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Music for today:
Rok Nardin - Waves
https://youtu.be/gnVGtCbJRdY
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Chapter 466: Hera
Early Evening - Mid Summer : Year ??? : Delphi
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The dragon god, Typhon. Standing twenty kilometers tall and nearly a hundred long, he was the largest creature I had ever seen by such a massive margin it was almost jarring—making Dagr and I look like a couple pups in comparison. -The herald of humanity's demise?- A part of me wanted to laugh at the mere sight of him. "~Do humans grow bigger with time on this world, or are they just stupid?~" At the time, I couldn't fathom a human being stupid enough to challenge a living mountain.
And rightfully so. "~Haha, they do not.~" Passing a gentle chuckle, Hera turned to look down Typhon's body. "~The humans never attack him intentionally. Rather,~" Dancing her eyes over the caves decorating the mountains on his back, she motioned her hand, and as if by command, numerous serpentine heads poked out. "~The humans simply got greedy...~"
They were dragons—ones quite similar to others we had seen on other worlds, at that—but something about them was.. different.
"~The humans who reached the greater heights would always begin to target the higher species of this world, be it dragons, thunderbirds, phoenix, pegasus, or even griffin for their scales, bones, and blood.~" It was a trend I knew to be common with lower beings. "~They would use them for armor, weapons, and even elixirs to enhance their own bodies. Over time, they even managed to harvest enough of them to create entirely new branches within the human species: the avians resulting from thunderbird blood, the centaurs with the pegasus, and the elves with the griffin, though there are countless others.~"
-Fascinating... Does that mean demihumans are humans who took the elixirs of lower-bloods?- I had never really thought about it before. -Is that how they're still able to breed with humans?- But with every passing moment, my mind churned faster and faster. "~So what about draconic and phoenix blooded humans?~" -I assume the dragons are just out of their league, but...-
"~The 'phoenix' have been harvested in the past, however, with their only population coming as a result of Konrul's whim, a god who arrived from the stars similar to you, they were far too few in number to create a lasting species, and far too dangerous to consume an elixir of for more than a few humanoids to ever exist.~" Pausing to recall a memory for a moment, she turned back toward Typhon. "~As for the dragons, it isn't actually uncommon.~"
-What..?-
"~Dragons have the most advanced minds of all life on Delphi from birth, it's only natural for them to take interest in humanity as it grows.~" Watching as a much larger dragon lands at the entrance of one of the caves with a carcass in its mouth, Hera's expression warmed like that of a mother. "~Since ancient times, it hasn't been a terribly unusual occurrence for an odd dragon to take interest in humans and breed with them.~"
"~That's possible?!~" Dagr flinched instantly, looking over at the larger dragons perched on Typhon's back—each standing well over a hundred meters tall—simply wondering.. 'how..?'
Even if it wasn't that simple. "~Not originally.~"
-R..right... Dragons and humans couldn't possibly have a common ancestor, so.. how?- Turning back to her, I followed her gaze around the mountain before she turned to the sun setting on the horizon behind her.
"~Many eons ago, a rather unusual dragon grew fascinated by a knight that had come, and failed to kill her. He was the strongest of his time, but even still, their attempts at offspring all inevitably failed... Granting the man a number of elixirs from a variety of species including dragons themselves, she hoped to bridge the gap between their existences, but nothing ever worked. She even decided to do the same thing.~"
-What? As in she would take the elixirs of lower beings?-
Dagr found it similarly outrageous, but also, "~Would that even do anything?~"
She immediately shook her head. "~Not for her... Being a dragon thousands of years old, her blood had so much mana that elixirs hardly affected anything, no matter how potent.~"
-Figures...-
"~But she never gave up... Digging into other species, she did everything in her power to come up with a way to bridge the gap between humans and dragons, whether that meant somehow making herself human, or making the knight a dragon, but unfortunately, while elixirs made it seem like its possible, stealing the attributes of higher beings doesn't change your species.~" As if proud, she straightened herself before continuing with a smile. "~One day, however, she began praying to the Pantheon for answers, and curious what she could manage with the information, Aphrodite granted her the oracle. It wasn't much, but she explained that demihumans were between human and monster, and explained that the bridge was the druids I told you about previously—the shapeshifters originally alchemized by humans many generations prior to the birth of the elves.~"
-Ah! So demihumans aren't humans!- Druids were a type of monster she had spoken about at some length when we visited the elves, and by far the most fascinating beings we had seen. -They were a species with 'two separate bodies'.- One typically being an animal or monster, and another taking a humanoid appearance that I assumed was thanks to an ancient magic. -Their 'human' forms were so stiff and mana-consuming I assumed it had to be an illusion they were maintaining, but...- "~Do druids actually have two separate bodies? Is it not merely magic to change their appearance?~"
She nodded with pride lighting her face. "~Two bodies, each with a different blueprint.~"
My mind spiraled in a blink. -That makes me wonder... Are druids even unique to this world..?- It made me completely reconsider what I had come to know about the origins of other species. -I heard about myths of such shapeshifters in the legends of other worlds we visited, but dismissed them since it defied everything I had come to know...- But seeing where Hera was leading her story.. I began questioning that reality—certain it was fact...
"~Haha,~" Unable to keep from passing a chuckle and she watched my mind spiral, she continued softly, "~Upon realizing that, that crazy dragoness culled entire villages of druids in order to make one of the most potent elixirs ever created, mixed in the blood of the knight, inseminated herself with another dragon, and gave the concoction to her children before she even laid the eggs.~"
-Then.. that means...-
"~The hatchlings would inherit everything from the draconic parents on one blueprint, yet with the other, inherit the traits of that human.~" Motioning to the side, a humanoid man exited one of the caves with dragon horns, wings, and a scaled tail before hopping into the air and transforming with a bright flash, and a burst of mana I could hardly wrap my head around. "~They were the first dragons to be born with two bodies.~"
"Hah!" I couldn't hardly believe it. -No wonder they feel so different from the dragons on other worlds...-
"~With the truly unfathomable conditions of their birth, they stood well over the rest, and being the strongest, their genetics spread fast. Before long, nearly the entire population inherited the foundational template of the druids from them—though, it spelled disaster for many other species on Gaia.~" Motioning toward the base of the mountain where a vast field of bison stood, she continued slowly, "~Each generation of dragons bred with different beings, and overtime, they began to evolve so rapidly they simply surpassed everything else...~"
*Woosh—Woosh-Thump* Watching a dragon hardly forty meters tall land by a bison and open its maw to pluck it off the ground, a streak of light crossed the sky before a similarly sized dragon slammed its paw into the head of the other. *WHOOM-WHAAAAM* The impact bellowed a plume of dust hundreds of meters tall and spread cracks through the entire field like a meteor had landed, but as the dust settled, neither dragon had a scratch.
"~Humans couldn't catch up, and while dragons were always extremely solitary creatures, with the birth of titans like Typhon, a community of them formed for the first time, and the gap widened exponentially. Before long, the dragons practically became gods. Their whim became absolute, and if something displeased them, they erased it from existence.~"
-How brutal...- "~Then I assume the reason we haven't seen the centaurs, or pegasus you mentioned..?~"
"~They were actually wiped out by humans—hunted to extinction the same way the griffin were. Before Typhon's coming, the strongest dragons had all prayed to the Pantheon, so we have been able to prevent the extinction of every race they have threatened except for draconic demihumans, and even encouraged things like controlled harvesting and animal farming.~"
Watching the two disputing dragons gearing to fight for a silent moment, Typhon finally turned his head to shoot a glare at them before they rapidly dispersed.
"~But since then, things have begun to deviate from the endless rhythm they have always had.~"
Noticing the warmth in her tone drop for the first time as her gaze rose to the sky, I tensed. "~What do you mean?~"
Instead of responding instantly as she normally would though, she let the silence linger for just a moment longer. "~I'm.. not sure... With the end of the last generation, the Aesir—the gods of ascended humans—have begun moving against the Pantheon. They have become upset that we haven't done anything to keep the dragons in check, and rightfully so, but I...~" Lowering her gaze to the ground, she held out her hand and stared into her palm. "~I can't see beyond the fog as I have been able to in the past... As we have travelled, it's felt like my eyes have closed.. like I have been cut off and left to drift as a mere section of what I once was. Yet somehow, nothing has changed...~"
The glow that clung to her form dimmed as her eyes lost their ageless steadiness and warmth...
"~The world feels.. different,~" she whispered—her voice soft enough to be mistaken for thought. "~The tides of mana have shifted in ways they never should have. The constellations have been lost, and the prayers that once found me now fail to reach my ear... It's as if the sky itself no longer remembers me... As if perhaps I don't remember myself...~"
Her words hung there—quiet, raw, and unguarded.
I didn't know what to say, and Dagr didn't either. But in that moment, something in me stirred...
The fading she was feeling wasn't new to me; it was the same I had faced countless times... And yet the words I wanted to say always got caught in my throat...
Something within the deepest reaches of my mind told me I was wrong.. that the fading she was facing wasn't from something loneliness or silence as it was for me...
It felt almost akin to sickness.. and the more time I spent with her.. the more clear that fading became...
But, I could never bring myself to say anything...
Even as years turned into millennia, I simply watched.. trying to find the source of her sickness in order to destroy it and bring back the endlessly loving being I had grown to love the company of...
But.. Hera was never so simple...
Even as the war with the Aesir spread, and inevitably reached her...
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