[Week 16, day 1] [dream]
It feels funny. You can feel every little movement against your skin: the slight breeze, the shifting of the oversized cotton button-up shirt draped over your too-small body, the grass between your toes, everything. It's almost overwhelming, just how much you can feel everything. But it makes sense, this skin is a lot softer than your scales used to be.
You look down at your hands. Instead of ten sharp claws, there's ten stubby fingers that can lay out straight or curl up into fists.You flex them experimentally, wondering how they can work as they do. Then you look down at the rest of yourself, all the way down to your feet, where you wiggle your toes to make sure they work.
Somehow you stay upright, but how you manage it is beyond you. Two legs are somehow more complicated than four.
You make your way over to a nearby river. Kneeling down beside it (another interesting human behavior, even) and peer in. A face that isn't your own meets you in the waters. Instead of the sleek, graceful face of scales and horns you're used to, it's a soft, slightly pudgy face. Your hair- you actually have hair for the first time in your life- is short and curly, though you're pleased to find that it's the same shade of dark red that your scales used to be. It looks almost boyish, you realize, though almost all of the women in the service have short hair anyway so it isn't a big deal to you. Long hair would just get in the way.
Your eyes are the same as always, though: yellow, with a slitted pupil instead of the round one humans seem to have. The familiar feature is what makes you realize that this is definitely you, not somebody else.
You tug at your hair with your new friends, and you're surprised to find that it does hurt if you pull too hard. Then you try mashing your cheeks together, and you find that you make funny faces doing so, but the remarkable thing is how malleable the skin is.
Idly you realize that you look young, possibly as young as Roland. How old was she again? Twelve? Thirteen? Somewhere around there.
Iskierka!
You try to look over your shoulder, but you find that you don't have the same range of motion that you did with your old neck. You nearly fall over, but you manage to stay upright by actually turning some so you can look. You know this man, he's the one who's been with you since birth. He hasn't changed at all, and that familiar smile makes you feel right at home.
You get up and run towards him, somehow without stumbling, and when you reach him you jump into his open arms.
Somehow he lifts you up in the air, and you realize just how big he is now. He used to look so small, barely as tall as your longest claw was long. But now he would tower over you, if he weren't holding you in his arms. The contrast is startling to you.
Then it hits you: this is your first hug.
It feels nice.
---
[As the dream fades away, Iskierka doesn't wake up fully. It's a nice dream, unlike anything she's ever dreamed before, and she's not too keen on waking up yet.
At some point she becomes aware that her Hitomi is recording, and she just rolls over sleepily and reaches to turn it off as she mumbles something.]
Five more minutes, if you will, dawn has not arrived yet.
You look down at your hands. Instead of ten sharp claws, there's ten stubby fingers that can lay out straight or curl up into fists.You flex them experimentally, wondering how they can work as they do. Then you look down at the rest of yourself, all the way down to your feet, where you wiggle your toes to make sure they work.
Somehow you stay upright, but how you manage it is beyond you. Two legs are somehow more complicated than four.
You make your way over to a nearby river. Kneeling down beside it (another interesting human behavior, even) and peer in. A face that isn't your own meets you in the waters. Instead of the sleek, graceful face of scales and horns you're used to, it's a soft, slightly pudgy face. Your hair- you actually have hair for the first time in your life- is short and curly, though you're pleased to find that it's the same shade of dark red that your scales used to be. It looks almost boyish, you realize, though almost all of the women in the service have short hair anyway so it isn't a big deal to you. Long hair would just get in the way.
Your eyes are the same as always, though: yellow, with a slitted pupil instead of the round one humans seem to have. The familiar feature is what makes you realize that this is definitely you, not somebody else.
You tug at your hair with your new friends, and you're surprised to find that it does hurt if you pull too hard. Then you try mashing your cheeks together, and you find that you make funny faces doing so, but the remarkable thing is how malleable the skin is.
Idly you realize that you look young, possibly as young as Roland. How old was she again? Twelve? Thirteen? Somewhere around there.
Iskierka!
You try to look over your shoulder, but you find that you don't have the same range of motion that you did with your old neck. You nearly fall over, but you manage to stay upright by actually turning some so you can look. You know this man, he's the one who's been with you since birth. He hasn't changed at all, and that familiar smile makes you feel right at home.
You get up and run towards him, somehow without stumbling, and when you reach him you jump into his open arms.
Somehow he lifts you up in the air, and you realize just how big he is now. He used to look so small, barely as tall as your longest claw was long. But now he would tower over you, if he weren't holding you in his arms. The contrast is startling to you.
Then it hits you: this is your first hug.
It feels nice.
---
[As the dream fades away, Iskierka doesn't wake up fully. It's a nice dream, unlike anything she's ever dreamed before, and she's not too keen on waking up yet.
At some point she becomes aware that her Hitomi is recording, and she just rolls over sleepily and reaches to turn it off as she mumbles something.]
Five more minutes, if you will, dawn has not arrived yet.