Page 167 of Scars Like Wings

I took a breath.

I closed my eyes.

And I fell.

My whole body warmed as magic enveloped me. I opened my eyes as I was encompassed by a crystal chrysalis. I felt my body elongate and expand, shredding yet another one of Quinn’s shirts to pieces. Only my mom’s necklace was left around my extending neck with my pink locs growing long like a mane. A crown of crystal pillar-like horns grew from the top of my head toward my back. My jaw stretched, filling with rows of razor-sharp teeth, my nails lengthened to black talons as long as my human forearm, and an even longer serpentine tail formed behind me. My wings grew to match my growing form. The patches of scales multiplied to cover my entire body in holographic scales that showed a chrome of pastel blues, pinks, purples, and whites in the moonlight. Time both stopped and felt like no time at all before I burst from my chrysalis exploded in a shower of glitter dust.

And then, I flew.

Before I hit the rocks and sand, I released my tucked wings and vibrated them, and Iflew. I raced back up the cliff side of the mansion, and Iflew. I went back up past the mansion with itssleeping guests, up into the sky toward the full moon itself and all the diamonds there.

Then I soared.

I flew like I had always wanted to. It was like ice skating but so much fucking better. I had never felt so alive. My wings pounded the air, my tail wiggled behind to maintain my balance and to steer, the wind flowed through my mane. I just loved the feeling. I had never felt so connected to my body, so one with myself and at peace with who I was. WithwhatI was. With the night sky as my backdrop, I spun, spiraled, looped, and did all sorts of tricks. Finally, I was feeling everything that I always wanted, everything that I remembered that I had wanted.

I was afuckingdragon. I remembered everything now. The spell was officially broken.

I flew back toward the mansion, toward my bedroom. Simone and Maisie stood on the balcony. Hovering before them, the wind from my wings blew their hair back. I towered over my friends in this form, making it the first time I had ever been taller than them.

Yeah, I kind loved this a lot. Hard to make short jokes to a dragon the size of a helicopter.

“Whoa,” My girls said at the same time. They were awestruck, their eyes wide with wonder.

“B-Byrd? Is that really you?” Simone asked.

I nodded.

“Guess we weren’t too far off with the gay gator speculation.”

I growled at Maisie with as vicious of side-eye that I could muster.

“My gods in sea and earth, Byrdie. You’re a fuckingdragon? Like a literal dragon-shifter? This is insanely cool! And you are a natural in the air!” Simone marveled.

“Well, she was kinda born this way, Sea.”

“Oh, shut it.” Simone stuck her tongue out at Maisie, and I rolled my eyes.

“But she is right. This is incredible.”

I preened from their compliments. Then I felt a tug on my thoughts that made me whine.

Quinn.

“Byrd? What’s wrong?” Maisie asked before she shook her head. “Wait, why did I ask that? Dragons can’t talk… right?”

“Well, not in her current form. Can you shift back, Bee? Do you know how?”

I nodded.

“Wait, shifters might not know how to shift back?”

“Not the first time they shift, usually. They don’t have control of the magic yet. Mermaids really struggle with the whole leg thing the first time around. Don’t even get me started. Wait a minute. Didn’t you take Shifter Autonomy as your Supernatural Differential Course?”

“We both know that I took that class for the Easy A and to get in that polycule with those vampires. The only autonomy I cared about then was what they could do with their?—”

“You need a time out.”

I snorted, listening to them. Actually, shifting was the easy part for me. The feeling of that magic was one that I could never forget or lose where it lingered just within reach when I wasn’t using it. It was a comforting presence, like my dragon in my mind. So, it took nothing to summon it and wrap it around me.

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