Page 10 of Finding Her
“Thank you.” I offered a polite smile despite her stone-faced leer.
I avoided staring at her unique features to the best of my ability, but curiosity was getting the better of me. I found my eyes captivated by the densely packed scales highlighting the perimeters of her face, accentuating her cheekbones, capping her shoulders, and coating her arms and legs. They lookedpolished and reflected iridescent hot pink and golden shifts when the light coming through the window hit them just right.
“See something interesting?” She looked down at her own arms and then back at me with unamused eyes.
Shit.“No, I’m sorry. I’ve just never seen a person like you. Someone with scales, that is.”
She raised a brow, and I wondered for a moment if I’d said something culturally insensitive. “Here, you can touch. They won’t bite you.” She thrust her plated arm in front of me. Where I was used to seeing hair on a person’s, she had thickly condensed scales that thinned out into velvety, pink flesh under her arms.
“No, really, it’s ok,” I objected in humiliation.
I’d planned to be more prepared for this type of interaction. Being thrown into this while still waking up was leading tocompletesocial failure. Not that she had to be so blatant in calling me out. A little grace for my situation would be appreciated, assuming Graysen had given hersomecontext for my predicament.
“Just touch it already.”
At this point, it felt rude to deny her request. I reached out and rested my fingertips gently on her scales. They felt cool and smooth as glass.
“See? Nothing to be afraid of.” She smiled slightly with her pointed teeth. “You better get all of your curiosity out here. Not everyone is going to understand why you’re so bewildered by their bodies.”
“People here are just different than where I’m from,” I explained, trying to hold onto what was left of my pride. Surely I wouldn’t be acting this way if it weren’t for the suddenness of it all. Asking about people’s bodies needed to be handled delicately—I knew that. I just thought I’d have more time to prepare before being thrown into it.
She rested her cheek into her palm and drummed her long nails on her armored temple with a distinct clicking. “It isn’t your fault. I bet Graysen hasn’t given you much to work with.”
“I’ve only been here a couple of days, it hasn’t made sense for me to leave the house yet.” For some reason, I felt the need to defend the man I owed nothing to, opting not to relay our argument about the very topic yesterday. I wasn’t sure if it was so much for his benefit as it was for my own ego. I didn’t want to encourage the idea that I was reliant on him.
“Figures,” she mumbled with a tinge of annoyance, as if she knew the deeper conversation I was withholding. “Let me take you out for a bit. It’ll get your feet wet. That has to be better than being trapped inside these walls, wary of the unknownmonstersoutside.”
The emphasis she put on “monsters” made my stomach twist. I wondered if Graysen had told her that was the word I had initially used when asking about his people. Beyond my embarrassment, I was surprised she offered to take me out at all. Not that I’d planned on being held captive for long, but after yesterday’s discussions, I felt some caution might be warranted, if not exclusively enforced. At the very least, I assumed that hesitancy would be shared between Graysen and his friend. Wouldn’t she be just as eager to keep me inside? Maybe the issue really had just been my hair?
“Is it safe?” I subconsciously touched the taupe gray wave draping over my shoulder, wondering if I had other features that would betray me as different.
“Of course. You just need some fresh air outside of these smoky ass walls. Get dressed and I’ll write him a note saying we’ll be back for dinner.” She pointed to a pile of clothing foldedon the arm of the couch. “You’ll want to identify as a Pyran when blending in with the public. There’s a ribbon there to wrap around your neck; it'll hide the absence of an emblem.”
Frankly, I preferred Graysen’s sweatpants. The outfit Mykie had given me would cover less of my body than the blanket that barely spared my dignity in the carriage. The leather shorts were too tight, and the blue top showed my midriff. If the color was different, and I had a set of stiletto nails, I’d match Mykie completely. This outfit wastechnicallyan improvement to Graysen’s clothing, but it swung to the other end of the spectrum. Everything clung where I didn’t want it to. My breasts were practically spilling from the square neckline. My stomach rounded over the hem of the high-waisted shorts. The underside of each ass cheek threatened to be freed the moment I went to sit down or bend over.
Still, I had to wear it. I didn’t want to offend the already agitated lizard woman waiting for me downstairs. Recognizing I had new cultures to acclimate to, I would try to go with the flow. Time to pick my battles. I wrapped the provided ribbon of black silk around my throat and secured it with a bow, creating a feminine collar for a well-behaved pet.
The wounds on my feet had completely healed overnight. Even the faint scars from yesterday had disappeared entirely. I was fascinated by this for only a moment before logging it as evidence that I was dreaming or in a coma. I had started calculating the odds of my situation, trying to sort data into quantifiable categories. Unconsciousness consistently had the most tangible support: weird clocks, strange creatures, rapidhealing. The only snag in my confidence with the hypothesis was my overwhelming sense of awareness and physical presence in this world. I wasn’t sure I could weigh all data equally.
I stared in the mirror and adjusted my top, repeatedly trying to pull it down over my belly button and the pink stripes of my skin that rose above the waistband. I looked younger today. The bags under my eyes had faded and my skin glowed healthily. It was a miracle. As I watched myself move in the mirror, I began to calibrate to my form, becoming more than a wandering soul. I felt like a person. A person in shorts that weretoo damn tight.
I walked down the stairs to a waiting Mykie.
“Huh, you’re hot,” she stated factually, placing a pair of boots by my feet. “I figured there was a female’s body hidden under Graysen’s clothing.” I assumed she meant it as a compliment, but I felt too exposed to be flattered.
“Thank you,” I mumbled awkwardly as I tugged on the boots. A little loose, but not uncomfortable. “Where are we going?”
“Do you drink?”
“I guess I do.” I was a clean slate of a woman; I figured I could do anything if it meant creating a self.
“Perfect, there’s a pub right down the street where you’ll be introduced to all different kinds of people.” She grabbed a small black backpack off a hook on the wall. “Shall we?”
Time to rally. I was finally stepping out of the house, starting my journey of exploring this strange planet. Anxietywould have to take a back seat as I figured out what magic this foreign world had to offer. I was ready for anything. Maybe.
The pebbled road stretching left from Graysen’s house turned into a modestly sized market with makeshift stalls lining either side of the street. Crowds of people were manning the stands, buying goods, and chatting, not unlike any human community would. It would have felt comfortably familiar if I looked anything like the locals. Even if I was able to play off being a Pyran aesthetically, I worried they could sense that I was an imposter. What if they asked me to produce fire as a test? Would that be bad? Graysen heavily implied that standing out would have consequences.
I stared at a covered stall selling various fruits—none were quite identifiable to me, although many were reminiscent of what I remembered from Earth. It was as if someone said “what if bananas were red” and it was so. I wondered if they tasted the same as I stared at the bundles hanging from hooks under the tin roofing. The shopkeeper was also an Arielna, perhaps the same blue one I had seen when first getting out of the carriage. She was inspecting a large coin between two pinched fingers, maybe skeptical of its adequacy.
