[Jaykobell]

Jawan was a calm city that, despite being quiet, held a lot of energy and life. The beaches that cornered the large sea were beautiful, and anyone would be taken aback by the beautiful sights of the city, especially during summertime. While the city was primarily a fishing port and was actually renowned for its fish and seafood produce, it also had a more modern area further in the heart of town. It had big buildings rivalling tall skyscrapers, and sometimes it felt more like a big modern city than a small fishing port. It was nowhere near as modern or lively as Lamenolai or Aldrect, but that particular area was fairly lively.

And that one particular day, the livelihood was increased by one particular kid, and his unfortunate sibling that he was dragging along with him.



"Morgan, come on! Get on with it!" the small boy argued, dragging his sister by her wrist, leaving the girl little to no time to regain her balance.

"M-Milton! Slow down, I can't run with heels on!" his sister complained between gasps, trying her best to follow, but also trying not to fall awkwardly from being dragged along.

"What? Come on, mom runs faster with these than with flats!" Milton argued, stopping abruptly to let his sister recover, which nearly left Morgan to trip and fall. Fortunately, the brother was still holding on to her wrist, which prevented the sister from falling flat on her face.

The said sister panted and gasped heavily for a moment before straightening up and giving her brother an indignant look. "Mother is three thousand years old! H-how do you expect me to be used to heels so quickly?"

Morgan's indignation flew right above Milton's head, as the brother stared back at his sister with a slightly confused look on his face. "If you can't walk in them, why do you wear them? Just wear boots or shoes, like I do! It's much better," he asked, and while he thought his question was reasonable, his sister just sighed pitifully.

[Jaykobell]

The two kids stayed by the entrance to one of Jawan's most renowned museums. Today was a family day, since it was the weekend and the kids' father didn't work. And so, the small family had agreed to go out on a small trip. Considering Milton had picked the destination last time, Morgan had picked the area, and being as studious and curious as she was, one of the local museums had been the number one pick, hands down. The choice hadn't really satisfied the boy's expectation for adventure and excitement, but he did love his sister, so he was willing to make sacrifices.

Speaking of the two siblings, they were far from looking like other kids. While they were normal at first glance, they had a few characteristics that separated them from normal children. For one thing, they had strangely pointy and long ears compared to humans; to compare, they were very similar to elf ears in length and appearance. They also had peculiar hair that didn't range from the more common colors like blond, brown and black. The girl's hair was primarily green, with soft hints of yellow; the boy's hair was a pale yellow shade with hints of a teal-like color that seemed to include cyan and blue. Both of them were also shorter than expected at their age, although that was a minor detail.

Despite being siblings, the two also wore different clothes; the girl was dressed fairly effeminately, wearing a skirt with a big long-sleeved shirt, and a pair of small heels. Her long hair was tied in a high ponytail with a small red band, the said hair reaching all the way down to her waist, around which was a big pink ribbon that trailed behind her. The boy was wearing something a bit more sporty, wearing a sleeve-less leather jacket with a little fur on the shoulders and at the opening of the pockets. He had matching fingerless gloves that had fur around the edge, and matching shorts as well. As he'd previously mentioned as well, he was wearing boots that matched his entire outfit, all in unison. The only thing that was a different color was the small red band in his hair — the same as his sister's — that he wore as a small bandana of sorts, and which continued into his long hair. He also wore the same pink scarf accessory as his sister, but he'd opted to wear it around his neck as a long scarf rather than wearing as a ribbon around his waist.

"Morgan, Milton," a voice eventually called out to the two immobilized children, coming just a little ways away.



A young woman approached the two, and she carried the same features as the children: longer ears and short, despite her age. She wore the ribbon scarf as well, just like Morgan, and while it was around her waist as well, it was positioned just slightly differently. The woman wore a small pink cape, together with a one-piece dress with matching high heels.

"We've already talked about running off on your own, Milton," the woman pointed out, stopping just a few steps in front of the two children, the two immediately turning to face her. While the boy looked disappointed that she'd caught up to them, the girl seemed more apologetic.

"Awhr, Morgan! See, I was right! She runs faster in these than in running shoes," Milton insisted, introducing the young woman as the mother of the two.

Morgan just grumbled pitifully next to her brother, and the mother just looked down at the two. "I didn't need to run to catch up to you, Milton," the mother clarified, admittedly wondering what that was even about.

"And she just woke up a little while ago, so she's slower, too," the son continued, and as he said that, his sister gave him a look that translated to, "you didn't just say that".

Meanwhile, the mother's expression changed at that, and suddenly the air got just a little more tense. "What was that, Milton?" the woman asked, giving her son a hard look.

"Er," Milton started with, turning from his sister to his mother, whom didn't quite look happy to hear her son making fun of her; especially considering she'd woken up early for him, and he was poking fun at her for it. "I meant... er," he tried to continue, but the boy couldn't think of a single thing to answer to that. "S-sorry," he eventually apologized, his mother's hard stare piercing right through his soul.

[Jaykobell]

After apologizing, it seemed like the children's mother was satisfied. Milton sighed after his mother relaxed, although Morgan still looked as tense as she could be, avoiding her mother's gaze. While their mother was far from being mean-spirited or cruel, she could certainly stare them down and establish who the figure of authority was. Just one good, long stare from her, together with a stern voice, and both kids soon quieted down and listened. It was hard to imagine, considering the mother's small size, but she couldn't be underestimated.

"Okay, okay! But can we keep going?" Milton insisted, snapping out of his stupor fairly quickly. "We'll wait at the entrance! Promise!" Just the short amount of time it had taken for Morgan to recover had been enough to leave the boy antsy and ready to get going again. While his sister was more soft-spoken and calm, the brother was always bursting with energy and ready to get going anywhere, any time.

The mother gave a gentle sigh at the boy in front of her, genuinely amazed at his energy. Just looking at him and listening to him sometimes made her feel old. "That's fine, but I want to see you both at the entrance when we get there," the woman allowed, giving the two kids a slightly stern tone to make sure they both understood what she wanted them to do.

"Whoo! Come on, Morgan! Let's go!" Without waiting another second — especially considering his mother could change her mind if he gave her the chance! — the brother grabbed his sister by the wrist and started dragging her along again.

Taken by surprise, Morgan squealed at bring grabbed so abruptly and suddenly, nearly losing her balance and tripping again. "Eeek! M-Miltoooon!" the sister yelled after her brother, but no amount of screaming or near-tripping would stop the energetic young lad.

Within just a few seconds, the two children were gone again, further ahead and on their way to the museum they had planned on visiting. Admittedly, it was nice to see Milton being interested, even though this was completely out of his element. A nice, quiet place for the sake of history and studying was far from being a loud, wild adventurous terrain in some jungle or deep cave.

As she watched the children get smaller and smaller in the distance, the mother stared quietly in their direction, and she eventually sighed, this time from tiredness as she closed her eyes for just a moment.

"Are you okay, Tiki?"



The voice came from a taller man that stopped right behind the mother, putting his hands on her shoulders, which jolted her awake just slightly. "Sorry," the blond man apologized, the business suit he was wearing giving him an air of professionalism, together with his glasses, "did I scare you?"

[Jaykobell]

"Ah, Akakios. No, don't pay me any mind," Tiki answered as she looked behind her shoulder to look up at the man behind her. "I just wandered off for a moment." In her old age, the divine dragon slept a lot more than any regular human. She could nap often, and she took longer to wake up in the morning; twelve hours was almost her equivalent of about six to seven ours of sleep.

Of course, Akakios knew there wasn't only that. While Tiki did sleep more often than other people, there were also times when she just didn't sleep well. Just like any other human, the divine dragon could also have dreams, and sometimes they were far from being pleasant. Many a night had she woken him up abruptly, feeling panicked and scared after a terrible nightmare. Tiki had a certain history in terms of sleeping in general: having been sealed away so many times at the hands of others, and basically losing the majority of her childhood to what had felt like endless sleeping. During those times, the divine dragon had experienced countless nightmares, and while they were all slightly different at their core, they all had the same frightening element: they all portrayed what could potentially happen should Tiki, who had such an immense amount of power inside her, become feral or out of control. According to what the older dragons had told her, she had enough power to quite literally wipe out mankind and destroy the world, rivalling her mother's powers. Being the direct daughter of a dragon Goddess did bestow one with incredible and unimaginable power.

While the weekend was always a time for family activities, it wasn't so much the thought of having to wake up earlier and having to go out of the house that bothered Tiki that particular day. It was the fact that she hadn't slept much at all, having experienced a nightmare the night before that had prevented her from sleeping during most of it. She had stayed close to Akakios the whole time, with her husband wrapping an arm around her and talking to her in order to try to calm her down. While it had helped the dragon to relax, her mind was so wired that she hadn't been able to sleep soundly after the nightmare itself.

So not only was Tiki prone to sometimes dozing off or feeling drowsy, but she was especially prone to it after not sleeping much the night before. "Are you sure you don't want to go back home? You handle the kids all week; I can watch them by myself on the weekend," he proposed, turning his wife around so the two could speak face to face, as he tilted his head at her. While he did have a regular day job, Tiki was unemployed and stayed at home, and the couple had agreed to those terms. Since the mother always had both kids at home with her, the father had no objections at taking the two for the day while their mother stayed home to recharge.

"Pray, Kee, that's not necessary," Tiki insisted, referring to him using his nickname now that the two were alone. That was something that had followed her from her childhood; from the very beginning she'd referred to others using nicknames, and now that she was closer to Akakios and more familiar with him — being married certainly counted as such — she felt comfortable referring to him using a nickname. However, since she had a certain image to preserve in front of others — being the Voice of the divine dragon Goddess — she only referred to him as such when they were alone. "I may be more tired than usual, but the weekend is the only time when all four of us can be together."

"Yes, but there will be plenty of other weekends for that," Akakios pointed out, and although he wouldn't force his wife to go back home if she absolutely didn't want to. "You can make an exception just this once."

The words resonated wrong with the divine dragon: "there will be plenty of other weekends for that" and "just this once". Tiki gave no reply to those two statements, instead frowning slightly into an expression that seemed to show a certain level of fear. "Ah... I suppose there will be, yes," she eventually voiced, but she didn't sound too certain. "Regardless, I have no interest in going back home alone."

Akakios could tell his words had rubbed Tiki the wrong way. With her being dragonkin, she was born with the gift of immortality — or rather, the curse of being able to live near-forever. That was unlike Akakios, whom had been born a regular human with a lifespan that very rarely passed over the one hundred years; compared to Tiki's current age of three thousand years, his lifespan was ridiculously short. It was something both of them knew when they had first gotten together, and something they had accepted about their relationship. Still, it was similar to humans thinking about death; everyone came to accept their unavoidable fate, but those who stopped to think about it too hard often got anxiety and stress out of it. The same happened to the couple when they stopped to really think about what would happen down the road, when Akakios would die and Tiki would still have millennia ahead of her to see.

"There will be plenty of other weekends," Akakios insisted, turning his wife around again so that they could start walking again. "Trust me."

[Jaykobell]

As they'd promised, the two kids were waiting (im)patiently at the entrance to the museum. By the time Akakios and Tiki had reached the building, the kids had switched gears. Milton was calmer and even looked a little unhappy about being stuck in a museum, which wasn't very adventurous or exciting. As for Morgan, quiet and studious places like libraries and museums were the only buildings that could let the daughter show her more outgoing side, with sparkling eyes and excitement written all over her face. The girl was often serious and meek, but when something got her attention, her excitement levels could be sent flying.

"Hey, you guys took forever!" Milton complained as he finally spotted his parents walking in. "Even Morgan was starting to complain."

"I did no such thing," the sister argued indignantly, turning to her brother and lifting an eyebrow at him. "I don't complain about mother and father like you tend to do," she pointed out, referring to how Milton had rubbed their mother the wrong way just a few minutes earlier.

"I don't complain about them, I'm just saying facts," the brother corrected, although he subconsciously hoped his parents wouldn't read too much into what Morgan had just said. He never really complained per se, although he did have the bad habit of sometimes being too blunt and honest. Particularly, he'd been very harsh to his father initially, and it seemed to have left a mark with the whole family.

"Do you want us to buy the tickets, or would you prefer to bicker at the entrance?" Akakios asked the two kids, his usual passive voice making it hard to tell if he was getting irritated or if he was just being rhetorical. The answer was probably the latter, since he gave the kids no time to answer and simply went to the counter to buy the entrance tickets for the four of them. Being that he was the one who worked and earned the money, he took it upon himself to buy everything. That wasn't to say he didn't let Tiki handle any money, but only that he managed the majority of it.

Once the tickets were bought, the father handed one of them to each family member, keeping the last one for himself. "Remember: no running, and no screaming," he reminded both kids, which was actually aimed at both of them: Morgan was usually obedient, but she could get ridiculously carried away when she was excited.

With tickets in hand, the four headed inside the museum. The building looked impressive from the outside, but it looked just as impressive from the inside. Velvet carpets were on the floor to guide the visitors to the different sections, and beautiful, clear glass cases were displayed all around to show the artifacts and the different texts from ancient times. Milton seemed to gain a small flicker of interest from seeing some shiny artifacts, but his sister was far more interested in just about everything, and the urge to run all around to see all the different sections all at once burned strong inside her.

Visiting places like museums always had Akakios wonder the same thing over and over again. "Do you recognize anything they have on display here?" he asked Tiki, the two parents sticking together while the children were allowed to roam around on their own. They were old enough to check out the place on their own without their parents watching like mother hens.

"Hmm... I may recognize a thing or two, if we look long enough," Tiki answered quietly, taking a small look around. "To be honest, it's nice to come to a place where there are things older than I am," she added afterwards, and while it was mostly a joke in passing, it was still true. At three thousand years old, not many things were older than her, and in the same vein, it made her feel incredibly old to be older than everything else.

[Jaykobell]

As their parents stayed behind — they were slower than slowpokes, really! — Milton and Morgan went on ahead, now with the roles reversed. It was the brother who had a hard time keeping up with his sister, and Morgan was on the verge of grabbing her brother by the wrist to drag him all around the museum. If she weren't distracted by everything else that she'd come to the museum to see, for sure the sister would already be dragging her sibling all around by now.

"What do you find so interesting about old junk like this, anyway?" Milton questioned as he followed his sister slowly, just a little ways away from their parents, hands in his pockets in a complete lack of interest. "What's it do to you to know about this stuff?" The prospect of learning history and about old things just sounded pointless to Milton. Why learn and focus on things past, when you could discover things in the present? That's why he loved adventuring: there was no telling what he would see and what he would find. Reading history books just told him about the things others had found in the past, but it just wasn't the same. Some considered it to be an adventure, but the brother just couldn't wrap his head around that concept. How was it exciting to hear about some guy doing all the adventuring?

When Morgan heard the question, the sister just sighed and turned to her brother. "Well, why do you love adventuring so much? I get the same thrill when I learn and study about old things and things past. As an adventurer, aren't you interested in some of the old stuff? Things like bones, treasures maps, or fossils?" Just to think about all the old things that were still being found today! It was a bit like cleaning a room in your house and suddenly finding something you had forgotten that you owned. What secrets and mysteries were left undiscovered in the world? What ones could people study more, and find out more about? The possibilities were endless!

"Heh, well, I'm not really interested in fossils... Besides, I already have mom, and she's the oldest fossil of 'em all!" Milton answered with a huge grin, chuckling just a little as he said that.

"What was that?" Tiki called out from behind the two children, the parents not so far away from the children that they couldn't hear them talk. "Your mother is not so old that she cannot hear you from so close, my child," the oracle pointed out, her tone just a little bit stricter than usual. She hadn't slept too well last night, and she was certainly in no mood to be mocked or teased by her own son.

"E-eek! N-no, mother, don't take it like that! Don't you get it? I mean... that you're the most interesting! That's a compliment!" Milton retaliated, trying to keep his mother from getting even angrier with him. Yikes, already twice that she'd heard him today! Maybe she wasn't as old as she always let on to be?

"You also pointed out that was all old junk," Akakios pointed out from right next to Tiki, although he seemed to be enjoying the conversation, unlike his wife. "Or does that detail not apply to your mother?"

"P-pops! On whose side are you?" Milton cried out, taken aback that his own father would turn against him.

"Well, by default, I'm on your mother's side," his father answered, giving his son a playful smile. "Lest she hurts me. I'm afraid I'm also biased to begin with, or else I wouldn't have proposed to her."