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Meteoric : A transformative Tale, Chapter 4

The two dragons looped over the lonely highway in central Kansas, looking for their next transformee, the sun was beaming down into endless cornstalks and that thin ribbon of roadway. A big Peterbuilt came into view and soon it was obvious that DieselDragon was the driver, with a trailer that was a masterpiece of dragon murals, but the most clever on top of the cargo box.

With a cartooned face of his dracsona and a classified ad look reading “Experienced driver - Available for Quests and Adventures. Willing to Travel, Willing to become a Dragon, Payment in gold! and then his phone number following this. Since it was on top of the van, only a flying creature or pilot could have read it!

Sol said he was tempted to dial the number and set up a meeting, and just drop the stone on the table right in the middle of the talk.

I looked over at him and he was grinning and I said “Lets try it , then!”

We dialed and reached the cab of the Peterbuilt and Sol said that he was responding to the classified on the roof of the cargo trailer westbound on Interstate 70 at the mile marker #115. The voice on the other end said “Yeah right” and hung up. Oh well, we’ll continue with the old methods.

Soon enough, Diesel’ had to park and “Drain the Radiator” at a rest stop. As he entered the washroom, Sol noted the area was clear of onlookers and he moved to the middle of the path that Robert Mayfield would return to his machine on and placed the gleaming three toned green stone slightly off center of the path on the gravel and then rejoined me crouched behind a tool shed.

I noted to him about his incredible decency in waiting and making sure that our candidate did not transform with a full bladder, to which he chuckled and rubbed his chin.

Like clockwork, Diesel found the stone and picked it up carefully with a folded card so he would not touch it and walked to a picnic table to stare at it for awhile. Maybe he connected this with that strange phone call and then the text message of (Draconum Ignis Libertatum - Solag) that had followed it.

Then he picked it up again and walked behind a rise in the prairie, with us in pursuit.

As we sat down on the grass, the show was in progress, Diesel writhing on the ground and groaning.

“I hope he doesn’t decide to run a marathon like the Sergeant did!” Sol exclaimed.

“Lets chase him using the truck if he does.” my suggestion.

“I figured Diesel for ivory claws, not dark- oh well” he observed.

“Nice horns” I mused.

“Wonder if his tail tip will look like a gearshift knob?” from Sol, to which we laughed, only even more as the tail formed - and sure enough....

“Great colors, very raptor in the patterns” I noted, and Sol thought that the chrome finish scutes were a bit much though.

“C’mon...wings!” I began rooting, sporting event style.

“Yours sure took their time.” he winked as Robert’s green and black aerofoils unfurled.

We stood and got serious as Diesel lurched upright on his 3rd try and figured out where everything was and how it felt. Then he very calmly took the belt from his old trousers and put around his middle and hung his wallet, flashlight and keys off it and piled his clothes, no longer his size at all, together and torched them with a short breath.

“Am I the only guy who ever waited for much of a year to try fire?” I asked Sol to which he snickered and nodded yes.

Soon we were joined by Diesel who was still panting and shaking a bit and we took him back to the picnic table .
The new dragon was very pleasant and his only worry was that he couldn’t just leave a truck and load sitting there unattended. I asked if a relative could help and he nodded, saying his brother could finish delivery and take over the business too.

So we piled into the cab and made our way to Nebraska, stopping fortunately only once at the dark of midnight at a truck stop for fuel (and chili dogs) before arriving at Diesel’s place.

Diesel’s brother just laughed his head off when he first saw us and said “I told you NEVER eat that worm in the bottom of a Tequila bottle! See what happens when you do!” to which all laughed. His laughs soon faded over the next few minutes as we demonstrated this was neither cosplay or joke, by Diesel flying him around the ranch in his grasp! This was followed with being presented keys to his new truck.

Accompanying Diesel and Sol to Drac8, I soon returned to Fremont to prep a little book for one Janet Montoya, dragoness - to - be.

I Started with a few pages of prose that detailed the life of StarFire. a dragoness of the mythic forest, who taught all creatures to read and to write. She was the scribe of the forest tribe, the voice of the wooden glen.

Realizing that by page two, she would understand that she was reading her own biography, I left the pages after that with a single phrase “ Draconum Ignis Libertatum, Rekalnus” and a footer line of “ yet to be written”

Inside the hardbound jacket, I placed a stamp of “Ex Libris” which denoted ex library book but this one read Alpha Draconis 8 Antheon City Main Branch! Then I added a card pocket and placed in it a crafted library card, the TF object itself. The card was from the same library with the owner name of Starfire Montoya printed on it. The more she may hold and read it, the deeper the catalyst. I placed a post-it on the card noting “Your Signature is required to join.”

That afternoon found me on the roof in sleep as Sol arrived and dropped into the other nest.

“Diesel all settled in and trucking along?” I asked.

“Quite so, but he’s not interested in becoming a dragon guide just yet, he wants to try a few other occupations first and see” Sol replied, then added “Some individuals have different paths, Rek.” to which I nodded.

“Ready for Janet M.” he queried.

“Yes, everything is set.” I replied.

“First thing tomorrow then.” as he drifted off.

Early next, we flew the long route to San Fran to avoid sightings, coming in off of the headlands and behind the Presidio, avoiding downtown and landing on the roof of the building with the used book store at the street level. A quick shift to human and into the store with the book in hand.

As Janet was helping a customer, I slipped the book onto the “New arrived” cart where tomes were brought in for trade or credit. They would need to be sorted to shelves after closing. Anyone entering the shop could handle that book all day long and just find it bizarre, but that would be all. In Janet Montoya’s hands, however - that same volume would unlock amazing events in a short time. I slipped back onto the street after a bit of browsing.

We waited back on the roof for afternoon, listening to the store below for any signs that the show had started early but we heard the childrens group read along and later Janet talking with customers. Shifting to person guise, we took up watch at the cafe across the street and soon the closed sign was posted in the shop window.

It was easy to see inside the shop as Janet began sorting the new volumes and soon she sat with a puzzled look looking at our book and pulling up the library card with a huge smile but also the eyebrow expression of confusion. She signed the card and actually slipped it into the loan card pocket. A sudden shift to expression of panic and a lurch to the back room was our signal to move. Circling the building and entering from the alleyway, we found her in the last stages, it had been a fast transform and one of great beauty along with some whimsical features as a unicorn horn.

A few hours later, we were at the courtyard table on Drac8 with Starfire, but it was not going smoothly. Our greeters were Bin and Cam and later Cam took me aside to explain something about the draconian genders. She noted that males have less emotional attachments to places as do females, so while our recent arrivals had just wanted to do one basic thing before leaving - see to a truck or visit friends on a battlefield, it was often a bit harder for a dragoness to separate from her former environment.

I said that I remembered this from the classes but was not aware how strong it could be or how it would appear in person. She held my claw and said that I would learn with time.

It was late in the evening, some hours after we had shown Starfire to her new dwellings. I was on a balcony near the cavern entry, staring out over the sea. The sea often gives me calm, but not tonight, something about the day’s events bothered me, beyond the separation pangs I had seen. Soon a figure approached and out of the light of the moons stepped Starfire. She smiled at me and I returned it and asked if she would like to join me.

“Is this your favorite spot?” she asked.

“One of them, there are many here really” I noted.

She tried a smile but it flattened out as she looked over the water, clearly missing home.

“It does remind me a bit of the view from Pacific Coast Highway and especially Santa Cruz.” I said.

She nodded sadly. I was not helping- at all, completely out of ideas, and a bit reserved at saying anything else. Like so many here, I had dreamed of being a dragon and I’m sure Starfire did too, but we each had regrets. Maybe it would help just to talk through it all and find where she was unhappy. Silence was accomplishing nothing.

“Starfire, a few days ago, I was feeling the exact same way you are now, as I was looking from a housetop in Fremont over towards Lick Observatory up behind the San Jose foothills. Being an astronomer when human and even though it was years ago, just one look brought back all the memories. Although it feels sad, I hope that I never forget the times that I had and the people that I knew then. They were good times.

And these are good times as well. You are going to make a lot of new friends here, and build memories and experiences that are the real treasure in life.” I said.

“Rek, do you ever want to return to earth? Now I don’t mean when you are going to go back in a few days and get back to your work with Sol, but I mean just return there to stay?” She questioned.

I really had to think about that, and took a minute and then said that I would love to return and spend time not hiding but walking among everyone, as who I am now and without the fear that some will either run in panic, look in disgust or even laugh at me, but just blissfully ignore me right along with everyone else in their day. That would be a real treat and have other dragons and furries walk the same street, ignoring me equally as the people do. She laughed a bit, I guess she never looked at it that way, that even being ignored could become desired. She put her paw on mine and I smiled at her and she made it to half a smile, and I was hoping to get that to full before we parted tonight.

“Why did you folks really decide that it was time that I was to become a dragon?” she asked.

Without going into the whole selection process thing I cut to the part about how she had become a great voice for us in her readings to the youngsters in all of those storybook hours, that she was portraying the species beyond just mindless brutes or the results of dark magic. That she was able to create and share ideas with so many who wanted them.

“But REK, I can no longer do that anymore, because I no longer really belong to that world, not as I can see it, and neither of you asked me if that was what I wanted, along with these wings and tail!” she interrupted.

She was right, and I really had no answer either, all I could do was to share some feelings and see if we BOTH could make something of them, somehow. I said that I was becoming conflicted over this thing as well, now the earth was without a trucker who could speak dragonese to all on the highway and also removed a Sergeant who could hold kindred spirits together, in combat, or as retired- helping his fellow veterans. Was I right to have taken them from the rest of their fellows? Would those gaping holes close? Could their intense desire to be another species balance with all of that? I really was not sure. Do our dreams have the authority to overturn our responsibilities?

“Now you see what I’m feeling, and suffering your own version too it seems” she said.

“Yes, I guess I am- and was even not fully understanding it, Starfire. But at the same time, I’m maybe able to deal with it a bit differently because I was never attached to one place like you were. You see, back when I was Russell, I never stayed in one place for very long. I lived in rural places and big cities. Illinois, Florida, Vermont, Arizona, California, Texas, Nebraska, Colorado, and long visits to all the rest and a few of the nearby countries too. I left behind a great many friends and things that I both enjoyed doing, and was very successful at in each of those places. In all of these, I found new friends, responsibilities, successes and failures at each next stop. This is really now just one more chapter.” I said

“I wanted to be a dragon, even when I only understood a little bit of it, and so thought then that being one might just be something that would condemn me to go to a small remote part of earth to be one, never knowing about all of this. I’m sure you felt as deeply about trying a new species, and you knew that it would turn your life upside down if it happened, but it was still there, calling you.” I continued.

“I guess you’re right, I wanted it, and maybe I put it ahead of others too” She sniffled in misery. I was projecting fail as surely as I could ice or fire...

“But, Starfire- if we all just took one thing, one place and one life that we are comfortable at, and stayed there, all of us.... we would never grow, and by that same problem, those around us could never grow either. Among any number of readers in San Francisco, is another dragon voice, and he or she will come forward. And it may not even be to fill your place but to make their own. It will happen, and it will happen in plenty of other cities too. And it will happen only by people who try new things, just as you did when you first started reading to children.” I said.

She began to think a bit about what I had said, maybe some it made sense, there could always be a first time!

I continued “Right now, there may be a whole group of youngsters here who would really be ready to read and be read to - about the humans and their adventures and fun times. They could use a voice who knows all about those subjects!”

Her eyes began to sparkle just a bit, and the smile went to 3/4, and mine to 105 percent. She clasped my claw in hers more tightly.

“I still feel I’m going to regret leaving.” she said.

“Yes you will, and it will be as much as I do, about all of those places from my past. But it would all be so small compared with the regret that would have been mine if NOT having gone to all of those places before and to all of the ones still ahead, for either of us. Its not easy, it never is, but we can share it and that helps a bit too.” I said.

Not sure of the math, as to how far I helped with her feelings, and leave it to me to try and tally it up too... but the Hug and kiss that I received next seemed to show some headway was being made!

We met a few more times before I returned to terra and she was starting to accept and enjoy the new life.

A few hours before my return, we again met at the same balcony and she thanked me for our talks and she offered her own help. “Rek, I hope you can find a balance in how you feel about transforming people, and I hope we can talk about it sometime and you can share more about it, maybe we can find more ideas about it?”

“ I will be sure and do that, Starfire, you really gave me some things to think about.” I said during a parting embrace.

The entryway to Terran skies from the gate was rainy and I flinched at the lightning flashes and roaring thunderclaps while plowing throught the weather to Fremont. As I shook my wings dry on the porch and prepared to enter I heard Sol exclaim “Wipe the mud off those claws before coming in!”

As I sat at the kitchen table, Sol was at work by the sink and he noted “Well, how is our new dragoness doing? it looked like rough times before I started back this way.” I replied that she was doing better and I had learned quite a bit along the way.

“More things we never learned in class, eh?” he said with a smile.

“Too right!” my reply.

“Well, while you were helping Starfire feel a bit better, I ‘ve been hammering into shape that game program we were talking about earlier for Mr. Masari to play with. Its almost there, another day of debug and we should have it.” he said, while drying dishes.

With the storm outside, it meant facing gate-lag without basking but instead an afternoon on a ...mattress. ech!

The next evening found us outside of RidiculousEmpire games offices watching the parking lot empty out. In true Silicon Valley style, most stayed well past 8pm. The need to pursue such basics as family life, social involvement and human requirements as exercise and rest all placed on hold to spend more hours at the keyboard. By midnight, just one car remained, and we found Mr. Masari hunched before the monitor, deeply furrowing a new design into his brows and wrinkled lines.

“Is that how I look at the computer.... crikey!” said Sol shaking his head.

“As have we all”, I noted, as Masari took a walk to clear his mind.

Sol carefully entered the room and deposited a packet into the inbox on the desk and rejoined me. Soon Masari leaned back in his chair as either something on the screen satisfied him, or- he gave up for a while and shifted his attention to his desk and soon the inbox. He pulled the strange packet to him and opened it to find a simple note about a new beta game, loaded onto the flash module in the package.

In quick succession, the card was plugged into a spare machine and load was pressed as Masari turned back to his original problem and finally saved that session and idled that machine and returned to the mysterious game. We waited a few minutes and then heard Wow!!!!! exclaimed followed by a crash and tumbling sound. We entered to find the transformation proceeding and into a lesser seen form.

The dragon was Red and blue in colors with highlights in several more hues but this was a more avian species with feathers on wings and also behind the head. As each feather emerged, a small pop was heard, and for a time almost took on a really odd popcorn popping sound. The claws and head were raptor like and the eyes like an owl’s.

As he recognized us, he smiled and laughed. We sat him down for awhile to calm him and let the pin-feathers emerge and develop. Horntail had arrived.

Meanwhile, I looked at the machine and found just a blue screen on it and the simple line message at bottom, ERROR, Cache Overrun, Insufficient Storage = Return code 2BA. I pulled the flash card from the machine and powered it off, pocketing the memory device.

Our newly arrived dragon was a quick learn for flying and soon he was alighting to the platform on Drac8 and joining us at the table. As everything seemed to be proceeding well, I excused and left Sol with his newbie and returned to Terra’ , after a visit with Starfire!

Just two days later, Sol returned and found me busy making a large batch of cookies. He grabbed several off the searing pan and down they went while he noted that our CEO found his bliss when he discovered that the internet followed him to Drac8. It turns out he’s going to keep right on running his company and writing games from there...

“While fiegning that he moved to the Cayman Islands, probably” I said, producing a crumb studded laugh from Sol, who then noted that we needed to go back to RidiculousEmpire and retrieve that memory card, to which I pulled it out and handed to him.

“Great, we’re all set then” he noted.

“Maybe, we are - Sol, that game never started, the machine stopped when the memory stuffed up during load.”

“Are you sure?” he asked wide eyed.

I nodded and read off the error code to which he sat back completely stupefied.

Later that night we entered the office at Ridiculous’ and Sol sat at the machine, inserted the drive card and sure enough, the first graphic appeared then vanished leaving the error code.

“He had a five second view of a intro screen with a picture of a dragon image and a [please wait] label with it.” Sol puzzled, while rubbing his head.

“Do you think that was enough to transform him?” I asked.

“Apparently, but I can’t see how!” he replied.

We chalked it up to mystery but we took the card back with us and departed. My list of doubts just got a little longer.

We still had 56 names in our list, but now I spent longer hours looking at them, looking not just for the traditional signs of someone desiring to change species, but also what and who they would be leaving behind. I read and reread and read once again their correspondence, trying to find any clues of someone who would regret the turn in thier lives.

Sol noted this obsession but really couldn’t offer anything to say, but it was troubling him. We went down the list over that next year as far as down to subject number 25, how I do remember subject 25. How I most dearly wish that I could just plain forget about subject 25... forever...

Sometimes you just get a feeling that you are in trouble, that you may be walking into a trap, but you tell yourself its nothing, just get on with it.

Miles Singleton, working as a night watchman, an unimposing person, average , typical, yet a great interest in the species and the deepest wish to become one. Ironically I found very little to worry about as far as his ties to leave behind. Maybe that was its own kind of subtle signal of a deeply troubled past, ignored in an attempt to make for an easy acclimation session after the transform.

We used a classic move, a costume transform for him, noting his reading preferences. He would find a box containing a dragon costume in the warehouse as he patrolled. We produced just the head this time as we found that the head was usually enough to light the fuse for the fireworks. This time there was a bomb attached to that fuse however...

Miles picked up the box, holstered his flashlight and radio and noted the top flap left so conveniently untaped. Soon he was trying his mask in the lavatory next to the shipping office, and finding that the mask had joined him and not able to come off, transformation began.

The extremities usually start first and in this case, legs and then tail and we noticed how big the feet were and how big they kept getting, and the tail unfurling past 50 feet.

I looked at Sol and he started shaking his head side to side saying “Not good, this is SO NOT GOOD!!!!” and reaching for his injector gun and pulling the safety clip. I had smelled fear from people, but not from a dragon, until now , its an incredible foul thing and I could not separate mine from Sol’s as I pulled the pin on the pistol injector, the size of a commercial caulking gun and we took up positions next to the behemoth still forming.

Description
Meteoric : A transformative Tale, Chapter 4

The two dragons looped over the lonely highway in central Kansas, looking for their next transformee, the sun was beaming down into endless cornstalks and that thin ribbon of roadway. A big Peterbuilt came into view and soon it was obvious that DieselDragon was the driver, with a trailer that was a masterpiece of dragon murals, but the most clever on top of the cargo box.

With a cartooned face of his dracsona and a classified ad look reading “Experienced driver - Available for Quests and Adventures. Willing to Travel, Willing to become a Dragon, Payment in gold! and then his phone number following this. Since it was on top of the van, only a flying creature or pilot could have read it!

Sol said he was tempted to dial the number and set up a meeting, and just drop the stone on the table right in the middle of the talk.

I looked over at him and he was grinning and I said “Lets try it , then!”

We dialed and reached the cab of the Peterbuilt and Sol said that he was responding to the classified on the roof of the cargo trailer westbound on Interstate 70 at the mile marker #115. The voice on the other end said “Yeah right” and hung up. Oh well, we’ll continue with the old methods.

Soon enough, Diesel’ had to park and “Drain the Radiator” at a rest stop. As he entered the washroom, Sol noted the area was clear of onlookers and he moved to the middle of the path that Robert Mayfield would return to his machine on and placed the gleaming three toned green stone slightly off center of the path on the gravel and then rejoined me crouched behind a tool shed.

I noted to him about his incredible decency in waiting and making sure that our candidate did not transform with a full bladder, to which he chuckled and rubbed his chin.

Like clockwork, Diesel found the stone and picked it up carefully with a folded card so he would not touch it and walked to a picnic table to stare at it for awhile. Maybe he connected this with that strange phone call and then the text message of (Draconum Ignis Libertatum - Solag) that had followed it.

Then he picked it up again and walked behind a rise in the prairie, with us in pursuit.

As we sat down on the grass, the show was in progress, Diesel writhing on the ground and groaning.

“I hope he doesn’t decide to run a marathon like the Sergeant did!” Sol exclaimed.

“Lets chase him using the truck if he does.” my suggestion.

“I figured Diesel for ivory claws, not dark- oh well” he observed.

“Nice horns” I mused.

“Wonder if his tail tip will look like a gearshift knob?” from Sol, to which we laughed, only even more as the tail formed - and sure enough....

“Great colors, very raptor in the patterns” I noted, and Sol thought that the chrome finish scutes were a bit much though.

“C’mon...wings!” I began rooting, sporting event style.

“Yours sure took their time.” he winked as Robert’s green and black aerofoils unfurled.

We stood and got serious as Diesel lurched upright on his 3rd try and figured out where everything was and how it felt. Then he very calmly took the belt from his old trousers and put around his middle and hung his wallet, flashlight and keys off it and piled his clothes, no longer his size at all, together and torched them with a short breath.

“Am I the only guy who ever waited for much of a year to try fire?” I asked Sol to which he snickered and nodded yes.

Soon we were joined by Diesel who was still panting and shaking a bit and we took him back to the picnic table .
The new dragon was very pleasant and his only worry was that he couldn’t just leave a truck and load sitting there unattended. I asked if a relative could help and he nodded, saying his brother could finish delivery and take over the business too.

So we piled into the cab and made our way to Nebraska, stopping fortunately only once at the dark of midnight at a truck stop for fuel (and chili dogs) before arriving at Diesel’s place.

Diesel’s brother just laughed his head off when he first saw us and said “I told you NEVER eat that worm in the bottom of a Tequila bottle! See what happens when you do!” to which all laughed. His laughs soon faded over the next few minutes as we demonstrated this was neither cosplay or joke, by Diesel flying him around the ranch in his grasp! This was followed with being presented keys to his new truck.

Accompanying Diesel and Sol to Drac8, I soon returned to Fremont to prep a little book for one Janet Montoya, dragoness - to - be.

I Started with a few pages of prose that detailed the life of StarFire. a dragoness of the mythic forest, who taught all creatures to read and to write. She was the scribe of the forest tribe, the voice of the wooden glen.

Realizing that by page two, she would understand that she was reading her own biography, I left the pages after that with a single phrase “ Draconum Ignis Libertatum, Rekalnus” and a footer line of “ yet to be written”

Inside the hardbound jacket, I placed a stamp of “Ex Libris” which denoted ex library book but this one read Alpha Draconis 8 Antheon City Main Branch! Then I added a card pocket and placed in it a crafted library card, the TF object itself. The card was from the same library with the owner name of Starfire Montoya printed on it. The more she may hold and read it, the deeper the catalyst. I placed a post-it on the card noting “Your Signature is required to join.”

That afternoon found me on the roof in sleep as Sol arrived and dropped into the other nest.

“Diesel all settled in and trucking along?” I asked.

“Quite so, but he’s not interested in becoming a dragon guide just yet, he wants to try a few other occupations first and see” Sol replied, then added “Some individuals have different paths, Rek.” to which I nodded.

“Ready for Janet M.” he queried.

“Yes, everything is set.” I replied.

“First thing tomorrow then.” as he drifted off.

Early next, we flew the long route to San Fran to avoid sightings, coming in off of the headlands and behind the Presidio, avoiding downtown and landing on the roof of the building with the used book store at the street level. A quick shift to human and into the store with the book in hand.

As Janet was helping a customer, I slipped the book onto the “New arrived” cart where tomes were brought in for trade or credit. They would need to be sorted to shelves after closing. Anyone entering the shop could handle that book all day long and just find it bizarre, but that would be all. In Janet Montoya’s hands, however - that same volume would unlock amazing events in a short time. I slipped back onto the street after a bit of browsing.

We waited back on the roof for afternoon, listening to the store below for any signs that the show had started early but we heard the childrens group read along and later Janet talking with customers. Shifting to person guise, we took up watch at the cafe across the street and soon the closed sign was posted in the shop window.

It was easy to see inside the shop as Janet began sorting the new volumes and soon she sat with a puzzled look looking at our book and pulling up the library card with a huge smile but also the eyebrow expression of confusion. She signed the card and actually slipped it into the loan card pocket. A sudden shift to expression of panic and a lurch to the back room was our signal to move. Circling the building and entering from the alleyway, we found her in the last stages, it had been a fast transform and one of great beauty along with some whimsical features as a unicorn horn.

A few hours later, we were at the courtyard table on Drac8 with Starfire, but it was not going smoothly. Our greeters were Bin and Cam and later Cam took me aside to explain something about the draconian genders. She noted that males have less emotional attachments to places as do females, so while our recent arrivals had just wanted to do one basic thing before leaving - see to a truck or visit friends on a battlefield, it was often a bit harder for a dragoness to separate from her former environment.

I said that I remembered this from the classes but was not aware how strong it could be or how it would appear in person. She held my claw and said that I would learn with time.

It was late in the evening, some hours after we had shown Starfire to her new dwellings. I was on a balcony near the cavern entry, staring out over the sea. The sea often gives me calm, but not tonight, something about the day’s events bothered me, beyond the separation pangs I had seen. Soon a figure approached and out of the light of the moons stepped Starfire. She smiled at me and I returned it and asked if she would like to join me.

“Is this your favorite spot?” she asked.

“One of them, there are many here really” I noted.

She tried a smile but it flattened out as she looked over the water, clearly missing home.

“It does remind me a bit of the view from Pacific Coast Highway and especially Santa Cruz.” I said.

She nodded sadly. I was not helping- at all, completely out of ideas, and a bit reserved at saying anything else. Like so many here, I had dreamed of being a dragon and I’m sure Starfire did too, but we each had regrets. Maybe it would help just to talk through it all and find where she was unhappy. Silence was accomplishing nothing.

“Starfire, a few days ago, I was feeling the exact same way you are now, as I was looking from a housetop in Fremont over towards Lick Observatory up behind the San Jose foothills. Being an astronomer when human and even though it was years ago, just one look brought back all the memories. Although it feels sad, I hope that I never forget the times that I had and the people that I knew then. They were good times.

And these are good times as well. You are going to make a lot of new friends here, and build memories and experiences that are the real treasure in life.” I said.

“Rek, do you ever want to return to earth? Now I don’t mean when you are going to go back in a few days and get back to your work with Sol, but I mean just return there to stay?” She questioned.

I really had to think about that, and took a minute and then said that I would love to return and spend time not hiding but walking among everyone, as who I am now and without the fear that some will either run in panic, look in disgust or even laugh at me, but just blissfully ignore me right along with everyone else in their day. That would be a real treat and have other dragons and furries walk the same street, ignoring me equally as the people do. She laughed a bit, I guess she never looked at it that way, that even being ignored could become desired. She put her paw on mine and I smiled at her and she made it to half a smile, and I was hoping to get that to full before we parted tonight.

“Why did you folks really decide that it was time that I was to become a dragon?” she asked.

Without going into the whole selection process thing I cut to the part about how she had become a great voice for us in her readings to the youngsters in all of those storybook hours, that she was portraying the species beyond just mindless brutes or the results of dark magic. That she was able to create and share ideas with so many who wanted them.

“But REK, I can no longer do that anymore, because I no longer really belong to that world, not as I can see it, and neither of you asked me if that was what I wanted, along with these wings and tail!” she interrupted.

She was right, and I really had no answer either, all I could do was to share some feelings and see if we BOTH could make something of them, somehow. I said that I was becoming conflicted over this thing as well, now the earth was without a trucker who could speak dragonese to all on the highway and also removed a Sergeant who could hold kindred spirits together, in combat, or as retired- helping his fellow veterans. Was I right to have taken them from the rest of their fellows? Would those gaping holes close? Could their intense desire to be another species balance with all of that? I really was not sure. Do our dreams have the authority to overturn our responsibilities?

“Now you see what I’m feeling, and suffering your own version too it seems” she said.

“Yes, I guess I am- and was even not fully understanding it, Starfire. But at the same time, I’m maybe able to deal with it a bit differently because I was never attached to one place like you were. You see, back when I was Russell, I never stayed in one place for very long. I lived in rural places and big cities. Illinois, Florida, Vermont, Arizona, California, Texas, Nebraska, Colorado, and long visits to all the rest and a few of the nearby countries too. I left behind a great many friends and things that I both enjoyed doing, and was very successful at in each of those places. In all of these, I found new friends, responsibilities, successes and failures at each next stop. This is really now just one more chapter.” I said

“I wanted to be a dragon, even when I only understood a little bit of it, and so thought then that being one might just be something that would condemn me to go to a small remote part of earth to be one, never knowing about all of this. I’m sure you felt as deeply about trying a new species, and you knew that it would turn your life upside down if it happened, but it was still there, calling you.” I continued.

“I guess you’re right, I wanted it, and maybe I put it ahead of others too” She sniffled in misery. I was projecting fail as surely as I could ice or fire...

“But, Starfire- if we all just took one thing, one place and one life that we are comfortable at, and stayed there, all of us.... we would never grow, and by that same problem, those around us could never grow either. Among any number of readers in San Francisco, is another dragon voice, and he or she will come forward. And it may not even be to fill your place but to make their own. It will happen, and it will happen in plenty of other cities too. And it will happen only by people who try new things, just as you did when you first started reading to children.” I said.

She began to think a bit about what I had said, maybe some it made sense, there could always be a first time!

I continued “Right now, there may be a whole group of youngsters here who would really be ready to read and be read to - about the humans and their adventures and fun times. They could use a voice who knows all about those subjects!”

Her eyes began to sparkle just a bit, and the smile went to 3/4, and mine to 105 percent. She clasped my claw in hers more tightly.

“I still feel I’m going to regret leaving.” she said.

“Yes you will, and it will be as much as I do, about all of those places from my past. But it would all be so small compared with the regret that would have been mine if NOT having gone to all of those places before and to all of the ones still ahead, for either of us. Its not easy, it never is, but we can share it and that helps a bit too.” I said.

Not sure of the math, as to how far I helped with her feelings, and leave it to me to try and tally it up too... but the Hug and kiss that I received next seemed to show some headway was being made!

We met a few more times before I returned to terra and she was starting to accept and enjoy the new life.

A few hours before my return, we again met at the same balcony and she thanked me for our talks and she offered her own help. “Rek, I hope you can find a balance in how you feel about transforming people, and I hope we can talk about it sometime and you can share more about it, maybe we can find more ideas about it?”

“ I will be sure and do that, Starfire, you really gave me some things to think about.” I said during a parting embrace.

The entryway to Terran skies from the gate was rainy and I flinched at the lightning flashes and roaring thunderclaps while plowing throught the weather to Fremont. As I shook my wings dry on the porch and prepared to enter I heard Sol exclaim “Wipe the mud off those claws before coming in!”

As I sat at the kitchen table, Sol was at work by the sink and he noted “Well, how is our new dragoness doing? it looked like rough times before I started back this way.” I replied that she was doing better and I had learned quite a bit along the way.

“More things we never learned in class, eh?” he said with a smile.

“Too right!” my reply.

“Well, while you were helping Starfire feel a bit better, I ‘ve been hammering into shape that game program we were talking about earlier for Mr. Masari to play with. Its almost there, another day of debug and we should have it.” he said, while drying dishes.

With the storm outside, it meant facing gate-lag without basking but instead an afternoon on a ...mattress. ech!

The next evening found us outside of RidiculousEmpire games offices watching the parking lot empty out. In true Silicon Valley style, most stayed well past 8pm. The need to pursue such basics as family life, social involvement and human requirements as exercise and rest all placed on hold to spend more hours at the keyboard. By midnight, just one car remained, and we found Mr. Masari hunched before the monitor, deeply furrowing a new design into his brows and wrinkled lines.

“Is that how I look at the computer.... crikey!” said Sol shaking his head.

“As have we all”, I noted, as Masari took a walk to clear his mind.

Sol carefully entered the room and deposited a packet into the inbox on the desk and rejoined me. Soon Masari leaned back in his chair as either something on the screen satisfied him, or- he gave up for a while and shifted his attention to his desk and soon the inbox. He pulled the strange packet to him and opened it to find a simple note about a new beta game, loaded onto the flash module in the package.

In quick succession, the card was plugged into a spare machine and load was pressed as Masari turned back to his original problem and finally saved that session and idled that machine and returned to the mysterious game. We waited a few minutes and then heard Wow!!!!! exclaimed followed by a crash and tumbling sound. We entered to find the transformation proceeding and into a lesser seen form.

The dragon was Red and blue in colors with highlights in several more hues but this was a more avian species with feathers on wings and also behind the head. As each feather emerged, a small pop was heard, and for a time almost took on a really odd popcorn popping sound. The claws and head were raptor like and the eyes like an owl’s.

As he recognized us, he smiled and laughed. We sat him down for awhile to calm him and let the pin-feathers emerge and develop. Horntail had arrived.

Meanwhile, I looked at the machine and found just a blue screen on it and the simple line message at bottom, ERROR, Cache Overrun, Insufficient Storage = Return code 2BA. I pulled the flash card from the machine and powered it off, pocketing the memory device.

Our newly arrived dragon was a quick learn for flying and soon he was alighting to the platform on Drac8 and joining us at the table. As everything seemed to be proceeding well, I excused and left Sol with his newbie and returned to Terra’ , after a visit with Starfire!

Just two days later, Sol returned and found me busy making a large batch of cookies. He grabbed several off the searing pan and down they went while he noted that our CEO found his bliss when he discovered that the internet followed him to Drac8. It turns out he’s going to keep right on running his company and writing games from there...

“While fiegning that he moved to the Cayman Islands, probably” I said, producing a crumb studded laugh from Sol, who then noted that we needed to go back to RidiculousEmpire and retrieve that memory card, to which I pulled it out and handed to him.

“Great, we’re all set then” he noted.

“Maybe, we are - Sol, that game never started, the machine stopped when the memory stuffed up during load.”

“Are you sure?” he asked wide eyed.

I nodded and read off the error code to which he sat back completely stupefied.

Later that night we entered the office at Ridiculous’ and Sol sat at the machine, inserted the drive card and sure enough, the first graphic appeared then vanished leaving the error code.

“He had a five second view of a intro screen with a picture of a dragon image and a [please wait] label with it.” Sol puzzled, while rubbing his head.

“Do you think that was enough to transform him?” I asked.

“Apparently, but I can’t see how!” he replied.

We chalked it up to mystery but we took the card back with us and departed. My list of doubts just got a little longer.

We still had 56 names in our list, but now I spent longer hours looking at them, looking not just for the traditional signs of someone desiring to change species, but also what and who they would be leaving behind. I read and reread and read once again their correspondence, trying to find any clues of someone who would regret the turn in thier lives.

Sol noted this obsession but really couldn’t offer anything to say, but it was troubling him. We went down the list over that next year as far as down to subject number 25, how I do remember subject 25. How I most dearly wish that I could just plain forget about subject 25... forever...

Sometimes you just get a feeling that you are in trouble, that you may be walking into a trap, but you tell yourself its nothing, just get on with it.

Miles Singleton, working as a night watchman, an unimposing person, average , typical, yet a great interest in the species and the deepest wish to become one. Ironically I found very little to worry about as far as his ties to leave behind. Maybe that was its own kind of subtle signal of a deeply troubled past, ignored in an attempt to make for an easy acclimation session after the transform.

We used a classic move, a costume transform for him, noting his reading preferences. He would find a box containing a dragon costume in the warehouse as he patrolled. We produced just the head this time as we found that the head was usually enough to light the fuse for the fireworks. This time there was a bomb attached to that fuse however...

Miles picked up the box, holstered his flashlight and radio and noted the top flap left so conveniently untaped. Soon he was trying his mask in the lavatory next to the shipping office, and finding that the mask had joined him and not able to come off, transformation began.

The extremities usually start first and in this case, legs and then tail and we noticed how big the feet were and how big they kept getting, and the tail unfurling past 50 feet.

I looked at Sol and he started shaking his head side to side saying “Not good, this is SO NOT GOOD!!!!” and reaching for his injector gun and pulling the safety clip. I had smelled fear from people, but not from a dragon, until now , its an incredible foul thing and I could not separate mine from Sol’s as I pulled the pin on the pistol injector, the size of a commercial caulking gun and we took up positions next to the behemoth still forming.