The little Bone Dragon was delighted, spinning in place as though chasing her own tail to bite it.
She was too young, so young that her reactions to everything around her were sensitive and pure, utterly devoid of compromise.
But sometimes, compromise meant yielding to reality and constantly making peace with oneself.
To Kallen, hers was true cuteness, because the greatest problem with his past self had been that he understood compromise too well and was far too good at it.
So at this very moment, Kallen genuinely wanted to protect this little Bone Dragon.
The road of exploration was like drifting at sea; it required many, many anchors. Alfred was one, but Alfred worshipped him a little too much. If this little Bone Dragon could stay by his side, her presence could become an anchor that helped him hold fast to his original commitment to Order.
When he hesitated or felt lost, perhaps one glance at her would make the decision easier.
Kallen firmly believed that beyond Order, there should be no gods.
Although the little Bone Dragon could not yet express her thoughts in mature sentences, her behavior showed that, to her, rebellion meant breaking every shackle overhead.
Even the Rebel Dragon God, who had once represented this conviction, could not stand above her head. That made her deeply uncomfortable.
In a world where gods demonstrably existed, a world that worshipped gods, a world whose workings took the gods' will as their standard, opposing the existence of gods was destined to be a lonely endeavor that no one understood.
Beneath the night sky on the grasslands, you lit a campfire, then looked up. Somewhere unseen, you seemed to glimpse another person on the moon, in another world, in some banished space countless layers of distance away, lighting a