Nacreou

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The stars fell in love with the ghosts...

He brought her in, though she knew not where she was. Knew not who he was, other than she could feel the pull to him like no other drake had managed, feel the way his incarnadine eyes would watch her, the way their scales could reflect the light off each other. They were each a darkness, but in a way...it felt as if he had brought light to her life.

Both her nest-parents had been dappled with pearlescence the way she was, the way he was, but there was something in his eyes that showed that he had not known such a similarity in his own home. Elsewise he would not watch her as he did.

Not that she minded the watching. She would watch well enough herself.

It was a comfortable place to be, among the Ruins, much as she had not expected it to be. The others in the clan were welcoming, and when the time seemed right, they made it subtly clear that there would be a nest for the two of them, should they want one.

Bright eyes, he whispered to her, the quiet hush of speech they'd always kept between each other. She felt it more than heard it, deep within herself. Her head canted toward him, and he elaborated. With a nest here. Among the Lightweaver's kin.

She considered that. My mother's eyes were bright. It was a distant memory, but she could see the sun-bright eyes looking down at her from a hatchling's perspective. It had never truly occurred to her that her mother could have been from the Ruins, from long ago. Her father's eyes...as she thought back, reflected the waters of the Sea of a Thousand Currents, and her mother the bright Ruins...though they had found a home among the Shifting Expanse while she grew. And now here she found herself among the Ruins again.

Nacreou's gaze caught hers, in his eyes a quiet concern. Bright eyes?

Yes. She straightened her back, letting her wings flare out before settling again.

She could see the admiration in his eyes. As you desire.

---

The dreams came on her suddenly, as if sitting the nest had caused them. It chilled her, an ice in her chest she could not warm no matter how she tried. She would awake--within the dream still--and the sky would be an empty black, stars gone and silent, the lights of the Ruins shattered and scattered among the rubble. Nacreou was nowhere to be seen. Her eggs were broken, shards of dreams thrown carelessly into the dust. And her wings...she could hear them, feel them, as if chains were binding her to the ground, to herself, into a tomb of her own creation. As if she were no more than a ghost, treading the paths where dragons had once roamed, clattering with her tired memories like an ancient story. But she could not stay still, could not wait and see if normality might return. She wandered, searching, wanting a moment if for nothing else than to say goodbye...

Every morning she would awake tense and stiff, talons buried into the nest, wings tight against her sides. Nacreou would nudge her gently, a reminder that he was there, an anchor to the truth of the waking world. She would cling to that hope, that it was only a dream, that their hatchlings would grow strong and travel the world, and should the gods call them to fight, it would be at their own choosing or at least not for some time...

Bright eyes. It had become a nickname for her--for them, perhaps--and she heard it as the edge of her consciousness. Her eyes opened to meet his. The sun rises.

And it had, as it always did, the sunbeams gleaming down and scattering in fragments of rainbows all across the cobblestones. This was the real world. Her head turned to look at her back.

No chains, Nacreou said softly, nestling beside her best he could. No darkness. None but ours.

Because the darkness would follow them, would it not? Despite the sheen of their scales, despite the luminance of their eyes...there was a darkness to them. It was what had brought them together...and she would not let it tear them apart. If she was to be a ghost, then he would be her sky, deep and dark and filled with glittering stars, all-encompassing and welcome.

None but ours. She rested her head against her forearms.

None but ours.

Lore by @Hyleoroi at the Olympuswatch Lore Shop