Elysia becoming a separate being from her mother depowered Kamila’s body and core. It deprived her of the Dragon scales and the enhanced senses she had gotten so used to.
Kamila felt exhausted, so weak that she would have fainted on the spot if not for Tyris’ warning. On top of that, she refused to lose consciousness before holding her baby.
“Is… this… what you meant?” Her eyes drooped and she felt like sleeping for a week.
Instead, she bit the inside of her cheek and used the pain to push through the drowsiness that was flooding her body.
“Yes.” Tyris nodded. “For a Guardian it means losing half the power we have during pregnancy but for you is much worse. You just went from a cyan-cored Awakened to a yellow one. You are a few dozens of times weaker than you were a moment ago.”
“Can I-” Lith stepped toward Salaark who was holding Elysia.
“No!” The three Guardians stepped in front of him as one, even stopping Faluel and Elina from coming close and helping him. “For Mogar’s sake stay away and don’t move a step.”
“Why?” Lith’s voice trembled, feeling rejected.
Feeling like the monster he knew he was.
“Because if you are anything like Leegaain, and I mean even one atom, we need all the help we can get.” Tyris replied while handing Elysia to Kamila and using her breathing technique, Mother Earth, to restore Kamila’s strength.
“What do you mean?” The Guardians formed a barrier around mother and daughter, pushing Lith to the edge of insanity.
“Oh gods, thank you so much.” Kamila sniffled as Elysia took her human form upon smelling her mother and feeling her warmth. “She’s beautiful. She’s the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.”
Between Tyris’ Mother Earth restoring Kamila’s stamina and Salaark’s Rebirth Magic pumping nutrients into her body, Kamila managed to stand up with Zinya’s help.
All the pain and fear that she had experienced until a moment ago were forgotten in the joy of holding her baby and feeling her warm breath on her skin.
“Look at her, Lith. This is our daughter. Your daughter.” She stepped forward, with tears streaking down her cheeks from the happiness that was filling her heart.
“Careful now. Slow and easy.” Leegaain said as the Guardians moved out of the way, clearing a path for the couple.
Lith could finally come close enough to take Elysia from Kamila, not understanding anything that was going on.
Until he held the baby girl in his arms, feeling the weight of her life in his hands.
Elysia was just a hybrid, weighing no more than a human baby.
She was a little and frail thing, something that he could have extinguished with a sliver of killing intent. A being as warm as a candle that could have just as easily been snuffed out by one of his fingers or the weakest of his spells.
Yet she was there, Elysia Verhen, daughter of man.
Lith felt his knees buckle and instinctively shapeshifted into his Voidfeather Dragon form to use its long tail as a crutch.
As Elysia felt the red scales pressing against her skin, she followed suit. Her wings still lacked feathers, but her scales were of six colors and they all burned with elemental power.
Elysia, daughter of Dragon.
Before Lith could understand what he was doing or why, his panicked mind sought asylum in the safety of the darkest corner of his mind, where everything had begun.
He took on his Abomination form, and feeling the coldness of darkness and Chaos stinging at her, Elysia did the same. She turned into a small bundle of shadows with white eyes.
Elysia, daughter of Derek.
Lith was shocked and confused, shapeshifting non-stop from one form to another while the baby followed his lead in a game of tag that only the two of them on the entirety of Mogar could play.
At that moment, Lith finally understood what was happening.
The shock he felt came from his inability to accept that he really had become a father and that the baby he was holding was just like him.
A piece of him that yet was pure and untainted by his past and without the scars hidden under the skin of his Awakened body.
Someone who he could love unconditionally without the need for tests, time, or the establishment of trust through common interests.
Lith had spent his whole life fighting against monsters like Ezio, Orpal, Thrud, and even the one he himself had become in order to survive the adversities that he had faced back on Earth.
No matter where he had gone and who he had met, Lith had always been forced to hide something from others, even from those closest to him. His Mogarian parents knew nothing of his past life and it had taken them years just to learn the secret of his magic.
Every friend and girlfriend had always been fed little bits of truth at a time, to see how they reacted before giving them a bigger and more shocking revelation. Lith couldn’t help but consider it akin to building tolerance to poison.
Like his existence was something cursed from which others needed to be protected.
Solus was the only exception to the rule but, in his mind, she didn’t count because Solus was a part of himself. She couldn’t live without him just like Lith couldn’t live without her.
His secrets were her own and vice versa, standing alone together against the rest of Mogar in a perennial battle for survival.
Elisya was different. She was not Lith yet she was just like him.
She was born as a Tiamat, sharing all of Lith’s hurdles and powers. He could feel through the scales connecting them her trust and her silly naïve joy at the reassurance that the familiar voice of her father offered to her.
Lith looked into her eyes which were just like his own, both in her Tiamat and human form. Her raven black hair, instead was like Kamila’s but also streaked with the six colors of the elements.
Lith silently thanked the gods that Elisya’s face carried nothing of his usual disgruntled expression.
The baby girl was happy, smiling from the heart like he had long forgotten how to.
Amid his inner conflict, something went wrong inside of him.
In a last-ditch desperate attempt, the hate of the Void flowed into the Dragon once again. Lith’s skin became black, and blue flames burst from his head.
And so did Elysia.
Lith’s eyes went wide, the realization hitting him as hard as the news of Carl’s death.
‘She’s like me in every aspect. Even her life forces can merge in the wrong way. What’s even worse is that Elysia is so trusting that she’s following whatever I do. She’s going to pay for my mistakes!’ Lith thought in outrage.
He had learned one thing by fighting monsters and that was that children had to be protected from those disgusting creatures, especially from their father, if he was one of them.
In that moment, Lith decided that there was nothing he wouldn’t do, nothing he wouldn’t become in order to protect that little, weak life that he was holding in his hands.
