As impressive as the rest of the structure was, Ember was massively disappointed in Spyro's kitchen. Sure, it had brand new, top-of-the-line appliances and enough storage space in the walk-in fridge, freezer, and pantry to hold the supplies of a small army, but the spices were so sparse as to not even exist. Salt and pepper was all she could find, and in her scouring of the cabinets she found that he didn't have any dishes worth getting excited over, or even passably pretty plain ones. The space had been designed to function at the highest possible level, but it just wasn't being used. As a result the lamb was just as bland as it had been the previous night, but neither Spyro nor Cynder seemed to mind at all. There was a large, metal platter piled with meat that could be generously called medium-well, if one ignored the inconsistency of the cooking. The oven must have been filled slightly above capacity for that to happen, and the dragons had no issue tearing through the meat with their sharp teeth and powerful jaws, but Ember felt there were certain principles that ought to be upheld, especially since she was now fully awake whilst witnessing such a travesty.

Ember cleared her throat loudly, looking in Spyro's direction with an irritated expression. He turned and glanced at just how little she'd eaten before giving her his full attention, pushing his cut of a sheep's thigh aside. "What's up?" She felt her wings twitching, suppressing a growl.

"I do not wish to insult you, Spyro, but I must put voice to my concerns." Ember remembered her etiquette classes, holding a bold posture with her chest to convey her determination to be heard, but keeping her wings below Spyro's to show that she wasn't questioning his dominance.

"Why are you talking like that?" Apparently he didn't care about etiquette, even though she knew he'd learned all about it from the Elders.

"I'm… trying to open a dialogue?" She seemed like she was questioning her words as she spoke them, her perfectly practiced posture falling apart. Cynder glanced at her with sympathy, deciding to save her teasing for another time.

"Just say what's on your mind then." He said, smiling patiently. "And insult away. I'm sure I can take it."

Ember growled in frustration and slammed her hand down on the low table that held the platter, causing clumps of meat near the top of the half-eaten mound to tumble in Cynder's direction, some of it falling in her lap. "Hey, watch it!"

"This food is terrible!" Were she speaking to most any other dragon, Ember would have feared some retaliation for her brazen insult, but Spyro just nodded and hummed his agreement, still smiling. "It would be a disgrace at any dragon's table, much less yours! You're the savior of the realms, by Io, and this trash isn't good enough!"

"Ouch, Ember, jeez." Spyro gripped his chest with his claws, striking a dramatic pose and not looking genuinely bothered in the least. "I knew I was bad, but 'trash'? Yikes."

"How do you live like this? I'd go insane eating this stuff every day."

Spyro gave a thoughtful hum, nodding his assent. "Probably. There aren't any restaurants out here yet because there's no real incentive for others to move to my world, but I spend most of my time out anyway. It's not like I have any trouble buying as I go. The interest I collect from my bank is enough to live off of on its own."

"So, wait, you mostly eat fast food!?" He nodded, far too casually in her opinion. "This is a joke, right?" Ember started looking around almost manically, even checking under the table. "Where's your cook? She's hiding for this prank, right? Well the jig is up! Come out, miss cook!" The other dragons started snickering loudly, trying and failing to suppress their mirth at Ember's antics. Ember finished searching the room again and stared them down, lifting her hips and lowering her chest as if she was ready to gore someone. "This is serious, darn it!"

"So, you think my cook would be a chick, huh?" Ember blushed, but held her stance. Spyro sighed, shaking his head and leaning on the table. "I see what's going on here. Don't think I forgot that comment about this place being too big for one dragon. You wanna live with me, don't ya?"

Ember slowly relaxed her posture, walking back to the table and sighing through her snout. "You suck at this." She said, gesturing to the meat.

"Yes, I believe we've established that."

"I don't. You're better at other stuff, like kicking butt and saving people."

Cynder interjected by adding to the list. "And skateboarding, snowboarding, stunt flying, air racing, ground racing, underwater racing, video gaming, financing, drug smuggling, drug doing, and fucking." Spyro puffed his chest out and smiled broadly, his scales barely hiding his blush. "But yeah, she's right, you can't cook."

"Eh." He shrugged, relaxing his posture again and picking up the platter to clean it off after their rapid, filling, and poorly seasoned meal. In a fluid motion he lifted his chest out of his quadruped posture and stood on only his legs, speaking to Ember on his way to the sink. "You write up a list of everything you need and how much you think it will cost and I'll get it for you. If you stay here then you could have your own room, rent free, and a hefty allowance for your trouble. We wouldn't want to write it up as an official job, though, because I've got a few unlawful demands about the dress-code." He smirked back at her mischievously. "We're definitely getting you a cute apron, but it can't be attached to anything longer than a mini-skirt. It would cover up your best asset and add an extra step to the times I'll fuck you over the counter whenever I want."

If the way Ember shivered and bit her lip was anything to go by then she very much enjoyed the idea, but she still looked hesitant. "I'd love to live with you, Spyro, but I really should talk to my parents about it first."

"Go ahead and talk to them, but I know what you'll decide in the end." He said, lowering back into a quadruped stance and casually walking back to the table.

"Why are you so sure I'll stay here, anyway?"

"It's simple, really." He looked deeply into her eyes, the pure happiness in his expression shining brighter than his jokes could mask. "You love me."

They rubbed their cheeks together and closed their eyes, softly nuzzling. "Yes, I do."

Once they opened their eyes again they saw Cynder gesture toward the door to the den with her head, smiling at them. "So, is that massive screen I saw good for anything, or does it just sit there and look expensive."

"Oh, it works, and the Professor and Drobot built it together. It's 100 inches from corner to corner, and has a 16k resolution paired with a 240 hertz refresh rate that doesn't even exist on the market right now."

Cynder's mouth fell open for a solid minute, the others snickering at her. "Holy fuck, Drobit would be drooling over that thing if he was here."

"Don't get too excited. The market isn't caught up with my hardware yet so we'll just be playing in 4k for the next twenty years or so." Their day had only just started, and they'd have a lot more time together before anyone had to leave.


The click-clack of hooves on stone sounding out at a two-legged gait marked the visitor to the Dragon Realms as both foreign and unusual to the observant listener. Fauns and satyrs tended to keep to their own lands or else lived in small roaming tribes in the esoteric Faewild, so to see one bothering with a cell phone in the middle of a town would cause a double-take for the dragons she passed. Elora wasn't a typical faun by any stretch, having much of her initial distaste for modern technology eroded over the years, her friendship with a Doctor and inventor showing her all the wonderful things that technology could do. That wasn't even to mention the practical and mundane things it could do, like guiding her to a friend's house with a live map of town. She glanced down at the map on her phone again and took a final turn, once again glad that she found the mute function for the directional prompts.

She looked up at what was apparently Hunter's address, recognizing it immediately as Spyro's old house in town. It had been over a year since her last visit, and she frowned at the thought. She'd allowed herself to be wrapped up in politics for too long, and it was time to reconnect. She adjusted the strap for her pan flute and her bag, both hanging just below her leaf-dress at her hip, and gave the crumpled-up letter she'd been pondering over another look. When she'd gone to see the Professor a few days ago he'd told her about his dragon research paper and all the versions he'd gone through in the past six months, so she'd sneaked her hand into his trash to have a look at one of the old versions on her way out. She'd come away with a rather hastily written letter signed by Spyro and addressed to her, though he'd obviously never meant to actually send it, and she didn't know what to do about it.

The letter itself wasn't the only thing gnawing at her thoughts. The things she'd learned about dragons during her talk with the Professor had changed everything she thought she knew about her young, scaly friend.

Three days ago, at the Professor's lab…

Elora stared intensely at the printed diagram in her hand, checking the legend of the document frequently in her attempt to process all the information. "Huh. So that's what dragon dicks look like." Apparently the Professor had been particularly interested in dragon reproduction, so Elora had access to extensive information about their genitalia. From what she was seeing dragons were actually something that wasn't fully reptilian nor fully mammalian. She had assumed dragons were warm-blooded when she saw how active and energetic Spyro was in several different environments, in spite of his outwardly reptilian scales and crest, and dragon genital structure followed that pattern. Dragons had a vertical slit between their thighs that terminated at a horizontal vent, thus appearing similarly to a cloaca from a glance, but internally the vent lead to an anus entirely separate from the reproductive organs, so the correct term for the space beyond the slit was 'sheath' rather than 'cloaca.' The urinary tract was also separate for females, just as with fauns, but unlike satyrs and most other male mammals the male dragons also had a urinary tract separate from their penises, the urethra in the same relative position on their slits as it was for females. She was also surprised to see that a pair of testes would develop at the base of dragon's penis, as shielded as the penis itself prior to arousal, rather than the testes always being exposed as with most mammals. It also seemed that male dragons would develop more, fully internal testes over the course of their lives, and the 4,145 year old subject the Professor had studied had developed four more at that time. The Professor had scribbled several frantic notes about that, theorizing that the first testes to develop served a non-reproductive function, but he didn't have the samples he needed to come to any solid conclusions.

Fauns and satyrs were known for their sexual curiosity and promiscuity: there were several songs about it. They would often have many sexual experiences with mere friends for the first half of their 150 year lifespans, settling down with a permanent partner and turning to other pursuits after the age of 70 years. Their modern culture reflected the old in the case of those who sought jobs outside of satyr dominated communities, becoming reproductive biologists or relationship counselors more often than not. Elora often regretted becoming embroiled in realm-spanning politics, and was glad to have something else to think about during her vacation. Dragons were especially fascinating for her, since they'd been mere legend in Avalar during her childhood. As such, and for one other, more personal reason, their reproductive biology had held the majority of her attention during her visit.

"Your notes say that dragons can't reproduce until they're over 2,000 years old."

"That is correct, yes. It's fascinating just how much sooner their sex organs begin to function as you would expect from creatures ready to breed. The equivalent developmental intermediary period in moles only lasts a year or two at most."

"Oh?" Elora perked up with interest, setting the diagrams aside and giving the Professor her full attention, though he was still distractedly scribbling something over his notepad. "How early do they start? Twelve hundred years, maybe?"

"Goodness no. Twenty-nine, actually."

Elora had been very aware of Spyro's age of 32 years when she'd learned that, but she didn't want to come off as too eager to learn about him specifically, so she thought taking some notes that the Professor didn't even need any longer would be a good compromise. She got more than she'd expected when she found Spyro's letter, so she'd decided to see what Hunter thought of the whole situation before speaking to Spyro directly. She went ahead and knocked on the door, stuffing the letter back into her bag along with her phone. She wouldn't get anything done just standing around.

Elora was surprised to see Bianca, the rabbit sorceress opening the door, but she shouldn't have been. Hunter had mentioned over text messages that the two were living together by then, but Elora hadn't really thought about it much. "Oh hey, Ellie."

"Elora." She corrected immediately. She hated that nickname.

Bianca rolled her eyes and stepped aside. "Fine, Elora, get in here. How's being a liaison?"

"Well, I always have a headache and no one respects me, but at least we haven't had another civil war yet." Avalar was a chaotic realm with many factions and worlds, none of them dominating like the dragons did in the Dragon Realms. Keeping the peace there meant constant negotiating and compromise. Even during Ripto's takeover the infighting hadn't stopped, and Elora knew it was only a matter of time before another small war started. "How's life in paradise?"

Bianca could easily hear the bitterness that Elora failed to hide, shaking her head on her way to the living room. "It's peaceful." That simple answer was like a sting from a hornet for Elora, but thankfully she had the distraction of seeing Hunter frantically clicking a mouse in front of a computer monitor in the next moment. Their living room was far bigger than it needed to be, and some of the extra space had been dedicated to a pair of computers right next to each other. Bianca's screen showed a forum for Spellcasters. The rabbit had apparently engrossed herself in an argument about dark magic. "Hey, Hunter, guess who just showed up."

"Hang on, guys; I've got a guest." Hunter took off his headset and the attached microphone casually, the faint blaring of curse words and quick planning heard emanating from them.

"That sounds important." Hunter waved a hand dismissively.

"It's not. Just some try-hards' game I got talked into trying. It's been a long time since we've seen you." Hunter awkwardly shuffled his feet while Elora stared at the ground, clasping her hands behind her back just above her tail. Bianca looked between the two as if waiting for them to do something, but they didn't seem inclined to move.

"Okay, well, I'll just let you two catch up then." Bianca slipped back into her seat and immediately started typing furiously, wanting the others to not feel like she was just watching and listening, but not willing to leave her former activity. She could only muster up a smidgen of care for Elora's visit in the first place: they didn't know each other very well. It wasn't long before she'd finished the point she'd wanted to make, posting her lengthy rebuttal to the user roarin_funderlic in defense of shadow magic, as it could have its uses for good. She'd made the point that entirely destroying an element of magic was completely impossible anyway, so it was best to at least know about dark magic for the purposes of self-defense. She was excited to get an immediate response.

I know rabbits can't keep it in their pants, but could you suck Red's dick somewhere else? #glkglk #evilapologist

"That's enough Internet for today." Bianca muttered to herself, huffing and crossing her arms.

"Hey!" She heard a young, male voice scream desperately from the earphones Hunter had been using. "Hunter! Get back here, damn it! You went AFK in the middle of the forest path!"

"Oh what the Hell?" Bianca decided to indulge herself, switching to Hunter's seat and slipping on the headset. She hardly noticed that Elora and Hunter had been talking quietly on the couch nearby. "Hey, Hunter is kinda busy right now, but I can fill in for him."

"Have you ever played Lizard Bleeder?" Asked a second, more nasally voice.

"It can't be too hard. How do I cast my spells?"

"You don't have spells." Said the first voice, making Bianca's eye twitch.

"Are you serious right now?"

"This game is set in a near-future magical bleed event. Spells won't work in this setting. You have to use your enchanted weapons to penetrate the scales of the zombified lizards." A lot of what the first voice was saying was being followed by muttered affirmations from the second, but Bianca noticed another player that hadn't said anything yet, their grim-faced cheetah character model taking up the majority of the screen. Bianca turned her eyes to the text chat and saw 'kick the afk?' was the latest message. "Ignore that guy. He's a random and I'm pretty sure he has voice chat turned off."

"How do I even play this game? Where's the enemy team?"

"Oh fuck me, this is gonna take awhile."

"We're playing with a newb on the hardest difficulty, Flame. I believe we are screwed this match. Regardless, I can explain the game in great detail if you would like to join us for a second match."

"No, Drobit, no! We don't have time for this." Bianca heard a violent sound effect ring in her left ear, the healthbar that had been full at the bottom of the screen dipping to less than a quarter of its former glory in one damage tick. "By the Sea Mother, protect her left side! Now, Hunter's mate-"

"Bianca." She shook her head, reminded of her initial meeting with Elora that day. "I mean, what do I need to do?"

"Hit the 'escape' key on your keyboard, click 'options', and tab to keybinds so you can see what everything does really quickly."

Bianca gulped, swiftly following Flame's instructions. "Won't I get killed while I'm figuring things out?" She asked while navigating through the menus.

"No." Flame replied. "This is a 'players against environment' game and we're pretty good at it. We can protect you through this horde if you hurry."

She had taken to playing Massively Multiplayer Online games with Hunter for some casual fun because it wasn't physically demanding like most of his other hobbies, nor as exclusive and esoteric as her magical studies. She knew how to strategize around virtual statistics and move her avatars around efficiently, but the game she'd jumped into was on a whole other level. "I cast spells for a living. I can do this." She squinted at a couple of unassigned functions, perplexed by what seemed to be the game's default setup. "Shouldn't I bind 'Dodge' and 'Jump' to separate keys? Seems weird for them to share the same one, or am I missing something?"

"That's the spirit. Only filthy casuals use one key for both. Fuck!" Bianca saw another, smaller healthbar decrease by a marginal amount in stark contrast to the massive amount Bianca had lost. She quickly recognized it as part of her list of allies. The two icons with speech indicators flashing had the usernames "Flamin_Fools" and "Logicflow". The last icon had the username "xX_gildeddaddy_Xx" floating above it. "You're the glass cannon with the best precision ranged weapon so stick with me, our tank, and shoot all the specials."

"Uh… specials?" Bianca asked, beginning to shoot down virtual foes as they approached.

"There are many enemy units with special abilities that can disable or damage players in unique ways, and many attack from afar." Drobit seemed rather casual about the whole affair, as if he really didn't mind losing a match or two. When the enemies were cleared it seemed that Flame wasn't too worried either, but always sounded more committed to victory in the heat of simulated battle.

"You didn't think it was all just boring lizard zombies, did you? Let's do this!"


"So?" Elora asked when Hunter finished reading the letter, the cheetah shaking his head in disappointment. "How do you think I should approach him about this?"

"I think you should forget about it." He crumpled the paper back up and pulled his arm back to chuck it across the room dismissively, but Elora snatched it from his hand before he could finish the toss, looking cross. "Look, he obviously never wanted you to read all that. He was just venting, and just because he had a bad day and wrote something to let off some steam you think you need to..." He trailed off, not sure if Elora really had any plans at all. "What are you gonna do? Tell him not to have feelings? Or give him a pity date or something?"

"You know that's the last thing I would do. I don't want this," she waved the letter around, "to be our relationship for the next few years. I want him to be my friend again when I go back to Avalar." Elora put on a confident front, but Hunter knew she wouldn't be talking to him about it before confronting Spyro if she was really so sure of herself. For a moment Hunter was pulled out of the conversation by a pleasant chime from his phone, so he glanced down at the screen to see the new text message he'd received. 'Guess who isn't a virgin anymore.' It was from Spyro. "I know he has a crush on me, and he definitely has had one for awhile, but I didn't think he'd be this explosive about it, you know? The whole point of all this was to let him down easy, but it doesn't seem to be working out how we expected."

"Uh huh." Hunter was barely listening to her, hastily tapping out a reply with his phone hidden by his thigh. 'Who'd you score with?'

"Hunter, the phone will still be there later. I need a second opinion on this." Spyro's response was much more enthusiastic. 'Ember and Cynder at the same time.' Hunter blinked in surprise, and then another message followed. 'You haven't met Cynder before, but you're going to now. E-mail me your schedule for the summer. I'm working something out.' "What's so important, anyway?"

"Uh, nothing! It's just summer events being updated. Yeah." Elora tilted her head at him, suspicious of his hasty explanation, but she let it be. She had more pressing concerns.

"Look, I know he's older now, and I guess this letter is proof that he still cares about me, but he was just a kid at the time. I need him to understand my reasons for not taking that ride seriously."

"What, the love tunnel thing?" Hunter shook his head, clearly annoyed with her obliviousness. "He doesn't really care about that, trust me. So a dark tunnel with flowing water and soft music put you to sleep, no big deal. Then you decided to bury yourself in your work, and that was a big deal. We've been through a lot without your help, you know."

Elora crossed her arms and leaned back, unimpressed. "My work was keeping Avalar from becoming a problem again. You were born there; did you already forget what it's like? I came here for a little advice, not whatever this is."

Hunter closed his eyes for a moment, collecting his thoughts. "I'm sorry. It's just that Spyro has been kind of down on himself lately, even after everything he's done, and I'm pretty sure you know why."

"You know exactly why I pushed him away. You agreed with me. Don't dare try to pretend you didn't now." Hunter sighed and slumped back into the couch; the topic they were approaching was rather unpleasant. "Just imagine it, Hunter. Living for one hundred thousand lonely years after the love of your life has died. How would you feel, visiting Bianca's grave for that long? I'm just a faun." Elora couldn't keep herself composed, the thought of all the pain Spyro would go through if she ever indulged her desire to be with him somehow worse than the thought that her life would end. She had to blink back tears, her arms lowering and her hands shaking. "I won't last long enough to love a dragon."

"He'll be alright, Elora." Hunter opened an arm to Elora and she accepted the offer, crying silently into his shoulder. "Maybe he'll change when we pass, but he'll learn to cope. Then he'll be ready when it happens again."

"And again and again!"

"I know. I know." Hunter held her gently while she let out her sadness, her crying controlled and silent. She had a lot of practice masking her emotions in her stressful line of work, so her little fit didn't last long. He patiently patted her back, giving her time to compose herself.

Elora shook her head against his shoulder, sniffling. "I'm sorry for the waterworks. I'm being stupid. It's just that, he was a kid before, at least physically, so I was really just planning to let him down easy later. But I just found out that he's already old enough so it's all just hitting me at once." She lifted her face from his shoulder, sitting up properly and looking him in the eyes. "Why can't the other dragons love him? They live just as long, and he's done enough for them. You'd think with the way the news builds him up all the time and those weird fan groups that at least one desperate fan would have asked him out by now." One of her ears flicked as she looked to the side and squinted her eyes, thinking of the girl that she'd seen hanging around with Spyro lately. "I thought for sure that Ember would have done it, but then she went off with some random armadillo instead. I guess she comes back to visit often these days, but I just don't want him to be lonely for the rest of his life. He needs at least one of them to be more than a friend."

Hunter cringed, barely keeping his claws from extending into Elora's back, and she picked up on his more tense posture. She slowly backed further away until his arm dropped back to his side and looked him in the eyes, seeing the nervousness he tried to hide behind a neutral expression. "What if they had asked him out? I mean, I haven't seen Bandit around with Ember for a couple years at least, and uh… I mean, would you be okay with that?"

"I'm too late." Elora closed her eyes and lowered her head, smiling sadly. "Good. Now he'll be happy."

"But you won't be. You hate your job, and you love Spyro." Elora looked up at Hunter mournfully, her ears flicked back in sadness. "His crush on you was never one-way, was it?"

"It was at first." She held her left arm in her right hand and looked away, shielding herself. "It took me awhile to warm up to him, but that's what it felt like. Warm and friendly, kinder than he gives himself credit for. By the time I knew what I wanted I also knew a lot more about dragons. I knew I couldn't be with him before I talked to you about it."

"Yeah, but when we agreed that you needed to just be friends with him you didn't tell me how you really felt about him. To answer your hypothetical, if I had to visit Bianca's grave for one hundred thousand years then I would still be happy that I had any time with her at all. Spyro might be willing to make the same choice, and you'll never know until you ask."

"No." Elora stood up and turned toward the entrance hall, clenching her fists. "If Spyro can move on and be with other dragons then my plan worked. I'll leave and let him be happy."

"Hey!" Elora flinched at the volume of Hunter's shout as he stood up, staring her down. She kept her eyes averted, gazing at the exit, but she couldn't block out the words he spoke. "I know you've never understood this, since you sacrificed the life you could've had to fight Ripto, but you deserve to be happy too. Promise me you'll at least talk to Spyro, today, before you decide anything." For a long moment the only sounds in the room were coming from Bianca, obliviously immersed in a fantasy, shielded from the emotional turmoil that afflicted Elora every day. Hunter only ceased to hold his breath when Elora turned her gaze from the floor back to him, walking away from the exit.

"I promise." They embraced, reconciled, Elora prepared to face the rest of her day. "And thank you."

"Eh, it's no trouble. Besides, I had selfish reasons."

"Oh?" Hunter nodded his head down toward her pan flute, Elora slowly lifting it with delicate fingers. "This is how we met." Elora's mother had been teaching her to play while Hunter's father was taking him hunting in the same forest. The joyful music had served as quite the distraction, drawing the cheetahs to the fauns, and Elora and Hunter had been like siblings since then. Elora's mother had been young, still sleeping around as fauns of her age were prone to do, so Elora had never really had a father, but Hunter's father, Akello, had filled that role for her until she was old enough to strike out on her own.

"You stopped playing when Ripto showed up, and even after that I'd never seen you with your flute again. If Spyro heard you playing I think he'd fall in love all over again."

"I guess we'll find out today." Elora said, letting the pan flute fall back against her bag.

"Yeah, about that." Hunter scratched the back of his head, looking pensive. "Spyro might still have two other dragons with him right now, so why don't you let Bianca and me come with you? That way you wouldn't have to feel, uh… Overwhelmed, I guess? And his place is big enough for you two to talk privately anyway." Elora sat back on the couch after he said it, a snippet of information he'd only just revealed having taken her by surprise. He awkwardly sat back down beside her, fidgeting his fingers in his lap. "I'm pretty sure Spyro is going to have a lot to tell us, but I'm sure you still have time. The Professor did say dragons take tons of mates when they get popular, or something like that."

Elora shook her head, her surprised expression becoming one of doubt. "I don't know what I'm going to do. Sharing a lover is just..." She took a deep breath, leaning back in the couch, mentally exhausted already. "I've never even considered that before."

"Well, when in Dragon Realms do as dragons do, right?" That got a chuckle out of her, calm acceptance settling over them.

"Mind turning on the news? Spyro's usually the one who visits me, so I'm behind on what's been happening here."

"Sure." Hunter grabbed his universal remote and turned on the television, switching over to the Dragon News Network broadcast. "I'll let Spyro know we're coming in a couple of hours. Gives him time to look presentable." More importantly it would give Elora time to work up the courage to go at all.


"Aaaah!" Bianca screamed at the screen, in the thick of combat. "Come on you undead freaks!"

"I can't believe that random died to a rodent swarm." Drobit threw his last enchanted flask of soul-rending into the throng of lizard zombies and rabid shade hounds, staggering them and applying damage over time. "Until we get to supplies I'm out of crowd control."

"Flame can handle them with his axe anyway, just help me kill these haywire hoppers!" Robots built in the Dragon Realms often had magical components, and that of course meant that the designers of the game could throw several out-of-control machines at their players, including frog-like robots that leaped onto individual players before exploding for enough damage to 'down' the player. The revival system could only be used to save a player once until they healed themselves to reset it on their current difficulty setting, and there was no backing out of that challenge until they either won the match, or failed it miserably.

"Bianca, corrupted turrets on the ridge." Flame's call-outs and swift advice had kept Bianca going and she followed his directions without hesitation, learning as she went. There wasn't time to question her actions or feel silly for fighting so hard to win a game, the intensity of the combat only leaving room for adrenaline and a rush of power when she did well.

"I have them. Cover me!" After she shot the last turret to pieces with her enchanted bow and arrows, Bianca saw everything in the game-world shake, the music lowering and slowing, taking on an even more sinister timbre. "Um, what the Hell was that?"

"Oh come on." A massive black dragon dropped down from the sky, blocking the small canyon path in front of them.

"That's a mutant death dragon mini-boss." Drobit explained.

"'Mini'? It's huge!" Bianca shot it directly between the eyes with her powerful ranged weapon and then glanced up at its healthbar, seeing it shorten by a distance of only a few pixels. "We are so dead."

"Don't let its shadow-fire hit you or the burn damage will finish you off. I'll try to keep its attention so stop attacking when it starts going for you."

Bianca shoved, stabbed, and dodged, trying to mop up the rest of the weaker foes while avoiding the haywire hoppers so she could eventually help with the mini-boss. "It's just a game." She ran out of stamina points from trying to block too many foes at once, staggering her and shaking her view violently. "It's just a game." Drobit was downed by the last hopper when he tried to reach the supply box behind the boss, Bianca rapidly cleaving into the hordes around him to keep him alive. "I'm gonna beat this stupid game!"


"It's just a game, Cynder. Don't get too hissy."

"Oh shut up you smug bastard." Cynder's avatar became a ragdoll again after Spyro landed another headshot with his railgun, his score ticking up to 14 to her abysmal 3. "Fuck me."

"I just might." Ember had retired to one of the castle's many showers after breakfast, but Cynder had begged Spyro to play a few games before they did the same. Faebreakers was an older science fiction title taking place in a fictitious version of the aetherial chaos beyond the Faewild, and the two had played it extensively when they were much younger. In the years since their last match Spyro had improved drastically, as he tended to do in any competitive medium he applied himself to. "Hold on a sec, I got a new message." He paused the game to glance down at his phone, Cynder dropping the controller on the couch in defeat.

"You might be better at Faebreakers, but I'm gonna kick your ass at Wiz Brawl." When Cynder saw the serene smile on his face as he gazed down at his phone, she put the games out of her mind, the sight making her smile too. "I know that look. I saw it on your face last night." She slid her arm over his shoulders and whispered into his ear. "So, who are we welcoming to Spyro's harem? Do I know her?"

"No, no, it's not like that." His wings slumped and his gaze fell, but his loving smile hadn't broken. "Elora is just a friend. I'll be happy to see her again, but that's it."

"Elora is an exotic name." Cynder said, trying to comfort him. "Is she a Dream Weaver?" Spyro shook his head.

"She's a faun." That gave Cynder pause, Spyro nodding at her reaction. "Exactly. I don't think she's interested in dragons. Fauns are a little too soft for us anyway."

Cynder gave Spyro a comforting nuzzling, hugging him closer. "Denial is a bad look for you, Spyro."

"She doesn't think of me that way." Spyro insisted, his posture slumping further.

"But you do, don't you?" Spyro didn't bother denying it, and Cynder fully embraced him, holding their chests together and laying her head on his back. He slowly put his arms around her, clinging to her desperately. He was trembling.

"Why am I crying?" Barely over an hour ago Cynder's entire world had been Spyro. He'd brought her to heights of pleasure she'd never thought possible, and he always seemed to know exactly what to do. His power would have been terrifying if she hadn't trusted him absolutely, but in spite of all that he was still a fragile, emotional creature, just like every other mortal, and she didn't like it. She held him tight for several minutes, comforting him until his chest stopped heaving and he swallowed down his sudden sadness. "This is stupid. I have you, and I have Ember. I'll be fine."

"Loving someone who doesn't love you back always hurts, but it's even worse when you really aren't sure how they feel." Cynder pulled back and stared him down, pressing her snout against his. "When she gets here you're going to tell her exactly how you feel about her, and then she's gonna do the same. Do you understand, hero boy?" He seemed to be debating the merits of that for a few seconds, but quickly nodded his assent.

"I'll do it for you, but she'll just laugh it off and tell me I'm being silly."

"Is she stupid?" Cynder suddenly asked, completely straight-faced.

"Uh, no. She's brilliant."

"Good. Then you have nothing to worry about. Only an idiot would turn you down, Spyro." She gave him a long, loving kiss, feeling him relax as they held each other, his confidence restored by her encouragement. "Now come on." She hopped off his lap and started toward the showers, smirking back at him. "We need to look presentable for your guest."

"Well, guests. Hunter and Bianca are coming too."

Cynder rolled her eyes and huffed. "They better not get in the way. Ember is proving a little harder to dominate than I expected and I am not gonna be the bottom bitch." Spyro almost tripped over himself when he heard that, visions of a naked Elora, Ember, and Cynder all playfully wrestling each other on his bed invading his thoughts. "Plus, I've heard fauns are excellent lays."


"So?" High Five buzzed in the air excitedly between his two friends, eagerly awaiting their response, the tome of dark spells in its place behind him. "What do you think?"

"Your plan is an insult to Arcades Sabboth." Rock declared with a grim tone, invoking the name of his most noteworthy ancestor, famed for impenetrable defenses and absolute honesty. "I hope he forgives me, because I don't see any other way."

"Palladia-Mors would approve." Camo added, referencing one of his own ancestors from the same time period. "She knew when to bend the rules for the sake of victory."

Rock nodded, taking a deep breath. "If we do this, I will be honor-bound by the spirit of Arcades to leave the Mountain Crackers. If only one of us can take the blame, allow it to be me."

"No way, dude." High Five said. "If you leave then so do we."

"It's decided, then." Camo turned to the spellbook, narrowing his eyes. "Let it remain here until the final night. Then, we shall secret it away to its new Master."

"On the day of the meeting, Hoss will pay for his hubris. With any luck we will be blamed for our supposed failure, and he will cast us out, giving us exactly what we want." Rock and Camo then waited for High Five to add his own words to their moment of triumphant planning, but after a good long wait they realized he'd started staring at his phone. "Oh come on, Fives!"

"Dudes, look what Spyro just posted on Realmbridge!" Camo quickly fished out his own phone and navigated to the most successful and user-friendly inter-realm social media platform, his subscription to Spyro's Newsfeed highest on his update priority list. Rock just rolled his eyes and looked at High Five's phone. "He totally scored with both the girls we saw him with at the same time! Damn, they're gorgeous aren't they?"

Yes he is, Camo thought, staring at Spyro's confident smirk and vibrant eyes, Ember and Cynder smiling on either side of him. Now that he was no longer a virgin, Spyro was considered to be on the market for mates, and the fact that he already had two of them didn't dissuade a deluge of users from posting flirty messages under the image. Camo lost track of time while he was staring, but the voice of High Five roused him from his trance.

"More interested in Spyro himself, huh?" Camo suddenly got the sinking feeling that he might have muttered his little thought aloud.

"No!" Camo backed up a few steps, Rock and High Five closing in playfully on either side. "I like girls, thanks!"

"Oh, we know." Rock said, his deep, rumbling voice adding a layer of menace to his teasing. "You always get so nervous and excited when a pretty girl gets close, her scales shining bright in the sunlight."

"Her eyes are piercing and dominating." High Five continued relentlessly, Camo's back to a wall. "Slowly she runs her hand up your thigh, then moves it to your crotch."

"But you aren't imagining a girl right now, are you?" Rock grinned smugly, fanning out his wings. "You're thinking of Spyro right now, his firm grip starting to squeeze-"

"I- I- I-" Camo was breathing fast and hard, looking around frantically until his eyes landed on the stairs out of the basement. "I need some air!" He bolted, trying desperately to avoid getting a raging boner in front of his best friends.

"Wow." High Five watched Camo abscond, surprised. "I guess he really does have a thing for Spyro." Rock audibly slapped a hand into his own face, groaning in agitation. "What!?"

"By the ancestors, Fives, could you be any more dense? It astounds me that you managed to put a decent plan together at all. How many brain-cells do you have to work with in that bulbous head of yours?"

"Screw you, my dude. Screw. You."


Spyro and Elora would soon reunite, set on a course that could finally bring them together. What Spyro didn't yet know was that there were several more potential mates all working up the nerve to ask for his touch. Cynder had been right: he was going to see a lot of action.