What Was Never Meant to Be
Tree Haven College Part Two

Eva’s business card still sat on the college-provided wooden chair which sat by James’ bed. James placed a clawed finger on top of the card and attempted to pick it up by sliding it off the side of the chair and inserting his thumb underneath. Instead, the card briefly rested on the tip of his thumb-claw and fell to the floor for lack of support. So the claws will take a bit of getting used to, James thought. Of course, this was only a minor setback. Now he just had to pick the card up off the floor, and he had some idea of what to do this time. He placed the flat of his thumb on top of the card and picked up a corner of the card using his other two claws. That finished, he set the card back down on the chair, now flipped up to the correct side, which showed Eva’s cell number.

Now he needed his phone, which was still in his jeans. He picked up the jeans by the waistband and inserted his other hand into the pocket. Or at least, he tried. He could get his fingers most of the way in, but the pocket simply wasn’t big enough to admit anything else - His wing was simply too bulky to fit in a jeans pocket. On the plus side, he could feel his phone in the very corner of the pocket, and he could sort of grab it if he put one finger on top and one on bottom. A moment’s fumbling revealed that there was no way he would be able to actually remove the phone that way. The hard plastic just didn’t have any traction against his hard claws. Snorting in frustration, he shifted his other claw from holding the waistband to holding the bottom of the pocket and ignoring the rest of the garment. That got the phone out easily.

He flipped his phone open. The screen showed him the time: 10:48. He mentally crunched the numbers: He’d gotten back to the dorm at 9:55 or so, so he’d taken a grand total of fifty minutes - Was it really that long? - to get to this point. Lunch opened in twelve minutes, and then at noon… James snapped back to reality. He had a German test at noon, and if he missed it, he’d fail the course. If he failed the course, he wouldn’t graduate on time, and he’d have to stay another semester, which he couldn’t afford to do, and oh god I’m so screwed what the hell did I just do? I’ve got a freaking life to lead, and I’m stuck as a dragon. What do I do now?

James began to feel nauseous as panic set in. Getting a zero on that test would screw him over academically, and he didn’t feel confident enough in his survival or stealth skills to make it off somewhere into the wild. If he were at home in Alaska, then going off the radar would be trivial; here in Pennsylvania, however, that was a different story. Besides, he liked human conveniences like plumbing and internet, and he really didn’t want to do something like that to his parents.

His parents. He was going to have to explain all of this to them at some point, wasn’t he? There was no way that would go well.
*
“Hey Mom, I’m going to have to stay for another semester to retake German.”

“Now we’ll have to cancel the flights for graduation and somehow find more money for another semester!”

“I know, I’m sorry. And by the way, I’m a dragon.”

...

No, I’m not going to let it come to that. Think! You can pull this out somehow.
*

James paced the room, sidestepping piles of stuff on the floor. The only solution seemed to be calling Eva as planned. He just was going to have to say something different.

He gingerly keyed in the phone number, aiming carefully and pressing lightly, then lifted the phone somewhere near his ear (where that was, exactly, he hadn’t figured out yet). The phone rang three times before Eva finally picked up.

“Hello?” Her voice was partially obscured by a whirring in the background; she must have been near machinery or something.

“Hello?” James asked, his voice shaking. It was his first time speaking out loud since he’d transformed, and he was surprised to find that his voice was slightly deeper than it had been before. Then it occurred to him that he should probably say something more informative. “Uh, it’s James, from yesterday. I bought the-”

“The green soap with the gold dust in it? How could I forget selling something like that? I assume you’ve used it by now,” Eva happily interjected. She sounded like the bubbly type.

“Yeah, I’ve got a problem. I’m a dragon, and, you see…” He paused, unsure of where to go from there, and Eva picked up the conversation.

“Ooh, I guessed right. It’s easier to tell when she uses the exotic ingredients like that.”

“Yes, but I have a test, and if I don’t make it, I won’t graduate, and I’ll be screwed!”

“Say no more. I’ll be right over. Where are you?”

“Coolidge building, room 102.”

“I know where that is. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

Eva hung up, leaving James hanging. That was one reason in particular why he never liked phone calls - that’s how they all went for him. He’d finished all of one sentence in the entire conversation.

The feeling of nausea was starting to get worse; it didn’t feel like just nausea anymore. It also felt like some mutant sinus infection coupled with the urge to sneeze that just wouldn’t go away. He also tasted banana peppers, which was just weird.

Having done all he could, he laid down on the bed, tucked his legs under him, and curled up. He wasn’t sure how long he lay there, but it couldn’t have been more than five to ten minutes before he heard a rap at his window.

“That you, James?” a perky voice asked. James sat bolt upright, knocking his head on the top bunk and almost falling off the bed.

“Yeah, it’s me, sort of.” he replied. He pulled his wallet out of his jeans, wrestling with them for a moment, then pushed open a corner of the curtains to look through. Eva was already looking at him through the curtain and waving.

“Hi. Could you let me in please?” She smiled.

“Yeah, just scan in and don’t get seen.” He handed his wallet through the window, and Eva took it and disappeared from view. Intervisitation didn’t start until that evening, and if he got caught letting a girl into his room, he’d be in major trouble. If there wasn’t a more serious issue at hand, he wouldn’t have even considered it. A few seconds later, Eva let herself in the door and shut it behind her. She was carrying a canvas bag of something in one hand and James’ wallet in the other. Although James was standing, he was looking slightly up at her - kind of weird, considering he’d been looking down just the other day.

“You look fantastic!” she exclaimed. “You never said you were a wyvern! That’s pretty spectacular, really, I didn’t think we’d geared the formula for that. How do you feel?”

My, she loves to talk. “Sick? I think I’m gonna hurl.”

“Grandma said that would probably happen,” Eva said, nodding. “It’s nothing to worry about. It’s probably your venom glands.”

Venom glands. That’s right. James remembered having built them into the character instead of a more standard fire breath - instead of burning things, he’d corrode them into oblivion with a concentrated acid. He just didn’t expect it would feel this… crappy.

“Really? Don’t tell me it’s always going to feel like this,” he said, dejected. If he’d built something in that worked this badly, what other design mistakes had he made?

“Don’t worry,” Eva replied. “Some discomfort is normal the first time around. Think of it as a breaking-in period. You just need to flush your system a time or two. Actually...” From her bag, she pulled out an old-looking, etched glass jar. “We should probably do that before you end up damaging something by accident. Grandma needs a sample anyway.”

Under other circumstances, Eva’s grandma would warrant further consideration, but James was currently preoccupied. He figured he’d find out soon enough anyway. “So how do I do that?” he asked.

Eva seemed a little surprised as she set the jar down on the floor. “Well, most people usually know how by instinct, but I’ve read there’s ways of provoking reactions like that. Could you put your mouth over the jar, please?”

Most people?

James leaned over the open jar like a drunkard leans over a toilet bowl and opened his mouth. He could feel an odd tingle emanating from the jar, which somehow made him feel better and worse at the same time. Meanwhile, Eva stood beside James’ neck, careful to keep her legs away from the path of the venom. She placed her hands on either side of his head, starting on his temples and gently probing down with two fingers until she reached the underside of his jawbone. That was enough to trigger a reaction. James’ eyes rolled back in his head as he felt a muscle somewhere in the back of his throat contract. A large glob of goop out flew out of his mouth splattered in the jar.

Having done that, James now felt much better. The nausea was abated, and the sinus headache was gone. The banana pepper taste was a touch stronger now, but at least he knew what was causing it. That had been a subtlety of the system that he hadn’t anticipated. As Eva picked up the jar and swished the contents - a tablespoon or so of chartreuse stuff that seemed to hover a little bit away from the glass - he could smell it. It smelled like sulfuric acid in a chemistry lab, mixed with vinegar; spilling just a drop of that strong acid on your pants would eat a hole through a decent pair of jeans. If the venom was anywhere near that strong, he’d be both pleased with himself and frightened on behalf of his teeth.

“Thanks,” James said, licking his lips subconsciously. “Feels a lot better now. But anyway, about what I actually called you about, I’m a dragon and dragons can’t take really important German tests. Is it possible for me to change back or disguise myself or turn everyone else into a dragon so nobody notices, or...” By now, he was just rambling, mentally bracing himself for the bad news while his mouth continued on without him.

“Oh, that’s easy.”

Wait, what?

“Check the soap again.”

James picked up the soap again with two fingers, as though he wasn’t keen on touching it again. It wasn’t green and gold anymore; the gold was unchanged, but the green was a pale flesh-tone.

“Those things go both ways; you just have to wash again,” Eva continued. “Not much to it really. Only way it could be easier is if you just had to click your heels three times and say ‘there’s no species like home.’”

“So that’s it? Nothing fancy?” I was freaking out over that? That’s kind of embarrassing.

“Yeah. It’s no big deal. Look, I can explain more later if you want to come back to the shop. I’ve got other clients to see, and I think you’ve got to get going.” She started for the door, then stopped. “Are you going to need help with those wings? I can’t imagine those would be easy to work around if you’re in a hurry.”

“Yeah, um… probably. If you wouldn’t mind. I don’t want to seem creepy or impose or anything.”

“No, it’s fine. It wouldn’t be the first time someone’s needed help. There was this one guy who ended up as a T-rex-y thing. Those tiny little arms… Anyway, shall we?”

As they checked the hall to make sure the coast was clear, James’ feelings were mixed. On the one hand, being a wyvern was a long-time fantasy of his; he’d wanted it for almost as long as he could remember. However, this wasn’t the venue for it, and he desperately needed his old body back to keep his life on track. His head was reeling from the experience; he’d need time to sort it out when he had that luxury.

The bathroom was still empty when they got back to it, and they locked the doors to make sure it stayed that way. As James turned the shower on, Eva donned a pair of dishwashing gloves and wet the soap in the sink. She wasted no time in gently but firmly grabbing one of James’ left wing fingers and sparsely applying the soap. There wasn’t much James could do besides sit there and let her do it; they only had one bar, after all. When she finished that wing, she moved on to the other one. Lastly, she held his tail just ahead of the blade and went over that. James felt a particularly uncomfortable there, because she was pretty much rubbing his ass. He initially wasn’t sure if the rubber gloves made it more or less awkward, but then concluded that it would be less awkward only if they were medical gloves. Instead, these were pink polka-dot heavy-duty gloves, normally reserved for keeping one’s hands pristine while doing the dishes or washing the family pet. That definitely buried the needle on the awkwardness meter. When Eva let go of his tail, James wasted no time in ducking into the shower front-first.

The transformation back into a human was rather sudden compared to the one into a wyvern. James had expected his new additions to dissolve more or less gradually while the feeling in them receded - similar to how they had precipitated out of the water, only in reverse. Instead, the water hit his wings all at once, which dissolved them instantaneously. For the briefest of seconds, James was aware only of his innermost thumb and a human-sized complement of fingers contorted into a very odd position. Then his wings literally turned to water and fell to the floor as though they’d been poured from a bucket, leaving his arms to snap back to their original proportions. The cascade of mildly soapy residue sloshed back up and splashed him, leaving various splatters that appeared to have been bleached (in addition to the bottoms of his feet). Backing out and in again, he inserted his tail into the water. The tail became covered in pock-marks, like a block of sugar left in the rain, before it too succumbed and fell to the floor in a an enormous splash. Suddenly without his counterweight, James lurched forwards and very nearly fell flat on his face.

Eva chuckled from her vantage point well away from the shower, and James gave her the raised eyebrow. “Birds with arms,” she explained. “That’s kind of what you look like right now.”

James didn’t doubt it, but he was still a bit too stressed to appreciate the joke. “Just hand me the soap and let me finish,” he told her. “I’ve got it from here, if you don’t mind. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. Stop by the shop later when you get the chance, all right?” And with that, she passed him the soap and left him to his business.

James finished up as quickly as he could. First he undid his legs, which slowly returned to their original shape as the warm suds were applied. He hadn’t realized that his big toes had been as big around as his wrists. That would have been worth checking out in any other circumstances, but his dragon toes had almost completely dissolved by the time he noticed, leaving behind his human toes like they were at the center of a lollipop.

When he’d finished with his legs, he changed his torso, preferring to do that all at once, like his wings and tail. But when he did that, it felt like he’d been kicked in the chest and had the wind knocked out of him. He immediately felt giddy from lack of air and dizzy from the sudden change in height. His human heart couldn’t cope well with the long neck, and his lungs couldn’t get enough air to support his current brain anyway.

He sat down shakily and began lathering his head, leaving his neck for the time being. He started with his horns, getting suds on both hands and then taking both horns at once, basically pushing them back into his skull. Then he finished the back of his head and hurried on to his face. He did his forehead first, erasing the gold birthmark. His hair formed itself back out of the water, much as his draconic body had done earlier. Next came his eyes, and then his ears. He washed his muzzle off like so much makeup, watching as the small green protrusion at the bottom of his vision shrank and disappeared.

Now his neck was the only thing that was left. He took the soap in one hand and started to rub it around the base of his neck, gradually shortening it from the bottom until only humanity remained.

That done, James ducked into his room, dried off, and got dressed. He walked to the liberal arts building with his messenger bag, skipping his usual lunch before class. His feet felt tired, and his calves were cramped from walking digitigrade earlier - evidently the transformation hadn’t been without its side effects. He sat in the hallway cramming until it was time for the test. All through it, he was distracted by what had happened that morning (something about “einer Drachen” made its way into the composition portion). Otherwise, he was fairly sure he didn’t fail, but he doubted he’d done much more than that.

He was as weak as a limp piece of spaghetti when he returned to his room with a to-go meal from the cafeteria. That ordeal was over, and the adrenaline had stopped. It had been an emotional whiplash, and he wasn’t quite sure how to handle it. At the very least, he had the status quo back.

He set his lunch down on his bed and glanced over at the chair where he had set the business card. The soap was still there, sitting haphazardly on top of his shower caddy. James had the distinct impression it was staring at him. It was a menacing shade of green again, ready for another go. It watched him as he took his lunch out of the plastic bag and started eating his chicken tenders. He watched it back with the look of a wary prey animal. It wanted him to use it again, and he knew it.

The pictures of himself on the wall behind him nodded in the direction of the soap. They wanted to become reality again, and the soap offered them the chance.

After a minute or two, he set down his half-eaten piece of chicken. He couldn’t eat and hold a staring contest with an inanimate object at the same time. It was just too eerie. He took a napkin from the bag, picked up the soap with it, and stuck the whole lot in a plastic baggie, which he then tossed in his desk drawer. It resented being stuffed away. James could sense its presence, even though he couldn’t see or smell it. It evoked an image of a split personality: one half of it called to him with a siren’s song of power and wishes fulfilled; the other leered at him and shouted ruination and curses. Neither was an attractive picture. The pictures resigned themselves to James’ decision. They at least had their existence on paper, and that was as much as they were intended to have: no less, no more.

Thus James finished his lunch: human and resolved to stay that way.