. Although he was beginning to think that she could actually just see in pitch blackness. As it was, the dim firelight tinged the smooth green of her scales with orange. Thrande's scales, already a dark red, were less affected by the lighting, but he paid that only the barest heed.

Thrande thought about saying something, but declined to interrupt her book with a greeting. Instead, he walked up to the hearth, mindful of his claws as he crossed the rug in the middle of the room, and stared into the embers, brooding. He let the shifting lights draw him in, habit falling away along with everything else for a blessed instant. The flame reached a pocket of sap in one of the logs and cajoled it into bursting with a loud pop. He blinked, unstartled, but pulled from his reverie all the same. Smirking, he indulged his agitation and exhaustion by allowing himself to flop ungracefully onto his belly with a grunt. As anticipated, making the gesture gave him very little gratification and failed to satiate either of the feelings that had spurned it.

She glanced up at him. He knew she hadn't noticed him until then, but she had long ago ceased to be startled by his silent entries. Not that she'd been paying enough attention to notice him if he'd come in with thunder and fire either.

She tilted her head slightly, stretching out a kink in her neck.

"Was he asleep?"

Thrande nodded slowly.

"Before I went up."

He stared again into the fire, aware of her movement in his periphery, but allowing the edges of his vision to narrow and focus on the hearth in front of him instead. His mind reached out, seeking the flame, feeling the subtle traces of forest magic left in the logs, immersing his perception in the searing heat that lapped the wood away bit by bit with vibrant, flickering tongues. The burning felt painless as it wrapped around his mind, numbing, just as it was to the faint traces of life the tree had abandoned to the limbs that had been cut for the logs. Burning, burning away, both he and the logs--a strange kinship between wood and flesh. Vicarious freedom. The facsimile of release.

It was not enough to give him the distraction he sought. He still knew his eyes were hardening, his smirk tightening and bending into a scowl beneath the weight of too many thoughts that it really wasn't his place to think. She laid down beside him. Not against him, not close enough to accidentally brush flank against flank, nothing so bold, but close enough to be close. Enough for his seeking mind, narrow a space as it felt out, to sense her proximity, to be dimly aware of how the curve of her thoughts bent toward him. Without actually knowing, he knew she had left her book across the room. The quiet, crackling roar of the fire, more of a purr to his mind than a roar, filled his hearing alongside the silence.

"What's wrong?"

Her voice was very stark despite its softness, cutting through the fire's purr like an axe through thin, watery smoke. He drew his mind back, back out of the flame, back from its seeking, back into himself. The quiet rushed in his ears, not quite able to fill the emptiness left by a noise that had been mostly in his head. He gave her a questioning grunt.

"You're likely to scare the fire, fierce as you're glaring at it."

She arched her neck again, stretching, twisting, coaxing a crackle from her joints that made him faintly jealous. His own neck ached a little, begging to be stretched and loosened. He ignored it, and the feeling faded.

"The fire was quite alright with my glaring."

His voice came too low and distant to quite match the nature of his quip. She hummed a sweet, rich note. Musical. Something stirred in his chest at the sound, a flutter, a pressure. He shifted and looked at her, expression as distant as his mind had just been. She was closer than he'd thought, but the fact didn't bother him. Not as much as he knew that it should have. He replied only with silence as her eyes searched his. They found nothing specific, but she somehow pieced together enough hints that her teasing expression softened. Something else replaced the friendly humor in her eyes, sapphire edged with a gentle unknown rather than her usual quiet mirth. She leaned closer and pressed the top of her head against the bottom of his, mindful of the points of her curled horns. The tip of her muzzle found the back of his jaw, settling there, and his breath hitched for the barest of instants. The touch was unexpected, startling. He should have pulled away. He knew that he should pull away, but he didn't. This time, the flutter in his chest was accompanied by a deep, low churring. The sound startled him almost as much as the touch. She let out a humming laugh--a soft, contented noise from deep in her throat. He tensed for a moment, but surrendered, eyes drifting closed as his agitation faded a little.

But, a hint of fear still twitched in his heart, flexing itself with each beat, slow, real, substantial. He tried to banish it, or ignore it, but it was loathe to leave or be forgotten. He and she... it was more than upholding their aliases now. It had been for a long time. They were supposed to be posing as Ander's parents while they waited out the turbulence in the palace, nothing but wealthy merchants vacationing with their son. But, for their part--over the many, many times the queen had sent them to hide the prince away under that same guise--what had begun as mere acting had slowly rooted into their scales and spread deeper.

There was no one here to see the act this time. This time, it wasn't an act at all.

He sighed through his nostrils, the breath bittersweet, pining. Her touch was soft and warm, and it should have been enough. He should have been more than content. He should have pulled away. Right now, the closeness was too much. Too much because it was still far, far too little. He needed more. He should stop her now, while they hadn't gone any farther than close friends might. Certainly, this much contact was permissible, but even that was unwise when nothing could ever come of it. Not when they both needed more. Not while they were alone.

She shifted, nuzzling, and another unbidden churr rose, riding his voice without his permission. He flexed his jaw, fighting with the gaping pull in his chest, trying and failing to will himself to move away, to tell her that they should stop.

Ander would always need a bodyguard, and Thrande knew full well that he couldn't have such a relationship while filling that role. Even were it not forbidden, could he adequately ensure Ander's safety while so very distracted?

Am I not doing so already?

He shoved the rebellious thought from his mind. This... this was not, could never be, must not become the same as that.

As much as it hurt, he knew that his pain was nothing, his longing was nothing. He and she were in their prime, yes, but his own childhood--like hers--was far behind him. Ander was still a child though, and if his own father held any love for him, then it was seldom shown, if ever. In light of that, what right could he possibly have to mourn his own impossible longings? Who the hell was he to feel sorry for himself?

Mercifully, Nira pulled away. The absence of her touch left his scales cold, left him longing. She met his eyes when he opened them, and heaved a slow breath--in, then out--controlled, thoughtful. She frowned a soft, knowing frown.

"You're right to be angry over it, you know."

He drew his head slightly back, surprised and confused, wondering just what she meant, wondering if she spoke of their situation or Ander's, wondering if that even mattered. Wondering if she was right. Was he angry? Was that smoldering heat in the back of his thoughts anger? And for what? For whom? For himself? For Ander? He pondered that a moment, working his jaw in contemplation, very aware of Nira's expectant gaze.

"How much pain should a child have to know?" he said at last. "Do you know he asked me earlier today if he'd been wrong?"

She nodded slowly, sadly, just as unsurprised by it as he had been. An odd look slipped into her eyes, though, another sadness, strange, as if misplaced. It fled too swiftly for him to read it. She shuffled her wings, looking briefly away and clearing her throat.

"What did you tell him?"

"What could I say? I told him that his father's reaction was uncalled for." Thrande shifted his weight. "And he looked straight at me and asked again if he'd been wrong."

The hearth crackled on, heedless of their conversation, muttering to itself of the forest.

"He only asked a question, Nira, as children do. He didn't mean to imply that the master architects don't know what they were talking about--which, for the record, I'm not entirely sure would even be wholly untrue. He merely asked a question, out of curiosity."

The bodyguard fell silent for a moment, brooding again. Yes, he decided, he was indeed angry, angry at the king. Angry at the king as much for Ander's sake as for his own, perhaps more. As much as part of him recoiled at the notion, he knew it was so. She adjusted her wings again.

"I know."

Her voice carried an added firmness that surprised him. She leaned in and nuzzled his chin again. This time, he didn't acknowledge the urge to pull away.

"I know. He's not the sort of boy his brother is. He's..."

She trailed. Without being able to see it, he knew the look in her eyes. As his nursemaid, Nira had cared for Ander his whole life. It was her job, and she had always done it very well. Thrande couldn't hope to comprehend the sort of closeness they shared, a sort of closeness that seemed impossible between any but mother and child. Like he did, she shared Ander's heartaches, but she shared them in a way that he couldn't. In a way that he shouldn't try to, even if he could. It wasn't his place to be so close to the boy, even if it hurt. Feelings like that were dangerous for him to have, they could be distracting, cloud his judgement.

"How much must it hurt him that his own father treats him like that?"

Her muzzle tensed beneath his jaw, lips pulling back over fangs as she went on, anger rising.

"It isn't fair that he has to hide like this. It isn't fair that he thinks he deserves it. It's wrong."

Her whole body tensed, muscles coiling dangerously, claws digging into the rug, clenching at the wood flooring beneath so that the boards creaked. She balled talons into a fist and struck the floor in impotent, helpless rage. Her anger peaked with the blow, crested, reached some unknowable threshold within her and broke, spent. The tension bled away, leaving only slow frustration behind. She shifted closer and pressed her head harder against him, shifting it back and forth slightly. No churring rose this time, but there was still that flutter and a reluctant, guilty longing. He gave her a low hum of agreement, not trusting himself enough to offer anything more. Afraid of just how much he agreed with her.

"How many times is this?" she asked, "Does it even matter anymore? It's been enough times that we're getting very good at it... at pretending..."

He tilted his head slightly, returning the nuzzle and telling himself he meant it only to comfort her even as that flutter strengthened. Confusion churned within him, accusations, anger, and guilt all warring against each other, and that treacherous, undeniable fondness drifting among the turmoil, deeply out of place. As he always did when he was unsure of what to think or feel, he remained silent. Did his silence count as habit if it was a reaction to something so far outside of the routine? That question, at least, he managed to banish. She moved again, pressing her face into the crook of his jaw.

"I think he would rather believe that he deserves it than admit to himself that his father is such a terrible person."

The fire popped, its wood settling with a sound like grinding porcelain.

"What if the king..." she hesitated, trembling. "What if he..."

The rest of the air meant for her question left her in a shuddering huff. Thrande felt wetness on his neck, a warm tear. He teetered on the brink of decision, perilously balanced between longing and propriety. Finally, resolutely, he lifted a wing and draped it over her back.

"I would stop him," he said. The king was his king, but Ander was his ward, and the king could rot for all he cared.

Nira shifted closer to his side. He let her.

"I find that I hate the man," she said, relaxing somewhat. He felt like that should have shocked him, but it didn't. He mulled it over quietly for a bare instant.

"As do I."

A dry laugh jolted from her mouth. Her demeanor shifted again, relaxing further, soothed, perhaps, by finally voicing her secret thoughts. He found that letting himself agree soothed him as well. Some of the turmoil in his mind settled itself.

"We could do it, you know. We really could."

A conspiratorial edge colored her voice, bracing it with confidence.

"We could run away with Ander. We've raised him more than his father has these last several years. It'd certainly be healthier for him to only have one set of parents."

He laughed, but she didn't. Instead, she moved closer again, and their shoulders touched. Thrande tensed, startled by the contact.

"I'm not joking this time, Thrande. We really could do it. Maybe we should."

He fought to ignore the uneasy stirring behind his ribs, the misplaced elation that threatened to overcome him. The idea of running away with her should not have excited him so. He wished his traitorous body would listen to the logical part of his mind.

"Nira..."

Ignoring his cautioning tone, she curled her neck and pressed her head into the hollow above his collarbone, seeming to make herself as small as she could manage.

"I'm sick of rules. I'm sick," she spat, "of watching Ander get hurt. I'm absolutely sick of denying myself for the sake of propriety."

She trembled against him, shaking. He laid his neck over hers, the end of his muzzle touching her shoulder.

"Please, Nira. You'll wake him."

A stilted huff answered him, raising and lowering her back sharply beneath his wing, but her trembling did stop. Another, slower, deeper draw, pulled air from against his neck, as though savoring his scent. His scales tingled beneath her slow exhale, and he nuzzled into her shoulder in spite of himself, stomach tensing.

"Aren't you sick of it too? Aren't you sick of the acting, the pretending? Aren't you sick of the yes-my-lords and the very-good-my-lords?"

Thrande raised his head from her shoulder as slowly as he dared, terrified to admit how very right she was. Of course he was sick of it. Of course he was. Even now, he wanted to toss the rules away, to indulge in secret, forbidden desires. He wanted to share more than just her opinions, more than just words. His haunches tensed, treacherous, treasonous, rebelling against his faltering willpower. He hoped she didn't notice. What would she think of him if she knew how he felt, right now? He thought she might feel the same, he was nearly certain of it now, with how she was talking, but he didn't dare believe it.

Shifting underneath his wing, she brushed the talon of her own wing against his flank. He thought it might have been on purpose. His thrill at the thought frightened him. She uncurled, dragged her chin up along his neck to meet the back of his jaw, and whispered in his ear.

"Why the fuck can't we just..."

She trailed again. He remained frozen, stunned, knowing exactly what she meant, unable to deny it any longer, fearing and yearning for it in equal measure. That stirring in his chest warmed and swelled, spreading down to his belly. Spreading lower. Heat blossomed between his hinds. He jumped as she moved again, pressing her body hard into his flank. Her teeth grazed the back of his jaw, catching the edge of a scale in their grip and tugging gently. The sensation startled a tiny, choked sound from his throat. She let him go, whispering again, her voice so small and so very close.

"Why not?"

"Because..."

Thrande tried to find anything to follow that word, some reason that still felt meaningful, some argument that still seemed remotely compelling as she nipped again at the back of his jaw, working slowly up to the base of his ear, coaxing the scales she touched into a heated buzz. There was no argument to be found, and he managed no protest except for a feeble moan that was as much an invitation as anything else. The scales of her flank felt absolutely scalding against his.

She pulled away and settled back fully onto her stomach with far too much space between them. She rolled her shoulders, shifting his wing off of her and pushing it gently away with her own. He held it up for a moment, mantling over painfully empty air, before pulling it in to fold reluctantly over his back. His scales burned, missing her touch. She met his eyes, opened her mouth, let it close, dropped her gaze, turned her head away. Her body curled into itself as she stared off into the fire, pensive, tense, shifting her hips guiltily as if in an effort to either ignore or lessen her own urges.

"But... you can't," she murmured, "can you."

Her tone carried no question.

He wanted to speak, but was too afraid of what he might say if he did. So, he stared instead. She swallowed at nothing, still gazing into the fire. His eyes followed the curve of her back, and he worked his jaw, pondering.

It was a good question, 'why not.' An excellent question. He couldn't help but ask it of himself. Why not? No one would even know. They were out hiding away from the palace often enough that they might as well just leave, or at the very least let themselves enjoy the time they spent in hiding. Why deny themselves any longer? What was the point? What was the fucking point? The longer he looked at her, the more he needed her, the more he needed to be close to her, to feel her weight and warmth, to touch her. Why not just do it? He wanted to push himself onto her body and caress the small of her slender back with his claws, wanted to shove his snout into the crook of her jaw and nip at the soft scutes of her neck, wanted to press his muzzle against hers and shove his tongue inside of it. He wanted to shove other things into much more secret places. He wanted to wrap her smaller frame up in his and bury himself into her in every possible sense. Why not? His whole body tingled with need, with longing. He wanted her to know how badly he needed her, wanted to pull her so close against him that not even air could slip between. He wanted to make her laugh that musical laugh, hum those sweet notes, and he wanted to make her moan. Hells below, he wanted to make her moan! And churr. And whimper and squirm and tremble. Why not. Why not? Whhy the fuck not?

His stomach flip-flopped in his gut as he moved, half-rising to close the distance between them before she could react, setting a firm forefoot on her shoulder and nibbling her chin with a low, possessive grunt. She gasped, but leaned into it, rolling partially onto her side so that she could wrap a foreleg around his shoulder and pull him closer. He trailed his tongue along her jaw, the flutter rising to a storm in his belly. The blossoming heat between his hinds swelled and bloomed, spilling free and stiffening. She was soft. So soft.

A long moan rose from her chest, barely sounding in her throat before rising to a trill, a coo, a happy, gleeful sound. Her claws flexed against his shoulder as she shifted again, wrapping her other foreleg around him and digging slightly into his scales, latching on, pulling at him gently, so gently, but insistently. Lying down alongside her, he shifted his ministrations to the base of her ear, delighting in the hitch of her breath. Her claws pulled, and he let her roll them over so that his chest lay atop hers. The rug beneath his hindquarters itched, a sharp contrast to her soft, silken scales. His malehood burned with the desire to touch her, slicking the rough fabric with arousal. She was wet as well. He could smell the scent of her need mingling with his own, heady and thick with desire.

He drew back just far enough to meet her eyes. She panted, pulling her tongue in slowly from where it hung lolling out of her slack jaw, her eyes half-lidded and barely focussed, her cheeks heavily flushed. His heart stopped, and then it started again, beating twice as fast and thrice as hard. There was no way that she'd made that display intentionally, which made it all the more sensual. His member jumped, and he let out a lusty, confident growl.

"Really?" she managed, blush deepening, "You really want to... really?"

"Really," he rumbled, tracing his claws over the subtle grooves between her scales, wondering if his ruddy color would allow her to see how flushed his own face had become, "Why the fuck not."

Giggling, she found the end of his tail with hers and twisted them together. His hips moved at the touch, rubbing his member uncomfortably against the rug.

"It's only hot when I say 'fuck,' Thrande. It just sounds silly coming from you."

She tempered the remark by leaning in and nipping at the base of his jaw again, humming a satisfied note when the attention drew a deep rumble from his chest. He shifted his haunches, cursing the coarseness of that damned rug. She pulled her muzzle away too soon, leaving him wanting, and he failed to swallow a whimper. She giggled again. He fought to regain some composure, managing a little despite the insistent, itching heat of his loins.

"Does it now?"

He ran a claw around the base of her wing, drawing it down across slender muscle, exploring. Her frame was so small, so graceful, so soft. Such a coarse word hardly seemed to fit in her vocabulary. His touch grazed a particularly sensitive place as it followed the lines of her ribs, and she tensed for the briefest of seconds, eyes glazing. She blinked and grinned, her gaze sharpening and wandering down the curve of his neck.

"It does, Thrande."

The claws of her left forefoot floated up along his shoulder, finding a scar at the base of his neck and tracing it wonderingly.

"That looks like it hurt."

He tilted his head, scarcely noticing her remark but very aware of her touch. His eyes drifted half-closed for a moment.

"Most of them did, at the time," he murmured. A habitual response. They'd had this conversation before, but never like this. Never with her touching the scar in question. She ducked her head and nuzzled the spot as if to sooth away old pain. Her hot breath stirred the heat in his belly further, slow and sensual, growing. She pulled him closer, and started them rolling again, the other way this time, placing herself on top. He let her do it, moving with her whims, and she gave a triumphant sound as though she had overpowered him. He smiled, nibbling at her ear again with a grunt. His half-exposed member throbbed, freed at last from the unpleasant touch of the rug, but exposed at the same time to the open air, cold, despite the fire's warmth. The same air felt nice against his balls, the sensation of them settling onto his tail far more pleasant than perhaps it should have been. Not that he had much time to notice either thing.

She grabbed the back of his head, and, bemused, he let her pull his snout from her ear. She pressed their muzzles together without bothering to meet his gaze first, without waiting for them to stare deeply into each-other's eyes. That was fine. They'd shared enough gazes. What they hadn't shared before was so much glorious closeness. So much touch. He melted into the kiss, letting her tongue pry apart his teeth and wrestle with his own, reveling in her confidence, her eagerness. She pressed the kiss deeper, locking their jaws together and stealing away all of his attention as well as his breath. A touch somewhere else on his body failed to draw enough of his notice to think about, despite the heat of it. He was too busy drowning in her, their breathing synching up, growing heavy, tongues and talons tensing and relaxing in an undulating rhythm. She tugged at his ear, and he groaned, scrabbling around her head and neck in search of some erogenous place that could excite her as much as she had excited him. Before he could find one, she pulled back, and he reluctantly let her slide them out of the kiss.

Both of them lay panting.

"Fuck," he heaved, "Oh fuck, Nira..."

She smiled and hummed in her chest.

"Okay, it's actually pretty hot when you say it like that."

He tried to laugh, but his breath jammed up in his throat when heat and pressure shifted around his hindquarters. She giggled and wrapped her hinds more tightly around his leg, grinding the heat and moisture of her nethers against his hip. His face flushed so hot that there was no doubt that she could see the blush. She ran her gaze down his body again, trailing claws in a light touch just behind it, and he realized that there was no doubt that she could see something else as well. His blush deepened further at the realization. Her claws stopped just short of brushing against his pulsing tip, already slick with desire and crowned with a hanging bead of thick arousal.

"We deserve this," she whispered, a hunger in her voice that perhaps should have startled him, but he felt the same.

"Yeah."

He couldn't manage much else, which was fine, as she didn't wait for him to try. She pulled her weight up onto him, shifting so that her nethers rubbed against the front of his leg and lifting a firm, gentle knee up to press against his taint and his sack. He moaned at the sudden pressure, feeling his member slip the rest of the way free, already growing at the base, nubs and barbs swelling with eagerness, aching to please her. It bounced against his stomach, and the contact startled him into wetting the scutes of his belly with a spurt of arousal.

She laughed, a teasing twinkle in her eye.

"Did you just..."

"No," he said quickly, suddenly very embarrassed. She made a show of preserving his dignity by refusing to look down.

"Are you sure? Some of that got on me. It's okay, you know," she nuzzled into his neck, legs trembling as she tried and failed to stop her hips from continuing to move. He started to argue, but his breath caught as she nipped at his ear again.

"We've both been alone for so damn long. Of course we're pent up as hell."

He grabbed her horns and pulled her head away, meeting her eyes with the levellest smirk he could manage.

"It was only pre."

A laugh surfaced from his chest, unexpected but not unwelcome.

"I'm quite far from being finished. But if you..."

He pulled her head closer again, tilting it back so that he could easily nip at the scutes of her neck.

"If you're too close..."

"No one said we have to stop at... at one," she laughed, words hitching up and bouncing as he continued to ply her soft scales with his teeth. "And even if there was some rule, they can fucking stick it someplace obscene."

"I'd sure like to stick something someplace obscene," he rumbled, pulling her closer. She let out a gleeful, girlish squeal.

They dove into another kiss, gyrating against each other. The heat of her body against his drove him mad. Her clenching claws tightened at his back and behind his horns, not quite piercing, not hurting, but firm, strong, desperate. Her growing desperation fed his own. He pressed his leg urgently up against her heat, and she gasped, grinding her knee harder into his taint and managing to work her tongue even deeper into his maw. He shuddered helplessly. Another spurt of precum shot from his member, adding to the mess his leaking tip had already dripped onto his belly. She hummed into his mouth with mock-triumph, feigning as though she thought this too was his climax. He moaned around her tongue, gathering the strength and coordination to pull her forward with his legs so that her knee pressed against his aching member. She gave a sound of surprise, but didn't pull out of the kiss, instead settling down against him and rolling her hips. He matched her movement, grunting as his barbs caught against her scales.

Her shin pressed his balls against his taint just right, and he jumped, pulling out of the kiss to suck in a starving breath. Her tongue took an impossibly long time to drag from his maw. She didn't bother pulling it in, letting it hang from her open mouth as she made a very pleased sound in the back of her throat. His own tongue hung as well, but he hadn't the time to pull it in before she ghosted an impossibly light clawtip up and down the back of his neck. Her touch set his every scale ablaze and his eyes rolled up in bliss. His hips bucked, prompting a gentle laugh. The heat swelled to a raging blaze in his belly, the slow, steady leak from his tip strengthening to a dribble. Her own arousal dripped down either side of his thigh, hot, slick, and intoxicating.

Pulling her tongue back into her mouth, she touched her nose to his, pivoting her head slowly from side to side around it as though their snouts were locked together by a hinge. Another small laugh. His eyes focussed again, finding her own. Surging forward, he tilted his head and locked his muzzle into hers, taking the lead this time and pressing his tongue between her teeth before she could quite manage to get hers in place. He pushed with his hips as he did, flexing his legs, pressing against her as hard as he could manage without rolling on top of her. She groaned, and kicked, and jolted, hindlegs squeezing hard around his thigh as she mewled helplessly into the kiss. The burst of scalding slickness that spilled from her trembling entrance carried the scent of paradise. He pulled his muzzle from hers, taking his turn to tease.

"Did you just..."

She whimpered, squirming. He hooked his free hindleg around her hips and pulled her closer, hissing at the delicious pressure the movement put on every part of his nethers. She nuzzled into his neck, panting. He relaxed his hold a little to let her rest, contenting himself with softly rocking his hips while pulling and releasing ever so gently with his hindleg. Basking in the heat of her breath, in how it carried her voice so carelessly, shapelessly.

"No one said," she murmured, admitting without quite saying so that he was right, "that we had to stop at one."

A sort of pride welled up, deep in his chest and deeper in his loins, that she had finished first. A warm joy in how she flexed and squirmed so softly atop him while she caught her breath. He wondered briefly how her ecstasy tasted, but she cut off his musings with a sharp inhale and a long, deliberate roll of her hips.

"Break's over," she huffed, pulling him back into another impossibly deep kiss. He welcomed it, matching her pace and losing himself in the swelling rhythm. Their breath quickened, growing heavy and deep as they humped against each other's legs. His claws explored, prodding, tracing, learning every inch of her head, neck, and back, caressing, clenching, paying special attention to any place that made her breath hitch or her hips jump. Surrendering, she just held on, letting him lead for a while. His balls started to ache with desire, full, but he scarcely noticed, learning to play her like an instrument, coaxing her musical voice into a symphony with his touch.

He was more than ready to relinquish control by the time she took it back. Breaking the kiss yet again, she pushed herself up with her forelimbs and slipped her hinds over his, straddling his stomach. With a heavy groan, she tucked her toes beneath his back and ground herself hard into his muscled belly. The soft scales behind her hips dragged over his malehood as she wrapped her tail around his, pressing his member to his body so that her every movement rubbed against it tantalizingly. He sucked a sharp breath through his teeth and pumped his hips, managing to hook his hind legs around her, but not quite managing to find the right angle to satisfy his primal urges.

"No more fucking pretending," she hissed, wiggling her hips deliciously, "Tonight, we're just fucking."

He barely managed to register the joke before she pushed her haunches back, giving him the perfect angle to pull her down with his hinds and working with him press her nethers against his aching shaft. The sensation drowned all thoughts of telling her how dumb her joke had been, tossing them away in favor of a deep, insistent rumble. She churred at him as he wrapped wings and claws about her shoulders and pulled her close, pressing her to his chest as tightly as she pressed her folds to his malehood. She curled her head under his jaw, cooing a soft, warbling singsong and gyrating her hips without any thought or purpose beyond her burning need. The sound sent as much of a thrill coursing through him as the touch, drawing him closer and closer to lust-addled mania. He grunted as he worked his hips, trying to find an angle that would allow the blessed entry they both craved. He failed time after time, each attempt building frustration with heated pleasure in a potent mixture. As his movements went from urgent to frantic, her head left the space beneath his and her muzzle found his ear, whispering inarticulate encouragement and moaning whenever a nub or barb would catch that one particularly sensitive place at the peak of her entrance.

Finally driven to the brink of madness, he took her hips in his claws with a husky growl, using the added control to pull them slightly forward and up, just enough that his tip at last found the slick heat it was seeking. She took his ear in her teeth and bit, hard, tugging, sparking pleasure through the side of his head where perhaps there should have been pain. He thrust upward with a snarl. His tip parted her velvet folds and speared far deeper within her than he had meant to go. She groaned long and low around his ear, the sound buzzing pleasantly against his skull, and her insides trembled, hot and unbelievably soft. And tight, so incredibly tight. She was so much smaller than him, and he had jammed a full third of himself into her on the first plunge. He should have been gentler.

"Gods, Nira," he stammered, "I'm so... so sorry..."

She whimpered, quivering, and he tried to pull back, but she jammed her toes further beneath his back and held herself firmly against him. Hot breath steamed into his ear as she released it from her teeth.

"Stay," she begged, a scarce whisper, barely a sound, low and trembling and almost drowned out by the indifferent crackling of the hearth and his own heavy breathing, "please stay, Thrande. Don't... don't pull back, not yet."

He murmured something he hoped approximated an, "alright," fighting the urge to buck his hips so that he only twitched and flexed, not quite moving. Her breath in his ear drove him almost as mad as the sweltering pressure of her inner folds. He tried to focus on her breath instead, tracing gentle claws over her quivering form.

With a moan, she shifted her hindquarters, pulling, pushing, grinding herself a little deeper. Again, she murmured sweet nothings into his ear, sounds of encouragement, wordless pleasures. He understood perfectly, gyrating against her, lightly at first, gaining a mere half-inch or so of depth. The throaty moan she gave in response goaded his hips without consulting his mind. On their own, they pulled back, the sensation of his nubs and barbs dragging against her walls making him hiss his pleasure through his teeth. Back, back, back until only the tip remained inside, inch by treacherous, burning inch, before his hips thrust upward again, burying a little more of his length into her depths. She made a quiet noise of pleasant surprise, as though his member had pushed the sound from her lungs, and clenched at the back of his neck with her claws, nibbling once more at his ear before moving to nip at the base of his horn.

Again, his hips moved, a little more powerfully this time, a little more fluidly, gaining a little more depth and pushing another small "oh!" from her throat. He grunted, surrendering himself to the inexorable pull of that primal urgency. She ground and humped back against his thrusts as he sped up, matching his pace, moaning quietly in time with every movement.

"Nira," he breathed, or he thought he did. Whether his mouth had actually shaped the sound or not, he wasn't sure, but it didn't really matter. She drew a long lick from the base of his horn down along the line of his jaw, a juddering, imperfect movement, pure and heated in its affection.

"Fuck..."

And he knew that time that he'd managed to shape the word, because she laughed, nibbling at his chin before pressing into another kiss. His eyes, already unfocused, drifted closed. Their tongues wrestled as their jaws locked, pushing and pulling in time with the backward and forward movement of their heads, which, in turn, moved in unison with their hips, with their tails, their grasping, flexing claws. Back and forth, tense and release, in and out, ebb and flow. Growing. Building. Towering, intense heat, a tightening in his balls. His hips began to quiver, as did hers, legs locking around each other so that they could scarcely do anything but grind helplessly and drink each other's breath. His base had swollen up to nearly its full size, promising bliss if they could but manage to fit it into her. They both moaned as if to murmur at each other, unwilling to break the kiss just to voice the desire that their bodies had no issues expressing. He pulled her against him as hard as he could, desperate, groaning into her mouth as she shifted her hips in a feeble effort to make it all fit.

With an explosion of pleasure, his knot popped in at last, abruptly closing the small space between their bodies and pressing a sharp exclamation from both of their chests as they yanked their heads apart, startled at their sudden success. She tensed and pressed her head again into the crook of his neck, moaning his name, her innermost depths quivering and squeezing, holding him fast. He moved his hips once, twice more, vainly seeking for more depth as he felt the roiling wave of bliss overcome him. He managed a third feeble thrust but gained no more ground before the magnificent surge hit. He growled her name through clenched teeth and lost himself utterly. She made a sound that might have been words, but pleasure roared in his ears and drowned it out. She squeezed and humped and shifted her hips in restless bliss as he gave her burst after burst of his essence. The rug, the fire, the parlor... all faded away but the two of them, forgotten and irrelevant. She rode him like a ship lost upon a stormy sea, helpless and small, riding his rolling hips like waves of pleasure, adrift, biting recklessly at his neck and jaw and ears, claws digging into his flank, into his back, never quite settling, never falling silent.

He moaned her name again as the climax ebbed, voice low and hitching and incredibly small. He found her head with his, gloried in how she pressed up into his nuzzling touch. He whispered something into her ear. Nonsense. Words which had no meaning, words that merely served as a vehicle for voice. For passion. She murmured nothings back to him, voice for voice, breathless, hips still trembling slightly even as she finally relaxed and let her full weight settle comfortably atop him. Compared to his substantial mass, she was like a wonderfully heavy blanket, just enough, barely, to hold him in place. Wrapping his wings and limbs securely around her smaller frame with mingled affection and pride, he gave a sigh that was, for once, contented. This too, she returned in kind.

Warm dampness spread slowly around their union, more arousal than seed. At least, it would be while they stayed tied together. It would be a mess when they separated, but he didn't mind that at all. It gave him a tiny thrill, in fact, one that raced from the tip of his member up his spine and bounced back down again with a faint, feeble spurt.

Nira cooed at him, gyrating softly as she wrapped her forelegs more loosely around his shoulders. They lay for a long while, idly grinding their hips together, stirring up fits and bursts of pleasure like static sparks in their afterglow, happy and contented. Elated. Free.

The fire died at some point, but they didn't care. They were happy to simply warm each other as they drifted off to sleep.

***