Seed 11

June 14th, 2032.

Dinah was in a contemplative mood. With her second encounter with the human apprentice of Ultima Grimshaw. A human who could wield magic with strange symbols on paper. Ones that weren't of the Old Tongue. Including an element that she had never seen before.

Notair, notwater, notearth, notfire. Not of this world, she thought in her mind. Sinking deep into the instincts of the dragons that were her blood and kin. That made Celia a curiosity, made her mission even more of an imperative.

She's… quite plush and cuddly for someone capable of tearing apart a dark spirit with her magic, Dinah thought to herself as she slipped into her clothing. Open back, as usual, to accommodate for her wings.

The winged races had their limitations. She had tried out all manner of outfits for her own pleasure and comfort. Open backs, held up at the collar, tee shirts tied or buttoned above and below their wing area. Double and merged suspenders were useful for strapping armor, button tops were pulled up from the bottom, tail in her case, and buttons up top above her wings, covering one’s back.

Comfortable but not practical for armor.

Slitted cloaks, coats, and capes were a tasteful addition to any outfit in her humble opinion. Far more practical than the fancy clasped-back monstrosities that some of the harpies from the neighboring taifa of Anagen wore.

“Terrible.” She muttered with a sigh as she stepped away from her closet and pushed open the door of her room.

Caudalann was a kingdom of islands borne of the Boiling Sea wrapped within the enclosing tail of Calafia, with over sixty thousand souls. The children of sailors, fishers, pirates, and raiders. A hundred lives of men and women, and everything in between and neither. It was her kingdom, her clan, her people. Mine.

It was why she had been so eager to accept the assignment of her distant uncle. It was a way to elevate their taifa as trouble brewed within Danab. Her family had to manage nine tribula in all, thirty-six clans across thirty three islands. More or less controlling thousands of square kilometers of open waters.

Her uncle Asriel held over a hundred tribula and six hundred clans under his sway in his rulership of Danab. A million souls were part of his domain, his people, his responsibility. Nig all the taifa were trustworthy vassals either, minor skirmishes between kingdoms were regular news on the golm-lines.

There was a reason their clan was so small. They had lost many members over the last few decades.

She scraped her claws against the white stucco walls of the clan palace. Built in the style introduced by the Pale King over the last few centuries. It was a sizable and beautiful place, a block of two-story homes with hipped roofs, louvered shutters, walls painted in reds and pinks and oranges, a veneer of stucco and brick under a frame of harvested bone.

Hundreds of years ago, her ancestors had slain a great monster and used its bones to build the frame of their fortress. Bone reinforced with living steel, strong enough to hold up the body of a being hundreds of meters in length.

Entire generations had lived in their ancestral home, and she saw the rich history in the subtle cracks and marks on the white walls, spark holes, left by young dragons learning the element dearest to their hearts.

Dragons are fire, it was baked into their blood and bones, fangs, and wings and claws, power passed down for ten thousand life times.

She entered the great room, with twenty feet of depth and height, being able to fit thirty people was necessary from time to time. It was well-loved, and she smiled at the scratches and scorch marks left from the pitter-patter of feet on the stone floor.

My cousin should be in the courtyard tending to the bankiva…

Dinah left the family hall and continued into the courtyard. An enclosed milpa field held within. Simply plant a dozen crops at once, all of them working together both nutritionally and environmentally.

Their field was cleared for teosinte-buckwheat, with vines of jack-bean, jícama, and tomato-nettle wrapping around their stalks, with squashes between the rows. It was a tangled and jangled affair of life. Shrubs and trees of blood amaranth, chili peppers, and paltas peaked above the grasses. While the ground was saturated with melons and potato-chokes, oca and achira, and little oogami nut flowers.

“Farrow!” She called out to her cousin with a gruff tone. Swaying from side to side as she was overcome with impatience.

Her cousin emerged from one of the coops with three bankivas clinging onto his fur. Their three claws at the end of iridescent cyan-blue wings, long fluffy fiery orange necks curled into his body, beaked snouts pecking at vulnerable flesh.

“Nosy little creatures aren't they?” The bankiva were resilient birds, easy to feed, and able to feed on almost anything. Dozens of breeds specialized for laying eggs, for meat or resilience to certain conditions.

They were also delicious.

Farrow chuckled. “Yes small but tough and chunky, like that lady friend of yours.”

Heat rushed to Dinah’s face, and she bared her fangs, eyes flashing with rage. “She is not my friend, merely the focus of my mission, nothing more and nothing less.”

He snorted, licking his four tusks with a roll of his eyes. “Please, you've been given missions and tasks by the clan and the réu before and never been this… wound up. You're at the least invested in understanding who this human is, and I get it. Humans haven't been seen in the Woven Realm in centuries, much less one capable of feats of magic.” He lightly scratched under the chin of one of their fowl. His clawed feet stomped onto the ground with his almost nine foot frame.

“She’s a human, an interesting human but nothing more,” no matter how much she wanted to pick the brains of someone capable of discovering ancient feats of Craft. “My orders are to bring her before my parents for questioning when it comes to her connections with the Wandering Abyss.”

“So you wanna ask what I saw from that little encounter yesterday?”

Her eyebrows twitched. Her tail swaying from side to side in subconscious anger, tail feathers flaring open. “Yes. Obviously, she saved some kid from the jaws of a beowulf that she threw around like a ragdoll with a single spell. I want to know how.”

Farrow nodded with another snort. “There's not much to tell. Like you've put in your reports she draws out strange symbols which can summon individual sources.”

Dinah leaned back. “Individual sources, not spells?” What had he seen with his Second Eye?

“When she drew on that strange power… it was merely shaped into the form of a Source, and she shaped that energy into a spell. It has to be quite difficult, requiring plenty of intuition, imagination, and recklessness to blind cast.” Dinah shuddered at the idea, most witches learned from their parents and schools how to wield the elements and sources most suited to their needs, and creating new spells involved the careful study and comprehension of the energies of magic.

Raw experimentation like that was the field of the mad, the brilliant, and the stupid… She suspected Celia fit in the prior categories.

Getting her name wasn't hard… am I being creepy again?

“So far I've only seen her use fire, and… that strange element.” She was a wapuk, a dragon-child, she could feel the flow of khi around her, the flow and connections made by the Ephemeral. “It feels… other, like an empty cup waiting to be filled, outside.”

“It is mysterious isn't it?” Farrow said dryly. “But it's a good mystery, isn't it? A place to step away from your parents and from… her.” There was a disdain there she didn't want to think about.

“Grandmother is just doing her best for us.”

Farrow rolled his eyes. “Don’t let her poison you Dinah… like she's done to everyone else. Don't let her honeyed words become the truth.”

She was just looking out for us, it was just her way! The words refused to leave her lips.

Farrow sighed. “What do you know about the human, cousin?”

Dinah nodded quietly, bright eyes dimming at the reminder. “She’s clearly rather new to this world. Or her Mentor has been keeping her firmly under wraps. I need more information.”

Farrow rolled his eyes. “Then I suggest going out rather than staying here.”

Dinah sighed.

He does have a point.

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Dinah let out a low deep-throated growl as she flew over the tribeland. Her skin tingling with the sensation of wind and vibrations she was naturally attuned to as a dragon. She had her arms out, unfolding the thin membrane of her winglets

Being able to fly on your own power really is an advantage, Dinah mused as she cruised at a leisurely sixty kilometers an hour. Quite frankly she was rather irritated that they hadn't found Ultima or her apprentice on an island she could cross in ten minutes.

Then again, much of the heart of the island is poorly explored as we mostly expanded outwards from the shore.

Dinah tilted backwards, raising the front of both her flight limbs, and feeling out the turbulence and drag of the air. She carefully folded the leading edge of her wings using her alula rods. Air rushed both under and over her winglet, keeping her aloft as she directed herself towards an open spot to land.

She extended her legs and readied her hands, bracing for the landing as she bled speed.

One, two, three, four, five…

She landed in the open space, right at the edge of an open-air market, since it was Aliathnes, or Monday for humans. Her talons clicked against the hard ground. She hid a warm smile as she watched her people enjoy themselves without a care in the world.

Even if being around people tended to drain her energy at times.

She didn't expect to find much. But it was a far better chance than stalking her target from the air. Whatever protections Ultima had, prevented tracking her home. She had crashed into hills and trees on multiple occasions trying to break through whatever wild magics guarded them.

Althea Rookwood of no clan was far more trouble than she was worth, as the spirits seemed to bar her path despite her own power. Why is this so hard? I'm a powerful witch from a powerful clan. It's why we handle spirits the most of any witch. So why is a human and a clanless witch able to keep up at all?

There was a spark of something ugly and basal in her throat, and her hands sparked with oily rust-red sparks that she hid away with an embarrassed pout.

Dinah decided it was best to ignore and bury that ugly feeling, just a corpse in her mental graveyard. At least the market today was bustling and lively, which meant she could do this.

Eyes half-closed, she reached out with her inner fire. Read the flow of orders, look at their inner fire, those sparking passions in the night…

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Air, water, earth, fire, the basic substances which shape the world, shaping the form and essence of a witch and their power. The physical representations of the sources of magic.

With her mind’s eye, she saw flames billowing like crimson silk, tossed by winds of will and soul. Caudalann was a place touched by fire, just as much as it was touched by water, a place of boiling seas and salt breezes, of thundering volcanoes and firestorms.

Her people were courageous, they had a spirit that fought to live, to prevail, to conquer any enemy set against it, whether mortal or nature itself. A soul touched by fire. Their inborn Nature was that of the roaring, scorching, passionate Red.

So in her sense of the spirits, she reached out to those little flames, etching them into her memory. A blacksmith of earth and steel, molten red with the flames of his soul, a healer of water, boiling like the sea with the heart of fire below.

That was the very reason she found Celia so… unsettling. Her soul was like a void, like staring into the endless abyss of the night. A twisting, twining cluster of raven wyrms of tarnished silver, shivering with promise, like the wreaths of a crown. During the battle with the dark spirits she had seen that dark gray void crackle with embers embedded within, silk waves of gold and violet and green.

She was a void so strong it had pulled two of her people out of her reach. And Dinah didn't know what to do about it. It was an outside-context problem that was both concerning and yet… alluring.

Seeing her people reassured her, so she hopped from foot to foot, claws gently tapping on the hard ground, tail swinging from side to side, ruffling the maroon skirt of her tunic.

She wandered across the market, mingling with her people. Watching the ripple of the crowd, watched faces light up with recognition, glimmers of happiness, as she walked among them freely.

She felt disgust rise in her throat when she looked back to the arrogance of disparaging one of her people for their lack of clan status. Like that mattered.

“Hmm…” Dinah politely mingled with the crowd, purchasing a kebab, layered with bankiva meat, midsummer onions, tomato-nettles, and chime peppers.

She bit into the kebab with a faint smile, working her way through the people in her wake. She noted a knot of women bent on purchasing dry achira noodles for their dinner. The market was awash with colors. Swishing dresses and colorful patterned tunics, painted faces and ornamented body parts depending on the race.

So many old faces in this tribula of ours, five thousand lives all under our guardianship.

At least one good thing had come out of the whole mess with the human. She was faced with a challenge, faced with a shock to her own values and biases. Celia didn't bear her any ill will, but she was still a rival and Dinah liked that.

I want to find her. She's a void, so I have to look where I don't see. I want my mark.

She reached out with her soul, with the fire burning under her skin, to the little fires pulled into her orbit. If Celia was here she’d see the gap where light couldn't escape, and she would have her target at hand.

She followed the subtle silky threads of khi, brimming and twisting with the power of the Elements and their Sources. People passed her by as she searched, stalked and hunted.

Ahead she caught the flutter of a noodle-shop curtain. She smiled as she saw the strange void within, a twisting mass of void-touched khi shading the world. Her other senses were pulled on as she focused. Preparing herself mentally for what was to come.

She lifted her nose, breathing in that faint scent of Other on the breeze.

It was raspberries, syrupy and bold rum and citrus, with a hint of smoky and bitter like the residue of blasting jelly. It was her smell, strange and alien. Lacking the tiny hint of benzoin all witches carried. It was of a Nature she had never seen before.

Are humans supposed to smell like that, or is she just weird?

She sniffed, tilting her head and opting to use her ears. Not many knew that the smaller pair of horns of a dragon was in fact their ears. Hollow structures filled with sound-conducting liquid and lined with directionally oriented sensor hairs. It lets her pick up and track multiple sounds, and fix their exact bearing and distance.

Easy, she should step out in… five, four, three, two, one—

She opened her mouth to surprise her worthy opponent… and blinked lamely when the human walked past her. Head buried in a book while muttering words under her breath.

“Ahh… Har Deshur is the fourth planet from this world’s star, one of six visible with the naked eye. I wonder if it's like Mars… perhaps there's a connection I'm not seeing here?” She flipped to another page, licking her lips. “Oh, witch bones stretch during puberty? How does that work, does it involve some kind of piezoelectric effect to induce bone growth, can the connective tissue… move to push the bone apart while allowing for growth of bone cells… or does it involve some type of innate shapeshifting?”

She looked at the cover which read ‘A Thousand Fun Facts about the Woven Realm!’

Dinah blinked once, then twice at the human walking without looking in front of her own two feet.

How did I get knocked down by her again?

Dinah growled, releasing a rolling click of warning as she sauntered after the human. The human twitched, a grimace tugging at her lips as she subtly shifted in stance.

“Human, I would like to have a word with you.”

“Gahh! Hijo de puta!” The human swapped to a strange tongue as she whirled around, her cloak slicing through the air and opening up to reveal a starscape painted with unknown constellations.

She is really quite tiny, isn't she?

The girl cursed as she took several frazzled steps back, clutching her book to her ample chest, an ugly red spreading across her face. Bangs of curling black obscured her dark eyes, light skin turned rosy, her entire body vibrating like a bell.

Dinah preened, and loomed over the human with a fanged smirk. “As I said, you and I should talk.”

Celia let out a sound like a dying cat, and Dinah blinked.

Maybe I came on too strong?

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…

It would be easy Ultima said, she trusted me to keep out of trouble she said…

So why was I sitting across the table from the rather pretty and terrifying dragon princess of a small kingdom? When I had initially gone to get some materials to experiment with glyphs using tougher material than paper?

Perhaps the fact she's both attractive and scary is a factor no?

And now I’m talking to myself, I must be losing my mind.

I sighed, brushing back a stray bang. “So… why is the heir of the Frazoiyo clan inviting a human to the local screamzel shop?” Eating a screaming pretzel was a tad horrifying and yet delicious. Devouring their doughy flesh was irresistible.

Maybe those kids I traumatized had a point about me…

I tore off a piece of the screaming bread. Which was really more of a squeak and swallowed as I looked up at the nose of the very tall dragon woman.

Being five foot one made six foot five look far more looming and intimidating. The predatory gleam in the princess’s eyes didn't help.

“What exactly do you want from me, aside from an apology?” I shrugged, I was more than willing to offer one. I had launched an attack that could have killed her even if it had been provoked by her own aggression.

She tilted her head like an owl. “Apology?”

“What?” Was I missing something?

Realization filled her face. “Ahh. Your attack… honestly I was more concerned about being caught off guard more than anything else. It was… vexing. I don't hold your actions against you. I gave you no reason to not be hostile.”

I blinked. “You’re weird,” I said bluntly at her response. “But then again from what research I've done on your clan you're all like that.”

“So you're no longer ignorant of who I am?” The dragon tilted her head, seemingly curious at my response.

“I didn't have much reason to research you before. I was never planning to do much here aside from learning the Craft.” I shrugged at her puzzled expression. “Earth doesn't have much if any magic, though we do have numbers and organization on our side.” California alone had a third the population of the entire continent. “I'm more interested in studying the nature and rules of the Craft, and while the people are also interesting… it's not my forte.”

“What do you know then?” Dinah sounded curious, tapping her long claws on the table we were sharing, every bit the equal of a tiger’s.

“Your clan is one of four in Cruorpool. With your clan leader chosen as the cabdillo of the tribe, in turn, selected as the ré of the kingdom from the nine tribes which make up Caudalann, a maritime kingdom holding dominion over the Boiling Seas.”

Dinah seemed irritated for some reason. “And that doesn't impress you?”

“I don't see many princesses nowadays,” I shrugged, offering her a fair shake. “And your magic and land is incredible, but sixty thousand people would amount to maybe one in fifty people in my county.”

Dinah choked. “Are you saying your county has more than three million people?”

“Yeah? We’ve got at least eighteen cities, spread out over about… half the area of Danab? Its just one of fifty-eight counties making up the state, one of them with about ten million people?”

Her claws loudly scraped against wood, and I ducked at the curious gazes of the people around us.

“Ten million?” She whispered.

“I guess that would be quite shocking for a world that's retained a rather low population density.” We packed over twice as many people in the same space and had two times more space available just comparing California and Calafia. “There’s just a lot of people in my world.”

She shook her head, like she was shaking off cobwebs. “No, no. This is not what I came to speak with you about. I was given the task of bringing you before my mother and father, and while I would prefer to do it peacefully… I'm still a hunter.”

My face scrunched up in distaste. “I don't think that's a good idea,” I said honestly. “I know my teacher has a history with the Chantry, and I'm not good with people. Seems like it could go wrong pretty easily.”

Dinah’s lips curled back into an indignant snarl. “That doesn't matter, I'm not sure how it works in your world. But in this one, a chief, a lord watches out for their own. I have to protect my family, my clan, my people. The Wandering Abyss is dangerous. Only not brought in due to her falling under the domain of the Chantry.”

As well as the fact she can overpower dozens of witches with her power?

“No.” I stood up, rolling my shoulders, slowly unraveling the tension in my body. “I'm gonna go, and we can work this out later. Because this is not happening right now.” Was this going to happen every time I went into town? Because it was proving to be a gigantic thorn in my side.

I immediately ate the rest of my pretzel, muffling the scream with my teeth. Stepping out from the shop at a hurried pace. I instantly swiped a glyph from my belt, and in a near-instant weaved myself a barrier and a potent mass reduction spell.

Going from one hundred fifty to fifteen pounds instantly tripled my speed as I broke out into a flat-out run. I could already feel Dinah right behind me. So I knew this was going to be a problem as I searched for either a hiding spot or an escape route.

“Fuck.” I cursed as I looked around, having ducked into an open area even while Dinah was scouting from above… with the only options being… a small fish pond, with a single large koi fish that looked like a gummy.

I tried to skid to a stop… and tripped on a rock that sent me careening forward through the air for like a dozen yards. I fell head-first into the pond. I barely held my breath in time before I was engulfed by water.

Oh fuck, I do not want to drown, oh fuck.

I felt a smooth bump, and my fear shifted to being eaten by a koi fish the size of a bear.

Oh God, don't eat me!

But to my surprise, I was suddenly hit with a bubble of fresh air, and opened my eyes to find my head was encased in a literal bubble. Provided by the large pond fish.

“It really does look like a koi fish, just gummier and with a smiling face.” I marveled at the rubbery sensation of the fish’s scales. Delicate whiskers prodded my arms curiously while large baby-doe eyes blinked slowly at me. It blew a second bubble, water parting and shearing around it with a flash of light, a thin radiant sheen of magic.

The bubble expanded until it covered my frame. Smoothing out from a round ball to a flattened hemisphere. Blending into the water as golden sunlight shone into the freshwater lake.

My eyes widened when I saw Dinah land smoothly right on the shore of the pond, dust blown back by a flap of her wings. She looked over the area, moving away from my point of view before coming back with a frustrated expression.

She scowled… and slapped her palm on her face, letting off a soft whining growl.

“I was supposed to take the soft approach! What is wrong with me?” She let out a frustrated scream, tail whipping back and forth violently. There was a quiet tremor to her frame, like she couldn't contain her emotions. “How do I keep… failing, it's not supposed to be like this. I'm supposed to be… better than this.”

I swallowed nervously at the displayed vulnerability, heart clenching at her expression.

The koi fish just watched with an oddly human expression, and my heart stopped when Dinah glanced down, looking right at me… and not seeing a thing.

Oh. Magic.

“I should go.” Dinah said to herself with a quiet tremble, lowering her stance and jumping a dozen feet in a single leap, wings carrying her high into the air.

I continued to watch the bubble shimmer and shine, golden sunlight dancing in circles within circles, beautiful patterns of… oh.

I traced out the pattern with my finger, a figure eight touching the northern bounds within a circle.

“Engua.”

I guess I had a new glyph… and more questions than answers.