When Dani woke up the next morning, he saw Dra's bare foot coming for his face. "What the fuck!" He screamed, flinching away from her.

"Oh, shit, sorry." She said, and he looked up to see her that she'd caught a pair of fallen tights. "Just puttin' some stuff away."

"I thought we didn't need to pack for the trip." Dani grumbled, standing up.

"We don't, but we still need to wear nice clothes." Dra said, folding a long skirt on the end of her petlatl. "Preferably, traditional clothes." She held up a long, silvery cloak, smirking. "You can wear this over street clothes."

Dani held up the cloak to his body, and made a face. "This is not the most flattering thing I've ever wore." He grimaced, and Dra gave a snort.

"Well, that's the truth." She said, and turned back to her closet. "I've just got to wear a shirt and blouse."

"Lucky you." He muttered.

"Oh! I almost forgot." She ran out to the hall, and Dani blinked, confused. He wasn't expecting anything.

"What are you doing?" He asked when Dra came back, breathing heavily, her face shining with happiness.

"Zaza ordered this for you. Esha's an asshole, but he's a talented metalworking asshole." She held up a golden armband, in the shape of a winged snake, it's wings outstretched. "It's real gold."

Dani didn't doubt it. He could see each little detail of the snake, from each feather to every engraved scale.

"This is really beautiful, Dra."

"Well, don't thank me, silly, thank Zaza." she held up a pin, like the one that Zammi had used only days earlier.

"Maybe later." Dani muttered, and Dra rolled her eyes, but didn't respond. Instead, she walked down the hall, to the bathroom, the one with a bathtub.

"I have my own pin, so, no." Dra nodded to the pin. "It's for my hair."

Dani looked at her shoulder length red-gold hair. "How are you planning on pinning your hair up with that?"

"Magic. Literal magic." Dra deadpanned, waving her hand over her hair, and it swept itself up into a neat twist, and she pinned it up quickly.

"Why doesn't Zammi use magic instead of dealing with her hair?" Dani asked, confused.

"She does. It's just doesn't look like. Her hair is always perfectly braided and never knotted, because of magic." Dra sounded disgruntled, and pulled out the pin, her hair falling back down. She grabbed a small clay pot from her vanity, the rim covered in ridges.

"What's that?" Dani asked as Dra opened the jar. It was full of a silvery material, and Dra took a pinch and rubbed it on her fingers, than ran it over her hair.

"Glitter." She said, and it was. Her hair glittered like the jungle itself once she was done.

"Strange. I thought we were going to leave tomorrow." Dani asked, looking around.

"We are." Dra said. "I'm just seeing what makeup I should use."

"Okay. You good? You seem stressed." Dani noticed.

"I've been better. I'm just so tired of the other Silver Mages who are always so much better looking than I am." Dra said, and searched her vanity for a different ceramic pot of makeup.

"You're really stressed out, huh?" Dani said.

"To you, this is just another trip. But for me, this is the life that I'll have to inherit from Zaza. The position that she has is a hereditary one."

"Why?" Dani asked. Dra sat down on her petlatl, putting her elbows on her knees.

"So, when the first Silver King, the last Dragon Silver Mage, untied all the Silver Mages, a coatl demigod named-"

"Wait, there's demigods? Like children of the gods and Silver Mages?" Dani asked, surprised.

"Yeah. I guess I didn't mention that. Anyway, the coatl's backed up the first King, and in return, he gave us a position in the Silver Mage society."

"So, dragons are extinct?" Dani asked, sounding a little sad. "They would have been so cool to see."

"Yeah, they died out a long time, because they got too big and their hearts would give out before they got old." Dra seemed a little sad as well. "Cause, yeah that would have been really cool."

"Are you two going to help me?" Zammi said, poking her head in. "Oh, Dra, good. You gave Dani his clothes. Dani, dear, just a little point to make, is that we often go to these things in our partial-origin form. Luckily, you know that by now."

"I won't need the wings, right?" Dani asked, a little worried about that.

"No, dear, don't worry." Zammi said. "You'll be fine. But, the Silver King, Madah, is excited to meet you. You'll also probably meet the Heir to the Silver Throne." At that, Dra's face soured, and she looked away.

"Yeah. The Heir."

"I take it you don't like him very much." Dani said drily.

"It's not that I don't like the Heir, but I just think that they need to figure what their story is. Saying anything that sounds right isn't a strategy. I won't trust 'em until they fulfill one of their promises."

"Then why did he get the title of heir? Must have done something right, that's for sure. That's not something you earn by being weak." Dani argued.

"By being a very powerful and very diplomatic Mage. However, they tend not to show their cards, as Dra said." Zammi interjected.

"That just means they're secretive." Dani said. "I don't see how that's so bad. It's caution. I get that."

"It's more than that." Dra snorted. "Anyway, it's an easy day today. Just transformation lessons. We've got to get those wings right."

"Zammi just said I only needed my partial origin. Not the full shift." Dani countered.

"I just want you to practice. You never know when a break through. Could be anywhere." Dra replied, smiling mischievously.

"It doesn't matter, you two. Dani will manage." Zammi told them. Dani didn't like the way she said 'manage'. Like whatever he did was never going to be good enough for her standards. Dani tightened his jaw.

"Anyway, tomorrow, we'll be leaving once we've all eaten and are ready. It's won't be a long trip, but it will be crowded when we get there." Zammi interrupted. "Now, it's breakfast time."

***

Dani's hair was getting lighter, he noticed, at the roots. It wasn't a big thing, but just something strange. His eyes, sometimes when he looked in the mirror, were slits like Dra's and Zammi's.

"It'll become more natural once you get the hang of it. You'll start to look a bit more serpentine." Zammi had told him, and then bared her teeth to prove a point.

And it had. Dani's teeth had become sharper, so much so that he'd actually bled when he'd tripped and bitten his tongue. Dra had laughed at him until he'd started to spit blood.

"Thanks, Zammi. For the armband" Dani said, stiffly, still annoyed from earlier. Zammi gave a little sigh.

"I do have my reasons, Dani." She said and Dani looked at her, confused.

"What? I didn't say anything."

"You didn't need to. You've been pestering me about your father, about who you are for the whole time." Zammi sat down, and took Dani's slender fingers in her own calloused ones. "And I promise you Dani, that one day, I will tell you."

"But?" Dani said, because he sensed a 'but' in there somewhere.

"Hmh. But that day isn't today, noconetzin." She said. "I'm going to tell you. I plan to tell you. You deserve to know." She said, and rubbed the back of his hand with her thumb.

"If I deserve to know, then why are you always so upset when I ask?" Dani challenged. Zammi looked to the side, and stopped rubbing his hand momentarily.

"I loved your father very much. However, there are somethings that you still don't understand about our world yet. When you learn those things, I will be happy to tell you about your father." Zammi assured him.

Dani nodded, but still looked unsure of it all. "D-did he..." Dani didn't finish his thought, and instead looked down.

"Did he what?" Zammi asked softly. "You can tell me."

"Did he love me? Did he love us?" Dani whispered, looking at the eyes that were so similar to his. Zammi seemed to melt in her seat, her slitted eyes filling with tears, and she gripped Dani's hand harder.

"Of course, he loved you. He still does. He was the first one to see you when you were born. He was, is," Zammi corrected herself, "a wonderful person, and I know he loves you."

"Really?" Dani asked. Zammi smiled, her lips wavering with unshed tears, and nodded.

"I grew up like you did. My father was the same way. He was there to see me born, but never there for, it seemed, anything else. But I'll tell you something that I wish I'd known when I was seventeen." Zammi said, her voice soft in the way voices are soft before tears.

"What?" Dani asked, desperate for anything that made him understand himself.

"He is always here, and always watching. He knows everything." She whispered, and Dani choked, like his was about to start crying. Zammi hummed comfortingly, and opened her arms.

Dani, for the first time in his life, hurled himself into his mother's arms.

***

There was something different in the way that Zammi had looked at him after that, and Dani was soothed by it. Maybe it wasn't the answer that he wanted, the truth that he needed to know, but it was something. Especially once she joined Dra and him when they went to the training field.

"Are you still trying to figure out the wing thing?" Dra asked, poking him in the belly as he tried to focus the gale force wind that was rushing through him. "It's a hard thing to do."

"I'm trying to persist past the pain, but it's too, distracting." Dani muttered, his concentration slipping a bit. Quickly, he grabbed for it, but it slipped through his fingers. "Damn it."

"When you lose concentration, don't grab for it. It will elude you even more. Take it back slowly, like pulling up a friend on the end of a fraying rope. Too fast and it will break, but too slow and it will snap from the weight below it." Zammi suggested from where she was sitting in the clearing. Dani opened his eyes, and focused at once on his mother's face.

"I don't get it." he said. Zammi sighed, and got up, walking over to him.

"Take my hands." She told him, holding them out to him, palms up, fingers slightly curled.

Dani furrowed his brow, but stood too and fit his fingers into hers.

"So, what am I supposed to be- whoa!" Dani yelled, as Zammi yanked her left arm back so hard, he fell forwards. Luckily, he kept his center of balance, and stayed on the standing. "What the hell, Zaza?" He yelped, looking up at her. He tried to pull out of her hands, but her grip was of iron.

"That is how you are trying to control your concentration, and your power." Zammi announced. "Can you see why it's not working so well?"

"Okay, yes, yes, oww." Dani complained, as his body got yanked from side to side. "I get it. Thank you."

"I'm not done." Zammi said, her smile wide enough that Dani could see the tips of her pointed teeth. "This is how you should control it. Sit up again."

Dani sat up tensing the muscles in his back to be wrenched about again, but the sudden, harsh movement didn't come. Instead, Zammi guided his hands with a firm, but gentle movement. "This is how you must control your concentration and your power. With a feel of head of the beast, and gentle hand." She said, smiling softly.

"If you'd just said that, it would have been much less painful." Dani told her, removing his fingers from his mother's hands.

"But it would have been less effective." Zammi stated. Dani muttered something under his breath.

"Having fun, the Coatl way." Dra said sarcastically.

"Hush, Dra." Zammi scolded teasingly.

"Aw, but that's so much fun." Dra complained. "He's easy to tease."

Aww, cute mother-son moments.

Yes, Dra's just talking about clothes to be annoying.

QOTD: What do you like about each charater so far? What don't you like?

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C.J out!