Sixty-Three: Astrological Prophecy

Lilith hugged a tome thick enough to crush the Little White Dragon and drifted back to the dorm like a cloud hauling a mountain.

The Little White Dragon remembered she still had a Nidhogg at her side, so she kept pace like a moon shadow, and only after seeing the Black Dragon off the mountain did she plan to study.

“What’s that book about?” Nidhogg saw the glow on Lilith’s scales, the way her whole small dragon said I want to read, like a lantern burning under night rain. The Black Dragon loved that look, eyes bright as the brightest star pinned to the night.

“I haven’t read it yet,” Lilith said, hugging the brick like a warm brick from a kiln. “Mr. Joseph just handed it to me. He didn’t explain a thing.” The Little White Dragon had heard of it before. Back then, with a system by her side, she never needed prophecy, and misty, mystic stuff never warmed her blood. “I saw it before, but I don’t believe in prophecy, so I never looked into it,” she added, like flicking dust off a window.

“Oh? You don’t believe in prophecy? I watched you play with tarot every day in the Dragon Territory,” Nidhogg said, pushing open the dorm door like parting a curtain of fog.

The Little White Dragon slipped past her, cradling the tome, and then whump—she flopped onto the bed beside it like a falling feather.

The White Dragon rolled over with no strength, a tide ebbing from shore. She lifted her eyes and answered in a languid, enticing pose, “It was just to calm the ripples in my chest. I don’t really trust that stuff. It was more a toy to fend off boredom, like a wind chime in a dull yard.”

“I gave that set away when I left the Dragon Territory,” Lilith said, voice drifting like smoke. “A little fortune-teller clutched a glass orb and played prophet in the alleys. She was pitiful, abandoned like a stray kitten in the rain. The streets there are rough as broken stone. I worried she’d get hurt scamming people, so I gave her the deck, and taught her how to use it. At least it wouldn’t be pure bluff anymore.”

“That’s pretty gentle,” Nidhogg laughed, stroking Lilith’s head like smoothing a snowy pelt. The Black Dragon sat on Lilith’s left, reached across her pale body, and lifted the thick encyclopedia on astrological prophecy like raising a slab of ice from a river.

“But you’ve never touched astrological prophecy,” Nidhogg asked, curiosity fluttering like a moth at a lantern. “You’re an Astrologer. Don’t you need this?”

“Nope. My idol is the finest witch under heaven. The one thing she’s bad at is divination, so I don’t like it either,” Lilith said, solemn as frost on stone. Nidhogg couldn’t tell if Lilith was spinning fog or telling truth. In such moments, she simply kept her patience like a lake holding the moon.

“What’s your idol’s name?” Nidhogg asked with a smile, warm as the first sunbeam after rain.

“Hermione Granger,” Lilith said offhand, then snatched the tome back and flipped the first page like turning a wind-borne leaf. “Enough about her. Let me see this.”

“But the Little White Dragon should sleep,” Nidhogg said, pointing at the wall clock, its hands like twin eels sliding to the one.

“I just woke up,” Lilith said, face caught between want and weariness, like dawn stuck behind clouds. She’d been short on sleep for days. She’d only napped a bit this afternoon. If she lay down now, she’d sleep like a stone in a well. But she wanted this book more than dreams. Maybe it had something about that strange star she’d observed, that thorn of light in the dark.

“Let me read a little,” Lilith murmured, tugging Nidhogg’s sleeve like a shy breeze. The Little White Dragon dropped her head, didn’t dare meet her eyes. Her pointed ears flushed red, like blood on snow, tempting as a cherry under frost, begging teeth.

“Just one hour, no more,” Lilith said, holding up one finger, thin as a sprig in winter. Her hand was all fine bones, like a bird’s wing in the palm. She was too thin, a willow in drought, yet her bone lines were beautiful, stirring a soft pity like rain over dry fields.

“Please?” Lilith dropped her head again, fingers pinching Nidhogg’s clothes, body swaying in a small plea like reeds in a breeze.

“This book pulls you that hard?” Nidhogg regretted not being able to record her, like missing a comet blazing across the night. They’d been together this long, and it was the first time Lilith so obviously played coy. Even in bed, when she cried out like a cornered kitten, she never acted cute.

The tender Little White Dragon blushed deeper, a peach petal steeped in tea. She hadn’t wanted to plead. It would only grind her already cracked heart like sand under a wheel. But Lilith knew, if she couldn’t read this Astrological Prophecy Encyclopedia today, her kindness would wither like a garden in drought. Her zeal would blow away like ash. All her better virtues would vanish like mist by noon.

“Please?” she tried again. Nidhogg stayed silent like a mountain. Lilith braved her shame and looked up, and ran right into a face fighting a laugh, like a dam holding back a playful flood.

“Ugh.” Lilith wanted to crawl into a crack like a gecko and vanish into stone. She was sure she could never lift her head before Nidhogg again, like a flower caught in late frost.

“All right, all right. Read,” the Black Dragon said, easing off like rain easing to drizzle. Tease too long and her Little Dragon would bolt like a startled hare, and then those adorable expressions would be gone like fireflies.

“But I have one condition. Sit on my lap. We read together.”

“Okay,” Lilith nodded, simple as a bell tone in the dusk. It wasn’t an outrageous ask, just a cushion under a book. She agreed gladly, a petal landing on water.

Lilith climbed onto Nidhogg’s soft lap with little huffs, like a kitten scaling a warm hill. Slender as a girl, the White Dragon curled in the tall Black Dragon’s arms like a snow-plush toy. She felt soft as down, springy as moss.

Lately, the plush had thinned. Fingers met bone like knuckles on driftwood. Nidhogg didn’t like it, a cloud shading her sun. She swore she’d feed the Little White Dragon back to a gentle plump, like ripening a pear.

“Quit pinching my arm!” the Little White Dragon squirmed, dodging Nidhogg’s mischievous fingers like a fish schooling away. She flicked Nidhogg once with her tail, a quick snap like a willow switch, then solemnly opened the book on their knees.

“Ahem. Welcome to the Astrological Prophecy Grand Encyclopedia,” Lilith read, voice clear as a spring. “This book serves beginners who want to learn, and old hands who wish to review. Whatever you seek, if it touches astrological prophecy, we’ve got you covered.” She paused, smirking like a fox. “Wow, what a braggart. First line and it’s already praising itself.” She read with full focus, eyes like candles. She didn’t even notice Nidhogg’s fingers toying with her tail tip like playing with a ribbon.

“If you’re a beginner, turn to page thirty-two.” The Little White Dragon flipped pages quickly, leaves fluttering like sparrows. She pointed at the line and read word by word, bead by bead.

“Astrological prophecy stands on the foundation of Stellar Magic, a tower built on a bedrock of starlight.” Her voice steadied, like a bell marking time. “Unlike Astrologers, who favor exploring the Star Canvas, and Stellar mages, who favor using its force, astrological prophets are born to pry at the world’s truth.”

“In the ancient dawn, when everything first began, the world was void as a windless sea. The first god kindled a spark in that abyss. With that flame, the idea of the world took shape, and time began to flow like a river.”

“The Theocracy Era was an age sung by countless epics, a mountain range of glory. It’s the era every astrological prophet must hold by heart.” Her tone shifted with the cadence, like a drum over snow. “At the end of that era, as the first war on this continent sounded like a horn in fog, the gods severed earth from sky. The Goddess of Life and the Mother of Death bore a daughter, to separate gods from all living things upon the land. People called that daughter the Star Canvas.”

“When the gods hid behind the Star Canvas and returned the earth to the beings of the earth, the first wise life lifted her head like a seed breaking soil.”

“She was the world’s first astrological prophet. Her true name has been washed away by the river of history. Only her methods and prophetic script endured like stone under rain. Even the Dragon God Tartarus, after he and the Mother of Earth bore a daughter, used her script to name every child of the Star Canvas. And dragons began to soar over the land like storms with wings.”

“The dragons called her the Seer.”

“The Seer left a complete body of knowledge. The proud Ice Spirits stepped out of eternal blizzard, and took the purest star charts and sea-azure like lifting ice from a blue sea. The third-oldest elven race beat the Necromancer Cultists to the final relic of her legacy, tucking it away like a jewel.”

“And so astrological prophecy became a formal discipline, a road paved under the stars.”

“This is the origin of everything.”

Lilith finished the preface and paused, the silence like a held breath. She asked the lap beneath her, “Have you heard any of this?”

“I haven’t,” Nidhogg said, shaking her head like a pine in wind. The Black Dragon’s fingers stilled. “My version is different. Teacher Fafnir taught me the world first belonged to the Woman of Death, and all were her thralls. After a long rule, the earth birthed Icarus, who stood for life and hope, a flame against night. The Goddess of Life defeated the sovereign of all, and pinned Death beneath her like shadow under foot. As a sign of submission, Death bore a daughter for the Mother of Life. She stretched that daughter into a curtain that would never tear, and dotted it with her tears. That became the Star Canvas.”

“I don’t know why,” Lilith murmured, voice low as a reed flute. “But based on what I know of the Nameless One, your version feels like the original parchment, not a copy.” She dipped back into the book like a diver into a clear lake.

“To learn astrological prophecy, you need three things,” she read, tapping each point like setting stones. “One. It rests on Stellar Magic and the work of Astrologers. Only a skilled Astrologer, or a notable Stellar mage, qualifies to begin learning prophecy.”

“Two. A foundation in Old Draconic. The Seer’s precious legacy was written in the Old Draconic she compiled. If you can’t read it, you can’t grasp the Star Canvas’s prophecies.”

“Three. A firm belief that gods exist. Astrological prophecy is, at its core, a way to observe divine movement, like tracking tides by watching the moon. Only those who believe the gods walk this world can catch the signs they leave.”

“So much hassle,” Lilith yawned, like a cat in sun. She hated long prefaces that clattered on like rain on tin before any sweet fruit of knowledge. If she didn’t see something tasty soon, she’d fall asleep like a stone.

The Little White Dragon patted her own soft cheeks, two peaches under dew, and forced her spirit steady like a candle shielded from wind.

“As said above, astrological prophecy is the study of divine action,” she continued, words smooth as a stream. “Unlike the common academic view, astrological prophets hold that every star on the Star Canvas doesn’t just stand for dragons. Each also symbolizes a god, a torch on the black silk.”

“Across generations, prophets tried to deduce which star links to which god. But the Star Canvas keeps changing its face like clouds in a summer sky. They never succeeded. For now, we can only use the dumbest method to match star to god.”

“When a Star Canvas prophecy occurs, a star blazes in the night like a spear of ice. If you observe it then, you’ll receive an Old Draconic sigil that names the god’s identity. Sometimes it’s a character or two. Sometimes it’s a whole sentence, like a feather or a scroll.”

“Such prophecies may happen like storms, naturally and without warning. Or they can be drawn by human hands like fish with bait. We’ll place that material in Part Three: Summoning and Observation of Star Canvas Prophecy.”

“And… yawn… about a week or two after the Star Canvas prophecy appears, the Star Canvas will bloom with bright sigils, like fireflies scattered on velvet night. String them all together like beads on a thread… and you can…”

The Little White Dragon’s head drooped, like a wilting flower.

Her small hand went slack, letting go of the heavy tome she’d been hugging, like a petal releasing its dew.

The book hit the floor with a heavy thud, like a drum under snow; yet the Little White Dragon didn’t wake.

Sleep took her mid‑sit, and she nestled against Nidhogg’s chest, calm as a winter lake.

A honeyed smile curved her lips as she gripped the Black Dragon’s coat like a child clinging to a blanket.

Nidhogg blinked, surprise rippling through her like wind across a reed; she hadn’t expected Lilith to doze off mid‑read.

After a beat, a helpless smile softened her face, like a tide ebbing under pale dawn.

She set the Little White Dragon on the bed, light as laying down a feather.

She helped Lilith out of clothes unfit for sleep, and slipped her into loose pajamas soft as cloud.

“Good night,” the Black Dragon said at last, her voice low as midnight rain.