Hide and Seek
A couple of months has gone by since my battle with Terre.
I am currently out in the plain in front of the city walls defeating some weaker monsters, waiting until Mother and Terre came.
Today is flight practice. A month before, I was finally able to turn back into my Dragon form. Oh yeah, once a Dragon Fledgling evolves, it gets stuck in its human form for a while.
But at the very least it gave me no choice but to get used to being back in a human form. Even though it did not feel like I have been without a human body for that long, it still felt weird at first.
But around two weeks ago it finally happened…
---
Morning. Two Weeks Ago.
"*Yawn*"
Hmmm, everything seems a bit smaller than usual.
...
I look down and realise its finally happened.
"Mother! Mother! Look I finally changed back into a Dragon!"
I shook Mother, who was in her Dragon form, awake.
"Hmmm… *yawn*… what is it Alicia? Ah, well look at you…" Mother says still rubbing her eyes as she gets up.
As Mother stands up and stretches out, I realise that I am still pretty small in comparison to her.
She is a behemoth. She looks around the size of a three-storey building, whereas I look like the size of a small bungalow.
I am a bit disappointed at the height, but I suppose it is what I expect with my titles and status being what they are.
"Yes, I still seem to be small Mother, but how do I look? Do I look cool?" I asked hopefully.
The ants had taken away the broken mirror when they were cleaning the castle up, so there is not anything I could look into to check.
"Hehe yes you look very cool my lovely Alicia. I know you wanted to get a bit bigger, but part of me is thankful that you stayed reasonably small for a Dragon."
"Mother…"
At least I am now bigger than most normal sized beings, I thought.
Though I am not really sure what a normal beings height is, as every living thing around me, including me, is… abnormal.
Mother then turns into her humanoid form and we leave to go to the throne room. Aside from there being the wonderfully shiny throne in the room, there is also a large mirror that is undamaged. It just needed some cleaning and it was as reflective as ever.
I had to change back into my humanoid form to walk through the smaller doorways of the castle, so once we got into the Throne room and stood in front of the mirror I changed to look at my new Dragon form.
From what I could see, I do indeed look pretty awesome. I am red, as before, but with thin black lines that go across my wing span. The ends of my fur on my back and tail, are like my hair in my humanoid form, they are black towards the end. Most importantly, now I see I am clearly quite a bit bigger then my old form.
"Hehe I suppose this is acceptable." I giggle and say, as I try to get a look at all of me by looking at myself from different angles in the mirror.
"Haaah I am so glad she stayed so cute…"
I hear Mother mumble something, but I couldn't hear, I just ignore it and carry on checking myself out.
---
Present day.
But yeah, that's how that went.
Terre was also very impressed and seemed to like my new Dragon form. Like Mother she seemed to be relieved that I stayed relatively small for a Dragon, although I was still much bigger than her.
Their fixation on my height annoyed me a little, but I have gotten used to it from them by this point, so I let it pass. They are family after all. I haven't been with either of them for too long, yet I already thought of them as such.
Eventually they both arrive at the plain. Mother comes flying over to me in her Dragon Form, while Terre rides on her back, just as I finish defeating the last monster.
"Helloooo Alicia!"
"Good morning, Lady Alicia."
Both of them greet me as Terre jumps off Mothers back and Mother switches form.
"Good morning Mother, Terre." I greet them in return.
"Today we are going to be trying to teach you to fly in your Dragon form. I will teach you how to manifest wings in your humanoid form later once you master this. The aim today is to fly over to the clearing where you fought Terre in a couple of months ago."
And so, with the objective set I transform into my Dragon form.
That reminds me, I had secretly tried to fly a bit earlier in the week.
I had sneaked off into the city and went to an area that no one was, not even Terre's minions... or so I thought...
Anyway, I sneaked off to practice flying but... I just ended up falling and crashing through a couple of buildings.
When I got back home though, they somehow had found out I had tried to fly by myself, without supervision.
"Fufufu I believe a punishment should be given for such disobedience." Mother had said, as her and Terre backed the teary eyed me into the corner.
I was then subject to being fluffed, stroked and just in general doing whatever they wanted for two days.
I drag my thoughts back to what is going on right now.
I unfurl my wings and begin my first "official" attempt to fly.
"Wahh! It's so difficult to control! Woah W-WAH!"
…
And with me crashing into the ground face first, my first attempt is over.
"Keep trying Alicia! It takes a bit of getting used to it, but it will come to you soon enough! Then it will be like second nature!" Mother shouted from the side lines
Terre also shouts some words of encouragement while I continuously go up and not long after, back down to the ground.
Haaah, its to difficult! I am going to be here forever at this rate.
A few more hours passes of me flying upwards and falling down again. When finally…
"Ah! I-I'm doing it, I'm floating in the air! Mother look!"
"Hehe yes well-done Alicia, now you just need to fly towards the clearing."
"Easy!" I say… before trying to fly forward and hurtling back down to the ground again.
…
After a few more hours and tries, I finally get the hang of flying forwards, backwards and side to side.
The three of us then set off towards the clearing. Terre jumps on Mothers back while she switches form yet again.
---
"Hah, hah, that was quite exhausting." I say as I finally land at the clearing and turn back into my humanoid form.
The other two then land behind me and Terre comes to check on me.
"Now that you have flying down, lets have a small break for Alicia to get her energy back, and then we will play a little game." Mother says ominously.
I cannot be bothered to question her about the game at the moment, I am just to busy catching my breath.
While I am on my break, Terre and I take a walk to a nearby stream and get some water. Mother meanwhile went and caught some monsters for us to eat.
We then meet back up at the clearing and have a meal together before Mother tells us what we are going to do.
"Hehe okay so as I said, we are going to be playing a little game. It is called Hide and Seek, it is a game basically were everyone hides while one person counts to a certain number and then goes to find them. In this case the seeker needs to then make physical contact with the hiders. Sounds simple right? I thought this would help you in situations where there might be a powerful monster you need to hide or escape from."
"Sounds fun!" I say excitedly.
"Fufu so cute, but indeed it sounds helpful so I shall also take part." Terre accepts the invitation to play while calling my reaction as such.
"Great! Grandmother used to train me using this game, so I am super excited to play this with my Daughter. I shall be the seeker of course, as I have nothing really to gain from being a hider." Mother says energetically.
The game then begins.
Terre and I rush off into the forest. Of course, we do not hide together as that would make it far to easy for Mother.
I run for a little while through the bushes and foliage while trying to not go in a straight line in an attempt to throw Mother off.
Eventually I come to a massive, chunky tree that rises far above all the others around it. I get closer and can clearly see it is very ancient with its own little ecosystem growing on it.
I spot a small opening high up in the trunk, as I look closer I think it is a small tree house.
I climb up towards it, and walk across the branch that leads to it. I was indeed correct. The tree house is fully furnished, there are chairs and tables as well as various cutlery and plates.
I walk a bit further in and find something looks like an old fashioned oven that you use with firewood.
Finally, there is a little room through some doors, I walk through and realise that it is a bedroom. The room only had a bed in, but on that bed was the figure of a humanoid creature, it is just a skeleton now though, so it was hard to tell what race they could be from.
I continue to look around the little tree house which is made up of only two rooms, the bedroom and the room that you first enter when you come in. I am kinda having fun exploring, until I hear something…
"Alicia…" A calm yet in these circumstances, kind of eerie voice.
I slowly turn around. There stands at the entrance my Mother, smiling down at me.
...
AH I FORGOT WHAT WE WERE DOING!
I quickly make a break for the windowless window frame and jump out of it onto a tree branch. I get my balance and try running along the thick branch to the next one…
"Where do you think you are going Alicia?"
"Wah!"
But Mother is right flying behind me with her wings manifested.
I continue to jump from branch to branch until finally I come across a jump that even I cannot make. If I apply [Body Strengthening] here I would end up breaking the branch I land on as well as the one I push off from.
I turn around and face Mother. She is just slowly flying towards me with a sweet smile on her face. That just makes her look even more terrifying though.
"Hehe sorry my dear Alicia, it's over now."
Just as Mother says that her figure seems to blur.
The next thing I know she is behind me with her hand on my shoulder. I lost in a matter of minutes of her finding me. I feel like she could have caught me a lot earlier then that too if she wanted!
We head back to the clearing.
I see that Terre is already back at the clearing. Mother had apparently caught her before getting me.
"Hello my ladies." She says greeting us as we arrived.
It made me a little happy that I had beaten Terre as she had been caught first but…
"I had catch Terre first as I knew she would put up a big fight, I was chasing her all around the forest before I eventually caught her. Hehe it was very entertaining."
"Wait… so you left me till last because…"
"Yup, I knew exactly where you were. Hehe you are going to have to try a lot harder than that to stop me from finding my dear adorable child, Alicia." Mother said with a gentle smile.
I then go into a sulk at Mothers lack of faith in my hiding skills. I mean it was true I didn't hide very well, but I got to curious about the tree house!
After pouting for a while, I calmed down and all three of us began to head back home.
Thus ends a day of Hide and Seek with Mother and Terre.
---
Alicia Valensca
Race: Chaos Flame Dragon
Level: 4
Vit: 5500 MP: 6800 Str: 298 Spe: 319 Sta: 315 Int: 89
Titles: [Princess of the Mountains] [Tiny One] [Charming One]
Divine Protection: [Dragon God Xerxes]
Class: Berserker (Proficiency: 4%)
Element Affinity: Fire (Strong) Dark (Strong)
Active Skills: [Flame Element Magic: Level 5]LVLUP! [Feisty Roar: Level 7]LVLUP! [Princesses Command: Level 1] [Territory Boost: Level 3]LVLUP! [Body Strengthening: Level 7]LVLUP! [Humanoid Transformation] [Spirit Armour] [Spirit Weapon] [Dark Element Magic: Level 1] [Blood Lust] [Berserker Link] [Weapon Enhancement: Level 1]
Passive Skills: [Flame Element Resistance: Level 10] [Strong Dragon Vision] [Flame Dragons Bravery] [Dragon Regeneration] [Sharp Senses] [Dark Element Resistance: Level 10] [Earthen Element Resistance: Level 1] [Humanoid Subordinates]
Status Effects: [Small Build]
Affiliation: Queen of The Mountains Territory [Position: Princess]