When the sky turns to fire and the trees snap beneath the weight of a wild dragon, Volterra is granted a certain sense of deja vu.

It was here in the Deep Forest that he found the dying wild green and was given her one remaining red egg. It was here that he was deemed strong enough for the wild to bless him with her final offspring, and it was here that he first witnessed the raw, primal power of the untamed dragons. Their brutality, too - he often wonders what drove the bronze to so cruelly attack the red's mother, to slaughter her and condemn all but one child to death.

Now, that same red stands sentinel upon the stallion's rippling shoulders, ears fanned wide to pick up every earth-rending crack of splintering wood. The blackened monolith breaks into a heavy trot which shakes the ground with the force of each massive hoof, charging towards the great clearing in the trees. There she stands - the largest dragon he has ever seen. A gold, and a fucking huge one. A clutch of eggs nestle beneath her colossal limbs, her clawed feet - each one almost as large as Volterra - braced to either side of them as she guards them beneath her bulk. A mother, defending her children.

Defending them from the thirty-strong pack of wolves that drive towards the eggs and then retreat with perfect, military-trained precision. Hunger glows in their eyes, and even as the behemoth watches, he sees one dart through the trap of the gold's limbs and snatch a mud-coloured egg. Blunt claws and razor teeth rip through the hard shell of the egg and blood spurts from inside as the wolf devours the unborn dragon. A howl of anguish rips from the gold's mouth, almost as if she can feel the death of her child, and with one swift flick of her head she bites the predator clean in two. Her jaws glow and she belches flame, sending ten of the wolves up in smoke with agonised screams. But Volterra can see the horrific wounds on her face, legs and body, and notices how exhaustion bids her massive limbs to wobble. She must have been fighting for hours, the way only a mother could possibly fight. Each blast of flame tires her further, and the wolves - driven by starvation - are relentless.

He can see the rage etched into the hard lines of her proud face, but he can also see that she knows a lost cause when she sees one. With a final bellow and a swing of her tail which snaps half a dozen trees in two, she flares her gigantic wings and gathers as many eggs as she can carry up into her arms, hugging them tightly to her. It takes a few steps for her to get enough lift beneath her wings to haul her bulk from the ground, and she crushes a dozen more wolves beneath her feet as she does so. But, bleeding and agonised, she rises like an angel from the ground and up into the heavens with what she can salvage of her brood, leaving the wolves to feast on the rest.

Or not.

Logic tells Volterra to turn and leave, because his colossal frame will look as tasty as hell to these starving wolves. But he can still see some eggs in the nest that the joyous pack haven't yet devoured, and unless his eyes deceive him, one is gold. Greed flutters through his gut and, without thinking, he charges into the fray. Symbol of his family they may be, but the beasts are between him and a prize. Fifteen wolves still remain and half of them turn their attentions from their egg-feast towards the fresh meat rampaging towards them, accompanied by the screaming red dragon who unleashes a blast of frost into their midst. An earth spike erupts from the ground and spears one wolf clean through with an ungodly howl, whilst Vérzés' breath turns two to statues that are easily shattered by Volterra's thrashing hooves.

The battle is short, but bloody. Two wolves manage to pin the hellion's hindquarters beneath their weight, and their claws and teeth rip bloody furrows into his taut flesh. Another goes for his throat, and only a few well-placed kicks and bites save the giant from being dragged down into the heaving pack of fur. Soon, only eight wolves remain, and they quickly weigh up their options - food, or certain death? They retreat to the shadows with howls of disgust, leaving the stallion and the red dragon dripping with blood and aching everywhere, but burning with sweet success.

And there, glowing gently in the moonlight, is the golden egg. Its brethren lay shattered, but it remains full and pulsing gently, alive. It is larger than Vérzés' was, and paler veins of molten gold trace the darker metallic hue of the shell. Hunger alights in the behemoth's eyes as he moves closer, closer to the sacred prize, the queen. Red wings flare as Vérzés - blood pouring from a gash in his jaw - lands close to the egg, sniffing it, confirming what it is. Volterra expects the red to hungrily drag the egg towards his bonded, claim it as their own, but that is not the case. Instead, the large blood-dragon stands in front of the egg, shaking his proud head. "Vol-ter not need gold. Vol-ter have red, strong red, and strong body. Gold just...get in way." Is it just his imagination, or is there a note of pleading in his dragon's voice? Something bordering on desperation?

Could it be that the red is loathe to share?

We are strong without, but we will be stronger with. Think, Vérzés! You and a queen, destroying in unison. Raw power, twice. The mere colour of her scales will command respect. The red gives a wounded hiss and Volterra half-regrets the words as they leave his mouth - Vérzés commands respect, too, despite the 'inferior' colour of his scales. Red he may be, but he is as fearsome as any royal. He knows that Volterra has always yearned for the upper echelon of dragonkind, but the ruby beast has no care for scale colour-hierarchy or the so-called superiority of female dragons.

And yet...and yet. Volterra is shallow, and greedy, and the lure of a gold is too great to deny. This is what he has always wanted, and the opportunity is too great to pass up. Erecting a wall between his consciousness and his dragon's concerns, he touches his torn, bloodied nose to the golden egg and claims it as his.

Vérzés gives a small howl of lament as he throws himself into the air and soars away into a nearby tree, and his mental distress is so strong it presses against the wall Volterra has erected between their minds. But the young warlord doesn't care, because beneath his flared nostrils rests a powerful new life.

And it belongs to him.

The sound hit Nymeria like a physical being, a thunderous, pulsing roar that shorted her brain's wiring. She was struck utterly dumb by the agony festering within that dire sound, the love and rage and terror—it was strangely beautiful in its hurt, and she… she fell prey to it. It rang a chord within her, a familiar one often played upon; a sort of dire longing for what could not be, a raging attempt at victory when there was none to be had. She sympathized, for no matter how unholy or monstrous that thing was (to be capable of such a sound), nobody deserved that sort of hopelessness.

Dangerous, Lilómiel told her with a cluck and bite. Nymeria exhaled in waspish return, swishing her tail in sycophantic disapproval. The dragon did not bother with a sarcastic return, instead spreading his wings and taking off into fleeting flight. In the darkness of the forest, he became a nothingness, a blasphemous smear that forever hovered at the precipice of vision.

They wander neither here nor there, listening but not infringing. Unlike her dumbass brother, Nymeria was not about to go charging into the heart of those hideous, heart-rending sounds; she preferred her skin intact, thank you very much. It was only when the sounds died down (perhaps literally) that the bonded pair began to make their way towards what they had determined to be the source. As they moved, they did so with particular care. Lilómiel scouted out a path ahead, his wings making nary a sound; Nymeria awaited his clearance before following. Every step she took was muffled with leaf mould, and she toed her hooves beneath shed twigs and branches in extra precaution.

They ebb in like the tide, so slowly and casually that one would not notice their approach until they were on top of them.

At last, the bonded pair see the cause of commotion.

Volterra, Lilómiel tells her; but they do not see him first. No, first Nymeria sees carnage wherever she looks: blood and bodies and shattered egg shells, exposed bone and guts. It reeks like something hellish—like rot and iron and burnt hair. Her upper lip twists as she better draws in the mingle of scents; and yes, beneath the destruction there is the tell-tale smell of sweat and stallion. Without word, Nymeria’s gaze sweeps towards her sweating and fearsome brother. He is hunched over a clutch of eggs; she feels vaguely ill.

There’s a howl of lament; Lilómiel shrieks in repose. The black dragon flaps forward to follow his scarlet brethren, sweet concern flavouring his thoughts. Nymeria ignores it—it’s dragon business—and strides towards Volterra, arrogant and callous and cold.

“Volt,” she calls, “what did you do?"

Despite the red's irritation at his bonded - to put it mildly - he sends the stallion an image of black brother, and, of course, Nymeria. Sister. He has not seen her in longer than he cares to recall, and there's almost an awkwardness about him as he tries to wipe away the majority of the blood onto a nearby leaf. It doesn't work, and he still looks like what he is - a man, fresh from battle.

Reluctantly, he tears his gaze away from the egg to look to his sister. It's hard to decide what's more beautiful - his sibling, even more a woman than she was last time they met, or the egg that holds his future within its shell. What did you do? Her question reminds him that he's standing over broken eggs and wolf carcasses, and he doesn't quite know what to say. Does she think he killed a dragon and shattered her eggs? "This isn't what it looks like," he splutters, wondering if she thinks him capable of slaughtering a dragon when he adores them so much. "The wolves attacked the clutch - I tried to protect the eggs, but it was too late for most of them. And now, look." He moves aside, displaying the golden egg in all its glory, glimmering innocently amongst its shattered siblings. His nose is still warm from where he touched it, and he steps closer to it again, seemingly unable to move too far away from it for fear something will happen to drag away his dreams.

On his branch, with Lilómiel beside him, Vérzés hisses. To his black brother alone, not the horses on the ground, the red speaks in a combination of body language and draconic chirps and growls; "I not enough for him." Surely the black will understand - he, too, has the solitary sanctum of a horse's mind to call his own. Would he want to share, if Nymeria ever discovered and coveted a second egg? Back on the ground, Volterra looks to his sister and shifts again, trying not to let his gaze linger too long on her magnificent body. The egg is a worthy distraction, so he looks at that instead.

Volterra is larger than Nymeria remembers him to be, but that does not surprise her. It’s always been that way with him. Even when she grows (and not literally), he is a step ahead of her. Away from him, she might be a walking paradox of kindness and cruelty, womanliness and manliness, without a doubt self-absorbed and proud; but beside him, she became but a dewy rose. Rich, beautiful, armed with thorns: but still a flower easily cut, a flower easily disarmed and dismantled.

She hates him.
She loves him.

What flourishes on his lathered skin is not her—their—scent anymore. It’s not the familiar old musk of Vérvés, dirt and adolescence, with faint undertones of warm milk. Now, he smells to be richly fertile, ripe with ungiven seed. A memory forces its way to the forefront of her mind, a glimpse of shining water and dragon flame, monochrome silver and hard gray eyes. Heat had coiled through her veins then—heat originating at her groin, and emanating throughout her entire body. Unwillingly, she flushes at the thought; her eyes flicker away from Volterra's bloodied body, her lips twisting down into a grimace of dissatisfaction. Shame douses her judgement; she shouldn’t be thinking such things around her brother.

There is a splutter, an incredulous gasp—she raises her brows, her tail hissing across her flanks. Looking at Volterra is overwhelming, but she does it anyways. Her brother will not intimidate her—and he is intimidating, isn’t he? Not merely for his muscle, or height, but because he knows her in all ways that really matter except one. It brews a foul span of emotions in her—uncertainty and confusion and loss, bitter remorse and nostalgia over their brief youth… but mostly fear, fear of him that leaves a foul taste in her mouth. The fear does not originate just from his size or his prowress—it grows and spreads and takes seed in her heart and soul because her false and pretty face will not deceive him. He knows all her way;, her greed, her ambition, her lies… yet she knows nothing of him. Not anymore.

There is a rustle of red-stained grass and he moves aside. Sunlight gleams down on something golden and glistening, so bright that it hurts to look upon; at the back of her head Lilómiel inhales sharply, his breath a quick and rattling intake. Uncertain, almost afraid, Nymeria sweeps forward, cloaking her insecurity in confidence. She lowers her head, lashes coming together as she narrows her eyes: an egg. Not any egg, but a massive one, a royal one.

Immediately she is hungry—greedy—full of poisonous and insidious desire. She doesn’t say anything, not at first, for more reasons than one. First, this close to Volterra, his testosterone-buoyed reek gives her a headache; but mostly, because of her savage want. It’s a cruel and wicked thought, but she wonders if she could get away with stealing the egg from him.

… Or if she could defeat him for it. Isn’t that the real question? They were made for one another, groomed to rule together, and perhaps Confutatis' plan had backfired. They were too equal, too similar. Neither wished to concede defeat, and both were imbued with an instinct to win whatever the cost. She knew they both wanted to rule, whether it was a week or a month or a year from now. And when it came down to it, Nymeria didn’t think there could be two rulers; and perhaps that was what had driven such a rift between them over the last year. Maybe she was wrong—maybe it was only her that harboured these desires that went against blood, harboured thoughts she hardly dared to think…

How bitterly she wants to take that fucking egg.

Instead, she turns her face to Volterra, with his red eyes and his red bloodstains, with his war-marks and his sweaty haunches. Nymeria should’ve congratulated him, should’ve smiled and embraced him, but she couldn’t bring herself to. It felt like—like admitting he had won something, and she had lost. Instead she spoke what her head told her and her heart did not want: “You’re going to be a king someday.” And he was going to be king. For all her planning, for all her charm… Volterra had something she was missing. Perhaps it was the balls between his legs; perhaps it was something else. He was a predator—but one with friends, one that ran with a pack. And she? She lived with nothing but her demons and her dragon.

I will be Queen before he is King.
She would stop at nothing for it.

Away from Nymeria’s tumultuous thoughts Lilómiel croons a low song of mourning for his brother, who once he so detested for color and strength. He presses against the red, flame warming him from within—« You are blood. » That was more than enough, for Lilómiel's faith and loyalty; and you are my brother, though the black did not say it out loud.

Her eyes dart away, yet his are less subtle in their brazen observation of her body. She is all woman now, a fertile vessel for some stallion's child - but not if he gets there first, not if he rips the throat out of any man who looks twice at her. The thought slips across the forefront of his mind with fierce aggression, devouring his attention. Oh, how they have both grown. He is a man now, with balls and a savage hunger for the pleasure they bring him, and she...she is all curves, all sheer muscle and wound sinew, and he wants. Those hips would fit like a puzzle piece to the hooked caress of his forelegs, those stout quarters could easily take his formidable weight...

His chest, and groin, give happy little lurches at the thought. How can something so wrong feel so right inside the sanctum of his sick little mind?

Maybe, as he explained to Isopia, having a male dragon bonded to his mind has not helped things. Like him - or perhaps because of him - Vérzés holds an appreciation of the female form, and their conjoined minds are a testosterone-fuelled mess. He has never had anybody to tell him that his thoughts are wrong, or inappropriate. Perhaps the dragon inside this egg will add a welcome feminine presence inside their heads, to temper the raw masculinity that currently resides there. A woman's touch; he looks back to the egg, nudging it again, unable to stop touching it.

When Nymeria looks at it, the beast thinks for a moment she might take it, and his muscles tense despite themselves. After all, of the two of them, she has always been the more developed, the first to do everything. The first to gain magic, the first to get a dragon, perhaps the first to take a lover, too, although he chooses not to think about this. But now he has beaten her to something - the first to bond to a royal dragon. A queen, no less. He has no doubt that she will follow suit one day, and for a moment he contemplates encouraging his gold to breed as soon as she is physically able, so he can hand an egg to his beloved sibling - but can bonded dragons even breed? He has never seen it. True, Vérzés has tried his luck at bedding several wild dragons over the previous months, but they've always rejected him for being bonded, owned like a dog, the draconic equivalent of castration. Perhaps his golden queen will be different - she, after all, will be the empress of dragonkind, despite being bonded.

Such musings are stealing his attention away from his sister, and he quickly jerks them away to focus fully on her. He rarely sees her, and wants to cherish what precious moments they can have together. Because, despite their arguments, their bickering, their competitive edge towards one another, he loves her with an untamed ferocity. And, perhaps foolishly, he thinks she feels the same - at least enough to be happy for him finding this egg, and not resent him for it.

As he shifts, his fresh wounds sting and tug, and he smothers a wince. Of course, every ounce of pain is worth it for the egg he now owns, but that doesn't stop it hurting. Wolf teeth hurt a damn sight more than horse teeth, even God teeth, and the pain is acute. He is aching, tired, and knows that if Nymeria were to try and snatch the egg now, there wouldn't be a great deal that he could do about it. Adrenaline would only take him so far when he aches in every hard muscle and has lost more blood than is strictly healthy. He resists the temptation to stand in front of the egg and guard it from her - he tries to show trust by staying a short distance away, even though it kills him.

When she speaks, her words take him aback. You will be a king one day. "Of course," he says, dismissive, as though she has simply stated that the sky is blue. But, after the words have left his lips, he tries to force his pain-addled mind to question why she has said that, and why now. What game is she playing? If the years have taught him anything, it is that Nymeria is never what she seems. She has cunning and guile that he could only dream of, and that, in a way, is far more useful than his brute strength. But, as their mother likely thought, combine the two - her brains, his brawn - and they would have an undefeatable team. What she couldn't possibly have contemplated is that they are too alike, for all their differing assets. That they could clash, when at one point they'd seemed inseperable.

If Confutatis was dead, she'd be turning in her grave.

"And you will be a queen. But what's brought this on, sister? We've known this since our dam pushed us from her womb." He looks at her, meeting her gaze, crimson to crimson - her gorgeous face, so similar to their esteemed mother's. His muscles quiver with pain and exhaustion and he itches to rest, but not when his sister is so close he could touch her, not when they're finally speaking again.

Up in the tree, the red nestles close to his black brother, reciprocating, lamenting. Oh, the painful irony of the two dragons - who once squabbled like cat and dog - being closer now than their bondeds.

Volterra's eyes run up and down the various slopes of her body, and beneath his—adoring? nostalgic? loving?—gaze she shifts, not quite comfortable with the closeness in which he watches her. There's a piercing purpose behind his red eyes that she cannot quite decipher, and it makes her uncomfortable. Her weight shifts from foot-to-foot; she exhales a little, gently and softly, before stilling again. It's all intentional, of course; the physical movement is a small and endearingly Nymeria moment, because Volt would know she would never show such invulnerability or discomfort around anyone but her brother. Simultaneously, her thoughts tangle and knot and unravel, incoherent and disastrous. It feels as if at any moment she would burst, because surely she couldn't be filled up with so many fucking thoughts and feelings that she can could should say without imploding—but she keeps her mouth shut and her breathing level and her heart rate steady.

Surely she's imagining this; surely she is simply deluded.

Because beneath Volterra's gaze, it feels like her body has betrayed her by waxing and waning in all the right places. He looks at her—he looks at her like she's a woman now—but maybe he doesn't realize it, maybe it's unintentional. Were she a human, she would've crossed her arms over her chest and clenched her legs together, but she isn't human, and she cannot hide her womanliness.

It doesn't matter anyways, she told herself. Didn't she remember when Lilómiel had hatched? Didn't she remember when she told Volterra that nobody could replace him and he could never deserve too much and that she loved him? That special bond still existed between them, the bond of blood that to them would transcend any other loyalty. Part of that bond was freedom from judgement between the two of them, the ability to cherish one another without exception. When Volterra looked, it was not out of filthy and promiscuous desire but because she was his sister, and growing up, and yes, she did look different (just like he did.)

Lilómiel's wings rustle and in the back of Nymeria's mind she can feel his concern for her growing. Perhaps she should've listened, or perhaps she should've cared more, but she pushed his thoughts aside; he retaliates with a sting and a bite. Apologies, complicated and confused, bleed up from her unconsciousness into consciousness (fuck Lil I didn't mean it that way) but the black ignored her guilty conscience.

Volterra's voice, frank and familiar, eases her worries more than anything. With befitting care, she steps away from the golden egg towards her brother. He is colossal—but positioned so that she could count each one of his eyelashes, it doesn't matter so much. An old smile twitches up the corner of her lips, guileless and fierce and adoring, the glint of Nymeria's teeth a study from the textbook How to Make a Man Fall In Love.

“It's never been guaranteed Volt, even for all our mother's promises.” Here she tips her head up, her mane in cascading curls and her eyes reflecting all their shared ambition and pride. "But you—you don't even seem to realize you will achieve more than Confutatis ever did in Helovia. You already have."

And pause for effect.

"But you wanted to know what has brought this on, didn't you? Volt, you already know the answer. Use your fucking head."

Each coquettish little shift of hers is perfectly calculated, deliciously concocted to ensnare his senses - and ensnare it does. He can't take his eyes from her, even though every single pore in his body is screaming at him to look away. Finally, with a herculean effort, the behemoth shifts his gaze from her to the egg, the only thing that's likely to be able to keep his attention from her.

This isn't normal. This isn't right. But, he reasons, when has he ever fallen into conformity? He wants what he wants, he likes what he likes. Who dares tell him otherwise?

He tells himself that he's looking simply because her transformation from girl to woman is so remarkable that he can't help but admire it. That's part of the truth - it's baffling to him how the girl he once chased through the snow with her bottlebrush of a tail tickling his chin is now a woman grown and flowered, able to create foals of her own. No doubt she thinks the same of him - he is a colt no longer, that much is obvious.

Closer she comes, closer, so close he can see every whisker. Instinct grips him and he leans down and forwards, huffing warm air from his nostrils as he tries to touch his nose to hers. One thing that hasn't changed from boy-Volterra is his penchant towards touch and taste, although even as he does this, a memory jumps into his mind. Him, extending the same gesture to his sister's newborn black and receiving deep wounds in return, the scars of which he still bears to this day - but he hasn't learnt his lesson, and he simply can't resist the allure of his sister's caress.

Each carefully-calculated move of hers causes his heart to leap, and he's sure she knows it, too. She isn't the sort to waste energy on moving for movement's sake; everything she does has a purpose. He's so distracted, so caught up in her trap, that he almost misses her when she speaks - he has to physically shake his head to try and clear the fog from it, and he finds himself watching her lips more than he's listening to what comes out of them. You will achieve more than Confutatis ever did. You already have.

Confusion jerks him from his lust-soaked reverie, and he flickers one ear. "I have accomplished nothing." The black behemoth is not one to diminish his own achievements - quite the contrary. But to say he's already done more in two short years than his infamous dam ever did? It seems a little far of the mark, and whilst the earthen titan usually accepts any compliment that reaches his ears, he doesn't like to do so at the expense of his mother. He looks again to the egg, knowing that it will help him to greatness, but equally knowing he has to prove himself worthy of the queen within it. His natural size and strength is just one small step on the road to glory - hard work and training has taken him several steps further, but he's still only at the start of his journey to power.

She demands he use his head, and his ears dart backwards, still confused, still lost. He is no scholar, no wordsmith - he hasn't the brains or patience for his sister's complicated games. As he often does around the more intelligent of his species - like Nymeria and Isopia - he feels brainless in comparison. "Speak openly, sister. You know that using my head has never been my strongest asset." At least, not the head at the end of my neck. Jaws shift into the smallest of wolfish grins, but his feral gaze never leaves her.

His eyes—yes, it's cliché, but it's true—are like twin pools of blood, dark and glistening with weathered ambition and desire. Nymeria doesn't need to look in his eyes to see his hunger; there's this way he holds himself, like a carapace against the soil and shit of the world, that conveys this sense of majesty her mother could never capture. Had she known her father, she might've said that it was Tyradon's spirit shining through, but she did not know, nor would she likely ever know. So instead she looked, and despite the remnants of disgust wedged in her heart and the uncertainty that had brewed in her breast, she admired him for putting on display the whole of his personality. She always hid, always smiled, always spoke with such careful calculation—but he never did. Sometimes she wished she had the courage to do that... but she didn't.

Then his muzzle is touching hers—and for the briefest of moments before they embrace in their own small way, she caught sight of the two narrow, parallel scars etched between his nostrils like writhing gray snakes. Fool, she thought with a pang of sadness, but without knowing if it was directed to herself or her brother. They had been young then, delicate and long-legged, still safe within their mother's embrace. That had ended too quickly.

He shakes his head, and she wants to pity him, but she can't rouse herself to care enough, to take back her pretty words. I'm sorry brother. It wasn't intentional—it just... just happened. She was a deceiver, a manipulator; and there was too much of a risk to let him think what he wanted about her, too much of a risk in letting the relationship between them ebb and flow on its own. They had drifted their own ways and the bridge between them had begun to rot, and she would not allow it, not today, not ever. As brother and sister they were bound, and she—she would come out on top, despite what she feared, despite what she felt to be true in her heart. "Don't be a dumbass Volterra," Nymeria says softly in repose, her voice dark red lips posed for a kiss and the flutter of her eyelashes nubile fingers awaiting a ring. She could elaborate here, embellish the truth, but instead she lets slide the topic, slipping into her next line of thought.

The tilt back of his ears, the flicker of uncertainty or anger, is an easy warning that she must be careful. Instead of allowing her expression to shift, her lips upturn joyously, teasingly, a jab at his ego. "And you should know I do not often speak openly." Come on Volterra. She half-heartedly hoped he would realize he was being deceived—but she didn't quite think so. In his eyes she had seen the truth: that he was well and truly entranced by the curl of her mane and the sway of her hips.

Was this only her brother, or was this all brothers?

Maybe her thoughts were unfounded.

Here she allows sadness to drift over her features, softening her mouth to a downward quirk and gentling her piercing gaze. "You never tell me you love me anymore," and it felt like she was treading on dangerous ground, felt like she was jumping blind. It was true, she thought; they never said anything that meant anything, not since they were children. It is also true we never see each other.

"I'm so tired of being alone."

There's a tear now, shining on her cheek, echoing the beautiful, chaste desire written all across her face. "Don't leave me again."

Their touch is electric, sending a thrilled shiver right down the stallion's spine. He snorts gently into her nostrils, an affectionate gesture quite unbecoming of one of his size and presence, and for a moment he's content to stand and simply enjoy. Enjoy the physical contact that drowns out everything else around him, including the golden egg which, up until this moment, had been the forefront of his vision.

Then she speaks again, and the moment passes. He withdraws, his nose still hot from where it touched her flesh, his loins still burning, his skin still tingling.

Don't be a dumbass, Volterra. He snorts in amusement, mirth momentarily spreading across his face. "Charming." He doesn't take it to heart - he doesn't take to heart anything she says, because he tells himself that she doesn't really mean it. She adds that he should know she rarely speaks openly, and he glances away for a moment - yes, and that's what worries him. He lacks the devious instinct to keep up with her games, and after more than two years with him she must know this. Yet she still hides behind her veil, her serpent's tongue always tying his brain in knots, when he prefers to be blunt, brusque, obvious. "I know you don't, Nym, but won't you humour your poor, intellectually inferior brother?" Sarcasm drips from his tongue, with just the hint of truth behind the bravado.

Then she's sadness personified, and his ears automatically ram forwards whilst concern drifts freely and brazenly across his stern features. If she's acting, he can't tell. He falls for it, hook, line and sinker, and what else could she expect? He is entranced, ensnared, captured by her, and doesn't she just know it? You never tell me you love me anymore. Confusion mixes in with the concern, creating a concoction of anxiety. Is she lying, is she teasing, or is she revealing her soul?

He can't tell. He can never tell.

"You know I love you. Does it need saying?" It is implicit, obvious. He loves her, obsesses over her, needs her like he needs the blood in his veins. Now there's a tear glistening on her cheek, and if that's an act then she should get a god damn award - he falls openly into her trap, giving a small, distressed whinny and stepping immediately closer to her. If anybody else on this planet made his sister cry, he'd break them in half and give her their still-warm heart as a prize. Now he's the one who has dampened her cheek, and it aches inside. "Ne sírj , szerelmem." Don't cry, my love. He slips instinctually into their language, their secret tongue that they so joyously absorbed when they were younger and their brains were sponges awaiting saturation. "I won't." Of course, that can't be the truth - they can't be together twenty four hours a day, not when they all have their own lives, not to mention their dragons who also require some of their private time. But it's a reassurance, one that tumbles gleefully from his lips - as close to a lie as he will ever tell.

You know I love you.

It was a consolidation of affections that should be unnecessary, but Nymeria craved it regardless of her mind's logical reasonings. He and her, they were born for one another; the blood that ran through them both, hot and fevered, was not so easily forgotten. And yet—and yet—despite this, this matter of shared blood and amniotic fluids—always was that distance growing between them. Here and now, tucked away beneath the velvet shade of the trees, that abyss felt insurmountable, even moreso because Volterra was a hero or a demon chiselled in mortal flesh. (She rather thought she had more in common with shit than him.) We are made to be together; that's what she always thought (and she would be damned if she didn't think Volterra thought that too)... but they couldn't be together, not really. They chafed and strafed against one another, igniting sparks: together capable of god-sent warmth on a night cold as death, or burning down a forest.

She should know better than to do this to someone like him...
A tear becomes two, then four, then eight, and they were not all fake.

Lil does not infringe upon her mind, not now. In the back of her mind, she feels his nebulous presence hovering with uncertainty and distress. He wants to help, to drain her volatile emotions away—but he won't, not because he couldn't but because she puts up barbed wire and cement walls between them. Let me, he implores her once again, and she ignores him in favor of memorizing the sound of Volterra's pained cry, the anguish in his eyes. You can't do anything.

Everything up to this moment is inconsequential. I don't think anything will be worth this. She's got something sharp and hard around her heart when Volterra speaks to her in their tongue. You're supposed to be all business. What was business compared to this? The agony, the torment—get your fucking shit together. The tears sliding down her cheeks come to watery halt; Nymeria smiles tentatively, achingly, and for once she lets Volterra see her in all her raw-boned ugly. There in her teeth is a sneer, in her eyes mocking love, in the curve of her neck depraved longing, and in the flick of her ears hate: but painted front and center is an echo of long-cloaked fear wrought unto her very bones. Maybe it's a warning for him. Maybe she wants to show him all that was all wrong with her. Maybe she wants to know if he would be as repulsed by her as she was.

“I'm sorry Volterra... maybe I should just go. I'm not helping anything.”

He doesn't understand.

He doesn't understand.

She is a closed book, a spaghetti tangle of words and actions that addle his brain and twist him into knots. Why can she not speak openly? He has no time for riddles, for webs made of lies and serpent-tongued devils. He is a great believer in saying what you think, and having no shame in it. The tears that pour down her face - are they lies, too? He doesn't know, and frustation bids his ears to slam backwards and his massive forehoof to stamp hard against the loam beneath their feet.

Their conversation had seemed to innocent, a far cry from the tempestous tempers and roiling rage of their previous meeting. He hoped that she would be happy for him finding and protecting the golden egg, that she would want to be part of this next exciting chapter in his life. Instead, she's tied him into a knot of confusion and misery, and he doesn't even know how to begin untangling it. She's open to him, and he likes to think that the Nymeria stood before him is his real twin, in all her beautiful glory. But he can't know for certain. He can't know anything for certain, when one errant word can cause her to turn against him so easily.

Maybe I should just go. "Why?" The petulant word spews forth from his lips like bile, his eyes narrowing and gaze fixing on her. "For fuck's sake, Nym, what's going on? You know you can tell me. You can tell me anything." He implores her with his gaze, with his big, open face like a moon, with the confusion and pain that's etched into every line. How can he fix her, when he doesn't know what he's accidentally broken?

Volterra's angry. (Angry or upset?)

The emotion is carved into the ponderous planes of his chiseled face, and drips down throughout his entire body. He should be made ugly by it—Nymeria, after all, is wet and snivelling, forelock tumbling into her eyes and tail pressed against her hind legs. Except: except he is righteous and justified, like a majestic emblem painted across a battle-worn shield; where he swells she shrinks, and where he grows she dies. It was unfair of him to do that to her; but how could she fault him for being what he was?

The forest is cold and smells like blood and ruin. Volterra’s words parallel a knife tracing the contours of her throat.

She does not condone him for his language, for his command, but neither can she disapprove entirely. Looking at him, she sees what she's been expecting the whole time: a burgeoning warlord, a future king... oh, she could elaborate on how she loathes it, loathes him, but she doesn't. What good would come of that? Better to be underestimated—or never even expected—than to be seen coming a mile away. The tears that race down her cheeks slow, instead catching on her eyelashes; she cuts back on a sob like she’s got a broken heart (but doesn’t she?)

In that moment, her preparations for self-preservation seem almost petty. They won’t be, not in the long run, but it’s difficult to remember that when he’s looking at her with his red eyes and his too-hard, too-soft face, all cracked and brittle with pain. What if I misjudged? What if she had misinterpreted the way he looked at her, when there was something of the battle still in his eyes and she could see the strain throughout his body? There are too many words vying for a place on her tongue, too many thoughts to sort through. Giving way to instinct, she gives voice to what feels the least wrong rather than most right.

“I can’t," she said, and her voice cracks, soft and weak like her. "I just… I can’t right now. Please… will you spend the night with me? We can part ways tomorrow morning. Just not tonight.” There’s something to her tone—pitched and sloping—that has it bordering on a plea, edging towards begging. Nymeria blinks, swallows, looks to him—hopeful and hurting, caring too much and not enough at the same time; and moves closer, pressing her head towards his shoulder, hiding away her face in his mane.

I'm sorry I'm not sorry.