The sensation one had when flying was difficult to describe.

  It was freedom, absolute in a three-dimensional space, and while I wouldn't say it was above and beyond what I had expected, it wasn't that far off. The closest thing I could pare it to was swimming, which made food but unsatisfactory example. It just wasn't the same. It was incredible.

  It was awesome!

  The sensation of falling, yet not of the wind brushing against my fur and membranous wings as they beat to defeat the pull of gravity, was simply exhirating beyond words.

  And it had been barely two months! I was still learning the ins and outs of self-powered flight as a giant murderous bat, to be exact, a bloodwing bat—eneral idea of it.

  Anyway, it was a rare subspecies of vampire bats from the tropical forest alongside the South Seas, one of its apex predators. However, they weren't uniquely hemovore, preferring to eat their preys' beatis and warm iines if Shael'dryensively descriptive words were to be trusted.

  They weren't the rgest species, as the dire bats were bigger, and their pure vampiric cousins were only thinner and less imposing, trading muscle power fility and stealth. They were among the most dangerous, known for their territorial, aggressive, and occasionally ibalistic behavior. However, in tradi, they were some of the best parents.

  It was transformative, so I couldn't immediately take on another shape. It wasn't fast fashion clothing. A period I didn't know the duration of was necessary until I was ready again, but it shouldn't take long; heless, colleg forms like collectibles with what they implied wasn't wise. They became part of you in some shape or form. I didn't o make the mistakes to realize this; frankly, there was no y or use to have a colle of hundreds.

  The would be a bear to calm down the shamans and aors as they, as well, wereensively pleased besides a few by my choice. It rimand more than anything, and that was an exaggeratiohen. I hadn't itted any crimes, after all—it was my choice against what was expected as normal. They were more fused than anything else.

  After that, I wasn't sure, but going for aquatic or subterranean mobility seemed wise.

  I was going for versatility; as a furbolg, I had both already, but specialization didn't hurt since I cked it in many aspects. I couldn't use the typical shamanic magic outside of union with the aors and spirits of the wild. I didn't wield a shred of elemental power. I knew Kalimag—it was the lingua franca of spirits and living beings in general. Nearly every nguage naturally developed had traces of it.

  I also knew a bit of the four dialects of Terran, if better, as I naturally found it easier, but that stopped there.

  I couldn't be a shaman–seen as by most other species–because I didn't fancy myself dealing with demanding, bipor, jealous, and chaotic creatures of the like anyway, not in such a way at the very least. But the true reason was aside that I cked the mio endure such daily torture. And an absolute ck of potential for that. At all.

  It just didn't click. The Life mana in me made the process of geing Spirit to 'trade' with elemental spirits entirely unfeasible—it was why they even bothered with us 'mortals' for the most part. My mana blocked every step and was so intrinsically a part of me and potent it instantly turhe sparkling Spirit I could produce after grueling hours bato my mana's natural state of Life and Nature. Life was tricky, and my abilities were surrounded by biology. It was a bit disheartening, but it gave me more time to perfect where I was good.

  While the shamans outside of me could use the elements t degrees, it wasn't a massive facet of our shamanistic ways in the Greenpaw Vilge. Ours was more around nature and our aors, per the norm of our species.

  However, I was told that the ones outside the forest, like Winterspring in the snowy mountains far up North, were focused on the more on shamanistic traditions. It made sense.

  It wasn't that there weren't elementals in a life-brimming pce like Ashehey just were the life. They were the primordial pos of it, taking the pce of the periodic table. Well, per my humble uanding, it was merely a hypothesis, but it shouldn't be terribly far from the truth.

  'Hmm, there is an owl here.' I hanks to my enhanced hearing, flight as a bloodwing bat wasn't sight-based. It was through echo localization.

  I wouldn't call it better than sight. It had severe limitations the other didn't, a range limit and a dey, to he two biggest. At best, it was an alternative with ups and downs of its own.

  I could perceive everything around me from their distance, speed, and even nature in how my clicks bounced off from the little I experimented with. But I wasn't limited to either eyes or ears in this form, so I used both as my furbolgs eyes carried over, my brain somehow w this out.

  Scarcely the less mysterious aspeagic, transmuting my clothing into another form when I shifted, was ahe rules were all evident to me, but what they were remains unknown. This wasn't an excuse to avoid uanding them. On the trary, it was a sourotivation.

  My heart beat iement, and I dove down on the owl I noticed earlier, my jaws wide open. The impact was violent, the bird having no ce as I ground its lower spio bits, the sweet, warm blood flowing as I drank it using gravity and this body's biological adaptation to do so.

  Then I shamelessly began to tear the oart for the few agonizing seds more it would be alive to get the pesky feather away to eat its suct inside, liver first, of course, while avoiding the guts and stomabsp;

  The ans themselves were tasty to my bearish tastebuds, but the problem was what was inside when, as is, biles and bodily wastes didn't taste good, and that is why I meticulously scarfed my food down away from them. The entire process was entirely natural. I had dohis as a furbolg; being a bat didn't ge that.

  'Refreshing.' I thought in satisfa, shifting to my natural form ohick branch, my legs tangling in the void, my satiety carrying over, somehow—the ground, by my rough estimate, was around fifty meters below. Knowing you fly does wonders for any potential fear of heights.

  Lig the blood and pieces of flesh off my muzzle, I grabbed the messed-up remains of the bird and ripped off a rib, pushing the rest aside. I looked at the bloody bone up and down ahe lingering presence of life.

  An unsurprising observation. My feat of reanimating Gripjaw–the mother I found back then in that satyr hidey-hole who was now stable–and numerous other cases, in addition to my past life uanding of biology, showed this mubsp;

  The cells didn't all die because vital funs ceased.

  It was how I reanimated people. As long as a body was fresh, in good enough dition, and the soul still withi point still iing–bringing it back to the world of the living ossible.

  I wasn't doing any miracles, despite the inability of others to replicate it and also for my method of healing. My mana was at fault. The teiques were sound and had bettered the tribe's uanding and knowledge of healing as a whole by a lot. Still, my teiques needed signifit improvement to be used by them more easily and sistently.

  Anyway, back to the bone. I was 'healing' it through the gentle push of my mana. It resulted in several outgrowths, a grin finding its way on my muzzle at the sight.

  It was fasating.

  The structure of the bone ged, the stark trast to the metallic sheen of my bck cws holding onto a bone of white stained in bloody fleshy tissues, only increasing with time as I shaped the bone in various geometrical structures.

  For all i and purpose, it was the piece of a corpse, yet I made it grow in a way it no way would if left alone.

  It wasn't a new experience. But w on bones wasn't as well perceived by most as doing it on pnts; they were a bit creeped out, so my serious practily retly began, even if I wasn't doing dark magic.

  The only case of dark magic was blood magid it was if I squint hard, and it was exclusively for the Totemic Ritual since blood was used. Even if it wasn't the same version, I recall some ord trolls practiced it, and it wasn't purely that type of magic. The ritual here erfected for furbolgs and furbolgs only.

  What I did and wao do was from a purely banced lens; I wasn't f anything outside of what nature let me. My goal was to py with the rules, test the limits, and not viote them, a big, subtle differehe mere mention that I would is ridiculous and angering, for it would be categorically false.

  Influeng the structure of a bone as I was doing now would be impossible or extremely hard in any other sario within the ditions in which I was trained.

  sent, e, nature, and uanding.

  If the owl lived, these four facets would reduce my potential influence, f me to expend more energy for longer and have inferior results with the potential for unwanted sequences depending on my target strengths: physical, magical, aal.

  Also, power and skill were signifit in the equation, as much as the three st points.

  It was the same for maniputions of pnts to a lesser extent, as sentiend sapience were of minimal impact here uhere were exceptions, so the senting part was on the back burner, like the bone held in my cws.

  But I couldn't turn the boo what it couldn't be directly with my current skill; it had stem cells, but these weren't omnipotent in their versatility. Yet it wasn't enough to ge why bones were my focus.

  "Urg…" I winced a bit as the tip of one of my free paw finger's skin bulged before breaking as a sharp bone protrusion of around five timeters covered in blood took shape. And I began to turn into a variety of simple shapes as well.

  Ahing that wasn't taken the best by the shamans, oh, they weren't disgusted or scared, just fused. Frankly, I handwaved it to them as training for my healing, and sidering my showings, they couldn't say anything. I wasn't lying per se, either.

  Not that they would or wao stop me; they probably believed it hase, and I was seen as a bit of a problem cub in the good sense, so to speak. I was odd and did odd things.

  As to why bones, living bones were astonishingly polyvalent; they could virtually take any shape, weren't for most vitals, and were reasonably solid. It was essentially that, but my i was also in ective tissues in general, from tendons te.

  I promoted the development of my bone in a specific shape by a process not dissimir to healing mixed with the ones used for trolling pnts. It wasn't different, and no arbitrary rule stopped me.

  It wasn't up to points. Being an ied living pincushion wasn't my life goal; on that front, shapeshifting would help avoid this… and make it expoially better. But I o study how this incredible magic worked on a deeper level. Shifting from bat t and vice versa helped, but that was only the beginning.

  Evidently, this daring idea of mine wasn't limited to bones, but it's better to keep it limited for the foreseeable future.

  The absorption of the tissue ba my anism, like I was doing right now with my outdoor bone, would stop any of that. However, it wasn't a reason to bee stupidly reckless and mess with my internals.

  As to why I wao do that…

  It was nothing plex or deep. A druid's abilities supremely depended on their enviro. Carried pnts and bags of seed could only take you as far as versatile as they may be.

  The same was true for using moonlight, starlight, and sunlight. However, that oihought. I wasn't ignorant in utilizing these energies, but I was average at best, and it would be solely for rituals.

  To do so purely offensively and have devastatis… Eh, not really. Like at all. I retty bad at it, in fact. I was good when it came to pure anid the farther I went, the less I could influence. Beyond some fasating bit with Life altering–corrupting, dare I say–inanic matter intanies uhe right circumstances.

  I wasn't half bad when it came to alchemy and enting. These dependency problems could be softened with a bit of work using those, but it wasn't direct tangible power, and stag advantage was better for my survival. And it needed ample preparation, time, and reagents.

  There were a few others to pensate, but globally, my strength was too signifitly impacted by my surroundings aernal sources as a whole.

  My body was a stant, an ecosystem in its ht and one I was in tuh above any other. Unless death or forceful corruption, it wouldn't fail.

  Ultimately, it was aremely ambitious project that might not bear fruit, yet I had to try. It wasn't an impossible dream; I had do, was doing it, and will keep on doing it. And regardless of the results, it would be a learning experienbsp;

  "Hmm, still… I wonder, if I succeed, would this open airely new branch of druidism? What of the hen?" I mumbled absentmindedly, abs the bone ba my finger and healing the tiny hole.

  The following minutes passed by in peaceful silence as I plucked several feathers and harvested other body parts from the owl, such as the beak and talons. I put them in one of the small leather pouches arouhen, I pushed the little remaining of the carcass down for the sgers to care for and shifted myself bato a bat.

  Flying back to the vilge was quick, but it didn't go unnoticed. When I reached it, hundreds of eyes focused on me. Who wouldn't? A massive bat covered in glowing tattoos turning into a furbolg in the middle of the day wasn't discreet by any means, and I wasn't trying to be.

  Stealth wasn't my forte.

  Some gazes weren't pleasant, however, at least for me, as they were akin to looking at a pieeat, me, almost literally hungrily, but as, it ointless endeavor for them. It was her the por time, and they were barking at the wrong tree, and they were furbolgs that did not matter mubsp;

  More than ten unions, essentially ten years, had passed, which ged one's perception of reality. Ahat typically meant I was far too young to attray i, but I wasn't the definition of normal. And it was btantly clear with a strong nose like ours what ma.

  'Their rea is strong... I guess it's unon to see me here nowadays.' I thought, waving at the people around to return to what they were doing. I was mixed oter.

  On another note, my rarefying presence meant I saw my siblings and parents less and less, which was enough to be unhappy about.

  My time as a cub was quickly reag its end.

  But it was the normal development of things. For all i and purpose, I was sidered a proper adult, and I looked the part at first gnce. I was slightly above the average height and signifitly bulkier for my sex if I were actually physically mature and not just a magically enhaeen. I was still growing.

  It was to the point that sleeping in the family den was impossible. Not that I slept there anymore.

  It was time to leave the on the logistical and cultural side. It was an unpleasant, tradictorily freeing step that o be taken, but it was far from cutting ties of any kind.

  And the first time I did this, I died before it happened as a human. It was all new.

  Speaking of family. My ears twitched at the familiar sound of troag pairs of paws apanied by youed cmors. Ah… There they are. It didn't take them long. Father was there, too, in amusement as I was assaulted.

  "Big Bro!" The two furballs, aka little shits, were running full speed to me and jumped oheir small, squishy bodies oozed joy aement as they babbled random questions, climbing on me.

  "Kahru! Hukar!" I excimed, nuzzling the twin furbolgs and doing the usual greeting ritual, a li the nose and scratg behind the ear to their fake e. If they wao be brats, I would treat them as such, but first…

  "Do you two want to go sightseeing?"

  The answer was a twin cheering 'yes' to which I responded with a grin and caught both under my arms as they pointlessly struggled—a nod from my father givihe free reign to their torment.

  Then my eyes trailed to a younger cub, a female and one I reized for I had saved her two years ago and a friend of my siblings as well.

  "Softjaw, you go with us if you want," I said calmly, and the shy cub squeaked and hid her head behind the tree. My little brother Kahru went to her rescue; he was the smartest of the twins.

  "You e, you know?" Then his twin sister pressed on his statement as if they shared the same singur brain cell, "We will have fun! e! Ohto is the bestest of awesome!"

  She was the muscles of the duo and the most active. It was amusing. They worked on arength to pensate for the other weakness, and they took everything I said to them to heart and tried to e. I took advantage of that to teach them; it wasn't much, but I refused to let them be ignorant and defenseless.

  If only those times could st forever, but it was better to get as much as I could and stop it from being an impossibility.

  The_Bip_Boop2003

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  [colpse]