Sophia had found out that Kel and Fen purposely went all out on each other to test the limits of her domain and the safeguards she implemented. Naturally, the tiger wasn't overly happy about that and decided to punish them for their actions.

"Oh, hey, sis!" Sophia returned to the cottage again, where she ran into Steph, Chloe, and Anna."

"Heyo~." The blonde waved at them. "What were you three up to?"

"I wanted to see more of the glowy sky in Chloe's winter place!" Anna smiled at her.

"Ah, that explains the absence of Maya and especially Ari."

"Yeah, they didn't want to go anywhere near the place." The princess nodded along. "To be fair, I also didn't leave the hut, though."

"Very fair." Sophia couldn't blame her for that.

"By the way, what were you doing?" Steph then looked at her sister. "After we told mom and dad about Mira wanting to meet them, I've barely seen you anymore."

"I was a little busy," She scratched her cheek. "With, uhh… things."

"What kind of things?" The dog-girl got suspicious.

"You know, the usual." Sophia paused for a moment. "I explored a little, I met a dragon, I beat up a dragon, had a chat with Fen, watched the fight between Fen and the dragon, and some other things."

"Ahh, I see!" Her sister nodded a few times. "Wait, what?!"

"I had a chat with Fen." She repeated herself while tilting her head. "I do that quite often. No idea why that would surprise you."

"Not that!"

"We've done a lot of exploring, too. I'm still confused about your reaction."

"I'll jump you if you keep doing that!" Steph was losing her patience and was getting ready to pounce on her sister as she changed her stance.

"How and where did you meet a dragon?" Chloe tried to prevent things from escalating and got to the point. "I've never seen one before, even though I've visited way more places than you did." She also sounded a bit envious.

"Did you two ever get around looking at the oasis city in the desert and the massive lake next to it?"

"Yeah, we went there during the night a few days after you showed us the portal to there." The fox nodded in return.

"I saw something sparkly deep down in the lake and tried to dive for it!" Steph got even more excited. "I got quite deep, but I ran out of oxygen before I got anywhere close…"

"Of course you tried that." Sophia wasn't the slightest bit surprised.

"We saw that, too, didn't we?" Anna tilted her head. "I remember that it was quite pretty, and it spooked Maya a lot."

"Everything spooked Maya that day."

"Good point." There wasn't anything the princes could've added there.

"Why are we talking about sparkly stuff and not the dragon?! DRAGON!" The dog's patience had fully run out.

"The sparkle we all saw in the lake was the dragon. He's an aquatic type and has iridescent colors on and between his scales."

"Woah!" Steph liked what she was hearing. "I want to meet him! NOW!"

"Me, too!" Anna's curiosity was also piqued.

"Wait, didn't you also say you beat up a dragon?" Chloe still wanted to know more.

"I sure did~." The blonde gave her a thumbs-up. "The very same one, I want to add. Kel, that's his name, is a feisty one and immediately challenged me to a fight. He got a little too cocky, though, so I showed him who's stronger and humiliated him a little."

"You can actually beat a dragon just like that?!" Anna looked a little shocked.

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"I sure can~." She simply smirked at her. "To be fair, he challenged me inside the domain here. Not even Mira could beat me here. Well, I still wouldn't be able to beat her, either, but I'm basically untouchable when in my domain."

"That's so cool!" The tall tiger's eyes started sparkling.

"Hold up!" Steph got louder again. "There's a dragon in this domain that you've been playing with for the entire day, and you haven't told me a single thing up until now?!" She stared right at her. "I'm not sure if our relationship will ever recover from this…"

"You can also fight Kel when you meet him if you want." Sophia tried her luck.

"LET'S GO!" It seems like there might be a chance that their sisterly bond would survive this arduous trial.

"Why is that dragon… Kel in your domain, though?" The fox still had more questions.

"Mira told me that he's an interesting one and loves to experiment with magic. That got me curious, and I decided to invite him to this place and let him do his own biome if he was interested. He was very interested. Even more so after I beat him up."

"Ohh!" Chloe lightly clapped her hands.

"Mira also knew that there was a DRAGON nearby?! And she didn't tell me?!" Steph was in a rather barky mood.

"I'd assume Mira knows about a lot of things that we don't." Anna didn't think this was that big of a deal.

"Can we GO already?!" The dog-girl was losing it as her tail was hastily moving from side to side, possibly breaking a speed record or two while doing so.

"Haha, sure." Not wanting to get attacked by her own sister, Sophia let out a small chuckle before guiding the girls to Kel's place.

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"WOAH!" Arriving there, Steph's tail immediately broke the speed record from before as she got way too excited when spotting the dragon. "You should've mentioned that he's THAT big!" She pointed at Kel, a few hundred meters away from them. After his fight with Fen, he started working on his sea again, and most of their immediate surroundings were covered in water once more.

"It's not like you gave me any room for explanations." The blonde just stared at her.

"He's so beautiful!" Chloe's eyes were sparkling. "Feyfey told me a few things about dragons in the past, but she never told me that they look like this! I guess she didn't want to go through the hassle of bringing me to one immediately because I never would've stopped nagging her about it, huh?"

"Well, he's not your average dragon." Fen, who was also still on the island they arrived on, joined the conversation.

"Hmm…" Anna focused on him while squinting her eyes. "Is it just me, or does the shimmer between his scales look like the crystal we found in that underground cave below Sophia's cherry blossom forest? The one that stores magic."

"Wait, that's true!" Taking a better look at Kel, the fox-girl then nodded a few times.

"I am once again amazed at how observant you are." Sophia smiled at the princes. "The shimmer is from this crystal ore. Kel infused his body with it so that he could increase his magic power."

"You can do that?!" Anna raised her voice.

"I don't think Ari would approve of you becoming sparkly." Chloe slowly shook her head while looking at her.

"I wasn't planning to do that! I'm just baffled it's possible in the first place."

"Even Mira was surprised about it." The blonde could understand her reaction. "Kel's apparently the only individual who found a loophole in her magic system."

"Aren't you finding one like every other day?" Anna tilted her head.

"Of beings that use regular magic and not one that was given to them by Canir, who also forgot to include any safety mechanisms."

"Ahh, fair enough."

"Oiiii~!" Steph had enough again and suddenly yelled in Kel's direction while waving her arm at the same time. Hearing her beckoning, Kel stopped his magic to create water from his body and got closer to the island.

"Aren't you an energetic one?" He tilted his head to the side and focused his eye on the dog-girl.

"Energetic is my middle name!" She reacted with a big nod as her tail was still as busy as ever. "Usually, I go by the name of Steph, though!"

"I see. Good meeting you." The dragon did a little nod with his head before turning slightly to look at Sophia. "There sure are some powerful people in your circle." He naturally noticed that she was on the stronger side, as well. "Or has the beastfolk as a whole gotten a lot more authority in the last couple of thousand years?"

"She's my sister, so it's obvious she's strong." Sophia smiled at him. "Also, she's been gifted magic by Mira, which helps a little, as well."

"That explains why there's a faint resemblance to her in the type of magic I feel." The dragon glanced at Steph again. "Are you also a pseudo-overseer?"

"Unfortunately, I am not." She shook her head. "Mira only gifted me the magic itself and didn't include all the fancy extra features my sister has."

"Does the same apply to you, too?" He then addressed Chloe next to the dog-girl. "Then again, while I do sense the same type of magic as Mira in you, it's way more pronounced than it is in Steph. Are you closer to an overseer, then?"

"A good question?" The fox-girl tilted her head. "I also don't have any fancy extra magic that Sophia has, but I am Mira's actual daughter. That explains the resemblance of our magic, but I'm not quite sure where this puts me on the overseer scale."

"Ahh, that makes sense. Wait, what?" It took him a second. "Mira has a daughter?"

"Trust me, I also was quite surprised when I found out." Chloe scratched her cheek.

"This cast is something else." The dragon looked at Sophia again.

"It's great fun to be with them!" She gave him a thumbs-up in return.

"I'm sorry for being normal." Anna wasn't sure what else to say.

"As normal as beastfolk royalty can be, huh?" Kel turned his head again. "I haven't met them in a long while, but I'm convinced the tiger family is still ruling them."

"Well, I am the first princess of the nation, yes."

"That's what one calls normal nowadays, huh?" The dragon took it with humor. "Also, while you indeed seem weaker than the others here, you still seem leaps above from what I remember from the beastfolk."

Afterward, the group spent some more time getting to know Kel and vice versa while asking various questions, including why and how he managed to infuse himself with the magic ore, as they were just as curious about it as Sophia was.

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