Tails aren’t quite like other limbs. They’re more an extension of your spine than anything else, really. So you can imagine that getting woken up by being dragged out of your tiny bedroom by the tail is not the most pleasant experience in the world.
“Aaaaagh! What the hell?!” I swipe at my assailants with my claws, then hiss when I smack one hand against solid stone instead. A few are still broken, and the sharp pain that surges from them at the impact makes me hiss and draw them back in as I’m brought to a stop on my back.
Now that I’m out in the open and not reacting on pure instinct, it’s easy enough to make out the culprits. My two gray-scaled clutch-sisters glare down at me, their gray eyes narrowed.
Yan and Lum may as well be twins, they look so similar. Hell, as far as I know they actually are. I’m not sure how reptile twins work — if they even exist — and it’s possible kobolds work differently anyways. The two of them are basically in-between me and Karr as far as physique and scales go — middling build, prominent but not overly large scales.
“Zel.” Yan, the slightly taller of the two, says. “Karr told us quite the tale this morning.”
I look over at my clutch-brother, who responds with a sheepish, apologetic glance of his own. Judging from how he’s more hunched over than usual, I assume he’s already been subjected to our sisters’ less-than-tender ministrations.
“Is that right?” I ask, trying to find a way to wriggle my way out of this situation. Yan and Lum aren’t usually violent, but they can guilt-trip like there’s no tomorrow… and Yan in particular is pretty good at getting us back for any slights in other ways.
“Did you have fun on the surface?” Lum asks, her smaller stature allowing her to easily lower her face to meet mine.
“...no?” I reply, reasoning that it’s not entirely a lie. Carrying the kill back wasn’t exactly what I’d call fun, nor was our brush with the lurker. Sure, the surface basically took my breath away, but that was more moving than amusing.
“Liar.” She hisses, leaning in even closer. If we weren’t siblings I’d worry she’s about to bite my face. Honestly, I’m still a little worried despite that — Lum can get pretty temperamental.
“And a bad one, at that.” Yan agrees. “Perhaps you remember us saying we’d like to see the surface one day? It was only a few weeks ago.”
“Not even a month.” Lum confirms.
“I… might remember one of you mentioning it.” I reply uneasily, trying to wriggle away from my sisters to no avail.
That was apparently the wrong thing to say, a fact that the aggravated lashing of their tails gives away. Yan’s glare intensifies. “You might remember? You know I hate it when you use weasel words, Zel. Or maybe you only might remember that too.”
“Alright, alright.” I bring my hands above my head in surrender. “I remember you saying you wanted to see the surface.” I almost add a ‘Happy?’ to the end of that statement before realizing that it would probably be a very bad idea.
“So you just… forgot to bring us along, then?” She asks. “Or did you just decide our desires were not worth taking into account when you went on your little trip?”
“Whoa now,” I say, feeling distinctly like a mouse that’s slowly being cornered by a pair of pissed-off cats. “I wasn’t the one who decided who got to go.” I look at Karr, and the two of them immediately turn their sharp gazes to him.
My small mountain of a clutch-brother quails, looking at me with betrayal in his eyes. “I didn’t get to pick either!” He manages to squeak out, his quavering voice a sharp contrast to his build. “It was Soh’s decision!” His gray eyes meet mine, silently begging me to go along.
Technically speaking, it’s true — though I know Soh probably would have agreed to bring the girls along if we’d asked. Truthfully, I got the feeling Karr had wanted it to be a sort of ‘guy’s trip’ since he’d tried to avoid waking our sisters along with me yesterday morning, and I could easily throw him under the bus for it… but I can’t bring myself to do so. The bonds of clutch-brothers are more tightly-wound than that.
It also helps that this is the perfect chance to get that bastard Soh back for the aches and pains I still feel in my muscles.
I nod slowly when the two look back to me for confirmation. “He asked for the two of us to go up with him so we could carry his kills back for him, that’s all. I’m still pretty sore, actually.” I fake a wince and rub at my arm, hissing in pain.
Lum’s glare immediately vanishes and she backs off, looking guilty. “You’re hurt? Oh no, we didn’t make it worse, did we?”
“It’s fine.” I reply, giving her a small smile that I hope looks suitably weak. “Honestly, it’s not so bad.” I seize the opportunity to rise to my feet, making sure to exaggerate the effort and pain involved.
Lum swallows the act hook, line, and sinker, rushing back over to support me. I almost feel bad for deceiving her like this… but then again, she did drag me out of bed by my tail. Yan, on the other hand, only maintains her glare towards me, anger now mixed with suspicion. It doesn’t help that now Karr is exaggeratedly (and awkwardly) rubbing his arms and legs as if to ease the soreness in them. He’s… not exactly the world’s best actor, even if I don’t doubt he is genuinely sore.
“... we’ll talk to Soh, then.” Yan says after a moment’s silence, and I see Karr let out a silent breath of relief behind her. “But if you’re lying to me…”
“We aren’t!” I assure her, trying to ignore that now my own voice is an octave or two higher than normal.
“I’m sure.” She replies drolly. “Well, since you’re both obviously in too much pain to do anything too physical, why don’t you two swap duties with us today?”
That… sounds nice, actually. Usually my clutch-sisters help out Vekit or one of the other elders with their tasks for the day, while Karr and I get the dirtier jobs like gathering the moss that gathers near the Nest’s river or squashing vermin that get into our food stores.
It’s not a gender role thing — as far as I can tell, male and female kobolds are roughly equal in strength and take up their roles more-or-less as needed. In the case of my clutch, it’s more a matter of Karr looking like a big dumb brute and me being his tagalong.
“Sounds good.” I reply. “We were going to hunt for rats today, so you’ll want to meet up with Kres.”
“Alright. Vekit needs help preparing meat.” Yan points down the tunnels. “I’d hurry, if I were you. You know how she gets if you keep her waiting.”
I do indeed, and have to stop myself from rubbing the top of my head as a phantom pain ghosts across it. Vekit may be ancient, but she can still give a solid wallop to the skull. Gesturing for Karr to follow me — and wincing for real when I raise my arm a little too high — I begin to trudge my way towards the old kobold’s quarters.
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“Karr, you lump of overgrown scales! Move slower, boy! What, you want to leave me behind? What if I fall and break a leg, or crack my head open? Who will carry old Vekit to her deathbed if you’re halfway across the Nest?” Vekit smacks the upside of my clutch-brother’s head with her bone cane, making me laugh — which earns me a solid whack as well. “And what do you find so funny? Does the thought of my lonely corpse amuse you, Zel? HM?!”
“No, Vekit.” I mumble in reply, rubbing my head with one hand. Unfortunately, taking my hand off of the jar of herbs we’re carrying just ends up putting more weight on my other hand… which makes my broken claws hurt all the more. Hissing, I reach back and snatch the jar’s edge with my free hand once more.
“Hurts, does it? Think about how I feel, with my old bones and claws.” She grumbles as she hobbles ahead of us, her long skirt trailing on the stone floor. “Well, what are you standing there for like a pair of fat frogs? Come on! And try not to fall behind.” She cackles gleefully, clearly delighting in tormenting us with her contrary demands.
Damn that Yan. She must have known — and I should have realized — that Vekit would have us haul things around for her before anything else, and traded roles with us specifically so we’d have to work our sore muscles even more. I should have known she wouldn’t let us get away so easily.
The three of us make our way to the kitchen — really just a cave with a raised bit of stone for a table, along with a few divots that serve as shelves. “There now, boys. Put it near the table. On the right, I always have it on the right.”
We do as she says, placing the bitter-smelling jar in the spot she designates, and after a bit of back and forth along with some readjusting she decides she’s satisfied. “Good. Now Karr, be a good ‘bold and go get the venison from the stores, hm? Zel, you stay here. I need someone to crush the herbs, my claws start to ache after a few minutes. The mortar and pestle should be over there…”
Karr grumbles but marches off to grab the meat she requested while I hunt among the shelves for the mortar and pestle. “I don’t see… oh, these?” I grab a stone set with a wavy pattern carved on the side and bring them back to Vekit. She stares at them for a moment, then starts and points back towards the shelves.
“No, no. There should be another set there. Without the markings.”
I go back and switch them out, and she nods with satisfaction. “Good. Now, grab a clawful… with your other hand, boy! I don’t want any blood from those broken claws in the mixture.”
I do as she says and she continues to instruct me on the process. It’s more-or-less what I’d expect from a task like this, and by the time my clutch-brother returns, dragging along a few decent-sized slabs of what I assume is venison from our kill yesterday, I’ve got a sizable amount of herb-paste made up.
“Good, good! Now slather it on the meat. It helps preserve it. Tastes good, too, when we cook it…” Vekit mutters, running her tongue over her dry lips. “Not you, Zel. You keep making the paste, we’ll need plenty of it.”
We get into a decent rhythm after a bit, me making the paste and Karr slathering it over the meat, and I find myself thinking back to the other mortar and pestle. “Hey, Vekit?”
“Hm?” The older kobold looks up from the meat. “What is it?”
“Why didn’t you want me using that other mortar and pestle?”
“The other… oh.” She cackles under her breath a moment. “That’s for poison, Zel. Or medicine sometimes. Depends. I may not like Ivo, but I don’t want to poison her.” She pauses, then adds. “Not anymore, anyways. Tried it once. Didn’t work.”
Karr gasps in horror and Vekit rolls her eyes in response. “Oh, relax. It’s not like she doesn’t know.” This hardly seems to quell his shock, but he knows better than to voice as much while he’s within range of her cane.
Personally, my evaluation of Vekit goes up a few notches. Ivo is the leader of the chromascales, a red-scaled kobold who clearly thinks she’s better than the rest of us but doesn’t do us the courtesy of outright admitting it. I’ve only had to meet with her a couple times, when she was shadowing my chromatic clutch-brother Ruk, and neither interaction left me with a positive impression of the Nest’s de-facto leader.
“Why do you just leave them in the kitchen?” I ask, pushing the thought of my least favorite clutch-sibling and his mentor out of my mind. “And do you not… clean them?”
“Of course I clean them. Better to be safe though, hm? And if anyone is stupid enough to use my kitchen without my permission then they deserve what they get.”
“Can’t argue with that.” I shrug, continuing my work.
“Of course you can’t.” She snaps, gesturing towards the tools to indicate that I should work more and talk less.
I work in silence a bit longer before deciding to risk asking something else. “What kinds of poisons do you make?”
“Oh, all sorts.” She says, obvious enthusiasm animating her leathery old bones, to my relief. There was always the chance she’d bop me for talking again. “Poisons to paralyze, poisons to ruin your stomach for a few days, poisons to kill… there’s plenty to be done with what we have in the tunnels, boy. You just have to know how to work with the stuff.”
“I see.” I reply. “Have you ever poisoned yourself?”
“Plenty of times.” She answers ruefully. “Why the sudden interest, boy? Thinking of poisoning poor Karr here?”
“Well, maybe just if he wakes me up early again.” I laugh, seeing my clutch-brother go tense at my answer. He sighs in relief after a moment as he realizes that I’m joking and goes back to his task. “I could stand to learn a trick or two to get back at some ‘bolds, though. Maybe just give them a stomachache or something.”
She nods. “Well, see me if you have some free time, hm? I wouldn’t mind passing some things along before I keel over.”
Before I can answer her, Karr chimes in with a question of his own. “Hey, Vekit? What’s this celebration supposed to be for anyways?”
“What, they didn’t tell you?” She asks, raising a scaly brow. “No, I suppose they wouldn’t bother.”
It’s not hard to hear the resentment in her voice at that last statement, but she picks up her explanation with barely a pause. “Your clutch-siblings are having their Nameday soon.”
“Their what?” I ask, the term sounding familiar but not enough that I can actually recall anything substantial about it.
“Nameday. What, they didn’t bother telling you about that either?”
“Ruk told us about them, remember?” Karr pipes up, looking at me.
“I must not have heard him.” I reply, remembering this time not to disparage our red clutch-brother in front of Karr.
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“It’s where you get a new name.” He says, looking at Vekit for confirmation.
She nods. “A bit simpler than the full truth of it, but close enough.”
“So what, Yan and Lum are going to change their names?” I ask, already dreading their response when I call them by the wrong names in the future.
“No.” Vekit replies, shaking her head this time. “Grayscales don’t get Namedays. Not anymore, at least.”
“Why not?” Karr asks, curious. “Ruk didn’t tell us much. Just that you get new names, like I said.”
“A real surprise, that. He’s usually so forthcoming.” I mutter, just loud enough so that Karr can’t hear… though Vekit’s eyes flicker towards me. And here I thought the ears were the first thing to go with age. Maybe kobolds are different? It seems rude to ask, and I have no doubt that if Vekit feels I’m being rude I’ll get a cane to the head in place of a verbal reprimand.
The old kobold sighs, leaning on her cane. “You don’t get a new name, exactly. You get a new part to your name — Ivo used to just be Iv, you know.”
“That’s it?” I ask. “Doesn’t seem like that big a deal.”
“Well it is.” She snaps. “So be careful who you say that to.”
It’s my turn to raise my eyebrow, a gesture she responds to after a long moment with a command of all things. “Name a dragon, both of you.”
“Oszalibryn.” Karr replies immediately. I recognize the name after a second, and it’s no surprise he picked that one in particular — Oszalibryn is apparently strong enough to shatter mountains with a swing of his tail and create tornadoes with the beat of his wings. In other words, he’s the perfect role model for my musclebound clutch-brother.
“That’s one. Well known too, hm? Zel?”
It takes me a moment to run through the various tales and legends the kobolds pass down about our supposed ancestors. There was one that lived underwater and could create tidal waves with the force of her roar, then another whose scales were made of the night sky itself and whose breath gave all it touched nightmares… but I’ll be damned if I can remember their names offhand.
“The Earthwyrm?” I ask weakly, vaguely recalling legends of the dragon apparently responsible for carving out the tunnels we live in.
A cane across the top of my head is my reward for my half-assed answer. “I said name, not title.”
Perhaps the strike jarred my memory a bit, as the name of the night-sky dragon leaps to my tongue. “Rukeryon.”
“Ah, the Sun-Thief.” She says as her cane clacks back against the ground. “You two have seen the sun now, I suppose. It’s still there, obviously — the title isn’t literal, but then they rarely are… and I’m losing track of my thoughts, hm? Tell me, what is the similarity between their names?”
“They’re both… long?” Karr asks, hunching his shoulders and ducking his head as he prepares to get caned across his skull, but to both of our surprise no blow comes.
“Exactly.” Vekit says instead, nodding as if this weren’t an incredibly stupid answer. “You are Zel. You are Karr.” She points at each of us in turn, then begins counting on her fingers. “Your clutch-siblings are Yan, Lum, Ruk, Isk, and Josk. All very short, hm?”
I nod, seeing the beginnings of the thread she’s spinning for us. “So… what, getting a longer name means you’re more like a dragon?”
“Yes.” She replies simply. “Every Nameday is a new syllable. Iv to Ivo. Ruk to… well, whatever Ivo ends up giving him. It’ll be Rukiv, if I know her. It’s usually someone important to you, or someone who has helped you along your journey to dragonhood.”
“So I could be Karrzel?” My clutch-brother asks, and I have to admit I feel more than a little warmth at his acknowledgment of my importance to him. Not that I didn’t already know as much, but it’s nice to hear it regardless… even if I do think Karrzel sounds a bit dumb. Zelkarr doesn’t sound so bad though.
“You could.” Vekit replies carefully. “But you won’t. Only one grayscale has gotten a Nameday since Ivo took her role, and that was more an insult than anything.”
“Of course.” I reply, disgust in my voice. Chromascales are full of themselves at the best of times, and getting a fancy new name is doubtless just another way for them to puff themselves up in front of the rest of us.
“Oh.” Karr says simultaneously, clearly disappointed. “But how do chromascales get Namedays, then?”
“It’s supposed to be when you shed your scales and grow new ones.” Vekit shrugs. “Never seen it myself, hm?”
“I take it that’s not something that just happens.” I note, and she nods once more.
“The Chromascales guard the details like they guard their hoards.” She replies. “Which is quite well, before you decide to poke around and see for yourselves.”
“Sure, because I’m ready to die agai…” I drift off as I realize I’ve spoken my thoughts aloud. The two of them shoot me a curious glance and I panic a little.
Truthfully, I don’t think Karr would react badly if I told him about my past life, but he’s hardly the most tight-lipped ‘bold in the Nest and I don’t want the story spreading. Vekit… I don’t know about Vekit, or anyone else for that matter. I don’t know how kobolds treat their own when they think they’re insane, and I’m not eager to find out.
After a moment of mental scrambling a thought occurs to me, and I throw it out to hopefully distract from my own verbal slip-up. “Wait a minute. You don’t have one syllable in your name, Vekit.”
“Very observant.” She notes drolly as Karr perks up in curiosity. “Get back to work Karr, It’s not such an interesting story. I said it already, hm? It was more an insult than anything else. A parting shot from clutch-sister to clutch-sister, to remind me that I would never be more than what I am.”
“I see.” I reply, mentally recoiling at the raw venom and bitterness in her voice. “Sorry to dig at old wounds.”
“It’s fine. Young kobolds are curious things, hm?” The hatred in her voice fades slowly as she continues to speak. “But I think that’s enough talking for now. You two will never finish at this rate.”
Vekit points towards our work and we get back to it, silently preparing a meal that I have no doubt we won’t get so much as a scrap of. Once we’ve thoroughly slathered the venison in our herb-paste, Karr and I are tasked with placing it back in the storeroom and then washing all of the gunk off us in the river afterwards.
“And make sure you do it near the exit! We don’t need the water tasting of raw meat and paste for the next week!” Vekit shouts after us as we separate from her.
We assure her that we’ll do as she says then scurry off as fast as we can before she thinks of anything else for us to do.
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The communal bath in the Nest is one of the ‘fancier’ areas in our home, if you can call anything here fancy. It’s basically a large cavern with a basin carved into it, which is fed by the river that runs through the Nest and which then pours outside of it into the tunnels beyond through a series of cracks in the wall. Relatively small cracks, thankfully, or we’d basically be serving the lurkers a buffet.
What makes the place different is the mosses and fungi that grow on the walls and floor of the basin itself — unlike the ones that grew next to the river near the surface, these have some sort of bioluminescence that lights the place up pretty well. It reminds me of the lighting inside of some rich folks’ swimming pools, especially because it grows in an almost hypnotic swirling pattern.
“That wasn’t so bad.” Karr says as the two of us rinse ourselves off near the places where the water flows out of the Nest. The water isn’t really shallow anywhere here, but kobolds are naturally pretty buoyant — even Karr, despite looking like a pile of jagged rocks that decided to start moving. “She only got us with that cane a few times today.”
I look around, making sure there aren’t too many of our fellow ‘bolds nearby since I know I’m about to earn myself a reprisal. “Speak for yourself. I don’t have those thick scales of yours, remember? Not to mention your thick skull.”
He springs into motion to pay me back for the jibe and I dive beneath the water to avoid his tackle, surfacing a short ways away from him afterwards. “Ha! Too ea—blrgh!”
I shouldn’t have opened my mouth, because a mighty splash of water from his tail hits me full in the face, making me cough and splutter before I dive back under the water and sweep his legs with my own whiplike appendage.
We devolve into a full-on sibling wrestling match after that. Normally I wouldn’t stand a chance, but with the water acting to slow his movements and partially remove his weight advantage I’m able to put up a lot more of a fight than I usually can against the brute.
Sadly, before we can determine a victor a sudden rush of water moves as if it has a mind of its own, separating the two of us by sending us whirling away from one another. Surprised, I look around and spot the culprit — a female kobold whose colored scales shine brilliantly in the light of the moss.
“Other people need to bathe and would prefer it to be a peaceful experience, you two.” Isk, our blue-scaled clutch-sister comments as she sinks into the water herself. “Don’t look at me like that, Zel. You were going to lose regardless.”
“No I wasn’t.” I hiss as Karr laughs several feet away from me.
“You were! I had you by the neck.”
“I was going to slip out.”
“Sure you were.”
“Listen, unlike you I don’t have scales too big to fit my fat head throu—blrgh!”
A small stream of water erupts right in front of me, once more filling my mouth with water that tastes just slightly like the herb-paste smelled and sending me into a minor coughing fit.
Isk smiles at me, as if daring me to try again, but I’m not dumb enough to give it another go. I don’t know exactly how she and the other chromascales work their little magic tricks, but I know better than to tangle with someone who can control the environment around you… not to mention the trouble I’d get in for picking a fight with a chromascale in the first place.
“We’ll call it a draw, I think.” I say with what I like to think is a sort of magnanimous air.
“Mmh.” Isk intones gracefully. “If you say so.”
“I do.” I manage not to snap my reply, but it’s still perhaps a bit more terse than necessary. Isk isn’t as bad as Ruk, but she’s still a chromascale who’s more than happy to take advantage of the advantages that gives her… like not having to share a den with us dirty grayscales, even if we are her clutch-siblings. Speaking of dirty…
“What are you doing here, anyways? You don’t have so much as a speck on you.”
“I like swimming.” She replies as she glides across the surface of the water, circling around me with lazy ease even as I make my way towards the edge of the basin. “And I happen to be rather good at it, don’t you think?”
“Yeah.” Karr replies, having made his way to the edge just before me. “Is that part of your dragon-blessing?”
She laughs, coming to a halt a little distance away from us. “No, but my tail and claws help.” She holds up her claws and spreads the individual digits, displaying the webbing between them. A glance at her tail reveals it to be finned along its top and bottom, sort of like the body of an eel.
“Oh.” Karr replies, clearly disappointed.
“What are you so let down by? We already saw it when she used her blessing to split us apart earlier.” I note, recalling how the water seemed to move of its own volition. “That or you’re much faster than I give you credit for.” I add, glancing back at our azure clutch-sister.
She laughs again, shaking her head. “None but the dragons are that fast, I think. You had it right the first time.”
“Can you do it again?” Karr asks, excited. “Ruk never wants to show us, and Josk…” He trails off, not wanting to badmouth our exceedingly creepy white-scaled clutch-brother but not able to think of a polite way to put his statement.
“... did as Josk does, I imagine. Stared at you in silence until you got the hint and left.” Isk comments, her voice neutral.
Karr nods slowly. “Right. He’s just the quiet type, I guess.” He reasons, apparently accepting his own charitable interpretation of Josk’s behavior. Hell, he could even be right… but personally, I’d bet that Josk just thinks he’s too good to talk to us lowly grayscales.
Instead of answering him verbally, Isk raises a claw out of the water, palm upwards, and I swear that for a moment her eyes seem even more blue than before. A sphere of water rises just a few inches from Karr, making his eyes widen in astonishment and delight.
“Wow.” He breathes, reaching out to prod the sphere with his claw. It ripples in response for a moment before settling back into a perfectly-still orb. “Is it hard? Not the sphere, I mean. Obviously. I just poked it; it was… water-y.” He coughs awkwardly.
“I know what you mean.” She replies, her eyes sparkling with amusement. “It’s not difficult to do something this small, no. It took a bit more control to end your little contest earlier though.”
“What does it feel like?” Karr asks, excited to finally hear more about a dragon-blessing… not that I can blame him, if I’m being honest with myself.
The dragon-blessing is basically magic, and aside from their color it’s the primary thing that separates the chromascales from us grayscales. If they’re to be believed, the dragon-blessing is a gift from the dragons to their chosen descendants… hence the name and their massive superiority complex.
“It’s like…” Isk pauses, pondering her answer. “Well, it depends. When I’m not using it, it’s like a lake inside me.”
“A lake… inside you?” Karr asks, clear confusion on his features. For my part, I perk up. Something about the way she describes it sounds distinctly familiar…
“It’s hard to explain how it feels exactly to someone who’s never felt it.” She replies apologetically. “But yes. When I’m using it, it comes to life, flowing throughout my entire body and filling me with its power. After that, I just have to direct it in the way I want, which is… perhaps easier said than done.”
As if to illustrate her point the sphere hovering in front of Karr collapses back into the basin with a plop. Karr frowns in disappointment.
“Does it feel that way for everyone?” I ask, trying to hide my excitement. It couldn’t be, but if it is…
“No. Ruk has made it clear it feels like a roaring bonfire to him.” She rolls her eyes in a way that makes me think that Ruk has mentioned it more than his fair share of times. “Ivo says hers feels more like a smoldering coal. Josk… well, he’s the quiet sort, right Karr?”
Karr nods happily, glad that someone has agreed with his assessment of our clutch-brother. Isk continues to chat with him about her blessing in particular, showing him a variety of tricks… but I’m too busy with my own blessing to pay either of them any mind.
Thinking back to yesterday, to the sensation that I absorbed, I focus my attention inwards to the spot where the serpent lies. It has apparently decided to coil around my heart, and as it notices my attention it rears its head eagerly, sending an odd shiver that’s more mental than physical through my body.
Recalling Isk’s words, I try to command the serpent to move… and it does, uncoiling from around my heart to slither down my arm and into my right hand — the one with the broken claws — with surprising speed. My hand twitches as I feel something leave me through the tips of my fingers, and the serpent seems to shrink slightly.
Shocked, I clench my claw into a fist and the serpent recoils, rapidly making its way back to its resting place. I glance around for any sign that I’ve done something, but nothing appears to have happened. More importantly, no-one seems to have noticed anything either.
I focus inward again, concerned over the shrinking of the serpent. It stirs at my attention, but doesn’t do anything more without direction, and sure enough it feels smaller than before. “Shit.” I mutter, wondering if it’s been reduced permanently or not. It would suck to stumble across magic only to lose it messing around in what amounts to a communal bath.
My excitement at discovering that I might have magic instantly evaporates, replaced by fear that I’ve potentially wasted the damned thing the first chance I got. If only there were some way to know for sure… wait.
“Isz, does your blessing need to… rest?” I ask, trying to come up with a way to word things so that I don’t reveal my new secret. I doubt the chromascales will take kindly to a grayscale getting their oh-so-special power. Luckily, my still-aching limbs give me the perfect comparison point. “Like, is it similar to a muscle? Does it get sore, or does the lake… empty out sometimes?”
She thinks for a moment. “It never really empties out completely, but it does lose some substance when I use it, yes. It refills after a while, though.”
Relief floods through me. Thank God… or the dragons, I guess. My mind begins to spin as I realize the implications of what I may have stumbled across yesterday, but before I can lose myself completely in my thoughts I remember to thank Isk for showing us her magic.
“Don’t mention it.” She smiles as Karr and I climb out of the basin before her features turn dead-serious. “Seriously. I’ll get an earful from Ivo about sharing the ‘secrets of the dragons’ with you.”
I blink. It hadn’t occurred to me that she might be telling us more than she’s supposed to. I should have realized, considering how tightly Vekit says they guard their knowledge. “Right. Sorry, yeah. We’ll keep quiet. Won’t we, Karr?”
Karr nods eagerly. “Of course! Your secret is safe with us, clutch-sister.”
That may require a bit of nannying on my end. Like I said, Karr’s not the best secret keeper in the Nest.
After a moment’s pause, I remember something. “Oh, congratulations on your Nameday.”
She looks at me, blue eyes wide with surprise.
“Vekit told us.” I tell her by way of explanation.
“That’s not why…” She stops herself, shaking her head and looking distinctly… uncomfortable? “Thank you, Zel.”
“Congrats from me too.” Karr adds, and Isk thanks him in turn, though I don’t miss that she still doesn’t seem entirely happy about something or other.
Well, whatever. If she’s not pleased with her Nameday that’s her business, and I’m not about to push her when she’s already told us more than she should have. “Enjoy your swim.” I tell her, and with that Karr and I depart back to our cavern.