Dragon’s Draught

When you ask the right questions of the wrong people, they’ll often give you answers. A yes to something they should say no about, a no when you have a wise doubt about what they instruct and influence.... and a comforting smile when you’re suffering the worst of their suggestions.

Talin had learned this later than some, an almost accomplished mage student of Sinthir Tower. A childhood not worth much talk, she had proven she had a handle on magic early and been whisked away from home by a Magus in need of Apprenticeship. Pondering long and hard she wouldn’t tell you of her heritage or how she was discovered, or why a Lady would’ve done for a Magus’ apprentice. You make yourself, she’ll remind you, by the choices that get you to who you become. There are wiser choices than interrogating people that can handle magic, too. Especially when they chose to switch over to the school of alchemy.

“Not like ye to make threats, Lass.” The brawny keep at the border bar commented to the former apprentice, she was not the kind of rambunctious beauty he was used to seeing. He knew better than to press a mage though, and further better than to test an alchemist with a bad attitude. “I was just wanted to know why i’was ye wore a hood inside, wasn’ trying to make trouble of a question. More like thems rogues and ugly to hide in them own shadow.”

“I suppose you’re dying to know if I’m ugly.” The bitterness was present, but her voice was infuriatingly sweet with the snarl. She could tell it wasn’t quelling his curiosity and for once she was unhappy that her usual half-past noon drink was taken in an empty exile bar. “I’m not.”

“I don’t expect ye to be, ye’re slender and ye move with the grace of any graduate Mage. Never met an ugly Mage before. Few weird ones, them’s that were the type took a Dragon’s Drink for a reason or another.” His face was intently pointed away from her as he worked a cleaning rag into a mug. He even pretended her sharp gasp went unnoticed by giving an experienced shrug and turning his back. “Weird doesn’t mean bad. There’s good reasons and bad reasons both to drink the stuff.” 

“What do you know of good and bad reasons for a Draught...” Muttered into her drink, hood still pointedly covering all but her lips. Plump they were. he thought. Flush with drink and aggravation. But they were very carefully all she showed of herself. Hid under that hood, clearly enchanted to stay shading her from head to toe. Seemed silly to drink something as drastic as a Draught and then hide, to him. 

“Ye can’t hide the smell of it, no matter how careful ye are with the cloaks. I know the Wolf Drink,  i’was what they had me on.” Admission given to her muttering, and a grin over his burly shoulder at how she let out a recognizable whimper. Wolf men were reputably dangerous among folks. Damn shame in his opinion, he never even meant to drink a wolf and make a monster of himself. His laugh bellowed at how she hurried to drink her ale, bemused that she prioritized it over trying to run away. Odd Lady Talin always had seemed to him though. “Most lass’ll sprint right through the door when they realize. Now I know you took a drink you weren’t suppose to.”

“Drink I shouldn’t have been given, it wasn’t what I wanted from what I had asked for. Didn’t know enough to know better.” She was defensive now, desperately twirling him back into her circle of non-acknowledgement. He’d already gathered she’d been taken into Sinthir a young and dewy lad. Prettier than most Magus apprentices were expected, pretty even before the graduation. Pretty enough she fell prey to the Traedurin alchemists no doubt, promised they had the answer to help her change what she didn’t love about herself. 

“I’ll agree with ye. Traedurin mages and alchemists are twisted in the head, they think they understand things better enough to make choices wrong for people that don’t know better.” He nodded patiently, thoughtfully. Appreciating that she hadn’t flown loose of the bar. She couldn’t have been much older than him, looking at her and listening to the tremble of her voice still denying that what they’d done and influenced was still what had happened to her. Irreversible as if it had been her own informed choice, there was no unmaking the changes a Draught put the body through. The lucky folk got subtle things, as he had. Brawn he’d never had before, teeth too sharp, nose too keen, eyes lighter than gold. It was hard for folks to tell whether he was strong enough to lug the kegs or if he was strong because he did. He had the inkling she hadn’t been so lucky and got such subtle hints of her changing.

“They make stupid choices with smart people is what they do.” Grumbled from under the hood, thing still stubbornly positioned to conceal her. Still an agreeable word there. They fell into a silence past that statement, she soaking in the bar keep as he busied himself organizing mugs and bottles. Noticing where he wasn’t quite human anymore under the billow of his tunic before she finally decided to speak again. “It was when they told me I’d have to be a Magus to graduate. Sinthir wouldn’t allow me to ascend as a Mage. It was too late to transfer over to the alchemists at Erfersi that year, so I left my apprenticeship and went to the capital to work for the public. Was trading blessings and wards to farmers. An almost graduate is as good to them as a proper Mage, and their food was fresher than I got in the tower anyway.”

“A public magic user is a Traedurin Alchemist’s wet dream, lass.” Sympathetic in his tone, the entire country of Traeduros produced a population that was widely received as mental when not outright putting effort into being violent or manipulative. They were usually responsible for crafting the morally unsound and otherwhere illegal substances known as Beast Drinks and Draughts, transformative elixirs that could augment a human with the power or appearance of animals, though they rarely gave a human both the power and the appearance and often enough they could go horribly wrong and disfigure more than augment. Trick potions mostly, sound minded people wouldn’t drink them.

“Isn’t it? So I was. Unhappy and easy prey for their ‘magic’. Their ‘solution’.” There was a hiss under her voice, a certain raspy flair as she sprung off the bar seat and onto her feet... feet he now noticed as what some would call disfigured. She stood balanced on specially crafted shoes, but he could see that three inhumanly shaped toes were bound in the rough shape of a human foot and strapped carefully to a wedge. A flex of those toes broke her free of the meticulous binding to reveal that the flesh of her feet was stain blue, and she put a hand to hip under her cloak before she pulled back the hood and unveiled herself, ale helped defiance in her gaze. It was to his merit that the less obvious Draught Beast didn’t laugh. 

Talin stood defiantly poised on those draconic feet, loose pantaloons not managing to conceal how her bones were twisted to accomplish the strength and dexterity expected of an upright drake. Her waist was bare up to the chest, a vest fitted neatly and decorated in what he felt were comically small pockets, though only because she herself was petite. Petite, flat framed, and lean with muscle all the way through her arms and down to her clawed digits. The barkeep was unduly fascinated that her augments were so symmetrical and functional, almost distracted enough by them to ignore her face until she snapped her fingers and leaned forward toward him. Downright impish in the face! She had vibrant silver markings against the blue tint of her skin, cheeks cut high into her expression and a jaw drawn sharp and low. Slender to add to how small she already seemed, but adorned with perhaps the most intense stare he’d ever tried to meet. Her irises were the palest tint of green almost glowing through the ink black of her eyes, and her pupils were feline slits within them. This under her arched brow and paired with her still human nose under a mane of half-kempt iridescent hair gave her the look of a particularly spunky demon in his opinion.

“Yers wasn’t as subtle as mine.” Managed and uttered from him, his lips curled in an approving grin to look at her without her cloak. “Certainly aren’t ugly either, ye were right about that. Never seen the Drink change colors like you have.”

“Supposedly had to do with me being able to use magic.” A flair of the stuff, just a glimmer of it moving through her skin as more markings similar to those on her face. “It leaves a permanent mark on the body, any Mage will admit. But the Draught brought mine out.”

“I think it’s good it did, Lass. Ye shouldn’t have to live under the cloak for it either.” Advised as she was clearly weighing the options of putting the thing back on and assessing how horribly she’d damaged her shoes. “Might be that how ye look now is how ye find out who ye’re going to be.”

It was twelve days past taking her cloak off that she decided not to put it back on.

It was a month after that she enrolled with the Alchemist’s guild, a celebrated student of Erfersi graduating after only a year of study.

It was a week after that when Rhaekson spotted her, an obvious draconic body, and gave her responsibility of a newborn in a quiet plea in front of the same border bar.

The same barkeep helped her find a path and a hollow tree to raise the child away from humans when it’s blood mother decided to forfeit several towns.