So, turns out, I’m not locked into using flames. My siblings are, mostly because of their ignorant little brains, but I am not. It seems that I can technically breathe out just about any element, if I saturate my lungs with the correct mana and I use the right combination of imagination and information. Which, I have to say, is a bit of a design flaw of our nest. I mean, my lungs are filled with a lot of mana, because of the pile, but if I try to make a jet of fire I can barely manage the equivalent of spraying perfume into a candle. Cool, sure, but ultimately a party trick compared to what I can do with some specific mana saturation.
Back in my first attempt I was barely able to make a fireball that existed for half a second, but now? I have figured out how to do a constant stream, and it’s not just “more fire”. I gathered more red gems for this, but also two different shades of green. The red makes fire mana, obviously, the deeper green makes nature or wood or forest mana, one of them I am not exactly sure, and the very light green bordering on turquoise seems to be air. If I use a majority of fire mana with a bit of air, I can focus on drawing in higher concentrations of hydrogen and oxygen, as well as focusing the flame to be more of a forward cone than a directionless ball. The air mana, coupled with a bit of imagination also lets me continuously push the air that I am breathing in (which, funnily enough, I can do despite exhaling) into the cone of fire, thus fueling an organic flamethrower for longer.
A bit complicated in theory when put together, but it really only took me five tries, after figuring out the whole thing, to engrave the process as muscle memory. Ah, why do I also have nature mana in my pile despite only talking about fire and air? Because I figured out something pretty damn funny. Nature mana, when using the proper imagery, and when combined with fire, turns to fuel. I can set rocks on fire, or at least make it look like I do, by combining some nature mana to fuel the flames even after they set. I even managed to make fire just hang midair for 3 whole seconds before vanishing. Magic is weird but so fun! I should, however, probably note that I am being inefficient with it. Not that I know how to optimize magic at this stage, but still, it is important to be mindful of the fact that I need to rest for about half a minute between breaths, because of how mana intensive a breath attack this complex is and how slowly my reserves replenish.
I hope mother will teach us how to really use this power… Ah, I was talking about different elements before, right? Because yeah I tried different gems and the results are mixed (as such only technically able to use anything), but not as bad as I expected. I tried almost every gem (because I am not dumb enough to try and fill my lungs with “death” or “poison”. I may have died once already but it doesn’t mean I’m rushing to my next trip into the void) and the less physical something was, the easier I could use it in a breath attack. For example, water sucked. I tried it and the result was a fastball made of all the spit in my mouth. Ice on the other hand was much better, since rather than shooting out chunks of ice, I just breathed out very cold air.
My working theory so far is that mana is aspected energy that reacts to a will, or maybe to an organ in me that I can control. Either works for my purposes, really. I use fire to push energy into particles, making them ignite, or ice to draw away energy from particles, making them cool down everything around. I also found and used lighting, and while I wasn’t able to give it a direction, I was basically able to do an electric ray move and make electricity arc between my teeth. It felt tingly, and not particularly useful since my bite is strong, but I figure I’ll be able to use my knowledge of electricity and electromagnetism to get some interesting results later on. Another kind of breath that worked well was air, which when used by itself either made me blow out gales of wind like the big bad wolf, or it made me shout really, really loudly. So, yes, more energy at work.
Water, earth, metal and nature, by themselves? Nothing. Or rather, the effect was that it got me tired. Water was using my spit, which I guess was close enough, but the others would just try to get something from me, fail, then it would all make me exhausted since all my mana of that type was burned with nothing to show for it. My best result was actually spitting out a grain of sand. My worst was bone “breath” which had a very annoying result of giving me a toothache for half an hour after rattling them. I did not try blood or meat because I was frankly terrified after this result. So yeah, sticking to the classic, energy based elements for now.
Speaking of elements, there is one thing that I found interesting about mana. It seems to not exactly affect the world until it interacts with me or anything meaty or enchanted I guess. Take ice and fire mana, for example, since both of them cause me to feel the temperature of my body change, and the result of breathing out the mana while focusing on making it a breath attack is air that is either so hot it ignites, or air so cold it instantly becomes a visible mist, but the gems and the air around them have completely normal temperatures. I’d like to say that mana is somewhat inert and something about me, probably an organ like the core, refines it into something useable. After all when I just breathe out air that I know is filled with mana it doesn’t have any particular effect.
After noting down in my mind my progress, I turn to look towards the entrance of the cave. Mother is coming, which is pretty late since we’ve been awake for a lot of time now, at least half a day, really. I wonder if she’s here with food again, I don’t really want to go back to sleep now that I can do actual magic…
And there we go, mother is back. My siblings are even more hyperactive than before, jumping up and down, snapping at the air and doing a wide range of calls towards her. They even show off their small puffs of flame and mother looks surprised, before squealing and going in to give them a big hug. She’s surprisingly gentle and human-like when I see her like that. I tilt my head as she turns to look at me, saying something I cannot understand, then laughing. I think for a moment after which I realize that she’s probably urging me to try it too. Might as well. I curl up over my little pile of gems, take in a few breaths, feel my body drawing in the nature, the fire and the wind, then I start breathing it all out in front of me, making a semicircular wall of flames. They burn a bit longer, then die out and all that’s left is scorch marks on the floor. Mother’s eyes seem to sparkle and she reaches over, picking me up.
I feel her swaying her head, though I have problems with seeing anything since I am in a mass of green tendrils. My siblings are at least making happy vocalizations so I guess they’re enjoying it. Thankfully the swaying stops a minute later and we are on the move. Uhm, didn’t expect that. It seems she is taking us somewhere else. Maybe we’re big enough to finally start learning from her? Once again, fast growth. It both worries and excites me that we can advance so fast.
----------------------------------------
I listen to a few songs to pass the time and suddenly we stop. Mother places us down and I am taken aback. It’s beautiful! It feels amazing! The grass is so fresh and soft, and it’s so tall I could probably hide in it. I feel the sun beam down on my scales, that natural heat feeling just so perfect! I look around, marveling at the diverse flowers and overgrown plants all around us, though I see a strangely normal forest just a bit further away. Really, on closer observation, it’s only around the cave entrance, which is hidden somewhat by hanging vines, that nature seems so wild. Anywhere else it seems to be just like back home, if a bit more young and fresh. Interesting.
Now the other thing that draws my attention is not on the ground, but up above. I wanted to look at the sun to see what time of day it is, and I find a very odd image. There’s two. There’s a slightly smaller yellow sun, and a bigger red one. Binary system, huh. And looking just a bit to the side, I see a terrifyingly large moon. I say terrifying because it looks to be twice or maybe even three times the size of the moon back home. Now whether it is just bigger, closer, or a combination of the two, I wouldn’t be able to tell, but it’s still concerning how big it is and just what effect it could have on the oceans.
I feel a nip on my back right leg. I turn and see Crown nibbling it. Now that I see it, my siblings have been ignoring the beauty and are just playing. Or maybe they’re enjoying the beauty in their own way? Regardless, it seems mother sat down and is just watching us while… smiling? Yeah, very human-like, or maybe I am just humanizing her. Regardless I guess stretching my legs on a bigger field wouldn’t hurt, so I shake off my sister and start running.
I wasn’t exactly an athlete back home, but I always enjoyed a good walk or run on grass. It just feels nice, and with my new body I can run even better than before and without having to be careful about stones and broken glass. It feels so nice I end up just sliding on the grass after a while, plopping down and stretching my body. My wings are splayed out and I catch as much sunlight as I can, enjoying the warmth greatly. Strangely enough I can feel energy filling up my body. Maybe, here, even the sun is magical. Maybe it’s not just the gemstones and precious metal that gather it, but rather anything can. Whatever might be the truth about magic, I enjoy the sun, just like mother is.
----------------------------------------
I think a few hours pass until my siblings are finally tired and mother gets up to take all of us again. I expect her to put us back in the cave, but instead I feel my stomach dropping and I hear howling. We’re flying. Mother grabbed us and took off. That was much more sudden than I expected, no running start needed. I try to shake my head free and look out of her mass of tendrils, but by the time I manage I see we are descending towards a lake. I don’t have time to even look around for our location, as we splash down, with me and my siblings being placed down on the shore. The others seem to have gotten their sense of balance a bit confused, but I am fine, probably since I understand what happened. I look at our mother and she’s just relaxing in the pond, only her head and wings being above the water. Even those are spread on the surface, getting soaked.
I take in a deep breath and, just as I thought, feel an absurd mana concentration all around. More than our cave. I look down towards the bottom of the lake and I see it sparkling. The water is clear… ah, it’s more of an accumulation lake than anything. There’s a river passing through, so it keeps moving away, it isn’t allowed to properly stagnate and form algae.
Still, looking at all the shinies below I have to admit, mother is absurdly rich. I was wondering why she leaves the cave so often, but it seems her hoard was actually here, and if there’s anything else in that decorated tunnel, it’s probably meant for winter. Wait, is winter even a thing here? I’ll find out later.
Interesting thing to note, mother’s hoard isn’t random. Unlike ours which is just valuables thrown in a pile, I manage to notice a pattern in hers. I shove my face into the water, pleasantly surprised that my third eyelid is able to protect me from it and that my nose can close so well, then observe the bottom of the lake. So, it is mostly gold, even though it is pretty deep I can see the gold clearly spread out to form a sort of disk. Then there’s deep blue and green gems that are making their own shapes, which seem to intersect in multiple spots. Wherever they do happen to connect there’s a few very strange stones instead of either of the crystals. They look a lot like jagged amazonite, but a lot more vibrant and with a wavy pattern.
I pull my head out to take a few breaths, then start drinking in some water, only to get hit by a wave of power. Right, the water is probably saturated with mana of mother’s liking because of the gems. Which is to say, nature and water, as well as something else that I am having problems parsing, whatever the fancy rock’s drawing in. Despite not understanding it completely, I feel for the mana, feel for the parts it’s trying to fill. I try to gather it, now that I have so much more mana than before, and try out the waterbreath once more. Result is again just a ball of spit. Sure, more than usual, almost like it forced my salivary glands into overdrive, but not what I wanted… so why is that? Well, I thought it before already, mana is energy. As such me trying to just shoot out a beam of water is me telling mana to turn from energy into matter, then to move. I’m giving it two energy intensive commands on the budget of baby lungs, no wonder it fails so spectacularly.
What can I do instead? I can gather the water around me. I replenish myself with some more mana infused water from the lake, then start imagining everything play out. I am lucky I’ve always been able to visualize things pretty clearly, like geometric shapes, an electric circuit, or a program’s dependencies and relationships, so this step isn’t that hard. I imagine air and water mana combing through the air, filtering water vapor and moving it closer, then ice mana cooling down the vapor just enough to make actual water. Any excess needed would come from a mix of my saliva that is already there, and the lake next to me. Finally I need it to move, so that’s just more water. I wish I had something like force or motion, but there’s no gem with those aspects, at least there’s not one that I have seen yet.
Mother seems to have two eyes focused on me specifically as I open mine. Maybe it’s bad to show such complexity, especially since I doubt I’ll be able to stay above the curve forever and I’ve already gone through the pains of being just a bit too smart to be average, but a bit too dumb to be special in my past life, but at least I now know how to deal with it. I shake my head, too many intrusive thoughts, too little focus. Time for action.
It starts with droplets, and it’s slow. Drops of water push themselves up, towards me, and start gathering inside my mouth, as does water vapor which condenses back into actual water. I think it takes about a minute and my mouth is cramping and paradoxically dry, but I finally have enough water gathered. I will it forward in a tight jet, and I manage it! Downside: everything. Takes forever to gather, consumes absurd quantities of mana, and the final result is just a 2 second water hose jet. I feel robbed. Mother doesn’t seem to share my woes however, as she makes an excited sound and moves her massive head closer to nuzzle my side, which makes me plop down as I lost my balance from my exhaustion.
I turn to look at her, a bit confused and yip to at least try and pretend I understand why she’s so excited. In response I see a scene straight out of a kaiju movie. She shakes her head, tendrils flailing around, then I feel a wave of mana hitting me. Her neck starts lighting up blue, showing the gaps in what I can only imagine is subdermal plating as magic flows to her body. She opens her mouth and instantly a powerful jet of mist shoots out, absolutely covering the sky. In the slowly descending mist, I see rainbows, so many I can’t even count, which makes it all the more beautiful.
Of course, she’s not done. She turns to the side, opens her mouth, and I see her shoot an actual water beam towards a massive, overgrown tree, obliterating it and everything 50 meters behind it. Is that her way of saying “Keep it up, you’ll be able to do this one day.”? Because that’s sweet, but also terrifying since she just casually used artillery level destruction on a dime. I figure she has a lot more where that came from.
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
I can’t wait for her to teach me how to do that, but sadly I am currently tired from filling myself up with mana and shooting it out so many times in a row. I give her a happy squeak, to show I am impressed, then turn to the water to drink up. I feel myself recovering a bit, but after the third mouthful I feel sick. Have you ever done something stupid like chugging a two litter bottle of water in a single breath? Because I did and it felt horrible. That’s happening now. Water sickness, I got water sick from a bit of water. That doesn’t seem right.
It actually starts hurting my stomach so I pull away from the lake and lay down below the sun, all stretched out like before. I am feeling so bad I don’t even manage to keep up with what my siblings might be doing now. I think I’ll take a small nap…
----------------------------------------
So, time passed. Not a lot, since the suns are still up above, maybe a couple hours? Well, that seemed to be enough. The sickness is gone and I feel good again. I know I did not need to drink water for basically a month straight, but still, I did not expect this to be enough to make me feel bloated. Good to keep in mind. Another good thing to keep in mind, now that I am away from our hoard, is that I am filling up with very specific mana types. Sure there’s gold down at the bottom of the lake, which technically will draw in any kind of mana if my senses are right, but this whole area only presents a few mana types. I take in a deep breath and feel water, nature, the strange one that makes me feel calm, air and sun which is a combination of mild fire and light if the lamps in the tunnel are right. So, yeah, should keep in mind that my body is filled with mostly those elements now, only a bit is left of the multitudes of our nest.
Let’s see, something is happening. My siblings are all lined up In front of mother, who seems to prepare... Ah, that’s magic. That’s literally magic. I feel the mana around us shift, not a wave of power but more like mother grabbed the air and started moving it, with her crown of horns lighting up green and a shape appearing above it. It’s like the one in the light crystal, but radically different and colored green. Still it does shine and seems to have an effect on the world around us as mother speaks a few words that feel charged with power, causing the shape to visually pulse. I hear the wood groan and the earth tremble and I see a wall being formed from the plants around. All the trees, all the blades of grass, everything grows and twists to completely block off the area around the lake, with only a few things further away from the rim being spared to keep shade and such.
Weird thing to do hours after getting here if you wanted to keep your babies from running wild, so why..? Then I see it. A cage, similar more to a crate than a birdcage, made of molded living wood, floats down and its door opens. It is angled slightly and out fall giant rabbits, with furs in many colors and with different mutations being visible. They are alive. They fall and gather together, trembling in fear as mother’s many eyes turn to them. She then literally sends the cage flying off beyond the wall of nature and sinks her head into the water, only her eyes remaining above.
I am moving closer. It’s like with the bug. While my mind is trying to understand, my body is already seeking prey. I am in the body of a true apex predator, and my conscious mind is failing to take hold of my instincts. It’s annoying, in a way. Back in my past life I never ate rabbit, on one hand because it’s absurdly expensive, on the other because the little furballs are too damn cute. But I can’t see that cuteness now. They are big and poofy and I would love to hug and smush my face into them, but also, they taste and smell so good! And these ones are more mutated than the ones before, I can smell the mana that tries to cling to them. Like always it is blood, meat, bone, but this is a whole different level even compared to the murder deer!
The biggest rabbit thumps its legs. It warns us it will fight. It knows it can’t run, our mother wouldn’t let it, so instead it tries to threaten us. It fails. Crown and Red Tail have gone together towards the left, aiming to encircle them, while Spots is posturing to try and scare them into scattering. There’s some tall grass for the tinier fellows to hide inside, so they might go for that option.
What am I doing? What are my instincts saying? I am moving forward currently and unlike the others I am just aiming center mass, ready to rush in and take a bite out of anything. That’s what my instincts tell me. I am the biggest of my siblings, the most developed in both body and magic, so my blood rushes as the simplest answer presents itself. But is that smart? No. I am a month and some days old at best, what’s some genetic instinct gonna know about strategy? So how do I stop because I am already close enough that the roided up bunnies can jump at me, and there’s a couple of them with wicked horns growing on their heads, meaning they have the chance to just kill me if they get lucky.
I finally lock up and forcibly stop myself. I can’t turn away from this meal, I am feeling like puking just from the thought, so instead I keep my eyes focused. I do not want to kill them. My grandma had chickens back when she was alive. When I visited and I was 12 she wanted me to kill one of the chickens, saying that's expected of the "man of the house". I couldn’t, not because I couldn’t exactly kill something, but that was probably part of it, but rather because touching a struggling animal gave me such a repulsive feeling deep in my chest that I just let it go. I wish I could think more about this but I fail as the standoff continues without me.
One of the rabbits in the back of the herd twitches and I see Crown leap at it, only for one of the herbivores to turn around and kick her in the face with enough force to push her back and disorient her. RT jumps in at that and grabs hold of the legs, but gets kicked too, and then one of the horned rabbits headbutts him, causing a small flash of rainbow light to appear as he is pushed away. The stab didn’t penetrate, but his scales lost color and look damaged, and that light seemed like some kind of instinctive magic which I doubt he can use more than once or twice. The same rabbit jumps again and this time draws blood. As I said, unlikely to use more than once or twice.
A second passed. Everything is moving absurdly fast. This is an animal hunt, not a human one. This isn’t a few guys with rifles sitting around, killing something hundreds of meters away in a fraction of a second, this is a fight for life and two of my siblings are hurt, yet mother doesn’t react. She just watches, narrowing her eyes and puffing up some water.
I hear my heart. I breathe faster than ever before. I feel my body heating up, I am terrified, I am angry, I want to run, I want to protect my siblings, I want to stop all of this, I want to kill. I lose. Or I win? Regardless a wild rage is taking over and I roar, actually roar, not what my sibling did before, and all my prey freezes. There are only five targets. One is massive, two can impale us, and two just have very developed legs and teeth. The big guy jumps at me, not as affected by my roar as the others, but it doesn’t matter. It’s massive, sure, but it’s just as big as my torso. It’s massive by comparison to other rabbits, to me it’s just a large hunk of meat. It turns around, legs aimed to kick me, but I turn around too and my tail slaps its side, making it roll on the dirt. Spots rushes by, sending a puff of flame towards the leaderless herd and helping the others. Good, I don’t need help dealing with this one.
The anger fades for a moment, clarity hits me, fuck you mean you don’t need help with an animal that’s the same size as you and that looks ready to kick you into next Tuesday you fucki-
It gets up fast, and seems ready to attack again. I feel heat flow back into my body, fingers and joints trembling as adrenaline starts taking over, making me grab the nearest rocks with my tail and step towards him. He jumps, squeaking, ready to try and hit me again, so I whip my tail towards him, sending the rocks flying. Most failed, but one hit his head, only to do nothing as the beast bites through it. I don’t think I can bite rock. Fuck. It lands next to me and kicks my way, which I block with an arm. Bad decision though since the kick makes me hear a crack. My bone breaks, I am sure of it, but I manage to put weight on my leg so I don’t think it snapped in two yet, maybe just a fracture that I can ignore for a bit.
It backs away and looks at me and at its kin at the same time, almost calculating something. I don’t have the luxury to see how my siblings are doing, but I know that a three versus four isn’t good odds, even if one side is dragons and the others are just bunnies. Actually, especially because of that since it seems this world has murder bunnies.
It turns its head towards me and I see it jump to the side, then again and again. It’s massive and fast at the same time, it’s not fair. I am terrified. I feel sick, my stomach is grumbling something, but I don’t have time. I don’t have the mana for a proper flame breath and the rabbit is faster than me so even my bite is a gamble. Hell, with how big it is it might kill me with a kick to the chest.
Time slows. I feel nothing. No, I don’t feel nothing, I just feel detached. I am not in the real world, I am in my library. I am not dying in the next second, I have days’ worth of time now, just to think. And I think. I do not feel my fear and disgust and anger here, but I do know that I need to live, so I take into account all that I do know from my meat body.
I am different.
I might have time to think about the fact that I am different from myself, but I worry I will waste all the time dilation on it, so I throw it in the locked box in the dark, locked room. Someday else. Not today.
Now, with all my focus on the fight I am in, I realize there is really only one option for me. Or, maybe two, but only one that has any sort of reliability. I could try and do the defense that RT used, somehow. However that’s a trick I just observed and I have no clue how he even activated it, so no use relying on it.
My actual option? Dragon breath. Rundown of my notable mana types: water, nature, unknown, air, sunlight. Water is useless, even if I somehow had the time for it, it is barely even a deterrent. Nature breath suffers from the same issues, the only effect that it might have is raising the grass level by a centimeter. Something unknown is equivalent with useless, so all that I have left are air and sunlight. I have used air successfully, but the bit of wind I can make won’t stop this beast, so I will only be able to use the sound part. It might disorient it. As for sunlight? If it wasn’t my first time using it I might have tried something fancy like shooting out very concentrated photons, but that won’t help, not here.
I make up my mind and time starts moving. I don’t need to gather the mana since it is already in my body, I need to somehow do a very different dual breath however. Using air and fire to make better flame is one thing, but using air for sound and sunlight for light? This is like trying to write two different words with each hand at the same time, and I’m not ambidextrous.
Still, I try, just as the rabbit is dashing towards me. I open my mouth and I imagine searing white light as well as a loud sound of explosion. My throat strains, the thing at its base is painful as it twists in patterns it shouldn’t have.
Still I do it.
Flashbang breath attack, achieved, and it seems to be successful as the rabbit loses balance and rolls down, twitching painfully on the grass, kicking and pawing at the air and ground. This small giant has a lot of blood and meat mana in it, so as I move closer and bite down on its skull, it crumples like paper and I get a mouthful of brain. No bone mana for tougher bones. It stops moving instantly. A small titan of strength but lacking the defense to resist even a bite once it was immobilized… Fuck that was close.
My arm fails me, I am panting as I feel about a third of my mana gone with the flashbang. Still, the animal is dead and I would feast on it later to recover. For now I turn to see that there’s only the horned rabbits left alive, but Spots somehow ended up out of commission, bleeding from multiple holes and cuts. RT is still on his legs, but he’s also heavily wounded and Crown is doing her best to cover for them as she merely has cracked scales, no actual bleeding wound, but from the limp on her back foot, I think she took a nasty hit like me.
Mother still isn’t doing anything. She has two eyes fixed on me, dilated to take in information. Must’ve been the flashbang.
It doesn’t matter. If she won’t do anything, I will have to. I get up, limping and turn to my siblings. Rabbits have almost 360 vision, so losing my ability to sneak won’t matter. One of the rabbits turns to me, only to get its rear bitten by Crown. She does however get kicked for her trouble, causing her to collapse, looking dizzy. I am too far still, why did it turn already… The flashbang must have affected their fight too, I guess, but now it’s just RT defending against two horned rabbits. What can I do?
Nothing really. I am tired and my two useful elements are gone. No dragon breath, and throwing stuff their way won’t help. Fuck… FUCK! I run. I can’t run, not really, but I do regardless. I am in pain for the first time in this world, and I don’t care. I’ve gone through worse, even if my body isn’t used to it, at least a part of my mind is. So I push through, and I see as one of the rabbits twitches an ear my way, only to look at Crown as she struggles to get up. Red Tail is locked with the other, he can’t stop it as the horned creature tries to go for the throat. I am about two body lengths away. Won’t stop it in time and my life is not in danger so the only dilation of time that’s happening is from being drugged up on adrenaline.
What can I do, I am not fast enough… Water.. nature… NATURAL, nothing linked to nature but something natural. There’s one last thing I have. Water so far has tried using my spit, bone tried to use my teeth... I have a lot of water mana in me right now, but I still have a small percentage of everything else that stuck around. Fire, lightning, earth, all the way to even something like blood or death. Too little individually to be useful, but what if I just try to base it all on water and throw everything else to support something that isn’t quite water?
I push. As the animal opens its mouth to bite down on my sister, I shoot forward the only fluid I could imagine being useful right now. Stomach acid. It’s a fluid and I have access to, and I infuse it with all the mana my little body can hold as I force water to accept that even that acid is, in part, water, and as such should be under its control.
It feels different from my other breath attacks, mostly because my entire throat actually burns as I puke out my guts, but also because of how potent and chaotic it feels. More than fire, this feels alive and powerful and it sure looks like it has an effect as the fluids splash hard against the rabbit body.
It screeches and what I see is not the result of acid. Its fur singes, its left leg stretches and gets locked that way, its front paws wither quickly, they’re not melted by acid, they rot and turn to dust. Its screech dies out but it continues to struggle. The mana around it feels wrong, but it doesn’t matter. Crown manages to crawl away, and there’s only one threat left.
It’s just Red Tail and the final horned rabbit. The rabbit is mostly unhurt, but half its fur is short and black, burnt by RT himself probably. They can only bite at the air between themselves and back away, because neither is confident in ending the other. But now I can help, or at least I would be able to if my body didn’t deny me.
I can’t see the edges of my vision anymore. I am out of mana. I am slowly recovering by breathing it in, but it isn’t enough. I look at the half melted puddle that was once the horned rabbit, but I just feel sick from the smell, so instead I turn to one of the smaller bunnies. The least dangerous of the bunch. One is close, and I just barely manage to push it closer with my tail. My leg is messed up, I really can’t even crawl now, but I do manage to burrow my face in its chest and bite out its core.
It takes a few seconds for the wave of mana to go through my body. Flesh mana. Perfect. I get just enough energy to get up and slowly walk towards the final enemy. It gets desperate, it rushes at RT, scoring a bloody graze but losing a leg in return to his vicious bite. I am close now. Close enough that if it tries to back away it will get caught by me. But it doesn’t seem to care. Of the two of us, RT is the more wounded, but I am clearly the most winded, so it turns on a dime and rushes horns first towards me.
I stomp on it. It's slower than the big rabbit, after all, and I weigh way more than it, so as I have my foot on its body, laying most of my weight on it, the creature can only scream and struggle, grazing me with its horns a bit.
It’s pathetic so I bite the back of its neck, severing its spine.
It’s done.
We’re alive.
I turn to see our birth giver raise her head, showing a frown, then her crown lits up and a much grander and more complex rune appears, connected to a few smaller ones. I see the details on her horns light up too and I realize they are fully engraved in runes, so who knows how complex this magic truly is. It sends mana our ways and to my surprise I feel fine. No pain, just exhaustion and a lack of mana. My leg is fine again, my scales too, same for my siblings.
I take back my words.
She’s not human like at all.
And she’s a horrible mother.