Dual Soul Reincarnation

Chapter 4 - Good Friends

[The Voice]

Upon entering Zirana's bedroom, I was introduced to a strange scene. A table and chairs had been set up right next to the bed. The canopy was closed as Zirana did so every morning, but the windows' curtains were also closed. The room was obviously darker than usual, lit only by a lantern by the restroom door and a lantern on the center of the table. In one of the four seats, sat a human woman dark blue, curly hair and russet brown skin. Light reflected off the large, circular lenses of her glasses, which rested upon gentle, smiling face. Upon our entry, her eyes lit up with a wide grin and she began to speak.

"Hello, Your Highness. It has been too long." She spoke gently, while doing so her hands followed along in various patterns. Her right hand would make various motions and her left would compliment them. It didn't take me long to realize that this was a form of sign language here.

"Always with the formalities! Please, Zilmish, as always call me by name." Zirana responded, never breaking eye contact. I caught from the corners of my vision that Zirana too was responding in sign. Interestingly, when saying her name, I noticed her left hand took a resting position and her right did much simpler motions with various finger combinations. I supposed this was a spelling aspect of it.

"Haha, you are the unusual one, Zirana. Always being so casual for a princess." She responded in jest. Now that I had soaked it all in, I realized I could understand Zilmish's signs perfectly. Well, we did share linguistic knowledge during the beginning panic of all this. An unexpected bonus, I supposed, but a welcome one.

A casual back-and-forth formed between the two over the next few minutes as everyone got seated and ready. Zirana asked Nebesha to take station outside and Lazuli to make sure the door was properly locked. All the while, Zirana made sure to sign everything as it was spoken. Lazuli would sign as she could, but would often draw blanks on a word here and there. On the table was a small wooden box, with some steam coming out from the edges of the lid. After checking the door, Lazuli went and double-checked each window. The more little things I noticed the more curious I got. What was so secret about this meeting?

"Your Highness, it is safe." Lazuli informed the princess who conveyed this to Zilmish. She then nodded and who gave a bright smile in response as she began speaking in a language I have never heard before. Placing her right above her head facing down and her left hand opposite it facing up, she began a slow circular motion as an orange magic circle formed in front of her. From the cadence and the magic circle, I could tell this foreign language was a sort of incantation. Slowly, her appearance changed, as if she was shedding a thin layer of herself, the relevant parts falling off like sand and flying into the circle before disappearing.

Slowly scales began to show themselves around the line of her chin, going as for up as her cheeks in some places, and trailing down into one thin path of scales whirling around and behind her neck. On her hands, her nails grew slightly longer as scales trailed from them into a pattern that engulfed her palm before forming a similar trail into the sleeves of her shirt. Among the smaller changes were, freckles that had been hidden on her face and her ears were longer and pointed outward. Among the bigger changes were two decently sized, scaly wings that slowly appeared behind her. They didn't sprout like angel wings in some book, but rather they formed from similar grains of physicality that began to pile out from her back before solidifying into their actual form.

"Thank you as always, Zirana, for going through such effort for me." Zilmish told the princess.

"Oh please, think nothing of it! We've been friends for so long, and we hold such an important role in each other's lives. It's the least I could do."