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A rumble.
A cry of desperation.
Warmth bloomed through his chest, though he had no corporeal form — after preserving Hydaelyn's Champion, his own beloved companion, he had left it and her behind to rest.
The rest was not as sweet as before.
He could blame it on the way he could still feel her aether, a covenant once formed as a threat, a test of her worth — which now tugged insistently in the belly he did not have.
Did he not deserve rest? Had he not done enough for this star and its people who took, took, and took?
And yet, the eyes he now had opened, chest and belly and corporeal form returned, seeing nothing but the shimmer of the Lifestream.
A cruel joke, he thought, eyeing the boundary between realms as memories rippled through its currents.
It took mere moments to find her and understand her position, the way she fell to her knees before the field of glittering flowers with the crystal of her forebear clutched tightly into her hand.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
Blood.
Another moment of assessment deemed her in otherwise good health, and then another brought him screaming to a halt.
Why was she there? He had gone to sleep, but this did not signify—
She cried out, such strong sobs wracking her frame which he had not seen in years, but he could not hear — he could feel his strength surge as he pushed forward, getting nearer to the broken crystal transmitting her image. He could see the empty shell of a dragonet he'd left at her side and cursed, knowing it had no wisdom or strength to guide her.
That his old enemy had returned, followed him, and he had had to leave her side — she had seemed settled, then, more calm.
Clearly, he had missed much.
And then, she sobbed his name, the blood-stained elpis flowers souring darker under her knees. A bolt of emotion ripped through the body he now had, followed by a violent desperation—
She needs my help, he thought, claws scratching at the crystal impatiently. I must go to her.
It felt like hardly a second between the thought and the tug in his stomach, a familiar, refreshing douse of aether sending him on his way through time and space at merely the thought.
As if she had simply been waiting for him to decide, a foregone conclusion.
Ever generous, Word of the Mother, he thought, though it would be some centuries before he would taste her aether again, before he could thank her.
At her side, resting on her shoulder where he belonged, her sobs were somehow more disturbing, and his tail lashed in frustration.
"Thou are not alone, [daughter]," he said, wrapping his tail around her neck and shifting down to rest his front legs against her tear-stained gloves.
Her gasps and cries stopped with amazing speed, a small hiccup bursting through her lips as she turned her tear stained face to his.
"M-Midgardsormr?" she said, haltingly, her eyes wide with utter disbelief.
As if it weren't possible that there was anyone left.
"I am here," he said, only able to lean forward to bump his forehead into hers. The desire to burn everything which had caused her tears, her despair, to utter ashes took hold, so his words were hardly more than hisses. "Who hath done this to you?"
Dagasi Sagahl let out a watery chuckle, reaching up with a less-bloody hand to wipe away the tears which still leaked out. "I— I can't believe you're here."
"I have come for you," he said, cocking his head to the side. Why did she not answer the question? "I will not leave you to suffer alone when your aether calls so ardently for my own."
Later, he would recall the the way she flushed, to analyze the impossibility of this moment and how he exactly had transcended time and space for a mortal, but for now his focus was on her drying eyes.
"B-but you were a-asleep," she barely managed, wiping away the remaining confounding liquids dripping from her face. "H-how— why—,"
This was no time for explanations for things which had no easy translation in her tongues, and only shook his head. "It matters not. What matters is that I am here. You are not alone, [daughter]. Do you hear the rising chorus, now?" Her eyes widened as he knew they would at some of the first words he had ever spoken to her. "They do not call for me, or for vengeance.
They call for you. It is time to answer."