The forests of the Vartai were dark and dense, no place for a griffon to venture. At night this was even more true. He didn’t care.
He ignored the briars trying to tear up his uniform, ignored the roots trying to trip up his paws. Neither had yet been successful tonight. The griffon who had first forged through this path many moons ago had come a long way, and the woods no longer held any terror for him. It was what lay within that made his heart race now.
Cresting a low ridge and skittering down the other side he nearly slipped on the leaf litter in his haste. Ahead of him a small creek wound its way through the bottom of the hollow, sheltered from the surrounding woodland. Hopping the gully without much difficulty he found himself on a small patch of packed earth nestled among the trees. He flexed his toes, feeling the familiar grit of the dirt beneath them; then he took off his helmet, laid his rifle against a nearby oak, and waited.
It was late and the night was only lit by a few rays of dim moonlight. The other griffons in his company would be deep asleep by now after a long day in the field, but he couldn’t rest. Thoughts crowded through his mind, a hundred little scenarios eating away at him. He paced up and down the clearing, stopping now and again to clench his beak and curse the gods under his breath.
It was easy to blame them.
At every rustle of leaves he would stop to peer into the blackness and listen. He’d wait with bated breath, and when he was sure it was nothing but the wind he would sigh and go back to pacing. If need be he would do this all night; he had done it before and he would do it again.
Then he heard it, almost imperceptible. It had taken many nights of practice but the sound of a creature moving through the brush was unmistakable to him now. He tapped his claws in the dust, and his breathing quickened as the noise approached. He caught his first glimpses through the trees of a soft velvet texture that stood out from the foliage in the way silver stands out from steel.
The tapping stopped, as did his heart. That had happened the first night, too.
And there she was. An earth pony, about a foot shorter than him with a mane the deep blue color of ice on the river. Though she wore the ragged clothes of a townspony, the rifle and munitions pouch slung at her side told a different story. The tension left her body as she stepped into the clearing and dropped her rifle next to his. There were dark circles under her eyes and a limp in her gait that hadn’t been there before, but she lit up at the sight of him like a filly on hearth's warming. He rushed to her and she to him, and they eased into a hug. It came so naturally he no longer had to think about it; he didn't hesitate in the slightest when the tip of her muzzle touched the tip of his beak and their foreheads pressed together. His breath caught in his throat as hers brushed his chin, and he took the opportunity to look into her wide sapphire eyes as he ran his claws through her coat.
He couldn’t help but pull her closer, pressing his beak into her mane and inhaling her earthy scent. She could have been a figment of his imagination, an angelic figure conjured up by his exhausted mind, but as he held her and listened to her heartbeat there could be no doubt. She was real, she had returned, and that was a miracle in itself.
She squeezed him back, pinning his wings to his sides, and he felt her rub her nose against him. “I’ve missed you,” she whispered, and the words lingered in his ears.
Just like that all his worries, all his anxieties, all the stress he’d built up over the last few days melted away. There was nothing left to him but the pony in his arms. She was warm beneath her clothes, and in the cool night air he clung to her like his life depended on it. Her shirt was splattered with mud, and he could feel the dirt in her mane, but he didn’t care; he was filthy too - that was just how life worked on the frontier - and something so simple could never have driven him away. She was the only contact he'd had in months, after all.
He could have stayed like that for hours, could have stayed like that all night if she would let him, but deep down he knew that wasn’t possible. He would need to be back at his post by sunrise or his peers would start to ask questions. She, too, had responsibilities, though she would never tell him what they were. That was the nature of things, and no amount of wishing otherwise would change it, but he would not allow himself to be rushed. This was a moment too good, too pure to allow it to slip away. Any night could be his last with her, and so he would have to hold her long enough to last him forever.
It still wasn’t long enough for him when she pulled away, but he supposed it might never be long enough. His claws lingered on her shoulders as they parted, but he let her go all the same. Time was short and they would have to make the most of it. They didn’t need words for what came next as she allowed him to remove her jacket and he allowed her to undo the buttons on his shirt. Both were thrown aside, and then he was pulling her pants over her tail while she fiddled with his belt buckle. He stopped to watch as she deftly worked it apart with her hooves.
It hadn’t always come so easily to them. When they’d first met in these woods, a solitary partisan holding a lost sentry at gunpoint, taking off their clothes was the furthest thing from his mind. If he’d had his gun on him he might have shot her instead. But he hadn’t, and he didn’t, and every day he said a silent prayer of thanks for it. Boreas knew he would have been making a mistake. She could have shot him too, could have brought him back to whatever group she was a part of and they would have lynched him on the spot. He had never understood why she hadn’t, and maybe that was why he’d kept coming back even after she’d let him go.
Before long his uniform was on the ground next to hers, and they were both bare in the moonlight. It was part of their agreement that they wore nothing, no patches or armbands or insignia: out of uniform they could pretend to be just a griffon and a pony, nothing more. At times he wished he could shed that too, but such wishes were pointless. If he hadn’t been a griffon, the Reformisten would have killed him long ago.
Free of their clothing, they allowed their eyes to drift over each other. He felt her gaze linger on the scar at the base of his neck where he’d taken a piece of shrapnel a year ago and the nick on his leg where a pegasus had tried to bayonet him six months back. Such wounds would be unlikely now: the partisans had long since run out of explosives, and he hadn’t seen a living pegasus in many moons.
He admired her too, the way her eyes shimmered in the pale light, the loose locks of her mane blowing in the breeze, and the ruffled tuft of fur on her chest. His eyes sunk lower, and he studied her slender legs and muscular shoulders, the gentle curve of her back, and her swishing tail. Sometimes her flank would catch his eye, and he would get a brief glimpse of her cutie mark’s outline in the darkness. Then he would avert his gaze before he could get a good look. He had never learned what her mark was, not in all the moons they’d done this, and he had promised himself that he never would. It was better off a mystery, because if he knew her mark then he’d be able to identify her for certain and that would only bring him grief.
The thought was banished from his mind as she pounced on him like a madmare, her tail thrashing about in anticipation. He put his arms around her and hugged her close, her fur mixing in with his feathers where they met. She pressed her hooves to his chest and nuzzled against the crook of his neck, and he tensed as she planted a string of gentle kisses there. Unwilling to be the only one receiving attention he raked his talons slowly down her back in response, feeling her shiver under his claws as she buried her muzzle in his plumage and let out a muffled whimper. Though she said nothing, her reaction was plain in its meaning: more. She wanted him to keep going. It was an honor for him to oblige, and in a moment of bold aggression he seized her by the dock and held her tail upright. That did the trick; she let out a yelp that faded into a low purr as her tail struggled in his grip and he felt her whole body quiver. He took his time to savor that; many moons ago he would have been concerned he was going too far but experience had taught him she liked it when he matched her in forcefulness. Then she nipped at him, taking a clump of feathers between her teeth and tugging to let him know he should keep going.
One of his claws went back up to her head and slid between the locks of her mane. He ran it through the fine hairs, noting the way her ears twitched as he did so. As he gently scratched behind her ears he gave her tail a sudden pull, and she whinnied aloud. To his surprise she lurched forward, nearly pushing him over as she instinctively tried to get more of her body up against his. As he recovered his balance he smirked to himself: his lover was a needy little pony, and it was always good to know she wanted him as much as he wanted her.
It had been hard to tell at first, before they'd settled on a language of communication. Herzlandisch was an imperfect tongue for what they were doing; her local accent was too thick for him to understand and he could never quite come up with the right words. So at first, intonation was the only tool they could rely on. “Equine scum” and “griffon brute” were regular phrases; the words themselves only held as much meaning as the vitriol behind them and for many moons that vitriol was heavy with the weight of their sorrows.
But there was something bigger between them, something that didn’t need words to be understood: in spite of everything the both of them kept coming back. They would bring their rifles, but no bullets would be fired. They would wear their uniforms, but no allies would join them. As long as they were in those woods there would be no officers, no orders, no battles to be fought. Words alone were meaningless beneath that foundation, and in time they had both given up relying on them. From then on they had relied on movements and glances, smiles and shrugs. They came there often, if only to rest in each other’s company without the stresses of their normal lives, and every time they met he had picked up on some little tic of hers. He had studied her ears, her stance, her tail, and had seen the way she studied his. Soon a ruffle of his feathers had been enough to let her know when he was worried, and the way her ears twitched had been enough to let him know when she was scared. And when they had first moved beyond simple sight - when she’d started giving him nudges and he’d started resting his wing over her back - it was as if all their thoughts and fears, their feelings and desires, were laid bare before each other and that was when he'd realized they had far more in common than he'd thought.
He reared up on his hind legs, extending his wings for balance as she pushed her chest up against his. It was a special kind of indulgence to feel her full body against his, one he couldn't get enough of. She withdrew from his neck, flushed and panting, and locked eyes with him; he held his breath as he awaited her next move. Her ears fell to the sides, and she closed her eyes before pressing her snout to his beak and giving him a long, forceful kiss. He felt her tongue prodding at him and turned his head to allow her to deepen the kiss, exploring her mouth even as she explored his. It was somewhat awkward given griffon anatomy, but she had wanted to do it and he would not deny her that. If it made her happy she could lead for as long as she liked, though he knew she'd want him to participate.
They went back and forth, their tongues massaging each other until they were both dizzy for lack of air, and then just as he thought he might collapse she pulled away with a gasp. It didn’t last long. He watched her breathing for a moment, watched her shake the mane out of her eyes and wipe a strand of saliva from her lip, and his heart beat faster. Then before either of them had recovered they collided again and he pressed into her, eagerly seeking out her soft lips and the hot breaths rising from her core. She hummed into his mouth as he scritched her behind the ears, and after another eternity they parted again. A laugh escaped her this time, a musical little chuckle of delight, and it made his chest swell with pride. Laughter was not a luxury many had in Hellquill and hearing hers, no matter how small, was worth more than everything he owned. No-one, pony or griffon, would ever be able to replicate that sound; it was hers and hers alone and Arcturius be damned, he would do anything for another chance to hear it. She was his one vice, an addiction he hadn’t been able to shake no matter how many times he resolved to, a drug that had stolen away his morals and sensibilities and left him desperate for more.
She put her forehooves up over his shoulders and nudged his neck again with her snout. He felt her lower body rock against his, burning with heat, and his hips twitched involuntarily.
“Please,” she sighed, her heavy accent thick with unbridled want.
He'd hated that accent at first; it was a reminder that what he was doing was insane, something to remind him that she was another species. But the more time they'd spent together the more he'd found himself missing all those special little stresses that only she could do, and he'd found himself drawing out his own vowels when speaking to his comrades on more than one occasion. Nowadays, just a word of it when they were together was enough to stoke a fire in his belly.
His length was already becoming stiff but he still hesitated as he removed his claw from her head and brought it down to hook beneath one hock. She spread her leg readily to the side, but he didn’t try to move her yet. No, he wasn't some randy cock desperate to get things over with; she was a lover, not a whore, and no matter how forward she was it was his pleasure to treat her as such. He gave her tail one last yank, relishing the little squeak she made and the shiver that followed it. Then that claw too fell to her other leg, trailing along her inner thigh before seizing around her gaskin. He hefted her up and placed her hind legs to either side of his hips - she was no small pony, but the partisan’s life had left her surprisingly light and he was able to carry her without much difficulty. He felt her barrel against his, and his stomach turned as he realized she was leaner than last time. She deserved better. He would have to bring her some of his rations next time, even if they were just hardtack. He owed her that much.
He often wished that he knew her name, if only to give her praise with it. He'd never asked hers and she'd never asked his, and that was the way it was supposed to be. Along with all their other ranks and duties their names were dangerous relics from their other lives, and like their ranks and duties they didn't need to be discussed. After all, he didn’t need her name to be her friend and he didn’t need her name to be her lover. They could give each other kisses and nudges and bites just fine without needing to address one another, and he knew he shouldn’t press for it.
It kept him up regardless on the nights they didn’t meet. On those long, lonely nights in the camp, when his brothers and his officers were all asleep, he’d regret never asking. It would have been so much easier to do the first time, back before their agreement had settled into place. As it was now a name would break the spell, throw the both of them back into cold reality, and they were better off doing without.
He couldn’t afford to dwell on it too long tonight. Right now she needed him to love her with his body, not his words, and he could always do that much. He could feel the heat in her loins as he carried her to the oak where their rifles lay and braced her back against the trunk. She leaned against it and smiled, wiggling her hips so that her hardened nipples rubbed against his belly. He smirked at his own ingenuity; the position was a bit tricky to hold, but it allowed them to be face-to-face without one of them lying in the dirt and it gave him a good angle to work with.
He wasn’t ready just yet, though. As he went in for another kiss he brought a claw up her thigh, careful not to drop her, and ran his digits along her nether regions. She was already slick with sweat - and, he guessed, other things - but he preferred to take his time teasing her. First he went for her tail where it hung beneath her, and as he pressed a claw against her sensitive dock she thrashed it about wildly. She broke the kiss with a yelp, but this time her eyes shot open and she squeezed her hoof on his shoulder.
Enough of the foreplay. Not quite the response he had hoped for, but in fairness he had focused plenty on her tail already. Hesitantly he drew his claw back along her thigh to circle her burning sex, already dripping with lust, and as he ran his claw between her labia it came away coated in her natural secretions. He would have toyed with her further if he had more time, but she had been clear in her demands and it was the least he could do to accede to them. With utmost care he inserted a single talon between her folds, and with the curved upside worked it deeper inside her. She let out a silent gasp as he did so, and he felt her entire body tense.
The maneuver he was trying now was not an easy one. A griffon’s talons, sharp as they were, were better adapted for causing pain than pleasure and he had earned himself many a kick to the gut by putting his in her sex. But with practice and care and a bit of luck he had managed to get around this, and the results were well worth the effort. She melted against him, her chest heaving with shuddering breaths, and when he slid a second claw in to rub against her clit she arched her back so hard he had to stop and grab her leg again to regain their balance.
The feeling of her body against him was already intoxicating, but with her writhing and mewling and half-suppressed moans added to the mix his own haze of arousal was clouding his mind to the exclusion of all else. His member was unbearably hard where it lay pressed between them, and it twitched eagerly against her belly. She must have noticed this, because the next thing her knew she ground herself against him such that his shaft was pressed between her firm teats. A surge of pleasure shot up his spine at the feeling of her warmth enveloping him, and he jolted back before lurching forward to slam her hard against the trunk. For a moment he thought he might have hurt her, but she made no sounds of pain other than her heavy breathing. Rather, he felt her clench her legs around him and lift herself to rub her needy slit against his length. That was all the invitation he needed, and he drew back again to line himself up with her hips. With her legs and the trunk now holding more of the weight, he was able to move his claws up to her sides and run them through her velvety fur. He took the opportunity while he had some space to appreciate his lover’s beauty: the way her loose mane fell in front of her eyes, the sheen of sweat running down her neck, the crimson flush of her cheeks and the way she bit her lip in an expression of almost giddy excitement.
He didn’t deserve her.
He mentally kicked himself for that one. It was a dumb, stupid, ridiculous thought to have while she was practically begging him to make love to her, and for once he threw it from his mind before it could take root. He wanted her and she wanted him and he would not let something so basic as reality ruin their happiness while it lasted. Before he could have any second thoughts he pushed inside.
His member slid into her without much difficulty, sinking inch by inch deeper into her dripping snatch. Her head flung back against the trunk and she bit down a moan. As he felt her clenching around him he stopped to let her adjust, but no sooner had he paused than she squeezed him with her legs in an attempt to pull him in deeper. The desperate whine that escaped her lips was the last straw; and throwing off the last vestiges of his restraint he drove the rest of his length in with a wild thrust. She cried out, but he barely heard her over the blood thundering in his ears. She was the perfect fit for him, snug and wet and almost painfully hot, and he couldn’t imagine that there was anything better than being inside her and feeling her convulse around him and her walls grinding against his barbs and…
Ah, right. His barbs.
Regaining his focus he noticed that his lover’s teeth were clenched and her fur stood on end, though whether in pain or ecstasy he couldn’t tell. He gave her a look of concern while he waited for her to signal which it was. She appeared lost in her own reverie, her eyes squeezed shut as she rode out the sensation of being penetrated, but when she finally opened them and made contact with his her only response was a short nod.
That was all it took to dispel the knot of worry in his chest. He slowly slid out, fighting her body’s futile efforts to pull him back in, only to thrust again and bury himself deep inside her. She tensed, whimpering as she threw her face against his shoulder, but she did not ask him to stop. Just the opposite: her hips bucked against his, building up friction and sending waves of pleasure through him. Their first time had been difficult, and he'd had to go torturously slow to keep from hurting her, but she had always demanded more and little by little they had overcome the limitations of their anatomy. He wondered if she was as proud of that triumph as he was.
He kept rutting into her, shifting himself lower to get deeper into her marehood. The tree had been a good idea; as they built up a steady rhythm of pounding he found that the solid trunk gave her something to brace against while gravity did some of the work for him. He was able to push deeper into her than usual, such that her folds swallowed him completely and her swollen outer lips ground against the base of his shaft whenever he hilted. Though he knew he couldn’t go any further he continued slamming into her with ever-increasing force as he tried to fill her with a length he didn’t have. In an animalistic frenzy he bit down on her ear, drawing a strangled noise from her.
“Oh Boreas!” she moaned into his shoulder, her words slurring into each other. “Boreas, please, yes!”
Posniak. He already knew that about her. It was not the first time she had spoken the name of a griffon god in the throes of passion. But even just her faith was too much knowledge; it was too intimate, not something he was supposed to know. At a different time he would have been disturbed by the breach of their unspoken agreement, but right now it only made him want to kiss her more, to tell her aloud how much he loved her. With reason long since thrown out the window, he could just about imagine it was his name she was praising.
Posniak, he thought, turning the word over in his mind. It wasn’t her name, but it was something.
He drove all the harder into her, his timing becoming erratic as he changed his angle. With each thrust she let out a new stream of curses, her pleading mewls devolving into incomprehensible begging as she neared her peak. He ran his claws down her body, touching her thighs, her buttocks, her tail, feeling out every curve of his wonderful mare. He kissed her cheeks, her neck, her mane, her cloying scent filled his nose, her juices ran down his legs, his wings curled around her and he pressed her into the tree until every inch of her was up against every inch of him and it still wasn’t enough. There was nothing in his world but her, he had given her everything and was left wanting for more.
He felt her moving too, her teeth against his plumage and her hooves around his neck and her insides milking him for all he was worth as she clung to him for dear life. He wanted to love her, to make her love him back by bringing her over the edge again and again but this was smothered by his carnal need to fill her, to claim her as his mare. His length swelled deep inside her and his whole body seized up as he reached the point of no return, and he saw stars in the back of his eyes as his griffon seed shot into her womb. He could hear her howl in release shortly after he came, and he felt her marehood squeeze around him in rippling waves while her body thrashed violently.
The white-hot burning in his veins began to wane, but he hung onto it like it was the last feeling he’d ever have. So long as the moment lasted, so long as he was around her and on top of her and within her and their bodies were as one, there would be no such thing as reality and he could pretend everything was okay. If he just squeezed his eyes shut and listened to her breathing he could imagine they were somewhere else, could imagine that she really did belong to him and that he belonged to her. He clung to that even as he gasped for air, even as he felt the sweat on his skin and the stickiness between his legs and his hardness beginning to soften inside her.
But there was always a moment, just as the final throes of pleasure faded from his mind, where he paused. And all at once the horror of reality crashed back into him like a wave on the rocks, and his fleeting moment of joy was swept away in the current.
He was a griffon, and she was a pony. He didn’t even know her name, and he didn’t have it in him to ask.
She helped ease him down, gave him gentle kisses as he slid out of her and the two of them slumped down against the tree. He kept his arms around her, but his mind was already elsewhere.
He didn’t need to know her name to know she was a survivor, any pony left in Hellquill had to be. He could always see the way her ears pricked up at every gust of wind, the way her eyes betrayed a lack of sleep, the way she grew more haggard with each passing week. She could try to hide it, but it was clear she was a mare living on borrowed time.
They were lovers now, but in the morning she would return to her comrades and the minutiae of survival while he would return to his regiment and the grisly work of the Reformisten. He would do his best to forget about her - though she would always be in the back of his mind. He knew that someday he would see her in the daylight, and the knowledge hung like a weight around his neck.
They were going to kill her.
It was not a matter of if, but when. He wouldn’t be able to stop them, and he was too much of a coward to even try.
So he continued to make his excuses, tried to convince himself that he wasn’t betraying her anew every day, and returned again and again to play at being her lover because he could just about forget the truth for a little while when she kissed him.
She nudged his side and it occurred to him that he’d been terribly lax in her aftercare. Coward or no that wouldn’t do, so he curled his wing over her and massaged her shoulders as she snuggled up to him where they lay at the base of the oak. Her muscles had relaxed and the scarlet blush of her cheeks had faded into a faint rosiness, and her eyes were closed as she rested her head on his chest. If he was her mortal enemy, she didn’t seem to care.
He petted her mane, knowing it wasn’t right for him to keep doing this. If he really loved her he would ask her to flee the country with him, forget all about the Reformisten and the purges and the partisans and start a new life somewhere else, but he knew that was a stupid idea. They would be caught and executed long before reaching the border. It did make him wonder, though, whether a Posniak would go to the same afterlife as a griffon.
Instead he was left in this strange purgatory with her. He knew why he stayed - he was too selfish to step away and too afraid to move forward - but her reasons remained as mysterious as ever.
He felt a faint moisture where her face met his feathered body. It was almost imperceptible at first, but he couldn’t deny it. Her eyes were wet. He froze; this was a new reaction to him and he hadn’t had time to gauge it yet.
She wasn’t moving beyond her shallow, relaxed breathing. Her ears were laid in the same contented position they were usually in when they cuddled, and her tail was still. The only tension he could feel in her muscles was a gentle pull in the hoof draped over his shoulder, just enough to let him know she wanted him to stay. For the first time in a while he couldn’t tell how she was feeling by sight and touch alone, and he almost wished that she would get up and state it aloud if only to calm his nerves.
He opted to just keep petting her and pretend he didn’t notice. A minute passed, but though he held his breath for it nothing changed: she didn’t shiver, didn’t move, didn’t make a sound. Her tears, though they came only sparsely, were the only indicator he had and for once he didn’t know what it meant. He’d been a bit distant for a minute or two but he was making up for that now, right? Maybe he’d just been too rough, but she didn’t seem to be in pain. He wasn’t arrogant enough to assume they were tears of joy.
Of course. He had a sudden impulse to hit himself for being so self-centered. She might be the focus of his thoughts, but their relationship wasn’t the only thing in the world. He didn’t know what she was going through during the day, and it was stupid to think her tears were because of him. Survival was far more important than their little trysts; a mare like her wouldn’t have the luxury of crying over something so petty.
Then it clicked. All at once his confusion snapped into place like part of a puzzle and for the first time he could see the bigger picture. It was a shaky kind of understanding, the sort that might disintegrate at any moment, and so he wrapped his mind around it gingerly for fear it would escape him again.
The mare in his arms was neither insane nor ignorant. She could read him as much as he could read her, perhaps more, and she had to know the kind of griffon she was in bed with. Only, she didn’t care. She would have known she was doomed along with her people, would have known he was complicit in that, and she should’ve hated him for it - but there was no longer any point.
She was young, like him, and in a better world she could have fallen in love with a nice stallion and lived a long, happy life. Maybe that stallion would have done a better job than him, but none of it mattered now. Her future was long gone; the only thing she had left was the present and that was where they had met. Even then she still should’ve killed him, but like him she was selfish. She had built something just for herself out of what should’ve been only war and death and hate: her own little fantasy of the life she could have had, insulated by silence against a hostile reality. She had seized upon her own fleeting happiness and in doing so committed her own act of resistance, one last insult to the Reformisten, a final assertion of her will to not only survive but live. Whether he’d known it or not he’d been a part of that too, and the knowledge sent a rebellious thrill through him even as the finality of it chilled him to the bone.
That was his role, he realized: not to save her, but to comfort her. Nothing else mattered. He didn’t need to justify it, he didn’t need to make it real, he might not even need to love her. Just being there for however long it lasted was enough.
There would be no point in telling her how he felt. She would already know. She would know he was a coward, and she would know he was lying.
He said the words anyway.
She hugged him a bit tighter, her tears still soaking into his plumage, and he felt the corner of her mouth curl just a smidge higher. It was strange, he thought, how something with no basis in reality could feel real all the same.
They laid there for another hour at the least. He waited patiently for her to finish weeping her silent tears, and when they had run dry he continued to hold her like nothing had happened. He still didn’t entirely understand her sorrow: perhaps she was tired, or grieving, or perhaps she simply feared death, but she didn’t need to tell him. He could still pretend to understand.
It should have been disheartening to know the future he longed for was impossible, but instead his mind had ceased to race and settled into a calm of sorts. Their time together couldn’t last forever - that had been clear from the beginning - but maybe it didn’t need to. He had never been able to change the situation they were in, but maybe he didn’t need to. That wasn’t what she needed from him, wasn’t what she had asked for. Perhaps he should try anyway, even if he was doomed to fail, but there would be plenty of time to think about that in the morning. Here and now she was all that mattered. Her presence was enough for him, had always been enough, and he knew his was enough for her too.
She was so still he thought she might have fallen asleep, but no more than a couple hours had passed before she stirred again. Purring as she stretched her legs, she shrugged off his claws and slid out from under his wing. He felt the tiniest pang of regret as she stood and went to shake the dust from her clothes, but it was nothing new to him - she had her responsibilities and he had his. No matter how much he wished she would, he knew she wouldn’t stay with him forever. That wasn’t what she was here for.
Did that make what they had any less genuine? Did it matter? He didn’t care. It had felt genuine to him. He would still help her put her clothes back on, he would still hand her her rifle, and it would still hurt just the same when she kissed him on the cheek and darted off into the forest. As he donned his black uniform his heart would still tremble with the knowledge she might not return.
All the same he knew it wasn’t real. Their relationship was a sham, a fiction, an act that they put on. It soothed her troubled spirit as much as it eased his, but it was only an illusion. The moment it became real it would evaporate like a desert mirage and leave them both with nothing. What they had was of its own nature an impossibility, a paradox that could only exist within their minds, and it would have to stay that way for its own safety.
He would keep doing this dance anyway, going through his motions, if not for himself then for her. Even if they could never truly be in love he could still pretend, and pretending was what she needed from him. Their names, their identities, their justifications - none of it mattered. Those were fragments of the reality she had rejected, and the reality he would have to ignore.
He did stop once or twice on the way back to camp, hesitating in his steps. He still couldn’t help but imagine their future together, even if he knew it was just a dream, but he always buried those thoughts before they could cause him any more grief. Maybe in another time they could have been a reality, but that possibility had died with the rest of Hellquill’s ponies. When the time inevitably came that he failed in his imagined duty to her the dream would end and he would wake up.
He would have to.
