Because when she saidhome, she left. It always happened before the sun dipped behind the horizon, and hefelt himself dreading those moments, for it meant he was alone again, if only for the night.
As that time approached, she knelt by the lake’s edge, her hands wet and red from pulling herbs. Her brow was smudged with dirt, and the hem of her dress was soiled with mud. The wind stirred her hair as she looked up at him in quiet acknowledgement.
He let out a low rumble back. Not a warning, no, never with her. It was a sound closer to…need. A way of asking her to stay without words. His golden eyes narrowed in concentration as he watched her gather her things, trying his best to form words his beastly throat were incapable of.
“You know,” she said, rising to her feet with her satchel on her shoulder, “I can’t keep calling youyou. Ordragon. It doesn’t feel right.”
Dragon.He understood that word.
She took a tentative step forward, and though he could hear her heart quicken, she didn’t look afraid. His breath warmed the air between them like a hearth, and his eyes, the color of molten precious metal, locked on hers.
“I think I should give you a name.”
Name.He understood that word too. His head tilted in curiosity.What is it? What is she saying?
“A name is…” she drifted off, “well, it’s important, I think. It makes you unique. Like me,” she lifted her hand to her chest. “My name is Elowen.”
Name. Elowen.
The dragon lowered his head, slowly, and exhaled deep, misting over the soft grass. She smiled at him, like she knew he was listening intently.
“You like to hoard things, like the crown I gave you. It’swilted now, but you haven’t shaken it off. You’re greedy in your own way, for meaning, aren’t you?” The dragon blinked once. “Midas,” she finally said. “Like the king with the golden touch. But I don’t mean it like a curse, not in the way the old stories tell it. To me…it means you see value where others don’t. You…treasure things. Even me.”
There was a stillness between them, and then she lifted her hands to her chest again. “Elowen,” she said, then gently touched the end of his snout. “Midas.”
He moved then, not away, but closer. He curled his massive body around her as if she were something fragile and precious. He kept one golden eye trained on her, like he was guarding his most beloved possession. She stood in the curve of his body, awed and quiet, and rested her temple to his jaw.
And though he could not say her name, he etched it into his soul, alongside the one she had given him.
Thirteen
Midas.
The name lingered like warmth beneath his scales. It sank deep into the marrow of his bones. For centuries, all he had been was the last. A relic from a time long past. The rage hidden within the hollowed mountain.
But now he wasMidas, and he thought it was the mightiest thing he had ever heard. She had given it to him with meaning and care, alongside her own name.
They were no longer human and dragon, siren and beast. She wasElowen, and he wasMidas.
The moment she left after naming him, he returned to his cave like waves crashing into the ocean. Not for hunger or fear, but for need.
The treasures of his hoard glittered against the flames in his throat. He stood amidst the piles—jewels the size of apples, crowns of silver, countless coins of gold. Midas snarled low in his throat. Nothing,nothing, felt worthy of her.
She had given him a name, and he had nothing of equal value to return.
He dug like the mad beast the humans thought he was, clawing through dead, lifeless trinkets he had gathered over lifetimes. He crouched low, his wings folding in tight, his breath heaving with fire simmering low in his throat. He wanted to burn it all, because none of it was worthy.
Then, he remembered how sad she had been when she returned to the lake to find his scale missing from its hiding spot.
Perhaps a part of himself was the only thing he could give her in gratitude. Midas circled himself several times, turning this way and that, trying to determine which scale would be best. The ones on his tail were too small, the ones from his snout too worn.
Finally, he chose a scale from his chest, ripping it from its place with his sharp claws. It was a dangerous thing, to expose such a vulnerable part of him, but the only thing he could give her of equal weight.
He returned to the lake long before the sun would rise, arranging the gift on the soft grass among wildflowers.
Elowen came, as he knew she would. She hummed quietly as she stepped through the tree line, and found the scale within seconds. Her footsteps stilled, her humming faded, and Midas nearly shook with anticipation.
She knelt in the flowers, brushing her fingers over the scale before lifting it. The veins of gold shimmered under the sunlight. A gentle smile crossed her face as her thumb rubbed the grooves. She looked up at Midas and sighed, standing slowly.
