by Ryan Johnson
“Well, why don’t you try to forget about what happened and think of what to do next?” asked Alfhild.
“If it were that easy,” said Valverno. “I drank from the Pool of Shadows, but that black magic has been sucked out of me and I lost one wing. And by the way, where is a mirror? I need to a look at my face.”
“Here’s one,” said Ganymede. Ganymede reached into his robe and pulled out a small mirror small enough for a person to look at his or her face.
Valverno grabbed the mirror and looked at the reflection of his face; it was the face of the hybrid that lived in Geraldus village long before the Minotaur attacked. His hair was short, his face was pure human with two red horns, and his eyes were the same as before: blue-sclera, yellow-iris, and red-pupils. Then Valverno looked back at his legs, arms and the one wing; all were red dragon scales. He was indeed the form he had for seventeen years when he by the name Vaeludar in Geraldus’s village. “I barley recognize myself. I can only see myself as what I called myself for seventeen years: a human dragon hybrid. The outsider who isolated himself in a human village inside a house.”
Valverno handed the mirror back to Ganymede. “Now with that I may have lost my two armor artifacts and the magic concealed within those.”
“Oh, you mean these?” asked Freyya. Freyya walked over to a wide table carrying several objects, which some were silver goblets and golden challises. Two that she grabbed caught Valverno’s eyes: the gauntlet and the leg armor. “I found these a day after we found you adrift at our shorelines.”
Freyya walked back to Valverno and placed the two artifacts by his legs.
Valverno smiled to see the two artifacts placed at his legs. “And they still look like rusted old armor when I first found them. I may put them back on, but they may not hold any magic power my mother put into them.”
First Valverno placed the gauntlet on his right arm, which made the red scales grow from his elbow and to his shoulder and over the left arm. Then he put the leg armor on and the red scales dimmed to a darker, redder color. When he placed the two armor artifacts back, his red hair grew longer but only covering his ears. When he placed those on, he felt his body aging rapidly, but no magic power pulsing through him; it seemed Lusìvar took those magic powers too.
“As I thought, they change my form, but they don’t have the magic power when I first found them,” stated Valverno. “The strength from the arm and the speed from the leg are stripped completely.”
After a while, Valverno felt his body changing back into the form he had, before he reattached the two armor artifacts. The dragon scales were fell from his body like leaves falling from a tree in the autumn. Only the scales on his lower arms remained.
Now, he was once again back in his original human dragon hybrid form, but only his hair was different: longer than shorter when he fought the Minotaur. His scales and the spikes fell from Valverno’s body to show his human skin. Not to mention his scar still lingered across his eye.
Then everyone was silent after Valverno reattached the two armor artifacts to his body and seeing his body grow back into the form he took: dragon scales growing over his human skin and spikes pointing out from his shoulders.
“Since this is very awkward, let’s start over and properly being of the way introduction,” said Alfhild. The Elf stood up and bowing her head. “My name is Alfhild, and I am an Elf. I am skilled in archery and the best sorcery, but I’m still in training. A few more months and I will have mastered what I need to learn.”
“And I am Freyya,” said Freyya, lifting up her skirt by its sides and bowing her head. “I am one of many demihumans you may find at this encampment. My characteristics are that of a cat. And these are my children.”
The two kids hiding from Freyya popped their heads and looked at Valverno. The two kids, who were the first Valverno saw when he awakened in the tent, weren’t nervous when they saw Valverno looking at them, but they were cautious to the strange hybrid.
“Yes, yes,” said Halvdan, walking in front of Freyya before Freyya could name her children. “And I am Halvdan. I have the senses of a wolf, of which you already do know if you are from Pangaea. And I already introduce you to our High Priest Ganymede.”
Valverno nodded his head to each of the Pangaeans who bowed their heads back. An ancient greeting he remembers back in the old Pangaean days. “I am honored to meet people descendant of surviving Pangaeans. As for me, I always went by two names I don’t know what to call myself. Vaeludar. Or Valverno. A Demon Prince. Or a demigod. Or maybe just Hybrid since I don’t know who I am.”
“Well, take the time you need,” said Ganymede, standing up. “How would you like to join us for supper tonight? You’ve been sleeping there for almost five months, and you must be starving.”
“Well, I have nothing else to do tonight, so I’ll gladly accept the offer, High Priest Ganymede,” said Valverno, bowing his head again to the priest. Valverno could tell Ganymede looked near human but wasn’t human, but nowhere near a demihuman.
“Excellent. And tonight, you’ll be our honored guest and welcomed into our encampment of our fellow Pangaeans. Although the land maybe destroyed, Pangaea still lives on, in our hearts and in our minds. Pangaea is made of the people, not the land or territory. Alfhild, see to it he is fully healed and dressed so he looks like a true Pangaean.”
“Yes, High Priest,” replied Alfhild. “I’ll see to him at once.”
“Good,” said Ganymede, smiling. “And it is indeed that he is meant to be here. So, let’s make tonight special, at least for him.” Ganymede laughed as she left the tent.
“Ganymede can be so gracious at times,” said Alfhild. “He managed to keep us alive altogether. He’s been like a father to us all.”
“He reminds me of my foster father, but without the smiling and laughing,” said Valverno.
“And good gracious, look at the time of day,” exclaimed Freyya. “It is sundown and the food looks like it is dragging behind. Come on, my children. We’ll let this person stay with Alfhild, so they can get ready for supper tonight.” Freyya led the two kids out of the tent, and Halvdan went with Freyya.
Halvdan looked back at the hybrid one more time before exiting the tent, leaving only an Elf and the hybrid in the tent.
Valverno looked at Alfhild then to his chest still covered in bandages. “Is it possible these can come off?” he asked the Elf.
“I’m sure they can, but I don’t know if it is the best time,” said Alfhild. “You just got up and you just drank from my green…”
“Green tea you made from herbal species,” said Valverno. “Then you placed a single string of your golden hair into the green tea and infused the tea, and the hair with a little elven magic. I have seen my fair share of elven arts.”
Alfhild smiled. “You do know your history.”
“I have vague memories of having cuts and bruises of my own, and Elves were the ones who would be able to heal any wound or cut very easily. For me, anytime I felt pain, it would heal up in a snap.” Valverno ripped apart the white bandages and fell; what showed was a wide scab with lines spiraling around it in dead center of his chest if a giant spear shot plunged through Valverno. “And I don’t get it: my heart is pierced but I survived. I should be dead.”
“Like the High Priest said, it is a miracle you survived. Even across your eye.”
Valverno touched the scar on his eye. It felt like he cut felt fresh and deeply thin, curving into his skin. The scar reminded him of the Piper, his oldest fiend he know the longest before meeting Lusìvar.
“Well, I might as well get you ready,” said Alfhild, standing back up. She brushed off the dust from her green dress and watch toward a pile of blankets. “The High Priest says to make you look like true Pangaean, and I have an idea in mind.” Alfhild raised her hands and a green glow warped around the blankets and swarmed around her.
Then red bl
ankets swirled around Valverno and everything began to take shape. Valverno stood up and widened out his arms so that the blankets would shape around his body. With this, he lifted up his one wing and he felt an atmospheric power holding him steady by his legs.
And it took Alfhild one hour to make Valverno look like a Pangaean.
A PARTY WITH A LOST CIVILIZATION
The darkness of the night arrived when Valverno had a single robe covering his body from shoulder to feet. The left side overlaps with the right, and it was bounded by a single sash strapped around his belly. The robe went through his right wing and his tail, so it would fit him if he was wearing a shirt and pants. The robe was made from pure silk and very comfortable on his skin. He was amazed the spikes on layered of his body didn’t rip or tear through any portion of the robe. The coloring was red mixture with orange stripes sparling downward.
After a while, Alfhild led Valverno out of the tent. Valverno walked with ease, and his legs had flexibility to move in a tight robe. Now, he felt like what a woman of Shimabellia’s nobility would walk like in a tight dress. But Valverno was able to move his legs in a long step.
Not only did Valverno move his legs but his arms could rise up as well. The sleeves were long around the shoulders but narrow at the bottom. When he was wearing this robe, he felt it was a nightgown while walking around in a crowd filled with many demihumans and a few other Elves dressed in the same manner.
He saw the females wearing yukatas, the same dress Sora wore the night Shimabellia destroyed. The males also wore the same thing, but Valverno remembered the men wore the same robe Valverno was wearing: a silk-fabric kimono. The yukata were a cotton-fabric robe. Each yukata and kimono was styled with different colors and shapes like diamonds, circles, or stars and others had flower shapes. Many of the kimonos wore by the male and the female Pangaeans wore the yukatas.
Each was paired like a married couple, and Valverno saw dozens of couples walking beneath hundreds of candle-lit lanterns attached to stings tied around tall lampposts. The crowd wasn’t large or crowded like Valverno remembered the one time he was celebrated for killing a Minotaur. The surrounding of demihumans, specimens looking exactly like humans but with animal characteristics such as their furry ears and their tails, and the few Elves were majority of Pangaea’s population like humans are the majority of Shimabellia and Isla Maeli.
The sight of seeing them once again was making Valverno’s eyes drip tears, and he was allowing it to do so. He refused to wipe the tears of joy from his eyes.
Alfhild stopped at a small lamppost and looked back at the hybrid who was dripping tears from his eyes. “Anything wrong?” she asked.
“All of my life I’d never thought I would be walking with these species again while wearing a kimono for the first time,” said Valverno, looking at the plain looking robe with the small sash tied around like his belly like a belt. “And I look like a walking flame.”
“The High Priest did want you to look like a true Pangaean, and I knew of what to make you,” said Alfhild. “Most of your body color is red and I thought it would be the best if you looked like a walking flame.”
Valverno smiled.
“You Elves really have many talents the modern species wouldn’t have. Humans have their own talents, but they don’t have magic like Pangaeans do. I just feel sorry for humans for not having any magical abilities that the other creatures do. And to think Pangaeans still living and hiding from human eyes is just… a…” Valverno paused as he saw a giant two-legged lizard walking while carrying long, heavy longs. “Are my eyes deceiving me? A Tokagehebi? The lizard race? They’re alive as well?”
“Alive and well, stranger,” said a deep voice.
Valverno looked to his left and saw a huge lizard walking on two hind legs. His head and snout closely resembled a crocodile’s face. Its back was largely hunched over and a tail wagging behind. Its size could easily compare to a Minotaur’s size but in the form of a large lizard with scales that’d outdo a Dragon’s scales. It had rocklike figures around his head and trailing down his back like spikes strength down the back of a Dragon from head-to-tail.
“I wonder how it is even possible,” said Valverno. “The last I heard your race was extinct, two thousand years prior to Pangaea’s destruction. How is it possible the Tokagehebi race still lives?”
The Tokagehebi laughed loudly. “You really are accustomed to your stone houses while many of us live in caves and tunnels and jungles and forests. We Tokagehebi can live anywhere we desire to. And we can turn ourselves into any living thing; we’re shapeshifters and we learned all we need to, and no one will be able to notice.”
“So, you can turn yourself into a… human?” asked Valverno.
“Human. Dragon. Unicorn,” said the Tokagehebi. “All those creatures we have learned about those islands called Shimabellia and Isla Maeli. We Tokagehebi can survive destruction; even my ancestors did survive Pangaea and went into the two islands.
“In the end, the Tokagehebi and everyone you see here have settled here on Isla Maeli, the land that looks like a footprint. And if you had to go by the two spikes that curve in opposite directions, we are on the middle center of the island’s most northern tip.”
Valverno’s eyes lit with surprise; he was back on Isla Maeli. The same island holding the ancient fortress and the Pool of Light. And that would mean the Pool of Light and the tree that roots into the Pool was just southwest from the point the Tokagehebi mentioned. Valverno remembers the map of Isla Maeli and the two points that curve northward. What despair he felt was fading with a brighter hope; he could still fight Lusìvar, but the question was: could he still?
He had one wing missing, and he wouldn’t be able to fly with one wing. It would take two wings to lift himself from the ground. There was the idea he could drink from the Pool of Light as he did from the Pool of Shadows. Then he would have the power of Light and Shadow, a balance of two different powers. And with that, he could be able to activate his divine power, which he didn’t know how to.
According to Lusìvar, Valverno has never released his divine power, and it was something he need to learn how to. In order to unleash his divine power, there needs to be a secondary power source to balance with the divine power. And the last suitable power Valverno could think is to harness the powers of Light and Shadow, which would mean he would have to drink from the Pool of Light.
“What’s the matter?” asked the Tokagehebi. “Forget something?”
Valverno shook his head of his thinking and just couldn’t resist the thought of Lusìvar and his Titan minions taking over the Mortal Realm. “Oh, just past memories. I just wish my half-sister, Sora, was here. She’d die with a smile on her face by first sight at this living civilization. She would want to be back with familiar faces she would barely remember. And what’s your name, Tokagehebi?”
“Oh, forgive me,” said the Tokagehebi. “I am Okinawan. I am the chief leader of what’s left of the Tokagehebi.”
“May I ask how many of you are left?” asked Valverno.
“You could ask so,” said Okinawan.
Valverno looked around first and saw only a few Tokagehebi walking around and they weren’t wearing any yukatas or kimonos. He turned back to Okinawan to ask a question. “How many Tokagehebi are left? Pangaeans included?”
“If you want to count them all, slight over a few dozen Tokagehebi are left and the population in total of this settlement are about a thousand Pangaeans,” answered Okinawan.
“A thousand Pangaeans!?” Valverno exclaimed. “More Pangaeans survived than I thought. I always thought I and four others were the only survivors. But many more did survive, which would mean others have survived.”
“I wouldn’t be too hopeful, hybrid,” warned Okinawan. “The thousand Pangaeans you see here are all that’s left of the races. Demihumans. Elves. Tokagehebi. Even some Dwarves are around here. Fifty Tokage
hebi. One hundred and fifty Elves. Two hundred Dwarves. And the rest: six hundred demihumans. That’s a thousand Pangaeans, compared to the tens of billions of Pangaean lives that were lost.”
“Even a thousand are better than one,” said Valverno. “A lost, lonely Pangaean out in the world with no home or family to go to can’t make survive and not without proper support. Or else the Pangaean is—”
“Doomed to die alone in the wild,” cried out Halvdan’s voice. The wolf demihuman came walking wearing a black kimono. “Don’t keep telling him too much, Okinawan. You may find him alive, but he’s still a stranger to us. Pangaea is long gone, but we’re here on this island’s northern tip just to stay hidden and safe from harm’s way. Very few humans ever set foot of this settlement, and we have been wary of the Shadow King. Now, since he has released the Titans, it’s only a matter of time he finds out we survived and will make sure all Pangaeans go extinct.”
“Come on,” Okinawan said, cheerfully. “We have the son of Celestreá la Mùne amongst us. She was the Celestial Angel that helped build Pangaea in the first place after the Dragon God battled the Shadow King and sent him spiraling down into the Pool of Shadows.”
“Let’s not go into the matter of evil beings,” said Alfhild. “Some of the Pangaeans are gathering at the fire over there, and that is where the High Priest will be holding prayer tonight.” Alfhild pointed at smoke rising from a large fire sparkling around a large pile of logs stacked in a square shape.
“Then let’s not waste any more time than the time we’re already wasting,” said Halvdan. He was the first to take a step toward the fireplace where about a hundred demihumans were gathered. They stood or sat in a circle surrounding the fire burning through the stack of wood.
