“If Hundun just now arrived and are just now trying to get the treasure then why have the Wyverns been on edge since summertime?” Mai asked, she was sitting close to Yue, the Wyverns still made her a bit uncomfortable so she stayed near him.

“Hundun probably used the merchants to take the Wyvern’s attention away from what they were doing,” Viktor explained, making his prediction.

Yue was uncomfortably cradling his mouth. It hurt because he was hyperaware of the fang that was on the other side of the cave. He was cursing the incarnation that decided to rip out their tooth.

‘Why would you rip out your tooth and never come back for it?!’ Yue inwardly yelled.

“I’m glad you’re fond of the odd humans, they’re much more interesting than the normal ones.” Aethen laughed as he looked at both Viktor and Mai.

“What’s that supposed to mean? I know one of them is part tortoise but the other one is perfectly normal…” Yue murmured, glancing at Aethen.

“...” Aethen stared silently at Yue for some time before speaking.

“With all due respect, it is as if you’ve gotten much younger, Your Majesty.”

Yue raised his eyebrow, that somehow seemed like an insult. Aethen chose not to say anything else about the topic though.

“I will go hunting, for now, let me take this human with me,” Aethen said, nudging Viktor.

Yue would’ve protested but it had to be either him or Viktor, just in case Aethen got attacked suddenly. One of them had to stay behind and protect the fang too so it was necessary.

“Just don’t eat him…” Yue mumbled, sighing.

Viktor seemed uneasy as he followed Aethen out of the cave and used magic to follow him into the air.

--

“Are you curious about things? About how us Dragons and Dragon-like creatures are? Or has his majesty told you everything?” Aethen asked with a laugh.

"What do you mean..?" Viktor asked, weirded out that he could actually understand Aethen.

"I understand that you're not fully human yourself but a tortoise and dragon are far from similar. His majesty is in a human form but I'm sure you're aware he's not human?"

"...I'm aware..."

"I'm sure he hasn't told you everything...He seems more childish than he used to be and easily flustered so I'm sure he's avoided some topics."

It honestly bothered Viktor a bit how people would speak about all of the incarnations of the 4 as if they were just one person who had lived a very long life. He knew all the technicalities and how all of the incarnations were inherently the same in terms of overall personality and usually also in morals and things like that but It always felt weird to limit the experiences to one name. Aylin seemed to think the same way, she once heard Viktor and Lunara talking about it and said that she agreed but she quickly added "That's the human perspective though". Viktor was very curious about the inhuman perspective as a result of this but he didn't just want to follow what Aethen wanted to talk about.

"You're trying to get me to ask about something. Probably about your treasure..." Viktor murmured, leaning back so it was like he was sitting on a chair in the middle of the sky as he floated around as Aethen scouted the area for something to eat.

"Are you going to ask or not?" Aethen chuckled.

"I will not. I'm more curious about the odd hierarchy you all have going on." Viktor murmured, casually staring up at the moon in the starry night sky.

"Oh...That's awfully borin-- actually, that does have some substance." Aethen murmured, pausing and thinking for a second in the middle before smirking.

'Substance?' Viktor thought to himself, worried for the direction this conversation would take.

"There are two types of hierarchies in the world of Draconic creatures, there is a biological hierarchy and a social hierarchy. From most to least powerful it would be, Dragons, Lindworms, Serpents--not snakes--, Wyverns, Drakes, Amphipteres, and then Wyrms. That is the biological hierarchy, Dragons are naturally above all others and so Wyverns like me are stuck in the middle." Aethen explained and looked around the forest area for food.

"Hmm What's the social hierarchy then? Is it different?" Viktor asked.

"The social hierarchy is based on reproduction. All of the 7 main species are able to reproduce with one another so If a species struggles to reproduce it is considered less important than those that can reproduce easily. There are very few draconic creatures left so being unable to reproduce is very bad for all of us."

Viktor was a bit less relaxed as he heard this, sitting up a bit in his imaginary floating seat.

"The general hierarchy is the same, Wyverns are still in the middle because although it's very rare, some male wyvern such as myself," Aethen smirked proudly as he said this, "Are capable of bearing children."

"Wyrms, Serpents, and Lindworms are at the bottom of the bunch because Wyrms and Serpents barely fertile and only female Lindworms can bear children so they are below us Wyverns, and Drakes take third place because a higher percentage of males can reproduce than Wyverns and, Amphipteres are hermaphrodites and are usually quite fertile. And Finally... Dragons are all capable of bearing children and they can essentially decide whether or not they want to be with child in any given situation."

Something about their conversation--god knows what-- led Viktor to assume that Aethen was aware of his relationship with Yue.

"You had kids?" Viktor asked, purposely avoiding the topic that Aethen really wanted to talk about.

"Yes, I did. They've long since migrated north." Aethen said and swooped down to get a reindeer to eat, annoyed that Viktor completely deserted the topic.

'Well, if Yue wants to have kids it's good...but I don't really care about whether or not Yue can bear children.' Viktor thought and rolled his eyes.

-

"Human, I'm sick of playing word games with you," Aethen murmured and growled a little, they had been taking their sweet time as Aethen came to eat. They had talked for a while longer but Viktor hadn't let Aethen lead the conversation.

"Are you no--?!" Viktor was smirking as he started his sentence but it turned into a shocked look. He couldn't speak.

"As I expected, your brain can handle this..." Aethen said and laughed bearing his teeth.

"Don't try to speak, your body won't catch up to the movements that you're trying to make until I release my skill."

Viktor moved his eyes to look around, he couldn't move his head but he could see the Reindeer that were running away from them were now frozen in place, some of them didn't even have their hooves on the ground but they were frozen in the air.

"You have an advanced cognition ability? I wonder if you gained that from your tortoise side or your human side?" Aethen murmured. Viktor wasn't supposed to be able to move even his eyes but Insight was allowing him to move his eyes. The skill Aethen was using wasn't freezing time but rather slowing it to the point where it was practically at a halt. Insight generally enhances the information you can receive from what you see but innate insight like what Viktor had also enhanced how quickly his brain could think and process information and also how fast his eyes moved to gather the information.

"His Majesty's fang came into my possession after a dungeon appeared on this mountain. A man and his wife cleared it incredibly quickly but his majesty arrived around an hour later because he had felt the dungeon and he was confused that it was no longer there. That is when we first met, I asked for him to stay or take some of the other Wyverns with him to his own home. Humans had begun hunting Draconic creatures at this point so our numbers were low and the forest had no other creatures living in it as well so it seemed like we were reaching the end of our reign." Aethen said, circling Viktor with a gleeful grin.

"He couldn't stay and he warned that we'd only be hunted more if we went to his home. The Dragon that was leading the wyverns in this area at the time complained, saying that his Majesty was terrible at his job of being the King of the Dragons and that he was abandoning his responsibility to make sure that we didn't die out." Aethen scoffed as he thought about it.

"His majesty was silent for a while and everyone thought he would give in and stay with us... But he just looked at us indifferently and said that he wasn't interested in being king of the Dragons. He then pulled out his own tooth, out of pure spite, and defeated the Dragon who antagonized him, even with his halved power and his bleeding mouth. It was quite remarkable." Aethen laughed.

"He gave the fang to me, solely because I was beside him...It's as if he cursed me to live until he came to retrieve it...It is still too early it seems, but I feel that I might have to give it back to him ahead of schedule..." Aethen said and sighed, turning off his time skill.

"Oww..." Viktor murmured, squeezing his eyes shut, every movement he had been meaning to make while time was slowed down almost happened involuntarily. He stopped himself but he couldn't backlash he suddenly received from his eyes.

"Hmmm, I don't know how strong the humans that are going after me are but I am unable to sense any humans that are stronger than you in the area... His Majesty will have his hands full with Skarr, so do your best to not trouble him." Aethen said and quickly picked up another reindeer to eat and swallowed it whole.

"I have eaten my fill now, we won't have to come back out for a few days." He added after his quick meal and started flying back to the cave.

Viktor stabilized himself and watched Aethen fly back to the cave.

"Old people talk too much," Viktor murmured with an indifferent look on his face, "You don't need to tell me to protect my own lover."

--

"How strong is Skarr? I'd rather not expose my true power to the humans I'm with, except for these two..." Yue said to Aethen when he returned, it would soon be sunrise so he was taking the time when Aethen was still full of energy to speak to him about important matters.

"You, unfortunately, won't be able to do that. Skarr is too strong for you to hold back. I have no doubts that you can defeat him but only if you don't hold back. I would like it to be a last resort so we can upkeep our promise but I can give you your fang back if you really must hide your power from the humans." Aethen murmured.

"No, don't do that," Yue murmured.

"I don't want to be king of the dragons. Maybe in the future...But not now."

"It's been so long yet you're still the same," Aethen said and grinned, "I'm glad."

Yue didn't know how to feel about being the 'same' as the other Azure Dragon Incarnations but he didn't mention it. He sighed and looked at Mai.

"In the morning, go tell the others the plan. They'll attack within the next few days so we need to get everything ready as soon as possible," Yue said, "Tell everyone to be extra careful."

Mai nodded and then Yue turned to Viktor.

"You will stay here to take care of the fang and Aethen, and I'll focus on Skarr and whoever else comes at me," Yue said and shrugged.

"Well...Let's do this." Yue said and leaned back so he was leaning on the walls of the cave.