Story by  JoyfulNocturne - the events of Xenoblade 3 have come to pass- and to prevent the evil of moebius from happening again, the queens of agnus and keves need to be proactive. Fortunately, one of them happens to know a certain shapeshifter who may be able to help them. Are they willing to make a tremendous sacrifice for the safety of two whole universes?

---

Compasses, the trusty tool of many an adventurer, were supposed to help guide you to your chosen destination. At least, if you are on a boat or a space-faring vessel of some kind. But the Hawkmoths adventuring guild, always the unusual sort, relied on different sorts of compasses entirely. Ashley the Dragon was usually the first to become aware of potential adventure when her arcane device, an astral staff that channeled an enigmatic cube of exotic matter, reacted to the energy of other dimensions. These emanations, like ripples upon the multidimensional sea, were often a prelude to big events that a plucky squad of adventurers-for-hire might make a tidy profit in.
But the magic of such an artifact is temperamental, even for an experienced mage like Ashley. As of late, something in the depths of the arcane cube was irradiant, like a bright sun in the mind’s eye, causing even Ashley to have to look away with its intensity. She figured this must be the build-up of something big, on the multi-cosmic scale. And so, with the team on call, Ashley sent her magical cube to the science nerds of the crew to be parsed into more structured information.

Isabella hadn’t even noticed that this preluding incident coincided with a long-range message addressed to them, received by the scientist Alvis’s communications matrix. Sending data across dimensions was understandably a very challenging endeavor. And for strange cosmotechnological reasons that Isabella didn’t bother to keep track of, it was actually more difficult to send messages into the “important” dimensions like the one the Dragon Witch and the Hawkmoths called home. But still, when you made a living fixing multidimensional problems like they did, you invested in good equipment.
So it was for all these reasons that Isabella was a bit stressed and worried by the message, in particular its brevity. The sender was Nia of the dimension known as Alrest, one of the few people outside of the Hawkmoths that Isabella truly considered a close friend. And they certainly still were friends, although… the last time they had met had ended with Nia telling her interdimensional pal that she was going to be “so bloody busy” for a while, and wouldn’t be available for their usual antics together. And then silence. Back in the present, all the message said was that there was something urgent they needed to discuss, and that it had to be face to face. The wolfdragon and the catgirl had talked cross-dimensionally plenty of times before, so… what had changed? Something had to be up.

The rest of the Hawkmoths, all keenly aware that Isabella cared deeply for Nia, were glad to help out in every way they could. In the heart of their headquarters was a giant, room-sized piece of arcanomachinery that formed the core of a miraculous, specialized, interdimensional… meeting room. Adventuring wasn’t all action and whimsy and combat like everyone seemed to think. There was bookkeeping and contracts, interviewing and strategy-planning, all the more mundane stuff that was handled by constructing perhaps the most advanced office in the multiverse.

Isabella, Alvis, Ashley, and the others waited for the connection to go through. Then, for a few moments, the walls around them shimmered and shifted, like the metal was becoming unsure of whether it actually wanted to be metal anymore, trying out new and impossible possibilities. Then, while also being the sleek modern metal that it just was, it was now also the older, rugged military metal of another world, Nia’s world, layered atop as if both places were now the same place. A door that was there but also not there slid open, and in walked the smiling face that Isabella had sorely missed.
Nia was just as animated as ever, despite now wearing elaborate red and silver robes befitting royalty. For a few steps, she was cautious and level-headed, as if balancing a book upon her head. This act lasted barely halfway to the conference table before the catgirl gave it up, and was soon pouncing right into Isabella’s wide open arms.

“How… is my favorite wolfie from another world doing!” Any semblance of regalness fell away, and Isabella let out a sigh of relief, only just now realizing they had been holding their breath the entire time. Was it from a worry that their friend had changed since… whatever had happened? Not to mention the desire to know what had happened to her.

To the surprise of the entire Hawkmoths, including Isabella, another figure walked in through the same door Nia had entered through. A tall woman with white feather plumes sprouting from her forehead, dressed in purple and silver. Graceful, especially in juxtaposition with the fiery feline Nia.
“Melia?” Isabella had only seen the Entia woman… twice, they could recall? But those were encounters from the far past, when Isabella traveled in the region of worlds intermingled with Nia’s own. On said interdimensional road trip, Izzy briefly found themself in a world called Bionis, and fought strange creatures alongside Melia and a creature named Riki. Even as distant as the memory was, it was hard to forget such a bright-shining individual. With a strong sense of duty and a sharp mind, the dimensional wanderer had left that world quite confident Melia would one day do big things indeed.
Also, she could wield some truly awesome elemental magic, and Isabella had made sure to pick up a thing or two from her, in their brief time together.

“Thank you for joining us for this meeting. Your technology for bending our locations together like this is truly marvelous.”

Alvis grinned, taking a seat around the conference table. “Bend is a good enough way of putting it… sort of. Although in this room we appear to be in physical proximity, it is not actually so. And neither party can exit out into the other side, or pass physical material between the two. But for a simple meeting, that should be more than enough.”

Isabella wanted to get to the bottom of this disparity, how Melia and Nia were together before coming here. “But Nia, Melia… you two are actually physically together. How?”


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“So, let me get this straight.” Alvis remarked, fascinated yet unimpressed by the tale that had taken multiple hours to explain, he touched a paw to his temple to review his notes.
“Your two dimensions were originally one dimension, and after your grand adventures you discovered that they were going to combine back into one, so you and your friends miraculously built two massive refrigerators to store two dimensions worth of souls in. But while the worlds were combining back together a malevolent being hijacked the whole thing- seemingly out of nowhere, might I add. This ‘Zed’ thing then made a brand new third dimension only obtusely based upon the original two, which was not what you two wanted, allegedly. So you laid the seeds for new heroes to rise up and rescue you both, and now the two worlds are crashing together into a new one, but the ‘right’ way this time.”
Melia, ever the more serious one, nodded while Nia made looks of increasing annoyance. “Well if yer gonna simplify the whole bloody story down that short, then yea, it does sound silly. But it's the truth! And bein’ frank here, I still feel like I’m not getting due credit for all the science and high-concept stuff I had to learn to design Origin. That took a helluva lot of work, I reckon I was a bonafide scientist there for a smidge.”
Alvis’s eyes lit up at that. “I would do anything for a look at that research, if you still have it.”
Nia scoffed, shaking her head. Melia gave her a look, one of trepidation, as she knew where this conversation was going to go next.
“Well, why do you tell us all this?” Ashley was starting to suspect that there was something deeper going on. ”I mean, things sound like they’ve worked out! Assuming your Origin ark is still running right, you can just keep following through with the plan put in place before things got off course.” Melia was the one who broke the brief but palpable silence. “Our people, even if they don’t fully remember… they will long for their connections made to the souls of the other world, made in Aionios. This was not in the original plan, so we cannot say for certain what effect it will have. But, given what we learned from the manifestation of Zed, our concern is that this longing, left unaddressed, may birth something monstrous just as before with Zed.”
The entire room took in that possibility. If negative emotions like anxiety and insecurity could coalesce into a monster… could even positive ones like love do the same?
…
“Love is chaotic, impossible to predict. You are right to be overly cautious.” The stark warning came from Ashley, of all people. And, well, none at the table could disagree with such a thing. They all knew full well just how intense the emotions of love were. Over the course of her very long draconic lifespan Ashley had had her good fair share of romantic engagements. Alvis didn’t really feel romantic love in the way that most of his companions did, but he had a studious mind in his own right. Isabella remained silent.
Nia lept up from her chair and firmly pounded her fists on the meeting table, leaning forward. “So right, that got me thinking. And ye know what, we’re just not gonna let somethin’ like that happen, no way no how! From what we’ve learned about all this stuff, we believe that there needs to be an outlet for that longing, a reminder of what was and what might one day be within reach again.”
She smiled, one ear (wiggling?)(the cat ear thing) as she sat back down, looking to Melia to continue.
“The two of us plan to continue our roles as overseers of this transitional period in our worlds. Queens, is what the people decided that meant. So combining that with our outlet theory, our goal is to have each other serve as royal emissaries to each other’s world. An embodiment of the world that now flows concurrently to our respective people’s own, a sign that we may one day connect again. But as you may have already suspected, this would mean each of us being in two different places at the same time…”

Before Ashley and Alvis could get into the depths of their knowledge of magic and science respectively, Isabella at last spoke up, not even bothering to get up out of their seat.
“I’ll do it. Whatever you two have in mind, whatever the plan is, I’m game.”

~~~~~~~~~


“Are you sure about this?”
Isabella really, really wished everyone else on the team would stop asking that. They all understood, because they knew how important protecting an entire universe was; especially the universe of such a close friend. And yet, that didn’t stop them from asking, repeatedly.
It came from a good place. But even so, despite it all, it was not as if Izzy would have so enthusiastically agreed to the request were they not completely and truly commited to it.
Something about the Dragon Witch that made them, well, them, was Isabella. Them when they are not a dragon at all, instead a wolf of fae ancestry. When Isabella ebbed, Isabella flowed. The sun might rise upon Isabella, and the evening moon’s grace would settle upon Isabella. In accepting that both sides of themself deserved the ability to take up space, the whole of them both flourished.

In that instant between realizing what their friend was asking and leaping up to accept it, a whole conversation had played out in their mind, in the luminous way that indescribable thought unbound by words can become.

A cloistered blossom of Fae, petals fluttering in morning light // Directionless.
They ask for much more than they know. A deep change, fundamentally replacing us with her.
One wolf, wild and unburdened, paws pressing into wisdom’s soil. It circles round. // Seeking
We’d give our all to do it. Would have to give our all.
Overhead, a dragon’s shadow, cast upon the mind with grace, certainty // Realization.
Yes. And we are the only ones who can truly do it.
A howl into the mind, echoing back distant memories // Encroaching.
Nia is a wonderful person. Driven. Caring. She’d not ask unless she had to.
A dewdrop in the air, both gaze out into the beyond it reflects. All this is not all // Passion
She’s not just a friend. She’s an aspiration. She deserves our all.
The trees shudder in breezy joviality. The conclusion stirs in every leaf. // Warmth
We’ve often thought, dreamed of being more like her. Oh, how true that is now!
Leaping upwards, swooping downwards, joined in equinox agreement // Harmony.
It might be fun, too!


And that had been that. Isabella had set to work on following a laundry list of tasks, from the folder that the Hawkmoths wryly called the “stepping out for a bit” plans. Making sure that of the many, many plates that an adventurer keeps spinning, none are left to topple over when the keeper of said dishware is functionally absent for an extended period of time. From putting in their notice at the Maiden Menagerie, to bank account stuff which Isabella was already quite indifferent about, to writing up reports about worlds that Isabella would have planned to check in on, that would now fall to the others to manage.
But Isabella wasn’t the only one who was busy. Even Asriel had taken time out of his busy schedule at the local hospital to come by and do a full checkup on the dragon (“I’ll draw more blood when you get back, I’m sure the comparison will be fascinating!”). Izzy wasn’t sure if this had been an order directly from Zachary, or if everyone was simply on the same page to begin with. But even being the boss, Zach himself was on the frontlines helping them out, making lists of different dimensions, the
It was good to have friends. Especially ones who would hear something as wild as “I want to leave for a few years to literally be transformed, body and mind, into my friend to help her protect her home world” and be like “how can we help?”

And at the end of it all, once every loose thread had been followed and tied up, they threw a party. The excuse being something to the effect of “your dimension-hopping will need lots of energy so that’s why we’re getting cake.”
It was a good cake, flavored slightly by the sweet sorrow of parting.

~~~~~~~~

It was easy for Isabella to phase into the world Nia called home, even though it no longer bore the same meta-location data it once had. After seeing Nia at that meeting, her light was bright in Isabella’s mind, and the winds between spacetime bore the dragon easily to Alrest… except it was also Agnus, now. At least for a little while.
With Isabella lending a helping hand hidden from the rest of the royal government, Queen Nia had completely cleared her schedule for a single day. She was reasonably certain that what remained of Agnus could stay functioning for 24 hours without her there. And frankly, if she came back to Agnus Castle to find that some universe-ending horror had rolled up to the doorstep and everyone had fought it without her, they’d have bigger issues to have to worry about.
Now that Aionios was waning, the mixed-together bits and pieces of the two realities that constituted it were separating back out, like oil and water. The grand stratagem that Melia and Nia, plus Poppi and Rex and all the others, had devised all those eons ago was finally happening as intended.
And so it was with a profound, nostalgic swell of emotions that Nia took Isabella out into the cusp of what was reforming: her true homeland, the Gormotti Province. Rebuilt in the mind’s eye of every Gormotti soul in the Origin Ark, it was even more beautiful than the erstwhile cat could have possibly imagined.
But that also meant that old problems would return, and chief among them was the beast that had haunted many a young adventurer. Its thunderous footsteps and horrendous stench had etched themselves into Nia’s memories, and even after so, so much had happened since those days, the terror of that overpowering monster lingered in her nightmares. This didn’t just need to happen for the people’s safety; it was personal.
The Territorial Rotbart had to go.
“Let’s fockin’ do this. Divine Sword, to me!”
“Right on! Fey witch beam!”
Across the newborn Gormotti plains Nia charged forward, her blade bursting luminously into a blossom of blue light. The giant beast turned slowly towards them just as Isabella’s first long range arcane shot struck its backside. With a terrifying roar and a slam of a gnarled fist on the ground, the Rotbart charged. Nia continued her sprint, tossing a quick spell of blinding brightness outwards to get the monster's attention firmly on her. Then tusk met blade, a scimitar of pure arcane light energy blocking the beast’s mouth, and in that moment Nia grasped at the opportunity she’d dreamed of: punching that giant ape right in the eye. She was laughing as the Rotbart raged and swung its fist, far too late to hit the cat who had already deftly slunk below its legs, aiming to embarrass it by going for its rear end next.
It was the little things that made life worth living, after all.

Isabella’s weapon of choice was a delightful, anachronistic thing. Inspired by both an early-modern military rifle and a witch’s broomstick of yore. The staff, enchanted by fey craftsmanship, combined the raw magic channeling of a witch’s instrument with the focus and precision of a marksman’s tool.
Naturally, it had been given the title of The Boomstick, and Isabella adored it.
They stalked closer at a careful pace, channeling long, powerful spells in the window of safety created by Nia’s swiftness. Spikes of glowing pink crystalline energy grew from their broom like thorns and launched towards the Rotbart. The dragon’s fur stood on end, crackling with potential. Nia deftly dodged side to side, landing hits each time the Rotbart stumbled and howled as a blast struck its hide.
“You fall here, wanker! Saber Slash!”
And the Rotbart did fall. Specifically, forward. A full force body slam that caught Nia as she tried to dodge aside.
“Ow! Bloody hell, get offa me you nasty beast. Get em, Izzy!”
The Dragon Witch quickened their pace, sneaking in a few more shots before focusing instead on a defensive spell.
The dim glow of a fey ward flashed across Nia’s body, mitigating some of the beast’s next blow and transferring the energy back into the witch. Now with only a few meters between them and the Rotbart, Isabella dropped the Boomstick and clasped their paws together, pouring mana into their arms.

But what came out of Isabella’s paw wasn’t a blast of fey magic. A blue sweep of crystal, curved and arching upward, like a scimitar. And a hilt formed in their paw just in time to grasp firm as the beast charged once again. Izzy wasn’t one to use a sword, much less one this big. And yet… to protect Nia, they let something deep within their heart whisper guidance, and with a heroic shout Isabella brought a heavy slash down onto the Rotbart’s head, with such powerful force that the beast toppled onto its back.

As the Rotbart flailed about, Isabella helped Nia back up to her feet.
They both chuckled half-heartedly, well aware of what that trick there really meant. Isabella’s soul, now harmonizing with Nia, was beginning to shift. Now each wielding the same sword, the path to victory over the notorious menace was cut and clear.

“Dual Divine Sword!”



~~~~~~~~~~~~~

By the time they’d returned back to the castle, the fur at Isabella’s paws was beginning to lighten. And maybe it was just paranoia, but Izzy really felt lighter as well, thinner, as if all the fur across their body was shrinking by miniscule amounts. That was probably an overreaction. But it still sat in the forefront of their mind.
If you had asked them how they felt about the prospect of this transformation into Nia at the start of all this, Isabella would have laughed off any worry at all. They’d turned into so many other things before, even Nia once or twice (although never in the presence of the original, else she might have been miffed. Or maybe even comically critical of the facsimile). But now, after saying goodbye to her team, at the cusp of it, Isabella couldn’t shake a deeper emotion of concern in their churning stomach.
Was it the finality of it all? Becoming permanently, for a long time, incapable of returning to their true form? Eh, sort of. But then, it wasn’t like they weren’t aware of this always being a possibility for shapeshifters.
Was it knowing that the Hawkmoths would be Izzy-less now? Bean was sad, as to be expected; she didn’t fully understand the stakes of all this yet, what being a force across the entire tapestry of the multiverse truly meant. It meant utter freedom, but also confinement, committed to knowing when whole realities were on the brink of destruction, and being the only ones with the position to try and save them. Whether it was charging directly into the way of some world-devouring threat, being the couriers of truly otherworldly magic and technologies that could defeat such threats, so on and so forth. Isabella, and all the Hawkmoths, weren’t the first to strive for such lofty standards, and they wouldn’t be the last. But right now, it was up to them.

“Wolfie, you're lollygagging. Everything alright?” Nia was back in her royal garb, now that the eyes of her kingdom and her people were upon her again. But out of earshot from any of them, she hadn’t yet put on that practiced cadence of queenliness that made her more… “approachable.”

“Yea… I’m good. Just tuckered out, I guess. Pretty stoked to find out what the Queen of Alrest gets to eat for dinner, heh.”
Nia nodded, and the two ascended up the steps of Agnus Castle, a place that was certainly regal, but grotesquely militaristic as well. Nia was certainly looking forward to these sort of vestiges of the world of eternal war sinking into memory as the real worlds took their rightful places.
“Roight, ahem… excuse me, you there! Come hither… could you please escort my… guest to the private quarters of the castle?” The gun wielding guard stowed his weapon and walked up to the two, bowing to Nia and making a poor effort at pretending to not be surprised by the wolfish person accompanying her majesty. “Y-yea, I can do that.” Nia smiled, calm and carefully. “Good. I shall join thee once I have caught up with matters in the throne room.” And with a stilted but well rehearsed bow, the Queen departed to go, well, be the Queen.

As they walked, Isabella felt an odd tug at their tail. Keeping pace with the guard leading them through the pathways of the castle interior, they tried to catch a good look at what might be going on back there. It felt like their large, furry tail was matting at a surprising speed. With each swish accompanying each step, the volume was decreasing, condensing downwards. While Izzy looked themself over, the soldier made sure to keep his gaze forward, although he kept glancing at the unusual sight of this wolf-like person fixating on their own tail.
“So uh, are you from Keves? Never seen a… seen a being like you before,” the guard sheepishly asked.
“Soooort of?” And Izzy said no further. They knew a thing or two about how to avoid giving out too many details, and how word can spread fast. Even if that wasn’t a critical concern here, in a place of peace, it was better safe than sorry.
The guard however, didn’t let the subject go, and instead rather awkwardly shuffled into a pause, looking at Isabella with the face of someone who maybe had more on their mind than the helmet covering parts of their head suggested. And well… oh to hell with it. Isabella felt unusually chatty, and figured talking would keep the fellow moving.
“I’m from… beyond Keves, even further, outside of this eternal war that your countries are in.”
“Well, were in. It's all over now… and gosh, I’m still sort of confused about what’s coming next, you know?
“Roig-<cough>, right. This war is all that you people have lived for ages.” It was probably still quite scary for a lot of people in this world, knowing so much was now uncertain, in flux. Even if the literal monster born from that insecurity was gone, feelings themselves weren’t something you could bash with a sword.
“My combat training, it's… really all I know how to do, you know? So if nobody needs that anymore, I’m useless… will I be useless?”

Isabella kept walking forward. “I’m not sure what things will be like for people here, from now on. But also, don’t count out what you’ve already got. Maybe you only know how to shoot well right now, but hey, you learned that. So you could learn new things too. Or… bloody heck, just keep doing that! There’s still gonna be challenges that require combat.” It felt remarkably easy to raise their voice a bit, because it seemed to Isabella quite clear what this guy was feeling, and that the solution to that was to just keep pushing forward.
“Yea.. I guess you’re right. But still, what if… I dunno, what if I mess up, you know? Its hard to trust in… well…” the young man trailed off, even as he kept walking and opened a door into the castle’s upper chambers with his keycard.
“Well, if you don’t believe in yerself yet, that’s fine. But for now you can just believe in your Queen, cuz I know for sure that she believes in you. She’s got that sort of sense about people, she’ll make sure everything gets sorted out.” Isabella smiled, muzzled nose crinkling as it pushed in slightly.
“G-gosh… thanks, uh… whoever you are.”
But Isabella was already turning tail and heading on their way, even as that tail diminished into nothing.

~~~~~~~~~

Nia pulled off the last of her royal accessories as she kicked the door open to her private quarters, tucked in the highest floor of Agnus Castle.
“I’m back Wolfie! Bloody hell, turns out the core chips are holdin’ up better than we- Oi! Eating before I even get here? The gall!”
Isabella, their face only partially clad in fur, slowly chewed and swallowed the mouthful of salmon.
“<gulp> c’mon, I’m undergoing a soul metamorphosis, and I’m starving!”
Nia tried to fake being angry for as long as possible, before her fuming cheeks gave way to breezy laughter. Izzy scooted aside on the Queen’s royally soft bed, and they tucked into the platter of food together.
“So, when I become you, you think the royal etiquette training will come along with the deal, or am I gonna have to do some cram sessions?”

“Fer your sake, I sure hope it does! Ugh, I mean I get it, ya know, people feel more calm when the leaders seem roight in control of everything. Still, its a bugger<?> of an inconvenience, sometimes.”

By the time they reached the delicious paratha bread, Isabella was brushing one arm’s paw across the other arm, back and forth, each time seeing some strand of fur fade away with every brush, vanishing. The skin underneath, usually hidden entirely under yellow and cream, was soft and unblemished.
And their legs too were slowly changing, the footpaws and large digitigrade shape straightening into more humanoid thighs and calves. Ones which were quite the opposite of furred, instead smooth and hairless.

The days since Isabella started to change had been filled with a whirlwind of learning. The two of them had juggled through multiple ways of getting Izzy in a position to study and practice what being the Queen of Agnus was like, from hiding covered behind the Palace’s obnoxiously large throne, to disguising as a butler. After Nia recounted to Isabella how a robotic doppelganger with a golden mask had been created by the Consuls, they’d even dug around and found the robot’s mask, considering whether it would fit on Isabella’s still-sorta-dragon face. But that plan was quickly discarded upon determination that the “hunk o’ junk gives off major heebie jeebies” as Nia put it.
They both figured that once they started on the objectively harder part (learning how to speak posh and put on royal etiquette), the easier stuff (changing physically and mentally into a different person) would be a cinch in comparison. And to an extent, they were right. Every day, more and more of the deep purples became silver hair, rose pink eyes became golden yellow. And it all felt so easy. Isabella didn’t have to focus on a spell, or deal with any uncomfortable sensations. It was simply happening.
In fact, the affinity for these changes was so great that at times, Isabella didn’t even notice what had changed until Nia pointed it out, often with a joke at her own expense. She no doubt meant well, but even as Isabella laughed along at Nia’s joviality (“Bloody hell, have I really gotten that tall ‘n thin? Bugger it, this Queenliness is totally distractin’ from how cute I am!”) they felt the slightest current of anxiety amidst it all.


The sixth day was the hardest. Nia was able to get a good long look at Isabella as they tried a new studying approach (dangling from the ceiling). And what Nia saw on her friend’s face was sorrow, consistent across the parts that were wolfish and Gormotti both.
“Out wit’ it. I can tell yer off today, no good sleep last night?”
Isabella sighed, voice lilting upwards in the all too familiar tenor of the same person to whom they were speaking.
“Yea. Had some weird dreams about my friends from, <ahem>, elsewhere. And since I’ve woke, they’ve felt so… distant. It takes time to remember names, names that I know so well. And I’m… I dunno, both right and… urgh, bloody hell.”
In an instant, Nia had pulled Isabella into a hug, giving one of their ears an affectionate pat. As she did, the ear pushed upwards, higher and pointier than before. All while her horns continued to recede back into her head.
“Hey, I get it. I’m here for ye. Through thick ‘n thin, whether it's body or mind. I know well enough, even when friends, well, depart… you’re not alone.”
It was good, to have friends.

Some days, when there was little else to do, Izzy went up to the higher parts of the castle, these large flat exteriors pocketed by tall diamond-adorned pillars. Despite nobody ever telling them… somehow they knew that up here, momentous, terrible things had happened. Either a very acute sense of this place’s rather harsh vibes, or something more in their mind, their blossoming connection to Nia conveying such knowledge.
Nobody came up here anymore. They were all down below, focusing not on a bloody past, but on a new future. The people of Agnus/Alrest were learning how to let go, but with the right sort of respect and care for all that had been lost along the way.

That was why, on a warm summer night, they’d came up here alone, in the company of only the unending sky above. In this contemplative moment, with plenty of room to breathe, the Dragon Witch who was no longer looking like a dragon began to dance. As far as the physical act of it, they knew they’d win no awards, often fumbling and slipping especially as their paws changed to more human-like feet. But there was nobody around to see it, and the point wasn’t about perfection, it was to act as a guide for their lingering fae magic. It had remained inside their changing body, facilitating the transition into this Gormotti form. But now the magic itself was out of place, water soaking the clothes of a swimmer who had emerged out of the ocean. It needed to be shaken off, thus the reason for Isabella’s dance.

With every step and twist, they conjured great blasts of arcane fireballs, fueled by all that was left in the lingering bits of themself that still looked and felt like the person they were, but also needed to let go of being. The raw magic shot high up into the sky and burst with luminous passion, a brilliant display that cast long shadows and color across the metal edifice of Agnus Castle. Some far down below might catch some glimpse of the beautiful explosions, but they’d never know that it was the final performance of a being from beyond their dimension.

In-between the fingers of one hand was a small slip of parchment, on which Isabella had written a short note, a declaration to themself and the World. And with the last bit of a magic that was no longer theirs to control, the message was cast aloft, rising up into the sky like a free bird:

“I am Isabella and Isabella Jem, of the Hawkmoths adventuring team. I am gone now, but never truly gone, and one day I will return.”

By the time the message was so high above that it was lost amidst the stars, its paper burned amidst the fireworks, a name and identity transformed into ash that dissipated into the skies.

As the lingering lightshow settled and dissipated, the briefly nameless girl stood alone, her hands now free to grasp at her future. With clarity and certainty, she was ready. In her other hand there was a small blue crystal, given to her by Nia (“Roight bloody good I’ve made a habit of keeping spare Cores handy”). She raised the Core Crystal up to her chest, and her body welcomed it, slotting perfectly into place.

A last fragment of thought lingered in Nia’s mind as she began the long walk back down into the castle. She felt like she had friends, somewhere far away, who had a knack for spotting big shows of magic.
Maybe they’d been watching the fireworks too.


~~~~~

Finally, the day came. The last cusp of Cloudkeep that still bridged the two worlds was about to push away, the engine keeping the small dimensional gateway up now wavering. Like two bubbles being pushed together, the pressure couldn’t be applied forever without repercussions. Melia had sent a message informing the twin Gormmoti that she’d be ready to perform the swap, sending over the new replacement Melia and receiving the new Royal Envoy in kind.
But even in the face of it all, Nia and the formerly-not-Nia couldn’t resist having just a teeny bit of fun with the situation.

“<pssssh> <beep> Hello? <boop> <CONNECTION ESTABLISHED> This is Melia, here with, well. Melia.”
The holograph machine by the portcullis fizzled to life, and the faces of not one, but two people who looked the spitting image of Melia the Queen of Keves could be seen. They each wore the same outfit, and were utterly indistinguishable from each other, even more so than the two Nias. Both of the High Entia ladies bowed respectfully, and the two catgirls waved hello, both trying halfheartedly to hide their scheming grins.

“Roight, pop quiz fer Melia and Melia!”
“Yup! We gave it a thought and ya know, we can’t be too sure whether or not everything’s up ta snuff. Both wit’ our dear friend’s soul shifting and with how well you’ve trained your own doppelganger. So you gotta figure out which of us is the original, and if you can’t, well… you better not!”
Both versions of Melia gave the exact same look of “there is no way they’re doing this right now” so… that was already a good sign in their favor.
“Okay, sure. Your joking aside, this is a good thing to do, a fair test for us all. So, what do you think, Melia? Anything we can deduce from the start?”
“Quite. One Nia wears the royal garb of Alrest, while the other wears something stylized in the fashion of the Gomotti people.”
The left Nia smirked and pulled at the cozy collar of her adventurer’s get-up. Along with the golden yellow skirt and comfy tights, she definitely preferred this over all the fancy stuff her colleagues wore.
“Exactly. So, assuming both are equally on board with this… exercise, do they expect that we’d just easily pick the Nia wearing traveler’s clothes, and have thus swapped outfits to mislead us?”
Both Melias in unison bore looks of deep concentration. The Nia duo were impressed, truth be told, at how perfectly their similarity in body and mind were.
“To the Nia wearing royal garb, a hypothetical question: a noble from what was formerly the Tantal region is visiting on a diplomatic endeavor. How do you greet him?”
“Roight, that’s easy. In fact, we’ll say it at the same time, 3, 2, 1…”
“Push ‘em offa cliff! If they go splat, then they weren’t a Tantalese worth their salt, and weren’t much of a noble worth our time.”
And more and more questions were thrown about back and forth, until all parties were confident that this scheme had worked
“Final question…”
Both Nias leaned closer, definitely failing to hide their enjoyment of this little game.
“Who's the father?”
That was the critical hit that gave away their game. Although the royally dressed Nia was able to keep her composure, not sensing any issue, the adventurer-dressed Nia went wide-eyed. Deep in the subconscious of her mind, she knew full well JUST how controversial that topic was.


“Okay, okay, you win! I’m the copycat. Just uh, let’s stop talking about who did what with who, roight!”
And the four ladies laughed, forgetting for a moment all the momentous steps being taken today. “Okay, we all know how the portcullis works. So let’s get this going.”
The communication device fizzled out, and Nia turned to look at, well, Nia. Neither of them had really experienced a farewell of this peculiar sort.
“Well, uh… right, so… best o’luck over there, not like you really need it. And uh… you know… ju-”
Nia was interrupted by her doppelganger’s embrace, the mirror of an equal in understanding.
“And just you don’t get into too much trouble without me, ya hear?”
The second Nia, in her favorite getup for big adventures into the unknown, stepped onto the teleporter. With a smile and coy wave, her twin touched the machine’s datapad and pulled the lever, diverting the device’s remaining power to sending one last teleportation.
As the world she recognized began to shimmer and dissolve away, she felt a phantom hand upon her own. She looked around the churning, shifting magic, but saw nobody. But she could take the invisible hand in her own, heard a silent whisper, and reckoned this must be the other side of the elaborate dance they were all a part of. Though she couldn’t reach out and see them, Nia shouted out into the cosmos so that she might hear.
“The other Melia? If that’s you there… be nice to my “sister,” ya hear? She’s my bestest friend in the whole wide world, even when we’re worlds apart.”