novelraw Chapter 260 260: Impartment
Chapter 260 260: Impartment
The stream of information gifted to Violet was swiftly shared with Luna, the amount of information was vast, too vast to truly comprehend.
The two companions were swept up into the tide of memories that had been thrust upon them.
*
He flew through the sky with his siblings, they had only recently gained the ability to fly freely and he and his siblings revelled in the freedom that their flight presented.
A shadow covered the siblings causing them to look up and witness the sight of a massive dragon leisurely gliding along as it returned from the ocean with an equally massive sea creature held in its claws.
The young dragons instantly changed their course and flapped with all of their might as they chased after the large dragon bringing back dinner after a successful hunt.
She lay within her domain, her various treasures and keepsakes decorating the otherwise plain cave with glittering metals and beautiful artwork from paintings to sculptures.
She carefully checked on the small egg that rested beneath her, ensuring that it remained healthy and warm for the hundredth time that day. Her child would soon be hatching, she could tell by the more frequent shaking that gently rocked the egg from time to time.
She wondered how her child would turn out, would they take after herself or their father? Or would they pave their own path and become something else entirely?
She did not know but was eager to find out, she once more adjusted how she lay before checking on the egg once again.
He stalked through the tall grasses with his friend. They had been allowed to go on their first hunt without supervision, they had spent most of the morning tracking down a lone beast.
They had scouted it out from the sky before carefully approaching on the ground. Their noses twitched as they confirmed the scent was growing stronger, soon they would encounter the deer and would engage in a true hunt. His heart thudded in his chest in anticipation.
She dove out of the sky, her body perfectly angled so that she slipped through the waves with nary a splash, her domain of water ensuring that she could swim with just as much grace as she could fly.
She so loved the waves, some thought her strange for enjoying swimming just as much if not more than flying. But she had long since lost interest in trying to fit in with everyone.
She only needed to focus on herself and her domain. She spread out her domain, her presence merging with the ocean waters around her allowing her to become one with the waves and sense everything that lived within.
She had long practiced how to meld her domain with the world around her seamlessly, it would not do for her prey to know that it had already fallen into her trap after all.
She thought back to the first time she tried to expand her domain and couldn't help chuckle at the memory, every single fish within a mile of her had fled as fast as they could when they found themselves suddenly within her unstable domain.
Thankfully she had long learnt to integrate her domain and presence to blend into the world around her, this ensured that she remain aware of her surroundings yet hidden from all whilst within. After all, she was her domain so how could she be found within it if she did not allow it?
He awoke from his long slumber to the horrifying sounds of pained cries and defiant roars.
At first the old dragon thought nothing of it, assuming that the young ones were trying to show off, yet when one particular roar cut through the noise his drowsiness came to an abrupt end.
He surged out of his ancient abode, his long dormant powers surging for the first time in uncounted years. The sight that greeted him was enough to send the elderly dragon into a rage like none he had ever experienced.
Thousands of humans adorned the slopes of his ancestral home, their weapons drawn and dragons dead by their feet.
The dragons still standing battled with their all, trying to fend off the overwhelming numerical disadvantage that they currently suffered.
A dozen dragons lay dead, from old friends he had know for centuries, to young pups not even past their first decade of life.
He roared with all of his might, his power being fully unleashed as he breathed death down on these interlopers that dared desecrate his home.
Yet his breath was blocked by a dozen humans flying through the air, their flight now directed straight towards the elderly dragon.
He clashed with these humans that dared bar his way, yet he found himself helpless against their might, forced to watch on in impotent rage as his kin were slain one after the other whilst he was kept at bay by these accused mages.
Eventually the last of his kin fell and the elderly dragon found himself alone in the sky that was once teeming with life, he gazed down at the corpses of his friends and family a thousand memories of all that he knew flashing through his mind as the impotent rage continued to build.
Yet when he saw his own child on the ground, her body covering in a bevy of cuts his will broke.
His anger cooled, and his mind turned solemn.
He gathered all of his power, determined to right this wrong and leave a lasting legacy that would forever withstand that annals of time.
His power surged, his vision turned white and everything came to an end.
*
Dozens of memories played out for the two girls, each one showing but a snippet of a life now lost to the annals of history.
They showed various events in different dragons lived. From the rearing of their egg to the desperate battle a child had during its first hunt.
The girls found themselves living the lives of the person from the memories, they felt and thought what the dragon felt and though. It was wonderous and terrifying all at once.
Violet felt that she was loosing touch with herself, the shear weight of the memories overwhelming her mind.
She experienced years of memories in mere moments, the accumulated knowledge far exceeding the sun of her entire life. Violet felt like her personality was fraying under the ceaseless insistence of each new dragon who's life she briefly lived.
Luna was faring slightly better that her companion, whilst she was still quite young herself she at least had a number of years of her own memories to counter the avalanche of experiences bestowed upon her by that mote of light that had entered Violets's head.
Yet she could also feel Violet's panic as she was being overwhelmed. Luna reached out through their bond, anchoring Violet's existence by tethering it to her own life. She drowned out the avalanche of experiences with her own, from the moment that she met Violet all the way up to the present.
Violet felt unmoored, she didn't know who she was, she lived a dozen lives, a hundred lives she knew so much yet didn't know what any of it meant.
She didn't know who she was, where she was, why she was.
Then something pulled her fraying attention, something that felt familiar, yet also so strange, she did not understand what it was yet found herself once again drawn into a fresh surge of memories.
She witnessed a young girl fleeing from a burning village, being cornered by an orc and preparing to die at its vile hands only to be saved by a baby dragon daringly leaping to her rescue.
From their she lived through a series of events that felt familiar to her frayed mind, the more she experienced the more familiar everything felt.
She first realised who the small but growing dragon was, it was her, Violet. Then she remembered who's memories she had been experiencing and the world snapped back into place as she found herself jerking back as she was once again herself.
Violet found herself taking deep breaths as the panic of nearly loosing herself threatened to overwhelm her. Only the comforting presence of cold fur and warm emotions allowed Violet to regain a fragile sense of self.
The wave of memories was over for now, yet Violet could still feel the etherial bundle of memories within her very mind. Now however, they no longer overwhelmed her sense of self, instead seeming content to reside within her.
Violet got the feeling that she could 'touch' this bundle of memories with but a simple touch of her will, doing so however, would open herself up to another surge of foreign memories that could threaten her sense of self.
The though was enough to send shivers running down her spine and a feeling of reluctant duty as she slowly parsed the deluge of information she had just received.
This was no simple act of magic that she had discovered. No, this was the collective will of the dragons that once called this mountain range home.