Chapter 21
Twenty-One
When Elowen woke, there was a weight at her side. She cracked her eyes open, and Midas was there, curled around her with his wings outstretched like a canopy over her head.
He was already awake, watching her in his human form.
“Good morning,” she rasped with a stretch, still quietly wincing at the tight, healing skin on her back. The worst of the burn had faded, but the throb was still persistent.
The cave smelled faintly of smoke and meat. She looked to the cooking pot perched over the firewood, and she heard the bubbling of a simple broth Midas had heated himself.
“You take better care of me than I deserve,” she murmured, moving to the fire to smell the broth. She added a twig of rosemary and a pinch of coarse salt, stirring it gently as she brushed sleep from her eyes.
Midas tilted his head. “Deserve?” he asked from behind her.
Elowen smiled over her shoulder. “It means…that I’ve done nothing to earn your kindness. That you take care of me despite what I am.”
His brow furrowed. “Earn,” he repeated. Then, he repeated it again, as if the word offended him. “You are Elowen. You deserve.”
Something bloomed in her chest, but she said nothing back.
He rose slowly, his limbs unfolding with that wild grace of the dragons.
The scales peppering his human form shimmered slightly in the firelight, surrounding him in a halo of gold.
He crouched next to her at the fire and inhaled the broth she was stirring.
He did this often, when she cooked, as if he was trying to discern exactly what she put into it to bring it to her liking. Midas was always learning. He dipped one of his claws into the broth and tasted it.
He made a strange face, and Elowen quietly giggled.
“Needs meat,” he told her.
Elowen nodded. “You’re right. I will add it soon, along with the carrots. Then it will be soup, not just broth.”
He nodded, and continued to watch her work.
There was something beautifully soft in the way he fussed over her.
As she watched him watching her, she noticed his hands kept touching his face to brush away his long hair.
It was irritating him, how it fell into his eyes, caught on his teeth, and pulled when he touched it.
Elowen grabbed his hands and lowered them for him. “Let me,” she said, waiting for his permission. He cowered slightly, as if afraid of what she might do, but nodded slowly.
She carefully ran her fingers through a thick section of his hair at the side of his head and began to braid it against his skull until it fell down his back.
When she finished braiding it, she went back to her soup as if it was nothing, a passing moment in her life that she’d forget in a few hours.
But for Midas, it meant so much more than that. She had sensed his discomfort with his hair, and more than that, she relieved that discomfort.
Midas swallowed the lump in his throat and nodded toward the soup she was now ladling into a bowl. “Eat,” he commanded.
“Would you like some?” she asked, holding out the bowl for him. He made another face, and she laughed again before blowing on the broth softly. She pressed her lips to the bowl and took a sip of the hot liquid.
She sighed when the tension in her back seemed to melt away with the taste. They did not speak again while she ate, there was no need. Eventually, when the bowl was empty, Midas took it from her and set it to the side before handing her another filled with freshwater from a basin.
She sat cross-legged near the fire as she sipped from the bowl, and he had a passing thought that he should find her something of higher quality than clay—but the thought came and went from the forefront of his mind, replaced by the distraction that was her own hair.
He stared at it—the way it spilled down her back and over her shoulders in strands the color of rich bark.
Her hair had admittedly always fascinated him. It was so fine, so delicate, and so very pretty. His hand gently toyed with the end of the braid she had given him, and decided that he wanted to try giving her one.
He had seen her do it before, the way her fingers moved in a strange pattern and weaved the sections together. He had seen her do it so many times that surely he could master the action himself.
He leaned forward a bit and reached slowly for the ends of her hair. She turned slightly and hummed with curiosity. He froze, unsure and slightly embarrassed, but then he pinched some of her hair and pointed to the braid she had given him.
Elowen blinked, and then another light laugh slipped from her lips. “You want to try braiding my hair?”
He nodded, ears turning warm under her gaze in this ridiculous humanoid form. These ridiculous hands he had, useless for defense or flying, but perhaps gentle enough for this.
“Alright,” she encouraged gently, shifting to sit in between his spread legs. Midas’ back was straight as he reached out again as carefully as he could manage.
The strands of her hair slid all across his fingers like liquid, so hard to hold. He separated it all into three clumsy bundles, and squinted in concentration. He stared at the hair in his hands for a long time before realizing he hadn't paid enough attention to her braiding at all.
His first attempt wasn’t even a weave so much as a knot. He huffed, and Elowen stifled a laugh.
“Not as easy as it looks?” she asked him.
He let out a grumble from low in his throat at her teasing, and tried again. This time, he managed three passes before the strands slipped from his fingers once more.
No matter how many times he made a mess of it, she simply shook out the knots for him and let him try again and again. Eventually, with careful patience and grumbles under his breath, he presented her with a lopsided, uneven plait of hair that vaguely resembled a braid.
She smiled as her hands felt over it, and looked up at him like he had just presented her with the finest gem. “Look at this,” she said, leaning forward slightly after turning to face him. “My ferocious dragon braided my hair.”
Midas huffed, tail thumping against the cave floor in feigned annoyance, but something in his chest felt warm and sated.
Her fingers brushed over his awkward hand, and she leaned into his chest. “Thank you.”
He looked down at her, so small, showing him this…foreign affection. It felt wrong, but it also felt right.
He was learning her still–always learning. And thus far, he had learned to be gentle in a way he never saw the humans be.
Let alone the dragons.