C 171
"I gathered everything,
" I sighed as I looked at the green and white radishes that had just been harvested.
It's something I really don't want to experience twice.
"Is it finally finished?"
"Yes."
"That witch does strange things sometimes. How can something like this be so delicious?"
The snow leopard, holding the green and white radish in his hand, murmured softly.
"Will you go tonight?"
"Yes."
"Maybe what you're waiting for isn't such a big truth?"
"I just want to know why I had to go to that bastard and not my dad."
The snow leopard narrowed its eyes.
"Maybe it's not a big deal. But it's better not to know. Not knowing means having to spend a lifetime tied to truths you don't know and that may not be a big deal. However, once you know, it will become a comprehensible fact, even if the world has changed forever."
The snow leopard rubbed the cat's belly in his arms and nodded somberly.
"That's right, witch. Now, you'd better keep your promise."
The snow leopard said as he gently restrained the meowing cat and scratched its stomach lightly.
"Witch?"
It was at that moment.
The sight before my eyes turned white, and soon, she appeared. It was the dragon who called herself Purple.
"I would have told you to stop calling me a witch, cat."
"Who's the cat? How can you call the great snow leopard like that?"
"You live an unusually long life too."
She looked at the snow leopard with a disgusted expression and then slowly turned her head to look at me.
"Well, you gathered all this."
She clicked her tongue and spoke as if she had never expected it in the first place.
"Do you hate spending time with me so much?"
"Yes."
Purple's body stumbled for a moment at my firm response without hesitation. She frowned.
"That's too direct. Have you ever thought of saying it differently?"
"I can't say it's good..."
I acted desperately because I hated it.
"It's not because I don't particularly like you. I just... don't want to waste time with my family."
I would have done the same even if someone other than you had suggested this.
Maybe it's just a short period of time that she doesn't care about. Five hundred years.
However, for me, that time, which would last less than 100 years, was very precious.
"Okay, you kept my promise, so I'll let you know."
Because a promise is a promise.
She spoke to me with a somewhat regretful expression on her face, then snapped her fingers and took all the ingredients I had gathered.
"These materials can create a mirror that reflects the past."
"A mirror that reflects the past...?"
"Yes."
"This fruit that looks like a green and white radish?"
"The green radish and the ripe fruit are my snacks."
Oh, I feel insulted.
I blinked, and she shrugged.
"I refuse to work for free."
"Yes."
That's something I understand, but considering the difficulties I've been through so far, I still feel a little reluctant.
"You can see the past you desire only once. You said you wanted to see your birth, so we can start from there."
As she moved her fingers slightly, the Verdant mirror and the materials began to come together.
Finally, the bulks formed a cluster of light and landed in my palm.
The Verdant mirror had turned a pale blue, as if its original green had disappeared somewhere. The surface of the mirror looked like water rippling.
"Imagine what you want to see. Then you'll be able to see it."
I slowly closed my eyes, holding the mirror firmly with both hands. It wasn't so hard to think.
"I want to see what happened from the moment I was born."
The moment I thought that, it was as if a bright blue light enveloped me.
---
* * *
Tap, tap...
I could hear the sound of water splashing somewhere. I got into the water and listened to the flow of water with my ears, when suddenly the water drained, and light entered.
When I opened my eyes with the feeling that my blocked airways had suddenly burst, my vision cleared.
"You're still alive."
Someone was holding me in their arms.
She was looking at me with her bright pale yellow eyes...
"Purple?"
Suddenly, I remembered why I came here. I came to see the past.
"Show me this destiny."
She clicked her tongue and looked at me with annoyed eyes.
"I never thought that in this dying era, a hatchling would be born. And in this desolate place where there's no one to bless."
As soon as the words were finished, she blew a gust of wind. The smell of old, musty earth passed through my nose.
As I rolled my eyes, I saw countless monuments erected. This was death. It was a cemetery where the dead were buried.
I was speechless for a moment and just stood there looking.
The grave that it seemed like I had been pulled out of had a pit in the ground. I took a deep breath.
"You called me."
I called you?
"More accurately, it was probably your life instinct that called me. I suppose you're lucky that there are still dragons in the world. Otherwise, as much as you were the seed of a great dragon, you would have rotted in its stomach."
"It's embarrassing."
She sighed and half-hugged me with one arm.
"If you live long enough, sometimes you see things you don't want to see. You were just born, but your destiny is already quite ruined."
She looked at me for a long while, as if she was seeing something I didn't know, and then muttered.
"If I leave it like this, you will definitely be swept away by fate and die soon."
She seemed to think about it for a moment and patted me on the cheek and murmured.
"They say dragons need good parents. It was so long ago that I can't even remember."
As she squinted her eyes, magical energy gently dissipated from her body.
She had been doing something with her eyes closed for a while, as if she was examining something, and then opened her eyes.
"If I do this, you die. If I do that, you die. There's only one path your poor and miserable fate can choose."
After saying that, she slowly began to leave the cemetery.
When I blinked again, the background changed instantly.
In front of me was the very drunk bastard. His cheeks and nose were all red from being drunk, and his eyes were lifeless, as if he had been hypnotized.
"Your destiny has already been decided. All I can do is leave you safely with that destiny."
She murmured softly.
"How contradictory it is that to escape destiny, one must put oneself in destiny."
Even then, the bastard was frozen, dazed, with his mouth open.
"Only when this child grows up without parents will she have the chance to change her destiny. It was common for dragons to run the wrong destiny and die. But I can't believe I'm leaving the hatchling in my hands in something so rotten."
Purple's expression was full of irritation as she murmured that she couldn't believe it.
"But the future I see says that only if we do this, the future of this little thing will be peaceful and happy."
She snapped her fingers a couple of times and waved them in front of the bastard. Every time she snapped her fingers, the bastard's shoulders shook violently.
"Even if that were the case, it's painful to leave you in the hands of these human beings."
She said and handed me, wrapped in fabric, into the arms of the bastard.
"Remember, this child is yours."
The bastard nodded with blank eyes.
"This will cut your head off someday, but until then, you better take care of it."
As soon as she finished speaking, the bastard took me in his arms.
That was the last time. My vision gradually darkened. My vision became blurry, as if night was approaching.
"Stop complaining, your life is full of thorns, so even if you go to your parents like this, they will inevitably ruin together."
After hearing that voice, my mind darkened completely.
When I opened my eyes again, she was standing there, just as she had that day.
"Do you feel a little better now?"
"..."
My cheeks were warm. When I raised my hands and pressed my cheeks, my hands quickly became moist.
"One day I had a dream. For me, a dragon, thinking it was a dream was incredibly strange."
"A dream..."
"A young human girl dressed in an unusual outfit I had never seen before appeared and asked me to save her. She was there, following that voice as if she was possessed by something."
I didn't know why I was crying. However, I felt like I knew who that "young human girl" was.
It would be young Cha Miso.
The other half of me that had probably turned into a soul and had not been born yet.
"The reason I couldn't send you with that person is because your destiny didn't allow it."
"Mother... Why did she die?"
She looked at me incomprehensibly and opened her mouth.
"Honestly?"
"Yes."
"Because she conceived you. Because she fought to give birth to you with a weak human body."
The firm voice fell painfully.
