Music for today:
rainy day
https://youtu.be/-1ASiU-YtBw
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Chapter 486: Memory
N/A - N/A : Year N/A : Location Unknown
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- Zachari ~
"MmmhHH-AHH!" Snapping from the edge of sleep with a sudden jolt, my eyes shot open just to be flashed with a burst of white so blinding the world seemed to fracture. "ACK-!"
It hurt like no pain I'd ever felt—as if a beam of light was melting my brain through my eyes.
I recoiled instantly, snapping my eyes shut to cut off the sense, but that wasn't enough to escape. "AAAAHH!" -IT BURNS!!- I coiled, flailed, tried to dig my claws into my face to escape the pain, only to find my body passing through itself like it didn't exist. -W..WHAT IS THIS?!-
But the pain refused to ease.
"AAAGH-!" Feeling my head suddenly split as information was ruthlessly slammed into my skull, senses and visions—countless in number—all played simultaneously in an amalgous blur while my body screamed as if billions of needles were threading and weaving through it. -W..WHY?!-
I didn't know what was happening.. why or how...
I simply couldn't recall anything besides the urge to sleep before I was thrown into a sea of pain and noise.
But then, after an eternity of thrashing against the pain—the burning, searing, and piercing—it eased...
With gentle thumps, warmth began coursing through me. With gentle sniffles, aroma blanked my mind.
And then, with the lifting of a fog in my mind, something else came.
A faint familiarity.. not with my senses.. but with my existence itself...
With the existence of flesh...
"Mmmgh..." Waking with a strained, unfamiliar groan, my body twitched through an unreasonable tightness.
Like a statue trying to move, my muscles were stiff and rigid, and my joints were locked—feeling more like stone than flesh. However, with gentle ripples of force, my claws furled, I drew a strained breath, and after another moment, I managed to open my eyes.
Then, color. *Woom*
With a bright burst, the darkness I felt I had always known was evaporated by an unfathomable array of blues, greens, oranges, and reds like I was submerged in a liquid rainbow, and with it, a wave of familiarity and.. the recollection of shapes and.. things...
Things I didn't know how I recognized, until...
"Mom..?" The voice reached me like the blast of a bomb—briefly unfamiliar and puzzling—before the shockwave rang my skull.
*WOOM* "ACK-!" My mind twisted instantly—my skull screaming and burning as visions of colors, shapes, sounds, and tastes blew through it in unintelligible masses before being reshaped and reformed.
Colors morphed into shapes, feelings morphed into words, and as my consciousness once again faded, everything morphed into scenes.
Memories... *Snap*
Feeling everything flicker with the darkness I had existed in for what felt like my entire existence, my mind moved as if to try and run, only to get tangled in an intangible net.
*GASP* "HAH!" The next thing I knew, I snapped awake with a gasp, sucking in a surge of liquid before instinctively choking. *COUGH—COUGH*
Almost immediately, a deep rumble shook through the space before, with a deep crackle, light reached my eyes, and I poured out of something with a wave of slime.
*Cough* *Cough* My cough was pitiful, and my vision was blurry, but with a flurry of blinks, twitches and movements, I found myself looking up at a huge creature—a white-scaled dragon whose appearance lit my mind like a firework. -M..Mom..?-
'Asimi.' My Mother.
-W..What is this..?- Being gripped with a wave of hunger, I tried to roll over and crawl back to what I had fallen out of, an egg, and began consuming it—the crunch, the slimy texture, and the taste all flashing familiarity in different parts of my mind.
Until the third bite...
*Squelch* Feeling something else in my mouth, the space around me shifted, and I found a crimson slab within my maw—metallic, crimson liquid seeping out of it as I looked over to see two faintly grey-scaled dragons knawing through the same brown, furry hide I was.
'Archontas and Eklektos.' My brothers.
Their names dug into me, yet with another blink, my surroundings shifted again.
Staring straight up, I found myself sat on a grand mound of treasure in the middle of a large rotunda, rounded and lined with white-stone pillars with an elegantly carved and decorated ceiling—the images and depictions of which made my eyes and mind sparkle like no other.
'The Nest.' Home.
Lowering my eyes to the rest of the room, the walls were no less elegantly decorated, with a large snowy-white dragon coiled around the basin of treasure on which I sat, with my two, smaller brothers curled beside me.
'Love.' Family.
With every blink, my surroundings changed, and with it, more core memories revealed themselves to me.
My first word... The day I first heard my own name... The pain of my first broken bone, fractured when fighting my brother...
It all returned.. one step at a time.
Some days, I relived in their entirety, and others, just the briefest moment.. but nevertheless, every subsequent vision grew more detailed and longer than the last.
This was.. my life...
Every taste.. every texture.. every little experience I had dedicated to memory was replaying itself, and with it, my mind was reshapen.
But just as the good and irrelevant memories played.. so did the torturous.
*CLANG* Jolting as I blinked, the nest shook—an impact rippling down the hallway as Mother stood with a darkness in her eyes and made her way down the hallway.
'Father.'
*CLANG* Flinching with the next bang, my eyes snapped shut as if wishing it would all disappear the next time I opened them.
But my mind refused to move on.
*CLANG* With the third bang, I quivered.
'Fear.'
But the memory refused to end.
*CLANG* Finally opening the door with the fourth bang, a deafening roar ripped through the nest. "ASIMI!" Father was furious, but despite fear filling my mind, deeper down, I felt.. understanding... "TO RUN OFF AND HIDE THE MOMENT MY CHILDREN HATCH!"
"Quiet down." Mother's voice darkened. "You're scaring them."
Looking through the crack in the door, I saw a dragon's maw that dwarfed Mother's flick its tongue. "Tch..."
But the noise didn't settle...
With the closing of the doors, the nest shook with muffled voices—my brothers and I snuggling together, all quivering from the same fear.
But after what felt like an eternity, the doors to the nest opened again, this time wide, and after Mother began walking back toward us, a monstrous head lowered itself into the entrance.
His scales were white like mine, with an array of beautiful feathers on his chin and crown, yet the sight of him made me freeze.
...Freeze until those eyes, laden with guilt, yearning, and sorrow landed on me.
I.. didn't understand...
But as Mother, clearly frustrated and annoyed, came and grabbed my brother from my side, I snapped. "M-MOM!"
But she ignored me, pressing her aura on my head to hold me in place before turning around with my brothers in hand and returning to the door.
"W-WHY?!" Looking past her stoic back to see the soft, gentle air around the towering dragon outside, I wanted to get up and run to catch up with my brothers.
But as soon as Mother reached the door, handing them to that other dragon, she sat. "You aren't getting Zachari no matter how much you push the courts." Her tongue snapped as if to draw blood.
But Father whipped back. "If you had a sister, you never would have been made patriarch in the first place. You better pray you raise Zachari well, because these two won't be giving up their seat as your brothers had."
"Then allow me to wish you luck, Varys." Her tone was filled with bitterness and disdain. "Because your blood is still tainted by the sins of the war."
His teeth glimmered as he pulled his head away with a snarl. "I can't believe someone as innocent and caring as your mother managed to hatch such a miserable bitch as her only daughter..."
"Another word about my mother and I'll have your head displayed in the middle of Atlas."
"I wish you'd try. Show the world that praised her as an incarnation of Bahamut just how miserably spiteful her daughter is... It might just strip you of your title."
Refusing to simply back up and close the door, Mother bit her tongue, dripping crimson blood to the ground beside her.
But that was the end... *Blink*
The next moment I closed my eyes, the scenery changed again—this time just Mother and I spending time together.
But none of the memories felt the same after that...
Going through life, I held a fear of my father that made something deeper in me writhe with regret, yet couldn't listen to it... With every memory, something new was etched into me, yet after that moment, I was forever changed...
Living alone with Mother, I grew more stoic with each memory. Awakening mana, I learned methodically, eventually forgetting what truly changed me to learn magic, grow stronger, and learn history and etiquette 'befitting a queen'.
Over the years, I was simply groomed into a ruler. Mother loved me, showered me with warmth, yet while I appeared to bask in it.. I didn't understand. -What is love..?-
Eventually leaving the nest, being told to find a husband I loved, I didn't understand. I explored the world, dug my claws into the land of humans, and even tried 'adventuring' as one to try and learn whatever I could.
I observed them.. families.. trying to learn how they functioned, and what that love that brought them together was. -Is it the drive to have kids? The desire to lay a strong clutch..?-
Yet the more I looked, the more I found the desire of strength to only exist where warmth didn't.. warmth that was the foundation of the deepest bonds I knew... -Then, is love.. that warmth..?-
Still uncertain, I continued to adventure around the world, disguised as a human, meeting dragons and humans alike, none of which seemed to resonate with me.
Until one day, Mother summoned me for an unrevealed purpose, and introduced me to a boy, similar age to me.
"Osto, this is my daughter Zachari. I hope you two can 'get along'."
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