Nessie in the Desert? [job]

Spoiler:

Sun.

It’d once been the bane of her existence, at least overly bright and warm, and yet now turned into little more than a minor nuisance with its brilliance. The heat, sweltering as it was, bothered her little with the benefits she’d gained in killing not only her sister, but aiding Sorrow in devouring the fire wolf aligned with the troublesome woman.

Free.

She was free.

’Such a foreign feeling,’ she thought for the umpteenth time as the realization struck her again in the mild daze.

”Don’t forget to drink water! You’re looking a little out of it…perhaps you should rest?”

Turning her head the woman spied the short, stout fellow as he stared up at her worriedly. At least…it looked worried, though with the coke bottle glasses enlarging his eyes so dramatically they appeared as large as the frames themselves she could only really go off his eyebrows. Excitement however kept a slight curve to his lips even as the intensity dimmed a bit with his worries, small mouth appearing even smaller. She’d watched him eat though, a little amused that he appeared to vacuum sustenance in compared to others.

”Ah, yeah you’re probably right…my apologies for worrying you.” Accepting the canteen the girl took a healthy swig of the water. She disliked how most seemed to augment the taste of water, but the liquid itself felt divine as it slithered down her parched throat and forced her to realize she might’ve been dazing out due to dehydration. ’Well just because I’m not as mindful of heat as I used to be doesn’t mean I’m immune to hydration issues…I need to remember that. We have made quite the progress however…’

It sounded like an easy enough request as someone put out a job application helping with a bit of excavation. Back when she first came to Fiore the mix-breed woman wouldn’t have taken up the request purely due to the location despite her intrigue of “what could it be?” At the same time it would’ve likely come down to her digging a whole and dying from the heat – figuratively – and ultimately been useless. Now however they’d set up a simple system with his small, yet workable crew of interested colleagues. Gauging if there was anything substantial within a space, Mao would create a portal of sorts and move the hard sand away in chunks before letting the archeologists enter the whole to scour through the opened portion. They were better at determining what was simply brush and sediment versus part of the creature, though the process became smaller and more fine-tuned the more they uncovered of the colossal beast. Ribs already poked out of the round, partially hollowed out – though not fully as they wanted to see if any internal imprints had formed or something of the like – and the pokey beginnings of a hip bone.

”I must say I didn’t think we’d get your sort of power here, though it is quite useful! Oh if only we could simply move it all in one fell swoop…but we must’ve damage the integrity of it! Especially after how far we’ve come!” Excitement radiated off the short man in palpable waves as he couldn’t keep his attention riveted on the giant skeleton or the piles of debris others sifted through.

They’d been so adamant about going through every chunk of dirt…Mao acquiesced despite her increasing hunger. ’It would’ve been so much easier to just eat the dirt…’ Food might be a concern if she didn’t watch herself, the woman wincing as she continued to acclimate to these newfound powers of hers.

In the wake of erasing the control element and thus, her crystal magic as well Mao found herself so much more conscious about the area around her, sometimes privy to a mere bird landing softly on the ground behind or a rat skittering by. Sometimes she had to concentrate to not notice things instead, or at least lower how strongly it struck out at her. At the same time working on portal sizes and whether or not the objects ended up consumed…well this proved to be excellent practice for it to say the least. In the heat of things she could work more instinctually, but the tailed mage remained a cautious woman and wanted to control her powers regardless of her state of mind.

”We need a bit of help, if you don’t mind miss!”

Turning her head towards the voice Mao spotted one of the scientist fellows, this one rather tall and lanky as he attempted to move a boulder out of the hole to no avail. Not even a small budge despite his tremendous efforts from the looks of it and it left the girl smiling even as her eyebrows knit in worry, ’He’s going to throw his back out at this rate. Best to move the rock for him.’ As she concentrated on the space beneath the large chunk of rock something slithered out to wrap around it, hefting it out of the hole and placing it down gently at the man’s chanted command despite her temptation to simply chuck it.

Again the head archeologist’s voice spoke up, ”I must say…you have a peculiar magic. Do you have other creatures stashed away?”

She hesitated, unsure how to properly describe the situation before going with a simpler answer, ”Something like that.” It took some willpower not to end it on a questioning tone so as to avoid further inquiries. Trying to understand them was odd enough let alone explain them as they were simply a part of her and yet existed seemingly in another dimension that could…well…

Act as her stomach.

And yet at the same time it wasn’t fully her stomach as Mao could pass through it to appear somewhere else almost immediately. The tailed mage figured it was a mix as some of her portals connected to another, pocket dimension that just so happened to be a second stomach for her while other parts of her abilities stemmed from a spatial control. ’Represents both of my ancestors…I suppose the tendrils might simply be an odd mutation from mixing breeds.’ As her people functioned similar and yet different to animals they often stayed within their kinds – such as felines with felines and canines with canines – they didn’t often worry about what new oddities might stem from mixing of clans despite physically being capable. Though she wondered if that’d always been the case or if it’d been the introduction of the “Fountain of Youth” – as they called it – that caused the mutations in power and abilities. ’Could explain how close the houses within the clans remain with each other over others…and why they’re so careful about picking and choosing outside pairs.’

When they finally called for a lunch break Mao’s poor, empty stomach rejoiced with an audible growl that earned a round of laughter from the archeologists. ”Ah yes, it’s not just water you have to watch out here, especially with the good work we’ve been putting in today! I think you’ve definitely earned yourself a hearty meal since you’ve helped us cut down by quite a bit of time!” A few more chuckles escaped as her tail waved a little more readily and the girl’s face brightened visibly. She’d been, as silly as it sounded, tempted to eat dirt a couple times. It may not have been the tastiest of things, but keeping her stomach from running on empty also turned out to be a concern with this newfound magic. Digesting just about anything appeared possible for easy sustenance as long as it went through the teeth-lined portals as she certainly wasn’t about to shove her head to the ground and take a mouthful or attempt chomping any swords any time soon. Her tongue still worked after all.

As they opted to rest a bit longer after lunch with the sun beating down too harshly Mao excused herself for a bit, the meal delicious just lacking in quantity a bit. Once she’d consumed a large desert scorpion a mile away the spatial mage figured she could make it through the rest of the dig. A few hours later they had a nice, sizeable pit with quite a creature revealed, though it’d had to lose an arm and a leg in order to further reveal its body. The limbs sat off to the side having been carefully removed with their precise and careful assistance before she moved them with portals. It’d been interesting as she realized after their sighs of relief that they’d held their breath during those few seconds with baited breath. Bit by bit they continued to segment the creature and pull it out of the hole, laying it out on a flat tarp until finally the last little tail tip made its way the lineup, courtesy of her stout little friend.

Staring at the laid out figure and tilting her head, Mao thought it looked a lot like a…well…like a mess really. Obvious mess of dirt clinging to bone and in pieces aside the overall form left her wondering how it properly functioned “way back when.” With the long, giraffe-like neck and stubby legs, and wide body left her wondering how it moved all that fast on land. ’Then again it does have these slight wing bones, oddly curved as they appear to be….the fins on the side of its head are kind of impressive, but it doesn’t look too dynamic otherwise.’

Silent as they were, when the head of their little operation spoke Mao hadn’t expected the answer, ”I suspect ladies and gentlemen, that we have found ourselves the bones of a dragon!”

Chatter immediately filled the air as they excitedly discussed what it must’ve been like back in the day, though as they started to spin grandiose stories she couldn’t help staring at the size and thinking, ’I don’t think this was any dragon king…probably a juvenile if not a baby at best…but I suppose it’s best to let them dream first.’ She couldn’t fault them after all, having enjoyed plundering treasure out from beneath a pirate captain as well as delving into the depths of a few tombs for wonders of deceased tribes and even Wizard Saints of the past.