The silence stretched.

His body eased into it, even as his mind fought against it. The soundlessness of it seemed to stretch on forever, and it was as if his body was threatening to atrophy in the silence. He couldn't read her body, not the way that he used to. Or perhaps she had simply forgot him, and fallen into a speech that he couldn't understand. Oh, that's right, you don't speak french.. her curves might have boastfully and haughtily insisted, as if he were some sewer-rat come to demand her attention. Or, perhaps it wasn't as thoughtful as that at all. Perhaps it was simply--

sssshe has moved onnn, whispered Mara with her continued skepticism. Unlike Vorsa, the snake refused to move from her position. Youuuu are like that rossssse. Ssssssomthing from her passsssssst.

In that moment as Mara slithered and hissed in his mind, Gaucho knew two things.

#1 Mara was right. Gaucho was some long forgotten trinket of a time that had passed. He was a back then, and a remember when. He was her past, encased in a shimmering tomb of crystal. The thought of the two of them together might have looked good from this vantage point, but once you got up close, you saw that the thing you wanted was actually dead and inaccessible.

but ..

#2 He didn't care.

He stepped forward.

Every ounce of his body screamed that he didn't care. She was saying something about happiness .. then the rifts, and then..

His mind, briefly, moved to Ampere. Where had she even gone? He hadn't seen her in weeks, and when he had, she had been chasing after Mesec. The girls hadn't seen her, Zero hadn't ...

Blue faded to black and then to white.

Blue eyes faded to green and a sea-sparkle blue.

Black mane faded to white.

His mind blurred his thoughts. His wings raised slightly.

He just didn't care anymore. Social tact? The politics he had learned? The distance he felt between them? Nah. He was the Wildfire, Sultan of the Dragon's Throat, Kahl of the Sands and chosen Ascended of the Sun God himself. But more than that, he was Gaucho, and she was Sohalia.

They were inches apart now and heat rose not from the hot sun that surrounded them, but from within his body. The fire on his wings rose higher slightly, and Vorsa had to scramble towards Astraeus to avoid the bits of salty sand being thrown her way. She might have hooted her anger were it not for the fact that she could clearly peer into his mind. The zephyr trilled lightly at her older cousin and hopped on the hot sand, moving a few feet away.

"Gaucho always want-" He choked, his voice thoughtful, rough as sandpaper, and full of need.

With his next breath Gaucho meant to ask her where she was staying, if she needed anything from him, if there was anything that he could do - but his body interjected. Instead his body-pierced muzzle pressed forward, seeking out the delicate but flesh-shakingly beautiful skin of her own muzzle. His ever-burning wings rose higher as if he meant to defend and hide them from the world, as he had once done so many years ago. Magic and fire lingered just below his skin, humming and thriving, flourishing and growing with all that he felt inside.

She was back.

Even if she wasn't his, that was enough.

Because even after all this time, she was still his first. His beauty to his beast. And he loved her.