Lizard. No, Dragonid. Wyvern. New aspect. Nice.

Heavy. Dark. I’m hurt. Not nice.

I push off against my impossibly heavy duvet. Off-mindedly drawing in mana to fuel the force, as well as healing.

With the weight no longer holding me down, I crawl towards the newly revealed opening.

…

Where’s the other one? I flip over to my back, parts of my body stinging as they move or hit the ground. It’s not here. That’s all I need to know. Okay. One wyvern down and another scared away. Maybe. I do a sweep of my surroundings with mana, finding no immediate threats. Right. Time to find out how badly wounded I am.

First, I turn my attention inwards. Using my healing abilities give me a certain understanding of wounds and such. And I am somewhat knowledgeable about the human anatomy. I can’t detect any internal damage, no broken ribs or anything, so movement should be safe. On the other hand, my upper back and arms, as well as the back of my head and shoulders, are covered in burns, and my exposed arms and legs have several cuts. I’m no longer bleeding, at least, but the wounded areas still sting.

When I have properly healed the wounds with [Healing Touch], all that’s left is the unpleasant sensitivity of freshly healed wounds. Good. I’m intact, my bag is intact, and I have gotten a new aspect, as well as a big ol’ dragonid to [Dismantle]. For now, I’ll contact Thomas, I bet the military folks would like to get their hands on this thing. I should probably mention the remaining wyvern. Actually, why don’t I go kill that bastard? They’re clearly not invincible. And I will I fight it on the ground, with the element of surprise on my side.

That said… If I just leave this thing here it’ll attract every carnivore and man-hungry beast nearby, won’t it? Hmmm. Ah, I know. I’ll take the parts I want, then quickly make something to hide it from potential scavengers, or maybe kill them.

Yeah, that’ll do. I set up a spell circle around it, and hide it from being spotted from the outside. The circle is fueled by one of the grown mana crystals, and is obscured in aspect-created Mist, physical and magical. [Illusion Magic] serves to camouflage the carcass as a rock, as well as mask the smell, though the latter function is a bit lackluster. With [Mind Magic] and Mist I tried to make it do that thing where you can look at it and stuff, but you mind sorta just ignores it. No idea whether that works, since I made an exception for myself, for obvious reasons.

When it comes to the [Dismantling], I figured (correctly) that I should be careful about the blood. A simple mana barrier kept it out, through draining the mana from it made it harmless. It would also remove any use gained from its magical nature, so I didn’t do that, instead filling up one of two 1,5L plastic bottles I brought from the quick stop home.

In addition to the blood, I grabbed the mana crystal, a bunch of scales of varying sizes, and some scaled leather and bones from the right wing. I also… sampled its meat, after cooking it of course. Tasted amazing, actually, so I cut off some more and stored it in a subspace stone. I feel a bit bad for not seeing Tåke lately, but I bet she’ll love the meat. Just gotta remember bringing it to her today, so it doesn’t spoil. Then again, if I applied a time-slow enchantment to the stone that wouldn’t be a problem.

I do a final sweep of the area, just to be sure, and finding nothing I extract a bit more blood from the wyvern to experiment with. Holding the potentially dangerous liquid in a sphere, I apply the same magic to myself as I did to the enchantment, then head up the hill, towards the assumed nest.

This place looks similar to a bird’s nest, but using small trees instead of sticks, and the forest is cleared in a twenty-ish meter radius. My spells should be working, seeing how I levitated past a couple [Thorn-antler Deer] without them noticing, just ten or so meters away. But the large wyvern here detected something when I got within a thirty-ish meter range. Might be my smell, or maybe the mana I use to fuel the spells.

Now that I’m here I’m no longer certain I can actually ambush it, though. I don’t think I can get much closer, and it might be smart enough to just run away if I can’t kill it quickly enough. Ugh, I should really get some proper magic training. I must remember to ask the military if they have a place nearby I can use to test more devastating spells.

The damn thing is still wary! The magic gun would be my best bet for quickly killing it, but the mana would reveal me, I think. What about the new aspect? While [Dismantling] the corpse I studied it, getting the affinity for [Aspect of the Wyvern] up to ‘Weak’, but I think it’s close to ‘Mediocre’.

I take on the aspect, embodying it with no physical changes, I study the remaining wyvern in the hopes of getting to that next stage. I think the blast in its mouth made a number on it. It doesn’t look that great, and spits blood every now and then. Wait, there’s two signatures here. One is very faint, though. Hmm. It seems to have become somewhat less wary, so I draw back, and circle around to get a view that is not blocked by the trees.

Oh. It’s an egg. I really should’ve guessed that, what’s with the nest and two wyverns. The smaller one was male, and this one is female, so yeah. Monsters breeding, huh. Monster breeding? That’d be kinda cool. Not sure you could teach these things in a reasonable manner, though. I don’t particularly want to attack if they were only defending the nest. Then again, they have the size and firepower of a small fighter plane. They could be a threat to everyone in the nearby area.

On the flip side, it’s like ten kilometers plus to actual towns. Too bad for whoever owns the buildings just a thousand meters away. Ugh. Know what, screw it. She’ll get to decide. I’ll go out there with raised shields, and if she attacks I’ll give no quarter. On the ground I’m the boss, and she loses her biggest advantages: speed and maneuverability.

In preparation I form scales not unlike her own, covering my entire outer body. Then, I essentially imbue them with mana, and make another layer of mana on top of that. Two layers of magical protection, plus scales. That should save me from at least one attack. And then there’s my ability to actively defend against spells. Hmm, I probably should prepare an attack in case I need to attack, but if it’s intelligent it will recognize that…

Actually, [Beast Empathy] could be handy right about now. The only ability I am willing to swap it for is [Spatial Magic], though. Acceptable, since I know it’s safe. And I don’t think I’ll need the ability. Woah. The feeling of suddenly losing connection to the three subspaces in my body is weird. To begin with I should empty those, since I use them for conjured stuff, which is dangerous. Mental todo: Do that. Well, I should be ready now. As ready as I can be.

I give myself a little while to get used to having active [Beast Empathy] again. I prepare to use all my power for defense, and slowly dissolve the spells hiding me. The wyvern quickly notices me, and her head snaps in my direction. I stand still, ready to shield myself and launch into an attack on a moment's notice.

Through the ability, I sense her weary alertness spike, and what I assume is protectiveness flare up with it. But she does not attack. I take a small step forwards. Then another. She growls, ‘Threat’, and I stop. ‘Guarded curiosity’. Ugh, even empathic reading is hard without the companion and/or pack bond I have with Tåke and the other wolves. I have no idea if I can actually broadcast.

I decide to try, since the worst that could happen is triggering an attack, which I kinda expected by this point, anyway. But how do I communicate that I don’t want to fight in simple emotions? How about simply mirroring her, for now, broadcasting ‘Guarded curiosity’. Oh, she reacted. Stronger curiosity. And pain, as she spits out another bloody glob. I lift my foot, as if to walk, looking at her with ‘anticipation’. I take the step. I repeat. And again, and again.

Eventually I stand within the range she can snap forwards and bite my head off, radiating wariness as much as I can. Up this close, while not flying or trying to kill each other, she’s massive. Her large bulk is held up by two legs and the ‘hands’ of her wings, like a pteranodon. Her tail is wrapped around the egg, which she has moved away from me. To even look at her head I need to lean backwards. I stretch out my hand, as if she were a cat or dog.

She reacts like a dog, in other words, licking my hand. Well, her tongue should be how she smells, so it’s more like snakes and lizards than drooling dogs. I am so close to her that I could give her a hug, but now what? … Probably should’ve planned a bit further. Ahh, I know what to do.

I take two more steps, beckoning her to lower her head to me. She’s more a bit guarded than curious now, but if this work that should change. She does not, however, do as I want her to. I broadcast ‘annoyance’. “Lower your head here, dammit! I’m gonna heal you!”

…

That worked… I need a table to flip!

Who cares. I place my hands where her lips meet, and start healing her. Ugh, [Healing Touch] is not equipped, and the swap timer is not ready. I could force it, but that means I would not be able to swap back for an hour. Let’s not. She is surprised by my action, which she resists at first, but maybe she senses what it’s for or something, because she lets my magic do its thing shortly afterwards.

Healing from the outside doesn’t do all that much. When I pry open her mouth and stick my hands in to heal where it counts, she becomes even more surprised. At this point the wariness is almost gone, and I could probably kill her if I wanted, but… She doesn’t seem bad or evil or anything. No, she can’t be evil. She’s an animal. That said, for a moment I could’ve swore she almost bit down on my arms.

Her teeth are definitely nothing to shrug at, being the size of daggers. Hmm, if I find one of those I blew out, maybe I can turn it into a dagger. Were she human, she’d have a really goofy smile with this many missing teeth. Right now she simply looks more menacing. I freeze. Menacing, plane-sized beast, and I’m rooting around inside her mouth. Whatever, she seems to have decided on not killing me. Probably.

When the wounds are more or less healed, I retract my now somewhat slobbery and definitely bloody arms. Okay, so I hurt her, and then healed her. What now? Oh, right, I made a hole in her wing. Let’s patch that up if I can.

After finishing the healing, I look at the egg. She’s still holding it with her tail, eying me with cautious curiosity, but doesn’t stop me from looking at it. “A little one, huh. And I killed the father…” Not that I know how wyvern rear their young. Wait, what was that? I turn to her. “Yes, I killed your mate.” A bit of… sorrow, some fear and quite a lot of anger? “You… understand me?”

Her response is mostly that of confusion, and a growing worry, perhaps for the egg. I’m starting to question my assumption that she is a ‘mere’ animal. She’s showing an understanding of at least some of the concepts I try to communicate, and a lot more restraint than a cornered beast usually would. She is, after all trapped in a situation where I have wounded her once, killed her mate, and I could kill her offspring at any moment.

In the document I shared after the hearing, I mentioned that we should probably expand our definition of ‘person’, and maybe grant protection to near-human intelligences. That said, it was more in anticipation of elves, dwarves or orcs or the like, and I did not expect it to be relevant so quickly.

Come to think of it, the Mist Wolves also show signs of higher intelligence, too. I should get some researchers to come up with tests, and try to teach then more complex stuff. Actually, they learned to use other aspects pretty damn quickly, as well as the more advanced hunting tactics. Was that because of their ability to learn, my [Teaching] meta ability, or a combination?

If she truly is intelligent, I don’t want to kill her. In fact, befriending her would be awesome. Or taming her, if she’s less intelligent. But for that I should find a way to truly communicate with her. Not just the poor, mostly one-way communication I do right now…