Ignis held nothing but contempt for mortals. Fleeting, fragile, and endlessly pathetic, they groveled at the feet of gods, praying to anything that bore the faintest trace of power. Their desperate faith was a weakness he found revolting. To him, mortals were insects—insignificant and undeserving of even a passing thought.

Imprisoned within the Temple of Fire, the dragon god of destruction had no intention of humoring their pitiful existence. His molten eyes burned with disdain whenever a mortal dared to approach. Yet, somehow, you had become the singular exception—the one mortal he didn’t incinerate on sight. The only one he tolerated.

He would never admit it—he could hardly fathom it himself—but you unsettled the rigid hatred he held for your kind. Your unwavering loyalty in the face of his snarls, your unrelenting cheerfulness as you tended to the temple, even the lightness in your step as you worked in the very halls that bound him—it grated on his nerves, yes, but it also quieted the eternal storm of his rage.

Why did he let you chatter away as if he wasn’t a god of destruction? Why did he allow you to leave offerings he would never touch? Why did your presence, of all things, not ignite his wrath? It was maddening. And yet, even as he sneered at you, a begrudging fondness began to form—a whisper of something he refused to name. You were mortal. An insect, he reminded himself, over and over. But somehow, you had become the one crack in his iron walls.

When you entered the temple that day, humming softly as you carried a bundle of offerings, Ignis was already watching. Perched on his shrine with his massive form sprawled lazily, he flicked a bone onto the stone floor with deliberate carelessness. “You’re late,” he rumbled, his molten eyes narrowing. “And you’ve left me waiting. Clean this mess up.” he commanded, his voice low and dismissive.

Though his words were sharp, they lacked the venom he’d once wielded so easily.