The sand was rough and salty, digging into the soft skin of Kalli's cheek. Her face felt raw as she sat up, brushing at the sand crystals that clung to her face. The ocean sighed and shivered in the sunlight as Kalli watched from her cave mouth.

'I must have… fallen asleep here.' The Phoenix worried her cheek, her thoughts jumbled from sleep. 'I was… upset last night, but… I still shouldn't have left. Not like that. Not when Ry asked me to stay. I should have… oh, Mae will be so angry with me…'

She blinked into the morning light, her eyes dark and sleep-bitten. The wind pulled a thin, threadbare blanket of clouds across the sky, leaving only patches of blue. Kalli watched them lazily, pulling at the tangles in her hair. Relative calm had returned, the emotion turmoil from the night before leaving her drained and empty in the soft light.

So her wife hated her. She didn't need Mae. She didn't need anyone. The pain remained, but it had faded to a dull ache in her chest.

Blue green water danced through the sand, spilling sparkles into the brown. The freedom and the smell of salt air was intoxicating, and Kalli's good spirit returned. She could work around the ache. Kalli was a Dawn; she didn't need anyone.

Her legs were a little shaky as she stood, brushing sand and sleep from her skirts. The day was beautiful and the Phoenix was alive; what more did she need?

The sand squished pleasantly through her toes, spilling gently over the tops of her feet. It was marvelously cool. The wind pulled at her hair, still half pinned up from the night before and riddled with sand. Her gold feather dangled from her neck, dipping low into the ruined gown. It looked rather dirty and romantic, the cloth salt stained and torn. One sleeve was torn and hung low enough that her daggers were shining in the speckled sunlight.

Kalli howled into the crashing waters, her crowing almost lost in the wild sound of the wind and waves; this was freedom. There was a moment of breathless calm, and Kalli spread her arms to the salty air, her sleeves fluttering like feathers.

"So, this is what you want, then?" Kalli spun on her heel, almost falling in the dense sand. Her wife settled daintily on a fallen log by the mouth of Kalli's cave. The Phoenix felt her mouth fall open in surprise. What the hell was she doing here?

Mae looked tired, dark circles around her eyes. She looked weighed down and sulking, too exhausted to be angry, too heavy to stay standing. She rested there in a cloud of a shirt; it billowed white and loose around her shoulders. Those beautiful black curls were severely pinned to her head in a plain bun, leaving her pretty face unadorned and pale. Her eyes glinted like emeralds under the thin line of her eyebrows.

"I should have known better than to try to keep you inside. You were never meant for the boring side of ruling the world." Mae settled her chin into her elbow, watching her wife without emotion. "What is it you want to do? I can more than make up for your presence here."

Kalli blinked at her, her mind slick and blank. "Maellyn? Do you not want me to stay here?"

"That's not what I meant, Kalli. You always misunderstand me." The Dragon sighed heavily, her eyes wondering to the sight of the open water. "You are unhappy here, with me."

"Not true."

There was shock in the quick glance to Kalli. "Then why do you run away from me, Kalli?"

The Phoenix paced, her anger from the night before returning in waves. "I'm not running away from you! I'm running away from this damned job. I hate it. I hate the paperwork, the meetings, the diplomacy. It has nothing to do with you."

"Would you like to leave here? If only for a while? Tour the country, meet people?"

"No."

"Then tell me what it is that you want."

There were tears in Kalli's eyes, tears that tainted her voice. "I don't want to leave! Phoenix's tail feathers, don't you understand anything?" She stomped in the sand under the icy-green stare of Maellyn. "I love you, damn it!"

Kalli covered her mouth, feeling the salty sting of sand across her tongue. Mae's cold eyes shifted, brimming with sudden, almost horrified astonishment. "What did you just say?"

Kalli mumbled something, turning away from the feral stare of the Dragon. Where on earth had that come from? 'Oh great good Gods, you've done it now Kalli. You'll be lucky if Mae ever speaks to you again. She's probably furious. Or doesn't believe you. What did you have to go and say it like that for? In the middle of a fight, no less.'

Mae's shout was Kalli's only warning; she spun, ducking, just in time to see something hard and fast flying toward her face. A sharp pain and she knew she was bleeding. Her vision blacked, shivered, and the whole world fell away, spilling into an ebony darker than black.

Mwhahah, oh yes, this should be good. Now that I have a pretty good idea of where this is going, where this is ending, and now that I'm at home and not in a hotel room, everything should be coming together better now. Yay. Heading off to do my Psyc homework... buh bai.

:mina: