Spirits of the Earth

( @SilmeriaElemred )

When harvesting potentially-lethal herbal stimulants, it really was best to seek the assistance of a professional. Zea Misra had been invited out near a remote roadside altar to collect the fresh green oval-shaped leaves without too many big wasteful handfuls of the precious seeds. Mixed with a little sugar and quinoa ash and there was an easy way to numb someone's gums before ripping out any bad teeth. It was a nice arrangement, provided nobody went in and stripped down the entire neighborhood.

A light touch, and little self-control. That's what she'd been asked for. That was the situation as it had been explained to her. She had not been told to expect a great smashed bloody--literally bloody--swath of sturdy growth. With a great sigh at having her plans for a quiet day of drug harvesting disrupted by somebody's grievous bodily harm, she tied back her gathering basket and trudged forward to investigate.

"Hello..." she called as she walked. "Priestess of Inima. Any wounded out here? I'm armed, but I'll help if you've got wounded. Real mess you made here. Anyone still alive?"

The only reply was a snarl and a good few minutes later not far from her, a dragon appeared as the cloaking magic it used slowly vanished. His green and golden scales covering in blood and wounds were all over his body. ''If you are a priestess, can you heal..'' he growled softly from where he lay. He had flown. Disorientated and exhausted he found a place to rest. But resting did not remove his wounds. His magic was blocked and other then fighting with his claws he could do nothing. He was broken and beaten.

With a gasp Zea jumped a good handspan and took a step backward. There was an enormous dragon, just right there. Poor thing was a mess, too. Dragons were... they were like living works of art, even moreso than most living things were. Either they should be alive and well or they should be dead and ready to be dissected. This in-between seemed wrong.

"Wow. Oh wow." She shook her head to snap her thoughts out of gobsmacked uselessness. "Yes. Let me see what I can do. Your anatomy is, uh. Super unusual, but if you'll tell me where the major problems are, I can try to figure things out as I go along and I'll repair anything I can see how to repair. Plan?"

She hoped that Plan A would be good enough, because Plan B was to put this poor thing out of its misery and think of some way to take it back to her lab. Plan B seemed a little dodgy, mostly that second part. Dragons were big. Zea was small. She had a basket. She needed a Plan C.

''Those who did this to me the past several years placed something something somewhere in my body that actively blocks my magic to a degree I can barely use it making it very hard for me to escape.  If it is gone I could probably heal myself but I do not know where it is. Your assistence would be highly appreciated. I do not think though here would be the proper place.'' with low painfull grunting he managed to get on his feet although had trouble remaining standing.

Years?

Years.

Someone had been sticking things in this dragon for years? That was the shadiest fucking thing Zea had been told in at least two weeks.

"Here's a terrible place but here might be all we've got." Zea was abruptly deeply grateful that her tunic didn't have sleeves. She might be getting shoulder-deep in dragon-flesh. Neat! "I don't want you to rip anything open any worse trying to get someplace that's... not exactly going to have fewer bugs or more people. Can you point me to, uh. The stuff in you? Or do I need to go digging?"

''I am afraid I do not know where it is.'' The dragon replied. ''I remember them mainly tapping things out of me. Whatever is blocking my magic, and ability to even morph, I do not know. I'm afraid tearing me open is the only way to find out unless you posess magic that allows you to feel what is wrong in my body'' he took a few steps closer nearly falling over due the loss of blood but he did seem determined.

It seemed that Zea was going to be required to go exploring. Fine. Whatever. She could do that. Just seal up the imminently life threatening injuries and then go in for a more careful excavation once she didn't have this ridiculous patient waving around like a drunken jackass.

She had been trying to be polite about this but apparently she was not going to be allowed to get her way with the nice approach.

"Okay, first thing, you sit the hell down. Now. I do not have a plan for what happens if you die, so don't make me explain a dead dragon please." There! She'd said please. She was so good. "If you will stop staggering around like we're going anywhere, I will close up what open wounds I can and then we'll see if they left any particular nuisances behind. But you need to be down and still before I start because it will hurt like a bitch."

Zea just pointed at the ground at the dragon's feet. Obnoxious patients didn't get debates.

Another smile came from Oblirins mouth but it was no unfriendly one. He lowered himself again and laid down. ''There is a cord with a sharp fang around my neck. If your usual tools do not make it through my scales then you can take it.'' he said softly. He did not feel like dying just yet but this sure was a lot better then being hooked onto all those tools that seemed to take away just enough so he would not die.

There. There! Sometimes people who needed help were so uncomfortable with the notion that they were giant whiny disobedient babies about it, but no matter how much it felt sometimes like trying to command a dragon Zea had never actually done that thing.

"Okay. Noted," Zea said as she began picking her way over bent and broken undergrowth toward her patient. "Probably just going in with my hands, unless you're going to explode if you come into contact with magic. In which case I'll take that tooth. Any big warnings about dragon anatomy I need before I go digging inside you?"

Oblirin pondered. ''My blood should, contain magic. Consume any part of me and it will grant you the magic I am supposed to have for a few minutes. I will not explode with a magic touch but if your blood comes in contact with mine though a small cut in your hands you could perhaps feel power slipping into you.'' he said

That sounded really way more intimate than Zea had expected, and considering she was definitely planning to be inside this person... yeah. No to that. She looked at both hands, checking for little scratches or insect bites. She found a couple that she rubbed away with her thumb, grateful for the opportunity to avoid bizarre arcane cross-contamination.

"Good to know," she offered, continuing again now that she'd checked herself for broken skin. "And wow seriously don't tell anyone else that. Someone's gonna eat you."

Who said that? Who told people things like that? Who responded to a mostly unrelated question by offering a strong immediate incentive to let them die and chew on their corpse? Who did that? Where did people like this come from?

She knelt down to carefully remove the fang on the cord to claim it just for a while in case she ran up against something she couldn't pull apart by hand. And then she'd give it the hell back. Because she was not here to eat the dragon. Inima's tits. Some people's kids.

''People do weirder things then consuming a dragon's blood, organs, spinal fluid, name it. I am just glad I still have mine. Those who captured me wanted to make money on long term so they needed me as intact as possible. In the past people bathed in dragons blood or consumed their hearts. Do it enough and legend says you become one.'' He closed his eyes. If he attempted to relax then things would be a lot easier for this woman. He would not like the feeling but it would be over one way or another. He just hoped for the living result.

So they were basically farming for dragon blood. Or organs. Or whatever. Zea could absolutely see the sense in it and if she were personally in a more desperate situation she could imagine herself doing the same. Luckily for whoever this was, Zea was doing just fine so far. Good to get verification, though. If a dragon said that it was so, she had no reason to expect that she was being lied to as encouragement to... what? Eat some people?

She looped the cord with the dragon tooth around her own neck so she didn't lose it in the leaf litter and then started gently running her fingers over those pretty scales. Zea kept up a stream of mostly pointless chatter, because otherwise this dragon was going to figure out more fascinating reasons why Zea ought to just bend over and dig in with her teeth and she was too busy to keep explaining why that was both awkward and frankly pretty unhygienic.

"Okay checked your shoulders, going to your ventral section so if you're ticklish try to suck it up for a moment. You... oh. Huh. Lucky us. There are holes already in here. This'll hurt."

Zea tightened her fingers against one another and tucked in her thumb to make her hand into as slim a shape as possible before she began carefully pushing it inside the first injury on the creature's underside. Time to find out where a dragon kept their lungs!

"Sides of the cut are pretty smooth. I shouldn't have trouble closing it up once I check the... yep. There's the bottom." She glanced down at her arm. "You're deeper than you look. Anyway. I got a thing. I'm going to pull so this is actually going to be even worse."

''I'm... good'' Oblirin growled softly. He wasn't obviously, but kept himself relaxed and still. If he would move it would only make things harder and more painful. The pain was not unbearable yet and he growled softly with every breath. Every of Zea's movements though did make the growls a little deeper. He was glad though she said what she was doing.

''You can take it out. I'm ready for it'' he assured. ''Be glad that my kin mainly has a vegetarian diet and only eat meat if there is basicly no other choice. Some others could and would have devoured you by now..'' he jestered

"Hey! Just like Thanatos. Except eating us won't turn you human. Super boring, I know."

Zea pinched what felt like a sliver of smooth metal and pulled backward. Her arm up to the elbow was slick with dragon blood, but she had definitely found one of those Somethings.

"Aha. Got it. Yeah you got some stuff in there all right. Hang on because you won't like this either."

She laid the metal on the bark of a tree that the dragon had felled and went back in with both hands. She led with the same hand, since it knew the textures inside that incision the best, and then Zea began to twist and pinch the tissue until smooth organ flesh was meeting back up with the other organ flesh that felt just like it, leaving the slightly differently-smooth organ flesh to meet up with the rest of itself later.

To look at the dragon, she'd have thought oh one of the skinny ones. No. They only seemed skinny from the outside relative to their length. There was still quite a lot of internal volume.

Pulling the thing out made him release a painful roar and painful grunts when she got in again. He was not sure how many times this had to be done but instead of taking out the anger out on her he controlled it and thought of things. His mate from before he got captured. The egg surely must have had hatched a while ago. Females raised the young ones alone unless the female wanted the male to stay. If female it would stay with the group. If male it would ascend to the sky after being able to mate. If the group of females became to large, they would split. But a female could only lay a couple of eggs once every few thousand years.

Zea got herself only about one finger-joint deep before she started actually narrowing her working space. Closing off the skin was the major goal. Cosmetic stuff like scales could wait until she had actually rummaged around enough. What was enough, anyway? Until its magic worked? What if it didn't? Maybe enough was the point beyond which the magic should work, after which they would know whether the loss was permanent.

Good to have a finish line.

"There ya go," she said, patting the smooth closed skin she'd sealed off. "One less hole. You're definitely right that they didn't want you dead. They went fairly easy on your organs. Looks like the real messy stuff's along your spine."

Zea gently walked her fingertips along the dragon's scales, going from gold to greener as she reached the dorsal side. The blood on her skin was still shining wet in the humid air.

"Don't worry, though. Spines I know what to do with. You and I both have one so it's slightly less foreign territory. Deep breath now. I'm going in again."

''Well glad that my magic healing does not have to repair so much organ wise.'' he growled again when she got in. ''I do still feel every inch of my body and spine otherwise I could not have flown here. At the least they had not paralyzed me.'' The air cooled the blood off she had on her arms making her entering the wound a little unpleasant but he fought through it. He was still grateful for her help this far. ''Anything I could repay your kindness and help with?'' he asked.

He had plenty to offer; knowledge, an old book or two. He stached some of the research results as well and some coin. His kin were no hoarders for riches but he would make sure they would never harm any of his kin again. The crows were most likely picking their guts out as he lay here.

Paralysis would've made it far harder for this dragon to get here from wherever it had been kept. Zea supposed that perhaps she could make it around with no sense of touch, but even if she could manage it... balancing was a little more delicate when the ground had been replaced by shifting wind.

"Well, normally I would want to ask you all kinds of seriously rude and intrusive questions about your physiology. But." She paused wrist-deep in the muscle next to the dragon's vertebrae. "Here we are. So."

A little redundant at this point.

Zea kept making gentle little swishes with her fingers, trying to stay aware of how much tissue there was between her and the spine itself. Backbones were nothing to fuck around with.

"Oh hey. Two for two. You got something in here as well. Less pointy, though, so I mean. That's good."

''Ask ahead'' Oblirin replied. ''Lets start with names. Oblirin is mine. What is yours?'' there was another growl when she mentioned he had 'something in there' as well. ''What the hell did they put in me anyway.''

Hooray! Hideously intimate interrogation time! Of all the times of day, this was frequently the best. Maybe that was sad. Zea could consider the possibility later.

Oblirin. Zea didn't know quite what to make of that name. One of the more foreign she had heard in a fair string of minutes.

"Zea Misra. Calling me Zea is fine, though if you meet me in a temple setting just... I don't know. Do whatever everyone else is doing." This was not theology time. "And uh. This seems more rounded?" She tried to close her fingers on it, but they skidded in blood and slipped right off. "Little sonovabitch. Not you," she amended, realizing that this Oblirin probably didn't need to be cursed at in addition to rummaged about inside. "Just got to get this... thing here..."

Finally, after a couple more near misses, Zea just coagulated the blood between her fingers and the smooth surface within, forming first a tacky sludge and then a stiff scab. What she pulled out was now extremely messy but probably not physically dangerous. It was the writing on it that made her pull a scowl.

"This feels like metal too. It's got marks on it, looks like writing. I don't know if you saw anything like that before, but I'll set it aside. You can screw around with it later if you really want."

''Maybe I should see what they put in me. If I encounter my kin I could warn them about whatever this is. I did... '' he growled again. ''..I did clear out the nest of people who did this though'' he calmed down again. ''Zea... what you mentioned with do whatever everyone else is doing. Makes me curious what happens in there. I am not that old by my kin's standards but I have seen a lot of crazy things. What is it I can expect in there''

"Nothing weird or anything," said Zea Misra with her bare fingers ready to dig back into live dragonflesh.

"Just pretty standard religious order hierarchy type things. Forms of address being different depending on who you are versus who they are. All that. No dragon-eaters that I know of, but still. You have gotta stop telling people why they should try it. I can't..." Zea bit her lip and twisted her hand to get it back into the wound at the right angle. "...do this all the time, you know." A little further... "I have a job."

In other circumstances Oblirin could have laughed. ''I have a humanform. I do not think I am going to boast around to anybody to try dragonblood or anything else related to eating something else that could give someone magical properties.'' he grunted again. Suprised though others had not come to see where the growling and roar from earlier had come from. ''What are the detailes of your job Zea?'' he asked.

The talking at the least kept his mind occupied on something else then pain. Hence he would not mind she'd ask him anything.

At least she could get Oblirin to commit not to actively evangelizing about the benefits of people carving up dragons or tapping them like wine kegs. It didn't guarantee it wouldn't waste all her time and effort giving other people reasons to commit... dracocide? Zea wasn't sure. Whatever.

This tissue was pretty much just muscle. That was good. Zea had already messed around with some of Oblirin's muscle, so hopefully that would speed things up until she found some new anatomical territory to blaze with her bare hands.

"I do research, mostly. Surgery on live people isn't actually my usual. Generally it's all dissections and corpse grafting for me. There are some procedures people just aren't likely to consent to, and not everybody can hold still as well as you can. Kudos, by the way."

She gave that newly-closed puncture wound the little pat that signalled she was done with it. Onward and backward! Time to see what else had been crammed inside this dragon.

''Staying still has benefits for both of us. I feel less pain and you can work easier. A lot of things can be learned from looking in a body. I can imagine not everyone agrees to that since it hurts like hell.'' He paused briefly to breathe calmly. ''Do not be suprised if I pass out but do know, since I am grateful for your help you can ask me anything and research some things if you wish. I do not think I need to ask you not to kill me, you would nit want your current work to be for nothing.''

Damn right she wouldn't. She was doing weird fiddly possibly contaminating finger-digging dragon surgery; this was not the sort of surprise task she wanted to see wasted. She did not, after all, have a plan in the event of Oblirin's death. Plan C would be a tricky matter.

"Passing out's fine. This is a pretty terrible experience you're having so no worries." Zea had now acknowledged her patient's suffering and privately congratulated herself on her bedside manner. She could do this live people thing.

Looked like some more back things. Why the spine? Didn't they know how dangerous that was? Well, if they were milking Oblirin for dragon blood, maybe they didn't have particularly great hazard gauges.

"But I think I'll take you up on that research and questions angle. I've never worked with dragon anatomy before. You all aren't exactly bequeathing your corpses left and right and apparently there's a black market organ value thing, which I am sure contributes."

Oblirin nodded. That indeed worked. He would stay awake for as long as he could. Perhaps he could even see through the whole procedure conscious. Although he had his doubts about that. His vision was blurry. ''Ask ahead. Talking seems to keep me awake''

Zea was so generous, she would ask a dragon intrusive questions because it was just a vital part of a decent bedside manner. She was compassionate and giving, and somebody somewhere would surely have been willing to say so. She hasn't ever met such a person, but it was a big weird world out there and anything was possible.

She began to worm her fingers into another puncture in the dragon's back.

"So how much truth is there to the whole fire breathing dragon thing? Your report on the matter holds way more authority than common wisdom filtered through... whatever, through the recollections of jumpy peasants."

''Some dragons breathe fire. I certainly don't. My kin...'' he grunted a little due some discomfort. ''..My kin can summon rain, manipulate clouds to let it rain and we can manipulate nature. Males can also create lightning. So to answer your question. Yes. They can breathe fire but there are a lot of different kinds of dragons out there who can't and have something else. Some also are violent. Like what you said, scaring peasants? My kin of dragons only eat meat if there is absolutely nothing else. ''

The fire thing was real! The weather control thing sounded a lot more lucrative, though, at least outside of Thanatos. Assuming Oblirin could avoid having his blood distilled down to potions, it seemed like a pretty comfortable living to just find some farmland and settle in for a portion of the crops. Then again, that sounded hideously boring to Zea. Maybe Oblirin would agree.

"All right, then. In that case it's probably worth telling you that you're in Thanatos and unbalancing the weather won't make you a lot of friends here. Smashing and bleeding on coca leaves is one thing, but you could make things tricky for yourself if you start having a larger impact on the local environment."

What Zea felt inside this particular puncture was way smaller than the previous one. She had to pinch it between her fingernails before she could begin pulling it out, but like the other it also had what she could only assume was some sort of writing on it. Hopefully Oblirin recognized the language, because it might come in handy depending on what other enchantments it could hold.

''Bleeding over them wont do the job but I get your point. As long as there is fruit or nectar I'm good. Also I consume a lot less in my human form so I should just stick to that. Thanathos though... wildlife being scarce here should not prove a problem for my kins diet.'' he took a deep calm breath.

''How does the Thanatos society view the kind of extration I undertook anyway. Is it legal?''

"Well. That's an interesting question."

Bleeding all over the coca leaves might not be the worst thing for them. Zea did not have time right this particular moment to study the impact on alchemical formulae of a little bit of dragon blood, but it seemed like there was at least a slight chance that it would be good for the efficacy of the resultant compound. Despite her current convenient access to dragon ichor, further study would have to wait.

She flicked the latest little arcane doodad over with the others.

"There might be some people who consider your wellbeing less important because you aren't Thanati yourself. But we don't do slavery here and most of us don't even really eat monkeys or birds, let alone a fully conscious person. I doubt their exception for you would go far enough for that even if you are a little... excessively exotic."

Zea began to pinch and twist to stop the bleeding at this surgical site like she had for the others.

"You still shouldn't encourage anyone to eat you. Just in general."

''Oh I will not encourage people to eat me. Was just wondering. If people here are not interested in dragon blood or spinal fluid or bonemarrow it most likely got exported. I flew here in a half unconscious state but know I did not get far or crossed any large body of water. If it is black market then perhaps whoever I left alive should be put to justice instead. I got out but if I missed anyone and they capture another of my kin or anything else it would not be good would it.'' he said with a weak growl. Thus far his head had always been raised but he started to slowly move it closer to the ground.

Zea grunted noncommittally at this revelation. Oblirin might have been being kept here, then. While this was ethically unacceptable, on a professional level it bothered Zea even more. If this sort of nonsense got out, it would attract scrutiny to just the sorts of markets she occasionally made use of herself. What a disaster.

"Hey. Relax for a minute. I know you've got a lot of feelings right now but if you work yourself up and rip open your liver you're not going to be any good to anybody. If it's any encouragement..."

She trailed a hand down until she found the stickiest and freshest blood next in her path. This wound was lower. Could be Oblirin was right that they wanted more than blood. Certainly if Zea didn't have more important work to do, she'd be curious about Oblirin's other humors as well.

"...I might be able to make some inquiries. I don't think all of my usual contacts would be too shocked by me expressing interest, so I might be able to work my way toward whatever supplier is moving your... uh. Various fluids. I make a credible potential buyer at least."

''Truth be told... if they wanted my blood they just could have asked. My main problem was that they kept me there in the dark for years hooked up on whatever they had. But true. A ruptured liver does not sound so good. Or anything ruptured actually...''

His jaws made a weird smile before his head gently touched the ground. He did not fully pass out though. His eyes were half open and he still growled or snarled softly at feelings of discomfort. The bloodloss just had made him really tired. But he knew too if he would fall asleep now he could be done for and Zea's hard work would be for nothing.

''Would you go to such lengths by the way... do be careful. The harvesters once killed one of their own because he almost spilled the words when he was drunk. ''

Oblirin just gave blood away. Just... oh you want my precious life fluids sure open that vein up in the actual real world? What an opportunity for research that could have been! And now Oblirin was going to be all fucked up about it. Fantastic. Way to go, kidnapping dragon-drainers. Just perfect.

She had to pause what she was doing when the dragon expressed concern for her wellbeing, because she was laughing hard enough that she couldn't keep her hands steady.

"Oh... oh wow. I mean..." She rubbed her cheek against her bare shoulder to see if her eyes were watering because it felt like they were. "...Of course they'd try. But there's got to be a line drawn somewhere, or they're going to shut down the entire arcane research community in this area by being unbelievably and apparently unnecessarily unprofessional."

Oblirin could not help but chuckle. ''A life for a life you know. You save mine, I will protect yours. That's how I work.'' the chuckling hurt though.

''But if they wanted my blood for research I could not care less and would have given it without a struggle. But they... without asking, just bound me in chains and took everything they could tap off me without killing me. Rendered me incapable of using most of my magic and sold what they took. They only wanted to see gold. They are not researchers. If they are they are, like you said unnecessarily unprofessional. I hope you do not mind I add selfish in front of it and assholes behind it.'' he chuckled again resulting him into coughing briefly. But after that he just laid still once more so Zea could continue.

A dragon evidently owed her some kind of life debt.

Now there was a handy thing.

Of course a dragon would understand the notion of proper exchanges, even one as apparently generous as Oblirin. It was generally best not to rely on other people's sense of indebtedness, but Zea absolutely wouldn't forget once they acknowledged it first. After all... denying that Oblirin owed her a favor would be like saying that the dragon's life was worthless. That would be mean. She'd hate to be mean so she'd find an angle, even if it was just some kind of vague interest on Oblirin's part in her continued survival.

"No, those words seem accurate. Plenty of selfish assholes can manage to be professional, though. That's what really pushes this over the line for me, though in your position I would also have that whole vengeance motivation. They took out pieces of your hide. I'd say you're owed a few pieces of theirs. How's your magic feeling, by the way? Any impact from me taking out what I have?"

''I do feel warmer.'' Oblirin admitted. ''Some places where there had been internal damage are itching which means they are mending. I do need to make sure things do not close up until it is sure there are no things in there you pulled out of the others.''

he looked to a patch of trampled grass. Inhaled and then slowly breathed out on it. As he did so, a few patches of white strawberries started to form and grow to the point where the fruit was ripe to be eaten. ''I think that answers your question too. When the rest is out I am sure I could make something a little more impressive.''

He closed his eyes and focussed a bit. ''there is another object in the middle of my tail... and one against the spine not far from the previous one. Those two seem to still hold my magic back. And there are still some needles in the wounds I will not attempt to close myself. As for the hides. If I have the time I surely would not mind to actually let any potentional surviving ones undergo the same treatment. Another dragon certainly would have eaten them alive but I do not eat people.''

Zea bent sideways to look around Oblirin's body for the alleged answer to her question. Berries, maybe? Well. It was certainly a start, though something a little more impressive might be exactly the sort of trick she'd advised against. Propping the coca back up would be one thing, but encouraging spready vines could get destabilizing very quickly.

"Don't worry about whether they might close. I can dig right back in if I need to, and then close you back up. And you said.." Zea walked her fingers further down the bloodied scales of the dragon's back. "Yep. You've got a hole here. These seem to be the real pissers so I'll get them first."

If they left in a needle or two... eh. Zea wasn't too worried. People could live long and productive lives with staples or bits of gravel embedded in their bodies. A dragon that could self-heal shouldn't have any such difficulties once all the disabling stuff was gone.

Getting into a rhythm now, and getting familiar with her predecessors' work, helped Zea reach more quickly to the usual depth. This bit was almost perfectly spherical, which was the weirdest of all. Would a sphere not have worked? Why? Why the little lumps and raised parts? This was really strange. Fascinating, but strange.

''What are all the materials you pulled out made of anyway. I know of a race named mordecai despite they do not influence me. And there are magic blocking cuffs and neckbands but do not recall them ever having worked on my kin either. So something must have done the job. Also. Why are these strawberries white... must be a native thing, can only grow what is capable of growing here. Or has once grown here.''

Zea shrugged reflexively before remembering that Oblirin likely was not carefully monitoring her body language. As much as she'd have loved to vivisect a Mordecai, Zea didn't think that they were relevant to Oblirin's current situation. It was one thing to throw iron over a bunch of half-fae; it was quite another to trap and tap a dragon for a period of years.

"I don't really know what I'm pulling out."

She lobbed the near-sphere over into the pile of former implants. It thumped gently on a thick stem and rolled onto the leaf litter.

"My working hypothesis is that the material, the shape, the marks on them, and their location in your body are all important variables. I'm not having trouble from touching them briefly, and I know that I wouldn't go to all the trouble of inserting them at these intervals if I could just cut you open and stuff them in wherever."

''You have a point'' Oblirin said slowly closing his eyes. It was hard to remain awake. He would have to see the things later and then perhaps destroy them if he could.

''Looks like I can not stay awake after all..'' he said softly. ''At least I wont die. Would be a waste of your hard work. I just need some sleep...'' he muttered.

"Nah. If you haven't died by now, I seriously doubt you're going to. Rest, heal up, make some more blood, and I'll just rummage around in here while you're out."

It was hard to call it anything but rummaging. She was sticking her hands inside Oblirin's body and digging for specific things to pull out and toss aside. Rummaging.

Zea really hoped that waking Oblirin up later wouldn't result in some kind of awful probably-lethal localized lightning storm. Maybe she could just do her job here and then hang around close by and finish what she'd actually come out to do?

Wait, no. Scratch that. Finish here, wash her hands, and then harvest leaves. That middle step was feeling more important with every passing minute.

When he awoke, Zea was most likely long done. His body despite still feeling a bit weak and sore. He could not have been out for more then a few hours though. Magic wise he other then drained and recharging felt like normal. He got on his feet. Still a bit wobbly and looked at the tree. Facing it before he unleashed another invisable breath causing it to be in its full leaf and fruit, although in this case nutty glory.

''Good job Zea..'' he whispered before closing his eyes again. His body glowed golden and seemed to shrink and change form. The glowing faded and revealed him in his humanform making him fall over. It would still be a while until his blood would be all back but at the least he could do this.

Zea had, in fact, finished gathering leaves. In the interest of getting ahead of Oblirin's potential lingering disability, she'd started a small fire to burn wet little twigs from the forest floor down to ash. Tea required entirely too many vessels for water at various temperatures, but this was an easy way. Oblirin was probably going to be a little woozy later on and might well still hurt like a bastard.

So.

She was going to dip into her currently-abundant supply and make the dragon a little something.

The next time she walked by, the clearing Oblirin had created was mostly empty. A human body took up far less space. She approached from behind because she hadn't forgotten that bit about breathing lightning, and crunched around conspicuously. "Oblirin. Hey. You dead?" She crouched down and extended one leg as far as it'd go to poke him with the very tip of her boot. "Hey."

''Not dead'' Oblirin said with a slight grunt as he sat up. ''Lost my footing. It is a lot different to move like this then in a dragon form. At least for now anyway. Oh... I took the liberty of resupplying your tree over there.'' he got on his feet and removed some dead grass from his kimono before turning towards Zea.

''Allow me to properly introduce myself. Oblirin the Sorran dragon. At your service.'' he said with a polite bow.

Zea retracted her foot and let herself rock backwards onto her behind. She let her heels plant themselves in the leaves and rested her elbows on her knees. It occurred to her that she made a stark contrast to Oblirin's formal bow, but she was a little tired by now and had a hard time motivating herself to be distantly polite to someone she had quite literally been inside only a few hours ago. If they could be on a first name basis, they could maybe just sit the hell down for a minute.

"Hi. Zea Misra. Priestess of Inima and shady researcher, though apparently not the shadiest in the neighborhood. Imagine my surprise. I, uh. I made you some stuff, in case you're hungry or tired or hurt anywhere. Might make a little bit of difference for a while."

''I will not deny I am sore all over.'' Oblirin admitted as he gracefull sat back down after tossing what seemed to be a long oriental sword and a whip aside. He would not need them here with her. The area where he had rested earlier was still covered in blood. The next rainfall should most likely wash it all away. The strawberry patches he made were still there too.

''If you do not mind me asking. Out of curiosity, what did you make.'' He had not dealt with human made stuff, be it food, drinks or anything else. Only thing he ever shared with humans were their beds and their form of intercourse he personally found rather facinating.

Sore all over. Yeah... yeah, Zea had sort of seen that one coming. One did not spend years hooked up to needles and bleeding from open sores without a little lingering discomfort. She didn't know from personal experience, obviously, but she felt like she could make a reliable guess.

"It's just a local thing. You keep some leaves in your mouth and chew them and if you're not used to it I guess it could be sort of weird. Normally what it's best for is numbing people's mouths before yanking teeth, but it's good for other stuff too. Wakes you up like a couple strong cups of tea, and can at least put off hunger for a little bit."

Zea folded her knees up and wrapped her arms around them.

"It's not a quick fix or anything, but it might help you get to the next house over so you can lay down and get some proper rest. This is all assuming your physiology right now is even remotely as human as it looks." She shrugged deeply. "Which maybe it isn't."

''My organs are placed at the location yours are. It will respond the same to a couple of things. But I am physically still stronger then others with the same kind of physique and I can still perform my magic. Also a normal knife is not capable of cutting my skin. This form is usually for blending in.'' He looked at the tooth that was back around his neck before he looked at Zea again.

''I will give those leaves a try. Not sure if they work but one way to find out right?''

"Pretty much!"

That's what she liked to hear. A little bit of courageous scientific curiosity. There were men and women of science, so why not dragons? Once Oblirin had had a chance to come down a little she really wanted to see about that knife thing. Knives really just... couldn't? No wonder people wore dragonhide as armor, though the notion felt a little morbid to consider while she sat looking at a fully-sapient dragon who was conversing with her and clearly trusted her. Oblirin was a person, not a garment.

Yet.

Obviously if he'd died everything would be different.

"I put out my fire a little bit away. Just need to grab some stuff and then you get to enjoy the singular experience of chewing leaves and wood ash." Zea grabbed a tree trunk and pulled herself up to stand. "And then we should probably head out. I don't know how long you like to stay in that form, but just because this dulls your appetite doesn't mean you actually need to eat less than you normally would. Just lets you forget for a while."

Oblirin agreed. ''The difference basicly, instead of... a few dozin kilo's of fruit I will be down to normal humanoid portions. Assuming I should not put every tree to its full potentional, or let things regrow from ages ago, it will not be a bad idea for me to stay like this. There is no limit to the time I can be in a human form.'' he got on his feet and picked up the whip and katana. To be sure though he knelt down at the patches of strawberries. Blew softly over them which made them withdraw deep within the earth. ''Good as new. Aside from the blood.'' he jesterered and followed Zea to where she had the fire going.

"You remembered! And don't worry about the blood. Things disappear quickly here."

Oblirin had been listening after all. Zea hadn't really dug around inside people who ended up surviving long enough to recover and comment on the process later, but somehow she hadn't expected Oblirin to be able to. Maybe it was a dragon thing. Or maybe the lack of any actual death made a bigger difference than she'd estimated.

Just went to show. A girl could learn something new every day.

The fire wasn't far, and had been reduced to a pile of finely-charred ash mounded on top of a charred leaf. Zea sat back down next to it and sifted through the ash one more time with the tips of her fingers. She flicked a bigger piece of charcoal away so that all she was left was soft enough to layer between two leaves.

"Here." She held them up on the flat of her palm. "You wanna put the leaves between your teeth and your cheek. And you can just kind of nip it occasionally. The ash is there because otherwise it is bitter like you would not believe."

Oblirin nodded and accepted the leaf, following Zea's instructions. It took a while for him to feel the effects though but they were there. The pain became less, and his hunger too. But still he would need to eat something good at some point.

''So tell me. Me giving you the right to do research on me however you like. What kind of things would you like to know or find out.'' he asked out of interest. He took the runeinscribed slivers from a bag, having put them in it earlier and looked at them. The ruins were simple. But not something that should work. So indeed it was the material and the location. Most things Zea took out of him were made of very pure silver. And he felt it itching in his hands. He had never touched the metal before in his life. They were no treasure hoarders after all so perhaps it was worth to look into the option that silver was simply something that affected his kin.

Question time! Good thing Zea had been considering the delicate little puzzle of how to gently get a total stranger at a vulnerable point in his life to open up to her about things that might well be species-wide weaknesses, because she knew just what she was going to do. She had a plan.

"Right! Yes. So. I have a lot of questions about your reproductive cycle." Such a good plan. After all, she'd already been inside him today, right? "Do you lay eggs or give birth to live young? Does it matter what form you're in when that internal gestation is done? And does it matter what form you were in at the time of conception? Does it matter whether the one getting fertilized does any shapeshifting while gestating? Or actually. I guess I am making a big assumption that your reproduction even involves precisely two contributors. Maybe it doesn't. But yeah. That sort of thing."

A nice easy start.

''Females lay one egg after the internal gestation is done. Sometimes two. The female chooses her mate. We do not fight for the right to mate with her. The time for a fertilised egg to form takes about nine days.Two days before it is being laid, the female remains in her dragon form. Usually anyway. There have been a couple of cases in which didn't. Either curiosity or own choice. If she remains human, she will have a 14 month long pregnancy giving birth to a live child and the female will be unable to morph until the child is born.'' he paused a moment so Zea could let it sink in.

''Some choose to mate in dragonform, others in their human forms. Human form is like your kin does. In dragon form the male inserts himself before letting their bodies entwine. Tensing and then relaxing our muscles do most of the work. ''We are able to make a female of another race pregnant too. Obviously we do that in humanform. Half kin can however not morph but will have an extended life spam and a weak form of our magic.''

What a beautifully unembarrassed account of where little dragons came from. How versatile. No wonder they were still around despite apparently being made of delicious magical performance-enhancing drugs. So many breeding conditions; so many options.

It was also quite telling that humans and humanoids were the only other species Oblirin had seen fit to mention as alternatives to his own kind. If there were sapient creatures large enough for a dragon to mate with in their inhuman form, Oblirin wasn't coming right out and saying so.

"Is mating purely a reproductive matter or do you do the whole emotional bonding thing?"

''We have no emotional bonding. Most of the time. Males live solitair in the sky or mountains while females live in small groups. After mating the male protects the female until the egg is hatched or living child is born. Skmetimes we males hear a call from a female or a male looks her up if they feel the need to have intercourse. It in that case will be purely for the pleasure. Only a few hands full sticks with one mate for a long period of time and have emotional bonding. It tends to happen to those who hang around with hunans or elves a lot. There are dragonkin who have one mate their entire life whom they really love.''

A whole species that mostly just had sex and reproduced when they felt like doing precisely those things. Romance was a rarity, not an expectation. Seemed a little like elves and humans had taught the poor motherfuckers to love.

What a crime against the universe, she considered, disdainfully flicking a bit of ash from her fingers. Leave it to bipeds to ruin dragons.

Zea considered asking if Oblirin had ever indulged in that kind of emotional play-acting, but immediately disregarded it as a line of questioning she'd hate. They'd start getting all personal and things would get unpleasant and then she'd have to never speak to him again.

"How long does it take for your particular variety to reach physical maturity?"

''Females aproxematly 500 years. Males need about a hundred years longer. Males then also leave the group of females they grew up in. Females who live in groups of about four or five and split in new groups when the males leave. Males live for 15000 years before they die of old age. Give or take a few years of course. Females live longer. 18000. Males are bigger in average to females too. A full grown Sorran male can be 9 meters. A full grown female, 8. We grow until we are aproxemantly 9000 years old.'' he said calmly with a smile.

Zea's questions did not bother him although he did noticed she did not ask him if he was into emotional acts of 'love'. But since she did not ask she did not bring it up. Not yet anyway

Zea gave a low whistle. As a life scale went, that was an incredibly long time. The idea of being burdened with a child felt sufficiently repellant to her without it being a half -millenium obligation. With a lifespan like that, though...

...no, she couldn't even contextualize child-rearing on that sort of a timeline. Comparing ratios was one thing, but Zea suspected it would not even get close to articulating what point of view and priorities it'd lend to such a long-lived organism.

"Wow." She shook her head. "So what the hell are you ever doing even hanging around humans? I don't exactly form complex personal rapports with butterflies no matter how pretty they are."

''Humans, elves, fae, I find them facinating. The love thing is not meant for me though and surely someone tried. But people, they are full of suprises and are capable of a lot of things. I look human now but surely am not. My views are different. I like to learn what is there to learn about other races. Right now I have lived over 2000 years.''

After a brief pause he continued, thinking of how to put it to words. ''But I will never know everything. Put 10 people in a room and there are 20 different opinions. Just like you. I like to learn. Usually we calmly live our lives. Pick places hard to reach by people. Males fly, occasionally drop rain on places that need it, restore the land if it had been damaged by a wildfire or war and will be on our way again. Females often stay on the ground. Raise the young, teach them what they know and move on. I have two children whom I will never see. It is not my job to raise it. But if my mates call out I will hear it. If not me, another male will to see if there is anything they need. Most of my kin give their life little thought. I just like to explore things a bit more. Even though it got me caught in the first place.''

Oh fuck Oblirin was going to share some kind of personal heartbreak shit wasn't he? No no no. Abort. Divert. Something. If this was a hint of conversational tangents to come then it was Zea's responsibility to do something to prevent it. She needed to take decisive action and save herself.

Oblirin had young that he didn't have any particular interest in--and by fuck didn't that sound familiar--because obviously why not just knock up a female and fuck off, assuming that if there were a major problem obviously Oblirin would find out in time. Sure. Because that always worked.

Sounded like male dragons--for all their fantastic lifespans--were just as fucking stupid as everyone else's. Why couldn't Zea have found a female?

"Long as you're willing to pay the price, no reason to stop doing it. That much I do know." She pointed a thumb backward over her shoulder. "You want to head out? Probably best to get you someplace safer to sleep before you crash." Someplace safer, and ideally someplace that'd let her foist off responsibility for him until she could figure out who'd been tapping him like a wine cask.

When he'd been in trouble, had anybody heard him call out? Or had they all been too busy raising his abandoned offspring? Who the fuck knew. Zea had changed the subject and that was what mattered.

''You're probably right.'' Oblirin replied. ''Did my words make you uncomfortable? If so I apolagise. I lack certain mindsets. Or at the least they had not been taught to me. I am still an animal after all. And our ways... you may not always like or agree with them.'' he got on his feet. Moving certainly seemed to go easier then before due to feeling less pain. ''I do wonder how my young are actually. To bad my mates did not agree on me staying'' he chuckled putting his sword between his obi and the whip around a special holder waiting for Zea to lead the way. ''thank you for the leaves by the way. It did help.''

"Hey, you know me," which he most assuredly did not. Zea pushed down on her knees to lever herself up to stand. "Always willing to experiment on other people."

Not a lie, happily! Could dragons tell when someone was lying? She should ask that one later.

"And the fact that you are an entirely different species operating with a wholely separate set of assumptions and priorities is sort of not a surprise to me. I knew that when I decided to ask a dragon how they fuck."

Zea turned her back immediately--that was sort of an extension of trust, right?--and pushed directly through undergrowth to take the straightest route back to the path. She was glad that none of her usual colleagues could hear her address a near-stranger with so familiar and indeed vulgar a tone. They'd get all judgy. But what did Oblirin know? He didn't even have anything to do with his own young; relating to another much smaller species was not the kind of thing she'd have relied on him to do.

''Well experiment all you like. If I can endure pain for years in a row a bit more will not bother me if it helps someone.'' Oblirin replied. He had no idea what Zea would do to him or have in stock for him but he would not mind. She helped him, he would help her.

''If you are not airsick and you could be interested I could take you to a group of females at some point'' he suggested. It would be a while from now though. He had to regain the blood he had lost. Get his strength back, let Zea do her thing and recover from that too.

That offer gave Zea a moment of internal pause. Talking to the females, the ones who actually had anything to do with their own kind besides fucking and leaving to go spend time with weirdly-ephemeral creatures like humans. Certainly seemed more useful, but Zea wasn't certain she was the girl for the job.

"You probably want a different kind of scholar for that. I don't do well with kids. There are some folks who'd do better, but my primary work is in bodies and how they die or don't, not culture or parenting." A beat. "But if you know of any dragons that can live on sunlight like plants, I wouldn't mind working with one of those."

A plant dragon.

That would be perfect.

Maybe all she could do was turn as many remaining humans as possible into something like that dragon or its kin, but did that count? Saving humans by replacing them?

Zea supposed it did. At least the next generation would do better.

''There is a new Dryad grove in Serendipity that has small dragon like creatures that do exactly that. But they are so small they can sit on your shoulder.'' Oblirin replied. He had flewn over and rested there once. But the Dryad had not shown herself to him other then hiding behind her tree.

''I can understand your choice. Still. Who says the group has kids.'' he winked but doubt she saw. He was following her after all. But would Zea change her mind then she knew who to ask he supposed.

''Condering researching me. What would you like to do first?''

"Oh.... ffpbbbb." Zea blew air out through her lips, trying to figure out how much she could even say beforehand. So much of this was a matter of inspiration, of sitting down with tissue samples and seeing how they reacted to grafting, to herbal remedies, to healing or preservative magic, to blood magic, to... well, whatever she had to hand. So much of it was about intuition.

"Well, you live a long damn time, by the sound of it. So I think I would probably start by taking a tissue sample and seeing what conditions kept it alive longer than a comparable human one, then scaling up to bigger samples to see if the pattern holds."

Just feeding people dragon blood to lengthen their lives wasn't good for shit except perhaps to keep herself around long enough to keep her research going. It wasn't a solution. People were going to need to be different. Feeding mortal things a steady diet of something non-renewable wasn't a solution; Zea needed to change people. Dragon blood, almost no matter what, just wouldn't be enough. She was going to need more.

''My kin has a gem on the forhead. The bigger it is usually the more magic the dragon has. I am relativly young so mine is not much of a big deal, not to mention it has been removed before. I do note that when damaged or removed it takes a hell of a long time to get it back.'' not to mention it hurt like hell. The pain itself would knock him out for sure but he would not mention it. Even if he would, he permitted her. So no complaining.

A gem. It had something to do with what made a dragon physiologically unique, but unless Zea could find some way to grow them outside of living self-sustaining dragon flesh, the gem did not sound especially useful to humans. Where would she graft one in, anyway? The forehead? Too obvious. Somewhere better hidden, so that if someone thought to target her subjects it would be easier for her to hide them.

"Unless I could use that gem to permanently change a human, I don't expect that I'll have much need for it. Temporary boosts in ability or lifespan are honestly pretty easy to come by. Unfortunately, what you get with those is a dependence on repeated... I don't know, doses, exposure. That sort of thing. The fundamental problem remains."

Zea stretched her arms above her head as she walked, knotting her fingers together so that she could crack the joints.

"See, I'm working on this mortality thing. At the temples we're supposed to be experts on death, but not everybody is really figuring out what it is about some species that means they just sort of... don't last. They just say oh they're not made to, which isn't an answer, you know? And you don't really solve the problem by making humans into vampires or liches or whatever, because then all you have is something that still relies on a fundamentally-mortal food source, which when you think about it makes them damn near as mortal as they were before. It doesn't work, not really. Just buys time."

''Mortality huh?...'' Oblirin said pondering. ''It is a curious thing why some species last longer then another. Of course knowing why is an interesting matter. I will tell you one thing. Living this long. It can be dull and boring. For some it can be hard to keep things interesting. If they can't, they can become insane. I have seen it. But. I am still willing to help you obviously'' he assured. ''I am interested in it perhaps as much as you are.''

Zea did not give even one third of a flying fluorescent shit how dull and boring life could be after a sufficiently long time living it. If people wanted to call it quits at some point out of sheer boredom, that was their call. What she didn't approve of was the degree to which perfectly productive lives were simply wasted to ensure that the local ecosystem had adequate fertilizer. Worms would eat absolutely anything; she didn't have to let them eat humans.

Additionally... Zea wasn't ready to go. If someone killed her than someone killed her, but the inevitability of being thrown back to the spirits her mother had brought her to Thanatos to escape... it was wrong. She refused to do it, not after so long free from their endless whispering and icy desperation.

"I think you underestimate the urgency of my research. A dragon could spend centuries or millenia working and be content with whatever progress they make. I've got decades to solve this problem. I can't count on anybody picking up where I left off; Inima encourages principle, not ambition. In all likelihood I have to finish this myself. Soon."

''well...'' Oblirin said pondering. ''There is ancient forgotten and most likely by now forbidden magic where a dragon and other being became one by the being eating the dragon's heart in a ritual grating the other person the same lifespam as the dragon. The catch is though that if either of them does so does the other. I read it in a library somewhere but it most likely is not the type of long life you are looking for is it.''

Zea first responded with a deep sigh, low and rough. This was exactly the kind of half-assed quick fix necromancers had been content with for basically all of recorded history and almost certainly beyond that. All they cared about was keeping themselves around just a little longer. Zea could understand their desperation, but that was no excuse to come at the problem like a short-sighted squeamish layman.

"No. All the most common and obvious ways require piggybacking off of something else that's already got a good lifespan. But that's not sustainable. It turns anybody or anything with a long life into a resource too valuable to preserve because everybody's going to just raze the population into the ground."

People did it with Thanati forest and farmland. Why wouldn't they do it to dragons?

''Just saying that the possibility is there. Dragons would not just allow anyone to do this though. It was often a pact. A form of trust, or when they saw someone as family. Personally I would not see it as a resource. A very long time ago there was an Order or guild. It specialised themselves into extending their lifespams. Wanting to become immortal. But their researches, I heard that they were horrible.''

There had been more rumors about dragons. Filling a tub of their blood and bathing in it for multiple times would turn one into a dragon. Some people seemed so desperate Oblirin had wondered if it would ever stop.

Pact. Zea wrinkled her nose. Yes, lining up her entire species in symbiosis with another species that it had no way to relate to. Sure. That would be a great solution that surely every future generation would be thanking her for, thanking her for chaining them into dependence upon dragons to see their great-great-great-great-great grandkids grow up.

"It's a common way of thinking. Thinking small, thinking short term. Just staying alive and screw whether the solution scales well to an entire population."

Zea rubbed her scalp above her forehead in irritation, fingers digging under her thick curling hair.

"Necromancers with no real ambition are one of the most pitiful wastes in the entire world. They think they're so fearless and special because they want to live. Fucking coral wants to live, but that doesn't mean it makes a good professional role model."

''Well. My body is yours to do with it what you think nessesary.'' Oblirin said stating the obvious of earlier. He would need time to actually fully understand Zea's way of thinking though. Mortals were meant to be mortals. It was exactly what made their lives so invalueable. But a few, perhaps should live longer then the rest.

What a thing to say.

Seriously, what a thing to say, especially to her. Then again, Oblirin wasn't from around here. He'd never seen her basement, never dug it back out after a flood. There were almost certainly very good ignorance-related reasons why he thought he could just tell her that she had dibs on his body.

"I wouldn't mind you bequeathing it to me after you die. You know, one corpse to Zea Misra, care-of Sura Temple of Inima. Especially if you think you can die as a dragon. Haven't gotten one of those yet."

Did Oblirin really think that she was going to ask to bathe in his blood and shove his heart up her ass or whatever other soul-bonding ritual was all the rage in the maladjusted necromancer crowd? What a gross prospect, sharing her life-force with some other... other anything. The thought made her want to take a bath.

''I would have to make sure to die here then. It is a long way from where I usually lived to here. But by all means. Wether I die, decompose and feed the earth with myself or be of use to someone, It will not matter that much to me.''

He wondered how far it was. He could use some sleep. And food. But most of all sleep. Come to think of it where would she let him sleep anyway.

"Don't suppose it would, no. Unlikely you're using the corpse anymore, so someone else might as well. Waste not, want not."

If he didn't die in Thanatos but nobody was doing anything else with his corpse, having it transported to the Meeting Place where she could retrieve it seemed like the most viable plan. Oblirin should start carrying a will. Obviously any worldly goods would get stolen and divvied up but nobody could use a corpse quite like Zea could.

Wouldn't it be best for everyone if the world learned that sooner rather than later? Oblirin should carry a will.

''My thoughts exactly'' Oblirin said.

He was curious what would all be discovered.''Would it be natural death I will make sure I will find you.'' Assuming she would live long enough. But who knows. Maybe she could pull it off. Something told him she actually could.

This Oblirin seemed like a decent sort. Good head on his shoulders, good sense of priorities and scale. Assuming he were inclined to keep his word--and he seemed like the type who might--all Zea had to do was wait him out.

"Sure would be neighborly of you." Zea pointed forward, and then crooked her finger to indicate a bend in the path. "How do you feel about a climb? The people I'm staying with have a platform a bit upward. If you don't think you're up to it, we can do a rope harness. But I'm sure they'll be happy to have another guest if I pitch it right. Or at least they'll pretend they are, which works just as well."

''I can climb.'' Oblirin assured her. ''Maybe not as fast as usual. Wether they are happy with me or not is what we will see ourselves. If they do not see me as a person they might see me as your research subject instead. He looked at his hands for a moment. The skin turned into smooth golden and green scales and his fingers turned into sharp claws which should help him with the climb.

Zea sucked in teeth and shrugged slightly, the gesture barely more than a sideways tip of her head. She doubted she'd have to go so far as to introduce Oblirin as her freaky science pet or spooky-ass familiar servant.

She reached up and touched the roots of a bromeliad on her way under a low-hanging branch. She wasn't usually tall enough for that sort of thing, and some part of her still jumped to tap claustrophobic ceilings. Childhood hadn't been a good time for whimsy. Now was better.

"We don't do slavery here. I don't think it'd help your case any to introduce yourself as someone's property, unless you want to have a long conversation about mainland savagery and general foreign barbarism."

''I think I will spare myself those kind of stories.'' Oblirin said with a chuckle and started to climb.

Hunger despite masked by the leaves he chewed, the bloodloss and being exhausted from a lot of things did not make the climbing easy. But he did make it and held on to the end. He was a determined person whom would cross his physical limits against odds and still would keep going after that. He would sleep when he could. And that was not during a climb or before having found a proper place.

Nobody really cared to hear about how barbaric everybody else was. If they'd survived childhood then by adulthood they either they knew or they didn't.

She began whistling, the sort of continuous meandering music that birds didn't bother to make because it served no purpose. Zea didn't really feel like getting an arrow or a dart through her eye as thanks for bringing company back with her.

The first leg of the climb was the tallest, with a starting platform easily spotted from up in the trees but shielded from view by the branches below. The path itself was made from bamboo and woven hemp, light enough to sway a little as they walked on it but sturdy enough to only need replacing once or twice a year.

They passed one ring of the path that circled a tree and held stacked firewood beneath oiled canvas.

Around a couple more trees and across three more forks in the path--which presumably led somewhere else--Zea and Oblirin reached a more strongly-reinforced scaffolding over which an open-sided oiled canvas tent had been stretched. There was a woman inside it grinding something granular on a flat stone, and she stood up at the sight of Zea returning with company.

This woman was, if possible, even more small and fragile-seeming than Zea. Unlike Zea, she had rough and thorny vines wrapped in her hair which shifted and twisted to keep themselves from slipping down around her cheeks. Her smooth brown skin made her age difficult to determine.

"Oblirin, this is Granma Jenny. Gran, this is Oblirin. We ran into each other while I was harvesting and we have something we've got to work on. Do you mind if he stays?"

Jenny's bright green eyes flashed between Zea and this stranger, and without a word she turned to walk away.

"That means yes. Grab a patch of floor, Oblirin. At least here you won't get rained on. Or eaten, probably. Gran's mostly reformed."

A slightly louder than necessary thump from Jenny's grinding indicated that she'd heard Zea and wanted the priestess to know it.

"Almost completely."

Oblirin nodded. Even if he would drenched by drain it would not bother him. His claws had turned back to normal hands again. He removed the leaves from his mouth before finding as how Zea phrased it, a patch of floor.

''Some sleep... sounds good.'' he normally would politely introduce himself but he was to tired.

Zea watched to make sure that Oblirin didn't accidentally pitch himself over the side, which would have been a pitiful way to go after all he'd been through. Once she was reasonably confident that he was just going to find a sensible spot to lie down, she took the basket from her back and set it down next to Jenny.

She sprawled close enough to watch Jenny at her deceptively monotonous task. "How you been, Gran?"

The woman with vines in her hair gave Zea an almost totally blank look.

"Yeah." Zea yawned. "Yeah, me too."