The warmth in her vertebrae had barely settled into a comfortable hum when the next change announced itself—not with heat, but with a subtle, persistent loosening.
Astraea first noticed it during Thursday's juice break. She bit into an apple slice, and a familiar, childhood sensation shuddered through her jaw: the telltale wiggle of a soon-to-be-lost tooth. Except she hadn't lost a baby tooth in over four hundred years.
She froze, the apple slice halfway to her mouth. Her dragon mind raced through biological records. Human juvenile dentition: 20 primary teeth, shed between ages 6 and 12. Dragon juvenile dentition: 24 primary crystalline teeth, shed once, upon reaching approximately 50 dragon years, to be replaced by permanent diamond-hard dentition capable of crushing stone.
"You okay?" Mia asked, her water orbs bobbing curiously. "You look like you saw a ghost."
"Just... bit my tongue," Astraea mumbled, probing the loose tooth with her own. It wasn't just wiggly. It felt hollow, like a shell ready to crack. The tooth behind it, the one that would replace it, was a hard, sharp pressure against the roof of her mouth.
This was a problem. A missing tooth was a normal childhood milestone. A missing tooth that regrew in three days with a pearlescent, faintly luminous sheen? Less normal.
"Open wide, let me see!" Mia said, leaning in with cheerful concern.
Astraea forced a laugh and shook her head, covering her mouth. "It's fine, really."
But it wasn't fine. By lunch, a second tooth on the bottom left had joined the first in its precarious dance. She ate her sandwich with deliberate, careful bites on the opposite side of her mouth, her movements slow and measured.
Leo, of course, noticed the change in her eating pattern. His observant eyes tracked her cautious chewing during their shared lunch period. He didn't say anything, just made a note in his ever-present notebook.
That afternoon, during "Creative Sparkle Sculpting," the first tooth gave its final warning. Astraea was shaping a lump of glow-clay into a geometric form when a sudden, clean pop resonated through her skull. Not painful, but unmistakable. The small, white tooth landed in the gray clay with a soft thud.
She stared at it, a tiny island in a sea of potential luminescence. Around her, children giggled and shaped blobs into wobbly animals. Teacher Milly praised Chloe's "sparkle-cat." Normalcy hummed along.
Astraea quickly scooped the tooth and a large handful of clay over it, hiding the evidence. She felt the gap with her tongue. It was smooth, already beginning to heal at an inhuman rate. And the pressure of the new tooth beneath was stronger, a sharp promise waiting to erupt.
"Losing teeth already?" Leo whispered, not looking up from his own creation—a meticulously scaled model of Gate Alpha-7, complete with tiny glittering mana flows. "I thought you were... older than that."
"My body isn't," Astraea whispered back, the words tasting of truth and anxiety. "It's remembering a schedule it never got to follow."
He nodded, as if that made perfect sense. "The replacement will be dragon-teeth. They'll be noticeable."
"I know."
[System notification!]
[Milestone reached: 'Big kid stuff!']
[You lost your first tooth! (Well, first in a while!)]
[Reward: 'Tooth fairy's friend' Title, +5 to Maturity stat]
[Note: Losing teeth means you're growing up! Put it under your pillow for a surprise!]
The System's prompt was so jarringly off-tone that Astraea almost laughed. The Tooth Fairy. For a dragon's crystalline tooth that could probably cut glass. Sure.
The second tooth came out that evening, while she was brushing. It simply came free in her hand as she rinsed. She held the two small teeth in her palm. They looked ordinary enough—small, white, slightly rounded. But to her dragon sight, they shimmered with the faintest silver residue of the mana that had formed them centuries ago.
Mrs. Evans found her staring into the bathroom mirror, probing the gaps.
"Oh! Two at once!" Mrs. Evans exclaimed, her face lighting up. "My, you are in a growth spurt! We'll have to put these under your pillow. The Tooth Fairy will be busy tonight!"
Astraea forced a smile. "Do you think... the Tooth Fairy knows about accelerated growth?"
Mrs. Evans laughed, wrapping an arm around her. "Sweetie, the Tooth Fairy knows all about growing up, no matter how fast it happens."
That night, Astraea placed the two teeth in a small envelope Mrs. Evans gave her and slid it under her pillow. A human ritual for a profoundly non-human event. She lay awake, her tongue constantly finding the smooth gaps, feeling the insistent push beneath.
Sleep was fitful, filled with dreams of cracking stones and tasting minerals. She woke once to a faint chime and the sensation of something being slid from under her pillow. In the morning, the envelope was gone, replaced by two crisp five-dollar bills and a tiny, handwritten note in sparkling ink: For a growing smile!
The absurd normalcy of it was a comfort.
The next day at CYAP was an exercise in careful enunciation. The gaps made certain sounds whistle. She spoke less, smiled with her lips closed. Teacher Milly noticed her quietness but attributed it to "teething discomfort."
"It can be sore, losing teeth," Milly said sympathetically, offering her a chilled fruit pouch. "This might help."
The fruit pouch did nothing for the deep ache in her jawbone as it remodeled itself, but Astraea accepted it gratefully. The kindness was real, even if the diagnosis was wrong.
By Saturday, the pressure had become a constant, low-grade throb. The new teeth were coming, and coming fast. She spent the morning in her room, tracking the progress.
She couldn't let them emerge here. Not in the apartment. Mrs. Evans would see. The teeth would be... wrong. Too perfect. Too sharp. Possibly shiny.
She needed her secret spot. The abandoned playground she'd mentally bookmarked weeks ago, a place of rusted swings and cracked slides, hidden behind overgrown hedges. A place to be something other than a child.
She told Mrs. Evans she was going to the library again, a story now worn smooth with use. The drizzle of the previous week had given way to a cold, clear afternoon. Her breath fogged in the air as she navigated back streets, her hood up.
The playground was as deserted as promised. She settled in the shadow of a large, dilapidated play structure, its colorful paint faded to ghosts. Here, surrounded by the scent of damp wood and decaying leaves, she let her guard down just a little.
The pain peaked around 2 PM. It was a deep, grinding pressure, followed by a sharp, clean breakthrough. Astraea clenched her jaw, a low hiss escaping her lips. She reached into her mouth with careful fingers.
The new tooth was cool and smooth against her skin. She pulled it out and held it up to the weak sunlight filtering through the bare branches.
It was beautiful. It wasn't the dull white of human enamel, but a translucent, opalescent silver, catching the light and fracturing it into tiny rainbows. The edge was sharp, honed to a perfect cutting line. It felt less like a tooth and more like a crafted jewel, a tool made of moonlit crystal.
One down. Three to go in the next 24 hours.
She practiced speaking. The new tooth changed her diction slightly, gave a silvery clarity to her sibilants. She could hide that. She could learn to speak around it. But the visual...
A thought occurred to her. A desperate, risky thought. Glamour worked on her scales, on the subtle shimmer of her skin. Could it work on her teeth? Could she make the dragon-teeth look human?
She focused on the new incisor, pushing a tiny thread of mana into the glamour that shrouded her body. She envisioned plain, off-white enamel. Dull. Normal.
The tooth in her hand shimmered. The rainbow gleam faded, replaced by a mundane, slightly yellowish white. It still felt sharp and cool, but it looked ordinary.
Relief washed through her, so potent it momentarily overshadowed the ache. She could hide this. She could pass.
She slipped the glamoured tooth back into its socket. It fit perfectly, a key returning to its lock.
The rest of the afternoon passed in a cycle of dull pain and careful adjustment. By the time she returned home, two more teeth had been replaced—a lower canine and a molar. Each time, she retreated to a corner of the playground, endured the brief, intense pain of emergence, examined the exquisite, alien result, and then shrouded it in illusion.
That evening, as Mrs. Evans made pasta, Astraea sat at the kitchen table, running her tongue over her new teeth. Four of them now, hidden in plain sight. They felt strange—powerful, efficient, true. They were made for tearing, for crushing, for a diet of mana-infused minerals and the heart-flesh of magical beasts. Not for pasta and apple slices.
"All settled?" Mrs. Evans asked, glancing over. "You seem... thoughtful."
"Just thinking about how things change," Astraea said, and it was the truest thing she'd said all day.
[System notification!]
[Physiological milestone: 'New chompers!']
[Your adult teeth are coming in! (And they're very shiny!)]
[Reward: 'Bright smile' Title, +5 to Dental hygiene stat]
[Quest update: 'The long wait - Muscles remember']
[Progress: Jaw strength increasing! Practice chewing tough foods!]
Astraea looked at the notification, then at her reflection in the dark kitchen window. A girl with a hidden, opalescent smile.
The changes were coming faster, digging deeper. Teeth today. What tomorrow?
She had a mouthful of secrets now, sharp and hidden. The hunger for proper food, for something that could match these new teeth, was already a whisper in her gut, waiting to become a roar.