Chapter 3: Confession

I awoke before my brother, his mind spending more time healing our body than mine. It was late at night, the band of night-light, zuyk, half-heartedly peered through the trees, giving little illumination to the forest floor. The air was cold. What few creatures of the night that were still active buzzed, sang, and croaked from hidden stages.

Not thinking, I try to get up. It was a mistake, the wounds opening on my chest forced me to shout in anguish. Never had I felt such pain, it was unbearable. My face became drenched with tears, eyes burning. I coughed uncontrollably, sickened by the constant throbbing from my chest. I wrap my arms to my chest, trying to hold what might be falling from my body. Rather than hot flesh, it was leaves, mud, and some sort of crunchy plate that my arms clung to.

A voice spoke to me from beyond the darkness, it told me something I could not understand. My mind was swamped in chronic pain and loss of blood. I strain my reddened eyes to attempt to see who it was talking. The figure came into focus, along with what it was saying. It was that wyvern again, Xanrei. Its words slowly became telligible, it told me to calm down and to stop moving so much. With the realization that I now understood it, it told me I was bleeding badly, I had reopened the wound. It needed to be cauterized again, even more pain would befall me.

My head wobbled, not entirely sure I want anything that would hurt more. But the wyvern took my drunken movements as consent for her to do what needed to be done. Pain, yet more pain, pain I thought unsurpassable eclipsed in an earth shattering flair of light and heat. Why, why not just kill us then and there, why must she torture a downed Oo as she did. My entire being panged with muscles rigid and snapping. My core had transcended, feeling more as a whole in space than the epicenter of pain that it was.

My mouth agape, I gasped for life as the pain subsided. In short breaths I asked why it would do such a thing to me, to us. Through my blurred vision I saw it come close to my face, I would die from blood loss if it didn’t. It moved its head to where the bridges of our noses were touching, angrily demanding I stop calling it an it, but instead as a she, or better yet as her name, Xanrei.

Her frame, being so close to mine, allowed me to get a good look at her. Her aura was brash and sharp, it poked at her vicinity with veracious conjure. Bright violet opalescent scales with a navy blue tinge surrounded her amber eyes. Her snout was sharp and well formed, flowing cleanly back into antler-esq horns, which curving back into a slight spiral. The base trunk of the horn, in typical draconic form, branched out into smaller and smaller horns; though the branches were quite stubby, clearly showing how young she was.

Her wings, typical of drake who have, were like hefty branches over encumbered with leaf-like feathers. Her “feathers”, though they were truly flaps of flesh with bone and veins of muscle, were similar to serrated leaves. Her spine had short umber fur running all along, with ivory barbs of bone poking out in an orderly fashion. Around her ankles were two, quite loosely fitting, merigold bangles. They were well kept and had a pristine sheen that glowed in the faded light of the zuyk. The fur at her rump split into three trails, each flowing down one of their three equally sized tails. The fur ended on each tail in a puff, with a single large white spine protruding out further. Other than her mutant number of tails, she was an excellent specimen of a wyvern if ever there were.

Only briefly pulling away, Xanrei stuffs some kind of berries into my mouth. “Eat this, it’ll make you feel better.” I obey, not having much choice, and down the berries. They did indeed help, they relieved the pain to a point that I might have felt well enough to get up. But I knew if I were to move any way, I would be sore to pay.

“Why,” I cough, “why are you helping us.” I’m bewildered, a once thief now saving our lives and easing pain, it didn’t make sense.

She takes a seat by my head, the palms of her wings supporting her upright posture. “It’s just that, you said us. I demand you tell me what you are.”

I close my eyes, brother isn’t here this time to speak for us. Capturing a slight bit of courage and swallowing it, I tell her, “My name is Fa’oon, but this body belongs to my Cha Jassen.”

“Cha? You mean brother?” Xanrei’s voice piqued, her interest finally being semi-sated.

“Yeah, sorry, you don’t speak much Thoos then.”

“I do idiot, but don’t try to pry into my life. I’m not the one lying down all hurt. Why do you call him your brother, he should be your prey. And for that matter he should be dead by now.” Though I know this to be true, thinking of Jassen as prey left a sick lump in my throat.

“It’s a long, complicated story. I’d rather not get into it.”

“What did I say about being the one lying down. You’re at my mercy now, and if you don’t do what I say, you'll regret it.”

Despite her helping us, I knew her too little to leave her statement as an idle threat. I truly didn’t want to get into what it was between me and Jassen, but it would be unwise to leave her without an answer. “Well,” I tried to stall for time, “He and I. We. I mean.”

Her voice snapped to hasten my thought, ‘Fine, just tell me why you haven’t fully made him your host. I thought it was put into world law that any Gheforis must amalgamate with one already dead.’

“My… My…” I stammer, trying to think of a way around her abrasive demand. “My progenitor was a nel.” Not at all what I wanted to divulge to her, the lump of courage in my throat sunk low into my pained gut.

Rather than mocking, ridicule, or anger, Xanrei was actually ecstatic about the revelation. “So you… you’re willingly not taking him over! That’s incredible, I didn’t know a thing like this is possible!”

For such an emotional, manipulative, quagmire Xanrei was, she was more diligent than she led on. It is by force of will that I held back my instincts and bodily functions of taking over my host. I had matured quickly when my progenitor's spores had perforated into young Jassen's body. He was smart with a high possibility of doing something great for the world. It was after I had procured a portion of his intelligence that I had gained enough wherewithal to hold myself back.

I had taken from him a possibility of greatness, yet he has never shown resentment of me. His parents were outraged, which was to be expected. They even went so far as to try and have me purged. But I was too ingrained in his system that we would both die if I were to be taken out. Not a day goes by where I don’t rue my existence, knowing one day I’m likely to be the one to take Jassen’s life.

We’ve grown so close, we call each other brothers, yet it’s his life we both live. I, a parasite, steel body and mind from other creatures. An existence in turmoil from the moralities the more intelligent of the beings we overtake exert on us.

I shut my eyes, crusted with dried tears, I know without fail my mycelial threads of dulled emerald green snaked through Jassen's left half, visible on his left arm and torso. Foreign veins of invasive dendritic tendrils.

“Another question, what did you do to that pupfitr, it just burst into flames after it was mauling you.”

“Same reason you make illusions. Though it’s Jassen’s nya, not mine.” Maybe it was my thoughts of him, maybe it was the quenched pain, but Jassen groggily awakened. I quickly alerted him to our situation, sharing my thoughts with him, telling him not to move.

From our thoughts, I could hear Xanrei shouting at us, “Hey! Are you even listening, tell me more about you, I need to know everything.”

“What? No, we won’t tell you anything wyvern. There’s no reason for you to know.” Jassen’s temper flared up, nearly shouting at Xanrei to leave us alone.

I’m sure he was trying to be as polite as possible in the situation, going so far as to recognize her race, not just her species. But his efforts were in vein with Xanrei. “Excuse me, wyvern?! Don’t you dare use that Humi crafted term. If you are to refer to me, you’ll call me by my name Xanrei or as our true name, Sahhas.”

An unneeded conflict, I was tired and still in pain, Xanrei could wait a night for us to heal. I assert my voice over Jassen’s arguing, pleading to them both to leave it for the night, to let us try to get more sleep. To my surprise, both Jassen and Xanrei obliged, Xanrei flying off to a branch and Jassen going silent. Physically and emotionally drained, both Jassen and I continue the night exchanging idle thoughts before the calm embrace of the night took us.