29 Albus side, p1 (2/2)

The things Leum said were-- well, yes. Albus blushed, feeling sorry for the dragon and also… hoping August wouldn't ask him to do the same about something he didn't want to tell-- but peeking at August, Albus could tell that August hadn't expected a response like this. He didn't think it was possible, but August's presence thinned out even more, now there not being even a human presence there.

Albus had no idea about human organizations, cardinals, bishops or anything of that sort, but he did listen to what was told. Seemed like some guys were sent after Leum, yet they were too weak to tackle Leum, which made sense - even multiple Aheal military units wouldn't be enough to handle a dragon of Leum's caliber, not to mention that Leum could divine things - they wouldn't even have a chance to catch him by surprise.

August's caution towards these bishops was, Albus guessed, because he might reveal what he is in a battle with them. He didn't think it was an issue of power, yet… perhaps it was.

How much of a dryad's power could August use if he was tied to a physical shape? Albus couldn't read aether flow off August's body due to legendary tier presence concealment being in place, but he did know that magicians were limited by their vessel. For that reason all magic users in Ahea spent time to train their body. In the previous conversation in the forest Albus had overheard that August was very young, ten times younger than Albus himself, and since this young master had struggled to develop presence concealment, there was a very low chance his vessel was of a decent size.

Most likely, the way he was, his master could use only a teeny tiny bit of his power without breaking the frail body he had. That meant that, practically, August might be incredibly weak. For a physical body to handle a dryad's potential it would take a millennium of expanding one's vessel and for the training of that sort - August would need to lift his presence concealment first.

Since familiar shapes were based on their master, by the feeling in Albus own body, Albus could tell that August's body was akin to that of a high elf. Immortal if not damaged too badly, only aging enough to match the maturity level of the soul. If August trained, then he could eventually use more power.

Albus train of thought was interrupted by a question Grisham asked. ”How were you previously called?”

Albus didn't want to reply, he didn't want to risk his family learning about him being alive and here. He looked over at his master to know if he should reveal his name, hoping that he wouldn't need to.

August nodded, however.

”Albusflores von Plaustribus,” he said, feeling a sense of distance from his own name. How odd. He had always liked his own name, yet now there was a sense of loss in it, that feeling shook him up.

Grisham was surprised at it. ”What would a child of Cirrus be doing in Urea?” he asked.

Albus choked up a little, his throat felt dry. He didn't want to think about his mother, when he most likely would never see her face again. All thanks to Glacies. ”I was betrayed,” he said, a sad smile appearing. ”Not that it matters anymore,” he said tears starting to form in his eyes. He wasn't even Albusflores anymore, he had lost that life.

Albus could feel a warm hand on his shoulder and as he looked at it, his eyes met with Veri's. She was giving him a warm, gentle smile. ”You have a new life now,” she said, almost as if sensing his feelings.

Mhm. He did. He felt hope fill his heart. He now had a new family. Riveria showing an expression like that caused her to overlap with Admiral in Albus' memories.

”You can murder them later,” Veri added with the same gentle smile.

Albus couldn't help but smile, Admiral wouldn't go down that route, but this was better for the current him. No one stopped him from taking revenge. Perhaps it was a blessing he could become a familiar of a dark dryad as - firstly, nothing could beat dark alignment for perfectly shapeshifting into something else and, secondly, dark alignment had the most horrid, torturous curses. This body he had gained from August's blood was half-dark aligned, yet he had kept the same aether pool as he had in his contra form. Albus nodded with confidence, no one was better equipped to take revenge on Glacies than him. Thinking of revenge was unthinkable for the usual Albusflores, but he was completely unrestrained in this sleep deprived delirium.

”Who betrayed you, by the way,” Grisham asked.

Bitterness settled on Albus' tongue. ”Glacies von Campisnivalis.”

”Child of Nix?”

Albus nodded. Yes, she was a child of his mother's best friend. Who knows where the rotting began or why and it was meaningless to think about it.

Albus tilted his head slightly seeing Grisham take on an amused smile, but Albus did not aim to ask about it and there was a knock on the door. Moments after they got bracelets to put on. ID's, huh? There was something about removing a dead zone and getting someone out, but Albus chose to focus on his tea, he had drank enough for it to show it's effects, but that didn't make it any less enjoyable. Luckily he had enough time to match up with Mandy about finishing it.

As Albus resumed walking he noticed that something was… missing. He did his best to put on a pokerface, even if internally he was going 'oh crap, oh crap, oh crap', he had changed sex-- the suddeness of it all made him feel indecent. The tea had recovered a little bit of his mind's clarity and he recalled the delirious ideas he had about 'mother of Urea's unicorns'. This was insane. His body had taken that delusion seriously.

Luckily his chest had not grown much and his clothes were loose enough to cover things up, but ugh-- He didn't want anyone to know about this. Like that Albus zoned out the conversation August had with Leum, only snapping out when they met another person by a fountain. A human with dark alignment, but not a dark elf… peculiar. And just like that the three of them were passed over to this Hal guy before Albus had a chance to say a thing.

”Uh - so which of you is Leum?” Hal asked, as he led them to a store nearby.

”That would be me,” Leum replied with a smile.

Hal looked thoughtful for a while, then looked the three of them over. ”Excuse me if that sounds rude, but what gender is Albus?”

Albus felt grateful August had just left, ”Um--” he let out a sound, shocked at his own voice-- even that had become feminine. He blushed. ”Girl.”

Riveria and Leum both snorted, trying to hold in laughter.

Albus squinted at the both of them-- uhhh, they totally knew what this was about. So embarrassing. Albus wanted to crawl into a hole. From the outside he was sure he looked like some… desperate repressed unicorn falling for the first beauty he saw. The repressed part might even be true and that embarrassed him even further. Unicorns weren't supposed to sleep around, they married and had a family and that was it. Bicorns were the ones sleeping with everyone and everything, hence why depraved dark dryads took them as familiars in ancient times.

”Sorry about that,” Hal said, not seeming all that sure what was going on.

”It's okay,” Albus said. And soon after Hal was passing them over to various shopping assistants, who helped them get everything starting from underwear ending with accessories and to finish it off they were taken to a style-something-person who showed them how to do make-up and hair and someone painted their nails as well. Truth be told, it looked complicated as heck and Albus wasn't sure he (now she) could do it well. Trial and error, he supposed. Aheals used magic for things like those, doing it like this felt kind of barbaric.

”Think you can do it?” Hal asked them as they walked towards a restaurant to get a take-away.

”Seems easy enough,” Leum said, likely because he had to do far less stuff than Albus and Veri.

”Hal, do we really need that, it doesn't look like most people on the street spend that much effort on their tribal painting make-up whatever,” Riveria asked, her question was purely curious.

”Your choice,” Hal replied. ”I put you through the full course so you know what to do if a need comes up. Knowing how August looks when he leaves the house I'd say you need to have your hair in order and either add some color to your eyes or lips to show you care. Also, August has a thing for girls with painted nails, if that's relevant.”

Both Veri and Albus looked down on their hands. So August likes that… Oh, then it was good!

As she looked down on her nails, Albus didn't catch the wry smile Hal made when seeing their reactions.

”Can you lead me to where August lives?” Hal asked next, once he had a bag of take-away food in his hands.

For a familiar it was easy to find their master, so soon enough they arrived. August had said to Grisham that his apartment had turned into a cursed forest, but seeing and hearing were two different things. Albus had never imagined that cursed forests were this beautiful. They were always described as being awful and full with malice, forest spirits taking on vicious forms, but other than being silent and lacking animals or bugs, the cursed forest in August's apartment was majestic and felt like home despite it being the first time Albus went into it. It was odd to experience, but it made sense. This place was their master's domain, it would feel like home regardless of what it was like, but Albus sure felt grateful for it being like this.

Sadly, it seemed like August paid their looks no attention, but Albus wasn't too upset about it, sitting down and enjoying her surroundings instead. August and Mandy talked about something complicated which Albus felt she should understand, but she honestly had no clue.

Luckily the food Hal had gotten had some veggie only options, but before Albus could dig in Mandy asked the question Albus didn't want to respond to, but-- Albus did her best to put on a poker face and blatantly lied.

”I decided to be a girl. August said we should blend in and my current appearance fits a human girl better,” she said, hoping that the dragons wouldn't snitch her out.

Safe. The two made amused smiles but said nothing and the conversation moved on without Albus needing to continue to lie-- much. Albus did feel a bit peeved when it turned out that August contracted her in confusion, but what could you do, she let out a sigh.

The conversation shifted back to Albus only when Hal asked what she had been before contracting August and Albus honestly replied by now having figured that Hal was August's brother and 'in the know'.

The way August looked at her in disbelief was kind of hurtful, though… she did slip something she shouldn't have in all that confusion and the sight of her puking in the forest was disgraceful, but… it wasn't without a reason. Albus blushed, pouting. ”I said I was sorry.”

”I'm surprised Ahea has spacecraft,” Hal said.

Albus tilted her head, surprised, but glancing at August it seemed like August knew. Only Mandy and Hal appeared to be surprised. ”Of course we do,” she said. ”Differently to Urea, Ahea does not have dryad protection that isolates both extradimensional and outer space threats.”

Uh-- true, it made sense. Both Mandy and Hal nodded.

”Wasn't Ahea said to be peaceful?” Mandy asked.

”It is,” Albus said with pride. ”Our military is amazing. We mobilize instantly, teleport towards danger and deal with it so fast regular citizens don't even notice. We have had exactly zero war induced casualties for the past three centurie--” Albus's shoulders sunk down, realizing that this had changed. ”Our spacecraft will mark the biggest war causality in the past two millenia, I guess,” she added, recalling how the presences of her fellow crew members extinguished one after another, even admiral… Albus felt her vision starting to blur. Just how many times could one cry in a day?

Again, Albus felt the warmth on her shoulder and it wasn't hard to tell it was Riveria. Riveria was a far warmer person than her reputation hinted and Albus felt grateful it was so.

”Is it fine if we don't contact Ahea about it?” August asked, frowning.

About that - Albus had already come to her decision. There was resolve in her eyes. ”The military will deal with it without me needing to say anything,” she said, the fireworks in the sky would be obvious and given the blast, it wouldn't be hard to narrow down what shot at the ship.

Albus didn't wish to reason using 'protecting you might be harder work than dealing with this situation in Ahea', so she mentioned some personal reasons. ”And I'd rather Glacies doesn't know about me being alive.” Her eyes were dark as she said it. ”And it's not like I can face my family anymore,” Albus added, looking sideways. She'd rather not tarnish her family's honor.

”What was the deal with bicorns?” Mandy asked.

Albus was at a loss of words, turning red. She had been so confused and overwhelmed before she was knocked out by Riveria she didn't even recall what sort of stuff she had mumbled-- if Mandy mentioned bicorns, Albus was afraid to even ask.

Riveria came to the rescue. ”Ahea has these weird theories about light and dark dryads. Light ones being pure and innocent and Dark ones being depraved or what have you.”

And Albus felt like that wasn't too far off given that August was dating Mandy. Right now Albus wasn't afraid of Mandy, having gotten used to her more or less, but that didn't change the fact that Mandy had an aura of death and outside of this apartment she looked frightening. Not to mention that conversation in the train.

August's eyes turned lifeless from hearing that, but Albus didn't quite catch the meaning of that look, but Mandy's expressions seemed to hint that there might be something in it too.

”There's no bigger honor for a bicorn to be contracted by a dark dryad and unicorns and bicorns have this rivalry thing going on where they try to do everything in the opposite, so it's something related to that,” Riveria added.

Albus nodded to confirm that bit, she wouldn't say they were rivals per se', just that bicorns were something a unicorn wouldn't ever want to be like. ”It would be a great dishonor to my family if anyone finds out. So I will only go back to take my revenge when I have learned to shapeshift into another form and learn some horrid dark alignment curses to slowly torture Glacies into committing suicide and then I will eat her soul.” Albus expression changed into a bright expectant smile at the last two parts, the dark alignment in her current body would allow her to do it all. How awful and completely unlike a unicorn, but that was exactly the type of end Glacies deserved.

Ceruleum and Riveria looked proud and Albus felt even better about this plan. She didn't look towards Mandy or Hal and thus didn't notice the looks of silent terror they exchanged.

The conversation shifted again, this time toward August needing to join a certain human organization. Albus was clueless about those, but by now she knew that there was Guild (August was a part of it and they were registered in it as his familiars), Church (a place August needed to avoid, and it seemed it had ties to Soleans) and right now she learned about Witchcraft community (a place that might be related to Terrea, but through this conversation it seemed like August might join them even so).

Veri offered to introduce August to some witches during solstice and Albus eyes sparkled over. Looked like them going to the even was a set deal. ”Tiamat's party~” Albus hummed as she munched on a carrot.

”Albus, in case you can tell - what kind of mess is happening over at Ahea,” August asked.

Albus finished munching, then thought a bit, it didn't look like August was asking about the whole state of affairs, just the incident. ”Something is off with Hades, one of their factions seems to be looking for something or someone in secret. I don't know much more than that. But - well, knowing just this much was enough for them to destroy our ship, so--”

Albus realized her mistake. ”You better not tell anyone--” Albus said, her voice drowning out seeing their expressions.

August sighed. ”And that betrayal?” Looked like he no longer cared about knowing too much.

Albus straightened her back and recounted the events of Glacie's betrayal.

August squinted after hearing it. ”Are you completely sure you don't need to report that?”

”Officially Albusflores von Plaustribus has died and dead men tell no tales,” Albus said, feeling lifeless. She had decided. Military would deal with it, but they were a smaller group and she wouldn't risk the life of her master for the sake of speeding up investigation a little bit.

August shrugged and gave up.

Albus was grateful he wasn't pushy about things like those. The less she needed to explain the less… troublesome and embarrassing it would be. Their meal time was soon over, the food items in Urea weren't too different from those found in Ahea, they were different, of course, but Albus could get used to the nuances.

After that Albus unpacked the stuff Hal had bought for her and taught Veri and Leum how to fold theirs. Albus had been a part of military for more than a century, so she was used to changing clothes among others. It was a bit odd to have female lingerie out on a display, but since no one else seemed bothered, Albus shrugged that detail off as well.

Mandy was curious about her spatial storages, so Albus showed them, although she kept the activation methods a secret - in Ahea it was common sense to not reveal those even to your superiors. After that August asked them to clean up a kitchen area and even if Albus felt very sleepy, she set to work without complaint and when they were done for the day, she passed out on the soft flowery ground instantly. It almost felt like the flowers embraced her tired body.

***

A doorbell rang and Albus slowly opened her eyes. Her mind had finally regained the clarity it should have.

For a moment she stared at Riveria's sleeping face, yesterday's events sinking in and filling her chest with shame far worse than one might get after a wild drinking party. What was even going on with her life?

She had:

Survived a serious Hadean attack. Survival rate - 0.001%

Crossed the boundary and escaped a Snarghlah'ahd. Survival rate for a unicorn - should be 0.

Contracted a dark dryad. Chances of that happening - 0, it has never occurred before. At least there are no records of it and by all logic - a unicorn should not be attracted to half-dark aligned beings… Not that she could tell with his presence concealment.

Developed a crush (?) on this very same dark dryad… and deluded herself into considering him a mate despite him having a lover already. This went against everything Albus considered to be proper.

Acted all chummy and casual with two chaos age dragons. She even twirled around with Riveria like a child and spoke to Dragon of Fate with no honorifics, shamelessly asking questions like he was her private encyclopedia.

Displayed unsightly joy about a celebrity event (Tiamat's party).

Carelessly revealed secret information and almost put her own master in danger.

Openly and freely discussed her revenge and even made a gruesome plan to consume Glacie's soul.

Wow. Albus curled up into a ball, holding on to her head. She wanted to blame sleep deprivation and tragedies occurring to explain it all, but - explaining and blaming wouldn't be of any use. She did all that and she needed to own it, take responsibility and make plans to ensure nothing like that repeats.

What could she have done differently?

Albus uncurled and ran the memories through her head. Most of the things had been completely out of her control, but there was one thing that hadn't been. She had done her best to stay awake, that had been her mistake. After she was saved, she should have passed out. The contract couldn't be helped, but everything after that… if Albus had passed out, then most likely Riveria would have carried her around while she was out cold and in that case…

She wouldn't have acted as indecently as she had and right about now she would only have grievances about not being able to face her family and losing Admiral. Now that her mind was clear, she went over her decisions as well, yet it looked like her delirious mind had enough sense in some ways. Albus didn't know about the part of gruesome revenge, but the part of not contacting Ahea and prioritizing protecting August felt right.

This wasn't quite the promotion she wanted, but her status was higher than it had been in Ahea. the most she could become in Ahea would be a battleship captain, but here she was a familiar of the highest order diety class of a dimension. The shape she had right now had some flaws, but it had a growth potential that would overstep anything a unicorn could become. She was no longer limited to blank alignment magic that was only good for precision work, barriers and restoration type healing. This body could learn and use light and dark alignment magic and that meant she now had the opportunity to gain the battle ability she was always envious off in others.

Albusflores von Plaustribus was dead and Albus knew that it would take her time to come to terms with it. Yet - she was now Albus from August's Garold's familia and a part of her knew that this new role would allow her to break the shackles her previous role put on her. It would take time. But perhaps she could change now and wouldn't need to walk the path chosen for her by her family.

Albus let out a breath and got up. She could sense August being in another room and Mandy was making coffee while various food items floated into shelves and sorted themselves out. In this shape Mandy didn't look frightening, but that ability was scary as heck - Albus had not lost a unicorn's sensitivity to aether flow and to her it looked like dark alignment threads like those of a spider spread out from Mandy's back and did all the work with ease. Albus could do something similar, but only one thing at a time, yet here Mandy was - precisely adjusting force and moving ten things at a time without even looking. With ease, seeming like her mind was elsewhere at that.

Albus gulped. She didn't even want to imagine what it would be like to fight against someone like that. She felt lucky that Mandy was on August's side not against him and even luckier to have heard about Mandy's take on sharing August-- even if it one day comes up that she has an embarrassing crush on August, she probably won't be killed.

Okay. Albus took a breath and decided to ask something she was curious about. ”Do we need to wash using shampoo and things to blend in?” to put it simply that was very inconvenient. Ahea had baths, but those were more for relaxation, cleaning was done using simple purifying spells.

Mandy tilted her head and Albus could see the question in those blue eyes. Rather than blue of a summer morning, Mandy's eyes reminded of blue of november noon - they were a shade darker than the eyes Albus currently had.

”I mean, I'm more used to just,” Albus said and cast a purifying spell, drawing a small half triangle over her chest. A bit of light passed over her body, clearing away all impurities from her and her clothes.

Mandy looked surprised, yet pleasantly so. ”I think it's best to ask August,” she said, seeming uncertain, though.

The doorbell rang and Mandy left. All the items were already arranged in the shelves. Albus looked over at the kitchen area they had cleaned the day before, then went to sit down in among the flowers as Mandy and August busied themselves with another guest arriving.

August appeared right next to Leum and reached out to pinch Leum's nose, having him wake. It was incredible to see the dragon of fate being woken like this--

”Aug, you could have woken me with a kiss or something,” Leum said as he yawned.

August sighed. ”Go form an oath with the guy who just came, so he doesn't leak anything.”

”Fine,” Leum said and got up to walk towards the door.

Then August played the same trick on Veri, although that didn't turn out as well, as Veri pulled August down to use him as a body pillow. Albus felt a little envious, but only for a while, as August kept poking Veri till she had no choice but to wake up. Same as Leum she said. ”Aug, you could have woken me with a kiss.”

”As if that would work on you,” August said with pursed lips.

Veri yawned. ”Fair point.” She admitted and got up, drawing the same half triangle over her chest.

”August, can I ask something?” Albus spoke up then, remembering her question.

August nodded.

”Can't we just use purifying spells to clean up?” She asked.

”That's a good question,” he said, stepping closer to Veri, to sniff at her.

Veri blushed, she was surprised, but happily so.

”It's faint, but I can still smell forest on you,” he said. ”Should be fine with some perfume and hairspray, I guess.”

Albus sniffed at her own hair and certainly there was the fresh scent of leaves and forest flowers in it. But didn't elves scent that way? But - true, she wasn't an elf, scenting like an elf when you were not one was suspicious. It did feel a bit odd not to have any unicorn smell on her, though.

According to some old classmates unicorns had a scent of snow, but to Albus that description had always felt too vague, same how it probably felt to dragons if you described them to scent like fire, after all, Salamanders also scented of fire, but Dragons and Salamanders didn't scent the same at all.

Veri also smelled her own hair, nodded and got some perfume and hairspray. She applied perfume, then there was a brief pause of thinking and Veri used some magic to set her hair in the same style as the hairdresser did the day before only then spraying it over. Albus did something similar, except rather than using magic, she just brushed her hair to set it up. And just when they were done, Leum returned with what seemed to be two humans and a dustbun.

Albus thought there would be introductions, but not the case - Mandy went to make breakfast and August asked the guest to pass something over. Turned out - a pile of paper.

”Albus, you don't eat meat or eggs, right?” Mandy asked in passing.

”If I have the choice I only eat plants,” Albus replied, not finding the question odd in any way. Unicorns were commonly known to be plant eaters, although Albus wasn't certain if Ureals would know given that Urea no longer had a unicorn population in it.

Veri and Leum stuck to August's sides, reading the documents along with him.

Only a few minutes after Mandy had asked, Albus recieved a salad bowl. Quick--!! And since the three had finished reading a page by then, Mandy sat right next to Albus and ate a salad while holding up the paper sheet in front of them so they both could read.

The salad was good! Ahea didn't have beans (or peas) like those yellow ones, but other ingredients felt familiar.

Mandy asked how Albus knew Urea's language and writing and Albus replied that she inherited language comprehension from August. Mandy also asked about Fae language and Albus honestly replied that she might have some troubles with that, same how Fae paths were a bit beyond her at this point.

The paper sheets described fifteen different happenings of odd magic use, most of them with magic that wasn't common in Ahea, but Albus did recognize some Solean and Terrean tricks, and bronze alignment-- Hadeans? What were they doing in Urea? That shouldn't even be possible - Hadeans were astral formations lacking physical aspect at a level where Urea's environment itself would make their bodies fall apart.

August took out a map and Albus followed Mandy to step closer to them. By that point everyone had finished their breakfast.

Leum pointed at something, saying ”This one is the one that consumed that god and life force.”

Albus eyes widened when she saw what Leum was pointing at. Silvery and metallic alignment - ”It's a hadean royalty.” Unbelievable. What the heck would someone like that do in Urea. Hadean royalty were precious beings very tightly guarded, for one to be here - ”But how can that be, it's not possible for them to sustain their shape in Urea.” Unless they had committed the taboo and murdered someone…

”Hadeans have a metallic looking alignment?” August asked.

”Yes,” Albus affirmed, still thinking. There was no doubt. If the royalty could sustain their shape they had killed another hadean, yet the fact that they ate a partial amount of life force in Urea hinted that they weren't really of a murderous nature.

”Could this be what Hadeans looked for in Ahea?” August asked with a wry smile, a tired look settling on his face.

”... it could be,” Albus said. ”But the thing is - the Hadeans who were looking wanted to have that someone or something destroyed and they offered Abyss cores for any information.” Even if this member of royalty had murdered someone, Hadeans just-- weren't into capital punishment. Even from the brief interactions Aheals and Hadeans had, that bit was very obvious - it was against Hadean values to kill their own people regardless of how heavy were their crimes. Hadeans had a similar kind of immortality to Aheals and shared similar values on how to treat life and what atonement looked like. They could peacefully arrange their deals exactly because they had this common value.

”Abyss cores?” August asked.

”Power source for Hadean spaceships, more lightweight and longer lasting than-- military secret technology we have,” this time Albus caught herself before revealing too much. Due to the unconditional trust familiars felt towards their master, it was somewhat hard to conceal things. Yet a more important detail was… ”But why--” Why would they want to kill this Hadean royalty? Albus frowned. ”Could there be a usurpation happening in Hades?”

August crossed his arms. ”Or a battle for succession.”

Albus' eyes widened… that was a very Ureal way of taking it, but she couldn't shrug it off completely either. Given how much authority Hadean emperor had, there was enough basis to eliminate competition.

”Why else would they try to sell state secret technology (I guess it ought to be one) just for the chance of killing a single person in secret? Hadeans don't make their statements in secret, right?” August added.

Albus looked down. True. The fact that this searching party offered something that valuable… something was going down a really bad path in Hades. ”No. They have always been very open and direct with Ahea before,” Albus said. She was surprised that August seemed to know about the stance Hadeans took, but that was a minor concern compared to other things.

”Do we catch this royalty and exchange them for abyss cores?” Riveria asked. Didn't look like she was particularly worried about anything.

”Hm, seems like an easy target,” Ceruleum added, an amused smile appearing on his lips.

Yep, these two were dragons through and through-- Albus wasn't surprised. That's the reason why Aheal military had no dragons in it. If need arose Aheal military cooperated with dragons, yes, but dragons weren't a part of it.

”You would pass a-- prince of some world over to possible terrorists to kill?” the guest finally spoke up, squinting.

Albus was a bit surprised at the assumption they were a 'prince'... no, right, she had heard that Urea was oddly male centric, as in - females often didn't even 'count' as possible candidates for ruling or inheriting titles. In that case this assumption probably made sense.

Even if the two dragons considered something like that, the expression Mandy was making gave Albus a feeling that - not gonna happen. In this familia Mandy was higher in the hierarchy than the dragons, her feelings on the matter would play a bigger role. August didn't seem to be the type to jump in on something like that either.

Leum recounted the tale of them invading Hades fifteen millennia ago. It was a well known record in Ahea's military and Albus knew it in better detail than those Leum mentioned. Rather than thinking about that, her mind was spinning thinking what would be best to do, without her even noticing her fingers had dug in deep enough in her own arms to leave marks.

”Albus, what do you want to do?” August asked, snapping her out of it. Albus was startled and couldn't form any words at first, she hadn't been able to come up with anything yet-- She let her arms fall to her sides. Not the best option, but might as well tell her thoughts on it as best as she could.

”If I was still Albusflores von Plaustribus,” she started, looking down ”Then I would want to approach the Hadean royalty as secretly as possible and figure things out and then, I'd try to get them to Ahea, secure them and try to sort things out in an open diplomatic negotiation. Ahea and Hades have a non-involvement peace pact, yet it is based on a promise made by Hadean royal family. Even with as little knowledge as I have of Hades and our history, I can tell that it's bad news for Ahea if this promise gets called off.”

Albus looked up. ”But as Albus, a familiar of a Ureal die--” Cough. Albus stopped herself, peeking at Ian, then continued. ”I feel that it would be safest to secure this person nevertheless and pass them over to Tiamat before anyone else gets to them. If even a tenth of what I've heard of Tiamat is true, then I'm certain that she would make a decision that would fit Urea's interests the most.” Tiamat was a dragon, that was the risky element in this, but at the same time Urea was her home and she was contracted to one of Urea's dryads who maintained the barrier. If Urea perishes so would Tiamat.

To Albus' relief, Leum felt the plan made sense and things were set in motion to follow it through. Leum did a few divinations to choose who would be going on the mission and it looked like only August, her and dragons were safe to go.

For some reason, they had to go to another room to change clothes. Probably due to the guest being there, it might be impolite towards them? Albus had no idea about Urea's customs, so she did what August asked with no complaint, and just as they had changed clothes and were about to apply make-up, August appeared in their midst, holding a map. ”We are out of time,” he said, and when Albus caught a glimpse of the map, the silvery spider-shaped spot was surrounded by three bronze ones - all spider-shaped as well.

August caught Albus and Veri by hands, Leum caught on to Veri and August pulled them all out by the doors of the apartment. The leap was so short, Albus didn't even get dizzy.

Back in the room with the apple tree, an eyeshadow packet fell into moss, yet no one bothered to pick it up. No questions were asked as they ran down the stairs and towards the busiest street nearby.