Cuicatl

That night, as I slept, warm and safe and happy in the arms of the man I loved, I found my way back in time to my great, great grandmother.

I stood beside her where she sat in a massive, ornate stone chair. She wore bright gold jewelry around her throat and wrists, and little else, her long hair like a thick, raven river around her shoulders.

Beside her, I was delighted to see Agmund sitting tall and handsome beside Cuicatl where he belonged, with his cloak of bright feathers in place.

I had the oddest feeling that a great deal of time had passed since I was there last. I looked out at what the couple were watching. Definitely, a lot of time had passed. The stadium that had been in the early construction phase when I first met Quetzalcoatl and his wife was now in use, and already showed some signs of wear, so it had been in use for many years.

What looked like a few thousand people screamed and hollered and urged on their favorites, as the game played out below. Food sellers hawked their wares up and down the aisles. It wasn't all that different from a UT game at Texas stadium.

I grinned. In some ways, people just don’t change all that much, no matter what time period or part of the world they lived in.

I watched the game, contentedly for a while, in the shadow of Cuicatl’s massive stone throne. She hadn't noticed that I was there yet. I decided to just let her watch the game. I remembered Agmund saying that there was no higher purpose than to play, since without joy, what was the point of life? Let them have their fun. I’d say my hellos when the game was over.

The athletes wore nothing but tiny loincloths, showing off beautifully fit bodies, their thick black hair braided and bound out of the way. They ran and bounced the ball with every body part but their hands. It was sort of a combination of soccer and basketball from what I could tell. The high, vertical goal was barely bigger than the ball, though. It looked crazy hard to hit.

I saw two near misses that had the crowd gasping in unison. Then, finally, one unusually tall, beautifully built man practically ran up the barely tilted wall like it was flat ground, a teammate passed him the ball. I held my breath along with everyone else, and ... Bam! He smacked that ball with an elbow right through that crazy difficult goal.

The crowd went crazy jumping up and down and making so much noise, it washed over us in a wave.

With an ear-to-ear grin, I looked over at Cuicatl, expecting to see her cheering like the rest.

Her hand was over her mouth in an expression of absolute horror.

I blinked. My smile faded. Why was my great, great grandmother upset? Did she have some kind of huge bet on the other team winning?

I looked over at Agmund. He had a satisfied smile on his face, like nothing I’d ever seen before. That expression had a cat that ate the canary smugness that just didn’t seem to fit what I knew about my great, great grandfather.

My first thought was to ask either Cuicatl or Agmund what was going on, but some instinct held me back. Maybe if I just watched a little more, I’d understand.

The game went on for a bit longer, but no one even came close to scoring another goal. It was clear, when a man in a tall, feathered headdress walked out and dropped a huge red flower to signal the end of the game, exactly who had won.

The winning team didn’t seem nearly as jubilant as I would have expected. They all reached out reverently one by one to touch the tall man who had scored the goal. The losing team all at once, dropped to their knees and covered their faces in front of the man.

Wow. I've heard of worshiping sports heroes, but these guys really went all the way.

The tall hero of the day walked, head high, to the end of the stadium where the Aztec god and goddess sat with the best view of all. He climbed the steep steps to stand in front of us.

Cuicatl and Agmund both stood. The boisterous crowd went silent.

“Well done!” Agmund said. “It pleases me immensely that you all compete for this honor with such zeal!” He laughed, as if at some marvelous private joke.

I heard his voice echo back from the other side of the stadium. Agmund’s stadium design clearly included awesome acoustics. Everyone in the stadium could hear him.

The dragon in the feathered cloak walked forward and laid his hands on the man’s shoulders. Compared to the tall, Norwegian dragon, the Aztec champion looked a lot shorter than he did standing next to his teammates. “You have proven yourself most worthy of all this day!”

“Thank you, oh great one.” The handsome man’s chin trembled, and he blinked a few times, emotion threatening to overwhelm him. He knelt down, covered his eyes, then held his hands upward to Agmund. “For all of eternity, I will cherish this honor.”

Agmund chuckled darkly. “Of course you will.”

The man laid face up on the stone front of the dais in front of where the two stone thrones sat, in full view of the entire stadium.

Cuicatl knelt next to the champion, her face filled with sadness. “You will feel no pain. I promise you.” She shifted into scaly humanoid form. It was the first time I’d seen her in her humanoid form. Her vivid, shimmering purple wing feathers ran down her back and under her arms. They looked a lot like a feathered cloak. I could see where the feathered cloak style for royalty came from.

The gold necklace around her neck looked more like a collar on the larger form. The ornate design actually aimed spikes toward the shimmering iridescent purple scales on her neck, spikes that glowed softly. I’d seen that glow before somewhere.

It took me a moment to remember where. I’d seen it on the weapons that the Georgians used to try to kill Vlad, weapons that could pierce dragon scales.

With a twist in my guts, I recognized that necklace as a pretty, but very deadly, form of slave collar. If Cuicatl shifted to her massive panther/eagle battle form, those spikes would kill her. She could attain only two forms while wearing it, human and scaly humanoid, or what I tended to think of as normal, everyday dragon form.

I swallowed. And took another quiet step back into the shadows behind the thrones.

Agmund would never do that to Cuicatl.

That wasn't Agmund.

Cuicatl popped claws on one hand, and gently inserted one, like I would a hypodermic needle, into the crook of the ball game champion’s arm.

His body went limp, and his eyes, while still open, lost focus. The quiver in his chin that the stoic champion had been unable to control, relaxed. His beautifully toned body lay stretched out on the stone as if comfortably sunning himself.

Cuicatl put a hand on the champion’s shoulder. To those watching, it might look as if she was holding him down, but the courage of the champion made that unnecessary. She was simply offering him comfort.

The man who wasn't Agmund shifted to his normal humanoid dragon form.

He stepped forward with a fanged smile that made me wonder how I EVER could have mistaken that man for my jovial great, great grandfather. The dragon with Agmund’s face put one foot on either side of the champion’s legs and knelt down astride him.

His hand had the normal sharp, but venomless claws that all dragons, other than the Aztec Purples, had. He smashed his hand directly through the champion’s rib bones, and ripped free the man’s still beating heart.

I couldn't tear my eyes away from the champion’s face. He was alive and conscious for a few seconds, long enough to see the dragon that had ripped away his life stand and hold aloft his beating heart for the thunderously cheering crowd to see. Long enough to watch as the monster that had killed him took a bite from his heart.

The Agmund-faced beast ripped into the lump of still wiggling muscle with a dragon’s sharp teeth, relishing the gushing scarlet blood that dripped down his chin, like the juice of a delicious fruit.

My stomach heaved. I covered my mouth and fought the urge to vomit. I couldn't help but make a gagging sound. The sound of the crowd would have covered for me, if not for the perfect acoustics.

Cuicatl’s head whipped round. Her catlike eyes narrowed as she struggled to make out my shadowy form. “Daughter of my daughter,” she whispered. “You have been gone for a century. You should not have come back. I am ashamed for you to see what I have become. You gave me my freedom, but I was unable to keep it.”

“Who is that?” I asked her.

The blood-soaked monster that looked like Agmund turned around to face me, clearly having no trouble seeing me.

Cuicatl stood, and introduced us formally, her eyes on her toes. “This is Smoking Mirror, the Obsidian One, the dark reflection of the one I once loved. He is my husband now.”

“The dark mirror of the benevolent Quetzelcoatl,” I said softly, as all the dots connected in my brain. Agmund’s evil twin. Alrek? Had I invited this horror into my house? Had I just had Christmas dinner with this monster? Could Agmund have more than one twin brother? “Alrek?”

“Yes, I am Alrek.” He bowed, while licking the blood from his chin. “And you need no introduction, since my stupid wife has already given away who you are, daughter of our daughter. It seems that our mating WILL eventually produce offspring. Although I would prefer sons, if my children gain the ability to travel in time, as well as claws, then my line will prove truly powerful beyond all others. Welcome, future child of my line.”

I lifted my head and wrinkled my nose. “I’m no child of yours, for which I am very thankful. Agmund was my ancestor. What have you done with him?” I growled.

“I killed him, of course,” Alrek said with a satisfied smile on his blood-smeared face. “Stabbed him in the back as soon as he told me he’d fathered a child with claws that could paralyze or kill. The idiot actually seemed surprised to see my blade come out of his chest. Of course, I couldn't allow his children to have an ability that mine didn’t. That would make his line more powerful than mine.”

I blinked tears for the laughing god who asked that his worshipers release butterflies in his honor, not give him the beating hearts of their champions. Then, the anger hit. This monster was raping my great great grandmother regularly to try to make babies with claws. I popped out my own claws. “Release Cuicatl.”

Alrek laughed, really laughed, a lot. Like the time when I told Agmund that Fafnir was a wise mentor. He laughed until he had to set down the heart and hold his sides. “Do you threaten me, fledgling?” he chuckled again, as if that were the funniest thing he’d ever heard.

It was insulting. I’d fought giant robots and flame-throwing super-villains. I could handle an elder dragon. Sure. Yeah.

Okay, not a chance. But I wasn't going to let him keep Cuicatl, the woman who looked and smelled like my mother, as his personal sex slave, and do nothing. “Yes,” I said softly. “I do threaten you. Take that collar off of her and Let. Her. Go.”

Cuicatl looked at me like I’d lost my mind. “You must not defy him, child. He can kill you before you ever even have a chance to be born.”

Alrek casually back-handed my great, great grandmother in the face. “Silence, female. At least this one shows some spirit.”

Cuicatl fell backward onto the steep stone steps and rolled down a few steps, grunting with the pain.

Alrek’s burning red eyes narrowed on me. “How can you be my brother’s descendant? I killed his child.”

I swallowed. If I wasn't careful about what I said, I could get my little great-grandmother killed. “Maybe Agmund is not as dead as you think.” I’m a terrible liar. I never regretted that so much as now.

Alrek rolled his eyes. “I ate my brother’s heart, chopped him up into pieces and buried him in different parts of the jungle.”

“There are powerful magics that can bring a dragon back even from beyond death,” I said truthfully. “Merlin knows these magics.”

“The wizard who travels in time,” Alrek said, thoughtfully.

“Merlin’s power sent me back in time.” That was sort of true. “You have no idea what I am capable of.” That was true, too, thank goodness. “Now, set Cuicatl free.”

“Or what?” Alrek said, with a mischievous smile.

Cuicatl had crawled back up to the dais, but she stayed on her hands and knees, eyes on the stone floor in shame as I spat reckless defiance in the face of her captor.

“Or I will cripple you,” I said softly, thinking of Alrek’s limp. It’s possible that he got that limp here today. Likely even. I saved my great grandmother’s life last time I was here. I wasn't just coming back by chance. Something was drawing me back exactly when I was really needed. It had to have been Cuicatl who drew me back today. I didn’t know why she needed me so badly, but I would do whatever I could for her. “Today, you will be crippled for life, if you do not free Cuicatl.”

Faster than I could react, Alrek's right hand, coated in the still warm blood of the human champion, flew out and grabbed me by the throat. He lifted me right off my feet.

I couldn't breathe. I couldn't even gasp or choke or try to breathe. My mouth opened wide, trying for air, but nothing came. His grip all but crushed my neck.

“Merlin is a fool to send a fledgling back in time to try to change what has already been written. My line will destroy his one day, along with all the inferior dragon lines with only one power. That’s what he’s trying to prevent, isn't it? Once I have what I need from them, I will destroy all other clans. Only my descendants will continue. One day, all dragons will be Obsidian.”

I clawed desperately at the hand holding me, and was surprised when I actually scratched through the dark shimmering scales to draw blood. My claws were a combination of the unmatched strength of the Silver clan, and the powerful venom of the Aztec Purples. It was ironic really. I was exactly what this maniac was trying to build, a dragon with the powers of multiple clans combined.

His arm dropped limply by his side.

I dropped in a little heap, and tried to remember what air felt like through the burning in my throat. I coughed and coughed, and nearly threw up.

He looked alarmed for a second or two, then chuckled again. “This will heal in minutes. You don’t even know how to use the venom to full affect.”

I swiped toward his legs, weakly.

He stepped back a few feet, almost casually. He sighed. “I tire of this game. I thought, perhaps, you might prove a worthy opponent. But you forget, little fledgling. I have the blood of Eric the Red in my veins.” He started inhaling hugely, like a kid about to blow out birthday candles.

Oh, shit. Reds breathe fire.

I was sort of fire resistant, but only a full coat of silver scales like my grandmother had, charged with the power of lightning, could withstand a direct blast of Red dragon flame.

I curled in a tiny ball, and thought, Now would be a really good time to wake up.

But instead of a blowtorch blast, Alrek’s mouth let out a scream.

Cuicatl had bitten him hard on the ankle. She may have given up on fighting for herself, but she would never just watch that monster kill me and do nothing. Her fangs didn’t pierce, but she bit hard enough to make him hurt. She tried to claw him, too, but her claws were black, not silver, not hard enough to pierce his scales.

He kicked her in the face.

I heard her cheekbone snap, but she just shook her head and bit him again.

I leaped to help her, without bothering to get to my feet. My silver claws ripped a long gash in Alrek’s leg scales.

Rage. My great, great grandmother had told me the key to the intensity of the claw venom was rage. I hadn't been pissed off enough when I clawed Alrek’s hand to do any real damage. The horrible things he’d done hadn't really sunk in yet in my mind, so I wasn't angry enough.

Oh, but Cuicatl was. She had rage to spare.

She sank her claws into Alrek’s leg muscle through the slash I’d made, and ripped for all she was worth. Her yellow cat eyes blazed fierce, angry red in the center with berserk hatred for the man who had murdered her husband and her child, imprisoned her and raped her repeatedly. “You will not harm any more of my family!!”

Alrek fell.

Cuicatl ripped his leg open from knee to ankle. The venom from her claws made the flesh swell with huge blisters that oozed sluggish black blood with a foul smell. 

Alrek's eyes widened. His pupils expanded, the darkness rapidly swallowing his own red glow. For a moment, it looked like he might lose consciousness.

Then Alrek shook his head, roared, and shifted to battle form. A sinuous dragon’s body as long as a freight train car filled the dais. He curled clear around the stone thrones and surrounded us in his coils. He blinked his softball-sized reptilian eyes. They gained back their focus, and immediately honed in on the dragon who had hurt him.

The collar on Cuicatl’s neck trapped her in her far smaller, weaker humanoid form. She faced the massive dragon, with teeth as long as her forearm, head high with the feathered cloak of her wings giving her a noble aspect. “I do not fear you. I will never fear you again.”

“No, you won’t, you barbaric little whore.” Alrek’s one functional hand lashed out. He pierced through her chest scales with his claws and shattered her ribs with the unmatched power of an elder dragon, as easily as his humanoid dragon form had pierced the chest of the human champion.

He ripped Cuicatl’s beating heart from her body.

She smiled at him triumphantly as she collapsed to her knees. Blood bubbled through her mouth as she said with her last breath, “I carry your son in my belly.” She dropped limply to the stone beside the dead champion. Her lifeblood spread in a wide pool, mixing with the human’s.

“NOOOOO!!!” Alrek howled, as the dragon’s heart he held in his hand beat once more, then stopped forever, taking his dream of a powerful son with it.

“No!” I whispered, weeping for Cuicatl, my courageous great, great grandmother who had died a thousand years ago, fighting to protect me. Her desperation to be free had called me back to her.

Now, she was free.

The morning light of the modern world dragged me back to my own time, still weeping bitterly.

D Dragon

Smoking Mirror

Panic was in the air. I don’t mean that in some figurative sense. I could smell the overwhelming scent of human fear. It permeated everything. And blood. I smelled blood.

I was in an odd sort of bedroom, with beautiful, elaborate carvings on the wall and brightly woven blankets. I lifted the hanging blanket from the doorway to peek outside. A small, dark woman slammed her elbow into a man’s face, smashing bone. The man, with fierce-looking yellow paint across his brown-skinned face dropped dead next to three others.

The small, dark-haired woman who had killed them ran into the room and slammed right into me.

She fell. The baby she carried tied and bundled in a bright blanket flew from her arms.

“No!” she shouted.

I dove like a volleyball player and made a desperate catch.

The kid burbled up at me with a grin that only had a few teeth in it, including one fang. The baby’s huge eyes were dark blue in a light-brown-skinned chubby face. The thick hair on the tiny head was bright purple.

I cuddled the dragon baby close and turned back to hand the little bundle back to the woman who fell.

I turned around, but the woman was gone. In her place was a creature that filled the room. Sleek and deadly like a panther the size of a Clydesdale, the creature growled low, showing fangs as long as my hand.  It stood on its hind legs. Deep purple scales rippled as the beast half spread wings that folded like a dragon’s, but were feathered like an eagle’s.

The creature extended both arms toward me as I backed into a corner of the room, hugging the toddler dragon close.

“Give her to me!” the creature growled. It must have been a dragon of some kind, but different from any dragon I’d ever seen. One hand popped out long black needle-tipped claws. The other held out to me palm up. “Give her over willingly, or I will take her from your limp, useless body, and rip your heart out while you watch.”

“I won’t let you hurt her,” I said with a bravery I’m not sure I was really feeling. I kept frantically looking for a way out. The only door was behind the strange, feathery dragon. The walls were carved stone. I had no idea how I’d gotten into the room, much less how to get out.

The creature hesitated. Its great cat-like head with back swept ears, that I now realized were pointed head scales, leaned down until it was nearly nose-to-nose with me. Its vivid yellow cat eyes squinted as if struggling to see me. “Daughter of my daughter?” It asked.

“Great great grandmother?” I asked back.

The dragon let out a sigh of relief and sheathed her claws. She was Cuicatl, wife of Quetzelcoatl, also known as Agmund Drage. Which meant that the baby in my arms was probably my great grandmother.

“Forgive me, child. I thought you were some sort of servant of the Smoking Mirror,” my ancestor said.

“What the heck is the Smoking Mirror?”

“Smoking Mirror is a powerful dragon. He has come while my husband is far away, with fierce soldiers who slaughtered our defenders. He demanded my daughter as sacrifice, to be skinned alive in honor of his conquest of the city. He will slay a child of the village every hour that my daughter does not volunteer to die.”

“But, why? What could that possibly gain him?”

“He wishes to claim me as his mate. I am the bride of this city. He who rules the city, I must take as husband.” My ancestor looked simultaneously disgusted and ashamed. “The dark Obsidian one seeks to slay my sole living child by my beloved true husband.”

“Agmund is going to kick this Smoking Mirror’s ass when he gets back.”

Her cat eyes narrowed and glowed with a wicked inner light. “I too believe it will be so, but he will be too late to save my daughter.” Tears as big as my fist ran down the dark scales of her face.

“I’m so sorry. What can I do to help?”

“No one can help my eldest daughter. She will give herself up within the hour. She cannot abide for an innocent to take her place in death.” The dragon sniffed and wiped the tear from her face with her bent wrist in a very cat-like way. “She will die as a true servant of the earth, giving her life to save others.” She said that with pride overshadowing the sadness.

She reached out to the tiny toddler in my arms, stroked her chubby little face with a deep plum-colored giant fingertip. “Smoking Mirror does not know that I have another daughter. I sought to hide her, but it is hopeless. The dark one will find me. I have a sister in a nearby village who could claim her and care for her until my husband returns, but if I try to leave the city, the dark one will know.” She gripped my arm and stared earnestly into the general area of my face. “Can you take my child to safety daughter of my daughter?”

“Of course I’ll help. But I don’t understand how this is possible. I shouldn’t be able to affect things that happened more than a thousand years ago.” The kid grabbed a handful of my hair and pulled, trying to stuff it into her mouth. As I gently freed it, I had a weird thought. “I was drawn to this time to Agmund, so he has to be my ancestor. If this is your only remaining child with Agmund, this little girl couldn’t have died. She must have survived somehow.”

“The future is never set, young one. It changes with each action and choice that we make. If my little one is mother of your mother, and she dies, …” She trailed off. The implication was obvious.

“Then I might never be born.” I had to save the kid, or I wouldn’t exist. But if I didn’t already exist, then how could I save her?

“All the more reason to get her to safety quickly.” Cuicatl looked over her shoulder at the stone archway into the chamber. A hanging blanket blocked the view, but the sound of heavy feet was close enough that I could hear it as well as she could.

She lifted one of the woven hangings on a side wall, and pushed with dragon strength on a section of the stone. It shifted inward to show a dark, narrow stone passage, half blocked with cobwebs. “Go quickly. The passage comes out near the path to my sister’s village. Travel forward until you find the path. Then turn toward the rising sun. Walk for a day and a night and you will find my sister’s village.”

There was more commotion outside the door. Men's voices, angry, although I couldn't yet make out words. “Hurry, child.”

As I hunched down the low triangular corridor, pushing aside icky spiderwebs, some of them still inhabited. I heard the stone door grind back into place behind me. Just before it shut completely, I heard Cuicatl’s voice, “Thank you daughter of my daughter. I will not forget what you have done.”

Closing the door left the dank narrow corridor in near total darkness. There were occasional cracks in between the stones that sent shafts of light inward. They came at regular intervals as if planned for lighting. I could hear men shouting and smell fear and blood coming down from above. I found the light adequate to see by, although not enough to always spot the cobwebs before they touched my face.

Ugh.

At least once, a spider crawled across my cheek as my face invaded his web.

I did not scream.

Only because I was terrified that Smoking Mirror’s men would hear me and come after the baby cooing in my arms.  I did smack my head against the low ceiling getting the many legged critter off me, then stomped it really hard, and then stomped it several more times for good measure. Damn thing was the size of a rat. I could have put a saddle on it and rode it.

That was when I finally noticed something that should have been obvious. My feet had scales and an extra toe. I'd been deciphering my world largely by scent. It was far too dark in that corridor for a human to see anything, yet I could see fine.  I looked at my left hand. Scaly. My claws popped out when I flexed them. I was a dragon again.

I wasn’t sure how I felt about that, but it was worth noting.

I reached the end of the stone passage and pushed aside a boulder that blocked the exit. Thick jungle canopy overhead meant that the light was only a little blinding. The baby fussed a little as I brought her out. I shielded her face with the hand woven blanket.

I kept walking as straight ahead as I could around the bases of the tall trees. I didn’t hear any sounds of men anymore. The passage must have taken my baby great grandmother and me well outside Cuicatl’s city.

I heard lots of other weird sounds, probably birds or monkeys or who the heck knows what. It’s not like I’d ever heard the sounds of a South American jungle anywhere, except maybe on the Discovery Channel.

I crossed the path and had to double back. I didn’t realize it was a path at first. It was just a strip of beaten flat ground on the jungle floor, no wider than two feet, that meandered between the trees.

I turned around in a circle, trying to figure out which way the sun came up. It was getting later so the sun was lower than before. I put my back to it and walked the other way.

Suddenly, I heard something that didn’t fit, but that was very familiar. My alarm clock.

I felt my grip on the baby in my arms fading. “NO!” I couldn’t wake up, not until I got the baby to safety. If I vanished now, she would be left in the middle of the jungle for anyone from a hungry jaguar to one of Smoking Mirror’s men to find her.

I ignored the insistent sound and started running down the path as fast as I could.

Cuicatl had said walk for a day and a night to get to the village. There was no way I could stay asleep that long. I shifted the kid to one foot, gripped her carefully, unfolded my wings in a wide spot between trees and leapt for the air.

Easier said than done. I couldn’t flap properly. There wasn’t enough room. I half jumped, half climbed to the treetops and finally launched into open air, squinting against the blinding light of the evening sun. I flapped as hard as I could. I had to fly faster than I ever had.

The insistent beeping pulled at my mind. I felt myself fading more than once. When I vaguely felt Jack’s cat licking me, I actually dropped the baby. My feet just faded to the point where she fell through them. I had to scramble to catch her before she impacted the trees.

I couldn’t wake up. No matter what. I had to stay asleep.

This was real. This wasn’t a dream.

My experiences with my grandmother and father in Camelot had taught me that my dreams really were a form of mental time travel, that only happened when I was asleep.

If I woke up, the baby would fall to her death, and then what? Maybe I would wake up only to find that I was now a ghost in my own time.

I had no idea what would happen if I failed to save my own great grandmother from death, but even if that wasn’t an issue, I wasn’t about to drop a helpless baby from a considerable height into a wild jungle full of men who wanted to kill her.

I flew as fast as I could, grateful for the physical training in human form that had made me stronger than I had ever been. Finally, in the distance, I saw the peak of a stone pyramid-shaped building sticking out of a clearing in the trees.

“Almost there, little grandmother. Almost there.”

A massive shape rose up from that pyramid to confront me. The shape was like a huge bird of prey against the too bright sky.

As it got closer, I recognized the shape of one of the panther/eagle-like local dragons.

“What are you, shadow? Leave my city. We do not traffic with ghosts.”

“Not a lost shadow of one dead, a memory of one yet to be born,” I said, repeating what Agmund had said as best I could. “Are you Cuicatl’s sister?”

“I am. Who asks?”

“Her great, great granddaughter, and her daughter.” I could feel someone shaking me violently. I was starting to fade and I couldn’t fight it this time. “Catch!” I yelled, and tossed the little bundle of baby toward her aunt.

Just as the jungle world faded away, I saw the dragon catch the baby in gentle-clawed feet.

Then I woke to Jack shaking me so hard my teeth rattled. “Okay, okay. I’m up.”

“What’s wrong with you, Dee. We’re half an hour late already.”

“Oh, crap! We’ll get a demerit!”

“Forget that. What’s wrong with you? Why didn’t you wake up? It was like you were in a coma or something.”

“No, just time travelling. I had to save my great grandmother from being a human sacrifice to an evil Aztec conqueror or I might have ceased to exist."

Jack blinked. He sat there for a few seconds speechless, then sighed. “With anyone else, I’d say it was time to call the guys in the white coats. With you …” He shook his head. “Just get dressed. We don’t want to be any later than we already are.”

I sat up and realized, I was covered in skin, not scales. In the dream, I’d been back to my old self, all dragony. But here, I was still human.

I felt a tug of painful disappointment mixed with relief. Somewhere down deep, I was still conflicted. I desperately wanted my dragon self back so I could help when people were hurt, and fight the good fight. But I also really wanted to be normal. It was kind of great to just be one of the guys at the firefighter’s academy.

So, that’s where I’m at. Only one week of firefighter training to go, but two out of three demerits down. I just have to make it one more week. How hard can that be?

D. Dragon

The Meaning of Fear

It’s been a long few weeks. I haven’t had much of a chance to write. I need it after what happened though. So, I'm making time.

I’ll start with the normal stuff.

Firefighter training gets harder every week. We’re in the home stretch now. Only two more weeks to go. It looks like I might make it.

Or, I might die. Every inch of my body aches, every night. I have muscle aches in places I didn’t even know humans had muscles.

Yeah, I’m still human.

My jeep got a flat the other day, and I realized just how much I took being a supe for granted. I don’t even own a jack. Liberty says there’s still a chance I’ll get my old self back. Sometimes, I’m not sure if I want my old self back, but there are always things I miss. I miss being able to fly, and not skinning my knees when I fall, and being able to open pickle jars.

Brad’s pretty handy for the pickle jars. When he’s around anyway. His new job has him working some odd hours. I heard him talking with Jack the other day about being a little uncomfortable with some of the stuff his boss is asking him to do. He would never tell me anything that personal. Brad’s a little awkward when it comes to talking to women, but he and Jack are best buds. He won’t tell even Jack what his new job is, or who he’s working for, though. Something top secret, we gather. Brad figures he’ll lose his lucrative new gig if he spills anything, so we don’t push.

Jack and I are good. I keep telling him every day, “That’s why,” when he does something that reminds me why I love him. Sometimes, he just studies with me and Roy for the next tough Friday test, explaining something patiently to both of us that we didn’t quite get. Sometimes, I see him giving Brad advice, or helping Ma in the kitchen, or playing ball with our dog, Rocky. And sometimes, he does something really amazing like figure out how to prop up my jeep on spare tires, pump the spares up with extra air to lift the jeep, and change the flat.

My boyfriend rocks.

I keep trying to get a chance to wear that lacy green underwear thing that Jack bought me. But it’s like life is conspiring to keep me a virgin forever.

Firefighter training eats up all of our time. By the time we get home, I’m so tired, and my body aches so badly that a hot bath and bed is all I can manage. Picking up a pen to write in my diary has felt like too much work.

On top of that, Jack and I are still taking Krav Maga with Tamara three days a week. Just when my new body thinks the abuse is over, I get shoved around, and have to punch, kick and block until I can’t hardly lift my arms. The way Tamara and Jack joke around in class bugs me still, but I try not to get weird about it. It’s not like I caught Jack sitting on the floor hugging her while she was half dressed, or saw him kissing her on national television, but still. It doesn’t seem to matter whether I’m a dragon or a normal, I’m constantly afraid I’m going to lose him. I’ve never been in love before. I didn’t know there was so much fear involved.

Last weekend, I found out what real fear felt like.

Jack and I finally got a little time to ourselves. Jack took me out to the Erwin center, Austin's stadium in the round, on a real date. I wore the lacy green one piece underwear. I thought that was going to be The Night.

Instead, I thought I lost him.

Jack took me out to see “Celtic Woman.” I’ve seen them on TV a few times. The music is hauntingly beautiful. It’s like part of me remembers music like that. Considering my tendency to remember things that happened to my ancestors, maybe that’s actually true.

They were doing a concert at the Erwin Center last Saturday. Jack and I booked our tickets on line way ahead of time to get decent seats. Parking downtown was the usual insanity. We had to walk four blocks to get in, but I didn’t mind. At least the humidity was back to normal.

Last year, we had the worst drought in recorded history. This year, the weather made up for it by raining nearly every afternoon for weeks. It was like living in Houston there for a while.

Now, we’re back to a baking 105 in the daytime, and warm, blessedly dry evenings. I never realized how much the heat affected normals until I found myself running obstacle courses in hundred degree heat and 90% humidity in a human body. I barely noticed the temperature when I was a dragon. Temperature was like texture or color, just an attribute of the air, not anything that affected me.

With Jack holding my arm and a fluttery new sundress on that I never could have worn before, the weather seemed just fine. I enjoyed listening to the grackles settling in for the evening with their raucous songs, and the humming buzz of the cicadas playing counterpoint.

It was a great evening to just be alive.

The concert was lovely right up until it turned into hell on earth.

We had seats toward the front of the arena section, just behind and above the floor seats. The stairs leading back to ground level were right beside us. Jack went to the bathroom. It was the only time all night that we were separated. So, of course, that was when the bombs went off.

The bombs weren’t loud. I remember hearing something strange, a few deep distant-sounding booms. I wondered what the odd sounds were, if it was part of the music in some way. There was a second or two where everything sort of paused, and then the screams.

The section I was in was miraculously spared. The Erwin Center is famous for all around view. Every seat is a good seat. The rest of the building fell all around me. I watched as if it were some horrific show.

I didn’t know what to do at first. I wasn’t a supe anymore. Most of the people around me stampeded for the exit down the stairs. A lady tripped, and three other people stepped on her. I jumped into the mess without thinking. I shoved people aside as best I could, but a lot of them were bigger than me, and stronger. I got elbowed a couple times hard enough to bruise. I managed to plant my feet in front of the downed woman, holding onto the stairway railing to keep from getting knocked over, and extended a hand to her.

As soon as she was back on her feet, she started running again, holding an arm that looked broken.

Everyone seemed to think this section of the building was going to blow up next.

Leaving seemed like an okay idea, although I couldn’t really think clearly. I started down the stairs and someone shoved me, hard. I rolled down the stairs, each one embedding a black and blue impression of itself into my flesh. I curled into a tiny ball at the bottom as people kept running all around me, kicking me as they went.

The feet stopped their abuse for a moment. I looked up to see a tall blond man who looked completely familiar, although I was sure I’d never met him before, at least not while I was awake. “Agmund?”

The man looked startled, then smiled. “Agmund was my brother. I’m Alrek. Did you know my twin?” He was a perfectly calm rock in the chaotic river of fleeing humanity.

“I met him a few times.” I accepted a hand up. The tall twin of Quetzelcoatl pulled me in close, sheltering me with his large body against the flow of panicked humanity pouring toward the row of shattered glass doors and out into the relative safety of the street.

I ignored the flow and turned left down the huge round corridor that surrounded the formerly drum-shaped Erwin center. The closest men’s room was that way. I stopped short as I rounded the curve. The corridor was blocked. That entire section of the building had come down.

People were trapped under rubble, moaning or lying unmoving, crushed, hurt, or dead.

I stood there, looking at the pile of concrete and dust. Blood from crushed people oozed from between the stones as if the wounded building were bleeding.

“Are you not going to aid them?” Alrek asked, gesturing to the people on the floor. He had an odd accent. It sounded Mexican or Spanish, sort of.

“I don’t know what to do.” I’ve never felt so lost, so helpless. I needed Jack.

I looked at the impenetrable pile of bleeding building as if Jack would appear if I just watched long enough. I thought about Angela, staring at the hospital entrance where her partner had gone in.

“We should go, Dee,” Alrek said softly. “This building may yet prove unstable.”

I nodded. “You go ahead.” I walked to the wall of rock and started picking up chunks of concrete and setting them aside. I couldn’t pick up very big chunks with my normal human hands. I scraped around the big pieces, pushed, and dug at them until bloody fingerprints marked the concrete.

Alrek pushed me gently aside. “Let me help.” He shifted to scaly form, not the giant dragon battle form that wouldn’t have fit well in the corridor. He was three times as big as a normal human, even so.

He lifted a chunk of concrete that had someone’s leg trapped beneath it. “Help him while I dig.”

I nodded. I didn’t have a kit. The guy had a compound fracture, bone showing.

I snagged a broken piece of steel rebar, tore strips off the hem of my dirty sundress, and splinted the leg. I don’t even remember what the guy looked like. All I saw was the wound. And even that was hard to focus on. I kept looking back at Alrek, as he moved chunk after chunk of concrete.

It seemed like an endless task. There was so much rubble. And bodies. So many dead. Alrek moved nearly as much shattered flesh as steel and concrete.

I kept looking for the bright red shirt I’d given Jack for his birthday, with the embroidered black silk dragon. It looked so gorgeous with his skin tone. Fit for a dragon lord.

I kept expecting to see it, wrapped around some crushed, barely recognizable body part.

I heard people moaning. Even though I moved like a robot and I kept looking back at Alrek to make sure he was still digging, I helped the people around me. I put an improvised pressure bandage around a woman’s leg, where a piece of steel had gone through. I splinted a few more broken bones.

Those who could walk, I sent after help for those who couldn’t.

When there was no one left to help, I started moving small stones again. I couldn’t walk away and I couldn’t just sit there and watch Alrek dig.

With an elder dragon’s strength, Alrek had made a significant dent in the pile. He had cleared a hollow place next to the inner wall of the wide corridor, about ten feet deep and across.

Firefighters and paramedics came in to help the worst wounded.

Someone put a hand on mine and took the chunk of concrete I was carrying from me. The hands were covered in shiny silver mail.

“Dee, what are you doing?” White Knight said. “We need your healing power. Why aren’t you topside helping?”

“I can’t.” That was when the tears started. “I can’t help anyone.”

I put my head against his armored chest. “I can’t help Jack.” I realized I was shaking.

Knight wrapped his arms around me. He looked over my shoulder at the purple dragon steadily digging.

“Who are you?” he asked, one hand on his sword. Old Georgian habits die hard, but at least he talked to the unknown dragon, rather than immediately attacking him.

The dragon turned with a slight bow. “I am Alrek. I have only recently come to your country.”

“Well, I appreciate you helping, but the main rescue efforts are on the other side of the building. There isn’t likely to be anyone left here to save.”

I shoved Knight away from me so hard, he actually stumbled back a little. “Jack is alive.”

I went back to picking up concrete chunks and moving them. I tried to pick up a piece that was too big for me. I struggled with it with tears streaming down my face.

Knight put a hand on my arm. “Dee, there’s no point…”

“NO!” I yanked my arm away from him and went back to struggling with the heavy rubble.

“Allow me.” Alrek lifted the heavy concrete easily in one hand and tossed it aside. We went back to digging side by side.

I picked up a broken piece of plastic with letters carved into it. “Me…” Men. “There!” I said, and dug into the pile of building where the remains of a doorway could just barely be seen. It was pretty clear that where the Men’s room had been was just more rubble.

“Dee, …” Knight tried again.

I ignored him and kept digging, Alrek at my side.

Knight stood there for a moment, watching, then turned and started to walk away. He stopped after a couple steps, next to what had been a stairwell up to the next level. He cocked his head to one side, and said, “Dee!”

“Go away, Knight.”

He turned and started digging himself, in a different spot than we were. “Dee! Alrek! Dig here! I heard something. There’s someone alive in here.”

I looked at Knight, frantically throwing chunks of concrete big enough to crush me over his shoulder.

Jack went to the bathroom. Our seats were on the second level. He had no reason to go up those stairs to the third level. There might be someone alive in there, but it wasn’t Jack.

Alrek paused, looked at me for guidance.

I remembered hearing the woman trapped in the car when no one else could. Dragon hearing. White Knight was a dragon. I wasn’t anymore, so I couldn’t hear anything but the occasional grinding of dirty stone shifting against stone.

“Do you hear anything?” I asked Alrek.

He cocked his head to one side and listened. “Yes. There is someone moving in there.” He gestured to where Knight dug frantically.

I nodded permission. Someone was alive in there, but they might not be alive for long if there was no way for air to get in. Alrek helped Knight to move larger and larger chunks of wall and ceiling. It didn’t occur to me at the time to wonder why a dragon I had just met waited for my permission. I wonder now, but it’s too late to ask.

Within moments, the two strong dragons had cleared a hole through to a hollow space under the heavy reinforced concrete stairs. A man’s arm pushed out of the hole, shoving rubble outward as the two dragons dug inward.

The arm had bright dusty red silk on it.

“Jack!” I ran to the hole and grabbed that hand.

Jack peeked through the hole at me and grinned. He squeezed my hand. “Good to see you too, Dee.”

Knight and Alrek dug the hole further open until it was big enough for people to squeeze through.

Jack came out first, then reached back in to help a lady, two kids, and another guy out as well. They were all completely uninjured aside from coughing up dust.

I hugged Jack so hard that it was a good thing I wasn’t super strong anymore or I’d have squished him. “What happened? How did you get under there?”

Jack shrugged. “I heard the bombs go off just as I was coming back from the men’s room. The stairs seemed like the sturdiest place to be, so I grabbed as many people as I could and ducked under, just before everything came down.”

“That’s why,” I told him, and kissed him hard. Did I mention that my boyfriend was awesome?

We all made our way out of what was left of another destroyed Austin landmark. The giant drum-shaped building was shattered beyond repair. People wandered lost, hurt, and panicked.

All I could think at first was how beautiful the sky looked. A part of me had thought I’d never see it again, at least, not with Jack beside me.

Alrek offered to help with the rescue efforts. Knight, the former Georgian, accepted the offer of aid from a dragon with only a slight hesitation. It was a real step forward for him.

Jack and I pitched in when we spotted Dave among the fire crews. He located us a spare med kit off one of the fire trucks and we went to work.

Alrek left me his cell phone number before we parted ways. I can add one more dragon to the small number that I know.

We worked all night long, searching for survivors and helping the wounded. I saw an awful lot of wounded that I knew would be crippled for life, or might even die. And I couldn’t fix it.

I don’t want to be normal anymore. The price is too high.

I saw Detective Long poking around the rubble. The Defilers’ red crossed bones symbol was spray painted around in several conspicuous spots.

I asked him if he thought the Defilers had done this.

He grunted. “Yeah. Just like the Free Earthers blew up the highway, and Lord Vile blew the hospital.”

“It’s the same person for all three, isn’t it?”

He nodded. He pointed at the black camera eye on a nearby lamppost. “And he’s watching us closely every time. He or she or they.” He looked back at the only intact portion of the structure. “What I don’t understand is why just this section was left standing.”

“It’s a good thing it was. I was in there when it happened.”

He looked at me, eyes narrowed. “Lucky for you.”

A sick feeling twisted in my stomach. Something had been bothering me from the first explosion. “I’m not sure it was luck.”

“What do you mean?”

“The hospital that blew, I worked there for years before I was fired a few months ago. And, the first explosion, so central and public, like it was meant to draw out all the heroes, to get them to show what kind of people they were, and what they could do. I’m the only new hero in Austin right now. I’m the only unknown. TakeDown’s been an Austin fixture for two decades and The Protectors are all national news.”

“And now, the building you’re in blows up, everywhere but where you’re sitting.”

“I bought my tickets on line, weeks ahead of time. Any decent hacker could have figured out when I’d be here and where I would sit.”

Det. Long straightened his bright blue tie, squinting at his tie tack as if it were fascinating. “Why you, Dee? You said this didn’t seem like the Georgians’ style. Too bloody.”

“Maybe I’m just being paranoid. Maybe it’s just coincidence.”

Det. Long frowned down at a red crossed bones symbol painted on a still standing brick ramp railing. “Mmm. And maybe the Defilers did it.

D. Dragon

Not in Texas Anymore, Toto

I stood in the middle of frantic activity, wondering what I should be doing to help. All around me short, dark-skinned people wearing little but bright jewelry worked, carving fanciful creatures in large stones in one area, covering walls with what looked like plaster in another. They painted every finished surface with brilliant colors to rival the brilliant greens of lush foliage and vivid splashes of tropical flowers.

Children ran everywhere, playing and helping in equal measures. They carried water to the workers who paused gratefully to ease their thirst in the oppressive heat. A tall man had his back to me as he knelt beside a sort of miniature model of the long roofless building. He was much taller, and his skin and hair were lighter than the other people. He seemed familiar. He pointed to various parts of the model, and up to the building being constructed around us.

The men with him nodded and discussed the fine points of the structure. They spoke a language I shouldn’t have understood. The sounds of it were so strange, I didn’t even know what language it was.

I leaned over the big man’s shoulder to look at the model.

It looked a little like a rectangular sports stadium, like a football field, but narrower, and with the decorated stone walls on either side of the field. The chaos around me made more sense. Now, I recognized the stone benches going up on the hillside above me. The long wall beside me didn’t look like it was built for any sport I knew of. A stone hoop, mounted vertically, stuck out of the slanted wall like an elephant’s big ear, clearly a goal of some sort. It was so high that I couldn’t imagine a human jumping high enough to even touch it from the ground.

The wall was as long as a neighborhood block. Workmen stood on temporary wooden scaffolding to reach all parts of that wall to carve elaborate scenes into it. This wouldn’t just be a functional space when it was completed, it would be a beautiful one.

I stood fascinated by the wonder around me. I didn’t notice that the tall, white man had finished his conversation and stood beside me until he spoke. “It is magnificent, is it not?”

I recognized him as the man I’d seen in my dreams before. Last time I saw him, he’d been wearing a cloak of feathers. He was a dragon, a purple dragon like me, except he had red and gold markings. “It’s amazing. What is it all for?” 

The man smiled warmly. His dark blue eyes twinkled. “To play ball in, of course.” Something about him reminded me of Fafnir, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Maybe it was the thick beard, or the wide smile.

“It seems like such a huge effort, just to build a place to play.”

He winked. “There is no more important endeavor in life than to play. Without joy, life has little point.”

I chuckled. I liked his attitude. “Who are you?”

“In my youth in my homeland, I was called Agmund Drage. But here, they simply call me the feathered serpent.”

“Quetzalcoatl,” I said to myself. I understood the meaning of what he said, but the sounds in the strange language were also familiar. “My mother’s grandmother was one of the daughters of Quetzalcoatl.”

“Ah, well, that explains why you have been drawn to me across time, young one. We are family.” He hugged me hard enough to threaten my ribs. “Welcome, great great granddaughter! What is your name?”

The male dragon scent was strong on him, and he wasn’t wearing much. Strangely, I found the scent less disturbing to my mental processes than when I smelled it on Jack, Vlad or White Knight. “Damson Dragon.” I told him my real name without hesitation. It was pretty clear I was a long way from Texas in the 21^st century. All I needed was a little dog and a picnic basket. This might have been a dream, but the humidity and heat, the scent of sweaty humans, rock dust, and strange plants seemed as solid as that hug. “How did I get here?” I didn’t remember getting my house swept up in a tornado or anything.

The big man shrugged. “I have no idea. None of my descendants have visited me from the future before. But you have a faint glow around you, and no one sees you but me, so I knew you were misplaced from your own time.”

I paid more attention to the people bustling around me. No one looked back at me. They walked past me as if nothing existed in the space I took up. “Whoah, that’s weird. I’m a ghost.”

The Aztec god chuckled, and started walking, inspecting the work in progress. “Not a lost spirit of one dead, you are the imagination of one who has not yet been born.”

“And that’s not weird at all.” No one tried to walk through me. It was as if they avoided the space I occupied without realizing they were doing it. “You hugged me, though.” I bent down and picked up one of the small chunks of stone fallen from the busy stone carvers. It felt solid in my hand. I could feel the weight and the grainy texture. “I feel real.” I tossed the stone into a pile of other stone chips. It caused a few other rocks to tumble down.

A young woman working nearby looked up at the sound, startled, looked around, shrugged, and went back to chipping away at an unfinished carving.

“You are quite real,” Quetzalcoatl assured me. “You have probably been drawn here for a reason. Some great need has pulled you to this place. It is an extraordinary gift. I have heard of only one other dragon who could send his mind across time.”

“Who is that?”

“A gifted wizard of the Green clan. His abilities are approaching legend as he matures into an elder. I have heard that he can also change his body into birds and beasts.”

“Are you talking about Merlin?”

He laughed. “I am. Do you know of the Green wizard in your time?”

“He was my grandfather.”

“Really?” He cocked his head to one side. “My descendants mixed with the blood of the Green wizard. Imagine that.” He fell silent for a moment, thinking. “I have the blood of Gold, Black, Red, and Blue. My brother and I were the only dragons to mix so many clans in my time. If you have my blood, plus that of Green, you are a mix of nearly half the dragon clans of the world.” He looked at me, almost sympathetically for a moment, then shook his head. “Well, then. Merlin should have taught you to expect such drifting in time. Does he not know that you inherited his gift?”

“Merlin died centuries before I was born. My dad didn’t have any time related abilities. Even if he had them, he died when I was little. My mother raised me most of my life, and she’s more human than dragon.”

Quetzalcoatl put a huge, gentle hand on my shoulder. “I am sorry, child. It must be difficult dealing with such a gift without guidance. I fear if that is what has drawn you to me, I will be no help.”

“I have no idea what drew me to you, um, sir.” I wasn’t really sure what to call him.

“Call me Agmund, young Damson. No one remembers my old name in this land but my brother.” His face that had seemed so cheerful the rest of the time, darkened a little when he mentioned his brother again. He smiled after only a moment. “It will be good to hear my birth name again.”

“How did you get here, Agmund?”

“I sailed on a very long journey around the edges of the world. Leif, son of Eric the Red, travelled alongside us, but our ships were separated in a great storm. I do not know his fate.”

“Leif Ericson did fine. He explored North America, according to most historians, and eventually settled in Greenland.”

“That is good to know! I spent many a day with Leif, fought and sailed beside him. He was a good friend, and a strong steady man for the most part, unlike his half-brother Fafnir. Eric was mad to make Fafnir his heir. That boy is rash and foolish, but he has pure lineage.” Agmund shook his head. “I fear he will lead his people to a bad end. I was banished for trying to make Eric see reason.”

I coughed uncomfortably. “Fafnir’s been a good mentor to me. He’s the eldest and wisest of us now.”

Agmund’s eyebrows shot up, then he laughed, then he laughed some more. He laughed until tears streamed down his cheeks. He leaned against the carved wall to support himself. People looked at him funny, but didn’t question why their god was laughing so hard at nothing. “Fafnir. Old and wise.” He chuckled again. “The world has changed greatly in your time, young dragon.”

I thought about how many dragons were dead in my time. Fafnir may not be that old by dragon standards, or all that wise, but there simply weren’t many of us left. He was what we had.

Agmund’s laughter died as he watched my face. “Don’t tell me, child. I do not want to know what tragedy lies ahead. I prefer to face darkness as it comes, and take joy while I can.”

I nodded. His world was filled with sunshine and smiling, industrious people building a beautiful place to play. I didn’t feel the need to spoil it for him.

“And speaking of joy …” He smiled until his blue eyes were nearly lost in crinkles.

A lovely woman of the native people, with black hair so thick it was practically clothing, approached and smiled back at Agmund with the same happiness. “This, young Damson, is why I have made no attempt to sail back to my old friend, Lief. This is my wife, Cuicatl. Her name means song. She and our daughters are the song of my life.”

The couple embraced, the tall white man all but engulfing the petite dark woman.

“Who is it that you speak to, husband? I see only an odd glow in the shape of a woman.”

Her scent and her face both seemed incredibly familiar. “Ma?” She looked just like I remembered my mother when I was little. Ma was a little taller, and didn’t run around wearing hardly anything but her hair and some jewelry, but that woman looked enough like her to be her sister.

She looked in the general direction of my chest. “Does the shadow think I am her mother?”

“You look so much like her.” The tickling scent that I had always associated with my mother filled my nose. I inhaled deeply to get more of it. It reminded me of home and safety. This woman was the only female dragon I’d ever been around other than my mother. “And you smell like her.”

Agmund said, “Damson is the great grandchild of one of our daughters. She is also related to the wizard whose mind drifts across time. She has drifted here from far in the future.”

“Why have you come here, daughter of my daughter?”

“I don’t know. But this isn’t the first time. Something keeps pulling me back.”

She reached up, trying to touch my face, but missing by a few inches. I guided her hand to my cheek.

Cuicatl stroked my cheek with her thumb. She could touch me, even if she couldn’t see me clearly. “Think, child. Deep inside you, there is a desire that has sent your soul seeking. Of all things, what do you want most? If you could have anything, what would you ask for?”

I blinked and noticed a tear as it dropped. The answer stunned me even as I spoke it. “I want to be human.”

My ancestors, both of them dragons, gasped.

“Why?” my great great grandfather asked me. “Why would you want to give up your heritage, to give up the sky?”

“I love a human man.” Jack wouldn’t even speak to me because he thought my dragon nature had led me to betray him. I couldn’t give myself to him completely because of our incompatible anatomy. He couldn’t believe that I, a dragon, truly loved him, that I wanted to stay with a mere human forever. We couldn’t live a normal life together in any case, work together, be just us. My abilities made me feel obligated to fight injustice, which kept us constantly apart. I didn’t feel like I had any choice.

And, to be honest, it was more than just Jack. I couldn’t have any man. I also didn’t belong in any crowd. That moment when Liberty looked at me with shock and a little horror. I’d seen that look on other faces. I’d spent my whole life hiding from that look, running from that look. I didn’t just sympathize with White Knight, cutting away his scales to try to be more human, I understood that desire. On a level deep enough to drive me far across time, I shared it.

I covered my scales up every day, and pretended it didn’t bother me.

I lived in Austin, Texas, for goodness sake, where it was sunny 295 days a year, and over 100 degrees for half the summer, and I’d never been able to go swimming at a pool or a lake where anyone might see me. I didn’t even own a bathing suit.

“I just want to be normal.” Another tear escaped. It got my great great grandmother’s hand wet.

“Oh, daughter of my daughter. You are very young, I think.” She pulled my head down where she could kiss my forehead. “What you ask for is easily granted, but one day, your heart will yearn as much for scales and wings as today it yearns for soft skin.”

I looked into her large brown eyes and felt like I was falling down into someplace warm, dark and safe.

Her voice, the gentle feel of her hands on my cheeks, and the spicy sweet scent of her faded.

I woke to the sound of my alarm.

I reached out with my left hand, very carefully, to turn it off, and froze, staring in disbelief at my own hand. There were no claws, there were no scales. My left hand looked just like my right, soft pale brown skin. Human skin.

I whipped the covers back and looked at my slender, normal feet, with only five toes each. I touched my arms and legs and chest. No scales. None. Anywhere. A sense of wonder filled me until I felt the back of my arms.

My wings were gone, too. That gave me a jolt. What had I done? What had I given up?

I was human.

D Dragon