"Uncle Chronos!"
That call echoed through the dense ancient trees day after day.
A name never spoken by kings, never written in ancient magic books, and never once imagined by any creature across the entire continent. Yet here, beneath the shelter of thick green leaves, the name flowed so freely from the lips of a little girl.
Ten years passed in the blink of an eye.
The little girl who once ran around with soot-stained knees had now grown into a young woman. She had grown taller, her long golden hair gleaming in the sunlight streaming through the gaps in the leaves, and her face... was now utterly identical to that of the woman who had first come to Chronos's stone lair thousands of years ago.
Exactly as she had looked when they first met atop the mountain.
"Uncle, you're daydreaming again!"
TUK!
A small twig landed softly on Chronos's golden-scaled snout. The house-sized dragon merely exhaled heavily through his nose, sending the twig and the dry leaves around it flying.
WUSHHH!
"Hey! You messed up my hair!" the girl protested, crossing her arms and making an utterly unthreatening pout.
Chronos gazed at the grown woman before him. Through his soul sight, that translucent white line still bound them tightly together. But now, the dragon knew the name he had never found the chance to ask for during the dozens of years of his previous life.
Rea.
A simple name. As beautiful as its owner, who always carried warmth wherever she went.
Rea walked closer and seated herself on one of the massive tree roots jutting out beside Chronos's head. In her lap lay a cloth bundle containing pieces of roasted meat and wheat bread.
"Today I brought roasted wild boar," Rea said as she opened the cloth bundle. Its savory aroma spread through the forest air. "I had to fight two wolves before I could get this meat, you know!"
'You could die if you keep acting recklessly,' Chronos's telepathic voice echoed inside Rea's head. It was heavy and ancient, yet laced with sharp concern.
Rea merely giggled. She tossed a large piece of roasted meat toward Chronos's mouth, and the dragon snatched it delicately without touching her slender fingers.
"I'm not that weak, Uncle. Besides, being me is hard," Rea complained, propping her chin up with one hand as she gazed at the leaves overhead. "In the village, people always think I'm strange because I'd rather wander around this forbidden forest than listen to the elders talk about marriage."
Chronos slowly chewed the meat. '(Marriage,' the dragon thought as he listened to the word.
Ever since Rea had first grown into adulthood in this past timeline, Chronos had always watched her interactions with the human world around her. And there was one thing that continued to puzzle him: Rea had never shown interest in any man. She rejected every proposal from the village boys, choosing to spend her free time walking for hours into the forest just to sit beside a dragon.
"Uncle Chronos," Rea called suddenly. Her voice softened, becoming calmer than usual.
'What?'
Rea turned and looked directly into the enormous golden pupil that was always watching her movements.
"How long are you going to stay in this forest?" Rea asked quietly. "I mean... you're a dragon. You have enormous wings. Why have you spent all these years lying here in the forest?"
Chronos was silent for a moment. The forest wind blew softly, playing with Rea's golden strands and weaving silence between them.
'Until you die,' Chronos answered briefly through telepathy.
It was the honest truth. Chronos was here, in this past timeline, solely to accompany Rea until the end of her life, to make sure her curiosity was satisfied and erase the regret she would carry in the future.
But upon hearing that answer, Rea immediately puffed out her cheeks. She lightly slapped the scales on Chronos's cheek with her palm.
"What kind of answer is that!" Rea grumbled irritably. "You're an old dragon! Your wrinkles—I mean, your scales are already covered in moss! You're more likely to die of old age before I do!"
Chronos could only chuckle deep within his chest.
"Grooo..."
The soft vibration made the ground beneath them tremble gently. Seeing the dragon chuckle, Rea finally couldn't hold back her own smile and let out a small laugh.
The girl had no idea.
She didn't know how many times Chronos had crossed the corridors of time. She didn't know that the concepts of time and age had long since dissolved into nothingness for the creature before her. Chronos knew only one thing: whenever he was beside Rea, listening to her foolish complaints and bright laughter, the emptiness that had burned through his soul for thousands of years suddenly vanished.
This was happiness.
Something he had once sought across the entire continent through destruction and kindness was, as it turned out, hiding in the laughter of an ordinary human woman.
Yet in the midst of that laughter, a new question began to take root and gnaw at Chronos's mind like a thorn embedded in flesh.
'Why have you never married, Rea?' Chronos wondered as he watched the girl's smile. 'Why do you always choose to live alone until you grow old and die here?'