Rivka had to consult her personal terminal repeatedly to find her way from the first class concourse of the starliner to the cargo hold she had been allocated. The journey took her from vaulted, crystalline and gold magnificence to utilitarian corridors of soft pastel shades lacking that apparently all important eighteen feet of headroom. Isasias grew visibly uncomfortable at this but failed to complain.
“Your excellency.” This was becoming easier even if the term rankled her on a gut level. “You mentioned that you attend the same academy I will be educated at. You are an upperclassman then?” She attempted to prompt him into something other than scowling at perfectly adequate walls. It seemed to go down well.
“Indeed! I am just about to begin my third year, if nothing else the timing of your Awakening was fortuitous, you will be starting with the academic year rather than having to play even more extensive catch up. Also is is truly necessary to traipse through... This portion of the vessel and associated with such people?” He motioned to a passing middle class family who were dressed perfectly respectably, the couple and their two children hurrying away even whilst staring at the brightly dressed noble wide eyed.
She barely managed to avoid the temptation to sigh. “We are going to the cargo holds your excellency. So yes.”
Fortunately the journey did not take too much longer, her terminal greeted with a soft chime and the sliding open of an airlock to allow them through into a huge and largely empty expanse. A good hundred yards of matt textured metal, thirty wide and tall, space for a hundred thousand tons of cargo. Instead there was a pair of shipping containers against the far wall, one of them open, a folding table and chairs alongside it.
One of said chairs was occupied by an extremely bored looking woman, tall, muscular, white haired and coffee skinned, wearing baggy pants along with a tight black tank top and very practical looking boots. She was in the process of poking at a large personal terminal on the table in front of her and frowning. The frown did not vanish as she looked across to the entrance. Her voice boomed with the pitch of a parade ground announcement. “You wake up. Finally! Already dragging a dandy around. Well he is decorative enough.”
Rivka found herself having no idea at all how to respond to this, she glanced across and up to Isaias, who as a leanly toned and yes, rather decorative, man of seventeen or eighteen in a tailored quasi military uniform... Did perhaps fit that description? Was she exploiting being a dragon to drag around dandies? He on the other hand did not appear to like this at all and his expression visibly hardened.
“I am Na-Baron Isaias Toledo of Abreu! I requested that the young dragoness show me her true self and she accepted. Just whom are you to insult me so, peasant?” His tone dripping disdain as he straightened.
The much older woman answered with a casually leering look of appreciation up and down the young noble, along with an actual leer. “I am Tribune-Emeritus Lissette Koehler of the 37th Stellar Legion and this young dragon's initial instructor. So, here to spy on House Sepra's new trump card are you boy?” Then looking to Rivka as she stood, she was tall! “And you agreed to let him? You had better be impressive enough to justify it.” Her tone seemed casual enough but that introduction caused a definite startled and if anything frightened reaction from Isaias.
Which Rivka could understand given that her mother was a military officer and she had picked up a fair bit of knowledge through osmosis. The forces of the Empire came, broadly, in three tiers. First planetary militaries raised by individual worlds, most of these were underfunded and largely irrelevant militia, though her own planet of Thellonov was effectively independent, wealthy and maintained millions of professionals under arms along with its own FTL capable navy.
Then the militaries of individual noble houses from household troops to private star navies, varying wildly in quality but much higher status than the 'militia' or local militaries lacking direct noble sponsorship. Isaias' ridiculously ostentatious 'uniform' was completely legitimate given he was the heir to a considerable military machine and probably a highly ranked officer within it.
Finally the Imperial Legions, the most selective, well equipped, well trained and fiercely meritocratic of the three arms, under the control of the Imperial Throne. Tribune Emiritus meant that Lissette was a retired senior officer who would have commanded a fifth of an entire Stellar Legion, five hundred cruisers, battleships and carriers along with the elite armies aboard them.
And she had been sitting waiting for Rivka to show up? She swallowed, stunned, brain not working for long moments.
“Rivka!” The bellow knocked her back into the present. “Get away from the Na-Baron then shift. I want to see you properly.”
Isaias was obviously reconsidering whatever violent impulse he had originally been thinking about, alarmed, on edge, also jumping as he was then shouted at in turn. “Na-Baron Abreu, you are apparently a high affinity air mage. If you want a free dragon show then you are going to participate in the initial assessment.” Then back to Rivka. “You, dragon, do not get to eat properly until we are finished. Move!”
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Rivka did not like the sound of assessment but... Her stomach growled again, she set her jaw, turning to stomp away and into a clear portion of the huge chamber before she changed.
It was not an effort, if anything assuming her dragon form was a case of relaxing, releasing a tension that confined her to human scale along with a tremendous sense that this was right, this was her, like unfastening a far too tight piece of clothing only altogether more glorious. One moment she was a girl, even a tall and athletically built girl, the next moment she was herself and glorious.
It was impossible to avoid a roar even if she then immediately felt self conscious as it reverberated from the metal walls. Her wings flaring, a flick of her tail hammering into the floor behind her as she turned her long, flexible neck to look back along herself.
She was fifty feet long from nose to tailtip, half of that length tail, her wingspan at least equal to her total length. Slender bodied, four legged, her muzzle slender yet her jaws two feet across at the base. Two slightly curved horns angling back from her skull and talons the size of sickles, biting into the metal decking as she flexed them.
Everything was so much clearer now as she looked out of eyes a foot across and infinitely more acute, the tiniest speck of dust clearly discernible. More importantly though she could feel her inner fire so much more easily and know just how simple it was to express her incalculable, glories, all consuming majesty.
Wait. There were humans in the room and both of them were wincing in the wake of her literally ear splitting roar.
Lissette was glaring. “Did not vocalise like that again, dragon Rivka! Now, my briefing materials indicate that you have three years of preparationry magical studies. Form an aegis.” Her focus then to the reeling Isaias. “As soon as the dragon has prepared herself I want you to try to break her shield using wind blades. Do not hold back, unless you are using a focus you will not be able to seriously injure her.” Then, admonishingly to Rivka. “You will focus purely on defence! I do not think I need to tell you how much trouble you will be if you incinerate the heir to a barony.”
Rivka blinked, gigantic golden eyes closing a moment. Wait, she was going to be attacked? But that might damage her glorious scales. She had not even had time to consider how lovely those were, her new 'true' form gradated from royal blue along the spine and top through variagrated shades. Navy, sapphire, steel blue, then to burnished gold along her underside and the inside of each limb, her talons and horns gleaming brightly along with the membranes of her wings. Not to mention how lovely and shiny she was.
Such thoughts were not conductive to trying to focus magic though. She was being glared at. A low growl in response before she mentally caught herself.
Magic. She had been preparing for this over years but the theory was not at all the same as practise especially given she was no longer human. She would have expected to need to draw in power from her surroundings, mentally refine it, focus it. Instead she casually vented overwhelming force from the burning glory of her internal fire.
Instantly she was surrounded by a corona of useless flame as she simply wasted as much power as an archmage might work to channel, air shimmering around her. Focus! Glowing with building intensity she then worked to consolidate the magical strength into a barrier just above her scales, drawing in her wings to each of her flanks as she did so. The barrier wavered, venting waste, glowing like a tiny sun and surrounded by licking flames.
“Now strike!” This was commanded to Isaias who looked altogether sceptical of the whole prospect, an awed expression as he looked up to Rivka's now looming form, his left hand lowering from shielding his face before he set his expression. “Very well tribune. Rivka. Brace yourself!”
At that moment she felt her defensive barrier being hammered by invisible and pinpoint strikes, the air solidifying and punching at her with incalculable force and at widely separated points. The burning barrier wavered, surged, she worked to force more mana into it, more strength, mostly succeeding in creating more waste heat and light as she seared her surroundings.
The aegis then destablised further before the next attacks pierced through to... Wash harmlessly across her scales even if she could vaguely feel as if she was being poked annoyingly hard. It was annoying! She should simply exhale and wash away this irritation, destroy her foes, her jaws starting to part.
“Halt!”
She had retained enough self control to listen there though it took her a few moments to work out how to dismantle her aegis without engulfing the entire cargo hold in all consuming fire. Instead simply an outward pulse of warmth and heated air that sent a few seconds of gale force wind.
“Awful. You have more power in a single claw than I could dream of channeling but wasted almost all of it and could not retain your aegis integrity for more than twenty seconds. Na-Baron Abreu, that was impressive though, excellent focus and maintained tempo. The wide distribution of impacts was perfect for destabilising such a crude shield.”
No! She could have annihilated him with but a moment! Her power was incomparable, why was she not being praised and fawned upon!
Isaias smiled at the praise, a slight bow of his head, then. “Thank you Tribune. That said this was I think her first attempt at deliberate channelling? It was still like trying to attack a mountain. Even when I penetrated her magical defences it did nothing.”
The older woman continued to be completely nonplussed and, frustratingly, also continued to talk about Rivka as if the dragoness was not there, even with the way she loudly dragged her tail across the floor before sitting back atop her haunches, forelegs straight, tail curling about her talons. “She is a dragon though. If she had proper focus and control then even with her current weak flame.” It was not weak, she was an inferno! “She should be able to withstand the fire of an entire mage augmented battalion or the main batteries of a frigate.” Then directly to Rivka. “You, dragon, have a lot to learn. Do not worry, the journey will not be too short. For now though? You can eat.” Then to the young noble. “Feel free to watch this part as well. See more of what she really is instead of that cute little girl.”
Rivka growled, again, then stretched, gleaming wings spreading wide. “Yes, my true and glorious self!” A part of her was sighing at this but... Well she was very shiny and very majestic. So majestic, even as the second shipping crate opened and drones deposited out huge quantities of fresh from stasis raw meat. So majestic as she pounced, wings flaring wide, tail lashing, muzzle messy as she greedily devoured half a ton of flesh then licked blood from the metal floor.