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“I follow our fate strings, just like how I’m able to determine how far you are from our living offspring.”

Oh. I forgot about those. Actually, she hadn’t, but her mind was too fixated on getting caught freaking out about sex with him, the past, and the potential future, that she was too scrambled to the think properly.

Lindiwe tucked a thick clump of her wayward curls tickling her temple behind her ear. “What do they look like?”

“My side is always black, just like the rest of me. Everyone else’s varies, but it often matches their orb colours. Nathair’s end is orange, and our strings tangle and twist together.”

“What’s mine?”

“It’s multicoloured, with a more reddish-orange hue like your soul flame. The other end reflects the colour of my mana, of me.”

“So we’re literally intertwined?” she asked sweetly, bending her other leg so she could lay her chin across her raised knees. “I always thought so figuratively, but never literally.”

“Yes. I’m also intertwined with all the consumed human souls here in Tenebris, although their strings are all white on the other end.”

The muscled knot in her jaw popped as her lips tightened. What a way to make what could have been special, common. Then again, that was Weldir. He had no sense of coyness, and he didn’t even catch that Lindiwe may have tried to flirt with him. Blergh.

“How do you find a particular soul you are looking for? Or are there too many for you to wade through now?”

“Hmm. That is a rather peculiar question. I do remember many of the humans here by their memories, but that is only if I’ve looked into them.

I use those memories to call their string to me.

As for those I haven’t... I’m unsure as to why I would ever need to call upon them.

I have no care for them beyond making them content here. ”

Lindiwe snorted an expressionless, near soundless huff of humour. Such a Weldir answer to give. He cared, but also didn’t , for the souls he had trapped in his realm.

Finding that his voice was oddly soothing her, Lindiwe asked him an array of questions surrounding fate strings, the souls of Tenebris, and his realm. Much of it she’d already heard before.

With the late sun beating on her back and the harsh sound of water falling, she just wanted to hear him talk.

She allowed him to fill in the empty space beside her, and for once, she truly enjoyed it.

A time unknown, but within a cave of wonders

Walking through his realm didn’t give Weldir the same sense of satisfaction and relief as it used to. Not when he’d begun itching to explore outside of it more than ever.

With a certain female.

She doesn’t know how much of her world she has shown me, Weldir thought, as he looked over the shelf of water falling into a large ravine below.

In some ways, he thought it looked like wet smoke. Like a whitened version of how he could appear at times. A mist, a cloud, colourless and yet holding every colour utterly possible.

It shone with a multitude of rainbows which he wished his shadows could swallow for him to keep.

However, that wasn’t the exact view which had him wanting to leave his realm, but the other one he was gifted with.

Lindiwe appeared at peace as she sunbaked, her feathers ruffling around her shoulders from the lightest gust. Her loosened bangs bounced and swayed around her high cheekbones and jaw, and he wondered if that was why she tucked them behind her ear – to control those windswept tresses.

I like her hair this way. Weldir had seen Lindiwe style her hair in dozens of different ways, but she seemed to prefer having it loose most of the time. Seeing it in a bun was common, but each one was a new facet of her, a new way for him to appreciate her.

“I have grown more fascinated with watching her,” Weldir stated to no one in particular, sitting on the edge of his own cliff as he stared out at his realm.

The water below him wasn’t as grand, but it did shelter his water-seeking offspring. Nathair had hidden himself away in a nook deep below the surface, likely thinking Weldir couldn’t see him.

He could, especially from this angle.

Weldir considered dropping a stone into it to spook the big serpent, but decided against it. If he really wanted to, he could just rumble the water from afar until Nathair slithered out of it with fear or uncertainty.

He’d rather sit here with Lindiwe... when usually he’d find a task to do while he had his viewing disc of her, or their other offspring, floating around him.

No, instead, he just sat with her, watching her every movement, every muscle tick, every single hair strand sway, and even the way her pulse fluttered.

What had turned into mere intrigue had started to twist into obsession.

If he wasn’t watching her, he was trying to half-heartedly complete a task to stop himself from doing so.

He’d even rifled through the souls waiting for him to consume and only picked those either she or their offspring had delivered.

Those that had no Demon taint and missing pieces to them, so he could just receive power and resist the urge to rest as he often did.

The constant use of my own mana is mind-numbing.

Yet, as his conversation with Lindiwe died, and they sat there in silence, he considered using more – for an entirely selfish reason. Especially when she stood and brushed off her round backside to clear it of any muck.

“If you’re still there, the sun is going down,” she told him, her tone mellow and... gentler than usual. Her voice lacked the cutthroat depth it usually held when she spoke to him.

Weldir didn’t know why he was compelled to stand when she did, but he found it remarkably asinine of him, considering she couldn’t see him. But that was the polite thing humans did, yes?

He silently sighed at himself as he covered his eyes in the way they did when they were annoyed at themselves. He thought even his pointed ears may have flicked for punctuation.

Without removing his hand, his words were clear. “Enjoy your flight, Lindiwe.”

“You don’t always have to say my name, you know,” she commented as she flicked her feathery hood over her head, obscuring her pretty face.

I say it because I once lacked the compassion to do so.

It was a reminder to him of his failings, and his way of showing that he would always try, even when he didn’t know how. It was also a way for him to hopefully provoke her into telling him what he was doing wrong – offering just that touch of guidance.

Lindiwe then shifted into her raven form. He watched as black feathers sprouted across her brows, up her forehead, and into her hair, before scattering all over her body.

She looks like a Demon, but I like that she is also like me.

Weldir was quite proud of his darkness, his shadows, and the way they could swallow up anything that came into them. He chose not to have dense fog, but he could obscure one’s sight if he so desired – even in the mortal realm.

He didn’t, as that cost him quite a lot of mana to do so.

Through the viewing disc, Lindiwe unfurled her arms that had morphed into great wings and flapped them. She lifted off, causing mist to spray forward under her power, and then glided into the ravine before quickly banking right.

Even though he remained stuck within his realm, he flew with her for quite some time. He doubted she knew he continued to follow along, but he was completely unashamed by his new obsession with her.

She was his mate, after all.

He could do what he wanted, and stare all he wanted.

He also gave into the nagging desire to use more of his mana from just the mere sight of her.

Like usual, he kept that disc, with a black, smoky edge to it, hovering around him as he began to float up the mountain. He went back to his task before she’d captured his attention with all her squirming and shouts – unaware she had a spectator.

A little further down, coming away from Nathair’s ‘claimed’ territory within all of Weldir’s realm, he found the concave he’d already begun mentally carving. The edges were jagged and messy, which he hoped gave the appearance that it was naturally formed.

I doubt Nathair will come here, he thought, since it was rather close. He’s already searched this mountain and knows nothing of interest is here.

Weldir doubted he’d climb the cliffs again. But if he were to create a new mountain that wasn’t so close, Nathair would no doubt go in search of it and might stumble upon the private spot he was making.

With a sense of confidence, he pushed forward, and fake stone made way like someone bashing into a metal bowl.

It disappeared under his will as he created an extensive tunnel.

He was slow about it, needing to imagine in perfect detail each part of the surface from the memory of humans who had been inside mines or natural cave formations.

During this lengthy time, day and night had rotated multiple times for Lindiwe.

She often asked if he was there, and he always answered in the affirmative before they shared a light, meaningless conversation.

He occasionally paused, letting himself be immersed in the image of her, the sounds of her lovely, contralto voice, and her little emotional tells he was learning to unravel.

The bigger her stomach grew, the more her hand would absentmindedly rest against it, and it had become so natural to her that he doubted she knew when she was doing it.

Every pregnancy was different and special in its own way, each having unique ebbs and flows of struggles, nurturing, and adoration.

Even just witnessing them – although he had unfortunately missed a few in slumber – could be rather enthralling. They were his, as much as hers, after all.