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10. Bony Conundrum
🕑 Added 2024-12-02 20:00:09 +0000 UTCThe sensation one had when flying was difficult to describe.
It was freedom, absolute in a three-dimensional space, and while I wouldn't say it was above and beyond what I had expected, it wasn't that far off. The closest thing I could compare it to was swimming, which made for a good but unsatisfactory example. It just wasn't the same. It was incredible.
It was awesome!
The sensation of falling, yet not of the wind brushing against my fur and membranous wings as they beat to defeat the pull of gravity, was simply exhilarating beyond words.
And it had been barely two months! I was still learning the ins and outs of self-powered flight as a giant murderous bat, to be exact, a bloodwing bat—or a general idea of it.
Anyway, it was a rare subspecies of vampire bats from the tropical forest alongside the South Seas, one of its apex predators. However, they weren't uniquely hemovore, preferring to eat their preys' beating hearts and warm intestines if Shael'dryn's extensively descriptive words were to be trusted.
They weren't the largest species, as the dire bats were bigger, and their pure vampiric cousins were only thinner and less imposing, trading muscle power for agility and stealth. They were among the most dangerous, known for their territorial, aggressive, and occasionally cannibalistic behavior. However, in contradiction, they were some of the best parents.
It was transformative, so I couldn't immediately take on another shape. It wasn't fast fashion clothing. A period I didn't know the duration of was necessary until I was ready again, but it shouldn't take long; nonetheless, collecting forms like collectibles with what they implied wasn't wise. They became part of you in some shape or form. I didn't need to make the mistakes to realize this; frankly, there was no necessity or use to have a collection of hundreds.
The next would be a bear to calm down the shamans and ancestors as they, as well, weren't extensively pleased besides a few by my choice. It was a reprimand more than anything, and that was an exaggeration even then. I hadn't committed any crimes, after all—it was my choice against what was expected as normal. They were more confused than anything else.
After that, I wasn't sure, but going for aquatic or subterranean mobility seemed wise.
I was going for versatility; as a furbolg, I had both already, but specialization didn't hurt since I lacked it in many aspects. I couldn't use the typical shamanic magic outside of communion with the ancestors and spirits of the wild. I didn't wield a shred of elemental power. I knew Kalimag—it was the lingua franca of spirits and living beings in general. Nearly every language naturally developed had traces of it.
I also knew a bit of the four dialects of Terran, if better, as I naturally found it easier, but that stopped there.
I couldn't be a shaman–seen as by most other species–because I didn't fancy myself dealing with demanding, bipolar, jealous, and chaotic creatures of the like anyway, not in such a way at the very least. But the true reason was aside that I lacked the mindset to endure such daily torture. And an absolute lack of potential for that. At all.
It just didn't click. The Life mana in me made the process of generating Spirit to 'trade' with elemental spirits entirely unfeasible—it was why they even bothered with us 'mortals' for the most part. My mana blocked every step and was so intrinsically a part of me and potent it instantly turned the sparkling Spirit I could produce after grueling hours back into my mana's natural state of Life and Nature. Life was tricky, and my abilities were surrounded by biology. It was a bit disheartening, but it gave me more time to perfect where I was good.
While the shamans outside of me could use the elements to varying degrees, it wasn't a massive facet of our shamanistic ways in the Greenpaw Village. Ours was more around nature and our ancestors, per the norm of our species.
However, I was told that the ones outside the forest, like Winterspring in the snowy mountains far up North, were focused on the more common shamanistic traditions. It made sense.
It wasn't that there weren't elementals in a life-brimming place like Ashenvale; they just were the life. They were the primordial components of it, taking the place of the periodic table. Well, per my humble understanding, it was merely a hypothesis, but it shouldn't be terribly far from the truth.
'Hmm, there is an owl here.' I noted thanks to my enhanced hearing, flight as a bloodwing bat wasn't sight-based. It was through echo localization.
I wouldn't call it better than sight. It had severe limitations the other didn't, a range limit and a delay, to name the two biggest. At best, it was an alternative with ups and downs of its own.
I could perceive everything around me from their distance, speed, and even nature in how my clicks bounced off from the little I experimented with. But I wasn't limited to either eyes or ears in this form, so I used both as my furbolgs eyes carried over, my brain somehow working this out.
Scarcely the less mysterious aspect of magic, transmuting my clothing into another form when I shifted, was another. The rules were all evident to me, but what they were remains unknown. This wasn't an excuse to avoid understanding them. On the contrary, it was a source of motivation.
My heart beat in excitement, and I dove down on the owl I noticed earlier, my jaws wide open. The impact was violent, the bird having no chance as I ground its lower spine to bits, the sweet, warm blood flowing as I drank it using gravity and this body's biological adaptation to do so.
Then I shamelessly began to tear the owl apart for the few agonizing seconds more it would be alive to get the pesky feather away to eat its succulent inside, liver first, of course, while avoiding the guts and stomach.
The organs themselves were tasty to my bearish tastebuds, but the problem was what was inside when, as is, biles and bodily wastes didn't taste good, and that is why I meticulously scarfed my food down away from them. The entire process was entirely natural. I had done this as a furbolg; being a bat didn't change that.
'Refreshing.' I thought in satisfaction, shifting to my natural form on the thick branch, my legs tangling in the void, my satiety carrying over, somehow—the ground, by my rough estimate, was around fifty meters below. Knowing you can fly does wonders for any potential fear of heights.
Licking the blood and pieces of flesh off my muzzle, I grabbed the messed-up remains of the bird and ripped off a rib, pushing the rest aside. I looked at the bloody bone up and down and felt the lingering presence of life.
An unsurprising observation. My feat of reanimating Gripjaw–the mother I found back then in that satyr hidey-hole who was now stable–and numerous other cases, in addition to my past life understanding of biology, showed this much.
The cells didn't all die because vital functions ceased.
It was how I reanimated people. As long as a body was fresh, in good enough condition, and the soul still within–the last point still in testing–bringing it back to the world of the living was possible.
I wasn't doing any miracles, despite the inability of others to replicate it and also for my method of healing. My mana was at fault. The techniques were sound and had bettered the tribe's understanding and knowledge of healing as a whole by a lot. Still, my techniques needed significant improvement to be used by them more easily and consistently.
Anyway, back to the bone. I was 'healing' it through the gentle push of my mana. It resulted in several outgrowths, a grin finding its way on my muzzle at the sight.
It was fascinating.
The structure of the bone changed, the stark contrast to the metallic sheen of my black claws holding onto a bone of white stained in bloody fleshy tissues, only increasing with time as I shaped the bone in various geometrical structures.
For all intent and purpose, it was the piece of a corpse, yet I made it grow in a way it no way would if left alone.
It wasn't a new experience. But working on bones wasn't as well perceived by most as doing it on plants; they were a bit creeped out, so my serious practice only recently began, even if I wasn't doing dark magic.
The only case of dark magic was blood magic, and it was if I squint hard, and it was exclusively for the Totemic Ritual since blood was used. Even if it wasn't the same version, I recall some orcs and trolls practiced it, and it wasn't purely that type of magic. The ritual here was perfected for furbolgs and furbolgs only.
What I did and wanted to do was from a purely balanced lens; I wasn't forcing anything outside of what nature let me. My goal was to play with the rules, test the limits, and not violate them, a big, subtle difference. The mere mention that I would is ridiculous and angering, for it would be categorically false.
Influencing the structure of a bone as I was doing now would be impossible or extremely hard in any other scenario within the conditions in which I was trained.
Consent, connection, nature, and understanding.
If the owl lived, these four facets would reduce my potential influence, forcing me to expend more energy for longer and have inferior results with the potential for unwanted consequences depending on my target strengths: physical, magical, and mental.
Also, power and skill were significant in the equation, as much as the three last points.
It was the same for manipulations of plants to a lesser extent, as sentience and sapience were of minimal impact here unless there were exceptions, so the consenting part was on the back burner, like the bone held in my claws.
But I couldn't turn the bone into what it couldn't be directly with my current skill; it had stem cells, but these weren't omnipotent in their versatility. Yet it wasn't enough to change why bones were my focus.
"Urg…" I winced a bit as the tip of one of my free paw finger's skin bulged before breaking as a sharp bone protrusion of around five centimeters covered in blood took shape. And I began to turn into a variety of simple shapes as well.
Another thing that wasn't taken the best by the shamans, oh, they weren't disgusted or scared, just confused. Frankly, I handwaved it to them as training for my healing, and considering my showings, they couldn't say anything. I wasn't lying per se, either.
Not that they would or wanted to stop me; they probably believed it was a phase, and I was seen as a bit of a problem cub in the good sense, so to speak. I was odd and did odd things.
As to why bones, living bones were astonishingly polyvalent; they could virtually take any shape, weren't for most vitals, and were reasonably solid. It was essentially that, but my interest was also in connective tissues in general, from tendons to cartilage.
I promoted the development of my bone in a specific shape by a process not dissimilar to healing mixed with the ones used for controlling plants. It wasn't different, and no arbitrary rule stopped me.
It wasn't up to points. Becoming an inverted living pincushion wasn't my life goal; on that front, shapeshifting would help avoid this… and make it exponentially better. But I need to study how this incredible magic worked on a deeper level. Shifting from bat to furbolg and vice versa helped, but that was only the beginning.
Evidently, this daring idea of mine wasn't limited to bones, but it's better to keep it limited for the foreseeable future.
The absorption of the tissue back in my organism, like I was doing right now with my outdoor bone, would stop any of that. However, it wasn't a reason to become stupidly reckless and mess with my internals.
As to why I wanted to do that…
It was nothing complex or deep. A druid's abilities supremely depended on their environment. Carried plants and bags of seed could only take you as far as versatile as they may be.
The same was true for using moonlight, starlight, and sunlight. However, that was a pointless thought. I wasn't ignorant in utilizing these energies, but I was average at best, and it would be solely for rituals.
To do so purely offensively and have devastating results… Eh, not really. Like at all. I was pretty bad at it, in fact. I was good when it came to pure organic, and the farther I went, the less I could influence. Beyond some fascinating bit with Life altering–corrupting, dare I say–inorganic matter into organic ones under the right circumstances.
I wasn't half bad when it came to alchemy and enchanting. These dependency problems could be softened with a bit of work using those, but it wasn't direct tangible power, and stacking advantage was better for my survival. And it needed ample preparation, time, and reagents.
There were a few others to compensate, but globally, my strength was too significantly impacted by my surroundings and external sources as a whole.
My body was a constant, an ecosystem in its own right and one I was in tune with above any other. Unless death or forceful corruption, it wouldn't fail.
Ultimately, it was an extremely ambitious project that might not bear fruit, yet I had to try. It wasn't an impossible dream; I had done it, was doing it, and will keep on doing it. And regardless of the results, it would be a learning experience.
"Hmm, still… I wonder, if I succeed, would this open an entirely new branch of druidism? What of the name then?" I mumbled absentmindedly, absorbing the bone back in my finger and healing the tiny hole.
The following minutes passed by in peaceful silence as I plucked several feathers and harvested other body parts from the owl, such as the beak and talons. I put them in one of the small leather pouches around me. Then, I pushed the little remaining of the carcass down for the scavengers to care for and shifted myself back into a bat.
Flying back to the village was quick, but it didn't go unnoticed. When I reached it, hundreds of eyes focused on me. Who wouldn't? A massive bat covered in glowing tattoos turning into a furbolg in the middle of the day wasn't discreet by any means, and I wasn't trying to be.
Stealth wasn't my forte.
Some gazes weren't pleasant, however, at least for me, as they were akin to looking at a piece of meat, me, almost literally hungrily, but alas, it was a pointless endeavor for them. It was neither the place nor time, and they were barking at the wrong tree, and they were furbolgs that did not matter much.
More than ten communions, essentially ten years, had passed, which changed one's perception of reality. An age that typically meant I was far too young to attract any interest, but I wasn't the definition of normal. And it was blatantly clear with a strong nose like ours what many felt.
'Their reaction is strong... I guess it's uncommon to see me here nowadays.' I thought, waving at the people around to return to what they were doing. I was mixed on the matter.
On another note, my rarefying presence meant I saw my siblings and parents less and less, which was enough to be unhappy about.
My time as a cub was quickly reaching its end.
But it was the normal development of things. For all intent and purpose, I was considered a proper adult, and I looked the part at first glance. I was slightly above the average height and significantly bulkier for my sex if I were actually physically mature and not just a magically enhanced teen. I was still growing.
It was to the point that sleeping in the family den was impossible. Not that I slept there anymore.
It was time to leave the nest on the logistical and cultural side. It was an unpleasant, contradictorily freeing step that needed to be taken, but it was far from cutting ties of any kind.
And the first time I did this, I died before it happened as a human. It was all new.
Speaking of family. My ears twitched at the familiar sound of two approaching pairs of paws accompanied by young, excited clamors. Ah… There they are. It didn't take them long. Father was there, too, observing in amusement as I was assaulted.
"Big Bro!" The two furballs, aka little shits, were running full speed to me and jumped on me. Their small, squishy bodies oozed joy and excitement as they babbled random questions, climbing on me.
"Kahru! Hukar!" I exclaimed, nuzzling the twin furbolgs and doing the usual greeting ritual, a lick on the nose and scratching behind the ear to their fake outrage. If they wanted to be brats, I would treat them as such, but first…
"Do you two want to go sightseeing?"
The answer was a twin cheering 'yes' to which I responded with a grin and caught both under my arms as they pointlessly struggled—a nod from my father giving me the free reign to their torment.
Then my eyes trailed to a younger cub, a female and one I recognized for I had saved her two years ago and a friend of my siblings as well.
"Softjaw, you can go with us if you want," I said calmly, and the shy cub squeaked and hid her head behind the tree. My little brother Kahru went to her rescue; he was the smartest of the twins.
"You can come, you know?" Then his twin sister pressed on his statement as if they shared the same singular brain cell, "We will have fun! Come! Ohto is the bestest of awesome!"
She was the muscles of the duo and the most active. It was amusing. They worked on another strength to compensate for the other weakness, and they took everything I said to them to heart and tried to copy me. I took advantage of that to teach them; it wasn't much, but I refused to let them be ignorant and defenseless.
If only those times could last forever, but it was better to get as much as I could and stop it from becoming an impossibility.
