Dragon Mirror- Ties Between the Veil

He began the story in a low voice, turning the meat on its spit to brown the other side. Jrash was fascinated by the man’s soft spoken pentameter and was swept away by the telling.

Gangam had been born to a nomadic tribe that was tucked away in the Wilds, isolated from the true human settlements that had the treaties with the Charbitian Empire.

His peoples were called the Romera Chiber’at, and traveled established game trails through the Wilds north west of the Temp’Allah mountain ridge.

When he was an infant, his parents quickly realized that Gangam was unique. He was not capable of feeling anything physically. If he was pinched, he did not feel pain. If his mother touched his foot or face, he did not react.

As he grew older, this became a complication for the nomadic people. He could not sense when he was hungry, nor when he needed to defecate. His parents struggled to maintain an improvised schedule to aid in avoiding accidents.

Unfortunately, this did not prevent the accidents that occur with all young children. Gangam repeatedly managed to injure himself, sometimes by something as innocuous as brushing a plant that would cause a violent reaction on his skin.

His mother would check him anytime he returned from foraging with the other children, fearfully going over every inch of his body for wounds or infections.

She would have forbade him from foraging parties all together, but the elders of the tribe refused to allow this type of sheltering on a growing youth. How else could he contribute?

Jrash had nodded at this portion of the telling. Even with established human settlements, the Wild’s were difficult to live in without a cohesive effort from all the members of the society.

But invariably, around the age of thirteen, Gangam had been climbing a tree to liberate a nest of its cache of eggs, and had fallen.

His friends had frantically tried to keep him from moving before he saw that his upper femur had snapped, and the muscles twisted weirdly in his skin.

He had been fascinated by the strange lack of blood before the impact of what he was seeing caused his vision to gray out. He lost consciousness and woke up in his mothers tent.

She had been kneeling by his head, changing out a cool cloth over his forehead. She explained that he had a great fever, and tears fell down her cheeks. Gangam couldn’t have moved if he had wanted, he had no strength to move his body.

He watched his mother sob as she explained that they could not take him with them to the winter lodge, and that the elders refused her permission to stay and tend to him.

They did not expect him to live, as the break was not simple and the bruising was not only his leg, but in his abdomen and swelling his belly. He had been unconscious for three days with fever.

Gangam told Jrash that this had been his first real experience with what he imagined pain to feel like. The loss and grief he felt for his mother, and for his own life had struck him. Crying out for his mother, she held him in an embrace he could not experience.

His village elders wrapped him in decorative blankets, and left him under a simple lean-to with a basket of food and water, and a long knife. His friends refused to look at him, his father stone faced next to his weeping mother. They all knew what the knife was for.

The elders sang a dirge, and they all left, some in pairs, some singly, but they all faded into the darkening evening. He was alone.

“I couldn’t feel it, but I knew I cried.” Jrash stared at him in horror, not quite able to understand the magnitude of abandonment the older man had experienced.

That is where she found him, on his fifth day alone, having crawled out into the sun… Zeequi paused to nibble behind Ramoth’s ears, who hissed at her.

She tried to eat him.

Jrash felt a rude laugh burst from him. He felt Ramoth bristle and caught her red glare from between her mothers talons.

Gangam grinned. “She asked permission. But shortly after I consented, her mother had moved between us.”

He gazed across the fire at his Aya’Daroul, who was still mercilessly grooming her daughter. “She was a bit smaller than Ramoth is now.”

He was dying, and the suffering he broadcast was so unique to what I had ever experienced before. Zeequi stopped and looked directly at Jrash, red eyes glowing in the firelight in the darkness that had eclipsed the campsite.

The physical body will suffer physical pain, even if the original pain is emotional. I later learned that Gangam only experienced the emotional pain, lacking the ability to sense the physical.

Jrash held his breath, not sure if a response was appropriate. Gangam pulled the crisped reptile from the fire, cutting away strips of meat and laying them out on broad leaves.

“She told me that she could show me how to heal myself, but that it might hurt.” His face was shadowed as he handed Jrash his portion. “I laughed at her, but accepted.”

Ramoth finally managed to extricate herself from her mother and padded over to Jrash and flopped onto her side. Her quiet voice sounded in his mind. I was angry. I abandoned my mother that night, after she gave up her freedom to show him how to bend his own flesh.

I am freer for having acted in kindness and wealthier in my knowledge and wisdom for having bonded my drakun mate. You are such a vindictive and spiteful child. Zeequi chopped her teeth at her daughter before sprawling out to expose her belly. Her tail lazily curled over her stomach.

Gangam sat in the curve of her body, gently feeding her a choice portion of his food. “We have known one body.”

Jrash blanched, having heard some of his cousins refer to acts of intimacy in such a manner. But Gangam forestalled his response of disgust by holding out his own arm.

The edges of his shape seemed to blur, as did Zeequi’s. Jrash exclaimed in surprise when Gangam’s fingers elongated into claws, while Zeequi’s tail retracted.

He flexed his talons, wiggling them as scales and then feathers sprouted along his arm. The claws curved out and grew into a pseudo wing, only to blur and return to normal.

“What just happened?” He stammered, struggling with his arm and gaping at the both of them.

Our Will is one, we trade mass to shift our bodies. Much as the spirits in the Wilding take the lifeblood of the Blighted to grow.

Ramoth spoke after her mother. Before I left, my mother told me… that she planned to grow with him, to become something more than what she was on her own.

He stared at her in bemusement when he heard her quietly admit to him. I thought she had been full of dung.

Ungrateful whelp. Zeequi shook her head, twin tufted ears flopping noisily. Ramoth yawned, managing to show all of her teeth.

Teach him the magic shifting so we may be onward. There is blight and plague spreading and the Holder of Bonds demands our servitude!

Both Gangam and Zeequi exchanged a look and Jrash smiled hesitantly. He wasn’t entirely sure that she was joking, and could tell that they thought along the same routes.

Gangam finished his food and rocked forward, coming up on his heels. His intensity unnerved Jrash, and he subconsciously leaned away.

“Focus on your shape, delve yourself to get the mindview of your body as it is now, as if it is made of glass or water. With this image, use your Will to heal the broken image into what you desire.” But Gangam held up his hand.

“I cannot feel the sensations of the body, so I warn you- I do not know what this will feel like to you, but Zeequi has told me there is pain for her when she shifts.”

Jrash felt a deepening pit of anxiety, but Ramoth crept into his lap, her wings trembling. He could feel a comforting rumble in her body, and realized that she was purring. We can do this, even if it hurts.

“If you are sure, I will guide you. Look.” Gangam held out his arm and one layer after another peeled away, revealing the viscera and veins beneath. Jrash felt the blood drain from his face.

The older man grinned garishly at him. “I feel nothing, so I often experiment and study myself.” He cut his eyes to Zeequi. “I do not take advantage of my lady unless she permits.”

Zeequi hissed in annoyance. I still enjoy my faculties and have no desire to erase my physical senses. Sometimes I believe you are warped beyond measure.

He turned the arm, still grinning as a layer of muscle detached from his wrist and waved at her. The firelight cast grotesque shadows. “I still possess empathy, I just like to have fun.”

When he caught sight of Jrash’s face, he stopped. His face had become sallow and green at the edges, and he was staring at Gangam as if the man had sprouted a second head. He sickly wondered if it had occurred during one of the older mans ‘experiments.’

“I am sorry, child. I’ve been without human interaction for decades. If I could Will myself the ability to feel pain, I would.”

Zeequi snorted, and he scowled at her playfully. “I cannot fix something I have never had. I tried once using her senses, you know.” Zeequi rolled over, her back to the fire. Her tail lashed the ground once.

“That was…” He swallowed, “That was terrifying, but fascinating.”

The older man nodded, agreeing. “Your turn.”

Taking an unsteady breath, Jrash tried to visualize his arm the way Gangam had shown him. He had a moment of misgivings before engaging his Will to heal the ache in his fractured arm.

The pain was minimal as he felt his arm and shoulder heat up, itch, and burn. He felt relief from the damage. Until he thought about what Gangam had done by separating his muscles.

Ramoth squealed in surprise and he screamed. He had not been prepared for the exquisite pain as he visualized his skin lifting from the muscles. Zeequi lurched up and was across the campsite, laying her muzzle across her daughter in comfort. Gangam grabbed Jrash by his other wrist to steady him.

“Put it back, you can't leave yourself like this! I know you hurt, the pain will stop when you finish shifting!”

Jrash stared in horror at the back of his arm, the skin split down the midline and limply flayed back to reveal the red muscled arm. He forced himself to focus and gasped in relief when his arm was normal again.

He barely held onto consciousness, but caught Gangam’s concerned gaze and held it. “I need you to teach me.”