It was dark and thunder was rumbling... but was it thunder after all? The ground was shaking a little but it was not Kate, lying on her stomach, her tail folded around the 3 little ones who ended up falling asleep after chewing on big bones, always under the surveillance of the Kobolds, who looked exhausted, especially the 3 dragonians. They saw to lie behind Kate, against her, sharing the warmth and especially their devotion. Kate was their goddess...as much for the little ones. But they were wary of the baby dragons' teeth.

Mondeville took a chair, and the chancellor and Bello did the same while avoiding waking the baby dragons.

Mondeville: "I can't believe I have a live dragon in front of me, and more surprisingly, that it's you... Kate... But if it makes you happy, you look just as beautiful as a dragon as you do as a human... you are a magnificent creature..."

Sarah: "Kate, you can tell us anything... no harm will come to you... I promise you that as Sarah and as chancellor.."

The dragoness had these nightmarish visions going round and round. Little unnoticed details fit together like a puzzle with the center part hidden but there were always little pieces sticking out.

Several times she had tinnitus and heard voices but when she went down to the base to look for the little ones, she was in doubt.

"Yes, my general, I went to look for the little ones but the kobolds were pushing me away gently, gently but I had to know.

I arrived in the "dining room" in the "Avouerie". And there I saw heads on the floor and in a bowl like oranges..."

I asked Kabal to play the surveillance video for me again and I got a gut feeling...

It was despicable, disgusting, heinous! There were no words!!!

Seeing my husband tear young elves in half, and as if that wasn't enough, he would switch to hydra mode and his jaws would dilate flesh, guts and screams of terror and then bones cracking. And this without intermittence. Then cakes of human flesh?? he ate his hands fried like chips!

It is a monster...!

The humans had their heads down, not knowing what to say...

she turned back to the three sleeping children...

"They can't help it but want them to never look like their monster father..."

Mondeville took a breath, her 2 hands on her lap and avoided meeting the dragoness' eyes.

"Madame Kate...we understand your situation and it is only natural that we welcome you into our little community. But, as you can see...we are helpless and powerless.

We have visited your husband's base."

"He is NO LONGER my husband!"

"De Reinhardt, sorry, but from what we could see, it's an army with cutting edge technology but it's understaffed and sooner or later it will be defeated. Numbers are everything and resources. He has tanks, robots and drones and energy. He has everything to win his battles, but you can't win a war by yourself. You win a war by logistics, by projection means and...according to what I have seen and confirmed by his words, Hans is a strategist and a scientist but not a logistician. Kabal and his AI will help but...in the medium and long term, if he continues on the path of war, he will lose.."

Kate: "What do you mean, the elves will continue to attack?"

Mondeville: "Not directly... They know that you and we have technological superiority, but they also know that they are supported by the upper caste, the one who controls the Akashic relic, the big rock in orbit... And, maybe they receive orders and instructions from it... They are also very advanced, even more than us, really more... at least a century of technology if I have to believe my eyes..."

Sarah: "But that's terrible..."

Mondeville: "Right now we are being evaluated and judged...They want to see if we will side with the elf dragon or remain neutral."

Kate: "It's terrible...they have ugly, hideous monsters... I almost died! I was bitten! And the bullets were bouncing, the missiles too..."

Bello and Mondeville looked at each other, worried...

"Mondeville: That's why we stay away. And you should stay there too..."

Kate: "But the dwarves???"

"It's also a civil war...in which Reinhardt took part... Well, you have a piece of land... but have you tried to reason with him to settle for his territory? And live in peace?"

"Kate: But he wants to recreate the old world, with you.

General: "Wrong...the old world is lost forever...Just like the Byzantine Empire, the Roman Empire...They had their time...We, we must survive and perpetuate our species...This is our duty and our ultimate mission. Even if we have to live with the elves, even if it means sacrificing everything, we must protect and transmit our knowledge and our culture..."

Kate: "I understand... but what will become of us? and my little ones..."

Bello: "We all live together and I am sure you will find your place..."

"Sarah, I am afraid of Hans... how will he react??? and his mother??? I am so scared....."

"Let us do it... We'll talk to him..."

The dragoness cowered, exhausted with grief..

Kate sank into sleep... and, she found herself by the sea...

The sea was stormy, full of spray and it was not clear but not really dark

The sea was stormy, full of spray and it was not clear but not really dark.

On the other hand, the wind was blowing sinisterly.

It was cold, as if the area was a permanent winter.

The coasts were sheltered and the short beaches would probably disappear at high tide.

In the distance, infrastructures... no... monuments carved by the wind and the sea over the erosion of time.

Like teeth, these stone monsters were there to defy time.

And Kate, from the pristine white, could see, guess the silhouette of another dragon in flight.

It wasn't Hans, she didn't know why, but she knew it was someone else or something else, terrifying, sinister.

But the creature ran into an equally hideous structure, fleeing into the darkness, into an unknown, dreamlike world.

But the creature rushed into an equally hideous structure, fleeing into the darkness, into an unknown, dreamlike world

Kate then went to rest on the immense structure in basalt, such steps of giants

And she went to hide in a cave inside the structure but... she didn't know it, not yet, but she was being watched.

Black and merciless eyes followed her every move.