Chp.16: Never reveal prophecies

Rhaegal didn't know why he had decided to tell Efren about what had really happened during his imprisonment. It was illogical behavior to say the least, if not downright self-defeating: not only did confiding in Efren mean revealing his weaknesses, an act that from the dragons' point of view was almost on a par with sacrilegious (since showing weakness towards a possible opponent meant incentivize him to kill them), but it would also provide the human with a powerful tool of blackmail if she ever wanted anything from him, since Rhaegal didn't want this conversation to be known by anyone else. If Haku had known, he probably would have yelled at him and called him irresponsible, and his sisters would have taught him common sense with slaps; of all of them only Darbi would perhaps have remained neutral, but it was unlikely that even he wouldn't bat an eyelash in the face of such an act. But Rhaegal knew that if the contents of that conversation were made public, the anger of his siblings towards him would be the least of his problems: he would be too busy trying to contain their fury and prevent them from unleashing their revenge. against the nation of humans, or at least avoid completely razing the Jurao Kingdom.

Still, despite caution telling him otherwise, Rhaegal wanted to risk it. Maybe it was all that talk about trust, maybe it was the understanding Efren had shown towards her, or maybe he still just hadn't learned his lesson about the importance of avoiding at all costs situations that could put him and his life and his family at risk. He wanted to try to trust the human. And then, he needed help, as soon as possible. He could ignore the torture and all the doubts he had, but he couldn't ignore THAT thing. He had to talk to someone about it and ask for advice; obviously his family was excluded, so he was left with very few options. And Rhaegal felt that if someone didn't point him in the right direction or at least listen to him and try to help him, he would go insane; the weight he carried was too great. If he had had the choice he would have skipped the whole previous part and would have gone on to tell THAT thing directly, but clearly he had to provide at least a minimum of context, and he couldn't do it without explaining what they had really done to him during his imprisonment.

Efren was silent for a moment. Then his mouth moved almost mechanically. "Did they torture you?"

"It's not important now" Rhaegal said quickly. "You don't have to worry, I don't even remember what the tortures were. I found out about this because I used..."

"Are you kidding me!? It's important! You can't say 'they tortured me' and then say that it's not important!" Efren exclaimed, quickly lowering his voice so Atelas wouldn't hear him. "What have they done to you?"

Rhaegal could have simply told him that he didn't remember and went back to explaining the main point, but he decided that since he wanted to be honest, he might as well go through with it. "I can't tell you exactly, because they gave me a particular liquid that erased my memory, and therefore I don't remember anything; the only reason I know the truth is because I had written the essential information on my palate using a tooth. But..." his voice deepened. "…even though my mind can't remember… my body can. I didn't notice it when I was a prisoner, but when I returned to the beastmen it became evident. When I see certain tools, such as butcher knives or tongs, my body reacts on its own and freezes. So, I can imagine some things they did to me... but I prefer not to think about them"

Efren felt his heart sink. Over the course of all their time together he had grown very fond of the dragon, to the point where he actually considered him a friend, so knowing that was terrible for him. Efren knew that what Rhaegal was referring to was a particular phenomenon known among humans as motor memory, the body's automatic response when it was in proximity to objects that recalled past abuse. But for the body to learn to be afraid and react accordingly, either those abuses had been suffered only once but in such a way as to cause a devastating psychological shock, or they had been suffered again and again until they were imprinted on the skin. And since Rhaegal could hardly have suffered such a shock, since dragons had great mental toughness, this meant that Rhaegal had been hacked to pieces countless times by his captors with the very tools his body now reacted to whenever he noticed them. Which, from Efren's point of view, was terrible. The man knew that in war everything was allowed and there were no rules, but he believed that at least it was necessary to maintain some principles of ethics. And continuously torturing someone who, despite the considerable size of his body, was still a child of just over two years, was one of those acts that went beyond any ethical principle known in every corner of the world. "Does your family know?"

Rhaegal shook his head. "I think Haku suspects something, but no, they don't know anything"

"You didn't tell them!?" Efren exclaimed. "Rhaegal, you can't keep this a secret and pretend like nothing happened!"

"Instead I can, and I will, because unlike you, I know the consequences that would ensue!" Rhaegal replied. "You've never seen the worst side of my family, Efren! I have! I know what my siblings would do if they found out the truth! First they will completely destroy the Jurao Kingdom, then they will raze all nations that have interacted with it, and when there's nothing left to tear apart they'll blame themselves for what happened!It wouldn't surprise me if in the midst of all this madness they also become convinced that the beastmen we saved should be punished, just because it was to help them that I was caught!"

Efren fell silent. Rhaegal's tone was strangely confident, as if he really believed in those words. Wasn't he exaggerating? Sure, dragons were pretty much walking calamities, but only when they were adults. At the moment he was still too young to do the things Rhaegal had just listed. "Now calm down and think rationally. There is no way for your family to destroy a nation..."

"Haku already did it"

Efren froze at Rhaegal's words. "What?"

"Haku has already destroyed a nation, he did it just a few months after we were born. By trickery, he first started a war between ogres and fairies, and then he completely destroyed the kingdom of the latter. Where do you think the meat that my family eats every day come?" Rhaegal explained. "Haku did all this to guarantee us food and protection. Of course, that time he had exaggerated, and then he paid the consequences, but he did it anyway. What do you think would happen if he wasn't moved only by the will to make us survive, but by that of making all those who have been directly or indirectly involved in what happened to me suffer?"

Efren felt his blood freeze. He knew that dragons had many ogre and fairy corpses in their dimensional bags and that they not only ate them but also used them to create their own avatars, but he had never investigated where they came from. He couldn't believe it: had a baby dragon, a creature that should have been almost helpless, brought so much suffering? "Did he really do all this just because he wanted to keep you from going hungry?"

Rhaegal nodded. "What you need to understand, Efren, is that family is the only thing my siblings and I have, the only thing we ever really had. And as you well know, our empathy has different standards than yours. Everyone of us would not hesitate for a moment to commit the most horrible acts if it were necessary for the family" he explained. "Haku doesn't care what they do to him, he never did, but if he were to know what happened to me he would go crazy. And in the same way I don't want revenge for being tortured, because I know that revenge at the moment isn't it would make sense and it would only put us in danger, but if someone touched one of my siblings I wouldn't hesitate to do anything to save or avenge him, as you have already been able to ascertain. For this they must not know, none of them must know the truth. It's better for everyone"

Efren was silent for a few moments, then he said: "Mh. All right. If these are the consequences, then don't tell anyone about it". He looked him straight in the eye. "So you had second thoughts about giving us your blood?"

Rhaegal nodded. "I was scared. When I got out of prison I didn't know what to do. I didn't even know clearly how to behave towards my family, and even now I'm moving quite blindly. If before I was insecure about my choices, now I no longer have not even a clear path to follow. But then today Haku asked you to join this mission, and I didn't want you to risk your life, and neither did Serengal and Corgorin, so... we decided to trust you. I decided to trust you"

Efren didn't know whether to be moved, proud, or sorry. The fact that Rhaegal had trusted him enough to give him his greatest weapon even after what had happened showed how deeply the dragon cared for him and his friends, even if he often struggled to show it. "I'm sorry. For everything" he said. He didn't know why, but he felt he had to apologize, almost on behalf of his species.

Rhaegal snorted almost in amusement. "You don't have to apologize, it wasn't you who did those things. Instead, thank you for letting me share this secret with you" he replied. "And speaking of secrets, there's one other thing that happened in the prison that I've been able to recall by writing it on my palate, and that I can't tell my family, and that's driving me crazy at the moment and for which I don't know how to behave"

Efren swallowed. What else could be worse? "What happened?"

Rhaegal inspired deeply. It was time for THAT thing. "I have received a prophecy"

Efren's body stiffened. "Sorry?"

"While I was in the dungeon, a priest of the God of Knowledge visited me" Rhaegal explained. "He knew about my family, he knew I would somehow remember everything, he knew everything. And he told me..."

"Stop!" Efren exclaimed with such ardor that Rhaegal nearly jumped in surprise. "If you really have received a prophecy, you shouldn't tell me. It's better for mortals to not know the future"

Rhaegal was dumbfounded. "Uh. The priest had said something similar"

"Because it's the truth!" Efren replied. "That's not a good thing, Rhaegal, it's a very bad thing. If the God of Knowledge has chosen you, it's because he knows you're the right person to face whatever is to come. But if I were to partake of it, then it would be only harmful. There is a reason why prophecies are always kept secret until they are fulfilled"

Rhaegal was somewhat surprised. "Is it really that dangerous to reveal a prophecy?"

Efren nodded. "Have you ever heard of 'heretics of knowledge'?". At the denial of the dragon, he explained: "They are the ones who forced those who had received a prophecy from the God of Knowledge to reveal it to them before it was fulfilled, or convinced them in some way. All of them, without exception, had short and unhappy lives"

Rhaegal gulped. "So what should I do?"

Efren's eyes narrowed. "Don't tell anyone about it, ever. And if you want my personal advice, forget what you heard and live your life as you normally would. Because believe me when I tell you, the more you try to thwart a prophecy, the more the foretold future unfolds in a way even more terrible than the prophesied one"

Rhaegal would have liked to answer that that was not his case, because the priest had told him clearly that Haku's destiny was not only one and that depending on his choices he could have become a respected and admired king or a cruel and feared tyrant, but before he could utter the sentence he heard a noise coming from above and looking at the column he saw Atelas descending. The tigerman leapt and dropped to the ground, returning to them. "I finished checking" he said. "It's strange, the hyphae up there are almost the same as those on the ground, they're just a little shorter"

Rhaegal and Efren exchanged a quick glance, then went back to acting as if nothing had happened. "Mh. This proves my theory" the dragon said referring to the way those strange fungi grew.

"And that would be?" Efren asked, in turn pretending that everything was fine.

"Well, the fact that both the upper and lower hyphae are both the same length, with minimal difference, means that the spores of this fungus developed in a much more confined space than this. A space such as that present within of a tunnel created by a sand worm, which as you know abound here. In it it could have grown and touched the ceiling quickly, therefore the upper and lower hyphae would have grown almost equal. And then this fungus would have started to grow... with a little help" Rhaegal explained, then touched his nose. "My nose in this body isn't as efficient as the real one, but I can clearly feel that these fungus is able to mimic the smell of the tastiest mushrooms and lichens we have found so far. The sand worms would be attracted to it, and so they would dig further around the fungus, but once they get close to it they would be driven away by the snakes that defend it. The hyphae, penetrating the rock, would make it more friable and in doing so the fungus would be able to push the floor down and the ceiling up. Give it a few years of time and a whole new area of ​​this cave is formed"

You mean these strange fungi expand the cave as they proliferate?" Atelas exclaimed in astonishment. "If that were the case... then could there be gigantic caves several kilometers wide somewhere in this desert?"

"Well, that's unlikely. The more the cave expands, the further the new fungi would be from the water, and consequently sooner or later they would reach a space limit" Rhaegal replied. "However, if two or more caves with water sources were close enough, they could merge into each other to form..."

He didn't have time to finish the sentence: suddenly what looked like a flame appeared in the center of the cave, where Corgorin's group was. Efren, Rhaegal, and Atelas snapped to attention as soon as they saw the danger signal. "Let's go!" the dragon exclaimed starting to run in that direction followed by the human and the tigerman.