Saturday, April 09, 2005

Chapter 22: Through Dragon Eyes

Despite the fact that I was in an entirely new body, the first thing I noticed after I stood up was that I was naked. so I bent down and pulled on my boxers. The first time I tried this I missed - my arms were slightly longer than I had expected. About the third time I got them, but for some reason, I couldn't get them to fit. This is when Teresa started laughing.
"You'll never get those on," she said, "There's no hole for the tail,"
She was right. I hadn't yet connected that the thing coming out of my butt was a tail, but having realized this, I was left with a bit of a dilemma. That's when I realized that the thing I normally wear boxers to conceal was not there. This panicked me slightly, but Teresa, seeing where I was looking, reassured me.
"Silver dragon males fertilize the eggs after they're laid, under water," she said, "It doesn't take the same external equipment. Which is why your particular species doesn't have to worry about finding clothing for your new form. You're lucky in that,"
"You mean I can just run around naked?" I tried to ask. Unfortunately, my mouth was a completely different shape than I was used to, so what came out was "Yuor rour rie rang ruj ruh ruh ruh rahruh?"
"You can't speak English in Dragon form," said Teresa, "Because you can't form most of the syllables. Learning Draconic is one of the first things we'll be focusing on. But right now, you need to practice just walking around. Your proportions are slightly different, plus you have the tail and wings providing an unusual counterbalance ou're probably not used to. You're going to be very clumsy for a while,"
She was right about that. Just turning towards the door I nearly fell over. But halfway there, I encountered the mirror.
I was somewhat taller than I'd expected, with Silver scales running the legth of my body, except for the front of my neck and my chest and stomach. My head was bizarrely shaped, elongated with little ears like webbed feet coming out of it. And lots and lots of teeth. Two in particular came up like tusks, which was contributing quite a bit to the difficulties I was having talking.
My wings were beautiful, even folded as they were - big, sparkly things. I wondered if I was going to fit through the door with them.
"Like it?" asked Teresa.
"Yergh," I answered.
She laughed again. "Let's go see what you can do," she said.
Slowly and clumsily, I walked out of the bathroom. As I had predicted, I had to bend down to get my wings through the doorway. And I fell down my share of times on my way around the apartment. But after a while, I thought I was starting to get the hang of it. I was exhausted, so I sat down on the couch. At least, I tried to sit down. Of course I'd again forgotten about my tail, and to make a long story short, the whole couch ended up flipping over.
"Okey," said Teresa,"I think it's time for you to try changing back. It's a lot easier the second time. Focus on something different about your old body - some aspect of it that you prefer. Ok?"
I focused on not having a tail - I thought about sitting down without knocking things over. It didn't seem to have any affect.
"Just close your eyes and focus on what it's like to be a human," she said, "Think about having smooth skin instead of scales, about hair, and no cumbersome wings or tail. Hands without sharp claws, a mouth you can speak from - " she hesitated, "Yes, even the equipment you men are so fond of. Think about it, and imagine you are back in your own body,"
I was imagining as hard as I could. I could almost feel my neck shrinking, my tail receding, my wings folding in - and then I realized I was feeling it, and I was standing in the middle of Teresa's apartment naked. I blushed, and ran to the bathroom to get dressed.

6 comments:

Erin said...

Hee! Cool! You did a good job describing and remembering all the things that would be different with a dragonlike body. Adds realism. :)

Marten said...

heehee, he was naked

Evey said...

Nice. Good description, but not too much so it gets boring. Write more. Well, what are you waiting for? GO! NOW!

Nathaniel Cornstalk said...

yeah, I changed the title. I can do that. I might change it again, in fact.

Anonymous said...

Awesome! I'd love to try to draw the dragon . . . btw, is it modeled off the silver dragon in the D+D book?

Nathaniel Cornstalk said...

Vaguely, but with a few major changes for story reasons. The head is about the same.