Early Evening - Mid Winter : Hera's Rest | The Scar
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*Vwowowooom* Within the empty vacuum of space, the eerie, muffled noise of mana rippled around me, marking the clash of two unfathomable auras.
But even though it was the only noise that could meet my ears, silence still filled my mind in its entirety.
For the first time since I hatched, I was gazing into the eyes of a being I truly couldn't read, and it made my mind race. -I wonder.. if I could beat her in a fight...- But while I felt confident I could hold my own, as I got closer, Hera's towering 322-meter-tall form was put into perspective, and uncertainty mixed with my thoughts.
But eventually, I entered a dense bubble of air encompassing the caldera, and such feelings became meaningless.
"Are you really Vasilias?" Her voice, calm and imbued with an air of confidence and majesty, carried a mixture of curiosity. "I knew you would change a lot, but.. my goodness..."
*FWOOOSH* *FW-FWOOSH* *Thud* Landing with heavy feet, I looked up at her face, which loomed over me even though she was lying down. "I could say the same about you." -She really is giant...- Although I wasn't sure of its source, I felt a mixture of eagerness, pride, and nervousness as I finally landed.
"Hoho~, I suppose you can. Even I didn't expect to change this much, but it seems my body treated its reconstruction like a dragon sleep." Glancing back over herself, she stretched out two of her wings and flicked her tail before looking back at me. "Just about every aspect of me has changed in some way... You on the other hand..." Moving her colossal head down in front of me, she squinted her eyes in skepticism. "You feel.. 'different'..."
Not shying away from her stature, I confidently matched her gaze. "Of course. That's because, in a way, I am a different person."
She squinted her eyes as she slowly looked down my body.
"It's quite a long story, but to summarize, during my dragon sleep, I managed to fuse my body and soul back together." -Speaking of which...- Lowering my gaze downward, I could faintly see the outline of her reserve deep within her chest with a small, solid white sphere at its center.
It was her soul, and with some practice over recent days, I was able to view it quite easily. -I can even see an outline of their reserve when I look for it now... I actually wonder if I can look through walls like that...-
But the moment I gazed at her soul, her skepticism vanished, and she pulled her head back. "It's impolite to look at a dragoness like that, you know."
-Huh?- Hearing her odd tonation, I immediately looked up and noticed the flustered expression on her face. -She sensed that?!- It was my only explanation for her change in mood at the time. "Sorry if I was rude. I was just curious." -Her soul core is huge... I wonder if being in her soul form for so long was the cause...-
"Ahem, it's alright." She quickly straightened her posture, covering her face with her wing before composing herself. "In any case, back to what we were saying: you fused your soul with your body? Were they not already fused?"
I quickly shook my head. "As far as I know, the piece of my soul controlling my body before was just a tiny fragment since my whole soul would have destroyed my body."
Her eyes widened as countless questions raced behind them. "How fascinating..." She stared holes into me before her gaze finally softened. "I can't say I dislike the change."
"Haha, well, that's good." Finally sitting down, I curled my tail around myself and folded my wings.
But before I could move on and ask about aura techniques, I glanced toward an approaching presence. -She really took her time... I guess it works out though...-
Following my gaze, Hera looked toward the edge of the caldera as well, but it made her demeanor change instantaneously.
*VWOOOOM* As if the sky was collapsing, her colossal, looming aura slammed down around me, and a look of unbridled disgust appeared on her face. "To think that filthy bitch is still alive."
Nervousness exploded across Skuld's face immediately, but as if trying to avoid Hera's gaze, she darted up next to me and cowered to the ground. "~T-This humble servant g-greets the Lord.~" Her voice shook, seemingly from anxiety and fear.
"'Servant', you say?" Hera was clearly the source, with her tone being nothing short of belittling. "You'd look better as a slave."
I immediately glanced toward Hera. -I wonder where that is coming from.- "Are you two familiar?"
Hera nodded without hesitation. "How could I not be familiar with the Aesir's little mut? She's the dog that did nothing but watch as the world burned."
"~M-M-Miss Monachikós!~" Skuld had fallen into panic. "~I promise I played no role in the Aesir's betrayal of Bahamut! I promi-~"
Her voice was cut short as Hera and I stared at her, both of us oozing a thick, palpable bloodlust.
"I'm going to need you to run that by me again." My voice was cold and empty, representing emotions that surfaced from the deepest parts of my soul. "The 'Aesir's betrayal' of.. who?"
*VWOWOWOOOM-CRACKLE* Slowly standing up, Hera's shadow cast over Skuld like the incarnate of death. "So, what I feared would happen ended up becoming a reality." Her voice was cold and devoid of sympathy. "I told Bahamut not to trust you rats.. but he must not have listened..."
In an instant, a colossal rune almost 70 meters wide lit up in the air over Skuld, but with a wave of my wing, it was scrambled. "Don't kill her. I want to hear this from the source." *Crackle* Slowly standing up, I walked over to Skuld before slowing the liquid divinity in my reserve and lowering my snout to the top of her head. "You better start explaining before I send your soul to rot in the void."
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Skuld's body shook from fear as she spoke with a quivering voice. "~I-I don't know the details, I promise! All I know is that Frigg and Odin had plans to use the Aesir's alliance with Bahamut to lure him into a trap made by The Travellers.~" Her eyes instantly started darting around as if she was trying to find a way out.
-Asgard's alliance with Bahamut? That's new...- *fwoom* Releasing the control on my divinity, I glanced back at Hera. "Do you know anything about the alliance between the Aesir and Bahamut?
But she just shook her head without pulling her gaze off Skuld. "I assume I was captured before that..." She sounded like she was resisting the urge to rip something's head off.
"Tch..." -Just when I thought I could get some answers...- Turning back to Skuld, my mind raced to come up with questions, but taking that time was meaningless since, over the next few hours, Hera and I asked everything on our minds.
Unfortunately for us though, it did seem like Skuld wasn't too deeply involved with it. There was only so much she could answer.
But at the same time, that didn't mean she couldn't answer anything.
After several hours and thousands upon thousands of questions, I had finally asked everything dwelling on my mind, and while she knew nothing of what transpired after she was trapped in 'her Cell', Hera and I both had quite a good understanding of what events led up to it.
To summarize, after Hera was captured by the Acardi, or as Hera and Skuld referred to them, The Travellers, the state of affairs, specifically for dragons, worsened to an unfathomable degree. It was the event that seemed to switch the momentum of the war in the Acardi's favor.
With countless new weapons and technologies, the Acardi leveled kingdoms, spread plagues, tested poisons, and kidnapped dragons at every opportunity.
To me, it sounded less like a war and more like the Acardi were simply using the planet as a subject of research.
But after hundreds of years of downfall and suffering, Bahamut finally formed an alliance with the Holy Kingdom and Asgard, hoping an attack comprised of several gods would swing the momentum of the war in their direction.
However, back then, Bahamut had no idea the alliance with the Aesir was just a veil. The bait for a trap. -So that's why Bahamut set all those rules restricting dragons from the human world...-
-But what happened after that?- I anxiously flicked around my tail as thoughts ripped through my mind, but no matter how many questions I wanted to ask, with no one able to answer them, I was left to my own devices.
I wasn't the only one sinking into thought either. "That makes no sense... Why would the Fenrir not get involved?" Hera was just as troubled as me, if not more so.
"I'm not sure they didn't, Hera." Thinking back to the artifact that changed my genetics when I was young, it most certainly had the full genetic code of Nott. -But does that mean the Acardi killed or captured not only Bahamut but also Nott?-
However, with just a casual reference to Dagr's strength and the knowledge that the Fenrir had space attribute nodes, the odds of such a scenario plummeted nearly to zero. -With a fitting body, he could have totally destroyed the moon if he wanted to...-
But as I was idly thinking to myself, a question I had yet to ask came to mind. -Right.. I meant to ask...- "Skuld, I know all the human gods saw, so why did you all leave me alone while I was having my dragon sleep on the moon?"
With the moon high in the sky over us, the scar I left on its surface gazed down at us like an eye. "Besides Odin and Frigg, no one dared to venture into what you call space. To us, it's a graveyard... During the war, going there was akin to a lone human walking into a dragon's den."
-So they were afraid...- "But if that's the case, then why didn't Odin or Frigg go kill me? As far as I know, I am their biggest enemy, and that would have been the perfect opportunity to kill me..."
But Skuld just shook her head. "Among the upper echelon of Asgard, they are the only ones who are still technically tied to their cells. Even though their souls have escaped, their soul cores have not."
-Wait.. then...- My eyes widened with eagerness the moment I thought about it. "Doesn't that mean I should go kill them now before they get their soul cores out?"
But Hera stopped me instantly. "You're severely underestimating them, Vasilias."
Skuld nodded in agreement as well. "Just because they have their soul cores trapped doesn't mean they can't access their ocean of divinity..."
"But if it limits their movement, couldn't I just..." Pointing my paw to the side, a small dollop of clear liquid formed on the tip of my claw.
*fwoom-BAAAAANG* In an instant, the ground beneath me melted, and a beam about thirty meters wide effortlessly ate its way through the side of the caldera.
It was a sight that made Skuld shiver, but contrarily, it made a look of excitement come to Hera's face.
As her gaze turned toward me, there was a childish excitement in her eyes. "Teach me!" She looked like a child who had just discovered a new toy.
"Do you know how to use space mana?"
She quickly shook her head, but the glimmer in her eyes didn't fade for an instant. "Bahamut was the only dragon that could use the space rune."
-Ah.. I was wondering about that...- "How about this, then? If you assist me in getting my aura under control, I promise to at least teach you the theoretical aspects."
But rather than her agreeing like I expected, her expression turned disappointed. "Do you think that lowly of me? I would help you regardless." She seemed surprisingly upset that I tried to make it a trade. "I owe you more than just my life, and even though I doubt I will ever be able to truly repay my debt, I have no intention of falling short."
The next thing I knew, her expression toward me turned smug and slightly predatory, but I brushed it off. "Then I won't let your favor go to waste. However, when it comes to sharing knowledge, I would prefer it to be a trade. Teaching others lets me hone and expand on my own theories. As long as they ask good questions, at least..."
"Hoho~, keeping me indebted, aren't you." Her tone made it seem like she was a little uncertain about how to feel, but her eyes showed she most certainly didn't mind. "I guess there is nothing I can do~."
"I won't know when I really need a favor. I'm just saving it for a time I really need it." -In any case, I should probably send off Skuld now...-
Glancing over at the moon, hanging just over the edge of the caldera, I finally noticed I had already burned almost a third of a day. -If I want any hope of getting my aura under control in a timely manner, I need to start now.-
My time limit was already ticking.
But little did I know then, those two days were far from the only days I would come to spend with Hera.
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A bonus chapter is in the works, but I've run into some issues with it so sorry for the delay
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