Lost Change - Snippets

Alone

A dragonet body could apparently do just fine on the apples and other fruits I was finding, but... Susie was a dog. I knew dogs were technically omnivores, even scavengers, really, but that only took them so far. Fruits, grains, even nuts could help stretch out their diet, but eventually it was going to come down to one unavoidable fact I was now faced with.

Susie needed meat.

I looked down at my tiny, silver-scaled 'hands', and the tiny, thin digits that were now my 'fingers'. I flexed my palm and curled my fingers inwards, causing the sharp claws to slide out. They gleamed ominously in the afternoon light, guiding my imagination through the damage they could do to another living creature. The ability to rend flesh. Sever muscles. Slice through blood vessels. Organs.

Throats.

And that was just my claws. My teeth were nearly as sharp, and could rip into anything I got my mouth on. The strange encyclopedia still held the knowledge that I could spit fire if I wanted to, though I hadn't actually done it yet. When I was in a glide I was almost completely silent, and every day I got better and better at keeping quiet when I flapped my wings. My eyesight was good enough to see pretty much anything around me, so long as it was light out.

The body I had now was the body of a predator. A creature that could hunt down and kill others, even if so far it didn't need to actually eat prey to survive. My body was perfectly capable of chasing down a random animal, slaughtering it, and feeding it to Susie. It was everything I needed to survive out in the wild.

The razor-sharp claws gleamed at me as I flexed my palm again.

I had the body of a killer.

My ear tufts trembled as I imagined slicing through into some poor creature and ending its life, and I shook my head. Susie tilted her head at me and whined, then walked over to lick at me, concerned at my sudden sadness.

But I still had the mind of a human.

I was civilized. To me, a dish of meat was nothing more than pulling a box from the freezer and throwing it into the microwave or, if I wanted an especially fancy meal, the oven. The most fighting my meals had ever required was when I had to struggle to get a can opener to work. Feeding the predatory descendents of wolves meant cutting open a paper bag, reaching in with a scoop, and dumping lots of crunchy pebbles into a bowl.

The only messy part to feeding a dog as a human would just be the one the dog would make a few hours later.

Could I really do this...?

~

I was still trying to think through my options when Susie jumped up and tore off through the trees with an explosion of excited barking. A startled yowl followed Susie's barking, then an angry hissing followed that. I stretched out my wings and flapped after the dog, already having a feeling as to what I would find.

Susie continued to bark at something, and I slowed my wings down as I came into sight of the tree. The border collie was running around the base of the tree and yelling powerful 'woofs' up at it... or more specifically, at the orange-and-white cat clinging to the side of the tree.

The cat let go with one paw and leaned down to swipe in Susie's direction, hissing again as it did, then it scurried further up the tree.

Susie made sure the entire world knew her opinion of the cat's mocking swipe by barking even louder.

I circled the tree once... then came to land on one of the branches above the cat.

I stared at the feline.