>>5560514This is indeed the superior choice, by your reckoning. It would provide the ideal way to uplift and subjugate the humans at once: you could seize one of their rulers—perhaps a daughter or granddaughter of the Paladin King himself, and make her submit to be a mate. With her royal lineage, perhaps the Mother of Dragons would see her as worthy to birth her divine offspring into the material plane… And, by bearing YOUR child, she would also install YOUR bloodline as rulers of Hawksong and the Northern humans!
“I have seen your dread works taking shape,” the Dark Goddess interrupts your private thoughts. “So, too, your amusing courtship with your dear little serpent. The plans which you now work towards will take time to bear fruit. You may perish before they are realized. Even now, the conflict between the humans of the North and their brothers and sisters to the South is merely at the stage of trade disputes, public censure, reduced travel and increased patrols. After the true war begins, it may be months before you are at the stage to introduce your own forces formally into the fray. How many months or years shall it then taken, to bring low the city of dragonslayers and paladins, prized of the Gods of Light and their children? How long, then, before you can claim a descendant of their kings as a prize?”
“…It would be worth it,” you say.
“If you live to see it,” the Dark Goddess agrees.
You feel your heart sink.
“You may yet be strong enough to endure it,” the Mother of Dragons admits. “But again… You may not.”
