The ship docks in Lys as the sun set orange. You inform the guards, “We’ll eat dinner on the ship and start our search tonight.” You hope to have Aerion in hand as soon as possible. From reports, he spent mornings sleeping, afternoons training, and then out to the taverns and pleasure houses. No rest for the wicked—or for those searching for them.

The captain is of Westerosi extraction, in service to the Targaryens out of Blackwater Bay, but some of his crew hailed from Lys and most of the men had been there before. You question them about which sort of establishments a Targaryen prince would be most likely to visit. You get various answers, mostly from sailors who would not look you in the eye—speaking to a lady of the royal family about such things, oh no. You finally take the expedient of a mug of ale and standing off behind the hold stairs while a guard did the questioning. 

One of the sailors, however, has no qualms about speaking to you. He is old, a few strands of scraggly gray hair, one eye, and three teeth, more or less. You slide the ale across the table and don’t even have to ask the question, it’s already been spread about the ship. 

“I’ll tell you where to find that prince. He’ll be in the Aviary. That’s where.” He takes a big swig, smacks foam from his lips. “You just head southeast from the docks and you’ll smell it, yes you will.”

“Smell it?”

He giggles. “Yes, yes, your ladyship, once you start smelling all them perfumes and flowers, you’re near. Looks like a big gold bird cage it does.” He describes some curves in the air with his broken and bruised fingernails.

“Thank you for your time.” 

He grasps at the ale, trying to drink it all down. “You can take that with you,” you say. He grins with all three of his teeth and hobbles out of the hold, ale in hand.

“We’ll start with the Aviary,” you tell the guards. 

“Yes my lady. We’ll report back.”

“No. Maekar sent me; I am going.” The guards shift behind you but don’t say anything.

 The old sailor was right—you did smell it. Compared to the Street of Silk in King’s Landing. Lys has a more sprawling pleasure district. Rougher, cheaper brothels double with taverns near the docks for just disembarked sailors. Further away from the water, the pleasure houses grow ornate, particular. Something for every sort of sinner. 

The guards walk at your shoulders; one slightly ahead and the other slightly behind. People bump in and out of doors, laughing. The choking perfume makes you miss the muddy salt and urine smell of the docks.

And, at the top of the street: the Aviary. The building itself is set within a structure of columns, fluted and gilded to look like a birdcage. Marble fountains splash. Multi-colored birds perch. You wonder who cleans up all the bird droppings. Music comes from somewhere inside through the white lattice work, a lighter, flitting sound over top with something sinuous underneath.

Inside, the birds turn human. Hanging from the ceiling on gold swings, girls with dresses made from plumage, purples and reds spilling down behind them, twist and writhe. Men and women lounge on pillows spread about on rugs. Slight serving girls with small silver bells circling their ankles and dressed in feathered skirts flit from patron to patron with trays of drinks. A dark man brushed past, catches your attention. Paint of gold outlines his eyes, a gold earring, brown hawk feathers fall in a short cape from his bare shoulders. He gives you an appraising look.

You scan the crowd looking for that pale bit of Aerion’s hair. “Looking for someone dear?” You look down. Beside you, a short, heavy woman stands, speaking close. She is older, large breasts pushed up in a low-cut, tight purple dress, the fabric wrapped about her. Her pale, thick makeup creases, eyes lined kohl, dark hair piled in curls on her head. The perfume of the street seems to emanate from her.

“Perhaps I could arrange a peacock for you?” She glances down your dark, simple clothes. “Or a peahen?”

“I’m looking for a man with hair like mine.” You push the hood of your cloak back. She takes in your straight silver and gold hair. Targaryen. Her eyes flit to the guards. You can feel the price ticking up. “I have just the—”  

You cut her off: “No, he’ll be a client.” 

“We don’t give out information about patrons.” Her accent seems to slip with each line. She rubs her white, pillowy hands together, each finger ringed, and you are sure her hands can count coin by weight alone without even looking. 

You gesture to one of the guards. You had arranged coin for bribes beforehand. You told the guard to keep the coins separate, only take out one at a time, no need to pull out a whole purse and let them see how much you had, how hard they ought to negotiate.

The guard has the coin in his hand and then its between the madame’s fingers and tucked away so rapidly you hardly catch it. Well, if the brothel business goes under, she always has pickpocketing to fall back on. 

“He’s upstairs with the dragon,” she says.

Of course he is. “Strange sort of bird,” you murmur.

There is a scuffle across the room. A large man already shoulders his way to the disturbance. “Excuse me.” The madame sails sway toward it. You lift your eyes and stalk through the crowd, the guards struggling to keep pace. 

Through open double doors, you make your way up the wide, white marble staircase, steps low and deep. The staircase corners round the perimeter of a courtyard garden below. Another fountain is in the center and, amongst the citrus trees, gilded cages with more bird-women. A man opens the door to one and the women steps out, lands a hand on his arm. Overhead, you can see the night sky through more open lattice work. No flying free here.

Upstairs, on a sort of wide balcony, there are fewer people and fewer clothes. Men and women twist together in the torchlight. You can feel the guards’ discomfort and are sure, in part, it has less to do with the nudity itself and more that you are here with them. If you were a man, on your return home, you’d ask Maekar for a knighthood. “Wait here,” you tell the guards. The hallway is short and you’d rather not have them sweating behind you.

The hall is lined with curtained rooms. You start lifting curtains. Inside, men and women couple. Scratch the knighthood, you’d ask for a lordship; and not one of those in-name-only ones, one with lands and income. Fewer people protest your intrusions than you’d think. Most are too occupied and too far gone on drink and whatever else they serve in Lys. You even get one invitation to join. Hospitable folk. One by one you lift and let fall the curtains. 

Toward the end of the hall, you lift a curtain to the largest room yet. A big, low bed set on a platform across the room. The back of a woman, her dark hair braided in a ridge down the center of her head. A netted web of rubies across her back. And you can imagine it: dragon scales. And there, lying naked in bed: Aerion. His pale hair and pale skin like stardust. You can see up his body, over the woman slithering low, his throat, the underside of his chin, and Aerion looks…bored. Like a man trapped by the dullest, most long-winded guest at the feast; a lord listening to the septon drone when he’d much rather be out hunting. A man imprisoned with no hope of either escape or release; the prisoner has stopped shouting for someone to come, given up looking for a loose stone in the dungeon, waits with nothing to wait for. 

He sees you. He says your name with a sort of perverse pleasure like mentioning something shocking at the dinner table, rolling it over his tongue like learning a new word in a foreign language—and a salacious one at that—like greeting an old friend long missed, like a gasp at unexpected news. And someone more interesting to talk to has come along at the feast; the sexton has stopped droning and the lord is out in the wood, hunting horn blowing; someone has come along with the key. Oh yes, Aerion would come back with you. 

The woman notices by now. She says to him, “Is that your wife?” 

“Worse,” you reply, “leave us.” The woman glances at Aerion, who only looks at you, and she slips out of the room. Aerion had nearly jerked to a seat when he saw you, but, remembering himself, relaxes back, lounging on the bed, making no effort to cover himself. You say with a sort of mock formality: “Prince Aerion Targaryen, your father has requested your presence in Westeros.”

“You came to fetch me,” he says.

Back to your normal tone: “Your father sent me.”

“Come here.”

You approach the bed and look down at him. Aerion’s pupils are wide and his eyes are too bright. He says, “Since you sent the girl away, you ought to finish what she started.”

“You’ve gotten too used to girls who take coin to do whatever you command.” You lean closer, say in almost a whisper,“You don’t pay me.” Aerion can feel the dance of your breath over his ear and his eyes widen. 

You straighten. “Get dressed.”

Aerion rises from the bed. You scoop his clothes from the floor and press them to him, go wait by the exit. Aerion considers his bundle of clothes, shoots you a look: “Dress me.” 

“Do you want me to send for one of the guards?” You don’t tell him what for. 

But Aerion stands there, challenging, with that little smirk on his face. You sigh and cross to him, pull his clothes from him, drop the pile on the bed. You shake loose his trousers. You can smell the alcohol coming off him. You bend, holding his trousers low. “Step in.” 

He plants a weighted hand on the back of your shoulder for balance. One foot, then the other. He lurches and bumps his bare hips into your cheek, pretending a stumble. You place a flat hand low on his stomach, just above, bend your knuckles so your fingernails dig into his abdomen, claws, look up at him sidelong: a warning. His bratty grin turns opened-lipped. Who’s the dragon now. 

You draw his trousers up, hands on either side of his hips, chest to chest. You pull his laces tighter than necessary. He sways into you with each tug of the laces. You pull his shirt over his head. When your knuckles graze his ribs, he arches into them. He leans his head forward into your neck as you settle the shirt on his shoulders. “Aerion.” You press him upright, hands to his upper arms. You don’t bother with the rest of it. He can walk barefoot to the ship. 

You gather his remaining clothes, boots, and sword. “Come,” you order. When Aerion stays, swaying on the spot, you shift the bundle of his belongings to one arm, grasp his elbow and march him out of the room. The whole routine pleases Aerion.

“You found him,” one of the guards says. You hope their swords aren’t as dull. Aerion wrests his arm from your grasp, flings it over your shoulder, rests his weight heavy on you like he has a twisted ankle or a broken leg, or maybe he’s just a prick. The guards hold out hands as if they might assist, take his clothes, hold Aerion. Their sword arms will be occupied, and it is like to cost you Aerion’s compliance, not getting to hang on you, instead you say, “Let’s go.”

The four of you head downstairs. Aerion is grinning against your ear. The guards help part the crowd and some curious, some glazed eyes follow you, as you stagger under Aerion’s weight and his listing stumbles.

Out in the street, you contemplate handing him to the guards anyway, because you do not see making it back to the ship in the current manner. Aerion pulls you towards a group of carts, two wheeled, long-handled contraptions held by wiry men. “Let’s take a rickshaw,” he slurs. You frown, but Aerion is already climbing in. Fine. “My lady,” he says holding out a hand with a mocking bow. You take it and step in, settle Aerion’s things on your lap. “To the docks,” you lean to tell the driver. The guards walk alongside.

With each lurch of the rickshaw, the full length of Aerion’s thigh, knee to hip, bumps against yours. He’s got his upper body twisted sideways and squints one-eyed at your profile. He lets out something like a snort and untwists his body, slumps, lets his head loll on to your shoulder, and he takes a big inhale. 

You glance down at him. You can see the straight line of his nose, the cut of his cheekbones. And, in the intermittent torch light, his pale hair, still the same. You don’t know what you expected. Maybe you thought he’d go softer. Softer with drink and loose living. Instead, he seems to have gotten sharper. Aerion has always be cutting, but someone has put an edge on him. He did not seem a prince just drug off silk in a perfumed pleasure house. No, he seems a man brought back from a long campaign of low rations, long marches, and brutal fighting.

Aerion’s eyes have closed now, pale eye lashes forming two crescent moons on his cheeks. His breathing has deepened. You have a strange urge to set your hand on his head: a benediction. Instead, you tighten your fingers in his bundle of clothes. The perfume fades and the sea returns.

At the docks, you shift under Aerion, give him a nudge. “Aerion.” He grumbles into your neck. You pass his clothes and sword to a guard. The other pays the rickshaw man. 

You get Aerion under his arms, work yourself back out of the rickshaw. Aerion steps out landing chest against chest, arms about you like a loose hug. He really was going to make you work for this, wasn’t he? You shift him to your side, his arm about your neck, shoulder up into his armpit. You loop an arm about his waist, the other hand on his stomach to hold him steady. The two of you set off up the gangplank, walking like you are already on a moving ship, swerving from one side rail to the other.

On the ship, you order the servants, “Arrange the prince a room.” Why this was not already done, you have to wonder. 

You let Aerion slide off onto one of the raised hold vents. He continues to lean against you, head to waist, shoulder to hip. You bump him with your hip, “Do you still have belongings at your house?” 

“I haven’t been there in ages,” he drawls.

You say to a guard: “See that someone retrieves the prince’s belongings from his house. Have them packed and brought to the ship tonight. Close out the lease. The Captain is most like asleep at this hour, so inform whoever is the awake senior-on-duty we’d like to leave as soon as the ship can be resupplied and ready.”

A servant has come back, “The room’s ready, my lady.”

You let two servants walk Aerion down and follow. They have prepared the room beside yours. They deposit Aerion on the bed. “That’ll be all,” you dismiss them.

By the single candle, you can see his outline sitting on the bed, edges all pale and silver. “Undress me,” Aerion commands. A great weariness settles over you. You stand before him. Aerion peers up at you, “You seem tired.”

“Have you learned empathy in your time abroad?”

“No. I say it because you look awful.”

“Having to chase after you. Go to sleep”

With two hands on his shoulders, you press him back onto the bed. You bend and swing his legs up, lift the sheets over him. “Good night, prince.” You blow the candle out and leave Aerion in the dark.

Before you retire, you have a guard posted outside Aerion’s door. No sense in letting the quarry escape.

The next morning, you come up onto the deck. The sea breeze lifts your hair. The captain needed a few hours of daylight to put the ship in order, but you got underway in good time only a few hours after dawn. 

It is late morning now and the sun is bright, glittering off the dark water. In all the glorious sea air, you find Aerion bent to the side of the ship, forearms folded, forehead resting on the rail. Lys didn’t let go so easily. You say, “For the wages of sin is feeling very sick on the ship the next day.” 

Aerion cuts eyes at you underneath his arm. He turns to look at you better, still using the ship rail to stay upright. You have looked off at the horizon, so he takes in your face, pale, thinner, shadows under the eyes the color of a faint bruise. It’s what niggled at him last night, even in the dark, even with his addled brain. Now here, in the full sunlight with a clear head (marginally), he sees it: eyes far off and a sort of bone-tiredness for which a few days at sea cannot account. And, Gods, you were still beautiful, your hair bright in the sunlight, a few pieces blown across your face. You lift a hand to brush a strand from your eyes, eyes like his eyes. Eyes he missed seeing, and you look back at him, and now he’s too far mired for his muddled morning-after mind, so Aerion turns again to the sea.

That night, as Aerion sleeps, better than he has all his time in Lys, he is woken by a sound, a voice.

You are in the dark again. And somewhere worse than the dark: the dreams. It is loud, so loud, and you must fix it, there must be a way. And then, above, underneath all the noise, you hear someone whisper your name, say your name, a voice you know. 

And you are back.

“Shh, it’s me, it’s me.” 

You’ve got a knife at Aerion’s throat; tip into his pulse point. You look from the knife to his level, glittering eyes. You lower the blade and Aerion extracts it from your hand, sets it aside.

And then you gasp like a swimmer breaking the surface after too long under. It is not really breathing like you’ve exerted yourself. More like your breath moves too fast and you heave just to stay on top of it, to keep up. The sheets are a tangle down at your feet and you realize you shiver.

The good people of Westeros would fain believe it, but the volatile Targaryen prince gathers you like a child into his arms, speaks soothingly. He sits on the bed and you press yourself into his chest like it might be a fortress you can escape into from whatever enemy assails you, if only you can get inside and close the gate in time. Your hands twist his clothes. He has got his arms around you, steady against your gasping. 

After a few moments—or maybe part the night, you cannot tell—when your breathing begins to quiet, you realize what he speaks into your hair: whispers of High Valyrian, all soft, hushing hisses and sibilant words. You take a shaky breath, getting mostly him—his skin, him, straight from sleep—and sigh. No longer pressing into him, just resting there.

“How long have you had the dreams?” He knows. He has seen them, the dreamers. His brother going half mad, trying to escape into his cups. You speak into his shirt, into his chest, “Since Baelor’s death.” He stays quiet with you.

And the next moment you are conscious to, is lying in the white light of dawn, golden arrows of light sliding across the opposite wall with the movement of the ship. Despite the cool sea air, you feel warm. Aerion is there against you. Your hands are loosely fisted in his shirt. 

He lies—awake, still, eyes to the ceiling. You can see his profile like a distant mountain range, his forehead to nose, over his lip to his chin, a valley steep to his throat. How long you have known that face, since childhood. It was always all the Targaryens, Baelor’s and Maekar’s families, yours, the brothers and cousins. You and Aerion sat at feasts together, travelled to tourneys together, rode on horseback and in wheelhouses together. You played as children together: cyvasse, fishing, imaginary games of dragons. All your life. Changed, of course, from young to grown, but still Aerion.

Your breathing has shifted enough for him to know you are awake. He glances at you, a check, then he gently releases your hands from him, gets out of bed, and walks out of the room like he had just come for a short, day-time visit or maybe like he had not been there at all.

 The next night, you go to Aerion’s room, barefoot in your shift. You do not knock, just open the door. He lies on the covers of his bed, legs extended, ankles crossed, hands behind his head. He lies like an effigy on a tomb, some stone-carved king reclined above his own bones in a hushed sept. His eyes cut to you and hold. The ship creaks, moves with the swell. 

You step toward Aerion, and he has a fleeting vision of you, dressed in white, as a phantom, some old sailor ghost story, some tale about a woman. But, you are real enough when you sit and your weight dips his pallet. 

You place your hands flat, even and level, fingers together, near his shoulders on either side of his chest. And you bow your head to Aerion. For a moment, you are profile to profile, foreheads, eyes, noses, lips, all pale familiarity in a sort of silvered mirror. You both go near colorless in the dark. 

Then, with breath of sea foam you touch his lips with yours. Aerion has a roar in his ears not of the sea, something continual and consuming. You pull back. 

Aerion lifts his pale head now, arms still behind him like a man in chains, reaches up for you, lips parted and brushes a breath of his own against your mouth. It is a moment pale and still. Then Aerion unbends an arm, reaches a hand for your face. He touches you like he reaches out for smoke from some extinguished candle, the white curves, the after-bones of fire that you can run a hand through and let twist and curl around your fingers. But his fingertips find the solid of your face, and he is a blind man at a statue, hands on a carved marble face, feeling the features, wanting more than eyes can see. His eyes follow his fingers across your cheekbones, along your jaw, a brush over brow bones—he might number your eyelashes—a pass over temples. His fingers leave the bones for the silk, a skim of your hair falling straight and pale, his hair. 

Then, he moves his fingers back to your face, to your lips where something warm and living breathes through all the pale stone. And his fingers hover there in that heat. The candle still burns. You look at each other, the dark glimmer. You close your eyes, lips which you press to his fingers as to the extended hand of a conquering king, on your knees, as to the forehead of a child. Aerion trembles.

He moves his hand full against you, palm and all, to cup your cheek, flush, and this is no spirit brush but contact, hot and complete. You tilt your head into his hands, cradled there. Your brow furrows and you turn your head into his palm. Forehead presses like the heat of his hand might burn away all the dreams. You can hear Aerion breathing now. His legs shift beside you, but he stills again and speaks, “Is it me you want or distraction from the dreams?”

Your gaze shifts from one of his eyes to the other and then finds somewhere in the space between you. Why did he ask, Aerion thinks, gods, he does not want the answer. The proud prince, the arrogant prince is, here, a thirsting man, who is offered water he refuses for a dislike of the taste, because the cup it is poured into is dented. And here you are, pouring him wine into a goblet, him gasping for want of drink, and he has the stupidity to ask for the origin of the wine. When he knows—he knows—he should drink it down: sweet, bitter, poisoned, tip it all back to the dregs because it comes from you. 

And behind that, the accusation. The dreams you cannot choose, either for or against, but must have. And he wonders how long he has. Not himself but you. Of course, the times are the same. The Targaryen dreamers go mad, die young. And its your mind he has relied on, he knows, the steady and strategic. He could wander through it, turning corners unexpected, into hanging gardens and columned buildings, a whole world bounded, and to have it all taken by the dreams as Valyria by the Doom. Something—to Aerion—hallowed made hollow. And the prospect, the potentiality burns through him like drinking wildfire. If you go, he will go. He knows it like an oath. Will follow you into madness, into death, into the dark abyss beyond, and, if he must, he will negotiate, fight, cheat his way through, out of, each of the seven hells to find you. 

But, here, his thumb presses into your cheek. You close your eyes and kiss his palm there where they made bloody cuts in ancient Valyrian wedding ceremonies. You back your wrist behind his and move to the inside where his blood flows thin to the surface, skin flickering, and there, you kiss, bite, teeth and lips close over the tendon, tongue to measure the beat of his pulse, holding his hand to you like it is something dear and sacred and necessary to your existence. 

Aerion brings his other hand up to thread through your hair. He pulls you down to him, and, lips to your lips, he drinks full and long and deep. 

You pull back. And you stand, lift hands to opposite shoulders, arms crossed, your own sept statue, and push your shift off your shoulders. It slides down arms, off waist and hips, and puddles there about your bare feet. Aerion looks, watches, sees, rapt. Then you return to the bed, his bed, lie your body down full and flat on his, flesh and blood. You lie down carefully as if onto a hard, stone surface with a long way to fall. Ribs to ribs, arms along his, hips meet, legs drape. You turn your head and he turns his so you rest cheek to cheek. 

Each of his breaths numbered oh so much more carefully now you rise and fall with them. Your hair skims loose on your back and falls to his arms. Something inside Aerion, some noisy part always seeking offense, stimulation, something prickly and proud, goes still. And it is just your weight and breathing. 

Your fingers curl against his, lifting your cheek, you run your palms over his face, eyes going with hands like you might mold his face in clay, and you breathe, “Aerion.” You replace your palms with lips, the tip of your nose brushing. 

There is so much territory to explore, to fill your head with: his pale eyebrows, the slight silver scar on his temple, the small divot under his nose, the shadow curve under his lips. And to his lips themselves you go open-mouthed, urgent. Your hands climb his jaw, cheekbones, into his hair there to twine, twist, hold, while his hands still rest on the bed. 

You pull yourself closer, knees bending, to straddle him, crouching like some kneeling, praying supplicant. Aerion opens his lips to you but stays still. You look into his eyes, hands on either side of his face like cupping water. “Aerion.” Then you bow your head along his jaw like it might be easier to speak without looking directly at him. There, you break, plead, nothing desperate it is past that. Desperate would be wheedling, crying, threatening, demanding, begging. So its really just an ask and maybe its for something more than the here-and-now, but an ask: “Aerion,” a breath, “Aerion.” 

His hand finds the back of your head. He grasps your hand and pulls you out, pulls you free, and maybe its selfish—his life takes its measure with yours—but then he thinks he would take the dreams, step in front of a sword swing meant for you, so he does what he can. He kisses you. It is fatalistic living, a dark light. But it is living, it is a light. For all the thought of darkness, dreams, cold stone, and stillness, there are still in both of you, dragons. The fire flickers warm from your stomachs, tongues of flame up your throats and it is enough to keep off the night, to keep out the dark and whatever beasts prowl there. 

You lift Aerion’s shirt clear of his head, blond hair tousling, eyes pale with watching. He watches you move down his body, not just mouth now, but teeth, over his pulse, down his throat from blood to bones, across his collarbone, his ribs, finding his hip bone like a landmark on a map, removing the rest of his clothes till he is pale as moonlight on the bed. Wrapping your hand around his ankle bone, you slide his foot up, bend his leg. Your other hand wraps, drapes, loose under and around his leg. You drag your nose up his calf and, at the crease of his knee, place your lips there in a pulling press, eyes closed, brow furrowed, and just the smell of Aerion’s skin, pressing deeper, holding tighter like an embrace after a nightmare. 

Aerion watches. Then he sits up and gathers you to him. Hands hold either side of your head, tangled deep in your hair, he crushes your face to his. He has you tight against his ribs, between his legs, and he turns you down to the bed. He puts his lips soft then teeth sharp to the side of your neck. You wrap your legs about him, a bent-fingered claw grasp to his back, set your own teeth against the top of his shoulder. And Aerion is there. He scrapes fingers up your neck into your hair and slides lower bites across your chest, but you do not want the full weight of him gone.

A desperate pull, a clutch at the shoulder, like someone who missteps, stumbles, on a narrow mountain path and reaches for the one thing within their grasp. Aerion raises his head, just, eyebrows lifted, and he see you, lets you pull him back even. He brushes the back of his fingers to your lips. I’m here. 

And you open your self up, Aerion to fill every gap, stopping leaks and places for drafts, anywhere the dreams could slip through like cold water, bone-chilling wind. Instead, you take Aerion, all heat and flames, into you. 

And you’d near forgotten what it was like to have fire in you. The dreams had damped your fire to an unendurable smolder, all choking smoke and miserable cold. You almost understood why Daeron drinks. If you could not have a full fire, better to pour onto it, dumping spirits by the cupful, extinguish it and go out with it. It was the surviving that hurt: not enough warmth, but you could not blink out into the encompassing darkness either, so you sat, still feeling the cold. 

And Aerion had fire to burn. His whole life had been setting the wrong things on fire: burning his family, burning at tourneys, seeing imagined slights and offenses that he fans into conflagrations. But here, with you, he could burn. Put fire into something that had been made to withstand it because it once had its own, into something that wanted it, someone who said ‘yes’, someone who said ‘Dracarys’ with their arms held wide because burning was preferable to the cold.

So Aerion burns through you, never back and away, but up and in. The flames move through your belly, limbs, fingers. You keep your face against his, turned into his neck where the blood runs blazing. As he moves, you can nearly smell the flames in the heat of his skin. And when you close your eyes, this time it is not that nightmare noise you hear but just a voice you know, Aerion’s voice, saying your name. This time it is not darkness that you see but a blinding white, the color of Aerion’s hair.