Cassandra got to her dormitory feeling like she was going to explode. Not exactly literally, it was more, she realized, a slow deflagration than a true explosion. Ignoring everyone around her, she put on her best please don't talk to me face and marched into her apartment and locked the door behind her.

She closed her eyes and held up her aching hand. It wasn't an aching hand, she discovered when she opened her eyes—it was an aching talon. Her skin was replaced with emerald green scales, her fingers were still long and dexterous, but finished in sharp, inch-long claws.

What worried her was that the scales continued up to her sleeve and, when she pushed her sleeve back, even further.

Shrugging out of her school robes, Cassandra froze. From her neck down she was covered in green scales. "Okay, this isn't completely weird. I can fix this!" Removing her shirt, Cassandra went into her bedroom to see the full scale of things.

Now, looking at herself, she could see that whatever was going on was still in progress. The scales spread from her right side to her left. They were cascading down her left shoulder and, just behind the front where they rushed, her muscles bulged and became far more pronounced.

While she watched, the scales spread down to her hips and further, and when the structural changes after them reached her legs, Cassandra started inching higher.

She felt enchanted, unable to stop staring as her humanity drained away into a shimmering emerald. The scales started up her neck, and as they did she could feel new sensations behind her. Turning slightly, she saw a big ridge of bony spikes start pushing out along her spine until each was half a foot long. A membrane grew out to connect them all together—and then she started to grow wings.

It was too much. There were changes happening everywhere. Her face was elongating into a muzzle, her wings looking like two new arms on her back with membranes growing on those now, and her chest surprised her by growing out a little—though her investigation of that revealed it was mostly because she had more muscle there.

When the scales flowed up and over her head, Cassandra had a moment of blindness before the world settled into new shapes and colors. There was a soft black glow (and her mind struggled with the idea that black could glow) roiling over her. Cassandra could see her scales as millions of green-but-with-rainbows-of-color, as well as an odd redness around her.

Then she heard her trousers rip. Spinning in a circle, she destroyed not just the mirror (when she knocked it over with a wing) but also a tapestry that was hanging on the wall—when her sharp tail ridges ripped it in half.

Freezing where she stood, Cassandra had no more reference for what she looked like now her large mirror was laying at her feet, but she could see that she had a big, powerful tail now. "Okay," Cassandra said, trying to get used to the rows of teeth that were hard and sharp enough to chew diamonds, "let's fix the mirror and see what kind of drake or something I've become."

The moment her magic took hold and rebuilt both mirror and tapestry (and some wall she'd slashed without realizing it), Cassandra froze at the sound of breathing right behind her. Spinning, she stared at the two beings that kneeled on her floor. They tilted their heads up and she saw a kind of manic devotion there. "What are you?" Holding out her right hand, palm out, she said, "Wait, I also want to know who you are and what you know about all this?"

"Oh, mighty queen! We are but your faithful servants! I am Grovel and—"

"… I am Snivel. We are your guards, your servants, your minions, your army!"

It was disturbing to say the least, but there was something inside Cassandra that liked having a pair of minions. "My first question was—"

"We are kobolds, Your Gloriousness," Grovel said.

"And kobolds always serve a dragon!" Snivel added.

"Dragon?" Cassandra turned, slowly, and looked at herself in the mirror again. Her face looked like she was built for being angry. She had horns, fins that looked razor sharp, and when she opened her mouth she had teeth enough to make a shark blush. Her eyes, though, caught her attention. Glowing with a soft purple light, her slit eyes stared back at her. "It's crazy. There haven't been any dragons around for—for ages."

"We've been waiting so long."

"We've put out the call to all kobolds."

The two, having been speaking separately, now said together, "There is a dragon! Come and worship them! Then we can take over the world!"

"Okay, first, I'm not strong enough yet to take over the world. Second, I can't go out looking like this. I'd get locked up, taken apart, put back together, and studied. And not in that order!" Casandra turned away from the mirror, not wanting the constant reminder that something utterly insane had happened. "I need a way to hide."

"Tunnels!"

"A dungeon!"

"We need more kobolds for a full dungeon."

"That will solve itself. First we need to discover how many adventurers she intends to lure to their doom in a month."

"Our goddess could dispatch a hundred!"

"A thousand!"

"Yessss!"

"First, no dungeons." Holding a hand up to her forehead, Cassandra was relieved that she could still do a facepalm. "Second, I meant to hide as a normal student. I need to look like my old self."

Her mind raced. Cassandra needed to do research on dragons, but also kobolds too now. There were, of course, plenty of monsters that could infiltrate cities and attempt to work their evil ways within—there were so many, in fact, that there were also plenty of people trained to deal with them. Her only advantage, that she could think of, was that she was a dragon.

The folklore she did know about dragons was that they were crazy powerful. Strong beyond measure, so much magic they made an arch-mage blush, and— "… and they're known for being tricky shapechangers."

"Oh yes, Your Amazingness! When you have enough power, you can turn yourself into a giant form and destroy the city!"

Spinning around and glaring at her minions, Cassandra realized her gaze alone was enough to cause them to cower. "Do either of you know how I can shapechange?"

"We wouldn't dream of telling our—our goddess how to be a proper dragon!"

"Please! We only wish to serve you! We're not worthy of your anger!"

Kobolds, Cassandra realized, were going to be either annoying or useful—probably both at the same time. "Look, just give me some time to settle in. To figure all this out."

"We will make ourselves indispensable, mistress!"

Turning back to the mirror, Cassandra focused on the dragon reflected there. "This is insane." Now she tried to superimpose her own body there, the one she'd had until only about thirty minutes earlier, and pushed at herself to be that.

"Of course it didn't work because this is crazy. It's not like I can just turn human again in a woosh of green fire or any—" A woosh of green fire poured over her and, painlessly, she was standing there as her normal self again. "Really? I just have to say it out loud and it happens? I didn't even feel any magic."

She stared at her reflection long enough to let out a groan and stomp back to where she'd dropped her clothes. Picking them up, she felt a greater awareness of everything around her. There were soundproof walls between her and her neighbor on one side, but despite that she could hear them talking to someone. The walls themselves had a soft tingling hum of the silence spells, and even her mirror still held an echo of the magic she'd used to repair it.

"I bet Stanton doesn't have to deal with this. Where did I put my pants?" She remembered, perhaps too late, that her pants had been sacrificed to the inevitability of having grown a serrated tail.

----------------------------------------

"… not supposed to be in here without a letter of invitation." Stanton rolled his eyes. The insanity was his body was female, which meant he only needed a verbal request. "I know. Can you just go and let Cass know I'm here?"

The old battleaxe who guarded the women's dormitory gave Stanton the firmest glare she could, grunted, and turned to go find Cassandra. "Wait here. If I find out you came further in, you'll never be allowed to step foot in this building again, noble title or not."

So Stanton waited. After the mess of the day, he'd gotten changed, argued with Angel a bunch, got changed again, then tried to ignore her praise of his excellent fashion sense. Now he was wearing a white silk shirt, a pair of trousers that were almost tight enough to be called leggings, and a light jacket that aided in the cover the tight undershirt he was wearing gave him. He was, in short, wearing a slight variation on the current men's fashion.

"Stanton? Here to see Cass, or would any phenomenally powerful wizard suit?"

The female voice was one Stanton knew well. He turned his head only slightly, barely looking at the woman from the corner of his eye. "Well, if it wasn't Shazine Starlit. Heiress to the Western Gray clan—or twenty-third in line."

"Twenty-first, now." Walking over to Stanton, Shazine was wearing no more than a bathrobe, having just left-off her evening wash. She wasn't nearly as powerful, magic wise, as Stanton, but that didn't stop her flirting with him every chance she got. "My eldest brother had an accident while in bed with our cousin."

"Shazine, let me know when you reach about ten and we could make magic." Tilting his hips, Stanton shifted himself away from her. "You know how mother has my whole life planned for me already, and woe betide any who get in her way."

"Ten? Give me a month and we can howl at the moon together." Licking her lips and letting her fangs show, Shazine heard the heavy footsteps of the building's supervisor returning. Fake-biting the air between them, she backed off and turned to ensure she wasn't showing Stanton anything.

The truth was, as far as his family was concerned, Shazine would never be good enough for him. Even if she became clan head for the Western Gray clan, she was still too low ranked to be his equal. What annoyed him was that even Cassandra, should she make full arch-wizard, wouldn't fit their standards—though she was low-ranked enough that her complete lack of political ties made her a good friend or more-than-friend for him prior to whatever horrid marriage was decided.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

"Stanton!" Cassandra had decided against her school clothes, because she was done with school for the day. She'd swapped to a comfortable shirt and knit top with a dress that ended at her ankles. Her hair, thanks to Angel's earlier trick, still hung long down her back. "It turns out I probably don't need help summoning my familiar now. Wait, where is Angel?"

"It turns out tiny, flying wolves can wear themselves out fast. She's having a nap right now." Despite her bulky clothing, Stanton let his eyes drift over Cassandra. She wasn't conventionally beautiful, but her sturdy yet feminine form interested him far more than Shazine's more classical beauty. It also appealed to him that she didn't get as brazen about showing it off. "You sure you're fine?"

"Yes!" Cassandra wanted to just forget the last two hours of her life, but the amount of magic bubbling inside her was undeniable. She was a dragon and there was no amount of familiars that would change that. "You're so weird sometimes, Stanton. What're you doing for dinner?"

It had slipped out. Cassandra wished she could take the offer back, but now it was in the air and she saw Stanton's face light up at the offer.

"Well, I was planning to take a beautiful woman out and laugh at the overly pretentious food on offer at the upper class." Stanton let out a reluctant and hammed-up sigh. "But I'll just have to take a gorgeous one instead." Reaching out a hand toward her, Stanton gave Cassandra his best rakish smile.

"You're terrible, Stanton. Did you know that?" Despite the silliness, or perhaps because of it, Cassandra smiled. "Give me a little bit to get dressed in something more appropriate, then we can head out?"

With a defeated sigh, Stanton glanced toward where Shazine was sitting and listening to them while trying to not look like she was listening. "If it can't be helped." In the back of his thoughts, though, Stanton was well aware how much effort it took to look just right now.

When Cassandra was out of the room, Shazine turned back to look at Stanton, her gown parted just a little more. "Why do you spend any of your time at all with her? She's nothing. She has no family and no political ties."

Much as Stanton would have loved to blow the woman off—metaphorically of course—he also had a use for her. "Cass is a friend, Shazine. She has power and isn't aligned with any family." He let it go at that. The description could be taken two ways—either he was genuinely a friend of Cassandra's and was relieved she had no familial obligations or he was using her as a tool that he'd gotten in his clutches. Stanton knew exactly what Shazine would assume because, to her, there was only the latter option. "You see?"

Smiling, Shazine gestured to the couch opposite her. "Like it was illuminated with mage-light. Please, have a seat and wait for your… companion."

Stanton took a seat and was relieved when none of the carefully planned out clothing he was wearing caused a mishap. "You know what it's like, Shazine. Our families pull all the strings. The best we can do is talk."

Shazine knew all too well. Stanton might be first in line for the leadership role in both of his families, but she was a long way from head of the family and she was constantly dealing with the needs of her relatives. "Yes. I hope you understand I'm not killing my cousins to rise."

"I'd done a little research, Shazine. I wouldn't let myself be seen talking to anyone who was that gauche. You work well, though, casting muck that doesn't stick." It was true. Stanton had been asked to find out how she'd accomplished her rise, and it had all been with judicious application of mud, not blood. "But now…"

Reaching her hand out to the table beside her, Shazine used a whisper of magic to produce a suitably reinforcing drink from her private supply. That it also teased Stanton with a deeper view of her bosom was just as calculated as her magic spell. "Now I have reached the peak of what that can get me. I can't climb higher without getting at least a little blood on my hands." She knew he knew, and she was sure he knew that she knew he knew. Now was the worst part—the part that any political climber hated, "I need your help."

"Your cousin. Five years older than you, paternal line directly from the current leader of your clan, too good at combat to bring down in a duel without someone getting suspicious, and far too clever to let someone disparage his name without having recourse. You're in a bind." Stanton looked up from where he'd been ticking the options off on his fingers to looking directly into Shazine's eyes. "I have a solution."

Four words from anyone's mouth had never sounded as sweet to Shazine. "W-What? How?"

"You have twenty between you and being picked as successor to your clan. I can help with them, but you know this game, Shazine." The look in the woman's eyes told Stanton all he needed to know. The price couldn't be too large in her estimation. "I will put things in motion. When the time comes, and you will recognize it when it comes, you must embrace your wolfess and fight for the seat."

Practically visualizing the shackles that Stanton was locking around her, Shazine breathed out a sigh. "Would it ever have worked between us?"

"No, but not for any lack of yours. My mother has designs on my future." Stanton realized he was going to have to talk to his mother about recent events, but he wasn't ready to tell anyone else. "If it helps, when you take control of your clan, you will find Sharptooth house to be a very lucrative business partner."

"Is it cheating?"

"What? No. Your cousins just didn't make the right friends along the way." Standing up, Stanton reached out for Shazine's hand and lifted it to his lips. "I better go."

In her room, Cassandra was in a quandary. She had some dresses, sure, but there were only two she owned that were close to what Stanton was wearing. She knew, if she went out in his company and wasn't wearing something that could match him, people would point and laugh in the horrid, quiet way that the upper class did.

Of the two dresses she knew would work, one was too large for her and the other was conspicuously missing—presumed stolen by one of the other boarders at the dormitory. She lifted out the one that fit and glared at it, daring the long, silky dress to remain too large in the chest and hip.

The worst part was she'd paid good gold for that dress, and the seamstress who'd made it hadn't sized it right for her, then claimed that she would grow into it. She hadn't.

Her anger spiked and, just as her hand grew green scales and she started to bring her talon down on the dress, bed, and floor under them, she realized she was being stupid. "This form isn't me any more than—than…" She had no analogy to hand, but she was sure of the fact that this body that was a shapechange of her draconic form, could be altered. Biting her lower lip and restoring her hand to normal, she focused on her hips. "Wider…"

The word, like a magic spell, worked. Her hips grew a little more full. Next she focused on her chest. "Fuller?"

The weird part—well, weirdest—was that it just happened. There was no actual magic involved. Cassandra's body could just alter its shape with a word. It didn't stop her from a nervous giggle at the way she could just alter herself. Picking up the dress, she took a moment to slip into it. Her size was, now, just a little big for it. She reduced her thighs to fit, but decided to leave her chest a little large for the outfit.

That's when Cassandra froze, realizing how vain she was being. Sucking up her pride, she reduced her chest back down to fit the dress and not a bit more.

Putting on her best shoes and grabbing a jacket, she made her way back out to find Stanton still waiting.

The sight of Cassandra made Stanton take notice. The deep blue dress, he decided, was working wonders for her. "One day an arch-wizard might be able to figure out how you can capture all attention in a room without a word, but it's not today. You look fantastic, Cass!"

Cassandra blushed. Stanton often praised her looks, but there was a genuine spark in his outburst that made it seem more sincere. She turned around to show off the dress, letting the jacket spread out a little too. "So, where are we going?"

"That's a surprise!" Stanton whirled Cassandra to the door and leaned back just a moment to see the matronly figure of the building superintendent glaring at him. "I'll have her back before dawn, don't worry!" The growl he sensed in her made Stanton grin even more.

Outside, on the street, Stanton felt more free to talk. "Sooooo. What happened? Where's your familiar?" When Cassandra just smiled at him, he adjusted his features to make big, puppy eyes. "I showed you mine, now you show me yours." While doing this, Stanton was employing one of his more curious talents to scribble a note on a slip of paper in his right hand, using a pencil braced between two fingers, for a quick delivery.

"The truth?" Cassandra asked. When Stanton nodded, she laughed. "I messed up. I opened a portal to summon a familiar and summoned a succubus. It's locked up in my closet right now, doing gods only know what to itself, while I am—Stop laughing!"

Bumping into an old man, Stanton sobered quickly. "So sorry, sir!" With a flick of his wrist as he helped the man recover, Stanton slipped the note into a pocket on the man's vest—pressing firmly there for him.

As the pair left, the man reached into his pocket casually and lifted out the note. The hellion is tame.

"Okay, so I don't have a sex demon locked in my closet. I don't know what happened, but after it all kinda worked and now my magic is amplified." Cassandra was leaning on her friendship with Stanton encouraging him to just let it drop.

"I'll let it drop on one condition."

Not breathing a sigh of relief yet, Cassandra asked, "What?"

"You give me a kiss on the cheek." Tilting himself to the side a little, Stanton offered his cheek as prime real estate for Cassandra to press her lips.

"I remember this ploy." Despite her claim she knew what he was up to, Cassandra still kissed Stanton on the cheek. "How did you put it, you getting the kiss is a win, you getting the answer is a win, and just making me embarrassed is a partial win."

"Yup. I literally can't lose. Though, I am still curious about what happened. Still, a kiss is worth it. So, are you ready to eat hideously expensive food and drink some similarly horrific wine?"

----------------------------------------

The only thing Stanton had noticed that was off about Cassandra was she didn't get nearly as drunk as she would normally when they shared a few bottles of wine. He, however, had not fared as well. Leaning against her, getting walked back to his private tower, he was distinctly aware that his sense of balance was completely gone and he was leaning on her. "You're a good friend, Cass. I'm sorry I pushed so hard about your familiar." At least, he hoped his words would come out like that.

Cassandra was shockingly sober, and it made sense to her. Dragons, at least the stories she knew about them, were phenomenally resistant to poisons. The general consensus being that alcohol was just a mild poison meant that she could well understand that maybe, just maybe, she was immune to alcohol. "It's alright, Stanton. The moment I understand what happened, you'll be the first to know." That she doubted she'd ever figure that out made her promise moot.

Reaching Stanton's house just after he'd run out of embarrassing things to tell her, Cassandra led him up to his bedroom. "This is the part where a girl with more fortitude would offer to undress you and get you comfortable in your bed."

Blinking slowly, trying to focus on Cassandra's remarkably clear words, Stanton smiled. "You can't get comfortable in my bed—that's my job!"

"There you are, Stanton!" Angel was fluttering down the stairs from Stanton's bedroom when she spotted Cassandra. "Oh, thank goodness you found her—him, Cass." Gesturing up the stairs, she asked, "Could you help him up the stairs?"

"I never knew Stanton to hold his drink so badly before." It was actually rather easy to help Stanton climb the stairs—far easier when Cassandra just picked him up around the waist and lifted him to the floor of his bedroom. "You redecorated?" she asked Angel.

"Do you like it?" Angel swirled around in a quick, mid-air dance.

Straightening Stanton out on the bed, Cassandra snorted and looked around. "It's a bit too pink for my tastes. Does Stanton like it?"

Plopping down and landing on Stanton's stomach, Angel shook her head. "He hates it, but he puts up with it because I'm that good as a familiar." She gave a firm nod, willing to uphold their bargain if it meant she got to gossip about him.

Reaching over her friend, Cassandra petted Angel on the head. "You definitely are."

"Do you like Stanton?" Angel asked, leaning her head against Cassandra's fingers. "I think you'd make a good girlfriend for him."

"I—Err—I mean—" It was a little bit of a shock. She had thought of him that way, many times, but he'd been frank with her that he would be stuck in whatever arranged marriage his family came up with, and getting into a relationship now would just mean heartbreak later. "I wish I could."

Flying out from under Cassandra's hand, Angel got up to the woman's eye level. "What's up?"

"Stanton is—" Cassandra settled on the bed and slumped a little. Turning, she looked at the passed out guy in question. "Damn he's so, so handsome. It's not fair, Angel. His family is busy planning who he can marry, and even if he and I were dating, we could never be anything more."

"What?! Why do they matter?" Not missing the looks Cassandra was giving Stanton, Angel put her fuzzy hands on her hips. "He likes you, too. Why shouldn't you—you kiss and be special friends?"

"Because Stanton is heir to two of the biggest noble lines in the country. Who he marries will be a powerful woman, regardless of her previous standing. What they want, I believe, is for one of the heiresses of the throne to catch his eye."

"Soooo…" As she tapped her chin in thought, Angel mulled over the idea. "Well, that's easy. We just have to make you into a princess. Did you know I'm a princess?"

"Where are you the princess of?" Talking to Angel didn't seem to be solving Cassandra's problem, but it was distracting from her problem.

"Cuteness!"

Plucking Angel out of the air, Cassandra hugged her. "Yeah, that makes sense. But I'm not a princess."

"Hrmm. I'll see what I can do. Maybe I'll ask Stanton. If anyone knows how to make a princess, it would be a noble."

Cassandra wanted to tell her there was a fat chance of that happening, but Angel was, somehow, so pure and untouched by the world. "Thanks," she said and set Angle down. "I better go home before I get locked out."

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This story is released under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license. If you are paying money to see this or the original creator, Damaged, is not credited, you are viewing a plagiarized copy of the story.