“And here it is,” Phaedra said proudly, unable to keep her tail from wagging a little bit. “My own personal airship, the Transportation Pride.” She motioned towards the small airship. As opposed to the great warships her father and uncle used, her ship was far smaller. It was held aloft with three balloons, all of which were a gentle pink. Below them the main ship was connected by thick, enchanted ropes. It was just large enough to house her cabin and the small crew for short trips, albeit a little cramped if she left her cabin. The ship itself was a light sky blue and the sides held the masts, now folded to its side, which were white. She grinned at Yroth.

  The dragon just stared at her for a moment before reaching up to tug at the enchanted collar around her throat. “It looks… small. And unstable. If I transformed into my full size it would crumble.”

  “It’s not made for battle or dragons,” Phaedra said before giving a soft sigh and lowering her eyes, her tail going still and wool deflating slightly. “Sorry...”

  “Is there something I’m missing here?” Yroth asked.

  “No, no,” Phaedra mumbled softly before she started walking towards the ship. “It’s nothing. It probably doesn’t translate into this world, anyway.”

  “Are you sure? You seemed so excited a moment ago,” Yroth said. “Your tail was even wagging.”

  “I-it was not,” Phaedra said with a light, embarrassed bleat before covering her mouth. “I-I mean, it’s not important.”

  “The… TP?” Yroth asked.

  “N-no,” Phaedra said. “Please don’t call it that.”

  “The Pride of Transport?” Yroth asked.

  Phaedra gave a light groan and shook her head.

  “Transport Pride?” Yroth asked.

  “Trans pride,” Phaedra said. “It… it was a thing where I was from.”

  “Ohhhhh,” Yroth said. After a few moments she gave another shrug. “I don’t get it.”

  “Never mind,” Phaedra said, hanging her head.

  Yroth gave a sigh of her own. “You’re pouting. I can tell. Your wool is very expressive.”

  “W-what? I -- eep!” Phaedra’s cheeks turned redder. “It just… sounded cooler in my head when Daddy told me I could name it. I’d never had a ship I could name before.”

  Yroth paused before glancing around to make sure nobody was nearby. She then leaned in and whispered to her. “What about the Indomitable?”

  “They named that,” Phaedra said. “I wanted to name it the Dentist’s Pick because it kind of looked like one. They said that was a stupid name and didn’t make any sense.”

  Yroth gave a low growl, but didn’t say anything back. She suspected that was because a small gecko demon had started to make his way towards them. He gave the dragon an annoyed glare before turning to Phaedra and bowing his head. “My lady? The Transportation Pride is ready to depart. Once you and your pet are secured, we’ll take off.”

  Yroth gave another growl and snapped at him, making the demon quickly back away. Phaedra reached out and gripped her by the collar, yanking her back. “Behave,” she said harshly. “Or you’ll be disciplined.” The dragon’s eyes narrowed, but she didn’t growl again. Phaedra then looked towards the demon. “Captain Xenaris, I trust you’ll inform me if there’s any problems?”

  His eyes went wide for a moment and he stared at her in stunned silence. Then, finally, he nodded. “Of course, my lady. Would you like an escort to help you secure your pet?”

  “No, that won’t be necessary. Depart at once, I’ll secure my pet myself,” Phaedra said before guiding Yroth up the gangplank and then across the deck into her cabin. She quickly closed the door behind them before walking to the windows to cover them. Finally, she cast a small incantation and a white glow spread out through the room, washing over the walls before disappearing. “There,” she said. “Nobody can listen in on us now.”

  “Pet?” Yroth asked, glaring at her. “Disciplined?”

  “You’re currently my pet. At least until we get you home,” Phaedra said before walking to her bed and collapsing on it. “Please try to behave until you’re safe.” It was nowhere near as soft or comfortable as her normal bed, more of a cot. Then again, her actual bed was in pieces, so maybe it wasn’t so bad. Yroth was already walking around the room, looking over everything like a cat exploring her new home. She couldn’t help but snicker.

  “What?” Yroth asked before pulling open the door on the wardrobe. She then flapped her wings once before glancing back at her, a single eyebrow lifted. “Really?”

  “What?” Phaedra asked. “You didn’t think I was going to leave them all at home, did you? What if we needed them?”

  Yroth reached a single arm in and came out with at least a dozen amulets on her wrist. “Who needs this many enchanted amulets?”

  “I-I’ve almost got the full set,” Phaedra said sheepishly before lightly poking her fingers together. “Don’t judge me…”

  “I am definitely judging, Morgana,” Yroth said before tossing them back inside. “Do you think your captain suspects anything? He -- whoa!” She grabbed the wardrobe and held on when the ground beneath them started to shift.

  Phaedra took a slow, deep breath. She never liked this part. She was grateful to not get airsick anymore, but there was always that small part of her that screamed she was going up and if she fell, she’d die. She knew it wasn’t true, in fact she’d been in at least one airship crash already. But there was always that lingering reminder that she had once been a human. Up they rose into the sky, the world falling away below them. Yroth didn’t move from her position, still clutching the wardrobe until, finally, they stopped rising and just went forward.

  “I hate airships,” Yroth said softly. “It is unnatural to fly without your own wings.”

  “We have to travel somehow,” Phaedra said. “Not all of us have wings, and I am not running all the way there.”

  “How long must I wear this collar?” Yroth asked.

  “Give it a little bit and I’ll take it off,” Phaedra said. “Just make sure nobody sees. I’d rather my dad not hear just how untamed you really are.”

  “Very well,” Yroth said before reaching up a claw to tug at the collar again. “And the other bindings?”

  “I’ll take them all off,” Phaedra said. “Once you’re done exploring my room like a curious cat.”

  “I am NOT a cat,” Yroth said before turning to glare at her.

  “You kind of are,” Phaedra said, giving her a teasing grin. “So, what about the captain?”

  “He was staring at you for a while,” Yroth said. “Is it possible he knows?”

  “Oh!” Phaedra said with a light chuckle. “No, they all do that. I don’t really go on my airship that much, so he was probably just surprised I remembered his name. You know, as much power as you people have in your names, you’d think remembering names would be more common.”

  “Names that hold meaning, yes,” Yroth said. “Most names are hollow and empty, meaningless. So Xenaris is not a demonic name of power?”

  “Not as far as I know,” Phaedra said. “But I still think it’s worth remembering his name. I feel it behooves me to remember the people who fly my ship around, because otherwise I may need to learn how to do it. Navigation has never really been something I’m good at.”

  “Indeed,” Yroth said. “I remember that little… detour… in the desert.”

  Phaedra gave a light groan. “Don’t remind me. I swear I can still taste that cactus jam. Even now just the smell makes me want to throw up. Some things stick with you across different lives.”

  “Humans truly are so delicate, it seems sheep aren’t much better,” Yroth said in a teasing tone before turning to walk towards the bed. She then held out her wrists. “Remove them.”

  “Fine, fine,” Phaedra said, reaching out to grab the bindings. She uttered the incantation before giving them a light tug. They unclicked and fell off with ease, dropping onto the cot with barely a sound. “You’re such a pushy pet. I am still the Wolf’s daughter, perhaps keep that in mind. A little respect could go a long way.”

  “And you’re barely a snack,” Yroth said. “Perhaps keep that in mind.”

  Phaedra gave a light snort and, after a few moments, all of the bindings were off her and neatly piled on the bed. “You shouldn’t call me Morgana, though.”

  “It is the name you were meant to have,” Yroth said. “Do you hate it so?”

  “N-no,” Phaedra said, her cheeks going a little red. Honestly, every time she was called it she felt her stomach do a little jump of excitement. “I like it. Possibly too much. It’s just going to cause trouble if others hear you calling me that.”

  “I fail to see the issue,” Yroth said.

  “Would you like me to start calling you Yroth in front of others?” Phaedra asked.

  Yroth’s eyes narrowed for a few moments before she gave a curt nod. “I see. Very well… Phaedra.”

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  “Thank you, though when it’s just us I don’t mind you calling me Morgana if you want,” Phaedra said before collapsing back on the bed. “So I guess what comes next is obvious. Do you want the bed or the floor?”

  “Excuse me?” Yroth asked.

  “To sleep,” Phaedra said. “We’re gonna be here for a while.”

  “Ahhhhh,” Yroth said before a mischievous grin formed on her lips. “We can share the bed.”

  “Ha!” Phaedra said before glancing over at her. “Oh, don’t even try that. Lilith tricked me with that one like three times. There’s a reason I only ever shared a room with Atlas.”

  “Oh?” Yroth asked. “I was often curious about that. Though I don’t quite understand what you mean.”

  “Nothing,” Phaedra said, her cheeks burning bright red now. “I’ll sleep on the floor. I can make myself a little bed of wool, anyway.”

  “Oh? Do you fear being that close to me so much?” Yroth asked with a smirk.

  Phaedra groaned and felt her cheeks getting even hotter. “Well… not entirely. I mean, I guess I’m scared I’d like it too much and it’ll make letting you go even harder. But honestly? You’re still a dragon. All it takes is one bad dream and I’ll be airing out my cabin for a week to get rid of the scent of singed wool.”

  That knocked the smile off her lips. “I do NOT breathe flame in my sleep,” Yroth said indignantly.

  “I’m not willing to take that risk,” Phaedra said. “You shouldn’t flirt with me. Less than a day ago you were trying to bite my head off.”

  “True,” Yroth said before sitting beside her. Her tail gently reached out, the tip stroking down Phaedra’s back and sent tingles through her body. “But the more I… accept that you are Med-- are Morgana, the more I see him… I see her inside you. I--” She was cut off when Phaedra lunged forward and just hugged her. “What… are you doing?”

  “You corrected yourself,” Phaedra said gently.

  “I’m… sorry?” Yroth asked.

  “You said him but then changed to her,” Phaedra said before looking up at her, a big grin on her face. “You have no idea how much that means to me.”

  “What?” Yroth asked. “I haven’t even… that doesn’t even make sense. I don’t understand.”

  “I… it’s hard to explain,” Phaedra said before pulling away from her and wiping the small bit of moisture that formed from her eyes. “Sorry, it’s kind of dumb. Never mind.”

  “Try,” Yroth said. “I would like to know more of your world, if I could.”

  Phaedra gave a soft sigh before nodding. “Well… back home, there would be a few people who did that. Would call you him, then try and switch it to her when they realized you were a girl. But, well, they were sometimes the minority. A lot of people would just… call you him. And keep calling you him. Even when you corrected them. Sometimes they didn’t care. Sometimes they did it to deny you from being, well, you. To try and hurt you. As a kind of… refusal to acknowledge you as a girl. Usually by people who wanted to take away your right to even exist.”

  Yroth just stared at her for a few more moments, her head cocked to the side. “I… do not… understand. Is there power in those words in your world?”

  “No,” Phaedra said. “Not like there is here.”

  “Then why?” Yroth asked.

  “Because they wanted to cause pain,” Phaedra said bitterly. “Because they wanted to force you into a small little box that marked you as different from them so they had every excuse they needed to hurt and take from you. Because the cruelty was the point to them.”

  “They put you in a box?” Yroth said again, the confusion even more evident on her features.

  “It’s… kind of,” Phaedra said. “Sorry. It doesn’t really… make any sense, does it?”

  “It does not,” Yroth said. “But it makes you happy when I call Medon her?”

  “It really does,” Phaedra said. “Would have made me happy then, too.”

  “Then I don’t see why I wouldn’t,” Yroth said. “It costs me noth--” She was cut off again when the sheep hugged her. “Your world was a strange place.”

  “It really was…” Phaedra said gently.

  “Besides, you are far cuter when you’re like this,” Yroth said.

  “You think I’m cute?” Phaedra asked before pulling back, a big grin on her face. She couldn’t help it, her wool was poofing a little and her stubby little tail was wagging. It took a few moments but she finally managed to make both calm down.

  “At moments like now you’re absolutely adorable,” Yroth said with a light chuckle. “Also far easier to read than Morgana was. She was always… I suppose, as you said, depressed.”

  “Yeah,” Phaedra said nervously, poking her fingers together. “I’ll be honest. It’s not always easy being like this. Especially considering I know how easily it can all go bad. If Daddy ever finds out who I really am he’ll… probably tear me apart and eat my heart. Like he did when I was… Medon. But… aside from that, I don’t think it’s so bad. It’s really nice to not have those moments where I just want to stare at my reflection and start crying. Though I’ll admit that I could do without freaking out when I see my reflection because I think there’s someone else there.”

  Yroth gave a light snicker, a hand covering her mouth. “A-ah. I see. So you are quite dense as well.”

  “I’m not dense!” Phaedra said, her cheeks burning again. “I haven’t done it in a while. But I’ve lived…” she trailed off. “Huh. I guess I’ve lived longer as this than I ever did as a human. A lot longer, actually. I wonder why it still feels so… fresh?”

  “Ohhhh, that one I CAN answer,” Yroth said proudly, sitting up a little straighter and spreading her wings out. “And that is because you were human.”

  “Uhhhh…” Phaedra asked, staring at her. “That tells me nothing.”

  “Humans are a very short-lived species,” Yroth said. “You grow quickly, age quickly, develop quickly. You forgot quickly. You’d likely have struggled to remember anything from a millenia ago, even if you had lived long enough.”

  “How do you know this?” Phaedra asked. “You never even met a human before me.”

  Yroth gave an indignant huff before scowling at her. “I am an Ascended Dragon. Do not doubt the resources I can pull on. While I was not alive when humans still walked this world, there were Ascended Dragons who were. When I discovered that the creature summoned from another world was a human, I merely asked about them.”

  “Oh? What did the Ascended Dragons have to say about us?” Phaedra asked.

  “That, mostly,” Yroth said. “You were short-lived. Destructive. Capable of wiping out entire civilizations and then forgetting it within a mere decade or so. Apparently they had their uses, but extinction was the only end they could meet. When one lives such a short time, they rarely consider the consequences of their actions. Ravaging the land was common for them, leaving them in shambles to their ancestors until, finally, they all perished.” She paused and looked her up and down. “No offense intended, Morgana. I am certain the creatures of your home are… better than that.”

  “Ehhhh,” Phaedra said with a shrug. “I guess. We rarely prepare more than a decade in advance, honestly. If even that. And we were kind of destroying our home. But none of us expected to be alive in a century, let alone a millennium. I don’t think any of our nations had even been truly around that long, let alone our people.”

  “Such a very, very strange world,” Yroth said.

  “Then again, we had things like the Internet,” Phaedra said. “So not all bad. We advanced considerably faster than your world. Especially considering we didn’t have magic.”

  “A horrifying world, then,” Yroth said. “So quick to appear and then disappear in a flash. Though I cannot imagine why internal nets would be useful. But now? You are a demon. You remember things like a demon. And if the memories you had as a human were… passionate? Strong? You’ll likely remember them far more clearly than you ever will your memories as a demon.”

  Phaedra nodded, though she didn’t entirely understand it. She didn’t feel like her memory was any better. It more felt like her memories didn’t fade like they used to when she was a human. She could already barely remember what she’d had to eat a few days ago unless she really thought about it, but so many memories of her life as a human were so clear and vivid as if they had just happened. She wondered if that was part of why she still felt so much like the person she had been, rather than feeling like just another demon with a short lifetime of memories. “Thank you.”

  “For what?” Yroth asked.

  “Trying to understand and help,” Phaedra said. “For listening to me, I guess. For, uhhh… for everything. For still being here.”

  “Still… being here?” Yroth asked. “I am still bound, whether I admit it or not. You are the best chance I have of returning to my home.”

  “I mean, I guess… still being alive,” Phaedra said. “I mean… I know it’s silly. But I always hoped we’d meet again. I heard about you from my dad and uncle all the time, but I never thought I’d see you again. I never thought I’d really see another friendly face. The only one of my friends still alive.”

  Yroth stared at her for a long, long time after that. Finally, she shook her head. “Morgana, you are a strange one. You truly do know so little of our world even now, do you?”

  “Huh? What is that supposed to mean?” Phaedra asked.

  “You always said our names never affected you the way they do us,” Yroth said. “But do you understand what it means to have a name stolen?”

  Phaedra shook her head. “I guess like… there’s some magic, right?”

  “In some cases, yes,” Yroth said. “Some names can be stolen by any. Some can only be stolen by those of the same species. For example, human names have long, long since vanished. You… believe the others had perished, do you not? Atlas, Eve, Lilith?”

  “I mean, I saw them,” Phaedra said. Her heart started to beat a little faster and she sat up. “A-are you saying… are you saying they’re still alive? That’s--”

  “Don’t,” Yroth said, her voice cold and harsh. “I can see the excitement in you. Do not.”

  “W-what?” Phaedra asked. “Isn’t this good news? I mean, if they’re alive--”

  “Their names have not been taken on by others,” Yroth said. “Likely cannot be. Which means they are, likely, alive. Though I imagine their fate is… not one to envy. None could take your name, so the Wolf was free to kill you. The others… he would not allow them another chance.”

  “Oh…” Phaedra said softly, the horror finally dawning on her. “Y-you mean they might be… prisoners? Or… worse?”

  “If they are alive, then certainly,” Yroth said softly. “Many, many names have been taken from us. Imprisoned. Trapped. Did you truly know so little?”

  “I tried to avoid thinking about it,” Phaedra said softly. “I looked into things where I could, but I couldn’t ask about Medon or the war. It certainly wasn’t something demons wanted to talk with me about, either. I didn’t want to risk drawing any attention to what I was. But I thought they were all… dead. I would have… I… I need to find them. If they’re out there, I need to do something. I-I didn’t know. I swear I didn’t know,” Phaedra said, tears welling up in her eyes. “I never would have--” She was silenced with a finger being pressed to her lips.

  “Enough,” Yroth said. “We have no way of knowing for now. What you have done cannot be undone. But… once we have gained you your true name, Morgana, we can decide what to do from there. They will hold for now. If they can be found, then… they shall be.”

  Phaedra nodded, though she got to her hooves and walked towards the corner of the room.

  “Morgana?” Yroth asked.

  “I’m… a little tired,” Phaedra said softly before dropping down in the corner. Her wool started to wrap around herself, giving her makeshift padding to rest on as well as keeping her warm. “I’m just going to rest, okay? You should get some sleep as well. It’ll be dark soon.”

  Yroth stared at her for a moment before laying down on the bed. “I… see. Very well. Rest well, Morgana.”

  “You too, Yroth,” Phaedra said softly. She didn’t really feel tired, though.

  She felt guilty. She’d really only thought that Yroth was still alive. Was it possible the others were as well? Had she really spent nearly a century frittering her time away, while her friends were trapped somewhere?

  She didn’t deserve to be near Yroth right now. She felt like she didn’t deserve to be near anyone. She deserved to be buried in a deep, dark pit and left to suffer alone for millennia.

  Phaedra once more gave a silent prayer to the gods of this world that she would have the chance to make it up to them, to try and undo what her laziness and fear had caused. Even if she had to be the one to suffer for it.

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