“Laaaaaaaaaauuuuu!” Selene yells as she runs towards me, tackling me with a hug, wrapping her arms tightly in an embrace as I squeeze her back just as hard. She was really, really warm.

“Selene…” I whisper, holding her tight. “It’s been a while.”

“A while?” She asks. “Girl you haven’t been here for almost a year! You aren’t even that far away from us but you always say you’re sooooo busy…”

She gives me a slight pout as I smile, embarrassed. “Believe me, I do try to get home often but I don’t get many days off. The days I do get off I’m usually in bed and passed out.”

“Ain’t that relatable. You won’t belieeeeve how much more work mum gives me just ‘cause I’m her daughter. Like I’m a professor at the university now too so I have my own stuff to do you know!?” She gives me a big eye roll and I giggle, knowing that’s always been the case. Selene, like mother, was extremely talented with rune magic and it’s no surprise that she tended to pile extra work for Selene, much to her chagrin. “But anyways, this is about you! Come in, come in, I’m making dinner so let’s just eat a bit together alright? Mum’s still upstairs working so she won’t be here for a while, though I’m sure Lamorak let her know.”

“Oh, speaking of familiars, how’s yours?” I ask stepping into the main entrance. I then open the closet immediately to the left of the main door to hang up my cloak and jacket.

“Oh Aurianne? She’s actually in the kitchen right now, cooking with me before I went to get’cha. You wouldn’t believe what Aurianne can do nowadays though,” Selene says proudly as we walk towards the kitchen. On the way, we pass through the archway that led to our smaller living room, where the fireplace was. “She sparred with Vicky the other day and almost won! Almost won! A little fae knight almost beating one of the best swordsman in the god damn kingdom!”

“I’m telling you mistress, it wasn’t that close at all!” A pained, embarrassed, and squeaky voice yells out from inside the kitchen in response.

“Aw shut it you little green fly and just accept my praise! I was there watching you after all,” Selene said with a confident huff.

Now as we enter the kitchen, Aurianne gives an exasperated look at her mistress. She was in her human form which was no more than a meter and a half tall. In her human form she had dark green hair that curled at her diminutive shoulders, and she wore only an apron since she found other clothing restrictive unless it was armor. She was holding a ladle, with one hand tapping the stove to control the heat via Flow, and the other gently stirring the lid.

“You exaggerate everything I do and I don’t want to live up to higher expectations!” Aurianne pouts.

“Geez, you really don’t want any compliments from me, do you?” Selene sighs shaking her head. She gives the fairy a pat on the head before moving to the oven, checking whatever she had inside it.

“I’ve told you this before mistress, I’m nothing more than your humble servant, and don’t pat me like that!” She screeches like a young child, waving her ladle around in about as menacing as a girl of her stature could look. She finally notices me though after she was finished with her short tantrum. “Ah, Lauy! It’s really good to see you again, dinner’s almost ready so just give me a moment to set up…”

“Still working hard as ever then, Auri?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” the fairy says inattentively as she climbed up on one of the counters to reach one of the cupboards. She struggled to reach it, as usual. Considering her short stature—it was a wonder that she often did this for our family without any complaints. Selene was already preoccupied with her own food inside the oven so I went over to open the cupboard for the fairy, from which I took four bowls. Lamorak never came to dinner with the rest of us since he preferred to eat by himself, sulking up in mother’s grand library.

“Oh, Lauy, you really didn’t have to, I could’ve managed!” She exclaims as she jumped down, landing back on her feet.

“It’s my pleasure though, so don’t worry about it.” I ruffle her hair and she squeaks in response, thrashing to side to side—it was something she despised but nevertheless put up with it. It was a great teasing tactic anyways since she couldn’t really fight back. “What exactly are we having for dinner besides the soup there?” I ask.

“I baked some potatoes and chicken in here,” Selene replies, opening the oven and then taking out the large platter of chicken and potatoes. The smell of rosemary filled my nose as I sighed delightedly. “However, Aurianne over here recently developed a sweet tooth so I think she’s just gonna eat the cookies we have over there.”

“Not true!” She exclaims as she cut off the Flow to the stove, turning it off. “I eat other things too!”

“Yeah okay, but can you tell me what you’ve eaten over the past week that didn’t have something to do with cookies, chocolate, strawberry, vanilla, or ice cream?” Selene chides in teasing manner.

The fairy thought for a moment and then pouted, defeated. “So what!”

"You’re gonna get fat and ugly if you eat too many sweets, ya know.” Selene lectures.

“No I won’t! Flying is good exercise!”

“Yeah, but you aren’t exactly a particularly active fairy when you aren’t sparring.”

“Don’t you lecture me!!” Aurianne shouts, stomping her feet.

“Gods you two never change.” I laugh as the two bickered with one another. The two were really much more like sisters as opposed to mistress and servant. Even as the two continue to fight over how much candy and ice cream could actually affect a fairy’s body, they nevertheless set up the dinner table in perfect harmony. By the end of it all every bowl had soup in it, and the chicken was properly cut, and the potatoes properly seasoned.

“Oh my goodness, what’s with all the ruckus?” Another voice came from the other doorway, where the sliding door was pulled aside. A black haired woman appears from the doorway, her shoulders a bit broad and her nose pinched by a nose ring. She wore a blouse and skirt, very similar to Selene’s, though her eyes were a deep red as opposed to a bright pink. Her hair was tied up in a bun which was held by a blue butterfly ribbon. “My, you two just don’t ever shut up now, do you?”

“Hi mother.” I wave to her as she was rubbing her eyes, excited to see my mother again. She was probably busy doing research on the stars or runes upstairs as usual, judging from her appearance. Her bags had gotten a bit worse from the last time I’ve seen her, so I could tell she was working overtime.

“Ah, Lauriel!” She beams as she walks over and pulls me in for an extraordinarily tight hug, something she was particularly good at doing. It felt like my bones cracked underneath her hug before she finally let go—I haven’t had a hug from her in a long time. “How’s my little knight? You really should visit your old mother and sister you know, we always love having you come back home.”

“Well I was finally able to come back to the capital, though I’ll be leaving again tomorrow…”

“Aww, well that’s too bad,” mother frowns. “But at least stay the night here with your family, alright? We haven’t seen you in so long and we really should all catch up don’t you think? Come on, take a seat and let’s just talk like family.”

Mother guides me to the seat directly next to her, where I usually sit, with Selene and Aurianne seated directly across from us. Aurianne has already ignored her own soup that she made and was instead devouring a plate of cookies while Selene rolled her eyes, knowing her words wouldn’t reach the fairy.

“Has everything been alright at the Order sweetie? This past year has been very busy for us here too, mainly with the Queen’s coronation.”

“Man, mother’s putting that lightly.” Selene says, positively exasperated. “Everyone in the Noble District is blabbering and gossiping about what the next noble over there thinks about the Queen. Not to mention it’s going to be exam season soon and I really don’t want to get started with that…”

“Is it for alliances like the usual?” I ask, thinking about the usual noble bickering. “I didn’t really think that the Queen would be very unlikable, especially considering we had to live through Jeanne’s reign previously.” Queen Annabelle III, recently coronated after her mother died two years ago, was always a very popular princess. So I found it a bit strange that the nobility would have things to say about her. Some of the peasants viewed her as a living saint since all of her work as a princess went to bettering the common people.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

"Well it’s the fact that the common people adore her so much that gets people antsy.” Selene explains. “She’s a lovely person in general, but the nobility are very scared of her. That’s why they’re trying to form alliances in case they ever want to plot against her. It’s absolutely bonkers that I even get asked what my opinion is at the University. As if I’d give a public response like that!” Selene says, raising her arms in the air in contempt.

"It is very tiresome.” Mother agrees. “Do you not get asked by people in the Order, sweetie?”

“Nah, most of the Order really prefers to distance itself from politics. We’re also all the way in Vasal, so naturally most of the people there only care about fighting and sparring since they’re the bulk of our recruits.”

"Man that sounds like heaven.” Selene bemoans. “I can’t stand nobility no matter how long we’ve lived here.”

“Tell me about it.” I sigh. “It’s one of the reasons I left and went to join the Order. Even though there’s a hierarchy there it isn’t bad at all.”

“You guys always seem so idealistic, yet you still get things done.” Selene remarks.

“Honestly, I do it because fighting is the only thing I’m good at. Being thanked by people is really something special too,” I reply with a smile, thinking back on my past experiences.

“Hey, nothing wrong with fame and glory y’know, sis? What do you guys really even do at the Dragoon Order? You’re all pretty mysterious outside your whole slogan of ‘Protecting the innocent.’”

“Well, the Order was founded by a drakken a few decades after Empyrea fell apart by Grandmaster Claudius Draconis. He was kind of a one man army that wanted to protect people from all the bandits lurking around. His wyvern, Arcturus, was an egg that he stole from the wild but he ultimately grew fond of. That’s really the start of the Order--kind of just our own independent thing.”

“And here I was thinking that it’d be some grand, heroic legendary tale of defeating dragons dating far back.” Selene comments with a smirk.

“It’s really just a brotherhood that wants to help everyone it can. I guess that’s why Master picked me up so early.”

“Aww, I remember that day…” Selene smile, reminiscing.

“Oooh, is it story time?” Aurianne asks, having shifted back into her normal fairy form. She was now only about three centimeters tall and six centimeters wide at the wings, sitting on Selene’s shoulder.

“There wasn’t anything really special about it.” I shrugged.

“‘Anything special?’ Mother, this girl thinks that fighting off a bear by herself is nothing special!” Selene says incredulously. I sigh, not wanting anymore praise, but mother saw it as an opportunity to give me another hug.

“Now now, maybe to you it's not impressive anymore, miss wyvern-wrangler, Indigo Dragoon.”

“Mother...I can’t...breathe…” I squeak from her unbearably tight hug. Thankfully, she released me before I turned blue. Selene snickered.

“Looks like sis can take down a wyvern but still can’t break out of one of mother’s hugs!”

“Ha ha.”

“But how about we tell that story for little Aurianne here? I don’t think she’s heard about it before.” Mother suggests, and Aurianne nodded vigorously in agreement.

“Really, I mean it, it wasn’t anything special.” I say dismissively. “A bear attacked a family in the countryside outside Ilmeiya, and I chose to fight them, all there was to it.”

“You make it seem like wrestling a bear is a day to day task you do nowadays. We were both teens back then you know! I didn’t know any rune lore and you didn’t have any training either, yet you still almost won!”

“Almost is an overstatement.” I say simply. “Master saved my life, but I saved the family’s lives too at least. I guess he saw something in me that day, because I was by far the youngest member of the Order when he took me in.”

“And look at you now.” Mother smiles lovingly. “Both of you, you’ve both grown to be wonderful, lovely young women.”

“I mean, we both just chose what we were good at in the end.” I say simply.

“Yeah and yours is apparently wrestling a bear and standing in the line of fire of a Gatling gun.” Selene says with a smirk, referencing one of my more recent headlines in the news.

“The media completely contrived that story, I wasn’t even the reason we lived in that warehouse, it was Raye!”

“Ooooh, you mean that farmgirl you always talk about?” Selene asks, sitting up, all of a sudden more interested in the conversation.

“Yeah, she’s my partner for most missions these days.”

“Ooooh, ‘partners’ now, didn’t know you two were so much more intimate.” She teases, raising her eyebrows and I heave a large sigh. Selene was absolutely certain I had a thing for her even though I didn’t at all.

“Oh come now Selene,” Mother waves a hand, “Let Lauriel talk about what actually happened there at the warehouse. Usually her take on the story is a lot more interesting than how the media likes to write.”

“Well, the media mentioned Gatling guns when we cornered the smugglers in the warehouse right? We actually didn’t know they were there at all and we almost got ourselves killed cause of it.”

“So you mean the usual then.” Selene giggles again.

“Well instead of me fixing my own stupidity it was Raye this time. She barely knows any air thaumaturgy but she managed to throw her spear completely straight to take out both Gatling guns.”

“Wait what?” Selene says amazed.

“Yeah, we broke in through a window with our wyverns and immediately one of them started firing on us. We expected them to just surrender but they must have been expecting us, not like we had any other option to us though because they were going to leave the city the next day. Both of us took a few bullets but Raye managed to throw her spear straight at one of them, giving us time to dive for cover.”

“Huh, so I’m guessing this is where the story diverges from the news story?”

“Yeah, the media paints it like me being a hero and just charging, but it was really all Raye. She was the one that came up with the idea, even though I wanted to disagree with it since it was so risky.”

“What exactly happened?”

“I was supposed to catch a few bullets with a stream of water to give Raye just enough cover to throw her spear. This meant that she might get shot soon after since water won’t hold bullets for long, but she was willing to do so. Then I was supposed to charge and take out the gunner for good, as well as roundup the others. Thankfully, the police arrived right as I charged so I had even more backup, but obviously that made me look like the hero even though it was Raye that did the real heroic deed.”

“And Raye didn’t want the story changed?”

“She hates fame, and told me not to tell them what actually happened. She really doesn’t like any attention diverted to her honestly.”

“That was still a really good story though!” Aurianne cheers. “Lauy’s stories are always really fun and interesting.”

I smile to the fairy. “What about you three though? That mission was honestly the most interesting one I’ve had since the rest were just fighting bandits--very dull work lately.”

“Agh I honestly haven’t had time to do my own research really. Stupid students keeping me busy all the time, especially now that exams are coming up. I only managed to complete like...two grimoires over the past year. Pretty disappointing honestly.” She sighed, leaning back into her chair.

“Oh really? What were they this time?” I ask, always interested in my sister’s magical exploits.

“Just more Lore of Nature ones, the only one I’m honestly good at.”

“What she really means is the only dual element lore she’s good at.” Mother smiles, lightly petting her daughter from across the table. “You’re quite proficient in just Water and Earth my dear.”

“Yeah yeah.” She grumbles.

“What’s all this about dual elements? Is that something new?”

“Oh, did we never explain it to you sweetie?” Mother askes, tilting her head to the side.

“I don’t think so, no.”

“Well, traditional thaumaturgy only recognizes six elements, Light, Fire, Water, Earth, Air, and Shadow. However, in rune lore they are known as Life, Inferno, Torrent, Quake, Tempest, and Death. Master level thaumaturgy is effectively a dual element of the same element, in that Life is Light plus Light. That is what a dual element lore is.”

“So...instead of there being only six elements there’s actually…”

“21 Lores of Magic because of dual elements.” Mother states with a matter of fact tone. “The Lore of Nature is Earth plus Water. Does that make sense to you hun?”

“Kind of? I guess I’d have to be a real mage to understand it a bit better.”

“Basically dual element lores have a lot more unexplored territory in terms of spells. Your sister is just sulking since she isn’t that good at writing runes from lores other than Earth and Water.”

“I can hear you, mother!” Selene calls out, her face in her hands. She looked ashamed.

“Don’t worry about it sweetie, you’re still the best nature mage in the university. Nothing wrong with focusing on what you’re used to.”

“Well, compared to you…”

“That’s different, dearie. I’ve had experience with magic and runes in general for more than a century now, keep that in mind.”

My sister sighs, blowing a strand of hair upward. “Yeah yeah I guess so.”

“That’s a good girl, now, we should probably get cleaning. It’s getting pretty late.” Mother stretched and then points at the clock by the windowsill, and sure enough it was about thirty minutes to midnight.

“Oh, when did it get so late?” Selene asks, standing up and immediately stacking our bowls and plates together. I stack my own and mother’s, moving them with Selene to the sink.

“Can you two girls take care of the dishes tonight?” Mother asks, standing up. “I need to get back to my research, I think I’m on the verge of creating a new rune...”

“Oh! Which lore? You haven’t told me about it yet.” Selene asks, giddy to know.

“Secret.”

“Eeeh? Mother! Tell meeee!”

“Huhu, I’ll be sure to show you once I’m actually done, but it’s still mostly experimental. If you hear any explosions I probably made a major mistake.” She teases with a playful smile, before standing up and then giving me another hug. “When are you leaving tomorrow sweetie?”

“Very early tomorrow morning, actually. I came over to Ilmeiya because the Crown wanted me and a few other dragoons to do a mission for them.”

“Aww, guess our meeting isn’t as long as I’d have hoped.” She gave a small pout. “If I don’t wake up in time to see you off tomorrow here’s a kiss and a good luck in advance.”

She gives me another kiss on the forehead before leaving back to her upstairs study. With that, it was only me, Selene, and Aurianne in the room as we cleaned up the kitchen and dishes, putting them to the side when we were done.

“Oh yeah, sis?” I ask, as we headed for our bedroom at the opposite side of the mansion.

“Yeah what’s up?”

“I actually need to talk to mother real quick about something. I’ll get in bed later, alright?”

“Oh, sure. Don’t be too long though, you did say you have an early morning tomorrow.”

“I won’t!” I smile, before running back to the kitchen and then up the stairs to my mother’s office.