A month passed.

He learned the language. It was weird but it wasn’t too hard, especially when he had no choice but to put all his focus into the task. The others helped it to stick. He wanted them to talk to him in their common language whenever possible. Even if he didn’t understand every word, the best way to learn a language was to immerse yourself in it.

Even so, it was the longest month he’d ever experienced. Pure pain in terms of lack of mental stimulation. He’d need therapy after this, that was for sure. He couldn’t worry about that right now, but it was something he had tucked away for later discussion.

So… a month passed.

A month.

God… or gods, in the case of this world… he never wanted to do that again. On the plus side, though, he was finally hatching! He wasn’t sure what exactly decided it was so, but there was no question.

Hatching was a bitch of a time, but he was so excited to finally be out that he didn’t care. It was this weird feeling that started it, like an instinct that he had to get out, like a mixture of panic and excitement. It started in his chest and spread across his whole body, making him feel the firmness of his limbs and the shape of his body for the first time.

All he could really do was squirm, smashing, and cutting at the inside of the egg for more than an hour. Lukas wasn’t that strong, it seemed, now more than ever. His eggshell was tough to break, but could slowly feel the amount of give from the shell increasing. He wanted to do it himself, so he refused any sort of help from Lady Sar or the other. As much as that pained him, he was determined; his first accomplishment in this world would be securing his own freedom.

Finally, he felt the first crack. He felt a claw punch through.

The light blinded him. He hadn’t seen light in a whole month! Lukas didn’t feel anything but excitement, accomplishment, and adrenaline, and that burst of energy kept him going until he was finally done, and enough shell fell away he could get some purchase on the edge of the shell and pull himself through. Gravity was unrelenting and pitiless, pulling him down awkwardly as he practically flipped his way out of the egg.

The light wasn’t blinding anymore, but things looked… strange, to be sure. There were the colors he was familiar with, and what a colorful bunch this was, but a few that he hadn’t seen before. Maybe ultraviolet and infrared? He’d have to find a way to test this.

The idea of finally being able to test things for himself again only got him excited all over again. He was free! Out in the world again, under his own power. Mostly, anyway. They had set up a large pillow under him, and the struggle to break out was exhausting. He tried to get up, but his limbs ached, his body was sore, and he wanted little more than to find a comfortable place to lay and sleep, along with some weird instincts that were freaking out. Probably relating to finding his parents, but from what he’d heard during his imprisonment, he had strong reservations that would happen.

Lukas could still only understand a little of what people were saying, and he’d fallen out of the telepathy circles during his struggle. Thankfully, Lady Sar was there and didn’t need the circle to reach out. “Congratulations. I’m so glad you’re finally free of your egg! This confirms our prior suspicions, too. We simply have no idea what you are. We’ve never seen anything like you! Would you be okay with us drying you off, or would you prefer to? Would you like to see yourself afterward?” It was clear by the feeling of her mental messages that she was very excited. So much so that her usually impeccable decorum was broken, practically bouncing on her heels as she did her best to not rush him to study his strange new body.

Lukas gradually struggled to his feet, stubbornly refusing to give in to the ache that pervaded his bones. “I can dry myself off, but I’d appreciate it. I’d love to see my new form, yes. I get the sense it’s not… quite like my previous body.”

Lady Sar let out another one of her musical-sounding laughs, though it was strange and nice being able to hear it so much more clearly. “Yes, I’d quite say so if your mental image was accurate. You definitely reincarnated in a… different form, that’s for sure. Though it is undeniably beautiful. If a bit yolky at the moment.”

Lukas took in what he could of his form, inspecting his… tail. He knew he had one, he felt it during his escape and struggle to stand, but to actually see it… it was bizarre. He would tell it what to do. It would respond accordingly. He could feel it with the same proprioception he felt everything else, the same way he had always felt anything else.

Said tail wound up being very helpful once the towel arrived. It was apparently very flexible, and more or less as prehensile as any other limb. Albeit, lacking fingers. When he finally toweled himself off (with a decent amount of help from the onlookers), he saw that he was not only silver like he saw from his tail, but shiny. Very shiny.

A mirror made this all the more apparent! He looked not only like silver, but polished silver. If the others were excited before, they were losing their minds now. They were talking to each other in what he assumed was common too fast to understand. He had gotten a little better in the language, could conduct a most basic conversation, this was entirely too chaotic. The only ones who looked mildly calm were Lady Sar and the strange professor who he hadn’t much spoken to. Even Lady Sar looked incredibly excited, in a very dignified and noble way.

Everyone was fretting and chatting, but it took little more than Lady Sar clearing her throat and stepping forward for them all to quiet down and watch. She placed the back of her hand on the table, giving a “come hither” gesture. Lukas quickly took her meaning and stepped into her palm, somewhat nervously clinging on with tiny, sharp kitten claws albeit without intending to. She brought him to appropriate conversation distance, which turned out to be fairly close when someone was six inches tall.

“Welcome to Msavii Academy, Lukas. It has been a long wait, and there are many people excited to meet you,” she said, her voice as sweet and clear as a strawberry, “Meeting everyone to swap names and pleasantries can wait, however. I would be honored to have lunch with you. I can only imagine you’re famished.”

Thinking it over briefly, he nodded with as much enthusiasm as his tired, tiny frame could muster. Lady Sar smiled, conjuring in her other hand a small but intricately beautiful mirror. He was, indeed, dragon-shaped. It was strange to see a form so unfamiliar responding to his movements. But he supposed this was just how he was going to be moving forward. As he saw before, he was covered in bright, shiny silver scales that were nearly reflective. Each scale was minuscule, but they were uncountable in quantity and every one of them moved very smoothly in conjunction with one another. He was about six inches long from the tip of his nose to the end of his tail, with a number of darker-colored bumps across his spine. If not for the wings he would look like a lizard dipped in chrome.

Lukas studied his wings fastidiously as they moved, both intentionally and subconsciously, fascinated by their movements and appearance. They had the same chrome scales on top, but on bottom, they were a nearly hypnotic rainbow of colors that shifted and moved in trippy patterns.

He noticed in between staring at his limbs that he was really high up… Not, like, really high up for a regular person, but for someone his size. He hadn’t thought about it yet, but everyone was practically a giant compared to him! Wow. Lukas hoped he could learn some shapeshifting quickly.

A yawn stole its way out of his mouth. He was so very tired…