It had been such a long time since I had seen her. So long that it seemed as if she might never return. At first I had thought, 'This won't be too hard; she'll come back in a week or so and it'll be like seeing Love at First Sight again'. It had made me eager to miss her, so that when I did see her again it would be all the sweeter.

But two weeks passed. Then Three, and after a while I found myself setting out on more and more frequent border patrols. I'd rise earlier in the morning and set out even before first light, and would stay out until the very latest shades of twilight descended into stars. I'd return to my Den only then, to ensure that my daughter Zigzagel was safely tucked into her bednest. But I could not sleep in the deep hours of night anymore. Most often I'd sit posted just outside our mountain grotto, a silver plated gargoyle in a harlequin mask, staring out into the pools of shadow, indigo eyes ever shifting and probing, searching for any flicker of ghost white flame and heavenly crimson.

Sometimes I'd find myself panicking, my Imprint Bond becoming so faint that I feared it was fading away or was about to snap in two. But I refused to believe that anything had happened to her. I knew one way or another my Tera, My Goddess, would find her way back to me.

As was my general and most recent routine, I had been up before Dawn's first light, I had already been awake for hours, perturbed by the odd vibration buzzing around my ears. My fur crackled like static as I'd roamed down the steep incline to get a splash of cool spring water and shock the fatigue out of my limbs.

I skirted the pool, intent on going to check our eastern gates, when from across the pond I spy a flicker of white. Suddenly the Earth seems to tilt beneath my feet, the odd frequency pinging in my ears becoming like a beautiful song only I could hear. My heart stopped, rainbows blossomed in the scope of my vision for every step the divine maiden took. She was weary, he could see, but she loped up the mountainside at full speed, crimson tresses bleeding into the wind behind her.

I could do nothing but stare at her in disbelief and over-extatic elation, by the time I finally found the ground again and my soul touched back down to Earth and where I could once again feel my feet she was already 3/4s of the way to Our Den.

I raced after her, reeling around the shore of the Spring and launching myself up the mountainside. She'd gained so much ground on me by that point that she'd already disappeared into the Den. When she re-emerged a few moments later, it was just as I made my final approach. Paws didn't meet a single beat as I charged her, nearly bowling her over into my embrace, though I twisted under in the last moment so that as she fell, she was wrapped in my curled body like a big, well muscled pillow, my tongue rasping across her throat, her neck, her cheeks and eyes. I lavished every inch of her in kisses, a deep thunderous rumble like the throaty murr of a Dragon vibrating through my lungs in sheer unadulterated pleasure, pressing her in close to me.

"My Goddess, My beautiful Goddess you've come back to me..." I spoke under my husky breath, body instantly and ever so acutely aware of her's pressed in so close to it. It had been like living without water, parched and dehydrated, and suddenly being slammed by a torrential tsunami. Waves of love and passion radiated off of me to wrap around us both, and I felt moisture in my eyes as I clenched them shut and burrowed my face deep into her ruff, inhaling her delicate perfume. "I... I thought I'd lost you..." I whispered, voice cracking.