The Fire and the Storm - Metric Pro Edition: Fiction, Dragons, Elves, Unicorns, Magic (51 page)

“I’m honored and grateful, and I accept your gift most humbly, just as it is.” she smiled, and his broad smile beamed toothily in response.

“Does it feel as nice as it did in your dream?” she asked.

His smile became a grin.  “Yes.  Yes it does.”

“Good.  I’ll tell you what.” she said as she Summoned a short sword and some spices.  “Tear off a haunch for me and I’ll skin and prepare it, then you can roast it for me.  Then we can eat together, and go flying.”

“Sure!” Karzog enthused as he tore off the left rear leg and thigh.  “I think I’d really like that.”

They chatted about the same things they normally talked about as they cooked and ate.  At her request, Karzog finished most of the cooked haunch as well as the rest of the deer, since Helemia couldn’t eat more than a hundred and fifty grams of it right after breakfast.  It didn’t seem right to leave any of it uneaten.

“Mmm, that was so good, and I’m
so full
!” Helemia chuckled as she cast a Cleaning on herself and her sword. 

“Mmm, me too.” Karzog agreed with a huge grin as he rubbed his bulging belly.  He released a huge burst of intense fire and kind of swirled it around his mouth as he did so, reducing any food particles between his teeth to ash, blowing them out, and freshening his breath.  “We’ll have to take it easy on the flying, or I might just burst!”

Helemia giggled.  “Good point.  Maybe we should do the dragon thing and just lounge in the sun after eating.  We can fly later if you’d like.”

“Sure, I’d prefer that, actually.” he nodded as he led the way outside.

There was a place in front of the cave that was large enough and flat enough for him to relax on his belly, and he did.

“And now I have a surprise for you.  Close you eyes.” she mischievously instructed.

“Okay.” he laughed, and did as she asked.

She cast a careful spell, and it took a few seconds.

“Okay, open ‘em.”

He did, and his jaw dropped in stunned surprise.  He couldn’t even talk for a few moments, while Helemia grinned and posed for him, turning this way and that, and fanning herself with her wings.  She had become a young female dragon about three-quarters his size.  Her belly and the underside of her neck and tail were the same very light, almost-white pink that her skin had been, while the rest of her was the same glossy black that her hair had been, and her eyes were the same dark violet.

Even when he finally could speak, it took him two tries as he started, stopped and reconsidered, then spoke.  “Helemia.  Fire.  You’re prettier than anything I’ve ever seen in my life.”

“Thank you Karz, that’s sweet.” she giggled.  “Now just one more thing.” she said as she cast on herself again, then spoke in Draconian.  “A complete, improved version of the Draconian Translation for Humanoids spell.” she growled, then gave her wingtips the little wave that was a dragon’s version of a giggle.  “Complete with body language and non-vocal communications.” she added as she lay down and cuddled up to him.  “Of course I already knew how to do it, but I’ve been working the knowledge of it that we got from Kragorram into a spell, and that was the first test-casting.”

“Hey, it’s not an Illusion!” he exclaimed in Draconian as he felt her warm touch.  “What a great job of Shape-Shifting!”

“No, it’s not Shape-Shifting yet.” she revealed.  “I got a lesson on that from Theramin.  The size difference is a real challenge.  If I was good enough to do a complete Shape-Shift already, which I’m not, I could only be a little tiny dragon that weighed about eighteen kilos, the same as I normally weigh.

“You can’t make the extra weight out of magic, it would take way,
way
too much energy.  Ask Yazadril about it sometime, you won’t
believe
how much magic it takes to make even a tiny bit of material.

“So that means that the easiest way to do it would be to just become a little dragon, and then eat a lot and grow bigger magically, but that would take a long time.  Yazadril actually did that once to disguise himself as a Sylvan, and it took over a year just to triple his weight.  It would
really
take a long time for me to grow to be a full-size dragon, and it would take just as long to shrink back to the normal me again.

“When we get out of here I’ll have to find out how Zarkog grew so much, and how fast he did it.  He might have a viable method I could use.

“The only other way to do it is to grow the body magically during the Shape-Shifting process by adding material to it with the same basic composition, basically from food products.  Then when you change back you’re left with this big pile of body material, and you want to put it somewhere safe because it’s easier to use it again the next time you want to grow than to start from scratch again.  And it’s really,
really
complex.  Quewanak says that one of the gargoyle gods knows how to do it, but no one here does, so that’ll have to wait.

“Anyway, this is just a full-sensory Simulacrum, only with my humanoid body held inside my dragon head, so it feels like my psionics are coming from the right place, and I don’t have to worry about what’s happening to my body when I’m like this.  I worked on it a lot to get it just right and to make it feel really natural, and I took a good Reading of Povon so I’d have some idea of what it’s like to be a girl dragon.  It’s…  It was the best I could do.”

As she fell silent he realized that she’d been babbling in an unconscious effort to cover her own nervousness, and it made him consider for the first time how she might be feeling about their situation.

“You’re very beautiful, and you’ve done a wonderful job of it.” he assured her.  “And I hope you don’t mind my saying that you seem to understand how I’m feeling more than I do.  It seems like you were expecting my gift, and that you’ve done a great deal of preparation and work on changing your form…”

“I was, and I did.  Well I wasn’t expecting a dead deer
exactly,
but I thought it was likely that you’d do something like that soon.  I’m…  I’m proud to be your special friend, Karz, and I hope we can share more private times together.  But I’d like to keep them just that; private.  I’m making sure that absolutely no-one knows where we are or what we’re doing, not even Quewanak or my brother, and I’d like to keep it that way for a few years.”

“Sure, but…  My special friend?” he cautiously asked.  “You’re not saying what I think you’re saying, are you?”

“Be
serious
Karzog, neither of us are close to puberty yet!” she protested, laughing but sounding scandalized.

“Ah, good, I hoped you weren’t saying that yet too.” he stammered.  “And I’m very glad and proud to be your… special friend.  But you’re saying that in the years ahead…?”

She took a deep breath, and let it out in a ring of yellow fire.

“Oh well done!” he enthused.  “There’s no way I could tell that wasn’t real!  And it was very pretty.”

“Thanks.  And yes.  In the years ahead.  Six had a prophesy about it years ago, and now I’m sure it’s true.  You’ve dreamt about me, and I’ve dreamt about you, and it’s not just psionic leakage, I’ve checked for that every way there is.  When a young male dragon leaves a gift of fresh prey for a young female, it’s an instinctual act of courtship.”

She took another deep breath, and turned to meet his gaze squarely.  “I am your destined mate.  You are my destined love.  Over the next few years, we will surely fall deeply in love with each other.”

She held his gaze until he answered.

“You’re right.  Somehow, I
know
you’re right.” he agreed.

Then he suddenly stood and flared his wings as he paced back and forth a bit.  “But I don’t understand!” he exclaimed in confusion.  “How could this have happened, and what will we do?  How can we have a life together like that?”

She was silent as he paced for a few more seconds, until he stopped and looked at her again.

“I don’t know.  I’m sorry Karz, but I really don’t know.  We’ll just have to take it as slow as we can, and do our best.  As strange as this seems to us, it’s going to seem even stranger to everyone else.  That’s why I want to keep it secret.  I’m not ashamed of loving you, Karzog, and I wish we could proclaim it to the world.  But you know a lot of people are going to take it the wrong way.  Probably most of them.”

In that moment she looked as scared and vulnerable as a young dragon could look, and he lay down beside her and cuddled up to her again.  “I think you
do
know, and I think you’re right.” He assured her.  “We’ll take it slow, and do our best, and keep it secret. And that’s all there is to it.  It’s a wonderful thing, and it’s no one’s business but ours.”

They were silent for a while, and simply enjoyed the sun reflecting off the ocean and the beauty of the day.

“I bet no one knows every single living dragon, except maybe the gods.” Karzog suddenly stated.  “And once we’re out in the world, no one will be able to keep track of us.  You seem so perfectly real this way, if you did it in a different color there’s no way anyone would guess it was you, especially if you did a bit of disguise on your psionics and aura.  Everyone would assume you were just one of the millions of young dragons from Serminak that they don’t know.”

“True.” she agreed.  “And if you also disguised yourself as another young dragon, we’d really throw them off the scent.  And when I learn how to do the increased-size Shape-Shifting, I might even be able to fool your family.  Then we could just be a normal couple of dragons, and no one would ever know.  It’d be pretty damn hard to fool
my
family like that, but I might be able to pull it off.  Except Six of course, but he’s the only other person that already knows that you’re my destined love anyway, and we can trust him to keep our secret.  I might even be able to find a way to be in two places at the same time, as a dragon and as a girl, by casting a Simulacrum of whichever one of me that I’m not being at the time.  Though if I have to be two people in the same
place
at the same time, it might get a little strenuous.”

They both got a laugh at that thought, then fell silent for another few moments.

“Hm.  If you’re going to do such a great thing for me, I’ll have to find a way to make it even.” he mused.

“Oh?  How so?”

“I’ll have to find a way to turn myself into a humanoid.” he chuckled.  “Or at least cast a very good Simulacrum of one.”

“Ah.  The reverse of the increased-size Shape-Shifting should work for that, once I learn it.” she speculated.  “You could Shape-Shift and the use the Shrink spell, but you’d be so dense that anyone would know as soon as they touched you.  But as for the Simulacrum idea, I can show you how to do that right now.”

“I see.” he smiled, and cuddled her a little closer.  “Maybe later.  I’m enjoying this too much to want to be distracted from it by more than pleasant conversation.”

“Mmm.  You’re right.  This does feel very… comfortable.”

Another half hour passed before she spoke again.  “Link with me, Karz.  Link with me real deep.  We’re too young to share our bodies, but we can share our minds, and we should get to know each other better.”

And so they did.

After that day they continued to spend as much time together as they always had, most of that with Reggie and Valentia, and they only chose to steal away together for private time about once per month.  They knew that Hiliani was a small community, populated by very intelligent and perceptive people, and they knew that keeping their liaisons rare was a necessity if they wanted to avoid having anyone realize what was going on.

If any did realize, they never spoke of it.

With three months to go before the call to the gods, Kragorram and Reggie lead their team in conducting the first tests of their newly-completed void-craft, and everyone gathered to watch.  Over the previous years they’d made the components of steel, stone, glass, and wood in Kragorram and Povon’s front room, then assembled them in an isolated valley on the island to the west of Homestead.  The great gleaming sphere rose almost twenty-five meters above the grass of the valley floor.  Theramin’s team had filled much of the space within with plants, and installed the water supply and recycling system, all of it grown from plants and tree species. Weeks had been spent on casting spells on various components of the craft, and on the hull as a whole, and in charging the spells to their maximum.

Now Yazadril touched the tip of his sword to the hull and proclaimed; “I hereby christen this The Just Alliance Warcraft; The Void Hunter!” as the huge thing rose slowly and majestically from it’s cradle for a few crucial centimeters, and hovered there amid the triumphant cheers of those assembled.

“Structural integrity is good.” Kragorram proclaimed a few moments later from his place on the grass beside the hull.

“Confirmed.”
Reggie psionicly declared from inside the craft. 
“Proceed with the pressure test.”

“Silence please, everyone.” Kragorram called.  “Silence for the pressure test please.” He waited until all were quiet before he cast a Force Shield around the craft and tight against the hull, marked it with blue light, then slowly expanded it three meters beyond the hull, leaving an air-free space around the craft.  They waited, silent and listening closely.  Kragorram checked for air leaking out of the craft into his Shield, while Reggie checked for decreasing pressure inside the craft.  A short creak was heard from deep inside the craft, and before the sound ceased, Reggie had pinpointed the location of it’s source and Translocated to it.

“Just a sealed door rubbing a bit as it’s frame expands.”
he reported. 
“Not a problem.  The whole hull has stretched six millimeters wider as it took the pressure, but all the seals are holding.”

“Excellent.  My tests show the same.” Kragorram told him.  “Ninety-seven more seconds.”

After that time he called; “Pressure test completed.  Seal integrity is good.  Proceed with the airlock and void-exposure tests.”

“Seal integrity is confirmed.  Beginning airlock and void-exposure spells tests.”