notes: Jfc. When will I stop writing Annalogia? I thought I got over this last month. Partly inspired by blamedorange's quick sketch but mostly inspired by the challenge that a certain someone suggested for me to take. (cough boogey56 cough)

heads

"Gladly," is what she tells him when he asks her to dance on that fateful night when they officially tie their destinies together.

That night, he breathes fire onto her lips and she tastes everything but the salt, death, and ash on his tongue.

At first she's scared, but she thinks him sweet—his touch around her waist, the way his callused fingertips grazes slowly up the valley of her back, trailing shivers of goosebumps onto her before he hovers his hot wet mouth over her skin.

She falls languishly into his strong broad arms, ignoring how many crimes she commits each and every time she finds herself face to face with the chrome tattoos on his forearms, each and every time she tells him she loves him, each and every time when he tells her the same—how she flushes pink like the soft dawn sunlight that caresses her bare breasts when she awakes next to him, strands of his hair tangled in hers between the sheets.

One day they give her a wax-sealed envelope, enclosed inside the 400 year plan that will lock many many generations of her line to a celestial gate. She breaks the wax and finds they don't tell her a word beyond her orders. But she's more astute than they expect women to be.

She quickly figures out that their aim is to kill the very man sharing her bed.

She tosses the envelope aside, under a glass paperweight in the third drawer of her desk. She hides it there because she doesn't want to be reminded of it - she doesn't like to think about its contents while she kisses him, and she plans on ignoring its very existence until that very fateful day.

Two years and three days after the fateful night they joined their futures, she smiles up at him.

"I'm not scared anymore. There is love and that is all I need," she confesses to him. And she closes her eyes and sighs into a deep kiss but soon discovers his lips are stiff and his glazed eyes stay wide open.

She asks him what's wrong. His eyes turn into slits and his jaw clenches.

"Oh, Anna. If only there was someone out there who loved you."

His patronizing smirk breaks her, and it's too bad that her heart has grown so much for him, because the larger the love, the more broken pieces there are to pick up.

She finds that she can't get rid of him. She cuts short the hair he loved so long, changes the bedsheets over and over to mask the scent of his sweat, throws out every single gift he's ever presented her.

She learns the hard way that there is absolutely nothing that would rid her mind of him.

But when they present her with the gate, she suddenly realizes that she herself carries the keys to her future, that she herself can lock her heart away.

"Will you do it?" they ask her.

"Gladly," is what she tells them, her voice black and slick like oil.

tails

Whenever she smiles he feels the entirety of the heavens split open with her brilliance. The world has cursed him with the dragon that sits within his soul but those moments he sees her eyes light up, it feels like the sun and the moon shine down on him and forgive him for being born a half-man half-beast.

At first he stays far away from her. She's full-human and the only thing his entire life has affirmed to him time and again is that humans are the worst kinds of creatures.

So he does his best to keep himself distant, but the fateful physics of it all continues to draw him back to her in the same way that gravity pulls him back to the earth.

Indeed, his love for her reminds him of flight. He soars high into the sky, unfurling the unnatural wings that sprout from his shoulder blades, but at the end of it all, he can't stay in the clouds forever. He needs somewhere to roost and he soon finds his place of choice is within her warm welcoming arms.

She is a celestial mage and she carries a bracelet of golden rings around her wrist, but he doesn't realize that the woman also holds the keys to his heart before it's far too late and he's fallen hard to the ground for her, wings and all.

"Gladly," is what she tells him when he asks her to dance on that fateful night when they officially tie their destinies together.

That night, she breathes fire on his lips that burn hotter than the native flames that course through his blood.

He knows that she is committing a crime to her race by being with him, so he always watches her eyes for doubt in case he needs to escape from her grasp. But at some point he stops caring, and the dusky light looks so delicious on her creamy skin. He kisses it silly until he convinces her that he can stay for the night.

Two years and three days after the fateful night they joined their futures, he waits for her to come home. He's snuck in through her window, as he always does, and he sits patiently, waiting with a promising ring in his hand.

He wants to make a game out of his confession, and he opens the third drawer of her desk, moves away the glass paperweight and throws the ring there—but an envelope with a royal seal on it catches his attention. Curiosity gets the better of him, and he reads it quickly.

He learns that she never loved him at all. He learns that she is just keeping him at her side, like a pet that she will later euthanize. She is trying to hide her true intentions from him, but his nose is sharper than she thinks.

She comes home a few hours later and she immediately cradles him, nuzzles him.

"I'm not scared anymore. There is love and that is all I need," she suddenly tells him. And she closes her eyes and sighs into a deep kiss. But his lips are unmoving and he glares at her with betrayed love and burning hate.

It doesn't take her long to notice, and she pulls back, asks him what's wrong.

He thinks of how he's trusted her all this time.

He reminds himself that she's full-human. And the only thing his entire life has affirmed to him time and again is that humans are the worst kinds of creatures.

"Oh, Anna. If only there was someone out there who loved you," he tells her.

He forces a smile. He hopes she thinks that he was never a fool to fall in love.

If she wants to break him so be it, but at least his claim to fame is that he broke her wretched heart first.

end notes: Sigh. Let me know what you think! (I mostly want to know if I've broken your heart.)

thir13enth