This is love

My breath hitched, misting the cold air around my snout. Flame. Just his name sent a tremor through me, a feeling I’d only dared to acknowledge in the deepest, safest corners of my mind. It was a dangerous thing, this feeling, a fragile butterfly I was terrified of crushing. I wanted to tell him, to spill it all out like a waterfall – *I like you, Flame, more than a friend. I think… I think this might be love.* But the words caught in my throat, a tangled mess of fear and doubt. Every time I imagined him looking at me, truly looking, I saw the reflection of my own insecurities. What if he laughed? What if he looked at me with pity, or worse, disgust? My instincts screamed to shrink, to become as small and inconspicuous as possible, to melt into the shadows and disappear.

We were in the training grounds, the usual cacophony of clashing claws and roaring blasts echoing around us. Flame, predictably, was a whirlwind of motion, his scales a blur as he dodged and weaved, a mischievous grin plastered across his face. He was practicing his frostbreath, sending plumes of icy mist that shimmered in the midday sun. I, on the other hand, was trying to master a new shielding spell, my focus wavering with every glance in his direction. The whispers had started again, a low hum beneath the din of training. I could feel their eyes on me, dissecting my every move, searching for a flaw, a crack in the facade of perfection they seemed to believe I possessed. It was a constant, gnawing pressure, a reminder that even here, in the relative safety of the training grounds, I was never truly safe.

“You’re miles away, Moon,” Flame’s voice, warm and deep, cut through my thoughts. He’d stopped practicing, his bright, curious eyes fixed on me. A flush crept up my neck. He always saw me, even when I tried my hardest to be invisible. It was one of the things that both terrified and thrilled me about him.