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All my glee boiled away like water on a hot stove when I turned backed to my husband and his eyes shimmering with tears. Startled, I reared back and my own began to burn once more...

Tom... Tommy? What is wrong? I warbled, uncertain of what just happened.

Kim. Why did you keep that burden to yourself? Why am I finding it out along with strangers? Kim... His eyes looked deep into mine while tears ran from them both and we ignored the shouted questions of the media accumulating along the crime scene tape.

Kim, why?

I...Tommy...I... did not... I did not want you to know. I knew and it had been tearing me up inside. It has been tearing me up so badly that in a moment of weakness when I was trying to convince others I puked it out like the poison it is.

I looked away without seeing as we fell silent and the void was filled by the shouts of reporters asking if we were speaking to each other.

"Kim Schwarzkopf! What language is that? Are you discussing the murder that you just committed?"

Tommy I felt our baby die! I felt it fucking die! I did not want you to know the pain that it caused me! I... The world washed away behind a veil of tears, leaving the image of my husband unfocused and bleary. No one should know how that felt. I thought I was saving you from that pain.

"Kim! Why are you crying? Do you feel remorse for the man that died attempting to shoot you?"

He shut his eyes, and remained silent for several minutes. The world around us faded away until all I heard was the great rush of his breath. I don't know how long we were like that. Laying in the open amongst a crime scene, with the whole wide world and their cameras. Exposed.

Kim... I am disappointed that you thought to spare me something that I would have gladly assumed the burden of alongside you. We are a team Kim! We cannot be like this, keeping secrets from the other. We have never fought an enemy like this. An entire world looks at us skeptically at best, and with lethal hostility at worst.

I couldn't meet his eyes with mine. Everything he said was the truth. I just... I wish...

I sensed what felt like the back of someone's massive hand nudging at my jaw. Allowing my head to be guided around my gaze fell on my mate once more. He just looked at me, and I knew what he wanted. I just closed my eyes and bobbed my head. I waited, hoping, and grew warm when at last I felt his tongue kiss my jowl.

Now, tell me the truth Kim. How do you feel?

I nosed underneath his jaw and hummed.

When I felt my child turn as I had, I felt lost. A part of me still feels lost. Tom, if I did not have you, Irma, Luke and Lucy... I... I would not be my self right now. Tommy, I would be rage. I would be death. I am scared of what I could do. Tom, when I felt our child change, I think that was when I stopped being human. Truly stopped being human. Are we the same as who we were before that day? I mean deep down in our psyches, are we the same? I have always fought against admitting to myself that I was not the same. Is it a losing battle?

We have decided to play Thumper's little game for our existence. Does that make us brainwashed? I... I do not know how we could fight Thumper. I do not think that it is possible. The only thing that I think we can do is to prove it wrong. Prove to it that we can live with our world, and not against it. Only then will it go away and leave us in peace.

Tom, you asked me how I felt. I feel like I want to fight, but I cannot. Instead I am left with nothing but the struggle to move onward and save us all from a nightmare that we have been thrown into. Tommy, I mourn our child. I feel sick every time I think of the life we could have brought into the world. But... I feel excited that I can bring four instead of one life into being.

Does that... Am I wrong for feeling that way? I thought I knew how to feel about this. But telling you Tommy, it makes me feel confused... Am I wrong for wanting more children than I could have had otherwise? Is it wrong for me to look forward to birthing eggs? Birthing dragons? Is something wrong with me? Tommy... Am I different than the woman you knew? Not in body... Am I still who you knew? Has my light changed?

Tom blinked slowly in thought several times before making his considered reply to my soul baring.

Kim. I think that you have been suffering needlessly. I love you Kim. I thought you knew that, but it seems to me that I must state it again. I love you, but this...this disappoints me. Kim, what do we say to each other every night? Your fight is my fight. What happened to that? Please tell me those words still mean as much to you as they do me.

Of course they do! I cried, as my scales rippled and I expressed my disbelief. How could you ever ask that? Of course they do! Tom, what you learned today burned within me! It hurt so much! I did not want you to burn with me.

You should have shared it! I suffer when you suffer. I am happy when you are happy. Kim please. Please. An alien has just arrayed most of the world against us. We cannot be apart from each other. Just think of all those times you yourself has said that you are sane because of your family. We cannot help you if you hide these things from us. Do you want to know why it burned within you so much? Because you swallowed it and kept us from helping you with it. It is no wonder that you have been losing more and more control over your temper! Can you not see?

I couldn't look at him and as my eyes moved from his, my head attempted to follow them to the ground. But his arm stiffened and kept my head from moving away from his.

"Kim! Is Tom hurting you? Tom what did you say to your wife?"

Kim. You are as much a part of my life as my own body. You have always loved our children, just as you have always told me just how much you wished that you could always have more. I think that you suffered a terrible shock losing our, our, human child. The only thing I think has happened is exactly what Thumper hoped would happen. You accepted your body and moved on. Now you eagerly await the birth of our new children. I think it is good that you remember what we both lost. Now let me help you, let our children help you, heal that void. Fill that void with the light of the life that you have before you, that you carry within you.

Kim. His wing fingers curled around the back of my head and drew me close until our brows touched once again. Is your fight still my fight?

My tongue flicked out to caress his jaw. I took in the taste of his reassuring scent and his conviction as he closed his eyes and thrummed loudly.

My fight is yours, and yours is mine. Tommy please do not ever leave me without your light. I am sorry.

And do not leave me without yours. Our light shines brightly because we are together. I love you Kim, and I forgive you.

I love you.

Then we slammed our foreheads together and spit into each other's maw.

Hahaha, not really. Had you going there didn't I? What'd you think we were? Wild animals?

Meanwhile, outside Kim and Tom land, we broke apart and at last widened our senses, taking in once more the world around us. Looking around, we noticed that the shadows had changed position. How long were we like that?

"Hey!" A loud call from across the street our attention. Alex was sitting out on a pub's patio and waved a beer at us. "About time. You've been staring at each other for almost two hours now, just sitting there squeaking at each other like a pair of addled dolphins."

As we stirred from our unintentional fugue a handful of reporters rushed towards us yelling: "Kim! Kim! Why did you kill your attacker? Did you provoke him? Did he threaten you? Kim! Kim! Just one question!"

Now I'm normally a pretty level-headed gal... STOP FUCKING LAUGHING! I AM OKAY?... But I was pretty irritated by the fact that a bunch of people shouting my name ran right past me to ask these questions of my husband. Was it so hard to acknowledge the tattoos I had all across both of my shoulders? I wondered despairingly.

We stepped gingerly over the security tape and crossed the street, completely ignoring the reporters and pedestrians parting around us, and the meager traffic stopped to let us pass. Yes! Everyone must yield to us!

Not finding anywhere to really park our bodies beside the street we parallel parked our asses next to the curb. The feeling of the cool asphalt against our scales relaxing our tense muscles as we settled in. Craning our necks over the sidewalk to converse with Alex we created a bit of a hazard. The majority of passerby felt no inclination to walking beneath our necks, instead opting to go clean around us. I invited one group to pay us no mind. Instead, they looked startled, and scattered like a herd of deer. Was it something I said?

"You two are like something out of The Ringling Brothers Circus. I guess it is too much to ask that children of the egg be a tad bit smaller."

"Hey, you can't fit this much awesome in a smaller package." I followed this with another of my patented rolling laughs. Causing yet more people to go bounding away like pronghorns.

I poked the tip of my snout through the push door behind Alex.

"Barkeeper! Beer! A pitcher of IPA!" I blared, with the accompanying sound of several glasses smashing on the ground. One irritated barfly near the back yelled at me.

"Damn you Kim! I've gone deaf!"

With a bellowing laugh that made the all the glass around me vibrate I withdrew my nose, only to have Alex bitch at me about some abstract medical consideration.

"You're pregnant Kim!"

"Yeah well, I weigh 6200 kilograms, and if I still have a liver it's probably bigger than you are."

Besides, after the baring of souls Tom and I just had I needed a drink.

"Yeah, and you're an alien life form now too. We don't know what alcohol will do to you two. Do you really want to find out in public that it blanks your mind and you go feral?"

"Well" I rubbed my forelegs together, and grinned at him maliciously. "Maybe."

He didn't answer. Or rather, he did, by draining his mug of ale.

With a belch he finally responded. "You're just a force of nature, that's what you are Kim."

I let my tongue hang out, and Alex began to scramble from his chair. "No! No! Dammit Kim!"

He barely made it to his feet before I licked the whole side of his body, leaving drool all over him, and the taste of denim on my tongue. Blech. The door behind Alex opened again, and a pitcher of beer was pushed outside with a broom handle before shutting.

Alex was too busy wiping his face off to notice my tail tip snaking over the railing to wrap around the pitcher of cool respite. He saw what I was doing as Tom began to voice his objections, I ignored them both and tipped it back into my waiting jaws. The miniscule amount was just enough to remind me what I was missing. I let it sit on my tongue for a moment before swallowing. Aaaah.

I shoved my tail through the door with the pitcher in its grip and waved it back and forth.

"Another!"

"Kim are you really trying to..." Alex started, before I overrode him.

"Of course not. The next one is for Tom." I felt the broom stick batting at my tail and I hung the pitcher on it and withdrew the appendage. "Besides, your denim tastes nasty."

"Good! I'll wear more of it if it'll keep you from dragging that thing you call a tongue up and down my body to amuse yourself!"

I poked my tongue out again and he picked up a chair and started thrusting it at me like a lion tamer. Amused laughter came from within the bar accompanied by the flashes of cell phone cameras. Our antics put at least one mind at ease at least. This time the refilled pitcher was brought in person.

"Um..." the waitress began. "Here...here's your IPA. Are you going to leave the tab open?"

I opened my mouth to say something cutting and witty, but Alex stopped me. Killjoy.

"Nope! We're good. Here..." He threw a handful of bills at her and turned to Tom who was pouring the pitcher into his mouth. "Let's get out of here before something else gets started in her head."

"Hey!" I protested. "I'm the model of restraint!"

"Kim, every day I wake up and you haven't figured out how to breathe fire, yet I give thanks to the old gods and the new."

I raised my head towards the heavens and piercingly shrieked. "Thumper!" Causing the waitress to drop the money she was collecting and clap her hands to her ears. It appeared next to the girl on a table top and said one sentence before disappearing once more.

"No Kim, you cannot, nor will you be able to, breathe fire."

"Thank Christ." Alex muttered.

"Wait, what was that?" the serving wench said helplessly.

"Let's fuck this pig."

Alex clambered up my lowered neck and clipped on. We gave an abbreviated warning to those around us and then launched ourselves upwards. Leaving the overwhelmed waitress behind with the empty pitcher rolling around her feet I heard her final desperate search for understanding.

"Wh...what?"

As we winged through the sky I was gleeful

"Did you see the size of her eyes? Hahaha. Chalk up one more in the psych ward for me!"

I could feel Alex squirming between my beating wing arms and twisted my head back to see what he was doing when I felt cold metal between my shoulders. "That's cold!" I protested.

He muttered something that the wind tore away from my range of hearing and continued to probe with his stethoscope. I huffed and turned my head back towards our nearby destination. Tom swept downwards to the Holbrook's home and had a quick word with George as I circled above them. After a few minutes he beat his way back up to me with the sheep in a hind paw and we wheeled away for home. I was pleased to see that since we were gone the homemaker had bled the ovine meal.

I let my mind slip into the cool embrace of the wind until our house came into sight. The cathartic feeling making things seem simple...easy...calm... As we arrived I took note that Irma and Jesse were gone, looking over at the dry erase board I saw another, equally disenfranchised, PFC was there spinning a marker in her fingers. Standing next to her was an angry looking Sparrow.

"How many times have I told you, animals, that you are not to leave without proper documentation? Now I am forbidding you from leaving at all, I have been told by the police department what you have done, and you can be sure that I will not allow you the opportunity to..."

Beyond taking notice of his presence I paid no more attention to him than I would an ant on the sidewalk. He fell on his ass as I stalked past and my leg brushed him aside with ease. Walking up to my back patio I flopped to the ground with a grunt at the edge.

"Now, will you tell me what you were checking me for?" I asked Alex as he made the short hop down from my back. Tom walked up and dropped the sheep in his mouth to look at him curiously as well.

"I wasn't kidding when I said we don't know what alcohol would do to you two. I was checking to see if your heart beat was abnormal."

"And?"

"No, but as I look at you I can see that your pupils are dilated on a bright sunny day. Can you still control them?"

Trying to dim what I hadn't even noticed had become an unnaturally bright day I found I could not. Twisting my neck to look at Tom I saw that his pupils were so large they all but swallowed his irises. He shook his head.

"I don't want you two touching alcohol again. Kim, do you feel any changes in the heart beats of your children? Do either of you feel any different? Giddy? Difficult to think? Difficulty controlling yourselves?"

I cast my mind back along my own body to the baby maker just ahead of my hips. Feeling their tiny heart beats, I hummed soothingly and felt their rhythms match the undulating waves of my vocalization.

"They are fine. I feel fine." Tom nodded his head to agree with my assessment.

"Prometheus." Alex called towards the shelter, his shadowy body could be seen inside lurching to its feet before emerging into the light of day. Pacing towards us, he sat back on his haunches and curled his tail neatly around himself.

"How can I help you Alex Schwarzkopf?"

"Alcohol, how will it affect them?"

"I would advise against its consumption. As you have already seen small quantities effect control of their body's functioning. Larger quantities will lead to greater and greater disruption. The effects are...unpredictable."

"They have each just had a couple of liters. Will that cause lasting damage?"

"They will be fine within an hour of consumption. No harm will have been done to Kim's unborn. Larger quantities will retard development of the unborn's shells."

No more booze for me. Ever. Shiiiiiiiiiiiiit!

"If you would like an equivalent intoxicant on this world there are several plants that you can ingest that would produce these effects without detriment. I can recommend these at this time."

Tom and I looked at each other with amusement glittering in our eyes, Alex slapped his hand to his face.

"We're game."

"Aloe Vera leaves and ginger root would be the two most commonly available to you."

I blinked stupidly, Aloe Vera? That would certainly explain why we liked the smell and feel of Dragon Wax™! The gift that just multiplied exponentially in uses! Now I knew why it numbed our hides when it was buffed into our scales. If I acted now, I could get ahead of the FDA before they got around to regulating products for us. Or considering us anything other than unthinking beasts for that matter.

"You fucking animals, you will abide my commands! One of you is under suspicion of murder! I will not have..."

"Captain Sparrow!" Came sharply from the tent behind the white board and the dickweed's check on power emerged. Colonel Robert Stout appeared as the Captain froze. "A word with you in the command tent." Sparrow did not move, instead hyperventilating in impotent rage as he glared at us. "Now, Captain."

Before he spun away he offered up his opinion on us. One that we already knew well from sundry other occasions. "I don't know how, I don't know when. But I will see you and your whole fucking kind dead."

Then, against all my effort not to, I snarled at the son of a bitch. Giving him exactly what he expected. And driving me into an insane fury that Tom had to check with his own body. I felt his shoulder slam into my sternum when I tried to drive past him and saw Sparrow's satisfied smirk as he turned away. My mind whited out with rage and I felt my throat convulse as I howled in anger, making the soldiers across the clearing finger their weapons apprehensively.

"That's enough!" Col. Stout attempted to shout over my roar of challenge. He might as well have been trying to spit against the force of a hurricane. "Captain, my CP, now. Kim, stop responding to his provocations. Let me do my job."

Kim! Be calm! Think of our children! Calm...Kim...Be calm... Embrace the wind...Kim...Calm...Kim...You are scaring me...Kim?

I was trying to force myself to be calm but it was all but impossible as I saw Thumper watching me. I... teeth ground together...Couldn't...claws sank into soil....Control....growling thrummed through the earth...My...a tail cracked like a whip...Anger. I was losing control, entering into a spiral of escalating rage. A red veil draped over the world.

Everyone was too close.

Too close to me.

I felt trapped.

Get away!

Get the fuck away from me!

GET AWAY!

I spun in place and felt my tail impact both Tom and Prometheus while Alex fell to the ground to avoid what would have been a lethal blow to him. Through the haze, I saw movement and turned towards Tom. I screamed in my head for him to run, but there was no longer a connection between me and my own body and I felt my muscles coil for a leap at my love.

Before I could attack my guiding light, out of the corner of my eye I saw Thumper come closer and my heartrate doubled once more at the sight of the vile alien. Then its eyes glowed and the world around me faded to black. The last thing I felt was my head falling to the ground.

I woke blearily sometime later to a constant rumble massaging my flank. I felt a weight on my head and inhaling deeply I smelled my family close around me. But most importantly I no longer sensed the uncontrollable fury that I felt earlier. Shifting, the weight on my head lift away and the rumbling stopped.

Kim...Kim...Talk to me please...

Opening my eyes the first thing I saw was Tom's hovering head, and overlapping the smell of my twins was the citric smell of his anxiousness. I could feel my babies rise from where they lay on my back, walk forward to slide down my fore leg, and come to my head to lay their hands on my snout. I felt the ground drop away from me with a lurch as I saw out of one eye that they'd both been crying. Before I responded to Tom's urgent questions, I had to satisfy myself to the welfare of my other babies. Delving into myself I sought out the feeling buried deep inside in my belly. Relieved beyond measure to feel the steady and sleepy beat of their hearts.

Tom... I am sorry. I... could not... I had no control... I am sorry. Tom, I am sorry. Tom I am so sorry. Please tell me Tom... Did I hurt anyone? Tom...did I hurt you? Tommy... Please...Please tell me I did not hurt you. Please tell me I did not hurt our children... Tommy...please!

I begged him, and I started to cry in fear of what the answer may have been. To hear what I may have done. At the time, the last thing I remembered was the Colonel walking away. Damn these fucking bodies! Damn these fucking lives!

Our children are fine. Scared shitless, just as I am, but fine.

I turned my head and tilted it into the warming feeling of my Luke and Lucy's hands on my snout. "I am sorry Luke and Lucy, are you okay?"

"We were scared mommy! You were asleep and wouldn't wake up when we called for you! And we heard you were angry! You're scary when you're angry! You're so big now mommy! We're scared when you're angry!"

I sighed and closed my eyes briefly. This couldn't go on. My own children, afraid of me. OF THEIR OWN MOTHER! This cannot happen again! This will not happen again! I need. I need. I sighed again. What I needed will never come again. I needed to be human again. I needed all of us to be human.

"Luke, Lucy please stand in front of mommy so you can see both of her eyes." I felt them water as I said this, and tracks of scalding water rolled down the sides of my face and landed steaming on the ground.

"I need you both to listen to mommy. I am sorry that I scared you. I am so, so sorry. But I need you both to remember. No matter how angry I get, I will never. Ever! Hurt either of you. Please...Please tell mommy you believe her. Please tell mommy. I love you Luke, Lucy." I finished, begging, to hear that my children did not fear that I would hurt them. I did not... I did not know what I would do if they told me that they feared I would harm them. It would have broken me.

They gave me their answer. With hiccupping sobs they both ran forward and hugged my muzzle. My scales lifted, soaking the area with the minty scent of my relief. "We love you too mommy. We believe you!" My heart soared as if it had wings of its own. I felt four more deep inside me soar with mine.

Tom's head came nudging in, to place his muzzle on top of my own. From the other side, Alex came into my field of vision and placed his palm on top of my brow and rubbed it calmingly.

My mate's head lifted, and he spoke again from aloft. "I have some good news for you. After you were...put to sleep. Prometheus told Thumper to leave our sight, straight up. I don't know what power he has over Thumper, but it disappeared and I haven't seen it since."

Prometheus spoke up, from where he watched us in the shelter. "Thumper's personality is not the one I possess. It is playful."

Playful? Playful? What the fuck? Does Prometheus not understand the meaning of that fucking word?

"Its idea of playful is not yours." Was his response when I demanded he explain his use of that word.

"Nor will it be similar to any other creature of this world, but its playfulness is causing you great harm. As long as its actions did not jeopardize the plan, it would have continued. It cares not for the trauma it is causing your mental wellbeing. It will now watch from afar. If it interferes with your lives again out of my sight, tell me at once. I will deal with what you call Thumper."

I was less than pleased to hear just how Thumper was interacting with us before now. That what I had assumed had been actions towards some end, had instead been the actions of an omnipotent fucking child whose idea of fun was seeing how far it could push others. But with most of my family clustered closely around me anger could find no purchase in my mind.

"I..." I began before Tom interrupted me with a nudge.

"I've already had it out with those two about that. Let it go for now."

"Daddy was loud! I couldn't understand him, but I think he used bad words!" Luke declared. He made this noise a lot! Luke held his hands to his mouth and made a short low-pitched whistle ending with a click all underlain by a raspy grunt. It was close enough to the idea for the word 'fuck' that I could recognize it. Not that they ever needed to know what it meant yet. But, color me impressed that he was able to replicate any of our 'speech' at all. As far as we could tell there were somewhere between two to four layers to our vocalizations.

"He smelled angry too!" Lucy followed up.

I bobbed my acknowledgement, and then raised my head to look around and sniff. I smelled Angie, but I didn't see her. Lowering my head I asked my twins were their friend had gone.

"She's hiding with Pro-me-the-us! You scared her too! She said you still smelled angry!"

"Can you tell her that it's okay now?" But they didn't have to, the justifiably skittish six year old's head popped out from beneath Prometheus's unfurled wing. She had likely heard everything we said, our sense of hearing was more than up to the task.

"Kimmy! You scared me! You smelled so angry! Are you angry with me? I don't know what I did but I'm sorry!" Her tongue flashed out and licked the end of her snout before she withdrew her head back beneath Prometheus's wing once more.

I cursed myself again. Scaring Angie was like kicking a puppy. It was just something that you didn't do. And now I did it. Don't be that gal. Well, I was now that gal. Good job Kim, you scared the shit out of the sweetest six-year-old in the world.

Looking at my twins again with an unspoken plea in my eyes they said, "Okay mommy." and ran pell-mell over to Angie and disappeared beneath Prometheus's titanic wing.

"How long was I out?"

"Three hours." Alex answered.

"Do her parents still know she's here?"

He held up the two-way with a fresh battery pack and wiggled it. "Yep."

I didn't want my children nor Angie to hear the rest of the conversation that was needed. I flicked my head towards the house. Prometheus put his head under his wing and murmured that he was getting up to the three that were hiding there and then lurched to his feet. I stumbled to my paws and led him, Tom, and Alex to the front yard. To what I hoped was a place beyond the hearing of anyone other than the three soldiers bunkered down and watching the dirt road that served as our driveway. We settled, and I began.

What happened to me? I have never felt that way before.

Prometheus answered while Tom bent his head to give Alex a running translation.

Kim, I know that you have always had problems with your emotions, especially anger. If I had been there I would have told you not to drink that alcohol. What I said was true, that even small amounts can impair control of your body. I however, underestimated the effect on your mental control. You needed to be stopped and Thumper's action was the only way to defuse the situation without a physical confrontation. One that may have endangered the lives of your unborn and of every human being in the area.

I didn't like the fact that I was beyond control. Not...one...bit.

Will this happen again? I was never like this before. But I was never a fucking alien before either, was I?

You have already taken the first step yourself. You already realize the dangers that alcohol now presents to your altered physiology. I have taken the next step, and removed Thumper's subtle antagonisms from your lives.

You have never really explained what places you hold with relation to each other. What is Thumper to you now? What are you to it?

His wings rustled, half unfurling and then closing again before he looked away. I suspected we were about to get an evasion. My suspicion was correct.

That is complicated.

Well, uncomplicate it.

I... made a mistake with what I had done to Jesse. I made another mistake in not seeking help for the cascading failures that I was attempting to repair. For these actions I was punished. Punished with life. Our overmind saw an opportunity to combine my punishment and to ease the mental trauma done to your family. I am now something of a pilot program. If your family responds favorably to my altered matrix, what you might call a software patch will be distributed across the globe. I am here to calm the scales ruffled in our machinations. This is what I had meant when I told you before that my sense of empathy had been increased. If you would like, you may even consider me a check on what I once was. That is how I am able to give 'orders' to what you call Thumper.

Tom raised his wing to make an objection of his own. "You keep telling us that you once could, and that Thumper still can, see the future. How do you not know what will work?"

"Calling what we do seeing the future is a gross oversimplification. It is also misleading. It take astonishing amounts of computing power assess the progression of events. Every action, every choice, every movement, down to the subatomic level, results in a different future. We essentially have to calculate where every particle on Earth in order to understand the future. When we ran the initial simulations to model the ideal future for you we absorbed the entirety of the output of a nearby pulsar that are core is gravitationally locked to for a year. Even then when were only able to model the best course for this world out to 500 hundred years. Further modelling was done on the basis that your species and world closely parallels ones that we have aided in the past."

"And how many worlds have been enough like this one that you feel at liberty to treat us as just a clone of an alien world?"

"One thousand three hundred and seventy four."

"Did they all live?"

"Species of your type are extraordinarily stubborn and recalcitrant. Thirty three of those worlds destroyed themselves attempting to kill those that came long before me. Four hundred and eighty eight were not able to make the necessary changes. Fifty nine fell to fighting amongst themselves."

"If all of you have just told us true, then that means you have done almost nothing but lie to us ever since you got here. How the fuck do you think we can believe a word that you've said?"

Prometheus was unrepentant in his response to Alex's question. Which made us all visibly angry at his casual dismissal of his lies.

You were told what you needed to hear to begin your assessment. However, what has been told to you before as to your fate continues to be the truth. I realize that we have never given you reason to believe us, and that this conversation will give you every reason never to believe what we say in the future. You will have to decide for yourselves whether or not to accept the veracity of my words. Believe me when I say that we do not wish to remove the human species from existence. Logically you have two options: Work towards demonstrating the value of the human species to your planet, and the universe at large. Or disregard what we have told you, attempt a futile resistance against us, lose, and disappear as countless other species have.

And if you chose the path of resistance lose you shall. Do not let the thought take root in your minds that a conflict between you and us would last more than a scant few seconds. If you want us to leave you alone, after all that we have done that is understandable. The surest way for you to get what you want, is to act in unison to show us that you are worth keeping alive. This test we have set up, by shocking you from your complacency. That is one of the reasons why you are now children of the egg. Why other humans are wondering why you have been transformed. Humans were not ready to begin the test as they were. We have made them, and you, ready by pulling you from the stagnation into which you had sank.

You don't have to believe the words I speak. The power that we wield is already to be seen by the forms that you now have. What agency, technology, or weapon, do you think that humans possess that can remake hundreds of thousands of complex biological organisms at the cellular level? That can perform direct energy to mass conversions to make your bodies swell to many times their starting weight? What power on Earth can make 52 people vanish from this universe with a thought? Or do any of the other variety of things that you have seen that you would have though impossible before our appearance? You do not have to believe my words, you can believe your own eyes.

You must take that logic to the ultimate conclusion. We could have come here and just wiped the minds of every man, woman, and child of this world to make puppets. We could have come here and not even bothered to assess you, and from one moment to the next seven and a half billion people would have ceased to exist.

But you are so powerful! If you had reprogrammed us all, how would we even know?

If we had. Why would we continue to allow you to kill each other en masse? Why would we continue to speak to you of a test that would no longer be required?

"But why haven't you?"

To test you, as I have said many times before. You are harming your world. We will not allow it to continue. Show us that you are worth remaining in existence. If we have to enslave you to do it, then that is not proving yourself in an assessment of your specie's character. If we must establish dominion over you for your species to succeed, then it will be time for it to step aside. Perhaps we will leave the children of the egg on this world, perhaps we will not. Regardless of that decision, Homo sapiens will be no more.

"Prometheus, why can't you just tell these things to everyone? Why do we have to drag it out of you and Thumper centimeter by centimeter?"

"You three are ready to hear these things. Many more are not. You are ready because you have been chosen, and because you have been chosen, you are ready."

Alex snorted derisively at that pretty little piece of circular logic. I couldn't agree more.

"There's that word again 'chosen'. Are you going to tell us what that means now?"

"No. That knowledge will affect the desired outcome."

Judging by Tom creasing his snout with a snarl, this was not an answer that he liked. I sure did not like it one fucking bit either, but after my earlier uncontrollable explosion I was not allowing myself to feel any kind of anger at the moment.

"Well I think they have a right to know about everything else you told us!" Alex vociferously exclaimed.

"By my telling you, I am giving you the right to use that information as you see fit. Now, it is up to you how to decide to use that knowledge wisely."

"And neither you nor Thumper would stop me from blaring it on every media platform in the country?"

"No. But I will tell you that I advise against it. It is likely that your own government will move to stop you."

Probably, I thought. They wouldn't have to try very hard with two platoons of soldiers in my backyard.

"You do not have to in any case. Those soldiers behind you have been recording our entire conversation. Including the translation that Tom has been providing Alex."

I looked, and the three that were supposed to be watching a high-speed avenue of approach were peeking at us over the sandbags. One of them was holding up his cell phone, which was apparently the recording device. As soon as they saw my eyes turn in their direction their helmeted heads dropped behind the barricade. I was more than half tempted to go over there and play a game of whack-a-mole that that sight so closely resembled. I couldn't say just how many of their vertebrae I'd damage doing it, but it would be fun. For me.

"Hey you fucking twats! Eyes on the perimeter, not on us! And if I find that recording on the internet, I know what each of you smell like, I will snatch you right out of your tents in the middle of the night!"

One set of eyes of popped up again to look at me warily, and I made a big show of inhaling through my huge fucking nostrils. Raising a fore leg, I pointed a claw at him and then drew it back to lick it pointedly as a warning. His eyes, and helmet, ducked out of sight once more.

"Kim, one of these days you're going to scare someone to death."

"That video better not be on the web, that's all I'm saying."

"You could just go take it from them."

Three sets of eyes popped up again, this time opened wide in panic.

"I could. But I can also tell their commander and let Colonel Stout deal with it. I wonder what a bunch of E-3s would think about being confronted by an O-6, while I crouch behind them sniffing their hair and licking their necks to taste their fear."

"...Jesus Kim."

"Alright. Alright. Just take it!" The one recording earlier held up his cell phone and waved it. Alex went over and took the kid's SD card, looked at the other two's cell phones as well and then returned.

"What are you going to do with it?" Tom asked his brother as he stared at the card he was flipping in his hand.

Alex glanced at Prometheus, who met his glance evenly with his lowered head. "I don't like it, but I'll sit on it for now."

"Do not feel constrained by my advice. You are free to act as you see fit. After all, this is your world, and your test."

I left them to their question over what was right, or wrong, on the handling of the recording, and went back to deal with a more immediate problem. Angie's wellbeing. Just the thought of the young one being distressed made me on edge. Judging by the frequent glances towards the backyard, I could tell Tom felt the same. So, I wasn't surprised when I heard him excuse himself from the conversation and begin to follow me as well. Quickening his pace into a trot until he was beside me, we went towards our shelter together. Inside, our twins sat in front of Angie while the young one lay her head between them for comfort.

She lifted her head and opened her eyes as soon as she smelled Tom and I approach. "Kimmy! I made a painting for you! Are you still mad?" Her nostrils flared as she sniffed. "You don't smell mad! I'm happy that you aren't! Can I show you my painting?"

Lucy got up from her spot and went to a corner of the pavilion to grab a large roll that was wider than she was tall. With any other six-year-old I would've braced myself to give a forced grin and nod enthusiastically at a pattern devoid blob of riotous color. But, Angie had long since beaten that assumption out of my head with her paint stained tail. I was more than half tempted to place her paintings in climate-controlled storage and wait for the day that they'd be worth millions. The greedy treasure hoarding dragon bitch that I am.

Wait... Can I still call myself a bitch? I'm not even a mammal anymore! What should you call a female child of the egg? Child of the eggess? That doesn't sound right... Dragoness? No, that's fucking stupid, you can't just tack the suffix -ess on shit like it's pin the tail on the donkey ... Fuck... If I don't have a title, how can I identify myself? What will the millennials think? I don't need fucking labels! Fuck it, I'm a dragon, he's a dragon, we're all fucking dragons.

My diatribe came to an end as all my breath rushed outwards in an almost ultrasonic whine when I lay my eyes upon the latest painting being unrolled before me. I don't know when Angie, dear sweet Angie, had seen Tom and I like this, but my eyes misted over at the sight of us with my twins.

"Angie, this...this... I don't know what to say."

She tittered and threw her wings open happily while her multi-hued tail tip beat back and forth. "You look at them like my mommy and daddy do at me! I knew you'd like it! Your eyes were so bright! I painted them good right?"

Good was an understatement. It was a painting of Tom and I looking down on a sleeping Lucy and Luke as they rested on our fore legs. Our serpentine bodies were well defined, as were our children's. But, no matter what part of the painting you looked at, you were drawn again and again to our eyes. It was...beautiful to see our love. I didn't know how she did it, it was like... it was like she had felt what we had in that moment and was able to put it on canvas. My eyes, our eyes... How they glowed! I felt the soft patter of four hearts agree with mine.

The watery sheen in my eyes grow to be too much, and I gruffly muttered something about the dust in the air while I wiped them against my legs. I felt Tom's tail seek mine out, and then the feeling of it encircling it in our new version of holding hands. I leaned into his side.

"Look at us Tom."

"Beautiful" He cooed, rubbing his cheek against mine.

I stretched my neck out and kissed both of my human children. Cries of 'gross' followed as I laughed, and they let go of the painting to use nearby pillows to wipe their faces free of the caress of my tongue. Tom waited until they finished cleaning themselves and dropped the pillows. Then kissed them both as well. In response, a steady stream of thrown cushions began hitting our snouts in protest.

Angie giggled again "You kiss them just like I kiss my parents! They say it's gross for me to lick them! But that's how I tell them I love them!" She bobbed her head and then finished a little more glumly "I don't think they can tell by my smell how much I love them. They say I smell funny."

I made a note to talk to George and Helen again about that. They were missing out on most of what their daughter had to tell them after all. Since her recovery from having gone feral, better than half of her communications were non-verbal. It made me worried, thinking on it, about how much would be left of the mother/child pair down south. Would they ever be able to adjust again? I made a dismissive flick of my tail, no use worrying about step 47 when I hadn't begun step 3.

But, as in all things, our quiet interlude had to come to an end.

"Kim, Tom, a word with you if you please." Colonel Stout said. Looking at him with an irritated and narrowed pupil, I saw him and a glowering Sparrow several meters behind. I turned back to look down on my twins fondly and answered.

"One minute."

Lowering my head, I nosed at the two of them affectionately, as did Tom. Then I craned my neck over and kissed Angie appreciatively for her remarkably touching painting. Scales along her spine and down her tail lifted to join her trill in expressing her delight in a multisensory explosion of joy. Her tail began to beat back and forth so rapidly it effectively became a blur.

"Angie, my little ones, can you please take this picture up to the house so that it won't get damaged? I'm sure Alex will help you put it up somewhere where we can still see it from outside. Once you're done, why don't you play some games with Angie, until Alex can help make you dinner?"

"Okay mom!" Lucy said, and then helped Luke roll up the large parchment as the two helped each other carry it up the hill with Angie bouncing excitedly alongside them with heavy thuds.

"Yes, Colonel?"

"Where do you want me to start? Do you want me to begin with the fact that you killed someone today, self-defense or not? Or that you almost topped that by getting every human here killed because, from what I understand, you wanted the taste of beer on your tongue? How about that you intimidated three of my soldiers into giving you a recording that you didn't want anyone else to have? A recording that might be of interest to the government. How about we start with that last one and work our way backwards, does that sound good to you Calamity Jane?"

I sighed heavily, pushing the good Colonel back a step, this was going to take a while.

Just as the sun was beginning to dip below the horizon the grilling Tom and I took finally concluded. By the end Alex had given over the SD card to the field grade officer after having made a copy, and in turn Stout had also given us the court summons delivered to him by a patrolman that was too afraid to come any further than the ECP in our driveway. He had bitched at length about the death of the kid, but I had been unrepentant in my actions. After being reminded of the events of zero day, he had grudgingly allowed that my response was warranted given the number of bystanders.

"You should know, that the local police department is beginning to assemble a manner of detaining you Kim. I understand that it will involve mooring chains from a tug boat and a seized bulldozer from a bankrupt abandoned mine weighing 100,000 kg. You have shown how strong you are Kim, Tom. But even you have your limits. Will I have to have law enforcement deliver these restraints, or can you refrain from harming any more humans? Do you understand that if the DA prosecutes and that you are found guilty that you could be wearing these chains for many years? I need you to answer me Kim."

Sparrow, next to him, opened his mouth to say something but the look that Stout shot him could have frozen molten lead.

At this point I was pretty miffed. "You continue to act as if I had made that bastard draw his gun. I can only promise you that I will only act when I am threatened in a manner that can cause harm to others. And as for the DA, I would like to see him prosecute when my case would be setting precedence that could take decades to resolve. I'm sure she would be happy to start a legal proceeding that she won't even live to see the end of."

Tom shouted at Sparrow when he muttered under his breath that I could also be put down like a dangerous animal too. Stout rubbed his ear to rid himself of the ringing that Tom's roar had caused and ordered the Captain to fuck off to the command tent.

The Colonel conceded my point but made another that made my heart freeze in my chest. "You're probably right Kim. But just because the courts don't know what to do with you doesn't mean that law enforcement must stand by as you do whatever it is that you're doing. Do you really want to find out how long it'll take the judiciary to decide that chaining you to bulldozers constitutes cruel and unusual punishment? How do you think you'll feel when you look at the sky each day and know that you can't rise into it? How many times have you told me Kim, just what it feels like to fly? I'd imagine what it would do to you would be similar to chaining a human to a wheelchair."

"I fucking dare you...them... fucking everyone! What fucking dead man is going to attach chains to me?"

"Don't make it necessary for us to find out Kim. You have to answer for yourself, are you going to be the one to act civilized and accept punishment if you have been found to have acted wrongly? Because you are right Kim, no one is going to be able to force you to do anything that you do not like. But you placing yourself beyond the law of the species you once shared common ground with will do nothing towards reaching the goal you have spoken at length of wanting to accomplish. You want humans to work with you? Prove that you are still something...someone worth working with." He finished, and walked away to his tent, leaving me with a great deal to think over.

God fucking dammit! I screamed in my head. Can he not see that this means everything to both our species? This wasn't just about me! I took some deep cleansing breaths and my bristling scales relaxed. This has to work. It will work. I will not let my children have their future stolen from them!

Yelling could be heard from within as he began to berate Sparrow again. Honestly, I had no idea why that fucking prick was even still here. He no longer had full command, had had his own first sergeant resign due to his actions, and gotten four of his soldiers arrested. The puzzle palace was living up to its name in keeping him here that was beyond a doubt. Not even Ulysses was fully able to find whatever shadow cell kept him here to antagonize us.

The only thing that Tom, Alex, and I could come up with is that some element in the government was hoping to provoke us into killing him. We didn't have to try very hard to imagine what would come next. They had almost gotten what they wanted just because I wanted some IPA too. A thought that made me even more ashamed of myself after I had just ignored Alex warning me about the unknowns that came with having an alien physiology.

To feed the hungry furnace of creation nestled before my hips I gulped up the second half of the sheep Alex had seared over our cooking pit, Angie having already eaten her half. I saw nearby a pile of wool and looked at my brother-in-law with a question in my eyes. He shrugged.

"The ranch wanted the wool. So, I used some garden shears to get as much of it as I could."

I coughed the remainder out in a brief flurry of sheep hair that snowed upon the ground.

By the time the fur ceased to fly, my head was already searching back and forth for something else. I could even feel the yearning for growth from my children inside of me. The furnace must be fed!

You bottomless pits. My mate chirped at me. We will find something for all of you on our flight tonight.

Oh! Oh! Can I go? Angie broke into the beginning of our conversation as she jumped up and down with both wings fluttering. We immediately began throwing objection, reason, and the kitchen sink at her to avoid having to teach her the birds and the bees. She was six years old, and after all, she wasn't our kid. You can get fucked if you think I'm going to teach someone else's preadolescent girl about sex. Even if her withers were a little over two meters tall.

Her parents finally were the ones to convince her to return to where she belonged, as their tinny voices came from the two-way begging their grade school child to come home for the night. As a mother, I honestly felt sorry for them. I don't know what I would've done if I was only able to ask my kids to do something. How could they demand their child do anything when she could flap off and hide almost anywhere within hundreds of klicks? When she could pick the both of them up with the strength of her neck alone. Delicately, that's how.

While her parents tried to cajole her home, Alex worked to take my harness off for the night. Becoming much more efficient at it, he had the process down to five minutes. Just as he finished, Angie's parents had, with a mix of gentle coercion and the promise of a bucket of sweet potatoes ("I like the funny tatoes!" she'd told us once, and after trying them with our new palate we heartily agreed), finally lured her home. She gave everyone a bop of her nose and then ran into the wind to launch herself upwards. Wheeling away she gave a piercing call of 'goodnight' as her black body disappeared into the darkening sky.

My twins weren't quite ready for the own bed time as yet. But I saw them settled into their room in our shelter, where I knew I would be able to see them whenever I felt the urge. Luke asked me to read for them before they turned their light off. Narrowing my eye, I was just able to make out the print on their latest book that rested on the stand between their beds and used my tongue to flick from one page to the next. Reading for them in my deep gravelly voice the rumblings made them blink drowsily, fighting to stay awake. At last I reached the end of the latest chapter, reminding them of my love for them I wished them both goodnight while I withdrew my eye from the door frame. Bopping the oversized touch panel with my nose I killed their overhead and used a claw to slide their curtain across the door frame. Turning away I saw Tom was watching me with his tail tip idly waving behind him.

What?I asked, a little self-conscious at his mute stare. Stretching his neck out until his forehead rested against mine, he finally said something.

Kim, every time I see you with our children I am reminded of how beautiful you are. Of how they could never ask for a better mother. Of how I could never ask for a better mate.

Sighing, I relaxed into his touch and kissed him.

I love my family, and I love you Tom, more than even flying. You are mine, and I am yours, forever.

Four hearts beat in time with mine to signal their agreement. He didn't answer, except to kiss me passionately in return, making my heart flutter eagerly in yearning to feel him pressed against me. To feel his belly against mine, to feel my need filled with his. My sight dimmed as my eyes lidded themselves dreamily and I took his tail into my own to lead him out into the yard. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Alex salute us with a tumbler of whiskey from our back patio as we moved to a corner of our pasture that we could launch from.

It was time for our flight.

...