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Last of the Fae Chapter 75: Ancient Legacy Pt. 1
🕑 Added 2024-12-09 23:43:43 +0000 UTC"So, are we finally on good terms now?" Thane asked his dragon, who sat in the mouth of his cave with a content smile across his scaled face.
"Had we truly been at odds, you would have gone insane as your mind fractured to separate our two consciousnesses," The dragon replied, "But yes, I suppose we are on 'good terms.' It was nice to feel the wind under my wings once again."
Thane blinked, confused by his dragon's word choice, "Once again?"
His dragon heaved a great sigh through his nostrils as if caught in a lie, "Since our first discussion, I have been...dreaming."
"But they're not just dreams, are they?" Thane asked, too, to which the dragon nodded, "I believe they are remnant memories from a time long ago; most are so distorted I can only recall faint emotions and feelings. But one stood out among them all."
Before Thane could respond, his dragon reached out with a winged arm and extended a singular hooked claw, "Allow me to show you."
Thane watched without flinching as the claw came down and tapped him on the forehead. There was a brief pinch of pain before Thane felt his world shift as the floor fell out from beneath him, sending him toppling backward into the endless abyss. As the world faded to black, Thane could feel himself falling and picking up speed, but he was frozen, unable to act until his eyes shot open, which he hadn't even realized were closed.
Though Thane's situation hadn't improved, the ground was fast approaching, or at least what he thought was the ground. But as a stiff breeze howled through, Thane watched the ground ripple, and he realized with a start what he was looking at was, in fact, a canopy. Massive trees thousands of feet tall crowded together and stretched seemingly without end in every direction. The grand sight was almost enough for Thane to forget his rapid descent before the howl of the wind ripping past his ears reminded him.
But before he could crash into dense foliage, Thane's body moved on its own, and with a start, Thane realized he wasn't in his human form.
Thane watched in awe as a shadow spread across the trees below him as his wings spread out. Every time that Thane thought the shadow would stop growing, it didn't. It crashed over the canopy like a rouge wave, drenching everything under it.
When Thane's wings were fully extended and his plummet turned into a glide, he estimated the shadow he cast was at least a kilometer across. Inspecting his new body, Thane found that he was in his dragon form, with the same winged arms, bright silver scales, and rows of spines trailing down his back. But at that moment, Thane realized that his dragon form must have been juvenile, as the body he was currently occupied put his dragon to shame.
It was hard to grasp the sheer size on display and almost impossible to believe that such a large creature was capable of flight. If Thane had to estimate, his current length was around five hundred meters, almost twice that long, and a wingspan stretched beyond two thousand meters.
It was inconceivable that something living could grow so large as to rival the size of a small mountain, and at that moment, Thane was certain he occupied the body of the mightiest beasts to ever walk across the earth.
'Will I grow to be this large?' Thane thought with a mixture of anticipation and excitement. Still, before he could consider the question, Thane felt his body move on autopilot as his wings started pumping furiously, sending his body clinging into the air with surprising speed.
Wondering why, Thane looked ahead only to find a sheer wall of stone quickly approaching. But then, as he took in the broader picture, Thane realized the sheer cliff face was sloped and was, in fact, the base of a mountain.
Once more, Thane's sense of scale and comparison was thrown for a loop as he panned his gaze left and right and watched the mountain stretch on for thousands and thousands of miles, and the mountain slope rose and disappeared into the cloud and judging by the circumstance it was clear that the mountain top was nowhere close.
'Where am I?' Thane asked in stunned disbelief as his body continued to move on its own, carrying him up the mountain and into the clouds. Thane didn't know how long he continued to scale the mountainside, but eventually, the air grew frigid and so thin that Thane wondered how his body managed to fly. Then, all of a sudden, his wings stopped flapping and instead fully extended to either side of his gargantuan body.
For a moment, Thane stalled in the air before mana flooded through his body with such potency and volume that Thane doubted that the combined reserve of all the witches, wizards, and mages alive in the present could rival him.
Thane's body practically vibrated with magical potential, so his mana began to resonate with a familiar vibrato. But once more the sheer difference in scale and potency was humbling. If Thane had been a conductor with an orchestra, then his current form was a maestro directing every musician that had ever sung or played a note.
As the harmony reached a crescendo, a halo of silver flames erupted around Thane, propelling him forward with such speed that the little air around him shattered with a mighty crack. The mountain turned into a brown blur underneath Thane as he climbed into the air.
In a matter of seconds, Thane felt as if he had traveled more distance than his original ascent, and for a moment, he wondered if the mountain was without end. But just as the thought crossed Thane's mind, the peak suddenly appeared.
The flames licking his silver scales died down but didn't vanish entirely, and Thane felt his rapid ascent slow as he flew above the peak and looked down. Instead of a solid point of rock, the peak had been hallowed out, creating a basin from which rose a tree so gargantuan that even Thane's new form was dwarfed by its size.
With a start, Thane realized what he was witnessing, and the significance made his mind go blank.
Banking hard, Thane began to descend, drifting down before landing on the moss-covered ground with a loud thud, and his flames finally died. Despite the altitude, the air was warm and humid, and the basin was overflowing with plant life of every kind, and hovering just above the ground was a dense layer of radiant blue fog.
But all of these startling features failed to capture Thane's attention, which was wholly fixated on the tree whose size and scale rivaled any man-made structure. Its roots, which resembled great wooden bridges, glowed with thick bands of cyan light and dove into the earth, no doubt extending across the entire planet.
'Ygradsil, The World Tree, ' Thane thought with wonder as he stared at the tree, and a sense of longing filled his soul.
"Hm, took you long enough, Magala. Even the fate of magic itself is not enough for you to be punctual."
A deep growl that sounded like the heavens crashing to earth rose from Thane's chest as his head turned around to stare at an almost microscopic figure seated cross-legged on one of Ygradsil's roots with what looked like a wooden flute resting in his lap. But Thane's eyes focused on the figure, and he was startled to find dark-tanned skin, slender ears that ended in a point, and long, vibrant green hair.
"Do not test me, Fae."
