Rise of a Legend

by C.L. Mozena

Chapter 25

  Orion woke the next day weak and exhausted. He ached everywhere. Odd noises surrounded him as he opened his eyes to a light as bright as the sun shining in his face. Some relief came when a face lined with scars and curly hair came into view.

  “Father?” Orion tried to say, but no sound came out. He started to panic.

  “Use ninmisn, Orion,” a loud, booming voice said. Orion cringed at the amplitude.

  “You have to whisper!” Another loud voice said, “Remember, I told you his ears are very sensitive.” Orion thought he recognized the new voice, but he couldn’t see it’s owner.

  “What happened? My party-,” he ninmisned to his father.

  “Don’t worry about the party, Orion.” The loud, booming voice was much softer now. “The important thing is that you’re okay.”

  “But what happened to me? All I remember is that I was eating and got a stomach ache that spread to the rest of my body.”

  “It was the transformation, Orion,” the second voice said, “I warned you it would happen, but you didn’t believe me.”

  “Tell me again, Kelia. This time I’ll listen.” Orion ninmisned. She proceeded to tell him everything that she had told him the day before.

  “And now you have wings and a tail. I’ll teach you how to fly when you’re ready. You’ve also lost your voice, but I can grow it back for you.” She reached up and gently laid her fingers on Orion’s throat. He felt a tickling sensation as his vocal cords reformed.

  “Thanks, Kelia.” His voice was a bit scratchy. “You said that all halflings go through this transformation on their seventeenth birthday?” He was getting stronger every minute.

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “Then that means...” his voice trailed off as his mind wandered. “Josh!” Orion sat bolt upright and stared at the bed hangings at the end of his bed. He gave her and his father a look of terror. “That means that it happened to Josh, too!” Orion flipped off the covers and swung his legs over the bed. “I’ve got to go see him!” Orion got up. He was still wearing the same clothes as the night before since he didn’t have a chance to change.

  “Orion, calm down!” King Frederic said in a panic, forgetting to whisper. The amplitude of his voice made Orion clap his hands over his ears. “Sorry,” he whispered, “but you need to stay in bed!”

  “No, Father,” Orion turned around, “I have to see Josh.” King Frederic had no choice but to give in. Orion led the way to Joshua’s room. There, they found him asleep in bed and Rick sitting on the bed next to him.

  “Orion!” Rick exclaimed when they walked in, “are you okay?”

  “Yes, I’m okay,” Orion cringed at Rick’s voice, “but please whisper. My ears hurt.”

  “Sorry, Bro,” Rick said quietly. “I’ve been so worried. Josh fell out of his chair in pain during the party shortly after you left. I brought him here. I called a doctor, too. I didn’t know what else to do.”

  “Mm-hm.” Orion said, not really listening. He looked at his twin brother, who lay there asleep. Orion couldn’t believe his eyes. Joshua’s face had changed. His eyes were larger, his nose and mouth were smaller. His ears were long and pointy, with something shiny at the tips. His mouth was open, and his teeth were showing. Each canine tooth had elongated to twice the size of the rest of his teeth. Is that what I look like? Orion began feeling his face, his ears, and his teeth, scratching his fingers.

  “Careful, Orion.” Kelia stood beside him. “Your teeth have become fangs, and they’re very sharp. You also have tiny claws at the tips of your ears.” He looked at her, surprised. Her face was portioned similar to Joshua’s, and she had large, pointy ears.

  “You mean-? You- you’re one of them?” he stammered, “A jisbae?”

  “Yes, I am.” She smiled at him. “I told you yesterday. You are too, Orion.” She sounded coy now that he believed her. “And a cute one at that.”

  “This is not the time, nor place,” he said, blushing.

  “Whatever,” she brushed past him, and walked out the door. Orion, his father, and Rick followed, taking seats on the couch and chairs in Joshua’s main room. “I’m sure you all have questions.”

  “I do,” King Frederic spoke up first. “If we telblecs used to be jisbae, why don’t we look like Orion? I mean the big eyes and ears and such.”

  “I’m not sure why,” Kelia answered, “but telblecs and lunimorves have evolved into almost the same thing, and at the same time. There isn’t that much difference, though. The biggest change would be that you both lost your wings.”

  “Wings?” Orion had forgotten about that. “I have wings now?”

  “Yes, but don’t try to move them now. You won’t be able to. Your wing muscles still need time to develop properly.”

  “It doesn’t feel like it, though. My back’s just sore.”

  “Here, let me show you.” Kelia got up and crossed the room. “Stand up, Prince.” She grabbed a hold of a feathery mass and pulled it out. Orion cringed at the pain, but Rick and King Frederic were in awe.

  “What? I can’t see!” Orion tried to turn his head, but he was too sore to turn enough.

  “Use their eyes, Orion.” Kelia motioned towards the two sitting on the couch. Orion ninmisned into Rick’s eyes and saw himself with a large mass of snow-white feathers protruding from behind his back. It resembled a wing, but since Orion couldn’t stretch it properly, it was more like a feathery blanket.

  “Your wings look like they’re about seven to eight feet long. Nine, once the long feathers grow in.” She inspected his wings more carefully. “I don’t believe it! Not a single tan feather. They’re all white!”

  “So?” Rick asked, “Is that bad?”

  “No,” Kelia replied, letting Orion’s wing go and looking up. His wing sprang back into a folded position, similar to the other one. Orion tried looking over his shoulder again, but couldn’t see his wing. He just felt a soft, feathery bump with his cheek where the fold in his wing was. “It’s just very rare. Usually, feathers are a mix of colors.” She stretched one of her wings out. “Mine, for example, are reddish-brown. There are dull red, orange, yellow, tan, and brown feathers, all mixed together, giving my wings an autumn-leaf coloring. Prince Joshua’s wings will probably be similar to mine, maybe redder, since his hair is redder than mine. Usually, the feather and hair colors are the same. Also, each feather has a bit of a waxy film on them, making them waterproof, so you can fly with wet wings, like water fowl do.”

  “And what about this?” Orion had the end of his new tail in his hands. It was covered with short, golden fur, the same color as his hair.

  “Your tail may look like a cat’s tail, but it acts like a monkey’s tail. Once you’re not so sore, you’ll be able to grip things with your tail, maybe even swing from it.”

  “Cool,” Orion breathed. He tried swinging it, and smacked it on the couch, causing a pang to run up his back. “Ow!” he let it fall and sat back down.

  “What about the stomach ache?” King Frederic asked. “Why did the transformation begin with a stomach ache?”

  “That’s because most of the change was happening inside,” Kelia explained. “Not the stomach, exactly, but organs were re-arranging themselves, becoming larger or smaller based on the needed efficiency. You see, jisbae can handle a lot more than telblecs or lunimorves can. We can handle pain better, we can digest raw and bad meat without getting sick, process most poisons without much negative effects, and we can live on less food. This means that certain organs inside our bodies needed to be much stronger than that of a telblec or lunimorf.”

  “Ouch!” Orion cried out. His arm was bleeding badly. “What in the world-?”

  “You scratched it,” Kelia was as calm as ever, but King Frederic and Rick had stood up to help, “Didn’t you?” She leaned over and healed his arm.

  “I just had a small itch. I went to scratch it and
it started bleeding!”

  “Take a look at your fingers, Prince.” Kelia was starting to lose her patience. “See your fingertips? There’s no longer any fingernail. You now have retractable claws, and they’re sharp, so be careful.”

  “Retractable? Like a cat’s?” Rick asked, observing Orion’s claws as he flexed them.

  “Yes.”

  “So, if a telblec and a lunimorf have a child together, that child is a jisbae, right?” King Frederic asked. Kelia nodded. “Well, what if a jisbae and a telblec have a child together? What will that child be?”

  “Technically, it’s not possible.” Kelia looked down. The others looked at her in shock.

  “What?” King Frederic got up. “What do you mean it’s not possible? Of course it is!” All eyes were on King Frederic. “And living proof is standing right there,” he said, pointing to Rick. Now everyone’s eyes were on Rick.

  “Huh? How-? What do you mean?” Rick stammered, “I’m a lunimorf!”

  “You mean your mother never told you about your father?” King Frederic asked, sitting back down.

  “Yes, she did,” Rick’s anger was rising. He fought to keep his voice steady, “He was a no good cheap skate who ran off when I was two years old.” Rick crossed his arms, “And I don’t want to talk about him.” He glared at King Frederic, but King Frederic was unfazed.

  “But,” he pressed on, “did she tell you how different he was?” Rick remained silent. “She told me,” King Frederic addressed Kelia, “that he had large, pointed ears, wings the color of sand, and a furry tail. I had thought she was joking, but he must have been a jisbae, right?” Kelia nodded. “Then it has to be possible.”

  “It’s only possible if the jisbae shape shifts,” Kelia explained.

  “Why?” Orion asked. “If telblecs and lunimorves have a jisbae child, then why does a jisbae have to shape-shift to have a child with either?”

  “Well,” Kelia thought hard. “You see, the jisbae don’t reproduce the same way as telblecs and lunimorves. They have to conceive and wait nine months for a baby to grow in the female’s womb. For jisbae, we do the dance of joining.”

  “The what?” Orion asked, “What’s that?”

  “The dance of joining,” Kelia explained, “is where two bodies become one.” The others looked at her in confusion. “That’s right. There is a male and female. Both bodies begin to glow the color of their aura, which is also the color of their eyes, and then join together, so that you can only see one body. But it’s glowing so much that you can barely make out the arms and legs. This one body dances. After the dance is over, the two bodies separate, and the glow that was created forms a baby. It only takes a few hours.”

  “So the baby’s born by magic?” King Frederic asked. “That doesn’t seem likely.”

  “Yes, that’s right,” Kelia replied. “In our ancient language, ‘Jisbae’ means ‘magic being,’ or, in other words, living magic. Not only are we born by magic, we are kept alive by magic,” Kelia thought for a moment, “We can do anything. Jisbae can do all the ninmisn magic of the telblecs, all the fysimae magic of the lunimorves, and a lot more.”

  “What’s nin-, nin-iss-in magic?” Rick asked, stumbling over his words.

  “Ninmisn is magic of the mind. It involves speaking with the mind, reading another person’s thoughts, and being able to use another person’s senses like sight and hearing. It’s the opposite of fysimae, which is magic of the body, like shape shifting, levitation, illusions with light, and things like that.”

  “So what is the child of a jisbae and a telblec?” King Frederic demanded, annoyed that his question went unanswered.

  “That child would be a quarterling jisbae, since he’s one part lunimorf and three parts telblec.” She looked over at Rick, “or in his case, one part telblec and three parts lunimorf.”

  “Okay, so,” Rick was frustrated, “if I’m a jisbae, why do I look like a lunimorf?”

  “That’s easy,” Kelia replied, “It’s because you’ve shape-shifted. A person can hold a shape shift for days, weeks, even years, without wearing out. It’s just like moving from one chair to another. You don’t need any energy to sit in the first chair, but it does take energy to get up and walk over to the other chair. Once there, you don’t use any energy to sit there, either.” She looked sideways at him, “If you want, I can change you back to what you should look like.”

  “Uh... sure, I guess,” All eyes were on Rick now, as Kelia stepped over to him.

  “Please stand and take your shirt off,” she said. Rick did as he was told. Kelia looked Rick up and down and giggled. Rick turned red. Kelia placed her fingers on his temples and closed her eyes. Almost immediately, a green light began pouring out of Kelia’s fingertips and spreading over Rick. Some of the green light broke free at the tips of Rick’s ears and formed larger, pointed tips before fading. The rest of the green light slid over Rick’s shoulders and stretched off of his back, forming large wings and fading out. A single, small drip of light remained and flowed down Rick’s back, forming a tail. When it was over, Rick stood there as a jisbae. His tail almost reached the floor, and his feathers were various shades of brown and tan.

  “Wow,” Rick breathed, turning around and trying to see his own back. “Look at me! Just look at me!”

  “Amazing,” King Frederic let out a sigh of awe.

  “Cool!” Orion got up and circled Rick, pulling on his wings. “How far can you stretch them?” Rick stretched his wings as far as they would go.

  “Nice,” King Frederic commented, “Looks like you got a fifteen foot wingspan. How about you, Orion?”

  “Let me try,” he managed to stretch his wings, despite the pain that lingered in his back. King Frederic whistled.

  “Looks to be about twenty feet,” he said, admiring Orion’s wings. Rick blushed that his wings were smaller than Orion’s and folded them behind his back. Orion didn’t notice Rick’s embarrassment as he folded his wings, too. He turned to Kelia.

  “So when are you going to teach us how to fly?” Orion asked.

  “I’ll teach you when all three of you are ready. We have to wait until your brother wakes up in a few days.”

  “Man, I wonder what everyone will think of us becoming jisbae like this,” Rick said to nobody in particular, flexing his wings and swishing his tail.

  In fact, the idea that their prince just transformed into something else altogether on his birthday shocked the whole kingdom. Those that lived in the palace stared at him everywhere he went, but he just ignored it. Due to his increased hearing, Orion knew that everyone was whispering about him, but he wasn’t bothered by it. Gradually, the stares and whispers died down, until everyone had gotten used to Orion’s new look.

  Orion wandered down to the courtyard the day after his birthday. He wasn’t tired like Kelia had predicted, and he had woken up sooner, too. Joshua was still asleep, and hadn’t woken up yet. Orion looked forward to training with his friends again. Rick went with him, stretching and bending his wings, telling Orion how weird it felt. Orion understood. The wings were definitely going to take time to get used to. Orion kept his folded more than Rick because they were still a bit sore.

  Down in the courtyard, Orion found his friends huddled up near the fountain. They were usually lounging about talking loudly about nothing, not whispering excitedly, like they were now.

  “What’s going on?” Orion asked, wanting to be a part of whatever it was. Teddy and Shane, who had their backs to him, turned around and stepped back. In the middle of his other friends, Alex stood, looking proud and regal with one hand on his hip. He didn’t look fat at all, like Orion thought before. He looked rather dashing in his black, no-sleeve shirt that exposed his rippling muscles, and shiny black pants. His black leather boots came up to mid-calf. He had bright blue sapphires studded around the neck of his shirt and the top of his boots. The sapphires matched the ones emb
edded in his silver gauntlets. Orion stared. He had never seen Alex without his long brown coat before. Reading Orion’s mind, Alex smiled and stepped closer, away from the other boys. He stood there, eyeing Orion for a moment before stretching his black wings to their full length of seventeen feet, and swishing his black tail.

  “Wha-? You-, you mean you’re a-?” Orion stuttered, taken aback.

  “That’s right,” Alex smirked. It happened to me about two and a half years ago, on my seventeenth birthday. I would have been excited, but everyone who saw me was afraid. Nobody wanted me around anymore, so I wore that coat to cover my wings.” He folded his wings back, and reached up over his shoulder to touch the feathers. Orion realized that was the odd lump Alex’s coat had been covering. He also realized that the wings were the reason Alex had appeared fat. Orion mimicked Alex and reached over his shoulder to touch his wing. He looked up in amazement at Alex.

  “But now that you’ve got wings too,” Alex continued, reaching around his left side and grabbing the edge of his wing, pulling out a loose feather and twisting it around in his fingers, “I don’t need to hide mine.” He tossed the black feather away and gazed at Orion. Orion remembered finding black feathers in the courtyard before, but he had always assumed they belonged to large black birds. He stared at Alex.

  “So, are we gonna train or what?” Chris trotted up to Orion, circling him and pulling at his wings.

  “Hey, stop that, Chris,” Orion batted at Chris’s hands, “My wings are still sore, and that hurts!”

  “Sorry, buddy,” Chris said, still circling Orion. The other telblec boys began circling Orion in the same fashion, poking his wings. Orion had a time trying to get them all off of him. Alex chuckled.

  Finally free of poking fingers, Orion began his exercises with the others. He was getting used to the current weight of his gauntlets, and was looking forward to adding another ten pounds to each after the training session. It took a while to get use to having wings. He kept sitting on his wings while doing sit-ups. Alex had to show him how to hold his wings and tail out of the way while he came back up. Kelia came down as the boys were sparring.

  “Alex! I didn’t know you were here!” she exclaimed, jogging up to them.

  “Kelia, good to see you again,” Alex greeted her with a hug.

  “You two know each other?” Orion asked, glancing from one to the other.

  “Yea,” Alex answered, “Kelia here warned me about the transformation a few days before it happened, and taught me how to fly afterwards.” He gazed into her eyes. It hit Orion like a bolt of lightning. Kelia was Alex’s girlfriend! Orion kicked himself mentally for trying to impress her, even if it was only in his mind. He suddenly felt like a silly little boy among the young adults.

  “No, she’s not my girlfriend, Prince Orion,” Alex said, reading Orion’s mind. “I haven’t seen her for almost two years.” He glanced accusingly at Kelia. She giggled.

  “I told you why I had to go, Alex,” she said, “So don’t give me that look.”

  “Hey Alex,” a thought just struck Orion, “do you know fysimae?”

  “Honestly, Prince Orion,” Alex looked exasperated, “If I knew fysimae, and could shape shift, don’t you think I would have gotten rid of these wings rather than suffer humiliation from everyone and hide in a coat when it’s so warm out?”

  “I guess not,” Orion said, “Hey! How about I teach you? Or better yet, Josh could teach you. He taught me everything I know.”

  “Yea, I’d like that,” Alex said, smiling at Orion.

  “Why don’t we start with something easy, like light pictures, tomorrow after my studies?”

  “That would be great.”