Music for today:
Rok Nardin - Waves
https://youtu.be/gnVGtCbJRdY
Chapter 477: An Embrace
Mid Morning - Early Summer : Over Western Bahamut
-----
Oceans of clouds, fields of glaciers, and an endless, infinite white. No matter where you looked, it was a sea of snow.
Flying over what should have been the western tropics of Bahamut, I almost couldn't believe it.
It was simply.. unrecognizable...
Looking towards the mountains of Nkremo on the northern horizon, the massive, oceanic glaciers had been pushed up and buckled over the mountaintops, filling the valleys and burying the caves that had once been home to countless dragons with kilometers of ice and snowdrift.
And such a sight, while jaw dropping, hardly seemed unique. From the upper limits of the atmosphere, I could see for thousands of kilometers in every direction.. and even still.. all I could see was ripples of white—waves of snow—without a single dragon in sight. -Holy shit...-
The word desolate couldn't do it justice...
Entire cities and towns that had once prospered were pulverized and buried, with the glaciers only sparing some rocky foundations, and sturdy streets as evidence of them ever existing to begin with.
It was like Delphi was wiping the slate clean... -For this to happen in a handful of years...- It was jarring beyond words...
But nothing.. nothing at all could have prepared me for what was coming.
As what should have been the outskirts of Atlas began cresting the horizon, and the tapering edge of the glaciers finally began reaching their end, I hoped to see something—some lit streets, draconic activity.. or simple signs of life.
But there was none of that.
As the buildings of the suburbs begin cresting the horizon, one could only find darkness. The old, small family homes people had constructed to give their young a better chance at life were overgrown, deteriorating, and collapsing under the weight of mana-thickened snow like rotting memories...
And the deeper you went into the city, the worse it became.
Wide streets that were once bustling at all times of day.. tall buildings once full of dragons eating in luxury, shopping for gifts, or merely gathering to socialize...
Empty...
Sectors of buildings where markets exchanging enough gold to buy kingdoms on a daily basis bordered plazas that carried thousands of years of tradition and legends into the future...
Reduced to rubble...
Countless years of history had been lost unrecoverably...
And yet even still, none of it made my stomach twist like seeing my own family's estate.. a place we once called home.. reduced to a snow-filled crater...
Flying down for a closer look, I pushed my aura through the snow to look for something.. anything that could tell me I was in the wrong place.. that I was just mistaken...
But at the bottom of the crater, within the pool of cooled molten rock, the gold that once decorated our walls, the mythril relics that filled our shelves.. and the skeletons of dragons with family insignias still decorating their horns remained like a crushing reminder.
The fields of rubble.. the array of craters.. beneath it all, the remains of peoples' loved ones littered the soil like bodies in a battlefield...
Any of the amalgamation could have been a friend, or someone I once loved.. left to rot without a proper burial.. and yet I would never know.
It was like the city itself had been collectively abandoned like a memory that was better left buried and forgotten...
Even if a few that I couldn't forget still remained...
Throughout the city's heart, tombstones that were clearly frequented decorated the piles of rubble—each surrounded in fresh flowers or polished jewels, with some grieving parents, siblings, or friends still coming to mourn despite no single body being present beneath the stones.
After all, they weren't graves. They were merely connections to the ones they loved.. and the ones they lost...
And truthfully.. the thought of whether Krystallo, Mother, or Father was beneath one made me sick...
Sick to the point I had to distract myself...
Noticing some dragons still excavating something across the city, I flew to investigate, trying to ignore the horrific sights of horns or limbs poking from the rubble to find a small group of elders and ancients gathered in one place.
A place I quickly recognized. -Ah...-
It was Bahamut's Liubrary.. or rather.. what remained of it.
Digging through the rubble, they appeared to be looking for relics and artifacts, with a select few venturing deeper into the center, where Bahamut's nest sat mostly preserved, still decorated with his relics and confessions.
They seemed to have yet to discover what was inside.. but instead of descending to stop them, I turned a blind eye and didn't stick around much longer after that...
Trying to not let the horrors get to me, I forced my eyes closed and banked away.. turning my path back to Hera.
By that point, I was barely holding myself together.. forcing myself to be hopeful that everything was okay.. that this was a nightmare and that my family would be alright, but...
Once I arrived at the Cabinet, half burnt to the ground and nearly empty.. I walked through the empty halls to Hera's room and stepped in.. only to freeze a moment later...
Hera was asleep, curled at the center of the room, but nestled into her, I found Krystallo.. quivering faintly as if suffering from a nightmare.. with a missing leg.. a mutilated eye.. and crippled wings...
The innocent little girl.. the sister I had grown to love more than any in this life, hadn't escaped the massacre as I relentlessly prayed during my flight.. and instead of laying in Mother's embrace.. she was in Hera's...
A sight that made a chill pass through my bones.
*Woom-Rustle* Finally waking with a gentle jolt, Hera's eyes snapped to Krystallo with a mix of grief and guilt before finding my shadow and lowering her gaze entirely.
Silence fell on us like a mountain.
I.. didn't know what to say.. didn't know what to ask...
I just stood there.. refusing to draw a breath, move my eyes, or even let my blood flow...
For a moment, the memories of my life and efforts as Nott faded.. and the young boy, Vasilias took over...
But I.. had no words...
No thoughts...
Just a reality-crushing doubt of the confidence I once considered unwaverable...
Until finally.. I managed to open my mouth... "What.. happened..."
The words came out as a whisper.. too quiet to wake Krystallo, yet enough to pull Hera's gaze up to my paws.
But.. after raising her brows.. her expression fell again with grief. "I'm.. sorry, Vasilias..." Lowering her snout until her nose dug into the ground, she tried to hide her face from me.. to hide the guilt that littered her eyes...
But it had already been carved into me.
In an instant, my stomach twisted, head spun, and chest crushed... "Where.. are my parents..."
"I.. couldn't protect them..."
The world felt like it stopped turning...
"Your father is alive.. though still recovering..." Time twisted, dragged, and stuttered. "As for your mother, she..."
The world froze.
"—still hasn't woken up..."
My mind, held together by a single strained, fraying thread, caught its breath instantly.
She.. was alive... -Thank goodness...-
It wasn't much, but merely avoiding the worst case scenario was enough to let me draw another breath, and while my gut continued to twist with every continually surfacing question, I suppressed them to lower myself to her.
She had been through a lot.. from the missing luster of her scales, to the stains of tears and scars of exhaustion around her eyes, she had been endlessly sacrificing herself to protect and ease the burden of those around her from the moment I disappeared.. no matter how grim things had become.
Just like her last incarnation.. she put everything she had on the line to protect as many innocent souls as she could.
...And while my stomach still tore itself apart with questions about what had happened and what was going on, instead of asking them, I masked my anxiety with a breath, and whispered... "Thank you.. for continuing to fight while I was gone..."
Tension rippled down her body before I pressed my head into hers, and ease finally settled with a grimace and a wave of tears.
It had been years.. years of fighting, losing connection to those she cared for, and watching the collapse of the nation she gave her life to grow...
And yet that gentle embrace was all it took to break her ironed resolve.
At last, she could take a breath without worry that it would lead to another death.. another collapse.. or another nightmare...
And so, I kept quiet, trying to comfort her in whatever ways I could—growing my form to curl around her before draping a wing over them both, hoping to give them a chance to rest while using my aura to lull them to sleep.. and rid them of their nightmares.
But even still, Hera was restless...
Coming in and out of sleep every few hours, we spoke in brief spurts. Explaining what all happened, from the events leading to the attack, to the disastrous years that followed, she spoke softly as if merely echoing the burdens of her inner mind to her own consciousness.
But I listened well...
Hearing of the horrors of the attack, the spine chilling horror of Krystallo's screams, the guilt and sorrow that followed every one of her mistakes, and the regret and fear that infested her as a consequence, I quickly found it wasn't just Bahamut that had collapsed.. the dragon or the nation...
Hera was crumbling just the same...
Every time she woke up, she seemed to think it was a dream.. that my wing draped over her side wasn't real, that it was an illusion of insanity, or a glimpse of the afterlife.. but nevertheless, she emptied her mind.
Every burden.. secret.. and scar.
Until eventually, after nearly a week of releasing the weights that had dug canyons across her soul.. she fell asleep without immediately waking from another nightmare.
...And for the first time in over a decade.. she found herself able to rest...
-----
Read up to 5 chapters ahead of schedule, and get early access to artwork on My Patreon!
(In case Embedded Link doesn't work: https://www.patreon.com/TDOD )
-------------
Also, please feel free to check out our discord for all updates related to TDOD releases! https://discord.gg/Dv7G5bQD4v
All are welcome!
---
Also if you are looking for a new story, check out my new novel! Re: The System's Harvester
On RR, SH, and now Webnovel!