The Sea is Full of Laughing Stars Who Wandered Down the River

For some reason, Chihiro found that staring at the mural that danced up her walls calmed her. Soothed the bits of her that always felt tattered and worn with the learning of this being that was not being.

She did not know the man who stood there, did not know what battle it was that he was forever frozen in the middle of -but something about his face made her feel as if she were not alone in this struggle.

"Do you think yet that you have memorized the face of that samurai?" The voice of the dragon came to her -wrapped in supple bedding, cool scales, and the never ending cacophony of whispered prayer that plagued her every waking moment.

She shifted against his coils, burrowing deeper into her cocoon of safety until merely her face remained within his sight.

"Every line."

His laughter was quiet and deep -rolling through the room like the fog that poured from his jaws whenever he spoke to her words of truth. "I see. And does his likeness give you pleasure?"

Chihiro finally lifted her eyes from the man to face her dragon -hedged slightly, considered her words. Considered how to form her thoughts into the proper ones.

Considered the fact that there might not be 'right' ones.

"He makes me feel as if I am not alone in this," she told him softly, unwilling, really, to break the quiet of this moment. This soft companionship. "This transition from real into… something else. And all that comes with it."

They both knew to what she referred. To this new role that she must play, and to all that she had to give up to play it. To those whose love she once held -now replaced with fear.

Kohaku's words seemed as if they had some sort of physical form, each syllable coming to rub lazily against her skin, like the purr of a contented cat. Making her want to shiver with the quiet affection they carried. "You did well, little one."

"Are you still calling me that?" she asked in return, pausing momentarily in her study of the gardens beyond their pavilion to look at him over her shoulder -for all she had danced in that space a handful of nights ago, it was still a mystery to her, just as the dragon to her back was. "And here I thought with my upgrade from 'Villager' to 'Bride' that I'd have gotten a better nickname than the implication that I'm a dog."

This was new to them, this familiarity. Speaking to one another as if they weren't merely strangers, thrust in a situation beyond their control. It made her feel almost normal again -for as long as she didn't face him, she could even imagine herself sitting in her shop, chatting with him as if he were just a person. Sometimes Chihiro liked to pretend that he were just a man and not some great and otherworldly creature, it would have made this arrangement easier, if nothing else.

"Is there something else you wish for me to address you as?" he asked softly, words pulling her back into the moment, and his tail flicking absently against her wrist as he came to take up the rest of the porch around her. "Should I call you my Reluctant Bride, for all that it still suits you?"

At her puff of laughter, he continued on, voice lowering just enough to catch her attention. Cue her in on the changing of the moment. "How about Koishiki, then?"

The title startled the laughter from her breath, making her choke on the implications of such a thing.

Longing. Fierce desire. Lover.

"If I name you Longing, will you bite out my heart?" he asked, a predatory edge to his words -as if that was exactly what he wanted her to do. And the attention in his voice sent an all too familiar shiver up her spine, as if he were completely focused on her reaction -forcing her to acknowledge the male that stood before her.

Even if this male wasn't a man.

There was something about this encounter that was so very reminiscent of their first -of the night he spirited her away.

And suddenly, she was acutely aware of the fact that this half-world was all towering open pavilions and rice paper walls -there was no safety to be had in small doorways and smaller windows now. There was nowhere to run.

Chihiro wasn't sure what pulled the words from her throat -silly, naive things that had no place in this space. "I… I didn't think gods felt desire." I didn't think you could desire me.

His laughter was all teeth and heat -a deep, throaty noise that she was sure could have brought the sun out of hiding with it's pleasure, -even in this world of perpetual twilight -even as it faded into a low thrum from deep in his throat, rumbling over her flesh. Almost caressing, just a little teasing.

"Gods are not but beings built by desire, my Longing. Those who thirst changed the fabric of being -shaped and molded by an insatiable want that rearranged our very bones. And what would a wish given form desire more than that which they can no longer grasp? The fragility of your mortality, the morality -misguided modesty. Things that were stripped of me -things I can remember, but could not keep. Not if I was to become more. But oh, I may keep you, my reluctant bride."

His words were like siren song -swirling about her ears and playing out images in the air before her eyes -nipping at her ankles and fingertips and the nape of her neck, as if they held form and agenda all their own. Making her shifty in her own skin as their implications settled into her bones.

The strange and the unsettling, the enticement, all.

And yet.

"Am I doomed to be some sort of bauble then? To be taken and given away at another's whim? Am I nothing more to you than just the spoils of war -something to be kept?"

"Not just a bauble, never just." At her harsh words -scorching her teeth as they spilled from her lips, he rose -coils tightening around her form as he prowled toward her, holding her in this place. Crouching so as to bring her face to face with rows of massive, shining teeth, and lips raised in silent snarl with the intensity of this emotion that rippled down his spine. "Would I take a Bride I never intended to possess? Would I torment you or myself that way? What have I said about desire?"

The fire that had been burning through her lungs slowly quieted to embers -moving to pool in the pit of her belly. Leaving her without the hot rush of her indignation to fuel her courage -those words settling down into her lap, making themselves comfortable at her expense.

She knew he could see the shock in her eyes. The barely there touch of fear at the implications of such a thing.

The dragon sighed then, his own flames extinguishing from their home behind his eyes -replaced with something almost like resignation. Almost resembling regret. "How much easier it would be to give my words their full weight, if scales were again flesh."

At that, she froze. Chihiro was not a stupid woman -she could read into that which he was hinting.

"Again?" And the word felt heavy, catching in her throat as if to choke her.

His smile was sardonic, almost self-deprecating. "What is a dragon but a man who wore his armor for once too close to his skin?" he asked, standing then to turn from her and make his way toward their bed -coils loosening from where he held her so closely that she was sure she could feel heat beneath the ice that made up his scales. "Dragon skinned, by his armor. Dragon hearted, by the method and meaning of his death."

She could not hold her wonderment at bay -this great need to know more about this dragon, who was strangely like a man. And now that she saw it, she couldn't shake the feeling that she hadn't been speaking to a God at all, but merely a man. And now that she saw it, Chihiro found herself wanting to know more about him. About the man. "But… how?"

He did not immediately answer, and so she found herself crawling over his coils -sliding forward with a slight squeak of fright- and landing before him in an undignified heap of elbows and knees and rumpled kimono.

His indulgent look made her feel almost weak, and fueled her curiosity. "Tell me how."

He shook his massive head, ruffling his seafoam mane slightly with the movement. "There is not much to tell, my dear one -my story has very little to it that has not already been told so many times before."

"Please." She did not intend for the word to come out so needy. So close to begging that it made his eyes darken and his pupils dilate.

But he answered her, and that was all that mattered.

"The way all simple things become great. A promise, unfulfilled. A bond -unbreakable. And some interested spirit who came to watch a story end before it began. The pity of a passing god."

Note: Oh man, I'm so very sorry this took so long to post -mostly I just didn't have time to try and write anything at all. Between work, almost loosing my hand, and a lot of lifestyle changes, I've been ridiculously busy. But I've finally finished my full-time work for the summer and am back to taking my classes, so... here I am? I hope it was worth waiting for?