Hard green eyes glared at forest-shaded ones. Then, Churana looked down first. "Yes, grandmother. I will wear the dress."
"Good. It was made for you, and you will look fine in it."
"But it *itches* and it is tight around my--"
"You will wear it and enjoy it, and you will say not one more word about it. Do you understand?" Shezumi blinked and her daughter's daughter ground her jaw shut and nodded. "You will eventually learn that style and substance can never be enough. Reflect on the restraint I have shown you and be ready to enter the festival within an hour. Wearing the dress, and a smile."
"Yes, grandmother..." Churana continued to stare at the stone floor of her room, while Shezumi strolled away. The pure control in the older woman's stride, her tone, and her ... well, her magic, always won out. She always looked so young, so perfect. Yet she was now perhaps more than two hundred years old, that Shezumi.
She looked so human, too. Most of the time. But Churana knew, as all the descendants of the dragon knew, that she was hiding something below her yellow-pale skin and brilliant tattoo. Behind her mask of perfect calm lay a raging fire, thrown into relief by her training as a mage.
"I hate this dress," Churana griped, when her grandmother had gone. Down the hall, surely, she could not hear her hissing curses. But what if she had? She would be so angry...
"No, she'll be perfect and calm. I have to learn... Calm and perfect. And wearing this damnable dress." Churana slipped into the bath, spread her wings and floated. Then, finally, just before the hour she was alloted was up, she drifted out of the bath and into her snug dress.
It was a dress not unlike the one which Shezumi usually wore, a wrapped kimono of sorts. But since Shezumi did not always bear her wings on her back, nor her tail out of her rear end, Churana decided that she knew nothing about how annoying it was for her offspring. The dress fit around her wings, and left a slit which her tail could fit through without revealing any of her private parts.
Not that Churana and her generation cared at all about modesty. They were not on Earth after all, they were in the Dragons house! And if they could not be happy with who they were, as dragon kin, then ... How could they even hope to impress anyone with their magical or social arts?
"Hate this dress," Churana muttered once more, while she fluffed her hair dry with a little air spell. Shezumi detested the casual use of magic that most of the younger dragon kin adopted. But she noted well that they were all apt to learn strongly and quickly, where as her mother's generation faltered and had trouble with even the most simple spells outside of fire and flight.
Glamours, scrying, elemental magic, all these things were available at the Dragons House, but Churana only wanted to concentrate on a few arts. She had all the time in the world, supposedly immortal, but wondered if it were really true? After all, her mother was slightly more than half human, and the dragon which sired her in Shezumi was mortal.
Churana did not dwell on those thoughts. Instead, she gathered her wits and tried to take a deep breath. The dress let her barely take half what she wanted to into her lungs, and she cursed again. Then she plucked herself out of the room and strode down the richly appointed hallway to the party.
"It's so true! I cannot bear to hide them, but when Diylar asked me what those strange marks were on my back... I could not bring myself to show!" Then, a gasp. Several others turned when Churana entered the main hall. Kazoku no Ryu had always been a haven for dragons and their kin. Tonight was a ball to celebrate the graduation of several young mages in their ranks.
Tonight was a time for humans. Churana bit back anger at how those eyes stared at her in her own home! She flexed her wings and threw her head back, daring anyone to comment more than a mere whisper. No one did.
Nearly everyone in the hall could claim blood kinship with the lady Shezumi, rider of special green Tesimith of Ryslen weyr. But Churana was one of her primary students, so naturally they assumed that she would be among the graduates. Not so. She was not to be expected to show off any of her arts -- especially not in that dress!
Churana glared at Shezumi, as the whispered comments flickered like wildfire around the room. The graduates wore comfortable working clothes, though they were of a fine quality, they were expected to show off their abilities to the assembled crowd.
Seven of them were lined up, and Churana found herself stepping down the stairs into the room with every eye upon her. No one else was wearing their true form. Not a one.
Not. One. Single. Wing.
Not a tail, nor a long ear. Not a finger out of place. Perfect humans all groomed to their finest.
And if Shezumi had meant for Churana to be anything less than devistated by embarrassment, she would have told her not to keep the wings when at this party. If there had been even a hint that no one else would be sporting their magnificent --
Churana made it to the table nearest, where someone simply got out of her way for her to sit. They did not bother to help push in her seat, the way a gentle man would. She wrapped her tail around her ankles, and set her wings at an angle which allowed her to protect her face from the stares all around her.
Never did her eyes stray from Shezumi. It was tunnel vision, everything else in the room faded to a dim violet haze. Even when the graduates worked their shimmering glamours and spells, Churana glared hard at her grandmother. She picked at the small plate of trendy food set before her by a servant, but did not even blink away.
Her blood boiling, Churana waited for the gala event to loosen up, as the musicians (all of them more human than not) played for the gathering. Everyone else made the attempt to ignore Churana. They danced with gusto, and with big skirts and flowing robes.
Churana stood very slowly, getting up from the human-intended chair, and kept her eyes on Shezumi as the grand-damme of the House chatted with some visitor from another mage academy. Churana walked toward them, and the grey-bearded man shrunk away from the bat-winged girl, as she came up behind Shezumi.
While Churana wasn't overtly draconic in size, she was more than seven feet tall in her normal shape, and could grow to three times that in her full dragon shape. She had no intention of shrinking to her diminutive five-foot-nothing human form, not now. She towered over her grandmother, angrily.
"You'll want to get your books sent on ahead," Shezumi said, not even bothering to end her conversation with the other mage properly. "You're going to be representing us at Talor Cliff's last clutch."