The Night She Won
"Yes. I lost, after all. I can do as I please, can't I?"
I stood a little way off and quietly watched the two of them.
The Water Dragon Vritra had lifted my mother into his arms, and she sang as she leaned against him.
My mother's songs carried a power that touched memories — sometimes even minds. But the voice flowing from her now carried nothing at all, nothing but a beautiful melody.
It was lovely.
As the song faded, the two of them murmured softly to one another. Their voices were too low for me to hear what was said, but I could see my mother's shoulders coming undone, easing loose.
Then, at some point, the strength drained out of her body.
She was asleep.
She really does sleep well, sometimes……
Ever since that incident, every time my mother fell asleep she had looked somehow pained — a brow creased in her sleep, breath uneven, hands clenched tight. I had never once seen her sleeping face look peaceful.
Now she lay cradled in the Water Dragon's arms, asleep without a single feature of her face out of place.
To be that comfortable sleeping in someone else's arms — it was nothing like the mother I knew.
Which meant she trusted him that much, I supposed.
I watched the two of them.
The Water Dragon adjusted his hold on her, shifting his massive body so that my mother sank more deeply against him.
And then Vritra's amber gaze came down to rest on me.
『Your eyes are full of things you want to say.』
So he'd noticed.
That must be why he'd put Mother to sleep in the first place — so the two of us could talk.
『Is there something your mother must not hear, then? What is it you wish to say to me?』
He truly was a Water Dragon.
I gathered my thoughts, then opened my mouth.
"You said she's been ill lately."
『That is so. I heard her throat ailed her. There were marks left behind — did she catch some vicious cold? Your mother has always been so resilient that she rarely falls ill. It puzzled me.』
She hadn't told him the details, then.
I had half expected as much.
I shook my head.
"It's not a cold."
It was time to tell him the truth.
I felt myself tense, wondering whether Vritra would rage or grieve — or show some other reaction entirely.
His eyes narrowed slightly.
"Someone attacked her a few days ago."
『……Attacked?』
"She was strangled. She almost died."
『Are you jesting with me now?』
"I wish I were."
『……Heh.』
The amber eyes had gone fully wide.
His tail, still coiled around my mother, went rigid. He kept his grip only tight enough not to harm the sleeping woman, but the scales still clicked softly against one another.
The news that my mother had been attacked had already startled him — and the news that she had nearly died, it seemed, he simply could not believe.
Given how strong she ordinarily was, his reaction was only natural.
Even I, her own daughter, had found it impossible to believe when I first heard.
『……What did you say?』
Vritra's head drew close to me, so near I could feel his breath against my face.
『Who laid hands upon your mother's throat?』
It was a face that could never be called a gentle Water Dragon's. If my mother had seen him like this, she probably would have been shocked.
It was closer to the urge to destroy.
"There was no trace at the scene. All we can do is assume the attacker came from outside."
『An assumption?』
His face said he simply could not accept it. That the culprit was unknown.
『Your mother was strangled within an inch of her life, and you have yet to find who did it. Have I heard you rightly?』
"……I'm sorry."
『Selene is not a creature to be handled so carelessly. Someone set their heart on this. That is certain.』
Vritra's gaze dropped to my sleeping mother.
『And what does your mother herself say of it?』
"She says she doesn't know."
『……In all the time since I met you, never once has a day brought such strange words as this one.』
I understood.
If I hadn't seen my mother with my own eyes, I would have thought I'd gone mad.
Perhaps the Water Dragon really was bewildered — his head swayed from side to side.
『Selene could not possibly not know.』
"……"
『Even this talk of her being attacked — I doubt the tale itself. That child, overcome so pitifully? Impossible.』
He struck so precisely at the heart of the matter that I didn't argue.
It was exactly the doubt I had been nursing all along.
Vritra was silent for a while, then looked down at my mother once more.
『So that is why you worry yourself to this degree.』
"……She's changed so much since that day. She has no drive for anything. How should I put it — she looks like a person with nothing left to hold her to life."
『Nothing left to hold her to life, you say.』
His voice dropped even lower.
The simmer of anger rose again, unmistakable.
『In my absence, what in the world has come to pass?』
"Vritra, sir……."
『Selene, with nothing left to cling to? That child is not the sort to say such things.』
Delphine slowly closed both her eyes.
『……It brings it back — the day I first met that child.』
Once, I — Vritra — could no longer contain the mana that overflowed from me.
A spring tide surged in, and an entire village vanished beneath the water. It was a tragedy.
And there was no way it would end there. The next village, and the one after that — the water meant to keep rising.
What overflows, someone must, in the end, dam up.
So I waited.
For the one who would kill me and break the cycle.
Then a woman came, dragging a greatsword behind her.
How should I describe our first meeting?
I should begin by saying that a greatsword did not suit such a slight frame.
White silk open to the throat, an ear-of-wheat pattern worked in gold thread. Bare shoulders. A skirt slit to the thigh. Black gloves with the fingertips cut away.
I will be honest with you. She did not look like a warrior.
I thought a goddess had descended — some being who knew nothing of the art of battle.
Her face alone would have been enough, but her attire belonged to a myth, not a battlefield.
And such a creature came dragging a greatsword.
The woman halted just so, and the point of the sword bit into the mud.
"I am Selene."
Selene.
A name that called the moon goddess to mind.
I rose, and my shadow swallowed her whole.
『I am Vritra. Master of the Ocean.』
That was all the greeting there was.
It hardly felt like a scene warm enough for introductions.
In an instant, water erupted skyward. My mana slipped its leash and flooded out in every direction.
Selene tilted the greatsword on a slant and took the wave head-on. The blade carved the water, and the current split to either side.
The duel was decided only after a long while.
Each sweep of my tail split the ground, and each time, the greatsword found the cracks. When the water raised a wall, the sword cleft it. When a pillar of water came crashing down, the sword turned it aside.
It did not end until both our breaths had gone ragged.
It was I whose movements slowed first. Selene's blade drove my body down into the earth.
She was strong beyond all reason — strong enough to knock me off my balance entirely.
At last I lost my strength and collapsed, gasping.
Selene climbed astride my body.
She reversed her grip on the greatsword and leveled the point at the bridge of my nose.
Defeat.
『A strong human, you are.』
"Thank you for the compliment."
『Now, kill me.』
Selene did not withdraw the sword. She held the blade resting against my throat and looked down at me.
"Your mana is the problem. You can't control it, and that's how it's come to this."
『……What?』
"So then — I could just take the mana, couldn't I?"
The point of the blade left my throat.
I had thought she would take my head.
Her hands instead wandered over my body, feeling along it. What on earth was she touching?
I was in no position to complain as the loser, but I truly could not fathom what this woman called Selene meant to do.
Her fingers pressed gently, scale by scale, and wandered slowly downward.
What in the world was she searching for?
She found the softest patch of flesh beneath my scales, then flicked one loose with the tip of the greatsword. A single drop of teal blood welled up.
What was her intent now?
"The mana is in the blood, isn't it?"
Mana in the blood.
She couldn't mean—
Surely not……
『……Are you in your right mind?』
"Yes. I lost, after all. I can do as I please, can't I?"
『I have never seen a human like you.』
"I suppose not. What other human would say they're going to drink a Water Dragon's blood?"
No such human existed. And even if one had, they would never have survived this long.
『Do not drink it.』
To think such words could leave the same mouth that, mere moments before, had been urging her — kill me now.
I did not want to lose, so pointlessly, a human strong enough to defeat me.
『You are human. Humans can never endure a dragon's blood. Drink it, and your body will burst apart from within.』
Selene did not answer.
She only ran her fingertip along the place where the scale had come away — flesh that had never once seen the light of day. The scales along my spine stood on end.
Selene curled the corner of her mouth upward.
"You lost, didn't you?"
It was a soft, lilting voice.
So soft that it was hard to believe we had been crossing blades, trying to kill each other, only moments before.
"And if I won, I get to do as I please."
She lifted the tip of the sword where the drop of teal blood clung. As it began, slowly, to slide down, she caught it on her finger.
"I'll enjoy every sip."
『Stop.』
So saying — Selene raised the drop of blood carefully to her lips.