Master of the Mind

Chapter 20: Mental Equilibrium

Wind ruffled over feathers, pushing and pulling, rising and falling, like a swaying ocean. Eyes flickered back and forth, the depth of perception picking up scarce details in the ground below. A crab slowly moving over the rocks. The appearance of some eel hiding in the foamy waves crashing against the shore. The landscape stretched for miles, rocky grey beaches with slabs of ice. To the right, the ocean stretched for as far as the eye could see. To the left a desert of white snow that mirrored the ocean in shape. The wind was cold, but feathers protected against it, like a blanketed dragonesses wing over a hatchling in the depths of the night.

Eldawin breathed through the strange beak of a mouth he found himself with. His head tilted slightly to the side, studying the great wingspan of the creature he currently occupied. Tough brown feathers stretched over the wing and the rest of his body. Two webbed feet were tucked against more of the same longer tailed feathers. With every movement of the wind, he found himself shifting to compensate, whether that be the wings or the tail feathers, guided by the instinct and habits of the bird he was currently controlling.

"You've got it?" Sediment asked.

Eldawin, having nearly entirely centred himself on experiencing the movements of the bird, was nearly startled out of his connection. But he managed to keep it going, taking a deep breath with his real body in the effort as he struggled to split his mind. One part of him focusing entirely on the bird and what it was doing, while the other returning to his body. He felt the strange disorientation that often happened when he attempted this ability. It was as though he was in two different places at the same time. Thinking two different thoughts, two different minds, two different bodies. But he was both of them, all at the same time.

"I've got it," he spoke out loud, with both his dragon body and the bird, though the bird's attempt was more a series of squawks that could be in no way the same tongue, "Kind of."

"Good... now capture that experience. Split your mind. I want to experience and feel the same things as that bird."

Narrowing the dragon's eyes, and flapping the bird's wings, Eldawin split his mind into yet a third stream of consciousness. This tendril pierced through Sediments mental conscious, allowing the mind drake a third point of control. Now he saw things from three different areas, three different views. It was hard to separate one's mind from their body, to become completely a part of something else, while at the same time being completely yourself. He was watching his own body through Sediment's eyes, while at the same time taking in the magnificent view from far in the sky and the darkness of his own personal closed eyes. Once the connection was secure, he then used the experience he was having through the bird... and transferred it to Sediment. It was an illusion of the greatest detail. He could feel Sediment's unease and surprise as his body went from sitting on the ground to high in the sky, with feathers instead of scales and a beak instead of a mouth of razor-sharp teeth. A body with no connection to the element he held so dear.

'Okay... well done,' Sediment thought to him, 'Now... now you can bring me back.'

With a slight chuckle, Eldawin pulled away from the earth drake's mind, breaking the illusion. He also relinquished control on the bird, allowing it to fly where it wished. He shook his head, feel slightly dizzy as his mind returned to normal, settled inside a singular body. He shuffled his wings, making sure that everything was working directly, before looking at Sediment with a smile.

"How was that?"

"Very... very well done," the disgruntled earth drake said as he shook himself, "That was a strange sensation."

"The senses of a bird are strange," agreed Eldawin, "And taking on a new body can be very difficult to get used to."

"Can't be that much stranger then what we usually experience. They have wings as we do," Diara spoke up.