The sound of wings in the dark night doesn't scare Dorian as much as it should. Wings don't just start flapping at random hours in the night outside the window of Adarlan's king. King. He's not king, not yet.

And what's the worst it could happen? he finds himself wondering as he steps out on his balcony in the stone castle.

"Hello, witchling."

It doesn't even surprise him that she's casually dangling her legs from the ledge.

"Hello, princeling."

"Not for long," he sighs.

She raises a white eyebrow.

…

Manon has no idea why she's here.

An old, buried part of her tries to reason, to find some form of rational explanation as to why she hauled ass and flew Abraxos for miles and miles, wandering around. And then ended up here.

But sense has left her quite some time ago, it would seem.

Morath was stifling. It was rutting impossible to keep a clear head in that hellhole. Demons and humans and witches should never be thrown together in such intimately close quarters. Not if anyone wanted to emerge with all limbs intact.

And at some point, it was just too much. The goddamned worms were a few steps short of crawling into her very throat, and she was this close to snapping.

So she took the liberty of leaving for the night. If any of those swarming shit-faces had the slightest issue, they could kiss her arse.

At first, she had flown around the mountains, thrilling in the cold wind and soothing darkness, Abraxos humming in delight beneath her. Then, she felt this thing – Manon still couldn't quite grasp the concept of feeling, ugh – and it made her choke and Darkness take it all if she could stand another mountain top.

Another barren prison.

So she flew.

It wasn't yet midnight when she glimpsed the glass wall.

…

Dorian didn't feel like the king he ought to have been.

He didn't have the faintest as to how to be a king. Damn that. He didn't have the faintest as to how to be normal human being anymore. So he did the only thing he knew.

He read.

He burrowed himself so thoroughly in books, that he barely felt the days passing. He dug up books about magic from the library in the catacombs, books about Adarlan, about Gavin and Elena, about myths and legends and stories long-forgotten, about whatever it was that Aelin Galathynius had set free in the world, thanking whatever deities had been bothered to save that library.

Dorian's magic didn't help either. It was only a matter of time before he's have to confront his court, and the lords and ladies he'd had to summon from across the kingdom, about it. There was no way to be king without that particular piece of truth to come to light.

And gods damn him, he dreaded that moment.

So he let himself get lost in time. And now, the witch – Manon – was at his windowsill, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

And why wouldn't it be?

…

"Not for long," he sighed wearily.

"Hard to make your own decisions?"

Snappish. The human looked up at her, sapphire eyes rimmed with red. "That was undeserved."

"Was it?" Manon asks, not entirely sure why she bothers. Bothers trying to make conversation, that is. Conversation isn't her strong point, and she's had absolutely no use for pleasantries her entire life.

"Yes, it was. Very much so, witchling."

He looks tired enough that a single breeze would make him shatter in pieces, like his castle.

"I am no witchling."

A corner of his full mouth almost, almost curls up. Manon frowns. A small, infinitely small flicker of amusement in the shadows in his eyes.

"Of course not. You're a full-blooded witch."

The sentence has a trace of sarcasm. She's not sure she likes it. "I am."

"A Blackbeak?"

A pause.

"Why do you care?"

"Because it's one of the few things I remember. Your name," he says, and it's been long since a human has been honest with her. Manon doesn't think a human has ever felt at ease in her presence. They had no right to, not to her. But still.

"My name," say it, a voice in her head whispers before she can stop it. Something inside her twitches.

He holds her gaze, and for the first time in her life, she feels thoroughly bare, and he whispers, soft as the Spidersilk on Abraxos's wings, soft like the sigh of a dying man, soft like the sound of wind soaring through clouds,

"Manon Blackbeak."

She exhales quietly, schooling her features to stone. "Hmph."

…

Dorian feels himself smile, if only a shadow of his once brilliant grin, as he says the witch's name; as if it weren't a reminder of the hell his life had been for so long.

She's as impassive as he remembers, her face an utterly impassive mask, a mask of demure and absolute beauty, a mask fitting of a queen of demons, he finds himself thinking as he leans his forearms on the stone railing.

The silence that follows soothes him, and he can hear the sounds of the sleeping city before him and the ripples of the Avery in the distance.

He can't figure why, why and how, but he is at peace.

Then a roar rattles his balcony.

Dorian almost jumps out of his skin, "What the rutting-?!" and then another sound stops him stupid.

She snorted.

Manon Blackbeak, the White Demon the Wastes tremble in fear of, cold-blooded murderer with statuesque features sketched in terror and blood in genealogies of the Ironteeth witches, snorted at him.

And she looks like she's almost, almost going to start chuckling.

"What was that?!"

…

It's beyond her.

Maybe she's tired maybe she is out of her mind, maybe something in her head has been definitely torn apart, but Manon has never seen anything more hilarious than the sheer outrage and the surprise on the human's face as Abraxos roared in delight at the flower garlands hanging from the balcony.

And the high pitched yelp that came out of his mouth a moment later.

So she lost it.

…

It hits Dorian that she has no idea how to laugh properly.

Although, it couldn't be considered a laugh by normal human standards - what were those, anyway?! – it can't really be anything else; not with the way she huffs and it's simply just air coming through her nose at rhythmic intervals, the upper part of her face remaining utterly unmoving, and her mouth closed, corners barely lifted, but she's laughing, and why the rutting hell is he analyzing her face.

And the unmanly, screeching, green-boy sound that came from him makes him want to crawl into a whole.

Dorian feels his cheeks redden in embarrassment and she laughs further and it hits him – it hits him that, for one moment, he'd forgotten.

He'd forgotten about the darkness.

And, as he expects the familiar weight to come crashing on him, he finds it diminished. As he looks up in the witch's golden eyes, he feels a bit lighter. As if a tiny part of his burden has been lifted.

"You laugh horribly, witchling."

She freezes, white strands of hair falling into her face.

"I wasn't laughing."

Her jaw went slack, or well, a little bit slack, and that was probably the most shocked she's ever been her entire life. Dorian gives her a shameless grin.

"Yes, you were. Awfully so," he goes on.

"No."

He almost rolls his eyes.

"Yes."

"I wasn't laughing, you worm."

And there's this golden disbelief that makes him push on, makes a spark, a flicker of magic ignite somewhere inside him, and that itty–bitty spark starts eating at the shadows, small, minuscule bites, but bites nonetheless.

"Yes, you were, and you know it."

Before she can open her mouth, another roar follows.

…

This time, she leans down and kicks Abraxos in the shin.

"Be quiet, you rutting worm!"

Manon doesn't understand this feeling, either. It's not panic, it's not fear, it's them and then something else, something more, something making her throat choke and face heat. Manon Blackbeak's face does not heat. Abraxos raises his head from the hanging bush of flowers and looks at her disapprovingly, as if she'd interrupted something of vital importance. His dark eyes narrow at her.

"Don't give me that look."

She swears that, if he'd have had eyebrows, Abraxos would have raised one at her.

Then, he promptly sniffed again

"What do you think you're doing now, get you thrice-damned snout out of those –"

"As charming as that is, who are you talking to?"

She'd forgotten about the human. Shit. That never happened to her. What was wrong with her?!

There is barely hidden amusement in his blue eyes. No, it's not barely hidden, he's not trying to hide it at all and his eyes are rutting dancing and that exasperated her more than the slimy, little, -

Roarrgh.

"Oh, hello there."

Darkness take her.

Another growl, as if in greeting, as Abraxos climbed up the railing with his wings pressed into his back, holding himself to her stone on his legs, eyes roaming with interest from her to the human, then leaning towards him and sniffing.

That fucking traitor.

"I was actually wondering where your wyvern went," the prince says, and now he's moving his hand towards Abraxos and, as if only now noticing her glare, "May I?"

Manon frowns. Does he want to lose a blasted hand? "May you what." A short, clipped order.

"Touch him," he answers, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

No, you git. You may not, you may not lay one fucking finger on my -

And, without waiting for her approval - her denial, actually, the bastard caresses Abraxos's head.

Manon awaits with raw, brutal satisfaction the quick, deadly snap of jaws, the sight of red, human, warm blood, oh, she can almost smell it, the blood, the spray, the scream of agony –

Abraxos pushes his snout more firmly in the human's hand.

What.

And the human starts scratching his hide and Abraxos, she swears, the rutting worm sighs and moans in pleasure.

"Oh, he's adorable," he coos, now holding Abraxos's head with both hands, the beast answering with a deep purr.

Manon blinks.

Then blinks again.

What.

"He's not adorable," she manages somehow to croak out, "he is a warrior. A beast. He is a weapon meant to slaughter thousands," she hears the words as if they weren't her own.

The human clicks his tongue and smiles at Abraxos, completely absorbed by his playing with the wyvern, "Naah. He's a big puppy," No, he is not a fucking puppy, he is – " What's your name, you big ball of puppy-ness? "

Roaaaaaaargh.

Manon is fairly sure the only coherent thought in her head while she watches this particular scene unfold is 'No'. Yes, that's about it. Except that, nothing. Blissful, empty nothingness.

He finally deigns to look at her, and his eyes are warm and soft and he smiles when he asks "What's his name?"

Like it were absolutely fucking normal for a wyvern to act like a dog.

Manon blinks again.

"His name is Abraxos."

"From that legend with the serpent that -?"

"Yes, from the legend with the serpent," she says, absolute, unadultred disgust dripping from her voice like ounces and ounces of venom. Then, Manon grabs the treacherous worm by a cord from the saddle, throws one leather-clad leg over the wyvern and, in a flurry of red and white,

"My wyvern and I need to leave. Now."

And that is the last she says before flying away into the night, Abraxos whining in disappointment.

…

She barely leaves before Dorian feels the overwhelming rush starting in his belly, then going up, and up and up, and it was a quiet giggle, then a chuckle and then full-blown, guttural laughter, the likes of which he hasn't laughed in a long, long time.

She should have seen her face. Her face. Gods, her face had been worth a kingdom and then some.

As his laughter slowly stopped, Dorian laid himself in bed and picked up whatever ancient manuscript of doom he'd been reading.

And when he fell asleep, for once, he darkness didn't engulf him.

…

"You aren't getting any meat until next week."

Rooooooaaaaaaarghhh.

"None of that."

Well. This happened. There is almost no Manon x Dorian fanfiction, and that is unacceptable, because they are perfect. And if you're trying to tell me Dorian's puppy talents wouldn't apply to Abraxos, you've got another thing coming. Cheers :D