//------------------------------//
// Time Flies (Smolder, Yona) 
// Story: Little Thoughts 
// by paperhearts 
//------------------------------//

Smolder lay sprawled across the rug, limbs and claws entwined in dense yak hair.  Her scales had become uneven shimmering planes, given their fleeting new life by the light of the fireplace.  There, prancing tongues lived and died erratically, the only concession to the passing of time.

"Hey, you see the moon from there?"

The flames crackled for a few moments before Yona stirred.  Smolder could almost sense the yak's furrowed brow.

"Yona not astronomer.  Let's just say it's tomorrow already so Yona can go back to sleep."

Smolder grinned. "Cheater."

"Yak not always best at things."  This time Smolder could almost sense the smile, broad and earnest.  "Sometimes yak must learn from others."

"That must have hurt to admit."

Yona blew a raspberry.  "Not really. Yaks best learners after all."

Smolder elbowed her, but a chuckle escaped her lips regardless.  The earlier suffocating anxiety had almost completely ebbed away.  Her body felt like her own again, lungs and stomach untwisted and no longer trying to pull her apart.

She twisted a strand of Yona's hair between her claws.  A treasure for her hoard, perhaps the most important one.  A treasure that had transitioned from idle daydreams to painful wishes to a tangible reality.

"So, assuming it is now, uh, tomorrow..."

"Yes. Assuming is good."

Smolder nodded.  "Assuming it is now tomorrow, does that mean that we get to tell the others we've been dating since last year?"

Yona's laugh erupted from her mouth. "Yes! Yona like that statement. Both true and a joke. Duality is important to yaks."

"Duality, huh?"  Smolder closed her eyes as she tossed the word about in her head.  Yona's scent was both sweet and musky in her nostrils, just like it had always been.  A fuel for the relief Smolder now felt, but also for her rising regret of not attempting to claim, and thus enjoy, her treasure sooner.

She craned her head and blew hard, snuffing out the dance of the flames in the fireplace.  Then she buried herself into Yona's hair.  Within seconds Yona's foreleg was hesitantly wrapping around her, stealing a beat from Smolder's heart in the process.  She almost gasped at the audacity of it, but pressed a grin into Yona's side instead.

"Duality is important to dragons, too," she murmured.