Kalpana and I wandered through the august and ostentatious rocky trail that was the mountain range of the Prism Spine. For the most part, we flew. The heavenly snow-capped mountains that made up the Prism Spine were far too lofty and treacherous to be travelled on foot, even for immortals. Which was part of why the dragons and spirits lived here. Natural defense. There was something profoundly cleansing about wandering amidst this world of hard stone and soft clouds. It was dream-like in a way that was separate from the confused, discordant, and fantastical atmosphere of the Chaotic Sea.

“House hunting” didn’t actually take all that long. Our requirements for picking a good mountain weren’t that many. All we needed was a mountain that was fairly far away from all the rest. A mountain that was more or less structurally sound. A mountain with no hidden dangers. That’s all we needed. So long as the mountain was safe, relatively whole, and could afford us moderate privacy, I could provide the rest of what we needed. This wasn’t just a real estate deal. Empress Kian was literally giving us an entire heavenly mountain...for keeps. I intended to refine the entire mountain using materials that Jack and I had gathered during our time in the chaotic sea. Turning the entire mountain into a giant artifact, a living fortress.

The mountains of the Prism Spine held more surface area than your average planet, and I’m talking about the super-massive magic-rich planets, not the tiny mundane kind. I’d only need to expand the mountain’s inner-confines a little bit to make it suitable to accommodate the family and a couple of our closest friends. The rest of the work that I did would be tied into altering the environment to make it more comfortable to live on the mountain, and adding additional defensive features.

After Kalpana and I picked up a mountain, I took a scan of the mountain and the surrounding area using my data-sampling. I sent the data to Jack, who quickly sent me a thumbs up, affirming that she was fine with the mountain we’d picked. Then I shot the Empress a message letting her know what Mountain we’d claimed for ourselves. Thus our job was done for the day. I was about to head on home from there, but I remembered that I owed Kalpana some lunch and a drink for dragging her along with me on this little errand.

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Kalpana and I ended up having lunch in one of the many cities that were located within the Dragon Empire. We stayed close to Capital because I was vaguely aware that there were many Dragon Lords who were on paper on board with, and aligned with, Kalpana, but in practice weren’t aboard stirring the pot so they could fish in troubled waters for increased benefits and influence. Dragons aren’t generally the scheming sort, but they weren’t above running a plot or two, if they thought they had something to gain.

The cities of the dragon empire had a varied mixture of architectural influences with the only binding element being opulence. Every building had precious metal and stones included within its materials. With an abundance of immortal magics and advanced technology on display with all the impressive construction work. I was surprised to see how many non-dragons were present within the cities of the dragons. There were a number of small, or human-scale, bodies wandering amidst the towering serpentine, and reptilian, physiques, and surprisingly low-number of them were dragons wandering around in their alternate-forms.

Kalpana ultimately settled on a small cafe that was run by a water-dragon, whose sea-elf staff did the cooking and customer service work, while the dragon played the part of a hostess. Sitting on a massive cushion and smoking a pipe while idly greeting new guests. Unsurprisingly a quick look at the menu, and a brief sniff of the air within the restaurant, revealed that the cafe had excellent seafood offerings. I ordered some tea, and wine, with some toasted bread and seafood chowder. Kalpana ordered some grilled and marinated fish and sea-food risotto. We ate in comfortable silence, which was nice, but I also realized that there was supposed to be more that we were doing. Jack proved to know me a little too well, when after a moment of dithering, I received a text with a gif of a mad scientist yelling and crying at a cartoon frog “why won’t you speak?!”. I clucked my tongue and discretely swept the area with my spiritual senses just to see if Jack isn't somewhere nearby spying on us. She wasn’t, which was actually a bit more annoying, but made me finally find my tongue.

“So…” I said.

“....So?” said Kalpana.

“Well, normally this would be the part where I ask you about yourself, Kal...But well, I’ve known you for centuries now...I know about the siblings you're closest to. I know what music you like. I know that you’re secretly kind of a muscle-head. We’ve already hung out on multiple occasions...So, I don’t really know where to go from here. I mean Jack and I didn’t really go too ham on the whole dating thing because we went from being best friends to living with each other, even before we were romantically entangled...So I’m actually not that good at this,” I said. Smiling in chagrin.

“Hey, I’m not a muscle-head. I’m just really, really into fitness...Also, I don’t really have much experience with dating either... because for the last few generations the colony’s been doing arranged pairing to keep us from twisting our family tree into knots...but well, wisdom of my ancestors or whatever, plus whatever I know from reading old magazines, and watching old movies, I think we’re just supposed to take it easy and feel this out naturally? The biggest part of the first date is seeing if the other person’s a psycho or a freak or not…”

“And naturally, we’re both psycho-freaks…” I joked.

“So, no problem, see?... So that’s the biggest hurdle down...Our mutual interest in plastic sheet, duct tape, and medical saws just gives us more to talk about. Plus like you said, we already know that we like each other...so, honestly, I think we can play it by ear and see if we actually like-like each other on top of being good friends,” said Kalpana. Chuckling nervously.

“Huh...This is harder than I thought,” I mumbled. Thoughtfully.

“Tha-, that’s what she said?” said Kalpana. Blushing.

I snorted, and the tension at our table drained away, as the conversation began to flow a whole lot more readily.