NOVEL NEXT Chapter 204: Side Effects.
“We don’t… Have to go meet up with Zu first do we?”
Finlo chuckled, letting sand sift through his fist onto my shoulder. “What, you don’t like the sand?”
Quickly jumping away I brushed it off. “I have enough in my dress already!” I whined. “Have you seriously been carrying that this entire time?”
“Maybe.”
‘Geez… I have to get him back somehow…’
“Honestly it’s you’re own fault, you’re way too much fun to tease, like the cute little sister I never had.”
“Really…” I took a deep breath, only wanting to punch him more. ‘How is this my fault? Little sister? I mean… I guess we are pretty close. This probably is kind of like what having a normal brother is like but… My train of thought stopped as I pulled up an image of Airsidh and compared it to a picture of him.
Of course… The image I pulled up of him was the most intrusive one I was still trying to keep away. “I have a brother… And I’m pretty sure you’re nothing like one…”
His heart almost looked like it cracked into pieces from the way his face returned an unresponsive expression. “I always thought we were like family… But, I guess not?”
I stared up at the sky. “Well, I guess that’s true.”
“Then how am I not like you’re brother.”
I stopped in my tracks. ‘I bet this will get a reaction out of him.’ “You’re just, way too hot.”
He stared back at me without so much as moving away his eyes until eventually I was the one that was overcome with embarrassment, continuing our pace and keeping my eyes fixed towards the ground. ‘NOTHING? Not even a small reaction to that!?!’
“Well. Yeah, I do look pretty good, but that’s mostly because of how I was raised, I don’t see how that has anything to do with our relationship though. Although I do see you’re point. If you feel attracted towards me that would certainly make me feel different to you than–”
“Please stop talking…”
He chuckled nervously. “Right… Guess I did it again, sorry about that.”
I conceded defeat, following after him in silence. ‘He’s even harder to get to than Airsidh… Or maybe I’m just more awkward around him cuz we’re not related.’ The only thing that matched the confusion on the guard's face when he saw me, was my utter embarrassment for how I must have looked, and how ridiculous I probably seemed as I was explaining things to him…
Luckily Zu and Finlo were there to confirm my identity with the help of my family crest being embroidered on the soaked dress. Of course, then we had to explain why I was soaking wet to Zu… Which I found rather difficult. It didn’t help that I wasn’t completely sure on that point myself. “I guess it was to cool me off right?”
Finlo nodded, his face turning more sinister again. “That’s right, Dragon Blood. It’s another method of creating human weapons. When it activates the body heats up more and more, and then eventually it explodes as you breathe fire for the first time. I don’t actually know how or why it works, but I’ve seen the effects enough times. They tried to use it a lot… But it didn’t usually turn out so good.”
“Exploades?” I squeaked out, my voice cracking, only making me more nervous as I grabbed my neck. ‘That’s not going to happen again, is it?’
“Oh, well, not literally. Most people survive that part, but their insides get roasted, so it hurts a lot. The only people that do die from it were given really high doses of the blood, so there wouldn’t be anything nearly that dangerous.”
‘I guess… That’s good then?’ “So you threw me in the water at that time to stop it from happening?”
“That’s right. Now tell me where the idiot is that activated your blood so I can kill him.” He pulled out a long jagged knife and I could have sworn I saw his ears become a little more pointy… Filling me with a sense of awe before I fully realized what he had said.
“Kill, what? That seems a bit excessive don’t you think… I mean, you said I wasn’t in any real danger right? And, I think it was an accident anyway…”
He snarled and put his knife away again. “Even if you don’t have that much blood, the blood you do have has an incredibly strong connection to you… You weren’t at risk of dying, but you would have gotten badly hurt, probably had some scars, and lost the ability to taste. You wouldn’t have been able to eat for at least a week, and you might start laying eggs now.”
“That’s not really going to happen right?”
He shrugged “I think that only happened to the one girl, but it is a possibility.” His face slowly scratched up in a way that told me the things he had seen weren’t very pretty.
‘I already look like a freak… And now I’m going to start laying eggs like a chicken?’ after the initial shock my face fell flat. ‘The worst part about this is that it actually means all that stuff Rafi said about laying eggs would become kinda true…’
Finlo finally sighed with a growl, “Let's at least get you a change of clothes first… Seeing you like that is starting to make me feel bad.”
They escorted me back to the inn and waited outside my room while I changed into my actual armor. It was the only thing I had that held the family's crest and jewel beside the dress, but I didn’t mind. I was actually more comfortable wearing something I was used to anyway. And if I was going to do any more fighting it would be nice to not have to worry about the skirt fluttering around me.
After taking my clothes off I had a brilliant idea. I was alone, and all the windows were covered of course, so no one was around to see me use my magic. ‘Sand should be like any other element right? It's just a bunch of minerals, kinda like dirt.’ I took a deep breath in focused on the sand covering my body, sensing it with my magic and casting it off. It actually worked pretty well. Ever since taking the dragon sight potion my external manna control had improved significantly. Still… I was only able to get rid of most of it. Distinguishing between my hair and the sand was easy, but I was still having a hard time distinguishing between the sand and my skin… And I wasn’t about to just force my skin to explode off of me…
With another deep breath, I conjured up a strong gust of air to blow whatever was left off… That… Also worked… It just had the unforeseen side effect of making me suddenly very aware of how naked I was at the moment…
“You need any help brushing the sand off?” Zu asked from outside the door.
‘He has to be the only person more awkward and dense than I am…’ “You realize that would mean you coming in here, and not only seeing me naked but also touching me!”
“Sounds good to me.”
I froze stiff for a moment, feeling a bit too exposed even though there was a door between us. The sounds of him crying out in pain from getting his arm twisted soon followed and only afterward did he clarify he meant getting one of the maids working at the inn to help me, and it was just another misunderstanding…
‘It’s good enough. I need to get going already.’ After I finished changing and getting the sand off as best I could I came back out, tying my hair back with a leather strap as I opened the door. “This language barrier thing is getting old, didn’t you spend over a month working on this sort of thing with Airsidh? I’m not sure how much longer I believe this is just you speaking improperly.”
“Sorry, sorry. I still have trouble understanding the difference between you, them, and me, we don’t have those words in my language.”
“It feels like your language doesn’t have a lot of things... How do you know who you’re talking about?”
He lifted a hand to his chin. “We use names, oh we do a lot of pointing too.”
“And if you don’t know their name?”
“You just come up with one based on how they look, so like you would be a little girl with strange hair.”
‘Seriously…’ I let out an annoyed groan, trying not to let it get to me. “I’ll make you some flashcards or something. For now though… Let's get moving. Where is my brother?”
“He should have wrapped things up with the governor by now, and is probably on his way to the castle.”
“Perfect.” ‘he’s the one I should talk to about dealing with these problems… Thugs, starvation, immigration… Who knows what else is wrong? If something isn’t done soon there won’t even be much of a city left by the time I graduate…’