“Good to know you didn’t hesitate to find more of my stuff to break,” Phaedra said before walking to her bed and collapsing onto it. “You know, if you’d been like this when I was Medon, I probably would have just left you to die. I miss when you were at least somewhat polite.”

  “What does a demon know about being polite?” Yroth asked.

  “More than an Ascended Dragon, it seems,” Phaedra said before looking around. Her room was a mess, everything broken. It looked almost as bad as the throne room. However, unlike the throne room, her room was more than just stone and could not be easily repaired with a bit of magic. At least she’d be leaving before she had to clean this up. “We’re leaving soon.”

  “Oh? Are we now?” Yroth asked. “And if I refuse?”

  “We’re going back to your home, so I’d say you were being extra petty,” Phaedra said.

  “Truly? You actually kept your word?” Yroth asked. There was a light crash before she could be heard stepping out of the closet. “What’s this?”

  “What’s -- don’t drop that!” Phaedra shrieked when she glanced back and leaped to her hooves to run at the dragon.

  Yroth had taken her bipedal form again, but unfortunately was still quite a bit larger than her. She stuck a hand out against the sheep’s forehead, holding her back while her other hand held the small black box covered in runes out of reach. “Oh? Is it important?”

  “Don’t!” Phaedra yelled. “Please, please please please. Y-you don’t know what that is! C-careful!”

  “Oh?” Yroth asked before shoving her back. “Stop,” she said when Phaedra started to run at her again. “Or I’ll destroy it.”

  Phaedra went entirely still, staring at the box. “P-please. Yroth, I know you don’t trust me. But don’t. Don’t damage that.”

  “Why? What’s in it?” Yroth asked, shaking the box.

  “CAREFUL!” Phaedra screamed, unable to keep the panic out of her voice. “P-please, please give that back. Please.”

  “I want answers,” Yroth said. “What’s all this about? What is your real goal?”

  “I already told you what this is about,” Phaedra said, unable to take her eyes off it. “I just wanted to get you to safety. A sentiment that is quickly disappearing.”

  “Really? You’re still going to keep with that?” Yroth asked, very lightly scratched a claw down the side of the box.

  “It’s to trick you!” Phaedra screamed, tears forming in her eyes. “To get you to bow to Fenrir or something!”

  Yroth blinked a few times, her eyes narrowing on her before glancing back at the box. “You’re just saying that because of this, aren’t you?”

  “P-please, Yroth,” Phaedra begged. “Please… don’t…”

  “Is it some kind of weapon?” Yroth asked, giving it another shake.

  “It’s a doll!” Phaedra yelled.

  “What?” Yroth asked, looking up at her for a moment, her eyes wide with surprise.

  Phaedra took the opportunity. Casting a spell to amplify her speed, she was by the dragon in a second. She snatched the box back before turning her back to her and clutching it protectively to herself. She waited, but no attacks came. She slowly glanced back.

  Yroth stared at her in confusion. “It’s… a doll?”

  Phaedra gulped before, slowly, she nodded. “I’ll show you, but only if you promise NOT to touch it or the box ever again. Okay? Just… it’s special to me.”

  “I… promise,” Yroth said.

  Phaedra nodded. She knelt down on her bed, then gently ran a finger over the side of the box. A quick mending spell repaired the damage where Yroth's claws had dug into it, and fortunately none of the runes were damaged. She squeezed the box, causing the runes to glow, and the top popped open. To Phaedra's relief, the box's contents were also unharmed. She delicately pulled out a small sheep doll.

  “That’s… it?” Yroth asked. “It’s just an old sheep doll. What, was it your favorite toy or something when you were a baby?”

  “My mother made it for me,” Phaedra said gently, lightly giving it the softest sniff. It smelled just like she remembered her mother smelling. Warm, gentle, soft. “This wool is from Hildr herself.” She delicately placed it back into the box and sealed it away. Safe. So long as the runes stayed active, even time couldn’t hurt it.

  “Wait, Hildr?” Yroth asked.

  “Yeah,” Phaedra said. “Like the valkyrie.”

  “Like the what?” Yroth asked.

  “Valkyrie. They’re women in Norse mythology who guide warriors to… and none of this is making any sense to you, huh?” Phaedra asked.

  “You’re just making up sounds,” Yroth said.

  “Sure I am,” Phaedra said, not having the energy to even argue anymore.

  “Medon did that too,” Yroth said. “When he’d get upset or emotional, he’d…”

  “I’m fine,” Phaedra said before shaking her head. “I’m not fine, but not like it matters. It’s this stupid spell. Dad thinks it’s a speech impediment, but it’s not. I just hear everything in my original language. But not all the words I say translate right. The elves told me not to tell anyone, but not like it matters anymore.”

  Yroth stared at her. “That doesn’t make any sense. Why wouldn’t you get it removed if you know about it?”

  “Right, then I can go around not understanding anybody,” Phaedra said bitterly. “If it even can get removed. What, am I supposed to just tell Daddy ‘Oh, by the way, I have this spell on me that translates everything to a language I can understand. Oh? Why? Because I was summoned to defeat you, silly! And now I’m reincarnated as your daughter! Gee golly, I sure hope my liver tastes good when you tear it out.’” She didn’t even try to hide the sarcasm that time.

  Yroth stared at her and took a small step forward, reaching out a hand to her. Finally, she shook her head. “No. You’re not Medon. You can’t be. Medon was… Medon was calm. Quiet. Reserved. He was--”

  “Depressed,” Phaedra said. “The word you’re looking for is depressed. Medon was depressed and trying, desperately, to keep it together long enough to do everything you people needed me to do.”

  “Why… why would Medon have been depressed?” Yroth asked. “He was a hero. I’ll admit he was reserved at times. But he smiled often. In fact, he and Lilith were often talking about what they would do once this was over. She would bear his children and--”

  “WE WERE NOT!” Phaedra yelled, her voice getting squeaky and her cheeks turning bright red. “W-we never did that! We never t-talked about that! Why would you even say that?”

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  “And how do you know?” Yroth asked, huffily.

  “Because I was Medon,” Phaedra said through gritted teeth. “Have you been telling people that?”

  Yroth was silent for a few moments before sighing and crossing her arms. “No. That… was a lie. While he was… obviously attracted to her--”

  “All of you,” Phaedra said.

  “What?” Yroth asked.

  “All of you,” Phaedra said, her voice filled with bitterness. “I was attracted to all of you. And like, ten others. You’re quickly killing any attraction I had for you, by the way.”

  “W-what?” Yroth asked. “He never… Medon never…”

  “Brought to another world,” Phaedra said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “Surrounded by beautiful women on all sides. A few men who uhhh, weren’t so bad either. Who wouldn’t be? But kind of a big problem in all of that. The whole not wanting to be Medon.” She dropped back down and held the box up, staring at it. “I’ll admit, Lilith was just… different. Eviler about it. Hotter, I guess. But… I didn’t like her more. That wasn’t why she had such an effect on me.”

  “Then why--”

  “I wanted to be her,” Phaedra said, her cheeks getting even redder. “I wanted to be her like you couldn’t believe.”

  Yroth went entirely rigid, her eyes going wide. “Ex… cuse me? Her? Why?”

  Phaedra squirmed and then shook her head, before finally enveloping herself in a thick ball of wool once more, hugging the box to her chest. “Nope! No! Never mind! We are NOT talking about this!”

  “It’s too late for that,” Yroth said, walking up to her. She then paused. “Consider this… another test.”

  Phaedra groaned and then, very slowly, the wool retracted. She stared up at her. Another test. Of course it was. Just so Yroth could ignore it like the others. Still, though. She supposed there was one thing she could get out of this. Yroth even seemed to be kind of listening this time. Slowly she put the box on the ground, on the opposite side from Yroth. “If… I do this… will you… let me at least pretend to chain you up so Dad doesn’t try to kill you when I take you away from here? Just long enough so nobody can see before I let you go?”

  Yroth’s eyes narrowed and her fists clenched. A small tuft of flame came out of her mouth before she sighed. “Very well. I suppose… I can agree to play this… farce. For a short while. I will even acknowledge that if you really desired me to be chained, you could have kept me bound. Now, what did you mean by that? Wanting to be Lilith?”

  “Ughhhhh…” Phaedra said, rolling onto her side and hugging her pillow to her chest. She tried to think about how to say any of this and have it make sense and not sound like an idiot.

  After a few seconds she whimpered and buried her face in her pillow. There was no way to not make herself sound stupid.

  “I just, I ummmm, back… back where I came from,” Phaedra said sheepishly. So sheepishly that her wool had grown again to surround her. “Elves didn’t exist. Not really. We had… pretend stories about them, okay? And dark elves like… Lilith? Oh, they were… uhhhhh… entirely different. Very, very, uhhhh… they were the bad girls. Tough, dangerous, h-hot, leather, all of that. Matriarchal society, very confident.”

  Yroth blinked a few times, staring at her. “You… know that Lilith--”

  “Yes, I know that was a ‘Lilith’ thing and not a ‘dark elf’ thing here, it didn’t mean it wasn’t hot!” Phaedra shrieked, her face only getting redder. “S-she was… strong, confident, a bit wicked and… and… I’d always wanted to be a girl like that. A woman like that. Kind of a bad girl. Tough. Strong. But also… kind of girly. But like, in a dangerous way? And… flirty and pretty and please just kill me now.”

  “What?” Yroth asked.

  “It was just pretend, though,” Phaedra said. “I-I mean, I played dark elves like her in a lot of games and just… it was silly. Here’s basically the character I’d want to be if I was here. But I wasn’t her. Instead she was the one flirting with me. And I can’t even tell you how conflicting that was. If I could have been me, instead of Medon, then sure. It… might have been okay. But I wasn’t. I… I just wanted to be like her. I was jealous, okay? I was jealous of her.”

  “That… doesn’t make any sense,” Yroth said softly.

  “Yeah, I know,” Phaedra said, the bitterness filling her voice. “What kind of hero from another world wants to be a girl? Well, you know what? Apparently a pretty awful one because in case you didn’t notice, I died.”

  “If you wanted to be a girl, why were you Medon?” Yroth asked.

  “What?” Phaedra asked, rolling over and glaring at her. It was unlikely to have much of an effect, considering her bed was in pieces and far lower to the ground. “Because YOU people summoned me to be. I didn’t ask to be Medon. I never WANTED to be a boy. Ever. Yet for some reason apparently it was the stupid fate you people forced on me. It was bad enough I had to pretend I was one back in my home, I was finally getting all of that sorted. Sure, I had to fight all the time and there were a lot of people doing everything they could to make it miserable, but I was finally making progress in being the girl I wanted to be.”

  “W-what?” Yroth asked, staring at her in bewilderment. “I don’t… understand.”

  “Of course you don’t,” Phaedra said furiously. “I never wanted to be a boy. I just wanted to be a girl; instead I come here and suddenly me being myself will literally cost the lives of millions. It was already a fight the first time, now I have a literal war and stupid name powers that never even seemed to work in the FIRST place compared to what they told me they’d do depending on me acting like one? Do you have ANY idea what that--” Her mouth was suddenly covered by the dragon’s tail.

  “That’s not what I mean,” Yroth said. “I mean, why were you Medon? If you were a girl, why weren’t you Morgana? Or if both, why not Artemis?” Slowly she pulled her tail back.

  Phaedra blinked a few times and stared at her. “I… what? Who? Morgana as in like… Arthurian Legends? Or Artemis as in the Greek goddess of the hunt? Annnnd none of these make much sense to you, do they?”

  “What did the name Medon mean to you? Before you came to our world?” Yroth asked.

  Phaedra gave another sigh before shrugging. “I don’t know. I think I’d heard of it before. I just always told you that it was just some guy, not to worry about it.” On the upside, Yroth finally seemed to be taking her seriously. Though she didn’t quite get what she was getting at.

  “Because you were… shy,” Yroth said softly, staring at her. “Because you didn’t… want to… speak of your home.”

  “Because I didn’t recognize the name,” Phaedra said. “I’m sure it meant something, though. All the names seem to have meant something. Or they translated from names in my home. I don’t know. What does that have to do with anything? Who were Morgana and Artemis?”

  “The names of the heroes,” Yroth said softly. “Two of the five names. Why were you Medon?”

  Phaedra blinked a few times and stared at her. She just stared at her. Finally, she took a slow, deep breath. “Did you just say… five… heroes?” she asked in as calm a voice as she could manage. “There are… four more heroes from other worlds?”

  “No,” Yroth said. “There are five names for the hero. Each one representing the same pillar of our world, the same yet different. Medon, Morgana, Artemis, Aphroditus and Dionysus.”

  Phaedra blinked a few times before sighing. “You know… I’m… pretty sure four of those are Greek. I… think? But I didn’t actually study a lot of Greek mythology. Some of them sound fairly familiar. I think Dionysus was a god of wine and Artemis was a god of hunting. Aphroditus I think… uhhhh… became… Hermaphroditus? They’re kind of the one I know the most about and even then I don’t know much. Morgana I know a lot about, she was supposed to be the sister of King Arthur, depending on which story. Though originally she was Morgan Le Fey… and… why are you looking at me like that?”

  “There’s been a terrible mistake,” Yroth said gently.

  “What?” Phaedra asked.

  “If you were a woman,” Yroth said. “You should have been Morgana. The name you know the most of, the one you feel closest to. The one that resonates closest to your own world.”

  “I don’t get--”

  “The names are names of power in your own tongue,” Yroth said. “If Medon is one you barely recognize and truly never desired, it is not the name you should have been bestowed. It is not the name you should have… why did you never tell us?”

  Phaedra stared at her. “I didn’t even know there were five heroes.”

  “Did the elves not tell you?” Yroth asked, sounding almost panicked now.

  “No? They told me--”

  “No, no,” Yroth said. “This doesn’t make any sense. It… but it does make sense. Medon’s defeat, everything that happened. Why the other Ascended Dragons refused to acknowledge the threat. But… how? How are you here? How were you born as…?”

  “I don’t even know what’s going on,” Phaedra said, staring at her. “But… do you… finally believe me?”

  “I… no. Yes. No,” Yroth said before shaking her head. “Yes. We need to find… I… will acknowledge that it is possible that you are Med-- that you were the one summoned from another world. I do not know how. This shouldn’t be possible. But you… have made… a… compelling argument.”

  “I… guess?” Phaedra said softly.

  “But I need you to recount to me everything that happened when you first arrived in our world,” Yroth said. “Everything.”

  “Everything?”

  “Everything you can remember,” Yroth said.

  “I… I guess I’ll try,” Phaedra said nervously.

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