Hello Again — Story

They say you can only meet someone for the first time once. Strictly speaking, this is true, but in a complicated world, things sometimes are more ..nuanced. Sapphira Azula Cerulea MacGregor, who tended to just call herself, and preferred to to have others call her, 'Blue', happily hummed/sang as she skipped down the streets of Mailor on her way back to work after two weeks of vacation in France. She technically didn't have to start work again under tomorrow, but she wanted to show up early so she could show her coworkers all her vacation photos and some of the neat little things she'd bought, which she carried with her in a great bulging bag. She opened the door to the Maiden Menagerie and stepped inside. As she'd planned, it was still really early with only her fellow coworkers and no customers present.

"Hey everydragon, I'm back!" she chirped, wings fluttering a little in her excitement. "Wanna look at all the sweet thingies I brought back from Paris?"

Amrin, leaning down behind the counter, stretched her long neck up. "Hey Blue! Nice to see you back! Lemme finish some stuff back here first, okay?"

Blaze looked up from wiping down a table, flexing her big triple-rocket wings, which flared briefly."Yeah, welcome back! How was France? Let's see what you got!"

"Nice to see you again," said a pink-haired yellow dragon fiddling with a plate of brownies in the display case.

Blue blinked, not recognizing the third person, though clearly they recognized her. She stepped forward, narrowing her eyes and scrutinized the newcomer. Despite having a slightly stockier, human-style body frame compared to the lanky Blue, the yellow dragon a bit taller, bright pink hair, dark pink eyes, gold horns, and large pink wings like a moth's. And, Blue couldn't help but notice that the new dragon filled out their uniform rather more than Blue herself did. In spite of the new dragon committing the sin of being prettier than her, Blue was determined to remain polite.

Straightening up, she walked up to the yellow dragon, set her bag of goodies down, and extended a friendly hand. "Hello, I don't think we've met yet, you are?.."

Still carrying the tray of brownies in one hand, the new dragon blinked their pink eyes, then smiled in an awkward, embarrassed way. "OH! Oh, um, it's me. Zeydaan. I think we only worked together for a couple of days before you left on your vacation." With their free hand, they gestured at, well, all of themself. "I've obviously been through some changes." They grinned a half-grin that was clearly meant to look more confident than they currently felt. Blue started, blinked, then snorted.

"Zeydaan? The werewolf who showed up one day as a customer, got hired somehow, and looked very cute and silly dressed up as a French Maid? What's the saying, 'Pull the other one, it has bells on it'? You're not him; he's a werewolf guy and you're a dragon girl." She turned to the others. "This was kind of a funny joke, but seriously, who is she?" Amrin and Blaze looked at each other.

"Uhhhh.." 'Zeydaan' deflated a little, their grin faded, and the soft pink eyes grew more steely. "I AM Zeydaan, I'm just not a werewolf right now. And actually, I was never really a 'he' either. Also, while I AM Zeydaan, I've decided to call myself 'Isabella' when I'm like this." They once again gestured at themself with their free hand. "I did say I've been through changes. It's complicated." Zeydaan/Isabella blinked as a thought occurred to them. Their face brightened, grin returning in full force. "I got it!" Placing her burden of brownies down on a table, they expertly thumbed through several screens until they found what they wanted. "Look." She held it out for Blue to see.

The Scottish dragon, still not sure why she was being pranked in such a weird way, but willing to play along, craned her long neck in and looked at the image on the smartphone.

There on the little screen was a selfie of Zeydaan, the werewolf coworker she was familiar with, dressed up in the Maiden Menagerie's French Mad-style outfit, looking both fairly ridiculous and still rather cute. They were doing the 'V for victory' sign, presumably in celebration of being hired. Blue nodded, "That's Zeydaan."

'Isabella' nodded back. "Yes. That's me. Watch." With a finger swipe, the image changed.

Now, the selfie was of Zeydaan at a party or concert, dressed in a sorta-punk, sorta-goth outfit. Only... things were different. Spreading from the red highlights in their mostly black hair was a mass of pink hair. The ends of their wolf ears and wolf snout had turned yellow. Next to the yellowing wolf ears a pair of short dark yellow horns had sprouted. And the revealing mesh shirt Zeydaan was wearing under her black jacket exposed the fact that Zey's formerly flat chest was growing more puffy and rounded. It was still clearly Zeydaan, but also, not.

Blue's mouth felt dry, she opened it a little.

Isabella swiped again. The new selfie was of a person standing on a cliff overlooking the sea, a person with hints of grey wolf, but now mostly yellow dragon. Wearing a hoodie, cap, slacks, and a yellow top that hid a bosom and showed off a belly was a Zeydaan with smaller yellow ears, longer horns, pink hair with a few black streaks, and a yellow face with only a few patches of grey across the cheeks and forehead. Her black wolf nose was thinning and fading into separate nostrils. The way the hoodie hung on them suggested that their waist had pulled in and their hips had flared out. And finally a pair of small yellow-pink wings had begun to sprout from their back.

Blue made an odd little noise at the back of her throat. It was supposed to be a word, but it failed. She tried again. "Wheeze?" She looked up from the smartphone and at the person holding it, the person who was the clear end result of the slow changes the selfies showed, and all dressed up for work.

Isabella-the-Zeydaan smiled a toothy, triumphant smile. "See? It's me!"

Blue's brain was still working away at processing everything. She'd just seen a werewolf slowly transform into a dragon-girl, like her. Like Blaze, like Amrin, like everyone who worked at the Maiden Menagerie. Well, that wasn't the same; she and the others had always been dragons.

Hadn't they?

Hadn't she?

Everyone who worked at the Maiden Menagerie was a dragon, she had never bothered to question that fact. But now, she did. She questioned it A LOT. Maybe, just maybe, she questioned it too much.

Isabella, already mentally preparing a speech going into detail about their gender identity and their unusual magical and biological heritage, did not notice the expression on Blue's face gradually change from 'confusion' to 'sheer existential dread'. They opened their mouth to begin the speech, but Blue opened her mouth first.

"aaaaaa, AAAAAA, AAAAAA, AAAAA, AAAAA!!!" It was rather amazing, the varied tone and pitch a single screamed letter could attain with the proper fear behind it.

Blue turned and bolted out of the building, door slamming quite hard against the frame as she left. A cartoonish plume of dust stood next to Isabella where she'd once been.

The trio in the café could still hear the increasingly distant screaming. "SCALEY BORG! I MEAN, DRAGON ZOMBIES! THEY'RE COMING FOR US ALL! THEY'RE GONNA MAKE US JOIN THEM! IT'S TOO LATE FOR ME, EVERYBODY ELSE RUN AND SAVE YOURSELF! AAAAAAAAAA!"

Amrin rolled up her sleeves and stalked around to the front of the counter. "Okay, that could've gone better."

"...MUCH better." Blaze commented. "Not your fault, Izzy."

"We need to go drag her back, explain things a bit better." Amrin considered. "We may need some strong rope to accomplish this." And, with the help of a length of strong rope, is WAS (eventually!) accomplished. Though, the café had to open an hour late that day, which was docked from Blue's pay.