Battle Mage: Dragon Mage (Tales of Alus) (15 page)

The sleeve and strip became one under her attention, despite the intruding thoughts. Cheleya began to work on each tear individually making every wound in the fabric come together. Her eyes grew wider at the thought of healing once again. It didn’t take too long to finish mending the dress as the dragoness was becoming more comfortable with the magic and working with fabric. Sadly, she was getting a lot of practice fixing her clothes on this trip. It was so sad, that Cheleya giggled at the thought.

“What’s so funny?” Evan’s voice came startling the girl who held a hand to her upper chest in surprise.

“You startled me,” Cheleya responded quickly as she smiled to disarm any accusation he might find in her words. “I didn’t know that you were there.”

“I scared a che’ther? I would think a dragon would fear little,” the mage replied looking a little smug.

Looking a little sad at the mention of her lost form, the dragoness responded, “I am no longer a dragoness. I was never big for a che’ther, but apparently I have chosen to be small as a human as well. Being small, I guess that I scare easier.” She added the last with a bit of her smile, though he could tell that she was distracted with sad thoughts.

“It’s funny that you managed to pick such a pretty face without knowing humans very well. How long have you been able to change into one of us anyway?”

“I received my amulet a little over a year ago. Until I was forced to become human permanently I actually enjoyed it very much, but then I could return to a che’ther any time that I wanted also.” She held up her left hand and noted the delicate grace to her fingers and the smooth skin that the others had noted the previous night. Even Kel’lor had mentioned his surprise at her skin. Cheleya wondered if she had done something wrong using the amulet, though Evantus had just told her she was pretty. Her eyes searched his and asked, “You really think that I am pretty? I was told by the others that my body is wrong.”

Evan blushed a bit as he tried to answer without letting her know just how much he had managed to see the previous night. “There is nothing wrong with your shape per say. It is unusual for a grown woman to be so smooth, but many probably wish they had such skin since during the summer most women shave their legs and even arms while they can reveal them in the warmer air.

“Your breasts are a little small, though a very nice shape. Your body is slender and graceful looking as well. I think many men would find you attractive. Your hair is an interesting color too.”

The last made the girl giggle and her right hand came up to cover her lips in a strange instinctual need. Holding the red dress in her left, the right was free and she began to speak while her fingers blocked her mouth. “I was actually playing with the color the day this happened. I had a hair color more like Orlerin’s, but when the mood came I changed my color. I’ve been your hair color and Tilana’s too, but this was the first time I had tried a little red in my hair.”

Shaking his head, the mage said, “I know women that would kill for that magic too.”

At her questioning look, he clarified, “Women with more wealth I have heard like to get dyes and change the color of their hair.” He noted the dress and added, “I think you are more of a real human woman than even Colbie and Tilana would care to admit, though Colbie said that you definitely are I suppose. You buy dresses and color your hair. If you start coloring your nails, I think that you would satisfy being a typical girl.” He laughed and the dragoness smiled though she didn’t understand his joke.

Looking at her finger nails, a light pink over all, they had white at the edge and appeared unbroken despite the battle of the night before. She held them up to the young man and asked, “These are the wrong color?”

He laughed and shook his head again. The barrier between his people and hers was wider than he would have thought to look at her. Then again, the previous day before they had seen Kel’lor change, they would have believed them to be two reasonably normal humans. “They’re the way nails look naturally, though I must say that yours look like someone took time to make them shine more than say someone digging in the dirt or something like that.”

Sighing, the mage realized that his worries after the fight concerning this girl were all gone. Her innocence and beauty made him want to protect her, though he had seen her fight as well as any mage and with more magical strength besides. If her story was true, it made her all the more sympathetic in his eyes. The compassion she had shown for the crag dog proved her warm hearted, though the strange use of its hide could make him wonder at that momentarily.

When Orlerin and Tilana exited the door to see where the others had gone, Cheleya smiled brighter and moved towards the falcon. “I have been working with mending my dress and think that I may be able to heal today. Is your shoulder still injured?”

Evan’s smile faded a little as he was ignored, but her question was still intriguing as well and proved that warmth she had once more.

Orlerin tried to move the shoulder that was still in a bit of a pain since the troll had flung him aside. Stone walls were more than his body could take when flung like a rag doll by such a beast. A particularly bad twinge from his shoulder told him that the sling he had taken to wearing wasn’t doing much to change the injury.

“It still hurts, yes.”

Tilana looked at him showing concern after he had been hiding the pain he felt from them all since the injury. It was his job as leader to appear strong, but the little che’ther girl had broken through his deception quite easily. More over, Cheleya was a healer, even though she was a novice at the magic.

Leading the others back inside, Cheleya asked the falcon to sit on a chair and lay her hands on the injured shoulder. After a moment of trying to feel the pains or otherwise feeling a way to heal, she asked, “Can you remove the shirt? Maybe I just need to make better contact.”

After removing his shirt, the girl noticed his bandaged forearm and looked sad. Appearing near to tears, Orlerin tried to ease the girl by saying, “It’s just a scratch. There’s nothing to cry over, Cheleya.”

Forcing a smile, the girl replied, “I am sorry. This body seems to feel emotions so much stronger than my che’ther body could. Perhaps I should start with the easier wound then?” she questioned and managed to get around his resistance again. The falcon wondered if her tears were simply a way to disarm him as much as a smile had the younger mage. He had seen her talking with Evantus and noticed how his bearing towards her had changed.

The novice healer tried to remove the bandage, but drying blood and perhaps the skin beneath had managed to bond to the wrap. Frowning at the resistance to her efforts, the girl noted the occasional pain on his face and wondered how a real healer would approach such a thing.

“We could get some water and soak the wrap to make it easier to remove, if you want?” Tilana offered knowing, as a human, how the body and bandages worked. 

Cheleya nodded letting the wizard go get some water from the well outside. Evan stuck with them curious to see her heal. Colbie was awake and dressed, but sat on her cot looking a little pale. Despite the killing a battle mage might see, the falcon apparently couldn’t watch someone injured and bloody.

While Tilana was away, Cheleya closed her eyes touching the man’s injured arm. She felt with her magical senses for the point where flesh and cloth met. Like her use of alteration with her dresses, the girl thought that she felt both the bandages and the skin of his arm. Dried blood held the two together and her senses told her what was wrong with each inch. They also told her that the man was coating his true injuries with understatements of fact. She felt his shoulder and the pain coming from the nerves there as well as his bruised ribs. The cut on his arm should actually have been stitched since it was quite deep. The depth had helped pull the bandage’s cloth deeper making it almost impossible to remove. Cheleya feared that even using water would cause the falcon great pain in removal.

Like someone prodding and poking each strand of the cloth and loosening the hold of the dried blood, Cheleya made them move and separate. When Tilana returned with the water, she nearly dropped
the small pot as the bandage simply fell away. As they watched, the nasty looking wound began to close up under Cheleya’s healing touch.

The sight of the wound made Tilana put the pot down quickly as she turned white beginning to feel faint. Kel’lor was quick to catch the earth wizard and sat her down on the cot he had vacated. She was white as a sheet and looked nearly ready to pass out. The words of Colbie and Kel’lor didn’t seem to reach her for nearly a minute before she recovered.

Evan watched both the healing and the reaction of Tilana to Orlerin’s bloody wound. He teased, “You know they say that most people can’t look at the wound of someone they love when they are injured. I guess that I don’t really like you enough, Orlerin.”

The elder falcon smiled at him grimly, knowing that the younger man had drawn some of the bite from his words by putting the scenario of love on him instead. His eyes had watched Tilana in Kel’lor’s care with no worries over what was happening to him. He cared for her as much as she did him. Evantus and Colbie weren’t stupid, so they had figured out the closeness of their relationship. Working together so close for so long, they couldn’t hide it at all apparently.

“I’m sure I will survive that revelation about our relationship, Evan,” he replied trying to roll with the younger man’s sense of humor.

As they watched, the skin began to knit together and by the time she was done, Orlerin could neither feel the pain nor see the faintest sign of the wound. It was like it had never happened at all.

“That went well,” Cheleya stated distractedly and he guessed that she was moving her attention to his damaged shoulder and ribs.

She frowned a little more, but as he sat he could see the dark bruises lightening and the pain slowly shrunk until it faded away completely. Sitting back, Cheleya looked a little pale as well and tired.

The girl looked at Orlerin and nearly pleaded, “Could I have something to eat and drink? Healing is much harder than I thought.”

It was Evan who leaped up to pass her a canteen of water and then hurried to grab some travel bread and dried meat. He knew that using up a lot of magical energy needed to be replaced and food was the best recovery tool a wizard had.

His reaction to her need half surprised Orlerin after the mage’s strong resistance to the two from Mar’kal only hours before, but he supposed that the girl continued to prove her genuine motives. He moved his arm and shoulder and thought that for a novice, the dragoness was a very good healer.

Cheleya had needed a little time to recover, but while she had, the girl asked a favor that made her blush with embarrassment for having to ask. “I was wondering if your friend, Veras, left any spare clothes that I might have. I hate to ask and I sense that perhaps my timing is inappropriate as well.”

It was Colbie who answered first, “Even if he does, he was much larger than you. I guess that you could try to wear his shirt for a dress, but if it falls off I am going to have to remind you about modesty again.”

Smiling at the mage, Cheleya shook her head, “I believe that I begin to understand and will not take off my dresses in front of Evan and Orlerin again.”

Colbie looked ready to argue that point, especially when Kel’lor was also male, but Orlerin had nodded and replied, “I don’t know what good it will do you like, Colbie said, but the clothing is fine. Take only clothing, since some of the other pieces need to be returned to our headquarters.”

Moving with the dragoness, Colbie opened the pack and began pulling out three of the brown tunics with black highlights for his order and two pants obviously too long for her to wear without rolling up the cuffs. There were gloves and stockings as well. Even a set of long underwear, the last of which Cheleya took as well.

She had Kel’lor separate the pants, since the front and back were two pieces sewn together. The cloth was long on her as they had said and, if the pants had been left as they were, the girl doubted that her hips could have held the waistline up at all.

Taking one of the halves, Cheleya slid the piece under her blue dress trying to maintain the modesty that Colbie desired. It made what she was about to do harder, but the dragon mage called upon her magical senses and made do. The cloth shifted and moved as if she were weaving parts into place or cutting away in others only to reuse those pieces elsewhere. When she was finished, the girl hiked up her dress revealing a brown skirt fitted to her hips and coming to just above the knee.

She removed the back of a shirt but left the sleeves and front, then ordered the men to turn as she removed her blue dress. Colbie seemed to approve of her taking command of the men, but frowned as Kel’lor continued to watch the spectacle as the girl stuck her arms into the sleeves. The women and gargoyle watched in awe as the cloth seemed to flow and tie around her frame, the sleeves tightened and shortened as extra length from the sleeves somehow found its way to help fill in the back.

When she had finished with both pieces, the new blouse was cut a little short revealing a bit of her flat stomach above the skirt. While the pieces looked good to Colbie and Tilana, one thing didn’t meet Cheleya’s taste. She began to move her hands as if trying to smooth wrinkles free of the pieces, but each swipe seemed to pull the color in streaks. She played and played with the material and shortly the brown and black blouse became a light red verging on pink while the skirt turned blue.