Chapter Text
Chapter One
Chosen
Zidri Maldova screamed as the spell hit the base of his wing right where it met his body. Pain burned across his back as he began tumbling through the air. He tucked the injured wing against his back and threw out the other, trying to catch as much of the air as he could. He spun like a top, but he was still falling too fast. He gritted his teeth and braced for impact. Suddenly, the ground opened beneath him. Before he could try and catch himself on the edge of the sparkling hole, he was through, now falling toward a thick forest of tall trees.
He shouted, disoriented and confused, but it was a mistake. When he tried to breathe back in, there was no relief tied to the action. The air that whipped past him made his lungs ache and spots began to appear in his vision. He was falling slower now, like the earth beneath had less pull on him than usual. Huge leaves were whipping past him and he managed to reach out and grab onto one. The muscles in his arm pulled, and he tried to scream again as pain lanced through his back, but he had no air with which to do so. More leaves caught him as he fell and, before he knew it, the ground had knocked what little air he had left from his lungs.
Zidri closed his eyes against the pain. He could feel the cool dirt beneath him, and something pulsing beyond it. He was no Druid, but he knew better than to dismiss the power of nature. Desperately, weakly, he reached out with his mind. The last time he had called out indiscriminately like this, it had been to save his sister’s life. Now, he pleaded for his own.
A thousand voices called back to him. Images of tall, blue people flashed through his mind. They breathed. They moved. They were what he needed to become. He was… reluctant. This had become his form. He no longer saw it as something that had been pressed upon him. He’d promised Zinnish that he would be himself. But he could see now. See how they worked and moved and lived. He wanted to live. So, he reached for his magic. For the innate ability that had been given to him when Malkonthet changed him. And he Shifted.
His insides changed first. He knew when he’d done it correctly because he gasped in air that filled his lungs and cleared his mind. He coughed, suddenly aware of the dirt on his skin again. But he wasn’t done. He needed a body that could survive here. The ground beneath him shifted, and his clothes began to feel tight as his frame grew taller. Narrow hips, wide shoulders, long arms and legs. He squirmed, fumbling with the buckles of his armor which had constricted painfully around his wings. Soon, it was off, as were the rest of his clothes, and he was able to continue, concentrating on the image of the people he’d been shown. A tail, for movement and balance. Then, with a shiver that went through his entire body, a stalk of nerves that splayed into delicate filaments at the end reached from the top of his head to beyond his waist. The pain in his back hadn’t faded, the injury still burned, but he gritted his teeth and concentrated on his wings. Another image flashed into his mind. A flying creature with very similar wings. Zidri grunted as muscles shifted under his skin, anchoring the new wings better. The tail flattened at the base of his spine, spreading out smaller, secondary wings that then folded close to the body of the tail. The tip flattened, and he deliberately swung the tail around, testing the muscles.
Finally, Zidri opened his eyes and looked down at himself. He was standing now, and the forest floor was significantly further below him than he remembered. He held out his hands and color bloomed across his pale skin. His horns had gone, but they no longer mattered. His wings would be more than enough to make him feel like himself. He watched as his hair darkened and lengthened, growing to the length of the exposed nerves that hung down his back. The coppery red darkened to the color of dry blood. His skin was now a deep indigo, with almost black stripes decorating his entire body. Pale speckles spread over his chest and all the way down his legs. Likely up to his face as well, though he couldn’t be entirely sure. Slowly, he reached up with his long fingers and felt his face. The nose was wide and flat, and the ears were long and soft, rather like a cat.
He took a deep breath, feeling the air whoosh in and out of his lungs. His new form settled, and a feeling of correctness spread through him. He knew then. Knew that he would not be returning home. Soldas was lost to him now. His family, his troops. He would never see them again. He collapsed to his knees, curling in on himself as the knowledge settled in his mind. When he had first left his home, he was happy. Aithe held far more claim to him than the world that he’d been born in. With Zinnish gone, there was nothing to tie him to his past. He had gone into Soldas with an open heart and an eager mind. He became Soldasi as thoroughly as he could. He fought for them. He married his husband. Eventually, he got to raise his son. To be ripped from them caused a gaping hole to open in his chest even more painful than the wound on his back. Zidri let out a guttural scream and the forest around him went quiet. He gripped the dirt beneath him as tears slid down his cheeks. He didn’t know how long he sat there, sobbing into the dirt, but eventually he knew he had to move. He lifted his head, surprised at how much darker it had gotten. There would be time for more mourning later. Right now, he needed shelter and information. He managed to rip his old clothes into a passable loincloth, and wrapped the armor up so that he could carry it. It no longer fit, but he wasn’t ready to leave it behind. He took one last moment to touch his fingers to the blue rose embossed on the chestplate, and the scrap of Evard’s cloak that was stitched to the inside, and then he began to walk.
As the sunlight faded, the plants around him began to glow, and Zidri was a bit distracted by their beauty. He’d never seen anything like this before. Each step sent a ripple of glowing light across the ground which quickly got absorbed by the plants around him. The new form was much taller than he had been, and he found his movements slightly awkward, though significantly less so than they would have been if he’d also done away with his wings. The tail confused his movement slightly, shifting his weight in odd directions. Trying to correct his balance with his wings like he usually did often caused the tail to twitch instead. He tried to listen to the forest around him as he walked, keeping his steps as light as he could. There was plenty of movement, both of small bugs and of larger beasts. He hoped that his magic would still work here if he encountered something out to eat him.
It had to be at least an hour or so later that Zidri was finally confronted by something sentient. The blue-skinned warrior was slightly taller than him and pointed a long spear in his face as he rose out of the bushes slightly ahead of where Zidri was walking. Zidri held up his hands, pointing his palms away from the man. “I mean no harm,” he said in Common, hoping that the man would understand. “I just need shelter for the night.”
The man spoke, and Zidri repressed a groan when he didn’t recognize the words at all. It was completely foreign to him. “Shelter,” Zidri said again, slowly moving his hands over his head like a roof. “Sleep,” he pressed his palms together and tilted his head to lay against them like a pillow. “Please,” he made what he hoped was a pleading expression and put as much of the emotion into his tone as he could.
“Ngeyä mesyal lu na ikranä pum,” the man said, sounding a bit amazed and a little concerned.
Zidri sighed. “I would just use my telepathy, but I really don’t want you to freak out and stab me.” Very slowly, Zidri pointed behind himself at his wings and began to turn around, showing the injury to the man. Then he turned back around and made the gesture for rest again. “Please.”
The man’s expression had changed when he looked again. He looked concerned and a little fearful. Slowly, he shifted his grip on the spear and gestured for Zidri to follow him. Zidri sighed again. “Thank you,” he said, pouring as much gratitude as he could into his tone again. The man gestured again, and began walking, leading Zidri further into the woods. Thankfully, he didn’t move too fast, and Zidri was able to keep up easily. It didn’t take much longer before Zidri could hear the sounds of a camp. They were much friendlier than the sounds of a military camp that he was used to, with pleasant calls between adults, and the sound of children a bit further off.
They broke through a ring of bushes, and into the open space that had been made for the camp. With the brightness of the plant life around them, Zidri wasn’t surprised to not find any fires lit, at least none that he could see. The blue and purple lights were likely more than enough for people used to this place. The people closest to them went quiet when they saw him, and he carefully schooled his features into what he hoped was a calm expression. His injured wing was beginning to ache far more than it had before and it took all of his concentration to not wince as he kept it folded against his back out of the way.
The silence spread as they walked through the camp to one of the central huts as many of the people began to follow them. Zidri heard whispers spreading through the crowd, though all of it was in the unfamiliar language. He followed his guide into the big hut, where a fire was burning in the center, and straightened automatically when he saw three people inside with much more elaborate clothing than he had seen so far. Well, clothing was a bit of an overstatement. Everyone he’d seen was in a similar state of undress, with only the essential bits covered for each sex, and anything else seeming to be optional or decorative.
There were two women and one man. One woman was draped with what looked like a shawl of red strings. She had a headdress that hung down around her face and was clasped in the middle by a long solid piece. The other woman dressed more simply, though Zidri did notice a circle of metal stretching the base of one earlobe. Her main feature was that she was cradling a small child in her arms which she held closer to her when they entered. The man wore what looked like feathery pauldrons that were all part of one piece that hung around his neck and down his chest. His hair was shorter than Zidri’s but not by much, and was mostly twisted back into thick, rope-like structures.
The man sat up straight and addressed Zidri’s guide who gestured to him and replied. Zidri bowed as much as he could, still suppressing a wince when the shifting pulled his new muscles and aggravated his injury. “Who are you and what are you doing here?”
Zidri blinked, almost surprised when the man spoke perfect Common. “Oh! Thank the Stars, someone who speaks Common.” He bowed again. “I am Zidri Maldova. I was sent here against my will by a being called Allorin. I only seek somewhere I can rest and heal. I am happy to contribute what I can in exchange, or leave if that is your preference. But I ask that I please be allowed to rest for the night.”
The woman in red stepped toward him, and Zidri held still as she circled him. His skin was much darker than theirs, he finally noticed. That dark purple that is right on the edge of blue rather than the lighter, clearer blue that theirs was. The woman caught his tail briefly, and he didn’t quite manage to suppress a flinch as it wrapped briefly around her wrist before she let it go. Her fingers trailed down the membranes of his injured wing and he winced away, hissing slightly at the pain that spiked through his body. Rather than getting angry, the woman studied him with concern and spoke to the couple still at the front of the room.
“We will shelter you for the night,” the man said. “And treat your wound. We will speak more in the morning. There are many questions I have for you.”
Zidri bowed slightly. “You have my thanks, My Lord.”
The man’s mouth twitched into a slight smile and gestured to the woman in red. “Mo’at has offered to treat you. You may go with her. She will give you a place to rest as well.” Zidri turned and inclined his head to Mo’at. “Thank you. Before I go, may I have permission to speak to you telepathically? I do not wish to offend, and this will let me learn your language quickly.”
“I speak the language of the Sky People,” she said in heavily-accented Common. “What is this word you say?”
Zidri blinked, but bowed his head apologetically. “Telepathically. I can speak into a person’s mind and hear their thoughts in return. Though I would never use it without permission, which is why I didn’t use it with this man who brought me here.”
Mo’at exchanged a significant look with the couple, then hummed thoughtfully. “Come. I will treat your wound.” Zidri bowed to the couple again, and followed Mo’at out of the hut. She waved her arms and spoke in their language, clearly dismissing the crowd that had gathered around the big hut. Zidri followed her to a smaller alcove that was shielded from the rest of the camp by a few huge leaves that they ducked through to get in.
Zidri winced again as his wing brushed the foliage. It was getting harder to hold it up out of the way. “Sit,” Mo’at directed, pointing to a stool to one side of the space while she began pulling things from shelves that were fixed into the sides of the space. Zidri sat, hissing as his wing shifted, but sighing when he could finally relax the tension and let the limb settle into a more comfortable position. “What are you?” Mo’at asked as she came to him. She settled behind him, examining the wound before beginning to dab at the leaking blood with a damp cloth.
Zidri hissed again at the touch, but held himself still. “Honestly?” he shook his head. “I don’t know anymore. I used to be an Incubus. Made so by My Lady, Queen Malkonthet. But now?” He shook his head. “I needed to be something else when I got here. I didn’t have time to ask what I was turning myself into. I just knew that I needed to change to survive. My wings have become a part of me, so they needed to change too. I don’t know what that makes me.”
Mo’at hummed. “Move your hair.”
Zidri reached back obediently and pulled his hair over his uninjured shoulder, bringing with it the sensitive ‘tail’ that had sprouted from his head. “May I also ask questions?” he asked hopefully.
“Yes.”
“What is this?” He shifted his hair so she could see the ‘tail’ but was careful to keep some of his hair wrapped around it. He’d noticed that everyone he’d seen had a long, central braid down their backs and assumed that it protected the appendage from the outside world.
“Queue,” Mo’at replied. “You will want to braid your hair around it.”
“Queue,” Zidri tested the word slowly, then nodded in understanding. “What do you call yourselves?”
Mo’at had moved on from cleaning the blood away to smearing something cool over the wound. Zidri sighed at the easing of pain that this brought. “We are the Na’vi. The People. We are the Na’vi of the Forest. The Omaticaya.” Zidri hummed thoughtfully, repeating the words quietly again. Before he could ask anymore, she spoke again, “From where do you come?”
“The country of Soldas in the land of Aithe,” Zidri replied. He traced his too-large fingers over the embossed rose on his armor again. “I lived in the Darkened Shore and commanded my troops, the Blue Roses, in battle against our enemies.”
“You are a warrior?” she asked. Something was being pressed against the wound, sealing the medicine in.
“Yes,” Zidri agreed, a sad smile crossing his face. “I suppose I am.”
Mo’at’s long fingers wrapped around his upper arm, turning him to face her. “Eywa has brought you here for a reason,” she said, staring fiercely into his eyes. “You will learn.” She gestured to a palette of leaves in one corner of the alcove. “Rest here tonight. You will speak with Olo’eyktan in the morning. Sleep.”
Zidri bowed his head gratefully. “Thank you.” He settled onto the leaves, lying on his uninjured side and folding his wings against his back as he usually did. He expected Mo’at to leave, but instead she began chanting rhythmically behind him. He didn’t bother turning to look. He closed his eyes and let himself drift off, wondering just what Allorin had gotten him into this time.