Kin With The Scales

by PaprikaBluesAndCo

2: Let's Strike a Match, My Dear

Six AM. We showed up, as threatened, and didn't see Burlane at all. Obviously, but some days he made good on his threats. Probably trying to be a "good boss" by keeping us on our toes.
We settled into our chairs, and booted up the computers, discovering that they ran Linux distros.
Jer smiled. "Well now I like Princess Twilight even more! She's a lady of taste!"

A few "sudo dnf update"s later, and we were ready to get cracking on the project. We heard the sound of a creature shuffling towards the room. Spike peeked his head in, and gave us all a confused look.
"Uh.. why are you guys up already? Twilight said to arrive at 8:45."

"Yeah," Matt answered, "But Burlane is the guy who signs our paychecks and he said to show up at 6."
Spike looked around. "Mm. Well hey, since you're all up, you guys want breakfast?"

"Oh hell yeah." I said and got up, grabbing my water bottle to give it a refill.
On our way to the kitchen, Applejack and some other ponies showed up. I didn't know their names, there was a marshmallow colored one, and one with a rainbow styled mane.
"Heya Rarity. Heya Rainbow. Hey Applejack."
Well that answered that.

"Hey yerself, cowpoke." Applejack greeted. "Did Twilight get that letter from Griffinstone about helping 'em set up some worldgates yet?"
"Oh, yeah, definitely." Spike shrugged. "She's agitated about it because of that Bearlane guy."
"Burlane," Jer gently corrected.

"Uh, who are you three..?" Rainbow asked.
My eyes lit up. We'd practiced for such a question! We tri-fived each other and shouted, "WE DEM BOYYYYS, AAAAYYY!"
I could tell Rarity was stifling a giggle. Rainbow, however, started rolling around in the air laughing, saying something to effect of, "They sound just like the CMC!"

After she recovered, we introduced ourselves properly.
"So, what are you doing here?" Rainbow asked.
"Oh, they're here to help Twi with her archivin' project." Applejack answered.
"Huh. Really? I thought she was hiring a company to do it.. Advanced.. maxy..." Rainbow tried to remember.
"Advanced-Maxim Information Technologies, LLC?" Jer supplied.
"Yeah! That!" She nodded.
"Yeah, we're employees of that company. Burlane's our boss." Matt shrugged.
"Well, I wish y'all the best of luck. We're gonna go help Twi get ready for Griffinstone." Applejack nodded to us. We nodded back, and started to move.

"Oh, Spikey-wikey, darling, I didn't get to thank you for your help these last few weeks! My ensembles made it to the Canterlot Trotsworth Showcase because of your help.."
She magically pulled from her bags the most beautiful looking gemstone I'd ever seen. The jewelry commercials in America could only dream of making their products look that good.
"Oh, wow! Thank you Rarity!"
He took the gem into his claws and hugged her, and she smiled warmly. "You have grown so much taller since your molting, Spike. It still surprises me that you can hug me like that."
I kept staring at the gem.

"Uh.. Sal? You're drooling." Rainbow said.
I snapped out of it. "Huh, what?" I wiped my mouth off on my sleeve. "Oh, sorry, I'm good. It just, it looks like.. I dunno, candy? Like forbidden candy."
"What?"
"I dunno! Humans have a, a running gag online that certain inedible things are 'forbidden food'. Like lava is the forbidden hot sauce, molten glass is forbidden honey, toothpaste is forbidden gogurt..?"

Every pony in the room blinked, but Matt just cackled. "Oh my god, no, you're right! Forbidden candy! You're right!"
"You better not eat it," Rarity squinted at me. "It's for Spike, and nobody else."
I waved a hand dismissively as I moved it to open my water bottle. "I didn't partake in the tide pod thing, I'm not gonna be doing this either."
"Tide pods?" Rainbow looked incredulous.
I sighed, hard. "People on the Internet tried to eat laundry detergent pods as a challenge a few years back. The kind that immediately break down and release the chemicals when in contact with a liquid."

Jaws dropped, and they looked up at Matt for confirmation. He fell onto the floor laughing as a result, to which I took a sip of my drink. As he kept on rofl-ing, Rainbow looked back at me. "I thought humans were supposed to be smart??"
"Allegedly, yes, they are," I sighed again, pinching the bridge of my nose. "But there's a century worth of capitalism-induced-stupidity they inflicted on themselves that I don't feel like touching on."
"Why did you say 'they' like that? Like you're not a human?" Rainbow said, very much aloud, to my displeasure. Poker face mode switched on fast. I closed my water bottle and swallowed.
"I'm human."
But some days I wish I wasn't, I thought.

Applejack cocked her eyebrow at me like it was a gun. "Uh, Sal," she started, "Can ah talk with ya for a moment?" I blinked at her, confused, and looked at Matt, who was still prone, and recovering from his giggle fit. Then, to Jer, who gave me a thumbs up.

"Sure," I grunted. "We can probably spare a few minutes, while he's down for the count."

We entered a different chamber in the castle, where Applejack suddenly turned on her haunches and eyed me up.
"You do know ah can tell when somepony's- er, somebody's lying, right?"
I made a face. "I didn't, though. I am human."
And I hated it.
"Y'ain't telling the whole truth, sugarcube. I can kinda.. feel your heart flinch every time y'say it."
"I'm human though."
Flinch. Oh wow, she was right.
"See, you're.. what's Twi call it, uh.. lying by omission."
"It's not your problem, okay? It's nothing. I promise."

Applejack twitched an ear. "Well now that's just a plain ol' lie. So now it is my problem!"
"Why??" I said, feeling an itch of frustration.
"Because it's my job! I am The Element of Honesty, so this kinda deal is my bread and butter."
What??
"You ain't just being dishonest to others! Yer being dishonest with yerself! Now I been honest with you, so it's time to be honest with me. What's going on, sugarcube?"

My heart flinched again. I reached for my water bottle, only to find I'd left it in the other room.
"You can trust me, sugarcube. Cross my heart, swear to fly, stick a cupcake in mah eye. Ah won't judge." She repeated the motions of some kinda promise. I sat down on a nearby chair, and held my head in my hands to think.

"I.. fuck, I dunno how to say it. I.. wanna.. No, I just.. you see.. No.. Hmm. I.. envy .. Spike. I envy Spike."
"You envy a baby- Naw, he ain't a baby no more, a dragon?"
"Y-yeah. I.." I froze up. Was I about to tell her everything? I guess I was. "I'm.. I don't.. like.. being.. human. Yeah. I don't like being human."
She motioned with a hoof for me to continue.
I swallowed. "I saw Spike and immediately thought, 'God I wish that were me'. I want the claws, the scales, the horns.. the fire. I want that heat, man. I.. He complemented my music, called it a hoard, and, and..." I trailed off.
Applejack smiled. "Well ain't that a peach in a pile of pears."
"What..?"
"You got y'self a case of, uh.. consarn it, what did my big sis call it.. dis.. discordia? Naw, naw, that ain't it. The.. 'wrong body' thing."
"Dysphoria."
"That's it!" Applejack beamed. "And you're in luck, cuz I reckon Spike's been feeling a mite lonely."
"Really?"
"Eeeyup! I betcha my stetson that he could use a dragon friend, even if the skin don't match the soul. I think you should try and make friends with him."

I thought about it. He did complement my h- my collection. I decidedly nodded. "I'll try."

---

"You usually skip breakfast??" Spike asked, bewildered as he dropped a heaping plate of eggs, pancakes, and hash browns in front of me. Matt was already done with his, looking satisfied and yet somehow still hungry.
"Usually," he answered, "our boss Burlane doesn't let us out of the office until lunchtime. We can't even snack at our computers, so we just usually tough it out."

Jer quietly enjoyed the meal, and I couldn't help but wonder if dragons had unique diets.. so in turn, I ate my food, while watching Spike pull an honest-to-gods ruby gem out of the pantry, crush it down with a mortar and pestle, and sprinkle the shards onto his own pancakes.
I eyed the shards up, and decided to take a small risk. I cleared my throat, and said, "Hey, Spike, can I.. try... some of that..?"
He eyed me up curiously.
"Please..?" I tacked on.
"Well, since you were polite, I guess."
"Just a smidge, I'm just curious." I pressed my thumb into the bowl of shards, sticking some dust to my skin, and held it up to my face. Its redness glistened in the light, and I licked.

It was an intense ride of red. Imagine if someone managed to make a candy out of a mixture of old bay, chilli powder, red licorice, fireball whiskey, strawberry, and other noticably red flavors; somehow all working together in this violent and unbelievably spicy mixture. It was.. good. Delicious, even. Like I'd been missing out on this flavor all my goddamn life.

"HAHAHA! OH MY GOD, SAL! I WAS RIGHT!" Jer howled with laughter, slapping his fists against the table.
I snapped out of it. "Huh, what?!"
I looked over to see Matt washing his mouth out in the sink, spitting and coughing.
Not worthy of the heat, something warbled in my spine.

Spike was staring at me with awestruck eyes, a slack jaw and... something else, I couldn't tell what. He looked at Jer, then me, then asked, "Right about what?"
"The dragon thing! Remember yesterday??" Jer said, I remembered.
"You knew they're a dragon?" Spike exclaimed.
"I just guessed! They have a hoard of music, dude-- how did YOU know??"

Spike shrugged. "They have dragon blood, dude. It's weak, but I can feel it. One of their ancestors must've scored with a dragon."
Matt was still trying to get rid of the spice, gulping down a glass of milk, when he spit it back up. Coughing, he managed to sputter out, "Dude, aren't you like 8??"
Jer recovered and had a sip of his orange juice.
Spike must've got that question a lot. "I'm 23."
"You're older than me.." I muttered.

It was Jer's turn to spittake. My boys proceeded to slap each other on the back trying to clear out their throats.
It at least explained the weird instinct I had to respect the dragon. I guessed that dragons respect their elders, and he was mine by two years. Which was weird because he was 3/4 my height, the height of most other ponies I'd seen.
Still, I felt like pissing him off was a bad idea. Not even because he'd hurt me, just because I'd lose the only other dragon I've met in my life.

Where the hell did that come from?

While my boys recovered and cleaned up their mess, I decided to ask a question.
"So, Spike, how come gems taste like that..?"

"I can answer that!" Twilight said, entering the dining hall. "After magical creatures die, their magic is decomposed and returned to the ground. The harmonic properties of magic mean that each aspect is attracted to itself, building up in composition until they form a gem! So a dragon that is hungry needs a rich variety of colors in their diet, or else their body won't function properly, especially since they have long life spans and powerful magic. This explains their natural hoarding behavior, which if left unchecked, can lead to a lot of territorial dragons fighting over limited food. Not to mention the destruction they can cause."
"So.. gems here are inherently magical..?" I asked.
"Mhhm! Judging by how Jerome and Matt are coughing, I'm guessing you had a taste and found it lacking?"

Matt was about to point out that I liked it, when I gave them both the "Don't." Expression™. They both kept coughing but shut up. My expression turned grateful and I gave them a nod of my appreciation.

"Uh, yeah. Why is that..?" I asked.
"It's because most humans don't have a natural magic pool, nor the necessary enzymes in their saliva to digest magic gems." She answered, "So their body regards it as a foreign object and rejects it."

Matt blinked. "Most?"
Twilight huffed. "It's a recent thing that I haven't totally proven yet, but I've hypothesized that some humans have either developed or inherited magic pools. They're usually very weak, but that's the case for any infant creature."
Matt's eyes widened and shone like the stars. "So anyone could learn magic if they tried..?"
Twilight's eyes sparkled in return. She then composed herself and laughed nervously. "Well if you.. really really wanted to try and learn, well.." She got lost in thought for a few seconds, then said, "Spike, could you take Jerome and Sal up to the computer room so they can get started? I wanna talk with Matt."

Matt looked to me, and I gave him a thumbs up. Then, I saw what was on my thumb. He nodded, and Jer and I made our way to the office with Spike. I looked at my thumb again.
Yup. A small patch of scales was beginning to develop on my thumb. I pressed my tongue against my teeth, and felt a rougher patch where I'd licked the red dust.

Oh, shit.

---

The project had finally begun. The three of us, along with Twilight, had started with the highest priority books in her collection. We huddled around the table as she gingerly lifted the protective casing from the other side with her magic.
"I need you all to be very, very, gentle with these." She urged. "They're ancient books, some of them preceding even Princess Celestia and Luna."

Jer raised a hand. "Yes, Jerome?"
"Uh, how old are they?" He asked, lowering his hand.
"Over a thousand years old," Twilight said casually.
All three of us pogged at the same time.
"ÜBER GILF.." Matt said with half feigned, half genuine reverence, and we all cracked up.

"What's an oobergelf?" Twilight asked, and then realized she wasn't gonna get an answer as we kept cackling. She slowly developed a small smile on her face, and waited for us to calm down.
"You know, I may know little about human cultures, but I can tell you three are very good friends."
"Aw, yeah, heh. We Dem Boys. Even though Sal isn't a boy." Matt smiled, wiping a tear from his eye.
"They're still one of De Boys tho." Jer nodded.
"How long have you three been friends?" Twilight asked us. We were stumped.

"Middle school...??" Jer offered.
"I thought we met in fifth grade.." I said.
Matt shook his head. "We started our shit in the summers between. I know this cuz that was the same year that my Dad, uhm.. you guys know."
Jer and I nodded darkly. I couldn't believe I had forgotten about that. Twilight seemed to notice the grim tone, and shifted the topic back on track.
"Well! As I was saying, these books are very old. So old that too much light can damage them."
"That explains the candles." Jer noted.

Just then, Burlane switched on the lights. Twilight shrieked, said something to the effect of, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!", and shielded the books in a blanket of her magic.
"Dude-" I was interrupted.
"You three boys getting work done in here, or having a sleepover?! Chop chop, let's go, get started!" Burlane clapped his hands loudly enough to make Twilight pin her ears back. Or maybe she was just pissed at him, I wasn't sure.

"Burlane! With all due respect, we're handling ancient artefacts that can be damaged by modern lights, PLEASE turn those off!" Jer gritted his teeth into a forced smile.

"Why would lights damage books? That doesn't make sense." Burlane stared at us like we'd all merged into the same body.
"Cuz light is a form of energy, and too much energy will damage anything??" Jer continued, exasperated. "Do you need an example?"
"Sure." our boss shrugged.

Twilight was about to say something, but Jer nodded to us, got up, and pulled out his pocket laser that he used for meetings, aiming at Burlane's eye. Burlane shouted, swatted at the laser, and backed up, before pointing at Jer.
"That's gonna come out of your paycheck if you damaged my eye."
Twilight flew up, literally, to Burlane's face, and shouted, "And if you damaged these ancient priceless books, then your company isn't gonna receive a single BIT! or DOLLAR! Now turn the lights off!!"

Burlane rolled his eyes, but obeyed. Twilight finally relaxed her magic, and her own muscles. She landed with a bit of a thump.
"Thank you," she said, trying to be polite. "Now, let's get started. I have a friendship mission, the train leaves at 10:30 today, and I do not want to be late."

---

9:55.
"Burlane said he would be back from the restroom an hour ago.." Twilight mumbled. "I can't stick around, my friends and I are needed in Griffinstone.."
Ten minutes before he fucked off to gods-know-where. A neeewwwww recooooord!

"Forget about it, Twilight," Matt groaned, reading another passage and typing it out into his computer. "We work just fine without the guy. Even better, actually, because his dumb ideas don't get involved."
Twilight growled. "Can they send someone else to help lead this project?? I don't want to leave you three without proper supervision."
"Everyone else at work does, ma'am, we'll be just fine." Jer smiled.

Her frown deepened. She heaved a massive sigh, then nodded. "Alright. I guess my only request is that you make sure Burlane stays away from those books. They're the highest priority due to their age and rarity, so the sooner they're archived the better, and given his.. history of behavior.."
"You got it, bossmare!" Jer gave a thumbs up in the dark. Matt and I followed suit, and I saw that the patch of scales on my thumb had grown more since the last time I saw it.

Twilight didn't notice, and smiled. "I guess I can trust you three. You seem to take this job very seriously, despite your goofing around. Very well, I'll be back tomorrow. Good luck, boys!"

Ticky-tack, clackety-clack. A page turn here, an 'oh, shit,' there. The silence began to grow deafening.
Jer rolled over on his chair to me. "Heeeyyy. I just noticed this room has a record player~..."
I grinned.

After some fiddling with technology meant for hooves, we managed to get an album going. We'd manually swap the record out, because we didn't know how the queue feature functioned, and I didn't wanna break anything. Definitely not my own records, if anything else.

"So," Jer said, "you're able to eat those gems."
"Yeah." I grunted.
"And they're magical. Which means you just ate a dose of magic."
"Mhhm."
"Is the magic doing anything to you..?"

I went quiet.
These were my boys. I could trust them. "Yeah." I said. "You guys wanna see?"
Jer and Matt saved their work, put bookmarks in their progress, and huddled up with me. I showed them my thumb.
"Whoaaaaa." They said together. By this point, the thumb was engulfed in scales, and my thumbnail was gone.
"That's not all. Look at this." I stuck my tongue out, which had become thinner and forked at the tip.
They gawked for a long time. My tongue started to get dry, and I closed my mouth.
"Imagine making out with that.." Jer said absentmindedly.
"Dude, gross!" Matt laughed.
"Oh, I can imagine, alright." I grinned, before I realized the trap I just walked into.
"So you're saying.. you can Imagine Dragons?" Jer snickered. I socked him in the shoulder lightly.
"Shut up," I laughed.

---

At some point I needed to use the restroom.
I got up, left the room, and ended up nowhere near a bathroom. I found Spike chilling out in one of the big rooms full of bookshelves, and decided to say hi.

"Yo, Spike," I tried to be casual, "Uh, you got a second?"
"Sure, what's up?"
"Eh.. I've got a bit of a problem.." I rubbed my hand on the back of my head.
"Well, if it lasts for more than twenty-four hours.."
I snorted. "Gross. No, dude, look at my hand."
I squat down and showed him the slowly developing patch of claws. It had started to spread out to my palm and other fingers. His eyes went wide and he dropped his comic book.
"Oh, shit! Hang on, I'll send a letter to Twilight to fix you!" He started reaching for a parchment.
"NO!" I screamed, and stood up. He stared at me like I had a knife.

The silence hung in the air, echoing into the castle, and I cut it down with a sniffle. I slowly got back down onto my haunches. "I... don't tell her. Please, I don't wanna fix this. Or, no, this.. I think this is what the fixing looks like."

He was quiet.
"Spike, bro, c'mon, I'm desperate. My entire life suddenly makes sense, and if I'm doing this," I gestured to the scales, "then this has gotta be right for me, y'know??"

Spike regarded me with eyes like I'd never seen before. Regarding, judging, calculating, having a major inner monologue. If this were an anime, this moment alone would be an entire episode.

"Do your friends know?"
"Yeah. They're cool."
"Does your boss know?"
"..no."
"Does Twilight know?"
"Nnnno. No."

He scratched a fin thoughtfully, then reached into a bag next to him. He huffed, a little puff of smoke coming out from his nostrils, and he held up a sapphire.
"I shouldn't be doing this, but you kinda have a point, man. And seeing you stressed out like this is kinda freaking me out so.."

I swallowed. "Sorry."
"It's fine, but I need you to swear to me, on your dragon's honor, that you'll tell Twilight about this."
I blinked. "What about my boss?"
He pursed his lips. As he kept quiet, I grew jealous of his snout being long internally. His wings looked so nice. His eyes had such a fucking vibe.
"From what Twilight told me about him last night, he seems like a jerk that doesn't respect anyone."
"Heh, he only 'respects' people if they hold money up to his face." I joked.
"Like how you're 'respecting' me right now?" He joked right back.

My heart skipped a beat. From where I was squatting, he was eye-to-eye with me. Maybe a bit higher up on his bean-bag throne.
"No, man. You're holding food up to me. Or, I guess medicine. Or both. That's different." I shuddered.
Spike smirked. "Oh yeah?"
He held the gem up to my face, I made to take a bite, and he yoinked it back.
"Nuh-uh! Beg for it, big guy."
".. Seriously?" My eye twitched.
"You said that I'm older than you. That makes me generally your superior." His smirk developed into a grin, and he waggled the gem in his pinched fingers. "That means, by dragon's rules, I can boss you around."

"I'm not doing that." I reached for the gem with my draconic half-claw, only for it to be blocked by a gust of green-on-yellow fire.
The tips of my fingers were singed, protected only by the scales themselves. I hissed in slight pain and shook my hand to soothe the pain. Wings. Scales. Flaming breath. He had it all.

"Spike.. c'mon, man.." I growled.
"C'monnnnn, you can do it, can't you?"
"Spiiiiike..!"
"Do it for your BIIIG BROTHER..."

Something snapped, and I got on my hands and knees.
"Gh! Fine!! I swear! I swear I'm gonna tell Twilight tomorrow, when she gets back okay?? C'mon man, I need this, I need more of this, I'll fade out and die if this reverses!! I'll do anything for you, man!"
"Anything..?" His salacious grin was killing me.
"ANYTHING!"

He shoved the gem in my mouth.

Electricity. Sweet blue everlasting. Every single neuron in my body went into overdrive as the magic wracked my body. Blueberries and toxic antifreeze and Gatorade. Electrolytes, frozen treats, and Blue Curacao. And the kind of cold you get when you step into a shower after a long exhausting task.

I fell to my side. Sweating bullets. My feet felt different. I looked down and confirmed it. My shoes were fucked, ruined by the rough scales and sharp claws. A dewclaw began to sprout atop my heels.
"Haha, holy shit, nice."
Spike was looking down at me from his beanbag perch. The comic was long forgotten, and I knew he had a fresh fantasy in his eyes. He dropped down and regarded my claws.

My claws..
He held them gingerly in his, smiling. The neurons within them hit different than my human skin, the scales reached up to my forearms now. I flexed a finger and felt every scale stretch and squash to accommodate the movement. I gave a shuddery breath.
I saw the tips of my claws condense and sharpen into a fine point, where the natural process that was my fingernails had begun its new life.

"Huh.. You've got some really good digging claws."
"Th.. thanks?"
He looked into my eyes.
"You wanna hang out at the quarry later today?"
I sat up.
"Uhm- Sure. Why not? Just you and me?" I said.
"Yeah. Yeah." He nodded at me, then jerked his head in the direction of the office. "We both should probably get back to work. I was already slacking off before.. y'know.. what we just did."

---

Burlane came back an hour later, looking stressed as fuck.
"You boys working?!" he shouted, breaking all of our concentration.
"YES, SIR, WE ARE." Matt said, irritated that he'd lost his place in the book he was copying.
"GOOD - No, not good, work harder!! The company's life is on the line here!"
"With all due respect, sir-" Jer frowned.
"Hey, Jer, I'm talking here!" He snapped at Jer, who promptly shut up. "Thank you. I just got word from my uncle that this entire endeavor is going to make or break this fiscal year. We have two months left to get all these books and get our payment, or else we are SCREWED."
I bit my lip, and then he kept going. "But! BUT! There's a silver lining to this. Equestrian bits are backed up by GOLD."
Jer legitimately perked up at that.

Burlane kept going. "SO. If we manage this before the end of the fiscal year, that means CHA-CHIIIING, you hear me? For all of us, including you boys. Hell, with your money combined, you could probably buy a house or something. So! New orders from me. I want you boys working AROUND the clock, non-stop, as much as you can. If you can avoid eating, drinking, or sleeping, DO IT. I need you to put in as MUCH time as you CAN. Do I make myself clear?"

"..Twilight said -" Jer started.
"I don't give a rat's ass what that horse said! We're just here for her money. Take shortcuts if you need to, these are old books, no one cares about them, okay?!"
We grumbled some acknowledgement and he moved to where his desk was supposed to be.
"Hey, where's my stuff?"
Matt looked up from his work again. "Twilight refurbished one of the guest rooms into a personal office for you."
"She did?" Burlane asked. It was a lie, Matt had done it.
"Yeap, it's three doors down the hall on the right." Matt gestured.
"What, you're not gonna show me where?"
"..You said to not stop if I could, Burlane." Matt eyed the boss.
Burlane blinked, then grinned, "Ahhh, ahh, yeah, that's right, it was a teeeeest! Good job, keep at it boys."
He left the room, and we let out a collective sigh of relief.

"So..." Jer said, slowly eyeing up my body. "Which elephant in the room should we address first?"
"Let's start with the fact that Burlane's an idiot. There's no way we can finish this project by mid-January." Matt groaned.
"And then we're gonna get fired and lose our work visas.." I bemoaned. "Which means.."

Which means I'd lose contact with Spike. And furthermore, I'd lose out on his supply of gems.
"A dragon body doesn't function if it doesn't have a steady diet of gems.." I vaguely recalled Twilight saying that.
"Which, brings us to item two. You're scalier." Matt noted.
I nodded.
"How's it feel, Sal?" Jer gently questioned.

I slowly, intently, ran a claw down the desk I sat at, digging up the wood into a long, damaged scratch mark. I looked up at my boys.
"Really, really fucking good." I grinned, before the smile clattered to the ground. "But I dunno how we're gonna do this, boys."

Jer's optimistic attitude kicked in. He placed a hand on my shoulder. "The same way we always did it. We'll do it together, and no matter what, we stick together, and things will turn out alright."

"I'll be honest, uh.." Matt started, "I have a vested interest in sticking around too. Twilight wanted to see if she could teach me magic personally because no one else seemed interested up until now. She told me that the last human that had potential was a Christian and.. yeah."
Jer snickered.

---

By the time that 7 pm rolled around, none of us could focus anymore. We called it a day, saw that Burlane wasn't even in his office, and decided to hit the town. I felt my claws click on the floor, the bones shifting up slightly and forcing me to walk on my toes.

I opted to switch into a long flowy skirt which covered my hindclaws, and a hoodie to hide my foreclaws in the front pocket. While I adored the feelings I was experiencing, the current state I was in made it look like I was poodling.
I licked my teeth. Sharper now. I swallowed. "Hey uh, guys? I think I wanna be alone tonight."

They looked up at me in alarm. Shit. The only times I said things like that were when a depression spiral was about to start.
"Not like that!" I raised my claws up in a placating gesture. "I'm good. Great even! I just.. today was a shit load of fuck, and I need time to process it all."
"Fuck, don't scare us like that.." Jer looked a bit pissed, but relieved.
"Yeah," Matt half-grinned. "You better not be planning on offing yourself on day one of your dragon HRT. People would pay good money for that and you got it for free so far."
Jer chuckled. "DRT. Dragon Replacement Therapy."

I pursed my lips. "Not.. entirely for free."
The boys raised their eyebrows. I sighed. "Since Spike is older than me, by dragon's customs, uh.."
I was trying very hard to not make it sound like it could potentially be a toxic or abusive relationship. "I have this instinctual urge to respect his wants. Obviously there's a hard line in the sand here but.. he has authority."

...

".. That sounds like the proving grounds for a toxic relationship, dude." Matt said.
"Right??" Jer agreed.
"Like you barely even know the guy."

Ugh. These humans. Of course they wouldn't get it. It's a dragon thing. It works differently..
I shook my head. Weird ass thoughts. Coming in from my nerves shifting, most likely.

"Yeah, that's, kinda why I need the solitude. I gotta brood my mood. I gotta jive on the vibe. I gotta soul search this." I tried to explain. "I'm not gonna be able to do that if we're at a loud ass bar."
They nodded, and clapped their hands to either side of my shoulder. I reciprocated, placing my claws on theirs.
"Remember, Sal. We dem boys. If shit gets too queasy, you let us know. Okay?" Jer asked me.
I nodded. They let me go.