"I can't—I can't do this," Galateya sobbed. More frozen tears crystallized on the table. The temperature continued dropping. My breath came out in visible puffs now.

  "Teya, please—"

  "No! You don't get it!" Her claws dug into the frozen wood, leaving deep gouges. "You're never fully HERE! Part of you is always somewhere else! Always planning! Always calculating! Even now, while I'm falling apart, you're DIVIDED worse than fucking ever!"

  She was right. God, she was so right it hurt.

  "I can taste it," she continued, voice breaking. "Your soul. It's... split. Fragmented. You're experiencing something else. Probably fucking those two again, right?"

  More ice spread across the floor. The windows frosted over. The entire café groaned, ice blossoming across every surface in fractal patterns.

  "No," I said, retreating away from her more [danger! disconnection warning!] messages flashed in my eyes.

  Teya was somehow freezing the signal to my other body, her anger bending, shifting reality, fuzzing up the signal. "I'm… fighting for my life, actually. Please stop crying. I really need to focus…”

  Galateya's violet eyes went wide, then narrowed. "Of course you are. Of course! Even now you're—"

  "Okay!" Sanguine suddenly appeared between us, her fox-skull face somehow managing to look both sympathetic and exasperated. "Timeout! Everyone take five!"

  "This doesn't concern you," Galateya snarled.

  "Mmm, see, it kinda does though?" Sage gestured at the café. "Because A: this is my family’s business you're about to turn into an ice sculpture garden, and B: I'm apparently your new Knight now, which means your emotional breakdowns are technically my problem."

  "I haven't even bound you yet!”

  "Details!" Sage waved dismissively. "Look, dragon girl—can I call you Teya? I'm calling you Teya—you're having a very valid meltdown right now. Your feelings are super legitimate. But maybe, and hear me out here, maybe we don't flash-freeze our entire book café while processing them?"

  Sage gently pushed me toward the other end of the café. "Scooch, gymbro. Go sit over there and just be... quiet."

  "But—"

  "Nope!" The fox-skull tilted. "You're making it worse just by existing in her proximity right now. Trust me on this. I may not have much dragon-human relationship experience, but I know when someone needs space from the object of their emotional turmoil."

  I retreated to the furthest booth and sat down, watching helplessly as Sage turned back to Galateya.

  The dragon girl had curled in on herself, sobbing and radiating sickly green-black colors, frost continuing to spread with each exhale. Her sobs came in hitching gasps, each one producing more frozen tears.

  Sage approached slowly, hands up in a placating gesture. "Hey. Teya. Look at me."

  "Leave me the fuck alone," Galateya choked out. “Just let me fucking die in peace!”

  "Can't do that. I'm your Knight now, remember? Which means..." Sage sat down next to her carefully, "your problems are my problems. Your pain is my pain. That's how this works, right?"

  "You don't even know me."

  "True!" Sage agreed cheerfully. "But I know what it's like to feel alone in a room full of people. I know what it's like to watch everyone else connect while you're stuck behind glass, existing in a tower like a princess waiting for... Well, not a prince. I'm not that traditional, ya dig? Maybe a sexy dragon to spend my days with?"

  Galateya's sobs quieted slightly. She didn't look up, but the rate of ice spread slowed.

  "I've spent most of my life upstairs," Sage continued with a soft, calm voice. "Because my Phase-shift is too good at catching and keeping eyes bound. Everyone who looks at me falls a little bit... then hell-a-lot in love with me. Can't help it. Can't turn it off most of the time. So I stay hidden. Read books. Dance naked, draw and play the violin on cam for cash. Watch people through windows. Watch GoTube vids. Chat on the net. Imagine what it's like to have real connections that aren't based on magical roofie-ing of my Fractal Engine heart."

  The frost patterns on the table began to recede slightly.

  "So yeah," Sage said, her skull melting halfway back to a human-fox, smiling face. "I don't know you yet. But I know loneliness. I know what it's like to want something real and only get shadows and echoes."

  Galateya finally looked up, shimmering violet eyes meeting Sage's sky-blue ones. The fox-girl's freckles rearranged themselves into little hearts, observed with the zoom function of my chad-face magitek mask.

  "Your face is doing a… thing," Galateya said wetly.

  "A good thing I hope. It only does the text freckles when I really care about someone. Humans don't expect to see freckle emojis," Sage reached out slowly. "Can I hug you? No magic bullshit. No manipulation. Just... a hug. Because you look like you could really use one."

  Galateya stared at the offered embrace. Her scales rippled uncertainly between suspicious orange warring with desperate pink.

  "Why?" she whispered.

  "Because you're sitting here crying Subzero tears in a café," Sage said simply. "Because your consort is half-somewhere-else fighting for his life or something. Because your great-grandmother just humiliated you with a sex timer. Because you woke up to your... uhhh... Partners banging without you. Because you're lonely as fuck and trying so hard to pretend you're not." She paused. "Also because you're mega cute… even when you're freezing the shit outta my home. My comp upstairs is probably mining crypto extra hard ‘cus it's so cold!”

  Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

  A strangled laugh-sob escaped Galateya's throat.

  "There we go," Sage encouraged. "So? Hug?"

  Galateya hesitated for three more heartbeats, then collapsed forward into Sage's arms. The Skinwalker caught her, holding tight as the dragon sobbed into her shoulder.

  Sage held tight, one hand stroking Galateya's icy mane, the other wrapped around her shaking shoulders. The frost continued to recede from the café, slowly at first, then faster as Galateya's emotional state stabilized.

  "That's it," Sage murmured. "Let it out. Cry it all out. Nobody's judging you here."

  "I'm so pathetic," Galateya hiccupped between sobs. "Crying like a spawnling."

  "Nah. You're decompressing! Elsa’s ‘Let It Go’ style. Very snowflake-cape brrrr," Sage's fingers traced gentle patterns through the icy mane, which gradually softened into something more flower-like under her touch. "You've been holding this in for how long? Days? Weeks?"

  "Since... since I got blood-bound to Ash," Galateya admitted. "Since I realized I was trapped in a life I didn't choose with people who don't really want me. Maybe earlier. Since I was born and got raised in a fucking time bubble and then was told by my great-grandmother to go become the Baroness of Earth."

  "Okay, first off, that's objectively shitty and you have every right to be upset about it." Sage shifted, making sure Galateya was comfortable. She sent me a wink, then smiled at her sister and brother, waving at them to go away, implying that she was handling things. "Second, your great-grandma's a piece of work. Like, seriously. I've seen some controlling parents in my day, but that timer thing? That's some next-level manipulation."

  Galateya let out another shuddering breath, scales gradually shifting from bruised blacks to softer grays and pinks. "She's always been like that. Doctor Iowsh's hologram raised me. Great-grandmother... She checked in once a month. Gave orders to the prad Instructors. Made sure I was developing 'correctly'."

  "Yeah. Dats not raising a kid, that's... quality control," Sage said, her voice carrying a flare of righteous anger. "You're not a product, Teya. You're a person."

  "Tell that to the Legate," Galateya muttered bitterly, but her sobbing had mostly subsided. The frozen tears on the table began to melt, creating small puddles.

  Sage pulled back slightly to look at Galateya's face. "Hey. You know what you need?"

  "What?"

  "To get the fuck out of this café!" Sage grinned. "Come hunting with me. Just us and the Olympic National Forest. No timers. No great-grandmothers. No complicated relationship drama. Just... running n' hunting."

  Galateya blinked. "Hunting? What are we hunting? Animals? I'm not... super into that sorta thing."

  "Bahumbug! Expand your horizons! Come on, what ARE you into? Like, what makes your heart sing? What gets your scales all colorful and vibrant?"

  Galateya wiped at her face, smearing the remnants of frozen tears. "I'm... I'm a Taniwha. My Omnitype is about justice. Balance. Fairness. I can sense when things are wrong, when the scales are tipped." Her voice gained strength as she spoke. "I feel most alive when I'm correcting imbalances. Fixing things that are broken. Making wrongs right."

  "Okay, yeah, hunting deer for sport would be kinda... pointless for you," Sage nodded thoughtfully. "Animals aren't unjust, they're just being wild animals. No moral satisfaction in that.”

  "Exactly," Galateya sighed. "So your solution to my... stress is an activity that won't even satisfy my Omnitype desire."

  "Oh no no no," Sage's freckles rearranged themselves into mischievous arrows. "I never said we were hunting animals."

  "Then what—"

  Sage's clawed finger extended slowly, deliberately, pointing across the café.

  "We're hunting..." Her finger stopped at me. "...HIM," she declared with unholy glee, her face stretching into a foxish grin.

  "Wait, what?" I blinked at the Skinwalker girl.

  “Eh?” Galateya voiced.

  "Think about it!" Sage bounced excitedly, still holding Galateya. "He's your source of personal injustice, right? He's divided. He's scheming. He's not fully present. He's got huge secrets. He's making you feel unbalanced and unfair and all those Taniwha-triggering things!"

  Galateya's scales flickered with a soft orange. "I... I mean, you're not wrong..."

  "So we'll hunt him!" Sage continued extra-enthusiastically. "Chase him through the forest. Make him run. Make him WORK for your attention instead of the other way around! Flip the power dynamic! Restore the balance by making HIM the prey instead of you being the desperate consort who’s constantly being ignored and getting bullied or whatevs!"

  "That's..." Galateya's mane started blooming with purple lillies. "That's actually..."

  "Fucking brilliant?" Sage supplied. "I know! It's the perfect Taniwha stress relief! You get to actively pursue instead of being ignored. You get to be the hunter instead of the hunted. You get to make HIM sweat for once!"

  "I'm right here," I said. "I can hear you planning to hunt me."

  "WE KNOW!" both girls said in unison, then looked at each other and burst into laughter.

  Galateya's laugh was wet, hiccupping and… genuine. Her scales had shifted to light lavenders and soft pinks mixing with curious golds.

  "Oh man, his face right now," Sage wheezed. "Priceless. Absolutely priceless.” She stared at me, eyes igniting from within. “It’ll be even more priceless when we rip you apart.”

  "When you WHAT?" I stood up from the booth.

  "Relax, Chadzilla," Sage waved dismissively. "We're not actually going to kill you. Probably. Maybe just maim a little?"

  "A little?!"

  "It's cathartic!" Sage insisted. "She needs to chase something that matters to her. You matter to her. Therefore..." She made a 'connect the dots' gesture with her hands.

  "How would this even work?" the smiling Taniwha asked.

  "Simple!" Sage released Galateya and stood, stretching dramatically. "We give him a head start. Say... Twenty-ish minutes? Then we shift and hunt him through the Olympic National Forest. When we catch him—and we WILL catch him because hello, immortal, half-divine shapeshifters—he has to answer one completely honest question. No schemes. No divided consciousness bullshit. Just pure, unfiltered truth."

  "Hrm. That's..." Galateya stood slowly, her tail uncurling. "That's actually fair. That would restore balance. Yes!"

  "RIGHT?!" Sage grinned. "Plus you get to work out all that cold frustration by chasing him down like the apex predator you are!"

  I looked between them. Galateya's mane and tail had gone from icicles to a garden in full bloom. Even her posture had changed, shoulders back, head high.

  The emotional breakdown had completely reversed.

  "You're serious about this," I said.

  "As a heart attack," Sage confirmed. "Which you might have if we catch you too fast. Better do some stretches, Lord Chaddicus.”

  “I can’t have the neural interface in my head damaged,” I said.

  “Fine,” Sage said. “Everything else is getting ripped off then. Expect to be destroyed… and be left bruised, bitten, licked, scratched and be left in a puddle of sweat, drool and juices wearing only that headband circlet. Deal?”

  I stared at the two girls conspiring against me.

  Galateya's expression shifted from icy despair to warm, predatory hunger, violet eyes igniting from within. The flowers in her mane bloomed in brilliant, surreal colors, textures and shapes entwining, fusing, making love. Her draconic maw spread in a wicked, wide grin.

  Happy. She actually looked… happy? Holy shit!

  I’ve never seen her this happy about anything!

  "Deal," I heard myself distantly say as two hundred thousand miles away, Shady and I committed terrible crimes against the Frontenachii Dominion.