Originally posted to LJ March 2010.

They did not need to say anything. Each knew what the other was thinking.

I don't know how it came to this.

It broke his heart that it was all going to end so bitterly there on the misted mountainside, the dragon with the dog's claw stuck in his belly, pinning him to the rock. The dog could barely watch as the dragon's eyes took on a sleepy, lidded look. He wouldn't die, but sleep was death's cousin, after all---

You were my friend, and I loved you.

He could have killed him. He could have driven his claw straight into the dragon's chest and done away with him, but he did not have the heart to. He couldn't kill someone he loved so much, perhaps the only one he had ever really loved---

I'm so sorry.

He had never grown to love his Lady, but she had borne him a child. He was an arrogant child that he cared for dearly, and he was sorry that he would never see him grow into a man. He was sorry he had dragged the princess into all of this. He didn't love her, but he had put her with his child, and she would die for her attachment to him. But he would not let a child of his blood die, even if it meant his own life---

How could you?

They had grown up, they had grown apart, they squabbled over land like Lords did until the tension became too much. Remembering what had once been made his heart ache, and perhaps it was better to die than to live on with the memory of Ryuukotsusei impaled at his chest, those beautiful scales stained red with blood. He had drawn the dragon's blood before, but now there was only pain, no pleasure---

I still love you, even after all this.

The dragon's eyes closed in a hundred-year slumber, and the dog went to his death with pain in his heart.

Perhaps they could be friends again on the other side.