insertmeathere

It comes in handy. Try not to walk on your heel. You'll end up falling on your ass, tail or no.

[Mostly because it's flat-out impossible for draconians to do.]

I'll just try to remember what I learned in dance class...oh God, forty years ago. You're in a painfully ancient body right now, Kang.

[She sniffs.] Oh, God, I need to change that shampoo. I smell like mildew and cheap hotel soap from here.

[The earthy smells around her hands from gardening are much more pleasant.]

I'm only about two years younger than you. I'm not exactly a hatchling, either.

[What is she - oh. Right. He's acutely aware (again) of how horrible the human sense of smell is. He feels blind.]

Relax, it doesn't smell that bad. You're just not used to being able to smell everything.

Oh, you can't feel the creak of old bones and dusty attics in my body right now? I'm feeling younger than I've felt since I was young. What a difference two years makes, ¿cachai?

God, suddenly smell is a sense I can actually use. This...[she sniffs again] Dear lord, how do you put up with me? Can I turn it off? I'm feeling embarrassed.

[No wonder she and Trudy had teased him about his Spanish accent.]

...is that what I sound like when I attempt Spanish? For all I know, I've still got a few centuries yet to live.

No, you can't. Most things aren't all that unpleasant. Trust me, you'll know when you're around something that is.

Oh no, don't worry, you sound much worse when you attempt Spanish. [She winks, feeling how strange it is on this foreign face.]

Probably about as bad as you sound when you attempt Nerakese. Now where is the damn elf?

Not my fault your language abuses the A S ending.

I think, for once, my eyesight may be better than yours...and yet I don't see him.

And it's not mine that yours has all those soft sounds I can't pronounce.

It'd bet steel he's in his lab, or off with Celena.

They're cute together.

[She pauses, looking at Kang in her body.] Do you mind if i try something? It might be unpleasant.

If you say so. 'Cute' isn't exactly a word we use.

[He looks at her a little bit warily, but nods. He trusts her not to do anything too embarrassing or painful.]

But it's a suitable word for them. Celena seems happy, at least.

[She reaches out and touches her - his? - ear, pausing there.] Anything uncomfortable?

Wouldn't be the first time a dragon and an elf got together, and I'm sure it won't be the last.

[He has to fight the urge to pull away, but he manages to stay still.]

A bit, yes.

[She recalls her hand.] Alright, so I won't take this as an opportunity to wash behind my ears. I tend to neglect that area. Must be muscle memory, or, I don't know, could be true what they say about holding our memories in our bodies.

...you're my friend and this might be a unique situation, but I think even without the muscle memory that'd be a bit too much. Hopefully we won't be in this situation for much longer.

Yeah, we're not doing that. No need to make either of us more uncomfortable.

[She holds up his right hand again.] What happened here? You don't have to tell me.

I never did tell you about Maranta, did I? He was in command of the fort in the mural, and at the same time all of us were being attacked, was using a magical artifact back from the war that took the soul of an existing draconian and split it into a bunch of dumb clones. He intended to use it on all of us and kill the females, but we found out and Thesik killed him.

I grabbed the artifact and used its magic to light the fuse on the fake dragon when it went out in midair. That was back when I'd just found out that my magic hadn't disappeared, and was rusty; I cut my hand all to hell, and nearly lost two of my fingers.

[He shrugs. It's no big deal to him.]

I couldn't grip anything properly afterwards either, because of the nerve damage, so I had to learn to use my left hand. Shortly after I woke up here, I found out that at the very least, the mobility could be fixed, and figured why not? Then I could be more useful against the Ohm.

[She tries to make a whistling noise with this new mouth and fails.] Your race really has survived a lot, haven't they? You only wanted mobility back to be more useful?

It didn't really bother me all that much when it happened. I retired, anyways, so I didn't expect to do much, if any, fighting anymore.

It's not that I felt like I needed to be useful, I just didn't see the point in not using one of my skills. It's what I did for forty years, after all; I haven't survived this long on pure luck.

Still, having limited mobility in any limb tends to be a bit of a downer. That in itself should have justified fixing it.

No one ever does, but pure luck certainly helps.

:D

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