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Time had always been the greatest enemy of Malleus Draconia. Not the time of clocks or human calendars — those were mere whispers he no longer cared about. The true time was the abyss between centuries, the silence that stretched on after everyone else was gone. Malleus noticed this in conversations with Lilia about humans and even other magical creatures before returning to Night Raven. How fragile human life was, for its greatest enemy was brief death. And so it was no different when he went to school; everyone around him easily changed even in just three years passing, while for the fae in his immortality it was merely fifteen minutes? Thirty? He did not know — in truth, he did not care — and what he truly feared most was growing attached to that swift abyss.
But, for a brief moment, he had accepted allowing himself to surrender to the abyss once. Leona Kingscholar had become his husband. No one understood. Not the fae of Briar Valley, not the students of Night Raven who were witnesses to the ceremony, not even Lilia, who merely laughed softly and said: "Finally someone who can look you in the eyes without trembling, but who would imagine you would marry the same one? Still, this agreement will be excellent for our home." Though Malleus did not see it that way — only for his home.
The wedding was discreet, almost secret, held under the full moon in the abandoned garden behind Diasomnia in their final moments at the school, with only those closest as witnesses. Leona, with his habitual sarcasm, had been grumbling throughout the entire ceremony, but it was not out of complaint — it was out of happiness that, having never known what it was, he handled it in an awkward way.
— If I had known I was going to become prince consort of a dragon, I would have slept more.
Malleus merely smiled and squeezed his hand tighter. Even with the differences they had always had, time with the lion gradually turned from amusement into... affection? Draconia little by little began to discover more about Kingscholar, and in a surrender of pride so they could allow themselves, Malleus made a diplomatic agreement with Sunset Savanna and would have Leona with him. He refused to say that he would be merely a husband without value — they would reign together if the leonine so wished. Leona was, for the first time in his life, feeling that he could surrender to that path and live happily; he had always yearned for something for himself that would truly be worth the effort — perhaps a true love, even if it seemed too much like a fairy tale for the leonine, would be worth it.
...
The years that followed were the happiest of Malleus's long existence. Leona aged slowly in the eyes of a fae, but for Malleus each new wrinkle, each silver thread in the brown mane, was a cut too sweet for his heart to accept. They fought over nonsense — Leona hated when Malleus used magic to "improve" the royal garden that he liked to sleep in and even tend. Malleus became irritated when Leona slept too much and ignored diplomatic duties, but they always ended up together, lying in their royal chamber in Briar as two lovers, as if they would never be disturbed there — and indeed they never were.
Leona, lying on the dragon's chest so peacefully that one could say his breathing purred, caressed him with invisible drawings he made with his index finger, making Malleus relax, until he noticed that he had shed another scale, which the brunet picked up, examining it carefully between his fingers as if it were something precious.
Malleus: — Sometimes I wish I understood why you like so much to collect these scales I shed. You look at them as if they were a precious treasure.
Leona: — Because to me, they are precious, husband. Like golden coins — he said as he gathered the courage in a mutter to rise from the bed and put it away, something Malleus also did not understand the reason for. — I wish it were the same with me, to have something of mine with you.
Malleus: — I will never forget you.
Leona: — Don't you dare forget when I turn to dust, you overprotective lizard! But perhaps I shall do something so that does not happen.
Malleus: — ...I do not know if I will endure the day you depart.
Leona: — Don't speak nonsense. After all, I will never let the sands of time near you disappear.
Malleus laughed. Leona was not one for very beautiful words, and suddenly an analogy made the dragon shake his head, but he promised to believe in those words.
...
Leona died at the age of eighty-eight.
It was a peaceful death, almost cruel in its serenity — he simply did not wake one morning, his hand still intertwined with Malleus's, as if until the very last minute he did not wish to leave the dragon alone. The warm body that Malleus had protected for decades cooled slowly, as though the king of lions himself were mocking fate until the end.
And like a king, Leona was buried. His nephew Cheka, king for many years in Sunset Savanna after his father's death, came personally, as some colleagues from Night Raven who still lived gave their final farewell to the lazy student, to a king that Briar never had, to a husband that a fae never imagined he would have. Malleus's mourning was silent and deep — he destroyed nothing, did not weep in public. He merely shut himself in the room they had shared, wings folded around his body, and stayed there for weeks. The entire castle of Briar Valley seemed to hold its breath as they respected their king's grief.
It was during one of those nights, when the pain became unbearable, that Malleus decided to arrange Leona's belongings. He could no longer bear to see the clothes still carrying his scent and not have him to embrace. His green eyes returned with a somber shadow — the fear that had vanished for so many years, of losing his bonds to time, came like an arrow, making the fae question whether love was truly for him. He gathered the leonine's clothes and accessories alone, wanting once more to bid a final farewell while placing everything into trunks to be taken to Sunset Savanna, which Cheka had requested be placed alongside the ancestors. While he continued his mission without any intention of stopping until the end, at the bottom of the wardrobe, behind a pile of cloaks Leona never wore, he found a simple wooden box — the aged scent of wood that the dragon remembered being from Leona's homeland. Inside it, hundreds of envelopes, each with a date. The oldest was from the day after their wedding; the most recent, written with a trembling hand, was only three days before his death. Sixty-eight letters corresponding to every year they had together in their marriage.
Malleus opened the first envelope. The date was one year after their marriage was consummated; the paper was far more aged, but the handwriting was the firm hand of Kingscholar at twenty-one years old. He sat on the floor with the box between his thighs, leaning his back against the empty bed, and began to read:
"Hey, overgrown lizard. I hope you find these letters when I am no longer here. It has been one year. I thought I would regret it by the third month when you suffocated me with so much attention, with so much 'my husband' and protectively guarding me from anyone who came close. You snore like a child and have a terrible habit of squeezing me like a plush teddy bear. Not to mention the times you would crush me with your tail — yet still, you look at me as if I were something far too precious for this world. The diplomatic affairs of your land are a drag, but I already told you not to complain that I flee a little. I know you won't — you end up fleeing together with me anyway."
Malleus laughed at that, agreeing that they were tiresome and fleeing to stay in the garden had always been far better. He tried to contain the tears.
"I hate you a little for it. And I love you in a way that leaves me furious.
I don't know how to explain... I felt that I needed somehow to show that I would never leave you alone. Because it is clear I will go first before you, but I never want to leave you unprotected after I depart. You don't need to go on crying and lamenting after that, but in case you cannot help it with your sentimentality, then I decided to write down everything we went through and what I feel in letters — one for each year of our lives together, and I hope to dedicate myself to this until the end, without losing patience."
The letters continued. Some short, others long. Leona recounted things he had never spoken aloud: the fear he felt of being left behind, the way Malleus's scent calmed him, how much he hated being weak compared to his husband, but how that also made him want to live every second more intensely. But they were not merely letters. In the last one, Leona had attached a map — a map of the garden they had built together behind the royal castle. Along with it, a feather that seemed made of condensed sand, something only Leona's unique magic could create. Strangely, the magic was as alive as the one who had conjured it.
Malleus left the room for the first time in weeks. That morning was shy; the rays of sun that wished to insist upon passing through the dark rain clouds, because of the days that Malleus in his sorrow controlled the weather around his land. He followed the map to the center of the garden, where the statue of the Lion stood. Leona had always hated pompous monuments, so the stone was simple, almost rough — something that, in truth, the Fae had insisted on having after the diplomacy with Sunset and some agreements with other kingdoms, with Leona's help, made everyone prosper and Briar Valley ceased to be a fear for many and became a kingdom of reference in power.
Draconia did not understand at first. Why was he to see the statue? He touched again the sand feather Leona had left with the map, reading the instructions of what he was to do in his final letter.
"I know you are reading this after I am no longer here. Don't make that face. I already felt it. My body is too heavy, and sleep no longer wants to let me go... I think it is now. The last time I managed to use my unique magic, the last time the King's Roar still obeyed me... I condensed what remained of it and transformed it into this feather. Destroy it over the foot of the statue you insisted on not making, and let it fall upon the earth."
Malleus obeyed. He closed his hand tightly, and the sand slid through his fingers, falling onto the damp earth. The ground trembled softly. From the soil, flowers bloomed that Malleus had never seen and whose enchantment he scarcely knew. Then it emerged — black flowers with golden veins, in the shape of lady-of-the-night blossoms that Draconia had once said he loved. They opened slowly, illuminating that morning like small fallen stars, and the sun finally appeared. In the center of each flower, a tiny scale shone: scales Leona had saved from Malleus's own body over the years and hidden, making the elder never know where they were — now he understood why. Leona had left them embedded in the flowers, and the vines seemed to circulate with tiny sands.
"I know you will live forever. So I planted flowers with the scales I kept stealing from you over the years. They will bloom black with golden veins — at least that is how the magic should work... Each one carries a piece of you and a piece of me. This way you cannot forget me, even if you try. You cannot forget that I would never leave you alone, even if the sands of time have run out for me.
I still choose you.
Even now.
My sentimental dragon.
My husband, Draconia."
— Leona
Malleus fell to his knees. The flowers continued to open around him, forming a perfect circle. The scent was a blend of hot savanna and storm — the perfect scent of the two of them.
— Leona... — murmured the dragon, his voice faltering for the first time in centuries. — You stubborn...
Malleus smiled through tears he finally let fall, but the sun this time did not depart; it continued to illuminate that place and the dragon's eyes, which, even brimming, knew that now his tears were not of sorrow. For the first time in his immortal life, time seemed a little less cruel.
The End.