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[i-will-write-and-draw]

Happy pride I guess

[autumnslance]

FFXIV Write 2021 #3: Scale

Coerthas, circa 1556

“It is nearly time,” Avengret intoned, her deep voice a purr to Corran’s ears now.

“I’m grateful for your trust in me,” he said, leaning against her for warmth. The autumn day was chilly, but the dragon radiated more heat than his kitchen stove.

“You have been a good and faithful soldier,” she said. “I reward those who have earned it.” Her large head turned on her long neck to look at him more directly, orange eyes dancing like flames. “But I sense ambivalence, my son.”

He gave his response thought. “I want to take the next step, yet part of me fears...what if, like Tiron, I cannot turn back?”

Avengret harumphed. “You would cling to your weak mortal form rather than grasp for the ascendance offered?”

“As a man I can continue to work among other men, do what is needed there.”

“And?” Her burning eyes bore into him.

He smiled; not much got past the dragon. “My children are yet young, and need their father--and I can better turn them to the right path as their father.”

She nodded. “Your care for your young does you credit. While it is a risk, that your body may prefer its stronger draconic rebirth--and, also for one’s mind to break, as did Breckt’s into little more than a beast--I have elevated you among your brothers and sisters for your strength of will. For your love for your family. In this, I believe, you will remain true.” She stretched her neck up and shook herself. “And I would not waste the time spent on building you up, to have you fall to some fool squire should you be forced to transform to defend yourself, with no practice or understanding of what you truly could be.”

Corran let out a deep breath and nodded. “I don’t wish to let you down, my lady.”

She chuckled, the rumbling of it shaking his bones. “See that you don’t.”

——

Comfraire’s hands shook, Corran noticed, as the old priest passed the vial over. He had not quite recovered from an illness suffered last winter, his age catching up to him. “This alchemical mix with Avengret’s blood should allow temporary transformation,” he told Corran. Even Comfraire’s soft, quiet voice seemed shakier, thinner. “There will be pain, but you are young and strong enough to bear it.”

Corran took the vial, then looked up at Comfraire. “Why have you never partaken?” He had noticed a long time ago that Comfraire had never shared in Avengret’s strength.

The old man shook his head. “My mother’s people fled oppression in Gridania; Thordan’s sin does not flow strongly enough in my veins--and the one time I tried anyway, it left me violently ill, scaly patches on my body but not true scales. Simple bad reaction. They faded to odd scars over time, but it was judged unsafe for me to try again. So I serve in other ways.”

“I’m sorry.”

Comfraire smiled ruefully. “Men like you shall see the work continue once I am gone. Though I deem it unlikely now that I shall help induct your children into the truth, as I did for you and your father.”

Corran suppressed a wince as he did whenever thinking of his father, dead while Corran was yet an adolescent, sacrificing himself to avoid letting the truth of his affiliations condemn his family to the Inquisition’s flames. It was one reason Corran had been so hesitant at first to renew his own commitment; he had kept his own family separated from this life, Emelia knowing nothing of the war’s truth.

Zaine would soon be old enough, he thought, after a lifetime of seeding bits of doubt into his childrens’ Halonic education. The boy asked more questions than his teachers liked. Aeryn too, even so much younger, her mind quick and words ceaseless. Corran smiled simply thinking of them.

“I’ll have to muddle through somehow,” he assured Comfraire.

The old priest snorted a chuckle and gestured. “Our lady waits. Let us see what you become.”

—-

The sun was high overhead as Corran popped the lid off the vial, eyes locked onto Avengret’s as he drank the mixture of her blood with Comfraire’s alchemy.

The burning sensation was familiar by now, racing through his veins. The rippling of his skin, the wrenching of bones, the twisting of his insides however--that was all new, and Corran struggled not to scream. When he failed, it sounded more like a roar as his mouth extended into a snout, his teeth suddenly large and sharp. He flailed, limbs feeling the wrong shape, too much skin yet stiff, hard enough that falling to the stones did not scrape and hurt as it should.

He panted on the stones, heat still roiling in his guts, unsure where his head was in relation to the rest of him, his shape entirely unfamiliar.

“Magnificent,” Avengret intoned.

He looked up at her, his neck feeling long and wobbly. She did not seem so far away, or so large as she normally did. She was grinning in her way, pride shining in her orange eyes.

The other men seemed far below, and so small.

“A wyvern,” Comfraire said, hushed tones strained with relief. “Strong indeed.”

“Rise, my son,” Avengret purred. “Let us test your new wings.”

Wings; Corran had wings. They had grown from where his arms had been, longer and stronger. He had a tail too, letting it snap back and forth along the ground.

He followed Avengret’s directions, soon pushing off with his smaller hindlegs and lifting into the air, the fire in his veins singing with joy at finally, finally being where he belonged.

There was no time to play with his newfound freedom; Avengret pushed his speed, his endurance, his ability to now summon fire and wind from deep inside to attack. She came at him with claws and teeth, pushing him to respond in kind. For bells they trained, until the alchemy was spent and she caught him as he fell from the sky, ashes in his mouth as his body wrenched back into the shape of a man, carried in her claws to return to the cold ground.

—-

He was bone weary and felt stumble-drunk as he returned to his home, the sun slipping toward the horizon. His body was small yet heavy and clumsy, his feet odd when in his mind he still soared over the land.

“Daddy!” Corran braced himself as his daughter launched herself from the top of the low stone fence ringing their yard and into his embrace. “You're finally home and just in time for supper! Did you have a good day?”

“Careful, Hummingbird!” He laughed, lifting her. The familiar action steadied him, her small, squirmy form taking all his focus. “I had a...very good day, but am very tired now. What are you doing out here?”

“Not being underfoot,” Aeryn pouted, snuggling against his chest. “Mama told me to wait until you got home or supper was ready, whatever came first. But now you’re home and since you’re not busy anymore can I tell you about today? Cuz Mama’s busy and Zaine won’t cuz he was there for most of it so just tells me to go ‘way.”

Corran chuckled. “All right; you tell me about your day while I clean up for supper.”

He carried her inside, listening to her excited babble, only able to follow some of it; the child talked too fast and too much, and he had no idea where she had picked that up. Part of him hoped she grew out of it, but part of him found a strange sort of calm in listening to his little girl’s reedy voice recount her tiny adventures through the day, a contrast to the weight of Avengret’s expectations.

The ashen taste still lingered in his mouth, every ilm of him ached like he had been wrenched and bruised. He had experienced a miracle today--and here he was, taking off his boots and washing up as his daughter jabbered on, as normal. Like any other day.

Aeryn’s chatter paused as Emelia called them to dinner, and Corran sent her on ahead as he spared a glance in the mirror. He looked as he always did, he thought, almost disappointed naught was different.

Corran paused at the door from the washroom to take in his family. Zaine helped set the table while Emelia tried to settle Aeryn in her chair. Embers stirred in the ashes left in his belly, a manageable heat that embraced his heart. This was why he did what he did, all in secret, balancing his life between his necessary work...and them.

His wife looked up and smiled, weary but radiant, concern flickering in her dark gaze. He hated keeping such secrets from her, but he had to keep his lives separate for now. It was safer for them--and better, he realized, for him, as he continued to entrench himself in rebellion.

Someday the balance would tip, he knew, and it could all come crashing down any moment but for now he kissed Emelia, ruffled Zaine’s hair, and listened to Aeryn, surrounded in the comfort of his home and the war far away.