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She considered him in silence again, simply watching.
He kept his eyes averted, plucking at the fur he sat on, uncomfortable with her thoughtful scrutiny.
After a while, she moved on to his next big scar, a discolored starburst patch of skin in the center of his chest, right above his abdominals.
“How did you get this one? What caused it?” she asked.
“That is the oldest scar,” he answered, rubbing absently where she touched.
“It is from the Age of the Gods, well before your pantheon, when I was fully dragon. ’Tis the blast that ended me. A mighty, concentrated beam of sun flare that shot through me like a javelin.”
“Ha!” he crowed, his body humming with energy even in memory.
“Now that was a battle to end all battles! I was holding my own against three gods and their monsters. It took all of their powers combined to create that beam and level me with it. It took three gods to take me down. That’s how mighty I am.”
He grinned at her, showing the tips of his sharp canines, puffing up his chest.
She tipped her head to the other side, squinting at him, her shrewd eyes drilling deep.
“So, you just stood there and let them spear you with the sun flare? Did they catch you unaware? Were you trapped so you couldn’t avoid it when it came?”
He huffed a little and looked away.
How was she able to see through him? It was as if she’d been there with him tens of thousands of years ago.
“Or was it because you were protecting someone else?” she guessed, stroking her hand over the scar, then leaning down to kiss it.
“Was it one of your dragon brothers you defended, Kai? Was it Ere perhaps?”
He grunted and frowned.
“I died before he did,” he finally answered, though not directly addressing her query.
“The last thing I thought was that we could actually win the war. I never expected we would. I thought he might live. Him and his Sol. I thought…” he trailed off.
“You sacrificed yourself for their love,” she supplied.
He snorted at that.
“I wasn’t going to sit out of the greatest battle in the history of time,” he said. “I was his big brother. If he was going into a fight, he wasn’t going without me. And if we both went down—which we did, as I later discovered—then it was worth it. It’s always worth it to fight the good fight.”
“What do you consider to be a good fight?” she asked.
He thought about it for a few beats.
“The one that’s coming,” he said. “Defeating the Frost Giant will be a good fight.”
“Why?”
He frowned a little, not knowing why she persisted with this line of questioning.
“It’ll be epic. The jötunn will be a worthy opponent.”
“And if you receive a new scar, you would keep that for your next life?”
“Aye,” he confirmed immediately.
“Why?”
