A Benevolent Evil Dragon

The suns were hidden by the foliage, really only the small yellow one was still peeking through. That won’t last, it will soon be dark, and if patterns serve, tonight only the red moon will even be up in the sky, probably half lit for most of it. Perfect for predators with good low light sight. Looking at Ayrah and the way her beastly eye shone, it was clear she’ll make do. She might lack binocular vision in the dark, but even one eye is better than none.

And despite the fact that I have been pointedly pushing my development in a particular way, my eyes are still able to handle low light environments. I freeze as she stops, and then mimic the way she steps slowly over the dead leaves. Without even looking down she somehow knows which are soft and which are crunchy, so I make sure to mimic her steps. I notice quickly what drew her attention. There’s blood in the air, and following its direction I manage to see a fox. There’s a rabbit in its mouth, freshly caught, and it seems to look around a bit, before dashing away towards a safer spot.

It didn’t see us, neither did Ayrah see it. How did I? I’ve been keeping the image of an eagle’s eye, down to a very vivid anatomical model, and as my body developed it moved towards the ideal of having these sort of eyes. I even lost my slit pupil, while all my siblings still have theirs.

What I didn’t expect when I did this change was the fact that I won’t get the downsides of these eyes. I can still see in the dark, my pupil just naturally being able to dilate until my eyes are almost fully black, and I seem to have a lot more black white receptors than normal, as well as the reflective layer.

She shifts to follow my gaze, narrows her eyes, then looks back at me. I just walk in a different direction, not showing interest in the fox. Thankfully she has started trusting my judgment when something is too far for her to properly assess, so we move on. A normal rabbit won’t be enough, and the fox has barely any meat on it. Plus, it’s cute. Well, really all animals that aren’t mutated into abominations are cute, but some are more food than others.

Where was I? Right, eyes… I seem to have managed to nail the absurd detail and distance that eagles can see to, but I failed, so far, in modifying the visible spectrum. In my defense, I have no idea how this whole thing works. I just kept thinking about the blueprint and most of what I wanted worked. However instead of getting the fourth cone type, I got something possibly even better: mana has color! It’s the same one as the respective crystals, but very washed out. Still it helps me differentiate what mana is around, and what creatures like the buck from before are weaving my way.

Speaking of, we are interrupted by the echoing, unmistakable scream of a deer. They're still getting it on… well, blessed be the mating season, because they’re extremely hard to find and even harder to catch when they’re being sneaky. With a good target found, we start following the sound. This is when Ayrah really shows off her skills. My nose and ears are keen but they’re lagging behind compared to my new eyes. She doesn’t have that problem. Unlike me it seems she needs to keep up a spell to get more bestial, but it does turn her into a scary hunter that casually moves crouched to the ground, yet keeping up with me and even taking the lead.

We reach our prey and the bloodshed begins. Really I barely get to do anything. Before they even manage to break into a sprint Ayrah gets two of them, one by clawing its head off and the other by sinking her teeth in and taking a bite. A male and a female, more than enough meat for a few days, really. I could get a third but it might spoil before they can eat it, and these ones barely have any mana of their own. It’d be a waste to get them, so I let them go.

Now, reeking of blood, we take on the walk back to the cave. At least nothing seems to approach us, too scared I’m guessing. I turn my head to the side and hear her speaking to me. She’s been doing this a lot lately. I barely managed to learn a few simple words, mostly from her pointing at something and repeatedly making the same sounds, but I guess it helps her in a way. She gets that I am smarter than an infant has any right to be, but I guess she might think of me as a witty dog. I know I would if I was in her position. She smiles at me, then gazes silently at the moon above.

I also look up, seeing the stars through the barren branches. They are still oh so beautiful… Eyes that can see all that detail and a world free of light pollution, with only a red half-moon reflecting any meaningful amount of light into our eyes. My eyes dilate and I take in all of it, the brightly dotted sky, the shining clouds of stardust… It is so beautiful and so alien. No constellations fit what I remember. A completely foreign world, a completely foreign sky… Even the markings on the moons are different.

I miss the old sky a bit… But I move on.

Ayrah doesn’t. She stops for a bit, wiping her tears, a few quiet sobs following. She’s much more emotional than you’d think from her appearance or demeanor… She’s also been getting worse since the kid got sick. Before it felt like she was thinking about something far in the past, and that was what caused her tears… but now? I am sure that now she’s afraid she’ll get back and see the boy dead.

I bump her leg with my head and she turns to me, giving me some head rubs. She’s spreading blood on me and I’ll need to wash my scales later, but it feels nice. I let out some happy chirps and she starts walking again, laughing though with a bit of sadness in her tone.

Can’t expect more than that.

We are back in the cave, with her and the young woman processing the carcasses. The boy is already worse off… Whatever nature magic the old lady knows, it cannot help him. I think… Is she using some kind of regeneration? Could be… You know, considering how much mana she poured into him you’d think he’d be stabil-

Oh…

Fuck… No wonder she’s failing despite running herself ragged.

I approach the boy, surprising the two that were caring for him. His eye is unfocused. He reaches over and pats me, despite being too afraid to even look my way most of the time. With a sigh I push closer, my head pressed against his chest. I can feel the cold, but he’s lower on mana than ever. That’s what tripped me up before. You’d expect a fever, but no, people at risk or with a weak immune system tend to have different symptoms… The raspy breath, the constant cough, the sweating despite being almost freezing to the touch, the confusion, the nausea, everything… the boy’s got pneumonia and I think the old lady has been pumping him full of “regenerate” magic. Which might also affect his disease. She’s been speeding up his sickness….

Damn. He’ll die without treatment and nobody here seems to catch the issue. Hell, even if they knew it’s not like there’s any medicine. I also have no idea if his is from bacteria or viruses or whatnot, and even if I knew there’s no such medicine around. Even if I were to try and obtain antibiotics naturally it would take so much time and resources to set it all up that the boy would be long dead.

I step back, shaking my head and turning around. The boy reaches over with his one good arm and grabs my tail, then says something. I don’t understand but everyone around me seems to feel even more heartache… I… I am sorry kid, I don’t know what to do, I don’t know how to help you. I wonder for a moment if just killing him now might be a mercy… but I doubt that’d go well with the others.

I should leave. Let them have their meal in peace. And I do just that by pulling myself free of his weak grasp, walking with my head down towards the entrance. At least I do until I hear sobs again. Ayrah looks at me, and I look back. She knows. She understands that I do not think he’ll survive… This is the one time I dislike the fact that she can read body language.

Turning around I find a sort of macabre amusement at the fact that instead of being sad like her, the others are shocked. must be the first time she broke down with them, huh. Sorry…

She comes and hugs me. I don’t object. Fire girl, with the help of the poison woman, soon continue butchering the carcasses. They’ll skin them, drain their blood, then cut them bit by bit and roast it or make it into a stew in the ornate basin.

It’s hard to not think about it.

The kid will die, not even having the chance to live… but this is a more primitive world. It’s common, in the end, for most kids to die young around these times.

That thought doesn’t make it better.

Eventually I am free, and I just walk away.

Sadly, my mind isn’t tired enough to be silent, so it thinks. The boy is suffering from an infection or something of the sort. His body is too weak to fight back, his mana has somehow been draining, the old woman’s magic may have helped the infection… were their magics fighting? Nature and ice, not a good combination, but would that weaken him? How would I even help if I could?

Antibiotics… is there a way to magic them up? No. There are so many versions and with such complex formations that even if I were to be able and individually control their foundational elements I would have a hard time getting the correct shape. Making them practically? Somehow even harder. Especially with the dexterity of a lizard. Fire? It would warm him up at least… but he could just die from temperature shock if his body is so used to the cold… Is there anything I can even do? Is there even a reason I should care?

I walk around our room, my siblings fast asleep by now. Riches, trinkets, gems… none of these help. No, why should I even help? I already did so much… I saved them from death, hunted for them, do I need to do even more?

I let out a squeak, laughing at myself. I helped these people more than I helped just about anyone in my past life… Well, aside from a couple cases, but this is really more than I ever did… is it bad to just relax and let the death pass? It’s just a human…

Plus, I’m not a doctor. Knowing me, even if I managed to make the right medicine, it would end up as poison… Isn’t that a saying? “The dose makes the poison”...

Poison, huh…

If regeneration heals bacteria or viruses… Wouldn’t a poison hurt or kill them?

For a moment I have a bright smile with just a bit too many teeth. Poison, but that only affects a particular type of organism. That would work, that is literally what antibiotics are, but my cheer was quickly crushed.

I don’t know the poison rune.

Even if I did, unlike sound, light or even fire, I cannot test if I tweaked the poison to the right settings, even if I knew the right runes.

So, back to uselessness. I blink and I find my vision blurry. Am I crying? Over this? Now? I have only cried once in my new life, and the second time I do is because I find myself on the brink of saving a life, only to realize I am useless…

Pathetic.

Why do I even care this much? All that boy did for me was pat my head while he was delirious.

But she cried over him.

That thought makes me pause. It feels like my own, yet just a bit too distant. It’s true though… I don’t really care for the boy more than the fact that he’s innocent in all this… But I care for Ayrah. She’s the only one that actually tried to spend time with me. And she cried for him.

I curse and think harder. Alright, I know enough to be able and imagine something, but I have no clue how to make it real with the way magic works. Is there any shortcut? Anything I can abuse?

Yes, there is. There is one magic I have been able to use without having the practical magical knowledge to make it work. The modified music rune. The basic one gives me control over anything, the modified one gives me little forceful control, but it gives me something better. It rips the process from my mind! It takes whatever song I am thinking of and reproduces it. it even did that from a different mind, with Ayrah’s battle song!

I don’t even really need the rune… I don’t even need a rune!

I rush away from the nest. I kick up a dust cloud as I exit back into the outside world… then stop.

What are you going to do? I ask myself.

Are you going to rush off in the rough direction of the obelisk? Are you going to ignore the many beasts on the way there, especially the mutants that live in the forest around that pillar of rainbow crystal?

I make a good point. It is dangerous, and I will likely lose my path. It’s dark and I have only gone there flying… it’s also farther away than anything I have traveled towards…

I return, dejected. I eat a fruit on the way back, then visit the humans again. They are draining the animals, which they hanged by some sturdy vines. Ingenious. The old woman is resting. I think she exhausted herself trying to heal the boy.

I look on at the poisonous woman, and I think that maybe, just maybe she could do what I can’t… but no. She may have an affinity with the magic, and more mana than most others, but I doubt she has understanding of what she’d need to make. If germ theory was a thing, they’d know what the boy has.

The boy opens his eye and smiles at me. He’s far gone… he won’t make it through the night. Ayrah notices that too because she comes to me and she.. begs? She begs. She begs for his life. She didn’t beg for her own life when mother stood in front of them, telling them to die. But she begs me.

I can’t say no.

He’ll die soon. If I don’t do anything, he will die. If I do something and fuck up, he will die… This is… not really the trolley problem, but in a way it is. Do nothing and someone may die, or do something and now you are directly responsible if that person dies.

Fuck she has some powerful pleading eyes… Fine.

I go over and take the poison crystals. Good thing I brought a second pair once she got untied. One might not have been enough. I sit there, clutching the gems to my nose, breathing in poison mana. I think that confuses people, but I stop focusing on them.

I need to think, no, I need to feel this. This sort of magic that uses mixes of mana… it feels different from the normal kind. It takes into account my emotions, I think. I was taken over by emotion when I spontaneously made the music rune, after all. Which is why I try hard to focus. I don’t want a strong poison, I want a targeted one. I want it to kill the tiniest organisms around, I want it to absolutely decimate them without hurting any of the boy’s cells. This isn’t an attack, this isn’t harm, this is healing.

This is poison’s version of healing, so I need it to be safe… I need the kid to make it through… He’s just a child in a horrible situation and he deserves to make it through one more night… Ayrah deserves to have someone she seemingly cares about, survive one more night.

One more night.

And hopefully another after.

That is what I need, I need a spell that will give this boy one more night… So why is nothing coming out? No rune, no nothing. Not even the simple ones are appearing… it’s just nothing. I blink away tears and keep focusing on the mana. I need it to be more lively, more chaotic. I need each fragment of it to understand. I want to save this boy, I need help to save the boy, so give me something… anything!

My eyes shot open. I feel it. I got it. Deep in my chest I get the feeling, the understanding, I know what I need to do but I am afraid. Will they understand? Probably not. Am I even doing this right? Probably not… Am I really going to entrust my instincts with this… those instincts that tell me to use my best weapon in order to heal?

I open my mouth and a rainbow tinted cloud follows my exhale, shooting towards the boy, who inevitably breathes it in. Alarms ring out. The old woman shouts angrily, the one that knows poison tries and fails to dispel the cloud, the girl has fire dancing on her fingertips, unsure of what to do, but the one to actually make a move is Ayrah, who roars and shuts everyone up. I look at her and she has a hardened expression.

She is afraid. She trusts me but doesn’t know if it is right. The noble woman says something in a pointed tone, probably mentioning that this is poison I am using.

But it doesn’t matter, it’s too late. The boy had enough deep breaths of it to take in most of the cloud. Now it’s time to wait.

Pity I couldn’t. My entire mana reserves were gone and I was already in my library… Guess all I need to do is wake up in order to see if I succeeded or I killed a boy…

I am afraid.