"What are you doing!?" The angry voice gave Hennory reason to pause, even as he leaned heavily against the small form from the incessant pull towards his destination.

"Halusilth…" He managed to mutter, suddenly vaulted upward into the sky and the golden queen in his sights. He was flying so well, managing his energy levels and keeping pace amongst bronzes. So proud, but still being so careful..

A squeeze of his forelegs.. no. Those were his arms. Halusilth seemed to loosen his grip of him, and he stared down at the flushed, lightly scarred face of Mei. Tesrinth was coiled about herself in her bed like a spring ready to go off, her eyes swirling with distress.

"Don't go." As much as she tried to make it sound like an order, her voice cracked. No doubt she was feeling the affects of the gold's rising, even if it wasn't to the magnitude that Halusilth was washing him with at that moment.

"But I-" He tried to bypass her again but she clung on. He was vaguely aware of the tears beginning to stream down her eyes, as much tears of frustration as they were a sort of desperate grief. Her voice cracked. "Am I really not good enough for you? What was all this, then? All that talk? Are you really telling me you've been stringing me all along this time, you b*****d!" She shoved him now and he stumbled back, the flickering of clouds creating a haze of his vision. The further he stepped back, the more his small friend seemed to disappear.

Not good enough.. all of this was too complicated for his flight addled mind to comprehend. "I thought…" It seemed he thought a lot of things. That she wasn't interested. That he needed to start looking elsewhere. His frustration resonated through to Halusilth, who seemed to take it, groom it back down slick and nice and send it back in a gentle rebuke.

Stay. Whether you are here or not, it will not change how it will end.

The connection with his dragon was crackling against his vision, trying to stay on the ground long enough to sort out this mess of emotion that he was vaguely aware of. He shook his head roughly, trying to clear the fog and focus on Mei's small form. She was livid, and it seemed to come off of her in waves even as tears fell down her cheeks.

"You want me to stay."

"If you don't want me then just LEAVE, Hennory! Just leave and go after -her- like everyone--"

Those last words were silenced by Hennory's lips crushing against hers, pulling her up against him so tightly that she could scarcely breathe. His kiss was bruising and she squirmed, but the gold's ardor was still in the air, still affecting her so that his roughness did little to dampen her rising mood. It vaguely occurred to her that she'd been lifted from the ground. Of course he had, was her bemused thought. A full head and then some taller than her, how else would he be kissing her like he was now.

"I must stay with Halusilth." He gasped against her lips, vaguely aware that his knees had come into contact with something and he was falling backwards, thankfully into the softness of Halusilth's soft coverlet for his stone couch.

Mei breathed in his words, and exhaled her own, arching when his hand roughly found a handful of her hair. "Go. I'll be with you."


--------------


Hennory lay there, a confusion on his face that Mei could not really decipher. Halusilth had not succeeded in his endeavor of chasing the queen, leaving a tendril of frustration lacing the satiation Hennory felt in every limb. Mei had dozed off, her face buried in the fleece of his dragon's bed. He'd let her stay that way, merely laying beside her as he ran his fingers through her hair. Some time had passed, Hennory was unconcerned, save for merely wondering where his dragon had been off too.

When he'd come out of his flight stupor, he'd felt grounded, helpless and desperate to alleviate the malaise and frustration that had overcome him. But Mei had been there, as she'd promised. Even grounded it was all such a blur that he hardly remembered the details. But she'd been willing, and that was what mattered to him.

You are in my bed. Halusilth responded, sounding jovial, if not rather alert.

Where are you?

I have found a lovely place to sun myself at the top of the caldera. I am directly above you, in fact. I am stretching and resting my wings.

That certainly sounded suspicious. Halusilth's amusement flittered through his mind. You have been laying in my bed a long while. I have been resting. Have you not looked at your neighbor?

Hesitantly, Hennory turned his head, meeting an eye so fiery and red that it would have scared him had he not been a rider. However, to see ruby glow in the meek green's eye was startling. As if spurred by his assessment of her, the green lithely vaulted slithering from her couch. No pretense. Nothing more than an angry hiss as she launched herself into the sky.

Mei's eyes shot open, confusion and fear in her eyes. "Tesrinth!" Her breathing was heavy and Hennory soothed her, curling his arm around her and pulling her close. "She's quiet. She doesn't want to wake Hyweth. She's scared but she has to-" Hennory stroked the side of her face, feeling himself lifting up, disorienting him. Tricky, tricky blue.

"She won't get far." At that, Mei's eyes flashed with challenge, but quickly turned to surprise as Halusilth snuck up behind the unaware green and plucked her from the air. His blue's satisfaction would have made him laugh had he too not been thrown up into the sky with his dragon. This time, he knew Mei was in the sky with him, crooning with her green in a blue's embrace.