Dragon Aster Trilogy

9: EMOTIONS



Sybl found herself locked in a Vision of the past, standing in front of the Eternal Waters. She was on a beach again, but this one was different. A shadow lay in the sand, but as she looked closer she could see that it was not a shadow, but a wingless dragon. His long fur moved not with the tide’s breeze, but from his own estus energy within. His entirety seemed like a static rift in the very essence of reality.

With one of his lazily stretched out hands, he tried to playfully catch an Iynx. The white, cat-like creature avoided capture in playful swirls of sand. “I’ll squish you if I have to,” Moon said as he set his hand and claws over the white cat like a cage. “Now where did Asil go?”

Sybl looked back at Moon as the dragon focused its gaze in a different direction down the beach.

“Tenu, have you seen Asil? I can’t find her anywhere.”

“You know she hates parties, particularly her own. You would have better luck finding her on the Torian Continent, on the battlefield.”

“Should you not be at the celebration with the rest of them?”

“I have the same view as her when it comes to any kind of celebration,” Tenu replied, as her long black hair hung in stillness around her body. “But she’s been so depressing as of late that I feel it like a contagion.”

“When this war is over, Damek won’t be the most beautiful one in her eyes anymore,” Moon said as he looked at the Iynx who had sat down and was content to listen quietly. “He’s the one who has been weighing her heart down with despair.” He lifted his claws off of the white cat then. “I found a beautiful one with golden hair like the stones of the Sylvan City and blue eyes like the skies of Earth. I have only to catch him before he finds a way back to his world.”

“A Sentry?”

“This one is different. I’ve been watching it for weeks now, and they only think that I cannot see them through the invisibility they cloak themselves in.”

“I don’t think the Caelestis would want you to start a war with Earth,” Tenu said.

“They will not miss one of their own. They have no emotions to attach themselves to one another. It’s an Iynx, like this one,” Moon said as he nudged the cat with the top of his claw, “who has learned to adapt and become independent from Hino in its thoughts and actions.”

“And you claim to have emotions?”

“I feel her constantly,” Moon replied as he dragged his claws through the sand. “I can feel her more than anyone else.”

“Do you feel remorse for the enemies you have killed? Or pain when a comrade is struck in battle? Do you feel loved when others sacrifice themselves to better your existence? Or betrayal when they forsake you?”

Moon didn’t answer the mermaid right away as he took his hand back in. “Were you so different once? You may have taken on the emotions in that body you wear now, but have you learned all there is to having them?”

“You are fortunate that you have my pity, or else I would smite you down for that comment,” Tenu replied as the waves rose higher. “Have you not so much as tried to ask her to give you a human form and soul like she gave Damek? Have you thought about what will happen if they take what you do as an act of war—or worse yet—if the creature devours and absorbs your power instead?”

The Iynx’s ears perked up with more interest to the conversation.

“It won’t come to that. Besides, I have every right to take it for being on this world. Maybe they need a solid reminder to keep their spies away.”

“What makes you so sure?” Tenu asked as she walked closer to the wingless dragon. “Have you ever stopped to think that Asil doesn’t love you, before you put us all in danger with your senseless idea to try and win her heart? You still have no idea how to hold it without shattering it to pieces.”

“Asil does love me. When I am as beautiful as that Sentry, I will be the one she looks at. She will love me more than Damek, because I have nowhere in my heart where she isn’t there.”

Tenu shook her head and then started to wade into the water, before vanishing under the next wave.

Moon stood up and put his front hand in the Eternal Waters, creating a Rift to enter the Keol through.

“Moon, wait!” Sybl cried after him.

The black serpent stopped and looked back, but he didn’t seem to see her. But the Iynx looked directly at her with his green eyes.