Vern
After a day when nothing seemed to go right, I dragged my tail home.
My home with Falco. Not the dam where I’d grown up and continued to live into adulthood with my brothers, but in an actual house with an outer-worlder who would soon be my mate.
Everything had already been arranged. We just had to wait for the date to arrive.
The thought made me feel a tingle of the magic from the land, but I still couldn’t absorb enough to shift back to a human.
Not yet. Though I was sure when I saw Falco again, the capability would return.
As the front of the house came into view, the sky became dark.
Much too early to be nighttime. I hurried inside, a flap in the door allowing me to enter without shifting to my human form.
Sniffing around, I tried to locate my future mate, but his scent was faint as if he wasn’t there and hadn’t been for a while.
Terror clenched at my gut. Had he finally realized I was a bad choice as a mate? Or worse, had he decided to leave our world completely? I rushed back out and returned to the village for answers. I needed to know what had happened to him.
Struggling to fully shift to my human form, I asked anyone I came across if they’d seen Falco.
“Yeah, he headed north into the forest earlier today.” Carson shrugged, stepping up onto his porch. “I didn’t think anything of it. Assumed he wouldn’t go far on his own. It’s a shame you actually got a chance to have an outer-worlder as a mate, and now you seem to have lost him.”
A new panic filled me. I had no idea how far Falco could have gotten in the forest during the time I’d been at work. And with the impending rain, north of the village wasn’t a place any being wanted to be lost. A different kind of magic resided in that area.
Not wasting any time, I scurried into the woods.
Thankfully, I managed to catch a faint trace of his scent on a path no longer used.
I followed it as fast as my four feet would take me.
When the rain started, I pushed to go even faster.
I needed to find him before his odor washed away.
He’d traveled quite far, but I was grateful to still pick up his path.
Then the rain pelted down. All hope of locating him by smell alone disappeared.
I didn’t know how much farther he could have traveled.
Why had he voyaged out on his own in the first place? Though my main goal was to locate Falco, I was still haunted by the worry I’d done something wrong. Something to make him run away.
The rain didn’t let up. It came down hard with a gritty texture, nothing like the rain that fell on the village.
Everyone in the Enchanted Forest grew up being told never to travel north, that the land contained a dark magic even Ahmed didn’t understand.
I’d failed Falco by not telling him. But I couldn’t give up in my search for him.
Sitting up on my hind legs and using my tail to support me, I glanced around for any sign of the outer-worlder.
In the distance, I caught a hint of orange.
At first, I thought it might be a flower, but it seemed too big.
I scampered in between trees toward it, slowly filling with hope.
As I got closer, I thought it to be Falco’s shirt and hoped he was nearby.
Then I realized he was underneath the material.
When I poked my head under the fabric, he screamed and swatted at me.
Backing away, I willed the magic into me so I could take my human form, but it was too heavy, much different than what I was used to. Instead, I chittered at him, trying to make Falco realize it was me.
He peeked out from under the shirt, but just as his facial features turned from fear into recognition, heavy footfalls reverberated the ground around us.
I surveyed the landscape then glanced up, terror filling me as I took in a large, scaled creature with a long neck, flared nostrils, wings which it had tucked into itself, and a tail I couldn’t see the end of.
It seemed too big to move among the trees, but somehow it had, and I feared what it planned to do with us.
“It’s a dragon,” Falco whispered.
A dragon. I’d heard whispers of the fantastical creature, but the tales told of an even more fearsome being with large, pointed fangs and claws that would tear one to shreds.
“You seem to be far from your land,” it said with a deep, gravelly voice. “And not at an appropriate time.”
I didn’t know if it meant to help us or planned to eat us for dinner. As much as I yearned to scamper away, I stood my ground between it and my future mate. “We’re sorry. We will leave right away.”
“It’s my fault.” Falco pushed up from the tree and stepped forward, seemingly not at all afraid of the dragon. “I went looking for a gift for my mate to give him at our mating ceremony and I got lost. He just found me.”
“Hmm.” The dragon lifted one of its front feet to rub its chin, and that’s when I saw the pointed claws. “That would explain why you took one of our rocks.”
I scuttled in front of Falco. “We’re sorry. He’ll give it back.”
The dragon shook its head. “No need. We have plenty more. I was simply curious as to why your kind would be here.” It pointed a claw at Falco. “But he’s different. I’m curious about him.”
“From the outer-world. Our wizard. He gave him a card, and Falco used it to wish his way here. To be my mate.” Rambling on, I hoped I could somehow save us from the beast.
Falco stepped in front of me. “Now, are you going to let us be? We will leave your land and never come back.”
With the dragon in front of us, I hadn’t noticed the rain had lessened. If I’d been able to shift into my human form, I would have grabbed Falco’s hand and ran. I doubted the dragon would be able to make it through the trees at the same speed we could, but I still couldn’t grasp the magic I needed.
The dragon sighed. “You think I want to hurt you?” When it shook its head, its whole neck swung back and forth. “You couldn’t be more wrong. It’s a lonely life up here in the north. No one ever comes to visit. And when you did, I wanted to see who you were, see if you needed help in the rain.”
“How would you help us?” Falco asked.
“I would fly you above the clouds and back to your land. I do believe you have a lovely meadow with the prettiest of flowers.”
The same meadow where I’d first met Falco. “And how do we know we can trust you?”
With a chuckle, the dragon released a puff of smoke.
“If I wanted to bring you harm, I would have by now. My name is Max by the way.” Suddenly the air around him sparkled, and he shrunk, as if every part of his body was miniaturized and reshaped into a new form.
I’d seen many beings shift before, but Max’s transformation seemed more extraordinary. “Is this a less scary form for you?”
I gulped at the man before me. He was definitely an exquisite example of the male form, more toned and bigger in all the right places, with shimmering skin the same color as his dragon’s scales. I worried Falco would decide to leave me for him.
But my mate leaned down and stroked my fur. “I’m sure you are nice,” he said to Max. “And many in the village would get a kick out of meeting a dragon, especially those from the outer-world like me. But it’s best if we get back now. It’s getting late.”
“Let me escort you.” He leaned over and petted my head.
With Max’s touch, I felt the magic once again, and I absorbed it to shift into my human form.
I saw his eyes scan me from head to toe before he nodded.
“And maybe you can tell me more about your village and how I can meet an outer-worder. It sure would be nice to have some company for a change.”
Falco tucked his arm around mine. “Sure. And I can tell Ahmed exactly where to go to find someone who would love to be mated to a dragon shifter.”
Reluctantly, I walked south through the forest with my mate and Max, relieved I had found Falco and that he was safe and still wanted to be my mate. Yet, I worried about the reaction from the villagers when they learned of the existence of a real-life dragon and how he wanted a mate, too.