I have never seen anyone ditch a carefully made plan as quickly as we dropped ours. At once, nervous laughter fills the room and eyes flit to each other carefully with a quiet sense of we really messed up, didn't we?

Despite this, Aislyn, who may or may not know what we tried to do, turns and with a flick of her fluffy tail turns to leave the room.

"Where are you going?" I ask, scampering after her. She locks her wings and plummets down the stairs with tremendous gusto, releasing into a steady glide at the end of her descent.

She looks back up at us and calls, "Outside! We need to get training!"

Vivian runs after. "Of course! Come on, I think I see what she's doing. How do you two feel about learning to fight?"

"Awful. Why would I want to fight anyone?" Natrina asks.

"I don't think we have a choice. We've gotten pulled into this somehow and there's probably no way out." I say, tiptoeing after, trying not to fall down the stairs which have turned from ridiculously fun to jump on to a nightmare to walk down without sliding like an idiot.

Aislyn races through the halls like she owns them (which I suppose she does) and flapping desperately to balance herself out at the high velocity she's running at, turns a corner to a small pair of doors. She throws them open and rushes out into what appears to be a small garden, elaborately decorated and surrounded by the castle on all four sides.

Tentatively, I step outside into the light. The sun beams down on me and I feel my body flood with warmth. Some part of me has already forgotten how great the sun was in the short time I had spent away from it in the enormous castle. My tongue lolls as I pant a little, letting the heat soak through my whole being. It feels so amazingly good to be out here and I just want to be in this moment for as long as I can-

Fur brushes my side and I'm snapped back to reality. There was something else in there for a second, something foreign, but it wasn't a bad foreign. Some of these thoughts seem like they could be coming from some being besides myself, and my whole body yearns to stay here in the perfect warmth forever. It could all be part of my transformation. Those petal wings are probably just that- petals. Any plant is going to want a good deal of sunlight, won't it?

Honestly, I'm still just getting used to this strange new world of adventure I've been plunged into. If you asked me half a spin of the moon ago what I planned to do with the rest of my life, I would honestly tell you that I wanted to stay with my sister and mother to tend to the plants as long as the pack was there. I would take my seeds with them when they finally moved and start a new harvest elsewhere.

Now all of that has been burned to a crisp.

"So." Natrina asks, "What are we going to do out here?"

"We're going to spar, of course! If we're going to be adventurers, we have to be able to defend ourselves. Dreamland is a new world. Our customs are not yet set in stone, and that means we get to fight any way we want! It's doubtful that the enemy knows your tricks. Anything that you can do might work. Trust me, any ability that you have can be weaponized." Vivian says, her face bright with excitement.

"Even growing plants?" I ask meekly.

"Sure! I mean, I don't know how you'd do it, but I could only teleport liquids and semi-liquids for a long time, and so I learned how to do this." Vivian closes her eyes and without warning, two portals open up on either side of her and two giant streams of molten rock, burning with pure rage as bright as our forest fire if not brighter, cascade down from above, propelled by gravity. Before they hit the ground, another portal opens and they disappear, creating two molten pillars of the substance suspended in midair.

Natrina wrinkles up her nose the way she does when she's disgusted, but now her tail is tucked between her legs and she's retreating.

"I'm not going to hurt you." Vivian states. The top portal closes and as soon as all the molten rock has disappeared, so does the bottom one. "I forgot you guys have had traumatic experiences with fire. My apologies."

Her ears flatten as neither of us say a word.

Aislyn watches all three of us and says, "Um, I think I can try! For instance, I can do this!" Before us, Aislyn's form grows liquid as she stretches out in a million different directions, tiny claws sharpening into talons and Verhamera's horns hardening into a ring of horns as two solid ones protrude from the top of her head. Feathers become webbed flesh and her fur turns into scales as she becomes a large dragon about three times our size.

Vivian looks absolutely giddy with excitement. "Like that! Like that!"

Aislyn begins to flush red, her pale scales turning a bright pink. "Oh, um... so what do I do now?"

"Fight me!"

"That sounds a little dangerous. Don't you have lava?" Aislyn asks nervously.

"I can do melee. Don't worry, it's a practice battle. In a real battle, I'd usually dump lava on 'em, but large portals are taxing and if I set anything on fire I can do more harm than good to our side and the battlefield. It's important to keep a balanced team and keep secret weapons like yours truly for desperate measures." Vivian explains.

This seems to be good enough for Aislyn, who slowly leans into a battle stance. Vivian jumps at her and with a razor sharp reaction time, Aislyn knocks her away and she flies backwards through the air, landing on the ground with a dull thump.

"Well?" Vivian yells. "Are you two going to join in or not?"
Natrina and I advance, and Aislyn whips around, hitting Vivian again with her tail. This is about when I realize that we have no combat experience and there's practically nothing we can do. Aislyn charges at us, horns tucked, and we dodge in opposite directions. I flutter my petals and the grass grows around me, cloaking me, though it's very obvious near the very well cut that I'm hiding in here. Taking a cue from Vivian and her lava portals, I jump through a portal just as Aislyn's dragonfire rakes it and land behind her.

Standing up again, Vivian by my side, I take the left flank and she takes the right. I grow the grass around her claws quickly, forming tethers to hold her to the earth. Unfortunately, they're made of grass and with one great flap of her mighty wings the angel of Dreamland is free.

Now airborne, she uses her vantage point to torch us from above with a fiery breath. Vivian opens a portal and the fire goes right in. She jumps forwards, looking to me for support, and as if we've fought together our whole lives, I assist her, using my petals for a bit of extra vantage as she climbs up my back and I toss her upwards. She opens another portal below us and as she falls, she gains momentum, launching downwards for a while before opening another above us to charge straight at Aislyn in midair. She lands between her horns and pulls her down to us, and I look desperately to get out of the way.

As the dragon lands, Natrina ducks out of the way, snarling, and she sniffs the air.

"What are you doing?" I ask, half curious, half infuriated. She's been doing nothing but dodging the whole fight.

"Trying to find an answer, silly! Distract her!" she says, pushing me away. I leer but rush after Aislyn again, leaping upwards onto her back to try to join Vivian near the head.

Aislyn knocks us both all by crashing sideways and gets up quickly, snakelike in her movements, when a darkly hued fruit hits Aislyn in the face and explodes, making her roar in pain and confusion. A volley of them begin hurtling towards her, and she yips like a Canis would and falls over, defeated.

Natrina stands not far away with several more of the large blackish fruits. She looks just shocked as we are, but she says, "This is what's known as a Sparkling Firefruit. They're really tasty, but they have a very odd way of pollinating- the fruits explode, and whatever the debris touches helps to spread the seeds. Sometimes, if the tree gets a good enough shot with a large enough one, it can kill a small rodent on impact and that makes good fertilizer. I saw that they had some growing here and I thought... it might help." Natrina explains, trailing off when no one interrupts her. "What?" she adds.
"That was amazing!" Vivian crows. "You did that with a plant?!"
Aislyn, now back in her usual Canis form, nods eagerly. "You looked great, Nat. That was such a great idea."

Vivian looks around at us, and worry begins to set in slowly. "You guys want to take a rest? You look pretty beat up and I understand if you're not sold on-"

"No!" Natrina blurts, and then looks at us. "I-I want to practice some more. Um... who's up for Round Two?"

***

I come in with a slight limp, one of my paws still burning from when Natrina tripped me with a vine. Even though she hasn't undergone any sort of transformation, just being here has amplified her powers. Perhaps the transformation has been more subtle for her, or maybe she gets the powers but not the frilly flower wings. Regardless, she's getting very good very fast.

Vivian strides along, happy that her exercise was a success.

"We should to that more often." Vivian says proudly.
"We should get more food." Aislyn says, "I'm starving."

"No time for dawdling. They've already stopped serving dinner, so we missed that anyways."

I sigh, disappointed, though no amount of fancy meat and exquisitely cold water would be worth this afternoon.

"I guess we could eat in my room," Aislyn offers, and we follow her back up the 'steps' and into her room, where new meat has been set out for the four of us. Someone out there is clearly looking after us, and it feels really good to be loved in even the subtle ways.

We all eat together, our sides aching from the training we underwent today. I can feel light bubbling up inside me, pure joy as I sit with them and I remind myself this feeling has a name now.

Hope.

Tomorrow has never looked so bright.

I lie down beside my sister and Vivian, squeezed neatly in the middle. Their warmth washes over me and I snuggle even further in, probably upsetting both of their slumber. Aislyn has one large wing draped over Natrina and part of me.

"May your paws ever run swiftly, Natrina." I say quietly.

"May your heart ever be pure, Lotus." she replies.

"You two need to quit the long good nights and sleep already. There's only so long I can handle you running your yaps for." Vivian snaps in a friendly way, but my sister retorts almost immediately.

"Good night to you too, Vivian! May your tongue always be sharp as a Felis's claw and about half as useful." Natrina says.

They were making so much progress, too.

"Ooooooh." Aislyn cooes. "That was not nice."

Vivian snorts and I can feel her roll over away from me. I look at my sister with a was that really necessary when we were just getting along look and she too looks disappointed. My sister is having a harder time adjusting to working with others than I am, and I can tell that the scars on both of us still run very deep for her.

"I'm sure she'll forget in the morning." I whisper to her. "Just get some sleep." Her eyes close and I close my own, moving myself so I form a bridge between her and Vivian. With one last stretch and a drowsy yawn, I give myself back up to the world of dreams.