Jax whispered into her ear. "Don’t tell the others about the secret I am about to share with you."

His voice was low enough that only she could hear.

"Very soon, I am going to be a father. I have spent my entire life learning how to break people. How to push them away. How to be rude enough that they never bother again. My whole existence has been built on winning. I know a hundred different ways to hold a sword. But I never had the slightest idea how to hold a child’s hand."

He paused.

"But when I realized my child was coming, I was terrified. Terrified that I wouldn’t even know how to hold them. So I have been reading all these silly books lately. Trying to figure out how to hold a kid. How to protect their innocence. How to be a good father. Which is something completely new to me."

His voice softened further.

"And when I looked at you today. Bleeding. Crying. Standing all alone against an entire world for a reason neither you nor I understand. I didn’t see a stranger. I didn’t see a witch or a prophecy. I just saw my own kid. Maybe because of that damn novel I have been reading. Or maybe because of the new emotions that keep changing me."

He pulled back just slightly.

"But I realized one thing. There is no universe where a real father stands by and lets the world hurt his child. If I let this world take your life, I would never be able to look my own child in the eyes again."

He placed his hand on her tiny head.

"So consider this my practice, little one. Let me be your dad for a while."

The tiny dragon was frozen. She didn’t know how to react to what she had just heard. Her tears stopped midway down her cheeks and her face settled into a cutely confused expression that couldn’t decide between shock and something she hadn’t felt in a very long time.

Jax stood up. And this time he spoke without whispering. Loud enough for every ear present.

"If it were my past self, I wouldn’t have hesitated to do something as dirty as killing a child to survive. But right now? I am willing to play dirty enough to challenge the world itself."

He looked down at her. "So rest assured, little one. I have a habit of absolutely crushing anyone who dares to step close to someone I have already labeled as mine."

The girl looked up at him with scrunched eyebrows. "I don’t get you at all."

Jax patted her head with a tired smile. "That makes two of us."

He looked up at the sky and said quietly. "Even I don’t know who I am anymore."

The girl tugged at his attention again with a voice that was fighting between hope and the instinct to crush it before it could betray her. "Do you really mean that? Will... will you protect me? Will you stand for me without aiming for my powers?"

Jax nodded. "I will. But I won’t be there for you always. We come from different worlds. It’s a bit complex but I came here from a place that isn’t this one. And I have a home to return to. People who would be worried sick if I don’t come back."

He caught the confused, saddened look on her face and added. "But don’t worry. I won’t take my leave until I make you so absolute that this entire planet fits comfortably beneath your heel."

His tone shifted into something sharper.

"I know you are holding back. I know you are terrified of your own power. Terrified of hurting others. And that is exactly why you are crippling yourself. Because it makes absolutely zero sense that a mage capable of flawlessly wrapping a lethal spell around my neck could ever be caught by a handful of pathetic knights."

He crouched to her level. "I don’t know what kind of misplaced guilt is making you choose death over fighting back. But let me give you a piece of advice."

His eyes met hers directly. "If an entire world looked at me and decided I was an apocalypse, I wouldn’t let them kill me. I would prove them right. I would make their stupid prophecy come true."

He straightened up.

"I have a rule I live by. If I commit a sin and the world calls me guilty, but my pride refuses to bow, then you will already see me walking on a path to make every last one of them regret it."

His jaw tightened.

"But if the world brands me cruel or evil when my hands are completely clean? If they crucify me with accusations of cruelty I never committed? I refuse to let them be liars. I despise an unearned title. So I take their manufactured nightmare and I make it real. I make absolutely sure that when they suffer, it is exactly the way they described in their terrifying little rumors."

He reached out and gently tilted her chin up so she was forced to look at him.

"This world has already decided you are the apocalypse, little one. They have written you as the villain of their story. So why are you trying so hard to play the victim?"

His grip was gentle but his words were not.

"Stop fighting their script. Become the witch they fear. Fulfill their tragic little prophecy. Because I promise you, the look of absolute despair in their eyes when their lie finally becomes the truth? That is a satisfaction worth chasing to the very end of the world."

He let go of her chin and his voice warmed again.

"You are way too young to know the true enjoyment this world holds. So tag along with me. And I will teach you the simple joy of acting your age. Playing games. Making a mess. And letting someone else do all the worrying for a change."