—Infant Dragon?—

  I waited for something, anything to appear, but the air before me remained painfully absent of anything to do with my favourite genre of online books.

  I tried to sigh in annoyance and disappointment, but all that came out of my mouth was a miserable mewling noise. Mother—with what I can only describe as a smile on her scaly lips—leaned in and licked me again. There wasn’t any egg white left on me, so I can only assume that it was a loving gesture.

  A disgusting—wet and revolting gesture—but loving all the same. For a moment I wondered whether I should let myself consider these two as parents, that two sentient dragons could replace my human ones. I immediately discarded the idea—to be honest I don’t think I’m capable of compartmentalising my thoughts in such a way to avoid the undodgeable trauma that’s going to come from this. There wasn't much I could do, other than try and accept the situation and avoid the thoughts of my real parents who are presumably alive and well, but functionally are dead for me.

  So, I might as well ignore reality until I have more than a morbid answer to the question of my new reality.

  “Are all children this… emotionally unstable?” Father complained, looking at his partner who was still comforting the very reasonably upset baby.

  “Babies are meant to be temperamental dear” she chuckled, looking up from the fidgeting child, who had gone back to trying to see if there was some other way of summoning the elusive system.

  “Well, it’s not like I thought that the baby would be reasonable?” He rebuked, Mother stopping her licking to give him an exasperated stare—her good humour wearing thin.

  “Honey.”

  “What?”

  “If you can’t be less temperamental than our infant, I might have to ask you to go catch lunch.” She asked him, phrasing it like he had a choice in the matter.

  “Sorry, I’ll stop being annoying. Just for you.” He apologised, surrendering with a laugh as he moved closer to his partner, their tails wrapping together in a sickly-sweet fashion. It was nauseating enough that I stopped trying to summon the system just to gag at the display of love. It was especially irritating given that I’d died wondering when I’d get a chance to even taste the kind of love they were openly displaying to each other.

  And they didn’t even deign to look at me as they escalated their affectionate gestures towards each other. Father rubbing the spikier scales that were on the apex of his head into the underside of Mother’s jaw, right into that soft spot between the end of the head and the start of the neck. And judging by the rumbling purring coming from her, she obviously enjoyed it, a lot.

  I got the disturbing feeling that if I didn’t interrupt them now, I was going to witness something that I wasn’t going to enjoy.

  And in an overeager attempt to stop what I was about to be a bystander to, I tried to walk towards them—emphasis on tried. When I stood up off the ground, the first leg was easy—familiar territory—even if it was technically attached to something resembling a shoulder, the second one is where things got tricky. I made the mistake of relying on my previous life’s muscle memories, and accidentally kicked out my back leg with the other one, sending myself tumbling back down to the ground snout first.

  Fuck! That hurt!

  It’d make sense that my new nose was sensitive, and smacking it with the full force of my body confirmed that it was as tender as my previous body’s most sensitive… part.

  But what caught me the most off guard was the sudden rush of emotions, much more intense than anything I could’ve ever mustered before. It was a torrent of demands, to cry, to beg, to make the pain stop, and I got caught up in them without a whiff of resistance. I couldn’t control myself at all.

  What came out of my mouth could only be described as whining, the kind of noise that kids only make when they’re at their lowest point. It made you want to run and help, and cringe into yourself at the same time. Some part of me—the adult who’d been about to graduate high school—was mortified that I was crying like a toddler, but all the parts capable of stopping or caring were swamped by the need to get someone’s attention.

  As soon as the noise left my mouth, my two parents immediately returned their attention to me, whatever they were doing before was forgotten as they rushed to my side. Mother used her talon to move my head around, looking for the injury that I’d sustained while Father watched anxiously.

  “Oh no, I think they hit their snout.” Mother sympathetically told Father, while I kept on whining.

  “Poor thing” Father replied, leaning in and giving my injured nose a lick. Mother joined in soon after, the two of them lovingly ministering their care. While it didn’t help with the pain too much, it did help with the sudden shock of emotions overwhelming me, and helped me calm down. The fact that it did help made me confused in a whole new way—that their reassuring touch did something for me that I couldn’t quite put into words. It felt like scratching an itch I’d ignored for so long that I’d forgotten it was there. Though the feeling was buried under the disgusting sensation of being licked, again.

  After a few minutes of their ministrations, the pain began to fade, and the feathery touches to my nose began to administer another new feeling. Giggles started to replace the whining noise, while foxy and inhuman, the sound was still recognisable as infectious giggling. The ticklish organ at the end of my snout flooding me with the uncontrollable need to laugh, and no matter how I tried to hide it from my new parents, they chased after it while echoing my giggling in a deeper baritone.

  Eventually they stopped tickling me, letting me catch my breath as I tried to mentally recoup after what just happened to me. I was an infant—a painfully self-aware infant—that is at the whims of his body and still held all of the social anxieties of a teenager. But before I could self-examine my current state a bit more, a wave of eye-aching exhaustion rolled over me, demanding that I fall asleep right that instant.

  “Aw, our baby’s getting sleepy.” Father murmured to Mother as I struggled to keep my eyes open, a yawn escaping me as I tried to pay attention to their conversation.

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  “I expected it to happen sooner.” Father continued to talk as his tail snuck underneath me, lifting me up as the appendage spiralled into a makeshift bed. It was surprisingly comfortable as I limply enjoyed it, thinking becoming increasingly bothersome.

  “Though do think it's a problem how uncoordinated they are?” Father asked Mother, as he carefully moved as to not disturb me.

  With my higher brain functions dulled, I genuinely felt my body for the first time, without the baggage of my thoughts. The wings and tail—brand new, yet it couldn’t feel more familiar to me. It felt more natural than my old body ever did.

  “I don’t think so, if anything it just proves that you’re the Father.” she joked, Father giving her a glare before smiling again.

  Even the changes felt right, the four legs, neck, and head, were things that I assumed would become uncomfortable at some point. But I’d adjusted to them so fast that I’d already forgotten what being human felt like.

  Walking, talking like before was already a distant memory, faded and happily forgotten. It scared me a little bit, how quickly my previous life felt flimsy and inconsequential. It only took an hour at most before the details were discarded, thrown away for this new world. It would’ve terrified me more if there wasn’t such a big difference between the bodies, being a dragon was simply euphoric compared to my human body. It was so fundamental that I might’ve thought that someone had messed with my mind to make me like it this much, if all my memories didn’t scream of discomfort when compared to this.

  While I already missed the people I knew, all the details about me were happily swept under the rug. My face a blur, I don't think I could've told you any details about it other than my hair colour. My old body already reduced to a couple of numbers, my height and weight the only memory I retained about it.

  What my body looked like has already been replaced in my mind. Silver scales and wings replacing the acne ridden skin, four legs and a tail overwriting the idea of even having arms and hands.

  “So, can we name them yet?” Father quickly asked. But before I could see Mother’s reaction my eyes slid closed, my consciousness hanging on by a thread.

  “Honey.”

  “Yes?” Father replied curiously, before I heard a loud smack.

  “I’ve made it clear many times, wait. It can’t be too much longer now.” Mother replied. The last thought on mind before I fell asleep was a question, my mind wondering what they could possibly be waiting for.

  ***

  I was flying in an almost empty sky, the blue expanse in all directions now filled with the occasional cloud. Below me was a landscape I didn’t recognise, so distant that the only landmark I could make out was a giant mountain, the monolith of stone going high enough that snow was cresting its peak. All around it was green, an ocean of trees.

  I was also there, my wings catching the wind like they were made to do, soaring through my kingdom in the sky. My eyes watching everything, seeing everything.

  I loved it, being free to fly and rule the sky. Nothing to hold me down.

  ***

  “I’m back!” The cheery voice of Father echoed throughout the small cave, jerking me to wakefulness in an instant and making me feel incredibly grumpy.

  The dream that’d been interrupted was one I’d had consistently throughout my life, but my body actually being present was a nice new detail. And being able to see the land below was an interesting new development. I was the kind of person who couldn't remember their dreams, though that one was always the exception. Made the idea of getting a dream journal kinda boring.

  I opened my eyes to see that I’d been moved since I’d fallen asleep. Now Mother was lying down next to me, and I was lying in the crook of her neck and shoulder, with her powerful neck curving around me. I huffed angrily as Mother moved to look at him, disturbing my sleeping position.

  “Look what you’ve done now, they’re awake!” Mother scolded Father, who gave a little laugh before dropping something he was carrying, the mysterious red glob splatting against the stone floor.

  “Well, it’s dinner time, so they would’ve needed to wake up anyways.” Father playfully snarked back and I took a moment to look at the mystery package a bit longer. It looked like pre-chewed mince meat, and what kind of meat that was still a mystery no matter what angle I looked at it. But god did it smell tempting, even if it was raw it activated neurons that demanded that I dig in and ravage it.

  “Well somebody is hungry.” Mother chuckled as my stomach rumbled. I waited for one of them to move the meat closer to me than a few me-sized steps away, but they both just stared at me like they expected me to do something.

  “Go on.” Mother encouraged me, pushing me a little bit with her neck. I quickly realised that if I wanted to eat, I’d have to undergo my first trial of this world.

  I shakily placed my feet underneath me, taking an extremely long time to do that, even before trying to stand up. I managed to get my feet—which I just realised were very similar to talons—and organised them into the right positions in preparation for my first step, I tried to stand. After the false start I had earlier while fleeing their tongues, I'd learnt from my mistakes and shakily forced my unfamiliar muscles into position.

  While I assume that some part of the reincarnation process allowed me to know how to control my new muscles without having to go to physical therapy, it didn’t mean I had the habits or muscle memory on how to use them properly.

  After a bit of experimentation, I arranged the limbs into a good standing position, but the real trial hadn’t even started yet. I tried to take a step, but the other three legs immediately folded under the increased pressure. But this time I was prepared for the fall, and let myself slide into a spread eagle position rather than forwards onto my snout again.

  “It was a good first attempt.” Father consoled me, and instead of trying to walk again I slid along the floor, using my claws to drag myself forwards. It wasn’t pretty but after a few seconds of scrabbling along on the stone like a lizard I managed to reach the meat.

  I gave it a few tentative sniffs as I tried to figure out what this meat was before I dug into it. While I was starving and technically no longer human, I’m still going to try to figure out what it is before I ate it.

  “Is there something wrong with it?” Mother asked, Father giving her the draconic approximation of a shrug.

  “It’s the usual rat that we get—it’s fresh as well, before you ask.” Father responded in confusion.

  A rat? I stopped entertaining the meal and immediately glared at Father, no matter how hungry I am, I’m not eating rat. I’m not an animal y’know. Well-

  A loud clash of something metallic slamming against stone echoed through the chamber. All three of us immediately froze and looked at the origin of the noise, and I found myself staring at the entrance to the cave we were in. I hadn’t noticed it before, but I wasn't even ten metres away from the outside world.

  “Quick!” Mother cried out as she stood, grabbing me and dragging me before I could react. In a moment I found myself crammed into a little stone alcove, barely big enough to move in. The position painfully familiar to being stuck in that egg.

  I began to slide out of the small hole, curious about what was approaching, but Father stopped me, holding a talon in front of me. I wasn't going to be forced back into a tiny space so easily, not after being stuck in the foetal position for who knows how long.

  But my internal dialogue was interrupted by the quiet sound of faraway chatter, the sounds of joking and camaraderie in a language I’d never heard of before. Father picked me up in a talon with an anxious urgency, taking me to the back of the stone room and gently pushing me back into the little recess in the wall.

  Before I could escape again, Father picked up a stone and used it to block the entrance to the little hideaway, the space barely big enough to fit me even while I was curled up. Even though I hated how claustrophobic it was, I sat there and let it happen this time—the panic of my two new parents was all the convincing I needed. There was enough fear in their eyes to know that the situation was serious.

  But in all honesty, I was curious as to what the hell was happening out there, and what could possibly scare two dragons this much. I moved to the entrance of my little hole and was about to try and push the rock a little so I could peek out. But I quickly changed my mind when everything abruptly went silent. A cacophony of steel sliding against steel ringing out soon after, the palpable tension of promised violence and bloodshed thick in the air.