Music for today:
A playlist for sensitive hearts..✨
https://youtu.be/iuTkkMuKEec
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Chapter 480: A New World Order
Late Morning - Early Summer : Year 39 : The Cabinet | 'Bahamut'
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The rest of the morning passed with a growing warmth after that. From talks about how Krystallo was overcoming her injuries to all the crazy new things she had learned over the years, silence was never given the chance to settle over us.
The sun rose, the fireplace lit, and thanks to Maria—still serving as Krystallo's personal maid—our conversation carried on over food and drinks whose flavors I had not known for ages. Each bite was seasoned with laughter, stories, memories, and with it, a wave of nostalgia that re-grounded me in my new life.
It was.. an incredible moment... For the first time in eons, I managed to slow down and instead of being unable to let my eyes stray from the horizon.. I found myself actually able to live in the moment again.
The deep, soul crushing anxiety I had grown used to over the last eternity had lifted, and now, while the stresses and troubles of my new reality still pressed into me, I felt lighter than ever.
For once, I felt like I could actually breathe.
Though, unfortunately, that blissful, unburdened feeling couldn't last forever.
After some time of basking in the atmosphere, the fuzzy, warm conversations were forced to come to an end. Some time in the following afternoon, Maria entered with some papers that had been addressed to Hera regarding an upcoming 'meeting', and from there, the conversations started shifting.
At last, it was time to properly get caught up to speed with the current state of Bahamut.
And well, that started with the Cabinet.
Having been fully dissolved only a few years after the attacks, the Cabinet stopped acting as a lone government power, and rather as a meeting place for the new 'Monarchs'. To put it simply, they were akin to dukes, each having ownership of their own land, towns, and cities, and granted governing power over them.
Though, that only seemed to hasten the collapse.
With abundant mismanagement and corruption, the cities drained even faster.. hope fell.. and with the steady encroachment of the frost, Bahamut was eventually dissolved as a nation all together...
It simply didn't have the population...
"As much as I'd like to still consider Bahamut a nation.. while some settlements do remain, namely Ampelos, Akri, and Emporio, Ampelos is barely more than a group of researchers, and Akri is just a small installation of military personnel needed to secure Khor's prison, the big one up north, and police Emporio."
The draconic continent, once bustling with a population pushing over a hundred thousand, had been reduced to one single city whose only remaining anchor was world trade.
"Its.. hard to believe.. but it really is like the rest was just abandoned.. the resources, history, and culture..." It was everything Hera had once given her life to protect.. now reduced to rubble and memory beneath walls of frost.
-But such is the way generations end...- The slate was wiped clean.. the sins, mistakes, and lessons of the past were to be forgotten.. and a fresh new beginning would follow.
It was the complete reset of everything that formed a society into what it had become...
Though, while saddening.. this one was an inevitable reality...
With the growth of the draconic population forcibly slashed by Bahamut, not just the society, but the species as a whole would never grow enough to be more than one disaster away from complete collapse.. and now that the time had finally come, if the single-clutch issue couldn't be resolved, dragons as a whole would be threatened with extinction.
And Hera knew it.
With the vast majority of the surviving draconic population having lost their only children, or their final hope of having them, even if she managed to regather the remaining population, it was only going to nosedive.
To any sane being, it would be seen as a complete, irrecoverable loss.
Though, Hera clearly had no intention of leaving things as they were. "Now that things have generally stabilized, Krystallo and I are trying to take the next steps."
My head tilted as I curled my tail around hers.
"While the Cabinet did officially dissolve, what was previously the Foreign Intelligence Branch still technically remains in operation, and is under my watch. Thanks to Leander, we are still making use of the thunderbirds to spy on other nations—namely the Holy Kingdom—in hopes of giving Siratha and some other warring states a better chance to prepare for, or resist their advances."
-I see...- It was why Emporio, where the thunderbirds were stationed, was still economically sound enough for a considerable population of dragons to stick around.
"As for other things, we're working with the mages in Ampelos to try and learn what we can from the Acardi wreckage—salvage materials, learn new sciences, and hopefully eventually, find a way to push back the frost."
-Oh?- My gaze thinned faintly. "You're already wanting to reclaim land?"
She shrugged with another sigh. "We are extremely far away from being able to re-establish a population here. Without the ability for people to have more young, it doesn't matter how much gold, land, or resources we lay out, they won't settle..."
Without children or family, the population had simply lost a reason to greed for gold. If their bloodline was to end with them.. what reason did they have to earn more than they could ever possibly need...
Though, "With an abundance of land and resources, I may be able to supplement Bahamut with some of Siratha's population."
Skepticism contaminated my gaze in a blink. "What would be the point of that?"
"Economic stimulation." She replied bluntly, "I've already done it with Emporio."
I paused. -Huh..?- "That's news to me."
She nodded. "It's actually the merfolk." Looking over toward one of the bookshelves lining the walls, she pulled out a book and handed it to me. "Since the climate shift basically ruined the Forgotten Islands they called home, Amphitrite was looking to relocate them, considering that pirate alcove you helped create before settling on the channel between Emporio and the mainland."
Flipping through the book, I quickly found notes of efforts to relocate huge chunks of reef, terraform massive swaths of ocean, and craft absolutely monumental runes to change and maintain the climate of the entire channel.
"At first it was a bit rough. The coral struggled to survive, and the merfolk were forced to adapt just about as much as us, but after some time, they seem to have adjusted, and have actually been doing quite well."
However... "Are you not afraid that mixing in that many humanoids would cut into the identity and pride of the dragons that'd come to settle somewhere they can live freely?" Blending in humanoid populations and forcing people to adapt around their needs was hardly any different from what Bahamut had done...
It didn't seem natural... Plus, with a clean slate, we had the opportunity to form whatever kind of society we wanted...
However, instead of something more traditional or natural than what Bahamut had done, over recent years, what Hera wanted had shifted. "If we fix the single clutch problem, the draconic population will explode, and no matter how much I hate to admit it.. a purely draconic society will never be able to interact with the rest of the world, even with heinous restrictions like what Bahamut had forced onto us."
And so, she had a new plan.
"I want this continent to be the homeland of dragons.. a place we can live without the troubles that accompany our size, appearance, and culture, but also wish to have enough of a humanoid population that dragons are more inclined to coexist, explore, and settle around the rest of the world."
Maintaining a majority of the draconic population here, we'd still be in a seat of power capable of reigning in the unruly few, but with a substantial humanoid population, we could help suffocate the pride that would lead to dragons wiping out or enslaving the rest of the world.
"Hopefully, if it goes well enough, it can help form something new.. not where dragons feel bitter about their restrictions and isolation from the rest of the world, but one where they can learn to find and create their own balance." If every nation had draconic power, the imbalances wouldn't be any different from how they were now.
-And if something did come up, we'd still have the power to reign them in.- The draconic continent would simply become the equalizer of the world. A neutral, regulating power. -It actually doesn't sound as bad as I thought...-
Even though it was certainly easier said than done.. and similarly tinted by excessive optimism.
Even in perfect conditions, her goal was barely within reason, and yet at that moment, the continent was buried under snow, what little draconic population remained was rapidly collapsing, and the world order was being actively rewritten by a power who'd do everything it could to wipe us out.
Similarly, it was a goal so far outside of my expertise I didn't even know where to begin...
No matter how much I wanted to.. I could only take so much of the burden...
But... "Okay..." I still had no plan in changing what she wanted. -I just need to do what I can to make it more feasible...- Meaning I needed to not just focus on the Holy Kingdom, but assist in pushing back the frost, and largest of all, resolving the draconic race's single-clutch problem.
Though, to my surprise, I wouldn't be as alone in that final endeavor as anticipated...
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