Ocho

Servire Servientibus

Ocho Atana was born under the rule of The Countess Anastasia long after her origins were lost to myth and legend. At the age of six he moved into the Countess' manor to start his formal training.

He learned the basics taught to all children of the county: reading, writing, mathematics, and history. Included in the regiment, by order of the Countess herself, was mental honing, which involved extended periods of calm meditation. Some say it's so the Countess can find subjects with inate magical abilities, though as yet nothing of the sort has happened.

Of course, a servant's not a very good servant without skills, and so Ocho spent much of his early life cleaning, cooking, and running various errands. As he matured, he was given more and more responsabilities around the manor, eventually even becoming an emmisary to guide foreign dipolats, envoys, and ambassadors around the county.

Ocho's life in the manor came to a climax when The Countess Anastasia appointed him as First Servant. His duties then were to tend the Countess directly, and answered only to her. He served her faithfully for two years, until the Countess released him from her service, as was tradition.

The Operation

Ocho took to freedom well. He'd had plenty of roles steeped with responsability and decision-making that he wasn't lost without someone telling him what to do, though even still it felt weird to be beholden to nobody but himself.

He wandered the Countess' realm, careful to stay within the safety provided by her magic, trying a bit of this and a bit of that. He eventually came to study under a magician. He'd thoroughly enjoyed mathematics, and the ritualistic way the hermit performed was strongly reminiscant of forumale and arithmatic.

Ocho had no inate magical ability, and so was mostly just an errand-runner for the mage. He learned a bit about alchemical processes, and the theory behind some of the incantations and enchantments. He'd often spend long hours working with a pen and paper trying to formulate new spells. Since he had no inate feel for the powers he was manipulating on paper, he created solutions his master hadn't even considered, sinde they seemed to go against the natural flow of magic.

His master never could replicate one of his theories in practice, but he saw Ocho's talent, and offered to perform a rather experimental operation that he'd learned from a strange mage from a foreign land that would potentially give Ocho the ability to become a mage himself. Ocho accepted.

The pika laid down on a stone altar, and his master spent hours painting arcane symbols on his fur. While he did this a stone knife soaked in a bubbling broth. When the patterns had been drawn, he removed the knife and had Ocho drink the broth. What followed was the most painful experience of the pika's life. The mage drew the back of the knife carefully across the symbols he'd painted. This carved the symbols directly into Ocho's skeleton, and felt as though it were done by a white-hot knife.

The ritual lasted a lifetime. When it finished Ocho remained on the altar for days, unmoving, hardly breathing. When he finally did move, he stayed with his master another month, trying to learn magic. He could feel the forces, now, surging through his bones, but he couldn't manipulate them. At the end of the month he bade his master good-bye, and set out once more.

Safe Travels

With his skeleton scarred, Ocho wandered out of his homeland, into lands anew. The mage told him that the operation would, at the very least, carve into his very being whatever magics were affecting him at the time, which, in The Countess Anastasia's land, included the ruler's reformation magic. Although there was no safe way to test it, he trusted his master's word.

The nightmarish experience of the operation hadn't hardened his personality too much; he still felt the desire to make others happy. Thus, when one of the first people he met in a new land -- a cat to be precise -- complained about being hungry, the pika did what felt natural to him. Later on he managed to find that kitty again, and got to talking. The cat agreed to take Ocho on as a personal servant, although it wasn't long before the two got married.

Ocho now lives with his husband, and still does whatever he can to please his love.

He still tried to practice magic, and dabbled with the theory in his free time. Eventually he discovered that he was much more able if he could chanel the power through something, instead of using his own body as a conduit. He traded some of his formulae for an aluminum crystal, which he's turned into his conduit. After some practice, he began offering minor magical services -- enchantments, spells, and the like -- to help bring in some cash.

The Dragoness

Far from civilization, on a secluded hill near the end of a disused logging road lies an innocuous-looking rock slab. Just beneath the slab is a dark entrance that looks, on the face of it, to be just a little nook under the rock. However, it leads down into the hill, and opens into a good-sized cavern. At the far end of the cavern, set into the floor and surrounded by a ring of stalagmites, is the bed of a dragoness.

She's large, and brown, with markings that would look familiar to those who know Ocho, and for good reason. The dragoness isn't a natural-born creature, nor is that cave a natural formation within the hillside.

While working with his magical studies, Ocho managed to theorize a new way to transform people, including himself. (Having no formal magical training, he was forced to work up from basic principles). He found the rock whilst hiking one day, and spent several months fashioning a cave beneath it -- the entrance had really just been a nook when he'd first arrived. While he worked on that, he studied and practiced and studied and practiced, until one day he was able to surprise his husband with his new form.

The dragoness is Ocho, and she still loves making people happy, and helping people out. Though she also usually doesn't come out, except on special occasions. Her digestive tract has a crop in it, which allows her to eat things, or people, and hold onto them for a long time without endangering them. She also can't speak, as she doesn't have the anatomy for it, but she's working on a clumsy form of telepathy to help her communicate with people.