*000000*

Looking in the dim reflection, you see something almost completely alien.

Only 'almost,' because after a few seconds of detached shock, you are able to catch the resemblance; for some reason, you're a Dragon now.

A vague part of you thinks this is really cool, and that it'd be awesome to try out the wings on your back, but the rest of you wants hands right now.

A tingling sensation washes across you, a mixture of shiver, tremble, and statickiness like when you've rubbed your feet against the carpet too long, and you're about to get a static shock. Shaking slightly, you look down at your-

Hands.

You have hands again.

Your eyes snap back up again, and you see your reflection, and it's you again, gawky, tall thirteen-year-old Taylor Hebert, wearing your outfit from camp, staring back with stunned eyes.

You burst into tears of relief, and just moments later you're wrapped up in warm arms.

"Hey," the police lady says, "Is this how you're supposed to be?"

"Y-yes," you gasp, going almost limp in her arms in relief, "I'm me again."

"That's great," she says gently, and you can feel the smile in her voice, even if you can't see it, "I'm sure we'll get you home in no time."

You like the sound of that, and for several long moments, you just enjoy her embrace, your emotions slowly settling down.

"So," she says, pulling back a bit so that you can turn and look her in the face, "Where are you from?"

"Brockton Bay," you say, "Massachusetts."

"What district is that in?" she asks, frowning slightly, "I don't remember a Brockton Bay."

"...Don't you mean that the other way around?" you ask, worry starting to rise in you again, "It's the state of Massachusetts, in the USA?"

"USA?" she asks.

"United States of America?" you say, "You know, third-largest country in the world.?"

"Let's fetch a map," she says, turning and gently tugging you along behind her back into her office, "Sometimes shapes are easier than names."

Her office is small, and marked by the kind of semi-cluttered order that you know from visiting both of your parents at their offices, means they have much work to try to keep everything in perfect order. It doesn't take… actually-

"I'm sorry," you say, "I never got your name."

"I'm Guildmage Feather," she says, glancing back at you with a friendly smile, before turning away for a few more moments to find the map she was looking for, "Currently on long-term assignment to Precinct House Nineteen of District Nine. What's your name?"

"I'm Taylor Hebert," you reply, "I don't have a job; I was at Summer camp until whatever happened."

"What do your parents do?" Feather asks, bringing a map over to her desk and laying it out on her map, "And do you recognize where you're from?"

The map she brings over is enormous, and it takes you a moment to realize why. It's depicting a chunk of city that's like a rectangle squeezed on one end, and it's showing twenty levels of that. You can't read the writing on the map, but it's clearly indicating that the twenty different parts of the same shape are on top of each other.

"This doesn't look like any city map I've ever seen before," you say, trying to keep down the hysteria rising inside of you as you look up at Feather, "I've never even heard of a city that's all stacked on top of itself like this."

"...This is going to be more serious than I'd thought," Feather says with a frown, laying a hand on your shoulder, "Tell me everything you remember before you came here."

((()))

You'd vaguely heard about police having special techniques for interviewing people, but you hadn't realized just how good those techniques are. Feather manages to not just pull a lot of details out of you that you'd already half-forgotten, she also does a very good job of helping you keep calm through the whole thing.

The results aren't very encouraging; it's clear you're on another alternate planet, though definitely not Earth Aleph, Feather talks a lot about districts, sections, and precincts, but doesn't even seem to have a concept of what a 'city' is, not until you explain it to her, though she grasps it pretty quickly.

The whole process isn't very pleasant, but you appreciate that Feather doesn't try to keep things from you, unlike most adults did after your mother died.

"I won't lie to you, Taylor," Feather says when you're finished, "Planar travel is a subject I thought was purely academic, and I'm a Guildmage. Most people would never even have heard of it. That it is a known subject of magical study says it'll probably be possible to get you home, but it isn't going to be easy. We're going to have to bring in specialists on that, and I don't know if even the-"

She cuts off as someone opens her office door, and you turn to see the same tall, fit black man from last night has entered.

"Swadu enta karj?" he asks.

"Pt mja karj," Feather replies with a nod, "Afu Kajfo Mnulipa tratuja."

"Pat," he says with a frown, before turning and offering you his hand, "Ypjak Yjilu Kos."

"What's he saying?" you ask, tentatively reaching out to take his hand, then returning his firm handshake.

"This is my CO," Feather says, pausing a moment when she sees you're still confused, "My boss, Lieutenant Kos. He was asking if you're the lizard-person we found last night."

You nod, not sure what else to say, and listen for a couple of minutes as they jabber in their foreign language, instead looking down at your hands and one of the details that you hadn't noticed at first when you turned back into yourself.

You fingernails are a metallic gray, the same shade as the scales of the Dragon you were an hour ago. It's impossible to be sure with how little you know about parahuman powers and magic, but you're pretty sure you haven't seen the last of your scaly alter-ego.

"I'm going off-duty in less than an hour," Feather says, and you turn your attention back to her, assuming that she's addressing you, since she's speaking English, "Since we don't have any expedient way to get you back to your parents, and it's going to take a lot longer to try to sort out your case, we can either set you up in one of our overnight rooms here, or you can come home with me."

"...Does anyone else here speak English?" you ask as Lieutenant Kos leaves her office.

"...Not that I know of," Feather says, shaking her head after a moment's thought, "I suppose that makes the choice kind of obvious, huh?"

You nod.

"I'd offer you a book," Feather says with a laugh, "But you wouldn't be able to read it. Instead, why don't you go take a look around the Precinct-Fort, and see if anything catches your interest. Here-"

She passes you a badge with writing you don't understand on it.

"This'll mark you as an approved guest to visit anywhere but the jail cells or the secure armory," she says, "You can stick around here if you want too, but I'll just be doing paperwork, and the faster I finish it, the sooner we can leave."

"...Thank you," you say, taking the badge and pinning it to your shirt, before leaving her office.

It's fairly obvious which office belongs to Lieutenant Kos; it's right next to Feather's, and the only other one with a light shining out from under the door. Checking the third office door shows that it's locked, so you move on to the western double-doors with the windows you used as a mirror. This time you focus on what is on the other side of the window, a task made easier by the fact that someone turned the lights on out there.

You're not entirely sure what to make of the large room beyond; it looks like a cross between an office and a prison, which you suppose would make sense for some kind of police station. There's maybe a dozen people moving about in there, and they aren't all human. A couple are, but there's several squat green people, a minotaur, and a few other people further away whose proportions are just not quite human.

You're pretty sure Minas Tirith only had seven levels, but you're definitely feeling like you're closer to Middle Earth right now than home.

After dallying for a little while, you work up the nerve and push the door open as quietly as you can, slipping into the large room. Several sets of eyes snap over to look at you, most dramatically from the Minotaur, who looks to be five times the size of a normal human, but they only look you over for a moment, before turning back to whatever they were doing.

You don't think they were trying to threaten you, but it certainly still feels that way, and you scurry along the wall of the room you entered at, looking around at anything that catches your interest. You wander the building semi-aimlessly, and the number of people present is steadily increasing as you do so, which suggests that Feather was on nightshift, and now the larger part of the work force is coming on for dayshift.

With all the signage the foreign language, it's not clear what a lot of the rooms are specifically intended for, but you do see a reoccurring crest or motif, a fist inside of a sunburst. It's not clear if that's a marking for the 'Wojek,' for this Precinct Fort, or maybe a religious symbol, but it's in almost every room and hallway, so it's significant, whatever it is.

One area it isn't hard to figure out the purpose for, is a large open yard, where armored men, minotaurs, goblins(?), and a pair of giants are conducting training drills. That they're using swords and spears really drives home that you're not in Kansas anymore, but what really stands out to you is how fast they are.

You've seen movies and cartoons where people use swords before, and only the Japanese ones have the swordsmen moving anything like this fast. You're glad they're practicing in armor, because you're pretty sure that otherwise, there'd be serious injuries at least every few seconds.

Oh, right. They're probably using practice blades without sharp edges too, but still.

"Like what you see?" Feather calls from behind, startling you a little, and you realize you've probably been watching the weapon drills for a half hour or more, though it'll be hard to tell without a watch.

"They're really good," you say, looking over your shoulder at Feather.

"They'd better be," Feather says gravely, "Lives depend on their ability to best criminals in combat, their own and those of the citizenry. A skilled enough swordsman can even disarm a thug without needing to seriously injure them, a high bar to aim for."

"They look like they could," you say, staring at the drilling yard again, where one of the more aggressive soldiers is forcing two others to retreat at the same time.

"It depends on the level of challenge they're facing," Feather says, patting you on the shoulder, then tugging you away, "Come on, let's head home, we can pick up food along the way."

You nod and let her pull you away, content to stick to her shadow as she moves through the now-bustling precinct fort, with even more strange non-human people in it. You spy someone with blue skin on the way out.

There's too many non-humans for this to just be a place with a particularly large amount of parahumans.

It isn't hard to see when you reach the precinct fort's entrance, something you were wondering if it existed after how long you wandered around without seeing one. It looks like a castle entrance, which you suppose it kind of is, with bulky stone towers on either side, a portcullis, a big wooden gate, and another giant standing guard.

"Jukamaboros," he rumbles, his voice so deep your bones vibrate a little, nodding respectfully as Feather leads you out.

"Othar," she says, pausing to salute him with a fist over her chest, before continuing outward, "Mata prain katcha."

You try not to stare too much as you follow her out, but it's hard.

"Welcome to-well, in your tongue it translates as 'Sun' Street," Feather says, gesturing grandly to the city around you, and your eyes almost fall out of your head.

When you saw the map of twenty layers of city atop each other, you hadn't really put together what that means in your mind.

Looking up, and seeing layer after layer of walkways and arches above you, rising so high and thick that there's only a few patches of blue sky distantly visible, you start to understand what that really means.

"I'm sure you're wondering why it's called Sun Street when we're so deep," Feather says, tugging you along after her, even as your eyes stay fixed up above, "That's because this is the lowest street in the sector that actually receives sunlight. That-"

She gently redirects your head towards an odd statue that stands in the middle of the square the precinct-fort opens on to.

"-Has a prism in the top that makes a beautiful show when the light strikes it at high noon. If you're here long, you should make a point of seeing it."

You nod, and start surveying the surrounding buildings. If you don't pay attention to just how far up things go, this could be any New England street with tall townhouses and mid-sized commercial buildings lining it. Well, there's also the broad variety of non-human people, but you're still trying to process the fantasy kitchen sink you've found yourself in.

"Here," Feather says, pulling a small notebook out of her uniform robes with a smile, having noticed how much of a tourist you're being, "Point out a shop, and I'll tell you what it's called, as well as write down the Common name alongside the translation for you."

"Thanks!" you say, smiling back, before twisting around to point at some kind of food cart, "What's that?"

"Smashbala," she says, "It's 'sausage on a stick.' You'll see other food carts with the same thing, especially in our district."

You nod, then point out a clothing store, then something you're not sure about (Feather says it's a tea house), and on, and on. It only takes a few minutes to walk to her place, but in that time she writes out the names of dozens of places. The list is long enough to almost fill up both sides of the page she's writing on, and as you get to the building with her apartment, she adds one more.

"This is McClade's Armory," she says, gesturing to the workshop you can hear hammering from, before opening a door right next to it and heading up the stairs within, "McClade's a friend, and a skilled mage-smith. I'll introduce you after I've changed out of my work clothes."

She leads you up to the second floor and into a small apartment, which has the same kind of 'functional clutter' as her office did, and seeing a living space makes the contrast to Earth Bet stand out all the more.

As familiar things, there's bookshelves, chairs and a couch with cushions, a fireplace, and a kitchenette with what looks like a small refrigerator and a sink with a faucet and drain.

For unfamiliar things, there's no TV or other electronics, no lightswitches or overhead lights, instead several wall-mounted lanterns evenly spaced around the apartment. Giant windows along one wall provide most of the illumination, windows that have astonishingly clear glass, giving an excellent view of the street below.

You look over Feather's book collection, none of which seem to be in English, though the markings on some are different enough you suspect multiple different languages, and she changes very quickly during your exercise in frustration.

She changes into a simple, modest dress, but seeing her in something more overtly feminine drives home just how pretty she is, and you find yourself a bit jealous.

"Alright then," she says, "The barbecue place across the street is pretty good, and you seemed to like meat."

You nod, and follow her as she heads back out of the apartment and down the stairs. The hammering has stopped by the time you get down there, and she leads you into McClade's Armory, where you find a gruff-looking old man with a big beard and even bigger muscles inspecting a glowing piece of metal.

"McClade!" Feather calls, "Afyigasna dienna sue. Taylor morcha tiki pobawup. Yarsina Hjiuka ma itu koras."

He waves with his free hand, you wave back, then let Feather lead you back out of his shop.

"I told him you'll be staying with me for a while," she says, "And you don't speak Common. If you need help and can't find me, he's a reliable man to go to. Good mage-smith too, the precinct places orders with him."

"So he makes magic items?" you say.

"He does," Feather says, "Everything from trinkets to elementally-enchanted arms and armor."

She leads you into the restaurant across the street, and you realize 'barbecue' is a closest translation. They're not cooking the meat over an open pit of coals, it's more roasted, but it still smells delicious.

"Do you have a type of meat you'd prefer?" Feather asks as a waitress (who looks to be an elf) seats you in a small two-person booth, "Or would you like a sampler?"

"...The sampler sounds good?" you half-ask hesitantly.

"I'll order that for you then," she says, exchanging a few words with the waitress, before turning her attention back towards you, "So, you have my full attention now; what would you like to talk about?"

What to talk about?

[] Ask how she knows your language.

[] Ask about how your fingernails are still gray.

[] Ask about her.

[] Write-in.

((()))

If you all hadn't picked a Dragon with alternate form as an innate ability, things would have been much rougher on Taylor. Not unrecoverable, but much rougher. Body dysphoria is a hell of a thing.

Vote on how hit dice will be handled in this quest, for Taylor, friends, and enemies:

[] Default rules; first hit die is maximized, other HD are rolled.

[] Averaging. First HD is maximized, all others are averaged, which on 1d12 means alternating 6 then 7 for Taylor.

[] All maximized. Taylor gets 12 hit points from each of her HD, and every enemy gets maxed HP as well.

A detailed explanation for how HP work in D&D, and what these options mean:

Spoiler

((()))

After you post your vote, please hit the 'edit post' button, then the 'throw dice' button, and roll 1d6. This will be used in agglomeration for Taylor's stats. I rolled one on my last post as an example of how it should look.

Also, Taylor's activities at Camp have netted her a starting bonus of +3 to Wis and will always count Heal as in-class, +2 to Int, and +1 to Con.

[X] Ask how she knows your language.

[x] All maximized. Taylor gets 12 hit points from each of her HD, and every enemy gets maxed HP as well.

((()))

"How do you speak my language?" you ask, "I haven't heard anyone else speaking English."

"There are spells for that," Feather says, "Though it'd be more accurate to say I have a magical talent for tongues. What's magic like on your home plane?"

"...Fictional?" you say a bit hesitantly.

"Fictional?" Feather says, her eyes going a little wide, "Really? I've heard that low-magic planes exist, but I've never actually met someone from one. Do you know if it's because-I suppose it'd be silly to ask if you know why when you thought magic was fictional until last night, wouldn't it?"

You nod.

"Well then," Feather says, leaning forward, her eyes bright with curiosity, "What is society like without magic? Your clothes certainly aren't the sorts of primitive things that fantasy writers predicted."

You realize that she's telling you people in this fantasy world think of any society without magic as being primitive, and a giggle leaks out of you.

"Well," you begin, glancing around for a moment to see if anyone is paying attention to your conversation, before remembering no one can understand your conversation, "For starters, on Earth Bet, fiction writers tend to associate magic with primitive societies, because it's kinda associated with foolish superstition, and thought to suppress scientific and cultural development."

"Fascinating," Feather says, "I assume your… hm, the translation is 'natural sciences' are very developed then?"

"Yes," you say with a nod, "Airplanes that can go faster than sound, televisions-"

"Woah," Feather interrupts you for the first time, blinking, "It's a little trippy when the translation magic inserts a whole new concept in my mind because there's no equivalent in other languages I know. Are 'televisions' common?"

"Almost everyone in modern nations has one," you say with a nod, "Computers are more important at this point though."

Feather raises a hand for you to pause again, blinking and shaking her head, probably as 'computer' sorts itself out as a concept in her mind, then gestures for you to continue after a moment.

"Those are almost as common as TVs now," you continue, "And both of those, as well as lots of other things, run on the electrical grid. Um, I suppose that's like harnessed lightning, or maybe manufactured lightning, which is made by wrapping conductive wire around a magnet and spinning it…"

The two of you spend what's probably an hour or so talking about Earth Bet technology, 'the city's' magitechnology, and the advantages and disadvantages of both. You'd barely notice your food arriving if it wasn't delicious, but it's hardly an impediment to ongoing conversation. Earth Bet comes out ahead on most things, some things are about the same, and this world's magic gives advantages in a few specific areas.

The biggest place where things are about the same, is plumbing. Magic for summoning large amounts of clean water is apparently cost-effective by scale, which means that the whole city has relatively cheap water and sewage services.

The one unquestionable place where Earth Bet is at a disadvantage, is healing. Magical healing is apparently pretty cheap for most injuries, and proportionately about as expensive as more serious surgery or drug regimes for diseases. The cost might be about the same, but the effectiveness is worlds apart. A quick 'Restoration' or 'Remove Disease' spell (you'll give points for very straightforward naming), and almost any disease will be gone. There's a handful of nasty magical diseases out there, but if they're too nasty for the 'basic' healing spells, they just bring in more powerful healing magic.

Where Earth Bet is at an advantage, is something that Feather actually gets kind of excited about.

"You're saying that having an 'automobile' is so common that even poor people can afford them?" she asks.

"Not really poor people," you say, "But working-class families usually have cars, older and more beat-up ones, like dad's truck, but most people need them to get to their job and back."

"That's incredible," Feather says brightly, "Even horses are expensive here, and riding a vehicle that is operated by magic is exclusive to the wealthy, or special occasions for what you'd call the 'middle class.' Teleportation circles help, but they just aren't the same."

"Teleportation circles?" you ask, which starts a whole new tangent of conversation, one that carries you through the short walk back home, and Feather getting you set up in her small guest room.

Apparently for a flat fee, about a day's wages for a skilled craftsman, you can take a teleportation circle to the far side of the planet. They're really expensive to make, but because they last indefinitely if they're not sabotaged, they're not bank-breaking to use.

"Alright," Feather eventually says, pulling her notepad out of her pocket with a yawn, "I should try to get some sleep. If you're alright with it, I'll cast a spell that will let you read a book that you're actually touching before I go to bed. It'll only last a few hours, but it should give you something to do. Either way-"

She tears off the page she was writing street signs and their translations on, and passes it to you.

"-This should help you avoid getting lost if you want to go explore the city a little. If you do go out, please stay on Sun Street or Lave Street, just to make sure you don't get lost. The badge I gave you will let me find you if you do get lost, and the entire section is pretty safe, but I don't think either of us wants that to become necessary in the first place."

Well, that makes sense.

What will Taylor do while Feather is sleeping? (Pick two)

[] Accept the translation spell and read.

[] Go down to watch McClade work.

[] Go exploring.

[] You have an itch to try to figure out the whole Dragon thing…

((()))

Taylor's ability scores are looking like the following:

Strength: 14

Dexterity: 14

Constitution: 18 (including +3)

Intelligence: 18 (Including +2)

Wisdom: 18 (Including +3)

Charisma: 18 (Including +2)

If people really want I can shuffle the dice results around, she had 16, 16, 15, 15, 14, 14, but I think this is plenty good enough that people will be fine with it.

Skills:

Taylor will be getting (currently) 10 skill points per level. This means she gets to 'fill up' 10 skills per level. As I mentioned in passing earlier on the thread, we will be using the condensed Pathfinder skill list. It isn't horrifically different from 3.5's, it mostly just condenses some skills together. Hide & Move Silently become Stealth, Spot, Listen, and Search become Perception, etc.

Here is Taylor's starting skill list as GM-determined based on what she has already known and does.

Perception: 4

Heal: 4

Sense Motive: 4

Survival: 4

Knowledge Nature: 4

Knowledge Sciences: 4.

(As a note, 'Heal' will still be useful even with heal spells.)

[X] Accept the translation spell and read.

[X] You have an itch to try to figure out the whole Dragon thing…

[X] Linguistics

[X] Fly

[X] Diplomacy

[X] Concentration

((()))

"I'd like a chance to read some," you say, hesitating a bit before continuing, "Is there something dangerous about the spell?"

"Not at all," Feather says, shaking her head with a sad smile, "I just wanted to make sure you were okay with it after someone hit you with a major spell against your will."

"Thank you," you say, trying to smile, but it feels a bit strained.

"Kjiedu Astonagie." Feather declares, one of her hands glowing as she reaches over and gently touches your forehead.

A feeling like warm butter oozes down through your head, and a moment later you taste almond butter of all things.

"You need to actually touch what you want to read for the magic to work," Feather says, "It should last for about three hours."

"Thank you," you say, already moving over to touch the spine of one of the books on Feather's shelves.

After a moment, the characters twist around in your vision, and it reads 'Minotaur physiology and common diseases.' Okay, probably not where you want to start, but the important thing is that the spell works!

A glance back at Feather shows that she's already withdrawing into one of the two bedrooms; she waves before closing the door behind her, and you wave back, before turning your attention back to the bookshelves, and slowly running your hand across it to read the titles.

Eventually you settle on a volume titled 'The Ways of the Wojek' for a starter, since they're fairly obviously the local police, and you're directly under their protection. Getting an idea for what they write about themselves seems appropriate.

'Archangel Razia' seems like a weird pseudonym for the author, but you don't pay it much mind.

It's actually a surprisingly easy read, or at least the first part of it. As it moves from general concepts on towards fine details, you start to lose it a bit, but the basics are fairly simple.

The Wojek's first role is to be a highly-visible deterrent. The more certain a potential criminal is they will face punishment, the less likely they are to attempt to attack or steal from someone else. The ideal to be pursued is that would-be malefactors should see attacking another citizen or stealing their goods as being certain to bring down punishment upon them.

The Wojek's second role, and what is required to enable the first, is to be physically and magically capable of enforcing the law. If criminals think they are capable easily defeating the Wojek, the probability of reprisal from law-enforcement is meaningless. Ideally, criminals should know that if they come face to face with a Wojek officer of the law, it will save them pain to simply submit to arrest, as resisting or attempting to flee is futile.

The Wojek's third role, is to be known for enforcing only fair and reasonable punishments. Theft is to be punishable by a fine and perhaps time at labor, similarly minor destruction of property, or minor assault. It is best for criminals to know that their punishment will not be overly onerous, and when their sentence is served, they'll be free to rejoin society, so long as they are not repeat offenders.

This last rule is somewhat trickier with more serious offenders, as major assault, rape, murder, and grand theft or arson by their egregious nature require serious punishment. Typically those already willing to commit such brutal crimes have little chance of rehabilitation, and even if they are, ten to a hundred-

You pause for a moment, double-checking the wording there.

-Ten to a hundred year long sentences are often seen as a bad enough fate that it's worth attempting a slim chance at escape, as even living in the Gruul or Rakdos territories is preferable to interminable incarceration.

You'll have to look up what a 'Gruul' or 'Rakdos' is later, or probably just ask Feather. You assume that since they don't translate, they're names rather than some native word. There's a lot of specific cases cited as examples, but they tend to reference a lot of legal minutiae that you don't understand.

One thing is fairly clear though, this 'Razia,' whatever their real name is, really likes to use big complicated words.

Eventually the translation spell wears off, and you put the book down. It's jarring, how what was once easily legible to you, so quickly became incomprehensible. Magic is fairly incredible, but you're going to have to get used to some strangeness, it seems.

And while magic is already on your mind…

You look down at your steel-gray fingernails, which you definitely didn't paint that color, and also are perfectly evenly colored. You aren't as much into the make-up stuff as Emma, but experimenting with cosmetics with your best friend has told you that it isn't easy to get stuff that even, and that it's not very hard to chip or ding the polish.

They're also the exact same shade as your scales as a Dragon. You're not entirely sure how you can be so certain of that without a direct comparison, but you know it's true, and all it will take-

A shiver runs through your body, a feeling like an over-inflated water balloon letting some pressure out, and then you're looking at the apartment from a significantly lower perspective. A perspective with sharper eyes, that rests on four limbs instead of two.

A shiver of fear runs through, but you take a deep breath and feel for… yes, whatever is letting you shift forms, you're confident that you'll be able to shift back to your human body once you 'push' at the right mental space.

With that thought firmly in mind, it's much easier for you to examine your Dragon form without feeling utterly horrified.

The most immediately obvious thing is your scales. They're tough, metallic, and only have just enough flex in them not to impede your movement. Large stiff scales across the length of your arms and legs, smaller and more flexible ones at your joints, with an odd mixture of the two between your rib cage and… hindquarters?

What are the right terms for Dragon anatomy? You're not really sure.

The scales on your tail are big and a bit looser, but with a lot of overlap, and are protecting a well-muscled appendage underneath. You'd expected it to be harder to turn around and get a good look at your tail, but your neck is both proportionately much longer than a human's, and much more flexible on top of that.

Turning it a hundred and eighty degrees is easy, and you can actually go a moderate distance past that, which lets you get a decent look at the scales on your neck, which also seem to be alternating layers of big and tough, with small and flexible. It looks like pretty good protection, but you find yourself hankering for a book that'd explain the subject to you in more detail.

The flexibility of your neck also brings to your attention how your eyes are set in your head. Obviously, you can't see your own head, and you only had a few seconds in a poor mirror to look at it, but you know they don't have the same, hm, facing, as a human's. By 'default,' when you're not looking at anything in particular, your eyes both face forward and to the sides, which gives you a much larger field of vision than humans have.

You're sure there's some sort of reason human eyes both face straight forwards, but you don't really know what it is. Another thing you'd like a good book on; if Feather has medical books on Minotaurs, she probably has one on humans, and hopefully somebody on this version of Earth has a book on Dragons.

There isn't really a whole lot you can find out about how your anatomy is supposed to work until you get some appropriate reading material, all you can do in the mean-time is seeing what you can and can't do.

That thought leads you to looking at the large wings furled along your back, and slowly, trying hard not to think too much about the fine details of what you're doing, you stretch them out.

They're beautiful.

More, after you've fully unfurled them, taking up about half the open space in Feather's apartment, they look like they're actually big enough that you can really fly with them.

You've dreamed about flying ever since the first time you saw Alexandria on TV as a little girl.

Looking over at the windows, the open air calls to you.

[x] Yes.

((()))

Trying to be a conscientious guest, you shuffle around until you find some writing materials, and scribble a quick note out for Feather, which demonstrates that the hand/claws on your forelimbs are pretty much on par with human hands for manipulating things.

I've gone out into the street to practice flying.

-Taylor.

Due diligence done, you quietly open the apartment door, then excitedly trot on down to the street. It's a little weird, seeing a 'street' that's designed solely for foot traffic, but there's still more than enough space for you to spread your wings, even if you're feeling self-conscious about doing it in front of so many strangers. Fortunately, aside from a few curious glances when you first come outside, nobody pays you any attention.

Flapping your wings is fairly easy, and hoooo boy can you feel the air move when you do, but it definitely isn't quite enough to get you into the air by itself; it also makes the clothes of people flutter from as far away as twenty feet.

Your wings are huuuuge.

After a few test flaps make you feel buoyant, but don't actually get you off of the ground, it's easy enough to determine that you're shortening your, uh, flappage, because you can't push down past about level with your wings, 'cause the ground is in the way. The solution to this problem is obvious, and after taking a deep breath, you crouch low aaaand-

Jump.

-Which combined with a stout-

Flap.

-is enough to get you airborne!

It's a good thing this body comes with a fair number of instincts, because that's the only reason you keep flapping after the first flap, which steadily drives you upward and forward. At first, it's a pretty floppy movement, with a lot of up-and-down bobbing, but between the pre-wired instincts and focusing on moving smoothly, you're able to reach the point where you're pretty steady!

You're flying!

A delighted trill wells up in your voice, and you decide it's not worth trying to keep silent, just to keep it down; wouldn't want to disturb the peace so close to a police station, after all! A few of the pedestrians below glance up at you briefly, but nobody seems to be paying you any particular amount of attention, and as you start to slowly rise higher, it's not hard to figure out why.

This place is full of fantastic creatures, and sure, you haven't seen any other Dragons so far, but just looking out over the crowd below (with your amazing eyesight), you can see Humans, Elves, plant-people, more of the little green people, Minotaurs, Centaurs, blue people, some bigger green people, an elephant-man, and-

You carefully raise your altitude a little as a woman with wings instead of arms flies past beneath you.

-Whatever she was.

This whole place might be amazing and fantastical to you, but lots of different creatures all over the place is normal to the natives. Heck, now that you think about it, Feather mentioned 'involuntary polymorphing' as a known crime, which suggests there's also voluntary versions, so some of these people have probably been other things as well, it's hardly unique to you.

Your thoughts are interrupted by a problem coming up; specifically, the airspace of the street ahead is almost completely blocked by a heavy overpass of some sort, and you really don't want to try to fly with only about ten feet between the ceiling and pedestrian's heads. Your wings definitely go up and down more than that, and a Minotaur or other big person would guarantee a crash.

...You haven't even tried turning yet, and the street isn't really that wide, which means that you're going to have to try make a really tight turn, and you're going to have to do it soon, or else you'll run out of space.

Slowing down, you tilt a little bit to the left, shifting over towards that edge of the street so much that your wingtip brushes against stone, then tilt hard over to your right and-

(Defense needed!)

-Run smack into a heavy stone wall, crumpling into it, then immediately start sliding down to smack into the street below.

Thump.

...That didn't hurt anywhere near as much as you expected.

Oh, it definitely hurt, and as you start scrabbling back up onto your feet, hearing a whole crowd of people start laughing certainly doesn't help, but it feels more like a case of 'skinned knee' than 'broken bones.' Once you're on your feet you take a quick stock of all seven of your appendages, and having three new ones still feels weird whenever you think about it, but they all till seem to be in working order.

Your face, having taken the initial impact, is pretty sore, but you don't seem to be bleeding, so you can deal with it.

"Jampudanit Kirega?" a voice asks, and you turn to see one of the blue people approaching you, looking very amused, a little concerned, and deliberately resisting the urge to laugh at you.

"...Sorry," you reply, "I don't speak the language."

"Praga dniutave," he says, looking you over; you're fairly sure he's checking to see if you're injured, and part of you feels oddly like showing off, so you flare your wings out to their full span.

"Kaja!" he says, visibly impressed, "Myarna kvietcha?"

"Sorry," you say, shaking your head again, "I still don't speak the language."

"Nah," he says, understanding dawning in his eye.

He pauses for a moment, before gesturing towards the other side of the street, where a small crowd is gathered around a quartet of tables, and starts walking towards them, keeping his eyes on you and gesturing to follow him.

Part of you is feeling leery about this, he is a stranger after all. On the other hand, this is a very public place, Feather did say you should be safe so long as you stayed on her street or Sun Street, and…

The smell of something delicious wafts over to you from the tables, and your stomach rumbles.