"Everyone put these on," Celeste said, handing out long brown cloaks.

  I unfolded one and looked at it skeptically. "If we walk through camp wearing these, we'll stick out quite a bit. They aren't exactly subtle."

  Celeste shook her head. "It isn't quite about being unseen, it's more about plausible deniability. Dragon Princess Celeste isn't taking any visitors, but she's working on something time-critical in her tent. That a group of soldiers wearing cloaks left after our camp just received an important message is a coincidence not worth speaking about. People may put things together, but the information remains a rumor, rather than a fact."

  "If you say so," I replied dismissively while pulling the hood over my head. Even in my beastkin form, I was rather tall. I don't think anyone will fail to notice us leaving.

  "We should head to the stables. Callisto should be ready for us by now. Did all of you gather everything important?" Celeste asked.

  All of us nodded and adjusted our cloaks over our bags as Celeste had instructed. They almost felt like raincoats to me, but made of a more durable material. They were slightly slick and smooth on the outside, but they looked like they were made of some kind of leather. Maybe they were made from the skin of some animal or monster I wasn't familiar with. My armor still clicked and made noise under the cloak, so I would need to remove it or shift if I wanted to be stealthier.

  I glanced at Iris. "I'm surprised you had a cloak that'll fit her."

  Celeste finished tying her cloak closed. "I had these made for all of you shortly after we arrived at this camp for cases like these. It's best to be prepared for eventualities like this. Now, come."

  She pushed through a flap in the back of her tent that I had never seen anyone use before. The guard posted there waited for all of us to file through before quickly hiding the secret flap again and allowing us to pass through an empty space between the tents that I now know is intentional. I wasn't entirely sure why we were being so sneaky about this, but I suppose we didn't really know what danger Saiph was facing. It was possible someone among Celeste's soldiers could be feeding information to someone, but that felt unlikely to me. All of this feels a little needlessly clandestine, but I guess Celeste is just being cautious.

  We made our way through the camp without any trouble. The few soldiers we did run across very intentionally diverted their paths away from us. Celeste leaving was obviously an open secret, but maybe only her loyal soldiers were placed near our route to the stables. Not long after we left, I saw Callisto standing near a group of the raptor beasts we would be riding, dressed in one of the cloaks as well. When I saw him, something felt odd, and I realized that neither of them had horns anymore, and my ears were gone too. The hoods must have been enchanted to hide them. I focused my attention more closely on the cloak I was wearing, and sure enough, I could both see and feel some kind of symbols or runes sewn into them that glowed with magic. I hadn't noticed them at first since they were worn so closely on our bodies, but I could sense them if I tried. It made me wonder how pervasive magical items were. It seems fairly likely that I just haven't noticed many of them.

  I was also sort of realizing that the blindfold didn't really do much for me anymore. I could now 'see' magic without it. The blindfold blocked the new magic sight I received from the changeling queen's heart, but the sixth sense I gained from it works well with or without it. The only time the blindfold was still useful was when we were trying to be sneaky, like now, since the glow of my eyes would still give away my identity, but even a mundane blindfold would do the job now.

  ("Have you ever ridden a kleth before?") Luna asked me as we approached.

  ("No, I've never even seen one before I came to this world,") I replied.

  ("That may be an issue...") Luna said in concern.

  "We're here. Everyone, take a kleth. Someone will have to ride with Iris, I'll ride with you, Emi," Celeste whispered.

  Despite not knowing how to ride, I got a weird sense when I approached one of the large raptor-like beasts. It was like the echo of a memory. Like I could almost remember a time when I used to ride them as a child, despite knowing that it wasn't true. I felt familiar with the creatures, despite never being this close to one before. The kleth stepped away from me nervously as I approached, as if it recognized me as the predator that I was, but I managed to gently stroke along its smooth scaled neck to calm it down. I cooed at it and kept stroking until it huffed and got used to my presence.

  I leaned forward and took the saddle horn in one hand before stepping into the stirrup and pulling myself onto it. The motion was smooth, like I had done this a thousand times before. I leaned forward and patted the red-scaled kleth on the neck to further calm it. It was odd, somewhat like I was following the instincts I had in my umber hound form, but less distinct, more fuzzy.

  ("You don't look like you've never ridden a kleth before,") Luna commented.

  ("I swear I haven't. It's... odd. But I feel like I've done this before,") I replied.

  Luna pulled herself onto a black-scaled kleth and gently patted the kleth's side once she was settled. ("Hmm, do you think this is related to the assassin hearts?")

  I frowned as I got settled in my saddle. Looking over, I could see Aria putting Iris in her lap, while Celeste did the same for Emi. The short drakken leaned back against Celeste in a way that looked a bit overly familiar for someone who was just an assistant. I had never smelled anything that gave me the impression before, but they seemed a little closer than just friends.

  I turned back to Luna. ("I'm not sure if it's their experiences bleeding in or not. I hadn't really noticed that I was speaking in draconic more fluently right away either, though. It does feel a bit like the instincts I get from the umber hound, but I'm not entirely sure. This feels a bit different, but I don't know if it's because it is different, or if it's just because the memories, instincts, and experiences are more muddled together for people.")

  Celeste interrupted our private chat now that all of us were ready. "Good. Let's go."

  She flicked her reins, and we all followed suit. Despite the interesting conversation, I still needed to concentrate on riding and keeping up at first. While the instincts told me what to do and gave me a certain level of muscle memory, I still needed to pay attention to them to follow through at the right time if I didn't want to be thrown off while trying to match Celeste's pace. It took a little bit of time for me to settle into the rhythm of riding with the others comfortably.

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  Luckily, the terrain was mostly flat desert, so we were making good time. The speed didn't compare to a car, of course, but we were still moving quite fast compared to what this would take on foot. Celeste seemed to know where she was going, so all of us followed her, including her brother. The two rode in front ahead of us, while the rest of us followed in a group behind.

  ("Should we be going ahead to protect Celeste? She is a princess,") I asked Luna.

  ("She knows where she's going, we should follow her. All of us were put into a dark wagon on the way to the oasis dungeon, so we wouldn't know where to go,") she replied.

  I frowned. ("Shouldn't we like... guard her?")

  Luna laughed. ("I suspect she might actually be the toughest one here. Though it's possible you may be stronger because of your regeneration. Even physically, Dragon Princes and Princesses are much stronger than most people. When you add in magic, they're incredibly powerful.")

  ("Why the guards, then?")

  ("The guards are often there for the people's benefit. From what I've heard, many princes and princesses can be temperamental and might have trouble physically controlling their strength, especially while they're young. It's also to create some distance from others. They are supposed to be above commoners, so being close and friendly with them or allowing them to touch them could be seen as overly familiar for their position,") Luna replied thoughtfully.

  I grimaced. I suppose if I looked at them like politicians or celebrities, it makes some amount of sense. Even someone like an mma fighter might not want to deal with people who could attack them while they weren't paying attention. Still, the way that Luna had put it had rubbed me the wrong way. It assumed some level of natural hierarchy, like they were naturally above commoners. But... I suppose there could be some truth to that too. If they were physically and magically stronger than others in a world where strength seemingly meant everything, doesn't that put them above others, in a sense? I didn't like it, but it was hard to argue with. I don't think that it actually made them better rulers, though. From my brief interactions with them, I didn't get the sense that they were any wiser or more incorruptible than ordinary people. In a way, being ordained by dragons and being hard to kill in a revolt gave them the potential to be horrible despots, if not for their supposed check of their dragon ancestors coming to kill them if they misbehaved too much. I still felt like I was only starting to scratch the surface of what this world was like.

  ("Are you okay?") Luna asked.

  ("Just thinking,") I replied.

  ("Did I say something strange?") she asked hesitantly.

  I shrugged. ("Mmm... no, I suppose not. It's just another clash of our cultures, I think. Where I come from, no one was naturally more powerful than anyone else. Without magic or draconic bloodlines, the only reason that some people were on top was because of lineage or political savvy. I'm still just adapting to it, is all.")

  ("If you didn't have dragon princes or princesses, how did your people determine who would rule a country?") Luna asked.

  ("Well... for a majority of the time, there were kings. Someone took over a territory, crowned themselves a king, and gave the kingdom to their children once they died. There were also dictators, similar to kings, I guess, but usually held together only by the threat of force rather than tradition or religion. More modern political systems were established through voting and would have some form of representative government. Theoretically, members of communities that would represent their territories for large-scale governments across vast amounts of land... but the political system in the land I came from was kind of broken too, heavily influenced by money... but it's a hard influence to insulate a government from.") I sighed. I didn't like politics much.

  ("How large were these governments? Larger than places like Ironcastle?") she asked.

  I laughed. ("Much larger. The country I came from was one of the largest. We controlled like half the continent.")

  Luna's head turned to me sharply. ("Half a continent? How did your governments work at that scale? That sounds larger than the territories of a dragon!")

  I laughed and shook my head. ("Like I said, in a lot of cases, they weren't working. Though I suppose that's not entirely fair. It is pretty amazing that so many people are able to work together on such a huge scale, even if it was imperfect. There are still problems, and the country I came from undoubtedly took the land by force, but the world I came from is a lot less harsh than this one is. Our priorities are a lot different. There aren't as many wild monsters trying to kill you on the road. Or dungeons popping up to spit out hordes of goblins. We were mostly concerned with fighting each other. After the Second World War, most of the countries' borders were pretty firmly established, so conflicts became a bit less about territory and more about resources... and religion, I guess. Still, I'd say overall, things became pretty peaceful. Much more peaceful than things seem here, but at the same time, I think a lot of that has more to do with the environment than the people.")

  ("W-world war... The world you came from had multiple wars with every single territory across the entire world involved?") Luna asked, aghast.

  ("Well, yes. But we didn't have dragons, so I think that what I think of as war and what you think of as war might be considerably different.") I chose not to bring up nuclear weapons. Dragons fighting over territory seemed like mutually assured destruction in a similar way, but to make the comparison would open me up to explaining something I never intend to speak of to anyone.

  ("We recently talked about visiting your world... but I'm suddenly a bit more hesitant to go there,") Luna said awkwardly.

  I laughed. ("There's no reason to be so afraid. Where I actually lived was much safer than anywhere I've been since I got here. The city I lived in was probably somewhat comparable to Fallow or Ironcastle, but with less threat of monsters escaping into the city. The worst we really had to worry about was natural disasters, fires, hurricanes, and things like that, unless you were a career soldier.")

  Luna sighed. ("It's hard to reconcile some of the things you've told me about your home... but I still think that I would like to see it. I'm just a bit more hesitant to actually stay there now. I can't imagine a war on that scale.")

  I frowned. ("Staying there might be hard for both of us at this point. Even if I hid or got rid of my new ears and tail, I'm huge now. I look like a giant amazonian woman. I'm not even sure if people I knew there would recognize me. And living there long term would be difficult without finding some way to get you papers that say that you're allowed to stay.")

  ("Do you miss it? Or miss some of the people there? I... Umm. I wanted to ask you about your mother... after what the changeling queen said—")

  "We're stopping here!" Celeste called back. "We've reached the river. We'll let the kleths rest before continuing on the next leg."

  ("I'll tell you a bit more about it later. I promise,") I told Luna.

  She nodded, and we began to get ready to take a break. After riding for so long, my butt was sore.

  Hello! I find travel time a bit difficult to deal with in stories. I feel like if you just skip over it you don't really get to feel the distance. Stuff doesn't feel properly far away if you just blink and they're there. The issue with that is that I have to fill the time with something and so my usual go to is to give the characters something to talk about on the trip. I try my best to make the conversations meaningful, but I still worry that it can create a bit of a lull in the pacing. Still, it's a good opportunity to fit in some world building between the action packed chapters, so I think it kind of works. I hope you enjoyed, thanks for reading!

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