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"Are you angry with me?"
That he'd had the audacity to ask was no surprise to either of them. Her feelings, however, were another matter entirely. Kaguya's pink eyes opened, narrowed and filled with tears.
"Angry? Angry?" Her hands clenched to fists; the amulets' wood dug into her palms. "I'm heartbroken! Let's just - let's go. Please."
She limped ahead of him, amulets still in hand, the sound of footsteps and sniffles filling the air within the cave. It was only on the fourth or fifth stumble that she reluctantly accepted the support he could provide in his Wooly form. The flight back to Winter Village was silent, though the bond between them roared within his chest. The slam of the shrine doors echoed through the frigid air like a whipcrack, and that was all anyone would get from her that night.
Mokoshiro took post on the torii gate and stared at the moon.
Minutes felt like hours as he took in the sky above them. Its clear, unclouded beauty felt like a mockery, yet it was the least he'd have to bear for how much he'd hidden from Kaguya. She hadn't been his first rider, but none before her had stirred his curiosity the way she had. None before her had approached him with such altruism or grace.
…He'd never fully bonded with them, though. All of them had been smart enough to hold something back, to keep part of themselves in some fashion. Kaguya wouldn't have hidden anything, even if she knew how. Her forthright nature was what drew him to the amulet to begin with. He'd been warned of the dangers of a full bond through the memories of dragons who'd come before him, but he'd thought nothing of it in the moment—Azuma needed to be saved, and she'd arrived as a dove with an olive branch. The perfect offering, the perfect peace.
Mokoshiro's heart heaved within his body. He'd asked for her certainty before she'd given her soul away, and she'd been so sure… He could have told her something, anything, when she'd been asking for even the slightest hint. I was only forbidden from revealing the pact. Not from answering any of her queries. Fool was I, to uphold it so rigidly at the cost of this—pain. For the first time in centuries, possibly longer, his breath shuddered in his true form. How much of it was his own emotion? How much of it was Kaguya's grief making itself known through their bond?
Flashes of the last year slammed into his mind, unbidden. The day she'd offered the amulet and given him her memories; the way her heart opened more with the rescue of each god; the days spent in each village, helping villagers and tilling the land… All it culiminated in her smile, lit by the embers from the cookpot in the autumn dragon shrine after a particularly exhausting day.
His head snapped to the side as a jolt went through his body.
…That had nothing to do with Kaguya, and everything to do with him. He took another breath; steadier this time, though still tense. In all his years, he'd never known of another dragon's bond with their Earthmate being so… Complex. It was a contract; a deed forged through equivalent exchange. That was the way of things since time immoriam.
There is no way this ends without a broken heart.
Mokoshiro shook his head. That wasn't right. Both their hearts were already broken.
I vow to make this right, by whatever means necessary. Though I shouldn't take any steps until Kaguya is ready to speak to me again… No matter how long that takes.
Something in his chest settled, and his eyes felt heavy. His body started to carry bruises similar to that of his rider, though they were much less visible by virtue of his draconic nature. He'd stay atop the torii gate until he was needed for whatever came next.
For the first time in centuries, or possibly longer, Mokoshiro dreamed.
Pink eyes sparkled in the light of the rising sun, and she extended her hand with a smile. There was still a mountain of tragedy between them, but when she looked his way, it was naught but an obstacle they'd face together, just as everything else.
He would never voice this sudden longing in his heart for her to just look his way.