LSRO: Chapter 312 - Practically Fall (Patreon)

Not sure I'm entirely happy with the chapter title. But these were the two words I plucked from it and I think it's ok.

Maybe.

Anyhu. Still trudging along with my bung hand. Some days it almost feels bearable. And others it's really bad.

How odd is it that a nerve controls 1.5 fingers. Not 1. Not 2. But 1.5? Like why human body, why? You make no sense!

Anyhu. That's today's rant. That and it's almost summer, which means the kid will be home which means finding any possible minute available to eek out some productivity.

Hope you enjoy the chapter - it might be a sort of cliffy but it's not really. I couldn't do that to you guys... what the cliffy would be about. So you can take comfort in that.

~~

Chapter 48

Practically Fall

Not having had close siblings or even really a family for most of her life, Quinn wasn’t quite sure what to make of her new quasi aunt and uncle. Especially since it seemed that both of them wanted to take on her training. The Library, given it hadn’t actually been a dragon for longer than it was one, appeared only too eager, or perhaps apathetic enough, to hand over the reins of the training to its siblings.

The banter between Dru and Driv was just short of nasty. It made Quinn pretty grateful that she didn’t have blood siblings. Her foster brother had been pretty cool. She actually liked him. Maybe not all sibling relationships were bad. But these two fought like cat and dog. Her head spun with the information they threw back and forth between each other.

“You can’t teach her that yet,” Drukala said.

“Why ever not?” Drivok gave her a glare. 

Drukala threw her hands up in frustration. “She needs the basics, the fundamentals first. You can’t just jump out of the frying pan and into the fire.”

“I beg to differ,” her brother said. “Jumping into fire is exactly what dragons do.”

Their arguments began to sort of fade into background noise. 

After all, the doctor had wanted her to rest for a while. She guessed she should be able to get some training in for a day. Considering how much information she could absorb, they might actually be able to teach her a considerable amount if they could get past the arguing about what they should teach and who should teach it stage. Plus, while she was stuck in this room with them, there was no way for her to just idly open a door and go jumping into another world in an effort to escape them without them noticing. It was probably the best way to keep her contained, and she understood that to a certain extent. But she was about to tear her hair out. 

Expecting her to stay in this confined space and ply her with non-stop information that could eventually lead to practical teaching was probably their whole plan. Except her head was already muddled and filled with so much information from the overload she’d been given from Kajaro. All those images blended into an overabundance of fragments she couldn’t piece together yet. They desperately needed to leaf through those memories. But Milaro hadn’t returned yet. 

Quinn didn’t even know what time it was. Should she be asleep?

She sighed and decided to stand up for herself, quite literally.

She held up a hand, hoping it would stop the three-way sibling discussion that appeared to have forgotten she was present, or even that she existed in the same space. When that didn’t work, she put her fingers to her lips, and a wolf whistled once, very loudly. Of course, she’d forgotten that being a cosmicisodracus meant that she had heightened hearing and other senses. So it was actually extremely painful. She promised herself that she wouldn’t do that ever again. But the chattering stopped abruptly, so at the very least she’d gotten them to stop talking about her in front of her as if she wasn’t there. Thus, her aim and goal had been achieved. 

Quinn’s uncles, aunts, parents, whatever they were, looked at her expectantly, even if there was a tiny bit of pain in their expressions. Which served them right for talking around her and not to her.

“Right here, you know. How about talking to me? I am a person. I’m not a robot or some weird programmable being. I’m a whole entity that can operate all independently and stuff, and none of you are making me excited in any way to do any of this.” She gestured around vaguely. Quinn glowered at them and found herself ever so slightly out of breath. She just had to let it all out. At least Drukala and Drivok looked at each other slightly guiltily. But then they did that thing where they were like communicating with their eyes.

“Nope,” Quinn said. “we’re not doing that either.”

They looked at her like, doing what?

“That whole you having a discussion while I’m here without me knowing about it? A) I know about telepathy. I can do it too. B) That’s just plain rude. And I know we’ve already talked about you being rude,” she said, pointing at Drivok. Which, technically, if she’d been taught correctly as a human child, was also considered rude. But right now, she wasn’t concerned with any potential double standards.

“And... I expected better from you,” she said to Drukala.

Dru hurried to clarify. “We didn’t mean anything by it. We were just trying to...”

“What? Do what’s best for me? How about you consult me? I’m not a child. You pulled me here. In general, I was pulled here to fix stuff. You’re supposed to be teaching me aspects of my heritage that can help us resolve all of this. Stop wasting my time.” Quinn stood up and made as if to leave. She was far too tired and way too stressed for all this crap. She had so much on her list, so much to do, that she could still do quite a bit of from the Library instead of sitting here listening to them argue about what way was best to teach her. 

Except the Library spoke up. “Quinn, wait.”

And that was probably the only one that she couldn’t or didn’t want to ignore. “Fine. You’ve got like ten seconds.”

The Library didn’t waste any of it. “We haven’t seen each other in person for a very long time. We got a little carried away. There’s always been a slight rivalry between all of us. You know, friendly rivalry.”

“Yeah, so friendly that one of your brothers decided to try to sabotage your entire being, which would have probably killed you in the process.” Quinn narrowed her eyes. “You haven’t explained that part to them in full yet, have you?”

“Well, no,” said the Library, “because we’ve only just started catching up and you’re here and we’re trying to solve the problem of getting you up to speed on your abilities. We’re just not the best at agreeing on things.”

Which was a plausible explanation, Quinn thought. It also added an element of sheer dumb luck that the Library had ever managed to be created. Also, the looks on Drivok and Drukala’s faces when she’d mentioned Dravishk’s initial motivation to basically do away with the Library, or Drevicia, depending on how you looked at it. They looked absolutely horrified. Completely and utterly taken by surprise. Which made Quinn warm to them a little. At least meant that they weren’t in cahoots with the other brother, unless they were superb actors, which Quinn didn’t think they were.

“So I take it,” she said, “you weren’t aware of your sibling’s machinations.”

“No,” Drukala said, and when Quinn turned to Drivok to get his opinion, he looked like he was going to break something.

“Definitely not.” He bit out the words like he wanted to take a bite out of his brother. 

Quinn wondered if she could let him. “Well, now we’ve settled that, maybe we can talk like real grown-ups.”

The Library actually chuckled. “You do realize that you’re still an egg, literally. That’s why Hal calls you it.”

“I know, I’m young. Give me a break.”

There was a knock at the door. Quinn turned, quite certain that she knew who was coming through it. When she saw Mal’s face as he opened the door, a ripple of contentedness swept over her. It allowed her to relax and she didn’t realize she’d been so tense and not just annoyed at the way things were going. She’d actually missed Malakai.

“Am I interrupting?” he asked.

“No,” she said.

“Anything I can help with?”

“No,” she said, “but you’re welcome to stay. They’re gonna teach me how to be a dragon.”

“Oh,” Malakai said, “sounds fun.”

He plopped right down on the seat next to her. She dropped back to sit on the couch with Mal. To be honest, these new couches were way too comfortable, but the talking seemed to have woken Aradie up. She squawked and launched herself from her perch over to Quinn’s shoulder. If Quinn wasn’t mistaken, she also shot Malakai a rather withering look, as if he was on the side that she preferred. Then she settled on the back of the couch instead, her owl eyes observing everything.

Driv cleared his throat. “I apologize. I wasn’t expecting a new sort of hybrid version of our species to appear. Ever. You’re a bit of a surprise. And when I was awoken from my hibernation early, might I add,” he glared briefly at Drukala and the Library’s shadow, “I was not expecting to find you here.”

“To be fair,” Quinn said, “I wasn’t expecting for you to simply burst into the Library either. So, you know, we both had a surprise.”

Drivok chuckled. “So,” he said and clapped his hands for attention, “what do you need or want to know about our species? How can we help you do the job you were summoned here to do?”

Faced with the actual question, Quinn balked. She really had to think about that. How could knowing this potentially help her apart from control? What did she want to know? “Um,” she said, gathering her thoughts, “well, apart from being able to use fire and having apparent atmospheric differentiation immunity, since I don’t need anything additional in order to breathe the air anywhere, I’m not sure. I know the fire ability allows me to have heightened heat resistance too. What else can I do?” There, she thought, she sounded at least semi-organized in her thoughts.

Drukala raised an eyebrow, but it was Drivok who answered, “I’m not sure how to go about it, but...” and he glanced over at Drevicia’s shadow, just to make sure that he wasn’t veering completely off target, or at least that’s so it seemed. Once it nodded, he continued, “you should also have water and ice affinities, innately, like an innate control of them, regardless of whether you had the affinities.”

“But I’ve got all the affinities,” Quinn said. “so how does that make it any different?”

“It just means that your draw on energy and mana will be minuscule, if it exists at all, when you’re using those elements. When you’re using any of the innate genetic skills your hybridization has offered you, actually.” 

“Oh,” Quinn said, recalling how when she fought with Kajaro originally, she’d been able to do more than she’d imagined, considering the restrictive, limited amount of power she was supposed to have as a human. Not to mention her total unfamiliarity with magic.

“Yes,” Drivok said, “so given that Drevicia is your main donor of genetics...” Quinn wasn’t sure she liked how that was phrased, but she shrugged anyway. He continued, “you should 100% have those affinities locked down. It should also enhance any innate control you have of everything related to water and ice, anything you infuse water or ice into. And then there’s your shielding capabilities.”

Quinn perked up at that one. “Shielding? Like when I project my shielding around myself and my allies type thing?”

“Exactly,” Drivok said. “We have a built-in automatic shielding ability in the form of our scales. I believe you’ve already had first hand experience with this.” 

Quinn nodded, not really wanting to relive the accident she’d had to watch 50 times in her head to find the bloody eagle eye. But he did have a point. Her scales protected her when she needed it most, and had done so multiple times since then.

“Okay, so I’ve got like an automatic shielding. I know this, but it’s good to know why.”

Drivok studied her for a few seconds. “Well yes, but also when you extend your shielding out, do you notice that it doesn’t pull very much on your amount of reserves, energy reserves?”

“I just assumed it didn’t take much.”

“If anybody other than you or us were to attempt that type of shielding, it would drain them so fast they’d be empty in minutes. We, on the other hand, have an innate shielding. It is a, I guess you could call it a will to protect. It’s also why the dragon fire didn’t do quite as much damage to Drukala here.”

Dru nodded. “He speaks the truth. Anyway, those are automatic defense capabilities, and you can extend those. There’s also speed and agility. I know when we’re in our original forms, we don’t necessarily look like the most agile of beasts, but I can guarantee you we are. Which is why the agility has probably transferred into your human form, and we’re lucky that you’ve avoided as much damage as you have. It’s not all luck. It comes with your innate mobility granted to you by being a dragon.”

Quinn perked up. “I assume there are ways I can foster these?”

“Of course there are. We’re going to go through some exercises with your fire, heat resistance, shielding, making sure you can snap it into place immediately as soon as you need it, so that it’s barely more than a thought. So it becomes an automatic reaction.”

“That sounds awesome,” Quinn said. 

But Dru wasn’t finished. “Also, as you grow, you’ll need to understand your mana, and energy pools will increase exponentially until you won’t have to worry about running out. As it is, you should be so far beyond any humanoid species already that it feels almost comical, but you still need to know how to execute attacks and how to avoid incoming attacks. Thus, it doesn’t make you completely invincible, but it should make you pretty close to it. We should probably begin with actual training as soon as we can.”

Quinn smiled. Even just knowing the theory gave her a direction in which she could target herself and her evolution.

“Oh,” Drukala mentioned, “at your current level, you should be able to increase the amount of books you absorb. I mean, there are so many in the Library, you’re never going to get to them all if you don’t.”

Quinn nodded at that too. Now that sparked happiness. She already began mentally making a list to have delivered to her quarters later on. Quinn was fairly certain she’d read about most of this in the dragon vault Drevicia had taken her to, but having somebody talk her through it made it sink in much better.

Mal was reading a healing book when Quinn stood up to join Drukala and Drivok. She wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but she could feel her strength returning. She understood the fire levels, the different atmospheric pressures, and above all, she knew she was getting faster at her shielding. Now she just had to learn how to wield it all with finesse.

There was another knock against the door, bringing her out of her contemplations. Her senses automatically flared. It wasn’t dangerous, but it was injured. She pulled the door open just to watch Hal practically fall into the room.

And he looked like a wreck.

~~

Hal. Seriously dude.

Much love

KT