------------- The Longstriders – Crimsitor

Wendy shook her wet hair. She did a decent job of splattering Crimsitor’s face. She half expected a hateful glare or a low growl. All he did was hang his head back a little further until the flames of the fire pit evaporated the droplets. She smirked and sat down on the floor in front of him. When he leaned forward again there was a small cloud of smoke rising from his head and his yellow-orange eyes were burning like little fires of their own.

“You really don’t like the cold, do you?”

He grinned. She was sure there was some thought running behind his eyes that wasn’t all that pleasant, but he managed to not let it slip out.

“What about you, purple? You’re Hellenian. You like the cold?”

“Not really. But I’m not really susceptible to it like you. I guess I’ve spent enough time in deep space that cold is just something I’ve gotten used to.”

Crimsitor huffed, “Deep space, huh?”

She cocked her head and smiled, a little, slightly embarrassed smile, like she’d been caught bragging about killing a dragon or something.

“Yeap. We Kar’Thane do that ya know.”

He shook his head like he couldn’t even imagine the idea of leaving the planet. He leaned down and took her hand. She sat up on her knees and sat her hands lightly on his hips, moving her face closer to his.

“What about you? My mother was rare enough amongst the Dragonmasters, but how’d a red dragon get hooked up in Hellenia?”

“My father? He was obviously a shapeshifter, but outside of that, I really don’t know that much about him. Mother, well, I don’t remember her very well. There’s some gaps there. I ended up as a slave fairly young. Nobody really knew I was a half-dragon until I hit ‘the age’. Set fire to my master’s house. He was furious. After he stopped beatin’ me, he suddenly realized he had something. Within a week I was sold to a lanista. For the next thirty years I was fighting and dying in the arena. After I met Cholius and we decided to break out together, I never really thought about looking up my father. Since then, we’ve been a bit too busy. Never really came up again. What about you?”

“Mother was an Amethyst dragon. She went into hiding in the swamps before I was born. I grew up swatting mosquitoes and fighting lizardmen.”

Crimsitor snickered. He reached up and smoothed Wendy’s wet hair and tucked it behind her ear. She smiled and caught his gaze, leaning forward to kiss him. He was surprisingly gentle for a trained killer with the burning blood of a monster in his veins.

“I guess I can see why you’re not particularly fond of the tropics.”

She smiled, “Doesn’t mean I can’t stand the heat.”

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