No Need For A Core?

Fuyuko stared at her papa with narrowed eyes. "You," she said flatly, "have a dragon familiar." While she was trying to stare down an amused-looking Mordecai, Hai-Ying-Riyo was circling around and sniffing her, getting a good sample of her scent. Her fingers twitched, and she had to suppress the impulse to grab him and cuddle him and give him scritches. She was trying to be upset at her papa here.

They were currently in the archery range attached to the arena, along with Amrydor. They had been doing basic drills to keep their muscles in shape as part of the light exercise regime Mordecai had imposed.

"Yes, I do," he replied, and it did not seem that he was going to follow up on that statement.

"And when," she asked in as calm a voice as she could manage, "do I get a chance to get a dragon familiar?" Fuyuko was the only one in her family without a dragon now, and that was just not fair. To her mothers she sent, "This is why you and his core were vague about where Papa's avatar was off to, isn't it?"

Mama M teased her with "I'm sure that would be just an awful thing to do, wouldn't it love?"

"Yes," Mama K replied, "and I am sure that your mothers would never be so cruel as to surprise you with a new dragon friend like that."

Papa smiled, possibly in response to Fuyuko's question, possibly because of what Moriko and Kazue were saying, probably both. Then he replied, "When you are ready, along with some of your peers. I think it would be best for you to do it as a group, when you are all old enough that you don't need supervision. Which you should be glad of, because Amrydor, 'Yugo', and Taeko would be the first ones I would send otherwise. Shizoku would also probably go before you."

That made Fuyuko scowl more as Hai-Ying-Riyo darted off to investigate Amrydor next. "I get the boys, I guess; they are older than me. But Shizo is younger." She ignored the feeling of smugness she could feel from her bond to Amry; she was pretty certain that it was deliberate, as he wasn't holding back with giving the young dragon attention.

"That, and the training that they have undergone to help them develop their sense of identity and place in the world. You, on the other hand, have recently had a year of upheaval and change, and a more chaotic upbringing. Now is not the time for you to try anchoring the soul of an unborn dragon."

What Papa said made perfect sense. This did not, however, make Fuyuko feel much better. She still wanted a baby dragon of her own.

Her sulking was interrupted when Hai-Ying-Riyo zipped by and slapped her boot with a flick of his tail. "Tag, you're it!"

"What?" Fuyuko said as she tried to take in what was happening and switch her line of thought.

As the sinuous dragon flitted out of the room, Mordecai laughed and said, "Carnelian and Sparks are already waiting impatiently in the mushroom forest; just remember to stay out of the way of any delving groups."

Fuyuko's thoughts started to catch up with events as Amrydor ran past, making sure to stay clear of her reach on the way. He'd already managed to get all his armor stored in his ring, and she hadn't even noticed him doing that!

"Hey!" she shouted, then paused long enough to point at her papa. "I'm not done being mad about this!" She jumped into a shadow as she reached out for the feeling of where Amrydor was, trying to leap out from a shadow in his path to tag him, but even while running, he'd managed to 'see' where she was coming from in time to dodge her.

She did eventually tag him by rapidly switching through a few exit shadows mid-jump, but the effort left her nauseous and was immediately followed by a mental scolding from Papa. "Don't do that again; that's far too much strain while your spiritual strength is recovering, and that trick is too dangerous to practice without more training and direct supervision, yet anyway."

Fuyuko might have argued if she wasn't busy trying to make sure she didn't get sick; the sensation was bad enough that she had her armor modify itself to expose her back, arms, and legs to help cool her off while she was on her hands and knees. Being warm always made feeling sick worse.

Amrydor thankfully showed mercy and waited with her for a while until she was ready to continue, though part of her did wonder if the exposure of her skin might not be a factor there, causing some mixed feelings. The vain part of her that wanted to be seen as pretty liked the idea, while the part of her that was normally shy about exposing any of her skin was teaming up with the part of her that didn't want anything to do with the reason why Amry would like looking at her.

But she also trusted him and knew he understood her feelings on the topic. She could also feel his concern through their bond, even if it came with occasional undercurrents of distraction. Fuyuko could live with him also enjoying the view, though it did make her a little curious about something, as she wasn't really showing a lot of skin.

So when she started feeling better and felt safe enough to sit back on her heels, Fuyuko ran a small experiment. She slid her hands under the back of her hair to lift it up, exposing more of her neck at the same time that she mentally tweaked her living armor to expose a little more of the sides of her back. "Huh," she said in response to his emotional reaction, "Really? Just seeing my back?"

A moment of silence while his surprise resonated across their bond, then he laughed. "That's what you were thinking about? I was wondering why you felt curious. But, yes." She could briefly feel embarrassment from him before he relaxed and shrugged. "Fuyuko, you know how I feel, and I think all of you is beautiful. As for your back, mm, well, I kind of like seeing how your muscles move under your skin."

Fuyuko glanced over her shoulder at Amry, which for some reason elicited another spike of emotions from him. "You're confusing," she said as she dropped her hair. "I don't get why looking at you made you react like that."

He made a sound that seemed to be half sighing and half laughing. "That's normally a coy sort of pose; flirtatious and inviting."

Oh. Well, now Fuyuko felt embarrassed, but at least she had learned something. "Er, sorry," she muttered as she stood up.

Amrydor waved off her apology. "Don't worry about it. Um, you're feeling better now, though?" He smiled at her nod. "Alright, I'll go play with the dragons now — you should just walk for a little bit though." Then he went off to find one of the dragons to stalk.

That sounded like good advice. She wasn't feeling sick anymore, but she did still feel a little weak and lightheaded, so she did not try to hurry after him. Walking would do just fine for now.

There was a part of her that wondered if she might not be too old to be playing tag or hide-and-seek, but that voice was easily squashed by the fact that she was playing tag with baby dragons. Playing with younger children always justified playing appropriate games, and who could say no to playing with a dragon?

Her recovery and briefly wandering thoughts meant it took a bit for her to catch up with everyone else, by which time Amrydor had managed to sneak up on Carnelian Flame, who had thought she had found a hiding spot that she could take a nap in. The problem was, once Amrydor was close enough, it seemed pretty much impossible to hide from him, and he knew Carnelian and Lightning-Thunder well enough to identify them easily at a decent distance.

Once Carnelian's indignant yelp and hiss alerted the other two hatchlings to the change in who was 'it', the game shifted back into high-speed chaos. With three dragons zipping around, Fuyuko and Amrydor had to stay alert against all of them at the same time, as it was hard to keep track of which one was "it".

They quickly formed an impromptu alliance, as Amrydor could at least always tell where the hatchlings were, and Fuyuko could yank both of them through a short shadow jump if there was no room to dodge a charging baby dragon.

The alliance ended when Hai-Ying-Riyo managed to tag Amrydor by following them through a shadow jump, which meant that Fuyuko now had to keep away from a relentless stalker who always knew where she was. Worse, he had muffled their empathic bond, minimizing it until Fuyuko could only get a general feeling for the state of his health, and couldn't tell his direction or how far he was.

Fuyuko did have an option she could use to counter the muted connection, but she dismissed it almost as quickly as she thought of it. Princess Orchid had taught her that the guardian bond favored the princess in many ways, and if it came down to a mental contest of some sort, Fuyuko's will should almost always prevail. This meant she could force the connection open.

It was also not something that should be done without a very good reason. Orchid had said she'd only ever done that once, when there were troubles between her and Paltira, and she absolutely needed to show him all of her feelings while he was being withdrawn, and doing that had caused its own issues.

So, she was stuck with having to use her normal senses, and unfortunately, the environment mostly worked somewhat in his favor. The mushrooms and fungal masses were soft enough to make Amrydor quieter than he might be elsewhere, especially as they had both already switched to being barefooted, and there were enough complex scent that he was difficult to pick out, now that he no longer smelled so much of steel and oil.

That was a trick that Fuyuko was a tiny bit jealous of; while Amrydor wasn't recognized as a full priest and champion yet, he had been granted the first signs of Zagaroth's favor, and could access a few minor spells through that divine connection. Which meant that he could cast a personal cleansing spell, and Fuyuko didn't have any spell magic at all.

One thing that did not work in Amrydor's favor was the lighting. There were shadows everywhere, and there were light sources at many odd angles, making it hard to get close to her without her spotting movement and taking the chance to jump to a distant shadow.

This kept her safe from being tagged by Amrydor, but Fuyuko got so focused on him that she forgot about the dragons. She discovered that Amry had successfully switched targets to Thunder and Lightning only when she spotted the two-headed dragon flitting about, looking for 'prey', and her reaction time proved too slow to jump through a shadow before Sparks closed the distance, as the hatchling briefly turned into a lightning bolt when the duo charged her.

The impact sent them both sprawling, then the giggling dragon pair squirmed away and darted back into the air with a distinct raspberry sound from each head.

The game continued for a few hours, slowly dissolving into chaos as they lost track of who was 'it' and it turned into a game of just randomly chasing and catching each other. The game ended when the dragons suddenly stopped chasing either her or Amrydor, and shortly after that she found the three hatchlings curled up with each other and sound asleep.

That sounded like a good idea to her as well, and they weren't bothered by her snuggling into their pile and almost instantly joining them in sleep.

At some point, her rest was interrupted by her ear being tickled, but all she had the energy to do was glare at a grinning Amry and grumble in annoyance while she rubbed at her ear before she passed out again.

She felt disoriented the next time she woke up and found herself being princess-carried. "What?" Fuyuko asked Amrydor groggily as she tried to figure out what was going on.

"Mordecai said you're still recovering from whatever that craziness was that you pulled earlier. So I'm taking you back to your room, and Klastoria has already moved the hatchlings into the warrens."

Going back to her room sounded nice, but if Amry was the one carrying her... "Wait, did Papa show up?"

He grinned down at her. "No, you were just so passed out you didn't notice me talking through your connection."

She made a disgusted face and stuck her tongue out at him, which just made him laugh.

That was one thing Fuyuko did not like about being the relay for Amrydor's ability to communicate to the nexus like a contractor; she could feel him talking mentally to anyone else, even when she was trying to not listen in at all. It was a weird sensation, so she was just as happy that she hadn't noticed it. Thankfully, Amry rarely used that connection, and if he needed that mental communication, he usually just communicated with her and had her pass it on.

It only took a few moments to get her bearings; they were currently in the warrens, but if he continued walking this route, they were going to be outside for part of the trip. Fuyuko had the feeling that he did not intend to put her down on her feet for that part, unless she asked. She decided she was sleepy enough to let him have his moment of being seen carrying her like this, though she didn't think she was going to be able to actually sleep again until she was in bed.

"You know," she said, "if you're going to take advantage of me being tired, you have to entertain me with a story while you walk. Hmm. I know, tell me what it was like joining the temple; how did you join, what is it like? I should know more about my overly dedicated guardian."

"Alright, give me a moment," he said, looking thoughtful. She could also feel that he was happy that she was letting him carry her all the way to her room. Boys are weird.

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Early chapters, some excerpts and short stories, and more art!

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