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There was a very clear directive that urged them all to stand and fight, to exact revenge against the Great King for all that he had done. And while she was not particularly inclined to participate in any sort of combat - neither part of her was - she did want him to suffer an agonizing end for his crimes and transgressions.

Just not enough.

Because this directive was the wrong one. This would be an endeavor of tremendous irrelevance, as long as she felt so empty. Not even the fall of an abhorrent monarch would bring her any satisfaction.

For a short time, the only manageable action was to stand and watch the battle, flexing her newly-clawed hands as she quietly observed the two warring sides. This felt most natural for both halves: impassive and unopposed to most things that would evoke a strong emotional drive in others. When her mind moved on, she still did not move to fight, opting instead to examine the ring that didn't quite fit on her finger. That fact alone seemed upsetting. She wished she knew why.

As she touched it with the intention of removing it, she thought she heard someone calling her name. The voice was familiar, and she paused to listen, until she heard it again. Almost unconsciously, she began to gravitate towards the sound with a slow, dreamlike pace, stopping only once she reached its source.

He hadn't forgotten?

The eyes that looked mournfully up at him were undoubtedly those of the woman she'd been, but little else resembled her. Unable to find the courage to speak, for fear that he would despise her like a knight would any other shadow, she lifted her hand to show him the ring as her cheeks began to stain with inklike tears.

Through the fluctuation of numbness and aching pain that she'd thus far encountered, none of it prepared her for the crushing hurt in her chest when his reaction matched the greatest worry she'd had in this short new existence. As she flinched away, her knees buckled, and her wings reflexively spread to keep her upright as she swayed, dizzied by a blow that had not even been delivered by a weapon.

But it was not her wings that steadied her - she felt his hand as it stayed pressed against hers, and blinked away her welling tears as she watched him take her hand to examine it. She remained as docile as she first had, allowing him to move her without protest, and leaned gently into the hand he placed on her cheek.

"Yes." The voice was no longer the one he had known. It was the voice that stars might have, were they granted a voice, an ethereal hum that was patient in its glimmering consistency. "As I have always been."

The weight she put against his hand increased as her gaze dropped towards her feet.

"You loved me. You would have loved me through twenty-one offspring and many more years, until our human bodies failed us, as human bodies do. I know this because I have seen this," she said, curious and contemplative. She hesitated, eyes shut tightly, as though it could prepare her for the worst.

It couldn't.

"Do you now?" Her voice was a fading sky, starlight shrouded by rainclouds. "Will you still?"

When he first answered, the sound of her breath catching in her throat was audible, a noise of desperate relief that arose so quickly that it had no time to form a more complete existence. She relaxed into his arms, allowing him to share the weight of this this new burden with her.

She only wished that she could offer a reply with the same urgency as he had, but she had lost so much. Few things remained with clarity in her mind, and she searched them all to ensure that she would be nothing but honest with him.

She thinks that she could spend an eternity basking in his light.

When he speaks she cannot help listening. She hears every letter of every word, and his voice sounds like spun gold around her. She knows that he is the reason that birds sing, the reason that the sun rises, and she wishes that she had more to give him than a cold, scaly body and the darkness of the night.

"I do." The promise of her own was so strong in its certainty that it bore the bursting brilliance of a shooting star. "And I will. I am not limited by the constraints of that body any longer. I have more, so I may love beyond the boundaries I once had. I have more to give. Perhaps I will finally come to believe that what I am is enough."

Her wings seemed to shift anxiously behind her, but she refused to look away again.

"I saw the ferocity with which I fought my denial of my insufficiency," she admitted. "I do not need to fight now. I should not spurn your love by fighting against it."

If any magic existed to be spared for her in this world, it would only have taken one kiss. It would have been this moment to bring a flood of memories surging back into her mind, to settle into the holes and spaces that were devoid of any signs of life. She would have remembered every second of the life they had begun to share, the bond that they formed and strengthened, the synchronized pair so interconnected that they could not be broken apart.

It would have been this overwhelming evidence of their love that then began to restore her to the woman he had first come to know, its strength far surpassing any other force that threatened to consume her. There was simply nothing comparable, and anything else would be forced to concede to this indisputable fact.

But there was no magic meant for her. The strength of their love meant nothing to anything but the two of them. The knowledge that she had already been good enough did not make her any less of the monstrous creature she'd believed she was.

It was only a kiss, and was not special - except to her. This moment was everything.

A well-timed attempt to protest the notion that she had done any 'saving' left her lips slightly parted, a warm homecoming welcome to the lips that found hers. The fervor of his words flowed easily into the intensity with which their bodies collided, and as her eyes fluttered closed, she could do nothing but soak in the passion he urged upon her. There was no doubt and no desire to fight it, both simple things to grant to him, and the longer she willingly and eagerly accepted it, the more she wanted to give him this in return. She wanted to share how he made her feel, wanted to show him even one small portion of what he stirred and coaxed within her. Returning the kiss was almost intuitive, as most everything had been with him, and as she pressed her body flush and firmly into his, she felt her fingers begin to curl to clutch his back to pull him closer, to insure that they could stay just like this.

Which would have been fine, and (by now) something he would have been used to, were her fingers not clawed.

This did not occur to her in time to avoid the action entirely, but she released her hold on him and pulled away in obvious panic before any serious harm could be done.

"Oh," she breathed out, a fading flicker of distant starlight. She could remember her fear of this, and could remember how she fled to avoid this, and her body had been frail and small and not even its own danger then. "Oh, I..."

Every inch of her was almost entirely motionless, frozen with a rekindled fear that existing near her other half inherently endangered them.

"Have I harmed you?" Her expression was one of pained concern. She couldn't bear to look, but neither could she bear to look away from him. "I was...I wanted to share what I feel for you in turn, and there was such a need to never stop that I..."

She still hadn't moved, and her hands remained close enough for their shaking to be felt against him.

"I was wrong: I am more limited now than ever before," she observed, cheeks wet once more with dark, hopeless tears. "Our love would destroy you. The more I am overcome by its strength, the greater a danger I am to you. And I cannot even bring myself to consider what would become of you if I am blinded by desire."