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Okay, do NOT flame or rant at me until you read this to the very last sentence. I mean it. Otherwise, here's the last and final installment of 'Of Myth's and Legends. (For simplicities sake, Imma just rename the folder and continue posting the sequels in here.)

God, I've been sitting on this for a week now debating whether I should delete it and do somethign completely different. I'm literally scared shitless with this chapter, but it's important. This is a facet of Edward that is very important to the continuation of this series, crucial. There's not a story without this. .... Or something like that...

Of Myths and Legends:

Chapter Five: An Awakening

"The dream is over."

-Edward

Edward woke with a start. He sat up and looked around trying to figure out what had wakened him. The sheets slid down into his lap exposing his torso to the cool morning air as the sun streamed through the open window beside the bed. He shivered a little in the cool, something was missing. But what?

Shakily Edward stood and began to get dressed listening to the sounds of the birds and grasshoppers from the window. Satisfied with his work attire Edward opened the door to his room and started to walk down to the kitchen still feeling like something wasn't right. He entered the kitchen and flipped on the light, he turned it back off after a second realizing it didn't help much as the sun was already high enough up in the sky to light the entire room. Edward opened the fridge to retrieve something to eat for breakfast. He noticed the pot of soup sitting inside and then it hit him. Where was Amante?

He closed the fridge and walked around the house for a bit before finally ending up in the computer room. He stood there in the center of the room for a few minutes.

"Dearest?" He called, "Amante!?" He called a second time, knowing she would have heard him if she'd been inside the house.

His stomach rumbled and he sighed shaking his head wondering where the dragon had got off to. He went back to the kitchen and broke out some eggs and bacon frying them up in the pan for his breakfast so he could silence his infernal stomach.

Edward ate in complete silence staring off into space. It took him maybe five minutes to finish the small breakfast which he hadn't really tasted; he was too preoccupied to pay attention to something as simple as the taste of his meal. He deposited his dirty dishes in the sink and walked outside, even if he couldn't find the dragon he had work to do. Money didn't make itself sadly. As he pulled the garage door open he half expected Amante to be inside asleep under one of his workbenches like she'd been the previous morn.

Edward was a little crestfallen as he looked inside the garage, no dark blue scales to be seen anywhere. He turned around and cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted.

"AMANTE!" He listened as his shout echoed up and down the river-valley for a moment before all was silent again. Even the birds. Edward looked around perplexed and sighed again making his way back into the garage to get to work. She'd show up eventually.

As Edward went to turn on his milling machine he noticed his hand was no longer bandaged. He stopped with his hand hovering in midair halfway between him and the device. There was no cut, no scar no anything to show he'd cut himself on the dragon's horns, and it'd been far too deep to have healed like this in a day. Something ice-cold gripped Edward's heart as he turned and walked out onto the drive way. The gravel where he'd erased Amante's 'hello' was completely undisturbed no footprints or scrape marks. The cold squeezed at his heart and Edward felt weak as he ran around to the backside of the house to the fire pit.

Nothing. The pit didn't look like it'd been used in days, there was grass growing out of the ashes in the center. Edward fell to his knees shaking. It couldn't be. She was there! He'd known she was! She'd proven it to him time and time again! But, maybe... maybe he was just an insane hermit filled with the longing for companionship so badly he'd imagined everything. But that meant...

His love... His... What had she called him? Right before he'd completely fallen asleep? Her mate! His mate! His partner; that missing piece that'd fallen in to place and filled up whatever had been missing from his life before, the quirky blue-scaled dragoness. She wasn't... real? The man blinked back tears, the first real ones he'd had in years as he slumped forward onto all fours. She hadn't been real; she'd really been a figment of his imagination. Edward let out a yell, he roared out his misery and sadness at nothing in particular. How could something he'd imagined make him feel so broken inside now that it was gone? She was gone. Forever.

Edward let out another primal yell as he tore the grass up under his fingers crying in earnest as he tried to figure out what the hell was happening. He sobbed and raged for who knows how long before he was reduced to hiccups and he sat up slowly, his chest hurting inside and out. He stood to his feet little shivers and shakes wracking his body; he turned slowly and started to walk back to the garage on unsteady feet. He felt numb, cold. No; he felt stretched thin and like his heart would tear at the slightest pull. Not even that; he felt like... like... his world had ended, like he'd died and was separated from everything. He closed his eyes and inhaled a shaky breath as he sat down on his work bench and donned some gloves slowly.

He turned the mill on and grabbed a piece of metal to work on, forcing himself to be slow and precise as he tried to forget what has tearing him apart on the inside. He focused himself entirely upon the work at hand and as he immersed himself into his work which he'd used to enjoy so much, he couldn't say he felt better, but at the very least, he felt less.

As the minutes ticked by disappearing like the metal flakes and chips flying off of the metal, Edward calmed down enough to stem his tears, by now he just felt hollow, devoid of any emotion. He shaped the piece of metal slowly and steadily hoping, wishing, wanting so badly to be able to shape his life as easily as he could the steel in front of him.

He finally finished the piece, a steel dragon; honestly he was shocked he'd been able to shape something so complex with just his mill and, but he didn't care. He hurt too much to congratulate himself over the feat. Finding a length of thin chain he placed the small dragon upon it and pulled it down over his neck.

"I am, forever yours." He whispered quietly, before he began weeping softly again the pain ripped fresh and anew in his heart. He shook his head and noticed his tool bits were rather dull and decided to distract himself with those. He turned his grinder on and waited as it spun itself up to speed. After it reached its max he touched the metal to the stone and watched as the sparks flew off bouncing around in his lap before the burning bits of metal extinguished themselves. He beveled, and sharpened, and rounded falling into the mechanical habit, trying to lose himself again, before something descended lightly upon his shoulder making him stiffen.

The weight chirruped softly in his ear and began to lick at it warmly.

-(C) Alyx Zeltharian Ranas 2012