It was sort of like eggs scrambled across his skin – yellow, bumpy and viscous over a reddening canvas. He pressed at the surface, and where his skin gave in, it turned white with an unhealthy greening, which quickly dissipated when his pressure abated. Unfortunately there was very little doubt: Androcus was getting scales.

On his dragonkin classmates, scales looked natural, fitting. Their bodies were built for it. But looking at it spread across his arms, the effect was sickening. One of those times where two things are juxtaposed so unnaturally that they bring on a sudden, involuntary revulsion on the part of the observer. His human skin should not ever have this speckling of hardening bumps. Perhaps that was part of the problem – the unevenness. If it had been spread evenly across his skin, like theirs, it might be more fitting, less revolting. The uniformity of the dragonkin skin, the way their scales bent and shimmered, it wasn’t just appropriate – it was sexy, in its way.

Wasn’t it this kind of thinking that got Androcus in trouble in the first place? Sitting in lecture, admiring the glistening of his fellow student Akknavassh to the point of being lost in it. He wasn’t even embarrassed when she caught him staring, because the brief tilting of her head in an acknowledging nod was just as beautiful. Quite simply stunning. That was why it was so easy, after a few weeks of this, for him to let her push him into a disused side room as they walked together down a College corridor. To let her pin him against the wall as she wrapped her legs and tail around him, digging her claws into the wall behind him to gain the leverage she wanted. To let her take from him what he so desperately wanted to give.

But at what cost? He never thought it would happen to him. Or that it would be so apparent. If the scaling kept spreading at the current rate, it would reach his hands or face within a week. Then everyone would know. His terrible, wonderful secret would be impossible to ignore. “Oh, Gods,” he thought. “What will I tell my parents?”