Nov. 6, 2006

Grandma and I were out walking through a meadow, ringed with trees. We noticed a castle in the distance, and even though I was nervous about going up to it, Grandma was excited, and kept saying she didn’t think she’d ever have a chance to see this place. She practically dragged me along with her, up to the gatehouse. The closer we go, the more damage to the castle we noticed, as well as the long line of people waiting for something.

I didn’t want to believe what I was seeing. People would get to the front of the line and fidget until they were told they were next and ushered through the door. Somehow, I knew that anyone who went through that particular door never came out anywhere again.

Grandma tried to push her way forward, but was quickly shoved back and told to wait her turn. So, we waited. And waited. And waited. Just when we thought it would be our turn next, along with the young unkempt woman ahead of us, a golden door slid down from the ceiling.

Grandma and I looked around and noticed a stairway off to the left and scurried up it. Grandma kept saying she hoped we were selected for the tour. Since the doorway below was closed, I told her not to expect anything. As we were looking around, I started noticing odd things – scorch marks, strange smells, claw marks. Just as I started to panic and argue that we should be leaving, we heard a woman telling someone that the tours should be cancelled for the day. A growl was the response, and a large iridescent green scaly head appeared through the door just above us.

The dragon looked startled, but studied us a second before drawing back to confer with his human assistant. We hadn’t noticed, but the young woman who’d been ahead of us, a brash young man, and an older gentleman had joined us in the small room at the top of the stairs.

“Which one will you give a tour?”

“I will see them all!”

A quiet argument ensued, which of course the dragon won. All five of us were encouraged to come up to the door and carefully make our way down the broken stone stairs into the dragon’s lair.

I led the way, trying to make sure that everyone behind me was safe. Once down, I looked around and saw further scorching, and noticed that the cobbled floor had been ripped up so we were standing on firm dark soil. The stones had been pushed here and there to form crude benches or tables. An odd thing to find in a dragon’s home. And the dragon… He was huge! And beautiful. He had politely moved to the side of the room, trying to avoid crowding us and making us more nervous.

I stopped approximately in the center of the room and tried to keep everyone behind me until I could figure out what we were doing here. The young woman darted past me towards the dragon, who seemed very interested, but not in her, in what I was going to do about it.

I sprang forward as he angled his head towards her and pushed her back.

He laughed. “Just what do you think you can do about it?”

I narrowed my eyes, opened my mouth, and sent a plume of fire towards him. He laughed, as everyone (except Grams) gasped.

“Wonderful, wonderful. I was wondering how long you could control it! I didn’t know if you even realized you could. How did you find out?”

“Quite simply.” I told him. “When you’re going to be attacked, you reach for any defense you have. I was going to scream, but I got so mad the flames came
instead.”

“And do you use them often?”

I grinned impishly. “Only when it looks like someone needs to be toasted. Or for fun. Shock factor, you know. Tends to keep the idiots away.”

He laughed.

“And you, girl.” He looked to the girl I had pushed behind me. “What is it that you can do?”

She smiled and proceeded to shimmer and morph into different animals, all winged.

“Excellent! And you sir?”

The gentleman simply smiled and bowed, a look of mischief on his face as he simply vanished then reappeared elsewhere in the room.

The dragon roared with laughter. “And you madam?”

Grams smiled. She didn’t do anything, just smiled. The dragon’s eyebrows winged up. “Ahhh… Just so. I’d wondered if I’d ever meet you.”

The young man couldn’t stand it. “What about me? Why is everyone else here so special, and I’m just me! This isn’t right, it isn’t fair, man!”

The dragon looked at me and sighed. Then, he morphed into a human form and joined us sitting on one of the stone benches, forcing me to slide over or be sat on.
Grams ran and grabbed a huge camera she’d stashed somewhere and started taking pictures of the group of us. I asked if she wanted me to take some so she’d be in a couple. She smiled and simply told me it wasn’t necessary.

Dragon leaned over and whispered in my ear. “Do you have any idea how special that woman is? She’ll be where ever she wants to be in these pictures. She won’t be left out.”

We hadn’t noticed the gentleman in the group disappear until he returned carrying a tray of wonderful looking desserts. As he served everyone else, the dragon had a couple more questions for me.

“So, do you think we should tell the boy what it is he can do?”

“Hmmm…” I studied him, sitting sullenly at the other end of the bench, trying not to look like he was as jealous as we knew him to be. “He needs to know. The wolf will demand to come out sooner or later. Might be better to have a dragon around to help keep things under control.”

“What about having a dragon lady around as well? Think you’ll come back to help?”

I leaned back to study his face. I felt a shiver of warning skate down my back. His eyes were starting to sparkle, as if the dragon resented being kept hidden and even worse, the dragon appeared to be hungry for something.

I narrowed my eyes and sent a tiny flame of fire licking towards him. He chuckled appreciatively and backed off to the far wall, where he’d waited patiently as the dragon before.

I herded everyone towards the broken stone stairway leading up and out of the lair. I turned back and noticed his gaze was fixed on me. I didn’t ask why, didn’t want to know why, but I had an uneasy feeling I already knew.

A single beam of light streamed through the broken window high above me and lit on his chest. It isn’t every day you see a man… dragon… man wearing a necklace made to look like a peacock feather. Especially when the feather, on closer scrutiny, is made of rubber bands.

I snickered and followed everyone out, with the promise to return the next day to help our young wolfman.