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He tries sometimes, even now.
He’s only got a single spinneret left, and all it can do is to spit out loose, shapeless mesh. But- he did this, every few months for twenty years. Every now and again, Hermann lies on his bed, very still, and dreams of who he had been.
Hands, face, hair and mouth and two arms and skin soft and yielding and no claws and Hermann closes his eyes and itches all over for the longing of it. To walk unnoticed through the world, to be harmless, without threat. To be human.
Hermann opens his eyes, smiles sadly and lifts his hands to see the three fingers, the tough, tiny scales, the long claws.
His hands are soft and round. Pink and five fingered, with tiny seashell nails.
He roars in a panic and slams up against the wall. He tips and falls hard on the ground and lands on six limbs. His bad leg buckles and his tails lash and- he is fine. Everything is fine. He looks down at his familiar, clawed hands and is desperately glad to see them.
He sits up, pulls the blankets around himself, and tries to catch his breath. Was this a- hallucination? Did he eat something bad yesterday? No, it was just a puffball, he’s had those a hundred times…
He looks down at his hands, resting on the furl of his limbs. He swallows, touches his face, it feels fine, normal. Head, crest, cheekbones, jaw. Him.
Then his hands again and- what was it he did? He looks down at them, then moves them together into a pair, tucking his thumb away behind his hand, until the fingers take the rough approximation of a human hand. He frowns, thinks of his hands. Those other hands. The hands he had seen every day for twenty years-
And the skin around his claws begins to pale. Hermann chokes, catches his breath, and it fades. He concentrates again and it- spreads. Down from his claws and over the backs of his hands and his spare thumb blending in and fading into the skin.
The claws dwindling to the tiniest shadows of themselves. The skin peach and light brown and the tiny black hairs springing free from the skin and Hermann closes his eyes and lets it- wash over him. up his arms and shoulders and back and over him like a sheet drawn slowly to wind about him.
He doesn’t open his eyes. Reaches up sinks his fingers into that oh so familiar hair, the ragged top and raw undercut he loves but never felt he got quite right, the soft, broad mouth, the shallow eyes, the absurd nose. His eyes burn, tears springing free and oh oh that’s him. It’s him again. He opens his eyes and staggers to his feet, nearly falling in the tangle of blankets around his feet.
His hand slabs clumsily for the lightswitch in the bathroom, his legs tremble and he longs to fall on all sixes but he only has for and the thought is thrilling and terrifying at once and- and-
And then he’s there, in front of the mirror, staring into a face he had not seen for nearly two years. Had never thought to see again.
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