[OOC: This thread centers around Jack, Natsumi's dragon butler, so his speech is the one naturally bolded unless I mention Natsumi speaking.]

Perhaps you've noticed by now, dear readers, that most of my stories about my return to Revaliir have thus far centered on my relationship with Robin or Adel's random trysts with women throughout Canelux. It is perhaps painfully obvious that I have not once mentioned my children or Jack since the story of Katerina's infiltration of my home. This is not, I dare say, evidence of a lack of interest in their welfare on my part; far from it, in fact. The lack of stories has more to do with the fact that most of my daughters' childhood occurred outside of Revaliir during a time when Jack was their bodyguard.

You will recall that Anabelle and Elizabeth were both born in Revaliir, but that their youth didn't last long. They were capable of acting like young children at the age of 2, and they didn't even stay babies for more than a few months. Growing up in Revaliir at that type of rate would have been difficult for them in my mind; especially since I had to travel all over the place and I couldn't remain stationary in Revaliir until their growth settled. For this reason, among others, I brought them along with me during their early years, having Jack and Adel assist in their care wherever we went. Anabelle was already a teenager by the time that period of our lives ended, and so she remained when I brought the family back to Revaliir.

Now, unfortunately for me, Elizabeth did not join Anabelle in adolescence by that time. She was still young in form even upon our return, and not because of her natural limitations either. She had chosen to remain that way.

Lizzie was a true mama's girl, and intentionally remained clingy toward me even though she was the same age as her sister. For this reason, I had to start distancing myself from home in an attempt to encourage her to develop her own habits and hobbies. I left the task of helping her achieve that goal to Jack and Anabelle, and that was why the three of them were almost always somewhere other than with me.

Tragically, and in hindsight, I probably should have chosen a different pairing to oversee Elizabeth's development, however. Jack and Anabelle didn't really like each other; or rather the latter had a strong, one-sided angst toward the former's laziness. My teenage daughter liked playing tricks on the dragon when he did something he wasn't supposed to, and the next story I'm about to tell involves one time that tendency scared the living daylights out of him.

_____

Sometime before I even met Robin, Jack had been lying about in our house in Salem. He was supposed to be tending to Elizabeth that day since it was his turn, but he had fallen asleep on the job instead. Anabelle soon had Elizabeth coming to her for food because of that, and when it was supposed to be her day off too. This incensed the teenage girl to the point of retaliation; so, after taking care of her sister, she placed a spell on Jack's bed, whisking him away to a random location. That location ended up being several hundred yards above Kessho no Niwa in Suisho no Kyuden's premises.

The first thing my draconic butler noticed in that state was that his soft bed had disappeared. He was now falling in the air with nothing but a dress shirt and some plain gray trousers, only just waking up when he finally hit terminal velocity.

"What the fuck," he asked groggily once the whipping winds made him open his eyes? Afterward, he promptly began screaming while flapping his arms like they were wings. Apparently, he forgot that he wasn't in dragon form, but, luckily for him, a large crystal tree still managed to break his fall.

Although, perhaps "lucky" isn't the best term to use here. Truth be told, Jack went into a blind panic when he broke through that tree to the ground floor with shredded clothes and more than a few wreathes of crystals around his neck. "What the fuck is happening?! Oh Gods! Oh ballsaroony! I don't-" In typical "dragon sailor" fashion, Jack was running around in the garden, half-naked and like a chicken with its head cut-off; all while swearing up a storm. Eventually, he carelessly smashed straight into the side of Naota's temple while trying to get the wreathes off of his body, thereby sending him flat on his ass with a massive headache. Then, and only then, did he finally lay still, lamenting his cognitive pain while two crystals managed to perfectly overlay his eyes like spa cucumbers. "Ughh….My head hurts worse than after that dragon whiskey I had last Winter Solstice…"

The day had been peaceful for the most part, and Naota took advantage of his time at home to relax in the common area with visitors. So many had grown used to him being so casual that they carried on with their usual conversations as if he were just another person. He liked that. It had been some years now since ascension, but he still enjoyed feeling ‘normal’ when he could manage it. Not that he’d ever been what one would consider normal while he’d been mortal, but it was a comfort nonetheless.

Presently, he was sitting between a few people at the lengthy kotatsu, pouring a cup of steaming tea into the cup of a woman animatedly relaying her story to everyone else at the table. People leaned forward, their lips already quirked to laugh as she continued, and The Lord of Light smiled gently to himself as he set the kettle back down. As she got to the climax of her anecdote, there was a great clash outside.

Every head in the common room turned in that direction and his eyebrows furrowed. He didn’t sense an attack, and there was no dangerous negativity pulsing through Torinasu. Silence hung in the air, waiting to see if it had been a fluke, but then there was a great slur of aggravated shouts laced in panic. A few people from the Crystal Garden had come back to the doors that led to it, standing cautiously as if there were some dangerous beast rampaging around. And then another crash to the side of the temple itself.

With that he was on his feet and appeared outside with wide but confused eyes. Crystal leaves and obsidian branches scattered about messily and there was an obvious ring of people stretched as close to the warm limits of the garden as they could manage. A man was laying on his back half sprawled and groaning, and Naota slowly approached him. There was still no threat hanging in the air that he could tell and his eyes weakened with amused pity when he heard him groan.

Keeping arm’s length away, he knelt down beside him and willed the gems from atop his eyelids with a mental push and spoke gently, “Well, that’s one of the most interesting entrances I’ve seen to Suisho no Kyuden, I must say.” Still, how his skull wasn’t busted open and bleeding from such a hard hit into a diamond wall was beyond him. That at least meant that he wasn’t human, or was well enchanted for fortitude. Where had he come from?

“Are you all right…?” His lips pulled in, trying his best not to smile. The man was clearly fine or else he would be hovering over him like a worried parent and not urged to laugh.

Dragon skulls are notoriously thick in both the metaphorical and the physical sense. They can be hardheaded at the best of times, so it should come as no surprise to find out that Jack did not openly wound himself even after running straight into a diamond-reinforced wall, nor should it be surprising that he didn't immediately determine what had happened after the fact. How had he ended up in that temple? Who was this strangely familiar man standing over him? What was he supposed to be doing in the first place? All these questions and more definitely formed about his head after the impact, but they just floated over it rather than running straight through it. As per typical Jack, he took some time to realize what he had done, and so casually greeted Naota's approach without the slightest bit of haste that he should have been feeling in that moment.

"Massive headache, but no worse for wear," he replied with a toothy grin while still supine. "Takes more than a wall to crack a dragon skull." Jack, now firmly in command of his mental facilities, began to remove the cords that had so thoroughly entangled him. Eventually, he stood before Naota and offered a handshake. "Name's Jack, and, up until a while ago, I was sleeping peacefully, dreaming of Itjivut potatoes. Blissful spuds that… oh shit." And so, at this point, he per usually realized what he had done. Before Naota even touched Jack's hand following the dragon's odd story about potatoes, the latter began sprinting off in a hurry. He ran straight out of Suisho no Kyuden faster than a speeding arrow, not even looking back as he headed north; and, as he left, only one phrase could be heard on the wind.

 "Anabelle! I'm sorry!" And so the rule in our household became, 'If you want to prank the dragon, ask Anabelle.'