It was upon her twenty fourth birthday, and Ezmeralda found herself walking up to the front door of her old home with trepidation. She had been gone a long time. She had visited, yes, between her adventures, studies, and teaching at the university of Aethera. The box she held in her hands was filled with two of the most precious items the world had ever known. One was the crystalline tears of a goddess, and the other was a device which had come from the very heavens.

But this value, and these great gifts, were not why she was nervous. She had held many valuable things before. She had done many dangerous things in her time. There was nothing which could cause physical danger to her that she feared. Indeed, there was rarely anything that caused her fear. However, what she was about to do, scared her.

She was welcomed into the house with many greetings and welcome from the servants. Unlike usual, her uncle was not there to visit her. Indeed, she had returned, partially, because he had died. She was now the governess of Aruslan, since she had inherited his title. She had to be here, to govern the city. At the same time, her job at the university of Aethera had ended, and so had one of the greatest attachments of her life in the city of that university. It was no longer her home

Now, she realized, her place was here. The duty of her life had finally called her back, and there was no escaping it.

So she called for the butler of the house, a friendly old man named Leon, and asked him a question. It was the same question she always asked when she returned home, and if it were not for his love of formality Leon would have answered it without her needing to ask.

“Where are Azara and Astra?”

And, as she had always instructed her servants, he knew where the two girls were. She was always updated by them, every night, even while away, about how the children were doing. She had set up a system using magic to do this, though it was often inadequate or the servants would be unable to read it, and she would get a letter instead, detailing the girls lives.

I also visited often. she told herself, as she wondered if she had done enough to claim the title she was now going to ask of the girls. How were they going to take the story that she was going to tell them? How would they be able to listen to her? They were only little girls. Dragon eggs took many years to hatch, but when they did hatch they were still just infants still.

The servants directed her outside the house, and across the estate to a rocky bluff, where she inevitably found the two girls playing. Azara had torn her red dress trying to run. She loved running and was very energetic, but she was also always trying to look pretty. The two things did not go well together. Astra, the more practical of the two, wore a skirt, though she was not so interested in the game they were playing - which was some sort of hide-and-go seek tag around the rocks. It was still midday, and the servants had released them to play before lunch, and afterwards they would eat and then be back to their studies of reading, writing, mathematics, and more. Well, Azara would be. Astra would probably read a book, since she had already mastered most of the other subjects at her young age.

It struck Ezmeralda that all of this knowledge about the girls still wasn’t enough for her. It felt inadequate. She wanted more. What was their favorite foods? Astra had never been scared of anything, but was Azara still scared of the dark?

She wanted to be home with them more, to see them more, and to not be away on adventures or working at her job - as much as she liked those things. The chance to rule Aruslan and also be home for Astra and Azara was like a dream come true, that she had never even realized was her dream.

As she approached they ran towards her, smiling.

“You’re back!” Azara shouted.

“Hello!” Astra shouted alongside her sister, and they ran towards her, golden hair bouncing up and down..

They had never had a name for her. Ezmeralda knew that. As an eighteen year old girl she had been uncomfortable when they had first called her mother. She had tried to come up with other names, but they had refused them all or only used them for a little while. It made her wonder if they had an instinctual connection to her that normal humans didn’t, like birds identifying their mother. Perhaps that was why they had taken on human forms when they had first seen her. In a silly way, she hoped that was the case, it would make what she was about to do a lot easier.

She greeted them in turn, and then sat down on a rock near the top of the tiny rock bluff, which was really not much more than a rocky outcropping of a hill.

“Whats in the box!” Azara asked, quick with words, while Astra attempted to open it and peak inside. Ezmeralda clamped her hand down on the top, causing Azara and Astra to withdraw from it.

“I’ll tell you.” Ezmeralda said, "But first, I need to tell you a few things, and to tell you a story."

The idea of a story enthralled the two little girls, who sat down and listened with intent. The stories Ezmeralda told were never the boring kind, but always filled with excitement and funny details - because they were her own stories, from her own life, not things she needed to make up.

“First, I need to tell you that I am going to have a child in the future though. In maybe just eight months, or less.”

Their mouths dropped open. Azara spoke up “Are we going to get a baby br-”

Astra clamped her hand over Azara’s mouth. “Shush, we’re listening.”

Azara did as she was told, but nearly squealed with anticipation as Ezmeralda continued. Ezmeralda almost wished Astra had let Azara complete her sentence. If Azara already considered Ezmeralda’s child like a little brother, that would mean that her request, at the end of all this, would be much more easy to make.

“Have I ever told you all, how your were born, and came ot be?”

Azara and Astra shook their head. Astra spoke up. “You wouldn’t.”

Ezmeralda nodded. “No, I wouldn’t. And now you’ll learn why. Its because I wasn’t prepared to. It was because I wasn’t brave enough yet, and I wasn’t’ sure if you were old enough to know. But now, I will tel you the story.”

“The story about your trip north, that the servants always talk about? That they say started it all?” Azara asked.

“Yes.” Ezmeralda said. “And then I will explain these gifts to you all.”

And so Ezmeralda told in detail of her vengeful journey, and its fateful end, while the girls listened enthralled and intent, right up until its end, where both were met with disbelief.

The sun was coming to setting at this time, and neither girls spoke a word. Instead, they stared intently at Ezmeralda, and then to each, before becoming lost in thought. It took a lot to silence children, that much Ezmeralda knew, and for several long moments, that stretched into several long minutes, she wondered if she had made the wrong choices.

Then, it was Astra, not Azara, that broke the silence.

“So you killed her? Our…our mom?”

Ezmeralda felt tears welling up in her eyes, that she didn’t’ try to hold back. “Yes. Yes I-”

“Is that what you got out of this?” Azara said, looking at Astra with wide eyes of disbelief. “This explains why I’m so weird! This explains everything. I’m not even human, I’m a-”

“No-, no, you, you aren't weird you're...” Ezmeralda interrupted, wiping tears from her eyes. “You’re just, well, it is difficult. You have the sould of a dragon, and you can have its form if you wish.”

Ezmeralda started to cry more, unable to hold back her tears, and to her surprise Astra stood up form where she was sitting, and hugged her. Azara looked unsure, but then did the same.

“I’m sorry.” Ezmeralda said. “I’m so sorry for what I did to you, I - I don’t”

“I love you mom.” Astra said.

“I love you too.” Azara followed.

“W-what?” Ezmeralda asked, dumbfounded. Her heart rose in her chest, then fell, and then summoned the strength to do so again. What had she just been called? That was what she had come to ask about. That was what she had come to request of them was that they allow her to be called their mother, despite how horrible she was. Yet here they had just done so freely.

“Don’t cry, please.” Astra begged, and Ezmeralda hugged them both back with either arm. She didn’ even bother trying to wipe away her tears as she replied.

“I love you, I love you both.” she said, plagued by the memories she had just related. It was wrong. She didn’t deserve this. Surely, the girls would both come to hate her once they realized the truth of what she had done.

“But am I really a dragon?” Azara piped up, still uninterested in the gravity of the stiuation. “Is that why the bath has those boily bubbles in it sometimes and I have those times when I remember being really big as a baby for some reason or when I’m sick and I run a fever I burned the sheets!?!

Ezmeralda looked down at the little girl, blabbering on and blinked for a moment, before laughing. “Yes! Yes that is why! You aren’t just a normal little girl. You’re not a princess either. You’re a dragon!”

Azara seemed delighted by this, and smiled. Astra did not seem so pleased, but still smirked a little bit at her twin sister’s reaction.

“But is this really alright?” Ezmeralda asked. “Are you really ok with me being your mother, even knowing this, and what I’ve done?”

Azara shrugged, and Astra nodded before speaking. “I don't think it was wrong. And even if it was, you aren’t evil. You helped us. You took that responsibility.”

Ezmeralda eyed Astra oddly. “You seem to be taking this very well. Did you...did you know already? About what you were?”

The little girl nodded.

“You liar!” Azara replied, and stuck her tongue.

Astra shrugged, and then too ka few steps back. Her consecration seal begna ot appear across her body, before Ezmeralda raised a hand.

“No, thats enough, I get it! You figured out how ot transform intuitively. I - I don’t need a demonstration, I’ve seen it before.” she said, though she secretly did. It wass just that this wasn't the time. Soemday though, she did want to see it again. She wanted to see if Azara still had scales that looked like a sunset, or if Astra looked like the twilight that followed.

Astra grinned, and then shook her head. “I actually learned in a book.”

Azara rolled her eyes and Ezmeralda smiled. “You’re so very smart Astra, I hope that you-”

“-that you teach me too!” Azara said, scowling. She threw up her hands in a cute eight-year-old display of exasperation. “I tell you everything! I even told you about my secret treasure box in the big oak tree, and you hide something like this from me!?! Where is the trust?!”

Astra quieted and Ezmeralda rolled her eyes. “Alright, alright, enough of that. You can be angry about keeping secrets later. For now, we ahve other important things to discuss and-”

“Can we go up there?” Astra asked. “Can we, go to the north? To see the place?”

Ezmeralda nodded solemnly. “Yes, we will. We will go there someday, and many other places. We will meet the other dragons that live, and they will teach you and help you. Your lives are about to get much more complex, but also very interesting.

Then she looked down at the box. “For now we should move on to these gifts, which were given to me by your first mother, on our my recent trip. Not your dragon mother, but by Sitari, the sun. They are for you, though I will keep them till you are old enough to use them properly.

She opened the box, revealing that it was full of sunset colored feathers, which matched the color of the current sunset perfectly. On top of these feathers rested trinkets. One was a round mirror covered in filigree, like a watch with no watch face. The other was quite like a watch as well, except instead of a watch with hands and a face it was just a disk, with a small, short piece of round metal sticking from its center. From the small centerpiece, a thin ray of light was cast out to its edges. It was like a time piece, but with no quantities.

As Ezmeralda did so, she didn’t even think of the object’s worth, though each was multiple king’s ransoms. Her mind was all on her two little girls, who had just taken her as their mother, without any demands or questions. She watched with endearment as she she saw them stare into the box at the golden trinkets, and as she watched, her endearing gaze became worried.

The eyes of the little girls were fixated, awed, and fascinated in a way that normal little girls would not be. They did not reach to fidget with the trinkets like toys, or try them on. They just stared, their celestial eyes giving them insight to the objects that even Ezmeralda didn’t have. Their eyes were filled with wonder and greed.

Raising these two dragon children, with a human child on the way, would not be easy. No, the years ahead were about to be the most wonderful and the most hard in her life. Something about that was both wonderful and frightening.