To any outside observer, Leon and Rossweise would have appeared the picture of a respectable, if somewhat distant, couple. They seemed busy, polite, and settled into the steady rhythm of a long-term marriage. But this calm facade, carefully maintained for the court and for Muen, concealed a far more complex and unspoken reality known only to the two of them.
Rossweise rarely initiated conversation with Leon unless it pertained to clan business or, more often, the intricate steps of her ongoing revenge. Leon, for his part, had adopted a posture of lazy indifference, making no effort to bridge the silence between them.
They had been staring at each other in a protracted, silent standoff from balcony to courtyard. Finally, Rossweise decided she had wasted enough of her valuable time and turned to leave.
"Hey!" Leon called out suddenly, the word cutting through the quiet afternoon.
Rossweise stopped, turned gracefully on her heel, and looked up, her expression unreadable.
"I want to go out for a walk," Leon stated. "Being cooped up in these rooms all the time is suffocating."
Almost the instant the words left his mouth, Rossweise was on the balcony. She hovered just beyond the rail, her magnificent wings spread wide, her long silver tail hanging down to counterbalance her weight.
Leon felt a jolt of panic. Had he misspoken and triggered her wrath?
"You may only go out when you are playing with Muen," Rossweise declared, her voice as cold and unyielding as temple marble.
"But… won't that seem odd to her?" Leon stammered, seizing on the first logical counterargument he could find. "If her father only ever goes outside while playing with her and is otherwise perpetually confined indoors, won't she eventually become suspicious?"
"Then you will say that you are unwell and cannot go out often. That is reason enough," Rossweise replied without missing a beat, her solution already perfectly crafted.
Leon frowned, a grudging respect for her thoroughness mixing with his irritation. "You've thought this through."
"Just act like a good father. Do not do anything beyond that," Rossweise said, her tone blunt and final.
Leon shrugged, the fight draining out of him. The simple act of going for a walk had been reduced to a negotiated privilege—a small luxury not worth a major confrontation. He turned and headed back toward the bedroom.
As he walked away, Rossweise's intense gaze softened for a fleeting moment. A flicker of something—perhaps concern, or a reluctant tenderness—crossed her features before being swiftly schooled back into neutrality.
"Leon," she called out, stopping him in his tracks.
He paused and half-turned. "What?"
"Muen will come to you this afternoon. Teach her how to write her name."
Leon blinked. "And then?"
"In the evening, I will check her progress. If she has learned it, you may walk with me in the garden tomorrow. For one hour."
Leon's ears practically pricked up at the offer. "Walk… with you?"
Rossweise's voice remained calm but held an undeniable edge of command. "Do not misunderstand. I will be watching you. You are sly. If it were any other guard, you might find a way to slip past them."
"How hard can it be to teach a child to write her name?" Leon laughed, the challenge seeming trivial.
"She will not only write her name," Rossweise clarified. "She must write the names of our entire family."
"Mine included?" Leon asked, surprised.
"Of course. You are her father."
"Alright. It's a promise. No backing out," Leon said, a hint of his old defiance returning.
"I do not need promises from you," Rossweise sniffed. With a single, powerful beat of her wings, she propelled herself away from the balcony and vanished from sight.
Leon walked into the room but stopped dead after only a few steps. A crucial, glaring oversight struck him. He rushed back to the balcony and shouted into the sky, "Hey, Mother Dragon! You haven't told me your last name!"
"Melkvey!" her voice floated back, faint but clear.
"Melkvey… hiss. That's an odd name," Leon muttered to himself, a half-teasing, half-amused smile playing on his lips.
Back inside, he took a piece of paper and carefully wrote down the three names:
Rossweise Melkvey
Leon Cosmodeous
Muen
He briefly considered teasing Muen by suggesting she shared his surname, Cosmodeous, but the thought of Rossweise's inevitable, icy displeasure made him reconsider. It was wiser not to provoke the Mother Dragon over such a small jest.
So, that afternoon, his lesson plan was set: he would teach Muen these three names.
Typically, human children began learning the basics of writing around age three. But Muen was no ordinary child. Her dragon blood granted her a swift, keen intellect. Teaching her at just over a year old was not the impossible task it would have been for a fully human child. Leon found himself privately wondering if Rossweise had somehow timed his "recovery" with precise, calculating intent, ensuring he would awaken exactly when Muen was ready for such lessons. The thought made him smile wryly and wonder, not for the first time, just how many moves ahead the Mother Dragon was always thinking.
He practiced the names quietly, the unfamiliar surname rolling off his tongue. "Melkvey… Melkvey…"
He paused, connecting the sounds. "Melkvey—oh. It's like 'Milky Way.'" A soft, genuine laugh escaped him. It seemed the dragon race possessed a strange, hidden streak of romanticism in their naming conventions.
He set the paper down as he heard the familiar sound of small, quick footsteps at the doorway. Muen had returned from her lunch.
"You're back already?" Leon asked, bending down to scoop her up.
The little girl looked up at him, her face set in an unnervingly serious expression. When she spoke, her voice was a stern whisper. "Muen."
Leon smiled, unsure of the new game. "Come on in. Daddy will teach you something new this afternoon."
He reached out to lift her, but she watched his hands with a sharp gaze and snapped, "Who gave you permission to touch me?"
Leon froze. Her tone—cold, commanding, and dripping with regal authority—was a perfect imitation of Rossweise. He had explained the concept of "duality" to her just that morning. Had she already learned to mirror her mother's most imposing mannerisms?
"From now on, you may not touch or carry me without my express permission. Do you understand?" she added, the stern delivery flawless.
Leon felt as if Rossweise herself were speaking through his daughter. He opened his mouth to respond, but Muen cut him off with a dismissive sneer. "Hmph, idiot." Then, she shut the door firmly and stomped away down the hall.
For a moment, Leon was left standing in the suddenly silent room, utterly stunned. Then, the door was pushed open from the outside and Muen rushed back in, her face a mask of childlike concern. "Daddy, are you okay?" she cried, helping to steady him.
He had been knocked slightly off-balance by the door's swing—the impact left him momentarily dizzy. But the memory of his old training surfaced instantly. Years ago, his master had drilled the Adamantine Body Technique into him. He had withstood crushing blows from boulders and walked away. A swinging door and a small dragon's shove were nothing in comparison. He shook his head and quickly found his footing.
"Sorry, Dad. Muen hurt you…" she said, her small hands pinching his sleeve in a gesture of pure worry. Her bright, anxious face was a world away from the stern miniature queen of moments before.
Leon stood utterly baffled. One minute she was refusing to be touched, and the next she was fussing over a minor bump. How could her demeanor shift so radically and so fast?
Could it be—he thought, half-joking, half-worried—that human-dragon hybrids were prone to a kind of split personality? Or perhaps dragons were simply creatures of intense, mercurial moods, and Muen was caught between her dual heritages. Either way, her rapid oscillation between Rossweise's imperiousness and a child's tender concern was more disorienting than the physical impact.
He swallowed and tried to project an air of calm authority. Teaching Muen to write was the simple part; Rossweise had layered it with the weight of a test. Success meant a precious hour of relative freedom. Failure meant remaining a prisoner in this gilded suite, playing the part of the dutiful, confined father.
As he sat down with Muen on his lap and pointed to the paper, he matched his tone to the steady patience Rossweise had demanded. He pulled out a small wooden stylus and gently guided Muen's tiny hand. "Start here," he said, his voice low and even. "Make a line… good. Now another…"
Muen watched with intense concentration, her little brow furrowed. At times, she would stiffen and issue another Rossweise-like command. At others, she would giggle and snuggle into his chest, soft and entirely childlike. Leon learned to adapt on the fly, his tone firm when she challenged him and gently encouraging when she sought comfort.
When the afternoon had waned and Rossweise arrived to inspect their work, she took the paper without a word. She read each name in a low, measured voice: first her own, then Leon's, and finally, "Muen Melkvey." Her eyes traced every stroke of the clumsy but recognizable letters. Her face, as always, was a masterclass in neutrality, but Leon could feel the weight of her scrutiny.
"Tomorrow," she said finally, her gaze lifting to meet his, "you may walk with me for one hour in the garden."
A wave of relief and guarded triumph washed over him. It was a minor victory, but a victory nonetheless.
Rossweise added one final,cold remark as she turned to leave, not looking back at him. "I will be watching you."
Leon managed a small, tight smile. He had gotten what he wanted, for now.
That night, as he lay awake in the quiet darkness, Leon's mind returned to the names. Melkvey—the Milky Way. It was a reminder that beneath their fierce scales and formidable power, dragons held a capacity for poetry and softness. He thought of Muen, a living bridge between their two worlds, capable of being both Rossweise's echo and a vulnerable child in the space of a single breath. He wondered how much of the queen's complex soul already lived within their daughter.
He sighed, a complex mixture of pride, worry, and profound exhaustion settling over him. Tomorrow's walk in the garden would be a small, hard-won taste of freedom. For now, his duty was clear: keep teaching, keep playing his part, and keep navigating this strange new life where a dragon's commands and a child's innocent smiles shared the same small, beloved body.
Could a hybrid mind truly be split between draconic logic and childish impulse? Leon didn't have the answer. He only knew that the little girl in his care could be as stern as a queen one instant and as helpless as a fledgling the next. He couldn't predict which Muen he would encounter from one moment to the next. But he would keep trying—because whatever else Rossweise was, and whatever her motives, she had given him something he found he did not want to lose: a place, however fraught, in this strange, impossible, and beautiful family.