Battle Mage: Dragon Mage (Tales of Alus) Read Free Page A

breasts complete with light pink nipples, which were features she still didn’t understand, though her human mentors had told her that they did serve a purpose at least in females. The pale white, smooth skin was exposed from head to toe like a new born babe. Cheleya understood her reproductive and excretory areas for the most part, though they looked only vaguely like those of a dragon. She had even heard that humans gave birth to live little humans instead of eggs. It made little sense to her. An egg was so much more practical and a che’ther egg secured the young until they could exit the protective shell to begin walking almost immediately.
    With a big sigh that inflated her lungs making her petite breasts move in that peculiar way that humans always did, Cheleya grasped her amulet inciting the words, “Neruter emis ot flesym sa et sawen.”
    Light swirled around the human growing and lengthening. In seconds, sky colored scales formed within the light as Cheleya’s body grew into her real body. A long tail and elongated torso dropped her from two feet to four as her arms helped take the weight of a land dragon. Inside a che’ther home, one rarely stood on just their rear legs. While it was possible, most homes had ceilings that limited such movements still Cheleya was able to stretch her long neck to look up at her mother from all fours with plenty of room to spare. Still dwarfed by the elder female who was nearly twice her size, Cheleya wished that she was back in her adopted form almost immediately.
    She felt so clumsy like this, though the girl had only learned how to change into a human a little more than a year ago.
    “Is father home yet?” the little blue dragoness asked in a much deeper voice than before, though by comparison it was higher than her mother’s. Cheleya had always been closer to her father than her mother. While che’ther were not known for their warmth, even between those in their immediate families, she had always felt more of a bond with him.
    Her father was a brown scaled land dragon, powerful and having some use of earth magic that allowed him to work the land better than most che’ther who farmed. It was from him that Cheleya had apparently derived her much greater gift of magic. Whether he was proud of his daughter becoming a magician wizard or not, she didn’t really know, but he hadn’t discouraged her when the wizards had tested her and found her power growing. The fact that he hadn’t complained or found a way to interrupt her enrollment in the magic school was basically all the encouragement most che’ther would ever give their young, she supposed.
    Having been able to transform into a human for even just the short time she had, Cheleya was already beginning to feel a change in how her heart reacted to her family. She wanted to love them as the girl had heard other races loved their parents and bonded closely, but they were che’ther and that was not their way.
    “Your father is still out in the fields. He had to help prepare more farmland now that the snows have started to clear in the valley. You know this is one of his busiest times of the year. If you wanted to see your father more often, then you should have spent more time here during the winter while he was bored. At least I could get him to watch your brother while I went out.”
    Cheleya’s eyes moved to her mother curiously and she asked, “You know that it will be male?”
    Looking as if she had been caught in a lie, her mother replied, “Well, not exactly, but I have a feeling this one will be a male. He will probably grow up big and strong like his father and help him in the fields.”
    The words cut without intending to perhaps, but they did cut. Cheleya knew that she was a disappointment to her mother. She was small for a che’ther even after seventeen years of growth. Though most of her kind continued to grow for almost thirty years, her body had been slow and virtually stopped growing a few years ago.