The next vision of the dream shifted, and suddenly I was at the bustling seaside market with Hunter—or rather, Aiona was there with him. We were having the absolute time of our lives. He was wonderfully humorous, surprisingly gentle despite his rough sailor exterior, and consistently respectful. It wasn't long at all before I started seeing distinct traces of Arvid's soul in him.
Though they were both shaped very differently by the vastly different ways they were brought up—Hunter as a free-spirited sailor, Arvid as a disciplined prince and warrior—and they were vastly different in personality and manner, still their fundamental souls were unmistakably the same essence. I could feel it.
It was a feeling you could sense deep within your bones, in your very guts. As we spent more time getting to know each other through Aiona's experiences, that soul-deep familiarity was always present, just temporarily covered and obscured by the veil of time and their different upbringings and life experiences.
Aiona and Hunter met up with each other many more times over the following weeks. Sometimes she would simply teleport him directly to places she personally found beautiful and meaningful, and they would spend hours there just talking and falling progressively in love. Aiona was falling for him deeply and irrevocably. Deeper and deeper with each meeting, to the point of absolute no return.
One particular time, Aiona decided to teleport both herself and Hunter to a stunning flower field she loved. It was a beautiful, sprawling lavender field stretching to the horizon, filled with countless purple flowers that smelled absolutely divine.
"What are your plans after this voyage ends?" Aiona had asked him after they had been walking through the fragrant field for some considerable time. Her voice didn't shake when she asked the question. But her hands trembled visibly as she spoke, so she quickly clasped them together to hide the tremor. She had heard from the port gossip that the ship was scheduled to return to the western kingdoms in three weeks total—and two weeks had already passed since their first meeting. That meant they only had one precious week left together.
"Hm. I honestly don't know yet," Hunter replied thoughtfully. "I'm fairly sure Captain Glenda will not allow me to continue working with his crew again after this voyage. I've been a right pain in the ass to him, you see—too independent, too disrespectful of his authority. But he won't deny me taking a route back home to my islands at least. So in that case, I'll leave with the ship and return home and—"
Aiona interrupted him abruptly, unable to contain herself. "Can't you stay here?" This time her voice definitely shook with emotion. She turned to face him directly, capturing his brilliant emerald eyes with her silver ones. "Please," she added desperately.
"Oh, my dear lady," Hunter said with a mixture of surprise and gentle amusement. "Have you truly fallen in love with me already? But it's only been two short weeks since we met. I'm sure I'm a gorgeous and charming man, but you can deal with temporary infatuation. After some time passes, your feelings will naturally fade and—"
He had extended his hand to tenderly touch her cheek as he spoke these dismissive words.
"That's not it at all," Aiona interrupted him urgently, grasping his hand firmly in both of hers and holding it against her face. "You don't understand."
"You are my fated mate," she practically shouted, her voice rising with desperation. "Dragons physically cannot fall in love unless it's with their destined fated mate. And you are mine. You are the only one in all the world for me."
"I've been living and existing in this world for almost five hundred years," she continued passionately, tears beginning to form. "Never once in all that time have I fallen in love with anyone. Because I literally cannot fall in love unless it's with my mate. I can't even feel sexual attraction to anyone else—it can only be you, ever. Do you understand what I'm saying?"
By this time she had already started openly crying, tears streaming down her face.
And as if to resonate sympathetically with her intense emotions, the previously clear sun suddenly disappeared behind rapidly brewing dark storm clouds, and rain began pouring down heavily.
The man before her quickly became flustered at her tears and the sudden storm.
"Please don't cry, my lady," Hunter said with genuine concern, clearly distressed at causing her pain. "You're making even the sky itself cry in sympathy. Don't you feel bad for making the sky weep? Please, please don't cry like this. I'll stay here. I promise I'll stay for the next shipment that arrives next month. We can talk this all out properly and figure things out together. Just please stop crying."
Hunter's earnest words finally managed to console the weeping Aiona. It was a genuinely strange sight to witness. Even though she normally acted like nothing in this world could possibly bother or affect her, seeing her so vulnerable and emotionally raw broke something inside me.
By the time the sudden rain had finally stopped and the clouds parted, they were both completely soaked through from the downpour. Aiona quickly teleported both of them to shelter in a nearby cave. It was a natural cave formation, but had clearly been magically altered over time to provide maximum comfort to whoever chose to dwell in it. There was a bed cleverly made out of smoothed stone, and even a functional kitchen area with all the necessary amenities crafted from stone.
"I'll light a campfire to warm us up," Aiona said somewhat shyly, as if trying to escape the embarrassment of having cried so openly. As she fired up the stone fire pit with her dragon flames, she turned back toward Hunter.
He was already in the process of removing his soaked wet clothes. As he did so, his impressively well-maintained physique beneath all the layers came clearly to light. And Aiona blushed deeply—a lot. She removed her own wet outer layers for comfort, but didn't dare to go any further with him watching.
At one particularly tense moment, their eyes found each other across the cave. At that charged point, what happened next was simply a matter of time and inevitability.
They became completely entangled with each other physically, as if they had been deliberately deprived of such contact for centuries and were starving for it. Their intimate relations were wild, unhinged, and considerably more adventurous than my own experiences with Arvid had been. I'll take back my earlier judgment by freely admitting that my encounters had been quite mild and conventional by comparison.
They had absolutely no thoughts other than each other for an entire week straight. They remained completely naked the whole time, and literally all they did was eat when necessary, sleep when exhausted, and have sex—then repeat the cycle again and again endlessly. It was actually somewhat overwhelming to experience even secondhand through memory.
The intense week only finally ended because Hunter mentioned he wanted to properly say goodbye to his crew mates—since he had made the decision to stay in Heinnas for another full month until the next western shipment arrived at port.
So they reluctantly ended their passionate escapades, teleporting back to the shore just before the ship was scheduled to sail away.
"You're not coming back with us, you fool?" the gruff Captain Glenda demanded as he smacked Hunter lightly with his walking cane in reproach. "What answer will I give to your worried mother, sonny? You know she'll worry herself absolutely to death if you just disappear!"
The old sea captain added with genuine concern beneath his gruff exterior.
"Tell her I'll return home in three months—with the next ship that makes this route," Hunter answered him confidently. "And tell her not to worry at all. I'll be returning home with someone very special."
Aiona had clearly heard his declaration, and she blushed profusely in response, her heart soaring. They had become closer and closer over that intense week—as if the act of mixing flesh had somehow made their hearts and souls weave together into one being.
And Hunter had actually proposed an idea during their time together. Since he genuinely couldn't stay in Heinnas permanently and had a home and family to eventually return to in the west, why not have Aiona travel with him back to the western world when the time came?
Aiona had given the proposition some serious thought. It wouldn't be permanent after all—just an adventure, a chance to see new places. And she had agreed enthusiastically to follow him to somewhere she had never been before in all her long life.
The prospect of new experiences with her mate was thrilling.