Grocery stores were heaven.

They were heaven on earth, Cecilia concluded as she drifted through the brightly lit aisles. Her cart rolled smoothly over the polished floors, and her eyes wide with wonder.

The sheer abundance. The variety, the endless, colorful, meticulously organized shelves stretching toward the ceiling like a cathedral of consumer goods. Fruits from every continent, spices she had never seen.

Aisles dedicated entirely to breakfast cereals, an entire wall of dairy products, a section for "international foods" that made her want to weep with joy.

But the moment she looked at the prices—

Cecilia had done the math. She had sat down with her phone and a calculator app. She had converted the currency of this world into the gold and silver she understood. The results had made her want to lie down in a dark room.

What do you mean that 4.25 grams of one gold coin would not even cover a week of spending here?! What kind of economic madness was this? Not even the most expensive markets in the Imperial District dared to charge this much for eggs

But then she watched Oathran toss another jar of imported olives into the cart without glancing at the price. She watched the other shoppers around them, ordinary people in ordinary clothes, filling their own carts with the same casual abundance.

And the more she watched, the more she admired the spirit of this world’s people.

They didn’t flinch. They didn’t clutch their chests and stagger backward. They simply... shopped. As though this was normal. As though the miracle of a grocery store was something they took for granted, even with the price.

"Pick something out. Don’t just look at my face." Oathran said dryly, but his pale eyes were warm as he studied the ingredient list on a jar of pasta sauce, his brow furrowed. He put it away the moment he determined he could probably make it better himself.

"What if I just want to look at your face?" Cecilia blinked up at him.

Oathran smiled, but quickly suppressed it. He forced the smile down, but it kept twitching at the corners of his mouth, threatening to break free.

Two weeks had passed since the hospital incident. The egg inside her had grown to the size of a chicken’s egg, Lazuardi said. A tiny, calcium sphere that she could not yet feel but whose presence she was acutely, constantly aware of.

Two months pregnant. In two more months, she would deliver the egg. And then she would wait for an unknown amount of time, in an unknown set of conditions, for the life inside that indestructible shell to decide it was ready to emerge.

A dragon’s egg was not like any other egg. It had no fixed incubation period.

Lazuardi had explained it.

"It could be environmental," he had said, tapping his pen against his clipboard. "A mana-dense environment could help the egg hatch sooner."

Cecilia had nodded. That made sense.

Magic helped things. Magic was good.

"But—" Lazuardi had continued, and Cecilia had felt the "but" coming like a storm on the horizon, "the stronger the parents, the less a mana-dense environment actually helps. At that point, the egg just becomes greedy. It absorbs everything and demands more. It’s less of an incubation and more of a... hostage situation."

Lazuardi fixed his eyes on Oathran, knowing this one dragon was perhaps the strongest out there.

A dragon’s egg could stay unhatched for hundreds of years. The shell was impenetrable from the outside and usually, the baby inside was patient.

Legends said that one dragon egg that had lain dormant for some hundreds years had suddenly begun to hatch when someone had started talking to it. Just talking. After hundreds of years of silence, a voice had been enough.

Which meant an egg could be not just greedy, but picky. It wanted conversation? Entertainment? It wanted someone to read it bedtime stories and tell it about their day before it deigned to crack open its shell and join the world?

Old dragons also said the eggs could sense danger. They might not want to come out if they felt threatened. After all, it was indestructible from the outside.

Which meant Cecilia had to not only provide mana and conversation and the perfect environmental conditions, she also had to be chill.

She had to project an aura of total safety and relaxation while carrying a tiny, imperious egg that might decide, at any moment, that the vibes were off and it was going back to sleep for another fifty years.

No pressure.

The egg inside her was a tiny, unborn tyrant. A minuscule emperor who had already decided that the world would cater to its whims.

It would hatch when it felt like hatching, emerge when conditions met its exacting, unknowable standards. And in the meantime, it would sit there, encased in its indestructible shell, being greedy.

"Pickle!" Cecilia’s hand shot out, pointing toward a shelf of jars.

Oathran chuckled and retrieved the jar for her. "You lean a lot toward strong flavors these days. Do you want to try truffles? Or caviar seaweed?"

"Mm." Cecilia nodded, her eyes still fixed on the pickle jar. "I will love whatever you cook."

Oathran’s smile broke free of its restraints. He leaned down and pressed a quick, warm kiss to her lips.

It took Cecilia a full second to register what had happened.

"What are you doing in public...?" She glared up at him, her cheeks flushing pink.

Oathran scoffed. "So prim."

Ah. This world was just so similar to Cassia. Public displays of affection were common here. Couples holding hands, kissing in grocery store aisles, touching each other intimately everywhere...

Cecilia was still not entirely used to i—

"Excuse me. Uh, is that you, Mrs. Vasiliev...?"

Cecilia stopped in her tracks.

Someone had recognized her?

She turned, bracing herself for the worst. Elara’s spy network, perhaps, or one of Arzhen’s corporate cronies?

Instead, she found a woman with a cute little toddler sitting in the child seat of her shopping cart, the baby’s chubby legs dangling through the holes, their tiny hands clutching a box of crackers they had clearly claimed as their own.

The toddler was perhaps one or two years old. Round-cheeked, bright-eyed, and currently attempting to eat the corner of the cracker box.

The woman smiled at Cecilia like she knew her. Or at least, knew of her. Then her gaze shifted to Oathran, and her smile widened into something mischievous.

"Grandpa Oathran." She grinned. "Am I allowed to see you here... kissing a married woman?"

Oathran froze. But beside him, Cecilia was the complete opposite. Her lips curved into a warm smile.

"You need to stop calling me that," Cecilia said. "Just call me Cecilia, Baylee."