A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale

My eyes… felt heavy. My mind… foggy? Was that the correct term for what I was feeling right now? I couldn’t think properly.

It wasn’t even sure if I was sleeping here, but the fact I couldn’t open my eyes suggested I was incapacitated, at least. Then, was my mind lucid? Then why did it feel like it was foggy? What a weird conundrum.

It almost made me wish I could finally start dreaming, again, but that hadn’t happened once since Princess Schuri died. Not once. Not even after I joined Princess Hestia and Saori after they rescued me. Not even after I confronted Reajaen for being the one responsible for hiring the fae hunters who caused Princess Schuri’s death. No, I just earned my relief that I finally gave up on my revenge, and was able to sleep properly, again.

I’ve lived in this peace for a whole year. I never dreamed. All my nights were completely dark, never vivid. Then again, I never really could complain as I always felt energized for the next day and the workload. If it never complicated my body and mind to serve Princess Hestia, Aurora, and the Nordor household, then why would a simple maid like me worry about it?

… Contemplating this issue finally allowed me to understand why I felt like something was missing. My short term memory hadn’t properly settled in yet. Right… I tried to defend myself from the wind and water elemental emperors, but I failed. I was quickly routed, trapped inside a slime body they created. Lord Nordoramsul’s scale amulet and the Ice Elemental King’s core were placed inside with me before I fell unconscious.

I raised my arms, able to see my mental image of myself in this world of darkness, feeling like this was my punishment for being defeated. I couldn’t even finish casting a spell. I was completely enraptured by the elemental’s persuasive aura and brought before him already inside his trap. I… I had no chance.

I wanted to blame the fact I was a faefolk for being so easily cajoled into meekness. It would, at least, free me of the shame of being reliant on Vifi every single time I had to face “Yothmlak.” Yet, a part of me felt like I would besmirch my time as an Aurora member if I placed all the issues on my race when I had sufficient mental resistance skills. In fact, instead of wallowing in my own incompetence, I should probably find a way to survive this.

I am not dead yet. I am Tasianna Marina Silverpond, and as a member of Aurora, our mantra is: Survival is winning. That is all that matters.

“But… where do I start?” I asked myself as I felt a tinge of loneliness in this darkness. “If I am unconscious, and this isn’t some illusion by Goddess Death before my reincarnation, then I should still be able to command my body, no? Or, at least, be able to feel things through my body and mana. I am supposed to be inside a slime, so mana gel like what my catalyst can create.”

I closed my eyes and focused on my mana, trying to feel any changes, or if I could even do it in the first place. Sadly, it seemed my optimism to find any solution to my current predicament was a bit too much. I couldn’t feel anything outside this place. It felt like my consciousness was trapped inside a dream, as if my mind was finally catching up on over two years of dreamless nights.“Am I supposed to stay in this place until the very end? There has to be some answer.” I clicked my tongue as I tried to channel my mana through my arm to cast a spell, but nothing happened, once again. I tried and tried without stopping, feeling like I had spent nearly a bell-worth of time in concluding that I couldn’t do anything. “… Indeed, all of this is just futile. My mana connection to my spells were cut the moment the slime enveloped me. Casting spells inside my own mind? I am truly out of answers.”

I sighed and placed my hands on my hips as I felt the want to lay on a fluffy bed to think everything through… and here I thought simply thinking of what I wanted would grant me it. This was supposed to be my subconscious, right? Princess Hestia’s plan to beat the Prince of Envy inside her soul worked, so why couldn’t I do it?

Maybe I’m missing a second Tasianna for such an idea.

Or maybe I was going crazy with nobody else here. Most likely, since the last time I was completely alone in an unknown place was when I got kidnapped by trolls to be used as fuel for a mana battery. By the Six, what were the elemental emperors planning to do with me?

I placed a hand on my chin, trying to think back on the elemental emperors’ words. As tricky as they had become, they did mention how they were still like other fae, at the end of the day. Whether they said it only to persuade me or for their own benefits to keep their mind on their goals, I could speculate that their monologue might have some grains of truth behind them. Persuading somebody worked better if you didn’t try to fabricate every single detail of your lie.

… No, the better question was why did they attempt to persuade me in the first place, when they could simply bring me into their control by enveloping me in this slime. They did say how they spent an entire month to prepare everything, so it shouldn’t be complicated to trap me immediately. Yet, they tried to persuade both Vifi and me, only ejecting the former out of the room once Vifi showed no signs of trying to listen. Only then did they focus solely on me.

The emperors tried to vie for my approval of their plan, even using an unconventional method for us fae as psychological torture through a past trauma. They were trying to blame me for Princess Schuri’s death, despite knowing nothing about her. They heard her name for a moment and thought they understood the issue.

Furthermore, they were doing everything they could to harm me emotionally after they realized that persuading me with benefits didn’t work. Thinking through this, I remembered how the emperors mentioned how they wanted to protect me as I ascend to the role of ice elemental king, all for the cost of some of the mana I would absorb from the mana spring at the glacier’s peak.

Yet, couldn’t they have simply stripped me of that mana? Yes, there was a restriction on who could absorb the mana from the core, and you had to be the appointed heir—me. Which begged the question of why they couldn’t just have me absorb the true ice mana, and then absorb it from my body? That seemed like such a big loophole, they couldn’t have possibly overlooked it.

Then why? Why was everything they did even necessary? For two elementals who have lived for so long that they watched the fairies come into existence, these beings couldn’t be fools, no matter how much they were similar to other fae. They had to be faefolk who could break out of their festive, mischievous, whimsical nature.

So… why? Furthermore, why even perform this convoluted plan if the Ice Elemental King was persuaded by the emperors after Yothmlak’s betrayal? If the king was willing to go with the plan and die for it, even participating in that dramatic acting where “Yothmlak accidentally” flew us to the place where the Ice Elemental King “was exiled,” then why not just appoint the emperors the heir apparent and be done with it? I mean, even if the emperors aren’t proficient with true ice, the Ice Elemental King could just do what they did with Thalaxarus and just grant them the mana necessary to use it.

I couldn’t even see a reason for them to hurry. Faefolk, naturally, had no real concept of time since we were technically immortal as long as we had and absorbed mana. Even I only started counting time after I left the village and needed a way to keep count on which day I had to pray to Goddess Plesia. My reason was due to my faith, and also a decision to separate myself from the Wind Mother to the more orderly nature of the Water Pantheon. What reason could the elementals have?

The emperors could have definitely held back their hunger for revenge against the dragons, preventing any chance of being found out. One dead dragon who flew too close to the glaciers wouldn’t be abnormal. It only got problematic with multiple dragons dying to the elementals and the ape monster. They could return to becoming demigods by being patient and absorbing the divine mana they once gave up, the core of the Ice Elemental King, and the leftover demonic energy from Lord Nordoramsul’s necklace over time.

… It’s the alchemist. I concluded. The perpetrator behind all of this, even responsible for the anti-dragon blood the ape monster used, according to the emperors. That person must have done something, or there was another requirement I wasn’t aware of.

There were still one or two pieces of the puzzle missing here. Then again, unless something changed, all I could do was think. I had no solution to get out of here after thinking for so long. My only hope was that Vifi or Prince Nongramos would rescue me at this point.

Or I could start coming out of my shell and be a bit more extroverted.

“Emperors! I know you can hear me! The fact is that you need me alive, and there must be a reason why my mind is lucid but my body unconscious! You want something from me! Enough of this cowardly hiding, show yourself and reveal why you keep me captive in this timeless prison!” I shouted, trying something out for no real reason. “You say you will help me with something as a fae, then why are you treating me as such? Nothing to do here but think. No fae can endure this! Our nature compels us to seek something that fulfills us, whether that is companionship or to play with nature to trick others! I do not need this solitude as my rep—”

“Then come play, Tasi!”

My body froze up, feeling like something had struck me right in the core of my soul. I felt every single fiber of my body stand up as knots formed in my heart.

I shouldn’t be hearing this.

I denied the voice. It had to be an illusion.

“Tasi? Hello?”

Stop it! Stop playing with my mind, you cowards! Stop it!

I gulped and rejected my want to turn around to confirm who the girl was. It was a trick, nothing more. Was I doomed to be played with by those elementals once again? I surely would if I turned around. I had to stand str—

“Oh, that’s right!” that young girl’s voice cried out in excitement before I felt something touch my shoulder. Something small, like a fly. “Sorry, Tasianna! I forgot you didn’t like me shortening your name! Hehe, but I remembered, see!”

I felt something perch on my shoulder, close enough that I could see a silhouette from the corner of my eye. I had to keep looking a—

“Huh?” the girl tilted her head as I felt something wet stream down my cheeks. I could hear my teeth rattle, clattering against each other as my body shivered from pain… and happiness. “Did I do something wrong?”

“P-Princess!” I shouted as my body suddenly shrunk before I could think about it, regrowing my fairy wings as I assumed my original form. The young girl fell towards the ground due to my sudden transformation, forcing me to swoop her up in a hug as I glided us back to the ground… like I always did whenever she failed to fly. “Princess Schuri?”

“T-Tasianna! I can’t breathe! You’re hugg—”

Ah!

I released the young girl from my embrace, realizing my past self had so little strength in my original form that I couldn’t even hurt somebody with my fists. I had far outgrown my younger self… even if it didn’t make much sense since this was my mental perception of myself.

Though, why did it even matter? I should be questioning why I was seeing and hugging a dead person?

Just like how I remembered her.

Hair as bright green as the fresh grass on a morning day with shimmers of rainbow colors glowing from the tips framed the face of a young girl. Her small butterfly-like wings shone with the same rainbow colors as her mesmerizing eyes, fully drawing me into them like two whirlpools. Her dress, oh, her dress was the finest garment our tailors could create from silk and plant strings, making her a stupefying sight to any fairy who saw her fly and dance.

The way her rainbow colors shone were proof that this “Schuri” was that Schuri I remembered. The Wind Mother, while our patron goddess, only assumed the religious symbol of a butterfly with two rainbow-colored wings due to the Iggdrasil family. The new wind primarch usurping the role from the Wind Elemental Emperor had to have a symbol that represented the royal family of the fairies.

“Tasianna?” This girl called, her voice as nostalgic as it could be—it was a dagger that pierced my very being. “Why are you crying?”

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Princess Schuri Estria Iggdrasil,” I replied, causing the girl to yelp a bit.

“Ah! Did I do something wrong? I did, right? I did, right! You wouldn’t call me that if Mommy hadn’t told you to scold me!” the girl pleaded in that same manner she would always do whenever I gave her a stern look. “Please, please, just tell her that you already did it, Tasianna! I don’t want to lose my cream puffs!”

“Shhh.” I caressed her cheeks, remembering how fragile she looked as I tried to sooth her. Seeing her before me, being able to feel her warmth in my palm, instead of an ephemeral memory made me want to fall onto my knees with how they shivered. “You are cruel.”

“Tasianna?” the girl’s eyes widened, but I did not talk to her.

“You are cruel! Why are you doing this to me? This isn’t right!” I shouted as I turned to the sky as I saw the darkness start to dissipate, replaced by the sight of Princess Schuri’s bedroom inside the Iggdrasil castle. “You have no right to access my memories! NONE! Not even the Six are cruel enough to put their blessed through such a trial! Bringing back the dead to break me is nothing more than a pitiful attempt at playing god!”

“No. It only means your imagination is shallow, Tasianna.” Those two synchronized voices finally appeared! At the same time, “Schuri” froze in place. “You would not reveal anything to me, yet how can we cooperate if we do not know anything about you? As we’ve said, mana carries the emotions and feelings of people, and nothing is more emotional than strong memories. We’ve lived long enough to understand some concepts of the Origin Gods, and one of them is their ability to look through their follower’s eyes and even access their memories if needed through the Divine System. Mana—energy—is always the answer!”

Those disembodied voices felt like an echo. They weren’t trying to confront me as a person, but as the rulers of this mental world. Everything from the lonesome darkness, to Schuri’s perfect replication from my memories, to this cozy home of mine. “Schuri” might be frozen, but the sound of the wind, the cheers of the fairies celebrating for no reason at the village plaza, and the musical instruments filling out the silence of every day like Princess Hestia’s [Aerokinesis] music—Ahhh, my home. My village.

Seeing it all again in such a vivad state as if I was dreaming was torture. Plain and simple. Nothing more could be used to describe the emperors’ actions.

“Do you still not understand after everything we’ve explained, Tasianna? Nothing at all?” The voices sounded so disappointed. “Mana is the essence of power, and with it, so many creations can be created. You, as somebody who traveled the world, surely must understand this? Technology that would baffle one’s mind just ten years ago exists today, and this isn’t even mentioning the countless different custom spells and empty vessel magic. See the Divine System creations and even the Divine System itself as major examples.”

“We’ve told you this already! My Princess Schuri is gone! Her soul has passed on. You cannot be thinking of creating life!” I argued, yet the voice only got louder.

“Such naivety of one so learned as you! Have you presumed nothing after meeting the Earth Elemental Emperor? We can see them in your memories and how you learned the truth behind the creation of the dwarves! They created life through the earth element, and you suggest you cannot do the same once you achieve true power? Tasianna, you need not just be king of the ice elementals, no, you may also create the first ice fairies. Think about it. You may create life through the divine mana we have lost.”

… T-that’s true. A demigod like the Earth Elemental Emperor sculpted the first dwarf with soil and rock, refining them until a ‘perfect’ and ‘imperfect’ but living race was created. The taz and inkos are fully functioning lifeforms.

“But unlike them, you are creating beings of mana. Far easier to sculpt than those made from flesh and blood. Simply use the same principle we fae come into existence, and you may create the ice fairies. You may become their mother, and with it, you may absolve yourself of your sin.”

“M-my sin?”

“The sin of slothfulness, naturally. Do you not accept the fact that you were the reason for why Princess Schuri died in the first place, Tasianna?” he accused me, causing me to stutter, unable to press a rebuttal out as the elementals continued. “You were content with your lives, unwilling and unable to grow away from being a fairy when it mattered the most. You only learned your lesson once you realized that your idleness caused somebody you cared for to die. The nature of being a fairy was your tragedy, and you broke out of it, treating your nature as a prison. You became the person you are because of your sin; will you not give thanks to this lesson by righting a wrong?”

I-I know I’m at fault for Princess Schuri, but this—

“After all, have you never once contemplated how the young fairy princess died?” he asked, jolting my mind and body as I went silent. “Correct. How do fae die? Naturally, by losing all your mana where you cease to exist entirely, similarly to how your dragon princess vaporized those onnikai with that holy spell. The other method, though uncommon, is the true tragedy: disillusionment caused by a trauma that separates them from their true nature, until they give up on what makes life worth living.”

… Kiiro, the onnikai leader of the onnikai problem when we stayed in Firwood chose to reject absorbing mana to sustain their life after Davison, the target of their anger and zealousness, and wounded them. As a fae, as long as they had mana they could live on, but after they got their revenge on the person responsible for their anger, their will to live fizzled out until they assimilated with the mana around us.

Right, even the fae we saved from those mana batteries could have survived if they… hadn’t given up. If they hadn’t chosen to stop “breathing.”

This fact was obvious, and the fact I witnessed all of them die before me made me question why they did that. Life has so much to give, yet they all chose to go. Their fire was snuffed by reality.

“You would have dissipated as well, if you hadn’t met that dragon princess, Tasianna.”

“Princess Hestia,” I mumbled, tears beginning to swell as I lowered my head from the “sky,” seeing Princess Schuri and her confused face.

“If you had taken that foxian woman’s life without committing yourself to the dragoness, you would have lost the passion to live just like that onnikai. You were fueled by your hatred for humans and the need to find the one responsible for your tragedy, but you managed to find love and enjoyment before you reached that point. That was the deciding point. You avoided your death by giving up on your hatred for humans, allowing you to give up on your wish for personal justice,” the elementals explained. Their words voiced every single doubt and thought I have had on my journey. “With your personal goal concluded, you returned to how you used to be—your slothfulness and contentment. Isn’t that why you asked yourself why you were simply going through life with that one goal to serve your new mistress? That zealousness is gone—that true egoism—because there is nothing you deem urgent.”

“… I couldn’t have. I was unconscious, in a coma. I couldn’t have been there for—”

“If you had understood the severity of Princess Schuri’s depression and trauma, you would have! Your body would have compelled you to do so. You are simply making excuses for everything, Tasianna! You blame yourself for Princess Schuri’s death, that you should have been stronger or more attentive, but you aren’t even attempting to confront those issues! You only know and are trying your best for a new future, but your past lingers still!” they shouted, spreading pain through my head as they continued. “Princess Schuri did not die from mana loss, for you two were saved in time before it happened. You survived your tragedy because you chose to live for Princess Schuri, accepting your sin as a guiding post. The girl, though, woke up earlier and had nobody but her family… outside of you, the one person who could sympathize with her the most. Don’t you agree?”

All those other fairies, right! They wouldn’t have been able to act in a way to soothe her! They acted as if she never existed, mourning for a moment, telling me to simply accept it as if I was some idiot to be outraged by it! By the Wind Mother… Princess Schuri.

“You never learned how she died, only that she did while you slept. Remember the royal family, would they have been able to aid her when she needed an ear to talk to?” they asked, causing me to grit my teeth.

I clenched my fist, snapping my tear-filled face to the “sky,” shouting, “The king and queen are wise! Far wiser than us younger fairies! They—”

“They would have told the young princess that everything was all right and that she could return to being that young, childish fairy. But she didn’t. She lost her childish naivety at that moment. None could have understood her pain, until it was too late. Without you, she vanished before everybody’s eyes… but yours.”

“Tasianna…”

I snapped my head down as I heard “Schuri” talk again.

“I don’t want to stay here any longer…” she stated, looking weak and meek as she fell onto the ground. I caught her, but her body felt so heavy like a giant boulder, too much for me to hold up as I let her fall onto the ground. “I want to see the village again. I don’t want to stay outside anymore.”

“Hraa, hrah! Hraaaaaah!” I grabbed Princess Schuri as I saw mana particles escape her body. Her body started to look transparent. “No, no, no! Not again, not again, not again! Please, no! I’m here, Princess Schuri! I’m here! Please, nooooo!”

“Tasianna…” she mumbled as her body disappeared before my eyes, leaving only her finely-made dress behind in my hands.

I held the garment, unable to keep it up as I quivered in fear and guilt. “I-I am here, Princess Schuri. I’m here. Please, don’t go. Why did you give up?”

“Do you understand it now? The fault lies with you, Tasianna. Yet it took until now, from us, for you to understand this? You say that we are the cowards, when you are to blame for your own misgivings?” the voice roared inside my head.

“M-my fault? N-no, no, but I—Yes; no! I-I didn’t want this to end this way!” I pleaded, unable to stop my tears from gushing out. “I wanted to change! I repented, right?”

“You must do more. Don’t you want to make this right? We can help you. A new race of fairies that will love life and accept the good and the bad. You will lead these new fae into a world that we will create for you.”

“… How?”

“Simple, accept the true ice mana and let it course through your body. It will take years for you to perfectly adapt to it, but what are years when you will solve the problems of all fae? Every fae will worship you as their savior, as the god maker! Finally, you’ve took the agency back for yourself!” the voice offered. “Accept us as your defenders, lend us your mana—that is the only price we wish for. Allow us to use your mana to grow ourselves until we can once again assume the role of primarchs.”

I grip my hands.

“If you do so and gain the strength needed, then you can make it right for the next generation, Tasianna,” the voice said before I heard something behind me.

“Tasianna!” the young girl called, her appearance similar to Princess Schuri’s, only that her green hair was now cyan like ice. “Come, come! Let’s play for a bit.”

“… Understood, Princess Schuri. I am… your maid, after all.”

I reached my hand out, almost pleading for her to take it, only for my eyes to widen when she snatched them like a hungry crocodile. She grabbed me and pulled me up with all her might, though her little legs were unable to. I snickered, remembering how energetic she always was.

I stood up and guided her to the table.

“Do not let this chance fall away again, Tasianna. Your sins are yours to carry, but I will help you as your friend.” The voice reminded me.

Yes, I must. This is my second chance.

I took a deep breath as Princess Schuri awkwardly climbed onto her chair, sitting so obediently, it almost felt like I was seeing my young mistress growing by the moment. “But first, let me serve you your favorite tea.”

Bang!

I snapped my head around as I suddenly heard the sound of thunder. Inside my village? Thunders? Such a rarity, but the weather looked so—

“Tasianna?”

“Ah, I apologize, Princess Schuri. Your tea, of course. With treats?”

“Cream puffs! And flower golds!”

I smiled. “As you wish, my princess.”

“… Shit.” I slapped my face as I saw Tasianna slowly walk away from this window-like thing on the wall. As if it was telling me that I blew my chance to speak with her, the window closed up like living flesh. “Marsven’s shadow, this is how you started gaining the ability to use her true ice, huh? Tsk, that fairy wouldn’t have given up so easily. What the fuck did you do to her? The same thing you tried on me?”

“Nothing is the same, daughter,” a man answered my question as if I asked him, prompting me to turn around with a defeated sigh.

I stared at this fake, grimacing both in anger and pain of having to see that face again. It already stung when I had to see him again after so many years, but it felt like somebody had dug a dagger right into my heart as the ice clone looked so authentic, denying and rejecting his words made it feel like I was sacrificing my soul for it.

Tasianna wasn’t the only one who wanted to see somebody important to them again. I did as well… but unlike with her little fairy princess, my real father would probably throw me into a canyon for doing something as foolish as to break under mental pressure.

We are demonkin of wrath. The mental agony of constantly being in a low energy mood, only to be rescued by the scarce moments of true euphoria, was unending. To be worthy of the title of Warbringer, a wrathie had to be able to suppress their desires.

“Isn’t that right, ‘Father?’”

The fake man smiled, trying to imitate whatever I still remembered of that soft, familial-seeking gaze. “Mhmm, it might have been too harsh. Some sparring fights with your adoptive siblings would have suffice.”

“Pah, that’s even worse!” I snickered, enjoying the nostalgia of his voice. “Yet, as I already said before. You are not him. You are just a memory. You cannot control me like you did Tasianna, elemental! Not because I have any less of a wish to live in this dreamland you created, no.”

Lightning shot from my body as I walked forward, staring at the “wall” behind my fake father. “Like my fellow wrathies living on the streets like rats, I want a life that isn’t filled with the scent of fish rot. You live in a proper port for once, and you would know what kinda tormented lands Bole’Taria is. I will fight on for my father’s dreams of bringing the peace of Iceskale to them; I will grant them a new life as their former Warbringer! Even if you send me through a hellscape, I shall live through it and lament, as I stuff my prosthetic arm all up your arse!”