Maybe he does understand.
I don’t wait for his return, though, for yet another shock.
I need to move.
For a moment, though, I’m arrested by the sight of myself in the mirror.
My features are the same. Waist-length sun-blonde hair, bright magenta eyes. I look as though I haven’t aged past my early twenties. I’m even paler than I remember, but thatmightbe because I’m covered in a layer of stone dust.
I still look like myself, even after everything.
What gets me again, though, is that I’m still wearing the sage robes from centuries ago. Even when I turned against the Order, I kept them on, because Iama sage, no matter how much I hate what that means.
So peeling them off now is a strange feeling, the sudden lack of their literal and metaphorical weight.
I can’t cast off being a sage so easily, but maybe I can stop carrying around some of the weight the Order gave me.
I’m staring at the robes pooled at my feet when Zan returns, sees me naked, and freezes.
I glance up at him.
He stares at me wide-eyed, then thrusts a pile of towels at me.
They’re warm and feel clean. Did he heat them with his magic?
How much magic is he spending on my comfort?
“Do you need me for anything?” Zan asks in a slightly strangled voice, and then I watch his cheeks warm.
Sudden amusement as my brain catches up, breaking through my stupor. “Are dragons typically embarrassed about showing their bodies?”
His gaze flickers. “No. But humans usually are.”
I shrug.
Zan tracks the movement.
“My apologies for shocking you,” I say, taking a towel and wetting it in the sink. “Sages are not permitted the luxury of modesty. Our bodies belong to the people.”
“Not anymore,” Zan says quietly. “Not yours.”
“No,” I agree, then consider. “I think I will not adopt more shame, however.”
Zan watches me as I wipe the dust off my arms and body, my comfort with his presence apparently freeing him from the habitual reaction he’s acquired from living among humans for so long.
I’ve never heard of a dragon living for so long among humans.
Zan probably knows what normal humans are like better than I do.
The silence between us is easy, at first.
But then I realize there is a kind of intimacy in being witnessed by someone who is not a priest, who is not here because it’s their job to mind me.
There is a difference in being seen this way.
There is a difference in a person who sees more of me, of what’s inside of me, watching this human ritual as I slough off lifetimes from my skin.
And there is a difference in a person who sees the outside of me as a person, rather than simply a vessel.
