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"Chin up, miseryguts," the apparition in the mirror seemed to say. "You're a novahot babe of a dragoness who can melt steel like it's soybutter."

The visage practically glowed with self-assured strength, all bright scales and vivid plumage, a fire burning behind its eyes. "Pretty sure these scales are bulletproof!" she crowed, flexing in the exact way Wren did whenever they wanted to bask in the joy of their existence. "You're powerful. Capable. Unstoppable."

And where did that attitude get me? Wren had to wonder.

A warehouse in flames and a gaping sword wound, clinging to life by a thread. Caught on the end of a Yakuza hook, their entire team under the gun and two lives wasted just to send a message. An Aztechnology manager with some especially juicy blackmail material.

"You're still alive," the apparition scoffed, her fangs flashing in the harsh light of the washroom. "And embracing this will only make it easier to keep it that way. It'll give you the power to tear down any oppressor. Punish every injustice you see."

Pure draconic arrogance. Yet it was strength that Wren craved and a promise that was already being fulfilled. Even leaving aside the enhanced strength and speed of the dracoform they could feel themselves changing.

It was only small things yet: their sense of smell was stronger, darkness was less of a hinderance, and their ears were picking up things they would never have thought to listen for. A burgeoning instinct for the way the wind moved kept tugging at her wings every time she went out wearing scales.

More damning than anything was the way each shift brought with it an easing of the burden of existence, the world becoming brighter in a way better night vision couldn't account for.

Becoming the dragon simply felt good.

Genuine accounts of newly-awakened drakes discussing their experiences were hard to come by on the matrix. Many of those were dominated by the emotions of their initial change, and many of those were negative. Fear was widespread, especially justified when so many had disappeared without trace soon after revealing themselves.

And yet there were a rare few that spoke of the exact feelings Wren found themselves wary of. The simple reasurrance of a shape that felt like it belonged to them. That intoxicating confidence, the certainty that everything would work out. On two legs or four a sheer arrogant optimism infected everything, every time they let the flame in their heart surge outwards.

A mean, bitter part of Wren wanted it to be some kind of deep time draconic ploy. A hidden strategy to seduce the unwilling inheritors of an ancient legacy. Something to render a victim pliable and make it easier for would-be masters to set the leash around their "property's" necks.

The apparition scowled at them from inside the mirror.

"Don't tell me you really believe that," it begged, crest flat. "That's Bubba-grade conspiracy thinking and you know it."

It was exactly what a subversive influence would say. Yet Wren couldn't say they'd gained any particular sympathy or reverence for dragonkind at large, even when luxuriating in the euphoria of critterhood.

Despite the dangers inherent to their unfettered existence, spending time in dracoform mostly just brought them comfort.

Yet the world around them wouldn't see it that way, would it? There would always be a price on her head as long as she bore no chains. The threat of some pissant dragon or megacorporate stooge barging into her life and trying to enslave her would always feature prominently in her nightmares, right next to the far more immediate fear of being shunned by community and coworkers simply for being dragon business.

Once again Wren wondered if maybe it would be better to stay out of that shape. Crush themselves back into their unremarkable human form for good, stay in the deepest depths of the shadows and try to live as ordinary a life as a SINless outsider could in a post-Crash 2.0 world.

It would, theoretically, be safer that way. Harder for hunters to find them. Less stressful for the team if they stopped dreaming of the sky and never wore scales again. They had been fine living a human life. They could work out how to be fine with it once more.

Wren's echo kneeled down, embracing their reflection in a many-limbed spectral hug.

"You know that's not how it works," she muttered, her voice a soothing rumble. "They'll come after you anyway. You've been chasing this truth your whole life. If I know you," 'and I do, because I'm you' went unsaid, "you're going to embrace this with everything you have and fight the whole world to a standstill to keep your freedom."

Wren's lips twitched into grim smile. To the very last breath and the last drop of blood.

The dragon snorted, but there was an affectionate gleam to her eyes. "Sure, if you want to go out like papa Tauno. There's people here who are counting on you, you know? The Dogs, Riverside." It stood, looking up and away as if chasing some distant star through the plasticrete of the bunker's ceiling. "Not to mention there's a whole new world to build once we tear down the old one."

Wren pushed off from the sink and shook their arms to get some feeling back into them. It had gotten late and they needed to be up early to check on the Pinefeathers. The corvid shifters' building had been having trouble with its heating and so the Riverside commune's maintenance supervisor had asked Wren to check on it.

Winter was only getting deeper. It didn't always take a Minnesota manablizzard to knock out the ramshackle furnaces the commune's inhabitants relied upon to keep the killing cold at bay.

A bright red feather caught Wren's eye as they settled down to sleep. One more shed pinion scattered about their home as her wings gradually bulked out. It would have to be put with the others, come morning.

If it weren't monumentally poor security, they could probably make a decent amount of money selling the feathers as telesma. Merlin's talismonger had certainly been interested enough in her blood and there was always rent to pay, gear and supplies to acquire.

Problems for tomorrow.

In her dreams her purifying flame chased away the crowding darkness as she tore across the open sky on crimson wings, forever free.