The days turned to weeks, the weeks to months. Bit by bit the hoard shrank away. I was becoming a familiar face at junk dealers down in the undercity. Some of the stuff your grandfather had taken over the years had real value: faded jewelry that just needed a polish, heirloom clocks that would tick like new once they’d been through a tune. Clothes fared less well. Everyone still living here could make use of good clothes, but even the poorest among us has no use for shirts that have rotted away to almost nothing. Sometimes I had to slide a few coins over to get a dealer to take the worst of what you had. It was either that or dump it in the river and let it be swept away, and my bleeding heart couldn’t quite stomach dumping what was left of some granny’s wedding dress into the muck. This way at least maybe someday her grandkid would walk in and recognize it - or maybe it wound up in the river anyway. I didn’t ask.
What fascinated me most about the work were the bits and pieces from non-humans. Your grandfather had been an equal-opportunity loan shark, if nothing else: pouring through the piles I found fine silk tassels designed to be tied across tails, bejeweled combs bigger than my hand for tending to lycan fur. In one corner I found a thin wooden tube with belts nailed up and down it, with odd branches spinning off covered countless oval-shaped metallic leaves. I hadn’t the faintest idea what it was until I tried to hawk it to a very human trader down near the river. What, he asked, did I think he was going to do with a prosthetic avian wing? I didn’t have an answer.
And when it came to draconic furniture and accessories, well, those were the nights I had to watch my step. More than once you caught me about to haul away some piece of furniture I couldn’t make hide nor hair of and stopped me before I could get outside, insisting you could find a place for it here. There was that pair of wooden, circular tables, with faded, thin pillows atop them that we hauled up to one of the balconies, afraid to ask what was going on, until on the way out I looked up and saw you curled up on one, looking as pleased as a peach. Basking circles, I later learned they were called. Another night, while you were deep in some tome, I snuck out and hesitantly climbed up on one, letting my still-strange spine curl in a way that felt natural and settling down on all four paws. It was a warm night, and as I wrapped my tail around me I felt a hesitant purr bubble up in my throat. Embarrassed, I clambered off and got back to work.
Filling in a few paragraphs for this story. Word count 31000 and rising...

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