Weakest Beast Tamer Gets All SSS Dragons

Chapter 725: Chapter 725 - Taming the Fifth Year - Their Hand

”My little star!” her mother exclaimed when she saw her, her face lighting up with pure joy.

She extended a hand toward Luna, inviting her.

And then it began.

The usual storm of praise...

”My beautiful girl, my perfect treasure, my brilliant light,” her mother took her in her arms, spinning her in the air while Luna screamed half laughter half mortification. ”You’re the most precious thing that exists in the whole world. You’re more beautiful than the stars, brighter than the twelve moons together!”

The words tumbled out in a torrent. Exaggerated and dramatic, but completely sincere despite sounding like dialogue from a romantic play.

”Mom,” Luna had protested, her face burning with embarrassment. ”Stop!”

”Stop?” her mother laughed, the sound like music. Like joy given voice. ”Stop telling my perfect daughter how much I love her? Impossible! You’re my reason for waking each morning, my last thought before sleeping, my everything!”

”Mommmmm,” Luna groaned, burying her face in her mother’s shoulder, trying to hide from the embarrassment that felt like it would consume her. ”It’s embarrassing!”

”What?” her mother squeezed tighter, voice muffled by Luna’s hair but still audible. ”My love for you is embarrassing? How cruel you are to your mother, my little merciless star!”

But she was laughing while saying it, kissing Luna’s head repeatedly. Each kiss landing with exaggerated sound effects that made Luna want to disappear.

”I love you I love you I love you I love you,” each kiss came with another declaration. ”My perfect girl. My angel. My reason for existing.”

Luna had blushed so hard she probably glowed in the darkness.

It was too much.

Her mother was too much.

Too affectionate, too expressive, too intense in her love. Like she’d taken normal parental affection and amplified it by ten until it became this overwhelming force that filled every space it touched.

It made her cringe, honestly.

All those exaggerated compliments, all those dramatic declarations of love that sounded like they belonged in terrible poetry rather than normal conversation.

It was really embarrassing.

Especially when she did it in front of other nobles, who looked with expressions between amused and uncomfortable while Luna’s mother proclaimed her eternal love for her perfect daughter.

”Mom,” Luna had begged, desperate for mercy. ”Please, act normal.”

”Normal?” her mother had asked, finally setting her down but keeping hands on Luna’s shoulders. Not releasing completely because that would mean creating distance and distance was the enemy. ”My love, normal is boring, normal is cold, normal is what the others are.”

She’d knelt to be at Luna’s height, her eyes of the same intense blue looking at her with absolute tenderness.

”I don’t want to be normal with you. I want you to know, every second of every day, how much I love you... How much you mean to me. Because love isn’t something to hide or contain, my star, love is to shout from the mountains, to write in the skies, to show without shame!”

She’d kissed Luna’s forehead softly.

The gesture somehow more powerful for its gentleness after all the exaggerated displays. Quiet affection after loud proclamations, proving the intensity was real rather than performance.

”And I love you, with every fiber of my being, with every beat of my heart... I’ll love you until the stars go out and the moons fall from the sky... I’ll love you beyond death itself!!”

Luna had rolled her eyes. ”You’re so dramatic, Mom.”

”I’m not alone,” her mother had responded with a wink. ”Your father is equally dramatic when it comes to people he loves. In fact...”

And then she’d called Sirius, who was ’observing’ something on the other side of the garden, completely red.

And when he came, her mother had begun her own attack of praise toward him, while he glowed the same intense red as Luna. Mortification apparently genetic, passed down through Starweaver bloodlines.

Until his wife forced him to speak...

And although he did it with extreme embarrassment, he also did it with intense love that surpassed the shame. The two ended up declaring eternal love with language so flowery and exaggerated that Luna genuinely wanted to disappear into the earth.

Her parents were so embarrassing.

So intense.

So completely, irrevocably in love with each other and with her.

And Luna had thought, with the wisdom of her six years, that she wished they could be a bit more... quiet.

♢♢♢♢

Luna opened her eyes, a tear running down her cheek without permission.

Now she’d give anything, absolutely anything, to hear that storm of praise one more time.

To feel those arms squeezing too tight. To be held with such intensity that it became uncomfortable but you didn’t complain because the discomfort meant you were loved beyond measure.

To see that radiant smile that made the whole world seem brighter. That transformed everything it touched into something more beautiful just by existing in proximity.

To be called ”my perfect little star” even though it gave her cringe. To endure the embarrassment if it meant her mother was there to embarrass her.

Because her mother hadn’t acted normal.

Her mother loved intensely, completely, without reservations or shame. Without caring what others thought or whether her displays were appropriate by noble standards.

And that love had been the most real, the most pure, the most precious thing Luna had ever had in her life.

And she hadn’t enjoyed it to the fullest... While it lasted.

Before the only thing remaining was a crystallized heart that her uncles now used as a weapon, spending a bit more of its essence with each use. Wearing away at the last physical remnant of that overwhelming love until eventually nothing would remain.

”I miss you,” Luna whispered to the wall, sinking her hands into the shadows and embracing them, her voice breaking. ”I miss you so much... And I’m sorry.”

’Sorry for rolling my eyes. For not saying I love you back enough. For being embarrassed instead of grateful. For not understanding until it was too late...’

Her shadow wolf whimpered softly, pressing his enormous head against Luna. Solid comfort from a beast who couldn’t speak but understood anyway.

”And now all I want,” Luna continued, the words flowing in a torrent now that she’d started, unable to stop them once the dam had broken, ”is to recover your heart... Have it back, hold it and tell it everything I never said when you were alive...”

Everything she’d been too young and stupid to understand mattered. All the declarations she should have made when they could have been heard by living ears instead of whispered to crystallized remains.

”...My perfect little star,” Luna whispered to herself, trying to imitate her mother’s tone. ”My reason for existing.”

But it didn’t sound the same.

Would never sound the same.

Her voice lacked the warmth. The absolute conviction. The overwhelming love that had made even the most exaggerated words feel true because they were true, spoken by someone incapable of loving halfway.

Only the echo of her words remained in the mana.

And a crystallized heart that Luna would recover.

Because that heart was all that remained of the woman who had loved her so intensely it was embarrassing.

And Luna wanted it back.

Whatever it took.

♢♢♢♢

Finally, the day had arrived.

The students had a specific space to practice, a private ballroom reserved for fifth-year students.