I've always liked stories about dragons. Mostly ones about dragons who were companions to a human and always protected that human. I wanted something like that, a friend I could rely on. Someone to protect me, someone always watching over me.

    I had a dream that it was true, that I had a dragon companion. He would protect me, and I him. We worked together. The odd part was that after I woke up I still felt like the dragon was around, just out of my sight. The feeling didn't go away either, and when I was outside I kept thinking I saw him out of the corner of my eye, but I when I looked I seen nothing.

    When I would go for walks I would hear things, like there was something walking nearby, but I could never see it. Like a cricket in a room, as soon as soon I tried to find it, it was gone. I started to ignore these things, because I could never prove that anything was there.

    But one night I decided to take a walk in the woods near my house at night. They were not very large, but it was very dark. I climbed the tree our deer hunting stand was in, and I sat in in listening to the night. I mostly only hear the singing of crickets and frogs, and some mosquitoes. It was a very nice night, the air was almost completely still.

    From the deer stand I could see the horizon, as it was taller the most of the trees. I heard some thunder low in the distance, and could see some flashes in the clouds. I always liked watching thunder storms, so I stayed and watched as the storm got closer. I was tired, so I didn't notice the wind come up. One moment it was still, the next the wind was blowing full force, seconds later is was pouring.

    I'd seen storms come from almost nowhere like this before, so I wasn't too worried, and decided to stay put until the rain died down. But it didn't die down. It got worse. By the time I realized I was in great danger in the stand, which was basically a tree house, it was everything I could to stay standing in the swaying tree. I started to climb down what the wind gusted even harder, blowing huge raindrops in my face.

    Then I heard a great cracking sound. The tree was falling, and I was still in it. Everything was confused, I could not tell which way was up. I felt myself hit the ground. An instant later all I felt was pain as something landed on top of me. I tried to scream, but I could barely breath. I tried to move, but it that brought was more extreme pain. I was pinned under part of the tree and could not move at all. I was sure my leg was broken as well from the fall. Not that it mattered, I could not get a breath and was starting to feel dizzy. I blacked out.

    The next thing I knew, something was near me and moving the tree. It was very dark and I could not make out its shape clearly, but it seemed very familiar somehow. I thought I must be dreaming, because I should have been dead... I tried to move, but my legs wouldn't respond, and everything still hurt. I wondered if my spine was broken.

    The large creature who was moving the tree now turned to me, I could barely see it. It brought it's head near mine and sniffed. Then I recognized it. It was the dragon from my dream! And it had just saved my life.

    "I have a gift for you, it will change you forever, but it will also save your life."

    The huge creature breathed on me. The warm air felt great and seemed to make my pain go away. It was very calming, so much so that I started to get tired and fell asleep right there.

    I woke thinking it was all a dream and was surprised to find that I was not in my room. I tried to move again and found that I could move just fine. I finally looked around myself only to see the dragon only a few feet from me.

    "You are you feeling? I almost didn't make it in time." The dragon said. His voice was low and deep. It also seemed familiar to me, like an old friend.

    "Who are you?" I asked. "And what did you do to me? I feel great, like nothing happened last night. I was sure that tree landed right on me."

    "Look at yourself." He said.

    I looked at my are and saw scales. I looked at my feet and saw scales. I looked behind myself and saw wings. I gasped.. "No way." I was more or less the same shape as before, but a dragon.

    "How?" I asked. "And why?"

    "You would have died otherwise. It was the only way." The 30 foot long dragon replied. Now it was daylight I could see him better. most of him was dark, almost blue, almost black, with some red highlights.

    "Thank you." I said, and realized that I was still very tired. I sat next to the dragon and leaned against him. I was also very hungry.

    "You're probably both tired and hungry, We'd better go to your house and get some food."

    "Ok..." I said. "But I have no idea how they will react to two dragons dropping in on them."

    "Neither do I." He said. "But you'll have to find out sooner or later, and besides, I bet they're wondering where you are."

    "How do we get there? I don't think I can fly." I said.

    "Hmm... You're right, and you can't really walk there with the creek in the way, or walk on the highway like you did on the way here." The dragon said.

    "Well, maybe you could give me a ride there, it's not very far." I said.

    "I suppose." He said.

    I climbed on to his shoulders, and he said "Ok, hang on tight!"  He leaped into the air right from where we were standing in the small trees and into the air. We didn't have far to go, maybe a quarter mile. I'd always thought it would be nice to ride a dragon, but I never thought i'd ever do it. Much less as a form of dragon myself.

    About one minute later we landed right in front of our front door. I climbed off of my new friend's back and went to the door.

    "Where were you?" Mom asked, obviously angry. She didn't seem to notice my change yet, probably because I still had most of my clothes on, or what was left of them. They were rather  beat up after everything. "Oh my God! What happened to you?" She asked when she finally got a good look at me.

    "Well... At about midnight last night I decided to take a walk out in the back 40" I said. "But I went up in the deer stand just before that storm blew up out of nowhere, and the wind blew the whole tree down."

    "I must have broken several bones in the fall, but then the whole tree fell on me, I thought I was done for. I couldn't breath or even feel my legs." I said. "But A new friend of mine dropped in moved the tree and saved my life by making me like this."

    "What?" She asked. "Who could possibly move that tree, or make you like that? That's... That's not possible."

    "It must be, because I'm not dead and I'm some form of dragon." I said. "He's right outside, come meet him."

    I walked outside the door and mom followed me, but the 30foot dragon was not where I left him, not even foot prints in the sand.

    "Samuel?" I asked. "Where are you, my mother wants to meet you."

    He was there almost instantly, he come around the corner on the house, he was just out of sight. Mom moved back a little upon seeing him, and I had a hold on her arm.

    "How did you know my name?" Samuel asked. "I don't remember ever telling it to you."

    "Not sure, I think I remember it from my dreams." I said.

    "Ahh, that explains it." Samuel said, without going into any detail.

    "What are you?" Mom asked, amazed at the rather large dragon who was looking at her and talking to her son like they'd known each other for years. "And how do you know my son, and why did you do this to him?"

    "I'm a dragon, if you haven't guessed already. As for how I know your son, that's harder to explain. I'm a kind of guardian to him, my job is to watch over him, I've always been nearby since he was very young.  I changed him because he'd have died otherwise, that tree broke his back. I used part of myself to rebuild his body, that is why he is now like both dragon and human. That is also why we have identical colors."

    "This all seems impossible." Mom said. "But it must be true. Thank you."

    "You are welcome. I feared that you might have hated me for changing him like that." Samuel said.

    "No. Not if the alternative is his death." She said.

    "I'm hungry, can we go eat now?" I said. "You can talk all day."

    My mom and I went to the kitchen to find something to eat, while Samuel went to find his own meal. After eating rather more food then was normal, I went into the bath room and looked in the mirror. My markings were indeed almost identical to Samuel's. I looked at myself. I was basically human shaped with dragon features, my face had changed a lot, but it was still somewhat similar to what it was.


    That night, while I was trying get to sleep, or possibly in a dream, something happened. I was suddenly in another place, it was basically a blank place, there was literally nothing there. Just gray. Suddenly, all light was gone and all was black. "You're mine." A low creepy voice said.

    I reached for my flashlight, and suddenly I had it in my hand. I didn't know where I'd got it from, neither did I care. I shined it in the direction the the voice and come from. Brilliant white light from the CREE R2 emitter in the torch flooded the area, making the source of the voice yell in pain. It was another dragon, almost identical to myself save for its wicked looking face, and it was completely black, with red eyes that reflected the light brightly. My eyes were blue.

    It recovered from the light quickly and said "Curse you!" and ran for me. I let go of the momentary switch on my light and jumped to the side and all was dark again. The evil creature's eyes had adjusted to the light, and now he could not see in the dark and so he missed my and could be heard cursing. Of course I could not see anything either.

    I wished it was just a little brighter so I could see and suddenly it was. This reminded me of something. Of course now the evil dragon could see me. I didn't really know how to fight and I tried to doge again, shining my light in its face. I don't know if my light helped at all but it missed me. Barely, and turned and ran at me again. I could not doge it that time, and it jumped right at me. I breathed fire at it in instinct. Only some of it even touched it, and it was enough to make the other miss me. But it ran at me again and knocked me right to the ground.

    I knew that I could not win by trying to fight it like this. Then I remembered how I had changed this environment. I suspected this was my dream world, where anything you can think of is likely possible. I thought about the area as a field of grass and it turned into just that. Bright sunlight shone in the sky as grass spread away from me at high speed. Now I could easily see my enemy. He seemed surprised that I could do this.

    "You're not the only one with control here!" it said, and all the grass around it burst into flame, turning the green ground into a barren wasteland and filling the clear sky with dense gray clouds of smoke.

    I tried to counter with rain, but no matter what I did he countered it. The fight when on like this for some time. "Getting tired?" it asked. "I'll take you down, it's only a matter of time, and then your body will be mine."

    "No. I will never let that happen." I said. "Samuel!"

    "No! He can't help you here!" The dark dragon screamed at me.

    "Yes, he can. I've met him here before. This is my dream world, this where I first met him." I said.

    Samuel came flying out of nowhere and landed next to me, growling at the dark dragon.

    "Let's do this." he said. "Took you long enough to call me, I could not find you."

    Samuel charged the dark dragon while I willed plants to grow up around it hinder its movements. Samuel Jumped on it and did major damage with his claws. By this time I was gaining near complete control of the dream. As I stepped up to the dark dragon Samuel stepped aside. The dark dragon, wherever it came from, was now much weakened. It tried to attack me, but I just breathed fire at it until there was nothing left. As I walked away from the spot toward Samuel, I seen green plants start to grow where the dark dragon had been.

    "Thanks again." I said.

    "You're welcome." Samuel said.

    "What was that dragon from?" I asked.

    "No one is really sure, this sometimes happens to dragons, it seems to be an evil part of them and it tries to take over." Samuel said. "I don't know where they come from. How did you realize you were dreaming?"

    "I noticed the light levels responding to my will." I said. "Took me quite a while to completely realize it though. That only happened after you got here. Seemed that evil thing had most of the control that's normally mine." I said. I'd had lucid dreams before, dreams where you know that you're dreaming. In these kind of dreams you can normally control anything you can imagine. I'd never had Samuel on one before though.

    "Well, thanks for the help, I don't think I could have done it without you." I said.  "I wonder, since we're both dreaming, and we both know it, can you also control the dream? Try and make that bolder over there float in that pond." I said while bringing the pond and bolder into existence.

    "That's amazing." Samuel said. "I've met you in dreams before, but I never knew I was dreaming at the time. Let me try that."

    I watched him push the heavy bolder into the pond, and behold, it floated. "HAha! it does work! We're having a shared lucid dream!" I said "I've met you in my dreams too, that's how I knew your name and recognized you when you found me the other night."

    "So, now that we have godlike powers over our own little world until we wake up, what should we do?" Samuel asked.

    "I have no idea." I said. "I never was good at making up good stories. We could just forget we were dreaming and let our subconscious decide." It's very easy to forget you're dreaming while you're dreaming, or at least lose control.

    "Sounds good." Samuel said. "How do we do that?"

    "Just don't do anything." I said. "Or I could try and change the scene. That sometimes does it, though mostly when I don't want it too..."

    I concentrated and spun around with my eyes closed thinking of a mountain scene. When I opened my eyes me and Samuel were sitting at the base of a mountain range. As I was looking at their beauty I was distracted and completely forget that I was dreaming.

    The dream progressed on its own and me and Samuel went on yet another epic dream adventure, like uncountable times before.

    I woke up thinking that it all was a dream, but then I noticed that my arm was still scaled. I went outside to find Samuel waiting outside the door. We both had the same question: "Did you have a dream about me last night?" and the same answer: "Yes."

    We talked about the details and about that dark dragon thing, Samuel told me that similar things sometimes do happen to dragons. And that sometimes, the dark part wins.

    I spent the rest of the day learning how to fly from Samuel. Though it took several days before I was really good at it.