Author's Note: You thought it was Normalcy that was gonna get updated next, but it was I, UnDioning! Seriously though, you actually thought I'd end the story with the wedding? Heck no! We gotta go back into the future! Get back into the car Marty, this trip ain't over yet!

PS: Happy Birthday Terra Branford! Number one stal- I mean fan here!

An Undying Sentiment

Chapter Four

Ever After... Part 1:

Family

We rejoin this narrative after many years took a toll in this world. It was the year 20 P.R., eighteen years past our last entry in this world. After the cataclysmic events of our previous tale, it was more than logical for the worlds to adjust to each other, the first measure being the establishment of a joint calendar. For that reason, the Post Rebirth Calendar had been made mandatory to all worlds.

Sitting on a barely lit room, a single lamp illuminating the desk, a figure forced his hands to type on a typewriter. The room itself was far more advanced than something out of the stone age like that, with technology you'd only have seen in Caelum or Pulse previously like moving photos and paintings, top of the line computers, even one of those things that had been called smartphones.

However, the man was paying attention to none of it. For the first time in over three months he had felt the urge to type, something that came and went like the wind. That had been two days ago. He was going to utilize this surge of writing power as best as he could, either until he fell to the side limp or until he finished.

Thank God he was just about done.

"Goodnight Shin…" She whispered in his ear before burying her head on his chest.

"Goodnight little Tewah." He joked around, getting a small slap on the shoulder before leaning his chin on her head, drifting to the most satisfying sleep he had had on his life so far.

And with that, the man threw his arms back, screaming: "DONE!" predictably losing his balance and falling straight with his head first on the ground. Not only that, but his feet hit the table pretty hard, catapulting one of the pictures from it through the air and straight into the man's face.

He groaned, taking the moving framed picture obstructing his vision and casually looking at it. Oh, how he remembered it. It was the first time he had seen one of those, eighteen years ago. Noctis had brought it in for the ceremony. He couldn't help but smile as he repeatedly saw his wife smear the cake right into his face, him paying her back in full.

"Good times," he said with a husky voice, just before the door to the study was slammed open, light erupting into it and enlightening every part of it. His eyes weren't accustomed to the light, so when he looked into the source, he didn't see anything but the shade of a young woman looking down at him.

"Don't worry Mother, Papa is just being Papa," the girl said with a hearable annoyance in her voice. He couldn't really blame her, he had just sat in a room all alone for two days. That and he was pretty clumsy all things considered. Not fighting for his life had dulled his senses more than he imagined.

Or at least that was the excuse he wanted to give himself.

"Tell him to come in for breakfast! I'm not asking!" he took a deep breath and swallowed hard. His wife had taken it worse than he thought. Even the girl ahead of him, he could barely distinguish her features now, winked her eye at him and said:

"You heard the lady. Better get going before you get couch duty," she teased, turning her back and leaving him to get himself up. Sighing, he went back to his typewriter and removed the last page from it, doubled checked it and smile, adding it to the very bottom of a stack of paper, picking it up and heading outside.

The kitchen was not far away, far from it, it was literally a turn away from the study, it took barely thirty seconds for him to enter the simplistic yet well designed division, his eyes finally adapted to the light. Only two people were in the room, the one he first looked was busy preparing the full breakfast that the family required. The woman noticed that her husband had finally entered the room and removed some into a plate, turning to him with a look that mixed exasperation and worry.

"Honey, we've been over this," she sighed, handing him the plate and shaking her head. She had obviously disliked what he had pulled, that was obvious.

"I know, but still, the drive to write is rare as is, I can't waste when such a huge inspiration comes to me," the man took the plate and smiled apologetically.

"Shin, what you're doing is not healthy! We don't need the money from your books anymore, we haven't needed it for the last ten!" she exclaimed, clearly on nerve's on edge. "I just get worried about you… that's all," by now Shin knew he had screwed up worse than the last couple of times he had been closed off in his study. Laying down both his book and his plate, he wrapped his wife in a tender hug, ignoring the teen at the table's grunt of exasperation.

"I'm alright Terra, next time I'll take a break every now and again," he whispered, comforting Terra for a few moments before the duo stepped back and looked at each other.

Terra had definitely matured over the years. While no one would have her as a woman in her early forties, she did not look like a teenager anymore. Her posture, face and even code of dressing had strayed away from the floral and extravagant look she had in her youth. That isn't to say she had completely lost her exotic beauty, as her violet eyes were still a sea that many men drown into. Not only that, but pale blonde hair now descended freely, her ribbon no longer having it in check, it had also grown past her shoulder, not nearly as long as Rydia's, but it still lead to a beautiful sight when wind blew it free. Her face and body had also aged, albeit not nearly as much as they should, she looked to be in her early thirties, not forties. Shin and Terra had been ready for this, Half-Esper anatomy was something completely new to humanity, that and they didn't particularly mind.

"I'll have to see it to believe it," Terra said with a renewed smile. She only half expected Shin to fully follow up in that promise, but she and him were two-of-a-kind when it came to losing themselves in work, so it was only fair for her to be glad he was okay and move on. Seeing as things had already calmed down, Shin took a seat on the table, his eyes sliding towards the girl by his side, which seemed to be too busy checking her phone and eating up twice as much as you'd see a girl with her figure eat, well, three times was more like it.

"Mother really has you by a leash, doesn't she Papa?" she teased, a snide smile gracing her cheeks. Shin sighed at the antics of his daughter. Tina Branford Verus was both the splitting image of her mother and her complete opposite in more than one way. Tina's hair was the carbon copy to her mother's younger days, in both constitution and style, albeit taking more of her Esper heritage than her mother had, as it was of an unmistakable green hue. It was to the point that, at her tenth birthday, Terra had gifted Tina with the very same ribbon she had used for most of her life, the one memento she had from Madeleine. As her mother before her, Tina had not separated from it ever since. She also shared the same sea of violet in-between her eyelids. This is where the similarities came to a halt however. Tina was already quite a bit taller than her mother, almost ten centimeters so, and her body structure far diverted from Terra's "pure and petite".

In short, she was such a slobber knocker Shin had wondered just how she had come from Terra. Her body seemed to have been specifically tailored to fit society's notion of what is desirable right now. Her body was smooth and curvaceous at all the right spots, especially when it came to her, ahem, her chest area. It looked like the gigantic amounts of food she consumed all fell into those two spots. Again, Shin wondered just what genes had made Tina like this. He didn't mind having a beautiful daughter, however he did mind the amount of times he had found his hand on the cheek of a boy that had gone a bit too far a bit too near him. It was also incredible how Tina was, somehow, still boyfriendless. That didn't come with the lack of volunteers; her standards were just incredibly unfair for any mortal being.

Ah yes, her psyche. That was another point Shin couldn't believe this girl was the daughter of either of them, but that is something that should be shown, not told.

"You know, she was just worried is all, we all were." Tina added as she took a bite out of her toast. Her father looked at her with an eyebrow raised.

"You all were? Even you?" Shin asked, not surprised about the fact that Tina had been worried about him, just by the fact that she had mouthed those concerns.

"Of course Papa! Who would take me shopping if you went belly flop because of your books?" she squeaked, latching on to his right arm as he was left sighing at his daughter's antics. Celes had warned them how they had been spoiling their firstborn, but it was almost against their nature to not spoil her, especially due to how well Tina managed to flatter her way into success. As a result, Tina had become quite the Papa's girl and quite the money sink for the family. Thing is, Shin didn't really mind all that much, unless he ever ran into money problems, then yes, he knew he'd be boned.

"Tina, be a darling and get your brother. I'm pretty sure he overslept again," Terra said while continuing to prepare breakfast. There were still more mouth to feed after all, hers included. Tina's face contorted at the request:

"But Mother, you know how Kefka is. I'll probably get some undisclosed goo all over me if I try to get into his room!" she exclaimed, obviously not being the biggest fan of the idea.

"That's ironic coming from someone who's even less tidy than him. The only thing making your room presentable is you asking your father to clean it," Terra said mercilessly, knowing exactly how to checkmate her teenage daughter by this point. Tina had no comeback at this point, her pride forcing her to just bite into the request as she moved upstairs.

"My, aren't you the strict parent now," Shin teased as he ate his first meal in two days while taking a final look into his work.

"Someone has to compensate for how much you pamper her," Terra replied in a playful manner. "Besides, you're the same way for Kefka,"

"Because you pamper him to bits. Guess we're just apt at playing good cop bad cop," Shin bantered, feeling amused at how weirdly their family had to started to compose. Tina and Kefka were twins, well, fake twins as Kefka was obviously a guy. While they had thought that Tina would quickly become attached to her mother and Kefka to his father, it had turned out quite the opposite, with Terra pampering Kefka to the best of her abilities and Shin having to intervene, just like Terra had to for Tina. It was a weird family dynamic to be sure. Involuntarily, Shin's attention turned to the TV as Terra went back to cooking, a very familiar face appearing on the plasma TV screen.

"And as always, this has been Aqua from Channel 7 News, signing out!" the old family friend exclaimed as the morning news came to a close, giving way to publicity. Aqua had become a reporter like she had set out to do, however the years had taken a toll on the woman and, as she passed her bodily forties a couple of years back, she had decided to take a slower approach at it and become the station's news anchor. She had already become a awarded reporter on her own right so she had no qualms with having a slower life than simply being on the forefront of the news for most of the time. But more importantly…

"She's free now, you should call her," Terra pointed out, suddenly hitting Shin with a dose of realization. The man quickly snatched his phone from his pocket and chose Aqua's contact, a quick one-two ring being enough for the middle aged woman to pick up.

"Aqua here. Something you need Shin?" she asked, ever the realist. While Shin was far from the lecher, he was actually quite helpful when she needed anything from his family, however, for someone to call her up as soon as her shift was over, it was because they needed something.

"Yeah, well, just checking to see if you were still up for editing the book," Shin asked, Aqua's brow immediately shooting up from the other side of the line. It was true that, ever since the beginning, Aqua had served as his editor, seeing as Shin, under a pseudonym, had had a really hard time finding an actual professional editor and publisher. Now he didn't need her, heck, he could probably get any editor he damn well pleased, but he insisted they were a team and any other editor would change the feel of the story, so she wasn't surprised about the request. What she was surprised about was…

"You already finished it?! You were at the one-third mark for the last six months!" she exclaimed from the other side of the line. Shin smiled and shook his head. That was to be expected, the families had had dinner barely a week ago.

"I kinda got it finished in the last two days," Shin explained, Aqua taking a few moments to take in just how much she would have to edit from a two-hundred plus pages two day rush. She sighed and asked:

"How do you even manage to write that fast in a typewriter?" she was genuinely curious as to how someone could type that fast in general, much less when it came to writing on a typewriter.

"You should just be asking Papa why he uses a typewriter at all," Tina pointed out from the entrance of the room, adding the reason for being there immediately: "Kefka was already getting dressed; he didn't let me in,"

"Look, it just feels better to write in that, alright? I don't like how the keys on the computers feel!" Shin explained, not even he fully realizing just why he was only able to write in that typewriter. Maybe it was the sound? The feeling? Some of his memories diverting his tastes?

"That's such an old timer thing to say. You really are older than what you look, aren't you Father?" teased a different voice, this one far calmer yet with a sharper edge than Tina's.

"You should stop sneaking on people like that Kefka," Shin sighed, turning to see how even Tina had jumped back when she saw Kefka sitting on the very same table she was sitting. "Cuore can do it because her father is a ninja, stop picking after habits like that,"

"They're pretty useful, so I'm afraid I'll have to decline," Kefka replied, the twin to Tina having a plate with the normal quantity of food for a human being left on his plate. Kefka Branford Verus, age 17 just like his twin sister, was by far the most human person in the household. While both he and his parents did not display any differences from a human in their outward appearance, Kefka had, to this day, not shown any semblance of inheritance of Shin or Terra's other genes, at least when it came to trancing, something Tina had already activated a few times, albeit mostly accidentally.

Much like Tina took after her mother, Kefka took after his father, albeit not sharing as much semblance as Tina did. His blonde hair was not displayed in a mane like Shin, it was more loose and wild, but shared the overall length. He also did not share his eyes with his father, his sky blue eyes seemingly inherited from Terra's family, or at least they told themselves of that to shake off just how similar he was to his namesake. What he did share with his father was his overall build and body structure. While he had stopped growing barely two centimeters away from his father's height, he was still an imposing man, albeit less muscled due to his habit of holing himself at the nearest possible lab. Shin wondered how he even had any muscle at all, wondering if they were really literally made of mana.

"He has a point about them being useful, although I'd rather not know what he uses them on," Terra said, smiling back at her son, just a bit unnerved about what he could pull off when he wanted to. Shin and Terra's family and everyone that knew them had already adapted to Kefka's… weirdness. He wasn't insane or anything, much the opposite.

"Anyway, Aqua, sorry for the interruption," Shin told Aqua, who was giggling nonstop at how chaotic that family could be even after eighteen years.

"Don't worry. Fine, just digitize that and send them to me, I'll send you the prepared text in a week or so. Have a job to keep up, you know?" she asked, Shin more than understanding her.

"No problem, thanks Aqua!" he exclaimed, the bluenette hanging up with:

"It's what I'm here for," with that, the phone beeped and there was silence… for about five seconds.

"MOOOOOOOOM!" the shout came from outside, everyone in the room knew that. Looking at the time, Terra realized just who it was that had awakened the whole neighbor by now and opened the window even before she heard the same voice yell: "Windoooow!" just as said window was laid open before it. Just then, a gold flash erupted into the room, the person landing with one hand on the table, propelling herself upward, flipping in midair and landing perfectly just next to the door. "Nice reflexes Mom!"

"I just knew you'd be getting back home soon," Terra dispelled, greeting the child that came after the twins with a warm smile.

"I'm that predictable huh? Guess I'll probably just start changing the hours I start my morning practice then, give you the challenge!" the girl said, her breath still a bit uneasy from the exercise she had said to have been having. That is, until, she took a better look at the table. "Pops! You got out of the darn study? Took you what? Two days? Talk about lazy!" she exclaimed, always as hyper as she had been.

"Lazy? I haven't slept for two day- You know what? Alright Nimbus, I was lazy. Tomorrow morning, I'll go out for a job with you," Shin knew better than to try and start a discussion with Nimbus. When it came down to it, Nimbus was stubborn as a mule. "That said, how about a quick shower? I'm pretty sure you should be sweating," he pointed out, completely unable to see if she was or not. Now, why, you may ask, was he unable to discern it?

Well, while Kefka had inherited a bit too little of the magical blood that came with his dragon and esper heritage, Nimbus had bitten off more than she could chew. She had been born in Trance and had never dropped out of it for the past sixteen years. She didn't mind it at all, if anything, it was a part of her by now, but she had had some problems when she was younger when it came to how she looked. Albeit not as pronounced as some of her family. How did she look however? Well, when it came to her build, she was a somewhat taller, far more fit Terra, as you could see the outline for some of her muscles, the rest was very much like her mother. Now, appearance wise, it was a whole different ballgame.

Her body was covered in a fine layer of golden fur yet, it seemed to also house crystalline scales. Said scales in her body were, strangely, shaped like clouds. As you can imagine they were the same kind of clouds as her namesake implied. Terra was not the most original at naming. All the clouds on her body made a path; starting from her ankles, going up alongside the side of her legs to her waist where they started to move to her back, coming around the front to her chest where they made a makeshift bra, up to near her shoulders and then trail down the arm to her wrists. Most of it had been hidden by the training shorts and shirt, as society didn't really take well to walking around naked unless you were Terra and then no one would question it for some reason. Furthermore, Nimbus also possessed horizontal stripes on each of her cheeks and a tiara-like pattern on her forehead. Both her hands and feet were clawed with crystalline nails and her ears were elf-like in form, again most of it resembling her mother's trance greatly, scales and color aside. The final difference was that her hair was straight and nearly spiky at the part where it cut and cut short, just above her neck. Her eyes did show she was Shin's daughter however, those red and serpentine orbs obviously being remnants of Shinryu.

"You will?! Amazing! I'll be at my A-game tomorrow!" she exclaimed, her happy demeanor unshaking. It was no secret to anyone that she was a bit on the hyperactive side. "Oh, and and I don't need a shower. PE is my first class today, so I'll just take it there!" Shin had nearly forgotten what day it was. Friday, February fifth… this meant that…

"If I had stayed a day or two longer inside the study, I was going to miss my daughter's birthday?!"Shin exclaimed as he reached the grim realization. The whole room just nodded their heads, being nothing else than amused as they saw their forty year old dad acting like a toddler over something so frivolous, even going as far as to jet out of the room and straight into the house's garden like a madman.

"Get her back here soon, we're already behind schedule!" Terra added, unsure Shin was even listening.

Now, Shin's house was indeed very modest when you compared it to how much money the family had gained over the past eighteen years, however, the garden was everything BUT modest. It was multiple times bigger than the house, it was something so large that it could be mistaken for a small farm by many. The reason for that was quite simple. Stardust and Choby had started a Choco-family, something that Shin knew Terra to be unable to give away. That, together with how much Terra and Shin's youngest daughter loved nature and the quietude of it all had inspired Shin to purchase the house farthest from the center in Mobliz and get them the best garden money could have bought in the terrain he was given.

The garden itself was nearly without any human construction, as Shin had intended, to simulate the wild as much as possible. It only really possessed the Chocobo barn at the very northwestern end of it and some benches laid out at key locations, of course having a fence to stop the chocobos from at least running away, not that that would have stopped them if they had not taught them before adulthood, as all Chocobos that Stardust mothered would have been able to fly. The rest was just lush grass, flower plantations by Terra, Tina and the youngest girl in the family and chocobos.

Shin knew where she'd be by now, in the very center of the garden was, as would be expected a bench to sit on, and that was, coincidentally, where the Chocobos most flocked to when someone was in the garden, meaning she would be there for sure.

"Pris?" Shin called as he arrived to find the bench empty. He began to find it strange, his daughter was not one to be late for school, much less disappear. If this was Tina or Nimbus, he'd be fine, but he was ready to go on a rampage over something so little when it came to his lil' Pris.

His worries were everything but founded when he took the moment to actually look around. There, he found the most adorable sight. Leaning against a sleeping Stardust was the small, frail looking figure of his youngest daughter, cradling one of the earlier Choco-chicks on her arms and the now a bit on the old side Chocolate laying on her lap. Shin was even unsure he wanted to disturb such a peaceful slumber, and he wasn't the only one it appeared. To the side of the adorable sight, was what Shin described as his family's greatest extravagance.

In short, it was a pet dragon. And I don't mean the small, lay on your shoulder ones. No, this was easily one that was three times as tall as Shin and much longer. The dragon was one of a species that even Shinryu's knowledge told him had been forgotten for thousands of years now. Light Dragons were rare enough as is, but this one, the Zerureusu, was rare even among them.

When it came to looks, the Zerureusu was a bipedal flying dragon with a large wingspan, the bulk of its body perpendicular to it's legs, with mainly ash-white coloring and strange crystal spikes formations exhibiting inner blue glow similar to Cherenkov's Radiation that were distributed evenly across the shelled surface of its body, with exception of the lower neck, underbelly and wing membranes. When it came to its actual physiology, outside of the two clawed paws, its body was denoted two large wings that were adorned with the crystals previously mentioned on its radial area, aka where the bones were, the tips of the phalanx being quite deadly looking. The wing membrane however, was a real sight to behold, it was decorated with a stretched hexagonal pattern. The rims of the membranes also exhibiting the same patterning, ending in making an allusion of a bird's wing instead of a dragon's. The Dragon also exhibited a large tail, almost as long as the rest of its body, a crystal tip born from the end of it. The last part, its large head was styled with a crown-like crest that commanded the same respect as a king's, with two spike protuberances on the lower part of the jaw that were just as deadly as it's fangs. All of it commanded respect. It was just a natural impulse. When you looked at the wyvern, with the crown-like crest, neck striking upwards while it looked down on its surrounding, you felt like kneeling.

Well, at least most people did, Shin only felt the urge to pet him for being such a good pet and not waking his daughter. He did have to admit that his posture had matured ever since they had found and hatched him though, he had gone from a quirky winged lizard to a proud dragon in barely ten years… guess that was befitting of the title the species went by. Supreme King of the Skies.

The story of where the family had found and adopted a freaking Light Dragon was one that was very simple yet equally confusing. It had been in Narshe, a bit over ten years ago. A striking blizzard had taken the town while the Branford family were living there, forcing every single family to barricade themselves at home.

You can imagine the parent's horror once they found out that their five year old daughter had ventured forth into the blizzard while they were preparing dinner. Terra and Shin had immediately flown, literally, out of the house and did their best to find their daughter in the merciless blizzard. They were lead to the center of the town by a single flash of white light that exuded more magical power than any of the two had seen in years. What they found there was baffling. Just one very familiar little girl holding a pure white egg, her eyes glazed as if she were in a trance. The moment her name was called, she collapsed on the fallen snow, Shin and Terra quickly taking her and the egg home.

As would have been expected, they decided to keep it, such a happening had to have some meaning.

"Watching over your Mama, are you Caelum?" Shin asked the large dragon as it had taken notice of it. Now, while Caelum as they had named him was incapable of smiling, the glint on its eyes and how it playfully rubbed Shin with its snout all pointed towards Shin's deduction. Caelum had taken the person who had hatched his egg with care and love as his mother, despite her appearance, and so, his mother was right there, slowly waking up by the voice of her father and the grunts of her "son".

Priscilla Branford Verus, age 15. The youngest and last of the Verus family, she was quite easily the spotlight stealer of the household. To say if that was in a good way or an awful way was up for debate. Tina was considerably more so akin to the pattern of "desirability" than her and Nimbus was far more in your face than the timid girl could ever be. No, what stole everyone's eyes was something else entirely.

It was the pure white, furry tail that was now slowly waving from side to side as Priscilla woke up. You have the right to be shocked. You can bet that Shin, Terra, and mostly everyone involved were speechless when, out of Terra came a baby that possessed a tail of all things. And they had seen a trance baby before. The explanation for it was simple. Of the three kinds of blood that were inside her, Human, Dragon and Esper, not one of them eclipsed the others, much unlike Nimbus' Esper blood or Kefka's Human blood. The bloods were there in perfect harmony, quite literally 33% of each blood flowing through her veins. As a result, Priscilla was not a human that looked like an Esper, an Esper that look like a dragon or a Dragon that looked like the other. She was a perfect mix of the three. A first in any realm of possibility.

Now, if her tail that combined Terra's fur with Shinryu's body was the only thing of mention, that wouldn't be much of a deal, however, her body said otherwise. Her more normal parts showed her to be a true mix of not only kinds, but of Shin and Terra. Her pale brown hair waved down her neck much like Terra's had been dipped on Shin's colors, and her pale violet eyes took a shape much similar to Shin's. Her overall body structure was even smaller and shorter than Terra, standing at a full two centimeters shorter than her mother while sharing her older, extremely frail looking body. Her more… exotic features however, were far more breathtaking. While hidden by her silver chocker, bracelets and anklets, it was true that the front of her neck, wrists and ankles possessed a line of crystalline scales. Not only that, was hidden from plain view, as her school uniform hid that, on her back, just below her neck was a large tuft of pristine white fur streaking down her back up, right over her spine, to around the end of the back of her torso. What was not hidden from sight however, besides the tail, were how her teeth were more akin to Terra's fangs, and how her eyebrows, while appearing normal from afar, could be noted to being two small rows of extremely tiny horns.

She was also the most pampered girl in the household. By far. Wanna know how pampered she was? As we speak Shin was already hugging her.

"Papa…? You finished your book?" she asked groggily as she did her best to wake up without being able to do some stretch.

"Yeah I did my little princess," Shin said, managing to somehow out cheese himself with the nickname he gave his daughter. Reason why everyone had pampered Priscilla was plain to the sight. Priscilla both looked and felt fragile, she was too pure and nice for her own good, and while her appearance was more than a blessing for those that accepted what she was, being absolutely enthralling, there were more than a few people that had thought her to be some kind of monster. Unlike Nimbus, who basically broke those people's noses, Pris was unable to just shut the comments off, causing the entire family to instinctively grow as a shield to the little girl. Even though she was far from little now, it all remained. "Sorry for going into the study so close to your birthday, I almost missed it,"

"Oh Papa, I trust you, you wouldn't. And even if you did, it was just because you wanted to sustain us!" point about her being too nice more than made. Even Shin knew that Priscilla should be at least a bit peeved at the fact that he just admitted he was gonna forget her birthday, but… she wasn't. She kept her sincere smile all the while. She was even more a sucker for cuddles than her Mother, something Shin knew they were to blame for. "Wait… what time is it?!" she exclaimed, finally realizing it and reminding Shin at the same time.

"Oh crap… it's nearly eight AM! Quick Pris, go get some breakfast!" Shin exclaimed, putting the girl back on the ground and nudging her to leave. As she nodded and ran back into the house, Shin looked back at Caelum. The Light Dragon snorted a bit at having his mother leave, but he was used to her leaving by now. Shin looked into his sky-blue eyes and smiled, telling him: "If anything happens to me, watch over her, alright?" Caelum nodded and opened his wings, showing off his massive wingspan and roaring back at Shin, if only to show that he was more than capable of it. "Aren't we cocky?" Caelum just shrugged. Shin never stopped to be amazed at the dragon's intelligence. If he didn't know any better, he was as intelligent as he was.

"Said the pot to the kettle," the final resident of the household spoke. Shin nearly hopped onto Caelum due to the fright. "That's really unbecoming of you son," Shinryu commented, his massive figure hove- oh, who am I kidding? He was barely bigger than Shin's head.

Now, don't get me wrong, this was Shinryu. He looked like a miniature of the once mighty crystal dragon, but he was indeed its splitting image in both body and soul.

"Said the foot tall dragon," Shin fired back, knowing just how self-conscious Shinryu was of his size.

"You ought to be careful when you sleep…" he sneered, dead serious about his warning, something Shin took to note. "That being said Shin, I need to speak to you about something important once you manage to get some time off,"

"Oh, I have all the time off in the world now. Aqua is going to take a while to edit my book," Shin pointed out, Shinryu slapping him with his small wing.

"You have children to take care off! Go see them off!" Shinryu blared, Shin oohing momentarily before Stardust pecked him in the back of the head, the bird basically telling him to go after Priscilla. Stardust had not aged a bit, fitting the folklore that all Gold Chocobos would outlive their owners.

"Fine, I'm going, I'm going!" Shin exclaimed, rushing back into the house with a smile.

"I honestly question if I should be thankful I was able to stay back or not," Shinryu sighed, the question being rhetorical.

"You sure take your time dad," Tina said as Shin finally arrived at the kitchen, seeing Priscilla nearly finished with her plate, something that stopped surprising him long ago, when he realized Pris took as much food to feed as Terra and Tina together. They were all standing there, fixing up their backpacks, everyone but Nimbus clad in the school's uniform, Nimbus was just already in her PE clothes.

Tina and Priscilla shared the same uniform, as would have been expected by the duo being girls and such.

They wore clothing that was very much fitting for the name of the Academy in Mobliz, the Branford Academy. The uniform consisted of a red collared button-up shirt under a violet vest, along with red-and-dark violet plaid-stripped skirts, obviously being based around Mobliz's founder and savior famed color scheme.

Kefka's uniform was about as blatant as the girl's. Like the girls, he wore a buttoned-up collared shirt, this one being gold however, under a black vest. However, unlike the girls, he wore a pair of black pants with golden lines, their inspiration obviously coming from the savior's now husband. They were painfully aware of it.

Both the uniforms had the school's emblem stitched right above their hearts, on it was a dragon mostly drawn at the back of the emblem, it's serpentine body curling around a crouching tiger-like creature that seemed to be made of lightning, known as the Raijū. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

Kefka was, however, Kefka and disliked fitting in that much, so he had added a long, pink scarf around his neck that tended to fly to the wind once he started moving, but somehow never left his neck unless he took it off. Not only that, but he had added a headband around his head, the coloring of it being on a triangular style, in which the lower triangles were dark magenta and the top ones were yellow. If he wasn't for his name, he'd never be able to actually pull off adding stuff to the normally strict dress conduct.

"Where's your mother?" Shin asked, Nimbus taking to explain:

"Mom went to get her uniform upstairs, she should be here any minute now…" the golden girl explained, her prediction coming true almost immediately, as Terra descended from the stairs just then.

The teacher's uniform was far more… visually intricate. It seemed to incorporate all four colors of the Academy. It was composed of an intricate coat that stretched from her shoulders to her knees, a coat that combined a black outer-frame with a white inner-frame, golden borders separating the frames. The trousers she wore matched the outer-frame of the coat, while her intricate shoulder pads matched the golden borders of it all. She wore matching gloves and boots, albeit a dirtier gold in them. Finally, the main piece of the uniform was the flowing red cape. Not only was this cape large enough to reach the same length as her coat, but both sides of it went past her shoulders, being held in place by an emblem of the school in the center of the coat and then went on to descend through her coat, weaving around it and ending by becoming the belt to the coat to finish the quite fascinating piece.

"I'm ready everyone. We should get going, my classes begin in twenty minutes and it's a forty minute walk! I think we may have to cheat a bit to get there in time," she exclaimed, rushing to Shin and planting him a quick kiss on the cheek. "And you need to get some sleep!"

"What do you… mean…" Shin said with two large yawns manifesting themselves. The adrenaline was, predictably, running out after 2 days of nonstop writing.

"Don't worry about us, you know how Fridays are, we'll be back only by dinner time. On the meantime, try to come some sleep and spend quality time with lil' Shiny!" Priscilla said sweetly, unaware of how, Shinryu, who had just flapped into the room, did not exactly appreciate the nickname, booming back:

"Impudent child, how dare you! I am the eldest being here by more than a million years!" his eyes burning bright with unhampered mana. Shinryu was usually nice when it came to Pris, but there was something that he would never get over with, was how small he was right now. And they knew it.

"You also happen to be the smallest," Tina pointed out, swiftly running out of the house as Shinryu chased after her, breathing fire and brimstone at the girl.

"Guess it's 'bout time we get goin'. See ya latter pops!" Nimbus exclaimed, running out of house along with her siblings and parents. As he reached the entrance hall, he saw Priscilla calling:

"Cae!" the Light Dragon answering in mere seconds, landing right in front of the house. Priscilla, Kefka and Tina hoped onto it while Terra took flight. They were too late to not use their less-than-conventional methods by this point. They all waved goodbye and took flight. Shin was left to wonder why Nimbus had not hopped into it. As they distanced themselves, Nimbus smiled at Shin, asking:

"Ya know, I didn't show you this yet, did I?" she asked, Shin raising an eyebrow. Nimbus then proceeded to raise her hand up to the sky and swing it down as if she was pulling something from it. Shin could feel the mana around him change, she was obviously using magic. With that done, she jumped into the air and Shin's mouth hanged right open as a cloud speared down from the skies and stopped just below Nimbus, who proceeded to land on it! "Pretty cool, huh?"

"You… wha- how?!" Shin exclaimed, Nimbus scratching the back of her head.

"Well, it has to deal with manipulating the air density, but I'll give you the full explanation latter! I'm really late, see ya!" she exclaimed, seriously flying away on a cloud. Shin was left baffled as his girl quickly caught up to the rest of his family.

"If I didn't know any better, I'd say that she's only doing it to match her name," Shinryu commented as he landed on Shinryu's shoulder, his tail curling around Shin's neck. "Now, go get some rest. You'll need to be quite awake when it comes to what I need to talk to you about."

"Is it anything that important?" Shin asked, a bit taken aback by how straightforward he was being.

"It's about Priscilla. She's… dangerous,"

Post-Chapter Note: Yeah, I sliced this chapter in two. Why? Two reasons. First, the introductions were freaking 7K long already! Ya know how big the chapter would turn out if I added the rest of the day? You don't want to. Second, today is October 18th… also known as, Terra's birthday! Happy Birthday to her! My present to her is an entire family. I'm too considerate at times. So yeah, this chapter may have looked like it was merely Shin showing off the kids, but don't worry, next chapter, the REAL last one, will contain much more of the kids and less of Shin just talking about them. And something else… something far meatier… *sinister laughter*.

PS: Which of these is your favorite kid so far? Better yet, which of these picks your interest more?