LDQ Vol. 6 pt. 20 (Patreon)

((Whew, this chapter has ended up being twice the normal length of a chapter. That was a lot longer than I thought it would be, but uh, here it is! And it is most certainly a chapter.))

Me and Vala walked into the forest together—or rather, I did all the walking. All she did was sit on my shoulders and press her thighs against the sides of my head, which was exactly what I wanted her to do.

It was nostalgic. Even though it wasn’t that long ago that we last went into the forest together, it felt like a ton of time had passed since then.

But, unfortunately, it was hard to really enjoy it given that I knew something was wrong.

“Alright, Vala,” I said. “You’re the one with something going on here, so it’s on you to start talking about it.”

Vala sighed from above me and replied, “But can’t we just be a cute, happy couple in the forest instead of making me go into some lengthy exposition about boring stuff?”

“Nope.”

Vala made some pretty adorable grumbling noises after that. But, ultimately, she gave in. “If… if I have to. Alright. So, umm… basically… I’m uh… kind of… you know… a queen.”

“Like the royalty kind or the modern sassy kind?”

“The—the royalty kind.”

“Makes sense.”

“Does it? I—I thought you would be more surprised.”

“Well, Window used to refer to you as the queen, and you’d even jokingly refer to yourself as a queen sometimes, plus you turning out to be a legitimate queen isn’t even crazy enough to make the list for unbelievable things in this universe, so it’s not that surprising.”

“Oh. That—that makes sense.”

“So, what are you the queen of?”

“Ah, well, umm… kind of… ev-everything?”

“Now we’re getting into unbelievable, crazy territory.”

“You see… there’s an… order of sorts. In the universe. At the very top of that order is… us. Dragons. If you believe the stories we’ve been passing down for pretty much forever… we’ve been around since before the first stars were. There is nothing more ancient or powerful than dragons.”

“Narcissistic much?”

“I—I’m not trying to sound like that! But… it’s true. That’s why I can do… well, all of this. Why I can make this entire pocket universe. Something like this is easy to me and would be easy to any dragon, even newborn dragons.”

“The idea of a bunch of baby dragons flying around the universe wielding your powers is terrifying.”

“Heh. Well… don’t worry. It’s because we’re so powerful that most dragons hate having kids. It’s… only really done out of necessity, and most wait until they are in their final few giga-annum before even thinking about having kids.”

“The heck is a giga-annum?”

“You know, it’s like a century but for a billion years.”

“So… dragons typically live for billions of years?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re a lot older than just a few thousand years old, aren’t you?”

“N-no comment. Anyways… there are a bunch of different dragon lineages, but there’s only one royal one that has always ruled, and that’s… the one I belong to.”

“I love you, but you don’t strike me as royalty in any way.”

“That’s—that’s what I’m getting to. Both being a dragon and being royalty… I don’t want to be either of those. You see, most dragons are… even more extreme than what humans think they are like. A lot of what humans think dragons are like are inspired by me. Greedy, haughty, narcissistic, powerful, sleeping in mountains and taking tribute from people—you humans ended up taking those aspects and really focusing on them until you reached what modern people believe dragons are supposed to be like, but… they’re nowhere near as extreme as how most dragons really are. And I hate it. Like… I’ve read manga and stories and stuff on the internet that have dragons, and people always complain whenever the dragons don’t act like what they expect dragons to be like. They say a real dragon should be all… confident, so powerful that they don’t consider anything beneath them a threat, greedy… people complain when you have like an anime dragon girl who basically just acts like a normal girl but looks slightly like a dragon, but why? Why can’t she just be the way she wants to be? Why does she have to fit into some specific mold in order to be a real dragon? Because dragons traditionally fit into some mold that they refuse to break? Screw that. And it’s even worse because most dragons would agree with those gatekeepers. My… my dad, if he found out how some humans depict dragons… he would make it so that there is no trace of Earth having ever existed.”

“Like the people who draw dragons fucking cars?”

“Those—those too. Oh, and since you brought that up… one, dragons having any kind of sex is… basically blasphemous. Mainly because dragons—real dragons, since so many humans care about what a ‘real’ dragon is and all that stuff, don’t even have any genitalia. We reproduce through a sort of… sharing of consciousnesses. When two dragons have finally decided that they’re ready to have kids, they basically link their souls together and create a new soul that takes from both of theirs. Doing this shortens their lifespans even more which is why they like to wait a long time to do it, too. But yeah. Dragons don’t even have any sex organs and, even if they did, they would consider something as hedonistic as sex to be beneath them.”

“You’re crushing the hopes of everybody who wants to fuck a dragon.”

“Yeah, well, the cool people can lewd fictional dragons as much as they want. It’s only the people who complain about what a real dragon is and try to gatekeep it that I don’t like.”

“But what about you? I mean, we’ve had sex.”

“Yeah, but with this body, not my true form. I can make this body look like and have whatever I want. I mean, technically, I could add… parts to my true form, but they wouldn’t be real, just like how this body isn’t.”

“Fair enough.” Seeing as how she was still on my shoulders with her thighs around my head, and my hands on her thighs, I gave her thighs a few extra squeezes. “I prefer this body over your true form. No offense.”

Vala giggled and little and repaid me by squeezing her thighs even tighter around my head for a few seconds. “You’re supposed to, so that’s okay. My true form isn’t cute at all. Being a cute girl is way better than being some giant dragon covered in scales.”

“Your real form is badass, though.”

“But I want to be cute, not badass. And that… kind of takes me to my next point. You see, normally… dragons only have one child, because they believe that child is perfect. After all, a dragon can never do anything bad. Nothing they do is short of perfection. It’s impossible for them to make mistakes. That’s… what most of them believe.”

“Don’t you have a big sister?”

“I’m—I’m getting there. So… because they normally only ever have one child… it would usually be that child in my family’s case that becomes the next ruler. But my sister was… corrupted.”

“Corrupted?”

“Yeah. Not in the hentai way, either. Well, actually… it kind of is in the hentai way considering that it’s an eldritch tentacle monster that did it to her… just not sexually. Anyways, dragons aren’t the only ancient beings in the universe. There are others almost as powerful as us who have always hated us, not that I can blame them considering we’ve basically forced our rule over anything and everything since the start of time. Anyways, as perfect as dragons like to think they are… they’re not. Umm, long story short, my sister got tricked, had her soul corrupted, may or may not have wiped out three universes, and then almost killed our parents before they were able to stop her and purify her soul.”

“Wait, wait wait. There’s a lot there to think about. Three universes?”

“You know the big bang theory? And how the universe is always expanding and stuff?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, that’s basically what happens all the time. Except there are countless different universes. Each universe is like a bubble, and the space between them is infinite nothingness. Don’t ask me how, but the space between each universe also continues to grow while the universes themselves are growing, so it’s impossible for one universe to ever actually bump into another one. Even we don’t know how that works. But yeah, flying between universes isn’t really a problem for us. Just takes a few million years. It’s really boring, though.”

“So… you’re not even from the same universe?”

“N-no comment since that would help you figure out how old I might be.”

“You’re not at all obvious, don’t worry.”

She squeezed my head again with her thighs. She might have been doing that as a light little punishment of sorts for what I said, but it was nothing but a reward to me. “Anyways… my big sister was supposed to be next heir, got corrupted, may or may not have become the biggest war criminal throughout all of history and across all known universes against her will due to eldritch mind soul corruption stuff, got her soul purified, and was declared to not be suitable for being the next ruler for allowing herself to get corrupted in the first place. Basically… my parents, the most stubborn, arrogant, and narcissistic dragons there are… decided that their daughter was not perfect, and so they made me. I’m the first royal dragon in history to ever have a sibling. And because my sister isn’t ‘perfect’ to them, she’s not ‘worthy’ of being the next ruler, so… I’m supposed to be the next one.”

“What about your big sister? I mean, after they… purified her soul or whatever, what happened?”

“She’s basically my parents’ slave now. She has to do anything and everything they demand no matter how degrading it might be, and she… even though I can tell how much it hurts her… she listens. She genuinely believes she deserves the punishment. Even though none of it was her fault… she refuses to stand up for herself. What’s the opposite of a victim complex? A guilty complex? I don’t know, but she has the ultimate complex in the universe about believing she’s horrible and worthy of nothing but serving my parents as their slave. Seeing her like that… is why I am the way that I am. She made a mistake. She’s not perfect. Even though she was made by my parents, who consider themselves the most perfect beings in the universe, she still messed up. If she could make a mistake, then anybody can, and… because of their punishment for her, I know what’s going to happen to me if I ever make a mistake, too. Besides… when the universes are ruled by parents who are willing to treat their first daughter like that… then I don’t care about continuing their legacy. So, I ran away. I tried getting my sister to come with me, but she refused and instead let herself be ordered to try and capture me.”

Vala took a deep breath, and I could tell just how upset she was thinking of her sister as she talked about her. She really loved her sister and it hurt her that she couldn’t help her.

“My parents, the rest of the dragons, and most people who know about dragons, and even my sister… all believe that dragons are supposed to act certain ways. But I don’t want to. I want to be free to live life however I want without caring about anybody’s expectations for me! I don’t care about being the queen of reality or anything like that! I just want to be me, and the me I want to be is a cute, lazy dragon girl who plays video games and lets everybody else do all the hard work for me while I pay them back by being cute and giving them fanservice! But really… what I want more than anything else is to live in a happy, peaceful world where everybody gets along and nobody is ever sad. Everybody is free to live however they want and we’re all just happy and having fun together.”

“I’d say you’re doing a great job of that so far,” I said. “Why are you upset? I mean, isn’t that exactly what we’ve got?”

“Because… I really am a dragon in the end, no matter how much I try to fight against it. I’m just being selfish. I have this pocket universe for us where we’re all happy, and before this I had my mountain where I only ever asked for some entertaining tribute or snacks every decade, but… there are so many people across the universes who live short, miserable lives full of suffering. I have the power to change that. I could make everybody happy if I wanted to. I could literally erase sadness from existence. But the more I use my powers… like if I use my powers to bring back even one person from the dead… the more I give myself away. My sister would be able to find me and take me back to our parents, and they would make sure I’m never able to get away from them again… at least until they die, but I don’t know if I would still be the same me by the time that happens. They would do everything in their power to mess around with my soul to make me ‘perfect’ since they refuse to admit that they’ve had two ‘imperfect’ daughters.”

I was starting to understand the problem.

“But… if I really want everybody to be happy… shouldn’t I just… give up? Shouldn’t I let them take me back and pretend to play the role of the perfect daughter for a few more billion years until I’m really the queen, and then make all the changes I want after they’re dead?”

“Wait,” I said. “I thought you already were queen?”

“Oh. Uh, I’m probably being confusing. Sorry. I’m… technically the queen. It’s tradition that the parents retire to let their child be in charge during their final years, and then they basically serve as advisors to their child. But the truth is… they basically continue to rule through their child until their death. I’m the queen in name, and most who know about the higher order of things believe I’m in charge, but it’s my parents who are actually still running things. And the older a dragon is, the more powerful they are. Anything I do to resist them can effortlessly be overturned by them. Even if I made like, a universal broadcast exposing the truth of the situation to everybody in existence, they would be able to wipe that from everybody’s memories with the same amount of effort it takes to wiggle your finger.”

“So, you’re the queen, but they’re still running things through you. What’s the point of making you the queen before they die then?”

Vala shrugged. “Tradition, I guess. I don’t even think they know. It’s just… how things have always been, and dragons… don’t like to question tradition, because something perfect shouldn’t need questioned. But if I had to guess… I would say it’s so that they can ‘train’ their heir while also basically… I don’t know if it makes sense, but to set a foundation for their reputation? Like… to let everybody see that things are going to remain the same regardless of who is in charge. Everything remains as it has always been at first because, yeah, it’s the parents still in charge behind the new ruler. And then when the parents die, by that point, the child has basically been trained to think and behave exactly like them, so things still stay the same as always, and this never changes. Oh, and also, I guess if they rule things from behind the curtains, then when the new ruler gets praised for being perfect and living up to expectations and stuff, they basically get to take it as a compliment to themselves. Uh… dragon society in general is really… really narcissistic.”

I understood what she was saying, but most of it still sounded nonsensical in the way that I just couldn’t relate to in the slightest. Then again, when dealing with a culture that came from a literal different universe, I wasn’t going to be too disappointed in my failing comprehension of things.

“So,” I said, “let me get this straight. I’m just focusing on you here because the rest of that stuff doesn’t matter to me. The reason you’re upset is because you want everybody to be happy and free just like you are here. But the more you use your powers, the more you give away your position to your sister who’s hunting you. And if you get caught or willingly return to be the queen, you’re just going to be used as a tool by your parents who are actually still in control. And their deaths might still be billions of years away. If and when they do die, and you finally have the true freedom needed to do whatever you want and to help everybody, then you’re afraid you might be so changed at that point that you’re no longer the same, cute dragon girl you are right now.”

“Yeah… basically,” Vala answered. “Which ultimately… makes me just like a dragon. Because I’m being selfish and only caring about myself. But I don’t want to be like a dragon. I just want to be me. And even when I think about how I would make everybody happy, like removing sadness, making everybody friends with each other, removing capitalism, getting rid of war, and all that other stuff… I would just be forcing my own preferences onto everybody else, which is exactly what dragons have always done. Nobody would really be free, they would just be living in a universe that I personally deem is acceptable for them. So it’s… no matter what I do, I lose. The only way for me to get anywhere close to winning is to sit here and do nothing but play vidya all day. You know, the only winning move is to not play.”

“But not ‘playing’ makes you feel irresponsible and guilty.”

“Yeah. I mean… I’m officially the queen of… everything. No matter how much I might dislike it… no matter how much I might love and appreciate everybody here… when you try to be objective about it… isn’t being the queen of reality more important?”

“Come on, Vala. That? From you? Miss, ‘love is the most powerful thing in the universe and can even reverse entropy!’ Are you really the same person?”

“What I’m trying to convince myself is true isn’t the same as what is actually true…”

“Fuck that. You’re a dra—no, you’re Vala. And the Vala I know is somebody who can make anything possible. There is nothing you can’t do. You can make love the most powerful thing in the universe if you want to. I know you can.”

“But… how would I even do that? Not to mention there’s nothing more powerful than my parents. As long as they’re alive, then they’ll always be able to overrule anything I do.”

“Then all we have to do is create something—somebody even more powerful than them.”

“What? How—how would we do that?”

“It’s easy,” I paused and tilted my head back to look up at her face since I didn’t want to miss her reaction to what I was about to say. “We make a kid.”

I was right to look up at her since her face turned pure red when she heard that. “How—how would that fix anything?!”

“You have ‘fuck you’ level of powers that lets you basically create an entire pocket universe whenever you want. Also, if we look at Luca, she inherited all of her powers from Window when she came into existence. You gave Window access to a bunch of your powers, and now Luca has those powers independent of you.”

“That’s—that’s true. I have no idea how that even works… she shouldn’t have those powers without me giving them to her.”

“So, Window might only be artificially powerful since she just taps into your own powers, but Luca is genuinely powerful all on her own.”

“That really doesn’t make sense…”

“Nothing does and fuck anybody who tries to make it make sense. Moving on, if we have a kid, then we have to do it like dragons, right? You basically take parts of our souls and combine them?”

“Yeah… but, umm… problem. I… I really want to have kids with you, a whole bunch, but… I’m… pretty sure it’s impossible. If we try to have kids… then your entire soul would probably get absorbed in the process and you would stop existing.”

“I won’t.”

“But… you would.”

“I won’t.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because while you have ‘fuck you’ level powers, I have ‘fuck you’ level stubbornness. We’re going to take our souls and use them to create a kid of our own. Our kid is going to inherit all of your powers, all of my stubbornness, and all of our love. Basically, we’re going to create, as you and Window would put it, Love-chan, and they’re going to be the living proof that love is more powerful than even the most ancient of dragons. Or entropy. Whichever is stronger.”

“Drake, that sounds insane.”

“And?”

“I’m… not doing that. No matter how stubborn you are, your soul… is, no offense, like microscopic compared to mine. If my soul is as dense as a black hole, yours is as dense as a neutron… or quark, or whatever the smallest microscopic thing is. Our kid would be like 99.9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999% me, and then the rest would be you, and it would consume your entire soul just to make up that tiny fraction of a percent.”

“Don’t underestimate my stubbornness,” I said while lifting Vala off my shoulders to set her down on the ground. The next moment, I lifted my shirt up and off over my head.

“Wha—what are you doing?” Vala asked, her cheeks reddening again as I stripped.

“Getting naked. We’re making a kid.”

“I—I told you that it won’t work!”

“You know, Luca isn’t the only person that inspired this idea. I have watched some anime before. Just, as a casual, normal person. I had no idea how obsessed some people get with it. Anyways, there was this one sci-fi series where aliens from a higher dimension come to Earth to uplift them basically. All-powerful aliens basically on par with gods. And how are the aliens defeated? By one of the good aliens having a baby with a human. By having a kid with the human, the kid inherited all of the mother’s powers while being more in tune or something with the universe thanks to the human father, allowing her more control over the universe they were in than what the aliens had. The aliens were still more powerful in general, but they were weaker than her even if it was just in that one universe. Most people thought it was an extremely stupid ending that made no sense and complained about how it totally ruined the show, but I liked it. It was the only anime I ever watched in its entirety.”

“How many episodes was it?”

“Twelve.”

“Such a casual…”

“But the important thing is this. In this pocket universe of yours, you get to make all the rules. When me and Window had Luca, Luca inherited powers that she shouldn’t even be able to have. I don’t know if her powers apply outside of this universe since I don’t think she used them while we were on Earth, but it’s undeniable that she’s basically the second most powerful being in this universe now, only you being ahead of her. Window doesn’t count because she’s just using your powers.”

“You’re bullying Window even during this.”

“She exists to be bullied. Also, it’s technically true. Without borrowing powers from you, she’s powerless. Am I wrong?”

“No…”

“Then I’m right. Also, I bet no dragon in history has ever had kids with somebody else before if they’re as stubborn as they sound.”

“Not… not that I know of. But that’s because it’d also be impossible!”

“Nothing is impossible with you. If there is anything you have proven to me, it’s that.”

“But the impossible only seems possible to you because it’s been me using my powers to make it possible! I—I can’t use my powers to make something beyond my control possible!”

I pulled down my pants, leaving me in only my boxers. “Then it’s a good thing you’ve got me and my Dragon Slayer here. With our help, we’ll make what’s impossible for you possible. After all, it’s not fair if you’re the only one making impossible things possible around here.”

Vala stared straight into my eyes and blinked a few times. “Did… did you just call… it… your Dragon Slayer?”

“I am Drake Hunter, after all.”

“Drake… I’m serious. Besides, this sort of thing is something that would be best left for the end of the volume because of how serious it is. We still have things to do! You can’t just have the climax of a volume happen this early without a bunch of chapters leading up to it first!”

“Fuck the rules. We’re doing this so that we can go right back to normal afterward anyways.”

“Are you… really willing to risk dying for this plan that you don’t even know might work?”

“I know it’ll work.”

“I don’t get how you can be so sure…”

“As you and Window would say, ‘this isn’t that kind of story.’ Our story isn’t the kind of story that’s going to have some sad ending when a plan fails and I end up dead. Our story is the kind of impossible story that makes no sense, has an incredibly niche audience because we’re too random and nonsensical for most people to give a shit about, and it’s a story full of love, happiness, fun, and random bullshit that spits in the face of logic and realism. I genuinely believe—no, I know that nothing is impossible with you. That’s why I know that if I decide to have a kid with you who we’re going to name Love-chan as the embodiment of love who is more powerful than even your parents, then it’s going to work, because that’s the kind of story we’re living.”

“I… I think I’ve misled you about how much of the impossible is actually possible.”

“Then prove me wrong. Also, there’s one other thing I know that gives me confidence.”

Vala tilted her head. “What?”

“If this was really impossible, you would be outright refusing me no matter what because you would never genuinely risk my life for anything. The fact that you’re entertaining this idea at all is all the proof that I need to know that you’re not sure it’s impossible. You’re scared it’s impossible, but you don’t actually believe it is a hundred percent impossible. And even if there’s a ninety-nine percent chance of it being impossible, that still leaves us a single percentage to prove it’s possible.”

“Why… why would you even risk that for me? You know, we could just ignore this and probably be fine here for millions of years without any problems. There’s no need to risk yourself for something that isn’t even a pressing issue…”

“What kind of stupid question is that? You’re my girlfriend. Something is upsetting you. I can tell this is something that’s going to eat away at you for all of time until it’s dealt with. You’re never going to be able to feel truly, fully relaxed and guilt-free until we deal with this. So, I’m going to fix it for you, because I love you and I selfishly want to see you happy. Also, knocking you up sounds like it would really piss your parents off, and they sound like the exact kind of assholes who I love to piss off and put in their place.”

Vala looked like she was trying not to cry for most of our conversation, but she couldn’t hold back her tears at that point as she smiled and even laughed a little. “But—but aren’t there some ethical concerns about bringing a kid into the universe just to basically use them as a weapon against my parents?”

“One, our kid is going to be a shield, not a weapon. Two, if our kid really does inherit all of my stubbornness, then they’re probably going to want to be used as a weapon to put some old assholes in their place. Also, tree or rock?”

“Tree… or rock?”

“Yeah. Which would you rather be fucked against?”

Vala turned red once again. “You—you really are trying to raise our age rating!”

“That doesn’t answer the question.”

“Then—then… against… against the tree…”

“Against the tree it is. You ready to make the truly impossible truly possible and make a kid that is going to have the ultimate combination of ‘fuck you’ powers and stubbornness to make even your parents look weak in comparison, all with the power of love?”

“If this doesn’t work… you’re going to die.”

“And if it does work, you’re going to finally be free from your guilt and worry.”

“We—we don’t even have a plan other than make a kid…”

“We’ll figure everything else out afterward.”

Vala still looked worried, but she sighed and nodded. “A-alright. Umm… I’m—I’m sorry in advance if I absorb your entire soul…”

“My soul would never let itself get absorbed. After all, if it did, it wouldn’t get to enjoy its cute dragon girlfriend anymore.”

“You’re so cheesy…”

“And horny. Even though I know I won’t die, there’s something exciting about sex being so risky that it might result in death. Maybe I’m a masochist.”

“Reminding me of the risk just kills the mood instead!”

“Then allow me to introduce you to the Dragon Licker, the Dragon Slayer’s smaller but just-as-energetic sibling, to help you get back into the mood.” I made sure to stick my tongue out for a wiggle after saying that.

“I… I don’t know how to feel about hearing that making me excited again…”

“I hope you appreciate it, because I’m never saying anything that stupid again, and there is no way we’re ever letting anybody else know that I said that.”

Fortunately, we weren’t in an actual story. Otherwise, the fact that I said that would forever be written down on the page of a book somewhere.

That aside, it was time to make a kid—not just a kid, but the living representation of love, with Vala.

It was time to make the truly impossible truly possible.