Chapter 1083 A Reunion
Feeling the warmness on either side of him, Daneel gently stroked the bodies of both women with his hands while an errant thought appeared in his mind.
Grandma, if you could see me now, what would you say?
He felt like chuckling as soon as he thought of her reaction. The old lady who had taken care of the orphanage had been quite religious and orthodox, so he was pretty sure that he would have had both his ears wrenched off his head if he even mentioned something like this.
He had never, ever imagined that his first time would be with two women at the same time, but he was proud to say that he had held his own. Now that he had need of it, the system had given him extensive spells and research in this domain from the age of the Empire and even the ages past, and after picking out the few that he liked, he had used them to great effect. Eloise and Xuan had both been shy, although that could be said more of the former rather than the latter. Xuan had always been a headstrong princess, so the same had carried over last night, too, but Eloise approached it more demurely, exploring and prodding and probing… Until she, too, had given herself up to the heat that had engulfed all three of them.
All that was left of it now was a fuzzy feeling in his mind and a few flashes of memories that rekindled those flames within him even though they had been at it for the rest of the night and had gone to sleep only a few hours ago. Putting those thoughts aside for the moment, though, he checked with the system to make sure that it had recorded none of what had just happened.
Indeed, the last command he had given it when he had still retained coherent function of his mind was to blackout all recordings in the bedchamber of the Palace of Lanthanor until he said so. It had even asked for confirmation, as it was an unprecedented command, but he had repeated himself and made sure that it, too, went into a sleep-like mode where all of its resources were commanded to focus on the analysis of Dimensional magic that was still going on.
Unlike him, the two women had much lesser endurance because of their power level, and as it was their first time, too, they had gone wild without abandon after learning the ropes, which was something that had happened quickly. Hence, even though he got up from the bed and kissed them gently on their foreheads, they did not stir, so Daneel simply smiled and walked to the balcony that overlooked the sleeping Kingdom.
The domain of the lord of light had still not won over the last vestiges of the darkness of the night, so lights could still be seen in the houses of the Lanthanorians below. They were very, very few of them visible, though, as a large portion had gone to the tents that could be seen far away to train and protect their children when the time came.
Thinking of them brought him back to the problem regarding the Basilisk, but now, Daneel found to his wonder that he did not feel as stressed about it as before.
The night of magic had truly been instrumental in calming him down and taking away a lot of the burden that he had been feeling. Now, he could tell that a release was exactly what he had needed, so shooting one last glance at the two women and vowing that he would be back in a few hours by the time they woke to surprise them once again and go back to that land of magic, he disappeared and began to travel towards the throne.
On the way, Daneel contacted the Emperor. The man had been meditating, again, but this was not surprising as that had been his favorite pastime back when he had ruled, too. By the time he arrived at his destination, the man was already waiting for him as he had only floated to the ground below to wait for Daneel after ending his drinking session.
No words of greeting needed to be said when they met, so Daneel simply smiled at the emperor and sat down in the chair that he had conjured the night before.
Fenoras took a seat, too, and waited for Daneel to take the lead. He still seemed to be heavily weighed down by the memories that had returned to him, so first, Daneel decided to cheer him up.
\"I think it's past time that we stopped forgetting about someone very important to you.\"
The Emperor looked up with confusion, but when Daneel flicked his fingers and made a certain man appear beside them, Fenoras quickly stood up with an indescribable look on his face.
There were equal parts of excitement, joy, and surprisingly, pain, and seeing them, Daneel wondered about the reason behind the last one.
On Drakos's face, though… there was only the giddy happiness of a son reunited with his father after thousands of years.
Daneel knew that the ancient dragon had still been grieving over the betrayal of his loved one, and the disappearance of her sect. It had had a great impact on him, as he knew very well that each and every iota of power would make a difference in the war to come, and by abandoning them now, his ancient fling had turned out to be an ungracious traitor who only valued her life.
After the installation of the Godnet, Daneel had tried to use it to scan for them, but when he had found nothing, he had had to come to the conclusion that they must have gone into the Endless Sea which could not be scanned deeply. That was the best place to hide, indeed, and if they used all their resources, he estimated that it would be enough for them to defend themselves and hide until the war was over.
Normally, he might have decided to focus his attention on them exclusively as he did not wish for an unstable element to be present in the already volatile mixture that would be the war, but knowing their power level, he had decided that the amount of resources that he would need to spend to thoroughly scan the Endless Sea around Angaria was not worth what they could bring to the table. If they did rear their heads at a crucial time, he had ordered the system to put an end to them without asking any questions.
As Drakos walked forward and enveloped his father in a hug, tears began to drip down his cheeks, while the Emperor closed his eyes as the same feeling of peacefulness that Daneel had been enjoying after waking up a few minutes ago had finally come to him, too, albeit in a much smaller amount.
He knew very well just how powerful a simple hug from a loved one could be, so seeing Fenoras finally melt and hug back, he smiled and said, \"I thought you might ask for him as soon as we were done yesterday. Why did you hesitate?\"
He had detected that there was something stopping the man, and even though it might make him seem like a busybody, he decided to broach the topic. After all, the same question must be present in the mind of the ancient dragon, too, so as Drakos took a step back and looked at his father questioningly, Fenoras hesitated for a moment and said, \"The moment I woke up, I wanted to drop everything and come to you… But I stopped because I felt ashamed. I'll admit it: when I made a plan for all of you to enter those stone podiums, I only saw it as a necessary backup plan to be made. I thought we would be victorious. But when the worst happened… The last thought that I had was of all of you, and whether you would resent me for the ultimate sacrifice that I asked of you because of my mistakes. After all, it is I who brought on that calamity… So over the years, I wondered if anything might have changed. Tell me, my son. Is that so?\"
Drakos just stared at the Emperor for a few seconds as he heard this, and after that, surprisingly… He burst into laughter.
It was a merry sound that spread across the atmosphere and made Daneel and even Fenoras smile, but as soon as he saw this, he remembered what the man had said about the trap.
Seeing the alarm on his face, though, the Emperor turned him and said, \"Calm down, Godking. I see that you forget the legends of dragons. A dragon seldom laughs in all his life. When he does, it is such a rare and precious thing that even the Will of the World responds in kind. I reckon that even in all the time that he spent with you, he did not laugh even once. My son has given me his answer: he calls me stupid for knowing so much about planning and governance, but knowing so little about emotions. Today… Is truly a happy day. Thank you.\"
Drakos simply nodded and smiled to corroborate what the Emperor was saying, and seeing them both, an idea instantly came to Daneel.
He would never have imagined that another trump card that was definitely going to make a great difference in the war would come to him in this manner, but attributing it to the magical night and the two women who had liberated his mind(among other things), he said, \"Yes, it is truly a happy day, as I know exactly how I'm going to deal with the Basilisk. But let's put that aside, for now… There is something that I promised to my dear friend long, long ago. I think it is high time that I delivered. I confess that I have only heard of the majesty of a dragon, but have never seen with my own eyes, so Drakos… are you ready to get back your body?\"