#c:ember

Ember was beyond thrilled to have found another dragon in this wide, depressing world -- to find one that was fertile made his spirit soar. The presentation of his mate mattered little in the grand scheme of things, in fact he considered Frankie gorgeous the moment he laid eyes on him. Their mating flight had been both dramatic and glorious, high over the ocean where human eyes would never see, plummeting so far in their mating tangle that they barely had time to catch themselves before meeting the spray below. Now, bonded, the great old dragon found joy in his sweet mate.

It was only supposed to be a quick hunt. In the forest and out again before anything down there was the wiser. He hunted at night because, with his black scales, only the sound of his wings and the heat of his flame would announce his coming, and by then it would be too late. But he was still young, and though an experienced hunter, still had a lot to learn about human behavior.

Like the unpredictable nature of people who hunted for sport. He didn’t realize some people just liked to kill things to prove they could.

He had angled low over the trees and spotted a lone horse trotting along the tree line. Normally he wouldn’t bother, but he hadn’t eaten in a few days and was getting pretty ravenous. And as he loomed in to capture the horse, a spell had flashed from among the trees and slapped him with a force so strong it knocked him off course. Feeling the crackling pain of some ill spell on his scales, he tried to recover, and then a second spell splashed over his wing membrane and cut massive gouges in the tender skin.

It wasn't his plan to bring a boy home today; right now he had an empty penthouse, his last remaining lover having moved out in the last few weeks after winning a postgraduate position at an Ivy-league university in Britain. While the penthouse was conspicuously empty, Ember never really felt what humans would classify as loneliness. Dragons were loners by nature, it was only his drive to propagate the species which kept him taking these fleeting, youthful lovers. Caspar had borne him three healthy hatchlings in his time with Ember, but now they had left the nest to find their own way in the world, too.

Wandering the city, just taking in the sights, Ember heard the sounds of a scuffle. A soft, pleading voice. Another raised in anger. The sound of a strike and a yelp of pain.

Ember normally didn't meddle in the affairs of humans, but that voice sounded so defeated, he acted on impulse. His human glamour was intimidating enough, but there was something about his draconic presence that always seeped out, and this was in full effect as he approached the couple and snatched the man's arm in the swing to strike the smaller one again.

"Strike him again and you will lose this arm, little man," he snarled, his golden eyes narrowed threateningly. "What could he possibly have done to deserve such treatment?"

The man scowled, trying to tug his arm out of the stranger's grip, but Ember's fingertips only dug further into the flesh. "It's none of your business, asshole. Just walk away."

Very few things rattled the dragon, but when he heard that strained sound and saw Desmond squirm as his body began readying for laying, Ember was immediately hovering over him, alarm and anticipation palpable in his movements. He felt over Desmond's belly to see how strongly the muscles were attempting to expel the egg, and exhaled softly in surprise. So strong... it wouldn't take long at all.

Normally, Ember's gifts to Aandag were extravagant; jewels and silks and rare, exotic foods. They took trips to private places where they could shed their human visages and fly together as dragon and crow, stretch their wings out and be themselves awhile. Today, though, as they lay comfortably spooning watching a documentary about how some brand of candy is made -- these things seemed to fascinate Aandag -- he pulled a simple silver chain from a pocket and held it before Aandag's eyes so it would catch his attention. The setting was intricately carved from a single piece of silver and had a few small blue gemstones set in, but all that surrounded the rough, obsidian-like appearance of a single one of Ember's own scales, about the size of a thumbnail, which he'd plucked from the area of his thigh where they were the smallest.