James turned the pages to the chapter on aquatic dragons, hoping to read about something a little different from the standard “classical” Eastern and Western variants but not go so out there into robot or alien dragons, or whatever a “conceptual” dragon was.
Reaching the chapter’s opening page, James was greeted with a stunningly lifelike underwater “photo” of a massive, long-necked reptile, with broad flippers in place of legs, a snaking, finned tail, wide, wing-like fins, crocodilian jaws filled with razor sharp fangs, all covered int deep blue scales, highlighted with purple streaks. Little grey specks could be seen swimming away from it; on closer look, James could see that they were dolphins, hardly a tenth the size of the beast.
He couldn’t believe the skill of whatever artist had illustrated this book, it had looked so real. His eyes trailed down to the text below the picture.
“While the classical dragons initially evolved from dinosaurs long after reptiles had come to land, for some species, it was evolutionarily advantageous to return to the sea, finding a new niche that allowed them to become the apex predators whose territories have defined shipping routes for generations.”
‘Heh, doing a little worldbuilding in your fictional zoology books,’ James thought to himself. ‘Neat.’
“Moving into the sea allowed for some aquatic dragon species to achieve sizes that would have crushed a land-based dragon under its own weight. The leviathans are capable of devouring entire schools of fish, as well as larger prey, such as whales or sharks, with little resistance. However, due to large food requirements, and extensive lifespans, the leviathans rarely breed, doing so only once in a hundred years, at most.”
James shifted in his chair as he kept reading. His body felt a bit sluggish and heavy. He shrugged it off, figuring he probably put one too many extra slices of turkey on his sandwich earlier.
“Like dolphins and whales, aquatic dragons lack gills, instead possessing a blowhole on the top of their heads. This can be used both for breathing, and for utilizing their replacement for the classical western dragon’s flame breath. The traditional dragon’s flame bladder has evolved into a ‘wind sac’ in aquatic species, capable of expelling or inhaling vast amounts of air or water to create whirlpools orders of magnitude larger that those typically found in nature, as well as to draw storm clouds together. Both of these techniques are employed to create rougher seas that can force prey into predictable patterns.
“It should also be noted that the majority of aquatic dragon species, especially the leviathans, all lack the mana reserves common to classical eastern dragons, and are often even dwarfed in this aspect by the classical western dragons they are believed to have evolved from. As such, they possess no means to directly control these storms, beyond starting them. Tales to the contrary are simply the product of the imaginations of panicked survivors of their attacks.”
The heavy, sluggish feeling fast getting worse as James read, and he was starting to feel dehydrated, too. If he didn’t know better, he’d almost say his skin was starting to feel rigid in places. He scratched at his chest idly, the fabric of his t-shirt rubbing against his a little smoother than normal.
He shook his head. He just needed some water. With a pinch of salt. He’d get up, go and get both.
“After I finish reading,” he whispered to himself, despite a little voice in the back of his mind telling him to sort out his priorities.
“The tails of aquatic dragons are significantly thicker than those of their land-based classical western counterparts, and end in fins, rather than the typical spade shape. This provides the majority of their propulsion through the sea.”
Had someone opened a window? Grovesport may have been a seaside town, but the library was far enough inland that he shouldn’t have been able to hear the waves or smell the salt air from here. Not to mention his chair was getting very uncomfortable. He felt an intense pressure in the base of his spine, and his pants suddenly felt far too tight.
Then came the distinct sensation of pushing, of growth. Then a rip, then all the tightness in his pants vanished.
James finally fought off the strange apathy that had overcome him, and realized something was very wrong. He turned around to look at the growth.
Or at least, he tried to.
It seemed like every time he tried to turn his eyes away from the book, they were snapped back to it’s pages, beyond his control.
As he kept attempting to turn, he began to move the growth with his mind, the sensation of this new appendage sending his mind reeling. He managed to move on end of it in front of his face, and gasped when he saw a fin on the end of a tail covered in greenish-blue scales. And not scales like those of a fish either. These looked more like the smaller, rougher scales of a reptile.
James tried to scream, but whatever magic was forcing him to read muffled his voice to an indistinct gurgle trapped in his throat. His eyes were drawn back to the page once more.
“While aquatic dragons’ legs had evolved into smaller fins during their move to the sea, their wings changed only slightly, adapting easily into the broad, majestic wings that have terrified so many sailors.”
James groaned as he dropped the book, his hands shaking as his fingers fused together, his arms growing flatter and wider all the while. His shirt tore open from behind as two more limbs stretched out of his back, spreading wide with long, boney “fingers” that grew webbing between them, forming a pair of wings. He found himself involuntarily standing up, then flopping forward onto the library’s rough carpet as his legs began to distort beneath him. He’d hoped this would at least render him unable to read any more of the book, but as he lifted his head up, he saw that the book had landed right in front of his face, open to the same page as before.
“Aquatic dragons retained the sharpened fangs and long necks of their classical western counterparts, giving them a wider range of motion to catch prey, as well as a means to see some distance above the water.”
James tried to groan, only to have it magically stifled again. His neck grew out longer and longer as scales crawled up its surface, soon becoming even longer than his torso, which seemed to also be gradually growing. His jaws ached as they stretched forward, his nostrils moving up with it. His teeth sharpened and lengthened, poking past his lips (if they could still be called that) in places. His ears shrank back to little more than holes in his head, his hair receding completely into his ever-growing scaly body.
Finally, he was able to pull his head away from the book, when he suddenly felt a wet sensation below him, alongside a distinct, salty smell. Looking down, he could see seawater covering the library floor, high enough to cover his fins, but not much else. Yet, somehow it seemed to be dragging his massive frame, now dwarfing many of the library shelves, out toward the sea.
‘Wait, wasn’t there a wall beside me a second ago?’ James thought.
Sure enough, the wall, and all buildings between the library and the beach, had vanished, and the water was now pulling James irisistably away. He gasped, but was horrified by the sound that came out of his mouth. He craned his neck this way and that, searching for someone, anyone, who he could try to get help from, but he couldn’t see anyone, save for the lone librarian, waving at him as he grew more distant, a smile on its face.
As James passed the beach, he was pushed further out to sea, and deeper below the waves. It felt like hours, but when he finally was able to fight the tide, and lift his head out of the water, (many beachgoers screaming at the sight of him) the water that had carried him here was gone, and the buildings, and library wall, that had been missing, were suddenly back in place.