In the stillness of the night, she closed her eyes, fingers digging into the sheets of the mattress she lay upon. You don't deserve this, the voice in the back of her head whispered, and Sakura knew that much. She was always acutely aware of such a fact – of how it would be better for everyone if she was dead. A soft puff of breath escaped her, the memory of that fateful conversation playing in her head over and over again. She didn't understand it, or perhaps she did. Elves were said to be insatiably curious, though that could be nothing like the curiosity of a dragon, Sakura reminded herself. After all, the elves were better than that. They always were and they always would be, unmarred and untouched by Melkor's workings as they were. Nothing like her.

"You are still awake."

Her eyes flickered open at the sound of another voice, though it didn't belong to either of the two who usually visited. One driven by the fact they were Soulbound. Another driven by curiosity and the desire to pick her apart until she fell apart at the seams. "So it would seem," she murmured, not bothering to get up to greet her visitor, as was probably proper. She was too tired. In fact, she just felt completely drained of energy every single waking moment of every single day. There was a beat of silence. "Are you here to kill me?" she asked, ever the question at the forefront of her mind those days.

"Why," the lord of those lands enquired, "are you so very insisted on being killed?" He tilted his head, the movement registering in the corner of her eye.

Sakura felt her eyes narrow, shifting to that reptilian state which made her ankle burn. "The better question would be: why haven't you insisted on killing me?" she demanded, bringing her knees up to her chest as she sat up, peering out at Lord Elrond as he stood before the door to her cell. "I am a dragon—"

"You were once human, and that is the crux of all of this," Lord Elrond replied levelly, and Sakura felt a surge of irritation rise within her at that because why couldn't they all just understand how terrible she was? "No matter the form you can shift into, an essence of your humanity still remains, otherwise you would not be bound to Glorfindel, nor would you work to ensure his safety. That is what you did, and we do not forget such acts though you might wish for us to."

A familiar wretched bitterness rose up within her, tongue ready to spew nothing but poison, acid, and hatred in her words. "My humanity is gone – ripped away from me by Melkor and his machinations…" she spat, freezing in the next second at the soft smile which spread across the elf's face at what could only be her words. Unless elves were prone to random bouts of smiling.

"You admit it then – Morgoth took from you," Lord Elrond stated. "Which makes you a victim of his… and yet you insist that you willingly served him. Does that not beg the question of why? Why did you choose to serve him after that which he did to you?"

Her mouth opened, lips pulled back in a snarl, but no words escaped her. It wasn't like it was in their right to know that all she wanted to be was loved. The ship for that had sailed long ago. She didn't deserve to be loved anymore, and that was the fact of the matter. Yet there was that accursed hope – the wish that Glorfindel could somehow find it in his heart to love her, wretched and evil as she might be. "That – that is none of your business," she hissed, meeting those grey eyes which stared at her without the righteous indignation they should have held. They were level and calm, just as the ellon's words were. "Can I not just have chosen to serve him because I'm evil?" she muttered, wishing the world was as black and white as she had once, long ago believed it to be.

"Rare is it, in this world, to find those who are evil simply for the sake of being evil," he said flatly, and Sakura bit her lip at that. "Those who were and are bred to hate us do not appear before us as often as they once did, and they most certainly do not save the lives of the Children of Eru… You are without a doubt not evil, though neither are you a force for good."

"Like I could ever be good," she muttered, pulling her blankets around her. "I can never be like you and your kind… so bright and so very pretty." She rested her chin on her knees. "Tell me, what are your plans for me? You cannot simply keep me in a cell forever, can you? You are the lord of this stronghold… you can hardly let a threat to the lives of your people continue existing…"

Grey eyes looked down at her almost sorrowfully. "Tell me, dear dragon… why are you so insistent on being killed?" he enquired once more. "What do you seek to gain from your own death? Unless your reincarnation here was only a fluke, then you have a way of returning to this world… Do you not think it would be cruel to have your soulmate kill or otherwise order your death only to see you alive and well some years later with the weight of your passing set upon his conscience?"

"He can kill me as many times as he pleases," Sakura grumbled, thinking once more on the no longer so tantalising prospect of her own death. His words reminded her of her own accursed fate – the fact that she was thrown into two different worlds, batted between the both of them like some well used ping-pong ball. "You forget, Lord Elrond," she murmured, an ache in her chest. "I'm a cruel being. Dragons always are, and though you claim dregs of my humanity remain, I am mostly a dragon by this point in time…"

"You will not be killed," he stated flatly, and her stomach dropped to her toes at that. She couldn't understand the thought processes of elves. But then what did the shadows know about the light? He left then, turning on his heel and vanishing in a swirl of robes and long brown hair, leaving Sakura with only her thoughts for company. Well that and the startling, stark revelation that she wasn't awaiting execution. She wasn't to be killed.

Sakura despised the part of her which was relieved by that – she deserved death or something similarly as painful.

That was almost standard by that point. That was, she supposed, the cruellest part of being locked in that cell. She was a cruel being by that point though, and it was almost comforting – because she knew cruelty well. It was familiar to her by that point, compared to love, lust, and the desperate want for the former which was always a shadow on her consciousness, no matter how many lives she lived. Part of her wondered if she'd even be able to recognise those sorts of feelings. After all, it had been so long since those sorts of emotions had been directed her way.

She curled up under her blankets then, hiding away from the prying eyes of the world, wishing the thoughts swirling about in her head would leave her be for a little while.

They didn't.

"Lord Elrond and I have been in discussions, Erestor too," Glorfindel said upon arrival, not even bothering to greet her as he arrived outside her cell door.

Sakura sneered. "A gathering of idiocy, then," she muttered, rolling her eyes, hating the insidious trickle of fear she felt in her belly at that. They had claimed she was not to be killed, and perhaps from anyone else she would have believed them to be lying. Not them though. Not the elves. She doubted they would be anything like her and her kin who lied and tricked others at every twist and turn on the bleak pathway which was life. "How delightful."

"You are as happy as ever, I see," he murmured, peering at her almost regretfully. Maybe he regretted not killing her already. Although she doubted they'd go back on their word of not killing her, no matter how conflicted her thoughts now were. More so because of a stupid thing called hope. The same hope which they had fanned from embers into a small, tiny, little flame in the depths of her chest. She hated it. She was supposed to be resigned to her fate. She was supposed to be ready to atone for her crimes with however many deaths it took. Yet there she was, still alive and sitting pretty in her cell. Not that dragons were pretty.

"And you are as idiotic as ever, a fool for keeping a dragon alive in your basement," she spat, quicker on the retorts that day, a small part of her cringing at every word which left her mouth. They were barbs meant to hurt. Sakura wondered if she would ever be able to speak or otherwise express herself without those barbs. She doubted it – it was a dragon's nature after all.

"Is it truly idiocy and foolishness?" Glorfindel asked, tilting his head and staring at her almost curiously, fingers twitching in something she could almost mistake to be impatience or frustration. "Or can you simply comprehend that I might not have another reason for keeping you alive?"

A snort escaped her, lip curling up. "What other reason could there be besides idiocy and foolishness?" she demanded. What other reason could he have to keep a dragon alive? Sakura didn't understand. She didn't think she would ever be able to, no matter what paltry explanation he might give her.

"Selfishness."

The word was flat, blunt, and the elf who said it was staring at her with cold, intense eyes. Sakura blinked, trying to comprehend the idea, and yet—

"I never thought I would say this about a dragon, yet I almost find it adorable," he said, no trace of amusement or joking in his words. "It is like you have placed me upon some pedestal in your mind, perhaps similar to the way that the rest of my kin have… I cannot let that stand, simply because it is you – my fated other half." The door to her cell clicked open, the sound almost seeming to echo about her room. "Long ago did I resign myself to living forever without that rumoured happiness which can only be found with the other half of your soul, or so they call it. Yet now you appear before me, overturning my beliefs, ridding me of that betrayal I first felt when I saw my name upon your skin and thought you were fooling me somehow so, and yet somehow labouring underneath your own delusions—"

"Are you so sure they're delusions? Or are you somehow mista—" A finger pressed itself against her lips, and Sakura stilled at that, something thick and heavy settling in her throat like a lump. Her fingers curled, nails digging into the mattress upon which she sat as her beloved supposed other half stood before her, silencing her with but a touch.

"Let me finish, dear dragon mine," he murmured softly, but his eyes were anything but. There was determination in that gaze, and she didn't have the slightest clue as to what he was so determined to do or say. It terrified her, and made her stomach twist, and the lump of ice she called a heart flutter. "I thought I could be patient. I thought that I could change the way you think so slowly and carefully," he said, eyes never leaving her own. It was her who broke off that stare first, determinedly moving her gaze to stare at the wall which had suddenly become far more interesting. She hated it – him being so close, him declaring that she had tainted him and made him selfish. He couldn't be selfish. He couldn't be out of patience, kind and lovely as he was. She hated the stirring of something in the back of her head, and how less cold her heart suddenly felt at his proximity there because he wasn't going to kill her. "Lord Elrond and Erestor believed in my patience too, and I cannot help but feel perhaps I am letting them down simply because I tire of listening to you poetically wax on and on about how evil and terrible you are when you have done nothing as of late to prove that much."

"Do you forget my participation in the War of Wrath?" she spat, blinking and falling silent at the warm hands which cupped her face and forcibly turned her head until she was staring into those grey eyes.

"Do you forget how you were slain in the War of Wrath?" Glorfindel asked, grip on her gentle and yet unrelenting.

Sakura spluttered, words tangled on the tip of her tongue, because yes, she had died, and yet how exactly was that enough to allow them to forget her numerous crimes before that. "Yes," she hissed, gritting her teeth and hating the way he looked at her. She was all too good at hating things. "I died."

"Indeed you did," he murmured, thumb almost absentmindedly caressing her cheek as he stared at her, unblinking and unmoving. "So can you not consider the fact that your so-called willing association with Morgoth has come to an end… can you not tell me of why you even went to him in the first place?" he demanded, so alike how she had demanded answers from him, a silent plea in his words. Why him over me? Yet they couldn't be alike – not in that way, if only because they were supposed to be as different as night and day. His grip on her face held her there, forcing her to look at him, and what she had seemingly driven him to. Sakura didn't want to look upon the consequences of her actions anymore. Coward, the voice in the back of her head whispered. Unworthy. And oh didn't she already know that much. That voice didn't need to tell her something she already knew deep within her heart of hearts.

"So you want me to tell you of my illustrious history?" she asked, hating the way she felt vulnerable and exposed beneath that grasp and that gaze which seemed to demand things of her that she didn't want nor deserve to foist upon him. "Fine," she spat, poison and spite coming to line her every word. She was a dragon – she was cruel. Cruelty was familiar to her, and that was what spewed from her tongue. "To tell that story we need to go back a number of years and a number of lives," she said, a cruel smile coming to twist at her lips, a plot to make him think of killing her stirring in the back of her mind.

"Back?" he parroted, grip on her shifting.

"Yes, back," she said, a smirk on her face. "Back to a world with different stars. Back to a world before I was a dragon. Back to a time when I was actually human," she continued, ignoring the way his brow crinkled. "You see, I was never a so-called precious Child of Eru. I lived in a different place, with different people, who I suppose had powers akin to the Firstborn and Maiar and yet insufferably mortal we all were," she said, nostalgia and hatred stirring as she thought of that life so long ago. "Along comes little poor me who falls so desperately in love with another who certainly wasn't you," she purred, watching as those eyes darkened above her. "He's the reason I went so willingly into Melkor's arms," she said, teeth baring in a mockery of a grin. "Love is such a curious little thing, isn't it?" Sakura tilted her head, blinking as those hands left her face and dropped to her shoulders. "Here I am, batted between two worlds in which I am infallibly a criminal or wrongdoer of some sorts—so why don't you just rid me of this pathetic little life I have and send me far from your sight already?"

Grey eyes stared at her, fingers gripping her, nails digging into her shoulders like she might somehow escape if he didn't keep such a tight hold on her. "Tell me," he said. "Is this your attempt to persuade me to kill you once more?" he asked, and Sakura stilled and blinked at that. Since when had she become so predictable? "You forget what I tell you – or perhaps you are so determined to think of me as the perfect image somehow stuck in your head in place of the real me, but I told you already. I am being selfish here," he stated, and even with her head free, she couldn't bring herself to look away from him. "I wish for my happiness, because of that, and this…" One hand snaked down to pry that wrist of hers up from beneath the blankets she had buried herself in. The inky writing marring her skin was lifted until the both of them could see it plainly. "This writing upon our skin tells us of whom we are supposed to find our happiness in and with. Mine declares you for this duty. So tell me, Ancalagon," he all but purred that wretched name, leaning down until their faces were only inches apart. "Why would I kill you when you are meant to be the key to this happiness which I find myself so desperately longing for?"

Sakura swallowed thickly, mind empty and devoid of a snarky response. Her eyes burned, and she gritted her teeth at the tears which wanted to fall. She didn't even know why she wanted to cry. It didn't change the fact that dragons weren't supposed to cry.

All too soon the touch she had almost gotten used to vanished, his face unreadable as he took a couple of steps back, staring at her all the while. He shook his head, turning sharply then and storming out of her cell, furious footsteps echoing down the corridor, even as the door of her cell bounced back open from the force which had been used to slam it shut.

"You forgot to lock the door, you blithering idiot!" she screeched after him, wanting to say something angry, something to get rid of those stupid tears, and anger was always the way to go. After all, anger was the emotion she was so familiar with by that point, rather than whatever confusing thing had made her almost choke up and cry.

Glorfindel didn't return.