Draconia Offline vol. 2

97.3. Triple Heritage - Part 3

"There's no need to be so anxious, son, really," my father tells me when we reunite and he shows us into one of the lab meeting rooms. I quickly check Erik's whereabouts, but he's still with Chancellor Sythara. It's been hours, what on Earth is he discussing with my uncle?

"Let me present you our findings," Noage takes the spotlight when we sit down around a table and Nyx activates a projection screen. "First of all, and that's not surprising because we pretty much anticipated it, His Majesty's overall build is mostly Celestial because his body needs to be light for flying. That entails hollow bones, lungs with more capacity and other related things."

"You said mostly," I clutch my stomach.

"Well," Noage sighs, "I'm afraid your digestive system took the heaviest toll of hybridisation and, as a result, is the most chaotic combination of genes in your entire body, Your Majesty. You inherited a rather small Divementis stomach but Celestial dietary requirements. A Celestial metabolism is much faster and even though the Divementis brain takes 10% more calories than the Celestial one, we have to take into account magic casting and flying which are both extremely energy demanding."

"Meaning?" Liana frowns.

"Meaning His Majesty should eat a lot, but he can't," Noage just says it plainly because there's no sugarcoating it anyway. "I'm sorry to say that His Majesty won't ever be able to put on weight. It's physiologically impossible for him."

"B-but what if we feed him nutritionally rich food instead?" Liana suggests desperately.

"That would prevent him losing weight, but not him put on weight, at least not significantly," Noage shakes his head. "If we keep overstuffing His Majesty, we will just upset his stomach and he might throw up. I'm afraid that there's no other way than to be extremely careful with his diet. His Majesty has to eat balanced meals with uncompromising regularity. We can downsize portions a bit to make him more comfortable, but there's no skipping snacks anymore."

I get scared because eating has always been my weak spot even way before the transformation. I might not have an eating disorder by definition, but since I've experienced an upset stomach countless times, I developed peculiar eating coping mechanisms.

"There's no need to worry, son," my father tries to calm me down. "You will be eating Divementis portion sizes from now on so snacking won't be such a chore. Besides, Celestials burn sugar like no other race. You can look forward to many sweet and delicious snacks."

"Are sweets balanced meals?" Gotrid doubts.

"No issue there, I wanted to suggest the same," Noage states. "His Majesty can forget about a dessert right after a meal because that's when he will have to eat as much protein, fat and fibre as his small stomach allows, but snacks can be cookies, cakes and fruit so that he has enough quick energy for spellcasting and flying."

"It won't be so bad after all, hon," Gotrid tries to encourage me because I still have a doubtful expression on my face.

"You'll be watching over my diet ever more fiercely now," I mumble, annoyed.

"As your father said, we won't be forcing you to eat huge portions," Liana comforts me. "We'll just add snacks and insist on regularity, that's all."

"Noage, and Aefener's wings?" Gotrid asks something entirely else all of a sudden.

"What about them?" I pull his sleeve, not liking where this is going.

"He doesn't like folding them too tightly," Gotrid doesn't feel ashamed to tell on me. "In fact, he uses every opportunity to spread them. He gets cramps after just two days without flying whereas the rest of us can manage a week if it can't be helped."