Never Bound

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#1 of One-shots

A wyvern, alone in his nest, yet surrounded by many not far, begins to rest, only to be interrupted by a resplendent guest.

(The characters in this story have strong viewpoints. I wrote not to offend but to present a, I believe to be, unique perspective. There is some sexism involved.)

There is a non-penetrative/no penetration sex scene; search for "Between her" for the beginning of such.

On the chance one reads this story, feel welcome to giving thoughts, but feel no pressure to do so.


A flake of dried blood fell from his lower lip.

Following haunches, Valik rested his chest, nestling atop straw, tail curled around him and wings tucked yet tips still scraping on rock whensoever he so much as fidgeted. Most of his myrtle scales shone, the light to be blocked in a winddrop or so by the overhang twain wing breadths above. Alone on his peak he lay, facing out towards the tendon arch he crossed every sun pass. It failed to perturb him as it did others, though careful he must be in his current state to avoid falling, vans unable to give immediate aid, into the spikes wind-formed below. At the arch's end rose the flat outcrop whereinto paws had driven grooves, through which hardy vines throve.

Powerful air strokes, distant; up he craned his neck, towards the source: wings abeat in the late morning heat, scorching and scouring for some hopeless treat. All wyverns of the peaks knew few took well to late-morning greets.

What a fool.

Then again, that wyvern did not look to be of the peaks. He had to lean and scutter tips over rock to see them from this far, but wide wings paled by light, almost as impressive as his, rode easy, long currents across the sky, shortish tail trailing, till they chose to descend, span barely avoiding bringing flight to turbulent end within narrowing airspace of enclosing cols. Hundreds of peaks topped the short massif called the Crown, and this being seemed intent on visiting each.

To peak nest to peak nest they wended to converse with each shimmering occupant, rebuked each time--just as Valik had been this heat season, his being male of course 'naturally' to none of the liking of the males, giving just cause to punish him by digging in claws to wings. His. Instinct addled they all were. Though, not one raised a claw against this large entreating 'vern, although Amtrax, golden scales gleaming in the sunlight, did point towards Valik's spire in mocking suggestion before returning to bestride companion, coupling in plain view; never had Amtrax cared to shift his beautiful sex away from fresh air whenever it saw fit to escape. Still, no more than a trice passed and it was rehidden in a female.If only he'd said yes to me.

He had, once.

Valik tore a recent gash anew on the rocks and growled at his mistake. A fool made he. His gaze left the wyvern as he resettled and shut lids--only to snap them open when the sound of air rushing across aloft membranes began nearing.

Streaks of white light glared from onyx scales, and smaller scales lined the curves of each wingfinger, thicker ones on both forebones. And the largest reinforced a bulky chest that belonged to the broadest forequarters he had hitherto beheld, space to nuzzle for stars. Those quarters turned from his nest as their owner commenced a gentle switchback descent. A flank flexed muscles shielded by a thin but taut, even layer of fat and then scales. For the others to have refused such a male, even under a sky as hot as this; truly, something must be wrong with his mind, a fact corroborated by his chosen time of flight.

Yet so, Valik rose, in less hope than gathering warmth alluded, and placed his wings in front of himself and near each other: the custom display of acceptance, as much as that would mean to one from afar.

The male alit afore his nest instead of atop the above perch that an arrogant male would have. A good sign. The worst place was onto the lower disconnected crag beneath, fit solely for the few females, all of whom he'd rejected, that tried to solicit him. The number of occasions forced spent to hear false praise, to listen to could-be tales of how fast their offspring would be; few was too many. If not for mounting fear at the approaching heavy tread, he would've shivered as thought recalled a small, fresh-scaled one three suns ago near singing praises of his seed--seed she had never even smelt. Nor would she. And nor would he ever plant.

An unusual, pungent scent traveled as he impressively lunge-stepped towards Valik who canted head in friendly submission but not far lest he encouraged his, should he have presumed right about this 'vern, enflamed mind and him to pounce and take advantage before first talk. It had worked once on Amtrax. Tilting all the way, that is... Golden scale's weight notwithstanding: to again drift across, length along length. So sleek.

A strong voice stopped sundreams beginning. Or replaced.

"Hail. Valik?"

Only, that voice possessed a hint of that all too familiar lilt, that shrieking that bothered him rarely yet all too often, that pitch of... He snorted. A notion absurd, naught else.

"It is I." He rose. The other had slowed to walking, gait made awkward by the path narrow for one so large, across the arch, yet avoided riving through the vines. Broad, angular features. This 'vern's wide-set and inward slanted amber eyes faced forwards, and the two's stares held. Thick muscles made a stout neck, more descending his body, trailed by scales strong on a short-spiked back, scales that faded down sides till they became dark skin with, provided Valik's blue eyes knew what wasn't dust, a pebble-like grain, a texture smoother and smoother the closer one's eyes wandered to the male's underbelly. Valik's tail roamed rock behind.

Before the other could notice his unruly swishing, Valik asked, "From the low crags?" A curious stare answered, but a spike stubble lined jawline stayed closed. "Or the cliffs, more like." Cliffs befitting of the largest of wyvern species, especially of a member of which was a booster of said repute. "Your flight, gracious above, cumbrous twixt the peaks, suits the unobstructed and flat expanse that makes the clifftops to the east, does it not?"

Four horns in two pairs swept back from the corners of the male's head, differed from the pattern of three spread backswept across and from the top of the centre of Valik's. "These peaks harbour ill-will for my kind." There was that lilt again, scratching his ears, but joined by a soothing boom, chest echo, that both stirred and roused now lungs destressed from flight.

"And so who is he who comes afore me?"

The bases of his ears concaved slight: the 'vernic tell of pride, befitting of one with clearly of much to be proud--

"Kyis is she."

His legs tensed; if called for, from fleeing he would shy not. He'd outfly anyone with his injury, let alone with the surprise held in his favour, for none would expect a male to flee from a chance at mating. Plus, having to leap far from his crag to take flight, a short lunge a certain death to spikes instead, made legs stronger than those of any other.

"I have no interest in siring." He'd seen several of her race, the females of which were nearly as large as he, when exploring in his youth, but she went further and had shamed even Amtrax in stature, her eyes easily a full head above Valik's. A breeze gusted through the hole-riddled rock face below. "Leave."

"Nor does birthing interest I; hear me." She lied a simple ploy to ensnare, and, gull he was, he listened for twain breaths. "Of what you speak oppresses many, cleaving the bouk of one side for life, lessor suffering on the other. Fly alongside I who shall enfree thee fro shackles self-imposed."

"Changes little that was not already there in your side. Entice another." It was their heats that turned males into breeders. To what end had Amtrax started playing by pointing her here?

"To each nest I have gone, in each nest I have declined, for naught proffered respected my limits set."

'Twould seem she lied to herself as well.

"Divided into parts you differ, but seen altogether, you are as any other female. Some demur, but they acquiesce to their instincts withal. You? The same, sooner or later. Let some other male reveal your true windsong."

"Ergo, Amtrax lied; at least now I see: you are of those types."

"You label me what?"

"Of the capricious lot who feign disinterest before trying to swing." She turned away. "Expect not me to return and fall to planned sleight."

Sleight? Speaking as though he were a scrawny runt eager to rut. "Good, go, but know your words are false thrice over."

She glanced sidelong; he prepared to spread his wings, but she merely faced about. "Cynical? First, second, third: which was your failing?"

"You ask so bluntly?" He had baited yet fancied no bite. "The first. And of that I will not speak."

As the sun fell atop peak, wyverns afield withdrew to shade, and Valik backed to underneath the overhang. He sighed as his scales cooled, then suppressed a gulp when this 'Kyis' crept after him, blocking any potential escape.

"It harrowed me, my first; I always wanted it to be--"

"Avaunt, cliff tongue." He lifted tail, poised. He was no coward, but in truth, had this female proved less amicable, albeit deceitful, he would be bowing.

Her tail brushed spall. She span from him then soared, unfettered by heat.

***

The blooming rays gave word to the sun's wavering neath clouded skies; it was time to hunt. Arch he walked across and from crag he leapt, diving by mountainside and ridges--keeping clear of precipices that would've risked his healing and passing where snow would line in winter--and to the forests of the braes wound around the massif.

Twilight neared: a late hunt; the uniform blend of light and dark, and lack of other 'verns to distract focus, suited his eyes the most.

Amidst beeches, he spotted an old lone wolf on its last legs. Jaws clamped scarred neck and cut its last breath. He shredded the corpse, raking red into the soil. He usually left little mess.

But when she visited. He hadn't eaten on that sun. Or the sun aft.

At the Vein which flowed from the massif, he drank water, the traces of iron within giving the name. Up the mountains, gorges slashed a web through the rock, dividing each peak. It would take fewer beats to reascend through the pass near than along the shallow slopes around the mountains. Still, he wouldn't risk it.

As he began to climb, he paused to glance at the valley. Drenched in refuse, water, regular rock fall. They abode scant life. Deficient space brought out his best efforts, best wing tilts, best dances with--

"Race me to you nest."

Kyis glid past. Valik lunged across to the next slope, then the next, and the next, and the--

"Amtrax spoke of your reticence--reticence which does not besuit."

Valik stopped. A few bits of loess tumbled from the slope while the moon began to rise, vapour occluded clouds blocking starlight.

"As I promised to Amtrax, I shall inform him that it is I who flies the faster, bereft of keen, nay, simply willing sport as I am."

"We start now." Valik tillowed and leapt off the slope; he'd made the pass by when Kyis realised the abrupt start, an advantage proved sorely unneeded by her sluggish response.

He half rolled 'fore the narrow to keep at full as he rose past it and rose further. His angle went away from the wind, but he missed stretching, and this display would crystalise the difference between him and her--

Lagging, but where he couldn't, she, with a single scale width to spare, opened hers complete, no need to tilt. Currents turned, dragging against his, and she started to quicken.

Her kind never durst aught but gentle climbs in their clime, not once having to fall as prey do; he downturned to start plummeting towards the base of the crevasse, walls closing in and touching wingtips scraping. She passed overhead, slowing, expression ripped from glory to worry as he kept plunging. Then, just afore the ground, with a hard tilt he upturned and zoomed; air slashed past her as he soared.

For all that effort, it was still close, for the distance gave much time to slow, and she hurried after him. Nest neared, and aft he overshot the edge of the crag and downturned, his wings collapsed and he crashed into--

Her chest? They tumbled apart, onto the crag.

His head burned.

"Help!"

As he staggered onto his paws, he shook, swaying. Ahead Kyis hung over the edge, paws bent sharp as her knees pressed against the crag, holding herself from falling to the spikes below.

He lunged and clamped his maw into her stubby tail, leaving marks to fret over later, and hove, his paws catching on the blessed vines.

She reverse-flapped, body canting backwards. He released her tail and started to scoot away but cursed vines slowed him and it was too late: she flew back, underside skidding across him, bent knees and closed paws thankfully going over and not into his wings, till the rear of her chest thumped into his snout, stopping her at his mid, paws pressing down into his haunches.

She lay on top of his back. Like a male. He would have chortled except that scorching pain, once rasping in only his skull, now clave through scales and spine as her entire being weighed upon him in ways twice.

Instead, he yowled as she was at pains to move her paws off him.

"Just... stop. You're w-worsening it." Amtrax, bastard. He'd planned this, knowing bravado would overtake Valik, whose span lay ruined anew.

She listened and slowed, acquiescing to spreading legs astride, removing the pressure on his.

She was lucky spikes didn't jut from his spine, for unlike her chest, her underbelly was soft and warm. Yet a stiff, small but flat slit yold not against his back.

"Is that--"

She curved her wide neck, head facing sidelong to his. "No, 'tisn't. I... sorry, well, I merely instinctively rigidify, between there, when I become..." She trailed into inaudible whisper.

"Unusual." Hers was opposite to the response of most to stoked flames. "If you plan to use me..." he quieted as a tremor struck up from his lumbar to his wings and he wrothe and quoke. Cool, springy things, membranes, she lightly pressed against his. Breaths steadied, and the pain subsided.

"My span?"

"They bleed along dented limbs. The membranes are intact but stretched."

Oh, a trifling dozen sun passes in place of the twain it was going to be before and he'd be once more fit for flight; he would soon starve, then. Very little couldn't escape a waddling 'vern, admitting he found a way to descend the peaks without flight.

"For what ends do you rest upon me still"

"My error led to a benefit: my wings are helping yours clot; till your bleeding stops, I shan't risk moving lest I should disrupt your clotting and bleeding begins afresh."

"So wise, and so intent on my seed you hound me on my dying moon--"

"I saved you from dying by catching you. For the last, the other half of the seed does not pull or control me. I searched far and wide for one whose thoughts run alongside mine, one who wants not penetration but external caress, and here in these peaks, Amtrax told me you are that one. Under my wing you will not die."

She had. This large, masculine beast of a wyvern had saved him. Perhaps, but... "Then why do you not use my flat spine to sate your lust, fellow grinder?"

"To respect your dignity. It would be wrong to exploit your position and humiliate you."

"Dignity, wrong?" Lowlanders. Safety, easy hunting on long plains; they gave rise to niceties, the gradual refinement inhibiting their raw progress, ladening burden after burden till advancement slowed to a standstill. A loner he'd become, he, who glanced their civilisation during swoops on pastured prey, yet saw how much they had slowed, their homes still as vulnerable as those of the peaks' dwellers, simply furnished by baubles and those pretenders masquerading as servants.

"I could teach you about these things." She re-pressed her limbs. "I'd love to." Those membranes of hers... They were like gossamer. He repressed a purr and grunted, turning his head from her.

Amtrax's peak stood foreneath, twain glides afar from Valik's and wreathed in the rising mist. It wasn't all Amtrax's fault, Valik's bravado taking part. "Amtrax, did he speak... warmly, of me?"

"What he said he did not think positive. To me, it all was. Though your recklessness he did omit."

He sighed. "I suppose it was a victory either way for him."

"Hm?"

"Either I braved into my own death, or you and I embraced. Both free him from concern of me and offspring that would compete with his." He'd not fall into another female and sire, but Amtrax hadn't listened to him much in their brief dalliance together.

"Both free? Neither have occurred, unless you suggest the latter, now, when you must heal? Ridiculous."

"Obtusity or embankment into false promise. What of my hunting: will you carry me, is that it?"

"I'll provide best I can with what I'll find."

The vines weren't thorned. "The grounds around the Crown belong not to your order."

"Then fly far and swift I shall to respect. But no fear I hold, not when your grandest, Amtrax, would face me alone." She yawned. "We shall lie here for a while."

"A while for you to slumber in?"

"And you."

The vines really weren't thorned, as his chin found. Nay nest but better than rock. It were not as if he could rise and walk to his nest with her weight atop him.

"I may leave to it before you awake," said she, whose chin battled thinner vines, dragging them into a pile.

He shuffled his head into a comfortable stretch of the leaves.

"The areas around the great oaks. They're the best spots for hunting."

She nodded.

"And thank you, for saving me."

"Likewise."

***

The odour of flesh wafted: dawn length old, of an immense stag wearied eyes told, half his size.

"You have really nice thighs," she said, voice low, close. Beside him.

"I imagine, the stag, would wish it didn't, were it still here."

She trilled, then tugged the carcass towards them, shifting over to the other side of it.

"I'm grateful for your hunt." A rumble followed and Kyis stepped away, but he sliced with careful teeth and claw, tearing a leg before nudging it back. "But I've made no promises to lay with you."

"You need take it all."

But it was her hunt.

She pushed it back with her snout. "It may be past fresh, but 'tis not stale."

"I have eaten nearer bygone." His claw slipped and stag muscles tore as tendons snapped, splattering a grin of blood. "You have forgotten how much larger your race is; we do not gorge ourselves on such magnificent...prey." All horned kind held a bond.

"Bears are my usual quarry"--he overshot a swing of meat past his jaw and stared at her as she continued--"but even my wings could ne'er take such weight so far."

Bears: those Ursidae whom, having been eyeballed in their masses and the smallest of which selected, were hunted and ambushed easily by a mere three or so adult wyverns in desperate erst warmth droughts drawn long and deep between thin reserved and temperate weathers, paws dug into maws and across scales and fur, the fleeting, moldering blood warmth held as close as the sunset red was by an astray 'vern, yet to find new aerial berth, sent forth from familiar rocky home and into the world. Those great beasts from whom he fled as... they...

"Till you heal by your side I shall stay."

He mumbled, "And I by yours." Before she could take notice, "How's your tail faring?"

"Stouter than yours, flexible as that may be; fine, although your teeth frighten me."

"I'm sure tales of savagery have been spun many a spell in your ears. We are anything but--on and in fair lights and nights, to clear."

"Well, I tire, and, exhausted as I be, I should like to rest here."

She watched the quiet late-sun peaks as he weighed her words, heavier than she, while vines continued to mend.

"Aye. Need, more like, hoven about while you heave."

She lay afore him, and he offered a leg; this time she partook, long teeth tearing before stubbier teeth mashed.

The suns went that way, easy on his part, her carrying of something called a bucket slaking his thirst, a thankless hardship on hers, and as wings began to heal, untended desire stirred.

"Why does it repulse you?" she asked.

"What?"

"Penetration."

He thought a long while. "It is a restriction of movement. And even if, due to an instance being an exchange between two distinct species or owing to simple good fortune or discipline, such an act begets not, it still represents, reminds me of the pregnancies and layings that I have seen."

"The females of your species suffer greatly, Valik. Both from heat and its consequences; lessor ones mine weather, for ours pass swift without swelling, though certainly something I concern myself not with, having only seen and not involved myself."

"They have a choice." For whatever reason one would crave to bloat, he'd failed to learn, no matter how many hatchlings matured afore his eyes and added to the Crown's number.

"As do males, if not more so."

He snorted and rested his head.

"Judge less. Their lives are their own, theirs to take where they see fit, just as ours are ours the same." She made an astute point; freedom to cherish came with choice.

Her right membrane caressed his left. "For me, 'tis a matter of never wishing to be bound, to not ever be physically restrained, and in the moment of breeding, that is what occurs: entanglement, slight as it is or no, the long-term after-effects further so."

Between her thighs, a graceful, somewhat reserved--elegantly so, as far as concerned him--slit lay firm against the rest of the tissue there, the scales of her ventral side glinting with a faint, red tint. From his own slit his length began to peek, and her eyes narrowed.

"I begin to garner your appealing gaze?"

"I...yes."

"Then I request you"--she rolled to up against her back, curved, propped up against a rockwall--"scrutinise."

He meandered a few breaths away, gazing as his pupils grew.

"I can stiffen it at will," Kyis said. "Honestly, 'tis a choice, a switch, as opposed to a force needed exert. It may not be as grand as a male's."

"You know?" he asked.

"I gathered as much from your attitudes towards females and Amtrax."

"Fret not; this is equally good in its own way," he said, snout hovering near it, and the intoxicating scent strengthened. At no point had he done this, the only female he'd gotten close to doing this with instead moving straight to what she called 'real sex'; she shrieked at him when he'd withdrawn, not a droplet of pre having left his tip yet, and she'd barred his tongue with paws. This would differ. "May I?"

Her breathing naturally moved her slit a twip closer, now bare a thou away from him. "Yes."

His forked tongue glid fro parted maw, and the ends touched first, sliding up along, the centre dip of his tongue trailing, three points and three waves of anticipation scrolling by her delight.

Slowly he went, her desires and his he helped meet, for treasure this moment they both cared.

"I...wish to decorate you."

"Oh, you think yourself a male, now?" His tongue continued sweeping around her mound. "And that you have enough?"

Her ears near caved in on themselves, the bends tight. "Oh, I think so."

He would indulge the idea, though possible he knew it not.

Circling then zagging, inching closer and closer towards her warming sex, he crossed over the line where muscles under her skin hardened, tongue reaching her mound: the scales so fine the edges tween each detectable only on the slowest of passes.

The flat surface welcomed, steady and even in response to light strokes sweeping on smoothness beside the next which kept drawing him and disrupting his sweeps, sweeps turning to swipes, swipes turning to dabs and croons brushing his ears, rumbles chin, his taper dripping.

"To, not have, to"--her hips she rocked, pressing them up into his face, mound set firm to his mouth, his tongue sliding to her slit and ascending, ever-so thorough in its approach to her finish--"bid to be gentle: it elates, you elate me, that you continue steady and your, your style, your poise, it all I must extol, now!"

Her lower body rose slight, still for a trice, then thrust, and his tongue's ends touched both sides of her clit, his dip pressing into it as she moaned, sweet salt-hinted liquid flowing then sallying in a rush to adorn him, the passing spells persuaded by his met to hers eyes into long stretches while waves rolled up and down her concaved spine, each ebb nudged back till no more remained unoiled, and he softly fell to her left thigh, both of them panting.

As sweetness flowed down his three horns and to his tongue, he opened his maw and showed her outpour, to which she cooed before crooning when he swallowed, a soft, satisfied sigh leaving him while he looked beyond her slit, her underside being as soft as it had seemed, the texture permitting the roving of his snout, tongue caressing scales, as she drifted her thigh back and forth across his face.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"Buffing your anointment."

His maw's corners curved up, and he chortled. "Thanks." Ample she had held.

"You delight me 'yond aught claws ever have."

As he stood, he nuzzled her flank. It wasn't dust, the fine grit scritching his snout, purring to her relish. His length was unmet but pleased all the same.

"Gratified, truly, to your taking to me."

He turned his head to the peaks.

"What is it?"

"Listen."

No longer muffled by their moans or the suntime activities of the other 'verns, the sawing wind made its eroding of the rock, taking of spall, and rearranging of schists known to all who deigned, admitted, by stilling to hear, that the peaks held sway greater than their own.

"Do you hear it?"

"Yes. It's beautiful."

"At night, the wind howls through the valleys and the passes and scrapes over the pawfuls of arêtes."

"I ne'er thought I would meet an elder so wise who shared my eyes," she said as she flipped onto her legs and nestled over beside him.

"I am twenty summers."

"You speak like one of fourty, and no other way I urge you be."

They laughed.

"How did you find me, on that suntime I hurt my wings?"

"Handsome and lovely. I mean, four flights it took for the unaccustomed me, the whole way from the base to the top, your peak, and then I had to fly and circle for ages to find you..."

They talked and rested, and dusk passed to night, the stars clear.

She had closed her eyes, and before he his, content as he was to risk not a slip despite it meaning his own needs went unfulfilled for now, he whispered, "Sleep we--"

"I already yearn for seconds but most of all to quench yours." Her eyes opened and she rolled over onto her back. "I ask you to lay atop me; shall we grind?"

He blinked. "Is that position not...entrapping?"

"With my tail, leg, and wing strength, no, nor symbolically when I am the larger."

"What if I slip into you?"

Her slit hardened. "You would have sooner misfortune impaling my chest."

With a nod, he moved over and brought his legs to in front of hers, thighs pressing, his suppleness to her mixed stiffness as the two steadied, the peak cool, all set in white blue.

"Before you lower, I must observe your sex."

"Of course." He curved up back, sex blazoned in full: a completely smooth, pinkish red tapering member, no head to speak of, instead a soft tip, its lavishly self-lubricated by-slit skin glistening, not a vein to blemish its surface. A mild size, the length selfsame as his paws, the width claws. The gentle curve was as its character.

"It is perfect, elegant in its sleek flow. Now"--her neck curved towards his and his hers--"we should begin."

At once their meeting, both forms held distinct and unpressured, exchanged parts of their souls and unfettered them fro bindings, all given freely with naught expected in return yet much given back still as slit pressed up to underside and both slid, sailing in his long-swept dreams and along her glorious triumphant persistence.

Their tongues slithered, saliva blending as warmth embloomed, tails finding respite in each other.

As his sleek underside glid up then down her slick slit, his tip caressing her clit on each up pass, her sex hardened further, disburdening him from his fears, fears which she herself need never held, and apposing them in every way. Their snouts nuzzled, purrs loudening to vibrating rumbles, chest set against chest, and membranes glanced.

The slide hastened, and their wings shot out; the tips touched; and they moaned, hers pouring and coating his as his gently pulsed and clear white flew from its tip, past and by their heads and up onto the crag above, the ocean now two as its waves, having relinquished themselves of their primal instincts, instead spurred by admiration and adoration heated by affection, rolled along each other in wind drawn, wind coaxed currents, bringing themselves to their fruitions, hers a sloped mountain and his a cuesta yet withal their summits shared in intensity in intimacy in love.

All throughout poise, composure they held, if not for themselves, for each other, for strength enflamed the heart hotter than any eagle's cry or serpent's quiver.

His head fell to rest on her neck, and hers his shoulder, both puffing for a whole cloud pass. Eventually, their breaths, misting scales still, calmed, and she resumed nuzzling him.

"Yes, yes. I am dazzled by your tenderness, your holistic, utter manner."

"And yours awes me."

After quite a while, he raised his chest from hers and she rolled onto her paws.

A clean scent drifted down from the crag, hugging that of her liquid, of which there was more of than his, the whisks of sweet and salt interchanging.

And in his nest, their nest, they slept. And in each other's minds, they found love.