The Time Dragon knew it was about to die, a frost-line creeping across the last clear pane of its life.

It was no ordinary wyrm. While its kin ruled wind, fire, and storm, its breath drew from a deeper wellspring: Time, the river under every river.

Even among dragons blessed by the heavens, that gift was one-of-a-kind. For that, its kin watched it like hawks, and its father—the Dragon King—saw it as a thorn pointing at his throne. Before its eyes ever opened, he sealed it in the clan’s ice-cold oubliette, draping the sentence in silk: “eternal historiographer,” a title that was only a prettier chain.

It never saw dawn blush or dusk bleed. Locked in the dungeon’s marrow, its Time-touched blood slowed its flesh from withering, yet the extra years were only stale bread: dayless, nightless loops of scratching useless details into stone, ripples on a stream that never changed, wearing every edge off its mind like river-pebbles turned smooth.

When word came that its father fell to a prince’s dagger in a coup, not a ripple moved inside it. It only lifted its shackled claw and carved the fact into the wall, as always.

Death of the father brought no freedom. The new Dragon King feared it just the same. So did the next one, and the next—crowns traded hands, but chains stayed.

For the Time Dragon, no matter who warmed the throne, the world did not shift an inch.

The jailor’s watch went on and on, until one day it saw its own reflection in the crystalline corpse of the dragon in the next cell.

Its eyes were no longer the first color they’d been.

Like ink bleeding through paper, a sullen dark-gold seeped into the irises that had once been a singular blue.

It understood then: its end was near.

So, for the first time, it spread its wings. The shackles that had held it a lifetime shattered like crystal in sunlight.

Just like that, it left the prison.

No kin barred its way. The dragonkind had long since fractured in endless civil wars; the breed that once crowned the world had waned. No more Dragon King. No one left alive who could cage Time.

Yet when it rode the sky and watched sunrise catch fire and sunset smolder, no joy stirred. Its jailing had been too long. So long that the dragon dynasties had ended; the once-mighty were scattered like autumn leaves. The world had new masters.

In this new world, where was a dying dragon supposed to go?

It didn’t know. At first it tried speaking with the newly risen, mysterious little creatures. They only took it for a coin-greedy, village-burning beast, though it had long lost its taste for anything that glittered.

After a few failed tries, it gave up. It learned to avoid the little ones who kept hurling iron pellets and magic orbs at it, choosing to curl up in empty corners, where no one came.

When it was tired of flying, it lay down. When it was done lying down, it flew. Aimless, chainless, yet shadowed by an invisible prison.

Until it came upon a village that looked plain as a pebble.

At first it watched from far away. It watched them leave before sunrise with empty hands, ride odd-shaped planks over water, then return by moonrise on those same planks, dragging nets of dead fish into their clay huts.

Most days, the ones who left at dawn returned at dusk. Now and then, one or two did not. Their faces never showed again.

That wasn’t strange. The sea is a hungry beast, too much for such frail little creatures.

But if it’s so dangerous, why risk it? Are those reeking dead fish worth it? Strange little creatures, it thought.

It felt it had skipped some crucial premise and only grasped half the truth. It had no wind to spare to chase the rest. Soon it stopped watching and slept as usual.

It got two days of quiet before a strange vibration rang its inner ear like a struck bowl.

“Ha—hahaha! I finally found you!”

Puzzled, the Time Dragon opened an eye. It wasn’t the first time it had heard this sort of sound. It knew the little creatures were good at making that sharp frequency. But before, the notes came stained with hate and fear, not this bright fizzing excitement.

So it lifted its head, tilted it, and looked that way.

A silver-haired little creature was pointing her white, plump second forepaw at it—her index claw, filed like a crescent moon. The nail looked harmless. But her face was scribbled with triumph and certainty.

“You’re the legendary mount the gods sent me, aren’t you?”

[ …? ]

The Time Dragon blinked its nictitating membrane over its vast eye, making sure it wasn’t seeing a mirage.

Me? A mount? What is this hatchling saying?

Dragons are born proud. Even this mild one felt heat stir in its blood when a tree-swinging, fruit-rotting, low-tier creature tossed a challenge like that at its brow.

What a strange little thing, it thought. It turned away, laid its head down, and shut its eyes. It had no plan to humor the chatter.

But the little creature didn’t know good sense. She hopped and hollered. When patience didn’t crack, she climbed onto the dragon itself and bellowed right at its ear, screeching, “I’m Heaven’s chosen!” over and over.

The high-frequency noise finally snapped its calm. It flicked its head to shake her off the ear.

It forgot—no field practice—that a “gentle” motion for a dragon is an earthquake for a little creature.

Clang—stone boomed, dust leapt, and pebbles knocked against its horns, clack-clack.

Only then did it realize it’d probably done something not so good.

It blew the dust aside with a breath and tried to spot the hatchling—assuming she was still in one piece.

To its surprise, she was not only still whole, but…

Half her body was embedded in the rock wall. Blood and grime streaked her skin. Her clothes hung in ribbons. Yet her frail-looking body bore not a single scratch. The ridiculous amount of blood didn’t seem to be hers. Her skin stayed like set cream. And she was smiling.

[ …Are you… unharmed? ] it asked without thinking, sending the words by magic into her mind.

“Hm? I’m fine~”

Her laugh rang like a bell. Pride puffed up again.

“Now you believe me, right? I told you I’m the ‘Heaven’s chosen’!”

Then she prattled on, spilling hard-to-follow words: Sacred Heart, fate, reincarnate, destined to be an emperor, and the like.

The Time Dragon listened to the jumble. Confusion rippled, then flattened. It accepted what was before it and stopped gnawing at the strangeness.

She was fine. Why should a dying dragon care about the why?

It thought a moment, pried at a scale, and pulled out a red shiny it had picked up on the road. It tossed the glittering rock to the little creature and waved a claw.

“Ah? Are you trying to… to buy me off with a gem? To send me away!?”

You—are you insulting my dignity? Do I look like someone who can be bought with coin? She was shouting again. So the dragon groped between scales and found a larger, brighter luminous night pearl, and tossed that one too.

She squinted, dazzled, lifted a hand to shield her face. Her forever-running mouth only made a stunned “uh—ah?” sound.

After a moment, she lowered her hand, quietly picked up both shinies, and turned to leave the cave.

Watching her obedient-looking back, the Time Dragon closed its eyes again and sank down.

As it had guessed, these little creatures called dragons greedy. Yet when faced with glitter, they were the ones without any armor.

It was ready to return to stillness. Unexpectedly, the little creature came back the next day.

She brought a big basket of dead fish.

“Big guy, look what I brought you!”

Her nose tipped even higher than last time, like she’d come to claim credit. That puzzled the dragon more.

“These are the village’s top catch,” she said, lifting the tail of a fish nearly taller than she was. “Look—bluefin mapleblossom fish! A tribute-grade prize. The moment it’s hauled in, you snap the spine, bleed it, then keep it cold with quick-freeze Magic Crystal Stones. On day three the flesh is sweet with a whisper of tang. The belly melts like snow, fat rolling through your mouth. Not even the current royal house gets it this fresh. But today you’re in luck—catch!”

Heave-ho! With a grunt and a swing, the massive fish arced through air. It startled the dragon. On instinct, it opened its jaws and caught it.

Seeing the fish disappear past its fangs, her nose tilted even higher. She snorted, proud.

“Mhm! Well? Tasty, right~”

[ … ]

The Time Dragon blinked. Its tongue circled once, pried the fish from its fangs, then swallowed and answered honestly.

[ Too small. ]

Tsk, no taste. Small means premium! she squawked. When it gave no more reaction, she launched into how she’d traded the red shiny it gave her for these fish from the villagers.

She chuckled, wind in her laugh. “Those idiots all thought I’m a little fool who can’t tell treasure. Each one thought they’d struck gold. They don’t know I still have a way pricier night pearl—and an inexhaustible walking vault…! Ah—ah, you heard nothing… Right! Here’s an Ailin Sea long shad—catch!”

She clapped a hand over her mouth mid-boast, then flung another fish. The Time Dragon watched the silver body trace a glittering arc and hesitated a heartbeat.

…So that’s it?

It was the shiny I gave her…

Time slowed without asking. It stared at the sleek, silver length. Something new pricked behind its ribs, like the first drop of rain on parched ground.

Truth was, a dragon’s tongue could turn fish to pulp with a brush. Forget melting belly and ocean-sweet fat; it barely tasted anything at all. Liking or not wasn’t even on the table.

And the hatchling was loud. If it wanted quiet back, the wisest move was to ignore her. Lay down. Sleep. Let boredom carry her away.

Yet, against reason, it opened its mouth and caught the fish—knowing this would only puff her pride bigger.

It did it anyway. This time, it held the fish gently on its tongue.

A faint sea-salt rose through its mouth. It savored it for a moment. It did not spit it out.

This feeling… wasn’t bad.

Not because the fish was delicious.

Until now, the Time Dragon had only ever been a witness.

In the cell, what happened outside never touched it. Its only duty was to carve what it heard into stone.

After the cell, the world still didn’t touch it.

No matter where it flew, the little creatures greeted it with the same hostility, deaf to its words and blind to its acts, as if it were the extra term in an equation.

Yes. It had always been thus.

It could affect nothing. It could change nothing.

Until this day, when a little creature showed up with a basket of dead fish and told it: because you gave me two shinies yesterday, there are more shinies in your cave today.

…

It pressed the fish against its tongue, crushed and swallowed. After a while, it asked:

[ Aren’t you afraid of me? ]

“Afraid?”

“How could I be scared of a mobile vault— I mean, a great, kind, generous, noble dragon with eyes pretty as a summer lake!”

She rubbed her palms like flint striking, then showered praise like spring rain, saying she adored its pupils, that they looked like the priciest iolite under moonlight.

[The way you talk doesn’t sound like a hatchling.]

“Hatchling?! How rude! I already said I’m a reincarnator!” Her voice flared like a firecracker, pride puffing up like a peacock’s tail.

She kept rambling like a brook in flood, claiming her mental age beat her parents’, that she’d fought battles and seen the world; after minutes of relentless chatter, the Time Dragon finally cut the current.

[So, why did you seek me?] The question dropped like a stone into still water.

“I need you.” Her lips closed like a door in a winter gale.

[And why is that?] Its calm pressed like fog over a river.

Silence pooled like dusk in a valley. Then she lifted her head, a child’s face wearing winter steel, and spoke with the snap of ice.

“Because I want to become the king of this world.”

Of course, to be king, fame must rise like dawn, and fame needs coin like soil needs rain, so please look after me lots—after that iron line, she flipped masks in a heartbeat, grinning like a fox in sunlight.

From then on, the Time Dragon’s hidden lair had a regular like a sparrow returning to eaves.

She came with a basket of dead fish, trading like a market wind, always trying to pluck a trinket off the dragon like picking fruit.

It didn’t mind; those shinies were roadside stars, casual as pebbles, and it lacked a hoarder’s fever, so giving felt like letting leaves fall.

Truth be told, swapping a still shine for a living shine wasn’t a loss; her eyes were two embers glowing in fresh snow.

Watching those bright red irises, the dragon came to that reed-light conclusion.

Day by day, the little one stayed longer, her doings and topics fanning out like migrating geese.

Growing familiar, she grew bold as summer vines, often stroking the tail-scales big as half her body, or napping with her cheek on its warm belly, drooling like dew and mumbling dreams.

Any other dragon would have whipped up a cyclone and spun her like a dry leaf, then shredded her into jerky with talons sharp as frost.

But the Time Dragon had no temper, like a lake under stars; though tail-touch pricked its blood pressure like thorns, it let her trespass slide like rain off rock.

In those easy days, it learned her name.

Not one, but two, like twin moons in cloud.

On their first meeting she’d said the village called her Bennyola, as simple as a gate’s plaque.

The other name came not so straight; it surfaced in a strange scene like a carp breaking water.

After some time together, she brought a jar of fermented fruit wine, declaring today their one-year anniversary, that the dragon should taste the village’s best brew; but dragon jaws weren’t made for swallowing rivers, so the whole jar poured into her instead.

Once she finished, she swayed like reeds in wind, her bright eyes fogging like mist, and every few minutes she’d point and cackle, saying, “Why’d you split into two— no, three!”

The storm lasted a while, then she calmed like night after rain, leaning against its claw, head drooping like a closed flower.

Yet she wasn’t fully asleep; her mouth kept murmuring like crickets.

“I… I’ll tell you… my true name… it’s Jia… Jia… Jiaqi…”

She mumbled more, saying she told only it this precious secret, that no one else should hear.

Listening to her low sadness like autumn geese, the dragon didn’t know the root, but it nodded like a pine in wind.

[Mm. A secret between us.]

It promised like a seal on wax— but when she woke, and it greeted her with [Hello, Jia-Jia-Jiaqi], she bristled like a cat in rain.

“Don’t— don’t you call me that!” Her red cheeks darkened like cherry skins, “And what’s Jia-Jia-Jiaqi supposed to be! It’s Jiaqi! Jiaqi!! Jiaqi!!!”

She shouted thrice like temple bells, still not vented, vowing revenge with a nickname sharp as a quill.

Before the dragon could breathe, she stared at its face like a painter at dawn, pointed at its eyes, and yelled, “Decided! From now on I’ll call you Little Blue!”

[…Why?] The question hung like a paper kite.

“Because your eyes are blue as sky!” Her certainty glittered like frost.

The dragon grew more puzzled; most of its pupils had turned dark gold, blue just a sliver like riverlight at dusk.

When it asked why not Little Gold, she rolled on the ground like a gourd, screaming that she didn’t care, she’d call it Little Blue and that was that.

Much later, the dragon learned this was what people called a drunken tantrum; either way, their names set like clay in sun, and she never called it “big guy” again.

The change touched more than names; it shortened the distance like a bridge over fog.

After that day, she seemed to drop her last guard, flying free like swallows, confiding private matters like whispers through bamboo.

Bullied for standing out, she came to complain like summer thunder, saying those brats couldn’t see her greatness, only mocked her, unlike the dragon who understood.

When her clothes tore on branches like claws, she didn’t run home; she dashed to the cave, leaned on its warm belly like a hearth, and mended, bare upper body brazen as noon, talking nonstop.

She hopped from proving that barbed twigs were failed evolution to a cat-shaped cloud she saw yesterday; her thoughts skittered like sparrows, with almost no logic.

In that scattershot daily chatter, the Time Dragon learned things it would’ve missed, like lanterns glimpsed through rain.

Through her, it learned the nearby village was named Dalahaman, the sky held a god with wicked humor, and far away lay other worlds, one of which she’d fallen from like a star.

Thanks to her, it learned the sea wore many fish like scales, the mountains bloomed all manner of flowers like painted fans, and humans had countless ways to dress the same food like masks.

Time trickled through these days like sand through fingers; for the dragon, life had been a long dull grind like a gray road, only aimless repetition.

Somehow that changed; now time ran quick as a brook, everything happening like a blink.

Before it could blink, the little one stretched taller, becoming… a taller little one.

…No, growth wasn’t just height; her flat chest gained curves like hills, pudgy limbs lengthened like willow wands, and her round face sharpened with handsome arcs like a moon’s edge.

But the biggest change was her eyes.

At first, her eyes rolled everywhere like marbles, impossible to pin to any one thing.

Now they lingered on the dragon’s face like swallows on a wire, sometimes shadowed with quiet longing, as if it owed her something, leaving the dragon baffled as mist.

When it asked what was wrong, she’d huff and turn away like a cloud, refusing to explain, icing it out for minutes like a winter pond.

It happened more and more, until one day she seemed to snap like a bowstring, turning aside while muttering under breath.

“(Hmph… stupid Little Blue…)” Her lips pressed like sealed envelopes, her eye-corners sad as dusk.

“(You need to grow up faster. I… can’t wait that long.)” Her voice trembled like thin glass.

[? I’m clearly older than you.] The dragon’s logic fell like a pebble into boiling water.

For some reason, that answer angered her like a match to dry straw; she flushed red as steamed crabs, and ran out with a face full of humiliation like storm-fire.

Watching her back vanish like a falling star, the dragon stayed puzzled as a foggy shore; it braced for days without her like a long rain.

But the next day, she returned to the cave mouth like sunrise, not with dead fish but with a red slip of paper like a leaf in autumn.

The dragon tilted its head at the small paper that couldn’t hold a fish; she snapped it open like a fan, grave and straight as a messenger, reminding the dragon of the herald who’d read the Dragon King’s decree to its prison years ago.

She did much the same, reading aloud like a bell: she’d come of age, and per village custom, tomorrow she’d go “meet” a matched neighbor boy.

She spoke of wedding forms like banners in wind; the dragon recalled humans setting lanterns and streaming colors like rivers, the strange pomp of their rites.

Imagining her as the bride, its heart felt a prickle like a thorn.

A strange feeling, nameless as fog; unsure, it leaned on learned common sense like a crutch and nodded.

[That’s good. Congratulations, Jiaqi.] The words fell like leaves, light but final.

“Congratulations?” She echoed like grit between teeth.

[Mm? What’s wrong?] The dragon blinked like an owl at dusk.

“What’s wrong? You tell me!” Her pale skin flushed like sunset, voice surging like a storm, “If I marry another man, I’ll be stuck in his house like a caged bird, serving him, putting his interests first like an altar, bearing his children, letting his family branch and bloom like a forest.

“I wouldn’t even be able to come see you. Does that mean nothing to you?” Her breath hitched like a broken flute.

[Uh…] The dragon’s mind stalled like snow on a trail, then blurted a line it probably shouldn’t, clumsy as a hoof.

[But… don’t the females of your kind do that by nature?] The habit sounded obvious as daylight to it.

She ran off sobbing like summer rain bursting, leaving the cave ringing with her ow-ow wail.

With her crying echoing like wind in pines, the Time Dragon reflected a long while in its Time Domain, thoughts circling like hawks.

That same night, it scraped every shiny from its scales like seeds from a pod, bundled them into a bag like a night cloud, and under a moon-black, wind-high sky, dropped the sack at the neighbor’s door like a small hill.

It thought, if they got rich and big overnight like bamboo after rain, maybe she wouldn’t have to stay home bearing children, and her face would clear like morning.

But the next day, the girl returned to the cave mouth blazing red like a hot iron, and she shouted that last night’s stunt scared the neighbors senseless.

“They were sleeping sweet as spring, then heard a small mountain fall into their yard like thunder, thought they’d angered some great beast, and fled overnight like birds!”

“They’ve supported my parents for a lifetime like two oxen pulling one plow— do you know how huge a blow their moving is to my elders? Stupid Little Blue!” Her fury crackled like a dry forest, leaving the dragon speechless as stone.

She huffed, heat flaring like sparks from dry straw, stepped in, and unleashed a flurry of tiny pink-knuckled punches on the time dragon. He looked innocent as a moonlit lake, let her vent, his great dragon eyes blinking like lanterns.

Seeing that face, the little creature finally lowered her hands. Her look still scolded him, all iron that refused to turn into steel, but her mouth quit tallying how he’d scared off the neighbors. She turned away and drew a deep breath, once, twice, until the blush faded like dusk. Then she darted to a corner, fetched a glass bottle and a metal cap from her pocket, and made the time dragon tilt his neck, curious as a cat in grass.

“…Hmph. What’re you staring at?”

She snorted, stiff and small, yet she didn’t hide a thing. In fact, she picked a spot that made it easy for him to see—hands open, motions clean like a stage under bright light.

She fussed with the bottle, rubbed the cap against the rim, showed how the cap’s circle dwarfed the mouth of the glass. Then she flashed the bottle in a whirl like a swallow cutting wind.

A heartbeat later, the cap that shouldn’t fit plinked down to the bottom, ringing bright and crisp. The little creature flicked a stealthy glance at the dragon nosing close, nerves flashing across her face like minnows.

【I saw you use a magnet.】

The little creature went red-hot, like iron in a forge.

“I told you not to open a Time Domain and cheat-peek while I’m doing magic! Xiao Lan, you big, big, big dummy!”

Ah. Scolded again.

**

A vague crisis drifted by like a short storm. The time dragon still didn’t grasp why she’d gotten angry, nor the tangle that grabbed his heart when he heard she’d go on a blind date. But all in all, the path seemed to settle back on its rails.

The little creature kept to the old ways, hauling dead fish to the secret base each day. Sometimes she chatted idly; sometimes she leaned on his warm belly and worked on her own things. In winter she cocooned herself in his thick membrane wings, snug as a seed under snow. In summer she wrapped his cool tail and slept like a cat on stone.

Aside from her growing addiction to small-time magic shows, their days stayed the same, unruffled by her adulthood.

The time dragon started to believe these days would last forever, like a river that forgot the sea.

That illusion held until the day the moon was torn.

The world fell into endless darkness. The cries of the living became a strange, quiet hymn, a sorrow that pressed like frost. Chaos, pure nothingness, made the hell from old tales look gentle as a garden.

Most human cities were razed, even their footprints wiped away. Yet Dalahaman, a nameless little fishing village, baffled the storm and survived.

No armies. No cannons. But there was a dragon feared by every Dragon King, and a girl blessed by the gods.

Together they fought in blood and ash, and the Chaos Spawn broke before them. Together they held the village behind them, a small flame in a black sea.

After the battle, on scorched earth under a bruised sky, with grateful cheers rolling from far survivors like waves, the little creature let her sword fall to her side.

【We did it.】

The time dragon looked over, aching for the usual bright lilt in her voice and finding only quiet.

【We won.】

He said it again, not understanding. They’d guarded their most precious days, so why did she look like winter?

She didn’t answer him. Her gaze went to the far horizon, where fire stitched the clouds, and she spoke gently, like a leaf falling.

“My chance has come.”

【You know it’s dangerous over there, right?】

“Mm.”

Why?

Confusion rose like smoke. That nameless feeling surged back, beating his heart harder than the battle had.

【Isn’t this life good? You wanted fame, and everyone here treats you like a hero. Isn’t that what you wanted?】

A ripple touched those red eyes, beautiful as red maple after rain. Her fingers tightened on the sword, knuckles pale.

“Because I don’t want to be a hero.”

Heroes give and give, like rivers pouring into fields. They help many, do great things, yet at the end they get betrayed, get cut down to dirt.

“A hero is charity from the high. Miss a step by a hair, and they take it all back, and you tumble from the peak. But a king is different. A king needs no one’s approval, cannot be betrayed, and stands at the summit of power. That’s the shape I want to become.”

The time dragon saw that cold look on her face for the second time. Now there were no jokes to break the ice, no giggles to tip the mood. She crouched and began to clean the battlefield, piece by piece, stitching armor from the dead like a crow building a nest. She strapped it on, heavy as old snow.

Then, before she fastened the iron helm, she turned. She reached out a hand to him.

“Xiao Lan, will you be my strength? Will you ride with me to the four winds and help me take a throne?”

The time dragon didn’t answer. Silence pooled like ink. Only after a long stretch did he speak.

【After you become king, what will you do with that power?】

She paused, lashes lowering like closing doors. She shook her head.

“…I don’t know.”

Her voice carried confusion like mist, and a thin thread of hope like dawn.

“But if you stay by my side, maybe I’ll find the answer then.”

Time seemed to stop—no wind, no dust, only her and him and the iron between them. The time dragon stared at the little creature, and a strange, familiar feeling woke like an old song. In her shadow, he thought he saw the Dragon Kings.

In the end, he couldn’t cross the fear carved into him by an age of winters.

【I’m too old. On a battlefield, I’ll only weigh you down.】

It was a paper-thin excuse. She lowered her head, the light dimming—and then it rose again, bright on a switch, so fast it made him feel like a stranger to her.

As if nothing had happened, she turned the open hand into a fist and bumped it softly against his claw.

“You’re right. Someone has to guard the secret base,” she said, smiling like noon. “Protect our home, okay, Xiao Lan~”

**

After that, she did what she said. She carried a few dozen sun-dried fish, slung a small cloth bag on her shoulder, and left Dalahaman.

After that, the time dragon only heard pieces, slivers of talk from traveling merchants.

He heard that the moment she reached the front, she blazed like a comet. She led the humans through hard, brutal fights and started to draw the attention of two other kinds of little creatures.

He heard the broken ranks of life found their sun and their lighthouse. Under her light magic, the three-race alliance pushed the Chaos back. They took back lost ground for the living and won, again and again, until they sealed that rift that had seemed invincible.

He heard that after the triumph, the little creature brought home a few golden-haired children. She became an emperor as she wished, and the humans, once shattered and scattered, mostly bent under her rule.

Then for a long time, it was hunger in the fields and iron in the streets. Famine, war, plague—disasters bloomed like sick flowers. Trade routes snapped like frozen reeds. He didn’t hear her name for years.

Then, years later, she died.

People agreed in silence to stop saying “Beniola.” In mouths and records there was only the radiant Emperor Belior, crafted by the royal house like a statue polished to blind.

So a white heart was placed in the cathedral of Balad, the capital, shining like bone in glass. And on a small mound not far from Dalahaman, a plain grave rose, marked by a tombstone of crystal that caught the sun.

**

【I’m here, Jiaqi.】

The time dragon flew to the small grave and laid the camellia he carried at the foot of the crystal.

No one else came. He came every day, swapping in her favorite flowers. Then he lay beside the mound, and talked to the earth as if it could answer.

Sometimes he talked about new shiny things he found while sweeping the secret base. Sometimes he talked about curious customs the little creature’s kind had invented lately. Sometimes he talked about the world he saw after speaking with the long-eared little creatures’ empress, and told her he finally understood what she had meant by cream-fried chicken.

The dumb earth answered with silence. He kept talking anyway, like the day she first walked into his cave—no reply needed, the stream babbling on.

Until one day, at noon under a bright sun, he stopped wandering through topics and told her quietly that he would die.

He watched the light on the crystal stone, saw the last thread of sky-blue drain from his eyes, leaving ember-gold like coals.

Drowsiness rose like a tide and swallowed his mind. He let his heavy eyelids fall like gates.

He knew this sleep had no waking clause.

A dragon’s flesh doesn’t die quickly. But his soul had reached its edge.

When this body opened its eyes again, it wouldn’t be him. It would be an empty shell, driven by instincts, a storm without a name.

He knew. So before this, he’d signed a magic pact with the Kasi of Dalahaman, binding his body like a ship to a pier. Even dead, he would keep his last promise and guard Dalahaman—guard the secret base that was his and hers.

His flesh’s future was set. As for his soul—what then?

Would his awareness dissolve entirely, like mist in sun? Or go to the heaven humans swore they had?

Or, as the little creature had said, would his soul be reborn as something else?

He didn’t know, and he didn’t care much now.

At the end, the memory that rose wasn’t battle nor old kings, but a day of idle talk when she’d said the cloudtops opened onto a place called the universe—bigger than the whole Sumerland Continent by countless folds, so big a brain couldn’t picture it, so big all possible things would happen.

“That means, somewhere far, far out there, a quantum tide could randomly assemble another you exactly like you! And that you would also sit in a secret base beside Dalahaman, with a super white-haired beauty just like me right next to you!”

What’s the point of that? he’d asked then. She had pursed her lips, thought a little, and said she didn’t know, but it felt cool.

He hadn’t understood what was cool about it back then. Now he remembered, and the answer came like rain.

Yes. That would be cool.

In some remote corner of the universe, maybe there really was a dragon that looked exactly like him. Maybe there was a white-haired little creature exactly like her beside him.

And that dragon didn’t refuse the hand she held out. He said yes, stayed with her, and rode with her to all four winds.

If the universe is big enough for all possibilities to happen, then that future must exist.

At that thought, the time dragon tasted that bitter emotion again, like tea steeped too long.

At the edge of life, he finally understood it.

He couldn’t help but remember the glint of expectation in her eyes when she looked at him. What was that? Was she, like her father, just hoping to turn him into a tool in their hands?

Or was she wishing for him to push back, to tell her that she didn’t need to be king at all, because he would stand with her no matter what, never betray her, and spend a lifetime helping her find what she truly wanted to do with a crown?

If it was the latter, did he choose wrong?

In the end, did he fail to change anything?

He didn’t know. But—

If… only if…

If the soul can reincarnate, if the gods are willing to give him another chance—

Then this time, he would choose differently.