Caprifexia was halfway through the Book of Bonding, which obviously written by a mortal, when Einar made an appearance in the manor's immense main library.

  She had been reluctantly permitted to use one of the desks by the grumpy Sorbet Melon before he had gone, although she was being watched by no less than three of his vampire lackeys, all under strict instruction to 'restrain that menace if she starts wrecking things.'

  The sun had risen hours beforehand, but the vaulted library was even more gloomy than when she had arrived. The vampires had enchanted their curtains to close by themselves, and no matter how she tugged and pulled and wrenched she couldn't get them open again.

  She had considered setting the blood red velvet ablaze, but her ghoulish 'minders' had already been glaring at her, and Sorbet, who she could grudgingly admit had helped Einar, had requested she not set his ugly gothic home on fire so, in this one, small, tiny, insignificant, specific instance, she thought that arson might not be the most heroic possibly course of action.

  "Capri!" cried Einar. "You're alright!"

  "Of course," she said, waving her hand absently and staying focused on her book. "I am a-"

  She was cut off as Einar reached her, and in a move that definitely would have gotten him set on fire a few months earlier, picked her up in a hug.

  "Unhand me mortal," she said, perhaps not quite as forcefully as was really proper for dragon.

  "Divines Capri, I was so worried. When you were shivering, and then you collapsed…"

  "Yes, yes," she said, patting him on the back lightly as she heroically indulged his simpering outburst. "I understand, you mortals are very emotional – but I am a dragon, we do not hug."

  "Of course," he sniffed, setting her back down on the thick carpet and wiping his leaking eyes before putting his hands on her shoulders and squatting down slightly so that they were face to face. "You saved my life Capri."

  "Again," she corrected. "What is this, the twelfth time?"

  "Second or third actually, depending on how you count it."

  "I'm fairly certain it is more than that – what about at that prison?"

  "Helgen? You pushed me toward a woman trying to cut my head off. That definitely doesn't count as 'saving my life,'" he said. "But never-mind, this time you could have died. It was the most heroic thing you have ever done."

  "I wasn't in any danger," she scoffed.

  "The one who saved us, a vampire of all things-"

  "Yes, I spoke to him," she nodded. "'Sorbet Melon.'"

  "His name is not 'Sorbet Melon,'" said Einar. "Not only are you completely wrong, it would be an unbelievably massive linguistic coincidence for his name to be a dessert in Imperial."

  "I thought it was a strange name myself, especially since he can apparently speak your horrible sounding language; but, since I'm a hero, I didn't say anything because didn't want to seem culturally insensitive. Maybe all the bloodsuckers on…"

  "Innistrad," supplied Einar.

  "-sure, are named after desserts in Imperial?" continued Caprifexia. "Did you think of that, hmm? I think it says a lot about you and your still omnipresent bigotry, usually directed towards dragons, that you can't accept that some people, usually mortals, just have terrible names."

  "… anyway, he told me that you were very, very close to dead when he healed you," said Einar. "He said that the only reason you were alive was because, as you'd put it, 'you're a dragon.'"

  "I'm glad you're finally starting to understand basic concepts."

  "So are you feeling OK?" said Einar.

  "Fine."

  "Are you sure?" he said sceptically. "Not just pretending to be fine because you think dragon's shouldn't admit to being hurt? It's OK, you can tell me."

  "I'm fine!"

  "Well… good," said Einar. "Where is our host then?"

  "He said he had 'business elsewhere' and that I wasn't allowed to stay in the workshop because I might accidentally improve one of his badly designed artefacts. He also told me to stay in the manor, since my awesome power would be too devastating to the local flora and fauna if I were to venture beyond the grounds."

  "Uh huh, I bet that's exactly what he said," said Einar,. "What are you reading? And… he did say you could read his stuff? Right?"

  "He picked out some books on magic that he said I could borrow. Apparently as a 'Planeswalker' I am even mightier than a regular dragon – difficult as that might be for you to comprehend."

  "So long as you're not stealing from him," said Einar. "This guy knows where Nirn is and can move through the Void like you. And he's an absurdly powerful wizard. He is not someone we want to annoy – OK?"

  "Pah, he's just an unusually animate corpse-"

  "-who can snap his fingers and turn over a dozen other vampires to dust. Instantly."

  "What? When did this happen? Are you sure? That doesn't sound plausible," said Caprifexia. "You don't know much about magic, and are just, in general, usually wrong."

  "Yes I'm sure. It was when you collapsed."

  "Dragons do not 'collapse' – I simply did not think those feeble undead worth my time, and trusted you to deal with them."

  Einar put his palms to his face and sighed. "Whatever," he said. "Just don't go pissing him off, OK? He seems like the kind who wouldn't blink at killing us if we imposed too much upon his good graces. I'm not even sure why he's so interested in you."

  "Perhaps because he recognises greatness when he sees it."

  Einar looked, for some reason, very unconvinced.

  "I suppose it would be useful cultivating lackeys-" she continued, tapping her lip speculatively.

  "-allies, you're a hero, remember-"

  "-ah yes, 'allies.' Even an undead, if they have a library like this," she said, gesturing to the expansive book filled room.

  She could quite happily spend years in a place like this. Books on magic were one of her favourite things. Along with napping. And fish.

  But she did realise that they needed to return to Nirn and deal with the proto-drakes. For one thing, Einar would definitely not shut up about it if they didn't.

  "We should probably wake up the cat," she said, closing the book and stuffing it into a bag with the others. "We should be going, we need to visit the Neckbeards-"

  "Greybeards. And his name is J'zargo," said Einar firmly. "You can't call him a cat Capri."

  "Why not?"

  "Because it's super racist," he said. "We've been through this."

  "But he is-"

  "Capri, a hero wouldn't call a khajiite a cat – OK?"

  "Well… OK," she said with a sniff. "That seems pretty arbitrary though. You're lucky I'm such a tolerant and understanding dragon."

  *********?

  "So she is really a dragon?" said J'zargo, who was a 'khajiite,' not a cat – apparently – as they made their way back along the twisting and meandering bridges of the Void, or 'Blind Eternities' as the frozen fruit loving vampire had called it. All around them shadows twisted and moved, as if alive, the light from the star-like orbs that lead to worlds contorting and bending under the mad illogic of the Void's ever shifting dimensions.

  "From another world – not a child of Akatosh," said Einar, who had taken it upon himself to 'fill in' Caprifexia's perfectly adequate and concise explanation of the situation. "And a baby one at that."

  "Are you sure she is not just delusional?" said J'zargo.

  "Listen here you small minded feline-"

  "I'm sure," said Einar, cutting her off. Rudely.

  "And all her people have this power?" he said, gesturing to the realm which, had he seen it as it really were, would have shattered his feeble cat-like mind.

  "No, that's just her it seems," said Einar as they reached the platform and star-like orb that led to the dead, desert that had been stripped bare by the Void. "The Vampire who healed you could do it too. Although he said he couldn't take people with him – that's also a Capri speciality apparently."

  J'zargo was about to voice yet another tedious question when Caprifexia caught a flicker of movement and a hint of light in her peripheral vision.

  "Einar, out, now!" she barked as she whirred around, her heart setting up a staccato in her chest as she gazed accross the abyss to another, more developed platform where she had spotted the movement.

  J'zargo began to make some protesting noises, but Einar, for once, followed her command instantly, grabbing the khajiite's arm and dragging the stroppy moggy through a portal to the ruinous plane.

  Caprifexia took a few steps toward the orb of light, but didn't immediately follow her friend and the khajiite.

  With Einar gone she didn't have to worry about protecting his fragile mortal mind, which meant that she had an opportunity to gather some more information on what Sorbet had described as the 'most dangerous beings in the multiverse.' The Old God had moved reasonably slowly the last time she had encountered one, and the Whispers would give her forewarning. At least, that was her – brilliant – working theory.

  Strangely though, she heard no Whispers, and after almost a minute of fruitless peering into the gloom was about to follow Einar when she saw the movement again.

  It was no longer on the platform opposite, and instead had travelled up one of the twisting bridges further away from her. Seeing any great distance was pretty difficult in the Void, but whatever it was glowed a bright gold, and seemed to have a vaguely humanoid outline.

  She watched for a few more minutes, as it wended its way along the pathways between worlds, until it faded out of view entirely amidst the churning mist, patterns of light, and contorting dimensions.

  W????e????????????? ?????????????f??????????e??????????????e????????????l???????????? ???????????????????y??????????o????????u???????????????.????????????????.????????????.??????????? ?????????????

  Caprifexia's eyes widened, and her head snapped around as she began to feel the familiar stifling touch of the Old Ones descend upon her mind, like a wedge behind her eyes. In the opposite direction of the golden figure, and moving faster than she had remembered, was the formless, writhing mist of an Old God, or 'Eldrazi' as Sorbet had called them.

  Y?????????o??????????u?????????????? ????????????????????o????????????n??????c??????????????????e???????????? ??????????????k???????????????n??????????????e??????????????????????w???????????????? ?????????????????????u????s??????????.????????????????????.??????????.???????????

  Like before she could see flashes of lightning within its form, and the occasional hint of what might have been an eye, and, now that she was looking closer, the occasional sinewy tentacle or maw full of twisted teeth. It was disconcerting to look at for reasons she couldn't quite articulate, and it made her mind itch.

  But she was a dragon, and pushed through the discomfort, focusing on trying to observe anything potentially useful. She was a hero after all, the greatest one in the multiverse even. If the Old Gods were as big a threat as Sorbet had indicated, then it was her responsibility to uncover their secrets.

  L?????????e?????????????t????? ???????????????????????u????????????????s??????????????? ???????????????b?????a????????????????c???????????????k???????????? ???????????????????i?????????????????????????n????????????????????????,????????????? ??????????????????????l??????????????????????e?????????????t?????????????? ??????????????????????u????????????????s??????????????????????? ?????????b?????????????????????a??????????????????????c???????????????????????k????????????? ????????????????i???????????????n??????????????!?????????????????????

  Still, it was closing rather fast, and starting to cause a nasty headache. No. On second thought, Sorbet's idea of investigating them had definitely been a bad one.

  And obviously there was nothing more to be learned, she thought as the itch in her mind grew more pronounced and she stepped toward the star that led to the desertous plane.

  She was just raising her hand to escape from the hideous creature when she stopped, cocking her head to one side as she saw that her skin had begun to faintly glow the same gold as the distant figure she had seen moments beforehand.

  W???????????????????????????????e?????????????????????????? ???????????????????w???????????????????i??????????????????????l?????????????????????????????l?????????????????????????????? ???????????????????????c?????????????????????????????????????o??????????????????????????????n??????????????????????????s??????????????????????u????????????m???????????????????????????????????e?????????????????????????? ??????????????????????y????????????????????????o????????????????u?????????????????????????.?????????????.???????????????????????????????.???????????????????????????????

  "Huh," she said, peering at the strange phenomenon. She wasn't sure if she had simply never noticed it before – a possibility since the Void seemed to be, to some degree at least, shaped by her perception and expectation – or if it was the proximity of the Old God that had activated it.

  Now that she had seen it, however, she could feel the magic beginning deep inside her, in the same place that the 'tug' came from whenever she Planeswalked.

  Y????????????o?????????????????????????????????????????u???????????????????????????????????????? ?????????w???????????????????????i??????????l???????l??????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????n????????????????????o????????????????t??????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????e?????????s???????????????????????????c????????????????????????????a?????????????????????????????????????????????p??????????????????????????????????????????e???????????????????????????????? ????u???????????s?????????????????????????????????????.?????????????????????????????.??????????????????.???????????????????????

  Caprifexia would have liked to examine it more, but the Old God was getting close, and with her best derisive draconic sniff, that sounded nothing like a yelp, she turned her nose up to the Old God and stepped leisurely out of the Void onto the dead, desertous plane.

  "For Akatosh's sake!" yelled Einar as soon as she had crossed the threshold and the portal closed behind her.

  Her headache abated slightly as the Old God's hold over snapped, but it didn't disappear entirely, and certainly wasn't helped by Einar's very loud whinging.

  "Don't do that!" continued Einar, his voice angrier than she had heard it since she'd dispensed Just-this to the proto-drake-elf, or 'Dovahkiin' as he insisted on calling them.

  They had arrived in the ruins of a city wrought mainly from sandstone. Most of the structures were still standing, although in places what looked like waves of transformative magic had rolled through the city, shifting and breaking and changing the sandstone from elegant curves into harsh geometric pylons and lines.

  In places the sandstone had also been transmuted into a kind of green-purple crystal, which here and there had broken off entirely and now floated eerily in the air, with no sensible magic or spell of any kind keeping them afloat. The shadows they cast were a bit odd as well, and seemed to twist and turn at unexpected angles. If Caprifexia wasn't sure that the Old God was gone, she might have thought herself still in the Void.

  It was dawn, and there was still a chill in the air. In the various alcoves and undercover areas shielded from the direct sunlight lay hundreds of desiccated reptilian corpses like the ones that Caprifexia and Einar had found in a cave on their first visit to the world. Unlike the bodies they had found in the cave, however, several of these corpses had been warped and twisted in a similar manner to the buildings, and here and there dull, dry scales transitioned into harsh geometric crystal.

  "Do what?" she said distractedly, wiping some of the ichor of her boots onto a nearby piece of hexagonal masonry and thinking over what she had just learned.

  Was what she had felt her 'Spark?' Sorbet had said that it was what made a Planeswalker a Planeswalker. Was that why it had activated near the Old God? Was it what had purged the Whispers from her mind in the first place? Was it some sort of 'anti-Void' energy?

  "Tell us to get out of the Void and then don't follow us out for ten aedra-damned minutes!"' said Einar, grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her distractingly.

  "I was doing research," she said, her voice taking on the same angry tone as his. "And stop that, I am a dragon, I will not be shaken!"

  "Research!?" he all but screamed into her face.

  "There was some kind of golden figure moving in the distance, and then an Old God-"

  "An Old God!? How can you be so blasé about those mind shattering abominations?" said Einar, shaking her more. "What is wrong with you!?"

  "My mind is not so fragile as yours," she said, baring her slightly-too-pointy to be elven teeth at him. "And you will stop shaking me!"

  "Children should not be doing 'research' onto eldritch horrors! Did Soren-"

  "Who?"

  "The fucking vampire!" yelled Einar, who had worked himself into a real state. "Did he put you up to this?"

  "I am a whelpling; not a child!" she said testily, shoving him back, her draconic strength making him stumble several steps. "And Sorbet and I discussed the Old Gods, but I am not the servant of anything, least of all a ghoul like him. I was curious, and if you stop mothering me and shut up long enough to listen I might tell you what I have found with my formidable intellect, you ridiculous overbearing mortal!"

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  "Fine," he said through gritted teeth, trying to reign in his mortal proclivity to nonsense before speaking in a more proper tone. "What did you find?"

  "I can glow," she said, holding up her hand and drawing on the power again. Golden light burst from her skin, dancing along her finger tips.

  Einar – despite his inability to glow – seemed unimpressed. "You're a wizard, of course you can glow!"

  "No you fool-" she snarled, smoke billowing from her mortal form's nostrils as she tried to think of an even simpler a way put things. Then she changed her mind. No. If Einar didn't want to take her seriously, she wouldn't take him even a little bit seriously. "You know what? I don't have to explain myself to a mortal. Go and play in the dirt, or whatever it is you do when I'm not around."

  Einar balled his hands into fists, and was probably about to say something else completely out of line when J'zargo interrupted them.

  "J'zargo is not entirely convinced that this is a 'safe place,'" said the khajiite, gesturing to the dead reptiles.

  "Dead mortals – what a surprise," said Caprifexia

  "What did this is long gone according to Capri," said Einar.

  "And how long must we stay here?" asked J'zargo.

  "Capri?" asked Einar.

  "Oh, so now my vast understanding is to be drawn on?" she growled. "My wisdom valued and not mocked? I am not merely a 'disobedient child?'"

  "What are you talking about?"

  "A few hours," she snapped, moving off. "I'm going to look around."

  "Wait, hold on Capri, we shouldn't split up," said Einar, rushing to catch up with her and grabbing her by the shoulder again.

  "I told you to stop mortal-handling me!" she snarled, a hint of flame leaping from her mouth as she shoved him away again, harder this time, sending him tumbling onto his rear. "Meet me back here in two hours. Or don't. Whatever."

  She transformed and flapped into the air.

  "Hey, no Capri, wait! Capri!" he called out as she rose and banked away from him.

  She ignored him, accelerating and streaking off deeper into the city.

  Damn Einar. In his eyes she could never do anything right. She got chastised for not being interested enough in certain boring things, like what exactly a 'proto-drake-born' was, but then when she tried to actually investigate real threats, like the Old Gods, she got told off! It wasn't fair at all!

  "Irritating mortal," she hissed as she flapped over a canal with crystal clear water and into what seemed to be some kind of temple district. There the thoroughfare was made of polished and finely cut interlocking pieces of marble, and on either side were huge buildings, long wilted gardens, and statues that dominated the skyline.

  She came to a stop outside the first large building, which seemed to be dedicated to a SABIGISMF that resembled one of the local reptilian humanoids with a beetle for a head. Compared to the rather simple buildings where they had arrived, the temple was ornately carved and constructed from marble that still gleamed purple and gold in the morning light. Sections of it had, however, been hit by the wave of warping magic, and the lower half of the statue had been twisted into some kind of eerie abstract representation of itself.

  Caprifexia thought the 'God' itself looked absurd, and the idea that a being that looked like one of the locals but also had an insectoid head was somehow a representation of 'divinity' was ridiculous even by the incredibly low standards of mortalkind.

  "Gullible mortal fools," she said, flicking her talons in a fit of pique. "Relampus."

  A lightning bolt burst from her claws a moment later, crashing into the marble and sending the silly beetle head smashing to the ground in a shower of masonry. Caprifexia felt a brief moment of catharsis, before it faded back into a confusing fury.

  She moved onward through the plaza, blasting another of the statues, this one of a reptilian with a fish head of all things, as she went. It didn't help her anger – anger she wasn't entirely sure why she had. Einar had been dismissive towards her before – so why was she suddenly so bothered by it?

  She thought she had been getting better at indulging mortals, which was a pretty core part of being a hero as she understood it.

  Was it the khajiite? She felt pretty ambivalent towards the feline wizard, it was true. But he wasn't a villain, so didn't warrant summary Just-a-fireball to the face. More than that even, she could somewhat begrudgingly admit that he had helped them against the ghouls. That made him, intellectually, an ally. Didn't it?

  Why then did she still feel an increasing dislike towards him all the same? It was ridiculous, a random mortal shouldn't have been able to get under her scales like that.

  She reflected upon their last interaction, trying to locate the thing that had annoyed her as she flapped by two more temples, reducing their large statues to rubble as she went.

  She approached the last of the five temple-like structures, no closer to any kind of answer, and was just about to obliterate the tall statue of a winged humanoid woman when she paused.

  Something stirred in her memory from the last time she had been on the plane, pushing the anger to the back of her mind for the moment as she tried to recall exactly what the link was.

  It took her draconic mind only a moment to locate the memory and bring it to the fore in vivid detail. The carving of a similar figure above the maddened rambling's of one of this world's unfortunate mortals floated into her mind's eye, the words that had been carved beneath clear and distinct: 'the angles do not add up, the circle does not close.'

  Strange, she thought, lowering her claws and releasing the magic she had gathered. Why would a race of reptiles worship an apelike figure with wings? Usually mortals went for things that resembled themselves, didn't they?

  On a whim she moved up the temple's steps, passing under stonework that couldn't have been more than a decade or two old and into the main chapel itself, and which was mostly intact.

  Inside were another five statues of the winged woman, looking down from equidistant points around the circular room. At the centre stood a withered reptilian figure who, unlike all the other corpses she had seen both in the city and the cave, had a look of pure joy frozen on the half of his face that hadn't been twisted into geometric crystal.

  Arrayed around him on all sides on curving pews were dozens and dozens more dead reptiles. A few, mainly those towards the front, bore looks of similar bliss as what she assumed was the head priest, but most looked frightened. Caprifexia somehow found the former even more disquieting than the latter. The idea that anyone, even a mortal, would willingly embrace the total destruction of self was… perverse. Sick.

  Capri was about to turn and leave in disgust, when she spied an open book on the central altar. She doubted that it would have any interesting spells in it, but sometimes religions did practice some kind of magic as an attempt to 'connect' with their so-called Gods, so she moved over and opened it.

  The text, although somewhat faded on the papyrus, was easily legible thanks to her gift of tongues, and was the same as what she had read in the cave.

  The book was titled The Word of Mirael – the apparent name of the mammalian SABIGISMF with wings whose statues looked down on her. It was fairly standard religious waffle, although the object of worship stood out to her as strange. Rather than the sun, or war, or weather, or fertility, the object of worship of this particular cult was what the book called the 'Great Absence.'

  "'Great Absence,'" she muttered, returning to the first page and tapping the word. Another way of saying 'nothing.' Another way of saying 'Void.'

  Although she'd never completed 'Theological Manipulation 101' back at Blackrock Spire, she was fairly certain that the worship of nothingness as a concept wasn't a particularly standard mortal foible. In fact, as far as she could remember, the only Azerothian example was the Twilight Hammer. But they had been pawns of her people, and certainly not integrated into wider mortal society enough to have temples in cities.

  She turned her attention back to the book, her eyes flying over the pages as she absorbed the convoluted rambling, and slowly a picture of the religion began to take shape in her mind.

  The worship of the so-called Goddess 'Mirael' had been a relatively recent phenomenon on this plane, which was called 'Zarrak' by the locals. Although it was difficult to work out exactly what the dates mentioned in the text were relative to the present, the worship of five other SABIGISMFs had already been well established when 'Mirael' had suddenly arrived on the scene and declared herself 'greatest of the Gods.'

  There had been a brief but bloody sounding war, during which Mirael slew the previous head of the lizard people's pantheon, and after which she had been more or less accepted into the local's system of belief, fundamentally altering the nature of their psuedo-cosmology.

  Rather than the previous 'cycle' embodied by the previous head 'God,' who had been associated with the Sun, after the rise of Mirael the religion had come to centre around a promised event called the 'Unity' – when it was said that Mirael would facilitate a 'transcendence' for the Zarrakians, removing the 'suffering that was existence' by ushering in 'Bliss.'

  'Bliss,' or 'Oblivion;' the word had a double meaning in the Zarrakian language.

  Caprifexia turned, looking up at reptilian priest with a look of joy on her face, a few things clicking into place in her labyrinthine mind.

  The priest hadn't been afraid on the world's destruction. He had somehow known what was coming. Known, and wanted it.

  But the winged woman 'goddess?' Once again, that stuck out as strange.

  There was no indication, from what she had seen, of any ape-like beings on this world. Of any mammal at all, now that she thought of it. But if that was the case, then where had the impetus for an ape-like Goddess' form come from? Why not a lizard-person with wings? Was she an Old God?

  As far as Caprifexia knew, and she knew a lot, normally there were more tentacles, and they couldn't actually physically take humanoid forms – the reality of life was too alien for them to do more than some twisted, fleshy approximation. And there wasn't any mention of 'blessed madness' or anything else like the thought that had infested the Twilight Cult. No, whatever she was, this 'Mirael' wasn't an Old God…

  "There you are!" came the exasperated voice of Einar, breaking her chain of thought. "Divines Capri, I thought you'd left us!"

  "I was reading," she snapped, her anger at her supposed friend coming back to the fore. Why was Einar bothering her? Hadn't she made it clear she didn't want to have a look around with him?

  Then she checked her internal clock, somewhat surprised that three and a half hours had already elapsed. Oh, she realised, that was probably why he sounded annoyed – mortals were very particular about time. Probably a side effect of a whole 'dying from old age' thing.

  "About religion?" he said. "I thought you said it was all mortal nonsense."

  "It is," she said. "But this religion worshipped the Void, it seemed somewhat interesting – considering what happened to this place."

  Einar came to a stop beside her, looking askance at the enraptured features of the head priest.

  "Hey Capri, are we OK? You seem more prickly than usual. Which is saying something."

  "Fine."

  Einar raised an eyebrow. "I'm not as smart as you maybe, but I'm not a fool – something's bothering you."

  "Just leave me alone."

  "Yeah… I'm not going to do that," he said. "Come on Capri, we've been through Oblivion and back together, your like my little sister – a really bratty one – you can tell me."

  "That's the problem!" she snapped, locating the source of her anger as it flared at being called 'bratty.' "I'm not a child. Stop treating me like one!"

  "Capri, you're two," he said gently, placing a hand on the gap in her spines where her shoulders met her neck.

  "I am a dragon!" she said. "An immortal being of intellect and magic!"

  "Yes, I know," he said. "But you're a very young one. This is about me getting angry at you for being in the Void longer than us, isn't it? Capri, I was just worried about you, I thought you were dead."

  Caprifexia scowled at him.

  "I'm sorry for shouting and shaking you OK? I know you're not a normal kid – in a whole lot of ways you're incredibly skilled, but in others you haven't got any experience. But I'll try to differentiate between those two situations better, OK? In return, maybe you can let me know what you're planning before you do it?"

  "You also laughed at me when I discovered something interesting," she said sulkily.

  "That you can glow?"

  "No – not – argh!"

  "OK, I'm clearly missing the significance of this," he said. "Please, explain it in small words that my silly mortal mind can understand, oh mighty dragon."

  "Fine," she said. "If you're going to be reasonable, for once, I suppose I can enlighten you."

  "Very kind of you."

  "I know. Anyway, the movement I saw in the Void was a glowing gold humanoid figure, which I believe might have been another Planeswalker – although it was difficult to make out. Then, when the Old God started growing closer I noticed that I was also glowing – I don't know if it was the proximity of the monstrous creature, or if my perception had somehow shifted."

  "What do you mean 'your perception shifted?'" he asked.

  "The Void seems to react to one's understanding of it," she said, before pausing, wanting to phase things carefully so he wouldn't accidentally see what she did and be driven mad. "I… see more than you do in there."

  "What-"

  "If I explain, I will probably have to burn out more of your brain."

  "Oh, err, OK, no, please don't tell me then," he said hurriedly. "I'll just trust you know what you're talking about."

  "A habit that would serve you well. Anyway, I noticed, because I'm amazingly self-reflective and insightful, that this glow seems to emanate from the same place I feel a 'tug' when I open a portal. I believe it is my 'Spark,' what Sorbet Melon-"

  "He isn't called-" began Einar, before realising how wrong he was. "No, never-mind, what did 'Sorbet Melon' say?"

  "He said the 'Spark' is what makes me even more incredible than a normal dragon; it is what makes me a 'Planeswalker.'"

  "So it's not just a fancy glow?"

  "No," she said. "And I think I might be able to use it to avoid your… insect fetish when opening portals."

  "So I can stop carrying around a spider in a jar in my pocket?"

  Caprifexia flapped away, smoking trailing from her nostrils as the furnace in her chest began to glow through her scales. "You have what in your pocket!?"

  "Err, no – I definitely don't have a spider," he said, covering a suspicious looking part of his coat. "Don't you dare set me on fire!"

  Caprifexia glared at him, slowly letting the power in her chest fade and landing on the altar again.

  "Well you'll get a chance to find out if you're right soon," said Einar. "We need to get going – who knows how long it will take us to get to the Greybeards, and J'zargo needs to tell Winterhold what that Thalmor prick did."

  "Fine," she said, closing the book. After a moment's deliberation she transformed, took it and put it in her bag before resuming her draconic form. "I suppose we can go then."

  They trooped out of the temple, Caprifexia taking her position on Einar's shoulder, a perch that was getting progressively harder and harder to find comfortable due to having put on several inches snout to tail in the last few months.

  It took them almost half an hour to make it back to the concourse where they had arrived, and where an impatient looking khajiite was tapping his foot.

  "We are ready, yes?" said J'zargo. "She is done having her tantrum?"

  "Dragons do not have 'tantrums!'" she corrected.

  "J'zargo does not believe you."

  "J'zargo, play nice. OK Capri, do your thing," said Einar.

  Caprifexia flapped off his shoulder and closed her eyes, focusing on where she felt the tug and following it down to her core, where a blazing spark shone within her. Carefully she took hold of it with her mind and directed it outward, envisaging it cutting open a portal into the Void.

  For a moment nothing happened, but then she felt a familiar tug, and when she opened her eyes there was a portal before her.

  "Hah! I am the greatest Wizard in the multiverse!" she declared.

  "Impossible – that is J'zargo," said the arrogant, and totally delusional cat.

  "Nice Capri," said Einar, cutting her off before she could explain in detail to the cat why he was self-evidently wrong. "Come on, lets get going – we don't want to have to put down on another plane again."

  Caprifexia's form shifted as the others went through the Void, trailing after them as Einar consulted his map and began heading off towards Nirn, the fleshy, eye covered growths squelching under her boots.

  "Hey Capri," said Einar a few minutes later as they descended a particular rickety set of half-rotten planks and arrived at the entrance to the plane of Nirn.

  "What?"

  "Has Nirn always looked like… that?" he said, pointing to the star that led back to his home reality that was somehow had a large, deep gash cut into it. The cut spewed out multicoloured light, which bled out into the void in pulses that resembled a heartbeat.

  She shrugged, placing her hand on the ball of swirling energy and opening a portal.

  "Probably."

  A note from CiaranT

  A.N. If you like my writing, you might be interested in my fantasy adventure novel – – which is entirely pre-written and with chapters released every Friday!

  Mishka the Great and Powerful that isn't up on Royal Road yet!). However, I don't monetise or time-gate my fanfiction though (plz no sue!).