The universe really decided to be a bitch this month.

“Hunters? Like the ones we chased out of your cave?” Ric asked, panic seeping into his voice.

“Literally the exact. Same. Ones. Spouting some shit about a Dragon that belongs to them,” Katelynn explained, still out of breath.

“But how did they get past the guards? The knights? Hell, even the people of the city? Why are they in the castle?” Disbelief colored my voice, and I could tell everyone was just as confused as I was.

“They…They have some predator Shifters. I think they’re drugged or something, because they won’t attack the Hunters, only Alinvelle people.”

That was… disturbing, to say the least. I knew Hunters were fucked up and had awful prejudices, but using Otherkin to hunt more Otherkin was a new low. Predator Shifters didn’t always have the best tempers, but they never hurt anyone without good reason. The King and Queen’s own preferred forms were wolves. Perverting such power and forcing these people to do things they would never have done in their right minds was… terrible. Awful. Disgusting. Traumatizing. There weren’t enough words.

“That’s not all,” Katelynn added. “The Hunters we fought apparently weren’t the only ones. There are hundreds of them. And they’re all looking for Zairyn.” She turned to look at me with fear.

“Why me? What did we ever do to them!” I shouted, nearing hysteria. A reddish tint began creeping into my vision.

“You didn’t know? You’re one of the last Dragons in the Human lands. Quite frankly you’re worth a lot,” Kieran answered.

I let out a panicked whine, and the red tinge in my eyes made way for a particular fogginess that had come again too soon. I stumbled backward, letting out more distressed sounds, a migraine starting to work its way back into my head.

“Lynn… The thing. The thing is happening again… It hurts! Make it stop make it stop make it stop-”

“Zairyn! Shit! Ric, what are you-?”

Two familiar arms wrapped around my face, again, and a warmth passed over my face, then up to my forehead where my horns were, then back down my snout, over and over again.

‘What’s happening? Why is this happening? I want to go home.’ I could feel myself trembling. I had just gotten over the last bout of my poisoning, I was so sick of being weak.

But the pets were nice, reassuring. I pushed my nose into the kind hand more, and drowned in the smell of apple pies. I closed my eyes and curled my tail around the source of the sweet scent, holding it close to me.

(Ric POV)

He was spiraling. I knew it as soon as Katelynn confirmed the Hunters were after him. He just verified it when he started talking like he was losing himself. He looked the same as he did when he first stole Katelynn. He started pulling away from the door. Only this time he was slightly conscious, and he begged for help.

“Lynn… The thing. The thing is happening again… It hurts! Make it stop make it stop make it stop-” Zairyn whispered in between stuttering breaths.

“Zairyn! Shit! Ric, what are you-?” Before she could say anything else, I was by his side, hugging his face (snout?) again, like I had only minutes before. If I could calm him down this way, just one more time, it could prevent another freakout like before, but this time he may hurt others… or even himself.

I had surprised myself when I ran to him, but he surprised me when he pushed his face further into my hand, taking deep breaths. He closed his eyes, and his tail scooped around me, pulling me into his warmer-than-Human body.

‘His body temperature is back to normal at least.’ I realized absently, more focused on keeping him pacified.

There were a few moments of tense calm, where all the locks were in place. Everyone stared at the huge door in trepidation, minus Zair and I who were occupied with a mid-breakdown petting session.

But it didn’t last long. Thundering booms rattled the door, and shouts could be heard from just outside.

“Here! Th’ fuckers are in here!” a deep voice I wish I’d never hear again shouted. It was the leader of the clan. Zair flinched with every bang, but his breathing never changed, still inhaling as deeply as he could.

“Get th’ Priestess bitch over here!” A Priestess? If there was a Priestess then the predator Shifters must have been religious; which meant they had ties to some sort of primal magick.

It took my mind a few moments to connect the dots, but just as I did, Kalde voiced my realization. “They’re going to try and break the seals,” they whispered. “They’re trying to get in.”

Right as they finished saying that, the runes on the door started changing colors. Usually glowing a bright red, they bled to a light purple, then a deep blue, the color shift draining its way down the door. Magickal seals made small ticking noises as they unlocked, the swirling words on them moving and adjusting to the new, blue magick of the Moon Goddess, leaving our door with only metal protections.

Since it was Moon magick, the Shifters were likely some type of wolf or cat, and while they would be no match for a Dragon, they could most definitely take down a few Humans. The only thing separating us from the Hunters and their enslaved Shifters were a few locks, some chains, and a huge metal bolt, but none of those things would hold up against magick; any kind, not just Moon.

But we had time, if just a little bit. If I remember what Kieran told me correctly, using that much magick costs something, and it would take a bit to recharge. If the Hunters only had one Priestess at their disposal, then we had some time to get Zairyn out of here, to get all of us out of here.

“Guys! We need to hurry! They probably only have one Priestess; we need to find a way out of here before they regained enough of their power to blow open this door!” I hissed, standing up, but still staying close enough to Zairyn. He seemed to have calmed down a bit. That was good, we could definitely use a Dragon in this situation.

“But the only way out is through that door!” Kalde said, pointing to the door that was literally just unsealed.

“That’s so dumb,” I muttered. “Well, what else can we do?”

Kalde sighed, and roughly scrubbed their face. “You guys aren’t going to like this, but we have to wait. The knights of our castle were overrun, yes, but only because they were so surprised. They’ll get back on their feet quickly enough, and they know that we’re here. We’ll be rescued soon. I have faith in my people. And they’ll get an ass-whooping from me once this is all over. They should have been prepared…” they grumbled.

“We can’t just wait!” Zairyn whispered. He still looked shaken, but definitely not as bad as before. “It won’t be long until the Hunters get in. And I know that they won’t just grab me and be on their way. They have a grudge against all of you for stopping them last time. They’re willing to kill you. That’s what they do,” he finished, his eyes wide with knowing horror.

Katelynn only silently nodded in agreement, and Kieran let out a long-suffering sigh. Our sister just turned to her lover and hugged them tightly. I unconsciously gripped Zair’s face tighter, and his tail curled up and around my stomach.

I suddenly had a thought.

“Zairyn, can you… shift? If they see that there is no Dragon here, the Hunters will leave… right? They may want to kill us too, but we can hide somewhere in this tower. If you were Human, you could too.”

A choked sound escaped from Katelynn’s throat, and Zair just looked down, pulling away from me. My body felt cold as his warmer one left mine.

“I-I-I can’t. I-I don’t k-know how… I n-never learned.” He was quivering again, and I would have teased him about blushing some more, but this obviously wasn’t the time. I was a lot more confused though.

“Aren’t you my age? I thought all Dragons learned right before puberty?” I asked, without even thinking. My hand flew up to cover my mouth right as I remembered though.

‘Oh. Oh Gods. He never learned. He never learned because he didn’t have anyone left to teach him. I’m such a fucking idiot.’

“I-I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking. I didn’t mean-”

“It’s fine. I know. But I can’t shift,” he sighed with resignation. “So we have to think of something else.”

BANG

We all flinched, and our eyes shot to the door, still rattling with the impact.

“Let us in, you rich pricks! We know you have the Dragon in there!” a deep sing-song voice called out. “Just give us th’ Dragon, and we spare ev’ryone else!”

BANG

“Let us in. LET US IN! We’ll just blow th’ whole fucking thing down if you don’t!”

BANG BANG BANG

As the clan leader continued his haunting taunts, we sprang into action. Though we were all doing different things, we had the same idea. Kalde unsheathed their sword, Jillan grabbed a heavy pole lying on the floor, Kieran cracked his knuckles, and Katelynn pulled… a dagger from her dress? I have no idea where that was hiding this whole time, but it seemed we were all of the same minds: we had to fight.

I was about to follow suit and find something like Jillan had to defend myself, when I noticed that Zairyn was back on the fireproof rune we found him on. He was hunched over with his eyes shut tight. He looked… constipated?

“Are you okay dude?” I asked. This was super weird. I was at least expecting him to prepare for a fight too. Out of all of us, he would probably be the most effective.

But Zair just hummed in response, and shuffled down further into himself. Then I saw his mouth faintly moving.

“Be the Human, just be the Human. You can do this, just focus, and change. It’s easy. It’s easy. A hatchling can do it. I’d probably look something like Lynn, just focus… Not a Dragon. Not a Dragon…” I could barely hear him over the banging and shouting from outside the door, but when I did, I realized he was trying to shift. “Remember what Mom did. Hands, feet, legs, arms, body. No tail, no horns. No fire inside. Just remember what Mom did. Hands, feet, legs, arms, body. No tail, no horns. No fire inside…” He kept muttering the same phrase over and over again, like some sort of mantra to help calm him.

‘Calm him? I can do that. I can help him!’

But I didn’t know if hugging him yet again would make him lose his focus.

‘Too late’, my mind, unhelpfully, thought. My arms were already around his face again, stroking up and down. This was the third time I’d done this in little over half an hour, so either I was really good at this, or he had some serious anxiety to get over. Or both. Probably both.

My hands fell into a now-familiar rhythm of caressing his face, and he pushed back into the motion. His nose was right on my stomach, and I remembered Kieran telling me something about how the stomach was the most vulnerable place on one’s body. But I wasn't afraid for some reason, despite having a literal Dragon’s mouth so close to my most unprotected area. We just stayed quiet like that, having another weird moment despite the otherwise pressuring circumstances. Everyone else paid no mind; they were too busy staring at the door, the strained atmosphere palpable.

Everything was quiet (minus the lunatic of a Hunter), until Zairyn let out a deep groan, and I felt something shifting under my hands. Not physical shifting, but the shifting of magick.

(Zairyn POV)

I was muttering the rhyme that my Mom used to tell me for shifting. It wasn’t really a rhyme, but she said that it helped her focus enough on a Human form, so much so that she became one.

But it wasn’t working. Until the pie-smell returned. I was conscious enough this time to know that it was Ric holding me, but I didn’t care enough to let it distract me. It was actually helping. I pushed my nose into his body again, this time his belly, one of the places where his scent would be the strongest. I hope Katelynn never told him how… intimate this was for certain Otherkin. Not in a romantic way. It just meant you were close with someone. And we definitely weren’t at that point yet; I barely knew that guy.

‘But he knows a shit ton about me.’

Creepy, but I’ll let it slide. Whether he knew it or not, he was helping me. I focused again on the shape of a Human, starting with a vague outline, then going into further detail. The hardest part about shifting is that it really helps to envision yourself as whatever form you’re trying to take. But I’ve never seen myself as a Human, so that’s not actually that helpful. I tried to imagine myself like a male version of Katelynn. She would probably be the closest to whatever I might look like. I tried thinking of Mom’s Human form, and of Da. That was harder since it’s been so long, but it got easier the more I relaxed into Ric’s scent.

I have no idea how much time passed with us like this; it could have been a few seconds, could have been hours for all I was paying attention.

But then my brain cycled through a few Human visions, possibilities, and landed on one that… “clicked”. It was the only way I could describe it. I saw a Human boy in my mind, and it just felt right. I let out a soft exhale, and felt the warmth that came from my chest flow into the rest of my body.

‘This is my magick, isn’t it?’ I thought distractedly.

It was a nice feeling, my own energy seeping into limbs it usually didn’t, warming me up from the inside out.

It was a nice feeling, until it wasn’t. Only a few moments after the heat relaxed my bones, they seized up again with a white-hot wire of pain that traveled from the tip of my nose to the end of my tail, all along my spine. I couldn’t breathe, the fire scorching me in a way I thought impossible for being a Dragon.

‘But I’m not a Dragon anymore.’

My mouth hung open in a silent scream, and Ric’s heartbeat drummed in my ears alongside my own. It felt like his arms were growing larger around me.

‘Or I’m shrinking…’

I could feel the heat his body gave off.

‘Since he was no longer stealing mine…’

The pain subsided by a fraction, and I spent the last of my energy grasping at his tunic.

‘With Human hands…’

I could only marvel at the smooth digits that moved as my paws would, the blunt nails in place of my claws, and the practical twigs that were supposed to be my arms. I missed my Dragon form already.

‘I guess muscles don’t transfer when you shift…’ I thought, black dots spotting my vision. A welcome change to the red haziness.

I vaguely heard Ric shifting around, and a softness that smelt of apple pies covered my body. The door across the room was thrown open, and I promptly passed out.