Midas Journal 27

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Entry: May 24

I switched back to being male again on Saturday because Brie wanted kisses.

Anyway, today at lunch Adena seemed really out of it. She sort of floated up to the table with her food, sat down, and stared into space in silence for a few minutes. It didn't seem like she was upset or anything, more like she was in some kind of happy daze, so for an awkward few minutes I didn't really want to say anything to bother her. Eventually, though, I had to ask.

“Are..you okay there?” No answer. “Hello?” I waved. “Earth to Adena?”
“Hmm?” She snapped out of it, seemingly noticing I was there for the first time. “Oh, hi. Sorry. Uh..”

“What's going on?” I've never really known her (or Aden before) to be much of a daydreamer.

“Uhm..sooo. Rhia figured me out Friday night. Or...well, actually she figured me out way before that and confronted me about it then.”
“You seem happier to say that than I expected..”
“Well. The thing is, she's not. I mean. Uhh..we're still, you know.” She made a vague gesture with her hands.
“You are?” I gave her a confused look. “So she was okay with you lying about...basically everything for weeks?”
“I know, right? She wasn't angry or anything! She just..uh..”

Adena closed her eyes and blushed. “Sh-she made me tell her the truth. Aaalll the truths. And then, her words were, 'I've had lots of boyfriends you know, but never one who was actually a pretty girl before!' I did apologize but she cut me off from explaining why, she just found the whole thing exciting. Um..I do too, really.”

“You found the whole deception 'game' fun,” I pointed out. “So...this is more exciting somehow?”

“Yes! You have no idea. It's—I lost that game and it's amazing. And she's amazing. She wanted me to show off a bunch of magic I could do, and so I did, and eventually I realized that I was basically doing anything she told me to, and answering all her questions totally honestly, all without even thinking about it!”

“I...feel like I'm missing some kind of social context,” I said, really not getting what was so great about what she was describing.

“Look, it's...maybe you'll get it if I put it this way. Since you became a werewolf and all...most werewolves like being in a pack and having an alpha, right?”
“I...guess?”

“I mean unless you're the kind of person who wants to be an alpha yourself, it's nice to have someone dominant around who'll make you say how you really feel even if you don't want to. Or..help you figure out what to do when you're not sure. Right?” she said excitedly.
“I dunno if I'd put it that way. Lue's just...I mean, I 'joined her pack' because I'm her friend and I don't really care that much about being in a pack or not. I get the sense we're not really a normal pack anyway, just some friends who get together on the full moon...”
“Uuhh, what about your girlfriend? Or boyfriend, whichever applies at the time.”
“What about her?”

“You do what she wants sometimes, right? Because, not because she's holding something over you or anything but because you just want to. It's...urrrgh, I don't know how else to describe it.” She leaned forward a bit, and said quietly, “Maybe it's just me, but it feels so good to have someone to submit to!” she said.

“Okay, maybe I understand that a little bit?” I said, feeling some heat in my cheeks on thinking about it. “I'm pretty sure our relationship is different from whatever you're thinking of, but as long as you're happy with it...”

“Oh, I am,” she said, leaning back again. “I'll bet you know exactly what I'm talking about though when I say we spent the night at her place, most of it petting each other~. Right?”
“Okay, that—yeah,” I said, my face feeling even warmer.

“Hahah, you do know!” she said, smiling. “Your girl-fur is way too floofy to be a coincidence. I bet your girlfriend's tail is like a huge pillow, too.”

I couldn't exactly deny that, but this was getting into embarrassing territory. Adena just laughed at my expression again and then changed the subject to something less extreme.

That isn't really the reason I started writing this, but since I've put a few conversations about their dates and relationship in here in the past I figure it makes sense to mention it. The real reason I started writing this goes back to yesterday, when Giri sent me a text. It said, “K, got someone who could use your special talent <3! Free tomorrow?”

There was some homework and spell-studying I was otherwise going to put off until today, but there was still plenty of time to get that done. I answered, “Sure. I always talk before touching though.”

Her response was “Good rule!” and then in a different text gave me a location to drive to..out in the woods. I thought that was a little weird, but remembered that things went okay the last time I agreed to meet with her, I could use my powers and/or new magic to avoid being in any actual danger, and that Brie trusted me. So I gave one more reply to confirm the time I expected to get there.

I drove out there, and pulled off onto a parking lot for a campsite nearby. Giri was already waiting in the lot, and waved me over.

“So..what's going on?” I said.

“Well..back when I was an old rage demon, I made lots of friends,” she said, starting to lead the way into some trees and distinctly not the clearly marked trail. “I decided to check on one of them recently, you know, see if he was still alive and all, and accidentally sorta woke up a dragon.”

“You woke up..wait.” I put two and two together while carefully navigating around some roots and quietly casting some spells to make myself temporarily immune to poison ivy and its worse cousins, just in case. “Your 'friend' is the dragon, right?”

“Yep!”

“I told him that I heard about him from, you know, my old self? He's been asleep in his treasure cave for over two hundred years. I tried explaining everything that's changed in that time, with where humanity is as far as society and technology goes...he got overwhelmed really fast.”

“That's...how does anything sleep that long? Shouldn't you starve to death after just a few months?” She started to answer, and I interrupted, “Wait, let me guess: Magic.”
“Yeah. Dragons just live on a different time-scale from the rest of us, even immortals like demons and stuff. That's also why they're so rare, especially these days. I've heard of a lot of them lately waking up from their slumber, not 'getting' the way the world is now, and then either going back to sleep or flying off to even more deserted places and living like hermits. I estimate it would take a few decades for him to learn English and understand enough of what's happened and what's going on right now to react even halfway normally just walking around our town. So that's what I told him, and he looked about ready to go back to sleep to be honest. He's never been the patient type, ironically. Sooo, I suggested that I had a friend, who might have a shortcut. He said 'like a knowledge spell?' and I said 'suuure'. Knowledge transfer spells aren't exactly a real thing, but mages have been trying to create them for years—for obvious reasons.”

“And I'm your shortcut,” I said. I looked around, and it occurred to me that the forest was clearing up a bit, and also that I had no idea just how we'd gotten to where we now were.

“Right. Getting turned into a girl is at most a minor inconvenience with the magic capabilities that a dragon has. Sooo, we're on our way to his hoard-slash-home to meet him. In case that wasn't clear.”

“No, I guessed as much.” The trees cleared even more to reveal a mountain. There are no mountains that close to my town, which meant that some kind of magic travel had happened. Either we went through a portal and I didn't notice, or maybe this was some kind of magically hidden pocket dimension including a mountain with a huge cave opening now in front of us. I guess it's interesting to know that this kind of thing exists, either way.

We stopped a short ways in front of the cave. “So...what's his name?” I said, realizing she hadn't shared that detail yet.

“Frelbayrentirth.” (I had her text me this later, or else I would have no clue how to spell it)

“What?”
“Frell. Bayy. Renn. Tee. Erth,” she repeated more slowly, one syllable at a time. “Dragon names tend to be long and hard to say, and they usually don't like to hear them mispronounced. Another thing that'd make modern society more than a little tough to deal with. But dragons have a lot to offer the world, not just money but a perspective I think we may be sorely lacking. That's why, Kael, even if he would be equally happy just going back to sleep I'd like to make a modern person out of my old friend. That, and it'd be nice to talk with him—or her I guess—about things nobody else remembers.”
“If he doesn't like the idea of his memories being shuffled around, I still won't do it,” I said, crossing my arms.
“I know. Really, I'm happy to hear that you have strict rules for this stuff. You ready to head in?”

Before that, I decided to try and say the dragon's name, and got something like “Frel-bearintenth.”

“Frelbayrentirth,” she repeated again, emphasizing the parts I got wrong.

“Ferrenbayrithel—uugh. It's just getting worse,” I said.

“Don't stress, I'll introduce you and you shouldn't need to say his name anyway.” She started to take a step forward.
“Wait, wait!” She stopped again, and turned back toward me. “You said he doesn't know English?”

“I'll use a translation spell, duh.”

“So magic has a universal translator but not information transfer?” I said.
“It's not universal. It's more like, I'm acting as your translator but without the part where I have to actually repeat what you say to each other. You'll know I'm speaking Draconic to him when my mouth doesn't match my words. And the grammar will be a little off because the languages are soo different from each other.” She put her hands on her hips. “Anything else?”
“No, I guess not.” To be honest I was just getting nervous about meeting a dragon at this point, from a general self-preservation perspective, even though she hadn't made him sound violent and even though I knew I had lots of options for self-defense if things did get violent. Just the idea of it was kind of imposing.

But we went anyway, walking up to the cave. Giri stopped just in front of it and put her hand up, moving it as if knocking on a door. It actually did touch something solid, sending white ripples out across some kind of magic-force-field spread out over the cave opening. After a few seconds, I could see the field opening up in a doorway shape in front of her, and she waved me through first before following.

We went down for a short while, enough for the sunlight to start getting dim, and then there were some kind of stones in the wall and ceiling giving off a pale blue glow to see by. Eventually the cave took a sharp left turn and suddenly we ended up in a gigantic chamber filled probably two stories high with a pile of treasure. I could see gold, silver, all kinds of gems, and the odd piece of armor or weaponry (enchanted, I guessed) sticking out of it too. It all glittered, even in the pale blue glow of the light-stone-things, and I was briefly stunned by just the size of it, craning my head up to try and comprehend what I was seeing.

I was snapped out of it by a strange, deep guttural growling sound, and immediately snapped my head in the direction it came from. About midway through I suddenly heard “—is it not?” instead of the rest of the growling. The dragon himself, in kind of a humanoid form, was the one talking, and he stepped a little closer to us. He was tall, like probably eight feet or more, and covered in scales with a lizard-like, horned head, gigantic wings and a long, thick tail coming out of his back, and his hands and feet were big and clawed, more animal than human. His scales were mostly red, with some white on the underside of the tail and his front; he was wearing some kind of gold-mail-cloth as a loose shirt and pants.

“Frelbayrentirth, hello once again,” said Giri in a friendly tone of voice, sounding perfectly calm. “This Kael, the one having the shortcut I mentioned.” I was still as nervous as before, and rattled from him coming out of the shadows talking like that.

“Uh—hello,” I said.

“Hmm.” He crossed his arms, looking down at me with what I was confident must be a very skeptical expression. His eyes actually glowed (or I might say it looked more like they burned) with a bright orange color. “You are just a werewolf knowing some magic. I see no knowledge spell nor anything else helpful to this one.”

“I get that a lot,” I said, drawing myself up slightly and taking a quick breath through my nose to calm down. “My power, isn't directly visible to 'magic vision' or things like that. I can at least show you that I am capable of more than I appear to be.”

“Very well.” He gestured vaguely.

So I reached up and tapped my ear a couple of times, thinking: Elf, Neko, Kitsune, back to usual werewolf self. The first change came along with me shrinking into female form; my tail also disappeared and my ears tingled slightly as they retreated halfway inward. Then a cat tail pushed its way out and my ears grew back, and then the tail puffed out into a fox tail and the ears grew much taller, before finally I changed back to normal—well, normal ever since I became a werewolf at least.

Frelbayrentirth watched the sequence of changes with a confused expression, his eyes still glowing brightly (I guessed at this point that it must be the same kind of thing as Ren did the other day, but probably more powerful). “I will admit to at least being fooled,” he said. “Your shapeshifting somehow the minds of watchers affects?”
“It's—well, I guess it is shapeshifting but it's kind of more than that,” I said. “My power shifts around reality—does that idea translate?” I checked with Giri. She nodded. “If I touch someone who wants something badly enough, then it transforms them not just physically, but gives them a new history that they and everyone else remember. Usually only the people who see the transformation remember both versions of events, with the 'new' version being the one everyone else remembers.” Well, the “seeing the transformation” part isn't why people remember or don't both versions of events but I didn't want to overcomplicate my explanation, and I thought it would best explain why Giri would know he'd changed afterward. “The power is activated by touching,” I added.

“This is a strong claim,” he said, looking between the two of us with his eyes narrowed. “If you wanted to take from my hoard I would not trust you from such evidence. But a touch has no chance of harming me.”

“Good. Listen, it does mess with your memories too, though,” I said. “And my power tends to change people it affects into girls, like you saw happen to me for a minute there. If it gets you what you want, are you okay with that?”
“Yes,” he said. “It remains to see if it will do anything at all, but if this is the effect it would acceptable.”

Really “looking” at him, I could see that there was something the dragon wanted badly enough for my power to emphatically indicate that it was going to work. Of course my power can't tell me what, but the context clues in this situation suggested that he really did want to learn about modern society and technology, enough to explore the world beyond his cave at least. So I stepped a little closer, reached out, and gently touched his hand, before taking a few steps back again.

For a few seconds, nothing seemed to happen. “Hrrm.” Frelbayrentirth put his hand up in front of his face as if he was feeling something in it, and then dropped it. “Is this all? If your claims true, it does not seem this power—” He was interrupted by some feeling, and shivered slightly. “Wait...it is...” Then he started to visibly change, beginning with the more beastly parts of his appearance. His muzzle started to shrink back, the claws on his hands and feet also shrinking and turning the appendages rapidly into more human ones. “What is...?” His eyes widened as this first change approached completion, and a second one started: Scales began to flake off of his body, a few falling first from his face as it flattened into the shape of a human one.

“This...I am...truly...?” More and more scales fell from his body, pooling onto the cave floor near his feet and beginning to reveal soft, pale skin underneath. Ears grew out from the sides of his head (where I guess there must have just been “ear holes” before), becoming long and pointy, and as the scales disappeared from the rest of his head, soft, dark hair sprang out across it, immediately giving him long bangs and falling down across the sides of his face.

I glanced over a Giri for a second; her arms were crossed and she had a bright smile on, clearly enjoying the show. “Rrghrrmm...” It seemed like she'd stopped “translating” at this point. I looked back to the dragon and saw his face lose its last few scales, leaving it soft and smooth; his hands and feet were the same way. Then he opened his mouth and let out a low, startled “Aah!” as he started to actually shrink. His height sank down, his frame visibly thinning, and his face became smaller, rounder, and prettier. The horns still coming out past his hair shrank too, rapidly losing length and uncurling themselves until they were just slightly curved out toward the middle with their points aimed straight upward. Even his wings shrank, mostly upward toward where they were attached to his back.

“Aah...!” His voice sounded less deep, a little younger. All of this shrinking caused his pants to fall down, and his shirt to hang awkwardly over his rapidly-narrowing shoulders, showing off a smooth, pale neckline and increasingly feminine legs. The scales were totally gone from his skin by this point, except for the tail and wings.

“I...I am...” he said, his lips moving with the words in a way that confirmed he was actually speaking English now instead of being translated. His height loss slowed down, but he continued to get slimmer, his hands and feet shrinking into small, delicate shape and his shirt threatening to fall right past his shoulders and off of him. He tugged awkwardly at it, beginning to blush. “This..is..” The masculinity was steadily draining out of his voice, too; I knew it wouldn't be long now. Finally, his height stabilized right as his eye level sank slightly below mine, and I saw his cheeks brightening even more, his wide eyes looking over at me. This was...really tall for a girl still, I thought, but then considered just how much he'd shrunk to get here. It had to be at least as drastic of a difference as Brie is from Brian.

“Aah..” A high, boyish voice, came from his throat, his tail whipping back and forth and his wings (now quite short, but also finished shrinking) flapped themselves in a way I somehow saw as nervous. “Th-this is really..” His voice sounded like a girl's. “I c-can't believe...” Then its pitch dipped down again, maturing, but only sounding more feminine. The dragon's eyes closed, his blush deepening yet again. “Rrrrraaaaaa~aaaAAAH!” It was kind of a startled roar, accompanied by a gout of flame from his mouth, and I perceived that there was now a girl standing in front of me; the change of sex was complete.

“O-oh!” She looked down at herself, still blushing, and tugged awkwardly at the shirt again. Both it and the pants below began to gain a soft golden glow. Her hips began to visibly push apart beneath the shirt, and she let out a slightly longer “OoOooh~!” as two little bumps appeared on her chest as well. The glow on the clothes brightened steadily; by this point they seemed to be more made of light than of material, and they began to shift and move around all on their own. The pants crawled up her legs, pulling tight and splitting apart as they made their way up to her thighs; the shirt abruptly shrank close against her slim, narrow form, the hem fluttered out into a skirt-shape, and some of the glow detached out into a jacket while the inner part grew frills around the collar and down the middle.

She panted, huffing out more small puffs of fire and smoke, as her chest continued to visibly grow. “Oh, aah..aaAAaah..Rraaarrr...!” The glow faded from her clothes as she squirmed slightly in place, her legs wiggling against each other. It left behind a black pair of stockings with a decorative pattern at the top, a short red plaid skirt and a dressy top complete with a red part around her slim stomach with some yellow buttons, a frilly white undershirt, a blue jacket and a red ribbon tied around the collar. Then she let out another small “Aaah~!” as her breasts gave one last push forward, and the transformation completed.

The dragon-girl panted, still exhaling fire or hot dark smoke, while her blush slowly faded and her eyes opened up. I began to remember coming here to visit the house of one of Giri's...friends, a female dragon by the name of Frelye—only to be surprised, of course, when the 'house' was a cave under a mountain that didn't fit geographically into the area near those woods at all (so at least that part was still the same).

She bent forward slightly, nervously adjusting the ribbons. “Th-this really...I hardly know what to say, and that is a new one for me,” she said. Then she stood up fully again, and looked to Giri with a smile. “I..thank you immensely. I haven't felt...anything like that in centuries. Or, I suppose I have, but I haven't?”
“I know what you mean,” said Giri.
“I presume...Giriah? What brought you to...turn to this sort of thing?”
“I was gravely wounded defending the world,” she said, crossing her arms. “We really could've used a dragon's help at the time, but someone was busy hibernating.”

“Oh, well, it worked out in the end, didn't it? And you,” she added, turning to me. “This truly is an amazing power! I don't just feel young again, I really am! Look at me, I'm only seventy-two years old!” she said excitedly, with a small twirl.

“Uh..” I was going to ask something about that number.
“Different time-scale, remember,” Giri reminded me quietly.

Frelye nodded. “The first few centuries after adulthood are a dragon's prime egg-laying days, if you know what I mean. After that we start running out of energy and needing to recharge our batteries more and more often, until eventually someone stumbles into the hoard and gets a lucky stab in...or, that's how it usually goes anyway. Oh wait, batteries!” she said excitedly. “I understand that now! And—so many other things, too! This is great! I can't wait to go out into the sun and actually speak with people again! Even though, I feel as if I just did that yesterday.”
“I know that feeling too,” said Giri. “I'll join you if you want.”

“Hmmnn, oh but wait! I should actually get something to thank you for this!” she turned over toward the giant pile of treasure (which I'm pretty sure was still the same size after the 'reality shift', and had to guess from that was partially some kind of inheritance from her former self) and dove toward it without warning, practically going swimming through it.
“Uh..” I looked at Giri and she made a gesture like putting a ring on her finger and pointed vaguely toward the treasure pile. “Th-that's okay, I don't really...um...”

Her head popped up out of somewhere midway up the pile. “What, are you worried about it being an engagement ritual or somethin'? You're cute and all but you're not even twenty, it'd be like kissing a hatchling to me, eww!” And then sank back inside. “I'll get something nice for Giri too while I'm at it!”

Looking back at the demon, she shrugged to me. I have to guess this was something that used to be true but isn't for younger dragons, or at least for this younger dragon. Anyway, I really hope so. Anyone could lie about their intentions and then claim to have meant something else all along, and with as long as I'll probably live and the 'dragon time-scale' thing there is some room to worry. But in the moment, I decided it was better not to offend her by refusing a gift even though I could probably just 'create' any object I wanted with my powers anyway.

While she was still busy digging around, I looked back at the spot Frelye had been standing on when she changed. The scales I'd seen falling off of him onto the ground were gone. “Hm.”
“What?” Giri followed my eyes.
“It seems like my power's been getting flashier lately, is all. Lots of 'special effects' like the scales coming off earlier, or what happened with you...”
“Maybe. I'd have to know how the other changes looked to make any meaningful comparison.”

The only other “unusual special effects” I could think of was when Annabel changed and got...sort of lifted out of the chair at first. That seems like it had to do with “healing” the paralyzed legs, and Giri had some effects that I would guess were like healing magic too, before the change actually started. Thinking about it more, Giri and now Frelye probably had the most ridiculous amount of magic power before changing out of anyone. So maybe that somehow plays into it? If I wanted to test that, I would have to change someone with no magic and then someone with a lot of magic, and it'd have to be now, after I've seen the special effects, in case it actually is just some kind of progression with my power actually becoming fancier-looking over time...

I was interrupted from thinking about that by the dragon-girl popping back out of the gigantic pile and onto her feet again, even her clothes seemingly untouched from the journey through tons of solid metal. “Here we are~!” She presented me with a ring with a small, spherical rock set on it that glowed faintly silver, and I eyed it suspiciously for a second or two.

“Now listen, I get it already.” Frelye put her free hand on her hip. “You must have someone else in your life, considering you came here with a succubus and haven't so much as flirted with her,” she said. “Furthermore, my guess is that your girlfriend is a fellow werewolf 'cause that's pretty common, always has been. Right?”
“Uh...yeah.” Although either of us could make that not true whenever we wanted, the werewolf selves had sort of become (or always had been in her case) the default ones.
“Mm-hm! So, this is a Moonstone ring. They say that the stone fixed on it carries the light of a thousand full moons.” She leaned in slightly. “But actually it just takes in whatever light hits it and converts it to moonlight, storing it up and glowing like this when it's full.” And stood up straight again. “If you wear it then you can project the moonlight out of it at will. A long time ago, they used to use stuff like this to sniff out werewolves and chase 'em out of town, but I imagine you—or her—can find a better use for it.” Then she offered it to me again.

“Okay then...thank you,” I said, taking it.

“Aaand,” she turned toward Giri. “How much of your old magic do you remember?”
“Literally all of it,” she smirked. “I have a way easier mana source too, now.”
“I'll bet. Well, then this should be helpful.” Her hand opened to reveal a small black gem, shaped like a diamond and glowing faintly purple.
Giri picked it up gently and examined it against the light of one of the glowing stones above for a moment. “How do you even have one of these? I thought they were all destroyed!”
“Well, you know, collectors do have this awful habit of wanting the forbidden things all the more. At any rate, I'm sure I can trust you with that.”

“Uh..”

“Oh, this is a demonic focus,” Frelye said, noticing my confusion. “It's good for reducing the cost of any spell using dark magic, and/or making them way more powerful. Since all demon magic starts off as dark magic, it's especially useful to demons. All the big ones were shattered several centuries ago to prevent a certain disaster from being repeated, and there are some trying to track down all the small ones to destroy them even to this day.”

Giri pocketed the focus thing for now, and I did the same with the ring. “Good things in small packages, eh?”
“Yep,” Frelye nodded. “Most of my real collection is items smaller than a golfball. All the gold and silver and stuff is good for looking at and sleeping on, but there's nothing particularly special about it.”
“You could destroy the precious metals market by selling a tenth of that,” I pointed out.

“We dragons are always doing our part to keep the economy from collapsing,” she joked. “Anyway, let's get out of this place!”

I followed them out and ended up spending the rest of the afternoon with them. Frelye went excitedly from one place to another, treated us to dinner as an extra thanks, and eventually we went back to the parking lot and I drove home, leaving them both walking back to her hoard. The entire time they were talking like old friends, discussing things that happened and people who lived centuries ago. I asked questions once or twice but mostly just let them hang out and made some mental notes to look a few of those things up if possible. With whatever Giriah did half a century ago, this makes at least two different major crises the world has faced that I never had any idea about, and neither did anyone else with no magic. Even my “new” memories as a werewolf had never heard about this stuff, which means it's probably not even well-known in the “magical world”, either. It opened my eyes to an entire history of world-shaking events happening behind “normal” humanity's back, and I feel like I should be studying up on it all. I mean, if someone with a lot of power did something wrong before, then I should avoid doing that, right? Maybe it would give me a better idea of what I should do.

The knowledge of that history might be not so widespread for a reason; maybe it's something like horcruxes where public knowledge would risk causing a lot more murders or worse. I don't want to risk using my power to “learn about” those events because I might accidentally change something about those important moments of the past that led to things being relatively peaceful now. I have at least Threa, Giri and now Frelye that I can ask for more details of what events they know about, and maybe they have connections to a few more people, or Threa specifically might have some books I could read on the subject. I just need to make it clear that I want to know specifically so I can eventually do the right thing, and not so I can cause another disaster like whatever happened ages ago.

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Of all things, I finally had an idea for another of these entries! First I just had a vague idea for "how about a dragon next?", then I managed to find a picture I liked, and then I finally came up with a good reason for Kael to even meet a dragon in the first place.