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“I don’t need to be chaperoned!” Luke said and pouted.
“That’s what everyone says, and then they have a litter of bawling children running around before they know it,” Kondra said with a nod. “I want to see this lady friend of yours before you go out to see her again.”
“I thought she wanted grandkids,” Grimmy whispered to Leila. “Why’s she being so contradictory now?”
“She wants grandkids she approves of,” Leila whispered back. “Which is why you should hurry up and finish the righteous quest she gave you.”
Grimmy snorted. “I don’t need her approval.”
“But I want our child growing up in a loving family,” Leila said and nuzzled his neck. “That includes knowing her grandmother and grandfather.”
“But your mother’s a loon!” Grimmy said. He cleared his throat as Kondra turned her head to look at them. “Oh look, a balloon.” He pointed a claw towards the transparent ceiling. The other dragons raised their heads, but all they saw was the clear night sky. Grimmy clicked his tongue, drawing their attentions back onto himself. “Darn, you just missed it.”
Kondra’s gaze lingered on Grimmy before facing Leo again. “And what happened during the assembly? Did anything change?” Her brow furrowed. “I’m not only uneasy because of Leila’s mate. I feel like something’s changing in the outside world. Did something happen to my church?”
“Everything’s fine, Mom,” Leo said and waved his paw dismissively. “Nothing’s changed. The world’s great. There was a tiny scuffle between the dwarves and the fairies at the assembly, but other than that, everything’s fine. Your church is fine. The dwarves aren’t overly aggressive. The phoenix matriarch’s being the phoenix matriarch. The humans are being humans. The penguins still haven’t frozen to death. Everything’s fine.”
“The more you reassure me, the greater my unease grows,” Kondra said with a frown. “I’m going outside to check on my church.”
“No!” everyone except Grimmy and Kondra shouted at the same time.
Kondra flinched and looked around. Her mate cleared his throat and wet his lips with his tongue. “Don’t you trust Leo, honey?” he asked in a soft voice like he was trying to coax a kitten. “If he says everything’s fine, then there’s no need to doubt him, right?”
“Yeah, Mom,” Luke said. “Why’d you send Leo to the assembly if you weren’t going to believe his report anyway? You have to learn to trust your children more often. Besides, Lulu’s outside right now. If there’s anything wrong with the church, she’ll definitely fix it or report it to you if she can’t.”
“Yeah,” Leo said with a nod, his head bobbing up and down. “Don’t you trust me?”
“It’s not right to assign someone responsibilities and then not trust them,” Leila said, chiming in as well. “You should stay here and relax. Look at all the hard work you’ve done for the continent already. The land’s at peace because of you and your righteous teachings. You deserve a break. Even the most hardworking man worked six days and rested on the seventh.”
“Which man was this?” Grimmy asked.
“Mm, legends about a different world told by a famous bard,” Leila said. “You probably haven’t heard about it.”
Grimmy tilted his head. “Oh.”
Kondra bit her lower lip. “Why does it seem like all of you don’t want me to go outside?” Her gaze swept over the dragons, all of them avoiding it.
“Why do you feel that way?” Leila asked, clearing her throat and smiling at her mother. “Are you sure it’s not just in your imagination? We all care about you a lot, and no one wants to see you overworked. Think about it, when was the last time you’ve taken a break from all the quests you assign? Not even a few months ago, you handed out two whole quests.”
Kondra’s gaze softened as she nodded. “You’re right,” she said and lowered herself to the ground, burying her paws underneath her body. “I deserve a break. If anything does happen to the church, Lulu will take care of it. You’re all right.”
The dragons collectively exhaled as Kondra leaned on her mate and closed her eyes. Soft snores rang through the air as the muscles in the dragon matriarch’s face slackened. Leo and Luke high-fived each other while Leila gave them a thumbs up. “Disaster averted,” Kondra’s mate said as he wrapped his wing around Kondra’s body. “Nice one, Leila. You get the most holy dragon appreciation points this time around.”
Grimmy blinked a few times, his gaze shifting amongst the silver dragons. The atmosphere was a lot lighter than before with smiles painting all of the dragons’ faces. “I don’t understand,” Grimmy said and nudged Leila. “What just happened?”
“Mom can be…, a bit hard to please,” Leila said, glancing at her sleeping mother. For someone so worried about being murdered in her sleep just a few minutes ago, she was as tranquil as a baby. “She gets really worked up and follows a narrow train of thought, but you can redirect that thought to a more peaceful one and all the pressure disappears.”
“But why don’t you want her outside?” Grimmy asked after he was sure Leila wasn’t going to say anything else. “What disaster would’ve happened?”
“Mom likes micromanaging things,” Luke said from across the cavern. “If things don’t go exactly her way…, mm, yeah.”
“She burned down a village for not being vegetarian,” Leo said. “She didn’t kill anyone though—just destroyed their houses.”
“She may or may not have forced a kingdom to relocate because they littered,” Leila said with a nod.
“She once separated two families, putting them on different ends of the continent, because their scions were holding hands before marriage,” Luke said. “I saw it happen.” He glared at Leila. “How could you sell me out like that?”
Leila stuck her tongue out. “If you don’t like it, get stronger and leave,” she said. “It’s just a meteor. My nephew’s not even two decades old, and he stopped Nova’s.”
“Novasthiurm?” Leila’s father asked, raising his head. “He woke up?”
“Less than a year ago,” Leila said with a nod.
“Ah, I missed that old fellow,” Leila’s father said, a faraway look appearing on his face as he stared at the sky. He sighed and glanced at Kondra, whose body was rising up and down in time with her breaths. “It’s a shame they don’t get along at all. She’ll probably attack him or his lineage on sight.”