He spoke. It commanded her attention instantly, the snap of her gaze towards his was almost audible. Her eyes strained through the dark, guided to him in swiftness with his flames, their dance a hypnotic allure that resembled the spell he'd woven over her heart and rationality. It brought a ghost of a smile to her face; not because it was delicate, but because it had fallen into disuse.

Who needed white knights when you had a flame engulfed he-god?

The distance between them closed rapidly, each pulling the other towards them with the movement of their lips. "No" she thought, realizing that there was something more, something deeper at work here than neatly woven lies and flirtatious songs from a lifetime ago. They were magnetic, each attracted to each other with an undeniable force and a charge that rippled in the space that they shared. This electricity was not born of her, it hummed in every breath they took, sparked in the rivers of their veins - alive.

She was breathless as he curved near her, the absence of his touch, tender or terrible, an ache that billowed her. "Please" she wanted to beg, the culmination of this moment that was finally at hoof a far worse thing to endure than starless nights spent alone. She exhaled and it was shaky, a heat rising in her flanks despite the absence from his blazing wings. They were so close, tangled on the precipice of this one stitch in time. She could detect every glorious curve in the musculature of his body, its outline jagged with the scores of scars wore like medals, the brush of his hair slicked together in areas where she knew he had sweat, the thought of which dripping off him sending a quiver through her bones.

If she wanted to, she could touch him.
She could have him.

Fate is cruel though.

As terrible forces are apt to do, they clashed; beautiful for a moment, then crumbling into destructive chaos. The magnetic pull towards him became an equal expulsion, Ampere's body jerking away in a brilliant flash of furious sparks that washed the cavern in blue. In that moment of heady waiting, just before his dark lips pursed to utter a counter argument, she finally saw it.

The snake.

It had been a creature easy to dismiss before, so small and slender and lost to the folds of the darkness. It had trailed behind them as Gaucho and she ran, sliding up his leg and slipping casually into place upon his crown only when they had come to rest.

His companion.

The final confirmation came as the name tumbled from his velvet lips, the word at once turning from wine to ash, which Ampere then breathed in until it filled her lungs and choked her with the truth. The god before her splintered into nothing more than a mortal steeped in blood and greed. Her emotions jarred fiercely against one another, birthed as horror from her marrow, explosive and loud and heavy. They grounded her, a stride or two all she could manage as she backed away from him, almost afraid. If even he ensnared his soul, who good was left to this world?

Her hope scattered, tears that clung to her lashes and dripped down paths on her cheeks. From its broken mold a fury hatched, cold and bitter. "A companion?" she whispered, nearly inaudible, trembling where she stood as though afraid.

If only it were such an easy thing as fear.

A silence endured, but the storm mounted, its first peal the crack of her eyes rising from the dark. "HOW COULD YOU!" she shouted, her pitch hysterical and so robust it voided the air from her lungs. She gasped for air, craving the sweet slap of electricity once more but there was only the remains of their burnt out flames. She sobbed as she lunged, her teeth driving aimlessly to carve his flesh the same way he had her heart, and her sex drive.