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Moonlight spilled from the sky like silver, translucent and airy, rippling over the water when it reached it and painting it white and luminous. Above, far over the bank of the lake he stood beside, Detraeus’ house with his wedded mate stood out, a winding structure shadowy in the parts not lit, but bright and proud where the moon and stars showed its features. Before him, the great waterfall that they had built their home beside rolled on, the rushing crash of its waters constant and alive no matter the hour, and mist from it sprayed up and out. Sometimes, when the weather was right, this spray melted into the fog like dust.

As he stood under the shape of the largest tree at the lake’s bank, Detraeus’ mind wandered. Over a year had passed since the completion of this, their newest house. Over two and nearly three since he and his mate had moved from their prior home, on the desert continent, to Ayr. And around them, the world changed. His own life seemed so dynamic, sometimes it was difficult to remember the great multitude of things going on beyond the more direct immediacies of his world.

His son had left him.

Then his daughter.

His daughter lived now in the hybrid city of Tukyere with her own mate, grown and building her own life. He had not encountered Ataya since the mating ceremony and finish of the house. But these were only his minute details.

Beyond the scope of his family, armies were moving across the sands. The world leaders worked in private. Skirmishes broke out, fierce and deadly between the two primary opposing races. The Great Engagement, it seemed, was being dusted off from scratch. At a younger age, Detraeus would have seen this as a sign — proof, even, of a call from his goddess to fulfill his purpose.

Life seemed now, though, to be…so different.

He had so much to lose.

A shift in the air and the beating of great wings drew Detraeus from his thoughts, pulling his gaze skyward, towards their home, and — as it happened — towards his mate. Her shape filled the night, massive as it was powerful, and though she had had the form for several years now, Detraeus was not certain he would ever be so fully accustomed to it that it didn’t impress him. Such a strange, fierce and terrible gift for a god to give his people. But magnificent in its own right, just the same.

Rolling the tension from his shoulders, he watched as she landed, hand moving out once she had stilled to lay against her scales. “And good evening to you,” he said. “Do I owe a thought for the visit?”

Detraeus shut his eyes, arms moving on instinct to wrap loosely around his mate as she tucked against him and focussing — instead of on the stresses previously traversing his mind — only of her, and familiar calm that came with such moments. Then, she pulled back a fraction, and he caught her gaze. He shook his head.

“No.” Her company, while not expected, was ever welcome, and seemed always to ease the convolutedness of his mental state. For a time, he let it rest just at that, his gaze drifting back out, past her to the water and fall beyond. Eventually, though, his attention moved in to study her, his previous line of thoughts persistent. “I was thinking,” he said. “Of how much has changed. And…this war, building itself again. Of how much…once upon a time, I would have considered it my duty to be a part of it.”

Detraeus grunted, frowning.

“Not Verrano,” he said.

Draco Verrano was neither his lord nor his commander, and though he purported to direct the oblivionite people in accordance with the wishes of their goddess, Detraeus had long since dismissed that notion, at least in regards to himself. His goddess would guide his steps as she saw fit, and thus far, Verrano had played no crucial role in that. Instead, though Detraeus had been ever loyal, at least, to the cause of combatting Seren’s creations, last he had met with the oblivionite leader, the man had insulted him, his family, his mate. His children. Though it wasn’t a surprise necessarily, it did nothing to improve Detraeus’ vision of or loyalty to the man.

He was not Verrano’s soldier. On the other hand…

“Myself, though,” he said. “My goddess…I could fight for these things.”

Detraeus watched her, waiting a pause before rolling his shoulders and moving to step back up behind her. He touched a hand to her waist. Light. Tentative. “I might ask you to come with me?” he said at length, eyeing the sweep of her hair down her back. “You could fight beside me…as you have in the past, and in time, we could return here, and be at peace.”

Detraeus grunted, but hushed as his mate went on, and let his eyes fall shut when she kissed him.

Once, he had wanted for very little. A single, all-consuming thing that had then seemed so singularly pivotal: revenge. Time, though, and his own experiences with what such a concept actually tasted like, had ground away at the sharp edge of his anger and soured his appetite for such things. Still, he wondered.

For now, however, the immediacy of his mate before him, the great sky above and tranquil earth and riverbank below, leant themselves better to other endeavors. Come the morning, his thoughts of the night before had not left, but he did delay, lingering in the second house they had built together as though a small, invisible tug warned him of impending danger should he decide to breach the careful peace they had made for themselves.

In the end, however, his itch for one, final shot won out.