Mar

Ruthless and efficient, Mar never takes prisoners. Except once he did.

Deep in the cavernous waterways far beneath the grand lair of Clan Thornir, a constant battle of skirmishes marks the passage of time where light cannot fall. Maren warriors stalk the maze of natural tunnels, making it dangerous for any dragon bold or foolish enough to find themselves within these cavernous rivers.

Tanithe watches over the dragons' claim to this valuable resource, but she prefers not to fight, instead acting as a guide. Once part of a unit, Mar alone remains, battle-scarred and hardened from years of brutal skirmishes with the ferocious beast tribe. Lightning and teeth and a cold ferocity to match, there is little reason for him to fear his opponents- were he capable of such an emotion. The few who have spent any time with the lurker in the shadows seem convinced he is incapable of any emotion at all, and Tanithe, well she keeps his secrets.

It is no rumor that he despises the Maren for what they have done, both to him and his companions, but it is a cold disdain. He is to protect the waterways from incursions and he does so with a cold disregard. Death is swift, albeit a crashing symphony of thunder and blue green lightning reflecting off roiling waters and slick cavern walls. No quarter is given, no they withhold, and no prisoners are taken.

Those who fall, die, with only one exception.

Tanithe alone knows of the creature he found barely clinging to life, days after the battle in which it's sounds had been delivered. A Maren mage, who had somehow managed to crawl deep into dragon territory despite the horrid burns crisscrossing his body, burns Mar himself had inflicted. He should have killed the creature the moment he discovered it, but some impulse stayed his fangs. It was dying anyway, he told himself, and let it be.

The Maren was still badly injured, no amount of healing magic could restore its tattered fins and disfigured tail, but it seemed determined to survive even as its fear took hold. The dragons were, for the moment, tending to its wounds and feeding it, but the creature's racing mind could not fathom why- not that Mar knew himself.

Mar was a harsh caretaker, cold anger and disregard mixing like the churning currents of the underground rivers he guarded, but he saw that the Maren stayed alive and healed as best it could within the shallow pools where Mar held it. Their relationship was strange, he was not really a captive as Mar took no interest in any knowledge he might have, indeed for the most part Mar preferred to ignore him, except when he didn't. Occasionally his interest piqued and he would hover close by the shallow pools of its captivity, captivated for lack of a better word.

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Slowly, over a long period of time, without either party quite realizing it, they grew to hold one another in close regard, and the first time that regard slipped to the forefront, it surprised both in how it manifested, neither expecting to fall to the throes of passion among each other's coils. The Maren was afraid after, and Mar avoided him for a long time, but could not shake him from his thoughts, and eventually Mar returned, this time to ask to be given to passion on purpose. Such was the magnetism of whatever odd connection that was between them that the Maren held no doubts and they fell, once again to be lost among each other's coils.

The Maren, crippled as he was, could never return to his kin, and Mar despite the cold hatred for Marenkind, no longer wished to deny what lay between them, survivors both.