It's the middle of the night when Scorching Pyre awakens.

It isn’t sudden, or with shock and fear. It's a gentle awakening, though irritating all the same when Pyre lifts her head and finds the alarm clock reading 2:12 AM.

The world beyond the soft glow of Pyre's night-light is dark and damp. Sheets of rain pour against the bedroom's windows, and the faint whistle of high winds permeates the air.

Glistening Rime, however, is fast asleep.

With a small sigh of annoyance, Pyre extracts herself from Rime's hold, careful not to wake her. Almost immediately, the kirin shivers in her fur, cursing herself for not wearing one of her many robes to bed.

Then again, her journey to answer nature's call would be just a bit more inconvenient.

Pyre spends a few moments extra in the bathroom, wrangling her mane to be under control. Sure, it’ll be ruined when she falls back asleep, but it feels good to have it in control now.

She pauses when she’s done, and reaches one hand across her back to touch the metal of her ports.

Pyre can’t see them from here, obviously, just her reflection in the mirror. But she knows what each of them entails. A pair of flexible metal discs implanted in her back to replace the connections she had made. Proper sockets for wing joints. And, most importantly, clean and sealed with her skin and scales to prevent another infection.

Part of her wants to hate them. Wants to forget everything that made them necessary.

The madness, the delusion. The pain and grief.

But she wouldn’t be here without all that.

She’d have never met Rime, never found a home here, nor the fountain of care and warmth that is the other mare.

In a strange, morbid way, she’s grateful for everything.

Her self-inspection done, Pyre returns to the bedroom.

Waiting for her is the still-sleeping form of Rime. Blanket pulled up to just below her shoulders, soft white fur of her chest rising and falling in rhythm. Her deep blue mane flows over her fur and the pillows in a mess befitting of a full sleep.

It’s this sight, and the small, happy smile that Pyre sees growing on her muzzle when she returns, that reminds the kirin of something that the pair had admitted and embraced, and warms Pyre deep in her core.

She loves Rime.

And there, on a dark and stormy night, snug and warm in Rime’s arms, tucked under the blanket, Pyre is happy, and safe, and loved.

_{Written August 22, 2023}