by Ryan Johnson
Valverno turned his head away and headed toward the tent he assumed Ganymede would be. The same tent Valverno told the demihuman children about his battle with the Five-Headed Dragon.
He opened up the sleeve of the entrance, and suddenly Freyya’s kids and other demihuman children exited the tent as Valverno entered. They all dashed passed him if a big surprise was waiting for them in a different tent.
One of them stopped in front of him. It was a girl with wolf ears of about four years old, and she was smiling at Valverno. She raised her hands to him and said, “Uppie.” This meant she wanted to be lifted from the ground in the hands of Valverno.
Valverno couldn’t resist and picked up the little girl, and she smiled so innocently as she looked at the stranger she never met. Her hands motioned toward his two horns, and he tilted his horns down closer to the girl’s reach. First, she touched the horn’s brim connecting from his ears. She rubbed them first then tugged them seeing if the horns would snap off his head.
“You must like my red horns, don’t you?” he said smiling. He swirled his head back-and-forth and many angles, which made the girl laugh and giggle softly.
“Oh, darling, come here, dear,” said a woman’s voice.
Valverno heard the woman’s voice and thought it was the girl’s mother. He quickly put the girl back on her feet, and she ran off. He saw the girl running to a woman with the same colored wolf ears like Halvdan.
The little girl ran up to her mother’s skirt, and the mother picked up in her arms. The mother of the girl looked at Valverno and bowed her head, and Valverno bowed his head back and raised it back. This wasn’t the first time he carried a girl that showed interest in his horns; Naìra also showed interest in his horns when she was younger. Such memories can happen again, but with other children who weren’t scared of Valverno’s appearance.
Valverno opened the sleeve wider and entered the tent. Inside, he saw the High Priest standing by a stand with a large paper that had a half-painted picture of the Five-Headed Dragon; Valverno’s black-inked drawing was being colored by the High Priest. In one hand, Ganymede held a brush and the other a board with liquid colors, and he was adding more detail to Valverno’s art.
“How goes your life?” asked Ganymede.
“My life?” asked Valverno.
“You have been living with us for some time now, and you been living the life of a Pangaean now. How does it feel to be living among an ancient civilization?”
“It felt I was in Pangaea again. A civilization I thought to be dead still alive. For the time I’ve regained a portion of my memories from my sister I came across four or five years ago, around the time I entered that underground chamber I was held captive in a glass jar for eight or ten thousand years.
“Aside from the memory-regaining, I felt the greatest pride and honor of walking in Pangaea again. The people made me feel like I was a Pangaean. However, the regret is not having others with me. Marina. Sora. Flavius and his siblings. Monico. The people who stood side-by-side with me for the few years I’ve been at conquest. They all would love it here, but they aren’t here. If I only had the knowledge of knowing how to use my divine power, I could save them from Lusìvar and bring them all here and show them all the ways of Pangaean life. But I have no knowledge of using my divine power.”
“But I heard from several Pangaeans your spat out fire,” said Ganymede. The High Priest placed down his brush and board of colors and rubbed his hands of a large, damp towel. “During your course of your training, you manage to spit out fire.”
“Not fully,” said Valverno. “I only spat out embers small as coal, not a full flame. In other words, I spat a few drops of saliva from my mouth that melted into rock.”
“Did you know how you manage to do that?”
“No, I don’t. I only… reacted when Halvdan said something negative about me. I wanted to harm him so badly I just couldn’t feel the need to harm. So, I spat in anger away from him and out came boiling, hot embers instead of saliva, and it melted the rock like snow. I’d never known I had such power… unless it could be a small fracture of my divine power.”
“Did you just hesitated in your words, hybrid?”
“Yes, I did. I just realize a moment ago when I said I was angry at Halvdan for talking badly about me. I was angry I spat out faded embers hot enough to melt rock.” Valverno looked at his hand. “Why didn’t I realize this before? I am starting to realize those embers came from of what I’ve felt. That power. The divine power! It activates on which I feel a strong sensational emotion such as my frustration at Halvdan.”
Suddenly, Valverno dashed out the tent and ran through the settlement, moving away from all the Pangaeans he almost hit across. He was lucky enough only to shoulder-bump into only one demihuman: Halvdan. The hybrid dodged after other demihuman or Elf that came his way, and found himself lucky he didn’t see any Dwarves in his way. If his shoulder bumped into one of the low-leveled Dwarves, he would end up hitting a wall; Dwarves maybe small, but they were very heavy small people and a mean, terrible attitude if one made one mad.
He made his way through a wide open terrain no tents clouded land and halted. Valverno exhaled in a forceful air. He felt heat in the burning like ambers at the back of his throat, but a faint spit of salvia spat from his teeth. He spat rapidly.
His spit touched and melted a hole into the ground. It left behind a smoking impact before fading after seconds. He shook his head in disbelief and exhaled stronger. He sounded he was gasping to get hot air out of his lungs if he was trying to cough out a frog.
“Come on. You breathed fire before and you can do it.” Valverno gave a big sigh of exhaling air. “You managed to fly with both wings. You managed to fight a Minotaur on your own.” The hybrid gave another big sigh of air but no fire, sparks of embers flew out of his mouth. “You managed to accomplish things some mortals can’t. If you can accomplish all the past events, then you can accomplish in the art of Fire Breathing. You know you can because,” Valverno inhaled a large gush of air and held it in, “…you believe you can!”
Then Valverno exhaled and a large spew of fire ignited from his mouth big enough to start a forest fire. After a long moment, Valverno lost air to his lungs and stopped his breathing. He gasped for air after exhaling a lot out from his hybrid lungs, but he was boosted with excitement; he could breathe fire again. “I can do it. I can breathe fire again.” Valverno inhaled another big gush of air in one gulp. And he exhaled a large steam then a gush fire hot fire in the colors of ruby red and flaring orange.
It was glamorous like awaking to the rising dawn of a new day, the redness ablaze the flame in the color of a red dawn and the yellowness mirroring a yellow dusk.
Valverno wreathed his flame for a full minute before stopping his breath. Amazed by his power, the hybrid had his old breath back, and he didn’t realize it; he had his power all the time. He only needed to have the thought of faith and belief. He only needed to believe he could breathe fire and the fire would burn from his mouth.
“Why do you breathe fire?” asked Ganymede.
Valverno turned his head and saw the High Priest standing behind him. “All this time you have been with us,” Ganymede continued, “you could have breathed your fire at any time. Yet you didn’t. Why is that? Or do you not know?”
Valverno flickered his lips but gave no answer. “I didn’t realize it until now. The power comes from my emotion. All this time, I thought of my mortal structure and thought how badly injured I was, but it was never about my body but my negativity. All this time, I had thought I needed another power source to activate my divine power but no. I only doubted myself, preventing myself from ever. But with this, I can surely—”
Then Valverno was soaring across the land and rolled on the ground. A hard hit from behind him sent him flying across the distance.
The hybrid stumbled and rolled across on the plain, but
motioned his hand to the ground and lifted his weight into the air. He curled his fingers into the ground and placed his legs on the ground as well. He stopped after leaving a long trail behind his hand made. He looked up to see what had hit him, and he saw Ganymede coming in a full swing toward the hybrid.
Valverno rolled aside from Ganymede who struck the spot the hybrid stood on seconds ago. “What do you think you’re doing!? Trying to get me killed?”
“Why do you keep living?” asked Ganymede.
“What?” Valverno raised his eyebrows in confusion. He was already alive, but he didn’t understand what the High Priest’s question meant.
In the hands of the High Priest was a long staff. Thin lines of green flowed like a blood view from a large brown crystal laid at the brow. The High Priest himself was dressed differently; he wore a heavy green-brown cloak with a hood covering his head. His face was shown from the hood, as he held the staff in one hand while drawing its power from the staff’s brow with the other hand.
“A Wizard!” gasped Valverno. “I should have known you would have been that kind of Pangaean. A highly skilled specimen that is a mastery of all magic power, even the Ancient Elves couldn’t rival against the race of the Wizards.”
Ganymede only stared at Valverno. “Why do you keep living?”
“Why? Why do I keep living? Because I have a duty to do. I have a duty to keep others alive in the Mortal Realm. I have a duty to keep the Mortal Realm in a balance. And I have a strong habit of not dying.”
Valverno gave a small sigh as he stayed at Ganymede. He looked the Wizard as he heard many footsteps running behind Ganymede. “And I believe I am meant to stay alive until I have fulfilled my duty. Anyone who stands with me I will consider a friend, but if they are against me, then they are my enemy. So the question is: are you with me or against, Wizard?”
“Actually, the question is: who are you?” replied Ganymede. “You were asked that question before, but you didn’t answer.”
Valverno didn’t answer. He thought himself to be the demigod, but he was confused with his other identity of the Demon Prince. Two different identities, and he still didn’t know which one to choose from. He did discover he had the power to change his body form and had the strength when he believed he thought to have brute strength. “Maybe you should tell me,” Valverno said in response.
“Only one’s self can only make the discovery for the person’s self,” said Ganymede, spinning his staff and casting up big ball of a blue energy burst in his free. “You should have to think of a selfish thought to discover who you are.” Ganymede lifted his hand, drawing dark matter from his staff and shifted toward Valverno.
Valverno blocked with his wing, with a strong belief his wing would protect him from the attack. He felt a strong impound hitting against his wing like a strong, mighty punch of a Dragon, but the hybrid stood on his feet without being blown backwards.
The force his wing was blocking was incredible powerful than he ever imagined but not as powerful as Lusìvar’s power. Even though the belief of a power was piling in one wing, Valverno’s belief in his wing wasn’t strong, and he his feet were sinking into the dirt if hands emerged from the ground to grab his legs and make him sink.
“You think strong belief is enough power to go against the power of a Wizard?” shouted Ganymede. “Wizards are among the top three most powerful beings in the old land of Pangaea. The other two are the Amazons, with their superior strength, and the Elves, with their skill in archery and magic. Wizards, Amazons, and the Elves have all known to be the most powerful beings in Pangaea, and it was they who were the governed the continent and kept everything in balance.
“But, with all their power and forces combined, they couldn’t prevent the catastrophic collapse of their homeland, in the hands of the Shadow King Lusìvar. The one you brought into creation, by assuring the destruction of his homeland one Generation before the Second Generation. As much as the fault was his, you are also to blame.”
“Sure blame me for everything,” said Valverno, said moving his legs against the force lunging against his wing. “I remember it well, and somehow I do not regret it. And it wasn’t the matter of the fact obeying orders or executing them; my father, not the God of Shadows, told me the Titans were a flawed species and showed me they were flawed: big creatures with small brains.
“And in the Colossal Age, when Pangaeans were still primitive in little fishlike minnows, I saw the great potential your early ancestors had. And if you came crawling from the oceans with the Titans still around, the primitive Pangaeans would have been seafood to the Titans, and you and the others in this settlement wouldn’t be here. Basically, the entire Second Generation would ever have existed if it weren’t for my decision to kill the Titans and their homeland. I did what I knew was a necessary choice to kill a species and let another species be born in the ashes of the Frist Generation.”
“What ‘you did what you knew was a necessary choice’? A necessary choice for another Titan to do a reattribution, from what you have done,” said Ganymede. Then the Wizard switched to this staff to attack and casted a large blast beaming at Valverno’s shielded wing.
Valverno felt a more powerful impact swarming on his wing like the weight of a mountain being pushed into his wing. He was being pushed backward with his feet trailing on the ground. The more power Ganymede sent his magic casting to Valverno’s wing, the more Valverno placed in more faith into his wing to protect him. He knew how powerful a Wizard could grow in magic strength. If he went on the offence, he would be put to the ground before he could make a step forward. For the time, he needed to be on the defense and wait for an opportunity to strike.
“Was turning your back against those who needed you also a necessary choice?” shouted Ganymede, tauntingly.
Refusing to respond to Ganymede’s taunt, the hybrid kept himself on the defense and kept his distance while using his only wing to block Ganymede’s magic attack. And the blast was powerful enough to make Valverno kneel to his knees.
“You left other people behind as you turned to your inner darkness to singlehandedly tried to stop Lusìvar and were overpowered. And you caused the destruction of the Third Generation.”
“I would say otherwise,” Valverno argued. Valverno stood higher than kneeling down and walked toward the Wizard. His feeling of a discomfort was turning into a zone of comfort somehow and gave his legs he needed to stand. He walked with the greatest strength he was feeling from a strong belief; he felt he was unleashing a ghostly power swelling in his legs. “I may have left them behind, but I have been given a chance to go back to them and beg at their feet to apologize for what I’ve done. For what I’ve did. I will go back alive and beg at their feet for forgiveness.”
“How can you? You’re not strong enough! Not strong enough against me!”
“Not strong enough!? I’ll show you who isn’t strong enough.”
Valverno lifted his wing and raised one hand in place of his wing. “I do STRONGLY have a belief I am stronger than ALL mortals in the Mortal Realm!” Valverno was feeling the power mysteriously growing in him as his faith in himself was growing. The hybrid grinned as his eyes met with the High Priest and marched forward profoundly in a strength he never felt before.
“I was strong once, when someone I loved was alive. But that love died when Marina died. When that happened, my life fell apart and my power decayed. Before I met her, I felt half alive like person awakening from a long night’s sleep. When we married, I felt fully alive. And when she closed her eyes for the final time in my arms, I felt that half shutting its doors on me. And when that happened, I felt desperate, weak, fragile… and evil.”
Valverno then dashed toward the High Priest and jumped. Ganymede jumped backward when Valverno landed on the spot the Wizard stood.
When the hybrid landed, the ground shook vigorously and a large crack opened wide beneath the Wizard. Valverno
raised both his hands and two large formations of pointy rocks sprouted like trees between the Wizard. The rocks emerged from the surface at a fast paste, but the Wizard spun his staff and broke the emerging rocks into a sand of dust and the crack beneath him was snapped shut like a zipper.
Then Valverno reached out his hand with fingers wide open. The Wizard’s staff flew from his hands to the hands of Valverno, and Valverno tossed it behind him.
Again, Valverno jump, not in the air, but directly toward the Wizard. Valverno halted just an inch in front of the Wizard and stomped the ground with his feet. The ground shook hard again, and Valverno dropped the ground and rolled on his hands, whipping his tail toward the Wizard’s legs.
The Wizard toppled backward, and Valverno quickly moved over the fallen Wizard with a leg to the Wizard’s throat.
“When I turned evil, I ended up in failing,” Valverno said, sighing in a discomforted voice. “I failed to do what the gods asked me to do. I failed to protect the people that needed me. I failed of being the leader of the White Knights. I failed of being a brother to Sora and Flavius and other kids younger than them. I failed of being Valverno, the Demigod. A failed legend. And I’m seeing Halvdan was right; the gods should have asked someone else than me to be a demigod.” Valverno removed his leg from Ganymede’s throat and back away. He now felt his strength moving away from him.
“And looking down to your feet isn’t exactly a page turner you need in your mindful book,” said Ganymede.
“Page turner in my mindful book?” asked Valverno.
“Life has many lessons and the lessons come in many different forms than just words on a piece of paper.
“Among such things of strength against the Shadows, being a master in the arts of magic, or even flying high toward the sky, mistakes are lessons as well. Mistakes are always made, and that is how we all learn. Every mistake that is made is a building block of life. Mistakes and failures are the greatest teachers you could ever have and an easy way to learn your weaknesses and turn them into strengths.”
