Chapter 47 — Inquiry

The Little White Dragon stepped back into that familiar space, like walking into a courtyard carved from a recurring dream.

Lilith remembered the first time she entered here, like a hatchling peeking over a cliff’s edge. Back then the Little White Dragon had only just become a White Dragon, standing in Asterios’s Starshine Temple, lifting her gaze to glimpse the true face of the Star Canvas.

She hadn’t seen what the Star Canvas looked like; it was like reaching for the moon and grabbing a cloud. Instead, that annoying Grim Reaper yanked her into Her own domain and tossed her a quest to hunt down Her true body.

Now the Little White Dragon’s road curved toward its end, like a river returning to the sea. She had gathered all three Reaper Fragments, and had forged a bond with one deep as bedrock, and here she stood again.

Compared to that first time’s panic and fog, she moved like a traveler who knows every stone on the path. Familiar with gods now, Lilith strolled up to the Grim Reaper, snapped her fingers like flint, and conjured a chair to sit on.

“You’re getting pretty comfy, aren’t you, kid.” The Grim Reaper, the Nameless One, watched the Little White Dragon sit without so much as a hello, then conjured a chair of her own and sat.

She even made her seat more ornate than Lilith’s, like a peacock fanning its tail in a narrow alley, flaunting godly superiority in a tiny place.

“Long time no see.” Lounging on a plush leather sofa like a cat in a sunbeam, the Nameless One waved, a lazy greeting cast across still water.

“Long time no see; you look in a good mood,” the Little White Dragon answered, like tasting a hint of sweetness in the wind, and she asked, curious.

“Of course; I slipped out today,” the Nameless One said, chin tilting like a proud swan. “That madwoman Icarus finally decided that Star Canvas, that brat, is a lost cause, and chose to birth a new one to restore the gods’ prestige.”

“Lately she’s dragged me through misery day after day, like hauling a plow through stones. I couldn’t stand it, so I used your gathering of my true body’s fragments as cover and slipped out; finally, a night to breathe.”

“She never thinks: my kids inherit my nature like leaves inherit the tree’s veins; as if they’d be the ones on top.”

“So I get pinned to the bed by Nidhogg every day because of you?” The Little White Dragon got pulled into the crudeness and frowned, her words like a thrown pebble breaking a mirror-still pond.

“You’re a soul we yanked from another world; if you end up that way, that’s your own deal,” the Nameless One said, shaking her head like a bell, denying the blame.

“Hey!” Lilith shot her a glare like a dagger’s flash, and the Nameless One finally reined it in, tucking away that infuriating smirk like a blade back in the sheath.

“Enough fooling around, I’m here on serious business.” The Little White Dragon puffed her cheeks like a storm cloud, glaring at the Reaper. This one was half a grandmother to her, yet from god to believer she reeked of unreliability, like a boat stitched from reeds.

She even had Lilith locked up day after day, like a bird in a gilded cage. If Lilith didn’t need a favor, she’d have pounced and gnawed that goddess’s head like a fox on a drum.

“It’s about my true body, right.” The Nameless One guessed before Lilith spoke, like reading ripples before the stone sinks. Lilith wasn’t surprised; messy as she was, she was still the Grim Reaper, and anything a Reaper Fragment faced would reach her like smoke to a fire.

“Right now Litt is fusing with another Reaper Fragment I don’t know,” the Little White Dragon said, voice tight as a drawn bow. “Is there any way to stop it?”

“No.” The Nameless One shook her head, a pendulum that cut off hope like a thread. “You’re sitting here talking to me, which means Their fusion has risen enough to hold up a godrealm shard for us to meet on, like scaffolding around a newborn tower.”

“Reversing that is a kite in a hurricane—pretty, but not happening.”

“Then is there a way to preserve Litt’s consciousness?” the Little White Dragon pressed, pointing to herself like tapping a seal. “Even if your true body fully fuses, she’ll still walk this land as a Divine Fragment, right, like me.”

“Of course there is; honestly, even if you do nothing, your dear Litt will be fine,” the Nameless One said, smiling like a crescent moon. “She devoured another Reaper Fragment, and she’s been at your side long as a shadow; no way a newly awakened Plague—ah, that’s the name of the Bosaklie piece—overwrites her.”

“Don’t look down on your dear little daughter like frost on spring grass.”

“Speaking of which, I must condemn you for thinking of Litt as your daughter,” the Nameless One went on, slapping the sofa’s arm like a drumbeat. Her face, a little like the Little White Dragon’s, puffed like a steamed bun, and the two stared big eye to big eye like sparrows on a wire.

“You take your grandmother’s true-body fragment as your daughter; you trample seniority like boots through a shrine. People like you ruin the world’s proper kin order like a flood through fields!”

“It’s not like I wanted to see her as my kid!” Lilith flared the moment the Nameless One dragged that out, her temper a match to dry straw. She slapped her thigh and sprang up with a whoosh, pointing down at the Reaper’s nose like a hawk’s beak.

“I barely became a girl, like winter turning to spring overnight! I hadn’t even hit my Feathered-Dragon phase, and suddenly I had a baby out of nowhere.”

“You think I wanted that? Do you know what it does to a 17-year-old high school boy to wake up a mom? It’s a hammer to the glass!”

“What kind of high school boy looks like a white-haired loli?” the Grim Reaper snapped back, heat rising like steam. She slapped the sofa and stood, voice barking like thunder.

“Face reality, you little menace!”

Startled by the Reaper’s sudden surge like a wave hitting the pier, the Little White Dragon reflexively stepped back. She bumped into her chair, knees went soft, and she plopped onto the seat like a dropped dumpling.

“Why are you yelling so loud?” she muttered, eyes shimmering with grievance like rain on ink. The Nameless One’s temper guttered like a candle and she sank back into the sofa.

“You’re even more of a bottom than me,” the Nameless One couldn’t help but quip, tossing the jab like a pebble. “Your wings are hard enough to butt heads with me, then two words and you wilt like a flower.”

“How are you going to face that Black Dragon later?”

“Why would I fight her?” Lilith shot back, chin up like a banner. “She’s my wife, not my enemy; of course she’ll listen to me.”

“You think everyone’s like you, stuck in bed every day,” she added, the tease drifting like smoke.

“Hey!” The Nameless One flushed, red climbing like dawn on snow. She glared at Lilith, then swallowed her temper like bitter tea.

“Forget it. Why am I bickering with a little girl,” the Nameless One sighed, collapsing into the sofa like snow slumping off a roof. “You don’t need to worry about Litt. The ties between gods and Divine Fragments are a fog of rivers; she’ll be fine.”

“It’s your business we should put on the table like a blade.”

“My business? What business?” The Little White Dragon tilted her head, confusion fluttering like a moth.

“You really don’t keep things in that head,” the Reaper said, shaking hers with a wry smile, like watching a chick misplace its shell. “Remember our first meeting in the Dragon Territory?”

“I promised you: if you could gather my whole true body, I’d grant your wish. Back then, you wished to become Fan Yu again and go back to your old world.”

“So,” the Nameless One asked, eyes on Lilith’s like stars over a dark lake, “do you still want to go back?”

“Ah…” The Little White Dragon fell silent, the word hanging like dew. For a heartbeat, she couldn’t tell which shore her heart wanted.

On one side was the world she knew, like a hometown lane in afternoon light. Her family lived there, her friends, her identity as a man, and a life worn smooth as river stones.

On the other side lay a continent still unknown, like a map with half its mountains uninked. Lilith’s road had crossed only half this land; countless places lay untouched as fresh snow.

Here lived the magic she longed for, a crowd who saw her as an idol, the Black Dragon she loved, and a new family warm as hearth-fire.

“So,” the Nameless One breathed, standing light as mist and drifting to Lilith’s side, “which shore will you choose?” She nipped the little dragon’s ear like a fox tasting fruit and whispered like a night wind.

The Grim Reaper shed goddess like a skin and turned into a Demon, tempting as ripe pomegranate.

Lilith swallowed, throat dry as sand.

Sweat beaded on her skin, blooming like rain on stone.