Cry of the Drackin

After a liquor induced night of partying Kobayashi wakes up next to a nude Tohru. Kobayashi struggles through her feelings of what it means to her, until Tohru presents her with a "very special" egg that will strengthen their bond and move their lives into a new chapter together.

Chapter Text

Kobayashi's eyes slowly opened. Her head hurt, she must have drank too much the night before...

She glanced to the alarm clock and saw that she had managed to wake up twenty minutes before it would start buzzing and ordering her out of bed. At least she was not oversleeping. She sat up, closed her eyes, and rolled her head left and right to loosen up her neck muscles.

The covers fell away from her and she let out a loud yawn as she worked on stretching her arms out. Part of her wanted to just call off work today; she really was not feeling too well. She figured she should learn to be a little more careful with her drinking on work nights. Though, in all honesty she already knew that there would in fact be a repeat sometime in the not-too-distant future. It's not like she had a drinking problem, at least she did not think she did, she simply liked drinking. Who cared if she did go a little overboard from time to time? It's not like she was hurting anyone.

She sat there with her eyes closed for a while, mentally weighing the option of just laying her head down for the last twenty minutes before her alarm would ring. That extra twenty minutes of sleep may not actually help her condition much, but it was still tempting.

Tohru should be awake already, getting started on cooking breakfast. She may be a bit of a clumsy maid at times but she certainly did work hard, and for whatever complications she may have brought there were plenty of conveniences of having her around as well. Regardless of any of that, though, Tohru was her friend and Kobayashi was happy to have her in her life.

"Good morning Miss. Kobayashi," said Tohru from right next to her.

Kobayashi yawned, still half asleep. "Good morning Tohr-" Her eyes opened, and she looked to her right. She froze, not sure how to react. Tohru was laying down right next to her, smiling with her head propped up over her arm . Kobayashi's eyes traced along her maid's bare shoulders, down to her breasts and her stomach where the bedsheets only covered the lower half of her body.

Tohru's smile grew bigger and she blushed, "Is everything okay? Miss. Kobayashi?"

Kobayashi's thoughts still had not fully caught up to her. Her headache was forgotten, at least, but now she was trapped just staring at her nude dragon maid. Kobayashi sometimes made fun of the size of her breasts (usually when she was drunk), but seeing them bare and fully exposed was hard to look away from. In the back of her mind the events of last night left a vague impression, and she was starting to remember what led to her maid laying naked in bed next to her.

Kobayashi's head turned down so she could look at herself, and when she did she let out a scream. She quickly wrapped her arms over her own chest and jumped back, accidentally going right off the edge of the bed. Her butt hit the floor and her head banged on the wall.

"Miss. Kobayashi! Are you alright?!" Tohru said, quickly perching herself on the edge of the bed to look down and see if her master was ok. The bedsheets had now fallen completely away from Tohru's body, and from her perched position atop the bed Kobayashi could now see everything. The fact that her own body was completely exposed was not helping her situation either, though she managed to snag an end of the bedsheet and cover her lower body while her arm covered her chest.

"T-Tohru! P-put some clothes on!" Kobayashi shouted.

"Huh?" Tohru looked down at herself as if she thought it was an odd request. She then looked back to her master, smiled, and nodded her head. "Yes! I shall do it right away!" There was a certain level of excitement she seemed to get whenever she was given an order from her master or saw an opportunity to do something for her, no matter how mundane it may be.

Kobayashi managed to pull the bed sheet down more and get it over the rest of her body. She then spotted an article of her own clothing laying on the floor a few meters away from her. It was a T-Shirt. Her arm stretched out to reach it. As she did so she ended up catching sight of Tohru from behind. She was bent over, pulling up her panties, straightening them along the way to keep them from rolling up as they journeyed their way up her thick thighs. Her massive green tail was wagging back forth.

Kobayashi gulped, unable to keep herself from tracing the curves of Tohru back. She did not normally think about or notice these kinds of things, but right now she really could not help herself. She had never seen Tohru naked before (well, aside from last night apparently, but she could barely remember it). Really, she never saw anyone with such a stunning figure naked before, and Kobayashi would be lying if she did not admit she found Tohru's body to be quite amazing. She shook her head, retreated back behind the bed and put her shirt on. Her head then popped up again and looked around for a bottom to wear.

Kobayashi spotted a pair of pants littering the floor a few meters from the bed. She kept one hand holding the bed sheet over her crotch as she reached for it. Tohru finished putting the underblouse of her maid costume on, then turned to say something to Kobayashi. "What would you like for breakfast, Miss. Kobayashi?"

Kobayashi gasped, lost balanced on her knees and fell, practically face planting into the floor. She managed to keep her front covered, but her butt was totally visible as she laid there. Her response was dry and muffled. "Anything is fine... Tohru…"

"Okay!" Tohru said, pumping her fist in the air. Somehow, Tohru wearing only the blouse and panties seemed more erotic than simply being nude. "I will do my best to provide you with a nutritious start to your day!"

"Thank you. Tohru," said Kobayashi in her dry tone, with her face still firmly planted against the ground.

It seemed that Tohru did not have much awareness regarding nudity. Apparently to her it was not something that was even worthy of note. Kobayashi figured that in dragon culture clothes really were not as important as they were to humans. In a dragon's true form they did not wear clothes, after all, and on the day Kobayashi had met Tohru and saw her human form for the first time Tohru had been rather scantily clad in only a thin cloak. It was not until adopting the maid persona that Tohru started covering herself up more, and that is only because her maid uniform is what the role called for. Lucoa's typical wardrobe could be another example of dragon-kind's possible unawareness of human norms regarding clothing.
Kobayashi got herself changed into her work clothes after Tohru left the room to get started on cooking breakfast. "Hey, Tohru," Kobayashi called out to her.

"Yes, Miss. Kobayashi?" she called back.

"Make sure you wake Kanna up, okay?"

"Okay!"

Kobayashi fixed her collar and straightened her tie as she looked at herself in the mirror. Her eyes had dark rings under them, and her face was a bit worn thanks to the hangover. Once she got some food and a little coffee into her body she would feel just fine, though. "Tohru?" she called out to the kitchen once again.

"Yes?"

"Get some coffee started as well, please."

"Of course!" Tohru called back merrilly.

Kobayashi sighed as she looked over to the bed which was unmade with the pillows scattered about and the sheets lying on the floor...

Last night… she had sex with Tohru…

Kobayashi put her glasses on, gave her tie a final adjustment and left the bedroom. Tohru was in the kitchen tending to the stove, humming to herself with her massive tail peeking out from under her maid uniform and wagging. When Kobayashi looked closer she realized a large chunk of its tip was missing and simply ended in a fleshy stump.

Kobayashi sighed. "Tohru, you weren't planning to try serving your tail meat to me again, were you?"

Tohru laughed and scratched the back of her head nervously. "Oh, and what would ever make you think that?" Kobayashi just pointed down at Tohru's tail, and it instantly tucked itself up under her dress. "Oh, come on! It's just a teeny tiny little piece!"

Kobayashi couldn't help smiling, "Sorry, but we've been through this. I am morally opposed to eating tail…" Kanna then came out of her own room dressed in her school uniform, and hopped up into her seat at the table. "Good morning Kanna," Kobayashi said to her.

"Good morning," Kanna responded in her small sleepy voice.

Tohru came over to the table, set a cup of coffee in front of Kobayashi and a glass of juice in front of Kanna. "Food will be ready shortly!" she said to them in a cheery voice. She always seemed to be at her happiest when she was being utilized as a maid and serving people. Even more so when she was serving Miss. Kobayashi.

It was odd, despite how the morning had started, things now seemed to be progressing as normally as any other day. Well, whatever the word "normal" could consist of after inviting a couple of dragons to come live in her house with her.

But... she had SEX with Tohru last night! It felt like that should have changed things. Change things how, though? She wasn't sure exactly what she expected, but she could not help but wonder what was on Tohru's mind at the moment. Was Tohru thinking about it? Because Kobayashi herself certainly could not think about anything else even if she wanted to.

Tohru was always in love with her; Kobayashi knew that but was never really able to return the love. She supposed she had managed to do it in small ways from time to time, like holding Tohru's hand out in public, praising her, patting her head. Was she in lovewith Tohru, though? She did not know. She honestly was not the type of person who could clearly tell how she felt about things like that. Tohru was certainly a very close friend to her, she knew that at least.

Would she want to do what they did together last night again? Again, she was not sure. If she had not been drinking so heavily it may not have happened at all. Again, she wondered what was on Tohru's mind and how she felt about the whole thing. As far as Kobayashi could tell, though, Tohru's demeanor had not changed at all. Maybe to dragons it was not that big of a deal?

Tohru served them breakfast and they all enjoyed their morning meal together just as normal. When Kobayashi was done her plate only had a few scraps of untouched tail meat pushed to the side. Apparently Tohru could not resist at least putting it there, which Kobayashi already expected. She looked at the clock and saw it was almost time to go. She looked at her empty coffee cup, and decided she wanted to stay just a little longer.

"Say Tohru, think you could do me a favor?" Kobayashi asked.

"Yes! What is it? I shall do whatever you ask of me!"

"I just wanted to have another cup of coffee before going, so do you think you could fly me to work today in order to save me a little time?"

"Oh…" Tohru bowed her head. "I am terribly sorry Miss. Kobayashi but I can not risk transforming today."

"Huh? You can't?"

"No, I am so sorry but it would be best if I stayed with this one form for the rest of the day. I should have warned you of this sooner. My deepest apologies, Miss. Kobayashi!"

"Oh, well there is no need to apologize. I don't usually have you take me, so it's my fault for not asking in advance." She stood up and yawned as she stretched her arms out. "Well, guess I had better get a move on, then."

"Oh! Just a moment!" Tohru got up and gleefully skipped back to the kitchen with her thick tail trailing behind her. Its tip had already regrown. When she came back she offered Kobayashi a coffee cup with a sealed lid. "Here, since you don't have time to sit and drink this you can take it with you!"

"Ah, thank you Tohru. I appreciate it."

Tohru nodded her head happily, with a starry look in her eyes as if she was in anticipation for something. Kobayashi had to admit she was pretty cute when she acted like this, and reached a hand up to pat Tohru's head. Tohru laughed in response, bowing her head to accept the pat as her face reddened with blush.

"Alright Tohru," Kobayashi said as she took her hand away from her head again. "I really need to get going now, see you when I get home." She waved to Kanna. "You too Kanna, make sure you are not late for school ok?"

"Ok! Goodbye Miss. Kobayashi!" Kanna called back in her small voice, raising one of her little hands in the air to wave goodbye.

"Miss. Kobayashi, could you wait just another moment?" Tohru asked, bowing her head with her hands folded neatly in front of her as Kobayashi stood halfway out the door.

"What is it, Tohru?" she asked.

"Um… I just wanted to let you know when you get home it is possible I may have a surprise waiting for you."

"A surprise, huh?" Kobayashi asked, skeptically. "It's not going to be your tail, is it?"

"No!" Tohru said, raising her head and shaking her hands. "Not this time!"

"Then it won't be anything weird, will it?"

"If by weird you mean something of a sexual nature then I promise that is not the case either. That is, unless you would like to be surprised by something like that!"

"No… I mean… I would rather not have any surprises like that."

"Ok, well either way that is not the case. It's… something else…" Tohru's red dragon-eyes glanced away shyly.

"You can't just tell me?"

Tohru shook her head, "I would rather wait."

"It's nothing bad, is it?"

"No! It is something very good! But if I am being honest, I am a little worried how you might react… I-I think it will make you happy, though… at least I hope it will."

Kobayashi just smiled. "Ok, then I'm sure it will be great." She expected that might not be the case, but figured she would give Tohru the benefit of the doubt for now. "Well, see'ya."

"Miss. Kobayashi!" Tohru said as she turned to leave. Kobayashi turned and patiently raised an eyebrow to ask what it was now. "Um… since you are leaving for work… do you think you could give me a kiss goodbye?"

Kobayashi paused, and they each stared at each other. Tohru had never asked for something like that before, at least not so sweetly. Sure, Tohru had made sexual advances on her in the past, most of which Kobayashi humorously turned her down on, but this was different. So, it turns out Tohru was effected by the events of last night after all. Kobayashi herself still had not fully worked out what last night meant to her… she had been drunk. Still, she did like Tohru… but did she love her? It's not that she particularly did not love her, love was simply a difficult thing for Kobayashi to define in her own heart.

Tohru saw Kobayashi's hesitance and her red eyes fell down to the floor. Her lips sunk into a disappointed frown. After what they did together last night… wouldn't it be wrong to turn down a simple kiss now? Especially since Tohru was asking so sweetly.

Kobayashi's hand found itself under Tohru's chin, and delicately forced her to look up again. Tohru's eyes brightened and her face turned red as Kobayashi moved in closer. Their lips connected for a brief kiss, just puckering against each other for a moment. Then they each remained close, simply standing there with the other's breath on their face.

Kobayashi moved back, her hand still under Tohru's chin, and watched her dragon's beautiful red eyes, waiting to see how she would responded. Tohru smiled adoringly, her face becoming bright. "Thank you," she whispered.

Kobayashi nodded, "Yeah…" and she blushed as well as her hand fell away from Tohru's chin.

"Um… Have a great day! Miss. Kobayashi!"

Kobayashi finally managed to return the smile. "Alright, I will." Then she left the house and shut the door behind herself. She guessed her relationship with Tohru had changed after all… she just was not yet entirely sure how to feel about it.

III

Her commute to work was pretty typical. The train was not particularly crowded, and there were no delays, so that was nice. She was even running a bit ahead of schedule and got to work early, which was somewhat of a rarity for her. She was a master at showing up just in the nick of time.

She plugged right into her terminal and started looking over the previous day's coding efforts in order to remind herself where she left off and what still had to be done. By the time Makoto Takiya made it to his own seat Kobayashi was already well into her flow, pumping out line after line of code with her fingers dancing along the keyboard at an incredibly fluid pace.

"Well, looks like someone is charged up this morning," said Makoto as he sat down.

"Hm? Think so?" Kobayashi responded, not slowing her typing speed even a little bit.

"Seems that way. Did something good happen?" Makoto always had a kind and gentle demeanor, except for after work sometimes when his inner otaku would come out. A few drinks tended to help that process along, and being drinking buddies was their entire relationship with each other outside of work.

"Something good?" Kobayashi's typing slowed a bit. Her mind traced back to the previous night. "Well, I guess I just had a good morning with my roommates." Roommate… was that still a proper way to refer to Tohru?

"That's nice," said Makoto as he opened the compiler and started scrolling through lines of code.

"How are things with Fafnir?" Kobayashi asked.

"Good, he mostly just plays video games but I enjoy having his company around the house. You know, when living alone you don't realize that you were lonely until someone comes along and changes it."

"Hm?"

"Oh, sorry if I got a little sentimental there."

"No, not at all. That makes a lot of sense, actually."

Was she lonely before? She wasn't sure, but she supposed the best way to look at it is wonder how she would feel if Kanna and Tohru were to disappear. She knew for a fact that she would be sad if that happened, and yes, that rather large apartment they all shared together would feel quite lonely. Kobayashi actually got a small taste of that a few months ago when Tohru's father tried to take her away. For whatever trouble Tohru could be at times, Kobayashi would never want to see her go anywhere.

Thinking about Tohru caused her to become slightly less productive with working on her code. Once she started though, she could not seem to get Tohru off her mind. The previous night had been rather foggy in the morning, but for the most part it came back to her by now. It started off by her complaining about the unrealistic proportions of Tohru's breasts, which led to her poking them and a really cute expression coming over Tohru's face as she did so. She remembered how soft they felt through the maid uniform as well, and her poking eventually led to fondling which was egged on more and more by the soft quite squeals of Tohru's voice as she was trying to contain them in order to avoid waking Kanna.

They ended up moving into the bedroom, undressing each other as they crossed the room and eventually fell naked into bed together where they spent the night exploring each others bodies until falling asleep. Tohru, for a chaotic being of absolute power and destruction, had been very soft and gentle.

Kobayashi blushed as the scene ran through her mind again, and eventually shook her head to get focused back on her work. She looked around the office at all her co-workers typing away in their small cubicles, and reminded herself where she was and that she needed to stop thinking about those things.

She sighed, and did her best to force the whole thing away from her mind for now and only concentrate on the lines of code in front of her. Still, try as she might, those thoughts of Tohru remained in the back of her mind.

The day went by slowly, but eventually ended. No major issues or unsolvable mystery bugs reared their ugly heads today, so that was some good news at least. When the last seconds of her shift ticked away she let out a loud yawn and started gathering her things.

"Kobayashi, want to grab a couple drinks?" Makoto asked her.

"I'm sorry, not today. I need to take a little break, I guess," she said with a grin as she pulled her bag up over her shoulder.

"Ha, no problem, I completely understand."

She left the office, crossed town to the train station, got on, and started heading home.

Tohru…

She realized that this whole thing with Tohru made her feel a little bit guilty. Mainly, she worried that Tohru might expect too much from her now. She wasn't sure if she could return those feelings, nor was she sure if she wanted an ongoing thing with Tohru like what happened last night. What if Tohru wanted that kind of thing to happen again? How could she turn her down without hurting her feelings?

This was not the first time her drinking had gotten her into trouble, but it certainly was the first time it got her into this kind of trouble.

She also figured she may be worrying about it a little too much. Tohru may be rambunctious and eccentric, but despite that she was quite understanding about things. After all, just look at how well she managed to integrate herself into the human world despite clearly being so out of place in it. She may come off as a bit silly and dimwitted, but she understood things quite well, and surely she would understand if Kobayashi apologized and explained that last night was a mistake. She was drunk. She cared for Tohru, but not in that way.

She made it back to her apartment complex and started the climb up the flight of stairs along the outside balconies.

Or maybe… it was possible that she herself was the one who did not understand things? Thinking back on the night before… was she really opposed to that kind of thing happening? Or was she just telling herself that for some reason? She didn't know, she just knew that she felt like things were moving too fast. At the very least, she needed time to work this out.

She opened the door and instantly kicked off her shoes as she entered. "I'm home!" she called into the house.

"Miss. Kobayashi!" Tohru shouted from the kitchen and instantly ran through the house to greet her at the front door. By the time Kobayashi managed to slip her bag off her shoulder Tohru was already taking it from her. "Here, let me get that for you. And your coat too!" she said as she helped with removing her coat.

"Tohru, that really isn't necess-"

"Not at all! As your maid it is my duty to lessen your burdens in any way I can!" Tohru explained as she hung the coat on the coat rack and set the bag down next to it.

Boy, she is really fired up tonight.

"Ok, well thanks I guess," said Kobayashi as she started walking through the hall. "Anyway, I really need a bath so…"

"I can get that ready for you!"

"I'm sure I can at least handle that on my own."

"Well, just wait a moment," Tohru said getting in front of her and bowing her head. "Remember I said I would have a surprise for you when you got home?"

"Huh?" She thought back, "Oh yeah, that's right."

Tohru looked up at her with her red eyes beaming, and an excited smile on her face. "It's very important, so please come take a look with me," she said as she held a hand out, asking Kobayashi to take it.

Kobayashi figured she really did not have a choice, so took Tohru's hand and let her lead her to the living room. She just hoped that whatever this surprise was, it wasn't something that Kobayashi would have to disappoint Tohru over with her reaction.

She looked around, "Say, did Kanna make it home?"

"No, I gave her permission to sleep over at Riko's house tonight." Tohru looked over her shoulder and smiled. "I wanted us to be alone. This is a very special night!"

Special night…

"Look, Tohru. I don't know what you have planned, but I think we need to take a minute and tal-"

"Here it is!" Tohru cheered as she let go of Kobayashi's hand, then gestured her arms over to the kotatsu which had a rather large egg sitting atop it. Tohru watched Kobayashi's eyes, waiting for her reaction.

Kobayashi felt the anticipation, but was not quite sure how to respond. "Oh… it's an egg."

Tohru let out a giddy laugh as she went over to the kotatsu and scooped the egg up into her arms. "Yup! It sure is!" She laughed again, cradling the egg in her arms and smiling at it lovingly as she stroked its hard golden-red shell.

"So… I guess you were planning to cook that for dinner?" Kobayashi asked. It must have come from the other world. This would not be the first time she ate food from that world, and sometimes that stuff could turn out to be quite delicious. Even if it did not always look appetizing.

"Miss. Kobayashi!" Tohru shouted, losing the soft expression on her face. "That is not funny at all!"

"Huh?" Kobayashi raised an eyebrow. Did Tohru just chastise her? That was rare.

Then the expression on Tohru's face became deeply concerned as she continued to pet the egg. "Th-that is… unless you truly are being serious, but… I did not take humans for being those kinds of creatures. Certainly not one who is as kind as you, Miss. Kobayashi." She held the egg tight to her bosom, as if she were protecting it. She bowed her head and said, "If that is indeed your intention, then I beg you to reconsider! I know I should not judge the ways of other species, but please! Despite our reputation, we dragons are very nurturing and it would break my heart to have to allow such a thing. Still, you are my master and as such I must obey whatever it is you desire. Just please know that it would break my heart!" She hugged onto the egg even tighter and tears actually started to push out of the corners of her closed eyes and roll down her cheeks. "Please…"

"Ooooo-kay… Tohru, I got to level with you, I am totally lost here."

Tohru's head instantly shot back up, and her red eyes beamed hopefully. "Then... it is a misunderstanding?"

"Clearly…"

Tohru smiled and shook her head humorously, as if she were getting ready to explain a very simple and obvious concept to a child. She walked over to Kobayashi, took her hand, and forced her to lay her palm upon the egg's surface. "Feel it?" Tohru whispered.

Kobayashi blinked. It felt warm, but she was not sure if that is what she was suppose to be feeling.

Tohru looked up at her, "This is ours."

"Ours?"

"Yes!"

"Ours…" Kobayashi stared at it, the gears in her head started turning. She felt the warmth under her palm, saw how the shell was colored gold and red with the red fading into the gold in a manner similar to the highlights of Tohru's hair. Then, all at once it hit her.

She gasped, her knees buckled and she instantly fell back against the wall. "HOLY SHI-!

Thank you for reading! Hope you enjoyed it so far!

For updates of when new chapters will be releasing check out my Twitter acount. at /atomyst_fics or find a direct link in my profile.

-Atomyst

Chapter 2 Chapter Text

"Hey mom… yeah it has been a little while since I called, sorry about that. I… uh... have something I need to tell you… No, everything is fine. It is some good news, actually. Just, don't freak out... Well… you see… I am actually going to be having a baby!… yes that's right, I just found ou… oh, the father? No, well, there is no father… no, it's not like that, see, I am not actually pregnant but… um… well it's hard to explain, but I guess like… I'm the father?..."

Kobayashi sighed, staring at herself in the bathroom mirror with a blank expression. The cloud of fog she had wiped away was beginning to reform, so she wiped it away again. "Yeah… how the hell am I supposed to explain this?" she asked herself.

She unwrapped the towel from around herself and began drying her body off the rest of the way.

It was currently only one day since Tohru presented her with the egg, and she supposed she had not fully worked through the shock yet. Last night she had gone to bed early, the following morning she was quick through breakfast, and she kept her mind occupied all day at work. Really, she felt kind of off all day too. Makoto probably caught a hint that something was up, but she was not quite able to divulge the news to him just yet. The whole thing had her a bit concerned too… she was not sure if she was ready for all of this.

When she was all done in the bathroom and changed into her evening clothes she walked out into the living room. Kanna and Tohru were sitting with their legs under the kotatsu watching an anime on television. Tohru had the egg tightly cradled against her bosom as she rocked it back and forth, softly humming to it and petting it with her hand.

When she saw Kobayashi standing just outside the living room she smiled at her. "Here, want to hold her for a little while?"

"Her?"

Tohru nodded. "I can not yet know for sure, but I have a good feeling it is going to be a girl!"

Kobayashi's eyes shifted away and she adjusted her glasses. "Well… I…"

Tohru was already standing up and walking the egg over to her. She smiled as she held it out. "Just hold her close to your body to keep her warm." Kobayashi stared at it uncertainly until Tohru laughed and said, "Well? Hurry up! She is getting cold!"

"O-okay," said Kobayashi, and her arms slowly came out to take it. At first she just held it in her outstretched hands and stared at it. It felt warm in her palms, and the coloring really was beautiful. She was also surprised by how light it was; it looked as though it would be at least somewhat heavy, but actually only weighed a couple of pounds.

Tohru smiled humorously as she guided Kobayashi's arms into a position where she would hug the egg closer to her chest. "Here, like this, and pet her with your hands a little bit too if you want."

"Um… Ok…" said Kobayashi, still feeling rather awkward with it.

"Here, come have a seat by the kotatsu," said Tohru as she guided her by the shoulder. "I will start getting dinner ready."

"Right…" Kobayashi carefully lowered herself down to a seated position and tucked her legs under the kotatsu.

Tohru stood nearby for a moment with her hands folded in front of her. She let out a small happy giggle, then went to the kitchen to start preparing dinner.

Kobayashi stared down at the egg. Her child was inside of it. It felt so surreal, and while the problematic side of her personality ran through the things that now needed to happen in response - preparing a room, telling her parents, figuring out how to afford the new expenses, school registration, etc... - the other side of her that should have some emotional response felt oddly detached.

This was her child. She understood that, but at the same time it is like she did not understand. It was an egg! How was this possible?

She looked over to Kanna who had a book and a notepad out in front of her and was writing inside of it. She had her usual placid, big-eyed expression on her face as she concentrated on her work and her pencil moved back and forth across the page.

Kanna was already sort of like an adopted child in a lot of ways, but since Tohru took care of most things at home Kobayashi's life had not needed to change a whole lot in order to compensate for Kanna (aside from moving into a bigger apartment). This egg was different though. Soon it would be a baby. How soon? She was not even sure of that. Everything she knew about the reproductive cycle apparently had zero application when it came to dragons. For starters, she and Tohru were both female! How was it even possible that Tohru got pregnant… or… fertilized… or whatever the hell the correct term would be?

"So, Kanna," Kobayashi asked, "What do you think of this?"

Kanna looked up. "I am happy for you." Then she looked back to her work and seemed to not have much more to say on the subject.

The girl of few words, as usual, Kobayashi thought with an inward grin. She then put her attention back on the egg. It was warm against her body, and it did feel rather pleasant to hold. Still… it was so strange. At this point in her life, having a pair of dragons living with her for the better part of a year, she figured she should be past the point of finding anything odd. She had thought she was, in fact, until Tohru presented her with this egg the night before.

What would the baby even look like? When it was ready to hatch would a little human fist break through the shell, or would it be a scaly clawed foot? Could they do something like an ultrasound to find out? That idea made her think of something else.

Normally babies are given birth at a hospital, or at the very least a doctor would come to the house to help with the delivery… was anything like that necessary for an egg? What about getting a birth certificate for her?

Kobayashi got up and went to the kitchen to talk to Tohru about it. "Hey, so like…" she stopped when she saw Tohru had her tail up on the cutting board with a butcher's knife in her hand preparing to slice it. Tohru froze in place with a deadpan expression in her eyes. Kobyashi's face lowered into an unamused scowl. "Don't even think about it."

"Oh! Come on!" Tohru complained.

Kobayashi couldn't help smiling. Same old Tohru. "Anyway, I wanted to ask... in your world when a dragon is going to have a baby is there any kind of doctors or anything like that involved in the process?"

"Huh?"

"You know, to run tests to make sure the baby is healthy and things like that."

Tohru just smiled. "Don't worry, our baby is very healthy. You can feel her warmth, can't you?"

Indeed, the egg she had cradled in her arms was warm, and she supposed it would make sense that could be interpreted as a good sign.

Also… Tohru just said "our baby". Kobayashi's arms subconsciously tightened around it, holding it closer to her body.

"Either way, I would be wary of any outsiders with seemingly good intentions coming near our egg," Tohru started explaining, holding up a finger in warning. "There is a story of two sorcerers who convinced a dozen eggs to leave their nest, against the wishes of their mother, by tempting them with a promise of a great feast. The irony is that the feast was only for the sorcerers, as it was all a scheme to trick the eggs into a pot of boiling water so that they could eat them!"

"Hm, kind of like the walrus and the carpenter."

"Wait!" Tohru gasped, suddenly clutching her hands at her chest. "Y-you are not asking because you are thinking of eating her after all? Are you?"

"The thought never crossed my mind, Tohru. I already explained that it was a misunderstanding. Didn't I?"

Tohru sighed with relief. "I know, I just can't help not discounting the possibility. You humans sure are strange."

Kobayashi raised eyebrow. "We're the strange ones?" She laughed it off and said, "Anyway, are there any other customs dragons usually go through? Like a baby shower or something like that?"

"Baby shower?" asked Tohru, putting a finger to her chin and pondering it. "No, I figured we were just going to lick her clean."

"Um… I'll just leave that part to you."

Tohru shrugged with open palms and said, "Ok, your loss! That just means more licking for me!"

"What I meant is, in this world a baby shower is something a couple does when they are getting ready to have a baby." a couple... "They… they throw a party and their friends and family come and give them presents. You know, like toys and clothes for the baby. Stuff like that."

"We have something that is sort of like that, but it is the other way around. When my sister had a baby her mate conquered and enslaved an entire kingdom then presented it to my father so that he would grant the child his blessing."

"Ok, first of all you explained that way too casually. Second of all, I hope no one is expecting me to conquer any kingdoms because it is not going to happen."

"No…" said Tohru, suddenly losing her lively demeanor as a chagrined demeanor came over her.

"Tohru?" she asked carefully, seeing that something was wrong.

"The truth is… My father will never accept this child. Even if we are to conquer an entire world."

"Is it… because I'm human?"

"Yes."

Kobayashi again thought back to the terrible creature that was Tohru's father. She remembered the fear of standing before such a being and knowing he was hostile towards her. If he wanted to, he could have wiped her out with little more effort than the brush of his hand. The concerned look on Tohru's face concerned her as well. "Tohru. Am I in danger?"

She instantly shook her head. "Not at all."

"Are you in danger?"

Tohru smiled. "No, I promise that is not the case either. It is more likely that I will simply be disowned. Actually, because of this it is far less likely that we will ever be bothered by any of my relatives again." She shrugged. "I will simply cease to be spoken of by them."

"What? Isn't that a bit extreme?"

"It is not unheard of for dragons to mingle with humans, though it is unusual I suppose, but something like this is completely different. My family will think of it as a disgrace. They will never even acknowledge her existence… especially my father. Simply because our daughter is drackin, she will never get to know my side of the family."

"Drackin?"

"Half human half dragon. I have never met one before, as they are so rare that they pretty much only exist in stories. The tales of drackin usually describe drifters with very lonely lives, as they are accepted by neither humans nor dragons." Tohru stepped forward and placed her hand upon the egg in Kobayashi's arms. "It will be different for our child, though. This world is not like mine. I know she will have lots of friends and live a happy fulfilling life. I am sure of it!"

Kobayashi peaked over to Kanna who still had her head buried in her school work. Kobayashi did not know too much about Tohru's world, but it was clear from what stories she has heard that dragons and humans had trouble coexisting with one-another over there. This world was different, though. Kanna went to school with human children and has made a lot of friends there. Hell, she was practically the most popular girl in her class. Same with Tohru when she would go to the marketplace.

"Yeah," said Kobayashi with a smile. "Our child will have a great life. With lots of friends."

Tohru's eyes brightened up, and Kobayashi somewhat guiltily came to the realization this was the first time she outwardly acknowledge the child as hers. It was only last night that Tohru had told her, and it had come as a shock to her, but wasn't she being a bit heartless for not acting more excit-

Tohru unexpectedly wrapped her arms around her. "Kobayashi!" she cheered, hugging tightly with the egg between their two bodies.

"T-Tohru!"

"I love you Miss. Kobayashi!"

"Ah, o-okay Tohru! You're cutting off my circulation a bit here!"

I should have said "I love you too" Kobayashi thought, somewhat guiltily.

She was sitting back with her arms propping herself up and her legs under the kotatsu. The light from the TV reflected off her glasses as she, Tohru, and Kanna watched TV together before bedtime. Kanna's head was down and she already seemed to be starting to drift off, and Tohru held the egg. She was rocking it and petting it with her hand.

Kobayashi's eyes snuck over to the egg where it was nestled against Tohru's bosom. Why do I always suck with stuff like this? she thought to herself.

The concept of love was a foreign thing to her. Whatever love interests there had been in her life were few and far between and never lasted long. She never use to think much about it, but whenever she did she would offhandedly blame it on simply never finding the right person, or not caring enough to ever worry about it in the first place. She figured she was simply okay with being alone, and maybe even took some pride in the idea that she did not need to rely on anyone in order to be happy. Had she really been happy like that, though?

What Makoto said the day before popped into her head again. "You don't realize that you were lonely until someone comes along and changes it."

Her hands tightened and her head lowered.

"Hey Kanna," Tohru whispered, and Kanna sleepily lifted her head with her eyelids drooping down. "Why don't you go to bed now?" Tohru suggested with a smile.

Kanna responded with a "mmmm" then dragged herself out from under the kotatsu and slogged her way over to her bedroom.

Kobayashi lifted a hand and patted Kanna's head as she passed by. "Goodnight Kanna."

Kanna yawned and responded, "Goodnight, Miss. Kobayashi." as she rubbed her eye with a small fist, and then continued on her way.

After Kanna's bedroom door shut Kobayashi sighed and said, "Yeah, guess it's about that time. I'm going to bed too." Then she started getting up.

"Ok." Tohru said, and shifted as if she were going to get up as well, but stopped. Kobayashi pretended not to notice the disappointed expression on Tohru's face.

Why do I suck?

"Goodnight, Tohru," she said as she turned her back to her and started walking to her bedroom.

"Goodnight… Miss. Kobayashi." She sounded sad.

Come on… what's wrong with me? Kobayashi thought to herself as she opened her bedroom door.

That disappointed expression on Tohru's face was the same way last night when Kobayashi went to bed without inviting her in. Tohru had wanted to be invited into the bedroom to sleep with her. Kobayashi knew that, but didn't say anything and had gone to bed alone. Now she was getting ready to do the same thing again.

Why wouldn't Tohru just force the issue herself and climb into bed? She had done that before, but… things were probably different now. It was cute before when Tohru would just hop under the covers unannounced and they would go to sleep together. Their relationship had changed since then though, and Tohru wanted more than to just be a cute silly roommate-slash-maid. She now wanted some sign that things were official. She had every right to want that too… but...

But… doesn't she know it's hard for me? I know I'm just being stupid… but…

She gulped, thinking how much easier these words would come out if she took a few rounds of sake first. "Hey, so like. You know," Kobayashi said, standing in her bedroom doorway.

"Yes?" Tohru asked.

"Like… you coming in too, or what?"

Tohru instantly shot up out of her seat, and giggled. "Yes! Of course!" Kobayashi couldn't help smiling, despite the thudding in her chest. Why was her heart racing like that?

Before coming in, Tohru went to her own room and changed into her sleeping clothes. She wore a simple white t-shirt and a pair of lime green shorts. The t-shirt was a rather thin fabric and did not do much to conceal Tohru's physical features. Kobayashi tried not to be too obvious with noticing the bumps at the center of her breasts, or the way her shorts barely contained her thighs.

Kobayashi let her vision drift up to the ceiling as she laid down on her back and Tohru climbed into bed next to her. Tohru laid on her side and giggled as she snuggled into the covers, holding the egg tightly against herself.

"So like, with keeping the egg warm..." Kobayashi asked. "Does it have to be kept warm all the time? I just want to know so no mistakes happen."

"Do not worry too much. She will be just fine as long as she is not put somewhere that is actually cold. It is still good to hold her as often as possible, because she can feel our energy and it makes her happy."

"Feel our energy?" Kobayashi asked, turning her head.

"You have not noticed?" Tohru moved closer and lifted an arm up, trying to invite Kobayashi in closer. "Here."

"Um… ok..." Kobayashi rolled on her side as well, and put an arm over Tohru with the egg between both of their bodies. Tohru pulled Kobayashi in more firmly, and since she was so busty her chest pressed against Kobayashi with the egg caught between their midsections. Both of their faces were red as they stared into eachothers eyes.

"You feel her warmth, right?" Tohru asked.

Kobayashi nodded, "Yeah." Her eyes were on Tohru's lips, and she realized the egg was not the only warmth she could feel. There was Tohru's body heat as well, but even more deeply she felt a warm feeling inside her own heart which coursed throughout her whole body.

"If you concentrate on it in the right way, you will feel its pulse. That is our child's life force beating. As she matures and gets closer to being ready to hatch, she may even start talking to us."

"Talking to us? From inside the egg?"

Tohru giggled, "Yup! Well, she will likely not know any proper words, but she will still try to communicate with us once she has matured enough to do so."

"Could anyone hear her?"

"No, just her mothers. Kanna for example would only be able to outwardly feel her life pulse, but connecting on that deeper level is something that can only be done with her parents."

Her parents… Tohru and I…

Kobayashi closed her eyes, and tried to focus on the warmth of the egg. It was a steady, static warmth just like any other heat source would give off. It felt really nice, though, and-

Kobayashi eyes shot open and she gasped. She felt a sudden jolt rush through her entire body, starting at her heart where she connected with the egg, then traveling down her limbs and to the tips of her fingers and her toes.

"You felt it, didn't you?" Tohru said with a giggle, watching the fascinated expression in Miss. Kobayashi's eyes. "Looks like she pushed a little hard, huh? That is because it is the first time she has felt you so far. I bet it made her very happy."

"Tohru…" Kobayashi's lip trembled and her eyes started to glass up.

"Miss. Kobayashi?" Tohru asked, her own eyes widening. Then she saw tears roll down Kobayashi's cheeks.

"This is, really our baby. Isn't it?" Kobayashi asked.

"Of course it is," Tohru said, hugging onto Kobayashi even tighter. Kobayashi responded to it, moving in even closer. "Are you ok?" Tohru asked.

Kobayashi nodded. "Yeah… I guess… I just feel so happy." Tohru smiled at those words. "I… don't think I ever felt this way before."

"Me too, Miss. Kobayashi," Tohru whispered. "You've made me really happy."

"I… I'm sorry if I am a little cold to you sometimes… I-"

Tohru put a finger up to Miss. Kobayashi's lips to stop her. "I told you. Being with you has made me happier than I have even been. I understand you; you are always cautious and are careful not to misstep and do something wrong." Tohru giggled, "I am not like that. I often get myself into trouble without thinking things through. So, don't ever try and force yourself. Just keep being you! I trust you, and I am grateful to have you as my master!"

Kobayashi remembered the story Tohru told her about the bandit girl she had met, the one who wanted to become a maid and hoped to fall in love with her master. Kobayashi also thought of those other stories Tohru had shared from her past life. Warring with the gods, being hunted by humans, and though Tohru was a powerful being who could do whatever she wished she never truly felt free.

Kobayashi was glad Tohru finally found the life she wanted, and was even happier to be a part of it. She was also incredibly grateful to have Tohru as her maid and also, she supposed, to have her as a lover.

"Tohru, I love you."

Tohru smiled. "I love you too, Miss. Kobayashi."

Then Kobayashi moved in even closer, and their lips connected. The warmth of the egg (her daughter), Tohru, and the warmth of her own inner happiness all swirled together. What did she do to deserve this? She never expected this kind of happiness could exist, but she was so grateful to have it.

After they were done kissing they laid together with their eyes closed, ready to go to sleep.

"Hey, Miss. Kobayashi?" Tohru asked.

"Hm?"

"That baby shower thing you talked about. I was just thinking that would be really nice. We should have one."

"Yeah, definitely." Kobayashi let out a loud yawn. "Let's do it."

"Let's do it soon."

"Mmmmm," Kobayashi agreed, already drifting off.

"Because… dragon eggs…" Tohru yawned, "Hatch rather quickly…"

"I see…"

No more was said for the night, as they both then fell asleep.

III

Kobayashi had a wonderful dream. It was a simple dream with a scene which was less clear to her than the emotions it presented. It was also odd, she felt as though she was not alone in her dream world. She was in the field where Kanna and Tohru would often go to play, with the only difference being that they were all on a swinging bench. She and Tohru, with their daughter between them. Kanna was there too, sitting in the grass nearby. The four of them were talking and laughing with each other, but the words were unclear.

Kobayashi saw her, though... her daughter. She looked so much like Tohru, sharing the features of Tohru's eyes and face, but her hair was the color of Kobayashi's.

She did not know how she knew, but she did know that the extra presence inside her dreamworld was that smaller Tohru who sat next to her. The dream versions of Tohru and Kanna were just images inside Kobayashi's head. Her daughter was more than just a figure brought up by her subconsciousness, though. It was really her.

My daughter…

Dream Kobayashi raised a hand and put it on top of her daughter's head. Her lips moved to say, "I love you."

Her daughter smiled up at her. Her face was SO much like Tohru's!

Her lips moved, and if sound existed in this dream world she probably would have said. "I love you too, mama!"

Tohru had said that the tales of drackin normally describe loners with no friend or families, but it would be different for this one. Her daughter would have a loving family and lots of friends. She would have a very happy life... Her drackin daughter.

For updates on when more chapters will be coming out, keep up with my twitter account!

At /Atomyst_fics or find a direct link in my profile!

Thank you for reading!

-Atomyst

Chapter 3 Chapter Text

Kanna skipped up the outer stairwell of their apartment building. She had her school bag strapped to her back and a paper mache crab carefully held out in front of her. She made it herself in art class today, and when it was complete she thought she did a fairly good job on it. When Riko saw it and her face turned bright red as she went off on one of her incomprehensible ramblings about how cute it was, and how cute Kanna herself look while holding it in her hands. Once that happened Kanna became extremely proud of her creation. When her teacher suggested she take it home to show it to her parents her excitement went through the roof and that is all she could think about all the way back home.

Today was the perfect day too, because Miss. Kobayashi had taken the day off work and that meant she would be home when Kanna got back. Kanna's eyes turned to stars as she imagined the moment she got to show off her creation to Kobayashi and Lady Tohru. They were probably going to praise her a lot, and pat her head, and pick out a nice spot in the house to display it. She couldn't wait!

After entering the apartment she kicked off her shoes and called, "I'm home!" in her small voice. There was no response, although she could hear Kobayashi and Tohru talking to each other from somewhere in the house. She set down her backpack, shook her horns and tail out of hiding, then quickly followed the sounds of their voices to Lady Tohru's room. A lot of Tohru's things were stacked up just outside the doorway and both she and Kobayashi were inside talking.

"Yeah, I don't really know what we should do with the bed," Kobayashi said, scratching the back of her head. "I guess we won't really have a use for it, but we don't have a place to store it either."

"I could just obliterate it," Tohru offered.

"No… I think it would be better to give it to charity or something before doing that."

Kanna stepped inside and held her paper mache crab up. "Look what I made!"

"Well, I guess we can just lean it against the wall for now," Kobayashi continued, both of their backs were turned to Kanna and neither of them had noticed her presence yet. "I could wait and see if one of my co-workers want it."

Kanna stepped a little closer and tried again, holding the crab up even higher. "I made this!"

"What about the dresser?" Tohru asked, pointing at it.

"We can leave that here. We can still use it for storage for diapers and stuff like that since you'll be keeping your clothes in my… uh... our room now."

Tohru leaned closer to Kobayashi and snickered. "Kobayaaashi! We are going to be mixing our linens!"

"Tohru, can you put your weird thoughts on hold for just a few minutes while we figure this out?"

Kanna stepped even closer and shouted: "Look what I made!" lifting her heels off the ground and standing on her toes, holding the crab up as high as she possibly could.

They both turned to her and Kobayashi adjusted her glasses as she took a closer look. "Oh, it's a crab, that's nice Kanna."

"Yes, what an adorable little creature," Tohru agreed.

Kobayashi gave Kanna's head a soft pat and then the two of them went back to discussing what to do with Tohru's furniture.

Kanna's face sunk down into a blank expression. Her range of facial emotions couldn't exactly cover a frown to properly display her dissatisfaction, but she really did feel quite disappointed by their reaction. Her arms dropped down and she let the crab hang loosely at her side as she turned around and walked back to the living room.

They didn't even welcome me home, she thought, sulking. Lady Tohru usually would have a snack waiting for her as well, but that was not the case today.

She spotted the egg sitting atop the kotatsu then put her crab down next to it. She placed her hand upon the smooth surface of the egg, and felt its warmth under her palm. "Good afternoon egg," she said, somewhat unethusiasistically, then went to the kitchen to get a snack for herself.

She stood in the middle of the kitchen and stared up at the cabinets. They were far too high for her to reach. She glanced back to Tohru's bedroom door, then back up at the cabinets and softly encouraged herself; "I can do this!" She went to the living room to grab a chair, grunting as she pushed and pulled on it until eventually getting it into place, then climbed on top and reached for the cabinet. Even with the chair she had to put one foot on the countertop to be able to reach inside, balancing rather precariously for a moment before getting her hand around a cup and climbing down again.

When she made it back to the floor she let out an accomplished gasp, feeling slightly winded from the activity. She then opened the refrigerator door and looked up with her big eyes until she spotted a jug of juice on one of the higher shelves. Reaching up she could just barely get her fingers on it, but when she rose up onto her tippy toes she managed to get them around the handle. She grunted as she slid it from its spot, but it was heavier than she expected and it slipped from her grasp. It fell to the ground and instantly split open, splashing on her legs and toes.

Her expression became incredibly annoyed and her tail twitched with aggitation as she watched the orange liquid spread out into a pool around her feet. She glanced over to Lady Tohru's bedroom again, where she and Kobayashi were still talking to each other. Usually Tohru would insist on taking care of cleaning something like this, but it seemed like she was busy so Kanna reached over the counter to get a roll of paper towels and take care of it herself.

She mopped it all up as best as she could, going through nearly half the roll by the time it was done. The jug still had a little bit of juice left, so she turned it upside-down over her glass, but it was only enough to fill it half way. She then got a snack-pack from one of the lower cabinets and went back to the kotatsu to eat.

When she was done she stared at the egg for a while, and eventually picked it up and held it in her arms. She liked holding the egg, but she would only do so while sitting down. It wasn't heavy, but it's size was too encumbering for her own small body to comfortably hold onto while standing. She could feel it's warmth against her chest, and felt for a pulse, but it remained static without giving any obvious pushes. The baby inside was probably sleeping right now, so she set it back in its place to let her rest.

If she was being honest, the egg made Kanna feel a little anxious. She guessed she was excited about having a baby sister some time in the near future, and she could tell it was making Kobayashi and lady Tohru happy, so she knew it was a good thing. Still, there were also some worries that were pulling at her. She liked it when it was just herself, Miss. Kobayashi, and Lady Tohru… but soon that would be changing...

She got up to retrieve her backpack and brought it back to the kotatsu so she could get started on her homework.

What if Lady Tohru no longer had time to play with her anymore? Also she heard Kobayashi mention putting in overtime at work to pay for the extra expenses. During the week Kanna barely got to spend time with Miss. Kobayashi as it was, and once there was a baby to take care of it would be even less.

She glanced over her shoulder and saw them carrying some boxes into Kobayashi's room, then looked back to her schoolwork and let out a depressed sigh.

"Hold the door!" Kobayashi shouted as she ran through the lobby of her work building, hugging her briefcase against her chest so it wouldn't get in her way as she ran. Elma was in the elevator, wearing a suit jacket, tie, and skirt. She glanced at her watch nervously, fidgeted for a moment, then stuck her hand out to stop the door and Kobayashi promptly got herself inside.

"Thanks for that," Kobayashi said to her, panting.

"You're welcome!" she said back, nervously glancing at her watch again as Kobayashi pushed the button to force the door close (saving them a few seconds). "A-are we going to make it on time?"

"We'll be right on time," Kobayashi assured her. "Trust me, I'm a master at this."

They made it up to their floor, Elma following Kobayashi's lead and power-walking to their office until splitting up to go to their separate work stations. Makoto was already in his place next to Kobayashi's and getting started on his own work. "Morning," he said, raising a hand to her as he read over some lines of code.

"Morning," she said back, quickly getting her hands on her keyboard without even sitting down. She typed in her username and password, her eyes darting to the clock in the bottom right hand corner every other second. She logged in and clicked herself on duty, then about half a second later the clock changed to the next minute and Kobayashi sighed with relief.

She then tightened a fist and let out a cheer as she gave Makoto a thumbs up. "Awwww yeah! Right on time!"

"That ability of yours never ceases to impress me," said Makoto.

Kobayashi set her briefcase down, put her coat over the back of the chair then took her seat. Before getting started she reached into her briefcase and produced a small envelope. "Here, this is for you," she said to Makoto.

"Huh? What is it?" he asked as he took it.

"An invitation," she said back, opening the compiler on her own computer and getting started.

"For?" he asked as he opened the envelope and started reading the little card inside. He paused, look back at Kobayashi who couldn't help watching him through the corner of her eye as a grin crept up on her face. "Kobayashi? Is this for real?"

Kobayashi then laughed, a rare occurrence from her without a few drinks being involved. "Yeah, sure is!"

Makoto read the invitation again, saw Tohru's name, and looked back to Kobayashi, trying to make sense of it. Then his face softened and he returned the smile. "Congratulations."

"Thanks."

They got back to work, giving the small talk a break as they fell into their daily routines. Kobayashi glanced over her shoulder once to check on Elma. She had gotten adjusted quite well to working here, though she still was not exactly the best, she at least no longer needed constant babysitting in order to accomplish her tasks.

Kobayashi had an invitation for her as well, but was going to wait for another occasion to present it to her. Elma wasn't exactly one for being discrete, and Kobayashi was not in the mood for the entire office being let in on her personal life.

After a while they found themselves at a lull in their workload. The program they had been working on for the last month was nearly complete, and some of the higher ups were going to give it a test run, thus giving them a few free moments. Kobayashi put a hand on her hip and twisted her body, trying to stretch some of the stiffness out of her back, when Makoto said: "Soooo… you and Tohru?"

"That's right," she said, putting her fingers back to her keyboard and scrolling down through some of the code.

He let out a soft chuckle. "I thought the two of you'd end up together eventually."

"Did you now?"

"Sure. Wasn't quite expecting such a big step so soon. It's great though, I'm very happy for you."

Kobayashi grinned. "Thanks again."

When Makoto was keeping his inner otaku in the closet he always had a really cool demeanor about him. She liked that about him, and it was part of the reason he was the first person she told. Any other members of her short list of acquaintances would freak out and make her feel awkward. Makoto always played it cool with stuff like this, however.

"So what does Kanna think of it?" he asked casually, his own keys now clicking at a quick repetitive rate, dealing with a few bugs that were identified for them to work on fixing.

"I'm sure she's pretty excited. I mean, she is a little hard to read sometimes, but she seems happy about the idea. She likes to hold onto the egg whenever she gets a chance."

Makoto raised an eyebrow. "Egg? Oh right… dragons."

Makoto has been living with a dragon himself for a while, and he was also the first human other than Kobayashi who Tohru had revealed her true form to in this world. Thus he was pretty well adjusted to the peculiarities of dragon-kind by now. Kobayashi was glad to have at least one normal human friend to discuss these things with, who would be understanding of the things which would seem spectacular to anyone else but have become a normal part of everyday life for her.

The small talk died down for a while as they each got focused on their work. There was a silent understanding among programmers never to interrupt one-another once they have gotten "into the zone". It was only managment who sometimes did not seem to understand this unspoken rule. One manager in particular use to come into the office ranting and raving about this or that all the time and would completely screw up her flow (and the flow of everyone else) until he had gotten fired a while back for abusing his power. Interruptions were far fewer since then.

Today there was another kind of interruption, however, and it was far worse than a less-than-scrupulous manager screwing things up. She was halfway through fixing a fatal error revealed by the recent test when her screen suddenly zapped off and faded to black. All the lights in the room went out, there was a buzz from all the computers powering down and the ambient sound of clicking computer keys disappeared. Then there was an air of annoyed complaining from everyone in the room.

She heard Elma panic and shout: "Oh my gosh! What did I do?! I'm so sorry!" apparently thinking it was possible to accidentally depower the entire room from her computer.

Kobayashi looked up at the ceiling lights, then took a look around. "Looks like a power outage."

"Yeah, looks that way…" Makoto agreed, rubbing the corners of his eyes. There were more chattering complaints filling the room as Kobayashi walked to the nearest window, pulled the blind to the side and looked to the city streets below.

She searched for any indications of electricity, but when she spotted a few neon open signs at the front of surrounding shops that were dull and unlit, she realized the whole block was out.

"Yeah, it's not just us," she said, pointing a thumb out the window. "Looks like the whole streets down." There was an eruption of more verbal complaints from the room of programmers.

Makoto's phone then started ringing, he checked the caller I.D. and his inner otaku instantly came out with his voice becoming nasally and his eyes turning into giant swirls when he answered. "Oh hey there Faf-kun," he whispered into the phone.

"What is the meaning of this?" came Fafnir's dark voice from the other side of the line, quivering with restrained rage.

"Huh? Oh, is the power out over there too?" Makoto asked.

"This is unacceptable!" Fafnir shouted. "I was in the middle of a high level raid when everything suddenly turned off!"

"Yeah, that's a power outage."

"When will it come back?"

"I have no idea, we just have to wait for the electric company to find the problem and fix it. Could come back pretty quickly, or it could be out all day."

"And just what am I supposed to do until then? I have not even completed all of my daily quests, and there is a time sensitive rare spawn popping in less than an hour!"

"Well gee, I don't know what to tell you Faf. You're just going to have to find something else to do in the meantime, I guess."

"I refuse!"

"You can refuse all you like, but it doesn't change the facts. The power won't come back until the electric company is able to fix it, and that's that."

"Electric company..." Fafnir played with the word as his voice became more inquisitive. "And is this electric company operated by humans?"

"Well, yeah?"

"Of course. Such a sensitive infrastructure being left in the hands of mere insignificant mortals. It was only a matter of time before something like this would happen. I should have stepped in long ago!" Makoto pulled the phone away from his ear and held it out as Fafnir's voice echoed powerfully from the small speaker. "Heed my words mortals! I shall hunt down the operators of this electrical company and show them the wrath of the great Fafn-"

Makoto clicked the phone off and sighed. "I sure do love the guy, but he can be a real pain in the ass sometimes," he muttered to himself.

"What was that all about?" Kobayashi asked as she walked back to her work station.

Makoto's inner otaku went back into hiding, with his voice and eyes returning to the cool relaxed demeanor he typically displayed in the workplace. "Apparently powers off all the way at my place too. So, guess it is a little more than just a local event."

"Well that's not good," said Kobayashi.

They all waited around for a while, keeping up with updates through their phones, but it soon became clear the power would not be coming back any time soon. As expected, someone from management eventually came out and dismissed them all home since no work could get done.

"If I knew this was going to happen I wouldn't have taken the day off yesterday," said Kobayashi as she started packing her bag. "Oh well, I'll see if I can snag a few overtime hours later in the week to make up for it."

"I'd offer to go out for a couple drinks but it's a bit too early in the day for that, huh?" Makoto commented.

"Heh, yeah. I'd rather go home anyway, me and Tohru have been working on setting up the baby's room, and also moving her into mine. So, maybe I can spend the rest of the day finishing that up."

Kobayashi and Makoto walked together as they left the building and gave their goodbyes down the street where their commutes split in different directions. Kobayashi had to wait at the train station for a while before it arrived. She usually had her schedule worked out to arrive there just as the train was coming to a stop, but getting off work early threw things off, of course. At least the trains are still running, she thought when she eventually boarded.

She figured she should tell her parents soon. Tohru and Kanna got to meet them last summer, and it was a really nice visit. Only problem is she kept the whole dragon thing secret, and now explaining why their grandchild is going to be hatched from an egg was going to be a really difficult task. She doubted they would even believe her without seeing some proof first. They would probably just make some comment about how she needs to stop overworking herself…

When she arrived at her stop she stretched her back to relieve some of the stiffness, then got up and left the train. She played with the idea of getting Tohru to massage her back for her. She had been suffering from back pains for years now and it would be great if she could finally find a solution for it. On second thought, though, she reminded herself how Tohru's first method of dealing with any new task is to go completely overboard. With that thought, physical therapy from a dragon might not be the best idea.

When she made it home she set down her briefcase, loosened her tie and called into the house: "Tohru, I'm home early." She tested the light switch to verify that the power was indeed still out, then proceeded to the living room. She saw Tohru standing with the egg cradled in her arms and Kanna sitting at the kotatsu with a dejected expression on her face.

"Oh, Kanna you're home early too? Did the school let out early because of the power outage?"

Kanna shook her head, but did not explain further. Kobayashi took note of how upset she looked, then looked to Tohru for an explanation. Tohru came over to her and softly explained. "She got in trouble at school and they sent her home early."

"She did? Well what happened?"

"She won't tell me," Tohru gestured over to Kanna who sat motionless, just staring at the top of the kotatsu. "She has been like this ever since she got home."

Kobayashi walked over and sat down across from Kanna. She spoke to her softly and asked, "Hey Kanna, what's going on?"

"It was just a stupid prank," she said in a low voice.

"A prank?"

Kanna nodded.

"Someone played a prank on you?" Kobayashi pressed on, trying to get to the bottom of it.

Kanna shook her head.

"Then what?"

Kobayashi waited Kanna out for a while until Kanna eventually said. "It was me."

"Kanna…" Kobayashi said, giving her a soft smile. "It's ok, just tell me what happened."

Kanna's hands fidgeted together for a moment before she was able to bring herself to explain. "I… put super glue on the teacher's seat."

Tohru snorted, unable to completely contain the laugh that crept up on her.

Kobayashi glanced over to her with an unamused expression. "Tohru, this isn't funny." Then she put her attention back on Kanna. "Why did you do that?"

Kanna shrugged her shoulders.

"Did she do something to deserve it?" Kobayashi asked.

Kanna shook her head.

"Then why?"

"I just thought it would be funny. That's all. It was just a prank," she explained in her small voice.

"I see…" Kobayashi folded her arms as she thought, and gave her glasses a quick adjustment. Kanna was usually the picture of innocence and never got herself into trouble. Kobayashi never had to play a stern parent with her before, and she felt bad, but figured she had no choice but to do it now. "Alright then, go to your room. You're being punished until I've had a chance to talk with your teacher, and until you have had the chance to give her an apology."

Kanna looked up at her with a hurt expression, her eyes becoming glassy. Seeing such a sweet little girl so upset hurt Kobayashi's heart, but she knew she had to be strict over something like this. Kanna eventually stood up and moped her way back to her bedroom, softly closing the door behind herself.

Tohru stepped closer to Kobayashi and asked, "Do you think that was a little harsh?"

"I don't know," said Kobayashi, thinking it over. "I hope not… I mean, it's pretty serious if she actually got sent home, right?"

"I suppose so," Tohru agreed.

Kobayashi stood up and gave her a smile, "It'll be fine. Kids get in trouble sometimes, you know? We just have to let her know that it isn't okay so she doesn't do it again." Kobayashi smiled down at the egg in Tohru's arms and put her hand on top of it. "How about her? Is she awake?"

"Mmmmmm…" Tohru closed her eyes as she felt for her child's pulse. "She is starting to wake up in there. I think she was sleeping until she heard your voice. I bet she want's to say good morning to you."

Kobayashi's smile brightened as she bowed her head down to put her forehead against the egg and whispered, "Good morning, sweet heart." She felt a small groggy push of her daughter's pulse in response and that made her feel really happy.

"You want to hold her for a while?" Tohru asked, "I'll prepare something for you to eat."

"Sure," said Kobayashi as she took the egg from Tohru and tucked it into her arms, feeling it's warmth against her chest. "Make sure you get a snack for Kanna too… I'm going to give her a little time to calm down then I'll go talk to her some more."

Tohru giggled and nodded her head. "Okay!"

III

Makoto would normally be greeted by the sound of clicking keys from Fafnir's computer when he came home. Today everything was completely silent, however. "Faf-kun, you home?" Makoto called into the empty house, not getting a response. "Oh well," he said to himself, "He'll probably be back later."

It was rather dark in his apartment until he stumbled around the stacks of boxed anime figures to get to a window and pull back the curtain. His otaku lifestyle and years of collecting anime paraphernalia left him with a fairly packed house. It's not that is was particularly messy, he and Fafnir were both good about being clean, but Fafnir was just as much a collector as Makoto himself (though his collections were a bit more mysterious, consisting of jewels and rare ancient artifacts Fafnir claimed to be cursed). The result was a house packed floor to ceiling almost everywhere except for a path in the middle to get from room to room, and an area for gaming.

Opening the curtains helped with the light, but towards the back it was still a bit dark and he had to carefully navigate himself through the gaming area to get to the kitchen on the other side.

He went to the fridge and started making mental plans to use up what was perishable as quickly as possible, since there was still no word on when the power would be back. He figured he could finish off the cold cuts for lunch himself, then use most of the other various things in a stew for dinner. Luckily his otaku ways meant a good portion of his diet consisted of packaged instant foods which did not need to be refrigerated. The bottle of milk was what troubled him the most until he checked the freezer and found some ice that had not started melting yet. He owned a cooler which he would bring to conventions and figured he could put the ice in there with the milk to prolong it's life a little longer.

Once that was taken care of he used up the cold cuts making a sandwich for himself. I wonder where Fafnir is, he thought, he could have at least left me a note.

When he was finished with his lunch he checked the light switch again, confirming that the power was indeed still out. He switched on the flashlight app from his phone then went over to the closet where he had a bunch of things stored and started pulling out boxes. He would occasionally open one and shine the light inside as he conducted his search for a rare ancient artifact of his own. Eventually he fished out what he was looking for and his otaku glasses sparkled as he held the treasure high in the air.

It was an old gameboy which he hadn't played in years, but the batteries somehow still had a little charge left in them. He went back to the living room, sat back on the couch and started playing while he waited for Fafnir to come home, or for the power to come back. "Thank god for handhelds," he said to himself as his fingers started tapping the controls. He was impressed the old thing still worked. He was just a little kid when he got it and it was the first piece of hardware he ever got to try his hand at modding; that mod being the backlight he put under the screen which still worked perfectly.

He hoped Fafnir wasn't out getting himself into any kind of trouble. Makoto knew he could be rather high-strung on occasion, and also understood the ramifications of forcing an online gaming addict to quit cold turkey like this. Still, Makoto did not worry too much. He knew that for all of Fafnir's talk of genocide and scorching the human world to nothing but ashes, it never actually amounted to anything more than verbally blowing off a little steam.

It was several more hours before the lights in the house suddenly flickered back on. Makoto looked up from his handheld game, gave his otaku glasses an adjustment and sighed with relief. "Finally, I was starting to get a little worried." He flipped on the TV so he could listen to the news and hopefully get some insight on the incident. He decided to start cooking dinner while he listened, figuring he'd go ahead and use up the perishables in a stew anyway, even if they were no longer in such dire danger of going bad.

The news report revealed that a significant number of transistors on their local grid overheated thanks to an unexplained power surge. It had taken a while for the electric companies to identify which ones had gone bad and get them replaced. They also apparently had no idea what caused the malfunction, and the news anchor commented on how incredibly rare it was for so many to go at the same time. Also, there was some mention of a police investigation as it was possible that the transistors could have been purposely compromised by someone, perhaps a random vandal or even as an outright act of terrorism.

Makoto was just finishing with his cooking when he heard the front door open, and he leaned back to see Fafnir coming inside. "Welcome home Faf-kun!" he said, then starred with a puzzled look on his face when he realized what Fafnir was wearing. He had a yellow hard-hat on and was in a heavy pair of work overalls, complete with a large toolbelt around his waist that had a wrench sticking up out of one of the pouches. "Um, what's with the new get-up you got there?"

"I got a job," Fafnir said with a dry voice.

"A job?" Makoto asked as he took a closer look at the emblem on Fafnir's overalls. "For the electrical company? That's great!"

"Foolish mortals," Fafnir grumbled as he removed the hard-hat and set it down. "Also, we have company. I hope you do not mind." After saying that a familiar face poked her head through the doorway after him.

"Oh, hey there Elma!" Makoto said as he raised a hand to her.

"Hello Makoto-san!" Elma said as she entered the doorway completely and started sniffing the air. She was still wearing the formal office attire she went to work in. "Hey, something cooking? Smells great!"

"Yeah, I was just making a stew. Are you going to stay for dinner?"

"Ah well…" Elma blushed and started stammering. "I-I mean thank you but I really wouldn't want to impose or anything! I mean, it's not like I came over in the first place hoping to get offered some dinner or anything like that!" She started pacing around, making circles on top of the welcome mat. "B-besides it would be totally rude, and I'm not a charity case yet, and by yet I mean not at all because I am doing a perfectly fine job fending for myself in this world! I mean, what kind of dragon can't even feed herself? That's totally ridiculous! And I- a-and I-" then her stomach let out a loud growl, her pacing stopped and the blush on her face bloomed into a bright red.

"It's really not a problem," said Makoto, waving his hand reassuringly. "I actually made too much and was worried about having to waste some. So this is perfect!"

Not a moment later Elma was on the ground at his feet, bowing her head to him and groveling. "Oh my god! Thank you so much! All the food at my house went bad because of the power outage and I seriously thought I was going to die of starvation! You saved my life!"

"Eeehh, um… well yeah, you're welcome," said Makoto, scratching the back of his head and not really knowing how to react.

Fafnir walked by with his typical dry expression and said, "I am getting changed. I will be back out shortly."

Later when the meal was finished cooking, and Fafnir was changed into his loose evening clothes, he and Makoto pushed the couch against the wall to make room for a foldable table they had stored in the closet. "Sorry for the mess," Makoto said to Elma. "We are not use to having guests."

"Oh no! Not at all!" Elma quickly assured him, "My apartment can get a little messy sometimes too, and honestly yours is not bad at all but…" she glanced around. "Well, you guys sure are into anime huh?"

"Ha well that's just me," Makoto explained as he filled a bowl and handed it to Elma, then did the same for Fafnir and himself. "Fafnir helps me set up at conventions sometimes, but he is more of a gamer than an anime fan."

Fafnir moved the stew around with his fork, eying it suspiciously. "This is mild, correct?"

"Of course. Well, stew doesn't usually work like that in the first place."

Fafnir took a moment to decide if he trusted it, then tried a bite and seemed satisfied. "I did enjoy the one anime which you showed me," he said. "The one in which those foolish human children unwittingly traded their souls to fill that strange creature's contract."

"Oh yeah, that was Madoka Magica."

"The suggestion that something as puny as a human soul could be worth any form of world-altering magic is detestable. However, I must admit I found the premise of profiting off their despair to be quite amusing."

"Ah Faf, you're such a kidder." He then looked back to Elma and asked, "So how is-" she was already savagely stuffing her face, not even stopping for a moment to breath. "Heh, guess I'll take that as a thumbs up," he said with a grin and then started eating himself. He was pleasantly surprised to find it came out quite well. Not bad for throwing together leftovers, he thought to himself.

"So when did the two of you start hanging out?" he asked Fafnir and Elma.

"We don't, normally," Elma explained as she wiped off her mouth and held out her bowl. "Seconds please!"

"Sure eat up, plenty more where that came from," said Makoto as he filled it for her.

"Elma and I are of opposing factions," said Fafnir. "Indeed we would not normally be in eachother's company. However, our paths have crossed with a common adversary facing each of us."

"Oh?"

"The power outage," said Elma. "Someone purposely caused that, and it was done with magic."

"What? But who would do that?" Makoto asked.

"I have no idea, but the culprit is likely from my world and as a member of the harmony faction it is my duty to get to the bottom of this."

"And because of this incident I have fallen behind in my MMO campaign," said Fafnir, clear anger growing in his voice. His pupils dilated to pinpoints and the red of his iris suddenly brightened until they almost seemed to be on fire. He rose from his seat with a clenched fist, his rage shimmered the air around him as he shouted: "Therefore I shall not rest until I have seen this vandal punished for his crimes! There has not been a worse offensive since the cursed ring of Andvari was stolen from my cave! The suffering I shall bring down upon this fool will be legendary!"

"Okay, calm down there big guy," said Makoto as he patted Fafnir on the back, which had the desired effect of bringing him back to his seat and returning a much calmer atmosphere.

"Anyway, Fafnir has agreed to keep an eye on things while I have to be at the office," said Elma. "That is how we came to work together."

"From my new position in the electrical company I will likely be able to identify the culprit's area of attack and pick up the trail of magical energy that is left behind before it goes cold."

"Ah, that makes sense," said Makoto.

"Indeed."

"So how exactly did you get a job there so quickly in the first place?" Makoto asked.

Fafnir's expression fell into an annoyed stony gaze, then he stood up from his seat and walked away from the table, mumbling something about the idiotic mortals he had met with today. He sat down at his computer and more clearly announced, "I will be spending the night doing what I can to salvage the lost progress on my MMO."

"Planning on another all-nighter?" Makoto asked.

"Indeed."

"Gee, I don't know how you do it. Wish I had the ability to deprive myself of sleep like that and still function."

"I should probably be going home myself now," said Elma. She bowed her head and folded her hands. "Thank you again for the meal!"

"Sure, come back again some time. It is usually just me and Fafnir here so it was nice having a little extra company."

He walked her back to the door where they gave their goodbyes. "See you at work tomorrow!" Elma called back as she went running off down the street.

It was business as usual back at the office the next day, though there was significantly less chatter than normal as most of the programmers were doing their best to play catch up thanks to the lost time from the day before.

Kobayashi herself had been rather melancholy all day. She hadn't noticed until paying closer attention, but Kanna hadn't quite seemed her ordinary self since getting in trouble yesterday. Could it just be that she isn't use to being in trouble and is taking it a little hard? Or was something else bothering her? Kobayashi wondered.

Tohru had mentioned Kanna use to be a bit of a prankster back in their world, and had gone so far as to have gotten exiled for it, but yesterday was the first time Kobayashi has ever witnessed that kind of behavior from Kanna herself. She figured everything would be fine, though. Kanna would probably be back to her regular even-tempered self by the time she got home from school today.

"So Fafnir got a job," Makoto comment when Kobayashi took a break from code writing to let a test run.

"Really?"

"Yeah, he's doing electrical work apparently. Still haven't gotten the story of how exactly it happened so quickly. Every time I ask he just starts grumbling about insignificant mortals. He can be a bit of a closed book sometimes."

Kobayashi grinned, thinking of Kanna. "Yeah, I know what that's li-" suddenly her computer screen flashed off to a black screen and all the lights overhead went off just like the day before.

From the other side of the room she heard Elma yell, "Oooooh! Sorry! What did I do?" in her flustered way, apparently once again blaming herself for the loss of power. Then her voice was taken over by the more usual ambient sounds of disgruntled programmers complaining about the power loss.

"You have got to be kidding me…" Kobayashi said, sighing as her fingers uselessly hit against a few keys. She sat back and adjusted her glasses in agitation.

"Two days in a row?" said Makoto, "What the heck's going on here?"

Kobayashi got up and looked out the window with no surprise that she once again found the entire street devoid of electricity. "This isn't good," she said when Makoto and Elma joined her by the window. "I really can't afford to lose another day's pay right now."

Elma twiddling her fingers together and mumbled, "And I had already overspent my budget at the meatbun stand the other day." Her expression then became more serious as she leaned out the window and started looking up and down the street. "I had better go investigate this… Do you think I could leave work without getting in trouble?"

"I'm sure they will be dismissing us soon," said Kobayashi with another agitated adjustment of her glasses. "What do you mean investigate?"

"Yesterday's power outage was a result of some disturbance caused by magic," Elma explained. "As a member of the harmony faction it's my duty to determine if it is someone who comes from my world, and if so I must find them and put a stop to their actions."

Kobayashi just gave a "huh" in response.

"Wellp! That means I better get going!" Elma shouted with a lively smile, and then was already running for the door. "See you both tomorrow!"

"Yeah, see you tomorrow," Kobayashi called after her. "Hm, why is it that the only time she's not in a rush is when she's in front of a food stand?" Then Kobayashi glanced over to Elma's workspace and spotted her bag still sitting next to her chair. "Oh hey! You forgot your…" she tried calling after her but it was already too late. Her expression sank as she addressed Makoto instead. "She forgot her bag."

"I guess I'll go see if I can catch up with her," said Makoto as he quickly walked over to it.

"Good luck with that," said Kobayashi, taking note of how quickly Elma had left. "Well guess I'm getting out of here too, if yesterday's any indication I don't want to wait around just to be told to go home anyway."

"Don't blame you!" Makoto said with a wink as he ran past her again, now with Elma's bag under his arm as he quickly ran after the fluttery dragon.

"See you tomorrow!" she called after him as she started packing up her own things. As expected, before she could even fully make it out of the room someone from the management team was announcing that they were closing the office for the day. They apparently wanted to get everyone off the clock as soon as possible while no work was being done, to avoid paying unnecessary wages.

Getting to go home early would normally be a nice surprise, but the lost wages were really starting to become a problem now. She started mentally going through the monthly expenses and trying to think of anything she could cut to save a little money. They might have to unplug the kotatsu this month to save on the power bill… ironically.

She ran through different methods of sqeezing her budget through her entire commute back home. Tohru wasn't going to like it. She tended to only want to buy high quality ingredients for her cooking. It was just about one of the only arguments she and Tohru would ever have with each other, and it's one Kobayashi usually didn't win. She loved that about Tohru though; how passionate she was about her position as a maid, even if their relationship had grown into something far more personal than simply master and servant. Kobayashi thought maybe she could give her drinking a break for a while instead, that way she wouldn't have to cut into Tohru's shopping budget as much and they could avoid getting into a fight.

When she finally made it back home she kicked off her shoes by the front door and called into the house, "Tohru, I'm home early again!" She walked into the livingroom and saw Kanna was once again home early as well, and once again with a disgruntled look on her face as she sat in front of the kotatsu. "Kanna?"

Tohru stood nearby, cradling the egg against her bosom. Her eyes were half shut in her best attempt at a stern expression as she explained, "Kanna got in trouble at school again today."

"Again?" Kobayashi asked, accidentally with more annoyance in her voice than she would have actually wanted to direct at Kanna. The combined stress from worrying about money all day (as well as her approaching role in parenthood) put a rare edge to her voice that made Kanna flinch. "What happened this time?"

Kanna's hands tensed in her lap, and her shoulders hunched down as her expression darkened, but she did not say a word.

After a few tense moments had passed Tohru began to explain for her. Her eyes closed completely as she tried desperately to force herself to stay serious. "Apparently she snuck a bunch of frogs into her teacher's desk at school." Kobayashi watched Tohru with an unamused expression until the older dragon finally lost her composure and had to hide her face behind her hand to suppress her chuckling.

Kobayashi raised an eyebrow at her.

"Sorry!" Tohru said, bowing her head. "I just keep imagining her reaction when she opened the desk and all those frogs suddenly jumped out at her!"

She couldn't seem to wipe the grin off her face until Kobayashi said, "Well it's not funny, Tohru, and you're not helping." At that Tohru's snickering suddenly stopped, and she just bowed her head again and gave a soft apology.

Kobayashi rubbed the side of her temple, taking in a deep breath to try and take some of the edge off. She was already having such a stressful day, she really didn't need this right now.

She sat down across from Kanna who was too guilty to look her in the eyes. "Kanna, why would you do something like that?" She asked as softly as she could. Kanna did not respond and just curled deeper into her shell. "Kanna, you would never get in trouble before. Why are you doing it now?" Still no response. "Kanna..." she said with a little more sternness in her voice.

"It was just a prank."

"No, it's not just a prank, and you can't keep getting in trouble like this."

"Who cares? It was just a stupid prank."

"Well I bet your teacher doesn't see it that way. Do you think she likes having one her students pulling pranks on her?"

Kanna shrugged. "It was funny. Everyone in class laughed."

Kobayashi adjusted her glasses, thought for a moment, then with a cold hard voice said, "Alright. If that is all you have to say, then go to your room for the rest of the night."

Kanna suddenly stood up with her little fists balled at her sides. "Whatever! It's not like I care!" her small voice raising louder than Kobayashi had ever heard it before. Then she turned around and stomped back to her bedroom, slamming the door behind herself.

Kobayashi stood up, her eyes wide and perplexed. She gave her glasses an anxious adjustment, thinking it over. She honestly didn't know how to deal with something like this. She looked over to Tohru who still had that sheepish expression on her face. "Um… I'm sorry Miss. Kobayashi."

Kobayashi sighed, "You don't have anything to apologize for, Tohru… I'll go talk to her." Kobayashi felt a little guilty herself. She thought maybe she didn't try hard enough to find out if anything else was going on with Kanna. She was normally such a good girl and this new behavior was completely out of character for her.

"Oh," Tohru suddenly held the egg tighter against her chest and started petting it with her hand. She bent down and whispered to it. "Oh no, it's okay baby."

Kobayashi stopped just a few paces away from Kanna's door and looked back. "Tohru? What's wrong?"

"She seems upset," Tohru said, rocking the egg back and forth and petting it. "She must have sensed the argument." Tohru could see those words troubled Kobayashi, so she quickly clarified: "Oh, it's alright. I'm sure she is just being a little overly sensitive is all."

Kobayashi walked over to the egg anyway and put her hand on top of it. "Hey, it's okay," she whispered. She felt bad, she was too cold towards Kanna just now. Sure, Kanna shouldn't be playing pranks on her teacher but...

Kobayashi noticed a flash of light through the corner of her eye and her head turned to the window. Her eyes widened as it grew brighter and brighter, and she didn't have time to react before the entire wall suddenly exploded.

Glass cracked and splintered wood blew towards her as she and Tohru were both knocked off their feet. She instinctively reached for the egg, but Tohru took the explosion head on and was blown to the other side of the apartment, out of Kobayashi's reach.

Tohru did her best to hide the egg under her arms, but it was too big to cover completely. Kobayashi's eyes widened in horror as she watched a chunk of plaster fly towards her and smack right into the eggs delicate surface. "NOOOO!" she screamed, her heart sinking in fear for her child's safety while she could only watch as Tohru's back hit hard against the floor.

Elma appeared amongst the rubble of the kitchen, holding out her trident and pointing it right at Tohru who was anxiously brushing the dust off of her egg and cradling it tight against her chest. "Tohru!" she yelled, stepping forward and keeping the trident pointing at her. "I've got you now! You no good liar!"

Tohru normally would not stand for even a moment of abuse from this other dragon, but she fearfully examined the egg for damage, barely reacting to Elma at all..

Kobayashi instantly got back to her feet and ran right for Elma. She got in front of her, knocked her trident out of the way, and pushed the dragon back a step. "WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU!" she screamed in her face. Elma instantly shrank back, intimidated by the pure strength of passion in Kobayashi's voice.

"I-I…" she stammered, "T-Tohru is trying too- I- I mean…"

"Do you see what that is!" Kobayashi screamed at her, pointed a finger back at the egg in Tohru's arm. "It's an EGG!"

"A-an egg?" Elma's face recoiled in puzzled terror as she looked between Kobayashi, Tohru, and the egg. When the full realization dawned on her the trident slipped from her hands and she fell to her knees, bowing her head at Kobayashi's feet. "Oh my gosh! I'm sooo sorry! I-I had no idea something like that was here… a-and…"

Kobayashi clicked her teeth in disgust and went back to Tohru. Kneeling down and putting a hand on her shoulder. "Is she okay?"

"Sh-she's fine," Tohru said, hugging the egg tightly and rocking it back and forth. Tohru's eyes were glassing over with tears. Kobayashi had never seen her shaken up like this before. "She is very upset but she isn't hurt."

Relieved that her child was unharmed, Kobayashi's anger for Elma came back and she turned back to the dragon who was now cowering amongst the debris that was once their kitchen. "Just what the hell are you thinking!?" Kobayashi yelled at her.

"I- I was investigating… and T-Tohru's trying too-" she stammered over her explanation, wrecked with guilt and terror of what she had almost done. As a dragon she understood how unforgivable of an act it was to bring harm to a parent's egg.

Kobayashi's fists tightened, still with plenty of rage inside herself that needed to get out. Before she could continue lambasting Elma, she saw a dark shadow appear beyond the giant hole that was once the back wall of her apartment.

She caught the glimmer of a red eye as the shadow morphed into a black mist. She watched as a set of dark wings recoiled back and with a final burst the mist dissolved away; revealing Fafnir. He had a heavy tool belt around his waist and was wearing a yellow hard hat and a pair of thick overalls. Kobayashi blinked with her mouth falling open, thinking she must have hit her head when she fell.

Clothing aside, Fafnir was his typical tall dark and sinister self. His red eyes glanced around from behind his glasses, taking in the entire scene until he addressed Elma. "Fool. Did you honestly think that Tohru was to blame?"

"What? B-but you are the one who told me it was Tohru!" she said, trying to defend herself.

"I merely agreed that the source of the magic could be traced back to this residence."

"That means it must have been Tohru!" Elma yelled. "She is trying to figure out how to destroy the humans infrastructure so that she can help the chaos faction take over this world! That was her intention this entire-"

"Silence!" Fafnir roared, his red eyes blazing. "If the chaos faction, or even Tohru acting alone, had any such intentions than this entire city would already be dust. Did you forget that there is another dragon who lives here?"

"But…" Elma's eyes averted, thinking it over.

Fafnir glanced over to Kanna's bedroom door. Kobayashi, Tohru, and Elma all followed his lead.

They saw the door cracked open just enough for Kanna to peak out. Her eyes were glassy and wrecked with guilt. She gulped, and shrank down into her shoulders as she retreated back into the unlit room.

Thanks for reading! I am really impressed by the great response this story has received so far, and I hope it is the same for this chapter as well!

Sorry this chapter was a bit slow coming out, but the next one will not be nearly as long! If you would also like a sneak peak at the next chapter, I will be posting scenes for my patrons as they are completed, so if you donate you will find out what happens next a little sooner! Besides, that would just be a huge help to me and I will be eternally grateful to you. You can find the page through my twitter account if your interested! /atomystfics

I will also mention that I have decided on three (possibly 4) major arcs for this story, each one separated by a notable time jump. For example, this arc would probably end with the baby being born (or hatching?) and next arc would jump ahead a bunch of years to their drackin child going to school while Kanna and Riko are sharing a college dorm together (That could be subject to change, and just to give an idea)

Thanks again for reading! Hope you liked it!

-Atomyst

PREVIEW OF NEXT CHAPTER HERE!!!

https://www.patreon.com/posts/sneak-peek-cry-4-13243736

Chapter 4 Chapter Text

Kobayashi walked up to Kanna's door and gave it a few soft knocks. "Kanna? Are you okay?" she asked carefully. She waited a moment then asked, "Is what they are saying true? Are you responsible for those power outages?" She thought about just going inside when she still did not get an answer. First she looked back at everyone else in the room. Tohru seemed the most concerned, Fafnir just stood with his arms folded and his typical stony gaze, and Elma still seemed incredibly nervous and guilty.

Kobayashi sighed and reached for the door, but before she got her hand on the knob it creaked open. Kanna walked out with her head down, paused for a moment, then approached Elma and Fafnir and bowed. "I am very sorry for the trouble I caused," she said with a small shaken voice.

Fafnir used one finger to push up his glasses as he looked down his nose at the small girl. Kobayashi tensed, preparing to have a big problem with him if he said anything mean to her.

"You are forgiven," is all Fafnir said, then turned around and walked towards the hole in the wall. Two black wings sprouted out of his back and he looked over his shoulder to say one more thing before leaving. "If you plan on disturbing the human world further, just be sure it is only between the hours of eight and four. Otherwise you will be interfering with my MMO schedule, and I will find you."

Kobayashi could not help palming her face… of course that is all Fafnir cared about. She could not even get worked up over the fact that he technically just threatened a child.

With that, he jumped outside, falling down out of sight for a moment before reemerging as a dark shadow, his wings giving a few powerful pulls and blowing strong gusts of wind into the apartment. He then soared up into the air and out of sight.

Elma reached down to retrieve her trident then drove the blunt end into the ground as she stood over Kanna. "Kanna, this is a very serious crime you have committed. As a representative of the harmony faction I'm afraid there is no way I can simply look the other way on this! You are going to have to come with me and-"

Kobayashi quickly stepped forward, putting her hands on Kanna's shoulders and gently scooting her back a step to position herself between the young dragon and this older one. It only took a moment for Tohru to join Kobayashi's side, and each of them gave Elma hard expressions.

Elma flinched back, losing her commanding aura and waving her hands at them nervously. "H-hey come on guys! What's with those scary looks?"

"Sorry Elma, but you are not taking Kanna anywhere," said Kobayashi. "We are her guardians so we will be the ones to handle this."

"Yeah," Tohru agreed. "I mean, it's not like anyone takes you seriously as an authority either way." Elma stumbled back at that comment as if she had been jab right in the nose with a boxing glove. "People just kind of go along with it sometimes so you don't feel bad..." Right hook. "I guess it's kind of like you are a joke." Body shot. "Actually, I bet the harmony faction only sent you to this world in the first place just to keep you busy so you would stay out of their hair for a while." Uppercut.

Elma stumbled backwards a few more steps, her head spinning as if she had just taken a serious beating and now had no idea where she was. She managed to shake it off after a moment and regain her composure. She stepped forward with her trident and planted it in the ground once again. "Now listen here! I have an important job to do! I am stationed in this world for the sake of maintaining balance! Kanna has actively made a decision to interfere with the human world in a significant way and now must be brought before the council for punishment! I am not leaving until I am allowed to carry out my duty and that's that!" The three of them stared eachother down; the tension was so thick it could be cut with a knife. Then all at once, Elma made her move.

She bowed down and folded her hands in prayer, shouting: "Come on guys! I'm in a really tight spot here! I've been on thin ice as it is and if I screw this one up I'm seriously going to be in a lot of trouble!"

Kobayashi could not help palming her face once again, then leaned forward and said, "That's not exactly our problem!"

Elma straightened her posture, cleared her throat, and more commandingly stated: "Sorry, but I am not leaving without Kanna."

Tohru's eyes narrowed and she held the egg out to Miss. Kobayashi. "Here, take our daughter. It seems I have no choice."

Kobayashi took the egg and said, "Tohru, you sure about this? I mean, I'm sure we can find a way to solve this issue nonviolently. Like, we could try bribing her with a loaf of bread or something like that again."

Elma once again stumbled as if she had just gotten her bell rung in a fist fight. "You still are not taking me seriously!" She took a moment to close her eyes and take a deep breath, then removed her trident from the ground and positioned it firmly in both hands.

Tohru watched Elma's repositioned trident. She saw the sea-dragon tighten her grip on the weapon, and point it's three blades right at her.

"Fine," said Tohru as she rolled up a sleeve and extended the claws on one of her hands. Her mouth opened, splitting her face and showing a series of incredibly sharp monstrous teeth. Her voice lowered to a scratchy, echoing pitch and her eyes blazed. "Sorry Miss. Kobayashi," she said with her demonic voice. "But I am afraid that she is not wise enough to back down."

Tohru's power was so overwhelming it was like the human form of her body could not contain it and it released as gusts of wind into the room, ruffling Tohru's maid outfit and flapping the tail of Elma's tunic.

"Now Tohru," Elma cautioned her, trying not to show any intimidation. "Don't do anything you'll regret now!" Though Elma was trying to sound in control, the way her foot stepped back showed she knew she was getting in over her head.

Yeah, Tohru's pretty scary when she is like this, Kobayashi thought with a bored expression, cradling the egg in her arms while Tohru's aura continued blowing at her hair and clothing. She glanced around the already half-destroyed apartment. If they are really doing this I hope they at least teleport somewhere else first… Maybe I should step in and stop it...

"Wait!" Kanna pushed past Tohru and Kobayashi and got right in the middle of everything. "Don't fight!" she shouted with her small voice.

"Kanna?" Tohru asked, retracting her claws and allowing her hand, face, and voice to return to normal.

Kanna's head was down, her eyes glassing over with tears running down her face. "Th-this is all my fault so…" Her head lifted. "I'll just go away so I don't cause trouble for anyone ever again!" She then took off in a dead run for the hole in the kitchen wall.

"Kanna!" Kobayashi shouted and reached after her, but she was already leaping through the opening. Her white feathery wings popped out of her back as she jumped, then her body was consumed by magical light as she changed to her dragon form and took off into the sky.

"Tohru!" Kobayashi shouted.

"Right!" Tohru ran after her, extending her own wings and jumping out of the hole. Kobayashi followed right behind her; taking a leap of faith right out of the five story apartment building. She tucked her knees and arms around the egg as she fell, only descending for a few seconds before landing on Tohru's green scaley back as the maid took on her own dragon form and they both went soaring into the sky together, going after Kanna.

"H-hey!" said Elma, standing at the hole in the wall. "You can't leave!"

All she heard was Kobayashi shouting back down to her. "You better have my kitchen fixed by the time I get back home!"

"B-but…" Elma looked back at the destroyed kitchen, looked up at the dragons disappearing into the sky, and looked back again. Her head slumped down with her arms falling limp at her sides. "Y-yes ma'am," she said under her breath, then turned back into the kitchen and folded her hands together. Magical circles came forth from her palms and started repairing everything.

"Kanna!" Kobayashi called after her as she and Tohru soared through the air. The wind rushing against her face was so loud she doubted her voice was actually carrying far enough for Kanna to hear. She did her best to straddle Tohru while keeping the egg firmly tucked against her chest with one arm. Her other arm gripped Tohru's scales and her fingers found a small crevice to latch onto. This was not the first time she ever rode on Tohru's back, but she had never done so while Tohru was going quite this fast before.

"Where are you going?" Tohru called after her telepathically. She had her body straightened out as much as she could, trying to make herself as aerodynamic as possible, but Kanna was steadily getting more and more of a lead on them.

"Tohru? Can't you fly any faster?" Kobayashi shouted to her, trying her best to make her voice heard through the wind.

One of Tohru's fierce dragon's eyes glanced back. "I am sorry, but I can not. Kanna is a storm dragon and therefore speed is one of her greatest attributes."

"Then can't you create a portal or something and catch up to her that way?"

Tohru's head shook. "It does not work that way. I can only open a gateway to somewhere I have physically been before, and am familiar with. I can also randomly open gateways between worlds, but by doing that there is no telling where we might end up and that will do us no good."

Kanna soared further and further away until it was clear they would not be able to catch her, and Tohru began losing her speed and slowing to a stop. Kanna looked back for just a moment. Kobayashi thought she could see a tear fall from one of those big blue dragon eyes. Kanna looked forward again and rose up behind the clouds; far away and now vanishing from their sight.

"I am sorry Miss. Kobayashi!" said Tohru as she started drifting downwards. "I need to take a break… there is no way we can catch her…"

Kobayashi looked down over Tohru's side and only saw ocean and a few small islands beneath them. "Wow, we are already outside of japan…" Kobayashi said under her breath.

Tohru flew down to an open spot on the beach of an island and landed. She waited for Kobayashi to slide off of her tail and once she and the egg were back on solid ground Tohru returned to her human form. As soon as she was back in her maid outfit and with two normal human legs under her, she let herself fall back and sit on the sand, gasping for breath.

Kobayashi walked over and sat down next to her. "Are you okay?" she asked.

"Yes, I am fine. I just need a moment," said Tohru, holding a hand at her chest as she continued pulling in breath. "Funny… I once found my human form to be the more tiring of the two, but now it seems staying as a dragon is more difficult. I also have not flown like that in ages… so…"

Kobayashi tucked the egg up against her chest and started softly petting it. Tohru was always much better at reading their daughter's mood, but Kobayashi was still clearly able to tell that she was upset. "Is our daughter okay?" Kobayashi asked.

"She senses that we are upset, and that is making her upset as well… but… she is fine. I am not sure how much she understands but…" Tohru eye's narrowed, she seemed concerned. She softly reached over and put a hand on top of the egg's shell. Her eyes got that sparkle of understanding and Kobayashi watched her closely, waiting to see what she would say. Suddenly Tohru's face scrunched up and tears started forming in her eyes.

"Tohru?" Kobayashi asked, scooting closer to her and putting an arm over her shoulder. "What's wrong?"

Tohru wiped her eyes on the back of her wrist and sniffed. "She can feel us, and she is glad for that… but… I can tell she is also reaching out. She is searching for someone else… I think it is Kanna and…" Tohru sniffed again, her voice beginning to shake. "And… she is very sad because she can not find her."

Though Kobayashi was always the more composed of the two of them, tears started touching her cheeks as well. It was too powerful. Her daughter was just an egg right now, who did not really possess complex thoughts like a fully developed person. She did not have sight, or touch, smell, or hearing, but she could still feel, and love. Her emotions may be undeveloped but they were strong, and in an abstract sort of way she was able to make strong connections with people. She probably did not understand why Kanna was gone, but simply understood that she was gone, and was reaching out with her pulse like Kobayashi felt her do so many times, trying to find her, and not getting an answer. It was so sad.

It was even sadder because… Kobayashi thought she understood why Kanna had been acting out. Really, once she stopped for a moment and thought back, it was really obvious why Kanna had not been herself lately. The tragic irony is that it was because of this egg that was now desperately crying out for her big sister, but could not find her anywhere.

It was not the eggs fault though… it was her own fault. It was Kobayashi's fault for not noticing something was wrong sooner.

"This is my fault," Kobayashi said, her voice dry and flat, almost as if she were admitting to some unspeakable crime. "I should have…"

"No, it's not," said Tohru, shaking her head. "At least… it is my fault as well. I have not offered to go to the field with Kanna to play even once. Nor did I take notice that she was in such pain… I just thought she was fine, and thought that she did not need anything. Lately all I have been thinking about is how excited I am about being a mother… and how great it is having sex with you Miss. Kobayashi!"

Kobayashi's head rocked forward, off of Tohru's shoulder. She figured she really should have been use to how blunt Tohru could be about those things by now. Well, at least one member of this family was always an open book about her thoughts. It was sort of a big part of Tohru's charm, actually. Even if she could be a bit inappropriate at times.

Tohru's earnest expression dropped away after a moment, and the sadness of their current situation caught back up to her. "Anyway, please don't blame yourself Miss. Kobayashi. You work hard for us and are very focused on your job. Besides, I also know more about Kanna's past so I should have realized sooner."

"She was originally banished from your world for playing pranks, right?" Kobayashi asked.

"Yes, it was her parents who sent her away."

"I see… So, what were they like?"

"Her parents? Well… I did not know them personally, but they did not seem to be around very often, and would usually just leave Kanna by herself. Kanna did have friends, but despite that I think she often felt very lonely." Tohru smirked. "When I started being friends with her she became rather clingy, but I did not mind of course. I think she kind of saw me as an older sister, and honestly I liked her better than my true sisters as well. I think it also impressed her friends that she would regularly play with a dragon from as prestigious a family as mine."

"Prestigious?" Kobayashi asked, raising an eyebrow.

Tohru grinned. "Oh yes. We are quite well known. It is actually my father who first organized the chaos faction, and began warring against the gods. I, along with my sisters and brothers, and obviously my father himself, are the most powerful dragons in our world."

"I see… So if the harmony faction opposes the chaos faction, does that mean Elma is on the side of the gods?"

"No, not exactly. The harmony faction is only concerned with maintaining balance, which often puts them at odds with us, but they could not be considered allies of the gods either. Honestly, those fools take themselves too seriously, and give themselves far more credit than they deserve."

"Where does Kanna fit into all of this?"

"Well, I suppose she is just neutral. Her parents had a reputation for being rather lethargic, and they certainly did not join either faction. They just spent most of their days eating and sleeping around, and never taking on or meeting any responsibilities. Unfortunately, that also included caring for Kanna. Despite having friends, I think Kanna felt very lonely because her parents would not pay attention to her. She eventually discovered that by playing pranks and getting into trouble it would force them to take notice, even if it was not in a good way. That eventually backfired, however, when they decided they did not feel like dealing with her at all anymore. They simply banished her from the world all together, and disowned her as their daughter so they would no longer be responsible for her."

Kobayashi stared at the sand and could feel her pulse rise in anger. What kind of parents would treat their child like that? she thought, bitterly. Then she started feeling guilty when she thought of how she had simply chastised Kanna and sent her to her room earlier today. She handled it that way simply because she was stressed from working, and didn't feel like dealing with it at that moment… her head bowed down. She felt ashamed.

It is no wonder Kanna was running away now. When she was trying in her childish way to reach out and get attention Kobayashi just brushed her off the same way her parents once did. To her, it must have felt like it was all happening again, and maybe she desperately ran away with the thought that she could at least take control and leave on her own terms… that way, it would not be like she was being abandoned for a second time.

She must feel so lonely right now. She may be a dragon, a being of unimaginable power, but regardless she was still just a child. Kobayashi failed her, just like her true parents had failed her.

Kobayashi tightened her arm around the egg. No, I can fix this, she thought. She made a mistake, but she loved Kanna just as much as she loved the baby inside this egg. She had two daughters now, and she was going to be a good parent to both of them.

Where would she have gone, though? Kobayashi pondered it, and after a moment realized the answer was actually pretty obvious. She stood up and looked out over the ocean. "Alright Tohru, think you can fly some more?"

"Yes, I should be fine now," Tohru said as she got up to her feet as well and brushed the sand off the back of her skirt.

"Okay, we have to go find her and bring her home… and I think I have a good idea of where she may have gone."

III

Riko had her thumbs under the straps of her backpack as she walked home. This was two days in a row now that she had to walk alone without her precious Kanna at her side. Why did she have to get in trouble? Riko thought with a sigh. They could have at least taken it easy on her… they didn't have to send her home early like that…

She thought how sad Kanna looked while the teacher chastised her and sent her to the principal's office. Riko clearly saw a tear glinting the corner of Kanna's eye as she turned and left the room, and Riko desperately wanted to just run after her and give her a big hug.

"Stupid jerk teachers."

She had gotten in trouble a few times today herself. The worst one was when she got caught not paying attention in class, because she was distracted worrying about Kanna, and the teacher made her come up front and read from the textbook. That wasn't too bad, but when she went to sit down again some idiot teacher's pet classmate of hers had to open his mouth and try to chastise her; as if it was his job in the first place! It made Riko so mad she stood right back up and told him off, but was then sent out into the hallway for the rest of the period.

"Everyone at that schools an idiot," she muttered to herself, sulking.

Later in the day she had gotten into a confrontation with the teacher's pet again. She was already in a pretty irate mood, and was trying to blow off some steam playing dodgeball in gym class. Of course, she couldn't resist targeting that jerk classmate of hers. She got him out, maybe throwing the ball a little harder than she needed too, but she was totally playing fair and within the rules. As the teacher's pet was walking off to the side lines she heard him say to another student. "It's no wonder Kanna-san is getting in trouble lately. Saikawa's bad attitude is probably rubbing off on her."

At that, Riko completely lost her temper. Without thinking about it she ran right for him, crossing onto the other team's side of the field and pushing him down the second she caught up. Of course the stupid pansy scraped his leg when he fell, and he started crying. So, Riko got in trouble with the gym teacher and ended up having to spend the rest of the period running laps around the field.

"It's not my fault," she muttered to herself as she continued walking home. "That jerk had it coming."

Her Kanna was a good girl, and he had no place saying anything bad about her! It didn't even make sense that she got in trouble in the first place. She would normally never do something like put superglue on her teacher's seat, or hide frogs in her desk or…

Riko stopped, her eyes widening in realization. Could it be possible that… Kanna was framed? She gasped, her hands coming up to her mouth as her mind started running through this new possibility. Of course… Kanna was the cutest coolest most adorable girl in the entire school! Everybody likes her… but that kind of popularity comes at a price. Someone out there must be super jealous of her and has been trying to get her out of the picture! She didn't even look all that proud of her supposed pranks, really. She was just too soft hearted to stand up for herself and explain she didn't do it, and that is why she looked so sad when she was told to leave! It was the only thing that made sense!

But who could the villain be? Riko put her hand under her chin as she ran through possible suspects. She tried to think of anyone at school who stood out, anyone who may have shown a hint of having it out for Kanna. It couldn't have been the teacher's pet; he wouldn't have the guts to go through with something so devious.

A black cloud filled her surroundings as she continued thinking it over. Could it be connected to the sports day? Kanna was the star of their class and it was thanks to her that they won. Maybe it was someone from another class altogether who wanted revenge and found a way to set Kanna up? But how?… how…

Riko then felt something warm and wet slide up her cheek. She shrieked with her face turning bright red. She had felt that before, and her muscle memory sent her into one of her squealing fits before her mind and eyes fully caught up - it was Kanna-san!

Kanna stood by with her usual blank expression, patiently waiting for Riko to calm down.

"K-Kanna-san!" Riko shouted once she was calmed down enough to get words out. "Um, w-what are you doing here?"

"Looking for you," Kanna said simply, staring straight at her with that unreadable expression of hers. "I'm glad I found you."

Riko blushed and rubbed the back of her head, letting out a bit of nervous laughter. "Oh yeah! W-well I'm glad to see you! Um…" Last time she had seen Kanna there were tears in her eyes. She seemed okay now, but with Kanna it was sometimes hard to tell. "Um… about earlier… are you okay?" Kanna's eyes drifted down… yes, she was still upset.

Without thinking about it, Riko took Kanna's hands in her own. "What's the matter?" she asked, watching her expression closely.

Kanna's eyes drifted further away from hers. "It's nothing."

"But…" Riko could clearly see that something was going on. "I mean…" Riko's hands tightened on hers. "I mean... You better not be lying to me Kanna-san!" she spoke more assertively, looking right into Kanna's eyes. "If there is something on your mind, then you have to tell me about it! And you better be honest!"

Kanna's head picked up at that. She did not posses a smile in her arsenal of facial expressions, but she had a way of smiling with her eyes that Riko had learned to recognise. "It doesn't matter anymore. Now that you are here, it's okay."

"Kanna-san…" Riko looked deep into her sparkling eyes, losing herself in them. Then Kanna's lips perked up; it was the first time Riko had ever seen a proper smile on her face before and she suddenly found herself at a loss for breath.

So... cute...

"Aaaaaahhh!" Riko's body suddenly arced backwards. She would have flipped right off her feet and onto her back if Kanna was not holding onto her hands. Sooooo cuuuuttee!

It's no wonder she doesn't smile! Riko thought as her body wriggled out of control in a fresh squealing fit. This kind of cuteness displayed irresponsible could be a danger to public safety!

Kanna let her go for a while, just watching her body reel around, but being careful to hold her hands and not let her fall. Kanna couldn't help blushing a little as well. Riko was always so kind to her and always made her feel really good about herself. She was glad to have her as a friend.

Kanna thought she could watch her like this all day, but eventually said "Saikawa" to help pull her back to reality.

Riko straightened herself up, still blushing and keeping her eyes on the fact she and Kanna were holding hands. "I-I'm sorry. A-anyway, as long as you are sure you are okay…"

Kanna nodded.

"O-Okay, great then!… Soooo, anyway…"

"I want you to spend the day with me."

"Um- y-yeah! I would love to!… Um… do you want to come over my house?"

Kanna shook her head.

"Then… we can go over yours? I'll just need to let my maid know that's what I'm-"

Kanna shook her head again. "I want to go somewhere private. There's something I want to show you." Without any further explanation Kanna started walking, taking Riko's hand with her.

Riko gulped as she look down at Kanna's hand around hers. She trailed a step behind, feeling incredibly nervous yet insanely happy at the same time. She was holding hands and walking with Kanna! Was this a step up in their relationship? She once confessed to Kanna that she wanted to marry her, but she knew that was a long time away. She thought holding hands would come some time before that, but not quite this early!

Her mind turned in circles, telling herself to calm down, it's just holding hands, but she was too giddy and excited to think clearly. Besides all that… Kanna said she wanted to go somewhere private? No, Riko knew she must have been reading into that too much, surely Kanna didn't mean anything by that!

"S-s-sooo, what did you have in mind?" Riko laughed as she caught up to Kanna and walked side by side with her, still holding her hand. "I-I mean you said you want to go somewhere private… I- I mean, I guess to play a game or maybe just talk alone and-"

"I want to show you my body."

AAAAAAH! IT'S DEFINITELY TOO SOON FOR THAT! Riko screamed inside her head, her limbs turning into jelly and she was now closer to being dragged by Kanna rather than walking beside her. MY HEART! I NEED TIME TO PREPARE MY HEART!

There was an entrance to the park right across the street from them. Kanna pointed to it and said, "Let's go there."

"O-okay!" The park was mostly empty but Kanna started leading her to the wooded area in the back. "H-hey Kanna?" Riko stammered, her heart fluttering inside her chest. "I-I mean, I really REALLY like you. B-but, do you think we should wait? I- I mean…"

"I was thinking about doing this for a long time."

"ME TOO! I- I mean, n-not like that, but I thought we could just be regular friends for a while longer first and then… like, you know, then m-maybe…"

Kanna let go of her hand as they found themselves in an area behind the trees that was out of sight from anyone else. Kanna looked around to confirm that they were indeed alone, then turned back to Riko. "Here's good."

This is happening waaay to fast! I mean, she's so cute but I don't know if I'm ready for this!

Her head was spinning, and her limbs suddenly felt too wobbly to stand on. "I-I need to sit down!" Riko shouted. She plopped down on the grass, propping herself up with her arms behind her as she looked up at Kanna and gulped.

"Don't be scared," said Kanna. "Are you ready?"

Riko closed her eyes and put a hand at her heart as she took a deep breath and told herself to be brave. She remembered when Kanna tried to do something before, after they played twister, but Riko chickened out. She kind of regretted it back then and wish she had another chance… now was that chance! They were going to be married one day, after all!

After taking a moment to gain her composure she looked back up at Kanna and nodded. Her face was bright red and her shoulders felt tense. "O-Okay! I-I'm ready! Kanna-san!"

Kanna nodded, staring into Riko's soul with that adorable placid expression of hers. "Okay… here it goes."

Riko gulped, her skin crawling with anticipation. This is happening! This is really happening! Oh my god oh my god OH MY GAAAA-

Riko's mouth dropped open in shock. Kanna shook her head to the left and two horns popped out over her left ear; one pointed up and the other curved downward and curled to the side. She then shook her head to the right and an identical set of horns popped out over her right ear. She wiggled her butt and a wire-thin tail popped out with a fuzzy purple cotton ball attached to the end of it.

"K-Kanna-san?" Riko asked, lost in thought and not entirely sure what she was seeing. Kanna's head slunk down into her shoulders and she blushed. She squirmed a little as she shyly kicked at the dirt with the toe of her shoe and waited for Riko's reaction. Her tail softly waved back and forth. "K-Kanna-san… y-you're… you're…"

Thanks for reading!

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Chapter 5 Chapter Text

“Kanna… y-you’re… you’re…” Riko just stared in shock, not quite able to comprehend what she was seeing, or get herself together enough to form a coherent sentence. “Y-you’re…”

Kanna started to open her mouth, but closed it again. She felt nervous about what Riko’s reaction would be - until it finally came out...

“KANNA-SAN! YOU ARE SO INCREDIBLY CUUUUUTE! ” Riko cheered, suddenly leaping off the ground and nearly tackling Kanna as she wrapped her arms around her. Kanna just blushed and allowed Riko to fawn over her. “That is so amazing!” she said, adjusting to hold Kanna’s shoulders so she could get a good look from arms length.

“You really like them?” Kanna asked, giving one of her sparkly eye smiles.

“Yes! Of course I do! I didn’t think you could possibly get any cuter than you already were! BUT JUST LOOK AT YOU NOW!” Riko raised her hand to one of the horns and looked closer. “How did you just make them appear like that, though? Aside from secretly getting into cosplay have you been learning magic tricks on me as well?” Riko giggled, feeling the horn with her hand. “Wow, it feels so real too!”

Kanna’s eyes sank down, suddenly feeling nervous again. “Um… it is real…” Kanna said in a small worried voice, trying to clear things up. “I’m a dragon.”

“You got a story to go with it too ? And you are staying in character! That is sooo cu-” Riko blinked. She had been looking for how the horn was staying on her head, but was not able to find it. That is, until she looked closer and carefully moved Kanna’s hair away enough to see the base of the horn.

“I wanted to show you for a long time, and tell you about it,” Kanna explained. “I was a little worried that-”

Riko suddenly let go and took a step back, her eyes growing wide. “K-Kanna… those things are attached to your head!”

Kanna nodded, the sparkle in her eyes dissipating.

“D-dragon?” Riko asked.

Kanna nodded.

Riko’s eyes dropped down as she thought. She watched Kanna’s tail as it nervously wiggled back and forth, and realized no costume tail could possibly move like that... it was real! “Um… s-so when Tohru said she was a dragon before… I mean… I figured she was just really into cosplay.”

Kanna shook her head. “Lady Tohru is a dragon as well.”

“A-and Miss. Kobayashi? Is she a... dragon too?” Riko asked. She said the word dragon as if it were foreign to her, like she did not entirely understand what it meant.

Kanna shook her head. “It is just me, Lady Tohru, Mr. Fafnir, and Miss. Elma.”

“I see… um…” Riko’s eyes shifted around. “So, Miss. Lucoa’s not on that list. I guess she at least is a normal human then, huh?” Riko let out an awkward chuckle. “Well, even if normal is a bit of a stre-”

“Miss. Lucoa is a fallen goddess.”

“Ah... of course she is.” Riko suddenly let herself plop back down on her butt. “Sorry… um, I-I just need to sit down for a moment.”

Kanna’s hands bunched up at her skirt. “Please don’t be afraid.”

“N-no! I’m not!” Riko said, quickly waving her hands to try and stifle the fear. “Just… this is a lot to take in… um… when you say dragon , what exactly does that mean?”

“I’m a dragon.”

“Y-yeah, but… like, dragons are huge!” Riko explained, stretching her arms up above her head for a visual. “Aside from the horns and the tail - and don’t get me wrong those are totally cute! But, besides all that you look like a normal nine year old girl just like me. So like, does dragon mean something other than what I think it does?”

Kanna shook her head. “I like my human form better. At least, I do now because it allows me to go to school.” Kanna’s toes nervously kicked at the dirt. “A-and, it gave me a chance to become friends with you… that’s why I always stay like this.”

Riko put a hand over her heart. She was too shocked by this new revelation to burst into one of her squealing fits, but the way Kanna just explained all of that made her get that fluttery feeling in her chest she’d only feel when she was with Kanna. “Kanna, me too… being Kanna-sans friend is the greatest thing that ever happened to me! Like… I use to always think I was happy before, or maybe I just never actually thought about it that hard, but after meeting you, and knowing how great it feels just to have you near me… I mean like, this might sound a little corny but I think I never actually understood what real happiness is until I got to experience being Kanna-sans friend!” Riko looked up at her and smiled. “I-I love you Kanna! Whatever form you take I will always love you!”

Kanna’s eyes got their sparkle back. She stepped towards Riko and kneeled down to take her hands. They looked deep into eachother's eyes and Kanna said, “I love you too, Riko-chan.”

Riko blushed, “Um, y-you never called me by my first name before! Eh… do you think I can I start calling you Kanna- chan now too?”

Kanna nodded her head, then stood up. Their fingers parted slowly, the very tips staying connected for as long as possible as they slid away, as if they did not want to be separated.

Kanna walked away a few steps, then turned back and said, “I’m ready to show you my full dragon form.” Riko just nodded her head. “Don’t be afraid.”

“I won’t! As long as I know it is Kanna-chan, I could never be afraid!”

“Thank you. In the world that I come from humans never trust dragons. That’s why I like this world.” She closed her eyes and exhaled, thinking: that is why it hurts knowing I will have to leave it soon… and leave her...

Kanna took in a deep breath and opened her eyes again. “Okay, here it goes.”

At first Riko thought it was a trick from the sun, like maybe a cloud had been blocking some light until passing fully by just now, but Kanna’s skin was suddenly starting to glow. Then, two feathery wings popped out of her back and Riko’s eyes widened in astonishment.

She looks like an angel!

Kanna’s eyes started to change next. They first started to become slanted, and the blues of her iris became incredibly well defined as her pupil started to squeeze in on themselves and take on a more oval shape; like a cat's eyes. Her face started to morph, becoming slanted and less human, and her horns grew larger as well.

Despite herself, Riko could not help gasping and letting her fingers dig deeper into the ground as she tensed. She thought she was ready, but she supposed there is nothing in the world that could have prepared her for what she was seeing right now. But this is Kanna, she reminded herself. This is my Kanna-chan!

Her body started morphing next, and at this point the transformation picked up speed. Her arms, legs, torso, and wings quickly morphed and grew in size, all of it turning into silhouettes behind a brilliant light. A long neck rose up from all of it, and once the dragon was fully formed the light petered off and disappeared.

“K-Kanna…” Riko gasped, staring up at the enormous creature she had just witnessed Kanna change into. “I-is that really you?”

Those big beautiful dragon eyes blinked, and Kanna’s head nodded in an identical mannerism to how she’d do it in her human form. “Yes.” That short answer; that was so like Kanna-chan too!

“Th-this is amazing! Please, tell me I’m not dreaming! This is really real, right?” Kanna’s long white neck bent down, her head lowering until she was at eye level with Riko. Her head alone was nearly the same size as Riko’s entire body! “Um… c-can I touch you?” Riko asked, staring into those lovely blue eyes.

Kanna nodded, and Riko smiled as she reached her hand out. She carefully placed her hand on top of Kanna’s nose. She looked Kanna in the eyes and when she saw them sparkle the way they always do when she is happy it made Riko’s smile grow even wider. She laughed and started rubbing her hand up and down, petting the soft velvety fur between Kanna’s eyes. Kanna lowered her head down even more, her eyes closed and the skin around her giant mouth curled up into a smile as she accepted the petting.

Riko’s own smile grew bigger and bigger; the wonderful bubbly feeling rose up in her chest until she couldn’t take it anymore! “Kanna-chan! KANNA-CHAN!” she cheered, hopping off the ground and practically jumping on top of Kanna’s face. She wrapped her arms around as much as she could, using her entire body to give Kanna a big hug. “You are SOOOOO AMAZING Kanna-chan!”

Kanna’s head pushed forward a little, gently nuzzling Riko’s body with her nose as Riko just laughed and squealed, rubbing Kanna’s face with her hands and holding her as tightly as she could.

“Riko-chan?” Kanna asked, her voice entering Riko’s head telepathically.

“What is it Kanna-chan?” Riko asked. She lifted her head back just enough to look at one of Kanna’s beautiful blue eyes.

“We should go somewhere else. Someone will see me if I stay here.”

“Oh, o-okay! Um… maybe you could just go back to your human form?” Riko rubbed her cheek up against the bridge of Kanna’s nose as she returned to giving her a full body hug. “It would be a shame, though. Seeing you like this is so incredible!”

“We can fly somewhere,” Kanna offered.

“F-fly?” Riko asked. She lifted her head up again, feeling a bit nervous about that suggestion.

“There is nothing to be afraid of,” Kanna assured her. “Even if you fall off I will easily catch you again before you hit the ground.”

Riko’s head jerked to the side as if she had just been unexpectedly struck by something. “Kanna, saying it like that doesn’t exactly make it less scary!” she said with an awkward chuckle.

Kanna softly pushed her nose forward to move Riko back a step, then straightened her neck and rose her head high into the air. Her legs adjusted, lowering her body as much as she could and one of her wings folded to the side to open a space for Riko to jump on. “Trust me.”

Riko gulped, “Well… o-okay I guess...” She slowly stepped towards Kanna’s side and placed a hand on the soft fur at the side of her belly as she looked up. “So, I just jump up?”

Kanna nodded.

Riko bent her knees and jumped up as high as she could. By raising her arms above her head she managed to get her hands at enough of an angle to hold herself up, but she squirmed as she tried to use her legs to shimmy the rest of the way. She suddenly felt her shirt getting pulled up and without any warning she was lifted into the air.

Kanna’s long neck was turned around now and she had taken the back of Riko’s shirt in her mouth to help lift her. Riko blushed, her belly was exposed and she pushed her skirt down with both hands as a safety precaution from any unexpected gusts of wind, until she was gently set down between Kanna’s wings. “Heh, thanks Kanna-chan!” Riko said, straightening her clothing and laughing.

Kanna’s head came up enough to make sure Riko was in a secure position, then lowered again, inching her nose as close as she could while closing her eyes.

Riko smiled. She wants me to pet her again. That’s so cute!

Riko reached her hand out and gently rubbed the velvety area between Kanna’s eyes, and watched as the dragon’s mouth curled into an adorable smile again. When her eyes opened Riko stopped, and Kanna asked, “Are you ready?”

“Um… y-yeah! I’m ready!”

“Okay, hold on tight!” Kanna straightened her neck and pointed her nose at the sky. “Use both hands until I’m in the sky. It will be easy to stay on once I’m up there.”

Riko looked left and right as both of Kanna’s wings lifted and extended away from her body with the feathers spreading out as widely as they could. Riko quickly laid her body against Kanna’s soft fur, feeling it on her face, and wrapping her arms around as tightly as she could. Her body feels so warm , Riko thought, closing her eyes and inhaling deeply through her nose. She smells good too! Her heart was racing; it felt a little scary, like those moments right before a rollercoaster starts to move, but she knew she could trust Kanna.

The wings started flapping, creating powerful gusts of wind and Riko suddenly got a rush of vertigo sinking through her body. She peeked an eye open and could already see the tops of the trees falling below her. Her hands tightened, hugging Kanna’s body with all her strength and clenching her teeth, trying not to scream.

The tops of the trees disappeared, and she then could see the city's skyline falling lower and lower. Everything tilted and she felt herself sliding back as that feeling of vertigo suddenly increased sevenfold. Kanna was now soaring straight into the sky!

Riko tried to hold it back, but ended up screaming and shutting her eyes tight so she would not be able to see just how high they were. “YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!! KAAAANNAAAAAAAAA-CHAAAAAAAAAN!!!”

“It’s okay, we’re almost above the clouds,” said Kanna’s calm voice.

“DON’T TELL ME THAAAAT!”

The feeling in her stomach changed direction, and despite trying to grip on with all the strength she possessed in her small body she softly lifted away from Kanna’s delicate surface. Then, the feeling of weightlessness disappear, and she once again had her cheek tightly hugged against Kanna’s back.

“It is safe to sit up now, Riko-chan… Riko-chan?” Kanna’s neck turned around and her head lowered enough to be eye level with Riko. Riko was tightly clutched to Kanna’s back with her eyes wide, her hair frayed and teeth chattering.

“I-I’m just going to need a minute!” she squeaked out.

Georgie hummed to herself as she brushed a duster across the living room coffee table. She glanced at the clock and thought, Riko is late coming home today. She probably just got sidetracked by some friends but I wish she would tell me before going out to play.

She then heard a knock on the door and set the duster to the side. “Coming!” she called.

When she got to the door she peeked through the peephole and saw it was Kobayashi along with her maid, Tohru. She opened the door with a smile. “Ah, Kobayashi-san! Tohru-san! What a nice surprise!” She then took note of the egg Tohru was cradling against her bosom. “Oh, what a lovely egg. Were you planning to eat that?” Tohru instantly let out a shriek and turned her shoulder to hide the egg behind her body, leaving Georgie with a puzzled expression on her face. “Um…”

Kobayashi smirked and said, “No, we are not planning to eat it… and don’t mind Tohru, she’s a bit touchy about that.”

“Just one of her eccentricities, I suppose. I understand completely,” said Georgie with a smile.

“Yeah, that's Tohru. A real eccentric. ”

“I will never understand how you humans can speak of such atrocities so lightly,” Tohru muttered under her breath, watching them through the corner of her eye as she continued to shield her egg.

“Tohru, we’ve been through this. Most people simply don’t understand what it is. There is no reason to get so worked up.”

“The foolish human maid thinks she can usurp a dragon’s position by eating her egg. I would sooner bring on armageddon before I’d allow it!”

“Tohru, I can guarantee you she has no such intentions.”

Georgie clasped her hands together and laughed. “Oh! You two are always so much fun! Hey, want to come in for a cup of tea?”

“Sorry, but unfortunately we are not here for a social call. I was just wondering if Riko was home.”

“Riko is actually late getting back from school today. I assumed she and Kanna have gone to play together somewhere.” Georgie sighed. “Honestly, I can not tell you how many times I’ve asked her to tell me before she does something like that.”

“Heh, sorry about that,” said Kobayashi.

“Oh no, it’s no problem, and Kanna is such a doll to have around. Plus Riko’s mood has been so much better since they became friends. She use to be quite a handful.”

“I guess Kanna has that effect on people,” said Kobayashi with a smirk. “Well, Kanna is actually why we are here. She’s missing, but if Riko is too then I’ll bet they are together.”

“Missing?” Georgie asked, picking up on something in Kobayashi’s voice. “Is everything alright?”

Kobayashi and Tohru glanced at eachother, then Kobayashi explained. “Well, Kanna has been getting into trouble at school recently and… well, I may not have picked the best way of handling it and Kanna took it pretty hard.”

“Kanna getting in trouble sounds very unlike her,” Georgie pointed out.

“She has just had a tough week. It's not her fault, and I’m sure things’ll be fine. We just have to go find her.”

“Try checking the park,” Georgie offered. “She and Riko often like to go play there. It was always one of Riko’s favorite spots, anyway.”

“Yeah I was thinking the same thing.” Kobayashi pushed her glasses up as she looked over her shoulder in the direction of the park. “Well, I guess we had better go.”

“Okay, see you later then,” Georgie said with a smile. “Oh, and I have your cellphone number. If either of them come back here I will be sure to call!”

“Thanks! And we will do the same once we find them so you don’t have to worry either. See you later! Come on Tohru.”

Tohru gave Georgie one last dirty look through the corner of her eye, still protecting her egg under her arms, before turning to follow Kobayashi.

Kobayashi knew Tohru was not being hostile towards Georgie simply for her comment about the egg. It was more that she was using that as an excuse to be unpleasant. Kobayashi had witnessed this behavior from Tohru towards both Elma and Makoto, and anyone else she viewed as a potential romantic threat. It typically did not amount to much more than a little unpleasantness, but the thing about Tohru is she did not have too many neutral opinions of people. You could be in or you could be out with her; those she let in she treated like gold, and those who were out she always maintained a layer of hostility towards. Kobayashi figured that was just probably how it goes for someone who had lived a life of war, though.

Kobayashi thought back to when she first met Elma, and Tohru blasted her out the front door. Tohru at least seemed to understand not to go that far with humans, but Kobayashi could not help worrying sometimes. Her power was incredible, and her emotions were sometimes unpredictable. If Tohru ever lost control and went even slightly overboard it could end really badly. Before the baby came Kobayashi figured she’d have to work on taming the dragon a little more. Tohru did have a good heart, and Kobayashi loved her, she just had to set her straight from time to time.

“Tohru.” She stuck her arm out and opened her hand. “Want to hold hands for a minute?”

Tohru’s face instantly lit up with blush as she looked down at Kobayashi’s hand. She quickly hooked her arm around Kobayashi's and let out an excited squeal as she entwined their fingers. Tohru huddled up as close to her master as she possibly could, making a point of pushing her breast up against Kobayashi’s arm as she did so.

Kobayashi smiled. Tohru’s small sexual advances, while sometimes a bit jarring, also never failed to be incredibly cute. Kobayashi sometimes wished Tohru did not need such constant reassurance, but if that is what she needed then Kobayashi was happy to give it to her.

Tohru may be hard to deal with sometimes, but at least she was easy to understand. Kanna tended to be the opposite; easy to deal with but hard to understand. Kobayashi pondered this, and tried applying it to a few other acquaintances in her life. As she did so she realized it fit just about every time. There were too many varying degrees of people's personalities for a completely snug fit in every case, but the revelation still had some truth to it.

I wonder where I fit into that, she thought. Am I easy to deal with? Probably. I tend to opt for the path of least resistance most of the time. Does that mean I’m a difficult person to understand, though? Again, probably. I don’t even understand myself most of the time. I’m always troubling myself with self analysis... I bet Tohru never does that. She always knows exactly what she wants and is completely shameless about asking for it. I kind of admire that. I bet Kanna is a little more like me, though.

Kobayashi glanced to her arm, and Tohru’s breast pushing up against it. Even through her clothing it felt warm and soft. Kobayashi had trouble showing her feelings towards things like this, but it really did make her feel happy to be wanted in that way. Before meeting Tohru she never smiled much (at least not without a little help from her good friend saki ), but ever since Tohru and Kanna came into her life there have been plenty of smiles going around.

“Miss. Kobayashi?” Tohru asked in her soft wanting voice.

“Hm?”

“After we find Kanna and bring her back home… um… tonight, can we have sex again?”

Kobayashi flinched, and let her head fall forward. “Tohru… eh, I dunno… don’t just be so direct like that!”

“Well how else am I supposed to ask?”

“I don’t know, not like that . Besides, we need to talk about… um…” Kobayashi let out a frustrated groan as she tried to figure out how to phrase it. “You know, safe practises and stuff.”

“Huh? Safe practises?” Tohru got a contemplative look on her face as she tried to decipher what Kobayashi just said. “Oh! You mean like a safe word? Are you saying you want to try something kinky?” Then her face turned into a stupid grin as her face reddened. “Oh my! Kobayaaashi! ” she giggled and huddled in even closer.

“Tohru, whatever you are thinking right now: erase it from your mind. What I mean is… like, we have two kids already. We can’t exactly afford any more happy surprises.”

“Oh yeah, I see what you mean…” Tohru once again got that contemplative look on her face. “That is strange, though. I was under the impression that humans could not lay eggs.”

“We can’t… you are the one I am worried about.”

Tohru let out a snorting laugh and said, “Well clearly I am not fertile right now!”

“Clearly? Am I supposed to be able to tell?”

“Of course. Especially since we are mates now it should be completely clear to you… unless… u-unless...” Tohru’s eyes widened and she suddenly pulled away, then turned to point an accusing finger at Kobayashi. “H-have you been cheating on me!?”

Kobayashi sighed and thought, oh boy, as if Kanna wasn’t enough of a handful today already. “Tohru, I’m not cheating on you and you know I know pretty much nothing about dragon anatomy. Like, for example, until the other day I did not even think it was possible for two females to have a baby.”

“Huh? Why wouldn’t that be the case?”

“Well… with humans… um…” her hands started moving around as she spoke, trying out different symbols in an attempt to help her explanation. “Like, with humans there needs to be both a man and a woman and then they… uh…” her face started turning red as her expression became less and less amused. “So um… pretty much, the guy has to… uh…”

“Humans sure are mysterious creatures,” Tohru said under her breath as Kobayashi continued failing at her explanation.

“HEY! Tohru! Kobayashi! I thought that was you!” Kobayashi looked up and saw Lucoa along with Shouta coming down the street in the opposite direction. Lucoa had her hand up and wore her typical expression with closed eyes and a cool smile. “Funny running into you two here, how's it hanging?”

“Oh! Hello!” said Tohru with a bright smile.

“Hey Lucoa, and Shouta. Good to see you,” said Kobayashi.

Lately Lucoa’s daily wardrobe was not quite as revealing as it use to be. She use to wear shorts and t-shirts that would only covered the absolute bare minimum. Now she was wearing pants that at least went to her knees and the neckline of her shirt actually kept her upper half properly covered. Kobayashi figured she finally learned the norms of clothing in this world, but still wished she'd use her magic to do something about the ridiculous proportions of her body.

“Oh, right! So I heard you guys are having a baby, that’s so rad!” she leaned forward to take a closer look at the egg. “Is this the little guy right here?”

Tohru laughed and proudly held the egg out to her, “Yes! And we are pretty sure it is a girl, by the way.”

“I see,” said Lucoa as she put a hand on it. Then her expression shifted slightly and her left eye, the bright yellow inhuman one, peeked open as she looked closer.

“Oh yeah, so we are going to be throwing this party,” Tohru explained. “It’s called a baby shower, weird name I know, and it would be great if you could come!” Lucoa didn’t respond right away, and her eye started glowing as she continued to watch the egg. “Um, Lucoa?” Tohru asked with a laugh.

“Huh?” Lucoa’s head flinched back up and she closed her eye. “Oh, a party? Yeah I’m completely down with that!” She then bent down and hooked her arm around Shouta’s neck. Her breast pressed into his face which instantly turned red as he started stammering. “What do you say, Shouta-kun? Wanna come along as my date ?”

“Ah-ah-AAAAAAAH! Get your hands off me you demon!” Shouta screamed as he started trying to pull away, Lucoa just laughed and held tighter.

Kobayashi sighed and adjusted her glasses. “It might be a good idea not doing things in public that might get child protection services called…”

Lucoa laughed. “Ah, that’s what I love about you, Kobayashi! You’re always such a kidder!”

“I-I said let go of me!” Shouta yelled as he continued trying to break free. “Th-that’s an order!”

“Yes! Master!” Lucoa instantly released him. She straightened her posture, and gave a salute.

Shouta stumbled as he ran away from her embrace, then fell on his hands and knees, gasping for breath. He recovered himself after a moment then stood and pointed an authoritative finger at Lucoa. “Th-that’s better!”

Tohru leaned closer to Kobayashi and whispered, “He seems to have gotten a bit more assertive, hasn’t he?”

“Yeah, but I can’t help getting the impression Lucoa is just humoring him.”

“Oh yes, clearly,” said Tohru with a small chuckle as they witnessed Lucoa bowing to the small boy and dramatically pledging her loyalty.

“Well anyway, we’d better keep moving,” said Kobayashi. “We were actually trying to find Kanna, would you happen to have seen her recently?”

“Kanna? Well not directly, but I did sense a transformation over at the park a little while ago. It felt like it could have been Kanna,” said Lucoa.

Tohru and Kobayashi looked at eachother and nodded. “Yeah, that sounds about right. We had an idea that might be where she had gone.”

“Is everything alright?” Lucoa asked.

“Well, it would not be inaccurate to say she ran away, but yeah everything will be fine. We just have to go catch up with her.”

“I see, well good luck then! I’m sure whatever it is it’s just a misunderstanding.”

“Yeah, it is.”

“Anyway, see you two later!” Lucoa said as she put a hand up again. “Just call me with the details on that party some time! I can’t wait!”

“Alright, will do!” said Tohru as she put up a hand to wave goodbye, she then turned to follow Kobayashi.

Shouta and Lucoa continued on their way in the opposite direction and Shouta started saying, “F-from now on I command you to keep at least three meters of distance from me unless otherwise ordered! Understand? Demon?” he slowed his pace when he realized Lucoa was no longer at his side, then turned to see she was standing facing towards Kobayashi and Tohru, staring at them as they walked away. He backtracked until he was in front of her and looked up. She had only her yellow eye open and it was glowing. There was an abnormally serious expression on her face. “H-hey, I was talking to you!”

Lucoa closed her eye and looked back down at him, her expression had an uncharacteristic level of seriousness he’d rarely witnessed from her before.

“Um… are you okay?” he asked, carefully.

Lucoa returned her gaze to Tohru and Kobayashi; more specifically, to the egg that was cradled under Tohru’s arm. “Yes, I am fine. It is most likely nothing… but, I can not shake the feeling that there is something abnormal about that egg, and it is not simply that the child inside is drackin.” Then her expression returned to the more calm easy going smile Shouta was used to seeing, and her voice likewise took on it’s usual bubbly tone. “Well, on the other hand Tohru is not exactly an ordinary dragon herself, so I’m most likely just overthinking things!”

“Well, alright then, as long as everything is fine.”

She bent down to be eye level with Shouta and he nervously flinched back. “Awww, what's the matter, Shouta-baby? Were you starting to worry about me?”

“O-of course not!” he practically shouted in her face. “I was just worried that you may have been plotting something, you demon! N-now come on! Let's go!” He then turned and started leading the way.

“As my master commands!” she said with a laugh and started comedically marching along behind him.

III

Riko spent at least the first fifteen minutes with her entire body clutching onto Kanna’s back in a death grip, until she eventually let the tension go and slowly raised herself back to an upright sitting position. She folded her hands in her lap and carefully peeked over the side of Kanna’s body to look below. She saw the tops of clouds, and beneath those she saw nothing but blue ocean. She figured Kanna must be moving pretty fast, but she was flying steady now and there was only a mild breeze hitting Riko’s face.

“Wow, this is incredible…” she said under her breath.

“Are you having fun?” Kanna asked, her head tilting just enough to look back at Riko through the corner of her eye.

“Yeah!” Riko blushed as her hand touched Kanna’s back and started softly petting her. “It feels so surreal, though. Almost like I think I’m going to wake up disappointed at any moment and realize it’s all just a dream, but…” she smiled as the corners between her fingers combed through Kanna’s fur. “At the same time it feels way too real. So, there is no way this could be a dream!”

Kanna’s head then tilted downward and Riko realized the clouds were starting to get closer. Kanna’s was descending, though not nearly as dramatically as her initial climb. She was simply lowering herself at a smooth steady pace. “What’s up, Kanna-chan?” Riko asked.

“We are away from the city so I don’t need to be so high anymore.”

“Oh, yeah that makes sense. You just don’t want anyone to see you.”

“Also, I just thought of something else fun to do. I got the idea from Lady Tohru.”

They passed through a cloud and Riko tilted her head left and right as the entire world around her turned gray. When they finished passing through and she could once again see the ocean she rubbed her arm and found a thin layer of mist had attached itself to her skin and lightly dampened her arms and legs. Huh… so that's what it’s like inside a cloud.

Kanna increased her angle, pointing her nose more directly at the water below. Her eye looked back to Riko and she said, “Hold on.”

“Kanna-chan? W-what are you doing?” Riko asked as she put her hands on Kanna’s back to steady herself a little more. “Kanna?” over the top of Kanna’s head she saw the ocean getting closer and closer. Instead of straightening herself to fly above it, Kanna tilted down even more and tucked her wings in against her body as she dove. “KANNA-CHAN!”

Kanna dove headfirst into the water. Riko opened her mouth, getting ready to scream again, but instead got her wits together enough to take a deep breath and grip Kanna’s body with her hands and legs as tight as she could to keep from being swept away.

The ocean water hit her like a wall, but it only lasted a moment before the sweeping pressure subsided and she and Kanna were just gently moving under water. Riko looked around, some bubbles escaped her mouth as she almost let out a surprised gasp, but she instantly understood why Kanna did this. She not only got to see the world from above in a way she never had before, she was now also getting to see the ocean in a new way as well!

Out here in the open water it was so much clearer than right off the shore of the beach, and she could actually see pretty far and take in some of the underwater life. She watched a school of beautifully colored fish swimming nearby, but then that vision was interrupted by a large animal coming into her view. She flinched at first, more bubbles escaping from her mouth, until she realized it was just a dolphin who decided to swim alongside them.

She and the dolphin made eye contact, and she smiled, finding it humorous to see the curiosity in it’s eyes. It was probably surprised to see a human all the way out here, and even more so to see her riding on top of another animal it had probably never even imagined existed.

Another Dolphin came up to swim alongside the first one, also watching her with that inquisitive look in its eye. Riko looked over her shoulder and realized three more had caught up and were doing the same. They all looked so cute and she really wanted to laugh at their curious expressions, but she put her hand over her mouth to stifle the temptation.

She let Kanna swim her around like this for a little while, but once her breath started to run short she started fidgeting and looking up towards the top of the water. Kanna! I need to breath! she thought as she forced her mouth to stay closed. Kanna probably could hold her breath for a while, but did she understand humans were not like that? More bubbles escaped out Riko’s mouth and through her fingers. She was beginning to panic but then thought, Oh, wait! I know!

She gave Kanna’s back a few hard taps and Kanna’s big dragon head looked back. Riko still had one hand over her mouth while the other one pointed a finger upward. Kanna instantly understood and within a few seconds they came bursting back up out of the ocean.

Riko took in a few deep breaths, but once she was fully back she just started laughing. “Kanna-chan! Kanna-chan! That was so cool! Did you see the dolphins?”

“I did. I was talking to them.”

“You… wah?” Riko grinned, realizing as spectacular as that sounded it was still not the most impressive thing she had witnessed today. “What were they saying?”

“Nothing much, they just wanted to make sure we were alright. They could tell we are young and thought we might be lost.”

“So… does that mean you can talk to animals?” Riko asked.

“Not usually. Only smart ones.”

“Wow, that’s really cool Kanna-chan!”

“Want to go under again?”

“Sure! Just warn me whenever you are going to do it from now on, okay?”

“Sorry, I wanted to surprise you the first time.”

“Well that sure worked,” Riko said with a laugh.

Riko took a few deep breaths and held on the last one. Kanna asked, “ Ready?” and Riko gave her a thumbs up , signaling for her to go ahead and dive down again.

They played around in the ocean for a while, sometimes diving deep and swimming alongside the sea life, other times just skirting the top of the water and creating waves or splashing in and out. They played like this until they were both tired and ready for a break.

Kanna repositioned herself in the water so her stomach was facing the sun while her wings spread out under water to keep them afloat. Riko laid in the space between Kanna’s arms so they were belly to belly and put her ear against Kanna’s chest.

Riko’s eyes were closed with a happy smile on her face. She was lying with the girl she loved; sharing a relaxing moment hundreds of miles away from anyone else and nothing but blue water surrounding them on all sides. She felt the heat of the sun on her back, drying her clothes, and the warmth of Kanna’s body beneath her. She could hear Kanna’s heart beat, and could even feel each subtle movement of Kanna’s breathing. How did I get so lucky? she wondered. It was total euphoria; she did not think she could possibly be any happier.

“Next time we do this I need to bring a swimsuit,” Riko commented with a small laugh. “I’m completely soaked!” She inhaled through her nose. Even in this form Kanna had the same scent she always had, though it also had a salty layer added to it thanks to the sea water they were both soaked in. “Hey Kanna-chan? Can you feel my heartbeat too?” she asked.

“I can.”

Riko inhaled deeply through her nose again, wishing this moment could never end. If she could spend the rest of her life laying right here with Kanna like this she would accept it without a second thought. It was impractical, however, and when her stomach let out a small grumble she laughed and said, “Well, I guess we should be getting back soon. I’m pretty hungry. How about you?”

“I can catch a fish.”

“Raw fish?”

“I can cook it with my breath.”

“Of course you can.” Riko smiled and let her eyes drift open as she stared out at the never ending blue sea, hypnotised for a moment by watching the waves and listening to the sound of Kanna’s heart. “It’s tempting, but... I’m already going to be in trouble for getting back home so late, so we’d better go soon. You too, probably. I don’t want to see you get in trouble with Miss. Kobayashi and Tohru.”

Kanna’s head had been laying back against the water with her eyes staring up at the sky. She lifted it for a moment to look at Riko, then let it fall back against the water again without responding.

Riko closed her eyes to take in just one more moment of feeling Kanna’s body against hers, then yawned and stretched her arms as she pushed herself up. She returned to a sitting position with her legs folded under herself and looked towards Kanna’s face. Kanna’s head remained lazily tilted back with her eyes just watching the clouds.

“Let’s definitely do this again sometime!” said Riko. “Actually… I was thinking…” she started to blush and twiddle her fingers together. “Like… um… K-Kanna-chan? Let’s do this kind of stuff a lot! Like… right now, I really want to ask you… um…” She cleared her throat. “K-Kanna-chan! W-will you be my girlfriend!?” She paused, then instantly started waving her hands, her face going completely red from embarrassment as she laughed and tried to explain. “I-I mean like, w-we don’t have to go that far and be that official about it! I-I’m just saying I really like being with you a-and I know we are young but… um…” she started scratching the back of her head, mentally telling herself to stop babbling like an idiot. “I mean… uh, f-for now let's just make a deal! Y-yeah! For now, let's agree that we will always be together! Okay?” She smiled nervously and held her hand out towards one of Kanna’s claws.

Kanna’s head lifted up enough to look at her. Riko waited patiently, expecting Kanna to move her claw forward and place a single nail in Riko’s hand so that they could shake on it. Riko caught something in Kanna’s eyes, however, and slowly her goofy awkward smile faded away from her face. “Kanna-chan? It’s a deal right?” she laughed again, but more nervously.

Kanna’s head slowly fell back again. She was no longer looking at Riko and when she gave a short simple response it was like taking an unexpected slap in the face: “I’m sorry.”

“W-what?” Riko asked, her hand fell limp and she already felt her eyes starting to sting. Did I just get turned down? But how could that be? How could Kanna-chan turn me down?

“K-Kanna-chan?” she asked with a shaky voice.

No, I just misunderstood her… Kanna-chan wouldn't turn me down!

“Kanna-chan… I-I just mean let's never stop being friends! Y-you know?”

“I’m glad I got to have this day with you,” said Kanna. There was a sad tone to her voice.

“Yeah! And we can do it a lot more! So…” Her eyes stung… that tone in Kanna’s voice… what did it mean?”

“The promise you asked me to make…” Kanna paused, and Riko felt her heart sinking.

All Riko could think was: Please just say yes! PLEASE!

“I can not keep that promise. I am sorry.”

“But... why?”

“I’m going to have to go away soon. I won’t be able to see you all the time like I use too… maybe…” Kanna could not finish the sentence, but Riko thought she understood… Kanna was not just turning down the promise… she was…

Saying goodbye?

Riko’s head felt fuzzy and she had to put her hands back down on Kanna’s chest to stop herself from tipping over. Before she knew it she was watching her own tears falling against Kanna’s fur and leaving small little wet spots. “But… I love you Kanna-chan…” she squeaked out. “H-how can you say that?”

“I did something bad. I didn’t mean to, but I broke the rules of this world. Now I’m in trouble and I’m probably going to be banished… just like I was once banished from my home world. That's why… I wanted to spend one last day with you.” Her head lifted up to look at Riko. Riko was not able to look back at her, but if she could she would have seen tears streaming out of the beautiful blue dragon eyes and dampening the fur on her cheeks.

This feeling… Riko thought. Why does it hurt so much?… It feels like my heart is being squeezed. Breathing hurts… my head hurts… everything hurts!... Why?

“Kanna-chan…” she sniffed to try to stop her nose from dripping. “Kanna-chan… how can you…” she wiped her face off on the back of her sleeve. Her fists balled up and she suddenly jolted back up to her feet and looked Kanna directly in the face. “Kanna! How can you say something like that!?” she screamed, and Kanna’s head flinched back. “How can you just suddenly tell me that I’m never going to see you again? You can’t do that Kanna-chan! Y-you…” her fists tightened and she stomped her foot down. “YOU CAN'T GO AWAY KANNA-CHAN!”

“I’m sorry… I don’t want to…”

“Why! Who is making you go away?” Kanna didn’t respond and Riko yelled: “Tell me!” She stomped foot down on Kanna’s stomach as tears continued to stream down her face. “Tell me right now! Who’s making my Kanna-chan go away!?”

Kanna’s eyes sank down, and finally she explained. “Lady Tohru and Kobayashi are having a baby… Lady Tohru laid an egg. Ever since then they stopped paying attention to me, so I got upset and did some bad things. Now they are mad at me. I’m in trouble. I messed everything up and I don’t know what to do!”

Riko clenched her teeth. She could hear the pain in Kanna’s voice and it made her angry. Riko felt like she wanted to hurt anyone who made Kanna-chan feel bad, no matter if it was some jerks at school or even Miss. Kobayashi and Miss. Tohru!

“What did you do?” she asked through her teeth. “What could my Kanna-chan possibly do that is so bad?”

“I caused those power outages. I did it purposely. As a prank...”

“That’s it?” Riko yelled, “You are in this much trouble over something stupid like that?”

“It’s the law of my world. We can not interfere with other worlds in that way. It’s because it disturbs balance if someone from an outside world starts changing things.”

“That’s so stupid though! You didn’t hurt anyone! And thunderstorms cause power outages all the time! So who cares?” That didn’t seem to help Kanna at all. She didn’t respond but she still had that sad expression in her eyes. Riko just wanted to wrap her arms around Kanna’s big neck and make everything better. She didn’t know what to say, though. She hated herself for not knowing what to say to make Kanna-chan feel better.

Then, a shadow passed over the two of them. Riko would not have even noticed it herself if it were not for Kanna looking up to the sky. Riko tilted back a little, shielding her eyes from sunlight until she spotted what Kanna was looking at.

There was some enormous green creature flying around up there. It looked much closer to Riko’s preconception of a dragon's appearance than Kanna did, and right away she understood who it was. Her eyes narrowed bitterly and her lips stiffened as the dragon started descending downward.

As Tohru came close to the ocean her wings spread wide, creating powerful gusts of wind with each pull which blew Riko’s clothing and hair. Kanna brought her claw over to Riko and held her palm out. Riko understood Kanna wanted her to climb on, so she put her feet up on one nail and wrapped her arms around another one so Kanna could flip back to an upright position without dumping her into the ocean.

Tohru set herself down into the water as gently as she could, but still created a rather significant wave. Once she was settled she lowered her head down until her mouth touched the water and they could see Kobayashi standing on the dragon's back. Her hair was blowing in the wind and she had two fingers against the bridge of her glasses to keep them in place. Her other arm had a large egg tucked under it.

She smiled compassionately and said, “Come on, you two. Hop on.”

Kanna set Riko down near the center of Tohru’s back, then her body became engulfed in light as she transformed back to her human form and popped up right next to Riko. Her eyes stayed down and her fists balled up at her skirt with her tail wagging nervously. Riko just stared at Kobayashi with that same tight-lipped scowl. She took a step forward to get in front of Kanna; to protect her.

Kobayashi just gave them a warm smile as she started walking towards them. “I’m glad we were able to find you. We figured-”

“You jerks!” Riko screamed, causing Kobayashi to stop where she was. “How could you be so mean to Kanna-chan?!”

Kobayashi’s eyes dropped down guiltily. Her hand went back to her glasses and adjusted them.

“I-I thought you were nice!” Riko yelled. “How could you just decide you don’t have time for Kanna anymore like that! And then try to send her away?! You stupid idiots!”

Kobayashi’s hand fell back to her side and her eyes widened. She looked past Riko, at Kanna who was nervously tugging her skirt and could not pick her eyes up from the ground. That frown on her face was so sad… seeing it broke Kobayashi’s heart. Without a word she started stepping forward again.

“J-just stay away!” Riko said, moving closer to Kanna and putting her arms out to shield her. “W-why don’t you two just go fly away somewhere!?”

Riko tensed as Kobayashi got closer, but was then disarmed when Kobayashi spoke. “Riko, thank you for being there for her. I am so glad she has a friend like you, and you're right, we really are idiots… but…” Riko moved out of the way as Kobayashi reached for Kanna. Kobayashi dropped down to her knees and wrapped her arm around the young dragon, pulling her into a tight hug. She could feel Kanna shaking with sorrow, and started rubbing the back of her head as she hugged her to try calming her down. “Kanna. What’s she saying about sending you away? We would never do that.”

“But I did something bad,” said Kanna with a shaky voice. “Miss. Elma says I’m in trouble, and you and Lady Tohru have a real daughter now… so...”

“Real daughter?” Kobayashi hugged Kanna tighter. “Kanna! You are our real daughter! Both you and the baby. Just because we have another child coming doesn’t mean we are going to love you any less!”

“But what if you stop paying attention to me! You are already busy all the time.” Kanna started sniffing, her body rocking with each small suppressed sob.

Kobayashi continued to hold her, and pat her head. She felt terrible, she never meant to end up hurting Kanna in this way. “So it has been bothering you that much, huh?” Kobayashi sighed. “Yeah, I definitely understand that. It must be pretty scary feeling like you might get pushed to the side. Kanna, we would never want to do that, though! Tohru and I both love you. You know that, don’t you?”

Kanna’s head nodded inside Kobayashi’s embrace.

“Look, caring for a baby is going to be a lot of work, and you are right that we might not spend quite as much time with you as we use to, but we would never just ignore you completely and we’ll always try to make as much time for you as we possibly can.” She repositioned her hand to Kanna’s shoulder and separated enough so they could look each other in the eyes. Kobayashi smiled and said, “If it ever feels like that is not the case, next time I want you to just find a way to say something to us. You don’t need to play pranks to get our attention. You’re a good girl Kanna, and I know you don’t want to do bad things.”

Tohru turned her head around as much as she could, but her neck was not nearly as flexible as Kanna’s in her dragon form so could not quite look at them directly. “Kanna, we love you! All we want is for you to be happy, so if you ever need anything just ask us and we will try to do it for you!”

“Yeah, what she said,” Kobayashi agreed.

“But… I’m still in trouble…” Kanna said with her small shaken voice. “Miss. Elma says I broke the law, and I need to be brought in.” Her face started to scrunch up, on the verge of fresh tears. “I don’t want to be banished! I like it here so much!”

“Oh, Kanna. No one is going to banish you. Certainly not Elma. We wouldn’t let anyone take you away. You know Tohru would burn the entire city down before she’d allow that to happen.”

“Oh! Can I?” Tohru asked with sudden excitement in her voice.

“No… you can not,” said Kobayashi with a dry tone. “I was just being hyperbolic. But, you get the point Kanna. We would never let anything happen to you.”

“But… I did something bad…” said Kanna, letting her eyes sink down guiltily.

“Yeah you did,” said Kobayashi giving her a slightly more stern expression. “And if you ever do something like that again you are going to be in trouble, okay?” Then her face softened again and she said, “I think we can let it go this time, however. Honestly, you look like you have been through enough already. That is, as long as you promise that next time something is bothering you you’ll come to us with it.” She moved her hand to Kanna’s face and gave her cheek a soft pinch. “Is that a deal?”

Kanna wiped her eyes off, then nodded her head. Just like Riko, Kobayashi had learned to recognise certain placid expressions as smiles from Kanna. She would get a certain glow about her, and if her tail was out her mood could be seen in the more wavy motions of its wagging. Kobayashi returned the smile, happy to see that Kanna was feeling a little better.

“Huh?” Kobayashi looked down to the egg, having just felt a rather distinct push from it’s life pulse. When she recognised what it was she grinned and said, “Well look who just decided to wake up.” Kobayashi held the egg out to Kanna and said, “Here, take her. She has been calling out for you all day, you know.”

“She has?” Kanna asked.

“Of course!” said Tohru, “I’m the one who spends all day with her so that’s probably why I’m more aware. But whenever you are around, Kanna, she seems extra happy!” Tohru chuckled, and Riko wondered how it is the fierce face of that dragon could seem so innocent. “She likes being around her big sister!”

“Big sister?” Kanna said under her breath as Kobayashi helped her get the egg into a secure position in her arms. Kanna then lowered herself down to a sitting position as she held onto it with her eyes sparkling. “Oooooooh.” She started petting it and then softly said, “I’m happy to see you too, egg!”

I guess we really do need to come up with a proper name soon, Kobayashi thought. She then walked over to Riko and kneeled down to be eye level with her. “So I guess Kanna let you in on our little family secret, huh?”

“Heh, yeah I guess so,” Riko answered, nervously scratching the back of her head with an awkward smile on her face.

“That’s alright, I figured she would eventually.” Kobayashi held a hand out, and Riko just looked at it uncertainly for a moment before she grinned and offered her own hand. “Thank you for being there for her. I really am glad she has a friend like you.”

Riko blushed as her eyes flinched away. “Y-yeah, of course! Um… sorry about what I said about you earlier.”

Kobayashi returned a smile. “No, don’t be. We might have deserved it a little bit.” She let Riko’s hand go then stood up and took out her phone to check the time. “Alright, what do you all say we head home now? I know Georgie is probably starting to worry about you, Riko, and I’m not getting a signal out here.”

Riko’s eyes glanced around nervously, thinking, Oh no! I’ve been gone all day! Georgie is gonna be really mad this time.

Kobayashi seemed to pick up on her thought and said, “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure you don’t get in trouble. Be sure to keep the whole dragon thing a secret for us though, okay?”

“Um… yeah, sure!”

“We’ll let Georgie in on it eventually, but we do have to be careful. We don’t want word spreading around too much.” She shrugged.

“Okay, I guess that’s pretty understandable.”

“You seem to have gotten use to the idea pretty quickly yourself,” Kobayashi commented.

“Heh, yeah I guess it is pretty fascinating… and I was surprised at first, but, I don’t know. I guess it doesn’t really matter if someone is a dragon or a human, as long as they are nice, right?”

“You know, I think that’s pretty much the same conclusion I came to about it,” Kobayashi agreed. She suddenly realized Riko was much more mature than she had previously given her credit for. It really did make her happy, knowing that Kanna had such a kind friend.

Kobayashi sighed and turned back to Tohru. “Alright Tohru, ready to take us home?”

“Yes!”

“Riko, I’d recommend getting secure. Tohru is not quite as smooth a flyer as Kanna.”

“O-okay!” Riko said with her face already starting to lose some of its color.

They casually flew back into the city under the guise of Tohru’s perception blocking. Kanna sat alone with the egg, near Tohru’s tail, holding it against her body and communicating through the waves of their energy. “My little sister…” she thought at it, though she could not say for sure if the baby inside would fully understand it. However, it did seem to at least pick up on the sentiment of love and responded with a warm pulse which made Kanna’s eyes sparkle.

Tohru’s eye moved to the corner of its lid, looking back at Kanna. She could not wait to see how they were as sister. She could already tell they were going to be close, and it made her feel good to know that her child was already able to feel for others even at this underdeveloped stage. She has such a big heart, Tohru thought as she switched her focus to Kobayashi. Just like her mother! The thought made Tohru feel elated and her flight suddenly became less steady with small quick drops in elevation as if she were suffering turbulence. I’m so happy!

“Tohru!” Kobayashi yelled, putting her hands down to grip her dragon’s scales. “What’s going on! Would you settle down?”

Riko had been a little nervous through the entire ride upon Tohru’s back, but now she was back to clutching on in a full death grip. Kanna was the only one who didn’t seem to notice, and though her butt would rise off of Tohru’s scales and go airborne for a moment before setting back down again she just continued fawning over her little sister with a placid expression on her face and a sparkle in her eyes.

“I’m sorry Miss. Kobayashi!” said Tohru in her sweet bubbly voice as she evened herself out again. “I just got a little excited is all!”

“It’s alright,” said Kobayashi as she straightened herself and readjusted her glasses after they nearly bounced off her face. “Just keep in mind you have a couple humans on board back here.” She looked over to Riko who was still clutching on with her eyes shut tight and her teeth chattering in fear. “Don’t worry Riko, you are completely safe,” Kobayashi assured her.

“I-I know that!” she said through her chattering teeth. “It still doesn’t make it any less scary!”

“Heh, yeah don’t worry you’ll get use to it.” Kobayashi looked towards the back of her dragon’s head and smiled. “I know I sure did.”

They brought Riko home first. Kobayashi took a moment to stand up for her and explain it was their fault she was late and Riko had been a big help to them, not that it took very much to convince Georgie of this. After that they went back home to find Elma just finishing with the repairs to their kitchen.

“Welcome back!” she said as they came through the door, smiling with her hands folded in front of her and her thick dragon tail wagging nervously. “I see you found Kanna. That’s good!”

“Yup,” said Kobayashi as she walked past her and started inspecting the kitchen. Everything seemed in order, except… Kobayashi pointed to the table they kept on the other side of the kitchen bar. “We are missing a chair.”

“Oh! Right!” Elma said and quickly walked over and folded her hands together as she made a magic circle appear and started morphing the chair back into existence. When it was done she brushed her hands off and said, “There we go.”

Kobayashi took another look around, but didn’t spot anything else. “Okay, looks good. Thanks.”

Tohru snickered at her and said, “Sure took a while. I could have had everything back in mere seconds, you know.”

“Th-that’s not fair, though!” said Elma. “It only took so long because I am not familiar with what this kitchen is suppose to look like!”

“Well to be fair,” said Kobayashi, “neither was Tohru the first time she destroyed my house.”

Tohru blushed and let out a happy laugh, taking what Kobayashi said as words of praise and feeling glad to have received them.

“I-in any case!” said Elma as she pointed towards Kanna and took on a stronger tone. “We still have a certain matter we need to discuss! Kanna has still broken the law and needs to be punished for it!”

Kanna hid behind Kobayashi’s legs and clung onto her as she peaked at Elma with one wide scared eye.

Elma lost her strong stance and kneeled down a little as she waved her hands and said, “Oh come on! Despite being in the harmony faction, how come I always end up feeling like I’m the bad guy!?”

“Because you are the bad guy in this case,” said Kobayashi. “Come on, Elma, she is just a little girl, she didn’t know what she was doing. Beside, as her parents it’s up to us to handle it. Okay?”

“Her parents?” Elma asked, looking back to Kanna who just stared at her with one big glassy eye. Elma was aware of Kanna’s past, and suddenly realized the full extent of what she was trying to do. She sighed as she stood up and said, “W-well, since it is Kanna, and also you have been such a big help to me Kobayashi, so I guess I owe you one. I suppose there is no need to take this any further.”

Aside from that, Kobayashi thought as she glanced to Tohru who unknown to Elma had a claw extended right behind her back, Tohru probably would have ended up killing her if she didn’t let it go. Tohru, now seeing that her method was no longer necessary, allowed her claw to retract and return to a normal human hand.

Kobayashi bent down to Kanna and said, “Now Kanna, don’t you have something to say to Miss. Elma?”

Kanna stared back at her for a moment, then nodded her head and walked over to Elma. She bowed her head and said, “Thank you, and I am sorry for causing trouble.”

Elma blushed and started stammering - another victim of Kanna’s cuteness. “N-no! I-it’s alright! Just… um… well, I know you are a good girl so just don’t do bad things from now on! Okay?”

Kanna nodded. “Okay.”

“Well, I guess I should go now,” said Elma as she bowed her head to Kobayashi. “And I am sorry as well, for what trouble I caused.”

“It’s alright, you were just trying to do your job,” said Kobayashi. “Oh, before you go, just wait a second.” Kobayashi walked back to her bedroom for just a moment then came back out with a card in her hand and held it out to Elma. “Here, we are going to be having a baby shower and we would love it if you could come.”

“A baby shower?” Elma asked with wide perplexed eyes and an awkward grin as she accepted the invitation. “Um, o-okay, thanks! I can’t wait!”

Baby shower? she thought. Why don’t they just lick her clean? Furthermore, why would they invite people to witness something like that?

Thoru led her back to the front door and Elma muttered, “Humans sure are mysterious creatures,” as she stared at the invitation in her hand.

“I know, right? Tell me about it!” Tohru agreed with a laugh.

After letting Elma out Tohru got right to working on dinner. Kanna took every chance she had to hold onto the egg and sit with it in her lap. The only time she let it go is when she had to do her homework, and while she was eating dinner.

Later in the night they were all watching TV together until Kanna’s head slowly drifted down to the kotatsu and she shut her eyes with the egg still tucked against her body. Tohru and Kobayashi looked at eachother and smiled.

“We should probably put her to bed now,” Kobayashi said, softly.

Tohru nodded. “Hey, we should let her sleep with the egg tonight.”

“Are you sure about that?” Kobayashi asked, wondering if it might be a little irresponsible. She always was the more cautious of the two of them, but she also was not as familiar with the norms of caring for an egg.

“Of course it will be fine. Kanna wouldn’t let anything happen to her little sister!”

“Well, alright then,” said Kobayashi. She nudged Kanna on the shoulder, and her head lazily rose up. “Time for bed Kanna. You can take your little sister with you if you want.”

Kanna’s eyes sparkled at the suggestion, then carefully stood up and took the egg to her bedroom with her.

Kobayashi went to stand in the threshold of Kanna’s bedroom for a little while, just watching her sleep until Tohru came over and asked, “Are you coming to bed?”

“Yeah, in just a minute.”

“Okay,” said Tohru with a smile then went to the bedroom herself.

Kobayashi watched Kanna for a few more minutes. Not long ago she would have thought that it was a pretty abnormal sight. Her adoptive dragon daughter sleeping with the egg of her unborn half-dragon, drackin , daughter. She wasn’t sure how she had pictured one day having a family, but it wasn’t quite like this. Then again, as she thought back to what Riko said to her earlier she realized her preconceptions of a family was actually exactly like this. Human or dragon didn’t really matter; people are people. What is really important in the world is not the outside aesthetics of who or what someone is. What matters is what's inside, and the feelings that people could share and experience with each other. When she looked at Kanna, she didn’t think dragon , she thought daughter . She imagined the way she looks at her egg is the same way she would have looked at a pregnant belly, whether it was her own or Tohru’s she was looking at.

She took a little more time to just watch Kanna, then finally walked back to her own bedroom. As she went through the doorway her face dropped into an unamused expression.

Tohru was laying on the bed, dressed in skimpy black lingerie that was practically see-through. It covered her chest, but really left little to the imagination with the web-like fabric leaving holes for the soft pale skin beneath to peak through. There were thin straps that ran along the curves of Tohru’s stomach and connected it to the equally (if not more so) revealing panties that belong to the bottom half of the garment.

“Tohru?” Kobayashi asked.

“Yes?” Tohru said back with a cute smile. She was laying with one hand behind her head and the other on her hip. The tips of her fingers laid teasingly close to that space between her legs. She had one knee up with her legs open; her entire body positioned as if on display.

“You suggested Kanna sleep with the egg just so you could do this, didn’t you?”

Tohru’s eyes closed and she laughed nervously. “W-well that’s not the only reason!”

By now Kobayashi knew that reaction from Tohru well enough to know she’d just hit the nail on the head. “Well, where did you get that from anyway?”

“Oh, it’s just my scales! I looked up the design in a magazine! Um… d-do you like it?” she asked with her face softly reddening.

Kobayashi grinned as she took off her glasses and set them on a dresser by the door. As she walked towards Tohru she reached back and pulled the tie off her ponytail to let her hair down. Tohru anxiously watched her as she stepped closer, her face glowing redder and redder.

Kobayashi put one knee up on the bed and brought a hand to the side of Tohru’s face as she lowered herself towards her. Their lips connected for a brief kiss and Kobayashi said, “I love it.” Then climbed fully in bed with her dragon maid.

“K-Kobayashi!” Tohru squealed as Kobayashi brought a hand up under her breast and squeezed it.

“Shhh, try not to be too loud,” she whispered with her lips just a few inches from Tohru’s. She moved in closer to reconnect and gave her dragon a long passionate kiss.

Thanks for reading!

I continue to be impressed by this story's popularity and I have so many other places I plan to go with it - it’s quite exciting! ^^

Visit my twitter at /atomyst_fics for news of upcoming releases where I give an update every thursday.

-Atomyst

Chapter 6 Chapter Text

Tohru hummed to herself as she ran a duster around the apartment, practically dancing as she twirled from one piece of furnishing to another. The duster was a rather primitive tool, she thought, but there was something rather calming about the simplicity of it.

If she wanted, she could use her magic to obliterate every speck of dust from the apartment in mere seconds but in doing that she risked obliterating other things along with it. Granted, she could easily bring back those mistakenly obliterated items but there was still a risk of her not noticing. So, she just continued with the inferior human method of doing it. Partly for that reason, and partly because she actually enjoyed cleaning and this method stretched the chore out a little longer.

When the dusting was done she sprayed some cleaner on the windows and other noticeable surfaces and by the time that was all finished the apartment was sparkling. She stood in the middle of the living room with her hands on her hips and a smug grin across her face, admiring the work she had done.

She then felt a distinct pulse of energy and glanced over to her egg which was sitting atop the kotatsu. “Oh, I see someone is awake!” she chuckled as she walked over and scooped it up into her arms. She could already tell her daughter was going to be quite a social butterfly. Even as an egg she seemed to crave companionship at all times and hated being left alone.

“Do you want to go shopping with mommy today?” Tohru asked with a smile as she pet the egg’s smooth surface. The egg did not give any direct response to the question. While she seemed to understand basic emotions, she of course was still only an egg and did not yet have complex thoughts.

“You just have to wait here for a minute while mommy gets ready. Okay?” She returned the egg to its place atop the kotatsu. As expected, her daughter did not like that at all and her pulse became irritated the instant Tohru went back to her bedroom. “Oh, don’t be like that!” Tohru complained with a small laugh as she started gathering her things. “I will only be a minute!”

Once she had everything she did a quick double check, mentally marking things off in her head as she did so. “Okay, money, house key, shopping list…” After that, she brought the egg back up into her arms and smiled. “Alright! We’re ready to go!” she sang as she carried the egg out of the apartment with her.

Winter had finally broken into early spring, and in the morning there was still a mild chill in the air but by the time afternoon came around she knew it would be quite warm out again. They would probably be putting the kotatsu into storage again soon, which was a somewhat disappointing thought. It really was quite a pleasant little device the humans had come up with, and she supposed she had to admit that the humans of this world were impressive in their ability to invent things. Even if they themselves did indeed have a multitude of inferiorities, she figured she could at least give them credit for that.

As Tohru crossed a certain street a few blocks down from the bazaar she caught a glimpse of the much bigger shopping mall peaking over the distance which made her cringe. It reminded her too much of the human fortresses of her own world which were always a danger for her to go near because she would often get bombarded with arrows when she would do so. Her daughter seemed to pick up the negative sentiment and sent out a pulse of ferocity, as if to warn any surrounding adversaries.

Tohru chuckled, thinking how cute it was and said, “Do not worry, I promise it is just mommy being silly.” She looked back to the shopping mall and instead of cringing allowed herself to grin humorously at it. The humans of this world were not like the ones from hers. Here she would never have to worry about being hunted or having her scales pierced by arrows, and neither would her daughter. Her daughter would get to have a calm peaceful life in this wonderful new world just like she now had herself!

Still, she thought actually going inside that shopping mall would unsettle her too much and she was already quite comfortable with the bazaar, so that is where she continued to do her shopping. Besides, these humans may be better than the ones from her world, but she thought there had to be at least a few out there who saw value in a dragon's egg and therefore it would be better not to take the risk of going to an unfamiliar place.

As soon as she entered the bazaar she could feel friendly eyes on her, and as she passed through she would put up a hand to wave towards some of the acquaintances she had made during her shopping expeditions.

On her first trip here (when she first started working as Miss. Kobayashi’s maid) the attention she received at the bazaar was surprising to her. This world had been new to her at the time, and at first she thought she had simply not done a good enough job concealing her dragon form so the humans were being nice out of fear for their lives; trying their best to avoid provoking her wrath.

When she came to understand the meaning of the word cosplay, however, it all started to make sense. Apparently they all took her maid attire and dragon horns as a simple costume and were nice simply because they found her interesting. She had to admit, she rather enjoyed the attention and was happy about her status as a minor local celebrity, especially since it often meant the shop owners would give her discounts on their goods which in turn allowed her to make better use of the budget Miss. Kobayashi provided her with.

“Ah! Tohru!” the butcher called as she approached his stand. “How are you doing today?”

“Just fine,” Tohru responded with a smile. “How about yourself?”

“I’m doing pretty good. Say, that’s quite a big egg you got there. What kind is it?”

“It’s a dragon egg, of course,” Tohru said with a chuckle. “It’s mine and Miss. Kobayashi’s!” She proudly held the egg up to show it to him as she explained that. She was familiar enough with the butcher to not perceive him as a potential threat, and therefore she was happy to show it off.

“I see. Well congratulations!” said the butcher with a hearty laugh. “So, what can I get for you?”

“Well, lets see…” Tohru leaned forward to examine his goods and started making her selections, quickly planning out some meals and asking for recommendations as she did so. When she was all done he threw in an extra cut for free (as he often did) and waved goodbye once she continued on her way.

After she left, the next customer in line watched her go and said, “Looks like she found a new prop to go with her costume.”

“Haha, yup, looks that way,” said the butcher. “She is a bit of an odd one, but she sure is fun to have around.”

She had multiple stops through the bazaar with the exchanges between her and the proprietors going much the same. For most she was happy to show off her egg, others she was a little more wary of, but all in all she had a pleasant shopping experience as usual.

By the time she was finished, her arms were completely full. She had her egg nestled inside one, and the other was completely draped in grocery bags. The load was not heavy for her, of course, but it was still a bit cumbersome and she realized the walk back home might be a little awkward.

Instead of getting back by walking, she searched for an alley and once she was sure she was out of sight from anyone she used her perception blocking to make herself invisible. She then waited for a red light on the city streets so she would have room to transform, and once the transformation was complete she flew up into the sky. Her egg was held safely inside her giant dragon claw and the grocery bags were hanging from her teeth as she soared above the city with a happily content expression on her big green dragon face.

Shortly after noon she was back home with all the groceries put away and all of her daily routines complete. She spent the rest of the afternoon just relaxing and watching television with her legs under the kotatsu and the egg held against her body. Her daughter must have enjoyed the outing, because her pulse was warm and happy; the static feeling of it was almost like she was returning her mother’s hug and thanking her for taking her on a trip.

After a while the pulse simmered down, and Tohru was fairly sure she had gone back to sleep. She carefully sat the egg back atop the kotatsu and glanced at the clock. Kanna would be coming home soon, so she quickly got to work preparing an after-school snack for her.

Kobayashi’s after work hours usually consisted of either having a drink with Makoto or simply going straight home and relaxing there, and it was rare for her to be sidetracked by anything else. Today, her eye caught something in a shop window along the way.

Although she had passed by this shop hundreds of times she never took particular notice of its existence before. This time she ended up coming to a full stop with her eyes glancing over all the jewelry that was on display. With a sigh and a small adjustment of her glasses, she backtracked to the front door and walked in.

“Hello! Welcome!” said the clerk from the counter as she entered. “Can I help you with anything today?”

“Oh, I’m just window shopping a little, is all,” Kobayashi said with a smile.

“Okay, well please feel free to take your time. Anything in particular you wanted to look at?”

Kobayashi thought for a moment, then said, “Not particularly.” The clerk seemed to accept this answer, and then left her to her own devices.

The first glass case she walked towards contained watches, but that is not what she was looking for and just vaguely glanced over them as she walked along all the different displays.

When she found the rings, she came to a stop and looked over them for a while.

These are beautiful, she thought, examining all the sparkling diamonds and decorative framing, thinking about which ones Tohru might like. Then her eyes fell on the price tags and she frowned. And they are also… incredibly expensive .

She realized she really had no hope of affording something like this. She adjusted her glasses again, thinking, and decided it probably would be okay to put off taking that step in their relationship for quite a while still. It was not something she was thinking too deeply on in the first place, at least not yet, so she would wait until she could afford to get Tohru something really nice and do it right.

She gave the clerk a friendly wave as she left the store, and then continued on her way home.

She figured she really did not need to worry about it after all. She and Tohru really had only just become official as a couple a short time ago anyway. They have their daughter coming along, and they are sharing a bedroom now, so tying the knot is probably something they would do eventually but it did not need to happen in the too near future.

The train arrived and dropped her off right on time, and before she knew it she was back home. She came through the door, kicked off her shoes and called, “I’m back!”

“Kobayashi!” she heard Kanna call as she ran down the hall with open arms which clung to Kobayashi’s legs as soon as she reached her.

Kobayashi smiled as she reached down and gave Kanna’s head a pat. “Hello Kanna!” she said, happy to see that Kanna was back to her usual self after all the drama from a few days ago.

The young dragon looked up with those wide eyes of hers and said, “We want to go somewhere and play.”

“We?” Kobayashi asked, then she looked down the hall to see Riko had revealed herself.

Riko bowed her head politely and said, “Welcome home, Miss. Kobayashi!”

“Ah, hello Riko. Did you let Georgi know before you came over?”

“Yes mam!” Riko said with another polite bow of her head.

“Can we all go play in the field please?” Kanna asked again, the small dragon still clinging to Kobayashi’s leg and practically being dragged along as Kobayashi walked down the hall.

“The field?” Kobayashi thought for a moment. She actually was a little bit on the tired side from working all day, but she supposed it would not be too much of a hassle. Tohru would fly her there, and once they arrived she could be free to just lay back in the grass and get some rest while Kanna worked off some of her energy playing with Tohru… What would Riko do, though? Kobayashi figured Riko probably did not know what she was getting herself into when she agreed to go play with the dragons. “Sure, we can go there I guess. As long as Tohru agrees.”

As Kobayashi walked into the living room (still with Kanna clinging to her leg) she looked over to Tohru who was sitting at the kotatsu with the egg cradled against her chest.

“I already told them I would like to go,” Tohru assured her with a smile. “As long as it is okay with you too, Miss. Kobayashi!”

“Yup, I’m on board, just give me a minute to change out of my work clothes.”

As soon as Kobayashi said that Kanna finally let go of her leg and put her arms in the air, softly shouting: “Yaaaa!”

III

The four of them flew away from the city under the guise of Tohru’s perception blocking. Kobayashi sat atop Tohru with the egg in her arms, and Riko clung to Kanna as the young dragon flew alongside her elder.

Kobayashi looked over to Riko and smirked. It seemed the grade-schooler had not yet completely gotten used to flying, as she kept her eyes tightly shut and held onto Kanna’s back in the full death grip. After a few minutes, though, she noticed Riko slowly pick her head back up and release the intensity of her grip, though her hands still never left Kanna’s back.

It’s good Kanna has a friend like Riko, Kobayashi thought. She figured having someone who knew about her being a dragon was probably good for her. Although Kanna never gave a hint of it bothering her, Kobayashi still thought it was a little bit of a shame she had to keep the truth of what she was hidden from her classmates.

She watched as Kanna’s head turned around and came eye level with Riko. Riko blushed and said something to her, then Kobayashi noticed Kanna’s lips curl up into a smile as her big head nodded and her brilliant blue eyes sparkled. Riko returned the smile and laughed, then Kanna brought her head back around to look forward again and focus on flying.

Kobayashi looked down to the egg in her arms, and gently ran a hand across its smooth surface. It would be nice if the whole dragon thing did not have to be a public secret. Things seemed to be working out just fine for all of them, but she could not help thinking there was something a little sad about having to hide such a significant part of who you are everywhere you go.

Then again, she thought it was probably normal for people to have secrets. Most of the time people's secrets were far less incredible than being a mythological being, but everyone had them. As long as there were friends and family who know the real you, it probably wasn’t so bad. Kobayashi herself did not have anything as significant as secretly being a dragon to hide, but she imagined in some smaller ways there were still pieces of herself that only her loved ones got to see. So it probably was pretty normal after all.

It wasn’t long before the dragons descended back down, and landed in that wide green field where the Kobayashi family often came to play. Miss. Kobayashi herself was still not entirely sure where this field actually was, it might not even be in Japan for all she knew.

Kobayashi and Riko both slid off of their respective dragons, and then Tohru and Kanna reverted back to their human forms.

“So, this is where you were telling me about, Kanna-chan?” Riko asked as she looked around. Kanna gave her a simple nod in response.

Tohru bent down to address the two girls and asked, “So, what game would you like to play first?”

Kanna’s arms instantly went up and she said, “Let’s play battle!”

Tohru laughed, “Okay then, battle it is.”

“Battle?” Riko asked, thinking it over. “That sounds like it could be fun. How do you play that?”

“We’ll show you,” Kanna said, taking Riko’s hand and leading her.

Kobayashi quickly came forward and put a hand on Riko’s shoulder to pull her back. “Hey Riko, how about instead of joining in right away you just sit over there with me for a minute and watch?”

“Huh? How come? I want to play too.”

“Just trust me on this one,” Kobayashi said, rolling her eyes.

As Kobayashi led her away Kanna and Tohru looked at each other and shrugged.

“Shall it just be the two of us for now, then?” Tohru asked.

Kanna nodded. “Mmmm.”

It was a nice field, Riko thought as she sat with Kobayashi. She could see quite far, with nothing but green and blue in all directions, and small mounds of hills bordering the horizons with dark green trees scattered over them.

Living near the city all her life, Riko was not used to being able to see this far. It was nice, but considering Kanna offered her to come play she did not understand why this would be a good place. It seemed to her that just staying in town and using the park would have been a better option, because there were only so many games she could think of that didn’t require any balls or some kind of boundary for a play area, or even structures to hide behind for something like hide and seek. Then Miss. Kobayashi stopped her from joining them, and was just laying down with her eyes closed. Riko was really confused about why she did that.

Then, as she was looking over the horizon everything around her darkened. At first she thought a cloud had blocked the sun, but then the sky softly turned a peculiar shade of red. She raised an eyebrow, not sure what she was seeing, and then all at once a loud cracking sound swooped across the landscape. She felt the shockwave rip across her body and saw it brush atop the grass all around her.

As she turned to look where she had just seen Kanna and Miss. Tohru, the cracking sound gave way to an incredible roar which rung her ear drums. Her mouth dropped open as she witnessed a beam of fire rise from the ground and shoot up into the sky; Tohru and Kanna were in the center of its base, intensely locked hand in hand as if they were playing a game of mercy and dark scowls shadowed both of their faces.

She saw Tohru swoop Kanna’s legs out from under her, then catch her before she hit the ground, but only so she could then spin her around and throw her into the air.

“K-Kanna-chan!” Riko gasped as she witnessed her dear friend being catapulted off into the sky.

Miss. Kobayashi was still laying back with her eyes closed right next to her, so Riko quickly started pushing her on the shoulder. “Miss. Kobayashi! Miss. Kobayashi! WAKE UP! WAKE UP!” Riko shouted.

“Hm?” Miss. Kobayashi lethargically peeked one eye open. She looked a little cranky.

Riko’s teeth were chattering as she frantically pointed a shaky finger at the two dragons and tried to explain. “Th-th-they’re- all of a sudden they’re trying to KILL each other! Stop them!”

Miss. Kobayashi propped herself up on her elbows and watched as Kanna dove back down with a fiery ball of energy in her hand which she slam-dunked into Tohru’s open palms. Another shockwave blew through the field and a crater formed at Tohru’s feet until she got another hand on Kanna and flipped her over her shoulder. Kanna landed on her heels and skitted backwards until she got control of her footing and leapt forward again.

“Don’t worry, they are just... rough housing a teeny tiny bit ,” Kobayashi explained in a sarcastic tone that sounded as if she were quoting someone else’s words. “This is why I told you not to join in. They don’t seem to fully understand that humans can’t compete on that level. Or at least it seems to slip their minds occasionally.”

“B-but Kanna-chan might get hurt!” Riko tried desperately to explain, because it seemed to her that Miss. Kobayashi just was not getting it.

Kobayashi just smiled at her. “Trust me, they do this all the time. Tohru knows where Kanna’s limits are and will be careful not to actually hurt her.”

Another shockwave blew over them and ruffled their hair and clothing. Riko glanced over to see that Kanna had collided feet first with Tohru’s stomach and the maid was thrown backwards at the ground. She tumbled and reached a hand out to try and stop her momentum as Kanna charged another fiery ball of energy in her hands.

“B-but…” Riko continued trying to complain, but her face dropped uncertainly as she watched the battle rage on. Then a layer of awe came over her voice and she said, “I… I just can’t believe Kanna-chan is so powerful.”

Kobayashi watched the awed expression on Riko’s face, and could only imagine what must have been going through her mind at that moment. “Let me give you some advice.” She pushed herself up the rest of the way so she was sitting up, and then repositioned the egg in her lap as she spoke to Riko. “Kanna is not human, she’s a dragon, but more important than being human or dragon - she is simply Kanna. You two are still young, and that’ll probably mean you’ll have an easier time adjusting, but trust me when I say there are still going to be some complications.”

Kobayashi looked over to Tohru who swatted away Kanna’s energy ball and was now forming one of her own. Riko saw a sort of twinkle in Miss. Kobayashi’s eyes as the older woman watched her maid. Riko looked back and forth between them, and could easily see the warmth and love that was there. “It can be frustrating sometimes,” Kobayashi said. “There are going to be things about her you just don’t get, and vice versa there are things about you as a human that she’ll have a hard time understanding too. Behind all that though, as long as you are always good to each other things’ll work out and become easier.”

“I’ll always be good to Kanna-chan!” Riko quickly insisted.

Kobayashi gave her a smile and put a hand on the top of the young girl’s head. “I know you will. And hey, if you ever do need some advice or help or anything, you can always come to me. Okay?”

Riko nodded and returned the smile.

Tohru and Kanna’s battle ended and the two of them walked back towards their humans, leaving the land behind them scarred and torn apart. Tohru put her arms out and twisted her body left and right to stretch. “Aaaaah, that was fun! Sure feels good to let loose once in awhile!”

Kanna nodded her agreement. “Mmmm.”

Riko smiled a tad awkwardly as she looked up at Kanna who stood over her. “Heh, yeah… that was… um…” Her eyes glanced around nervously.

Kanna maintained her usual placid expression, but suddenly turned and plopped herself down right between Riko’s legs. Riko gasped and her face instantly grew bright red as Kanna snuggled up against her body. Kanna looked up through the tops of her eyes and said, “You are comfy, Riko-chan.” Naturally, this threw Riko into one of her fits and the red-faced girl started babbling nonsensically as she all but melted into a puddle beneath the young dragon.

Kobayashi and Tohru both saw this, then looked at each other and shared a warm smile.

The four of them laid together for a while, staring up at the sky and pointing out different shapes the clouds would make. This is a game Kobayashi had come up with on their first trip to the field - something which only required a human level of power that the dragons could enjoy as well.

After a while the two younger girls no longer seemed content with just lazing around, however, and started playing a game that involved chasing each other; leaving Tohru and Kobayashi to lay together in the warm afternoon sun with their egg between them, listening to the laughter of their adopted daughter and her friend as they played.

“So what shall I make for dinner tonight, Miss. Kobayashi?” Tohru asked, “I believe Riko will be eating with us tonight as well.”

“Anythings fine. As long as it doesn’t include tail.” There was a sudden jolt in Tohru’s facial expression which made Kobayashi smirk. Clearly she had just been considering the possibility of slipping some tail meat into Kobayashi’s dish after all. Kobayashi supposed she had to admire Tohru’s persistence on that specific topic, if anything else.

“As you wish, Miss. Kobayashi,” said Tohru with a facetious grin.

“Hey Tohru. You know, since we are actually a couple now you don’t have to keep addressing me so formally. You can start using my personal name if you want. It’s-”

“Nah uh!” Tohru quickly interrupted her, shaking her head. She propped herself up on one elbow so she could more directly look at Kobayashi. “Yes, we are mates, but I was your maid first!” Tohru explained. “I am a maid who is in love with her master, but first and foremost I will always be your maid! And as long as I am indeed still your maid, addressing you informally would simply be out of the question!”

Kobayashi stared back with that wide dead-fish expression of hers, thinking about how serious Tohru had suddenly gotten. “It's really important to you, huh? Being my maid, that is.”

“Of course it is!” Tohru nodded. Her earnest expression fell, and her tone became more melancholy. “Before that day in the mountains, when we first met… well, I should say that moment I met you is like a line that's drawn through my life, separating who I was with who I am today. In my life from before I was a member of the chaos faction. It was a hard life, and even though I was great and powerful, and could fly anywhere I wanted, I was truly not free. Yet that existence is all I had ever known. I would war with the gods, and at my father’s command I would seige human cities, not because it made me happy but because I knew of no other way to live.

“Then, during that fateful battle when I was pierced by the sword of heaven, I was certain that I was going to die. I randomly opened a gateway to escape, simply so that I could allow my life to end peacefully… but then…” Tohru smiled, her melancholy expression filled with warmth as she looked into her master’s eyes. “Then, I met you! You saved my life, remember? But it is even more than just that! I… I can’t explain it, words would fail the depth of my feelings, but the moment I met you I knew I was falling in love! Then you offered for me to come live with you and work as your maid. From that moment forth I was no longer a soldier for the chaos faction, I was a simple house maid, and I don’t think I ever felt any happier!”

“I see…”

Tohru sat up, folded her hands in her lap, turned to Kobayashi and bowed her head subserviently. “So please, whatever steps our relationship may take, please allow one thing to stay the same! Please allow me to always continue serving you as your maid, Miss. Kobayashi!”

Kobayashi glanced down to the egg under her arm, ran her hand across it for just a moment and acknowledged the static warmth of it’s life pulse. She glanced back to Tohru who still had her head bowed, then nodded and said, “Yeah, of course.”

Tohru’s face instantly filled with red as she exhaled adoringly, then all at once she dove on top of Kobayashi and hugged her tightly. “Oh, Miss. Kobayashi! Thank you!”

“Uh… yeah, no problem…” Kobayashi said as she put an arm around Tohru as well. Then she smiled and thought, Come on Tohru, it’s not like there was any chance of me saying no to that…

At that moment, another promise was being made in that field. Riko and Kanna had concluded their chasing game, with Kanna being the winner who just tackled Riko and was now laying on top of her. They were both red faced and out of breath, laughing softly as they laid there together and waited on gathering a second wind.

“Riko-chan,” Kanna said in her dull way.

“What’s up Kanna-chan?” Riko asked with a smile.

“Remember the promise you asked me to make? I never gave you an answer.”

Riko’s head lifted up, somewhat surprised. “Oh, were you thinking about that?”

Kanna gave one of her little head nods. So cuuuuteee! Riko could not help thinking.

“Let's do it,” said Kanna. She balled up a fist and extended her pinky. “Let's be together forever.”

Riko blushed, then reached her hand towards Kanna’s and locked their pinkies together. “Yeah! Let’s stay with each other forever!”

There are two kinds of changes which occur in one's life: the expected kind and the unexpected kind. For Kobayashi, the expected changes tended to be related to work and education. It was, for example, expected that after highschool she would move on to university, study there for a while and then eventually get a job at a programming firm. Even her elevation in the company once she made it this far had a degree of predictability to it.

These steps in her life were significant and important to her, but it was like moving from one stepping stone to another; a predetermined path she had chosen and nothing felt particularly special about it when she jumped from one stone to the next. Nothing about those kinds of changes were particularly endearing or made life feel exciting.

It’s the unexpected changes, she found, that were truly special. She hadn’t expected to stumble across a dragon one night after getting drunk and wandering into the mountains. She hadn’t expected a few days later for another younger dragon to knock on her door, threaten her life, and then move in with her as an adopted daughter. And most recently, when Tohru presented her with the egg which her unborn daughter would soon hatch from, it was not something she expected or planned on happening.

Those unexpected kinds of changes were far more important. More important than a job could possibly ever be, and it’s these most important life changes that seemed impossible to plan for or predict.

Today, however, her career was going to throw a different kind of unexpected change at her. Only this time, it was the kind of unexpected change that was not entirely good.

Her day started ordinarily enough. After a nice breakfast with her family she went through the usual commute which followed the usual path which had her rushing into the building at the last minute and making it to her desk right at the knick of time without being late.

Makoto gave his usual friendly good morning (occasionally some witty remark could be inserted here) then they simply sat alongside each other at their workstations, with their fingers rhythmically tapping against their keyboards and offering each other scattered bouts of small-talk throughout the day.

“So, the baby shower is coming up,” Makoto commented at one point. “Next weekend, right?”

“That’s right. I’m going to have Tohru start getting things together.”

“Can’t wait. It’s always a good time when the whole gang gets together. We should try to make it happen a little more often.”

“Yeah, we definitely should.”

Then someone unexpectedly came up behind them and said, “Pardon me, Kobayashi? do you have a moment?”

Kobayashi turned away from her screen and looked over her shoulder to see it was the head manager of their department. “Oh, um…” she glanced back to her screen for just a moment then back to him and said, “Oh yes, of course. Could you just give me a moment to make a couple notes so I don’t lose my place?”

“Yes that is fine. Find a good stopping place and then come see me in my office when you are ready. There is no hurry.” With that he gave a gentle smile and then walked back to his private office on the other side of the maze of desks and cubicles which made up the majority of this floor.

“Huh, I wonder what that’s about?” Makoto asked.

“Not a clue,” said Kobayashi. She was sure it was nothing bad, but still could not help suddenly feeling just a tad nervous. It was pretty rare for the manager to come speak to someone directly like that unless there actually was some sort of problem. Though, he did not sound particularly hurried or upset, so that kept her mind from wandering along too many creative scenarios.

She made a few notes in the code for Future-Kobayashi so she would not lose the train of thought she was on, then gave her work a save and got up to walk to the manager's office.

Kobayashi stopped at the glass door, prepared to knock, but the manager could see her from behind his desk and waved her in before she did so. She walked in, closed the door behind herself and glanced around the office for a moment. She had only been in here a couple times before. It was very spacious. She couldn’t help envying his position, if not for the privacy alone. While Makoto’s company did make the work day a little more bearable, the hustle and bustle constantly going on around her workstation is something she could easily do without.

“Kobayashi, please, take a seat,” the manager offered with a kind tone.

“Thank you,” Kobayashi said with a respectful bow of her head as she stepped forward and sat in front of his desk. “So how are you today?”

“Just fine. Well, I should not say entirely fine, I suppose,” the manager said with a frown.

“Oh?” Kobayashi asked, hoping whatever this mysterious damper on his otherwise “just fine” day was not something of her doing.

The manager got a serious look on his face and leaned forward a little. “Kobayashi, I am going to tell you about something that I would like you to promise to keep to yourself for now. Can you do that?”

“Yes, of course,” Kobayashi agreed, her curiosity now perking off the charts, still with no idea what this could possibly be about.

“It is just that it is a bit of an embarrassment for our company, and we all know how quickly rumors have a way of spreading, and sometimes getting exaggerated. So it is best that this stays as private as possible.”

Kobayashi nodded. “Okay, I understand. Whatever it is, I promise to keep it to myself.”

Well, she thought, I probably will end up telling Makoto, but it's not like the secret will go any further than him once I do so. He is pretty good about keeping things to himself.

“Alright, well here is what happened. Within a separate branch of the company one of the lead programmers has had some… let's just say, legal trouble . It is unrelated to work, but when it came to light we had no choice but to immediately terminate his employment.”

“I… see…” Kobayashi said, actually not getting why she was being told this. “Of course I’ll keep that to myself, but why are you telling me this in the first place?”

“Well, as I said he was the lead programmer and until a couple days ago he was in charge of a very big, very important project. To put it simply, they are now in a bind because there was no one working under him who the branch feels is properly qualified to take his place. So that is why they reached out for recommendations from other areas of the company.”

Kobayashi’s eye’s widened a little, now seeing where this was all going.

“When it came to my desk and I looked over the details, I thought of no one more suited to take on this position than you, Kobayashi.” As he explained that his hand slid a stack of post-it notes towards himself. He then picked up a pen and started writing something down. “This is a fairly big promotion from your current position, so naturally it will be coming with quite a significant raise.” He finished what he was writing then turned the note around so Kobayashi could see it. “Aside from that, if you continue to perform well, which I am sure you will, being in this position will open many doors for you that would not be easily obtained from your current station. Simply put, taking this position means you will be fast-tracking your way up the company ladder.”

Kobayashi barely heard that last part. She didn’t need to. As soon as he turned the post-it note around and she saw the ridiculous amount of money that he had written there she hardly had to hear anything else to understand how huge this was. “So… that number. I will be getting paid that every…”

The manager smiled and nodded. “Yes.”

“Wow,” is all Kobayashi could say. Normally she would be far more professional in front of her boss, but she was quite honestly lost for words. This promotion meant she would be getting paid more than double her current wage!

“So I take it you are interested, then?” the manager asked.

“Yes sir! Absolutely! Thank you so much!” Kobayashi said, bowing her head respectfully. She could hardly believe it, this was almost too good to be true!

“Not at all. You have earned it. Oh, and I forgot to mention. In addition to the raise we will also be giving you a bonus to compensate for having to relocate. We can work out the details on exactly how much, but I am sure we will find something agreeable.”

“Um… relocate?” Kobayashi asked, her enthusiasm suddenly dipping a little.

“Ah, my apologies. I did mention it was a separate branch, but I did not say where they were located. We will need you to relocate to Tokyo in order to take this position.”

“Tokyo…” Kobayashi said under her breath. Of course, this really was too good to be true, she thought with dismay.

“Is… that a problem?” the manager asked.

“Ah… well,” Kobayashi thought for a moment, her hand coming up to nervously adjust her glasses. “I mean… if that's the case, I really need to discuss this with my family before I can give you a definitive answer.” She bowed her head and said, “My apologies.”

“No need to apologize,” the manager said, though the frown across his lips showed that he was a little bit disappointed to hear that. “Although, they really do need this position filled as soon as possible. I hate to put you under the gun like this, but do you think you can give me an answer within two days? If you can not, I’m afraid we’ll have to start looking into other options.”

“I understand sir, and yes I most certainly can give you an answer by then. This is simply something I can’t decide on my own.”

“I understand completely,” the manager said with a warm smile. “If it turns out you can not take it, I just want you to know it will not reflect poorly on you. You are one of the best employees we have and I am sure you will continue to climb up in the company no matter what you decide. Still, I can not guarantee that an offer quite this good will come again any time soon. I just thought you should be aware of that.”

“Yes I understand.”

“Well, we’ll talk soon then. Thank you for coming in.”

“Yes, and thank you as well for considering me.”

With that Kobayashi left the office and walked back to her work station. She was rather distant as she retook her seat next to Makoto.

At first he didn’t notice her dissonant expression and gave an inquisitive “Soooo?” with a smirk and a raised eyebrow. When Kobayashi did not respond right away it caught up to him that something was wrong and he asked more seriously, “Is everything alright?”

“I was offered a promotion,” Kobayashi said under her breath.

Makoto watched her for a moment. The words she just said did not match her body language in the slightest. Kobayashi may be a bit tough to get a read on sometimes, but in this case the concern was written all over her face.

“So, should I be offering to take you out for drinks to celebrate, or what?” Makoto joked.

“I haven't decided if I will accept it yet. In order to take it, I would have to move to Tokyo.”

“Ah… I see.” Makoto frowned and turned back to his computer. “Well, if you need someone to bounce some thoughts off of, you know I’m here.”

“Thanks for that. Really, I just need to talk to Tohru and Kanna about it first, though. They’re the ones it will end up affecting the most.”

“Got’cha.”

She wanted to take the job, but at the same time it did not really seem possible to relocate. Perhaps she could think of some work-around given a little time, but for now she had her current project to work on. She put her hands on the keyboard and got back to work.

Kobayashi went about the rest of her day in a mild daze. She was at least able to shut that troubled part of her brain off enough to get into the programming flow while she worked, but the decision she had to make still never fully left her mind. She turned Makoto down for drinks after work, knowing she needed to go talk to her family.

What am I supposed to do?

As she passed by the jewelry shop on the way she ended up coming to a stop once again. The items in the display window did not have price tags attached to them, but when she entered the day before she got a good feel for what things were worth. With her current pay, there is not a single thing in the store that she could even hope to afford. If she were to take that promotion she was just offered, however, then she’d be able to walk into a store like this and buy anything she wanted without the price being an issue.

The money was important for more reasons than just having it for material purposes, though. Money meant a college fund for Kanna and the baby. It meant being able to afford a nicer home. Where they currently lived was fine, but they could still do better than a simple apartment. The money meant she and Tohru would not have to argue over the grocery bill ever again, and Tohru could be free to get whatever she wanted. Right now, Kobayashi made enough to keep up with the bills and keep everyone comfortable… but money was a valuable tool and the raise she was just offered opened up so many more possibilities for her and for her family.

Moving would be very hard on Kanna, though. She had already been thrown around so much in her life, and Kobayashi felt horrible about the prospect of doing it to her again. Especially now that she had Riko as a friend. They were more than just simple classmates and after-school play buddies; what those two girls had together was really special. Kobayashi knew that, and she knew she could not tear that apart.

The move could be difficult on Tohru as well. The dragon already found plenty of comforts in this small city, but somewhere like Tokyo would be much more difficult for her. Kobayashi doubted there was anywhere to shop in Tokyo that was quite as easy and casual as the shopping district ( the bazaar , as Tohru would call it) which she was already so fond of. Not to mention all the friendly acquaintances Tohru already had there. She may not admit she likes all of those foolish inferior humans , but Kobayashi knew it truly was a highlight in her day and she would hate to lose the ability to go shopping there.

Kobayashi drug herself away from the jewelry store window and continued walking to the train station. Her distracted frame of mind followed her all the way through her commute. On the train she stared at a transparent reflection of herself on the window while the city zoomed by behind it.

The manager had said another opportunity like this most likely would not come again any time soon. The truth is, it is pretty much a guarantee she would not get an offer like this for a very long time, maybe never again if she was unlucky.

If she was being honest, there is another reason she wanted to take the promotion and it was not just for the money. This was her career, and it was important to her. She was proud of her job, and the fact that she was good at it, and this offer was like a big stamp of recognition for all her hard work. She thought it might be a bit selfish to think that way, but she really did hate the idea of turning it down and allowing someone else to have it.

A year ago, I would not have had to think twice about taking the job, she thought as she continued to stare at the transparent Kobayashi on the window who just stared back at her with that dead-fish expression. Things really were a lot less complicated when it was just me.

She rattled those thoughts around in her head all the way home, not making much progress as far as leaning one way or another on the decision. She’d have to talk to her family about it, just like she said to the manager. Then maybe the right choice would become more clear to her.

“I’m home,” she called as she entered the house.

Right away Tohru came prancing down the hallway to meet her and took her bag from her. “Welcome home, Miss. Kobayashi!”

“Hello Tohru. You’re in a good mood.”

“Of course I am! Now that you’re home!” Tohru said as she set the bag down and hung Kobayashi’s jacket on the hanger for her. She then stood by with her hands folded in front of her and her eyes closed, an anticipant smile on her lips. Kobayashi wished Tohru was not quite so cheerful right now though, because there was something important that needed to be discussed and this made it a little harder to transition into that.

Kobayashi rose her hand and put it on top of Tohru’s head, giving her the bit of praise she was asking for. Tohru instantly bent down and chuckled as she accepted it, seeming satisfied, then followed a step behind Kobayashi as they proceeded into the house. “Dinner will be ready shortly, Miss. Kobayashi, I’m making a roast!” Tohru explained. “Oh, and Riko will be joining us again tonight.”

Kobayashi entered the livingroom as Tohru said that and saw Kanna and Riko sitting cross-legged on the floor facing each other with the egg between them.

“Welcome home. Kobayashi,” Kanna said in her flat voice as she raised one of her small hands.

“Welcome home Miss. Kobayashi!” Riko chimed after her with a smile.

“Hello girls, how was school?” Kobayashi asked.

“Good!” they both chimed together.

Kanna pointed at the egg and said, “Egg likes Riko-chan.”

Riko blushed and gave one of her goofy grins as she put a hand on the egg. “Heheh, yeah! Kanna-chan was just showing me how to feel her pulse.”

Kobayashi was only able to give a half-hearted smile, seeing how precious the two (three?) of them looked sitting together only caused the choice she would soon have to make weigh on her heart even heavier.

“Hey Tohru, we need to talk about somethi-”

“Oh!” Tohru suddenly started sprinting for the kitchen. “I’m sorry! Just one moment Miss. Kobayashi!”

Kobayashi watched as her dragon started nervously puttering back and forth behind the kitchen bar, and when Kobayashi sniffed the air and noticed a little wisp of grey smoke she understood why.

Kobayashi’s hand raised up to push the bridge of her glasses in her usual contemplative fashion, then looked over to the kotatsu before stepping over to it and sitting down. She absently stared at the television, not really registering anything that was going on with it. Most of her attention was inside her own head. What little part of her that was registering her surroundings picked up the sounds of the girl’s soft playful voices, and the movements of Tohru in the kitchen as she busily worked on getting dinner together.

Maybe now isn’t the best time to bring this up, Kobayashi thought as she glanced over to Kanna and Riko. Riko was leaning forward and whispering something to Kanna. Kanna responded with that usual simple nod of her head. I’ll bring it up to Tohru tonight, after putting Kanna to bed. It’ll be too upsetting to have uncertainty hanging over her, so I’ll wait until I know for sure what's going to happen before troubling her with it.

It was not long before Tohru came out of the kitchen with a steaming hot serving platter in her hands. “Dinner’s ready!” she cheered happily as she brought it to the table and carefully set it down right in the center. The girls instantly got up and went over to the table, Kanna walking carefully as she held the egg in her arms. Kobayashi was a bit slower, putting one hand atop the kotatsu and slowly raising herself up to avoid provoking the usual aches in her lower back.

Tohru bent down to address Kanna and said, “Here, let me take your little sister while you eat, okay?”

Kanna nodded her agreement and handed the egg up to Tohru, then jumped up into her seat at the table.

Tohru dutifully pulled a chair out for Kobayashi as she approached and waited for her to sit down. “Sorry if it is a little crispy around the edges,” Tohru said with a soft laugh, then picked up a knife and leaned over the table as she started serving. “It should be fine, but I will be sure to do better next time!”

“Don’t worry about it, this looks great Tohru,” Kobayashi assured her. And she didn’t even try to sneak any tail meat onto my plate this time, she thought with an inward grin.

Through dinner Kobayashi discovered Riko was a little more of a chatterbox than she had originally taken her for. She ended up talking all about school and their classes, and bragging about her performance in gym activities - Kanna nodding and softly agreeing, “Riko-chan is strong.”

Through Riko, Kobayashi got a a lot more insight into Kanna’s daily school life than Kanna’s short remarks typically were able to get across. Also watching the two of them interact, she thought their personalities complimented each other quite well.

After dinner Tohru cleaned everything up and washed the dishes and then they all watched television together until Georgi came over to pick Riko up.

“I hope its not starting to feel like we are imposing a little,” Georgi discreetly asked Kobayashi in the front hallway while Riko was getting her things. On the other end of the hall there was a dark aura pervading around the corner due to Tohru peeking at the intruding maid with a vicious look in her eye. Neither Kobayashi or Georgi paid her much mind, though.

“Not at all,” Kobayashi assured her. “Riko really isn’t any trouble at all. Besides, we’re just repaying the favor for when Kanna stays over at your house.” She realized with half a mind that she had momentarily forgotten the fact they might be having to move away soon, and a sinking guilty feeling hit her heart when it came back to her.

After Kanna said goodbye to Riko and she and Georgi left it was time to start getting ready for bed. Kanna already looked pretty tired and let out a yawn as she went to the bathroom to brush her teeth - a human practise that both she and Tohru had picked up since they started living in this world. Kobayashi and Tohru said goodnight to her and tucked her into bed then went to their own room and changed into their night clothes.

There was no skimpy lingerie from Tohru this time, she probably picked up that Kobayashi was not in the mood and they also had the egg with them tonight so it would be pretty inappropriate for them to engage in those activities either way. When Tohru climbed into bed after Kobayashi she snuggled in close to her anyway, though.

Kobayashi stared at the ceiling, not really reacting to Tohru, and just thinking. She needed to bring up the whole thing about her job offer now. She had delayed this long for the sake of not upsetting Kanna with it, so now was the time, but somehow she was struggling with how to bring it up. Her mouth simply would not open and say, “Tohru, there’s something we need to talk about.”

“Is everything okay, Miss. Kobayashi?” Tohru asked in a sleepy voice, cuddled up close to her with the egg between them.

“Hm?”

“You’ve seemed distracted all night.”

“Oh… well…” Now was her time to bring it up… but… “Just a little exhausted from work, I guess.”

“I understand.” Tohru let out a sleepy yawn. “You work hard Miss. Kobayashi.”

“Yeah…”

Despite being tired, sleep did not come easily to her. That feeling of guilt in her chest just became worse, and she spent most of the night lying still, staring at the ceiling.

That question that had been troubling her all day was still at the front of her mind. Still unspoken since leaving work and continuing to dig at her heart...

...what am I supposed to do?

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-Atomyst

Chapter 7 Chapter Text

Kobayashi stepped off the train, still feeling guilty about last night. She knew she should have brought up the whole situation with her job to Tohru, but for some reason she just choked, and the words never came out. The manager needed her decision by tomorrow and Tohru still had no idea anything was even going on.

Why do I suck? Kobayashi thought, not for the first time. She felt even worse because not long ago she had urged Kanna to start being more open with her thoughts, but Kobayashi just completely failed to heed her own advice on that subject.

As her mind continued running through these things, she almost did not take in a rather peculiar sight across the street. Though the recognition was delayed, she soon came to a stop and looked closer.

She saw Fafnir up on a telephone pole, leaning back against a yellow strap which tethered him there as he worked with a wrench on a junction box. A week ago when he had shown up in her apartment wearing overalls, she had partly blamed it on her having a mild concussion from Elma’s attack. But there he was now, in the same getup with tools hanging from his belt as he worked. He wore his typical intense expression as he focused on the job at hand.

There was someone else on the ground below him; a young man dressed in a similar pair of overalls, looking up nervously and fidgeting his hands together. Parked alongside the curb there was a white van with the electric company's logo on it.

After a few more turns of the wrench Fafnir returned it to the back pocket of his overalls and started shimmying back down the telephone pole. The young man took a few steps back; he had a poor posture and was clearly intimidated when Fafnir unhooked himself from the pole, then turned that intense expression his way.

“There, it is fixed,” Fafnir explained. “Next time do it properly, so you are not wasting my time.”

“Yes sir! Mr. Fafnir sir!” the young man said back, bowing his head. “My apologies! It won’t happen again.”

“Very well.” Fafnir used a single finger to tilt up his glasses. “Now, what are you waiting for? Get back in the truck.”

“Yes sir!” said the young man as he quickly sprang into action.

“We have four more. Be sure to do it the way I showed you. No more mistakes. Are we clear?”

“Absolutely sir!”

The young man got into the passenger side, and Fafnir took the driver seat. He shifted the truck into gear, pulled away from the curb and continued down the street.

Kobayashi just stood there, completely dumbfounded by what she had just witnessed. Fafnir working a blue-collar job was shocking enough, but hadn’t he started only a week ago? If Kobayashi was not mistaken, it seemed that Fafnir had already advanced beyond an entry level position in the company and was training that young man. Not to mention he was DRIVING!

Kobayashi shook her head and continued her walk to work. Dragons… she thought, never know what to expect with them sometimes… At least she would have something to chat with Makoto about unrelated to her own personal dilemma.

When Kobayashi made it to work, she was not in the usual rush to get to the elevator. She had made good time on her commute and was glad for that because the way things had been weighing on her mind she felt like she did not have the energy for the typical mad rush to her computer station.

If I got that promotion I could afford a car, she thought as she stood in the elevator, waiting for it to rise to the top. Even though Tohru is available to fly me to work, it really is murder on my back. I wouldn’t make it through one week commuting that way every day.

Then she thought that with more money she could also afford to hire a physical therapist to offset her back pains. Then, she might be able to risk taking advantage of the fact she had a dragon to commute her to work. She grinned, thinking, that would make Tohru really happy. Then she thought about it a moment longer and realized whatever joy Tohru would get from being utilized for transportation would be heavily overshadowed by jealousy towards whoever this physical therapist would be. That thought made Kobayashi softly chuckle to herself. Yeah, maybe that's not such a good idea after all.

When Kobayashi arrived at her work station Makoto was already logging into his own terminal. Kobayashi sat down and did the same as she said, “Good morning.”

“Morning,” Makoto said back. He watched her through the corner of his eye for a moment, quickly assessing her mood, then turned towards her a little more and asked. “How did things go last night?”

“Didn’t tell them…” said Kobayashi, with a dry tone.

“Oh?”

“Chickened out, I guess.”

“I see…” He thought for a moment then asked, “Want to talk about it?”

“Maybe later.”

Makoto accepted that answer and turned back to his computer to get to work.

“Oh, I saw Fafnir on the way to work,” Kobayashi mentioned. “He seems to be doing pretty well with his new job.”

“That’s good to hear,” Makoto said with a grin. “I’ve tried asking him about his workday, but he usually just mumbles something about foolish mortals whenever I do and leaves it at that.” Makoto laughed. “It’s pretty tough to get him to talk about himself, but I can tell he actually is enjoying the job quite a lot.”

“Looked like he is already in a position where he is training someone.”

“Doesn’t surprise me, I thought he would do well with his job. I’ll tell you, he sure does impress me with how quickly he picks up on things.”

“Except when it comes to marketing his books at comic conventions,” Kobayashi pointed out.

“Ha, yeah you got me there. But in Faf-kun’s defense, I think there simply isn’t much of a market for curse anthologies in this world.”

“Heh, guess that’s true.”

They both shared a small chuckle at that before getting back to their work.

Kobayashi started to realize something else about this promotion. Though she sometimes complained about her current work environment, if she moved to Tokyo she actually would miss it. While her position was not the most glamorous, she was good at it and she was well respected here. If any of her co-workers needed help with something she was usually the person they would go to. The idea of having to say goodbye to all the acquaintances she had made over the years was a little depressing.

The day rolled on quite normally, maybe with a few extra melancholy thoughts in the back of her head, but otherwise a normal day. When lunch hour came around Kobayashi let out a yawn as she massaged a mild pain out of her left wrist.

“Feel like going out for lunch?” Makoto asked.

“Sure,” said Kobayashi. “I’ll see if Elma wants to come too.” Kobayashi got up to go retrieve the dragon, and when she found her at her desk she realized Elma seemed quite pale and out of sorts. Her head was down on the desk and she was letting out an occasional soft grown. “Um… are you okay?” Kobayashi asked.

“Oh, yes!” said Elma, instantly picking herself back up and knocking the delirious look off her face. “I’m perfectly fine! Just hard at work!” She chuckled nervously as she put her hands back on the keyboard and started trying to act busy.

“I see… well, me and Makoto are going out for lunch, did you want to come along?”

“Oh, I’d love to but there is just so much to do! I think I’m just going to work through the lunch hour today!”

“You don’t have any money for food, do you?” Kobayashi asked with a sigh, already knowing Elma was likely to the point where she was skipping meals again. “Well, don’t worry about it, I’ll cover you today. Come on.”

“Oh, what are you talking about Kobayashi?” Elma asked with a laugh, “I assure you I’m perfectly capable of feeding myself! I just have so much to-”

“Okay fine, suit yourself.” With that Kobayashi turned and started to walk away to go catch up with Makoto. However, within seconds Elma was on the ground at Kobayashi’s heels.

“Kobayashi! I haven't eaten in two days!” she whined. “Please help me! I’m starving !”

Kobayashi just grinned, as she had already fully anticipated this turn of events. She reached down to help pick Elma back up and said, “Yeah, don’t worry about it, Elma. Come on, there's a great place down the street we go to all the time.”

“Oh! Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU! ” Elma said as she followed Kobayashi out of the office, sticking so close to her back she was almost clinging to her.

Kobayashi sighed and thought, We need to find a human to pair her up with. She really can’t handle this world on her own after all.

By the afternoon Tohru was already finished with her usual cleaning routine. There was no shopping that needed to be done, and the only chore that remained was taking care of hanging up wet laundry on the balcony. Most of the clothing in the house belonged to Kobayashi, since Tohru and Kanna mostly just wore their scales, but Kanna did have a set of her gym clothes mixed into the load and Tohru had a couple outfits of her own which Kobayashi had bought for her.

Whenever Tohru would hold up one of Kobayashi’s more delicate items she could not help giggling to herself and giving them a quick sniff before laying them out.

I hope we can get intimate again sometime soon, Tohru thought, longingly. Miss. Kobayashi didn’t seem too into it last night... She then took one of Kobayashi’s work shirts out and held it up with a smile. It’s because she works so hard. She’s usually tired by the end of the day. Tohru’s eyes suddenly beamed with resolution and her lips formed a smug grin as she pinned the shirt up on the line. That is why I must work extra hard to lessen her burdens at home! Then when she comes home to a clean house and a nice hot meal she’ll feel able to relax and she’ll give me lots of praise!

A stupid grin formed itself on Tohru’s face . Then, when it’s time for bed… then we can...

Tohru got a vision of herself, nude on the floor with her hands folded in her lap, keeping her arms angled over her bare breasts to hide some of her embarrassment as she awaited her master. Miss. Kobayashi would then come through the doorway, and stand there, watching her with an unreadable expression behind the glare of her glasses. “C-can I be of any use to you like this, Miss. Kobayashi?” Tohru would ask, shyly glancing away, her face turning red, her folded hands fidgeting with nervousness and excitement. Miss. Kobayashi would then slowly step forward, a seductive curve slowly raising on her lips as she uses a single finger to loosen her tie. Then Miss. Kobayashi would bend down and put a hand under Tohru’s chin to force their eyes to meet. She would slowly lean forward and… and...

“Aaaaaahahhh!” Tohru squealed and covered her hands over her blushing face as she wiggled back and forth, getting lost in the fantasy. “Oh-HO! Miss. Ko baYASHI ! What are you going to do to me!?” Tohru giggled and started spinning around in circles on the small balcony with her massive tail wagging away behind her.

Kobayashi’s delicates were laid over the armrests of a chair which Tohru’s tail then accidentally struck as she spun around. “AH!” The chair flew to the other end of the balcony and Kobayashi’s panties were flung off the arm rests and went right through the bars of the railing. Tohru ran to the railing and looked over as the garments descended to the city streets below. “Oh no! Miss. Kobayashi’s unmentionables!”

Wasting not another second, Tohru vaulted over the railing, engaged her perception blocking, and sprouted a pair of wings from the center of her back. She dove headfirst, tucking the wings against herself for now so she would be as aerodynamic as possible while she chased after the escaped garments.

Although the panties were still damp, they were made of a light enough fabric they did not hold too much moisture and fell rather slowly. Had it been a wet shirt or a pair of pants that had been flung over the railing Tohru doubted she would be able to reach them in time.

She reached her arm out to snatch the first pair, then dove to the side for another. She did a mixture of spinning and diving maneuvers, skillfully snatching the panties out of the air as she fell along with them. Soon, there was only one left…

Her eyes blazed with determination as she stretched her arm out as much as she could. She was slowly gaining on the rouge undergarment, but would it be enough? The ground was getting closer and closer, and for a moment she thought all hope was lost!

No! she thought, I cannot let Miss. Kobayashi down!

She flapped her wings, increasing her speed, and suddenly her hand was getting closer. Her fingertips were just barely touching the soft fabric when she gave one more powerful push with her wings, making up those few crucial inches and putting herself in position to snatch the panties from the air.

With the ground quickly approaching there was not a moment to spare! She quickly tucked the panties under her arm and spun herself back around, so she would not hit the ground face first, but there was no time to slow her momentum! Her feet hit hard against the ground, sending a shockwave out around her and cracking the cement of the sidewalk as soon as she landed.

“Wooo!” she laughed to herself and wiped her brow, the small load of panties was securely tucked inside her arm, against her bosom. “That sure was a close one.” She sighed, but then her relieved expression gave way to surprise when she noticed several people who had been walking along the sidewalks were all staring in her direction. “Um…”

She had her perception blocking engaged and therefore no one could see her, but everyone started cautiously walking towards her for some reason.

Can they sense my power? Tohru thought. No, these are just ordinary mortals, they should not be able to.

“What was that just now?” someone asked.

“An explosion?” asked another.

Then Tohru looked down at the crater beneath her feet and understood. She blushed, gingerly stepped away, and put her back against the wall of the apartment building as everyone gathered around and started murmuring to each other as they examined the crater that had suddenly formed on the sidewalk.

“There must have been a sinkhole underground,” one man offered.

“That does not explain that loud bang,” said a woman.

“Then maybe a gas pipe just burst?”

“Th-then should we be standing here?” asked another with an alarmed tone to his voice.

A police officer who had been patrolling further down the street ran over with his arms up. “Everyone back away! It may be unsafe here! This area needs to be evacuated until experts can come take a look!”

Tohru watched all this transpiring right in front of her, and nervously scratched the side of her neck. “Whoopsie.” Then she noticed someone else coming down the street…

Lucoa stopped where she was, just watching everything with a puzzled expression on her face. Tohru quickly ran over to her and disengaged the perception blocking for Lucoa’s eyes only. When Tohru suddenly appeared right in front of her, Lucoa seemed surprised at first but then put on a smile and said, “Oh, hey Tohru! I was just coming over for a visit… uuuhhh…” she looked down at the panties in Tohru’s arm then to the scene in front of her apartment. “Soooo… what’s going on here?”

Tohru slunk into her shoulders, her face red and embarrassed as she explained. “Well, I guess I had a little bit of an accident,” she chuckled nervously. “Do you think you could help me clean this up?”

Lucoa just folded her arms and smiled. “Yeah, don’t worry about it. I can totally help you out.”

III

Tohru’s magic easily could have fixed the sidewalk, if not for the humans who were gathered around it. Thankfully, Lucoa had shown up just in time. All she had to do was erase people's memory of it, then use her power of suggestion to force everyone to continue down the street and out of sight while Tohru repaired the damage. It was just lucky the police officer had not reported it through his radio yet, because that could have turned this from a tiny little mess into something unmanageable.

“Thanks again,” said Tohru as she led Lucoa up to their apartment. “I don’t know what I would have done without you.”

“It’s no biggie,” Lucoa assured her. “I’m just glad I was able to help.”

Once they came through the door Tohru paused for a moment to check on her daughter’s pulse. “Ah good, she’s still sleeping,” Tohru said with a sigh, then turned to Lucoa and asked, “Would you like some tea?”

“Sure that sounds great.”

Tohru first brought the panties out to the balcony to lay them out again, then went to the kitchen to get started on the tea. Lucoa went over to the kotatsu which the egg was sitting atop. It was inside a small basket right in the center, nested inside a scarf that was wrapped around its base. Lucoa took a seat, glanced over to the kitchen to make sure Tohru was busy, then discreetly started scrutinizing on the egg.

Her yellow eye opened and began to glow as she examined it. Could I have simply been mistaken before? she wondered.

A week ago when she first got to lay eyes on the egg, she sensed something rather peculiar about it. If she was correct in what she was thinking back then, then it was not something that could be ignored, but at the same time she had to be very cautious with how she approached the situation. In dragon culture it was considered incredibly rude to say anything critical about a dragon’s egg (especially to a mother dragon) and Tohru was a dear friend of hers so she did not want to hurt her feelings by doing so. That is why she first had to be absolutely sure she was not just imagining things before.

Her eye glowed brighter as she looked deeper. With the power left over from before she became a fallen goddess she was able to view magical pulses with far more clarity than most beings, including most ordinary dragons. Last week when she first laid eyes on this egg she sensed something rather odd, yet vaguely familiar , about the flow of its pulse.

She looked even closer, her eye glowing brighter… however, it seemed nothing was out of the ordinary about it today. She put a hand under her chin and thought. The child inside was currently sleeping, so that could account for the discrepancy, but at the same time she was not a hundred percent sure if she was correct about what she was thinking in the first place.

“So, about all of that outside,” Tohru said from the kitchen as she walked back out, presumably with water for the tea now boiling on the stove. She winked with a slightly abashed expression on her face. “Think you can keep it between us?”

Lucoa quickly closed her eye and stopped with her intense scrutinizing on the egg. “Oh, of course! Seriously, don’t sweat it!” She laughed, noting Tohru did not catch anything out of the ordinary. “So, what exactly happened anyway?”

Tohru tried her best to hide the blush on her face as she thought back to that little fantasy she had gotten herself lost in out on the balcony. “Ooooooh, just dropped a few things is all.” She laughed as she took a seat across from Lucoa.

“Anyway, the baby shower is coming up this weekend, right?” Lucoa asked.

“Oh yes, I started planning my own preparations, but Miss. Kobayashi suggested I do some research on the custom first, so I’ve been doing some reading about it on the internet.” Tohru reached over to the egg and brought it up into her arms. “It actually seems fairly straight forward. I’m just relieved I don’t have to worry about searching for suitable sacrifices. That would have really been a pain.”

“Yeah, I know. Especially in this day and age,” Lucoa agreed.

“I suppose it actually won’t differ much from the Christmas party we had. The only difference is we’ll be honoring this new addition to our family! Rather than…” Her eyes briefly glanced upwards. “Well, that bastard’s son.”

Seeing Tohru holding the egg like that had a way of making Lucoa forget about her concerns. It seemed they were all managing to find their peace in this world, and perhaps Lucoa’s fears stemmed from the idea that it would not be sustainable. It had been a long time since she’d seen Tohru this happy, and just hoped it would all be able to last.

For now, she was willing to accept that little hunch she had surrounding the egg really was her imagination running wild after all.

“Whatever the occasion,” said Lucoa. “It just is a lot of fun when we are all able to get together.”

Tohru smiled and nodded her agreement to that.

Come to think of it… Lucoa thought . I still need to get the baby a gift…

The work day soon came to an end, but as Makoto was packing his things up he noticed Kobayashi wasn’t doing the same.

“Time to clock out,” he commented.

Kobayashi stopped her typing for a moment to look up at him. “Oh, I was going to stay late tonight. Since those power outages set us back quite a bit, I figured I could play some catch up .” She looked back to her computer and put a hand up to wave him goodbye. “Don’t worry about me, though. Have a good night, Takiya.” Her hands then went right back to typing.

Makoto delayed, considering it for a moment, then sat back down. Kobayashi stopped again, looked over to him and asked, “Everything alright?”

“I guess I’m the one who should be asking you that… you wouldn’t be trying to avoid going home, would you?”

Kobayashi raised an eyebrow at that and grinned, as if trying to laugh it off. Her expression soon betrayed her however, dropping the act and letting her eyes fall to the desktop. “Well…”

“So, what’s the problem?”

“Well… I guess it has to do with the promotion,” she admitted. “It’s tough, I’ve always prioritized my career in the past… I mean, how should I put this?” She thought about it for a while, her mind running through the right way to phrase it while Makoto patiently sat and waited. “It’s like… having a career oriented path has made my life decisions simple. I simply do whatever is best for my career and that is that. But now… its like my prerogatives are all jumbled up.” She pointed at the computer screen which was still covered top to bottom in lines of code. “It’s like if we get something wrong on here and all the computer can do is spit out a syntax error. That’s the way my head feels right now… I keep trying to run the program and process the answer but all my head does is spit out ‘ does not compute ’.”

“Understandable. But I’m a little confused on why that’s making you want to avoid your home?”

“Because, how am I suppose to tell Tohru and Kanna about the job offer when I still have no idea if I should take it or not? I don’t know, it’s hard to put correctly into words, but it just feels wrong to sit around the house with them again while keeping this to myself.” Like I did last night… “But I can’t bring it up either.”

“Do you want to know what it seems like to me?” Makoto asked. “It seems to me like you actually do know what answer you want to give the manager tomorrow. Therefore, I think you may not be honest about the exact reason you don’t want to go home.”

Kobayashi sighed, “No, that’s not it.” Other than being the god-king of otaku culture, Makoto Takiya had a pretty good batting average with his other role as the sage of infinite wisdom . However, he was a little off the mark on this one for once, Kobayashi thought. “It’s like I said, I’ve got a syntax error on the whole thing. I can’t even process it properly.”

“Well let me ask you this, then. If you thought you may not be keeping this job, then why were you working so hard today? Even going as far as to stay extra hours.”

“Huh? Well like I said, we are behind on our deadline so-”

A knowing smile came over Makoto’s gaze. “You’re talking about the deadline that’s completely meaningless to you if you take the other job. Right?”

Kobayashi’s own expression fell into one of mild annoyance. “Yeah, I see your point, but maybe I was keeping my nose to the grindstone just incase I did decide to keep this job? And as you so expertly uncovered: I’m only staying late to avoid going home in the first place.”

“There are other ways to avoid going home than staying at this boring office building, right?” Makoto asked. “There’s one place in particular I can think of that’s a little better for this kind of conversation. I would invite you, but I kind of feel like there’s somewhere else you should be.”

The Otaku God-King and Sage of Infinite Wisdom has spoken , Kobayashi thought.

“You know, you might be right...” Kobayashi sighed, thinking back over her own mental processes from the day. Now that the problem she thought she was struggling with was called out into the open, the true cause of her anxiety and guilt was showing itself to her. “I mean, you don’t know how Tohru can be sometimes… I’d like to just avoid the whole thing and not tell her, but I know it's wrong to do that since we are a couple. Yet, at the same time I know she is going to end up feeling guilty. Like she’s a burden and it’s her fault I can’t take the job.”

“Do you actually feel that way, though?”

“Of course not!”

“Then maybe you need to have a little more faith in her. I think all Tohru really wants is for you to be happy, but is the job really the key to your happiness, or is there something else?”

Kobayashi’s mind flashed back through the last year. Having a clumsy maid join her in her home, followed by a small dragon child. Making new friends who in time became like part of her extended family. Then a few weeks ago when she learned she was going to become a mother… or rather, have a second daughter because she really already felt like Kanna’s mom.

She couldn’t help a smile coming over her face as she thought about all of it.

“Alright,” Kobayashi said, turning back to her computer and finally going through the motions of shutting it down. “I guess I really should get home after all, huh?” She clicked the shutdown button and the screen turned blue as it ran through the final processes. “This can wait.”

Makoto pulled his briefcase back up over his shoulder, and gave her an approving nod. “Alright, I’m going to the bar myself, but I’ll walk with you to the train station since it’s on the way.”

The sun was beginning to set as Kobayashi made it up to her apartment. Spring was finally well underway, so the days were getting a little longer and she was usually able to make it home before full nightfall.

Alright, here it goes, Kobayashi thought to herself as she turned the doorknob and entered. As soon as she was inside the smell of Tohru’s cooking hit her nostrils, and she could hear the dragon maid clinking around in the kitchen.

“Hey, I’m home!” she called as she entered. She set the bag down and shrugged off her jacket.

“I’m in the kitchen, Miss. Kobayashi!” Tohru called back.

Kobayashi walked into the livingroom and could see Tohru from over the counter, busying herself in front of the stove. The Egg was in its usual place atop the Kotatsu. Kobayashi closed her eyes and felt for the eggs pulse the way Tohru had shown her. She wasn’t as keen to it as Tohru and Kanna were, but she somehow got the impression the baby was sleeping. She opened her eyes then continued into the kitchen.

“Did Kanna come home?” she asked, noting the young dragon was nowhere to be seen.

“She did, but went back out to play at Riko’s house. Georgi will drop her back off later.”

Hm, that’s fine , Kobayashi thought. Actually, she figured it was better this way, Kanna was just a child so it wasn’t exactly imperative to involve her in the grownup conversations like this.

“Since it’s just the two of us...” Tohru looked over her shoulder and gave her usual teasing smile. “I’ve prepared a special dinner to be shared between two lovers!”

Kobayashi’s face slunk down, unamused as she took note of Tohru’s tail ending in a bloody stump. Not that grown up entirely describes Tohru in the first place…

“It smells good, at least,” Kobayashi said as she took a seat at the counter and watched what Tohru was doing. Tohru gave a small appreciative chuckle as she turned back to tending the stove. It really was easy to make her happy.

Kobayashi frowned as she thought about how to start. Part of her wanted to just not say anything about the job, and avoid the conversation altogether, but she knew that wouldn’t be right.

Tohru glanced over her shoulder to say something else, but noticed Kobayashi’s contemplative expression and got the hint that something was on her mind without Kobayashi needing to say anything.

“Um, Miss. Kobayashi? Is everything okay?” She turned her butt away to hide her tail (or rather, her lack of a tail), perhaps expecting that is what was to blame.

Kobayashi looked up, “Um, yeah… everything fine. Well, actually... there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you about. Actually, I really should have told you last night, so…” She sighed, mentally telling herself not to start beating around the bush. “Well, I unexpectedly got offered a promotion at my job yesterday.”

“Oh?” Tohru asked. She seemed at a loss for whether to congratulate her or not, as Kobayashi’s mood was not that of one giving positive news. “Is it… a good promotion?” she asked, cautiously.

“Careerwise, yes, but…” She took a moment, trying to choose her words carefully. “I decided that I’m not going to take it.”

“I see…” Tohru turned back to the stove for just a moment to turn the heat down, and she took one of the pans off the burner before stepping away and coming to sit down by Kobayashi. “Um… I’m sorry, but I’m a little confused.”

Right, I’m being really indirect here, she thought with a sigh. Come on, get it together.

“The thing is, in order to take it they would need me to move to Tokyo. We all would have to, and… well, I just don’t think it would be right for us so I decided it would be better to turn it down. Anyway, that means nothings changing, but I figured it wouldn’t be right to simply not mention it. Like I said, I really should have mentioned it last night… anyway, that’s why I’m telling you.” She had stumbled over her words bit, but at least she finally got it out.

“Ah…” Tohru’s eyes shifted with that worried expression Kobayashi hated to see coming over her.

Great, I blew it, Kobayashi thought. She had wanted to find a way to tell her without giving Tohru any concerns, but in the end it was probably impossible. That’s why she had so much trouble telling her about it in the first place, after all.

“It’s fine though, like I said. It’s better for us if I don’t take it. So I’m not.” She gave Tohru a reassuring smile. “I’m happy with the decision.”

“But…” Tohru seemed equally at a loss for how to say what she wanted. “Is moving to Tokyo really so impossible?”

“We are already pretty well established here. I wouldn’t want to make Kanna go to a new school, and I know you’ve already gotten yourself pretty comfortable in this town.”

“But…” Tohru’s eyes sank away guiltily. “You seem disappointed. Are you not? You really do want to take the promotion. I... know how much your career means to you…”

Kobayashi paused for a while as she thought of how to answer. There would be no point in downplaying how much she really would like to have the job, she knew Tohru would be able to tell she was lying. “Yeah, it would have been a nice boost in my career path but-”

“Then we will find a way!” Tohru suddenly beamed. “Kanna is a dragon so she could easily fly back here and continue attending her school! She’s actually even faster than I am, if you recall. As for me, I assure you there is nothing to worry about! I can easily adjust to a new town if that is what I must do!”

“Tohru…” Kobayashi tried to interrupt her, but Tohru kept going.

“You forget that the foolish humans of this town are nothing more to me than mere pawns! With the exception of you, of course.” She pounded on her chest as started running through her usual spiel about how much of a superior being she was. Kobayashi had learned to just let her wear herself out when she gets worked up like this. “I can easily establish myself amongst any community of lowly humans!” She wagged a finger at Kobayashi, “Oh, you must have thought that because I got along with everyone that must mean they actually meant something to me? I assure you that is not the case one bit! So you don’t have to worry, we can move if we have to! Don’t turn it down because you are worried about me! I assure you I will be perfectly fine!”

“I don’t think you understand just how different Tokyo really is…” Kobayashi said with a dry tone. “It’s a lot bigger and busier than this town, you know. It really doesn’t compare.”

“Did I not just explain that I am a great and powerful dragon? I assure you that no human city of any kind could be too much for me to handle!” She pumped a fist and slapped a hand over her forearm to show her strength.

“Yet you have not even gotten use to using the shopping mall thanks to your dragon-PTSD yet, have you?”

Tohru lost the strong posture and got a disgruntled look in her eyes, now twiddling her thumb sheepishly. “Well, I am getting better...”

“Are you? Well just imagine this-” Kobayashi suddenly stood up and started walking towards her. “Imagine living in the heart of a vast city with a structure like that around every single corner!” Kobayashi suddenly seemed to tower over her and become engulfed in red flames. Tohru started backing away, becoming more horrified as Kobayashi painted the picture. “It’s an endless maze of buildings; towering over you, consuming you in shadows, leaving you blind to what could be lurking around every corner and you are trapped with nowhere to run! Can you really handle it? Can you really handle living in an environment like that!?”

“YAAAAAH!” Tohru shrieked and dove for the kotatsu, wrapping her arms around the egg to protect it. “Stop it Miss. Kobayashi! You’re going to give her nightmares !”

Kobayashi gave a small smirk and spoke under her breath, “She’s not the one I’m worried about in that regard.” Kobayashi then sighed, lowering herself down to sit at the Kotatsu. “Look, I put a lot of thought into this. It would be a nice promotion but all in all I don’t think it would be good for our family. The benefits are outweighed by the impact it would have on our lives. It’s not just for your sake. This town is far better for raising children as well.”

“But…” Tohru’s eyes sank away guiltily. “It truly does disappoint you…. You really do want to take it, right?”

“Of course I do, but it’s not like it is the only thing in the world that matters to me. Besides, I’ll still have other chances to advance in my career. I wasn’t expecting a move like this so suddenly in the first place, so it's not like I’m technically losing anything by turning it down.”

“But… surely there must be a way? We could stay here and I could just teleport you to work if you needed me to!”

“Would that really work?” Kobayashi asked, raising an eyebrow at her.

“Of course it would!” Tohru said earnestly, but that expression soon dropped when Kobayashi just stared her down. “Or rather… it would for a little while, at least.”

“I thought so,” Kobayashi sighed. “Using that spell takes up a lot of your power doesn’t it? That’s why you typically just fly when you need to go somewhere. Besides that, if it were a viable option I know you would have already offered it to me to cut out my daily commute.”

“But I COULD fly you!” said Tohru, leaning over the kotatsu excitedly, but Kobayashi instantly put her arms up in an X shape.

“Aside from the probability of me needing a spinal realignment after only the first few weeks, it's not practical to travel halfway across the country twice a day. It could work up until the egg hatched, since you could just carry her in your claw, but it would be completely irresponsible to do that to a newborn baby. Nor can we just leave her home during the commute, even if it doesn’t actually take long.”

“Hm… that’s true…” Tohru thought. “Oh! Maybe Lucoa or Fafnir could watch her while-” She was once again cut off by Kobayashi putting her arms up into an X.

“Lucoa could probably do it, and I don’t see her turning us down, but that is imposing on her far too much. And Fafnir has his own job to get to in the morning these days.” Not that I would consider putting my child in his care in the first place...

Kobayashi could tell Tohru was still upset, like she couldn’t accept Kobayashi making this kind of sacrifice. Kobayashi thought she knew how to make it better, though. She just had to remember the wise words Makoto had offered her back at the office.

“Tohru, I’m really okay with this. Try to understand. My career… well, it is important to me, but my family is even more important than that. I mean, I don’t want you to feel like you’re a burden, like you’re holding me back or anything like that because that's not the case at all! Meeting you, and everything that’s come into my life thanks to you… that is now what's most important to me. The job is replaceable...” She reached over and laid her hand over Tohru’s. “My family is not.”

“M-Miss... Kobayashi?” Tohru said, her face growing red.

Oh boy, here we go…

“I LOVE YOU TOO MISS. KOBAYASHI!” Tohru cheered as she suddenly dove past the Kotatsu and practically tackled Kobayashi with her embrace.

“Ah! Okay Tohru, me too! Ah! Watch my back!”

Kobayashi gave the manager her answer the next day. She felt kind of bad about having to turn him down, it was actually a first in her career to turn any kind of job-related request down, but he seemed to understand. He assured her that her decision wouldn’t count negatively against her, and he completely understood that moving to Tokyo was simply too much of a burden for her.

With that weight off her shoulders, she was able to sink back into her usual routine with far more clarity and peace of mind. This job wasn’t the most luxurious, and it may not have amazing pay, but she was happy here.

The next few days were focused on getting things ready for the baby shower. She left most of it to Tohru, but was sure to pick her brain for any wild ideas that might have been floating around in the dragon's head. It took a little persuading to convince Tohru that setting up a dueling arena on the roof of their apartment building was not necessary, but other than that Tohru seemed to have things pretty well handled.

Kobayashi also asked Lucoa to check on the plans of the other dragons, and make sure none of them planned anything too crazy as far as gifts go. She kind of had a preference for not taking any cursed artifacts into her home, after all. Lucoa seemed to be the one in their crew who had the most understanding of this world, so Kobayashi trusted her aid in keeping the celebration on human-level.

When the night of the party finally came, Kobayashi had to somewhat guiltily admit to herself that she underestimated the dragons sometimes. Sure, they could be a little over the top at times, but they seemed to understand this world a little better than it might seem sometimes.

The first gift came from Lucoa, it was an ambient sound machine . Lucoa explained that its purpose was to help babies get to sleep, and the tracks it contained were shown to help with the child's development. She winked at the suspecting parents and explained she also put an enchantment on the tracks that would have the effects of warding off evil spirits.

“Oh thank you! That’s really thoughtful!” Tohru said happily.

“Yeah, thanks Lucoa,” Kobayashi agreed, silently wondering if evil spirits were actually something worth worrying about in this world in the first place.

Next Elma presented hers: It was a big box filled with baby food jars, which Kobayashi noted had already been opened. As she suspected, a few of those jars were already missing.

Riko’s gift was a drawing she created of herself, Kanna and the egg which was so adorable it instantly melted Kobayashi’s heart. “Thank you Riko, that’s really sweet. I bet she is really going to like it!” Riko gave a happy giggle then ran back over to Kanna to continue playing with her.

Makoto, surprisingly, gave the least practical gift. It was a collection of several magical girl anime; they were the kind meant for young children, at least. It wasn’t a bad gift, but Kobayashi had suspicions of his ulterior motive.

“Are you already plotting to convert my daughter to otakuism?” Kobayashi asked with grin.

“Hey, it's never too early to get em’ started!” Makoto said, returning the grin with a quick adjustment of his otaku glasses. They thanked him for the gift then he went back to the living room to start hooking up his gaming system.

“Stoltooth,” Tohru said under her breath, once his back was turned.

Next was Fafnir, who presented them with a simple stuffed pig. Kobayashi, not expecting something so docile from him of all people, was a bit lost for words.

“Thank you Fafnir!” Tohru said as she took it.

“Yeah, that’s really nice… thanks,” said Kobayashi.

“Indeed.” Fafnir pushed up his glasses then walked back over the couch where he waited for Makoto to finish setting up the games. Kobayashi later learned from Lucoa that Fafnir had originally planned to give the baby a charred skull which he once kept outside his cave, to warn potential thieves of what would happen to them if they attempted to steal his treasure. He must have thought such a thing would be able to serve their daughter in the same way…

The night was going pretty good, and Kobayashi kind of had to admit she underestimated the dragons a little. Things were sometimes a little rocky around this group when they first arrived in this world, but they all seemed to be adjusting to the new norms of their environment. Having them around was always a lot of fun too.

The egg was picking up on the general liveliness of the atmosphere and was giving off a warm excited pulse. Makoto, Fafnir, and Shouta spent most of their time tapping away at the game controller. Lucoa gravitated over towards them to cheer Shouta on, and Kanna and Riko sat near the Kotatsu playing with each other on the floor.

However, the lively atmosphere would soon be coming to an end, as an unexpected guest was currently on their way to the party...

Makoto had just lost a match to Fafnir in a fighting game and passed the controller off to Shouta.

“Well-fought, man,” Makoto said to Fafnir as he got up, then stumbled over to the cooler to grab another drink. Faf-kuns really getting good at those things, Makoto thought. He was still a challenge for Fafnir, but it seemed that every week his win-lose ration was getting worse and worse against the dragon. I’ve created a monster. Although, as far as their matches tonight were concerned, it probably didn’t help that Makoto was already pretty drunk.

Then, there was a loud heavy knock on the front door. It was so loud it instantly silenced all of the chattering and every head turned to look. Tohru’s eye’s widened, and under her breath she said, “Could… that be…”

“I’ll get it!” Makoto drunkenly declared, being that he was the closest to the door.

“Makoto, hang on a second!” Kobayashi tried to warn him, after noting Tohru’s concerned expression, but it was too late.

Makoto opened the door to reveal a tall robed figure. He was an old man with a long white beard and a piercing set of eyes that stared back down at the drunken otaku.

Makoto, swaying around in the doorway a bit, suddenly exclaimed, “WOAH! Crazy gettup, man!” He reached a hand out and grabbed the sleeve of The Emperor’s cloak to test the fabric. “Real authentic! Cool stuff! What’s this for anyway? Just a general DnD cosplay or-”

The Emperor of Demise’s pupils dilated into pinpoints, his powerful aura suddenly flooded into the apartment so that even Fafnir and Shouta turned away from their game to watch. “Insolent human!” The Emperor’s voice boomed. His palm came forth, slamming into Makoto’s chest and sending him flying backwards into the apartment.

“Makoto!” Kobayashi gasped, rushing to his side.

Makoto’s back hit the ground hard and he groaned. “Aw geeze, what gives man?”

Fafnir instantly dropped his game controller and got to his feet. “Takiya!” He took one intentful step in The Emperor’s direction but was stopped in his tracks when someone grabbed his arm from behind. He glanced over his shoulder to see Lucoa had reached over the couch and seized him. She stared at him with just her green eye open.

“Try not to do anything rash, Fafnir,” she cautioned him. “See if this can play out without you having to get involved.”

Fafnir gritted his teeth, not liking it one bit, but understanding the wisdom in her words enough to slow himself down.

“F-father!” Tohru said, rushing in front of him. “W-what are you doing here?” She seemed unable to completely meet his intense gaze.

“Why do you think, child? Now, show me to the drackin .”

Tohru gulped, then nodded her head. “R-right… She’s right over here, father.” With that, she began to lead the way.

“Hold on!” Kobayashi said. She had verified that Makoto was okay, if not just a little stunned, then stood to put herself between The Emperor of Demise and her egg. “Listen here, you can’t just come barging in like this!”

The Emperor looked down on Kobayashi. While his expression was intense, somehow it seemed to offer more respect towards Kobayashi than either Makoto or even his own daughter had received. “I have every right to come witness the existence of my granddaughter. Do you plan on getting in my way? Human?”

“Damn right I-” Kobayashi started, but Tohru quickly slowed her down.

“It’s alright Miss. Kobayashi!”

“But…” Kobayashi said, looking over to her.

“Remember what I said, us dragons are actually very nurturing.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “He would never do anything to harm her, so I assure you this is fine.”

Kobayashi didn’t like it, but she reluctantly agreed.

Tohru led the way, but as they approached the kotatsu Kanna dove on top of the table, wrapping her small arms around the egg and shaking her head. Looking up at The Emperor defiantly.

“K-Kanna-chan?” Riko whispered from right behind her, completely perplexed and terrified by this situation. She had gathered that this scary guy was Tohru’s father, but it was clear to her that he was a bad man.

Tohru put her hand on top of Kanna’s head. “It’s okay Kanna,” she assured her with a soft voice. Kanna shifted her gaze over to Tohru. Her eyes were wide and questioning, but Tohru’s soft smile reassured her. “As I said to Kobayashi, there is nothing to worry about. He just wants to meet her.”

Kanna stared into her eyes for a moment, taking a moment to consider the situation, but ultimately she trusted Tohru’s judgement and let go. The Emperor seemed content to let the child’s minor transgression pass, and waited for the egg to be presented to him.

Tohru picked the egg up, giving it a hug while her back was still turned to her father and spoke, “Do you want to meet your granddaddy?” she asked the egg.

The child inside clearly picked up on the tension of the room, and her pulse was flaring in warning, not out of fear but more akin to that of anger. She never seemed to respond fearfully to anything… She was going to be really strong and brave when she got older, Tohru could already tell.

She turned to her father, and stepped forward. “Here she is, father!” Tohru smiled up at him as she held the egg out. “This is your granddaughter!”

Kobayashi was completely tense as she watched the egg, her daughter, transfer into The Emperor of Demise’s hands. She trusted Tohru’s judgement though, she had to. This guy was intense, condescending, stuck in his ways and way over the top. He was not a monster, though. There is no way Tohru would allow this if she thought there were any danger to their child. Kobayashi had to trust her. Even so, she could not help the racing of her heart as she watched.

The Emperor held the egg in a single hand, turning it over, his eyes tracing all over its red and gold shell as he examined it.

“She is very strong!” Tohru explained, with pride coming through in her voice. “She is only three weeks into her development, but she already communicates very well through her pulse!”

Tohru’s eyes were beaming, despite how tense everything felt, she was proud of her egg and she was happy to show it to her father, even if she also seemed a little nervous. That eased Kobayashi’s fears at least a little bit. “She is going to be very strong! I can already tell! She-

“You foolish girl.”

Kobayashi gasped and her eyes widened. She watched as the prideful hopeful expression on Tohru’s face was suddenly crushed by those three simple words. Kobayashi’s fists clenched at her sides. Don't you dare! She thought.

“Do you even realize what you have done?” Tohru’s father asked.

“Father… I…” Her eyes sunk down.

“I never should have allowed you to stay in this world. I thought I might just let this little phase of yours pass, but now look what has become of it. There is no turning back from this.”

Kobayashi watched Tohru’s face sink into despair. She felt the burning is her own chest turn into an inferno and her eyes began to sting. How could he speak to his daughter like that? Tohru may not always heed her fathers commands, but Kobayashi could tell she still respected him, and wanted him to be proud of her, just like any daughter would want from their dad! She was so proud of her egg too, and those cold dismissive words were crushing her.

Don’t talk to her that way! Kobayashi was on the verge of shouting.

This was supposed to be a special night, surrounded by their friends, honoring their child who would soon be born into this world. Tohru was so excited about it, and it meant so much to her… How could her father speak to her that way? It wasn’t right!

“Bringing a child into this world… and a drackin none the less. Does your stupidity know no bounds?”

Tears were now streaming freely from Tohru’s eyes, she tried to find some words to say to her father, but nothing was coming out. She was crying. “F-father…”

“I will never accept this. You are no longer any daughter of mine.”

“SHUT UP!” Kobayashi finally shouted, she charged forward and put herself between Tohru and her father. “You ignorant old man!” she shouted directly in his face. “What kind of father says that to his daughter? You’re the only fool I see here!”

“Silence human!” The Emperor roared, his eyes blazing. “This is beyond your understanding, you insolent-”

His words fell short. His angered face gave way to shock and his eyes darted back to the egg he held in his hand. His voice lowered to a shocked whisper. “What…”

The egg’s pulse was suddenly flaring. She had been agitated even since The Emperor stormed into the apartment, but now it had gone far beyond her usual dissatisfied pulses. Kobayashi wasn’t sure what she was witnessing. She understood how her daughter's pulses worked, but what was with that shocked looked on The Emperor’s face? What did that mean?

“No…” The Emperor whispered, his eyes widening even further in pure astonishment as he stared at the egg. “This... can not be…”

Kobayashi then felt a hand on her shoulder gently guide her to the side. She looked over to see it was Lucoa. “Lucoa?” she asked.

She wasn’t her usual self either, both her eyes were open, and each flaring with brightness. Her touch alone sent an almost electrical sensation rushing down Kobayashi’s body. Electrical wasn’t quite right though, and Kobayashi honestly didn’t know how to properly describe it. It wasn’t like anything she ever felt before. Once Lucoa let go and stepped towards the emperor, Kobayashi looked down at her own hand, still feeling a tingle of that sensation in her fingertips, completely awed by Lucoa’s power.

Shouta was watching from the couch, equally, if not even more astonished than Kobayashi. “L-Lucoa…” he said under his breath.

“Now, now, that’s quite enough of that,” Lucoa said to the emperor, grinning, seemingly completely at ease despite her sudden radiant, godlike , appearance.

The Emperor’s eyes shifted over to her. “Quetzalcoatl? What are you…” he glanced back and forth between her and the egg.

“Did you seriously just now realize I was here?” Lucoa asked with a chuckle. “Man, you must be getting old after all.”

His eyes seemed to ease on the egg, losing that profound look on his face from when he stared at it before. “Of course… that would be impossible,” he muttered, seemingly more to himself than anyone else. “So it was you , Quetzalcoatl.”

“Can you stop calling me that? It kind of makes me feel like an old hag. I’m going by Lucoa now.” She smirked. “Anyway, it’s been a long time.” She put a hand on her hip, regarding The Emperor humorously. “So, how yah’ been? Kiddo?”

So, it’s been a while since this updated but it is 100% not being dropped! I’ve had my hands full with stuff irl and kind of dropped out of writing for a little while. I’m back now, though, and I plan to start putting out frequent updates again!

I’ve taken some creative liberties with Lucoa in this story, well I kind of do that across the board when it comes to the other world since the anime does not give us a solid depiction of things, but I’ve kind of gathered that Lucoa is one of the older dragons and being an X-God I think it's fair to assume she is quite powerful as well.

As for what exactly was going on with the egg here, and what she thought she was seeing… well, I guess you’ll just have to wait to find out ^^

Follow me on Twitter at /Atomyst_Fics and if you REALLY like what I do and want to give me financial support, you can do so on Patron!

Thank you for reading! Next chapter coming in the not too distant future!

-Atomyst

Chapter 8 Chapter Text

Tohru sat at the kotatsu with the egg cradled in her arms. Kobayashi could see the hurt expression in her eyes, and seriously hated that stupid elder dragon for being so cold towards his own daughter. Not to mention his presence completely killed the lively atmosphere of the party.

Elma had seemed to feel guilty for not stepping in, being a member of the harmony faction meant The Emperor of Demise was basically her final-boss-tier enemy, but she probably knew she was far too outmatched. Besides, Lucoa managed to get things under control herself. The Emperor was far more docile around her, it seemed. Out of respect? Whatever the case she had convinced him to go out onto the balcony with her, so they could talk.

Shouta watched from the couch, probably partly concerned for Lucoa (though he would never outwardly admit to that) but also completely shocked by Lucoa’s power. Kobayashi felt the same. It was always apparent Lucoa was strong, she did have Tohru outmatched in arm-wrestling, at least, but to silence that overbearing emperor simply with her presence… Kobayashi was realizing she may have underestimated the X-goddess quite a lot.

Fafnir went back to his games, after giving Makoto a simple, “Are you alright Takiya?” but he didn’t seem able to muster up more than that. Kobayashi couldn’t fault him for it either, not without being a hypocrite, because she really wished she knew how to comfort Tohru right now. She hated to see Tohru upset… but… she just didn’t know how to fix it.

Kanna seemed to have an idea, though. She walked over to Tohru and wrapped her small arms around her side. Tohru’s head turned as Kanna hugged as tightly as her small body could manage.

That put a smile back on Tohru’s face. “Thank you Kanna, but do not worry. I am fine.” She reached a hand over and patted the younger dragon’s head.

Kobayashi glanced back over to the balcony, where she could see the Emperor and Lucoa still talking through the glass door.

Criticisms from one’s parents sometimes cut deeper than is obvious at first. Kobayashi had felt that herself before, and could relate to an extent, but her parents had never just verbally beaten up on her the way Tohru’s father had just done. That was just completely horrible. Screw whatever ethical dragon codes he was referencing, or whatever sins Tohru committed in his eyes; she did not deserve any of that! It was just wrong.

“Miss. Tohru?” Riko asked as she came over as well. “Um… so that was your daddy?”

“Yes it was,” Tohru said back, still patting Kanna’s head as the young dragon clung to her.

“Um… I don’t really understand why he was being so mean, but everything he said about you was wrong! So don’t be sad, because I think you are great!” Riko stretched her arms out and gave Tohru a hug from the other side.

Tohru smiled as she took her hand from Kanna’s head and instead put her arm around Riko to return the hug. “Thank you Riko, you are a sweet girl.” Her other arm was occupied with holding the egg, which was likewise sending out a warm comforting pulse.

Witnessing Tohru with the three of them like that managed to get Kobayashi’s spirits back up. Tohru had once lived as a chaos dragon, constantly at war, but now she was settling into a more peaceful life. Her father might not approve, but this is where Tohru belonged. She was happy here, and she was a fantastic maid!... Well, she was a perfectly adequate maid, but more than that she was a wonderful companion. She could be silly sometimes, but she was also wise in her own way. She had a good heart, and Kobayashi had no doubts that Tohru was going to be a great mom too!

Kobayashi watched Lucoa and The Emperor through the glass door of the balcony, wondering what they were talking about. She did not know what she could do for Tohru at this moment, but she did know she had a few things she wanted to say to that jerk-wad of a dragon who had upset her companion. Without thinking about it any longer, she walked towards the balcony, ready to give him a piece of her mind.

“So you have decided to settle in this world as well?” The Emperor of Demise asked Lucoa.

“Yes, for now. I originally came to visit Tohru, to make sure she was really doing okay here. Then I guess I ended up finding a place for myself here as well.”

“With that boy?” The Emperor questioned, pronouncing the word boy with some disapproval in his voice.

“Believe it or not, that boy is a wizard.” She put a finger to the side of her cheek and winked at him. “And he summoned me.”

“Impossible.” The Emperor scoffed. “I suppose you are closer to a dragon than a god now, so it is not completely unfathomable. Even so, since the birth of wizardry there have only been a few who were capable of summoning dragons. There is no way that child has already attained the kind of power required for such a feat. Especially not if he was indeed raised in this world.”

“Admittedly, it was more of an accident than anything, and I easily could have denied the summoning, but…” She shrugged and smiled. “I really just needed a place to stay at the time, and I was also worried he might accidentally summon a mean ole’ demon instead. So I figured I ought to intervene. Since then I’ve become fond of him, and decided to just continue serving as his familiar.”

The Emperor’s eyes widened, nearly as shocked as they were when he was looking at the egg earlier. “You accept that? Subservience to a mere human?”

Lucoa shrugged. “Why not? As a goddess I was always in service to lesser beings, spreading culture and helping to grow civilization, so maybe subservience is in my nature? And I’m not the only one, you know. Your daughter has also found peace in her role as a maid.”

The Emperor’s lips formed a deep frown under his beard. “I… do not accept it…”

“What you mean is, you don’t understand it. That’s ‘cause you think too hard, kid. That’s always been your problem, but it’s really not that complicated.”

“ Wretched woman. Do not speak to me as if I am still a child.”

Lucoa winked at him. “Sorry, but you’ll always be that cute, ambitious little whelpling in my eyes, kiddo.”

She thought, Him and Shouta actually have a lot more in common than might be obvious.

The Emperor looked like he was getting close to completely losing his cool again, so Lucoa decided maybe she should quit picking on him. As much fun as it was, it was so much harder to get through to him when he was upset.

“Look, I get it,” she said, softening her tone. “You have lived a life of war, fighting against the authority of the gods. To you, subservience is defeat, that’s totally understandable. That is not the only way to view it though, especially if that subservience is chosen. Tohru chose to be with Kobayashi, because she loves her.”

“And that love is for a creature with a miniscule lifespan compared to her own. How can that be worth it? It is foolish, but I may have been able to bring myself to allow that at least, even if I could not support it. But now… she has birthed a drackin , Quetzalcoatl. How do you not see the foolhardiness in that?”

Lucoa paused for a moment, thinking over how to respond. It was a risky proposition, she could not deny that, and The Emperor did not even know the full extent of how risky it truly was. Lucoa had been sure to hide the egg’s pulse by drowning it out with her own power, so he would continue to see it as just a drackin. Before she could respond however, the glass door slid open and Kobayashi came outside.

“Hey,” she said, glancing to Lucoa with a slight smile, then regarding The Emperor with a notably harder expression. “Everything okay out here?”

“Yup,” Lucoa said with a cheerful tone. “We were just having a little chit-chat.”

“Right…” Kobayashi’s moved her eyes away for a moment, then brought them back to The Emperor. “Listen, you are Tohru’s dad, and also our child’s grandfather, so I have no problem with you coming over for that reason. However, if you act the way you did in there ever again you will not be welcome here anymore.” Her heart was racing, but it was not out of fear. She could find it in herself to fear The Emperor at times, but right now she was too mad to be afraid. Tohru was her companion, and in the future she would be her wife. Kobayashi would always be able to find it in herself to stand up for those she loves.

The Emperor’s eyes narrowed on her. He was clearly not use to being spoken to in this way by a human, and since his usual method of threatening her life was off the table he may have been at a loss for how to respond.

“She is impressive, don’t you think?” Lucoa said, perhaps to steer him away from any violent thoughts he may have been having.

“For being a human, yes. I can not deny that,” said The Emperor, surprising Kobayashi with those words. The moment did not last, however. “But, she oversteps. It will be her downfall one day.”

“Hey, how about not talking about me as if I am not standing right here?”

The Emperor’s piercing gaze shot back to her.

“Kobayashi,” said Lucoa, an uncharacteristic level of seriousness in her voice. “I know you are fired up right now, but this is a dragon you are talking to, and not a very friendly one. You should probably tone it down just a tiny little bit.”

Kobayashi gritted her teeth, not expecting that from Lucoa, but indeed too fired up to heed her words. “This is about common decency. How powerful I am compared to you dragons doesn’t factor into it.” She looked back to The Emperor. “And I meant what I said, if you continue to act like that then you are not welcome here. On top of that, you owe Tohru an apology!”

“I will admit to one thing,” said The Emperor of Demise. “When I heard news of Tohru’s child, I lost my temper. Perhaps I overreacted and should not have come here in this way.”

Not exactly an I’m sorry , but Kobayashi figured that is as close to an apology as she was ever going to get out of him.

“However,” said The Emperor, “Everything I said to Tohru tonight holds true. She was a fool to have allowed this happen and I will not apologize for speaking the truth.”

Kobayashi could not help balling her fists at her side and taking a step forward. Just when she thought she was getting somewhere with the old man he goes and ruins it by saying something like that. “First of all, that is MY child you are talking about too, and we didn’t allow this to happen. We wanted this!”

“Then you are a fool as well. Do you really believe you can be a suitable parent to a drackin?”

“The hell is that supposed to mean?!” Kobayashi barked at him. “I’m her mom!”

“You are a human.”

Kobayashi took a moment to exhale and slow herself down. She spoke under her breath, “You damn dragons and your biases.” She stared The Emperor down without a hint of fear. “Except, I can’t even give you the benefit of the doubt and blame it on you simply being a dragon, because I’ve become close to five other dragons who are nothing like you!”

“You imply that my biases are formed from mere animosity?” The Emperor’s intense eyes narrowed on her. “At most you have another seventy years to live, human. By the time those years are up your daughter will be just budding into her adolescence. Tohru will be left without a proper mate to aid in raising her, living in a world where neither of them belongs. Furthermore, the very fact that the child is drackin means there is nowhere in any world where she will ever belong. She will ultimately end up alone. Do you think of that as a satisfactory life for your offspring?”

Kobayashi scoffed. “You don’t understand as much as you seem to think. I don’t know what the future holds for us… that’s true… but don’t stand there and act like you do! There are going to be some complications, but we’ll figure things out. Seventy years is a longer time than you are considering it. It hasn’t even been a full year since Tohru moved in with me, and just look at how far we’ve come just in that short amount of time! And we have both human and dragon friends; my daughter has every possibility of living a happy fulfilling life and nothing about me being human, or her being drackin, is going to prevent that!”

The Emperor paused for a long moment before responding. “You have a strong will, at the very least I can give you credit for that, and I can almost understand why my daughter fancies you. That is why I allowed her to stay with you. I reasoned it might even be good for her, to expand her knowledge of life and the worlds. Then after your death, which would be an insignificant amount of time compared to her own lifespan, she could have returned to the chaos faction with her curiosity of your kind satisfied. That is how I reasoned it, but I was a fool. It has now gone too far, and there is no turning back from what she has done by bringing that child into the world.”

“You still insist on referring to my daughter that way… your granddaughter! Whatever, I guess there is no getting through to you after all.”

“It matters not.” The Emperor turned away from her, put a hand on the railing of the balcony then leviated up over the edge. He floated in the air as a black portal appeared in front of him which brought forth gusts of wind that blew at his cloak. He looked over his shoulder at her. “As I said, Tohru is no longer any daughter of mine, nor does that drackin mean anything to me other than a representation of what I’ve lost.”

“You bastard,” Kobayashi said under her breath.

“Tohru knew the consequences of her actions. By choosing you as her mate she discarded her place in her family and her faction. She was fully aware of this consequence, and she made her choice. This will be the last time we see eachother…” He spoke his final word with bone-chilling contempt: “...Human…”

With that, The Emperor flew into his portal, and out of their lives. The dark abyss closed shut around him, giving one more intimidating pulse of energy before vanishing from the air.

Kobayashi’s breath left her lungs, suppressing a sob. She brought her hand up to her face, pushing up her glasses up with her index finger so she could use her palm to smother the tears. “That asshole!” she gasped out. Tohru had said this would happen, the night after laying the egg, but seeing the reality of those words coming to pass was still hitting her hard.

Lucoa sighed, staring out over the city from the balcony, watching dots of light creep along a distant highway. “I swear, that boy seriously just never grows up.” She took a moment then turned back to Kobayashi, who managed to pull herself back together and wipe away the tears. “Try not to let it bother you too much Kobayashi. It sucks, but I think Tohru already expected this. She decided a life with you is what she’d prefer over her old life.”

“I know, but…” Kobayashi didn’t know how to accurately verbalize her disgust for the whole thing. She sighed. “It’s like you said… it just sucks that he has to be like that.” They were both quiet for a little while, until Kobayashi asked, “So, what is your relationship with him anyway?”

“Oh… we go way back.” Lucoa grinned and got a glow about her face, as if thinking back on a fond memory. “I knew him when he was a little boy… long before anyone would have referred to him as the emperor of anything. I could tell he was going to be powerful one day, though. He was a natural leader. Strong and ambitious.” She chuckled, causing Kobayashi to raise an eyebrow at her. “I hate it when he allows himself to become close minded like that, but all in all I’m really proud of him. He has come a long way, and he has accomplished a lot.”

“You refer to him almost like a parent.”

Lucoa smiled. “I’d prefer big sister. Parent makes me feel way too old.”

“Hm… So how old are you?”

“Kobayashi!” Lucoa gasped with her head falling forward. “It's rude to ask a woman her age!”

“Heh, right… sorry about that…”

“But… you are a special case, so I’ll tell you this much.” Both of her eyes opened, the inhuman quality of her yellow and green eyes had a way of making her seem more divine. Well, she was once a goddess after all…

“Gods are not born in the same sense mortal beings are so it is hard to give them a specific age. We begin as concepts; like beauty, passion, or love. Well, there are also harsher concepts like envy, hate, death and war, but I tend not to associate with those guys. They are real bummers to be around. Anyway, it is hard to put into words, but if a concept has enough… umm…” she circled a finger through the air, trying to come up with the proper word. “ Heart , I suppose. If a concept has enough heart around it, it begins to change from just being an abstract idea and begins to take on aspects of the mortals who had conceived of them. That is how the first gods were born.”

“Hm, that makes sense,” said Kobayashi with her usual placid tone. For a mortal, especially one born in this world with little magic, Lucoa was impressed by how easily she was able to take in such magnificent concepts. “Thinking about the ancient history I learned in school, it fits perfectly. I never imagined Egyptian or Greek gods were actually real, though.”

Lucoa chuckled. “Well, do not confuse mythology for history. I have another friend who has a real pet-peeve about mortals doing that.”

Kobayashi grinned. “I see.” She paused, just taking the idea in. It was pretty profound, but somehow what she was just told was not hitting her quite as hard as it should have. She had other things on her mind, after all, and knowing about the creation of gods and worlds would not really have that much of an impact on her life anyway. “Well… I guess we should go see if it’s not too late to salvage this party.”

“Heh, alright sounds good.”

With that, she and Lucoa went back into the apartment. The party got back on track somewhat, though not on quite the same level it was before The Emperor had crashed it. Whatever, Kobayashi thought, looking around at all her friends and family, if that is the way he wants to be there is no helping it. She watched Tohru for a moment. She had set the egg back in the nest on the kotatsu and was now with Kanna and Riko on the floor, joining them in one of their little games. Tohru’s tough, so she’ll be alright.

Kobayashi had nothing but optimism for what the future would hold for her and her family. They would face challenges, but get through them together. Right now, despite everything, she figured life was just about perfect…

III

I’ll destroy them…

The dragon dove towards the heavens, breaking through the mortal realm and confronting the radiant beings that lay beyond.

…I’ll put an end to this meaningless life of war… and be free from all of it…

A sword formed in the creator's hand, and before she could come forth with her own attack the weapon was flung at her.

Just one more battle…

The sword of heaven pierced her side, and the flames that spilled forth from the dragon’s mouth arced away from their target, missing completely. The next thing she knew the world was spinning around her. Pain erupted from the wound, and her wings were no longer carrying her.

Humans gathered on the earth below, readying their weapons, pulling back their arrows and gripping their spears. She could hear their screams, the bloodlust behind their battle cries. She could easily annihilate them with a single breath, but then there would still be the gods above to contend with, and she was already gravely wounded by the sword.

With her last remaining effort, she used her spell to open a random portal. The wound would likely kill her, but if she were to die she would rather do it in peace. She dove through the portal and disappeared from the battlefield.

…if I only could have-

Tohru’s eyes shot open with a gasp. Her dream ended, and she was now looking at Miss. Kobayashi’s sleeping face. She let out a sigh of relief. It was a scary memory, and not the first time she had nightmares about it, but those bad dreams were at least becoming less frequent these days.

She looked down at the egg which both she and Miss. Kobayashi had an arm around, and she smiled. She could feel a mildly groggy pulse coming from her daughter, perhaps having picked up on the nightmare and was shaken awake, but Tohru suspected she could go back to sleep easily enough.

She positioned the egg closer to Miss. Kobayashi, guiding her lover’s arm around their unborn child, then pulled the blanket up to cover both of them more thoroughly. She placed her hand against the egg and thought, get some more rest, little one.

She climbed out of bed slowly, to avoid disturbing Miss. Kobayashi, then tiptoed over to the bathroom to start on her morning personal-care routines.

She started with brushing her teeth. She expanded her mouth to its menacing bestial form, since her fangs were more separated than human teeth and easier to clean around. Toothbrushes were another nice invention of the humans, she thought. Before discovering these handy little tools she would just use her claw to pick between her teeth, which would never be close to as thorough as this brush could be. Plus the toothpaste would leave a comfortable minty feeling in her mouth when she was done.

When she was finished with that and had the toothbrush rinsed, she transformed her mouth back to its human form and smiled. Nice and clean!

She then stripped off her scales (which were in the form of her pajamas) and went to take a bath. Bathing like a human was so much better too. In her old life she would have to find a waterfall or a lake if she wanted to get clean, which was not entirely bad but the nice thing about using a human bath is she could adjust the temperature to her exact comfort level. She had never considered that possibility before, but it truly was a nice luxury. Though, the dragon method of licking each other clean could be a lot of fun too, if she had someone to do it with. She used to do that with Kanna a lot.

Tohru grinned, thinking she would really like to get Miss. Kobayashi to try that particular dragon-method of bathing. “Ah, that would be nice…” she said under her breath as she lowered herself into the tub. Her face turned bright red as she ran through the scenario in her mind. When she and Kobayashi would get intimate she could put her tongue on her a little; but giving her a full-body bath like that? … Tohru squealed and hugged onto herself. That would be sooooo good!

When she was finished in the bath, she transformed her scales back to her maid uniform and put them on. Now all clean and tidied up, she took one last look at herself in the mirror. “Let’s do a good job again today!” she told herself, pumping a fist.

She now had about another half hour to get breakfast ready before Miss. Kobayashi and Kanna would wake up. She decided on an omelet with toast and bacon.

She managed to time it out perfectly. Just as the food was completed and transferred onto three separate plates, she could hear Kobayashi getting out of bed and beginning to get herself ready. Tohru went over to Kanna’s bedroom and gave the door a few soft knocks. “Kanna, are you getting out of bed?” she asked.

She heard the young dragon let out a yawn as she shuffled under the covered, then call out in a small voice: “I’m awake, Lady Tohru!”

“Okay! Breakfast is ready.”

Kobayashi revealed herself from the bedroom a moment later, fully dressed for work and letting out a brief yawn with the egg tucked under her arm. “Morning, Tohru.”

“Good morning, Miss. Kobayashi!” Tohru said cheerily as she went to retrieve a pot of boiled water from the oven-top to pour her master’s coffee with. She liked to do that at the table, because that way Miss. Kobayashi could get the full soothing aroma of the coffee which is at its strongest just as its being poured.

“Thanks Tohru,” Kobayashi said after the filter and coffee grains were removed from the top of her cup. She looked over the meal and said, “Wow, you really outdid yourself this morning. What got into you?” She cut into her portion of the omelet. No tail meat either , she thought but didn’t say.

“I just wanted you to have an extra good morning to start the week off!” Tohru said as she took her own seat. She watched Kobayashi take the first bite and let out a happy giggle when it seemed her master enjoyed it.

Kanna came out of her bedroom next, dressed for school with her yellow hat on, but still with a rather groggy look in her eyes.

“Good morning Kanna-chan!” Tohru said.

“Good morning Lady Tohru,” Kanna said back in her small tired voice. Before taking her own seat, she walked over to Kobayashi and reached up to put her hand on the egg. Kobayashi lowered it down a little for her. “Good morning, egg!” She then walked back around the table and climbed up into her place.

Sitting at the table, eating with her family here in this new world, Tohru felt at peace. She could not help her mind from briefly thinking back on her dream from last night, and that fateful day when she challenged the gods. It was a scary memory, but not an entirely bad one, because in the end her goal was achieved. She may not have defeated the gods as she had hoped, but she still got a similar result to what she hoped to accomplish by doing so.

That battle led her to meeting Miss. Kobayashi, and therefore led to her finding the peace she had been searching for. Even if it did mean discarding her old life, along with her old family and her place in the chaos faction.

What had she been trying to accomplish when she faced off against the gods, though? Probably, she understood there were two outcomes and the more likely of the two is indeed the one that happened. She was tired of war, and she simply wanted to be free from it…

Without meaning to, Tohru let her expression become rather melancholy. She had been searching for freedom that day, and she did not care if the only way to get it meant she would have to-

“Tohru? You alright?” Kobayashi asked, glancing over to her and noticing the distant look in her eyes.

Tohru put a smile back on. Simply hearing Miss. Kobayashi’s voice was enough to make her discard those sad thoughts. “Oh, yes of course. I was just thinking of something.”

She had once said that Kobayashi saved her life. That could be interpreted literally by having the sword of heaven pulled from her. It could also be interpreted on a deeper level, in that Kobayashi had given her a reason to live.

After breakfast was finished, Tohru said goodbye to both of them on their way out the door, getting a quick goodbye kiss from Miss. Kobayashi which made her really happy.

After that, she set up a little nest on top of the kotatsu for the egg to sit in while she started on her daily cleaning routines. It was going to be an easy day, as the grocery shopping and laundry had already been taken care of in previous days. She grabbed the duster and started moving around the apartment with it while planning out what to do for dinner in her head.

She did not notice at first, but soon after she began her work the egg started to do something. It started off as small vibrations, but then the egg started rocking back and forth of its own accord… the baby inside was kicking her clawed feet at the inside of the shell, and a very soft, almost inaudible cracking sound could be heard...

Kobayashi thought about Tohru a lot on her way to work that morning. Tohru was pretty resilient, but Kobayashi knew that the things her father had said to her were hurtful. Kobayashi did not have a very close relationship with her own parents these days, but its not that there were any animosities between her and them. She’d simply grown up and left her nest, moving far away from her home in order to pursue her career. She knew her parents were proud of her, even if they never said as much, but that was enough for her to be confident in her life choices.

Tohru on the other hand, having a father whom Kobayashi could see she had a great deal of respect for (even if she did not always obey him), basically tell her that this life she had chosen for herself was foolish… even going as far as to disown her… Kobayashi truly hated him for that.

She was just a few blocks from her office when she checked the time on her watch. She startled, let out a verbal “Oh, SHIT!” then started moving her legs up to a fast jog… she was at risk of being late!

When she got inside the building she saw the elevator was open with Elma standing inside.

“Elma! Hold the door!” she shouted.

“AH!” Elma had her arms filled with bags of… well, Kobayashi could not see what was inside them but she already knew it was stuffed with foods she must have picked up on the way to work. Elma stretched one of her fingers towards the buttons on the elevator, rotating her hips and arms to adjust all the bags of snacks she was carrying, but was straining to get her finger on the button. The metal door started closing.

“ELMAAAA!” Kobayashi yelled, now running.

Elma was close to getting it, but suddenly she lost her grip on one of the bags and screamed. “AH! Oh no!” she abandoned the elevator button and quickly caught the bag.

The door closed just as Kobayashi reached it and she slammed a fist against the cold metal. “Damn it…”

She could hear Elma scream from inside as the elevator started raising to the top. “I’m sooorrrrryyyy! Kobaaayaaaashiiii-SAAAAAAAAAAAAN!”

Kobayashi glanced down at her watch, there were only a few minutes left; not enough time to wait for the elevator to come all the way back down. “No choice…” she gasped, knowing that at this point hightailing it up the stairs was her only chance at being on time. She loosened her tie a little then started the trek.

By the time she slogged her way to her desk she was dripping with sweat and had an absolutely exhausted look on her face. Makoto turned in his chair and looked up at her with a raised eyebrow.

Once she was officially clocked in for the day she practically collapsed in her chair and tugged on her collar to try and get some airflow going down her shirt.

“Wake up late?” Makoto asked.

“No… just spaced out on my way here and lost track of time… then…” she sighed, not wanting to blame it on Elma, but if the dragon had simply stopped the elevator things would have been much easier. At least she still made it on time.

Elma then walked over, hanging her head guiltily and holding one of the baby bags of snacks in front of her. “Um… I-I’m really sorry Kobayashi-san. I tried to stop the elevator but…” she pushed the bag forward, presenting it to Kobayashi. “Please! As penance, please select one of these! They are really tasty!”

Kobayashi sighed as she straightened her posture and turned her chair to face Elma. “Elma, it’s alright. What I’m more worried about is the fact you’ve got all those bags of junk food. We just got our paychecks last friday and you are already over-indulging again.”

Elma blushed and glanced away. “I-I can’t help it! Everything in this world is just so darn tasty!”

“Yeah, but at this rate you are going to end up overspending your budget before the end of the month and be forced to starve yourself again. Do you want that?”

Elma sighed, getting a depressed look on her face. “I-I know that… and every time I get my paycheck I tell myself I’ll be more responsible with it this time, but then I walk by the stands selling food and the smell draws me in. After that, I see all the options and… it’s impossible to pick just one so before I know what I’m doing I just end up getting a little of everything. Human food truly is such a devilish commodity…”

Kobayashi thought about it, and started to feel bad for chastising her like that. She had previously thought Elma was just being a little bit of an airhead with budgeting her money, but now it seemed she had a legitimate problem on her hands. She just did not know how to combat it.

“Here’s an idea,” Kobayashi began. “Leave your credit cards at home and bring only enough cash with you to buy one thing. That way you will be forced to only get one, and therefore won’t risk blowing your whole paycheck on junk food.”

“B-but!” Elma’s face turned pale at the suggestion. “If I did that, I would never be able to choose what that one thing should be! I’ll get stuck at the food stand just looking at the options and I would never make it to work on time again!” She clenched her fists at her chest with her face scrunching up into a pout. “Oooooooh, it’s hopeless!”

“Hang on a second,” Makoto chimed in. “Don’t give up hope so easily.”

Elma opened her eyes and looked at him questioningly.

“You have an idea?” Kobayashi asked.

“Elma,” Makoto asked. “How do your mornings usually go once you’ve ran out of money?”

“Well…” Elma thought about it. “When I realize I don’t have any money… I guess I just curl up into a ball for a little while and sulk, but then I eventually have to work so I just put up with being hungry and wait for payday.”

“Do you stop by any food stands during your commute on days like that?” Makoto asked.

“Of course not! Why would I subject myself to such a torture? Being forced to look at and smell all those delicious snacks that I know I can not have!” She sighed. “It is best to just rush to work as quickly as I can and try not to let the smell catch up to me.”

“Then maybe that’s the solution right there,” Makoto offered. “Just don’t bring any money with you whatsoever and you won’t be tempted to buy anything on your way to work.”

“But I have to eat something!” Elma insisted. “Am I supposed to just willingly starve myself?”

“Yeah, she’s right about that,” said Kobayashi. “It’s kind of defeating the goal of avoiding starving herself at the end of the month if she is just starving herself at the beginning of it instead…” Kobayashi thought about it, then suddenly snapped her fingers. “Wait, all you get is fast food, right? How about doing some grocery shopping on the weekends? Not only is that healthier for you it’s a lot cheaper as well, so you might be able to stretch your budget through the month that way!”

“I’ve tried that,” Elma said, looking more depressed. “The problem is even worse if I go to the market. There are even more options there than at the food stands, so I just end up blowing my entire budget in one shot. Then when I bring the food home I’m so scared of the idea of any of it spoiling that I eat it all as quickly as I can. The result is I run out of money far sooner than if I simply stuck to the fast food stands.”

“Gee, this really is a problem,” Kobayashi said under her breath.

“What did you do before coming to this world?” Makoto asked. “How would you feed yourself back there?”

“Well…” Elma thought about it for a moment. “In the other world it was not much of a problem. I usually would just find a community of humans to worship me, and I would simply eat whatever they presented me as offerings. They typically would just bring whatever goods their country could produce without asking for my opinion, so I didn’t have to think about it.”

“I see, so you never had to make a choice between eating this or that?” Kobayashi asked.

“Exactly! But in this world there are so many options it is difficult to decide for myself… Oh, wait!” Elma’s face suddenly lit up. “Of course! I just need to find some worshipers here in this world and all my problems will be solved!”

Kobayashi frowned, thinking that over. “Um, Elma? Doesn’t starting a cult in a foreign world kind of go against the whole maintaining balance and not interfering thing?”

“Ah, right… guess I would be in a lot of trouble if I did that…” Elma sighed. “Then it truly is hopeless after all, isn’t it?”

“No, don’t give up hope yet,” said Kobayashi. “We’ll think of something.”

The three of them continued pondering the situation, trying to think of a solution for her until someone new came over. “Kobayashi-san?”

Kobayashi looked up to see it was the team manager. It was not the head manager who had offered her the promotion a week ago, but the guy right under him in the chain of command. “Yes?” she asked.

He held a wireless phone out to her. “Here, you received a phone call.”

“Huh? Oh! Thank you.” She took the phone and then said, “Hello?”

“Miss. Kobayashi!” Tohru said from the other end of the line.

“Tohru? Is everything alright?” Kobayashi asked. It was rare for Tohru to call her at work. Actually, it has never happened. Usually if Tohru just really wanted to see her she would show up in person to watch her work, making herself invisible with perception blocking, but that was about it.

“Y-yes! But you must come home right away!” Tohru insisted. “It is time!”

“Uh, time ?” Kobayashi asked.

“The baby!”

“HUH?” Kobayashi instantly sprang out of her chair. “Y-you mean?”

“YES! She’s going to be hatching soon! I can tell!”

“Holy-” Kobayashi’s eyes widened and she put a hand against her cheek, she was close to attempting to pinch herself to make sure she wasn’t dreaming. “Okay! I’m on my way right now!” She hung up the phone then handed it back to the manager, giving him a respectful bow. “I’m sorry, but I need to head back home. I promise I will work extra hours and make up for it this week!”

“Well, since it’s you Kobayashi, that’s no problem,” the manager said. “Go on, I just hope everything's alright.”

Kobayashi instantly started collecting her things. “Thank you! And yeah, everything's fine, great actually, but I do need to get back home.” She put her bag over her shoulder then started heading for the door. “Thanks again! Sorry about this!”

After she left the manager said, “Hm, well that certainly is strange.”

“Heh, yeah I think I have an idea what it is,” said Makoto. “But I probably should leave her to talk about it herself.” Elma nodded in agreement to that.

“Ah, that’s not what I’m talking about,” said the manager as he looked down at his watch. “It’s just that according to this, the shift started twenty minutes ago and neither of you have started working yet. Perhaps my watch is wrong?”

Elma and Makoto both got deadpan expressions on their faces, just now realizing how they had gotten caught up in their conversation and completely forgot that they were suppose to be working.

“S-sorry!” Makoto said as he turned back to his computer and started booting up the programing.

“I-it is my fault!” Elma said, bowing her head. “My apologies!” She then quickly ran back to her own computer station to get started on her work.

Kobayashi rushed out of the office building, holding her briefcase against her chest so it would not get in her way as she ran. Halfway down the first block she had already worn herself out, however, and had to stop to catch her breath. She was too excited to even notice the typical constant sting from her lower back problems.

Alright, just relax… she told herself as she wiped her forehead. It was rare for her to let her emotions overcome her like this, but this was the biggest thing to ever happen to her!

It won’t do any good if you let yourself pass out from heat exhaustion, she reminded herself.

She started walking at a brisk pace, but realized she was probably going to end up having to wait at the train station one way or another, so there really was no point in pushing herself. She figured she should have asked Tohru how much time before the egg hatched, maybe it was not quite as urgent as she was making herself believe, though she did not want to take any chances with missing the birth of her child.

She pulled out her phone as she walked, and noted the missed calls from their home phone which Tohru used. Kobayashi normally kept her phone silenced during work hours which is why Tohru had to call the office directly. She searched the train schedule online as she walked, and verified that the next one would indeed not be coming for a little while anyway.

However, when she was about halfway there she caught a flash of white zip by in the sky above her. She stopped and looked up. A moment later Kanna’s long neck poked out from behind a building, with her big blue dragon eyes staring back down at Kobayashi.

Kobayashi grinned, figuring Tohru must have found a way to send for her. Telepathically? That was most likely; the school was in walking distance from their house so it should not have been too hard for Tohru to send a message that way.

“Kobayashi,” Kanna’s voice spoke inside her head, “ find somewhere open I can land and pick you up. Tohru gave me her perception blocking, so I just need somewhere out of the way.”

“Alright, I think I know just the place,” Kobayashi said. “Follow me.” A couple people walking along the sidewalks turned their heads to her, thinking they had just witnessed her talking to herself, but she paid them no mind.

Kobayashi crossed the street, now heading in the opposite direction of the train station, then walked a few blocks to a commercial construction site. She was not sure what was being built here, but luckily no work was being done on it today. She walked along the fence looking for an opening to get inside.

Kanna softly descended from above and landed on the other side, then slid a single nail under the fence and lifted it. Kobayashi glanced over her shoulder to make sure no one was watching, then got down to her hands and knees and crawled under. Once she was on the other side and back to her feet she threw her briefcase up onto Kanna’s back, then hopped up herself. Mounting Kanna was a little more difficult than Tohru, despite her being smaller, because she did not have defined scales that could be used as finger holds.

After a little shimmying with her legs she still managed to get on. “So the school was okay with you leaving so early?” Kobayashi asked as she positioned herself behind Kanna’s neck. She tucked the briefcase between her legs and got herself comfortable for the flight.

“Lady Tohru called the school and asked them to send me back home. She gave me her perception blocking when I got back and asked me to find you before you got to the train.”

“I see… so how much time do we have before she hatches?”

“I don’t know, but Lady Tohru said we’ll have plenty of time.”

Kobayashi smiled. “Alright, let's get going then.”

She briefly wondered if it was okay for Kanna to take off school, but decided that it was indeed alright. After all, witnessing the birth of her little sister is a once in a lifetime chance, and she was only in elementary school anyway. “Are you going to be able to catch up on your schoolwork?” Kobayashi asked as Kanna began ascending off the ground.

“Riko-chan’s going to bring the homework to me.”

“Alright, sounds good.”

Once Kanna was high enough that nothing would get in the way, she tilted her head forward and zoomed through the sky. Kanna was indeed faster than Tohru, but riding her was still easier on Kobayashi’s back. Tohru’s scales were really hard and uncomfortable compared to Kanna’s velvety fur. Kobayashi figured she would have to be careful to never let this fact slip to Tohru, as it would be devastating for her to find out it was only riding on her that caused Kobayashi to have issues with her lower back.

Kanna landed on the rooftop of the apartment, then pulled back one of her wings to let Kobayashi slide off. Kanna then transformed back to her human form, and Kobayashi reach down and put her hand on top of the young dragon’s head, giving her a soft pat. “Alright Kanna, let's go and meet your little sister!”

Kanna’s eyes closed and her face brightened up at the suggestion. Her emotions usually were not readily visible on her face, but right now Kobayashi could see that she was beside herself with excitement as well.

They rushed downstairs and entered the apartment. Kobayashi almost felt like she was dreaming, her body felt light with elatation. Today, she was going to get to see her baby's face for the first time! It hardly felt real!

They entered the apartment and Kobayashi went right for the living room. She stopped just inside, Kanna right behind her. “Tohru…” she said under her breath, as she saw her maid sitting behind the kotatsu, watching the egg that was wiggling back and forth.

“You are not too late!” Tohru said happily. “Come! Sit down!” Kobayashi smiled as she and Kanna walked over and took a seat. Tohru leaned closer to the egg and whispered, “Everyone is here, little one. You can come out and see your family now!”

The egg rocked a little harder a few times, and Kobayashi held her breath. Another hard shake, and minor cracking sounds were heard but no change to the outside of the egg could be seen yet. This is it! Kobayashi thought. She’s coming! She’s really-

Suddenly the shaking stopped. All three of them watched silently for a while, expecting something to happen. After a full minute Kobayashi finally let out an, “ummm…”

Tohru’s lips formed a diagonal line across her face as she reached a hand out and gently put it attop the egg.

“Is she okay?” Kobayashi asked, mildly concerned but not jumping to any wild conclusions.

Tohru suddenly laughed and scratched the back of her head. “Well, it seems she got tired from trying to hatch and decided to take a break! Um… she’s sleeping…”

“Ah… I see…” Kobayashi said, as they all continued to stare at the egg. “So… I guess we just wait?”

“Oh yes, I am sure it should not be too much longer. Lets just allow her to take her time!”

After three hours of nothing happening everyone got a little restless. “I suppose I will make lunch,” said Tohru as she got up from the kotatsu. Kanna took one of the DVD’s Makoto had given as a gift for the baby and popped it into the player, then laid on the floor in front of the television to watch. Kobayashi watched the egg for a little while longer, but eventually let out a yawn and decided to keep Tohru company in the kitchen.

“I am sorry to have called you home from work,” said Tohru as she started pulling things out of the refrigerator to make sandwiches with. “I thought for sure she would be coming soon.”

“Oh, there is nothing to apologize for. I’m glad you did…” Kobayashi glanced over to the egg. “Is it possible it is too hard for her to break the surface? I mean… should we try to help her?”

“Nah-uh!” Tohru instantly shook her head and crossed two fingers together. “This is the first challenge she must face and it is thought of as very bad luck to aid the child in the process. The egg is hard and difficult to break through, dragon eggs are not like those of lesser creatures, but I assure you she will be successful. It is simply something she must do on her own.”

“Have you ever heard of a baby failing to hatch on her own?”

Tohru paused, clearly disturbed by the thought and Kobayashi instantly realized she had said something wrong. Tohru put a smile back on a moment later and said, “Do not worry, our child is very strong.” Tohru grinned. “Maybe just a little lazy?”

“Ah… I see…” Kobayashi did not question Tohru on that scenario any further. She had an idea what Tohru’s unwillingness to discuss such a situation in detail meant, and Kobayashi honestly did not want to go down that road either.

“On the other hand,” Tohru began, “she attempted to hatch earlier than I would have expected. She may have simply been overly eager to get out into the world, and was not actually ready yet. In that case, it is possible she will wait another couple of days before trying again.”

“I see…”

“It is possible she is being a little mischievous as well.” Tohru giggled.

“How do you mean?”

“Well, she began attempting to hatch soon after you left, then gave up soon after you got home. Maybe she was just trying to get some attention?”

Kobayashi grinned, and glanced over to Kanna who was quietly watching the opening song for the magical girl anime she had selected. “Guess we have two pranksters on our hands then. We can’t exactly ground an egg for misbehaving though, can we?”

Tohru laughed. “No, I suppose not.”

It was a joke of course, but oddly enough Kobayashi felt a bit of pride for her daughter’s potential mischievous behavior. Not that she wanted her to be a troublemaker, but if that is indeed what she was doing it showed she was smart since it would require some thinking to come up with such a plan. If it was just to get get mom's attention, then that was pretty cute as well.

By the time lunch was finished there was still no action from the egg. Kobayashi and Kanna lazed around for most of the day, while Tohru went about catching up on some of her cleaning since her typical morning routine was disrupted. Later into the afternoon Riko stopped by with Kanna’s classwork.

“So how come you had to leave school so suddenly, Kanna-chan?” Riko asked after handing her the papers.

Kanna pointed a finger at the egg. “Egg is hatching soon.”

“Really!?” Riko asked. “Wow! Um, can I stay and wait with you?”

Kanna looked to Kobayashi for the answer, who of course smiled and said, “Of course, you are always welcome here Riko.”

“Yay! Thank you!”

Riko and Kanna sat at the Kotatsu for a little while, watching the motionless egg, but being two young girls they did not have enough of an attention span to watch for very long and eventually gravitated back to the television.

“So…” Kobayashi began, once again keeping Tohru company in the kitchen as she was cooking dinner. “We haven't exactly come up with a name yet, have we?”

“I have a couple in mind,” said Tohru. “I would rather wait until she is born and we can see her, then I will say which I think suits her the best. You should think of some names as well, Miss. Kobayashi!”

“Huh… I’m really not good with stuff like that, though.” Kobayashi thought for a moment then added, “You know, she’ll be carrying my last name no matter what, so we probably should go with one of your names.” Kobayashi ran through the names of all the dragons she knew, and with the exception of Quetzalcoatl (who went by Lucoa anyway) they all seemed to fit well enough in a japanese society.

By the time dinner was served and eaten, the egg still had not made another move. Kanna and Riko did their homework together at the table, and eventually it started getting dark and Georgi came to pick Riko up. Kanna said goodbye to her while Georgi thanked Kobayashi and Tohru for letting her stay over again.

After saying their goodbyes, it was late and time to start getting Kanna ready for bed.

“I want to stay up and wait for Egg,” Kanna said, looking up at the two of them.

Kobayashi and Tohru looked at each other and smiled, each giving a little shrug. Kobayashi bent down in front of Kanna and said, “Alright, go brush your teeth and get into your pajamas and you can sit by the Kotatsu with me and Tohru.” That made Kanna really happy, and she quickly scampered off to her bedroom to start doing what Kobayashi asked. She’s probably going to end up falling asleep soon either way, Kobayashi thought.

As Kobayashi thought, not long after sitting at the Kotatsu with everyone, Kanna’s head slowly began to lower and her eyes got droopy. She was fighting to keep them open, but it quickly became a losing battle. Her head was soon completely down against the table with a tiny puddle of drool forming around the corner of her mouth.

Kobayashi let out a yawn, feeling the exhaustion herself. She put her head down on her arm with her eyes still on the egg. Maybe I should take off work tomorrow if she really doesn’t hatch tonight, Kobayashi thought. As she was considering that, her own eyes starting winking closed. With each wink she saw her egg, her still unhatched daughter who would be coming into the world very soon. Take your time… Kobayashi thought… you’ve got your whole life ahead of you, no need to rush for now… It was a thought produced by her half-awake mind as she slipped into unconsciousness, the idea acting as a gateway into her dreams...

VII

Kobayashi’s eyes opened to a new world. She could feel a soft wind blowing against her face, and looked around. There was a red haze tinting the landscape; an endless field of grass hued by the setting sun. Then, she spotted someone.

There was a young girl standing, facing the sunset with her back to Kobayashi. She was wearing what was clearly a high school uniform. She had long dark-pink hair, similar to the color of Kobayashi’s hair but also with a tint of blonde on the lower layers. Her hair was long, trailing all the way to the center of her back where it blew in the wind.

Then Kobayashi noticed the horns protruding from her head; they had a similar shape to Tohru’s, but smaller. Also, there was the stubby end of a short green tail poking out from under the skirt of her uniform, only a fraction of the size of Tohru’s massive tail.

Kobayashi smiled, feeling warmth just by looking at her. She had a similar dream to this once before, back on the first night she slept with the egg nestled between herself and Tohru. Though in that dream, her daughter appeared much younger than this version of her.

The drackin’s hand dropped to her side, revealing sharp yellow claws at the end of her fingertips. The back of her hand and wrist were covered in green scales. Her head turned.

The bangs of her strawbeary-blonde hair blew in waves against the wind, giving only brief flashes of her face. Through it, Kobayashi could see a red dragon’s eye looking back at her, split down the middle by an oval pupil. Her lipless reptilian mouth rose in a smile. The shape of her body was mostly human, but with dragon-like features on the outside. She would be quite a sight to behold to any other human, but to Kobayashi she was simply beautiful.

“Hey,” Kobayashi said with a smile. No sound came out of her mouth when she spoke, but the word still seemed to reach her.

The wind blew.

“I’m okay,” her daughter said, speaking in the same silent words. “I can’t wait to get there.”

“I know, but take your time,” said Kobayashi. “There is no rush, and we’ll be waiting for you when you are ready.”

That red eye widened, as if surprised. “Oh.” The soft expression on her reptilian face became more contemplative. “I see… so that means... this is-” Her words trailed off.

Oddly enough, though Kobayashi did not yet know her name, she called it out, questioning if everything was alright.

Her green, lipless mouth formed a smile once again. “Yes, I’m ready. And we’ll have lots of time together! Like Mommy always says, we should cherish that time while we have.” There was a melancholy tone to those words. Was she really okay?

Wake up

The drackin turned and started walking towards the sunset.

“Hey, are you okay?” Kobayashi called out to her, not sure what to make of this. Then she could hear a cracking sound. It seemed to emit throughout the entire world. She looked up and realized lines were forming in the sky, like black lightning that froze after being formed.

Wake up

“Hey!” Kobayashi called out again. “Where are you going?”

The black lines in the sky were actually cracks, and red light started to shine through from behind them. It was so bright that it started to dampen out the features of the world, and everything became consumed in red.

Wake up

Her daughter too, she started to disappear inside the red mist which consumed the world. This was really just a dream though, right? Everything felt so surreal. The cracking sound... the sound of the sky cracking? It was so present… so real… so...

Wake up

Wake up Miss. Kobayashi!

Tohru nudged her shoulder and Kobayashi’s head suddenly shot up, her eyes blinking heavily. There was a pounding in her temple from being roused from a deep sleep. “Miss. Kobayashi, look!” Tohru said again.

“Huh?” She quickly adjusted her glasses and gave her vision a moment to unblur itself from sleep. The egg was rocking back and forth, and that cracking sound she heard in her dream was actually the shell beginning to open and fall apart. She gasped. “She- she’s coming!”

Her dream was already forgotten, disappearing to the back of her mind where it would forever turn into a vague ungraspable memory.

“Kanna,” Kobayashi whispered as she gave the younger dragon a soft tap on her shoulder. “Wake up, it’s time.”

Kanna apparently was much easier to wake than Kobayashi herself. Her eyes opened right away, though she did not lift her head she let out one of her soft mystified ooooh’s. “Egg’s waking up!” she said.

Kobayashi and Tohru both chuckled happily, giving each other a soft smile.

Tohru had been careful to nest the egg tightly between some towels, so it would not roll around too much when this time came, but it still managed to rock back and forth at a good pace. The sudden jolts became more pronounced as more pieces of the shell began to fall away.

This is it, Kobayashi thought. I’m about to get to see my baby!

Then, all at once, something burst out of the side of the shell. It was a tiny green foot with sharp nails on each of its little toes. The foot paused a moment, feeling the air of the outside world for the first time. Its clawed toes opened wide, then balled back into a little fist and receded back into the egg. All three of them leaned their bodies over the kotatsu to get a better look as the egg continued to wiggle.

The foot started chipping away at the edges of the hole it just made, ripping away with its sharp nails, making the hole bigger. The egg itself wiggling all the while this was done. Then, it stopped completely.

Kobayashi held her breath. The foot had receded back inside so they could not see her at all, but Kobayashi was struck with anticipation, feeling like something big was about to happen. The egg tilted to one side, as if the child inside braced herself against the wall of the shell. Then, all at once, chips exploded outward, breaking two sides of the shell away and causing the top to collapse down.

“Yay!” she heard Tohru and Kanna cheer, but the sounds of their voices drifted past her ears. Kobayashi’s hand reached out uncertainty. She could see the green of her child's body underneath the beautiful red and gold fragments of the broken shell. Her clawed toes opened and closed; to others those sharp claws may look menacing, but Kobayashi thought they were cute.

Tohru’s hand come forth to gently pick the pieces of the shell away, and finally Kobayashi could fully see her… She could see her baby!

Her cute little face had its eyes tightly shut, and her mouth half open in the cringing gesture of someone who had just stubbed their toe. Her little hands balled into fists and shook in confusion. She was green all over except for a patch of hard white flesh along her abdomen.

Tohru reached both hands down and gently scooped her up. While Kobayashi felt almost hesitant to touch her, like the delicate little thing might break from the smallest touch, Tohru’s motions were smooth and confident.

Tohru held her in one arm and let her butt face up. There was an adorable little tail only about the length of Kobayashi’s index finger coming from her lower back. Tohru folded her thumb over her palm and used four fingers to give the baby a soft slap on her butt.

Her cringing gesture became a little more pronounced for a moment, then the silent face let out an audible cry as she finally took her first breath.

Her baby’s voice… Kobayashi hadn’t realized she started crying herself but she could feel tears rolling down her own cheeks.

“There, there,” Tohru said softly as she brought the baby into a more comfortable position against her bosom. Kobayashi could see Tohru’s red eyes were glassing over as well. Kanna’s hands were on her cheeks with a mistified expression on her face while she watched.

Tohru gently rocked the crying baby back and forth, softly cooing her with her voice. She reached into her blouse for a handkerchief and gently dabbed the baby’s face. Kobayashi had not noticed right away, but she was covered in fluid from inside the egg.

Tohru was extra careful with cleaning her eyes, and when that was done the lids finally opened and Kobayashi could see the reds of her babies eyes for the first time. They only softly blinked open a few times though, until it seemed she decided she preferred to keep them closed for now.

Her cry started to die down, though she still whined a little. Her little hands and feet softly batting at the air as she squirmed in Tohru’s arms.

Tohru looked over to Kobayashi and smiled. “Would you like to hold her? Miss. Kobayashi?”

Kobayashi just smiled back and said, “Yes.”

Tohru carefully handed her over, then helped adjust Kobayashi’s arms to make the baby comfortable. “Here, support her head with your hand,” she explained. Kobayashi felt a little awkward and clumsy, but it was okay. She briefly wondered how Tohru was so good with handling a baby, and figured she just had natural mothering instincts.

“Hello,” Kobayashi softly cooed at her. Her red eyes blinked open a couple times, then more steadily squinted to get a good look at her mom. She was so cute, Kobayashi thought, and she was finally here, in her arms. Her daughter… she almost felt like it was a dream, her body felt weightless with joy.

Kobayashi held her like that for a while before looking over to Kanna and asked, “Do you want to say hello to your little sister?”

Kanna’s face instantly brightened up and she came right over. Kobayashi still held her in her arms, but turned her towards Kanna as the young dragon sat beside her. The baby’s eyes opened more fully, now getting adjusted to the light, and they suddenly became wide and curious as they looked back at Kanna.

“Hello egg,” Kanna said, as she reached up and softly held one of the babies little hands. “We’re going to play a lot. Okay?”

While the babies expression until now had been more bewildered than anything, when Kanna said that her little green mouth curled into a smile.

VIII

It was late, but sleep was far away from Kobayashi’s mind. She was comfortable, but not tired at all. She felt refreshed.

They all moved over and sat on the floor, Kobayashi and Tohru’s backs were against the couch, and Kanna had already dozed off with her head on Kobayashi’s lap. Tohru held the baby who was also fast asleep, resting the side of her face comfortably against her mommy’s bosom. The two mothers just silently watched her. Her little sleeping face was so adorable it was hard to look away from.

Tohru had licked her clean earlier. Kobayashi offered simply using a towel but Tohru insisted that she would much prefer to do it that way. She offered for Kobayashi to get a lick in as well, which surprisingly, Kobayashi ended up accepting with a humorous smirk. She gave the baby a small touch with her tongue right on her belly.

Kanna still seemed to refer to her as “egg” probably for lack of knowing what else to call her, and Kobayashi wondered if it was time to decide on a name.

“So, we can’t just keep calling her egg, you know.” Kobayashi smirked, she was softly patting Kanna’s head as she slept in her lap.

“Yes,” said Tohru, smiling happily at her newborn. “I was thinking of naming her after a dragon. As you said, she will have your name to reflect her human side so I would like her to carry both worlds with her. If you think that is a good idea.”

“Of course, I was thinking the same thing.”

Tohru thought for a moment and said, “Tiamat is an ancient dragon, and stories of her are very popular among our culture. She is thought of as having been brave, powerful, and kind hearted. I think naming our child after her will bring good luck. I had several such dragons in mind to name her after, but Tiamat is the one who feels right. Though, I think we should alter it a little. It is a powerful name, and I have trouble attaching it to this delicate little face.” Tohru chuckled as a one of her fingers moved to softly brush her baby’s cheek.

“Hmmm… Tiamat…” Kobayashi repeated it. Tohru’s explanation felt right, but looking at the innocent little newborn, Kobayashi understood what she meant. “Maybe change it a little to make it sound more japanese?”

“That is what I was thinking as well.”

Kobayashi’s mind quickly ran through some possibilities. A few slipped by her mind and were quickly discarded until one stuck out so strongly it felt like it had to be spoken…

“How about… Tiama?”

“Tiama?” The way Tohru’s expression changed showed that she liked the name as well. She looked at her baby and repeated it one more time. “Tiama… I love it.”

Hearing it spoken out loud, and looking at the baby’s delicate sleeping face, the name felt right and Kobayashi already felt it attaching itself to her.

“Tiama it is, then,” said Kobayashi, smiling at her daughter’s little green face.

Tiama…

Tiama Kobayashi…

When I started writing this over a year ago I had not yet read the manga, and therefore I planned things out only using the anime series as a reference. This is why Iruru has not made an appearance. Since reading the manga I’ve thought about trying to work her in somehow, and even began to do so last chapter, but ultimately decided her presence was clashing with what I already had planned and changed my mind about working her in.

Don’t get me wrong, I think she is a great character, but at this point I kind of have certain things about CotD cemented in my mind and I feel like trying to force her into the plot at this stage would do more harm than good. Therefore, think of CotD as an alternate branch in the Dragon Maid storyline. The official content went one way after season one, and this fanfic goes another. Iruru is not here because in this version of their world she simply does not exist.

Though, I really do like her character… Perhaps I’ll write a seperate one-shot featuring her some time? It’s an idea…

*looks back at the author’s note so far*

Oh look at that, I started rambling...

Anyway…

YAY! Tiama Kobayashi is finally here!

We’ll only be spending two chapters with baby Tiama, though. Chapter ten will be the end of Part One, with Part Two (chapter 11) giving us a time jump of ten years where we will see an older Tiama (and an older Kanna and Riko as well!)

In total, I have three parts of this story planned, each of which should be around 10 chapters and therefore this story should be about 30 chapters total. To give you an idea of what to expect ;)

This is one of my favorite writing projects I’ve ever undertaken and I thank you all for reading it and giving such nice feedback!

If you want more updates from me follow me on twitter.com/atomyst_fics

If you like my stuff and want to support me please consider becoming a patron!

https://www.patreon.com/Atomyst

-Atomyst

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Darkseid (Guest) on Chapter 1 Tue 25 Jul 2017 02:27PM UTC

I'm enjoyed this too much.

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Sebaciel_Reigns on Chapter 1 Tue 01 Aug 2017 01:43AM UTC

I just got into this show and I ship them solo much already. I'm glad I found your awesome fic.

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Ongaku-chan (Guest) on Chapter 1 Wed 02 Aug 2017 12:16AM UTC

For real! Holy shit! Wow interesting concept. But I have to wonder if Kobayashi and Tohru wind up going at it every night, does that mean a collection of eggs starts building up?

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Eternal Link (Guest) on Chapter 1 Fri 04 Aug 2017 12:55AM UTC

Thank you for writing this, it continues the story in a way that i like quite a bit. if the makers of the show/anime take forever to continue, im excited to see someone do such a great job. keep up the great work.

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FrozenLily on Chapter 1 Fri 18 Aug 2017 05:10PM UTC

Before everyone freaks out on how this is possible, google "Desert grassland whiptail lizard". You're welcome.

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1. Atomyst_Fics on Chapter 1 Fri 18 Aug 2017 05:15PM UTC
  
  Thanks for that! ^^
  I posted your comment on my twitter. I hope you don't mind :)
  
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2. 1. FrozenLily on Chapter 1 Sat 19 Aug 2017 07:57PM UTC
    
    Not at all. Sharing is caring. ^^
    
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Cvb2377 on Chapter 1 Fri 01 Sep 2017 02:11AM UTC

Oh my gosh this is amazing! I love you for making this!

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sillysam16 on Chapter 1 Sat 07 Oct 2017 06:27PM UTC

SADLD;FLFG;LGH KOBAYASHI GOT SO SHOCKED AT THE END these cuties are so precious

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CaptainRivaini on Chapter 1 Thu 16 Nov 2017 10:38PM UTC

IM LAUGHING I cannot WAIT to read the rest of the chapters!

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mugennozero on Chapter 1 Mon 08 Jan 2018 01:13AM UTC

I already laugh my ass off at the Elma/Food Tag XDXDXD

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SupeR (Guest) on Chapter 1 Tue 18 Dec 2018 08:53AM UTC

So far I'm loving it!

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Elliecatts on Chapter 1 Fri 26 Mar 2021 02:36PM UTC

This is a "So good I personally consider it cannon" Level work.

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SuouHimemiya on Chapter 1 Thu 22 Jul 2021 07:42AM UTC

I too, would fall back in shock and die if i experienced the same thing kobayashi did lol

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ILikeToBeAnonympus on Chapter 1 Wed 18 Aug 2021 01:50PM UTC

Idk if I had sex with my roommate who is willing to be a physical figure of my maid fetish and she came back pregnant, I would be surprised too considering we're both girls

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Sebaciel_Reigns on Chapter 2 Tue 01 Aug 2017 02:01AM UTC

Awwwww koboyashi is so soft ^▪^

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Ongaku-chan (Guest) on Chapter 2 Wed 02 Aug 2017 12:38AM UTC

Not gonna lie the moment Kobayashi broke down I started crying too. This is really very beautiful!

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1. Atomyst_Fics on Chapter 2 Wed 02 Aug 2017 04:58AM UTC
  
  Thank you! I'm glad you like it :)
  
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Gabi (Guest) on Chapter 2 Tue 22 Aug 2017 02:22AM UTC

Pleeeeeeeeeaaaaaaase make more this story is so incredibly amazing I love it so much! Please make more soon!

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Crane_Ichabod on Chapter 2 Sat 02 Sep 2017 12:36PM UTC

Fuck you, there's a puddle on my floor because i melted after reading this.
This is so gooooooooood... It has everything i ever expect from a good fluffy fic.

Last Edited Sat 02 Sep 2017 12:36PM UTC

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ftbrightstar555 on Chapter 2 Thu 24 May 2018 02:48PM UTC

Wow i normally dont comment because of fluff but...
This chapter was so nice to read!

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nyanbinaries on Chapter 2 Mon 09 Jul 2018 10:25PM UTC

I'm meLTIng, this is adorable

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bittersweetoranges on Chapter 2 Sun 09 Dec 2018 07:51AM UTC

I'm currently in the finals crunch, so it might have contributed but the part where Kobayashi and Tohru finally talk and share that moment in bed made me cry happy tears.

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