"Vivian?"

"What?"

"Come out here please."

With a sigh Vivian left the stove to see what Jon wanted. She looked outside the open door and froze. Before both of them was a tall woman with pale blonde hair that was almost white. Her eyes were a brilliant green.

"Mom?"

"Hello Vivian," the woman said in Norse. "It is good to see you again."

"What do you want?" Vivian asked harshly in Norse. Jon wisely stepped back. "You haven't spoke to me in over twenty years and suddenly you are here unannounced!"

"We need to talk," the woman said urgently.

"No. You need to leave Olga. I won't talk to you just as you refused to talk to me."

"It's about Iris." Vivian stared at her in shock. "Yes, I know her. All of us do. And now I must speak with you."

"She's not here," Vivian said dangerously.

"I know. She's in Drage Verden."

Vivian stared at her mother as Olga stared back. She had been the most vocal about being against her and Jon's marriage. She had also been the one to tell her that she would be disowned if she married him. Vivian never knew the reason why her whole family was against Jon but they had all followed Olga's threat and refused to speak or acknowledge her after she married Jon.

"After all these years," Vivian said in English. "Disowning me for marrying someone I love, refusing to ever speak to me, now you want to talk to me? Because of my daughter? Who is gone? Leave. I refuse to speak to you."

"I know she left on a dragon," Olga said firmly in perfect English. "And she left with a man who never should have been here. We need to talk. You need to know."

"Vivian let her," Jon said quietly. "At least you can listen to the excuses she'll make up."

"Fine," Vivian snapped. "Come in. Don't get comfortable."

She stalked back to the stove and slammed the tea kettle on the stove top. She ignored Olga as she waited for the kettle to start boiling. An uneasy silence settled over the kitchen that was only interrupted by the snapping and crackling of flames. Finally the kettle began to whistle.

Jon had already set two cups with a tea bag in each on the table. He was nowhere to be seen, probably lurking in the living room in case she needed him. She wanted to call him back in, to sit with her, but she didn't dare have her mother try to use him as a weakness. Instead she poured the boiling water into each cup before setting it back on the stove and taking her seat.

"Speak," she growled.

"Your union with Jon was never meant to happen," Olga began. Right out the gate with being against her marriage. "Your marriage caused a weakness among the worlds, created a chance of a bond forming. When you conceived Iris, that bond was created between her and the Drage Verden man who was only a babe at the time."

"You sound like an idiot," Vivian snapped. What nonsense.

"Just listen to me. That boy was never meant to come here. Iris was never meant to exist. You and Jon were never meant to marry. The blood you both carry is too close in powers and should have never mixed." Olga sighed, rubbing her face. "I know you don't trust me. I should have explained things better but instead I messed up and cut off all ties with you." She stared at the cup in her hands, frowning slightly. "Did Iris feel, close with the boy? Were they drawn together? Almost too forcefully?"

"Yes," Jon said. Vivian glared at him as he entered the kitchen. "She's my daughter too. They were attracted to each other the moment they looked at each other. It wasn't normal."

"Because they were meant to be," Olga said firmly. "A bond formed across worlds that bound them to each other. That is why he ended up here, why his world released him to come here and the same reason why our world allowed humans to use the portal only dragons could enter."

"You are trying to tell me that our daughter was destined to fall in love with a boy from another world?" Vivian asked drily. Olga nodded. "What kind of drugs are you on?"

"Trust me," she repeated. "The signs were all there as she grew. I know you have Monu translate that story from Norse to English for her. She read it."

"Well duh," Vivian said. "Why else would I have it translated? For her to just look at it on the bookcase? Iris loved reading it and I don't blame her. Its a good story."

"And it connected the bond even stronger," Olga said firmly. "The boy she never should have known she knew through a book. Do you ever wonder why you two settled here?"

"Because we both don't like people," Jon answered, giving Olga a pointed look that made Vivian snicker.

"Or it could be because this is where the dragons dwell," Olga said. "And where he would enter this world. Even before she was born your bloods knew to be here."

"I've had to believe a lot lately but this takes the cake," Vivian drawled. "You want me to believe that somehow us getting married caused changes in the world and Iris was born to be with Dagur. Yeah right."

"It has happened before," Olga argued. "It happened with my sister and her child! She married a man she never should have, had a child that was swept away to another world to be with the one he was bound to by fate. That is why our family kept ourselves closed away from the world, why we are so strict with marriages. To avoid situations like these! Now your daughter is gone!"

"Shut up," Vivian snapped. "I know she is gone! I'll never see her again! She is living in a world where everything is different than ours, that none of us knew actually existed outside a story book! You are just here to gloat!"

"I'm here to help you! You maybe able to bring her back!"

"No," Jon said firmly. "She went there on her own free will. I won't let you force her back."

"She is your daughter!"

"We know that," Vivian snapped. "Maybe if you had ever been part of her life, you'd have known how Iris is. She is a free spirit, an intelligent young woman. She can make her own choices and she did just that. She went with the young man she loved to have a life with him. Even if it means I will never see her again, all I want is for her to be happy."

Olga stared at her in shock. Vivian stared right back, her gaze unwavering. For weeks after Iris and Dagur left she had cried, missing her one and only baby. However she knew it was for the best. Iris deserved to be happy, even if that meant going to another world filled with dragons and danger. It was her own decision.

"What if you could go there?" Olga finally asked after sitting there in silence.

"I don't know," Vivian said. "Jon and I have our lives here. What kind of parents would we be if we chased after our daughter to hover around her?"

"If you could would you?" the woman pressed.

"Maybe," Jon answered.

"I agree," Vivian said. "Maybe."

"I will show you how," Olga began.

"Don't," Jon said with a shake of his head. "If we are meant to go there we will but we aren't going to let you tempt us with showing us how. Besides, we'd need a dragon or two to get there anyways. Its not a trip humans could trek easily. Probably why no one has discovered it."

"Very well," Olga said. She looked at both of them, her gaze moving back and forth. "You, look happy."

"I am," Vivian said. "Very happy."

"I'm glad." She cleared her throat. "Could I, ask what Iris was like?"

"She is a very smart and curious girl," Vivian said. She didn't like how Olga kept addressing Iris in past tense. "And she is very much alive."

"I misspoke," Olga said quietly. "Sorry."

"I think you should leave," Vivian said. Jon gave her a look. "She found her way here. She can find her way back."

"I just want to give you something before I go," Olga said. "This is for you. You should have received it before you left home. I'm sorry."

The woman handed her a large leather bound book filled with yellowed pages. The cover was blank with no writing, no drawings, absolutely nothing. It was just leather. However when Vivian put her hands on it, something felt odd about it. Like something was pulling at her the way a magnet pulled metal to it.

Opening the cover, she stared at the first page in shock. It was if the drawings on that page were alive. They shifted and moved, the flowering vines that dominated the page opening and closing their buds and leaves. The small lady bugs that were on the plants scurried about up and down the vines. A single butterfly opened and closed its wings without leaving the page.

"Inside is the explanations for everything," Olga explained. "I was shocked my first time reading the pages when I got mine."

"How?" Jon asked.

"Simple. Magic."

"Ugh. Fuck."

Boom. Happy Fourth of July weekend American readers. I'll be busy. Getting chocolate wasted.