Gardenia’s Heart

The moment that strike was unleashed, every tree in the forest trembled.

An impact powerful enough to make the world itself shake marked the undeniable end of the confrontation.

With wide, tear-filled eyes, Rose stared at the dragon’s body—so massive it remained visible even through the dense mist—being cleaved in two and crashing to the ground as the jewel-like ice chains shattered and dissolved.

The light, once so intense and dangerous that she could barely look at it, was fading away.

They had won.

Her mothers had truly defeated that thing—an existence she couldn’t even stand before.

That was the true strength of her mothers. Rose couldn’t help but press a hand to her chest, her once-racing heartbeat calming simply from their presence.

They had come to save her, even if it meant facing that creature head-on.

Still, Rose knew there was something she had to face.

Rubbing her eyes again and again, she looked at the two women approaching her side by side, then lowered her head one last time.

“Mom, it’s my fault, not Cherry’s! I was the one who insisted on hiding so we could go together! It was my fault—mine alone!”

Shouting as loudly as her small lungs allowed, the silver-haired girl clenched her fists around her dress.

She was exhausted and filthy, but she knew none of that compared to the worry those women must have felt.

It was because of her selfishness that they had ended up there. She didn’t understand why the dragon had attacked, but she knew her mothers would have won with far less risk if they hadn’t had to worry about her.

Her choice had been selfish and reckless, and because of that, she couldn’t allow Cherry to be blamed for helping her.

“I’m the one who disobeyed! It’s because I wanted to go hunting with you at least once that this happened! Scold me instead—?!”

But as she continued speaking in a trembling voice, her vision vanished as something warm wrapped around her completely.

Silver hair mingled with her own, a comfort she didn’t know if she would ever feel again enveloping her.

“Forgive me, Rose… forgive me.”

The trembling voice that reached her ears made Rose’s entire body freeze. Her words caught in her throat as a hollow opened in her chest, leaving her feeling as though all the air had been torn from her lungs.

Two arms pressed her tightly against a trembling body, as if holding her close was the only thing keeping that world from collapsing.

The loud sound of a racing heartbeat echoed, mingling with something she understood all too well. When she lifted her head and looked up at the woman holding her, Rose couldn’t believe what she saw.

Her mother was crying.

Shimmering drops streamed down Lily’s cheeks in an unbroken flow. Her shoulders rose and fell unevenly, accompanied by a rough, broken sob.

Her mother was crying in front of her—for the first time.

“I should have checked on you in bed. I should have come to say good morning. I should have made sure you were alright before we left.”

Lily felt her body being overwhelmed by so many emotions that there was no other way she could react.

A single action could have prevented all of this, and by failing to take it, a tragedy had nearly occurred.

When Lily saw the little girl being hurled down from the sky, she knew—despite everything she had lived through—that it was the greatest pain she had ever felt.

Facing the dragon for hours, she waited for any sign that her wife’s and friends’ search for her daughter had been successful.

It felt as though a part of her body was being torn apart every second, panic and fear consuming her relentlessly as countless dark thoughts piled up.

Emotional pain turned into something physical. The adrenaline boiling in her veins was not enough to chase her fear away. The possibility of losing her daughter forever made her fingers tremble and her stomach twist.

“I thought I was going to lose you. I didn’t know what I would do if I lost you.”

The tears running down her cheeks carried relief, but also the fear born from the terror she had endured.

Was this what her father felt when she failed to stay hidden as he had told her to, when she ran after him and watched him die before her eyes?

The feeling of seeing the future of what you cherish most being destroyed was worse than death itself.

A girl who had already died many times could affirm that with her whole soul.

That was when Lily felt something touch her face.

“M-Mom, don’t cry… please, don’t cry…”

Placing her hand on her mother’s cheek, Rose tried to wipe away the tears falling from it. Her own eyes overflowed with hot droplets, her face twisting in panic.

Crying was the body’s language when words turned to dust. Fear and relief blended together, all restraint breaking apart.

Finding refuge beneath each other’s shoulders, mother and daughter embraced. As if they had finally found a place where they could let everything out, the two girls continued to cry for a long time.

Tears and sobs mingled without haste. The scent of one another reached their senses, the warmth confirming that this presence was real, here, mending broken breaths.

After a long while, their bodies pulled slightly apart, yet remained connected, mother and daughter wiping the tears from each other’s faces.

“Just promise me, Rose. Never do something like that again.”

“I won’t! Mom! I swear I won’t! I promise!”

Nodding harder than she ever had in her life, the small silver-haired girl rubbed her blue eyes repeatedly.

“Rose…”

A soft voice echoed beside them.

With faint shining streaks on her face, Nia approached her daughter and immediately pulled her into her arms.

“I shouldn’t have let you go, Rose. I never should have let you go.”

When the dragon attacked, prioritizing the barrier around them, Nia hadn’t hesitated to discard the weight she was carrying. Unaware that her daughter was there, she was the one who allowed the girls to plunge into a deadly fall.

Desperately searching the forest, Nia had used every ounce of her mind trying to calculate where they might have landed. Unable to find them, terror consumed her with every passing moment.

“I’m sorry, Mama Nia.”

Wrapping her arms around her mother’s neck, Rose felt Nia’s body trembling, her restless arms holding her tightly.

She finally understood something.

The two women would never blame her for what happened. Her reckless choices were something they would blame themselves for not preventing.

Her mothers’ tears hurt more than any scolding ever could.

“I won’t do it again. I swear.”

Speaking as firmly as she could, Rose raised her bluish tentacle. Immediately, a purple tentacle gently intertwined with it.

Mother and daughter embraced tightly, and carefully, Lily stepped closer and joined the hug as well.

Circling the trio, a black wolf wrapped its tail around the girls, its spectral blue eyes meeting those the color of the sky.

“I’m sorry too, Akasha,” Rose whispered with a short, shaky laugh, rubbing her eyes as she looked at the wolf, who had also pushed themself to the limit to find her.

Despite everything that had happened, the family was together again, and that alone was what truly mattered.

“I should have checked the baggage as well when I brought it back from my sister’s laboratory. I never thought my little girl would try to imitate me one day.”

Approaching the women who were still holding each other tightly, a golden-haired elf wiped the tears from eyes reddened by crying, carrying a small girl in a honey-colored dress in her arms.

The little girl with bee-like ears cast a shy, flushed glance toward the other child, then smiled and buried her face in her mother’s chest.

“Thank you for healing Cherry, Lady Gardenia.”

Lowering her head gently toward the purple-haired woman, Thelira was answered by a soft nod from Nia before Nia returned her full attention to holding Rose close.

The sunrise was not visible through the cold mist, but as if determined to ensure their daughters were warm and safe, all the women present focused entirely on their children.

That was, all except the one who had been left aside this whole time.

“Guys, I don’t want to ruin the moment, but, uh…” Raising her voice for the first time in a while, a girl with rabbit ears and a red dress pointed her thumb in a specific direction. “What are we going to do about that?”

What Selene was referring to could not have been more obvious.

Lying abandoned on the uneven ground of the thorny forest, the colossal indigo dragon’s body lay split cleanly in two.

“This is… definitely something we need to deal with.” Reluctantly, Lily stepped away from the others and walked over to Selene, gaining a clearer view of the dragon’s ruined body.

There was no doubt they had been attacked first and had merely defended themselves. However, on the eve of such an important political event, a battle of this scale would clearly not be received well.

“Dragons aren’t irrational beings, right? Do you have any idea why it attacked us so relentlessly?” Lily asked, resting one hand on her hip as she let out a tired sigh.

“How would I know? I mean, I’ve never met a dragon in person before,” Selene replied, still scanning the surroundings restlessly despite everything. “We were just flying around before it attacked us, so it’s not like we accidentally broke one of its eggs. And besides, it had already killed all the Gale Eagles, so we didn’t interfere with its hunt.”

If they had provoked the dragon first, or if they had trespassed into its people’s territory without permission, Lily could have understood the reason for the attack. But being assaulted without cause or explanation, especially during a diplomatic journey, left her unable to make sense of the situation.

“So we’re supposed to conclude it was just some rogue dragon picking a fight with us?” Selene commented, shifting her gaze between Lily and the dragon, reasoning that troublesome individuals existed in every race.

“I’m afraid this wasn’t just any dragon…” Approaching the two women, Thelira wrapped her scarf around her daughter’s neck and shook her head. “Unlike other races with centralized governments, dragons are a society divided into three different clans that coexist within the same territory.”

The elf raised three fingers on one hand.

“Wings, the political clan. Fangs, the cultural clan. Scales, the military clan. Each of these clans has a leader with equal political power, and although they act independently, the three clans form an internal council to make any decision that concerns dragonkind as a whole.”

The silver-haired girl felt her brows knit together at the sudden explanation.

“You don’t mean that…?” Lily almost stammered, the elf’s next words confirming exactly what she feared.

“Given the overwhelming power that dragon displayed, I have no choice but to conclude that it was one of the three leaders. The extra pair of wings on its back, totaling four, strongly suggests it belonged to the Wing Clan. More specifically, Fafnir, The Untamed Sky.”

One of the three pillars of dragonkind had been killed by them. When that realization fully reached Lily, she couldn’t help but swallow hard, her mind immediately comparing it to killing a royal councilor—or perhaps a king.

“I guess they weren’t that untamed after all.” Rubbing her face against her mother’s, Rose let the words slip out with a soft laugh.

Quickly moving closer to Nia, who was pinching Rose’s cheeks while failing to hide her smile, Lily gently covered both of her daughter’s ears, an awkward expression spreading across her face.

“Should we, um… you know… pretend nothing happened?” She gestured with her eyes toward the dragon’s corpse, smiling nervously as her daughter’s bright gaze questioned why she suddenly couldn’t hear whatever her mother was saying.

Although Lily was utterly furious at the dragon who had not only attacked them but dared to try to harm her child, she felt no hatred toward dragonkind as a whole and still wished to maintain a good relationship with them. Even if it wasn’t exactly ethical, given that there were no other witnesses to the confrontation, they could dispose of the evidence and pretend nothing had happened—at least for a while.

“In fact, doing that might help us avoid trouble for now, but I don’t believe it’s the best solution in this case…” Thelira sighed, her emerald eyes turning cold. “The disappearance of one of their leaders will not go unnoticed. Sooner or later, our delegation may be linked to it, especially since the destruction occurred on the side of the forest that connects Athamas to Lampides.”

Most of the battle had taken place in the skies, but dozens of hectares of forest had still been devastated as a result. Even if the fight went unnoticed during the summit, the issue would inevitably surface in the near future.

“At the moment, we do have the advantage of claiming self-defense. Whatever the reason behind it, the dragons attacked first. Moreover, in their assault, they not only threatened the life of the Elven Sage, but also targeted a direct heir to the throne.”

As she gently stroked her daughter’s golden hair, Thelira’s crescent-moon pupils grew even colder.

Although Thelira had recovered from her illness and now wielded political influence, the elven royal family still suffered from a severe lack of members. With only three High Elves still alive, and only two of them possessing the innate ability of precognition, an attempt on Cherry’s and Thelira’s lives was a political offense on the same level as an attack on one of the three clan leaders.

“So, in the best-case scenario, we might be able to bring this to a neutral conclusion?” Lily asked, tilting her head.

“The relationship among the three great races of Phaea is closer to a non-aggression pact than true mutual benefit, so… I should be able to handle this somehow once we arrive.”

Bringing one hand to her chin as if deep in thought, Thelira remained silent for a moment. Noticing this, Lily removed her hands from her daughter’s ears and began gently playing with her cheek again.

“We can keep the dragon’s body as compensation for being attacked, right?”

If she were being honest, Lily wasn’t particularly interested in complex political situations. If Thelira could handle the bureaucratic complications, she would much rather not rack her brain over them. A dragon was still a dragon, after all, and if possible, she wanted Nia and Rose to be able to devour it.

“I may not understand much about this, but I remember Elarielle mentioning that dragon blood is extremely valuable. You, Selene, and Cherry were involved in this too. What part of the dragon would you like to take as compensation for being attacked?”

Even though they had defeated the dragon with almost no help, Lily would never deny them a share of the spoils.

“No, no, no! Even if it’s worth a fortune, selling dragon parts without drawing the attention of the Mage Tower would be impossible unless we got involved with the black market. I really don’t want anything to do with something that risky.”

Shaking her head and waving her hands, Selene stepped several paces back as she spoke in an agitated tone. Realizing it wasn’t safe to stay too far away, she quickly hurried back to the group.

“And you, Thelira?” Lily asked, ignoring Selene’s antics as she turned to the high elf, who finally seemed to have finished thinking.

“Dragon blood does indeed possess healing properties that I would like to obtain more of,” Thelira replied, “but as you saw, it returns to the dragon’s body once regeneration begins. That makes it nearly impossible to collect unless the dragon willingly gives it up.”

She shrugged and sighed.

“When a dragon dies, only the remaining blood—what was insufficient to regenerate its body again—remains. I’ve heard that extracting this amount after a dragon’s death is extremely difficult, and almost no one truly knows how to do it well enough to obtain a meaningful quantity. Naturally, no one I know is among those few. So I doubt we’d get much anyway.”

Although Thelira claimed there wouldn’t be much blood left, Lily recalled the small vial Elarielle kept in her laboratory. What spilled from the dragon’s wounds would likely be enough to fill two or three hundred of those. Still, without mana concentrated within it, the blood would be just blood—useless to them regardless of the amount. Lily briefly wondered if Nia could learn the method to extract what little mana-infused blood remained, but as she looked at the elf, she noticed Thelira seemed focused on something else entirely.

“Do you have something in mind?” Lily asked.

In response, Thelira turned her gaze to the woman beside her.

“Lady Gardenia, if you’ll allow me to ask—how much of a creature’s body do you need to absorb in order to acquire its traits?”

Stopping her playful gestures with the small girl in her arms, Nia tilted her head at the question, thinking for a few seconds before answering.

“Usually, consuming everything is ideal. But sometimes quality matters more than quantity.”

“Then, hypothetically,” Thelira continued, “if you and Lady Rose were to absorb only the most valuable part and already gain all of its innate abilities as compensation, would you be able to leave the rest intact?”

At that, Nia looked to Lily, as if asking how she should respond.

“Thelira… what are you planning?” Lily asked cautiously, swallowing hard as she considered what the elf might be intending.

Staring at the dragon’s lifeless body, a chilling smile slowly spread across Thelira’s face.