"It's smaller than I expected," I mused as I looked at the neat white line on the right side of Ese's lower back, just under the kidneys. At the mont she was standing with the help of her husband, and she looked suprely embarrassed, probably because of the way her pants were pulled down a little so that I could take a good look at her scar while I was crouching behind her.
After observing her already healed wound for a mont, I asked, "Does it still hurt?"
"A little," she told in a low voice.
"According to the doctors, the injury caused by the spear damaged her pelvis and grazed the sciatic nerve," Sebastian supplied the details, and I humd as if I had any idea of what he was talking about.
"And you actually threw an armored guy across a table with an injury like that?" I asked as I gingerly touched the scar, earning a hiss that sounded more surprised than pained.
"Adrenaline," she told just a little bit sheepishly, then added, "At the ti I didn't even realize how bad it was. I thought it only hurt so much because I was in my Draconic form, and it was only after the fight was over that I realized I couldn't move my right leg properly."
"Hmm…" I let out a suitably brooding sound as I considered what she just said. "Does that an that getting stabbed didn't disrupt your transformation?"
"No, it just hurts," she told curtly.
"So the curse of the spear doesn't directly prohibit transformation," I stated as I stood up. "Does that an you could transform if you wanted to right now?"
Mama Dracis hurriedly pulled up her pants to cover her skin, and only then did she tell , "I tried to do that in the past, but when I do, it hurts a lot. Not just the wound, but my whole body feels like it's on fire, down to my bones. It's a thousand tis worse than usual."
"Hold on," I halted her explanation with a raised palm. "Please don't tell you are in constant pain…"
"Not constant," she told while gesturing for Sebastian to get her wheelchair, but I once again stopped them by shaking my head, so after sending an annoyed glance the lady of the house dourly stated, "It is nerve damage, and it tends to flare up at the most inopportune of tis."
"Then I suppose we best do sothing about it," I told them with a (hopefully) reassuring smile as I crouched down once more. Abram was just about to make her wife's scar visible again, but I told him, "No need, I can work through the clothes. I just needed to know where exactly the wound was."
After saying that, I took a deep breath and placed my hand on Ese's back. I couldn't see any magical glow around her scar, but that didn't an there was nothing to be done, so I gently poked the area with my Phantom Limb, aaaaand… there was no reaction whatsoever. That wasn't a good start.
However, it was too early to throw in the towel, so I took a deep breath and reached 'deeper', at least taphysically speaking, which mainly felt like I was swimming in a river of syrup in a completely black space that tasted like iron and dried coconuts, until I have reached Ese's 'core', so to speak. I forced down the slowly rising sensation of nausea by slowly counting to ten and then I took a closer 'look' at the 'object' I was observing.
The best way to describe it would be to say that it was a giant, multi-layered ball of yarn the size of a family sedan, with each layer composed of thousands upon thousands of small, constantly shifting two-dinsional filants that simultaneously looped upon themselves and at the sa ti connected to each other and yet reached into the infinite distance at the sa ti. In short, it was really trippy.
Now, the last ti I attempted to touch the core of sothing, it resulted in getting an absolutely terrible headache and a giant cacophony of mugs, so this ti I was considerably more cautious in the endeavor.
As such, I steeled my nerves and ever so lightly poked said core, and even that was enough to fill my poor brain with a flash-flood of weird, organic, and decidedly non-Euclidian torrent of information. Maybe it was because I was already a little more familiar with this kind of phenonon due to my previous exposure to this 'space that makes no sense', I managed to keep my calm and cut the connection. For the next couple of subjective minutes, the ever-so-helpful part of my mind that was at least sowhat familiar with these things organized the information I gleaned from the experience, and while I had no proper words for what I just 'learned', it kind of felt like a piece of so enormous mathematical equation, except with colors instead of numbers and angry koalas instead of symbols. I know that doesn't make a lick of sense, but at this point it would probably make less sense if it did.
Anyhow, this didn't really help with the task at hand, but I ca too far to turn back now, and since there was thankfully no sign of the infernal headache so far, I decided to keep poking the 'core' in front of until I could find sothing useful.
As far as my personal perception of ti was concerned, I was doing this for a solid hour before I decided to take a break. In that ti, I have managed to conclude that the different layers corresponded to stuff like the body, the unconscious mind, mories, history, relationships, current thoughts, and all kinds of other stuff that was constantly cross-referenced between the layers and ultimately ford a coherent whole which was, in this case, a person.
If I had to make an estimate, I would've said that if I wanted to completely map out all the layers of the core, it would have taken a solid month or more, though I once again had a nagging feeling that I was doing things in an incredibly inefficient way, and if I was doing this 'properly', I could do it all in seconds and then freely turn her into a pterodactyl with a monocle and a top-hat or sothing. While I found that image sowhat amusing, another part of was quite vehent about that being an extrely bad idea and one that I shouldn't even consider as a joke, and it was so oddly reasonable I had to wonder if I developed a tiny little Judy in my head.
Jokes aside, once I figured out where I should be searching, I started combing the 'layer' responsible for the body of my patient, so to speak, and once I zeroed in on the target, it didn't take long to find the portion I was looking for. Once I digested that, I decided it was ti to take a proper break, as my brain was starting to feel like an overstuffed bookcase with the index missing, so I slowly withdrew my Phantom Limb, and after going through the whole 'swimming in a nauseating syrup-river' thing in reverse, I let out a huge, pent-up breath and almost fell on my ass in the process.
Thankfully I managed to regain my balance in the last second, though not before Sebastian could reach out and support by my shoulder. Insert a grumble about it being unnecessary and him being thoughtful being creepy, et cetera. Anyhow, once I reoriented myself, I quickly asked, "For the record, how much ti has passed?"
Papa Dracis and his hidden ancestor shared a aningful look between each other and at long last he told , "If you an since you put your hand on her back, then about ten seconds."
"Really? That's surprising," I muttered as I shook off the old butler's hand and carefully rose to my feet. This ant that the ti-dilation was even more pronounced this ti than when I was manipulating enchantnts. Speaking of which, I gestured for the man behind and asked, "Sebastian, could you please give the spear for a mont? I want to cross-reference sothing."
To his credit, he didn't bother with asking any silly questions, and instead he imdiately walked over to the poker table, picked up the spear, and ca back to my side. I absent-mindedly reached out towards it, only to get my right thumb zapped for my trouble, forcing to jerk my hand back in the company of a series of stifled curses.
"… with a bloody grapefruit spoon!" I ended my swearing session while shaking my hand until the feeling returned to it, and only then did I notice that both Abram and Ese were looking at funny, which was actually fairly understandable. More alarmingly, the old man was giving a look that said he was actually expecting sothing like this would happen and he found it really amusing, so I sent him a silent glare in return before I faced the other two and excused myself by saying, "Sorry, but this oversized toothpick really seems to hate for so reason. Just give a mont."
After saying so, I reached out once again, this ti already prepared for the shock, and I firmly grabbed onto the weapon and took it out of Sebastian's hands, only to then swiftly smack it against the floor a couple of tis, startling my hosts in the process. It took a good four whacks to stop the spear from resisting, plus two more, just for good asure, and once it did, I faced Ese again and told her, "Sorry for the interzzo; let's continue."
"I'm no longer sure this is a good idea," Mama Dracis whispered under her breath as I crouched down again.
"Don't worry, dear. Leonard knows what he is doing… I think…?"
I ignored Abram's anemic efforts of coming to my defense and instead I once more focused on the task at hand. First, I quickly glanced at the magical innards of the spear in my hand, and once I peeled away all the superfluous bits and pieces surrounding the core enchantnt, I spent so ti morizing the 'curse' parts of its effects. It took a considerably longer ti and much more effort than I originally planned on, as the part of my mind that was inexplicably clued into the workings of my powers (and yet refused to share, the git) kept throwing up red flags at every turn and stopping from manipulating even the slightest details.
Still, after I felt confident enough, I withdrew from the enchantnt and turned to my prospective mother-in-law again, then I warned her, "I'm going to try sothing. I have no idea whether or not it will hurt, so please bear with it for a mont."
She only gave a determined nod, her mouth set in a thin line as she no doubt clenched her teeth in preparation for whatever I was about to do. I also took a deep breath to focus my attention and dived right back into her taphysical representation of extra-dinsional non-Euclidian space or sothing.
Once I reached her core and found the relevant bit, I began to slowly and ticulously comb through her… well, I wanted to say 'data', but that just didn't feel right. Calling them just 'strings' also felt wrong. In the end, I decided on 'records', at least until I found a more apt designation for the phenona I was reading at the mont. Maybe I should ask Judy later, I mused as I continued to work, only to stop the mont I found sothing.
"Jackpot," I… well, I didn't say it, because I was disembodied at the mont, yet the word that sohow emanated from seed to send waves through the very fabric of the geotrically impossible space I currently occupied. It honestly freaked out for a mont; I was honestly worried I might've broken sothing. After waiting for so ti for the waves to die down, I let out an implied breath of relief and decided not to do that again any ti soon.
Anyhow, back to the thing I found: If I wanted to describe what it was, it was kind of like an imprint the spear's enchantnt left on Ese's body. It was not imdiately obvious at first glance, but more like how the west coast of Africa and the east coast of South Arica roughly fit together because they used to be part of the sa super-continent.
Putting my analogies aside, I focused my attention on this imprint, and once I isolated it from the rest of the 'records', I attempted to interface with it through the supernatural stratum, only to get shouted at by the back of my own brain, as if I was trying to jump into a bonfire or sothing.
Okay, so the direct approach didn't work. Apparently, just like the spear itself, this 'wound' was a plot device that I wasn't supposed to touch, and the knowledgeable corner of my mind made it quite obvious that trying to do so was a really, really bad idea. Unfortunately, I already made a promise. Not to ntion, I wasn't exactly well-known for following rules, even if they were rules set by . As such, I attempted to analyze the curse once again, against my own judgnt, because I decided so, even though I really didn't want to do it. Man, I was confusing…
After doing a lot of skirting, non-intrusive probing, and using the other half of the enchantnt from the spear as a reference, I managed to put together a rudintary 'map' of the curse. Or rather, it was more like a diagram? Like one of those wiring ones… or maybe like a circuit board? I could probably spend an hour trying to describe this confusing thing and still couldn't make it sound like it made sense, so let's move on to the aty part of the discovery: the curse was actually really rudintary in its execution.
Its goal of disabling the Draconic transformation was really obvious even from a single glance, however, for so absolutely baffling reason, it didn't actually inhibit the actual process of the physical changes, but instead it overwheld the nervous system with signals to stop the victim from completing the transformation. I had no idea why that was the case, and I even wasted so ti checking if maybe it was impossible to do it the 'obvious' way, yet no matter how I looked at it, disabling the physical shape-shifting was in no way more difficult than the option they ultimately went with. Now granted, whoever enchanted this weapon probably didn't have access to the supernatural stratum the way I did, but it was still a pretty circumspect way to achieve the sa goal.
Furthermore, the longer I looked into it, the more baffled I was by the 'imprint'. It also inhibited any healing relying on 'the essence of the dragon' (there was that oddly specific tag again…), but what was the point of doing so when the victim couldn't transform in the first place? Not only that, it had an entire set of anti-tampering and security asures interwoven into the entire imprint, none of which actually tied into any other parts that would lead to adverse effects upon breaking them. It was as if soone installed a state-of-the-art security system in their house, but didn't link it to any alarms or the police. It was downright nonsensical.
In fact, looking at the curse as a whole, it reminded of a single term: 'spaghetti code'. It's a programming term for convoluted source codes where, usually due to multiple iterations of the code being built on top of each other, the end product ends up a tangled ss. What I was looking at felt pretty much the sa; as if soone took so already existing enchantnts and effects, smashed them together, and once they confird that it worked they moved on without trimming off the unneeded parts or checking for errors… And that gave an idea.
Once I had that, I imdiately jumped back into the work without any further ado and began to analyze the 'wiring diagram' in front of . My goal was simple, yet really difficult at the sa ti: breaking the curse would've been fairly easy, and it wouldn't have caused any side effects due to the disconnected safety seals, yet doing so was sothing that at this point I knew was a bad idea as firmly as I was sure the sun was rising on the east. However, just like with the spear, my aversion to manipulating it only applied to doing so with my Phantom Limb, not by other ans. What other ans I had at my disposal, you may ask? To put it bluntly, I was planning on simulating the supernatural equivalent of a system-crash by subtly tweaking things in a way so it would look like the curse collapsed on itself due to its terrible 'coding'.
Of course this was infinitely easier said than done, but I absolutely relished the challenge, and the more absorbed I beca in the process, the more I felt in sync with the part of that seed to have so form of knowledge about these things, and before I knew it, I actually managed to find a couple of 'strings' that looked perfect for the job. I double-checked everything, just to be sure, then triple-checked my double-checks to be extra sure, and only then did I carefully extended my ethereal appendage and slowly, ever so slowly, tied together a few of them, all the while on the lookout for any changes or red flags popping up sowhere.
The whole process felt like it took ages, even with the apparent ti-dilation, but once I was done and did a quadruple-check, just to be on the safest side, I pretended to exhale a breath of relief and slowly withdrew from the ta-space I was in, and I once again nearly fell on my butt in the process.
More alarmingly, when I regained my wits I noticed that I was drenched in sweat and my hands were slightly trembling.
"Well, this doesn't seem good," I muttered as I was subsequently hit by a rush of nausea and nearly fell backward, my involuntary tumble once again stopped by the intervention of Sebastian.
"What happened? Are you all right?" At the mont Abram seed to be torn between supporting her wife or coming to my aid, so I raised a hand to halt him and forced a smile on my face to show him I was okay. It apparently didn't work, as he only looked even more concerned, so I quickly cleared my throat and, with the unsolicited yet not entirely unwelco help of Sebastian I successfully rose to my feet.
"I think I overdid it a little bit. Don't worry; I should be back to normal in a mont or five." My slightly shaky words still didn't seem to completely persuade them, so I decided to quickly change the topic by turning to Lady Ese and asking, "More importantly, are you all right?"
"I'm… fine, I think," she muttered while looking at like I was a ghost or sothing, but then she tried to completely turn around, only to let out a low hiss.
"Before you move around any more," I halted her with a raised (if slightly trembling finger), "First try to transform."
She was confused for a mont, but after so more wordless urging using my patented brand of eyebrow-wriggling, she hesitantly took a deep breath while still supported by Abram. That soon changed as her whole body abruptly shuddered and, with a surprised gasp, she took half a step forward, accompanied by a series of ripping sounds as her clothes couldn’t handle the physical changes of her transformation, and I swear to god, I nearly got my eye poked out by a button flying off her outfit.
After a short yet long second, the previously pale and sowhat frail-looking lady completely disappeared. In her place stood a tall, fit woman with a full set of horns adorning her head and a long, muscular tail trailing behind her, and as she straightened herself, a pair of large, leathery wings sprouted from her back, completing the Draconic look… and nearly knocking down the ceiling lamp in the process.
Mama Dracis let out a surprisingly girlish yelp and pulled her wing back, but in her hurry she managed to whack her husband right in the face with her other one. Then, in a spectacular demonstration of slapstick chain reaction, Papa Dracis fell back and into one of the chairs, which then imdiately buckled over backward and he landed with a aty thud.
For lack of anyone else, I sent a deadpan glance at Sebastian, and the old man's expression perfectly mirrored mine. Sotis the oddest of things could make the strangest bedfellows, I supposed.
In the anti, Ese regained her balance and finally noticed what happened, and she imdiately rushed over to her husband's side, seemingly without any thinking.
"Ah, Darling! I'm so sorry, I didn't think I… I…" She ca to a stuttering pause as she looked down at her own two legs, and after glancing at the man still lying on the floor, she muttered, "I can… walk?"
"You can walk!" Abram imdiately repeated after her as he jumped to his feet and grabbed his wife by the hips. "Are you all right? Does it hurt anywhere?"
"I'm… I'm all right!" she bead at her confused husband and suddenly hugged him with all her might. "Nothing hurts! Absolutely nothing!"
Then she laughed. It was a burst of pure, clear laughter, like spring water bubbling up from under layers and layers of silt, determined to wash them all away, and it was answered by a series of relieved chuckles from the man hugging her with all his might. Emotions were running high in the room, and I would've been lying if I said I wasn't a little touched, but at the mont I still had to deal with the aftermath of my actions, so I gestured for the butler to take the spear from . He did so without a word, and once my hands were free, I quickly grabbed hold of one of the chairs in the room and sat down before my legs could've decided they supported for long enough already.
Once I took a seat I imdiately took several long, deep breaths, and successfully managed to get both the feeling of vertigo and the trembling under control. While I did that, Sebastian looked over with considerable interest (and maybe just a hint of concern) in his eyes, and he only spoke up when he deed I was not going to die on the spot.
"May I ask how you did that?" he asked while using his head to gesture towards the elated couple, who in the anti has moved on to kissing each other in relief. I saw no harm in explaining things to him, so I said:
"In short, I've short-circuited the part of the curse that makes the Draconic transformation hurt. The rest of it is unfortunately still intact, but I figured being able to walk on her own two legs was the most important part to accomplish first, so I decided to go for that."
"So she is not fully healed?"
"Unfortunately no, but I'd say if she kept transforming back and forth a couple of tis every day, it would soon wear the curse down to the point where her injuries should start healing."
"Truly?"
"I suppose. Sadly I have no idea of the ti-scale, and I'm too exhausted to check, but hopefully she shouldn't need her wheelchair anymore by the ti Elly's birthday rolls around."
"Mom?"
I blinked in surprise as a new voice entered the fray, and I glanced over to the source. There, I found the princess frozen in the doorway, her eyes as wide as saucers as she was looking at the scene in front of her. Once the enthusiastic lovebirds realized their daughter was in the room, they quickly untangled themselves, and when that allowed Elly to take a better look at her mother, she let out a shocked gasp and she much less walked than leaped over to her side.
"Mom! You are… What happened!?"
While the two were reunited, in a certain sense of the word, my dearest assistant also made her way into the room and made her way over to . Once she got into earshot, I sent her a rueful glance and told her, "You had one job, Dormouse. One, single, job."
"It couldn't be helped," she answered with just a hint of sulkiness in her voice. "How was I supposed to stop her coming in when you made such a ruckus?" I wanted to tell her that she should've improvised or sothing, but before I could do so she suddenly leaned closer to . "Chief, you are pale as a sheet. What happened?"
"The usual," I told her with a disinterested shrug. "More importantly, we should—"
I got exactly that far when my dodging senses suddenly flared up and tried to have dive out of the way. As it would happen, I wasn't exactly in the right shape to do that, so instead I had to take the full brunt of a blonde cot colliding with my chest in a flying tackle, nearly blowing off the chair if not for Judy's support. Once the stars finally stopped circling around in my vision, I glanced down and, unsurprisingly, I found the Princess giving an enormous, ribcage-cracking bearhug.
"Thank you, Leo. Thank you…" she whispered to between sniffles.
I glanced over at her parents, then at Judy at my side, and I ultimately tussled her hair and bit and told her, "Happy birthday in advance, I suppose."
My words only seed to crack the dam open even wider, as she went from sniffles to outright sobbing and she squeezed my chest even harder. It was actually hurting quite a bit, so I quickly sent a pleading glance at her parents. Regrettably, probably because of their emotional state at the mont, they completely misunderstood my intent, and instead of helping with my predicant, Lady Ese walked over, lowered herself to one knee by my side, and proceeded to hug the both of us at the sa ti.
"Thank you. I am forever in your debt," she told , her expression telling that she was also just a hair's breadth away from breaking out into sniffles.
"You're… welco…" I squeezed out the words, and was just about to request that maybe, if possible, she could stop the situation escalating any further, but then all of a sudden we were all trapped in an even bigger hug, as Abram sneaked up behind (which wasn't a small feat, considering the man's size) and he swept all of us up in his arms, which incidentally also included Judy.
With that, there was only one person in the room I could turn to, as insane as the thought might've sounded, yet when I peeked at him between the arms and heads that composed the ball of bodies that currently encased , Sebastian only gave an odd look. Then, after locking gazes with him for several seconds, he let out a sigh, rolled his eyes, and then said, "If you insist…"
Then he walked over and joined the group hug by holding onto Papa and Mama Dracis.
…
Damn it old man, that wasn't why I was looking at you!
By this point the emotions in the room have once again reached their boiling point, with both Elly and Ese bawling their eyes out, Abram laughing like madman, and Judy… well, she was mostly just snuggling up to like a well-fed cat. And then there was I, trapped in the middle of all of this and feeling… well, not too horrible, considering the situation. In fact, in so ways it was surprisingly cozy. It was different than when I cuddled with Judy and Elly, and it felt, for lack of a better word, wholeso.
I could've done with slightly less snot on my shirt though, but then again, no family is perfect. Mine was at least unique.
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