“So, uh, what do you know about Cait?” Qi asked, actually blushing a little. It was the dragon’s turn on what Dawn was calling, ungraciously she knew, her ‘babysitting rotation’. She had expected these shifts to be more awkward, what with the dragon essentially replacing her, and also having little to no interaction before this.

  She’d been partly right, at first, but had actually come to enjoy Qi’s shifts. The woman she was during these private moments was far from the brash, somewhat domineering persona she put on around the other women on the team. Cait in particular, Dawn suspected. Instead, she was polite, slightly awkward, and a very good listener. Which made it all the more surprising she’d just asked about Cait.

  “What about Cait, Qi? Really, I have barely known the woman longer than you,” Dawn asked. It was true, but really, she thought she knew what Qi was getting at. She simply didn’t think her new friend would like what she had to say.

  “Y’know…. Is she, like, single?”

  Dawn just stared at Qi, an action she had noticed human’s found all the more impactful with the size of her eyes.

  “Okay, not single, I know she and Lira are something, and maybe Kennedy….. but…. Fuck, I don’t know.”

  “Qi, I’m sorry to say I have met few people less single than Cait. If what you’re trying to ask is if there’s room for you in whatever’s going on with the more impulsive members of my team, I couldn’t tell you. If you’re asking if I believe Cait would be interested in you, alone, well…. I would not get my hopes up.”

  Dawn smiled as comfortingly as she could, patting a hand gently against Qi’s enormous talon where it gripped the rail of her hospital bed.

  It was always odd, when Qi returned a soft, shy smile with that mouth full of massive, gleaming white teeth. The feral part of her that still remained wanted to scramble out of the bed, down the hall and as far away from the predator as she could get.

  “I think I knew, that, yeah,” Qi sighed letting the smile fall. “It’s just-, fuck Dawn, I don’t feel like myself around her, after….”

  The dragon looked at Dawn awkwardly.

  “After she and Lira deflowered you?” Dawn finished for her, letting a chuckle out alongside the words. “I should think not, Qi.”

  Qi scowled at her, but Dawn honestly wasn’t sure how else she had expected that exchange to go.

  “Yeah… but, it's just Cait. Lira and I have hooked up a couple of times since then, and it’s been fun, dangerous for her, but fun. But something in me says Cait is mine.”

  That last word left her throat with a deep growl and a puff of smoke. A passing nurse glared into the room at the scent, but didn’t technically find anyone breaking the smoking prohibition.

  Dawn mulled over Qi’s words. Hadn’t she just tamped down her own instincts, telling her to fear the sweet young woman in front of her? She’d be damned if it didn’t seem like this was something similar.

  “I can tell you this much for certain, Qi. Approaching Cait with that mentality will end in heartbreak at best and bloodshed at worst. You need to look inside yourself, sort out what emotions are yours, and which have been put into your heart by the Waves.”

  Dawn squeezed her hand, hoping the dragon could feel it through those thick scales.

  “Believe me,” she continued, meeting Qi’s ruby red eyes. “As someone who essentially had to do the opposite, lest I remain on all fours eating leaves, I understand that it isn’t a trivial task. It is, however, a necessary one. I’ve seen what you can do when you let those emotions take control, and while a raging dragon pointed in the right direction is an excellent ally, it can quickly turn into an unnatural disaster."

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Qi nodded, looking apologetic, but Dawn quickly shook her head.

  “Do not take this as reprimand. I appreciate you talking about this with me. If it is, like I believe, due to instincts your human mind doesn’t know how to deal with, there are few people that would understand better. Perhaps our teammate Breastman, actually. Should you need more support, I would consult with him as well. Despite appearances, he is an excellent listener and surprisingly perceptive, if a tad na?ve.”

  “Aren’t he and Cait, like, best friends?” Qi asked, raising an eyebrow. “Seems a little risky.”

  Dawn chuckled again. She was beginning to feel as though she were the wise old woman in a children’s tale, despite being significantly younger than everyone around her.

  “Breastman and Cait have known each other for exactly one day longer than I have known the both of them. I admit their bond is remarkably strong for that timeline, but I also don’t think Breastman is the kind of person that would betray your trust on this matter. Plus, much like myself, he enjoys fucking with our team leader.”

  Qi grinned at that.

  “She is a fun target, isn’t she?”

  “Rare to find someone who makes such an easy target of themselves yet takes almost no offense when those opportunities are taken advantage of, yes. We could speak in circles on this for some time, I believe, Qi, and get not one step closer to resolving it. How are you fitting into the team as a whole?”

  Despite still clearly being conflicted, Qi seemed relieved to let the topic drop.

  “Great, I think! At least combat-wise. Cait, Kennedy and I make a hell of an up front combo, and I think all of us at AEGIS are starting to realize how dangerous Breastman is wherever he finds himself on the battlefield.”

  She looked excited as she spoke, clearly proud to have found a role, and a team that wasn’t all that concerned about being burned to a crisp. Then she seemed to remember who she was talking to.

  “But, uh, I can tell they miss having magic on their side! As it is now, we’re more or less all different flavors of brawler, unless Kennedy goes extra-marital for her links.”

  Her nervous smile returned, displaying those enormous teeth. Dawn didn’t take offense.

  “It’s a good thing, then, that so many of our problems can be solved with judicious application of fist and flame. I’m just happy my team has a substitute worthy of their power. It could have been Eyebite, after all,” she replied with a wink.

  It wasn’t entirely true. Dawn had felt like she had only just begun to fit in with the team when she was injured, likely due to no longer spending so much time with Chance. Now, she worried they would move on without her. Still, Qi made a good point. A team with her on it could solve a lot more problems than one without it.

  “And outside of combat? How are you finding things?” Dawn asked.

  Qi looked at her flatly.

  “Isn’t that what we’ve been talking about?”

  “Not necessarily, unless you think sex is the only worthwhile form of social interation.”

  Qi actually let out a low frustrated growl.

  “I don’t! Fuck! I went 23 years with zero! But on this team it's all I can think about, and to be honest, it doesn’t feel like I’m the only one. It’s like that blonde bimbo has some kind of horny aura, and Lira acts like an amplifier. The person I’ve actually gotten the closest to is Gwyn, who technically isn’t even on the team, and do you have any idea how pent up that girl is? She’s like a coke fiend, just replace coke with tentacle cock!”

  Dawn’s eyes had grown wider and wider during Qi’s exasperated rant. When the dragon finally finished and met Dawn’s eyes again, the tension seemed to bleed out of both of them. Dawn giggled first, echoed by Qi, and soon the two of them were sharing full throated guffaws, causing yet another passing nurse to glower into the room, and this time shut the door so the peals of their laughter wouldn’t disturb the other patients.

  Qi eventually collected herself, wiping her eyes and looking gratefully at Dawn.

  “Needed that, thanks,” she said with a grin that was less disconcerting each time Dawn saw it. “How are you? I’ve been doing a lot more of the talking than I’m used to.”

  “As good as I can be, all things considered I suppose,” Dawn said, her own smile tainted by loss. “I’ve always been of the mind that it was better to have something and lose it than to never have had it at all, but these last few months have tested the limits of that philosophy.”

  “Hug?”

  “Yes, please,” Dawn laughed. Qi gave odd but good hugs. Yes, parts of her were hard and pointy, but she was warm like a furnace, and strong as a bear. Dawn had few memories from being a young, feral fawn alongside her mother, but Qi’s embrace always brought with it flashes of half remembered comfort and security.

  “We’re gonna get him, you know that right?” Qi said, steel entering her tone as she released Dawn.

  “Not if I flee this hyper-sanitized prison and get him first,” Dawn replied, hoping some of that predator aura that came so easily to Qi flavored her own smile.