"You figured that out quickly."
His Mother's voice roused him, causing the young dragonling's eyes to open.
There, where the stone visage once sat, was one of the largest dragons he had ever seen—second only to the Heavenly King himself.
He recognized her immediately despite her imposing grandeur—it was impossible for him not to after watching over her for a decade. It was Oriana, the dragonling that had come to see a human like himself as her father, and the girl that had cried when he left to fight Manus.
Now, she was also his mother. He instinctively recognized her as the one that had laid him as soon as he saw her.
The hatchling's long neck bowed down, his golden eyes glancing towards her claws in an act that mirrored the deference he showed the mother from his past life—at least as a boy.
"Ori—" he tried to speak, but the words faltered on his tongue. It felt wrong to call her by her name.
The giant dragon chuckled gently, oh so unlike the firebrand he had known. She was no longer the little Ori he had raised.
"I imagine you're quite cross with me at the moment... Fortunately, it's not like you're in any position to lecture me anymore, are you?" she mused, a hint of a familiar smirk upon scaled lips now larger than his entire body.
Alright, maybe there was still a bit of the dragon girl he knew in there.
"Of course I am!" he barked back, his bitterness at her decision overcoming the instinct-ingrained respect.
"I know I must have bought the world a few hundred years, and that's a long and full life by most races' standards, but it's only a fraction of the life you could have lived!"
"Only a few hundred years?" her maternal laugh returned, this time touched by a strange mix of mirth and pride.
"My dear little hatchling... You sat on the Throne of Heaven and kept the world from being destroyed for over a thousand years."
The little dragonling's jaw dropped. He knew he had endured for quite some time, but a thousand years?
Oriana didn't appear to be lying. The appearance of her dream manifestation matched that of a dragon that had seen a millennium. Of course, by dragon standards, that just made her a middle-aged adult; she could have lived for thousands more.
Could have, if she hadn't needed to take his place.
"Honestly, I'd say you held onto your duty for too long," the ancient wyrm who mothered him sighed, before her lips returned to a proud smile while looking over his new body. "Do you know how much it hurt, being stuck down here on Pyren, knowing the suffering you were going through? I had to sit by and watch, knowing I could save you, but being unable to because you were holding the Gates of Heaven shut!"
"S-sorry," the word slipped out beneath her chastisement, his head lowered further, shoulders and wings slumped, exactly like a child being scolded by its mother should act.
"Wait! No, I'm not sorry!" he chimed back a second later, daring to raise his little golden eyes again. "I should have remained holding it closed; I could have—"
"Enough."
The dragoness' voice was terrifyingly firm, returning him to a meek, prostrated hatchling.
"A thousand years is more than most dragons lived in the troubled times of your old life, my child. It was more than enough for me. You have done more than enough for Creation, more than anyone should have asked of any man, Hero or not. Let me bear this burden now."
The dragonling's tail flicked, even as his mind was once again opposing his body's instincts. It felt awkward having Ori call him her child, even though by age and fact, that was the truth of their relationship now.
He thought past those awkward feelings to speak again. "I'll... I'll come save you..."
The mighty dragoness laughed again, heartfelt and melancholic in equal measure.
"You can take the man out of the Hero, but you cannot take the Hero out of the man..." she sighed again, before leaning down to soothe the squeaking dragonling with a delicate nuzzle from her oversized head.
"I know you'll come back to Heaven, and I know I cannot discourage you from wanting to do so, regardless of how much it pains a mother to hear her child wanting to sacrifice themselves to save her. But not now—not for a few ages yet.
"Look down at yourself, my son. Do you think you can charge into Heaven as you are? You can't even fly, let alone ascend to the heights of Heaven! Nor can your Soul, worn down for a thousand years by Manus' darkness, stand to take back up your burden.
"You held the gates shut for a thousand years. I hope to do the same for just as long, if not longer. That's plenty of time for you to grow up and recover your strength, perhaps even reach heights you never found in your old life."
The dragonling's gaze remained lowered. He hated the fact that she was right... hated the fact that the pain he had gone through was now hers, that he had no choice but to allow it.
Besides, even if he had the strength, he doubted Oriana would open the Gates to allow him entry anytime soon.
"Why do you keep calling me your child..." he changed the subject to address the awkwardness of their relationship instead.
"Mm... Because you are?" the large, towering dragon replied with another fond smile, her long neck lifting her mighty head to once again stare down at her newly hatched child from a towering height.
"The process by which I reincarnated your spirit with your memories intact removed much of the gift of knowledge a newborn dragon should have received, but it didn't remove the instinctual bonds between parent and child. You are born of my flesh now, the sole son I have borne in my long life. You are more my child than I was Wymond's daughter, and that will be true for many times longer than Wymond was alive, let alone for while I was in his care."
"I..." once again, he struggled to refute her, even as it made his head glance to the side in the dragon equivalent of embarrassment. "Why are you referring to me like that...?"
"I am not. I am referring to your former life. That name is no longer yours. You should have felt that as well, no?"
She had a point... There was so much about his old life that felt distant. So many of his memories felt almost secondhand, as if they weren't quite his memories anymore. Nevermind the fact that there was still so much of his former life that he still couldn't recall—even the names of his closest confidants remained illusory.
In fact, it felt more awkward to think of himself as Wymond than it did to think of Oriana as his mother... Not that either wasn't awkward, but... relatively speaking...
"The Hero Wymond, the human who raised me as best he could for the decade we were together, died after ascending to Heaven and slaying the Dark God Manus," she continued with an air of declaration. "His spirit then continued to look over the world for a thousand years.
"You," she continued, gently nudging her tiny child's side with a claw larger than he was, "are my son, the first dragon hatched in a thousand years, and you have your own destiny separate from his.
"You may remember your previous life as Wymond, have his memories, even retain some of his skills, but he is not who you are anymore—even more so than I am not the same little dragon he once protected."
She paused for a moment, contemplating with a deep, rumbling purr from her throat while the dragonling stood silent, waiting for her to continue.
"That is my sincere, hopeful wish for you... Just as you had wished, nay, made me promise to live a long and full life, I wish for you to do the same. More, I wish for you to live a life that isn't defined by struggle and loss; a life that is to be lived and enjoyed for its own sake, rather than to temper the conviction that slew a God.
"You should be able to find that, even with Pyren's current state."
The dragoness gave a resigned sigh as her speech ended, her giant claw lovingly stroking along the newborn dragon's tiny frame. "Our time is drawing short."
"Wait!" the little mythical beast rumbled pleasantly underneath his mother's claws. "I still have so many questions! What do you mean by Pyren's state? What did you mean by me being the first dragon hatched in over a thousand years!? What happened to this world!? Are there even still people—"
"You should remember how the guardian dreams work, child. It only allows a brief conversation with one's descendants once a year, and we are fast approaching its limit. Trust me, I tried to reduce these limitations as much as I could, but with my charge keeping Heaven sealed, this is the limit my spirit can communicate to Creation.
"I know you have many questions, but they will have to wait. In a year's time, if you have not discovered the answers yourself, then you can ask me.
"I know it might sound like a long time to you now, but try to think of it in dragon terms. A conversation once a year is actually quite sociable for our kind," she added with a bittersweet laugh.
"Oh... But before it ends, I still need to give you your name, my child."
"But I already have a... I mean, I guess, but is it necessary...?" the dragonling answered with another sheepish glance aside.
"You wouldn't begrudge a mother naming her one and only son, now would you?" the mighty dragon smirked, her giant claw rolling to stroke along his back in a way that soothed the little dragonling's pout.
"Besides, we can't let you decide on your own name. We've seen how you naming a dragon turns out, and I wouldn't want my son to go around struggling to pronounce his own name."
His tail flickered with a hint of embarrassment and regret; his eyes burned holes into the illusory dreamscape's ground rather than meet her gaze. "I... I suppose not... Mother."
There was another sigh, one of profound joy, pride, and equal parts forlorn loss, joined with a weary smile upon the dragoness' snout.
"Now then, I've had a long time to think of a name thanks to your stubbornness... So I hope you appreciate it, my little Kaerlorvek."