Loriavva: A Dragoness Matures
Loriavva, a young Dragoness, is about to have a birthday and officially become an adult. Her parents disapprove of the choices she will make upon her maturation for their own reasons, but her friends encourage her to listen to herself.
Also, this story's for all ages.
Loriavva's birthday was about a week away. The young Dragon's scales had already grown their lustrous sky-blue, heralding her ascent to maturity, and she wasn't so much worried about it as she was frustrated.
"Ahh," her father hissed with pride, "my daughter, at last, will be an adult! She will strike out on her own, achieve success, and awe all of her peers!"
"Da- Father! I don't just have peers, you know. I have friends, and I could have made more."
"Yes, you haven't told us which university you've settled upon yet. We'd like to know for certain that you won't just fly off to the biggest party school. I can find out the ones with the ten best economics programs, but you-"
"Father, I have months left to choose. There's more criteria I need to use for my decision than just the major you've proclaimed for me. I already have research on four I've already considered, and the day after my birthday, I'll have narrowed it down to three, then I'll apply for all of them.
"-And before you interrupt me," she continued over her father's attempt to interrupt her, "You remember, yesterday, when I told you that my friends invited me to help them make their decisions? They're expecting me in an hour. Tell Mom how much I love her, before you apologize for me since I was running too late to put my breakfast dishes away."
As she got up to slink out of the dining room, her father, his scales slightly dulled with age but much harder than his daughter's, reached over to collect her dishes with a smile. "I'm glad I can still offer help that you'll accept. Enjoy your shopping trip, Loriavva."
Loriavva usually wasn't much of a shopper, and would spend most of her time waiting outside of change rooms, finding any food she'd ordered boring, and arguing over whatever movie was on. This time, though, she slinked through the aisles of one clothing store or another, picking off garments that her friends offered to carry for her.
"Hey, Lorri, it's all gonna go sliding off your tail! Lemme take some of it!" Janna had been her best friend for years, ever since the young Doe had first blurted out her case of tail envy. Loriavva just flicked a few of the hangers off for Janna to catch as she went, just making sure everything she picked up was the same size, and went with her natural colour.
Leah just held on to anything extra, not caring enough to give any fashion advice, or even notice much about her friend's choices. While Janna bought fashion magazines "just to laugh at the articles," Leah's favourite places to search through were music and comic books, but not video games. She'd just hit full maturity a few months ago, and her parents were already asking her to meet that Nice Raccoon Male despite her insistence on trying to meet someone who could reciprocate love, preferably female.
"They're just giving you money to spend on whatever? I thought your parents hated laziness with a vengeance," Leah wondered out loud.
"They do, but this year I'm just getting an extra budget for me to pick things, and debt-free tuition for my first year at the place of my choice. Even if my choice turns out to be wrong."
"Heh, I'll be sad to see you ditch this place too, but you know there's no escaping family. If you don't call them every week, or day, they'll assume you're failing and too ashamed to tell them!"
"Hey, Lorri," Janna cut in, "none of this stuff is your size. Even if you want to stick it to your parents before you take off, wasting their money is still a waste of money!"
"I'll explain when we meet the others." With the last of the clothes she needed to complete her vision, she strode off to buy them all. Janna helped fold them, Leah unfolded her bag, and the cashier - a dark brown Beaver who couldn't pick up on that sort of thing by scent - tried to do his customer service by saying, "have a nice day with your girlfriends, sir."
"...Sir?"
"Uh, sorry, Mister?" As the sparks flew from between Loriavva's grinding teeth, he shrank back and grabbed hold of his tail. Nobody was telling him why his customer was so angry.
Of course, both males found it hilarious. Gerard was a skinny Collie they'd all known since elementary school, and laughed because someone had had their gender mis-attributed; Felinx was a nerdy Stoat who Janna thought was hitting on her once when he actually wasn't. He laughed because a simple misunderstanding had been blown out of proportion.
"Y'know," Gerard smirked, "You could always just say you're male. Plenty of straight femmes do it, and you know what they say about all the good males, right?"
"Don't listen to that slacker, Lori," Leah cut in. "Identify as what you want for yourself, not what'll attract guys who wouldn't be attracted to you normally!"
"Actually, Loriavva," Felinx tried to make himself heard over the others, "I'd like to know what you have planned. You were going to get to that part before the interruptions."
She took a deep breath, and finally managed to relax. "Right, so. I'm going to miss you all, but I'll still keep in touch so long as you bother to try from your ends." She waited until Gerard stopped snickering, then went on. "This next year will be the year I re-invent myself, and I've planned out how. All the universities I've applied to are at least halfway across the country, so I'm not going to let them home-school me throughout my entire life; I won't pick my major until near the end of my first year, to make sure it'll be the choice I want; and this is the year I'll be able to learn all the ancient Dragon magic, so I'll finally get to decide how I look from now on." The Dragoness smiled and hefted her shopping bag. "Hair, flat feet, and an actual figure that works for standing and sitting and clothes and everything. I won't mind being less aerodynamic, since I don't fly much anyway."
"Wow. You'll be able to look like whatever? You could turn your scales gold and purple, and even give yourself a huge set of -"
"You're going to do it right away?" Felinx made sure to interrupt his friend. "Aren't your parents, well, traditionalists? Won't they get offended when they see you adding a bunch of features that won't serve any purpose? Uh, to them, I mean. You've got purposes for them."
"Oh, they will, but if I hide it from them and do it all later, then they'll get mad as well as for lying to them. That's how they'll see it, anyway."
"Okay, but are you sure about it?" Janna managed to look both worried and if she was holding back a laugh at the same time. "You won't, hehe, be able to go back on this, right? Like a piercing, or a tattoo, only by magic?"
"No. It'd be as if I went in for surgery, then went in for more later, only without getting cut open or having stuff injected into my face. I mean, less invasive than that. I could do it again if I change my mind, but it'd be hard to know exactly what I want if I was being fickle. It'd also be just as hard to do each time. That's why so many acting Dragons get uglier toward the end of their careers. I've written down exactly what I want, and I've visualized it a few times. Once I've been taught the last of it-"
"Say, did you pay anyone for commissions of it? So you'll have a visual reference?"
"Shut it, Gerard, I'll have a mirror. I've thought it out to the last detail, because with ancient Dragon magic, focus is paramount. You'll all get to see me and help me figure everything out through the summer, because I most likely won't be at home for most of it. Just, don't jump to conclusions from first impressions. Let me explain it all first. I don't want to have to hear anyone repeating what I expect to hear from my family."
Janna asked probing questions, Gerard made more crass comments, Felinx made encouraging ones, and Leah mostly stayed silent. The Dragoness and the Doe had known each other since she - for a long time, and were perceptive enough to convey what they were thinking by subtle movements of their faces. Leah's eyebrows arched; "Are you sure this is what you want?" Lori's eyes rolled; "Yes, I already said I'd made sure of it." The Doe's mouth widened; "You've figured out your new look? Will it include the-" The Dragoness gave a quick, slight nod. At Leah's hopeful look of, "So then we'll be able to-" Lori interrupted with a look of, "Not that way. I wouldn't want to leave you so soon after that." After Gerard pointed out that they'd been making faces at each other instead of listening to what people were saying, they decided to call it a day.
Being the quiet, contemplative type who preferred her friends' conversation to their gifts and a calming atmosphere to bars and club nights, Loriavva's birthday party was to be held at a small yet normally expensive restaurant; due to their forward planning, they had made their reservation over a month in advance, and already had a party special in mind. The guests who ignored the now-mature Dragoness' wish not to get presents all brought her books, received by her smiling mother and father. When the birthday woman greeted them, she got a surprised sizing-up from nearly every guest: instead of the sleek, pointy-looking Dragoness who always hunched over and made all her clothing look baggy, Loriavva stood up straight in with a new grace in a white dress that actually flowed around her now-rounded-looking form. Her talons had shrunk to look more like fingernails for her new hands, while her feet had enlarged into the perfect shape for supporting her weight with only her tail to help balance her out. The spines on her tail were gone, and the tail itself had become shorter and thicker at the base, so it didn't drag against the ground. Her figure was still lean and lithe, but had a rounded rear befitting her new bipedal stance, and even a pair of breasts that her dress didn't overtly flaunt or reveal. The only horns left on her head - her neck was shorter than it originally was - were a pair in the place of eyebrows, three on each side of her face to suggest an ear, and two large ones that swept back out of a head of short, glossy black hair.
A string quartet played from a small stage in a corner, through the minestrone soup and garlic bread, through the fondue, only stopping to take a break when the risotto was served. Since Janna had made sure to sit across from her hostess - and since Loriavva's parents were seated on either side of her - the two had to lean over the table to talk above the sizzling of the food, the live music, and the other guests talking to each other (in Gerard's case, occasionally with his mouth full). The Doe alternated between mouthfuls and questions with swallows and gulps between each; looks and glances weren't enough to get all the information across. "No, like I said, it didn't hurt," Loriavva explained, "I bought the clothes to fit me, not the other way around. Yes, I picked the fondue. Sorry, but as much as I want to, I'm just not as certain about it as you are. You'll find someone else, and I'll be happy for you. Actually, Felinx has been complaining less. Either Murrough's been listening to him more, or the little guy finally decided to cut his losses and find some better company. No, they can't actually do anything; for that, I'd have to change my whole physiology, and I wasn't willing to do all that. I still lay eggs, and besides, they'll stay like this for my whole life!"
Her mother craned her neck over to glare at them both with one eye each. "Janna, stop staring. It's impolite." Janna sat back, shocked, stammering that she never did.
"Mother, please don't -"
"It's fine, let her," Lori's father cut in, "That is, after all, what she chose them for."
"You both promised me you wouldn't - "
"Why did you just blame her for getting stared at?" her mother asked over her daughter. "It isn't her fault, it's the fault of the people who will lust pointlessly after her new - new... decorations."
"She made her choice, is what I meant, which includes accepting the consequences," he hissed. Lori buried her head in her hands as her parents argued above her, and muttered, "Mother. Father. If I wasn't so polite, I'd have stormed out of the room by now." Her complaint, while noted, got fully understood by neither of them. Yet another argument that shifted their focus to proving the other wrong, using her as a theoretical abstraction on either side.
Fortunately, the debate ceased when dessert arrived. According to the instructions from Lori's postal-mailed birthday invitations, each guest sang a different birthday song as the cake was brought out. Her parents, who never sang, not even for each other, tried not to look surprised. The Neapolitan ice cream cake and chai tea was satisfying for everyone, and Gerard's idea of mixing up all three flavours of the ice cream together caught on among the guests. Everyone relaxed and left with smiles on their faces, but when Leah turned to wave goodbye to her friend, Lori's expression flashed by a look of bored frustration; just long enough for her to pick up a quick, I am so outta here.