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The dragons here adore Mulberry, and Umber cannot blame them in the slightest. It would be hypocritical.
They gather in slow, restless spirals when he returns, drawn again and again like moths to lanternlight, and after days apart, the sight of him coaxes something equally wild and uncontainable awake beneath Umber's ribs.
He knows this feeling, has known it, for longer than he cares to admit.
It was there the day that hideous, thrashing beast dragged him beneath the waves, its terrible limbs coiling tight as the dark water enveloped him in a suffocating rush.
MudWings could hold their breath for up to an hour, and yet terror was a merciless thing. It smothered reason as it tore through him, wild and blinding, clawing at his chest, and in his frantic, instinctive fight, water invaded his lungs in a searing rush. It burned like fire.
Then Mulberry’s talons, grazing his own. Lightning in the cold, a lifeline against the endless black.
He remembers the violent surge upward that followed, the shock of air in his lungs, disorientation spinning his stomach as though the world had been turned inside out. The ocean roaring in his ears. Color and light returning in dizzying waves.
And then that smile. Soft, a little uncertain. It stole the last of Umber's breath.
The feeling is ridiculous, irrepressible, a giddiness that sets his claws itching with the urge to spring forward, to collapse the space between them and let the rest of the world fall away.
Instead he stretches along the low bough of a fig tree, idly observing the way sunlight gathers upon the deep garnet of Mulberry's scales, across the burnished swirls of green and copper. He is especially enamored with the gold that glitters about his eyes.
And those eyes... stupid, radiant things. They hold the pale brilliance of all three of the moons within them.
It still astounds him that a dragon this beautiful wasn't just a figment of his half-drowned, half-delirious imagination.
Umber both adores and despises the way the Mulberry responds to his admirers. The prince bends toward their every need with a sweetness so innate it borders on cruel. He is patient, unfailingly generous, never once allowing himself to appear burdened.
This is how he is with everyone. Umber isn't special, and he certainly isn't jealous, he thinks, even as his talons sink into the bark, scoring furrows into the dark wood.
“Umber?”
He turns at once, his sulking forgotten in an instant. That voice! A surge of longing presses against his ribs, and he finds himself wishing hopelessly that he could make Mulberry say his name again and again, forever.
Umber, Umber, Umber.
Mulberry is suddenly there, close enough that Umber can feel the faint heat radiating from him, the almost imperceptible brush of air stirred by his wings. They rise into a careful half-fold, neither fully open nor tucked tightly against his sides. His posture is almost hesitant, but there is something undeniably deliberate in the slow focus of his eyes.
“Do you want to... come with me?”
The crowd still lingers, watching with poorly-disguised curiosity.
Mulberry notices, and with a small tilt of his head in their direction, silently dismisses them. A few disappointed murmurs follow, along with the reluctant shuffling of claws, but slowly they disperse into the paths and orchards.
Mulberry hesitates for the briefest moment before reaching out, offering Umber his talons.
"Please?"
As though Umber could have ever refused.
He takes Mulberry’s claws without a second thought, and the contact ignites something fierce and wild within him. It's exhilaration, both Mulberry’s and his own, spilling freely through their joined talons.
Then Mulberry lifts them into the air and the Court falls away beneath them. Wind lashes past Umber’s horns, streams along his wings, and he laughs aloud, breathless with the sheer, uncontainable thrill.
He can feel Mulberry vibrating beside him with the same rush. It’s contagious, more intoxicating than anything he has ever known. He's this excited to see me?
They descend after a while, slipping between the low hills where the trees thin. Water gleams everywhere, catching the pale light.
Shallow pools are scattered across the clearing, their surfaces reflecting the sky in fractured patches between tufts of reeds and moss-slick stones.
The air is rich and heady, and the ground is soft. Dark mud presses thickly between Umber’s claws the moment he lands, and he flexes them experimentally, reveling in the familiar give of the waterlogged earth beneath him. It tugs at something deep inside him, reminding him of the humid, tangled waterways of home.
He's been here before, the last time Mulberry showed him.
“I’m glad I managed to steal you away,” Mulberry says. Without the crowd, his voice softens, losing the easy confidence it carried before. His wings shift restlessly against his sides.
Umber stares at him, incredulous.
"You're glad? I can never get you alone! I mean—" He falters abruptly. Heat rises beneath his scales, prickling along his neck and down his spine. "You're not, th-they're always—"
Mulberry laughs.
"Umber, it's fine. I know what you mean."
“You didn’t have to do that," Umber says, smiling secretly for the second time at the way he says his name.
Mulberry tilts his head. “Do what?”
“Send the others away.”
“I… wanted to,” he admits softly.
Umber lowers his eyes to the mud beneath his talons, feeling it cling coolly between them.
“They adore you, you know. Everywhere you go, everyone—” He pauses, swallows. “They think you’re… special.”
Mulberry’s gaze holds steady, and then, quietly, with a vulnerability that catches Umber horribly off guard:
“Well… I think you’re special.”
He takes a small step closer, shoulders tensing as if he’s expended every ounce of nerve to say it. The faintest flush colors the scales along his jaw, deepening the rich garnet there into a brilliant sangria red.
"You're the only one of them I want to be with, really. Out of all of them. I thought of you the whole time I was gone."
The effect on Umber is immediate and catastrophic.
A wave of reckless delight washes over him so quickly he can hardly keep still. He can't bear to look at Mulberry. Quickly, he averts his eyes, staring stubbornly at his talons.
“Well, that’s,” he says intelligently.
Before he can embarrass himself any further, he flops down onto the muddy bank beside the water to still the trembling excitement running through him.
Mulberry steps closer.
"I, um..." he tries.
After a brief pause, he lowers himself beside Umber, settles carefully against him with a grace that belies the tension in his wings. His neck drapes across Umber’s back, the heat of his scales radiating in waves.
Something warm and overwhelming spills through Umber at every point of contact. It feels like sunlight.
It is an affection so aching and overwhelming in its certainty that Umber’s breath catches. For a moment, he is sure he cannot breathe, cannot think, cannot process the intensity of it. Slowly he comes to realize that the feeling does not belong to him.
Behind them, Mulberry’s tail twitches nervously in the mud, curling toward Umber’s as though it longs to wind around his.
I love you. I love you, and I'm choosing you. That is what radiates from him, thrumming in time with his heartbeat.
“You do?" Umber practically whips his head around, tail lashing in nervous delight.
Mulberry meets his gaze with a tenderness that makes Umber’s chest ache.
"More than anything."
For the first time, Umber understands how lovely it is to be utterly wanted.
This is not the half-imagined affection of a SandWing too preoccupied with a beautiful, spacey NightWing to offer him more than a passing glance.
Before he can lose himself completely in the marvelous certainty of it all, a shadow falls across his mind. A question he has been circling, unwilling to voice, until now.
"I have to ask... can I... trust you? After..."
Waking from a coma after an amount of time no one will tell you only to discover that the dragon you have grown hopelessly infatuated with has deceived you and left you stranded on an island with no promise of escape is a kind of betrayal Umber would not wish upon anyone.
Even now, he cannot say with certainty that he has forgiven him.
There is a way out now, sure, but that does nothing to erase the days he spent avoiding him, nursing quiet, stubborn wounds. Trying, and failing, to feign indifference.
Because yes, a part of him might have accepted it. A part of him might have chosen to stay, if only he had been asked. To spend forever with Mulberry, to feel the warmth and certainty of him endlessly.
But to never see his siblings again? To never get to say goodbye?
Mulberry’s face falls almost instantly, guilt written plainly across his features, and Umber feels it as surely as if it were his own.
He regrets the question just as quickly.
“No, forget I asked," he starts hastily. "That wasn’t fair.”
Mulberry turns to him then, properly this time. “It was," he says quietly. "You trusted me, and I lied to you.”
Umber opens his mouth, fumbling for a reply, but Mulberry quickly interrupts him. His gaze does not waver, but it softens with something raw and wrecked.
"Don't say it's okay. You can be angry. You should be angry."
Umber swallows, suddenly hyper-aware of every point of contact. The steady press of Mulberry’s chest against his back, the warmth of his breath fanning over his scales, the frantic, uneven thrum of his heart through the narrow space between them.
“I just—” Umber begins, then falters, staring fixedly at the mud where his claws have sunk in. “I didn’t want you to think I was still blaming you for everything.”
Mulberry’s head dips, the motion small and burdened.
“You’re allowed to. I just... didn’t want to lose you. That was all. That was what it came down to, and I handled it horribly. Worse than horribly.”
Umber stares at him.
His chest aches from the sheer sincerity of the confession. There is no elegance in it, no attempt at excuse or polish. Just the raw, unvarnished truth, laid out between them in the damp air.
Despite the clamoring insistence of his better senses to hold a grudge, he simply can't summon the anger, not at him.
He thinks of Snakeroot and Beryl, how Mulberry fears them, how they make him feel sick and small and insignificant. His mother is the most terrifying of all, and Mulberry is her jewel. She holds him up as a paragon of virtue and power, praising him endlessly before their court, but she can cage him with a glance.
When Mulberry brought him here, he had been following orders.
Umber exhales. “You really are terrible.”
A startled, incredulous sound escapes Mulberry.
“What?”
"Yes, very terrible. Terrible dragon," Umber huffs, though there is no real malice in it. He tilts his snout toward Mulberry's, letting it graze the bridge of his face. "For the record... I’m still mad.”
Mulberry nods once, shivering visibly at the touch. “You should be."
“But that just means you have more time to make it up to me."
Mulberry lifts his head slowly to meet his gaze, eyes wide with open disbelief. “Really? You'll let me?”
“Yes,” Umber says. “But you have to promise… no more lies. Ever again.”
He raises his talons, trembling faintly with anticipation, and Mulberry takes them at once. Their claws interlock, and the contact sends a delicate heat coursing through him.
"I swear it," Mulberry murmurs.
A slow, irrepressible smile spreads across Umber’s face. He looks absurdly solemn and noble in that moment, and the sight of it steals something soft and warm in his chest.
They settle together again, the damp earth yielding beneath them. The water ripples lazily nearby, catching slivers of light. Mulberry drapes his neck across Umber again, who leans into him without thinking, every exhale and subtle tremor along his wings sending a wonderful thrill through his veins.
"I really don't know why you're still here," Mulberry murmurs, his tone soft, almost contemplative. It lacks any true sadness but still carries a weight that presses gently between them.
Umber hesitates, claws sinking lightly into the mud. His ears heat, and for a moment he averts his gaze, trying to keep away from Mulberry’s expectant eyes.
"You know why," he says finally, voice a little hurried.
Mulberry's tail flicks, just once. He shifts closer, the barest hint of his weight pressing into Umber’s side as he rests his head lightly on his shoulder. Umber stiffens almost imperceptibly, a shiver creeping along his spine as he tries not to think about how that makes him feel.
“I think I want to hear you say it,” Mulberry murmurs, low and even, but the almost imperceptible softness in his eyes betrays him. There’s a plea for reassurance there.
Umber falters, tongue and heart tripping over each other.
"I haven't even heard you say it! Using your... pseudo-leafspeak magic does not count, by the way. Prince Mulberry."
Mulberry flushes, a warmth spreading across his scales that makes him look unbearably vulnerable. Caught. And yet, after a shuddering inhale, he forces the words out, each one trembling just slightly as though the act of speaking them is as risky as breathing underwater.
"I love you, Umber," he whispers, before ducking his head away, tail lashing furiously.
If that weren’t already destined to replay endlessly in Umber’s mind.
"I love you too."