The Fire and The Storm - The Nexus of Kellaran #2 novel Chapter 86

Part 14

They chatted about the same things they normally talked about as they cooked and ate. At her request, Karzog finished most of the cooked haunch as well as the rest of the deer, since Helemia couldn’t eat more than a hundred and fifty grams of it right after breakfast. It didn’t seem right to leave any of it uneaten.

“Mmm, that was so good, and I’m so full!” Helemia chuckled as she cast a Cleaning on herself and her sword.

“Mmm, me too.” Karzog agreed with a huge grin as he rubbed his bulging belly. He released a huge burst of intense fire and kind of swirled it around his mouth as he did so, reducing any food particles between his teeth to ash, blowing them out, and freshening his breath. “We’ll have to take it easy on the flying, or I might just burst!”

Helemia giggled. “Good point. Maybe we should do the dragon thing and just lounge in the sun after eating. We can fly later if you’d like.”

“Sure, I’d prefer that, actually.” he nodded as he led the way outside.

There was a place in front of the cave that was large enough and flat enough for him to relax on his belly, and he did.

“And now I have a surprise for you. Close you eyes.” she mischievously instructed.

“Okay.” he laughed, and did as she asked.

She cast a careful spell, and it took a few seconds.

“Okay, open ‘em.”

He did, and his jaw dropped in stunned surprise. He couldn’t even talk for a few moments, while Helemia grinned and posed for him, turning this way and that, and fanning herself with her wings. She had become a young female dragon about three-quarters his size. Her belly and the underside of her neck and tail were the same very light, almost-white pink that her skin had been, while the rest of her was the same glossy black that her hair had been, and her eyes were the same dark violet.

Even when he finally could speak, it took him two tries as he started, stopped and reconsidered, then spoke. “Helemia. Fire. You’re prettier than anything I’ve ever seen in my life.”

“Thank you Karz, that’s sweet.” she giggled. “Now just one more thing.” she said as she cast on herself again, then spoke in Draconian. “A complete, improved version of the Draconian Translation for Humanoids spell.” she growled, then gave her wingtips the little wave that was a dragon’s version of a giggle. “Complete with body language and non-vocal communications.” she added as she lay down and cuddled up to him. “Of course I already knew how to do it, but I’ve been working the knowledge of it that we got from Kragorram into a spell, and that was the first test-casting.”

“Hey, it’s not an Illusion!” he exclaimed in Draconian as he felt her warm touch. “What a great job of Shape-Shifting!”

“No, it’s not Shape-Shifting yet.” she revealed. “I got a lesson on that from Theramin. The size difference is a real challenge. If I was good enough to do a complete Shape-Shift already, which I’m not, I could only be a little tiny dragon that weighed about eighteen kilos, the same as I normally weigh.

“You can’t make the extra weight out of magic, it would take way, way too much energy. Ask Yazadril about it sometime, you won’t believe how much magic it takes to make even a tiny bit of material.

“So that means that the easiest way to do it would be to just become a little dragon, and then eat a lot and grow bigger magically, but that would take a long time. Yazadril actually did that once to disguise himself as a Sylvan, and it took over a year just to triple his weight. It would really take a long time for me to grow to be a full-size dragon, and it would take just as long to shrink back to the normal me again.