Parker floated in the ether, feeling like he was underwater. The cosmos was flowing around him, and he couldn’t see his body. There was the vague sense of pain, and he could dimly hear people yelling, hands on his body, but he couldn’t touch them, couldn’t feel them. It was confusing. He was contradicting himself. Right. He couldn’t afford his insulin. He was dying.

How sad, he thought dimly. He was only 22. His parents had kicked him off the insurance when he came out as trans, and now he was dying before he could even start testosterone. What a shame. He opened his eyes to look at the cosmos floating around him, and he reached out his hand to touch it. A star glittered past him, and he watched it fly through the infinity. This was nice. Would he stay here forever? It didn’t seem so bad.

No, his gut told him. He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t stay here, and he had to…

He opened his eyes, for real this time. There was a woman standing before him, and the first thing he thought was that she was either very tall, or he was very short. It might be that he was very short. He looked down, and he was wearing a dress, a dirty one, with little shoes on his feet. Oh. He was a girl again?

“Kazerine,” the woman said, and bent down, taking his hands in hers. “You need to be brave, okay?”

“Okay,” he said, in an unfamiliar tongue he still seemed to understand intimately.

“Alright,” the woman said and pressed a kiss to his forehead. “I love you.”

This had to be a dream, he thought as he looked up at the woman with charcoal gray hair, despite her youth, and poison green eyes. Those eyes weren’t natural. They looked serpentine. She was in pants and a shirt, and she was beautiful in a terrifying way. Where was she going? There was a pack over her shoulder, and she had a sword at her hip, staff in her hand. She turned and began to walk away, and that was when his brain clicked on.

Was she leaving him alone in the forest??

He took a half step after her, and then paused. Was he supposed to wait here? What was going on?

“Uhm… Mom?” he called after her, because he had a feeling this was supposed to be his mom, and she didn’t turn, didn’t stop. “Mom?!”

He hurried after her, and she turned and went on her knees in front of him, seizing his hands.

“You have to stay here,” she said, and he stared at her with confusion painted all over his face.

“What?”

“Your father is hunting, so he should be able to find you soon,” she promised, and he blinked in confusion.

“Is this some kind of custody hand off?” he asked. Who left a child alone for a custody hand off?

“Just be brave, Kaz,” she said, and then she stood and continued walking, leaving him alone.

Well. She apparently had no intentions of taking him with, so he sat down in the loam and stared at her retreating back with confusion. What was going on? Why did he feel weird? He felt uncomfortable and squirmy, like there was a chain around him, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. He didn’t like this. He didn’t like this at all. This was wrong. She knew this was wrong, right? Leaving a child in the middle of the forest, alone. There were probably wolves out here.

With a sigh, he braced his hands under his chin as he watched her back disappear. She stepped around a tree, and then she was gone, as if she had never been there before. Seriously, what was going on?

Okay. This was clearly a dream. Except, it didn’t feel like a dream. He could smell the forest, feel the floor beneath him, the crackle of leaves and twigs. It smelled like rain, and he tilted back his head and looked up at the sky. There were rain clouds, heavy on the horizon, and he frowned. Was she really going to abandon him in the rain? Seriously?

Parker was annoyed. Clearly, this was a reincarnation. Okay. He had read manhwa like this before. The number one thing you couldn’t do in this situation was panic. He could not panic. He had been reincarnated into the body of an AFAB child, and that was… a problem, but he supposed he could make it work. His father… maybe a huntsman? He could still be a boy as a huntsman. He might be accepting of the whole trans thing. But, why leave him alone? Why not talk to his dad? Was there some kind of problem here?

Furthermore… Kazerine. Why did that name sound familiar? Kazerine, Kazerine, Kazerine… Wait. Hold on a second.

“Uh… Mom?” he called, his voice colored in terror, because oh no. No, no, no, this could not be happening. No. No way.

He could hear running water, and he ran through the forest on the hunt for the sound, stopping at a bubbling stream and looking down at himself. He could see the reflection of a little girl in the water, with long, straight, charcoal gray hair and poison green eyes. He lifted up his lip with one finger, peeling back his flesh, and sure enough, there were the sharp canines that denoted his ancestry.

Kazerine Burmont.

The daughter of a count vying for the hand of the cold Northern duke, because it was always a fucking Northern duke. It was an otome game he had played because he was bored, and Kazerine had ended up becoming the villain you had to kill at the end of the game. She had been sly, a green tea bitch, white lotus, whatever you wanted to call it. When she didn’t get her way, she turned into a massive fuck-off dragon that blew out necrotic mist, and that was literally never explained.

It was honestly a bad game, with the only bonus being that you could go for a reverse harem route. Fuck, what had it been called? The Lady’s Favor, that was it. He was reincarnated as Kazerine? Hell fucking no. No.

Step one: he was clearly an illegitimate child, which had never been brought up in the game. Furthermore, he was going to be forced to be a girl, and no. No. He was not going to be doing that. So, that meant he needed to run and get the fuck out of here before his dad found him.

Parker straightened up and looked around. He had no idea where he was, and didn’t have a great sense of direction, so the first thing on the docket was getting out of here and finding a town. Or somewhere to hide for the night. Yes, he would find somewhere to hide for the night. In the forest. It was going to rain soon, so he needed to find shelter. He came to his feet and headed downstream, sure that would lead into a town, and made sure to splash into the water, ensuring he got nice and wet to throw dogs off his scent. Gods forbid they pick up his scent and find him.

He splashed through the water, heading downstream, and gradually, the sound of a waterfall reached his ears. He looked over the edge, and sure enough, the water was pouring down. He took the long way around rather than jump off, heading for the cliff, which he climbed down and waded into the water to continue down the widening stream. Then, he paused, because there were a series of waterfalls in the way, so he headed to the shore and walked along the water, soaked through and shivering slightly. If he were to guess, it was summer, but the water was cold. He didn’t like it, but he had to minimize the chance of him being found as much as possible.

He walked for a long time, but the forest just seemed to stretch on and on. It never ended, and he was starting to get hungry. He needed to find a town soon, and fast. He didn’t know if he could continue on like this.

Gradually, though, he picked up the sound of someone chopping wood. It was a steady thump-thump-thump, and he brightened up considerably as he followed the sound of it. Eventually, he found his way to a clearing, where a cabin was sitting off to the side of it, smoke curling out of a chimney, with a sweaty, shirtless man chopping wood on a stump.

Politely, Parker cleared his throat, and the man looked up in shock.

“... Huh?” he asked after a pause, and Parker took in his appearance. He was hairy, with messy brown hair and brown eyes. There was light gray hairs at his temples, and he was handsome and about middle aged. Behind him was a tanned hide drying on a rack, and Parker tilted his head. “Where the hells are your parents?”

“I… I don’t know,” Parker stammered. “My mom left me in the forest and told me to wait, and then she disappeared.”

The man’s eyes widened, and he let out a string of colorful curses.

“You’re soaked, c’mere. What’s your name?” he demanded.

“Kaz,” Parker said, because for some reason, it just felt wrong to use his given name. He didn’t know why, but he was never one to question the use of a name.

“Kaz,” the man repeated. “Come here, Kaz. Let’s get you warmed up.”

He turned for the cabin, and Kaz followed along behind him, feeling in his gut that he could trust this man. He didn’t know why, or how, but he could. There was some preternatural sense that told him so, and the man pushed open the cabin door and walked inside.

“One second,” he said and rifled through a wardrobe with a small selection of clothes. He pulled out a shirt that would be a dress on Kaz, and turned back around. “Put that on.”

Kaz took the shirt, and the man exited out of the cabin, pulling the door shut behind him. Slowly, Kaz looked around. There was a pot over the fire with something that smelled delicious bubbling in it, a small kitchen, and a loft where a bunch of furs were piled up. There was a bench, and not much else. It was clean and bare, and he slowly stripped out of the dress and pulled on the shirt. It ended just above his knees, and he made a mental note to get in pants as soon as physically possible.

Slowly, he walked out of the cabin, and the man looked up at him.

“Kaz, right? You said your mom just left you in the woods?” he asked, and Kaz slowly nodded. Oh. Was he Kaz now? Okay, then. Kaz was probably a better name than Parker. “What about your dad? Where is he?”

“He… uhm…” Kaz said, still clutching the soaked dress. “I don’t know. I’ve never met him.”

Technically, he was hunting right now, but Kaz was not about to throw himself to the sacrificial flames. No, thank you. He was willing to bet the etiquette classes would be hell on earth. And the being a lady. No. Absolutely not. He would not be forced into a box.

Not again.

The man breathed out a breath and went down on one knee in front of Kaz.

“Alright,” he said. “Give me your dress and we’ll leave it out to dry.”

Kaz slowly handed it over, and the man took it and hung it over the bear pelt.

“I’m Aster,” the man said, and Kaz wrung his hands together. “You can stay here until we can find your dad. Are you hungry?”

“Yes,” Kaz mumbled, and the man nodded and picked him up, setting him on his hip.

“Let’s get you something to eat, then,” he said and pushed into the cabin. Kaz let him carry him, feeling a little weird, and the man sat him down at the kitchen table and pulled on another shirt. He doled out two bowls of stew and put one in front of Kaz, and Kaz picked up the spoon and dipped into it.

Yes. This would work. If he was on his own in the forest, he would be swiftly be eaten by beasts. This was better. This was much better. He could learn about the world he was in, because his only experience up until now was the life at the academy for nobility, and that wasn’t reflective of real life.

He could not believe his luck. He had hit the jackpot here.

Now, he just had to figure out why in the fuck he turned into a fucking dragon. Gods, why didn’t the otome explain it?