20

Kaz was still immobile, shortly after he kissed Saphana he suddenly awoke to a buzzing alarm clock. He sits upright at his desk and slams his fist on the clock to cease the buzzing, he then stares down at his sketchbook. He was drawing dragons again, the one he was drawing currently was a sapphire blue dragonkin that resembled a human, minus the wings and short snout. Kaz got up from his desk and cleaned himself up to get ready for work at the bookstore, it was his last day as the store got bought out by a competitor. He brought his sketchbook to work on in his downtime, he slid it in the pouch behind the seat in his car and took off for work.

After a grueling day boxing up books and merchandise, he loaded the boxes he was allowed to take home into the back of his car. He returns to the back room to punch out one last time before he leaves, he gets back in his car and drives off. He stops by a gas station and picks up some soda and a few sacks of beef jerky. On the way back to his apartment Kaz opens a bag of the jerky and pops a chunk into his mouth. He chews it up and swallows, however one of the stringy bits of the snack gets caught halfway down his throat. Kaz struggles to breathe and begins to swerve on the road, he comes upon a small bridge and just as he coughs the stuck jerky up, he realizes it's too late. He's driven straight through the flimsy wooden railing and is careening over the edge. Moments before impact with the river below, a monstrously bright light envelops Kaz and his car. It feels as if all of the oxygen was being sucked right out of him as he slowly loses consciousness.

At this point, Kaz's eyes open and when he looks to his side he sees Saphana beside him fast asleep. "It was just a dream." He thinks to himself. He looks over at Saphana in the dim light of a single candle on the nightstand, he finds her new form extremely familiar. He remembers the sketch he was working on before work the day he arrived. He tries to get out of bed to go fetch it, but his efforts to get up are futile. Saphana may be smaller and more human looking, but she's still just as heavy as before. Kaz gives up and pulls the blanket up over him and Saphana, he wraps his arm around her waist, pulls himself close and falls back asleep within moments.

Morning comes and sunlight shines through the window, Kaz opens his eyes. He grabs Saphana's shoulder and softly shakes her in hopes of waking the slumbering blob that lay sprawled out on top of him. She turns over onto her stomach and lays parallel directly on top of him. Kaz now had a face full of hair and could hardly breathe, he raised his arm and began slapping and banging on the wall hoping someone would hear him. Kaz hears the thumping of someone climbing the stairs, he grabs her waist and tries to shove Saphana off of him.

The doorknob turns and the door is flung open, followed by shouting. Tasi quickly wraps her tail around Saphana's waist and pulls her off of him. Kaz gasps for air as he sits upright, however before he knew it he was wrapped up tight in Tasi's coils in a giant hug against her belly. "You're awake!" Tasi shrieks with tears in her eyes. Kaz was being suffocated yet again, this time Lucia smacks Tasi upside the head with her favorite cooking ladle, "Tasi! You're no better than Miss Saphana right now!" She scolds Tasi.

Kaz slowly escapes from Tasi's grasp and crawls over to Lucia on his knees. He tries to grab her hand to help him get up, but grabs her gown by accident instead and pulls. Lucia, who was still busy yelling at Tasi and Saphana, who had just woken up, felt something tugging on her clothes. As she looks down, Kaz pulls a bit more to get up and her gown is yanked clean off. Lucia's face turned beet red with embarrassment, she calmly pulled her gown back up to her shoulders where it belonged and wrapped Kaz's arm around her shoulder and walked him down to the main hall for breakfast.

Kaz sits down at the table, as he stretches out his elbows and ankles all pop and he lets out a satisfied grunt, "Thanks for helping me down here Lucia." He thanks Lucia and smiles as he dips a hunk of bread into the yolk of his eggs. Lucia sits down beside him and begins eating as well, "It's no problem Master Kaz." She replies. Kaz frowns back at her, "I told you just Kaz is fine, I'm not your master." He says with a scowl. "Lucia, can you wait here a bit? I want to grab something and ask your opinion." Kaz asks as he sets his wooden plate on the counter. Lucia nods as she takes another bite of her breakfast, so Kaz runs out and opens the back door of his car and pokes around for the sketchbook in the pouch behind the seat. Kaz pulls it out and brings it back on with him to the main hall and sits next to Lucia once again.

Kaz flips through the book and finds the sketch in question, Kaz calls Saphana to come down to the main hall. He sets the sketchbook down on the table as soon as Saphana arrives. It was a spitting image of what Saphana had turned into, Lucia and Saphana both looked confused. "This looks exactly like you Saph, the part that concerns me is the fact that I had drawn this before I even arrived here. Maybe you were meant to turn into what you've become for some reason." Kaz explains. "I uh." He stutters, "I am actually kind of…" he pauses, "I'm trying to say, you look nice like this." He confesses as he scratches his face with a nervous twitch. Saphana leans over the drawing and studies it intently and lets out a giggle, "Nice, hm?" She mumbles with a mischievous grin. Kaz bows and comes up with an excuse to leave the awkward situation as soon as he can, he says he's going to the yard to practice his swordplay. Saphana leaves and follows him outside shortly after.