· · · · · · ·

In full dragon form, Filia rolled down the Everlasting Leaf Pile. She reached the bottom before Luna did, if only by a mile or two. With a plop, she spread over the giant cranberry the pile was on. She was early, but at the cost of her grace. Luna somehow managed to plummet in an elegant yet nonchalant way. Off course, Luna just had to be avant garde about falling. Filia consoled herself by understanding Luna had less limbs to flail around with.

"Filia," Luna said while somersaulting the final stretch, "Didn't we have a topic tonight?"

"I think so, but we got derailed while I complained about Xelloss's taste in design," Filia said, scratching her snout as she looked up to the tea-filled sky (technically her dragon arms were too tiny for this but one doesn't care about that in dreams).

"How did we get from there to Cranberry Island?"

"We asked that in the pink pine forest already and then dreamed about cotton candy flavors and got—"

Luna held up her hands quickly. "No derailing anymore. Soul fences. Right?"

"I do recall you saying such, but not why?"

"Wanna control dream flow better."

"I AM IN THE BELIEF THAT KNOWING HOW SOUL BARRIERS WORK ALLOW ME A DEFENSE AGAINST MY SACRED SIBLINGS TAMPERING WITH MY MENTAL FACULTIES," Luna Above declared.

"Mental faculties, really?" Luna said. "If this is your toddler self's idea of Siephied, can we like reset it to something less embarrassing? I don't like that stupid!"

Filia stood up and shook the last leafs out of her mane, which fluffed up a little. "Luna, we're getting off topic ...ehm, Luna?"

Luna was pulling out a gigantic version of a Jillas cannon and aimed at the sky. With a thunderous crash, the cannonball hurled through the clouds.

"OH WOES!" Luna above thundered. Down fell a giant red plush dragon, burning in white flares.

"Luna, don't shoot at your own subconscious!"

"I'm just shooting at the figment you made," she said as she tossed away the cannon. "It's got no holy power of mine in it."

"Oh, is that so? I never ... no, no, off topic again."

"Right. Okay. Soul holes. That was it."

"Not fences?"

"Whatever. So, something is pulling me back whenever I think about wanting to go back, so I'm just going to do that now. Follow me."

"Ready whenever you are." Filia pulled out a needle and pinpricked the cranberry. It exploded.

After a few moments without gravity, they fell into a sea. Luna crossed her arms and let the water engulf her, apparently fine with the sensation. Filia herself had to fight off the idea she needed to drown, and on a deeper level the idea she was doing something forbidden.

Light became dim as they sunk deeper.. Just as Filia was getting worried over why nothing else happened, Luna swam over to sit on her shoulders.

"TO THE LEFT AND TWIRLS A LITTLE SIDEWAYS INTO THE GRAY STREAM," said Luna Above the giant plush, who was spontaneously floating alongside them all along. Filia obeyed, while Luna adopted the tactic of ignoring the overly cute thing.

Without a clear idea how they had gotten there, but the knowledge they were at the end of the path, Filia in elven form and Luna in her armor stood on the bottom of the sea, which was also a fog filled taiga. There were as much rocks as there were trees for as far as Filia could see, sometimes the trees were rocks and stones formed out of tree.

"Thrilling," Luna said.

Plush Luna Above had landed behind them and was blocked a lot of the view that direction, but Filia noticed something just above it and beyond the fog.

With a few quick strides, she walked around the plush. Luna followed her as the giant plush clumsily turned.

"Meh, hedges," Luna said.

To the east and west, to above and deep into earth was a network of dark gold metalwork, forged like vines. The shapes of the vines were erratic, sometimes curling elegantly and other times straight and unrelenting to flow. Only if one saw the whole did it fall into rhythm. It felt like it went on beyond the darkness of the sky, encasing all of herself.

Gingerly, Filia laid her hands on the nearest curl. It was like touching the essence of herself and yet she was the farthest away from who she was. A cold awareness settled over her as everything trivial was pushed away. Not significant anymore. Purely being, undiluted, simply a need to exist, yet not herself. Filia consisted of many small details.

She pulled back hand, clenching it close to her chest.

"Got the vibes, eh? That's what the gods exist like, reveling into that pure, simplistic existence. Disgusting idiots, think they're better because of that," Luna said. She spit on the ground. "Gotta admit though there were times I was tempted to exist like that ... Hey ... Filia?"

Filia was aware she was being spoken to, but she couldn't move. Here on the border of one for of being and another, it wasn't so bad. A little of both worlds, a little of —

A sharp pain shot through her. It was shapeless and had no form or location anywhere in her body, yet it was so real Filia cried out. The world, however imaginary, drew back into focus. Damp earth was below her fingers, and the mixed sensation of holy wind and waves all around her.

Luna held out a hand. Shaking a little, Filia took it and stood. "Did you ... do that?"

"Yep. Pain's the quickest way to snap people out of that kinda trance. C'mon, show me the god's entrance."

"We're right before it," she said.

At her will, the network melted into a spiral that formed a ring at its center. Expending around this ring was a second circle, and finally two crossed almond shapes melted together to encase the rings at their center. Filia didn't know what to think of this four pointed sigil. Hexagrams were of the gods, pentagrams of the devils. What was this?

Luna tilted her head a little and said, "Huh. I get it now. I hitchhike here on Valwin's flow to Ragradia's power. Gotta say, this flow stuff is useful after all."

"Luna, this is a four pointed symbol! Do you realize what that implies? There may yet be other sigils we have no idea about!"

"Yeah, eh, fascinating."

"BORING," Luna Above declared. Luna set the plush on fire with a snap of her fingers.

"Skipping the metaphysical crap, Filia. What matter is that that shit's carved into your soul, but it doesn't ... your souls doesn't feel damaged. Weird."

"Ah, so you have experience with soul damage? What other people had it?" Filia had never learned what Luna meant when she wanted to check up on her being tampered with, this was as good a time as any to ask.

Luna stretched her arm, knacked it back with a finger pointed at herself and grinned. "At least Siephied's a quiet roommate. As silent as the grave."

"Oh, Luna ..." Filia reached out, intending to place a hand on her shoulder, but Luna brushed her hand away.

"Don't worry about it. I'm not broken, Siephied's power fills the bits and pieces missing. Let's focus on this nice little hole here. From what I can tell, this sieve allowed Vrabazard to push in tidbits of energy. I'd bet you that in priest class they said you had to learn to accept the messages of the gods, but what you really did was carve out this hole. The most extreme thing you can let happen is them taking over your body, right?"

Filia nodded. "That did bother me at the beginning, but I was taught it was a great honor. I don't think so now, but—"

"No woeful nostalgia. You got any spells that deal with souls?"

"Absolutely, that would be Holy Rezast."

"Cast it," Luna said.

"Huh? I'm not even awake!"

"So what? I'll make it work, I do wordless magic all the time." Luna took a few steps away, turned around and pointed at the ground. "There."

Well, if Luna said so, she was probably right. Filia folded her hands and concentrated, but kept her eyes open.

"Life Law Circle," Filia heard herself whisper. It wasn't the name of the spell, but it was its true meaning.

A thin red circle appeared between her and where Luna stood. Instead of the vague white flow upwards, however, the forces around Luna pulled towards it. Not only Luna's power, but also the wind and water magic were drawn in through the sigil.

Luna poked the circle with her boot. Filia would have imagined a more interesting way to probe magic, but it just wasn't Luna's style.

"What do you think your Holy Rezast does?"

Filia sensed there was going to be a nasty revelation, but she spoke without hesitation. "It allows ghosts to move to the afterlife, and if cast on the living gives them new energy."

"Let me tell you something fun. When the devil barrier was raised, everyone within lost their holy magic but not the need for it. Someone reverse engineered Holy Rezast and came up with Megiddo Flare. It does the exorcism thing, but it also gives the living a feeling of serenity, so they say. Let's say Megiddo Flare isn't designed well enough to only tune into ghostly emotions because it's a shabby imitation. Those living, they don't get serenity, it takes away rage and frustration. What does that tell you about the fine tuned version, Holy Rezast? Maybe that new energy is just negative facet taken away? It's the same trick as coffee, except by removing all negativity people can draw energy from the flow better."

After two times of learning devastating truths about the gods, Filia wasn't fazed all that much anymore. Seven years ago, it was her religion's temple ordering genocide, three years ago it was learning that heaven did not exist. All she did was sigh. Holy Rezast tampered with the minds and hearts of souls, dead or alive. It wasn't much of a surprise anymore, given the amorality that existed around the deities.

Luna smiled. Not smirked, an actual smile.

"Good, no angsty stuff this time," she said. With two strides, she was before Filia and pulled her into the circle. "Now, let's reverse engineer this so we can use it on gods, or maybe just for more specific stuff that snipping away negative feelings."

"What?"

"I told you, the best defense is to understand how the enemy's weapon works. I've got a grip of holy magic, you know technique. We can sort this out."

"How would you try that?"

"We draw in a little of Valwin's extended mind, the stuff I hitchhike one. It's out there, the only reason he's not questioning what I do in here is cause he's without passion. We can exploit that."

Filia stared at Luna, stunned. "You were always so suspicious of the gods messing with us. How can you try to do the same to them?"

"Filia," Luna said with a sudden iciness to her voice. "We're just going a few steps ahead. Using that soul gate, we can pinch off a little of Valwin's mind power and—"

"No. I can't. Not like this, it's not necessary, it's not right."

"Why not? Your kid got mindwiped, didn't he? Don't tell me you'd rather have him as before."

"That's different!" she snapped.

Luna's lips became a thin line and Filia sensed something very wrong about the atmosphere. Filia got an inkling of her infamous terror, but only that little. After all, Filia was (in)famous (amongst certain circles) for being fearless.

Filia crossed her arms and glared back. "No."

"You're just going to pass up this chance? Right here and now, we could do something that had never been done before!" She sounded unusually desperate.

"We don't know anything," Filia said. "So, no. I'm willing to cross lines but only for good reasons."

"It's not a good reason that I might need it?"

"The gods haven't threatened you, and Lyos and Lina proved that possession by devils can be beaten. I'm sure you're stronger than Lyos, so this little exercise would only be a hobby. No."

"Fine. Be that way." Luna kicked the edge of the circle into pieces, and the spell's power dissolved.

Filia left her there and didn't look back, but the singed Siephied plush followed her through the rest of her dream.

· · · · · · ·

As questionable as her exploits in dreamscapes were, real life had worse scenarios. Thoughts of what could have been cropped up in unguarded moments.

A Grand Priest himself, Bazard Ul Copt had envisioned a spiritual life for his daughter, spoonfeeding her religious creed before she could even fly. She'd aspired to become a servants of the Most Venerable One herself, as many of her siblings had done either as soldiers or priests. When she alone became a priestess of the primary clan of the east in its cathedral itself, it had been the pride of his life. She would follow in his wingstrokes by educating the weak of faith, returning to the right path those poor souls led astray by devils and their inherent sin. In the face of evil, she was to stand strong and courageous even if it meant painful death. Her last breath would carry the words of holiness and she would never bow to the darkness. There were whispered tales of horror, of priests tormented to death by the five retainers and their courts. Those fearful manipulations were among the evil she would be protecting others from, that they may find strength before the trials of the devils.

If nothing else, she was doing the protection against evil thing. By all that lived, that pot was going to get out of Xelloss's hands.

It was her afternoon off, for crying out loud. Gravos had came running into the house with the dire news that Xelloss had invaded the elvish kitchens. Lina had told her dreadful takes of Xelloss's cooking, which smelled foul beyond reason and involved living ingredients, but the most horrible was that apparently he knew his dishes could kill golden dragons. She left her tea and ran.

Sure enough, Xelloss had been about to feed an unholy brew to some poor elves who were trying to politely refuse with dumb excuses. Filia preferred a more hands-on approach of resisting evil, hands filled with lord Mace. She teleported right behind Xelloss and took a swing.

Off course she didn't hit, she never did. Before she realized, he stood behind her, grabbed her tail and pulled it up into the momentum of her movement. She smacked face first into the floor, right into the pot he'd dropped there.

The clan of Vrabazard had been so wrong. If they'd had the smallest idea about Xelloss beyond the Dragon Slayer, there would have been lessons about self control in the face of insufferable smugness. Instead, she got to thank seven years of running a business and intense trauma at her clan's actions for what composure she retained. Slowly she stood up, careful not to slip on the vile brew. It stank of sewer, as befitting to someone like him.

"Miss Filia, if you were so desperate for first taste, you could have just asked."

Now she saw him up front, wearing that pink apron (it was kinda cute, but not on him), she added laughter to the things to be controlled. She just puffed up her cheeks, raised her nose and stomped back to the door. Behind here, there was a disappointed huff. Any second now ...

He phased between her and the exit.

"Now now, you've ruined the meal of these poor elves. Don't you think you should make it up to them?"

She set her hands on her hips, letting rage build up for tempting moments before turning her thoughts to that happy time she was awarded first prize from the ceramics guild. Her mind a little clearer, she saw the trap. If she got angry he would shame her into agreeing to cook something better, and who knew what would happen then. What the other people involved wanted was supposed to be forgotten.

She spun around to the elves. "Are you hungry at all?"

"Eh ... n-no, m'lady," one of them stammered as he climbed to shaky feet.

"That settles it then. There seems to be smoke coming from the supply room, better go put that out," she said happily. For bonus, she raised a finger in Xelloss style. He hated that. "Use sand spells, so the flour bags will not get soaked."

"Off course!" The fearful elves couldn't leave quick enough.

"Spoilsport," Xelloss muttered. He was looked disappointed, which gave Filia something to be genuinely happy about.

"It's my pleasure!" she declared with a formal flair and a curtsy. Slick, sticky hair fell around her face and it felt so irritating, but she pushed that aside to play the role of miss shopkeeper. Always keep smiling, no matter how wrong the customer is.

"I wonder, did you meet someone else to vex?"

So typical of him to pretend she was the one looking to vex others.

"I don't feed on negative emotions, trash," she said, standing straight and picking the next happy thing off her mental checklist. "In fact, I'm very much about happiness lately. These lovely snowy mountains have been reminding me of one of my favorite songs. Cotton flowers in the wind, mother Hulda has the winter pinned ... "

She couldn't proclaim how wonderful life was with the same vigor as Amelia, but indirect measures seemed to work just as well. Xelloss said nothing. Perhaps it was too much to hope, but maybe he'd do something dorky to save face.

Off course, even if she refused to play she couldn't really win.

"Trying to change the game, miss Filia?" That haughty tone had replaced the mock politeness.

"Just the menu," she said as coldly as she could, even though the urge to pull out her mace was stirring again. "But not too much. You have your uses, the kind the gods don't cover."

"Hmm."

As she shoved past him, he ran his hand through her hair. The stinking stew fell out in dry clumps before burning up in blue fire. She stopped, but he'd vanished before she could ask what that had been about.

For all the ways she was used to Xelloss, it unsettled her if he did something benign. Lina had told her he'd been like that as long as they'd known him as a devil, someone not easily classified as typically evil devil.

In the end, what was she to make of him? He was wicked, but he could be worse. Despite the potential, Xelloss didn't mock people for what they couldn't help, or did anything that would cause lasting damage to a person's body (their purses, on the other hand ...). Sometimes, he returned lost property just because he could and saved lives because why not? All that just barely fit in the bag of Xelloss' stubbornly sticking to his narrow definition of polite.

His very narrow definition of polite. As she learned a few hours later, Xelloss had tricked the elves into ruining all the supplies in the next installment of Unauthorized Kitchen Adventures.

· · · · · · ·

A day went by in its new hectic pattern : tend to her family and put a sleep deprived Val to bed (she would never have imagined that only a maze and infinite knowledge could have kept him entertained night after night), check up on the next batch of vessels and endure Xelloss.

Sometimes this pattern meant she also had to dig Jillas and Memphis out of a mountain because their training caused an avalanche and off course Xelloss always invented new pranks. Fortunately, today his kitchen stunt was the only prank, and Jillas and Memphis managed to not wreck anything. As evening came, the foul mood she'd woken with was considerably better, which was just as well since Milgazia had off.

There was a network of caves behind the waterfall where dragons rarely came, as it involved getting wet with near freezing water. Filia worked around this by placing an enchanted item inside so she could teleport in even if it was out of visual range. Getting it in had made her very wet, but this was a one time situation.

In exchange for Filia's silence about Milgazia's suspected practice of the dark arts, Milgazia had not made big deal about her borrowing of the crystal ball. She might have accidentally demanded he tutor her too, simply by dropping insinuation it might help damage control when Xelloss went too far.

To think, seven years ago, she would have been revolted at the very idea she was blackmailing a dragon elder. Deep dark recesses of her mind ... oh, screw it. It was wide in the open that she enjoyed a little bit of power. Not that this was outside of her principles, off course. Learning dark magic might be very useful for defense and Zelas Phalanx was exactly her thing. This spell produced a variety of thin threads of light that had to be controlled by the mind, and Filia just happened to be a master of cat's cradle.

Milgazia never was much of an expressionist, but certain things he said had given her the idea he found her method of training with the spell to be odd. When he finally opened his mouth and hesitated, she expected to hear a reprimand. She steeled herself not to care.

"I heard you had a conflict with that gofer devil earlier this morning."

That was something she should have been expecting. She started a more complex pattern of threads with the spell, giving herself an excuse not to look him in the eyes.

"Oh, that? Don't worry about it, it's just another Tuesday," she said quickly.

"Such casual interaction with a devil is a warning sign. Word goes round he has reduced you to his plaything and fooled you into forgetting what he is. You are giving him a chance to undermine your faith."

"I know what he is!" she said evenly, but she couldn't keep her eyebrow from twitching. "Do you think I chose this? I lost my dignity, sure, but I didn't lose my awareness of what he is. He made that crystal clear and wouldn't have it any other way."

"That may be what he wants you to feel like. If you are secure in your understanding yet still allow him close, it is his chance to undermine destabilize your faith."

"What do you want me to do? Be the perfect little priestess who rises above dark taunts? I can't afford such ideals! If I must play with a devil to keep my family safe, I will. Besides, those elves didn't see the finish. I totally got him to shut up."

"Why exactly is your family in danger then?"

Filia bit her lip and kept her ancient secret, choosing a lie in its stead. "Ever since the Dark Star incident, I am on the wanted list of the devils."

"What if he too is after you, but not to kill you? Spiritual corruption is an even greater danger, for you may not pass into heaven upon death if you fall."

Filia clenched her fist, and the all the threads of light dissipated. "Spiritual corruption? I suppose miss Lina never told you the details of her battle against the Hellmaster."

"We did not learn of those events until we spoke to dragon clans who still had a god to guide their clairvoyance. She herself kept the event from me. What are you referring to?"

For long seconds, Filia considered telling him all. Lina had never defeated Garv nor Fibrizo, yet the dragon clans believed so. They would know even less of Fibrizo's scheme. All those innocent villagers drawn into the sadistic setting only meant this : there was no righteous heaven guarded by the gods.

"Never mind, lord Milgazia. About Xelloss, he never tried corrupting me," she said. She knew a certain holy person with corruptive tendencies though. "And don't worry about my spiritual integrity. There is a difference between tolerating someone as a person, and tolerating their actions. Until he crosses the line of endangering my family, I'm tolerating him but not the actions that he might commit at other times."

"There's something wrong about how you exclude yourself from that line," Milgazia said. "I believe you're just giving yourself the illusion of control with those words. Do you still pray? The gods—"

"No!" She jabbed a finger at Milgazia. "I won't pray and I don't need your prayers either, nor your advice. I know exactly how weak I am. That thing is always stronger. I can't make it leave. It entertains itself with me, it has use for me, and it has a good reason to kill me if that use runs out. I can't afford to either stop entertaining or to stop being of use to it. As much as I hate that I've become a theater for our mortal enemy, I won't be a theater for the gods as well."

Milgazia took a deep breath and for a moment she could have sworn he was upset, but nothing changed in his expression save a slight drop in his eyebrows.

"If you are not in need of disillusionment, then I fail to understand your behavior around him. Doesn't he frighten you?" His tone had the subtle condescension of a person who just realized they were speaking to one of the faithless.

"Well ... no. He's not likely to start randomly torturing me or anyone else. If you'd try to punch him in the face, at most he'll pull a humiliating prank on you. Wait, he'll probably do that sooner or later anyway."

"Let me rephrase that. How do you spiritually deal with having a mass murderer over the floor all the time? You were priestess, after all."

It was hard to tell whether that was accusatory or worried, but in either case it was a question about her faith. For Milgazia, one who had lost his god but not his faith, it had to be difficult to understand someone who had no hope for a greater reward. Knowing this, she couldn't hold her tongue anymore.

"I deal with it in the same way as I deal with knowing that my own clan committed genocide on pacifists, on their brothers and sisters, and then made a morbid artwork out of the penetrated skinned skulls, desecrating their temple in the process. Comparatively, knowing Xelloss won a lot of battles against dragon legions during a war doesn't hold as much impact."

"So what Lina said is true."

"Yes," she said softly. "You did not believe her?"

"Since the Devil Barrier was raised, we've been cut off from the rest of the world. For the past seven years we have tried reestablishing connections to the rest of the world, but it hasn't been easy. Lina's word is only second hand."

"Let me testify a first hand account, as shared by visions of the ancient dragon spirits themselves. It is true, my clan murdered them out of hunger for power and a terrible pride. I saw the corpses pierced on crosses, they killed everyone. The difference between warfare and genocide is that the latter keeps the violence going even when it's no longer of strategic use. Xelloss doesn't kill when he doesn't have to, my people however did so.

Lord Milgazia, if our stories been right about Xelloss I would have joined those corpses on that day. In the temple of the Ancients, Xelloss had taken me hostage to coerce my Elder, only for him to dismiss it. He could have said right away he didn't have the blood magic required to give into the demands, but no. It was imperative I'd know how worthless I was. No apology, no regret, not a single kind word to me. He didn't even look me in the eyes, just a barked command to be silent when I questioned his lies. He had far more to say about how his genocide was justified.

He couldn't make a mistake, by his own standards. He'd would kill innocents, and I was next. He'd come to clean up the witnesses, so when Xelloss offered, all he had to say was, Do as you like.

That was the man who dominated my life for six hundred years, more so than even my father. The man chosen to represent my god. I saw him and all of my religion for what it was that day and I turned my back on it. What little I could still believe in, whether it be heaven's grace or divine mercy had since been brought to ruin by the word of the Sage of Ragradia. Even if Xelloss cared to, there's no faith left for him to undermine."

Milgazia had turned his head down and for a long time, the drops of the waterfall were the only thing to be heard around her. Within, there was the beating of her heart. She was speaking against an Elder again, something that never became natural to her.

"How ... how do you know for certain that he wasn't just stoic out of force. I myself am not very expressive, it does not mean indifference. Especially in such a situation, where the world was at stake, he might have forced himself to be stoic." Doubt was creeping in his voice.

"That is the kind of thing I used to tell myself," Filia said, gentler now. "I mean no disrespect, but are we still talking about my associations with a certain piece of garbage, or has this become about you defending a title you happen to share, elder of the Kataart Mountains?"

"I can sympathize with your doubts, believe it or not. I've had them myself," he said with a sigh.

This caught her by surprise. "May I ask how?"

"Aqualord Ragradia died as the result of a long scheme that built around depriving him of the positive emotions that he needed to be strong, while building of the negative emotions for the devils to feed on. The very first stages were wars in the human kingdoms. If we had aided the weaker races and done the morally right thing, it would never have come so far. It is one some days I wonder why our god did not send us on our way? Had he not noticed, or not cared to notice?"

The river might have taken a break from gravity and flooded the cave, Filia would not have noticed for those seconds where realization dawned. It wasn't about his doubt or the careless of the gods, that was old news. It was that tiny little detail that Milgazia had implied as the most usual thing to be known. Ragradia hadn't foreseen that these events would lead to his death. In other words, gods couldn't foretell the future.

Her lips trembled and she embraced herself with her arms.

Dragon's blood will flow, the prophecy had said.

"They're chaos words," Lina had said.

Vrabazard's so called prophecy of destruction hadn't been a prophecy, but a plot. The gods must have simply learned from the past, then calculated and steered for an outcome to deal with the Dark Star incident. Oh, looks like the Lord of Nightmares likes Lina, let's throw her at the problem. No, no need to be detailed to the clan, Luna will sort out the misunderstandings. Part of this plot described the death of her clan. The completely pointless death of her clan.

Filia knew all too well how precise the directions of Vrabazard could be. Go that way, go here, go there. It would have been so easy to just tell his own people to go away from the temple. Valgarv wouldn't have come across them, they would never have visited the desecrated ancient temple.

She had always believed that Vrabazard had phrased the prophecy as he did because he foresaw their behavior, their defiance to letting the prophecy play out, and had simply included it at a warning because no matter what he'd say her Elder would interpret it through the lens of his arrogance, or something. But if it wasn't the fruit of testing out a variety of timelines for the best outcome, then it was pointless to to include that one line unless as temptation.

That one line had told her clan this : You'll die, do go ahead and be nervous now.

Vrabazard had not one but two dragon clans on his conscience. There was apathy and then there was cruelty.

"Filia Ul Copt, is something the matter?"

"It's nothing important. The gods are just ..." She couldn't finish the sentence, so she change course to something happier. "Anyway, don't worry about what I and Xelloss are up to. It'll probably be annoying, but it will be the same as the last seven years. Shall we resume training?"

"Yes," he said, and that was all for the evening.

· · · · · · ·

Luna visited her in the later hours of night, as usual, but they didn't really talk. This remained so for the next three days, much to Filia's regret. As harsh as Luna was, Filia did enjoy speaking to a more open variant of the woman. It felt less one sided.

On the morning of the fourth day, she woke too early as Val jumped on her bed.

"Mom, mom, wake up! Memphis is here, she says the elves are going to the human town to stock up! We're invited along!" He bounced up and down, flapping his wings. "Mom! Come on!"

Filia groaned as she sat up, rubbing her eyes. "Did Xelloss destroy all food deposits or something?"

"Yes!" Val chirped. Dead heavens, that was nothing to sound so happy about. Filia lost a little control of her weight and the bed collapsed on its feet with Val's next bounce.

The boy rolled forward, she pulled him in a hug.

"Mom, it's okay if I have to stay hidden here, but can you bring me some ice cream? And some candy?"

She ruffled his hair. "That's all you're excited about? Don't be silly, Xelloss is going along. Your job is to go along so he will have to stay close and muddle your astral form. Who knows where he might run off to otherwise! It would be downright evil to expose the poor villagers to him."

Truth be said, she was weary of taking Val along with a group of elves, but the idea of letting him run off alone within the Claire Bible space when Xelloss wasn't around to bail him out if there was trouble was equally uncomfortable. There had to be something else than just infinite wisdom, because he just didn't come back bored and never complained either. It had taken so much complaining before he'd accepted he had to live in human form ...

It took a few hours of flight to reach the town and the company of twelve dragons. Normally the elves got their living from the forest, but with such a massive loss on the doorstep of winter, extreme measures were required.

Tss, extreme. The elves had such disdain for humans you'd think they'd been asked to spend the day with Xelloss! She suspected she was invited along as a diversion.

The town was more quiet than Filia had expected from one this size. According to Memphis, it had been abandoned once and was only slowly repopulating since the truce. It served as a middle point of the militarization process, some elves even had settled here.

The group split ways. The elves and their escort went to negotiate with trades, leaving Filia and her company to shop for themselves. Xelloss hadn't shown his face yet, so Filia, Elena, Palu, Molly and Val beelined for the shops.

She regretted bringing Elena, Palu and Molly along now, because the racism among humans seemed to have been intensified by the presence of the elves. If she leaned towards an interesting shop, she was told up front her company could not enter unless supervised, or enter at all. Gravos and Jillas had stayed behind exactly because they were the ones prone to break something, but the others deserved a lot more trust.

Just when she finally found a nice little ceramics store that allowed everyone in, Xelloss deemed it fit to join them. To Filia's horror, he had company.

Behind Xelloss, Milgazia stepped in. After him came Memphis, who shot Filia a desperate look and mouthed, "he kidnapped him".

"Ah, miss Filia, I see you've been overbuying already. Don't worry, I brought along some people to carry all those things," he said.

Elena and Filia exchanged a look and nodded. They held tighter onto their bags, but it was to no avail. Xelloss only needed to touch something to warp space around it. Before they could blink twice, their arms were empty and everything was stacked in Milgazia's arm.

The door fell shut only then and Filia noticed Val and Molly had gone missing.

"Palu, where did they go?"

The little vulpen pointed to the door. "Right when the big people came in. Val said that if that dragon was going to be here he wasn't. Molly followed him."

Filia frowned, Val hadn't told her anything to indicate why he'd be even more averse to goldens now.

"Oh my, how unfortunate," Xelloss said like it was fortunate. "So, miss Filia, are you here to check out the competition?"

"No, I'm just replacing my tea set," she snapped. Quickly, she grabbed the nice one she'd been looking at and went to the counter. "Miss Elena, please have a look outside to see where the kids are?"

"Off course."

Only then did Filia pay attention to the price leaned over and said, "If you ask nicely, I'll pay."

She narrowed her eyes. "You'll be telling me an elaborately new and humiliating definition of 'ask nicely' if I accept. Which I won't.

"Besides, who knows where your money comes from anyway?" Memphis said.

"Oh, I still have some leftovers of that wicked witch who I sold something to boost her powers."

"Really," Filia said flatly. "No thanks. It sounds like dirty money."

"And here I was trying to be nice! You are so ungrateful."

Filia had no chance to snap back something, because the door opened again. In came Val and Molly, the former launching himself at Xelloss's back. With inhuman agility, he climbed onto his shoulders. Once there, he clutched Xelloss's head, blocking his eyes.

"There's an ice cream shop around the corner!" Val squeaked.

Milgazia mumbled something behind the massive stack of groceries and knickknacks that blocked his face. Memphis could hear better than Filia and responded, "It's a cold candy that humans like to eat, uncle."

Both Val and Xelloss stared at the Milgazia-supported pile. Val narrowed his eyes.

"You don't know ice cream?" Molly asked.

"We will rectify this at once," Xelloss said, causing all three children to cheer. "Now I like the idea of cones for when walking, but I think we have enough time to sit down."

Memphis glanced at Filia, who shook her head. There was no arguing about sweets with this lot.

To be honest, Filia didn't oppose much anyway. Once it had felt like her mother's duty to reign in rabid sugar consumption, but she soon found for little dragons who grew too quickly it didn't matter. And ice cream was one of the culinary masterpieces of humanity.

Milgazia mumbled something again, and Memphis said, "Uncle wants to know how cones are involved."

"Ice cream and cones always come together. Especially Evil Wizard Ice cream Cone Person Thingy. Even if we're not walking."

"That is not my name!" Xelloss said with childish indignation. "For the nth time, your mother is not a good example on how to be a polite person!"

Val, Palu and Molly all stuck their tongue out and Filia was proud.

By now, the shop owner was getting a little worked up over all the racket, so Filia apologized and exploited Xelloss's inattention by saying he'd pay. Dirty money or not, it really was more about objecting to him than anything else. At least this way she knew he wasn't spending it on evil.

Xelloss pried Val off of his head, only to learn he was to pay, minus having been "asked nicely".

Meanwhile, Filia helped Memphis navigate Milgazia out the tiny door. He needed to go through his knees, but repeated offers to just take the stuff back were met with strained phrases about not displeasing the Dragon Slayer. Clearly, everything Filia had told him had gone out the other ear. That said, Xelloss had stacked everything jenga style so she had no idea how to take out one thing without scattering everything.

"That was foul play, miss Filia, using innocent little children to avoid being polite. Such pettiness takes dedication."

"Hear who is talking," Elena said under her breath, but Xelloss didn't reply as he'd already shifted away.

"This would be one of the things I use him for," Filia told Milgazia. He mumbled something in a disproving tone, and Filia wasn't all that interesting in knowing what.

When they arrived at the terrace, Xelloss was seated and just called in a waiter. They met some opposition when the vulpen wanted to enter the terrace, so Filia nudged Val, who ran ahead and took the seat next to the sewer priest.

Val had perfected the art of getting the attention of waiters despite Xelloss. Big cute eyes were his weapon, and implications of a furious mother who would kick a tantrum because "uncle forgot about allergies again". Using this method, he could undermine or at least stall whatever freaky thing Xelloss would have ordered.

As such, Val, Elena, Molly and Palu ended up exactly with the ice cream they wanted and Filia was given very acceptable pear shuttle with little bits of chocolate in it, the only objectionable quality being the tacky little clown on top.

It was almost suspiciously unoffensive. When the orders for Memphis and Milgazia arrived, she saw why he hadn't bothered with her today.

Cones dripping with very dark chocolate, stuck in yellow banana ice cream in the shape of dragons. Strawberry sauce was artistically applied to resemble a bloodbath.

"Xelloss, you never cease to amaze me with your ability to be intensely rude without using words," Filia said as her tail swished out, fighting the urge to shout what she really wanted to say, you morbid cockroach, that's disgusting!

"I thought it was an interesting way to reminiscence," he said as he happily jabbed his spoon in his own ice cream plate. He had the same as Milgazia and Memphis, minus the cones.

"It's ... " Memphis said miserably, then added a weak little laugh. Milgazia just stared ... and then actually glared at Xelloss. Filia gave him an equally futile glare, while Xelloss made a show of how dreamy the ice cream was.

"Such a startlingly poor sense of humor. Allow me to introduce you to some genuine humor," Milgazia said. "Once, there was a ..."

Memphis noticeably flinched and an artificial smile appeared on her face. She started obsessively eating her ice cream, like she was panicking.

Five minutes of Milgazia's ongoing joke later, Filia understood why.

Oh, did she understand why.

The dragons called him the pleasant Milgazia, but Lina had told her something very different. Something so ridiculous that Filia had dismissed it as a lie.

True, Lina lied about some things, she exaggerated others, but every word about Milgazia's jokes were fact. Filia had thought it silly they deserved a rant about how horrifyingly dull they were, a joke so dull it was the silence of death itself. Now, she truly, magmatically understood the terror of absolute, perfect boredom.

His one liners were merely flat, but weave the chords of their empty tone in a long winded string and the very fabric of sanity was rend apart.

Filia found herself shaking in terror at such eldritch methods, spoon slowly cracking in her balled fist.

Xelloss's head lulled right into his ice cream and he was sobbing incoherently, one of his arms twitching. An astral being's mental state affected their strength and a lot of Xelloss's existence was about Fun and Interesting, it had to be even worse for him. She put a hand on his shoulder in sympathy. Nobody deserved to be subjected to this hell, not even this nuisance.

It took another five minutes before the joke was done. By then, several of the people on the terrace around them had collapsed to the ground, blank eyes stared into the sky. Those still sitting shook in their skin, and a few were having a seizure.

"... The door closed and the light went out. The dragon fell asleep. The story ended. The end."

"That was funny!" Val said with what appeared to be a genuine laugh.

Her son had been possessed, Filia could find no other explanation.

As she tried to wrap her mind around how anything like that could be funny to her son, she pulled Xelloss out of his ice cream. To a whole other level of terror, both of his eyes were open and fixed on Milgazia. His arm was still twitching and bloodlust filled the air.

Like it had been when he'd fought Valgarv. On reflex, she grabbed him by his unstable arm and tried to pull him away, but he didn't move an inch. She tried surrounding him with the magic of teleportation, but with all this bloodlust and expanding dark magic she couldn't get the focus she needed.

He was going to kill Milgazia, but for the first time she was there. She could still stop it.

"~Earthlord Rangort, don't let him! Don't you have a plan?~" It was out before she caught herself, and off course nothing happened. "~For crying out loud, do something! If you won't protect your people, why do I even bother helping you?~"

There were no respectful thoughts behind it, only loathing and desperation. In some half formed idea, she considered defiance to Rangort's plan. Would it be, this was the prayer that got answered.

The magic in the earth below stirred, taking on a holy tint. Xelloss was flung off the chair and his concentration broke. Filia pulled him into teleportation and reappeared near an alley on the opposite end of the street. With all her force, she pulled Xelloss out of sight. Once far enough in the dark, she faced him.

"You filthy rat, were you really going to kill Milgazia over a bad joke?"

"My liege the Beast Monarch did not order me to not kill any golden dragons. All I am to do is remain hidden from devil eyes," he drawled. He didn't look at her, but at the direction Milgazia would be.

"Come on, you can't do this! Think of something positive!"

"That makes me sick in a different way."

"Your positive, not humanity's positive. Think of that time I ruined a town—"

"Killing Milgazia would be my kind of positive."

"No!" She grabbed him by both shoulders and tried shaking him. He didn't budge much, only swaying a little on his feet. Like he couldn't be bother to emulate a realistic human form right now. Rangort's power was still around, though, not allowing him to fully fade.

"No, why?" he asked.

"Won't it really draw a lot of attention if you kill him?" she asked, hating that she couldn't hide the despair in his voice.

"If there were devils around outside of me, all these elves would have noticed them already. I don't care what the dragons notice."

"Xelloss, it's just a joke." Every fibre of her mind revolted at this understatement. "Just listen to it. Someone told a dull joke. You can't be seriously so upset over something so silly that you'd kill the speaker."

"Miss Filia, all of the world is a dream of the Lord of Nightmares. There are many things in this world we take for granted on Her dream logic, and there are many silly things with great gravitas. There's jokes, and there is the eldritch abomination that is Milgazia telling jokes. You just have to accept such weird things in a dream. It was not just a joke."

She laughed, it was more twisted than she'd ever imagine herself sounding. "Yes, it's all a bloody dream. Maybe next dream, I'll kill a god. Now imagine yourself killing the Lord of Nightmares."

"Don't say such things idly, miss Filia," he muttered.

"You're idly contemplating killing ..." Another person, but what would he care for that? She had to choose another word. "... killing a silly, unique part of the dream of the Lord of Nightmares. There, that's me accepting Milgazia as dream logic. You're the one who can't accept it, you want to eliminate it."

He tilted his head and gave that goofy smile, scratching the back of his head. But his eyes were still open, so he needed another little push.

"Your reality is that golden dragons are your weakness," she said as solemnly as she could, trying to sound dull like Milgazia.

That did it. His eyes closed and he was more annoyed than bloodthirsty now.

"They are absolutely not! The very idea that golden dragons like you or him could ever be my weakness when I've practically won the war against you on my own!"

"Oh really?" she said, putting up her best haughty voice. She pulled out a handkerchief, slapped it on his face and wiped the melting icecream remnants off. "The wounds of the battle are very evident."

"That's not injury, that's lost treasure. I never said I was hoarding."

"Oh you ... let's excuse Milgazia, shall we? I'll carry my own bags."

For once, he conceded.

Milgazia lived, and so did Filia. One way or another, and this was not good enough for her. The thought did not let her go anymore : what if she could just snip away dangerous emotions before they went into fruition? A Holy Rezast to work on astral beings might be handy after all.

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That night, she set up an invitation for Luna Inverse by piecing together an elvish reflection of her childhood. She had not learned to transform until she was a teenager, so it took a little to make herself appear small and her parents as elves. She normally hid these memories deeply and lived for her true family. However, she needed bait and a diversion, so Luna wouldn't derail the dream into an amusement park again.

If anything meant something for sure for Luna Inverse, it was family. Even if she had inadvertently driven away part of her family, something Filia couldn't understand.

Luna took long to appear, during which Filia played with how she imagined her family to look as elves. She'd seen her elder brothers transform, but not her mother or her sisters. She experimented with sculptures of clay, reflected these on the figments once she was satisfied. It was in her mother she placed most imagination, and by the time Luna did finally appear, she still was changing details.

Luna wandered through the wooden room, poked her toe in the fire and snorted. "Quaint, Filia. Not like the real thing at all, I bet."

Filia set her sculptures aside and stood up. "Miss Luna, I changed my mind."

With a loud plop, Luna dropped in a leather chair. Her trademark grin appeared. "Ooh, do tell me what changed."

"I discovered cruelty in the gods," she said.

Luna scratched her cheek. "Eh, I always just thought they were lazy."

Filia said nothing, but called into the dream the words of the prophecy, overlain on the image of her slaughtered clan. Amidst this, a figment of Milgazia wandered into view, speaking of the demise of Ragradia. She added in her own words.

"Yeah ... With lazy gods I mean I just know about Rags. Not sure though why Razzy would want to send his own followers to their death, but if I'd guess on astral logic, I'd say he got massively pissed off when he noticed Valgarv's involved and got retroactive irritation of the death of the ancients. But that's just me. We can't say anything for sure until we know whether or not gods can predict the future, sense the future or just guess the whole mess."

Filia hadn't considered imperfect future prediction, or limited one, but it didn't matter. She brought forth her memories of today. "I threatened Rangort with becoming a problem if he didn't help me. Only then did he make a move. It didn't matter Milgazia was in danger before."

"Yeah, I find it tough to believe Rangort wouldn't be watching your place, given their plan's unfolding there. What'd Milgazia do anyway? Xelloss is hard as hell to provoke."

"Milgazia's jokes are very bad."

"... I was prepared to say it sounds like a bad joke but you beat me. Seriously, though, how did he do it?"

"I told you. A bad joke."

"Never mind. You clearly don't want to tell me so it's something deliciously humiliating. I'll find out later." Luna waved her hand, and with that motion the landscape of corpses disappeared. They were falling again, each still on their chairs.

"Anyway, I don't care much for your reasons," Luna said. "Let's just get the job done. You can do with the information what you want."

"THOU SHALL TELL ME!" Luna Above hollered.

They looked up at the Siephied plush. Luna groaned and ripped a leathery piece off the chair to cover her face with.

"I don't mind, Luna. In essence, I agree with your reason to understand how astral beings stick together. It's for defense against astral beings. But ... it's not just the gods. It's also so I can finally have some leverage over Xelloss, and not pray to get help. What if the gods decide they don't care one day?"

Luna dropped the leather. "I'm aboard with that."

"DEFINITELY," Luna above avowed, and a choir of angels fanned out. Luna let out an agonized noise, not unlike a strangled cat.

"Your idea of Siephied is delightful as always," Luna said as she flipped over the chair, so she looked at the oncoming taiga.

When they were near the ground, Luna burned up the chairs and landed on her feet. Her casual clothes was gone, replaced by the Zephyrian Siephied Knight armor. Filia herself wore a simplistic version of her priestess outfit, minus hat. It made her feel a bit uncomfortable.

This time, there was something different about the golden fence of her soul. Where before the shapes were erratic, now double crosses with circles at their center had grown around the hole. Luna drummed on them with her fingers.

"What does this mean?"

"Subconscious barricade. I guess these shapes are a sort of anti-Life Law, or maybe you just use them due to trauma or whatever. Doesn't matter. I can use it too."

Luna clapped her hands together once, causing a thunderous sound. Filia felt what she was to do, so she opened her soul gate a little. At the same time, she set the system of Holy Rezast in motion.

Luna grabbed one of the crosses from the fence, lacing her fingers over the center circle. "Filia?"

No going back now. Filia felt like she ought to tremble, but at the bottom of her soul little sentiments like that meant less. It was her anger and frustration that went far deeper. What Luna requested was a little piece of her soul, not to cut it off but to wield it as a weapon. Filia gave her permission, and so Luna drew out a cross of which the longest end became a sword.

"Oh, dramatic irony." Luna licked her lips. With expert hands, she turned the cross around once. It looked like testing weight, but in reality it tested resonance.

Almost nonchalant, Luna leaned leaned on the gate's frame with her other hand. She whistled without faltering, creating a rising tone that was carried far out.

The wind howled back to Luna, changing directions for her call. A fierce force rushed past Luna, straight into Filia's self. The sheer power cut her metaphorical breath, threatening to snuff her very life force if she was not careful. Yet this was but the smallest resonance, just the extended sight of a god.

Filia pulled herself together, and with that white threads shot from the fence, forming a glowing Life Law Circle in the hole. The power of Valwin condensed, taking a form Filia could comprehend more easily : out grew a many eyes dragon head, more arthropod than reptilian. A silver exoskeleton covered a stump skull with segmented mouth, and sharp long scales jutted from the head and neck. Like growing ice crystal, seeping scales covered the ground below it. Filia feared they'd piece Luna, but the woman easily stepped on them.

Balancing on these spikes, she stood at the root of the neck, waiting. Just as the flow was about the reverse, she grabbed the glowing circle and crooked it. The flow backward stopped, preventing Valwin's power and newly gained knowledge from reaching the Tower of Wind. It remained here, within this pinprick of the wind god.

Luna completed the first phase by setting a foot on the neck and ramming down the blade, thereby sealing the fragment within Filia's soul. The neck bled light that washed out as blood in the sea, shrill screaming filled their ears. Filia winced despite her efforts not to care.

Luna willed the wound to grow. Her power broke the fragment in small lines of logic for Filia to pull apart. The head became silent and stopped trashing, and Luna beckoned her to approach. So her surprise, she found she could easily walked on the razor sharp blades.

Carefully, Filia knelt down at the wound. Her hands grew claws as she reached for the astral body. Thread by thread, she pulled out the principles of the godly body. For now she did nothing to change it, only to learn. Filia had always imagined astral beings like vague energy fields, but the reality was full of complex ... concepts? Principles? Rules? The anatomy of the mind was poorly compared to physical form even in a dream landscape, but she didn't need to see. This was nothing she could truly feel or hear or grasp, but she could think it.

Break down an astral being and they are purely miasma constrained by soul and thought. She found the fence of Valwin's soul, intangible beyond her dreamscape yet within herself now. The piece of power still possessed soul, stretched thin and ready to pull back to its source. As she realized this, Luna also knew. With a few twists, Luna dug the blade in deeper and Filia contracted the hole in her soul further. Thread by thread, they cut Valwin's power using the walls of the soul and Luna's enforcement.

Fragments of memories crept into her mind, drawing her back to old times of dragon gods. Luna was already familiar with the sensation and so it felt less alien to Filia too. She dug her hands deeper into blasphemy, only to learn the gods cared not for concepts of sanctity and sin. As if it was news.

She finally smiled, even as far above her conscience readied a dose of guilt.

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