Herod shook his head, emptying the contents of the leathern bag in his mouth onto the ground. He had just come back from a feeding run, his stomach full of the sugary goodness of nectar. Now that he was full again, and back to his normal size, though, came the inconvenient part: putting his armor back on. For all the protection it gave him, it unbalanced him when he flew, and there wasn't much it could protect him from when he was the size of a small bird. It did not matter what came at him; when he was that size, he was going to get squashed, whether he liked it or not. All the armor did was hinder him a little more. If he really didn't want to bother with getting it back on, he could always leave it on... It would shrink with him, just like all the things flutters wore did, but it would still be that hindrance. And, today, he had decided to take it off.
Now he just had to get it back on.
This was the hardest part - shrinking down, positioning each piece just right, and then slowly transforming back up. It would be so much easier if he had a familiar, or if he trusted some two-legger enough to do this for him, but he had neither. If he had, he would just let them strap on his armor when he was in his full size. But no, he just had to do it this way.
Why do I do it this way?
Shaking his head and sighing, Herod pulled out the bangle that went on his left thigh, shrank down, stuck his left foot in the middle of it, and adjusted it as he grew back to his full size again. Repeating the process with the rest of his leg armor, Herod smirked when he was done. All that remained was his his headdress. It sounded a lot more girly than he thought it was; it had cheek guards, after all, an protected the bases of his ears. Maybe he ought to just call it a halfhelm. Nudging it around until it was flat on the ground, Herod stuck his ears through the holes and carefully lifted up. The cheek guards swung down and hit him in the cheeks, stinging as he cursed. "Every time," he muttered. "Every single time."
Picking up the brown leather bag from the ground, Herod wrapped it around the spike that protruded up from the piece of armor on his hind leg. When it did not have his armor in it, that was where it stayed; he didn't like to carry it around all the time, for the taste of whatever had been used to cure it was sour in his mouth. It usually stayed there well enough, but this time, when he set off in a new direction, a stray branch lifted it off the spike without his notice. Perhaps he did notice, but if he did, it wasn't consciously - something in him registered a lighter weight, and his tail flicked in response.
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