Kazue was aloh a dragon egg. It was a daunting bit of reality in many ways, but not nearly as overwhelming as watg rock flow to form this chamber, and seeing it do the same to isote Moriko and Bridgette. She had less to fear thahers, this portion of her spirit would flow back to her core if her body died and she had absolute faith that if some trace of corruption mao follow her then Mordecai would take care of it.

  That didn't mean there was nothing to fear. She certainly didn't want to experiehat sort of death; drowning had been unpleasant enough and she had plenty to fear in the form of worry about Moriko and Bridgette. But fear wasn't going to be useful here, so she o meditate.

  While her dream-touched, psychic magic didn't require mu the way of meditation to master, her spiritual magic did. Thankfully, her wife and husband had both insisted that she learn the basics, and Moriko had tihat training after her spiritual magic had awakened.

  She settled herself o the egg and closed her eyes to begin. First, she stilled the roil of her emotions, enf ess as she separated out all the pieces of what she was feeling at that moment. Things like fear ament were not useful here, but they were aowledged fully before bei aside to deal with ter.

  When she was ready, Kazue brought the egg into the circle of her awareness and what she allowed herself to think about as the ritual began. Mordecai had taught her how a standard familiar ritual worked, but this was more plicated. The more advahe entity that was to bee a familiar, the more plicated the ritual generally was. Their host was taking care of part of that for them, and almost all of it for Moriko.

  Kazue wanted a friend to py with. That was the part of herself that she could best ect the idea of a familiar to; someone who would be by her side as she talked and pyed with her dungeon inhabitants, someone who could have fun boung on Kstoria or singing and dang with the theater bunkins. A panion to so the kit with her for a midnight snack, and who would spire with her to py a prank on Mordeoriko.

  There were some pces and activities where the friend would not be involved, but that was okay too. A friend arate person too, and her new friend should be able to make more friends of their own as well. Most of their lives would be shared together, but not all. That was the natural way of life.

  All of these thoughts and feelings had beeo the life that was just awakening in the egg, its mind starting to form immediately after sciousness. Feient beings formed minds that quickly, but that made these early moments even more critical. This is where most of their personality was developed. Now that e began to feed back to Kazue, and it hurt.

  fusion and pain, need and hunger roiled ihe mind and body of the f dragon. Kazue cried out as she shared that pain and leaned in to hug the egg tightly. She soothed the little one inside, g soft promises of how she would take care of it, she was here to take away the suffering. Kazue wanted her new friend to be happy and joyous, and she would do whatever it took to ease away the hurt. All she needed was for her new friend to trust her, and Kazue would gdly take this pain so that her friend didn't o suffer. They were going to take this on together.

  Time lost meaning as she sank into that mire of torment, but the terrible, primal needs inflicted by that living corruption could not take her. She stood firm against the torrent and drew the newborn soul to her, ing it in fort and security as she helped guide the new mind into finding itself. Kazue's presend the shape of her mind and desires were iably perma influences on the f personality, but she had to be in order to provide the anchor that the ied hatg dragon could hold ont these critical moments.

  There was a sharp crag sound, and soon after Kazue opened her eyes to greet the baby dragon tumbling out of the egg and into her p. For a dragon, the creature was rather catlike in shape, plete with a c of red fur that mostly hid her protective scales. But no cat had those wings, and the molten gold of this feline-like dragon's eyes was unmistakable.

  "Oh, you are such a beautiful girl, yes you are," Kazue said with a light sing-song note in her voice as she stroked the newborn soothingly, "and red fur just like my own," though not a match, given that her new friend had stripes of alternating shades of red and red-e. The baby dragon burped, elig a yelp from Kazue as she dodged the tiny fireball, followed by giggling. "Oh, I think I know what I want to call you. What do you think of elian Fme? We call you just elian or Fme for short. Or maybe Cara? Neli? Anyway, my wife's given us a family name, so I guess that would make you elian Fme Azeria. That's a nice majestiame, for a majestic girl like you." Kazue wasn't sure why she khe dragon's gender, but she was certain that she was correct.

  The dragon blinked up at her and then nodded uainly. "Yes? I think that is a good name, Mother?" she half said, half asked.

  Kazue giggled happily. "Oh, that's sweet, but I am afraid not. Your mother is very sick, and your father is having to spend almost all of his energy taking care of her until she gets better. So he asked me to help take care of you. But don't worry, I am going to love you just as much as she would if she could be here, and I am going to take great care of you. We have a wonderful home waiting for you, and you will get to have lots and lots of friends to py with. Doesn't that sound fun?"

  elian Fme purred softly as she replied, "Yes, that does sound like a lot of fun, Mistress."

  Oh dear. Kazue should have expected that. Hmm. "You call me that if you want, but you also just call me by my name, Kazue, or maybe 'Miss' if you want. Perhaps Lady? Well, we work on it, I just want you to be happy. e on, it's time to get ourselves together awo of your siblings, along with my wife and a friend of ours. You get to meet my husband whe home."

  This was wheiced how much of a mess the process had left. Her 'kitten' might be twenty pounds, but there was at least twenty pounds more 'stuff' that was left behind, not including the shell. Kazue khat the normal egg hatg didn't leave behind this much material and saw no reason that this wouldn't be true fons as well, so she retty certain that the dark sludge was a sacrificial offcast to elimihe corrupted flesh. A few whispered spells got the worst of it off of her, and elialed onto her shoulders to watch.

  Which was also how Kazue came to realize that her cat-like dragon had six legs for some reason. This also meant fifty pert more prickles and pokes while the young dragon learned cw trol. Ow. They were going to have to work on that.

  When they were let out into the main chamber, Moriko was already there with her new friend and Bridgette didn't take too much loo arrive. Kazue shuddered with relief as that fear ut at ease.

  Moriko's familiar was a long, sleek-bodied dragon with bright blue and yellow stripes, a whip-like tail, and two heads, one of them all blue and the other all yellow. She'd he yellow one "Lightning" and the blue ohunder", and niamed them both "Sparks", for when she heir attention fast, though the dragon had to speak for her to let them knoropriately for their names, Lightning could spit bolts of electricity and Thunder could use a sonic scream, though much like with elian they both had a ways to go before they could be sidered useful as attacks.

  Bridgette's new friend was almost bird-like in appearance, covered as mu multi-colored feathers as he was in scales and with feather-covered wings, though he did still have fs. Though his snout was long and slender, it was still clearly a mouth, not a beak, and was filled with tiny sharp teeth. Bridgette had named him "Fintan", which meant "White Fire". Her breath on was white like phoenix fire but also carried the potency on fire. That meant little for now, but the princess was going to have quite the terrifying guardian as her friend grew into his power.

  Everyone had some of the sludge from this particur process ging to them, but none of the women wao stay any lohan they o so they ed up minimally befrabbing their packs. They were all familiar enough with the corruptions by now to tell that the sludge was pletely dead and merely gross instead of harmful.

  The dream fragment maed at the exit from the mound and said, "My children, I am gd you are safe and well, and I am sorry that your mother and I ot raise you. Moriko, Kazue, Bridgette, I ask that you keep these events mostly a secret, but also request that if you find others who are capable of and willing to take on this task that you help them find us."

  Hmm. Kazue g the other two and then back to the image of a silver-haired man. "We'll discuss that topic ter, but if nothing else know that we will sider the welfare of your children first."

  Their host bowed his head in aowledgment and disappeared. The way out opened for them, and a flickering light led the way across the wastend that had been filled with corruption just days before. Even now there was an occasional fsh of silvery dragon fire.

  During the trek out through the caves, Kazue pted the nature of this corruption. While it was a reasonable description of the end effect, it wasn't as malignant as the word made it sound. There was no ill i associated with it, it was 'only' some basistincts and needs being unbanced and fueled by magito something that could spread and i other creatures. That it came from undoing some of Mordecai's work in how he crafted his camity dragons was rather disturbing, and she was fairly certain that her core was digging for more details right now.

  They made a camp in the valley outside of the dungeon, which gave their familiars some space to roam about and explore, both physically aally. elian was the one who roamed the furthest and quickly proved to be a little huhough Kazue was quite happy to pass on sharing that little meal, all her previous ire at squirrels fotten. Fintan didn't feel mueed to explore iail but he clearly enjoyed being able to practice flying, his wings stretched out wide as he glided in slow circles above the camp.

  Sparks flitted bad forth from the camp, chasing after their sister. It was clear they wao explore more, but they also wao be close by in case their mistress heir help transtihoughts. For Kazue, the most amusing part about that was when Lightning and Thunder would bicker about the exact best way to express a thought whenever Moriko wasn't crystal clear about what exact words she wahem to pass on for her. They made for adorable 'twin' brothers.

  As for the dragon's identity, they seemed to switch bad forth between sidering themselves a siity and the two heads behaving indepely. Kazue suspected that having two brains was a little like having a core and an avatar but without the same type of synization. She wondered if they ted as having one soul or two? Both options seemed plicated and fusing. you have one and a half souls? Probably not.

  Their tent was very warm that night, with three baby dragons snuggling in as well, but Kazue was gd for the extra fort. The past week had been physically aionally exhausting, and this was the safest she'd felt sihe night they'd received their visitor. She did still wonder what his name was, but he probably wao avoid the possibility of being distracted by its use. It seemed likely to her that he owerful enough to be respoo the use of his name, even if he couldn't directly hear the person saying it.

  Zagaroth