Dragonlord

Ep 91. What Is It That You Truly Desire? (5)

In the depths of a frozen cavern, all she could do to pass the time was reading the state of the star.

But even so, never once did it cross Aymeia’s mind that she should leave this cavern. The countless, endless sensations and emotions felt through the star’s breath – the very premise of reading the star, resonating with its very essence – was an activity that could keep the deity entertained for all eternity.

Alas, just recently, Aymeia had begun feeling alien sensations through this reading: instead of the star itself, she felt that she was resonating with a specific individual. She’d even called upon Felicir to resolve the issue, but whatever the Reaper was doing wasn’t fixing the problem she was facing.

And today was a particularly dreadful day. The emotions crashing into Aymeia’s body felt sharp and twisted to a repulsive level, crashing upon her in unending waves.

“Urpgh…blrgh…!”

The resentment and misery coursing through her body warped Aymeia’s insides into a twisted mess. Even though nothing was happening to her directly, the deity’s entire body screamed in pain: every vein seemed to burst in heated pressures, every bone shattering into frozen fragments. Every thought seemed to drown in a baseless despair.

And worst of it all was that she had no way of breaking free. As the deity of the star, she was bound to this resonance – this unending misery coursing about her.

“Stop…! Stop, just stop this…!”

The deity had long lost control over this, alien, but familiar, sensation.

All she could do was smash her fists into the cavern’s floors, begging for this torture to end.

✧ ✧ ✧

‘I can’t lose them again,’ is what she’d thought.

She’d told herself the same thing over and over again. It was the only way she could keep her mind at peace, lest she resign all reason to instinct.

She was the lord of dragons. Dead or not, she had a duty to protect her kin. It was her responsibility, a priority she could never turn away from.

But conversely, nothing else had ever been Serenis’ priority.

For the kin. For a greater cause. For the future far ahead. Her entire past was ridden with decisions she’d made for the sake of greater good.

She could no longer remember what it meant to be selfish; perhaps she never even knew how in the first place. She’d spent thousands of years in the same manner, going as far as hiding the few moments where she’d exercised even a hint of selfishness. She’d thought it was only right to repress herself as a ruler.

Then, perhaps it was no surprise that Serenis’ selfish desires – after having been sealed away for thousands of years – were far surpassing even their owner’s wildest imagination.

‘Something like this would never be understood.’ But there was no need to be understood.

‘Something like this could never be righteous.’ But there was no need to be righteous.

But, even so, even if nothing else would come to matter…at the very least…

“…”

Someone was calling out to her.

Serenis turned her head and focused her eyes. Even in a world drowning away in white, there still seemed to be something – someone – calling out to her in a distant voice.

Stop. You’ll regret it.

This isn’t what you want.

✧ ✧ ✧

The prismatic radiance surrounding Serenis also began to wane and tremble, lost in the turbulent emotions of their source. In the violent sea of starlight, Raizel had halted some distance away from the dragonlord, unable to approach any further without risking her life.

“Khh…lord! Get a hold of yourself!”

If she were to turn back, there was no telling what would happen to Serenis. But if she were to go forward, it was all too obvious that the steel dragon would be reduced to a traceless speck of dust.

And even so, Raizel had no intention of leaving Serenis in the first place. Then the only option she had available was relying on faith: faith that the dragonlord wouldn’t ever actually kill her.

Perhaps it was a misplaced trust. One could even call it blind faith. But…

‘You were willing to give your life away. And now this?’

In the depths of Vulka’s grave, the dragonlord had once given up on her life for the sake of just three of her kin. Even though Raizel had spent her life being abandoned and pointed at, Serenis alone had been willing to resign their life for her sake.

‘…There’s no way this is what you want to do. Humans aren’t worth trusting anyways.’

The deities that humans revered so, and the so-called ‘divinities’ that they wielded, probably weren’t all that trustworthy either. It wasn’t like Raizel ever thought things through anyways; she had lived as she pleased, and was planning to continue doing so.

Following suit, the steel dragon threw herself in the flood of light.

Her body instantly began to disintegrate, but she had no time to pay it any attention. She gathered the last bits of her scattering strength to pull back a fist above her shoulder. And as their distance closed, the dragonlord’s faint figure became clearer and clearer.

“Lord!!”

“…”

When their eyes finally met properly, Serenis grit her teeth, painfully clawing at her own heart.

The’ raging lights immediately faltered in response, dimming forthwith into thin, fading strands – as if to say they’d never harm the dragon before her. The searing pain over Raizel’s skin melted away as if they’d never been there.

‘Wait, I didn’t think you’d-‘

Despite the dragonlord’s immediate withdrawal, Raizel was already at the mercy of her own momentum.

And soon following through, the youngling’s fist buried itself into its target’s face.

The remaining lights shattered apart as Serenis’ body was thrown across the distance. After crashing into a massive tree up ahead, the dragonlord’s motionless body slid back onto the ground.

Raizel sunk to the ground, panting from both exhaustion and residual panic of the passed disaster.

“…Hah. Okay, whatever.”

When Raizel meekly lowered her gaze, she could see the ground Serenis had been standing on: a giant paved crater, letting out strands of glowing smoke. Nothing else was there at all – no wood, no stone, not even a single fragment of rubble. It was as if a spherical volume of space had been removed from existence.

If Serenis had been left alone, then that crater might’ve been as large as the village itself.

Or, according to the dragonlord’s spoken wish, it may have even been the entire star.

“…’I wish this world would cease to exist’…?”

Raizel quietly muttered Serenis’ wish herself.

She then let out a heartless laughter. It was ridiculous; a wish like that could never be real. In fact, the whole event that’d just transpired seemed far removed from reality.

And Rozerre, too, shared the steel dragon’s sentiment; the deity of emotions was even more confused than Raizel was. After all, his divinity had never caused a violent breakout like this. Everyone had simply become slaves to their desires, often devolving into the level of wild animals – no one cried themselves to oblivion in an attempt to destroy the world.

But Aldrid merely looked at her confused son with a dejected expression.

“Rozerre, undo your divinity’s influence.”

“Mother, I…”

“NOW. This is not a request.”

✧ ✧ ✧

When Serenis opened her eyes once again, a starry night sky filled her vision. A light, cold breeze brushed past, alerting the dragonlord that she’d woken up in reality this time.

‘…But why am I lying down?’

When she raised her upper body, the first thing Serenis noticed was a sudden, startling pain pulsing from the left of her chin. She immediately brought her hand towards the pain’s source, but there weren’t any noticeable wounds or fractures.

“Don’t worry, goldie fixed you up already. Said the pain will go away after a while.”

When Serenis turned towards the source of the voice, she could see Raizel sitting off to the side. The youngling seemed strangely agitated for some reason, sitting with her back turned to avoid Serenis’ gaze entirely.

The dragonlord blinked in confusion, continuing to rub her aching chin.

“Fix me up? What was-“

Soon enough, a passing memory flickered before her eyes – of the youngling’s fist that had filled her vision before blacking out. She remembered the audible crunching noise as they made contact, and…the nothing that followed.

“…Oh.”

After remembering why she’d been lying on the ground unconscious, Serenis, too, avoided Raizel’s gaze. After the initial reminiscence, a flood of memories were rushing back to her.

‘Goodness…what have I done?’

“…”

“…”

After another minute of awkward silence, Serenis quickly changed the subject at hand in an attempt to hide her embarrassment.

“…Has Aldrid gone somewhere? I don’t see her with us.”

“She went off with her kid, checking the villagers or whatever. Think she’s pretty angry over what he did to you.”

“…Ah. And…well…are you alright?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

“…”

“…”

When Serenis remained quiet after failing to change the subject, Raizel let out a brief sigh before breaking the silence herself.

“Lord.”

“…Yes, child?”

“Did you really mean it?”

“…Mean what, exactly?”

“That you want this world gone.”

Raizel turned her head, glancing at her lord from the corners of her eyes. And, unusually so, the youngling’s gaze was filled with genuine concern.

But Serenis merely let out a hollow laughter, raising her gaze skyward to avoid Raizel’s.

“…I’m not too sure.”

It was a divinity’s work. Serenis knew better than anyone that denial wouldn’t get her anywhere.

But even so, the reason why she’d refrained from affirming the steel dragon’s suspicion, was because Serenis wasn’t too certain of her desires herself.

“…At times, such thoughts did cross my mind. That the current star…is far too different from the star I remember.”

The children and elders that had called her their lord were all entities from a thousand years past. The dragonkin that referred to Serenis as such today were limited Raizel, Ilias, Aldrid, and perhaps Bruton at best.

None of them were here anymore. Her son and daughter that she so dearly missed, her lover who’d long passed away, the kin she so fondly remembered, even the other demonlords that would jokingly cause floods and earthquakes in their quibbling arguments.

Under such circumstances, what meaning did this star carry anymore?

“Although I am fully aware that I am wrong to do so, at times, I cannot help but resent those living the present...and what this world has become.”

Even though Serenis had wanted to beg for forgiveness, there was no one left to forgive her anymore. Despite the bonds she’d found anew in the present, they couldn’t compare to the thousands of years she’d lived in the era before.

And, at times, she’d felt betrayed – of how the present had stolen the past from her.

But Raizel merely snorted at her lord’s words. Soon, the youngling was audibly snickering.

“Well, what do you know. And I thought you had no feelings.”

The youngling briskly raised herself off the ground. She then approached Serenis in awkward steps before kneeling behind their back, wrapping a pair of hesitant arms around the dragonlord.

“Raizel?”

“…Do you hate me too? Because I’m not from your time?”

Serenis softly smiled at the youngling’s question. It would be beyond foolish to harbor resentment towards her own kin merely based on the fact they were associated with the present.

In fact, the only ones that could be held accountable for the current state of the world were the Twelve, and Serenis herself.

“…No. Of course not.”

After a relieved sigh, the steel dragon mustered the courage to speak a few more words.

“…When you’re done with what you’re doing, come live with me at the nest.”

“…?”

“I don’t know what it was like before, but this star’s not too bad, either. I’ll show you.”

“…”

Raizel could only handle so much of the awkward silence that ensued. When she couldn’t take it anymore, the youngling tightened her arms around Serenis’ neck in embarrassment.

“Oh, say something, damnit!”

“But, your…arms are…!“

In the way, preventing her from speaking. But Serenis never got to finish that thought with Raizel’s embarrassed breakout.

“You know what, never mind, I don’t wanna hear it! Just shut up as usual and do whatever the hell you want!”

Things were different. Compared to how things once were, so much had changed.

But perhaps, things weren’t so bad here in comparison. At least, Raizel hoped that her lord would think that way.

And it wasn’t just Raizel. A number of others had felt the same.

‘…One day, I hope you can call this place home too.’