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The Next Morning.

Courtney wakes up for the day, feeling a bit groggy but as she remembers the very long talks last night, she starts quickly feeling more energetic and upbeat. She's only been sleeping in her panties and t-shirt as usual. With a stretch, she gets up and swings her legs off to the side of the bed.

The 'head maid's quarters are pretty small and practical, but while she frowned at it in the beginning, she's since realized that she doesn't actually do anything else but sleep in there anyway. She ends up doing most of her reading and drawing... wherever she has downtime in the manor caretaking, really. Half her possessions will be in the manor's kitchen at this rate.

With practiced motions that pretty much from her spine at this point, she walks to the bathroom and starts getting ready for the day. She makes a note to change the lightbulb in there as it flickers for a bit and only gives like half of an attempt at giving light for now. Enough to get ready, anyway, so it's a later thing to do.

Putting on the maid dress once felt rather embarrassing, but now that she's used to it and kind of suspects Rebecca likes her wearing it, she's taken much more liking to wearing it. Helps that she was able to adjust it just a bit towards her own style - the original had a white underdress, but she's since dyed said piece to black, making it match her long raven hair. Hair which glints beautifully in the low light, she makes a mental note to use that fact sometime.

Finally she makes her way to the kitchen to start the day, and intends to put the indoor slippers on and get started on breakfast.

That plan is derailed by a shriek that would make the bats leave the attic of the manor, were the building any older. A moment later Courtney realizes it was herself that screamed. She stares down, unable to process.

Rebecca is sleeping late, as she usually does. Though she might gripe about her responsibilities in town, honestly, she's got it very easy, and she was up late last night, sharing her feelings with Courtney.

Still, the scream is enough to wake her, and instincts take over as she responds with a terrible roar that shakes the house. She bursts into the Hallway, wings raised menacingly, a fury in her eyes that her home has been invaded; her girlfriend hurt.

She begins searching, "Courtney?! COURTNEY!? Are you hurt?"

The roar startles Courtney enough to get into some action. Even if that action is just calling out: "I... I'm h-here, Rebecca! I-in the kitchen!" She then takes a chair and sits down, feeling her legs weak under her.

Rebecca is swiftly there, poking her head through the kitchen door, "Are you safe?! What's happened?!"

Courtney swallows: "I... I... don't know..." She looks down at her feet. Feet that have now taken a definitely more scaled, clawed, lizard-like appearance, with light blue scales on top of her foot.

Rebecca has prepared for a thousand outcomes in the seconds before seeing Courtney. Someone daring to break into a dragon's manor for a quick score was not unheard of, nor were attacks against dragons by people who hated their 'invasion' of the world. These things were rarer these days, but still possible, especially a new young dragon in a new town.

Or she feared someone had learned of her and Courtney's confessions the night before, one or both of their families seeking to stop their budding relationship.

But she hadn't considered... this... her expression softens from outrage to worry, her body relaxing as there's no immediate threat. She stares at Courtney's feet, "H-how? What? What... happened?"

Courtney looks lifts one foot the examine it, twitching her now four toes: "I-it's still me. My foot. Just..." She can't help it, she looks from her foot to Rebecca's feet. "...b-blue."

Rebecca nods, swallowing a strange lump in her throat, "Like... mine. But... how?"

Courtney shakes her head ever so slightly: "I don't know. I just... noticed..." She attempts to find words a few times as she runs her mouth, but conflicting emotions just seem to cause a standstill. "...t-this."

Rebecca stares, eyes locked on Courtney's feet until at last she lets her gaze fall, pulling away, "Did... I do this? Oh no no no, I did, didn't I? I didn't think that expressing my feelings could... I sh-shouldn't have... I knew there were taboos, but I just thought it was a social thing!"

Courtney blinks, then looks up at the dragon's rising panic: "R-rebecca, d-don't. P-please." Whatever else she is feeling, she instantly hates seeing her girlfriend blame herself of this.

Rebecca looks back, looking into Courtney's eyes, "I... I just never want to hurt you... humans don't just change like this, right? It... it had to be because of me."

Courtney hesitates, then decides to push through anyway. Awkwardly, she gets up to standing, and besides slightly changed way she stands, pressing more towards her toes now, she stays up just fine. "B-but how? How could you..." She shakes her head and swallows: "D-doesn't matter. I'm still me."

Rebecca keeps her head low, sighing, "I don't know. I don't... b-but you... You! Are you alright? Does it hurt? Do you need anything?"

Courtney looks at Rebecca: "It... it d-doesn't hurt. I feel... okay, I'm terrified, but nothing feels painful. Just... weird." She swallows. Part of her really wants to be angry at the dragon, but she shoves that part into the closet where it belongs, bound and gagged.

Rebecca nods, clearly struggling to hold herself together, if just for Courtney's sake, "Okay... okay. What do we do? There's... there's got to be a way to undo this, right? I can call home, ask my Mother... you can... I- I don't know. See a Doctor?"

Courtney thinks on this, then shakes her head: "W-we tell no one. I don't wanna... be carted off to somewhere, who knows to what laboratory of some shady alphabet organization." She lifts her hand to Rebecca's chin: "Away from you."

Rebecca blinks, almost wanting to pull away from Courtney's touch just in case she is somehow responsible, "...no one? Are... you sure? We can't just... what if it gets worse? I... I don't want to lose you either."

Courtney swallows as though trying to keep the swelling panic attack down: "I don't know. I just... if we tell someone, what if things get worse because of that?"

Rebecca sighs, eyes darting as she thinks. "...okay. Okay, if that's what you want. But... we need to at least try to find out what's going on online or something, okay?"

Courtney nods: "Y-yeah, we should. Maybe someone somewhere has come across... whatever this is..." She looks at her feet. "They look so weird now..."

Rebecca glances down at them again, forcing a laugh, "Okay, don't hate me but... I th-think they're kind of cute? Ah! I know, that's weird. This is weird."

Courtney nods: "Weird is right." She blinks and looks back up: "...'cute'? Are you sure...?"

Rebecca shrinks in embarrassment, but nods, "Maybe it's just because it's you, and I already love you... you were beautiful before. You are still beautiful... and y-yeah... I can't imagine what that change must feel like, but at least, looking at them from the outside..."

She keeps rambling, trying to make how she feels about it make sense to both Courtney and honestly to herself, clearly embarrassed over the admission and trying not to make Courtney feel worse about it, but she can't help but be honest, "...So yeah... they're cute."

Courtney blushes, then she gets a thought and swallows. "Rebecca, I... I need to see if the rest of me... h-has changed at all." Without further consideration if any of this embarrassing anymore, she starts taking off the maid dress.

Rebecca blinks, "O-Oh! I uh, won't look? Unless you want me to look... I uh, I'm closing my eyes." She does so, closing her eyes. One eye starts to crack open out of curiosity, but she manages to control herself until Courtney gives her the word.

Courtney blushes a bit, but soon she is more focusing more on inspecting her body. To her relief, she finds nothing. As she is in her underwear now (black until a darker color is invented), she turns her back to Rebecca and glances at the dragon: "Can you check my back? It doesn't feel odd, but..." What the goth doesn't see, are a few spines in the mid-back being just a touch more visible and blue than they would normally be...

Rebecca nods, then slowly opens her eyes to examine Courtney's back. "...it... a little. Th-there's a little bit along your spine. More scales... blue scales... like mine... Oh, Courtney..." Her voice catches, unsure what else to say.

Courtney swallows and attempts to catch a glimpse of her back: "O-oh. Oh... fuck." She looks at Rebecca: "I don't... um..." She stares at the dragon for a moment, uncertain of anything right now.

Rebecca pulls away, feeling sad and confused and heartbroken, "We... we'll figure this out! We'll find out what's going on, and find a way to fix it, Courtney! I promise... I... I'm sorry this is happening to you, and I will do anything to make it better. I will take an oath to it."

Courtney is silent for a moment, just quietly processing. She turns to the dragon: "I um... i-it's probably okay to order in b-breakfast?" She's uncertain why that's the thought that makes it through.

Rebecca blinks at the odd tangent, but she nods regardless, "Of course... I wouldn't expect you to have to work after this."

Courtney is oddly quiet now: "It's... I don't know, I feel... fine, and I p-probably should be freaking out. But f-for the moment..." She starts putting the maid dress back on with slow, deliberate motions, although now hyper-aware of the bumps on her back.

Rebecca stares again as Courtney puts the dress back on, only to eep and close her eyes again once she realizes what she's doing, "Ah! R-right... you should... do what makes you comfortable. Try to relax... not use the feet maybe? A-and... I feel like... maybe you should avoid me... just in case it is because of me... I can do research in the meantime."

Courtney finishes putting the dress on. She considers. "I feel like... my body is telling me I should stay on my feet. Like, letting my muscles readjust." She takes a tentative step forward: "It's like... where I put my weight is slightly forward, more towards my toes..." The goth is seemingly a bit lost in figuring this out, which is probably better than screaming and flailing.

Rebecca still has her eyes closed, but slowly cracks one open, unable to resist the temptation this time as she looks down at Courtney's feet again, "I guess... that makes sense? Just please... be careful."

Courtney nods as she continues stepping on her new feet: "It's... strange, but not painful and... maybe not entirely bad..." She catches what she is saying: "I mean, er... yeah, let's find a solution."

Rebecca frowns, still extremely worried for her girlfriend as she pulls back out of the kitchen into the main hallway. "I'll go look up what's going on... I'll cancel anything that comes up in town too. You... don't worry about doing work around the manor, just focus on you, okay? I'll go see what I can find online."

Courtney nods again then turns to give Rebecca an encouraging look. "Y-yeah, we can figure this out."

Once the dragon is out of sight, only then does the girl allow herself a thousand-yard stare forward. "What have I gotten myself into..." she whispers to the kitchen walls, which dutifully provide no answers.

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