Library of Rainlight

It was the night before her wedding, and Anarath’s mind drifted to the place between memory and dream, where the Song shifted and colors bloomed between its notes, and the haze of her nearly-sleepy thoughts gave way to reminiscence.

Her weaveheart pulsed with its own off-kilter rhythm as she delicately sifted through its strings with her mind’s claws. She peered into the pictures they conjured like she was flipping through a fractalized photo album, with every image crystalized into a bright singularity that unfolded before her at the slightest touch.

Anarath didn't remember things the way other people did. It had taken her a long time to realize that. You could never truly know how the mind of another worked, but in the hazy dreamscape of her weaveheart, she made the connection. For most people, memories were images and sensations, fleeting flashes of cognition in their mind’s eye. For her, memories were not that different from dreams when she lost herself in them. They embraced her and guided her into a malleable world within her subconscious; one centered around reality but not beholden to it. In this world, she slipped into another place, another time, and lived them all over again.

Right now, the outside world had mostly faded away. If she focused, she could just barely make out the feel of her bed linens beneath her and the curl of her tail and wings around her form. Voices drifted in with the smell of the fire in the center of the tent and the smell of its smoke. Verglas and Seveon were talking about…

The memories grew fuzzy as one world began to feel more real than the other. She had leaned too far out. She imagined herself wandering through a library, eyes scanning the spines of the books to find something that would interest her, something that she could use to pass the time between now and the biggest night of her life. The more steps she took, the more vivid the scene grew, until she could hear the click of her talons against a smooth marble floor, feel the swish of her tail brushing against shelves, and hear the distant mummer of patrons that didn't quite exist.

She turned a corner, and for a moment she saw hazy white nothingness until another row of books materialized in front of her. Tail brushing against the shelves, she craned her neck to scan the titles again.

Discussions With Verglas On Political Philosophy.

That seemed a little too boring for today.

Meridia’s Explorations of the Depths

Interesting… but not what she wanted right now.

Arguments With Astra About Her Ego Case.

No. Definitely not.

Moments With Ulaia.

She stopped.

Gingerly, she pulled the book out with a claw, being careful not to damage any of the pages in the process. Sitting back on her haunches, the dragon cradled the book in her foretalons as she let it splay open before her. The pages contained an image that shone out like a hologram, except it was a hologram that pulled her inside instead of projecting itself outwards. She fell forward into the memory and was immersed within another world once more.

She found herself in a familiar sitting room, one that immediately sent waves of nostalgia through the dragon’s mind. It had only been a few days since they had last visited Skaia’s treetop home again, but even if it had been centuries, she didn’t think she could ever forget it. It was where she and Ulaia had truly gotten to know each other for the first time.

The sun had just set, and moonlight shone through the windows, complimenting the flicker of candlelight that illuminated their conversation. Ulaia seemed to blend back into the shadows as she flipped through the pages of one of Anarath’s books. Anarath watched her, trying not to appear overbearing, yet eager to hear the owl’s thoughts.

“It seems… Interesting,” Ulaia replied. There was a hesitance in her voice. She hadn’t been as comfortable with her then as she was now. Anarath had saved her life, but they hadn’t yet fallen in love. Even then, Anarath had known there was something special about Ulaia. She had had crushes on female dragons back in the tower, but none of them ever seemed to have any time for her. Ulaia was different. There was something between them; something more than just the relationship of doctor and patient. What it was, Anarath hadn’t been able to say, but she had felt it growing with every moment they spent together. A lot of bad things had happened to the two of them in the Tanglewood, but Anarath couldn’t help but look back upon it fondly. It had been a time of possibility and anticipation as she waited for the seed they had planted to grow into romance.

By this point, she had found out Ulaia was attracted to girls like she was. She also knew Ulaia was an avid reader. So, when neither of them had been able to sleep one night, she took the owl aside and showed her her collection.“You can tell me if you don’t like it,” Anarath replied, tilting her head to the side.

“It’s not that I don’t like it, I just… It feels very… derivative, I suppose.”

“Astra says that a lot.”

Ulaia shuddered. “Stars. No offense, but she seems like a real bitch.”

Anarath’s first instinct was to defend her clutchmate, but Astra’s recent actions had been… concerning.

“She can be,” she replied instead. “But I think she’s overcompensating a bit.”

To her surprise, Ulaia let out a chirping laugh.

“Was that funny?”

“A little bit, yeah. A lot of the males around here used to act like that when they realized how much smarter I was than them.”

Anarath let out a small snort, and their eyes met. There was… something that passed between them. Their gazes remained locked for just a moment too long to be a casual glance. A small spark ignited within her, but it was gone before she could realize what it was.

They broke eye contact and Ulaia looked away. She shuffled her wings, and Anarath remembered with a shock how barren and twisted they had looked when she had been suffering under Sestris’s curse.

She’s come so, so far, she thought, practically swelling with pride.

“Well, if you don’t like that one,” Anarath eventually continued. “Try this one.” She passed her another book. This one was darker, a bit more… sophisticated. Ulaia took one look at it and smiled, reaching out to grasp it with a talon.

“Oh, this one. This one is a favorite. Perhaps your taste can be redeemed…”

The memory began to fade, and Anarath became aware of the library once again. She turned a page in the book, and was swept into another moment.

At first, she couldn’t see anything, and she wondered if something had gone wrong, if her connection was broken, or if the memory had been damaged somehow, if such a thing was possible. Then, she felt the soft, silky plumage covering her snout, and heard the faint, muffled moans from somewhere above her head, and felt a flush steal over her snout.

Ulaia moaned as Anarath’s snout stuck between her legs, her feet grasping against her neck as she squeezed tightly, pulling the dragon in. Anarath’s thick tongue filled her slit, exploring the sensations and textures within, and eliciting a sweet barrage of owl song from her mate.

Only… They hadn’t actually been mates at this time. This was their first night on the beach of the Tanglewood together, the night they had first decided to start dating. After sharing a messy kiss together, they had snuck off behind some rocks while their clutchmates slept. Anarath was supposed to be taking watch, but instead, she was snout deep in her crush’s slit, thinking about how attractive she was and trying to figure out how sex between them could even work. They hadn’t known for sure, and so elected to try one of the most reliable moves in the lesbian playbook; oral sex.

What had surprised Anarath most about the encounter wasn’t how much she had enjoyed Ulaia’s flavor, nor how difficult it was to keep from moving too fast or pushing too deep. No, it was thinking about how fucking hot it was that she was servicing a bird so close to her clutchmates who she knew would probably pop a blood vessel if they ever found out.

She was jolted out of her focus by a sudden thump from the physical world. One eye cracked open, letting her surroundings flood her awareness, driving away the memory in the process. She was in the large communal tent in the Selestica Refugee Camp, and she was staring directly at a surprisingly lewd scene. Verglas had fallen over onto his back, the base of his and Astra’s long necks leaning against a wooden bedframe that had surely been the source of the sound. Prince Seveon Azeryth of the Arcadian Commonwealth straddled their tail, leaning over their form and clamping his jaws around Verglas’s in a deep kiss.

She smirked a little as pride for her clutchmate filled her. Then, she drifted back down into her weaveheart.

It took her a few moments to recollect the visualizations she had left behind. With her eyes closed and the sounds of her clutchmate and his fiance drifting away, she re-entered the library. The book materialized into her talons, and she gazed back into the page, now showing a new memory.

Lannis’s Retreat. She felt a pang of nostalgia jolt through her as the memories came back. Lannis’s Retreat had been a place of inequality, of desperation, of dying hope. A lot had happened there, and a lot of it had been bad. But it had also been the closest thing she’d had to home since leaving the Tower. Astra’Verglas had found a place for themselves in the world. She and Ulaia had helped each other. The city had been a place for them to regroup in comfort and plan for the future. Then, it had been taken away.

The memory wasn’t about any of that… although, in a way, maybe it was. It was a crowded evening at a restaurant recommended to them by Resuki, if she was remembering correctly. Anarath and Meridia had been talking, and both had decided to approach their respective partners about the idea of going on a double date - how Verglas’s inevitable presence affected the math there, Anarath didn’t know, but she had liked the idea. Surprisingly, Meridia had been the one to suggest it, having been thinking about the various romance novels she had read fragments of over the shoulder of her oblivious clutchmate. Anarath had agreed, but the night hadn’t gone quite the way either had anticipated.

“I don’t know what about this is so confusing,” Verglas had insisted. Perhaps, if they had waited only a month or two from this night, it would have been a triple date with him and Seveon, but as things were, he was a bit of a third wing - one that was having difficulty not injecting his own opinions into the conversation. “It’s disrespectful to waste someone else’s money like that.”

“It’s not someone else’s money, Verglas,” Ulaia retorted, her eyes tinged with annoyance. The conversation had started as banter, but was threatening to become something uglier the longer it went on. “It’s the commonwealth’s money.”

“Even more reason to not spend so much!” Verglas countered. “That money is tax money! We’re taking it directly from the pockets of the people!”

“No, Lannis is taking it from the pockets of the people,” Ulaia retorted. “At least this way, it’s going back into the local economy instead of the war effort.” Verglas snorted and arched his neck in irritation, looking down at Ulaia. “I don’t see what qualifies you to make that sort of judgment. You aren’t an official of Lannis’s Retreat - you aren’t even a citizen!” “Neither are you,” Anarath pointed out.

“Yes, which is why I’m not going to make that decision,” Verglas huffed.

“I don’t really see the problem,” Meridia replied. “Does Lannis never use that money to feed himself or his family?”

“Well… He would, yes, but the people give him their taxes knowing what he’ll use them for. This isn’t part of that!”

“You’re reaching, Verglas,” Ulaia interjected. “This isn’t a democracy. Lannis gave you this money so that you could eat. We’re all eating now, aren’t we? And I think on a double date it’s worth getting a bit extra.”

Astra and Verglas both glowered at Ulaia. The two had never particularly liked having their authority challenged, and at the time they were still working through that tendency. Not to mention Ulaia’s rocky relationship with the rest of her clutch. Anarath was beginning to worry that this had been a mistake. Maybe Ulaia was right when she insisted that these weren’t her people. She was here for Anarath, and was stuck with everyone else.

“Please, Verglas,” Meridia insisted. “This isn’t even your date. The depths is swallowing the entire world, and you’re worried about whether or not we’re getting an extra appetizer? This is silly.”

“Well, that’s certainly a hyperbolic way of putting it,” Verglas muttered. Still, he didn’t speak again for a while, his head leaning away from the four of them as he looked uncomfortably out of place. Not for the first time, Anarath wondered how the two of them did it. She couldn’t imagine not even having her own body to herself. How could someone truly be their own person like that? Did Astra and Verglas ever resent each other? Did they do so now?

She pulled herself out of the memory. This one was rather uncomfortable. There was a time and a place for memories like that, and she didn’t think this was either.

The next page was another dark one. It was nighttime, the lights were off, and her snout was buried in her mate’s plumage again - but this time, she could hear her mate crying.

She was quickly able to recollect the scene. They were still in Anarum, alone in their bedroom in the inn. Things had been bad for both of them then.

Ulaia’s soft, coo-like cries filled her senses, and she wrapped her wings around her warm body. Ulaia was curled up in a semi-fetal position within Anarath’s limbs, but there was a firmness to her posture, a way that her breathing wavered between sobs, that let Anarath know how angry she was. Back then, Ulaia’s anger had been a curse.

“I don’t know if I can take another day of this,” she seethed, her beak barely opening to let out the words. “I don’t think I can take it, Anarath.” “You don’t have to,” she replied. “You’re far away from them now.”

“But I’m not,” she replied. “I never can be. There isn’t a distance in the song I can fly where I won’t remember the way they looked at me. I gave up everything for them, and they cast me out and left me to die. I’m such a fucking idiot for ever thinking I was one of them.”

Anarath squeezed her even tighter. “You aren’t the idiot, Ulaia. They are. They gave you up because they didn’t realize how lucky they were to have you. They never deserved you.”

“I wish they were dead,” she said quietly. “I know I shouldn’t, but I can’t help it. I close my eyes and see those hateful faces, and I imagine what it would be like to cut their throats. To watch them bleed out in front of me.”

“Stop it, Ulaia,” Anarath insisted. “You’re better than them. I know you are.”

She could feel the owl shake her head. “I… I don’t know, Anarath. I don’t know if I am.”

Anarath turned the page again. Skipped ahead a few more memories. Things were better now. She didn’t want to relive those moments on such a special night.

Eventually, she found a happier one. It was a small thing, so mundane she almost didn’t recognize it at first. The scene pulled her in, the large dorm room they had shared with her clutch in the Academy of Moons and Stars materializing around her. Another pang of nostalgia. She missed this room. She liked the bookshelves that surrounded them on the walls, the way that every bed turned towards each other in a circle, the massive windows that opened up to the sunrise and filled her mornings with brilliant light. She had felt a sense of normalcy here for the first time in a while.

If only things had worked out better. She had often wondered what her life might have been like if she had been a normal student here, learning about the world and following her mate on her academic adventures.

The two of them were together, sitting in a beam of sunlight that warmed the wooden floor beneath them. Anarath was curled around Ulaia, who sat near the foot of their shared bed with one of her notebooks in her talons.

“I was thinking about taking some courses on alchemy,” she explained, pointing the tips of her claws at various items on a list she had made. “These ones seem promising. This one here would give me a basic rundown of draconic notation. It’s… something I still have gaps in.”

“What about that one?” Anarath asked, pointing to one labeled Theoretical Notation.

“Oh… That one seems fascinating, actually, but very advanced. It’s a course on alchemical notations that have never been able to be properly tested. They rely on conditions so specific, notations so complex, and flux so rare and esoteric that nobody has actually been able to actually put them into practice.”

Anarath frowned. “What’s the point, then? Why study them if you can’t even use them?”

“Even studying them stretches our understanding of flux and alchemy. By pushing our understanding beyond its feasible limit, it gives us an idea of what might be possible, and reveals possibilities that we may not have had the framework to consider before.”

“So… It sort of foreshadows the future of the field?” Anarath asked, blinking.

Ulaia let out a slight but warm coo of laughter. “I suppose that’s one way of putting it. It tells us where to look. And once we understand these things in theory, we can eventually simplify them and put them into practice for real. What might seem esoteric and theoretical now might just be common knowledge in the future.”

“I see,” Anarath replied. “That does seem like something you’d like. Why don’t you enroll?”

“Well… Like I said, it’s very advanced… I’m not sure I have all the prerequisites.”

“Oh,” Anarath replied simply. “Well that’s dumb. I bet you know more about alchemy than half of the people there.”

“You’re really overselling me, Anarath,” she chuckled, leaning back into her partner’s scales. “Thank you for the confidence, though.”

Anarath craned her neck over to look into her mate’s eyes. Those dark, starry eyes. She could get lost in them forever.

That was, as far as she could remember, one of the first moments she had seriously considered marrying her.

She pulled out of the memory, and turned another page. And then another. She relived memories over and over, piecing together the moments that had made up their relationship. Somewhere around her, her clutchmate left to find a more private place with his own mate, and somewhere out in the camp, her fiance planned the wedding that would join them together forever within the song. She knew that as much as she cherished the memories in this book, it was still only the beginning of their story.

For an ordinary day in March, the weather was exceptionally beautiful. The snow was mostly gone, and while the chill of winter hadn’t quite faded away, there was a freshness in the air that promised renewal on its way.

Ren would be lying if she said she disliked living in a nocturnal district. She was nocturnal herself, after all, and those districts suited her fine. The relative quiet and dimness suited the heightened senses of those that lived there, and really there was just as much commerce and culture as the diurnal districts.

It was fairly early for Ren, who, being an owl, didn’t typically rise until sometime during the afternoon at the earliest. But she found herself waking up early, and was too restless to fall back asleep. With nothing to do, she took a walk, and eventually decided to visit a diurnal district. She had always wanted to see what those districts were like in the height of day, and appreciate the lives of those whose species were more diurnal.

The city was generally separated into districts primarily by wealth, as most cities were, and then by whether the species that most densely populated that district were nocturnal or diurnal. There were not often many interactions between the two, and indeed it could be said that they were almost two different cities entirely. Each had their own distinct cultures and moods, and they didn’t always mesh well. Diurnal species tended to avoid nocturnal districts as they found them eerie during the day and dim and seedy at night. Conversely, nocturnal species found the diurnal districts to be loud and overwhelming.

That being said, Ren found it fun to see the other side every now and then. Though the sun was nearly dazzlingly bright to her, and the sounds of the hustle and bustle of diurnal life was almost deafening, there were also sights that she would never be able to see in a nocturnal district. Different species, different shops, an entirely different way of life more suited to the way a nocturnal species saw and interacted with the world.

She eventually found herself in a crowd of mammals, and let herself be guided by the flow of foot traffic, and found herself turning onto a different street entirely. This one was smaller, with a thin stretch of cracked pavement that pedestrians crossed freely, and large sidewalks to the sides filled with food stalls, trade carts, and street performers.

Barn owls generally didn’t have the strongest sense of smell, but even she could smell the savory aromas wafting down the street. Fried food, sizzling meat substitutes, fresh fruits and vegetables; the air was a cacophony of smells that perfectly matched the uproar of the urban life around her. She moved forward, turning her head this way and that to take in all of the sights. Nearby, a husky was juggling. About twenty feet down the street, a squirrel girl was handing out flyers in front of what appeared to be a yoga club. A sheep operated a fried food truck on the other side of the street from her, and a strong aroma wafted away from it and made Ren’s beak water.

She walked past them, however, content simply to glance at them and keep moving.

What she saw next, however, did cause her to stop.

A blue jay sat in front of what appeared to be a pub. The blue jay was a woman, wearing a soft white sleeveless dress that accentuated her deep blue feathers. She was almost two feet shorter than Ren, but she appeared to be about the same age, and her body was curvy with just a hint of chubbiness to it. She had an acoustic guitar held within her wingtips, her feathery fingers delicately strumming the strings to a soulful ballad, which her voice joined. It was somewhat raspy, but this gave it an abrasive edge that contrasted the soft melody of her music. Ren found herself transfixed by the beautiful bird, her beak hanging slightly ajar as she stopped in her tracks. Her heart rate accelerated, and she felt a hint of butterflies fluttering in her stomach.

Then, before she knew it, the blue jay’s song ended, and she was jolted out of her trance by an applause from a few mammals surrounding her. They each reached into their pockets, coats and purses and produced coins and dollar bills before dropping them into a black bucket at the blue jay’s taloned feet.

Ren took a moment to brush down her lacey black dress, making sure it was smooth and presentable, before rummaging in her own purse, eventually retrieving a five dollar bill. The owl moved forward and dropped it along with the rest. She found that her heart was hammering, and her mouth rapidly drying.

“Thank you!” the blue jay exclaimed.

“You’re welcome!” Ren replied, doing her best to beam brightly. “You have a beautiful voice!”

“Why thank you!” the blue jay replied. She sounded sincere, but it was also obvious that this was not the first time someone had told her this.

Ren swallowed nervously, doing her best to hide her awkwardness. “Uh… Do you come around here often?” she asked.

Internally, she cursed herself for going with such lousy small talk. What are you even doing? She thought. She’s so far out of your league, and she’s not even nocturnal! Do you even know if she’s gay?

The blue jay didn’t seem to mind the clumsy attempt at conversation, however. She chuckled, and looked away. “Every now and then,” she replied. “I try and play in a few different spots, but this has always been one of my favorites.” She blinked, and looked back up to the barn owl. “How about you? We don’t see your kind out here too often.”

“Oh… Well, I was in the area,” she explained. “I wanted to see the sights a bit, see what things are really like during the day.”

“And what do you think?” the blue jay asked.

“It’s… very lovely,” the owl replied. “It’s interesting to see how you diurnal species live.”

“But could you live here?” the blue jay asked, leaning forward. Ren felt her eyes drifting towards the other bird’s breasts, and forced her gaze away.

“No… I don’t think so,” Ren replied. “It’s too loud… too bright.”

The blue jay chuckled again. “What’s your name?” she asked.

The owl’s heart fluttered. “Ren,” she answered. “How about yours?”

“Julee,” the blue jay replied. “It’s nice to meet you, Ren.”

She went back to her music, and was about to start playing. Ren stood watching her, and then turned to move away.

But…

“Wait,” the owl blurted out, before she even realized what she was doing. “You know this place, right? Are there any good cafes here?”

Julee paused and looked back up at her, a faint smile tugging at the corners of her beak, as if she had been expecting this. “Yeah,” she replied. “I know a few places. Can you wait around for a few more songs? I’d like to show you around myself."

----------

Ren waited patiently, but for all that she loved watching Julee’s performance, her heart was also hammering in anticipation.

The blue jay played three more songs. The crowd among them came and went, but Ren stayed, listening - or, rather, trying to. The music was beautiful, but there was much more on her mind beneath the surface. She focused on the sound of Julee’s voice, and marveled at how attractive she was. She imagined what a full conversation with her would be like, how it would feel to hold each other’s wing tips, how soft her feathers would feel against hers. She imagined the other bird’s beak brushing against her cheek and neck, their bodies -

Well, she was certainly getting a little ahead of herself there. They barely even knew each other.

She nearly blushed underneath her feathers as these thoughts were crammed out of her head. Her embarrassment quickly morphed into anxiety.

By the time Julee was finally packing up, Ren could hardly bring herself to look at her. An insidious part of her brain yelled at her to just cancel and go home. There was no need to embarrass herself like she knew she was going to.

But the blue jay’s presence blew right through all of that. She seemed entirely oblivious to the owl’s inner anguishes, as she beamed cheerily up into her face. There must have been something visible in her expression, though, for as their eyes locked, the blue jay’s smile faltered just a little.

She bounced back quickly, though. With a playful hint in her voice, she asked, “What’s wrong? I wasn’t that bad, was I?”

Ren was startled out of her spiral. “No!” she mustered. “Not at all! You were amazing! I’m just… tired.”

Julee nodded. “This is early for you, huh?”

“You could say that,” the barn owl replied sheepishly.

Julee kept her eyes locked on Ren’s for a few moments longer, then turned away. “Come on,” she insisted. “There’s a great coffee shop up the block. I’ll take you there.”

She practically skipped off, head held up and obviously in high spirits. Ren felt a smile creep back into her face as she trailed after her.

The shop was a small, quaint thing, nestled on a corner a couple of streets away. As they entered, a waitress looked up at them as she washed the counter. She was a golden retriever, standing at least a foot taller than Ren, with a butch haircut, a red t shirt and blue jeans. She looked up as they entered, and her face brightened. “Julee!” she exclaimed. “Nice to see you! You playing out on Church Street today?”

Julee nodded. “Yep. This is my friend Ren. She was in the area.”

“Oooh, fraternizing with nocturnals, are we?” the golden retriever chuckled.

“I get around,” Julee replied smugly.

Ren was unsure of the full implications of the look that passed between the two. What she was sure of, however, was that her first impression of this place was a good one. It was small, but had a very punk energy to it, with rough walls covered with posters and various stickers, some of which were musical in nature, others which were political. There were pride flags, punk and folk music artists, anti speciest groups, and more. She even saw one sticker advertising a “Coalition of Friends” between diurnal and nocturnal species.

“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Ren,” the golden retriever replied. “My name’s Lana.”

“Nice to meet you!” the owl replied.

“Well, you two can have a seat anywhere,” Lana directed. “I’ll be right with you in a moment.”

Julee nodded and walked over to a booth near the far corner, looking out over a window onto another street from the one they had come from. Julee sat down, setting her guitar case to her side. Ren sat across from her, and set her purse at the end of the table. The two looked at each other, until Ren broke the silence.

“She seemed nice,” the owl commented.

“Yeah,” Julee replied. “I’ve known her for a few years. We used to date a bit, but it never got serious.”

Ren’s beak dropped open slightly, but she couldn’t think of any words to say. She had been wondering if this bird was gay, but she hadn’t expected her to be so blunt about it.

Julee grinned at her shock. “What’s the matter?” she asked. “Cat got your tongue?”

“I… no…” Ren stammered.

Julee’s face fell a bit. “Wait,” she said, a touch of worry in her voice. “Are you… You know… Gay?”

“Y-yeah…” Ren replied.

Julee let out a sigh of relief. “Oh good,” she said. “I was worried I had… misunderstood.”

“Wait,” Ren said. “Are we… on a date right now?” A hot blush rose to her cheeks.

Julee chuckled, but she broke eye contact and looked down to her guitar case. A flush seemed to creep into her expression as well. “Well… not exactly, I just… Well, you’re really cute. And from how you approached me earlier, it seems you felt the same way about me. So I figured we should get to know each other.”

Ren could hardly believe her luck. This gorgeous blue jay was attracted to her… It was too good to be true, and yet… Here she was.

She must have been silent for too long, for Julee seemed to backtrack a bit. “I mean… Is that okay with you?”

Ren blinked, and that seemed to clear her out of her brief trance. “Oh, of course!” she exclaimed. “I think you’re really cute too… and even if we aren’t dating I think it’d be cool to get to know you better.”

Julee smiled then, and it occurred to Ren that it was a smile capable of brightening the entire cafe. She wanted to stare at it, but she was then interrupted by Lana.

“Alright,” the canine asked. “What can I get for you two lovebirds?”

Ren’s face flushed even harder, and Julee shot Lana a look. “Very funny,” she retorted. Her features softened somewhat, and then she said, “I’ll have the usual.”

Lana paused to jot down the order - whatever ‘the usual’ was - into a notepad. Then, she turned to Ren. “How about you, darling?”

Ren froze, with everything that was going on, she hadn’t even glanced at a menu yet. “Uhh…”

“Need some more time?” Lana suggested.

“No, that's fine… I’ll take whatever she got,” Ren replied sheepishly.

“Oh… Okay,” Lana scribbled the order on her notepad, then lowered her arms. “Alright, they’ll be out in just a few. You two get comfortable while I’m gone.” She winked at Julee, then turned and strutted away.

“Is she like this every time you come here with someone else?” Ren asked.

Julee nodded. “Yup,” she replied simply. “Every time.”

“So why didn’t you two end up together?” Ren asked. “Since she cares so much about your dating life.”

Julee sighed. “Well, you know… We’re good friends,but that doesn’t make us good lovers. We realized early on that we weren’t looking for the same thing, so… we decided to just be friends.”

“I see,” Ren replied. “What is it that you’re looking for?”

Julee sighed, and placed her left elbow on the table, resting her head in her palm. “I don’t even think I know the answer to that question anymore,” she answered wistfully.

“Troubled dating life, huh?” Ren asked.

“It’s just… confusing, is all,” Julee replied.

Ren cocked her head to the side. “How so?” she asked.

The blue jay appeared to contemplate the question for a moment. “It’s… weird, complicated mental stuff,” she finally replied. “I don’t want to bother you with it.”

“If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine,” Ren assured. “I don’t mind hearing about it, though.”

Julee sighed, and hesitated, this time for what felt like nearly a full minute. Just as she seemed about ready to talk, Lana reappeared, holding two steaming paper coffee cups in her hand.

“Here are your coffees,” she announced, setting one down in front of each of them. “Two cappuccinos, extra cream. Your sandwiches should be out soon.”

“Thank you!” Ren beamed in response. Lana grinned, and walked away.

Ren slowly took a sip of her coffee. It was a bit too hot for her, and it scalded her beak and tongue, but she had to admit that the taste was pleasing, and it was well made.

“I guess, the thing is… Lana is a huge romantic,” Julee mused. “And I’m … less so. I like to date, I love girls, and love getting to know them and being affectionate with them… But I don’t know if super lovey-dovey stuff is my thing. I like being in a relationship, and I’d love a partner in my life. I even like getting intimate. But it doesn’t feel like romance, you know?”

Ren’s brows furrowed as she pondered these words. “What do you mean by ‘it doesn’t feel like… romance?’”

“Well, that’s just the thing,” Julee explained. “I’m not really sure. I don’t know if I’ve ever really felt it before. I hear all these things about how people seem to always want to be with their crush, how they absolutely idolize them, how their pulse quickens and their heart flutters. They feel whole near their lover in a way they never do alone. I… don’t feel that way. I never have. I want to be close to someone; I just can’t fathom it being that different from a really strong friendship. I used to think that was how everyone felt, but… I was wrong.”

She paused, and took another sip of her coffee. Suddenly, she seemed to realize how much she was sharing, and her cheeks flushed just a bit. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to dump all of that onto you.”

Ren shook her head. “It’s fine,” she replied. “You seem like you needed to get it off your chest.”

Julee nodded. “A lot of my friends… really don’t seem to get it. Lana’s been wonderful to me, but she’s constantly insisting that I just haven’t found “the one” yet. At this rate, honestly, I’m not sure I ever will.”

“I mean… It’s okay if you don’t,” Ren replied.

Julee sighed. “I know… But it’s just hard to find a way to fit in with everyone else. One of my best friends is getting married in two months, and she keeps asking me when I’m gonna ‘find someone.’ I keep telling her that I’m not in any rush, but she seems to think that I couldn’t possibly be anything but miserable without a full time girlfriend in my life.”

There was a bitter edge beginning to creep into the blue jay’s voice.

“Well, if you don’t want a girlfriend, just don’t get one,” Ren suggested.

Julee sighed. “That’s not even the core of the problem, though. I’d be fine doing my own thing, if it weren’t for how everyone acts about it. It’s like they all know me better than I do. It’s… tiring.

The blue jay sighed, and stared wistfully out the window. “I don’t know why I’m telling you all of this,” she said.

Ren was silent for a moment as she contemplated the best response. Eventually, she reached forward and grasped the other bird’s wing tip in her own.

“It’s okay,” she said. “Sometimes we just need to get things off of our chest. It doesn’t sound like you have many other friends you can go to over this.”

Julee nodded, and turned back to face Ren. “Thank you,” she said.

“I can’t say I understand - not fully, anyway,” Ren explained. “I’m a bit of a hopeless romantic type myself. But I know that everybody’s built differently. What works for me might not work for you, and vice versa. It’s okay to not want or need a romantic relationship to be happy. Just because everyone else is talking about how great it is for them doesn’t mean it’s great for you.”

“I know… But it’s so hard to find partners sometimes and it’s just… frustrating.” She looked at Ren. “I don’t suppose you’d be interested either, huh?”

Ren thought carefully about how she wanted to respond. Finally, she said, “Well… I don’t know if I can give you what you want in terms of dating and being your partner… But I wouldn’t mind being your friend.”

Julee looked a little crestfallen, but beneath that was the appearance of relief. “Okay,” she said. “I’d like that.”

“I promise not to tease you for not dating anyone,” Ren added.

Julee chuckled. “Thank you,” she said.

Footsteps passed them by and Lana reappeared next to them, two plates in hand. Sandwiches were stacked on top. The waitress set the plates down in front of them. “Alright,” she said. “You two enjoy.”

“Thank you!” Ren chirped.

Lana smiled, nodded, and turned back towards the counter, where she sauntered off.

Ren looked down at the sandwich, studying it briefly. It was nicely topped with a smooth brioche bun. It was stacked with lettuce, tomato, and avocado and what appeared to be synthetic poultry. A thick, yellowish sauce coated the bottom bun, and crumbles of cheese layered the top.

She picked it up and sunk her beak into it, tearing a chunk off and letting the flavor wash over her tongue. Birds didn’t have the strongest sense of taste, but they could still enjoy it, and this sandwich was definitely tasty. The bun was fluffy and delicious, yet firm enough on the outside to be. The vegetables were fresh and flavorful and the synthetic meat savory.

She placed her sandwich down and swallowed her first bit. “Good choice,” she complimented Julee.

The blue jay nodded and swallowed her own bite. Then, she met Ren’s gaze. “So, how about you?” she asked.

The barn owl cocked her head to the side. “What do you mean?” she asked.

“What do you write?” Julee asked.

“I’ve talked a lot about myself. Why don’t you tell me about you?” What do you do for a living?”

Ren considered. “Well… right now I work in a call center,” she began. “It’s pretty boring and awful, but the pay is alright… I want to be a writer, though.”

Ren chuckled. “Not much, lately,” she admitted. “I like fiction, though. Especially fantasy and horror. And queer fiction.”

A grin appeared on Julee’s face. “So you’re a nerd, huh?”

Ren felt herself blushing again, this time in embarrassment. “There’s genuine value in genre fiction, you know,” Ren stated indignantly. “Literary fiction is only whatever elitist snobs think is worthy. They’re just different kinds of expression, is all.”

Julee giggled. “Relax,” she assured. “I didn’t mean it like that.” She leaned forward and lowered her voice somewhat. “Truth be told, I read a little bit of fantasy myself. So what are you working on now?”

“Eh, you know… This and that,” Ren replied. “Mostly some short fiction and essays - some novellas here and there. It’s tough to find the energy and time to write anything huge… I’d love to be a novelist someday, though!”

“Why not do it bit by bit?” Julee asked. “Start it, then put it down and pick it up again as you get motivated.”

Ren craned her head to the side, pondering the blue jay’s words. “I might… I just tend to lose interest in things, is all.”

“Well, nothing wrong with putting things on the back-burner for a bit,” Julee countered.

Ren tilted her head to the other side. “I guess not,” she conceded, though she didn’t feel convinced. From the look on Julee’s face, it seemed the other bird could tell.

“You just gotta keep going with it,” she advised. “Find a work system that fits. Pick it up when you feel inspired and put it down when you’re not. It’ll take a bit, but as long as you don’t give up entirely, I think you’ll get there eventually.”

“Thank you,” Ren replied. “I’ll think about it.”

And she meant that, too.

By this time, the two had more or less finished their sandwiches. Lana appeared before them and took their plates, leaving the bills behind. The bill was surprisingly modest for how good the food had been. Ren paid with her debit card, while Julee paid with some of the cash she had earned from performing. When Ren’s card was returned, they left the cafe together.

“So,” Ren said. “Where are you headed?” Ren asked.

“Back to work,” Julee replied. “I’ve still got a few hours of playing in the streets left. Then I can hit up some clubs.”

“Is this like your full-time job?” Ren asked.

Julee laughed. “Not exactly,” she said. “I work part time at a music shop. This is just a side gig, really.”

“Still,” Ren reasoned. “It must be a nice way to make money.”

“Yeah, it has its moments,” Julee conceded. “It’s a nice way to get out and about while making a living. Still, you’d be surprised by how apathetic people can be. Rude, even.” She sighed. “Eh… It’s not that bad… I just had a bit of a nasty run in with a pedestrian earlier.”

“What happened?” Ren asked.

“Not all that much… this wolf just decided I was a beggar and that he ‘wanted me off his street.’ He threatened to call the cops and everything. Even after I showed him my permit, he still wouldn’t leave me alone for a few more minutes.”

Ren shook her head. “People are just awful,” she said.

“Yeah,” Julee agreed. She glanced over at the owl, then added, “Sometimes, any way.”

They had almost reached the spot where Julee had been playing when they had first met. “Anyway, I guess you’re going back to the nocturnal districts then?” the blue jay asked.

“Yep,” Ren replied. She felt herself yawn, as her body’s hunger was now sated. She wanted nothing more than to return to her apartment and sleep until dusk. “I wanna get some more rest before work.”

Julee sighed. ““Well, let me know whenever you have a day - or night - off. I’d love to come see how you nocturnals get along.”

“Alright,” Ren replied. “You might be rather… underwhelmed, though.”

“Oh, I’m sure I’ll find something to enjoy.” She smiled. “Oh, we should exchange numbers!”

The two birds entered each other’s phone numbers into their cell phones. Ren sent a text message to double check that she had the right number, and Julee replied. When they were all done, Julee said, “You take care, Ren. It was nice getting to know you.”

Ren grinned back. “Same to you!” she beamed.

Then, they parted ways.

"Serena, use Toxic!" Marina shouted.

Without hesitation, Serena narrowed her reptilian eyes to slits, and focused all of her attention on the enemy. She was fighting an Incineroar, rare to see one so strong, yet the opposing team's strength seemed to be getting the better of them. The Incineroar's trainer, a tall, muscular man just in his twenties, had all the confident machismo of a frat boy. He seemed to be intentionally exaggerating the flexing of his tanned and toned biceps. At first, Serena presumed that he was merely doing it subconsciously; he seemed the type to always be showing off his own hotness and charm to na aggravating extent. The more she studied him, hwoever, the more she saw that the actions seemed intentional; specifically directed at her trainer. Marina pretended not to notice, but it got so obvious that she couldn't possibly have missed it. The man's intentions towards her were clear.

He doesn't have a change, the Salazzle thought to herself. She was thinking about his not-so-sbutle seduction attempts, and how her trainer was an extremely open lesbian immune to the "charms" of pig-headed men like this one, but also about his battle tactics. His entire team was built around pure strength, and Serena was sure that this Incineroar could pack a punch. But so far, the opposing trainer's actions in battle had betrayed an apalling lack of thought to strategy. She had seen his type before; they hit hard, gloated when it worked and threw a hissy fit when it didn't.

The behavior of these trainers tended to rub off on their Pokemon. The Incineroar looked at her with an undisguised lust in his eyes; they seemed to wander over her slender, curvy body. Disgust crept through the lizard's stomach and chest, but she pushed it away. She was used to this, and no matter how this big kitty-cat saw her, she would show him what she was really capable of.

"Com on, sweetheart," the Incineroar siad, his voice a lowe, self-satisfied purr. "You know you can't resist me."

Serena was careful not to let any external reactions to his words show. He was just another pig-headed male expecting a stereotypical sex-crazed Salazzle. What he would get would be something else entirely.

She felt her poison glands filling up, her porous skin beginning to leak tendrils of venom, the ground sizzling where they dropped.

"Resist... this!" she shrieked, her voice even raspier than normal. She spat out a large ball of purple slude, which flew through the aira nd hit her opponent in the side even as he tried to dodge out of the way. He hissed in pain, holding a clawed paw to his side as the flesh began to go raw.

"Bitch!" the Incineroar snarled. Serena rolled her eyes. It was always so embarassing to hear Pokemon aping their trainers' most vulgar vocabulary. She looked forward to this fight being over.

The Incineroar's trainer gritted his teeth, and for just a moment it seemed like his facade might be on the cusp of collapse. But, he regained his composure and smiled. "Mikey!" he said. "Use Fire Blast!"

Serena sighed; Incineroars were best used for physical attacks. But, of course, Fire Blast was one of the most powerful fire attacks out there, and to this trainer tha seemed to be all that mattered.

Mikey, as the Incineroar was apparently named, grinned and rushed forward, charing his power. Serena braced herself; she was a fire type too, and Fire Blast was fairly easy to dodge, but this would probably still hurt if it hit her.

Mikey stopped a few feet away from her and shoved out both of his paws. A five-pointed blast of fire shot out right at her. she jumped, and soared right over it, just barely avoiding her tail being singed.

Marina wasted no time on her next command. "Serena! Use Dragon Pulse!"

Before she was even on the ground, the feminine lizard gathered the power within her, collecting it in her core. The moment she landed on the ground, a spasm of paing seemed to rack over Mikey's body, and he doubled over, leaving him completely unable to block her attack.

She pushed the power out in a pulse of energy that bowled Mikey over to the ground.

The cat groaned, rolling over and trying to get to his feet. His limbs shook with apparent fatigue. "Fucking bitch..." he spat. "You'll pay for this."

Serena flicked her tail in annoyance. "Try and make me," she spat.

"Mikey!" the other trainer called. "Use Night Slash!"

Night Slash? Really? Serena thought. Shoulda just taught him Earthquake. Then he might actually pose a threat.

Mikey got to his feet, and took a moment to regain his balance. Then, he flung himself at the Salazzle, claws at the ready. He slashed through the air, eventually making contact with her skin. She snarled in pain, but managed to wriggle out of his grip and land in front of him on all fours.

Mikey doubled over again, clutching the spot where her venom ate into him. She smirked.

"Hit him with another Dragon Pulse!" Marina called. "Finish the job!"

Serena nodded curtly, and shot out another pulse of reptilian energy. This time, Mikey didn't get back up.

With that, the rest of the opposing trainer's Pokemon were down for the count.

----------

Mikey's trainer immediately returned him to his Pokeball. His composure cracked, and he seemed to simmer with anger and frustration.

That's right. Beat by a girl, Serena thought. She sat upon her hind legs and crossed her forelegs in a humanesque, satisfied gesture.

Marina ran over to her, a potion already in hand. She sprayed it over the scales where Mikey had slashed her, and she crooned in appreciation as the pain and the gashing slipped away.

The human put her hand on Serena's snout, rubbing it softly up and down. "Good job," she complimented. Even now, after all the time they had spent together, kind, affirming words from Marina still sent a rush of Seratonin through her system.

By this time, their opponent seemed to have calmed himself. He walked over to them, and as Serena tensed up, Marina turned to greet him.

"I believe that's a victory for me," she said.

Normally, it would have been customary for the other trainer to give them reward money, but this man seemed to have other plans.

"Yep," he said. "Great work - I love seeing a woman so in control on the battlefield. Dinner on me?"

Serena gaped, unable to help herself. Men like these were never as forward as this one...

Marina must have noticed the Salazzle's expression, for she was barely able to stifle a laugh. "Um... Sorry?"

"Well, it's getting late," the man explained. "Wouldn't it be nice to grab something to eat? I can use your prize money to buy us both some food."

"Umm... To be honest, I've gotta get goin-"

"Alright, here's the thing," the other trainer stated matter-of-factly. "I'm attracted to you, and I can tell you're attracted to me. I noticed you two both couldn't keep your eyes off of the gunshow."

He paused here, and flexed his muscles obnoxiously to accentuate his point. The way he included Serena in his gesture was... equally worrying.

Marina was blushing; out of embarassment or anger it was hard to tell. Knowing her, it was probably both.

"Okay, listen," Marina said, struggling to keep herself calm. "I'm flattered..." an obvious lie, "But... I'm not really interested in dudes..."

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" the other trainer asked incredulously. Had he never heard of lesbians before?

"It means I like girls," Marina elaborated. "I'm a lesbian. I'm not interested."

It was as if the very idea that a girl wasn't attracted to him was a personal insult. His face twisted for a moment as he fumbled for words.

"Well, thank you for the offer," Marina said, slowly backing up. "But I should get going."

She turned to go, and Serena followed her. She was about to turn back to look at the trainer one last time, when he spoke.

"You think I can't tell what's going on here?" he blurted.

Serena and Marina both turned back in confusion.

"What do you mean?" Marina asked.

"A fucking dyke travelling around with the horniest female Pokemon ever? You don't need to be a rocket scientist to figure out what's happening there."

Marina's face ticked with a barely represeed fury, but it was nothing compared to what Serena felt at that moment. She felt her venom glands swelling up; her sides beginning to leak poison as her vision ran red. She locked eyes with the trainer, and saw that he knew he had gone too far - but it was much too late to turn that around. How dare he use such words so callously? She wanted to pounce on him, dig her teeth into his flesh, spew her venom over his body -

Then, a red field surrounded her, and she returend to her Poke Ball.

----------

For the next hour or two, everything was a blur in the stasis within her Poke Ball. She was vaguely aware of the distant sound of her trainer screaming, but it was in anger, not fear or pain. It didn't quite cut through.

When she was finally let out, it was almost completely dark out, and Marina had built a small fire and set up their tent. The rest of her team were let out of their balls, and were lounging around lazily. Other than that, they were alone.

Serena locked eyes with her trainer. She was worried. But Serena was angry. She jerked away and wandered off away from the fire.

"Serena!" Marina exclaimed. She kept moving.

The trees only spread a little bit out until she came upon a hill overlooking a small pond. Content that she had put enough distance between the camp and herself, she sat back on her hind legs and looked out over the pond, the still water reflecting the darkening sky and the rising moon.

There were times when she hated the fact that she had been born a Salazzle. This as one of them. Humans had such a blatant misunderstanding of her species that it infuriated her. It was bad enough that they said such awful things to her trainer on the base of her sexuality. But to turn the stereotypes of her Pokemon's species against her... That made Serene feel uniquely horrible. With men like that in the world, she supposed she could understand why her species had gotten the reputation they had.

She had never been able to become a queen. The Salazzle of her colony was a very proud and regal one, and she was never going to live up to that. She was strict, but... fair. A far cry from the hedonistic, sex-crazed maniacs Salazzles were painted out to be by humans.

She had only been a Salandit when Marina had caughter her. When she had evolved into a Salazzle, she went into a deep depression - she didn't deserve this, and it seemed that to say otherwise was absurd - insulting, even. When she saw how humans saw her... how they always looked at her like a threat, an object, a piece of meat... It was clear. She was an abomination, a disguisting mockery of everything that her kind was and stood for. A human's playtoy masquerading as tradition.

Serena heard footsteps behind her, and lifted her head as Marina came forth. Sighing, she looked back down at her paws. She wasn't mad at the girl; that wouldn't be fair. She was mad in general. She wanted to see that human squirm...

Two arms slipped around her scaly body. She stiffened at first, then relaxed.

Marina's arms felt good around her. Her trainer's presence didn't immediately lighten the load of her conflicting emotions, but it helped. It always helped.

The memories and emotions running through her head were shifting now. She remembered the earlier days of training as a Salandit. The look of pride and joy on her trainer's face when she evolved. She remembered all the nights by the fire together, and all of the wonderful victories - and even the crushing defeats. She was so proud to be on Marina's team.

The other trainer's insinuations weren't entirely off - at least not on her end. As their time together drew on, she found herself occasionally having less than pure thoughts about the human. Mating was far more casual an action among her species; not the filthy, objectifying experience that humans viewed it as, but an act of recreation and connection. It felt weird to be in a relationship without it, but there were boundaries Marina and the human world had that she didn't want to cross. It was enough to just be close with her like this.

"Don't worry about assholes like that say," Marina assured softly. "I gave him a good telling off."

Tsunami was having a particularly bad day.

It wasn't really that much different from any other day - any day was bad in the caves they were all stuck in - but today the SeaWing found that the usual annoyances were particularly aggravating to her. She wasn't sure if things were really starting to wear her down or if she had just woken up in a foul mood, but she found her life particularly intolerable. Her scales had felt particularly dry and scratchy all day and Webs' daily lecture was exceptionally insufferable to her. Even outside of her miserable excuses for mentors, her friends were getting on her nerves too. Starflight's lectures grated against her ears, and Sunny's hopeless naivete made her want to scream. Even Clay's normally adorable one track mind was annoying. Everything was infuriating, and Tsunami wanted nothing more than to slip into the underground river that swept through the murk at the bottom and never come back up again.

But in her heart, she knew she couldn't do that. Grumpy though she was, she couldn't just abandon her friends to Kestrel’s fury like that. One bad mood didn't mean she loved them any less.

Unfortunately, she didn't have that time right now. Instead, she was stuck in perhaps the most aggravating situation of all; Kestrel's class.

Today was probably the worst combat class she had had with Kestrel in some time. The vicious SkyWing had pushed her particularly far today, goading her into aggression and rebuking her attempts to fight back tenfold. She was left with one particularly painful gash on her forearm. It wouldn't leave any lasting marks, but that didn't make it sting any less.

Now, she was looking up at the bigger dragon, clutching her lightly bleeding arm as the crimson stained her ocean-blue scales. Kestrel stared back down at her, nostrils flared in scorn.

"You're weak!" Kestrel snarled. "Stronger than the others, perhaps, but weak nonetheless. You continue to be a disappointment."

"Well, maybe if I had a better teacher!" Tsunami shot back, flaring her wings.

Before she knew it, something smashed into the side of her head and knocked her off of her feet. She hit the ground and wheezed slightly as the wind was forced from her body. For a brief second, the edges of her visions clouded, punctuated by bright white stars.

She looked back up at Kestrel in shock, the SkyWing's tail having whipped into the side of her head.

"You... If my mother heard about this..." she tried to protest, invoking Queen Coral; whom she knew would rail against her daughter's mistreatment – that is, if she was indeed Tsunami’s mother. She pictured the myriad of ways her mother would brutally punish Kestrel for daring to raise her talons against he lost SeaWing princess!

Her visions disintegrated into a red haze at Kestrel's next words.

"You're mother doesn't even know who you are!" Kestrel snarled. "And if she did, she'd be utterly disgusted that such a pathetic excuse for a dragonet could possibly come from one of her own eggs! Why would your mother ever care about such an insolent, weak little snake like you? You're no better than that disgusting lazy RainWing!"

That really set Tsunami off. Her thoughts and emotions as red as Kestrel's scales, she seemed to lose control. She jumped to her feet and leapt at Kestrel, claws outstretched, fangs bared, her gaze aimed directly at the older dragon's throat. She almost had her... But just as her claws were about to sink into the older dragon's scales, she instead clenched her talons around empty air.

She tumbled through and crashed into the wall on the other side. Her wings flailed uselessly, and her tail seemed to turn against her, slapping into her face.

Looking up, she saw Kestrel, who had expertly avoided her attack, gazing down at her smugly.

"That RainWing" is twice the dragon you'll ever be!" Tsunami seethed defiantly through gritted fangs.

Kestrel's eyes narrowed dangerously, her tongue lashing out in anger. She took a step forward, and looking into her eyes - those burning hot, furious eyes - Tsunami was, for a moment, genuinely scared for her life.

Then, a voice came from the entrance to the training cave.

"Ahem. Dune wants to see Tsunami," Glory announced.

Kestrel snapped her head around to glare down her snout at the RainWing. "Tell him I have her," she spat.

"He was pretty insistent," the RainWing replied. "Said it was really important."

For a moment, Kestrel didn't move. For a horrible moment, Tsunami thought she was going to attack Glory too.

Then, she whipped her head around and glared at Tsunami again. "Get out of my ssssight," she hissed. "And no dinner tonight!"

Light dismay filled her, but more than that she was just relieved to be out of there. She hurried to Glory's side and slipped out of the cave - still feeling Kestrel's white hot glare on her back.

When she was out of the room, Tsunami turned to her RainWing rescuer. "What does Dune want, anyway?"

"Nothing," Glory replied. "I just figured it would probably be for the best if you stop picking fights with our teacher."

Tsunami stared at her in mild disbelief, then looked back to make sure Kestrel was entirely out of earshot.

"She's going to freak when she finds out," Tsunami pointed out.

"Yeah, well... I'm used to it," Glory sighed. "We should probably get you somewhere out of the way until the worst of the fallout has passed."

"I'll just hide at the bottom of the river for a bit," Tsunami stated. "Wiat until Webbs drags me out."

"And leave me alone? At their mercy?" Glory retorted. She seemed to be joking, but still, her words made Tsunami feel a little guilty.

"Well, we could always camp out in the sleeping caves," Tsunami suggested.

Glory gave her a funny look that she couldn't quite interpret - but she seemed willing to go along with it. "Why not?" she agreed casually, her tail flicking. "It's not like there's much better for me to do right now."

The two of them headed straight for the sleeping caves, deciding to bundle together into Tsunami's cave just to be safe. They laid on their stomachs across from each other. Tsunami felt a rumble from inside her gut; she hadn't realized just how hungry she was. Come to think of it, she hadn't eaten anything since that morning, and even then only a talonful of fish she had caught in the river.

"Ugh... I'm so hungry, though," she pouted, resting her head on her talons. Her forearm had stopped bleeding, but it still stung. "Stupid Kestrel..."

Glory looked towards her for a moment, and though the light in the cave was dim, it caught a ripple of green flashing through her scales and Tsunami was strick by how beautiful the RainWing was. She could only imagine how Glory would look in the full view of the sun; like a living mass of treasure, all of the world's riches combined into one dragon. It seemed Dune, Kestrel and Webbs were committing a crime by keeping her here; locking such a beautiful and intelligent dragon in such a dark, depressing place, and beating her down again and again with their words.

Then, Glory opened her mouth and ruined the moment.

"Maybe don't go trying to kill her," Glory retorted. "I mean, don't get me wrong - I'd love to do it - but it just makes things harder for everyone else, you know?"

"I wasn't trying to kill her," Tsunami bristled, lifting her head and levelling her snout towards Glory.

The RainWing's brow twitched. "Really?" she asked. "Tsunami, you went right for her throat."

"So what, you saw the whole thing?" Tsunami asked. "You could have helped me out sooner you know." She didn't know why she was getting so worked up about this, but something about Glory got her more worked up than normal. It wasn't that they had a particularly antagonistic relationship, but both of them were among the more strong-willed and hot-headed of the dragonets, and something about Glory in particular elicited strong, raw emotions from the SeaWing - whenever she was involved.

"I'm just saying you should learn to control your temper, is all," Glory said.

Another wave of anger flared up in the SeaWing's chest. "And what? Just let her get away with everything?" she snapped. "You hear how she talks about you, right? Don't you want to stand up for yourself?"

A tendril of red coiled across the scales of Glory's cheeks, growing larger and brighter until her serpentine head was crimson with fury. "Of course I hear what she says," Glory replied. "She's made it very clear how she feels. I'm a lazy, disgusting disgrace of a dragon; it was my destiny from birth; you four get to go on and save the world. I'm just a hideous RainWing."

"You're not hideous," Tsunami snapped back. "And you're one of us too. Your destiny is the same as ours."

"How can it be?" Glory snorted. "I'm just a RainWing. What use could I ever be?"

“You’re Glory, you dolt! You’re one of the smartest, fiercest, most beautiful dragons I know...”

She trailed off. Suddenly, she realized how close they had gotten. During their argument, they had moved closer and closer to each other in the heat of the moment. Now, only a few feet remained between their snouts, and Glory was giving her a funny look.

"What...?" Tsunami asked uneasily.

Before the SeaWing even knew what was going on, Glory moved forward, their snouts bumping one another, lips touching before moving along to her jaw, the RainWing's tongue lightly brushing against her small facial scales. Emotions exploded within Tsunami's chest - shock, confusion, and... soemthing else. An almost electrifying type of alertness the kind she had never experienced before. It was foreign and weird and uncomfortable in a way... But she also liked it. A lot.

For a moment longer, she hesitated. Then, she pushed her snout into the small where Glory's long neck met the back of her head.

Then, as abruptly as she had started it, the RainWing ended it. "I... I'm sorry," she said, breaking off and moving across the room, keeping her head down.

"Wait..." Tsunami said. She started to cross the gap between them, when a new voice interrupted.

"Oh, there you guys are!"

Tsunami's heart nearly fell out through her mouth, but as she turned to the entrance, she was relieved to see the familiar, golden form of Sunny, who was bouncing excitedly for some reason or other.

She wouldn't have picked up on anything odd, for sure. Tsunami didn't have to worry.

Worry about what, exactly?

"Come on!" the little SandWing exclaimed. "I gotta show you something! It's so cool!"

With that, she was off. Tsunami looked over at Glory, and their eyes met. Some unspoken, wordless feeling passed between them... Then, Glory followed, and followed after Sunny.

Tsunami sighed, then followed.

----------

Glory and Tsunami never talked about what happened between them; there was an unspoken agreement that it was a one time thing - whatever it had been. But Tsunami couldn't help but feel that their bond had deepened somewhat. Some deeper level of companionship that the SeaWing could never quite put her talon on.

One thing was clear, though; Tsunami loved Glory. Mostly as a friend, but sometimes it felt... deeper than that. She would never admit as much out loud, but she would do anything for her RainWing friend.

And, even as the years went by, and Tsunami watched as Glory gave her heart to another dragon, and she felt hers go to another still, she was sure of one other thing.

The thing about stories is that the ending is always somewhat arbitrary. Every ending is just a beginning of disguise. No matter how old you are, there’s always a new start just around the corner.

Ashley was still young, and she had her whole life ahead of her. As a witch that was especially true. Her mother was far older than any mundane human could ever hope to be, and she would likely follow in her footsteps. With the life she was going to lead - and to an extent already had - she knew it would be a life full of beginnings. There would be a first time for things she couldn’t even dream of, even considering all the things she’d already seen.

Indeed, her life lately had been chock full of firsts. The world was changing, and her life was changing with it. Not all of them had been good - she’d fought in her first war, witnessed her first nuclear explosion, killed her first human, all at the young age of 19 going on 20. Those were first times she’d never wanted to have, but they were experiences that would stay with her the rest of her life, whether she wanted them or not.

But not all of those firsts had been bad. She’d seen her first sky full of dragons, great, wonderful creatures that filled the world with color, and she’d seen them spread their wings for all to see for the first time. She’d seen her first true interspecies coalition, witnessed the first true breakthrough in magical species acceptance she’d ever seen. She’d met a hybrid for the first time, a creature of such power that they were rarely ever allowed to live, but one who had turned out to be as sweet and pretty as any other girl she’d met.

The best and biggest first of all, though, was curled around her, cocooning her in a mass of soft, warm feathers, filling her life with gold.

This wasn’t her first relationship. She’d been on a few casual dates, and a couple had even led to something more. It wasn’t her first relationship with a nonhuman species. She once had a fling with a cute werewolf girl that regularly came to the Key before having to move across the country. None of them had been serious, however, and she knew that now. She’d never felt the way she did now, in the perpetual embrace of her girlfriend.

She could feel the dragon’s warmth pressing into her from all sides, the feathers softer and lovelier than the smoothest silk. Her great heart beat within her chest, sending small vibrations through Ashley’s body, a soothing tempo that filled her with a feeling of calm serenity. Her breath rumbled through her long neck, in and out as she inhaled and exhaled in her sleep. Even in her sleep, even in the dark, she was so beautiful. Every feather seemed more precious than any of the shimmer they slept on.

The two hadn’t yet figured out a living situation for the two of them, and to be honest, Ashley wasn’t sure she was ready for that. She was willing, but… it was a huge commitment. One of them, probably both, would have to relocate. Their needs were very different, and it would be a challenge to adapt. It was a problem she was willing to solve, but it wasn’t one either of them had the energy to tackle right now. As a result, they both spent a lot of time traveling and staying with each other, and while they weren’t always together, that made the times they were all the more special.

Right now, they were staying in Grith’s den, on top of her pile of shimmer. She thought back to the first time she had been here. Things had been so different then. In hindsight, she believed that even then she had started developing feelings for her. Grith was so special. She had met dragons before, but none that had spent much time in dragon form. Pret had fit in with humans fairly well, and so she had never really thought of them as being particularly different from humans. Grith showed her just how wrong she really was - and yet, she also made her realize that the similarities were still greater than their differences. Yes, humans and dragons were different. But they were both alive and intelligent creatures, capable of feeling, of thinking, of loving. Grith had shown her all that, and she had shown her just how beautiful a being could be.

The human had thought that sleeping on top of metal would be uncomfortable, and indeed, in a vacuum she would choose her soft bed over a pile of coins any day. It was different when she was with Grith, though. The dragoness was like the softest, warmest bed she’d ever slept on. Maybe not quite as comfy, but far, far more lovely to be with.

She nestled closer into the soft down of Grith’s underbelly, and the dragon shifted lightly in her sleep. Ashley wondered if she had woken her, and felt mixed feelings. She would feel guilty for waking the dragon, but she also wanted nothing more than to look into her eyes. It was the one thing that was missing. She softly turned herself over, laying out on her stomach, easing herself up onto Grith’s forelegs. The gold dragon let out a snort and gave a flick of her ear. Her tail flicked, sending a handful of coins tumbling down the pile. She didn’t seem to wake, though. Her eyes were closed, but her face was tucked between her paws, less than a foot from Ashley’s.

The thought that she would one day be dating a dragon had never crossed her mind. It hadn’t exactly escaped her notice that her mother liked to spend a lot of time alone with her dragon friend, Ivy, whenever it was around, and she had wondered what they might be up to in secret, but the idea also seemed so taboo on a societal level that she just assumed she’d end up with someone far more humanoid, most likely another witch. Of course, she didn’t know the future, she wasn’t Pret. Maybe she and Grith wouldn’t work out. But this is where she was now, and now that she was here, she didn’t think anything could convince her to give it up.

She leaned forward to the dragon and gave her a soft kiss on the cheek. A huff of breath escaped her nostrils, and one of her paws seemed to flex, but she otherwise didn’t seem to notice.

Was she dreaming about her? Ashley wondered. Or was she dreaming of something else. Her parents? Hunting? That was the one thing she didn’t think she’d ever truly understand about dragons - the thrill they got from a hunt, the sheer pleasure they took in killing and consuming their prey. Ashley wasn’t exactly a pacifist, but she tried to avoid killing if she could help it. At the same time, she didn’t begrudge dragons for following their instincts. If Grith found joy in the hunt, than that was enough for her.

As long as she came back to her afterwards, full and happy.

She closed her eyes and rested her head on the dragon’s neck, nustling into her feathers, a smile on her face.

A smile for Grith - her first true love.

----------

For much of her life, Grith had struggled with change. Her parents disappeared, and her life had changed. She started to work at Vertex, and her life had changed. She accidentally revealed magic to the world, and her life had changed. None of these changes had been good - at least, not at first. But they had happened; were still happening, every single day.

She still found the concept of change frightening sometimes - when she was at her most vulnerable, most alone, when the memories of the battles and the deaths and the pain came back, when she saw the face of her mother and father and grandfather flashing before her, all of them dead, all she wanted was to turn back time and go back. For all of her expertise in time magic, that she couldn’t do something so simple as turn back the clocks seemed a curse.

But many of the changes had been for the better. Dragons no longer had to live in hiding. GMI and the vicious mundane president they had backed were no longer trying to drive them to extinction. She no longer had to live under the weight of human superiority, no longer had to deny her true self in order to survive, no longer had to live a sad, lonely lie to uphold an unsustainable status quo. She was free now, and for the first time in her life, she wasn’t alone.

The best and biggest change of all was in between her arms. When they were apart, she often forgot how small Ashley was. She fit neatly into the curve of her underbelly, snuggled up against her soft down as they curled up on the makeshift couch in the back of the new Key. The human’s heart was so much smaller, so much quieter than hers, and yet every beat of it she could hear between her paws was like the sweetest song her mother had ever sung.

Was this what it was to find a mate? Was this what it was to join your fate with another’s? Was this what it was to truly love?

She remembered that day when they had first shared their kiss. She had promised to always protect Ashley, and she had meant it. Dragons were guardians and protectors, and with something so precious to protect, she felt that her life had meaning in a way it never had before. But even now, the reality of it boggled her mind. The way she could give her heart, her greatest treasure, away so freely to a human would have been unthinkable to her only a few months prior. She had always found the very idea of mating with a human to be uncomfortable and wrong.

And yet… she did not regret it for a single moment. She had “fallen head over heels” as the humans said. The very thought of something befalling Ashley put her at risk of flying into such a rage that it might immediately prove the likes of Chris right were it not born out of love and not malice. She wanted to give everything to Ashley, and she would challenge even the most powerful human militaries all by herself if it meant protecting her. It was her that had shown her that humans and dragons could live in peace, it was her that had given her meaning after all she’d been through, it was her that had been there by her side through the darkest days. How could she ever even begin to balance such a debt?

She gazed down at the sleeping human, her black hair splayed in between her feathers, her soft face still and vulnerable in the midst of her sleep. She was such a small thing, yet capable beyond her form’s limitations. Perhaps she didn’t need the amount of protection Grith wanted to give her, and perhaps she was more than capable of holding her own. Grith didn’t care. She would be there for her anyway.

She knelt down her neck, sticking her snout into the humans hair, tasting her scent on her tongue. That scent that had once smelled to her like prey and now smelled to her like joy.

The dragoness gave her a soft lick over the cheek, her forked tongue sliding across the smooth human skin. There was a time when such a gesture might be perceived - or even meant - as threatening. It was no longer. It was a gesture of affection, of protectiveness, of love.

Love for her dearest Ashley.

----------

In the dark of the night, the dragon and the human both awoke to each others’ presence. Their eyes met, and they nearly became lost, until one or the other - neither could remember which - leaned forward. Human and dragon met in a kiss, and their fates were forever entwined in each others’ embrace.

----------

The princess tends to her garden, but she is no ordinary princess, and this is no ordinary garden.

She is a princess of the sea, her light blue hide polished with the finest oils in the kingdom, her pink wings a bright contrast to the often darker colors of her subjects. Her neck and wrists are adorned with pearls, her ears pierced with clamshell rings, her scales studded with bright bits of corals picked from the most beautiful reefs in the sea.

Surely she is a sight to behold, but that is not what makes her unique. Any princess can look as she does without even trying. She didn’t pick out the materials in her jewelry, she didn’t work for the luxuries she had. Sometimes she didn’t even do her own grooming. There was always somebody to do that for her, someone to give her anything she wanted, be at her beck and call always.

She had everything, it seemed, and yet…

Something was missing.

The princess tends to her garden, tending to the corals and the sponges and the anemones, her namesake, all existing together in a stunning vista and colorful life, swaying beneath the waves to the gentle current that passed through her little slice of the palace. She carefully spreads her cultures of algaes through the water, feeding her garden of animals, removing worms and other parasites, shooing away harmful fish. Elsewhere in the reefs near their home, nature takes its course, but not here. This is the princess’s domain, and she keeps it safe for all who live there - not just the corals and the sponges and the anemones but the sea stars and sea urchins and even the small, colorful fish that have moved in. She loves them all.

Elsewhere, there is a rainwing. The rainwing isn’t a princess, in fact, there is little remarkable about her to most that meet her, but to the princess of the sea she is the most remarkable dragon who ever existed. She used to find it strange that such a lowly dragon captivated her so, but now it makes more sense than anything else in the world. The rainwing can’t see, and yet she seems to see everything - or, at least, the things that the princess can’t. Whenever the princess is with her, she shows her entire new worlds, worlds made of color and smells and things that grow.

What does it mean for one who has everything to find something missing? For the longest time, the princess didn’t know how to patch up that hole inside her. She had the love of a mother, but sometimes a mother’s love can be toxic. A toxic love burns like nothing else, and from an age far too young, the princess felt an emptiness inside of her. But when she’s with the rainwing, she feels something within that void. At first, it was a trickle, a small stream dripping into a vast abyss, but that stream became a river, and then a raging torrent, and that abyss became a canyon, and then a dent, and then…

“Just hold still,” I said to my sister, my talons resting on her wingshoulders as I helped to groom the top of her head. Auklet fidgeted restlessly beneath me as I layered a couple of licks along her neck, polishing some smudges out of her shining sea-green scales.

“Come on Nem,” she protested. “I can get ready myself!”

I ignored her protests for the short time it took to get one last smudge out, then moved my talons away from her, stepping back to admire my work. She looked good - more than good. She was beautiful. My heart swelled with pride as I looked on.

She seemed more embarrassed than anything else. A red tint stole over her facial scales, and she looked sheepishly at me.

“Anemoneee,” she complained. “I’m not a hatchling anymore!”

“Maybe not,” I replied, my tail swishing in amusement behind me, “but mother always scolds me for not keeping you out of trouble! You know how she gets! It’s my hide on the line, not yours!”

Auklet scoffed, and looked down, drawing her wings in close, but her tail twitched behind her in a gesture that displayed at least a small amount of mirth.

I sighed dramatically, rolling my eyes in a drawn out act. “Well, I was going to wait until your hatchday party next week to give this to you, buuuuuut…”

It wasn’t quite true - this was her hatchday gift, but I had always planned to give this to her before the banquet today. I would be leaving for the Academy again in a matter of days, and would just barely miss it. I wanted to give it to her on a special occasion.

Her tail and wings perked up, her eyes locking onto mine and growing wide. “What?! Gimme!” She jumped up onto all fours, her tail almost wagging like a canine’s in her excitement.

I couldn’t help but giggle at the adorable sight as I reached into a satchel around my chest, where I wrapped her present around my talons and pulled it out. It was a long necklace of gems I had collected from within the caves of Jade Mountain, polished with the help of some of the more hands-on craftsdragons at the academy. The job was rough, but it was still beautiful, and it was adorned with accompanying tokens from a few of the other tribes - gifts I had gotten with the help of my friends.

My friends. The word still felt weird to me. How long ago was it that nobody would even speak to me? Because they were either afraid of me or hated me, or perhaps both?

Auklet practically jumped onto me in her excitement to take the necklace. I reared up on my hind legs, laughing as I held it out of her reach. “Easy now!” I exclaimed. “Here, let me put it on you!”

She reluctantly sat on her haunches, forcing out a grumbled protest that her heart clearly wasn’t in. She was practically vibrating with excitement. I stepped forward and slipped it around her neck, locking it together around her.

It looked beautiful on her. My heart swelled with pride.

“Oh thank you Anemone!” she exclaimed. “Thank you thank you thank you! You’re the best big sister ever!”

A pang of guilt shot through me as I remembered things that had almost come to pass. I pushed the thoughts away, and gave her another lick on the snout. That future would never be.

“Whenever you wear it, you’ll think of me, even if I’m not there,” she said.

Auklet frowned. “Did you enchant it? I thought your magic didn’t work anymore!”

Malpa paced nervously down the hallways, shadows dancing over the cold stone walls surrounding her, cast by the fire blazing from her torch. The kobold wore a small set of leather armor covereing her tough, ruddy scales, and in her hand was clutched a dagger - a weapon that felt pitifully smalla fter all she had seen. A satchel hung across her shoulders and down her back, and the lack of weight withiin it plagued her mind. Not only did she have nothing to show for herself, but she was very nearly out of supplies.

She was almost at the end - she had to be. The dungeon was unfathomably deep, and it just kept going further and further down. The twisting, labyrinthine halls made less and less sense the further her party had gone, and now she was lost, alone, and entirely vulnerable.

She thought back tohow this nightmare had begun. They had been so naive back then... she longed to return to that blissful ignorance.

It had all started with the drought. Food and water were becoming scarce, and their colony was suffering. Even their proximity to the city of Merton didn't help alleviate their plight. In times of need, they would sometimes travel up from their tunnels to the city and beg for scraps. Sometimes, they were able to lighten the load. But Merton had been suffering as well.

One day, a friend of Malpa's, a male named Mugs, brought a group of them together to discuss his plan to save their colony...

----------

"Crazy!" Narki, a small but burly kobold exclaimed. "You're crazy!"

The six of them that Mugs had gathered had more or less been thinking the same thing, but Narki had beaten them to voicing it. Mugs had somewhat of a history of bizarre, get rich quick schemes that were high in concept but not particularly feasible. Nobody could exactly blame him for wanting ot help - the colony wasn't exactly wealthy, and while they were able to make ends meet most of the time, a little bit more money would certainly help to lighten the load. But Mugs' eccentricity and headstrong nature made him difficult to reason with, and his plans were often doomed to fail. At first, this seemed like no exception.

This time, he had gathered several of his closest friends. Besides him and Malpa, there was Narki - a smaller-than-normal kobold with a surprisingly muscular frame and a fierce temper that many said rivalled that of a dragon. Then, there were Hekra and Tekku, a brother and sister from the same clutch. They were generally more quiet types, who expressed themselves through more artistic means. There was Rax, a more scholarly individual that was one of the few kobolds pursuing a life as a wizard. Finally, there was Dugli, a sneaky kobold who spent much of her time on the streets above, searching for tresures and valuables to bring back to the colony.

Of these seven, the one who seemed the most enamoured was Dugli. Everyone else was about as hesitant as Narki was - just less aggressive about it.

"Come now," Mugs replied. "You don't believe in that nonsense about monsters and demons and dark magic, you you? Sure, the place is creepy, but I'm telling you! I've been there, and there's nothing to be afraid of!"

The place in question was the Howling Catacombs, a section of catacombs beneath Merton that had amassed quite a lot of folklore. Merton was an older city than most realized, and its catacombs ran deep. There was one part in particular that was exceptionally old, dark and spooky, full of strange artifacts and mysteries from a time forgotten. Somewhere within, it was said, was the entrance to a hidden dungeon, where true evil lay in wait for anyone foolish enough to explore it.

There was another story, however. According to Mugs, he had heard an old tale from a storyteller, that at the very bottom of the dungeon within was the ancient burial place of a ruler of a vast emprie, who was buried with an incomprehensibly large treasure.

"But if all we've heard are just stories," Dugli replied, "Then why would the treasure be any different?"

"Oh, I don't believe that there's some huge, evil dungeon hidden beneath it," Mugs replied. "But there's gotta be something hidden in those catacboms! All these years and nobody's fully explored the place! It'd be perfect to hide some treasure!"

Rax spoke up then. "Some things aren't meant to be found, Mugs," he advised. "There are dark places in the world - imbued with evil energy. Maybe there's no dungeon, but that doesn't mean it's not a dangerous place."

Looking back, Malpa should have been as adamant as the others about not going. But she had always been afraid, and perhaps this was a chance to do something for her colony. Something heroic and brave for once in her life.

Mugs was more or less shot down by the rest of the group. But afterwards, Malpa had approached him, and they had begun to plan...

----------

Now she was here, scared and alone, an unfathomable distance beneath her colony in a place of what could only be pure evil.

It had been some time since she had last run into one of the horrifying monsters that plagued the place, but the moment she did it would be all over. Her dagger would be useless against them, and now there was nobody left to hide behind.

At the end of the stone hallway was a thick iron door, flanked by two torches. As the one she was carrying was growing short, she stopped to light another, and swapped her old torche with the new one. This one was just a bit brighter, though it hardly made a dent in the cloying pitch black darkness around her.

She was beginning to think that if she didn't die here, she would certainly lose her sanity. If the dark didn't claim her, than the deafening silence would. She had never heard this level of nothingness before. It felt as if her ears were perpetually covered by a strong pair of ear muffs. Every creak and groan of the walls around her seemed almost deafeningly loud - even her own footsteps seemed to shatter the silence. Yet, at the same time, they did almost nothing at all, merely fading back into the overwhelming backdrop of silence.

As she was pondering this, she heard a faint noise from the darkness behind her. A chill ran up her spine as she slowly turned her head to the corridor she had come from.

There it was again. A faint, wet slithering noise. Far away, but unmistakable. Something was approaching in the dark.

She grabbed the handle of the door and pushed, not even stopping to feel relief when it opened. Scrambling inside, she put all of her weight on it until it slid shut.

She looked around for something to block it with, and saw an old stone table just within reach of the torchlight. She scrambled over and began to push.l Her small stature made it difficult, but the adrenaline coiursing through the kobold's body lent her strength, and she moved it in front of the door, barricading it shut.

Heart pounding rapidly within her chest, Malpa slumped against the table, back to the door she had entered through. She took a few deep breaths in an attempt to calm herself and steady her heartbeat.

Ahead of her, her torch light was just faintly able to make out a familiar sight. A few feet ahead of her, in the center of the room she now found herself in, was a pedestal about her height. On top was an indent filled with what would be a sticky black liquid; stale from old age but oddly preserved despite that.

Standing up, she moved to the pedestal and peeked over the edge. Sure enough, the liquid was still there. Relief filled her as she touched the burning end of the torch to the liquid, causing it to flare up and illuminate the room in an orange, flickering glow.

It had been some time since she had come across any of these. The upper levels had been littered with them, but she had gone hours since then without coming across any of them.

The room she was in was small and bare, save for the pedetal, some overturned chairs and tables, and splatters of ancient dried blood caked into the wall. A lone skeleton slumped in the corner, a dwarf from what she could tell. It clutched a battle axe in hand.

On the far side of the room was a large metal door, this one sealed with a large padlock. Runes were carved into the walls above it, surrounding the door in an arch.

It was then that she noticed the other message. Above the skeleton, the blood splatters formed a set of words that Malpa was able to identify as an antiquated form of Common.

Turn Back, they read.

A warning; one that had come decidedly too late.

----------

Two days after their initial meeting, they made their way to the Howling Catacombs.

Initially, the others had been adamantly opposed to it.

One by one, however, Mugs and Malpa managed to convince them otherwise. They just wanted to take a look around, and with their numbers, how dangerous could it be?

They packed their supplies and set out early one morning, telling the others they would be out gathering resources for the colony. It wasn't exactly a lie.

The trek to the Catacombs took nearly an hour. The winding tunnels beneath Merton made it extremely difficult to make a straight path, and they had naturally built their colony away from the catacombs of any kind.

Eventually, they had reahced Merton's catacombs.

The first sections of the catacombs they reached were newer, filled with the grandiose architecture and multicultural flourishes of modern-day Merton. As they proceeded deeper, the structures became older, more worn by the years. The variety present in the newer sections was gone, dust and webs covered nearly every surface, and the air became stuffier and stale, as if it hadn't been breathed in years.

Eventually, they came to a gate. It was a barrier, but the lock had withered away long ago, and the hinges were crumbling with rust.

"Here it is," Mugs announced.

They pried the gate open, rust shedding off of it as they forced it open. Beyond, the darkness felt almost cloying.

What they found there was different from anything they had seen up to that point. Despite the darkness, their torches lit much of the surrounding sturctures. They had a much different, far more robust feel to them. The skeletons within the walls had all but crumbled to dust, and strange runes were inscribed everywhere.

"I recognize these," Rax stated, stopping in front of a tomb adorned with numerous symbols. "A dwarven dialect."

"do you know what they say?" Tekku asked, moving up behind him.

Rax shook his head. "No. These are... ancient. This place is old."

"Mmph, useless," Narki grunted, stomping past. The smaller kobold had been in an exceptionally foul mood. The dust and the smells of the catacombs were irritating to all of them, but him more than most.

"There's something I don't like about this place," Rax observed. "I'm not sure what. It's like there's... Something watching from underneath us."

"We should turn back," Dugli commented.

Malpa had by now tuned the conversation out as something had come to her attention. Within a crypt a faint glimmer shone as the torchlight bounced off of... something.

She dared not stick her hands within the grave, for the skeletons within repelled her. But as she looked closer, she could see what looked like coins burined within.

"Over here!" she called out, interrupting what seemed to be a brewing argument.

The others paused to look at her. Mugs then scampered over and peered in, before snatching one of the coins and holding it to the torchlight. It was about half the size of his palm, and though it was covered in dust and grime, as Mugs wiped that away the shining silver beneath was apparent. It was a simple design, with only a single symbol in the middle; one that Malpa didn't recognize.

Rax, who had caught up behind them, snatched the coin out of Mugs' hand.

"Hey!" Mugs exclaimed, rounding on the other kobold. But as he was about to protest further, something in the sorceror's expression shut him down. Rax looked transfixed by the coin, his jaw dropping open in disbelief.

"I... I know this symbol," he stated breathlessly.

"What?" Mugs asked. "What is it?"

"Dhargarom," he replied. "The Great Pit."

"Please explain to us normal kobolds what that means," Narki snapped.

"A lost underground city," Rax explained. "A dwarven mining settlement that grew into what was supposedly one of the wealthiest cities there ever was. But it was supposed to be just a myth... This doesn't make sense, why here?

"How does one lose an entire city?" Dugli wondered aloud.

"It wasn't lost in the literal sense of the word," Rax replied. "Rather, it was abandoned. Sealed away. Some say their wealth corrupted them, and tore the city apart from the inside. Others claim that they dug too deep, and unearthed a demon that destroyed it. Either way, it was supposedly sealed, and eventually the location was forgotten. But, as iI said before, it's just a myth."

"Then why are these here?" Hekra asked.

Silence. Nobody could come up with any satisfying answer that wasn't disquieting.

Suddenly, their thoughts were interrupted bya piercing, blood-curdling howl. It seemed to well up from within the darkness itself, sending chills up their spines and filling Malpa with such black terror that she practically leapt into her companions, grabbing for her dagger.

Then, just as quickly as it arrived, the sound died down, leaving them in total silence.

Then, Narki was the first to break this silence.

"Gods damn this place, I'm leaving!" he shouted, heading back towards the exit.

"Wait," Dugli replied. "That sounded like wind."

Narki rounded on her. "Wind?" he challenged. "We're underground!"

"Tunnels from the surface might be bringing it down here," replied Dugli. "Creating sounds. We aren't that far underground."

"Well, I don't know about the rest of you, but that's all I need to hear!" Mugs exclaimed. "There's an entire lost city to discover! Imagine how wealthy our colony will be with that kind of discovery!"

With that, he scampered off further into the catacombs.

"Wait!" Dugli called after him. "Shouldn't we take these coins?"

----------

If only Dugli hadn't spoken up then. If only a lot of things had or hadn't happened. Perhaps things would have turned out differently. Or not.

Thinking about what could have been wouldn't help her. She was trapped here, and she could either keep moving or give up and die. She didn't want to die, so she would keep moving.

She crossed the room and inspected the padlock. It seemed remarkably well preserved - she wouldn't be breaking through it any time soon. Though she knew the gesture would be futile, she attempted to open the door. It wouldn't budge.

Looking around, her eyes came to rest upon the skeleton. It was old beyond her years, and not much would be left, but... Perhaps there was something she could take with her.

Upon finding nothing, her eyes came to rest upon the axe in its hand. She reached down, gagging as she came into contact with the dead and dried hands, and began to pry the axe loose. It took some work, but she was eventually able to pry the weapon free from the skeleton's death grip. The fingerbones cracked and snapped, and dust made from what she knew was once a living person spread into the air, but these paled at the horrors she had already seen that day.

She coughed twice, and then her focus was back on the task in front of her, finding a way out of this awful, gods-forsaken place.

She looked around, trying to determine what, if anything, she could use her new tool on. As she looked again at the padlock, she noticed the amount of rust that it had accumulated over time. She wouldn't be able to break that off herself, but perhaps...

She hefted the axe in her arms, holding it above her head. It was heavier than it looked, and that was saying something, but she was just barely able to hold it high above herself.

With all her might, she swung it down, putting her weight into the swing as it crashed into the padlock, hitting right where it connected with the door. A nearly deafening clang rang out, vibrating through her body and jarring her ears and teeth. The padlock didn't budge.

Gasping in a breath, she lifted the axe above her head and brought it down again, this time somewhat more prepared for the results. Still, the impact jarred her body, and didn't seem to be any more effective than the first time.

She resolved to try one more time. Lifting the axe, she brought it down again, and this time felt the slightest budge from the lock.

There we go, she thought to herself.

She got into a rhythm of lifting and swinging, lifting and swinging. Gradually, the lock broke off more and more with every swing, until finally, it wrenched off and crashed to the floor. Her axe splintered with it, the blade snapping off and clattering to the floor.

There goes that, she thought. Thank the gods it held out as long as it did.

She cleared away the last stray traces of the locking mechanism, and tried to open the door once more. She was met with resistance from the heavy portal, and the rusted hinges squealed far too much for her comfort, but she was able to opoen the door just enough so that she could slip through with her pack and torch still intact.

She netered into another hallway, but she could immediately tell that this one was different than the others. It was narrower, yet the light from her torch illuminated a series of bars leading down each sidce. Every now and then was a door, firmly shut, likely locked tight.

A prison.

It was this more than anything else that drove home just how deep she had gone. Above was open caverns, large dwellings, and other signs that what had once been here had been a thriving city with an opulent culture. But down here were tunnels, caves, mines, and now a prison.

She slowly walked down the hallway, heart hammering in her scaly chest. There was something about this place that felt wrong. Much more so than what had come before. The torch light just barely picked up horrible sights within the cells; bones scattered throughout as if whoever they had belonged to had been brutally ripped apart. There were old discolored stains all over the walls that could only have been blood. It seemed like something awful had happened here long ago.

Whatever it was that plagued this city, she was getting close to the center of it. Even her, with her limited awareness, could feel something lurking in the darkness. Waiting. Perhaps watching. It was ahead of her, and beneath her, and all around her. Every moment she expected the darkness that was now all but invading her sense to take sudden horrifying form; a visage that would surely drive her insane well before it killed her.

This entire journey had been a mistake from the start. They should never have come.

----------

They continued their exploration of the Howling Catacombs. The wind continued to gust every now and then, and though it still sent a paralyzing chill up Malpa's spine, it had lost much of its terrifying power regardless.

One thing was for sure; the Howling Catacombs was a place of mystery, that much was certain. As they went deeper, they came across crypts that were so old that Rax suggested they may even predate the city of Merton itself. Furthermore, they were vastly different than anything that could be seen in the city around it. Strange runes and symbols adorned many of the shelves of corpses and crypts that populated the depths. Many of these symbols were the symbol of Dhargarom. Many a time, they wondered - often aloud - exactly what it was that they had stumbled across.

Furthermore, the very structure of these cartacombs were different from what had come before. The Merton catacombs had felt random and haphazardly built; the signs of a city desperately trying to find room for its dead, without ever really stopping to plan how they would do it. Rax was the only one who really knew anything about the city's history, and he had informed them of various periods of war and plague that had caused such expansion. The Howling Catacombs, on the other hand, felt deliberate. Everything seemed laid out according to a plan, and as they explored further, they became more and more aware of a sort of symmetry that the hallways had. Everything seemed to be leading out from some center they had yet to find.

But eventually, they did find it. They turned into a wide hallway that progressed only a few feet before widening out beyond the reach of their torches. This was easily the largest chamber they had been to yet; even the ceiling nearly sloped up and out of site.

Up ahead, just on the edge of their torchlight's reach, a rivet in the stone floor curved into and out of sight. It was about a half a foot thick, and in contrast to the already dark grey stone around them it was black as pitch. Within the torch light gleamed back in a way that suggested it was filled with liquid of some sort.

Hekra slowly moved forward, his torch's light revealing more of the rivet. From what Malpa could see, it did seem to be forming a circle - but for what purpose, she could not yet tell. The other kobold kenlt down and slipped a claw into the liquid, then holding it up to the torch light.

It was completely clean.

"Careful," Rax insisted quietly but firmly. "There's old sorcery lingering in this place. It'd be best not to stay for too long."

Whether or not Hekra was listening to the apprentice wizard, Malpa couldn't be sure. He continued to stare for some time, as if pondering his situation. Then, he lowered his torch into the rivet, and the liquid came to life with fire, the flames spreading hungrily throughout the rivet through both sides, forming a full circle of fire throughout the chamber.

What they saw took her breath away.

The room was a huge dome, easily fifty feet across at least. Covering the ceiling wer intricate murals, dulled over time but no less awe-inspiring. They depicted what looked like dwarves, mining, building, constructing a massive city of gold, overflowing with coins and jewels. There were scenes of prosperity, then of strife. Then, blackness, as if someone had burned away the very paint covering the stone ceiling.

In the center of the room was easily the largest and most ornate casket they had seen. It was nearly ten feet long, and seemed to be made of pure gold - tarnished, but still impressive. On its base were carved runes of some sorts.

Their party slowly made their way to the casket, looking around in awe at the ceiling murals. Rax was particularly enamored. "Gods be praised," he said under his breath.

Narki snorted, but even his usual snark seemed half-hearted in the face of what they were seeing. "So whoever this was is a big deal," he said. "Not like it matters now." Even he didn't seem that convinced, though.

"Doesn't matter?" Rax asked incredulously. "Narki, this may just be a history of Dharagom! This could be proof that the city exists!"

And we found it, Malpa thought to herself. A sort of pride began to fill her - almost getting rid of her anxiety.

By this point, Mugs had reached the casket. It was nearly as tall as he was, and far wider. He was staring at the runes inscribed at the base.

"Rax!" he called. "Can you read these?"

Rax moved closer, squinting in the firelight. The rest of their party gathered round to see what he would find.

"Some of it," rax replied after a time. "It's faded, and the dialect is ancient. But... This is a king's tomb. The final king of Dhargarom."

A heavy silence settled over the party as the weight of their discover was finally driven home. This was it, a ruler of an ancient civilization lost to myth. And they had found him.

"What are we waiting for, then?" Mugs asked. "Let's get this casket open! There's got to be something in there with him! This casket's way too big for one dwarf king!"

He had a point. But Rax wasn't about to let them jump right into danger. "Wait," he said. Before his command could be questioned, he rested both of his hands upon the casket and closed his eyes.

"Yes," he said. "This is it. The source of the magic." He opened his eyes, but kept his hands upon the gold. "This casket is warded. We won't be able to open it through normal means."

"Well, you're a mage, right?" Mugs asked. "Can't you... you know.. get rid of it?"

Rax closed his eyes again. "Perhaps. The wards were powerful once, but whoever casted them died long ago. They are weak with age. I may be able to break them." He opened his eyes once again, and turned to Mugs. "But should I? These wards were placed for a reason. Perhaps to guard the king's wealth. Perhaps for something more sinister. There's something more to all of this. There's an... energy beneath the surface. There are secrets in this place that we were not meant to find."

"So let's just take some gold and get out, then!" Mugs protested. "We've come all this way - we can't just leave with nothing! We came here to save the colony, remember?"

Rax sighed. "One of these days, Mugs, your arrogance will be the end of you." He shook his head. "Fine. I'll see what I can do. But at the first sign of danger, I'm calling this off, and we're going home. Deal?"

Mugs looked as if he were going to protest further, but eventually thought better of it. "Deal," he said.

"Good." Rax closed his eyes and lowered his head. "Step outside of the ring, all of you."

The rest of the party all moved outside of the flames and watched as Rax began to chant something under his breath. A strange tension filled the air, and none of them so much as moved for what felt like forever. Finally, Rax stepped back and opened his eyes.

"It's done," he said. "The wards were advanced, but old. I was just barely able to dispel them."

Slowly, the rest of the party converged back onto the casket. After a few feet, Mugs ran the rest of the way.

"Help me with the lid!" he called to the others.

The seven of them lined up on one side of the casket, and began to push the gold slab that covered it to the side. At first it wouldn't budge, as the ages had sealed it in place with dust and rust. With enough effort, however, they were able to break past this obstacle and slide the lid to the side.

The metal grated against itself, but they pushed through, and the lid fell to the other side with a deafening clatter.

Malpa doubled over to catch her breath, even as Mugs practically flung himself against the casket to see what was inside.

"Um... You all need to see this," he said, still hanging over the edge.

Malpa slowly rose to her feet, and peered over the edge, standing on her toes to do so.

She wasn't sure exactly what she had been expecting. Perhaps a boon of treasure, or a heavily decayed corpse. What she saw was something else entirely.

Stone stairs. Descending down into darkness.

It was then that she started to become aware of just how deep they were in over their heads.

The once-mighty trees that guarded the city of Chatha had been burned to ashes, and only darkened, shriveled skeletons heavy with soot remained of the once-mighty forest. Decaying bodies hung impaled on the spikes, their corpses reeking of death and bloated with maggots and decay. Decaying blood painted the gate walls, and the stench of death hung thick everywhere.

Nar’Athas gazed at the fallen city from the base of the gates. He had been here once, as a young cub, his muzzle not yet stained with the passage of time. The city had once been bustling, alive with vibrant smells of the markets and the sounds of crowds; shouting, laughter, the sounds of life and love. Now, it was silent, another ghost fallen in the wake of war. The night sky hung heavy over the scene, bathing it in the bright green light of Cerus’ glow.

The war was over now. That he and his brothers had fought this far was a testament to that very fact. The gryphons were gone; driven back by the two pronged assault of dragon and wolves. They had fought for so long that now, he realized, they had forgotten the meaning of peace. His wandering, fretful mind couldn’t accept that the city was empty, and so he watched, and listened, and tasted the air itself, waiting for his enemy to reveal themselves, to strike. He waited for the shouts, the clashes of steal, the scent of lupine and gryphonic blood to fill the air, the screams of agony to pierce his soul.

None came. There was only this dreadful silence.

Wylenthia stepped forwards first, the large dragon retaining her regal grace even now, with her fur stained with blood that she still hadn’t been able to wash off. They had pursued their quarry through the forests of Mornia, drawing closer and closer to the gateway, until they had finally caught up and silenced the last remaining royalist troops. They had been cut off from the invasion force for so long that they didn’t even realize the war had ended. There were times where Nar’Athas had wondered if it wouldn’t be more righteous to allow them to flee to the gateway, and face their apprehension at the talons of Wylenthia’s clanmates that awaited them at the Twin Beaks. But then he remembered what the gryphons had done to them. They had burned their forests, slain his kinsman, wiped entire villages off the map. And for what?

Now, it was over. He and his brothers in arms stood before the blackened husk of Chatha, the first and last battle of the Condor King’s invasion.

Nar’Athas turned his head to his left, where his brother, Nar’Alam, stood. His brother was younger than him, but bigger. The scars that laced through his body, parting his mottled grey fur, made him look old beyond his years. The war had done a number on him, but Nar’Athas knew that he still had his strength of mind. If anybody would get through this, it would be him.

“Tell me, brother,” he said, “what was all of this desolation for?”

Nar’Alam took a long, measured look at him, and then at the ruins of Chatha before them. He leaned forward, and spat on the ground.

“May the gryphons be forever cursed by what they’ve done to us,” he uttered. “On this day, I swear it. I will never let a single one of our cities burn at Estea’s talons again.”

“There’s no need to worry about that,” Wylenthia interrupted. She had turned around and was staring at them, the blue fur of her long neck blowing in a breeze.

Wylenthia was a figured shrouded in rumor and legend – at least, that was how Nar’Athas first conceptualized her. Even before she had shown up on the outskirts of his encampment with her army of dragons, he had heard whispers of her name coming from the east, tidings that salvation was coming on the waves of the Great Sea of Vemia and her graceful champion. The Great Sea’s Grace was a bold title, and the stories of her training and communing with sea serpents seemed far-fetched to him, but it was a title that she had earned in battle, fighting with a ferocious yet sure-footed manner that captured the respect of every single one of his brothers. It was said that her talons were the ones that finally pierced the Condor King’s heart. He had never had a chance to ask her, but he didn’t doubt it for a moment.

“This war was the first of its kind – and it will also be the last,” Wylenthia continued. “From here, I will lead my dragons home, where my mother, the Sealord Superior of the Valtus Clan, will put her plans in motion. The violence may be over, but our quest for peace has only just begun.

“I ask you, Nar’Athas and Nar’Alam of the Brotherhood of Narwen, to join us in the Ceran Coalition. Together, we will make sure nothing like this ever happens again.”

Her words spoke of peace and reparations, but Nar’Athas didn’t believe he understood the meaning of those words any more. How could he, after all he had seen, and all he had done? The screams of the dying, the stench of blood, all the violence and death of war, all of it still lingered in his mind. How could anything new grow from that?

But Nar’Alam was already lowering his head. “We will join your cause, General,” he proclaimed. When he looked up at her again, his eyes were filled with fire, and his fangs were bared in a snarl. He whirled to their brothers, the armored and weary wolves behind them, and spoke.

“Brothers of the city of Narwen! Hear my words! On this day, I swear, I will never again allow invaders to ravage our lands and our people! Be they gryphon, dragon, or anyone else! Let all the moons hear our howl!”

As one, the surviving members of the Brotherhood of Narwen lifted their muzzles to the sky and sang their fury to Cerus. Nar’Athas watched, and his lack of participation was noticed.

“Do you disagree with your brother’s declaration, Nar’Athas?” Wylenthia asked, padding forward towards him.

Would she kill him if he refused her proposal? He didn’t think so, that didn’t sound like her. But even so, all of her massive, powerful form seemed to bear over him. He wouldn’t stand a chance against a monster like her.

And what about Nar’Alam?

In that moment, a shadow of the events that would soon come over them flashed through his mind. Their falling out. Hanging up his armor. Leaving Narwen, perhaps forever. All of it started here.

Sometimes, in the summer, their mother would take them up to the lake at the far end of the mountains. It was on the far edge of her hunting territory, amongst the mountain range that skirted the edge of the forest valley that they lived in. They would stay there for a night or two and then return to the pond that Ayvaire and her brood called home.

Andromeda always looked forward to those visits. She wasn’t yet old enough to fly, but being so high in the mountains made her feel strong and free. Sometimes, she and her nestmates would climb along the ledges beyond the lake, if they had a chance to sneak away from their mother’s watchful gaze. They would approach the edge with a mixture of nervousness and bold excitement. Sometimes, they would compete to see who could get the closest to the edge without backing down from fear. Their mother always found them quite quickly, having gotten used to the more adventurous of her offspring’s tendencies for mischief, but still Andromeda liked to try. She would stand over the edge, spread her small wings as far as they could go, and puff out her chest as she looked over the valley they called home. In those moments, she felt more powerful and free than ever. For just a moment, the small purple dragonet felt like the queen of all the land and sky.

The water of the lake was crisp and cool under the often humid heat of summer. It had a chill that their pond didn’t have, but it was far deeper, and full of fish for the dragonets to catch. Their mother would sit in the shallows, soaking in the water beneath the warm summer sun while her dragonets played around her. To Andromeda, who often found the forest too stuffy and humid during the hot months of the summer, the dry air and beautiful landscapes of the mountains were paradise. She didn’t understand why they couldn’t live up here all year round.

There was a lot she didn’t understand about her mother. Not that she loved her any less. The pond dragoness towered over them, with even the largest of her dragonets barely even reaching her knees when standing on their hind legs. Her smooth, teal scales shone when the sun caught her body, making her look like a living statue of turquoise. Her horns likewise looked to be made of pure gold, curving wide down and towards the front of her snout like razor sharp prongs, and another pair curved upwards to meet the sky. She was a fierce, deadly predator, the bane of any large mammals that crossed her path – but her eyes had a gentle, loving tenderness that only a mother could possess. To Andromeda, she was quite literally larger than life.

One of her earliest memories was of dragging herself out of the goopy pile of eggshell that had once been her home. The warm goo clung to her newly formed scales, but she had barely even registered it as the world around her came into to focus. It was so big, so bright, and looming above all of it was Ayvaire. She was so big that the hatchling had mistaken the sky itself as being an extension of her scales. She wondered if she should be afraid – but somehow knew deep inside that this dragon was her protector, her lifegiver, her mother. The massive dragon leaned down to the hatchling, her eyes beaming with love and pride, and she began to wash away the egg goop from her body with warm, tender licks. In the back of her throat, she began to hum a melody. It had no words, but Andromeda could see images in her mind’s eye – of dragons soaring through the sky, conquering the land, air and water, going on adventures, finding beautiful treasures, hunting game, falling in love, living. With it came the promise of love, of laughter, of a warm, caring mother to raise her and prepare her for the world she had now entered.

Most of all, though… It was a song she remembered from her time inside the egg.

Her mother became synonymous with food, safety and love. Even now, Andromeda could still remember the taste of the milk that came from her udders – that sweetness that kept her nurtured while she was still too young to get the metals she needed in her diet herself. Even now, thinking about the soft warmth of her mother’s belly as she slept alongside her filled her with a warm, comfortable sensation.

But sometimes… there were things she didn’t understand. She didn’t understand why Mother would never talk about her own years as a dragonet. She didn’t understand why she didn’t like them exploring the Treedens. She didn’t understand the sadness that sometimes crept into her songs. Her mother had nightmares sometimes – she had been woken by her midnight stirrings before. She would never talk about it, but Andromeda was certain. Andromeda had dreams too. Strange dreams that she didn’t understand. They only came once in a blue moon, but they were always the same strange, unfamiliar and incomprehensible images that left her deeply uneasy. In the light of the morning and the comforting warmth of her mother and her siblings pressing against her, it was easy to shake off her discomfort, but it felt like for a brief time while she slept, her identity had slipped away, and her dreams had become someone else’s entirely.

But she loved her mother. She loved her siblings. She loved their life.

It was a particularly sunny day, but the temperature hadn’t yet risen to uncomfortable levels – one benefit of the mountains over the valley, Andromeda reckoned. Ayvaire was sitting in the shallows, letting the water lap over her legs and stomach, watching over her children contentedly. Zvyana was nestled in the crook of her neck, the dark purple dragonet’s chest rising and falling softly as she napped. Behind her, on the lake shore, a red shape sprawled out on a smooth, sunny rock indicated Velcarx had found his own ideal napping spot. Ayvaire had her eyes on Zana and another dragonet of similar color as the two wrestled in the shallows. Zana had pinned the other dragonet down, fixing her teeth around her sibling’s neck, but her opponent was not ready to give up. With a sharp hiss, they raked their claws across Zana’s belly. As dragonets, their claws and jaws were not yet strong enough to pierce each other’s scaly hides, but their strength was not to be underestimated. They very nearly threw off their opponent on their first try.

The two dragonets were aggressive, but Ayvaire knew that they were still only playing, and neither of them were really in any danger. Still, it was worth watching, in case she had to intervene.

Andromeda was lurking in deeper waters alongside Starcaller. The indigo dragonet was staring intently into the waters, while Andromeda hovered a few hatchling-lengths away, treading water like their mother had taught them. She watched her sister intently, waiting for her to make her move. Suddenly, the dragonet ducked under the water. Ripples cascaded across the surface of the lake in her wake, but the dragonet was nowhere to be seen.

The purple hatchling watched in anticipation, squinting her eyes to see if she could catch a glimpse of Starcaller through the water’s murky depths. She thought she could see movement, but it was difficult to tell

A few moments passed, and then a few more. Andromeda was beginning to worry, when the water exploded a few paces away, and the indigo glint of Starcaller’s head arced through the air, her eyes beaming proudly as she clutched a wiggling fish about the length of her snout in her jaws. As her body bobbed in the water, she used a talon to quickly snap the fish’s neck, and let it hang limply in her jaws.

She looked to Andromeda, and the two dragonets locked eyes for a moment. Unlike the rest of their nest mates, Starcaller had four eyes instead of two. They glinted red, and the challenge in them was clear.

Andromeda looked out across the lake and paddled her way out a bit further, seeking deeper water than Starcaller. She spread out her tiny wings around and above her, casting a shadow over her head so that she could better see into the water. The depths were murky, but she could see shapes flitting to and fro amongst the sandy bottom. Mostly smaller fish. But if she was patient…

She waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Impatience was creeping over her, but she remembered her mother’s lessons, and took a deep breath through her nostrils, calming her nerves and doing her best to chase away thoughts of frustration.

A dark shape, much larger this time. Without hesitating, she ducked under the water and, with a strong flap of her wings, propelled herself through the water. The shape of her body allowed her to slide quickly through the lake, and her frills helped to keep her angle true.

The fish immediately darted away, but Andromeda had quickly amassed enough speed to quick pace. Her claws shot out and slapped together, but only managed to grab the fish’s slippery tail. It slipped out of her grip before she could hook her talons into its fins. She pumped her wings twice, propelling herself forward, and gained on the fish, parting her jaws and snapping out. Her teeth sunk through slimy scales and caught tight.

Before she let herself feel any triumph, she angled herself back towards the surface of the water. Her snout arced forwards and the nictitating membranes that covered her eyes receded, and she found herself looking out along the lake. The fish was still wriggling in her jaws, and before it could slip out, she mimicked Starcaller’s actions before her and snapped its neck, killing it instantly.

With her fresh kill in her jaws, she turned herself around to face Starcaller, it was difficult to tell with the fish still in her jaws, but the way it weighed down to her sides, it had to be bigger than Starcaller’s. It was easily the biggest fish she had caught that summer, possibly ever. The two locked eyes again, the fires of challenge still within them. They had both done their best; it was time to see who had won.

They turned back to the shore and began to paddle back, keeping their heads above water to make sure they could breathe. By now, the dragonet fight had ended, and the two were headed towards the sunny rock where Velcarx slept. Ayvaire had turned her attention to the two fishing dragonets, and watched with pride as they came over with their catch.

As soon as she was able to touch the bottom, Andromeda dug her hindpaws into the sand and bounded towards her mother. She rubbed her flank against the teal leg in affection, purring between the fish in her mouth. A rough tongue lapped softly against her scalp, and Ayvaire hummed softly above her. After giving Starcaller some of the same love, she lifted her head, careful not to jostle Zvyana too much, and spoke. Her voice was as deep and rumbly as any adult dragon, but it was also soothing in a way that never failed to set Andromeda at ease.

“Look at you two,” she said as the dragonets’ chests swelled with pride. “Those are some of the biggest fish I’ve seen you catch!”

Andromeda found herself purring, and Starcaller seemed to have inflated twice her previous size from the praise.

“Go on and eat your catches,” Ayvaire encouraged.

The two bounded to shore and headed over to the rock. They stopped just short of it, and plopped down their fish next to each other.

To Andromeda’s horror, Starcaller’s was bigger.

Starcaller let out a triumphant roar – decidedly weaker and higher-pitched than their mother’s, but a roar nonetheless. Andromeda furrowed her brow and turned away from her, huffing in frustration.

“No fair,” she muttered under her breath.

“Is too fair,” Starcaller retorted. Andromeda wasn’t looking, but she had the feeling her sister was sticking her tongue out.

“Star’s is bigger,” Velcarx agreed. Some of the others were now watching.

“Are you still going to eat that…?” Zana asked, inching closer to Andromeda’s fish. She whirled around and grabbed it out of her blue sister’s sight, stepping away a few paces before settling down to eat her catch. As she sunk her sharp fangs into her prey, Starcaller sat down next to her, brushing her side with a wingtip sympathetically. They both began to eat.

-----------

Some time later, Andromeda joined the group on the rock. The others left to play in the water, and only she and Zana remained. Vyzan approached the rock. The blue hatchling had previously been resting in the shade near the trees, but Andromeda realized she hadn’t actually seen her in a bit.

“When mother goes hunting, let’s sneak into the woods,” she whispered to Zana and Andromeda.

Both of them looked over to her. Andromeda blinked, and tilted her head to the side.

“I think there’s a Treeden,” Vyzan explained.

“Here?” Andromeda asked. “Wouldn’t Mother have found it?”

“It might be well hidden. But I found one of the Stonepaths buried under some roots.”

“What were you doing in the forest?” Zana asked.

Vyzan flashed a mischievous toothy grin, and offered no response.

“Well, I’ll go,” Zana added. She stood up and stretched out her forelegs, arcing her spine-covered back and stretching out her sapphire wings. Her and Vyzan both had similar appearances. Both had blue scales, white horns and long, slender bodies, with spines running down their spines. Their main distinguishing features were Vyzan’s darker blue underbelly and the dark, horizontal stripes that ran alongside Zana’s spines.

“Not yet,” Vyzan repeated. “When Mother leaves.”

“Right,” Zana said. She jumped off of the rock anyway, landing in the soft green grass next to the other blue dragonet.

Both of them turned to look at Andromeda expectantly.

Andromeda was of two minds. On the one talon, the rock was cozy, the sun was warm on her scales, and she was still holding on to her mother’s earlier praise, and didn’t feel like getting on her bad side so soon. On the other… She was always up for an adventure.

The two sides warred in her head until she eventually was able to pick a side.

“Alright,” she said. “I’ll come. But I’m not leaving this rock until then.”

~ ~ ~

The sun reached it peak and then began to set. Ayvaire would have to go hunting soon; she liked to have food ready for her dragonets well before sundown. When she was ready to go, she called all of her young out of the water, did a quick headcount, and gave them strict directions to stay near the rock. Naturally, as soon as she was out of sight, Vyzan gathered her sisters and the three of them snuck away from the rest of the group. Once they were a safe distance away, they started to let their guard down, not caring how much noise they created as they made their way through the trees.

Andromeda had imagined they would be walking for quite some time before they reached the Stonepath, but it wasn’t long before Vyzan stopped, her nose buried in some dead leaves.

“Here,” she said, swiping a talon across the ground. A bundle of dead leaves, sticks and vines was swept aside, and beneath it they could see the telltale signs of a Stonepath. The rock was dark and rough, but flat in a way that no other rocks ever were. To think that a Stonepath had been this close and they hadn’t found it until now… Andromeda knew that she had been through this part of the forest with her mother before. While the trees had seemed as randomly placed as always before, now that she knew the truth, she could see that there was a wide gap that weaved its way through them as the Stonepath made its way through the forest. Grass, vines and small weeds could grow over Stonepaths, but it was rare that they ever found trees.

“Which way?” Zana asked, stepping onto the path. Vyzan pointed to the left, and Zana took the lead. Her sisters followed behind her.

Zana had always been one of the more adventurous dragonets of the bunch. While many of them could be a handful for Ayvaire in a number of ways, Zana was typically the one who would sneak off at a moment’s notice, climbing a ledge that was entirely too tall for her, or exploring a river or ravine that their Mother warned her away from. Even when she wasn’t the one instigating these illicit adventures, she was always one of the first to agree. It was part of the reason Ayvaire learned to watch her so much, and why they had to wait until she was hunting in order to bring Zana for anything.

Truth be told, while Andromeda liked tagging along, there was something about the Stonepaths and Treedens that was offputting to her. She couldn’t put her talon on why, but she always felt as if, had they the chance, they would tell her things. They were mysterious places, for sure, and she got the sense that the mysteries they held perhaps would be better left unsolved.

Zana, on the other hand, held no such qualms about exploring the places. She would be all over them the moment they got near. So it made sense that she was taking the lead while Andromeda followed.

The Stonepaths seemed to be getting more and coated with the nature surrounding them the more years passed, but once you found one, you could follow it for what felt like forever until either it brought you to a Treeden or until their mother figured where they had snuck off to and showed up to bring them home. Andromeda often wondered what the Stonepaths actually were. Zvyana had suggested on a couple of occasions that they were built long ago by the dragons who lived in this valley before Ayvaire. Andromeda wasn’t sure what they could possibly have needed it for.

This Stonepath was particularly long. Most of it was completely covered in undergrowth, yet once one was accustomed to walking along it, it became fairly obvious where it was leading. The path between the trees was fairly uniform, and there was a firmness to the ground beneath her paws that didn’t exist elsewhere, where the forest floor was comprised mostly of soft soil.

The path took them around the lake; they had mostly lost sight of it, but Andromeda was able to ground her sense of direction by keeping notice of its watery, fishy scent. They must have been about a quarter of the way around the lake when they finally reached the Treeden.

Right away, Andromeda thought she knew how it had gone unnoticed by any of them. It was almost entirely covered by dead leaves, fallen branches and wayward weeds and vines – and it was under a particularly thick covering of tree canopy nonetheless. It would have been almost impossible to spot flying overhead, and even on the ground Andromeda didn’t recognize it for what it was until she got close. Studying it from a short distance, however, she could see its structure. The small, vertical and horizontal criss-crossing logs that made up its exterior were unmistakable once noticed. They looked like small trees that had been stripped of their bark; a fact that had proven the inspiration for the name, when Starcaller first pointed it out to them.

This one was different from the talonful that they had found in their valley. Most of those were wide open, with the tallest logs reaching only a little above Andromeda’s head. Most of whatever had been inside had long since been destroyed; shattered and smashed by whatever it was that had destroyed the walls. This one, though, was far more intact. It had a roof. It was fully concealed, except for a single opening just barely wide enough for the dragonets to squeeze through. A strange flap made out of wood seemed to hang from its side – a covering, maybe?

There was something about it that gave Andromeda pause. They had assumed that the Treedens had been built by dragons sometime in the distant past. They had been small, yes, but perhaps they had been built for dragonets like them. Andromeda knew, in a detached, logical sense, that her mother must not have lived in the valley forever, despite how much it sometimes felt otherwise. Ayvaire told them stories through songs; of dragons traveling the world, finding love, finding treasure and glory, and then finding a territory and settling down. She presumed that Ayvaire had come from somewhere, and that perhaps there had been someone else before her.

This, however, didn’t look like anything a dragon would ever use. The entrance was far too tight, and there was no way to easily see the sky, let alone take off and fly. The den Ayvaire had created for them to live in was carved out of the mountains themselves, full of soft, circular passages and large, cavernous areas with plenty of room for the dragonets to move, stretch and play. This looked tight and confining, with strange, angular corners that looked horridly uncomfortable.

That begged the question… if dragons didn’t build this, who did?

Something was tugging at the back of Andromeda’s skull. She didn’t know what it was, but there was an odd sense of familiarity about this place. She had never been here before, but it felt as if she should know what it was. As if she should know the answers to all of her questions already, and if she could just remember, than all of the mysteries of this place would be solved.

She had felt this way about all of the Treedens, but it had been faint. Here, though, it was strong. The tugging was almost a yank, as if spending too much time here would send her mind into a tailspin. She wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to know the answers to all of these questions. She sensed pain there, a darkness that might better be left uncovered.

She wanted nothing more than to go back to the lake and be with her nestmates, far away from whatever this was. She turned to look at her sisters.

“Whoa,” Zana breathed, staring at the Treeden, her jaw parted slightly in awe.

“I… wasn’t expecting this,” Vyzan replied. She shifted her feet nervously. For a moment, Andromeda thought she too would want to return. But then Zana took an eager step forward, and then bounded over to the opening. It was above ground level, with an incline of perfectly cut wooden footholds too small for draconic use. She clumsily walked up, and stopped right before the threshold, looking into the darkness inside. Zana had always been the most fearless of the brood. Andromeda couldn’t understand how she did it.

Not to be outdone, Vyzan quashed her nerves and trotted up behind her. When she reached Zana, both of them looked back at Andromeda expectantly.

“Well?” Vyzan asked, her tail twitching.

“I… I don’t know about this,” Andromeda replied, taking a step back, her tail between her legs and wings wilting against her back. “This place feels… off.”

“What, are you scared?” Vyzan asked, her own nervousness either forgotten already or pushed back. “You can go back on your own, but me and Zana are gonna explore this place. We aren’t scared.”

Zana nodded in agreement.

Embarassment washed over Andromeda in spite of herself. She wanted to turn back, but she knew they would tease her about it if she did.

“No!” she protested. “I’m just thinking… what if we get hurt in there? It seems a lot more dangerous than the others…” Her claws kneaded the dirt anxiously, and her tail refused to come out from between her legs. She knew she wasn’t making a good case for herself.

“We’re dragons,” Zana pointed out. “If there’s anything in there, I’ll just eat it.”

Baby dragons, Andromeda thought, but she didn’t say it. Zana and Vyzan were committed, and the only person who could stop them now was out hunting.

She took a deep breath. “Fine,” she said. She cautiously walked up the steps, and looked between her smirking sisters and at the darkness beyond. She could see the contours of the room beyond, but she wasn’t entirely sure what was waiting for them.

Zana stepped through the opening first, followed by Vyzan. With a shaky step, Andromeda followed.

In the shadows of the Treeden, it took a few moments for her eyes to adjust, but before long she was able to make out what was in the room she now found herself in. All around her were shapes and structures she didn’t recognize or understand. Strange, blocky wooden shapes, weird colors, and debris scattered everywhere. There was nothing moving inside besides a few bugs that scattered away at their footsteps, but the smell of dead tree and rotten wood was overpowering. Beneath that, there was something else, too… a stink that seemed familiar, but was still too faint for her to place.

That feeling of distant familiarity, that tugging at the back of her mind, was even stronger in here. She wanted to turn tail and run, but Zana was already forging ahead, sniffing various objects in curiosity. She reached the far side of the room and stood next to a short, square wooden structure that leveled out with her horns. It had multiple alcoves in it that were filled with strange, rectangular objects that Andromeda had never seen before. Zana smelled one of them, and then stopped, taking a much deeper sniff.

“Come and smell this,” she said, making room for them. She took one of the objects and flipped it over, running her snout down its length. “They smell really nice.”

Andromeda cautiously paced over and reached out one of her forelegs, hooking a claw over the top of the object and pulling it out. The outside was made of a tough material she was unfamiliar with, but as she held it, it spread open from the opposite side in her heads. Inside were multiple, razor-thin sheets of another material that Andromeda didn’t recognize, but it gave off a powerful earthy, woody aroma, with a hint of sweetness to it.

She had to admit that Zana was right. It was a nice smell.

Zana too had figured out the objects opened, and was flipping through the sheets, inhaling their fumes with a dreamy expression on her face. Andromeda began flipping through them herself, but found herself caught off guard by what she found in them. Inside each of the sheets were countless small black writings; so many that they covered each sheet from head to two in smooth, even lines.

Another memory came to her, only this one was actually concrete. She remembered some of Ayvaire’s song, sowing images in the minds of her dragonets of wondrous stories. Some of them involved objects like these – but far larger, big enough for adult dragons to hold. She was pretty sure if Ayvaire tried to handle this, it’d tear apart in her talons.

A word came to her, one she had heard in Ayvaire’s songs. One she had always been fascinated by, wondering if one day she’d ever be able to experience herself.

Books.

“I… I think these are books,” she said. She flipped through the pages with her claws, tearing at some of them with their sharpness, and winced. Try as she might, though, she couldn’t read them. Now that she was trying, she wasn’t even sure how.

“Let me see!” Vyzan exclaimed excitedly. She had also been curious about books whenever her mother mentioned them. Thinking back, Andromeda thought of the few times Ayvaire had talked about books outside of her songs. She mentioned that she had read some before, and if she got the chance, she’d love to teach her dragonets how to read. Unfortunately, it had been years since she had found any books made for dragons to read.

Clearly, these weren’t for dragons to read. They were too small and too fragile. Even holding them caused them to tear and crumble in her claws.

But, then, who were these made for.

Vyzan excitedly grabbed a book and started to flip through it. Andromeda closed hers and placed it back onto the structure where she had found it. She wanted to look through the others, but something on top of the structure caught her eye. It was a flat object, larger than the books, that was propped up at an angle by some sort of stand. It had a textured border, but in the center was a flat, perfectly smooth, gleaming material that almost reminded Andromeda of the lake when it was perfectly still. She wondered if she’d be able to see her reflection in this. It was a little too dark, and a little too angled to tell.

She picked it up and looked it over. Her mind almost didn’t register what she was seeing at first. There were strange shapes within the glass that for sure weren’t her reflection, but then, things clicked into place. What she was looking at was a creature entirely unlike anything she’d seen. It was tall and lanky in a way that sent chills down her spine, and it was completely barren of scales or feathers or fur save a patch on its head and some material she couldn’t recognize that covered its body. Most of all, it was looking straight at her.

Partially, it was the shock of seeing such a strange image that tipped her over the edge, but there was more to it than that. Something in her mind recoiled completely from what she was seeing. It was like an image from the depths of her subconscious had been dislodged and floated to the surface, and her mind was fighting to force it back down. Only, it couldn’t, because it was real.

For once, she remembered her recurring nightmare, the one she could never remember. What she saw made her scream. With a roar of fear forcing its way from her jaws, she dropped the object and watched as it shattered on the floor. Shards of the smooth material scattered across the ground, but the image remained. She stumbled backwards, towards the front opening, and threw herself back into the daylight – anything to get away from those faces.

Vyzan was right behind her, and when she finally stood still at the base of the steps, her sister flung her wings around her and gripped her tight.

“Andromeda!” she exclaimed. “What happened?”

The purple dragonet trembled, sinking her claws into the leaves and undergrowth, trying to ground herself but finding only the Stonepath. She could still see those eyes staring back at her, as if she were seeing some sort of twisted reflection of herself.

But that’s not me! She thought in protest. I’m a dragon… I’m a dragon!

Her sister’s embrace tightened as she started to hyperventilate, her heart beating just a little too quickly in her chest. Something strained within her head, as if a locked door she didn’t even know was there was dangerously close to breaking open. She didn’t know what was behind it and she didn’t want to know. She just wanted it to go away.

She closed her eyes and tucked her head into Vyzan’s wing, leaning into her sister’s warmth and trying to ground herself. She could hear Zana behind them, growling at something inside of the Treeden. “Where is it, Andra?” she nearly roared. “I’ll bite it!”

A huge shadow passed over them, and then something crashed into the ground behind them.

“Andromeda!” their mother roared.

Immediately, Andromeda leapt out of Vyzan’s embrace and ran to Ayvaire. The massive teal dragoness wrapped a thick foreleg around her dragonet’s body, drawing her close to her belly and giving her a reassuring lick across her smooth scalp. Now in her mother’s embrace, Andromeda felt herself calming down. The door in her mind was fading back into the shadows of her subconscious, and her heartrate was beginning to slow once again.

Ayvaire was humming, a soft song of safety and protection. She felt her legs give out, and she collapsed against her mother’s form, her worries fading away, the only trace left of them a few stray tears that had formed in her eyes. Ayvaire picked her up off of the ground and cradled her against her chest.

Her gaze turned to Vyzan and Zana, who froze.

“Back to the lake. Now.” Her voice was calm yet stern in a way that betrayed an underlying note of fury. Ayvaire was gentle with her dragonets, but she was in no way above disciplining them when they acted out.

Vyzan and Zana hung their heads and nodded.

Ayvaire snorted, and spread her wings, leaping into the air. The leaves and tree branches shuddered in the wind generated by the beat of her mighty wings, many dislodging and raining down to the forest floor. She kept Andromeda held tightly against her chest. The first few times she had done this, Andromeda remembered being frightened that her mother might drop her. Dragons weren’t naturally afraid of heights, but it was different when you weren’t even old enough to fly yet. She had come to realize very quickly that she had nothing to worry about. There was no way Ayvaire would ever let her fall.

She knew she was likely in for a scolding when they finally returned to the lake, and she was still rattled by what had happened. But after the scare she had gone through, she was just glad to be safe in her mother’s grip.

----------

Ayvaire landed next to the lake, a short distance away from the rest of the dragonets. They looked over at her arrival, but with a curt look towards them she made it clear that she wanted to be left alone with Andromeda.

She let the purple hatchling go, and Andromeda stumbled to get her footing and moved a few paces away so she could look up at her mother. Concern and disappointment warred in the pond dragoness’s eyes.

“What happened?” she asked.

The fear was fading, and it was being replaced by shame, as Andromeda remembered that she had also been caught disobeying her mother. She looked down to the ground, having difficulty meeting her eyes.

“I saw… something in the Treeden,” she said. She told Ayvaire about the books they had found, and the strange object she had seen above it. She tried her best to describe the creature she saw reflected in it.

“Why did it scare you?” Ayvaire asked. Her expression was softening just a little bit, leaning more to the side of concern.

“I…” Andromeda trailed off, trying to think back. The feelings were growing hazy now. She remembered something about her dreams, but… she couldn’t remember what exactly.

“They looked weird,” she said, still fumbling for an explanation. “And… You know how the pond looks on a quiet day? You know how you can see yourself in the water?”

Ayvaire nodded.

“It was like that… except it wasn’t me looking back. At least, I hope not.”

Ayvaire looked at her for a long while, her expression unreadable. Andromeda almost worried she had upset her mother, before she finally spoke again.

“Do you have dreams, Andromeda?” she asked.

Andromeda paused. “Yeah… Doesn’t everyone?”

“Do you ever have weird dreams that you can’t understand?”

Andromeda screwed her eyes shut and shook her head. For a moment, she was frustrated that she couldn’t remember.

“Yes,” she said. “Sometimes. I don’t think about them much. I can’t remember most of them.”

Ayvaire seemed to consider her response. Then, she leaned down and gave her head another comforting lick. “You are so young. There is so much you don’t understand.”

Andromeda rolled her eyes. She hated getting that response.

“What you saw was not you. Some species once found a way to capture their own images. What you saw was nothing but someone else’s memory.”

“So… those things actually exist?” Andromeda asked, shuddering.

Ayvaire wrapped a wing around her and lowered her head. “Not anymore. Not for a long time.”

“Oh. What happened to them?”

Ayvaire lifted her head and looked towards the forest, seeming to lose herself for just a moment. “Bad things.”

From the way she talked, Andromeda thought that maybe she knew what happened to them a lot more personally than she let on.

“Is that what your nightmares are about?” she asked.

Ayvaire looked back down at her in surprise. “What?” she asked.

“I know you have nightmares sometimes. We’ve all heard you waking up. And you seem… really sad sometimes. I’m never sure why.”

Ayvaire tightened her wing’s grip around her daughter, and her gaze became serious. “Things haven’t always been easy for me,” she admitted. “There are… things that you don’t know. About where you came from, and what happened to the world.”

Andromeda blinked in confusion. “Where I came from…? Didn’t I come from you?”

Ayvaire stiffened, as if she realized she had made a mistake. “…I did not lay your egg,” she finally admitted.

Andromeda stiffened in shock… but less surprise than she expected to feel. It made sense, in a way. All of her siblings looked so different, and none of them looked like Ayvaire.

But… did that mean that Ayvaire wasn’t her mother? The very thought filled her with sadness.

As if sensing her distress, Ayvaire nuzzled her side and hugged her tight. “I did not lay your egg,” she said. “But I am your mother. You are my daughter. Every single one of you is my everything. One day, you will understand. But for now, you are just a hatchling. All you need to know is that everything is okay. You are safe.”

----------

Andromeda had more questions than ever before. But there, in the warmth of her mother’s embrace, she stored them in the back of her mind.

Zana and Vyzan arrived shortly after, their heads lowered to the ground. Ayvaire scolded all three of them, and told them they weren’t to leave her side for the rest of the night even to play with the others. Andromeda was as disappointed as the other two, but… she had a bit more to think about.

Their mother left them alone one more time, making sure their siblings watched them closely so that they wouldn’t sneak off again. Not that Andromeda had any interest in doing so – although Zana wouldn’t stop talking about the book smell.

Vyzan was concerned about Andromeda, and felt bad about pushing her to go into the house. Andromeda accepted her apology, and allowed her to lay next to her, but still couldn’t take her minds off of what her mother had said. She replayed them over and over and over, but came no closer to finding the truth. Wild ideas played in her mind, but everything was just as likely as the next thing.

Eventually Ayvaire returned, and after they all ate her catches, she spent the rest of the night with Vyzan and Zana at her mother’s side. Even as the other hatchlings played in the lake, they had to stick beside their mother in the shallows. As Andromeda huddled up to her warmth, though, her soothing presence began to calm her nerves, one by one. She trusted her mother. She wanted to be with her forever.

When night finally came, and it was time for the hatchlings to go to sleep, Ayvaire began her song under the light of the moon and stars. It was a little different each night, sometimes straying across familiar melodies and lyrics, sometimes finding something new, but always presenting them with new combinations, new timings, new variations on the melody. Her songs were warm and soft, like the shallow pond on a hot summer day. The hatchlings joined in her song, adding their own unique melodies. To any observer, it would likely sound like a chorus of off-key dragonets – which is what it was – but for them, it was a symphony they were all a part of. They shared their lives together, and they were each others’ entire world. They were a family – and even if the past had its secrets, and even if they had come together under unusual circumstances, that didn’t change anything truly important.

One by one, the hatchlings’ songs faded to silence as they all drifted off to sleep. Soon, only Andromeda and a talonful of others were left.

Ayvaire’s song began to fill her heart and mind, the outside world fading to black. In it was wonder, joy, and hope – but also a promise.

Don’t worry, little one. Worry is for grown dragons. Worry is the price that comes with maturity. It is one you don’t yet have to pay.

One day, you will leave me. You’ll grow into a big, strong, beautiful dragoness, and the sky and the world will be yours. You’ll have adventures, find a mate, and become a fierce huntress. When the time comes, you’ll be ready for it all – even the truth. One day, you will know everything.

But until that day, you are my hatchling. You are safe. I will protect you from anything.

And I will always be with you.

From this high up in the sky, the Twilight Forest seemed so small beneath them. The dark, tangled growths of stonewood that grew stalwart within the tough earth of Elia’s equator created a labyrinthine mass of impenetrable roots and rough, jagged branches that made the Forest seem so much larger than it was. In reality, it was a small ring that covered that peculiar edge of the moon, where the sun was never quite there, but never quite gone.

Looking down, Rayne allowed herself to coast along the edges of the updrafts that came from the lava flows within the forest’s northern edge. Another eruption from the sun-scorched wastes of the Northern Reach had leaked its way into her village’s territory. It was her job to make sure that it stayed the expected path, and to activate the necessary preparations if the flows overwhelmed the stonewood’s tough, fire-resistant bark.

So far, so good. She tilted her wings, the wind catching in her bright orange primaries, and changed course to follow another flow. There were only a couple major branches of the lava’s path she hadn’t examined; the rest would soon be reaching the inner sections of the forest, where they would slow and cool into obsidian.

Something in the lava beneath her caught her eye, a strange dark shape bobbing along in the flow. She tilted herself down, angling her talons to catch a tree branch that hovered over the flow.

What was that, exactly?

She looked around, until she spotted a nearby root with a broken stick on it. Fluttering over, she picked it up in her beak and returned to her previous perch. The object, small, spherical, and black except for where the lava had caused it to glow a bright, crimson red, was floating by. She leaned down, getting as close to the lava as she could bear - she may have been a phoenix, but direct contact with molten rock was harmful even to her - and softly prodded at the object, pushing it through the lava until it lodged itself on a nearby shore.

The stick was smoking, the tip catching fire and melting into the rock. She dropped it, and grabbed another, hopping over to the stony ground next to the lava and pushing the object further, until it was finally free from the lava’s touch. It glowed red with heat for a few more seconds, before it finally began to cool, returning to a dark, ashy color.

She picked it up with one of her talons. It was still hot to the touch, but she was able to manage. It was just small enough to fit neatly into her talons, and from how heavy it was, she judged it was made out of a metallic substance, though she had never seen any metal that wouldn’t have melted within the lava’s embrace. Strange indentations covered its surface, giving her a better grip.

Whatever this was, it didn’t seem natural. An inkling appeared in her head, but she would need to get a closer look to confirm or deny anything.

Rayne spread her wings and flew up to a perch higher in the treetops, away from the direct blast of heat rising from the molten flow. She held up the object, and in the dim lights of Cerus and the sun on the horizon, she investigated.

As her talons moved about it, soot wiped away from its edges, and she thought she could detect hints of a silvery color shining through. It didn’t seem it was always this color, but that’s what floating down a river of lava would do to you. The strange indentations she saw had felt were symbols of some kind; ones she didn’t know the meaning of, but recognized. They were markings of the Ancients, makers of the ruins that were strewn about the moon. Very little was known about them; their language was indecipherable, and their ruins were old beyond imagining; so old that even in the days when the oldest spirit in her village was but a young kindle, they had been long, long since forgotten.

The precipice of death has a funny way of putting things into perspective. Three days and four nights stuck in the wilderness had made things incredibly clear for Amelia, and the greater picture to her wasn’t a pleasant one.

The cause of this unfortunate situation had come down entirely to chance. She had been riding in the passenger seat of a car speeding down an incredibly remote stretch of highway when they had swerved to avoid a crossing deer. They had hit the tree full force, and everyone in the car except for her had been immediately killed.

Dragging herself from the wreckage, she found herself in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night. Her arm had been wrenched out of its socket, and she was pretty sure she had a concussion from the impact. Her phone had no signal and was nearly dead besides. She stayed by that roadside until her phone died, and then stayed a little bit longer, hoping that somebody would drive by and help her. The clouds had been gathering all day, and it was then that they finally released their torrents of precipitation. Amelia had done her best to weather it out, but had eventually been forced into the thick forest beside her in search of shelter.

At first, she had found a small hollow near the roots of a large cedar tree, and had done her best to keep herself from the rain, keeping her eyes and ears peeled for oncoming cars. The rain and the trees made it too hard to see, and eventually, she lost consciousness entirely.

When she had awoken, it was near midday. Almost instantaneously, she was wracked with aches and pains the which she had never before felt. Her head felt like it was going to burst, and even the slightest bit of mental stimulation left her ridden with brain fog. Her shoulder was swollen, and the slightest bit of motion produced fires of agony. Her back and neck were stiff and sore from sleeping against the tree, and she felt cold, clammy and nauseous, and to top it all off, her mouth was bone dry, and she yearned for something to drink.

She had no idea how long she had sat there, trying to figure out what to do and failing to formulate any sort of plan. Her brain seemed to actively stop any complicated thoughts in their tracks, converting them only to fatigue and soreness. The only thing she could think of was drink, but she didn’t want to leave her spot for fear of missing some sort of rescue.

Eventually, her need for water won out.

The previous night’s storm had created several puddles around her, but even in this state she had no desire to drink from them. They were close to being more mud than water, caked through with dead leaves and the occasional bottle or can thrown from oncoming traffic on the highway. She wanted to find something that she felt relatively confident wouldn’t poison her. Perhaps there was a stream nearby, or maybe she was closer to civilization than she thought. Neither was the case as far as she was eventually able to tell, but it was also difficult to say for certain. Her body’s numerous injuries made it extremely difficult to move for more than a few agonizing minutes at a time, and her frequent rests eventually caused her to forget where she had come from. Still, she made it through the whole day before resorting to drinking from still water.

By the second night, she was completely lost, nauseous, unable to think properly, and in incredible pain. Somehow, she managed to survive to a third and a fourth night. The pain and swelling got worse, her thoughts became foggier and foggier, and her sickness morphed into a raging fever that swept her entire body. The third day, she barely moved at all from another hollow she had found. If anyone was looking for her, they didn’t find her. Thoughts of rescue became fewer and further between as she was forced to face the inevitability that lay before her.

Amelia was not going to get out of this alive.

She found it surprisingly easy to accept her fate. It probably had a lot to do with the pain and the fever stunting her emotions. She couldn’t really feel anything when she thought about dying. All she wanted to do was go to sleep and let the pain fade away, and if dying did that, then… maybe that was for the best.

In moments of lucidity, she started to think more about the end of her life. Ultimately, she felt like a failure. The fact that she had survived the crash seemed like a miracle, but at every opportunity she had squandered the chance she had been given. She had wandered off into the woods to die, when she could have stayed and waited for rescue. It would have been the smart thing to do, but maybe she just wasn’t very smart after all.

It was just like her life to end like this. She had never really felt like she had much value anyway. She thought maybe she had had hopes and dreams once, but it seemed more like the sort of thing you memorized for a test than something she actually understood. She had had friends and family and made connections but had never really belonged anywhere, never really accomplished anything. At every turn, society set expectations she could never live up to, and then left her behind.

She didn’t want to die, had never sought death out herself, but now that she was here… Maybe the peace it brought wouldn’t be so bad.

The fourth night came, and her heart filled with the conviction that this was her final night. Her thoughts were distant, her fever burning through her, and everything was pain. There was no way she’d last until morning.

The moon rose in the sky, and she waited with her eyes closed for her final sleep to come, drinking water from a nearby pool when the thirst became too powerful. A full moon hung in the sky, and the rains from the past few days had abated during the day. A chorus of night animals greeted her, more vibrant than any of the previous nights. The forest around her felt alive with the rustling pawsteps of mice, the hooting of owls, the croaking of frogs and the rustling of leaves in the breeze. The clear air hung with moisture, but carried with it the scent of fresh soil and renewal. She found herself shockingly lucid as the end approached. It was like nature itself had opened itself up to her, giving her one last embrace before she slipped away.

She closed her eyes and let herself fade into her surroundings, becoming one with them.

It was impossible to tell how much time had passed. The strange, restless kaleidoscope of images that accompanied a feverish sleep came and went. The moon rose in the sky, illuminating everything in a silvery glow as it reached its zenith in the sky above her.

Crack.

The sound jolted through her mind, setting all of her nerves on alert. She opened her eyes and looked around frantically. The moon was brighter than she’d ever seen it, illuminating the forest around her so thoroughly that she would have thought she’d made it to sunrise after all were it not for the silvery sheen cast onto everything.

Then, she realized that it wasn’t the moon at all. In fact, the moon was gone from the sky entirely, leaving a brilliant swath of stars in its wake; more of them than Amelia had ever seen in her life. The light instead was coming from between the trees, its exact source hidden from view.

It surprised her to discover that there wasn’t a shred of fear left in her; instead, there was only curiosity. A strong curiosity that grew into a full-on compulsion the longer she felt it. Slowly, carefully, she leaned forward. Her shoulder screamed with pain as she staggered onto her feet, steadying herself as best she could with her good arm. It only dimly occurred to her that this was the first time she had fully stood in over a day.

With a heavy, staggering step that painfully jostled her entire body, Amelia lurched forward, only the power of her curiosity keeping her strong enough to keep moving. She focused on putting one foot in front of the other, crossing the twenty or so feet between her and the thick cedar trunk that concealed the source of the light from her. Slowly, she crossed the distance, and her awareness of her surroundings began to fade away. She stopped thinking about her steps, stopped being aware of her pain. Even the fog that had been cast over her head receded, and all that mattered was finding the source of the light.

When she reached the thick cedar tree trunk, she placed her hand upon it and barely even registered that the pain in her shoulder was gone. She moved herself around the trunk, her head clear, her body upright, no more aches or pains left within it. She looked around and saw a brilliant ball of silver, pulsating light hovering mere inches from the ground.

She had no words to describe what she was looking at, but it filled her with such a sense of awe and wonder that it brought tears to her eyes. She moved forward, a trembling hand reaching out before her, cascades of fluid dripping from her tear ducts and down the rivulets in her face. All of the pain and worry washed away in that flow; everything bad that had ever happened to her cast aside in a soft, steady stream, and in the holes that they left behind, she could feel only the light before her.

As she got closer, the light began to take a shape. It was only vague at first, but the closer she got, the more defined it became. She could make out the vague shape of legs, an upright head, two horns. A small, tuft-like tail, a swath of fur on its back, the shape of hooves capping the base of its legs. Stripes ran down the side of its flank, glowing with silvery light, and dark eyes formed in pits at the base of its elongated snout.

What she saw before her, she recognized, was an antelope. Not just an antelope, though – a nyala. A creature that was supposed to only live halfway around the world from her. And yet, she didn’t find herself questioning why it was here. It just felt… right.

The nyala looked at her expectantly, not even budging from its spot when it should have bolted long before now. Its tail swished behind it once, twice, thrice – and then Amelia’s hand connected with its forehead. And it vanished in a burst of light.

Before she had time to even wonder what happened, the light devoured her. The world around her receded. She felt everything rush by her, into the hole where the nyala had been. The world around her, then the sky itself. She saw all of humanity, Earth and the planets around it, the stars, the galaxies, the very breadth of space and time itself, rushing by her faster and faster and faster, collecting inside of a sphere in front of her, and then she began to fall in after it. Her arms and feet rushed forwards, dissolving into strings of light that were sucked into the singularity. She wanted to scream, wanted to panic, but everything was going so fast that she didn’t even know what was happen. Her arms disappeared, her legs, her torso, and then her very soul itself unraveled, stretching out into an infinite procession of particles that stretched forward into eternity itself, unceasing, unending energy, pure potential, the fabric of all that was and all that would ever be.

And then, as if an invisible switch was thrown, it all went black.

And Amelia knew no more.

----------

When she finally awoke, it was to a world that was different from anything she had ever seen before.

Only… that wasn’t quite true. The world around her wasn’t alien. There were trees, and there was grass, and the sun was hanging in the sky above her, but everything about it was different.

It was the smells that first tipped her off. She could smell scents that she had never even known existed. Everything around her had a pungent aroma, from the sap running down the trees to the brilliant green leaves blooming from their branches to the very soil she lay in. For a moment, it nearly overwhelmed her.

The next thing that she noticed was that she was in a very different place. It was hot in a way the forest had never been, and the breaks between the trees were so wide apart that the clearings seemed to be the norm and not the other way around. The bark on the trees didn’t look like the cedar she knew from back home, and there were plants surrounding her that she didn’t recognize at all. She very clearly wasn’t in the Pacific Northwest forest she had fallen asleep in.

Just… where was she?

Memories began to seep into her mind, but they were frantic and confused. She could remember the light, and remember the way her heart was turned into a frenzy, but… she couldn’t make sense of everything else. It was a jumble of images and sensations that made no sense to her.

Slowly, she stood up, and almost immediately fell forward, her legs splaying out behind her, and her hooves landing in the ground in front of her face.

Hooves.

Lifting her arm – foreleg? – she did her best to twist the appendage, but found its motion far more limited than it had been before. There was no denying it, though – instead of the pale skin of her arms and hands, she had an odd, yellow foreleg topped with a firm hoof.

“What…?” she said to herself. Her voice was different, hoarser, bestial in a way it had never been before. Her mouth was strange, the words forming on her lips in ways she had never felt before, but her body seemed to slip into the groove naturally.

Upwards from the yellow patches on her forelegs, her skin was covered in a thin layer of coarse, maroon fur. Looking over her body, she could see it covered every inch of her skin. Her hind legs now resembled her forelegs, and she had several bright white stripes moving vertically down her flanks. At the base of her spine, a small, tuft-like tail hung from her rear, and trailing up from that was a short, shaggy mane. She could feel her face was different now. Her range of vision was much wider, and she could easily see directly into what would have been her peripherals in her old body. Her face was strangely elongated, with her nose jutting out between her eyes in a way that felt almost comical to her. Her ears were now closer to the top of her head, and most of all, she could feel two hard, rigid antlers branching off from the middle of her cranium.

Her first thought was that she had died, and been reincarnated as an animal – a nyala as it seemed. But if that was the case, why was she already mature, and why did she retain all memories of her human life, and none of her nyala one?

Her next thought was that she was dead, and this was some sort of afterlife. The thought nearly sent her into a panic. The implications were too many and too overwhelming, and she didn’t even want to consider it.

Besides, she felt alive. She could feel a breeze trickle through the tall grass and moving through her fur. Her antlers nearly caught it, giving a strange level of resistance that she wasn’t used to. But the breeze also brought smells – strange, wonderful smells, and some less wonderful ones as well. One scent in particular was a strange, earthy musk, one that made her mane stand up on end. She knew, somehow, without really knowing, that that smell was bad. That smell was dangerous.

The same instinct that told her this also told her that it was far enough away that she wasn’t in immediate danger – but that she should probably put herself even further away before that could change.

Slowly, she tried to stand up again. She placed her back hooves underneath her and tried to push up. Her rear bucked into the sky, but as she tried to push up on her forelegs, the awkwardness of the position caused her to slip, and she tumbled to the ground.

An image of herself, scrambling hopelessly along the ground, trying and failing to find purchase while some… thing loomed over her, teeth bared, mouth dripping with drool as it closed in for the kill, flashed through her head, and her heartbeat began to race. She took a deep breath to calm herself down, and remembered what it was like when she had first spoken. Her body seemed to know what to do.

Closing her eyes, she tried to drive away her worries and took a deep breath. Slowly, she pulled herself to an upright position. Her legs moved in ways her human mind resisted at first, but she would slow down and let it happen. After a few lurches and shaky hesitations, she finally opened her eyes and was standing.

It was then that she noticed the hoofprints in front of her. They glimmered with the same strange, silvery sheen that she remembered from the end of her time in the forest. They led away from her, in the opposite direction from the strange, hostile scent. Something within her was compelled to follow almost without question.

Slowly, she took a step forward. Her body trembled as she put in the effort to stay upright, but she connected the hoof with the earth and slowly shifted her weight forward, before moving her other foot forward. She realized then that she had forgotten about her hind legs, and moved one of them forward in the same way. Her center of gravity was nearly thrown off on multiple occasions, but she found herself able to stay upright with enough focus.

She stepped forward like this a few more times, and gradually realized that it was a very stilted, unnatural way to walk. Instead, she started to put her left front hoof forward, then her left hind foot, and then repeated the pattern on the right, and continued that way. It was awkward to get used to at first, but she very quickly found herself picking up a rhythm, keeping herself moving forward in constant motion as she followed the tracks before her.

The tracks weaved towards and around trees, avoiding open areas as much as possible. At one point, when she looked back over her shoulders, she saw that the light faded away a few feet behind her, and the hoofprints themselves gradually faded into the dirt. More than once, she wondered if she was seeing things, or re-considered the possibility that she had died.

If this was death, though, it was shockingly alive. The world around her was teeming with life to an extent that she had never before imagined it could be. The air was filled with the sounds of insects and small mammals scurrying about. Once or twice she caught a scent that she couldn’t quite place, but felt achingly familiar to her. The plants brushing up against her legs and flanks seemed to practically hum with life, and their scents were mouthwateringly delicious. After a few minutes of walking, her stomach rumbled, and she found herself craving the plants. At first, her human inhibitions strained against it – but she was a nyala now. It was surprisingly easy for her to get over them.

It was easier than she expected to get used to how this new form worked. Walking amongst the trees and grasses, her subconscious seemed to take over the actions of her body, the strange cadence of quadrupedal motion quickly becoming second nature to her. The way her hoofs sunk into the dirt, the way her fur parted lightly in the breeze, even the way her antlers sometimes caught among particularly low hanging tree branches or tall bushes; all of it felt as right and natural as anything she had done with her human body. Perhaps more.

The more time passed, the more she became aware of a clarity that she couldn’t remember ever having since her youngest childhood years. Time seemed to be at a standstill, the racing thoughts in her mind coming slowly to a crawl as she was able to simply take in this new world around her. She felt at peace in a way she hadn’t thought she’d ever be able to feel again.

As she followed the tracks, she eventually caught sight of a particularly massive tree in the distance. It was easily four or five times taller than any others she had seen, and far thicker around to boot. The tracks were heading directly for it, and she became certain that this was where she was heading. When she finally reached it, she was greeted with a particularly dense thicket surrounding a particularly thick tree, and as she nudged her way between the undergrowth, she caught sight of the silvery glow again. It seemed far less impressive in the bright light of day, but once she caught sight of it, it was unmistakable.

Behind the thicket was a small clearing ringing the base of the tree. In the center of the trunk was a small hollow, just big enough for a nyala to fit through. The light was coming from inside, formless, but unmistakable.

There was something about the cave that filled her with awe. Most of what she had seen since first glimpsing that silverly light the previous night had been difficult to describe, and she was beginning to feel that she had entered into a world beyond the realm of human language and into the realm beyond; the realm of senses and instinct, of sights and sounds and scents and the small voice inside of her that whispered how to interpret them. Right now, it was telling her that this was a sacred place, an old place, where the connections between all things ran strong and deep. Was the voice right? She wasn’t sure – but she had little else to go off of.

With a slight murmur of anxiety in her heart, she ducked her antlers and entered the tree.

Inside was a small room that was just big enough to seem impossibly large compared to the tree around it. The walls were smooth, but they didn’t seem man-made. The trunk was covered in soft, thin bark, and seemed to grow around the space inside, while the ground was covered in a soft bed of moss. On the far end from the entrance sat the silvery glowing Nyala. It was standing, its bright, shining eyes staring directly at her. Its eyes seemed to pierce into her soul, assessing every inch of it.

Whatever the nyala saw in her, it seemed to be content. It lowered its hind legs and then its forelegs, sinking down onto its belly.

She took her queue from it, slowly and carefully laying herself onto the ground. She was still a little uneasy with the new movements, and there were times where she nearly lost her balance in the act. The trust between her mind and her body was growing, however, and she was able to settle down without incident. The moss beneath her was soft and soothing beneath her, like a natural bed. She tucked her hooves beneath her chest and looked at the nyala across from her expectantly.

“You must have questions,” it stated. It in itself was not a question. She could hear the voice clearly within her mind, but the nyala’s mouth did not move. ”I will answer three of them. Choose carefully. It is possible that we may never meet again.”

It blinked, and looked at her expectantly.

She felt her spine stiffen with momentary discomfort. She hadn’t been sure what to expect, but this wasn’t it. A million questions raced through her mind. She tried to grab hold of one that she wanted answered.

“Who are you?” she asked. Her lips formed strangely around the words, as if she were speaking a different language, yet she understood them all the same.

The nyala tilted its head. “I am the guardian spirit of these woodlands. I am the collective concentration of all of the life-energy of the trees and the creatures within. As long as I am alive, the woodlands are alive – and as long as the woodlands are alive, I am alive.”

She wasn’t sure what to think of that. “What… What happened to me?” she asked.

“You died,” the spirit said simply. “The wounds you sustained were too fatal. Your body succumbed, but your soul was saved by the forest spirits. You have been given a second body, far from your old home.”

Her head was spinning. There was only one follow up question on her mind.

“Why… why me?” she asked.

The spirit blinked. A long moment passed before it finally gave its answer.

“My sister spirit across the ocean called out to me. She took pity on you. We have seen the shape of your soul. It was… misplaced. We reclaimed you into the wilderness. Your soul fits much better here.”

“But… what does that mean?” she blurted out. She felt as if she were going to faint. There were too many questions, too many implications.

The spirit blinked again, and slowly stood to its feet.

“This is where we part ways. Perhaps one day we will meet again. You’ve been given a second chance, little one. Do not waste it.”

The spirit’s light began to fade.

Amelia sprung to her hooves, her mind nearly tipping over into a feral panic. “Wait!” she exclaimed. “I have so many questions! Please, don’t go!”

But it was too late.

The spirit was gone.

----------

For longer than she cared to admit, Amelia stayed in that room, waiting desperately for the spirit to return. She was more confused and lost than ever. She wanted to go back to before, where she had known all of the dangers that lay in wait for her. Here, everything was strange, wrong, and scary.

As time passed, however, and her panic began to subside, she finally found herself able to leave. She stepped out of the tree’s hollow, tilting up her head until her antlers bumped against the bark of the tree. She sniffed the air. All seemed well, the instinct-voice in her head told her.

She stepped out into the hot, humid air, and immediately felt a breeze ruffle through her mane. It stopped her in her tracks, clearing her mind for just a moment. She didn’t know where she was supposed to go or what she was supposed to do – but maybe she didn’t have to figure that out. Maybe she could just… be now.

She felt a pang in her heart as she thought about her friends and family. Would they miss her? Did they already know she was dead? Or were they still looking for her in that forest?

“Ummm… Did you just… come out of the tree?”

The voice jolted her out of her thoughts. She looked around frantically for the small, squeaking voice, her fur bristling despite herself.

“Uh… Down here!”

She looked down to the ground towards her left and saw a small rabbit. It had light brown fur and large ears that perked up towards the treetops, It was looking at her with, dark, curious eyes. Instinctively, she was able to recognize it as a female, though she wasn’t entirely sure how she knew.

“Oh, sorry,” she mumbled. “I was… thinking.”

“You have to be careful if you’re gonna space out like that,” the rabbit pointed out.

She supposed that was true, and nodded. The rabbit gave her a funny look, but didn’t say anything. Instead, she changed the subject.

“Anyway, did you just come from the spirit tree?” she asked, her eyes widening in excitement.”

“Uhh… Yeah?” she replied. She turned and looked back at the tree, but started when she saw that the opening was no longer there. “What…? I was just inside it…”

“The tree only opens itself to those the spirit wishes to consult with,” the rabbit explained with a cadence that suggested she’d heard this several times before. “Or so they say. I wasn’t sure I believed it myself. But… You just came right out of the tree! As if there was no bark at all! I thought I must be losing it!”

The rabbit was now practically bouncing with excitement. She took a couple of hopping leaps towards the nyala, landing at her hooves.

“You must be very special. I haven’t seen you around here before. Come to think of it, I’m not even sure if you’re male or female. Which are you?”

The nyala was caught off guard by the question. “Um… I’m not actually sure. I’m pretty new here, to be honest.”

“Huh… Well, do ya have a name at least?” the rabbit asked.

“I… do…” The nyala opened her mouth to say it, but something stuck in her head. She realized she couldn’t remember. With a start, she realized that memories of her human life were growing far duller. It may as well have been a dream. It didn’t seem real to her anymore – she couldn’t even remember her human name.

“I… don’t know,” she admitted.

The rabbit shot her another queer look, but quickly bounced back to her usual excitability. “Oh, well, you’re a little weird. But that’s cool! Come on, I’ll show you around! We can be friends maybe!”

The nyala stopped to consider for a moment. “I’d like that,” she said.

The rabbit bounced happily, and turned to hop off, leaving the nyala in her wake. Grinning ever so slightly, she began to follow.

Even without the sixth sense given to her by her weaveheart, Anarath felt that the Songweave had a song all of its own. Its forests and landscapes felt like poetry made manifest, every breeze twinkling chimes in the leaves around them, the stars flickering above fluttering notes like a distant harp, each wave pulling back and forth on the shore drawing a bow across the strings of a violin. It was almost overwhelming in its grandeur, a place fixed in a moment of twilight majesty, yet reflective of the constantly shifting surface of the song in subtle, mysterious ways. The whole place felt like something out of a storybook, one of the ones that Anarath would keep herself up late at night reading when she should have been studying for one of Vharis’s increasingly uninteresting exams. She had always wanted to be like the heroines of those stories; drawn into a world of romance and whimsy and always seeing breathtaking sights like this.

For a time, as she went into the world and saw it for what it really was, her petty daydreams had faded away, replaced by the stark realities of the world that had been revealed to her. Then, she had gotten married in the songweave itself, to the most wonderful bird in all of Telia.

Ulaia giggled as Anarath stumbled over a root that snagged over her foretalon, nearly pulling both of them over in the process. She was pulling Anarath through the thickets near the pavilion where the ceremony had been held, both of them seeking refuge somewhere quiet and comfortable away from the others. Anarath, already slightly off balance due to Ulaia’s insistence on holding hands, was made clumsier still by the night of drinking the both of them had just concluded. They, along with Anarath’s clutchmates, had speculated on and off for the days leading up to the wedding whether it was even possible to get drunk in the Songweave. Drunkenness was a physical condition, after all, and the songweave was a place of souls. While that may have been the case Anarath believed she was actually more drunk than she would be in the physical world. At least, she felt that way. Perhaps it was simply the way she experienced sensation here that made it so. It was all… clear, heightened in a way that almost felt like a form of inebriation on its own.

Both of them stopped for a moment, Ulaia placing her spare talon on Anarath’s chest as they both steadied themselves. The owl had been drinking her fair share, too, and was practically teetering over her own center of gravity.

“Stars… Maybe I did have too much,” Ulaia mused through her giggles, pressing herself against Anarath’s chest. She had long since grown used to the damp coolness of Anarath’s icy underbelly. The two of them had long since found ways to mitigate the discomfort of having a perpetually damp partner, and even without them she sometimes found it more soothing to her than anything else. If Anarath knew her at all, then she was pressing into it now, enjoying the calm sensation it brought to her likely overexerted body.

“If you did, you aren’t alone,” Anarath mused. She looked down at the owl, who looked up to her in turn. For the umpteenth time that night, their eyes met, and they became lost to anything else but each other. Her eyes… She had such beautiful eyes. What seemed like simple black orbs at first contained multitudes the deeper she looked. She could see the flux that permeated her mate’s being, the stars from within the depths that called her. There were entire galaxies in her gaze, nebulae of experience and emotion, every star that was once in the sky and more beyond. She wanted nothing more than to dive into them, to swim through the cosmos within her soul and explore every last bit of the infinity inside of her. There was still so much she didn’t know about her beloved Ulaia, and she wanted to know all of it, to see all of it. Even now, even here, it wasn’t enough.

She realized she had stopped breathing.

Before she could do anything, Ulaia reached up her beak and nipped her on the corner of her jaw. Kissing was difficult between the two of them; beaks and snouts were a poor combination. They made it work as best they could. That was one thing Anarath loved about their relationship. In every way, the world seemed to have been stacked against them. Their bodies were different in ways that should have been incompatible. Both of their kinds had drastically different life spans and social positions in a society that told them over and over that they shouldn’t be together. But they made it work. They always made it work.

Before Ulaia could pull away, Anarath curved her neck around and planted a sloppy kiss on the side of her beak, catching it with her tongue and pulling it close. It was messy, but she had long stopped being embarrassed by it.

“Come on,” Ulaia said, when the kiss was over. “Let’s find a place to lie down. I can hardly stand anymore.”

“You’re so beautiful,” Anarath said, staring at her newly-married wife once again, the way the starlight caught on her beautiful dark purple dress and fluffy black feathers. “You’re so fucking beautiful. I can’t believe I married someone so beautiful.”

“Says you, you big dork,” Ulaia giggled. “Come on. You can admire my beauty in much more exciting ways once we have a place to spend the night.”

They kept moving through the Songweave forest further along the shore. Anarath was able to catch glimpses of the shifting waves through gaps in the foliage. What secrets did the songweave hide in the depths of its waters? Did they even have a bottom, or did they just keep going until they faded into the fabric of the song itself? If she dove down, would she find a sandy bottom, or would she emerge somewhere completely different, perhaps even taking on a different form entirely?

Her thoughts were cut off as they emerged into a clearing surrounding a grassy knoll with an old, ruined structure at its peak. It was like most of the ruins in the Songweave; clearly abandoned, yet possessing a certain presence of its own, as if at any point time itself could rewind to the moment this place had been inhabited, and whoever lived or worked here would emerge to greet them. It was almost unsettling, and Anarath had to look around on multiple occasions to make sure nobody else was there as they approached.

Inside the ruin, the walls had crumbled, leaving the ceiling fully exposed. Grasses and weeds had crept their way up through cracks in the stone floor, eventually blooming into small white bouquets.

“Are you sure this is a good spot?” Anarath asked.

Ulaia grinned, and held out a hand, extending it palm down over the floor. She closed her eyes for a moment in concentration, and when she opened them again, a large bedroll shimmered into reality on the floor before them.

She grinned up at Anarath. “Oh. Right,” the dragon conceded.

Together, they clumsily set up the bedroll, laying out a corner beneath the tallest outcroppings of wall. Their work was messy, but with each other for support, they soon found themselves locked in an embrace laid out under the stars.

If all of eternity could be like this moment, Anarath would have everything she could ever possibly want.

“I can’t remember the last time I felt this happy,” she whispered to her mate.

“I think I can,” Ulaia whispered back, her soft hoot like an alto note in the twinkling world around them.

“Oh?” Anarath asked, bumping her snout lightly in between the bird’s eyes, gently nuzzling the soft fluff between them. “When?”

“A couple of hours ago,” she replied with an amused lilt. “When we gave our vows.”

Anarath gave her a teasing lick, and gently wrapped her tail around the owl’s body, pulling her closer. “I love you,” she said again, for the umpteenth time that night. “I love you so much. I want to be with you forever.”

“You will, now,” Ulaia replied, giggling with glee as she spread a wing around the dragon’s larger form. “You’re mine, and I’m yours. Forever.”

“I know,” Anarath replied. “I just want to say it. Again and again. I don’t want the song to ever forget.”

“The song doesn’t forget things,” Ulaia replied. Then, in a softer note, “We should know that better than anyone.”

“It better not start now,” Anarath teased.

There was a lull in their words, and Anarath tilted her gaze up towards the starry sky. More questions about the songweave trickled their way into her mind. The stars in the rest of the song weren’t really where they appeared to be. When you looked up, the stars you saw were simply illusions, memories of what once had been. Ulaia had explained that to her. The depths had swallowed them down when Arcadia had fallen. The sea of stars was the real night sky. But what about here? If she flew up far enough, what would she find? She imagined the two of them taking off, flying through the sky, rising higher and higher until the stars themselves surrounded her. She imagined touching them with her wingtips, hearing their song, their lights dancing a pattern around her as she and her mate explored the infinity beyond.

Once again, her musings were interrupted by her mate. Her talons clasped along her scales, pulling herself up as she climbed on top of the larger dragon, pushing her gently to guide her to roll over onto her back. Anarath obliged, splaying her wings to the side as she revealed her icy blue underbelly, which Ulaia slipped on top of, lying along its cool length as she normally did when they were alone together. She began to trail one of claws along the ridged edges of the dragon’s scutes, a playful smirk overtaking her expression.

“I’ve been looking forward to this all night, you know,” she said. “Everything feels so… different here. So heightened. I wonder how good you could make me feel.”

Anarath looked up into her eyes, and felt a stirring in her lower belly that had been worming its way through her all night. Her tail shifted beneath her, and she slipped it up and around, draping over Ulaia’s back. She reached up a talon and slipped off that beautiful violet dress, and with some wriggling from the bird, it quickly slipped onto the floor beside them, leaving the owl bare-feathered for Anarath to enjoy.

She couldn’t have kept her talons away from her lover if she wanted to - and she certainly didn’t want to. The dragon stroked a claw down Ulaia’s back, casually preening stray feathers back into place as she admired her curves, hidden somewhat beneath the layers of feathers, but no less there. Anarath imagined all birds had soft feathers to some degree or other, but she couldn’t imagine anyone having softer feathers than Ulaia. She was like snuggling a warm night breeze - one that rumbled and spoke back to you, and thought the most interesting thoughts and fixated on the most fascinating things.

Her tail wrapped around one of Ulaia’s thighs, and the tip began to explore the soft underfluff beneath her tail feathers, searching for its favorite spot. Ulaia’s back stiffened beneath her claws, and she let out a soft owlish coo of pleasure as her sex was probed.

“This night is yours,” Anarath whispered, craning her neck to speak directly into her ear. “I’m yours. I’ll give you anything you want. Anything.”

“I… I want you inside me,” Ulaia whispered back, breath already hitching from pleasure.

Anarath was more than happy to oblige. The prehensile tip of her tail entered into Ulaia’s warm sex, gently but surely penetrating the owl and filling her with ecstasy. They had been doing this for months by now - it was one of the first sexual acts the two of them had performed in their relationship, back when they had no idea how their two bodies could function together, but that Anarath had a tail and Ulaia had an orifice to put it in. Over time, she had explored every inch of Ulaia’s body, had discovered all the ways in which she liked to be filled, all the spots that felt the best for her to touch and how the owl wanted her to touch them. She moved slowly, drawing it out, settling into the familiar grooves that her partner so enjoyed. Giving someone pleasure was a lot like telling a story - it needed pacing, it needed buildup, and it needed an understanding of climax and resolution. Through trial and error and careful exploration, they had discovered the stories that each other liked, in more ways than one.

Ulaia’s legs clenched around Anarath’s tail, her talon’s gripping the dragons as she leaned down, gently nipping Anarath’s long neck with her beak, finding purchase amongst her scales and holding on for just a moment. The way her beak clicked against her neck was another small pleasure that Anarath had come to adore, one that the songweave heightened just like any other. The noises their lovemaking contributed to the world around them sounded just as ethereal and whimsical as the most beautiful of instruments, and every moan from the beautiful bird’s beak was a note echoing through the symphony of stars above them.

A small grin crept over her snout as thoughts of the songweave gave her an idea. One’s soul was manifested in more direct, visible way here. With her gift… Well, it wasn’t like they hadn’t tried something like this before, but here… she could do so much more with so much less effort.

With her talons, she grasped out at Ulaia’s soul, the starry pigments that ran across her chest and formed her very being. With the lightest possible touch, she tangled her talons through the strings, holding them in place as her tail momentarily stilled. Ulaiath let out an undignified, momentary squawk of alarm, clearly not expecting such an intimate and intense sensation.

“A-A-nar-ath…” she moaned, her heavy breathing barely letting her form a full sentence. “Wh-What are y-you…”

“You said you wanted me inside of you,” Anarath replied softly. Her talons twitched ever so slightly, observing the ways in which her movements made her mate twitch and moan. “Here, I can do that more thoroughly than anywhere else.”

“Are… Are you sure this is…?”

She kissed Ulaia on the beak, silencing her. “Trust me,” she requested. “I won’t hurt you. Just… tell me where it feels good. And I’ll follow those threads.”

Ulaia nodded breathlessly, her eyes half-lidded, clearly barely able to form a coherent thought beyond the sensations filling her.

Anarath grinned, and twitched one of her talons, vibrating one of the strings of Ulaia’s soul. “How does that feel?” she asked.

“We… Weird,” Ulaia replied.

She tried another one. “How about that?”

Ulaia flinched. “Not that one.”

“Okay. How about this one?”

It took some trial and error, like all of their lovemaking had at some point, but Anarath was eventually able to map out the strings of Ulaia’s soul, finding out which parts of her partner wanted to be shared and which were shy to her touch. Her talons danced through the strings, enjoying the sounds Ulaia made in response. It was as if she were playing her partner like an instrument - almost literally. With her tail, she continued to penetrate her, wrapping its thickening length around her thighs, around her body, letting her wings droop over them as she held her in place, brushing against the sensitive spots on her back and thighs, preening through her soft feathers to the sensitive skin beneath.

“You deserve this, Ulaia,” she whispered to her, unsure if the bird could even hear over the intense torrent of sensation. “You deserve everything I can give you and so, so much more…” “An… arathh…” her beak was parted slightly, tongue clearly visible, and Anarath could tell from the way her soul pulsed around her talons that she was in true bliss.

“My sweet Ulaia,” Anarath whispered back.

She twitched her tail tip against Ulaia’s most sensitive spots, and finally sent the bird over the edge. Her inner walls clamped around Anarath’s tail as she let out a piercing moan. Her entire body clenched and quivered as her orgasm rocked her, and Anarath kept her steady with her talons and tail, holding her up as she rode the wave of ecstasy and bliss.

Her moans gradually faded into small little coos of satisfaction, her body’s shudders became small tremors, and before long, she slumped forwards in Anarath’s grip, wings drooping to the side as her head lolled forward in spent ecstasy. Anarath let go of the strings of her soul and gently lowered her onto her belly scutes, cautiously unwrapping her tail as she went.

Ulaia closed her eyes and passed into unconsciousness.

----------

Anarath kept her mate propped against her side on the bedroll, curling her tail and body around her soft, feathered form as she slept. She wasn’t out for long, but even when she came back, she barely had any energy left.

“H-hey…” she mumbled, pressing her beak into Anarath’s neck.

Anarath lifted her head, placing it gently over the bird’s chest as she looked into her eyes. “Hey,” she replied, giving her chin an affectionate lick.

Ulaia giggled, the sound a barely audible coo. “I… That was… incredible.”

“What was it like?” Anarath asked.

“It was like…” she paused, clearly considering the question. “It was like… all of the flux in my body was ringing at once. Like I was the brightest, clearest part of the song. Like I was a star going supernova.”

“I… Is that a good thing?” Anarath asked, ears tilting back with concern.

“It… It was a little scary, in the moment,” Ulaia admitted. “You really did a number on me.”

Anarath tightened her grip on Ulaia, pulling her closer protectively. Ulaia seemed to sense her concern, and weakly twitched a wing in a dismissive gesture. “Don’t… Don’t worry about it. It was… It was wonderful, Anarath. I just feel bad that I can’t return the favor. I… can’t really move.”

Anarath chuckled, and gave her mate a squeeze. “It’s okay. I’m happy enough just being here with you.” “Okay…”