[2025.12]
Asher, a student of runic magic, has much on his mind: his studies, his feelings, whether the downstairs neighbor will break anything structural with her new tail. After magic returned following the Bloom, he never expected that he'd end up living right next to one of the epicenters. He soon learns that living in such close proximity has draconicconsequences. Luckily, his roommate Luka is there for him.
word count: ~5,000
keywords: Urban Fantasy / Magic / Romance / Identity / Dragon Transformation
Asher rested his head against the cool wood of his apartment door. Fumbling for his keys, he lamented the headache that had already started to take hold. His trip home on the Plum Line had been mostly uneventful. Mostly, save for the snow leopard woman who decided to be his new best friend. One of the faetouched; that's what the papers called them. Someone whom the Bloom happened to change, in a minor or major way. She'd gotten on all the way up at Blackcurrant, leaving Asher as a captive audience while she talked at him about her experiences as a freshman at New Helvetia Academy. She'd seen the university pin on his bag, and oh boy.
Asher was no stranger to the faetouched. He admired a fair few. At least they all seemed to know who they were. But he'd just finished his shift in the university library, and his head was elsewhere. He'd limited his dialogue to brusque and closed-off responses. The poor woman couldn't take the hint. The most one-sided of conversations followed. First about her life, then asking about his before butting in with her experience at university. She raved about how 'welcoming' NHA was compared to her previous institution. It'd all blurred together.
He clutched a small wrapped box with one hand while fishing his keys out with the other. Hopefully he'd have a little time to set something up before Luka got home. After a moment more of readying himself, he opened the door into the dark and quiet two-bedroom apartment. Winter had come to New Helvetia, and it had stolen away much of a late afternoon's light. Asher stepped in, and listened for signs of life. Nothing. Not a thing stirred, save for the soft ticking of the kitchen clock.
The silence confirmed that his housemate was dead asleep, or elsewhere. The observation was backed up by a handwritten note sitting on their coffee table, made visible as he flipped lights on.
Ash,
Going to be out late tonight, alch. lab requires we render a solution
for 15 hours and we're taking shifts. Probs back around midnight. So
don't wait up for me when it comes to dinner, but if you watch the new
SF without me I know where you sleep.
Hugs,
Luka
His heart fluttered at the note. A flare of nervousness. A hint of disappointment. He'd not expected his roommate to be out ‘til midnight. His day would be early tomorrow, which would put off the ask even longer. “Hey Luka, do you think you might want to... go out sometime?” Here he was, talking to himself in the living room.
But maybe it was best to put it off. He could just never ask, that would keep things steady without rocking the boat. Leaning on the couch, he thought of his roommate's color-streaked hair, their bright yellow eyes, the way their laugh lit up the room. Luka had once explained their yellow cat eyes as 'not a faetouched thing, just a potion gone wrong'. Honestly, it just made them look cuter, even if they sometimes hid their eyes away behind sunglasses.
Asher had fallen for the short alchemy major. The options were either a hard no, or a mutual sharing of feelings. Sure, both of these required asking Luka the question. He'd get to that.
In any case, he needed to clear his head. Time to get it out of the clouds and ward off the impending migraine nagging at the back of his skull. “Tomorrow... I'll ask them tomorrow.” A quick rummage in his bathroom's medicine cabinet retrieved some ibuprofen, which he downed dry. Ugh. There was also his presentation due soon. Always more. Always things to do.
Might as well get some practice in to avoid thinking about Luka saying no. To avoid thoughts of ruining his friendship with the roommate he'd found a few months back, one who made him feel special and cherished. To stop thinking about their smile, or the way they laughed at even his worst jokes.
Luka? What Luka? Who's Luka? Nobody he knew. Not anyone he'd want to hold—
With a sigh he jumped into his working draft. “Runecrafting is, in a way, reversing the principles of the Blooms. We think of these places solely as vast magical forests compressed to a point hidden from our eyes for centuries. Runes themselves are visual, they imbue an object or a place or even a person with a physical mark, something utilizing and drawing from local Blooms. Runes work on proximity to such forests. Wellspring, just south of us, gives us plenty of energy to study and craft new spells based in the old runic language.” His practice continued. No mistakes, no slip ups. Perfect.
It wouldn't be an earth-shattering speech. Most of his fellow students would either be too nervous about their own presentations or too tuned out to care. But, what better way to stand out to his professor? Perhaps it would lead him to a spell theory graduate position. Each achievement was an opportunity to break through.
His shared bathroom didn't share his lofty aspirations of perfection. Dim yellow light shone upon tiles that needed another round of bleaching. Thin green lines of moss and lichen crawled down from the ceiling. Soon it'd be time for another round of 'de-greening' with the scraper. He'd cleaned the place pretty religiously since moving in, but living this close to Wellspring made for some compromises.
THUD
A muffled sound from under his feet was followed up by a muffled string of obscenities. He winced. Levvie had grown her tail a month ago, but hadn't quite gotten the hang of it. It must be so strange, to wake up with a new appendage, or even a new body. To learn how to move and exist as a person again.
Living in Southern Market—right on the doorstep of Wellspring—made the risk of change higher. Upside: rent cheap. Downside: how attached are you to your body?
Asher stared at himself in the mirror. That headache hadn't gone away. If anything, it'd invited a whole band of aches and pains to play a symphony within him. Odd. Maybe he was getting sick; his reflection did look a bit worn down. Not like that was a new phenomenon. Nothing there he didn't know, and nothing he really wanted to look at.
Luka had offered to dye his brown hair with the same alchemical dye they used, but the ache in Asher's soul pulled at something deeper—an unfulfilled need he couldn't find words for. Splashing some water on his face, he turned away and went to make dinner. Nothing to be done, and nothing he'd not faced before.
The rest of the night was a quiet affair. Bowl of noodles, reruns of Juniper's Game, and quick glances to the door whenever he heard noise in the hallway. The student set his planned gift to Luka on the desk in his bedroom, next to the secondhand computer Luka helped him scrounge for.
Tomorrow. He'd ask Luka on a date later. Not something he could do on the University Messaging Service. He'd need to do it in person. Tomorrow. He’d totally do it. Just. Then. Not...
The thought never arrived; Asher slept.
⁂
Asher's dreams were wild and hectic. Flashes of scales. Cries of animals. A lupine hand reaching from a forest stretching out in every direction. When wakefulness came, it was a surprise. One moment adrift in a lush spring. The next, blinking the sleep from his eyes.
Lethargy clung to him. Usually he counted himself as an early riser. Today he struggled to lift a heavy blanket off of his consciousness. When he did open his eyes, the stiff crust of salt at their corners made him grimace. Had he beencryingin his sleep?
His room was blurry. He blinked. Then blinked again. A whole fluttering of the eyes didn’t manage to clear his sight. “I better not have gotten pink eye,” he groused.
Through a petroleum jelly haze, Asher's vision smeared across his room. While raw forms—the rectangle of his window, the light of his alarm clock, the blue smear of his left arm—he had no focus or clarity—
Wait. Blue?!
The sudden confusion pulled at a new muscle behind each of his eyes. His vision cleared, but what it revealed didn't compute. Sunlight streaming in from the half-closed blinds of his window sparkled off of smooth, overlapping scales. Bright, sapphire blue occasionally flecked with specks of silver had replaced the tanned flesh of his hand.
And his arm.
And his everything else.
Asher yelped, a surprisingly high-pitched noise, and leapt back as though he could escape his very being with enough force. His sudden movement scattered sparks of light around his small bedroom.
He tumbled from the bed. Thump. Rattle. His bedside lamp wobbled with a death wish. More of his body than should have been body hit the floor. Not just his side, but a length growing from his rear.
“I have a fucking TAIL?” His cry, once again, carried not the gruff growl he might expect of a large changed lizard. It sounded as though his voice had never cracked. Still him, just light. Free. The pitch pinged something deep in his chest.
No. Priorities first.
Asher craned his neck to look down at himself. The patterning of his scales continued downward toward his chest. Silver-white scales increased in number on approach to the larger flat scutes of his torso. It gave the illusion of something like sea-spray. White splashing on an expanse of blue.
His tail had thwacked against his dresser on the way down. Pain radiated up his spine, but quickly diminished like he'd stubbed his toe, or bit his tongue. Its agony was nearly mundane. The whole series of events left him with a detached curiosity. A shock that hadn't quite settled in. A line of cream-colored fur traced from the tip of his tail upward. Like a mane, it grew all the way up his head, though seemed short enough to not fall into his eyes.
He had just noticed the strange way his new legs bent when a soft knock came at his door.
“Ash, are you okay? I was making breakfast and heard something?”
Luka's voice came muffled through the door. Thank the stars for the old building getting in the way of sound traveling. Luka couldn't see him like this. They simply couldn't.
He counted the reasons in his mind. They'd think he was a freak. They'd not be able to take him seriously. They'd treat him like the woman he endured on the train. So many reasons checked off, so many things he'd been building up since those first few years post-Bloom.
He swallowed tears. Bright flames of shame and uncertainty lashed at the sides of his face. Spikes of fear plunged down his spine. All he needed to do was ward off Luka. Then he could find a way to disguise himself. He was studying runes. Enchantments. Couldn't he just whip up some kind of illusion spell on something? Maybe he could practice some of the reflexive rune casting his upper division courses were studying.
He pulled himself out of the spiral with a new sense of determination. He could do this. He had to do this.
Clearing his throat, he responded. “Fine! I'm fine!” It was nearly an octave high. Needed to be deeper, like himself. Adding some gravel, he tried again. “Woke up and there was a spider.” Each word came out slow, measured, and fake. “Freaked me out.”
For moments it was still. Quiet. Asher only heard the staccato rhythm of Luka's heart through the door, sensed the warmth pulsing through arteries and veins. New senses lingered at the periphery of the newly faetouched's comprehension.
“You know, I'd buy that excuse from anyone but you, Ash.”
Shit.
“I mean, a spider, really? I've heard you talk to every single bug you've found in our apartment. You really think I'm going to imagine that you woke up so afraid as to—”
“I JUST NEED YOU TO NOT COME IN HERE, OKAY?” Asher's voice leapt from his new muzzle before he could stop himself. No filter, no façade of gruffness, just the fragile soprano of someone teetering on the edge of a breakdown.
Moments stretched into seconds, stretched to minutes. Luka sighed. “Okay. Okay. Just, tell me if anything is up? Here for you, Ash.”
He let out the breath he hadn't known he was holding. He needed to focus up. Figure out his options before walking out into the living room. Before scaring off the person he wanted to date. Before. Before—
Anxiety bubbled over within him, becoming a soft whine he didn't know how to stop. A high keening sound filled the air. Was that him? He felt unmoored. Outside himself. The whine continued.
Hopefully it wouldn't summon Luka back.
Eventually his noise petered out. He caught his breath. Perhaps this was all a dream. Or maybe not a full change? Maybe just some kind of temporary shift that could be reverted? With a grunt, he rolled to his front. His tail whipped around as he did—some change-induced muscle memory? Oh, how he wished he'd done more research before something like this happened!
On shaky legs he reared up to grab the mussed duvet of his bed with both palms. He tried to get a hold of himself. Sitting on his hind legs was comfortable, like it'd be a resting position for any other creature. Hind legs. Haunches. The words came to him as though they'd been with him his whole life. He knew he'd not been an overweight gecko, but some part of him worked to fit his body into the strange puzzle of himself. It was all too easy to hold these new ideas of self alongside the old.
Unsettling.
His hands were humanoid, if not fully human. Fingers longer, palm narrower, three fingers, one thumb. Pearlescent white claws tipped the ends. “At least I still have opposable thumbs.” With a sigh the drake thumped back to solid ground. It was the final straw for his alarm clock. Already off kilter from his fall, the digital clock had been hanging onto the edge of his nightstand for dear life.
While falling, the hour ticked over. 7:59 became 8:00, and the clang of rattling bells and digital noise clouded all thoughts but the most reactive. That new hearing of his was good for some things, but the bright hot pain of ice-pick noise through his skull was not one of them.
Something happened next. In one moment he rested on all fours, thinking through his next move and spiraling as his life unraveled before him. The next, his clock was in pieces, shattered by the downward momentum of one hand.
Thwack, thump, slam.
Claws dug gouges in the carpet.
Fibers ripped. Wordless grief rose like bile in his throat.
The noise ceased, but still it rang in his skull.
A new noise behind him. It was lost in the echoes of his own head amplifying each and every anxiety. The clock had long since scattered. Screws and plastics in all corners, shards of glass in his palm. Pain. Was he hurt? He didn't care, Luka couldn't see him like this! People couldn't see him like this! Why couldn't he handle it? Why couldn't he be normal? Why couldn't he even handle a simple alarm! Why—
“Ash...”
The soft sound of Luka's voice shone like a beacon through fog. A beam of light clearing everything in its path, only to make Asher realize that he stood on train tracks with the engine coming right at him. He turned to face it, bright yellow bearing down. Trapped. He was trapped. He—
“Hey.” Luka sat on the ground, folding their legs in one fell swoop. Elegant, like always. “Breathe.”
Simple words. Simple statements. A knife through the rope tying him to the tracks. Asher stared at him, nictitating membranes doing their best to clear his eyes of tears.
“Luka, I…” His voice came out raspy. Had he been yelling? Even in fear, his voice failed to register as masculine; the heavy bass had been stripped from his vocal cords. Some numbing weight had been lightened. He hadn't the mind to dwell. “I—”
Luka hushed him. “It can wait. You're hurt.”
The tone of Luka's voice confused him. They were so patient, why were they being so patient with him? With the monster he'd become? Lost in dazed questioning, he missed Luka running off and returning with a first aid kit. They got to treating Asher's hand, removing the few shards of glass and plastic embedded in his palm.
Animal noises left him. A soft whimper, an uncertain growl. He wasn't like this! He had kept so buttoned up. He had been normal. Why was it all coming out of him now? Tears threatened to wage their campaign against his composure once more.
“Hold on, this one's a little deep. Deep breaths.” Luka re-centered him.
Forceps clamped around the last shard. Right. He'd been hurt.
“I'll pull it out on the count of three. One. Two. Th—” Luka yanked, early. Ash whimpered and only by the grace of the stars managed to not claw at his roommate.
“You never finished three!” he whined, pulled back to the ground by a simple betrayal.
Luka smiled, dropped the bloody thing on a plate, and got to wrapping his palm in gauze. “Oh bite me, you big baby. You'll survive.” One more wrap of gauze and the hard part was over. Luka gently squeezed one of Ash's claws.
“One thing I've heard, Ash, is that a lot of faetouched folks heal a little easier. So you shouldn't need stitches.”
“Luka, why would you do this for me?”
Luka merely laughed and rolled his beautiful golden eyes. “Oh yes, let me strand my roommate to deal with getting broken glass out of his palm with a physiology he barely understands. Yes. Yes, I should have left you to wallow. I should have stranded this sweet dragon. Oh, woe.”
Sweet?! Dragon?!
The words did somersaults within his gut, and flushed his face with a warmth he wasn't sure showed on his scales. His scales. He had scales .
“You're not… scared of me? Or upset with me?” Of all the reactions, he'd not expected this warmth. Before Luka could stand, Ash pressed his head into their chest. An instinctual action, a simple outpouring of physical affection that could not be held back.
Luka pet over his mane. Fingers quickly found knots in the fur—tangles from his morning's escapades. “Ash. Scared of you? Upset?” His hand moved under Ash's and tilted the new reptile's snout up to look into his eyes. “Is that my fear you're worried about? Or yours?”
The question hung in the air. Ash squirmed, eye contact making him feel all too exposed.
“B-but. This can't be me… can it? I have my studies. I have responsibilities. I—”
“Breathe. Take a moment, Ash. Exist in the moment. How do you really feel? Forget society. Forget everyone. What is your body saying to you?”
Ash closed his eyes. He lifted one paw, then set it down and lifted another. He sat back, stood up and settled back down upon his haunches. He rolled his shoulders, feeling the shapes that they now took, the muscles they now moved. Nothing felt wrong. Different, yes, but not… wrong.
“You've read the same articles I have in the Daily. Low regret rates, high satisfaction,” Luka continued. “Most people are more annoyed about accommodations and the stares from others. Not with their own bodies.”
“But why can't I feel satisfied and happy? If they're all so carefree and unanxious why do I still feel so— so panicked? Why didn't it fix me? I should be fixed, right? I should be happy. I should be happy.” He opened his eyes, settling back down onto all fours when he did. “Why is it so scary? Why am I so scared?” His chin arced to look up at Luka. Luka ruffled his mane, then pulled him closer.
“Ash, are you telling me that if, stars, if you won a million dina in a lottery that you wouldn't be overwhelmed? Anxious? Good things can still be too much. At the end of the day, you're still you. You're just now more you.”
More him? More him. More— More…
Emotion welled up. Something had been missing. He'd felt it just the night before. He'd felt it every day. A weight he couldn't put words to. The unease, the jealousy. A need unaddressed, unknowable.
This. He'd needed this. He couldn't hold it back. He didn't need to hold it back. The dam broke. The self he'd walled off flowed like water into every inch of him. The dam washed away in the flood. He sobbed and sagged into Luka's embrace.
⁂
“So that's… me?” Ash considered himself in the body-length mirror in Luka's room. His roommate didn't respond. They didn't need to. Behind him, the room faded into obscurity. Alchemical supplies on a desk, laundry tossed haphazardly into a hamper, the lava lamps that Luka claimed would come back into style 'any moment now'. None of that mattered.
An azure dragon stared back. Silver scales splashed up from his scutes, dappling him with seafoam over chest and legs. His eyes were like sapphires, bright and piercing with black slits splitting their middle. That creamy fur grew longer on his back, flopped off to one side.
He was short, though that had been obvious before this moment. Even Luka, petite Luka, still towered over him. Stood at the shoulder, he perhaps reached Luka's waist?
Ash lifted his tail, marveling at the paintbrush tip it ended with. A tail… he had a tail! A wide grin split that muzzle of his, and had him investigating the ways his teeth overlapped, the fork of his tongue, and the curl of his dark jowls.
Luka sat on the bed and paged through an encyclopedia. It was one of the newer ones, mostly a quickly compiled compendium of amateur research from those who lived around more concentrated pockets of magic. Required reading for both of their studies.
It was simple. It was downright domestic. Ash took a break from examining himself and looked up at his roommate instead. Even from this angle they were glorious—handsome and beautiful in equal measures. Their oversized hoodie and streaked hair gave them all the air of a boy-band heartthrob with none of the ego.
Luka looked down at him. They smiled, which warmed Ash's face and chest. A few seconds stretched just looking at each other before Ash realized what he was doing. “O-oh! I— Well! I seem to look healthy. And I can fit through doors, more than can be said for some. Means I can get to schoo—”
A bolt of mental lightning. “Oh shoot! My presentation!”
⁂
“Alright, Dr. Thán. Yes, I'll see you in class next week. With my presentation, yes. Yes, I'll call the dean's office. Yes I'll— Alright, thank you. Thank you, thank you!” Luka held the phone for Ash as he finished the call with his Methodology of Magic professor. They hung it on the receiver when the call ended.
Ash sagged in relief. Sweet relief. “I'm off the hook. 'Til next week. Need to call the Dean's so they can get the school's Ombuds team to contact city resources on my behalf to get me registered with the city. Then we can get accommodations looked at for testing and whatnot. We'll also need to test how my magic flows again but that's going to be— we'll cross that bridge when we burn it.”
Luka chuckled. “You and that saying. Are you ever going to get the expression right?”
“It was intentional this time! Who knows! I might burn a bridge down when we test out what I can do! I am a dragon now, you know.” Ash bumped his flank into Luka's shin. He underestimated his strength and almost knocked his roommate to the floor. They both laughed.
The exhaustion of it all hit Ash at that point. He sighed, spent emotionally and physically. His forepaw still ached, and the whiplash of emotions from distinct ends of a spectrum finally caught up with him. Laughs became another round of tears, for which Luka was all too happy to comfort the dragon.
⁂
The rest of the day was spent in the soft fragility of too many emotions and too few guardrails. At some point the pair made it to the couch. Ash's body took up nearly two-thirds of the thing, and that ignored the tail he'd left hanging off the side. New discoveries came with intention and by accident in equal measure.
He had to learn to rally things to and from where he carried them. A sandwich on a plate became a game of set, walk, turn back and grab, and set further. That is, when Luka wasn't helping him.
Luka, who sent the e-mails to his other professors. Luka, who held the phone while he called the Dean's office. Luka who reached the highest cupboards. Ash may have been long, but it did not translate to vertical height. Standing on his hind legs and holding to the counter for support only brought his reach to fourteen decimeters or so.
Ash didn't think about any of that while in the moment. Luka had discovered something wonderful: the deep magic of petting Ash's mane and down his back. Delight radiated off the pair. Tingles and radiating warmth flowed over his scales. Ash closed his eyes.
He opened them again when a deep rumble rattled forth from his chest. Like the low thrum of an engine, Ash purred. He had thought the most magical thing was Luka's fingers through his fur. Wrong. Luka's chuckle at Ash's pleased purring sent a whole new wave of sparkle through his core. Had he not already been falling for them, he may just have done so again. He closed his eyes and drifted.
⁂
“So… who's the special someone?” Luka's voice roused Ash from the light haze of sleep he'd found himself in. In their hands was a small box, wrapped in parchment and tied with twine. The gift. He'd forgotten about his gift. It must have fallen off his desk in his tumult.
Awake now. Very awake. “Well, I— uhm…” Ash ran the gamut on verbal stumbles before finally running head first into the truth.
“You.” No fanfare, no qualifying, and Ash was sheer out of the mental energy to dance around the issue. He lifted his long neck and looked into Luka's eyes. “I meant to surprise you with it last night.”
Luka let him speak, their face growing rosy.
“You've been really good to me and I like spending time with you. We go on walks, we watch shows. I wanted to see if— if you'd be interested in going out on a date sometime. You can open it, if you want. It's nothing speci—”
“Shh.” Luka's fingers slipped under rough twine after he hushed the anxious dragon. “It's a gift. It's from you. That's more than special.” A tug, a pluck, and the little box came unwrapped. Lifting the lid revealed a pair of smooth black stones each attached to a loop of black leather. Luka picked one up and turned it over in his hand. A small runecircle had been inscribed on the inside, radiating the faintest red glow. “Oh, wow, it's warm.”
Ash's tail thwumped against the couch. “Yes! You've been complaining about how cold your hands get when you write notes. And with winter... I needed to test something. Turns out you can make localized minor enchantments that don't need much mana to function. You can put one on each wrist and it should radiate some ambient warmth through your hands. So your fingers never get cold.”
Luka slipped the bands on, tightening the slipknot on each strap. Asher felt a spotlight upon him. The warmth and nervousness pooled in his gut. Unable to sweat, his mouth dropped into a pant—another new feature.
“I've not done too much testing. And— and they could fail. I don't know long they'll last. Also we don't have to date I just thought it'd be a nice gesture but if you're not interested that's fine too.”
“Ash. Hush. I love them. This is… this is such a thoughtful gift. C'mere.” Luka wrapped their arms around Ash's neck and hugged him close. “I was wondering when you'd pick up on the hints.”
What.
“What?” Ash, head now pressed to Luka's slender chest, heard his own heartbeat as much as theirs.
Another chuckle arose from his friend. His more-than-friend? “We take turns cooking for each other. We watch our favorite show together. I even took you out to dinner last week, just you and me. To be honest, I thought it'd become something unspoken between us. Granted, I'll have to look up some specifics on dragon anatomy—”
“LUKA?!”
Luka leaned in and soothed Ash's racing heart with a kiss to the top of his snout. “ Relax. I'm teasing. Though if things do progress…”
Ash was on fire. From nostrils to tail-fluff, his body flared with simultaneous joy, embarrassment, and more than a little excitement. His paws tingled. Was he hyperventilating?
Warm hands found his mane and began stroking once more, petting to settle him down. “What I'm trying to say, Ash, is that I'd love to date you.”
“Even with my… everything?” One big oceanic eye looked up at Luka.
“Especially with your everything.” Tender lips brushed against soft scales, another kiss upon his new body.
Logistics were for later. The trials of life could continue apace tomorrow. Tonight was for them.
“Now. How about we catch up on Storied Fleets and I cuddle you on the couch?”
Ash nodded. That sounded pretty good to him.