Protection

 

Honesty is not always a virtue.

 

"Ai, can you hear me?"

"… Men… tor…?"

Communication magic, channeled through a scale.

When that familiar, crystalline voice came through, I breathed a sigh of relief.

Shiou, where the white dragon had supposedly been slain, lay quite far from Mashiro, but one could never be too careful.

Confirming that the white dragon from my dream had at least not been Ai, I felt the tension drain from my chest.

"Sorry for the late contact… It's been a while. How are you?"

"Yes. I'm happy you reached out."

The matter with Yuuki had, in a way, pushed me past my hesitation.

If Ai had been slain, it would have spelled trouble for Mashiro as a nation, too.

I would have needed to check in regardless.

"Ai… actually, come to think of it, I never did ask your name."

"It's Myogsnyoferlidgun. But… being called Ai by you, Mentor… I don't mind it. Somehow, it puts me at ease… Besides, dragon names are long and unwieldy."

Long indeed. Apparently, all dragons had names like this regardless of their color.

Perhaps because they so rarely had occasion to address one another, or perhaps because their prodigious memories made brevity unnecessary.

"Then I'll keep calling you Ai, if that's all right."

"Yes."

There was something pleased in Ai's voice. Though it might have been my imagination.

"How have things been lately? Have any humans come since then?"

"They have. Dragons, too, several times."

I'd assumed she had been living alone again on that barren, snowy mountain for another hundred years.

Her answer caught me completely off guard.

"What?! Were you okay?"

"I was fine. I drove them all off."

There was a note of pride in Ai's voice. She was quite strong for a white dragon, it seemed.

Even accounting for the home advantage of a snowy mountain, white dragons were the smallest and weakest of the five colors.

Come to think of it, Gilta had once mentioned that most dragons besides fire dragons couldn't even live to five hundred. Ai was at least six hundred years old. That alone spoke to how large and powerful she had grown. Unless a fire dragon came knocking, she was probably safe.

"There is one small problem, though."

"What's that?"

"The dragons I drove off have settled at the base of my mountain."

"What?!"

Was she surrounded? If so, this was no time for idle chatter.

A dragon's food requirements were modest relative to its size, but that didn't mean it could go without eating or drinking entirely. There had to be times when Ai needed to descend from her mountain to forage.

If she were ambushed during one of those excursions, she wouldn't stand a chance…

"I didn't like being lonely, but now that their numbers have grown, the noise and having to break up their squabbles is exhausting."

"… What?"

I repeated the exact same word as before, sounding thoroughly foolish.

"Break up their squabbles?"

"Yes. The little ones are always fighting."

That sounded almost like…

"Little ones…?"

"The dragons that get driven out by humans are almost always young ones, not even a hundred years old."

… a nursery teacher.

"Don't tell me… you're looking after them?"

"It's nothing that grand… but I do try to make sure they don't cause trouble with humans."

A strange way for a dragon to speak.

"… So you see humans as a threat?"

"I do. Things are fine for now, but the day will come when dragons can no longer win against them."

Probably no other dragon thought that way.

Even upon hearing that a white dragon had been slain, even knowing that young dragons were being driven from their homes, most dragons would simply dismiss those individuals as pathetic.

Souls and memories were different things. That was what Chryse had said.

But it wasn't as if she remembered nothing at all.

The strength of humans, the terror they could inspire, their potential. Ai carried all of it as a visceral, instinctive knowing.

"Then why not come to our village, after all? You'd never have to worry about clashing with humans here."

"If a whole flock of dragons showed up, that would be a bit much even for you, wouldn't it?"

She was sheltering that many?

Well, she had a point. Even as things stood, Scarlet already housed two dragons.

For now, I managed the stress by taking human form and suppressing my draconic aura, but if many more dragons moved in, problems would inevitably arise.

The reason Ai could handle it was likely because she regarded those dragons as something akin to her own children. A mother dragon raising her young was the only kind that could tolerate others in her territory.

"Besides… there's something I have to do."

Ai's faintly wistful words pushed my idle question to the back of my mind.

"You said the same thing before. Would you mind telling me what it is? I might be able to help."

"… I'm waiting."

After a brief, hesitant silence, Ai answered in a small voice.

"For what?"

"I don't know. Whether it's a someone or a something…"

Her tone brimmed with frustration. I had a feeling it was connected to reincarnation somehow.

If so… it might be presumptuous of me, but could she be waiting for me?

"If you don't even know what you're waiting for, isn't it possible you've already encountered it?"

"No."

When I ventured the question, her denial came with an almost refreshing certainty.

"When it comes, I'll know. That much is certain."

So it had been presumptuous after all. I'd interacted with Ai in my dragon form right up until the very end. It was unlikely she'd simply failed to recognize me because I'd been in human shape.

But if that were the case, what on earth was she waiting for…?

I couldn't begin to imagine.

Or perhaps…

Perhaps Ai was waiting not for me, but for someone else entirely.

She had most likely been reborn as a dragon after cycling through several lifetimes.

During one of those lives, she may have been born as a human, fallen in love with another human, and made a vow to meet again in the next life.

"… I understand."

Why was I dwelling on this? Shaking my head, I answered.

Whether that was the case or not, it had nothing to do with me. That was how it should be.

"But please, be careful. You're right that the day will come when humans surpass dragonkind. Your mountain may not always be safe."

Come to think of it, I wondered how Mashiro was faring these days. I'd heard that Aisha had safely ascended to the throne, but she surely couldn't still be alive by now. Perhaps I should gather some information soon.

"Yes… um."

Ai spoke haltingly, as though the words were hard to get out.

"… Could we talk like this again sometime?"

Her voice, cautious and searching, made my heart thump once, hard.

"… Come to think of it, why didn't you ever contact me?"

I deflected with a question of my own.

"Because, Mentor. You said you'd come again, but you never did."

Her voice carried a sulky edge.

"So I was afraid that if I tried reaching out and couldn't get through…"

"Th-that's… I'm sorry."

There was no excuse to be made.

In the end, we'd both been thinking the same thing.

Afraid of learning something definitive, unable to commit, we'd left things vague.

"As long as you talk to me more from now on, it's fine."

At those words, I fell silent.

Sneaking around behind Nina's back to keep in touch with Ai felt, well, extremely ill-advised.

Not that I was doing anything to feel guilty about, mind you…

"Mentor?"

After turning it over in my head, I steeled myself and answered.

"Would it be all right if… other people joined in?"