"UnPandora- This chapter will show Hespera's more serious side. I wanted to show that she does have things she cares about. That not everything in this story will be all about mayhem and laughs. She will take certain things seriously that some won't really understand. I don't think this is one of those times which won't be understood. I think/hope all my readers will understand why she took a more serious approach in this. Anyway, please enjoy the chapter."
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Hespera turned to him again, a half-lidded gaze locking onto Vali's as her voice dropped to a whisper.
"You don't understand, little dragon prince. I'm not your opponent."
She leaned forward, the gauntlets glowing brighter.
"I'm your inevitable conclusion."
Then she was gone.
Not a flash. Not a burst.
Just absence.
Hespera vanished, and in the same breath, reappeared in front of Vali—too fast for thought, too quiet for the air to register.
Her fingertips brushed his forehead.
Just one touch.
And his world collapsed.
Vali crumpled mid-step, his consciousness severed before his body hit the earth. He dropped like a puppet with its strings clipped, a streak of silver hair folding into the charred dust.
Noctis moved in tandem.
Where her Mistress advanced, she too stepped—without sound, without motion that could be tracked. She appeared behind Albion's flickering spectral form, and her pale hand, so delicate and ghostlike, closed around the Vanishing Dragon's throat.
Even as a soul-echo, Albion gasped, wings flaring instinctively. But they didn't respond.
Her grip wasn't physical.
It was dominance.
An ancestral tether—one that shouldn't exist.
One that terrified him.
He hadn't seen her. Not truly.
But now… he remembered.
The scent of dying starlight. The way Nihility wrapped around her like a prayer no god would answer.
"Noctis," Hespera murmured. "Let him breathe. Just a little."
The spirit nodded once, loosening her grip—but only slightly.
Hespera turned, brushing her hair back behind her ear as she looked upon Albion.
The smile returned.
Unhurried. Soft. Fatal.
A slow, breathy chuckle slipped from Hespera's lips—sweet as honey, cruel as prophecy.
Albion's spectral form shivered.
Trembled.
"…Why?" he breathed out, barely audible. The question was raw. Vulnerable. Choked with draconic guilt and centuries of silence.
"Why?" she echoed, tilting her head ever so slightly, her silver hair cascading like a waterfall of moonlight laced in flame. Her gauntlets—those beautiful, jagged incarnations of ruin—still glowed faintly at the fingertips, embers of a cosmic truth yet unspoken.
Across from her, Noctis held Albion aloft by the neck—delicate fingers of divine silk and soulsteel pressed gently against his spectral throat, with just enough pressure to remind the White Dragon Emperor of how little power he now held.
"Nidhoggr…" Hespera purred, almost lovingly. "The great serpent. Devourer of roots. One of Fate's favorite pets back when things were... simpler."
She stepped toward them through the silence, boots barely making a sound against the fractured surface of the Dimensional Gap's manifested floor. Time didn't move here—she did.
"You miss her?" she asked softly, voice like velvet soaked in venom. "Or do you just regret not listening when she told you never to bond with mortals?"
Albion writhed weakly, fury trembling beneath the helplessness. "She warned me… about a entity called Nihility. From the essence... of the Primordial Chaos, an entity will be born to bring END after wreaking absolute chaos to all worlds with Influence. That...that was you. Wasn't it?"
"And yet you stayed," Hespera whispered, not denying or agreeing to the last question. "You lingered. You believed, as all dragons do, that your soul was above fate."
She leaned closer, her face now inches from Albion's.
"You want to know why?" she repeated, the earlier amusement gone now—drained like color from a dream.
Then, all at once, her expression went still.
Not cold.
Not cruel.
Empty.
"I asked the same thing," she said quietly, her voice now distant, almost… human. "When I woke up. In pieces. Broken. Changed. I asked Father—why?"
Her eyes darkened, magenta fire flickering behind her lashes.
"He didn't answer. Not the biblical one at least. I suppose that is one of the better parts of having multiple parents, if one can't answer your questions, you can just ask another."
Her voice lowered further.
"At the time, my memories were fragmented… or is the proper word 'stolen?' I mean, technically, the river of reincarnation did steal my memories, so I guess was stolen? Anyway, I didn't know at the time who it was who visited me in the Dimensional Gap in the form of a half-white half-black bunny. But they gave me comfort when I was confused."
She smiled again—but it was bitter now.
"They meant well. I think. You can't really know if Chaos really means to do anything. They kind of do things on a whim."
Albion's wings twitched in the air—hollow, spectral.
"And what did you do after?" he asked, barely a whisper.
Hespera stood tall again, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear.
"I realized it didn't matter what the 'dead' thought. Then I slept a lot," she said.
"As a cherub, you really didn't have much choice but to sleep. That was how you saved your divine energy of course."
She turned to walk past him, her hand trailing along the edge of Noctis's arm like one would pet a loyal beast.
"Did you know, that Chaos is not evil," she said over her shoulder. "It's not malicious. Not really. Raw and formless, yes, but it's just a natural cause. And I am its Blessed."
"I do not destroy for cruelty. Although, I admit, I do find enjoyment out of it when it does. However, I mostly destroy to balance the arrogance of things like you. Like him."
She pointed gently at Vali's unconscious body, lying in the still-glowing crater behind her.
"And like the red dragon, once upon a time."
She paused.
Then glanced back.
"Nidhoggr does miss you, by the way. I might just let you say goodbye."
Noctis's grip slackened.
Albion dropped to one knee, gasping.
Hespera didn't wait for a reply.
She simply raised her hand—
—and everything fell still again.
As Hespera's hand lifted, everything stilled.
Noctis closed her eyes, stepping back into the folds of unreality like a curtain drawn by unseen hands. Albion's form hovered gently now—no longer restrained, but surrounded by faint tendrils of magenta flame that shimmered like half-remembered lullabies.
And then—
The Dimensional Gap unfolded.
Not in destruction.
But in memory.
Albion felt it before he saw it—a warmth not from fire, but from something older. Deeper. A heartbeat that pulsed in time with the Yggdrasil roots before they were sundered. A song, carried on the windless breath of eternity.
He blinked.
And he was small.
Not weak, not lesser—just… young.
His body was scaled in pale, moonlit white, no taller than a hillside, but curled up like a kitten beneath a massive root that pulsed with luminous lifeblood. The Aether here smelled sweet, verdant. Pure.
And next to him—
Her.
Nidhoggr.
A beast of impossible beauty and terror. Scales blacker than eclipsed starlight. Eyes like whirlpools of obsidian laced with molten gold. Her wings were vast and torn, not from battle, but from growth, as if the universe hadn't been able to keep up with her.
And yet—her expression was gentle.
"You're dreaming again, little moon," she whispered, her voice resonating in every bone of Albion's young body. "Always dreaming."
He nuzzled closer against her side.
"Do you think I'll be stronger than Ddraig one day?"
A pause. And then—
"No."
Albion tensed.
"But you'll be wiser," she said, licking the top of his head like a cat might its kitten. "And when the time comes, wisdom will burn brighter than flame."
He smiled. "You always say that."
"Because you always need to hear it."
And then—
the vision split.
A different memory pulled itself forward, overlapping like ink bleeding through old parchment.
A girl.
Twelve beautiful moonlight wings.
Bright, midnight-tipped, shining like stained glass in the sun.
Young.
Bored.
Beautiful.
And immensely powerful.
Hespera.
She wandered through the outermost edge of Heaven, where no choir sang and no seraph dared linger. A realm of hushed light and yawning silence, far from the golden spires and holy thrones where the archangels sang in endless chorus.
Hespera, barely more than a child in angelic years, was only meant to patrol the border of the firmament.
But curiosity?
Curiosity always outpaced her orders.
She was a cherub then—twelve wings of gilded brilliance, her form still laced with innocence, divinity not yet burdened by responsibility.
And the edge of Heaven was boring.
No demons. No sinners. Just infinity stretching like a quiet sigh.
Until she saw it.
A fissure.
A hairline crack along the divine veil.
She hadn't seen it before. It wasn't meant to be there.
But it shimmered—not like light, but like possibility. Like a place Heaven had forgotten to seal.
And Hespera, ever the curious daughter of celestial flame, stepped through.
The shift was instant.
Color drained from the world, replaced by layered hues of ash-gray and mythic green. The air grew dense with magic ancient enough to breathe on its own. Time became a suggestion. Direction a dream.
She had fallen not down—but aside.
Into a realm not Heaven, not Hell.
Something other.
She stood now at the base of a great tree—so vast it split stars and drank constellations. Its roots stretched across the sky and burrowed into the bones of dimensions.
Yggdrasil. The World Tree.
But that wasn't what drew her breath.
No. It was the presence coiled beneath it.
A vast, slumbering shadow wrapped in scales darker than divine judgment, pulsing with ancient breath.
And when it stirred, two eyes opened—eyes that saw beyond the song of the Seraphim. Eyes that had watched the first gods panic.
Nidhoggr.
Devourer of rot.
Dragon of the roots.
And she saw Hespera.
Who was young and radiant. But intruding.
Yet…The great dragon did not rise. Did not roar.
She merely tilted her head—as if confused why something so bright would be wandering so close to the bones of forgotten gods.
"You are not meant to be here," Nidhoggr rumbled.
Her voice wasn't cruel. Just… surprised.
And Hespera—bold as only a child of Heaven could be—hovered closer.
"Neither are you," she said, blinking her wide eyes. "You're not in the Book."
Nidhoggr blinked.
Then laughed—a low, deep, cavernous thing that made the roots tremble and the sky flinch.
"I am not of your Book, little light."
"I noticed." Hespera landed, wings folding behind her. She looked around, unimpressed with the twisting, vine-wrapped void. "Is this a punishment place?"
"It is a necessary one."
"Do you like it here?"
"No."
Hespera frowned. "That's sad."
Nidhoggr hummed again, the air thick with unseen magic. "And you are…?"
"Hespera Eveningstar," she answered, brushing silver hair from her eyes. "Daughter of the Heavenly Father. Twin sister of the Lightbringer."
"And yet, you wandered past Heaven's walls."
"I was bored."
The dragon blinked.
And then, slowly—smiled.
"You may stay."
And so she did.
She stayed for minutes, or hours, or centuries—it was impossible to say.
Sometimes, she would braid her hair beside the dragon's claw.
Other times, she would sit on her back and trace the constellations through the tree's canopy.
And once, when she asked:
"Why are you here all alone?"
The dragon hesitated.
Then spoke.
"To keep the tree from weeping."
And when Hespera tilted her head in confusion, Nidhoggr continued:
"I eat what would poison the world. I devour what even gods won't touch. That is my role."
"That sounds sad."
"It's necessary."
Hespera frowned, only half understanding, then nodded solemnly.
"But who devours you?"
Nidhoggr didn't answer. She simply looked out into the Aether.
And smiled.
Back in the present—
Albion gasped as the memory receded like a tide, tears he didn't know he could still form running spectral down his cheeks.
Hespera stood silently, her eyes unreadable—like a storm that had already passed but left the sky wary of light.
Albion looked at her.
Not with rage.
Not with hatred.
But with something rawer. Something older.
Understanding.
"You remember," she said softly.
"I remember," he whispered.
They stood like that—between ruined space and coiled fate—wrapped in the echo of a memory neither of them had spoken aloud in eons. The daughter of Chaos. The son of Balance. The broken branches of a tree neither had chosen to grow from.
A pause.
Then, tentatively, Albion asked:
"…How… how is she?"
His voice cracked under the weight of the question. Not because he feared the answer—
But because a part of him already knew.
Hespera didn't answer right away.
Instead, she tilted her head slightly, as if listening—not to him, but to something far away. Something deeper than sound. Her gaze drifted, not upward, not downward, but inward.
"…She doesn't have much time left," she said finally. Her voice was calm. Too calm. "I'd say… a little more than a millennium. Give or take a few dozen natural disasters."
Albion's wings drooped.
"The humans," Hespera continued, "are unraveling her slowly. Not with blades or spears. But with—" she made a small gesture with her hand, elegant and annoyed, "—industry. Technology. Disconnection. Greed."
She exhaled through her nose.
"They poison her waters. They fracture her veins. They suffocate her skies with fire and call it progress. Not out of malice. Just... indifference."
"She tends to the tree still," Hespera added, more gently now. "The roots are tired. The fruit rarely blooms. And the serpents at her feet no longer speak."
Albion closed his eyes.
"She was always strong," he said softly. "Stronger than Ddraig. Stronger than me. She held the rot in her jaws without flinching."
"And she still does," Hespera murmured. "But strength, even in gods, isn't infinite."
Another silence passed between them, this one heavier.
"She told me once," Albion whispered, "that she hoped she would die with the tree. That it would be a clean end—not a slow one."
"…It won't be clean," Hespera said.
And then, as if to sever the weight of what she'd said, she turned away, her hair rippling behind her like a comet's tail of silver starlight. Her gauntlets pulsed with soft Nihility light—no longer hostile. Just radiant.
"She'll likely watch the world burn from beneath the bark," she said. "And when the last root crumbles into ash... she'll finally be free."
Albion looked up at her, voice trembling.
"Will you stop it?"
Hespera paused.
Then looked over her shoulder with a gaze that seemed to pierce through time.
"I am the end, Albion," she said.
And for just a moment, her expression cracked.
Not with malice.
Not with joy.
But with something terrifyingly human.
"…But it's not my place to stop it."
Albion was silent.
The weight of her words hung in the air like funeral smoke—soft, clinging, inescapable.
His wings hung low, his gaze cast toward the shimmering echoes of the past still clinging faintly to the edges of the Dimensional Gap. That vision—of roots, of breathless lullabies in the dark, of a mother who devoured rot so the worlds above might flourish—still weighed on his chest like stone.
He swallowed the grief.
The white of his soul—once brilliant—felt dull now. Dimmed by guilt, weathered by time.
"…Then what do I do?" he asked.
It wasn't a challenge.
Not defiance.
Just a plea.
A whisper into a truth too vast for him to grasp. Because if anyone knew the answer—it would be her.
Hespera.
Daughter of Chaos. Child of the Gap. The end of all things spoken softly.
She turned back toward him slowly, the light of the Nihility fading in the gauntlets at her wrists. Her expression was unreadable again—but her gaze was not cruel. Not cold.
Just inevitable.
"You want to ease her pain?" she asked.
Albion nodded once.
Tightly.
Hespera stepped closer.
Close enough that the warmth of her fireless flame passed through his spectral wings like a final benediction.
"Then take her place."
Albion's soul trembled.
He didn't understand at first. His mouth parted to question, but Hespera was already speaking again.
"She has guarded the roots of Yggdrasil for eons. Longer than your soul has existed. Longer than your creators have known words. She devours rot so that the world doesn't collapse. Every whisper of corruption, every black-threaded secret man or god has buried in the earth—she eats it."
Her voice was quiet, almost reverent.
"She is tired, Albion. Her scales are cracked. Her mind is fading. The tree grows sick, not just from mortals—but from the burdens we left behind."
Albion's throat tightened.
"And I… I could—?"
"You were born of balance," Hespera said. "You were not meant to fight for power. You were meant to counter it. You and Ddraig were designed to keep gods in check."
She tilted her head.
"You lost sight of that, like she did. But maybe now—maybe this time—you can return to the root of who you were."
She lifted her hand—gauntleted, radiant, steady.
And there, flickering in the soft, fractured glow of the Dimensional Gap, something shifted.
The gauntlets began to unspool—unraveling like flame-kissed ribbons of night and starlight—until they reformed once more into the sleek, divine curve of a katana.
Pandemonium Noctis.
Its surface pulsed once—like it breathed.
And from the blade's edge, something broke free.
A pulse of red light. Deep, rich, ancient.
Ddraig's soul.
It spilled out like liquid fire and coalesced above Hespera's open palm, folding into itself until it became an orb—a swirling, crimson essence, blazing with the last remnants of the Red Dragon Emperor's fury, pride, and sorrow.
It spun slowly in the air, casting ghost-flames across the ruins of reality. Within it, Albion could feel echoes of her final roar. Her resistance. Her acceptance. Her submission.
And all of it—now still.
Power, waiting.
Not for a wielder.
For a warden.
Hespera's fingers curled slightly, and the orb descended just enough to catch the light of her half-lidded gaze.
"Nidhoggr cannot rest until another takes her burden," Hespera said. "Fate does not allow such things to simply end. Everything must be paid. Balance must be preserved."
She stepped forward, extending the essence outward—hovering just inches from Albion's ethereal core.
The heat of it burned like a remembered scar.
"Accept this," Hespera said.
Her voice lowered. Gentle. Final.
"And you will become the new Devourer."
The soul of Ddraig flickered again—just once. As if giving her silent farewell.
And waiting for Albion to decide whether he would rise… or let the world rot beneath its roots.
Albion hesitated.
The silence between them stretched long and low.
"I'll be forgotten," he said, finally. "Buried beneath roots. Alone."
Hespera smiled softly.
"Not forgotten. Just unseen. As all protectors are."
A breath passed.
Then another.
"I can't force you," she added. "Even Chaos does not demand sacrifices. Only offers choices."
"But if you ask me, Albion…" Her voice dropped to a whisper. "I think she's earned her rest."