After another long talk and awkward explanation, the novelty of my brother being a Dragon wore off, and the Royal children only sporadically asked questions about Zair. Common things, like ‘How much does he eat?’, 'Does he eat Human?’, and ‘I thought all Dragons lived in the Mistlands…’

Speaking of which, “How did you even get into the Mistlands? I thought the King and Queen didn’t allow Humans in anymore,” I asked Kieran.

“Oh, they do! Just, a lot fewer than before. We have personally gotten close to them though. They saved my life when I was just a kid!”

“They did? What from?”

“Myself,” he chuckled. “Just before the Human Regents decided to end almost all alliances with the Otherkin, the King and Queen graciously invited them to the capital, Tír na nÓg. I was playing around with a few shifter kids, when I literally ran off a cliff. They thought I would be fine, seeing as how they were all bird shifters and they thought that Humans had wings too. I thought I was going to die, when a little girl on silver wings scooped me up and brought me back to the home of the King and Queen,” he said in a storyteller’s voice. “I didn’t know it was their home yet though. It was literally a cabin sort of home, overgrown with moss and plants. It was beautiful, but not what I expected some of the most powerful beings in existence to live in, y’know?”

We all sat listening, with rapt attention to every word.

“Anyways, it was a few days before we were supposed to meet the King and Queen officially, so I had no idea who they were or what they looked like. But I knew it was them as soon as they both stood in the room together. The King, Rontu, was pale with white hair and mismatched eyes. He was nothing less than stunning. The Queen, who saved me, was Sophia, who was a couple of shades darker than him, and had ebony hair. Her eyes, opposite her brother, shifted colors as she pleased. In comparison to her brother’s gentleness, she had an air of fierceness about her. Though she was no less adorable,” he added, chuckling. Still, he went on with his story.

“But what surprised me the most was how young they were. They both looked no older than sixteen. Though he was seventeen and she was fifteen. Their true ages too. Age and Time of Existence are two different things for Otherkin.”

I’d heard that contrary to many Human beliefs, Tír na nÓg didn’t delay aging; Otherkin themselves just tended to age slower. Though the King and Queen obviously the slowest. They were arguably the oldest beings in existence and they were still technically teens.

Kieran wrapped up his story by saying how they kept him for dinner and brought him back to the palace all the Human Regents were staying at afterwards. He tries to regularly visit them, and even brings his siblings when possible. They still have the same appearance, and welcome them every time. Though without letting the Human Royals know, of course.

It was a wonderful story that we would have called an encore for, if not for the fact that it was so late. The siblings left to go to their respective rooms, and Ric somehow snuck in a whole-ass bed for me to sleep in so that we wouldn’t have to share. He fell asleep before I did. I was up thinking too hard about how I would have to change my plans.

But that wasn’t a bad thing. Actually, Kieran’s story only fueled my hope. If he was such good friends with the Otherkin, he would support what I was trying to do, right? And he’s the next king. It was almost too good to be true. And every sibling seemed to have at least one secret, which, in a strange way, comforted me. It meant that they likely wouldn’t mind the fact that I had my own. The biggest of which they already knew though. But they were fine with Zairyn being a Dragon. In fact, they seemed just as enthusiastic about it as Ric was when he first found out.

It was confusing; the Royals were nothing like how I thought they would be. But that isn’t a bad thing this time.