Draconic - Ch 2 (Commission)

Commissioned by Jazper Hemsath.

The four of them walked back to Matt’s house. Matt was worried and wanted to go somewhere familiar, someplace safe. However, things were looking strange in the neighborhood. The cars parked on the street seemed like they came out of a black-and-white movie, and the few people they passed looked similarly too big or too small like the boys did.

Matt walked up to his house, and realized that it was looking much larger than normal, so big that it had spread wide, overtaking the garage. Matt opened the door and stepped inside. Nick and the twins followed behind him.

“Mom?” Matt said. “Dad?” He wanted to see them, but at the same time, he worried what they might look like now.

“They went out,” said Drake, walking down the stairs. “They had some shopping to do.”

Matt was only partially surprised to find that Drake seemed almost as young as he was now, and like Matt and Nick, Drake now had a similarly stretched out neck.

“What’s the matter?” Drake asked when he saw the worry on Matt’s face.

Nick said, “Matt’s dealing with some changes, I think.”

“Too many,” Matt said. “But, maybe that’s the worst of it.” He tried to sound hopeful, but he felt that he might have just tempted fate.

Sure enough, he sensed something strange happening to his clothes.

“Not again.”

The shorts that had felt uncomfortably tight on him, loosened up as if they were coming apart at the seams. In fact, that is exactly what was happening to all of his clothes. His shirt, his shorts, his socks, and even his shoes all fell away as scraps of cloth and crumbled into dust, drifting away into a cloud and then vanishing altogether.

Matt looked down at his nude body, seeing that his skin had a much tougher appearance now, more leathery and thick. Below, he was shocked by the size and thickness of his dick. It had become an angry shade of red and hung heavily from his crotch. He had an impulse to grab it and yet feared to touch it as it seemed so alien now.

Nick asked, “Did something else just happen? The look on your face…”

Matt looked at Nick and his brother, seeing that the two of them were just as nude, looking similarly leathery and well-hung.

“We’re turning into something,” Matt said, “not human.”

“Master Matt,” said one twin, simpering beneath him. “Let Colenmike help.”

“Colenmike want serve great ones like Master Matt,” agreed the other.

Matt looked down at the former kids, seeing a pair of scaly rodent-like creatures standing on two legs, looking wild-eyed in their admiration of him. Something about their worshipful attitude thrilled Matt. He had never felt that kind of intense attention before. His monster cock stirred in response, hardening up, lengthening and thickening.

“Oh God,” Matt said, not liking where this was going. “I should go and…”

“Look!” cried one twin. “The master wants kobold help.”

“Colenmike help master.”

“Wait,” Matt said, taking a step back, but the twins had already got their skinny little kobold fingers around his dick and began fondling it. Matt knew he should try to stop them. This was all wrong. At the same time, he was enjoying the stimulation they were giving him. He gasped, hating himself for how much he wanted it to continue. “We can’t,” he said and moaned. Matt looked to Nick and Drake for help, but instead of seeming repulsed, they were watching intently.

“Cool,” Nick said. “I always wanted to see those kobolds at work.”

“It’s quite a sight,” Drake said. “Watch.”

“What!?” Matt said, shocked at having an audience to what was happening, but the aggressive stimulation of his dick drew his attention back to the kobolds.

“Master has good cock,” said one of his servants. “Big and mighty.”

“Yes,” agreed the other. “Colenmike will suck master off now?”

Their pointy tongues danced around their lips hungrily.

“Suck me off?” Matt asked, shocked at what he was hearing.

“We obey!” said one, and the two kobolds dove for his crotch, face first, getting their mouths involved with his stimulation.

Matt did not last much longer after that. His pleasure peaked, and he felt his monster cock begin to spurt. He felt something changing as he came, as if he were shooting out more than semen, but the last of his humanity, one spurt after another, leaving him just a monster when he had finished draining himself.

The kobolds licked him clean, but he barely noticed them now, feeling oddly powerful and restless.

“That was something, right?” Drake commented.

“Wow,” Nick said. “Amazing.”

Matt’s head cleared as he became aware of his surroundings again. Some of his old self returned, and he noticed that the house looked very different now. The ceilings were at least twice as high and all around him things were made of tough-looking wood. The floors were wood planks. The walls, paneled with wood and supported by wooden posts. The ceilings with log-like wooden beams stretching across them. It seemed more like a giant medieval tavern than a suburban home.

Looking comparatively small in the big room, Drake asked, “Where are the kobolds going now?” he asked.

Matt looked down, seeing that his servants were gone now.

“That’s just like them,” Nick said, gesturing towards the pair of kobolds scurrying away deeper into the cave. “Always disappearing when you look away for a moment.”

There was a booming rhythmic sound, like enormous hooves clomping toward the house, that shook the whole building. The sound came to a halt by the front door. Then, after a silent moment, the door swung open and an enormous, monstrous, nude woman entered the house. It was hard to gauge the size of things now that the house had grown so much, but her head nearly touched the ceiling beams, which was several times higher than Matt was tall. At first, Matt did not recognize her with her leathery skin and the horns on her head.

“My boys,” she said. “We have returned.”

“Hello, Mother,” Drake said.

Matt looked closer, recognizing similarities between his mother’s features and the monster woman’s. She smiled down at him, and he felt the warmth of her affection, confirming who she was.

“My boys!” their father cried, stepping inside behind her with a sack slung over his shoulder. He was even more enormous and monstrous than his wife, and just as nude, the red, scaly girth of his giant cock swinging freely above them. “We’ve got dinner!” he declared and dropped the sack on the floor before him where it landed with a fleshy thump. Inside was a pile of red meat bigger than Drake and Matt put together.

“Wow,” Nick said. “That’s quite a meal there.”

“Would you like to stay for dinner?” their mother inquired.

Nick nodded.

“Oof,” their father said, scratching his angry red leathery ball sack with claw-like fingertips. “That feels good.”

“Oh, cut that out,” his wife said. “Not when we have company over.”

“Nothing wrong with a good scratch,” he said as everyone tried to avert their eyes from this crotch.

“Come now, boys,” said their mother, leading them into the kitchen. “Let’s get this meat on the fire.”

***

As they sat down to eat at a stone slab that was set up as a table, Matt was surprised by how red the meat still looked. With the assistance of a pair of older kobolds, who Matt assumed were Colenmike’s parents, they had charred it over an open fire but not for long enough to properly cook it. Not bothering with plates or utensils, they lay out cuts of meat before each of them, the biggest parts ending up before their parents. It was only then that Matt started to wonder what animal was big enough to have this much meat on it. A buffalo? An elephant? Something bigger even?

“Alright, boys! Sweetheart!” their father cried. “Dig in!”

He dove for his lump of flesh, face first, and began gnawing at it with frightfully sharp teeth.

The sight of such a savage display made Matt pause, but he was the only one. Everyone else began biting and ripping at the mostly raw flesh in front of them. At first, they made cheerful moans of pleasure. Soon, though, they began to growl and grunt like feasting pride of lions devouring a wildebeest.

The smell of the meat had become too mouth-watering for Matt to ignore. His stomach growled almost as loudly as his family did. He leaned forward and bit into the meat. It was tasty, but still too raw for his preference. If only he could have a little more fire…

A warmth began to grow inside of his chest, building up until he felt like a volcano ready to erupt. He exhaled, feeling his breath rush out like the heat from an open oven. Then, it came again, and he was shocked to see the light of actual flames coming from his mouth.

A flash from beside Matt caught his attention. He turned to see Drake breathing fire on his own meat. His brother seemed even more monstrous now, his face having stretched out into more of a snout with long pointy teeth.

Matt looked down at his own nose, seeing that his own face had extended as well. He gazed down at his meat and took a deep breath, sniffing at it with his snout. Then, he let loose a torrent of flames on it, cooking it to perfection. Smelling that sizzling meat, his mouth dripped with saliva. His sharp teeth bit into it, ripping and tearing it into chunks that slid deliciously over his tongue and down his long throat.

The room was filled with smoke and flames and the smell of well-cooked meat. All of them ate like starved dogs until they were left licking the stone slab clean.

Their father belched out a ball of fire and sighed in satisfaction. “Now that was a meal,” he declared. “A feast to remember!”

Matt felt like a nap. He crawled off to the other room and lay on the floor, shutting his eyes as he felt the warmth of Drake and Nick laying down beside him.

***

Matt hovered high in the air. Far below were rivers and lakes, painted like shiny silver on the green landscape. Trees, grass, and all the other vegetation looked like various types of moss spread across rocks below. Matt was in the clouds. He was bigger than the clouds, bigger than mountains, the biggest thing alive. Everything beneath him was his if he wanted it. No one could say otherwise. But, for now, he had no need for the ground. The air was his domain, and he beat it into submission with titanic wings.

***

“Matt?” said Drake, his voice sounding somewhat gruff. “Time to wake up, nestmate.”

Matt opened his eyes, seeing that he was lying on the floor of some kind of vast cave. Above him there were long stalactites. Beside him were flaming braziers, lighting the place up.

Feeling stiff, he stretched his arms and legs and felt two more limbs stretch on his back, as well as something long extending from the base of his spine. Matt looked over to where he had heard his brother and saw a dragon standing there on two legs. He looked like something from a fantasy painting: scaly skin, clawed hands and feet, long tail, and broad leathery wings.

Matt reached behind his back and felt where something new extended from his scaly skin. Wings. He had wings. He touched his backside, feeling the base of his thick tail.

“I’m a dragon,” he said, hearing his voice sounding as gruff as his brother’s. “I’m actually a dragon.”

At the same time that Matt felt amazed to be transformed into a monster, he also felt oddly at ease with the change, as though some part of his mind was already thinking like a beast. Worried that he might be at risk of losing control of his thoughts, he tried to keep that side of his psyche in check for now.

“Come on,” Drake said. “Let’s get some breakfast. Sire said he would give us another flying lesson today.”

Matt rose to his feet, struggling to find his balance with his tail and wings and snout throwing off his regular equilibrium, but he steadied himself. Looking down, he recognized a hint of gold on his chest and belly scales which faded to black around the sides of his body and his limbs. Drake’s scales were a deep forest green with a mushroom brown chest and belly. Strangely, despite them both being a whole new species, Matt could recognize hints of his brother’s human features on his draconic face. Surprisingly, Matt realized that he was even a bit bigger than his brother now.

“Come,” Drake said. “Our dam has some fresh victuals for us.”

“Wait,” Matt said. “Where’s Nick?”

“What's a ‘Nick’?” Drake asked, confused.

“My friend,” Matt said. “He lay down with us before.”

“Oh,” Drake said. “You mean Flare. He left a short while ago. He said he would see you later, but he had something to do now. He thought you looked so happy sleeping that he did not wish to wake you.”

Matt nodded. Smelling meat nearby, his mouth watered, and his stomach rumbled. “Let’s eat, then,” he said, feeling a beastly hunger taking over his thoughts.

Drake walked in the direction of the scent, his clawed toes clicking on the stone floor of the cave. Matt followed his younger brood mate brother deeper into the cave. Beyond some rocks, they discovered a giant red dragon piling up the bleeding bodies of deer and other woodland creatures. Beneath her, a pair of smaller beasts crawled about dragging more carcasses to her.

“Colenmike?” Matt said, recognizing the servant kobolds.

“Master!” they cried, running over to hug his legs. “We have gathered a meal to break your fast,” declared one. “Good meat!” said the other. “Not much rot yet at all.”

“My darling hatchlings,” growled the giant dragon, their broodmother. “Feed and grow strong.” She blew fire at the pile, singeing off the fur on their food.

Drake got down on all fours and galloped over to their food. Matt followed his lead, running on his hands and feet as naturally as if he had done it his whole life. They began breathing fire on their food, cooking it to taste and tearing off tasty morsels to fill their bellies.

Matt became aware of a deep sound growing gradually louder and closer. At first, he thought it might be distant thunder, but the regularity of it indicated it was something living. It grew so loud that Matt worried it might collapse the cave on them. He looked to the mouth of the cave, and saw a shadow fill it, realizing then that he was hearing the beating of giant wings as the sound came to a halt. A giant pointy blue dragon’s head poked into the cave followed by a long neck and thick body, the wings barely fitting inside. His body was terrifyingly huge, the scales deep blue, like glacial ice.

“You whelps!” he boomed. “Have you readied yourselves to take to the air?”

“Sire,” cried Drake. “We have fed.”

Matt finished munching on the marrow of some thigh bone and set his food aside.

“Follow me, then,” their sire said, turning around his bulky body in the cave, his tail nearly knocking them over as he did. “If you dare, follow me, young ones.”

Matt and Drake followed him out into the light of day, finding that their cave faced out onto an expanse of rock that terminated in a cliff’s edge. The two of them galloped to the edge and stood there, looking down at the valley far below.

Fear pulled Matt out of the moment, and again he remembered who he had been only a day ago.

“Wait a minute,” he said, stepping back. “What am I doing?” He looked down at his dragon body and at his brother and father, recognizing how monstrously they had been transformed. “This is… crazy. What happened to us?”

“Now,” the grand blue dragon said, ignoring Matt’s words. “Fear not. The fall will not kill you. At worst, you may break a bone or two. I would recommend you use your wings to stay in the air, though.”

“Look at yourselves!” Matt cried. “We’re dragons. Don’t you remember being human? We have to figure out how to get back to normal.”

His father and brother exchanged a look and then began laughing uproariously, busting out flames as they guffawed and chuckled.

“H-human?” said his brother, snickering. “Those soft little creatures? Who would ever want to be one of them?”

Their father was literally rolling over on his side, laughing. “Oh, my little whelp!” he said, calming down a little. “You do know how to amuse me. Sometimes I forget what wild fantasies a hatchling like you can dream up.”

Matt sighed. He felt more aware of himself now, having broken through the dragon mindset that he had been in since breakfast. The dragon body he was inside seemed like a monster that had swallowed him, the scales wrapped around him like a cage.

“How did this happen?” he asked, but before he could consider an answer, he was blown back by his father’s wings as they extended to their full expanse.

“Stretch your wings wide,” the great dragon said. “If you lack enough confidence to flap, hold them out to glide at first.”

Drake spread his considerably smaller wings, imitating his sire.

The two of them stared at Matt, so he did the same, feeling how odd it was to have that thin layer of flesh stretched out on his back like a pair of kites.

“Now!” cried their sire, leaping into the air off the edge of the cliff.

Drake followed and began gliding downwards.

Not wanting to be left behind, Matt leapt off the edge. The air filled his wings as he felt himself rush forward, falling slowly as he found the balance to keep up a controlled glide.

Drake attempted a flap and ended up losing some altitude as he did.

Matt tried as well and managed to maintain his glide. He flapped again and rose a little higher into the air, the wind rushing past his scales.

He was flying. He was actually flying.

He glanced down at the trees below, to appreciate how high up he was. That turn of his head, though, threw off his balance enough that he started to tumble. He lost all sense of direction and fell down until he landed against the branches of a tree, which snapped and collapsed beneath him. Then, he slipped down to land on the forest floor below, feeling bruised and a bit embarrassed but otherwise unharmed.

He looked up to see his sire circling in the air high above.

Then, his brother drifted in to land roughly beside him, rolling to a halt a short distance away.

Drake began laughing.

Matt laughed along with him.

Then, Drake cheered and Matt cheered with him.

“We can fly!” Drake cried and blew a joyful stream of fire from his mouth.

“Yeah!” Matt cried and blew fire from his mouth as well.

The forest caught fire around them, but they did not care. They were dragons. Fire was in their blood.

***

It was a long walk back up the mountain to their cave, but neither of them felt ready to attempt taking off from the ground. Still, Matt and Drake had time to joke with each other and chat about places they wished to fly to once they had better control of their wings. When they finally made it back to the cave, they were tired, but already they wanted to have another go at flying.

“My darling hatchlings,” said their egg layer as they entered the cave. “How did your flying lesson go?”

“We are unharmed,” Drake said. “We even managed to stay in the air for a while.”

The sound of enormous wings flapping approached the mouth of the cave and their sire poked his head inside.

“Well done, younglings!” the great dragon said. “You have made definite progress today. Soon, your shadows will terrify all the beasts of the earth.”

Their dam approached and frowned as she got a better look at the pair of them. “Oh, dear,” she said. “You two appear to have brought home quite a bit of earth on you.”

Matt and Drake looked at each other, realizing that their scales were covered in mud and dust from having crashed to the ground and trudged through the woods. Matt wondered if they still had the dragon equivalent of a bath somewhere in their lair.

“Well then,” said their sire. “Mate of mine, shall we clean our hatchlings?”

She nodded and pulled Drake close to her.

“Wait,” he protested. “I can clean my own scales.”

Ignoring his words, their broodmother’s long barbed tongue extended from her toothy mouth and began licking Drake’s body. He squirmed, but her overwhelming size advantage left him with no choice but to submit.

“Come, Mathusela,” his sire said. “I will tend to you.”

“Wait,” Matt said. “What did you call me?”

The great dragon did not reply. His gaping maw gripped Matt’s… Mathusela’s body gently between his long teeth and pulled his youngling close to him. Mathusela found himself between his sire’s massive paws with no way of escape. Feeling the warm breath blowing past him as that great mouth opened again and a long spiky tongue extended from it, Mathusela wondered if it would hurt him. Had he been covered in soft human skin, he was certain it might have stripped his flesh down to the bone. His dragon scales, however, withstood the licking with no pain. In fact, it felt somewhat pleasurable.

This tongue bath continued for a bit longer than Mathusela might have wanted, with the tongue creeping around to ever more sensitive areas. When his sire’s tongue reached between his legs, he felt stimulated in a way that made him embarrassed.

“No,” he said, squirming. “Not there.”

His sire continued licking, apparently having found a stubborn bit of filth down there.

Mathusela grunted, feeling himself getting turned on by the stimulation. As his sire’s gentle tongue continued, he felt something sensitive emerge from a slit in his scales. He looked down to discover the tip of his dragon cock protruding from him, looking red and angry, with a texture like a spiky lizard's head. His sire must have been unaware and licked it as well, sending Mathusela over the edge. His limbs tensed as he came from his powerful dragon cock, the pleasure of that alien member overwhelming his thinking.

The orgasm continued a long while, spurting thick dragon semen onto his abdomen, where it was licked up by his sire almost as soon as it touched his scales. With each pulse, Mathusela felt his mind washed over with a wave of intense pleasure that seemed to be stripping his memories away more and more. He felt his human life fading, forgetting his house, his friends, even his own human face. In place of those memories, he had the thoughts of a dragon, beastly and powerful memories.

Then, when Mathusela was spent and all his humanity had been wiped clear from his mind for the moment, he lay there and let his sire finish cleaning him. Feeling exhausted, the hatchling shut his eyes and drifted off into dreams again.

***

Mathusela sniffed out a familiar scent. It was a human. He spotted the little creature standing a short distance from him. The dragon crept toward the human, who stood there frozen in fear.

When Mathusela was looming above the pitiful human, the little creature screamed, “Please stop! Don’t you recognize me?”

Mathusela chuckled, “Why would I, worm?”

“It’s me, Matt!” the human cried. “I’m the boy you used to be. Spare me. Please.”

Mathusela laughed uproariously. “Human? Me?” The very idea was absurd. “Oh, little one. You have amused me. Were I not hungry, I might have let you go for such a treat. Unfortunately for you, though, I am hungry, and you will make a delicious snack.”

“No!” Matt cried as Mathusela opened his fiery maw and bore down to devour the boy.

***

Mathusela opened his eyes and smiled, feeling that he had just experienced a good dream, but he struggled to remember it clearly. Something about a human…

“Young one!” cried his broodmother. “Come here. There is meat waiting for you.”

His mouth watering, the young dragon rose to his paws and trotted happily over to the eating space where she had laid out several bloody carcases for him to devour. His egg layer watched him with bemused affection, as he cooked and chewed his meat.

“Drake has already eaten his meal,” she said. “Tonight, the pair of you will try to fly again. Your father wants to help you develop your hunting skills now as well, as your brother has been begging for him to do for a while now. At last, he feels the pair of you may be ready to catch a meal of your own.”

Mathusela grunted happily, blood and sinew dripping from his teeth. He began stripping the flesh from the bones with his tongue.

“To think how big the pair of you have become,” she said, grinning. “Why, it feels like only yesterday that you broke free of your shells.”

Mathusela finished his meal and considered snapping open the bones to suck the marrow from them. “We’re almost full-grown now, are we not?”

“Not quite,” she said. “Soon, though. When you can fly and hunt and find a cave as your home, you will be fearsome dragons. Then, you may go in search of a mate to begin a brood of your own.”

Mathusela thought of the idea, and for some reason, the face of a human girl appeared in his mind. This confused him, but he shook his head and licked his chops clean.

***

“Methusela!” cried Drake, bounding over to his nestmate as he joined him near the cliff’s edge. “It’s time for the hunt. Are you ready to catch some prey?”

“I can hardly wait,” Mathusela replied. “I’ll snatch up a whole herd of deer in my claws.”

Drake scoffed. “A herd of rabbits, maybe. I’d like to see you try to take down even a fawn.”

Mathusela smiled and crouched low, preparing to pounce. “I could take you down,” he said. “Surely, a fawn won’t be much more of a challenge than you, nestmate.”

Drake smiled and crouched low in response and the pair began circling each other. “Let me see you try,” Drake said. “Have at you!”

He dove at Mathusela, swiping at him with his claws and snapping his jaw. Mathusela was quick to respond with his own claws and teeth. Both of them knew this battle was purely in sport. Neither attempted to harm the other one, but both strove passionately to win, kicking up a lot of dust in all the rolling around and wrestling for dominance. Although Matheusela had a size advantage, he held back enough to give Drake a fair chance.

Before either one came out decisively on top, their sire landed and said, “Enough playing around, you two whelps.”

The pair of young dragons untangled themselves and stood up before him, each one casting a glance at the other, confident in a potential victory if only they had been allowed to finish their contest.

“That vigor will serve you well out there today, but save some energy for the hunt,” their sire said. “Come now. Let’s prepare to ride the wind.”

As they had done earlier, Mathusela, Drake, and their sire lined up on the cliff’s edge. The hatchlings stretched their wings in imitation of their great blue father, loosening up the muscles and getting blood to the thin membranes of their elastic skin.

“Now,” declared their sire. “We hunt.” With a beating of his thunderous wings, he lept into the air and dove forward, gliding toward the valley below.

Drake and Mathusela exchanged an excited look and followed after him. While the pair of them were less steady in their glide, they managed to stay aloft on the strong breeze that met them.

With their sire leading the way, they flew beyond the end of the valley into green hills that the pair had never visited before. It was a wondrous sight to behold, these new lands, but they could not allow their attention to waver from their flying or else they felt they might drop from the air.

Looking ahead of himself, Mathusela noticed another dragon flapping away a short distance below them.

“Sire!” Mathusela cried. “Look! It’s Flare!”

“Well spotted!” replied the great dragon. “Let’s land near him.”

They drifted down in the other dragon’s direction. Flare blew fire to signal a greeting to them and descended to a rocky hilltop below. Drake and Mathusela’s sire landed gracefully beside Flare. Drake and Mathusela both crash landed in their own ways, but stood up unharmed moments later.

“Well met,” said Flare, suppressing a chuckle. “You come at good time. I was about to meet with Danger to do some hunting. He should be along, shortly.”

Mathusela remembered the name Danger. However, for some reason, the name Dan seemed to accompany it.

Before Mathusela had a chance to wonder about that bit of confusion, something wooshed past their heads in a blur of red and black. Mathusela ducked, fearful that they might be under attack.

Seeing his hatchling’s reaction, his sire chuckled and said, “Don’t be so craven, little one. Look.” He pointed a talon at a dragon spiraling through the air above them.

“There he goes again,” Flare said. “Always showing off.”

The dark dragon descended toward them quickly and beat his wings hard to slow down at the last moment. Then, Danger landed confidently beside Flare.

“Well met,” Mathusela’s sire said. “How goes the day, whelp?”

“A beautiful morning for flying,” Danger replied. “...and hunting.”

They all exchanged greetings and made plans for where they might range to find stray cattle or wandering deer, maybe even a juicy boar or two. Meanwhile, Mathusela glanced around excitedly, feeling too overwhelmed by all these new sensations to focus on just one thing or even a simple conversation.

Drake looked in the direction of some hills near a river and nudged Mathusela with a wing, asking, “Do you see that area? What about that way?” Thin lines of white smoke rose from one corner of the valley.

“Oh,” said Danger, “Keep your distance from there. There’s a settlement of humans there we would do best to avoid.”

“Humans?” asked Drake. “Why would we care about them except for how tasty they might be?”

“These are no ordinary villagers,” Danger said, his expression turning grim. “They are spellcasters, sorcerers. They leave us be, so long as we do not trouble them.”

“Still,” said Drake. “What could they do to us?”

“Bad things,” Danger said. “You know me. Nothing frightens Danger, but I do not seek out my own destruction. Stay away from those spellcasters.”

“He is right,” said their sire. “We have no need to mess with spellcasters. They are only trouble.”

Drake was willing to take that as a final word on the matter. Then, the five of them split up to cover more ground on their hunt.

For a while, Mathusela stayed within shouting distance of his broodmate. Soon, though, they split up and Mathusela was flying on his own for the first time ever. Despite all the warnings, the whelp found himself drawn closer and closer to the spellcaster village. Maybe it was curiosity. Maybe it was a perverse sense of purpose. It was forbidden, so he wanted it more. For whatever reason, he felt drawn to the humans below.

He decided to land in a nearby forest to search for boars to eat, but he kept wandering closer and closer to the human houses on the periphery. He crept up quietly to the edge of the treeline, staying hidden in the shadows there. He marveled at the small wooden cottages where the people lived, wondering how they kept so much wood from burning up.

Then, one of the villagers emerged from the back door of one house. She walked in Mathusela’s direction, carrying a pail and moving toward a stone water well between them. She slouched somewhat as though she were trying to appear shorter. When she came close enough for Mathusela to make out her features, he gasped in wonder.

It was the same girl he had seen in his mind earlier when his mother had mentioned finding a mate. He knew this girl. How did he know her? He stared at her and focused his mind on remembering. There was something he had forgotten. Something important.

The girl drew water from the well, and a boy the same age as her called to her from the house.

Mathusela recognized his face as well. He knew them. He did. They were…

His friends?

Suddenly, Matt realized he was a dragon, a giant fire-breathing, flying beast, not a human. Memories of his old life came rushing back.

“Ren!” he said, recalling the girl’s name.

She looked up from the well and Matt ducked lower in the shadows, worried that he might frighten her off if he was not careful.

“Who’s there?” she asked.

Matt tried to think of something to say. “A friend,” was his initial reply. “I have something I need to say to you, but you may find it hard to believe.”

Ren stood there apparently uncertain if she should run home or continue the conversation.

“Well,” she said. “What is it? Go ahead and say it.”

“Would you believe me if I told you that the world had been magically transformed recently?”

She looked shocked. “You… My brother had said the same thing this morning. He detected strange currents in the ley lines. He said something great must have happened to the world in the past few days, a transformation to its very core. No one else believes him, but I do.”

“It’s true,” said Matt, glancing down at his dragon body. “I’ve changed very much.”

“How much?” she asked.

“I can show you,” Matt said, “but you have to promise not to run when you see me.”

Ren hesitated a moment and replied, “I promise not to run.”

Matt stepped out of the trees slowly, revealing himself to her.

She gasped and dropped her pail of water, spilling it at her feet, but to her credit, she did not run or scream.

“I was a human a few days ago,” he told her. “Just like you. Back then, we were friends.”

She took a few steps closer to him, her face full of curiosity.

Matt sat down and asked, “Do you believe me?”

“I do,” she said, standing before him. “For some reason, I do.”

Matt smiled, feeling relieved. The whole world had changed, but he remembered how it had been now. Maybe with the help of his friends they could change it back and live a normal life, again.