I have two songs for you, one for the first part of this chapter: Miracle, by Shinedown. Miracle is one of the nicest love songs I've ever heard and I feel it suits the first part of this chapter perfectly. I'm actually listening to it as I write this note, Oh I love this song so much.

Second song: Snow Fairy, The English cover version sung by NateWantstoBattle.

There had been little debate about what they had to do next. Spyro and Cynder knew full well they had to go to The Catacombs, Malefor was too potent to ignore; they both would have preferred to go back to Warfang but knew that they couldn't.

Nestoc had barely spoken since he had seen the dead dragoness, but as Spyro and Cynder were talking about it he unexpectedly offered to go to Warfang instead. Even though they knew he probably wouldn't make much difference Spyro and Cynder felt better that someone was going.

Scara had to wait in Darkmire's tomb; he couldn't fly and would have been killed by the temperatures if he'd tried to travel over land. Nestoc promised to return with whatever help he could get as soon as he could.

The three dragons travelled together for most of the day, until they had left the mountains behind them, then they parted ways. The Catacombs were to the far south of Warfang; Cynder estimated they were about two more days' flight away.

"We've been flying a lot lately." Spyro said. "It seems like everywhere is two days flight away."

"I enjoy flying." Cynder said.

"I know, so do I. It's just the travelling that gets a bit boring. Having to go somewhere, and get there quickly. Now we're flying almost back the way we came to go to the Waterfall cave, because coming up here was pretty much pointless."

"We don't have to go to Waterfall cave. We could go to Warfang instead, just to show Malefor."

"We don't have to go to Warfang either." Spyro said.

"What?" Cynder looked at him curiously.

"You never wanted to go back. In hindsight I think you were right, we should have stayed away."

Cynder was surprised that Spyro would say that.

"It was the right thing to do at the time. Spyro I couldn't have asked you to cho-" Cynder broke off, not wanting to finish her sentence.

She didn't want Spyro to need to choose between her and Warfang for two reasons. The first reason was that she knew it would hurt him no matter which option he chose, either because he would hurt Cynder or because he would be fighting against an essential part of his nature, his desire to help others.

The other reason was that she was terrified of what his answer would be.

"I know what you were going to say." Spyro said. Cynder couldn't look at him. "I've already made my choice; I made it when you came back to Warfang for me."

"Please don't." Cynder said. "If you don't choose then maybe you won't have to."

"Okay, I didn't go after you when you left Warfang because I didn't make a choice, and I swear that won't happen again."

"There's no point looking back at that now. We're together again, and we can do whatever we want to do."

Spyro flew silently for a while before speaking again.

"It's sort of ironic, isn't it? We're back in exactly the same position as we were before we went to Warfang again. We even have the chain on again." He smiled. "It's like fate has reset us back to where we once were."

"I think we're better now than we were before." Cynder said.

"We do have sex now." Spyro noted.

There was a moment of incredulous silence.

"Did I say that out loud?" He looked at Cynder, her expression told him he most certainly had. He made an admirable attempt to fix the situation, which of course only embarrassed him more.

"That is… it's only one of the things we… it's not. I don't. There are better things then, well, not better… you're amazing, Cynder and I… just…" He looked at her helplessly. "I'll shut up now." He finished.

Cynder looked at him until Spyro began to squirm, then she responded.

"I don't love you for your tact. You're completely hopeless Spyro. You see a crystal and your first thought is to beat it up. You find a door; you go to head-butt it. A magical chain? Let's try twisting it. You open your mouth, you insert your foot."

She laughed, showing she was teasing.

"I think I know now why Sparx is a good influence on you. When he's around you can't just say everything that pops into your head because he'd tease you mercilessly for it. Sparx encourages you to filter yourself."

"I'm sorry I said that, it just sort of slipped out."

Cynder flew around for a mid-air kiss with Spyro, using her wind magic to continue flying despite being in an unnatural position. They stayed that way for a moment. Cynder enjoyed the kiss, and then she flipped over to fly beside Spyro again.

"I don't mind."

The two dragons stopped in a clearing. A small stream ran through it and they drank from it. Cynder spread her wings and basked in the sun, glad to feel the soft grass against her underbody and pleased to be out of the cold. It was very pleasant lying there.

Spyro started doing some sort of dance looking thing. For a moment Cynder thought he was pretending to be Flare, the strange fire guardian moved in a similar sort of manner, but then she recognised the Way of Balance, a series of movements dragons used to train themselves in balance, hence the name.

Cynder had learnt the version Spyro was doing ages ago, and Imperia had stepped up her teaching to adjust for Cynder's wind magic until the series of movements she had come to call the Way of Balance was almost unrecognisable from the original form that Spyro was doing.

He was good at it, amazingly good at it, but Cynder noticed that Spyro would always make his movements too quickly and powerfully, meaning he needed to adjust his stances before he moved to the next sequence.

"It's not direct combat training." Cynder advised him. "You don't need to make the moves into strikes, there shouldn't be force involved."

"That's true in basic training, but Terrador doesn't agree with that. He feels that even though its balance training you shouldn't neglect the power you would need in combat. Grace and power are both important."

"You're forcing yourself to adjust your stances. You lose the flowing nature of the moves."

"You should see Terrador do Way of Balance, he's truly a master fighter. I know that it's possible to do it perfectly and with power. I'm going to be one of the dragons who can do that too."

"Melee combat isn't really your strongest area, is it?" Cynder asked. Spyro was far from bad, but he didn't have the size or sheer strength of a dragon like Terrador or Magmar.

"Honestly no, I'm stronger with elemental attacks, but I need to practice my melee combat. What about you? What are you best at Cynder?"

Cynder shrugged lazily, then got up and shook herself.

"I don't know. I'm fast, I prefer to fight aggressively and I'm capable of taking down most enemies quickly and easily."

"Close combat or longer range?"

"Any range." Cynder said.

"Really?"

"Oh yes."

"Stop being a mystery." Spyro said with a playful scowl. He forgot about his training and focused on Cynder.

"Am I being a mystery?"

"Yes. I know barely anything about your fighting style or your elemental attacks. I know you're strong, but I have no idea which of us would win in a sparring match. You are a complete mystery."

"I like being a mystery. Do you really want to know which of us would win in a fight? Because there's one really good way to find out." Cynder smiled invitingly at Spyro.

"I've wanted to know for a while now. Focus on melee combat, choose one element only. Also I'll try to go easy on you, but no promises." Spyro grinned.

"Bring it!" Cynder laughed.

The couple faced off against each other. Spyro took to the edge of the clearing, Cynder stayed in the middle, waiting for him to make the first move.

Spyro had chosen earth, Cynder had chosen wind. She stood easily, not even in a defensive position, extruding an aura of complete confidence.

Spyro circled her until Cynder had to look directly into the sun, then he charged.

The challenge in fighting a wind dragon, Spyro knew, was getting into your chosen range and staying there. Wind dragons had an annoying habit of flipping and dodging attacks, controlling the battlefield by always being in the right place at the right time, he would need to restrict Cynder's movements until he could trap her. He was so focused on this plan that he completely expected Cynder to skip out of the way of his charge.

Cynder held her ground, lowered her shoulder towards Spyro's chest and pushed off, accelerating towards him. She struck with astonishing force, as if she'd done the charging and not Spyro. He was staggered by the impact but recovered quickly. Cynder didn't back off, from right in front of him she accelerated again, slamming her body into Spyro and staggering him for a second time. She put her paws up against Spyro's chest and kicked off, but somehow she didn't move anywhere but instead sent him sprawling.

Cynder grinned, she wasn't as good at manipulating motion as Imperia was, but she was easily good enough to throw Spyro around. She dove for him as Spyro attempted to get to his feet.

Before Spyro could adjust to this level of fighting Cynder had crossed the distance between them and pressed her tail blade to Spyro's throat.

"Cynder one. Spyro zero."

"I was going easy on you!"

"You went nothing on me." Cynder laughed. "Melee certainly isn't your strength."

"I was caught off guard. I underestimated you."

"Excuses, excuses. Put money where your mouth is. Oh, and don't underestimate me again."

"Fine I won't. Let's go best of three."

"We could go best of sixty with time to spare at this rate." Cynder said smugly. Spyro glared at her, but he still couldn't stop smiling.

"Bring it on."

Cynder went on the offensive, flying straight for Spyro. He put his wings up to guard against her attack, Cynder spun over him to land behind him and seized hold of his unprotected tail.

Spyro half turned and Cynder leapt onto his back, grabbed his horn in her other paw and, unfurling her wings, sent the both of them flying with a huge downstroke.

Spyro spread his wings to their full extent for balance and arched his back to try to force Cynder to release her grip. Cynder let him have his horn back so she could grab his tail harder, and then she used her weight and a powerful gust of wind to swing Spyro by his tail straight into the ground. Spyro was up again instantly, he'd barely noticed the impact, yanking his tail out of Cynder's grip then lashing it back at her.

She used her wings to block the tail strike; they still weren't using enough power to affect each other.

"Fight harder!" She called, and then she flipped up and smashed into Spyro from above to demonstrate what she meant. Surprisingly Spyro wasn't knocked to the ground, he reared up, whipping his wings together and striking up with his tail, catching Cynder right on the backside. She huffed in annoyance and wrapped herself around Spyro's chest, then used the wind to knock the both of them onto their backs.

Spyro landed heavily on top of her, but Cynder coiled her tail around his waist and then gently kissed Spyro on his exposed throat.

"Two, zero." She said immediately.

Spyro rolled off her and Cynder got to her feet.

"Do you have an excuse as to why you lost this time?" She teased.

"No. But I want to go one more round." Spyro said. Cynder smiled.

"I'll enjoy that I'm sure."

"If you enjoy getting beaten up." Spyro shot back at her.

"Well, you are the only male my age that's even come close to managing that. Maybe that's why I like you so much."

"You had to make it weird, didn't you?"

"Says mister 'It just slipped out'" Cynder replied.

This time Spyro was on guard, he used his earth element right from the beginning. He used a simple and easy technique which increased his weight and lowered his centre of gravity. Doing this was an essential part of maintaining an earth boulder, but Spyro didn't worry about creating a full boulder, yet.

Cynder found Spyro to be a much tougher target this time. Her first charge was met with a completely different defence to the previous one. Spyro kept his wings well spread and put his weight evenly on all four of his legs, rather than concentrating it on his rear two where Cynder could unbalance him. This left Cynder with no unprotected angle to launch a surprise attack from, but weakened Spyro's defence on all sides slightly.

She went for brute force, aiming to knock Spyro's wing out of the way and close in to get her hold on Spyro's throat. She was almost onto Spyro when he leapt to the side and took up his position again. Cynder shot past him, instantly spinning to face him and smiled, floating in the air.

"Scared?"

"You wish."

Cynder came in slower this time, ready for Spyro to try to evade her again, but this was exactly what the purple dragon had wanted. As Cynder got close enough it was Spyro who went on the attack, he slammed his paw into the earth and raised earthen walls on three sides of himself and Cynder, cutting off much of her manoeuvrability.

Cynder immediately looked up, but Spyro leapt into the air to stop her from escaping that way. Cynder instantly realised Spyro had made a mistake she could take advantage of. She filled his wings with wind, sending him flying higher, straight up into the air, and then she surged upwards and kicked him in the belly. Spyro folded slightly and grunted at the impact. Cynder pushed, knocking Spyro further into the air.

Spyro was about to make an earth boulder when Cynder suddenly circled from below him to above him and kicked him from behind, much, much harder.

Cynder sent the two of them hurtling toward the ground, at the last moment she stopped herself and watched Spyro slam into the dirt.

Only he didn't.

Spyro landed easily and looked back up at Cynder with a grin.

"That was impressive, but I'm afraid you messed with the wrong element." He said.

"Oh did I?"

Cynder flew forwards to fight Spyro at close range, she struck at his left side, but with a twitch of his wing he deflected the blow. Cynder growled in annoyance and spun around Spyro in a tight arc to find an unguarded angle. His wings moved with her, never giving her an opening.

Cynder caught hold of the edge of one of Spyro's wings and yanked it aside. She landed on Spyro's back and lashed out at his side. Spyro twisted around to get her, if he could get hold of Cynder he could use his physical strength to win, Cynder had other ideas, sliding herself around to Spyro's belly and kicking him hard in the stomach. She once again used her acceleration to shoot the two of them across the clearing and slam Spyro into a tree.

It was quite a large tree, but the impact shook the entire thing. Spyro grunted, Cynder hissed in satisfaction. Clearly whatever Spyro had done to counter her vertical drop didn't work for trees.

She paused for a moment too long and Spyro caught hold of her wing. Before she could shake him off Spyro had also grabbed her around the waist, he spun the two of them and then crushed her body against the tree. Cynder yelped in surprise, then Spyro drove his shoulder into her throat and she choked. He crushed her onto the ground; this wasn't a good position for her. Cynder had to take this fight back to her own terms. She swept her tail, knocking Spyro's legs out from under him and bringing him down beside her. She skipped over him to get clear, but Spyro caught her with a powerful uppercut as she moved.

Cynder yelped again and fell to the ground. Spyro scrambled up, shocked.

"Cynder I'm sorry!" He exclaimed, moving over to find out if she was alright.

Cynder responded with a devastating surprise punch, knocking Spyro off his feet again. She laughed, and then stopped. Spyro didn't spring back to his feet like she would have expected.

"Spyro? Are you-?" She moved closer, and then he hit her in exactly the same way she'd just gotten him.

Right on the nose. Very hard.

"Ow!" Cynder yelled. "You're really asking for it now!"

"Glad to make an impression!" Spyro responded.

The two dragons scaled up their power to match each other. Cynder moved first, using her wind to slam Spyro against the tree, before immediately whirling around to the other side of the tree and bringing the whole thing down on top of Spyro with a spectacular crash.

Cynder landed beside the trapped purple dragon with a smile. The tree would easily weigh four tonnes, not enough to crush Spyro, but definitely enough to keep him down.

"Three to me." Cynder said smugly.

"Not yet." Spyro responded, and he sank into the ground and disappeared. Cynder sensed he was coming for her; she leapt into the air as the earth below her erupted. Spyro vanished instantly back below the ground, Cynder hovered a safe distance above.

There was a standoff for several seconds as Cynder considered her next move. This was a new trick from Spyro and it was extremely annoying. At the moment neither dragon had the upper hand, but if Cynder touched down then Spyro would certainly sense her moving around on the ground. She sighed; she needed to get Spyro back aboveground where they were more evenly matched.

"I'm bored." She sang. There was no response. She flew lower to make sure Spyro could hear her teasing him.

"Did you hear me, purple boy? I said I'm bored! Isn't this the part where you beat me up? When do we get to that part?"

"As soon as you come down here and fight me."

Cynder looked around; Spyro was sitting beside the tree she had knocked over, looking like he'd been sitting there all along. She was pretty sure he hadn't been.

Cynder set her wings and floated down to the ground. They began to circle each other, Cynder darted forwards playfully but Spyro didn't flinch. Spyro did the same, Cynder did flinch, but she also laughed.

"This feels like the start of a dance." Spyro said.

"Then let's dance."

Both dragons rushed forward, Spyro tried to grab Cynder and she jumped up and flipped over him, he'd left his wings down and wasn't protected. She aimed for his back, but Spyro had predicted her move, she'd used it before and gotten away with it.

Not this time.

Spyro spun even as Cynder moved, she stopped instantly, but she was too close.

"Gotcha!"

Spyro bit down on Cynder's left paw. He was very careful not to harm her, but his grip was tight and Cynder was caught.

She hissed in annoyance, instinctively her tail blade struck out for Spyro's underside, she stopped the strike before she could do serious damage to Spyro, they were only training after all and she didn't want to hurt him, but she did cut him and he began to bleed.

Spyro had predicted that counterattack too; Spyro had seen Cynder do a very similar thing to Flora when the earth dragoness had tried to bite her. He shrugged off the pain, which didn't bother him very much, and caught Cynder's tail with one of his rear legs, holding that tightly too.

Cynder realised she had made a serious mistake; Spyro used his grip to open Cynder's defence up and grabbed one of her forepaws. She thrashed, but Spyro had already begun to turn this into a direct contest of strength and against him Cynder was outmatched.

Spyro embraced Cynder with his free paw and then twisted his hips against her belly, she suddenly found herself unable to struggle. Spyro was winning and Cynder couldn't get loose. She flapped her wings, but Spyro managed to catch one of them with his rear leg and pinned it to the ground.

He pinned the rest of Cynder to the ground immediately afterwards. She could see him grinning around her paw; she fought harder, trying to throw his body off of her.

She smacked her head against his, which made her head sore but hurt Spyro even more. She didn't usually go in for head butts, but she was running out of options. He didn't lose his grip, but Cynder could sense that she had had an impact on him in the way he held her. She hit him again, and then rolled around so that she was on top and Spyro was below her.

She had a paw free, so she started to hit Spyro repeatedly, trying to make him stop fighting. He didn't stop, just continued to doggedly control her struggles. He was still winning.

Cynder tried to beat Spyro down but he just wouldn't give in. He pulled her close and she couldn't get the angles she needed to hit him properly while she was pressed against his body.

It felt nice having Spyro's warmth so close to her, even now a part of Cynder wanted to let him win. She crushed that part of her away and kept fighting, but Spyro was clearly intending to win no matter what Cynder thought. He got the control he needed to roll back on top of Cynder. He released her wing to catch her other paw and used his weight to pin her to the ground.

Cynder tried to flap and Spyro used his own wings to catch hers. He rapidly released her other forepaw to catch it with his own, freeing his head. Cynder was totally trapped now, she wriggled as much as she could, but Spyro had caught her and the fight was as good as over. She still wasn't going to give up though.

She head butted Spyro, but he shifted his head out of the way, grinning at her.

"Do I win?" He gasped. Both of the dragons were panting heavily, Spyro looked rather dizzy from the beating Cynder had given him, he was also bleeding on her. His smile was playful, and he looked absurdly pleased with himself.

"Never! It's… a draw… You can't win." Cynder panted. It was true, Spyro might be in a winning position, but there was nothing he could do to stop Cynder from continuing to fight him, or so she thought.

"I'll make… you surrender." Spyro grinned.

He took her with a full on kiss, Cynder was so surprised that she gave up her resistance for a moment, Spyro took advantage of that to strengthen his grip. She ignored the pleasure of the kiss and broke it off, snapping at Spyro; he laughed and started kissing her exposed throat.

Over their past few days together Spyro had quickly discovered Cynder's weakness; there was one small spot right at the base of her throat that was extremely sensitive. As he started kissing her there Cynder's resistance melted and she started laughing and was unable to stop.

She had trouble breathing through her laughter, she could barely move and Spyro kept on kissing her throat. She writhed below him. Spyro began to alternate kissing and licking at her, Cynder couldn't help herself.

"Ah! No stop it! Not fair! Spyro stop it!"

This was embarrassing, Cynder was embarrassed at herself. The part of her that wanted Spyro to win was celebrating now, she was helpless. Paralysed by the pleasure.

"Stop it! Not now! Spyro!"

Spyro stopped, Cynder tried to regain her breath, she glared up at him and he grinned back.

"Do I win yet?" Spyro asked.

"No, this isn't a fair tactic." Cynder said. Spyro shrugged and smiled.

"I think it's working." He went back to her throat, nipping gently at her scales.

"Don't you dare!" Cynder squealed, she actually squealed it.

She was so embarrassed now; if this kept up she'd have no dignity left at all.

"You win! You win! Stop it! I submit!"

Spyro stopped.

"Submit?" He repeated, looking rather surprised.

"Uh…"

He leant forward to resume his attack.

"Yes! I submit!" Cynder said.

The last of her dignity made a small whooshing sound as it flew away.

"Right." Spyro said. "That… good. Two to one." He swayed slightly, and then he collapsed on top of her.

"Ow" Cynder said. She wriggled, Spyro was no longer holding her down, just lying on her. "Not that this isn't fun, but can I get up now?" The purple dragon didn't respond.

"You're heavy, Spyro." There was no reply.

Cynder tilted her head, an amusing thought crossing her mind.

"Are you unconscious?"

Spyro's continued silence was answer enough.

"Ohh!" Cynder huffed in annoyance and flopped back, looking up at the sky. "Why now? You couldn't have done that ten seconds earlier? Or thirty seconds. You had to hang on long enough to hear me say the word 'submit' didn't you?"

Spyro still didn't say anything. Cynder sighed.

"I love you Spyro. There must be something seriously wrong with me."

Cynder escaped from under Spyro and stood up, shaking herself off. She was tired now; she swayed as she got up and decided to sit back down again.

She was sore from where Spyro had hit her, but that was to be expected and she didn't mind, she had enjoyed their fight.

She watched Spyro's unconscious form, a gentle look appearing on her face. She curled up beside him and then slipped her tail underneath him and gently shifted him around until he was resting on her side. She relaxed as she lay there; this was what it had been like for the two of them just after Malefor's defeat, she had missed days like this so much.

Cynder tucked her wing over Spyro and began to gently lick his wounds.

How strange, this time I don't have anything to say.

I feel I owe you some recompense for not having anything to say, so I'll leave you with an extra special quote, I live my whole life by this one, and I have it to thank for my writing:

"Just about keeping interesting"

-4Dragons