“Mother?” Cheleya called again. Her mother was almost always home these days. She had given birth to another egg less than a year ago and it would be a couple more months before her sibling hatched. Maintaining warmth and checking the egg regularly kept her mother near it almost continually when her father couldn’t be around to guard it for her.
“I thought that I asked you not to call me that while in that ridiculous body,” a deep voice complained from deeper in the cavernous house. “It is just too strange to see that pink little thing and think of you as my daughter, Cheleya.”
Close to twice her size as a che’ther, the dark blue scales of her mother appeared in the lamplight as the ground trembled beneath Cheleya’s feet. Golden eyes, long sharp teeth, and the bulk of a dragon would be intimidating to a true human, but the little blond took in her mother who had raised her for seventeen years and didn’t flinch.
“Well, you are still my mother, even if magic let’s me look like this,” she replied feeling tired of this discussion and not wanting a revival of her mother’s dislike of the spell created by the amulet. “How is the egg doing today?”
“Don’t try changing the subject, Cheleya. Change into my girl before entering this home. You aren’t even trying very hard today anyway. All that pink skin is just... disgusting. You look more like dinner than my daughter.”
Looking down at her body, Cheleya looked on her naked breasts complete with light pink nipples, which were features she still didn’t understand, though her human mentors had told her that they did serve a purpose at least in females. The pale white, smooth skin was exposed from head to toe like a new born babe. Cheleya understood her reproductive and excretory areas for the most part, though they looked only vaguely like those of a dragon. She had even heard that humans gave birth to live little humans instead of eggs. It made little sense to her. An egg was so much more practical and a che’ther egg secured the young until they could exit the protective shell to begin walking almost immediately.
With a big sigh that inflated her lungs making her petite breasts move in that peculiar way that humans always did, Cheleya grasped her amulet inciting the words, “Neruter emis ot flesym sa et sawen.”
Light swirled around the human growing and lengthening. In seconds, sky colored scales formed within the light as Cheleya’s body grew into her real body. A long tail and elongated torso dropped her from two feet to four as her arms helped take the weight of a land dragon. Inside a che’ther home, one rarely stood on just their rear legs. While it was possible, most homes had ceilings that limited such movements still Cheleya was able to stretch her long neck to look up at her mother from all fours with plenty of room to spare. Still dwarfed by the elder female who was nearly twice her size, Cheleya wished that she was back in her adopted form almost immediately.
She felt so clumsy like this, though the girl had only learned how to change into a human a little more than a year ago.
“Is father home yet?” the little blue dragoness asked in a much deeper voice than before, though by comparison it was higher than her mother’s. Cheleya had always been closer to her father than her mother. While che’ther were not known for their warmth, even between those in their immediate families, she had always felt more of a bond with him.
Her father was a brown scaled land dragon, powerful and having some use of earth magic that allowed him to work the land better than most che’ther who farmed. It was from him that Cheleya had apparently derived her much greater gift of magic. Whether he was proud of his daughter becoming a magician wizard or not, she didn’t really know, but he hadn’t discouraged her when the wizards had tested her and found her power growing. The fact that he hadn’t complained or found a way to interrupt her enrollment in the magic school was basically all the encouragement most che’ther would ever give their young, she supposed.
Having been able to transform into a human for even just the short time she had, Cheleya was already beginning to feel a change in how her heart reacted to her family. She wanted to love them as the girl had heard other races loved their parents and bonded closely, but they were che’ther and that was not their way.
“Your father is still out in the fields. He had to help prepare more farmland now that the snows have started to clear in the valley. You know this is one of his busiest times of the year. If you wanted to see your father more often, then you should have spent more time here during the winter while he was bored. At least I could get him to watch your brother while I went out.”
Cheleya’s eyes moved to her mother curiously and she asked, “You know that it will be male?”
Looking as if she had been caught in a lie, her mother replied, “Well, not exactly, but I have a feeling this one will be a male. He will probably grow up big and strong like his father and help him in the fields.”
The words cut without intending to perhaps, but they did cut. Cheleya knew that she was a disappointment to her mother. She was small for a che’ther even after seventeen years of growth. Though most of her kind continued to grow for almost thirty years, her body had been slow and virtually stopped growing a few years ago. Like a permanent adolescent of her race, she knew that other che’ther pitied her when she wasn’t there to hear them speak.
Having checked with healers and magicians among her kind, the simple conclusion was that Cheleya was nearly full grown. Her body simply refused to gain the bulk of most of the che’ther. She was healthy for her size, and her magic continued to grow where flesh would not. It was simply what she was and her mother didn’t enjoy the fact that her daughter brought humiliation on her household by the simple fact of being a dwarf, which was nearly unheard of for their race.
“Well, I think that I had better go to my room and study,” Cheleya decided ending the awkward silence.
Her mother nodded. “I will call you when your father returns and we’ll have dinner.”
Having dinner was one of their customs intended to bring the family closer together; but conversation was rare and awkward, especially since she had started with the Academy of Magic. Cheleya merely nodded and plodded to the farthest room from the front doorway. Like the rest, there was no door in the frame, but it was still far enough back to bring some privacy.
Grasping the amulet again, she cited, “Ekam emet tahway et ma desopus ot ebem.”
The light returned but the end result was her tiny human body once more. She had let some red shade her blond hair to more of a strawberry coloring this time for fun, but aside from that Cheleya always adopted the same face and body. Her green eyes looked on the naked, nubile form a moment before the dragoness chanted a second spell.
Turning her fore finger in twirls from her neck towards her feet, a dark pink scarf appeared following the line of her thought. Clothing meant little to the che’ther, even in human form. She didn’t feel the cold anymore than she had in her dragon body, so the pretty scarf started from her neck twisting behind her along her left shoulder blade before coming back around to cover her chest. The line continued to snake covering her private areas to continue down and around her left leg to stop above her ankle.
Such magic came from the summoning school, a class of spell that was closely associated with being a dragon mage. Dragon magic summoned the attributes of a legendary dragon essentially and enhanced the body. It was different, but similar enough for Cheleya to have found a book from the Academy library and taught it to herself without any help.
The girl looked around the nest that served as her bed as it had for all of her life. A large wood chest sat against the wall holding all that she had acquired in the seventeen years of her life. “Dragon claw,” she called the spell extending her hand towards the chest standing a little taller than the human girl positioned before it.
Thinking perhaps remaining a dragon a bit longer might have made things easier; Cheleya guessed that easier would have made her miss out on using her magic. She was supposed to be training after all.
With the spell driving the top of t
he chest up against the wall, Cheleya used her dragon wing spell to jump up onto the edge of the large bin. Sitting with her legs dangling into the box, the girl caught a brown pack with her right foot lifting it up and bending her leg to bring it into arm’s reach.
She turned and stood on the eight inch thick outer wall of the chest. Walking like a gymnast along its length, the dragoness thrilled in the agility of using just her two legs and feet. She jumped down and felt a little pain from the soles of her feet. Sitting on the ground to rub the feeling from her appendages, Cheleya considered the delicateness of her form.
While she inherited certain strengths carried over from being a che’ther, this body was still much more delicate. The speed and grace that she had as a human lost her much of the power and invulnerabilities of her dragon form. Still within certain areas, Cheleya found herself more at home as a human than as a che’ther.
As the pain in her feet went away, the girl delved into her backpack. She had been given one from the Academy to keep trinkets like the amulet stored safely, but Cheleya had found that she liked other things as well. A sky blue blanket, the color of her scales, was pulled from inside the sheltering pack. It was soft and on occasion the girl had used it in human form at night. The straw and grasses used to make her bed were not as comfortable as a human as they were as a dragon, so the soft cloth was one of her favorite things.
A hair brush came out and Cheleya contemplated it for just a moment before the girl let the brush run through her new strawberry blond hair. The brush also had other colors besides blond between the bristles. Cheleya had played with other colors of hair before, even if she always kept her face and body the same.
As she brushed her long hair, a sigh came from deep within her chest. Contentment and a strange sensation of satisfaction came with each pull through her hair. She had no tangles. Cheleya never did, but the feel of the brush moving through her hair was intoxicating to the dragoness. The dullness of feeling through dragon scales made her wonder what other wondrous things she could feel as a human, but for now a relaxing brushing was enough of a change.
Her posterior was beginning to become sore with the hard stone ground beneath the young woman. The dragoness paused in her brushing and sighed again. Looking around the room, she noticed some of the wood ringing her bed. Putting the brush back into the pack, Cheleya stood and began to chant.
Pieces of wood began to slide around and pull together. In moments, the magician had pulled the wood into a semblance of a chair, but it was open where the seat needed to be. Straw and grass combined in a new spell as the girl wove them together strengthening the whole as the braiding added power and a flat surface came together. Binding it to the wood with several strands of her own hair, braided into twine with her magic, the dragoness soon finished her creation.
While it would be unlikely to receive high marks by a true artisan, the chair seemed solid and more than strong enough to hold her human body. Testing it as she sat, Cheleya went back to her pack and retrieved her brush.
Another sigh of satisfaction came as she sat in her new chair feeling the brush stroke her hair comfortingly. While she knew that she should study more of the magic Malaketh had taught them, the girl found that she didn’t care that much. It was just nice to sit in the peace and quiet of her own room. Being human was certainly a soothing change of pace for the dragoness, Cheleya decided.
“Again?!” the deep voice of the dragon Sorqesta growled as her footsteps drew her daughter’s attention from the doorway to her room.
Cheleya had been working with her spells, the ones that came from the books she had borrowed as the young che’ther’s mind continued to want to learn more that her teachers would not teach. Summoning, elemental casting, even some of the mind tricks were in these books, but they had distracted the young dragoness to the point of missing her mother’s heavy steps.
“I’m sorry. I’ll change back, mother,” the little human girl pleaded hurriedly. Her fingers began to fumble with her amulet as her mind searched for the spell in her panic.
The large che’ther noted the trinkets sitting near her bag and the chair that Cheleya had made. Charging into the room, the girl had to scamper out of her mother’s way. In human form, she was likely to get crushed to death by her own mother.
“What is this? It is bad enough that we let you go to this magic school, but then you come back as a human! Now you bring this human junk into my house! Get this... stuff out of here now! I will not have you disrespecting me by this continual flaunting of these human things in my house, Cheleya. Now change and throw them out before I decide to simply step on them myself!”
Cheleya looked up at her mother stunned. The girl liked magic and the transformation magic of the amulet was her favorite. On one hand she was a dutiful che’ther daughter, who only wished to have her mother support her, but on the other Sorqesta had just decided she hated everything that the girl loved.
“But this is my collection. I need this. It is mine,” the daughter said forgetting about her need to transform and letting the amulet rest back on her chest on its chain.
A che’ther had facial expressions though humans and mar’goyn’lya often seemed to miss or simply misunderstand them. For Cheleya, as her mother’s eyes squinted just an inch more, the girl new Sorqesta was turning furious. “And what of this? I have never seen this piece of wood before. Did you pay gold for it? Your father works hard to gain money and you waste it behind our backs. You probably stole that money from us too.”
Before Cheleya could explain, the giant che’ther swatted her new chair against the far wall. Breaking into dozens of pieces, the girl watched as her work was destroyed in an instant of fury. Getting angry as well, Cheleya screamed, “I made that, mother! How dare you break my chair?”
“How dare I?” the deep growl of her mother’s voice asked as her large head moved to face her daughter. Cheleya noticed for the first time that her small human body would probably fit between those jaws in a single bite with teeth longer than her forearm. Such teeth could tear her human form apart with little effort, she thought; and suddenly the girl felt fear. “This is my home and I rule it, Cheleya. You do as I say and I’ve warned you not to call me your mother when you look like that!”
Reaching quickly for her pack, Cheleya looked up at the dragoness once more and retorted, “Perhaps I should never bother to call you mother again then! If I bring so much shame to this family, then maybe it is time for me to leave!”
The blond haired magician turned and ran for the doorway. Dodging large clawed feet and a tail that could kill her with a single flick, the little human girl quickly fled.
Sorqesta turned carefully to avoid harming her daughter despite her words. “Where would you go, Cheleya?” the dragoness questioned in surprise. A che’ther didn’t know how to show pain from emotions like her daughter in this little human shape caused her. She didn’t know how to soften her voice to soothe a teenage girl and her temperament made her question even trying to do so.
“I will just go to the Academy. There are rooms there and then you don’t have to bother with your disappointment of a daughter. In fact, don’t call me your daughter anymore no matter what form I take. I am not your daughter anymore!” Cheleya screamed as her feet continued to run for the main doorway.
Heavy steps and a shadow crossing the threshold announced the return of her father, Cor’Dargan. Seeing his shadow, Cheleya cried out, “Dragon wings!”
Black wings formed echoing the girl’s bad mood and swept towards the floor propelling her into the air. Mere feet separated Cheleya from her father’s face as tears streamed down her cheeks. She barely spared the brown scaled che’ther a look as she passed him by and launched upward away from the house of her birth.
“Cheleya?” Cor’Dargan queried the fleeing form. Spying his wife hurrying towards him, he could feel confusion and worry on the dragoness’s mind. “Sorqesta, what happened to Cheleya?”
The blue che’ther halted in front of
her husband unsure of how to answer. Cheleya loved her father more and they had a strong connection that she had never been able to build with the girl. She didn’t want to anger her husband by revealing the strong words she had for their daughter. She didn’t want to take responsibility for driving their first child away.
Tears streamed down Cheleya’s cheeks and she was forced to scrub them away from her eyes to see. In her flight towards the school, the girl nearly missed the large dark form of a mar’goyn’lya approaching her.
“Cheleya, what’s wrong?” Kel’lor’s voice questioned as the male mar’goyn’lya approached her in flight. In the open he was much faster than the human with her wings. He noted the odd color from the che’ther that usually preferred red or even pink wings. Black must have some meaning behind them and he knew that it must be as dark as the color she used.
“My... my... mother,” Cheleya stammered and noted the strange, stuttering breaths as she quickly gasped. The tears and the strange tightness in her chest were new. Was this one of the emotions that the masters had warned Cheleya about when she was first given her amulet? The amulets were more than a surface illusion. Using an amulet, a che’ther truly became a human in all ways.
Cheleya had been using her human form more and more lately. She supposed these new emotions were simply a side affect of the spell.
“What about your mother?” the male gargoyle asked as he flew effortlessly beside her as his large leathery wings propelled him through the air.
Kel’lor was a close friend, but the girl wondered whether she should tell him all that had happened. A che’ther rarely expressed conflict between them and certainly not to outsiders. They didn’t feel emotions like a human, though pride and secrecy were part of their nature.
“I left my home. I am going to stay at the Academy,” Cheleya said wiping at a nose suddenly dripping, though she knew not how it formed so much water.
“Why would you do that?” again he asked calmly and Cheleya found his calm tone was beginning to aggravate her instead.
Battle Mage: Dragon Mage (Tales of Alus) Page 2
