The Dragons' War (2)
The children, who had been glancing at me nervously while rolling their eyes every which way in my obvious fury, slowly opened their mouths.
"W-Well..."
"It's just... the kids got a bit rowdy..."
"By the time the hatchling died, we couldn't stop the children's rampage. I'm sorry, Mother."
"Ack! Erebos! That's cheating!!!"
"Sagar and I stayed neutral, but we couldn't completely prevent the kids from jumping into the fight on their own."
"Yeah, same as Yggdrasil."
"But we've all had our territories invaded by black dragons at least once, right? I think this is mostly Erebos's fault."
Territorial invasion an issue? Or killing the hatchling? Of course both are huge problems. Massive ones. But that didn't justify them slaughtering each other in a war.
I let out a deep sigh, and with it, a burst of flame scorched the ground right in front of where the children stood.
"So, who plans to take responsibility for this?"
"W-Well..."
I could practically hear their eyeballs rolling. Did they even grasp that they'd done wrong? Or were they just scrambling to dodge my wrath? Either way, it changed nothing—they needed to be disciplined.
"Invading territory was wrong on the black dragon children's part, but that's forgivable; we could just restore the borders. But harming a hatchling? That's unforgivable."
Erebos spoke calmly. His words rang true, but why did it feel like he was just trying to weasel out of his own blame? Hiding the small sin behind the big one to escape the situation? The others couldn't muster much of a defense against it.
"Do you all agree?"
"Well..."
"It... might be true, but..."
They couldn't even properly argue back. The answer was already clear.
And so...
"How tragic..."
The dragons who'd started the war, my seven children who couldn't control them, and me, who'd slept through it all in hibernation without a clue. Everything was just so heartbreaking and lamentable.
"When did the hatchling die?"
"About... a month ago."
Erebos hesitated before answering. A month... not that long ago. I pulled out my pocket watch that rewound time.
"If I make all this never happen, the war vanishes, right?"
"Huh? Make it never happen?"
"Mother...? I have a bad feeling about this..."
I pressed the button on the pocket watch and rapidly wound the hour hand backward. One turn for twelve hours. Two for a day. I kept winding until it showed about a month prior.
"I'll rewind the world to before the mistakes were made. That should fix it, yeah?"
"Huh? Mother?!"
I sighed softly and snapped the watch shut.
[Seeking consent from the past timeline... Past timeline consents. Rewind time? Y / N]
Unlike when I'd tested it alone, this was a world with my other children and dragons... but surely better than leaving this tiresome war to fester.
With that, the world began to rewind.
My body, stiff from long hibernation and barely responsive, I forced into motion. Every muscle ached and creaked, but staying put wasn't an option.
Why else would I have rewound time? To stop the mistakes before they happened.
"Hoo..."
I loosened my rigid body and summoned the children.
[Erebos. Shamash. Ifrit. Thetis. Sylphid. Sagarmatha. Yggdrasil. Appear before me.]
Suddenly, the children materialized in the cave where I slumbered. Caught off guard by the abrupt summoning—something they'd never experienced—they all looked bewildered.
"Mother?!"
"Mom?! Weren't you sleeping?!"
"Indeed. But I couldn't sleep peacefully."
I forced my aching body to move as I spoke. I had to prevent the war; stiffness was no excuse.
"I'm setting one rule for you all."
"Huh? A rule out of nowhere?"
"Summoning us suddenly and now rules... Mother, you feel different from usual..."
"There's a reason. A reason."
I couldn't exactly say I'd seen the future and rewound time. And from their reactions... they seemed to have lost memories from before the rewind. Whatever, it didn't matter.
"It's a rule I should've set long ago... but before it gets any later, before a big problem erupts, I need to tell you."
"Big problem? What kind of problem could make you say that?"
"A rule about hatchlings."
At my words, the children all tilted their heads.
"Hatchlings?"
"Why hatchlings all of a sudden, Mom?"
They had no inkling of the future, so this reaction made sense. Still, I had to push through and set the rule. Better than letting war break out.
"Since my magic turned phenomena into dragons, haven't new eggs and hatchlings become rarer?"
They nodded. They'd all felt the sharp drop in birth rates.
So.
"From now on, harming hatchlings is forbidden. If anyone wounds or kills one—regardless of scale color—all dragons must unite their power to eradicate the culprit."
I had to state it this strongly to prevent future hatchling killings.
"Who would harm a hatchling?"
"No sane person would."
Would they? If they were sane, would they have killed a hatchling and started a war before I rewound time? How deep must the grudges between dragons have run for such irrational acts?
It was beyond my understanding.
"Anyway, spread the word to the others. Anyone who harms a hatchling won't be forgiven—no matter who they are."
Even if it's another dragon. I'd leave no room for war to spark.
And so, I thought all problems were solved...
"...Why did you start this fight?"
A localized skirmish between black dragons and red dragons. Two black dragons and one red had died, with many more suffering injuries great and small. I'd captured the culprits and demanded answers.
"But those black bastards piss us off!"
"How could we back down when the blood-red jerks picked a fight? Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth—attack for attack!"
The reds and blacks spat insults at each other, each claiming they were right, they were better. All the yelling and whining made my blood boil.
"That doesn't justify brawling like this..."
I rubbed my throbbing head and sighed. With the hatchling rule, I could clamp down hard before, but stopping these petty squabbles? Not so easy.
No—the hatchling was just an excuse for war. Even without killing one, they found pretexts for endless fights. I was starting to resent these dragons.
Even with me as a deterrent, they slyly evaded my warnings, growling and escalating quarrels. No matter how much I stopped them, they ignited flames where my eyes couldn't reach. Clever dragons.
Hoo... I just want to wash my hands of it all. Drop a meteor and wipe the slate clean—dragons and all.
But I couldn't. As the one who'd seeded life on this land, such irresponsibility was off the table.
Should I just subjugate all dragons and rule them under strict constraints instead?
[Future timeline seeks to rewind time. Synchronize with future timeline? Y / N]
What? What's this? Does attempting a rewind from the future trigger this? Another rewind? At this point??
I cautiously tapped Y with my claw.
Memories from the future flooded my mind. At the end of my recollections—where I'd forcibly controlled arrogant, prideful dragons—lay only ruins barren of life.
My seven children stripped of their scales, reverted to natural phenomena. Dragons who'd resisted in despair, ending their own lives. A pathetic future.
Dinosaurs gone, lizardmen extinct, even tiny mammals vanished. On the desolate earth, I'd resolved to tyranny, tears streaming down my face.
That's why I'd rewound time.