Lazy Scales, page 6
part #1 of Lazy Scales Series
“What is wrong?” Lasthope asked, drifting into Lewis’s field of view.
“Nothing,” Lewis snapped, hopping to his claws and trotting right through Lasthope as though the ghost wasn’t even there.
“I very much doubt that,” Lasthope noted.
Lewis tried to push the thoughts away. There would be time to address everything later, when he got to safety, for now, though he had to get to Jeremy’s house. Jeremy would know what to do; he always knew what to do!
Lewis exited the forest and kept to the shadows just outside the town. Jeremy lived on a farm beyond the other side of town. It wouldn’t be safe for Lewis to cross through the city streets unless he wanted to be seen and chased again. Swallowing nervously, Lewis looked over his shoulder at the drifting shape of the ghost.
“How do I fly?” Lewis asked, unfurling his wings and letting them catch the wind. It felt so good to stretch them, and he gave them a few test flaps, just to get a sense of how they worked. They seemed strong, and he could feel the muscles in his chest swell and contract as they moved. “It’ll be much easier to get to Jeremy’s if I could fly.”
Lasthope furrowed his eyebrows at Lewis. “You cannot properly take off from here. You are too low to the ground. If you were to climb the mountain, then you could take off and fly to your friend. You can also climb a sizable building and use that as a leaping off point.”
“I can’t just flap my wings and go up?”
Lasthope snorted a laugh. “As you are, your wings are good for little more than gliding. Yes, they can carry you interminable distances, and once you have some practice, they can help you ascend. However, you do not currently possess the muscle strength necessary to generate the lift needed to get off the ground. It takes years of training your wing muscles before you can do that. As feeble as they are, your wings are little more than those of a freshly born whelp.”
Lewis stared blankly at Lasthope, blinking slowly.
Lasthope groaned. “No, you cannot fly.”
“Oh. Shame.” Lewis grunted, shrugging and turning back to town. “I guess we’re walking.”
Lewis looked both ways up and down the street to make sure no cars were coming and bolted towards the other side. His claws scratched at the pavement as he ran, leaving deep gouges in the asphalt. He vaguely noticed this but paid it no mind as he dived for the safety and darkness just beyond the other side of the road.
Once again hidden from sight, Lewis resumed his trot. He saw a truck pass along the street, heading into town, and his vision momentarily went red. Lewis wanted to fight the truck. He hastily shook the idea from his mind. That was stupid. The vehicle wouldn’t even be a challenge. He momentarily wondered why he would even think of trucks as something worth fighting. His mind immediately drifted back to when his mother was teaching him how to drive.
Truck drivers were always jerks on the road. They hog the street, going under the speed limit when ahead of you, going above the speed limit to ride your tail while behind you.
Lewis vividly remembered all of this, but his brain replaced being in a car with being in his current dragon body.
“Okay,” Lewis muttered, as he slunk behind a drugstore to keep out of sight, “trucks are a dragon’s natural enemy.”
“Pardon?” Lasthope asked, drifting closer to hear what Lewis was saying.
“Nothing, don’t mind me, just talking to myself, Ghost Dad.”
“Please stop calling me that.”
Lewis ignored Lasthope and continued on his way. He tried to ignore his own thoughts, too, beyond trying to remember where Jeremy lived. It was so weird trying to remember his life through the eyes of a dragon that it was giving him some severe dysphoria.
Lewis knew that he used to be human, but he just couldn’t hold that in his head, no matter how hard he tried. It was like being a human was wrong, and he’d meant to be a dragon all along. The thought made him shudder, and he tried to push it aside, but still, his racing mind continued down that path, even as his claws carried him further and further across town.
He thought about what Lasthope had said, how the spell had selected him from a roster of potential candidates. What exactly had made him a likely candidate? What was so special about him that made him ideal to become a dragon?
“Lasthope,” Lewis asked, sliding to a stop in a grassy field and glancing over his shoulder at the elder dragon. “Why me?”
Lasthope blinked his glassy eyes and glanced down at Lewis. “Pardon?”
“You said your spell selected a suitable candidate, right? Why me. What makes me more suitable than literally anyone else?”
Lasthope scratched his chin and mulled the question over. Lewis resumed his walk while the old dragon thought until finally, Lasthope shrugged. “Truth be told, I am not sure. You are youthful, which is a benefit given my prior body was nearing the end of its life. I cannot as yet have an inkling of your mental and physical faculties, so it is difficult to make assumptions.”
Lewis stopped again and blinked in confusion at the old dragon.
Lasthope rolled his eyes. “I do not know if you are smart or strong, yet. Your qualities as a human should have carried over. Even if I were to take that body for myself, it would carry with it your limitations. If you were stupid, I would regretfully inherit that upon stealing your body. As such, I needed a body that was possessing the capacity for intelligence.”
“Wow, your spell must’ve really gone wrong. I’m not any of those things,” Lewis said.
Lasthope sighed. “Yes, I am beginning to realize that.”
“Sucks for both of us,” Lewis grumbled.
“I fail to see the negative on your end. You have ascended beyond the limitations of the human form. You should be thanking me,” Lasthope growled.
Lewis didn’t think so. He hadn’t asked for this. He just wanted to live his life, hang out with his friends, and enjoy the simple things. Video games, soda, and a bag of chips. That was all Lewis needed to be happy. He could remember that despite his jumbled memories. Chilling on the couch with his best friends, playing some racing game on his Xbox. In his mind, the controller fit perfectly in his claws.
He sighed wistfully. He couldn’t wait to do that again.
The bustle of the city streets quickly gave way to country roads, while farmland replaced the busy shops and buildings. Jeremy’s house wasn’t too far now! Lewis broke out into a run, not caring that he fully exposed himself on the road. He could hear cars coming from a mile away and didn’t worry in the slightest. His sensitive eyes focused on the shape of a house just up the road.
Lewis slowed himself to a halt so he wouldn’t shake the earth with his footsteps as he approached and had to frown at the house. Had it… always been so small? He stared at the building, sniffing at it curiously. It was covered in a scent that Lewis thought belonged to Jeremy, but the building felt positively miniature. He was big enough that he could peek into the second-story windows, barely standing on his hind legs.
Lewis scratched his head. He could have sworn he remembered the house being bigger, big enough for him to fit inside. He snorted in frustration at his confusing, disorganized memories.
He considered for a moment tapping on a window to wake Jeremy up, but one look at his massive claws told him that would be a terrible idea. One clawed hand was wider than a window on the compact farmhouse. He was ten times more likely to break the damn thing than he was to wake Jeremy up.
No, he’d have to wait for the morning if he wanted to talk to his best friend. He sighed, and twin pillars of smoke billowed out of his nostrils in frustration. He’d just have to find somewhere to hunker down for the night, somewhere safe, where he could hide away from the rest of the world.
Further, into Jeremy’s land, Lewis could see the familiar shape of a barn. That would do.
As carefully as he could, he slunk around the house and tiptoed towards the barn, being very careful not to wake up anyone asleep inside. The barn was much the same size to him as the house: too small. Despite that, though, it was still better than sleeping out in the elements. With a bit of effort, he pulled the barn doors open and squeezed inside.
The barn reeked of cows and hay, and Lewis wrinkled his nose at the smell. The cows smelled delicious, but there was something wrong with the hay. It was rotten and musty, and it was all he could do to keep from gagging and coughing.
“Well, this place is homely,” Lasthope muttered as he floated through the wooden walls of the barn to get a better look at the place. “I suppose I could be comfortable here if I had nowhere better to be, though I would still prefer a nice mountain cavern than a barn.”
“I want to be close to my friends so I can talk to them in the morning,” Lewis hissed, keeping his voice down low. He could hear Jeremy’s two cows, Bessie and Bertha, panting in their sleep, and it amazed him that his scent hadn’t woken them up, nor the noise he was making alerting them to his presence. They were both getting on in years. Their senses might have deteriorated too much to be of use.
Lewis yawned, stretching his mouth as wide as it would, letting his tongue loll out. Lasthope watched as the younger dragon walked in a circle for a moment before curling up in the middle of the barn floor. Lewis draped a wing over his head to block the light from his eyes and let out a low yawn.
“Sleep well, Lewis,” Lasthope whispered. “In the morning, starts your new life as a dragon. It will be wondrous, I assure you.”
Lewis wanted to make a witty retort, remind Lasthope that he didn’t plan to listen to him, but as soon as he shut his eyes, he fell asleep.
Chapter 8
The approaching scent of scrambled eggs, bacon, and hash browns slowly woke Lewis from a peaceful, dreamless slumber. His stomach rumbled angrily, reminding him he hadn’t eaten a full meal since lunch the day before and that he should probably wake up and get something down his throat. He blinked blearily, aware that his wing was still draped over his head, as the approaching scent stopped nearby.
The barn doors creaked open, and the scent of breakfast assaulted his nostrils. Lewis licked his lips and could not keep from drooling in anticipation. It smelled so good! He couldn’t wait to get his mouth around that delicious aroma and devour it whole.
There came a sound of metal clanging against the ground, and Lewis’s heart leaped into his throat. The sound startled him for a moment, but then the delicious scent moved away.
“Breakfast?” Lewis slurred, struggling to uncurl himself from the barn floor. His back and tail were stiff, and it took him a second to lay himself flat on the ground. The cows began mooing loudly at the sudden movements. Lewis rubbed his eyes, trying to banish the cobwebs of slumber. “Breakfast, where are you going?”
His stomach growled angrily again, and he blinked away the last vestiges of sleep.
“Lewis, you need to run! You are in danger,” Lasthope urged, trying in vain to shove Lewis. Naturally, the spectral dragon’s claws slipped uselessly through Lewis’s idle bulk.
Lewis shrugged at Lasthope, disappointed by the absent smell, and draped his wings over his head once more. He was still tired and wanted more sleep.
The smell of breakfast came back a few minutes later, this time followed by the scent of hamburgers and root beer floats. Breakfast and lunch, all in one meal? Lewis’s mouth watered again, and he fantasized about all those foods dancing above his head. He licked his lips, and his stomach growled menacingly.
It was the sound of metal clicking that snapped Lewis out of his reverie.
He blinked in surprise, trying to remember why that sounded familiar. A memory of watching Jeremy shoot a rifle at paper targets flashed in his mind.
Lewis unfurled his wings and cracked open his eyes. Jeremy was over by one cow, trying to calm her down, while another human was standing in front of Lewis, with a gun pointed straight at his head. There was a metal bucket rolling along the floor near the door, likely the source of the clanging sound he’d heard earlier. Lewis blinked in confusion. That was odd. Where had Breakfast and Lunch gone?
“Brandon, what the hell is that thing?” Jeremy whimpered, hugging the cow’s neck to get her to settle. “It was talking! It called me breakfast!”
The man with a gun, who Lewis vaguely recognized as Jeremy’s older brother, didn’t answer. He narrowed his eyes at Lewis and pointed the gun directly at the dragon’s snout. “Don’t move a muscle, you hear?”
Lewis sniffed the air and realized that the scents he’d been associating with food were coming directly from Brandon and Jeremy. He blinked in surprise. That was strange. Had Jeremy always had an aroma like scrambled eggs and bacon? Had Brandon always smelled like hamburgers and root beer?
From a distance, Brandon and Jeremy looked nothing alike. While Jeremy was short and thin, Brandon was tall and thick. A lifetime of living and working on the farm had resulted in a massive, cornfed build. Memories flooded through Lewis’s mind: Brandon taking them for a ride on his tractor, back when they used to grow corn and other crops. Brandon teaching Jeremy how to shoot. Brandon, plucking a chicken for the evening meal.
Lewis raised a claw, and Brandon shook the rifle as if to remind him not to move. “Easy, guys,” Lewis grunted, rubbing his eyes and setting his claw back down on the ground, “it’s me, relax.”
Brandon frowned and said nothing.
Jeremy blinked in surprise and adjusted his glasses as he tried to get a better look. “W-who?! What?!”
“It’s me, Lewis.”
Jeremy’s jaw dropped, and Brandon tightened his grip on the gun.
“Brandon, shoot it,” Jeremy said, stuttering over the words as he clung to the cow. “Shoot it, now!”
“Guys, wait! Hold on, I can prove it!” Lewis said, scrambling to get to his feet. His claws scraped against the concrete floor of the barn, and he yelped in pain as he bonked his head on a rafter. It didn’t even hurt, but he still felt his horns rattle in his skull. “Jeremy, your middle name is Marion! Brandon, you got pulled over by a cop two years ago when he caught you speeding, and you convinced him not to ticket you by bribing him with a crate of fresh corn! Jeremy tried to ask Becca to homecoming as a joke, and she said yes! The two of them went together, with Lucy, as a trio!”
The two brothers exchanged a look of surprise, but when they returned their gaze to Lewis, Jeremy looked unconvinced. “That proves nothing! That doesn’t prove that you’re Lewis!”
“Guys, come on, I promise you it’s me! What do I need to do to prove that?” Lewis asked, lowering himself closer to the ground in a demonstration of submission. His instincts were telling him that, to look sufficiently cowed, he needed to lower his tail and chin until they touched the ground, with his front claws on either side of his face. He did his best to mirror the image in his mind, but he could feel his tail filling one of the empty barn stalls behind him. His stomach grumbled and tightened again.
Brandon risked a glance over at Jeremy for assent. He thought long and hard for a moment before finally, he looked up at Lewis and narrowed his eyes. “There is only one thing that only Lewis would know something he would never reveal to anyone in the world.”
Lewis’s eyes widened.
“What was Lewis’s original Minecraft username?”
The scales on Lewis’s face turned a brilliant shade of green, and he covered himself with his wings as embarrassment flooded into him. Even with the memory of his human body being replaced by that of his dragon self, he could still clearly remember that terrible embarrassment. He’d been a little kid, but only a few years later, he was so embarrassed by the name he’d made a whole new account just so he wouldn’t have to live with it. Now, Jeremy wanted him to reveal his greatest shame as proof of his identity?
“That’s a low blow, Jer,” Lewis winced.
“I’m waiting!” Jeremy snapped.
Lewis groaned in frustration and pulled his wings away from his face. “BaconSwagusRex666,” he grumbled, looking away from the pair of brothers. A green blush stained his scales and crept all the way up to his ears. He didn’t want to look at them.
The barn fell silent, as even the cows ceased lowing nervously. Then Brandon snorted a laugh, and Jeremy chuckled lightly.
“There! Are you happy now?!” Lewis barked, tucking his wings in tight around him.
“That’s not the worst I’ve ever heard,” Brandon shrugged but kept the gun trained on Lewis. “Is that right?”
“Yeah, that’s right,” Jeremy said, shaking his head in bewilderment. “I guess… it really is Lewis…”
Brandon nodded towards the gun. “Still want me to shoot him?”
“No! Don’t shoot the dragon, please!” Lewis insisted, immediately returning to his submissive pose. “I’m a nice dragon, I swear!”
“You weren’t a dragon yesterday,” Jeremy reminded him. “This is… a shocking change.”
“Yeah, you’re telling me,” Lewis grumbled, shaking his head.
“Did you just… wake up like this?” Brandon asked. “Jeremy told me about the stroke, but I guess that’s a bit of an understatement.”
“I don’t… think it was a stroke,” Lewis grumbled, looking away. To the pair of brothers, it looked as though he were looking out into the distance. In actuality, he was shooting a glare at the floating form of Lasthope. The ghostly dragon was hovering just over Brandon’s shoulder, glaring down at him in frustration.
“You were never in any genuine danger, Lewis,” Lasthope assured him, “I would have ripped the gun out of his hands if he had been serious about to shoot you.”
“To answer your question, this happened in the middle of the night,” Lewis explained. “One minute, I was awake and trying to get a drink, and the next, my entire body’s on fire and bursting at the seams. I busted out of my hospital room and made my grand escape.”
He left out the part where he’d eaten the nurse.
And attacked some cars.
And set fire to some cops.
