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And thus, in the year 314 AA, with the death of Princess Thielwen, the Seraglio at the Center of the World finally met its end – having outlived its creator by a solid three centuries and change. However, as the perceptive amongst you have no doubt noticed, that leaves us with a couple of loose threads – namely, what became of the last two Consorts of Sayn I? Rubicundus, the Dragon-Consort, would still have been in the prime of his life at this point, while First Consort Korlin, being a Kirin, was essentially immortal. However, as I mentioned a few chapters ago, Rubicundus departed the Seraglio in 200 AA, stating nothing more specific than 'personal reasons', and disappeared from public life at that time. Korlin the Kirin, meanwhile, left shortly after Princess Thielwen's death, stating that her presence was 'no longer needed' – which most historians, myself included, have interpreted as meaning that she didn't want to try and maintain the power of the Seraglio-Council entirely by herself. Kirin, the legends tell us, are by nature advisers to the powerful, and generally not interested in exercising power by themselves.

However, these historical facts hardly answer the question – what became of them, after they departed the Seraglio? Well, the short and unsatisfying answer is, we just don't know. The longer and more interesting answer, though, is that we can at least scrape together a reasonable guess, based on surviving sources and reasonable suppositions. Korlin being, simultaneously, the simplest and the most elusive – essentially, it is commonly assumed that she simply returned to Xangri-Du, the sealed city of the Kirin, and spent the next 400-odd years among her own kind before departing alongside the rest of them in 743 AA – the year of The Vanishing. But of course, with the Beastmaker being the last outsider known to have been allowed entry into Xangri-Du prior to its abandonment, there is no way to confirm this – and considering the shape-shifting abilities of a Kirin, Korlin may very well have wandered the Empire in disguise for all those centuries with none the wiser. About the only hint we do have is that she appear to have briefly visited Rubicundus immediately after Thielwen's death and her resignation from the Seraglio-Council, likely to inform him of these developments…

• From the final chapter of The Seraglio at the Center of the World, by Senior Scholar Prakarov

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Korlin descended elegantly from the skies, her golden hooves catching on the thin air just as nimbly as the mountain-goats scaling the steep cliffs beneath her. She'd reached her target, that much was clear – on a sunny plateau beneath her, just outside a cave-entrance, a pair of crimson-scaled male dragons were seemingly taking in the rays together, chatting amicably, laughing at each other's jokes. An unusual sight, in and of itself, but not impossible – dragons were generally solitary, but they did stick together in family-groups, and while female dragons usually only laid a single egg at a time, 'twins' did in fact occur, albeit rarely. So this might just be a pair of brothers, relaxing outside the family den – perhaps discussing their plans for the future, considering that dragons of their coloration were expected to move out and start their own homes. The best place to set up a den, the best way to fill it with treasure and build a hoard, the best way to attract a female…

Or at least, that would have been the likely explanation, until three hundred years ago, Korlin reflected with some satisfaction. The young dragons of today had more options to weigh, thanks to their species' growing integration into the Empire. The path of their parents remained open, of course – they could still settle down on any mountaintop that wasn't part of an established Griffon Territory, carve out a den, and call it their own. Imperial Law ensured that such a claim was legal and enforceable. And they had plenty of avenues open to them, in terms of growing the 'seed' that their parents would provide them, for their own hoard – from mining, to arcane consultancy, to acting as a heavy aerial transport, to signing on with the Imperial Aeronautics Department, to simply making wise investments in various industries or businesses across the Empire. But, they could also choose a different path – forgoing isolation and aloofness, settling in one of the Empire's urbane, multicultural cities, with neighbors from a myriad of species and races. The more traditional draconic parents would deny them a slice of their hoard, should they take this path – but they still had plenty of ways to make an easy living, and potentially the chance to encounter a female who'd made the same choice, and was thus willing to judge their value by something other than the size of their hoard.

So, yes – to the casual eye, this pair of red dragons could easily have been taken for a pair of brothers, weighing their options as they prepared to leave home. But Korlin wasn't limited to mere sight – as a Kirin, she possessed senses that she'd never been able to fully explain to her friends and loved ones from other races. She could taste emotions, smell pain, hear uncertainty – and see the raw currents of magic, as they flowed across the world, vast and inscrutable. The acts of powerful wizards, the work of a skilled enchanter – these were mere eddies, the current adapting to some small obstacle in its path. Dragons, though… like Kirin, were inherently magical creatures, reshaping that flow by their mere existence. Thus, she could sense them – the cave behind the visible pair of sunbathers was a large complex, far more than a simple family den, and there were more than a dozen dragons in there. Most of them quite young, judging by the way they were affecting the magical currents. Reds, like this pair, with perhaps a few orange or even yellow-scaled individuals mixed in. And… a single, more significant, node. A fully-mature dragon, with green or blue scales.

The word that popped into her head as she touched down on the plateau was 'dragon-commune', which was a rather preposterous notion considering that, outside of mate-seeking and family-groups, dragons generally avoided each other, seeing fellow dragons as unwanted competition. The only real exception was the Circle, the dragons' governing body – but that was made up of elders, mature enough to recognize the necessity of cooperation and importance of maintaining some sense of unity among their kind. Even then, they met only rarely! And yet, here she was, standing before what appeared to be a large group of young, impetuous dragons, living harmoniously together. Truly, three hundred years of being part of a larger Empire had left a mark – particularly, it seemed, on dragons young enough to have never known otherwise.

Korlin's hooves had made no more sound as they hit the stony plateau than they had while she'd been bounding through the skies, and the two dragons were seemingly too absorbed in their conversation – which, perhaps predictably for two young males of any given species, was about sex – to notice her presence. "Nah, I'm telling you, griffon pussy is somethin' else!" One of them was insisting. "And the soft fur and feathers feel really nice against your chest while you're at it. And those cute little cries she makes when she's cumming, man!" His conversation-partner seemed more bemused than impressed, though. "I gotta give you props for having the energy to fly over there so often, I suppose…" he dryly remarked. "But you do realize she's just using you to piss off her daddy, right?"

The debate only ended when she calmly walked between them, heading towards the cave-opening behind them and making them both lapse into stunned silence on the way. They probably weren't technically sitting there to guard the entrance or act as sentinels – they seemed entirely too relaxed for that – but she still had little doubt that they would've stopped most unexpected visitors from entering. Her, though, they made no attempt to bar – their eyes simply resting on her glittering, golden scales, the branched horn on her forehead, and the pastel-blue tail and mane that streamed out behind her in the mountaintop breeze.

It was funny, really, she reflected as she headed into the cave-system behind them. Dragons had always respected the Kirin – that was simply an accepted truth. Throughout history, there had been not one case of hostility between the two races, despite the fact that an experienced dragon – particularly one who had trespassed in the Divine Domain, and earned a coating of jet-black scales for their troubles – would be about the only creature able to take on a Kirin in a straight-up, one-on-one fight… though of course, those inclined to pick fights with Kirin rarely did bother with anything resembling a fair fight, as Korlin knew all too well from firsthand experience.

Regardless, nobody had ever really questioned why dragons so readily deferred to the Kirin, viewing them with instinctive respect and regard. That, Korlin supposed, was the arrogance of her people – to them, it largely seemed the natural response, a sign of enlightenment, that the dragons would not bar the path of benevolent beings such as them. But, there was a reason, and it was Sayn who had discovered it while meddling in the affairs of the Divine Beasts, abandoned pets of the ancient gods. Revealing, thus, a long-forgotten truth – that the enigmatic and unnamed God of Mystery who had created dragonkind, had carried out a secret, yet passionate relationship with Shigami, Goddess of Life and creator of the Kirin. With that revelation, it had become clear – the God of Mystery had implanted this automatic deference and respect in his creations, to ensure that none of his children would ever raise a claw against his darling's beloved Kirin.

Inside the cavern, Korlin started to develop a better sense for the size and layout of the overall complex, feeling for the motion of the air and the residual magic that had been embedded in the stone when the dragons shaped it into its current form. It was quite extensive, with some large communal spaces, but also smaller, individual rooms – enough for everybody, in fact. The dragons were changing, but only so much – they were clearly still private creatures who needed their own space. Even so, the fact that so many of them were living harmoniously together, in such close proximity, was something most – including many learned individuals among her own people – would have considered impossible just a couple of centuries ago.

As she moved towards her target – easily sensed, even through the thick stone walls that surrounded her, standing out from the rest of the masses of draconic energy like a beacon – she made note of the other dragons she passed, and the shared spaces she moved through. Something like a fighting-pit or sparring-arena, where the young males could work up a sweat testing each other's strength. Well-maintained toilet-facilities. A large dining-area with a shared kitchen – not as complex as what one would expect to find among humans or elves, but enough to drive home the fact that while they could live off raw meat, and indeed devour their prey whole, dragons did generally prefer to dine in a somewhat more civilized fashion. All very pleasant – though, the really notable bit was that every dragon she saw was male. She'd suspected as much, really, but it was still somewhat… worrisome.

Finally, she arrived at her goal, with a not-insignificant number of obviously-nervous – yet carefully unobstructive – dragons close behind her. Another shared space, quite clearly, but this one was a bit… different. Metal restraints had been attached to the stone walls in several places. From a number of racks dangled a selection of simple implements of punishment and torture, suited for a dragon's clawed grip. In the center, a roughly-made structure resembling a doghouse could be seen, containing a badly-stained 'bed' made from scraps of fabric and hides, and nothing else. It was, undeniably, a communal sex-dungeon, and while the tools and amenities were somewhat simple, even the elves would've had to admit that the concept was rather novel.

And there he – or rather, it seemed, she – was: A fully-matured, green-scaled dragon, older and stronger by far than the motley selection of red-to-orange youths that inhabited this commune. A thick, rusty chain connected the side of the dog-house to her collar, and a small name-tag dangled from it as well, with the word 'BITCH' crudely scratched onto it. But, of course, Korlin had once known her as 'Ruby', Rubicundus' preferred moniker when acting in a more feminine role. Three males were currently making the most of the submissive dragon's presence – two red, and one with the orangey-yellow scales of a somewhat older and more mature specimen. Focused on their own business, they hadn't noticed her approach...

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It seems like Rubicundus both has, and has not, changed in the past few centuries. But perhaps that is itself about to change, quite radically, now that a dear old friend has returned to their side. If you want to find out, read the full story on my Discord, link is in my Profile!