I sat next to the tombstone. No matter how I looked at it, the stone seemed as though it was pulled off from some boulder. There was no mound of dirt. The only thing there was a tombstone. I sat there in silence. To be frank, I didn’t feel anything emotionally. He might’ve been my father, but I didn’t have any emotional attachments to him. To me, he was just a random stranger and someone who I’d sigh about. To me, it felt no different to looking at the grave of a stranger. As a matter of fact, it felt as though I was looking at the grave of somebody from another generation, somebody I only knew of from word-of-mouth and books. I quietly sighed before standing up.
“This is not a grave, thou need not worry.”
I suddenly heard a voice a voice from behind. The voice wasn’t an imposing voice from overhead, but from a location of the same height I was currently at. I turned my head around to see a pair of blue and golden eyes looking at me. I froze up the first time I saw her. Aside from her eyes, everything else about her was the product of Elizabeth and Vyvyan combined. She had Vyvyan’s long blonde hair and Elizabeth’s thin lips. Her fingers were the same as Vyvyan’s, in that they were more slender than human fingers. As for her breasts… they were a little bit bigger than the two of them… She was about my height, and therefore very tall. She possessed the combination of my two moms’ unique points. I thought my moms were staring at me for a second… It wasn’t a magnificent feeling. Normally, if my two moms both came to me and looked at me that way, then that meant that they were about to fight again… and definitely for something to do with me.
She gently moved her hand. Her blue and golden eyes staring at me caused me to feel a little dizzy. People’s eyes didn’t emit light; they received light. However, her snake-like eyes seemed to emit light. Her pupils were slightly strange. Her gaze contained a tinge of sadness.
“Dragons feel sorrow? Will they feel sorrow for an elf?” I asked myself.
She let out a heavy sigh, and then placed a hand on my head. To be honest, her action made me feel the same type of concern I felt when Elizabeth first touched me… I suspected she was going to twist my neck off… She stroked my head: “Thou have already grown. Thou father mentioned thou many times. I see thou as my child.”
Her archaic dialect was so hard to understand. I thought, “If you’ve spoken with my father before, did you not learn how to speak?!”
I said, “Sorry, sorry, I want to know if my father is still alive or not.”
“Come with me.”
She turned around and her black robe fluttered. I suspected her clothes were made from her scales… However, I didn’t think it’d be black… She didn’t wait for me and went ahead instead. I followed after her. I asked her countless questions, but she didn’t answer any.
The two of us walked to a place nearby a mountain of sand. To my surprise, there was a cave underneath the sand. Perhaps there was a rock mountain underneath the sand. The dragon turned around and pointed at the cave. She put her hand into her mouth. When she took it back out, it was on fire.
“That’s your idea of a fire torch?!” was what I thought.
The two of us entered the cave. It was hot outside, which was attributed to the sun and sand outside. Inside the cave, however, it was moist and cold. The dragon walked ahead of me. She walked extremely quickly despite all the holes and bumps in the ground. I suffered as a result. My boots were wet due to stepping into more water puddles than I could keep count of.
The cave went a lot deeper than I imagined, and it had lots of different paths. I’d be lost if I entered alone. I didn’t know how far I went, but my physical stats weren’t at their primes at the moment, so I soon felt so tired that I leaned on a wall and panted.
“Thou are physically weak.” She turned around and looked at me with a reprimanding look.
I leaned on the wall and panted. Angered, I replied, “That’s why I said I’m almost dead. I’m in a physically poor condition at the moment. I wouldn’t be so weak, otherwise!”
She seemed to be scanning me to see if there was anything wrong with me. I felt I might’ve had a chance at being cured if she could identify my issue, but she didn’t say anything. Instead, she came over and grabbed my hand. I almost cried over the warm sensation. It felt the same as Mommy Vyvyan’s hand. I felt touched as if I had returned to Mommy Vyvyan.
“Why are thou crying?”
She seemed to be shocked as to why I suddenly wanted to cry. I quickly lowered my head and wiped the tears at the corners of my eyes. It was embarrassing to cry in front of others. I smiled helplessly: “Sorry, I thought of my Mom. You bear a striking resemblance to my mom.”
“Thou mom…? Ah…” She nodded; she looked envious. She tightened her hold on my hand. If it was Mommy Vyvyan that was holding my hand, I’d feel reassured and warm, but I felt as if the dragon would crush my hand. She continued forward while holding my hand. She didn’t look back. I looked at her long golden hair that was the same as Mommy Vyvyan’s, gently swaying in front of me. When she reached a corner, she suddenly whispered, “Thou father often mentioned his wife and kids. I feel jealous. I have lived here alone for thousands of years. Jealous. I lived with thy father for many years, but never had a child.”
Slice it how you like it, but the dragon was a third-party, wasn’t she…? My father already married Vyvyan and Elizabeth, and had a son with them.
“Why do you consider yourself my father’s main wife and want to have children with him? Also, whatever you say, you kidnapped the elves here as your toys. You’re a dragon; how are you going to build a family with an elf?” I wanted to ask.
She seemed to ponder something before lowering her head all of a sudden. She then righteously said to me, “Thou father and I have deep feelings. Thou is thy father’s son, therefore thou are also my son.”
“Sorry, I don’t think that’s how it works…”
My internal reaction: “How did I become your child all of a sudden?! Vyvyan and Elizabeth are still alive. My father is a bastard who falls for every new woman he meets and forgets his current one, but I’m not! How in the world can I randomly have another mother?! I’m Elizabeth and Vyvyan’s son, since I grew up in their bodies, but you and I don’t have a single connection! If you didn’t kidnap my father, I wouldn’t even know of your existence.”
I abruptly found myself unable to find the words, for I was shocked by everything before my eyes. We were struggling to traverse a dark and wet cave, but we suddenly found a massive vacant space. The area was so vast that it appeared an entire mountain was dug out. There were all sorts of gold coins and treasures in the vast space, and they were all squished together. Even a small light could light up the entire cave.
Legends claimed that dragons had a habit of collecting treasures, and it sure appeared to be true. I had no idea where she collected so much gold and treasures from. Every step I took was stepping on golden foil. The question was, where was my father?
“Thy father was weak. He is buried here and covered by the gold. This is the place I like most and has the things that I like most, which includes thy father, gold and thou.”
She spun around and looked at me. Her eyes were full of affection, causing me to feel flustered…
By the sounds of it, my father was dead and buried in the cave. Did she alleviate him of his pain due to him being too weakened? I didn’t know. Whatever the case, my father die in the desert
I knelt down on the ground and brushed away the heavy gold and silver bit by bit. I finally saw a box supported by crystal beneath. I slowly opened it. Inside was a crown. I had never seen it before. Regardless, it randomly felt close to me. To put it into perspective, it felt as though we were inherently related. I assumed it was an elf’s crown.
In my opinion, the crown was very similar to Mommy Vyvyan’s crown. She didn’t usually wear it, but you’d be stunned by it at fast glance. The previous King was my father. I figured he would have had something similar to it to wear out.
The dragon walked up behind me. She pointed at everything in the surroundings and solemnly said, “Thy father’s crown. Thou can take it. Stay and keep me company. Thou are similar to thy father and thou are my son, while I am thy mother as she is thy mother. Thou could accompany her, so thou can keep me company.”
Colour me dumbfounded. The dragon looked serious. She pressed her hands onto my shoulder. One of her goals was to let me see my father, while the other was to have me stay and keep her company!! The dragon was dying from loneliness in the desert. By the looks of things, not even dragons can bear with the pain of loneliness.
There was a tinge of sorrow and determination in her eyes. She looked into my eyes and carried on in a soft tone: “I loved him. I loved thy father. My heart hurt so much when thy father passed away. I want to continue living with thy father. Thy arrival after thy father’s demise must be the will of the heavens. Thou should stay with me, and I shall take care of thou. I can give thou gold and money. I can plant trees for thou!”
“I see; so those trees by the lake were planted by this dragon…” I figured.
How much effort would it take to plant trees in a desert? How would you successfully plant them? Elves liked the colour green; they liked nature. Perhaps she planted them to make my father happy. The dragon built an area of sand around this place, thereby framing the oasis. By doing that, she gave my father the last sights of green. Perhaps she truly loved my father very much. She wanted me to stay, too. I couldn’t stay, though; rather, I’d die, too, if I stayed.
I shook my head: “I want to live. Even if I stay, I’ll die. My body won’t hold up. Can you not sense that?”
She pressed her hands on my shoulder and solemnly responded, “I can save thou; I can save thou. If thou live, thou shall stay with me.”
I never expected her to promise to save me so decisively. Not even Vyvyan could save me, yet she accepted it so easily.
“Can she really save me?” I pondered. I answered, “All right.”
I decided to give it a try. To begin with, dragons were creatures that were beyond our realm of comprehension. I didn’t need to believe anything anymore. All I needed to believe in was her.
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