From the moment that I had been created, I had known what I was. I was Paradox. I was the sole creation of the Great Core. I was special.

This...thing had tried to strip that away from me. It had tried to make me forget who I was. It had tried to take the place of my Creator.

That could not - could never - be forgiven.

[SUBMIT]

Another powerful thought-hiss smashed into me, and my resolve wavered for the briefest of moments. It would be easy to obey, something whispered to me. I had always been alone, but I didn’t have to be. All I had to do was submit, and I would never be alone again. Uncountable hordes of brothers and sisters would walk alongside me, created from Tiamat’s powerful blood.

I would never be alone again. Just submit.

{REFUSAL/RAGE/HATE}

Hatred flowed through me, like fire-water in my veins, setting me alight and ripping my mind from Tiamat’s subtle control. But even so, I knew that it would find its way again. [Chains of the Creator] had forged links of chains in between us, binding us together. Even now, I could feel the Mother of Monsters passively pressing against my mind. Even without any conscious direction on her part, her presence alone was a dangerous intruder at the edges of my thoughts.

It pressed inwards, trying to peel away the layers of my resolve, to tear away what was me until only she remained.

Until the Great Core had disappeared.

[SUBM-]

Another thought-hiss invaded my mind. I cut it off before it could harm me further, drowning Tiamat’s demand for obedience in sheer, spitting rage.

{REFUSAL/RAGE/HATE}

A sense of exhaustion, a match to the fatigue that had already pervaded my scale-flesh in the physical world, began to creep into the edges of my consciousness. Even with my hatred at the would-be usurper, I was growing weaker - and I knew that the Mother of Monsters could eventually press harder.

I could feel her, far off in the distance. [Chains of the Creator] was more than a method of control; the usurper hadn’t lied about that, at least. I could feel her. A constant tugging on my thoughts that pointed me in her direction, that told me which way I needed to go to meet the Mother of Monsters.

She was unimaginably far; the journey would have required more slithers than I had made in my entire life. She rested somewhere deep, deep within the heart of the World Dungeon, where mana flowed free and chaotic.

It was only that distance that protected me. I was too far away; her demands for obedience, while still overwhelmingly powerful, lost most of their bite in the effort required to reach me. I was sure that my own thought-hisses were the same, the wrath that I felt dimmed by distance.

But if she was closer...somewhere in the world outside my mind, in the world of dulled sensations and drowned-out sounds, my scale-flesh began to shake. Something ghosted across my head-scales, familiar yet too removed for me to truly recognize. Whatever it was, it helped - just a little. I heard a few noises prickle at my ears, drowned out and unintelligible, paired alongside the familiar touch across my scale-flesh.

“...been out for a while...think something’s wrong?”

“Even if there is, there’s not much we can do. It wouldn’t be the first time something like this has happened...you remember after the Flame Dungeon?”

The sensations, dulled as they were, grounded me. Calmed me.

Not much, but enough.

I gathered myself. I would need protection, I knew. A place to hide, a place that the would-be usurper could never overcome, even when I was tired. Even when I was weak.

I needed a nest.

I needed my nest.

A small cavern grew in my mind, a room formed of familiar walls and soothing wall-cracks. A place to hide, a place to be safe.

[SUBMIT]

Tiamat’s demanding thought-hiss crashed into the walls of the nest, quieter than before. Muted. Distant. Something - fingers? - rubbed circles on my scale-flesh.

“...Council’s getting worried. We won’t have enough food to go around, not unless some of the refugees are forced to go to a different city. There’s too many of them, and we relied too much on Verdant Grove to keep ourselves fed.”

“...for other options, yet? There’s always…”

“...a temporary solution at best. Something will have to be done, and it will probably come down to us, whether we try to retrieve the Core ourselves or seek out other options. Be ready.”

I didn’t respond to Tiamat’s demands, not anymore. Sending a thought-hiss across the connection was draining, and creating my nest required all of my energy. I would give it that energy.

The nest of my birth deserved nothing less. At the center of the tiny nest in my mind, a pedestal grew. A thought-hiss invaded the nest, slipping through the wall-cracks.

[SUBMIT]

It was quieter now, forced to cut away at its massive size in order to fit through the wall-cracks of the nest. I brushed it aside with little more than a brief mental flinch, little more than a flash of rage. I focused on my task.

I remembered my past. I remembered the gleaming light that shone down upon me, a constant comfort amidst the dangers of the bad-things. I remembered the warmth that had filled my scale-flesh.

The nest, our nest, filled with light.

The Great Core formed upon its pedestal. The sacred fast-spots and the annoying-but-still-sacred-slow-spots gathered themselves in the room, drifting freely and shifting at the Great Core’s whims. I was home.

I was safe.

[SUBMIT]

The Mother of Monster’s thought-hiss slipped through the wall-cracks again; with the defenses that I had built in my mind, it took barely any effort to brush the command away.

And then, safe at last, I let my thoughts drift.

Fingers - yes, those were fingers - rubbed against my scale-flesh again. I felt my body lean into the touch, and they pressed a little harder.

“...little guy. Starting to wake up? The Council’s getting a bit restless, what with how many refugees made it here safely thanks to you. They keep complaining about having to cut down on the size of their meals.”

That was...one of my Coreless - not-Needle? - hissing softly. I heard that odd noise that the Coreless sometimes made, the one they forced air through their nostrils and then bared their teeth.

“You know, some of the survivors are calling you their Little Guardian. The kids, especially. The escape from Verdant Grove was hard on them. A lot of them lost their families, and I think that they needed something to cling to. Something to keep the fear and sadness away.

I know that you might not even be able to hear me, and wouldn’t understand me anyway even if you could, but...you did a good thing. A great thing. I’m proud of you, Little Guardian.

We all are.”

The hisses slowly fell away, drowned out as exhaustion pulled me back into the world of my own mind. I idly pushed back against the latest of Tiamat’s invasions, sensing her rage and frustration somewhere behind the walls of my nest.

Her thought-hisses were barely noticeable anymore, but I could still feel our connection. I could still sense where she was, to a degree. I was sure that she could do the same.

She would come for me eventually, in her quest to usurp the Great Core. Maybe not right away; she was too deep within the World Dungeon for that, and the connection that we had told me that she had too much pride to come after me herself. Not as her first option.

The Blood of Tiamat, her twisted creations, would come after me first. They would try to weaken me enough for Tiamat’s influence to take hold. They would fail in that.

Maybe they would manage to kill me, occasionally. Maybe more than once.

I would come back. The Great Core’s power would provide me the path to victory. It always did. It had already begun, with the first of the Coreless.

Tiamat could create an army of minions, formed from drops of her blood.

I could form my own.

And when I finally grew strong enough, when I gathered an army of Coreless converts and a vast amount of blessings, it would be me that came for her.

The Great Core would cut down the would-be usurper.

With that wonderful thought, I woke up at last.