Forgotten Mantling Ritual

Contrary to what the Queen might be thinking, Dakka is actually feeling ecstatic. 'The Queen! She's alive!? Wonderful!"

Suddenly feeling a great weight off his chest, he grins in delight.

Never mind that a dragon just bares his fangs when he smiles… and never mind that his "grin" looks like a threat to the girl up there; he's just happy to see that he didn't really kill her.

Then, Dakka starts wondering how the Queen got on top of his head. He knows that she tricked him somehow, but the fact that he's unable to understand her trick just makes him respect her even more…

…And to a dragon, 'respect' and 'love' are often confused with each other.

Now that he's assumed his full power as an "Ancient" dragon, he's able to completely suppress her with that dominating Aura unique to 6-horned Dragons.

And so, the second Dakka looked at her, the Queen is completely unable to even move at all; she can only look into his eyes and completely surrender all thoughts of rebellion.

Seeing that compliant look on the Queen's face makes Dakka feel… happy, yet uneasy at the same time.

He likes to see her act obedient to him, yet he doesn't like the idea of a supernatural power forcing that on her.

(A/N: Dakka is very in touch with his draconic instincts, which means that he feels most comfortable in a hierarchy.

(In other words, he's most happy in a relationship where he's either beholden to a master he loves and respects, or HE, HIMSELF is the master that others bow to. To a dragon, there are no equals in society – only rivals that haven't fought each other yet.

(So, to be VERY CLEAR, he's not necessarily some psycho who gets turned on seeing a girl be obedient to him; he'd be just as happy to be HER servant, had she proved the stronger fighter. You could argue that this makes him a psycho anyway, which is true… He's just a different kind of psycho…)

And so, Dakka turns back into his humanoid form, and he catches the Queen before she falls to her death.

She normally would've just used a flight spell, but she's still immobilized by Dakka's Aura, so she could only fall limply from the sky.

With the Ant Queen in his arms, Dakka slowly descends to the ground, and as he nears the surface, the earth senses his Desire, and the sea of lava immediately cools into jaded, black volcanic rock.

When the dragon sets foot on the ground, all is still and quiet in the land of eternal war.

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Minutes pass by where Dakka just stands on the black plains, which had frozen in deformed, rippling waves from the time the floor had been lava.

Dakka just stands there with the Queen in his arms, and his eyes are closed; he's concentrating very hard on trying to reign in his Dominating Aura.

Meanwhile, the Queen is limp in his arms, and she's looking up at him with complete trust and obedience in her eyes.

This subservient look in her eyes is what's really annoying Dakka; he KNOWS that these aren't her real feelings. She's only acting like his servant because the Aura he got when he grew his 6th Horn is forcing her to be this way.

After several long, agonizing minutes, Dakka knows he succeeded in controlling his Aura when the Queen suddenly starts wriggling rebelliously in his arms, screaming in fury and scratching at his face.

Dakka, of course, completely ignores her protests; he's just happy that he was actually able to control himself!

Still, seeing her so unhappy, and no doubt believing that their battle is still going on, Dakka speaks into her mind, "Calm down. I've won. Belong to me now."

"NEVER!!" the Queen screeches, "Just get it over with already!"

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-Brief vision from a distant time-

Two figures writhe on the ground – both bleeding, bruised, and broken all over their bodies. Both rivals have a crown of 7 horns atop their heads, and they're clad in dragon scales – one in black scales, and the other in white.

One of the only noticeable differences between the two is that the white dragon is a man with brilliantly glowing silver eyes – more mellow and more sharp than the moon. The black one is a she-dragon with eyes more hot, golden, and consuming than the sun.

"Admit you've lost, Drakawyn!" the black dragon roars at the white one as she rolls him over and yanks one of his arms behind his back – threatening to break it at the shoulder.

The white dragon doesn't answer; instead, he tries slapping her head with his tail. She catches his tail out of the air with her own tail by twisting the tip of hers around his like a rope, then holding it in place.

"Come on, sweetie!" the black dragon hisses through her fanged teeth, "I'll take goooood care of you…" She strokes one of her clawed fingernails over his ridged, scaled spine.

This sends shivers down his entire body – not the pleasurable, but of the "creeped out" variety.

"DRAKAVAR!" the white dragon roars, "You're going too far! First you kidnap me from Mora's house. That was fine at first, since I thought you just needed help with something. But now!? I'm not giving my body to you!"

He clenches his legs together, as if he's protecting something.

"Come oooon!" Drakavar says seductively as she leans on closer and sniffs Drakawyn's neck, "Me, the empress of dragons, and you, the king of elementals… We'd be the strongest couple in the universe…"

"You're already the strongest on your own, Drakavar," the white dragon hisses. "I like to work alone. I don't need some thoughtless moron – some reckless animal like you – telling me what to do all day."

Drakavar ignores the fact that she was just called a moron and an animal; if it were anyone else insulting her, she'd have torn their head from their body…

…But to her, being insulted by someone almost as strong as she is isn't annoying – it's cute.

"But honeeeeey….," she hisses happily as she starts stroking his tail with hers, "I won't make you do anything you'll be unhappy with. I'll feed you every day, and I'll give you the nicest place to live. I'll beat up anyone who makes you unhappy…"

Feeling that this annoying dragoness is starting to get more and more bold with his body, Drakawyn scowls and tenses his body for a fight.

Before the black dragoness can react, she's flipped over, grabbed by the tail, hoisted into the air, and smacked so hard that the boulders crack, and the air explodes.

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-back to the present-

"Admit you've lost, my Queen!" Dakka says sternly to the Queen, who is still struggling in his arms.

"RAAAHHHH!" the Queen gets even more frantic with her screaming and struggling.

Instead of punishing the Queen for her insolence against a more powerful being, Dakka just tightens his grip, yet doesn't hurt her. "Just trust me. I'll take good care of you."

Feeling that this hateful dragon is trying to get too free with her body, the Queen swings her heel down and clips the dragon right in his dragon balls.

"Oof…!" Dakka barely lets out a grunt, yet his grip on her is loosened.

The Queen wriggles free… yet contrary to what Dakka was expecting, the Queen instead turns around and tries to clamp her fingers around his throat and suffocate him.

"Still got some fight left in you, huh?"

Dakka reaches forward and wraps his arms around the Queen's thin waist… and he squeezes just tight enough for her to realize that she can't escape.

Feeling trapped, the Queen starts crying and banging her face against his.

Of course… his body is tougher than hers, and she's only injuring herself by doing this.

"CALM. DOWN," Dakka orders with just enough of his Dominating Aura to get the message across.

Reluctantly, the Queen's body goes limp, and she stares at him with a strange mix of fear and determination.

"I'm not trying to hurt you," Dakka says calmly, "I want you to be my wife. Will you accept?"

"…What?"

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The Queen hears his proposal, and she immediately thinks that he's joking with her. After all the tragedy she's caused – after all the pain she's put he and his friends through… and the dragon says that he wants her to bear his children? Is this guy crazy?!

Instinctually, the Queen struggles a little more, but Dakka quickly adjusts his grip on her; now, he's holding her in a princess carry – all so that she can't kick his balls again.

"If you follow me," Dakka proposes, "you won't just be the Ant Queen. You'll be MY Queen – ME, the ruler of any world I wish to claim. You'll have anything you wish to eat, you'll have the finest clothes, you'll have servants to take care of your every need, and you'll have no more need to make war upon others. If you want something, I'll get if for you."

The Queen goes silent at this, so the dragon keeps talking as he squeezes her a little tighter.

"I said that by marrying me, that you'll belong to me. This is because I'm the stronger one here; you sitting defeated in my arms is proof of this. Now, a dragon always takes care of what belongs to him. In a way, you could say that it's the duty of the leader to provide for his people and take care of his things."

The Queen looks into Dakka's eyes and finally asks him an intelligible question (telepathically), "What if I get stronger than you one day?"

"Then I'll belong to YOU," Dakka says confidently. "Isn't natural for the strong to protect the weak, and the weak to serve the strong?"

Dakka pulls the Queen in closer and kisses her forehead. "Whether I'm the master or the servant, I'll always love you."

"Bah!" the Queen snorts, "I don't like the notion of being someone's servant! Besides, who's to say that you're really stronger than me?!"

She pokes him in the chest, "You only beat me because that god suddenly made you really strong. Didn't you shrink yourself initially because you wanted to fight fairly?"

This makes Dakka pause, and his entire body freezes up.

"Remember," she reminds him, "that when I made that last attack on your head, the only reason you survived that is because you resumed your biggest form. If you'd been in the form you'd fought me with earlier, then I'd have been the winner – not you! That makes ME the master!"

Seeing the Queen so cleverly bargaining with him, Dakka laughs out loud, "Ha! Fine! It's a draw then! I guess we'll be equals again!"

The Queen squeezes his arm and looks him in the eye. "And what does being equals entail?" she asks sternly. "I don't want to be ordered around like someone's pet, or be treated like someone's farm animal!"

"We won't be able to make each other do something the other doesn't want," Dakka offers. "We'll provide for each other and protect each other unconditionally."

"I want you to make sure I'm well fed," the Queen says with a tone that won't take "no" for an answer.

"Fine," Dakka relents, "but in return, you're not allowed to make war on people anymore without my permission. You can have the entire world to yourself, but you don't have to wipe everyone out to do so."

Hearing his offer, the Queen is hesitant at first, and then nods her head silently.

"Aha!" Dakka roars joyfully, "To seal the deal, we'll exchange Names and form a Contract! Since you're going to be my wife, We're obviously going to have to exchange Dra, Reh, and Syl Names!"

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Far above the battlefield, Das is watching the dragon and Ant Queen.

This whole time, Das was sure that Dakka would defeat the Ant Queen once and for all, but all of his expectations are blown away when the dragon takes hold of her in his arms and starts kissing her forehead.

What the F###!?

"Pardon my language," Das mumbles to himself.

"Anyway," Das says as he looks closer at the couple with a scrying spell. "Why do I get such strange feelings when I see them? It's not just surprise; I can sense something very ancient and powerful around them."

Das spends about a minute briefly casting every scrying spell he knows on them, and along the way, he yelps in surprise at the green Yiir energy swirling around the couple and writhing in on itself in strange, runic patterns.

"A Mantling Ritual!" Das exclaims. "What kind of event were they Mantling!? This feels stronger than any ritual I've ever seen – well, any ritual that's not including Mora or Drakavar."

Wait… could Dakka be Mantling one of the great Gods?

The reason this situation is so baffling to Das is because the great Mantling Rituals featuring the great Gods is a mandetory study course that any young god must learn after ascending.

To the gods, knowing every documented event in these supreme beings lives is as common as knowing that planets are round.

So, seeing a great Mantling Ritual that he doesn't know about is certainly enough to not only startle Das, but genuinely terrify him.

Das's hands twitch in his pockets and he struggles with the urge to pull out his notebook and jot down everything that just happened between Dakka and the Queen.

However… it might not be a good thing for another Great Mantling Ritual to be known; maybe it's for the best that Das be the only god to know about what just happened here.

While Das is freaking out, Dakka holds the Queen in his arms, and he's ascending slowly up towards the Valor Hall while only occasionally beating his wings.

"Anyway, my wife, just tell me… How did you do it?"

"Do what?" The Queen is confused.

"How did you evade all my strikes and trick me into thinking you died?"

"Hmm… I'm not telling."