540 years. 540 years Rhaenys had walked this earth and Absalon’s words could still make her cheeks turn a bright shade of red. The female dragon had prided herself in having enough lovers to be immune to sweet words. But here she was, blushing and giggling like a little school girl. There was something about how they could have met before but did not that made this date so thrilling. Rhaenys wondered if he would still woo her the same way if they had met in a different time and place. She wondered what he had heard about her that made him so adamant about meeting her and having a date with her. “Well, you might have hit four digits but we both know that is nothing if immortality is in our blood. I thought you would have seen me as nothing but a fledging little reptile, considering I am 1/6 your age.”
When he kissed her knuckles again, she turned her hand so that she could brush her thumb gently over his lips. She wanted to know what millenniums felt like in the flesh. The two of them did not age like all supernatural beings do but seeing someone like him, only then did the concept of immortality seeped into her consciousness. “Please.” She said, almost absent-minded for she was still enticed by his presence as the ancient being that he was.
“Immortality has a way of making you feel young at first, but once you hit the four digits, that’s...” As he spoke he began to pile food onto her plate, arranging it neatly rather than piling it on like an eager child at a buffet. They had all night to enjoy their private buffet and he was in no rush for it to end. “Perhaps it less my age, but more the times that I’ve seen. Yes, mankind has progressed so much since your own childhood, but I’m older than Jesus.” The last part made him laugh a bit.
“I was born in 983 BC -- the first millennium. I was there when man first discovered the use of gunpowder as a weapon. The beginning of the Song Dynasty, the rise of the Toltecs, the extinction of lions in Europe, the incursion of Magyar.” He sighed as he reminisced, truly feeling the weight of his age settle in his bones -- in a good way -- as he thought of all he’d lived through. “They weren’t living in caves and hunting with sticks in my childhood, but they were still so young, fumbling around in a quest for power and knowledge and wealth. And I’ve lived long enough to see them achieve it, though not necessarily through favorable ways. I watched our people become myths and legends, monsters slain in their stories.”
Looking up from his own plate, his food still untouched, Absalon gave her a brilliant smile, a gentle expression etched into his features. “Three thousand years is hardly nothing. We are only immortal when we are safe, this much I’ve learned. We can still die, and I suppose it was seeing that for the first time that made me begin to cherish not just my life, but that of our fellow immortals. We’ve the privilege to outlive this planet, to see things humans couldn’t even dream of. Many take it for granted.” His gaze fell away and his smile became more boyish and coy.
“I’ve also learned that you must make the most of every moment, always make each one count, especially the ones that make you feel young again. Even if you have all the time in the world. Yes, I’m old; some days I feel it and others I forget that I’m not a twenty-year-old anymore. But I’ve never felt so young and vibrant as I have when I’m with you. Even before we spoke, just those glances you would give, the way your lips would curl into that playful smile that teased me in my dreams as I tried to imagine what beautiful voice would come from them. You’ve been able to make my fires burn without even knowing it, without speaking to me. When I finally met you today... It was like I was truly young again.”
And then he blushed. Absalon’s tan cheeks began to fill with red and heat emanated from his body. “And you may now say that you are the first person that has ever made me blush. And made me so nervous that I’ve started rambling.”
