Space Paranoids

“Yeah, sorry. We caused a bit of trouble and there were G.R.E.Y. all over so… I’ll be late tonight.”

“Uh-huh… sure. I’ve made extra in the morning, so no worry there. We’re all coming home… uh… we’re all coming home late ever since.”

“Sure, thanks. Take care, alright! Ugh… umm… aaah… love you…”

Dominik all but slammed the red button on his flip phone. Strength just barely under check, he closed the upper end and held the device between his hands tightly. The teenager was sat on a rooftop, edge of a warehouse terrace - long since left to disuse and ruin. His legs dangled over the edge casually so, and he stared out into the distance. His eyes watched the waves of the harbour slowly rolling, back and forth. The lake appeared calm.

It had been a long day, and rough for some of them. Putting out fires at a burning police station and trying to save people, and stopping gang shootouts and fighting GREY, it was all in a day’s work and more, really. Gwen had landed on the rooftop behind Dominik and all but dragged herself to the edge where he sat after he’d hung up the phone.

“Ugh,” she groaned as she sat down and swung a leg over the edge, putting Nimue down next to her. “Hey DomDom. Quite the day, huh? Yet again.” She stared at the horizon where the sun was still peeking over the mountains in the distance. She looked tired.

“Fast and unrelenting,” Dom chuckled. His laugh was forced, a little bitter in tone and inflection. He did not turn his head towards the girl. Instead, he stared with her - out into the distance. He was silent. At least, for the first few moments, before the larger teen shrugged his arms, shook his head, and turned towards the sword-wielder to his side.

“I see you back after about a month and the first thing we’re stopping the district from turning into a nuclear wasteland. That’s pretty sad-ironic, isn’t it?”

“Par for the course, I guess,” Gwen smiles. “We haven’t really done a lot of these together either, but I’m glad you were here today with me. I’ve missed you, you big lug.” She softly punches Dom’s arm.

She falls silent as she contemplates. “Everything we end up in here is always just so… big. We’re never stopping just some small-time gangsters or petty thieves or such. It’s always ‘fight a secret organization’ and ‘lead an army of mole-men’ and ‘stop a nuclear-powered lady from going off’ and ‘save the universe from a galactic evil overlord’. It gets kind of staggering and makes me a little anxious sometimes to think that that is my life now.”

“You and me both,” Dom mused back. He leaned back, his legs extending straight. He balanced himself against the edge, as if it was the most natural thing to do. A little playful, a little antsy. Again, as his motions swayed him back and forth, he was quiet. As he evened back out, he spoke. His eyes did not quite travel to Gwen, instead content to watching the waves below.

“I hope it’s not going to be like that, to be honest. I mean… I like helping people. I think it’s good that you help those who can’t help themselves. But… I want to be a bit more normal too. Stop a shoplift on the way home from…” he paused, and chuckled at himself seemingly playfully - with but the most subtle undertone of sarcasm - “...uni or something. Have work, have a life, make a family breakfast. The works…”

Gwen eyed Dominik as he was swaying on the edge, a little apprehensive about it at first--what if he’d fall?--before she caught herself, thinking how silly that worry was. At least one of them was maintaining a decent balance in life, it seemed. She closed her eyes and motes of light came off her as her armor disappeared and she returned to her casual clothes.

“Honestly, I think I might be okay with a life like this. I’m not cooped up and sheltered anymore, not imprisoned, and when I can worry about the big problems, I feel like I can ignore my own, relatively little problems, you know?” She drew up her legs, wrapping her arms around them and resting her cheek against her knees as she cast a look at him. “I’m glad to see you doing well DomDom. I’m glad that you seem to have your life on track and that you’re happy.”

She smiled wistfully and turned to look back at the sunset. “At least someone on this team deserves to be happy,” she muttered softly.

This time around, it was Dominik’s turn to give the girl a light elbow on her shoulder. To surprise of no one, it was exactly that - a light tap. He turned his face to Gwen, and beamed her a brief smile. It was silly. Eyes closed, lips parted wide, and a row of teeth glaring a healthy white. The earnest gesture was almost comically exaggerated.

“We all do,” Dom said soon after, and his face changed to one of more worry and concern. Slightly, he pulled his legs up, and crossed them - again, tethering on the edge yet seemingly not worrying about the prospect of the fall in the slightest.

“It’s sort of why I’ve mentioned the little things. Having food on the platter makes you happy. Having a home to come back to makes you happy too. Stopping a galactic crime baron from blowing up Earth is making sure that you get these things at the end of the day, but… it’s not the thing in the end of the day, if I am making myself clear here in any capacity. We all deserve to wind down, I would say.”

After a moment, he added. “...so you actually went to space? For realsies?”

“Snrk,” She couldn’t hold herself back from a snicker as Dom flashed her that goofy smile. She nodded, though her expression changed little. “For realsies,” she answered, “it was… quite something! Oh, oof, this is maybe a long story but… we visited a bunch of planets and we fought aliens and we saved aliens and Elle and Parrot and I fought a SPACE DRAGON and neutralized a super weapon that can destroy planets? I also fought with Parrot, but we made up later, and I MAY have told this evil galactic overlord Ominus to fuck off and told the people of ten thousand planets that Earth welcomes their diplomats? Honestly a lot of it was such a rush that I was forgetting it while it was happening and I mostly recall it from talking to Parrot afterwards, because that space dragon had nearly killed Elle and she was still recuperating.”

She’d shifted herself to face more towards Dom and folded her legs, gesturing wildly with her hands as she was telling him about all the things that had happened. She fell silent for a split second a few times when she caught herself almost mentioning Olivia’s grandmother being their mission commander, and she left out the more unsavory parts of space combat and dealing with smugglers. She considered bringing up the Risganjans, but hesitated. Shaper’s death had hit the Big Team hard three months ago and bringing it up now, while she was talking about things so excitedly, seemed both disrespectful and like it’d just open up old wounds again.

Throughout the entire tale, Dominik was all but enraptured. At first, he listened with mild contentment. Then, as Gwen went on, his investment grew. He turned fully towards the girl. He pulled his legs into a cross. He bent forward, leaning against his knees with his elbows. His eyes grew wide, and his ears all but flickered into attention (if they could, that is). In that moment, he was like a little child - no older than six or seven years - completely and utterly lost into a fantastic tale spun before him by a venerated storyteller. He would nod, he would gawk. He would gasp and he would hold his breath. The spark in his eye was undeniable.

And when the tale concluded, Dom pulled back. He pushed his chest out, and nodded. Deep, he drew in a breath as his mind racked itself with comprehending each and everything that was just said to him. For a moment, his gaze shifted from the excited girl before him, and off towards the city scape. Then back, and then away again. He continued to ponder. Eventually, he seized Gwen with a dedicated stare. His eyes wide, his stance imposing. He was about to marvel at her story once again, and sing praises to the saviour of Earth.

“Wow.”

“Yeah.”

Gwen hadn’t noticed until then, but while telling her story and seeing Dom’s responses had caused her face to break out into an almost gleeful smirk. She almost felt like a little kid again, telling stories of her and Rhiannon’s adventures to her father at the dinner table. That realization made her happy, nostalgic, and then sad again. She couldn’t tell her father stories like that now, and Elle’s presence in this one made it all the more awkward. She thought back to the day before, when she’d told Elle off, that she wasn’t her real dad.

She sighed. “It was a big achievement, and it was cool and all, especially Elle fighting that dragon like that, but I’m glad to be back here on Earth. This feels a little more grounded, a little more normal, and still weird and big and super enough for me. At least there are no space dragons here.”

She tilted her head as she looked at Dom. “Speaking of big though, DomDom… have you grown taller?”

Dom’s cheeks flushed themselves a bright shade of red. He was not overwhelmed with the emotion, but Gwen definitely caught him off-guard. He turned away, pouting lightly, before again glancing at the sword-wielder before him.

“Yeah… hah… it’s just temporary, don’t worry about that. Gramps and I got a little bit… ‘in tune’ while at Jake’s tree and you know, over there he has a bit more influence on how we look. It kinda stuck…”

Gwen nodded. “I guess that makes sense. The Spirit Realm has some strange magic the deeper in you go, I think I’ve heard it mention. The fey that visit Avalon a lot come from elsewhere and they always bring such magic with them.”

She tilts her head the other way. “Come to think of it, you’ve mentioned this ‘Gramps’ before, but I don’t think I’ve ever met him. What’s he like?”

To this, Dominik all but blurted out as he choked on his own spit. He hacked, as if trying to stop himself from both laughing and gasping at the same time. In a second, he bent to his side uncontrollably - tethering on the edge of the building. As he wobbled, extending his hands in the opposite direction to even himself out, his upper body weighted a little too much for equilibrium. In that instant, the boy fell.

But before he could make much of headway in giving terra firma a strong hug, the familiar green sheen launched from his back, growing out of thin air next to his cloak. Like a draconic tail, it sprung up and coiled itself against the edge of the warehouse. And like that, Dom hanged there upside-down, red hair dangling on the wind.

“Geeze!” he shouted… with no urgency in his voice. He seemed annoyed, but his tone was no different than a certain someone replacing his sandwiches’ yellow cheese with brie. “And I thought Freedo had an ill-timed sense of humour.”

In the same motion, the tail coiled, and Dom sprung back up. He landed right next to where he sat. The green appendage shrunk and vanished. The boy sat down, and shook his head.

“Oh!” Gwen startled and leaned back as Dominik convulsed and then fell. Everything happened so fast that she could barely react before the translucent green tail smacked down next to her. She got up onto her feet and stared at it for the brief moments that Dom dangled down, before he leapt up and the tail disappeared again.

“Well,” she scoffed and patted Dom on the chest, “at least you didn’t leave an imprint on the pavement. What timing though. Is this what this ‘Gramps’ does for you, then? An ancestral spirit sort of person giving you powers like Nimue does for me, or tree-bitch does for Jake?”

Dom drew air harshly through his front teeth, audibly hissing at Gwen’s remark. “Language, come on. She’s a horrible skank but… okay, she’s just a horrible skank, but don’t tell Jake I said that.”

Regaining his composure, he looked towards Halcyon. His eyes seized the skyscrapers as he began to answer, and muse in tandem. “Well… sort of? He’s definitely a spirit, but he’s not ancestral. He’s not mine, my family’s not tied to any of that. I just… tried something stupid on the internet and next thing I know I was a few years older and trying not to puke chewed car tire. And we’ve sort of got along ever since. He lends a hand… literally, when I ask him, but he also does what he wants himself.”

“...and no,” Dom added jerking his head towards Gwen. “That’s not his name. I don’t know I could ever hope to pronounce his name with my mouth… or any spoken language really. But ‘Gramps’ is convenient and rolls off the tongue well.”

“I understand,” she nodded. “Well, okay, I don’t understand, but I understand that sometimes spirit stuff and family and all that is complicated. I still don’t get everything Nimue tells me, and we’re actually related.”

Gwen’s eyes moves over Dom’s body as she sizes him up, stepping a bit away from him, then closer as she circles around him. “So he’s not really a physical being, is he? I’ve got to admit, I’m a little surprised I never knew about any of this before. I guess we talk mostly about other things, huh? Do you think that he’d--is Gramps a he?--that he’d let me… you know, touch him?”

“Well, uh, that’s… kind of difficult,” Dom began, turning towards Gwen proper as the two of them stood at the edge of the warehouse’s rooftop. “Since, as you said, he’s not physical in a way. At least, I don’t think he can go physical much when he’s in me. He feels everything I feel so, I guess that… sort of counts?”

Moments after, Dominik laughed. He shook his head. “You wouldn’t be the first person to ask.”

What failed to register for the young man was the fact his head-shake was done in an inopportune time. It, combined with the light breeze of wind, revealed yet another clearly supernatural feature on his body. Heretofore hidden, surprisingly well, with his red mane - a horn stuck itself visible from beneath the strands of red.

It made sense what Dom told her, but when she saw the horn, Gwen got a little crinkle between her eyebrows as she thought. She thought she had seen something there earlier that day, but only now did she get a good look. That certainly hadn’t been there before. She reached up with her hand, then stopped. She turned her hand and looked at her palm, then back at the horn.

Well, DomDom hadn’t said “no”, and neither had “Gramps”, who apparently couldn’t communicate verbally. To an Avalonian, signs were a big deal, and Gwendolyn du Lac was certain this was one.

She reached out again and stood on her tippy-toes and brushed her fingers over the horn. She closed her eyes.

And in that moment, the world was gone.

###### ===========

The young girl found herself adrift - her body was gone. Her limbs - missing. Her chest - lacking its usual heartbeat. She existed as a thought, and thought alone - disembodied, stray, yet without bounds and limits. Like a dream, she could be anything - a person, an animal, a landscape, the very stars in the firmament themselves.

And yet, she spiraled. Around here glowed colours more plenty than a dozen rainbows, more vibrant than the lustre of the sun. They shimmered and sparkled, flowing one into another. Like a kaleidoscope, both flat in its omnipresence, yet deep like an endless maze of shifting corridors. Simultaneously, she saw herself - her whole self, though she did not exist - in every arrangement, every form, every time, every moment, every circumstance. And yet, she was none of that, for neither did these things exist for her. She was nothing.

And yet, she was everything. The colours grew and erupted - what was a waterfall became the ground. What was the corridor became the sky. Both twisted, spun and turned. Like a whirlwind, before everything became white. And then - black. Again, she was nothing.

And yet, from this darkness, echoes spoke. In a tongue that was not a tongue - but emotion. Laughter, joy, curiosity, mystery. Like notes upon the empty, they reverberated. One after another, each fickle spark coming to light. Again and again and again - like stars in the sky. And she was the sky.

The lights spun again, into familiar forms stretched to the very infinite. Dots upon the tapestry of darkness, forming arms and chains. Long silken threads that were not material, but worlds. Galaxies, thousands upon thousands, in every blink of the missing eye. Within them, stars more countless than grains of sand upon but a single world in orbit of the life-giving warmth. Upon each, a world. In each world, life. From the smallest specks, to the grandest designs. Wonders of nature, both tiny and majestic. And she was them all.

But before she could fully comprehend the miracle - the vastness of all - a thought came to the girl. It was hers, seemingly - for she was everything, and she was memory. And yet, it was not hers. For the first time, she was both herself, and not. A familiar presence - royal and majestic, proud and dignified - so grand that compared to her human self, it stood before her like a blazing sun.

It smiled.

And then, the sun was a mountain. Prismatic and shifting, with halos of stars crossing in patterns of organized chaos. They crowned a head of horns, of a mane majestic like a nebula. And from there, the mountain stretched into a body - long and serpentine, yet containing within itself all that Gwen used to be - untold worlds, untold possibilities, simply vastness.

And then, the girl was no longer a memory. She was herself - both a thought, and a ghost. Clad in corporeal ephemera, she stood before what can only be described as The Dragon.

It spoke, as its maw moved in its stillness. What came to the girl were not words, but emotions themselves. Bright, simple, vivid, subtle, nuanced. All that they became like song unto her own mind.

“The boy had taught me a tale,” the world spoke as mountains and sea appeared from nowhere - for they were always there. “About a brilliant man, and a brilliant son. Both sought to reach freedom, as your kind are wont to do.”

The world beneath became smaller, the land like dots upon the cerulean of the sea. “To do that, they soared on high. And yet, the sire warned the foolhardy son - fly not close to the sun.”

And the world became fire. Bright and incandescent - but scalding, burning, hurting. “For you shall be burned. The son had learned his lesson, at forfeit of his life.”

But Gwen remained. The pain was gone. The fire was once more replaced by ambient cool of endless eternity. The Dragon laid before here - though its face remained still, the girl knew it - he - was smirking. “Be glad that I had plucked you from a similar fate, little one. Now, what brings one such as yourself to my abode within the boy’s soul?” the Dragon, the world, asked.

“It’s been far too long since I’ve had guests.”

It was all so much to comprehend in but a fraction of time stretched into infinities. The experience was just so utterly alien and different from all that she’d experienced before. Even on the three separate occasions she had touched pieces of the Sonata and had been the end of the last universe and the start of the new one there hadn’t been just so much to flood her consciousness like a solar tsunami funneled through a human-sized space. This was different, because this, she realized, wasn’t merely an object, an existence, this was all because it was a being of consciousness and experience, of thought and emotion, of senses beyond human sensing. A universe that knew itself and was itself and all within itself.

“Wow.”

It took her a second to take this all in and formulate a response to the Dragon, and in that second infinite infinities already passed. It felt to her like her mind was everywhere and nowhere at once, and contained--protected--by this incredibly alien and vast being.

“Is this… um… hello? Hail and well met? This is, to say the least of it, not something I’m used to. Is this real? Um. I suppose it would be polite to introduce myself after imposing like this. Hi, I’m Gwendolyn Emanuella Victoria Isolde du Lac. What’s your name?”

“I am.”

This alone was easily more than anyone could comprehend. In an instant, Gwen’s mind became flooded once more. Her thoughts raced to give meaning to what her entire self was experiencing. Her heart sang. The sensation was nigh indescribable, yet she tried. It was as if her soul itself was roused to emotion - to impression. Though these feelings were deep inside, they were not just her own. Her soul was but a chorus to the world’s melody.

Power. Pride. Nobility. Superiority. Prestige. Emotion. Freedom. Chaos. Thought.

Compassion.

The Dragon was all these, alone and together. A complex matrix, greater than the sum of its parts. He smiled at the girl.

“The boy behaved well like you are. Does this sate your curiosity?”

Gwen shuddered--a movement and feeling beyond physical in this strange realm of the mind beyond minds. “I…”

She shook what she thought was her head. “It sates it and yet it gives me more. I have so many questions. You’ve already answered many, but each answer has given me more questions. I can’t even express them all correctly, I think, but it feels like you already know all of them. You’re… not a god, not quite, not to my or human understanding, not really, but there’s… a lot. A lot of similarities in essence. Does DomDom feel you like this, meet you like this? Can you affect the outside world beyond your glowing hands and tail? What power do you have over him, over us?”

She paused, like a frightened tremble. “What power do you have over me?”

Though the great maw - simultaneously as large as a car, a skyscraper, a mountain, a planet and a sun (and everything in between) remained still, Gwen could all but see the slowly spreading grin.

“Greed, I see. Lust, for knowledge and understanding. Many of yours covet these… but little one, know but these facts.”

“We are both within the boy - think on these words. To you, it is what you may perceive. To me, it is a prison of my own consequence. My reach is as far as the little one lets me - as much as the little one is capable.”

Suddenly, the world was it all. Like a kaleidoscope of haunts, the Dragon was everywhere. In every direction, in every facet of everything, everywhere, forever.

“But to a guest uninvited, such as yourself… I am free to act of my own volition,” spoke everything, yet bereft of malice.

“Does this sate your curiosity?”

The complete lack of malice soothed Gwen’s spirits, but only little, as the realization dawned on her that many great natural and supernatural calamities had come to pass without thought or intent by any being, and yet had still inflicted great suffering on humankind nonetheless. It was like she was an ant to a human, and that human was an ant to The Dragon. All throughout her life she’d heard tales of dragons that would be but ants to this one, and the greater in size they were the more they were to be feared, the less it mattered whether they intended good or ill.

“I… I guess. I guess I am greedy. I guess I want too much sometimes. I… I didn’t intend to intrude like this. I’m sorry.”

If tears were an emotion all to their own, it was what Gwen was experiencing now of herself. “I’m sorry.”

Involuntarily, memories and experiences from her past came flooding out, as if her power resonated with that of The Dragon, as the more Gwen tried to hide like a thief in the night, the more she dropped all that she’d gathered already. Moments of grief, of rage, of love and loss. Regret. Regret over having entered, of how that action made her now feel so powerless even after all those moments in the past few months that she had felt powerful in the face of overwhelming adversity. Regret over many tiny things she had done. Regret over how powerless she also had felt in other situations, over how others had made her feel, over the power that, inevitably, her friends and loved ones had over her. That always had comforted her, the bonds she had formed with others… but as of late it felt like one by one, each of them was used to inflict pain on her.

“Can you…” she hesitated, “can you remove memories of mine?”

From each tear sprang a shard. Like droplets of a mosaic, shattered glass, pebbles and tears of memory and experience. They fell both down and up, direction meaningless in the realm of psyche. And then, they stopped. They shuddered. In one gentle motion, the discordant cacophony became another song. Each sliver floated in an array. Like a whirlpool. A gust trailing in a line around the girl - along the jagged yet gentle claw of the world.

“Mortals of flesh and bone, you are most contrary of creatures. First, you barge upon the one you look up to, only to apologise in misery. And now, you dare beg for bargains…”

Yet, the Dragon did not speak in fury or anger. Despite the scolding resonance, the waves of his emotions were full of wonder and curiosity.

“Are these not majestic? Each a sign of such great struggle. Every crack forming a beautiful tapestry. Why would you wish to be rid of these gifts?”

Gwen looked around, and wonder mixed with the torrent of her emotions as The Dragon spoke to her.

“I… I don’t think I want to be rid of all of them. It’s just… many of these are from struggles that are behind me, but some are struggles of the present that hit me again and again in the most powerful and painful ways. There’s just too much, it’s too strong for me, that gnawing, biting, gnashing feeling churning within. Every time I gain a glimmer of hope, it’s crushed before me. I helped save my cousin, but she rejects me when it’s time to save herself. I fight alongside a girl claiming to be my father, but all she does is interfere more in my life than he has since we came to this city. I get saved from years of pain in a lab and… and…”

Being in a space where everything around her was everything at once, her feeling everything at once, made everything come out at once. It was too much. There was so much she had kept inside, even with how much she unleashed every day, every fight, every time she had a heart-to-heart with a teammate, a friend. In all that, a memory floated to the forefront, of her grandfather Leodornach, smiling at her after she’d had gotten into a fight with Rhiannon. “My child, you are so much like your great-grandfather. It’s often said that the legacy of du Lac is tragedy, but always remember: everyone can earn their happy ending.” And he patted her head and squeezed Riodeam’s hand as the man leaned on his shoulder, drooling in his sleep. It elicited a short laugh from her then, and before she noticed, she laughed the same way now.

“I…” she started again, “I don’t think I want to be rid of them. My memories are a part of me, though I’m glad there are things I don’t remember. It’s just… it’s hard to know how I can earn my happy ending when I am not the one in charge of the story.”

“Fickle, capricious creatures…” the world responded, baubles of memories and experience shaking discordant.

They flowed away from the girl, seemingly disappearing into the shimmering mist that is the body, the universe, the everything of this strange, endless creature she was conversing with. But just as fast as they were gone, they reappeared. One by one, from pitch-black darkness. Like falling stars, their tails leaving behind a scar upon the firmament that did not vanish - but persisted. So fell one, stopping abruptly and shining bright with an echo of old experience. And so, fell another - and another, and another. The single threads became a shower, slowly painting a strange visage in the heavens themselves.

“...but such is this strange, strange beauty that enraptures one so. The struggle of mortality - the defiance of fate and whim, in oblivion. Your world is oft regarded with disdain, mockery - a true cage of flesh and bone. But as I look, I see a strange shrill, like a song. Strange and weak, frail of voice and ceasing… before another comes in its place, and the cycle continues.”

As the world spoke, the stars have aligned. Each painful memory, each regret, each misery - right where it belonged. What once were feeble dots turned into criss-crossing lines have since become a mosaic - pale and cold, interwoven with bright warmth and the colours of rainbow. There, in the stars, was the girl herself. The absolute sum of oneself - of her.

“Existence bereft of struggle is but stagnant. With infinite potential comes the infinite ennui. Even should one desire to forge oneself an obstacle, that trial is but part of his own nature. A mere whim, discarded, with no value or sense of purpose beyond momentary amusement. But your story,” the Dragon sang, and the massive claw placed itself against the girl’s chest - invisible, but present. It raked into the skin immaterial, without pain, without discomfort. From the wound shone light, and each fragment upon the sky began to fall into its place - where it truly belong.

A fall that did not happen, for all the pieces were there already within.

“Your story is unwritten, and you are no more an artichect of its own as is everyone around you. Life without pain is life without pleasure. Life without misery is life void of joy. To know the warm, one must needs experience the cold. Suffer. Stumble. Wander. Whisper. Witness. Think. Reason. Cherish. Change. Roam. Walk on.”

In that moment, the vastness disappeared. Like a maelstrom roused in a second, and blown away in the selfsame moment. Gwen was left alone, in the void - with but a strange orb floating in front of her. And atop that orb, sat the world, the Dragon. So seemingly small, so docile, yet hiding truth the girl had experienced firsthand. He looked at her and yawned - for once opening his maw in a manner reminiscent of corporeal beings.

“A hero is, after all, more than their hang-ups and regrets. You have had more than your share of chances to abandon the Watermother, and yet your hand grips tight to her grip and heft,” the Dragon said, snickering at his own words. “I shall not plunder you of memory. Walk your own path, and remember that the pen of your life’s story is as much in the hand of fate, as it is in your own.”

The following roar was… like a yawn. A pip-squeak chitter, rather than a resonant cry of a universe in the throes of its birth. “Does this sate your curiosity?”

Gwen didn’t have to think long this time. “Yes,” she managed a smile, “it does.”

She reached out--with her hand? A phantom limb? A thought?--and touched The Dragon again in his small appearance, like she was petting a cat.

She withdrew herself from him. It seemed like it was time to go. She was never sure how much time passed outside of these mindscapes, but she wanted to return to the real world and to Dominik.

“If you don’t receive guests much, would you like me to come again? I can bring games and snacks. Though I suppose that’d more for DomDom… Is there a name you’d prefer me to call you by out in the real--out there on Earth, in the mortal realm?” There she was again, ready to leave and still so full of questions.

The Dragon stared at the girl with an incredulous look. For the first time since ages, his draconic features were animate - in a way capable of being perceived by mortal mind. After this little charade, the ‘small’ creature shook his head.

“To know is enough. Next time, little one…”

And at that moment, the world became tiny again. As if entire reality became pulled away, into a single point. Compressed, from all angles and realities - a singularity. It spoke.

“Kindly, knock.”

###### ===========

“H-hey,” Dom pulled his head back instantly, at the very second Gwen’s hand brushed against his horn. The blush on his cheek flooded into a bright red, almost as vivid as his own hair. He looked away, his mouth a child-like pout. His lips were curled. It was a faint smile.

“That tickles, you know…? Well… sort of. But, ahh, that’s still me, kind of. You can’t really touch Gramps as-is. Sorry.”

Gwen smiled back at him. “I know. Sorry about that.”

She lowered her hand and glanced aside as the last rays of the sun were disappearing over the horizon. Then she threw her arms around Dom’s torso in a hug. “Thanks for being here for me.”

The hug was quite quickly reciprocated. Dominik wrapped his own pair of arms around Gwen, and lifted the girl up from the ground. From the momentum, his feet spun over the other, and the two all but twirled there on the rooftop. When the pace finally petered out, Dom stood there with the girl’s feet still dangling in the air.

“Don’t mention it. And to be honest, I did have half-a-mind to yeet you into the harbour for the stunt you pulled with the letters and the whole “I will likely not return” vibe. But you yote the harbour over all of us earlier so I’ll settle with that alone.”

Gwen snickered against Dom’s chest. “That would’ve been fair, I guess.”

Nimue shot up from her place at the edge and into Gwen’s hand and her other hand grabbed the blade, pressing the flat against Dom’s back and she exerted some pressure. “Just remember that you’re not the only strong yeeter on the team, even if you are number one, big bro.”

She let go of the sword, and then, finally, he released her from the hug.

“...hot cocoa in the kitchen? Our faces are on lockdown for the next two hours so…”

Gwen nodded with a smile. “Let’s.”