The ball rose, twisting high into the air.

Never did understand why they call it a ball, Rich thought to himself, from his perch on the bleachers. Anything that had a point on each end couldn't really be called a ball, as far as he was concerned.

“He's pretty good at this,” an uneven voice said from the side, and he glanced over to see that Siobhan had sat down next to him. She was tall, had a couple of inches on him.

Rich was pretty sure she had started life as a “he,” and he had spent a few months unpacking his feelings on that. But she'd been friendly to Rich and the other new arrivals, and had shared interests with Greg, and the three escapees from the worst theocracy in the world had decided that in the end, their old prejudices could fuck off. They had other things to worry about, and whatever was under Siobhan's clothes was her business.

Well, hers and Greg's, as of a few weeks ago. And he certainly didn't seem to have any complaints.

Rich pushed his mind away from that imagery, and tugged on his jersey and tights. They didn't fit quite right. Normally he'd make a note to print out proper-fitting ones later, but he figured it wasn't going to be a concern.

“You made him pretty happy. I can tell,” Siobhan continued. “I baked a cake for celebration tonight, now I'm glad I did.”

“That was the goal.” Rich smiled, and rubbed his knee. It was aching a bit, like it did whenever he overexerted himself. He'd gone a bit to fat these last few months, surviving his first New England winter. His joints weren't happy with him about his weight gain.

And not for the first time, he reflected on how different it was here. He stood, letting the last rays of the late-august sun beat down on him, and it was only eighty degrees out here. A regular cornucopia of pollens warred in his sinuses, true, but the trees around him were healthy, neatly trimmed, and nothing like the wild and bedraggled things in his old homeland. The humidity was barely there compared to the soup he had grown to expect.

The crumbling climate hadn't touched this far north, not yet. Scientists gave it another few decades before things started getting to the standard humid hell that was the Ministry these days. He was used to weather thirty to twenty degrees higher, and this felt nice in ways he couldn't quite vocalize.

The biggest change? Below him, two teams full of young hopefuls ran and slammed and tackled and fought for possession of a ball that wasn't even really a ball. And there wasn't a five minute pause beforehand for a team prayer, or a pause mid-game to pass the collection plate around for donations, or any surveillance drones parked nearby, ready to snitch on anyone who dared not stand for the national anthem.

Nobody was watching, save for a few hopeful parents who cheered when their kids did well, and chatted happily with the other middle-aged adults in the stands between plays.

Nobody was watching each other, looking for signs of disloyalty or treason or heresy.

Nobody cared. Not enough to kill, or imprison, or ruin careers.

“You think the rest of the crew can come over? I wasn't sure about the measurements, so I kind of made more cake than I was planning,” Siobhan continued, twisting one strand of blonde hair in her fingers.

“I'd love to, but honestly I don't know how much time we can spare to it,” Rich confessed. “We've got kind of an all-hands-on-deck situation in G.O. To be honest I shouldn't even be here right now. Hell, we'll probably need Greg too, before the night's out.”

Her face cooled as he said that, but she deserved the truth.

“We've been planning this for a while,” she said.

“Unfortunately so have our enemies. We're fucked if we don't pull this one off right,” Rich held up his hands. “But I know what this means to you, and to him. Right? This is like birthdays, this is one of those things you want to do right. I respect that. Listen, I'm not lying about the stakes. If things go wrong here, we won't get a chance to regroup. A whole lot of people are going to have a really bad time if we pooch it up here.”

“The bullies again?”

“The bullies again.”

“I can't even, you know? The stuff you guys went through...”

It was truly different, here. Here, abuse cost money and went on permanent records. You could lose your job, your voting rights, and a whole lot of privileges if you attempted socially correct inactivity, or engaged in hatespeech or intimidation.

It wasn't as bad as the Ministry propaganda had made it out to be, back during Rich's youth. But it did mean that you had to watch what you said, and get to know people before you could do things like swear around them. Overall, Rich thought the tradeoffs were worth it.

But it also meant that Siobhan couldn't truly understand just what they'd gone through. She had no frame of reference for it; the ways that Rich's own father had abused him would be unthinkable here. The man would have ended up in jail, at the very least.

“Well, we're in a better place now,” Rich smiled. “But we want to keep it that way for everyone who depends on us, you know? You don't let your team down.”

Siobhan smiled, and then she was on her feet cheering, along with half the stands. Rich rose too, surveying the field and sure enough, there was Greg in the endzone, and the ball he'd just spiked was bouncing away. His teammates were slapping at him, grabbing his arms as he hoisted them high and let out a loud “WHOOO!”

“I have to get down there,” Siobhan said, and Rich nodded as the big girl hopped down the emptying bleachers, making a bee-line for her boyfriend.

He started to follow...

...and then the world slowed around him, as stars filled the center of his vision, a nightscape in the middle of the day, an opening void with a dragon's face growing to encompass the hole in the world.

“Oh shit, what went wrong?” Rich half-spoke, half-thought, there in that slowed reality that no one else could see.

No one save for the dragon who had initiated it, who had used his most powerful and arcane magical item to push his consciousness between worlds, and into Rich's mind.

“You are concerned about the assault?” Rotgoriel narrowed his eyes. “Do not be. Plans are proceeding apace. They will not strike for hours yet, if Legion is to be believed.”

“Then what merited a mirror call?”

“Geebo.”

“Geeb—” Rich stopped. “Oh. Shit. We need to retrieve him, don't we? I should have thought of that. God, I hope he's transportable. We don't even know if it works the same way as dragon eggs.”

“It does. I have retrieved him. Here.”

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Rich braced himself as the draconic face pushed forward, and memories not his own filled his mind. “Okay, got it,” he said through gritted teeth.

The pressure lingered for a second, alien thoughts pushing against his mind. Then relief, as Rotgoriel withdrew.

“Why do you hold back?” the dragon asked him. “I would keep no secrets from you.”

“It isn't that,” Rich said. “I just... your will is getting stronger. Every time we do this, I feel more like you, and less like me, if that makes sense.” It was the truth, but not the full truth. There was a secret in his memories that he really didn't want to share with Rotgoriel. Not right now, anyway.

Rotgoriel nodded, his eyes flickering slightly to the side. Rich felt a pang of guilt at seeing one of the dragon's tells, and knowing what it meant. I'll have to tell him sooner or later. Just maybe not when there's so much at stake. “Thanks for letting me know,” he said, to fill the uncomfortable silence. “That thing you pulled out of there sure as hell doesn't look like a dragon egg, but given that place you went to must have been a core chamber, it's too similar to what she described to be anything else.”

“Agnezsharron wanted to discuss it with you as soon as possible. She said there was some time before the battle if you come now.”

Rich nodded, and kept a surge of heat from his cheeks. “I'll be right over. Ah... have fun, all right? Greg aced his tryout, so there will be cake.”

“Oooh, cake!” Rotgoriel's eyes went wide, and Rich laughed as the dragon broke the link, and the world went back to normal.

Rich took a minute to slap Greg on the back, shake hands with a few of the other prospective Wall High Werewolves, and pretended to be sad when the coach pulled him aside to tell him he hadn't made the cut. Then he showered and changed, before sitting on the locker room bench and logging back into Generica Online. Rotgoriel could take it from there.

He opened his eyes to the stony caverns of the unnamed fortress, and let out a sigh that echoed through the dust.

Then, he went and found Agnezsharron. She was waiting in human form, waiting and watching from the throne that stood in the center of her hoard, with its stacks and piles of gold coins and loot stolen from the Bharstool Warmers, with sets of dragonslaying weapons and dragon-resistant armor hanging from the walls, and showing how ineffective their assassination attempts had proved.

“Richard?” she asked, standing, and surveying him with eagerness.

“Yes,” he nodded.

“Good. We do not have much time. Share Shape.”

And with scarcely enough time to close the gate behind him, Rich felt himself shrink down, felt the air turn cold around him as his scales were replaced by skin.

Felt warm arms wrap around him, as Agnezsharron pulled him close. Felt warm lips on his own, as she greeted him in her own way.

They didn't talk about Geebo for a while.

But eventually, tired and sated, he rolled over on the furs she made damn sure were clean whenever Rotgoriel was visiting, and considered her lazily-smiling face. “Is there anything to discuss about Geebo? Besides the obvious?”

“I do not know what to think about it,” Agnezsharron pursed her lips, and he kissed them. She giggled, then pushed him back a bit. “The ancestors were there?”

“Rotgoriel claims so. And he saw something that looks an awful lot like the ones from his memories. Only smaller, less-defined. Is it possible that Geebo is some sort of dragon after all?”

“I do not see how that is possible.” Agnezsharron frowned. “Perhaps being around dragons for so long has changed him?”

“Or perhaps this is a thing that all draggits can do?”

“I do not know much about draggits, or drakkits, or whatever he is becoming now,” Agnezsharron confessed, snuggling into the curve of his body. “They are ideal minions for older dragons. They trade eggs back and forth between each other, and grant useful bloodlines as gifts. I am much too young to get into such practices.”

“But not too young for other things,” Rich said, tracing her body as she laughed.

He enjoyed her happiness for a bit, but his own guilt dragged him back. “Rotgoriel's going to kill us, eventually. You know that?”

“He will not. I would win any fight against him.”

“Well not literally. I mean... I don't like having to keep this a secret from him. It's his body, too.”

“You know why I will not have him.”

“I know. And I'm not...” he closed his eyes. “This is the sort of thing that causes drama in human societies.”

She grabbed his chin, pulled his face close to hers. “And as I told you before, we are dragons. Jealousy over mating is unheard of.”

“So are dragon Clerics and Cultists.”

Agnezsharron rolled her eyes.

“You're getting good at that,” he said. It was one of many tics she'd mastered since spending more time with the resistance.

“You give me too much practice,” she said, and pulled back. “Perhaps it is best you killed the mood,” she said, rising and moving toward the baths. “We have a war to wage.”

“We do,” he agreed. “I've got one thing to resolve, then I'll check in with Pat and see where he can use me.” He took a moment to enjoy watching her naked form go, before he rose and moved well away from the furs, and anything else that might be ruined accidentally. “Could you?”

It was like his whole body unfolded, and there was a brief second of disorientation, then he was back to his regular draconic shape. The pleasant soreness and languid feelings he'd been enjoying faded, vanishing against the frame that now held a dragon's constitution and stamina.

For a second he wondered what having sex in this form would feel like, but he pushed the feeling far back in his skull. That opened up notions of kinks he really wasn't comfortable exploring, and that definitely would be doing his adopted brother dirty. Borrowing Rotgoriel's body for shapeshifted shenanigans was questionable enough. Going full scales on scales would not be cool.

Moving back to his own cave, and laying down in his own hoard, he found the fleshy fruit that had to be Geebo's egg, and closed his eyes. “Pray to Konol,” he said, and felt the world grow cold and brittle around him. It was like this whenever he prayed, like Konol's realm was full of frost that seeped into reality, and made designs in the very air around him. It traced veins and cracks through solid, gas, and liquid alike, for it was all the same to whatever ethereal forces dwelt there.

“Hello Richard,” came that voice that echoed from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. “What's on your mind?”

“Geebo.”

“Ah. He's awake, then?”

“No. We went into his dungeon.”

“Was it a dungeon?”

Rich reviewed the memories. “Kind of. There was a boss.”

“And that makes a dungeon?”

“No, not really.”

“Then what did you enter?”

“I was hoping you could tell me.”

“I cannot speak of this, here.”

That intrigued Rich. “So he is some kind of dragon.”

“I cannot speak of this—”

“Cannot speak of this here, right.”

“You know it's rude to interrupt your own god, right?” Konol sounded more amused than aggravated.

“Yes. But it's true, isn't it? The only things you're forbidden to speak of are matters involving dragons, usually. So that means Geebo has to be some kind of dragon.”

“Interesting logic.”

“Is this important to what we're doing?” Rich asked, bluntly. “I mean, this is another mystery, sure, but uh, you've still got him coming to kill you, right?”

“No,” Konol said.

“What?” Rich felt surprise course through him. “Wait, where did the elder god go? He was coming to kill you!”

“He does not plan to kill me. He shall consume me, and a part of me shall live on eternally, screaming forever inside the twisted reality that is his mind while the parts of him that delight in torment look on and laugh at my melting remnants as they have all the rest of the victims he has taken in his long existence.”

“Oh. Shit.”

Konol sighed. “One day, yes, I shall be his shit, with the equivalent of all metaphysical nutrients sucked out of me, and everything that remains excreted to wherever elder gods dispose of their waste.”

“Not what I meant there.” Rich struggled to get back on track. “Priorities. That was what I was asking. Is Geebo's mystery important? Should I add this to the task list?”

“Task list?”

“Making us a guild. Creating a base. Beating the thing that's possessing the Bharstool Warmers. Finding a breach into your prison. Finding the dragons that bound you here so we can figure out how to free you. That list.”

“It does sound like you have your hands full.”

“So it wouldn't do us any good to focus on Geebo right now.”

“Richard. You know the truth of reality, yes?”

“You've told me several. I'm still not sure I agree with some of them.”

“That's fine, mortals are gonna mortal. The truth I am referring to, is that fate is never set in stone. There are many, many possibilities. Every choice, every action, every variable that could affect them has a chance to do so, and change what is to come. Nothing is certain.”

“So I should look into this? This should be one of our priorities?”

“I did not say that. But it is a mystery, is it not?”

“It is.”

“And sometimes very small things can affect very large outcomes, can they not?”

“We're totally going to have to look into this, aren't we?” Rich sighed.

“You do not have to do anything you do not wish to do...”

“...but there might be bad times ahead if we don't.” Rich closed his eyes. “Got it. Thanks god.”

“You are welcome. Anything else, or shall I return to contemplating my nigh-unending torment?”

“Hang in there,” Rich said, feeling a touch of anguish. This wasn't a game. This entity deserved far, far better than what he was getting. “We'll save you.”

“We shall see,” Konol said. And then reality unclenched, and the feeling of frost left the air, left the ground, left Rich's own body.

Rich looked down at the fleshy egg in his hand. It pulsed lightly, like a heart that had just been pulled from a chest, and he shook his head. “I hope you realize what we're doing for you, little guy. Sit tight. You're safe for now.”

He hoped he was telling the truth about that.