They hung in the air over the sea as the Graggle Cliffs bent north away from them, and although the coast approached them again as they passed the mouth of the River Joylim, they didn't come back over land again until they were over Daubsyid. The grey swamps of Daubsyid were alive with dense fields and trees, broken up occasionally by farms. Only soil-altering vrash farmergons could farm here where the soil was all sodden clay, but Daubsyid was a settled area so a few dragons did farm it. They passed over small communities whose names Aleicree didn't know.

They flew out under the clouds most of the way through Daubsyid. What little sunlight broke through caught on the fields of hardy swamp plants and the great gnarled root trees that thrust themselves up out of the wetness. It was already afternoon and the sun was behind them; it warmed their wings without getting in their eyes.

The swamps of Daubsyid continued in Denxalue, marked only by the transition from a greyish clay soil to a healthier though no less vibrant brown. Even just from seeing what little differed across the border, Aleicree knew they had just passed into the territory of the land god Lauvera. It was nostalgic to fly over Denxalue. Lauvera had watched over Praoziu's children in their childhood, in metaphor at least. Lauvera was a swamp god; she adored Denziu for that he had adored mud growing up.

There, to the south! The city Yunven, where they had met regularly with tutors as soon as they were old enough to fly. Housing most of the stone construction in Denxalue, it had the theome's governing offices, a little half-sunken ziggurat for a Temple of Uttermost Dark, and permanent flood walls along its northern boundary to guard against a nearby waterway. Farther in and to the north, Denxalue's other "city" Zhaoze passed through their sight. Absolutely wet and surrounded by waterways, Zhaoze was a swamptown built up on poles. Denziu loved it. Aleicree didn't understand the attraction.

On the eastern horizon rose green mountains. That was the sight of their destination, Nidrio. All of those hills and mountains were Praoziu's domain, rising high and plunging low in dramatic valleys. It was wooded high and low, and no snowy reaches lay before them.

On one of the high mountains stood a tower a few stories tall. On the ground next to that tower, two dragons stood looking west. Praoziu's white scales and white mane fairly gleamed in the sunlight, and Taisach was a less brilliant presence next to her with his orange scales. Aleicree dipped in the air to bring the whole flock lower on the approach... and was shocked to see Praoziu leap into the air!

Her thin, long-bodied form fairly swam through the air as she approached. Flying through the air without wings was a stark declaration of a land god's powers. There was a stir in their flight as she approached, dragons wheeling off out of her flightpath as she rounded. They needn't have bothered; her motions were exact. "Welcome to Nidrio," cried Praoziu, and then flew alongside Aleicree. "You've brought me an unusual gift!"

Aleicree didn't usually talk in flight, but Praoziu was flying exactly nearby and matching zir speed. "This was done by Vrekant," zie said. "It was Vrekant's decision to bring over a different local every night, and I had the idea of seeing if any of them would consider visiting us."

"Clearly they would," Praoziu said, dipping down and back to fly towards the farmergons. She matched speed with one, then another. Several of them veered away again, their flight instincts too strong to let them fly close to her, but she briefly exchanged hellos with several others despite the altitude.

When the incoming dragons were close enough that Aleicree knew he could tell that they were looking at each other, Taisach waved his arm at the flyers.

They landed on the mountaintop, just past Taisach's garden. Aleicree and Taisach embraced. "Aleicree my dear," said Taisach, grinning. "Since when do you bring back so many visitors?"

"I want Nidrio to grow," Aleicree said. Zie turned and watched the farmergons landing. "Dragons need to hear about your efforts at recruitment."

"Do you think any of them will actually join?" asked Taisach, likewise turning to watch and wave to the arrivals.

"Two of them are destitute, and will join us if we'll have them. I think we should!"

"You mean, you think I should," Taisach said, hesitantly looking back at Aleicree again.

Aleicree smiled and dipped zir head. "I think… I said what I meant. I'm going back to Captain Kagnir for at least another circuit, maybe several, but I think this is my last year aboard. Sailing is a lonely profession for me. I need to find something new."

Taisach leaned forward with his hands together over his chest. “You need something new?” he asked. “Your mother and I will do whatever we can to help you find your place.”

“Just meet Rhis the Quiet with me later,” Aleicree said. The moment was wrong for talking about it more than that, because they were being mobbed on all sides by all the landed farmergons from Sorjek.

Taisach turned to the crowd and held his hands up. "Aye! Hey! Hello everyone, welcome to my house! I am Taisach of Nidrio. Can I get Vrekant the Raincaller up here? I need a lot of introductions. After you’re introduced, please go inside, where you'll find there's already a table set out with post-flight refreshments."

Aleicree felt like zie should be present as part of the family, so zie stood nearby with Praoziu while Vrekant introduced all eighteen of the Sorjek farmergons who'd taken up the invitation to Nidrio. Zie waved to each of them as they were introduced. Zie may have waved a little harder to Fiata's group, and to Rhis when he shyly came up near the end of the line.

Finally, at the very back of the line of introductions, there were two dragons with whom Aleicree was marginally better acquainted than was Vrekant. Aleicree stepped forward to take Vrekant's place for the last two introductions. "Dad, this is Limist the Pipeseller," zie said, offering up a brownish-red vrash. "I met him in Shibanyet, where he was down on his luck. I think he'll actually move to Nidrio if there's a place for him."

"Pipeseller?" said Taisach with a smile. "We'll have to make sure our plans use actual pipes, then. I think Praoziu was inclined to start with summoning-based waterworks, but pipes are much more scalable."

"I'll be glad if there's a place for me, though I've never been employed in such an undeveloped location." Limist sat back on his haunches before Taisach to lift his pfods from the ground so they could shake, then went inside following the flow of other guests.

After him came Azosta, whose white scales were not so far from the colours of Praoziu herself. "This is Azosta the Endseer," Aleicree said, presenting him to Taisach.

"Endseer!" said Taisach.

Aleicree grinned. "Endseer. He's a plumbergon like Limist, but he's also a studier of magic lore who is against magic. I'm really hoping he gets into all manner of interesting conversations with Praoziu, because I think he could really shape the future here in Nidrio."

Azosta moved in before Taisach and lifted a pfod to shake with Taisach. "If I come this way and start spending my time talking to a land god again, I suppose that means I'll be back to trafficking as a geomancer. I've never influenced the founding of a settlement before."

"Not many have," Taisach said. "But that's what we're doing here in Nidrio."

"Interesting." Azosta moved past Taisach to go into the house, following after the rest of the party.

Taisach looked at Aleicree. "Those last two were the destitute ones you'd mentioned?"

Aleicree nodded, and he glanced over to Vrekant.

Vrekant said, "Aleicree brought them to my house. They're zir responsibility. I've no complaints though, they've worked with my friends all month handling water issues."

Praoziu stepped lightly over to Aleicree, and brushed her fluffy tailtip over Aleicree's side. "You surprise me," she said. "You brought a geomancer to me, intending to influence my decisions. I didn't expect you to do that."

Aleicree asked, "Mom? You can see my Fate, can't you?"

"Very clearly," Praoziu said, "Now that you stand within me, it would be very hard for you to surprise me. I knew you would visit Sorjek, too. That much happened within Fate. Yet not every twist of thought is foretold, and for instance, you were foretold to go back to work as a seagon."

Aleicree tilted zir head. "If you knew I would visit Sorjek..."

Before Aleicree could get zir thoughts in order on that question, Vrekant cleared his throat. "We should go inside and have a bite. I'm curious what was set out for us."

Abashed, Aleicree shut up and walked inside with the other three, with Praoziu bringing up the rear as they entered.

The first room past the lower door was a great open room next to wide floor to ceiling windows that looked out on Taisach's garden. The flooring in here was a swathe of wood near the door with a scrapy-rough rug on it, then an ever-soft beige carpet of a sort that screamed magic for that it was impossible to dirty. Usually there was also a rack of gardening tools against the wall by the door, but duly warned of a flock of guests descending on his hospitality, Taisach had put the gardening tools away somewhere else.

Across one wall of the room, a table had been set up, and likely it had been summoned from the ether by Praoziu for the purpose, just as had everything set upon it. There were little blue baskets with bowls in them at one end of the table, and the rest of the table was covered by larger platters bearing party foods. The visiting vrash were holding the baskets in their jaws and occasionally sitting up on their haunches to bring their pfods up to retrieve a serving to put in the bowl.

Across the room, there were little knots of vrash in conversation with each other, sitting up facing each other.

Aleicree felt intimidated just walking into the room. So many dragons! It didn't help that zie'd met the whole of the varicolored crowd. Being around so many dragons was miserable. The Serene Chordalite could be crowded, but most of the time everyone had work to do. This was just a minefield of potential awkward conversations.

Taisach and Praoziu dove right in, walking past Aleicree to start mingling.

Aleicree hung back, thinking about how to approach the party strategically. Well, that had to be "clues to a new profession," which just made zir want to spend the whole party with Rhis and Azosta. Maybe Ardent. Actually, come to think of her, Ardent was probably their best bet to secure a settler without Rhis' scary Rift-magic plan, so that served multiple purposes.

Doing everything with purpose was how normal dragons attended parties, right?

Aleicree searched the room for the burning orange colour of Ardent's scales, spotted her examining the food table, and made zir way across the room. "Ardent!" zie called ahead of zirself.

"Oh, Aleicree!" Ardent said through a mouthful of basket handle. She took the basket out of her mouth long enough to say, "Just give me a minute, would you? I'm a mite peckish from the flight."

After a brief wait while Ardent filled the bowl in the basket, Ardent turned to Aleicree and nodded.

"Let me show you the model room," Aleicree said.

The two trotted off down a brief hallway into the room where Taisach and Praoziu planned for the future of Nidrio. The scale model on the table was just as it had been when Aleicree saw it last, but it was new to Ardent. Stopping at the edge of the table, she reared up and transferred her basket to a pfod. "Wow," she said, eyes scanning over the model of the hills of Nidrio. "Is this the future of Nidrio? It looks beautiful."

"Praoziu won't let anything be built here that would ruin her perfect theome," said Aleicree. "Upside, anything that meets her standards is going to look wonderful."

Ardent turned to face Aleicree and dropped back to her haunches. She gestured with a piece of fried cheese from her basket as she said, "You know, I'm not enthusiastic about a two day flight when I want to meet my friends back home."

Aleicree blinked. Then, slowly, smiled. "Already thinking that far ahead?"

"When I saw Praoziu flying up to meet us, it really sank in that we're being headhunted by a land god," Ardent said. "Geomancers kill for this kind of opportunity. Speaking of, why don't you just recruit a bunch of geomancers? I don't think it'd be the first time a theome got its start by recruiting a community of geomancers to start out."

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"It wouldn't," said Aleicree, glancing away. Zie shrugged as zie looked back to Ardent. "Praoziu doesn't want to. Maybe it wouldn't even work. She used to kill geomancers."

Ardent was silent for a moment, grimacing. Eventually she asked, "So how did Taisach survive?"

Aleicree said, "He's not a geomancer. At least... He wasn't then. He just thought the landscape was very fetching, and he snuck in to see views other dragons couldn't."

"I didn't know Praoziu was an anti-geomancer," said Ardent, disappointed.

Aleicree perked up. Hurriedly zie replied, "She isn't! At least, I think she isn't. I think mom doesn't really know what she's doing with magic, so far. Maybe that's another reason she doesn't want to start with geomancers. They'd try to lead her." Like I'm doing, Aleicree thought guiltily.

Blessedly, Ardent didn't know about that, and couldn't challenge zir on it. Zie ate a few more pieces of unhealthy summoned party food, making 'mmm' noises at the salty stuff. Then zie said, "Well, I can tell you I won't be leading Praoziu, but I do have to go back for a while. I have to bring in the harvest, sell as much as I can, say my farewells, gather my stuff. It'll be winter before I can move in. Do you think there'll be a place for me when I do?"

Aleicree smiled. "I think once she knows there's new residents showing up for sure, Praoziu will summon buildings in to meet their needs. Tell her you're coming and you'll have a very beautiful house awaiting you when you arrive."

Ardent tapped by her eye. "But not a house whose design I get any say in. Has to fit the land god's perfect garden, aye. Everything has a catch." She smiled back to Aleicree. "Sounds worth it to me."

"May I tell others that you're joining us?" Aleicree asked. "I think knowing they'll know someone might help..."

"Oh, go on! I'll be talking about it, too. Now that I've decided to join Nidrio, I want to see if I can lure anyone else in!" Ardent glanced back towards the door of the model room, then gestured with an empty basket. "I think I'm going to go get more food. This stuff is delicious, though it's SO SALTY." She laughed at that, and Aleicree did, too.

Aleicree and Ardent headed back into the party, and stayed together a little longer since they both went to the food table. This time Aleicree picked up one of the baskets and secured a small collection of food. Praoziu hadn't only set out fried foods, she had also set out red-dusted boiled eggs, tiny egg pastries smaller than a muffin, and asparagus dip pre-spread on small crusts of hard bread. Aleicree picked up stuff from that end of the table for zirself. Zie'd tried before the various fried salt-bombs on the table and found them a little one-note, but these were good.

Ardent went elsewhere with a basket of fried foods in zir mouth, leaving Aleicree in need of someone else to talk to. Zie scanned the room trying to decide who to approach. Over by the great floor to ceiling windows, zie saw Fiata and Wrevaskel, and for a moment thought, I hope they join us! Then zie blushed, and decided not to talk to them. Zie didn't really have much in common with Fiata, one night notwithstanding.

Instead, zie saw Rhis hunched in a corner. The pink vrash was eating something, but he seemed to have chosen the absolute farthest point in the room from everyone else to do so. All alone in the crowd? Aleicree walked over towards Rhis, and found that Praoziu seemed to have had the same idea. The two approached him.

"Hey Rhis," Aleicree said, glancing at Praoziu but putting most of zir attention forward. "I can tell you're not a big fan of large gatherings, huh?"

Rhis looked intimidated by the approach of Praoziu. He stopped eating and shrank a bit more into his corner. Aleicree flinched in sympathy with his retreat and stepped aside. Praoziu mirrored the motion, so that now they were on either side of Rhis and the direct route out of the corner was wide open. Praoziu said, "I'm sorry for my aura. I know it can be a bit much to meet a land god."

Rhis said, "I-I s-should be used to it... I do summons..."

"Summons are very different," Praoziu said. "As complex and powerful as they may be, they are an extension of yourself."

"Y-yeah," said Rhis, looking away from Praoziu.

Aleicree raised a hand in a little wave. "H-hey. Rhis. Maybe you should stay a few days before going back. I think you should talk to Praoziu after everyone else has left."

"Because of my plan?" Rhis said. He looked at Aleicree, then at Praoziu again. "W-what do you think of n-n-necromancers?"

Praoziu said, "You're the first one I've met... at least physically. As a Fate manipulator, I find a little chaos refreshing. Necromantic influence does things like bringing Aleicree back from being a seagon forever." She smiled at Rhis.

"Was that necromancy?" asked Aleicree.

Praoziu looked over at Aleicree. "Technically, it's necromancy every time someone decides not to do what Fate decrees they will. We only have so much influence. Puppeteering would be no fun."

"S-some of the l-land g-gog-gods disagree with that," said Rhis, swallowing hard. "The so-called 'mind control' theomes..."

Praoziu sighed. "Well, I'm a long way from that. I'm only a level 1 Fate controller. Rejecting my control of Fate doesn't require willpower, much less actual magic. I would have actually preferred The Serene Chordalite had not swept up my dear Aleicree."

"A-are you g-going to stay a l-level 1 Fate controller?" asked Rhis.

Praoziu frowned for a moment, then shook her head. "No, that's more lack of practice than ideology. I don't want to run a 'mind control' theome, but I am going to try to increase my influence over Fate. Speaking of which, would you like me to try to correct your stammer?"

Rhis looked at her wide-eyed.

Praoziu dipped her head. "I'll take that as a no."

Aleicree slunk in closer and nosed at Rhis' shoulder. He started, but zie stayed there and rubbed zir nose against him, then looked up at him after a few seconds. "I like you," zie said. "You're safe here. I think I want to study necromancy with you, but after I've had a while to catch up with the basics."

"D-do you w-want us to be the-the necromancers of Ni-Nidrio?"

Aleicree asked, "Does that mean you're considering moving in?"

Rhis thought for a moment, and then fingered one of the fried cheese wedges in his basket. "Um... No," he said, and ate the piece of fried cheese.

Aleicree giggled, taking the fact that Rhis ate something as meaning he was calming down. Zie stepped back to give him a little space again. "I think I want to be pen pals, and every so often I'll fly to Sorjek to visit."

"W-we can do that," Rhis said.

Aleicree asked, "Will you stay here for a few days after the party?"

Rhis nodded.

"Great! I'll get back to... Uh, looking around awkwardly trying to think of who I should be talking to next," said Aleicree.

"A-always g-good to h-have a plan," said Rhis, smiling.

Aleicree walked away from Rhis. Praoziu followed. "Be very careful with necromancy," said Praoziu, surprisingly grim. "Your first incarnation died studying necromancy."

"My... first incarnation?" asked Aleicree, baffled.

The two walked away from others, seeking a place quiet enough to talk. They stepped outside. There were a few dragons out here for similar reasons, but only a few. "There’s something about you that’s been kept from you," Praoziu said quietly. "Specifically, you're the reincarnation of a dragon who was incarnated at the creation of Theoma. One of the first primordials."

Aleicree looked wide-eyed. "I didn't know reincarnation was real."

Praoziu sat back, looking down and away. "It's... rare, and... kind of difficult, but nothing is harder than doing something you don't know how to do. I knew how to reincarnate souls, but not how to incarnate fresh souls. So that's what I did when I had children. You, Denziu, and Taltios are all reincarnates. And either one of the other land gods is going to give me instructions on fresh incarnations, or Nidrio is going to become a hub of second chances in Theoma."

Aleicree had leaned in with fascination to this talk of something so unusual. When Praoziu mentioned getting instruction from the other land gods, zie tilted zir head. "You meet each other? Land gods can instruct each other?" zie asked. It seemed impossible. Praoziu was physically unable to leave Nidrio.

Praoziu looked at Aleicree, and her face went impassive. After too many seconds of just looking, in which Aleicree wondered if zie'd asked the wrong thing, Praoziu said, "We have our own society, the location of which is hard to explain."

"Oh," said Aleicree.

Praoziu laid down on her belly in the grass. "If necromancer is your next career choice, that worries me. Primordials focus too hard. Necromancers need chaos. The combination isn't safe. If you work at necromancy every day the way you worked on wind meditation every day, you'll die to it. Again."

Aleicree listened closely, and nodded along, but then zie scratched at a fin and said, "You know Mom... If you say I'm a primordial, I believe it, because primordials are a real thing and you would really know. Yet when you say I'm a reincarnate, I wonder. What does it mean to have a past life that I can't remember anything about? Wasn't that just someone else's life?"

"It's okay to think that," Praoziu said. "If you never care, your past life can be someone else's life. But if you instead pursue it in magic, you'll remember it. It's up to you. I just had to tell you, because the primordial-necromancer combination is inherently risky."

"You didn't have to tell me that I'm reincarnated."

Praoziu smiled. "Maybe I did. If you get good at necromancy, I may be willing to pay you to retrieve souls from the deathwall far to the north, and run errands to the hidden gems of that morbidly hostile land. That will help me reincarnate other souls."

"But... You can't go there." It was Aleicree's turn to stare at Praoziu. "How did you..? Did Taisach... No. Not Dad."

Praoziu's eyes twinkled. "Maybe Dad," she said.

"I should talk to him," Aleicree said.

Praoziu said, "He's in the model room pitching Nidrio to a group. He'll pitch it to a different group afterwards, and another after that, until one of us pulls him away. I think we should leave him to it for a while. He's happy imagining they’ll join him."

"Will they?" Aleicree asked.

Praoziu shook her head. "I don't know," she said. "Many of my recent auguries end in tatters of necromantic energy. I think - and I have to think about it as you would, logically rather than by looking at Fate - that Rhis will change Nidrio's future quite a bit after I give him the catch that he'll ask me for tomorrow. Speaking of which..."

Praoziu sat up, then reared, bringing her cloven hooves together. She pulled them apart with a green ceramic token sitting on one of them. "Aleicree. Take this and give it to Limist."

Aleicree stepped forward and took the token from Praoziu. It held a winged heart emblem on one side. The reverse side displayed a complex golden knotwork all made of squared-off edges. "Whosoever owns me shall once survive true destruction," said tiny text under the knotwork. There was a loop atop the token, as though it were meant to have a string of twine threaded through it to create a simple necklace.

"Is this a catch? Are you giving Limist a resalable catch? Whatever for?" Aleicree asked, shocked. Most catches had a restriction specified upon the catch itself that destroyed their resale value, but per the text on this one, it would protect 'whosoever owns me'.

Praoziu smiled. "There's no money in moving to Nidrio, but Limist and Azosta have already decided to do so. This will ratify their decision by giving them something that will pay off their debts when Limist auctions it."

Aleicree held the catch carefully to zir chest. It was a precious item, and for some moments zie just looked down on it thinking about how much it was worth. Then zie looked up and asked, "If you can just make these, why does anyone die? Why not give everyone a catch, and then another one if they ever need it?"

Praoziu went wide-eyed as Aleicree spoke, and then when Aleicree was done she laughed and shook her head. "No, no," she said, laughing. "No, Aleicree. I can't just make them. This will ruin my day if it activates. And these are... Oh, goodness Alei, I'm not supposed to give away secrets to my kin! Most land gods don't have kin." She shook herself lightly and said, "Here, a half-truth that you can share. They're powered by nature. There. I can make catches because my theome is engulfed by trees and inhabited mostly by wild animals."

"Is that why geomancers go adventuring in wild places to meet land gods of dubious virtue?" asked Aleicree.

"Yes!" said Praoziu. She danced up and bumped shoulders with Aleicree, who went 'gah' in surprise and stepped back. "Now go give that to Limist. Or bother your father, if you think he shouldn't keep entertaining guests in the model room."

Aleicree nodded. "Dad’s fine, I'll go look for Limist."

Praoziu gave Aleicree a brief nuzzle, then went inside again while Aleicree looked around the grassy lawn outside. Of the other dragons outside, zie found that Limist and Relevar were out in Taisach's garden. They were far enough away that the two had separate conversations, and close enough that Aleicree saw them at once when looking around for Limist. Clearly, Praoziu had foreseen this eventuality.

They looked to be being sweet on each other, with tails entwined as they talked. Relevar had a flower tucked behind an earfin, and as Aleicree walked up zie overheard Limist saying, "The sight of you in the air distracted me all the way here."

Aleicree blushed and almost couldn't step in, but the catch in zir hand helped a lot. This was a gift so big that Limist was sure to be exuberant about receiving it. "Limist," zie called ahead of zirself. Limist glanced over, still tail-twined with Relevar. Aleicree held up the ceramic token. "I have a gift for you from Praoziu."

"If it's from a land god," said Limist, and the two dragons untwined from each other. They stepped apart. Limist walked over to Aleicree, who passed over the catch. He sat up, turning it one way and then the other, and he frowned intently at the text on the other side. "What is this?"

Relevar looked in curiously, and Limist passed over the token. After a moment of studying it, zie passed it back and said, "It's some kind of promise from Praoziu."

Aleicree said, "A transferrable promise. This is called a catch. Praoziu will 'catch' its owner, and bring them back to life in the event of their demise."

Limist tilted his head as he looked at Aleicree. "Do I need this?" he asked.

Aleicree shook zir head. "No, you don't." Zie smiled. "You're to sell it! If you take it back to Shibanyet and put this up in an auction house, it'll be worth a very large amount of money. Praoziu is covering your debts in exchange for you moving in to Nidrio."

"Huh," said Limist. He pocketed the catch in a pouch. "I guess that means I'll have to build a pump house by the lake, or some such solution. I'll talk to Taisach." He nuzzled Relevar's neck. "Tomorrow. For tonight, want to go get lost in the forest?"

"S-sure," said a blushing Relevar, sweeping zir tail.

The two dragons flew off, leaving Aleicree behind again. Zie went back inside feeling good about getting so much done at a party. This was better than the wild affair that had been thrown on the Serene Chordalite. The dragons here were more zir speed. Even if they were mostly farmergons from Sorjek, they still had more dragons with a deep interest in the lore of Theoma. The seagons had been interested in... Aleicree didn't even know, zie'd avoided them so thoroughly during shore leave.

In hindsight, zie really needed this vacation. It offered a perspective zie'd been missing.

Zie went back inside to get a bit more food and maybe talk to someone. Maybe. Whether zie did or not, zie was home.