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A Good Going-Over

Started by Cobalt, May 07, 2015, 01:53:51 AM

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Cobalt

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.

SilmeriaElemred

''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.''

Cobalt

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."

SilmeriaElemred

''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.

Cobalt

"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.

SilmeriaElemred

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.

Cobalt

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."

SilmeriaElemred

''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.

Cobalt

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."

SilmeriaElemred

''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.

Cobalt

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."

SilmeriaElemred

''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?''

Cobalt

"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."

SilmeriaElemred

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.

Cobalt

"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."

SilmeriaElemred

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.

Cobalt

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.

SilmeriaElemred

''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.''

Cobalt

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?"

SilmeriaElemred

''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.''

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