Chapter Text
She had waited till everyone else was asleep that night. It was no one else's business to know what she was doing. It was no one else's wrong to right.
With magic and dragon flight, it had only taken her an hour to get there. There was barely any light in the caves. Coal-black rock walls reflected just darkness. A drip echoed in the distance. The only light was towards a tunnel leading left. Filia followed it down until she began to hear another echo, of heavy breathing and gasps of pain. She was close.
It was nearly impossible to disguise her steps, but as the cries grew louder, she didn't have to. Soon she was crouched behind an outcropping of rock before a wide bend in the tunnel. There Valgaav lay writhing. One long feathered claw pulsed with his poisonous Mazoku blood. She watched him slowly curl and uncurl the black appendage over and over again, his forehead beaded with sweat.
A slight shift of her foot between gasps of pain alerted him. He growled audibly. A spell began to form in his clawed hand. “Whose there?”
Even though she knew what she had to do, even though she rehearsed the words over and over, she still didn't know how to begin. It seemed the choice had been made for her. “Valgaav,” she stammered as she stepped out from the safety of the rock.
The spell dissipated as soon as he heard her voice. She wasn't a threat. “Ojou-chan,” he said, the anger immediately disappearing from his voice. He always spoke to her like she was a precocious child. “What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to know,” she said, pausing and stepping forward, “if the things you said were true.”
A smile jerked up one side of his lip. “Did you come all this way just to hear me say the same thing again?” He chuckled. “The golden dragons of the Fire Dragon King slaughtered my people. And the Mazoku hunted my Lord Gaav. Every side has blood on their hands. There. Is that all?” He paused, sounding almost sad. “Go home, Ojou-chan. You don't belong in this war. Spend at least your last days in peace before I bring all this to an end.”
“I can't let you do that,” Filia said, trying to sound self-assured in spite of herself. Slowly, shaking, she dropped to her knees. “If you want revenge, then I will bear it. If my life will satisfy you, then take it.” She drew back her hair and bared her neck. “Please. I will do anything to stop this bloodshed.”
Valgaav rose and regarded her. His eyes were heavy-lidded with some emotion she could not know. “Your death would do nothing. You'd be another body on the endless heap. Don't you see that starting over is the only way out? You can't bring them back. Only life can answer for death.” He turned to walk away, but stopped when she called out.
“There must be a way! I'll do anything—anything! It can't end like this,” she cried, hands impotently balled into fists. “It can't end like this.”
A thought occurred to him. Valgaav chuckled. This would stop her. This would make the sheltered creature understand that all this was beyond her control. This, surely, would send her home in disgust. He slowly sauntered up to her, dropped to one knee in front of her, and tenderly cupped her cheek with his hand. “Child, unless you plan on restoring the entirety of the Ancient Dragon race from your womb, then there is nothing you can do. They are dead. The course has been set.”
He began to lift up to his full height when, to his surprise, she caught his hand. His eyes widened when he saw hers. Grim determination almost hid the fear. Her lips were drawn back with resolve. “If I do,” she said, a gulp jumping up her slender neck, “then you'll abandon your plan? You promise?”
Valgaav couldn't help it. He laughed. He laughed so hard he threw his head back and his eyes closed hard. Filia's grip on his hand tightened. It slowly died in his throat as he came to look at her again. “You can't be serious. You're just a child—you don't even know what you're saying.”
“I'm not a child! And you said there was something I could do to stop you...to make up for it,” she paused, the blush creeping from her cheeks down towards her neck, “So I will. Aren't you a man of your word?”
Valgaav sucked his teeth in irritation and rolled his eyes. “I'm not Mazoku enough to enjoy ravishing an unwilling woman. As little as you Golden Dragons think of us, that is beyond me.” He wrested his hand away with distaste.
“I...” Filia regarded him and his naked chest for a moment before admitting, “I am not unwilling.”
“More words from a naïve child in over her head.”
“Then,” Filia began, pausing to think “Then I'll prove it.” With shaking hands, she lifted the hat and circlet from her head. Her throat felt impossibly dry. She crouched down and placed them on the floor, before moving to unclasp the cloak from her shoulders. “I...may be young, but...I am a woman of my word.” She could feel her own heartbeat drumming in her ears. The cloak was a puddle of white on the cavern floor. She steeled herself to slip the pink dress from over her breasts. “And I am naïve. I am. But if someone like me can exist, then surely there must be places...there must be places in the world without terror. There must be places worth saving.” All the words she practiced calmed her a bit, even if she was rambling. Her pink dress pooled at her feet. “There has to be somewhere safe for you,” she whispered. With a final shudder, she slipped her chemise down her body.
Valgaav had not been shocked, truly shocked, in at least a century. He stared blankly at her every movement, mouth parted. Only about half of whatever she said was processed. Filia rose to her feet, hands shyly clasped over her breasts.
His eyes greedily roamed her body. She was yet another thing on an endless list of things he could never have, yet another want to suppress. The ability was almost automatic after so long. Despised Golden Dragon though she was, he found it impossible to not have some sort of sentiment for such a wide-eyed babe in the woods. It was a rare quality indeed, but he knew better than to dare to hope to possess anything ever. His life had been a never-ending chain of loss. Yet here she was.
Filia finally worked up the courage to look him in the eyes. For once, his face wasn't snarling, smirking, pitying, or stony. His features were smooth with astonishment. The pupils in his golden eyes dilated. His chest rose and fell with heavy, even breaths. They stood still there, staring, as the dripping in the black caves marked the time.
Filia's shoulders began to collapse upon themselves. Her nipples tightened in the chill of the night. She finally looked down. “Do you still not believe me?” she murmured.
Valgaav said nothing. Filia took a deep trembling breath before stumbling towards him. He seized her in his arms. He wasn't sure why he did it. Maybe her sincerity moved him, or the gesture. Maybe it was long-buried instinct. Maybe he was weak from so long without warmth or touch. Maybe he was just tired, in every way, of fighting. It was madness. He couldn't think. Something deep and old in his blood still called out to live on.
She gasped but did nothing to resist. Valgaav buried his face in her hair and breathed deep. He had countless couplings before—other street urchins trying to stave off the cold, other mercenaries commiserating before riding out into doom. But never another dragon. In spite of the differences in breed, something in her pheromones whispered of primal similarity. It was intoxicating. That alone made his groin tighten.
She jerked, startled. A small chuckle rumbled in his chest. His black draconic arm was slowly becoming lighter, more human. As sensational as it would be to take her in dragon form, he'd heard such had the tendency to cause avalanches and level buildings. He held the now-normal limb to the small of her back. The simple sensation made her whimper and instinctively press against him.
He breathed hot air into her long curved ear and bit at the lobe. Filia cried out in surprise, pressing her shuddering chest against his own. Something occurred to him and he withdrew his face to look at the rest of her body. She was already flush and shivering with need. He could smell her in the air. “The way you react...” he murmured, brows furrowed as he turned his head to look at her face, “You're not just a virgin. You're completely untouched.” It wasn't a question—merely a statement of fact.
She tried her best to avoid his gaze. “I...I haven't advanced far enough at the temple for a mate to be selected for me.”
Valgaav's eyes narrowed. If they were that strict, it was no wonder she was so guileless. “It may hurt. Do you know that?” He brushed a stray blonde hair from her face.
She couldn't bear to look at him when he said things like that.“I thought it might. But it doesn't matter. My decision's still the same.” Her tail wagged nervously.
Valgaav wordlessly drew her down to the ground with him. He lay on his side to look at her. She was lovely spread out before him, all supple breasts and thick thighs. It hadn't occurred to him until now, but he couldn't have picked a more perfect body to bear his clutch. He slowly began nuzzling and nipping at her neck, more gently this time. She sighed and hesitantly put a hand to his broad chest.
Filia's muscles slowly began to relax under his calloused hands. He kneaded her breasts, drawing his thumb back and forth over each pert nipple. The longer it went on, the more the world shrank to just her and the strong dragon male breathing down her neck. She had been nearly sick with worry and shame when she came here. Something about his touch and the feel of his wide shoulders quieted everything.
His hand drifted down over her belly, over the small thatch of golden hair, to her cleft. She moaned when his thumb found her sensitive numb of flesh, circling it with a gentle rhythm. Filia threaded her hand in his hair. A small smile of satisfaction crept into his lips at the sight of the docile female in his arms. Gently, slowly, he inserted a finger into her. She gasped at the new sensation but was quickly calmed by the continued rotation of his thumb. He slowly inserted a second. The feeling of being filled was strange but exquisite. The movement of his hand made the sound of slick flesh against flesh.
His head moved down to kiss and suck and nibble at her breast. She arched her back to meet him. “It'll be easier for you if I stretch it now,” he murmured into her skin. Before she could ask what he meant, his fingers gradually scissored open. Filia wailed. He silently pacified her with more nuzzles to her sensitive skin.
When her body had finally relaxed, he slid his fingers out of her. He rose up to sit and began unwrapping the binding at his ankles. Filia watched him with intent curiosity. As he undressed, she saw more of a body chiseled hard and lean from fighting and living on the run. Old scars criss-crossed his skin. He glistened with sweat. Finally she saw it: the long shaft of his manhood pointing up towards his chest. She had ignored the bulge that had pressed against her thigh, but now what they were about to do hit her with frightening finality. The sight of it made something primordial in her feel triumphant, in spite of her rising terror.
Knowing she had never seen one before, he ignored her staring. “If you're scared, say something now before it's too late.”
Filia steeled herself. It was difficult in the face of his hard cat-eyed gaze. Her brows lowered. “I know what I said,” she responded lowly.
Valgaav slid on top of her, resting a powerful forearm at each side of her head. Looking up at his half-lidded eyes was too intimate for Filia to bear. His aqua hair spilled over his cheeks, framing his face. There was something warm in his gaze that made her chest flutter.
One arm drew back to position himself at her opening. She gradually felt her insides parting to accommodate him. Filia wailed and shuddered. Slowly he lowered himself down further, pushing more and more into her supple body. His eyes were screwed shut. Valgaav's neck arched as a moan escaped his throat. His fangs gleamed in the light.
In spite of the newness, in spite of the dull pain, Filia was oddly at peace. It was in every sensation: the splay of her hair across the cave floor, the push of his powerful shoulders into her delicate form, the slide of their skin, the feeling of being filled, the sound of a gasp on his lips. Some deep-seated biological need had finally been sated, and it overwhelmed her with a strange serenity.
The low pain began to slip away into slick, vigorous pleasure. She started to whimper in time with his increasingly powerful thrusts. He panted and tensed, looking down at the docile female beneath him with intensity.
Suddenly he bore down and began plunging in and out of her at a racing pace. It felt like a dam of sensation had burst open inside her. She arched her neck and cried out, her hands grabbing at his broad back. Wave after wave of blazing pleasure buffeted her body. She clutched at him desperately as he continued to pound into her pliant form.
A few more thrusts more and he cried out, face contorted and teeth bared. In spite of the haze of feeling, she couldn't not look at him. Something deep in her bones found him achingly alluring: a strong dragon, muscles clenched, snarling with need. A wetness fill her body. He collapsed on top of her, his larger form effortlessly fitting around and over her like a puzzle piece. Their sweat instantly stuck their limbs together. Slowly, he slipped out of her.
She realized it was over. Filia felt like she should still felt more worried, more scared. But when the feeling threatened to fight through the buzzing of pleasure in her body, he sleepily nuzzled at her neck. There was a low draconic purr of contentment in his throat that comforted her—she didn't even know the sound existed until now. Everything had changed, she thought. But she took comfort that she had made the decision herself. She would be no happier walking the path set for her since her birth, knowing now it was wrong. For better or for ill, she had changed fate. That was the thought that helped her mind sink into sleep. The last thing she remembered was Valgaav's wings slowly growing outward, covering them with a blanket of night.
Time passed quickly. When she awoke to Valgaav's voice, she felt like only minutes had passed: “This is madness.”
The cave air bit at her skin. She was no longer enveloped in him. Only his hand lay pressed against her shoulder. She opened her eyes and saw that he was fully dressed. “Valgaav...” she murmured.
He turned to look at her. The stony unreadability had returned to his face. “Get dressed quickly. If you're truly serious, then we can't stay here.”
She stumbled her feet, only for him to reach out and steady her. Filia struggled to put on her clothes. Her fingers felt thick, numb. “Where are we going?” she asked when she had finally covered herself.
He narrowed his golden eyes and said, “I'll know when we get there.” Without another word, he pulled her toward him and flew. Filia's shriek of surprise echoed throughout the cave walls, trailing behind them.