“Kri and I do not see eye to eye,” I smile with faint humor, just the hint of corners turned up in amusement. Her answer was an expected one; very few could withstand the temper of our leads. They were pure desert hardened beasts of carnage—bur there was also a gentleness if only one dared hang around for the sampling. Just as there was a softness to Ktulu behind a shell of that youthful entrepreneur head. I wasn’t sure what my Lady was trying to prove in this merciless life, but then again that inner question could be reversed to myself.

Do not forget your fathers face.

“I find the desert very oppressing.”

Though her choice of words wasn’t fully understood at least by its reasoning, I didn’t press further. To a Pegasus nothing was freer than having the world below; close to heaven we stood, close to our Gods. Dragon’s Throat had the widest sky. Having already learned that people would share when they felt good and ready, I waited to see if she would share more on this topic without me having to ask. Instead on dwelling toward a thought that obviously wasn’t ready to be fully discussed, Ktulu ventured toward a question of her own. One that made me blink and cast my gaze to the ground with heartsick emotion turning my throat into a tight ball.

“How long do you think we can keep doing this, Midas?"

The million framed question of our night. She was dangling before me, like an object that I could see, touch, even smell—yet, unreachable in its wholeness. I had been selfish. Not willing to admit that the woman I loved was hurting on the inside and there was nothing to be done to correct it. Nothing to change that fact. If I went with her, I would be miserable—we would be miserable through time. There were others who counted upon me, and in the coming weeks they would count upon me double fold in ways that I couldn’t even fathom.

“We’re trying but sometimes I think that we’re not meant to last.”

My frown deepened and the very core of my being felt a sadness that was unexplainable. “We’re not meant to last.” I forced a smile, tainted with pain that was concealed with love and darkness, “I’ve hurt you, and for that I cry your pardon,” soft as the fur on a babes belly my voice slips quietly into a lull, “When I fell in love with you, it was before our hooves walked a separate path.” Glancing up I attempted to lock eyes with her so that she might witness the bare soul beneath; the fragile one very few got to see. I was scared. Scared senseless when I had admitted my love to this beautifully wild creature, and now terrified of losing it. “Until the day you wish to see me no more, I will come…until that day and all that follow. I will keep on loving you. I've got no other answer.” Each word was like a dagger in me; she could turn me away at any moment. It was her right.