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She tries to stay as close to Hamid. To herself. She hates this feeling - the rough scales, the hard claws, how there’s nothing to her anymore. Staying close to Hamid helps with that as well; curled around his neck, in the hood of that ridiculous parka, she feels less vulnerable. Like he has her back, in this strange reversal of events. At night, she sticks close to him still.
Once he wakes up, as the strange-coloured moonlight filters through the mists and into the cabin, to find her still awake, staring at him with desperation.
“Wh-what’s wrong?” he asks, half-asleep, his voice thick with tiredness and sounding so wrong, his speech through her mouth. She blinks, swallows. Blinks again. She’s trembling ever-so-slightly. He reaches a too-gentle hand out to touch her shoulder.
“I-” she whispers, “if I take my eyes off you, what if-”
She doesn’t need to finish the sentence. He knows, all too well.
She looks down, ashamed, and he gently scoops her into his arms and holds her tight.
“Oh, Hamid. How can I protect you if I’m not even myself- if I can’t even promise that much? If I can’t even retain this simple thing?”
No words can be offered between them; none are needed. She shuts her eyes tight and tries to lose herself in this feeling of safety, forget how wrong it still all feels.
“I’m still here,” he says, a reassurance and a promise. “I’m not going anywhere.”
That night she dreams of Rome, and the plane beyond. The scenes unfold before her as they always do, their familiarity doing nothing to ease her grief and rising dread. Fighting, almost losing. Running, rescuing. Holding on, letting go.
And then she awakes, still in this stupid kobold body-
She doesn’t mean any offence to Meerk. She’s sure that for a kobold, this body is perfectly acceptable. But the way the ceilings seem to loom over her, the way she seems to get under everyone's feet, the way she has to physically brace herself against the wind abovedecks, that she can't stand.
The way she doesn't feel like herself. The way she has become vulnerable.
Hamid doesn't seem to mind her strange new state. Maybe he enjoys it, a part of her wonders. Not that she is in distress, gods no, but the feeling of being the protector. She knows she does.
The strain shows in him too; how he sits very still and moves very gently, over-compensating for his new size.
"I don't, um, I don't want to hurt anyone," he explains to her, with a small, self-deprecating laugh. A lump forms in her throat.
"You would never hurt me, Hamid," she tells him. "Even by accident. I trust you."
His eyes grow wet, a strange thing to notice happening to herself.
"That's- thank you, Azu," he sniffles.
Another night. Another sleepless night. They've grown accustomed to their new arrangement, sleeping entangled with each other so that Azu can keep an eye on him, and her body. It's fine. It's fine, she promises herself. She had dreamt of Rome, again, and woken up with sudden and inescapable panic that Hamid wasn't there, that he had left, that she had let him go.
She squeezes her eyes shut, buries herself under the covers and tries to ignore the way they slide and snag against her scales.