To Change Without Changing At All
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Dawn frowned into the mirror. She looked like she'd gotten
a really bad sunburn—her skin was discolored in big
blotches. All around one eye was her normal pale skin, while surrounding the
other was a warmer, darker peachy tone. Then there was that big streak of brown
down one arm. The healers had assured her that eventually her skin would settle
down and be one color, but until that time she was left looking like a kid had
finger painted all over her. Or like she had one of those
rare skin diseases. It had been two months now since she'd begun the
change, and she wasn't anywhere near done.
The healers were very pleased with her progress. They said
that speed had no relationship with the success of the change. In Dawn's case,
the internal changes had happened quickly and relatively painlessly. What was
left was the external stuff; her wings and tail were barely started, and her
hair, teeth, nails and eyes were still their original color. There was a chance
that they wouldn't change at all, but it wasn't very likely. Dawn was more than
ready for something to happen, just so she'd have something to look at to
distract her from the itching on her back. Why couldn't wings grow in without
irritating her skin?
In anticipation of her hair changing colors Dawn had a
sharp knife laid by. She hadn't cut her hair much in the past years, so it was
really long. She didn't want bicolored hair, though,
especially if her new paint job didn't match mud brown. Besides, it would grow
out eventually.
Sighing, Dawn gave up studying herself and went to get
dressed. Now that she was mobile again, she had work
to do. Oh, she wasn't in any condition to play; she still got shakes and
tremors occasionally and they would take many months to go away completely.
Instead of practicing she spent her time reading and writing. As long as she
could decipher what she wrote, it was ok. If it was really bad she'd just wait
a little while and write it down again, or call for some help.
"Hiya, Chadei," Dawn
said as she walked into the guild hall.
"Iriya," Chadei
replied, using Dawn's new dalhari name. She'd chosen her own name, Iriya-salvidiiene, shortly after being changed, according
to tradition. Changed-dalhari usually named themselves
something personally meaningful. Considering all she'd gone through in her
short life, being called 'dawn-everchanging' seemed
appropriate. It had met with Chadei's approval, which
was all Dawn needed. He'd become her surrogate-parent, both before and after
the change. Before she'd been changed they were close, but afterwards he'd
become the father her natural parent had never been. "Better today?"
Dawn nodded. "That cream the healers gave me did the
trick. Less itchy, at least. I still look like that
old cyar'dil I've got, before it was dyed."
"Ah, it'll change," Chadei assured her. A snort
caught their attention and they saw Bai swagger down
the hallway. Chadei rolled his eyes. "Ah, it's sulk-and-pout."
"I wish he'd move on," Dawn remarked. Bai hadn't been very nice to her for a long time—something
that hadn't changed after their mastery presentations. It had only gotten worse
after Dawn decided to be changed. He'd gone from simply poking at her to
outright insults. The elder masters of the guild had more than once admonished
him to calm down, but he hadn't. Luckily for Dawn and the guild, Bai was pretty much alone in his dislike of her. She was
too nice and helpful to make many enemies.
"He may, before he does," Chadei said
cryptically. Dawn thought about what he said for several minutes before
realizing that it was a roundabout way of saying that Bai
may be moved to another hold.
"But he's from Tereva'diel!" Dawn exclaimed.
Sure he'd be allowed to stay in his hometown. After all, most dalhari preferred
that. Zhaen and Duens were exceptions to that tradition.
"So? He's also disruptive, and there's little need
for his skills here. There are several holds in the region that could use
someone to teach fundamentals to their youth."
Dawn winced. She wouldn't mind being an instructor to
children—they loved to learn and were a lot of fun. But it wasn't exactly the
most glamorous of guild work—certainly nothing as prestigious as composing. Oh,
an instructor could compose as well as teach, but she knew that Bai had wanted, and expected, to be allowed to just
compose. It had rankled him when that honor had been
bestowed upon Dawn and not him. "Are you sure he's the best choice for
that?"
"No," Chadei replied. "I think he's best
suited to restringing and polishing. Unfortunately, his old mentor is
very…protective."
Oh, Dawn knew all about that. There had been rumors about Bai and Gewna for years now.
Dalhari frowned upon mentor-student relationships, although each guild had its
own rules about such situations. The bardic guild was
fairly ambiguous, stating only that apprentices and masters should avoid
destructive and disruptive interactions. That wasn't the only thing that made
their relationship distasteful to the dalhari, though. The long-lived species
was fairly open about age differences—they had to be, when their kind often
lived for thousands of years. But here was a point at which age differences did
become significant. Gewna was more than fifteen
hundred years Bai's senior.
"Will Gewna follow
him?" Dawn asked quietly.
"More likely Bai will
follow Gewna," Chadei said. "The other
would be inappropriate…if that situation can get any more wrong."
"They could bond," Dawn suggested.
"That would solve a lot of problems," Chadei
remarked. "But it won't happen. Gewna follows a
very particular path and will never bond."
"Doesn't that bother Bai?"
Dawn inquired. She didn't think she'd stick with someone who'd never marry her.
Chadei shrugged. "It might, it might not. I don't
think he's the most reflective dalhari I've ever met, so perhaps what they have
is enough for them."
Dawn nodded. It didn't matter to her; they wouldn't be
raising any children so she wasn't concerned. While their arrangements were
frowned upon, they weren't exactly taboo. Children born outside a bond were,
though. Actually, it wasn't the children themselves—they were cherished no
matter the circumstances of their birth, but bastardy—the
production of children outside of the bond was just not done. Since both Bai and Gewna were male, it
wouldn't be an issue.
"Well, I'd better get to work. If I recall correctly,
someone wanted a celebration for their bonding," Dawn said lightly.
"And you know how good I am at wedding marches."
Chadei laughed at the comment, finding it funny now that
Dawn had explained some of the cultural references she made. Once she'd decided
to change, she'd told him about where she was really from. He understood her
reticence and accepted who she was—but many things made more sense now.
"Go. But remember that most dalhari don't really want to sing about
torture at their bondings. They've just gone through
half an hour of fighting, they want something happy."
"Happy schmappy," Dawn
muttered as she went to her practice room. "I'll give them happy. They'll
be so happy they choke on happy."
···•••·•••·•••·•••···
"Iriya?"
Dawn turned to greet Pruhsu.
"Good morning."
"You cut your hair, didn't you?" Pruhsu asked, peering at the girl.
Dawn nodded. "Yeah. It was
growing in and it didn't look right, with the brown ends." She wasn't
kidding—the new color just didn't go with brown.
"Ah. Well then, it looks very nice. Good day,"
the elder said, ambling off down the hall.
Dawn grinned. She figured she'd get a few reactions like
that. After all, it wasn't every day that a person chopped off a few feet of
hair—and she had. Almost four feet of long, straight brown hair had gone away,
leaving perhaps three inches of blazing red-orange hair behind, sticking in
every direction. The new color complimented her warm peach-colored skin quite nicely.
She was still getting used to her kind of glowing red eyes, with their dark red
irises and off-black pupils. The dark peach fangs and nails were just cool,
though. It had taken nearly a year for the rest of her change to complete, but
it was finally there. In fact, she was on her way to her first flying lesson.
In exchange for a chronicle on Tereva'diel's
role in a key war several millennia past, the warriors of the hold promised to
teach Dawn how to fly—and a little about fighting. She didn't want to be a
warrior; she'd left that behind in Sunnydale. It would be good, though, to
learn how to control the new strength and enhanced reflexes she'd just gotten.
The strength had been an issue for some time; she'd cracked several chairs and
benches because she forgot she was stronger now.
When she arrived at the training field, more than a dozen
warriors were waiting for her. "Hi!"
"Iriya," One warrior said
softly. "Are you well this morning?"
"Better than I'll be in an hour. By then I'll have
fallen on my rear enough to start to hurt," Dawn quipped. The warriors
laughed.
Soon they had left humor behind. Flying was a tricky
thing—despite having the wings and tail, and a new physiology to match, Dawn
still moved like a human. The warriors quickly put an end to that, since it
would keep her from learning to fly. After they corrected that, though, they
found another problem. Dawn was still afraid of heights.
That fear was a psychological holdover from being human;
humans were instinctively afraid of heights, but dalhari were not. Why would
they be? The fear of falling was almost nonexistent for the winged species. It
took a few minutes before the warriors decided to play a game with Dawn.
She'd been flying before—Chadei had carried her up into
the sky a few times so she could look around. This game they played, though,
was very different. "I'm not sure this is a good idea," Dawn remarked
as one warrior picked her up. She was even easier to carry now, since she was
much lighter as a dalhari. She still stood taller than many of the warriors,
though.
"It will be fine, Iriya,"
The warrior replied. Soon they were high in the air, looking down on the hold.
"Do you see Uyth?"
"Yeah. She's right over there," Dawn
said, cocking her head to one side.
"Good," Macg said,
loosening his hold on her. "Uyth!
Catch!"
Dawn screamed as Macg let go of
her. She fell perhaps a foot before Uyth caught her
and swooped away. Before Dawn could start shouting at the insane warriors, Uyth handed her off to anther warrior, who flew in a
dizzying spiral before tossing her back to Macg.
The constant handing off and swirling flights continued
for a very long time. Dawn was sure they'd been up there all day. After the
first several hand-offs, she calmed down a little and began to enjoy it. She
stopped worrying about falling and took the time to look around.
"Now, tomorrow you'll start to fly on your own,"
Macg said to her as they finished up for the day.
"Ok," Dawn said as she walked off. "If you say so."
···•••·•••·•••·•••···
"So how was baby's first flying lesson?"
Dawn whirled around when she heard Bai's
hissing voice. "It went well, thank you." She turned around to head
toward her quarters, not wanting to deal with the sour dalhari. Unfortunately, Bai had other ideas.
"You'll never be dalhari," He said, grabbing her
arm. "You'll always be changed. Just a human wearing
dalhari skin."
Dawn yanked her arm out of Bai's
grip and ran down the hall. She bypassed her own rooms and went to Chadei's. "What is it, Iriya?"
Chadei asked when he found her outside his door.
"Bai," Dawn spat,
scowling. "Being an ass."
"What did he say?"
"Oh, the usual. I'll never be a dalhari, I'm just
a human wearing dalhari skin," Dawn repeated, rolling her eyes.
Chadei shook his head. "Where does he get these
ideas?" He'd never met a dalhari that believed such things. "It's
probably just something he thinks will upset you."
"It doesn’t work. I only ran because he had a hold of
my arm and was hissing," Dawn said. "That scares me."
"He touched you?" Chadei raged. "He laid a
hand on you?"
"It's ok," Dawn said quickly. "No damage
done."
"This time," Chadei growled. "He will hear
about this. Such behavior is unacceptable."
"Fine, but don't make a big deal over it. I don't
want a lot of enemies. We're in the same clan, you know."
"You wouldn't know it from his behavior," Chadei
replied.
"So, whatever happened with that transfer?" Dawn
asked.
Chadei laughed.
···•••·•••·•••·•••···
Dawn pulled out a piece of paper and opened a bottle of
dark blue ink. Zhaen had finally written to her, and what a letter it had been!
The oft-quiet musician had revealed that she was getting bonded—and had invited
Dawn to the ceremony. Apparently some handsome young farmer had caught her eye.
Dawn was happy for her friend and looked forward to the ritual—although she
wasn't sure she really wanted to get beaten to a pulp for love. She was sad,
too—Zhaen would be settling down in the freehold for a long time now, instead
of the few years she'd first planned.
It took Dawn several minutes to figure out how to start
the letter. She began by relaying some stuff that Prall and Marni had written
her. Once Zhaen and Duens revealed that the orth and the f'lh
wrote to her more often than to them, she began to send tidbits of news to the
others. Prall and Marni didn't mind; it saved them a lot of paper. Dawn
was happy to report to Zhaen that Marni was moving up the steep ranks of the
local guild and would soon make master. There were more steps and more tests
for f'lh musicians than for dalhari, so Marni had more work to do. Prall was
still teaching children, but he seemed to really like it.
After two hours, Dawn blotted her letter so that it
wouldn't smudge, then folded and sealed it. She'd leave the letter at the guild
tomorrow; there was a runner that went to the freehold several times each week
who could take it to the hall there. Now if only she could find Macg. The young warrior was the perfect tutor to help her
get ready for this bonding. Actually, he might have been invited; he was distantly
related to Zhaen. She was sure that Chadei would be there, as would most of the
guild here in Tereva'diel. The hold would be empty of musicians for several
weeks due to this bonding. Dawn knew that she would have gone even without the
private invitation because of her status in the guild and as a sort-of relative
of Zhaen's, but it was a nice gesture.
Dawn stood up and stretched, flexing her stiff wings. She
knew better than to sit against them like she had, she just never bothered to
get as comfortable as she should. Looking out the window, she saw that it was
getting very late, so she decided to head over to the dining hall. Knowing her
luck, it would be yimkia—again. The cooks loved
poking fun at her dislike for the stuff.
When she got there, she was pleasantly surprised to find
that the day's food was paz
grain. Silently thanking the food gods, Dawn got a heaping bowl full of the
stuff and sat down to eat. She was about halfway done when Macg
sat down beside her.
"Iriya! I haven't seen you around here
lately," Macg said accusingly.
"Been busy at the guild," Dawn replied
sheepishly. She hadn't been exactly avoiding the warrior; she just wasn't
interested. "I've got a favor to ask of you."
Macg's green face lit up. "What's
that?"
"Zhaen's getting bonded, and I'm supposed to defend," Dawn
said.
"Great!" Macg
declared. "I'm on the other side."
Dawn knocked her head against her hand. "I'm doomed.
What I need is some practice. I haven't done any fighting other that the
practice stuff we did back when I learned how to fly…what was that, twenty
years ago anyway?"
Macg nodded. "That won't be a
problem, although you'll do fine. You've got height on most of our clan."
"That won't count for but so much," Dawn
replied. "It's not for a while, so we've got time." She finished up
her meal and stood to leave. "See ya!"
Macg waved as Dawn left. She tried very
hard to lead him, or anyone, on. It wasn't nice to do that.