The Dragon of Dreams

Chapter 405: Manipulation

Early Evening - Mid Winter : The Cabinet | Bahamut

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"So, you said you visited Diaforoi?" Looking over at Hera as we walked down the main, circular hallway of the Cabinet, I used my aura to hand off several stacks of papers to nearby maids.

"I have. Like you said, that child is.. an odd one..." Tilting her head with trouble, she paused for a moment. "In the past, it wasn't impossible for hydras to be born with one head and simply grow them with their dragon sleeps, but his different personalities are far too distinct for it to be that simple."

"That's why I think he's the reincarnation of Lernaean, a demigod stage hydra that died in the Tree of Prayer. His soul almost certainly got caught by the tree of prayer, so who's to say he managed to reincarnate as that kid?"

"Wasn't the Tree of Prayer inactive before you fixed it though?"

"Yes, but the prayers never stopped, so, at least in theory, quite a few souls could have been reincarnated without their memories being totally cleansed." It was a theory I had had for a while. "Given he was likely at least a well-established demigod, having some memories and distinct divisions in his personality surviving reincarnation aren't too far-fetched." -Especially if his soul was given the chance to engrave anything on his soul core.-

The issue was that the kid's soul, while certainly extremely large for his age, was far from even a low demigod stage dragon like Myles.

"Hm..." Giving it some thought, Hera's gaze fell before rather quickly returning to me. "Whatever the case, I think the kid's only relation to them is them interpreting him recalling his memories and 'visions' as him receiving messages from a god, so after making sure his condition is still improving, I'm planning on leaving him to a maid that wished to adopt him after taking care of him for some time."

-Good for him...- "I'm assuming they're a maid we can trust?"

Nodding with a smile, Hera continued warmly. "I trust her enough that if I needed a nanny for my kids, I would choose her. Although she might be a little to light-handed for my taste."

"Hah," I wasn't sure whether to laugh or not, but as we continued down the hallway with idle chatter, we eventually made it outside where Krystallo was waiting for us, and the conversation switched directions.

With only a few hours before the sunset that marked the beginning of the festival, we were headed to central Eikasía to grab dinner before heading to a nearby plaza where the official start of the festival would be announced.

While we headed there, Hera, Krystallo, and I all discussed what our plans would be, where we wanted to go, and what we wanted to do for the week or two we would stay here, and after much back and forth got a decent game plan going.

In order to not stand out so much, Hera and I shrunk down to about 23 meters, the upper limit of those young enough to really be a part of the festival, and used a bit of magic to dull some of our sharper features to make us look a touch younger, and less like shrunken ancients while still looking old enough for most of the younger generation to not bother us.

In theory, it was a pretty good idea, we could have our fun, follow Krystallo wherever she wanted to go, and adventure around all without getting bothered...

However, that was only because we failed to realize one very important thing.

Krystallo's popularity.

As we were sat at around a large grill in a fancy restaurant, still well before the festival even began, we had several young dragons, mostly boys around Krystallo's age but much smaller in stature, come up to her to ask if she was looking for a partner or group to celebrate the festival with, with many touting their family's name or wealth and offering to a dance at the party that would be held at their parent's estate.

For the most part, the young dragons were fairly well mannered, and after saying she was already with a group, most of them backed off, and their parents, who were seated not far away would apologize to Hera and me assuming we were all in a group already, but every now and then one would get a little too close and Hera or I would have to.. coerce them with our auras.

Thankfully, it seemed like Mother had already had 'that talk' with her since she seemed quite uncomfortable whenever they got too close, but I could already tell that it was going to be a very long festival if things were to continue as they were. -But what to do...-

"What if we changed the color of her scales?" Tilting her head as she swallowed a large chunk of meat, Hera glanced toward me.

-I guess that is an option...- But it wasn't my decision to make. "Krystallo, what do you think?"

"Hmm..." Mindlessly tapping the ground with her front paws as she fell into thought, her gaze seemed to lose its focus before landing on a piece of seasoned meat on the grill. "I guess I just don't really know." Looking over at Hera as she pulled off the piece of meat, she continued. "What do you think?"

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Hera was quick to shrug. "It'd certainly make the festival a bit less stressful. If you have scales that don't immediately identify you as high nobility, it'll at least stop the ingenuine few from approaching you. If you have a more average color like mine, you'll probably meet fewer people, but they'll be less likely to establish a connection with you purely for their own profit."

"Mmm..." Letting out a somewhat muffled, stressed groan, she promptly tossed a piece of bison meat in her mouth. "Then I guess I'll change the color of my scales for a bit... How would you even do that?" Her eyes instantly lit up. "Could you give me one of the elixirs you gave to Auntie Leif?"

I instantly jolted as the thought passed through my mind. "Are you kidding? Mom would kill me if I did that for such a stupid reason..." The thing was, while Krystallo clearly didn't think the same about it, Mother took pride in her white scales. -If I gave Krystallo black scales and fur, Mom would either kill me or pass out in disbelief.

But thankfully, Hera was quick to take over. "Don't worry, I know a temporary way to do it." Quickly tossing another large chunk of meat in her mouth to savor, she made her way over to Krystallo. "All you need to do is tell me what color you want."

"Oh!" A wag found its way into the tip of her tail instantly. "What about pink? Like Chloe!"

Hera and I immediately froze at the unexpected response before giving each other a glance. "I actually think that'd look pretty good."

Although neither Hera nor I said anything, depending on what color she chose, her horns and general statue could make her look extremely out of place. -But she has a kind of similar stature to Chloe, so it might actually look alright...- I just couldn't wrap my head around where the response came from.

Eventually following up with a few other confirmational questions, Hera sat down behind Krystallo and essentially encapsulated her in aura before turning to me. "Can you actually make a bit of gold for me? I don't want to damage her scales by carving the runes into them."

*Vwoom* *CLUNK* Dropping a few hundred kilograms of gold next to her, she immediately got to work.

Her plan was to carve some simple light runes into thin gold plates that would just adjust the white light being reflected from her scales to give them a pink hue, then hiding the plates between her scales where they would be viewed like jewelry, if noticed at all, and wouldn't fall off in the wind or corrode.

And while this plan of attack certainly took longer than other methods since the runes could only cover a small section of her scales, as Hera did her work, Krystallo slowly but surely turned pink, with her horns being a bit darker and her irises being turned red.

By the time Hera finished, I almost couldn't recognize her.

But I wasn't alone in that.

After working on it for a while, I made a mirror so she could see herself, and while she was as eager as a kid on Christmas morning to see it, the moment she laid eyes on her reflection she jolted. "What the hell?" Turning her head, she looked like she didn't know how to feel. "How.. does it look so real?" She was honestly perturbed.

"Well, the runes are fitted just for you. Unless you really, really look for it, you won't see the layer of pink air around your scales. Plus, given how pure of a white your scales are, it's no surprise its easy to change."

Quickly turning to me, Krystallo looked confused.

-Ah...- Although I had explained it to Hera in the past, I had never explained wavelengths of light in terms of colors to Krystallo. "You know how the colors you see are whatever colors the objects reflect, right? Well, white is created by every color reflecting, so, for something like this, all you need to do is trap all but whatever color you desire, and boom, your scales change color."

Sinking into thought, she looked away before a mix of awe and wonder washed across her face. "Does that mean I can mimic whatever kind of dragon I want to with a bit of light magic?"

Given that she had an extremely good affinity with light magic, it was more than just possible. "Given the differences in the general appearance of other types of dragons, it's not quite that simple, but having white scales would certainly be a major plus." Because instead of having to make your entire body an illusion, it'd only be the small parts that needed change, like details on the face or the shape of a horn.

However, while it certainly sounded like a nice advantage, I clearly wasn't aware of what Krystallo was thinking of as her expression turned devious. "Hehe~." As she posed in the mirror, her expression and demeanor completely shifted with an oddly predatory smile. "How fun."

-Uh oh...- It was such a jarring change that I honestly had to question if the person in front of me was even my sister.

But she was quick to confirm that it was really her as she turned to me and tilted her head. "Why don't you ever use magic to disguise yourself?"

Shrugging my wings, I spoke somewhat bluntly. "What need do I have for it? I use some magic to hide my wings in my humanoid form sometimes, but for my draconic and fenriran forms, I don't have any reason for it. It's not like black scales are particularly conspicuous. To the normal dragon, I probably look like an abnormally dark-scaled halfie." At least that was how it was if they ignored the way I held my head.

According to Hera, I held it exactly how a god walking amongst mortals would even though I didn't notice it myself. It was actually how she knew when I recovered some of my memories from my time as Nott.

But Krystallo didn't seem to have that issue. As she looked back at the mirror, she seemed acutely aware of everything from the look in her eyes to her posture, letting her freely play around with how she was perceived.

It was honestly kind of horrifying.. to the point I had to ask Hera if we would need to have a talk with her about how manipulation was bad. Even Hera seemed a bit worried with how Krystallo was acting.

But that was something that would have to wait since, before we knew it, the announcement for the beginning of the festival was upon us.

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