The autumn wind carried with it the scent of decaying leaves, sweeping through the open window of Draco's room, rustling the curtains.
On a large, luxuriously soft bed laid the goddess Bahamut, her long, luminous silver hair splayed out across the pillows in a magnificent, untidy halo.
Clutched tightly to her petite chest was a homemade black dragon plushie…..a lopsided, endearing little thing she had stitched together five years ago during Draco's long absence.
It had become her favorite anchor, a comforting token that kept her restless nature at ease whenever her lover was away.
And right now, he was very much away, having been gone for a little over a week on a supposed errand for Ouranos.
If she were being entirely honest, it was a little bit her fault that he had had to rush off.
Her own staggering carelessness had accidentally triggered a rather bizarre, incredibly tense cold war among the other female members of the familia, leaving Draco scrambling to escape the domestic crossfire.
Right now, however, none of that mattered.
Bahamut was trapped deep within the folds of a remarkably risqué dream, the kind she fervently hoped would never end.
"Hehehe… you can't do something that naughty… we're in public, Draco…" she mumbled happily into her pillow, a dreamy, blissful smile stretching across her face.
Chirp! Chirp!
Alas, the harsh realities of the mortal world had no respect for scandalous dreams.
A pair of aggressively cheerful sparrows landed on the exterior window sill, their high-pitched morning songs piercing the sanctuary of the bedroom.
Bahamut's eyes snapped open.
With a sharp, jerky motion, she bolted upright, her messy silver hair tumbling over her face as she blinked around the sunlit room in sudden confusion.
She glared blearily toward the window, where the two birds were now happily pecking at nothing in particular.
Giving her head a violent shake to clear the remnants of her illicit fantasy, Bahamut let out a jaw-cracking yawn that stretched her small jaw to its limits.
She began to stretch her limbs, working out the slight cramps that came from sleeping in one position for too long.
With a flick of tail, she pushed the heavy covers aside and hopped lightly to the polished wooden floor.
After a few more limbering stretches to satisfy her muscles, she strolled over to the window.
Her sudden approach startled the birds, sending them fluttering away into the crisp morning air. Leaning her elbows on the sill, Bahamut looked out over the familiar, bustling streets of Orario out of habit.
Things had been strangely quiet lately.
With Draco absent and the rest of her children running themselves ragged across the city…...especially in the wake of whatever had caused that massive tremor two days ago...the Bahamut Familia manor was operating at maximum efficiency without her.
While a tremor originating from the dungeon was definitely a cause for concern, Bahamut wasn't genuinely worried; her connection to Draco remained completely unbroken, proving he was alive and kicking.
Still, she couldn't help but wonder what new brand of chaotic trouble he had managed to stumble into.
Trouble seemed to magnetically attach itself to him, dragging the entire familia along for the ride whether they liked it or not.
'All that aside… what on earth am I supposed to do with today?' she wondered, resting her chin in her palm.
Her schedule was an immaculate, depressing void.
Her children handled the estate, the patrols, and the finances.
Her fellow deities were all buried neck-deep in their own affairs.
Left entirely to her own devices, Bahamut was agonizingly bored.
"Should I get a job like Hestia or Aasterinian?" she mused, briefly entertaining the thought.
She immediately grimaced, violently shaking her head.
Working beneath some other deity, mortal manager or merchant simply did not mesh with her status as the patron goddess of Orario's absolute strongest familia.
"Perhaps I could start a business. But doing what?"
She was admittedly quite decent at cooking; a high-end food stand might keep her occupied. Plus, she had plenty of capital, and a close friend in the agricultural sector who could supply fresh ingredients without issue.
"Ah, but the paperwork…"
At the mere mental image of tax forms, permits, and ledger entries, Bahamut's face twisted in disgust.
Her children were already working themselves to the bone; dumping more work on their plate was decidedly un-goddess-like.
Hiring outside help was also out of the question.
Letting out a heavy, long-suffering sigh of tedium, she continued scanning the street below…..until a flash of white and blue caught her eye.
"Huh? Hestia?" Bahamut muttered, blinking in surprise.
The goddess of the hearth was sprinting down a side street with an urgency usually reserved for fleeing bandits.
Her ridiculously oversized chest was bouncing erratically with every stride, threatening to launch her into low orbit.
But it was Hestia's facial expression that truly made it a sight to behold: it was the unmistakable, harrowing visage of a person whose entire world was collapsing in slow motion.
Following Hestia's panicked trajectory, Bahamut watched as the frantic deity turned a corner....straight toward the Bahamut Familia gates.
Bahamut's brows knitted together in a deep frown.
It wasn't that she disliked Hestia; they were reasonably close friends.
But history dictated that whenever Hestia showed up wearing a look of desperation, it meant she was about to request something ridiculously or outrageous.
Bahamut was entirely unprepared to deal with whatever madness Hestia was dragging to her doorstep.
Yet, beneath her initial reluctance, a sharp thrill of anticipation sparked in her chest.
'Well,' she thought, a faint smirk touching her lips, 'my terribly boring day just got a whole lot more interesting.'
Deciding that avoidance was impossible, she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the glass of the window.
She was currently clad in a dangerously provocative red nightgown, and her hair looked like a bird had nested in it.
Deciding that she could not receive her guest looking like a feral creature, she scooped up her black dragon plushie and turned on her heel.
Exiting Draco's room, she hurried down the hall to her own quarters, immediately ducking into the opulent marble bathroom to transform herself from a lazy slacker into a presentable deity.
...........................…
Huff! Huff!
Wheeze!
Hestia sucked in great, desperate gulps of air as she pounded the cobblestones of Orario.
Utterly powerless to stop her beloved child, Bell, from charging headfirst into yet another catastrophe, she had been left with zero viable options.
She couldn't turn to Hephaestus...not when she already owed the master smith over two hundred million Valis in debt.....interest free of course.
But still, she wasn't shameless enough to ask for more aid.
That left only one person.
Bahamut was the only other deity among her friends with the power, influence, and financial muscle required to bail her out of this mess.
Jerking to a halt in front of the colossal wrought-iron gates of the Bahamut Familia estate, Hestia bent double, hands braced on her knees as she fought to drag air back into her burning lungs.
She hadn't run this hard, this fast, not since the incident during Monsterphilia.
Taking a few exaggerated, calming breaths through her nose to steady her trembling frame, she reached out and pressed the magic bell tool mounted beside the gate.
With an estate this ridiculously expansive, a simple knock with bare knuckles would be entirely swallowed by the ambient noise of the city.
She pressed the chime several times.
After a short, agonizing wait, the heavy front doors of the manor swung open, revealing a young black-haired cat boy.
Michalis possessed facial features so youthful he practically looked like a child, yet his lean, tightly coiled frame radiated an intimidating aura...especially when contrasted with Hestia's diminutive, petite stature.
"Yeah, who is it? Ringing a bell this early in the morning…" Michalis grumbled, rubbing sleep from his eyes as he trudged down the path toward the gate.
"Michalis! Oh, thank the gods, it's me!" Hestia called out, waving frantically with an overly familiar grin.
As a former long-term guest of the Bahamut Familia during her early days in the lower world, she was naturally on a first-name basis with the members of the household.
"Geh! It's Hestia?" Michalis recoiled instantly, his eyes widening in sudden dread as he recognized the tiny goddess.
He managed to catch himself mid-flinch, furiously smoothing his expression into something resembling neutrality, desperately hoping the large-chested deity hadn't noticed his panic.
But the memories were too fresh.
Back when Hestia had first descended, she had resided in this very manor for a brief period. Let's just say that the coalition of Hestia and the Bahamut familia's own rambunctious female members had turned the daily lives of the male residents into an unmitigated psychological horror film.
Suppressing a shudder, Michalis trudged forward, unlocked the heavy iron gate, and unceremoniously ushered her inside.
As they walked side-by-side up the pathway toward the main entrance, Hestia kept shooting him intense, sideways glances.
'What is it? Did she hear me curse under my breath? Is she plotting something?' Michalis thought, his tail flicking nervously behind him.
"You look terribly tired, Michalis. Are you holding up okay?" Hestia suddenly asked, her voice dripping with uncharacteristic, saccharine concern.
'Eh? Is she actually worried about me? Is this really the same menace from back then?' Michalis stared at her, utterly bewildered.
"A-Ahem. It's nothing serious," Michalis replied stiffly, clearing his throat.
"I've just been run ragged with increased patrol shifts… only got back from one about an hour ago, actually."
"Is it because of the tremor?" Hestia pressed, her steps slowing.
"Hmm," Michalis grunted noncommittally, another involuntary shiver running down the length of his tail.
'Why is she making small talk? What does she actually want? People like her don't just....' Michalis let the thought trail as Hestia began speaking weird.
"I apologize for the abrupt visit, truly," Hestia said, abruptly shifting into a disturbingly formal, polite tone.
"I know my sudden appearance must be severely disrupting your rest time. But I have a matter of utmost urgency to discuss with Bahamut."
The unnerving politeness only heightened Michalis's internal alarm bells.
Vowing to stay far, far away from whatever disaster was about to unfold, he led her into the living room, gesturing for her to take a seat on the plush velvet sofa.
Out of ingrained hospitality, he poured her a glass of chilled fruit juice, set it on the table, and turned toward the grand staircase.
He was just about to head upstairs to fetch his goddess when the doors at the top of the landing clicked open.
Before Michalis could even draw breath to announce her arrival, a streak of black twin tails dashed past him at blinding speed.
Swoosh!
Before his lethargic mind could fully process the motion, the world shifted.
Hestia let out a high-pitched wail.
In the blink of an eye, she had abandoned the sofa, crossed the massive room, and launched herself directly at Bahamut.
Her arms were wrapped tightly around the silver-haired goddess's waist, her face buried straight into Bahamut's stomach as great, fat tears streamed uncontrollably down her cheeks.
"Baaa-chan! You have to help me!" Hestia bawled hysterically, her voice echoing off the vaulted ceilings.
"My familia is in very big trouble this time!"
Standing a few feet away, Michalis slowly blinked, looked at the weeping goddess clinging desperately to his patron deity, and quietly decided that he was going right back to bed.