Falls

Kore’s skin burns to the touch. It’s as if she’s walked directly into a fiery inferno: Aidoneus presses just as hard, if not harder, against her slim frame, his scent overwhelming her senses like clouds of thick black smoke. His eyes sweep over her, bright sparks in fathomless gloom, reaching through the hardened coal of her exterior and turning her blood to scorching molten ichor. Every time his muzzle grazes over her she almost flinches, expecting charred, ragged holes in all the places he’s touched, and yet… the flames don’t hurt. She basks in the heavy warmth held here in their place along the sea, a dragon’s egg nurtured back into existence, a creature brought to stirring within her hardened shell. For so long she’d been cold, frozen in place, beautiful but forgotten.

You should know that nothing would keep me from you for long, he says, his voice sending waves of heat tingling from the black-lined tips of her ears to the bottoms of her storm-grey hooves. Kore meets his gaze, her heart thudding in her chest at the rare smile dancing over his lips.

And that nothing ever shall again.

Kore melts. Lucky that she has him to lean on, her body pushing forward to angle even more of itself against his. Lucky, too, that the Arabian mare has ample shadow in which to hide her face, her wide grin disappearing into the coal-black fur of the Shire’s wide barrel. She feels giddy, almost, light enough that if he ever lets her go, she worries she might float away like dandelion seeds on the breeze. A small part of her still doubts, still whispers that he will find something, at some point, that will push him away again, this time for good… but right now she can’t hear it, not over the roar of the waves and the entwined pitter-pattering beat of their hearts and the soft, rhythmic pull of their breath, as regular and consistent as the tide. There will be time, later, to crawl back into her shell, to remember the harshness of the world and the cruelty with which it has always taken everything it can from her and never given anything back. For now, she can content herself with dreaming about what she - what they - could be, nestled amongst the cinders of their growing bond.

Kore stays like this for a while, resting her dished head on the high slope of his back. She relishes the first few minutes of their reunion, carried away with him on the current until time blends together and the moon dips lower in the star-flecked sky, drifting back into view. She shifts her gaze towards it, tumbling her thoughts around in her head until they come, smooth and polished and glistening, from her velvet-soft lips.

“Where did you go?” she asks, her high voice inquisitive, carefully non accusatory. Kore peers at him, eyes glittering in the reflection of the cosmos, and tips her ears forward.

“I went to the Hills…” Her tones slow, shifting into something more tentative, and she lets the seconds stretch, the scent of the aforementioned desolate place still intermingling in her nares with the salt of the sea and her own flowery perfume. “I looked for you.”

Kore swallows, nerves beginning to prick at the edges of her composure; she shifts her weight against him, tipping the supple curve of her hips from one direction to another. She pulls her neck up from its place upon his topline, then, releasing their embrace, and draws parallel alongside him, ducking her head to suppress her shudder at the captivating friction of her coat sliding against his.

“Have you been here,” Kore says, “all this time?” Right under my nose? Near and far, here and gone, all at once? She draws a steadying breath, daring to meet his golden stare and hoping, as she’d found so many times before, for sunshine.

Have you been here, she thinks, hiding from me?