Dusk of a Hybrid

by Ryan Johnson

  A LIVING ANCIENT CIVILIZATION

  Pangaeans!

  It was the only word Valverno kept thinking repeatedly in his mind. Creatures that look very much like human, but there were a few different traits that made these people different from modern humans: ancient Pangaeans weren’t humans. The ones in the tent Valverno knew as demihumans: creatures that were like the Centaurs, half human and the other half an animal.

  But there was a different person that wasn’t a demihuman: the Elf. The Elf was beautiful and gorgeous, but Valverno knew not to be deceived by her age; she may look like a young woman in her early twenties, but Elves could live up thousands of years. They basically had the gift of immortality.

  “And I see you’re awake, stranger,” said the Elf. The Elf knelt beside Valverno and placed the tray on the ground. And she would pour green liquid from the jar to the wooded cup, which was small as a teacup. “Drink this. I’ll help you feel better. Don’t worry, it is not poisonous. It’s an herbal drink that’ll help you heal faster.”

  Valverno didn’t hesitate to grab the cup slowly. His dragon scaled hands felt the smoothness of the Elf’s hands and her skin felt the same as Marina’s fish scales. Valverno could smile but not in front of the people staring at him, and he refused to smile. When he grabbed hold of the small wooden cup, he moved it to his mouth and drank it; it tasted like green tea.

  “What’s the matter, stranger?” asked the wolf person. “Lost your ability to speak? Lost your tongue somewhere along the seabed? Or maybe you don’t understand our language we speak?”

  “Halvdan, don’t be so rude to our guest,” said the Elf. “He may not have fully healed yet.”

  “You’re the one to speak, Alfhild; you’re an Elf,” said Halvdan, the wolf man. “You could just cast a healing spell on him and boom! He is better than ever before.”

  “I may have healing magic, but I’m limited of how to use it,” argued Alfhild, the Elf. “My healing magic is not supreme yet, and I am still in training. This stranger already was on the brink of death, and I couldn’t just let him die. I have been constantly using my healing magic, and it is to the point it has been used up. And besides, the stranger may not be able to speak, and he will need to be watch over until he is fully healed.”

  Valverno removed the cup from his lips and spoke, “I can speak well just fine, and I don’t need to be watched over. Thank you very much, Elf and demihumans.”

  They all stared at him that he could suddenly speak. The few of them smiling stopped smiling and stared at him.

  “Looks like more cheer can be found in a volcano,” said Valverno. He put the cup back on the tray. “And thank you, for healing me with your great power, even if I was on the verge of death.”

  “FINALLY!” yelled Alfhild, shouting to the top of her lungs.

  Everyone in the tent covered in their ears, including Valverno, from Alfhild’s loud voice.

  “Finally, someone who appraises my current skill in the healing arts, and thanking me for it,” said Alfhild. “You have no idea how it feels when I have to use my healing magic to heal basic scrapes and bruises and broken bones, and I never get thanked for it.”

  Valverno shook his head. A hard whistle gushed in his ear from the Elf’s loud voice, and his brain absorbed the shock of it. “Well, for one thing, you didn’t need to yell about it. My ears felt like they were about to pop out or bleed. And I think the goes for those demihumans standing by the entrance, Elf.”

  Alfhild looked at the demihumans and saw those covering ears with their hands. “Oh, I’m so sorry, my friends.” Alfhild bowed her head. “I just got too excited that someone finally thanking me for my healing powers, while all of you don’t show any appreciation towards me. Hey, wait!” Alfhild lifted her head back up and turned toward Valverno. “You called them demihumans. And you called me an Elf. How is it you know about us?”

  The demihumans removed their hands from their furry ears and glared at Valverno. A stranger to their eyes knew of their species.

  “I told you we should have left him to die, Alfhild and Freyya,” said Halvdan, looking at the cat demihuman. “But you, Alfhild and Freyya, just had to bring him in. Now, he is all the more suspicious than ever.”

  “I shouldn’t be suspicious around survivors, or descendants of survivors, who are from Pangaea,” said Valverno.

  They all gasped at Valverno single sentence. This apparently struck Valverno’s hybrid brain. At first, he still doubted it but it was becoming clear that these people are either Pangaeans or descendants of Pangaeans. More importantly, they knew of the most important word: Pangaea.

  “Pangaea,” said Freyya, who was the cat demihuman. “How do you know about that name?”

  “Born and raised there,” answered Valverno. “I am… or was a native of the land until its destruction. I remember every resident who lived in a large city and the land. The demihumans, half human half animal, and they were the ones who invented the word ‘human.’ The Elves, skilled in magic arts and as well in archery.

  “Those two were the most popular species in Pangaea. Other species were there but they didn’t have definite names for their own race. So they were called Dwarves, Witches, Warlocks, Sorcerers, mostly magic users. And every specimen living on Pangaea had their own magical art. And each building had a tower that holds a coffin of a pervious ‘Head of the Family’ and continues to grow beyond measure. Yes, I know everything there is to know about Pangaea.

  “But I don’t know if I should call you Pangaeans. An Elf is here. A few demihumans are here: adults and kids alike. I don’t know how many of you there are yet alone where I am, other than being in a tent.”

  “So, you’re a Pangaean yourself,” said Halvdan, walking and kneeling before Valverno.

  Valverno felt a great hostility from Halvdan. The wolf demihuman was sniffing the hybrid, and Valverno didn’t like it.

  “Well, many creatures and animals and specimens carry a ton of different scents with them, and I can tell you carry the some kind of Pangaean scent,” said Halvdan. “However, Pangaea was destroyed ten thousand years ago, which none of us were born but our ancestors survived. And you say you’re from there. I don’t find it convincing from your mouth, stranger.

  “Ten thousand years is a long time and a Pangaeans lifetime can last up to tens to hundreds of thousands of years. You look too young to be ten thousand years old, yet not old with grey or white hair.

  “The wolf demihuman’s sense of smell can tell the all the scents a single person can carry. Their age. Their abilities. Their magic power. Their brain cells. Everything in a single organism I can easily sniff out. The scent I’m catching from you is odd, too odd to tell what you are. You seem to be in your early twenties, but I smell there’s a strange aging process you’ve gone through. I can’t get a scent of any magical abilities from you, but I smell you once had overpowering magical abilities. Now, I smell there is nothing there, if it was taken or sucked from your small cells. There is a big confusion swelling in an overwhelmed brain I smell that is somewhat damaged, such as a few destroyed memories. And I smell a darkness lingering with you, like an egg not wanting to hatch and be concealed in its shell forever.

  “From what I can tell, you have a giant maze of complexity. An overwhelming force that can kill a human. Don’t worry. I’ve seen many specimens known as ‘humans.’ A species with a short lifespan. But you’re something entirely different. Your age is what I am most curious about. I sense there’s you’re older than you look, but far older than the oldest person I know. I sense your body is highly old stretching higher than a cloud in the sky. One has to wonder: who and what are you?”

  “Be how it is,” said Valverno, bending his legs backward and to his chest. He used his hands to stand back to. While standing up was easier than he thought, the weight of one weight caused him to barely to lose his balance. His right wing had a great weight it cause
d Valverno to easily lose the balancing of his footing. However, Valverno had control of his wing and could fold his wing inward, but without the left wing, Valverno had his body tilted to the right side.

  “Careful,” called out Alfhild, getting up quickly and grabbing hold of Valverno’s arms. “You shouldn’t be pushing yourself so hard. Your body is still critically injured, and the medicine I gave you won’t kick in for a few hours.”

  Valverno’s felt the Elf’s skin with his hands and they felt just like Marina’s fish scales and her voice sounded similar to Marina’s voice. He felt tempted to look at Alfhild’s face, but he dared not; the Elf was not a Siren or Marina. He could only gaze at his one wing, which was keeping him off balance. Then Valverno lowered the claws atop his wing to rest on his left shoulder, folding it diagonally from his right side. After a few seconds, Valverno felt the balance he needed to stand on his two feet.

  After he could stand on his own, Valverno took three steps backward from Alfhild and tested his feet and made sure no weight was all tossed to one side and make him fall to the ground. And he was perfect standing on his two feet, with one wing gripping itself by Valverno’s shoulder. He now looked like a human with only dragon legs.

  “Now back to you,” said Valverno. “So much has happened with my life. So many hardships. So many unfolded events. Happiness. Sadness. Tragedy. Dark truths I’d never knew. So much as happened to me in a single day I don’t know wh—”

  “Where is that young man?” called out a cheery man’s voice. “I must certainly meet him.” The voice was loud and clear and Valverno could tell it sounded like an old man’s voice.

  From the opening the Elf entered, a large board old man wearing a red-orange robe and a head-covering cap over his head’s scalp. A long white beard drabbed from his chin and a white mustache grew over his lips. He was about two feet larger than them all. “So, he has awakened!” he cheerfully said. “By the Three Gods! What a miraculous sight to see him up.”

  Suddenly, the people in the tent looked to the old man entering into the tent and bowed their heads. “High Priest Ganymede!” they said in unison. The two kids in the tent stood up and bowed in sight of the large man.

  “No need to bow on this occasion, even if we have a stranger in our midst,” said Ganymede. When he spoke, the people raised their heads and still looked at the Ganymede.

  From the sounds of it, he must be their leader or spiritual leader, thought Valverno. Just like the ancient Pangaea was ruled by monks and priests, not monarchs and royalty.

  Ganymede strolled over to see Valverno who gave a small smile at the priest. “What a miracle to see you standing on your feet.” Ganymede came to Valverno and hugged him tight. “You are most indeed welcomed to this land, which we stand upon. You being here is a miracle the gods have sent us.”

  Valverno felt his ribs being crushed by the old man’s powerful forcing hug, but none cracked. His body was lifted from the ground for a brief moment until he was placed back to his feet.

  “What a miracle to see you alive and not seeing you dead,” said Ganymede. “You have been sleeping on the ground for five long months.”

  “Fi-five months?” asked Valverno. “Has it been that long?”

  “Yes, stranger,” said Halvdan, walking beside Ganymede. “This is our leader, High Priest Ganymede. He is another resident or another survivor of Pangaea, and the last one. And you claim to be one, but I still find it doubtful.”

  “Why be so doubtful, Halvdan? This person is alive. It’s a miracle to a person in a coma to awaken when everybody around him thinks he would be dead.”

  “That’s what I’m getting at, Ganymede. He claims to be a survivor from the nation of Pangaea like you. Unlike you, his body isn’t old age like yours. And I smell a lot of organic cells within his body that are a million times older than you. I find it too strange to see a living specimen with ancient, old cells, a damaged brain, a magic power stripped, and him still living after seeing him wounded and bleeding nonstop. It’s too strange for him to lose a lot of blood and still be alive. And I smelt his wet body, and my nose has never failed me before; I smelt his wet body has been underwater for seven long months.”

  Seven months underwater and five months sleeping, thought Valverno, shocked.

  “I just find it too odd for someone to be floating underwater for seven months to live,” Halvdan continued. “No specimens could live underwater for that long and live to tell the tale. I want to hear something from his mouth.” Halvdan strolled back to Valverno and were gazing at Valverno eyes up close with the greatest suspicion. “Who or what are you, stranger?”

  Valverno only sighed while staring back. “I don’t know who I am!” he answered firmly. Valverno walked away from Halvdan and to an area where no one was standing close to him. He saw the kids running behind Freyya, who seemed to be their mother. “At first, I thought I did. It all started with my name being called Vaeludar only to find out another name is Valverno and then back to Vaeludar. So many names so many people call me I don’t know who I am.

  “But as to what I am, I might as well be known as a human dragon hybrid. And some people say my mother was a human witch named Belverda and a Dragon named Ralenskrit. And others tell me my parents were some Devil King being my father and an Angel or a Celestial magic user named Celestreá la Mùne.”

  “What? Your mother is Celestreá la Mùne?” Alfhild called asked, as they gasped at her mother’s name. “Just what kind of specimen are you?”

  Valverno smiled and looked at Alfhild. “I don’t know,” replied Valverno.

  “It seems you are confused with a bad mind. Now, about you tell us everything, and I’ll try to help out in any way that we can,” said Ganymede. “Everything about you.”

  “Are you sure? It’s going to be quite complicated from what I have to tell you and for sure a long one.”

  “Indulge us,” said Halvdan. “We have all day. In fact, we have all the time in the world. Tell us your complicated story and how you got here.”

  Valverno inhaled and exhaled. “Very well. I will tell you… everything.” Then, the hybrid told them everything.

  AN INVINATION

  The day light’s from the tent seemed at the time of dusk. The sun’s railing yellow light turned into a frail orange. The weather felt cold as a day in the autumn. A small wind blew through the tent’s curtains.

  The people in the tent sat as they listened to Valverno’s story from beginning to end. Valverno spent the time saying about his entire story: starting with the life he had as an outsider to the present day. He spent several hours long telling his story of his life, and how it led him from being the outsider of his old village home to Shimabellia’s ruler. And he would go to mention the island’s destruction and the death of his lover Marina the Siren to the present where he woke up in the tent after he was shot through the chest by Lusìvar, thinking Valverno had been killed by it.

  “And this is where I am and now I don’t know what to do next. Lusìvar took all my magic power, and no way can I use my divine power to summon at my will,” finished Valverno.

  The Pangaeans sat by the hybrid finishing his story and all the events that took place in his life. They all had different looks of different reactions of how the story was told.

  “Um, that is rather a long complicated story with the greatest complexity I’ve ever heard,” said Alfhild. “To endure so much could make someone lose their faith in everything. You being a Demon Prince, a Pangaean, and a human; three lifetimes in one lifespan. A failed science experiment hosted by a human witch and a Dragon. And to think powers to destroy memories and time-warp a body back into an infant or an embryo could exist is terrifying.”

  “And you’re the mortal chosen by the Three Gods to be their weapon,” said Freyya. “I’d never thought the most important mortal of all the Mortal Realm would be washed up on our shores. Ganymede, what do you
think of his story?”

  “I must say you must be one lucky specimen,” said Ganymede. “That part at the end where you were shot. It seems it was in the wrong spot; your heart isn’t ledge on the right or the left. Your beating heart lies between your lungs in the dead center of your chest, and the shot missed it. You are very fortunate to have survived the shot; otherwise you would have been killed. That was a miracle, no doubt. And no doubt the gods still need you alive to carry out their will.”

  “Yes, yes. Sure, sure. What I hate about it: you fought against your half-sister, who is a survivor just like you,” said Halvdan. “She confesses what she felt to you, and you turned your back to her if you stabbed her in the heart and killed you. The person you spent most of your second lifetime (your lifetime as a Pangaean) with you casted her aside like an old rag. Who turns down someone’s love and embrace the Shadows? And to think you are the one mortal the gods asked to be their warrior to smite those you corrupted in the first place.”

  Valverno sighed. “You do have a point, and that was a mistake on my part.”

  “What? For corrupting the Titans with false power that would turn them into gods?”

  “No, for accepting to be the gods’ weapon,” corrected Valverno. “I never should have accepted their proposal of making me a demigod. I should have declined the offer and never should have been their weapon. I guess that was the reason why I was the first mortal they asked: to redeem the deeds I’ve done as the Demon Prince. And I’m paying the price even more as the demigod. I never should have accepted to be their demigod, but what can I do now? I’m powerless, I don’t have the ability to fly, and I don’t know how to activate the divine power I still have the gods gave me. I don’t know what else to do, yet alone how I can face my sister in her eye beg her for forgiveness.”

  Valverno leaned backwards and placed his hands behind him. His eyes lazily stared at the tent’s ceiling. “I don’t know what to do with my life now. The Titans are free and their size will mean nothing of us mortals, small as skin cells to the Titans’ eyes. Lusìvar stole my power I needed to switch to my divine power, which I once thought I had conjured up. However, it was always my mortal power, never the godly power.”