Qilby didn't know how long it had taken him to gain the courage to end it. He hadn't even known if his wakfu would find its way back to his Dofus or not, but the fear of another eternity in the Blank Dimension pushed him to a desperation he'd never known.

He remembered it as vividly as every death. The slow slip from panic to apathy, then detachment, and then to nothing at all. After that, the mindless rush as his wakfu and spirit sought the refuge of his Dofus, and the familiar (and surprised) embrace of his dragon sister's soul.

Unlike their siblings who waited unconsciously for the stimulus to hatch, Qilby and Shinonome were partially aware from within their Dofus. The communication between the unborn essence of such a union of souls was difficult to define to anyone else - more empathetic and felt than thought or spoken. They had shared sadness, regrets, desires, quarrels, and thousands of years of loneliness without a word.

Shinonome had turned against Qilby in his fight against Yugo in Emrub, but he blamed millennia with Phaeris and the influence of his other short-sighted siblings for that. She would not abandon him seeing the agony in his soul so plain - only she could understand his torment and give him the companionship he so desperately needed.

He was wrong. Within that unknown span, Qilby came to understand something horrible, a desire that he never could have conceived: Shinonome didn't want them to be reborn. Her spirit was heavy with the guilt of her brother's crimes and the blood of their people, having sided with him to abandon the World of Twelve. A crime she could never forget, such was their mutual curse.

Even his sister, who alone stood by him against the rest of the Council of Six, had given up on him.

The twins' whirling thoughts soon settled like flecks in a snowglobe. Without Shinonome, Qilby could not hatch their Dofus. More than that, even together again like this, he was alone - no one would travel with him across the stars ever again. He went as catatonic as he ever was in the Blank Dimension.

And then…


Yugo awoke to a minor earthquake. A quick, groggy glance outside showed a clear midnight blue sky covered in stars. Summoning a ball of Wakfu to light up the guest room, he dropped his shirt over his head with a quick portal before opening a door, someone on the other side mid-knock.

A sadida guard, a spooked expression on his bushy face, half jumped back. "S-sir! It's… You have to come see- quickly!"

The eliatrope blinked tiredly as the guard jogged down the hall, beckoning him to follow. They'd found that zaap out of Inglorium and to the Sadida Kingdom, what… Two weeks ago? Three? Couldn't there be a lack of a crisis for a little while? Things were still very awkward between him and both Adamaï and Amalia, and only time to sort out their collective feelings would fully smooth out their relationships.

Berating his selfishness when others could be in danger, Yugo resigned himself to new trouble and hopped through a portal chain to catch up.


Wakfu. An impossibly, unimaginably, massive concentration stirred the twin inhabitants to awareness. Somehow, their Dofus had been drawn inside the Eliacube. It wasn't alone, either. The other five Eliatrope Dofus were present as well, and the twins felt the presence of several of their siblings within them.

It was too much wakfu. The Eliacube was drawing in the seams of reality to contain it all, and could only be seconds from a cataclysmic implosion that would swallow up everything around it. The Dofus and the remaining unborn spirits of their siblings would be consumed as well.

There was only the briefest hesitation from Shinonome, then iron resolve. Qilby matched it with unconcealed glee. The twins at last became of one will, drawing the Dofus to them. As the Eliacube went critical, they catapulted their collected dragon eggs on the detonated current of wakfu and beyond, narrowly avoiding the event horizon as the destroyed Eliacube's energies collapsed back into a black hole.

Flung through a corridor outside of conventional time and space, the Dofus were bloated to burst from the absorbed wakfu of the Eliacube. The souls of collective eliatrope and dragon siblings stirred within their eggs, preparing to hatch in a place that was not capable of receiving life. Desperately, the leading twins groped blindly for any familiar signature of wakfu and a safe place, until honing in on the familiar presence of Yugo and Adamaï.

The twins surfed down the wave of wakfu they rode along one last time. It wasn't a perfect shot back into space-time - off by a week or two and perhaps a few hundred yards - but good enough.


It looked like an explosion where the meteorites had hit. Several trees had been shattered on the way down, and a field of crops looked like they'd had a massive sickle cleaved down the center. The final resting spot of the impact had pushed the displaced earth forward into a mound, turning a meadow into a small hill.

Adamaï floated nearby having been sleeping not far off, currently checking from a higher vantage. Armand and Amalia hadn't yet arrived, nor any of his other friends or the survivors among the Brotherhood of the Forgotten.

While Yugo was curious, he wasn't sure if a meteor impact necessarily warranted him aside from the guards' default attitude for their heroes when panicked. Perhaps this called for a fire brigade, but checking out the meteorite was little more than midnight curiosity seeing as nobody had been around close enough to be hurt.

At least, not until he heard the a mixture of infantile coos and cries coming from the crater.

Exchanging a single glance of both confusion and worry, the brothers teleported up and down into the crater to an incredible sight. Two baby eliatropes and their dragons lay at the bottom, curled up in hats and hugging their Dofus, the other eggs scattered around them.

"It's- It's Phaeris!" Yugo said in dumb disbelief, staring at a dark green dragon curled up in a wide-eyed baby girl's arms, bundled in a turquoise hat. "And that must be his sister Mina! They- Where did the Dofus even come from?!"

Adamaï glanced around, more suspicious than happy, though the upturned corners of his mouth couldn't hide that joy entirely. "They should have been destroyed or at least lost for a time. Happily, it seems merely the latter."

Yugo skipped over to the other child, pink-haired with an unusually small baby dragon no bigger than his tofu, Az. "And you must be Nora and Efrim! You're both so-"

"Yugo."

The chill seriousness of his brother's sudden tone gave the eldest eliatrope present pause, and he slowly looked up to see Adamaï staring at the top of the meteor-created hill. Following the line of sight, he saw it too. A white-capped eliatrope infant and a whiskered, magenta wyrmling, their backs facing them as they leaned on their Dofus and watched the stars.

A portal and teleport later, Yugo and Adamaï were right up behind them. The infant pair took notice and carefully turned, clinging to the Dofus on newborn legs as they looked up at their older siblings. The dragon had beautiful, golden eyes and the eliatrope's were warm brown like hazelnuts in harvest season… but there was no missing the weight behind them. The years. More experience sat behind them than any child should possibly have.

"Qilby," Adamaï hissed, his eyes full of hate.


The toddler flexed both hands, his left especially and with regularity as he stared at it. It was so new to Qilby to have it back, though every rebirth required him to establish new muscle memories. It didn't help that eliatropes weren't born with their powers either, which always made getting around a hassle for the first few years.

"Qilby," called his sister, and he shifted inside his hat as the magenta wyrmling's head poked out.

"Shinonome, I-", his voice caught in his throat. He had been within his sister's mind. Nothing he could say would absolve her of the guilt. That they had been born again at all was as dumb of luck as when Yugo and Adamaï had accidentally released him from the Blank Dimension.

Instead, he embraced her. They lay like that a time (they could do little else having been just born) as their siblings gabbed incoherently nearby. It sounded like their Dofus had been flung a bit further than the others, a fact he confirmed looking down the hillside to see the Dofus of their siblings had not bounced out of the crater before hatching like theirs had.

"I can't make it right," he said finally. "And… I can't leave. Not without others. Not without you." He turned to his side, so they could stare into one another's eyes. "Will you still stay with me though? Watch the stars, even if we cannot reach them?"

The dragon uncoiled from the hat and settled around their Dofus, silent and sad. Qilby unsteadily crawled up himself, pushing his feet through the bottom of his hat like a makeshift skirt. Standing was still beyond him, so he leaned up on the Dofus instead from the other side.

Finally, she answered: "I can't say. I don't feel as if I deserve it. If we deserve it. It will be up to Yugo and the others."

Qilby seethed, reflexively grabbing his newly-replaced arm. "Yugo?! That arrogant upstart?! Of all our sisters and brothers, even including Phaeris, he always understood our plight the least. He and Adamaï always off on their adventures, hardly having anytime to lead or govern - why Chibi would have ever named him head of the council before me-"

He stopped. Shinonome's head had drooped. No, no, nonono. He couldn't let her abandon him again. The Blank Dimension had broken him, but the loss of his sister's love had destroyed him. Fate had granted this second chance to earn it back, and he would not squander it - not even if it meant a hundred lifetimes on this mudball of a world.

He hugged her again, as awkwardly as an adult in a newborn's body could, then looked up at the stars. "Just… Stay with me. Like this. That's all I ask. That's all I could want right now."

And so they did. Until Yugo and Adamaï showed up and ruined it.


"Qilby," Adamaï hissed, his eyes full of hate.

Well, I suppose this discussion was inevitable, thought Qilby. Adamaï towered over his now younger brother's infantile body, and hovering off the ground only added to the effect. The angry dragon's leer was full of barely contained malice.

Though Qilby momentarily entertained the idea of pretending to be as amnesiac as his siblings in the crater, Shinonome made his usually easy lies… challenging. She could call him out on his bluffs, but more importantly, further dishonesty would only drive her further away.

"Adamaï," the baby eliatrope responded instead, attempting a dignified stand and only managing to fall on his rump. Not a great start. "I… Hope we can talk about this before doing anything rash."

The dragon only bared his teeth in response. The whole scene had to look absurd to an outside observer - a dragon threatening a toddler.

"Enough Adamaï," said Yugo, carefully putting a hand on his brother's leg (the best he could do, given the height difference). "Qilby… How are you here? How did the Dofus survive the destruction of Oropo's dimension?"

He paused, then continued with a frown. "I meant what I said when we last parted - I won't be fooled by your tricks and lies any more. So don't attempt to deceive us."

Yugo - the self-righteous knight - was the cooler head for once. Qilby could hardly believe that - something must have seriously made him question his convictions since the last time they met… oh, some six years ago, judging by the pair's growth? Perhaps he could talk his way out of this yet.

So he regaled the tale of his… limited experiences from within the Dofus. Periodically Yugo would ask Shinonome a question, just to confirm that he was telling the truth. Interesting that the eliatrope king trusted her so easily after stopping Qilby in Emrub - she had once sided with Qilby too. Or did Phaeris never mention that before dying to whatever killed him on this planet?

Adamaï continued to listen, and was far easier to read than his brother. His reaction upon hearing that they'd awakened when the Dofus had entered the Eliacube was riddled with anger and... just a tinge of shame. Had he been present? Had Yugo? So many questions and implications, but Qilby could chase them later. Well, assuming there was a later.

When the story finished, Yugo stepped forward and got down on his knees. Even young and in such a position, he was still a good head taller than Qilby.

"You didn't save our siblings out of altruism," he said flatly, looking Qilby in the eyes. It was a statement of fact to him, not opinion. "Shinonome did that. You've yet to earn anything resembling redemption for your horrible crimes."

Qilby was ready for that. "No," he said smoothly, "but I have many lifetimes to try, Yugo. We still have to release our people from Emrub, a task much harder without the Eliacube. And I'm hardly able to threaten you any longer - you said it yourself, you're wise to my trickery. The Eliacube is destroyed, and the components to make a new one do not exist on this planet. You've also got a significant head start in age and mastery of your powers. It will be a decade or more before mine even manifest."

At least, not unless I speed things up a bit, he mentally added while keeping a straight face.

"And what about manipulating our family, turning them against us as they grow?" he said, glancing down to the crater. Some of the sadida were picking up the babies and collecting the Dofus. Yugo was pretty sure he heard Amalia shouting in the distance too and getting closer. "What about the future when your powers have returned? Will you try to leave on the Zinit again, and destroy this world in the process? Bring back the shushus in a moment of spite?"

Qilby had no immediate answer to those accusations. His baby eyes wandered to his sister, before uttering softly: "I won't hurt her again."

"What?"

"You can't trust me Yugo!" Qilby shouted back, his eyes wet with tears, his emotions hard to control in a body so predisposed towards crying. "This curse my sister and I bear has made me do terrible things out of claustrophobia and boredom! You'll never understand!"

It wasn't the first time he'd said that.

And he had tried to make them understand. Oh, how he'd tried.

Qilby had set out to cure aging once, hoping to preserve their people so he and his sister wouldn't be so alone in keeping the history of eliatropes and dragons. To rejuvenate his siblings' minds and bodies, so they could relate to the loneliness in watching everything they love die, or forgetting about them over and over. So they could all avoid that pain.

Every attempt failed. Wakfu and living beings simply could not hold up against the inevitable force of entropy. Dragon's blood could slow the aging process. Grafts and wakfu infusions could repair some forms of damage. But there was no way to account for everything, and the mechanism for retaining memories in wakfu remained beyond even his understanding.

The truth was, simply and irrevocably, that everything died. Sure, eliatropes and dragons might live far longer than most, but even they succumbed to battle, disease, or even accidents eventually. Qilby even had his doubts about the gods' vaunted immortality, having thought of several scenarios that could at least cause the death of their avatars.

A cool wind blew through the silence and these morbid thoughts. Down below the hill, Nora started crying.

"All you can know is that I will never abandon Shinonome," Qilby finished. "No one else understands me, and no one ever will. If she won't leave this world, then neither will I."

Yugo looked down coolly at him. "You will be watched." Again, fact, not statement. Qilby had to admit he really was getting more kingly. "I won't let you hurt anyone else this time."

"You cannot be serious," Adamaï finally injected. "Yugo, if Qilby is free to roam, the World of Twelve will pay for it again. We should imprison him, right here, right now."

Qilby instinctively recoiled, sliding tinily across the churned grass from the giants in fear. This was all such a gamble. If they threw him back in the Blank Dimension again, now, even suicide couldn't save him - he'd just be trapped in his Dofus as his sister was, waiting for her to die in turn. Assuming she'd even let them be reborn again. A fate perhaps more preferable than that featureless white expanse, but horrible the same. And that was assuming he even could end himself with his toddler body - without arm strength or the ability to make wakfu blades, it could very well be impossible.

"With what, Adamaï?" Yugo responded, interrupting Qilby's fearful thoughts. "The Eliacube was the jailer's key to the Blank Dimension. We have no way to access it. All we could do is… is…"

Yugo looked at Qilby with hard eyes. Even Shinonome flinched.

"No," the little king said firmly. "I won't be like him, I won't sink to that."

Adamaï flickered briefly, teleporting in front of Qilby, pinning him down with a clawed foot before the baby could even react. "Then I will, Yugo. As many times as necessary. I won't let him deceive and destroy anyone else."

The panic of whether or not Adamaï would go through with his threat was rendered suddenly moot to Qilby, as he fell through the ground and into Yugo's arms through a portal. "No! Ad, listen to me. Killing others because of potential threats is exactly the sort of extremism Oropo encouraged! You're better than that. We both are."

The dragon stared daggers at Qilby, and ever so briefly at Yugo before turning away. "Don't compare me with how far he went, Yugo. We lose nothing but a liar and a murderer. But if you want yet another mistake on your conscience, I'll simply have to remain ready to clean it up."

A blink, and he was gone. Yugo let out a low sigh as he set down the mass murdering child while Shinonome flew over, settling next to her brother. He could tell Amalia and some of the others of the Brotherhood had arrived from their squeals of delight. Even now they were probably cooing over his reborn family members down in the crater.

He glanced down at the baby in front of him, who was watching him back with equal caution.

"I really hope you don't make me regret this, Qilby."


A/N:

No overarching plot here, I just had a couple loosely-connected short stories in mind I wanted to write and share after the OVAs / Season 3 (who knows if we'll ever see a Season 4?). Hopefully this is but first of a few, spread out over a couple years. Also I always wanted to explore what Qilby and Shinonome's rebirth would look like given their retained memories, and seeing how others would deal with a semi-unrepentant traitor who got half his race killed, the boredom and claustrophobia that drove Qilby nutty as a looney toon, etc etc. Hope you enjoyed it!

-Inferni