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Her name was Ashes, apparently, and for being one of Ember's friends she seemed surprisingly tolerable. Dragon Beach was on the opposite end of the island, a sad piece of sand nestled between Coastal Remains and the elder temple that barely deserved the distinction of being called beach, and seemed to Flame, a weird place to host a homecoming party. This also meant they had a long, boring walk ahead of them: a walk that would be infinitely worse had she been one of those talkative types. But they were almost at the old waterwheel now and so far, she had barely said a word.

She did hum to herself as they walked, which was annoying, and every now and then Flame would catch her glancing in his direction when she thought he wasn't looking, which was even more annoying. And a little odd too. But he decided to ignore her. He had more important things to worry about anyway: like the fact that he might actually meet Spyro in a few hours. His belly flopped nervously at the thought, a whirlwind of ambivalent, contradictory emotions. He was ecstatic, anxious and scared shitless all at the same time. What if Spyro wouldn't recognize him after all these years apart? Or worse yet, what if he wanted to know what Flame had been up to since he left?

He'd have to tell him that in the last ten years, the most exciting thing to have happened to him was the time he got lost on the way to Dragonfly Falls. That he had inherited his mother's cave, where he had spent most of the intervening years, painting, reading and watching bitterly as all the dragons of his generation found mates and flew off, until it was just him and the gray-scaled elders left.

Flame winced. No, telling Spyro the truth would be way too embarrassing. If he asks, Flame should just tell him that he slipped on a banana peel the day he left, struck his head, and fell into a ten-year-long coma.

That's assuming, of course, that Spyro was actually visiting, and it wasn't just a prank. Flame still wasn't entirely convinced. And even if Spyro was coming, Ember had never bothered to tell him if he was returning to stay or just visiting. What if Flame got there late and missed him? What if there was too many dragons there and Spyro misses him? The town had seemed unusually empty and Flame suspected many dragons had made their way to the north beach already, hoping to catch a glimpse of the famous dragon. And did Spyro even know Flame was gonna be there? It was all a mess and he suddenly realized he wasn't the least bit ready to meet Spyro tonight, and on top of everything else, that stupid dragon was staring at him again. They had reached the crossroad by Crocodile Swamp when Flame decided that enough was enough.

"Do I have something on my face?" he asked, standing himself in the gray dragon's way.

The dragoness looked at him, surprised. "No, your face looks fine to me," she assured him with a shrug.

"Then why are you staring at me all the time?"

"I wasn't staring," she tried, even though she very obviously was. "It's just... you're a little shorter than I imagined."

Flame blinked. "You're staring because I'm... short?"

"A little bit." The gray dragon shrugged again, as if commenting on someone's height wasn't extremely rude. And at any rate, Flame wasn't that short. He was possibly slightly below average, but he had always felt that his long horns compensated nicely for it.

But before he could tell her as much, she went on: "I mean, you hear so much about the other realms being these really scary and dangerous places, that only the biggest, bravest dragons would set foot in, so I guess I just imagined someone... taller". She turned to him again and asked with a skeptically raised brow. "Have you really been to Avalar?"

"As it happens, I have," Flame answered, a little indignantly. "Not that I see how it's any of your business." Flame had in fact been to Avalar three times in his life. Spyro had been with him every time of course, and to be fair, he would have never gone if it wasn't for him. And that was all a long time ago, anyway.

Still, he remembered the Autumn Plains glide as clearly as if it had happened yesterday. He could recall every word passed between him and Spyro, how many times he had smiled and how cold the wind had felt, every little detail burned into long-term memory. But that didn't matter, because the feelings that had compelled him to climb that terrible tower with Spyro, and then jump from it, were gone. In retrospect, they even seemed strange and foreign to him. Incomprehensible that they should ever have belonged to him at all, like a memory borrowed from a complete stranger, or a half-forgotten dream where you can clearly remember doing something embarrassing but not why you were doing it. All he felt now looking back those days was a vague sense of regret, and even that had dulled after so many years. He never talked about those days, making it weirder still that this Ashes weirdo should know about his trips to Avalar.

The gray dragon regarded him curiously, as if she wasn't quite sure what to make out of him, but Flame didn't care if she believed him or not. He snorted and pushed past her. Unfortunately, she didn't quite get the message and reappeared beside him just as quickly.

"As I was saying, it takes a special kind of dragon to go collect all the gems in Avalar. And you seem nothing like Spyro. But I guess opposites really do attract, huh?"

She said that last part with a coy smile that Flame did not care for. "Yeah sure, whatever..." he mumbled, walking on with his eyes fixed on the road. He decided not to ask why she was talking about Spyro now, or what she meant by that opposites attract thing, but then the other dragon said something that was impossible to ignore:

"You used to be Spyro's... special friend, right?"

Flame nearly choked as half a dozen questions collided in his head. How did she know? How much did she know? And most importantly, who had told her!?

"Ember." Ashes chirped innocently when he demanded to know, still with that stupid smile on her face, as if his sister telling strangers about him and Spyro was the most natural thing in the world. "She told me you took it very hard; that you boys were pretty close. Before he left, I mean," she continued, shuffling her talons a little timidly." She says that's why you're always angry and never talk to anyone..."

"That's not true!" Flame bristled. "And anyway, Ember shouldn't be running her snout about things that don't concern her!" Especially not to strangers, he added under his breath. Of course, he should have known that Ember would be leaking about it to every dragon on the island. He redoubled his promise to himself to find her and throw her in Crocodile Swamp at the earliest opportunity.

"So... it's just made up then?" Ashes asked, a little apprehensively.

"Ember just likes to exaggerate things, that's all," Flame brushed his ruff back down. He hated the way it always rose when he got upset. "We weren't that close. Just friends, really. Nothing remotely special about it."

"Oh..." Ashes said, and almost seemed a little disappointed.

"Yeah." Flame marched on, hoping that she'd take a hint this time, but like before she caught up with him.

"So you were really just friends?"

"Yes."

"And you don't miss him every day? You aren't sad he left?"

"Not at all." he blurted out, a little louder than intended.

"Well..." the annoying voice continued next to him. "If you did have a crush on Spyro, that wouldn't be so weird. I think pretty much every dragon had a crush on Spyro at some point back then."

Well, she was right about that, at least, he thought bitterly. Spyro had had half the village hanging off his tail since puberty and was never seen without one or two fans hovering over him. Even worse, he had always seemed to really enjoy the attention too.

"Anyway," she continued, and a somewhat mischievous smile curled on her lips, "He was always so popular. So I guess it makes sense you weren't more than friends, with how many other dragons he had to choose from, I mean!"

Flame just glared at her, taken aback by such a blatant attempt at manipulation. He was sure he had never met anyone so rude in his entire life, with the possible exception of Ember and she had the excuse of being his sister. Who did this dragon think she was anyway, calling him short and now this? Wounded pride swelled up in his chest, and then he decided to tell her, except he doesn't really decide, the words just sort of tumble out:

"We kissed you know."

It was true. To this day, Flame couldn't tell you what had come over the purple dragon that night, and of course, they had never had the chance to talk about it before he left.

The dragoness stared at him with wide eyes. "Really!? You kissed Spyro the dragon!?" she asked, voice bubbling with equal parts surprise and disbelief.

Flame nodded proudly. "I guess I must have been more than just any old dragon to him after all."

He nearly jumped when the other dragon let out a happy squeal. "THAT'S SO CUTE! When!? Where!? What was it like!?" Her pale blue eyes sparkled with curiosity.

Her excitement was more than he expected, but a warm feeling still spread through Flame, and he had to stifle a dumb smile. "Dark Hollow, in the elder's side of the island. And it was just like a regular kiss I guess. Wet. Awkward. You know what a kiss is like."

"Well, duh... I've kissed dragons. But not Spyro! And you didn't say when he kissed you. How long were you together?"

Flame had intentionally left the when out. The truth was that it had been the same night Spyro had left, and thinking about this night still made his heart sink. "We weren't really together. At least not officially together."

"Yeah yeah..." Ashes waved her talons dismissively. "So how long were you unofficially together, then? When did you guys meet?" She was sitting on her haunches now, tail wrapped neatly over her talons, looking at Flame in a way that made it clear nothing less than a detailed account would do.

"That's kind of a long story."

"Yes, but Dragon Beach is a long walk!"

Flame sighed. "Fine... I'll tell you. On the way."

He walked on with Ashes hovering over him, her gray wings fluttering with anticipation. "Start from the beginning! Start with how you first met!"

Flame opened his mouth to tell her, but then realized he wasn't so sure what the beginning even was. He and Spyro had kind of always been together, in one way or another.

They had even hatched together, through force of circumstance. It had been a perfectly ordinary day in Dragon Village , which had been so far as any other ordinary day except for the fact that it had been on the Year of the Dragon Festival and all the eggs had been gathered outside the Elder Temple as per tradition.

All eggs had been accounted for except a big white one with purple dots all over it. Flame's mother, who was a bit low on eggs herself and a dependable dragon by all accounts, had been given the egg by the elders to care for until it hatched. Nobody knew what else to do with it, and his mother had reluctantly agreed, seeing it her duty, and so it was that Spyro's egg would be placed in a nest right next to Flame's egg and his sister's.

Ember had hatched first, giving her an unfortunate two-day head start on Flame that had earned her the annoying right to call him "little brother". He and Spyro had pierced their respective shells at the same minute, nearly on the very same second, according to his mother. But while Spyro had practically exploded out of his egg, eager to explore the world, Flame had taken one look at the big world outside and promptly decided to stay in his egg where he felt safe.

When Spyro felt done exploring the cave, he had stumbled back to Flame's semi-hatched egg. Then the curious hatchling had pressed his nose inside the shell and started snuffling on Flame and tried to nudge him out. And with Spyro there, Flame finally felt brave enough to come out into the world.

His mother always said he and Spyro had been inseparable since that day, and the elders used to joke that wherever purple went, red was sure to follow. When a tiny Spyro, bored with his cave, had ventured out into Dragon Village to explore, Flame had followed closely, petrified of the outside world, and afraid he'd get into trouble, but still happy to be with his hatchmate.

Yet they could not be more different, even as hatchlings. Little Spyro was brave, curious and had an insatiable lust for adventure. Flame, on the other hand, was afraid of everything. He was afraid of the elders, the forests and swamplands surrounding the village, most things outside the cave scared him in fact. Even his sister Ember had scared him for the first few weeks of his life. Yet he never wanted to stay in his cave if Spyro was out exploring. And even though the outside world was scary, he felt safer with Spyro.

One time, elder Tomas had found the hatchlings running about in the swamplands outside the village, gathered them up and promptly returned them to mother. She had been furious with them, angrier than Flame had ever seen her before, and said that they could be kidnapped by gnorcs if they went out too far, and threatened that she'd give them over to the elders if they didn't stop sneaking about. It hadn't stopped Flame from following Spyro out the next day.

Even back then, Spyro had his way of making the world seem more interesting than it had any right to be, like how exploring an old swamp could be an adventure for no other reason than that Spyro thought it was. And it Spyro there was never any shortage of adventures. They'd sneak out early in the morning, as soon as Mother had left the cave, to explore or play in the lake or collect gems, sometimes with Ember, sometimes with other dragonets from the village, but mostly just the two of them. And then late at night they'd drag their tired feet back to the cave, curl up and fall asleep, only to do the same thing the next day, and Flame felt safe knowing that every day would be the same.

And then the next day came and Spyro was gone. His spot in the nest next to him was empty, which felt all wrong to Flame who hadn't gone a day in his life without waking up next to Spyro. He wasn't in his cave or outside in the village, and his mother wouldn't help look for him or tell him where he was. She'd just shake her head and tell him to calm down. Then Thomas had come over, sat himself down next to Flame, and explained calmly that from now on Spyro would be living with the elders on their side of the island, in the Elder Temple. He said it would be best for Spyro, to have a place where he could grow and train without causing trouble for the village or his mother. "Or you, for that matter," they had added as if Flame should be happy to be rid of his adoptee hatchbrother.

Flame didn't like that idea one bit. No young dragons were allowed on the elder side of the island, so he wouldn't even be allowed to visit Spyro without explicit permission. So far, Spyro had been a constant in Flame's life, like his sister or the sunrise or the nest where they slept at night, and to suddenly have him not be there felt like having lost a part of himself. He had been even more devastated when Ember told him, in secret, that the new arrangement had been his mother's idea.

He had cried, and Ember had wrapped her wings around him and tried to tell him that he shouldn't be sad because at least this meant that Spyro would be happier, with all that room to explore. But Spyro had been happy with Flame, and he did not see how neither of them could ever be happy apart. And he had promised himself never to forgive Mother for separating them.

A month or so later, Flame had finally been allowed to visit Spyro. With the elder's reluctant consent, their mother had flown him and Ember across the island to their side, and they had touched down outside the great elder temple. Flame remembered how the big, imposing structure had frightened him. First, a massive courtyard with a great many statues of various important dragons. Then the temple itself, a thousand years old, four massive pillars joined by stone walls that sank directly into the cliffside and looked like they had grown out of it.

They had found Spyro training in the antechamber with elder Magnus, whom Flame had met only briefly before and had always found to be a particularly odd dragon, with his beard and staff and his ways of always mumbling to himself.

Flame had expected, and to some extent hoped, that Spyro would be as miserable without him as he had been without Spyro. But while Spyro had been overjoyed to see Flame, it quickly became apparent that he was happy and comfortable living in the temple with the elders. He liked his training with elder Tomas and Magnus and he liked that he was allowed to explore nearby Coastal Remains and use the gateways to explore other homeworlds too. They had taught him to charge attack and headbash, and a few other cool tricks that Spyro had shown off enthusiastically, and while certainly very cool, Flame couldn't see why any dragon would need to know so many different types of attacks.

He had left the temple with a very peculiar and uncomfortable feeling: a sinking feeling of loneliness, but for reasons he couldn't quite put his claw on yet. Things would only get worse as they got older.

As they grew up on different sides of the island, they also grew apart. And If they had been different as hatchlings, they were even more different as young dragonets. While Flame was just realizing he had wings, Spyro was soaring between mega-trees in Dragonfly Falls. While Flame was just figuring out what his horns were for, Spyro was headbutting gnorcs off their feet with his new charge attack. Six summers past their hatchday, both Ember and Spyro had their fire breath. Flame, ironically, could at best cough out some smoke. And when it was time for the young dragonets to start their gliding lessons, it was discovered that Flame had a very undragonlike fear of heights.

Spyro, on the other hand, was born to glide, as their tutor elder Astor liked to say, and indeed even his sister managed the glides with ease, but Flame could barely step on a platform without getting dizzy. His ineptitude at all the things a dragon was supposed to be good at perplexed the elders and was a constant source of humiliation for his mother. The simple truth was that in every way a dragon could be better than another dragon, Spyro was better than Flame.

There were times Flame wondered if his mother regretted sending Spyro away. If perhaps she even wished that Spyro had been her egg instead of Flame's. He never dared to ask.

But the bad part wasn't being so much worse of a dragon than Spyro. He was still happy to be spending time with him whenever he was able, even if that happened less and less often, and didn't give a horn about what the village thought about him either. No, the bad part was the gradual realization that Spyro was doing just fine without him.

"So?" Ashes voice appeared next to him, and Flame was pulled back to reality. "You were gonna tell me how you guys met."

"Oh. I actually don't really remember..." Flame lied.

"What?" Ashes sat back on her haunches and gave him a weird look. "What do you mean you don't remember?"

"Look, it's not even that interesting of a story anyway. We were close as hatchlings. We grew apart."

"But you promised you'd tell me." Ashes said, furrowing her brows.

"I'm sorry, but we don't always get what we want, do we?" He turned his back to the perplexed dragon, then continued down the road. "And that kiss," he added, looking over his shoulder, "I doubt Spyro even remembers it."

Ashes caught up with him, but at least she stayed quiet this time. Flame felt a twinge of guilt at the sight of her dismay but pushed that feeling aside. Why should he feel sorry about her? It's not like Flame owed her to reveal every embarrassing detail about his life. For all he knew, she was probably just like his sister, meaning that she'd go share his story with every dragon who would listen or tease him about it to no end.

Ember had figured out Flame had had a crush on Spyro, but she didn't know about all the other things. She didn't know about the kiss - and Flame was happy to keep it that way.

Besides, if he told her the rest she'd just want to know how Spyro could leave without him if they were so close, a question Flame had been asking himself for ten years and still had no answer to. And it would make things even more awkward if, when he meets Spyro later today, it turns out that he barely remembers Flame.

Flame let out a deep sigh. Maybe he should have stayed on the beach.