Chapter 1 - Mira
Mira felt her phone vibrate in her pocket and gritted her teeth, a sense of grim certainty settling over her even before she’d checked the screen. Sure enough, the text was from an unknown number… yet another breezy little message asking what she was up to that weekend, for all the world as though she hadn’t blocked this guy a dozen times already. She made short work of the new number, but it was too late to reverse the damage to her mood. How was he even doing this? At first she’d assumed he was using his friends’ phones to contact her, but when she’d mentioned the harassment to a client, she’d told her about online number-spoofing services that creeps used to get around blocks. There wasn’t much she could do about it, short of getting a whole new phone.
Something had told her it was a bad idea to get back into dating again, but her friends had insisted things were better these days. A few weeks ago, over a few too many bottles of red wine, they’d installed a couple of new dating apps on her phone. Mira had been understandably reluctant, given that the last time she’d dated anyone she’d ended up having to get a restraining order, but her friends claimed to be setting her up with only the most safety-conscious apps.
Well, she couldn’t blame the app for this, she supposed. That was the guy’s fault. They’d met up for drinks after a promising exchange of messages on the app, and when she’d excused herself to the bathroom, he’d grabbed her phone and texted himself from her number, playing it off as no big deal when she’d come back. Just one of a long list of red flags that had made her cut the date short and send him a polite but clear message that evening that she wasn’t interested in seeing him again. At the time, she’d been more creeped out by the comments he made about her body. In her twenties, she might have been flattered by his lingering gaze, his constant casual references to how much he liked full-bodied women… but in her late thirties, she knew what fetishization sounded like.
That disastrous date had been over a week ago, and despite her clarity, Eddie simply had not taken the hint. She’d sent the message again after his responses seemed to suggest that he hadn’t read it, and then again… finally, not liking how much he was reminding her of the guy she’d had to go to the police about, she’d blocked his number. That earned her a day of peace… until unknown numbers began to reach out, trying to make plans to see her for the weekend. It was exhausting. Why was he so fixated on her? Were men really so stupid that a few hours with a woman could turn them into mindless, slavering beasts like this? She’d never liked dating much. Even when it went well, it was more trouble than it was worth… and this kind of nonsense made her wonder why she’d ever bothered in the first place. People were always shocked she’d never been on a second date, but as far as Mira was concerned, what was really surprising was that she ever went on dates in the first place.
Mira tried to put Eddie out of her mind on the drive to work, but she could still feel the anxiety prickling at her as she headed into her building. Work usually made her feel better. Ever since she’d struck out on her own, she’d been amazed by how fulfilling running her own business could be. It helped that she’d found such a great place to work—a multidisciplinary arts hub, an old warehouse that had been updated and converted into a series of studios for various creative professionals. On her floor alone there were visual artists, ceramicists, a couple of tattoo artists who shared a studio, and even a dance troupe that rehearsed a few nights a week in the spacious room at the back of the building.
And then there was her little space. It was perfect for her—partially divided, which gave her a space to meet clients and a space to sew, and it had even come with an enormous antique table, battered and paint-stained but easily restored to its former glory. Not that the surface was visible most of the time, not with the amount of work she had on the go. A dozen new alterations for some new clients, not to mention the piece she’d agreed to make from whole cloth for one of her regulars. To an outside eye, the piles of fabric might have looked haphazard and chaotic, but Mira knew her own system. That was part of why she’d resisted expanding, even though she could certainly afford to add a staff member or two. The idea of sharing her space with another person, trusting them with her system, with her work… well, they’d have to be someone pretty special. For now, she was happy to let her waitlist keep building.
It was a blessing to be so busy. When Mira had first started this business, she’d been terrified she was making the biggest mistake of her life. In the modern world of fast fashion and bulk-buying clothes online, applying for loans to start a bespoke tailoring business had been a hard sell… especially when she’d mentioned that her focus was on plus-sized clients. But her intuition had paid off. There was a gap in the market when it came to bigger bodies. Cheap fast fashion could work great for smaller bodies, but the bigger the size, the less likely it would fit well. There was more variation in plus-sized bodies, variation that should have been celebrated, but was instead too often subjected to shame for not fitting neatly into society’s convenient categories.
For Mira, who’d always been short and curvaceous, it had started with the despair of trying to find a pair of jeans that fit her hips, waist, legs and butt all at once. Frustrated by a whole day of unsuccessfully trying on pair after pair of factory-produced jeans, she’d eventually bought a pair that were three sizes too big, then dug out an old sewing machine of her aunt’s and a measuring tape and set to work.
It had taken a few days, but the results were more than worth it. She’d been surprised by how many compliments she’d received from complete strangers—some of them from creepy men, of course, but a surprising majority from other curvy women, friends and acquaintances as well as complete strangers, all desperate to know where she’d gotten her well-fitting jeans from. When she explained that she’d tailored them herself, the response was almost always an impassioned request for her to do the same for them.
And so she’d run some quick calculations and come up with a fee and a system—her clients brought her a pair of jeans a few sizes above their own, as well as detailed measurements of their bodies, and she’d work her magic. Word spread fast, and it wasn’t long before her dining room table was too small to keep up with the piles of jeans that kept accumulating. The income was modest, but enough to pay for a sturdier sewing machine and even some classes in dressmaking and clothing alteration. She branched out from jeans to jackets, dresses, skirts, even formal attire. Her office job, which she’d once found satisfying enough, paled in comparison to the fierce joy of watching a client stare at themselves in the mirror, wearing clothing that actually fitted their body properly—often for the first time in years.
So when she’d stumbled upon this beautiful little workspace, she’d taken it as a sign. She’d been doing patient, careful research for years on small business startup loans that were available in her area—attention to detail had always been her signature strength—and though it took a few rejections, it was only a matter of time before she’d secured one. The day she got the letter was the day she’d submitted her two weeks notice at her office job.
It had also been the day she’d finally gotten that restraining order approved, she thought now, the sour thought tarnishing what had always been one of her favorite memories. Why did creepy men have to ruin everything? Even now, she still got creepy emails coming through from her business’s website, making unpleasantly sexual comments about the plus-sized models on her page. For a society that spent so much time demonizing fat people and calling them lazy and disgusting, there certainly were a lot of men whose sexual fantasies seemed to revolve around women like Mira.
As if on cue, she felt her phone buzz again, and she scowled as she switched it to silent. Maybe this was a sign it was time to get a second phone, one specifically for her business… though given how few personal calls she tended to make these days, her existing number was basically already her business phone. But it would be such a hassle to update all the contact information on her website… Mira had always had trouble keeping up with technology. Her friends always joked that she was an old woman in a young woman’s body.
Well, not so young, she thought wryly, the comforting whir of her sewing machine lulling her into the meditative, focused trance she loved so much about working with her hands. As much as it usually shocked people to hear, Mira was a few months away from turning forty. It was a strange thought. Most of her friends of the same age were married with school-aged kids, some of them even in high school… and here she was, a thirty-nine-year-old woman who’d never even been on a second date. That was part of why she’d let her friends talk her into the dating apps again. If she wanted kids, she knew, the clock was ticking. Even if she might not have looked a day over twenty-five. Her friends usually accused her of witchcraft when that subject came up. Good genes, she supposed.
Today really was a day for sore subjects, wasn’t it? Mira exhaled briskly, trying to pull her mind out of what her therapist would have probably called a spiral. Nearly forty or not, she had a life she was proud of. She loved her work, and she was reminded every day by glowing testimonials of her clients that she was making a real difference in the world. She was grateful for her friends, for her work, for her comfortable home, for her strong, healthy body. So what if she wasn’t married yet? She’d rather be alone than share her life with the wrong man. She was old enough to have seen friends make those kinds of mistakes, plunging recklessly through red flags in relationships because they were so desperate to have the marriage and the family that they were dreaming of.
And she didn’t feel like she was running out of time, at the end of the day. Forty or not, Mira had always felt like a new soul… like she’d only just gotten started, like she was running on a different kind of timeframe to the people around her. Her friends always joked that she was cold and ruthless when it came to dating, but really, the truth was that she’d never been on a second date because she was a romantic. She always knew the moment she met a man whether or not he was the one for her. He could be gorgeous, charismatic, funny, tall, kind, literally royalty… but if she didn’t feel the spark, what use was there in pretending?
One day, she knew she'd meet the love of her life, her soulmate. And when she did, she wouldn’t have to worry about never having been on a second date with a guy. The spark she was waiting for, the sense of connection, of passion, of trust… it was out there, she knew it on an intuitive level that she’d never been able to explain to her friends. They’d think she was deluded, that her standards were too high, that she’d been brainwashed by Disney movies… but she trusted her gut. If it took her another forty years to find the man she was meant to spend her life with, then she was willing to wait for him.
And in the meantime… well, she always had her dreams to keep her company.
Chapter 2 - Conrad
What better way to follow up a grueling morning of mediating centuries-old academic arguments than with a council meeting?
Conrad tried not to think about what the early spring sunshine would feel like on his wings as he made the all-too-short walk from the Palace Archives up to the Throne Room, where he was already running a little late for a meeting that would last until sunset at the very least. He rubbed at the back of his neck as he walked, not liking the ache that had settled there over the last few weeks. His injuries from the recent attack on the Palace were long since healed… the ache in his neck was something new, something that had more to do with the arduous process of repairing the Palace.
The repairs themselves, actually, were progressing nicely. It had been three months since the attack, and for the most part the Palace looked like it was back to normal. What furniture that had been beyond repair had been replaced, the bloodstains and scorch marks that had resulted from the battle had been carefully cleaned from every surface, and even the damage to the stonework was no longer visible, thanks to the careful work of the Palace’s artisans.
But the Archives… the Archives were another story. He should have known, when he’d put his hand up to supervise that particular part of the recovery effort, what he was getting himself into. He’d known Arric and Hartwell, the lead Archivists, for centuries. Why had he thought that they’d allow any process to be simple, especially when it concerned their precious Archives? He’d expected the major problems to have to do with the restoration of damaged records. The cavernous Archives were full of ancient tomes, and a lot of fire had been thrown around during the recent attack. But a small army of industrious archival assistants and librarians had done an impressive job of restoring, repairing, and replacing the damaged tomes, which numbered in at least the hundreds, if not the thousands.
It had been months of work. But the real struggle had started when it came to putting the tomes back. Arric’s position was that the original system must be preserved at all costs—he seemed to feel that the order in which things were stored was in itself a kind of historical artifact. But Hartwell saw the upheaval as an ideal opportunity to completely overhaul the storage system. Neither dragon would budge on his position… which didn’t stop them from discussing it for hours on end, entertaining hypothetical after hypothetical until their hapless mediator felt like his brain was about to leak out of his ears.
Conrad took his accustomed seat at the long table in the Throne Room, murmuring an apology for his lateness as he did. Queen Lana flashed him a quick smile, a flicker of sympathy visible in her eyes before her attention returned to the report being made about recovery efforts in the rest of the cavern. The attack had largely been focused on the Palace, but the defense effort had involved every dragon who lived in the great hollow mountain that the dragons here called home.
Three months may have passed, but they were all still reeling from the upheaval of the attack—and from the sweeping changes it had brought with it, not least of which was the knowledge of worlds beyond their own. Perhaps that was why the Archivists were getting so fixated on their storage systems, Conrad reflected as he settled tiredly into the rhythm of the meeting. A kind of stress response to the realization that there was a huge amount of information that their extensive Archives simply did not contain… the realization that sooner or later, they were going to need to add yet more books to their collection.
Seth rose to address the group now. The Alpha of the local wolf pack spoke with the quiet, understated authority of a man who fully understood the responsibilities that came with the power he wielded. His pack had been instrumental in the defense effort, intercepting the attacking mages on their way through the forest and giving the dragons early warning of their approach… and to everyone’s great relief, they’d managed to avoid any serious injuries among the wolves. There was always a problem on the horizon, though, and Seth was warning them that the wolves were growing curious and a little wary about the news of worlds beyond their own.
“Tell them we’re just as curious as they are,” Queen Lana said with a wry smile. “And that we’re looking into it.”
That piqued Conrad’s curiosity—and Seth’s, too, judging by the quick flick of his silver eyes towards his soulmate. Queen Lana smiled as she effortlessly took control of the meeting. She’d been stepping more and more into her power as their leader lately, Conrad thought, looking at the Queen with admiration. The attack had been perhaps the most major disaster their little community had faced in decades, and their brand-new Queen had handled it so well that even the most truculent and critical residents of the cavern had trouble faulting her. And here she was, leading them just as bravely into the unknown future that loomed ahead of them.