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

[Eclectic Fluff]

Even if dragons reproduce sexually, considering how rare they are, the indestructibility of their eggs, and supposition that they are long lived, I cant't imagine that there is much urge for it. If dragons had a life cycle where they could reproduce after even 20 years, the only thing stopping them from being an invasive species would be the mystery of what conditions are required for a dragon egg to hatch.

 

[Nighzmarquls]

5.6

Ginter couldn't see very clearly anymore, he had trouble walking and the last of his good teeth had come out.

But he was going to make it at least to the point he could hear the marriage of the one who saved Adelyne.

Nevermind that an old free man was not supposed to be allowed up here on the wall fort that separated Middle-Town from the Countess' Keep.

He had nearly a Knight's Mark of gambling debts owed over the Countess' men to make sure he was not bothered.

And more than that his granddaughter was now the bonded servant and charge of the Shining Wyrm Of Visnove. He couldn't do anything to the men that had tried to take her, but the fear of a Wyrm's ire had left one of them near pissing himself.

Good fortune that, as soon as he heard she'd been taken to the keep Ginter dug up every debt, favor and dirty deal owed him across all of Kaeketeh and from there traded and released them both to get the leverage held by grifters, brothels and dens of ill repute on the Countess' men stationed in the wall fort.

He was ready to have his poor fool of a girl 'misplaced' out of the hold of that terrible woman even if it meant spending every single favor and coin owed him over his whole life.

But by a star damned blessing he'd been left with assurance she would live, well and truly, far outside of Kaeketeh.

Only found out after he had peddled a lifetime of favors for the debts to the Countess' men unfortunately.

Collected from those that would not take them back.

So once he knew Adelyne was safe? He couldn't find it in his tired bones to make the fuss of it.

Four years away from home in bondage to the heir of the entire county and the city?

That would be good for the fool girl.

She'd lived too much in the city.

And even if they worked her like a dog It was better than being disappeared to something no amount of swindling or bed talk with the whores could pry from the Countess' guards.

To a man they were stoney silent and terrified about whatever it was.

Only rumors and hearsay about horrible things in the dark flowed through Kaeketeh on its missing daughters.

And frightful stories of a child torn apart from back before Adelyne had been born.

He had to take a few moments to breath hard and even then his feet and arms still tingled.

At last he was past the fortune damned stairs.

He was getting feeble in his old age.

But Ginter had finally made his way to the top of the wall. Now he hobbled with stiff legs and stiffer back over to the battlements where he could stare blearily at the wedding and listen to the sound of the ceremony.

His eyes were long past good.

He saw a smear of colors indistinct for most of the crowd and decorations.

But he'd have to be properly blind to not spot her moving amongst them.

Tall as can be shining like gold.

The lady, the one his very heart and bones had sworn to serve as soon as they were called by her voice.

Who had in passing done more for him and his then any noble or lord ever had.

Saved his fool headed grand daughter when she should not have been playing at the thieving game like a child anymore.

Was too old and filled out for that work, too tall and notable.

Drew too much attention no matter how she dressed herself mussed up or dirty.

Fool girl got herself caught and nearly worse.

His vision blurred even more as the sting of tears welled up in his eyes and then ran down his sun-weathered cheeks.

But a quick wipe of his forearm was enough for that.

A good shake too at the lingering feel of needly cold pricks up and down his forearms.

The Shining Wyrm was having her wedding and Ginter would never get the chance homely as he was to thank her properly.

But he could wish her well from afar.

Ladies and Great Big Dragons simply did not deal with or for folk like Ginter and his.

Except this one had.

And he would be a miser if he did anything less than wish his stars do well by her.

Word carried from looser lips then the Countess' guard.

She'd stood up to the baby-faced-crone all piss and vinegar and ready for a fight.

The eyes from the crowd in gate town that were sharper than his had ever been told it straight too.

She'd been ready to unmake the men that had been after his poor fool Adeylne. Would have not even been hardly mussed for it since she was heir and all.

Nevermind a fortune damned dragon.

The Wyrm had saved his granddaughter and gone to fight the Countess for her.

And there she was, fuzzy and muddled and yet still shining and beautiful.

He guessed by the colors they probably draped her up in some fancy getup but in his eyes poor and doughy they might be that was mostly lost. Still she was the sight of beauty itself.

Like a sunrise over the ridgebacks.

Like noonday sun breaking up a thunderstorm.

Like a sunset sinking below the western hills.

It didn't make it any less beautiful for the smeary blur of his eyes.

His granddaughter was saved from a monster that played at being a woman by a beast that if word be true was everything nobles pretended at.

Adelyne was a fool girl but he felt she would do well in service to such a thing. And after her four short years he could tell her off for the idiocy that had gotten her there.

Ginter took a heavy breath and then coughed and shivered.

The tingling bites were all up and down his legs.

It was straight up noon sun and not too late in the season but he was feeling a mighty coldness for all the strange spirits biting him.

Still he stood there and after shaking himself out and rubbing his arms he focused again on his vigil.

It was her wedding. It was the first chance he was going to have to see her at all after she saved his dear little Adelyne.

And his ma had always told him weddings were important to the gods. If there was ever a time his stars would hear him it would be for a wedding.

And even down here below the heavens with mere mortal man there was much ado about it, people in colorful smudges of rich folk dress. Fancy foreigners he'd been told.

There were even more of them setup in camps outside the Gates and every inn was booked full besides.

Barns and pastures were making silver that even a fine room would normally charge in Kaeketeh this season. For the city was so full of visitors.

The ceremony was progressing, he heard familiar melodies. Same as more common weddings they were.

But played and sang in more expensive guts and in apparently more divine throats.

He thought it was alright music and song. Was so rich and full it carried wistfully to him all the way over here across the bridge at least.

He saw the moment that the oaths were made and the barely-a-boy was given what he guessed was a solemn kiss judging the angle of the great shining blur that was the wyrm.

Then flowers and such were tossed up and cheers soon followed with delighted voices. The crowd and the color and the music all a mix with the motion.

And he swore he could feel the gaze of the shining wyrm herself on him if only for a moment.

He certainly was faint enough for it.

A sting of indigestion struck.

Something felt stuck in his chest and he tried to cough again. Everything suddenly was very heavy.

Hard to stand up. Dizzy like he had a bit too much to drink even though he'd been favoring the smallest of beers.

His neck and shoulders twinged hard. His vision felt darker.

His lungs wouldn't fill.

He gasped and wheezed in short rattles.

Before he knew it Ginter's stinging legs were giving out.

And then he was rolling back and off the ledge stones coming up to meet him.

 

[I_S]

Aw, without old man glinter how will we find the best mince pies in the city.

 

[Nighzmarquls]

5.7

Jewel was glad there was a chance to eat a proper meal after the mid day oaths of marriage were done.

That was the official binding of mortal law done and legally they were now man and wife.

But they still had until the evening for the far more important calling forth of gods and the proclaiming of vows for their marriage.

The precise ones needed would depend heavily on just which gods were drawn to the matter.

She wished that the wedding food was a bit less sweet.

And the spices seemed a bit excessive too.

There was no saffron at least.

"Husband? Which gods do you expect will descend to receive our vows?"

Paul looked thoughtful for a time before shrugging.

"I can't say, neither house Bathory nor Nádasdy have outstanding debts or interest from the divines according to my teachers. And none of my birth stars are likely to come."

Jewel hummed and nodded.

"Rochford has little direct engagement with any either, Business best left to the temple. I Suppose the Veles might show up? But he is a spirit of Winter and we are quite out of season for him."

The High King spoke up after having waited politely to the side while Jewel and her husband conversed.

"I expect that at least one of the seven that is overseeing the vow of peace will show this evening if only to verify that all parties are holding to its terms. Maybe Quirinus, Anat or Vesta might be interested in you as newlyweds of high standing."

Jewel considered.

Vesta was an old cantor goddess of hearth, home and unwed ladies. She could not quite place who Quirinus or Anat were though. The volume of gods present across all the known lands of the world were as numerous as its people.

Their interests were usually local and narrow however.

If these gods were trusted to protect foreign kings in otherwise hostile land their interests must be broader.

Her husband spoke up.

"Quirinus would not be a bad patron to receive our vows. I have read he offers prowess in war and protection in combat to men that offer him sufficient pledges."

Mathias nodded to the both of them.

"Yes, his promise of protection along with the potential wrath of anat should any violate the peace was the final point of the bargain which saw many of our more foreign guests being willing to attend here."

Jewel considered that as the High King Mathias departed to go speak to someone else.

His place soon filled by someone Jewel did not know, but Paul at least was familiar enough with to speak to.

And on like that dragged the day, until evening and sunset called for numerous candles and torches to be lit and the Wyrm with her husband returned to their place of honor before a brazier of tightly wound chords of herbs.

Whereas before the wedding had been a festival and a celebration now there was solemnity. And whiffs of dread from the guests.

Jewel could see figures in long robes of many kinds amongst the crowd. Some wore masks or strange dresses, but others bore the garb Jewel had become accustomed to for temple workers of various kinds.

Simple brown robes.

The Abbot Herbort was even there alongside Jewel's family taking his place as a spiritual vassal of her Father.

As the sun slipped away and the black of night filled the sky the temple minders and other titles of god tenders and such raised their voices.

Jewel guessed there must have been much work done that all of them could speak in unison like that.

Uttering words she did not recognize.

She could feel the drawing up of the world's faux fire with their voices.

And practically taste as it wove in from all over the crowd. Unlike in Rochford during the longest night, or the morning pre-dawn ritual that Abbot Herbort attended in his manor for their silver lady, no one but those of temple offices lended their voice.

Silence dominated between the words and yet for all that the voices seemed sparse and few they filled the space and the air above with meaning.

The faux fire rose up and in it carried the satisfaction and amiable atmosphere that had been built all through the day's festivities.

Jewel could feel the faintest tugs of it on her own wyrm flame. But it was barely less than a breeze as the weaving tapestry of it all bound together before her.

It was much like other divine sorcery Jewel had seen. It wove together many things into one.

It reached high and far up into the sky.

But this was the first time she had ever seen such a work done under an entirely open sky.

And the sheer presence of the stars seemed to almost be pooling down towards them.

In fact they actually were!

The sky itself bowed in attention as the fervent voices called to it.

The chanter's words rose and fell, swelled up into the night and then sank down again towards the brazier yet unlit.

And as the heaving release and pull seemed to find its rhythm sometimes individual voices broke high and distinct from the rest.

Calling out in single names from the murmuring swells.

Twos, threes or single practitioners trying to draw attention to the dipping heavens.

And as they called, individual stars shone brighter and the weft of faux flame twisted towards them.

"Anata"

Jewel watched with her husband as a near pillar of raw night sky twisted and shifted above to the beckoning voices.

"Ereshkigal"

She'd seen weddings under the night sky before, but whatever gods' interest there was hardly had been felt then. Or they were already well and truly present and invested in the matter.

"Veles"

Jewel had never witnessed a wedding which called out to the gods for attention like this.

"Silver Lady"

Or seen so much of a tumult in the sky however pinched and pulled out this portion of it might be.

"Dorumangul"

As the entreaties were made sometimes a flickering presence would shift and even roil partly free of the sky being called down.

But most barely seemed to stir at all.

"Gloom Mother"

And those that did seem at least partly drawn did not remain. Most fluttering back out of the slowly thinning spire of raw sky sinking closer and closer to the brazier.

"Salus"

As the sky spike sank the robed figures moved among the crowd, drawing in from the edges of the courtyard. Hands raised and moving. Their fingers brushing over the fauxfire that Jewel had learned not one of them could see. By her questioning the best of them could barely feel its touch on their fingertips.

"Father Mountain"

There was still not a distinct singular presence that Jewel could discern or group of them to remain beyond the sky but the tumbling sense of them within the black void of the star spackled needle slowly sinking was becoming quieter.

"Quirinus"

A slight flare stronger than any other at that name, and Jewel glanced to her husband with his intent face staring up to the sinking black spike of infinity.

"Oberon?"

Some of the names were being offered with trepidation and Jewel was beginning to smell fear.

There was worry and questioning tones on some of the entreaties.

A hope that they would not be answered.

"Muat?"

Still the roil was gentling. The distinct presences within fading away.

The spire of black sky had now become barely thicker than a hands span and was just dipping beneath Jewe's own gaze.

"Mother Winter?"

That one was said with terror barely restrained.

But still none of the names were drawing full attention from the presences within.

None so mentioned seemed quite enough.

Finally Jewel heard the familiar voice of Abbot Herbort. Quiet, fearful and yet also resigned.

"Zorya?"

And suddenly the needle of raw black sky squeezed sharply covering all the distance to the brazier's carefully stacked bundle of herbs and holy wood offerings.

A single star carried on that black thread which ignited the bundles in a flare of silver blue fire.

And all at once the sky snapped back and returned to its vault.

Dragging a blinding white pillar of silver fire high into the heavens. Banishing every shadow and gloom in the courtyard and making even the brightest candles seem like pitch black shade.

Jewel could see the torrent of faux fire gathered by the god tenders and temple keepers grasped and pulled loose of them as casually as a gardener might pull out a weed.

Root and all.

Against the shock of the sudden absence Jewel saw many robed figures swoon and three collapse for lack of strength to stand.

But Herbort stood tall and there was another presence around him, a shining dawn that was like a reflection of the pillar and yet different and opposed.

And then everyone startled as a great tremble rose up in the air.

Paul spoke to the silence that followed, his voice was strange, awed, afraid, joyous.

"Zorya, Lady of Dawn I accept, I vow ten lives spared for every blade turned from me."

And then there was a lashing strike of silver flame towards her husband.

Before Jewel knew what she was doing she had interposed herself between him and the strange silvery flame.

The act stopping the current of white.

It washed over Jewel with less impact than a summer breeze.

It did not touch the wyrm's flesh even as she saw it scorch the stones at her feet and burn away the fine shawls and hanging drapery of her wedding finery.

The pillar before her shuddered and then shrank, contracted, took on a shape more close to a shadow of a figure caught just before they immolated in flame.

There was a resounding presence and a roaring vibration in the air but Jewel heard no words.

Her husband put a hand on Jewel's shoulder.

Paul's voice confused and somehow troubled.

"She is my wife! we have called you to receive our vows of marriage and exchange a promise together as one for your boon."

Jewel felt the air roar, she saw that everyone around her was reacting to it, wonder, confusion, stares of horror or fear at Jewel.

They heard something she could not.

All of them did.

Paul stared as the figure again shifted in the column of flame.

Became more solid, more whole.

And yet still barely there.

Like ash about to be scattered away in the form of a woman with billowing hair.

An effigy caught on the brink of destruction.

The only voice that spoke was her Husband. And it was filled with confusion and a hint of wonder. He looked at Jewel as he never had before.

As if he was seeing her for the first time.

He answered a voice she could not hear.

"What do you mean? Yes of course she is my wife, Jewel, the Shining Wyrm of Viznove!"

The rumble returned again and Jewel could almost say it sounded like a voice.

But not in any speech she knew.

Then the vague almost figure in the fire that was so bright it should have burned her husband's eyes but seemed to not touch him anywhere near so harshly nodded.

Another gentle tremor in the air and a gesture vaguely in Jewel's direction.

Paul, her husband, followed the gesture to Jewel his wife and asked with concern and uncertainty.

"Jewel, do you not hear the lady of dawn's voice? She is saying..."

Another wordless rumble cuts him off.

"She is admonishing me for not receiving your permission before calling for her interference."

Jewel could feel every eye upon her.

This was not how a wedding was supposed to go.

Gods might be called or intrude themselves into weddings for the sake of the final vows, but they unless overruled by another of the star born never deferred to anyone!

The wordless rumble of the apparently divine voice filled the air again.

The figure in the fire staring not quite in Jewel's direction.

Her husband, just married and looking like he was using every fiber of his valor to stay standing under such an unexpected pile of divine nonsense, spoke even more softly.

"She is offering me the boon of her protection from all blade, blow or arms wielded by man. For no vow from me. B-but a-as"

He stammered and Jewel was finding she desperately wanted this part of their wedding to be over so they could sequester themselves together and mutually scream at the insanity that was their shared fortune.

"As a gift for you. So none might take what is yours before it's- That is my time. B-but o-only if you will allow it?!"

Jewel was stunned, blessings from the stars were not perfect. Even those given with a price were extremely specific and many old tales were full of seeming guarantees of immortality that had been undone by oversight from their benefactors.

But still such a boon would assure her husband from a great deal of danger.

How could Jewel possibly deny such a gift?

If for no other reason then how it would protect him.

Jewel nodded to Paul.

Stepping back from where she had interposed herself.

She held tight to every muscle when the vague premonition of a woman reached out from the fire.

With fingers like pitch black ash.

Hair as much made of silver fire as black char ringlets.

Eyes that were stars.

And then she could feel the working coming together around Paul.

More gently than the lash of flame had been.

It was not called as fauxfire like the mortal magic she had seen many times before.

It was not spoken in the silent words of wizardry.

It arrived as an all encompassing presence that cut through the air near Jewel like a knife.

It left her flame feeling blown to guttering embers by a sudden wind.

She felt like her inner light had nearly been snuffed out as the divine working was called forth.

And yet in its passing her fire blazed suddenly so high she could only barely keep it from escaping her mouth.

As if something within her rallied at the challenge of this change upon the world.

And then just as suddenly was softly settled.

The figure in the flame that was apparently Zorya and a goddess again looked over where Jewel vaguely was.

It's gaze passing over her as if she wasn't there.

And then in a searing flash the entire column leapt back into the sky.

And the suddenly oppressive darkness of the fully lit courtyard fell back upon them.

Everyone was yet struck dumb by what had occurred.

But Jewel knew better than to hope that would last.

She used every lesson of propriety and grace to fill her voice with authoritative but gentle tones.

She spoke clear and well, pulling on some of the timbres she had heard in Bethica's own yowling moo.

Deepening while not losing her feminine quality.

"And so I and Paul Nádasdy are married by witness and law of heavens and earth! And we shall now retire to consummate our union."

Jewel creeped close to her husband.

"Good Night!"

And then as gently as she could Jewel grabbed her husband up in her foreclaws and dashed to the appointed bed room before anyone could think to start asking questions.
She moved with her wing thumbs to pull her along and her near entire mid body hunched up like some kind of loping wolf to hold Paul up from brushing the rapidly moving flagstones.

It was a bit rude to do so without asking him.

But Jewel was sure she and her husband had dealt with quite too much for one day.

She could suffer some indignity of scuttling off in half burnt finery like a thieving rat with her man if it avoided any more of this divine absurdity.

Having a god acknowledge her like that was far too much, but it was not the worst thing.

Jewel shuddered for what she was truly escaping.

She fled from the specter of politics.

Spoiler: Fun Author's Note

So as of a few days ago Shining Wyrm hit 1000 Followers on Royal Road. I can't say exactly when as it happened between my checks on things and the weekend was pretty busy. But good times and I'm pretty sure from those of you following here it easily had reacehd it before that.

But nice round numbers are fun and that made for a pretty good topper to already very pleasant weekend.

 

[Rayne-of-Faerie]

Did... Did she just snack down a Goddess just to run from the idea of people? My life choices have been validated thank you.

Edit: I meant to say smack down but autocorrupt halped and now I'm picturing her having accidentally EATEN a goddess to protect him instinctively. I wonder how they'd taste? I'm guessing a little smokey.

 

[Zaealix]

…Huuunnnhhh…
That is a telling reaction. And I feel like it would be all to easy to draw the wrong conclusions about the Lady's…Trepridation. I wonder perhaps if the Gods are so leery because Jewel is having to accept this offered deal instead of it being something she's giving freely…?
I'm wondering if I am forgetting a thing I meant to comment on…

 

[Eclectic Fluff]

I am reminded of this passage so many chapters ago,

"Young Wyrm who claims mortal men as her own. There is no voice that can set your path, there is no vision in stars or deep earth that holds you but your own. Heed no divination for you are Wyrm and are not in the sight of the stars and kin and ally to earth. You will find victory if you choose it."

Click to shrink...

(Emphasis mine)

While it isn′t enough to say what exactly the relationship between wyrms and the divine is, I think this might be related. I hope that Pythra of Veracules′ visit to seer and god serpent Shialtza sheds more light on this.

 

[Arcane Howitzer]

Did... Did she just snack down a Goddess just to run from the idea of people? My life choices have been validated thank you.

Edit: I meant to say smack down but autocorrupt halped and now I'm picturing her having accidentally EATEN a goddess to protect him instinctively. I wonder how they'd taste? I'm guessing a little smokey.

Click to shrink...

And yet the human politicians fear and subordinate themselves to the whims of the gods.

It's like some sort of twisted fae Rock-Paper-Scissors.

 

[Rayne-of-Faerie]

And yet the human politicians fear and subordinate themselves to the whims of the gods.

It's like some sort of twisted fae Rock-Paper-Scissors.

Click to shrink...

Noooo we don't need the fae in this too even writing them is a headache nevermind trying to follow their logic when you aren't the author.

"Protect me from my enemies."
"Kay" *stab* "now your enemies can't kill ya!"

Let's not add that kinda sideways and twisted thinking into politics lmao

 

[Nighzmarquls]

5.8

It was only after the two of them were closed off in the bedroom that had been set aside for Jewel's wedding she remembered what the next step was supposed to be.

And promptly put her now husband back down on slightly unsteady feet.

Her wedding finery was ruined, what of it had not been blasted away by divine magic was further lost in her haste to escape before the full ramifications could settle in the guests or her host.

She was essentially as naked as usual, but given the situation that felt a lot less acceptable then it normally did.

Paul was not providing any distraction to this mortification. He was barely doing anything besides swaying a bit on his feet, and Jewel herself did not even know what to say in regards to what had just transpired.

She distracted herself with the bedroom.

There was honestly by some counts very little bed to be said to exist in the space she had dragged her now legally and divinely acknowledged husband to.

As was Jewel's preference in comfort almost the entire floor was filled with cushions, soft rugs, pillows, blankets and thick folded cloth.

In other regard the phrase was also incredibly apt, it was not a room which contained a bed. It was a room which had been made into a bed in its entirety.

Finally Paul seemed to find some words to say.

"Well, that was certainly a thing."

Jewel could not help but laugh and shake her head. Once again she was glad that Paul was her husband and not someone like the many men she had met among the guests.

She shook herself off and more of the draped cloth which probably cost some poor throng of women months of labor to weave fell in its tatters to the floor.

Every scrap that had been even slightly close to Jewel's front was singed black.

"That is certainly a word for it. A meeting to be remembered in song for sure."

Paul took a heavy breath then looked around.

"The wedding of a dragon, where a goddess was called and instead of taking a vow in bargain bestowed a boon of protection upon the new husband like a supplicant to her lord."

Jewel let out a great anguished groan of a sigh which seemed to catch paul by surprise.

But he did not flee from her, just jolted a bit in place.

"My husband I must apologize but I fear this is hardly the end of the trials and troubles I have brought you with my marriage."

He laughed, in a short bark of humor that yet still showed his frayed nerves.

"My Wife, Jewel. It is our marriage now. And I can't say I have not feared what you might be before meeting you. But as your husband I must be honest."

Jewel froze, this was the moment she had feared. A man could hide and pretend to be much and this was when Paul would abandon the mask and show how he really thought of her.

A beast.

A great wyrm.

"You are absolutely and ridiculously too nice of a girl for your station or presence. It is the greatest jest of the stars that you happen to be a dragon as well."

Which caught her off guard. He was sincere, he seemed to think well of her in fact. He despite his initial fear at the ceremony was now again brash and joyous as before.

"w-What? Why Don't you hate me?!"
He struck her then. Punched with a solid and firm fist right in her throat.

It was of course hardly something that even phased her.

His strength might be fine for a man of his years and size but even with all his strength he could not have harmed her.

"You are a fool to think I should! Why should I hate you? You are kind, you have good sense, you stood between me and the act of a goddess."

Jewel was not sure why but her voice was getting less and less controlled.

"But I'm a martial lady, I can lay waste to armies, I've slain a Weird, I'm improper in everything there is about me! I don't fancy you like I should! you've had to marry me! I'm a dragon! Everyone out there is expecting you to lay with me and I know I am abhorrent to behold and look like a beast!"

She did not know why she had ended up saying so much, she did not know that she even thought that. But the words were undeniable, Jewel heard them everywhere, she could smell it on the people around her.

She had spoken with relief to Bethica on it. The first being she could speak too who had to struggle with a pressure she had never realized she pushed against all her life.

But Jewel had not dwelled on any of it after.

She had seen it and then refused to look again. Told herself marriage would make everything fine and proper.

That she would be a wife and do all her duties and her husband would do his but here they both were and Jewel had lost her last hope she could feel anything like what a wife should for her husband.

But Jewel could smell it on him, he did not want her.

Not like the Countess' men wanted the thief she had rescued.

Not like the soldiers wanted the women (and sometimes men) in the tents.

Not like the peasants wanted one another or even the beasts in the fields or forests wanted each other.

Not like her parents obviously could desire one another.

She'd fled here for solace and peace and completely forgotten what this room was for.

What she had just said in parting to their guests.

Her husband did not desire her no matter how well they might get along.

And in this Jewel was a failure as a lady and a woman.

Like she was in so many other ways.

Her husband who did not want her settled down into the cushions Jewel had not even realized she had collapsed into.

Leaning back into her scales with his miniscule weight and simply laid his arm on her back, running fingers through the hair over her spine.

Jewel found breathing that she had not realized was at a rapid pace slowing.

She felt her heart beat slow.

The awareness of her own tears running down her cheeks and wetting the cushions far below coming to her.

He spoke softly after a time.

"It's true you can hear my heart beat? Smell the desire in my blood? Sense the truth in my voice?"

Jewel nodded and sniffled, but it came loud and haunting. The sniff echoed in her snout and billowed air too far.

"Good, then you know I'm speaking the truth now?"

Jewel could only nod again, she did not trust herself to keep her voice from shaking the doorframe.

"Then you know I mean it when I say I do not care whether we lay together tonight. You've more than proven to me every oath we made today. And you acted in more ways than any vow to a god could."

Jewel finally found the composure to speak quietly, tenderly, as softly as she could. Embodying in voice all she couldn't in form.

"But you don't want me at all. And I don't desire you either. It's a sham of a marriage."

Paul shrugged hard and just kept stroking the hair of her mane he could reach.

"So what? I like you more than my mother and father ever cared for each other. And they had twelve kids."

Jewel blinked at that.

"Twelve?!"

Her husband laughed again at her confusion.

"Only eight survived, but that's not including the one or two bastards I hear mother had before she married."

Jewel stared at nothing in particular considering it.

"So many..."

To which Paul sighed and patted her rib cage hard enough the sound thumped in her lungs.

"Your family is extremely small by any standard Jewel."

Jewel could not deny that.

"Besides I'd not be the first lord to take some time with brothels or courtesans. It's not like you need to deprive me of those pleasures."

Jewel, his wife stared at him, aghast and horrified by the suggestion.

"Absolutely not."

For the first time Paul looked upset, he was shifting to get up to his feet so he could be a little closer to her eye level.

"Now see here Jewel! A man has needs and why would you mind? Neither of us fancies the other."

He was still struggling to try and escape the position he had sunk into against her side. But Jewel could not stand for this. A marriage without him fathering offspring was one thing but infidelity was quite another.

"My husband, you shall not lie with any woman, who is not your wife-"

He made a strangled noise of protest but jewel simply covered him with her wing to smother the words.

"Or an officially acknowledged and sworn concubine bound to our union."

Which for some reason melted all resistance or struggle to reach his feet that Paul had strived for.

His voice was muffled by her wing membrane.

"Oh... that would be acceptable to you?!"

Jewel lifted her wing back and turned her head around to stare at her husband in confusion.

"Well of course it would be. It's the proper way to do it."

Paul for some reason found that so funny he laughed until the weight of the day seemed to settle on him abruptly and then he was fast asleep snoring and slumped against her side.

Jewel for her part shifted her coils around to better support her husband's neck and back. Then after watching him for a time rested her jaw across his lap.

Soon she was joining him in slumber.

 

[Zaealix]

…I feel like Jewel could use hanging around someone who plays semantic word-games because she…
Well.
She sounds rather as if she disagrees more with it being something clandestine then yanno, being quote-unquote 'unfaithful', frankly.
As for the dress…I guess that's an ops?

 

[Nighzmarquls]

…I feel like Jewel could use hanging around someone who plays semantic word-games because she…
Well.
She sounds rather as if she disagrees more with it being something clandestine then yanno, being quote-unquote 'unfaithful', frankly.
As for the dress…I guess that's an ops?

Click to shrink...

I once was a teacher's assistant/shadow with a ten year old on the autism spectrum. He was a lot more severe then what a lot of people refer too with autism these days. Almost entirely non verbal in public/ with strangers.

Me and the school worked with him though and got him talking and having a ton of friends by the end of the year.

But I'll never forget what one of the things that tripped him up was. It hit him like a thunderbolt when I mentioned it in one of our quiet and private conversations on English homework.

"Words can have more then one meaning"

This blew his mind and also scared and later angered him a little bit. But it was a major step in him having the confidence to speak to kids and strangers.

Jewel's situation is not modeled on him or his specific issue. But I'm definitely using that as a measure of how severe a problem a non human might have in trying to follow human social norms.

 

[Cecylene]

To Jewel, the norms and taboos of Man are… learned behaviors and not rules that codify instinctual discomfort.

As mentioned before, Jewel has no issue with Man and Griffin being lovers if they are appropriately married and consenting.

For Jewel, there is no possessiveness or jealousy of a wife scorned by her husband's wandering eye but rather a hatred for her husband not following the rules that are already laid out for such things. For Jewel it is fun to see how she embraces the strictures of court etiquette and legality as guidelines for interacting with humans and other people, because she has never felt the same feelings around the same topics that others do, she does not see the world the same as others do, and does not interact with the world as others do.

It's amusing and I can see now why the Countess Bathory adores having Jewel follow after her in rulership. Because the Countess used the law as an unstoppable blade, wielding it as a surgeon to cut and slice and extract anything she desired with nothing able to be done to stop her because she was otherwise just an elderly sickly women sustained by the law.

Jewel however is not elevated by the rules she follows but brought down to a level that she can interact with others. She is powerful enough that the law can do nothing to her, it is not a chain that binds her because she is stronger than those that might try to enforce it. What it does however is allow her a way to be around others and she loves that and so follows the law strictly to never split herself apart from those she cares about.

And for the Countess, this has to be absolutely hilarious to have people know that as bad as she is, the Countess is only human. Jewel however without the law is a Tyrant Wyrm.

 

[Rayne-of-Faerie]

And for the Countess, this has to be absolutely hilarious to have people know that as bad as she is, the Countess is only human. Jewel however without the law is a Tyrant Wyrm.

Click to shrink...

Let us hope she doesn't become that with it as well. Too much adherence to the word of the law can cause one to forget the reason and spirit of it and I see plenty of signs of that being a possibility.

 

[Nighzmarquls]

5.9

As they walked along the last leg of their journey to Rochford proper Jewel mused.

Departing for home after the wedding had not been as different as she thought it would be.

The festivities and celebrations for the rest of the city of Kaeketeh had gone on for what she suspected was an obligatory ten days after the event itself. But most of the more esteemed guests were departing shortly after the highly unusual 'vow' had been made.

It was a relief to some extent that there were fewer people to gawk, scrape, bow or scheme at Jewel and her husband so quickly.

But fewer was not none.

She turned to her husband, riding a white charger who was honestly not well suited to such long road travel. A hackney like Smithson's Oxhoof would have been better on the road. The poor stallion's stamina was strained every evening.

But it was the horse he had to his name and one he'd ridden often and bonded close too.

So she did not make much of it.

Trying to act more like Father then she had seen mother.

Paul for his part had worked hard to interpose himself and take the brunt of the questions and attention in Kaeketeh.

Which had been welcome, but Jewel soon felt so guilty that she tried to take at least some of the burden herself.

Or so she had intended.

The first evening of commoner festivities he had asked that she stay back to loom and intimidate silently unless he signaled her for assistance.

Which was something that was easy to slip into.

She had played a similar courtly game with her father.

But it still felt like a failure. It was not how Mother supported her husband.

But Paul had made a point then that Jewel could not deny.

Between the two of them it was Jewel who could best any and every comer in martial prowess.

Of the pair of them as Husband and Wife it was Paul, though a martial trained man that he might be, who could speak the softest, move the least intrusively and despite the promise of his divine boon act in a way that would be underestimated or overlooked by others.

In their evenings together Jewel found her husband had a very keen if distressing view on his position in their marriage. A lady Jewel undeniably was, but in the matter of her prowess and possession of prominence in court and on the battlefield it was the role of a Man that best suited her in their marriage.

She'd been very upset with him after that but he'd stared her down and said something that chilled her wroth dead.

"Of the two of us that might strike the other with the fullness of our strength in anger, who would be the most dishonored for it?"

And Jewel could not deny in such a case it would be her.

But still it hurt her and brought a terrible roiling to her flame that the awful words from Thurzó's daughters could have even that shred of truth to them.

That there were in fact some ways that Jewel was less a woman.

Paul however did not care about the shame and she could not deny his sense in it.

So Jewel left the courtly work of a wife to her husband.

It was not entirely the same of course, there were no spinning circles for men to gossip among themselves. But Jewel had noticed that among the men in court at least there were even stranger diversions.

They played games of cards or did training or found odd contests of recital trying to match wits. It all seemed especially frivolous activities to engage in compared to the many layered productivity of the way of women.

But Jewel had only seen a few of the ladies in Kaeketeh even pretend to actually work at anything but embroidering into cloth woven by other's hands.

So perhaps city lords and ladies simply worked less in general?

Still all of that was at least for the moment behind them.

It was a strange but also a familiar pair they made in the dwindling crowd of the lords and ladies as the last days of the festival closed.

And now over familiar roads here she had been traveling as a married lady and it felt hardly different at all compared to traveling as a merely betrothed one.

Her husband and his household swelled their caravan.

Yet not as much as the High King or Thurzó's party had.

When they made camp or sought lodging Jewel and Paul now had a room to themselves with the understanding they would take early evenings together each night. But given Jewel's size she often had a room to herself by sheer necessity.

When they finally stayed at Hożanka's there had been many well wishes and compliments. But really only as much fuss over Paul as had been brought to bear for Alexander. The Masondottir's words were barely much more than the same compliments on 'what a handsome catch'.

Jewel had noted it cost more coin to find lodgings, but the Countess had settled them with quite the dowry after all was done.

Which rendered even the greater expense for their party barely noticeable.

As Jewel skipped smoothly and elegantly along the well trod and familiar earthen road she could still only conclude one thing.

On the balance besides having time to talk and discuss matters with her husband each night on what was to come Jewel found married life little different from how she lived before it.

A new man was now a part of her life certainly, close and a trusted confidant perhaps?

But otherwise it was little different from when she finally started properly taking care of her Squire Smithson.

Speaking of, there had been a very brief and baffling tension between the two men when they first properly met.

Wholly on the side of her Squire as well!

For whatever reason the young man who now rode with Gem settled a little unsteadily astride the saddle in front of him had taken Jewel's husband as an opportunity to prove his valor and loyalty to some excess.


It only took the very morning after she was married for him to march up to Pual and swear on his star sign goddess the wet lady that if Paul should hurt Jewel (as if he could?!) that the once stable boy and some day knight would slay the man no matter the cost to him.

The vow had shook in the faux flame around the two men and Jewel was fairly certain that if it ever (somehow) came to those circumstances that both of them would have ended up bringing their mutual divine patrons into a row with one another over it.

Which made it all the funnier when Paul's immediate response was to match the vow with his own on Vorya the Lady of Dawn that he would renounce her blessing and protection if he ever did deed which would draw Smithson's wrath sufficient he had to defend Jewel's honor.

And that had also rippled in the faux flame, although Jewel was now certain that neither man could feel it. After a brief glare they had then matched one another in first the clasped forearms of brothers in arms, and then the full embrace of sworn allies or close family.

It had struck Jewel so absolutely in shock for there to be such a rapid turn in respect for one another she had been unable to prevent the smaller body of 'Gem' from squealing in delighted laughter at her Squire's side.

Which had then turned into Smithson and Paul mutually fussing and crooning over her smaller self. Her husband after that further swore an oath to protect and raise 'Gem' as his daughter in truth.

All around that was uncomfortable and confusing in precisely how it made Jewel feel across both her bodies.

Still even that excitement had settled out and rapidly there was just a comfortable routine.

Looking at Smithson now on steady and reliable Oxhoof you'd not even think He and Paul were anything but the very truest of friends and sword brothers.

It was good she thought but also left her in disquiet and feeling more the fraud.

Wasin't marriage supposed to change your life entirely?

Jewel felt hardly any different.

Annoyed to find something else inexplicable that was undeniably tied to her status as a dragon.

But on the balance she was in fact much the same.

Jewel had felt more changed from going to war than being married.

And that just did not seem right.

 

[Nighzmarquls]

5.i

Today I am rested but still aching from climbing a mountain worth of stairs. But at least I am well enough to be able to put down to parchment what was spoken of in the presence of the God Serpent Seer of the Mountain Shialtza and his environs.

Beyond the torture that was the steep stepped climb the structure of the monastery itself was from without nearly a fortress.

As much cut from the mountain as built by stone laid upon stone.

We entered however after our ascent into a flattened garden, past a passageway which held no barrier of wood or metal.

The idyllic peace of it after the arduous trek up the stairway came as a bit of a shock.

As did the warmth which nestled within behind sheltered walls.

The lack of guards at first confused me then but reflecting a day after I have come to understand.

If any force of arms had sought to invade that monastery I am now certain the climb alone would sap any vigor for the fight they might have held.

This walled refuge on a mountain peak was much like a broad arcade with tall walls set more to guard against wind than any conceivable assault and many doors and passages into smaller structures or chambers, with gardens flourishing and tended by the strange robed figures which moved smoothly all around us.

Of note was the quieting of the wind and the silence of all figures present.

Through this outer section we were taken deeper by direct road.

The inner circle of the structure was beyond another wall and stilled the air even further.

Furthermore I saw that none of the robed attendants around us spoke or even seemed to breathe as I could hear, nor signal in any way though they moved and acted in concert.

I saw not the faces of anyone but me and my father anywhere on those grounds. But the tending of the lands and plants was well done and with the care of tender masters in their art.

Beyond vegetable gardens many small trees were being trimmed back into fantastic and elegant shapes set in pleasing positions among the many paths and smaller buildings.

It was a soothing place even while we were led along the path and up more star blighted stairs.

After ascending to the next level of the monastery, father and I began to apprehend what had summoned us.

For even though we were at least forty feet distant on a straight cut path from the building which surrounded it we saw the God Serpent.

White coils looped and shifted in evidence above the walls of the central structure and wings which shined with purest silver feathers spread into the heavens to extents I could not properly judge.

The chill of the sky vault was so close in the monastery at this level it was only by the grace of it being midday and the walls that sheltered us that we were not chilled to the bone.

This closeness of the vault grew even greater when we passed elegant arches within the courtyard itself, where if I am not a fool I believe the structures and roofing of the stonework itself was holding the weight of the vaulted heavens!

It is to this closeness to the eternal and infinite sky that I attribute the impossibility of describing the full extent of the God Serpent.

Shialtza, Seer of the Mountain.

Filled that courtyard with coils and pressed the sunlit sky itself out and upwards with the billowing of his wings.

His face was somewhat like that of a horse, or perhaps the faces of the spiral horned southern stags.

The eyes were black and upon his head was a turbulent mane of white which moved even in the dead still air of that place.

A swept back line of this mane traveled down the back of the neck and along every visible coil of shining white scales.

When he spoke it was as thunder and I admit that I missed the first words of greeting, though almost certainly clear and knowable they were.

He spoke in a very refined form of Kolkor.

And here I could tell even my father with his talent for tongues struggled. The words were strange and sharp from those either of us knew and what ones I could also follow were archaic and bizarre in their placing.

But as the conversation passed there was a simpleing of words that the God Serpent took upon himself to be better understood.

After we could do more than simply gawk at his magnificence the matters turned to familiar business of my father's trade.

The serpent's interests were predominantly tales of our homeland, what roads we had traveled and the state of the world beyond his valley.

Much of which I have already written here in my logs and I admit drifted from my attention while I beheld him.

The Courtyard which the god serpent hosted us in was by my eye's measured at least thirty feet to a side, but the far end of it was obscured behind the pearl-white scales of the Seer.

And by roughest measure I would say he had to be at least a hundred and fifty feet in length if ever he had unspooled entirely.

However in all the time he spoke to father of our home and places we had been and ways we had passed to get there I never saw the serpent shift much from the reposed sprawl he was in at our arrival.

After the interrogation of our journeys was done the God Serpent offered to trade any goods or trinkets that interested him for what wealth he could offer.

To which Father admitted that we had not brought the full stores of our treasures to the monastery as such a climb under burden would be terribly arduous on mere mortal backs.

And that brought another surprise!
In what I could surmise from the Seer's Kolkor and also the expressive if beastly face there was an understanding and even some contrition for that.

A thing I honestly did not expect to find in such a divine beast which brushed the very sky itself and remained unharmed.

However it promised to send an emissary down to our place of rest in the following days to negotiate trade and overlook our goods.

Such business to which Father is in fact now calling me to attend as it is catching well into the morning and sight has been made of the emissaries descending that accursed stairway!

-Excerpt from the travel log Pythra of Veracules

 

[Nighzmarquls]

5.ii

On the far west and southern lands at the edges of the empire you can find a wide canyon that allows passage through from the great sea's lands and its blessed sky vault into the hostile wastes beyond.

On return one can take the seaway which flows rough in a torrential speed but still evenly enough for small craft and canny ship masters and drains from the dread sea which fills the northern half of these realms and by it reach the great sea of the sun realms of cantor.

The whole of these distant lands is so named for its place between what once were two rivers, in antiquity before their flows were bent into one another at the fall of the Heaven's Gate.
The Vault of the Twin Rivers.

They are named The Great River and the Fast River. Even though the lesser of the two is since lost.

These lands formerly belonged to the old and gone Assyrian Lords, and are now covered with nothing but villages besides the teeming and sole city from which the Heaven's Gate fell that still bears its name.

Upon your first arrival into these lands the broken spire of the Gate is the most distinct feature for the eye. It can be clearly seen even at the furthest edges of the vault, although its base is nearly as distant from the viewer as all the sun lands of cantor at their furthest extent. Despite this distance the eyes do not need to be keen to spot the broken and jagged edifice which yet stands tall despite its crumpled and ruined state.

In the approach along the greater of the rivers one will find the scar of the gate's toppling coming into view. Scattered all across in its wreckage, in such number and scale is this toppled work of man that they appear as foothills and mountains themselves notable from acts of nature or divine only in their exacting line.

The local tales tell that this great felling was four thousand years past and occurred across this venerable realm to the very foothills of its mountains and even further to have left scars where the peak of the tower smote the southeastern firmament of the sky vault.

Among these remains of lost greatness dwell the people of the twin rivers.

Third most populous are the Assyrians, who once ruled all the realm and are so named for their god, Ashur. This divine has ever been guiding and intent upon those who dwell here. Although the Assyrians once ruled all the lands between the rivers they are now mostly found within the foundations of the broken Heaven's Gate.

Their tales claim to be the descendants of the gate builders but so too do all the people of the two rivers claim this as well and the gods are silent on which is right.

The Orei are by far the second most populous people of the land of two rivers, whose ways are among nearly all the scattered villages. Their farms bring bounties in dates, lettuce, lentil, onion, barley and beans but are otherwise humble folk with little offered for trade.

And most numerous of all are the dogmen who are so known as the Gutti, having settled along the shores of the great lake which now pools against the ruins of the fall hills as well as tending herds and livestock in the mountains at the edge of this accursed realm's sky vault.

Those that farm are as the Orei in their trade and often live amongst them and will claim them as their kin and people.

Their mountain dwelling brothers are the ones who claim all dogmen as Gutti (even those disgraced to work and till land among the Orei), and will mostly sell leather, strange fermented milk liquor, cheese and slaves.

- Excerpt from Orion's Historica naturalis Cantora

 

[Zaealix]

…The way those vows resounded amongst the Fauxfire, as Jewel calls it makes me wonder if their immediate friendship was perhaps a result of the two willing to wager their divine boons for the same reason, and that prompting greater unity between them…
Also LOLOL at Gem proving she's Jewel's Daughter instead of a lesser drone body!
Pffft!

Some Tyrant Jewel is, unable to keep her own lairspawn from acting independently!

The best part would be Jewel's reaction to that sentence!

 

[MilitantBird]

After a brief glare they had then matched one another in first the clasped forearms of brothers in arms, and then the full embrace of sworn allies or close family.

Click to shrink...

The manshake is absolutely hilarious, good work.

 

[Nighzmarquls]

6.1

Winter had come to Valasect, and it would be Jewel's first celebration as lady of the village through the darkest night of the year.

"Really? Your family was so involved in the matter? You attended and participated every year?"

Jewel was finding that for all the admirable qualities of character her husband had, he was bereft in experiences that she was coming to learn were what marked her family as so called provincial lords and ladies.

As far as she was concerned those that sneered as if the term made them dirty were the ones deeply deficient in vital skill and experience.

Which was why Paul was having these failings corrected now that they had settled home.

He was put to work immediately in helping Jewel organize the manor's staff. Not quite taking up a role as a wife in the household, Jewel after all insisted upon her due time spent with the women of Valasect in spinning, sewing and weaving.

But he was taking on responsibilities a bit closer to Jorge's duties that had not involved Jewel's baths.

When there was time he saw to the disposition of the staff, hired or called up the service of villagers to stay in the quarters of Jewel's house to aid Dariusz and Eryka. Paul even put some work in assisting Muriel with organizing the arming and training for Jewel's slowly growing number of footmen.

He also was often trading off with Smithson in seeing to 'Gem' so that her Squire could fulfill his official title of master knight of the horse.

But while his help in all of this was appreciated, the real labor of her husband was in the sending of birds and arranging their exchange with seemingly every corner of the realm.

Rochford had a small dove house setup in one of its remaining towers.

Valasect and Jewel's manor were making do with a small wood shed for their birds, But she was sure that if her Husband's collection of doves continued to grow at this pace she would have to commision an entire tower half again as tall as her Father's to house them all!

The delay it would bring to prospecting for a natural mountain spring or other water source to run into her bathing chamber was upsetting but he insisted proper correspondence with all the upcoming personages of Viznove and the realm were vital if Jewel's eventual inheritance was not going to spark a war among the lords requiring intervention from the High King.

So acting as (and someday acquiring) the dovemaster of Valasect was for at least a few years going to be Paul's primary labor.

When Jewel saw the expense for a breeding pair of good heritage messenger birds she appreciated a bit more why the recommended punishment for children that harmed them during the harrow was so severe.

Their dowry had been impressive but a distressing amount of it was constantly draining away to further develop the manor as not just a home but as Paul said it "an administrative hub fit for the heir of Viznove".

But those many labors were not the ones imminently ahead for Jewel or her man this season.

Today they had an audience with Adorján and Jewel was going to have settled once and for all what role was required of the lady and lord of Valasect to see through the greatest depths of winter.

Her husband however was less enthused by it.

"We have snow hunts either or both of us could be attending, Invitations made for feasts in our own hall to foster goodwill. A half dozen other moves and acts made over winter to better secure our position among the lords. Attending a ceremony over winter for peasants is a waste of ti-"

Jewel had practiced the tone she cut him off with. It had a hint of bethica, much of her own Mother and just a dash of the Countess' sharpness.

"Husband, It is the responsibility and obligation of any lord or lady of Rochford to join with their charges in defense of their lives and land. Whether that be by beast, invasion or divinity. We will be doing whatever is called for to aid in the fight against the bite of winter's cold here in Valasect."

And that was the end of it.

He had a pained look for her as they waited for the headman's arrival.

But Jewel was only doing what he himself had identified. It was Jewel's role to be the strength of Valasect, someday it would be her role to be the strength of Viznove.

A lady she might be, but she was a Martial one. Something those awful girls had tried to make a lodestone on her neck. However Jewel would shape those words made in spite and turn them around on all that cursed at her with them. Just as she would bend the near spat term of provincial into something honorable.

If she had her say in it Jewel would raise herself and her care of her people up to and shame every lord that merely pretended at defense for those under their protection.

She would be better than Bathory.

And just in time Adorján was announced by one of the boys that was reasonable enough with his letters. Unlike Rochford it would be a long time until Jewel had an overabundance of criers.

And then her headman was before them.

Jewel lounging on the still fresh and raw stones of her feasting hall.

Curled amiably around the mostly normal wood of her Husband's chair.

It was a pretty thing and Paul swore at its comfort but the wood was so soft Jewel had to be careful not to touch it roughly.

Finally the necessary formalities were done and Jewel and Paul could get to the business of the solstice.

"Adorján, Have you found what role I and my husband should take this winter for the longest night? I'd like to make sure the arrangements are settled well ahead of time."

Her Headman, old and somewhat crooked by age he might be, met Jewel's eyes as she had long insisted he should.

"I must pardon you Lady Jewel and Lord Paul. But All things said plain and honestly?"
Jewel nodded again, she had stressed he should always speak plainly to her when in private. And had reiterated such that her husband was to be taken as a confidant of hers as well.

"It would be best for neither of you to be involved at all."

Jewel stared at her head man.

Surely she had heard him wrong?

"Excuse me?!"

Jewel's voice was shriller than she meant it to be.

 

[Zaealix]

The system is to NOT have the dragon or lord messing around a perfectly good system!
Jewel I think would be providing benefit to get into the spinning rooms, but Paul…Hrrrm. He probably is going to be overseeing the establishment of diplomatic measures.

 

[Nighzmarquls]

6.2

Jewel coddled her smaller self in her coils and pumped the vigor of her wyrm flame deep into their little core of a heart to let it seep in waves back out into the rest of her diminutive extremities.

There was a feel to it both the same and different from how she felt it welling up and flowing through the length of her larger self.

When Jewel flew or spewed her fire in one of the many manners she had learned there was a directionality to it.

But otherwise wyrmflame came from within equally and all along her body.

From tail to snout and even along the bones of her wing fingers.

Its presence could be smothered, slowed, or drained temporarily.

But it always came from her all at once.

Inside the body of 'Gem' that was a very different matter.

Jewel could push it into her smaller self any particular place she wished.

It was most comforting to press it deep into her little chest and fill her heart, but an arm, a finger, a single claw or scale could all be the place she pushed the flame.

And then like a cloth wicking away spilled wine the flame was pulled into the rest of her spawn's body with an undeniable tension.

Seeking to fill her with an equal saturation.

And from there leak out into the world.

Since before she hatched Jewel had been filling her smaller self to bring peace and comfort.

At first to drive off the terrifying sensation of emptiness that a life without her flame brought.

But now she did it solely for the calm it helped bring to both her hearts.

And right now she needs that.

Valasect did not want her involved in their winter ritual.

"Neither your husband nor you or the gods which cling to you are of our land."

So had said her headman, plainly and with all the candor she had begged him to bring to her when they met in private council.

"The priest of our temple warns that it could bring insult to those that guard us in winter."

When Jewel had brought up how amiably she had been on with the Veles in his place as Old Man in Rochford, Andorjan had struck an even heavier blow then she thought possible.

"We don't waste the lives of our wisest playing host to the Veles himself each winter."
She huddled around and against herself to try and bring some sense to it all.

"The priest does his duty properly and stands between the village and the star borne. We give him a gift of song, tall fires and a slain pig. But not a man's life in sacrifice."

Jewel had never thought about it before. That anyone could possibly do it any differently than her home had but then he'd explained it plain and undeniably to her and her confused husband.

"If someone has trouble they need to speak to the Velles personally about, then just going to Rochford on the longest night is better than potentially losing years with a good grandfather."

Paul had been briefly amused, but when Jewel thanked Adorján and then sequestered herself in her bedroom to hug at her smaller self until she stopped wanting to cry he grew quiet and gentle.

His hand on her side was soft, moving in long strokes along her scales. His fingers lightly fluttered as they rose up and down her largest, newest scales. It made an almost rattling hum on her ribs if he let his hand pass swift enough.

But right now it is slow.

Letting each finger rise up and down those fresh hills of hide stronger than steel.

Finally Jewel felt able to speak, although she was briefly confused between which throat she was supposed to use.

"Gh*rzztkhk"

No, that was Gem's throat, too short and squat for words.

It made her husband laugh and shift to coo and delight her smaller self with little silly finger flutters and pokes.

That had been strange the first time it happened but Jewel would take anything to lift her mood from the tumult she had found herself in.

When her smaller self had calmed enough for both of her, Jewel finally spoke.

"Paul? What should I do? It is my duty as their lady to give aid in this. But a good lady trusts her headman and his council in matters of common law."

Her husband smiled gently as he spoke.

"Why not attend in your parent's tradition? Like you said you are on good terms with the veles and Rochford hosts his presence for that night."

Jewel squeezed her smaller self a little more tightly.

"But Valasect is my demesne... I should be here with them for the darkest night. When we push back upon winter."

Paul shrugged.

"But this year you are not welcome, it is your right to demand a place with them. But Adorján makes good sense! Valasect's people and their gods do not know you. To force our way when there is no need?"

Jewel stilled, looking down at herself, small and fragile and yet still undeniably her.

She turned the thought over in her head and thought of all the ways that Bathory turned and twisted Jewel because of her right as Liege over Rochford.

Of all the girls that Jewel had not been able to save and would not be able to save because that is how the Countess of Viznove enacted her right as lady over her city.

Jewel thought of the stories told and carved in relief all through the valleys of the Ridgetail about the Tyrant Wyrm.

Certainty filled her heart on what she had to do.

"This year and maybe next we will stay with my family for the longest night. But after we will make efforts to know and be known by my people and their gods. I am tired of being feared by those I'm sworn to protect Paul."

Her husband nodded solemnly at that and then utterly shocked her by descending on their 'daughter' with a tickle attack that had both of her bodies cackling in joy.

 

[Nighzmarquls]

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'.

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?

 

[Zaealix]

It's that Gem is you while your Wyrmfire is in her but once it fades she's you without the big body. The Wyrmfire I think also gives you a copy of her experiences and whatnot buuuut.
She's also an arguement that you are terrible at being a tyrant because she was in your range and still had her own reaction!
I just hope Jewel doesn't have a conniption at the idea that Gen is more her daughter then an extension of herself.

 

[Rayne-of-Faerie]

It's that Gem is you while your Wyrmfire is in her but once it fades she's you without the big body. The Wyrmfire I think also gives you a copy of her experiences and whatnot buuuut.
She's also an arguement that you are terrible at being a tyrant because she was in your range and still had her own reaction!
I just hope Jewel doesn't have a conniption at the idea that Gen is more her daughter then an extension of herself.

Click to shrink...

Promptly followed by everyone around that she tells responding with some version of "you just noticed... Seriously?"