Chapter Text
By the time Pwyll opened his eyes again he was laid in his fathers lap, still in his room, as his father read and rubbed his back. It was so comfortable, a bliss he didn’t get to experience in his first life, but now has become so common with the father-son duo that Pwyll doesn’t know if he could live without Eruhaben.
“Are you awake now anemone?”
“Hmm anemone?”
“It's a flower, it's said that it brings luck and protects against evil… at least that is the meaning humans have put upon it and wrote in this book, don’t look too far into it, I just thought it suited you.” Eruhaben looks away, his face slightly pink. Earlier during the walk some of the elves called their children with endearments rather than their name or a simple ‘son’ or ‘daughter’ like he was doing with me for the past decades.
“I like it, thank you appa” Pwyll had no complaints with it, it was nice, the only name ever said to him with deep fondness that wasn’t from his name.
“How long was I asleep?”
“You slept a day,” Eruhaben told Pwyll, placing the book beside him before lifting Pwyll to sit up and face him. ‘This was going to be serious’ Pwyll thought anxiously.
“You have been sleeping more, getting fevers while looking cold, and you’ve even been blowing smoke slightly out of your nose”
“I have?” ‘Is it that strange to sleep and breathe smoke as a dragon? The cold fever is concerning though’ Pwyll thought.
“Have you forgotten your growth phase? With these signs it must be coming soon.”
Growth phases, signaled by deep sleep, smoke breaths, and cold fevers. It took at least a week of battling your future self with an attribute to wake up. The longer it lasts often correlates with being stronger, but a growth phase is painful. What use is a long lived race if they grow quickly by pain? Wouldn’t getting stronger slowly be better? It was also the reason dragons seek solitude, the growing pain comes from those a dragon will have to support, being alone makes the pain more bearable as the dragon will only need to support themself.
“It would be best to begin isolating yourself in the lair until it is over.”
“Yes appa,”
As the father and son sat in the night, relaxing in the other's presence, they both held the same thought.
‘What attribute will Pwyll receive?’
Eruhaben’s thoughts and memories of Pwyll led him to believe his son would receive a sleep or knowledge related attribute. The many times his son affirms his dream to be a slacker and gags at the thought of working but still somehow goes about everything in the most complicated ways and ends up in the strangest issues.
Once he tasked his son to grow some plants like a farmer would because that was what he said he’d like to do one day. Pwyll somehow ended up growing them too big that it resembled the plants found in Pwyll previous lifes mesozoic era, something Eruhaben did not know, and had believed his son created a new mutant form of plants and wanted to believe his son had done it with magic. He was wrong. Pwyll cared for them like anyone else would care for plants, with additions. He thought to give them… special nutrients, monster meat and water from a cave off some cliffs in the Ubar territory. Pwyll thought that they were magical plants needing extra-ordinary water and protein.
Eruhaben had never been so impressed and concerned for his son than at that moment, and it only continued to this day. Eruhanen had wanted his son to actually get his slacker life more and more everyday to save himself from his ever growing migrain Pwyll causes him, but knowing Pwyll’s luck, he will always end up in some kind of drama. He had no doubt his son was never going to achieve his dream. Eruhaben, of course, would never say that to his son's face.
“From now on I’d like you to stay in the lair until you finish you growth phase,”
‘Hopefully staying inside will minimize the chances of him getting involved in any… incidents ’
Pwyll nods, ‘there's no point arguing, staying in the lair will allow me to laze around more, exploring before was really only to make father think I was a normal young dragon wanting independence’
Eruhaben, who never once thought his son as normal, was happy he got his son to agree to staying inside the lair… and quickly became suspicious. Pwyll never agreed to anything this peacefully before.
“... what are you planning?”
“Whatever do you mean father?” Pwyll responded with no hesitation.
‘My son is being so suspicious…it’ll only give me a bigger migraine if I question him more…’
“Aigoo… as long as you get through your growth phase in the lair safely, that's all I can hope for,”
Eruhaben shakes his head in a poor attempt to rid himself from all the possibilities of his son getting into something… troublesome.
Fortunately for Eruhaben pwyll would get no chance to involve himself unnecessarily for the moment he went to bed in the lair he began his growth phase.
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A boy, no older than 5, stared at a teen elf in the woods. The boy was mesmerized by the red haired teen whose hair lay intertwined with the grass, eyes shut as he steadily breathed, morning mist casting a shimmer making him look more ethereal. The boy inched closer, he had run from home, upset because his teacher had hit his hand and when he told his father he didn’t believe him. His father never did, he always thought his son was just being difficult. Mother would have believed him but she was still traveling back from the capital, not due to come back until tomorrow.
Cale, who has only seen red hair on him and his mother, was curious about this teen, and it's not like he had any other choice but to try and wake him. Why? Because he has already gotten lost.
Cale pokes the sleeping teen in the face, “Hey,”
“Mm” the teen face scrunches in displeasure but slowly opens to reveal reddish-brown eyes.
His eyes lazily meet the reddish-brown eyes of the boy.
“Hello?”
“Hi… do you know where my house is?”
“Your… House?” The teen murmurs, sitting up to better look at the boy.
“Yea, my house.”
“And where is your house?
“I don’t know that's why I woke you up!”
The teen sighs, ‘children…’
“I can take you back to the city, can you find your way home then?
“Yes! I can mister!”
‘Mister? Aigoo that makes me feel old, I may be centuries old but I’m not THAT old in my species.’
The teen, “Pwyll, call me Pwyll” introduces himself to the boy.
“My name is Cale!”
Pwyll slowly stands and dusts himself off before extending a hand to Cale, “hold my hand so you don’t get lost again.”
Cale nods excitedly and grabs Pwyll’s hand.
The walk back felt short to Cale, but he didn’t know why. When they reached sight of the city Pwyll lifted a hood over his hair, obscuring sight of his hair and casting shade over his face. Guards rush towards the two the moment they notice Cale, shouts of worry from Vice Captain Hilsman gains the attention of the count Deruth and surprisingly the Countess Jour.
“Mom!” Cale exclaims in surprise, tears swell in his eyes as he finally lets out all his stress that has accumulated while she was away.
“Oh baby, come here,” Jour kneels and opens her arms to embrace her beloved child. “It's alright now Cale, mama is her now,”
Pwyll watches silently and turns to walk away without notice but luck was never on his side.
“Where are you going?” Jour addresses Pwyll in his poor attempt to flee.
“I… I am just the one who walked you son here, he got lost in the woods…”
“I see… thank you…?”
“Pwyll! His name is Pwyll mom! He was sleeping in the woods but he helped me back after I woke him up!”
“Pwyll… is there anything we can do to thank you?” Jour questions with a winning smile, what she won from this conversation Pwyll doesn’t know, and frankly he was scared to find out.
“I am honored to have reunited your son back with you, there is nothing I could ever think to ask from you Madam.”
“Oh how polite! But I must insist, you quelled my worry and blessed us with our son's safe journey through the woods, it would dishonor the name of Count Henituse to not give you something in return! Please join us for dinner at the very least, dear boy.”
Deruth stared in disbelief, the tomboyish woman he married, the girl who made all the etiquette teachers shudder in fear for what she might do outside of the customary norms, the very girl who snorted tea when she finally met his parents, talked politely? He could only stare numbly at the bullshit she spouted. ‘Dishonor the name of Count Henituse? That has long since been done Jour, by you…’
Pwyll couldn’t reject again, it’ll be rude to do so, and to a Countess? It's best to just play along until he can find a way out.
“Of… Of course Countess, I would be honored…”
“Wonderful! Now follow us to the manor.” Her words left no room for refusal. Although it was barely midday, he had agreed to eat dinner with the Henituse family and going there now meant Jour wasn’t going to let him leave anytime soon.