A Visitor to the Lair (2)
"Hmm... So, Mir, why are you in Polymorph all of a sudden? If you've got somewhere to go, you can just do it when you head down."
"Mm... That's true. I thought I ought to get at least a little more used to it, though."
And, having already been out once, I was also too lazy to undo the Polymorph.
"But you used to say Polymorph was so uncomfortable you didn't even want to bother with it. You're fine with it now?"
"...It is uncomfortable."
Of course, being in a human body wasn't all that bad. There was less to consider about the structures around me than when I was in a dragon's body, and it was a little more familiar besides. The trouble, if there was any, was the awkwardness that came of this body being female rather than male.
"Hm? Which part's uncomfortable? I use Polymorph more than you do, so there might be something I can tell you."
"For one thing—once a Polymorph form has changed, is it fixed like that?"
"The form? Ah, if you mean the human body's appearance, pretty much, yeah. Polymorph has the nature of an inherent magic, so once the form locks in, it doesn't change~"
"Ah..."
If only I could reshape the Polymorph form however I wanted, I would have turned into a young man with sky-blue hair and eyes on the spot. I let out a sigh over a wish that could never be fulfilled now.
"You're nothing but pretty. What are you so unhappy about?"
"Mm... Even looking like this, there are all sorts of inconveniences. It's awkward enough as it is, but... my shoulders hurt quite a lot."
"Your shoulders? Why do your shoulders hurt?"
I looked at Zernisha's body as she said it, then sighed and shook my head. No matter how often she went about in Polymorph, with a body like that she would never understand what I meant.
"...This feels weirdly unpleasant. Hey, hold on—where are you looking?"
"It's nothing. So, Sister, what brings you here today?"
In any case, it was hard to take at face value that Zernisha had truly come with no thought or intention at all, merely to visit, so I turned the question back on her. Right now I was Mircania—Zernisha's friend, and a dragon she was close with—but even wearing a human shape, a dragon was a dragon to the end. To judge her by human thoughts and intentions would only raise the odds of being wrong.
"Hmm... Do you really think I came because I had some intention, Mir? I just came to see whether you were doing all right."
"...Same as always, isn't it? Nothing special ever happens on this snowfield."
Even if the wind blew and the blizzard raged as usual, I couldn't feel the cold. More precisely, I could sense the chill itself, but that chill could never turn to cold and cause me pain. I was an Ice Flower Dragon—a dragon who commanded frost, just as my epithet, the dragon of the ice flower, declared. I would never stagger or collapse over something as trivial as the cold, and the body of a dragon, that mighty race, carried a measure of resistance against any attack.
That was why, whenever a Monster Wave rose in the north, the Ice Flower Dragon's role was always that of a guardian, keeping those monsters from reaching the lands where humans lived. And the people who lived in the lands thus protected all knew that every bit of it was thanks to the Guardian Dragon, so they had long treated the Ice Flower Dragon as their guardian. All of this was what I knew of the Ice Flower Dragon—of myself, as I was now. It was everything.
"That's true. They said you swept the Monster Wave away this time too, so I came in case you might have been hurt."
"I'm not so frail I'd be easily hurt by monsters like those. What dragon in the world would carelessly leave an opening to a monster?"
In the game, even Mircania's death had come because the subjugation force and the people were strong, not because the dragon called Mircania was weak. She had never been weak. In the realms of magic and intellect alike, she was written as the strongest boss in the history of the series. It was only that the madness had dulled her intellect, and with her will unsteady she could not properly use her magic—and what they had subjugated was an Ice Flower Dragon in that state. I was nothing like that now, so I didn't worry about losing my life to anyone, or anything, anytime soon.
"That's true. Dragons are mighty beings. But sometimes even we have to set that arrogance aside and think a little more about the danger."
"...Who said I'm not thinking? I can think that far and still know I ought to be thinking about real threats. Monsters like those are easy to handle, aren't they?"
At my words, Zernisha nodded as if to agree. However careless one might be, a dragon—that mighty existence—was not something that would fall so easily.
"Right. I only came to worry about you a little, and today of all days you're this prickly. So now that the Monster Wave is over, are you really going down to Kartz to have a look?"
"Yes. Honestly... I'm curious, you know? Staying stuck in a place like this is fine for a day or two. The snowfield is pretty, the sky is clear, and that's nice enough—but once that passes, and passes again, it gets boring."
"Well, dragons like you aren't just one or two. They all find their own roles and settle in, then get bored in no time and start looking somewhere else."
There was a saying that dragons would dart about here and there of their own accord in search of amusement, and I listened as she spoke as if that were actually the case. For now, at least, I had to hide the fact that I was not the Mircania Zernisha had known, and carry the conversation as naturally as I could. With other people—or with the Grand Duke of the North, whom I might yet meet—I could simply act according to my own personality and my own thoughts. I couldn't do that with Zernisha, who seemed to know the Mircania of before quite well. Rather than moving as I pleased and drawing suspicion, the sounder judgment was to indulge my whims while still performing, as much as I could, so that something of that old self seemed to show through.
"Mm... Even so, that doesn't mean I intend to throw away the role of Guardian Dragon I've kept all this time. I only thought I'd walk the places where humans live for a little while, and see what it's like."
"Sure. Trying something new isn't a bad thing, whatever else it is. If you try this and that and find a direction in which you can be happy, I think that's enough."
I turned over some rather complicated thoughts about what the relationship between Zernisha and Mircania might actually have been, but in truth it seemed they had simply been close, like an older sister and a younger one—especially now that I heard her speak. However I snapped at her, Zernisha looked at me the way one looks at a younger sibling come into adolescence, and there was something about her that seemed used to me being gentle. So long as I kept a relationship and a distance that felt like this, there would be no reason for her to grow suspicious of me.
"...But Mir, what you can't change with Polymorph is the form, right? You do know you can just take clothes off and put new ones on?"
"Yes, I know. Why do you ask?"
At my question Zernisha was staring straight at my body, and a needless shame rose in me, so I lightly covered my chest with my hands. Of course these two slender arms couldn't cover all of it, and because I pressed down, only a strangely soft sensation met my arms.
She seemed to have caught at least some of what I was doing, and went on with an awkward laugh.
"Mm... Don't you want to wear something else? Go down in clothes like that and people will take you for someone from a red-light district..."
"B-be quiet! Who said I was wearing these clothes because I liked them?! I just used Polymorph and found them already on me...!"
"Ah, no, I'm not trying to tease you or anything. They're just a little short, that's all... Why did the kid get so sharp-tongued while I wasn't looking?"
"Sh-sharp-tongued..."
Even so—I was a woman now, and not even that old, with a face that looked as if I had only just come of age. And she called me sharp-tongued.
"...I'm going. I'll see you later. I'm going to sleep."
Feeling a little wounded, I snapped that at her, released the Polymorph, and lay down on the floor.
"Uh... Sorry. I'll bring you something good to eat, so will you let it go just this once...?"
She said it as if she was sorry, at least a little, but right now her words weren't really reaching me. If this had been a man's body, I might have been taken in, even a little, by things like her looks or her voice. But whatever she did, it didn't particularly draw my interest now. I no longer felt any special pull of that kind toward a female form, so I simply turned my head and closed my eyes. Dragon on the outside or not, the mind inside was human—and to call a person sharp-tongued. It felt a little too much.
"Mm... I-I'll come again later, all right? Take care, okay?"
...Go.
When I sent the thought by telepathy, Zernisha smiled awkwardly and nodded, then spread her wings and began to leave my lair. I simply watched her go and closed my eyes. It would be better to sleep a while, wake, and think about what I ought to do.