Mother...
"Hack! Hack!"
"Hah—hah—!"
Pele's door burst open, and Alexei and Dan Miryong came tumbling out in a heap.
White to the lips at the wave of lava about to pour from within, Dan Miryong shouted.
"Shut it! Shut the fucking door!"
"Graaaaah!"
Alexei and Dan Miryong hurled themselves against the door. Between them they barely dammed the lava fighting to spill free. A heavy thud shuddered through the wood, and beyond it they could feel the molten flow sliding past. Teeth clenched, the two of them held the rattling door.
A minute passed. Then another, slow as dripping wax, until the room within gradually fell quiet.
Only then did they dare to breathe.
"It won't open again, right?"
"If the goddess has any sense left, she won't blast us all the way out here."
"Sense? Anyone can see she's lost her mind."
"..."
"Damn it. Isn't there a board somewhere? A wardrobe, anything. If we don't brace that thing, I won't sleep for the worry."
"There won't be anything like that in the hall."
Alexei and Dan Miryong sighed.
"...I heard the commotion and came up. Are the two of you all right?"
Kana, who had been resting downstairs, had come at the sound of the explosion overhead.
"All right? We nearly died more than ten times."
"You look it."
What in the world had they been through, to come out smeared in ash, dust, and live embers? Their eyes were hollow, their cheeks sunken—the look of a hardship she could scarcely imagine.
"Can you move? I'm sorry to put it this way, but please go to the bathroom at once and wash yourselves clean. I'll have clothes ready."
"Tch. Cold as ice."
Dan Miryong stuck his lip out.
"Come on. The maid's about to lose her temper."
"Fine. But—"
"We'd better keep that door braced until tomorrow. They're playing a rather excessive game of tag in there."
Alexei caught Dan Miryong's hand, hauled himself up, and offered the warning as he rose.
"Is it that bad?"
"You saw the state of us. You really have to ask?"
"...Understood."
Kana's head began to throb. She would have to raise at least a rough barrier with a shrine maiden's power—not that she believed it would mean much before a goddess.
"Ah, one more thing, Dan Miryong. Once you've washed, please come to the backyard. The Dragon Mother wishes to see you."
"What?"
His brow knotted hard.
"I'm half dead already. Why's she yanking people around?"
"Even so, perhaps you might see her just once..."
"Forget it. If she wants to see me, tell her to come herself. We live in the same house. How far can it be?"
"I'll tell her so."
A complicated look crossed Dan Miryong's face, and he clicked his tongue. He dragged his swaying body toward the bathroom. Alexei followed in silence.
Kana went to deal with the work that had just been added to her hands.
The corridor stood empty. From a tucked-away shadow, Sipsado vanished without a soul the wiser.
When the shower was done, Dan Miryong hauled his exhausted body to his room and dropped onto the bed.
"I'm dying..."
With fingers that would not stop trembling, he tapped at his smartphone. His flesh was screaming at him to sleep, but the internet was a craving he couldn't refuse. Surely a little browsing before bed was allowed. He had survived today by the skin of his teeth—so fiercely that the old days nearly came crawling back.
"..."
He tossed the phone onto the desk and scrubbed his face with dry hands. His mood had turned foul.
"The venom's gone out of me. To think I'd flinch at every little thing like this."
He mocked himself, then sprawled across the soft bed. Wet hair dampened the blanket, and the clammy discomfort seemed to carry a little of the filth away with it.
"Must mean I've gotten comfortable. My lot's gone to my head."
A pleasant house, good food, decent people, a life that was easy—somehow it had all fallen into place around him. He hadn't even done anything to earn it. Strange. And yet Dan Miryong knew better than anyone that none of it was fruit won by his own effort.
Not once had he forgotten the days he had lived. Nor the fact that, without ever meaning to, he had been handed another chance.
"Atonement..."
To pardon a crime. Was there a more absurd word in the world? There had to be a limit to the punishment any society's system could hand down.
"Ending it with death would be too light."
There was too much blood on his hands. Now and then, in nightmares, the ones who owned that blood spat their resentment at him.
"..."
Something moved in him that he could not name. His way of thinking seemed to be going soft. Once he would have ignored the lot of it and comforted himself that living well alone was the end of the matter. Atonement. Punishment. Thoughts that did not suit trash, or a manufactured experiment. Dan Miryong ground his teeth.
"Ha. Steam me or fry me, the great ones will see to it themselves. I'm only going along because I don't want to lose this easy life."
"Is that truly so?"
"Yeah."
"Worry lies deep in your eyes. My own life has hardly been honorable, yet I can still listen to what weighs on you. Will you not tell it to this mother?"
"Who's calling herself mother..."
Wait.
He shot upright.
A woman stood in the moonlight spilling through the window, wearing it about her like a gown. Flawless black hair was gathered into a single knot with an ornamental pin, and she wore, with quiet nobility, the plain white robes of a modest maiden. Her hands, folded neatly upon her knees, were a map of scars, yet even they could not hide skin like white jade, and the beauty carved into her face was a single blossom opened on barren earth.
From eyes half-lowered, as if drowsing, there spilled an age and a motherhood she could not conceal; and in equal measure, the fullness of her breasts could not be entirely hidden by the cloth. This was no ethereal immortal. It was the fierce image of a woman that comes only of having carried a child.
Before a presence of so different a grain, Dan Miryong tensed of his own accord.
No. What tightened him further was that he had no name for the pounding inside his chest. What was he supposed to call it? The wish, this very instant, to be gathered into that woman's arms. Something more fundamental than a man's desire. The instinct of a living thing being born.
"Uh... uh?"
He ought to have been furious at someone who had barged into his room, yet he froze with only his torso lifted, eyes round as saucers, able to do nothing but blink.
"Did I startle you? You told me to come, so I came."
The woman in white hid her mouth behind her hand and laughed, soft and low.
Dan Miryong's thoughts went tumbling. He remembered the conversation he'd had with Kana before he washed.
"Are you... the dragon from the backyard?"
"The backyard dragon. I have been called by many names, but none quite so familiar as that."
"Ah..."
He accepted it. And little by little, the wits that had fled came creeping home.
"No—you actually came just because I said to come?!"
"Should the thirsty not dig the well? For your sake I have taken human form again after a long while. How do I look? Unsightly? It may sit awkwardly against the fashion of this age."
"Forget all the rest of it..."
Before he knew it, the impression came out of him exactly as it was.
"You really... look like a mom..."
"Mother..."
The woman in white—Yongnyeo—gazed at Dan Miryong with eyes steeped in sorrow.
"Wh-why are you looking at me like that...?"
"Because those words, too, I have not heard in a very long time. I see. To be called Mother by a son stirs the heart. It is not the same as with a daughter."
"A son? I'm human...?"
Since when did my kind become a dragon?
"Hehe. Forgive me. This auntie who appeared so suddenly has been talking nonsense."
"For nonsense, it sounded awfully sincere..."
"You've caught me."
As if she'd meant to hide it in the first place!
Yongnyeo rose and settled at his side. Dan Miryong flinched and edged away.
"My poor way with words has confused you. But bear with me, and listen. That is the very reason I came to find you."
"You're way too—"
"Are you not curious how you came to be a dragon?"
"Not really curi—"
"Your dragon springs from me. From the blood drawn when I was held captive by that loathsome demon."
"..."
"I remember the shape you took as a dragon. Unlike me, the original, it resembled the dragons of the West. The demon must have twisted it to suit his own taste, or else it changed where it met your potential."
"Uh..."
Yongnyeo caught his head and drew him in. Within that warm embrace, an affectionate hand tousled his hair.
"My want of virtue became your suffering. It was hard, wasn't it? Pour it all out to this mother."
"Hey..."
"Mm?"
"Why are you even doing this to me? You're right that that damned Scientist jammed blood into me. But feeling some kind of parental responsibility over nothing more than that? It doesn't make sense."
"Your blood itself has given the answer."
Yongnyeo spoke gently, the way one whispers to a child drifting toward sleep.
"My blood and my heart are telling me with all their strength that this child is my own flesh. Do you not feel something restless toward me as well?"
"I'm telling you that doesn't prove a damn thing!"
"The Dragon Mother has judged you a dragon's child. What objection could there be? My daughter has acknowledged it as well, so accept it—that a new family has come to you."
"No, what even—"
I can't make sense of this...
"Hush now. Sleep easy. This mother will look after you."
"A proper explan—... haah..."
No use. She had no intention of listening.
Dan Miryong gave up. The day had been too exhausting to press the point any further. He laid his head upon her knee and closed his eyes.
And soon—
the child gathered into his mother's arms was fast asleep, breathing soft and even.
Yongnyeo laid the dragon's child upon the bed so that he would not be uncomfortable. Then she looked to the space beside him and spoke.
"You need not have asked. I will look after this child. So set your heart at ease, and pass on. The Dragon Mother does not betray her children."
A man of faint, hazy presence, his features reminiscent of Dan Miryong's, gave a nod. His form crumbled and scattered.
Yongnyeo pressed her palms together and prayed for the guardian spirit who had found release.
May you have gone to a good place.