Smolder awoke when the door to the dorm room opened and the dim hall light crept in. There had barely been any noise, but dragons were light sleepers, at least as long as they weren't bedding down for a century-nap. Opening her eyes just a crack, she saw Ocellus. Or rather, she saw a snake, but the snake had familiar patterns on her scales, and closed the door after herself with her tail. Snakes weren't that polite, whereas Ocellus was more than polite enough to turn herself into a snake so as to make less noise slithering than she would with her hooves.
"Didn't work," Smolder mumbled, rolling onto her stomach. "Woke up."
"Oh," the snake said. There was a flash of blue fire, and Ocellus was back to her normal amazing technicolor lovebug self. The room was lit only by moon- and starlight through its window, but that was plenty for both changeling and dragon eyes. Smolder grinned a little on seeing Ocellus' true form, but hid it by burying her face in her pillow as Ocellus spoke up again. "I'm sorry."
"S' okay." Or that was what Smolder tried to say, anyway, but with her mouth in her pillow it was a bit closer to "mmm hmm-ffmmm". Ocellus seemed to get the intent, anyway.
"I didn't mean to stay out so late. I was just...full. Very full. Trying to walk it off."
"Mmmph."
"Because of...you know. Sandbar. And Yona. And everycreature else...talking. And feeling."
Dragons of course always felt heat rushing through their bodies, but a particularly warm flush went to Smolder's cheeks from her remembering the events of earlier today. "Mmmph," she repeated, tail flicking under her bedsheet. She used her claws to hold down the sheet lest her tail flick it off of her, then tilted her head a little so that she could actually speak. "Something 'bout inner purity."
Ocellus was doing that thing she did. Blushing and trying to hide it by turning her face away, but that just gave the observer a better view of the other half of her face. It was cute, Smolder had to admit. "Um...there wasn't a lot of love, at least no more than normal, but there was the, um...the other emotion, and it was everywhere, and it's very rich. Filling. Not nutritious, really, but...like cake. Like four big cakes all in one room and I was the only one who was eating them."
"Mmmph."
"I don't want to get fat."
Smolder did nothing to hide her chuckle. She shifted, laying her arms on her pillow and her head on her arms. She used a claw to indicate the tiny, lanky changeling, the smallest of her friends. "You of all creatures don't have to worry about that."
"Mmmph," Ocellus said, echoing Smolder. She did the cute blushing thing again, made cuter by using one foreleg to rub another. Her chitin fairly glowed in the starlight. "U-um...a-and also, I was...uh...j...jealous."
That was a new word from Ocellus, and Smolder smiled. "Jeaaalousss...?" She purred, turned so she was on her side, one hand now resting on her hip, claws drumming a beat on the sheet that covered her. Behind her, her tail wagged again, but she kept its movement slow lest she drag the sheet off. "Do tell."
Ocellus turned to look directly at Smolder, or as directly as any creature with compound eyes could look at anything. In spite of that, though, she was shaking just a little. "B...because...because it would mean...th-that Sandbar and Yona...did...it, first. Before any of the rest of us." She licked her lips. "Before...us."
Smolder drummed her claws on her hip, but otherwise remained quiet for several seconds, drawing it out. She knew that Ocellus would do cute things around her to provoke little emotional reactions from her, and Ocellus looking right at her and saying what she'd said and how she'd said it had to be intentional, too. Even now, every time she opened her mouth a little wider or licked her lips with her tongue, she was nibbling.
It had been a little unnerving to think about at first, but now Smolder thought of it like little love-bites. Which is exactly what they were, or had become. And of course, the great thing about changelings was that if you knew you were looking at one - that one was nibbling on your emotions - you could change your mood, pick their meals for them. Get them hungry for more.
Ocellus had assured her that it wasn't any different from a creature feeling an emotion and expressing that emotion, thereby causing others around them to adopt that emotion too. Emotions, she'd said, were like fire. They spread out from one creature to the next to the one after that, warming and caressing everything they touched. Changelings just got a few extra benefits from emotions that other creatures didn't.
And of course, dragons were experts on fire.
"So," Smolder said at last. "How jealous were you?"
Ocellus took a tiny step forward. "A little."
"A little?'
"...a lot."
"Shouldn't be jealous of some creature for having something you don't."
"I wasn't jealous of something I thought Yona and Sandbar had." Another tiny step forward. "I was jealous over what I thought they'd lost."
Smolder chuckled. Her tail reached over her leg, its tip curled just a little, and when she started drawing it back, the bed sheet went with it, an inch at a time. "I'm a dragon. I don't get that. Isn't it always better to have things?"
"Not everything."
"I dunno..." Smolder almost sang in a low voice. "I think this thing we're talking about is pretty valuable."
"Mm-hmm," Ocellus said. A much larger step this time. She was right up next to Smolder's bed, looking down at the dragon. The bedsheet was no longer covering Smolder. Her claws tapped out a steady rhythm on her hip's scales.
"Irreplaceable." Smolder spread her wings out behind her, stretching them, popping the joints. Arched her back a little too. Pushed herself towards Ocellus.
Ocellus licked her lips, and wobbled just a little. Smolder's smile grew at the visible sign of how good her emotions - one in particular - must have tasted. Ocellus put one hoof on the bed's edge, recovering quickly. "Not irreplaceable." She said. "Trade-able. But only once. One." She leaned down. "Time." Her other hoof reached out and rested on Smolder's shoulder. She came forward, slid onto the bed, brought her head right up so that her mouth was only a tiny tremor away from Smolder's lips. "Only."
Oooh, but Ocellus had gotten good at this. Smolder wasn't sure who was manipulating whose emotions at this point. And she didn't care. She wrapped her arms around Ocellus, loving the feeling of the changeling’s chitin against her belly and chest scales. Their eyes closed as their mouths met. Neither had lips really designed for kissing...but long draconic and changeling tongues were a different story. Smolder rolled onto her back, holding the changeling tightly so she lay on top of her. Ocellus was more delicate. It would be better if they started with her on top.
The kiss ended; their tongues stopped their dance. Ocellus shivered a little and started to draw her head back, but Smolder held her close, opening her eyes and looking deep into Ocellus' own, seeing tiny images of herself reflected back in the starlight. The changeling had hit all the right buttons tonight. First cute. Then coy. And finally, playing on her greed. Her draconic desire to have things. To take things.
She'd already taken a lot of other "firsts" from Ocellus. First date. First kiss. First tentative steps towards intimacy - it had been weeks since Ocellus had slept in her own bed, the bunk above Smolder’s own. Smolder had built a private hoard of memories...and tonight that hoard was going to get its crown jewel. And for every one of those firsts, Ocellus built her own hoard of firsts from Smolder, taken from Smolder, too, but in a way she didn't mind. After all, it was a hoard that Smolder could share, for as long as she had Ocellus. And dragons didn't give things up easily.
"Mine." It was a growl, a statement of fact and a promise, all in one.
Ocellus grinned and leaned down, gently nibbled on Smolder’s neck. The dragon’s toes curled. "Yours," Ocellus breathed back.
Smolder made a mental note to thank Sandbar at some point tomorrow. She wouldn't tell him what for. Unless Ocellus wanted to, of course. Lord it over him and Yona and Silverstream and Gallus in proper draconic fashion.
But that was tomorrow. Tonight...tonight was her and Ocellus, and completely removing the boundaries between them for the first time.
But definitely not the last.
