FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

The Coming of Dragons

Chapter Eight

---

Written by Arian Mabe (Amethyst Mare)

_ _

---

The dragon coven settled into their new way of life as if they had been doing it forever, although it was not something that came easily to all of them. The two that forged a path most of all were undoubtedly Sandra and Alex, which made sense considering the life that they had left behind. To be free of negative influences, all the same faces, the tilts of the head... Sandra rolled her shoulders and her wings back in raw delight, perched on the edge of the cliff with light in her eyes. It was good, really good. Better than she could have ever thought it would feel to, finally, be free of all of that.

"This is how it's meant to be, right?"

Alex stood beside them, waiting on her lead.

"I think so. But it's been so long since we lost her that even I could not say."

It was true. Even if it had, before their transformation, felt like yesterday. As a dragon, Alex could think back to the accident as a memory without feeling like it was all happening again, the panic, the fear, the tightness around her chest. It was not a memory, however, that she felt the need to revisit anymore, as much as it had intruded on him before.

Some things did not need to be kept in the forefront of one's mind, even if it was unhealthy too to lock them away and force them down behind a wall where no one would ever find them again, for they would always still be there. But the strings of them that kept them so close could be snipped, one by one, allowing the thoughts to float free.

He'd remember. But she would not feel the acuteness of the pain anymore.

Together, she and Sandra took flight, leaping from the cliff and using the altitude to engage their wings, though there was a nice updraft that swept up the cliff-face itself that helped them pump their wings, up and up and up. It was an easy way to take flight and one that Alan had showed them, apparently having researched birds of prey that lived in mountainous areas before. The problem was that, when it came to teaching and learning, they could not sit down and watch YouTube videos anymore.

"I wish we could show her this," Alex said, straining and stretching to spread her wings a little wider, exploring the limits of her body. "There's so much here, so much to explore... She would have loved it. Even if she was a dragon too... Maybe she'd be a mix of red and blue, like our colours."

"She's here with us though, in spirit. She always will be."

That was true, the light of all that had passed on following them, where the tips of their wings and horns touched the clouds. Sandra called out, swinging her head back and forth to scent the air, even up there, but they still had to be wary of aircraft when they flew higher than usual. Few threats came that way, perhaps with the caves that they had delved into being mostly guided by them and no other tour groups or parties, but they both knew that it was only a matter of time.

Alex stiffened slightly, legs pulling up closer to her body, a low growl rolling forth from her lips.

"Look."

Humans. It was strange to see them after so many weeks, appearing just as they always had. Though Sandra did not remember a time where she had seen them from above, like ants dotted below in brightly coloured hiking gear. She'd talked to Alex about that, afterwards, of course, but they had to have expected people to come looking for them after what had to have been seven to nine weeks. The first ones were such a blur that the days fused into one, seamless being, but they were not fool enough to expect that so many people could just disappear into "nothing" and not be looked for.

She took a deep, shuddering breath, lungs expanding, though it seemed to be much harder to breathe than it had before. They must have been fortunate, exceptionally so, to not be uncovered already, though times were changing and even with her indiscretion (she could only assume), the loss of them would have been uncovered. Going back through the trails of contact, putting them all together... Sandra's chest tightened. No... No, she didn't want to think of the search parties that they must have already missed. They couldn't be everywhere at once and there was still so much for them, as dragons, to do and learn, so much so that they hadn't even thought of setting up true patrols to keep them safe.

Alex nudged her gently, pulling her from her twisting, spiralling reverie.

"They don't look like they're heading to the caves. And they're so slow, beginners. They wouldn't be going all the way up there."

Alex shook her head, distrust showing in the set of her jaw.

"No... But I don't want them anywhere near the coven. People will be looking for us. It's a surprise that they haven't come looking before."

Sandra's stomach churned.

"I might have forgotten to file the paperwork on our location that day and notify the authorities... It had been a hard night before, but I could never be certain. I woke up the next morning with the flask..." She shuddered, though didn't tell her partner what the flask had contained: they both knew what that lick of acceptable poison tasted like. "It was next to me. And the others... I didn't want to give false hope when we should have still been on guard for discovery. Before we are ready, I mean."

Alex understood. Brushing her tail along Sandra's side, she flapped her wings to take a few dragon-lengths ahead, gaining distance in the lead. It was easy to forget things in that life, allow them to slide when they were not truly as they should have been.

"It's alright, but...we cannot let them get any further. They might be looking for us, even if they're not going into the caves."

Alex tipped her head, angling her horns cockily to the side. It was so reminiscent of him in her younger days that Sandra could not help but smile.

"Come. I've got an idea..."

They were nothing less than pure stealth as they dropped through the air, darting from cloud cover to cloud cover, though they would have to get even closer if they were to put Alex's swiftly concocted plan into action. Yet all it was that they had to do was to make conditions so averse that the party could not possibly make their way to where the coven slept and lived, not far from the caves. It would have been foolish to stay too close and, frankly, the slopes were too steep around there without digging out massive caves themselves to shelter in, not liking the driving rain anymore as dragons as they had as humans. And living underground was not something that appealed to creatures of the air in any way either.

But their wings. Their wings were stronger than they gave them credit for, flapping and beating the air, shaping it to their will.

"Bring in the rains."

It was not the most amenable of days for hiking and Sandra laughed as she stirred up the air, damp with rain, cloud covering the sky. There would be no shortage of it for days, the dragonesses sheltering where they did not have to brave the pelting force of it, but the ground would need it. It was only fair to them to deliver a little dose to the humans, while they needed to keep them away for a little longer.

The direction of the clouds could not yet be changed by their presence, but they could scuttle and scurry them along even more, encouraging them to release the bellyful of water that they carried in pelting droplets.

"Come on..."

Alex grunted, working harder and harder, not used to twisting and contorting his body as he had to, trying to keep the clouds going in the right direction. And it was not as if they could get too close either, sending the clouds forth with one last groan, scudding along with due haste. Sandra's wings stirred up the air beneath, writhing through the trees, sending them bending and creaking, the humans pausing, looking skyward - yet not seeing the dragons as the deluge enveloped them.

They scuttled and scurried away like rats seeking shelter and Sandra flew after them, her stomach pulling with worry for them as they made their way back down the mountain to where their vehicles had been left.

"Do you think we did too much? Alex? Alex?"

But her partner was higher than her, calling her back, and she had to join her, stretching her wings with the prickle of damp clinging there and soaring higher. They could ensure that the people found their way back to their vehicles without any harm, of course, but they didn't want them to be in any kind of true danger either. She was still naturally motherly, as much as Alex may have teased her before things had shifted in their human lives, wanting the best for others even at the expense of herself.

"For now, the eggs come first. Our coven comes first."

She knew that and smiled, flicking her tail at her where a droplet of water clung. As if she had perfectly angled the long appendage with the slender tip, it splashed right into Alex's eye as the dragoness reeled, hissing in shock.

"What was that?"

Yet she only had a laugh on her lips as Sandra took the lead, her tail flicking in a flirty jaunt to her back while they returned to the coven.

"Catch up if you can, darling."

Chuckling, Alex shook her head. It was good to see Sandra out of her shell again. With everything going on, she had not realised just how much she'd missed it.

"We'll have to run patrols, have the others join us. We only need to keep people away for a little longer, at least until our eggs are laid."

Sandra nodded along with Alex.

"Yes... Yes, that's right. Then we can see, we can see how things go. We can see what we need to do. There are missed connections, surely, for all of us and the young ones know that they've lost far more than we've gained. It's harder on them to be transformed into mother dragons than it was for us to accept it, and that was difficult enough to re-learn everything about life."

Alex sighed.

"I only wonder how they will think of us, in time, but I suppose that is beyond our control. Do you remember talking about that? Back when we were trying to go through treatment, together?"

Sandra shuddered.

"Mm... But I'd rather not look back at that time when I'm flying with you."

They returned as they had left, wingtips brushing against one another, yet the score of the land that they thought they had known had changed.

And it was up to them to re-map it for the good of all civilisations.