Unexpected findings

“You bloody MOTHERFUCKER!”

A yell broke the otherwise silent night and startled hundreds of small animals throughout the forest: birds woke up and flew up in the air, rabbits and foxes trembled in their lairs and all the others that weren’t as lucky to have wings or small enough to hide under the earth had to run away in every direction they could find. Fortunately there were no people around for the next five to ten kilometres, else they’d have heard the scream and got either scared or curious: whoever or whatever owned the voice, was clearly not human, or not entirely. It had a slightly raspy and hiss to it, deeper than what humans could produce but vibrating wildly and echoing in the air. If there was someone to hear it, they’d think of a sound effect from a movie or a videogame, artificial, since nothing humans knew could naturally produce such a sound.

“I’ll kill you!”

Another yell, more animals fleeing. The barn in which the voice emanated from shook several times as something heavy moved around, the glass breaking along the rumble on the second floor and crashing onto the ground around the building to join the long lost panels of the abandoned farm. Something else broke inside the barn, a wooden beam, that fell on the ground and left a deep mark into the mossy earth. There was a hiss and then one more before the situation calmed down a little and the vibrations of the air and the barn quieted down just enough for silence to set in. The night was quiet once more, with the clouds moving normally thousands of metres high in the air, the trees resting and collecting water from the dirt and what little of fauna was left asleep shifted in whatever cave or hole they had crawled in. However, inside the barn, things weren’t nearly as calm as they should have been or had been but half an hour prior.

Past the half-rotten door that separated the inside from the outside, standing in the middle of the building, something that was clearly not human at all stood and huffed in displeasure, streams of warm air blowing dust and dead leaves around. For the moment, the inside was too dark for anything to see clearly and as such the creature was shrouded in mystery.

“Calm down Ash, it’s not what you think…”

A second voice joined the first, deeper, rumbling like an avalanche coming down a mountain. Opposite the thing, who was still huffing madly, there was something else, something also not quite human as well. The darkness made it impossible to make out their forms but if anyone came through the door, as unlikely as it was, would have seen a pair of glowing embers two metres off the ground, two round gems that had a black line right in the middle and held something that could be identified as shame or regret if such embers had been human eyes. Opposite them, two emeralds shone in a completely different way, anger and fear threatening to burst out in a tangible way for the second being to touch, but there was no need for it: the creature could taste them in the air.

“Shut the fuck up you son of a BITCH!!!”

The first creature, the one with the emerald eyes lunged forward, close to the ground and aimed for the second one, rising sharply from down below in complete darkness. Right in that moment, a ray of light from the moon shone from the large gap in the ceiling of the barn, one that had been there since a few years and could be counted as one of the many reasons for the situation happening at the moment. The pale moonlight hit the bodies of the two creatures and bared them for the heavens to see.

A long and streamlined creature with scales that glittered of the same colour as the moon was tackling something big and bulky, deep blue and heavier than a couple of cars put together. The silver one’s maw was aimed at the blue’s neck and bit down as hard as it could, leaving a few droplets of saliva to fall on the moss as it’s claws scratched at the blue scales. Snarls and grunts echoed in the barn but all of them came from just one mouth. If any god was watching the scene or had been watching since the first scream five minutes before had echoed in the air and pictured the forms of the two creatures, now they’d look disappointed. If the blue creature, a dragon by all means, was tall, three metres at his shoulder but reaching higher with his neck, thickly built and heavily armoured from head to tail tip and a magnificent specimen, the second one was… well, lacking. Despite the booming voice that the green-eyed being had, it was but a half the height of the blue one, standing at barely a metre and fifty high, almost child-like in that aspect, not to mention weight, its body moving around without conforming to the laws of gravity onto four thin limbs. The blue, who was watching with a complex expression at the one biting him, barely felt the teeth sink into his scales.

“Ash, please stop, this is embarrassing…” The glowing embers locked onto the smaller dragon’s frame, going from the tiny head to the branch-like horns and the thin and long body that stretched more than ten or fifteen metres away from the green eyes, now cluttered over his frame in an attempt to bring the second set of claws and limbs that was at the end of it to him and use it to attack. “Ash… please…”

“Fuck you!” This was what the silver one wanted to say, but what came out was more on the line of a muffled “Hhhck Yyu” since his teeth were still trying to breach the hard scales, without too much success.

More light poured in the barn and lit up the entire inside of the building, flooding it in rays that bounced off blue and silver scales alike. Mikael shook his head and sighed, shifting his tonnes of weight around with ease despite the many, many metres of angry dragon slamming against him. The three metres tall European dragon waited for long minutes for the other one to stop, craning his neck to look around as Ash battered his scales with everything he had to find a soft spot to attack relentlessly and still failing to do so despite the larger dragon allowing him to do so. If there were indeed any gods watching, they’d have felt bad for the Asian dragon, pitifully attempting to take down the massive behemoth that Mikael was. It was like a giant snake who had gotten itself drunk or bashed its head on a rock coiling half-assedly around an armoured car with fangs… metres and metres of silver-scales and muscles flopping around completely outside the control of the dragon attached to them. Humans regarded dragons as non-existing creatures, something out of legends and dreams but if they saw the scene going on in the barn, they’d think of a comic show in bad CG made up by middle schoolers.

“You really need to calm down Ash.”

“And you need to turn me back! You two faced… asshole!” Ash snarled and interrupted his biting for just a moment to speak. “I want my body back!”

Mikael sighed once more, feeling bad for his friend: he clearly needed more than a few moments to think and stop attacking him like an idiot. The world shifted sideways as he relaxed the muscles on his left side, limbs buckling under tonnes of weight and giving in to gravity. Moments later, the blue behemoth came crashing down with all of himself on the ground and pinned the smaller dragon under his left flank, dealing little to no damage as the flesh of the Asian dragon flattened and still kept wriggling as if nothing had happened at all. Ash still kept going strong with his attempts to tear off even one scale off of his friend’s body as the dust settled down after the fall of the giant, struggling to get himself out of the vicious mass of his friend. Yet another sigh prompted Mikael to slump even more and utterly smother Ash under himself as his mind wandered to the events that led to this very situation. And the small one still kept clawing at him with his pitiful claws… At least he had the tenacity to make up for the lack of strength.

“I hate this… I hate this so effin much…”

In the library of the university, an air of despair and palpable anxiety had taken hold of the entire building and the surrounding areas and only one word could be used to describe the reason for this extreme phenomenon: finals. It was a word feared by any and all students, event the good ones, especially the good ones who had a decent record and needed to keep it high enough to make their parents happy or maintain scholarships and whatnot. The exams were due in a couple of weeks and among the various projects, mock tests, preliminary quizzes, the student body was pretty much overexerted in many ways and more than enough for it to be considered healthy. But for the sake of knowledge, and making the thousands paid by parents to have their children study there, this and much more had to be taken as normal. Of course there were a few that didn’t care at all but those were but a thin percentage of the majority.

In the library, room number 12, on the seats that were right next to a long shelf of ‘Comparative graphs’ and ‘Ancient philosophy in the Roman empire’, tens of students were busy picking up books and wondering, when they had the time, who the hell put math and philosophy together. The table was heavy with computers, bags full of more books and notes, heads that were being slammed on the hard wood every now and then when something particularly boring or hard to understand was presented to the owner of said head. Among the ones currently headbutting the table, was a student barely out of his teens, thin, black haired and with a somewhat flat face that highlighted the heavy marks of lack of sleep under his eyes. Chance had that it had been him the one who had spoken just now, prompting a chorus of glares and fingers placed on mouths from everyone in a ten metre radius from him. He didn’t care, nor did they but it was more of an automatic reaction than anything else really. Next to him there was another young man, also barely twenty, in fact, he had celebrated his birthday just a month before and joined his friend into the twenties.

“I suggest you keep your voice down Ash.”

“Shut up…” Ash’s answer was muffled by the fact that his face was mashed into an open book, nose straight between the pages and cheeks on each half of the tome, staring at a diagram that illustrated the usage of certain products in South America and the various marketing campaigns that had been made to sell said products. “I need help Mikael… I need serious help.” Again, his voice was muffled but it was enough to rouse the complaints of a few other students and prompted the one called in question to shush Ash down.

“Be quiet please, if you want to cry or something, just go in the ‘Sad Corner’ over there, ok?” Mikael tried his best to speak as lowly as possible and pointed Ash’s face at a closet that had been recently repurposed into something that was extremely creepy and somewhat cringy.

The ‘Cry closet’ or as the students had dubbed it the ‘Sad Corner’ was a new gimmick by the school board to keep the youngsters in check by allowing them to cry and scream in a private space for a few minutes and then keep going with their studies. It was dehumanizing, especially since they could have just lowered the difficulty of a few tests enough to make them not impossible but hey, it was a modern idea proposed by the most avant-garde minds of the psychologists department. Needless to say, it didn’t work at all but it was there nonetheless for anyone who wanted to use it, though given the soundproof nature of it, chances were that someone had used it for a different kind of activity and not one involving music that didn’t enter the ‘Slow jazz’ category. Ash turned his head towards the one who directed his lifeless face towards said ‘sad corner’: Mikael was staring at him from the high of his 1.96 metres, still stall even when sitting on a chair, legs spread wide so that he could afford to sit and not have to tuck them under a far too short table for him. Long blonde hair that hailed from the far lands of Norway, according to him, made for a great bun on the back on his head, a rare occurrence as he did it only when studying or cooking, but an increasingly common one these days, and the thick beard on his face added at least ten years to his still young appearance. Had he shaved, he’d look like a baby on top of a giant’s body, reason for which he didn’t cut it, unlike Ash who desperately wanted one but couldn’t even if he begged and kissed the hair growth pills he had bought from the Chinese lady that lived on the other side of the street after a very frustrating encounter in broken Cantonese and Mandarin.

Ash growled as quietly as the mounting desperation in his chest could afford him and got up moments later to avoid screaming in the quiet library, headed for the bar that was just outside the main doors of the building. He swiped the card that allowed him to enter the place and moments later another one followed him as Mikael walked calmly after the shorter guy merely in virtue of his height. Once inside the bar, also teeming with anxious students, but with the only difference that here there was no need to be quiet and that each either had a cup of coffee or tea in hand or were waiting for one. Ash stared at the board with all the prices and calculated which one he could afford without having to save on dinner that day and in the end he reached a conclusion.

“I’m so fucked right now.” Mikael raised an eyebrow. “I have enough for a couple of days but not much else.” The ‘short’ 1.75 metres tall student raised his campus card in the air, held up by two finger and waved it. “I remembered just now I forgot to charge it and I don’t have more than twenty bucks in it.” He sighed and so did his friend, reaching for his own card and leaning onto the counter to order.

“Two espressos, double strong please and a hot chocolate.” The cashier punched a couple of numbers on the display and the total of his purchase appeared on another screen and the pad in front of it flashed white at first, green later when Mikael swiped the card and paid for the drinks.

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome…”

Moments later, the both of them were sitting on one of the very few free tables and sipping on their drinks, namely the two espressos, black as the night and the half-asian guy’s mood and the chocolate for Mikael. The caffeine didn’t do much for him save for giving him a long ten minutes of clarity, just enough for him to finish them and then he was back at it with chittering and being paranoid.

“Listen here Ash, it’s not going to do you any good to get this nervous, you’ll do just fine, I know that.” Contrary to the kind and reassuring words, Ash didn’t seem, feel or acted any less jittery than before. “Come on… relax.”

“Says the guy with the highest grades in class.” A scoff, from Mikael this time around.

“To the guy who’s got the fifth best grades in the same class.” The blonde giant raised an eyebrow and made Ash blush a little at his words and leaned back on the chair. “I have told you a hundred times by now: you know everything by heart and on some things I’m pretty sure you’re better than me.” Ash was about to say something when a finger was promptly jammed in front of him. “Say anything at all about how ‘you’re not that good’ and I’ll dump cow dung on your face.” Ash closed his mouth. “Now, you’re good, you just need to fucking relax, any more coffee or revising and you’ll get a stroke or something.”

“But I’m still not done!”

“Then…” Mikael sighed. “One last time, then we pack for the day.” Ash nodded, somewhat unwillingly and sipped the very last drop of coffee from the cup as if it was liquid gold, which for a student on finals was practically the one and the same, if not more valuable. Content with his triumph, Mikael checked on his phone and saw a string of messages urging him to call someone back, his mother or anyone in an adult position in the house. “Gotta call mom, you can go back to the library, I’ll get back to you in ten minutes max.”

“Fine.” The shorter of the two packed the two things he had put on the table in his pockets and then headed out. Mikael shook his head and got out the other exit after he got the cups to the counter to save the staff the five seconds needed to do the same job and then dialled the number that had been sending him messages for the past two hours.

“Mom? What’s wrong?”

“Oh, finally, I was thinking you’d gotten yourself stuck in a pit or something.

“No, just studying in the library so I switched the phone off the past few hours.” On the other side of the line he could hear a slight commotion and several voices booming from different angles at the same time, cluttering the conversation. He waited for the time his mother needed to move somewhere quiet and at the same time, he did the same, going a little ways off the entrance to give himself some manner of privacy. “What’s going on over there? Are you having a party without me?”

“Not at all Mika, we’re just packing up a few things, some snacks for the trip.”

“Trip?” He furrowed his brows. “What trip? Is it your anniversary?” Just as he said so, he windowed the call and went through his events on the calendar and checked for any birthday or anniversary his family might have had in these days. Nothing.

“Mika…” his mother dragged the last letter far too long and with a somewhat condescending tone, making it weird for him to understand what she wanted to say unless she actually took the second it took to say… whatever she had on her mind.

“What? Did I forget something?” He could feel the mental eyes and the expression she was making in that moment with eerie precision. “Listen mom, I’ve just gotten off an eight hour long cram session of math and graphs, you need to give me a hand or I’ll hang here with my pants off for the rest of the day.” She was silent. “Please?”

“Mika.” She sighed hard enough for him to imagine the gust of air travelling through the aether and reach his face from the speakers of his phone. “Today, tonight, it’s The Day, capital T and D.” Again, he was left with little to work with, the two neurons he had left going in overdrive to make sense of anything for close to a minute and then it dawned on him.

“Oh, fuck.” Another sigh on her end. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

“Jesus Mika, how did you…?”

“Exams mom, exams, and it’s not like I had you or dad to remind me for the past month for this.” Or had they? He didn’t really check the emails these days often enough for him to notice any urgent stuff. Luckily for him, she didn’t mention any unread mail.

“You just need to go out of town for the next couple of days.” Mikael cringed inside: it’d be a mess for his study schedule, a real mess, capital M in this case.

“I live in a metropolis now mom, it takes me an hour just to get to the outskirts and even then it’s not even out of the city!” He checked the time on his phone and read that it was getting late, close to five p.m. now. Be it the fact that he had forgotten or that he had been too focused on the tests, but he could swear he felt sick, and not the normal kind of sick. “Oh, god.”

“Calm down, take a breath and relax.” He nodded and thanked her for being the one calm in this case, a rare event for him. Mikael closed his eyes and breathed in deep and suddenly all the scents, all the sounds, all the movements of the wind felt sharper, stronger, more insistent to get in his mind and burn their way into his brain. It didn’t help with making him less nervous at all and just like Ash five minutes before, he was more nervous. Ironic. “Mikael, calm yourself!” A voice other than his mother’s boomed from the other side of the phone and shook him awake.

“Uncle Viktor?” Why was he there? Well… it made sense, if they had to pack things and go outside town, he’d come in lieu of his father. “Hi.”

“Get your shit together Mika.” As rough and rude as he was, in this case a little bit of bluntness made for a good medicine. “You’re my nephew and I’ll be damned if you’re getting in trouble, got it?” He nodded, knowing his uncle would help him through this, albeit at the cost of a few insults and a severe lack of tact and mindfulness. “You’re dropping everything you’re doing, go to your room, pack some water and food for the trip, your phone and spare clothes.” So far so good, normal stuff for a trip. “And then get the fuck out of the city and head to the countryside as fast as possible, find old abandoned buildings and camp there.” Mikael could hear his mother complain about the danger of finding junkies or dangerous people in said building. Half a second later she took back whatever she had said. “I know it’ll be hard since you’re not with us this time and since you’re short on time but I know it’s going to be fine, you’re my brother’s son after all.”

“Thanks for reminding me what a nephew is…” He smiled and felt calmer, the sharp sensations still there and stronger if anything. However, he wasn’t panicking anymore now. “I’ll take a car from one of the rental sites around the campus and drive as far as I can before I start feeling sick.”

“Good, now get the fuck off your ass and get movin’!” He was tempted to strike a ‘yes sir!’ pose but the urgency of the matter forced him to shove such thoughts aside.

Phone in his jacket and nerves steeled, there was only one thing to do and that was get the hell out of this place. Swipe the card, get in, turn left and then right, forward twenty metres, left again, room 12. Ash was there and had been there for close to ten minutes now, reading on the same book he was reading before with a slightly less desperate expression, though only slightly. He’d have to go on alone for the rest of the weekend. Under the shorter guy’s confused look, Mikael packed all of his books and shoved them into his backpack, drawing, once again, the attention of those that hadn’t moved one inch from their seats.

“What are you doing?” It was a loud whisper. “Didn’t we agree to study some more?”

“Yeah sorry, I’ve got stuff to do.” Ash frowned. “I-I need some time to relax, alone if possible and I’ll be out for a couple of days. Sorry.” He shrugged and picked up his backpack, tossing it over one shoulder far too fast for it to be normal and then leaned in to give his friend a hug before leaving. “I am in a hurry so I guess…” Once he was closer to Ash, something stopped him in his tracks and Mikael froze. A scent unlike any other invaded his nose and caught his attention: it was soft and incredibly weird, leaving a dry aftertaste on his tongue, like the smell of… ash after a fire died down. Locked in that position Mikael got noseful after noseful of that scent, and found it nostalgic, somewhat similar to his own. A few overloaded synapses shifted into gear again and made a connection that made the young man towering on the table widen his eyes in surprise. “Oh…” more neurons kicked themselves alive and fired on what was left of the energy reserves Mikael had: an idea dawned on him and in the next moment he had made up a plan. It wasn’t as much as a plan as rather a… hunch, instinct and a sprinkle of craziness. “Hey, listen, uhm… do you want to come with me?”

“Sorry?” Ash couldn’t be more taken aback by the sudden proposition. “Go where?”

“I’m, ehm, I’ve decided to go out of the city, as I was saying, get some fresh air, spend the night under the full moon with a friend.” His friend cocked an eyebrow, confused but Mikael took that for interest. “It’s going to be nice, me and you, not one human to bother us.” Another cocked eyebrow.

“Is this something sexual? Is this because I told you of that guy I banged that one time just to see what it was like?” Ash put a hand on the table. “It’s not like I don’t want to, but… I decided I’m not bi…” The rest of the students had given up on shutting them up and got a good first-hand dose of gossip straight from the tap. “It’s ok if you’re bi, I don’t have anything against it.”

“What? No, I mean… ok, you kind of… well, fuck never mind.” Just as he was trying to dig himself out of this mess, Mika felt a sharp tingle in his spine and shut up. It wasn’t as if he himself wasn’t bi after all and at this point, he didn’t really care. “Ok, look, I’m just inviting, you, as a friend, to relax in the countryside for a day or two, get some rest and then come back. You do look like you need it.” Anything else might confuse the onlookers. Ash straightened his back and thought. When his eyes fell on the book and the horrible contents, he rolled his eyes and stood up.

“I… think we both need a break, a real one.” Mikael smiled and hugged him again, closer this time, chest to chest, even if it meant to crouch more than a few centimetres just to do that and the scent hit him again. Ash was startled another time and inhaled, waiting for something more, something that didn’t come, though… something else did and his pupils dilated just a fraction as his lungs took in the less than fresh air of the library, air that now had one extra component to it. Dazed and sniffing the air for that smell he just now caught, Ash removed himself from the hug and took some distance, the scent disappearing. “Ok, so, when do we leave?” The scent was gone as fast as it had come and Ash put the matter in the back of his mind, just a sign that he did need that break. Mikael smiled wide, happy to see that his friend had found something in the other just as he did and checked the time. All of a sudden the weird anxiousness and insane tick kind of started to make sense to him, making him all the more sure that his friend did need to unload more than a little backed up energy and for that, he’d need some space, a lot of space.

“Hmm… now?” He was really going fast with this trip thing and to top that, he was already going out of the library. Ash hurried to pick up all of his stuff and shove it in his bag much like Mikael did, apologizing profusely to the other students, this time getting some thumbs up and a few odd glances here and there from those that had either gotten little out of the conversation or just misunderstood what they had heard or seen. “Why the rush?” Outside the library, things weren’t much different from a few minutes before, save for the two marching guys, one of whom was running at times to keep up.

“We don’t want to get out too late or it’s going to be a mess to go around, right?” Mikael shot him a knowing look and Ash nodded. It made sense: driving or moving when it was late or dark would be far harder for them, especially since it was all so urgent.

“Can’t we… like, slow down please… can’t we leave tomorrow?” Ash was hurrying and panting a little, the sight of a normal guy chasing down a small giant was something to behold.

“Nope, we either leave now or it’s going to be impossible to move around.” Mikael was being weirdly cryptic but Ash didn’t think much of it and shrugged, breaking into a full run as his friend did the same to get to the dorms as fast as possible. “Don’t pack too much, it’s going to be just a couple of days.” The two stopped at the entrance of their dorm, right where they had to separate and get to the two different areas of the male section of the building.

“Books?”

“It’s a break, no books, and even if we do, it’s going to be impossible to read them once we’re there.”

“Yeah… makes… sense, I guess.” Ash looked at him sideways, confused as to why he seemed to be remembering something in his mind.

“Ok see you in… ten minutes at the rental car down the road!” Mikael dashed towards his left and then disappeared into the halls that led to his bedroom, leaving a somewhat confused Ash behind.

A couple of seconds later, the half-asian remembered he was in a hurry and turned around, feet stomping in the fairly empty halls. Both of them were immediately met with the hard task that was preparing enough stuff to last a few days without having made any plans at all beforehand, both rushing to get underwear, brushes, spare clothes and in Ash’s case, a couple of notebooks, juuust in case he felt the need to review something on his way there, or before, or during, or before going to bed, or at breakfast… or on the toilet. On the other side, Mikael was more worried about spare clothes and preparing extra snacks to put in his stomach on his way there while looking at the map on his laptop for the direction in which to go. According to his uncle’s advice, anywhere that was far from everything was decent, but it had to have somewhere to sleep in and not have to camp outside like animals, lowering the places to sleep far more than he liked. After minutes of rather fruitless search, he chose a random direction, scrolled the map far enough and looked for any place that could meet his needs, even if it was just a shack. On the north side of the city, ten or twenty kilometres out of the edge, the map showed him a series of farms and old buildings and then a link that talked about some failed project to expand the industry there, something about a lack of funds, some farmers getting kicked out before the project was shut down, a lot of empty space to stay in. Perfect.

His alarm rang and warned him that he had to hurry and meet with Ash at the rental shop to get the car. With a few clicks and taps here and there, the map was saved on his phone and the GPS was turned on for the incoming… two hour drive to get to the destination. Not much but barely under his safe zone, any traffic and he’d have to rush things more than he liked. For now, he just had to rush down the stairs and to the shop, backpack filled with snacks and various stuff to get him through the next couple of days safely. His feet flew over the stairs, jumping two steps at first and then three, four and then entire flights as something pushed his body more than it should have, powerful strides taking him out the dorm in a minute rather than four or five and then outside, rushing past cars that, albeit slowly, were still going at a fair speed in the centre of the city. When he got to the shop, Ash was already there, tapping his foot in mocking annoyance and pointing at an imaginary watch on his wrist.

Mikael apologized and went inside the shop, renting any car that he could find at the lowest price, forcing the lady behind the old fashioned counter to look at him weirdly at the sentence:

“The cheapest thing you have that runs.”

The result was a ten year old car with a couple of patches on the bumper, meant for the poorest of customers that still refused to get a ticket with any train and still wanted to drive, rented for five days and with a… fairly hefty deposit despite the low quality of the vehicle. Given the rush, Ash didn’t complain too much at least and once on the car itself, Mikael wasted little time to push his foot on the gas and depart for wherever he was headed. For a while, they didn’t speak, one looking at the road and the other at the passing cars and buildings around them until all they could see was a highway, one hour after getting on and already several minutes late on Mikael’s schedule.

“Sooo, have you ever done this before? Like… leaving so suddenly?”

“Oh, not really, no, we usually get prepared at least a week before in these situations. I take your family is the same.”

“Yeah, real control freaks my parents, getting too close to the Asian stereotype.” His father was from mainland China, someplace smack in the middle of the mountains and had gotten out simply because his parents had worked their ass off to get him to school and then to a good university, almost dragging the entire family to the city just to follow him and then make it so that he could focus on his studies all day and pay back his parents one day with a good job. They hadn’t bet on the wrong horse as far as they were concerned, though Ash hadn’t seen much of his grandparents, he barely remembered their names and even then, he didn’t speak Chinese that much. “So, where are we going?”

“I found a nice place about twenty kilometres away from here, a quiet farm with little to no one around.”

“Farm? Do we need to, like, work to get lodging? Shovel poop around?”

“Nope, we just walk in and we’re set.” Mikael gave him a somewhat weird look and then retuned his eyes to the road ahead. Ash guessed he had already made a reservation, like at a B&B or something on that line. “Thanks for coming by the way. I really need some company.”

“Oh, it’s nothing, it’s not like I could go anywhere else.”

“Your parents aren’t going out of town?” Ash shook his head. “Oh, what are they going to do then?”

“I don’t know, stay at home, fly back to China or something, it’s not like they tell me anything.” Mikael was a little put off: did his parents not prepare for this kind of occasion? Did they have some secret place to unwind?

“Does this mean that you have to do this alone? All the time?”

“Pretty much, we haven’t travelled together in a while.” Mikael nodded in appreciation for his skills and ability to do this on his own, steering the wheel right and putting the car on the far right lane, ready to get off the highway, even more late than before after a long kilometre due to a bunch of fools that stopped to look at an accident on the other side of the road. “You never go out alone?”

“Nope, always family around, we’re pretty conservative where we come from so this will be the first time I do this alone.” The car jumped a little as he put it on the exit. “I don’t know about asians, but we love to go all together as a group.”

“Aren’t we the ones always in groups of tens or dozens at the same time?” What of all the tourists going around then? “I don’t see many hordes of Norse Vikings going around.”

“Well, it’s not like we go about in the cities when we do this kind of thing, it always somewhere in the woods, with lots of meat and possibly some nice company that wants Norwegian blood in them.” A wink made Ash shiver just a bit.

“Damn, aren’t you a horny asshole?” He punched the blonde giant with his left fist and found his shoulder much more firm and hard than usual. “You working out by any chance?”

“Not more than usual, why?” He turned his head just a moment to look at the passenger, immediately regretting the decision as some guy in front decided to slam on his brakes and almost cost him the entire deposit just for that moment of negligence. “Fucker… Sometimes I just want to burn guys like him alive.”

“Woah, chill…”

“Sorry, it’s just… I really need to get to the farm and unwind a little.” Ash poked at him and coughed lightly. “More than a little, a lot.”

“Sounds more like it.” He was the same after all, so much studying was threatening to make him brain melt into a puddle or something. “How much farther is this place? I really want to get there and stretch, I feel like suffocating in here.” Just as he said that, he shifted in his seat, finding it rather uncomfortable and small even though it had been just fine, mostly, for the whole trip until now and even his clothes felt tight. From the looks of it, Mikael was the same, moving about on his seat and grunting.

“Just a little bit more and then we’re free to do whatever…” There was a low hum coming from the tall guy’s throat and his eyes carried a weird look that made Ash think of the slight misunderstanding he had jumped into earlier. “Whatever…” Mikael was looking more and more forward to the moment in which he’d get out of that damn metal trap and run a bit to discharge the energy building up in his system, an energy that was now focusing entirely in an area that Ash was trying his best not to stare at and not to get a blush on for, extremely impressed by his friend’s size under his pants and a little bit jealous at that.

The car was getting hotter and hotter and a peculiar smell had taken hold of its confines, making Ash a little dizzy as he fell into a partial trance, or so he thought, since all of his senses seemed to be more sharp than before and felt each bump of the old car ended up hitting on the increasingly badly maintained road.

The shiny chimneys of the plants and factories disappeared behind a wall of trees and the occasional house, rest stop or any other sort of building seemed to get more and more run down as they ventured further inside the woods, making Ash wonder where the hell Mikael was going to. The answer came soon after, at the two hours and three quarter mark, way, way too late and at a big wooden pole that blocked the road. The two looked at each other and at the slightly creepy surroundings, then Mikael shut down the car and suddenly there was silence, not one car, not one other person, not even planes around them for god knows how long…

Drawing in a deep breath and still picking up that ashen scent, Mikael got out and took his backpack and all the relative contents, Ash following soon after behind him. A beep was the last artificial sound they’d hear for a while, save for the message that the Norwegian sent to his mother, telling her that he’d reached a safe place with a friend much in the same condition as he was, turning the device off immediately after. Without anything to bother him anymore, Mikael drew in a deep breath and relaxes his entire body.

“Let’s go.” Ash was a little shocked by the weirdly low voice that came out of his throat, nodding quietly and following behind, secretly shifting his underwear and dick around, hiding the even weirder erection he had gotten inside the car while watching Mikael’s pants stretch over his own. He wasn’t really bi, right? He had made sure of that… right? He hoped so at least. “Smells good.”

“What? The rotten wood or the lichens on the trees?”

“The air… smells nice, not tainted by cement and asphalt.”

“Look at mister poet here. How far is the farm?” Ash craned his neck to try and see if there was any building resembling a farm around, not the half destroyed one a hundred metres behind them.

“I don’t know, the map says to go forward.”

“Just… forward?” Mikael nodded. “Then I’ll follow you.”

Shifting the weight of the backpack on his other shoulder, Mikael pushed the log that blocked the road off enough to pass under without too much effort, giving Ash another mild shock and forcing him to rush so that he’d not have to hold it high for much longer, even though for some reason he didn’t seem to have any problem keeping the damn thing in his hands. Hell, he looked more muscular than normal. He must have been going to the gym more often than he admitted or something. He looked… pumped, jacked and, much to Ash’s mental fatigue, a little hot. As ‘not bi’ as he was, he really had to give in to the Norseman that he was a damn fine piece of meat, prompting a slap on his face to make said ‘impure’ thoughts away and almost giving his other brain a slap to keep it in check.

The road wasn’t any better than the last five hundred metres before: full of holes and not covered in the reassuring, though ugly, asphalt anywhere in sight, covered in weeds here and there, more here, and there, everywhere to be honest. Holes had formed along the path and caused Ash to wonder how the owners, or anyone, even managed to get around with this bad a road but most of all: where were the tracks? Not one tire print could be found anywhere. Just how did the customers get there? When was the last time anyone had even come through that path? Ash was dying to know but every time he was about to ask, he had to look at him and he’d feel something build up inside his chest, something hot, something weird, worse than butterflies in his stomach. At this point even those would be welcomed. More time went by and still no farm in sight, no fields full of crops even though it was harvest season, at the best of his knowledge, and the only field they had seen was a very old and very sad carcass of a crane with hundreds of cement bags littering the place, sol old that the concrete floor was cracked and saplings were sprouting within said cracks.

“There we are!” The exclamation lifted Ash’s worry and the young man rushed to meet his friend and see their destination, hoping to see living people, cars, tractors, cars, chickens maybe, a cow or a dog but nothing of the sort was there. Instead, a crumbling building, windows shattered by the wind and the elements, boards falling after being so rotten the rusted nails couldn’t hold them up anymore, the entire yard chock full or weeds and even the skeleton of a decade old car with graffiti on the sides, or what was left of the sides…

“What the fuck is this?”

“The perfect place to spend a few days.” Against common sense, Mikael was inhaling the musty air with a pleased expression and stretching his weirdly muscular body. “Isn’t it amazing? Not one soul in ten kilometres all around, all of this space just for us.”

“What in the fuck???” Ash screamed.

“What?” Despite everything and the guys furious expression, Mikael was oblivious as to why he had screamed.

“It’s a fucking… dilapidated building! There’s fucking nothing here!”

“Yes, that was the point of coming here… duh.”

“D-d-duh?” Now he was getting really, really mad. “Jesus Christ Mika! You could have told me to pack a tent or some shit! I can let the disgusting state of this place pass but not forcing me to spend the night on the fucking ground!”

“Tent? Why would you want a tent?” They’d not need a tent in a while, hell, they’d likely not fit into one even if it were gigantic…

“Where the fuck am I supposed to sleep? How am I going to get myself warm? What the fuck are we going to eat? I’ve got snacks! Snacks! And the closest supermarket was fifteen kilometres ago! For a prank this is far too bad in taste!” Ash fumed and huffed, having vented the anger in his chest but still not enough for him. Mikael stared at him with mounting confusion.

“Wh-what do you mean? We can… hunt, there’s bound to be some animals living around here, we can start a fire and cook them and the ground isn’t so cold and hard once you get used to it.” Why was Ash being so weird?

“Hunt?” On the other end, Ash was completely devastated. “How the fuck… am… I… supposed to start a fire… with nothing… hmmm?”

“You… breathe on a log…” Mikael stared at him with an ever mounting confusion: was Ash joking or did he really mean that? Was it even remotely possible that…?

“What are you? A dragon? Don’t fucking kid with me, not at this point!” Aaaaand there it was, everything coming crashing down like a waterfall of mistake after mistake, misunderstanding after misunderstanding and Mikael, in all of his mental capacity, translated the extremely complex swirl of thoughts and emotions in his mind with:

“Oh shitballs….”

“Yeah, no kidding. Come on, let’s go home, the prank’s over.” Ash turned around, red as a pepper with anger and some manner of embarrassment for having fallen into such a stupid game. He’d have never expected his best friend, so he considered him, to pull such a stunt on him. “Fucking prick.”

“You don’t know…” Once more, despite what Ash thought he’d do, Mikael muttered something completely out of any line he could have ever said. He turned around and was about to shout more at him but the expression of genuine confusion and sorrow on his friend(ex-friend?)’s face was outside the realm of what he could handle. Had he really been mistaken or was there something more to this situation? No, he couldn’t have been mistaken at all: that smell, that feeling when he hugged him, it wasn’t possible to fake it. Impossible. He could not have been that much on the wrong side of things. Then… what was going on? “You don’t know?”

“Know what?” Under Mikael’s gaze, his anger seemed to quiet down, even if just a smidge. “What?” Then, Mikael muttered some words that he couldn’t recognise at all. “The fuck’s that? Mikael, you need to stop joking around!” The norseman’s expression turned even more shocked than his and a soft ‘oh fuck’ came out next. “What??” Half a second later, the giant marched towards him, held his shoulder with his hands and shook him slightly left and right. “Dude, you’re scaring me.” Be it the look in his face, the whole situation or the fact that he didn’t seem himself at the moment, but everything that Mikael was giving Ash an overdose of creeps.

“I’m sorry Ash, I-I made a big, big mistake or not, I don’t know anymore… it’s all a big mess...” At this point he looked even more genuine in his regret, but Ash wasn’t sure to what the sorrow was pointed at exactly.

“No shit, Sherlock.” Ash scoffed and tried to look away, away from those blue eyes that seemed to… shine?

“Not in that way… this is… bigger than a simple prank. I-I thought you knew and that you’d keep me company for a couple of days, have some fun…” If he did indeed not know what he was, then… what did that mean? What had he done for all of his life?

“For the last time, Mika: I’m not into you!!” Ash shouted once more and this time, this one time, the shout was strong enough that a window, after decades of wear and tear, fell over from the vibrations and broke into pieces on the ground. Once Ash was done, silence fell again, both a bit out of breath, panting. The air still seemed to echo after his shout and from Ash’s throat he could hear a very faint and soft rumble, one that his friend didn’t even notice. He didn’t make a mistake after all… “I’m going.” Thanks to the momentary stun, Ash was able to slip from the deadly grip his friend had placed on his shoulders and did a 180° turn, facing the distant car already.

“Stop!”

Mikael could do little other than shout and grab at the thin arm and try to hold Ash in place, making just one step forward to reach him but as soon as he put his foot down, a crack, louder than stepping on a branch and almost on the verge or being a fully grown tree snapping in half echoed in the air. Ash stopped, feeling Mikael’s hand on his arm, tight, and turned around, angrier than before but the anger faded as he looked at the distraught expression on his friend’s face.

“Mika?”

“You can’t go Ash, you must stay here now.” A big bead of sweat formed on his face and fell right between the two of them, horrifyingly loud for both. In the next moment, a series of snaps and cracks shook Ash’s mind to its core, making him look around to see what kind of hellish machine could destroy that many trees and make such a noise but he already knew that there were no such machines for dozens of kilometres around. “You can’t go. It’s too late.”

“Mika… what was that sound? Those… cracks?”

“It’s… complicated.” Mikael straightened his back and let go of the arm he was clutching, putting all the weight on his right leg. Ash made an expression that all but outright begged him to speak, forcing him to think of anything to say, anything to make the situation less disturbing and ease his friend’s confusion. Nothing came out but the truth and that… he wasn’t sure he could tell him, though he had to, he’d see it anyways soon enough. “Have you ever felt… special, Ash? Like you didn’t belong wherever you went?”

“What does that mean?”

“Like, you felt things in a different way, scents, sounds…” Ash didn’t move an inch, not one muscle at all. “Today, when I hugged you and in the car… you felt it as well, right? The lingering smell of something… different.”

“They’re called olfactory hallucinations, they can also happen for sounds and tastes.”

“So you did smell it.” As bad as this was, as bad as the situation was, at least he had made sure, once and for all, that he hadn’t fucked up that bad, only royally so. “Your dad, your mother have they never like… taken a day off, go somewhere all of a sudden, return after a few days smelling different? Leaving you with someone else for some time and then coming back without telling you where did they go?” Mikael stared at his friend who seemed to know what he meant, still trying to make out anything of this mess that was happening to him.

“No, dad’s never been much of a traveller, he did the one trip from China to here and that was pretty much it… Wait… what the fuck does that have to do with anything happening here Mika? Don’t you dare and try to shift the topic around!” Ash was fuming, but deep down he was getting worried that something he didn’t quite understand was afoot and Mikael wasn’t in a better position himself. He had clearly missed something, something important but he couldn’t have gotten it all wrong, he was sure of it. Then what?

“Ever felt really nervous, jittery and anxious at some point in the year? Like you really wanted to run away and hide somewhere?” Ash stared at him with a weirder than normal expression stamped on his face, quietly realizing that the man was right, despite the two of them having never even talked about that or having known each other for long enough to bring up such a topic. Mikael sighed and acknowledged that his friend did feel like that sometimes.

“Yeah, when it’s time for the finals. It’s called anxiety, you idiot.” A small hint for a bigger mystery. Mikael put some weight on his left leg to rest the other one and another crack made him shiver, more in fear than actual pain. “Was that… you?” Mikael nodded, slowly. “It’s been a bad prank, now let’s go, please. Maybe you need to see a doctor, I’ll drive if you can’t.” He checked the time: eight p.m. he could still get home by ten at the latest if he drove at a decent pace. Unfortunately, Mikael had the keys and they rested in his pockets and from the looks of it, they’d stay there for a long while. “Mika, please, this isn’t funny anymore, it wasn’t before and it’s not now, so please, please, let me get back home. I’ll even forget about this little stupid stunt if we get to the dorms fast enough.”

“Oh, I wish it was a prank Ash, I really do.” If it were, then he’d not have to deal with the incoming… One more crack and his leg gave in, the entirety of his body shifting to that side and collapsing on the muddy floor. His clothes were instantly covered in a layer of mud and dirt, possibly something an animal left behind, judging by the smell but he didn’t care now, something far worse than some crap was going to fall right in his face and most importantly Ash’s face. “Fuck.” The snaps and cracks multiplied and for a minute or so they were the only thing that could be heard in the entire farm. When the sounds died down, Mikael looked even more annoyed while Ash was… shocked would be a light way to put it, especially as the ‘injured leg’ perfectly supported the body it was attached to it despite the weird angle it had taken in that minute.

“Ok… that’s… that’s fucked up, oh god… does it hurt?” Mikael shrugged. “Oh fuck, oh fuck…”

“Jesus, calm down, it’s nothing.” Ash gave him the ‘your leg’s fucking bent and you’re acting like it’s nothing’ look. “It’s just the beginning so please, help me get to the inside of that building.” He didn’t move. The start or what exactly? Did he even have the courage to ask? “Please.” Confused, scared and fairly weirded out, Ash inched closer to Mikael and supported him from the right side, seeing as the other one was a few centimetres higher now. “Thanks.”

“Don’t speak unless you’re planning on telling me what the fuck it’s going on.” His tone was angry but once more the anger faded upon seeing the look he was getting and by being close to Mikael, the scent once more assaulting his nose, stronger this time. Ash sneezed to clear his nostrils, it didn’t work. Was Mikael in possession of some knowledge that would have explained the weird feelings and sensations he had felt when he was younger? How did he know that? “You’re going to have to explain a crapton of stuff.”

“Yeah.” Mikael grunted and a couple more cracks echoed in the air, the vibration of the bones snapping reached Ash’s body and he felt it. Though he refused to look down, he knew that the leg producing those noises was getting more and more… warped, making Mikael wobble more and more. “Sit there.” He pointed at an old chair that managed to pass the test of time and was still somewhat intact, even if it looked absolutely grimy and filthy, right inside the nearest building.

The entire inside smelled or rotten mush, dead leaves, wet cement and god knows what else accumulated over the years. In the far right corner there was a large pile of broken bottles, glass, beer cans, wine and more, on the opposite side, through a large hole in the drywall, not so dry now, old pieces of furniture had been tossed around and stacked together. It was a pigsty, or it would have been had the actual pigsty not been a hundred or so metres north of the building and looked much nicer than the place the two had chosen to enter.

Mikael crashed onto the chair and sighed, grunting as one more crack signalled the start of the right leg’s process. It was slow and annoying, too early for it to be normal but this whole situation wasn’t normal at all. Through the fabric of the stained jeans, his left leg was beginning to shape itself into something else, stretching the cloth in some points and receding in others, the right one mimicking the look and hurrying up to match the appearance, not without those blood curling sounds and making the two shiver, though for different reasons. Ash kept staring at Mikael, long moments passing without a word.

“You’re not going to tell me what’s happening?” The norseman was having some trouble finding the right words and was silent in a moment he should have been. “Ok, look, I don’t know what the fuck is going on or what the fuck you are so please, tell me if you feel like eating human flesh or something, so I can bail.”

“You’re not in any sort of danger, I can assure you.” Ash wasn’t convinced. “You’re with a friend and someone that understands you.”

“Fine… Just… what are you?”

Mikael’s mouth opened ever so slightly and then froze in the next moment, nothing coming out at all, despite the attempts he was making to speak, something blocking his ability to formulate any kind of word. His mind went blank immediately after. This wasn’t supposed to happen so soon. How was he to tell Ash what was going on? The useless mouth opened and closed and producing a raspy sound that didn’t help with defusing the ticking bomb that was his friend, making it worse if anything.

With a look up, Mikael saw that it was dark already and that it was time, too early but it was time nonetheless. He prayed that Ash wouldn’t get too scared and that he’d not attempt to run before his part started.

Up in the sky, the clouds hung heavy but the slivers of moon already appearing hit the surroundings of the farm inch by inch and made up for the lack of sunlight. Inside the house, darkness was getting increasingly creepy and the sounds coming from Mikael’s body only increased in intensity.

“Mika?” The sun set in that moment and everything went dark for just a moment, until a stray ray of moonlight got inside through the reflection of the few remaining windows. “Mikael?” He didn’t get an answer but the two glowing embers that suddenly popped out of existence told him that he wasn’t alone and that whatever was happening to his friend was only going to continue. “You ok?” He wanted to slap his head for that: of course he wasn’t ok. The embers, his… eyes, fell and rose, a nod? “Good.” Again, not good at all. Stupid.

Hands stretched out, he moved backwards and into a wall, a bit grossed out by the texture of the paint and the slimy trails of snails and slugs but rather comforted by having something behind him to shield at least one side. In the partial darkness, Mikael saw him move around and hit the drywall with apprehension. The smell in the air told him he wasn’t long but he still needed time and between then and now, he had his own side of shit to deal with. Just as he closed his eyes, plunging himself into complete darkness, the first real of the changes began: from the base of his neck to the base of his spine, all of his bones shook and snapped, the connections becoming ever so slightly looser than they were a moment before, giving him the first three centimetres of the god knows how many he’d put on in the next minutes.

On the filthy chair, his back was pressed against a smudge of something not identifiable, the stain stretching on his clothes no due to the contact but due to a sharp increase in size all around his pectorals. The wood creaked but otherwise held strong, more or less. Gripping the armrests until they were pulverized, all across his body each and every bone and muscle relaxed and snapped back together over and over again, tissue breaking and reforming to put on more and more strength. Bit by bit, Mikael’s size increased, going from his ‘normal’ 1.96 metres to an already whopping 2.10, his clothes stretched far more than they were designed for, somehow still holding on. The chair creaked and struggled to hold his larger but not heavier frame, bones larger and stronger but far more light than a normal human’s, for now. Height stopped at 2.16, twenty centimetres higher than before and remained that way, hovering around that number as his bones compressed and sprung back around the redistributed weight. Now, all that Ash could see was that his friend had gotten taller, bigger and his eyes were locked onto him, when they were open, and what he could hear was a low raspy sound, almost a growl and all of the dozens of movies he had watched pointed in one direction: his best friend was a damn werewolf. It was dark out, the moon peeked every couple of minutes, the need to be alone, the secluded place, hunting and sleeping on the ground, wanting a ‘packmate’, his family going into forests in large groups… fucking werewolf. Were there werewolves in China? Maybe. He’d ask later. As Mikael changed more, he felt his heart beat faster, fear and adrenaline pushing his body to its limits even if he hadn’t moved an inch in five minutes, every scent and sound amplified a hundredfold, turning an already smelly place into a horrible carnival of pain for his nose. His eyes watered and he wiped them off, missing by a second or two the ray of light that shone upon Mikael from a hole in the wall and the floor upstairs and hundred of small and widening hexagons popping all over his body, spreading from his chest as if a bad illness that glittered under the moonlight. When his eyes were open again, the place was in darkness once more but Ash could swear he saw better and could make up Mikael’s shape in the shadows.

The chair snapped and there was a thump as a heavy muscled ass landed on wooden splinters, smashing them into smaller pieces. In sequence, from his shoulder to his thighs, every seam and button stretched one last time and exploded in a bunch of messy threads. Mikael growled and bent forward to get up, just as the bones of his hips shifted and locked themselves into a new position, sending his face on the rotten floor, ass up in the air and further destroying his pants. Trying to get up again forced him to roll on his back and with his legs up in the air, each of them bent horribly for human standards and yet he didn’t feel a thing as they bent even more and then stopped. Snaps of muscle in his back and shoulders made him arch and grunt, lifting himself just ten centimetres off the floor before falling with a thump that betrayed an increase of weight, several times his old one and kicking up dust that fell all over the place and on Ash’s nose. Sneezes covered the last snaps and the poor guy fumbled in the dark to get a tissue or something to wipe himself with. Failing to do even something as simple as that, Ash wiped his nose on the edge of his sweater and got a good look of his hand as he did so, recoiling in shock when he saw that the pink nails had turned an ugly shade of black. In one single second he looked at the other hand, noticed that that too, was turning black and panic took over: he tried to scream but nothing came out, his panic got worse, far worse.

Mikael still couldn’t speak and so he could only watch helplessly as his friend began to change, deep down glad he had indeed seen through him, hoping to get through his own change as fast as possible. The heavens seemed to grant him that simple boon and the moon appeared to shiner harder through the thinning cover of clouds and his transformation sped up: every bone in his hands shifted around as did his feet’s, thumbs and pinkies shrinking and puling up on his wrist and calves, nails thicker and deep inside a fattening digit, three for each appendage. His spine popped and popped as vertebrae almost came into being from nothing as did the hundreds of kilos he needed to match in weight his growing frame. His arms lengthened and turned into forelimbs, his legs into hindlegs, his neck pulled ran away from his shoulders and a nub pointed through the last of his underwear and reaching a metre in seconds. Ash saw it all, his eyes turning green from the normal brown he had and then slitting as a second set of eyelids covered them in tandem with his other ones. Each wink seemed to last an eternity, each time his vision went black and then came back, everything was just a tad brighter and Mikael just a bit bigger, heavier, bulkier, more covered in scales and far less ‘werewolfy’ than he had imagined him becoming.

As he closed his eyes and opened them once more, the final change set in place and not a werewolf, but a damn dragon stood in Mikael’s place, three metres tall, more than six long, the size of an average truck essentially and crouching so that he’d not crush into the ceiling, more to protect Ash than for his own inconvenience. The scared young man backed against the wall as much as possible but there was little he could do now: every bone in his body felt like it was on fire and it hurt, more than anything he had ever felt.

“Shhh, it’s going to be ok.” Mikael merely needed to crane his neck forward just a tiny bit to get to him and whispered in a low tone that made the house shake. His voice had become so deep it was more akin a bass booster than a real creature’s. “It’s ok.” Ash opened his mouth and tried to scream, voice his pain but just like with Mikael, nothing came out.

The dragon opened his mouth and Ash was suddenly faced with hundreds of teeth that threatened to cut him just by looking at them, each more or less as big as one of his fingers. Instead of a vicious bite, the dragon gently, as gently as a five tonne creature can do, picked up the small human from the increasingly stretched sweater and pants, trotting outside with his head hanging low. Once out, he lost all the care for the building and rose sharply on his hindlegs, tearing through the walls and the damaged concrete. Pieces of the house fell and the entire entrance shattered around a sizeable hindquarter and hips, leaving a concave shape that was gone by the time he was out crumbled into dust and laying on the floor. Ash couldn’t help but fear for his life as Mikael, if that was even Mikael anymore, put him down between his paws, soft at the touch on his flushed skin but far more deadly than they looked, hiding sharp claws that were currently retracted. The cavernous mouth opened and his tongue slithered out. Ash closed his eyes and braced for the worst, feeling only slimy wetness as the larger than possible organ slid on his face and left a trail up to his hair. Between the forelimbs of a mythical behemoth, the changing man was getting a tongue bath much like a cat would.

“It’s ok Ash, just relax and let yourself go.” Mikael spoke every now and then, trying to reassure him but not really getting the point across. “The first time it’s always the worst so you’ll need to bear it .” The dragon’s eyes filled with sorrow and a pity, the long neck craning into an S and letting the moonlight shine on his previously hidden body. Ash shivered and his eyes turned into slits so thin they could barely be seen at all, pain spiking up by several notches all in one go. “It’s ok.” The not so soothing voice of his once friend now monster reached his ears and shot straight through, the little brain too full of pain to have any space left for anything other than that.

Mikael kept licking, cleaning the filth from his skin and tore the clothes apart, letting his body breathe under the moonlight, soaking it in white and hoping it’d speed up the process as it did for him. Ash wavered between consciousness and a dream-like state, pain living in both all the same. His bones melted inside his muscles, turning to mush and fusing into something entirely different, stronger, but leaving him into a state where he couldn’t control any of his muscles and flopped around like a broken toy under the gentle licks of his friend. His eyes stared at the sky and tried to find some consolation in the clouds. No such luck. First he lost the sense of touch in his arms, then his legs, each limb seemingly withering into thin branches that barely did anything other than look pitiful, his neck shortened and melded with the base of his head and then pushed forward ever so slightly.

His fingers were next, pinkies and thumbs not only withering but fusing, turning five digits into three claws for each limb, the ones in the back slightly thicker but thinning to match the other two. As he was now, Ash was little more than a long sausage full of pain and meat, not even writhing and at the mercy of the larger specimen. The moon was clouded for but a moment, granting him a few precious seconds of peace before the light returned once again and made the pain impossibly stronger than before. At the beat of his heart, every inch of skin bleached into a shining whiteness, tiny speckles of fairy dust littering his body and reflecting the light back at the moon. Then came the hair: from a normal, asian black, they shivered and changed to a pale green, retracting into his scalp and redistributing down his neck, his back and to the tip of a small but present bulge right where his tailbone was. The green streak contrasted with the white skin far too much. With a grunt, Ash felt his spine shiver, or what was left of his spine, squirming inside his skin and lengthening at the rhythm of his breaths, adding centimetres to his weird shape, more and more. Then it was a metre, then two and even more, pulling his legs and arms farther and farther apart as well as organs, nerves and the streak of green on his back.

“You’re doing great, keep going.”

With a titanic effort, Ash turned his head towards Mikael and snapped his forming maw to him, hissing, displeased, angry, ashamed, head glittering in his saliva. The sound that came from him seemed as if it originated from the end of his obscenely long body and had to run through it like inside a metal pipe, resonating and amplified. He screamed as the first of the scales popped on his chest, or where it had once been, right between the shivering arms, immediately joined by two at its sides, then four, eight, multiplying exponentially towards his head and the end metres and metres behind him. His scales differed from Mikael’s, resembling a fish’s rather than an orderly pattern of hexagons and other shapes, the end of one covering the beginning of another or even two, forming a net of shining silver. Through the new mouth, wider, larger and armed with sharp teeth, Ash breathed as deep as he could and held all the air inside, obeying some instinct he didn’t know he had.

“It hurts.”

“I know, I know, keep going and it’ll soon be over.” Ash wasted his first words to voice his pain and Mikael resumed licking him to ease his mind, holding the still stretching dragon in his paws. “You’ll be fine soon enough.”

Ash was angry, desperate, tired so he trusted him for some reason. Focusing on anything but the pain, he relaxed and thus sped up the last parts of his change: in the span of a couple of breaths his body reached well over fifteen metres, thin, but getting increasingly wide, first at only his torso’s width and then that of a young tree. Once he filled up and didn’t look like a thin noodle anymore, a grown man would need to stretch a bit and maybe even fail to meet their hands in the middle to encircle him. Close to fifteen metres away was the tip of his tail, armed with a green tuft of soft fur that swept the floor clean of dust, with a pair of thin but steel hard limbs not too far, mirrored by another pair two and a half metres from his head. Each was granted three digits and three claws, now gripping the enormous paws for support to give himself the strength to push out a pair of horns jutting from his head, branches forming in various points, exactly reversed on either side. His nose sank in and vanished, replaces by nostrils that flared wide, taking in all the air he needed. Right above rested a pair of long and thin whiskers whipping and flapping in the evening breeze, feeling the scales of his head and the Mikael’s alike.

Panting, beyond tired and begging for water, Ash was finally done so Mikael slowly dragged him away from the moon and into the barn next to the now half collapsed building.

“Are you done being a little bitch?” By now Mikael was more bored than anything else, waiting for Ash to finally stop squirming and concede defeat. No such sound came from below him. “Listen, I’ve told you ten times already: I didn’t ‘give you dragonitis or some shit like that’ it’s not like being bitten by a werewolf.” The European dragon scoffed. “Look, if you promise to calm down and not be so childish, I can explain.” He waited. “Ash?” From below his hindquarters came a muffled sound, which he took for a ‘yes’ and lifted himself from the barn floor: under his massive body, half squished and half not, coiled all over like a rope with a knot, was an angry muzzle and an angrier pair of emerald eyes staring back at him. “Done?” There was nothing for seconds and then Ash nodded, just a smidge. “Cool.” Mikael smiled and flopped over to his other side, curled up in a half-ball and looking with not a little amount of amusement as Ash breathed in and ballooned himself back to fullness, thanks to some weird quirk, possibly the fact that 90% of his bones were gone and what little was left was inside his spine and his limbs for good measure.

“Start from the beginning.”

“What beginning?” He tilted his head and blinked a few times, Ash growled and shifted around, still trying to make out a way to move around. It was quite funny to see the dragon move and argue with various sections of his long body and Mikael couldn’t help but chuckle. “Sorry, it’s just funny.”

“It. Is. Not. Funny.” The western dragon raised a paw and waved it, pretending to be sorry.

“Ok, fun time’s over. So… I guess we can agree on the fact that dragons aren’t a myth born of some shepherd’s dreams.” He tapped his own chest to make the point. “Guess from your point of view the legends had some basis to them.”

“Get to the point.”

“Jeez, fine.” Mikael cleared his throat before speaking. “As I was trying to tell you: it’s likely that either your father is a dragon or your mother is, which is the actual reason why you changed, it’s not a disease, unless you consider it a genetic disease that several thousands of people get from their parents. That or… I don’t know what else.”

“Fine, dad’s a damn dragon.” It was a hard truth to swallow. “So, that would make me a half-dragon?”

“Well, I’m pretty fucking sure that with humans and dragons not being the same species at all, the possibility of interspecies breeding is completely out of the picture. It’s more likely that your father has had you with another female and then married your mother or the reverse happened. It’s good, pretty good actually.” Ash scoffed: he’d hardly consider his current predicament good. “I’m just giving you my honest opinion, since I’ve been dragon my whole life so please, try not to refer to me as a ‘disease’ or ‘freak’, it’s kind of insulting ok?” Ash nodded. Mikael left him a few moments to reorganize his thoughts. “So, what I told you before coming here, about the families going around, I was referring to this period of the year, in which we gather for, well, let’s just say it’s breeding season.” Had Ash still possessed eyebrows they’d have shot up in the air but instead his body squirmed about more than before and stared at the other with shock. “What? It’s just humans who have the advantage of popping out a baby at any time of the year, it’s not like we can afford to go around and have sex like this in front of the world.” The other dragon had to agree, somewhat unwillingly.

“How does this…” Ash pointed at his noodle body with one hindclaw, popping out from a mass of coils. “… how does this even make sense? I mean, I’m probably ten or twenty times heavier than before and you’re like… a hundred.”

“Quite a few tonnes and working on putting on some more.” There was a weirdly proud note in Mikael’s voice and Ash wasn’t sure whether it was a good thing or not. “Hey, it’s just how my subspecies likes it, ok? No offense, noodle boi.” A snarl was the best remark the other one could come up with. “It’s magic, otherwise it’d be impossible to make up all that mass from sheer air and will. I understand it’s hard to believe but here we are, which should help you come to terms with life I guess.” The gaze that came back was a ‘try to figure out how to handle twenty metres of body and then we can talk’. “As I was saying, or trying to say, this is going to last a couple of days and then we can either shift back or stay in this form a little while longer.”

“What for?”

“Cause it’s fucking amazing, duh.” He puffed his chest and then blew a weak ball of fire from his nostrils, leaving behind a burnt smell and a trail of smoke. “Had we not lost the race to world dominance with mankind we’d not have to get back to human form.” The fact that humans didn’t even know about dragon these days and had long since forgotten anything about them was both a testament to the ‘defeat’ and a gift that let the few that remained alive able to live in peace, though with a few inconveniences.

“So, this can be permanent?”

“It should be actually, we were never meant to live as humans for all of our lives so, over the course of the decades, we learned to restrict our nature and hide but…. at least once year our bodies kind of go crazy, almost at the same time and on the same day every year and we need to get out, have a vacation, stretch our wings and so on… We either do it in those few days or there is the risk to, ehm, get seen by a bunch of curious humans. There aren’t many of us around anymore in the world so I guess it’s not that hard to hide and it’s definitely better to do this in a farm in the boons than in a metropolis with a million humans.” Mikael shrugged, by now used to this but Ash still had to come to accept the fact that now ‘human’ was not what he was and even if he had considered himself a strong willed individual, well, even that wasn’t enough to digest the whole thing in a few minutes. “So we pack and go and I think you know what happens next..”

“No I don’t.”

“Well, I said something about breeding season not even three minutes ago… one plus one makes two… right?” Despite the lack of proper lips and the lack of eyebrows or even any human feature, Ash got the fact that his friend was smiling as wide and that smile wasn’t a pure one, heavy with a hidden, not so hidden, dirty stratum underneath it all. He blushed and looked the other way. “No need to feel embarrassed, it’s all normal, for… me, I guess.” Ash rolled his eyes and rested his head on… metre number eleven of his coils. “It’s pretty great actually.”

“’That so?”

“I mean, hot dragon sex? Sign me up for it. Let’s just say that not all of the unexplained and unplanned pregnancies or especially, teen pregnancies, are completely… unplanned.” Another lusty smile.

“You mean that some of those are… the result of this time of the year?”

“Yep.”

“Did you… Do it?”

“Yep, got a kid out there, somewhere.” The nonchalance was staggering to say the least. Mikael scratched his chin with a claw and tried to remember something. “I think she was… from Chile or Argentina… not really sure what subspecies, real hottie. Although I’m not completely sure whether it was her or her sister that got pregnant, or both…” Again, it was such a wild thing to be so casual about it. “You get used to it. I was, what, seventeen, and on a trip with my parents, I couldn’t just come home with an unknown girl or have her come with a baby after ten months… As per custom, we left her and relative egg in Chile or wherever she came from but one day I’d like to settle down and get a proper kid.” Ash opened his mouth to voice a complaint. “Don’t, please. It hurts for me as well, but that’s how the world rolls buddy.” He could see the pain in his eyes so the best option was to shut the fuck up.

“And how do you know that she got pregnant? Did you ask her or something?”

“Oh… right, ehm, it’s a bit weird to explain to someone who doesn’t know. It’s the ‘bird and the bees’ of our species.” Mikael smacked his lips and tapped the ground with his tail a few times, trying to come up with a clever way to say what he wanted to say. He gave up halfway through. “Let’s just say that when we do it, it’s a sure-kill, 100% chance of eggs and wailing babies some time down the line.”

“How?”

“Evolution I’d say: with humans all around, very few times to get down to business, little chance to meet any other dragon, we got good at getting girls super knocked up.”

This time the smile Mikael flashed him was downright devious, a full-teethed grin, but what came next took the cake: slowly, like it was a show, the European dragon lifted his right leg up and up, revealing bit by bit what lied underneath. Ash swallowed his saliva hard at the sight, that because he had been so tired and angry he hadn’t noticed yet and in all of his cleverness and ‘care’ for a young hatchling like him, had covered strategically: under a creamy blue layer of skin, stretched taut, Mikael was smuggling two watermelons, prize winning ones, attached to something that he guessed was a sheath, just as disproportionate and enormous. The sack jostled and shifted around with its contents, clearly full and every so often there was a twitch from the sheath and a drop or two of something clear and fragrant would spill and slide on the covering. Mikael curled up, leg straight up in the air and licked the few drops already pooling on the edge of the opening, patting the massive orbs with exceeding pride.

“These bad boys are made to go round after round until we feel like it, no limits, well, almost.” Ash looked everywhere else but his groin now. “Don’t be so shy, you’ll have to find yourself a girl one day too, or a guy…”

“Shut up… I don’t even know where my junk is anymore… I don’t even have an ass for fuck’s sake! How am I supposed to…?”

“I’d say look under your tail but you’re all tail…” Mikael chuckled. “I could help find your butt if you want.”

“No thank you, stay away from my privates.”

“Jeez, don’t be so ‘anal’ about it.” Ash cringed inside and outside. “It’s ok, the first time I was also very worried and scared, luckily for me I had my mom and my dad to help.” The asian dragon was afraid of the answer he’d get if he asked but curiosity had the better of him and he gave in to his desires.

“In what way did they help exactly?” Mikael giggled, sure that he’d be asked to explain this very important detail of his life.

“It’s tradition that the first time of a hatchling is to be given to his parents, or any relative available, siblings included.”

“Incest?? Jesus fuck that’s gross and wrong!” Every single one of his coils writhed to express the disgust and indignation he was feeling right now, since his muzzle wasn’t exactly fit for the task. On the other end, Mikael snarled, also quite upset and slammed a paw on the ground, making the already unsteady and crumbling building shift and creak just a little bit more.

“Ash, I’m going to say this just once: try and deal with raging dragon hormones, at fifteen, constant boners and a host of relatives in your exact same condition. I think the first thing you’d do would be find a hole and try to hump it.” That was what he did or attempted to do. “It’s not normal by human standards but for us, it’s kind of necessary, try to understand. The smells, the way we move and act, all those lifted tails and hard-ons… I did try to resist but fuck it, it’s damn good to have sex and mom’s BJs are fucking amazing. Guess that’s why uncle Viktor loves coming over.” At this point Ash was having a hard time not feeling shocked, maybe giving up was the right choice, go with the flow and accept that probably his father had to do the same. “Also my mom’s really hot when she’s all dragon. This is also why we need to be really careful when travelling with the family, wouldn’t want mom or sis get my eggs or something.” Mikael kept relishing in the memories and inch by inch, his sheath was giving in to the pole of meat hidden within. Ash noticed it and looked away.

“Dude, you’ve got a boner.” The dragon shook his head and peeked downstairs.

“Oh, it seems like I’m getting there.” A shrug. “Don’t worry, I’ll just suck myself off later.” The asian dragon’s mouth opened and then closed, the words bubbling on the tip of his tongue dead before leaving it. “Jesus man, chill. We’re going to be stuck like this for at least two days and let’s be honest, I’m not going to hide it so deal with it.” Mikael put a paw down and stated his position, Ash still refusing to acknowledge the fact due to his human upbringing. “I’m a dragon right now, a proud, strong, mythical and damn horny dragon at that, so either you stop being a little bitch and get over this shame of yours or you’ll have an even harder time later on. I’m being honest when I tell you that girls like to choose based on dimensions and unless you get your dick out, you’re going to miss on some of the hottest sex ever, case and point.” Mikael puffed his chest again and huffed, releasing another ball of fire that died just as fast as the other one. “Also you’ve got a boner too.”

Ash’s head snapped towards him and then followed his gaze to a certain area of his body where a lone and pink tip poked through the mass of coils. Blushing quite a lot, he moved and nudged the several layers of himself that had been piled over there and blushed even harder when the spire jutting out from a hidden slit was revealed to not only be quite big, but also had a twin. Both were around a metre in length and thicker than some large soda bottles at the base, thinning towards the top, slick with whatever fluid had been pooling inside the slit, with a small crown of barbs around the tapered tip and leaking quite a bit of pre. Now that it had been pointed out, Ash had indeed been feeling weird for the past few minutes, unable to stay still and smelling something musky in the air, but he had shoved those things in the ‘old barn’ and ‘I just transformed into a dragon’ folders and locked them away. Mikael on the other hand, he had picked up the scent, still reminding him of ashes like before but now caked in a layer of lust that he was familiar with and had waited for him to realize what was the cause but even for such a ‘seasoned dragon’, curiosity had the better and pointed the obvious flaw soon enough. Seeing his friend at full mast and tasting the arousal he couldn’t help but get a bit harder and, under the confused gaze of the embarrassed asian dragon, reached his own peak in moments, the full one hundred and seventy odd centimetres of pure meat dripping with excitement. From the bottom hidden inside the sheath to slightly before the tip, he was thick as a man’s leg all around, all of it crowned by a vaguely mushroom shaped tip. The scent of male and musk doubled in intensity within seconds.

“You’re not bad Ash, pretty hung too.” And smelled wonderful even from that far, entirely different from his relatives’ scent, drier, warmer, a bit of the soft side but still so wonderfully male and, being honest, ripe. Every other dragon he knew was quickly introduced to the wonders of sex, more because of the various biological imperatives than anything else, Ash, unfortunately for him, was shy with his new form and just as embarrassed at the idea of showing his privates with other males. It was fun to see him squirm and pretend he didn’t have two of the most beautiful hard-ons he’d seen.

“Says the guy that has a dick tall as I was.” He imagined his humans self next to the monster of a cock and, if possible, blushed even harder. “And super balls.” Ash was shooting more than a couple of guilty glances at the massive pair of orbs, extremely interested and still refraining to give in to his senses, especially his nose, which was trying to coax him into following all the trails of scents in the air.

“Dude, double the barrel, double the fun. I bet if you find two dragonesses next year you can have a threesome that could end up in the legends.” There, Ash officially blushed so hard the heat in the barn was raised by two degrees. “I’m all for size but you’re pretty gifted yourself.” The larger dragon was being honest: put together, those twin cocks would rival him in girth and surely the lack of external testes wouldn’t be a hindrance at all. Who knew just how much inside was made to produce seed…

“Ehm… thanks?” It was a relatively normal compliment, more leaning on the gay side of the locker room but whatever…

“You’re welcome.” Mikael got up and inched closer, smiling while Ash kind of moved around not knowing what to do but as his friend just leaned in and rubbed his head against his own, he just relaxed and responded in kind. “See, feels good, right?”

“Mmmh, I-I guess?” He did feel amazing: the heat of the larger creature, the hard scales on his soft ones, the hot smoky breath and the… lingering scent of two males ready to burst. “Does this mean I’m bi?”

“You’re whatever the fuck you want and speaking of ‘whatever’, ‘fuck’ and ‘want’… do you want me to blow you, blow me or whatever?” If he was slowly getting used to the idea of being a dragon and had just somehow accepted he had grown an extra dick, that was still a bit too much for him.

Mikael chuckled and resumed his rubbing, easing Ash into a more comfortable state of mind. The poor newborn dragon was still painfully hard and he seemed to really want to blow off more than a little steam but once more the human conditioning took over and Ash tried to cover up his members with some coils, regretting the action as the friction of his scales on soft flesh sent shivers throughout his body.

“We can so something else, get some energy out of your system if you’re not up to some kinky stuff.”

“Like?”

“Well, I’m hungry for starters.” In tandem with Mikael’s words, there was a strong rumble coming from a stomach, Ash’s to be exact, somewhere in the mess of coils. “And you’re pretty hungry too. It’s decided, we’re hunting.” Mikael got up and Ash ended up slamming his head on the floor once his support was gone.

“Wait! I can’t even move!” There was a pause. “I don’t know how to go around with this much me wriggling…” The large male sighed and leaned in to stroke the tuft of fur on his friend’s back.

“Try to relax and imagine to fly.”

“Fly?”

“Yeah, I saw a movie about dragons the other week and the ones that looked like you didn’t walk and floated around instead.” At those words Ash raised his long gone eyebrows. “Ok, it was an anime but the point remains: if you can’t walk might as well see if you can… fly and make up for it that way.” The one in such a predicament groaned and lifted as much of himself as he could, barely getting the first three metres off the ground before the rest just gave up lifting on their own. Maybe he’d have to do just that.

Trying to appeal to his ancestry, praying to some ‘dragon god’ that could help him get through this, Ash closed his eyes and gave himself to the instincts that he guessed he had stored inside his body, hoping in some result, any kind of result. Minutes went by and he was still on the ground, rather motionless, Mikael staring with amusement and a hint of genuine worry and then, with a light push of his front limbs, Ash rose up and up and up, metre after metre taking off and floating in the air, following the path of his head. Under wooden beams, over old pallets of wood, slithering inside the numerous giant holes here and there, the quiet barn was suddenly filled with white and green streaks as Ash flew all over the place. Mikael was shocked by the weird swiftness and the uncanny silence of his movements, since all of the flying subspecies he knew of were rather loud when they did have the chance to fly around. Comparing him and them was like comparing a stealthy owl to a flock of loud pigeons screeching madly. The testing soon turned into play and Ash flew past him and brushed the many metres of his body against Mikael’s, sometimes coiling around him like a rope and then shooting off somewhere else.

Seeing as the worry and shame of his friend was gone in the joy of true flight, Mikael smiled, turning towards his left and dashing out of the barn into the outside world. Ash perked on a wooden fence, eerily weightless and looking at the disappearing hindquarters of the large dragon, immediately jumping in the air again and after him into the forest. Mikael was loud, very loud, but much faster than expected and far more swift than his large build would let anyone imagine, avoiding collisions without too much of a problem while Ash didn’t bother to evade, letting the softness of his being absorb the impacts. A herd of deer ran next to them, awakened by the thundering steps of a truckload of dragon meat rushing in the night. Mikael smiled and threw himself on the first one that seemed weak enough to guarantee an easy kill, tackling the prey with overwhelming ease and downing it. Ash didn’t stop, still following his instincts and aiming for another deer, a buck that by mistake had distanced himself just a bit from the rest of the escaping herd. The result, much like the encounter of a few seconds prior, was a dead, or dying, deer held inside a strong jaw, however, due to the fact that he was new to this, Ash failed to lift his prey off the ground and let it go. The two exchanged a long look that seemed to last forever and then, both dragons dove down on their dinner without cooking or skinning any of the two deer.

On one side, Mikael tore legs and head first and swallowed them in one go each, bones crunching and revelling in the soft meat and warm blood, on the other side, Ash opened his maw wide enough to shove the entire creature down his gullet with ease and let it slide down. Mikael didn’t miss the chance to see this and wondered how else such a big maw and large stomach could be used to help him unwind. The erection he had lost in the thrill of the hunt returned and felt even harder than before, oozing pre until a puddle formed under him. The scent was strong enough and reached Ash, taking his attention just long enough for him to recognise it.

“Mind if I deal with this?” Mikael licked his lips from the blood and asked out of pure politeness and for the evident embarrassment of his friend. Ash nodded, weakly and curled up to digest his meal.

“Fine by me.”

He expected that Mikael would have some sliver of shame and act like a human but this time it didn’t look like the large dragon was going to wait or even pretend to go somewhere to do his business. There was a loud thud and Ash looked him fall on his side and then roll on his back, limbs spread wide and craning his neck forward. Thanks to a long neck and a sizeable cock, Mikael had little problems in reaching his tip and wrap his lips on it, receiving drops of pre on his tongue and swallowing once the amount became too much, though a bit escaped the imperfect seal of his mouth and dribbled on the sides and onto the grass. It had been so long since he’d given himself this kind of treatment and he wasn’t going to drag it out for much longer. The sounds of a dragon slurping on his own cock filled the small clearing and Ash’s ears alike until it was the only thing in his mind and the only scent he picked up was pre and the musk of a male in rut. With his hindpaws Mikael kneaded at the massive orbs resting under his tail, a bit awkwardly but doing the job just fine: the sack stretched and relaxed with its contents jostling around, heavy and ready to let everything go all at once, but for now only unloading litres of pre inside the dragon’s stomach. Mikael stopped sucking on his tip for just a moment, licking the slit at the top and plunging his tongue in there to collect the pre before it even came out and then, curling up just enough, he swallowed half of his length all at once, letting it hit the back of his throat and scrape on his esophagus. The virile taste spread on his tongue even more and every nerve of his body lit on fire as a mounting climax approached. Barely five minutes later, with more cock than even horses had stuffed down his mouth, Mikael howled and came: the two orbs lurched and sent litres of seed up the meatpole in one strong spurt, flooding the awaiting mouth with essence, adding more as time went by. Ash stared in rapt curiosity, shame and some envy for the casualness and volume of come that bloated the dragon’s cock, wondering if he’d be able to produce as much. His own malenesses throbbed with need and seemed to beg him to stroke, hump or lick them, anything to unload the pent up seed but Ash didn’t have the courage to do so and grit his teeth to hold back his lust, spraying healthy doses of pre on his scales and on the grass.

Minutes went by and then Mikael popped his mouth off the giant cock, one last spurt hitting his chin and the ground. With a sigh, he relaxed and slumped on the mossy ground, smothering grass and rocks. Another sigh came soon after and then a loud splash that kept going and going, golden fluids forming a puddle on the dirt and turning it into mud. Grunting, Mikael rolled to the side once again and aimed his cock at somewhere in the dark, possibly a tree and stroked the last few drops of come out of the passage as his bladder unloaded at last. Since the beginning of his self-pleasure session, Mikael had spent a third sucking himself off, a third coming and a third pissing all over the place and onto his scales once he couldn’t be bothered to aim anymore. The result was a pleased dragon reeking of piss, musk and whose breath stank of come.

“That was… very much needed. Want to go back to the barn and sleep? It’s already midnight I think.” Just as casually he looked up and shook his hips, dick flopping around to clean the last dribbles.

Ash swallowed his saliva and nodded meekly, still hard and needy and still reluctant to let go, quietly following the fragrant male back to the farm. Unfortunately for him, he found himself face to face with the massive orbs which didn’t even look smaller or gave any hint as to how much was left in there for later. Mikael did say there were almost no limits to dragon sex, maybe this wasn’t all that he could come… The thought wormed its way through Ash’s mind and made the need even stronger and the scent of sex all the more unbearable, especially since the large dragon kept his tail lifted and giving him a good view of his most hidden of places and showering him in musk, totally not intentional.

Getting to the barn was a gift of the gods for Ash at this point, the long dragon curling up in a ball and staring at his friend through the gaps in his coils, unsure of what to do with his own erections and desires. Mikael smiled and took a place to sleep, also secretly staring back with a toothy grin. Knowing the mind of a dragon, he knew the poor guy wouldn’t last too long without either sucking himself off or trying something more fun, and even if the scenario in which he managed to hold until morning, he had prepared a long series of mating behaviours learned from his parents that he knew would break through that hard/soft skull of his… It wasn’t because he wanted to see the other dragon suffer, but to force him to acknowledge the new reality and let go even if for just a couple of days. If there was some hot and sweaty humping along the way, all the better, he was still tremendously pent up even after that much cum that was now sloshing in his stomach.

“Hey Mika…”

“Yes?”

“If dragons, we, are real, what about… you know, all the other stuff? Fairies, trolls, werewolves…”

“Oh that.” Mikael rolled around and yawned. “Werewolves are a thing, damn stuck up assholes because they don’t have to hide as much: they live in those big gated communities that you see pop up here and there. Rich as they can get. If I have to make a comparison, they are the Jews of the unseen world, well, since the nazis were trying to catch them during the war and use them as secret weapons, they are very similar. Met a pack once, two years ago, after we left for the northern area of Norway, right after I got my sister to blow me…”

“Keep the dirty details out please.”

“Ugh, fine. So, there I was, smelling like I am now and then a whopping ten werewolves, rather naked and in search of somewhere to crash for the night. I got a few of them sniffing around my junk and that pissed me off a little so I pointed at them in one direction and bailed.”

“Eww.”

“You told me to leave the dirty details out but that was hardly dirty for me.” In the darkness, Mikael smiled, Ash rolled his eyes.

“What about the Lochness monster?” There was a pause for some ten odd seconds.

“Oh, yeah I know about that. That was a young hatchling that ran out of their house because the parents would let them bathe in this form. It’s a well-known story among the European dragons.”

“So, we’re talking about a legend that was born because a kid wanted a bath?”

“Yep.”

“Extremely underwhelming.”

“Dude, take it as a human’s perspective: a mythical creature hiding among normal people lost a child who transformed in broad daylight and got almost caught by the whole world just because it wanted a bath in their birthday suit.” Put like that, it sounded a little cooler.

“There is just so much I don’t know and don’t understand. Why do you think they kept it a secret? Why did I never change or even feel the need to mate for all these years? How is that even possible?”

“Big question… ehm, I’ve got no clue buddy, just, maybe they, I don’t know, somehow managed to be out and away from you when he got around his season and thus never made you experience the smell of a dragon or something… On that note, I think that had I not been changing next to you, maybe you’d have not… changed yourself.” Ash wasn’t sure whether his friend was right or not but, if there had been even a slight chance that he would have changed anyways and in the middle of the city then… Mikael paused and thought for a while. “I think that if you never know that you’re a dragon or feel the need to do what I do every year, if not one of your relatives are around to show you then… maybe it’s possible to never change. Why? Ask them.”

“I think I’ll do just that. Thanks for telling me.”

“Goodnight.” There was silence for a bit. “By the way bigfoot’s a scam.”

“Shut up and let me sleep.” The last thing Ash heard was the low growl that meant that Mikael was chuckling by himself, again.

As tired as they both were, sleep came almost immediately, and so the barn fell into almost complete silence, save for the occasional snort, shuffle or tail hitting something here and there, especially in Ash’s case. It was weird to sleep on the ground, much more so with such a different body, now that his head was resting on the middle of his length and scratching the couple of itches with what used to be his feet but a few hours before. He wasn’t complaining, it was all rather amusing and amazing, it was just… different, plain and simple in the total difference in forms. Even the cold of the approaching autumn, the lack of heating or insulation, the wind coming from inside the cracks, failed to do much more than tickle him and Mikael. Where one was curled up and protected his body with layers of scales, the other seemed to heat up from within and glowed a weak orange whenever the gaping maw opened for a yawn or to snap at imaginary prey every now and then. Unfortunately for Ash, his sleep was cut short, at around four or five hours, hard to tell without a clock or phone, by weird dreams and nightmares in which he was drowning or was being showered by hot water while in his bed at the dorms out of pranks.

Jerked awake by a hot bucket of water right in his face, Ash smashed his face with his coils and woke up easily after that, finding that he had indeed been showered with something hot and weird, though it wasn’t water at all. Despite the darkness he could see that all around his head there was a deep puddle of something sticky and a bit salty, clinging to his scales and whiskers alike, and more was being sprayed on him as time passed. Though still drowsy, he knew that no human was throwing any bucket of water on him but that something now pressed on his snout was doing the job: in the sleep he had coiled tight enough for his cocks to have ended up right in front of him and the constant writhing because of the dreams had made them exceedingly sensitive and leaky. More than a few litres of pre were being sprayed all over his snout and soaked into his fur and the ground where the wooden planks were broken and the overwhelming musk collected in the seal of his coils was too much for Ash to resist at this point.

Hoping that Mikael was still asleep, he opened his mouth and let the fountain of pre gush in his throat, the taste exploding on his tongue. He had indeed blown the one guy years before, he didn’t like it, this however, this was heavenly. Pushed by hours of musk and the need to release, Ash clamped his mouth on both cocks and sealed them inside, already feeling like he could burst. The whiskers wrapped around his bases and squeezed rhythmically, releasing pre to his will, his ‘hips’ pulling in and out those rods with slow motions, eyes rolling back for the pleasure. He didn’t last long. Long, thick ropes of seed blasted their way through his cocks and into his mouth, shot right where his stomach should be and bouncing back to let him taste the salty produce. He came for what felt like hours and when he was finally done, after countless hot shots that lasted each dozens of seconds easily, he pulled back and received a few more on his snout and yet, he was still as hard as before, pre now flowing instead of seed.

It wasn’t enough, he needed to come more and now he didn’t care even if Mikael woke up. Shifting his coils, he sandwiched his cocks between the spires of his body, his muzzle still right in front and began humping. The feeling of fucking his own coils as his mouth tended to the tips whenever they poked out of the mass of flesh, lapping at the bases and inhaling the concentrated musk or sucking on the oozing slits. Again, he didn’t last much more than the first time and ten minutes after the first orgasm, he felt the pressure build up to painful levels and then drop, this time not bothering to drink the dozens of litres of seed. The sound of liquid splattering on scales woke up Mikael sooner than he had predicted, baring before his eyes and the early sun a writhing mess of coils soaked in pre and spunk, more than healthy doses of both. Ash was there, sometimes clamping on one cock and stroking the other with his whiskers, sometimes drinking from both and other times just letting the endless flow bathe his muzzle in white. Mikael felt utterly shocked by the amount, he was a heavy shooter but Ash had already surpassed him by a large margin and didn’t seem like stopping anytime soon. The ever growing puddle of seed around and on him was proof of an over productive system and one Mikael wanted to take advantage of. When the second round finally tapered into a series of weak spurts and replaced again by endless pre, Mikael moved, sporting his own raging hard on.

“Having fun without me?”

“It’s not stopping! I’ve been… coming for half an hour or something…” Through the gaps in the ceiling the European dragon could see that, but smell was more telling than mere sight.

“Yes, you’re… quite the messy cummer my friend.” He merely stated the truth but Ash didn’t blush this time and humped the air weakly. The large dragon leaned in and licked off several layers of spunk from the other one’s face and smacked his lips, relishing in the taste. “Tasty.” Between the smell, the flavour and the overwhelming amounts of spunk and musk in the air, Mikael could swear that he’d just be able to come himself if he just concentrated enough.

“What can I do?”

“Well, let’s try and see just how much you’ve got left first.” Under the desperate eyes of the still hard dragon, Mikael pressed his snout right where the base of the two cocks was and inhaled: the musk was ten times stronger there and his knees buckled ever so slightly, his own rod amping up the production just to keep up and not be overshadowed by this newcomer. “Fuck you smell good.” Again pushed by the most basic of urges, Ash moved his head around and found something just as musky and warm, burying his own snout right between the base of Mikael’s sheath and where his sack hung, almost snorting and licking off the sweat.

“Y-y-you too… God, you’re so fucking… big.” Under his belly the almost two metres of meat were completely engorged and puffed, throbbing so hard he could feel the blood rushing through the sensitive whiskers. A lick sent his entire body into a spasming mess. “Fuck… should’ve done this sooner.”

“Told you…” Two large ropes of pre landed on Mikael’s face and snout, clinging to the scales.

Both males resumed sniffing and licking, taking all the time in the world to explore the other’s body, examining crevices and folds of skin, collecting seed and pre from scales and snouts as Ash kept bouncing around, tending to his cocks with his friend, sharing one or diving the attention or going down between the other’s legs and lapping at the sweat or pre. Both were mad with desire and leaking, inhaling the musk from the sources with wild abandon. Time passed, maybe an hour, maybe three minutes. With one last snort, Ash growled and spasmed yet again, his members bulging out as a new batch was shot in the air and landed on Mikael’s back and then everywhere else around them, uninterrupted and strong. The larger dragon’s eyes shined and immediately swallowed one on the two spurting cocks to the base, feeling the flesh distend in his throat and then making his stomach bloat. Only one cock and barely a minute and he was already full as if he’d drank his own seed for ten, his belly distended by quite a bit as the other cock flayed wildly around, further caking him, Ash and the barn. The taste and feeling of warmth became too much and Mikael came himself, blasting his own seed all over Ash’s scales.

Following the trail of new fluids, the eastern dragon opened his maw and swallowed centimetre after centimetre of thick cock, going from the tip down to the folded sheath and pressing snout to musky ballsack. Mikael groaned around the cock in his mouth as his own was wrapped entirely by a warm passage that seemed made just for that purpose. Feeling a little bit of resistance, he started thrusting as more seed was pooled in both dragons’ stomachs. Ash’s form was thicker all around while Mikael seemed an extremely pregnant dragoness at the end of her term, belly sticking to the ground and sloshing madly with more being added. Eventually the large dragon stopped pumping seed and humping his best friend’s throat, keeping him wrapped around like a used condom, relishing the warmth and the sloshing seed that came from within but Ash didn’t. The overstretched gut hung low and the lack of air forced Mikael to remove the rod to breathe.

“Still going?” There was some semblance of an answer from Ash. “Then fuck my ass you monster.” Save for the sound of seed splashing on everything and the sloshing of his gut, there was nothing said for too long. “Hurry!”

Not much more was needed. Still spurting, though slightly weaker shots, Ash moved around and pressed both cocks to Mikael’s tailhole, using his endless come as lube, not that he’d need more than that. Both lengths, totalling two full metres, were jammed up his hole and resumed spurting madly inside, adding seed from the other end. Two claws gripped his backside and using that as support, Ash started thrusting, his head far, far from that warm passage and instead kissing the dragon he was fucking, sharing seed and pre and the taste of both. It was utter madness and when the two were finally done, more tired and breathless than out of seed, hard as ever and bloated beyond measure, they collapsed on the soaked ground, panting.

“And… you said… you didn’t want to do this…”

“I take that… urp… I take that back.”

“One more round?” Mikael was more a balloon than a dragon by now but he still wanted to go on: he needed to, he had to and if his experience was something to trust, even the Asian dragon had to.

“Just… wait a moment… I can’t do it…” Ash kept taking in deep breaths and in doing so he inhaled the layers upon layers of spunk coating the two of them with each one, which didn’t help the feeling that he lacked air. Mikael snorted and dug deep within the mass of coils and pressed his snout against the two still throbbing masts, licking the seed and pre and getting his entire head bathed in the stuff.

“Seems like some part of you doesn’t even need to rest.” Just as he said that, the twin spires unleashed a few more buckets of seed onto his scales, splashing onto the pool underneath them and adding to the hundreds of litres.

“H-h-how is this even… oh, fuck… possible?” Ash shivered and tried to restrain himself and failed to do so, feeling like his entire being was a weak dam against a raging river that had now forced its way through a bunch of cracks and flowed. He felt better just letting himself go, spunk now flowing like the other dragon’s pre, endless. “I’m… fuck.”

“You know how… ok, dragons pretty much store seed as long as possible… ensuring pregnancy or some shit, like, ehm, all year and then we just sort of unload it in these few days.” Mikael shivered himself as the coils of his friend slid over his flushed cock and threatened to bring him to yet another orgasm, still impossibly behind the other one. “Let’s just say when we come as humans… it’s like we tap into a fraction of what we really can…” Ash murred and slithered around the large torso of the Norwegian behemoth, just as pleased to feel the friction of scale on scale and, after many minutes of silent rubbing, save for the occasional hiss, the two ended up face to face, or rather, muzzle to muzzle and so were their members. “Y-you kind of skipped ten years of hot dragon sex Ash… I, fuck, I think you are just that much backed up.” The blue dragon nuzzled on the smaller one, humping the two cocks that pressed on his own from both sides, slowly, dragging on the nth climax from the noodle dragon.

“How much… backed up?”

“We have to find out, I think.” The look on his face made Ash blush deeply, though the cum on his scales made it hard to see. “I’ll just… have to make you come over and over until we’re both sore and dry as we can get.” Ash opened his muzzle to voice a possible complaint but Mikael was just a bit faster than him and shoved an impossibly big tongue down his throat, fighting against his friend’s for dominance. At the same time, he kept humping at the two members under his belly, sliding his own on the slick scales and lubing himself up beyond what was normal, relishing in the heat and wetness of the fluids pooling around them. “What do you say?” Ash whipped his body around, coiling what was left of him around Mikael’s legs and moaning loudly. He took that as a silent ‘yes’ and pulled back his hips, thrusting forward only to feel his tip slide into the slit that housed Ash’s cocks. The two hissed loudly and shivered together, one squirming on top of the other. Mikael roared and felt his sack pull against his thighs and unloaded once more into the long body of the Asian dragon. “Just a few more…”

“Jesus fuck…” At long last, the third day arrived. Already by the second one the barn was utterly destroyed and yet the two kept going strong. Ash was more like a flood river than a living creature and Mikael the biggest cum-slut to ever live, or a good match for the champion if anything. The two, human again, looked at the building with some worry and a lot of pride. “I really needed that.”

“Same.” Ash leaned in on Mikael’s frame and sighed, looking at the time on his phone. “It’s still early for leaving.”

“Yeah but we put this off for one day already, not that I blame you.”

“You did seem to enjoy me up your ass for the whole of yesterday.” This time it was Mikael’s turn to groan and roll his eyes. Ash had picked up on dragon behaviour far too fast and was now a bit of a tease for him. “You could have bothered to help me find my asshole at least.”

“Nah…”

“How do we… fix this mess?” Ash pointed at the dripping wood and reeking barn. Everything had been coated more than enough and as the two looked, just as the question was asked, the supporting pillars gave in and with a loud crash and a lot of dust the barn was gone and buried their secrets under several tonnes of wood and cement. “Well, that was easy.” He stared at his taller friend for a while and then turned his head back towards him. “What does this makes us, Mika?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, we did spend more than two days sticking everything pretty much everywhere and we smell like each other so much… Is this like… ehm, we’re…?”

“A couple?” Mikael looked at him and saw the blush creep on his friend’s face. “I don’t know, do you want to?” Ash didn’t really answer after that. “Look, what happened here was just us relieving pent-up pressure and abiding to the, uhm, biological imperatives, nothing more. Unless, unless you want it to be something different.” The courage that came with being a fifteen metre long noodle had vanished with the thousands of litres of spunk soaked into the ground, but Ash still felt some of it lingering inside him.

“It depends on how good you are at fucking when you’re human, Mikael.” It was more of a practical joke, a stupid one, but, knowing what had happened between them these past few days, neither of them really knew what would happen after that. “But before that, you’ve got a whole lot of explaining to do.”

“In regards to what? I think I told you a lot of stuff that you needed to know.” Ash rolled his eyes at that. “What?”

“So you’re telling me that the entirety of the dragon species is focused on screwing each other for a couple of days every year and nothing more? There must be something that you… we do, other than that.” Mikael smiled wryly when his friend corrected himself and added that little and important ‘we’ in his sentence.

“I think I can come up with some fun stuff to tell you, but beware, I can’t promise most of it isn’t going to make you blush again.” Ash sighed heavily and picked up what was left of his backpack, tossed onto the side of the road days before and forgotten there, useless. “For now, let’s get back to the car, I need a shower and so do you.”

“Mika?”

“Yes?”

“Do you think that maybe neither of my parents ever told me is because… they’re not dragons?” Ash stared at his friend for long moments as the two fell deep in thought.

“I don’t know Ash, I really don’t.”

The house was mostly silent, the tv being the only thing actively making noise, two adults looking at some program with a distracted expression. The channels shifted randomly as the woman pushed buttons without actually looking, bouncing from cooking shows to news programs to action movies and soap operas. Eventually she switched the tv off and the lights on with a clap, thanks to a recent purchase from the internet. The light flooded the room and showed that both adults were in their early fifties, with one, the man sitting and reading an article on his phone, being just a tinge on the fat side and clearly of asian descent while the woman was fairly built, perfectly average but very charming. She was pretty and the perfect usage of makeup further highlighted her qualities, masking just a little bit the fact that she too, was at least partially asian.

“Ash should come here soon.” The clock on the wall told her it was almost six p.m. “I hope he’s not going to be late or dinner will get cold.”

“Reheat it.”

“Sun, my dear, reheated roasted duck is terrible with the sauce I made.” The man looked up, frowned and suppressed the ‘then don’t put the sauce on’ that was about to come out of his mouth, choosing to look back at the phone. “I hope the exams weren’t too bad on him, I know he pushes himself a lot.”

“Not as much as I did when I was in Nanjing…” She rolled her eyes at those words.

“Yes we all know how much you studied for that.” The heavily sarcastic tone didn’t sit well with Sun and he frowned again. Downstairs there was a sharp sound of tires screeching and moments later two doors opening and closing. Lin looked up at the clock again and smiled this time. “Seems like he’s here.”

“It could be someone else.” Just to prove him wrong, the doorbell rang after which came a series of slow knocks on the front door. He wordlessly admitted defeat and got up, following Lin downstairs to welcome their son.

As the door opened, Lin rushed out and hugged Ash with all the strength she could muster and kissed him on the cheeks. The young man voiced his complaint for just about a second and then hugged her back just as strongly. Sun stood at the edge of the house and waved at the driver of the cab that brought his son there, waiting for the duo to finally separate and get inside. It took a few minutes but at long last, Lin detached and came back in. The large luggage was put in a closet and forgot for the moment as the family sat on the couch and caught up with each other.

“So, how were the tests? Hard? I know you passed them all but I heard you had a hard time.” Lin immediately battered her son with questions, both worried about his mental health and academic records.

“I had a really intense couple of weeks, constant headaches, cramps, bad back, the usual.” Ash looked at his father who knew very well who he was mimicking at the moment. “I had a friend and so I somehow managed to cram in a long couple of days of rest in the countryside.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful!”

“It’s good that you made friends Ash, very good. It’s important to make some or else you’ll end up as me, degree but no one to call friend.” The other two were rather worried that he’d end up making another of his hour long ‘when I was your age’ spiels but the occasion called for some restraint. “I am very glad that you managed to do both, just as long as you do graduate in time.”

“Yes dad, I’ll do my best.”

“So, who’s your friend? Don’t tell me… it’s a girl?” There was a certain degree of hope in her eyes that Ash had to put down immediately.

“Sorry, no girls, just me and a buddy that offered me to come since he kind of decided to go and pack after a bad day in the library.” Sun frowned. “It was a bit sudden but it ended up being fun and relaxing…”

“Good for you Ash, we’re glad that you have spent some fun times with your friend.” Sun smiled and patted his shoulder softly but as he did so, he noticed that his son’s muscles were a bit tense and that he didn’t really look at either of them in the eyes. “Something wrong?” The weird look into his eyes made the two adults worry within milliseconds but before they could speak, Ash dropped the weight that seemed to plague him.

“Am I adopted?” After that, the two adults could barely breathe. Ash still refused to look at them: he was kind of shooting in the dark but it wasn’t entirely at random. So many things didn’t add up in his life: why didn’t his father or mother tell him about his real self, or his other self, whatever one wanted to call it, why hadn’t anyone even told him about where he came from? “Please tell me.”

“Ash…” Lin sighed heavily. “How did you…?”

“Just tell me.”

“Ok fine.” Sun stood up and took the one photo of the three of them when he was still but a baby and they had just arrived in America. “We didn’t adopt you, you just appeared one day into my parents’ house after Lin and I got engaged. I was fresh out of university and had gotten enough money to come here and find work, we were busy packing everything up for the incoming trip when, between the piles of clothes, your grandmother found you. You were such a tiny little thing, so small, a bit grey because you were malnourished, on the verge of death. There was no doctor that could help you get better, none that we could find in the little time we had available so we decided to take you with us here in America. We hoped that some western doctor might help you survive and since you were so small you passed for a premature baby at the customs office both here and back in China. We did find someone that could help you after a few days of searching.”

“Who was this person?” Ash was practically on the edge of the seat and his foot was tapping the ground fast in a nervous reaction. His father sighed heavily.

“We don’t really know, or, if I have to be honest, I don’t remember his name, at all. We met in one of the hospitals and he took us to his clinic, did all of the exams the other doctors did and then some more. We were so worried you’d really not make it and then he handed you to us, breathing calmly and steadily.” Ash was listening to every word avidly, as if each one was a drop of water in the desert and he a dying man. “That doctor gave us some special medicine, something he told us he made himself with herbs and some other stuff. We weren’t sure that he was being honest but you were getting so strong and so healthy day by day we had to trust that man. After the first month, he moved out of the city but kept sending us that medicine, lowering the amount every couple years and telling us in the letters that came along that as you grew up you’d need less and less but to still give you some in your food whenever you were sick and at the end of every month.”

“So you kept giving me that medicine for… twenty odd years and I never knew about it?”

“Yes, it was another little secret we kept from you.” His mother put a hand on his shoulder and stroked it softly. “It was for your own good and it worked.” He had to agree, if that was even true. Ash was having a hard time believing all of that and yet he felt that it was close to the truth, very close. “Once you reached puberty the doses got stronger and were mixed with more herbs because he told us your hormones might screw everything up but aside from that you got around fine.”

“And what did he tell you would happen when I’d move out and wouldn’t take the medicine anymore? Wouldn’t that be… dangerous?”

“Yes, we thought that too but since every letter we sent back to him was rejected, it wasn’t like we could ask him to explain us anything other than what he wrote in his letters. We talked to some other doctors and your father even had a friend who works in a lab analyse the compounds of the medicine and we didn’t get anything weird back. Remember the trip to the hospital we did before you left for university?” Ash nodded. “It was to check on you and since everything was good and you looked healthy enough… Wait… are you sick? Are you not feeling well?” Suddenly his mother jumped in the air and grabbed him, looking at his face for traces, hints of an illness he didn’t know he had been living with, an illness that, maybe, just maybe, wasn’t one at all. He pushed her off of him.

“No, I am fine. Just feeling a little… stressed and overwhelmed to be honest.” She didn’t seem to relax that much even after he told her that line several times and still went to grab a bottle of pills that didn’t have a label at all.

“Here, this is the medicine we told you about. Now that you know about it, you can take it if you feel very sick or if… I don’t know. It’s up to you when.”

“Thanks…” Ash unscrewed the cap and looked inside: there were about thirty grey pills that seemed normal at first glance. He took one in hand and sniffed it: immediately his pupils dilated and his heart rate quickened all at once, his head swam and he felt like he had to puke like… like the time when he was starting to change back at the farm. He hoped that his parents hadn’t noticed his reaction to the medicine but they had indeed seen it although… they weren’t worried, instead, his mother looked like she was… happy? Ash felt more confused now. “Ehm…”

“Oh thank the gods!” She hugged him tightly and threatened to make him drop or spill the bottle.

“Wh-what for?”

“The doctor told us, long ago, that one day you’d have a negative reaction to the medicine and that that day would be the one in which we’d know that you had fully beaten your illness!” Sun marched over and hugged the both of them even tighter, both adults wearing a smile that went from side to side of their faces. Ash wasn’t in a much better position and sure as hell his understanding of the situation wasn’t exactly improving, if anything, he had even more questions now. “We have to celebrate!”

“D-do we?”

“Of course! You are fine now so we must celebrate! To hell with the duck! We’re going out tonight!”

His mother wasn’t exactly happy with that last sentence but she too was happy for him and so she dropped the veiled insult to her cooking. In less than a minute the two had booked a seat in a restaurant they knew would have great food and rushed to get dressed properly, leaving the person they were supposed to celebrate alone in the living room. Ash stared at the spots where they had disappeared into and then sighed, slumping back into his seat, bottle still in hand.

Thoughts swirled into his mind: who was that doctor, how did he save me, what kind of illness did I have, why was I abandoned? Everything was a mystery, even bigger than before. He looked at the pills one last time and then put the closed bottle inside his pockets. He’d have to find out everything one day.