The first pale threads of dawn crept through the curvy stained-glass arch above the bed, painting geometric patterns of amber and rose across the sleeping forms tangled in the sheets. Shady opened her eyes slowly, her vision instantaneously cutting through to the soft morning light with the power of a crepuscular predator.

  Predator. What she was. What she had been. What she had been trained to be by her pradavarian instructors who feared and hated her. Divine Predator, the Prima Princess of Corpse-God Citadel, the star that launched a thousand ships, devourer of dreams.

  The… traitor who sabotaged the plans of her family and then erased her mind of such crimes.

  She remained perfectly still, afraid that even the slightest movement might disturb the fragile peace of this moment. To her left, Ash lay sprawled on his side, one arm wrapped around the serval. Further out, Nexxali lay curled into a tight ball of spotted fur, her tail wrapped around her nose, large, fluffy ears twitching occasionally.

  My human, she thought, studying his sleeping face. My adorkable, kind, ridiculously brave human boy.

  His face in sleep looked younger, more carefree. The worry lines that usually etched themselves around his eyes were smoothed out, leaving behind the echo of the boy she'd met fifteen years ago. The boy who'd built cardboard forts and declared war on imaginary dragons. The boy who'd accepted a cryptid girl as his best friend without question.

  Well. With some questions. Lots of questions, actually. But he'd accepted ME. Accepted me and taught me so many things. Different things.

  So different from what she was taught by her Instructors and Elders. His Earth things. Human culture and jokes, which she absorbed like a sponge, stealing as much information as she could from humans all around with her brain hooks for three summers.

  Shady dimly recalled how Aunt Zexxia used the suitcase-bound, inverted Mothman to send her to this Earth as “test” to see if Wendigos could endure the local odd Aetheric density. Zexxia made Shady claim humans and establish many domains here, learning exactly how this Earth’s Aether ground down magic in unique ways over long periods of time. The Elder Wendigo made a multitude of horrid plans for this world, none of which would come to fruition thanks to Shady throwing her into a boiling well of extra-accelerated time.

  Shady's mental hooks thrummed, extra-intimately connected to the human boy and prad girl like invisible powerlines.

  Nexxali's emotional landscape resembled a contented purr made manifest—warm, fuzzy, saturated with the kind of deep satisfaction that only came from feeling genuinely safe for the first time in decades.

  Good kitty. My kitty. My anchor, my knight, my guide. Where would I be without you, kitty cat?

  [Probably still a virgin.] Nexxali laughed mentally. The prad was awake too, but too comfortable to unroll from the cat-ball spooned by Ash.

  Shush you! Shady hissed mentally. I wasn't a…

  [Yeah, yeah. Just riling you a bit.] Nexali's mental giggling intensified. [What I'm saying is that you'd still be dancing around Ashy. Being all mean-bossy and clueless about how to ask him out.]

  You win this round, you dastardly feline.

  [Uh-huh. Das right, praise me.]

  Thank you, you soft furnace of smug snuggles.

  [Yass :{ ]

  This, she thought fiercely. This is what I'm fighting for. Not Earth as a trophy. Not humanity as subjects to rule. But THIS. This quiet morning moment with two people who somehow tolerate my bullshit and call me on my mistakes.

  This is what Aunt Zexxia never understood. What my family will never understand. Connection isn't about control. Love isn't about possession. Power isn't about fear.

  Shady's attention drifted from Nexy back to Ash. Her smol human.

  And he was small, wasn't he? Objectively speaking. Five-foot-nine of lanky, skinny-fit electrical engineer wrapped in soft human skin, all vulnerable angles and easily bruisable flesh. No claws. No fangs. No natural armor. No reinforced bones. No magical defences.

  Yet here he was, somehow inexplicably facing and even pushing back her entire family. A boy who declared himself Emperor of Earth, and orchestrated a resistance campaign using nothing but audacity, pop culture references, and weaponized confusion.

  Smol yet… Shady mused, silver sparks igniting and dying across her muzzle like twinkling stars. Small but dense. Like... What did Instructor Gottergarrn call it? A neutron star? Yeah. Compact. Concentrated. Explosive.

  How had he done it?

  How did a human without the System, without an ounce of magic, stand up to Aunt Evely, to Sillicia, to Nexxali, to the vamps, to Galateya, to an entire third fleet Armada hanging in the stars above?

  Her hooks sunk deeper into his soul and she felt it again—the thing that had occupied her attention when they were children.

  A formation deep in his soul.

  It wasn't Entropic or Syntropic magic... It was something else. Something that existed in the substrate beneath the substrate, in the spaces between the mathematical definitions of reality itself.

  She let her mental touch softly drift deeper, more curious than invasive, trying to understand what made her human so... Ash.

  And there it was. She felt it.

  A tree. A barely observable, almost non-existent… liminal tree.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  Not a physical tree, but the concept of a tree rendered in pure determination.

  The trunk was narrow, sure. Kinda scraggly in places, marked with scars where life tried to hollow him out. But the damn thing wouldn't break. Wouldn't bend. Just kept growing, kept reaching upward toward some distant concept of "better" that he'd convinced himself existed.

  And the branches? Oh, the branches were the best part. They spread in every direction like a conspiracy theorist's wall diagram, connecting disparate concepts in ways that shouldn't work but somehow did. Engineering principles tangled with pop culture references. Military strategy borrowed from video games. Relationship advice cobbled together from anime and genuine empathy in equal measure.

  Human-ness entwining with more human-ness.

  He's so weird, Shady thought fondly, silver stars cascading down her neck like a gentle snowfall. My weird little neutron star with a jank-ass tree of infinite stubbornness bracing him from within.

  And then there's me. An ocean of silver stars sprinkled across the abyssal void and spiralling around the tree in an eternal dance.

  [Mmmrr… Such juicy soul gawking.] An orange kitten sitting on a tree branch commented. [Sure is neat to see the Astral from the perspective of an Omnid.]

  Unlike the barely-there tree, the kitten burned bright with magical warmth, radiating a tune like a radio, no, a thousand… million radios. All of them attuned to similar yet different channels… singing of…

  Warmth, happiness, purpose.

  The kitten unfolded, multiplied, spread across the tree like gold-orange flames, making it look like a biblical scene, each burning leaf humming to Shady.

  Shady coalesced herself from the infinite stars and sat below the tree, listening to the songs of passion, love and entropy.

  The kitten burned above but also folded herself onto her lap. The liminal tree swayed overhead, endless branches whispering of a million, trillion, .

  The more time Shady spent with Ashy and Nexy the more she listened to the music of Nexxali’s soul, the more she understood.

  Their meeting wasn't accidental. It was her fault.

  She was seeking this moment, this warmth, this exact connection her entire life. This was exactly what the ever-burning emerald Wormwood Star shard was guiding her towards. This was what Shady wished for.

  Love, companionship, happiness, understanding.

  For a thousand-thousandth time Shady wondered whether she was even meant to be born as a Wendigo in the heart of darkness of the Corpse-God Citadel.

  [Such dire thoughts, Starshine,] the gold, kitten-flavored flames sang across the infinite tree. [Every fire casts a shadow. Everything is entwined. Everything is connected. Everything matters. I feel it too, you know. I see it through your eyes. Convergence. Resonance. Some vast meaning between us. It's… neat.]

  Just neat?

  [Mrrrr, yeah. Neat. A cycle of neat-ness. Of losing and finding. Of meaning manifesting between the void. Of persistence against the abyss. Meyow. Philosophizing this early in the morning is effort.] The flames yawned.

  Do you think that Ashy's plan will work? Do you think that Kawartha can build them all?

  [I don't see why not. There's a certain absurdity to it. Your Aunt might be an expert of betrayals, but she is also alone. So very, very alone.]

  She has the fleet.

  [She also has nobody who truly loves her, Shades. Not a single soul. Blood contracts do not make happy bedfellows. They do not make this.]

  This?

  [This, Princess. Trust. Cooperation. Passion. Genuine warmth. There's magic in it. Our magic. Mine and yours. Fire and shadow. Sunrise and the night. Don't you feel it? Fractal Engine hearts sing right when they have… love. When they have purpose. At least that's my take on things. I trust our man to work things out. I trust in us, Shades.]

  Do you think that…

  [I trust Kawathra, Galateya and North to do their parts today. Even if they don't see the whole picture yet, we're all heading to the same place. A hearth. A home beneath the stars. Our Earth.]

  Hrmmm.

  [I think that even though we are all from different dimensions, vastly different worlds, we are all on the same page, converging towards… something.]

  Towards my Ashy?

  [Him and what he’s building here, yeah.]

  He's human… right? Shady suddenly wasn't sure.

  [Sure smells and looks like one, yep.]

  “Then what is this?” Shady waved a hand composed of shadow and stars to the liminal tree overhead.

  [I dunno. A tree? Maybe this is a perfectly normal human soul shape? How many other humans have you entwined your hooks with on a level of this Astral depth?]

  Hmmm. True.

  [This is fun n’ all but I think that someone’s trying to avoid her punishment with all this soul-gazing.]

  Oh. Right. The consequences.

  [Yep! Rise and shine, Princess Bossypants.]

  –=[Ashcroft Clifford]=-

  The unnerving sensation of something warm and rough dragging across my cheek like sandpaper dipped in affection pulled me from my slumber.

  “Wuh?” I let out, blinking blearily.

  "Mrrrow, wakey-wakey," Nexxali purred directly into my ear, whiskers tickling my cheeks.

  My brain performed its morning boot-up sequence: Check consciousness? Present. Front mind operational. Back mind operational. Check location? Bed. Check company? Cat girlfriend, currently licking my face. A large, dark, clawed hand slid across my chest, flickering with silver stars. Eldritch girlfriend, spooning me from behind. Check.

  "Good morning," Shady’s voice vibrated through my spine as she squeezed me tighter.

  "Can't breathe," I wheezed. "Being... compressed... into diamond."

  "Must smoosh my cute neutron star," Shady commented, nuzzling me even harder.

  Fighting off the smooshing, I recalled a vague, fuzzy dream that followed our mental Shady-shaming. Something about a tree? And a radio-kitten made of fire? Spinning stars overhead? The memory slipped away like water through fingers, leaving only the impression of warmth and an odd sense of rightness.

  "Bathroom," I managed. "Need. Facilities."

  Shady’s arms lifted mercifully. I rolled off the bed, stumbled toward the door, and made my way down the hall on autopilot.

  The bathroom mirror reflected a weary man haunted for days by wendigos, vampires, felines and other aliens: hair doing its best impression of a bird's nest after a hurricane, pillow creases imprinted on my face resembling ancient runes, and the distinct expression of someone questioning all of their life choices.

  I splashed cold water on my face. It helped. Marginally.

  When I emerged, dressed in a new pair of shorts, a new scene greeted me.

  Shady was on the bed. On all fours. Antlers drooped in resigned anticipation. A feather-tipped tail swished nervously.

  Nexxali stood naked beside the bed in the pose of a used car salesman. One hand rested on Shady's generous behind, the other gesturing in a way that screamed 'check out this baby.'

  "Behold," Nexxali announced with a grin that’d assuredly make the Cheshire Cat nervous. "One slightly used Princess. Previous owner: herself. Known defects: bossiness, boundary issues, and a tendency to throw people into lakes."

  "What," I said eloquently.

  Nexxali's tail swished. "We discussed this in the dream-space! Is educational spanking time!”

  “Ah. Right.” I said simply, my feet taking me to the bed.

  [Via "Stupid Sexy Cryptids ahead" or "All Books" option.]