A couple of days after the equinox, Moriko decided her break time was over. A few days of simply lounging and indulging herself in the pany of her family was about as much as she could take, she o be active.

  As she walked out onto the baly from their tree home, she mused that the travel outfit that Mordecai had issioned for her and Kazue turned out to be quite useful at home as well. She o look good and, well, needed something that wouldn't fsh people either. She scritched Thunder and Lightning's heads before stepping out from the baly and onto thin air.

  She hummed happily to herself as she hopped down imaginary 'steps' that led past the stoown and to the ground beyond. One of the quirks of her fey-granted air-walk ability was that she could fall whenever she pleased and instantly stop when and where she wanted, but that stop always felt like she nded on the ground. Moriko could take a very long drop without much trouble, but that didn't mean it felt great and she had her familiar as a passenger. So she limited the height of her drops to something a little more reasonable by imagining a ndscape of projeg cliffs she was jumping down to.

  Once she was on the ground, Moriko headed toward the entrance of the underground portion of the dungeon. She wasn't in a hurry and hadn't looked around much since her return, so she saw little o avail herself of the shortcuts.

  There were several new buildings and a lot more people than when she and Kazue had left for their trip, so she took the time to meander a little as well and re-familiarize herself with the yout. Along the way, she saw a familiar face waiting in lio be checked by Jiah, the buzzkin in charge of evaluating non-bat skills. She slipped through the crowds to lightly punch his shoulder with a grin. "Yambul, I wasn't expeg to see you here."

  "Wha-?" The orc cobbler said as he started from the sudden tact, then he rexed with a sheepish grin. "Hey Moriko, you surprised me. Last night I heard you got back from your trip, but I wasn't expeg to run into you like that."

  "Hmm," Moriko said as she sidered her friend, "you run your own shop and this is a pretty long trip to be closed up for. What's brought you out here to delve?" A faint flush on his cheeks brought a small bit of enlighte, and she smirked as she added, "Or should I say, whht you out here?"

  Yambul coughed and shifted his weight before saying, "Well, I had a rather pleasant time with Aliyah when she visited Riverbridge, and I was hoping to see her again."

  Let's see, that was... ah yes, the runner. "Aliyah? It looks like you have a visitor," Moriko sent across the dungeon's es.

  "Do I?" the usagisune replied with a satisfied-sounding tone, "Well then, if it's who I expect, would you please let him know that I will be in the audieo enjoy his performa the theater? Assuming you don't mind, Mistress."

  Why would she mind? ht. Some people cared about stuff like that. "I'd be happy to," she told Aliyah, and then to Yambul said, "Your friend would like you to know she is ready to be eained by your performance when you reach the third zoheaters. If I have a ce, I might make the time to watch your show myself."

  He sighed dramatically and said, "Dare I ask what fate awaits me there?"

  Moriko s that. "I'm pretty certain you have a good idea by now. But we let the pywrights have their fun, so I have no idea articur challenges wait for you. I do have o of advice though; have fun. If you fet to have fun pying Kazue's games, you might make her sad."

  She left him to pohose words a out for the entrance more. Once Moriko was ihe main hall, she went down one of the side corridors instead of heading toward the path sele chamber. Moriko wasn't headed to the shri the end of the corridor, her objective was a discreet alcove where one of the rger entrao the warrens was located.

  The hidderance inly visible to her, but most people wouldn't have even been able to notice the alcove let alohe sealed entra wasn't just her status as a tractor either, their Domain had grown this far and was starting to affect the surface as well. It was still odd to feel herself tied to the space arouhis way, but she rather liked it. Her ability to unicate with the dungeon's inhabitants hadn't been as and easy as Bellona's and Fuyuko's. Mordecai thought it had something to do with her more intense and intimate e with the cores interfering. But now that it was also her Domain, she found her awareness of the enviro growing and it was almost as easy to talk with the inhabitants as it was to talk with the cores.

  Moriko rather enjoyed being in tuh the rest of the dungeon like this. She'd never been particurly bothered by not having this deep sense of the territory around her, but she also hadn't known what it was really like either. This art of the reason she was takiime and walking through the warrens instead, she wao enjoy knowing her domain.

  There were several small stops along the way as she chatted with various inhabitants, but eventually, she made her way to the library and sought out her target.

  Deidre was sitting at a small table where she had several books piled up. Payne had fallen asleep while reading one of them and was currently sprawled across the open volume. Betty had chosen a fortable seat nearby where she was reading a small novel. Moriko greeted Betty first, leaning down to give her a hug rather than having the pregnant woma up, and then she joined Deidre at her table.

  "Hello Deidre, it's a pleasure to meet you. I'm Moriko."

  "Yes, I reized you from the images your spouses have shown," Deidre replied, "How I help you?"

  Moriked as she settled into a seat. "I'm not sure actually. I mostly felt that I should meet with our involuntary guest, especially as I am now a queen. It also seemed possible that you might have some questions for me. So I am making myself avaible."

  "I see." Deidre sidered that for a moment. While she did, Sparks slid down from Moriko's shoulder to iigate, with Thunder sniffing at the still-sleeping Payne while Lightning s Deidre. "Well, if you are eaining my curiosity, I would ask where your curious panion came from."

  Moriko smiled and shook her head. "I'm afraid I 't ahat iail." She pyfully snatched at her dragon's slowly shing tail, causing both heads to look at her with mild affront before they whipped their tail out of her loose grasp. "I say that that I was entrusted with their care by their parents, and it came about from dealing with a bit of leftover mess caused by Mordecai's war."

  "Hmm," Deidre said as she slowly lifted a hand to let Lightning sniff her again before she scritched his head, "your retionship seems odd pared to what I know of such things, but I am aware that my knowledge has been somewhat curated."

  "Oh, it is odd," Moriko admitted before bopping Thunder's nose, "long term retionships between three or more people are the minority in most pces and there are teically a few power imbances in our particur arra, but everyone is careful about not taking advantage of anything. Especially Mordecai."

  The versation and stant movement around her finally caused Payo stir. The resulting chaos when the excited pixie found a dragon nearby who was the perfect size to py with and ride resulted in a visitation by Horace, plete with a stern reprimand of "Ook!"

  Thankfully, Kazue had designed her library with pseudo outdoor areas which the pair were quickly shooed off to. Even so, excited yells and roars could occasionally be faintly heard

  "It's strao see inhabitants so unbound by their core's will," Deidre said softly, "but I like it, and I do think I uand what Mordecai meant whealked about my perspective having been shaped. trol must be enforced at every level to ehat none wainst the o the top of the ."

  Which meant that Deidre's inhabitants were little more thahemselves, through no fault of hers. Moriko sighed and said, "I wish there was more we could do to make things better for you. But we are w toward that goal. It just, well, will take time. You've seen what happens when someos without proper preparation."

  "Indeed," Deidre replied, "I uand the practieed to move carefully. But it is easier when you do not know the suffering or sufferers personally."

  It was said without any judgment but Moriko felt guilty anyway. The suffering of Deidre's core and inhabitants was a bit abstra some ways, which made it easier to focus on proceeding the right way rather than giving in to the urge to charge in as soon as possible. But in the long run, it would be better to do this ond get it right.

  There didn't seem to be much left to say oopioriko switched to talking about more trivial things while waiting for her familiar to return. She was very open about her life before meeting Kazue and Mordecai when Deidre asked; Moriko got the feeling that Deidre wao get a sense of what 'normal' was. Not that there really was a singur normal, but if Deidre was asking Bellona and Fuyuko simir questions she should be getting a bit of that uanding.

  After she left Deidre, it was time to deal with a less pleasant visit. Mordecai and Kazue were both a little dubious about the y of seeing the man, but it felt right to her.

  "All this could have been avoided if you had just taken 'no' for an answer," was her greeting for Antoine when his cell door opened.

  "Oh look, it's the mixed-blood wh-" his words were cut off sharply when she spped him. By the time he recovered, she'd crossed back to the entrance of the room. Antoine raised a hand to his fad then flinched; Moriko had added just enough electric charge to her hand to leave a red hand print that would not fade as fast as a simple impact would. Moriko's obje was mostly ione and his word choice; Sakiya was a rather on patron amongst courtesans and ee would fault someone choosing that path of their own will.

  She felt a certain amount of smug satisfa seeing his facial muscles twitg iermath of the electric shod said, "While we may o keep you safe, you are not immuo being punished within reason. You just insulted a queen to her face, when she has o be polite to you. Oh, you hadn't heard?" She smirked at his fusion. "I suppose I should thank you in some ways. Thanks to you, I met the two people who would be my husband and wife. That of events has led to me being a literal Faerie Queen." Moriko shook her head and sighed. "Holy, I could do without some of those plications, but it's worth it. And now I have ttive daughters as well."

  Antoiually got his muscles under trol, no doubt aided by the traces of healing energy in the room, and asked, "How? I don't ... what?"

  His bewilderment was enjoyable as well. "Well," she replied, "That's a long story I have no iion of telling you. But I wao make sure that you khat every attempt of yours to make my life worse has, in the end, made my life better. No matter how troublesome your attempts were in the moment. From what my spouses say, your father makes a much better impression than you do. I hope that wheually meet your parents, your mother turns out to be like your father in that. I only imagine how disappointed she must be to have a son like you."

  Moriko gave Antoine a sarcastic bow as she stepped back out through the doorway a him to stew in his thoughts and that final insult.

  That frontation had been satisfying in some ways, but also sort of ... hollow. She didn't have a better word for it. Well, she saw no reason tain, she didn't think it would get aer. Besides, there were more eaining things to speime on, it looked like she still had a ce to sit with Aliyah while they watched Yambul's performance. Seems he was lucky enough to find an open spot in a delving group that had already signed up, otherwise, it might have been a day or two.

  She did wonder if Aliyah would have truly made him wait that long before seeing him, as long as he'd proven sincere in being willing to put forth the effort to meet her. Moriko suspected that the usagisune would probably have 'ambushed' him ter that night if that had beeuation.

  Zagaroth