His soul was troubled, as troubled as hers was. Perhaps more. Yet he kept fighting for a vengeance that would never be sated, as all humans seemed to. There was nothing left for him in this empire of endless battles, nothing. He ought to give up. Just as she, Angelus should have. Before the Pact. Before her damnable pride ruined everything. That human had…had as much of a need to live as she did, and that was the sole reason that the pact had been made, to live. She had been slightly intimidated -only just- by the burning hatred for her kind in his eyes, with his sword raised over her head, and even more startled by the ultimatum he had offered: a Pact, or die. And a Pact with a dragon was as difficult for him to swallow as it was for her. Not to mention demeaning. She had seen over ten thousand years, watched thousands of humans meet their end by her fire and tooth, but never had she encountered one like him. He hadn't charged in clumsily like a blundering hatchling, bellowing some utterly barbaric nonsense at her like the others, he'd been slow, determined, angry. As angry as she'd felt at the painful humiliation of capture by the Empire's black beasts- she wouldn't honour them by calling them dragons- and held his sword, blood dripping from countless wounds on his crimson soaked body, above her head.

'Kill me… if you must... but you will never dirty my soul…'

A hesitation. '…tell me dragon, do you still want to live?'

He hadn't waited for an answer, 'a Pact! It's the only way!'

She snorted, 'humph. What makes think you are worthy of a Pact with one such as I?'

'Answer me, dragon!'

'A Pact…with you…hmm...?' she flicked her forked black tongue out. '…Yes, a Pact.'

And that was how it began. The process of joining the souls of man and dragon was not comfortable, involving much writhing, and an iron will to extract a portion of your very essence, your soul, from your chest, and to merge it with an alien presence forever until death. It is a risky bond at the best of times. That stammering, idiotic priest, Verdelet, had formed a Pact with a helpless, petrified dragon hadn't he? (Angelus would not soon forgive that notorious, self concerned human for initiating such a sentence.) If she were not bonded with Caim, she would kill the priest and release the dragon from its miserable torture. But he was needed, unfortunately, as a guard to the Goddess (Why must it always be the small, helpless females that are chosen to be the Guardian of the Seal?) But, she supposed that if it was her pact partner's sister, she might be in possession of that strange, calm inner strength as well, able to carry such a burden. Certainly she held some attraction, for that dolt-headed Inuart as besotted with her to the point of blindness. And that torturing love drove him to insanity.

She shook her great crimson head. Fool deserved it. He was dead now, anyway. His dragon however seemed to have survived, which she could not understand. He ought to have died. When a Pact was made, the two beings shared each others fate. Inuart was dead, it only followed that his dragon died too.

Even as she stretched her membranous wings, Angelus 'heard' (Which was as best you could describe sensing the approach of the Pact-partner) Caim coming behind her. She uttered a guttural rumble deep in her throat. 'What?'

No answer. She turned her head around to see her Pact-mate significantly changed from his usual dark, depressed stance, head bent sorrowfully over the blue tinged body of a girl which, when she peered closely at her, Angelus recognized as Furiae. His sister. The Goddess.

Startled, her golden eyes contracted with confusion. Without a Guardian, the Seeds of Life were vulnerable. The Seal was vulnerable. What was to become of them now?

Her questioning gaze lifted to Caim, who had his face averted. 'Would you?' he asked.

'Would I what?'

'A tribute for her…'

'Oh'. She understood now. Straightening, she flared her wings, arching her neck, gesturing with a flick of her head for him to move away, leaving the corpse before her, and opened her jaws. A stream of golden flames engulfed the deceased Goddess, and out of the corner of her eye she saw Caim watch unflinchingly as his sister's flesh blackened and peeled, columns of steam rising from her body as her natural fluids were vaporized.

When she closed her jaws, there was nothing but a charred skeleton left.

She turned her gleaming eyes to her ashen faced Pact-partner, and with uncharacteristic gentleness, she extended her neck and brushed her head briefly against his shoulder. Only a quick gratuitous flash of his eyes in his composed expression indicated his acceptance of her sympathy, which dragons did not offer often.

Later that night saw them standing side by side, the enormous red dragon and the steady warrior who had lost almost everything, and a new, surprising sense of belonging touched both of them, a small consolation before they would hurl themselves into battle once more.

End

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