He didn’t have to wait long.
He sat awake deep in the night a few days later, polishing the stone again in the firelight. It wasn’t because of anything she did, but Midas looked down at the stone and was suddenly overwhelmed by something unfamiliar. It was a tightness in his chest, a trembling down his spine, and a craving for attention that could only be sated by Elowen.
And he had carved this stone for her to tell her those things, but more than that, he knew the human word now, and that was what he wanted to tell her most of all: that he loved her.
The realization struck him like lightning. He needed her—and it was more than protection or instinct. It was like survival, like he needed her voice, her smell, her soul intertwined with his.
Midas had lived in solitude for so long, and had thought he would continue living that way. But now he knew that he could live on only with her at his side.
As if sensing his nerves, Elowen began to stir in her sleep. Midas leaned over her, nuzzling his nose into her hair and stroking her cheek to settle her once more. She sighed softly and went still once more. He tightened his tail around her and simply watched her sleep.
A human girl, surrounded by his hoard and the warmth of his undeniable love for her. She was his entire world.
Tomorrow, he would give her the stone and ask her to be his in the way that the ancient dragons proposed a union. Not his as a possession nor a prize, but a mate—a partner. His heart.
By morning, the fire had dwindled to soft coals.Midas did not have the strength to leave Elowen’s embrace to strengthen the fire with his breath. He sat quietly until she woke naturally, and stayed quiet as she prepared breakfast for herself and bathed.
Elowen didn’t mind the silence. Their companionship had long since grown past the need for constant talk. His words were in the way he curled around her, the way he shared his warmth and cared for her. Somehow, she knew that his actions could express his feelings better than any words in her tongue or his own.
After her bath, as she brushed her long hair with an ivory comb sitting atop a thick velvet cloth, Midas watched in his larger dragon form and fidgeted nervously. She noticed, but did not push him to say something he wasn’t ready for. She filled the silence by humming a tune, knowing he enjoyed it.
The golden shimmer of his scales caught the firelight, and his powerful muscles rippled with each tense movement. He slowly began to approach her, his head lowered just above the floor. He stayed like that, motionless before her.
Elowen blinked. “Midas?”
He crooned softly in acknowledgement, and then uncurled the talons to present her with the stone.
She observed it for a moment. It was not like the other stones he had gathered for her. This one was dark and streaked with fiery colors. It had been carefully polished into a perfect oval, and along its surface was carved deep scratches that created the shape of a girl and a dragon.
He set it gently on the stone ground of the cave and moved back slightly, giving her space to observe it. Shestared at it, brushing her fingers over the carvings before her breath caught in her throat.
“What is this?” she asked, voice trembling. “You made this?”
He pressed his snout to her chest and then bowed his head as close to the ground as he could manage. It was a gesture as old as time itself, and given only once.
To a mate.
Elowen didn’t understand that significance. How could she? But Midas also knew that if he were to ask her to stay with him, to be his mate, that he had to do it properly as the old ways would require.
The proposal is meant to be as meaningful as the life they are to share together; it could not be rushed, nor could it be completed properly in the human tongue.
Midas lifted his head slowly, trembling with vulnerability that Elowen could see but that he scarcely understood himself.
You are my treasure, Elowen. My fire. My life. My home, Midas said in his mother tongue.I do not know your words well enough to understand how humans do this, but I know what dragons do. You are not dragon, but I am yours, and so I offer you this unity stone, for I cannot give you my beating heart.
Elowen, always paying attention, knew he was offering something significant. This was not just a gift as the others were. Then, her mind wandered momentarily to a few nights prior, to when he spoke of rituals and mates and how sacred such things were to the dragons.
Her mouth fell open. Tears gathered in her eyes so fast she did not have time to blink them away. Elowen’s handflew to her mouth and a sob broke from her chest, overwhelmed by the emotions she was feeling.
Midas mistook her crying for pain or discomfort, and tried to gently pry the stone from her hands with his talons as carefully as possible. She snatched it away. “No!” she yelped. “Don’t take it, please. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
Midas’ head tilted from side to side, almost childlike in his confusion.
She reached up, hands trembling, and pressed her palm to his snout while holding the stone to her chest. “You carvedus.”
He inhaled sharply as he watched her tears fall freely down her cheeks, dripping onto the stone and his scales. He leaned in slowly, afraid to frighten her, and pressed his enormous forehead to hers. She pulled him closer and closer until she was practically laying on his snout, bent at the waist with her small arms embracing his face.
His breath hitched. His wings trembled. Her tears gathered on his scales into one large drop before gravity pulled it down his face. He caught it with his talon before it hit the ground and swiped it away with his tongue. He could taste the raw emotion in her tears; the love, the trust, the longing.
