A Jaded Life

“Am I a Dragon, Mom?” Luna asked before I had time to properly process what the strange dryad had told me. That question, alongside Luna's amusingly excited tone when asking and her devastatingly adorable expression, was enough to confuse me even further, my eyes flickering between my daughter and the dryad.

“I’ve got to admit I’m uncertain what you are referring to?” I responded, wondering just what was going on here. Mother of Dragons, it sounded like some sort of strange conglomerate title between that of Mother, given by Hecate, or maybe the Primordial Mother Title I had gained for creating Lia’s race, and the Dragon-Touched Trait I had. Or maybe my Draconic Sorceress class was added into that mix, too, though I wasn’t sure where it might come from. It could be any, or all, of these, or even something completely different, it wasn’t as if the strange dryad had given me a lot to work with. Other than the declaration that I would eventually kill her or something like that. Destroy her tree, which was a death sentence for a dryad.

“So you do not know, fascinating,” the dryad cocked her head to the side, studying me closely, to the point that I almost felt as exposed as if I had been examined with the Observe-skill. It wasn’t that skill, of that I was fairly certain, but it felt strangely similar. As if I had no secrets under the piercing gaze of her oddly luminous, moss-green eyes.

“No, I do not know what you are referring to but maybe you would be so kind and explain yourself? For what it’s worth, I can tell you that I currently have no plans to destroy your tree, or you for that matter. We have given our word that we would do no harm while we are guests here and I have no plans to break that promise,” I prodded a little, hoping that the strange dryad would shed some light on this odd conversation.

“All things in the World are held in balance, you see. Sides of a coin, if you will, and for every beginning that comes into existence, there has to be an end, too. Either you have been born to be the End of my Tree or my Tree has been born to be ended by you. I do not know which and, quite honestly, it does not truly matter. One day, my tree will have to fall and I believe it will be up to you to bring it down,” the dryad explained, her voice completely dispassionate, as if she wasn’t discussing anything more exciting than the weather or maybe the dressing for a properly prepared salad. As if her declaration was mundane and boring.

“That is an interesting way to view the World, I have to admit. Not one I share, but an interesting way nonetheless. How did you come to that conclusion, it certainly holds with a Cyclic view of the World but is the World truly cyclic? Is each extreme we experience merely part of a larger cycle, or are the cycles we can observe resonating, slowly working towards one final, ultimate extreme that will end it all?” I couldn’t help myself but be fascinated by the calm and composed way the dryad spoke and decided to question her a little if only to see how deep her composure went.

“Does it matter?” she replied, a small grin curling her lips, “We both are part of the cycle, even if we are individually extremes. You will continue on your path and someday, hopefully in the far future, your path will come across mine once more and my tree shall end. You might call it an extreme but to me, it is simply part of my journey.”

“But how does that make me a dragon?” Luna interrupted, apparently feeling a little peeved at being ignored.

“It doesn’t,” I told her, before focusing on the dryad once more, “But yes, I would like to know why you called me Mother of Dragons. As far as I know, neither Luna nor Lia is a dragon, stars, not even I’d call myself a dragon, even if I might hold a trait or two of theirs.”

My question caused the dryad to look from Luna to me and back before turning and focusing on the gingerstone house for a moment.

“Well, if Lia is the one in there, calling her Daughter of the Dragon wouldn’t be too far off now, would it? I believe the title would be Dracula or something along those lines?” the dryad grinned and now I could only hope that she was joking. Or maybe that it was more along the lines of some sort of cosmic joke, I wasn’t quite sure if I was ready to accept the logic she presented here.

“Some might, but really, it would be a bit of a stretch. Carnelia is most certainly not a Wallachian Countess, nor does she have any aspirations of nobility that I’m aware of. And, again, I’m not a Dragon, even if I share some of their traits. My Legacy was touched by one, yes, but I remain Elven,” I shook my head, unwilling to simply accept her odd conclusions and logic.

“You might not be one yet but are you certain that you won’t become one? Just like my tree and I have yet to reach our full size, we are growing, just like you are. Growing in different ways maybe but we both are growing,” she grinned just a little wider, maybe noticing something in my eyes as my mind flickered through some of the traits I had and notifications I had received in the past. Like the one right after crossing the first Divide, the one that told me I had found the Dragon within myself and accepted the Touch of my Elder Brother causing the change of my body to be accelerated. Meaning that the dryad might have an even bigger point than I thought.

“But that doesn’t mean I’d want to kill you!” I insisted a small part of me amused that the one apparently thinking I was destined to kill her was far more at ease with that fate than the destined killer. It wasn’t that the killing part disturbed me as much as it did but the idea of fate, that there was some force that would make me do something, regardless of my own desires and plans.

“Nor do I accept that there is some nebulous fate holding dominion over me, I follow my own path and where there is no path for me to follow, I make my own path!” I insisted, feeling a bit of my magic leak out due to my agitation. The idea that there might be some way to completely control my actions and my path did not sit right with me.

“That is nice to know,” the dryad simply grinned, no more concerned with my rejection than she had been with the idea that I would kill her some day. It was utterly maddening and a part of me was tempted to do something strange, simply because it would hopefully be outside of her expectations and break that composed facade of hers.

“How can I become a dragon?” Luna prodded once more, the complete and utter lack of guile on her face enough to make me laugh.

“Honestly, I don’t know. I was given the blessing of one and things happened from there but I don’t know how you could get the same. I don’t think there are any dragons on Terra at the moment,” I explained, only for the dryad, whose name I still didn’t know, to chuckle and point at me.

“Of course, there are no other dragons in this world. You have yet to give birth to them,” she added, making me groan at both the idea and the image. While I was happy to have my daughters, the idea of giving birth, to say nothing of the idea of either laying eggs or giving birth to fire-breathing, flying lizards, managed to creep me out like almost nothing else. It was up there with the idea of exposure to something like the Withering Fungus, turning my body into a puppet controlled by some parasite. One of those, ‘Just, NO!’, things.

“How does that work? Where do baby dragons come from?” Luna asked, sounding as innocent as her actual age would suggest. Sadly, that didn’t mean I had a good, factual answer, nor did I have any idea how to answer the question without taking the whole ‘dragon’ part of it into account. At least not without traumatising my daughter with information she was too young to have.

“Well, normally you have a mama-dragon and a papa-dragon,” the dryad began to explain, only for me to let out a loud growl, silencing her. “But apparently the mama-dragon doesn’t want to discuss that right now,” she stopped herself, hopefully, silenced by my glare.

“There will be no baby dragons,” I said with finality, before trying to redirect the entire conversation back onto simpler territory. Maybe introductions would help with that.