"Do you know why your brother died?" Titania asked.
Ran took a deep breath and answered with what he knew to be the truth in his heart. "His love for you surpassed what he bore me."
"That was minor. The root cause of his death was foolishness. Lan néma, why do you want to follow in your brother's footsteps?"
Ran shivered as she questioned him, her voice in his head like she was whispering directly into his ear.
He wanted her gone. He just wanted her gone. "Mother, please leave me be. I beg of you, cast yourself away from me."
"Oh, little love. We can never be separated from each other. Don't you still understand. I am your destiny, your mother, your goddess, the pulse to your life, the beat to your heart. I am your everything, Lan néma."
His heart sank when she said that. Was she going to remain inside his head? Would her presence be another mark in his soul, forever worming its way through and constricting him whenever he didn't follow the path she'd laid out for him?
He wanted her gone.
He didn't need her spirit inside him. He didn't want to hear her call him every night. He didn't want every wind blown to him to carry a whisper from her. He didn't want every view of the sky to carry a message from her. He didn't want her to torment his dreams like she'd done before.
He just wanted her gone…gone…gone… Why won't she just leave? Why was she doing this to him? He was already chained to her forever by bond and vow, what more did she want from him?
He had so many powers and yet he had nothing to use against her. He had–
He froze as at that moment he remembered what each of his cores represented. He remembered his mother's Fey friend's words, especially about the second core.
"The yellow is a mark of a creature of the harvest, an entity of a thousand wishes. It latched onto your young soul like a karmic thread."
That was his answer, wasn't it? The Limbo Cannibal, the Dream Drinker, the one who was a parasite to anything it possessed.
But would it work? There was no greater psychic than his mother and as she was inside him— mind and spirit —he wouldn't be surprised if she knew every thought that crossed his mind.
But then she'd have spoken of his plan to report her to the Feys wouldn't she? Except she had a plan of using their plan to favour her.
No, he just couldn't think like that else he'd soon start wondering if him still breathing, if every thought he had, was not somehow orchestrated by her.
That she hadn't mentioned his plan to make the Feys aware of her true nature meant that she was too confident and hadn't dug into his mind yet.
At least he hoped so.
This might work, he prayed to the Celestial Realms that it should. He had no idea what he'd do if it didn't. But he knew he would hesitate from Hara-kiri.
"Mother," he called.
"I'm forever with you, son. Speak."
He sighed. This was the most dangerous thing he'd ever tried in his life. Slowly, he began reaching for the yellow core.
"What is your price for leaving me be?" He asked, hoping he'd be able to do enough, or say enough, to distract her from noticing the strange activity in his soul as the yellow core slowly ascended through his spirit.
Just a few more seconds.
"Not everything has a price son," she said, speaking gently. She was too gentle. Had she discovered what he was doing?
He hoped not. Just a few more seconds.
"Everything has a price. That was what I was told."
"Mmhmm? And who told you that?" She humored him by asking.
"HE would often say that," he said carefully, to make sure he didn't exactly answer her question nor lie.
There was a pause and he rejoiced quietly. It seemed his distraction was going to work.
"You sound like you have met your father, son," his mother said, sounding puzzled.
Ran's hand tightened into fists in rage. He wanted to scream at her that HE was not his father, that his father was Kaito Kenija. He wanted her to repeat it after him until it sunk in.
He calmed his temper, he had a different go, he shouldn't lose his head now.
"He rests in prison. prison. A prison not of bricks, or blades, or molten chain as was used on his dragons. The very structure of the prison is despair made solid, a spire that spirals down instead of up. Its walls weep smoke, and its gates are sealed with runes that make the eyes bleed."
He didn't want to remember that dream, when he'd dreamt of HIM, but he had to, to sell the lie of having met the Great Dragon.
"You indeed have met him," his mother said, still sounding confused. "How did he come to you? Through dreams? Limbo? Or did he have someone carry a message to you? Tell me, son."
She charmed him into speaking and Ran did not resist. He gave her the words HE had given him: "He remembers… He remembers being flame. He remembers being first. He remembers genesis."
At that moment he got hold of the yellow core and flooded his spirit with its flow.
"Oh, Lan néma. Did you think I wouldn't notice what you were planning? How foolish can you be? And you'd condemn your brother for his foolishness, you? I'm in your mind, in your spirit. How did you think you could get anything past me? I am not a fairy tale!"
Ran, desperate, launched the attack at her. He commanded the core to drink, to drink her dry until nothing remained of het—not even her name.
To his surprise she did not flee. Neither did she fight. She welcomed it, letting the attack approach. She even coerced it from him, invited it and cradled it close to her spirit.
She giggled girlishly from reading his emotions. He was scared, shocked, felt like he'd seen something as impossible as a toddler kill a god with a spoon.
He had no idea what she'd just done, much less how she did it.
"You were not only foolish enough to attack me, son, but what did you use? You call it the Limbo Cannibal, I call its kind the Yoseirei. Who do you think created the Yoseirei, son?"
Ran felt cold claw down his spine as her words registered with him. His spirit darkened from the despair of failure.
"I created them to protect my realm and prowl through limbo. They are vengeful ghosts of every Fey I've ever killed, I reshaped them upon their death, empowering them with the intense anger, betrayal, and unresolved grudges they had died with to fuel their ravenous hunger. I made it so they can possess living people to enact their vengeance or express their unresolved emotions. The possession would cause the victim to act out the Yoseirei desires, speak in their voice, or suffer physical and mental torment. That is, until the Yoseirei's personality overshadows the victim's, effectively claiming their identity and erasing them from existence. They are my children as much as you are, son. My children would never attack me. Now, I believe you had a question about what my price is? Well, I wish to ask you that same question. Lan néma, what is your price?"
Ran, defeated and hopeless, gave in. This was not unusual, it was common. He should have expected it. This was what he always came to whenever they clashed. She always brought him to the point where he's hopeless from defeat, after proving that she was beyond him and nothing he could do would ever match her millennia of power and experience.
"What do you want?" He asked, aware that she may claim to require knowledge of his price but he certainly was going to be the one paying at the end of the day.
"Passage through you, passage to guide you for your destiny," she said. "What I want is my son molded after my very image and to my likeness."
"So," she continued, dragging the word in a fading whisper.
"What is your price?"