I hear our host comment, “See, what did I tell you? Aren’t they precious? Utterly adorable. She’s so protective of them, but has a fantastic sense of humor too. These young ones are newer to these parts than you could possibly imagine.”

A gruffer voice responds, “You’re always getting attached to any fresh blood in town my love. You still haven’t explained what you mean by my inability to imagine. What even—“

Tiago interrupts, “Ah, that’s not for me to say dearest. Oh, they’re awake, well, good. Early eve’ siesta is fine and all, but that isn’t why I invited them over.”

Since they’re speaking about us, I interject, “So, um, Tiago, I’ve heard you referred to by the prefix San, or straight up called Santiago. Does that mean you’re an Aasimovian priest?”

Tiago barks a short laugh, “Oh dios no. My village, Malta Verde, well, it’s no longer there, but it was a fair few miles northeast. We were Aasimovians, but not Aasimovians, if you catch my drift. How do I explain? George, you’re the historian, you know the tale.”

George takes over, “Malta Verde was an insular settlement, they had their own way of doing things. Tiago performed enough feats that qualified as miracles in the town’s eyes, so those earned him sainthood or something like that, in the town’s localized spiritual beliefs. It was before my time, though not by much. Right love?”

Tiago scoffs, “Right, yes yes. Mildred and Harriet tease that I’m a cradle robber because you’re younger. We didn’t meet until you were in your forties, almost thirty years ago. They’re a pair to talk, hmf.”

George laughs a moment, but addresses his husband, “Darling, it’s probably best not to let the gossip of the hens distract you from your guests.”

George leans in to kiss Tiago on the cheek, then bends down to pick up a large wicker basket that houses several clay jars. He takes them into what must be a storeroom for the apothecary.

Tiago lets out with a start, “Oh, right! Where are my manners? Can I get you any tea? Will you be staying for dinner?”

Teuila scrunches up her face, gazing upward and leftward in thought. Her smile dimples in an adorable fashion while she’s lost in thought as she tries to decide about the tea, leaving me to answer, “I, um, I don’t think either of us have ever had tea. We’ve been up since yesterday though, apparently, marching to get to Autumn Brook in time for, well, helping out with the problem. I think Keeley is still expecting us to return to check back in. Harriet wants us to talk over our plan with you, so we were going to visit even before I, um, fainted.”

Tiago raises an eyebrow, and nods towards me at the word plan, prompting me to continue, “Um, yes, well, we don’t really have one. Nothing concrete anyway. I have this habit of sort of, well, infiltrating a certain place, finding out a leader is evil, and, um, killing them. Teuila can vouch about the Beaver Dam tunnel complex.”

Teuila, startled from her reverie in which she was apparently forgetting to breathe, exhales a puffed breath, “Psheww, aint that the truth. My poor doofpunk. Three for three in the same place. Every time. The last time though, that was definitely the last time. I mean, not just because the world was ending.”

Tiago’s confused gaze causes Teuila pause. She shrugs helplessly, leaving me to pick up, “Uh, well, when we left our world behind, we thought we were making a sacrifice that might save a portion of our world, or all of it, or something. Even with that sacrifice though, there was going to be destruction on an epic, godly scale. Everything was going to be wiped from the map, even places like the tunnel complex.”

I look around, ashamed as I continue, “The beaverfolk though, um, there were two factions. One of them was overwhelmingly evil in motive. Some of its members were willing, some were coerced, in a vile way. I, uh, killed the coercer on the first trip. On the second trip, I stumbled into a plot to resurrect the coercer, and killed the plotters. On the third trip, I literally fell into a plot to resurrect it in deep, dark, secret. Well, you can guess how that turned out for them.”

I fight against my pouting frown and saddened expression as I lament, “I’m, I’m definitely not proud of what I’ve done there. I’m glad that the others are free, but, but the killing. I just. I never wanted that.”

Tiago’s gaze appraises me, “Sounds like that very old friend of mine in some ways. At least, how I asked them to behave. Still, to part with that dagger can only mean. Huff. I didn’t think they could actually go through with it. I think that marks the first time the temple has ever served its purpose.” Tiago’s gaze suddenly becomes distant, and he whisperingly asks no one in particular, “My dear friend, what frightened you so? Those last words can’t have been true.”

I scratch the back of my head, averting my gaze in embarrassment. Tiago understands that Aces went to Noirdivinhoz to die. For some reason, I think I know what Tiago’s more audible statement is talking about. I think he and Aces spoke about acceptable assassinations or something. Weird conversation topics for a saint.

It’s Tiago’s turn to blush and scratch the back of his head as he states, “It’s funny the conversation should angle this way. If Aces weren’t on such a hard road, on such an impossible task over the last few years, I’d have suggested Harriet turn to them. There has to be someone at the center of the Colossi hostility, and perhaps their size and power.”

Teuila grins as she cracks her knuckles, “Now that’s what I’m talking about! We blitz in, learn who’s stirring the pot, and snap the ladle! Uh, did that work? Metaphors aren’t really my thing.”

Tiago and I both chuckle. I start to laugh so hard that I have to wipe tears from my eyes. Tiago pauses for a breath to ask, “Hah, oh, you two are intolerably precious. How old even are you?”

Teuila answers for us, “Um, I think two, three maybe four years old in like, physical linear time stuff? Maybe a bit less. The swamps were a couple of months, a good chunk of a year, settling down was basically the rest of that time. Fire biome and warrens stuff, beavers again, resurrecting Lil early. We took it really slow to the coasts, then had to spend around two months in Eimsas. Then everything after that was a bunch of action squeezed into very little time, until the Miracle Oak. Then we were there for a few months, and the world was ending, so we saved it. Right spooterbutt?”

Tiago looks incredulous, his jaw agape as I agree, “Yeah, that sounds about right. We critterkin had the advantage of spawning with full knowledge of anything available to us as long as we thought to think it up. Our inner circle had an even bigger advantage, since we could spend a thousand times the usual length of time in thinkspace. We had what, almost two centuries together over our lifetime?”

Teuila nods at me while Tiago rattles his head as he asks, “Wait, so, you’re somewhere between two, and two hundred years old, though you’re not quite sure? And much of that time was spent in your minds?”

I blush with chagrin as I scratch the back of my head, “That, yeah that’s about the half of it, ah, um, heh.”

Tiago facepalms, “You’ve literally not had a chance to live your lives. I can’t in good conscience let Harriet send actual literal babies into a dangerous situation as spies or assassins. I’ll speak with her, we’ll figure something else out.”

Teuila, feeling insulted, immediately objects, “Oy! Hey! Excuse me!? We were never babies, we don’t even have that stage of life unless we feel like it. Did you not hear the part where my spooterdink has already done this three times in one place alone? We also nearly did it to the only human city in existence. Spootbutt managed to threaten them into backing down, because, well, Rej is insanely powerful. Aincha fumpyrump?”

Fumpyrump? I try not to laugh as I respond, “I was powerful Te. I mean, I sort of still am, partially. You still technically have all of your powers too. They’re just harder for both of us to access. Without even accessing our powers, you’re more frightening than any single human that has ever existed, even their powerful mages, like Sofu or Adom. I’d wager you could topple an ogre, or bring down a manticore, bare handed.”

Tiago’s face appears ashen, despite his darker skin tone, as he glances back and forth between Teuila and me. Teuila grins as she claims, “Hm, maybe not completely barehanded. We know I’m best with a spear. My fav fighting style wouldn’t work as well here anyway. At least not with the sky full of acid and lightning, though I could maybe ride the lightning like I did with Lin koff. But yeah, I s’poooose I could maybe be the strong one, heeeee.”

I adore Teuila’s elongated single laugh of glee. I also love how Teuila is jokingly arrogant, but actually fairly humble in respect to her own strength and accomplishments. She’s always willing to praise others before bragging, unless she’s setting up a joke, or running a bit. There’s also that subtle bit of implication, since we both know Linti’s full name is Linti, Lightning Hunter Shellcracker, and the cat clan answers to any word of their name. Well, the Shellcracker is somewhat new’ish, since she had her whole family join ours for safety. Gosh, she was so pissed when realizing I’d still been holding back. It’s almost funny.

George reappears, asking, “So, what did I miss when I put the grains to sleep? Had to tuck them into their breadroom.”

Teuila bursts into laughter as Tiago just points back and forth between the two of us, face ashen, mouth agape. I’m unsure if Teuila’s laugh is more at George’s pun, or Tiago’s reaction to our tale.

George looks mildly shocked as he jokes, “How on earth did you leave him speechless? I’ve been trying to find a way to shut him up that didn’t involve covering his mouth or stuffing it for two decades.”

Tiago sputters, “Excuse me, husband of mine? How indelicate, and rude.”

George brings Tiago in for a hug and kisses his cheek. He laughs while apologizing, “Relax love, I’m kidding, of course. It has been quite a long time since I’ve seen you so caught off guard though. How did it happen?”

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Tiago responds, “They, they, they’re children! Almost infants! Two or three or four years old!”

It’s George’s turn to look taken aback, made all the worse as Teuila adds, “Actually, I guess we’re only technically like three days old. Yeah, our old bodies are definitely gone, totally ripped to shreds by the books. So these are new bodies.”

I can’t help bursting into laughter as Teuila spells out the hypothetical for our hosts. I rub my itchy, mildly-wet eyes, drying tears of laughter. She is right though. Technically, even if all we went through was teleportation, and if teleportation required disintegration and reintegration, those bodies and those selves are gone. And that’s if, and only if, we just went through teleportation. It doesn’t look like that’s what happened to us at all though. We were killed, then somehow were suddenly here, in copies of our bodies.

What was it Luni said? She didn’t even expect us to keep these bodies? She was so confused in the temple of time when we found out we were going to die. She thought she had messed up, that we were dying when she was assured of a different outcome. Did one of her future personality fragments tell her we’d be alive on Rayileklia? Or at least alive in general?

I suddenly realize I can make a joke, “Oh, oh, I’m technically simultaneously younger and even far older, since I duplicated the same moments over and over again in the temple of time, millions of times. Tiny little fractions of a second back in time, every second, for decades. Then I wiped the whole time away by traveling back to right after I started out.”

I slightly confusedly surmise, quietly, mostly to myself, “Or TQ did, or it was all a compressed alternate timeline. I was never really sure how the temple worked.”

Back on my original joking train of thought, I recall even more longevity related shenanigans, “Oh oh, or possibly older than that, remember? I existed as some sort of dying gray soul at the Miracle Oak supposedly, for an indeterminate amount of time. Rinnia was cagey about that. Their verdant nature, and literal love of verdant nature basically reshaped me and colored my soul’s aura green or something.”

Tiago and George struggle to form words, sputtering partially formed questions, but Teuila and I have succumbed to a fit of the giggles. Eventually the four of us regain our composures.

Tiago finally starts, “Okay my young friends. In truth, what is your story? Are you adventurers? Are you truly that young? No more joking about.”

Teuila nods as she slightly brags, “Yup! Straight out of the egg I was always ready to train. It wasn’t even that long before I evolved myself right out of my sphere stage. There I was one day, just swimming upriver, bashing my face and tail into rocks, then suddenly I had a long sleek body, and strong limbs, and was bashing those into rocks.”

Teuila then tries to extol me, “Spooterdoot here is kind of similar. Only, they hatched alone, with no one there to guide them. Eventually they met our buddy, the Lil dragbutt. Those two journeyed downriver, met me and my family, and, well, we went through some pretty rough adventures, lost some loved ones, saved some cities or societies, eventually probably the whole world. You know how it is. Fight or die, struggle to survive. The usual.”

Teuila is so flippant and casual about the finality of our journey that I worry Tiago will assume she’s still joking. Plus, there’s the details that would make no sense out of context for George and Tiago. Egg to sphere to lanky body, without even describing that she was an actual factual otter. Well, one with more anthropomorphic limbs and such, but still.

Tiago finally takes a seat, huffily. His right palm rests on his forehead, locking his hair out of his face as he slumps into the chair. George steps lightly to the side of the chair, and leans against the headrest from the side, stroking his mustache in thought.

George cautiously hazards asking, “So, you’ve been through plenty of things by the sounds of it. Do you enjoy it? Do you seek out danger? Do you not desire to settle down? Do you value your own lives?”

As Teuila starts to answer I quickly wave my free hand forward, answering, “Woah, woah woah. Te might get some excitement out of training, journeying, and even combat sometimes, somewhat, but, well. Hm. How do I put this? We don’t seek out danger, we seek out where we can help with our unique brand of skills.”

I continue, “I want more than anything to settle back down with our family and loved ones, back on our world. To do that, we’ll likely have to amass some new kind of power to be able to travel across worlds, or something. We don’t even know what we’re looking for in terms of clues on how to return.”

Regarding the last question, I respond, “As far as valuing our own lives? Well, we’d all willingly, and I guess already did, sacrifice ourselves for one another. That doesn’t mean we don’t want to live though. We’re not thrill junkies with a death wish.”

Teuila elbows me and asks quietly, “Hey, are we doing what you wanted? This is like four or five people now that know stuff. I’m sorry for blurting things out. Should we like, bonk ‘em so hard we erase their memories or something?”

Jokingly acting shocked, trying not to laugh, I respond, “Te! That’s awful!”

She grins and snickers at me in response, and I can’t help but laugh with her slightly. Trying to regain composure, and get back on topic, I request, “So, um, is there anything you could add to our planless plan? Stumbling into their territory, scouting their activities and leadership, asking face to face, hopefully negotiating an end in the process, while being prepared to possibly slay a source of corruption or evil if we find one is all that I’ve got.”

The two married men look from me, to each other, and back, seemingly entering deep thought once their gazes lock with mine. Teuila nudges me, knowing how uncomfortable I am with eyes on me. She’s checking to make sure I’m okay. I squeeze her thigh reassuringly. I’m not sure which of us was more reassured, me or her, but at least we still feel each other emotionally, in some ways, even without our telepathic bond.

After a long while, Tiago finally breaks the silence, “To be honest, I never really asked Aces for a course in espionage or assassination. I’m not certain what else there is to a task like this. I don’t think either of us will come up with anything more than you’ll be able to figure out yourselves when you witness the Colossi in their plains.”

George nods along, “Yes, I feel similarly. Aasimovia has never truly had problems such as this. We rarely have anything resembling a problem. I mean, in ancient history there were, well, but they were driven out, it doesn’t bear bringing up. Still, I worry. Do you two truly feel up to this? Absolutely?”

Teuila nods emphatically, “I’m honestly excited to test my mettle against someone that big. Dingledork here got to fight some pretty big things without me on a couple of occasions, so I’ve always been a little jealous. Though, well, the big dragon skeleton and all of those deadly spells, we did that together. After getting hit in the face with a meteor, I feel like we’re pretty prepared, even without most of our magic. Oh, actually. Hey pinkadink, want to test your fire resistance? See if our passive stuff still works?”

Hm, Teuila makes a good point. I nod and she slips sideways off of me, allowing me to stand. I make a quick motion, before our hosts realize what I’m doing, and I snatch a still-burning coal from the fireplace. I would have stopped before grabbing it if I couldn’t immediately tell that my thermal resistance was still enough to deal with open flame while my hand was on approach. It doesn’t blister or burn, it barely warms my skin. George and Tiago are scrabbling to knock it out of my hand into the fireplace, looking horrified on my behalf, not understanding my calm examination. Tiago abandons the attempt to retrieve the coal from me as I effortlessly dodge every grapple attempt due to my danger wraps. Having abandoned the chase, he scrabbles about the room collecting gauze, herbs, and lotion.

Once I’ve put some distance between George and myself, I place my whole fist in the fire, and drop the coal back into its place. I step nimbly around one final lunge from George, and I carefully grab his arm to spin him such that he falls into a seat, and not into the fireplace. Tiago is fumbling with supplies dropping out of his arms as he rushes towards me. I wave my open hand towards him and George calmly, and the pair just freeze, aghast at my actions and attitude.

I state, confirming to Teuila, but mostly for the couple’s benefit, “I wouldn’t swim in lava on this planet the same way I could back home. Though that’s mostly because I can’t access my cold spells. But, yeah, it seems like our passives are fine. They might even still be able to grow. We just won’t really be able to check the actual numbers.”

Teuila nods proudly while grinning, and I apologize to our hosts, “I’m sorry for startling you, I probably could have been less of a jerk about that. I wanted to show off a bit of the nature of our powers, and just how powerful we were, or are. I was being immature. I’m not exactly immune to fire or heat, but, well, it’s honestly pretty close.”

I gaze lovingly at Teuila, knowing that she trained as hard as I did, simply without the benefits of skill-based limit breaking, “Teuila isn’t too utterly far behind in that regard, but she’s still far more affected than I am. The same with cold, and we were working on lightning and acid before we died. I’m honestly surprised the acid rain affects my skin so much with my current acid resist that Jazharn helped me build. I guess the rain’s not so much damaging, as it is irritating to my skin. Plus, Adom had been poisoning my food and drink for months as a joke, so even that resist isn’t too bad anymore.”

The two exchange another glance, but this time, the terror that passes across their faces is something else as George queries, “Those, those elements. Were you dragon slayers?”

It’s my turn to wear an aghast expression. My voice cracks as I accidentally shriek the first word out of my mouth, “I’d!-squeakkoff- I’d never hunt let alone slay a dragon!” Slightly calmer, I continue, “I mean, unless it were an evil one, I guess. My best, oldest friend is a dragon. Lil is taking a vacation to the Hidden Heart.”

Tiago gulps, asking, “You, you’re friends, with dragons? Oh heavens, the wealth at the clothier, all those gems and gold. But, but.”

Teuila chimes in, talking at the same time as George in response to Tiago, “Yep, but but is right. Like I mentioned before, our little dragbutt. What did you think I meant? Boogerbones is a dragon, and sometimes a butt, but mostly a cutie patootie. Don’t tell them I said that though.”

George interrupting his husband, trying to talk over Teuila, pleads, “Wait now love, think about this for a moment. They did just say evil ones and their friend were two different things. They’ve offered to help us, and we don’t have any sightings, nor have we had any, for a very long time. Dragons were driven off to The Spine of the World a long time ago.”

I’m incredibly curious about the history regarding George’s last statement. There are dragons on this world? They were driven away? Also, as I feared, Lil is going to face prejudice against dragons if they don’t stay in a human shape. Lil will probably adopt a humanoid shape though to travel with Lu once they hit the forest. They can’t fly above the trees with the acid clouds and the constant lightning, nor can they glide beneath the tree line. Their wingspan is too large to glide between trees safely. If they shrunk their wings, they wouldn’t be able to glide. I should have asked Daffodil about stuff like this before Lil left. I hope they’re okay.

Tiago glances at each of the faces around the room in a panic momentarily before slapping his forehead and laughing slightly hysterically. We all pause a moment to let him collect himself. Once he regains his composure, he smiles wide while shaking his head and running his fingers between his dreads.

I try to come up with a placating parting statement, “I’m, well, we’re, incredibly grateful for your hospitality, and I’m sorry for my insensitivity, and immaturity, and certain startling things. We really should probably check in to the Keel Over though. Are you alright? Are we alright to excuse ourselves?”

Tiago nods absentmindedly, and George escorts us to the door. Once outside, George bids us farewell politely, “I’ll see to my husband, don’t worry, you haven’t done any lasting damage that a night’s good think won’t fix. He’ll be right as rain tomorrow, well, not this rain, obviously. I wonder who came up with that phrase now that I think about it. Anyway, you know what it’s like, a husband’s just like this weather.”

I raise an eyebrow, and George continues, “You can’t do a thing to change either one of them.” He chortles at his own joke as he turns back inside the apothecary.

I snort a single laugh myself. Teuila was right, they do have a couple of similarities to Lao and Ag. Just a couple though. A healer and giver that loves someone who’s both jokester and historian. I toss my left arm over Teuila’s shoulders and we lean our heads together as we slowly walk towards Keeley’s inn. We’ve been up for probably the equivalent of thirty six hours or so, and I’m flagging at this point.