Three male dragons, Alex, Ivi and Arilabrithion, hopelessly and completely in love for over a millennium, a happily married triple, show their ability to support children as part of their commitment to be peace bringers, and later become, at the urging of the goddess Hale and with her close support, the caregivers and guardians for three young blue dragon brothers, lost, lonely and alone. So begins the Caregivers saga, the story of those men, those fathers, and the lives and adventures of their sons, Kriezan, Maemektix and Tokus. This collection comprises twelve separate stories, some singular parts, others divided into chapters, telling the tale of the family thus created and the adventures the brothers have as they live out their lives with their fathers' support. It includes love stories, stories of bringing up children, stories of mistakes, stories featuring characters from my other tales, and others, all of which link to each other. A few sections of the story have minor elements of mature content and where this is the case and where I don't think editing will help, I will either publish the offending paragraphs in a separate document, or else will blank out a word or two and replace it with ______. I will highlight when I have done this but for the most part, the tales within this collection are not mature, in the sense that they do not actively describe sex or violence in any way gratuitously. They might on occasion mention sex or lovemaking, but not in an explicit way, and there will be the occasional swearing and bad language and indication of fighting. The collection begins with the story of the title, Caregivers, which has four chapters.

Sir Lylnetrath, one of the longest serving dragon paladins there had ever been, gargantuan gold dragon, friend and confidant to everyone he met, devoted father, and all around nice guy, was struggling with his vision. His eyes had frozen in their dragon shape due to his age, and he was having terrible trouble adapting to having dragon sight but in humanoid form. But his eyes switching didn't merely pose a physical problem, but rather were a precursor of something he'd dreaded for the last half a millennium, namely receiving a spirit of prophecy as the majority of gold dragons did at a certain age. This shorter story of seven chapters plus an epilogue starts in the year 2349, seventy eight years after the wedding of Arilabrithion, Alex and Ivi in the story, 'Hand to hand to hand'.

If you'd loved someone for two thousand years, and they proposed marriage, what would you say? This story, narrated in the first person by Arilabrithion, marks the culmination of a two thousand year old love affair as three unique, loveable, wonderful dragons finally make honest men of each other and marry. It takes place in the year 2271AG, forty five years after Tal died at the end of the story of the same name, Tal, two thousand years after Ivi and Arilabrithion first slept together as described in the short story, 'once a millennium', part of the Dragon Lives collection, and one thousand years after Ivi and Alex first propositioned Arilabrithion and invited him to join them. The hymn attributed to Hortensia can be vaguely sung to the Prince of Denmark's March by Jeremiah Clarke. Content warning: there's nothing risque at all in this tale but it does feature polyamory and a male-male-male relationship between three dragons.

A man of half dragon, half humanoid descent, burdened by a mysterious and unyielding illness, disabled and unable to transform or soar as once he did, unable to do anything that should be his due as someone with dragon heritage, has lived a long life, isolated, reclusive and in pain. When, after centuries of hoping, a cure for his enduring troubles is proposed, Aindrith initially feels an intense relief that his suffering may be over, only to realise that choosing to take the offered cure may leave him in a much worse position than his illness ever has. This short story follows vaguely on from the discovery of pattern activity in Kelly's trauma. It takes place around the year 2100, after Tal has become a Hilrean priest, and twenty five years after professor Raffy, professor Rintargodash's husband, died of old age. Professor Kelly has been university dean for one hundred and thirty years. The genetic biology professor in the story, Florence Betsydatter, is the same one who approximately half a century earlier first identified talan genetics in Tal and his young ward, Belinda, but at the time of this story, the name 'talan' has not yet been rediscovered.

In the searing heart of the Salt Plains Prison, an enigmatic elf walks the razor's edge between redemption and destruction. Tal, once infamous as the Twenty Staves Slaughterer, adrift and grieving following the death of his best friend and long-time mentor, lord Raine, now seeks solace and purpose as his release date and a life as a freed man both loom large on the horizon. But when old powers stir and past crimes refuse to stay buried, will faith be enough to save him and preserve the life of an innocent child besides, or will the darkness in his soul triumph once again? This is a shorter story, told in six chapters with an epilogue, concerning a character first met in Tale of Peace and Justice, in the story entitled Raine -https://www.wattpad.com/1598074626-43-tales-of-peace-and-justice-11-raine Note that the cover image does not belong to me.

A twinned pair of stories which together tell of love, the love of life and love of lovers and the love of the goddess of life herself. The first follows Prinksi, as she discovers her home life isn't nearly so nice as she'd always thought it was, and reaches out to the followers of Hagora, goddess of life, for aid. This story touches significantly on sex and people's attitudes to it in the world of the Four Realms, the fantasy world where many of my stories are based. The second concerns Raffy, whom we meet in Prinksi's tale, as he discovers love for himself and finds his true path in life. This story has an LGBT theme to it. The story is marked mature as it touches on themes relating both to child abuse and to consensual sex.

If you ran an ordinary business on an ordinary street, and discovered that your neighbours were a pair of married goddesses, how would you react? Cane, an ordinary baker from Hilreaport, utterly predictably, panicked, but he'd overlooked one very important detail, namely that he was a baker, and her holiness Hale's enjoyment of cake was legendary.

If you kill a deity who has the ability to time travel, is he really gone? This is a short story about a god of the arts, known as Horti, and their former, evil counterpart, Hul. It could have been much longer but as it involves time travel that'd just have made it even more confusing than it is already. To properly understand Horti and Hul and their backgrounds, I recommend reading The Seventh God and The Biggest Sacrifice. To understand more about the Lethan empire and Khicholler, read Khicholler, Philanderer, Father, Liar. The significance of all of the story entries might escape readers who haven't also familiarised themselves with some of my other characters and stories. The story does contain some swearing and references to death but isn't gratuitous, I don't think, and so I've not marked it as mature, however I'm happy to be corrected by my readers.

Kelly Honesson, dean of Heladias Port East's university, silver dragon, and beloved adoptive son of the god Honess, had never met his biological parents at all, and in fact wasn't even certain that his biological father knew he'd been conceived. He knew, thanks to the inherited memories that were his lot and due as a dragon, who his birth parents were of course, and when an eerily familiar face appears at his door, he has no idea how to react. A standalone short story, featuring Kelly Honesson and some of his family, taking place some years after the end of the 'afterwards' in my earlier story, Kelly's Trauma. Note that the cover image does not belong to me.

Imagine you're a dentist and are faced with a gargantuan dragon as a patient... a grumpy gargantuan dragon with toothache. Dedicated to Tomas and Ashley, a real-life dentist and dental nurse respectively. The story starts with a brief introduction of all the characters.