Before they went to their next engagement, Leo dismissed Andul to forge duties, and Leo and Lily both stopped by their shared house. Lily still had her huge mansion in the Green Apple Grove district, across the Blue River from where they lived. Lily’s mother and Hy, her mother’s last remaining partisan and now lover, were living there. Lily had left and moved in with Leo, originally at his house on Elgin Isle. But they had moved to a new house in first district, near the new government center, when Leo had deeded the majority of Elgin Isle to the dragons.

Their house was quite nice by Star Port standards. It had a master bedroom, three smaller bedrooms, a dining room, kitchen, living room, and a basement divided in two parts, one of indeterminant use and the other a pantry. It was a medium-sized dwelling by modern standards, concededly, but quite large for the ones of the medieval fantasy world Leo found himself in.

Neha, his dryad daughter, wasn’t around. He wondered if she was out at her magical preserve or if she was down at the beach already.

“I’m going to try and wash the last of the honey from my hands,” Leo said, and Lily smiled, nodding. But she sat on the fur-covered chair of their front room with a sigh as Leo walled back to the bathroom.

The ‘bathroom’ was a new concept to the elves, and they were taking to it with gusto. Leo didn’t have viable drinking water yet, unfortunately, but he did have running water for toilets, sinks, and showers. It was expensive, so only major public buildings and the rich could afford it—along with all of wheat Town, which was very close to a dam and got cheap water towers. It was a start, however.

In a weird cultural development, having a bathroom was becoming a huge status symbol, the thing to aspire to in the reborn Kingdom of Averia. Once it had been gardens, and the current elves still tried to maintain great gardens, but everyone—humans from Star Port, the majority elves, and even the rabbit-kin warren—wanted to have great bathrooms. It weirded Leo out completely, coming from his home country, where they were far more utilitarian… and far more private. A few people putting in what were essentially indoor communal bathing tubs. And two people had apparently purchased magical fire rocks to keep their indoor bathing areas warm. But even the ones that didn’t go that far competed to have amazing themed bathrooms, and no less than two elves now supported their families by running artisanal toilet shops.

Leo walked into his own—far plainer—bathroom, turned the water in the sink on, and washed his hands. The water wasn’t perfectly sanitized yet, and soap was expensive. But it was all a step forward.

He hoped to combine magic and engineering to get a far cheaper public water system and clean drinking water soon. Andul was working on a golem-driven pump system as the backbone to a modern plumbing system, drawing from the output of the Blue River—which, as near as Leo could figure from some very imprecise measurements, had a water volume throughput roughly equal to that of the Mississippi near where it exited into the Gulf of Mexico. Leo had also put out feelers around the inner sea for a Body magic mage that could create a permanent ‘curing’ magic device to pass water through to remove disease. He had drawn up plans himself to remove all particulate matter beyond the microscopic.

Another couple years and Leo thought Star Port would have fully functional—and, very importantly in this low efficiency economic system, cheap—modern plumbing.

Unfortunately, electricity didn’t seem to work the same on this world, as a few experiments had shown. He could still get it through magical means, and it behaved similarly in most of his tests, but spinning in a magnetic field wouldn’t generate it for some inane reason having to do with the way magic and energy worked on this world. The differences that spoke to about the fundamental nature of reality boggled Leo’s mind, but he put that aside everytime he thought about it. Too big to deal with at the moment.

Back on the problem of power, if he ever got some truly powerful Air magic imbuers, he might be able to create a limitless—and imputless—electrical generator. He had almost no idea how to judge how much energy would be generated by what level of ritual, so he couldn’t know if it was viable. But it was an interesting thought experiment, anyway.

“Are we going?” Lily called from the other room.

Leo stopped staring at nothing—and thinking about everything—coughed, wiped his hands off on a towel, and then walked back into the other room. “Yeah, sorry. Although we’ll probably miss the eggs hatching, since we have a council meeting tonight.”

“It still can’t hurt to be there on the day your best friend’s kids are going to hatch.”

Leo nodded. He had already gone through this once with Hugh’s adopted children—four mud wyrms—but these would the first children of Hugh’s own blood.

Leo reached out and put his hands on Lily’s distended belly. He felt a subtle flutter—his child kicking, most likely. I’m going to have a child of my blood soon as well.

Still can’t wrap my mind around that completely.

Lily gave him a tender smile that lit up her whole face. “Well, shall we at least head down?”

Leo nodded to her.

They left the house and headed back through the first district toward East Bridge, the bridge connecting Elgin Isle—which Leo was pretty sure was going to be named Dragon Isle soon—to the first district. They crossed the decorated marble bridge—hardened with magic—heading west. It was about half a mile across the river to the small isle in the mouth of the Blue River.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

As they exited the bridge, Lily asked in an elaborately casual voice, “So, do you know when the portal will open?”

She asked that quite often. Leo didn’t know, not exactly. But the three smaller trees growing from the branches of Ygg’drasil were nearly connected at the top, forming the gate. He assumed it would be soon.

He could also feel a stirring in his soul, a sense of impending possibility. He wasn’t expert enough in either his bond to Ygg’drasil or magic in general to be able to interpret that feeling beyond ‘soon,’ however.

“It’s close, but I’m not sure,” Leo said.

“Can you delay it?” Lily asked.

Leo didn’t technically know the answer to that, but even if he could delay it, he didn’t know how—so in practical terms… “I can’t. I’m sorry.”

Lily heaved a sigh again. “You’re still set on exploring immediately once the gate opens?”

Leo nodded. “I am. The gates leave a physical presence on the other side, and I’d rather get in and deal with the world before attitudes set, or someone builds a castle to keep the gate closed, or a powerful adventurer on the other side forces the gate open against my control.”

“How likely do you think that is?” Lily asked.

Leo quoted one of her truisms back at her. “With enough magic, anything is possible.”

Lily grimaced, but was silent for a bit as they walked across Elgin Isle. It was a rock island that had once been a navel base for the old Kingdom of Averia, but Leo had cleared the island of all structures so that it could be utilized by his burgeoning population of dragons as a sort of condominium lair, with caves right next to each other. Storm dragons, which made up the vast majority of the dragons that had joined Leo, loved water caves as much as traditional mountain caves, perhaps more.

Leo barely had a fleet at the moment anyway, instead relying on a merchant marine he could call into service. The new purpose made more sense.

One new structure had been built, however. The ‘Dragonfall inn,’ once located in Wheat Town, had moved to the island. It was a huge structure, built of magically reinforced and melded granite, an anomaly in the sea of marble buildings that made up most of Star Port. But it needed the extra strength, as the inn was now designed to serve dragons, and drunk dragons could do a lot of damage.

The Isle had a few obvious holes into the ground from the top, entrances to various lairs. Each space was assigned by Hugh to some dragon, except that the government retained a right-of-way for a single road across the island, since the bridges connected the East bank of the Blue river to the island, and then the island to the West bank of the river. It was his primary throughfare.

A few of the bronze-scaled storm dragons were sunning themselves on the top of the island. One waved to him, and Leo waved back. He could barely tell them apart, however. Only storm dragons with very distinct features ever really stood out from the rest to Leo.

Lily, who had a better eye and memory for people of all types, waved and called, “Morning, Chad!”

Leo grimaced. Chad had attacked him once, on this very island. The dragon had paid for it, but very little.

But Leo waved back and called out, “Good day to you, Chad!”

The dragon smiled, an expression on storm dragons Leo knew how to interpret but always felt vaguely threatening due to the teeth.

As they walked, Lily commented, “I don’t like that you’re going to be adventuring without me. I’ve been with you since the beginning, and I’ve kept you alive a few times.”

Leo went through the motions of the discussion. There wasn’t anything new to say. “Rez agreed to be our healer, just until you’ve given birth. I’ll be okay.”

Lily flicked her hair from her face as they walked the path across the island at the mention of Rezendria the Sower, but said nothing else.

Leo hurried on. “And you’ll get to run the kingdom while I’m gone. We have enough money left—or sources that have agreed to lend to us—to start the university. It’ll be a great project for you.”

“I can work on the university without being in charge as your… viceroy, I guess. I don’t think I command the respect or trust that you do. I don’t think I reach even the level that Val or George or even Hugh command. You should appoint one of them.”

Leo shook his head. “No. Hugh would be a terrible idea and doesn’t want it regardless. Val is a good cavalry commander, but has little understanding of what I’m doing. George is a brilliant merchant but also lacks understanding of my purposes. It had to be you.”

“I’d still rather adventure with you,” Lily said.

“Please, my love. I really, really want to have a child.”

Lily grimaced again. “Me too… but still, I don’t like this. You’re going off where I can’t help, with another elf—a young, beautiful, magically powerful healer elf that dresses in almost nothing.”

Lily had never voiced her jealousy before, although it had been obvious to Leo.

He took her hand in his and gently pulled her around till she faced him. She raised one eyebrow but didn’t resist as Leo pulled her close, hugging her very carefully. “Remember Audrey?”

Her eyebrow climbed even higher, but Lily nodded.

“Remember how I waited months to be with you, just to break it off clean and honorable?” Leo asked.

Lily cut to the heart, not letting Leo build his verbal case. “But you still broke it off after hanging out with another hot girl for a long time. What if you fall for her?”

Leo brushed his lips across hers then pulled back, staring into her eyes with as much love as he could put into it. “We’re engaged. We’d be married now, except that you said you wanted to make it a state event. ‘It’ll be good for the people,’ you said. You’re everything I ever wanted, and this life is everything I ever wanted. We’ll be together till death.”

“Hmmm…” Lily said, but she did smile. The muscles in her arms relaxed fractionally.

Leo didn’t let his loose grip go, instead continuing to stare into Lily’s pale blue eyes. “If this is something that will cause a genuine rift between us, my love, I’ll wait. But I do think it’s better for the Kingdom of Averia, and the elves in general, if I deal with the gate when it opens. And better for you and I and our family if we don’t risk the baby by having you adventure with us.”

Lily frowned slightly, but nodded, and laid her head against his chest, her belly pushing into him slightly. “You’re right, of course. I’m sorry. It’s just… hard.”

“I’ll be fine, and I’ll always be with you. Promise.”

She sighed and pushed back, and Leo let go. “Fine, fine. We’ve already hashed this out too many times. I won’t bring it up again.”

“We can talk about it as often as you need,” Leo replied.

She paused and smiled at him, then motioned down to the beach. “Shall we go see Hugh, and perhaps catch the eggs hatching?”

Leo smiled. “I’d love to.”