“Are we there yet, mom?”

“Almost. Just a little further.”

Mom and I were returning from a visit to Dimri, though mom asked me to wear a blindfold when we were almost home. Apparently, I was finally going to see the surprise she had in store for me.

“Watch the door, sweety.” She said, tugging my hand a little to the right.

My shoulder rubbed against the door frame, though it didn’t hurt in the least. Pain immunity was doing its thing, it seemed.

“Alright; take off your blindfold, Kiara.”

“Finally!”

I did as she said, untying the knot holding the blindfold to my eyes. What was waiting for me wasn’t something I’d expected.

““““““““Happy Birthday, Kiara!””””””””

“Eh?!”

We were standing in our living room, and inside it were a bunch of decorations and a whole host of people I knew clapping and smiling at me.

I saw Aunt Ighir and Durreg – and their egg in Auntie’s arms. Next to them were the members of my old party from the academy – Nisos, Nicotris, Ati, and Jezibel.

Even Atria and Silia were present.

I tried to speak, but I was just too baffled to say anything, so my jaw remained on the floor until mom put a hand on my shoulders.

“Happy Birthday, Kiara.” She said with a smile matching that of the others.

“Wha… when, how?!” I stumbled, leading to laughter from the gallery.

“Mom and I just went around you while you were blindfolded. It’s not complicated.” Durreg said with a shrug.

Aunt Ighir just laughed, while the members of the party started explaining.

“Your mom asked us to attend a surprise birthday party for you, Kiara. You should’ve seen Ati’s face when a voice suddenly started talking in his head!” Jezibel said, snickering.

The boy coughed in embarrassment.

“In any case, we’ve come to celebrate your birthday with you. It’s been a while since we last saw you, so it was a good opportunity.” Ati said.

Nisos chimed in after that.

“I never managed to find you after I rescued my assigned village, so I feared the worst for a while. At least, until I ended up hearing how you stopped an entire monster horde! There’s no way I wasn’t going to come and ask about that!”

“As for the ‘how,’ everyone present can fly, and your mother could inform us of when and where to go. Pretty simple if you ask me.” Nico said nonchalantly.

I stared at them for a moment before pulling my jaw back up.

“Weren’t you guys busy fighting the monster hordes on the continent? I thought everything was falling apart!” I asked incredulously.

“That’s a long discussion for a different time. More importantly, happy birthday.” Silia said.

“Besides, in what world was I going to say no to a visit to the Draconic Isles?! This place is awesome! Anbu couldn’t come, so he gave me a letter to give you.” Atria said jovially.

Everyone started chattering, talking to me as well as each other. As I finally put together the pieces of the puzzle, I still had one more burning question to ask.

“…Can someone tell me who birthday is and why he is happy?”

***

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Apparently, the tradition of ‘birthdays’ was a thing from long before the Celestial War. It went something along the lines of baking a pastry called a cake, putting literal candles on top of them, and having the person whose birthday is being celebrated blowing them out, their breath and spit flying all over this ‘cake’ that was already covered in melting wax.

The idea sounded disgusting and stupid to me, if I am honest, but I didn’t have the heart to say anything to everyone else’s expecting eyes, so I played along.

Oh well.

***

“You’re what?!” Jezibel asked, her jaw on the floor.

When they asked how old I was today, I found myself stumped, until mom said that as of today, I was a year old.

For some reason, it was the humans this time that were taken off guard. Even the usually stoic Ati and Silia were shocked, their eyes wide open. Apparently, they were all between the ages of 16 and 19 and expected that I was the same.

After that little misunderstanding, which mom and Aunt Ighir helpfully cleared up, mom brought the cake in, and the celebration started in earnest.

***

After getting my share of the cake, which turned out to taste a lot better than I expected, I spent the day hanging out with everyone who came to see me.

A whole bunch of shenanigans happened, and some of them even led to one another – like when Nisos challenged Jezibel to a bet in a game of cards. It was a surprisingly heated game, with me cheering on Jezibel and Atria cheering on Nisos. In the end, Jezibel won, and Nisos handed her half of his part of the cake, only for her to end up tripping on her dress and falling face first into the plate.

Atria laughed at that so much she ended up snorting juice from her nose and choking on it, leading to Ati pushing it out with some wind mana while Silia sighed quietly in exasperation.

Before I knew it, nighttime was finally upon us.

The guests were going to stay the night, with the boys – essentially just Durreg, Nisos, and Ati – in a room and the girls in another.

Mom laid a bunch of mattresses and blankets for us in my room before heading back to hers, and it wasn’t long before everyone fell asleep.

I, however, couldn’t sleep, so I ended up staring at the ceiling for a while.

“Kiara. Are you awake?” a voice nearby whispered.

I turned around to find out that it was Nico who called out to me.

“I am awake. What’s up?” I whispered back.

“Do you have time to talk for a bit? Let’s go outside.” She said and got up, leaving the room quietly.

Huh.

I followed after her to the living room downstairs.

“Alright. What did you need to talk about?” I asked curiously.

“Not here. We should find somewhere a bit more private to talk. Let’s go for a walk outside.”

***

The two of us left mom’s home and were taking a stroll through the icy street.

“I never could’ve imagined that ice could be warm or changed into having so many different properties…” she mused.

“Well, like you said once before, dragons are known for their sorcery. A little magic ice isn’t anything out of the ordinary.”

“You’re right. Less than a year ago, I never would have imagined myself even being friends with a dragon, and now, I am having a leisurely walk on their home territory.” She chuckled.

The street we were walking on went on in a loop, and reaching the starting point took roughly 15 minutes, since there weren’t too many homes around.

“If I’ve learned anything, it’s that you never know what life has in store for you. That said, I can’t imagine you brought me here just to talk about our streets.”

Nico raised an eyebrow at me.

“What, can’t I just go on a walk with a friend and reminisce a little?”

I raised my hands in surrender.

“I’ve got no objections to that. It’s just that I had a feeling that you aren’t the type to do that often – not unless you had something to talk about.”

The ceiling of the glacier was glowing softly with moonlight, no doubt an effect created by magic. It lit our way for us as we walked down the winding road circling back home.

“Oh, how dare you! I am hurt.” She said sarcastically, to which I rolled my eyes.

A little laughter later, she continued.

“You’re right though. I’ve spent some time thinking about things – about our fight when we were at Tyr, and why it happened. What had gone wrong.”

I kept quiet, paying attention to her words.

“I realized that I wasn’t communicating with you properly, and this began from the moment we first met. If I had gotten to know you properly, I wouldn’t have jumped to the conclusion that you were up to something nefarious in the academy. If I had spent the time to get to know you better, I would have known that your inexperience wasn’t your fault, and that you were actually doing really well for your age – which I only just found out today!”

She closed her eyes for a moment.

“I didn’t think about how you felt or how you saw things, and that was the root of the conflicts between us. For that, I am sorry. It’s more than a little late, and things might have turned out better if I hadn’t made those errors.”

We carried on walking in silence for a few moments, then I responded to her.

“Yeah, it’s a little upsetting to not be taken seriously or to be disregarded, but I know you weren’t trying to mess with me intentionally. We were dealing with a stressful situation, and we didn’t know each other well, so I think a fight was bound to happen. As far as I am concerned, it’s all water under the bridge.”

I could tell that Nico was holding her breath for a moment, waiting for my response. She sighed in relief and responded.

“Thank you, Kiara. Since I promised to trust you and communicate with you properly, I have something to confess. I’ve been hiding something from you and the rest of the party since I was revived.”

She stopped walking, so I stopped and turned to face her.

“And what would that be?” I asked.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath before answering me.

“In four and a half years, I am going to die.”