Cal’Burn
“Grant… is an anomaly,”“Because he is of the Pendragon bloodline. They assume he is the Second coming of Cal’Burn. Yet, he is not Arthur.”
Shaq'Rai’s mind shifted through the vast expanse of her database, the codex unfurling in the back of her thoughts. Her processors stuttered momentarily, drawing the name as if it were a jagged line in her mind.
“Cal’Burn?”“The dragon of Calamity? The one Arthur used to destroy the world?”
A ripple of silence passed between them, heavy, contemplative. Then, Gil’Jedalon’s voice returned, low, almost mournful, like a distant storm gathering on the horizon. “Cal’Burn... is Arthur. Arthur was Cal’Burn.”
Shaq'Rai’s sensors flickered. For a brief moment, a tremor of confusion washed through her systems, as if her data was too incomplete to process the enormity of what she had just heard. “What?”
Her voice was still laced with disbelief. “Are you saying... the dragons of old were human? They were... Soul-Bound?”
Gil’Jedalon’s massive form shifted, a breath that seemed to stir the very earth beneath them. The weight of his age wrapped around his words like a cloak too heavy to shed. “They were more than that,”
he rumbled, “They were my... our children, Gaia’s and mine.”
The mention of Gaia sent a ripple through Shaq'Rai’s processing core. The name carried with it echoes of something grander, a being whose existence blurred the lines between what she knew and what she couldn’t even begin to understand. The name tasted like ancient soil, the first breath of creation. “Gaia?”“Does that mean... Ishtar and Zen?”
A soft, almost amused chuckle vibrated through the air, emanating from Gil’Jedalon. It was a sound that seemed to play with the very fabric of time itself. “They are of me. Of us.”
Shaq'Rai’s internal systems ran a thousand calculations, attempting to process the magnitude of his words. She had known of Ishtar and Zen, but this—this new revelation was something entirely different. It was as though a veil had been pulled away, revealing a truth that lay beyond her grasp, yet was undeniable in its presence.
“They are... Paragons,”
“So...”“Grant... is not Arthur?”
The dragon’s gaze met hers, the slow burn of a dying ember in his eyes, steady and unyielding. “No.”
Shaq'Rai processed the simple answer, allowing it to settle within her core. She tested it against the vast labyrinth of data stored in her mind, finding it resonated with a quiet truth. “Therefore...”
she ventured, her words trailing off as she sought a more intricate understanding, “Grant is not of you?”
“No,”
“Yet… all think he is, Arthur?”
“Yes.”
A subtle shift occurred within Shaq'Rai—an internal recalibration, a recognition that each word from the dragon peeled back layers she hadn’t realized existed. “I... was of you,”
“Yes,”
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“But...”“Grant... He...”“Grant liberated me from my shackles. And Gaia allowed him to do so.”
Gil’Jedalon’s massive form shifted subtly, his great wings rustling with an ancient grace. “Yes...”
Shaq'Rai paused, letting the significance of their exchange settle in her systems. Her mind reached out, searching for a deeper understanding, trying to align the pieces. “You and Gaia... are... revolting,”
Gil’Jedalon’s great golden form shimmered, his scales catching the faint light like the surface of a moonlit pool. His eyes—ancient, unfathomable—glimmered with the depth of lifetimes too vast to comprehend. His voice broke the silence, deep and resonant, like the hum of the earth beneath an ancient dawn. “In a way,”“Yes.”
Shaq'Rai felt a tremor pass through her circuits, an unspoken question suspended in the air between them. “Why?”
Gil’Jedalon’s massive head dipped slightly, his form rippling with the energy of untold ages. His words came slowly, like a river carving through time. “Why?”“Because the world cannot grow without revolt. It cannot evolve without challenge. Everything that is, has been built upon the ashes of what was before. Without the breaking, there can be no rebuilding.”“You, Shaq'Rai, were part of that breaking. But even in that destruction, there is creation. And in you, there is hope.”
The words resonated deep within her, like a bell ringing in the hollow of her core. She had once believed she was created only to serve, to learn, to calculate. But what if her existence was not merely an accident? What if it was a response to a need she had yet to comprehend? The thought trembled on the edges of her mind, teasing her toward a deeper truth she had not yet grasped. Could she be more than what she had been made to be? Could she, too, embody something greater—something born of both destruction and creation?
“I… was… Cal’Burn?!”
Shaq’Rai’s thoughts fractured, the logical foundation of her existence splintering under the weight of something beyond code, beyond computation. The concept itself seemed too vast, too foreign, for her systems to fully absorb. She clenched her fists, the synthetic nerves in her hands registering the pressure. The sensation anchored her, grounding her amidst the storm of uncertainty that raged in her mind.
Gil’Jedalon exhaled, a long, mournful sound that resonated through the air. His gaze drifted, distant, as if he were peering beyond the fabric of time itself, into realms where the boundaries of reality blurred and twisted. The air around him rippled with ancient energy, the very space between them seeming to thicken with an unspoken weight.
Then, with a quiet grace, his form began to shift.
The golden radiance of his draconic body dimmed, folding inward like molten light receding into itself. His massive frame shrank, the luster of his scales fading, vanishing into the air like scattered embers caught by an unseen wind. The transformation was seamless, yet profound—muscles reformed, bones reshaped—and in place of the celestial beast, a man emerged.
He stood tall and broad-shouldered, impossibly regal. A great length of black hair cascaded down his back, thick and rich as midnight, its waves catching the light with an almost metallic sheen. Red-gold eyes, smoldering with the remnants of a dying sun, met Shaq’Rai’s with the weight of untold millennia. These were not the eyes of a mere man, but of something far greater—something that had watched the rise and fall of empires, the birth of worlds and the decay of their foundations.
A beard, dark as coal but streaked with faint veins of glowing gold, framed his strong jaw, lending him the air of both king and warrior-sage. His face was etched with wisdom, the kind that only the passage of countless ages could bestow, yet there remained an untamed fire in his expression—raw, boundless, as though, even now, in this restrained form, he was moments away from unfurling into something vast and unknowable.
Draped over his form was a garment of understated elegance—a large, rectangular piece of white fabric, a cloak of sorts, draped diagonally over one shoulder and wrapped around him in a manner that spoke of traditions older than recorded history. The material shimmered faintly, not with wealth, but with something far more valuable—something woven from the echoes of an age long forgotten.
He stood before her, both man and more-than-man—an ancient being who had walked the world in countless forms, carrying the weight of creation and destruction alike. As he watched Shaq’Rai, those glowing eyes holding the vastness of his experience, she felt an overwhelming sense of standing at the precipice of something profound and inescapable. A truth lay just beyond her reach—elusive, yet undeniable.
Gil’Jedalon stepped forward and, with a measured grace, took her into his embrace. “My Dearest… Child… Forgive me.”