Chapter 273 - Parentage (1/2)

Li sat atop the round head of the Vukanovi, feeling it lurching ever so slightly up and down as it scaled its way down the last of the three Triforge mountains. It had taken the entire rest of the day to travel across the mountains, even with the dwarven bridges still connecting them.

The sheer scale of the mountains made Li realize even more that at its height, the dwarven kingdom must have been truly exceptional. But now, there was but silence.

But, as Li tuned into his senses, the silence around the mountains was not eerie. Clinging with death and rot. With the undeath haze lifted from the mountains, they returned instead to a natural kind of silence.

The haze had killed off most life, but already, Li could see little bits of life starting to peak. Tiny sparkles of green that registered on his sight that meant that the rocky earth could finally welcome plants other than the bleached or blackened kind that grew in undead areas.

The original ecosystem of the mountains with its skies dominated by rock hydras and its slopes travelled by mountain stonegoat would likely never come back, but perhaps something new could be born to fill up this silent void once more. Already, bolstered by the life energy brimming from Li's very presence, plants were beginning to shoot up and grow.

Li felt his attention turn from the environment as Tia stirred in his l.a.p, nodding head from side to side as her eyes twinkled green and black in the night. Though they were scaling down at quite the sheer angle, vines around Li kept him and Tia anchored to the Vukanovi, and it seemed that she liked travelling like this.

It was new, kind of like rock climbing if one could ignore the plummeting heights, but Tia, born to fly, had no such fear.

Li looked up, seeing a sliver of moon eking out its light through a veil of clouds, and he wondered how to approach this topic.

The topic of telling Tia about her parentage, that was. She might have been innocent, but he knew she was not stupid. She already knew she was not blood related to Li, but she did not ever seem to show that it bothered her. He doubted she would react too strongly to whatever he told her, but at the same time, he was ready to comfort her about anything if she needed it.

In any case, it would still be good to sit down with her and tell her the details through and through.

”Tia, about your mother,” said Li a little awkwardly, not knowing how to ease into the conversation while figuring that a direct approach would be best.

”Mmhm,” nodded Tia. She was still a little bit groggy from sleeping through her prior evolution, but sleeping through most of the day had done much for her wakefulness now.

”Well, she was like you. A dragon. Or, specifically, a hydra,” said Li.

”Hmm,” said Tia. ”I felt many eyed dragon similar to me. Maybe that's why.”

”Yes, but your mother was not from here. She came from farther west. Much farther. Where we are going, in fact,” said Li.

Tia c.o.c.ked her head. ”Will we meet her then?”

”Hm.” Li shook his head after a while. ”No, I do not think that is likely. You see, Tia, she gave you, when you were still an egg, to me because she was running from the west. She is not here anymore.”

”Running? But why?” said Tia.

”The demons,” said Li. ”The very same reason we are travelling west now.”

Tia looked up to Li with a smile. ”I can tell papa worried. Can tell through his heart. But no worry. I am fine. Just curious about mother. About more like me. Will we see more like me?”

”Like you?” Li looked down to meet Tia's gaze. At her twin-colored eyes. At her antler-like horns. ”I…do not know. Maybe there will be wyrms. More hydras, perhaps. But Tia, you are not like any of them anymore. You are special.”

”Because of papa!” said Tia with a giggle. She looked back down, staring at the cliff face continuing far, far below, its end so far down that it was impossible to make out. ”Sometimes, I see little humans like me. But also not like me. See them play with each other. Think about it but know that humans are not me. Can't play with them. Think maybe I can make friend with dragon like me if I find.”

She paused, sensed Li's worry, then smiled back up at him. ”But no worry. Being with papa makes me happy enough.”