Teryte Chronicles // Have Mercy (Patreon)

Hey guys! Today I present to you yet another art with a story from Aksan~ This time, featuring a new character that was not intriduced here before, I believe!
We decided to continue our collaboration monthly and provide more stories and art of the Teryte Chronicles for you. I hope you'll be happy to learn more about this world <3  I love every story I read, they are so close to my heart now ^^ I'm happy to be a part of this project and a part of this world.

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“. . . beautiful green rock carved into pillars and the grand steps before the Absent Throne,” The Tower, reminisced to his bond partner, laid in his lap, “Of course, you’d barely see the floor most of the time, the palace was full of our people.”

“Your children,” Celestia teasingly corrected.

“My people,” he rumbled without any air of correction, “Our people. Passantra’s people.”

“See, I was going to needle you about how much I know you enjoyed all but drowning in lovely young women but it sounds crass now.”

“Ah, my dear Passantra . . . I’m not sure if she would have teased me so herself, or she’d be the one being teased,” he wistfully rumbled, stroking the glossy, blue scales of the Efernum in his lap, “Those tales of the palace at night being full of piles of tired women weren’t entirely my doing.”

“Are those really the kind of tales you should be telling me in front of your latest daughter?” Celestia asked with faux outrage, clutching the egg from her lap into her generous chest.

Sitting up, he gathered both in his arms, giving his bond a curious look, brows bunched together as he narrowed in until their snouts touched and Celestia giggled. “You’ve hardly been the type to be precious about it before.”

“She’s not been due to hatch before,” she said, presenting the egg to the cross-eyed Old Blood.

“You know she isn’t going to suddenly start understanding stories she was born in the middle of?” he chuckled.

“Well, no, but I’ve heard the human mothers going on about how the stories you tell to the bump can inspire a child,” Celestia smiled and nuzzled the egg, “Worth thinking about, surely?”

For a long time the huge dragon was still, clawed fingers idly tracking up and down his bond’s side as he thought. “I don’t think it’s a trend.”

“There is no way you can remember all your daughters . . .” the Efernum scoffed, backing down as she saw her bond’s serious face, “Surely?”

“Of course not, that would be . . .” His pause for thought was filled with a full-hearted laugh from Celestia until he gently covered her mouth to quiet it, leaving her mischievous eyes to mock him. “Okay, that isn’t possible. But I can remember a good few thousand and I don’t think there is any real trend to it.”

“Well, in that case,” she began, smiling as she let the egg fall to her chest, “How about you tell me the one about the Dance of Flames again?”

“Summer solstice, six hundred and eighty three?” The Tower queried, getting a blank expression in response, “You mean the one where the three of us had– What’s that face for?”

Celestia’s face was full of excited delight. “She’s moving!”

“She’s moving?” he asked back with a proud smile.

“She’s moving!” the mother-to-be pointed excitedly to the egg, losing any movement that it made for itself in her own excited bouncing. “Shit, do we need to do anything?”

“No, my love,” The Tower assured, leaning in to meet his brow to hers, “She’ll manage this for herself.”

Rising to her feet, Celestia all but vibrated as she held the egg out in front of her, blue eyes seeming to grow as large as the egg they fixed on. Breath rising, her eyes flicked from the egg to her bond and back, faster and faster until the huge, black-scaled hand reached out to take their daughter.

“It’s okay, my love, I promise,” the huge voice rumbled as a white-scaled face appeared at the door, silenting peering in on the scene.

“But it is definitely–?” the Efernum spluttered out the words as she looked up at her bond.

“Oh yes, she’s definitely moving,” he smiled warmly to his bond, and his other half at the door, then down to the egg.

“I’m going to be a mother!”

“And I’m going to be a father, again,” he chuckled.

“Oh hush, it’s new to me,” Celestia chided as she came up to watch her egg shift back and forth gently. “How long now?”

“Only a few minutes likely, definitely less than an hour, but she seems–” The sudden sound of the egg cracking silenced the room. Thin, hairline marks, spread from the top of the egg. From the door there was a subtle smile, from his bond an energy so intense she looked about to levitate.

‘I could levitate her, she’d look so cute,’ his shadow in the doorway offered the thought, only to be mentally rebuked.

Breaking the silence of the room the egg chose its moment to open; no simple pushing back of the shell, but an explosion. Gouts of flame burst from the hairline cracks as it opened up, blasting back the new mother, charring the ceiling of their chamber, and completely failing to shake the calm smile from her fathers face. With a triumphant babble, the hatchling’s out of proportion head poked out of the broken egg.

“Energetic.”

‘May the fates have mercy on us all,’ The Shadow offered, with a token attempt to conceal joyful affection.

“Bring her down here!” Celestia cried out as she bounced in front of her bond. “Silly tower,” she murmured as the egg was brought down and she took her newly hatched daughter for the first time in her arms. “Our first daughter.”

“First?” the father chuckled, carefully gathering the egg shell to his bond's approval.

“Later, once this little one is off to sleep.” Celestia’s glistening eyes were bewitched by her new child, flashing over to meet the scarred gaze of The Tower. “I’m really a mother.”

“You really are,” he said with a grounded smile as he took his bond off her feet and carried her out into the courtyard.

‘No ceilings to burn out there,’ his other half offered as she slipped away.

Settling with the pair in the carved stone bench that they had spent so many nights on, he basked in the noticeable warmth of the hatchling. “Did you decide what to call her in the end?”

“I decided to let you name her,” Celestia purred, eyes only for the hatching, her babbles, and her occasional flickers of flame.

‘Brave.’ A single sarcastic thought dropped amidst the stream of intense emotions.

“I know you had something in mind,” the Efernum said with dreamlike joy.

“I had a few options in mind,” he rumbled, eyes drifting between the two, unsure which sight made him happier.

“Well, when you’ve as many daughters as you do, I am sure it’s useful to keep a long list,” Celestia teased, “Oh yes, your father is very busy, you’ve got a whole world of sisters to meet when you grow up.” For a brief moment she tore herself away from the spark in her arms. “So, want to pick one?”

“Mercephinion?” he asked, seeing another gout of flame come from his newest daughter’s mouth and wash over her mother’s snout like a blown kiss.

“I think she approves,” she chuckled, “Mercephinion it is.”