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Transforming into the Dragon Queen

Part two of four

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Written by Arian Mabe (Amethyst Mare)

Commissioned by Thebodyswapeur

Where... Where am I?

_ _

He groaned, trying to bring a hand to his head, though tiredness made his limbs dull and heavy, as if he was stuck to the ground with quicksand, though he did not feel as if he was being dragged under. Everywhere around him looked lush and green, blinking as the world around him slowly, surely, came into focus. He was on the ground, not in his bedroom or even in the living room of his house, though he felt like he had been there only a moment ago. Had he gone for a walk and gotten knocked out?

But nothing looked familiar... Nothing at all. There was rich, green grass, rounded hills under him, though mountains seemed to peer in the distance, over the tops of trees that could have been pine trees. He didn't know, had never been all that into foliage and stuff like that, but the world was not the one he had known. A river rushed by not all that far away, even though he could not see it, his body settled in a small clearing with tree branches stretching overhead.

"Ugh..."

He grunted, licking his lips, though something about his tongue didn't feel right. It was not as if it was thick and fuzzy with sleep or tiredness, kind of thinner... But that couldn't be right either, it had to be something else, for his tongue could not be thinner.

Yet...why was he so heavy? Something sick and worried twisted in the pit of his stomach, dragging him down, making him feel as if he was so much more weighed down than he had to be.

Up... He told himself inwardly. He had to get up.

Alex may not have known what was happening, but...something was wrong. Something was different. He rolled onto his front, having been on his side, but could see that his arms simply were not there. He panted shallowly, feeling his lips part a lot more than they should have too, raking in what air he could as he stretched out a pair of long, red legs before him. Covered in scales, they were impossible to mistake for anything other than what could only be seen as reptilian, tipped with long, curved claws.

Uncertainly, he stretched out, making fully sure that those legs and claws were attached to him, that he could control them - they indeed were. Even though it had to be a dream, could not be anything but a dream, he tried to grapple with it, how his body felt, how he was no longer in the bipedal form that he had had before.

For he had four legs and not two, struggling to bring that front foot to his face to rub what was no longer flat there. He had a muzzle, the shape of it big and blocky - at least in comparison to what his face had been before, as a man. It was surreal, to feel his face like that trying to use the rounded, smooth back of one of those claws to trace the lines of it.

His heart hammered, feeling so much bigger in his chest, echoing throughout his ribcage. There was so much sense in his body, of how big it is, how round his chest was, as if there was a barrel there. There was a fine-like...thing...protruding from his chest, running from the base of his neck to the point of his belly, between his forelegs. Yet he seemed to be able to control it slightly, tensing his pectoral muscles, trying to work out where said muscles were on his body.

A longer neck allowed him to twist his head around and he gulped, licking his lips, that thin tongue snaking out once more. His face was big, too big, even the movement of his eyelids feeling dull and heavy, as if he had to exert so much more effort than before in the mere act of blinking. A bird that he did not recognise, red and black, landed in the tree above him, chirping and cocking its head back and forth.

"Whaaarrrewwww..."

Alex groaned. He couldn't get that big tongue around his mouth properly, though his throat tremored with the pressure of forming words. The ability to do so was there, but the teeth too! He ran his tongue carefully around the inside of his mouth, feeling out the sharp edges of the teeth, trying again to speak but his voice only dropped to a growl that would not have been intelligible to any attentive ear.

I'm not myself... I'm...

_ _

Yeah. Yeah, he had to be dreaming. Even as he struggled to his feet, the weight of a tail and a thickly muscled hind end swinging him off to the side, he knew that it could not be real, not at all. And yet everything felt so solid, even the sensation of the earth shifting under him as he growled and swayed, the weight of his tail trying to balance him as he over-compensated with it. Even the grass tickling his large feet was a tiny sensation that remained poignant in a way, the smallest of things notable when he might not have before noticed them, not at all.

Yet he had to stand and had to get his bearings, his head feeling a long way out from his body. His head was heavy too, though he knew himself to be a dragon, at least there, at least in the dream. There was nothing else quite like that, the trees seeming smaller than they should have been around him. His head shoved out further as he growled and tried to talk, getting something of a word out, but, really, that was a lot harder than he ever could have realised.

This can't be happening... Why won't I just wake up?

_ _

He had to wake up, though he tried one, slow, lumbering step first. If he fell, surely the shock of his body hitting the ground in his dream would wake him again? He hoped so, for he didn't want to be stuck like a dumb beast, one that couldn't even get out any words, forever. Or maybe something dreadful indeed had happened and his mind was twisted, having fallen into a coma or similar.

No. No, that would not be a line of thought that he lingered in, nearly falling flat on his snout as he stumbled, wings flaring.

Wings! Oh, he had not even had a chance to take those in and he wiggled his shoulders back and forth, at least captivated by them, the leathery folds of them, how they had been lying down against his back before. They seemed to have their place, but the muscles that controlled them seemed to originate from his scapula, adding new muscles and bones that, for a human, did not have a name. If he'd been more into animal biology and anatomy, perhaps he would have had a name for them, but the details of that were not to be ignored, even then. He stretched out one wing cautiously, testing how far he could extend it, how he could flap them, though it was hard to cup and shape the air even then.

Flying... If he was in a dream, maybe he could fly? But his body felt so heavy and so ungainly that he barely thought he was going to be able to walk in a straight line, let alone anything else. Concentrating as hard as he could, harder than Alex thought could ever be possible, he took a tentative step, barely lifting his foot from the ground, claws dragging through the dirt. The rich red of his scales caught his attention once more as his nose tipped down, barely glancing up to see where he was going. If he dragged his feet, pulling them across the ground, it was not as difficult as it had been when he'd started.

Still, it didn't feel at all like walking as a man, his attention focused on the rush of the river. The ground was soft and squelchy around it, nearly causing him to slip, though Alex growled and sat back on his hindquarters a little more, his body, very slowly, shifting into something like a better sense of balance.

The water rippled and churned with eddies and twists in the current racing downriver, but...he could see.

He could see enough.

A dragon's face greeted him, the freshness of the cool river around his face, palatable even though there did not feel as if there was anything much of a breeze. The huge, blocky jaw was still, somehow, feminine, though Alex could not see his features clearly, not as if it would be if he was looking in a mirror and not a forever moving river. Four blocky horns adorned with gold framed his face, eyes brimming with golden intensity, intelligence and knowledge in them, even if the mind behind the eyes was not the same as the one that he had thought was behind them.

"Oh..."

He gasped, stuttering back and slipping in the mud, his claws digging into it for purchase, heart hammering. That wasn't just any dragon, that was...

"I..." He tried again, talking, twisting his tongue around the words, though the voice was not his own either. It was hers. "I am... Alex... But... Alexstrasza?"

The pauses between his words broke them up, but his voice was more powerful, resonating, seeming to carry further than it ever had before. It was not the voice of a man, but was as strong as the queen whose voice it had proven to be, that of the Dragon Queen.

Alexstrasza. Alexstrasza, the Dragon Queen. She was powerful, ruler of the Dragon Isles.

His heart hammered, his stomach churning, though it felt like an awful lot more of his stomach and midriff was rumbling with anxiety than it would have if he had still been a human. It was then and only then that his mind let slide away the idea of it being a dream, a sick sense of reality gripping him. Faint, the world around him tipped sideways and he growled, shaking his head, trying not to let himself slide - but if he was Alexstrasza, did that mean that something really bad had happened to him, or was he just hallucinating? Or had he gotten really into the game?

None of those reasons seemed like something that made sense... But did that mean he was actually in the game? It sounded like something crazy that would happen, like in that anime he'd gotten pretty into, Sword Art Online, though he hoped very much that, if that was the case, things were not as extreme there.

Alex shook his head, not wanting to consider the true new details of his body, that it was Alexstrasza's voice on his lips, panting heavily, sides heaving with stress. That would be set aside for the moment.

Alex swallowed hard and turned, laboriously, though it was harder than he thought to simply complete that action. He had not realised just how walking in a straight line had been the simplest of tasks so far, step by step, but getting back up the small, muddy slope from the river was a trial too. Not wanting to hang about down there for too long, not when there was too much, too many thoughts, racing around his head, he growled and struggled back up, slipping and sliding back.

"Ugh... This...body..."

He could form better words and sentences, though everything still sounded "off". He knew that it was not his voice, though his brain still expected to hear Alex, not Alexstrasza - as well it should! Shaking his head, he yelped in a very undragonlike fashion, tail slapping down into the wet mud.

"Ugh!"

It was real, too real, so real that he couldn't set it aside, couldn't imagine that everything was just happening in a dream. And he didn't exactly "live" his dreams either! He didn't decide what he was to do in a dream either, had never lucid dreamed.

This... This was different. Very different.

Still, it was kind of fascinating just how many more components there were to his body, from the wings to the tail, to feeling like he had extra limbs from the loss of his arms. Yeah, Alex didn't consider that either, grunting thickly in the back of his throat. Even swallowing came more roughly, with a bit of acrid smoke in the back of his throat. Perhaps that was a dragon's fire? He was just busy trying to make sense of everything, how even sensation licked through his scales, feeling like the edges were lifted slightly, or at least defined in a way that he could tell just where the edges of them all were.

So strange...

_ _

He stood on top of the bank, testing the swing of his tail, how it hung there naturally without dragging on the ground, as if it was suspended. There were muscles and ligaments holding it there and he was curious about that, for he most certainly could feel the weight of it. If it had just been him, as a man, he would have been hauling it about all over the place like a dead weight. There were so many more "things" about a dragon's body that he had not recognised before, even though Alex was very much not at the point where he would have at all said that he appreciated them.

No, not really. Not when it was a dragon. Not when he was a dragon.

He grunted, trying to talk again, sheltering under a tree. For some reason, being close to nature, with something protecting his side if not his back, felt right, felt more natural. Maybe it was a dragon thing, something to do with their instincts?

"I...am..." He said slowly. "I am...Alexstrasza. I am...the Dragon Queen. I can...toorrrk... Ugh..."

He shook himself, trying again. That end sound had been harder to get his tongue around than anticipated.

"Toorrrk. Tork. Talk. Talk."

There, that was better. He sounded as if he was deliberately trying to make his voice deeper than it was, but that would have to do, if he was there, if he had to do something. And what if he wasn't the only one there? It must have been a dragon zone that he was in, if he was to go along with the notion that he was, ridiculously and crazily, in the game, maybe it was the new island where the dragons spawned, the starter zone? That had to be it...maybe. Or maybe not, how the hell was he supposed to know? He'd only seen bits of it in the trailer, no more than that, but it was difficult

"Ugh... I need...to get out...of here. This is crazy, everything's crazy."

The words sounded better, but his voice was trapped somewhere between Alexstrasza's and his own, as if he was trying to apply Alex's inflexions and nuances to his tone. But a voice in a dragon's body and throat, seemingly, did not work like that.

"Pardon me..."

Alex jumped, trying to whip around, tripping over his own tail and snarling. Who was there? How had they snuck up on him? His heart hammered, pounding ruthlessly in his chest, aching through his ribs, every fibre of his being pumped through with adrenaline, though he tried to right himself again as quickly as possible. He hadn't even noticed, however, until the splintered remains of the pine tree, not particularly old but a couple of metres tall above his head, came into view.

He'd smashed it to the ground, as if it was nothing at all, nothing more than a twig, or even kindling. He growled and shook his head, trying to push his tail down and his head up, appearing as if everything was as normal as it had ever been.

But it was not that easy, not as the blue Dracthyr stood before him, much smaller than him in his dragon body. Though they were both dragons, they were still very different, the Dracthyr taller than his human form would have been, yet still dwarfed by Alexstrasza's body.

He gulped as the Dracthyr tilted his head to the side, eyes narrowed slightly, a slender tongue flickering within his mouth, as if he too was trying to source out something. He had to be roughly eight feet tall, though it was hard to judge it, with big, blocky shoulders and light leather armour. Yes, he definitely seemed like a spawn from the starter zone, though whether he was another character or an NPC was not something that Alex could truly determine.

Was he going along with the notion that he had been transported into the game in some way? As Alexstrasza, he lifted his head and tried to affect a haughty, all-knowing expression. Yet there was not much else that he thought he could do.

Whoever the hell the blue-scaled Dracthyr was, he seemed to know Alex - or Alexstrasza, to be precise. That made it all the more difficult for Alex to lift his head and growl, pretending to be her, despite how ungainly and clumsy he felt, even then.

"What is your business here?" He said, trying with all his might to sound as much like Alexstrasza as possible. "Who disturbs me?"

He wasn't sure, not having paid all that close attention to the dragons and the like before, if that was the sort of thing that Alexstrasza would say, but, well...he had to try, one way or the other.

The Dracthyr regarded him silently, raising an eyebrow. Or maybe it was an eye ridge, with how his face was designed? He had smaller horns than Alex did, though he was not all that impressed with the body of the anthro dragon. If he had not been covered with the light leather armour, top and bottom, perhaps Alex would have been able to see more.

"I...am scouting." The Dracthyr said, standing tall and regarding Alex. "But... No, no... That simply will not do. You are me... Hm, this is an unfortunate result indeed."

Alex blinked. The Dracthyr didn't sound like a playable character at all, or an NPC. Or it could have been the mumblings of a background NPC, to be fair, though nothing made sense. His jaw opened and closed, but no words came out. Damn it!

He stifled his frustration, only borne out of fear that something bad was going to happen here, that something was going to be pressed too far, that he was going to be caught out and everything was going to go wrong... Yet, even if things did go wrong, he had to admit that he was still a big, hulking dragon and, well, he was sure that he could crush the much smaller Dracthyr, especially with how they looked. If they had heavy metal armour, especially the kind with big spikes and the like, he would have been a lot more intimidating.

Something wasn't right. There was something in those eyes and Alex kept himself quiet as he leaned in, inspecting the Dracthyr. That was surely something that Alexstrasza would do too, right? Take in one of her subjects, observing them, looking them up and down?

Eh... Alex was just winging it. A flicker of realisation drew on the back of his mind, the words on the tip of his tongue, though the man-turned-dragoness could not yet let them fly.

"Wait..." He shook his head, peering in closer. "You're..."

"Well, I know you are not Alexstrasza," the Dracthyr said bluntly, though the voice was rougher than the one that Alex expected to come from those lips. "Because I am Alexstrasza. And it seems that a new spell that I was working on has gone more than a little awry..."

He gaped, jaw falling slack. If he had not been there in the moment, it would have been comical, though how his heart pounded sent a rush of blood through him, heated and snarling. Adrenaline pumped and he dug his claws down into the ground as if preparing for an attack that he had not known had been coming, jaws agape in a low, rolling growl.

"Easy there," the real Alexstrasza said, holding her hands up as the Dracthyr, though the body of the Dracthyr, at least to Alex's eyes, was definitely male. "Relax... Dragon instincts are a difficult thing to get your mind around, if you've never experienced them before. That truly was a laughable attempt at impersonating me though, we're going to have to work on that."

"Work on...what?"

He spluttered, pulling back from her, though Alexstrasza calmly closed the distance, not at all intimidated by the body that should have been hers. She calmly regarded him and a twinge of frustration pulled at his stomach. Did she always have to look at him like that? And what of the body swap? Kind of? It was not as if he had been a Dracthyr before!

"What's going on?" He demanded, as coolly and as levelly as he could, though that took a lot more effort even than walking. "How did I end up like this? Answer me!"

"You are not one to make demands of me, human," she said, quieting him, even though Alex had been asking a very fair question. "Now... I was experimenting, one could say, with a new spell. My power, however, seems to have gone a little out of range, transforming you into my body and giving me the body of another also."

He blinked. If he was buying into it, it did sound like a rather reasonable, kind of, explanation. Yet Alex's mind still reeled, not knowing how to talk about it.

"The problem at hand here is that I do not know how to transform us back - not immediately, that is," she went on, even as panic fluttered in his chest. "There will be a way, of course, for there are no possible means for me to remain stuck in the form of this Dracthyr, as fine as the body of a male is. But it will take some time. The male form is intriguing, but I am certain that I will miss both my human shape and my dragon shape soon enough."

He grimaced, shaking his head.

"Yeah... I'm clearly more used to being a human being," he confessed, a little more at ease with her, since they were, sort of, in the same boat. "Four legs... I don't know how you can control all of them, let alone wings. And..."

He gulped and glanced back, but any heat in his face could not be seen through his scales. They were red already, however, so perhaps that made it a moot point.

He was not male. But he was still...male? He was a dragoness, but still a man. Alex didn't know how the hell that worked, but wasn't about to start unpacking it right away.

Even if he had Alexstrasza's body, he did not have her mind. That, at least, was something to be grateful for. And the fact that he could hope to be transformed back.

"It must indeed be interesting," she said, walking around him, taking her time with every rolling stride. "I'm used to a humanoid form too, of course, but you... You will never have had a body like this."

"It's completely new, so weird," he said, dipping his head. "I can hardly lift the wings! They just flop against my back, not hanging behind like my tail. That bit's easier, though barely."

"And you are female."

He bristled, his head snapping up. Was that a smirk he detected on the Dracthyr's face? Alexstrasza's face?

"No! Well... I..."

"It is my body, young one, I should know the intricacies of it," she said, though the rough voice of the Dracthyr's body that she was in softened, if only a little. "You are female, my real body is female. How do you feel about that?"

He growled and shook his head, trying to turn his head away. With his large eyes, however, he somehow still managed to keep Alexstrasza in his sights. Damn it.

"I..." He shifted his weight uncomfortably, tail swinging back and forth, roughly scraping against a tree. "It's...uncomfortable. It's...weird. I don't want to have that part. I can't feel it anyway, it's easier to ignore it."

"I cannot see why you would possibly want to ignore such a fine part of yourself," Alexstrasza said easily, as if they were merely having a conversation over the weather. "Look at you... Look at me..."

She continued walking around him, eyeing up her quadruped body from every angle. Although Alex grumbled and tried to shift away, he had to admit that it was her right, after all, when it was her body. There was nowhere he could go in a hurry, despite everything, the piercing nature of her stare boring through his scales, as if Alexstrasza could see something beneath them that he didn't even know was there.

"You should be enjoying such a form," Alexstrasza said lightly, though he was more than a little surprised to detect a hint of a tease in her tone. "I know that I did, more often than not. There are many in this world and beyond, quite evidently, that would like the chance to settle into the body of the Dragon Queen, Alexstrasza. I have lain with my fair share of suitors in my time, some kinder than others, though it was always my own body from which I derived the most pleasure."

He grumbled and shook his head, though that movement, at least, seemed to be becoming a little easier. The muscles in his neck more readily obeyed him, though it was still very strange to have his head out so far on the end of the...limb? It wasn't an appendage...

"I don't know what I'd think about it," he said, at last, bristling slightly. "I don't want to look like this, I want my old body back. Shouldn't that be obvious?"

Alexstrasza nodded, the Dracthyr's wings spreading a little as if it was an instinctive reaction, a form of communication that, even then, Alex did not understand.

"Of course. But the finery of a dragon's scales is not something that you can merely ignore... No, young one, you should enjoy this. Look at the power in my hindquarters, those wings that can carry me to the heavens, the Draonflight in tow. Oh, I had not realised that the line of my shoulders was quite that fine either, this is quite different to observing oneself in a mirror..."

"Hey!" He broke, snapping at her with a swipe of his tail, though Alexstrasza jumped back easily, landing on two bare feet. "Stop saying things like that! I don't even like dragons, so you're not going to magically get me to like this body either."

"You don't like dragons?" She said, lips twitching as if Alexstrasza was holding back her laughter. "Now, that truly is a farce. I can already sense the kinship in you, young one, though you have much to grow into."

Alex sighed and dipped his head to rub at his snout with his foreleg. Already, that was feeling more like a natural motion. He wasn't even sure that he wanted that.

"Look... Please, don't tease me like that," he said, trying to be upfront, even though he had found it interesting just how she behaved, the way that she took in her own body. "I'm not comfortable with it. As the Dragon Queen, you should respect that...right?"

He was not as confident as he was trying to make himself out to be, though that did not make his words any less true. Even though she was more powerful than him, the Dragon Queen, he had to have respect too, not just one of her subjects to be used. He couldn't honestly remember all that much about her, never being interested in the dragon parts of the story, so he had kind of whizzed by and not read much of that lore when he had been playing the game.

"Fair dealing, young one," she said, though the regal inkling of her head looked out of place on the Dracthyr. "I understand your discomfort, but this should be something that we talk about more later. It is different, after all, on the inside. Between what has happened with our bodies, we should keep this all a secret between us, until I uncover the remedy to the spell, all to send you back to your true body. If my enemies were to find out that the Dragon Queen is not herself, well...I would not be able to properly defend myself, not with this amiss. We must keep this quiet, between only us. Then and only then will all this be put to rights once more."

That sounded...very much like a good idea to him. He exhaled a sigh that he had not realised that he'd been holding in and nodded. She smiled at him, further relaxing him, the mere sense of someone else being in the know and in control putting his mind just a little more at rest. There was a lot of body to relax there, however, muscles losing the contractions that they had held without due need, tail lowering a little more too.

Everything would be okay, he told himself, taking solace in Alexstrasza's command, her position of authority. She would put it right and then everything would be back to normal, in the end.

He only didn't know how long that would be so for.

"I agree, to everything," he said, though it was not as if Alex had much of an option in any of it. "I want to be changed back, as soon as possible. Please."

She nodded, spreading her hands apart.

"Yes, of course. First, you must walk like the Dragon Queen. The lumbering gait you have now - yes, I saw you going down to the river, not quite like a queen - will not do. There's no elegance about it, but you must look comfortable in your body. Not as if you have suddenly been dropped into it."

He grimaced and rolled his eyes, though Alex could not be quite sure if they moved as he was expecting them to. There were so many new things to take in, when it came to being a dragon.

"Come on now," she said, walking in front of him with an ease that made him jealous of her mere two legs. "One foot in front of the other. Keep a distance between them, of course, and the walk is a one-leg-at-a-time gait. There is no moment of suspension, like at the gallop for dragons - though most will choose to take flight if being forced to go that swiftly, of course."

He didn't understand the last part of that, but he could follow along with Alexstrasza at least trying to teach him how to walk. He knew that he needed that and gulped, head lifting, trying to think about that balance too. His tail swung with the roll of his stride, so he didn't feel that that had to be something all that concerning, even though it was worrying to think that he was going to be stuck as a dragoness for longer than even he could have anticipated.

Don't think about that. Just walk.

_ _

If he only thought about walking, as the day moved towards late afternoon, a hint of the late afternoon glow tinting the sky, it was better. He could calm his mind and take on something of the persona of the Dragon Queen, one foot moving at a time, his claws digging into the ground, though he tried not to bear down too heavily into them, for they could rake through and get stuck too. Toenails seemed like such a tiny thing in comparison, though he could pull them up slightly, only a little, offering him some flexibility in them. It looked like they could be curled from the toes too, muscles and a joint close to the tip of the toe giving him a chance there.

"That's correct. Now, add a little more relaxation to your body."

He tried to follow her words, feeling every muscle, how the roll of his gait carried him smoothly forward. The mud was less of a challenge now too as he moseyed down, carefully, to the river, taking another sidelong look at himself in the river, the full length of his body admirable.

He was powerful, he had to admit, briefly peering at the size of his wings, reflected in the rippling river. They were almost as long as his body was, easily big enough to take him aloft. He shifted his weight without even thinking about it, adjusting for the slip and slide of the mud, finding a greater sense of stability in his body than had been there before.

Maybe it wasn't going to be as bad as he thought, being a dragoness... Being Alexstrasza.

"That is enough, for the moment," Alexstrasza said, pausing him. "But we should re-visit that in the morning. Before the light goes, it is time to try out your wings."

He gulped, but didn't feel like saying anything against her, nothing about his nerves. Someone that literally flew into war was not going to listen to someone worried about flying and hurting himself - or so he thought. Alex truly didn't know Alexstrasza, not really, so could not say anything at all about how she really was.

"Spread your wings wide," Alexstrasza said, demonstrating with her Dracthyr wings, pushing them out fully, like sails. "All the way, you've got to feel that strain in the wing, as if it has gone too far. If you fold your wings when flying, it will affect your flight. You can soar with your wings like this, floating along the thermals and the updrafts, but pumping your wings is something you will have to be familiar with. If we are fortunate, instinct will kick in..."

He took a breath and steadied himself, flapping his wings, struggling not to be thrown off balance. It was hard to find the strength in them, even though, logically, he knew that the muscle was there. He only had to relax, to think, perhaps, a little less about what he was doing, to let instinct take over. Maybe Alexstrasza was right?

"Good... You are coming along well, hatchling."

He rumbled a pleased growl, surprising even himself with the sound that purred from his lips. Did he like getting praised that much? She was the Dragon Queen, after all, a queen even though he had not paid much thought to her dragon form and all that side before. He could not help but be very slightly starstruck, feeling like a subject of hers, now that she had, at least, respected his wishes on not delving too deeply into his new body, that was.

Until later, she had said, a little voice inside his head reminded him. But Alex wasn't going to let that worry him as she taught him up to lift off, feet dangling in the air, hanging as he pumped and flapped his wings frantically.

"Agh!"

"That's it - stay there, stay there! You've got it!"

She practically cheered for him and he wondered if Alexstrasza was like those with her young that she had taught too, though there was something there in that story that he couldn't remember too. She had to be a mother, yes, but...hm, yeah, he should really have paid more attention to that part of the WoW story and lore, after all that. But he couldn't say that after all that had happened, for things would come through, one thing after the other. Even if he couldn't say, not really, what those "things" were.

He sighed, landing with a solid thump that shook the ground under his feet, grateful to be back on it, but it had not been all that bad for a first flight. He felt like he should have been sweating, but a dragon's body didn't do that, which was a problem for him, fighting the urge to let his jaws hang open. It was the easiest way for him to let his body release excess heat, though he didn't know that - not at that time. All Alex could do was allow instinct to, at least in some small way, guide him forward.

Like flying, one wing beat after the other. Like walking, one footstep after the other. Like breathing, one breath after the other.

Jeez, did he even have to think about breathing now too? That felt like too much, though the rise and fall of his massive sides betrayed just how large his lungs were, though Alexstrasza told him that there were no air sacs or anything inside him. For her dragonkind, of course, there was magic to aid them in getting aloft, the kind of magic that flowed through the veins of every dragon in her lands.

Neither of them said the obvious and it was that Alex now had access to that magic too. He could feel it under his wings, tilting them a little more in one direction while he struggled against it, how it pushed him higher for another test flight, flapping above tree level and gaping at just how much further he could see, even from that alone. The green, lush lands stretched out before him and he could see just as well, as twilight softly fell around him, as he could in daylight. He had wondered if his eyesight would be worse at dawn and dusk, being that he knew that was the case for some animal species in the world. But dragons were not creatures of any world that he could be familiar with, no... Not even from playing the game itself.

"I..." He gulped, his nerve failing him, dropping back to the ground. "Unnff... It's so much harder than it looks. Well, no... No, it must be exactly as hard as it looks."

She laughed at that, demonstrating in her Dracthyr form, flapping her wings and taking to the air, though there was a good amount of physical exertion going on for her as she dipped and looped. Shooting up higher than Alex had gone, she made it look much easier than he could have expected, his tongue sliding out to scoop up a faint bit of saliva from the edge of his mouth. His tongue seemed to know, without him even needing to think about it, where to go to avoid his teeth, as if his body knew the ins and outs of itself better than he ever could.

If he didn't overthink things, things were easier. He wished, in a way, that he could do what Alexstrasza was doing, the dips and flips that she so easily pulled off as a Dracthyr amusing, at the very least. At their best, they were impressive, in a way that had him craning his head and neck back and forth, trying to catch just what was going to come next, what move she was going to pull out of her arsenal next.

"Oof... I must admit," she said, as she set down more lightly than he had, her toes and claws curling into a tussock of grass. "It's all feeling quite... Hmph... It is harder to do that in this body than it would be in my usual form, my natural form. It is wrong to be in the shape of a male, even though I'm intrigued, truly, to find out even more about this one."

He cocked his head, a smirk pulling at his lips.

"Anyone would think that you will be testing out your temporary new body in your bedchamber tonight," he said, testing the grounds of teasing her right back. "That's bold to say..."

"I'm the Dragon Queen," she said plainly, though there was still a smile on her lips, warm and confident. "I have no reason to hold anything back. That time is long passed."

She turned to him, lifting her hand and crooking a finger, managing her humanoid-like dragon body a lot better than he handled the quadruped one.

"Come now, we've got to get inside. This is but one of my homes, but it will suffice for the time being. I like to see to it that the coming Dracthyr are well taken care of, of course, set on their course for this world."

That sounded like a line that she should have been giving out as an NPC, but, well, there was only so much that she could do, he supposed. There was still a path that Alexstrasza was supposed to follow in the game, even though Alex did not honestly know how she was going to come into the new expansion. Maybe he was going to end up seeing that first-hand, which was ironic since he wasn't all that interested in playing it for himself.

How things change...

_ _

Or maybe not so much. He followed behind her, enjoying the low, rolling power of his gait more than he had before, for he was more in control of his body. The power in his hindquarters and how he pushed forward with every step and stride was soothing in a way, more rhythmic than walking only as a biped. It was something that he had not known could be as relaxing as it was, the sway of his tail balancing him and swinging in the opposite direction to the hind leg that was off the ground at that time. It kept him in place and, as they walked, Alexstrasza speeding up so that she kept pace just ahead of him, leading the way with shorter legs, he flapped his wings experimentally, a lot more careful, that time, about knocking into the trees.

"Here it is..."

He parted his lips, awed, even though he should not have been. A giant tree stretched protective arms overhead, big enough for a dragon to roost in its branches, though her home there, even if it was just one of the places that Alexstrasza clearly resided, was within the tree itself. A grand set of double doors, embellished with gold, heralded the entrance, though he would soon see what grand rooms, fit for a dragon, resided within the massive trunk.

The land there did not look like a part of the Dragon Isles, but he'd only seen a bit in the previews and trailers, not going into any leaks. Still rich and fertile, the land streamed with a dragon's magic, flowers springing up ahead of Alexstrasza in a myriad of colours, so many that he could not have possibly remembered the names of them all or even the colours. He didn't think the colours had a name in the human language, not on Earth.

Alex's heart panged for home, but there was only so much that he could do there, if he was to be changed back and sent to his home.

"Hey..." He started, a thought coming to him as they stepped through the doors together, the entrance chamber inside offering several large hallways to bounce off from. "If I'm in your body...and you're in the body of a Dracthyr... Does that mean that the Dracthyr is in the body...of me? My body? Back home?"

She nodded, a small smile quirking her lips.

"Yes, I do believe so. I do hope he is doing well over there, but I am confident that any of the Dracthyr would be able to conduct themselves with grace and dignity."

He wasn't so sure about that, but was distracted by navigating the wooden staircase, wide and sweeping around the entrance hall to take them both to the next level. He had a sneaky suspicion that Alexstrasza could have just flown up herself, but stayed at a walking pace on the stairs to keep with him. That was appreciated, even though he didn't want to think about the Dracthyr living his life and trying to fit in, perhaps not even pretending to be him.

No... No, that would be a problem that he could come to later, if at all. It was better that way, not to worry about what he couldn't control.

Alex did not realise then that that was a very dragon-like way of thinking.

"These are my quarters, though, of course, the entire abode is my home," she said, opening a door for him and gesturing him through. "In here, you will not be disturbed. There will still be staff around, Dracthyr and dragon-kind, but we will have to maintain the ruse that I am merely an advisor and you are Alexstrasza. I must say, it is almost a break from my normal duties!"

She laughed lightly, though he huffed, smoke curling from his nostrils. Alex only just about held back his surprise at that, not wanting to give her any other reason to laugh at him. There was still a sense of awe about being in the presence of a queen, despite everything, despite his natural inclination against dragons.

Or perhaps he was changing his mind on that matter too, like he was with so much else.

"I will reside in one of the guest rooms, but we should bathe first of all," she said. "The bathing chamber is quite large too, obviously suited for my real dragon form. I think you will be most pleased by it."

Alexstrasza had a way of speaking, even with the Dracthyr's rougher, more masculine voice, that sounded smooth and velvet, if he ignored the male rasp in it. It was almost as if she was trying to seduce him, though he could not help but think that she had more than enough suitors in her world and lands. Maybe it was just how her voice was becoming twisted, like his was: trying to talk like herself when the vocal cords of the body she was trapped in did not work like that.

Still, it was one way for him to understand her voice, even though she was quite correct in saying that he was going to be awed by the bathroom - oh, wait, she'd called it a bathing chamber. For "bathroom" didn't encompass the big, sweeping tub that filled almost the entire chamber. A waterfall spilt into the corner, which must have been funnelled there from magical sources, always ensuring a fresh bathing experience at all times.

"The water is forever changing, like a river, in here," Alexstrasza explained, drawing her leather armour off her top half, moving easily as if it was something that she was, admittedly, already familiar with. "You may add oils and magical essences to the water, but it will only last for a time. More than long enough for a bath to be had, of course. I often have others come in to assist me in bathing and applying oils to the scales, particular the ridges along my back, but I think I should be the only one to assist you this time."

He would have blushed at Alexstrasza stripping off right there before him, but it did not feel like it was really her body, not truly.

I can't believe that I thought it was a dream...

For everything there was far, far too real for any bit of it to be a dream, rooted in reality, though it was not a reality that he was going to forget anytime soon. Alexstrasza removed the leather armour from her legs, where it was strapped on, and the loincloth spilling down over her crotch between her legs. If there was anything more for the Dracthyr that she had taken the body of, he did not see, turning from her and working out just how to slide down into the wooden tub.

It helped that it was set into the floor of the room, though he couldn't imagine just how strong the magically enchanted wood had to be to bear that weight of water on top of it. Everything in there smelled lightly of cedar and something floral, a fruity bite of scent that had him inhaling again, more deeply that time.

"Um..."

Sliding his front feet into the water, he tipped forward, not even expecting it to be as deep as it was, and tumbled into the water with a loud splash, sending up a tidal wave. Dimly, he was aware of Alexstrasza crying out in surprise, but his head ducked under the water in a stream of bubbles, underwater sound pressing in on his ears.

It was not much different, in that regard, than hearing sound underwater as a human being, the sensation of the water pressing in on his ears making him feel like every noise, from the splash of his own limbs churning through the water to Alexstrasza slipping in herself, was too close, right up against him. And yet the water had a muting effect too, giving the impression that he was hearing everything from very far away, the two things directly contrasting each other. It was the muffling pressure that was difficult to bear and he lunged back to the surface with a gasp, breaking the surface in a shatter of crystalline droplets.

"Ugh!"

He shook off his head, water spraying from his horns, as if it had found every tiny crevice on his head and horns and scales to lodge itself into, though he could be grateful at least that he didn't have fur there to become sodden. Alexstrasza laughed at him, nude and in the bath with him, though there was only enough space in there for a length and a bit more of Alexstrasza's dragon form. Alex could not have turned around in there, despite the size, and lamented that, even if the waterfall was, very gently, caressing his tail as it fell. He was, however, close enough to the oils and potions to peer over them closely, though the words on them were written in a language that he did not recognise. Which was probably quite reasonable, considering he was in the Dragon Isles and World of Warcraft.

It was still crazy to think...

"I've never, I must admit, entered my bath quite like that before," she said, teasing him as she swam closer, for the bath was better suited to Alexstrasza's dragon form, coming up to the quadruped dragon's chest. "That was quite entertaining, are you quite alright?"

"Yes," he grumbled, turning his head away, though he did not yet know just how he was going to manage to get out of the bath after all that. "How do you even do that?"

"It is a learning experience, that one, but there's a great, stone bathing pool at my main residence, when I am not travelling. It is hewn out of rock and steams, a natural spring. That is the easiest to slip into, as there is a slope that edges down into it, allowing me to slip in, especially with the heat. It is quite luxurious, however, I do miss it."

He allowed himself to imagine that. The bath there was light and fresh and stimulating to his scales, rather than so warm that he could sink into the heat of it and almost fall asleep. Despite his less-than-graceful entry into it, he was able to follow Alexstrasza's lead and turn his head to groom his scales, using his tongue around all that he could reach, while she emptied in what she claimed was a simple cleansing potion.

"It will help you feel clean again," she said, explaining it when she didn't have to. "Just allow this to flow over your scales and it will do the rest for you, nothing to concern yourself about."

He smiled a bit. It was almost motherly just how she was taking care of him - but not quite. More as if they were closer than they were. Dimly, Alex wondered if he would feel even closer to her than he already did if they had directly body swapped and he was in her body, completely, while she had been stuck in his.

Even if it was not so, it was interesting to think about. He tried not to look at what the Dracthyr had between her legs, thinking it rude to do so, but, when his eyes did stray, it didn't seem like there was anything down there. Maybe it was something more like a reptilian slit? It was not something that he would have to worry about.

Cleansing himself in the bath, however, did help him get more familiar with his new body, settled there and comfortable, though getting out was going to be an ordeal in itself. His tail was buoyed up by the water and he did not have to concentrate so much on his form and position, especially when the water helped support his body. If there had been a lake or some other deeper body of water, he imagined that that would help support him even more.

He shook his head, scrambling out of the bath and digging his claws into the wood for purchase. Every limb felt relaxed and his head and tail drooped as Alexstrasza led him, drip-drying easily, back through to her sleeping chamber, the Dracthyr only dressing with a towel around his waist. Alex suspected that that was more for his benefit than hers, though could not have said anything about the clothing habits of dragons like the Dracthyr.

Maybe he would find out.

"Take your time tonight," she advised him before leaving, clearly to take up residence in her chosen guest chambers. "You will need the rest. But you are doing well so far."

With that, he was left alone, back as if it was in the moments just after his initial waking and transformation. He groaned and stretched out first one wing and then the other, marvelling at the space in there. Of course, there had to be room in the bedroom, considering that it had been designed for Alexstrasza and her comfort, so it stood to reason that there would be more than enough room in there. But to be inside the tree, like in the Emerald Isles... It was something special, something that, even if he managed to see things on their way back to normal, he would always remember.

There was no bed, but more of a sleeping mat or a sleeping nest, the edge raised a little with a knotted blanket that denoted where the edge of the sleeping area was. It looked comfortable, plush and soft, though he did not adjourn to bed just yet.

A large mirror, big enough for a dragon but still not big enough for his needs, beckoned him and he stood there, looking his body over.

His dragoness body. For he was a dragoness, even if Alex was still a man inside, wanting to know everything about it. On the outside, it was still just the body of a dumb beast, even if he did honestly know that there was more to Alexstrasza than that, but there was more to being a dragon on the inside. It was horrific and, without something to focus on, he could not stop the frantic drumming of his heartbeat, how the blood roared in his ears.

I'm really a dragoness... A dragon... A dragoness...

_ _

Alex repeated the words, over and over again, to himself, as if saying them just one more time would make them just that little bit easier to understand. They did not and he turned, taking in with a stomach-dropping twist, to observe the spikes on his back, just how the leather of his wings still seemed a bit darker with the lingering water on them. He did not seem to have dried off completely yet, not even with the heat of his fire within, but that wasn't what caught his attention as his tail curled back and forth.

Alex took a moment, the tip curling, testing its flexibility of it. It seemed to bend a lot more than he had thought it would, and he tried pushing it back towards his body, touching his hindquarters with it.

"Huh... That's so weird."

It was exceptionally weird to touch himself like that, not with a hand or a finger, not at all. A tail was foreign to him, something only ever seen on other things, creatures that were dumb and lacking in that human intelligence. Well, the game had changed there, completely...

He licked his lips, his mouth too dry for comfort. He was really a dragon, really a beast... Oh, how could he have forgotten anything about it? He shook his head with a low growl, though kept his voice low, not wanting to alert Alexstrasza to his distress, if she was even close enough to hear him. His heart pounded, echoing through the cavity of his chest, but he didn't want to lose control, had to calm himself, had to concentrate on taking long, slow, deep breaths that completely filled and entered his lungs every time.

That was the best he could do, his vision swaying, but the stability of being on all fours legs and having his tail to balance too helped ease down his breathing. Alex groaned, hanging his head, feeling as if the stress of the day had laid upon him all at once, such a heavy weight that he seemed to have been borne down into the ground simply by it being placed on top of him.

"Oh, damn it..."

Continued in part three of four...