"Why didn't you visit sooner?"
The voice emerged from the shadows of the ancient lair like warmth breaking through winter clouds. An old man stepped forward. He was silver-haired, his face a map of centuries etched into kindly lines, his smile spreading like sunrise over a frozen peak.
Elder Dragon Baswara moved with the grace of great age and greater power, and when he reached Oathran, he embraced him.
His arms wrapped around the Dragon Lord with the strength of a grandfather who had spent seventeen years not knowing if his child still drew breath.
His weathered hands gripped the white robes, and when he spoke, his voice cracked with a joy too vast to contain.
"You're alive… Your Majesty."
Oathran stood still for a heartbeat. Then his own arms rose, and he held the old man back. His chin dropped to rest on Baswara's shoulder, and for that single, suspended second, he was not the sovereign of gods or the bearer of worlds. He was simply a child, home at last.
