"Well, yeah!" I laughed sympathetically. "It's not every day you hear your best friend's not human. I understand why they didn't want you to say anything."
Jian blinked in surprise. "You're not angry with them?"
"I mean, yeah, it sucked that you left so suddenly. But what were you supposed to do? You were a kid back then."
"So were you. I should've at least made up an excuse..."
I shook my head. "It's in the past, Jian. Don't be so hard on yourself."
The corners of his mouth twitched into a small smile. "By the way, I haven't even shown you proof yet. Do you even believe a word I'm telling you?"
I rolled my eyes. "When have youeverlied in your life? Never, as far as I know."
Jian laughed. "You're the most interesting person I've ever met, Kola. Nobody else would listen to what I just said and take it at face value without proof."
"Oh, believe me, my curiosity is piqued," I teased, crossing my arms. "Do you plan on showing me or is it too soon?"
"Not at all. In fact, that's why I brought you out here."
A ripple of excitement coursed through me. As much as I believed Jian, there was still that tiny crumb of doubt in the back of my mind, the one that told me I couldn't believe things without proof, that there couldn'treallybe shifters like in movies, right?
But all that was about to change.
Jian stepped back, inhaled a deep breath and shut his eyes. I wondered if I should do the same.
"Should I, er, turn around or something?" I asked, a little flustered. Nobody had ever transformed in front of me before. What kind of social rules were there about this sort of thing? What if I did something rude or wrong?
But Jian smiled, sending an easy wave of comfort over me, just like he always did with his presence alone.
"You can, if you'd feel more comfortable, but you don't have to," Jian replied. "I don't mind if you watch."
I swallowed the lump of nervous excitement in my throat, then nodded. I wanted to see.
"All right," Jian said. "Here we go."
Have you ever thought you'd woken up from a dream, but you were actually still dreaming? That was what watching Jian's shift felt like.
His body was enveloped by an ethereal glow as his form twisted and turned and changed. My eyes couldn't believe what they were seeing. I blinked many times in a row to try to understand the scene in front of me.
Jian's center of gravity shifted lower as he arched his body forward. What had been his strong arms were now front legs that ended in hooves. His head was in the shape of an elegant snout, which sported two long whip-like whiskers. A pair of bone-white antlers jutted out from the back of his skull, and a mane flowed down his spine. Parts of his body were covered in short fur and longer mane-hair, like a horse, but the majority of it was coated in iridescent blue-green scales.
It all happened so fast that I could barely process it. Where the two-legged man had stood a second ago was now a four-legged hoofed beast. One I had no name for. He vaguely resembled a mix of a dragon and a unicorn, but I knew he was something else entirely.
Whatever he was, he was breathtakingly beautiful. He was a dream come to life.
The creature—Jian—took a step towards me. His hoof was silent against the loamy soil. His movement was ethereal, like smoke. I couldn't take my eyes off him.
"Kola?"
I grinned. That was definitely his voice, although it was tinged with a bell-like quality. "That's me. And you're still you, I presume?"
"I am," Jian confirmed.
"So..." I laughed. "Is this what you meant when you asked me about unicorns during that movie?"
"Possibly," he teased. "But I'm not a unicorn."
I reached over to touch the base of his antlers. There were clearly two, not one. Jian leaned into the touch as if he enjoyed it.
