Then the jaw closed on me!

I felt that I was leaving, that I was going backwards, my blood was flowing a little, but I lost consciousness. It was all over!

The Hydra straightened up.

"Hakumen????"

Then, before biting, it tasted my blood and spat out in panic.

"Golden blood!"

And she recognized her own pre-Fall blood, a distant memory from when she was Bahamut. Before the primal gods cut her in half, releasing but also pouring out her fury and anger which became pure evil. All being relative, as told by the gods who were all devoured by Tiamat and who hate humans for killing her love Malkuth.

She licked the wounded dragon and healed his soul and took it against her heart.

"My child... My child... ...how could I?"

She shed tears, and like a mother, she nursed me back to life from my tortured soul.

"She cried out for forgiveness many times."

"Aaargh, I can no longer see good from evil... I'm a monster!

Forgive me, child!"

Seeing that I was regaining consciousness she rocked me and sang her calming and healing songs.

Between her paws, she saw me open my eyes, soothed.

"MOTHER????"

Her five heads panicked. She was afraid of herself as when she had sent Tenebrion and his older sisters to Magestia, when the portal to Tartarus, the abyssal hell was closing, imprisoning her for eons, leaving her from time to time, very rarely an avatar, but which always ended up disappearing and making her come back here, to hell.

After a moment that lasted an eternity and when she saw that I forgave her and smiled at her, she asked me to tell her everything.

When she heard my receipt, she cried and wanted to know even more about me, my family and especially her descendants.

She was happy to know that the Tiamat lineage still existed but she was soon worried about the situation of her great-great granddaughter, Argentrix, who was dying of grief.

The rage mounted and shook all of Tartarus and even the gates (including the one in Alaska) when she learned that Argentrix, sick with grief, was expecting a baby.

Me: "He's the one who killed me. I took the death blow instead of Argentrix to save her and our child."

I wasn't supposed to die, but demonic corruption prevented treatment.

All the golden dragons tried to heal me but to no avail. It's not fair.

Demons don't belong in our world."

Tiamat: "You are a shadow dragon."

I was born human and switched my body with that of Tenebrion...

Tiamat remained pensive and her aggression turned into curiosity.

"TENEBRION????? Is he alive?????? "

"Yes!"

She put her paw on her heart and looked up at the pillar of light behind her lava throne.

One of her heads purred and clung to me, still in her paws, against her chest.

I began to cry at her feet/legs.

You killed Hakumen???? How is that possible?????

"The legions helped me to take out all the souls trapped in him..."

Tiamat shed tears.

"It is the first time in millions of years that I cry..."

Tiamat then looked up at the sky and began to groan!

"NOOOOOOOONNNNNN what a price to pay!"

I said, " Mom???"

Tiamat lay down at my head.

"Tell me all about it. I want to know everything about my children.

You too are my child.

I beg your forgiveness for trying to destroy you."

I kissed Tiamat's head...

She lifted the wing, put me on the ground and brooded me.

After a few hours of explanation,

I recounted my adventures and I made her laugh with my finger of honor at the cathedral. I also told her about Sinistrar who was still alive and the spaceship overseas and the rescue mission we had decided to organize to save Tiamat from the underworld.

She wept and I wept against her, too.

We watched the dragons unfortunate, stateless, and free by my sacrifice.

Tiamat: "Poor Argentrix... "

Then after reflection: "Ivan, your mission is a success. In fact, you saved me!

You came to me and you showed unique courage, a hero.

You see? I see good and evil again. A curse has been lifted because of you.

Your mission isn't over. This is the beginning for you."

"But I'm dead!"

"Are you sure about that? You say so, but I see a young dragon full of life, finally a soul in need of a body."

Bhaal, he's dead and he's dead. But would you like to join Argentrix?"

I kneel before my goddess.

"I'd do anything to see her again..."

Tiamat smiles.

"You know that I am immortal... And every time I "die" I come back here.

I'm a hydra and when one head is cut off, two grow back."

Me: "It's complicated...??????"

"In the ship... imagine you're there and you'll get a surprise."

???????

I closed my eyes and Tiamat knocked me out.

With the tips of her teeth, she transported me to a luminous structure with a column of light giving towards infinity.

She placed me in it and closed the glass lid.

"Bon voyage Ivan, and I hope my body doesn't drive you crazy. Take care of it for eternity! I don't need it here anymore, but you do! Don't worry about me! One head less and two grow back!

And above all, make Argentrix happy and you too."

"DEMODRAGON!"

A horror, a mixture of Dragon and Demon almost as big as Tiamat came out of the Goddess's shadow.

"You will guide him into his new life so that he may assimilate my powers. All my powers and see to it that he is not corrupted and remains himself. He is my child and he means everything to me.

If anything happens to him, you won't even have hell or a place to live. I promise you nothingness!"

The two-headed dragon stooped down and submitted to his mistress.

To tempt her, he dared: "But aren't we your children too?"

Tiamat: "HAHAHA: Now that I have found love and calmed my hatred, there is a saying:"

And she lowered her five heads to the level of the Demodragon.

"I love you too, but don't forget: Who loves well, punish well!"

The demon took fright for the first time.

Having rediscovered the notion of love, the goddess became a thousand times more powerful. She had found a piece of Bahamut like this.

Since demons fearing love above all else, it was no longer a sham and a power struggle, but a thought that could destroy them, or worse, turn them into a draconian creature and lose their demon status. For them, this meant reincarnation and the terrible ordeal of life.

Tiama licked Demodragon and he trembled.

"Yes, Mother, I would do anything to guide him..."

Tiamat: "Take Zaaar as an example. Even being an infernal creature, his wisdom allows him to get out of impossible situations. "

The remark made Demodragon tick. Being compared to a subordinate hurt his ego, but it was also a warning from his mistress/mother.

Tiamat was the "mother" of all infernal dragons and mother of the chromatic dragons.

Her sacrifice of giving her cryogenically frozen physical body to her child lifted her curse. But it also exhausted her. Just like the amoeba, the hydra was able to separate and that's how Ivan got his second chance.

But he also inherited the other curses that afflicted Tiamat: Darkness.

Demodragon then rushed into Ivan's shadow.

Then Tiamat said, "My child, forgive me for letting you go like this, but every moment counts if you want to save your love and my great-grandson.

You will have absolute darkness on you but it is better than absolute evil. I'm sure you will manage and find a solution.

The darkness hasn't killed anyone, what's hidden there, sometimes but here you have nothing to fear."

She covered me with kisses while she set me up in her portal/cryogenic cabin

"May we all be together one day!"

Goodbye, my little one!

She pressed a button and frozen liquid filled the sphere the size of Tiamat.

The sphere rose into the light and Tiamat went to sleep in her lava well.

I felt as if I was going through a tunnel.

I had a headache, but in several places at once.

I was cold, I was hot, it stung and it was hellish.

I had lava in me. No, actually all the elements.

I could hear the shrill sounds of portals and dimensions.

I heard the plane briefly

I could feel the time going by, the 1970s and then the 2020s and beyond.

Then it was darkness. I was floating in some kind of slime.

An egg?

Oh no, not reincarnation. Please. Anything but that!

Then a light.

Desks... lights. A lab? No, a spaceship...

One sound and the ice went into the ground, pumping out the liquid.

Everything seemed small.

I took a deep breath, but I felt five muzzles.

I had 5 heads...

No....

Not what I think.

I looked at my paws.

I was TIAMAT!!!!!!!

The airlock opened and the sunlight hit me.

Instinctively I wanted to protect my eyes but I had to turn my 5 heads away. It felt strange to have several heads but one mind.

I left the ship. And my paws went BANG. The ground was shaking. A mantle of darkness covered me.

Alive! I'm alive!

From the bottom of my mind I thanked Tiamat for her gift.

I was now going to walk this world. I represented absolute evil to almost everyone. Worse than anything, but I was alive. I took a deep breath.

How good it felt to feel the air and the breeze. To feel the ground beneath his feet. My shadow wasn't empty either. Dark dragons and an army of 40 legions slept within me.

I was dizzy.

What trials awaited me? Certainly as great as my powers, but there was only one thing I asked. My dragoness!

I didn't know where I was. Everything here was rocky and barren and I knew that I was not on earth, but that my love was waiting for me there, at last she did not wait for me any longer, she was crying for me.

I had to do what I could to stop her tears, it was unbearable!

So, I started to run following the direction given by the two suns.

BAM BAM REBAM

Rocks and trees were pulverized by my mass of several thousand tons.

For me, I could see the blue sky, but another observer saw the sky filling with darkness. I moved forward, taking the night with me.

I could feel the power and might of Tiamat rushing through me...

I was no longer a dark dragon. I was the darkness!