Seraphina and Tëhznarā fought a heated and brutal battle for a few hundred years non-stop, neither side willing to retreat or accept defeat, their conflict raging across battlefields, leaving pure destruction in their wake wherever they went.

And though Seraphina was a dragon goddess, a being of immense divine power and authority... Tëhznarā was an abnormal Supreme Dragon, a freak of nature and evolution, always confused by outside observers to be the Crimson dragon god himself, because her power and her terrifying aura so closely mimicked his own.

Seraphina was hurt pretty badly during that conflict, wounded in ways that would have killed any other being a thousand times over.

And she even lost one of her eyes in the fighting.

I know the story of that lost eye, and the chain of events that followed:

Parvaneh later took the power of that eye into herself, claiming its divine essence.

But died and reincarnated as Clay, the fairy.

Eventually, after centuries of exhausting combat, Tëhznarā was brutally and decisively defeated by Seraphina.

She was subsequently imprisoned in Tartarus, that dark and terrible prison dimension where all the creepers, weirdo gods, and ancient monsters reside, sealed away from the world above where she could no longer cause trouble or threaten the lives of mortals... and immortals alike.

But Seraphina, though victorious, fainted from her wounds and exhaustion after the battle ended, and she needed intense care and recovery time.

She required centuries of healing before she could fight again.

This ultimately made their grand strategy against Lucifer fall apart, leaving them with a large gaping hole in their defenses — no Seraphina available to face the big bad Lucifer himself in combat.

The most powerful weapon in their arsenal was temporarily out of commission, and there was no one else who could properly fill that role.

"Uh, where were you in all of this fighting and all?" I asked Violette, squeezing her tummy a little bit with my arms as we continued our cuddle on the stone platform, enjoying the simple physical warmth and comfort of another person’s body against my own.

"Hm? Ah, I didn’t tell you that part of the story yet, did I?" she chirped somewhat proudly, a note of satisfaction and self-importance in her voice. "I was sent by Irina on a specific mission, a dangerous task that only I could perform.

"I was sent to try and distract Tëhznarā, to draw her attention away from her battle and give Seraphina an opening to defeat her."

"So... why did you fall asleep for all those thousands of years after that mission? Were you completely spent on energy from fighting such a powerful force, drained to the point of collapse by the mere effort of engaging with Tëhznarā?"

"No, no, that’s not what happened," Violette shook her head slowly, her dark hair brushing against me. "I joined the fight briefly, just for a moment, and I shot one big power stone at Tëhznarā, blasting it with all my strength and energy behind it. And she turned to face me for a fraction of a second, just long enough to acknowledge my existence and my attack.

"But I didn’t really understand what happened next, because I thought she had killed me in that moment. I only saw a flash of light, an explosion of crimson energy that filled my entire vision, and then I was dying. My consciousness was fading, and I could feel myself slipping away."

For some reason, as she recounted this near-death experience, she was being proud of it, cheerful about the whole thing.

Maybe even just joining in a fight with two divine-level beings made her feel powerful, and significant, in the grand scheme of things.

Tëhznarā basically slapped Violette away from the battle like a buzzing fly, a minor annoyance that she dealt with in an instant without much of a hassle.

A single strike was all it took to nearly kill this ancient serpent and put her into a coma that lasted thousands of years.

But that single moment of distraction, that fraction of a second where Tëhznarā turned her head to swat away the buzzing fly, was all the time that the wounded and exhausted Seraphina needed to turn the tides on her opponent.

So Violette served her duty well, even if she did not survive the experience in the way she had hoped.

Violette remained asleep, unconscious and unresponsive, ever since Tëhznarā’s devastating counterattack.

Her body was slowly healing and her spirit slowly recovering over thousands of years of dormancy, until last week.

When the Amazons who had set up monitoring spells around her territory found her finally awake. 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

Heh.

But the girl is so carefree now, so relaxed and open.

Her imposing aura had left her, replaced with something that resembled a small child or a playful teenager.

Being around the likes of Irina, Renard, and Mótsognir, and the other ancient beings...

Those guys were probably always doing ancient and powerful things, fighting cosmic battles and making world-altering decisions, rather than taking the time to care for and raise a young Brazilian girl who had just reincarnated into the world in the body of a strange serpentine creature.

They probably thought she was a very unique and interesting monster, and that was all there was to it.

Not like a human who needed particular guidance and constant emotional support.

And just from the small time I have spent with her, I can tell that she would play along with their perception of her, acting big and strong, independent, and pretending that she didn’t need anyone’s help or affection.

Because that was what they expected of her, and that was what she thought she had to be to survive in their world of power and danger.

"If you don’t mind, I can baby you from now on," I whispered into her ear, my breath warm against her skin.

Her face lit up with another deep and spreading blush, her pale cheeks turning rosy and her eyes widening with surprise and something like desperate hope.

"B... Baby me...? What do you mean by that?" Her voice was small and shy now, "I thought you wanted to marry me. I mean, you were begging on your knees for my hand in marriage just a little while ago."

"H... Haha! That is an incorrect recollection of events, I’m afraid," I calmly stated, still wearing my warm and gentle smile, refusing to be drawn into her revisionist history. "But good old Benjamin has a thorough and spacious heart, large enough to hold many people and feelings at once. I can marry you, no sweat!"

With those words spoken aloud, I felt her body relax considerably against mine, all the remaining tension draining out of her muscles and her posture.

A soft, barely audible whisper escaped her lips, so quiet that one would almost miss it: "Thank goodness..."

She probably has been acting all tsundere and forcing herself to be proud, because she feared that I would outright reject and leave her alone if she showed any weakness.

But I only continued to do interesting and earth-like things, treating her like a person rather than a monster.

And mostly responding to her advances with acceptance rather than fear.

One could say, that behavior made her even more attached to me.

She was not used to being held, and cuddled, and whispered to.

I wonder what her reaction would have been if I had rejected her outright, if I had pushed her away and told her that I was not interested in marriage or babies or any of the things she was offering.

Haha. Hell, perhaps.

She might have burned down the entire savannah in her embarrassment and heartbreak.

Or she might have simply curled up and cried for another thousand years, waiting for someone else to come along and make her feel wanted.

Good thing there were not any other people around to see us in this compromising position.

Her chest was still completely bare, her large breasts uncovered and unrestrained.

And she only sometimes got self-conscious about her nudity, remembering that she was supposed to be embarrassed about such things.

Then quickly forgetting again, as her attention shifted to something else.

But really, she was--