by Karine Green
Thankfully, Nancy, his new foster mother realized right away they were his real eyes. She finally convinced the counselor that his eyes were real, and not contacts. Overall Nancy wasn't that bad, more like a real mother than any of the other foster parents he had. That meant she commenced “Operation Up Wayne's Butt” as soon as he set his suitcase down in her hallway two years ago. He had a love-hate relationship with her. He wanted mothering, but missed being on his own, and being forgotten.
He smiled and pushed thoughts of Nancy out of his head. He was on top of the world. He paused and peeked down the staircase to see if Nancy was in the living room. He had to be quiet. He needed to go out tonight. He finally had a date with a girl he had been after since third grade. Not that he had trouble getting dates. This girl had always been with the same tough kid, who was now a running back on the football team. They had broken up a week ago. He was immediately there for her to cry on his shoulder, and anything else of his she wanted to cry on, which had so far worked out for his pleasure.
He didn't see Nancy, so he crept down the stairs, as stealthy as he could.
"Where are you going?" Nancy asked, narrowing her green eyes at him as she came out of the kitchen. She folded her arms, leaning hard on her left hip while tapping her right toes.
He paused and made a face. Darn- the door is less than three feet away. He could get nothing past her, but that would not stop him from trying; especially with such a pretty girl, who was so willing to wrap her legs around his waist, waiting for him.
"Out," he said smiling, walking out the front door, and skipping down the porch steps. "There is no way I am going to tell you where I am headed," he whispered to himself.
Before she had the chance to follow him out, the ex-running back boyfriend ran up to Arlen and hit him in the ribcage, several times. Caught off guard, he fell down, only to be beaten about the head and shoulders before falling unconscious.
As he regained consciousness he wasn't sure how long he was out. He opened an eye, expecting to be in the hospital. Nancy would throw a fit over this. She was an über-religious Neo-Pagan, and had been trying to tough-love him with his loose attitude toward women, but she was nowhere around.
Maybe she forgot me like the last pair of lollipops I had for foster parents. They kept leaving me places, like the mall or grocery store. Everyone seems to forget or lose things that relate to me. That is why it is so easy to be loose with girls. They seem to forget me too. At first he had been devastated because none of them really seemed to want him, but eventually, he found a use for them, he smiled at the memories.
"Well, what do we have here?" a sultry woman's voice asked. "A lost little pup."
He craned his neck to look at her. "You look like a middle-aged cougar in a brown bathrobe. Aside from your age, you’re pretty hot." He closed his eyes again.
"You won't think so for long." She walked to the other side of the room, her elf-like boots clicking on the stone floor. "Guards," she bellowed. He jumped as her voice echoed through the room.
"What happened?" He struggled to open both eyes. It was dark and the room had a slight echo to it. It was damp here, and hot.
"You came home. And if you are here, I am guessing you came home at the wrong place and at the wrong time. I am Belinda, the Brown Witch. I would guess you are Arlen, the son of the Water Dragon Minister. Welcome to the Dragon King's Castle at North Dragons Ridge."
He opened his eyes and picked up his head to look more directly at her. "What?" There was something familiar about her. “I know you? But, I honestly don’t remember knowing anyone who uses the haystack hairstyle. Who did you say you were?”
"Don't just stand there, secure him, before he eats us!" She belted out orders to the guards like they were disobedient dogs. "Do not harm him, or you'll answer to King Lahay. It is quite possible that he is the last Elemental Dragon!"
"Eats us -- what...?" He looked around, jumping to his feet. Men dressed as knights were scrambling around him. He tried to scream, but water in the form of ice shards flew everywhere, impaling some men. He ignored the large medieval throne room that surrounded him. He tried to run, but fell over something...a tail? His eyes bulged. "What the Hell is that! What is happening," he screeched, again, spitting shards of razor sharp ice. "Nancy, help."
"Belt his snout; Earth contains Water," Belinda ordered, flicking a wooden stick at him. A belt flew out of the end.
"Snout? Is that a magic wand," Arlen asked, spinning around to miss the flying belt, and in the process knocking down several men with his tail. "Oww that hurt." He looked back at his tail with wide eyes. "What is happening," he yelled, again. "I hurt my-- tail? Jesus! How did I get a tail?"
Two armored knights stepped forward with the belt. He put up a hand in a defensive posture hardly focusing on the fact it was a paw with pearl-colored obsidian claws. He moved to push the man closest to him out of the way, and the man was ripped open. Blood spattered everywhere. The man dropped his half of the belt, and fell to the ground, bleeding profusely as he tried to cover the wound with his hands.
“Sorry-I-I-I didn’t mean to do that.”
Another man ran to take his place. He felt someone on his back, and without thinking, he turned to bite him to make him get off, but the man's entire arm came off in his mouth. That was when he finally accepted that he wasn't himself. He spit the arm out, and tried to run away, but as he turned, the men belted his mouth shut, pulling the belt tightly around his snout, like he had seen people do to alligators on TV.
I have a snout! He snorted, someone threw water everywhere.
Men screamed, but the woman barked out orders. “Concentrate, it’s just a minor flash flood. He can’t do worse with his snout belted.”
Did I cause that?
That pause had been all the time the men needed to tie his legs together. He was now helpless. He looked around. He looked at his reflection in the great mirror on the opposite wall. He was a dark blue dragon, with darker blue and black stripes.
He had wings. The only thing he recognized as himself was his dark sapphire eyes staring back in the reflection. If his mouth – no, if his snout hadn’t been taped shut he would have screamed. Nancy was right. He had horns; pearl colored horns that grew straight out of his head and waved back.
"Not too close, watch the horns." He heard someone from behind him yell. "He can still fight back. He's an Elemental Dragon, not one of those Stoney's we have been playing with."
"Go get some help, drag him to the dungeon for breeding," Belinda barked at the guards.
Breeding! He looked at Belinda with bulging eyes. Having his way with the girls was one thing, this was another; for the first time, ever, he wanted nothing to do with girls.
"Oh yes, you are a handsome one. Your striping is definitely showmanship quality, but then your mother was a beauty too. She won several pageants," she said, running her hand down his back, tracing a stripe as she walked along. "It really is a shame there aren't any other Water Dragons left to breed you with. We only have Stone Dragons. Perhaps we'll get lucky and the young will inherit Elemental traits? The hurricanes are out of control. We need, at minimum, three Water Dragons or three Air Dragons to safely disperse them. Or two or three in combination." She flipped her fingers back and forth as she explained. "Regardless, we need the coastal villages to prosper, not to be destroyed every other year. Isn't that right, Nobeget?"
She tapped the bleeding knight’s stomach as he grunted in agreement with her. His wound healed.
Arlen tried to inch away from her, but the men were returning with a cart. She no longer looked good to Arlen, she looked crazed, with wiry hair, and long gnarly fingers with black fingernails, that were too long. She walked over to the front of the throne room and sat on a chair that was next to a throne made of dragon bones. Two dragon skulls were placed on it as arm rests. Something in her eyes suggested she was sorry, but had no choice, but whatever that something was, it wasn't enough to make her help him.
"I'll infor
m the King of what just happened," she said, crossing her legs as she leaned back in the chair. “You,” she pointed to a knight, “Go get a tree branch for Sanquin’s arm- you know the type?”
“Yes, Your Magical Highness.” The knight jogged out.
The Red Dragon
Mack jumped as the voice giggled. "My what? Your stomach was rumbling. If you are hungry, get off the trail and we'll wait for a rabbit to come by. I am relieved to see another of our kind. I am Méi. Who are you?" A red dragon with gold and brown striping slowly emerged from behind a bush. The stripes had a design to them that reminded Mack of old tribal cave drawings that represented fire. She crawled out on all fours, then stood up on her rear legs to look at him with gold eyes that were emerald green flecked. She smiled and cocked her head to the right slightly, showing off the black horns that waved slightly out of the back of her head, pointed ears perked up...pointed directly at him; listening intently.
A cold, electrical fear ran down the base of his neck, his spine, and into his heels as he realized he had this creature's undivided attention, and he was too close to her. In terms of personal space, he was in the kill zone—to be killed zone. Mack screamed and ran back up the trail as fast as he could, ignoring the stronger breeze that just seemed to blow in out of nowhere.
"Dragon!” This couldn’t be. Dragons weren’t real. It was the Medieval monks who had used dragons to rally Holy Warriors, not record an accurate history.
"Wait, why are you running like that? Who are you?" The dragon charged after him, close on his heels.
"Dragon!" he screamed again, scrambling to get away. This was impossible. "Dragons aren't real. They can’t be real. I am being hysterical."
He tried to calm himself, but the idea that a dragon was chasing him was terrifying. Maybe he couldn't see it? Maybe he had injured himself and was hallucinating? That would explain why the trail had suddenly disappeared like that; he was dying.
He’d waited too long to start down the road to a lower elevation. "Finally, life has forgotten me."
"Yes, hysterical - works for me," she practically snorted sparks. "If you'll just calm down. You’ll see you are fine. You are the only other dragon I have seen since the Great Losing. I had hoped there were more, but I was afraid to venture back out of the forest to see if there were any of us left. I have not traveled further than the valley just beyond the edge of the mountain range. I have a cave out there for the summertime.”
She stared at him in silence for a moment, as if waiting for a response.
He stared over his shoulder as he ran.
“But, the hunting is better here in the winter because the leaves do not drop from the trees in the fall, so the larger game are attracted to the foliage." She pointed into the distance with a long black claw.
She had three toes -- fingers? Mack wasn't sure what they were, on her paw with a thumb off the back, kind of like a bird of prey would have.
"Will you stop running? You might be the fastest thing that flies, but I can outrun you on the ground. You're only ahead of me because the bushes are in the way. You are making quite a mess of my woods."
Mack knew he should question what she’d said, but he was concentrating too hard on getting away, and then it dawned on him: She was right -- how was he out running a four-legged creature that was slightly larger than a full-grown Clydesdale horse? She should have been on him like he was dinner. But, she had invited him to have food with her, not be the food.
He stopped and turned to face her. “Who are you," he asked, backing away from her as she caught up to him.
"I told you, I am Méi. Now who are you? You look like the Air Dragon Makani, but I have not seen you since we were little pups and my parents visited your village. Do you remember me?" she said, looking confused. She looked him up and down through narrowed eyes. "Why do you run like that, on two legs? It's weird. Why not run normally, or fly? Are your wings broken?” Her eyes widened. “Did the hunters hurt you? Are you doomed to walk everywhere?"
He looked down at himself. He was a light blue dragon with various hues of darker blue and white striping that looked like wind currents on the weather map. His eyes widened as he looked over his shoulder at two wings. His hands...no, paws were also blue with clear claws that looked like ice coming out of them. He had the same bird of prey foot-like thing that the red dragon did. He bent down and put his paws on the forest floor and scratched into the ground. The ground gave away like tissue paper under his razor-sharp diamond claws. It was more comfortable to be on all fours. He stretched his wings out and shook like a dog. "Forgive me, but I am not a dragon. I am just plain Tim..." He shook his head.
"You must be one of the dragon pups who were hidden in the other realm by the White Witch. I heard she had done that," Méi snuggled her long dragon neck against Mack's. "Forgive me, but I have not seen another dragon since I ran away at the age of five. I grew up here in the Forest of Dragons Lance, alone. I just needed a hug; really bad."
"What are you talking about?" he said, pulling away from her neck entanglement. "I was just in the forests of Northern California. I need to get back on the road. Someone will eventually remember that I was forgotten," he huffed. A breeze blew in the direction he had just come through.
"You are Makani, right? The White Witch hid you in another realm, and then blessed you with Forgottenness in case someone finds you, you can hide," Méi said, looking concerned as she leaned in closer to check his eyes. “You have silver eyes that are common to the Royal family. Are you sure you’re not Prince Makani?”
"Blessed with Forgottenness! Are you Crazy?" His stomach rumbled again. He turned to look at it, and realized his wings were cockeyed, and drooping at odd directions. He pulled them in tightly to his back. They blended so well with his stripes they could hardly be seen.
"I am not crazy. You are the one running around on two legs, for crying out loud. And, yes, Forgottenness- so those who would harm you forget they found you. Now come on, I'll remind you of how to catch a rabbit before you starve."
"I am not eating a rabbit," he said, knitting his brow, and shaking his head.
"Good idea, there are two of us. We should get a deer," she said, widening her eyes and pointing at him with her tail. She took off down the trail without even checking to see if he was following her.
He was still reeling from the fact that he was no longer himself. He had to be dying, and enduring some sort of vivid hallucination in the process. He sat down and looked at his claws, then his side and his hindquarters. His stomach rumbled again. He hadn't realized dying would make him so hungry.
"Hey, come on. I got one!" Méi called from ahead. "Where'd you go?"
"Coming," he said, getting up, and walking on two legs. He looked at his paws and dropped down on all fours. He ran quickly, and more comfortably, over to her. He was horrified when he found her casually munching on the deer's side. "Oh, my."
"What?" she asked, with a half-full mouth. "Oh, the deer, it's ok. There are two of us. So, it isn't a waste. Go ahead." She bit off a leg, and chucked it over to him with a nod of her snout. "Here's a good leg."
"It's a raw half-leg." He jumped out of the way as if she had just thrown a hand-grenade at him.
She frowned at him, "Fine, Makani." She walked over, drew in a deep breath and breathed fire on the leg. "There, it's cooked."
"Okay...I mean thanks. And could you call me Mack, everyone else does." He was getting hungry. He sniffed at the leg, and then took a teensy bite off it. He did not like to eat meat, but this smelled good – really good.
"Oh good grief, Eat it. Dragons are strict carnivores. It isn't like you can wander over to that raspberry bush and eat. You'll puke, and then have the runs for a week."
He devoured the leg and walked over to the deer and sniffed it. "Why does it still smell so good?" He took a nibble of the shoulder.
Within three minutes the two had consumed the entire deer and were now lazing around chewing on the antlers. Mack looked at himself, agai
n as he chewed the antlers. They felt so good on his teeth, he could hardly stand it. He smiled, something about chewing on antlers was familiar, comforting. As soon as the sensation came, it left him- along with the emerging memory.
Méi stared at him, "Where did you come from?"
"California," he said, munching harder on an antler. "Did I just eat deer antlers?" He was sitting like a dog, but something was bunched under him.
He noticed Méi making a face at him, curling her lip in what appeared to be confusion. He couldn’t tell what a dragon’s facial expressions were. She might be getting ready to snarl at him, or it might be a smile.
"Hey, your tail will go to sleep if you sit on it like that. And antlers are good for a pup's teeth. We might be almost adults, but we're still pups."
He lifted his rear and wagged his tail, uprooting a small bush. "Oops."
Méi laughed, "You are really up-heaved, aren't you?"
"You have no idea," he said, sitting back down, being careful to miss his tail this time, but feeling odd that his bare butt was on the ground. "I was human, on a camping trip with my friends. Why am I not human anymore?"
"Because you’re home, Mack. The humans here,” she pointed to the ground with her tail, “Hunted and killed us to near extinction in a terrible war. That is why you were hidden as a human, so they could not kill you. Although if there is only one Fire Dragon and one Air Dragon left, that would be the height of cruelty. I hope this doesn't sound too selfish," she said glancing at the ground and looking grief-stricken, "But I am so happy I am not alone anymore."
"It's nice to meet you too." Mack nodded in agreement. "You are correct, that would be the height of cruelty. There aren't enough of us to repopulate. We would be worse than dead. We would be alone, with only the life of a fugitive to look forward to." He shook his head. "What am I saying? I am not a dragon. I can't be." More importantly, he didn't want to repopulate anything with Méi. She was a giant lizardy, dragony-thing -- but he thought it best to keep that part to himself. "Fran and Ed will come looking for me, find me, and I will wake up in the hospital."