Shining Wyrm & The Blood Immaculate [Original Fantasy/Dragon Fiction]

[Altom]

Now I am curious if that egg is viable.

 

[Drakaina]

Honestly, given just how weird dragons are in this story, the ability to reproduce via parthenogenesis wouldn't even surprise me that much.

But then, neither would it surprise me to learn that wyrms just lay their eggs even when they're unfertilized, like chickens.

 

[Altom]

wyrms just lay their eggs even when they're unfertilized, like chickens.

Click to shrink...

Ultimate bragging dish: dragon egg omlette.

 

[Aabcehmu]

Well, we do know that vast majority of the old Tyrant-Wyrm's eggs haven't hatched, even centuries later. Maybe most of them just aren't fertilized?

Also, I'm pretty sure that dragon eggs are, like, gemstones. Also given how much pain it caused Jewel just to have the egg gently touched, I think actually cracking it open would probably drive her berserk.

 

[Nighzmarquls]

1.9

Jewel was curled up in her room, coils settled among the many cushions and rugs that gave her some bedding to sleep.

Wearing a blanket over her hips.

She was filling the majority of the room around her. The newly laid egg (now gently wiped clean and dry) in the midst of her coils.

Tsulogothulan and Jewel's very disheveled father stood in what little floor space was not occupied by either rugs, cushions, egg or scaled dragon coils.

Once Jewel had explained in a panicked rush what had happened, her friend finally filled the dragging silence.

"Well I have some fortunate news, Lord Rochford."

Father for his part turned to stare at Tsulogothulan. He had not slept well, with Mother's labor going well into the evening, and what rest he had been getting when news the birth had gone well was abruptly interrupted by Jewel's laying.

"Oh?"

The weird nodded.

Jewel's attention was constantly sliding back to the egg, the way she felt it. There was an absolute certainty it was hers. A part of her sitting in the world. Her wyrmflame coursing and jumping from her coils to suffuse and flow within it before they danced back out and into her other flesh.

It seemed to swallow all of her attention, dragging on her thoughts, if she didn't focus on anything at all the presence of the egg filled her eyes with blank darkness.

Soothed her mind with warm sleepiness.

Maybe it was just the awfully late hour.
But something warm and oh so comforting filled her when she kept close to this little egg.

"It is not in fact a true wyrm egg that your daughter produced."

Father and Jewel shared a look then turned back to the Weird.

The meaning of the words felt sharp, wrong, and impossible. Jewel had laid it, and beyond that she felt so utterly that she could not deny it was hers. No more than she could claim her wings were not her own.
The egg was Jewel's sure as her tail or tongue was. So what could the weird mean?

Jewel for her part offered the words before her exhausted father did not.

"Then it's not a fertile egg? Does that... does that mean I'm like a chicken!?"

It was somehow upsetting and felt obviously wrong, but Jewel trusted her friend. There was some sadness at the thought, no life forming in that egg? No child?

Jewel had been reeling in a tired rut over the possibility the egg represented. But she was yet too young for motherhood. Finding out that as a dragon she had a similar cycle as a chicken was embarrassing but growing up was not always honorable or clean.

But something was wrong.

Her words seemed to confuse the weird as much as the sleep deprived baron of Rochford. It took the bog weird a few slow blinks before finally shaking their head.

"What? A Chicken?"

Jewel nodded, perhaps the bog weird was also tired from the late hour? She happily explained herself.
"Yes, the hens in the village lay eggs as soon as they're of age, whether or not they have had time with a rooster or not."

It still felt wrong but Jewel would trust her friend if that was the truth of it. The egg was still hers but if it was never going to hatch?

It felt painful to consider.

There were several more blinks from Tsulogothulan before they slowly shook their head.

"I did not know that was how chickens worked... and no, Jewel, I do not mean the egg is empty, it's quite obviously well along and heavy with life. There's already a heart beat. If this was a heron or duck I'd expect it to hatch in another day or so."

Father blinked almost as slowly as Tsulogothulan and raised a hand to cover his yawn before speaking.

"Then what do you mean it's not a true wyrm egg. Especially if Jewel laid it."

The weird sighed heavily and then lectured as if repeating the obvious.

"Because it is not impervious to all harm, of course. It rattled when struck, it was scratched when scraped, it is as fragile and mortal as any egg would be of its size. I'm sure as a family who held a true wyrm egg for generations you surely must have noticed that they are until hatching all but indestructible."

Father just stared in blank confusion.

"Jewel's egg was indestructible?"

The weird sighed heavily and nodded to both of them. Jewel for her part was rather gobsmacked at the news. But then, if the egg was full of new life, which in fact was Jewel's child! But if it was not a wyrm?

"If I didn't lay a wyrm egg then what is it?"

The weird's one, overlarge eye glittered with the light of a sun not yet risen breaking through scattered clouds on a foggy morning. It was rather distracting in fact the way it did that in the mostly dimly lit room with but a few candles for father's eyes.

"That is the exciting part, we will have to check to be sure before it hatches, but I believe that Jewel has just produced her first Lair Spawn!"

Jewel and her Father stared, then all eyes slowly followed the Bog Wizard's in settling on the egg.

All she could think of is the words written and spoken in fear.

Lair spawn.

Monsters.

The threat and danger that spread and if left alone would fill all the lands with terrible things.

Creatures more potent and far cannier, than other beasts.

The cruel and terrible ancestors of the Gryphons and the other, more distant warbeasts used across the realm.

The Terror Boar was always believed to be a Lair Spawn though in all the years since they had not found the hole from which it had come.

Jewel's child.

Her first born?

Or first hatched?

It was going to be a monster?

Her child?

Suddenly a much worse truth struck and Jewel felt a terrible realization.

Jewel was not yet wed and she was already a mother!

Her neck was already craning back in a tight terrified curl and her wings had pressed themselves into the walls and ceiling of her bedroom before the terrible realization had finished settling.

Her father's tired voice was full of concern.
Tsulogothulan was close to her, but careful not to accidentally touch the egg.

Jewel, however, could not understand them over the roaring panic that was filling her ears.
She could feel the egg in her coils settle back down from some internal motion that had tilted it to the side.

All of it felt distant and muffled to the wyrm's racing-yet-frozen thoughts.

The same fact circling over and over again.

Jewel was going to have a child.

Jewel was going to be a Mother.

All of that was shocking, terrifying, far too much too soon.

But it was nowhere near as bad as the last thing she had realized.

Her first child was going to be a bastard.

 

[Nighzmarquls]

1.i

In the following duties to see to the health and safety of one's charges, not all troubles or trials will be of the star-born gods.

Sometimes danger to your congregation's life and limb will rise from the deep as earth-sent beasts which are sometimes known as Lair Spawn.

While a star-touched beast can be taken as an omen and treated with such via the provinces of gods and thus sent away by them, the vulgar beasts which boil up from underways and otherwise emerge from the deep and unlit places of the world have no such reasoning to be had.

It is often best to leave the smaller and more common of beasts to village guard and experienced hunters, but when terrible omens rise from below greater force of arms is needed.
When at all possible if there is witness of any beast of unusually great size, peculiar manners or misnumbering of limbs it is best to seek out a knight or lord's intervention immediately to call for a quest that the beasts be undone using experienced and trained martial prowess.

Check with the portents to determine if it is in fact an act of the heavens, but sending word as soon as possible is vital.
If the danger is imminent, the lord absent and knights yet unavailable, only then are active measures at all to be undertaken by common folk. Expect in all but the best cases that there will be lives lost in the attempt.

It is of foremost importance to understand that the misshapen beasts are, for all their fearsomeness, still just base animals, Albeit ones of prodigious and unnatural abilities. Where star-touched may be gifted with a terrible reasoning or oracular powers and senses by the heaven's contact and should never be underestimated, it is generally safe to consider the vulgar so called lair spawn to have minds as much as their unaltered forms.

Seek out the woodsman experienced in dealings with that which shares most similarity with their form to consider action and surmise their dealings.
A stag whose horns dwarf an oak tree and stands taller than a house will on the balance behave much as an overlarge stag does.

A serpent that glides in the air and spits fire otherwise natural flame bereft any further changing by the stars, is a creature that can be sent off frightened by noise and bluster and mostly wishes for warm rocks to laze about sinfully upon.

A wolf the size of a Knight's charger with metal for fur, while clever and all hungering as its smaller kin, is still just a wolf though so prodigious and dangerous to man it has become.

Make use of one's own star-blessed reasoning and gifts and lay snares and traps whenever possible. Or if a means of driving the ominous beast is known by hunters, make use of it.

The best solution in most cases varies with the particular animal that has been accursed by the deep places.

In the event of a horned rabbit the size of an ox, the fundamental truth of its meek nature can be used to drive it from the fields and crops. The baying of dogs can even be used to drive it to flight and panic. Its greatest danger to man is that of the desolation and famine brought by its appetite.
Simple wood craft hunters can suffice in slaying such a beast, although word of it still must be sent to knights and lord for where there has been one accursed beast there is undoubtedly more, and even the most tame and easily wrangled of these monsters can prove perilous if in sufficient number.

That is the other vital knowledge of these creatures.

There is never only one of them.

Whatever their nature, be assured that where one is witnessed there are others, whether they are close or far, immediately present or far into next year there will be more.

Always call for aid even if the first sighting is promptly dealt with.

The curse of these beasts upon the land are almost never vanquished with the first.

A simple toad that can comfortably sit in your hand and belches a candle flame worth of fire at night might be innocuous as one, but when there is a plague of them it can bring ruination.
-On Beasts of Note by Brother Ordelain, naturalist and Monk of the Hrothfield Monastery in middle Egelheimvin.

 

[Nighzmarquls]

1.ii

Gather 'round, ye folk of the land,
For tales of Etele, brave and grand.
Performed these deeds, where legends cling,
In Ulathin's Hinterlands, do we begin.

In that wild realm, our tale is born,
Etele the knight, forever sworn.
His armor gleams 'neath the sky's soft light,
Guided by stars, he rides with might.

Through highland rough, where shadows play,
Etele and his knights, find their way.
Through forests deep and valleys wide,
In search of honor, side by side.

On hills they stand, those rabbits tall,
Like shadows cast, they hear the call.
With swords unsheathed, they face the beasts,
Their courage strong, the spirits feast.

In battle fierce, 'neath the stars bright gaze,
With every stroke, they earn their praise.
And midst the fray, a dragon soars,
Lepori Wyrm, its legend roars.

With ears as long as shadows' flight,
And fur as soft as the sky white light.
Its eyes like coals, its breath a flame,
A rabbit's form, with dragon's mein.

With blinding breath and claws so keen,
It challenges Etele, in the star's soft sheen.
But knights stand firm, against the foe,
With courage pure, their hearts aglow.

Through clash of steel and dragon roar,
Etele and his knights set right the score.
And in the end, 'neath the starlit sky,
The Wyrm was vanquished, no more to fly.

So raise a cup to Etele bold,
And his band of knights, whose tales are told.
In lands afar, their names shall ring,

Etele and his knights, with me let's sing!

-The Ballad of Etele and the Lepori Wurm

 

[Nighzmarquls]

1.iii

Momentous events came this summer season.

It is known that among nearly every single feral wyrm, there aggregate and move beasts aligned either partly or directly to its cause.1​

It has been long conjectured whether their presence is intrinsically linked to the dwelling of a wyrm and in what manner their nature is linked. But it is observed and witnessed they do cohabitate within its lair and they emerge from some providence in most cases of such a creature settling into its powers in a territory.

The propensity of such creatures to settle and rest within the dens or nests of a feral wyrm has led to the common name given for the phenomena of lairspawn for all such beasts.

And in the past seven days, I have made great strides in understanding this phenomena.
It is at this point four and a half years into observation and description of the subject that I have witnessed something that shall give weight on the origins of such beasts in at least the case of what I still attest is the inaccurate title of a tyrant wyrm.

To the legend and hearsay that lairspawn occur spontaneously from the environs of a wyrm of a given type or are caused by a deep and wyrmish enchantment enacted naturally upon those beasts which dwell with them, I can partly refute.

While there may be some spontaneity to the process, there is also a direct lineage I can now assure, with my very own eye as witness to the event.

Lairspawn are born from eggs laid by a wyrm which lack the properties of a true-wyrm-egg.

This is not a new claim, although direct observation has until now not confirmed the witnesses and boasts of slaying knights. That true Wyrm eggs are always among clutches of similarly sized eggs is verified truth but otherwise it was assumed these were mere mortal decoys provided by the lairspawn themselves.

That when smashed these eggs contained immature wyrm spawn that were also seen in the presence of the slain feral wyrm has been until now seen as proof such a service is made by the beasts in service to their masters (or as I can now concluded mistresses and likely mothers and grandmothers)1​ .

As pertains to the subject, one egg has been laid2​ and its hatching has yet to be seen, but by simple expedient of well versed techniques its contents have been confirmed3​.

The subject's offspring so far continues the pattern of wyrmspawn taking after a particular feral wyrm's beastly company. But in this case the beasts which the subject keeps company of predominantly are mortal men.

Although yet maturing within the egg by sight and ken of my truth in these matters, I have an initial judgment as to the nature that the subject's spawn will take on hatching.

The Tyrant Spawn takes after men, in that there are arms and limbs and a shaped body as one would expect of men and women. The curl of the body in egg is of a kind similar to that of a man's child while curled within the womb of a mother. In difference there is the presence of a still prominent tail and a skull which is very reminiscent of the mother's in shape.

This event is insufficient to fully dispute that Wyrmspawn might also be the product of a natural enchantment4​ but given the proximity and closeness of the subject with her family, beasts and other potential candidates of such transformations including myself that this has not occurred in even the slightest gives me doubt this is the way that they occur in the wild.

Although the manner of other beasts often is confounded when it comes to Wyrm and Lair spawn, I am confident that observations of the hatching and further behavior of the Lair spawn will be within the season if not sooner.

1​ See attached notes transcribed from the ventures of Etele wyrmslayer and his company of merry knights.

2​ This process does not appear to have been voluntary on the part of the subject and brought some amount of distress and confusion.

3​ The technique was the use of raising the egg to rest between the observer and the noonday summer sun. Allowing its radiance to bring to clarity the shadow of the form found within. Even hinting at performing an operation to open the egg for direct observation was met with agitation and uncharacteristic, possibly involuntary aggression from the subject. Care must be taken to receive full informed consent if verification by autopsy of this study is to be undertaken with this or any future subject.

4​ As proposed by the volume of Orion's Historica Naturalis Cantora which informs on the beasts of the searing southern sands of old Kahmatt and their particular breed of limbless wyrms which nest amid the rocks and have venomous stings on their tail. So say's Orion that it is believed that great enchantments cover all the sands that these wyrms dwell in, some of which are even capable of turning unwary travelers into more wyrm spawn if they should set camp overnight unaware. As none of my circle have ever traveled so far as Kahmatt there is no verification of this effect to be had and literature on it is sparse. Even if it did once occur it is unclear that any living wyrms of this kind described yet reside there who could be studied.

-Research Notes of Tsulogothulan Weird of the Uloghai Bog on the nature of the Tyrant Wyrm.

 

[Cecylene]

The subject's offspring so far continues the pattern of wyrmspawn taking after a particular feral wyrm's beastly company. But in this case the beasts which the subject keeps company of predominantly are mortal men.

Although yet maturing within the egg by sight and ken of my truth in these matters, I have an initial judgment as to the nature that the subject's spawn will take on hatching.

The Tyrant Spawn takes after men, in that there are arms and limbs and a shaped body as one would expect of men and women. The curl of the body in egg is of a kind similar to that of a man's child while curled within the womb of a mother. In difference there is the presence of a still prominent tail and a skull which is very reminiscent of the mother's in shape.

Click to shrink...

Oh.

Oh noooo.

Is Jewel making her own kobolds or Dragonborn?

Oh goodness, and given how Wyrmspawn support the efforts of their progenitors it's going to be a hilariously dutiful and chivalric knight if it's of enough size.

 

[Drakaina]

"Then it's not a fertile egg? Does that... does that mean I'm like a chicken!?"

Click to shrink...

But then, neither would it surprise me to learn that wyrms just lay their eggs even when they're unfertilized, like chickens.

Click to shrink...

Ah, same brain cell.

"That is the exciting part, we will have to check to be sure before it hatches, but I believe that Jewel has just produced her first Lair Spawn!"

Click to shrink...

... Oh god, Jewel is basically an MMO raid boss, isn't she? She even comes with her own mooks!

 

[Nighzmarquls]

... Oh god, Jewel is basically an MMO raid boss, isn't she? She even comes with her own mooks!

Click to shrink...

If you check the very first interludes regarding tyrant wyrms you will see mention of what is almost certainly other lairspawn.

 

[Aabcehmu]

*draws his hands down over his face*

The kid's going to look like Smithson, aren't they? If not like Jewel's family.

 

[Lonzo34]

Her first child was going to be a bastard.

Click to shrink...

Seeing as a bastard is a child born to unmarried parents, I don't think this is technically the case. Biologically, the egg only has one parent, so I don't think the term can apply.

Of course, Jewel is likely thinking in terms of social bonds instead, where I am skeptical as to how much of a father her betrothed really could be. Not that it would matter much in the role-heavy part of society Jewel is part of.


Great story by the way! I love how wierd the Weirds are.

 

[Nighzmarquls]

2.1

Jewel had the most foggy of recollections to her own hatching. Impressions and uncertainty. Vision clouded, senses smothered.

Darkness and confinement were chief among them.

Then overwhelming texture, smell, sound.

Barely memories at all.

But she had some.

When she had spoken of it with Tsulogothulan, Jewel had learned the astounding fact that everyone she knew had essentially forgotten everything from their first few years of life.
However, though disjointed and confusing, Jewel did not forget these years.

She supposed that, given how they spent that time, Jewel understood why they would forget.

Jewel's new sister had spent most of her first days either asleep, crying, or eating. To wit she was not doing terribly much in general, although everyone cooed over her, Jewel included (her sister was utterly adorable after all).

Jewel vaguely remembered similar acts towards herself. Although the memories after hatching were foggy and hard to set in clear order.

Still, she did have those memories.

Memories that felt so much stronger whenever she was in her room these days, nestled carefully around her egg. Passing her wyrmflame in and out of the life within, more out of the need for the comfort it brought her, than any assurance what she was doing was right.

While knowledgeable to the nature of frogs, heron, fish (but for some reason not eels) Tsulogothulan made for a poor wise woman or midwife for Jewel.

Her egg had been laid practically full with a child within, which was very strange according to the weird. Further, the temple priest, and Mother's wisewoman, and the hen maidens from the village and even the Rochford bird keeper could offer little better.

Of the sorcery Jewel was performing with her flame, absolutely nothing was known.

But it felt right, so Jewel did it. Refusing to impart the flame in her egg filled Jewel with a cold dread the one time she had abstained, and she had never refused to pass her wyrmflame in and out of the egg at every opportunity since.

Beyond this sorcery (which Jewel had to attend to herself) they made sure that the egg was kept at about the heat of a man's body in her room. And that too had surprised her: how sensitive she was to the temperature it was kept at. When there was a chilly draft in her room, she felt a sapping of vigor.
When there was a heat she felt simultaneously constrained and addled.

It echoed disquiets of similar but entirely different sorts within her whenever she returned to her room and found something amiss.

An open window which had never bothered her before left Jewel's skin shaking down her coils in waves and filled her with an even stronger desire to coddle the egg.

Jewel did not move it much, however.

Taking great care whenever she settled for sleep or woke for the day, so as not to not over jostle it.

Twice now just past dawn, Tsulogothulan would gently touch the egg and raise it up to check the occupant within against the morning light through Jewel's window.

No one else was permitted to touch it. If this was how Honeydown had felt, Jewel had found even greater respect for the gryphon formel and her restraint.

Jewel did not understand it, but any touch of the egg, any brush, a simple rattle or shake addled her mind entirely.

The idea of someone breaking its shell filled her with a clenching horror she'd not felt since Alexander was nearly gored by the terror boar.

Jewel had obligations that she was expected to attend to, but given the situation, they were treating her as if she was a new mother convalescing.

And whenever she found herself needing to coddle and shiver against her egg to bring up its temperature, or run wyrmflame in and out, it was welcome.

But the rest of the time it was very frustrating. Other than strange new fears, Jewel felt as hearty and strong as ever.

Nothing like how slowly Mother was recovering from bringing her sister into the world.

At least the egg's bastardry was resolved just yesterday by messenger bird.

A simple oath on paper and the assurance she had laid with no man applied with Rochford's seal (Jewel did not yet have her own signet) and the word of the countess saw her child declared immaculate.

Which Jewel had then learned was not even uncommon.

Divinely begotten children were in fact quite rife in the histories if you checked the ones that dealt with gods and the divine instead of stewardship.

Even in recent records!

Jewel being somewhat consigned to her room to 'convalesce' from the 'ordeal' had little to do for the past five days but read, eat, fuss over her egg and sleep.

So she had finally had the time to dig into Father's less-read books.

Most of them were old ledgers from the barony itself going back generations, but there were also histories that had been paid in kind for good Rochford vellum.

And in one of those books Jewel found out about one village in Arva of all places that had suffered a simultaneous mass pregnancy of every woman of bleeding age only fifty years ago!

Priests from all over the realm had descended on the village once they heard of it.

Sorcery had been suspected, or possible stranger curses. But eventually the cause was found.

It was written that a woman (whose name was notably absent from the record) was so bereaved by a stillbirth the year prior that she had set out on her own into the wild hills and pleaded fervently with a woodland god for children.

Said god had apparently answered with such enthusiasm that the result was deemed a divine calamity.

There had been concerns of starvation, worries over deaths for lack of care available for the upcoming simultaneous births and it was only by intervention of the then count (the father in law of the Countess Bathory) that the matter did not end in a famine.

Every birth, it was noted, finished with no peril or deaths at all, even in those substantially too young or old for childbearing.

And with the assistance in keeping them fed and cared for, the children all survived to adulthood.

Nothing else was written of them that Jewel could find regarding this mass of immaculate births.

Besides the nature of their conception and interest from some of the temples that had investigated, there was little else of note. These star-conceived children proved unremarkable peasants in every respect, not even a strange hue of hair or skin to distinguish them.

There was a note that the god who had caused all the trouble was identified but its name had been locked away and all who knew it sworn to an oath or otherwise silenced.

It was deeply disturbing to consider that apparently a god could simply be convinced by some random woman in the woods to force motherhood upon an entire village of women and girls.

Wedded or not.

But for Jewel, the important part was that the status of Immaculate superseded any claim of bastardry and with such a precedent, Jewel's own child, her own honor and future betrothal was safe.

The child would be of both Rochford and Bathory houses as it inherited directly from only her line.

And the Countess was unlikely to annul the betrothal she had declared Jewel would have over it anyway.

The young wyrm sighed, flexing her wings and coils a bit.

The feeling of being exposed had passed after the first few days. Immediately after her laying she'd been too mortified to even move her hips out from under their blanket coverings once she fully comprehended what had happened.

That she actually possessed indecent parts that might need covering outside of bathing had been terrifying.

However the visibility of such things faded.

But with that strange new shame gone other issues arose.

Her room was feeling even more confining than usual.

Almost like it was pressed in on her.

Against her back, close to her nose, at her sides.

Like it had felt in her egg.

Right before-

Hatching!

Jewel's neck jerked.

But it was not her neck.

It was short, tense, and far too weak.
It was obviously not the sinuous arcing shape of Jewel's neck which was longer then any man.

But it was her neck, attached to her shoulders, fitted into her head just back from her jaw-

Another jerk of her neck and shoulders.

A spasm.

But Jewel was utterly still.

What was going on?!

Was she somehow ensorceled?

But no words whispered to her flame to demand she move.

And move she did not.

Another spasm that Jewel could feel all throughout her body but not see.

Movement that was not.

Strange revelatory memories of her own hatching catching in her mind.

It took the sharp and sudden crack of her egg to draw Jewel's attention to turn and look down.

To see a single spiderweb of cracks along her egg, just at the top of it where nothing could have touched it.

The spasm rushed through her entire body once more. Like she was being grasped and shaken in a way no one had been physically capable of for most of her life.

But it was not her familiar body.

The neck was short, the shoulders too close to the head, the arms overly long, the legs and hips too close to the shoulders, the tail stubby.

The wings entirely absent.
She spasmed with shape and form unfamiliar and yet was perfectly still.

Looking down to watch as her egg flexed and cracks spread.

A shape within jolting and flexing as she felt her own move.

Without even thinking, Jewel passed her wyrmflame in and out of the egg. And with it she felt a sharpness of clarity, of impression, of strength and assurance.

The power of it overwhelmed with an imperative, a familiar echo of her own memory now fresh and sharp and absolute.

Confinement, confusion, a need to move.

And then flexing hard, Legs pressing, back arching, head and neck shoving forward.

Jagged cracks spread.

The shell of the egg bent and bowed from within.

Jewel could feel the tiny spots where toes and feet pressed from within. She could feel them from both sides.
Where the shell bent and flexed into the side of her belly, where it was protectively wrapped around the egg.

Where the shell bent around her feet and around short toe claws from within the egg.

This was not right, this was not birth, this was different.
This was sorcery!

Jewel however could not speak, her throat was clogged full of fluid, almost jelly like in how thick and intrusive it was.

Her throat was clear and overly long and vast. She could not quite clearly discern how she was supposed to move it.

And then another spasm passed through her body. Involuntary, forced, moving her as she did not wish.
Foreign and alien.

It passed through her body within the egg.

At last the shell broke open.

A split and pressure breaking free.

A thin membrane so much like her own hatching.
Her first hatching.

The memories muddled over one another.

The old and the new, confusing in their similarity.

Shocking in their differences.

Jewel's head broke free of the egg and its warm confines.
Was shocked with a stinging bitter pain as air finally broke over her face for the first time.

For a first time.

A second first?

Jewel was hale and hearty. Not even a tremor in her coils.

She was wracked with exhaustion.

Her lungs were full of fluid and she was coughing up gummy slime.

The coughs brought more flexes, sharper bends of her spine, thrashing tail, kicking legs.

Her egg's split broke entirely.

The slime and wetness that yet remained spilling out over the carpets and cushions that the Countess had gifted her.

At last air dragged into fresh lungs for another first time. Her eyes would not open but she could see herself fine.

She was much as Jewel was.

The same scales, although these were even smaller.

A similar face as Jewel had, but shorter, stubbier, eyes much bigger, horns not even nubs.

Barely a mane of dark hair.

A tail.

But there the similarities ended.

The body was stretched and strange.

Short and stubby in some ways, lanky and over-long in others.

It looked like Jewel's sister in that way. Like a freshly born babe.

Jewel stared dumbfounded and addled.

Until the cold made her smaller self tremble uncontrollably in a way Jewel had never felt before.

And she enclosed the fragile trembling body in her coils and a blanket.

Scales almost rattling with the force she shook them to bring warmth to her-

Was this even a child?

She looked like a babe, more definition in that regard then Jewel had ever shown.

But Jewel felt her as assuredly and absolutely as her own claws, her own tail, her own wings.

This was not someone other.

This was Jewel.

Somehow.

Spoiler: Author's Note

Had a meeting with an editor for the first book yesterday that went quite well. and the story broke through the top 100 over on Royal Road.

Based on all of that I suspect that I might have the story in a spot I'm willing to put it up for a print run near the end of the year.

Been exciting to see how much of a positive reception the story has gotten here and everywhere else I've posted it.

Thanks for that.

 

[Cecylene]

Jewel has absolute dominion over her Wyrmspawn in ways any tyrant or despot could only dream of. Multipresence in all ways.

Im thinking this may bring an answer to what really keep the war with the Tyrant Wyrm going for so long.

It wasn't a war against a nation ruled by a Wyrm, it was a war against a Wyrm who was a Nation.

 

[Nighzmarquls]

2.2

In some ways having a little sister changed much. In others it was hardly notable at all.

It monopolized Mother's time, and it meant that one of the villagers had been taken on as wet nurse. Work was also being done to seek out a promising governess already.

Muriel had accepted Jewel's offer to join as captain of the guard for the manor of Valasect now that her obligation to Father as Alexander and Jewel's tutor had been finished.

One somewhat familiar face seen more often in the household, a bundle at mother's side and an extra layer of shit, piss and sick mingling with the sweet tang of mother's milk on the air was the sum of most of the changes to Jewel's life in Rochford due to her sister.

Meanwhile, her demesne of Valasect duly moved from summer harvest to autumn labors.

And as had been the case for the last few years, she needed to survey, tally and report the harvest of Valasect herself and present it to her father, rather than him surveying from the air and comparing that to reports made by Adorján's predecessor.

In many regards life was little changed.

In others everything was entirely different.

When she first hatched Jewel did not appreciate how mobile and capable she had been.

With this second hatching she found she could barely even keep her eyes open. Everything came in a rush, and she was constantly hungry.

Jewel was already moving about by the time she was four seasons old.
But her sister and whatever the thing that was Jewel but also not was still hardly able to move!

Was this another manner in which she as a wyrm differed so much from men and women?

And if it was because she was a wyrm, then what was this strange miniature otherself?

Jewel's sister was so fragile and delicate, not even to be named until she passed the harshness of winter and reached summer again.

The hatched immaculate child was to be treated much the same, although Jewel struggled to believe that this was the same as what her mother was experiencing.

Wasn't it?

She'd not even been able to find the words to explain this to anyone.

The simple utterance of "that's me, that's mine, she's me" did not convey the magnitude of it and seemed to just distract and delight her parents.

Jewel returned to her chambers, foregoing a bath today. It was still early autumn. No one but her cared about the smell of dragon exertions.
Several staff had even complimented it without realizing it was Jewel.

And as she crossed the familiar threshold it all came rushing back into her.

Jewel's daughter that was not a daughter.

Her lairspawn.

It was thankfully not much that had occurred today.

She'd been fed and cleaned by the Rochford manor staff. The wet nurse and Jewel had agreed that the usual feeding of infants was inappropriate the very first day. Much to the young woman's relief.

Jewel's younger, stranger self had hatched like her wyrm self with a full snout of teeth.

Pottage and milk had been far less pleasant for the little mouth than the eventual strips of meat Father had suggested they use. It was much as Alexander would be feeding his bond in the eyrie, and easily enough to obtain as scraps off of Zephyrvam's daily pig.

For all the unendingly nagging hunger that filled the tiny belly nestled in a bundle in Jewel's room, the belly was quite tiny.

Beyond eating, there was fussing, and what had been the astoundingly unpleasant surprise of what happened to food if anyone but a wyrm ate it.

Jewel had been horrified the first time it happened while she was there.

Sudden movement inside yourself, wet, sticky and awful sensations on her scales and a terrible mess and smell that Jewel could now not deny was coming from herself.

Well, one of herselves.

She'd been glad for the staff to tend to it, but Mother had insisted Jewel learn to tend her 'child' and its needs in this as much as she learned weaving.

Even if they were expected to always have staff, a Mother and a wife should know how it is done right in the first place so she could spot caretakers failing in their duties.

Thankfully the changing had already been taken care of today.

But even so Jewel could feel the memory flowing through her as soon as she entered the room.

And with it the cold and terrifying feeling of the absence of her own Wyrmflame for hours on end.

A sucking void which she was already acting to remove. Curling around her smaller, tiny self. Filling her diminutive body with the soft soothing touch of her fire.

Was this what motherhood was?

Feeling and recalling all that happened to your child in your absence?

Being so much a part of it in its presence that you could not distinguish your child from yourself?

Being overwhelmed with your child's feelings of cold, of heat, of helplessness?

Mother spoke of loving her children, Jewel, Alexander and their yet to be named sister.

Of them being a part of her.

Was this simply normal?

Jewel looked down at herself.

And she looked up at herself.

In one set of eyes she was tiny, small enough to with effort fit in Jewel's own mouth.

In another set of eyes she was blurry, indistinct, vast. But the assurance of this larger self, of knowing where she was?

It was comforting somehow.

As was the rushing return of her wyrmflame.

Something that she had felt the biting absence of for most of the day amid constant bouts of sleep and confusion.

Something that had also been just as present as the first day she hatched.

Jewel huffed and stared down at her daughter, or spawn or whatever it was.

Whatever she was?

No one seemed to understand or know what to expect of this.

Feral Wyrm had great packs of lair spawn some times. Others had little to none.

Sometimes they would join one in battle, other times they fled and hid away.

No one knew much about this. Despite them being slain in droves little was understood.

Jewel sighed with two sets of lungs, the larger able to continue the exasperation long after the smaller needed to refill and empty several more times.

Jewel greatly wished that the world would stop revealing more about herself she did not know.
What even was Jewel?

What even was a Wyrm?

What was all of this?!

 

[Altom]

What even was a Wyrm?

Click to shrink...

A miserable little giant pile of secrets.

 

[Eclectic Fluff]

I recently caught up, having taken a break from reading because keeping up with such rapid chapters is hard. I can′t wait to reread it all again in the form of a physical (hopefully hardcover) book!

Spoiler: Way too much pondering

Now, for the question of what a wyrm even is, after puzzling over the matter for a while now even before this arc I have at least a few ideas that are hopefully not completely off the mark. First of all, it is almost certain that the environment a wyrm is born in determines many of their qualities. A wyrm born among rats will would claim rats will be ratlike, a wyrm born among rabbits will be leporine in nature, and a wyrm born among humans will be human in nature. That doesn′t feel quite right though. Jewel, while being humanlike in thought (at least moreso than a weird lost in their truth), is clearly also stormlike, with her natural smell and capability of creating lightning. I′m starting to think that in much the same way that weirds are of the place they found their truth, so too are wyrms of the place they hatch. While humans are definately an important part of the Rochford demesne, so too is the necessary rain for the crops to grow. She is attuned to the weather, stones, and voices around her amongst other things that are of and/or significant to Rochford. That doesn′t explain how seemingly only tyrants are immune to any magic, be it divination or an attempt to kill. It might be that diliberately cast magic is only under the purview of wyrms born in an aread defined in some part by deliberate casting (like the rituals in Rochford) but I′m less sure about that.

In any case, Wyrms seem to have a rather odd life cycle. Hatch in a form similar to but wholly above the local life in raw power, give birth to some number of lairspawn that are more similar to but still more powerful than the local life, after getting properly stable and settled concieve wyrm eggs (with another wyrm? Asexually? with the wildlife?), getting more settled in until the inevitable happens, and something kills the wyrm. The industructable eggs then find their way around by some means or another until landing upon a location they might hatch. Considering how much Jewel needs to eat compared to her family, that certainly fits in with wyrms being by rare and spread out. By each wyrm also taking on their own niche, despite being able to outcompete just about anything, there is minimal risk of a wyrm running out of food. In fact, lairspawn might serve in no small part to keep their mother fed, in addition to integrating the wyrm more into their non-wyrm-born compony, protection, and scouting.

Of course, in the case of Jewel, I would expect some things to be different and some to be the same. While I have seen some speculation on the other sites this is posted that the wyrm/wyrmspawn mental distinction is fuzzy in all cases, I think it is at least partly defined by the parental behaviour of whatever species the wyrm takes after. An ocean wyrm (colloquially sea serpent) likely would likely not have such a strong connection if any at all since the vast majority of sea creatures do not care for their young. If this is the case, I would expect that Jewel stops sharing experiences so vividly with her daughter as she grows more independent. Only time can tell though. I′m just happy that we don′t have to wait the same amount of time Jewel does for answers to these questions. I don′t doubt that sooner or later Jewel will happen across another wyrm, which honestly will probably raise more questions but hopefully answer at least a few.

Whatever the case may be for Jewel′s delightful yet confounding nature, I fear (yet eagerly anticipate) the thread about how Jewel views herself rising to prominance. What even is Jewel indeed.

 

[Aabcehmu]

I have always thought how humans and wyrms both have this sort of, like, innate metamorphic potential, the ability to become things which are so drastically different from what they are born as. Humans can become weirds (and other things), and wyrms have their whole wide variety.

 

[Nighzmarquls]

2.3

Tsulogothulan considered the child with long, slow blinks and a keen interest. The size of the Bog Weird's eye made it easy to track where her friend's gaze was falling.

Running up and down the body in a quick pass.

Then slowly lingering on different features.

Jewel watched from both sets of eyes, meeting the blurry indistinctness she knew was her friend.

Her smaller snout was shorter than Jewel's original in proportion. But still much too long for a human. Mouth and nose running together as Jewel's did. Giving the infant's head a profile with a slightly stretched out appearance, almost like a dog's.

The ears were much as Jewel's were, somewhere indistinctly between a horse's and a wolf's.

The horns were in the same place as Jewel's but barely nubs, instead of long and sharp.

The mane was wider on the head than Jewel's. The hairs were sparse but you could tell where the dark strands would fill in to give a full head where Jewel's more resembled a horse's mane sprouting in a narrow ridge down her back.

The hands were almost the same as a man but bearing Jewel's claws instead of nails. And lacking the smallest finger each.

The tail was just long enough to reach the knees if it relaxed straight. But it often writhed with Jewel's mood.

The scales were exactly as Jewels had been freshly hatched. Finer than wheat grains, bigger than sand.

Paler on the front, the palms, feet, finger tips, under the arms and down the inner side of the thighs.

Darker along the back where Jewel's mane grew along her larger spine, this smaller back was otherwise bare, however, save for a splaying of darker scales over the shoulders, almost in the shape of wings.

After the inspection, Tsulogothulan raised a single finger out of their cloak and moved it. Jewel watched the finger with both pairs of her eyes. Although it was a barely distinguishable smudge to the smaller ones.

A vague black blur in the misty indistinctness of her bedroom and the fading afternoon light streaming through the window.

"Well, she seems healthy to me, hard to judge, but she looks like a mostly human child."

Jewel gawked at her friend.

"She's covered in scales."

Tsulogothulan shrugged very overtly, meeting the incredulous expression that had settled onto Jewel's smaller face with a placid blink of their one eye.

"She's got horns."

The Weird finally turned their otherwise featureless hatchet of a face towards Jewel then tilted to one side so the vastness of a single eye big around as her father's fist could fix on Jewel judgmentally.

The reedy strands of black hair framed the pale hook of flesh, more like the bedraggled vines of some creeping plant clinging to a tree than any kind of hair.
The wide, almost fleshy brim of the hat and its pointed peak, subtly writhing with a texture of shifting things and drifting mucky currents.

Jewel weakly tried one last time against the silent judgment.

"She has a tail."

The weird turned away from Jewel, twisting in a tight spiral that obviously wrung out the trunk of their body.

A long, scaly tail with twin ridges on its back suddenly slapped its way out from the murky, black flesh strands of the wizard's 'robe'. Pale square plates and triangular spines were more or less the same hue as the hatchet of a nose.

The purple eye came back around to fix Jewel with a tilt and an impression of a raised brow even though Jewel had never in all the years with her friend ever seen them bother with one.

"I can have one of those too if I want, hardly of consequence."

The mentioned appendage slurped its way back into the robes and then a faint churning snap of something wet and springy tearing sounded as the wringing twist broke and rewove itself back into the usual vaguely human countenance that the Weird kept when they were being 'presentable' to Father or guests.

Their tone takes on a soft friendly jest.

"But more seriously, Jewel, this is not the strangest mein I've seen mortal men have, even at birth. When workings of sorcery, or star sent divine acts are concerned this is not even that severe. Perfectly normal baby, all things told."

Jewel gawked a bit.

Her friend turned back to look at the child and extended a hand to waggle fingers in their face, it was somewhat dazzling in her poor vision. They appeared and vanished with the rapid motion in and out of focus. Drawing her to stare at them despite herself.

It was like a sorcery act all of its own just from poor vision and fast fingers.

"And when Wyrmspawn are involved? I don't want to alarm your sensibilities, Jewel, but men and women of a peculiar taste have occasionally succeeded in fruitfu-"

Jewel's wings were flaring and both her own throat and that of the maybe child rose. One spouting half coherent outrage, the other crying and warbling in distorted manglings of speech that sounded like warbling birds drowning in mud.

"No! no! No! NO! I do not need to hear about such debauchery, Tsulogothulan!"

The weird blinked in bafflement at her.
"Jewel, you literally can hear your parents every night they do the act, you could tell when your sister was conceived!"

Jewel's wings were splayed as far as they would go in her bedroom, the membrane touching the ceiling and walls, her neck was curled back as far as she could, horns brushing the arch of the stones overhead.

Her forelegs had long since left the cushioning of her bedroom floor.

In contrast to that however the smaller form felt a furious rush of blood within, especially in her face and ears.

Jewel's voice rose far higher and louder than she wished. Likely several people could hear her now.

Her smaller self warbling below the louder words from her voluminous throat.

"Th-thats different! Mother and Father are Properly Married! It's not fornication if you're married!"

Which brought up the weird short for several long moments.

Then came the slow, languishing blinks that Jewel had come to understand meant her friend was mulling over something especially tricky for them. Which was not always a thing that Jewel thought should be difficult.

It gave Jewel time to calm her scandalized breathing, laboriously relax her wings, unclench the tautness in her neck and carefully extract her horn tips from the grout in the ceiling vault.

This was fine, sometimes Tsulogothulan or wizards in general for that matter were strange about sensible and obvious things. It was letting Jewel get some control and composure over both of herselves. Although she had no idea what to do about the rushing blood in the smaller face.

Jewel still had not succeeded in explaining to Tsulogothulan why freshly baked bread should never be simultaneously crisp, warm, flakey, soggy and droopy.

This blinking confusion lasted for a few more wet rolls of heavy lid across an overlarge eye. But finally in the most befuddled and incredulous tone Jewel had ever heard from her friend the words broke free from the Weird.

Their lid closing to a squint and their eye's pupil going to a pinprick as if Jewel was somehow a flaring sunrise.

"Jewel, would you not be bothered by... by a man laying with a gryphon if they were properly wed?"

It was Jewel's turn to stare at her friend in equal incredulity. What an absolutely silly and incredibly weird question.

Which she supposed suited her friend.
"Well of course not! Assuming it was done properly and their parents consented. Why would I?"

To which her friend blinked again very slowly before turning away.
"Your child is fine, Lady Jewel."

And then in a squelch the Weird vanished more abruptly than Jewel had ever seen.

Which was incredibly rude of them.

 

[RyubosJ]

"Well of course not! Assuming it was done properly and their parents consented. Why would I?"

Click to shrink...

Ah, from the mouths of children comes the bluntest truths

 

[Randomsel]

Which she supposed suited her friend.
"Well of course not! Assuming it was done properly and their parents consented. Why would I?"

Click to shrink...

Thank you for this bit. This is why reading is so satisfying. The fact that a completely foreign/alien mindset can be so relatable and surprising at the same time is a wonder.

Much praises to the author, the ability to write such a disparate viewpoint is something I admire greatly.

 

[Vocalist]

"Jewel, would you not be bothered by... by a man laying with a gryphon if they were properly wed?"

It was Jewel's turn to stare at her friend in equal incredulity. What an absolutely silly and incredibly weird question.

Which she supposed suited her friend.
"Well of course not! Assuming it was done properly and their parents consented. Why would I?"

Click to shrink...

Well, she hasn't been expressing much angst about her upcoming marriage and now I can see why. Now to hope that her betrothed can also be brought around to that line of thinking.

 

[Nighzmarquls]

2.4

When she first learned of him, Jewel would have been shocked if she was told that György Thurzó of Arva might come to be a welcome friend.

Even when she first met the Count, Jewel would have doubted. He was not a terribly impressive man in bearing.

But her friend György was, and very welcomed one at that.

It was so peculiar how much could change after a war.

Father and the Rochford family had a great many books, one of the largest personal libraries in the valleys of the Ridgetail mountains she had learned.

But Jewel had come to realize that just because one had a great many books did not necessarily mean one read or remembered all of them.

Jewel's father was well-read, but as with Alexander, he did not retain what he learned as voluminously as Count Thurzó.

What had started as letters that were stiff, officious and put to deep suspicion by Father and Mother grew over the years to a welcome series of questions and discussions on the nature of the world and the many attempts men had made to codify it.

And now, after years of letters between them since their last meeting György Thurzó of Arva and his entire family were on their way to visit.

Well, to be precise they were arriving as vanguard for the high king's visit to Kaeketeh. Which would also be passing through Rochford ten days after them.

The halls of the fortress had been cleared and the Countess Bathory had sent staff and supplies to see that Rochford (and other places of rest on his itinerary) were made ready for the King.

Jewel shifted her coils and squirmed in her swaddling simultaneously. Something which got her smaller part shushed and fussed over by the wet nurse.

Her sister Gwenn was equally fussy; it was strange the pair they made.

Jewel had feelings twice over regarding her sister.

She was older, larger and wiser without doubt. A respected elder sister who looked out for her safety.

But simultaneously she was also a peer, a fellow struggler of the great challenges of the world.

Of the frailties of one's body. The yet insurmountable struggle of staying upright under quaking muscles.

The shared frustrations of trying to move along the floor in the easy crawl (which Jewel being four legged as her larger self was well-versed in).

The agitation with how often the adults fussed and picked them up and took them from things they wished to do.

When she was absent from her larger self, Jewel's memory said she was the same. But in review it was not really so.

Her smaller head was full of foggy uncertainties, her vision was awful, her hearing oversharp and yet indistinct. She was easily startled at every noise and sudden movement. She could not make such a short and cramped throat do much more than mewl, cry and chirp.

Over fourteen years of practice with a throat more often longer than a man is tall was worthless with the tiny neck her smaller self had.

And without the presence of her larger self, Jewel felt addled and confused in more ways besides.

Words that were familiar had little or incorrect meanings.

Voice and tone dominated everything.

Her vision for all its inadequacy felt plenty clear when alone and she observed with great concentration as she always had.

But somehow details were lost despite her attention.

Most disturbing of all, Jewel as her smaller self alone could not hear or feel the world.

The stones were mute, the trees silent.

All of it was smothering and frightening and it made her yearn and strive to reconnect with her larger self and the comforting certainty and rightness it brought even when just hours prior she had known that she should stay with her minders and do as she was told.
From that impulse came action.

And naturally being the peer that she was, Gwenn would follow Jewel's smaller self in these ill thought out ventures.

Or rather would follow 'Gem'.

The name felt silly to both of her, intensely strange and childish.

Like naming her toes.

But everyone had insisted that Jewel's daughter was separate and that she should have her own name.

So she had compromised and gotten much exasperation over it.

Jewel had ultimately given up on the topic after the intense pressure from the adults. Unable to explain her assurance that it was not the case any better then she could explain to father the nature of sorcery and her own Wyrmflame.

Perhaps when she finally could get the tiny throat to speak proper words she could disabuse them of the misunderstanding.
But the struggle there was another she was sharing with Gwenn.

Still. György Thurzó of Arva was visiting!

Arriving in just a few more days, according to his last letter.

She chortled along with Gwenn in a good mood while working through another ledger book with her larger self's eyes.

Considering things carefully, there had been an accident in erecting one of the halls of her manor house. A timbre had been badly rotten in the core while looking good and strong outside. No one had caught the failure, not even when Jewel looked over the initial framing.

She must have been distracted by something? Worrying over her smaller self back in Rochford?

Whatever the cause, it was unacceptable.

Two of her men had died when the timbre failed to hold under the weight of stone over them.

The partial vault of what would have been one of her hallways collapsed.

The good stones had cracked out of shape.

The construction was likely to be delayed for a full year to quarry, cut, shape and begin again on the framing and laying of the ceiling there.

Jewel focused on the ledgers, considering the cost, the labors, trying to divine as György often mentioned the way one can look to the past to see the future.

She didn't see precisely how that worked yet. But there was a lot of sorcery and workings Jewel did not understand.

Much magic she did not know the way of.

But Jewel would learn.

 

[Eclectic Fluff]

This chapter, and reading ahead to the next on Royal Road, I′m starting to worry over how protective Jewel is. It has always been in her nature to be attentive towards others. I worry that sooner or later shewill either become too overbearing in her oversight or fall into dispair at the impossibility of protecting everyone.