Before the assassin‒or what remained of them‒could finish their countdown, Asherta reached out a laid a now-human hand on it's shoulder. It froze, and an instant later all the damage from their fight disappeared. Caeden almost attempted to rip it apart with Sharp all over again, but it remained completely still, locked in place by whatever the mystery woman was doing.

Lily seemed to notice his unease. "Don't worry; this is Ash's shroud. It's a weird one, but she has good intentions, I think." She started off confident but ended up more uncertain than Caeden thought she wanted to.

"I'll trust you on that," Caeden assured her. And he would. There was no one whose judgment he trusted more than Lily's. She tended to be more optimistic than him, but he admired that instead of faulting her for it. Maybe she was wrong about Asherta, but they would work through that together.

"By the way," Caeden slid off his floating ice block, standing with a strong use of Physical Enhancement. "I'm so glad you're ok." He wrapped his arms around Lily, pulling her into a hug and resting his chin on her head. She turned into the gesture, hugging him right back and wrapping her arms around his waste. Caeden sighed contently. He had wanted to do this as soon as he saw her but had put it off in favor of the more immediate danger. But things seemed to have calmed down enough that he felt comfortable in indulging his desire to get close.

"I'm glad you're ok, too," Lily murmured into his chest. "I knew you made it out of the cruiser, but I wasn't sure how well you could hide from the dragons."

Caeden laughed lightly. "Oh, we didn't. One passing by found us in under a day."

Lily jerked in his grasp, unable to contain her surprise. "Seriously?"

Caeden nodded against her head, rocking his chin along her scalp. "Yup. Neither of us are any good at hiding. Cat's better than me, but not enough to hide from a dragon."

"Ok, I need an explanation." Lily drew back a bit to look up at him skeptically.

"Sure, but that might have to wait." Caeden gestured with his head toward the assassin and Asherta, where something new was happening. The last minute or so consisted of her laying a hand on the machine abomination while both remained completely still. Now, the ethertech nightmare was changing.

Bits of metal and ether would vanish into nothing, leaving bloody wounds behind, only for those wounds to immediately close over in healthy flesh. This happened over and over again, piece by piece. Caeden felt like he was watching the machine-man being built in reverse. He‒Caeden could now tell it was a he‒began to revert from a living horrorshow to a normal middle-aged man.

"What is she doing?" Caedan murmured, baffled by what was happening. This went beyond healing on any level he had ever seen.

Asherta's shroud is something else." Lily nodded, watching the same sights as him. "We think it's Age."

"What?" Caeden wanted to confirm what she just said.

"Her domain." Lily clarified. "We think her domain is Age. Actually, maybe I should just tell you how we met."

Caeden nodded dumbly, his brain trying to process the implications of a domain like that. Before Lily could begin to explain, though, the last bit of ethertech vanished. A moment later, he went from middle-aged to a child. Then Asherta stopped, lifting her hand off the small, naked boy.

"Dread Cloak," Cat spoke, covering the boy's modesty before anything else could be said. "What just happened?"

"I was about to tell Caeden, but you might as well listen too," Lily responded, calling Cat's attention over. "But maybe we should wake him up first."

That objective further distracted from the intended conversation, as no matter what they tried, the boy remained comatose. They tried to be gentle, but light shaking or speaking did nothing. It progressed to yelling; then Lily ran a chunk of ice up his spine. No reaction.

"I think I know what's wrong," Cat said after several minutes of them all simply staring at the darkness-covered child. "His soul is messed up. It looks like someone took a hacksaw to it and started cutting bits off. I have no idea how he's even alive. Whatever Asherta did to fix his body did nothing to affect his soul. Give me a bit; I'll try and help."

"You can fix souls now?" Lily asked, stunned. Caeden immediately realized that that revelation had just as many implications as someone with the Age domain. So maybe they were even when it came to surprises. "Since when could you do that?"

"Since Caeden poked a hole in his own soul doing dumb shit and fighting an adult dragon," Cat said offhandedly, her attention fully on the child.

Lily turned to glare at Caeden. "I think that requires an explanation."

"I thought you were going first." Sensing danger, Caeden tried to redirect.

The glare intensified.

"Ok, maybe I'll go first." He relented. What followed was a rapid breakdown of everything he and Cat had done over the last month and a half. From finding the baby dragon to going to their first nest and everything that followed up to and including everything that had happened with Caeden's fight with Jawrule and the events that followed. By the end of it, Lily was looking more upset with him, not less.

Desperately, Caeden sought a way to divert her attention from his flagrant disregard for his own safety. "Actually, you should meet my bonded. Come here, buddy." Caeden slammed a plea into the hatchling through his bond. Luckily, the baby dragon seemed more than willing to comply.

Like a bolt of scaly green lightning, the hatchling appeared and wound his way around Lily's arm. He started rubbing against her robes and making tiny rumbling noises that sounded similar to a cat's purr. Lily reacted in the only reasonable way anyone would at such a display. She lost her shit.

"Awww! Look at the little cutey! You're such a good boy, aren't you? Yes you are! Yes you are!" Lily cooed, stroking the baby's scales and making inarticulate noises of enjoyment. "What's your name, little guy?"

"We haven't given him one yet." That got him a glare, so Caeden elaborated. "It's not like we didn't try! It's just that he rejects every option we give him."

"Hmm." Lily raised her dragon-wrapped arm up to her face, looking at him closely. "Well, He's pretty long and thing, isn't he? How about Noodle?"

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Caeden shouldn't have been surprised. This was coming from the woman that named her bear Snowball and her bird Sky. Lily wasn't a fan of complicated or historically relevant names. She kept it sweet and simple. Caeden waited for the baby to reject the name, just like he had all the others. Instead, the green devil flicked his forked tongue out and licked Lily's cheek while projecting his agreement.

Caeden gaped in surprise. Dozens, hundreds of names, and apparently, he wanted to be named Noodle. Noodle. He just…Noodle. "Ok, apparently that's his name now. He agreed with it. Noodle the dragon." Caeden shook his head. It wasn't worth any more of his brain power trying to process that fact.

"Really?! He liked it?" Lily squealed excitedly, planting a kiss on the newly christened Noodle's scaly face. Caeden finally caught on when he felt a sense of satisfaction radiate from the lizard as he turned and shot Caeden a scaly wink. That son of a…. Caeden merely stared in disbelief as his girlfriend rained affection on his bonded. Apparently, the little dragon was quite the smooth operator.

That was the point that Lily's bonded grew jealous of the attention Noodle was getting from their shrouded. Showing even more tricks Caeden had not seen, Snowball and Sky shrunk down to resemble their baby forms. The now watermelon-sized bear demanded cuddles, and Sky landed on Lily's shoulder, snuggling into her cheek.

"Ok, you need to explain what exactly happened. Because they couldn't do that before." Caeden gestured toward the monsters.

Lily picked up Snowball, letting Noodle off her arm at the same time. She gave the dragon a goodbye head pat before snuggling Snowball to her chest. "Yeah, that's fair. I'll explain."

Lily walked Caeden through her journey across the continent in secret, hiding in the clouds. He was fascinated by her discovery of the unique nature of the monsters here without having to be told by the locals. Of course, Lily had been equally surprised and obviously saddened upon hearing the origin of the differences she noted. That explanation eventually led back to how her bonded had changed so drastically in such a short time frame. And inevitably led to how she and Erik met Asherta.

{}

Lily gaped in surprise at the hiding form of a little girl. Snowball had sniffed out, and Sky had uncovered the small child hiding in a bush nearby in the foothills. Her bonded had just experienced powerful, unique transformations that they owed to the unique nature of the local monsters. That alone had been enough of a surprise. But now she was seeing a small human child on a dragon continent, a place where humans were not allowed to be for anything beyond a short visit.

Lily also knew, from studying CA records about this continent, that no one else had visited here in at least several hundred years. There was no way for a child to be here. It was flat-out impossible. Suspicious of some strange trick or trap, Lily took a closer look at the girl.

She was covered in rags that might have once been clothing. They could have just as easily been made of dirt; they were so filthy and ragged. Brilliant blue hair and yellow eyes were distinct features, nothing like any human Lily had ever seen. At least, unshrouded humans.

On a hunch, Lily extended her aura, finding that she was right. The girl was shrouded. But that was just a confirmation that the hair and eye color must come from some aspect of her shroud. Why a child was here, especially a shrouded child, was left unanswered. The girl's shroud prevented Lily from gaining answers through aura, so all that was left was the old fashion way.

"Hello? Are you ok?" Lily asked. This was deep in CA territory, so the girl must know Central Common. "How did you get here? Where are your parents?"

The reaction she got was not at all what Lily expected. In a flash of flickering blue and yellow shroud, the little girl aged twenty years, now looking older than Lily. She also sprouted wings, horns, and a tail as claws and scales covered her arms and legs. She leaped back, crouching into a defensive posture that looked more animalistic than human.

Was this a dragon shapeshifted into a human? The thought entered Lily's head before she immediately dismissed it. Dragons didn't have shrouds. But that still left no explanation for the woman's abilities. Thinking about it more, her age change was accompanied by a shroud manifestation, whereas her more draconic appearance seemed to have nothing to do with it.

Lily and the dragon-woman stared at each other, not breaking eye contact. To Lily, everything about the woman, from her body language to her gaze to her seeming lack of understanding, screamed feral. She seemed to have no idea who or what they were and was reacting purely out of a defensive instinct.

In what was probably a stupid decision, Lily went completely outside the woman's expectations for a stand-off with a possible threat. She dropped to the ground and lay on her back. It was literally the most unthreatening thing she could think of. But the last thing she wanted was to fight the woman. After all, her first instinct had been to disengage, not attack. She didn't think the winged lady meant them any harm.

The dragon woman's initial reaction was confusion. That transitioned into curiosity, then calm. She had a very expressive face. Lily watched from the corner of her eye as the woman's draconic features vanished, once again without any accompanying manifestation of shroud. She started walking toward Lily in a slow, cautious step, continually looking at Erik, Snowball, and Sky.

Finally, she was standing over Lily. Reaching down, the estranged shrouded patted her stomach as if checking whether or not she was ok before withdrawing her hand like Lily was on fire. Now that she was so close, Lily saw that she wasn't just wearing rags; she had a small bracelet on one arm. It was metal, more of a cuff than any kind of jewelry. Laid into it was a series of letters. A.S.R.T.A.

{}

"So, her name isn't actually Asherta?" Caeden asked.

"No, we have no idea what her name is or if she even has one," Lily admitted. "We just ran with what we had."

"How'd you turn those letters into Asherta? Where'd the H come from?"

"It came from the fact that the alternative was 'Asserta', which doesn't sound like a respectable name for a lady." Lily huffed.

"Oh," Caeden rubbed the back of his head. "That's fair. What happened next?"

"Not much." Lily shrugged. "We spent over a week just building trust, getting Ash to follow us willingly and put on some respectable clothes. After that, we rode a cloud all the way here and have been waiting for you and looking for the structure."

"Um, Lil, I think you're forgetting a really important bit." Erik chimed in from where he had been watching Cat work on the unconscious boy.

Lily rolled her eyes. "It's not that important."

"Pretty sure it is."

"Whatever," Lily huffed.

"Soooo," Caeden looked at her. Lily looked back.

"Fine!" She threw her hands in the air. "I have a new splinter! It formed when Sky transformed. I'm really awful with it, and nothing is clicking like it did with Ice and Cloud. So please leave it alone for now? Please?" She looked genuinely embarrassed. Caeden understood. There were several months when Lily was the strongest person in the group. Arguably, she was still up there. Part of that strength had been how well Lily clicked with both her evolved shroud and new splinter. Gaining another splinter only to find it didn't suit her was probably pretty galling.

Caeden patted Lily on the arm comfortingly. "I won't pry. If I can do anything to help, just let me know. You helped me get used to Physical Enhancement when I was still new to it. I'd like to return the favor." He offered his best supportive smile.

Lily's demeanor softened. "T-thanks. I feel like my control has always been my only standout factor. Having a new domain that just… won't…work is frustrating." She admitted, leaning into his touch.

"Ugh, can you two stop with all the cutesy supportive crap? I'm trying to do soul surgery over here." Cat sighed explosively. "It's not easy, you know. And all your lovey-dovey energy is fucking up my flow."

They both stared at her.

Seemingly feeling their gaze, Cat's shoulders hunched. "I'm the soul surgeon here. You don't know anything about it. All your mutually requited love could be causing a fucking soul storm for all you know."

"…"

"Ok, fine!" The words burst out under their silent pressure. "It's not actually a problem. But you two are still really annoying."

Caeden sighed. "How close are you to finishing?"

Um," Cat hunched further.

Now it was Lily's turn to sigh. "What?"

"I was kinda done, like, ten minutes ago," Cat admitted. "He should be waking up soon."