Tribulations of a Dragon

Who has two wings and feels miserable? This dragon. Ugh… Don’t drink while low on blood. At least I didn’t sleep all day this time, so that’s something. I can tell because apparently I just fell asleep in the street again. And the sun is being a total jerk right now.

With great effort, I struggle to pull myself up, even just standing feels difficult. I’ve taken quite the battering these last few days, and I need some recuperation.

Now that I’m actually standing, I make my way towards… I don’t know, I have no idea where I am. I don’t think I can turn around here without breaking something, so I probably shouldn’t do that.

“Hah, you’re awake! Have some more meat, on the house!” Don’t mind if I do. Not sure why this guy is giving me breakfast, but who am I to look a gift whatever this was in the mouth.

“I tell ya, dragon, eating half my store and passing out has been excellent advertisement for the quality of my products! They’re so good they can put a dragon in a food coma. Hah!” I'm pretty sure that’s not what happened, but if he wants to sponsor me, I’m not gonna correct him.

I make quick work of the chunk and it is pretty good, so he’s got that part right. With snack time over, I try to remember that important thing happening today, but I'm not having much luck.

Fortunately for me, my next distraction is approaching right now, it’s Raya! “Hey Kira, Joras sent me to fetch you, apparently you have an appointment with Lily.” Ah, that’ll be the thing I forgot. Enchantments! That helped perk me right up.

I motion towards the butcher and give Raya a questioning look. If I really did eat that much, I should pay for it. “Joras paid for it,” oh, that’s nice of him, “using the coin he owed you for your blood.” Dang it!

I know that that’s fair and sure, I wanted to pay for it, but I wanted that money for myself… Now I’m worried how much this whole thing cost me.

I give the butcher a few nods, we set out as I hear him laughing behind us. He seems like a happy guy. We slowly make our way down some streets, well, slow by my standards, Raya is walking fairly fast on her short legs.

But I wanna take it slow, since I’m still feeling fairly tenderized, and annoyingly, it’s mostly my own fault. I wonder if a healing potion would help, but eh, I don’t have any right now.

Some trekking later, we arrive someplace I’m familiar with, the square! Now I have some idea of where I am, excellent. Looking around, I try to spot the minor road damage someone caused, but I don’t see it.

Did they already fix it? These folks work fast, and I’m surprised at how well the repairs are done, I can’t even make out which way I slightly busted up. I look down at Raya, and she’s staring at me with her goofy smile. “Did you get distracted again?” Pfft, no! Of course not.

Moving on, we walk towards Joras’ place, today is the day on which I shall learn magic! On the way there, I find myself somewhat surprised by how bold folks are getting, because folks are actually reaching out and touching me after moving aside.

Not sure how I feel about that. At least I get the impression that they're just taking a chance at touching something dangerous.

We finally arrive at Joras’ place and I move to knock, but then Raya intercepts and knocks first. It’s like these people don’t trust me to be gentle. No matter. Turns out it's Lily who opens the door, she's quick to greet us with a smile.

“How are you feeling today, Kira? I heard you had quite the night.” Grumbling, I just flex my muscles a bit, still feeling tenderized.

Feels like a lot of questions are coming my non-verbal way.

“Are you up for learning some basic enchanting today?” Another question, but yes, yes I am. Raya informs me that she’ll join us later, which sounds pretty good, it’s been a few days since we hung out.

Joras approaches and hands Lily a bag, and I give him a well-deserved growl. “Found out I spent your coin, did you?” Ooh, I’m gonna need to get creative when I decide to punish his smug face. For now, I’ve got learning to do, though.

“We’ll need to leave town to practice because enchantments can be somewhat volatile.” Huh, that’s ominous, but it’ll be fine. We bid Raya and Joras goodbye, Lily by using her fancy-pants speech and me by growling vaguely.

It doesn’t take all that long to actually make our way outside town, and Lily starts unpacking her bag, starting by laying out a blanket. Apparently, she brought all sorts of tools and materials.

I have no idea how I’m supposed to use any of that. Big dragon hands and claws aren't really great for tool use.

I see four daggers, some padding, I think that’s for armor, and some delicious-looking rings I think might be gold.

Off to the side, Lily is also setting up those fancy enchanting tools, consisting of some types of ink, quills, a small hammer, a chisel, and a very small vise.

She finishes up laying out her equipment and glances up at me. “Oh, you don’t have to use any of these tools to cast enchantments, but I do. Your entire body is made of enchanting materials, so it shouldn’t be a problem for you to enchant certain parts, if you learn how.”

I can feel a hunger from her as she mentions my body’s enchanting potential, which puts me a bit on edge. Something to keep in mind, it feels like.

“Now, to begin with, learning enchanting requires choosing a path of sorts. The first enchants you learn help align you to a certain path, making learning and casting from that path easier, but other paths become more difficult.” That seems weird, I want to learn all the things, but this seems like a potentially permanent choice.

“The paths are offense, defense, and recovery. Technically, there’s also utility, but most utility fits on multiple paths, such as speech. With speech, you can heal through expressing yourself, offend your enemies, or defend your friends, and this is why we, the blessed species, believe this is how it isn’t restricted to one path.”

Okay, by that reasoning, couldn’t most things be justified to fit at least two paths? Like water can be used to clean a wound or sate your thirst, but it could also drown someone.

“You’re likely thinking that this is too vague, but these restrictions also seem to be affected by how active spellcasting utilizes the spells. So if a school of magic, say Fire, primarily has offensive spells, it will be considered an offensive path, and it's easier to learn fire-based enchantments on the offensive path.”

That seems a bit arbitrary…

“Remember, this is just how we interpret a natural phenomenon, we could very well be wrong, and the actual reasons for these restrictions might yet be discovered, but so far, it’s the best we have.”

“Do keep in mind that enchanting and magecraft are two different disciplines and work in different ways. Magecraft is shaping the magic of the world into what you want, but enchanting takes much more finesse as you weave the magic into a material in order to create an effect.”

That certainly sounds interesting, but how versatile is it, and can I create any effect I want? That seems like an important question. I don’t even know whether Joras has been casting specific spells or just throwing magic together in the shapes he wants.

“Now, Joras has warned me that you’re prone to letting your mind wander, we’ll start with choosing which path you want. Personally, I chose to learn defensive enchantments, so I can create resistance runes for some of the elements of the world, or make equipment more durable, but you’re pretty well covered defensively.”

She goes on to explain that offense can increase sharpness, bathe a blade in fire and whatnot, or even bind a weapon to a specific user, causing pain to anyone else. Supposedly it could even work with my claws, teeth, and tail, that’d be pretty nifty.

Apparently, recovery also dips into some pretty neat utility. Obviously, it heals and stuff, but you can create enchanted pots that grow plants faster, how neat is that?!

Recovery apparently won’t let you regrow limbs, but it can prevent you from losing those limbs in the first place, which I suppose defense can as well. I guess offense can too, because a dead enemy probably isn’t gonna be chopping you up.

I really don’t know which path to pick, but if it just makes it harder to learn stuff from other paths and such, I could probably still dip into them.

“Now, before choosing, we’ll need to test your compatibility, and to do so, you’ll need to try enchanting something attributed to each path.” Okay, sounds simple enough.

Lily lays a dagger in front of me, and apparently I’m supposed to just infuse it with magic like I did with Joras, but try to shape the magic into an edge as sharp as I can. That sounds remarkably easy.

So that’s what I do. Touch it and push a smidge of magic into it while having thoughts of sharpness. Luckily for me, I don’t own the blanket because it caught fire when the dagger melted.

Sometimes life presents you with important choices, like am I gonna blame the dagger or admit that I might not get this right immediately?

“Huh, that’s new. I have never seen something get overloaded by magic like that. I think I may have misjudged the requirements for this training session.” Woo! I’m off the hook!

“It’s obvious that you can already use some enchantment magic, so we’ll focus on calculating your current affinity instead. Try pushing a talon through this padding.” She lays out a small square in front of me, and I push through it well enough. It has some resistance, but not much.

“Good, now focus magic into your talons and push one through this section of padding.” I focus on my magic and repeat what I feel when I fly, but direct it towards my claws.

I don’t really feel anything, but when I push through the padding, there’s much less resistance. Okay, that seems dangerous. I can shred things easily!

“Before you get too excited, Kira, you should know that this means you fundamentally use a different path to enchantment than the Blessed species do. I could see your magic move, and it was not shaped.” She’s frowning a bit, and I’m not sure what that means. Subconsciously, I tilt my head and give her a look.

“It means I can’t teach you anything. Think of it like learning magecrafting from a fighter. They might have some idea, but the intricacies will be lost.” Okay, yeah, that might be a problem.

Dang it, no tutor for me. I don’t wanna say this entire thing was pointless, but I am a bit disappointed that I won’t have a teacher. On the other hand, I think I can push magic into other parts of my body to gain superpowers, like my super sharp claws.

So that’s what I try! Starting with my arms, I wanna see if I can regenerate my scales, so I push magic towards my wounded wrists and think about how I want my scales to renew.

At first, I don’t think anything happens, but then I feel a sharp pain. Well, not so much a sharp pain as multiple sources of dang it to heck, make it stop!

“Kira! What’s happening?!” Huh, Raya’s arrived, just in time to see me do something questionable and writhe in pain. Looking down at my wrist, I can see the scales have recovered beautifully, or been replaced.

I don’t know how I feel about that, because that freakin’ hurt, but it also seems like I should definitely renew my defenses.

“Magnificent. It appears you’ve regrown some of your scales. Can you repeat that while I watch?” Okay, Lily is making it weird. Given how painful it was to regrow the scales on my wrist, I’m not looking forward to those at the base of my neck.

Yeah, I’m gonna do that later. I don’t wanna pass out from the pain while outside of town; that feels unnecessarily risky.

Raya still looks worried, so I give her a reassuring lick, which quickly changes her expression. She now looks wet and mortified. She moves her hands toward her face and wipes some saliva away, but then she does the unthinkable… She flings it back at me!

I’m hit! With extraordinary dramatic flair, I fall over, which she takes as an invitation to jump onto me, smearing me with my own saliva!

My immediate thought is that I really need a bath, but it occurs to me that I already did so after sleeping in the street and brawling with large danger cats.

Now some would say I’m not one to talk, but Lily doesn’t really have much respect for my personal space. She’s poking and prodding at my new scales, and I’m not sure why. She does seem very interested, though.

“If I pull one out, would regrowing it result in the same painful phenomenon, or would a cleaner extraction result in reduced or no pain?”

I do find myself curious about that, since I don’t know how many of the previous scales were snapped and how many were properly pulled out. Could be it’s just painful in cases of pushing out the previous root.

Wait, no. This is just gonna lead to more experimentation, and I’m not up for that. And that look in Lily’s eyes is far too hungry for me to agree, plus I just don’t know her that well. Or at all now that I think about it.

As I get up, I realize that Raya is still sitting on me. It turns out there’s a spot just behind my head where she can sit and hold on to my horns. Guess I’ve got a passenger today. I bet if I could see her, she’d be grinning about having the upper hand.

At least she’s super light, I’ll just have to be careful not to hurt her. Focusing back on my own magic trials, I try pushing a little magic through my body to see if I can heal some of my bruises, and what I get in return is like a map of the damage in my mind’s eye.

I don’t like what I see. I have so many bruises all over. I felt the pain, but I hadn’t realized how hurt I actually am. Several of my ribs are damaged, I’m not even gonna deal with what my muscles look like, and several of my spikey spines are just snapped.

It occurs to me that I’m quite lucky to not have done more damage to myself. No more backflips! Well, maybe some backflips, but no more landing on my back.

Looking inward again, I can feel a trickle of magic healing my wounds and bruises, but it will definitely take quite some time, unless I’m up for a burst of pain again, which I am not. So it’s not really viable for combat, but it could save me in a pinch.

To Lily’s credit, she’s just packing up her equipment and not pushing for mutilating me in the name of science.

“So what are you gonna do now, Kira?” My neck massager is asking a fairly valid question, so I think I’ll answer it! Reaching for my magic again, I push it toward my throat and try to speak.

The result is mostly just growly noises, but I do manage to say “fly.”

“Did you say fly?” I did, and then I take off. Ha ha! She is holding on very tightly with her legs, I feel somewhat confident she won’t fall, so I fly a little higher and we soar through the air.

Deciding it’s time to explore the plains a bit, I focus on flying north. We’re above a bunch of fields, and to my surprise, they’re growing a lot of stuff.

I find myself reminded of my old world and all the delicious things I used to enjoy. I shouldn't focus on that now, it’ll just bum me out. Instead, I think I'll turn my attention towards Raya, who is laughing, screaming, and yelling. It feels fantastic to share this experience with someone.

As we fly, I spot a few herds of some sort of deer critter, they’re bulkier than the ones I saw in the forest. I’m definitely gonna give them a taste test soon.

Off in the distance, I see another fortification, but this one has stone walls, unlike Raya’s town, which has wooden palisades. Curiosity getting the better of me, we fly closer for a quick look.

Turns out 'off in the distance' is actually a decent bit away, but we make it and we’re soaring over the town. I’m surprised to find all sorts of folks walking the streets. Well, I say walking, but they’re definitely fleeing in a panic.

There’s even a scalefolk! Judging by the bright green scales, this one is probably male. I kinda wanna go say hello, but I probably shouldn’t, given the whole panic thing.

I ask Raya if she thinks they’ll allow us to land outside of town and say hello, but she’s a bit wary of the idea.

“They might just attack us immediately.” That does seem to be my theme. Maybe I’ll see how they react tomorrow.

The sun is setting and the sky changes color beautifully, so I decide that’s enough exploring for today. Turning us around, we fly back towards Raya’s town.

Flying at a leisurely pace, we end up arriving at nightfall. Today has been another pretty good day, and I can finally talk to people, kinda. As long as they're fluent in rumbly and growly words, I definitely need practice.

Soaring over the town, I've come to the wise decision that I won't land outside of town. I’m gonna land in the square!

With a gentle thump, I manage to land without doing much damage to the cobblestone. Leaning down, Raya climbs off me, stretching her legs.

“Mom! I want to try the dragon too!” I turn to look at the yelling child and it’s the climbing girl! I’m gonna give her a little show, so I release my flames into the air, lighting up the area.

The little girl’s mom shoots me a glare as the girl’s excitement flies through the roof. Mommy dearest is very quick to drag her child somewhere else.

“You just can’t help yourself, huh?” I didn't do anything wrong. Raya tells me she has to go home, so I give her a nudge and we say goodnight to each other, and she hugs my face again, feels nice. And then she’s off into the night.

I think I’ll return to my lake for tonight and take a bath, then heal some more scales. That’s gonna suck, but I have to face the music and do it. Taking off again, I try my best to avoid causing more damage, which I mostly succeed in.

Good job, me. I'm getting quite good at this dragon business. Aside from avoiding property damage, being gentle is also helping me get a better feel for my body.

In barely any time at all, I’m in my lake and the water feels amazing, so I submerge most of my body, hoping the coolness will help reduce the big ouch I’m about to feel. Reaching for my magic, I channel it into the base of my neck and my hypothesis is correct; this is a big ouch. In an unfortunate stroke of luck, I don’t pass out, so I get to experience all of the agony, but I also don’t get attacked while unconscious. Mixed feelings about that one.

Once the pain subsides, I pull myself out of the water, make my way towards my tree and climb up it, I’m starting to want a cave or something to huddle up in. But for now, the tree is nice. At least I’m kinda hidden up here. It takes barely any time at all for me to fall asleep.

———————

The following morning makes it readily apparent that I could use an alarm clock, because it isn’t morning, it’s noon. Climbing down my tree, I go for a nice stretch and my body feels far better than it has for a few days. Definitely need to do more healing sessions in the future.

“Hey Kira.” What the heck! Give me a heart attack, why don’t you. Where did she even come from. Obviously I just ask her how she snuck up on me, and it turns out to be some stupid sneaky potion.

“Joras gave it to me, so I could come here safely.” We’ll call it even on the punishment front, I got quite the startle, but Raya was safer.

“Can we go flying again? Pleeaaaase?” I find myself wanting to decline because I’m definitely not some mount to be ridden at her leisure, but it’s Raya, and she’s been my friend since my first day here.

The first time was to correct a mistake, and the second time was for convenience, but this would be an active choice…

“If you don’t want to, we don’t have to. We can do other stuff.” Gah! I wasn’t prepared for her adorable smiling face respecting my boundaries!

I have to restrain myself from giving her a lick, because yeah, we’re going flying, and the moisture would get cold.

I lean down so she can climb up, but then she stops after taking hold of a horn. I ask her what’s going on, but she seems a little reluctant to say.

“I see your scales have healed. I’m sorry it hurts so much to heal them. Thank you for defending Tuiran.” I don’t really think I deserve credit for that, but there's no point in arguing about it.

Instead, I give a little shake and Raya climbs on. Same spot as yesterday, and once I can feel that she’s ready, we take off.

This time we fly north of my lake, towards a mountain range. I’m curious what sort of things we’ll see there or on the other side. I’m really getting good at this flying stuff, it helps that I’m not being attacked in the air, unlike on the ground, which has a remarkable amount of attackers.

I’ve been capable of flying for a few days now, and I’m still surprised at how fast I can get to places. We’re almost at the mountain range already, and we’ve only been flying for like half an hour.

I see a snowy mountain peak and consider going there, but we should probably prepare for that beforehand, so Raya has proper clothes for it.

Instead we cross the mountain range and it’s just ocean, lots and lots of ocean.

“I’ve never seen anything like that, look at all that water!” I’ve never actually been by the ocean before either, so I’m awestruck as well. It really is amazing. I’m gonna have to try some fishing at some point, I bet the fish here are tasty.

After a while, I feel my attention slip towards other things, and I fly towards the plains again. I’m really curious about this town we saw yesterday, and I wanna see more of it.

So that’s where we’re heading, and I inform Raya of my plan to see how the townsfolk react after yesterday’s scare. Hopefully they’re over it since I didn’t do anything.

They’ve got plenty of fields outside the gates as well, and there are farmers tending them. To my surprise, the farmers just duck down instead of running away.

I’m not quite sure if they’re afraid of me or just being cautious, so I’m gonna try not being threatening as I fly over them.

“I’m not sure about this, Kira, there are a lot of blessed people here.” I really need to find out what the heck these blessed people are.

That’s something for later, for now, we’re closing in on the fortress town. A quick flyby and they’ll know we’re here.

Just to make sure, and because I’m famous for my great ideas, I fly over a southern gate and land on a road a good distance from the gate. And in no time at all, a group of armed people on horses is riding towards me. There are twelve of them, which seems like a rather small force, perhaps they aren’t gonna immediately attack.

For once, it turns out I was correct! They stopped a short distance from me, and now some old guy with an impressive grey beard is walking closer and I feel a small tingle of magic, but not one targeting me.

“Dragon rider, what is it you seek?” What? Who’s a dra- Oh right, Raya’s still sitting on me.

“I don’t know, this wasn’t my idea. Ask her.” Dang it, she used one of my strategies, throwing responsibility to someone else.

Stroking his beard, he seems somewhat confused for a moment.

“Dragon, for what reason have you graced us with your presence?" Okay, that’s definitely a tonal shift. Trying to keep it innocent, I tell him that we’re just enjoying a day of flying, and I want to see their town.

“Will you promise to behave in a civilized manner?” That seems like a fair question, so I tell him I’ll do my best. To which he just nods and tells me I’m welcome to visit.

“Er warac to nuio, un themar warac lo ulawa topi jebui Saifwa! [You can’t do this, a dragon can’t be allowed into our town!]” Judging by that guy’s tone, he’s less keen on me sightseeing than the old guy.

“Are you sure about this, Kira?” Raya asks with a tinge of nervousness, but I respond with a few nods, which causes Raya to laugh as she suddenly has to hold on tighter.

“Settle down, Captain. We should always strive to make new friends in these hostile lands. And what better way to make a friend than to invite them in?” Huh, weird that I can understand the old guy, but not Captain Cranky.

“Now then, I believe proper introductions are in order. I am Grand Mage Wreyn. And as my word is my bond, I offer you and your friend protection as you visit our town of Oakhold, as long as you act in good faith.” I look over at Captain Cranky, and he is fuming.

I introduce myself to Wreyn and promise to behave to the best of my ability, which plasters a smile across his face. And he leads us towards the gates, hopefully we get a proper tour.

“Pardon me for saying so, but I find myself thoroughly surprised by your conduct, Lady Kira.” Oh, I’m super well-behaved.

“Hah, just you wait until she gets bored, she’ll wander off and find trouble somehow.” Not now, Raya! We’re making friends and you expose my weaknesses just like that?!

“Oh? I’m afraid I didn’t catch your name. I’d like to hear more about this trouble she’s so capable of finding.” This does not bode well…

“I’m Raya! Just a few days ago, she wandered our town, Tuiran, and she found a Mire Panther. Those aren’t even supposed to live around Tuiran.”

Mr. Wizard just moves a hand to his chin and thinks for a moment. “That is alarming, did she manage to kill it? Hopefully, your kin didn’t experience much hardship from this ordeal.” Huh, he seems to be genuine.

Raya launches into storyteller mode and talks all about how I defeated the large cat, and includes that I apparently destroyed five buildings and got hammered. I may have some memories of that…

"Remarkable. How fortunate that she was near.” I’m getting some very mixed feelings right now, feeling both prideful and self-conscious, maybe even a little embarrassed... We’ve made it inside the walls of the town, and folks are very curious, murmuring away in a language I don’t know.

Since I’m curious, I ask why Captain Cranky is so unwilling to entertain guests, which sends Wreyn into a laughing fit. Like he’s actually rolling on the ground laughing now.

Geez, he’s barely breathing, how was that so funny to him? “Oh by the Gods, Captain Cranky, oh my. I’m definitely referring to him as Captain Cranky from now on.” Finally, he’s regaining his composure.

“He’s a man of great esteem, titles, and other such nonsense coming out of his ass, but he isn’t particularly personable, which hasn’t earned him any favors in the capital. So now he’s here, serving as the Protector of my town and this region. He only goes by Captain because he prefers being head of the guard to all the nonsense of noble life.”

Huh, that’s a lot. Hopefully, that won’t become a whole thing with the nickname stuff.