His Quest for Raine

Melchoir's Message

“You don’t think this is too crazy to work do you?” Raine questioned Brandon. 

Another memory played back in her mind as she came up with a way to talk to Melchoir. 

“I mean, if you were my sister that devised a plan to make sure that I knew you were okay and I was just coming to terms with the idea that magic was real, I think I would have you captured and put in a padded room. But that’s just me,” Brandon replied thoughtfully. 

Or at least he must have thought he was. He did spin it in a way that made sense to most people but Peter wasn’t most people. He was certainly no Brandon, but being the fact that Peter was her adopted brother, he knew things. He saw the world differently, just like her. 

Brandon seemed to realize himself adding, “You know him though. If you think this will work then by all means, go with your gut. I can’t imagine anyone really taking to it as well as you did. Hell, I mean, I’m in it and I’m trying but magic and dragons and all of this,” he said, waving over the land they stood in now, “is a little much to take in.”

Raine nodded, agreeing wholeheartedly with him. 

It’s not like she knew she would be a dragon or not a human like she thought she was to begin with. Raine was dealing with enough that she seemed to look past all of the information Brandon was still sort of processing. 

“I think he’ll get it,” Raine pressed, still working out the rest of her plan in her mind. 

“Then I’ll default to you. If you come up with something you need made for it, I’m your guy,” he offered, smiling at her. 

His message was firmly there, that he would be there for her through thick and thin and that was just as beautiful a feeling as being curled up with Melchoir was too. 

Again she came back, mulling over how to bring it up to Melchoir when he shifted over top of her. His neck arched slightly as he pressed his lips close to the ground blowing heat back into the earth below her. 

“Is everything alright?” she asked him carefully.

Melchoir rumbled softly, still tending to their nest, heating it past her capability. Once his force slowed, he spoke. 

“Your warmth keeps fluctuating,” he replied. 

“What does that mean?” she asked. 

Melchoir hummed, seemingly deciding on whether or not to do an inner circle as well. 

“I’m not certain, but you do seem to be in and out of thought. It may be what’s making it come and go,” he answered her, filling her mind with only more to think about. 

“I am,” she spoke softly. “I’m worried about what will happen tomorrow.”

Melchoir’s nearest eye seemed to focus on hers, the black of it seemed to shrink, regarding her carefully. 

“And? What have you come up with?”

Raine extended her neck to rub softly against his, looking to soothe him before she spoke. Her eyes closed as their scales ground together, the horns of her crown, the one he bared, the very ones she claimed promising herself to him that fateful day, to remind him just what she was prepared to do for him before she spoke. 

“I’m going to reach out to my brother,” Raine replied, chasing Melchoir’s head with her own as he retreated away from her. “Melchoir,” she said, wishing the whine she emitted would have stayed out of this. 

Raine felt the way he stopped in response, her head crashed ever so slightly against his jaw. 

“Don’t you Melchoir me,” he rumbled. “You’re the one that wants to leave. 

“I have to find my brother,” Raine frowned, surprised in his response to her. 

“I don’t see why. Was he here to help you through this?” Melchoir snorted, knowing Peter wasn’t. 

“If it was your family I wouldn’t hesitate to help you,” she shot back. 

“What you’re planning to do isn’t helping. It’s leaving,” he ground out. “What if you can’t get back?”

“Melchoir…”

“No, Raine. I spent so many life cycles with you, dying over the most ridiculous causes as a human. What if you die and you can’t get back to me? What then?” 

“I won’t be gone long enough to die,” Raine said, inching closer to him despite knowing her place under him has gone unchanged. 

“Seconds is all it takes,” Melchoir huffed. “You can’t be a dragon out there and even if you could the vast majority would see you as a threat and…”

“Stop,” she hissed, surprising herself. 

Raine knew deep down that Melchoir knew enough to assume the worst, and truth be told, transforming herself from one form into another had been work to figure out. Evidence of it had been already proven that she didn’t have complete control over herself either. With the way Nerranne was calling out to her with its endless essence riding up on her, Raine had more than enough chances to completely screw this up and Melchoir was more knowledgeable than Raine realized. 

He himself seemed to be off as he shook his head at her.  

Raine then imagined him flying in for her rescue, their ending ruined by the scared people of the modern world. 

“Brandon believes in me,” Raine challenged despite her own fears of losing the two of them like this. 

“Brandon is a simple human. I expect that romanticism from him. You, Raine, there’s no telling how old you really are and with it has come no experience. No maturity. You still think like a human,” Melchoir replied, his sharp inhale was quiet but certainly noticed by the both of them. His message was clear but served with no finesse, burning Raine deeper than his embers coating the stone below them could. 

There she contemplated curling up into a ball and letting herself stew in her frustrations or rage off, ready to set the world on fire. Neither felt like the right thing to do though. 

Instead she nodded at him thoughtfully before shoving herself out of his hold. 

“This human is going now,” she growled as she shifted back into her human form. 

Raine slipped from Melchoir’s grasp in an instant. She fell through his claws and onto the hot ground with her bare feet but refused to make a sound regardless of how much it shocked her to feel such blistering heat there. Some feelings came close to it, like running on hot pavement without shoes on but this was genuinely hotter. 

Another sensation came without warning. It was something of an electrical shock that had nothing to do with her own makeup. It threatened her to shift again despite not wanting to take another form, making her fight with it as she went. Raine carried herself just below Melchoir which made him get up. His movements seemed slow but so did her mind. She could hear him growl but wasn’t sure if it was specifically at her or if he was just angry about the result in their conversation. 

He was the one that called her stupid. 

He should have to work that out on his own. Raine couldn’t give into that sort of behavior. They might be mated but it didn’t hold a candle to what respect meant to her. 

If Melchoir couldn’t come to terms with that then he would be spending a lot more time alone, she thought, hurt by all of it. 

Her feet carried her far enough from him where she could harness the energy inside of her. Ribbons of blue and white light began streaming from her, then wrapped around her in anticipation of her shift. 

Raine could feel the way the air shifted, no longer in her favor. 

She could feel Melchoir’s presence gaining on her and for once in their short time of being together, she actually feared him. What would he do if he caught up to her?

Raine’s energy lit up inside of her, brightening as her feet left the ground. 

“Show me you can love what you can’t control,” she spoke softly as her form took that of her shooting star, ready to leave her soulmates and Nerranne for as long as she needed to find her brother, “and then I’ll return to you.”