Yari currently had the single worst headache of her entire life.

Her entire world felt like it was spinning. Her scalp burned like never before, and parts of her head felt bruised.

Even her hearing wasn’t where it needed to be. She could make out two voices from above her, but she had no chance of placing them.

"I can’t believe it... What were they doing there?"

"I have no idea, my queen. It looked like they were in captivity. After the usurper was down, I grabbed them both and ran."

"You had no trouble getting in or out?"

"Everyone was focused on some beings called the horsemen, my lady. Apparently, they came from beyond."

"Oh? How curious..."

Yari felt a wave of grogginess sneak up on her once more, and her mind returned to the dark.

When she awoke again, she was much clearer-headed.

Though being freezing cold and naked would certainly do that.

Yari sat up abruptly, releasing a shrill scream as she covered herself.

Next to her, Giselle sat up in their pool of water.

The two girls looked at each other and then screamed.

"Why are we naked!?"

"Where did your hair go!?"

"My what!?"

Yari touched her head. It was as smooth as the bottom her lovers were so obsessed with.

She remembered a chunk of her hair getting ripped away in a scuffle with her brother, but it certainly wasn’t this much!

"By Muria, you girls are loud as hell... I didn’t realize how much I missed that before now."

Yari and Giselle froze in the water.

Glancing above their heads, they found a woman in animal furs smirking at them.

She was larger than life at eight feet tall. Her body was visibly powerful, with biceps that were thicker than an elephant’s thighs and bright amber eyes like sunlit honey.

Her black hair was surprisingly well-maintained for a wild woman, falling down her back in long, straight sheets that were as sweet-smelling as they were graceful.

Her skin, sun-kissed by a lifetime in the wilderness, was home to numerous scars that had no doubt come from this very same place.

Giselle was already crying before her first words left her lips.

"M-Mommy..?"

The woman smiled. "You look a little too big to be calling me that still... but it is very nice to hear after all of this time."

-

Wrapped in makeshift clothes and bandages, Yari and Giselle stumbled over each other as they stared at their mother’s back.

Both girls felt as if they were living in a dream. The woman they hadn’t seen in more than two hundred years was walking in front of them, smiling and giving a tour.

"And this is home! Ain’t exactly much compared to what the two of you must be used to, but we get by."

Neither daughter even paused to stare at the open wooden home, which was surprisingly spacious.

Furniture mostly consisted of many large animal pelts sewn together and filled with uncooked beans.

There were numerous wooden weapons with heads made of sharpened rock or some kind of animal bone.

"Come on in, take a seat. Those wounds of yours looked pretty nasty, so..."

"HOW ARE YOU HERE?!" Yari blurted.

Her mother seemed to be surprised by her outburst, judging by the way she jumped. "Easy there, sunseed... I want to catch up as badly as you do, but why don’t we sit down first?"

When her mother suggested sitting down, Giselle believed they would do so separately. She didn’t expect her mother to pull them into her lap like they were still children.

They each sat on one of their mothers’ legs as she recounted her past.

"Oh... Well, I’m not sure where to begin. What did your father tell you the night after I disappeared?"

"Disappeared??" Giselle tilted her head. "Father told us that you left him... and us."

"That dimwitted little beanpole! I did no such thing! I was kidnapped, damn it! He didn’t even have the decency to send out a party to come look for me!"

Yari was aptly concerned. "Kidnapped...? But who would have done such a thing...?"

The girls’ mother, Griselda, seemed more than just a little bit depressed all of a sudden. "Let’s just say... your Grandparents were not exactly thrilled about my decision to-"

"H-Head Elder!! We have a problem!!"

A woman burst into the wooden dwelling in clear alarm.

Giselle and Yari jumped to their feet, frightened.

"A dark fae?!"

"What’s it doing here?!"

The woman looked immensely offended.

"Easy there, you two. Vanka’s a friend." Griselda stood up. "Where’s the fire?"

"T-That’s just it! It’s in the sky but we don’t know what it is! The others are organizing a hunt!"

A deep rumble shook the floor of the forest, spurring the three women out of their houses.

This was the first time Giselle or Yari had gotten proper looks at the territory their mother lived in.

It was a sprawling haven, crossed with some sort of nomadic war camp.

The girls were baffled when they realized there wasn’t just one dark fae around. There were almost too many to count, all of them side by side with eight-foot-tall Amazon women.

The deposed princesses were not sure if they should have been baffled or horrified. But when they turned their gazes to the sky, there was a clear winner.

The figure towering in the middle of the forest was nothing short of horrific.

At a frightening 200 meters tall, the creature was an ominous winged catastrophe, with scales of onyx and searing orange flame.

Giselle was petrified. "I-Is that..."

Yari gulped as she nodded. "A dragon..."

For some reason, Yari thought that the creature’s horns were glaringly familiar.

"Whatever it is, it’s dinner!"

Griselda hefted a spear longer than both of her daughters stacked on top of each other.

A feral smile spread across the beautiful matriarch’s lips. "Everyone! Hit those wings and-"

"Yari!"

The entire forest came to a quiet standstill.

The giant dragon lumbered forth in its massive form, the black tail behind it’s body wagging so hard that it began to cause a seismic event.

Even when deep and beastial, Yari couldn’t have mistaken the voice that called for her with such affection.

"Solomon...?"

As the dragon got closer, its four-legged form shrank into something far more diminutive and familiar.

The smaller he got, the easier it became for her to see the form of the woman he was carrying on his back.

Teary-eyed, Yari found herself flying to meet them, and the trio literally took each other’s breaths away.