Lawn Mowers and Strange Rocks:

This is to be a back story for my part in Farm-Fresh's guest spots in his story.
Only I didn't really finish it like I wanted and don't really like writing about myself.

Chapter One:

  I was mowing the part of our yard on the other side of the creek, we only mow this  part a few times per year, so the grass was tall, and I could not see what was under it. This was the first time mowing it this year, and dad had worked here with the bobcat last fall, so I had even less idea what was under the grass. I have hit everything from chunks of steel to rocks to large clumps of dirt.

    I started on the part near the road, everything seemed to be going well, until I hit a a small stump the beavers left, causing me to swear under my breath(not that anyone could have overheard, there was nobody anywhere nearby, and even if there were it would be impossible to hear me over the roar of the lawnmower.

    I continued, and shortly after encountered some barbed wire buried in the grass, a large chunk of sod was ripped out of the ground and the wire jammed the blades. I heard a squealing noise as the belts started slipping and I began to smell burned rubber. I disengaged the deck as fast as I could and backed up, luckily the wire was not tangled and came out easily, still stuck in the ground. I continued, and hit more barbed wire a little later.

    One hour later:

    I listened to the sound of sticks and other small pieces of wood being ground to bits by the spinning blades as I was cutting some smaller brush down. It seems like it grows back as soon as you look away, but I suppose that's only because I don't mow this area often enough. I was in one of areas where dad had used the bobcat to remove most of the brush and level the ground, in was all covered in grass about eight inches tall, and there were sticks all over the ground. I needed to move slower through these areas because they were lower and I wanted to see any water or mud before I got stuck in it.

    I mowed down a clump of grass that wall a little taller then the stuff around it, and heard a sound like "KaThunk bang boom!" It could only be the sound of the blades encountering a large rock. A large cloud of odd colored dust erupted from the right side of the machine, and I seen something bouncing across the ground at high speed, coming to a stop against a tree. The dust blew back across me and felt kind of itchy.

    I stopped the deck, turned the throttle to idle, set the break, and got off of the machine. I walked to where the rock stopped, it was about the size of a baseball, with a large part missing due to contact with the blades. I picked it up and looked at it, it looked and felt very odd, I took it back to the mower and set it in the cup holder, and noticed my hands were covered in that odd dust.

    The lawn mower has a jack built into it, it's a steel bar on a hinge in the front. it swings forward and sits against the ground, when you drive ahead it forces the front end up off the ground, exposing the underside of the deck. I looked for any damage, and not seeing anything serious(well, the blades were pretty much destroyed, but we had not changed them since last year, and we thought that it would be best to use them on this part of the yard instead of wrecking new blades.) I started to get back on the machine. Before I could do anything, I felt an odd burning sensation on my hands and the side of my face where the dust covered them.

    I thought maybe it was from the stinging nettles I had cut down, but that was quite a while ago, and the feeling kept getting stronger. I looked at my hand and seen scales. Scales? I had no idea what was happening at first, and then I looked at my other hand which now had claws. I felt my face start to change as well, then I remembered some of the dragon transformation stories I had read. I could not believe it could be happening, but here I was in pain, and looking at two unmistakably dragon-like hands.

    I thought I might as well hope for the best and prepare for the worst, I sat down and removed my boots, I did not really want to wreck them, and it might be quite painful the have my feet transform inside leather steel toed boots. The pain was starting to spread farther though my body, I unbuttoned my pants, but I could not get them off before I felt and heard things cracking and moving. More pain. I had read stories about this and never thought the pain was very realistic, but apparently I was wrong.

    The pain became more intense as more things broke and reformed. It became unbearable and I cried out, then blacked out, apparently I have a low tolerance for pain. When I came to, I looked around,  wondering if it was a dream or something. I stopped wondering when I saw my hands, and then the two shadows in front of me, from my wings. I looked around and seen the lawnmower, still idling, about twenty five feet away from me. I noticed my glasses were missing, a rather odd thing to be thinking about after having just turned into a dragon, but I am never without them, and usually can't see anything without them.

    I walked back to the mower and turned it off, then began looking for my glasses, I found them quickly and attempted to put them on, this turned out to be impossible. Aside from the fact that they could no longer fit on my face, they made things blurrier instead of clearer. I now noticed how very clear everything was, and looked around in awe, I had never seen so much detail. I tried to put my glasses in my pants pocket, only to find that my pants were gone. I momentarily panicked, before realizing that where was nothing to see and that being naked on my own land was the least of my concerns. There was still most of my shirt remaining, but it did not fit properly anymore.

    After just standing there for a while, I thought about everything everything that just happened I said, out loud "I'm actually a freaking dragon. A dragon!" I was still not thinking very clearly. As my mind began to clear, I began to think about what this meant. It meant that I could fly, I always wanted to fly. It also meant that I might have trouble convincing my family I am me.

    Then I remembered that in some of the transformation stories, the instincts of their new body would try to take over, I did not want that to happen, I did not want to hurt anyone I loved, or just disappear like a wild animal. So I waited for something to happen.

    Nothing seemed to happen for a few minutes, I still did not know what I was going to do, I figured I might as well finish mowing while I thought about it. But before I could do anything else, I felt something weird in my head, and suddenly I could not move.

    I felt another presence in my mind, it felt like it was trying to take over. I resisted, but it kept trying. I tried to move, but whatever it was prevented my movements, I pushed harder and I finally broke whatever was holding me still. But it was still in my head, trying to take control. It made it very difficult for me to think, it was trying to weaken my mental defenses. I tried to get some kind of hold on it, after a long mental struggle I managed pin it down.

    I was going to attempt to simply push in out of my mind, but as I tried to do that I noticed that it seemed to aid my control of important things, like my movements. It was as if it was simply another part of my brain that had somehow became separated, it did not seem like a good idea to remove it. I needed a way to fix it, to put it in its place, and to prevent it from taking control again.

    It tried to attack again, but it was weaker and I easily contained it. It seemed very much like an animal, attacking for no apparent reason. As it attacked I noticed a part of my mind seemed empty, as if something had been broken out of it. It occurred to me that the thing felt like it was the same 'shape' as the empty place, so I forced it into the place hoping that it was where it belonged.

    I felt something odd in my head again.  I felt new thoughts, feelings, and urges. I realized what the thing was, it was all the instincts of a dragon.  It was like the mind of a dragon, but without the memories of one(which made sense, it only came into existence less then an hour ago.) I felt more new things happen in my mind, I did not understand exactly what was going on, but none of my memories as a human seemed to be affected. Only my way of thinking changed, it became more like a dragon. After some time my mind seemed to calm down, and I did not feel another presence in my mind anymore.  It felt whole, not fragmented.

    I looked around myself again, and noticed things differently then before.  Things that seemed insignificant to me as a human now stood out, I noticed signs of animals that I had missed before, though they seemed obvious now.  I now knew what many of the smells around me meant, and many other things about land that I never thought about before.  I had a strong urge to fly, so I walked farther out into the open.  I noticed that walking was slightly easier then before, and more natural, though the motion was slightly different from that of a human.

    Flight, something I always longed for, something I rarely got to have, and obviously I had never flown under my own power.  I prepared to leap into the air, it seemed my body simply knew what to do. I opened my wings and leaped into the air, and I flapped my wings automatically, like muscle memory, like how you shield your face if something is coming towards it, it was very odd, it felt like I had practiced it a hundred times.

    I quickly climbed to about two hundred feet, the feeling of the air rushing past my face was amazing, I looked down and I could see all of my land, and more.  For a second I felt dizzy, realizing that I was extremely high up, and that there was absolutely NOTHING but air between me and the ground. I almost panicked, but then came back to my senses, I felt like you do after nearly falling off of something and catching yourself at the last moment, scared with adrenaline flowing. I finally relaxed and enjoyed the flying, the only thing I could compare it to is the brief feeling you get when catching air on a motorcycle.

    But unlike the brief thrill of clearing a double, this kept going and did not stop. The thrill faded as I got used to flying, but the amazing sense of freedom did not. I just enjoyed that feeling for a long time, then I started trying some simple maneuvers, but nothing too extreme, I was not familiar with my capabilities and was not very good at any precise control. I did not want to do something incredibly stupid and hurt myself, like the time I did not go fast enough to clear a double on my bike. That was not fun at all.

    My wings were beginning beginning to feel tired and ache, I decided that I should land. I flew back towards the lawnmower, I was not ready to reveal myself to my family just yet.  As I flew towards the open area by the pond, which the mover was parked on the edge of, I realized that I had no idea how to land. I hoped that my new instincts would take care of it, as I had no idea exactly how to set myself down without injuries. As I came lower to the ground I angled my wings to drastically reduce my speed. It was now too late to pull up, and I just did what came natural, I slowed to a near stall about four feet from the ground and dropped. My legs adsorbed most of the impact, but I ended up on all fours.

    I don't think I was flying very long, 45 minutes, maybe an hour, but it was getting darker, the sun was just below the horizon. I moved back to the lawn mower and sat down, I knew that I should be getting back home but I still had no idea how to tell my family what had just happened. Just then I heard something coming in the driveway,(This part of the yard has its own) and I was not sure what to do, so I just waited.  It was a car, a red Saturn Vue, Dad's red Saturn Vue, to be exact.


Chapter Two:

    I just watched him, I had no idea what to do. He did not seem to notice me, or did not notice that I had changed. I can believe either, the light was fading fast and it was difficult to see detail at this distance, the car was still some distance away. He drove the car closer to the mower and stepped out, he looked and finally saw me. "Jake-- What the hell is THAT?" He shouted in surprise, finally seeing that he was not looking at what he was expecting to be looking at. I don't know why it took him so long to notice.

    "It's me, Jacob." I said, calmly. I noticed that my voice was even lower the normal. Dad looked even more surprised, whether at the fact the this dragon was claiming to be his son, or that it had spoken at all, I don't know.

    "How? It can't be true, it's impossible!" He gasped. "How do I know you didn't eat him or something? I see his clothes there, and there! Oh God help me!" He pointed at my pants and boots. He seemed on the verge of tears.

    "Don't panic, I'm your Son, I can prove it." I said. "Earlier this week you were messing with the settings on our bobcat and reset all the passwords, and you could not find the default. This was a major problem because the machine was in the garage door preventing you from shutting it until the machine was moved." It was rather funny when it happened. "All of your online passwords are based on the model of your dirt bike. There is a package of beef jerky hidden in your desk, in the left top drawer. You commonly claim that I 'Forgot more then you know.' I had a 486SX laptop running Windows 95, you broke the hard drive by repeatedly dropping it in an attempt to get it to start." I took a breath, "Do you believe me now?"

    "Yes, I think I do." He said, though he still seemed unsure. As I was talking I had moved a little closer. Now I took a step and hugged him (though it was slightly awkward now that I was much taller then him,) he seemed scared and surprised at first, but finally hugged back. "Thank God. I thought I'd lost you. I love you so much, you will never know how much you mean to me."

    We drove back to the house, it was not far away. Just out to the road, across the bridge, then into our other driveway. It was a little problematic fitting into the car though, but I managed. I told him what happened on the way back.

    Dad went inside first and prepared Mom and the rest, there were freaked out at first when they met the new me, but settled down eventually. I was extremely tired, I don't know if it was from the flying or from the transformation itself. So I decided to just go to bed, I walked down stair to my room, if the six foot ceiling did not seem low before, it sure did now, I was now more then seven feet tall I guessed.

    I did not fit very well on my bed. So I just took my thick blanket with wolves on it off of my bed and laid it out on the floor next to the it. I curled up like a cat on clean laundry and pulled another blanket over myself. It was more comfortable then I expected it to be, due to my hard scales.

---------

    I woke the next morning wondering how I ended up an the floor and annoyed that an interesting dream about turning into a dragon had been interrupted. I tried to stand up and promptly hit my head hard on the duct that runs the length of the room, making a very loud noise and I may have shouted a few curses. Then I realized that I was still a dragon, and thought maybe I was still dreaming. So I did the standard reality checks of plugging my nose and trying to breath, trying to poke one finger through my palm, pinching myself, looking at my clock and looking back to see if the numbers stayed the same.

    All indicated that I was indeed awake. Or that this dream was uncommonly realistic and vivid. I thought I might as well enjoy it if I was dreaming, and if was awake, there really is not anything I can do about being a dragon. Next thing I felt was hunger. I realized that I never stopped to have supper before going to bed, so I headed up to the kitchen. But not before hitting my head on the ceiling two more times, I finally just crossed the room on all fours and kept going up the stairs. Once I got upstairs I walked bipedal again, oddly it seemed everyone was still sleeping. I looked at the clock and figured out why, it was before six in the morning and the sun was barely risen.

I was feeling even hungrier now, so I looked in the fridge as soon as I got in the kitchen, luckily someone had taken some hamburger out of the freezer a few days before, so I did not have to wait for it to defrost. I started cooking it straight away, I put all of it in the frying pan, it was probably six times more then I could normally eat, but I felt like I could do it now. I added some seasoning, noticing that I could smell every ingredient in it, it was kind of odd. I realized about half way through cooking that I probably could have eaten it raw, and ate some of the partly cooked meat, it was still quite red, and I wanted to see if it tasted any different then it did before.

    I had tried raw meat before, as a human, just to see what it tasted like. Now, the flavor had not changed much, the only difference was that I liked it more then before. I have never liked meat well done, I always made it medium, just so it's a little pink in the middle, I did not really like steaks rare very much. But now it seemed better for some reason. I cooked the hamburger a little longer, until it there was only a little pink left, though normally I would always cook it longer. But I was too hungry to wait. So I just grabbed a fork and ate it as fast as I could get it into my(now much enlarged) mouth.

     I heard dad get out of bed, my parent's bedroom is on the second floor, where my room is in the basement, the kitchen is on the middle floor. Normally I would not be able to hear him get out of bed from the kitchen, but my hearing had improved much. I waited for him to come downstairs.

    "Jake? Is that you? You're sure up early." He said from the stairs, he must have heard the stove, or me walking, the new claws on my feet made not a little noise on the hard ceramic tiles. He continued: "I had the oddest dream about you..." And then he stopped, he had come around the corner and seen me. "It was no dream, this is me." I said. "Do want some coffee? Or oatmeal?" He stared at me. "I thought it was a dream too, when I woke up."

    "I'm just glad you're still you." He finally said. "But I don't know what we are going to do now."

    "Don't worry about it, it's not all bad. Just think, I won't need a driver's license now, and we won't have to pay more for car insurance!" He laughed a little at that. "Don't worry, I'm perfectly fine. I kind of like being like this, though everything is a bit different. And I can see! I don't need my glasses at all anymore. I can see better now then anytime I can remember."

    I made oatmeal for breakfast and talked a little more to him and and mom, when she woke up. They, as always, were worried about my well being. It took some work to convince them to that I was fine like this, or as fine as one could be. I was not sure myself if I was fine, I mean, I felt fine, but I'd only been a dragon less then 24 hours. I had no idea what would happen, I knew I could not simply go out in public like this. But that did not bother me too much. I suppose it should have, but it didn't really. And there would be no problem from me suddenly not showing up for school, as I've been home schooled all my life. Not going to church might be a problem, but I was sure I'd think of something.

    "Well, I'd better get to work, or I'll be late, and I doubt 'My son turned into a dragon' will be a good excuse to missing work." Dad said, and got up from the table and started getting ready.

    "Ok, see you tonight" I said "I think I'm going outside, I need to think." I said, and walked out the back door that's right next to the table. I did not jump into the air right away, I did not want to hurt myself flying too much, not right away. I just walked around my yard, wondering what I was going to do with my life now. I could not see how I could keep this a secret from the world. People would find out somehow. I supposed it would be like pictures of bigfoot or the Lock Ness Monster at first, with sightings of the "Minnesota Dragon" showing up online and other places.

    I also realized I needed to go to the bathroom badly. I had not done that yet as a dragon. I did this outside, and that's probably a good thing... I went back to thinking of what I was going to do. I really had no idea. I supposed I would have to let some trusted friends know about me, people who could keep it a secret. But again, I could see no way to hide it forever. Not if I wanted to live at all normally.

    Of course, I would not live normally. I can't live normally when I am obviously NOT normal, and there's no point in pretending that nothing has changed.

    I kept walking in the trees in my backyard, it's not really a woods, but there is some thick brush in places. I saw rabbit in the grass about a hundred feet away, and for some reason I decided I needed to catch it. I dropped to all fours and started creeping up to it, I was amazed by how quietly I could move, I could barely hear myself. I got very close before it heard me, maybe twenty feet. On pure instinct, I leaped at an amazing speed and caught it midair with my claws as it tried to jump away, killing it. It did not even make a sound. I could not believe how quickly I could move, I don't think I've ever seen anything my size move that fast.

    In almost no time at all, I has eaten the rabbit, and while it tasted pretty good, I must say I prefer seasoned and cooked meat. But it felt good to know I could survive on my own, even without any weapons other then my own body. If I had to, I could survive in the wild. I hoped it never came to that, but it was good to know that I could do it. Maybe it would be fun to try it for a week or so, like a vacation, but not forever.

    I started walking back to the house, I had not gone very far, so it was not a long walk. I stopped by the hose to wash my hands, they had a little blood on them, but not too much.  I walked in the house, by now my brother and sister had woken up, and were more then a little surprised to see a dragon walking the door, though they had all seen my the night before. I supposed that they did not quite believe it yet.

    "Why are you two staring at me like that?" I asked.

    "You're a dragon!" My sister said. "Sorry for saying dragons were stupid." My little brother said, he seemed somewhat alarmed.

    "And?" I asked. "You'll get used to it soon enough." I said, and went down stairs, like most every other day. I remembered to duck this time and did not hit my head. I went to my computer, which was already running. It had been running nonstop for that last week or two, I forget exactly how long.

    The claws on my hands were not very long, they only extended maybe a half inch or so past my fingertips, and they were very sharp at the points. my hands seemed to be designed to be able to do all the same things human hands could, so using the keyboard was not too much harder then before. I was not sure what to do, I really wanted to tell someone what had happened to me, but I did not know who I could trust, and I suspected anyone would think I was crazy, or maybe playing a joke. If only my webcam still worked...

    I got bored rather quickly, as there was nothing much new to read online, and all my games seemed dull. It's most annoying, being surrounded by stuff and having nothing to do. I didn't really want to talk to anyone online, as the only think I wanted to talk about was my new condition, and that was the one thing I needed to keep secret. I finally decided to go flying outside. I found my still camera and hung it on my neck, and grabbed my small point and shoot camera, because it takes better video then the big one. But I found I had no place to put it, I normally put it in my pants pocket. Only, I was not wearing any pants. I had not been wearing any clothes at all since I had changed.

    I did not feel embarrassed because I was clothed in scales as far as I was concerned. It seemed only natural. But I did miss the utility of pockets, so I found a pair of shorts and modified them to accommodate my tail. My tail, I had not paid that much attention to it before now, but it's amazingly flexible, and with some practice I could move it however I wanted. Just for fun I tried to pick up a sandal that was laying on the floor nearby, I succeeded and then flung it across the room.

    I then remembered that dragons were supposed to breath fire. I don't know how I forgot it, but I did. I grabbed a few 144-packs of bottle rockets from my stash and went outside to try and light them. I pulled a single rocket out and held it in front of my face, and wondered how to breath fire. I thought about what I needed to do, and it finally came to me, it was an action kind of similar to coughing, but not as unpleasant. I can't really explain it, you'd have try it to understand I think. In hindsight, it was probably a bad idea to test my fire near so many fireworks the first time...

    The first flame was rather larger then expected. It lit the rocket I has holding, but it also burned the stick in half, leaving me holding a smoldering red stick, and a lit rocket at my feet. I looked down see were is was going to go, but it seems my flame was not completely extinguished. I was startled slightly when the rocket simply exploded instead of flying off, this caused me to breath fire right on the pack of rockets I had carelessly set on the ground.

    They flew everywhere. All 144 of them.

    I waited for the pyrotechnic chaos to stop. It did not take very long, then all was quiet. Well, other then my ear ringing from that one rocket the exploded near it. I looked around for damage, or fire, but luckily nothing was burning, and only damage was more black burn marks on the concrete. No big deal.

    I grabbed another pack of rockets, I finally jumped into the air, opened my wings and took flight. I was amazed at the power in my legs, it's not easily to launch a body into the air like that. Yet my new body did not seem to have any problems. Dragon muscles(and bones) must be incredibly strong.

    Jumping high is nothing compared to flying. In a short time I was tens of feet in the air, flying east toward the area where I was mowing, then I turned back toward the house and started high and higher, I wanted to see how high I could get. Yeah, it sounds like a thing thing but I really wanted to know. What's the worst that could happen to a dragon fly in open air in broad daylight?

    I was a long way up, I don't know how many feet, I didn't happen to have an altimeter handy. But the house and cars looked like small toys, and I could see for miles in every direction. I kept going higher until I had difficulty breathing, I figured I could get higher, but I didn't think passing out thousands of feet from the ground would end well. I descended a little until I was comfortable again, and just enjoyed the view. I looked for my house, and did not spot it at first, but it did not take long, but I had flows farther then I thought I had and started going back.

    It's not very hard work to simply maintain altitude, just keep myself flying, in fact, it was quite easy. But I wanted to stay close to home. After flying for maybe fifteenth minutes I started descending slowly. But then I remembered the camera and bottle rockets I'd had on me the whole time. I took the small camera out of my pocket and turned it on, and I also unwrapped the bottle rockets. You might think this would be hard to do while also flying, but it was not really. It's much like doing things while walking, only in mid air there is nothing to run in too to you don't pay attention. My body seemed to fly itself on instinct if I paid attention to other things. Like I said before, just like how you can be walking and be almost completely unaware of moving your feet.

    I put the little camera in video mode, and held it in one hand, and the rockets in the other. I held the bottle rockets by the sticks, and put them in front of me, I wanted to light them, but I did not want my fire blown back in my face. I turned my head to the side and held the rockets in front of my mouth. I blew flame at them, and they all lit easily like before, and any excess flame just blew over my shoulder. As the bottle rockets lit I changed my flight and started diving, dropping the rockets in front of me and following them down.
    
    The rockets fell maybe five feet away from me, and started shooting off in random directions, it was interesting to see them from this angle, to be flying right with them. Some of them had spun around and flew back up towards me, a few bounced off of my wings. Then I heard the reports of the rockets, not very loud, but still exiting. I was still in a dive, this had taken less then thirty seconds, but I was much lower in the air then I had been, hundreds of feet lower. I started climbing again, it was quite fun to pull out of the shallow dive and start fling up again. The G-forces were intense but not painful, like a rollercoaster. When I got a little bit higher I look at the smoke from the bottle rockets, it was fading by now, but it still looked cool. I always liked the patterns smoke made in air.

    Once I was close to my original height, I looked at the camera I was holding in my right hand. I noticed that I forgot to hit record. Oops. I put it back in my pocket, and grabbed my other camera, the old Sony Cybershot DSC-F717 It was only 5mp vs the little camera's 10mp, but the pictures it took were far crisper. I started taking pictures, and enjoying the view. I was just flying wide circles around my land, so I did not have to worry about getting lost, though I'm sure it would not be hard to find my find my way back from the air if I did.

    After probably another thirty minutes I was starting to get tired, not terribly, but enough to know that I should probably start heading back to earth. I started lazily gliding back down in large circles. I don't know how I did not see or hear it coming, but one of the military aircraft, C-130s I think, that ofter fly over this area was coming, and was already quite close when I finally noticed it. I was higher then it was, but not by much, maybe 500 feet at most. They do not fly very high, so this was not surprising. It was very close now, and moving far faster then I could. I could not dive to the ground without being seen for sure, and I would be seen where I was, if I had not been already. I was directly in its flight path. I thought it would be better if they seen me and it was obvious that I was not some wild animal.

    I kept flying straight ahead, this would take me right over the top of the aircraft. Dragons have very good vision, I could easily tell how fast the plane was going, and how high it was relative to me. I made sure I was high enough that the plane would not interfere with my flight and took the camera out again, and started taking pictures one after another, and waving. The plane came closer then I had intended, and I could see the pilots in the cockpit pointing at me. I hoped I got them in at least one of the pictures.

    Damn, those planes are huge. Far larger then they look from the ground. It was a scary experience having it pass barely a hundred feet below me. It reminded me of standing right on the edge of a road as a large truck goes by. Only the plane was far faster, and far louder, much louder. Once it was past I relaxed a little, only to be taken off guard by the turbulence behind it. I drew my wings closer to my body and started diving again. A few more seconds of rough air and I was flying smoothly again. I started descending quickly before the next plane got here, they always go by two at a time. I'm sure the pilots of that plane saw me as well. I bet all of the pilots had some insane stories to tell when they got back. If anyone would even believe them.

    I was finally coming down near my house, looking for a good place to land. I decided to go with the driveway. I hoped I'd remember how to land again. This landing was much better then the first time, but it still was not perfect. I went back into the house, and went to find something else to do.

    "How are you doing?" Mom asked me.

    "Fine." I said. "Those pilots won't soon forget today, I expect."

    "What?" she said, worried. "What did you do?"

    "Oh, not much." I said, and then told her what happened.

    "I hope they don't do anything." Mom said.

    "I doubt they will. Hell, they might not even report it for fear of being called crazy." I said. "And if they do, who would believe them?"

    "I hope you're right." She said. "Me too." I replied.

    "I still can't believe you're actually a dragon, or even that it's possible."

    "Same here." I said, and went downstairs to my computer to see how my pictures turned out. I went to the computer and put the Memory Stick into the card reader I had salvaged from a broken Emachines computer and modified to run externally. It was an odd size and I could not mount it internally. I just cut the internal USB connector and soldered the standard type on instead. Most of the images were blurred, but a few were good. I could see the pilot in one, he was looking right at me. I still wondered what he thought when he saw a dragon fly by with a camera taking pictures of him and waving. As little as possible, probably.

    When I thought about it, I was surprised that I was not very tired. I had been flying for at least an hour, but I was not exhausted. I figured it was because I was not really doing that much work, only gliding around the same area, not working to get somewhere. I started reading about how gliders work, and about how some larger birds can stay aloft for long periods of time without even flapping. I found that I had been using a few of the same techniques unconsciously, must be some kind of dragon instinct.

    I turned my head an looked at my wings, which were folded very close. I marveled at their design, many feet wide when unfolded, yet they hardly took of any space when not in use. I opened them to look more closely, I had no trouble looking back as my neck was now longer and more flexible. My wings were much like another set of arms, only they did not have hands. They were made much like a bat wing, they even had that little thumb type thing. Only it was more of a spike. I could move the digits of my wings slightly, this changed their shape and helped control my flight.

    I examined myself more, and I finally got a good look at my coloring. I had not paid all that much attention before, what color I am was the least of my concerns. I hadn't even thought of it, I mean sure I noticed, but I did not pay that much attention to detail. The scales covering my back and limbs were deep blue, almost violet, but not quite. In contrast, the ones starting under my chin covering my belly and the bottom side of my tail were a very deep red. Colors from opposite ends of the visible spectrum. The colors were not very bright like a cartoon, but more subdued. More realistic. Only in tropical rain forests do you find extremely brightly colored creatures, and I live nowhere near one. I never liked to stand much out anyway.

    What was more interesting is that those colors were both my favorites. And it was also the same color scheme I used when I once imagined myself as a dragon before I had been changed. A lot of things were similar to that I noticed, even my size. I never thought dragons should be extremely huge, it would be very inconvenient. And then there is the amount of food a house sized creature would require. Maybe that's the real reason why the dinosaurs died out, they just couldn't find enough food.

    I looked at my wings again, the wing membrane was not covered in scale, but was the same beautiful deep blue color. The leading edge of my wings were covered it scales though, I suppose to protect against any impacts. I brought a wing closer and grabbed the membrane with my hand, it was pretty thin, but extremely tough, and very flexible. I didn't think I could rip it if I tried. It could probably be pierced with something sharp I thought, but did not feel like testing it.

    I yawned and stretched, but I did not look where my wings went when I did it. My left wing hit my CD drive tray, which I had left open yet again. Snapped it right off. People always did warn me to keep it close lest I should break it. I doubt they ever imagined it getting broken like that. Anyway, my wingspan seemed a lot wider in the house, and I almost knocked some things off my other desk, which is right next to my computer desk.

    I didn't worry about my DVD burner, as I had wanted to replace it anyway and for immediate use I had a drawer full of various kinds optical drives. Though it not like I even use it on a daily basis, it only got used to burn mom a CD occasionally, and to install my operating system, though last time I used my USB thumb drive. I thought that maybe CDs are slowly going the way of the floppy.

    I heard a sound, and looked at my screens, it was an instant message. From Eric, otherwise known as 'blackminorscales' or just 'Scales.' He is someone I met online, but normally I'm the one bothering him by sending random messages, not the other way around.