Imaginary dialogue between Lạc Long Quân and Âu Cơ
by Charactorium · Âu Cơ (2825 — 2520) · Mythology · 5 min read
It is on the heights of Phong Châu, where the mist of the Northern mountains unravels at dawn, that Lạc Long Quân rises from the waters to meet Âu Cơ again. The air smells of damp earth and crumpled leaves; in the distance, one hears the lapping of a river flowing toward the sea. They have not spoken since the division of their one hundred sons, and the dragon lord comes, not to resume the quarrel, but to understand the one who was his companion. She waits for him sitting on a flat rock, an armful of dried herbs on her lap.
—Âu Cơ, do you remember the day I came to your cave, changed into a young man, surrounded by my musicians?
How could I forget it, you who made a palace appear from nothing before my eyes? I was living reclusively in that cave in the Northern mountains, far from the world, and I thought you were just a lost traveler. Then music filled the valley, and that marvelous dwelling rose where there was only stone and moss. I understood then that you were no ordinary man, but a lord of the waters. It was not your beauty that held me — it was that you drew me from my solitude without forcing me. I followed you to the palace of Long Đài of my own free will, curious about that people of the depths of whom I knew nothing.
It was not your beauty that held me — it was that you drew me from my solitude without forcing me.
—When you carried that single sack instead of children, I was far away, in the Water Kingdom. What did you feel when you discovered it?
Fear, at first — I will not hide it from you. I expected children, and I gave birth to a single sack swollen with one hundred eggs. I saw it as a bad omen, and in my terror I abandoned it in a field, thinking to ward off misfortune. Then, on the sixth or seventh day, the sack opened by itself: one hundred boys came out, straight and sturdy, growing without my needing to nurse them. I knew then that I had been wrong about the omen. What I had taken for a curse was the beginning of a people. You were not there to see it, but believe me: no human womb has ever borne anything like it.
What I had taken for a curse was the beginning of a people.
—They say here that you travel the valleys to heal the sick. You, a Tiên of the mountains, healer of the humble?
I was born of the heights, of the mountain people, and plants speak to me as water speaks to you. In the morning, I climb the paths with my armful of herbs, and I stop by those whom fever keeps bedridden. In the afternoon, I go on from valley to valley; no village is too poor to deserve my care. It is my nature as a Tiên: not to reign, but to watch over. Some say that I can cover myself with a feather garment and rise like a phoenix to flee danger. Perhaps. But my true power is not to fly away — it is to bend over a sick person and raise them up.
It is my nature as a Tiên: not to reign, but to watch over.
—Our natures opposed each other, you of the mountain, I of the waters. When we met again in the land of Tương, did you resent me?
Yes, and you know it — I told you plainly. You had gone back to the Water Kingdom for so long that our sons and I were pining for the North. I reproached you for leaving me alone, for not raising our children with me. But on seeing you again at Tương, I understood that it was not cruelty: the dragon cannot live long on dry land, nor the fairy in the abyss. Our natures were water and fire. So we chose, not to hate each other, but to share ourselves. It was the heaviest decision of my life, and yet the most just.
We chose, not to hate each other, but to share ourselves.
—Fifty sons followed me to the sea, fifty followed you to the mountains. How did you experience that separation of our children?
As one experiences a necessary tearing. We counted our one hundred sons and divided them into two halves: fifty going down with you to the shores, fifty going up with me to the heights. I kept mine and settled at Phong Châu, where the air resembles me. I do not mourn the fifty who went to the sea — they are your share, and through them your blood watches over the waters. What I want them all, all one hundred, to remember is that they came from the same sack, born from the same egg. Separated by mountains and seas, they remain one people.
Separated by mountains and seas, they remain one people.
—Our eldest son stayed with you at Phong Châu. What do you expect of him, now that he bears the title of Hùng Vương?
I expect him to be worthy of the two bloods that flow in him: yours, of the Dragon, and mine, of the Fairy. I saw him grow up among his brothers, and it was toward him that the others already turned. He has been enthroned under the name Hùng Vương, and he is founding in these lands the kingdom of Văn Lang — the first of our lineage. It is not a crown that I gave him, but an origin. May his descendants always know whence they come: from a dragon of the waters and a fairy of the mountains. As long as they remember it, they will remain brothers, and no enemy from the North will break them.
It is not a crown that I gave him, but an origin.
—You who are the Dragon and I the Fairy — do you believe our children will keep memory of this double origin, after us?
I believe it, and I want it with all my strength. Our sons will one day say that they are children of the Dragon and the Fairy, and that word will hold them together better than any border. Look at us: we separate, and yet we do not deny each other. That is the heritage — not a kingdom that grows larger, but a memory that is not lost. When my fifty sons of the mountains meet your fifty sons of the sea, may they not see each other as strangers but as brothers from the same sack of eggs. If one day a temple is raised to me here, in the land of Phú Thọ, let it be to remind of this: one mother, one father, one blood.
One mother, one father, one blood.
—Before I took you to Long Đài, you lived alone in your cave. Do you sometimes miss that solitude of the mountains?
I do sometimes miss it, yes. In my cave, I owed nothing to anyone; the silence of the peaks was my only companion. But I would not exchange what I have lived for that peace. That cave was a refuge — Long Đài was a revelation. There I discovered a people, a husband, then one hundred sons. Even today, when I return to the heights of Phong Châu, I find a bit of that old solitude, but this time inhabited by the presence of our children. The mountain remains my world. Simply, I am no longer alone there, and it is you, lord of the waters, who taught me that one can love without ceasing to be oneself.
That cave was a refuge — Long Đài was a revelation.
—Our one hundred sons grew without being nursed, coming out of the same sack. Did you see it as a sign, at the time?
At the moment, I was too stunned to read a sign — I watched those one hundred boys stand up without tears or hunger, and I did not understand. It was only later that the meaning dawned on me. An ordinary womb gives one child, sometimes two; ours gave an entire people in a single delivery. That unique sack said that all our sons were equal, stemming from the same origin, with no elder worth more than a younger by blood. That is why I care so much that they never truly divide. The sack of one hundred eggs was not a dire omen, as I believed in my fright: it was the promise of a brotherhood that neither sea nor mountain should break.
Our womb gave an entire people in a single delivery.
This imaginary interview was generated by artificial intelligence from sources documented in Âu Cơ's profile. It dramatises what the figure might have said based on what we know about them, but does not constitute attested historical testimony. For primary sources and factual documentation, refer to the full profile.