The "Best" RPG Ever-108

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---

Vae was terribly difficult to read. She would just stand quietly still, not even her tail moving much, as Rose talked about this or that plant, and occasionally nod or ask questions. Actually, she seemed aware that she was difficult to read, as she appeared to make an effort to periodically thank her, comment with what she knew of the specimen, say something approving, or ask clarifying questions—but all in the same quiet, netural monotone. If anything, this was curiously reassuring to Rose; she wasn't the best at reading social signals from most people, after all, so someone actively trying to help her out was...really kind of nice.

Maybe half an hour into their slow, meandering walk through the forest, a particular tree caught the Vulpin girl's eye. Her ears both twitched slightly when she noticed it, and she made something of a beeline for it, walking marginally faster than usual and ignoring everything else until she could get near enough to inspect it more closely. After a moment, she said, "This species is notoriously difficult to raise...and it can take decades to mature enough to be self-sufficient. I have never seen a live one in person before."
"Yeah, it was super finicky for a while," the dragon-girl said, fidgeting her hands together. "But um, I had plenty of time to take care of everything, and...not really much else to do."

Vae turned her head toward Rose and fixed her with a look for a couple of seconds—which, as usual, just seemed unreadably neutral to her. "I understand that you were only recently..introduced to our town."

"Yep! Uhhm, what happened was that some dumb bandits thought it'd be a good idea to kidnap Nora and take her to my forest. And then her friends came along to help her."

"How long..were you here, before that happened?"
"Hmn?" The dragon-girl headtilted, thinking back. "I dunno, exactly. Several centuries, at least. There were no towns around the area when I first got here, I can tell you that."

Vaedin's left ear twitched. "..If you'll excuse this sort of conjecture..you do not seem to be the kind of person who enjoys being alone, much less for such a long period of time."
"Oh. Well, um, I'm not. Buut.." Rose frowned. She knew what had happened, more or less, but still couldn't really bring up any specific memories. All there seemed to be was a tangle of half-formed emotions from long ago.
"Have I..overstepped in my questioning? I am sorry, if so."
"No, no. Just. I can't actually remember it, for myself. It's so long ago it's all muddled for me. Buuut...

"You um, wanna take a seat for a bit?" she offered. "I can make a stool or something."

"I will be fine on the ground," Vae assured her. So they both sat down, the fox-girl cross-legged and Rose with her legs laid out to one side.

"So like, I think I know what happened, but only 'cause Captain Ezra told Katherine, who told Mira, who told me. But even then, it's some legend that's just probably about me; there's no telling if it's exactly right. It just...sounds kinda right to me, though?"

"I understand," Vaedin nodded. "Go on."
Rose began explaining her 'backstory', as best as she could.

---

The guard at the front desk pointed at the sketch of the lizard on the paper. "You ever fought these things before?"
The party of four exchanged a glance for a moment, and then Mira said: "Nope."
"Well, I'll tell ya, they're the worst of what reptiles can be. Slippery, slimy, fast, venemous fangs like a snake," he pointed to his own (feline) fangs. "They love to sneak up, bite someone, and then run away before the rest of the group can retaliate. Did that to the team that discovered this bunch; luckily, they're not well-acquainted with the uses of armor, and couldn't get them teeth through plate mail."

"We'll remain alert," Nora assured him. "Lupa's senses are better than most."
"Yes!" the wolf-girl affirmed confidently.
"Sure, sure. Just letting you know what to look out for." He stamped the request and handed them a map with the last known location of their mark clearly indicated.

---

"...aand, I wound up like this. I can't exactly remember, but I think even though the..'being a girl' part was accidental, I was still happy. I'm..I actually like how I am a lot now, so it's like, whatever. But...the people didn't recognize me as 'me'. They didn't even see me as a nice stranger! Just..a monster to be scared of, and then to...attack. So I left.

"I dunno if I was bitter, or just scared to ever try again, after being rejected that hard by the people who I'd thought liked me. I'm...sure I felt like nobody had ever liked me, even before—they were just pretending to 'cause I was so helpful to them." She looked down for a second. "I would've...been okay with even that, I think. But I didn't..and still don't, know how to turn back, and I don't really want to. I'm not sure I really 'decided' to exile myself here and stay alone for so long..as much as I just, felt like I didn't have any other choice.

"Once I'd already been alone here for a while, I just sorta got lost in my routine. Like, the only things I thought about were the plants—how to take care of this or grow that—and food, hunting for meat to pretty much swallow whole. It was like this...haze, where the decades went by like hours. I didn't do anything at all to mark the time; it just wasn't important for me to know. That's why..I have no idea how long it's really been."

Vae nodded slowly. "Tempted as I am to compare your experience to my own, I find that the way I have consistently buried myself in research since not long after adulthood pales by some orders of magnitude. Besides which..I did so because it made me happy, and being 'social' did not. I have always felt I had little in common with people who were not my academic peers."

Rose shrugged. "It feels so distant now that it really doesn't even make me all that sad anymore. Like it happened to someone else. Anyway, even though it might've been nice to know there were people around sooner, I'm actually really happy with who the first ones I met were. They're all really nice, and they weren't scared of me at all, and just treated me like..another person. I might've been tempted to just run away again if they'd acted the way 'normal' people do when they first meet a dragon instead."

"They are a group of extremely unusual individuals, by all accounts. I confess that my own first reaction was somewhat fearful as well."

"You got over it really quick, though!"
She nodded. "I needed only think about it rationally for a moment."

"Hey um..you wanna get back to lookin' at stuff?" Rose offered, pulling effortlessly to her feet and offering Vae a hand to help her up too—briefly failing to think about her claws.
"..Certainly." The fox-girl just used both hands to grab it around the palm and lift herself, neatly avoiding the problem. She then began to explain what uses she knew of for the leaves of the tree which had prompted this whole conversation.

---

On their way out of town, Mira retrieved the old compass her group had used before meeting Rayna and handed both it and the map to Nora so she could handle navigation. The location was only a couple of hours' march out of town in a very south, slightly east direction, which was equal parts convenient for them and worrying if the lizard-beasts were left alone too long.

"Hey uh..d'you think Rose is gonna be upset we did a quest without her?" Aria said.
"I think she's quite happy entertaining Vae for a bit," the witch said. "Realistically, she would only be upset if it's a thing where we should've gotten her help. There's a big difference between 'hey, we went and killed some lizards real quick while you were busy' and, 'hey, a giant lizard's venom nearly killed Lupa'. So we just need to make sure we're perfect this time!"

"This one won't get bit," the wolf-girl said. "Lizards get an axe to the face instead."
"Hah, yeah, that's the spirit!" the shifter said.

---

Rose's tour continued for a long while in the same way as before. She worried occasionally that she was talking too much or something, but Vae's responses did not change. Really, it felt like a somewhat equal exchange of information—the fox-girl succintly giving her knowledge of the uses for a lot of plants her "tour guide" had only chosen to grow because they were pretty. Eventually they went through some denser trees into a particular clearing,, and the Vulpin stopped dead in her tracks, staring at the cluster of flowers that largely populated it.
"Um, is..something wrong?" the dragon-girl asked, following her gaze as it darted between a few particular plants.
"Gods do tempt me," she muttered—seemingly to herself. Then, turning to actually address Rose: "Excuse me. You recall that I have been unable to attempt to replicate the experiment which...resulted in my present form."
"Yeah, 'cause you couldn't get some of the stuff you needed, right?"

Vae nodded slowly, both of her ears twitching a couple of times. "Every species I have been unable to procure is right here," she said slowly, "some of which I have never even seen alive before—only ground-up grains or small vials of their extract, to be used one drop at a time."

"Oh. Well that's...good, right? I don't mind if you take some of them," Rose said.
Her ears twitched again, one and then the other. "You probably aren't even aware of the generosity of that offer. I feel I should accept it, but...having them in front of me, I worry about causing another explosion."

"Hmmn? But, didn't you say before that it shouldn't have exploded, and there was almost definitely something else that caused your change?"

She took a slow breath and let it out again. Even though it wasn't obvious on her face or anything, Rose could almost sense the girl's heart racing. "I believe so, but doubt plagues me all the same. One must always acknowledge the possibility of being wrong; unexpected interactions occur often in nature, and especially in all kinds of magic. Still..I feel that I must at least try, given the opportunity."

Vaedin crossed her arms, still seeming conflicted. "Hey, y'know what? My friends' house, that we went through to get here, has a pretty huge empty area all around it," Rose said. "If you're worried it'll go boom, maybe you could do the possibly-risky parts there? I mean...it might, involve moving some equipment around or something, but it'd make sure you're not risking your house or neighbors or anything, right?"
She slowly nodded. "Yes...that would be wise, if they would allow it. I believe I know how I could avoid being in close proximity myself, during the part of the process at which the explosion occurred last time, as well."

"Well, then you should totally try it!" Rose said.
"You are right; I should." Vae's lips moved for the first time the dragon-girl had ever seen, tilting into the slightest of smiles. And she thought the Captain's expressions were muted!

"..I will need to return with the proper equipment to harvest the ingredients with minimal waste," she said after a second or two. "A single specimen—one flower for each species I need, that is—produces an abundance of resources if processed correctly, so I do not intend to impose on your generosity beyond that. For now...perhaps we should move on to look at other things for a while." She didn't say it aloud, but Rose had the sense that she was also worried she was too excited to do delicate work accurately right now, and needed to do whatever the opposite of psyching herself up was before getting to that work. Well—the dragon-girl was more than happy to continue her tour of the forest for a while longer.

"Um, okay!" she said, and led the way to one side, making a mental note about this particular clearing for future reference. Maybe it would be best for the moment not to tell Vae that every kind of flower here was also spread about in several other parts of her forest, too...although she might notice that all on her own, given time.

---

Nora stopped in front of some dense woods, glancing between the map and compass a few times. "This is where they were sighted," she said, shifting from fox form to cat. "We will...need to be cautious, from here on out. This...seems like ideal territory...for that kind of ambush predator."
"Yep. Lupa, watch our backs," Mira said, drawing her scythe and moving to the front of the group, Nora pulling back to walk next to Aria. The shifter changed her ears to big, fennec-like ones to benefit from better hearing as well.

There was not, however, very much to hear. The woods didn't seem to have very many ordinary animals around, save for a number of small bugs here and there. Eventually the witch stopped, pointing at the space between two trees off to their right. "That...is a giant spiderweb," she said under her breath—since their animal-ears would still let them all hear her clearly. In fact, the web had a person-sized ball hanging from it, about one-third of the way up.
"Those're..antlers," Aria whispered, pointing. "So we're talking 'deer eating' tier of spider...you okay there?" She had just noticed that Nora was shaking.

"F-f-fine," she breathed.
"Oh yeah...you've got arachnophobia, huh?" Mira remembered aloud—thinking back to their castle exploration and the whole 'boggart' incident. The elf just nodded, visibly trying to keep herself together. Lupa (still facing their rear) backed toward her and reached a hand way up to put on her shoulder.

"Tall one okay. This one will chop up any big bugs that get close," she said at about the same volume as everyone else.

She put a hand on the wolf-girl's for a moment and nodded, taking a silent deep breath and managing to quit shaking before guiding it gently off of her again. "The spider...is not our mark," she whispered. "But...if we do encounter it...it should not be left here alive...either. We must...be careful of..less visible webs. "

"Agreed," Mira said under her breath. "I'll keep a close watch and keep moving slowly. And, if all else fails: Kill it with fire."

"Kill it with..fire," the weaver agreed softly, nodding again. Maybe Rose's absence would be somewhat of a good thing, if it came to that.

---

"Do you suppose..we could stop for another break?"
"Hm? Oh, sure! This spot's perfect actually, there's a couple of old tree stumps right here to sit down on," Rose said, gesturing. Vae followed her the short distance to them and they sat across from each other.

"..Thank you. This body has always proven to have more stamina than I expect, but it is not without its limits. Your territory is more vast than I had imagined, and I feel I have even lost track of where we began."

"Yeah, well..I had a lot of time, like I said, and nobody to 'compete' with, really."
"Do monsters ever intrude on this place?"
The dragon-girl shrugged. "Sometimes. They die pretty fast though; the smart ones have all learned to steer clear."

"'Steer clear'?" Vae asked, and Rose realized that it was, perhaps, a very Earth-based expression.

"Uh, you know—keep their distance."

The Vulpin girl nodded, and carefully readjusted her glasses, from front around to the straps holding them to the back of her head. They were both quiet for a while, but it felt mutually agreed upon—so, not particularly awkward. Eventually she said, "I am curious. What was your first thought when you saw me?"
"Oh, uhhm. It's a little embarrassing, maybe," Rose said, looking away. She continued anyway: "I thought: 'Wow, she's cute'!"

Vae's ears both twitched in unison. "..I have been called many things, but not that before. I generally pay very little mind to my appearance."

"Well, yeah, but like..that's kinda what makes it cute? It's, um, there's something natural and—and, free about it. If that makes any sense?" she blabbered nervously.

"I suppose so. I'm hardly one to criticize others' aesthetic sensibilities."

"I do still think you're cute. Um, I hope that's not too—like, make anything weird or whatever.."
Vae shrugged.

"Um, but since we've talked a bunch, I know there's a lot more to you than that! You're super smart, of course, but you're also like...surprisingly considerate?"
Left ear twitch. "How so?"
"It's like—you're always careful to say things really clearly so whoever you're talking to can't get confused."
"I did spend more than half of my life employed by magic colleges. My passion has always been for novel research, but teaching is often what pays their bills," Vae said. "Additionally: When I was younger, I intentionally muted my body's normal movements and reactions through a combination of rigorous habit and—I admit—some mixtures which were not necessarily healthy to consume...all because a still, controlled body means less accidents in the laboratory. The results of that proved more potent, and far more permanent, than I expected, lasting even into this drastically altered body. Making myself perfectly clear through my words became my only real choice around people who are used to reading the entire body for expression long ago."

Rose tilted her head slightly. "'Reactions'..so like, how most beastfolk like for people they're close to to um, pet them and stuff?"
"Correct. I have had no such contact since the last of my immediate family died off, and for at least a decade prior to that, not even their touch elicited much response from my body. I..made an effort to fabricate some reaction a few times, to try to assure them that I still cared."

"So nobody's touched your ears or um, your tail in all those years?"
"Well—not more than accidentally, for the most part. And never with any particular results, including since I was changed. I hardly remember what I am missing, although sometimes I do wonder."

The dragon-girl looked off to one side, then the other. The question wasn't going to hold itself back, so she was just going to have to trust it would be taken in the best possible light. "Could I..try? Just putting a hand on one of your ears for a sec?"
Vae's ears both twitched a few times as she stared at Rose for a long moment, before finally shrugging. "I see no harm in it."
"Um, r-really? I was, like, pretty sure asking that was a bad idea. Because..boundaries and personal space and..stuff."

"I imagine you must have some instincts in common with beastfolk," she said. "In which case, wanting to do so is only a sign of affection. Or else, at worst, you wish to see for yourself the lack of a reaction."

"I guess that's right," Rose said. "I don't actually know why I wanna do it myself, except that I kinda wonder what they feel like!" She leaned forward, halfway standing up in the process, and nervously hovered a hand over Vae for a second.
"Go ahead," she said without looking up.

"Um, okay." She carefully placed her right hand on the middle of Vae's left ear, keeping the claws off of it, and moved it gently across over to the tip, sliding it off past it. It was warm, and wonderfully soft to her touch.

"Hmmn." The Vulpin's right ear twitched several times in a row, and then she suddenly shuddered. "...Curious."

Rose quickly stood upright and took a couple of steps away. "Are you okay?"

"I am," Vae nodded. "But that was..unexpected." Slowly standing up herself, she continued: "I felt something..faintly, for only a second or two. Some sort of jolt through to my spine. Could you try it again for me?"

"Uhhhm, sure!" This time Rose bravely put her hand near the base of the right ear and ran it down to the tip. Vae almost immediately shivered slightly, and then a scarecly audible, high churring sound came from her throat.

She looked up into Rose's face for a moment, and the dragon-girl noticed that her tail was actually moving, the lower third or so slowly inching left and right. "It came on somewhat stronger that time. Interesting..." Vae gently took one of Rose's hands unprompted, one hand's fingers looped around her wrist to keep it out toward her while the other ran from her forearm to her palm. "Your scales have an unusual texture to them. I wonder if that is all it is." She let go of the arm again, looking up at her once more.

"You uh, want me to..?"
Vae slowly nodded, looking even more adorable than she ever had before. This time Rose just went for it, gently and carefully rubbing the base of each ear with the tips of her fingers in a manner which kept her claws from scratching or catching on anything. The fox-girl shuddered again (only faintly compared to before), muttered a soft "O..oh.." and then proceeded to start churring once more—starting at the low volume as before, and then gradually getting louder until it was fully audible, her eyes shut and the lower half of her tail now slowly swishing back and forth.

After a short while of this, Rose's hands slid their way back down the ears and across the tips, releasing the cute Vulpin from her trance again. As she looked up—maybe it was her imagination, but Vae's cheeks seemed...slightly red, maybe. "Excuse me," she said, undoing the back strap of her glasses and setting them in a pocket of whatever bottoms her coat hid as she shuffled ever so slowly closer. "May I..?" her arms reached upward, and—gambling that she understood the nature of the request—the dragon-girl carefully helped pick her up into a gentle hug, high enough in the air for their faces to be at the same height. She was, unsurprisingly, extremely lightweight, and Rose found her own chest being pressed gently against a very small, yet quite present, pair of breasts in a way that made her face feel very warm all of a sudden.

"Hmmn. I do not fully comprehend what I am feeling," Vae said. "I only know that I want you to do it again now."
"Do wha—oh! Um, s-sure!" Rose said, feeling her heart start to race. She brought her arms up and rubbed the fox-girl's ears once again, and was rewarded by more adorable churring, Vae's face leaning slowly forward, and finally a nose on her cheek, gently nuzzling it. Her own instincts asserted themselves then, having her nuzzle right back.

This continued for a while, before she was startled by the feeling of something brushing against her tail. "Aah!" It was very soft and warm..and slowly sliding itself across the base. "O-oh..rr~rrh." It was Vae's big, fluffy dark-blue tail, and it was beginning to twist itself around hers, causing her to let out a soft, low rumble in her throat.
"Excuse me..." Vae mumbled softly. "I should have requested permission...rr~rrh..to do that.."
"I-it's fine! It feels rrrh, really nice," Rose said. "You're soo~oo soft..." Her own voice then came out in a slow, high, very pleased squeak as she felt the Vulpin pull her small, slim arms tighter, and she responded by petting those big, fluffy ears some more. After this, both of them seemed to be lost in a trance or a haze for a while, just..enjoying the feeling of all of that touch.

What slowly brought Rose out of it was something very unusual that she couldn't really make sense of at all, at first. She thought it was just Vae's body wriggling around some at first, as the first thing she noticed just seemed to be some motion from the smaller girl's chest. But she also began to notice the high churring sound from the fox-girl's throat was slowly deepening, and...also that the parts of her feet presently in contact with her scaly legs were moving...downward? But Vae's face was still in the same place as before.

She slid one hand past the tip of an ear, drawing it down to hold it around Vae's waist, and slipped the other one around to brush down through her hair. By this point the fox-girl's breasts were noticeably larger, and her voice had pulled down to a register she definitely hadn't seemed capable of before. Vaedin continued to nuzzle her for a moment before letting out a soft "Mmnnh" sound and slowly pulling her face back.

"Uhhh, Vae?"
"Mmnh?" She still wasn't entirely out of that haze yet.
"You uh..you grew." There was more motion from the smaller girl's chest. "I-I mean, you're um. Grow-ing," Rose corrected.
"Oh...indeed. Very..curious," she said slowly. "My voice seems to have changed as well." Her tail continued sliding along the dragon-girl's, making it slightly more difficult for her to focus or think even slightly rationally. "I wonder..how long this will continue," she said slowly, leaning in and nuzzling Rose once again.

"Wha—bu..you're not like..worried, or something?"

"I see no reason to be," she said, not removing her nose from the dragon-girl's cheek. "This is most likely some sort of..mrrh...previously undiscovered effect of what changed me before. It should be examined as closely as possible. Please..continue."
"U-um..okay...heheheh..!" Rose giggled nervously, and went back to petting the growing woman in her arms. Vae was...perhaps much more adventurous than she'd thought. Pretty much all of this was a huge surprise, maybe to both of them!

She listened to the chorus of their churring as Vae's slid deeper and deeper, enjoyed the sensation of the smaller girl's soft breasts steadily expanding out, squishing themselves against her own—and making it increasingly obvious that she hadn't been wearing a bra before, and so, of course, still wasn't now. Rose sneaked one of her hands back to the side of the fox-girl's waist at one point and then slid it down to her hip, finding more or less just what she'd expected—the increasing height and bust size were accompanied by a similar growth to her overall figure, greatly enhancing curves which had barely even been present before. By now her voice was already somewhat deeper than Rose's, and settling toward a low, mature alto. The changes finally began to slow down as the dragon-girl felt Vaedin's very slightly heavier weight leave her arms—the fox-girl's toes, then the balls of her feet, and finally most of her heels landing on the ground to carry it instead. Once she was only an inch or so shorter than Rose, her sudden petting-induced growth spurt came to a halt.

They nuzzled for a..short while longer after this, before slowly, mutually pulling apart, and Vae taking a few careful steps backwards, retrieving her glasses from a pocket in her now-visible shorts and setting them carefully onto her nose to look around. "Fascinating...I wonder.." she mumbled, looking down to examine herself, too. Even though the glasses hadn't been fully strapped back on, she seemed to have a keen sense of how much her head could move without making them fall off.

Rose thought it very likely that whatever magic had caused this had also altered her clothes—but only just as much as was strictly necessary. Vae's coat clung very tightly around her now very large breasts, which approached a match for Zack or even Rayna's in size; its bottom few buttons, previously left undone to avoid restricting her upper legs, now allowed the coat to spread out in an upside-down V shape that showed off a fair bit of her slim, flat belly. Its hem also didn't quite make it to her hips, where a pair of cloth shorts now hugged some very generous hips and maybe the first couple of inches of some killer thighs before leaving the rest of her long, gorgeous legs totally exposed. When she looked back up, Rose noticed that the faint blush she'd had before had become a very deep redness to her cheeks which persisted even now. Apart from that, Vae's cute face and slightly wild, shoulder-length hair seemed largely unchanged from before—yet seemed to match her present beauty at least as well as they had her previous, very petite figure.

"Is there any sort of reflective surface nearby?" she said.

"Oh, um—sure! Th-this way," Rose said excitedly, waving for her to follow as she headed toward the nearest of a collection of small pools she sometimes used for mirrors (as well as reservoirs for her plants). When they arrived, she stepped away to one side and was able to see Vaedin walking the last few steps up to it. Her hips swayed amazingly with her gait; the coat restricted her chest just enough for it to bounce up and down pleasantly but not uncontrollably; and while she seemed to move carefully—as though uncertain how to handle the considerably longer stride and a lot of the other extra movement her suddenly enhanced curves provided—she also didn't seem to have any actual difficulty balancing or moving around.

Vae stared down at her reflection, holding her glasses in place with one hand, for a long moment before saying anything. "Very strange...I cannot begin to guess at a precise cause. And, I feel as though I had only recently gotten used to my earlier appearance and voice. Still.." She looked up and over toward Rose, who was wringing her hands nervously. "I very much enjoyed that experience. It was..not the sort of thing I believe I could have imagined. Thank you."
It took most of the self-control the dragon-girl had not to just squee. Her blush was gone now, and her ears were still horizontal and barely moving, but...Vae was actually smiling. It wasn't a huge grin or anything, but it was something that most people could easily discern as a happy expression.

"Uh uh um..you're..no no, actually I should say—the feeling was mutual. Really mutual. I mean uh—that felt pretty great over here too!" she chattered excitedly instead.

"In that case.." Vae turned her body in Rose's direction and took a couple of steps toward her. "I would very much like to continue once more."
"Y-you would?"
"...Yes." Both of her ears twitched near-continually as she took another couple of steps. "I have not experienced this kind of..primal urges, in a very long time, and find myself ill-equipped to push them back."
"B-but you're still talking all calmly about it." She was still coming closer...!
"I do have experience controlling my speech." The gorgeous fox-girl stopped half a foot or so from Rose, slipping her glasses off of her face and back into a pocket in her shorts again. "And I see no reason to be rude. It would be nowhere near as pleasant if you were unwilling. May I?"
"Uuuuhhh sure! Let's uh. Yes." Rose shuffled forward to close the gap, pulling her back into a hug and going for her ears right away; Vaedin was equally quick to start curling her tail back around the dragon-girl's own.

From here, both of them very much lost track of time, simply enjoying the sensations their bodies and instincts provided...until finally Rose's stomach growled and she realized that the curvy Vulpin woman was now underneath her, lying with her back on the ground. Also, the dragon-girl's wings were at their full size and spread downward in a tight arch, the outer edges on the ground to either side of Vae.