6.3

Alexander was unable to attend the winter ceremony of darkest night with the family. But more importantly he was unable to be in Rochford for Jewel’s hatching day.

Her family had made due as they always had but lacking her brother’s presence had left the day feeling hollower every year he was kept in the Eyrie.

Jewel had also needed to stay in a different room than her old one.

Between her own length, the need to have space for ‘Gem’ and also space and room for her Husband and his belongings meant that Jewel now slept in a chamber that had once been set aside for spinning circles.

In Winter it would have been a drafty cave but while she did not feel the touch of cold or heat sharply Jewel had found with her smaller self and later Paul that she could muster her flame to aid in retaining the heat of a body or hearth to the confines of the room.

It was similar to the way she pulled water off of her during a bath to avoid mess. With some methods that had been mingled with the way she extended her wings in the manner of a Gryphon’s wake when flying.

Tsulogothulan had found it curious how temporary it was but so far neither of them knew precisely what Jewel might need to do to make the effect stick permanently.

The Weird had in fact warned that if they ever succeeded it might turn such a room into an oven come the height of summer.

Not wishing to cook her husband or ‘Gem’ Jewel had stopped trying to do more than help conserve a bit of warmth before they all bundled up for sleep each night.

The Veles had been the same as he had that first year she talked to him. Friendly but distantly acknowledging of Jewel.

He offered Paul a bit more consideration but his only advice to her husband was to treat Jewel well and that as long as he lived in her wake she would pull him with her currents.

Her husband shared this with her in confidence, Jewel still strived to forget the words she so often heard pleading with the Veles. Even more so now that she realized that it was not her memory or inattention that made the faces unfamiliar.

It should have been obvious before that there had always been strangers in the village to speak with the old man come the longest night.

But Jewel had not paid it any mind.

Another detail lost as she strived to ignore everything said out of propriety for anyone taking council with the god clothed in a man.

The ritual was just as beautiful as ever and as had become her habit Jewel sang with it for every part now all through the night.

Changed however was that her husband and smaller self also offered their voices.

Although she could not do more than call and hone the pitch and volume with ‘Gem’’s throat it still included her ‘daughter’ in a way that her sister Gwenn mostly did not participate.

Paul took up his part and muddled through about as badly as gem when it came for the men’s role. But he was buoyed by the voices of the men of Rochford and Jewel herself.

She could forgive him being unfamiliar, for he had never attended the solstice ritual as a child (yet another neglect to lay in the mountain of Bathory’s failure at motherhood).

Paul had complained the next morning at how late a night they made of it, but she was pleased to see he shivered and trembled less in the winter air than he had before.

It was only after her hatching day that Jewel realized something that was far more important.

Jewel found that unlike the other years she had merely attended ‘Gem’ too seemed to feel less of the bite of winter cold than before the longest night.

Not just for the day after but lingering many days past now.

And when she sought in her sense as to why Jewel had to call the bog wizard to examine her smaller self as well.

“Do you see Tsulogothulan? I didn't notice until I found she shivered less on our winter ride yesterday. And now? I can hardly not notice!”

A portion of Jewel’s own wyrmfire had somehow been spun and twisted by its transit from her smaller self’s voice into the blaze of the solstice torch and then washed back over her. It now lingered in a tingling weave in her smallest self’s skin, muscle and bone.

Giving vigor and heat to her flesh greater than she had except when Jewel filled her smaller self full in wyrmflame.

But this lingered long after Jewel herself was absent!

For their part Tsulogothulan peered at ‘Gem’ who stood in her infant’s smock with a steadiness Jewel could feel would only hold for so many hours.

She was now in her third winter, but Gwenn was gaining on her in height, strength and build.

“There is a working here, It is much like what is called down every year from the winter gods here in Rochford. But this is no longer divine.”

Jewel tilted her head. Smithson and Paul were sparring in the courtyard while she spoke with Tsulogothulan on ‘wyrm matters’.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

She was not sure what to feel about how Paul had joined Smithson in treating her discussions with Tsulogothulan in much the same way as Alexander treated discussions of womanly troubles.

“It’s no longer divine?”

The weird gently guided ‘Gem’ to tilt back her head. Jewel of course trusted her friend implicitly and obliged, lifting her chin, exposing her pale scaled and far too short throat.

The touch that was simply contact for Jewel’s larger self felt cold and wet on the smaller neck.

The faint sense of pressure was like an immovable presence, unbendable and undeniable.

“The Divine forces their shape into the world directly. They cut and change and leave what they mark transformed in their passing. Even when they are called on to bring momentary fire or thunder which lasts but a moment the path it takes is changed until the air can fill and restore itself.”

The finger which felt like a faintly reed wrapped branch of cold bog tree dragged up a line in Gem’s neck to the bone of her jaw. Following one thread Jewel could feel her flame clung and pulsed through.

“In flesh a freshly given divine gift leaves marks much like a wound. In time these can heal and if they are shallow enough they restore back entirely and the gift fades.”

The finger moved up following the lines of wrought wyrm fire over one cheek and then brow before moving up the center of Gem’s head.

“But like with a deep enough trench torn into the softest mire, So is it with some star sent workings these wounds never fully heal the same. Leaving instead scars in flesh or soil matters little for gods. Then the change takes with permanence.”

Jewel tensed.

“Paul was bestowed a blessing against harm from armaments of men. Is he hurt? Did that goddess scar him?”

The Weird turned to Jewel’s larger face. Lifting the single eyed gaze from the smaller one.

Although that implacable finger did not leave the center of her brow.

It felt so wet and cold.

“Possibly, But that does not sound like something that would take hold in his flesh to work. More likely the goddess is now watching him and waiting to turn away those attacks she agreed too.”

Jewel released the breath she did not realize she had been holding.

“Anyway, as I was saying this working might once have been divine in nature. But it is definitely not anymore. Honestly if I had not seen its shape on everyone in this village for the first two days after each solstice I’d have thought you spun this one entirely yourself.”

The Wyrm had heard this sort of thing before and sighed heavily with the familiar circumstance.

“So I performed another enchantment accidentally?”

Tsulogothulan however shook their head and finally lifted the cold wet finger from Jewel’s diminutive brow.

“Oh no, this is no enchantment, this is an active and constant working. You said that it is catching your Wyrmflame? Could you please feed some into your child now? Right here?”

The surprise cold of the finger on Gem’s arm right in the crook of the elbow made both of them flinch despite Jewel having watched it coming.

But she obliged.

Passing the flame into her smaller self, filling up just the place that Tsulogothulan had prodded and letting it diffuse as it normally did.

But this time the threaded weave run through her spawn’s body sopped up the Wyrmflame far faster than the rest of her smaller body’s flesh, skin or bone did.

It ran through her and tingled a bit, the sensation making an uncontainable giggle erupted from Gem’s Mouth which only briefly drew Tsulogothulan’s eye before the weird returned to studying the rest of the slight frame intently.

Jewel could feel and see that the lone eye was tracking the current of the Wyrmflame.

Although it hovered and weaved oddly in places that Jewel thought did not quite match.

“Hmmm, yes that renews and strengthens it, now if you could draw it back out?”

Jewel stared at her friend.

The look from both of her faces and the equally horrified and aghast expressions seemed to finally penetrate their weirdness.

“What? We need to know what happens when it runs out.”

Jewel however could only think of the hungry thing that had come out of Bathory’s Celler and the way it left even the air drained.

She fixed her dear but sometimes insufferable friend with a hard look from two sets of eyes and stated flatly.

“No”

She didn't realize she had barked something crude but intonated the same way from ‘Gem’ until after the Weird was looking from one of them to the other.

“I see, Then I guess for the next eight days I’ll be watching your spawn. I assume it is acceptable that you at least not keep feeding more of your ‘flame’ to her until then?”

That made her insides tremble.

The idea of feeling empty and deadened for so long was terrifying.

But at the same time it was better than even the thought of taking the flame given her smaller self back.

Still Jewel was not willing to promise that.

“We will see one day at a time.”

Tsulogothulan for their part nodded, then looked down at ‘Gem’ who met them with a stare that seemed to not bring as much fierceness as the one Jewel could see on her longer snout.

“Well I suppose I shall be joining your squire in spawn keeping this child of yours for the interim.”

Jewel nodded, and found the thought of that at least bringing some joy.

Which naturally could not be contained and split Gem’s face in a wide toothy grin with wide eyes almost flickering.

Maybe there was a difference between Gem and Jewel after all?

Somehow?