Chapter 564: Mother and Son
Scathach fell to her knees, her eyes brimming with tears and her breath coming in gasps, looking at Strax as if she were seeing a stranger. The spear was no longer in her hands, the runes had dissipated, and what remained… was just a mother lost in time.
“I… just wanted to protect you… my little warrior,” she murmured in a drawn-out voice, her throat tight with tears.
Strax stood before her, steady, even with the remnants of battle pulsing beneath his skin. He could see the collapse in her eyes, the contradiction between the unstoppable warrior and the mother who had lost everything… including time.
“Protect?” he repeated, with cutting calm. “You almost killed one of the women I love. You turned my garden into a battlefield. You destroyed everything around you because of… jealousy.”
Scathach frowned, as if the word had hit her like a slap. “It’s not jealousy! It’s care! It’s love! You’re… you’re my baby!”
“I’m not a baby anymore, Scathach,” he replied firmly. “I’m a man. I have a life. And you can’t… just come back from the dead and decide how I should live.”
She shook her head, desperate. “But you don’t understand! I died so young… I left you! I didn’t want to… but I left when you were just a child! You… you were only six years old, Strax!”
The tears flowed freely now. She spoke with her soul exposed, her voice choked with emotion.
“You still slept with a blanket in your hands… You cried in the middle of the night calling my name. I wasn’t there! I didn’t see you grow up… I wasn’t by your side when your power awakened, when you fell for the first time fighting, when you… loved for the first time!”
Strax lowered his eyes for a moment. It hit him—hard, right in the heart. Because it was true. She hadn’t been there. She couldn’t have been. And he wanted her in all those moments.
“I know,” he said softly. “I know you wanted to. And that you had no choice. I know you died trying to protect me… I remember.”
Those words made Scathach sob.
“But… now that you’re back,” he continued, more firmly, “you need to understand that I’ve lived. I’ve fought. I’ve become who I am. And the women who are by my side… are there because I chose them. Not because someone gave them to me or imposed them on me.”
She shook her head, whimpering. “But… but… they can deceive you! They may only want your power! Your name! I’ve seen how they look at you!”
“And I see more than that,” Strax cut in, firmly. “I see who they are. And even when they make mistakes, even when they fail, I love them. Because that’s what I do. Because that’s the man you created. That you dreamed I would become.”
Scathach looked at him as if she were seeing, for the first time, the son she had not seen grow up. That boy she left at the age of six was now here—a grown man. A feared warrior. A beloved leader. A husband to powerful women.
But to her, he was still the same boy she cradled in her arms.
“But you’re still my baby!” she cried, her voice trembling. “You’re still my little boy, Strax! You’re all I have!”
Strax approached slowly.
“I know…” he whispered, crouching before her, his eyes now filled with compassion. “And you are also part of me. You always have been. But now… you need to see me as I am. As I am today.”
He opened his arms.
And embraced her.
Strongly.
As he had never done before.
Scathach froze at his touch. For a second, her body stiffened, still in denial. But then… she felt it.
The warmth.
It wasn’t the magical warmth of the runes, nor the warmth of battle, nor the warmth of a twisted possession.
It was human warmth. Real. The kind of warmth she felt when she held Strax in her arms for the first time. When he cried for the first time. When she kissed him on the forehead before leaving for the last battle she would face in her life.
She closed her eyes.
And melted into that embrace.
“I… I just wanted more time with you…” she whispered against his chest.
“Now you have it,” Strax replied, holding her tighter. “But it has to be the right time. The right way. Not trying to hold me in the past.”
Scathach buried her face in his chest and cried—not with despair, but with relief. As if each tear washed away centuries of frustration, longing, fear, and repressed desire.
She stayed there, in her son’s arms, for long minutes. The world around them seemed suspended. None of the wives approached. Not even Ouroboros. They just watched… in silence. The scene transcended jealousy, power, and the past.
It was the reunion of two hearts separated by death.
A mother and her son.
Scathach finally stepped back a little, her eyes red and her nose sniffling. “You… you’re so big… so strong…”
Strax smiled. “Life hits hard. I had to keep up.”
“Do you still have that little blanket?” she asked with a tearful smile.
He laughed. “No. But I have something better now.”
She looked at him curiously.
“I have you back.”
Scathach pressed her lips together, trying to hold back another wave of tears.
“Promise you won’t forget me… because of them?”
Strax held her face in his hands.
“You’re my mother. The first woman who loved me. And you’ll always have your place. But you have to share that place with those who are here now. That… is love too.”
She nodded, finally surrendering. Not out of defeat, but out of love. A mature, painful, but real love.
“Okay… but if any of them hurt you… I swear I’ll break the world in half.”
Strax laughed. “Then you’re still my mother.”
She wiped her face, trying to compose herself.
“Are you going to introduce me to them properly now… or am I going to have to break into their rooms one by one?”
Strax helped her up, putting his arm around her shoulders.
In the distance, the sounds of weakened magic began to dissipate. The women, one by one, began to move again, panting, moaning in pain, but alive. The traces of an insane battle still marked each of their bodies—cuts, burns, torn clothes, and failed runes. But their eyes were coming back into focus.
Samira was the first to stand up completely, leaning on her broken spear, her hair covered in dust and dried blood. She looked up at the sky, where Strax still embraced Scathach, and raised an eyebrow.
“It’s impressive…” she said, spitting out a little blood and wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “So powerful… and she’s crying because her son scolded her.”
Cristine, still on her knees, let out a hoarse laugh. “It just goes to show that no magical force in the world can match a mother’s guilt.”
Kali, sitting on a steaming rock, rubbed her arms, marked by the runic explosions. Her golden eyes watched the scene with a contemplative expression.
“Such a strong being… she seems so weak now,” she said, her voice calm, almost melancholic. “Not in a bad way… but human. More than us, even.”
Daniela, who was leaning against a half-burned tree, crossed her arms even though her shoulder was bleeding. She watched Strax’s mother break down emotionally in her own son’s arms… and couldn’t help but smile crookedly.
“You talk as if you wouldn’t do the same,” she retorted. “All of you would melt like that if Strax held you like that. Let’s stop pretending we’re immune.”