Figuring out how to walk was a mess.
It wasn't just having to walk on all fours; it was also balancing the other four 'limbs'.
His head and neck were easy, despite their elongated nature and novel proportions. He was quite familiar with how to move one's head from his old life—the rest was mere technicalities.
The actual struggle was with his wings and tail. He had never had such limbs before, and he didn't even know where to start with them. He was thankful that the wings seemed to tuck reflexively against his back rather than drag along the ground, at least, but his tail had a mind of its own.
He first attempted to walk by ignoring his new limbs, only managing a few wobbling steps before falling over with an ever more frustrated reptilian growl.
Fortunately, even newly hatched dragons were durable; otherwise he'd have over a dozen bruises before reaching the handworked passage. Not that he planned to face-plant his way over to the room, regardless.
He needed to learn to use his new body.
But how does one use a limb they've never known? It seemed as impossible as trying to describe sight to someone without eyes.
He laid his chin down over his claws and considered his options...
No, thinking about it a second longer, it wasn't as bad as he first considered. When magic cured someone's blindness, they could see—they might not understand what they saw immediately, but they could and learn from there.
It was the same for those who had their limbs restored, even those that had lost them as babes. There might be initial hesitation and uncertainty as they adjusted to possessing the limb again, but swift adaptation and utilization would follow.
Hell, it was even the same with him. He had spent so long a festering monstrosity fighting a losing battle against Sin that he had forgotten he could walk, or that he could even open his eyes.
In the end, the body knows what to do, even if the mind does not.
It might just take a bit to get them to agree and work in concert.
He thought back to his time in the egg... He had squirmed in it plenty before he knew what it or himself were. He imagined it must have been like a baby in the womb, kicking and squirming, learning to use their limbs even before they're born.
He must have been doing the same...
So his body must know how to use those limbs. He just needed to get his old human preconceptions out of the way.
He closed his golden eyes and thought back to those brief memories of stirring within his egg. Surely he must have flexed his wings or tail during that time.
The next thing he did was to reach out with his claws and touch along the edge of his wings. Then, once he felt them, he gently grabbed the leading edge of the limb and pulled.
Sure enough, he felt the awkward brush, and the slightly less awkward pull. He could feel muscles and limbs he didn't know he had stretch, and their attached joints bend.
After a few repetitions, he released the wide limbs and attempted to move them with their own power.
Success!
It was far from an agile maneuver, but the uncertain flap of his wide wings was enough to get started. He repeated the gesture again and again, each movement more confident than the last.
Next was his tail, to which he repeated the same routine as before. Touch, movement, a flex, then followed by proper, controlled movement.
It was harder than with his wings. Those had been easy enough to understand as a second pair of arms arrayed above his first, uh, arrayed above his forelegs. But a tail was something else entirely... It was more like an extension of his back which had sprouted into its own independent limb.
But with another few minutes of practice, he was getting the hang of wiggling his tail without needing to wiggle his back as well.
Now the hardest part... putting it all together.
It was slow going—one shaky step at a time, half-relying upon what felt right to his new body, and half-relying upon his fleeting memories of how Oriana moved.
He started by moving one leg at a time: front left, back right, front right, back left, repeat. Then, when he was getting confident with those half-steps, he attempted to move two legs at the same time: front left and back right, front right and back left. Finally, after Gods know how long, he finally took his first, proper steps.
He stumbled more often than not, but with every movement his footing became more certain. The movements were natural, after all; it was half about getting his old preconceptions of movement out of the way as much as it was learning them. Sometimes he over-corrected his balance, other times not enough, but with each step the subtle intricacies of dragon locomotion became more and more natural.
He was moving with a bit of grace by the end, even daring to make his first few attempted hops and jumps. He attempted to pounce towards a nearby rock as a test—ending with his head colliding against the ground, and the rock knocked aside to plop into the stream.
Eh... Good enough. He could walk. He just had to hope that wherever he hatched wasn't somewhere dangerous that also required him to fight.
He trotted slowly towards the carved passage, properly laying sight on it at last. It was a curious thing, far too small for a full grown dragon to pass through, just large enough for two, maybe three, humans to walk abreast.
He remembered dragons could take on humanoid forms, but it wasn't typical for them to construct sections of their den that couldn't accommodate their true selves. Perhaps this room was some sort of greeting and/or guest quarters they had fashioned for the comfort of visitors?
At one point, the entrance must have been a piece of wonder. Although much of the stonework showed weathering, wear, and damage in many locations, the remaining elements were splendid examples of craftsmanship. He could even spot the hints of precious metals like gold and silver that must have covered the stonework before being worn or peeled away.
Dragon eyes were quite amazing. His old human eyes would never have been able to notice the small bits of metal leaf remaining. He already knew that conceptually, of course, but seeing it for himself was impressive.
Above the doorway was a space he once imagined possessed carvings declaring the room's purpose, but since the passage's creation, it appeared someone had deliberately shattered the inscription. Or so his keen dragon eyes led him to believe after noticing the jagged edge of metal tool marks along the damage's edge.
Hmm, if it was his dragon creator's intent to erase the inscriptions, they'd likely have used a claw, not a chisel, and a dragon would not take lightly to vandals. Maybe they only moved into the cavern after this antechamber's construction?
Regardless, the newborn dragon walked forward, keeping his head raised to look for danger.
The damage inside the corridor was even worse. He would have described it as being left to ruins, but someone had come along after the damage had been done and done their best to clean up the mess; destroyed frescos already worn by age were reassembled, shattered stone columns were pieced back together, even smashed vases had been collected into tidy piles.
There was nothing valuable left behind by the room's vandals—no gold, silver, or magical artefacts remained, just what their destruction had rendered worthless.
At the end of the passage, the stone walls opened into another room. It wasn't nearly as large as the cavern he had hatched in, but curiously enough, it appeared half-natural. Yes, there were additions to the natural stone; tiled floors near the entrance, decorated carvings along the cavern's edge, but a majority of the cavern's natural splendor had been left intact.
The stream's water even reappeared, percolating back up from the stone in an even larger underground pond. Although he couldn't be entirely certain; considering the opening in the rock ceiling allowed light from the outside to fall in and illuminate the space, there was a possibility this pond's water source was unrelated.
Some hardy plants had colonized the natural parts of the cavern: vines and ivy, even a few species that seemed to flower.
Clearly, whoever had designed this place wished to instill a feeling of verdant serenity and grace, even while tucked away into a cave. The reason was obvious enough when he looked to the center of the chamber where a rectangular stone box placed beneath the light from outside fell.
He knew a sarcophagus when he saw one.
It was far too small to be for a dragon, but other than that it was difficult to see any major features. It had suffered the worst of the damage inflicted on the mausoleum, although it had coincidentally also received the most care afterwards—at least enough to put it back together.
He couldn't quite put down who had built the structure. Despite the custodian's best attempts to restore the damage, they could not restore much of the embellishments and details. It also didn't help that there were design elements from all six of the civilized races.
Perhaps this was some lost tomb of one of Elysium's kings? One that had befriended a dragon that would stay next to them for centuries thereafter? Or, perhaps it was just a novelty feature that made one of his creators choose to make the cavern their home.
Dragons were funny like that sometimes.
Fortunately, there was one way to find a clue. Despite the caretaker's pains to restore the tomb to its original splendor, the stone lid remained in pieces, exposing who was interred there. No doubt their remains would have turned to dust by now—weathered away by the natural elements the mausoleum's designers had included—but perhaps some hint to their identity would remain.
Besides, his parents weren't around to tell him off for peeking. If they didn't want him to disturb the sarcophagus, then they were entirely at fault for not being there when he hatched!
An old joke resurfaced in his mind as he stepped forward, causing his tail to flick with mirth: 'I was so unpopular that my own mother didn't show up to my birth!'
Not a good start to this new life, he had to say.
He was soon at the edge of the sarcophagus. His foreclaws held onto the lip of the stone tomb, while his hind legs and neck stretched, taking advantage of his new, ungainly body to just barely peek over the edge...
He gasped, forgetting his grip entirely as he fell onto his back—his wings sprawled out to keep them from being crushed by his own weight.
He knew the face of the man lying in repose within that tomb. It was his own!