by Jensine Odom
A sudden wave of relief consumes me, and Caedryn’s hold gets a little tighter as I sink against him, exhaustion threatening to send me back into darkness. Apparently, my mind can only handle so much right now, but I don’t want to miss what happens next.
Closing my eyes, I take deep breaths, focusing on the sensation slowly moving up my arm, knowing it will eventually engulf my entire being.
“It will be all right, Xerxia,” Caedryn reassures me, kissing my cheek.
“I know,” I manage, smiling drunkenly as I snuggle just a little closer.
My other limbs begin to tingle as well, and I chance a peek, just opening my eyes enough to glance through my lashes. Sure enough, flames slowly climb up both legs and my right arm.
Excitement, not fear, fills me, and I giggle as the flames tickle my neck and belly. Then something triggers in my brain, a fuzzy memory I can’t place. All I know is there’s a reason dragons transform alone, and it’s not a good one.
“Caedryn!” I panic and sit up abruptly, breaking his hold with my unexpected movement, the motion almost sending me back into oblivion. “You have to go! I don’t want to hurt you when I transform!” I struggle to get to my knees and crawl away.
This time Caedryn laughs, a short, sweet chuckle, and pulls me back into his embrace. “It’s all right,” he soothes. “You can’t hurt me.” He then begins to hum, the deep bass of his voice rumbling down my spine and soothing me before I even realize he’s humming my lullaby.
“Love, blow the moon out please,” I finish with him, and relax into his arms.
The energy has reached my chest, and now spirals in towards my heart center, pooling as it picks up the pace, pulsing faster like a bassline before the drop. All at once, the beat stops.
My body goes limp of its own volition, and just when I think I might have actually died, the energy welled up in my chest explodes, sending a million stars racing across the dark skies of my mind, and something inside me unlocks.
The flames engulf me once more, caressing my skin, and I surrender. The world falls away. There’s nothing of what was, or what may be, only the now, and right now, I’m becoming a dragon.
Wave after wave of energy flows from my heart, racing through my body until it’s entirely numb. Then feeling slowly creeps back to me, tingling like a waking limb. Only my limbs are different now.
I stretch my legs, wiggling my toes, and feel my claws scrape against the stone floor. The same follows with my arms, now my forelegs, and hands, one long finger tapping out a rhythm. There’s a new power in my shoulders, running along my entire back, and an elongation at the base of my spine. Wings, and a tail.
I try to move them, but my mind is quickly tiring, and all I manage is to flick the end of my tail like a perturbed cat.
“Rest,” Caedryn coaxes, curling up around me.
Not like I have much choice. With almost dying, then transforming, my mind is tapped out, and slips easily into unconsciousness.
Learn to Fly
MY mind floats to the top of the dark abyss. Light presses against my eyelids, and cool earth embraces me. My limbs are lead as I stretch, and air rushes into my lungs, then back out with force.
I’m alone. Everything is quiet. For some reason this bothers me. Memories tug at the edge of my mind, but I can’t make them materialize. All I remember is pain. Lots of pain. Then nothing.
I open my eyes, hoping to jog my memory, but immediately shut them. It’s so bright! Maybe mid-morning? Trying again, I slowly open my eyes, letting them adjust before completely exposing them to the harshness of day.
I’m in a cave. Caedryn was with me. His low humming still echoes in my mind. My lullaby. But why was he singing it to me?
The sun reaches my resting place, and like switching on a light, my brain wakes up, and memories rush in.
Mary, but not Mary. She stabbed me! I died. No, I didn’t die. My body is whole, but my tank top tells me all I need to know, with the wide hole in the side and dried blood caking the fabric.
I can’t feel Caedryn, though; the pull in my chest leads me nowhere. Maybe I did die! Panic floods me and I leap to my feet with a powerful agility I didn’t have before.
Strength surges through my body, and more flashes of memory hit me. Fire. Rainbow fire? Fire isn’t rainbow colored… It is when it’s magical, though. I’m a dragon! My skin tingles with the need to shift, and I walk outside, shielding my sensitive eyes against the sun until the light doesn’t hurt them.
Great, I’m on a cliff! A broad valley lies below, a lazy river making its way through the center, and a large meadow sprawls just beyond the west end. I can also feel Caedryn now, a strong pull towards that clearing. There’s another pull, too. A dull one, leading back south. To Baldure, and home.
Before I can get back to him, and the rest of my people, I have to learn how to be a dragon, and that starts with me getting off this rock. Thinking back to my transformation last night, I close my eyes and concentrate.
A moment later I feel the magic flow over my body, tingling as skin turns to scales and limbs elongate. The wind blows against my wings, inviting me to ride it.
I open my eyes and the world hits me anew. I can hear things I couldn’t hear before; birds chattering in the tall grasses far below, and the call of the eagle soaring out over the meadow. The jagged peaks in the distance stand out in sharp relief, as if they were right in front of me, not miles away. Coniferous trees assault my nose, so pungent I can almost taste their piney resin.
Within all of this, I can feel the slow heartbeat of the Earth, feeding life into everything; from the trees, with their roots growing deep in the dirt, to the grasses swaying in the breeze, and the water carving its way through the landscape.
Somewhere out amongst all this is Caedryn, waiting for me to find him. I know this game. A smile tugs at the corners of my dragon’s mouth. Ready or not, here I come.
Moving to the edge of my rocky outcrop, I get a feel for my new wings, moving them around experimentally to find their limits. They’re much more flexible than I thought.
A brisk wind kicks up down in the valley, bending the spindly tree tops and spiraling through the grasses as it heads right for the cliff I’m on. It whistles up the jutting rocks, warm and earthy as it hits me. It’s now or never!
Without a second thought, I dive off the outcrop, opening my wings a moment later. The wind fills them like sails on a ship, carrying me higher, and I let out an ecstatic roar, the sound strange to hear from my own mouth. A few more steady beats and I’m well above the tree tops, where I can play around without the fear of an embarrassing crash.
Pivoting one wing down and the other up, I bank hard right, then switch, going back left. I level out, then tuck my wings and dive, the wind howling loud in my ears. Using the momentum, I unfurl my wings and flap them once to ride the air current into a backwards loop.
While I was playing, I didn’t pay attention to my loss in altitude, and a rather tall pine waits for me at the bottom of my loop. I quickly pivot my wings for a bank, but tuck my them in at the last moment, throwing my body into a barrel roll and just missing colliding with the tree. That was close!
I climb back to my starting elevation and run through the maneuvers a few more times, getting faster with each pass. Confident in my abilities now, I test them out, staying low and dodging trees as I follow the river, heading for the meadow I know Caedryn’s hiding in somewhere.
A small lake pools just beyond the valley, it’s waters smooth, and curiosity gets the better of me. Caedryn can wait a little longer. I want to see what I look like.
Changing my course slightly, I fly out over the lake, watching rainbows scatter across the water’s surface as the sun refracts off my crystalline scales. Just as I pass a stand of trees close to the lakes edge, anticipation flares in my heart, and an image of a really shiny dragon flying over the water flashes across my mind. That must be me, and that means I’ve found Caedryn.
Time to change this game. I’ll
see how long he can resist coming to me, and I’m not going to make it easy.
Hoping to mislead him, I fly just beyond his hiding spot and land. I was going for graceful, extending my legs to just plop into the lake’s edge, but missed that target by a long shot, crashing face first into the water instead. Landing is harder than it looks.
There’s a zap of humor from Caedryn and another image of me face planting in the lake, then nothing as he schools his emotions. It worked, then; he doesn’t know that I know where he is. I shake the water off, and my rough landing, then wait for the lake’s surface to settle again before peering at my somewhat distorted reflection.
I know I’m not as tall and elegantly long as Caedryn, but I’m not as chunky as Tristin, either, sitting somewhere pleasantly in the middle with a thick body and powerful legs. I’m not really one color, but more like the chrome of a new mirror, if that mirror was also stained with the colors of the rainbow, and every color in between, maybe even some not visible to the human eye. That magnificent purple is definitely not one I’ve seen before.
Stretching my not so long neck as far as I can, I get a better look at my face. Golden eyes glowing with the fire inside peer back at me, pupils constricted to six-pointed stars in the bright light of day. A ridge of armor-plate scales runs along my face, flaring tall at the back of my head before tapering off halfway down my neck.
Two rows of gold tipped horns grace my head, the tallest spiraling gracefully. The same gold color gilds each scale, as well as the sharp claws at the end of my feet, making me look more like one of those glass figurines you would buy in a truck stop gift shop. Only I’m nowhere near as breakable as those fragile sculptures. I’m more like a diamond.
The pull in my heart gets stronger as Caedryn moves closer, accompanied by a bit of pride as he watches me from the edge of the trees. I fight the urge to look at him, settling on twitching one long ear back to listen. I’m so close to winning! Time to step up my game.
With one last look at my magnificent dragon, I wade out of the water, shifting back to my human at the shore and taking in the state of my clothes. Dried blood covers my entire right side, stiff and rough against my more sensitive skin, and a massive hole sits where Mary stabbed me, the same iridescent chrome of my dragon scales shining out from it.
I lift my destroyed tank top to take in the expanse of my mark. Swirls of scales cover the entirety of where my wound was, spanning across my right side and tapering off beneath my bloodstained leggings. Pushing down the waistband, I find the mark fades away just below my hip.
I lift my tank top higher, nearly taking it off, and find the other end of my mark stretching across my chest, covering my right breast. Curiosity and excitement suddenly flood me, followed by the snap of a twig in the trees very near me, making my head automatically snap in the direction of the sound.
Caedryn darts behind a tree, but not before I catch a glimpse of him. I’m going to win this game faster than I thought. With a smile I can’t stop, I finish taking my tank top off, followed by my boots and leggings.
Leaving my boots behind, I wade a little ways back into the lake, surprised and happy to find the cold water doesn’t affect me like it used to. Dipping my clothes into the water, I begin to clean them as best I can, little fish gathering to nip at the chunks of dried blood.
Once the gore is washed out, I walk back to the grasses just beyond the rocky shore and wring as much water out of my clothes as possible, then pull them back on. The cool, damp fabrics are pleasant against my skin as they cling to me for an instant before the heat from my body dries them. I could get used to that.
Now, for what I want my new outfit to look like. Drawing from my memories of favorite clothes past, I make my plan. Soft, almost silk like pants, just barely looser than my leggings, and a long tunic style shirt, laced a good way down the chest and sporting a large hood.
Alright, it’s showtime! I close my eyes, holding a mental picture of the end result, and imagine the fabrics on my body morphing into what I want. A slight tingle races across my skin, and my will is put into action.
The breeze stops brushing against my side as the hole in my shirt is mended, and the fabric tightens to fit my curves. The collar loosens, split to just between my breasts, and a hood lays gently against my back. The tingling sensation recedes, and I open my eyes to inspect my own work.
I thought the colors would stay the same, but in my mind I had made them what I remembered, changing the colors in the real world. Now my pants are a deep brown and my tunic a sky blue, both embellished with patches of rainbow sheen scales that match my mark.
Something plops heavily in the grass behind me, startling me out of my inspection, and I turn quickly to face whatever it is, happy to find Caedryn standing there, my boots discarded at his feet. I smile, the gesture echoed on Caedryn’s face. Before I can do anything, I’m swept up into his arms, his mouth devouring mine.
All his relief, happiness, and desire crash into me, consuming me. It’s like he has found me for the first time all over again, only this time he’s not holding back.
Letting me slide back to the ground, he plants feverish kisses across my cheek and down my neck, making his way to my chest as he unlaces my shirt. In one quick motion, he pulls it over my head, tossing it aside, his own shirt joining mine a second later.
His frantic need spurring on mine, I pull him close again, kissing him deeply as my hands play down the planes of his abs to find the lacing of his pants. The dark fabric pools at his feet and he groans against my lips as I caress him, his flesh turning nearly to rock in my hand.
Barely holding it together, he shoves my pants down my thick legs, laying me back as he pulls them off. Quickly shucking off his boots and pants, he settles between my thighs. With a desperate thrust, Caedryn fills me.
Arching against him, I moan and tighten around him. He growls deep in his throat, lowering against me to bring more of our bodies together, and I entwine our minds, completing our union, heightening every sensation we share.
Pleasure builds in my core as he rocks, driving deeper, and flames engulf us, the dewy grasses hissing. For a fleeting moment I hope we don’t set the forest on fire, then all thoughts cease as the wave inside me crests and Caedryn crashes into me completely.
Spent and panting, he lays against me, his hair falling in a dark curtain around us as he presses his forehead to mine, and we just exist for a moment. Kissing me softly, he rolls off to my left, looking over my naked body.
Caedryn traces the mark from my hip, following the swirling pattern across my belly, and lays his hand where Mary’s blade had penetrated. “I thought you died,” he says quietly, almost afraid this might just be a dream.
“For a moment there, I did,” I reply, laying my hand on his. “But I came back.” I look up into his loving silver gaze, wiping away the tears that trail down his face. “I’ll always come back.”
Caedryn smiles warmly and turns his attention back to my mark, continuing up my body slowly. I close my eyes, enjoying the tingle of energy that ripples across my skin with every caress.
When Caedryn finally comes to the end, he lays his hand flat against my chest, just over my heart. Uncertainty hovers at the edge of his thoughts as he pulls his mind away slightly.
“What is it?” I ask, opening my eyes to look at him again, but he won’t meet my gaze, instead looking at the spot where his hand rests.
“Something has changed between you and Baldure,” he says quietly, almost sadly.
Not this again. I resist the urge to roll my eyes, just laying my hand over his once more. “Nothing has changed between me and Baldure,” I assure him.
“The look on his face when you fell, and when I left with you, says otherwise.” He finally meets my eyes, pressing his hand into my chest slightly. “I can feel him in here.”
“Oh, that,” I say, feeling a little guilty, but only for not telling him what happened between Baldure and me at the settlement.
Caedryn takes
that guilt the wrong way, though, and abruptly removes his hand from my chest, sitting up to stare out over the lake. His thoughts race across his mind, still linked with mine.
I sit up beside him, gently taking his hand in mine. Caedryn, it’s not what you’re thinking.
“Release my mind,” he says, his pain flaring in my chest as he tries to pull away from me.
I let his mind go, hoping it will calm him some, but refuse to give him his hand back. “Caedryn, look at me,” I softly order. He stops struggling, then finally decides to meet my gaze, tears hanging at the edge of his eyes. “Baldure and I share a soulbond, like the one you and I have. It happened when we were at the settlement. He willingly shared his life force with me when I couldn’t handle crossing so many souls. I was going to tell you when we returned to camp, but you know how that ended.” I smile, kissing his palm, and press my face into his hand.
The tears he was holding back spill from his eyes, and the tension between us breaks. His hand moves down my back, his arm curls around my waist, and he hoists me to straddle his lap. With a surge of relief, he kisses me softly, wrapping both arms around me, pressing my body flush with his.
Show me how it feels, Caedryn’s voice pleads in my mind, and without him explaining, I know what it is he’s wanting.
Are you sure? I don’t know what could happen. My power has grown since becoming a full-fledged dragon.
Nothing bad can come of this, he assures me. I trust you.
I kiss him soundly, letting my mind wander into his. Within moments I’m standing before the fire of his soul, the silver-black flames growing warmer as I approach, the compass in my heart urging me forward. Caedryn stands there, smiling, and takes my hand.
Ready? I ask, and he nods, kissing my knuckles before letting me go.
Without hesitation, I step into the flames. They coalesce around me, welcoming me back, and our minds easily become one. My breath catches as every one of his sensations becomes my own. I feel my lips on his, and his on mine.