Ashlyn POV

I couldn't feel anything except the whistling of the wind through my scales and rushes supporting the beats of my wings.

The heat of the hearts are beating out of my chest like a drum, the effects of heavy breathing expelling smoke from my belly to whip out behind me when it escapes my nostrils.

My eyes were jumping about too much to focus on any one thing, my mind only concentrating on the subtle movements of my body through the arches and stacks of the coast.

The sky was darkening, great streaks of golden oranges painting the sky, making my scales look as though they were molten fire. I suppose they were in a way.

I had to find shelter before dark. I was too far from the castle now, and I couldn't fly back even if I wished to.

I slow down, gliding, the tip of my wing dusting the sand and I turn into a dark alcove into the cliff.

I dart my way into it quickly and silently, suddenly feeling exhausted. I don't shift back, it would take too much energy from the limited supply I have left. I curl into a ball in the corner of the cave, wrapping my tail and wings around me. The heat radiating from my centre barely touches the edge of my body that I lie on, but I feel my self drifting away anyway, the heavy breathing from the sleeping form of the silver giant behind me lulling me to sleep.

Cicero POV

I sense the dragon dart into my cave that invent leave before I open my eyes from restless sleep, it's small form barely only a quarter of mine. It was barely a hatchling, and probably only shifted a few years ago, viewing it's dexterity was only slightly painful.

It slows down, its small head scanning the cave before settling down in the curve of my stomach. I start slightly, about to attack the small miniscule, un-important dot, but then it begins to snore. Very heavily. My tail twitches in irritation, and I huff out a small breath. Why did it have to fall asleep?

This small female, as I can tell by the graceful sweep of her talons and slimmer build than a male, knows I am here. Most would flee. Elder dragons had fleed my presence before.

But... but this creature was familiar with me, and she, familiar to me.

The voices in my head had been yelling at me for so long, I had never had a moment's head peace, guilt had wracked my body for so long about the death of my family that the mess of my brain couldn't have shifted me back to human form no matter how hard I had tried.

But, I could feel it happening now, the shrinking and compressing, the sucking and the stings, and before I knew it, I was the one barely a quarter as big as the female still curled into a ball in front of me, her back facing me, her wings awkwardly wrapped around herself.

I marvel at the golden glint of her scales, the smooth arch of her back. I hadn't seen a golden Dragon, since, well... Caroline.

Caroline.... oh my dear Caroline. This couldn't be my dear Carrie, but it was so much like her I almost collapsed.

The clothes I were in hung in rags around me, not having changed them since I last shifted to human form. Which was I don't know how long ago. My hair was to my shoulders in matted tangles of dirty blonde, a beard half grown on my face.

The breathing of the female was steady as I study her in fascination, padding lightly around her in bare feet. I dare to reach put and feel her armoured back, the horns on her head. She stirs, and stills as I hold my breath. She has felt the warmth of my shifter form leave her.

She whines in her sleep like a child, and my chest tightens. Her teeth show as she pulls back her lips in a snarl. Her tail whips about her, but I only step back.

I remember my mate in this moment, of the lullabys she always sang softly when she thought she was alone. They still weave and wrap themselves around my mad mind, their words taunting me. My mate was dead. Slain by my own brother while she was with child. Children.

This female had been here before, I am sure of it. The haze over the madness of my mind will not let me see anything but the pain I have felt.

The female stretches and snarls, and I am pulled from my thoughts. She sleeps, but she shrinks, and she ripples and shifts and changes. Her wings recede into her shoulder blades as curls tumble around her shoulders. The girl still lies, facing away from me but breathing heavily, still in heavy slumber.

My heart clenches. She is familiar, and yet she is not. A stranger, and yet she is not. So like my Queen, and yet she is not.

The clothes she wears are those of gear, those of training. She has come form the academy. From those who keep me here. This child has come here of her own free will, I can tell. This is not The headmistress's doing. This is the doing of this child herself.

I walk slowly and painfully while I hold my breath in my lungs, so I am kneeling in front of this child, facing the face that is so like hers and so like mine. So like a child of my Queen. So like a child of my own.

A tear slips down my cheek, no doubt leaving a clear track through the grime of thirteen years of imprisonment. Thirteen years of imprisonment for a crime I did not commit. Thirteen years of imprisonment in which I could have spent with my family after slaughtering Derek and his men.

I begin to hum my Queen's lullaby, and my voice is impossibly weak, but the words are clear and flow like they do in my mind. Like a river of golden love, a river of love for a child I have never met, but have in so many ways.

My voice echoes through the dark cave and I gather my child to my chest as she sleeps, tears falling from my cheeks in torrents.

For the shock of her hair, so long and fair,
Like a halo aflame around her head.
He rushed to her side, his lips a prayer
Her stomach a pool of claret had bled.

The sky was gold in the light of her scales,
And he was blinded by beauty and wrath.
The debris fell around them in gales,
The only way was the dead filled path.

He took to it, with the woman he loves,
In his arms, the cage of his heart.
And it is trapped with poisoned gloves,
For death with love is a beautiful art.

Ashlyn POV

The soft humming of a man pulls me from sleep softly. The lullaby is so familiar. It had rocked me to sleep so many times before. Perhaps my father was here. Although he had never sang this lullaby to me before, he was bound to have heard it at some point.

Many would say it was morbid, but my mother had always said that death for love was always honourable and great, that it was an unrecognised sacrifice given many times, and we should never forget that. And I never did.

I join in with the singing, my eye still shut but I know I am safe in the arms of my father. We hadn't been on the best of terms lately...

But I wasn't at the castle. I wasn't at home. I was in a cave. Miles away. I shouldn't be anywhere near any human.

I snap open my eyes, and the singing stops abruptly, and it is silent.

A voice gasps above me.

"My daughter. My daughter. How long I have thought you were dead."