"How was the wedding?" Nero's voice came from the Great Library before Cassian even walked in. When Cassian crossed the threshold, he found Nero perched at the only desk in the room.
"An absolute waste of time," Cassian replied, his tone irritated. He shed his coat with a violent flourish, draping it over Nero's priceless bookcase as if it were a common coat rack, before collapsing onto the couch opposite Nero with the grace of a dying king.
Cassian's brash behavior drew a deep scowl onto Nero's face. "Please, if you're going to throw a tantrum, Cassian, I suggest you do it in the lava ponds. I've just cleaned the whole library an hour ago. Do not dirty my lair with all the dust you gathered from weeks of traveling."
"And whose fault was it that I was forced into a weeks-long pilgrimage of pure boredom?" Cassian drawled. He propped his boots onto the tea table with agonizing slowness, solely to watch Nero's eye twitch. "Had it not been for your nagging, Nero, I wouldn't have married yet another useless princess."
Nero barely held back a sigh. His disappointment was almost palpable the moment the words useless princess left Cassian's lips. "Weren't you the one who came up with the idea to begin with?" Nero pressed. "I'm merely making use of what we've built over four hundred thirty years."
A look of exquisite exasperation swept across Cassian's features. "It is true that this entire... theatric was my design," he sighed, throwing a hand over his eyes. "But truly, Nero, haven't four hundred and thirty years of searching earned me a moment of silence? Grant me a reprieve, I beg of you. After all, it was my own overflowing compassion for our dragonkind that birthed this nightmare, wasn't it?"
Nero arched a brow, his gaze skeptical as he looked upon his 'compassionate' dragon friend.
Four hundred and thirty years ago, every dragon across the continent had endured a devastating transformation. In the wake of the last continental war, the world's mana had bled out, thinning until the atmosphere could no longer sustain their ancient dragon form. Their god-like power had been forcibly scaled down to a humiliating Level 1.
At Level 1, they were cursed to keep their immense lifespans while trapped in the confinement of lowly human frames. They were left with nothing but a few fragments of power inherited from their innate elemental types, which were basically bitter reminders intended to ensure they never forgot they were once the world's most magnificent monsters.
On his two-thousandth birthday, Cassian the Fire Dragon was greeted by a most insulting surprise. He woke from his slumber, ready to revel in two millennia of existence, only to find himself trapped in a cramped, seven-foot human frame.
Outside, the actual humans were brawling with such tedious volume that further sleep was impossible. To his mounting fury, the mana in the air was so pitifully thin he couldn't even manage a proper Dragon's Breath to roast the lot of them.
Faced with Cassian's grander purpose, Nero had the audacity to scoff. "Please, Cassian. You were merely doing yourself and your temperamental fire-type kin a favor. I, being an earth-type, can endure this Level 1 existence quite comfortably."
Cassian kneaded his face, reaching for a sharp retort but finding his mind uncharacteristically empty. It was easy for Nero to be smug; earth dragons like him were as dull and sturdy as the dirt they crawled from.
Had Cassian been born anything other than a fire dragon, perhaps this Level 1 existence wouldn't feel so much like a personal insult from the universe itself. At Level 1, his draconic soul was a caged beast. If he allowed his temper to flare, that beast would try to claw its way out, desperate to awaken.
But without a sea of mana to facilitate the change, the transformation would stall, turning into the agony of Dragon Fever. A dragon lost to the Fever was anything but majestic; they would become a thrashing animal, consumed by a fire that couldn't escape until every ounce of rage had been bled dry.
As a fire dragon, Cassian knew all too well that his kind possessed the most volatile blood of all. To be trapped in this fragile human shell was to sit atop a powder keg with a very short fuse.
At last, failing to find a clever way to save face, Cassian pivoted his frustration back toward Nero.
"I am telling you, there must be a flaw in this Black Magic prophecy. Are you quite certain that a dragon's devotion, even a devotion as magnificent as mine, is enough to awaken the Black Mage?"
Nero's gaze sharpened at once. He was always far too quick to catch onto Cassian's diversions before they were even fully staged.
To Cassian, though, it was a tiresome habit. Nero didn't even have the grace to let the question hang in the air before he struck back with that dry tone Cassian loathed.
"Are you attempting to shift the blame to me again?" Nero asked. "Simply because I was the one who presented you with the prophecy?"
Cassian offered a languid shrug. He didn't look at Nero, preferring to study the line of his own boots instead.
"I am merely performing my due diligence. It would be a tragedy, would it not, if we were chasing a phantom clue simply because your memory is as ancient as your wardrobe?"
Nero sighed yet again, as if that were the only talent he possessed. "As I have explained more times than I care to count, I did not author the prophecy myself. Every male dragon of my age was well aware of it. You, quite simply, had not yet been born to hear them for yourself."
Among male dragons, a prophecy circulated: if a male dragon pledged his absolute devotion to the continent's most powerful female mage, she would ascend and become the fabled Black Mage. Unlike ordinary mages, who had to beg for mana from a thinning atmosphere, the Black Mage was said to be a living, walking wellspring of unlimited mana.
Her very presence was a miracle. Where she stepped, forests flourished and the soil pulsed with life. Most importantly, she would exhale a High-Octane Mana so rich it could sustain a dragon's true form indefinitely.
At the time, Cassian, merely two thousand years old and dangerously naive, had been intoxicated by Nero's tales. He had envisioned himself the savior of his kind, the one to restore his true form by the side of a goddess.
He had played his part perfectly. He had built a kingdom from nothing, carved out a throne, and spent four hundred and thirty years playing the part of the devoted husband to one princess after another. Yet, after centuries of empty vows and even emptier altars, he was beginning to suspect whether the whole thing was nothing more than a cruel ancient joke.
Nero, as if sensing the dark clouds gathering in Cassian's mind, broke the silence with a question that was far too practical for Cassian's current mood.
"But you've only just met your new wife. How can you be so certain this woman isn't the one?"
Cassian waved a hand as if to brush away the memory of the encounter. It was too pathetic to even dwell upon.
"I tested her the moment we crossed the border. She nearly allowed herself to be slaughtered by a Silt Skulker. A Silt Skulker, Nero."
Nero's face fell, his disappointment almost as grating as the news itself. Silt Skulkers were Tier I bottom-feeders. They were hardly aggressive and embarrassingly easy to dispatch.
"What a tragedy," Nero sighed another sigh. "And here I was, entertaining the hope that this time would be different."
"As was I," Cassian joined the sighing this time, leaning back into the cushions with a groan of pure misery. "And now I am burdened with another wife lurking about my lair for the next few months."
Nero fell silent, his brow furrowing in thought before he blurted out, "You could always try a divorce. I'm told the humans have made quite a trend of it lately."
"A divorce?" Cassian let out a sharp snort. "Please, Nero. There's no way my princess wife would accept a divorce. To these humans, a divorced princess is a greater stain on their family name than a dragon who has forgotten how to fly. They would rather rot in this bleak fortress than suffer the indignity of returning home rejected."
Nero looked as if he wished he could summon a shred of empathy for Cassian's plight, but as usual, he remained infuriatingly composed.
"What do you intend to do with her then?"
Cassian leveled a bored, heavy-lidded gaze at his companion. Nero already knew the answer; the question was purely for the sake of the conversation's rhythm.
"Absolutely nothing," Cassian drawled. "I shall allow her to exist, only to see if my instincts have finally failed me. But if she is truly unlucky, she might find herself in my company when the Fever takes hold. If that happens... well, I may accidentally end this marriage early. Again."