Li sat atop the round head of the Vukanovi, feeling it lurching ever so slightly up and down as it scaled its way down the last of the three Triforge mountains. It had taken the entire rest of the day to travel across the mountains, even with the dwarven bridges still connecting them.

The sheer scale of the mountains made Li realize even more that at its height, the dwarven kingdom must have been truly exceptional. But now, there was but silence.

But, as Li tuned into his senses, the silence around the mountains was not eerie. Clinging with death and rot. With the undeath haze lifted from the mountains, they returned instead to a natural kind of silence.

The haze had killed off most life, but already, Li could see little bits of life starting to peak. Tiny sparkles of green that registered on his sight that meant that the rocky earth could finally welcome plants other than the bleached or blackened kind that grew in undead areas.

The original ecosystem of the mountains with its skies dominated by rock hydras and its slopes travelled by mountain stonegoat would likely never come back, but perhaps something new could be born to fill up this silent void once more. Already, bolstered by the life energy brimming from Li's very presence, plants were beginning to shoot up and grow.

Li felt his attention turn from the environment as Tia stirred in his lap, nodding head from side to side as her eyes twinkled green and black in the night. Though they were scaling down at quite the sheer angle, vines around Li kept him and Tia anchored to the Vukanovi, and it seemed that she liked travelling like this.

It was new, kind of like rock climbing if one could ignore the plummeting heights, but Tia, born to fly, had no such fear.

Li looked up, seeing a sliver of moon eking out its light through a veil of clouds, and he wondered how to approach this topic.

The topic of telling Tia about her parentage, that was. She might have been innocent, but he knew she was not stupid. She already knew she was not blood related to Li, but she did not ever seem to show that it bothered her. He doubted she would react too strongly to whatever he told her, but at the same time, he was ready to comfort her about anything if she needed it.

In any case, it would still be good to sit down with her and tell her the details through and through.

"Tia, about your mother," said Li a little awkwardly, not knowing how to ease into the conversation while figuring that a direct approach would be best.

"Mmhm," nodded Tia. She was still a little bit groggy from sleeping through her prior evolution, but sleeping through most of the day had done much for her wakefulness now.

"Well, she was like you. A dragon. Or, specifically, a hydra," said Li.

"Hmm," said Tia. "I felt many eyed dragon similar to me. Maybe that's why."

"Yes, but your mother was not from here. She came from farther west. Much farther. Where we are going, in fact," said Li.

Tia cocked her head. "Will we meet her then?"

"Hm." Li shook his head after a while. "No, I do not think that is likely. You see, Tia, she gave you, when you were still an egg, to me because she was running from the west. She is not here anymore."

"Running? But why?" said Tia.

"The demons," said Li. "The very same reason we are travelling west now."

Tia looked up to Li with a smile. "I can tell papa worried. Can tell through his heart. But no worry. I am fine. Just curious about mother. About more like me. Will we see more like me?"

"Like you?" Li looked down to meet Tia's gaze. At her twin-colored eyes. At her antler-like horns. "I…do not know. Maybe there will be wyrms. More hydras, perhaps. But Tia, you are not like any of them anymore. You are special."

"Because of papa!" said Tia with a giggle. She looked back down, staring at the cliff face continuing far, far below, its end so far down that it was impossible to make out. "Sometimes, I see little humans like me. But also not like me. See them play with each other. Think about it but know that humans are not me. Can't play with them. Think maybe I can make friend with dragon like me if I find."

She paused, sensed Li's worry, then smiled back up at him. "But no worry. Being with papa makes me happy enough."

"There are dragons like you, Tia, in the north," said Li. He thought of the northern dragons and he grimaced, knowing how they felt about Tia's bloodline. "But they will not like you."

Tia cocked her head. "Why not?"

"Because, well-," Li paused to gather his thoughts. "Because sometimes, similarity just makes small differences stand out that much more. Makes them easy to pick on. Your mother, Tia, her blood runs through your veins, and because of that, the northern dragons, even if they look like you, may not like you."

"Oh," said Tia. She grew quiet but maintained a smile. A softer smile than before. "Papa, did mother like me? Did she want me?"

Li gave Tia a hug. "Most certainly she did. Like I said, Tia, you were special. Very special, among your kind and to me. To your mother, too. She left you with me because she wanted you to be protected."

Tia nodded. "I understand if she did not want me. Sometimes, mothers leave daughters. Only natural. But knowing she did makes me happy."

Li felt slight surprise at how nonchalantly she processed the idea of abandonment, but he knew he should not be too surprised. Tia, fundamentally, was zero percent human. Well, that was not entirely accurate, for very likely, Li's still human persona had bled into her, not to mention her environment, but when it came to instincts and nature, she had no illusions.

Animals would abandon their young for their self-survival. Wolves would cull the disabled from their litters. Some creatures would eat their young for sustenance if needed. Li presumed dragonkin were still very much in tune with the colder side of nature, and Tia understood that at an instinctive level.

"But will she come back?" said Tia after a moment of thought. "Papa will be my only, but I just wonder. If she running, and she wanted me, and she was nice, and she came back, would not mind helping her. Seeing her."

"She will likely not come back. She is probably dead," said Li. The words were matter of fact, perhaps harsh to some other ears, but Li realized he should not underestimate the fact that Tia could handle a lot more than she looked like she could.

"Oh," said Tia. She frowned, pausing for several seconds. Li could sense sadness in her heart, but it was not deep. Understandably so – she did not and had not known her mother enough to feel a strong sense of loss. "Did demons hurt her? But black dog seems so nice. Did not know demons so mean."

"No, not demons. Probably dragons in the north. Your mother went to them for help, but likely, they attacked her."

Tia sat still for a bit, looking ahead, thinking. "Papa, I want to go north too. Where dragons are. I did not know mother, so not sad much. But mother made me, and because of that, I know papa. Owe her. Want to see if she still there, even if not likely."

"The dragons there will not like you," said Li. "They will want to hurt you. And they will be very strong."

"I know," said Tia. "But I getting stronger. And, even if they don't like me, still want to see them. Want to see dragons like me. Want to know why they don't like me. Maybe if I talk, see their hearts, they change their mind."

"You might not like the answers they give you, Tia," said Li. He could sense from within her that she felt a strong, deep sense of curiosity to see the dragons more so than there was any kind of desire to avenge her mother.

Like Tia said, she felt more like she owed it to the one who gave her life to at the least try and see if her mother was alive, to help her if she could. But mostly, she had a yearning to see beings like her, for, as Li began to realize, she truly was so very alone in his part of the world.

Tia was the last of her kind in the west. An one in a kind being in the south where none of the regular humans would ever dare to approach her or talk to her, mostly out of fear. Fear that she did not mind, but fear she realized made her different from them. She wanted to feel a kind of sameness that she could feel with Li with others.

But the dragons in the north, even if they were more like her at this point than any wyrm or hydra or human, would not take kindly to her, and Li did not want her to face the heartbreak of being rejected by creatures she believed would be close to herself.

Tia smiled at Li and nodded. "Know that. But still want to see. Hear for myself."

"I see," said Li softly. He put a hand on Tia's head, feeling the warmth in his palm. He sighed. Even if he did not want her to get hurt, he knew it would not do well to control her, either. That, he was beginning to understand.

"I will not stop you from doing what you really want, Tia. I know you want to see your kind, to see what they are like. But after all this, if you do go north, it has to be with me. Promise me that, okay?"

"Okay," said Tia. She smiled up at Li. "Why would I not go with papa? Always like when you are near."