A Night of Unceasing Roars
"...Five?"
Lakia echoed the word in a daze.
The number had reached her ears, yet its meaning needed a little longer to arrive in her mind.
This was a war that toppled a nation, set fortresses ablaze, trampled a capital, and left countless people dying on the roads, fleeing, or clutching the guilt of having survived.
And yet—five.
Five adult dragons.
Without thinking, Lakia looked down at her own hands.
Hands smaller than a single scale of Alduin’s, weaker than the tip of Masor’s claw, lighter even than a snowflake resting on Gargantua’s eyelid.
If she folded those small fingers one by one—one, two, three, four, five—that was all there was.
"Yes."
Gargantua spoke.
His voice was low and matter-of-fact, which only made it sound stranger.
"Taking a generous count... Astrol. Five."
Lakia narrowed her eyes.
"Astrol?"
Gargantua closed his mouth for a moment.
Dragon Speech was always like that. Too much lived inside a single word; when forced into human speech, something always fell away.
He blinked with deliberate slowness, as if choosing which parts to leave behind.
"A number counted with excess."
He said it quietly.
"A sum that includes unforeseen variables, unnecessary risks, and every last thing that would worry you, Mother."
"...So."
Lakia spoke slowly.
"Five is more than enough?"
"Yes."
She fell silent.
Gargantua did not so much as sway, and that unshakable composure was more frightening still.
The Empire. The Black Iron Legion. Magic corps. Three fortresses.
To humans those words made men set down their cups, changed the air of a city, forced mercenaries to calculate both pay and funerals at once.
Yet before Gargantua every one of them shrank. Things that had looked like great boulders became little pebbles set before an ancient mountain range.
Lakia hated that.
"And if we reduce it?"
She asked—and immediately regretted it.
She did not want to hear the answer.
But she had already asked, and Gargantua would not lie.
A brief silence passed.
In that silence alone she felt she already knew, and she thought, Please don’t say one.
"Three could break the spine of the war."
Gargantua said.
The tips of Lakia’s fingers went cold.
"Two could stop the Imperial army."
He looked up at the night sky the war had not yet touched.
"Even one, if chosen properly, would make humans start using the word ‘war’ with an entirely different meaning from that day on."
"...Crazy."
The small word slipped from Lakia’s lips.
Gargantua did not rebuke her. His face—if a face that vast could be read—seemed to accept that the reaction was only natural.
Lakia staggered a step backward.
She looked toward Alduin in the distance.
The black dragon was already awake. His body remained coiled, yet his golden eyes glowed quietly in the dark.
Alduin was not afraid. The word war did not make him flinch; the mention of human armies did not tense him. Curiosity lived in those eyes—a light that wanted to know how far his fire could reach, a light that looked forward to the lines his breath would draw across the sky.
Seeing that light made Lakia’s chest lurch.
Alduin was good. In front of her he truly was. He lowered his head, rolled over to be stroked, tucked his tail when scolded, and stretched his neck a little longer when praised—a child.
But Alduin was a dragon. A dragon that loved fire, loved the sky, and wanted to confirm every place his power could touch.
She knew that. She knew, and kept forgetting.
Because she was his mother. Because she had held him in her arms. Because she had patted his back the first time a breath caught in his throat. Sometimes she even imagined the world might look at him the same way.
The world could not. The world would burn before him, flee from him, or prostrate itself.
This time she looked toward the place she could not see.
Sagak.
A small sound. Masor.
I am here. I heard. I can go.
That was how the sound felt.
Masor was good, too. In front of her he was. So quiet that when scolded he deliberately made noise; when he wanted to cut something and she said no, he tried to wait a little. Sometimes that little was far too short—but he tried.
Yet Masor was also a dragon. An invisible blade. A child who passed before anything could notice his approach, so that only after he was gone did one discover what had been severed.
If that child went to a battlefield, commanders’ heads would fall, magic corps’ formulas would be sliced apart, supply lines would snap. Some would die without even knowing their bodies had been cut. Only that single sagak would remain.
Lakia closed her eyes.
"I don’t want to."
The words came first. She did not even know to whom she was speaking—to Gargantua, to Alduin, to Masor, or to herself. Perhaps to all of them.
"I don’t want to."
This time it was clearer.
Gargantua did not answer. Lakia clenched her fists.
"It shouldn’t be that easy."
"What should not, Mother?"
"Ending a war."
Her voice trembled thinly.
"People die."
The tavern in Krafcheten rose in her mind—the mercenaries cursing in front of the war notice, the swordsman whose eyes changed at the mention of triple pay, the dwarf stroking his beard as he walked to the board, the orcs baring their teeth at one another and laughing.
Those people might not be good. Some might be bastards; some might already have killed a great many; some might deserve the words good riddance. Even so, they were not lumps that could simply be erased as numbers.
"Everyone has their reasons," Lakia said. "Orders, money, country, or just trying to stay alive."
She lowered her head.
"They’re still living people."
Gargantua listened quietly.
"If the children go," she continued, "those people won’t even count as an army, will they?"
"Yes."
He did not deny it.
"The moment five adults descend from the sky, human formations lose all meaning. The first breath melts shields. The first wingbeat turns arrows aside. The first claw tears the command post."
Lakia swallowed.
"One burns the supplies. One seals the retreat. One rips the magic corps apart."
Gargantua’s eyes closed slowly and opened again.
"The war ends."
Short. Clean. And therefore more terrible.
"And the people?"
"They die."
The answer came at once.
"A lot?"
"If the dragons are not careful—many."
"If they are careful?"
"They still die."
Lakia bit her lip hard.
He would not tell her it would be all right. He would not pretend that if the children were careful no one would die and only the war would end. Gargantua was an ancient dragon, and ancient things were cruelly precise.
"If you command it, Mother, the children will try to be careful. They love your words."
She looked at Alduin. His gaze softened a fraction.
"But a battlefield is not a place where caution is learned."
She had no answer. He was right. A battlefield was not a practice ground. A human’s mistake might kill one person; a dragon’s mistake erased a unit, burned a road, toppled a fortress, rewrote the map of a city. She did not want to imagine the expression on a child’s face the first time that child learned what that felt like.
Would he be startled? Afraid? Or—would he smile?
That last thought was the most frightening of all.
Lakia looked up at Gargantua.
"What about you?"
His eyes stilled.
"Yes?"
"If you went to war, would you enjoy it?"
The air in the gorge shifted. Alduin’s gaze turned toward Gargantua; Masor’s sagak fell silent.
Gargantua was quiet for a long time. In that silence she felt she had already heard the answer. He would not lie, so choosing the words took time.
At last he spoke.
"Yes."
Lakia’s hands locked.
"I would enjoy it."
The answer was low—neither boast nor excuse nor shame. Simply fact.
"When a storm is born beneath my wings, when battle-cries are broken by the wind, when those who gathered to cross the mountains scatter at a single breath of mine—dragon blood rejoices."
His eyes turned toward a very distant memory.
"I know this. That is why I can remain."
She lifted her head slowly.
"Because you know?"
"Yes."
His voice dropped lower still.
"A dragon who does not know what it loves is dangerous. A dragon that believes it hates destruction one day sees itself smiling before destruction—and is startled. That startlement usually comes too late."
Lakia clenched her fists tighter.
"So I have to tell the children?"
"Yes."
"That they love destruction?"
"Yes."
"How am I supposed to say that?" Her face twisted. "I’m their mother."
"Which is precisely why you must."
Gargantua’s answer did not waver.
"It is easy to let them believe they are only good. Comfortable for you, sweet for them. But a dragon is not a being that refrains from breaking the world because it is kind."
His voice spread slowly through the gorge.
To a dragon, peace was something different. Stopping even though one could destroy. Choosing even though one loved it. Remembering the place to return to even though one longed to fly. Those were the things that had to be taught.
By her.
"I’m screwed," Lakia muttered.
A faint smile crossed Gargantua’s eyes.
"Every time you say that, Mother, you have generally done well."
"Is that comfort?"
"Observation."
"I hate that more."
He laughed low. This time it was not enough to shake the gorge—only the quiet exhale of an old mountain.
Lakia laughed too, briefly. The laugh vanished quickly, yet her breath came a little freer.
Five, counted generously. The number still hung before her eyes.
"With five the war ends."
"Yes."
"If I don’t send them, people die."
"Yes."
"If I send them, people die too."
"Yes."
"And the children might change."
"Yes."
"They’ll change even if I don’t send them."
Gargantua was silent a moment.
"Yes."
Lakia huffed a short laugh.
"You’re so kind."
"I will leave false comfort to Carnepisara."
"He doesn’t do false comfort either."
"Then I will leave him the unkind comfort."
She started to answer, then laughed instead. A short laugh. Still, her breath eased a little more.
She looked down into the gorge. The dragons were there. Alduin had risen fully; his black scales gleamed heavily under the moonlight. Masor was invisible yet near—somewhere close to her shadow, no doubt. Several adults waited with open eyes. They were listening. They might not understand every word, but they understood the atmosphere.
War. Sky. Destruction. Mother’s hesitation.
Dragons sensed such things well.
Lakia realized it then. The children were waiting. Waiting to learn what their mother would call them—weapons, calamities, or children.
She closed her eyes.
She did not want to use the children as weapons. That would not change. Yet she could not keep folding their wings forever either. She understood that now.
Throwing them into war and sending them into the world were different things. Commanding and letting them choose were different things.
She drew a breath.
"Gargantua."
"Yes, Mother."
"I still don’t know."
He nodded.
"A good beginning."
"Not knowing?"
"Better than believing one knows what one does not."
"Why do you and Carnepisara sometimes say the same things?"
"Because that old elf is occasionally correct."
"Occasionally?"
"Occasionally."
She laughed again. And at the end of that laugh something like resolve brushed her fingertips.
It was not a perfect answer. She did not even know if it was a good one. But there was something she could do right now without running away.
She had to ask the children. Who wanted to go. Who wanted the sky. Who wanted to spread their power. And she had to say it first: You are not weapons. Even the wish to go must not become Mother’s command.
Lakia walked to the cliff’s edge. Gargantua did not stop her; he only lowered his vast body a little, ready to catch her if she slipped. That familiar care made her throat tighten for no reason.
Below in the gorge the dragons waited. Countless eyes turned toward her. Children whose names she knew. Children she had once held. Children who had long since grown far larger than she was.
She stood as if meeting each of those eyes one by one.
"Kids."
The gorge fell quiet. The sound of folding wings, of tails brushing rock, even the sleep-talk of young dragons—all of it lowered at once. Thousands of gazes gathered on Lakia. The weight nearly locked her knees, yet she did not step back.
"There’s a war."
As the words fell, the air of the gorge changed. Dragons might not take the word war the way humans did. But fighting, blood, fire, the motion that splits the sky—those they knew by instinct. Low breaths stirred here and there.
"Outside, people are killing each other."
She clenched her hands tightly.
"If we go, we might be able to end it."
The moment the words landed, a hot presence rose from the gorge below.
Krrrr.
Kuuuung.
Sagak.
Expectation and curiosity, shifting wings and slightly raised tails, eyes holding light. Lakia saw them all. She did not look away.
Yes. These children loved destruction. She must not pretend otherwise. Because she was their mother, she had to see it even more clearly.
"But."
Her voice carried.
"Mom doesn’t want to use you as weapons."
A deeper silence settled. Alduin’s gaze wavered; Masor’s sagak stopped. Several adult dragons watched her without moving.
"If I send you because you’re strong—I don’t want that."
She spoke slowly.
"If I send you because you can end the war—I don’t want that either."
Her voice was not loud, yet the gorge heard.
"And if I don’t send you because I’m scared—I don’t want that either."
She laid a hand over her own heart.
"So I’m going to ask."
The wind stilled. Alduin lowered his body; Masor drew closer in his invisible form. Gargantua stood quietly behind her.
Lakia spoke to every child in the gorge.
"Those of you who want to go of your own will—"
She closed her eyes for a heartbeat, then opened them. So she would not run. So she could call them children. So she could see them as lives that could choose, not as weapons.
"—breathe your breath into the sky."
The gorge held its breath.
Her heart pounded hard. What if no one fires? What if too many do? Fear arrived all at once.
And then—
Hwaaaaaah!
Crimson-black flame tore the night. Alduin. The black dragon threw his head back as if he had been waiting and poured a colossal breath skyward. The breath climbed straight, then bloomed like a flower in the middle of the night sky; red and black fire spread as if to swallow the stars.
Lakia swallowed hard.
Right after, from an unseen place, a thin, sharp light sliced the heavens. Masor. A breath like a transparent blade climbed and split the moonlight; a moment later a cloudy silver flash spread through the air.
Sagak.
The sound followed—proud, perhaps.
And that was not the end.
Throughout the gorge dragons lifted their heads. Red flame blossomed; blue flame followed; golden breath stretched long. Violet lightning tore the night; cold light like a blizzard froze the sky; breath that spread like dense fog swallowed the moonlight. Different breaths soared into the night sky—one, two, ten, a hundred, and then too many to count.
The night above the gorge changed. Over the black sky thousands of lights overlapped. Flame and lightning and ice and fog and radiance pushed one another, mixed again, and bloomed again. The breaths of dragons embroidered the night.
Lakia stared up at the sight in a daze.
It was beautiful. So beautiful she almost wanted to cry.
Every one of those lights was power enough to end a war. And every one of those lights was her child.
Then Alduin raised his head once more. Afterglow slid across his black scales; his golden eyes burned hotter than the night. He cried out to the entire gorge.
"Wutheramen! Desalaniac!"
Dragon Speech—rough, hot, a word that charged forward. Rock in the gorge trembled; young dragons lifted their heads; the eyes of adults flashed.
Lakia asked blankly, "What does that mean?"
Gargantua was silent for a suspicious fraction of a second.
"‘Children of the same mother...’"
He said it low.
Lakia held her breath.
"‘Let’s go.’"
"...What?"
She looked at Alduin. He looked extremely proud—the face of someone convinced he had just delivered a perfect royal speech.
Somewhere Masor made a sagak. Agreement, probably.
Lakia covered her face.
"No."
It was so uncool.
Thousands of breaths still bloomed in the sky—power that could end a war, breath that could shake the world. Beneath that majestic light, her firstborn son had roared in Dragon Speech:
Let’s go.
"□□□□□□!"
With that roar the entire gorge howled. The low, heavy cries of adult dragons and the sharp cries of the young overlapped until the air of the gorge flipped inside out. The ground shook. Small stones leapt; white powder cascaded like waterfalls from snow-covered cliffs.
And the dragons took flight.
One. Two. Three. Soon beyond counting.
Thousands of wings unfurled; the mere sound of their beating raised a storm. Black dragons, silver dragons, blue dragons, golden dragons, red dragons. Dragons with scales transparent as glass, dragons with scales rough as stone, dragons that seemed to trail fire from the tips of their tails. Countless dragons kicked off the cliffs and soared into the night sky.
The night above the gorge filled with dragons.
Lakia lost her words. It was less an army than a calamity—a living calamity thousands strong being released into the sky.
Then Alduin lowered his body before her. The black dragon’s golden eyes met hers.
"...You want me to ride?"
Krrrng.
Hurry.
That was the meaning.
Lakia turned to Gargantua. He had not flown. He had not even spread his six pairs of wings. He remained in the deepest part of the gorge, standing like a mountain before the hatchlings who could not yet fly and the young ones who were afraid. Baby dragons peeked out from near his forefeet, looking up at the sky. He lowered a gentle wind over those small bodies.
He would not stop the children who flew. He would not leave the ones who stayed empty. The gorge was home. Someone had to remain in a home.
"Gargantua," she called softly.
He bowed his head deeply.
"Go, Mother. I will guard this place."
"...All right."
And so Lakia’s dragons declared their entry into the war.
It was the beginning of the thing that would shatter the balance of the war itself.