Part 31
Jake's POV
We waited, the two of us, Lauric, and myself, for Vindicta and her child to arrive. Lauric had apparently sent word for them to be brough to us. We were in Lauric's family's home, a tall and round sphere built near the base of the castle tree, made of white molded stones, exposed roots of the tree, and decorated with very strange but incredibly detailed statues of different Neame. Apparently only the family's head lived here full time, and the others lived in their own territory to manage it on his behalf. But he was away for now, and we were given space to use it as needed for Von-Pac's reunion. He hadn't arrived yet, and was cleaning up before seeing them for the first time in a while.
On arrival, some Neame, who Lauric later explained were servants of his house, greeted us. Well, greeted Lauric and Von-Pac. They did not acknowledge me until one of them asked if I needed to be cleaned and fed in the stables.
"This is Sentinel, a familiar to Lady Suma, a guest of Queen Ompera, and a member of her Majesty's armed forces." Von-Pac said. "He is also, however, an intelligent being; capable of washing himself… I assume." That last part he said quietly and glanced at me as I got off Chariot.
"I am." I said, and the three servants' heads nearly snapped off their bodies turning to look for who'd spoken.
"They mean no offence, Von-Pac. And he is quite capable of cleaning himself, and often insists on privacy while doing so." Lauric said.
"Yeah, that's totally normal on my world." I said, and sent Chariot away.
"I am sure it is. Nonetheless," he turned back to the servants, "have Lady Vindicta and her child brought to guest room four. Von-Pac has returned safe and unharmed."
"At once my Lord. They will be delighted." The servant he was speaking to, a younger Neame, bowed slightly and flew over the house and out of sight behind it.
"You two, have refreshments brought to the room as well. Enough for ten." Lauric ordered.
"Ten my Lord?" One asked, looking to the distant sky and behind me.
"Three helping for Von-Pac's family, one for myself, and six for Sentinel."
"I'm not hungry. I just ate before we arrived."
"Which is why I only asked them for six helpings. I have seen you eat enough for ten Neame in one meal."
"It is considered rude for nobles to not feed their guests, Jake." Von-Pac said. "No guest of the Von-Pac home has ever left hungry."
"Nor the Isbala home. Have the refreshments brought at once."
"Yes, my Lord." The servants both said, and flew away. This time they opened a hole in the round building, and flew inside.
"Follow me. I shall take you to the washing area, Von-Pac. Sentinel, I'll take you to the room directly."
"The washing area?" Von-Pac asked, then examined his feathers and claws. "Well, I suppose I could use a good preening."
"The servants will take good care of you. Join us when you are ready. They will show you the way." Lauric said.
A short while later, Vindicta arrived, but Von-Pac was still cleaning up, and I was in the room with Lauric. She flew in, carrying a small cloth, tied at the top and hanging down in the center, in her claws.
"Jake!?" Vindicta called out, surprised.
"Vindicta!" I said, excited to see her again.
"Is that really you?" She asked, landing beside us on a post, but keeping the cloth safely off the ground and from hitting the side. "What are you doing here? Where is Von-Pac?"
"He's cleaning up. I was part of the team that got him home, with Lauric and Suma." I said.
"Is she here as well?" She asked.
"Lady Suma had a meeting with Queen Ompera." Lauric said.
"With the Queen?" Vindicta asked, surprised.
"Vindicta, how've you been?" I asked.
"I have been well, Jake. My baby hatched recently, and is growing so quickly. She has so much mana too."
"I'd say you're glowing, but you always are, so… she? It's a girl?" Halfway through a joke, I realized what she'd said.
"Yes. I cannot wait for Von-Pac to meet her. They will be part of each other's lives, so I hope they get along well."
"Don't worry. He is very excited to meet her. He even asked me to name her personally. I picked out a few, depending on whether it was a boy or girl. I'll let you pick with Von-Pac when he get here." I said.
"He did what?" She was shocked. Not just her though, I saw Lauric's eyes widen too. His feathers even got ruffled. "You are going to name my child?"
"Is that a good idea?" Lauric asked. "I am aware that some of the Neame you named faced hardships and scorn."
"By the time the kid is grown, all of that should be taken care of. And Von-Pac was pretty adamant."
"Will you really do it, Jake?" Vindicta asked, stunned.
"If you'll let me."
"Please, yes, please!" She nearly screamed. The baby made a noise, like chirping, or singing. "Oh, I woke her up." Vindicta spread her wings, and laid the cloth holding the baby in it gently on the ground, then fluttered down beside her. She pulled the knot aside with one claw, and a tiny little blue and black beak poked out from the piled rag. "Shhh… shhh. It is okay little one. All is well."
"Is she okay?" I asked.
"Perhaps she is hungry?" Lauric suggested.
"No, all my shouting simply startled her." She rubbed her beak along the baby's beak, and it settled. "There we go. All better."
"You know, on my world, birdsongs are seen as very good things."
"Songs can be good or bad. It is their nature." Lauric said.
"Well, I would rather my hatchling not sing anything other than happy songs."
A flapping noise came from outside the room, and Von-Pac flew in. Before he even landed, he said, "Vindicta… my soul…"
"Von-Pac!" She said. He landed beside her, and they pressed their heads together. That was when Von-Pac saw the baby on the ground next to Vindicta.
"Is this…?"
"She is."
It was a tearful reunion, I got misty-eyed; even saw Lauric turn his head and cough to stop a voice crack while remarking how cute the baby was. It was a tiny little thing. Fluffy too; all covered in light-blue down-feathers.
"Jake…" Von-Pac said quietly, "what we talked about. Are you ready?"
"Yeah. I already explained it to Vindicta. Since she's a girl, I have three names that could work. I'll let you two pick." They both nodded. "Asta, Amora, and Canta. Do any of those sound good?"
"Oh, they are all nice." Vindicta said. "I like Asta."
"Do you have anything that starts with the same sound as ours? Since both our names do, I was hoping we could have hers start with one as well." Von-Pac asked.
"Ummm…." I thought for a second. All the names I chose meant 'love' in other languages, or were pretty close to it. "A 'V' sound… maybe Valentina?"
"That has such a nice sound to it." Vindicta said.
"I like it too." Von-Pac agreed.
"Alright then." I said, and kneeled down next to the three of them. What happened next felt… I hesitate to say familiar for obvious reasons, but it was something Zachariah did many times in his life. A formal naming ritual he participated in. "Pal su nei Valentina."
"Draconic?" Lauric asked.
"Yeah." I said.
"I did not expect you to perform a traditional naming ritual, Jake. You have my family's thanks." Von-Pac said, and bowed deeply. Even Vindicta did too.
"Where did you learn such an old tradition? Did Suma teach it to you?" Vindicta asked.
"No… a lot has changed." I said.
They said thanks again, and Lauric and I gave them some privacy to speak. We went to another room, just as the refreshments Lauric had ordered arrived. I grabbed a few fruit, avoiding Lauric's 'I told you so" look he and Von-Pac shared, on the way out.
"Sentinel, where did you learn that old tradition?" He asked, fluttering alongside me as he led me to another room. His house was a maze of hallways, with no doors, only making carved in the stone, which made everything look exactly the same to me.
"From my… Zachariah's memories. He performed it a lot when he was alive."
"Did he?" He asked, surprised.
"Yeah. Only the dragons could give out names back then, and after they left… he was the only one the people felt comfortable asking. The nobility did not want to risk their magical power waning, and the commoners could not name themselves, so it fell to him."
"Much like today." He noted.
"Who taught him?"
"Ahshem." I said. Lauric nearly forgot to flap his wings and dropped over three feet before catching himself.
"What!?"
"Yeah."
"The Dragon-King?"
"No one called him that, but yes."
"Jake, Queen Ompera wished to speak with you immediately. I must summon you." Suma said suddenly, through our connection.
"Okay, I'm ready." I said. "Sorry, Lauric, Suma is summoning me."
"Okay, but I would be very interested in discussing this with you later." He insisted.
"Sure." I agreed.
"I summon you, Sentinel!" I heard Suma's voice, and felt that feeling of weightlessness wash over me as the darkness enveloped me on all sides. Then… I kinda felt… like I got caught by something.
"Is that Zachariah I sense?" A voice called from the darkness.
Almost by instinct I tensed up, asking, "Deyja?" But as soon as the words left my lips, the thought hit me, (Deyja would know who I was.) This voice… I knew it from somewhere.
"No, you are not Zachariah, not entirely. You have my sympathy." The voice said. Now it was focused, no longer from multiple directions, but emanating from the darkness above me. Looking up, I saw the perfectly round orbs, glowing dimly from the darkness. They were far away, but still massive. I couldn't tell what they were. Turning and shifting, they seemed to follow my movements. While I couldn't move myself properly, I could still wave my arms and legs, which I did to test the orbs. They followed me like eyes… and the crashing revelation hit me, that's exactly what they were. These huge tire-sized orbs floating in the darkness were eyes. And I knew exactly who, or what, they and this voice belonged to.
"Are you Nidhögg?" I asked, remembering the colossal dragon I'd… Zachariah had met many years ago, living in the branches of Yggdrasil; the castle-tree.
"I was once the protector of the Aether branches and the world roots, the Nidhögg." He said. "And you are not Zachariah. I can still sense what is left of him elsewhere, but also…" all three eyes focused, staring intently at me, "here… perhaps? Some of him."
I swallowed hard, not sure I wanted the answer. "You can sense his memories… or… his soul inside me?"
"Scraps, burnt away, and left behind. Less than a soul now. A faintly warm ember, still kept alive by merely clinging to another's fire."
Part of me felt relieved to hear that, and another part grieved. But even still, which part were my own thoughts, and which were Zachariah's I still couldn't be sure. My stomach started turning to knots, so I changed the subject. "Nidhögg, how are you still alive? It's been… maybe a thousand years since I… he saw you."
"I am not." It said simply. "I died centuries ago, long after you and the nameless dragon disappeared."
"That wasn't me!" I snapped. "It was Zachariah!"
"You possess his memories. Search for me in them." He said. I didn't want to listen, but not thinking about something after it's been brought up is pretty hard, and I knew what he was talking about. Nidhögg was like me… I don't know what face I was making, but it must have been what he was looking for, because he revealed himself from the darkness. And he was nothing like I remembered.
I could see it, like looking through a haze. Everything was out of focus. The first thing I noticed was its size, it was big. Bigger than Deyja, bigger than Ashem, bigger than the tower of London, and much bigger than the last time Zachariah had seen him. He took up my whole field of view. Tentacles were the first thing I noticed after its size. It was the first dragon I'd ever seen that had tentacles; thousands of them, all over its body, writhing like snakes. Scales that were translucent covered its body, in no sense of the word but they were there nonetheless, revealing a deep nothingness behind them. Nothingness that drew the eye, and sucked you in. I looked away, up to its massive head, and locked eyes with it. It had three radiant glowing eyes, all in a perfect line along its face, coming from the crown-like set of horns that circled its head, down to just above its mouth. A mouth that was a perfect circle, filled with countless needle-like teeth. It had no neck, just a long tubular body, nor any feet. Rather, eleven longer, thicker tentacles that hovered in the darkness around us, looming in awkward twisted positions, like they were wrapped around an invisible tree trunk and branches.
"What happened to you?" I stammered, horrified by how different it looked from back then.
"A much better question is, who are you?"
"I am… Jake." I said, hesitantly. "I think."
"But are you? Or are you more now?"
"How did you do it?" I asked, knowing he would understand the question. He'd lived through this before, many times in fact. He'd told me… Zachariah himself years ago.
"You need to be more specific than that."
"How did you come to terms with other people's memories in your head? I don't feel… everything just feels different now."
"It is different. You are different."
"You sound like a fortune cookie."
"This Furtoon-Cewki must be very wise indeed then." His body undulated and rolled, shifting as if he were grabbing onto new branches and ducking under others to draw closer to me. His eyes lowered until they were only just above my head. "I admit, during the second life, adapting was difficult. Do you still call yourself by both names, or are you accidentally mixing them up?"
"I do not even know who I am anymore." I said, and sighed. Hot tears rolled down my cheek. "Please, just tell me what you did to make them go away."
"I did nothing, well, eventually I did nothing. In the beginning, I tormented myself; much like you are doing now. But in time, I had a revelation."
"Tell me," I nearly begged. "Ever since Deyja and Zachariah placed their souls in me, I have felt… wrong. Broken. And when Zachariah merged with me I thought it would be over, but it's only gotten worse."
"We are our memories. Before I was Nidhögg, I was Ladon, and before him, Hera, and before her, I was Zues, and in the beginning I was Kur. All of them were different bodies, but different souls, but part of them lies in me now, the last of the Yggdrasil. I accepted them all, embraced their memories, emotions, and time in the world."
"How?" I asked.
He hummed for a moment, an old habit he had while thinking. "What I did, probably will not help much. It took centuries of introspection and multiple lifetimes to accept." My heart sank, and for a moment, I was hopeless. "But… the first thing I did may help you? I gave myself a name. One that I kept across lifetimes. Not one given to any of my previous souls, or even the body that they were in, but something new entirely. Nidhögg."
"But my name is already Zac- Jake!" I shouted to correct myself. "I am Jake! … I am…" I whispered.
"Perhaps. Or perhaps, you are something more as well, or you could be." He gazed down to my arm. "I sense the 'Spell of Contracting.' You are a familiar in this life as well?"
Looking down at my shoulder, I nodded. "Yeah. For a while now."
"Did you contractor give you a new name?"
"Sentinel."
"Ah, a strong name. 'To be chosen.' That could be a good… hmmm."
"What?"
"You are fading. Your contractor seems the impatient type."
"Nidhögg, I can't define myself by being a familiar. And I…" a lump filled my throat even trying to acknowledge the thought, "am not Jake anymore, or Zachariah."
"Then choose a new name." I felt it then, the pull of being summoned, and heard Suma calling for me.
"What does it mean?" I asked. "Nidhögg."
"Change." He said, and I was pulled away through the darkness.
Everything came back into view again. A colorful room, filled with… very upset looking Neame, a lot of growling familiars, the Queen, who was surrounded on all sides by guards, and a nervous Suma. "Jake… is that you?"
I looked at my hands, sighed, and said, "it's me, but I'm probably going to change my name."