Music for today:
The Evening Fog
https://youtu.be/eIUBzveOzx4
Chapter 504: Conception
Early Morning - Early Fall : Year 39 : Poseidon, Draconic Continent
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(Back several seconds)
Days.. weeks.. they all blend together after a certain point, and sat upon that shore, watching Hera floating between existence and nonexistence, it didn't take long for time to lose its current.
Every instant dragged like an eternity, and at every passing thought or motion just reset the clock.
For months, I sat there fighting to just stay hopeful, to believe that after everything we had gone through, she was going to pull through.. that it wasn't going to end there...
But from that point forward, every decision was a gamble...
Thanks to the infusion of mana alongside Delphi's echo, the dusty veil hiding Hera's past life as a goddess was beginning to lift, but with it, her soul was splitting.
Within her mind, two versions of herself, each birthed from the memories of a different life, subconsciously fought—as if each was staking claim to parts of her soul while selectively refusing to accept the sins, regrets, and burdens of the other.
They were one in the same.. but denial drove them to clash, and with the fragment of Delphi being added to the mix, it just twisted into a storm.
Or rather.. into a fog...
"~Hera, pray...~" When I recalled Delphi's words as I reconnected my soul to flesh... "~Pray as hard as you can that he brings you to a future I cannot see...~" My demeanor grew cold... "~Because there are none where he forgives you.. and none where you don't kill him while he sees the truth.~"
By Delphi's word, -She hadn't seen a future where Hera doesn't kill me...- Exactly as she had... -But she hadn't seen one where I forgive 'her' either...-
It was that statement that caught me. "~-where he forgives 'you'.~"
Who was the 'you' Delphi was referring to..?
-The dragoness..?- It couldn't have been... Even as my blood dripped from her maw, there was no scenario where I didn't forgive her... Even in that moment, regret tainted her eyes and horror painted her face.
She accepted her mistakes, not just from her life of flesh, but as a goddess—even if it made regret eat her alive...
But when I reattached my soul to my reviving body just to look into her eyes.. it finally clicked...
The 'Hera' Delphi claimed I would never be able to forgive wasn't the one before me.. but rather the fragment trying to tear her apart...
It was the ego that used Delphi's fragment as a distraction to isolate and tear itself away from the regret that haunted it...
...The voice that chose death as an escape from responsibility.
And the moment I realized it, I snapped.
*Crack* Punching my claws into her chest as I locked her her scales in reality's fabric, I held Hera's reserve like a marble before blowing it apart with the greatest flow of mana I could muster—eclipsing the turbulence that arrogant ego was using to hide and separate itself, and forcing every fragment of her soul to blend into one under a single unifying current.
It was crippling.. and to a dragon that couldn't live without mana.. it was deadly...
But whether Delphi meant her words to be a hint or not, it was the decision that had the greatest likelihood of belonging to a future she hadn't seen.
-A decision Delphi could never imagine I'd make...-
After keeping a close eye on her soul, making sure it blended within the current, I moved Hera's body into the burial aquifer in hopes the mana in the water would help keep her alive while her soul reformed itself, merely praying I hadn't made the wrong decision.
But in the end, it was only one of my many inevitable gambles.
-I just have to trust my gut...- Even if it meant doubt would tear through me as I looked out, and saw her finally waking.
"~Hera...~" The moment I saw her tail twitch, words simply slipped out. "~Are you.. awake..?~"
In that breath, my eyes darted, moving to try and figure out who it was.. to see what became of that turbulent soul...
But before I could figure it out, she tried to sit up, "Uh-" And plunged beneath the surface of the aquifer. *KWAKOOOOOM*
Like a bomb had suddenly gone off, the water exploded—a tidal wave of body-dissolving water drenching me before I twisted space and darted through it. *WOOM*
Without care for myself, I sank into the water, closing my claws around her horns while she panicked, and threw her on shore with everything I had. *FWOOO-CRRRRRREAAAAAKKK*
My body was screaming in agony as my scales and flesh rapidly bleached and dissolved...
...But despite my body screaming at me to move.. to jump out of that water.. I found it impossible to do anything but stare.
...To try and see who had taken ownership of that soul.. and that body... "He..ra..?"
"V-VASILIAS!" Instantly reacting and darting forward, she thrust out her mana-crystallized wing, and effortlessly blew away the water I could hardly resist.
Yet even still.. my eyes never moved off hers.
They were simply lost in that ebbing and flowing color within her irises, in the blues and greens blending and morphing with a rhythmic signature...
One I.. didn't immediately recognize... "Do you remember who you are..?" It didn't belong to the goddess, nor the dragoness... "Hera..?" It was a signature every being on Delphi's surface knew.. even if they didn't know it... -It's almost.. ambient...-
"W..What..?" Going wide eyed, her gaze drifted up to her wing, to the flowing fur-like layer of crystals, and beyond to the ambient air.. now blending with her aura as if it were all the same. "W..Who..." She spoke with a pant—the confusion, excitement, and warmth clashing in her mind escaping through a breath that had been held for too long. "Who am I..?"
For the first time ever, she could look inward and find the reason she always acted as she did—why no matter how dark her days became.. she held on...
...And why she had fallen so quickly for the anomalous dragon that had seemingly wandered into her life by chance.
Deep down, her soul.. her foundation of being had been carved before she was even born.
She was a goddess.. a dragoness.. and... "Delphi..?"
The moment she muttered that name, it was like cogs started turning within a machine. Memories of sensations and feelings she had never been able to find the source of found their way home, and in that moment of silence, the reason her foundation of self had always been shaped as it had was finally revealed.
Just as I had been granted clarity by my memories as Nott.. she had been granted clarity by her memories as a goddess.. and a glimmer of something greater.
Though.. such clarity didn't bring her excitement or hope as it once had me. "V..Vasilias."
To her.. it brought horror...
"What have I done..?" Standing there before me, wielding a power I could barely fathom, she quivered—her eyes sinking into mine as if searching.. begging for an answer. "H-How can you look at me like that..? How do you not hate me..?!"
I didn't answer immediately.
Not because I didn't know what to say, but because.. for the first time since being granted understanding, I was looking at her without trying to determine which part of her was speaking.
I could finally feel that warmth I always had for her without worry that I was merely falling for a silhouette. "Because you're you..."
She wasn't any singular reincarnation of 'her'.. Delphi, the goddess, or the dragoness.. but rather, she was 'her', herself.
...The being I chased through fate... The one I unknowingly travelled the stars to find.. reincarnated myself to save.. and helplessly fell in love with all over again.
"B..But..." Even still, Delphi never granted clarity to her decisions... Even to her future self... "W..why..? Why are you trying so hard? How are you able to keep pushing yourself forward?!" Her expression morphed with anger the longer her mind ran. "You saw the vision too. You heard Delphi say herself that fate was doomed from the moment I opened my mouth then! So-"
"Delphi wasn't omnipotent, even back then." Pausing, my eyes sank deeper into hers, "She could have made a mistake and missed something.. just like I did as Nott."
Deep down, we were akin to mirrors of one another, a pair of existences that were the result of the gambles and decisions of our past selves.. their successes, their failures, and their hopeless faith in one another...
And while both far weaker than those previous incarnations of ourselves, we had made our first step of progress since finding ourselves trapped in that dead end...
To escape, we not only needed to return to the start of the maze, but to reform our minds, and use a new set of eyes to not merely avoid taking a known path.. but rather to find a path that our past selves never could have conceived to begin with.
...A future that could never have been discovered prior to that moment...
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