Chapter 299 - Denouement (1/2)

Li sat down in front of a towering ash tree he had created, resting his back against the sturdy trunk. Tia sat in his l.a.p, nodding her head from side to side as she hummed a little tune she had picked up from somewhere. Probably in the streets of Riviera.

The tune made Li realize how far away they were already from the city he once never thought he would leave. How he would get even farther and farther away as he went West. It was oddly fitting, in a way. He left Riviera just as he came to realize he wanted to influence more than his farm – he wanted to shape this very world.

Or, as he was coming to realize more and more: protect it.

The wind picked up, the low sing song of a gentle breeze fluttering through the air and picking up a stray leaf or two -the first time a breeze had ever touched anything green here for nearly two centuries. In a way, it was remarkable how much of a fresh start Li's very presence gave this place.

It heartened him to see the life sprouting out from where there was once nothing. Almost an indescribable feeling, but if he had to give words to it, it was like seeing a child's first movements. Something small with the potential to become much, much bigger.

He looked down to Tia, hearing her hum and seeing her take her attention to the sky where the sun started to set, casting its warm, amber glow for one last time before night took over its celestial duty. She had that potential too.

For the past few hours, Lira, who now lay with her hands forming a pillow under her head atop a bed of grass and flowers, told Li about what to expect in the future regarding Tia. After all, there was no better person to tell him this than a high dragon herself.

She commended Li about what he had done so far. Told him that he was right on the mark about giving Tia the best food possible and letting her have the freedom to take hard fights for herself.

That was how dragon kin evolved, though, as Lira noted, with an entity as powerful as Li being Tia's soulbound, the eating part became less necessary as she would naturally grow strong just by being with him.

Still, consumption accelerated the strength growth process, not to mention that Tia liked to hunt and fight.

Overall, as time passed, Tia would grow, maturing into her teenage years within the span of the next two months.

Then, her aging would rapidly decelerate, only getting slower with age, until by the time she hit what would be the mid twenties to a human, it would take time on the order of centuries to have her age even five years.

Lira confessed that she did not know what it would be like for Tia's aging process because of her unique connection to a being like Li. Likely, Lira theorized, Tia would age even slower than normal dragon kin, perhaps never aging at all once she hit her physical prime.

Tia's mind would mature as quickly, though that did not mean she would automatically learn about the world. Instead, her base instincts to fight and to consume would sharpen faster than did her worldly knowledge, making her more aggressive, perhaps even cruel, but with guidance and experience, she would find a sense of self balanced with her instincts.

What Lira did worry about was the nature of Li's fragmented being. A human sense of self, a side of life and guardianship, and a side of old, alien being all mashed together.

Indeed, the high dragon was surprised Li had even managed to stay so stable a being this far, and no doubt, had he not had someone like Old Thane to tie him to the human things he liked and Iona to guide him through melding his guardian powers, he had no idea what he would have been like.

Now, it was only a matter of assimilating his nature as an Old One with the others. Seemingly impossible, but already, Li had made tiny baby steps towards it by committing himself to Order. Still, the sheer vastness and scale of his Old One nature meant that he had to essentially lock it away, and that, Lira warned, could produce issues for Tia.

Tia grew to be like Li through their soulbound connection. Even her appearance embodied this. She could look like a human but had pieces of life and death, order and chaos, speckled across her. For now, she stayed in relative harmony, but as she grew, drawing deeper into Li, she would find herself in conflict.

The very same kind of conflict Li had to overcome.

When that time came, Lira said, Li would have to be the mentor to guide Tia through it all, for Lira herself knew nothing of a soulbind situation as unique as this.

Hopefully, Li thought as he smiled down at Tia, he could be there for her. Be the mentor she needed. No, he had to be. It was his duty as a parent.