Re: Butterfly (Reincarnated as a Butterfly)

The world came back into focus, a slow shift from complete black oblivion to a mere gray obscurity.

Adon only knew when he was aware of himself again.

I was knocked out, he thought, dimly aware that the impact to his human form's head had somehow rendered him unconscious. He was also aware that he had reverted to his butterfly form in unconsciousness—because, well, of course he had. His Transformations took will and mana and physical energy to maintain. He had lately become much better at using the Adaptation, but it was still not something he could do in his sleep, let alone when violently knocked unconscious.

Adon took an experimental step forward and finally felt it hit him, a dull ache throughout his body.

The fall did hurt me, then. At least a bit. What did it do to Rosslyn…?

He swiveled his body until he could see her form in the darkness. Even in the dimness, his vision was not entirely ineffective. Each set of eyes he possessed saw in a different way, after all.

His Infrared Vision perceived the shape of the Princess lying on the ground, unmoving. He still saw the ethereal aura around Rosslyn's body that he had first noticed the very first time he met her. Like she was something otherworldly.

His Infrared Vision also spotted something else. A puddle of blood, pooled beneath the Princess's skull. She did not seem to be bleeding, but Adon recognized that he could actually smell the blood. It had to be fairly fresh.

I wasn't knocked out for long, then, he thought.

He spread his wings, ignoring the slight pounding through his body with the motion, and he fluttered over to Rosslyn, landing on her neck. She was warm to the touch, but he still touched his forelimbs to her neck until he found her pulse, and he also pressed one of his wings close to her nose.

Her pulse and breath confirmed she was alive, but her breathing felt shallow to Adon, and he thought her pulse was weak.

Adon reached inside himself and drew out mana, connected to the power of healing magic, and began pushing his energy into the Princess's body. As he did so, he realized that she had been hurt more than he'd been able to perceive. There had to be some internal organ damage. Her body soaked in his healing power like a sponge, but most of it was not pulled toward her head but into her abdomen.

Damn, Adon thought. She's really in trouble…

Somehow, he had imagined that this part would be easy, but as he stood on her body, pouring out energy, she simply absorbed everything he had to give.

Adon's stomach began to feel empty, his body hollow, as he used up more and more mana, but he kept going until he finally ran almost completely empty of mana.

Then, not fully satisfied that he had done everything he could, Adon checked her vitals again.

The Princess still wasn't completely healed, but she felt different to him. Her body was warmer, her pulse was a bit stronger, and her breathing felt closer to normal. He was also fairly certain that the wound on the back of her head had closed up, though he could not check without moving her body—currently impossible for him, since he was a butterfly and could not use Transformation until his mana supply had recovered a bit.

Adon's insides almost seemed to be curling in on themselves with hunger by this point, and he flapped his wings and took off from Rosslyn's body, beginning a search of the cave they found themselves in. They were not too far from the entrance, and he had not observed any life forms in that part of the cave in the time he had been immobile, healing the Princess, so he fluttered further into the underground space.

What is there in here that I could eat? he thought.

As he flew further into the darkness of the cave, however, he discovered that this tunnel was rather shallow. It appeared to just be a small, empty rock formation, and it ended after another thirty feet in a simple stone wall. There were no signs of life anywhere in the hollow space.

It was such a plain, dark, simple space that Adon could hardly see any details of it, even with his butterfly eyes. There was simply little that gave off radiation of any kind that would distinguish one part of the cave from another for Infrared Vision. It was that empty. For a human, the whole space would have been a pitch black void.

Well, there doesn't seem to be anything to eat, or anything useful, in this place.

Adon flew back to Rosslyn, stumped as to his next steps. He had to decide whether to leave the unconscious Princess alone in the cave to look for food or not.

He argued with himself for a short time, his patience and brainpower running short because of hunger. Then he decided to check Rosslyn's body and see if she had any rations on her person. For a few minutes, he poked around her belt, where she had her sword, dagger, and a few other items tucked or clipped for easy access.

Finally, it turned out that the Princess had a wineskin that was nearly full, along with a pouch of what seemed to be a bunch of stiff, dense crackers. Adon could drink wine for sustenance, so he carefully popped open the lid and then helped himself to some of Rosslyn's alcohol. He drank just enough to fill his Biomass halfway, and he finally stopped and allowed himself to rest.

Though he had focused entirely on healing Rosslyn, his own body was still suffering a bit from the fall. He slipped into quiescence without too much more thought. He had a good feeling as he went under—like he was where he was supposed to be, doing what he was supposed to be doing.

Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

Adon was under for an unknown amount of time—he suspected that it was longer, this time, because the ache in his body was not as severe as it had been, and his mana pool had been able to mostly recover in the span while he had been dead to the world.

Rosslyn was still unconscious, and she had not moved from her position—Adon had entered quiescence still perched around her midsection, so he would have noticed—so the butterfly decided that now he ought to try and feed her.

He transformed into his humanoid form again—without the wings this time—to get the convenience of two hands, able to act much more dexterously than his butterfly limbs could.

All right, how do I do this? he thought a bit nervously.

He knew that an unconscious person could swallow small amounts of food and drink, if they were fed carefully and their brain was not fully shutting down. Swallowing was a reflex that the body would only abandon if it was near death or sedated somehow.

Still, knowing that in an abstract way was not the same as actually feeding someone who was unconscious.

Don't die, all right?

Adon used his human mouth and chewed up one of the hard, dry, almost chalky crackers Rosslyn had in her possession, until it was in a shape he felt he could swallow it in.

Then he carefully propped up Rosslyn's head to make it easier to feed her. He plucked a chunk of the pulpy cracker substance from his mouth, pushed it between Rosslyn's lips, opened her mouth a little further, and pressed the chewed up food into her throat. There was a moment of doubt—a moment where he wondered if she might vomit or simply choke on the food. Then he saw her neck twitch, as she swallowed, her mouth closing on its own.

Adon spent the next several minutes feeding Rosslyn by hand. The unconscious Princess did not vomit or die of asphyxiation, so he felt that he had done a decent job by the end. He stopped after three of the big crackers, because he didn't want to use up all of Rosslyn's food, and more importantly, he did not want to press his luck and risk choking her.

Then he decided to move her over to the cave entrance. It would allow him to look out into the terrain outside—as best he could, despite the lack of light or visibility—and it would keep Rosslyn where any rescuers might see her.

Adon was confident that help would be coming sometime soon. The party had all seen the Princess and the butterfly tumbling down into the bowels of the dungeon—he was fairly certain of this with the benefit of Impeccable memory—and the Princess was the most important person in this place.

Plus, it was possible that the route to the dungeon core would take the expedition past this space anyway. The floors had each been successively further underground than the one before, so the deep pit that had opened up might be a direct route to the bottom of the dungeon. Where Adon was fairly certain the core was supposed to be.

Adon had no idea if his mental projection of the layout was plausible, or if there was some sort of space-manipulating magic that could allow this pit to be literally bottomless or impossibly deep without leading to where the core was. But he knew the knights and lords were experienced and educated on these matters to some degree.

Surely he wouldn't be the only one to have this idea, if it was at all plausible.

He carefully placed one arm under the Princess's knees and one arm under her back, then slowly rose from the ground, careful not to drop her, until he was standing fully upright with Rosslyn in a princess carry.

As he moved forward, he could not help but enjoy the experience of carrying her a little. The weight in his arms felt nice. She was lighter than he had expected. Her head leaned against his shoulder in a way that seemed natural and right. Somehow her hair smelled fresh and clean despite days of fighting and sweat in a dungeon, something Adon would not have believed possible if he was not inhaling it for himself.

Then Adon immediately felt bad for enjoying anything at a time like this.

Rosslyn is hurt badly, he thought. Now is not the moment for your romantic fantasies…

He half held his breath the rest of the short walk to the cave entrance, a little ashamed that he had been enjoying the scent of the Princess's hair.

Adon reached the cave entrance, set the Princess down against the wall opposite himself, and let out a long exhale.

Then he forcefully pulled his attention away from Rosslyn for a moment and turned to look out at the external world, what there was of it.

It was dark out there, and Adon stared into the abyss for a long time. His eyes in his humanoid form were not as good as his butterfly eyes, but they were useful for right now. He needed to see what humans climbing outside would see. Needed to understand their perspective. Needed to assess the obstacles that the whole party would face if they decided to descend further into this chasm in order to face the dungeon core and whatever final monsters lay waiting in defense of it. And none of the humans could see the world through Adon's Infrared Vision.

What he observed was sobering. To human eyes, the outside appeared to just be an empty black pit. There were some tiny, almost imperceptible pinpricks of pale blue light somewhere down below, but it was literally like the light at the end of a long, dark tunnel. No, perhaps more like the light of a few stars barely twinkling in the glare of a city's lights.

For the first time, Adon allowed himself to quietly doubt whether any human would willingly venture into that nearly complete darkness, with no idea of what was waiting for them—no idea even of whether the Princess was alive or dead.

No, no, they have no reason to think she's dead, he corrected himself. They know I flew down here with her. If she was dead, I would fly back. No one would stay down here guarding a corpse. Maybe I would climb back carrying her body, but that's another reason for them to just send a few people after me. Either the Princess is alive, or the body of a Royal Family member needs to be retrieved for proper burial. Right?

But the seed of doubt had been planted. The butterfly began, to some degree, to plan for the possibility that he and Rosslyn might be on their own, incredible though that seemed.

"It's not going to be easy getting all the way down there," Adon said quietly to himself. He was still not quite used to having a human mouth again when he used Transformation, and it was kind of novel and fun to talk and hear his own voice. It was the same voice he'd had back when he was a human in his last life, which was especially neat. He turned back to look at the Princess and frowned. "Especially not with you injured. Rosslyn, you have to get better. Remember all the people who need you. Remember your mission. Remember…"

But he did not have the chance to elaborate any further on the things that Rosslyn needed to remember.

The Princess had begun to stir at the sound of his voice. Her eyelids fluttered, her lips parted, her fingers twitched.

"Rosslyn!" The words escaped his lips as an involuntary hiss. He knelt in front of her, leaning in, a relieved smile spreading over his face.

I was wondering if you would wake up anytime soon. He did not allow himself to verbalize the darker version of that thought, even in his own mind: I wasn't sure if you would wake up.

As he stared down at the Princess, she blinked slowly, her eyes appearing unfocused for a moment. Then they focused on Adon.

A faint smile touched her mouth. Then Rosslyn pushed herself up and kissed him full on the lips.