Spyro knew he should not find pleasure, or more like amusement, in his friend's situation. But given half the crap that had been going around the last two days, he figured he could spread the misery around a little bit. For ancestor's sake, not only had the other younglings that he had arrived with been coming to him asking questions about this and that. Even the adults, the "City Councilors" especially, had been seeking him out for even the most benign questions.

How was he supposed to know what buildings they should rebuild first? He grew up in a Dragonfly Village; he was taught what plants were poisonous, not construction. And even at the temple, the guardians had concentrated on keeping him alive first, and basic knowledge second, everything else when we're not fighting for our lives.

So that so many were seeking him out was ridiculous. Ironically enough, even Cynder was having similar issues. The difference was that while Spyro was getting more leadership wanting his "sage advice," Cynder was getting more of what Luanda had called "fanboys." Which would not have been too bad if they had not seemed to be popping out of nowhere, along with "fangirls!" The two of them had been worried that Cynder would be looked down on, even hated, because of her past. Instead, it was the near opposite, and it was confusing the both of them!

So yes, if he could dump some of the attention on someone, he was totally going to do it while trying to slip away. Anyone who was calling it running was lying; he was not running away, damn it!

Either way, he had been glad he managed to find the "Temporary" Fire Guardian, Jone, as quickly as he had. The purple dragon wished he could say he had found him after some searching. But nope, it had been good timing; they had encountered each other heading in opposite directions. Jone, the ice dragoness who was his mate (Sefon), and Tribon (Marshal's sister, Spyro had to remind himself, having rarely interacted with her), were already heading to check on Marshal. So Spyro was able to let them know that Marshal was awake without issue.

That left him with a different problem, though. He had been hoping to waste time, not save it. Now he was scrambling for something else to do that was not listening to another Councilor prattling about why he should support such and such business!

Thankfully, an idea came to him. Marshal was not the only one he could check upon. There were the others of the "Young Leaders." Whichever counselor had started pushing that name to be an official title when they had been jokingly using it to quickly identify those "in charge," well, Spyro really wanted to punch that creature. Cynder and himself were being dropped into the group too, and that was on top of the two of them being referred to as the "Legendary Couple." He did not need more titles, damn it.

Given time of day, i.e., early morning, Spyro could probably make a good guess on where most of them were, Breakfast. The purple dragon stopped for a second before deciding getting breakfast was a good idea; he was a bit hungry.

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It was loud. That was the primary thought Cynder had in her head as she munched on some surprisingly tasty fruit. She was sitting in what, she was told, was the largest cafeteria that the Warfang Temple had. She had also been told it was not a normal thing for those not a member of the temple, be they staff or student, to be in the temple in general. But given the general situation of not only the city but also those that everyone had been calling "The Refugees' ' (which included the thousand plus younglings she and Spyro had helped and fought with now apparently), most traditions and other rules had been put to the wayside—made things easier for now. That would probably change over time as things calmed down and things were figured out and fixed. But for now, Cynder had to deal with the extra noise.

Not that she minded; in fact, she kind of secretly liked it. Seeing so many other dragons around, especially those she had previously fought with, it raised her spirits. It was also fun to people watch. It also gave her something to watch and pass the time. For example, watching the other Young Leaders, most of whom were also coming for some breakfast.

Kean was the easiest the spot; he was helping his parents (and grandparents, from the looks of things) wrangle his siblings around and through the line. Watching the poison dragon deal with his eight siblings was fun almost every time she saw him. She now had a better idea of why he was as good as he was at being in the middle of chaos. His life usually was. This was exemplified by the simple fact that as she watched him, Kean used his tail to scoop up a sibling trying to wander off and then deposit that sibling next to one of the grandmothers. Cynder could not resist a light chuckle at the action.

Moving on, she next spotted Horhe, who was probably one of the more significant shocks for her. The fire dragon had always seemed more ass than anything. Even after Spyro, Marshal, and herself had saved him from the Ape General; the older dragon had been very combative (except when fighting, which seemed like the only time he was not arguing). But right now, sitting between his father and what was apparently his younger brother, he looked almost…content. To Cynder, it looked like Horhe's father, while completely ignoring his children, was at the very least being very short and sharp with his interactions. And then Horhe himself seems to be making small motions to his younger brother, almost short, but more direct than anything else. It was definitely strange to her eyes, but it seemed to work.

Content that Horhe was not about to do anything interesting, Cynder moved on to someone else. Her next sight was Carmeta. Well more it was that the electric female was the next she heard. Said female seemed to be bouncing around her overwhelmed father and a younger brother tiredly tugging along. If Cynder was to guess, the female had gotten all of the family's energy. Cynder had to resist chuckling out loud at her own bad pun.

She was saved from going further into her own thoughts by the sound of a tray being put on the table she was sitting at. Turning to look, she was a bit surprised to see the large body of Harild standing next to her.

"Hope you don't mind. Rather not try and muscle in on anyone else's tables."

Cynder raised an eyeridge at the earth dragon. But her attention was quickly taken by the two smaller dragons next to him, his two siblings from the looks of things. They both looked a little jittery, but less of her strangely. It looked more like the rest of the room was what was giving them issues. Considering this, Cynder looked around the room again. Most of the rest of the tables were occupied, and even those with low numbers had family groups. Taking this into consideration, she could understand.

So, with a motion to her table, she responded, "Sure. I won't say no to the company right now."

Harild nodded and motioned his siblings to the table. The two promptly put their trays down and sat down.

The four were quiet for a bit. Just long enough for Cynder to spot Luanda entering the cafeteria with her parents, all three looking…Cynder wanted to call it pompous or maybe like they got some filth stuck to their paws. The only reason she could not call it that way was because it looked more like Luanda's parents were constipated while the ice dragoness herself was trying to look uncaring while also not laughing (at her parents, from the looks of things).

Seeing Luanda and her parents, dropped a question in her mind. So she turned to harild and asked, "I don't mean to be rude," Harild was already raising an eyeridge. "But I have to ask, Are your parents around?"

The two younglings at the table seemed to freeze slightly at her question. But Harild, Harild blinked and took a breath. Then he took a small bite of the jerky on his tray before he finally responded. "Our mother died years ago. Disease complication." Cynder flinched lightly; she now knew why the younglings reacted the way they did. She was distracted from thinking further as Harild kept talking. "Our father is somewhere in the city, probably trying to help one of the construction teams. I believe his exact words were, 'Go eat. I don't need food.'" The earth dragon snorted lightly, "His way of saying, 'I trust you to not die on your own'"

Cynder scowled slightly, "Seems rather harsh."

The earth dragon shrugged, "He's better than he used to be. I've learned to not get my hopes too high."

"At least your's talk to you." The unexpected voice and sound of another tray dropping onto the table almost made Cynder jump. Instead, she turned her head to watch as Stecra sat down and kept talking, "I'm lucky if I get a grunt from either of my parents. Right now, I think they'd rather sleep all day. They're very unsure of things right now."

Cynder was blinking rapidly at the audio dragon, unsure of what to say. Thankfully Harild seemed to have something, "And while my heart bleeds for you. Why sit here and tell us?"

Stecra finished chewing on the leg of meat she was chowing down on and looked at Harild. "This table had people I knew, was not overcrowded, and had the least likely chance of interrupting a family moment. Besides, I was already listening, so it was easy to answer the conversation."

Harild sighed and rubbed his face in exasperation. Meanwhile, the younger of his siblings, a dragoness, giggled lightly. Most likely at her brother's expense. Cynder herself had to resist smiling.

A small voice caught her attention. "Um, Ms. Cynder." Startled slightly, Cynder looked to the Harild's other sibling. Seeing he had caught her attention, he continued, "I…Uh, I just wanted to thank you. For helping to keep us all safe."

Cynder smiled. She was not fully aware of why she smiled—just that him thanking her made her feel better than it had any right to. But either way, she still smiled. "It was my pleasure."

The bright smile she got in response was not what she was expecting. But she was not about to complain about it. She looked just long enough to see Harild's brother go back to his breakfast when her attention was taken up by the feel of lips against her cheek.

She turned, startled yet again, this time to see Spyro's smiling face as he took up a seat next to her. He did not have a tray like the rest in the room. All he had with him was a single piece of meat, about the size of his head. The purple dragon turned to her and, just before taking a bite, said, "Fancy seeing you here. Miss anything?"

Cynder chuckled at her partner's antics before responding, "Not much. Just talking."

Spyro hmmed, then swallowed his bite, "Good to know it's quiet over here."

Harild snorted, "If this is quiet, I'd hate to see what you think is busy." He motioned to the very active room as he said this.

Spyro chuckled lightly, "Yes, this is busy. But I think you'll find it getting much more…chaotic here soon."

Harild raised an eyeridge in question, his siblings blissfully eating their breakfast, letting the older dragons talk, and Stecra leaned in excitedly.

Cynder sighed, "Ok. What happened?"

Spyro's smile was extensive, "Oh, nothing. It's just…Marshal is awake."

Harild's grunt was the only noise at the table (outside of the sound of food being eaten) for a bit. It was an excellent indication of how surprised they were.

Then Cynder finally smiled, "Good. It was getting strange not seeing him up and about."

Stecra snorted, "Strange? More like downright wrong. I never saw the guy stop, except when he was sleeping. And him being out, even for two days, was so many levels of wrong."

Spyro chuckled, "Well, I talked to him for a bit. He's still not fully recovered. But I'm sure he'll be up and about before lunch. He should be talking to his family right now. Depending on how much they have to talk about, I would not be surprised if they eat something in the infirmary. But once done, I'm almost positive the other Guardians are going to want to talk to him."

Cynder had to hold back her groan. She had an idea of what awaited Marshal. The same thing that had happened to her and Spyro that first night back in the City. An interro-Sorry "Debriefing."

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Marshal's groan was heavy. Every movement still hurt. He was still very much sore all over his body. He was just glad they did not need to fly. With as much pain as he was in from just walking, he could not imagine how bad it would be to try and flap his wings. So many muscles to complain! And then there was the other problem he had not talked about when his parents asked if he felt good enough to move.

He could glide, of that he was sure. But if they asked him to fly, his chances were small. The reason for this was simple: he needed his magic to really fly. Specifically to launch off the ground without taking a ridiculous amount of time. It also helped him improve his overall flying as well. This was something that had taken him a bit to realize, but every time he flew, he noticed that he would use magic to help him in one way or another. It was ordinarily subtle, and not something most would notice. The only reason he did was because of a combination of near-constant experimentation when he had not been fighting and how he felt right now with him being unable to use even the tiniest bit of magic.

He had not realized how much he had actually been using his magic until now. He still was unsure exactly how much he had been using. But now, with everything turned off, on Pain of PAIN, he noticed several things.

One, his situational awareness was even worse. Apparently, he had been using his magic to keep track of things around him more than he had thought.

Two, it seemed like his body was generally weaker. That's not to say his, for lack of a better term, "strength stat" was down, meaning he had a debuff kind of thing. More like he had been subconsciously using some type of body enhancement for some time. The wind dragon equated to when he had used his magic to "armor" up his arms to defend from the Ape General's attack the one time. Except instead of external, it was completely internal, and less Armor and more…Resistance? He was not entirely sure. It was not something he could really test. Just something he noticed. And something he had to keep telling his subconscious to stop trying to implicate cause he could feel it every time it tried, damn it!

The third item was not something he could quantify, just a feeling, really. Like…It felt like…It felt like someone had turned off the spotlight which had been shining on him for too long while at the same time like the space (not air, Space) around him had gotten less…not comforting…goodness was not correct…neither was homely…might be a combination. Either way, it felt less, very much a sense of less. A less Marshal was damn sure it was because of himself. He was very unsure how. Something he would have to try and keep tabs on as his magic came back and stopped hurting him so much.

Back to the topic of why he was walking, though. Marshal looked out a large window he was passing, walking behind his father, his mother at his side, and Tribon behind them, looking like she was contemplating leaving. Apparently, he had to talk to the Guardians about what happened for several reasons. He also figured it might have something to do with a what to do now situation as well, but that was a separate piece.

Either way, finding out there was indeed a Temple in Warfang, and that was where they were, was kind of nice. But from his father's passing remarks, it was more of an administrative building than a place of learning/refuge like the Main Temple from the games.

"Marshal, I did not want to ask this with others around. And this might be the best place; no one I ask knows what is going on. Do you?"

Marshal turned to look at his mother, who had asked the question, which had been strangely similar to what he had been thinking. "I guessing you mean about us being here?"

Sefon nodded. Marshal noticed that Jone had also slowed down and was listening in as well.

Marshal sighed lightly, "Maybe. I mean. I haven't had much time to really think about it. No, that's not true. I have thought about it. At first, I was operating off of nothing. Now, I have an Idea on What. But zero clue on the How or, more importantly, Why."

Tribon spoke up from behind them, "You're doing better than me. I can probably guess your idea on the What, even if I only have an idea in passing. Video game?"

Marshal nodded, "Legend of Spyro specifically." He noticed the raised and confused looks on his parents. "See my problem. We are in a world connected to what was a video game. At first, I thought it was: this place was based off of the video game. But after talking with Spyro and Cynder a bit, I think it's the opposite: The video game is based off of this world."

Sefon thankfully asked the most obvious question. "How does that work?"

Marshal shrugged, withholding a hiss at the pain that action caused. "That's part of what I don't know. Especially as there seems to be a time difference, the games came out before the events happened here. Not by much, thankfully, but still enough to be a noticeable difference. Best I can think, the creators were influenced by something, or saw something."

Sefon responded again, "What, like they created a prophecy?"

Marshal nodded. "Of a sort. A very visual one, but also very truncated. It's been one of the big things I noticed; this world is much bigger than it is shown in the games. And even a lot of the game mechanics were simplified compared to how things actually work, and look in some cases." His mind went to the grublins, and to a lesser degree, flying.

In the video game, the main enemy of the last game looked terrible, sure. But in person, they looked so much nastier. The wind dragon had looked at the concept art of those creatures before, and even those images did not do those foul creatures justice. It came close, but not quite; he choked it up less to lack of trying and more that you could not really capture what made them disgusting without truly seeing them.

And as for flying, well, that one was self-explanatory: Of course, a linear game was not going to give such freedom of movement. It would break everything! Did not mean it was a significant and exciting difference that he had to keep in mind.

He did not say any of this aloud. He had other thoughts to spew first. "At first, I thought that was because, It was a video game. But the more I talked, and the small bits of throw-away info I've been overhearing, some parts of the game, while it technically happened, there were some parts that had more detail. Or something like that. So, I keep coming back to prophesy, may be changed to make a better game."

"And that makes sense?" That was Jone asking.

Marshal could understand. The only reason he believed what he was saying himself was because they were living it, and a tiny tickle was in the back of his mind. There had been parts of his journey so far that seemed familiar; he never said it aloud, but deja vu was a thing for him, and the number of times he had gotten it and said nothing had been annoying. But he had never commented on it, always had something more important to worry about.

Again though, Marshal did not talk about that. His parents had always looked at him weirdly when he had commented on such feelings in the past. So he went with a different approach, "We're giant scaled creatures who, while looking similar to lizards, are not in the same family based on the simple fact that we are not cold-blooded. Who uses what could only be described as Magic to manipulate the elements." His father sighed. He had apparently forgotten about that. "Besides, there's another thing. We believe in God, but here, they submit to The Ancestors, as I'm sure you've noticed."

Both Jone and Sefon nodded. They had noticed. And subconsciously had started to use similar terms to what the locals were using to make things easier.

Before they could raise a question, though, Marshal continued. "I bring that up for a simple reason. We rely on Faith mostly. But here, the Ancestors, they're, to a degree, tangible. They not only help, but have a quantifiable role in some cases. And from what Spyro and Cynder have said, what I remember from the games was almost spot on."

The raised eye ridges showed how shocked his parents were, but Marshal was not done. "One of the big things, They've helped Spyro. Even crazier is that they're most definitely still helping him. There's this person, Called the Chronicler. I guess you could call him a literal Lore Keeper for the planet, and everything on it. He lives on an island that doesn't exist, but Spyro visited. He's basically immortal. Not only that, but Chronicler is both a Name and a position. A position that changes with every new age. When Spyro saved the world, it marked the change of an age, which meant a new Chronicler. I don't know for sure if it's the same as at the end of the game, but the guy he was called ahcnerhg." Marshal choked, then coughed to try and breathe again. He stopped walking and held his throat. "Huh, that…that felt wrong. His name was…." Again his throat closed.

Marshal's parents stopped and looked at their son, who was very concerned now. Granted, his small near, crazed rant was concerning, but he was getting a lot of his chest, and this was kind of normal for him, so they had let him continue, but this choking thing was new.

Before they could ask, he waved them off. And he talked again, "I'm fine. I'm just going to confirm that it's who I think it is and that the magic of his position is protective for some reason. Good to know. Either way, it proves my point. The guy who is the new chronicler, he died. Like, he straight up sacrificed himself to…." The wind dragon's head twitched; something told him to be very careful with what he was about to say. So he forced out his following words. "He. Sacrificed. To. Make. Sure. The. World. Would. Be. Saved." The last word was almost explosive. He took a few breaths before talking more normally. "I don't think I can say more than that. I don't know what kind of magic that was, or if it was really magic—but just saying that little was oppressive. Either way, he died. And yet he's still around, able to both record and influence the world. And I'm almost positive he already has, not as directly as his predecessor, that guy probably massively overstepped. But either way, the new one very much cared for Spyro. I can't see him not giving small pushes here and there."

Jone nodded, stopping his son from continuing any more ranting, "I think we get the gist. These ancestors, those that came before, have a presence on this world. And somehow that presence reached out to our world to influence things, because?"

Marshal shook his head, "I don't know. I have an idea of where to start, though. Convexity. It was described once as a Bridge or an Airlock. But it was supposed to be connected to something called the Dark Realms."

Jone gave Marshal a hard look, "Or maybe it goes to more than just one place?"

Marshal nodded, "That's what I was thinking. Sort of, it was either that or someone mistranslated something or that it wasn't meant to be literal or the name changed. I have several ideas. It's something that needs to be looked into."

Jone sighed, then nodded and started walking again. "Something for you to do. The library here is big. I'm told it was a back-up for the rest of the temples so that it might have something."

Marshal groaned as he, along with Sefon and Tribon, followed again. "Great, just what I love doing, studying."

Jone grunted, "Also, Don't say a thing about this to anyone else. Not until we know for sure."

Marshal nodded, "Wasn't planning on it. Everyone has enough to worry about. And, while I know, it probably would not be the craziest thing for most to hear after everything. I've been wanting to see if I can have something concrete to back up my wild theories."

Jone nodded in agreement, "Good. The Guardians know something is up. They seem to have ideas on what is going on. But I feel it is more in relation to this world's standards. Best not to mess that up too much."

Marshal chuckled, "Right, don't need to find out if they have a local equivalent of a straight jacket and padded room."

Marshal could not see it, but he could sure tell his father was rolling his eyes at the bad joke. Either way, it was an unspoken agreement that the conversation was done. They all needed to think about a few things.

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Many beings were all metaphysically breathing heavily in a place without a place, in a land without substance. Typically, direct interference was a horrible thing, but some ancient laws exist for a reason. And so, they had to play cover-up rapidly.

It had taken a tremendous amount of power to force a living creature not to reveal the honored name. In fact, it actually took more energy than it usually would, part of that was because of what the speaker was. They also knew that they likely would have had an even harder time if the creature had not been as weakened as it was. But it had to be done. And so did what they did next.

Again, they could not directly interfere. But it was not yet time for certain things to be revealed; significant challenges were ahead. And these challenges needed to be dealt with before time ran out.

And so, with soft touches and careful proddings, The Ancestors made the livings' minds move on, making the conversation they just had slip into the background. Something to think about, but not discuss. They could not make them forget it entirely, and in truth, that is not what they wanted. The Returnies would need to know. But if they discovered it too fast, the damage they could cause, even accidentally, could be astronomical.

And while some worked on the creatures about to have a great discussion on what was, a few worked in places to poke and prod and ready for what was to come.

AN: This damn thing fought me tooth and nail. So damn hard to start, so damn hard to figure out what I wanted to show. So damn hard trying to know what I wanted to be "starting to Normal" because what the hell is NORMAL? AND HOW DO I QUANTIFY A DIFFERENT WORLDS VERSION OF NORMAL, ESPECIALLY ONE LIKE THIS!? Sorry, I needed to get that out of my system. Eventually, I just kind of moved on. After way too much mental back and forth, a bit of strong-arming, and some alternative thinking. I worked through it.

I can't say it was all in one go, though. Every time I seemed to be in the middle of a good streak, I had to stop to take care of something, or it would reach the end of my day, and I had to stop. It was kind of annoying, but that's how things go. I've been mostly glad that I've at least made progress. Some of it might have also been coffee-induced madness…oh well, whatever works. Side note, my standard spell/grammar check software (Grammarly) has decided not to work with Google Docs, so that's been fun to work with.

Also, Story Note, I'm playing a bit with when the Legend of Spyro Games came out for this story (initially 2006-2008 apparently, did not feel that long ago or that close together!). I'm trying to keep it vague on purpose so as not to cause too much of a confusion. But it also lets me play around with some things. I, also, almost did not include the conversation between Marshal and his family about the whole "this is a video game world" thing. But part of it dropped into my brain, and I decided it was a good way to both explain a few things, but also to give an idea of why some things would happen in the future.

And about that last bit…Yea, I don't entirely know where that came from. All I know is that I like it, and it added yet another piece of foreshadowing to this chapter. And damn, was there a lot of that, both spoken and unspoken.

The next chapter will probably have a time jump. I don't really plan on showing Marshal's debriefing with the Guardians. It would be too much rehashing and not in a good way. (unless there's some sort of outcry for it?) Also not entirely sure what to do next. As it is, they've earned a bit of a rest, and there will be a few days until the next big event. But I need to do a build-up for it. The question is how—something to think on, I guess.

Either way, That's all I got for now. So, until we meet again, Happy Reading!