Rosalyn gave a happy gronk as she landed on the cliff beside their home. She stretched her wings and dispelled the soft ethereal silver almost invisible membrane of mana that she had formed to supplement her inadequate wing span. That done she sighed tiredly and lay down on a soft wool blanket that one of the kobolds had laid out for her while she was in the air. Even though flying was quickly turning into her favorite activity, she still didn’t have the strength to do it for long periods of time.
She was also discovering that extending the mana to her wings was only the first most baby of steps to being able to fly. After she jumped off the cliff the first day and gently glided down into the pine forest below she was very quickly met by Serena who had applauded her with great gusto and called an end to the day’s lessons. On the second day she learned that in addition to extending her wingspan she also needed to provide lift as well.
Her mother launched into an explanation of something called aerodynamics that made Rosalyn’s head spin, but cutting past all the superfluous information she learned that she had to simultaneously hold the wings while both pushing up from underneath and holding an angled wind shield in front of her to make her cut more easily through the sky.
Serena also mentioned that there were other techniques that were useful for flying, but it would depend greatly on her own personal ability and preferences if they would be useful. As an example she described how she preferred to just make her body light enough for her wings to support without the additional lift from underneath. She even went into further detail about how it was great for maneuvering in the air but was more physically demanding on her actual body as opposed to riding a ‘mana current’ which hoisted most of a dragon’s bulk while in the air.
Serena had also regaled her with stories about the places she had seen in her youth and describing the faraway vistas and mysterious locations caused the part of Rosalyn’s soul that wanted to wander the world jump in joy at the prospects now available to her. Unfortunately to get to these places she had so much to learn first. Rolling over onto her stomach, Rosalyn looked her now much longer arms and then bent her head backwards to look at her no longer stubby tail. Reaching up she caressed the length of the blue horn on her forehead and felt the gentle thrum of the mana residing inside of it as she did.
Standing up once again, she looked down and with a critical eye tried to guesstimate how large she had actually gotten in the three weeks, with her best estimate being somewhere around the size of a donkey or a small horse, already far larger than she was when Cham had left. It was probably because Serena had upped her portions to twice as much as before and not only that she was bringing more and denser mana potions every time she went to the nearby city. The last one that Rosalyn had consumed was so viscous that it had a very porridge like consistency and she had to eat it with a spoon.
The memory of sharing their first actual meal together as she fumbled with the spoon in her clawed hands as her muscle memory betrayed her was something that Rosalyn would probably treasure for the rest of her life. The day became even more special right after that when they found out that Rosalyn could vocalize as well. It was a little embarrassing that they found out due to her throwing a string of strong words out of her mouth after having the lessons on compressing mana so that she could eventually compress herself to a human form ended up with the mana detonating in her face, but she really wasn’t expecting to actually vocalize anything.
Her human form was also coming along great as well. She could maintain a human form that was more or less what she remembered seeing in the mirror every morning in the bathroom mirror, and she was even still the same height much to a chagrin. Of course, there were some subtle and not so subtle differences as well. First, he skin was unblemished in anyway and was much paler than before. She wasn’t quite albino, but definitely did not look like she got much sun. Her hair was also much longer than she had normally kept it and was the same color as Serena’s when she was in her human guise. The most striking thing though was the blue diamond that appeared on her forehead roughly where her horn would be.
It had also been surprising that her voice was more or less the same as it was when she was human, minus being a little deeper due to her chest being larger. Serena started babbling about mana and the soul and imprints, but as usual Rosalyn just stared into the middle distance and nodded occasionally until she tired herself out. Even though she had tried to explain that she didn’t really care about the ‘why’ as much as the ‘how’ part of being a dragon, Serena seemed to enjoy explaining things despite an earlier claim to the contrary. Not wanting to her mother’s feelings she instead decided to at least appear to indulge when such tangents happened.
Still, it had been refreshing to speak with others besides Serena for the first time since she had hatched into this new life. Birdie, the kobold that she had met in the cave complex while fleeing from the lich, was especially happy to be able to speak with her again and filled her in on some of the details of what had happened after she had passed out in the cave and… well… died. He was a lot more frank about the whole situation than either Serena or Cham had been.
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The most distressing thing that she learned though was that the kobolds called her by the title of ‘Princess’ which made her groan even thinking about. While it did make sense to her on some level, Serena was technically a queen after all, she cringed at thinking of anybody referring to the sad war orphan Rosalyn Edders as a princess. Blowing a raspberry at the thought she cringed again, it was hard enough to get one kobold to stop calling her ‘pretty lady.’ How would she get an entire tribe of them to not call her by what they view as her proper title? Apparently, most kobolds were sticklers for such things. In fact, the kobolds treated her like she was made of glass and would break at any time. Rosalyn had tried to explore some of the surrounding woods but every time she asked the kobold in question would have a heart attack and start to babble in panic while vehemently shaking their head no. Serena was a little better about letting her do things, but she very clearly also had reservations about letting Rosalyn leave the estate and had told her she wasn’t ready yet.
There was one exception to all that though, and Rosalyn smiled internally as she thought about Poh. Cham had described the tiny kobold as one of the most intelligent and attentive pupils that she had ever had and Rosalyn had to agree. Poh was frightfully smart and even in the absence of her teacher had continued to teach herself how to speak common by fearlessly practicing with Serena, a feat that impressed the dragoness. Most of the kobolds that interacted with her treated her less like a fallible person and more like a living goddess and she expressed to Rosalyn that she found the exchanges with the kobold kid to be very refreshing compared to the usual deference and groveling she got from the adults. To her, she said, children really are the best.
As if sensing that Rosalyn was thinking about her, the tiny kobold stuck her head out of a disguised hole in the ground and waved. Blinking back in surprise at the sudden appearance of the littlest kobold, Rosalyn unintentionally rhymed “Heya Poh, what do ya know?” Pulling herself out of the hole, she ran quickly over to where Rosalyn had sat back down on the blanket and started tugging at her tail. “Sister, sister! Come! Come!” Rolling her eyes at Poh, she stood up and nodded her head in an affirmative motion, “One sec Poh, let me change real quick.” Concentrating on the mana in her body she shifted her form and slowly compressed herself. Rosalyn distantly thought about how much slower she was at this than Serena, but comforted herself with the happy knowledge she could do it at all. Really all it took was a clear mental image that she was intimately familiar with and the time for the man to reform and contain her form.
Other than that it was just her being careful not to go to fast or let it get out of control, lest it explode on her. It was an odd feeling being stretched and compressed like she was made of clay, and not one she thought she could ever fully explain to someone who had never been through it. Interestingly, after the difficultly that she had shaping and maintaining all the parts required to fly she was shocked to find out that maintaining her human form was actually easier than her wings. When Rosalyn had asked about that Serena looked at her daughter in a perturbed manner and said, “I went over that when I was talking about how the soul imprinted on a person’s mana. Weren’t you listening?” Rosalyn very quickly tried to change the subject.
Shuddering at the memory of having to do mana-shaping exercises for four hours after that exchange she looked down at her father’s old satchel after finishing the transformation and pulled out her silver locket and a sun dress that she had gotten from Serena and altered to fit her own frame. Chuckling at the memory of the child-like wonder Serena had shown on her face when Rosalyn altered the dress was another amusing memory that she would cherish. Grunting at Poh, who had covered her eyes with her hands while Rosalyn dressed, she grabbed her hand and made a ‘lead the way’ with the other.
Poh treated her very differently than the rest of the kobolds and referred to her as ‘sister.’ When Rosalyn had first learned that Poh was calling her that in the kobold tongue she has asked Birdie why she was being referred to in such a way. He rolled his eyes in response and replied, “Poh has no mother and the Cham said to call her ‘Mother.’ Since she is now the Cham’s daughter too so that makes you sisters.” Some of the others had apparently wanted to stop it, but Birdie spoke up and said that we should wait to hear the word from the princess first. In the end Rosalyn had expressed that she didn’t really care, being used similar things from growing up in a Temple orphanage and the other kobolds let the matter drop. She had tried to leverage the small win into not being called ‘Princess’ by the older kobolds but that was going to be a long and arduous battle.
Turning back to the present, Rosalyn held Poh’s hand as she led her down a meandering and zig zag path through the nearby woods to a clearing that she knew the kobolds had been scouting for potential places to build more wells. Rosalyn briefly wondered what horrible traps Poh was leading her around as they stopped and then walked five paces out of the way of their initial path only to abruptly turn and get back on the small trail once again. Her mind briefly flashed to a devilishly grinning Birdie as he triggered a cleverly hidden explosive and she decided that it would be better not knowing. “Ignorance is truly bliss sometimes.” She mused out loud, garnering a confused expression from the tiny kobold holding her hand. Rosalyn guessed that she didn’t understand all the words.
“Don’t worry about it Poh.” Nodding her head she led Rosalyn further into the woods. Right as they cleared the tree-line and entered the clearing Rosalyn looked behind her shoulder and saw smoke come from the direction of the house. Frowning at this she jumped as a loud bang followed by the panicked chittering of many distressed kobolds entered her ears. Rosalyn turned, fully ready to let go of her compression and fly to the aid of the kobolds when Poh tugged on her hand hard.
“No! No! Is okay! Distract! Explore! We go!”