If you’ve ever had that thing where you wake up in a strange place and don’t know where you are. Well it was going around that first morning and Lucia Dunn had it in spades. For a start everything was catawampus; a word her father used after spending part of his childhood in the States. She also liked the word fankled, which was the Scots word for pretty much the same thing but with an additional layer of entanglement. She was wrapped in a warm blanket of blue to purple feathers. Above her head was a disturbing scene of death and gore. A group of men four men, no their ears were the wrong shape. Elves. They lay slaughtered around an extinguished fire. Blood and juicy, no gross, bits lay everywhere. A primitive looking tent lay partially collapsed on top of things she thought might be valuable. Low squarish mounds reminded her of pictures her dad had shown her of foundation mounds at archaeology sites. Where the remains of building lay buried. Below her feet were the boughs of a tree, broad and and green and sheltering. Her broad and muscular tail was wrapped around the same branch she had her claws dug into.
This was a weird dream.
She closed her eyes and started to drift back to sleep. But the pressure in her bladder that had first woken her insisted that she wake up.
She opened her eyes again only to be met with the same scene as before.
Really weird. Dream logic usually changes the scene when you close your eyes. Not as strong a lucid dreamer as her father, who would summon glowing green fire as his tell that he was dreaming she’d have to make do with far simpler checks on her reality. She looked at her hands in her duvet, strong, scaled and clawed. Definitely dreaming then. Weird hands were always a sign. She raised one clawed finger and poked the palm of the other hand. Just to be sure. Lucid dreamers had reported things like their fingers going through their hands in their dreams; things that couldn’t happen in real life.
That’s what happened here, of course. Just a little bit, as the tip of her claw broke the softer skin in the palm of her hand. It was like biting your tongue while eating.
“Ow!”
She reflexively put her bleeding palm to her snout to lick the wound.
Snout?
All the way awake now she squeaked in panic. Her tail losing its grasp along with her claws grip in the bark.
She fell.
The bloody campsite rose to meet her face first.
Reflexively she extended her blue and purple feathered wings to arrest her fall, and she twisted in mid air to land on her feet. She loomed over the site, and the dead, as she stood. Her hearts were pounding as she straightened up. She looked down at her flat reptilian chest. Her girls! But panic was overwhelming her. She wanted to be human. She tried to remember what she looked like. hair, pale Scot’s complexion. The works.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
{Utilising [Born of Dragons] abilities; accessing maternal form imprint. Mother was [[Burghal] Tares]. Assuming form of [[Exemplar] Human and [[Burghal] Tares] Hybrid. Although [[Exalt] Human] is available. In this form you have the Seagel [Born of Darkness] and the Human birth trait [Born of Death]. Imprint form “Lucia Esme Dunn” for future recall? Y/N}
The words scrolled up in the bottom left side of her vision. If she had spotted them sooner she’d have known she was awake; being moderately dyslexic she couldn’t read in her dreams. But these words she understood fine, without effort. Even though the script itself was completely alien to her.
“What’s the difference between exemplar humans and exalt humans?”
{[[Exemplar] Human]s are of the [[Human]] baseline. 98% of [[Humans]] are [[Exemplar] Human]s. [[Exalt] Human]s make up the remaining 2%. They are larger, stronger and more durable. Most [[Exalt] Human]s believe that this makes them superior to other [[Humans]]. Both are found proportionally across all human groups and cultures. The height and build of “Lucia Esme Dunn” are towards the upper end of [[Exemplar] Human] but at the lower end of [[Exalt] Human]s. Do you wish to modify “Lucia Esme Dunn” to be an [[Exalt] Human] and [[Burghal] Tares] hybrid? Y/N}
“Will it have any effect on me at all?”
{Effects will be entirely cosmetic. Although this extends to anyone who can identify your species and will mask your actual species from even yourself. Do you wish to modify “Lucia Esme Dunn” to be an [[Exalt] Human] and [[Burghal] Tares] hybrid? Y/N}
“What’s my actual species then?”
{You are [Born of Dragons], meaning your species is actually a collection of individuals destined, in time, to grow to become a true dragon. This is a state that has many descriptions in the different languages of Lusfell but can ultimately be boiled down to [Dragon [Bastard]]. Do you wish to modify “Lucia Esme Dunn” to be an [[Exalt] Human] and [[Burghal] Tares] hybrid? Y/N}
“Yes.”
{Do you wish to Imprint form “Lucia Esme Dunn” for future recall? Y/N}
“Yes.”
{Form ”Lucia Esme Dunn” imprinted; Accessing imprinted form “Lucia Esme Dunn”.}
Lucia suddenly felt herself diminish, wings and tail folding away. Face becoming human again. In a matter of moments she found herself standing naked amongst the group of dead people. Her bladder having sorted itself out. Walking over to the tent she lifted the tarp to find a backpack underneath. Within she found some delicious looking clothes.
After she dressed she found her reflection in a polished blade. Her complexion was darker; more a bronze than her normal boring northern European paleness. Her ears were large and pointed. Not so much as the dead people around her. Her eyes were not blue but purple. The pupils and irises too large by far. Hopefully nobody would notice. She packed away the tent and other gear, letting her body do the work without her thinking about it too much. Her dad was big on trusting ones instincts. Once that was done she turned to the dead guys.
After a few minutes thought she decided that it wasn’t her problem. While she had been avoiding them, despite her gamer instincts saying to loot their bodies, she felt too grossed out by what she saw. Something had taken large bites out of them and she hoped it wasn’t her. She shouldered her pack put on a fur collared cloak over it and the quilted leather coat she was wearing, grey hat on her head, one of her own feathers in the band, and set off along the most obvious path, picking out a tune on the lute she’d found in the tent.
“I'm gonna fight 'em all / A seven nation army couldn't hold me back / They're gonna rip it off / Taking their time right behind my back...”