Dragon’s Will

Leona was relaxing inside the warm hotspring found just at the back of the mountain. It was a wide hand-carved stone room lit with candles tucked inside hollow parts of the walls. Unlike the other rooms, it was made with the idea of relaxation in mind as the scent of burning wax in combination with the warm steam was surprisingly calming.

Behind Leona, the room was outfitted with a few makeshift copper showers for washing before entering the water.

She was alone inside but nevertheless wore a thick beige towel which covered most of her body. She had finished washing herself and was about to go inside the hotspring.

Leona swallowed dry as she couldn't really hold the excitement of having a proper bath in weeks.

At first she dipped her right toe inside but quickly retracted her foot as she felt a prickling sensation turn into a shiver throughout her entire body.

"Is everything ok in there, Leona?"

Setsuna's voice came from outside of the bathroom which prompted her to look at the wooden door separating them.

"Uh… yeah, nothing's wrong. Why?"

"Your mana just suddenly spiked out of nowhere. I thought you'd seen a ghost or something."

"Ah… no, I was just surprised how hot the water is." She nervously chuckled. "I'm more used to lukewarm water."

"Feel free to use ice magic if you need to cool it a bit." The shrine maiden explained as she was shuffling things around in the dressing room. "Yuna just likes the water too hot."

"I'll keep that in mind. Thank you."

However, Leona was determined to experience the water as it was. Being so far away from home made her realize there were things she could only experience there which made her even more resolved to enter the waters as it were.

Taking a deep breath, she dipped her right foot inside the water and the prickling sensation from the hot bath sent another wave of shivers throughout her body. However as opposed to taking her foot out of the water, she slowly submerged her right leg inside while using her right arm to sit down before ever so slightly immersing her other leg.

"Mmmm… it's certainly hot, but…" She uttered under her breath as she built enough courage to fully enter the hotspring. The hot prickling sensation crawled up the sides of her body as she sat down amongst the stones but it quickly disappeared as she adjusted to the temperature. "Ha…" She let out a relaxed sigh. "This is… heaven…"

Hot water was up to her shoulders as the tension of her muscles dissipated along with each breath. She rested her head against the stone and looked at a flickering candle inside the hollow wall.

The scent of burning wax and the ever so slightly smell of sulfur mixed in the hot steam made her eyelids feel heavy.

'Just for a few minutes…'

She started to blink slower and slower until she completely shut off her eyes. The blackness was comforting under the warmth that enveloped her body as the weak flickering of the candles illuminated her irises through her closed eyelids.

It remained like that for a while but at some point she stopped feeling the comforting warmth and instead, it gave place to a bitter shivering cold. Warm breath exhaled out of her lungs and as she opened her eyes, the visage of a frozen landscape revealed itself.

She instinctively looked down and noticed she was wearing her borrowed uniform from Londria. Frost was accumulating on the tip of her boots and the entire front of her coat was colored in white from the constant pelting of snow from the bone chilling wind.

"Where… where am I?" Looking around, she couldn't tell if she was on a vale surrounded by snow or atop of a mountain with an intense snow storm around herself. "This place…"

It felt oddly familiar as if it was somewhere that she should know from the back of her mind, but she still couldn't quite tell where.

"Turn back…"

"Huh?"

A 'voice' echoed in her mind. What she heard wasn't exactly a human's voice but something else entirely, but even then she could still understand its 'meaning' somehow.

"Turn back… this is not a place for you to be…"

"Who are you?!"

Leona shouted, but there was no answer. That only fueled her curiosity as she started to slowly take steps forward towards the endless white in front of her.

"Go back to where you came from…"

Suddenly, the snow storm became even more fierce—pelting her body in a relentless frontal assault which broke off a few strings of her frozen hair.

"Ngh…"

She continued to trudge through the snow that was becoming deeper and deeper with each step she took until it was about as deep as her knees.

"You won't survive in this place… Leona…"

"So you do know me!" She shouted atop of her lungs but as she breathed in the cold air, a sharp pang of pain came from inside her body as the cold air felt like it was freezing her from inside out. "Ugh…"

Her legs were giving up. The freezing cold was making her limbs numb and before long she plopped face first on the snow as she still kept looking to the sky bereft of blue.

"You can scarcely know the weight of this burden, child. Go back to where you came."

Suddenly, Leona woke up panting heavily.

"Ah! Where…! Oh…" She looked around and she found herself in the main lobby of the cave, laying with her back on the couch before the fireplace. "Wait…"

She sat up and looked down. Thankfully she was fully clothed with a fresh white cotton shirt and shorts of the same color.

"Ah. You're finally awake." Setsuna's voice came from beside her. The shrine maiden held a glass of water that she was about to place near the wooden stool beside the couch but instead she offered it to Leona. "I think you spent way too much time in that hot water."

She took the cup.

"Thank you." She drank everything in one go and after exhaling, she turned to her again. "What exactly happened to me?"

"You fainted. Thankfully I was there when it happened." She took the empty cup from her hand and chuckled. "Don't worry about the clothing, I dressed you up myself."

"O-oh. Yeah, thank you." Leona leaned her back against the couch and stared blankly at the fireplace. "Say, is there a place with vast amounts of snow near here?"

Setsuna was about to take the empty glass away before she turned around to answer.

"Snow huh…? The only place that comes to mind are the Elysian Fields. It's past the eastern mountain range."

"Anything else you can tell me about it?"

"Hm…" She scratched the side of her head. "I don't know much about that place and I'm not sure if I should be the one to tell you about it. I'll ask Father to come by in a minute."

"Uh… sure…"

She quickly turned around and hurriedly headed off the kitchen, which made Leona wonder what was so important about a place with snow.

It didn't take too long for Robert to come by and sit on the armchair to her left side. He held a glass of wine on his left hand and a silver dish plate on the other as he set it on the stool on his right side. On top of the fancy plate there were a few neatly cut pieces of cheese marbled with bluish veins of mold. 

"Do you want some?"

He offered her a small silver skewer.

"Um… no, I'm good. Thanks."

"Hm, fair enough." He flipped the skewer and stabbed a piece of the cheese. "So, how did you learn about the Elysian Fields?"

"I… had a strange dream.

"A dream?" He ate a piece of the cheese and raised the wine near his mouth. The mildly sweet aroma coupled with the faint alcohol fragrance wafted over to her as he gave the glass a gentle twirl. "Tell me more."

"I was in a landscape covered by snow, there was no one else there other than me but I could hear a voice telling me to 'go back'." Her eyes showed some interest in the cheese as she glanced at it a few times. "It was strange because while I understood what it meant, it really didn't feel like a human voice."

"That was most likely your great grandmother." He chuckled as he took a sip of the wine and stabbed another piece of cheese. "She must be misunderstanding the reason as to why you came here." He pointed the skewer at her hip. "You may not be aware of it. But that sword radiates waves of mana—any powerful enough being that is aware of its signature can tell who that aura belongs to."

She instinctively looked down at the sword. Its hilt had a few black spots in the wood while the guard had suffered a few dents.

"My grandmother huh…?"

Her mind began to wander. What if she met her? What would she say to her? Would a dragon even understand the ephemeral nature of human life and its struggles?

"Come on now, don't be so serious." His voice prompted her to glance at him and the moment she raised her head, the silver plate of cheese was floating in front of her. "You'll meet her eventually after you grow strong enough."

The pungent smell hit her nose as she flinched back with frowning eyebrows.

"Ugh, what is this smell?"

"It's called blue cheese. It's made out of edible mold." He chuckled in amusement. "Though I'm sure when I say mold the first thing that comes to your mind is 'inedible', isn't it?"

"Nngh… mold aside, is this thing supposed to smell like this?"

"Well… it is made out of milk and mold."

"You're not making me want to taste it."

"That's good because it's a hassle to buy these." He brought the plate back to the wooden stool beside him and stabbed another piece of cheese. "True teleportation, while convenient, is still quite annoying to calculate distance while taking the planet's speed and rotation in consideration."

Leona scratched the side of her face. Leaving the matters of cheese aside—something else bothered her regarding their conversation about her grandmother.

"Say, why was she telling me to 'go back'? Is there anything dangerous in the Elysian fields?"

He was about to eat a piece of cheese before settling the skewer on the plate and turning to her with a somewhat amused expression.

"What if I told you…" He placed the almost empty glass of wine beside the plate and interlocked his fingers on top of his lap. "...that is where the first death angel was born?"