"I had that dream again."
Felicia looks to me with a curious expression. I took another sip of my coffee.
"Which dream?" she asks in that soft matronly tone.
"The one where I'm drunk and some animal girls dote on me."
"Animals as in like, furries?" She smirks.
"No, more like.. I guess early Disney? Or Warrior Cats? Like they're on all fours. And they're talking and taking me to their home. But I can't hear what they're saying on account of being schwasty."
She leans forward while dipping her banana bread in her coffee. "Y'know what species they were?"
I squint. "Mmmmmno. Felicia, no, this is not a therian thing. I'm not a fucking animal."
She's grinning already.
"You suuuuure?"
"Just because you think you're a dragon from another world under all that skin, doesn't mean I'm anything underneath mine."
I dig into my can of peaches. Stab em with a fork over and over. Slippery bastards.
"It's a reoccurring dream, dear. It's gotta mean something." Felicia wiggles her hips eagerly. "There's always more to the world than anyone can know. Maybe we could get-"
"I'm not gonna take any shrooms. Or LSD. Or crack, or weed, or whatever."
She scoffs. "I was gonna say get a magical ritual going to see if I can find anything; it's not my fault you're immediately thinking about tripping."
I snort. "Magic is just what people think happens, when really they're just being fooled in one way or another."
"Not a bad interpretation, Chelsea. Magic can influence a reality, but that could just be one person's reality. Affecting realities on a mass scale? That's the tough stuff."
"What, so, every copy of life is personalized?"
"Pretty much! Everyone has magic, dipshit, it came free with your being alive." She jokes.
I chuckle. "No I don't, and I have the oldest life known to man." Stab another peach.
"Explains your cranky attitude." She snarks. The grandfather clock she stole from the thrift store ticks away, a few minutes behind the time. She looks at it, then me.
"What time do you work today?"
"I'm kinda unemployed, Felicia. Boss is still being audited by the health department, so the restaurant is still closed."
She giggles. "I told that bint that frogs would not make for adequate pest control."
I shake my head. "Still can't believe she was serious about that. 'All natural pesticide!' Ridiculous."
"So whatcha gonna do then?"
I sigh. "I guess.. try my hand at piano again? Maybe I'll break the curse this time."
"You don't believe in magic, but you think you're cursed?"
"I didn't say I don't. I just think it's all smoke and mirrors affecting the brain. Placebo and sugar pills. Gets all the hormones and chemicals in a line and puts a new idea in there. It's why shamans in the old days did shrooms."
"So your brain is affected by magic to think you're permanently bad at piano?"
"Yeah."
I look at the piano I managed to snag from an entirely different thrift shop. It had gathered dust for a while. A simple little spinet, which somehow never needing a tuning, sat there waiting for its true master to take on the world.
That master was absolutely not me. I don't know why I was so determined to conquer the damn thing, but it called out to me like a siren. I don't know what could've caused such a fixation. Really. I have total amnesia. My legal name probably isn't Chelsea at all. It's just what Felicia calls me.
Every time I try to remember who I was, it comes out as a blur and I get a headache.
So I don't. My name is Chelsea, and I'm practically the pet of some insane MILF who's convinced she's a dragon.
She's at least not totally insane. I have- HAD, a job. I get out of the house whenever I like. I get to have my own room and privacy. I'm not at her beck and call, she doesn't abuse me, and I'm at least not completely mentally stunted or regressed by whatever happened to me. We've gotten close enough to have some lezzing out every now and then.
Another sip of coffee to go with the bittersweet emotions.
My hands ache and I get that little feeling underneath my shoulder blades. I reach a hand back there and try to massage the spot, but it's just beyond my reach.
"Your back hurting again?"
"It's not even my back it's like.. I dunno, ghost arm. Like I'm supposed to have an extra arm there. But since it's not..-"
Felicia's already going haywire. "EEE! I knew it! You're dealing with phantom limb sensations, just like meeeee~!"
"I'm not-"
Aaand she's in the other room, digging something out from the pile of cosplay shit she has.
If she's a dragon, she's got the hoarder behavior down. At least she keeps the place clean.
"Here! Try these on!!" She starts wrapping a harness of sorts around my torso.
"I'm not in the mood for kink stuff."
"Don't worry, this is gender stuff. Completely different."
"Uh-huh. Right."
I submit to her whims. It's not like I had anything better to do today.
Her pear shaped ass bulldozes me over to the mirror, where I stand with some fake feathered wings.
Huh. The pain stops.
They're not some cheap shitty ones that would be found at a generic costume store. These ones are like, anatomically correct and proportioned to my body size.
"They're poseable too. Tug on the wires in your harness."
I tugged open a wing and watched it unfurl. I stared myself down in the mirror.
"No, that doesn't make sense."
"Oh, c'mon, Chelsea! You can-"
"No, no, I'm talking logistically. If we wanted to fly with wings, we couldn't do it vertically. You'd get no lift because the feathers don't catch any wind. We'd have to- hang on."
I grunt and strain my way down into all fours and flare the wing again.
"Yeah, see? This makes more sense. The feathers are better aligned this way. Especially if you consider the fact that wings are just glorified hands all stretched out and birds are basically just doing the like. Autism hands thing, when they're folded up."
I look up at Felicia and realize I probably seem like a total dolt. She's leaned up against a wall, arms folded, grinning with a matronly pride.
"Don't they feel familiar?"
I get back up on my hind legs and take another look at the wings.
"Eh.. they're cool, I guess. But not familiar."
"So then how did you know how the wings would work?"
"...Pure logic? Every bird I can think of that can fly does it horizontally. Or at least at a more horizontal angle."
I start taking off the wings, and the second I do, that dull quiet pain comes back. I make a face at the mirror, and take them off all the way.
"Besides, it's physically impossible for humans to fly without like, a plane." I continue.
"If we could, would you want to?"
"Man, I don't fuckin know."
She frowns. I hate it when she does that. I'm getting trying to get a good grade in adoptive-roommate. Something normal to want and possible to achieve. I've known her for like, two years now, and she's never given up on the Idea that she's a dragon from another world.
"Where did you find me again?" I ask.
"An alleyway nearby where I work. Parking sucks here, so I found a spot the cops don't check and park there."
"And I was covered in burn marks." I verify.
"You were pretty much smoking, yeah."
I try to look at the scars along my back. They look like nerve endings, I guess. Tons of tiny little burns. I still don't know what got me.
"And you didn't take me to the hospital because.."
"Because you don't have insurance."
"Rrrright. Insuuuranncee."
I try to remember what insurance is.
"Isn't that for when your house burns down..?"
"No, I mean health insurance, dear. You don't have anything that identifies you. No SSN, no date of birth, no ID, not even a library card."
Library card, huh?
"Can I get a library card?"
"You don't have official documentation, which they might need."
"UGH."
"Yeah, it sucked for me too. You can at least read the books there for free."
"Yeah.. I think I'm gonna take a walk. Maybe try the library out anyways."
"Oh! If you are, could you hang this on the public corkboard?"
She hands me a flyer, which reads,
Ever feel like you're not human? Like you were meant to be a different creature, one that chirps, or roars, or howls, or whinnies?
You may just be therian! And you're not alone! Come to Felicia's Dive Bar on 107 Sturges Avenue after closing to meet for a weekly support group! We meet on Tuesdays.
"Eh, sure." I fold the paper up and stuff it in my pocket.
I grab my coat, some coins for the bus, and make for the door, stopping only to give Felicia a hug. You can never give enough hugs.
"See you after the bar closes?"
"You know it, honey!"
She gives me a kiss on the forehead.
And then I head on out into the big bad city.