Some time later.
When my size finally reached the necessary proportions, mommy-dragoness finally decided to teach me metamorphosis.
Or rather, gave a few instructions, because this skill is purely intuitive, requiring good imagination more than any precise calculations and computations.
In this regard, it was even easier for me due to the fact that I, as it turned out, was not a pureblood golden dragon.
Because finding a male golden is almost impossible.
Besides Vivien herself, she knows only one single golden dragon-man on the entire continent…
Former…
Drumroll…
Borch Three Jackdaws!
Villentretenmerth, in draconic.
The very one Geralt met.
That very one, the dragon witcher.
And whom mother can’t stand so much that she chose the father for her egg from among a different draconic species.
…But returning to metamorphosis.
Since I was a half-blood and my daddy was a black dragon named Allixarazavarus (like all dragon fathers — flew off for bread and never came back, yep), I didn’t get any of the golden’s abilities.
Mama could turn into anything from a sparrow to an ant, completely ignoring the law of conservation of matter, but the risk in such a transformation for a golden dragon was greater.
Make a mistake during the transformation, and that’s it, curtains.
That’s why there are so few golden dragons.
Neither humans, nor elves, nor sorcerers, nor even other dragons could have exterminated such powerful metamorphs…
They simply gradually killed themselves off until they became an endangered species.
So I was lucky that I could only turn into humanoids.
Be it a dwarf or an elf, there’s no difference, the main thing is that it’s sentient and humanoid.
Why?
Hell if I know, even Vivien shrugs her paws — her parents told her that, and her parents’ parents told them…
And no one ever asked about the reasons.
Dragons, what can you do…
For my first transformation, I chose, of course, an elf.
The difference in appearance between them and humans isn’t that great, no matter what one little elf girl thinks…
But that’ll make communicating with her much more pleasant.
Plus, I have plans to learn magic from her father, and it’ll be easier for a long-ear to get that.
Because, well…
What kind of Merlin am I without magic?!
Especially since dragons instinctively hate humans on a literal level.*
* — canon.
In short, I’ll put off the human form until independent living.
…For some time after that, I meditated, lowering my snout to the ground and lying like a cat…
Dragons have way too many similarities and habits with those fluffy creatures, yeah.
Even absorbing magic from nature — only we and cats can do that!..*
* — canon again.
I kept procrastinating like that for a long time, trying to visualize the image more clearly…
Drumroll…
Legolas!
Only with hair of a more familiar golden color, like Vivien’s humanoid form, not platinum, and a bit older in age…
Of course, later I’ll choose a different appearance, older and more original, because I didn’t shorten my name to Merlin for nothing, right?..
But for now, it’s Legolas, because I can’t picture any other elf as clearly as him.
And that’s necessary so I don’t turn into god-knows-what.
After all, I only remember all the other pointy-ears from games, and their appearances are far from real, and I’m in the most real reality right now — the appearance of humans and elves here is anything but game-like.
Not at all.
So I had to imagine that hero of Peter Jackson’s in his prime.
It would be safer for my first metamorphism.
I mean, really, should I imagine my own human face and add long ears?
It doesn’t fit the elf image I need at all, it’s more suited to some grim northern Nord.
My mother’s Norwegian genes were making themselves known, uh-huh.
And they helped a lot back in the day with my Geralt cosplay.
…After lying there for another however long, recalling all the movie scenes with Legolas, which, by the way, were quite memorable, I…
Finally started to feel something.
Suppressing the urge to open my eyes, since that could mess up the whole process, I continued to actively imagine Legolas’s face.
And only when the body restructuring was completely finished could I look at the result.
I’d been doing the metamorphism near a body of water, so when I saw that human hands were back where my clawed feet had been, I immediately bolted to the little lake.
Given its perfect purity, completely untainted by industrial waste, I could see my new humanoid face quite well.
It was a mix of half me-the-human and half that movie Legolas.
And I have to say, the combination gave good, pretty results.
Not Mr.
Universe, of course, but better than most people I know.
Mmmm…
Very nice, very.
“Not bad,” a familiar female voice literally voiced my thought.
“I tried.” After staring at my human face for a bit longer, I carefully stood up on two legs, familiar from my human life.
Yeah, after all those years I spent in the body of a four-legged lizard, returning to my previous form was…
A bit unusual, yeah.
“Hmm…
Not bad.
Very not bad…” Vivien, in her elven form, peered closely at my naked body.
Oh, how lucky I was that I perceived her as a parent, not an ordinary woman.
Otherwise, there might have been an awkward moment here!..
Because she looked as always — that is, breathtaking.
No wonder Francesca’s father froze in shock back then!
Light golden hair, golden eyes, perfect facial features, pointed ears, and a refined body…
Women like her lay men at their feet in droves.
“Remember, now you will transform into this form.
You won’t be able to change to another without a conscious effort, don’t worry about that,” she said immediately, planting her hands on her hips.
“And it’s better not to try changing to another without me at all, but if such a need does arise…
Do it in a secluded place.
Climb into the most remote hole so that not even an ant disturbs you.
Then it will work out.
And one more thing — don’t spend too much time in a bipedal form, otherwise you’ll become too much like the little creatures you still surpass in strength even in this form.
You’ll become like Villentretenmerth, the one I told you about.”
“I remember,” I snorted, recalling the lamentations about him between explanations of the metamorphism process.
Like, Borch had become significantly smaller than his kin because of constantly staying in human form.
“If you remember, then act exactly the opposite.
That’s how you’ll grow into a real dragon, a lord of the skies, and not…
A pathetic imitation that values its human form more than its true one.” This time, there was neither arrogance nor firmness in the woman’s words, only…
A sincere request.
Even somewhat naive…
But a truly sincere request from such a proud being as Vivien.
That deserves to be taken seriously.
“Understood,” I replied without any jokes, in the Elder Speech that my mother always used when in this form.
She didn’t stoop to the human language, no.
Although, the local language, which was Old Church Slavonic, was quite a…
Linguistic horror.
After all, its counterpart on Earth was created by two religious men, and Andrzej Sapkowski practically carried it over entirely, which…
Doubly left its mark.
And for me, thinking in Russian and fluent in it, the local language looks like some kind of crazy gibberish that you’d break your tongue on.
“Then here’s your clothes…” Climbing into an elven-style bag, i.e., with green branchy patterns, the dragoness unceremoniously tossed a set of clothes into my paws…
hands.
“As you’ve already seen, races that don’t have our beautiful scales are forced to artificially replicate them to protect themselves from cold or heat, or from others trying to kill them.
That elven man was smart enough to fulfill my wish quickly enough…
And the gold and black colors will at least somewhat reflect your true essence in this little elven form.”
Realizing she wasn’t going anywhere while I changed, I began to dress somewhat awkwardly — not out of embarrassment, but so that mother-dragon wouldn’t suspect I had knowledge of clothing that a dragon who had never turned into a human or elf before simply couldn’t have.
Although, elven clothing really was quite complicated for a twenty-first-century person to put on, so I wasn’t really fooling Vivien with my awkwardness.
For about fifteen out of twenty minutes, I genuinely tried to figure out all those parts of the elven attire.
Then I pretended to be an idiot for another five minutes just in case, but in the end, everything worked out successfully, and my mother didn’t suspect a thing.
She just lazily examined my body for defects after the metamorphosis.
There were none, so soon I was standing straight before my mother in long-skirted elven clothes.
But they seemed pretty.
“Quite worthy.
Then one more detail — after the transformation, this artificial elven ‘scales’ of yours will stay with you, unless something truly extraordinary happens,” she explained the features of metamorphism, clearly not tied to a simple transformation of the body.
Like, where does the clothing go during such a process?
I asked that last question out loud.
“I don’t know,” Vivien said with a completely impassive face.
“My parents could do it.
And their parents.
And it’s the same kind of feature as the large size of black dragons.
Given your growth rate, I assume you inherited this feature from your father, just as you inherited partial metamorphism from me.”
“I see…” I nodded like a bobblehead, feeling my mood lift.
Metamorphism plus large size…
That’s very, very good in a world with witchers, higher vampires like Regis, powerful sorceresses, and the rest of the Wild Hunt.
It’ll help not just survive, but live properly.
“And one last thing.
Spend less time in this form.
It could affect your growth, and negatively at that…” Vivien gave me her final advice.
With that, our conversation ended, and I started wandering around in humanoid form, quickly discovering one interesting detail.
Even in humanoid form, I was several times stronger than an ordinary human.
Of course, it wasn’t some ultimate ability, but I didn’t have to worry about being jumped by some thugs after transforming.
Even without combat skills, I could easily take down a few armored soldiers and buy time to transform into a multi-ton scaled death machine.
Of course, I could learn all that combat limb-and-metal-swinging stuff, especially since dragons live long lives, and I practically had an elven princess as a friend here…
But that’s for later.
First, I had to grow as much as possible.
And for that…
I needed to eat even more.
Closing my eyes, I turned back into a reptile the size of an elephant and gazed at the world from the corresponding height.
My wings, spread wide, flapped sharply, kicking up ancient dust in front of the cave refined by ancient elves, and launching my multi-ton body into the air.
* * *
It seemed this day would be full of surprises.
First, a transformation into something humanoid, and then the first battle with something other than herbivorous game.
Overjoyed after the successful transformation, I flew off in search of new prey to celebrate the process alone.
I had to fly quite far from our lair in the future Kaer Morhen, since I’d roasted, killed, and eaten all the wildlife in the area, and it no longer wandered here, giving the apex predator’s habitat a wide berth.
Good thing my mother hunted in other places, not scaring off the prey and letting me learn to hunt for food on my own.
It was today, during one of the countless flights over the Blue Mountains in the east of the Continent, that I encountered those disgusting creatures.
First, I heard a roar similar to my own, but much squeakier, which made me twitch my neck in irritation, unable to cover my ears — my neck was considerably longer than my legs, and I’d have to contort myself with a deep downward bend.
That could interfere with proper flight, so I didn’t risk it — and as it turned out, I did the right thing.
Because I was flying quite low, tracking prey, when a flock of some dragon-like creatures, somewhat resembling aliens, flew out of caves on a particularly large mountain.
They were definitely slyzards.
Disgusting, eyeless creatures that orient themselves like bats — by echolocation.
Apparently, the lack of eyes prevented them from realizing that they were facing someone larger than the biggest members of their pack, and they tried to…
Eat me.
It looked like a pack of small lions trying to attack an elephant.
Like, they had a chance if the huge mass that was me obediently waited for its death.
But if it started to fight back, well…
They’d be screwed.
Same in our case.
Though, first I tried to hit the fairly tightly packed group of those creatures with flame.
For that, just like in human form, I filled my lungs with air, puffed out my chest…
And then exhaled sharply, and soon a stream of mesmerizingly bright flame, warm to the tongue, burst from my wide-open maw.
Moving my head and long neck horizontally, I swept this stream of flame across the enemies with some difficulty.
Unfortunately, the slyzards were fire-resistant enough to withstand the flame of a young dragon without serious burns.
Because, as mother-dragon had told me, the heat of a dragon’s flame increased with its size.
Except for a couple that fell due to severely burned wings, which my fire did manage to get through.
But the funny thing was something else.
That they made the same mistake, trying to puff their own little fire back at me.
“Come on, come on, attack!” I said cheerfully in roaring sounds, baring my entire sizable dragon maw in a grin.
The flame that hit my golden scales harmlessly spread over them, and I only felt the touch of a warm radiator on my skin.
The similarity to that sensation was almost one hundred percent.
In response, I jerked my powerful neck sharply, grabbing the most insolent slyzard that had gotten too close by its own thin neck.
Then I squeezed hard, crushing it in my powerful jaws like a reed.
Its head and body tumbled down, and I was surprised to feel that the raw meat of these eyeless creatures, which even looked like plucked chickens, tasted…
Like cooked chicken to a human.
I involuntarily licked my lips with my large tongue.
…I was distracted from the enjoyment of the devoured neck by a slight pain in the area of my tail.
Turning my neck unhappily and spinning in the air, I found an slyzard clinging to the end of my appendage.
It couldn’t properly pierce my scales, let alone bite through my…
seventh limb and main helper in flight control, but the sensation of a house cat’s jaws clamped onto my hand was still there.
So I just gave my tail a powerful jerk during the next turn in flight, literally slamming one creature into another and forcing the first to unclench its jaws.
After that, the pack finally went berserk, trying to swarm me all at once.
But I wasn’t just flying; I started to fully use my advantage in limbs, mass, size, armor, and, finally, having a fully functional mind.
So each of those creatures got hit either with my tail or my front paws…
And how I hunted with my teeth for their tasty meat was beyond words!
Especially since I could successfully spin in the air, preventing any attempts to get a firm grip on me.
The only danger was their flame, which could get into my eyes.
While dragons can regenerate them thanks to their accelerated healing*, it only happens over a couple of decades.
Which didn’t suit me at all, yeah.
* — canon, dragons do have accelerated healing.
So I tried to keep the top and sides of my head away from the direction of their maws, or in an emergency, just close my eyes — I had to do that once.
But when their leader, traditionally the largest and most powerful member, about half my size, finally died, breaking its neck on my unexpectedly upward-sweeping tail, the pack finally started to catch on.
And began to retreat.
Did I stop?
Yeah, right, I wasn’t even tired!
So after that, I chased the quite nimble creatures for half an hour, putting on a fiery light show for the whole area and trying to burn their leathery wings.
And only when only five members of the pack were left, actively fleeing in all directions, did I head back with a satisfied face and a full stomach.
What I didn’t know at the time was that the escaped slyzards would fly all the way to humans and start terrorizing them.
But that’s another story about other heroes, one that didn’t concern me at all…