— Chapter 3 —

Blizzard, part 2

His mind was racing as he glared down at the magical scroll on the table, a piece of parchment that just within a few minutes had changed completely how he felt about his father.

4 years… 4 years of his father hiding such a truth from him, not ever bothering to give him answers. Blizzard hasn't revealed his emotion-reading skills, but even then even if his father doesn't know he should've told why he felt that way about him.

He had to get proper answers from his father, just merely asking a magic scroll feels so… Detached, he needed to hear him answer and explain himself, he would give his dad a chance to speak.

He ran out of the library, forgetting the scroll behind as he was far too focused on getting answers from the very source, and soon enough he was standing in front of father's cave.

"Father!" Blizzard called out with a shaky tone. "We need to talk…"

Boreas walked out of the cave, rubbing one of his eyes with a talon. "What is it…? You sound as if you were in a rush."

"I know about Flurry," Blizzard immediately answered, and he then saw as his father stepped back in shock, expression bewildered and his mind rushing with emotions like it often did some years ago.

"W… What? What do you even know!?" Boreas exclaimed, suddenly getting in a more panicked state.

"That she's my mother. That she vanished the day I was going to hatch. That you made her disappear and broke her mind…"

His eyes widened in surprise as his mind got completely covered by Fear.

"H-How…?" He muttered shaken, before realization hit in. "That scroll…"

"You really are terrible at handling magical items…" Blizzard said as he stared up to his father. "And also terrible at other things as well…"

The larger Icewing had begun to step back further into his room, fear and panic being in every single corner within his mind.

"The scroll told me your "reason", but I want you to explain yourself, share your thought process on how that would ever be a good idea…" Blizzard said snarling.

Cold sweat was running down Boreas' face as he quickly tried to speak up.

"I was terrified… Of the idea of raising an Animus. I've told you everything there is to know about the horrors of magic when you were 1, including the story of that one ancestor… Do you think I wanted to deal with that risk? I realized too late the issue… I had to protect her…"

"... From her own dragonet? You realize how ridiculous you sound!?" Blizzard shouted at him.

"Arctic got murdered by his own dragonet as well…"

Blizzard felt incredible frustration from what his father just said. "You are not Arctic, and I am not Darkstalker! It's unfair that you'd even compare us…"

His father looked down, and for a moment he was able to sense a tinge of guilt but it got quickly overtaken again by his fear.

"Well… I would've had no way to know before your hatching, so I did what I considered best for her safety at the time…" Boreas replied.

"And then you messed up for life and destroyed her mind with magic, and then you blame me for things ending that way?"

Boreas flinched at that, anger building up among the terror covering his thoughts.

"And I regret that everyday! How could I have expected the spell to backfire so badly!? I tried to make her forget about me and about living here… How I'd imagine the spell would take "here" in the broadest, most general way possible!?" Boreas roared in anger.

"Then you shouldn't have messed with magic you couldn't be certain about! Or you could have just TALKED to her about this! What you did was the biggest overreaction in all of Pyrrhia!"

"I. KNOW! I've had years to think of the consequences… Realistically why would any of this matter anymore? She's basically gone and neither of us is getting her back," he said in a bitter tone.

"You… Are you serious? You're just trying to push this all away and act like it's too late to care?You can't just do that after keeping that lie going for so long!" Blizzard exclaimed, baffled.

"It's just pointless, boy…"

But Blizzard knew very well that wasn't true, not just due to his personal thoughts, but because Boreas' emotions showed plenty of how he hadn't moved on and it still mattered to him.

"I don't think even you believe that. You're just trying to make me shut up about this! Attempting to keep me as a "good dragon" because you're constantly scared of your own son attempting something!"

His father scowled at this, and his mind was starting to feel even more uncertainty and fear due to how he just kept pressing on.

"There… Is no point to this, arguing will literally get us nowhere, the only thing it'll do is to cloud your mind…" He argued.

"And what do you seriously think I'd do with a "clouded mind"? Kill my own father?"

A tense silence followed for a minute with the two of them just staring at each other's eyes

But eventually, Boreas simply backed away towards his cave even more, and Blizzard grunted.

"You are not off the hook, even if you run away from this conversation now, we'll still have to settle matters."

The dragonet stood upright and began to walk to a side towards his own cave, turning his head to harshly look at his father. "And stop thinking that I am going to murder you…"

With his spikeless tail raised behind himself, Blizzard went back to his cave, breathing exhausted. Why must things come to this? To learn why his own father has always been so scared of him, and still being like that, all because he can't trust his son with incredible power.

He listened attently with his mind, and he could feel that father's emotions had barely even changed at all, and there wasn't even much anger in there, just pure uncertainty and paranoia after the truth was out.

Blizzard meanwhile didn't even know how they were going to fare now. Would the typical day-to-day ever come back? To sit together at the table and just leave the other to their own business? There will be more instigation, more struggles and arguments. But he was willing to leave these for tomorrow in the hopes that his father's mind would cool down as he processes everything, if he continued today, his father's emotions would be riled up further, Blizzard might get angrier, and then he may accidentally cast a spell he would regret. And he wanted to prove to his father that he was no Darkstalker.

But he never would've assumed the fire between them would just grow this very night until it became a raging inferno.

Blizzard had a nice, silly, fun dream. Which was rather appreciated given how absolutely terrible this day ended up being.

He dreamed that during a random night where one of the moons was shining brightly in the sky, he actually flew out through one of the enchanted windows, which would normally not be possible. And then he just kept on flying up and upwards until he reached the moon a minute later, landing on the pearly surface and getting an amazing look of the now small Pyrrhia down below, alongside getting to see many twinkling stars.

He was very far away from home, far away from his father, and he was free and without any worries, because why should he worry? He 's on the moon!

But then… While he was walking around the surface of the moon, sudden movement caught his eye. He looked at one of the craters and there he spotted his father, hidden within the crater and observing him.

Boreas' eyes widened and he looked to be in a panic, and a moment later he had disappeared.

Blizzard was left perplexed on the moon. Did he just dream about his father due to having just talked to him? For some reason, that didn't feel quite right.

Memories about the bedtime stories flooded his mind once more. Darkstalker… DIdn't he make something that allows someone to…?

Realization struck him, and Blizzard realized that his father's paranoia had reached such heights that he'd even intruded into his own dreams to keep check on him.

Blizzard awoke very early the next morning, and he quickly rushed out of his cave, his father really had done it now… Being so paranoid he wouldn't even let him enjoy a silly dream? What, did Boreas think he dreamed of many painful ways to kill him?

He stepped into his father's cave, who was also starting to wake up… Boreas spotted him and quickly stood up in shock and surprise, looking very nervous.

"Father," Blizzard said with a frown in his face. "Have you been doing anything interesting last night…?" He'll ask first, there is still a small chance that it was actually a very odd part of the dream after all. But Boreas' reaction didn't aid him.

"Huh…? Why'd you ask that? I was just sleeping… I can't sleep now? Is that what you're saying?" He said in a way too defensive manner.

"And did you have any dreams?"

Silence.

"Father, is there any chance that you have a magical item that you didn't mention?"

More silence, Boreas was getting very tense.

"What did you mention during these tales of the Darkstalker…? Things that he made…? Ah, dreamvisitors?"

That's when Boreas took a step back as he flinched, and Blizzard took that moment of weakness.

"Three moons, you… You actually did it, you spied my dreams…" Blizzard said slowly.

"I-It's not what it looks like!" Boreas very quickly replied. "After the previous day, I… Was worried about how you might be doing… Mentally, so I made sure that you had good dreams…"

Obviously, Blizzard did not believe that for one second, especially given his father's mind had turned very uncertain while speaking these words.

"I don't believe you're being honest about this, again," Blizzard muttered and his father looked down at him. "You are very obvious, you must believe so much that I'm somehow evil… That you'd invade the privacy of my sleep just to see what kind of dreams I have."

Seems like he hit the nail on the head, because his father was speechless for a few seconds, enough to just further confirm that thought.

"Do you feel no shame about this?" Blizzard questioned, his tone hurt. "To distrust your own dragonet all the time? Clearly thinking I'll somehow be the one after two thousand years of this family's existence to be the new Darkstalker?"

Like other times, Blizzard was able to tell there's some guilt within his mind over how he's been acting, but it never truly overtakes his other emotions.

"I… Admit that normally one shouldn't be so scared of their own child," Boreas said in a low voice. "But these circumstances are more… Exceptional."

"But you can't just feel this way for however long I have magic! Don't you realize how unfair that is!?" Blizzard snapped at him.

Boreas appeared thoughtful for a moment after he said that.

"You think it's unfair… Well, how about we actually confirm whether you are a good dragon… Or not?" His father suddenly said as if he realized something.

"Confirm that…?" Blizzard replied confused.

Boreas had suddenly walked back towards a side of his room, towards a small alcove from which he retrieved something that shocked the dragonet.

His father was holding… A strange looking trinket, it looked like a telescope that was built onto the side of a golden hourglass, the inside of the hourglass was filled with white sand and black sand.

"The Soul Reader…" Blizzard instantly said, almost speechless. "But how…?"

"Admittedly…" Boreas began to speak in a reluctant tone. "Even the Darkstalker had a few decent ideas for spells, so one of our many ancestors decided to make their gift be a Dreamvisitor and a Soul Reader…"

Blizzard stared at the hourglass contraption for some moments, this thing could make or break whatever trust his father might still place on him.

"I had pointed it to you a few years ago, back then it was all black sand… Let's see how it is now," Boreas said as he immediately pointed it at Blizzard.

The hourglass spun one… Two… Three times, and then it stopped, sand spilled to the bottom and…

The bottom was almost entirely covered by black sand, and there was just a thin layer of white sand at the very top.

Blizzard felt immense relief from this, and just now he noticed he'd been holding his breath so he quickly exhaled. Those are some great results, he's factually a good dragon!

… But yet, his father just frowned upon looking at the results, staring at the hourglass then down at him.

"The top is lined with white sand…" He muttered. "As I said, it was all black just some years ago, there's some impurity now…"

Blizzard couldn't believe what his ears just heard, especially coupled with the fact his own father said he wasn't "pure".

"Are you for real? Even now after actual evidence, you're still worrying!? There's barely a thin line at the top, and of course I'd probably have less white sand when I was even younger! Thoughts and mind mature, that's all!"

Boreas shook his head. "What if it all came from the last 24 hours? Then it'd mean after such a short time, your soul would have started rotting so fas-"

"ROTTING!?" Blizzard very suddenly exclaimed as his father's face somehow turned even whiter. "What do you mean by rotting!? And… What IF? You just basically said I'm rotten, and all based on an assumption!? What is wrong with you?"

Boreas was taken aback by his son's frustration, but he still decided to answer.

"You're an Animus," he said harshly. "No risks can be taken, so the fact that there's even that amount of white sand is something to be alarmed of, it cannot be diminished."

"You're overblowing everything out of proportion AGAIN! No matter what, you'll just keep being scared of everything and ruining everything! Besides…" Blizzard stared at the soul reader for some seconds. "If you think MY soul is rotten… What about your soul?"

"W-What?" Boreas questioned, holding tightly the soul reader.

"How much white sand would spill if you pointed it at yourself? If I even have some from lately… What about the dragon that mentally broke his own mate, hid it and then acted terrible towards his own son for a long time?"

His father opened his mouth as if he tried to answer, but just a few sounds came out, and he was starting to shake at this, his eyes widening.

"Well? Won't you take a look at your soul?" Blizzard questioned.

And the response was a shake of his head. "No… I will… Not."

Blizzard stared up at his own father, much bigger than he is due to the dragonet merely being 4, and yet the adult is so scared of everything.

And the dragonet was just getting angrier at him. "No? You pointed that thing at me and then got mad at good results! Let's see what you got then."

"It doesn't matter!" Boreas shouted at his son. "I am not the dangerous Animus here, so whatever this thing says is completely irrelevant."

Blizzard was starting to get really riled up, this morning is going absolutely terribly, and his father won't even dare pointing the soul reader at himself? Surely the almost certain big amounts of white sand should be an eye opener for his father, a possible chance for him to realize how much he messed up, but his dad is scared even of that!

"This conversation is over, so stop pestering me about it," Boreas said, gritting his teeth, but Blizzard did not step back.

"Ah no, it's only fair. So you'll turn that soul reader towards you and show what your soul is like!" He said with a harsher and more commanding tone than he anticipated

Instantaneously, Boreas' talons moved as the soul reader shifted towards his direction.

And his father let out a terrified scream as the hourglass spun thrice and sand fell, revealing how over a third of it, almost half was all white.

But Blizzard barely even got to focus on that as he heard that scream, his scared expression and open eyes, and how fast he had acted… And the dragonet realized too late what he did.

Boreas dropped the soul reader, which hit the ground and rolled for some seconds with a crack on the side, and then he began to run away and out of the cave.

"F-FATHER!" Blizzard exclaimed in panic, his mind rushing as he thought of what he did: he accidentally had controlled his own father with one of his two available spells.

And doing that would only ever make Boreas look at him even more as if he was Darkstalker, if Boreas even looked at him again.

Blizzard ran after his father, who had grabbed a bracelet from a shelf as he ran, and headed for the exit to their home.

"W-Wait! Please! I didn't mean to…!"

But he was completely ignored, and Boreas had run out through the winding paths that Blizzard had never got to take before, and the dragonet stopped right before the exit, his legs trembling and his expression was shocked. He truly did not want that to happen, he's a good dragon! It was an accident…

He listened attently, putting his mind into this as well as he tried to see if his father was coming back, but nothing… He wouldn't have just abandoned him, right? He… He was going to come back…

With shaky talons, he began to walk back, towards his father's cave… There's the cracked soul reader on the ground, he slowly picked it up and turned it towards himself…

And the dragonet felt a lot of dread as it spun, and the density of white sand at the bottom had about doubled.

For the remainder of the day he basically just sat in front of the main entrance, he didn't feel like reading anything, nor he took a bite for the whole day as he fought a mental war against himself for what had occurred.

The day passed and he could tell the hours were moving by based on the sun eventually starting its descent, sunlight replaced by silver moonlight.

"He has to come back, he's scared of me… But would he stay in the outside world for very long either? We can just talk… Yeah, talk this through…" Blizzard muttered to himself several times, he had only wanted to make his father stop being so terrified of him all the time, to trust him. But after this? Any progress he might have ever made within his father's mind over the years would be all null now.

When nighttime arrived, and with his mind feeling so absolutely tired, he finally decided he should sleep and keep on waiting tomorrow, or maybe father would return tonight…

As that thought crossed his mind, a new sense of dread loomed around him. If his father made his return while he was asleep… Would… Would he do something…? With so many enchanted items around, and his paranoia fueling him…

The thought startled him, and he quickly looked around the alcoves and shelves until he found something that should be helpful: the Gift of Vigilance, a silver earring that will ring a loud warning within his mind if anyone is sneaking up on him or approaching with bad intentions.

He tiredly got onto his bed and laid down, and began to get into a dreamless sleep…

His eyes darted open, a loud bell sound had started to ring vehemently into his mind, and as he opened his eyes he saw how dark it was, the one moon shining tonight was covered by a cloud, and the moon globe in his room was turned off since he went to bed.

He listened attently, barely moving at all… There was the sound of talons approaching his cave until they reached the entrance.

He turned his head towards the cave opening, right as some moonlight shone down into the room.

Standing there and looking towards him on the bed was his father, his expression a mix of fear, anger and determination.

And he was wielding a long, gemstones-adorned, silver dagger on a talon.

The dragonet let out a loud fearful shriek as he scrambled up to his talons, his father was caught off guard as he didn't expect him to be awake and react, but he lunged forward a moment later with the blade.

Blizzard barely got out of the way, jumping out of the bed and landing on the ground near the wall right as Boreas got to where he'd just been and stabbed at the top of the bed.

"F-F-Father! Please!" The young dragon exclaimed in shock, seeing his own dad actually going this far, ready to approach his own son during the night and murder him during his sleep.

He tried to make a desperate dash towards the exit of his room, but his father did a quick turn of his body and his tail struck him on the face. Even though it has less spikes than a regular Icewing's, it still hurt a lot as Blizzard fell to the ground and ended up hitting against the nearby wall, he yelped in pain as he tasted his own blood as it ran down from the sides of his face and his snout.

"I… Will do what Arctic should have also done when his son proved a threat to the world," Boreas said in a broken tone, and Blizzard was feeling so much pain and mental turmoil he could barely get a read of his emotions.

His father raised the talon holding the dagger, ready to bring it down on the dragonet that's lying down on the ground, magic could save him but he could barely articulate words or thoughts due to how extreme this all is.

So instead, the young dragon went for a more instinctive body reaction, and for the first time in his life he used his breath weapon, although it wasn't at all what he'd expected. He assumed his father would be hit with frostbreath, but instead from his mouth was fired a loud, raging stream of chilling water that was aimed towards the other Icewing's face.

Boreas gasped in surprise and he got hit by the high-pressure water, part of it gurgling down his throat as he coughed, and with that surprise and the sudden impact taking him off guard.. The dagger had dropped inches ahead of Blizzard.

The dragonet couldn't think a lot, so he saw a weapon and his talons quickly darted towards it, grabbing it he attacked one of his father's talons, plunging down the dagger onto his scales, assuming taking a good hit there might momentarily stop Boreas.

But he could not have accounted for the actual events as his father let out a pained scream, stumbling back with his body shaken completely as he stared down at Blizzard in horror, he opened his mouth as if he tried to say something, but he just coughed up blue blood on the dragonet instead.

"W-What…?" Blizzard muttered in shock at such a reaction from a dagger to the talon, then he saw his father falling down to the ground. "W-Wait! No… No no no! NO!"

Of course his father couldn't have just taken any regular weapon, this one must be one of the more dangerous gifts he wasn't allowed to look at, potentially enchanted to have an incredibly strong poison or something to that effect.

He quickly peered into his father's mind, shock and pain were overtaking everything else… And even then, these sensations were fading.

"I-I… I didn't know…! I… Didn't…" Blizzard mumbled in fear as his father's eyes stared at his one last time, and then with a terrifying rictus of his mouth, he'd gone completely limb and still on the ground.

And then everything was fading and getting blurry…

Oracle's eyes opened up in shock, breathing heavily as he brought a talon to his chest, the pain and horror he'd just experienced completely lingering within as his mind received all the sensations from that other mind he just was at.

Looking up he saw Blizzard staring down at his scroll in silence and thought, his head hanging low, holding the quill so hard on his talons that it looked like it was close to breaking.