Epilogue VI ‒ One Last Favour
Epilogue VI ‒ One Last Favour
The world beyond the world was silent.
A pristine void stretched in all directions—immaculate, infinite, and untouched by time. There was no sky, no earth, no stars, no gravity. Only whiteness, soft and endless, like untouched parchment or unspoken thought. Yet in the middle of this perfect nothing floated a being who defied description.
A colossal dragon, his body winding through the air like a celestial river, slumbered beneath an unseen sun. His scales shimmered in hues of sapphire and silver, each one rippling with traces of ancient light. His long, sinuous whiskers drifted as if carried by a phantom breeze, and a magnificent mane flowed behind his horns—two antlers shaped like crystalline branches from a divine tree.
He did not breathe. He did not stir. He simply was—a being too vast for measurement and too still for mortal minds to comprehend.
He was the Aether Dragon, the first and final architect of creation.
And for a long, sacred stillness, the void was undisturbed—like a painting rendered in the brushstrokes of gods.
Until, like a ripple in a mirror-still pond, something very small appeared.
“Heya! Wake up, Mister Creator! How long are you planning to sleep? I’m aging over here!”
The voice broke the silence like a pebble thrown through glass.
From beneath one half-lidded eye, the great dragon stirred. His pupils opened—vast and unfathomable, twin oceans of ancient blue. For a moment, he merely gazed ahead, unmoving, as if deciding whether the interruption was real or just another eon-old dream.
Then, slowly—like a mountain remembering how to breathe—he spoke.
[I had overexerted myself while fulfilling your last request. Thus, rest was essential for the reconstitution of my divine essence.]
His voice did not echo. It resonated—within bone and mind and memory. The void itself seemed to hum in reverence.
Cupcake Crab stood on what could only be described as a shimmer of light beneath his feet, claws on hips, the frosting dome on his back glinting smugly.
“Yes, yes, your greatness, I get it. But you’re not the only one doing all the work, y’know? If this keeps up, I’ll boil into crab stew before we’re done!”
The dragon blinked slowly—once every century, perhaps.
[I did not bestow upon you the power of inter-sanctum traversal merely so you could interrupt my slumber.]
He lowered his muzzle slightly, eyes narrowing with celestial gravity.
[Speak now, Cupcake Crab. Why have you come this time?]
Cupcake Crab held up a single claw. “Correction. I never asked for teleportation powers. I only wished to be the ‘greatest travelling merchant in the world.’ It’s on you that it turned into this.”
The Aether Dragon’s luminous mane stirred, curling around his body like a haloed cloud.
[Was it even I who granted that wish?] he mused aloud. [So many centuries… so many prayers… it is difficult to recall the shape of every divine bargain made beneath the stars.]
He let out a long breath—so slow and immense it bent the light around them.
[Still, I sense your duty remains incomplete. So, tell me Cupcake Crab—why do you stand before me now, once more, instead of walking the path meant for you?]
Cupcake tapped his claws together, trying his best to look innocent.
“Well, I was on my way to completing the final stop, honest. But I figured… maybe I could ask you for a little favour? You know, just for old times’ sake?”
The dragon lifted his great head, his horns glowing faintly with starlight.
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[A favour? Do you take me for a village peddler of charms and baubles? I am the progenitor of oceans, sky, and flame. I forged the cycles of life and death, shaped continents with my breath—and you address me as though I were a grocer being haggled with over dried kelp.]
“Okay, okay, don’t get all scaled up,” Cupcake said, backing up a half-step. “Just hear me out.”
The Aether Dragon’s brow furrowed slightly.
[You persist. As you always do. Disturbing my peace, asking where the ‘Player’ is, how the ‘Player’ is… Am I your personal ‘GPS’ now?]
“GPS?” Cupcake asked with a tilt of his frosting. “What’s that?”
[It’s an artifact used by humans on Earth to navigate in between places.]
“Pardon, what?”
[Never mind. Speak your wish, troublesome one.]
Cupcake cleared his throat. “So! I was wondering—does a divine key have to be returned to its original master? Or can it, I don’t know… choose someone else?”
The Aether Dragon’s expression became solemn.
[It can choose another, yes. But such a choice must be accepted by the world itself—by the weave of fate. If one is chosen, they must walk a path worthy of such a burden.]
“Right, great. That’s all I needed to know. But actually, I do have one more tiny request.”
The dragon’s eye twitched. His massive brow arched, a silent echo of disbelief.
Cupcake Crab rocked on his heels. “Soooo… hypothetically—if someone needed a teensy bit of help. Not a world-ending kind of help. Just a little push. Would you… maybe… feel inclined to lend a divine claw?”
The Aether Dragon just stared. A thin, amused plume of vapour curled from his nostrils.
“You see, I’m on a bit of a time crunch,” Cupcake continued, fidgeting. “Not for me, but for someone else. Someone important.”
[Another request. How utterly predictable.]
“You see,” Cupcake continued, leaning forward conspiratorially, “I need a little something to help finish the last promise. I’m gonna need a fertilizer. Something divine. Something that can make plants grow really, really fast.”
There was a pause. A long, thunderous silence.
The Aether Dragon blinked—slowly. Twice.
[You want… fertilizer.]
“Yup.”
[I created suns. I breathed the first breath into wind. I carved the firmament of the world from a sea of formless thought… and you wish me to manifest agricultural slurry?]
“Well, when you say it like that, it sounds ridiculous.”
[It is ridiculous.]
Cupcake looked up with wide, glimmering eyes. “But important. Please? I swear—this one really is the last.”
The dragon groaned, a sound like two tectonic plates sighing in unison.
[Do you understand how much power I expended crafting that prison for Myrrak? It will take decades—centuries even—for me to recover.]
“Wow. So you’re saying a little compost is too much now?”
[I am not so petty as to deny a final plea. But by the currents of creation… you are without shame.]
He inhaled, and the void shimmered.
A pulse of cosmic energy rippled through the white space, and from thin air, a golden clump of soil hovered into view—soft, glittering, and fragrant with potential.
[Acquired Item: Elysian Earth]
[Description: Fertilizer formed from divine ether. Accelerates the growth of all known flora.]
Cupcake Crab clapped excitedly.
“Oh, that’s great! That’s perfect, actually. Now—uh, could I have, like, 499 more of those?”
There was a pause.
The Aether Dragon’s expression collapsed into a mix of exhaustion and disbelief.
[…Of course, you would say so.]
He let out a growl that would have split continents in a younger age. His tail coiled behind him like a stormy spiral, and his horns pulsed once more with light.
Golden script danced across the void as if painted by an invisible brush. Out of each letter, a lump of divine soil bloomed—like an idea taking shape. Slowly, reverently, they spiralled around Cupcake Crab and vanished into his bag with a soft chime — five hundred stars falling into place.
[Acquired Item: Elysian Earth x500]
Cupcake bowed theatrically. “Now that’s what I call divine service!”
The dragon’s tail thumped once against the unseen ground.
[Are you satisfied now, persistent one?]
“More than satisfied,” Cupcake said, patting the satchel that now bulged with miraculous soil. “This is going to help fulfill the last promise.”
The dragon tilted his head slightly.
[The last promise… to the ‘Player’?]
“Yup,” Cupcake said, suddenly quieter. “One more seed left to plant. One more place to visit.”
He looked up at the divine being with something that, for once, wasn’t mischief—but gratitude.
“I know you don’t remember everything. And I know you’re tired. But thanks. You’ve done more than enough.”
The Aether Dragon watched him in silence, the celestial light of his horns slowly dimming.
[Farewell, little thorn in my stillness. May your final journey bear fruit.]
Cupcake saluted. “And may your nap be dreamless.”
[Wait, one moment—what of my mirror? You promised you’ll get someone to fix—]
But Cupcake Crab had already vanished in a puff of pastel sparkles, frosting trailing behind like a comet’s tail.
The void was silent once more.
The dragon stared into the emptiness where the crab had been. His nostrils flared, and he murmured to himself.
[I still don’t recall when or why I gave him that power…]
He lowered his head again, settling into the curl of his own mane.
[…But perhaps, some creations do not need remembering. Only believing in.]
Beneath him, the whiteness stretched on—endless, still, and unmarred. But where the little crab had stood, the void now held a single ripple. Faint. Fleeting. Yet somehow, it lingered. Like memory. Like meaning. And in the quiet that followed, as the last sparkle of frosting disappeared into myth, the silence did not feel quite so empty.
Somewhere far below the heavens, where seeds still waited for soil and promises still waited for roots, a little crab was already on the move—carrying stardust, stories, and something gently glowing in his satchel. The world, once broken, was about to bloom again.