The iron-shod wheels of merchant wagons rattled against the cobblestones of Orario's northern thoroughfare, a rhythmic pulse that matched the heavy thrumming in Draco's chest.
As he crossed beneath the shadow of the massive northern gates, a wave of nostalgia…..thick and suffocating as the dust of the road…..hit him with the force of a physical blow.
It had been a little over eight years since he first set foot in the labyrinth city as a youth of twelve.
Now, returning after a five-year absence, the city felt like a stranger wearing a familiar face.
'It is way more vibrant and congested compared to then,' Draco mused, his crimson, slit-pupiled gaze sweeping over the surroundings.
Orario had evolved.
The scars of the war against evilus, which had nearly dismantled the city's spirit half a decade ago, had been paved over with new stone and ambition.
The population had surged, and the economic pulse of the city was a roar rather than a hum. Some infrastructures had been modernized, magic-stone lamps stood more frequently along the roads, and the architecture seemed to reach higher, as if trying challenge Babel itself.
'It feels so different, yet the vibe is the same,' he thought, a faint smile tugging at his lips.
'The air still smells of greed, heroism, and monster musk.'
However, while Draco was basking in the bittersweet memory of his youth, a vacuum of silence began to spread through the immediate crowd.
People were stopping in their tracks, conversations dying mid-sentence.
He wasn't just a traveler anymore; he was a spectacle.
His height alone….well over two and a half meters…..made him a titan among men.
He was a dragon-kin of such sheer, overwhelming physical presence that his very shadow seemed to carry weight.
Yet, it wasn't just his size that arrested the gazes of the civilians and adventurers alike.
His face, sharp and impossibly handsome, possessed a lethal grace that contrasted sharply with the jagged horns gracing his temple and the heavy, powerful sweep of his tail.
Beside him, Aasterinian moved with a lightness that defied the gravity of the gazes following them.
As a dragon goddess, she carried herself with a mysterious, ethereal pull.
She wasn't just beautiful; she was an enigma wrapped in an aura that warned the world to admire from a distance, lest they be consumed by the fire she kept banked within.
'Ugh, not this again,' Draco thought, his jaw tightening.
He had spent years in isolation, away from the prying eyes of the masses.
He had thought he'd grown accustomed to the stares during his first stint in the city, but five years of solitude had stripped away his armor.
'Just ignore them. You can get used to this all over again,' Draco chanted internally.
He straightened his back, a movement that caused several onlookers to stumble backward in fear. He didn't mean to intimidate, but his body was a weapon he could no longer fully hide.
"So, where to next?" Aasterinian's voice cut through the murmurs of the street, clear and cool.
Draco shook himself out of his internal monologue.
"We have to head for the northwestern district. The largest estate there should be the Bahamut Familia home."
"Ah, that's right," Aasterinian muttered, her eyes sparking with a hint of recognition.
"You did commission the Goibniu familia for it back then, didn't you? I remember the ridiculous amount of money you poured into that project."
Draco nodded, his mind drifting back to the cramped hallways of the Stardust Garden, their previous home.
It had been a beautiful place, but it was a nest they had long outgrown.
The Bahamut familia had been small then, but their potential….and their physical requirements….demanded something grander.
'Speaking of members, I wonder how many joined the familia since I left,' Draco mused.
He felt a pang of anxiety.
Would they recognize him?
Would be scared of him?
He turned to Aasterinian, needing a distraction from his own nerves.
"By the way, Lady Asta, I hope you don't plan to continue freeloading off the Bahamut familia."
Aasterinian's brow arched, a dangerous little smirk playing on her lips.
"Freeload? I prefer the term 'patronage.'"
"Don't get me wrong, I would love to have you as a guest," Draco said, his expression becoming serious as they navigated a particularly crowded junction.
"But wouldn't you like to do something meaningful? Something that earns you the coin to fund your research while you're… I don't know, scheming to cause whatever chaos you promised not to actually act on?"
The dragon goddess fell silent, her eyes tracing the line of the distant Babel tower.
She contemplated the question for several minutes, the bustle of the city washing over them like a tide.
"What do you have in mind?" she finally asked.
It was a concession.
She had planned to settle, yes, but the idea of starting her own familia sounded tedious.
Her personality was a storm; she didn't have the patience for the headaches of managing a dozen headstrong mortals.
But freeloading off her old friend Bahamut… even she had a shred of pride that recoiled at the thought once Draco voiced it.
"Well, how about working in the School District?" Draco suggested.
"They're always looking for guest lecturers with… unique perspectives. And if that doesn't work out, I have several private projects in mind. You could work as my assistant. I would pay, of course."
"A goddess as a mortal's assistant?" Aasterinian chuckled, a rich, melodic sound.
"The audacity of it is almost tempting. I will think about it."
"That's all I ask," Draco replied, genuinely pleased.
The idea of having a deity's intellect aiding his research was a dream no one in Orario had ever dared to entertain.
Time seemed to slip through his fingers as they transitioned from the commercial madness of the main streets to the more refined, quiet atmosphere of the northwestern residential district.
The air here was thicker, cooler, and smelled of blooming flowers.
It didn't take long to find their destination.
The walls of the estate rose up like the ramparts of a fortress, built from reinforced black stone that drank the light of the sun.
"What the hell…" Draco breathed, stopping dead at the gate.
He had seen the blueprints.
He had signed the contracts with the master craftsmen of the Goibniu familia.
But seeing it in the flesh…..or rather, in the stone…..was different.
It was a palace.
He had requested a space large enough to accommodate at least two of Bahamut's true draconic form, and the architects had taken that request as a challenge to create a monument.
"Ugh, I feel so out of place here," Draco muttered, staring at the gate.
"Thinking about it, it's a miracle the Guild even approved the construction of something this ostentatious."
He looked at the lush gardens visible through the ironwork, the massive dragon statues carved from black stone, and the intricate magic-tool fixtures that hummed with a low, protective frequency.
"Just how much does the maintenance on this cost?" he mused, a sudden fear for the familia's finances surfacing.
But that fear was quickly swallowed by a much more visceral emotion.
As he stepped toward the gates, which bore the crest of the Bahamut familia…..a dragon's head silhouetted against a shield…..his heart rate spiked.
His blood began to sing in his veins, a frantic, rhythmic pounding against his ribs.
He was twenty now.
He had left as a boy of around fifteen and arrived as a child of twelve.
His siblings….would be nineteen.
He had missed their coming-of-age ceremonies.
He had missed five years of their lives, their struggles, their growth.
His hand hovered over the gate, in deep thought.
Then, the heavy oak and iron door of the main manor creaked open.
A figure stepped onto the veranda.
She was small, delicate in a way that suggested the fragility of porcelain but the strength of diamond.
Her hair was a waterfall of platinum silk, and her eyes were the color of moons reflected in a still lake.
Bahamut.
In that moment, the world ceased to exist.
The noise of the city, the presence of Aasterinian, the cold stone under his feet…..it all vanished. A jolt of electricity shot down Draco's spine, zipping through every nerve ending until it reached the very tip of his tail, which gave a sharp, involuntary twitch.
He didn't think.
He didn't plan.
He moved.
The ground cracked beneath his feet as he lunged forward, bridging the distance between the gate and the porch in a blurred heartbeat.
He stopped inches from her, his massive frame casting a total eclipse over her small form.
The silence that stretched between them was a living thing.
It was heavy with the weight of five years of silence, and a thousand unsaid words.
Up close, Draco realized that while he had transformed into a mountain of muscle and scale, Bahamut remained as eternal as the stars.
She had not changed, and yet, her presence felt more intense, as if she had been distilling her emotions in his absence.
Standing over her, Draco felt his throat close up.
"I'm back," he finally managed to rasp.
His voice was deeper than he remembered, a resonant growl that vibrated in his own chest.
Bahamut didn't scream.
She didn't berate him for his long absence without so much as writing a letter.
Instead, she took a single, shaky step forward.
Her hand reached up, the movement slow and deliberate.
Draco instinctively lowered his head.
He bent his massive frame, bowing until his forehead met her palm.
The touch was a revelation.
It was cool, soft, and terrifyingly familiar.
"You grew," she whispered.
Her voice trembled, a hairline fracture in her composure.
"You grew so much, Draco. Not just in height, it seems."
A single tear escaped her silver eyes, tracing a slow path down her pale cheek.
That drop of grief and relief was the catalyst that broke him.
Draco's knees hit the stone steps with a dull thud.
He collapsed toward her, his scaly tail curling around them both like a protective wall, shielding them from the world, from the prying eyes of the neighbors, and even from the other dragon goddess standing at the gate.
"I'm sorry," he murmured, his face buried against her shoulder, his chin resting on the delicate curve of her neck.
"For making you wait… for everything."
Five years was a blink of an eye for a goddess, but for Bahamut, it felt like an eternity.
The falna connection between…. her and Draco…..had been cut off.
To live without sensing the state of his being in the back of her mind had been a slow, daily torture.
Bahamut's arms wrapped around his thick neck, her fingers tangling in the mane of hair at the nape of his head.
Despite the sheer disparity in their sizes….him a titan, her a slip of a girl…..it was she who provided the strength.
She anchored him to the earth, her touch reminding him that he was home.
"I missed you a lot, you know," she scolded gently, though her sob betrayed her attempt at sternness.
Behind them, Aasterinian cleared her throat.
Her expression was uncharacteristically soft, though her eyes still danced with mischief.
She leaned against the gatepost, crossing her arms.
"As much as I enjoy a good melodrama," the dragon goddess called out, her voice breaking the spell, "we are standing outside. Your neighbors are already starting to place bets on whether he's going to eat you or kiss you."
Bahamut pulled back just enough to glare at her friend over Draco's shoulder, though she didn't let go of his hand.
Her silver eyes narrowed as she took in the other goddess.
"Asta," Bahamut said, her voice regaining its strength even through the tears.
She managed a watery smile.
"I suppose I missed you, too."