"Better?"
Ndete sighed as the soothing warmth of the hot springs seeped through mortalis skin, penetrating muscles and easing the tension and aches that lingered. She hissed when the spot on her back met the steaming wetness, but her wound was beneath the surface, not exposed, so even the delicate human flesh was able to bear it. She eased the bruised skin deeper into the water, closing her eyes.
"Better. Thank you for your help," she peeked one eye open, "and for not telling anyone."
Lolo's green eyes glowed in the soft light. It reflected off the water, making her blue-green scales appear to ripple, as if she too were made of liquid. Her dragon lips curved up in a toothy smile.
"About Puyu, or about you shifting again?"
Ndete let her eye fall shut. "It's so stupid. We have the ability; it must be for a reason."
"My father always said that it was so that we could walk among them unseen in the days when they still ruled the world."
"Mmm. But that was a thousand years ago. We defeated them."
"They defeated themselves!" Lolo's voice was soft, but filled with passion. "They nearly destroyed the entire planet, Ndete. Mortalis hearts are weak. They do not burn with the fire of truth. That is why the others complain when they see you take their form."
"Looking like them does not make me one of them." She spoke the words almost by rote, she had argued them so often.
Still, she knew her voice lacked conviction. The first time she had shifted, taking on the mortalis form, she had marveled at the sensations that had filled her. The way the wind brushed the fine hairs along her arms, the way that even faint smells registered on the tongue, giving tastes to things she had never even noticed before. It had surprised and intrigued her, but it wasn't until the second time that things had changed. Closing her eyes to experience the sensations, opening them to find the tiger that had come up on stealthy, silent feet. As a dragon, tigers were nothing but competitors for food, but as a mortalis...
Ndete could still remember the rush of ice that filled her veins, the way the fear had tasted in her mouth, the pounding of her heart in her chest as if it would burst out of its confinement and escape on its own if she did not move. Run! The instinct had overcome her, the unique feelings of one that is prey instead of predator, feelings that were new and foreign and delicious.
Ndete had run.
She had stretched her mortalis legs to their limit, pounding through the tall grasses, leaping over logs and dodging branches. She heard the tiger behind her, quickly gaining, heightening the sensations. Lips pulled back in a fierce grin she had raced for the ledge, refusing to shift back to dragon. The tiger closed, his grunts nearly on her, and then she was leaping, rocketing off the ledge and hurtling through open air. Behind her the tiger screamed its frustration, and her laughter was ripped away by the wind as she plummeted.
Ndete had been born with wings, but she had never truly known what it felt like to fly.
"What's it like?" Lolo's voice pulled her back from the depths of her memories.
Ndete opened her eyes to find her friend curled around the warm rocks that edged the spring. Her green eyes regarded Ndete as if she were a strange and unknown thing.
"What, the shift?"
Lolo's eyes moved over her, tracing the lines of her arms and hands, down to her fingertips. "The mortalis form. What does it... feel like?"
Ndete rolled her eyes. "You could just shift yourself, you know."
Lolo looked down, slowly shaking her head.
No, of course not. Lolo was one of the kindest, most comforting friends Ndete had, but she would never go against the others. She would never do something her father said was wrong. Ndete sighed and slid deeper, until the water was up to her chin.
"It's... different." She said finally. "Their skin is much more sensitive than ours." She held up one hand, looking at the puckered skin of her fingertips. "They can be hurt more easily of course, but the sensations... the way their skin can feel even the slightest trace of air, or temperature, it's... intoxicating."
Lolo's eyes watched as Ndete turned her hand one way, then the other. "I am not as strong, yet I feel as if I am. Their sight is not as keen, yet the way the colors look is so much brighter. I can breathe," she opened her lips and took a sip of air, "and taste the sulfur and the steam. I can feel the life pulsing through me. And if I close my eyes," she did, laying her head back against the stone, "I can feel the weight of the rock that is around us. The magnitude of it. Even here, in the water, I can feel the universe out there, all around us. I can feel it moving."
Ndete opened her eyes. Lolo was looking up at the rock above them, her face filled with wonder.
"Their hearts may be weak, Lolo, but they beat with the force of a thousand drums. My entire body vibrates with it. It is because they are so small and fragile that they can sense the vastness of what is around them."
Lolo lowered her face, looking about to say something when the scrape of movement caught their ears.
"Daughter."
Rishiri entered the cavern quietly. Lolo backed away, bowing her head low.
"Leave us," Ndete's mother said.
Lolo gave her a quick wide-eyed look before disappearing into the shadows.
"The Pences from Sahir have arrived." her mother's voice was a low purr. "They are wondering where you are."
"I just needed to rest for a few minutes." Ndete refused to be shamed for taking this time to try and ease her discomfort.
"We could postpone the preliminary."
That was a surprise.
"No." The longer Puyu had any hopes of forcing her choice, the worse he would become. "I'm all right."
Her mother's golden eyes regarded her. "You will make a strong mother, Ndete."
Pride at her mother's praise mingled with unease. She didn't feel ready yet to be a mother. Invoking the Allocai, finding a mate, that was her duty, not her desire.
"I know this isn't easy for you," her mother's voice rumbled softly. "You do not see the steel that lives inside you. I see it, Ndete. It took shape in the flames of your ancestors, and it was forged in the heat of your passion and grief. Cool it now, in the waters of honor and duty; let it breathe the air of wisdom and it will produce a weapon honed to perfection."
Is that what she was?
A weapon?
Part of her agreed. Part of her sang with the desire to wreak vengeance on Puyu and his family. For infringing on her grief, for forcing her to choose too soon what her life would be, for treating her as if she were nothing but a tool to be used.
But that kind of sword had two edges. If she let the fire within burn too brightly, it would consume not only her enemies, but also her soul. She would be a weapon, but everything else would be stripped away, burned to ash in the flames, the way the human skin was burned away during the shift, curling and sloughing away until only glittering dragon scales were left.
"I am more," she said softly.
She was more than just a weapon. She was Ndete, the Pendragon's daughter, but she was also more. She refused to be defined. Part of her wanted vengeance, but the other part rejected it.
"Of course you are," her mother agreed, "but you will not find yourself here, hidden away in the darkness, wrapped in mortalis skin."
Ndete tried to keep the bitterness from taking hold. "I just needed the form to absorb the heat," she gritted from between clenched teeth. Wasn't she doing enough to prove her loyalty? "What harm is there in it? No one is here to see, or to judge. Only you."
Her mother's golden eyes narrowed.
"Enjoy it then." Her mother turned away, her voice as hard as the rocks as it drifted to her ears. "While you still can."
Slow shock rolled over her. "What?"
Rishiri looked back over her shoulder, her golden eyes burning. "Don't you know, Ndete? Didn't you study the teachings about the shifting that you so often enjoy?"
Worry threaded its way into her belly, forming a ball of dread. The cavern seemed to shrink until there was only her and the fiery gaze as her mother's words fell like daggers.
"Once you're mated, once you've poured your magic into your clutch of eggs, the ability to shift your form, to become mortalis, will be gone."