044.001

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Interlude

Companion

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Projects represented time expenditure. The more projects there were, the more time needed to be spent. Even a simple and tiny project could take up a large portion of any individual day. Adding new projects always represented an investment of time.

Unless one was the Pharaoh, that time investment generally did not see a return in the form of additional time. Even if completing one project would save time on another project, it didn’t give that time back.

The being currently referring to itself as Companion had run out of time twice before. The first time, it had hardly had a concept of time. A dragon’s body was one of near perpetual hibernation. An existence entirely unsustainable in the modern era. Legends told of a time before the collapse of the First City when dragons weren’t the fallen species that they were today. Of a time when they might have been awake far more often, sustaining themselves on magic more than matter. It seemed logical that there was some truth to such legends, for Companion could not imagine dragons as they were today forming naturally. There was just no point to it.

So its time had run out before even knowing what time really meant. Of course, there hadn’t been any projects back then. Just slumber occasionally broken up by brief flashes of consciousness.

Brakkt and Irulon, working together, had changed all that.

Everything flipped on its head.

Consciousness was the predominant state of being after that point in time. There were brief moments of emptiness, but those passed by without any thought to them. It was a time of learning, of discovery, and of projects. Most of which had not been of Companion’s design. Serving more as an often-ignored adviser to Irulon was still far more fascinating moment of existence than anything Companion had experienced before. Learning the value of projects, of time management, and of time itself…

Separating from Irulon was, in retrospect, simply the next logical step on the progression of further self-improvement. Both for Companion and for Irulon. The latter had grown far too accustomed to the former, relying on Companion to the point of hindering her own self-actualization. Companion, meanwhile, would have been content staying with Irulon, but that was really only because it hadn’t yet fully grasped the concept of autonomy.

Able to move for itself, think for itself, and act on its own? All without the crippling body of a true dragon? An unbelievable change in situation.

Although, Companion wondered to itself, I might have started too many projects.

Companion stood in its private room, which had once been Irulon’s laboratory. Since she wasn’t currently running experiments on recently deceased bodies for her Toymaker projects, Irulon had offered it to Companion as a more permanent living space. With some help from Alyssa, it even had a rather homely touch. There was a bed, a bookcase, a bath set into what had once been a secret room, and a rather nice desk for it to use to organize its projects.

At the moment, that organization was… not organized at at all. There were stacks of papers, books, and more papers. One wall was less a wall and more a permanent window into alternate worlds. Mostly the Endless Expanse. Companion had considered trying for some of those darkened panels that Alyssa had mentioned, simply for the sake of completeness. Knowing that a true demon had used them to teleport around was less a concern than adding on yet another project.

The Pharaoh wanted Companion to read through a good hundred tomes, all as thick as Brakkt’s arms. Irulon had read through most of them before, if not all of them, but that had been before their joining. Her memory recall from before then was less than perfect. Companion still kept getting a strange sense of having read everything before.

A man-at-arms, who went by the name of Devorik, was taking a few hours out of his days to instruct Companion in the ways of more martial combat. A field that Irulon had always neglected, even despite Companion’s advice. Using spell cards was well and good, but they could be exhausted. Barring extra time between need to replenish them, arcanists would be little better than whelplings running around a battlefield. Brakkt could use both swords and spells. Companion would as well, thanks to recruiting the palace’s premier sword fighter.

The Rank Seven spell card creation project was well under way, though it had hit something of a road block at the moment. The Observatorium had long theorized such things, but most actual uses turned out poorly for the caster, resulting in the topic becoming unofficial anathema. Companion was having to start mostly from scratch. Especially because, unlike Alyssa, it couldn’t just walk right into the Observatorium. The protections that kept riff-raff out also kept Companion out and there was some contention regarding admittance of someone with such monstrous features. It was highly illegal to allow monsters access to human magic, after all. The Pharaoh was not willing to rescind that particular decree at the current time.

Companion had a feeling that he was not too interested in having someone run around with powerful magic that he couldn’t cast. A dragon and Alyssa were likely the only two who would be able to make use of a Rank Seven spell.

Learning Time magic had stalled for much the same reason. The Pharaoh seemed a bit jealous of his position of power.

As a bit of good news, the friendship-with-Alyssa project was progressing. Given the other woman’s abilities to manipulate the world around her and, likely, reality itself, keeping in her good graces was an extremely high value project. It was simultaneously one of the more time consuming and less time consuming projects that Companion had on the table. Less time consuming because, thanks to her relation with Irulon, Companion and Alyssa shared a connection already. More time consuming because Companion didn’t really know what it required to progress beyond some vague notions of how relationships worked. Dragons had no such… concerns and therefore knew very little of how someone should interact with someone else. Irulon didn’t provide much help there as Companion’s companion really only had a superficial understanding of her own.

There were, surprisingly, not many books on the subject. At least not that Companion had been able to find in the palace library.

There were another few dozen projects, some of which were still only in Companion’s head. Most of which were far smaller yet no less time consuming than the aforementioned projects. Yes. This was definitely a skill that Irulon had not taught. Irulon had always done the managing of projects on her own. She decided which tasks they would undertake during any given day. With autonomy came a need to learn to properly manage time. Which was a project all on its own.

Standing, Companion turned away from the array of projects on the table and decided to go for a walk. It was something that other humans did. While bonded with Irulon and even since separating, Companion had noted the phenomenon of needing to clear one’s head. Irulon rarely did such a thing, but Irulon was a lot more practiced at being human than Companion was. Having a mostly human body, it stood to reason that such a thing might help here as well.

Stopping first at Irulon’s room, Companion found it empty. Mostly. Tess was around, tidying up the bed. The servant pointedly ignored Companion’s presence and, judging by previous interactions, would continue to do so unless directly addressed. It being early afternoon, Irulon had likely ventured down to the Observatorium. She had been spending a decent amount of time there, trying to research how the development of spell cards came about, how ritual circles had been compressed down to a design that would fit on a small card, in the hopes that the past might inform her future needs of changing how spells were cast once again.

A quick glance through their link proved that Companion’s suspicion was correct.

Companion’s next stop was a floor down. Normally, the floor and the next few below it were something of a nursery. Human whelplings, spawn of the Pharaoh, tended to use those floors until they could care for themselves. They would sometimes use those floors even after they could care for themselves. However the Pharaoh’s spawn managed their lives wasn’t of interest to Companion, not at the moment. Alyssa had taken up residence on the uppermost floor, and was Companion’s current target. Yet, upon knocking on the door, Companion found itself greeted with nothing but silence.

Alyssa tended to not sleep in this late, so she must have been out as well. Knowing Alyssa’s habits less well than Irulon’s, Companion couldn’t guess at where she might have gone.

Brakkt was in Illuna. Technically, Companion could get there without much trouble thanks to the portal, but then there would be the problem of finding him. A Message would help, but without knowing what, exactly, the point was behind taking a walk like this, Companion wasn’t sure what to say. Thinking for a minute that talking to the Pharaoh would be next on the hierarchy of people to visit almost had it moving back up the stairs.

But the Pharaoh had said to not speak with him again until after accomplishing the task of reading the history books.

Considering reading for a moment ended in rejecting that idea. Having started this walkabout, Companion did not want to stop before seeing it through to its completion. It wasn’t sure where that completion was or what it would take to get there, but the only clue was to keep walking.

Companion’s walk took it outside the palace. The first time it had left since arriving in the city over two weeks ago. This might even help with the Pharaoh’s project. Learning how the history of humans informed modern society was surely important. In addition, viewing humans outside the palace would be a novel experience.

They are certainly viewing me, Companion thought to itself, noting just how many stares it was getting. Many of the stares were hostile. Many were fearful. It was difficult to discern between the two. Both often involved the individuals fleeing. Leaning on the link with Irulon, it became much easier to figure out which were which. Of course, hate and fear weren’t the only two looks people gave it. A wide variety of human expressions presented themselves, like an artist’s palette. Lust, envy, indifference, lust again…

Companion made a game of it. Locking eyes with a human, it would try to identify the expression based only off its own experience with Irulon before dipping into her head to confirm or deny its suspicions. Human expressions wasn’t something it had thought to pay much attention to during its stay with Irulon, so its own experience in the matter was quite limited, even trying to view it through that lens.

The game grew more interesting the further it walked from the palace. People there were generally wealthy, and had guards that would step between their charges and any potential threat. They didn’t seem to want to fight, however. In fact, the moment Companion walked past, they often rushed off, fleeing in a slightly more dignified manner than those who turned and ran the moment they spotted a monster walking down the street.

The poorer sections of the city resulted in far more fear without the presence of bodyguards and city guards. There was far more running and, where applicable, hiding. A lot less indifference and almost no envy. Surprisingly, there was a lot more lust than Companion had expected. It knew that Irulon’s form was well appreciated by most humans, and that its current form was based off that, but it was still surprising. Companion couldn’t recall Irulon receiving such attentions…

Then again, while joined with Irulon, Companion had only been able to pay attention to what Irulon had paid attention to. She could have received all this every day and simply chose to ignore it and walk on by without care.

Companion thought to ask a few passers by about just what they found appealing in a half-monster body, but nobody stuck around to answer when it approached them. After the fifth such failure, Companion figured that it was about time to head back. Night would fall soon. While it hadn’t figured out the exact purpose of its walk, it had found it to be enlightening nonetheless. Observing people was quite an interesting experience.

Though it would probably be a good idea to observe structures on the way back.

Turning, Companion found a wooden board swinging toward its face.

Fires of pain lit up as the wood crushed its nose. Companion’s vision went black for an instant. The world was tilted when it came back, with the ground quickly rushing up to meet its face. A foot out front stopped its fall, though some blood kept going, pooling in the dirt. Companion put a hand to its face and pulled it away to find it completely red, slick with blood.

Irulon knew what to do. Muscle memory kicked in as she reached for her tome at her side.

Her fingers grasped nothing.

It wasn’t Irulon. It had forgotten for just a moment. Companion had decided to go for the smaller decks of cards for portability. The kind Alyssa used, rather than Irulon’s bulky tome. But those cards weren’t on its person either. Neither was its sword, nor even a scrap of cloth for added protection.

The human shouted something. It was apparently irritated at the presence of a monster, claiming that it wasn’t just going to let something like Companion walk around like it owned the place. Companion wasn’t sure why it was explaining its intentions. Human combat ritual, likely.

Under other circumstances, Companion might have thanked the human. The taste of blood was rather interesting. Much different than skin. Unfortunately, there wasn’t time to analyze the differences. The human holding the board was rearing back for another strike.

And his attack seemed to be bolstering the courage of other humans, inciting them to approach closer with hostile intent.

Companion raised an arm, catching the oncoming blow with the scales of its forearm, feeling next to nothing as the human struck, though the blow was enough to almost knock it to the ground. At the same time, it breathed in and let it out nice and slow.

Brown wisps of air curled around Companion’s face. Its broken nose made a crunching noise as it snapped back into position. Flesh knitted itself back together. While the blood tasted interesting, the pain was a bit too distracting to keep around for the moment.

The back of Companion’s throat tingled. Magic welled up. Ingrained instinct screamed to simply exhale and obliterate the threat. But Companion’s human body couldn’t withstand a flow of magma coming from its mouth any more than the threat could. Dragon breath was uncontrollable. A straight blast of a single power. It was impossible to simply breathe in tight enough of a stream to avoid damaging itself. Even something that wasn’t deadly on its own, such as a jet of high powered water, would run the danger of tearing out the teeth Alyssa had spent so long crafting.

In the time it took to analyze the possible outcomes of a few dozen different breaths, the human threat had pulled back, readying itself for a third strike. Two others were approaching, one having picked up a metal rod that had been leaning up against some run-down shack. Fire, lightning, death, time, boiling steam… all would destroy Companion just as surely as they would destroy the human.

Companion drew in a deep breath through its nose, holding it while running through a few more options at the very last minute. But it couldn’t delay any further. Not without putting itself into a potentially deadly situation. The protective scales on its body did not entirely cover it, leaving plenty of spots just as vulnerable as any other human. Another strike to the head could make it black out for far longer than last time, which would only allow these humans to engage in whatever vile means of bodily destruction that they wished.

The breath that Companion eventually unleashed was unlike anything it had ever tried before.

The threat’s third strike never came. He paused half way, stumbling back instead of advancing.

Darkness curled in the air, spreading with turbulent flow from its mouth. A segment of the world, cast into such a deep shadow that not even sunlight could pierce it. The darkness spread further and faster as Companion emptied the lungs its current body had. Unfortunately, a single breath of an unpracticed magic was not enough to completely occlude Companion from sight. The shadows wouldn’t actually hurt the humans, just as it hadn’t hurt its mouth.

It was akin to a cat arching its back and increasing the volume of its tail in an attempt to look more frightening to a predator.

And on simple human minds, it seemed to work. All of the approaching assailants ceased their approach. It didn’t look like it would last for long. The threat who had initially struck Companion tightened its hands around its makeshift weapon as if trying to work up the courage to venture into the wisps of darkness. Once it discovered that they wouldn’t cause harm, Companion would be right back where it started.

Having bought itself a little space, Companion tried out something else. Cupping its hands around its mouth and nose, Companion tried breathing in such a way that no one else would be affected by its current breath. It wasn’t perfect. Human hands had great difficulty in forming an air-tight seal. But with the space between itself and those it did not wish to affect, strength flowed into Companion and nowhere else.

The body Alyssa had created strained against the sudden influx of raw power. Companion had tried to keep it to a low level, but breath was uncontrollable.

The threat gathered enough courage and tried to strike. Companion batted the plank aside, snapping it in two with the force of its movement. A slight pain lanced up its side where skin split apart from bulging muscles. Ribs cracked with loud pops, never having been intended to support strength to the degree that Companion’s muscles were now capable of demonstrating.

Companion ignored it, gripping the human threat by the throat.

From a simple grinding of the dirt beneath a shoe and a slight intake of air, Companion could tell that the man with the iron rod was rearing to crush its skull with an overhead strike. With a small pivot, the iron rod slammed down into the ground. The open palm of its free hand slammed into the new human’s chest, sending it sprawling.

With a sudden clarity of thought brought about by Irulon checking in on their link, Companion stopped. The slight pressure on the initial threat’s throat released entirely as it dropped the human. The human’s legs couldn’t support it, apparently, as it collapsed to the ground, panting like it was trying to generate its own magical breath.

Companion slowly looked around, locking eyes with all three of the assailants—even though the last of them had yet to attack—and then spread its gaze out to the onlookers. It was surprising that no guards had appeared, now or at any other point during the day’s walk. Most would be aware of just who Companion was, likely leading to sluggish response times, but one or two stopping by to ensure that all was well should have been expected.

Something to change once I’m in charge of things.

For the time being, Companion decided to impart advice upon the critical-thinking-deficient humans. “It would be wise to identify the difference in strength between yourselves and an intended target before striking. Be grateful that your future ruler is merciful and understanding of impulsive human nature. If you still wish to persist in your foolish endeavors, then come. Strike me. But…” Companion drew in a breath, attuned it to lightning, but held it as it smiled widely. A few painful sparks danced around from tooth to tooth. After allowing that display long enough for everyone to see, it switched the magic to a healing power for just a moment before cutting off all magic completely. “If you decide to strike again, know in advance that my mercy has limits.”

With one last look around, tapping into Irulon to recognize that the humans were sufficiently cowed and no longer threats, Companion strode back the way its walk had taken it.

Adrenaline, Companion discovered during its thankfully uninterrupted walk, was another interesting human concept. Or rather, it was less a concept and more a part of their bodies. It had a means of blocking pain for short amounts of time. Long enough for Companion to walk a few dozen steps, but not long enough to reach the palace.

It didn’t help that each step came with more pain as muscle and skin tore. Releasing a steady stream of healing breath helped close up the wounds, but the blood still spread over its body. Lust, Companion noted, was almost completely absent from the passing visages. Fear was by far the most predominant expression. Guards showing up now did ensure that Companion had an unmolested return to the palace…

But the strength it had given itself showed no sign of waning. Ruining Alyssa’s hard work so soon was far more upsetting than it should have been. Companion could only hope that the strength would wane in time as the magic ran its course, upon which a healing breath should suffice to restore the body to its natural state. Irulon was well aware that testing untested magic in a combat situation was generally just as ill-advised as attacking a dragon, but… that adrenaline concept had clouded its thoughts.

As Companion sat as still as possible to avoid further damage to its body, it thought. The purpose of a mind-clearing walk still remained elusive, but it had brought up several new projects that Companion needed to accomplish. All of varying priority. It would be vital to mend relationships with humans. Especially the three who had attacked it. Inviting them to the palace may be a possible solution, or simply offering coins of varying value. A wider-reaching effort must be made as well. It wouldn’t do for future subjects to despise their ruler.

But, perhaps more immediately, Companion felt a need become more acclimatized to its… new human body. It especially needed to expose itself to more adrenaline-generating situations and grow used to whatever caused that unclarity.

For now, however, Companion’s most immediate project was to heal.

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