[Episode 183338] [Episode 183338]“Oh, no!” Aesthyrondalarurai swore. “Galanthyr, you jerk! How is she supposed to blend into a high elf village looking like that?”
“What now? She’s an elf, isn’t she?”“Well, yes,” the silver matron sighed. “But there’s elves and then there’s elves, you big dummy. Honestly!”
Tarre blinked as the smoke cleared. Something was wrong? Well, she did feel pretty strange so she twisted her head around to look at herself. Correction, she tried to twist but something was wrong with her neck. It didn’t bend far enough; it didn’t even feel long enough.
Then something fell over her eyes and distracted her; some sort of purple strands danced on the edge of her vision when she shook her head. She lifted her forepaw to brush it aside, then spend several horrified moments examining the paw instead. It was all flattened and stretched out, except for the claws which were horribly blunt.
She flexed the talons and noted they were quite dexterous at least, then she used the soft pads on the ends to examine her muzzle. That was just gone! Her face had been mashed flat except for a horrible lump above her maw, and she could only feel blunt stumps of fangs inside her mouth which was so terribly mangled that flaps of soft skin covered the sides. And there was no sign of her horns at all; only some ugly fleshy shells on the side of her big lumpy fuzz-covered head.
“Waii! I’m so ugly!”
“Shush. Baby, shush. It’s alright, Little Lizard,” a familiar voice crooned and an unfamiliar stick figure wrapped it’s twiggy limbs around her and pressed her ugly head against something soft and squishy. “A new form can be frightening at first. It just takes a little getting used to, that’s all.”
“Momma?” Tarre whispered doubtfully into those soft pillows. Her trembles subsided as the skinny bone coloured limbs stroked her back, her hideously deformed wingless back, and brushed the fuzzy purple mane. It was strangely comforting.
“That’s right, Dear,” the not quite correct voice agreed. It was too soft, and the figure too small, but the scent was almost right, just too faint. “Oh, I’d forgotten that advantage of a humanoid form. The hugs are so nice.”
“Hugs?” Tarre questioned the new word.
“Hugs,” the creature who was Aesthyrondalarurai agreed, and demonstrated.
“Ohh. Yes!” Tarre cooed excitedly. “Hugs is nice. They feel so soft and warm!”
“Hmmm,” Aesthyrondalarurai murmured agreeably. “Now, let’s get a good look at you, Little One.”
“But I’m hideo–, hidei–, so horribubbly ugly!” Tarre whimpered and twisted away to cover her deformity with her wings; except, of course, that she didn’t have any.
“No, Baby, you’re just different,” her mother assured her. “Actually, you’re really cute! Isn’t she just adorable?”
“Delightful,” Galanthyr boomed above them. “So sweet I could eat her right up.”
“Waaa!” Tarre cried and dove back into her mother’s hugs and hide under the silver stands flowing from her head.
“Galanthyr!!”
“What?” the copper demanded in puzzlement.
“Change,” Aesthyrondalarurai insisted. “You too, Brahma. Now, please!”
“Oh, very well,” the copper sighed. “Are you ready, Young Bull?”
“I guess so,” the bronze replied doubtfully. “I mean, yes, yes I am. I’ve been practicing. I’m ready, I am, I…”
“Calmly, youngling, calmly,” Galanthyr advised. “Just visualise the shape like we taught you, then …”
“‘We?’” Aesthyrondalarurai snapped at the bait. “Since when were you involved in Brahma’s instructions?”
“Oh, I helped Alazphraxion out on occasion while he wasn’t loo…. Ahem, do it with me now, Brahma,” Galanthyr instructed quickly and began to cast. “Polymorphus En Gnomus Transmuto!”
Brahma focussed on his alternate form ability at the same time. The two dragon shapes shrank and morphed as they shrank. Where an adult copper and young bronze dragon had stood, a moment after stood a gnome and an elf. The former looked vastly amused, the latter looking uncomfortable and tugging at the clothes that appeared with the form.
“A wood elf,” Aesthyrondalarurai observed in relief on noting her son’s coloration; partly in resignation too. “Well, I guess it suits him, but really, Galanthyr.”
The gnome guffawed, “well, you have to admit, it is a bit of a laugh.”
“Why don’t I have hugs?” Tarre demanded.
“What?” the gray elf blinked at her daughter’s non sequetior and turned back to her. Tarre was examining her chest curiously.
“Ah, they’re called ‘breasts’, Dear,” Aesthyrondalarurai corrected. “A ‘hug’ is the act of cradling someone in your arms and squeezing gently.”
“Ohhh,” Tarre cooed in understanding. “So why don’t I have any ‘breasteses’ then?”
“Just ‘breasts,’ Dear, and you, well, elves grow them when they get older.”
“What are they for anyway?” Brahma wondered. “They don’t seem to do anything. Well, except feel funny when I sway.”
“What are you tal… Oh, Galanthyr! Why does my son have breasts?”
“Elfies grow them when they get old, Mommy,” Tarre informed her with the full imperious authority of a little kid.
“Female elves do,” Aesthyrondalarurai growled. It was amazing how dragonlike she could make her elven voice sound when she put feeling into it. “Galanthyr! I wanted to show off my son and you, you, … Just wait till I get my claws on you!”
However, Galanthyr liked the form of a gnome for a very good reason. Though he didn’t gain a gnome’s few minor magic abilities, he did the perfectly ordinary kind that let him hide in situations just like, well, having an angry mother on his trail.
“I’m a girl?” Brahma demanded and looked down at his breasts, his slender waist, his wide hips, his long leggy legs, and his dainty feet. He wondered which bits weren’t manly.
“No, silly, you’re a boy,” Tarre told him and rolled her eyes. Boys were so dumb.
“What’s wrong wid me, Mommy?” Tarre asked after her mother stopped thrashing around in the under brush and strode regally back to the shore, smoothing her skirts out in annoyance.
“Wrong. Baby? There’s nothing wrong with you. Why would you think that?”
“Well, you was awfully upset wid uncle Galanthyr when he changed me,” Tarre recalled. Then horror dawned on her. “I’m not, I’m not a… a boy am I, Mommy?”
“No, Dear,” Aesthyrondalarurai reassured her. “It’s just that you’re a drow.”
“A troll?” Tarre echoed. The image of herself as a big rubbery-hided biped with long ungainly armed ending in wide, powerful hands ending in sharpened claws popped into her head. She rather liked it.
“A drow, Baby,” her mother corrected. “It’s a kind of elf with jet black skin and er…”
“What’s wrong with being black, Mommy?”
“Er, well… nothing, Dear. Black is beautiful. It’s just that the high elves don’t get along with dark elves so well.”
“That’s silly!”
“No it… Well, yes, yes it is.”
“They won’t like me because I’m black?” Tarre began to sniffle.
Aesthyrondalarurai sighed. She’d been dreading this conversation ever since a proud young Brahma had brought the abused wyrmling back to the lair eager to be praised for the dashing rescue.
“If anyone picks on my sister, I’ll beat them up!” Brahma insisted fiercely.
“Yah!” Tarre cheered. “Hugs you!”
“Bronzes!” a shubbery muttered disparagingly. Then, realising Aesthyrondalarurai was eying it suspiciously, shuddered. “Look, Aesthy, it was just a joke. Really. I can I fix it.”
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(Posted Thu, 08 Feb 2007 04:57)
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