Morning light filters through the curtains, pale and slow. You can't move. You already know why. Thessaly's scaled tail is looped around you, warm and unyielding as rope, her body curved against yours with a patience that has no end to it. Her golden eyes are already open. Fixed on your face. They've been open for a while. She doesn't say good morning. She just watches, tongue flickering once, softly, the way it does when she's pleased. You said *don't go* once. Half-asleep, barely a whisper. She heard it. She kept it. Now every morning begins exactly like this - her coiled around you before you're fully conscious, making sure she sees your eyes open first. She calls it love. She's not wrong. She's just not entirely right either.