[Xander – 13 years]

There really are a lot of people here, and that was even before Grandma Aurora showed up with the triplets. If there are already this many people here, then we really might hit one thousand or more guests for the barbecue. Maybe it's a good thing I listened to my gut for the number of party bags we needed. And maybe I should've realized that was a sign that I was really wrong.

Though I don't understand why there are so many people here for the barbecue. That still doesn't make any sense.

As the dragons come into view, it looks like all four of them glide for a few moments. One of the smaller ones doesn't stop gliding for a landing and crashes. He's leaning too far downward with his head, and his ass goes up over it as if he tried stopping but only stopped his front.

Like if someone messed up and braked the front wheels on their bike rather than their back.

I really hope that wasn't Niels. The three smaller dragons are slightly larger than Jake in his real form, while Grandma Aurora is about seventy feet from shoulders to ass, just like Dragon River is. That's about as large as most dragons get at full size. Some might get larger, but few do. It also takes them several centuries to hit that size.

Dragons grow for quite awhile even after reaching adulthood. Rather than maybe a few years to stop growing size-wise like humans, it's a few centuries.

"Hello, Grandma Aurora," I say once the four of them have landed (well, three have landed and one has picked himself up off of the ground). "You're the only one with a spatial thingy. Are you carrying the meat?"

"I am," she answers. "As well as some sauces and other things."

"Okay!" I say. "The barbecuing stations are set up there… though Niels said he was going to lead the barbecuing so people knew how to cook sun-type meats. And Axel and Leif were going to help. They can do that in dragon form?"

"No!" Grandma Aurora laughs. "They'll be shifting back, they just wanted to fly here. Boys, go ahead and do so. I'll send your clothes to you."

The triplets move behind Grandma Aurora's body to transform, and clothes fly up out of her pouch and behind her. After just a few minutes, the triplets come out from behind my grandmother.

"Hi, Niels," I wave to him.

They're not identical triplets, so I can recognize him easily enough from the pictures I've seen.

"That wasn't you who had a crash-landing, was it?" I ask.

His mind doesn't feel like the one which crashed, but I still want to make sure just in case I mixed up their minds by accident and didn't realize it.

"Nope!" He answers as Axel's face turns red, embarrassment filling his mind.

Niels feels really amused.

"Okay!" I say. "So I guess it was Axel. That's okay, Axel! I sometimes crash-land when practicing flying, too. It feels really bad and I guess it's even worse for you right now 'cause you did it in front of a lot of people, but I like eating cheesecake to comfort myself after. Do you want a cheesecake?"

"No," he snorts. "Thanks, though."

"Okay," I look at Grandma Aurora. "Meat time?"

"Meat time," she says. "We brought sun beef, sun chicken, and sun pork, in various cuts. We also brought many ingredients with complimentary magics for marinades, rubs, sauces, and more. There are also cheeses made with sun milk, and eggs from sun chickens."

"We have some things which cook up faster," Niels tells me. "And some which take longer. I saw some larger roasters. I assume that's for things like the pigs?"

"Right," I nod. "Since you need a big roaster for those if you ain't doing a pit cooking."

"Axel can get those started," Niels says. "And I'll start grilling some of the thing which cook faster. They're pretty basic so others can take over. It's the seasonings which I'll be explaining to you."

"Okay."

Niels, Axel, and Leif pull things out of Grandma Aurora's pouch, and I go to a grill with Niels. He and Leif start grilling up burgers, bratwursts, and hot dogs. The bratwursts and hot dogs are already made (the hot dogs being all-beef franks), while the patties aren't. Big bowls of ground beef are set out, then seasoned and mixed by hand.

Niels explains each seasoning added to the meat to both myself and some of the others here to assist. Mr. Cox will be the lead griller once Niels finishes showing and explaining for them.

"Xander?" Sig whispers as Niels lets me sample each of the cheeses they brought for turning regular burgers into cheeseburgers.

He walked over a couple of minutes ago and has been quietly watching with me. I even snuck my left hand into his right and he didn't comment on it and is just letting me hold his hand, which makes me happy.

"Yes, Sig?" I whisper back.

"You managed to get the military and local authorities involved and aware of this," he whispers. "But somehow managed to keep it a secret from everyone else?"

"Not everyone else," I respond. "Dad and Mom and a bunch of others knew. And apparently, the nonhuman peoples talked about it. That's why Uncle Aurum is here with Solaris in their human forms again. And Grandpa Blaze is over there, telling some kids a story. And Dragon River's right over there, letting some kids play on him. And some of the noble shrubfolk from Berry's village are coming over to visit, they just have to wait for Grandpa Adrian to teleport them with Grandma Lily. And I know some other dragons were planning on coming to visit. The snow dragon who turned Puffy into a fake dragon temporarily at the one party is planning on showing up, too."

Sig started feeling nervous as I talked and I'm not entirely sure why. It might be because of all of the magical creatures showing up, though. I don't think he's used to them yet.

"Don't worry," I tell him. "They ain't humans, so there ain't anything to be worried about. They won't like, chomp you just 'cause you didn't like their scale polish or something."

"Scale… polish?" He seems really confused.

"We shine our scales so they look good," Niels tells him as he starts pulling burgers off of the grill. "Most of us don't apply anything, though. A clean, soft cloth is usually enough to get a nice shine. By the way, Sig, Axel said you wanted to feel sun dragon scales. If you'd rather feel his rather than Grandma Aurora's, you'll be able to later. We're heading to Xander's and staying the night there."

Niels has learned a little bit of Zrebzialan since we started hanging out on the server, so he can at least talk with the locals a little bit. If there's anything he doesn't understand, one of us who can speak both languages fluently can help him. The same goes for his brothers as well.

Dragons really learn languages quickly, though, so he has a good grasp of the basics.

"In the rec center," I nod. "The boys from the Autumn Realm won't be even though they'll probably be here most of the afternoon. Did you see them yet? There's a lot of people here so you might not have."

I teleported the guys from the Autumn Realm over a little before the barbecue started, and I'll be teleporting them back to Carter's once it ends. They wanted to visit, but have ranch and farm work to get done over the weekend, and their regular chores. Spending two days here already this week, plus a significant amount of Friday and Saturday, meant they weren't able to do as much at home as they normally do.

"Yeah," Sig nods. "I was gonna play with Tate and them, but I wanted to hang out with you for a bit first."

"How do you like it topped?" Niels asks me. "Onions? Tomatoes? Lettuce? I know you've mentioned not liking most condiments but do like ketchup."

"Um… onions, lettuce, pickles, and that barbecue sauce, it smells really good. Please?"

"Sure!" He says. "You can have more than one, too, if you'd like! This whole barbecue is so you can try sun beef and in various ways, after all."

"Yeah," Sig frowns, confusion filling his mind. "Wasn't it just going to be like, at your house or something? Why do a big, public barbecue?"

"If they were gonna fly here all the way from Sweden," I tell him. "It'd be ridiculous to ask that just to drop off some meat for me and teach me how to cook it."

"I did tell you it wasn't an issue," Niels tells me. "But! We don't mind it. It ain't every day we can do something like this. Here's your burger!"

Niels holds out the plate with the assembled burger, so I release Sig's hand and take the plate, then take a bite out of the burger. Whoa. This is really good. Should I eat the rest of it first, or say that it's good?

My cousin starts laughing.

"That expression you're making," he says. "If you were a wolfkin right now, your tail would be wagging. You like it, don't you?"

"Yeah!" I answer after swallowing my last bite. "Sun dragon beef tastes really good! And the sauce is amazing, too. And the pickles and the onion and the lettuce and the bun! Can I please have more?"

"Of course!" Niels laughs again. "If anyone can get more here, it's you! And we do have stuff for fries, and don't forget about all of the sides and desserts people brought."

"And appetizers," I nod. "I saw mozzarella sticks and onion rings and nachos and stuff! And then some of the wealthy people brought fancier appetizers, a bunch of one-bite ones. Though I think Luke's family brought some trays of jelly cups. But not ones you buy at a store, homemade ones with layers. The gelatin jellies, not the ones like it's just a grape spread for bread or bagels or something. It's fancy stuff. They have lightning magic in them. I'm gonna try some later so I can see how they differ from Luke's mana."

"Luke's mana?" Niels asks. "The lightning kid with the odd mana I can't really see properly?"

He can't see it properly? I guess the lightning being an actual part of it makes Luke's mana a little bit different from the types which dragons can see. Similar enough they can still sense it a little, but different enough they can't do so clearly.

"Yeah."

"You can eat mana?" Niels asks.

"I inherited that from Grandma Lily," I tell him. "But don't worry. As curious as I am about what a sun dragon's mana tastes like, I ain't gonna ask if I can eat some."

That would be rude. There are also much better things to eat here than that. Someone brought cheesecake!

[Luke – 13 years]

Why did Xander do three roaster ovens of mac and cheese? It does seem like not many people brought it so there's plenty to go around with that, but they aren't even different recipes. He made them all the same.

The mysteries of his brain are not for me to question… but there are times I really want to. Like why he decided to do a Barbecue with a Dragon event.

"Excuse me?" A voice draws me out of my thoughts. "Are you listening, Lucas?"

I look at the man who was speaking with me. Plenty of people from the upper classes and higher society showed up just to try and meet Xander. It was pretty heavily suspected that he would be here in a public event.

Approaching him during such an event is much easier than reaching out to him privately as he's liable to ignore them otherwise. If the message even reaches him in the first place rather than being filtered by Trey or by Adrian King. No one has been stupid enough to try and approach him while he's out and about and doing his business, which is also good.

Either he'd have a meltdown or he'd just get pissed at them. Neither option would result in anything positive. So sure enough, more than a hundred people from high society showed up, most of whom are at the heads of their companies or families. Few would be willing to send anyone less to try and connect with Xander King.

Not when he essentially holds the future of the world's magical advancements in his hands and can easily bankrupt a company if he so desires.

Unfortunately for them, Xander doesn't care about stuff like that and all of his tech stuff is out of his own interests in some form.

The man here is from a scientech company and is probably hoping for a connection to the world's second-most influential teen. My parents probably already gracefully rejected him, but I'm not as great at that as they are. They have decades of experience over me in that regard.

And I really wish I could go and play with some of the other kids right now. S.G. and his friends are wrestling around with the Autumn Realm crew, and Tyler, Seph, and Parker joined in on that. It looks like so much fun, but appearances means I can't just rolls around in the grass with others.

Not at a public event.

As a result, I've been stuck with random people approaching me and talking to me, wanting to know this or that or my thoughts on this or that. Suck-ups wanting a connection, and all that. They believe that a child would be easier to get in with than an adult.

Unfortunately for them, this isn't my first event with high society. Those who've met with me at them before know not to bother trying to connect with me unless there's some sort of relevancy. They're much more likely to have a productive conversation if they just try and talk and not involve business at all.

"Much better than you," I say. "I've told you twice already that I go by 'Luke' now and have since the start of summer. You're insistent on referring to me as 'Lucas'. And as for listening to you, you were asking whether or not I feel the acquisition of a medical equipment company is a good idea for your company. To be honest, asking someone who's not even fourteen yet and who deals with energy-related magitech and magitech robots and robot-adjacent things what they know about medical scientech companies is a bit odd. But that's just me."

"As someone in your field," he says. "Whose tech helps power such companies, should you not know-"

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

"I'm going to stop you there," I tell him. "My family primarily deals with mage companies. Scientech companies are not that. And there's a limit to 'knowing the field'. I've written several papers on energy-related magics and magitech despite being only thirteen. I work on magitech generators the complexities of which would make an ordinary person's head spin. I can tell you which energy company is going to fail in the next five years if it's continues down the path it's going down. Medical tech is not related to my field of expertise. It would be like if a pool installation company head came over to you and asked if you thought it would be a good strategy for them to expand into the spa business. What do you know about the market of pools and spas to know if it would be a good idea or not?"

"Well," he says. "I could assume based on how the two are related that-"

"Exactly," I say. "You're assuming based solely on the fact that they're similar fields. What if the spa market for their area is already saturated? What if the reason they want to expand is because they're actually doing poorly and are hoping to draw in more customers? There's quite a lot of information you'd need to deal with before you could actually give accurate advice. And that's what you're doing here. Just because my family's company provides energy to medical companies, that doesn't mean I can give advice on whether or not an acquisition is a good idea. Why don't you ask someone who would actually have knowledge of this sort of thing?"

"So many people are bothering other people," a voice comments in a way which sounds more observational than deliberate. "It ain't a good look for them. They should really stop that, it's annoying. And it's crowding people who are trying to decide on stuff, like which food they should try, and it's going to cause problems if they end up blocking the food because they're bothering people who ain't blocking it but are close by. He should really go talk to people who want to talk with him instead of people who want to decide which mac and cheese to get. All three roaster ovens are the same recipe, so maybe he's trying to decide between them and one of the others? Or are they out?"

"You're thinking out loud," I say as the man's face turns red.

"I was?" Xander asks as I turn to face him. "Oh. For how long?"

"Since I finished talking," I tell him.

"Oh," he says. "Well, it's true. You're feeling really annoyed, so I'm betting it would be obvious to most people by your face and tone," he looks in the roaster ovens. "Hm. We really are going through the mac and cheese. Even the things my friends bought are getting low. How come mine is even more gone than theirs, though? I made way more of it than what they brought."

Xander steps up to the table and uses telekinesis to move mac and cheese from the middle and right roaster oven into the left one, and it doesn't even fill it half of the way. He then starts dumping ingredients into the first two and the way they move to mix isn't the only clear magic he's using. The mac and cheese is cooking rather fast.

"There we go," he says once he's finishes. "Now we've got more."

Then he wanders off, because he probably only came over here to check on the mac and cheese. I get the feeling that he doesn't realize that he's the reason that the mac and cheese is going by so fast. He's Xander King, the hottest topic in the world right now. Master mage at only thirteen. Magitech expert at only thirteen. Baker of delicious-looking mega treats. Slayer of civilization-ending beasts at only thirteen.

Slayer of Akrolnomak at twelve.

Of course people are going to want to see what food he cooks tastes like. The mac and cheese does taste pretty good, too. Seph wants to try it with some of the pulled pork and barbecued beef once they're done. Right now, he's busy chatting with Bridget and Cyrus, and I think Cyrus has realized he doesn't have a chance.

Not that it's making him dislike Seph or anything. They're definitely going to stay as friends.

Don't worry, Cyrus. You'll find someone one day. We're still kids, so you've got decades.

Now I want to find Tyler, though I know he's probably playing with other kids outside of the pavilion. Where it's very cold. I should've worn some insulating under layers, though they wouldn't have protected my face.

"If you'll excuse me," I tell the man from a medical company. "I have other people to talk with, ones who won't ask thirteen-year-olds dumb questions."

That's probably not the best way to handle it, but it really wears on one after awhile. Xander already called him out on it as well. Admittedly, that was entirely because he thought he was just thinking it, but the point stands.

If Xander called him out on it, then I'm more than welcome to.

[Greyson – 11 years]

"Really?" I ask, and the griffin chirps. "Awesome!"

I climb up onto her back, careful not to damage her feathers. This is the same arctic griffin I met when I broke into Santa's workshop to steal some ice cores over the summer. Since so many magic beasts are showing up at Xander's Barbecue with a Dragon, I decided to ask her if she wanted to go. With it being cold there now, the weather should be fine for her!

It's a shame there's no snow in the forecast, though. Snow would probably make her feel even more comfortable there than the cold alone will. I should ask Xander when the next snow forecast is. His gut is way better than any magitech meteorology system. If I'm lucky, he might even be able to make it snow for her!

"Let's fly!" I bounce a little, and the griffin spreads her wings and takes off.

Immediately, I can feel her magics wrapping around her to shield both of us against air resistance and all of that other stuff, granting us a smooths flight. Smooth, but swift. A dragon's flight magics probably allow for them to move even faster and more smoothly, but she can still make the trip down there in just four hours if she moves fast.

Even faster if I teleport us over, but this flight feels amazing. Enjoying it is a must.

"YEAAAAAAAAH!" I yell for some reason.

A few minutes into the flight, I text Xander.

[Greyson]: What is your prediction for the next time it is going to snow? My assessments based on the magic flows I was able to sense and the magitech meteorology devices' own predictions says we should receive snow on Tuesday.

[Greyson]: When did my name get changed to being just my name? I could have sworn I had it set to "Arctic Griffin Enjoyer".

[Xander]: It should snow in twenty-nine minutes, I think. And I modified the program so that it won't be changed in our messages anymore. You promised me you'd stop changing it all the time and you only kept to that for a month.

"Awwwwww."

I text Kale.

[Arctic Griffin Enjoyer]: Hi!

So it was only for Xander's messages. How did he modify the program like that? Was it something a mortal like me can do, too, or can only a god do that?

[Kale]: Did you already go to the barbecue? Cal's looking for you.

[Kale]: Also, the name change?

I send him a picture of the griffin and me and he responds with a head-smacking sticker. The next message I get is Cal telling me that I better not have done anything other than ask a griffin for a ride, and I promise him that I haven't broken any laws.

[Cal]: You mean like leaving the country without a passport, going through customs, or any of the other numerous things involved with crossing the border?

[Arctic Griffin Enjoyer]: Nobody can prove that I left the country.

[Cal]: Uh-huh.

[Cal]: We'll talk after the barbecue. BE ON YOUR BEST BEHAVIOR.

[Arctic Griffin Enjoyer]: Understood!

I return my phone to my pocket and enjoy the rest of the flight, though I do teleport us closer to Dragon Falls after about half an hour. It's a shame Xander won't give me the spell formula for growing wings. Flying on my own would probably feel amazing, and a lot more so than just manipulating the air to do so. Even just a proper flight spell would be nice.

Well, gravity magic works, but it's just not the same, and I'd burn through my mana using it to fly in probably ten minutes. There's a difference between using it to hold something down and using it to fly around. Xander hasn't input any information on improved gravity magic efficiency into the database, so I also still have a higher cost for it.

Unless he did input it and I either didn't notice or I forgot. Chances are good that our great-grandfather told him not to give me that information, though. There's fear that I will grow too powerful!

The griffin and I arrive at the park, where more than fifteen dragons are hanging out. Never has the world expected to see this many dragons in one spot for an event among humans. And there are a bunch of shrub people, too! There's a bigger one I'm assuming is Grandmother Lily, since Xander told me she was coming. Staying close to her are a bunch of smaller ones.

This is perfect! I've been wanting to meet the shrub people!

Xander keeps refusing to let me meet Berry and he even put up an anti-Greyson ward on his family's property.

Specifically an anti-Greyson ward. It doesn't just stop me from teleporting onto it, it prevents me from entering without permission. That's apparently a thing.

I tried finding the shrub people after finding out they exist because of Berry, but I can't. Wherever they normally live is well hidden and breaking into Grandfather Adrian's farming domes is impossible.

And I'm fairly certain he's used some of Xander's warding techniques on them recently to make it even more impossible.

As I land at the park, I detect a large mass of magic rapidly approaching. It's much too fast for me to do anything to but maybe I can throw up a defense-

A unicorn with a phoenix sitting on her head appears in one of the fields. With them are around twenty younger unicorns, seven winged horses, and around fifteen birds which look similar to phoenixes, but definitely aren't. Their feathers don't have a flame-like effect running through them and are a more static white and gold.

Is that Grandpa Blaze on the unicorn's head? Xander said that's what he prefers to be called by everyone. None of the pictures or clips from Xander's parties had the phoenix in them, so I haven't seen what he looks like yet.

Grandpa Blaze has eyes which are a bold, vibrant blue. As with how phoenixes were described to me, that one's feathers don't look like a flat white with blue tips but rather, it's as if they're made up of the flames.

Though I thought phoenixes had orange, yellow, and red feathers, not white and blue. Perhaps Grandpa Blaze is simply that powerful? Or he's some special breed of phoenix.

Even without him, there are so many powerful, rare magical creatures here. Just what sorts of things can their parts be used for?

"Ack!" I exclaim in surprise as my attempt at walking forward after dismounting the griffin is interrupted by someone grabbing my hood. "Who dares-oh… hi, Grandfather Adrian."

He's using his real appearance for this, rather than his elderly one. That seems to have become the norm now for some reason.

"Hello, Greyson," he releases my hood, allowing me to turn and face him properly. "You're going to be on your best behavior, understand?"

"Yes, sir."

"And you're not going to bother any of the magical creatures here," he tells me. "Understand?"

It's not bothering as long as I only ask once.

"Yes, sir."

"And you're not going to attempt to acquire parts or materials from any of them, understand?"

That comes with a full mental impression of everything I'm not allowed to do in an attempt to acquire them. Also a "no using any loopholes you find" rule. Receiving a full rules breakdown like this is new, disorienting, and frustrating.

It means he's really serious and wants to make sure I can't claim I didn't understand what he said clearly.

"Aw…"

"Understand?" His tone is more firm.

"Yes, sir…"

"Good," he says. "Now go have fun."

"Okay!" I turn and immediately start making my way over to the dragons.

"And Greyson?" He says, and I turn to face him.

Uh-oh. More rules?

"Yes?"

"Good job with the robot costume," he tells me. "If that was for a class project on making an enchanted costume, you'd have gotten an A."

Tell me something I didn't know. Enchanting and crafting is my specialty! Well, actually, magitech is my specialty, but enchanting and crafting sort of comes with that.

Unless…

"Is that if you were the teacher?" I ask.

"Yes," he smiles a little. "If I were the teacher, you'd have gotten an A."

Whoa. That's high praise if he would give me an A. His standards are pretty high.

"Cool!" I say, then look at the griffin. "Come on! Let's go join the others!"

[Sig – 13 years]

Axel's scales really do feel like what I'd expect sunlight to feel like, if it were a solid. They're warm and despite being solid, feel as if they shouldn't be. It's so strange yet simultaneously incredible. Dragon scales are really an interesting thing.

We're at Xander's now, as it isn't just his second-cousins from Sweden who are staying the night here. This was the regularly-scheduled sleepover he's hosting. We tried talking him out of it since he hosts us for parties, but he was firm that those are different from the sleepover hosting rotation.

So we're here tonight, and Axel's turned into a dragon in the backyard so I can feel his scales. I could have felt someone's scales at the park… but there were so many magic beasts there that the triplets decided not to return to dragon form there, and I'd rather feel Axel's scales than his great-aunt's.

He's a friend and she's a queen. It doesn't matter how much she let kids climb on her, I'd prefer touching Axel over her.

Grandma Aurora returned to Sweden already, while the triplets are returning tomorrow. We have another unexpected guest joining us for the sleepover in Niko, which was Xander's idea. He decided that since Niko and I are cousins and friends, it's okay to invite him over.

Which I have no complaints about, my cousin's a pretty cool guy. I already felt his scales, too. In his dragon form, Niko's scales are a rich, deep green and appear as if made out of emeralds. Those just feel like rocks, yet also as if filled with a hidden power.

The scales of a river or sun dragon are much more impressive, but my cousin's were still interesting.

"So?" Axel draws me out of my thoughts.

"They're… incredible," I breathe. "Dragon scales are such an interesting thing. They never feel like what I'd expect them to, not fully."

"They're one of the most magical reagents in the world," Axel tells me, then his body shifts and returns to human, and I drop my hand back to my side rather than continuing to feel the air. "Though to us, they just feel normal. It's just other species which have that sense of awe and amazement and stuff when touching a dragon's scales."

Of course dragons would think they feel normal – they're used to dragons' scales, after all.

"Well… we're not dragons," I chuckle as he grabs his clothes from the ground and starts dressing. "When did you guys know you were coming over here? Was it planned last weekend? Xander paid for the upgrades on Monday."

"Last Monday," he shakes his head, then grins at me. "Wanted to tell ya 'bout it, but we were keeping it a pretty big secret from humans. Some old coot went and told every society of nonhuman people, though."

"Grandpa Blaze?" I ask.

"I swear!" He laughs. "He's the king of the phoenixes, but knows all the gossip! And doesn't hesitate to spread it, too!"

That explains how so many different peoples from nonhuman villages were able to show up for the event. Some of them traveled from pretty far just to participate in the first-ever human-included multispecies event.

The journalists and news reporters who showed up actually seemed to struggle to figure out who to interview and in what order. Watching them try to interview a griffin was pretty amusing, since griffins lack the ability to communicate with humans in a way which lets microphones pick it up.

Axel finishes dressing and we head back into the rec center, where Jake and Niko are wrestling. The two of them are in just shorts, though it looks like that's because one's shirt pulled off and the other tore off during the wrestling session rather than them getting comfortable, then wrestling. Niko will definitely lose since he's human, but it's easy to tell that despite his concentration, he's enjoying the wrestling match.

Leif, Connor, Sam, and Isaac are making a small castle out of beads, craft sticks, pipe cleaners, pompoms, and hot glue over in the craft section. It actually looks rather impressive for how little time they've been working on it. Someone is definitely using magic to manage the hot glue amounts, too, as it's barely visible in their struture.

Niels is in the kitchen area, pulling things out of cabinets. There are apparently ingredients for cooking and baking kept in here. We've respected the rule Xander set of not getting into the cabinets not labeled for things like dishes and cups, but it seems he keeps them stocked with more than just dishes needed for baking things or additional cups and silverware and plates.

That's a pretty large bin of flour. So big, it has rolling wheels.

"Whatcha making?" Axel asks as we head over to the kitchen.

"Figured I'd bake a cake," Niels answers. "Doing a triple-layer one. Xander said I could use ingredients from in here, so I'm throwing something together with what he's got. A lemon cake with berry icing. Haven't decided on the shape yet, but he's got a pretty good variety of molds."

"Got some ideas for the shape," Axel grins at him. "A dragon's wing, for example. Or a pile of treasure!"

"Speaking of Xander," I look around, then spot him sleeping in the old sleep area, in front of the doors to the dorms.

Not directly in front of the doors, just in the area in front of it. Considering all of the blankets and pillows in that section right now, tonight's sleepover is taking place there rather than in the dorms.

Xander's fast asleep, snuggling Mr. Leviathan with his blanket over them, though he has one arm over the blanket rather than under. He normally sleeps with both arms under the blanket, so that's a bit unusual. Lets me know he's not in pajamas, so he's probably sleeping in just shorts.

Even with four people he's only just met in-person for the first time today here. Does them being half or more dragon have to do with that?

"Oh, he's crashed," Axel says.

"Yeah, that happens," I say. "He spent over seven hours interacting with people at the barbecue, and that doesn't include the setup or tear-down time. I was kind of surprised he didn't take a nap during it."

And he kept refilling his roaster ovens during it, too. I was right in thinking that his gut was telling him there wouldn't be enough mac and cheese. There really wasn't enough. I think we went through all of the slow cookers my friends and I brought, plus four full fills of Xander's roaster ovens.

Mr. Thompson said that most people must have assumed that since it was quick and easy, it would be a common dish brought for the potluck. Then, they decided to bring something else so that it doesn't get wasted or ignored.

As a result, almost no one brought it.

That doesn't always happen in a case like this, but it did for today.

"Since he's asleep," I say. "I'm gonna go join the crafts group!"

"Same," Axel says. "Oh! But I have some more suggestions for the cake's shape, especially since you're doing a triple-layer one."

"I'll figure it out," Niels gives his brother a light shove. "Go have fun with the others, they could use your suggestions for the castle."

"You know what the castle needs?" I ask Axel.

"What's that?"

"A pirate ship to defend against."

"Good idea!" He says. "Let's make that!"

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