Here is a secret: Dragons don’t get love.

Love goes to the farmers, and sailors, and innkeepers. Love goes to the princesses, and their knights, and their handmaidens. Love goes to the good, demure girls, running to the festivals in their pretty dresses. The gods draw them together, catching their eyes with beauty, welcoming their hearts with kindness. They shower them with blessings. All their hours are magic. All their thoughts are light. The world shifts, never to be the same again. And at last, the gods give them love, real love, the kind that lasts. It binds them, turning two into one. It makes a home out of a building, a family out of people, a future out of dreams. They need love, and so love was made for them.

The dragons got power. Strength to protect the world, or tear it in two. Blood so hot that they would never want for courage. Fangs, horns, scales, [i]fire.[/i] They sit atop the world, with nothing but the divine of Heaven above them. None to challenge them. None who can stop them. But the gods did not give them love. A dragon made for love would not be a dragon anymore.

And despite it all, she’s in love with Lotus.

So what? As if she could love a demigod like she deserves to be loved. As if she could bring her anything that isn’t fire and ash. As if…as if Lotus could ever truly love a greedy, stupid dragon.

And now? Now she knows Emli’s a little in love with her.

Why? Why would you do such a foolish thing? Worst of all, why would you let her realize it? Did you think she’d be happy? Did you dare to think she’d understand?! She doesn’t know you. She doesn’t know how to act with you. What you expect, what any of this means, what you even want from her. (What she wants from you.)

 Did you think that the simple love of a Dominion slave girl could change who she is?

Han takes the bag in her hands - heavy, with freshly baked bread, and dried meats, and a few of those snappy little cookies - and lets it fall on Lotus’ bed. 

“You followed me to Lotus’ room.” She steps into Emli’s space, and doesn’t slow down. Emli can step back. Emli can be pushed back. Decide quickly. “You entered without knocking.” A petal against a hurricane. Resist, and be torn apart. “And the only reason you’re still walking? Is ‘cause you didn’t scream.”

Emli’s back hits the wall. 

Han’s fist follows after. A hair from her ear. She could hear the wood splintering, [i]shattering[/i] beneath the pressure. Just imagine what it might do to a delicate little slave girl.

And she leans in close. Her breath speaks of spark and smoke. “I tied you up. I [i]made[/i] you tell us where they kept the food and supplies. You knew your boss might beat you for it, but they wouldn’t break you so bad you couldn’t keep working. Me?” She laughs. A bitter, cruel thing. “Well, it’s not like you need your legs to talk, do ya?”

See now, what a dragon calls love. A beast bigger than all the monsters of the world. Rain down the blows that would shatter a pitiful mortal; she feels nothing. Shake your fist at her; your scorn changes nothing. She takes what she wants. And no one can stop her.

“You told me everything. I gagged you. And that’s all you remember before you fainted dead away. You don’t know where we went. You don’t know how long ago we left.” She blinks, and the slitted eyes of a dragon pin Emli to the wall as she growls, “Understand?!”

(This is the part where she traps your wrists above your head, drawing you up so the tips of your toes are scrabbling at the deck. This is the part where she buries your face in her hand before a scream spills out of you. This is the part where all she wants from you is a silent nod, proof that you’ve gotten all this into your silly little head.

She does none of it.

She could. And you couldn’t stop her. You wouldn’t have a hope of stopping her. But she won’t.

Not unless you give her the word, first.)

[Rolling to Entice Emli, with the awful, terrible, hideous love of a dragon: 6 + 5 - 1 = 10]