The next day, Tilly, Kazumi, Sally and myself were requested in the matriarch’s presence.

“You haven’t come this far looking like this,” she said, nodding at us, as if she could see us clear as day. “The woman… she magicked you into something more… palatable?”

We nodded. Kazumi and I swallowed and she grabbed my hand, squeezing it softly. The Dragonborn woman went over to a dresser, intricate markings all over its facade, and ran her fingers across them softly. Finally, she opened a drawer and retrieved four small stones.

“I can’t give you much. I can’t replace what was lost. But we have no need for this sort of deception anymore. It may help you. Keep it on your person and you should appear as mundane as you once did.”

We each took the stone gingerly. As soon as it was enclosed in my fist I felt the perspective shift again, as it used to. I gasped when my vision returned to me, hit by a slight wave of dizziness. I felt Kazumi’s hand on my shoulder. She was holding hers, but she hadn’t changed yet. I frowned.

“It needs to touch your skin,” the woman said. “Although perhaps it is better if she doesn’t until she’s in the proximity of…” She paused. “Pants.” Kazumi blushed and nodded, slipping the stone into a pocket.

Sally had simply picked hers up. Other than a change in body hue and the lack of her usual “accessories”, she looked mostly similar. I wondered how I looked, but only for a second. My attention was grabbed by the naked woman, who was wearing only boots, some leather straps, and a giant sword on her back. I averted my eyes, blushing furiously, and saw that Sally was doing nothing of the sort, simply staring slack jawed. I heard Tilly screech and the stone hit the floor. When I braved another look, the kobold sat on the floor, panting.

“Maybe you should try that again,” the matriarch said, clearly trying not to laugh, “after asking one of your companions for some appropriate attire.”

Tilly picked up the stone with a piece of cloth, mumbled a thank you, and scurried out of the tent. The rest of us couldn’t help but giggle. I’d seen more of Tilly than I cared to, but the strangest thing had been seeing her in a human girl form. She’d been completely unrecognizable, with long black hair, strong cheekbones and a soft jawline. Definitely not unattractive, something I knew Sally would have noticed too.

Once outside, Kazumi looked at me. “It suits you,” she said.

“Hmm?”

“The hair,” she said, running her fingers through it. It was a wonderful feeling and I couldn’t help but shiver.

“What do you mean?” I lifted a strand of hair and held it up to my face, and laughed. “I’m a blonde now?”

Kazumi softly took my chin between her thumb and index finger and raised my head up to look at her. She was even taller than me now, and I swallowed a glib remark. My heart pounded in my throat for a moment. I didn’t get the chance very often to see her like this, and it was hard to breathe in the best way. My eyes met hers, and I was certain I was blushing.

“It suits you,” she said softly, and kissed me. Something about the moment had me weak in the knees, and it’s only because she caught me that I didn’t sink to the ground. Slowly, she rotated around me, spooling me in her tail, and I forgot about the whole world for a moment.

The next few days went by slowly but steadily, like our transports, the infinite steppes drifting past.

Kazumi and I sat at the edge of one of the tortoises, looking at the setting sun. I’d taken to wearing my stone regularly, if only so my hand fit in Kazumi’s better. We needed each other now, more than ever, and prodigious size only got in the way of that. She still had her tail, curving it at funny angles over the tortoise’s scales for stability. She didn’t want to accidentally slither off, after all.

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Between the giant creatures was the sound of laughter, of children playing. Some of the coloured ropes and flags hanging off of the creatures were for more than decoration, it seemed, as children swung around on them, playing a ballgame between the slow giants, a game that was always moving in one direction. I couldn’t figure out the rules but it was fun to watch the children toss the leather ball around, tumbling, jumping and bouncing. They reminded me of Tilly, to a certain extent. They were about the same height, small dragons, though they carried themselves with the promise of one day being six feet tall, which couldn’t be said for Tilly.

Early on, both Kazumi and myself had worried several times about one of the children falling beneath one of the giant feet of the caravan, but it seemed that not only did the adults riding the two-legged creatures have a very sharp eye on their loud offspring, but it even seemed to be a part of the game. When one of the kids fell and it didn’t look like they’d be getting up on time, an adult would reach out with one of the polearm-like weapons, hook their clothing, and pull them forward and upright. The child in question was met sometimes with cheers, sometimes with jeers, seemingly based on how close they’d let themselves get to being trampled.

Kazumi squeezed my hand as we watched them play for a moment. I ran my thumb gently over the back of her hand. I rested my head on her shoulder and felt a soft kiss on my hair.

“Do you think you’d ever want children, Liz?” she asked softly. I couldn’t tell, not with certainty, if her voice was soft with trepidation or relaxation. I squeezed her hand again, and looked at the playing Dragonborn kids. I had to think for a moment.

“I honestly hadn’t given it much thought,” I said, just as softly. I didn’t want to let her down, but I also wasn’t going to lie to her. “I just… back home… You know I wasn’t...”

She squeezed my hand again. “I know, love. That was then. You’re… not that, now.” She breathed softly. I felt her chest rise and fall. One of the Dragonborn children climbed one of the ropes and did a backflip off of it, much to the delight of the other children, until they realized it had been a distraction. Somebody had scored a point of some sorts, and the daring acrobat did taunting cartwheels around the losing side.

“I think I just never thought I would get to,” I said. Had I wanted to have kids?

I felt her nod. We sat in silence for a few more moments. A welcome, warm wind blew in from the south. Though we’d been sitting in the evening sun for a while, it had been cooling off quickly. The days were clearly getting shorter as winter was slowly approaching, but the steppenwinds were often warm, though filled with enough sand to make you avert your eyes.

“Do you want them, Kazumi?” I asked and sat up so I could look at her. She smiled at me, the evening sun giving her skin a golden glow, and I smiled at her beauty.

She thought for a moment, looking at the children.

“I think I would like to, some day.” She seemed thoughtful. “Until we met I hadn’t really thought it an option.”

“Oh?”

She shrugged. “I was raised from a young age to shoulder responsibilities. The kind that don’t allow a lot of time for child-rearing. And when I came into Queen Eliza’s employ…” her voice petered off. “I didn’t think I’d get the chance to,” she added softly, so softly I scooted closer to her again and wrapped my arm around her, pulling her close. I felt a strong urge to keep her safe.

“You’d be a great mom,” I said, and kissed her shoulder.

“So would you, my love,” she said, and kissed my neck. Something about the way she said that made my heart skip a beat. I’d never considered being a parent. Back then, something about it… I never could have been a…

But a mother? I hadn’t realized it was an option. And something in my chest was doing backflips. Was that because of Kazumi’s lips on my neck, her hot breath against my skin? Or was there a part of me that wanted that kind of future? It was funny to me that I’d never thought about this before, a little sad that I’d repressed these thoughts all my life, hiding from them. A mother. The less said about mine, the better, but I’d known some great moms. Being a parent of a child, my child? My thoughts chugged and churned as possibilities I’d never known existed blossomed in my head.

“I… I don’t know,” I said. She shot me a glance. “No, I mean… I don’t know… if I… I need to think about this.” I wondered where all this had come from. There was more to it than just seeing the children play, obviously.

She smiled and kissed me softly on the ear. I looked her in the eyes and kissed her again, then looked out over the sands again. As the sky darkened, the children started to climb the various ropes up to their tents, and things slowly quieted. The cold was starting to set in properly now. I felt a shiver run through Kazumi and started getting up. She was a step ahead of me and swept me off my feet with a smile. I’d never been carried like this before, and Kazumi was stronger than she looked. Or I was lighter. Not that I cared, not really. I wrapped my arms around her neck.

“Heck,” I said.

“Liz!” she said with a gasp. “Language!”

I giggled softly and kissed her on the cheek as she carried me to our tent. After I’d healed a bit, I’d been gently but firmly shooed out of the bed I’d been resting in. I still wasn’t back to full strength, and while I suspected she reveled in being able to pick me up, she was definitely also protective of me. Our new abode was small, but at least it was private. Just large enough for two people, I figured.

She laid me down on the mattress and I couldn’t help but giggle again. I’d never been doted on like this before, and I most certainly didn’t object. She kissed me on the forehead and I sighed happily with my eyes closed. They shot open when I felt her lips on my neck again. The fiend, she’d accosted me while I was distracted. She seemed to revel in my soft gasps, pausing but not stopping. When she finally stopped, I didn’t have the breath in me to protest in disappointment. Not that I had a lot of time to. She pulled her top over her head and my capacity for sentient thought melted like butter.

“Aaa,” I tried to say. I didn’t, because her lips were on mine, and everything after that became a wonderful blur.

Later, we lay in the dark, her tail draped over and around me. She was drawing circles on my chest with her finger, and we took turns softly kissing each other’s bare skin. We both sighed contentedly from time to time. Words weren’t necessary. What we needed was each other, and I was grateful we were both strong enough to express that, in whatever way we could. I kissed her again, a long, drawn out expression of love, desire, affection, and the taste of spices I couldn’t quite place.

I looked up at the cloth of the tent as it shifted softly in the night’s breeze. It was warm in here, in Kazumi’s arms, and I felt my consciousness slipping as sleep began to come to me. I pulled my love in close.

“I miss her,” Kazumi said softly.

“Me too.”