I promised there'd be more of this little guy! Tik was my kobold warrior in an old Pathfinder game with some of the other kobolds kicking around on Furaffinity.

Poor Tiktaalik had no idea quite what the she-drake had planned... rewarded for his bravery, destined to lead the Skyfire Clan, once risen from the ashes. That's what she'd said!

The IMMENSELY talented  intricatevision produced a series of pictures to depict the curse. Please, go fave the original if you like it! She's an amazing artist, was an absolute pleasure to work with, and offers very reasonable prices!

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Tiktaalik serenely closes his eyes and smiles dreamily, stroking the scales etched into the helm. "Well, I mean it feels nice to wear too. It fits so well... and it makes me feel... like..." his voice lowers "...a knight." He sheepishly grins. "I bet it makes me look scary!"

The beaming grin; his sapphire eyes adoring all the gleaming contours; his fingers, stroking; Tik's attention lingers... a little too long. Like he hadn't realised that he'd tapered into silence mid-conversation. "It's more than that though," he eventually continues with a reverent whisper. "It feels... I don't know. Good. Inside my head..."

He lowers the special helm again, the gift from the drake for his bravery. 'It feels like...' he begins to think...

...Tiktaalik doesn’t know it, doesn’t sense it, but it’s as though a cool breeze puffs away the dust and cobwebs from lost synapse corridors, deep inside his tingling skull. Forgotten, hoary doorways 'c-click!', unlocked in unison. A cool breeze, like a sigh, from deep within, not without. Sensory conduits - not new, as such, so much as… disused, neglected and hidden - they yawn to life...

What the young warrior did sense, did delight in when he slipped the helm upon his brow, was clarity. The world pours through his senses like cool honey; the foliage of the forest, luscious; the sparkling sunflecks, glistening. Like breaching the surface from the deep blue to drink the sweet, cool air and he sees the naked sky, for the very first time…; squirming from a cramped and musty tunnel into a vast, glittering cavern…
It's like he's slumbered, groggily stirred, and now...

'...it feels like...'
Tik gropes around his mind for the appropriate words... once, he would've stammered something monosyllabic, like a simpleton. Some prosaic imitation of those elusive right words...
This time, he feels a shiver, like a brain-freeze. (A glove…), it comes so naturally...
Korel would say like a glove. Like it was made for him...

For a brief, happy moment, his grin feels... natural, not a brave facade. 'But g-gods, shouldn’t I feel ashamed? I-I've no right to feel so proud, so pleased, a-after all we’ve lost…'

Their whole Clan. The massacre.

'But… A-ancients, it feels…'

He feels proud. He feels fierce. He feels like a Knight.