Epic of Ice Dragon: Reborn As An Ice Dragon With A System

Chapter 2210: Visiting The Moonlight Dragon Realm

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"And here I am, alright... Midga... Where could she be?" Drake wondered. "I better start moving quickly anyway..."

As he began flying through the landscape, he started hearing whispers. Several dragons were watching him from below, some hiding behind mountains or within forests, and a few simply observing him in silence.

Until finally, Drake saw something in the distance: a gigantic entity, a coiling serpentine dragon with pink and silver scales and glowing blue eyes.

Her enormous size quickly told Drake who she was.

"Welcome, visitor... You must be... Drake, the young Dragon King, is it not?"

Her bright blue eyes greeted Drake, and he quickly realized she already knew about him.

"Yeah, it’s me..."

"Interesting. You have yet to visit the continent where my children live. How were you able to find our bloodline?"

"Celene. She lives within Svartalfheim."

"Celene... now that’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time... my foolish granddaughter."

"Foolish?"

"Forgive me, I didn’t mean to say that."

"No, well... Why would you think that?"

"She fixates too much on fleeting moments. She is forever daydreaming and thinking about things that don’t truly matter in the grand scheme of things. She values strong emotions, which are simply unwelcome to dragons who live so long. We must be strong and stoic, don’t you believe so, young King?"

"..."

Drake sighed. He finally realized why Celene struggled so much with her family.

Indeed, if everyone was like her grandmother, it was going to be tough.

"I agree with many of the things you said, great primordial mother," Drake said with a gentle smile. "However, I must disagree with a few..."

"Such as?" Midga asked.

"There is value in fleeting moments, and there is also great value in emotions... especially those of love, empathy, and kindness above all."

"...I do agree that love, empathy, and kindness are valuable, and every dragon must have them. But not to the extreme level that mortals have. Mortals live short lives. They must be emotionally strong, as every day is lived as if it were their last. When you live for so long, these things become bothersome. Getting too attached to mortals is not good, though caring for them is fine."

"I can’t agree with that. We live for a long time, but we are all going to die eventually as well, don’t we? Many of your sisters died, after all, Midga."

"Your point?"

"My point is that caring for and loving mortals does not make someone weak. If anything, if they love despite the shortcomings and despite knowing how fleeting their lives may be, aren’t they amazing people? They simply understand what they are and try to make their lives happy, even if short."

"I can’t understand that... it simply makes no sense..."

"Perhaps it doesn’t if you look at it from the wrong perspective. You have to think carefully. This world, at the end of the day, is shaped by all of them. Wouldn’t it be wise to guide them carefully so they do not repeat the mistakes of the past? Meddling too much may be wrong, but we dragons are, in the end, individuals of our own. Working as a single group with the same interests, beliefs, and dreams will never work in the end. It never did, actually."

"The decline of our kind... can’t you see why that’s happening? It’s because we refuse to let go of the past. Each dragon here is not simply what you believe they must be. Some may be interested in poetry, others could enjoy music, a few may love cooking, and others want to talk with mortals and make friends, however fleeting such friendships may be..."

"..."

Midga remained silent for a few seconds and then spoke, as if angry.

"But why would all of that matter if they die and leave us behind?" she asked, as if she had experienced this some time ago. "Everything we build together... all of it disappears with time."

She grabbed the gray dust of the moon’s surface, letting it fade away in the wind.

"That’s not true!"

"What?"

"Those people you once loved, the mortals you deeply cared for... they’re not gone, Midga," Drake said. "As long as you keep living, as long as you keep remembering them... they’re never gone! They’re within your memories, your dreams, and your heart, living with you. We live long lives because... because I believe we are made to carry on these memories, these records, their dreams, hopes, and laughter. We are the living proof that these insignificant beings existed... and that they once mattered, despite how small they may seem in the grand scheme of things."

"Ah!"

Midga was suddenly shaken. Nobody in her entire life had confronted her like this before. Nobody had ever told her things like this, and nobody had ever spoken their mind, directly opposing her views.

And the worst part was that it all made sense. Drake’s words, filled with emotion, resonated within her very heart, making her realize many things.

Midga’s eyes widened as she suddenly started crying...

"Aaahh..."

She grabbed her face in shame, but her tears couldn’t stop falling.

Memories of all those mortals she had met, of all those people she had loved and who were long gone, flooded her mind.

The more she thought about them, the more she cried, realizing that indeed, they were with her in her memories, in her dreams, in her heart...

To force her family, her granddaughter, to be cold and to never form bonds...

It was simply wrong.

The other Moonlight Dragons were shaken. Most agreed with Drake’s words, while those who fervently obeyed their primordial mother came to the realization that her teachings had many flaws.

"I’ve always believed that what matters most is the present," Drake said. "Why deny your children the happiness of the present just because you’re afraid of the future that has yet to come? The past is the past! You cannot change it no matter how much you try! But... being afraid of opening your heart... is not right."

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