The Baby Isn’t Yours

It was a lucid dream.

Hoa felt herself being sucked into the dream.

The only ones who could show her this kind of lucid dream were the two long-tailed birds following her.

-Peek! Pieeek!-

At the sound of the birds’ cries, Hoa woke up suddenly.

‘Where I am?’

But all she could see was darkness.

As she slowly turned her head to look around, a white long-tailed bird flew up high.

Suddenly, sparks flew from one side of the darkness.

The sparks turned into flames, and the flames grew larger, consuming a certain forest as fuel.

‘The deepest forest.’

The sanctuary of the fairies and the land of purification.

The small flames quickly turned into a sea of fire, and the forest became engulfed in flames.

‘No… No!’

With a pale face, Hoa shouted, but nothing changed.

It was natural.

This is an illusion of the past and the future that long-tailed birds display.

It was just a fragment of a dream that the birds peeked into.

The forest burned, and the beautiful spirits were engulfed in the flames and died horribly.

Piece by piece, the bodies of the fairies were engulfed in flames and disappeared without a trace.

‘Why are you showing me such a terrible scene?’

As she moaned in agony, black shadows appeared in front of her.

Although their exact appearance was not visible, their shape seemed familiar.

They were the elders of the forest.

They went into a pit of fire with their own feet.

Instead of consuming them, the flames blended together as one.

Behind the long-bearded fairy in the midst of the elders, the largest flame sprouted.

Hoa’s face paled.

‘Mother.’

It was the fire that engulfed the primordial Primordial Tree where Leah rested.

A crown was placed above the head of the elder with the beard amidst the flying embers.

It was a crown that only humans could wear.

The Fairy King, the guardian and judge of the fairies, does not wear a crown.

The symbol of the king was not the crown, but the spear of judgment, just the great spear Ektarion.

So this person had no spear and wore a crown like humans.

A creepy feeling clutched Hoa’s heart.

-Peeek!-

The black long-tailed bird, Chien, passed by Hoa, who was standing dazed.

At the same time, the image that had colored her vision disappeared, and a pristine Primordial Tree appeared.

‘The Chien black bird is a bird that shows the past. So is this the past?’

As she thought, someone cut the roots of the Primordial Tree in front of her.

He put it in a shiny silver dish with water and boiled it for several hours.

When it turned orange, he poured it into a teacup.

The starter leaves were placed on top of the steaming tea water.

At that moment, the person who opened the door and entered drank the offered tea without suspicion.

Soon, the body convulsed and he fell to the ground.

Thud.

Beyond the fallen shadow, a familiar face appeared.

‘…Mother!’

It was Leah, the Queen of the forest.

Hoa called out to her mother with a pale face, but it didn’t reach her.

Soon, the Primordial Tree hugged her sadly.

The vivid memory of the day when the whole family ran under the tree in sorrow was shown.

Ganini carefully poured the medicine into Leah’s mouth with a worried face.

It was a medicine prescribed by Kanal, who lived a long time and received healing power from the forest, and was something that Hoa couldn’t swallow and the medicine was dribbling out of her lips. Hoa clenched his fist tightly as he looked at the medicine.

‘It doesn’t make any sense.’

Why, why… does the medicine you’re holding have the same color as the orange poison that Leia ate and collapsed from?”

‘Pi-eeek!’

‘Peep-peep!’

A white long-tailed bird and a black long-tailed bird flew up into the sky intertwined. Then, darkness appeared, holding something in the air, as if the water split under the two birds.

‘…Scary. Please help me. Help me.’

The thing the darkness was holding was a human boy who was trembling with fear.

The boy was wearing the clothes of the disciples with the emblem of Akan. When the boy, who had his lips trembling, was about to say something, light burst out from the darkness.

The sky collapsed, and the palace crumbled down. Then, numerous corpses buried inside were revealed.

With a terrible and cruel sight, Hoa unconsciously furrowed her brows.

A mountain of corpses piled up without distinction between humans, demons, spirits, and fairies.

And at the top of it…

“…Gaia?”

Gaia’s torn corpse, whose eyes were closed, was there.

Hoa’s hand trembled as he saw the miserable sight of the youngest one with a hole in her chest.

The mother who collapsed after taking poison, the corpse of the youngest one torn apart…

What is this tragedy about!

How could she and her family not know about these horrible things!

‘…Traitor. There is a traitor.’

Hoa’s whole body trembled with anger. The chill that spread from her heart wrapped around her body and gradually turned into cold flames. It felt as if someone had struck her head with a giant hammer, and her lips were tightly clenched as blood dripped from them.

Knowing that it wouldn’t narrow down, knowing that she couldn’t do it, she still wanted to pick up the body of her poor sister lying on the mountain of corpses.

‘I’m sorry I didn’t know until that happened. Sister will hug you, Gaia. Sister will make you close your eyes.’

But her body didn’t move forward at all.

Instead, someone who would replace her jumped out and ran past Hoa.

Kalia, who had tied her light lemon-colored hair high, similar to her younger sister, swung the ice sword she received from Nua to defeat the black evil and climbed the mountain of the corpse.

From then on, the color of the scenery changed.

The black darkness gradually faded, and the nauseating air began to clear.

‘Aaaaagh!’

Kalia roared like a beast, cutting through the shadow and reaching the top.

She swung her ice sword, cutting through the black shadow, and hugged the strong heart that was bleeding inside.

The heart was beating strongly as if it were alive.

Kalia hugged it tightly and sobbed.

Various magic protective spells flashed above Kalia’s head, as if they were protecting her.

As if to protect Kalia, lightning struck incessantly around her.

Hoa turned around.

Then she saw a man who poured out magic relentlessly to prevent anyone from approaching Kalia from a step back.

‘The one who crossed the line of enlightenment.’

A man with hair that shone brilliantly like silver stared at Kalia.

He held the baby in his arms and gritted her teeth, protecting her back.

And behind him, a pure white army surged like a wave.

A white dragon leapt into the sky, and demons and monsters revealed themselves, screaming fiercely.

Kalexia and her siblings passed by Hoa, who was standing like air, leading the fairy soldiers.

Hoa stared at them as they cut through the shadows.

‘…Ah. This is…this is, this is.’

She got goosebumps all over her body.

As she stared at them without blinking, white snow scattered in front of Hoa.

A white-tailed bird floated above her head and flew closer, throwing something at her.

‘…A fruit?’

Even for her, who was a forest creature, it was the first time she had ever seen a fruit like that.

Hoa stared at the fruit absent-mindedly and looked up at the sky to find an answer.

However, the white long-tailed bird that showed the future had already disappeared and was gone.

Instead, scattered snowflakes came together to form letters in the air.

[Wake me up, daughter.]

It was her mother’s call.

* * *

Hoa opened her eyes and jumped.

‘When did I fall asleep?’

She was sitting on the cold ground, leaning against a wooden column.

She remembered coming out to take a walk with two long-tailed birds.

Then, as she felt a strange energy from the ground, her memory cut off.

She had been dragged into the long-tailed birds’ dream.

‘That dream…’

Vivid images from the dream came to her mind.

Overwhelmed by the sudden sense of reality and the disconnect from the dream, Hoa’s breath caught in her throat.

“Ugh, cough.”

She desperately gasped for air and clutched her chest like a person who had fallen into water and resurfaced.

Then she suddenly felt something unfamiliar in her hand.

Trembling, she slowly opened her palm.

“This, this is…”

A fruit.

The fruit from the dream was in her hand.

Hoa gasped deeply, her chest swelling with excitement, and turned her body towards the deep forest.

After running a few steps…

“…Tokan?”

“Hoa?”

Hoa met Tocan, who was looking for something by the moonlight.

* * *

The air trembled and soon Gaia appeared with hair that looked exactly like Kalia’s.

“Kalia! Where are you, are you okay now? Aren’t you crying?”

Gaia, who immediately hugged Kalia, looked closely at Kalia’s cheeks with both hands, and asked in concern.

It wasn’t just a dream that day, after all.

Kalia coughed and smiled awkwardly, but didn’t push away her touch.

Now that she knew the hidden truth, her touch felt warmer and more affectionate than before.

While being held in her arms, Kalia asked Gaia for a favor.

“Can you call Kalexia?”

“Father?”

At Gaia’s question, Kalia nodded.

“Why?”

At Gaia’s question, anxiously asking if something was up, Kalia smiled slightly and pointed to her back.

“Because of that.”

Gaia, who turned around and confirmed what Kalia was pointing out, widened her eyes in astonishment.

“Oh… our Sasha’s wings have grown?”

Laughing out loud, Gaia quickly ran over to hug Sasha.

Hatchling tried to bite Gaia’s hand, but was stopped by Simon emitting some magic to keep the dragon from getting too close.

“…Kyaong.”

The white Hatchling, who was rolling his big eyes, cried.

Simon touched its forehead, wondering if it was too much for a newly born baby dragon to handle.

But then…

“Kyao! Kyaooong. Kyaung…”

It cried.