Grievous and Lucien

If I had actually tried to color this, like I mean actually tried AT ALL, Luçien would have the same brilliant sheen to his coat as an Akhal-Teke, since Vashaens have the same translucent hair strands that allow for the iridescent of the Tekes.

INFO DUMP:

Luçien (pronounced Luchien if you’re a human) is in his flying form, known as Uçan, which literally just means ‘flying’. This form is a longer, lankier and semi-quadrupedal version of their normal upright humanoid forms, evolved specifically for combat flight. Most other races with a military or army presence (the Monarchy, the Lights, and divers others) have airships, and so do the Vashaens, but those are almost exclusively for transport and almost never see use in war. Why? Because the Vashaens have themselves as the air-based attack force. As a result, every Vashaen who goes through the royal military, or studies under a savaşçı or şaman, will learn the ability to transform to Uçan. It is a form specifically designed for more agility, maneuverability and staying power in flight, and is particularly devastating. Enemy armies will tell you, if you buy them enough alcohol, that if you think there’s nothing more terrifying than an oncoming army of Vashaens charging you on horseback, you’ve never seen an incoming army of Vashaens diving out of the sky. The Uçan form is more personal than any of the Monarchy’s small single-pilot fighter ships or the Light’s anbarqs could be, and significantly faster, more agile and more precise than both, and allows a Vashaen to zoom in from afar and employ all manner of lethal attacks, from the wicked curved spurs on their heels that swing down like a sixth toe, to their expansive and deadly magic.

Unlike the Vashaen’s natural ability to hide their wings, however, this is not something all of them can do. All Vashaens naturally develop the ability to magically displace or ‘retract’ their wings, usually around puberty, as this ability is a holdover from their Eridanus ancestors. This is a part of their personal magic and as naturally a part of their pubescence as growing more body hair is for us humans. Some have explored this magical pocket enough to conceal weapons and other things in there, though at some degree of risk to their wings. Uçan, however, is not easily achieved and takes many, many years of training and a large, complex web of spellwork and magical energies to achieve. Some are naturally better at learning it than others, and some have more of a talent for the transformation itself. These are known as Narsal, a term given to those who have enough mastery to make almost elegant a less-than-pleasant-to-witness process.

For the most part, transforming between normal form and Uçan requires several minutes of meditation before the Vashaen slowly begins to develop minor changes in physiology, such as their spine lengthening and their wings growing larger. There might be a moment where they maintain this (or they might skip this step entirely) before the explosion, which is exactly that; an explosion. Their form bursts outwards from their magical core into ribbons and tendrils of flesh (exposing muscles, ligaments, bones and organs, now in unraveled slices) before sucking back inwards into the new Uçan shape. While it isn’t painful for the Vashaen if done correctly, it’s not at all pleasant to watch. The transformation back to normal, bipedal form is lumpy and bubbly and disturbing, but does not involve exploding skin ribbons.

Some Narsal have exquisite degrees of control over the transformation process; for example, Sanar Saranova del‘Ryelle was one of the most talented Narsal around. She was able to remove the explosion aspect of the transformation entirely and simply shift fluidly and almost beautifully from one form to another, even in mid-run, which was immensely impressive and very difficult. She had previously trained under one of the greatest Vashaen şamans, which was partly how she learned such mastery of the process. Luçien, being the product of generations of royals who were required to surpass their parents and predecessors by a wide margin, retained the exploding, but his explosions were more constrained, elegant, and artistic, and generated an almost lightning-like effect which he eventually learned to utilize as an attack, making his transformation just as dangerous to nearby enemies as the final form. Griezra, as their son, had a mastery of Uçan never seen since, developed from years of practice under the oldest and strongest şaman alive, and from his heritage. He was able to localize the transformation in such a way that it would start wherever he chose it to and pass over his body, bypassing the first step of meditation and minor changes completely and going straight into a mixture of both parents’ unique techniques. He was able to execute the transformation in a matter of seconds, and continue to switch back and forth rapid-fire, something that neither parent could do, which lead to him appearing to change shape in a flash of light repeatedly. He also eventually learned to pull off the transformation in mid-flight, which was unheard of.

Inexperienced Vashaens first venturing into learning Uçan were advised to start naked or in tight clothing they didn’t care about, as any outfits they wore could be destroyed or, worst case scenario, catch on their exploding self and wind up integrated in their skin, though this only happened once in all of Uçan history. Experienced Vashaen would eventually learn to integrate their armor or clothing into the transformation without destroying it, hence Luçien wearing armor in this picture. And in fact plenty of armor and military gear was built and enchanted to easily shift with the wearer. Sanar preferred to go naked in Uçan form, as Vashaens lack most of the scruples humans have about nudity; in the Uçan form the extremely fine hairs on the body of a Vashaen thicken until they are more akin to extremely fine fur, and they develop manes on their elongated necks that are more obvious in females, and serve much the same purpose as feathers in birds. In Uçan the breasts are also significantly reduced in size (they’d just get in the way and reduce aerodynamics) and subsequently covered in both mane and fur, as are the genitals in males and females alike. Luçien and Griezra both preferred to transform with their armor, even though it took more concentration, although for very different reasons.

As always, characters and concepts © copyrighted to Dana Veitinger, and protected under the statutory copyright law, do no reproduce, steal, base art on, or claim as your own.