Lykea looked at Luna. Then, she snapped her gaze back to Ren.

And right there, in the span of two seconds, her motherly instincts connected the dots. She read the subtle, undeniable biological cues. She registered the exact way her daughter was standing in relation to this boy, the deeply intertwined scent of their mana signatures, and the undeniable, invisible tether binding them together.

She didn’t need anyone to draw her a map; the entire picture violently clicked into place.

And again, because Lykea possessed the exact same intense, chaotic mental energy as her daughter, but absolutely none of the icy filters, she immediately shouted her deductions at the top of her lungs.

"WAIT A MINUTE! WHO IS THIS MANA DENSITY IMPOSSIBLE YOUNG MAN?!"

Lykea yelled, pointing a trembling finger over Sirius’s shoulder directly at Ren’s face.

"WHY IS HE IN OUR PRIVATE FAMILY BUBBLE?! He has your mana all over him, LUNA! OH MY GOD! ARE YOU TWO TOGETHER?! OH, LOOK AT HIS FACE HE’S SO CUTE! BUT HE LOOKS TERRIFIED! DID YOU THREATEN HIM INTO DATING YOU, HONEY?! No... Well, EXCELLENT CHOICE!"

Ren’s face instantly flushed a violent, burning crimson. He watched in absolute horror as a crooked, wickedly delighted smirk spread across Lykea’s tear-stained face.

Without missing a beat, Lykea extended her arm out from the family huddle. It was a crystal-clear, undeniable invitation for Ren to join the massive group hug.

Ren stared at her outstretched hand, then slowly shifted his eyes to Sirius.

The terrifying Commander Starweaver was currently sobbing his eyes out, clutching his wife and daughter as if the world were ending. Ren instantly went pale as a ghost. He imagined himself walking over and wrapping his arms around his terrifying father-in-law...

He imagined what the famously lethal man would do the second he realized Ren was crashing his sacred family reunion.

’No... Absolutely not. I will choose death first,’ Ren thought, actively trying to meld his body into the wall.

That was when Luna noticed.

With thick tears still clinging to her eyelashes, she looked over her shoulder and saw him plastered against the edge of the barrier wearing the exact expression of a man who would vastly prefer to fight a Platinum mutant bare-handed than step into the middle of her mother’s outstretched arm.

Luna smiled.

It was a breathtakingly beautiful, tear-soaked smile, laced with a sudden, wicked streak of pure happiness and mischief.

She didn’t give him a single second to negotiate. She didn’t offer a verbal invitation. Luna simply flicked her wrist, weaponizing her shadow and his. A tendril of liquid darkness snapped around Ren’s ankles and violently yanked him forward across the stone floor, dragging him directly into the center of the crushing embrace.

♢♢♢♢

What transpired inside the chaotic center of that hug would forever remain an absolute, fiercely guarded secret among the four of them.

No one outside that barrier would ever hear the wildly inappropriate, rapid-fire questions Lykea shamelessly lobbed at Luna through her tears. They would never know the sheer, unfiltered bluntness of a woman who literally said every single chaotic thought the exact millisecond it crossed her mind.

And they would certainly never know about Sirius.

They would never know about the totally unexpected, crushing embrace the towering commander subjected Ren to. They would never hear the raw, broken, agonizingly vulnerable voice of a legendary warlord completely stripped of his armor, desperately thanking the boy who had handed him his life and his wife back. In that isolated bubble, entirely devoid of political facades, stoic masks, or military dignity, Sirius let everything out.

That specific memory would stay locked in the vault between them.

Especially the part regarding Sirius’s ’gratitude’.

Because Ren would sooner cut out his own tongue than ever divulge to the world how fiercely the famously stoic Sirius Starweaver had squeezed him and would absolutely never reveal that the terrifying commander had actually dropped to his knees, coming a literal hairsbreadth away from frantically kissing Ren’s boots in a state of pure, unadulterated, weeping gratitude.

It was a staggering, absolute emotional breakdown that not a single nobleman in the entire kingdom would have believed possible.

And they certainly wouldn’t have believed that Luna had to physically save Ren from having his feet kissed by delivering a flawlessly executed, desperate karate chop to the back of her father’s head to stop him.

The four of them lingered there for a long time.

Lykea learned almost everything directly from Sirius’s mouth when he was relaxed enough.

Luna stepped in to fill the gaps, providing the intricate details her father simply didn’t know, or smoothing over the narrative when Sirius, still emotionally shattered and profoundly unaccustomed to speaking so many words consecutively, choked on a sentence.

Together, father and daughter frantically painted the chaotic landscape of the years she had missed. And the entire time they explained, safely wrapped in the massive group hug Ren was utterly failing to escape from, Lykea continued doing what she did best: she relentlessly, loudly vocalized absolutely every single thought that crossed her mind the exact millisecond she thought it.

And as the political and historical reality set in, her thoughts grew increasingly, deafeningly incredulous.

"SO HE WAS A COMMONER?!" Lykea shrieked, squeezing Ren so tightly his ribs creaked. "HE STARTED WITH ABSOLUTELY NOTHING? WITH THE LITERAL WEAKEST BEAST ON RECORD?! AND HE ENDED UP MARRYING..."

She paused, taking a massive gulp of air as her brain violently processed the geopolitical math.

"...MY LUNA?! NO, WAIT! you are telling me THEY TIED HIM TO ALL THE HIGH HOUSES?! HE CONQUERED THE GIRLS FROM THE HIGHEST, MOST POWERFUL FAMILIES IN THE ENTIRE KINGDOM AND THEIR FAMILIES WANT HIM?! THE ACTUAL DRAVENHOLM PRINCESS TOO?!"

Her voice pitched higher and louder with every explosive revelation.

"HOW IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE?! HOW MANY IMPOSSIBLE FEATS DID HE ACCOMPLISH?! WHO IS THIS BOY?! AND WHY IS HE HUGGING ME?! No, wait, I invited him to hug me, that’s fine because he is my son-in-law, BUT SERIOUSLY, WHO IS HE, DRAGON GOD’S SON?!"

Ren’s face burned. With every single shouted sentence, his cheeks flushed a deeper, more agonizing shade of crimson until he practically glowed in the dark.