//------------------------------//
// Rose Tingling 
// Story: Lovie Dovie 
// by The Psychopath 
//------------------------------//

"First thing you need to do is sit down," Sconce explained. 

"I'm already sitting," Lovey replied.

"This is meditation. With this, we'll relax our minds and extend our senses through the body. By extending them, we'll make your nerves hyperactive and connect your tail and wings to your brain."

Lovey tilted her body to the left slightly. "Mmmm, technically--"

"Shut up. There is no technically."

Lovey glared at the dragoness. "Don't ever tell me to shut up."

"I'll do as I please."

"What? You think you can take me?" she shouted.

"I'm pretty sure even a hatchling can take you, what with your dance moves serving as your best walking method."

Lovey bared her teeth slightly in anger and glared at Sconce. 

"Scarlet was right. You do look adorable when you pout. I'd rather we get back to the meditation rather than you trying to rush testosterone or something similar through your body." She readjusted herself and took a deep breath. "Imagine...imagine..."

Sconce's head started drooping until she eventually dropped it completely and started snoring, eliciting the pink dragoness' curiosity.

"Did you...did you fall asleep?" Sconce didn't answer Lovey's question, making her angry. "HEY! Wake up!"

"I am awake!" Sconce replied.

"No you're not! You're sleeping!"

"No. I'm wide awake. I just...lost my train of thought."

"Uh huh. Sure."

"Where as I? The hands. Right. Imagine there are hands in your body holding onto the nerves linking your limbs to your brain. The hands for your tail and wings aren't holding on tight enough and cannot feel the limbs. You..." She ended up snoring again, but with open eyes this times.

"Okay, that's really disturbing. All I want to do is be able to walk again! I don't want to have some kind of weirdo with sleeping issues piss me off during it, let alone the res of these...things."

Lovey stood up and, with some waddling, managed to reach her teacher and slap her awake.

"Wha-what?! What'd you do that for?!" she shouted. "Gh...Why did you move?"

"Because YOU fell asleep again!" Lovey pointed at her teacher with an accusing finger.

"No I wasn't!"

The pink dragoness clenched her hands into fists, and fire started sputtering from her mouth. 

"As I was saying, " Sconce resumed. "You need to visualize yourself clutching the nerve endings harder and harder. Then and only then will you find the ability to move your tail and use it for balance."

It didn't take long for the hours to go by and darkness to start settling, bringing Lovey up with the important questions.

"What do we eat and where do I sleep?"

"They'll bring us food here and you can sleep wherever."

Lovey turned her head slightly and kept her eyes locked with her teacher's. "What do you mean by 'wherever'? No beds? Nothing soft and clean?"

"Nope."

That single, quick answer was all Lovey got to hear as an answer, and it wasn't good enough.

"That's it? A bland 'nope'?" She spread her hands apart as if presenting the word like a trophy.

"What do you want? Some of us can grow to tremendous sizes. How hard do you think it would be to create beds for us at that size? Hm?"

"...Pretty hard."

"That's right."

The two didn't speak again until a large dragon flying above dropped a large basket made from tangled vines that smashed into the ground, bursting open to reveal its contents of fresh, uncooked fruits, vegetables, bread, and meat. Sconce rubbed her claws together and licked her lips in anticipation.

"Alright!" she shouted. 

She buried her claws into the pile and started chomping away at the foodstuff, tearing at the meta and blasting the vegetables into little chunks. Lovey looked at the 'meal' with sorrow.

"I can't eat this...this 'shit'. It's not even cooked." She lifted up a slab of raw meat, shook it a little to see the blood and muscle fluids dripping from it, then dropped it back onto the pile. "I can't eat this."

Sconce had fallen asleep whilst biting into a piece of bread and frozen in place like a statue. She was awoken violently once again by her 'student'. "What?"

"I can't eat this!" Lovey presented the floppy piece of bloody meat to Sconce.

"Mmm, why not?"

"Because it's not cooked nor prepared in any way. Same goes for the rest of this."

"But dragons eat raw meat," Sconce said with a mouth full of food. "There's nothing wrong with it!"

"It's disgusting! Don't you know what's in this crap when it's uncooked?!" Sconce chewed once in response to this outburst. "It's full of eggs and stuff like that."

"Eggs of what? Sounds tasty."

"Wh..." Lovey stared at the dragoness with blank eyes. "Parasite eggs..." she said despondently.

"Oh. Haha! Dragons can't get parasites."

"What?"

"The flame sacs in our throats burn any bug eggs that might be in our foods. It kinda chars vegetables, but they're kept protected by our saliva."

Lovey stuck out her tongue in disgust and looked at the foods again. She heard her stomach growl and put her hand on her belly in response. 

"You know, being stubborn like this won't let you live long among us, and I'm certain that you can cook them if you so choose."

Lovey frowned. "Men aren't supposed to cook! It's wrong."

Sconce shrugged and continued eating. "Hey, if you want to die of starvation, be my guest."

The pink dragon sighed and forced the foods into her mouth. While her body might have changed, her tastes had not. Oliver would never get used to his new body and this life he was thrust into against his will. Even the prospect of suicide, as ultimately cowardly and unmanly as that was, was starting to seem better and better as the seconds went by.