FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Chapter 3: Exploring and learning by MTT3

Matt was grinding his teeth, trying so collect the dirt with his spit. He swallowed the disgusting mass, shuddering at the rough felling in his throat that the dirt left there. At the same time he could not help but to smirk at the fact, why he had the his mouth full of dirt.

---

When Syrren and Matt finally arrived at the parking lot, Matt could not find the car although he was the only person that was parking here when he left the car three days ago. He had to take several looks at the parking lot, before he realized that there were several trees and big branches scattered all around the parking lot. It looked like one of the many autumn storms, that occurred more frequently in the last years, had hit the valley. Maybe Matt's car was buried under one of the branches or trees.

Matt took his electronic car key, pressing the button that would activate the xenon-headlights for a second. In an instant the entire parking lot was lit up. But before Matt could turn around, Syrren grabbed Matt at his waist with his right arm, dragging him into the bushes that surrounded the parking lot. Matt hit the ground, pressed into the dirt by the strong arm of the dragon, Syrren lying by his side.

"Syrren,....nngh..what the heck...are you doing?", Matt struggled to escape the tight grip of the dragon, without much success.

"Didn't you see this....this....lighting? It hit directly behind us. But...I don't understand...why is there no thunder?"

"Please Syrren,...ungh. Let me go. This was no lightning. Let me get up and I will explain what just happened. Just by the way, you are hurting me. Ouch."

"What, really? Sorry, sorry, sorry, Matt." Syrren released Matt immediately, worried if his claws had pierced Matt's clothing and skin again.

"No. Sorry Syrren, I just didn't want my face pressed into the soil." Matt got on his knees wiping off the dirt from his sweater and jeans. He wondered how often he had to clean his clothing until the dragon wouldn't freak out anymore seeing modern stuff. "Sorry Syrren, you wouldn't release me even if I would explain what that was. True?"

The dragon was still lying flat on the floor, his gaze alternating between Matt's face and the cloudy sky. But seeing Matt's calm face, his anxieties began to fade away. When Matt helped the dragon to get up, he could not help but to smirk.

"A bit jumpy, are you?"

"Not jumpy, just....cautious."

"Better safe than sorry. If you will live like this you will save yourself a lot of troubles, nowadays you have to be really cautious." Matt paused for a moment, then he looked at the parking lot. "Let's look for the car."

They didn't have to search for long. It took some time to remove all the branches from his car, but Syrren was getting more and more curious what a car was and how it could create a flash without thunder. He assumed it must somehow work like the lantern Matt brought with, but he did not dare to ask. When Syrren could finally see the 'car' as a whole he was somehow really impressed and surprised. Impressed by the glittering metal and glass that the car was made out and how....elegant it looked, so sleek, and curved. It looked like it was moving, while even standing right here. When Syrren flew over the city in the past, he could see only a small amount of shiny metal, nearly everything that was made out of metal was of a dull color. Not mentioning that there was nearly no glass. And he was surprised because he could not figure out how they could move this thing without horses.

Matt waved his electronic key over the the place where a normal car would have a key hole, unlocking the BMW. Matt was glad he had come with his station wagon, it would be big enough for Syrren to fit into. He opened the driver door, and sat inside the car. He pushed several buttons and the rear seats folded themselves into the bottom of the car, forming a single trunk. Then Matt opened the rear door by pushing another button. After that the young man looked at the really impressed dragon through the open driver door.

"Jump in. I guess it should be just big enough for you now." He pointed at the rear door with his thump.

Syrren went to the rear of the car, kneeling down and looked inside. He felt a bit uneasy, the room seemed so small and the entire car looked so fragile. But when Matt looked back, giving the dragon a warm smile, Syrren bent slightly down, crawling into the car.

"Watch your tail, I close the door now." Matt said, concerned he would clamp Syrren's long limb. But it was so flexible that it was no problem for the dragon to bend his tail forward by his side. Then Matt pressed the button again, closing the door.

Syrren watched to door lowering slowly, closing with a dull noise and sealing the car. Then the dragon looked at Matt again, one hand at the passenger seat. It was a bit uncomfortable for the dragon, his wings bumping against the ceiling. But he didn't want to lie flat at the ground, he wanted to see what Matt was doing.

When the young man was sure the dragon was ready, he closed the driver door and inserted the e-key into the designated hole. Matt was glad that the electrical engine of his car was barely making any noise, so Syrren wouldn't freak out again. He switched the gear shift to 'D' then he slightly pushed the pedal, hearing the quiet gurgling of the liquid hydrogen that was flowing into the H-fuel cells, creating the electric power for the engine. With a swift move the car began to roll. Matt could hear the dragon sucking the air through his teeth, surprised by the unexpected move of the car. But Matt could feel/see that Syrren was not really scared, he was just caught off guard. With that thought Matt pressed the pedal a bit more, leaving the parking lot behind them.

---

So far so good, they made it through three abandoned tourist villages and along the highway to the city without any problems. But now they had to drive through the city, if they didn't want to drive for another thirty minutes, because the next highway exit was at the other side of the city. Fortunately there was no risk that someone could see Syrren from the outside, because all glass panels in Matt's car were mirrored.

When they came near the city, Syrren was really impressed by the amount of houses that surrounded the city he knew from the middle ages. But he was even more impressed by all the streetlights that lit up the streets. He would be even more impressed if he could have seen the city three years ago, before several global incidents and of course the war. Now only one quart of all streetlights were burning and private illumination was even prohibited due to energy-saving-measures. That's one of the reasons why he avoided driving at night, and he avoided going to Downtown even during the day for a simple reason: It was not safe there anymore.

Matt drove through the urban canyons, seeing several burned houses and hotels, that were still not rebuilt since the war, Matt got kinda depressed. All the broken and burned windows were black because of the fires back then and they looked like the eye holes of a skull. That was another reason why he avoided that part of the city.

Matt thought about turning on the car radio, but decided not to to so, because of the dragon in his trunk. So he activated his bone-crushers. Of course it did not really crush his bones, but it is the name people gave the small devices that were now replacing headphones. It was a small loud-speaker, but instead of vibrating the air, it emitted the vibrations directly through the bones of somebody's head to the auditory nerves.

Matt's bone-crushers were built into the framework of his glasses. It was normally activated by making a chewing movement. But it was a very inaccurate method, each little twitch with somebody's jaw activated or deactivated the radio or changed the channel. So he asked for a special device that would be activated by another movement. Matt was the only person in his family that could move his ears at least a bit. This was a unmistakeable movement that the bone-crusher could understand easily. Matt twitched his right ear to activate it. He wanted to hear some music but he could only get in the Info-stations that were still sending at this hour. This was another energy-saving-measurement of the European Union, to stop all unnecessary things that uses electricity and that included radio-stations at late hours as well. Only news channels were allowed to send at all day-times to inform the people as fast as possible in a case of emergency.

<< THE RIOTS IN THE WEST-AFRICAN NATION OF THE IVORY COAST HAVE TAKEN OVER TO THE NEIGHBORING STATES OF LIBERIA, GUINEA, MALI AND BURKINA FASO. UN-PEACEKEEPERS ARE HEADING TOWARDS...>> *twitch* <<...SEVERAL FIGHTS BETWEEN THE ARMIES OF VENEZUELA AND COLOMBIA AT THEIR COMMMON BORDER HAVE BEEN REPORTED IN THE LAST HOURS AS WELL AT THE BORDER OF BOLIVIA AND CHILE. THE UN-SECURITY-COUNCIL URGED THESE COUNTRIES TO HALT ALL HOSTILITIES IMM...>> *twitch* <<...FOOD SUPPLIES IN INDIA ARE SHORTENING..." *twitch* "....SPREADING EPIDEMICS IN AFRICA AND RUSSIA...>> *twitch* <<...TENSIONS ALONG THE DMZ ON THE KOREAN PENINSULA ARE RISING...>> *twitch* <<...RADIOACTIVE FALLOUT BLOWN TOWARDS...>> *left* ear twitches, turning off the bone-crushers*. Sometime Matt asked himself why he was even listening to the radio in these times. There were always the same bad news, either on the radio or the TV. But still how bad the news are, Matt wanted to know what was happening. Then Matt noticed how Syrren was looking from one side to the other, watching all the destroyed buildings

For Syrren even these buildings emitted a certain aura of attraction. Each house (you couldn't really call them skyscrapers with only ten floors) was at least three times higher than anything from the historic city center he knew, and they still contained so much metal and glass to make him watch in awe. And although they met only five other cars (two taxis, one late night bus, two private cars), each of them caught Syrrens attraction immediately. He wondered why they were making so loud noises, unlike Matt's hydro-electric powered car. But still, he didn't say a single word all the time.

It seems they were lucky today. No car-raids, no drive-by-shootings, nothing at all. Matt was relly relived, normally such incidents were quite common at this time

They made it to the other side of the valley, to the rural areas were Matt was living. There were only seven other families living nearby so it was never a overcrowded place, even at day-times, and only one family was living next to Matt's property.

Matt opened the gate to his property by triggering another button at the side of the steering wheel. Syrren noticed the that the gate opened when Matt did something at the round thing that seemed somehow to control the vehicle. But he couldn't figure out how it was working. There was no physical connection between them and the gate. That would be something else he would have ask how it was working.

Matt drove the car to a small separate building, his garage. When he neared the building, several senors noticed the approach, opening automatically the garage door. Matt drove the car inside, right at the side of his Tesla Roadster sports car, the hydrogen-burning Mazda panel van and the the KTM electrical-engine-supported bicycle. Before the war Matt volunteered for several companies to test-drive their new environmentally-aware vehicles. While other people would have wanted a great deal of money for the testing, all Matt wanted was that the companies should give him the vehicles for free after six years of testing. But now all these companies were at the brink of bankruptcy, so it seems they had no more need for the data Matt was collecting. Nevertheless Matt was sending the data to all the companies regularly, but there was never a response.

Matt turned the engine off, opened the rear door and got out of the car, walking to the back to see if Syrren would need some help to get out. But he was already halfway out at the time Matt came to the rear end of the car. When he got on his feet again, he first stretched his wings and arms, feeling a bit stiff with lying so long in the car's trunk. Then he looked at Matt with a certain glow in his eyes, like that of a young kid that just came out of a candy shop or Disneyland (if they would have still opened) and wanted more. All these impressions Syrren gained during the car ride, were so impressive, he looked like he couldn't wait to see more modern-day wonders, even risking to get frightened again.

"Just give me a second, Syrren. I have to refuel the car, it won't take long." Syrren only nodded, following the young man. Matt took a thick, black hose that came out of the wall, sticking it into a small hole at the front of the bonnet under the BMW sign. Matt screwed the hose into the hole, locking it and then pressing another button on the wall, starting the pumps. But after just one minute a red light lit up, indicating that there is no more liquid hydrogen inside the tanks of the garage. Matt would simply have to wait, until his numerous generators would produce more.

"Okay, seems like that would take longer than I expected."

"We don't have to wait until it's done, do we?"

"No, no. It will work on its own. Just have to check it tomorrow. Let's get inside the house."

"Maybe you should watch first if there's no-one watching. I don't want somebody to see me."

"That shouldn't be really a problem. It's already about 3 am, so there is surely nobody around. But if it makes you feel safer,...sure."

Matt walked outside to the gate, looking from one side the other, but there was nobody around. He didn't had to watch his neighbors because of the high hedge that separated both properties, blocking the sight.

He walked back towards the garage, waving Syrren an OK. The dragon walked outside, still a bit unsure. When he was about six meters away, the sensors of the garage noticed the absence of them, closing the garage again. Syrren turned on the sport, hearing the rattling of the garage door. Matt hurried to the dragon, ready to calm him down, if needed. Matt cursed the fact that he couldn't turn off the sensors. But after just a few steps Matt felt that Syrren was just surprised, not frightened. He knew Syrren was alright, but he asked nevertheless. "You okay?"

"Yeah, it was just...unexpected."

"Syrren, there is nothing here that will do any harm to you. Everything here is harmless, unless you use it as it is intended. You just have to know what it is used for."

Matt patted Syrrens shoulder a bit, trying to calm him down When they approached the house, which was on the other side of the gateway, Syrren realized that it was looking different than the other houses they passed by. Unlike the other ones, with their roofs angled downwards on both sides, this house seemed to be angled down only into one direction, because all Syrren could see now was a single wall with just four small windows in it and a door. Maybe Matt had a certain status in human society to own such a special house.

When they reached the door, Matt opened a small box beside the door, with a small screen in it and something else Syrren couldn't tell what it was. Matt pressed his left hand onto the screen. A small line of green light wandered from the top of the screen to the bottom and to the top again. Then Matt took off his glasses, holding his head close to the other device that was inside the box. The thing flashed for several times, before Matt took one step back, putting on his glasses. He hated this part, he would need at least ten seconds until he could see straight again. Syrren watched Matt's action with great curiosity. Despite Syrren's lack of knowledge of modern technologies, he could see it was quite important what Matt was doing. While they waited, the words 'Identity confirmed' appeared on the screen. At the same time they heard a quiet *click*, indicating that the magnetically sealed lock was now open.

At the time Matt could see again, he deactivated the audio-control of the semi-intelligent computer of his house. Even with Syrren now being much braver than a few days ago, it would surely be a pretty awkward situation for him, if suddenly a computer generated voice would tell you how many phone calls you've missed or something like that.

Matt opened the door and walked into the house, the dragon directly behind him. Luckily all doors in Matt's house were big and high enough for Syrren to fit through so he would not have to bend down every-time, even his wings would have no problems to fit through. When the door fell into the lock, it clicked again, locking it. Then the lights went on, just bright enough to lit up the wardrobe. Unlike the lanterns they were RGB-LEDs, able to reproduce any light color you want to and now the were emitting a warm and dimmed light, so they wouldn't blind anybody at this early hour.

Matt took off his coat and shoes, glad that he was finally able to take them off after nearly three days of hard work. He couldn't help but to yawn when he thought about the physical work. He was working out a bit, but it had still been a hard task for Matt to work for so long. He felt every part of his body, but ignored the pain in his sore muscles. He had a dragon to be taken care of.

Syrren followed the human through another room, then they came into a room, which had several big windows at one side, directing into the south. Just like in the wardrobe the lights went up, while the ones behind them went out.

Then Syrren noticed a strange scent. It smelled familiar, like...a wolf. But it was still too different that he couldn't tell for sure that it was really the scent of a wolf. Before he could start another thought, Syrren noticed a shadow that emerged from behind of one of the furniture on the other side of the room. His dragonic fight-instincts took over, preparing himself for battle. The shadow looked like a wolf, but instead of attacking Matt or Syrren, the red and white colored creature rushed directly to Matt, jumping, his for-paws landing on Matt's stomach and all the while it made strange whining noises, but also some barking sounds.

Matt got onto his knees, patting the dog's head with his left hand while he hugged him with his right arm.

"C'est ok, Toby, c'est okay. Je sais tu n'aime pas, si je ne suis pas a la maison pour longtemps. Mais maintentant je suis retourne et tout est ok." The dog licked Matt face several times, covering the human's cheeks with slimy saliva, his tail swinging around like crazy. The dog was really, really happy that Matt had finally returned. Matt patted the dog several more times, also stroking Toby's strong back to calm him down.

Then Toby realized that there was another person in the room. Although Toby was not that brave to go directly towards another person somewhere else, here at his home with Matt he felt safe enough to make contact with somebody he don't know. But after just two small steps he halted. The person neither smelled nor looked like anyone else Toby had ever seen. He stood there for a few seconds like a statue. One ear was angled down, a sign that he didn't know what to do. When Syrren walked towards Toby one step, to dog turned on the spot, running out of the room, his tail curled between his hind-legs.

"Wait here, Syrren." Matt said, before he followed Toby out of the room. Syrren stayed in the living room for several minutes, waiting for Matt to return. After three or four minutes Matt came back to Syrren, looking really exhausted.

"Wow, I already thought that Toby wouldn't accept you in the first place, but that he would react like that... . He is hiding now under my bed and I wasn't able to get him out. So I guess we will just let him calm down. And please Syrren, no apologies. It was not your fault that he is afraid of you. When he gets to know somebody a bit closer, it is very difficult be somewhere else without him being around you all the time, he just needs more time."

Syrren was surprised how fast he responded to the statement he wasn't even able to say.

"Was this a dog? The dogs I've seen humans had in their villages looked very different, much bigger and other fur colors."

"Toby is a husky. You can't know about this dog breed, because they were brought to Europe just a hundred-fifty years ago. Before that time, they lived mostly in an area that is called Siberia."

"What did you say, when you calmed him down? I couldn't understand a single word what you said."

"That's was french and I just told him that everything was fine. You know, I work at an animal shelter. That's a place that houses homeless, lost or abandoned animals, mostly dogs and cats. Someone found him at a resting place at the highway, tied to a tree. When Toby was brought to our shelter, he was in a pretty bad shape. It was hard for us to take care of him, because he didn't seem to respond to us at all. Most of the time he was just lying in his cage, ignoring us. It took me more than a week to find out, why he did not respond: he didn't understand us at all. It seems that the person that dumped him by the highway like a garbage bag, spoke french, so it was no wonder he did not respond. After I found that out it was a lot easier to work with him. And after one month with nobody wanting him I decided to take care of him."

Syrren thought about this for a moment. "Well, then I better should learn some French phrases. I don't want him to be scared of me."

"Let's think about that a bit later. You want some tea? I could need some, a fruit tea always helps to stay awake."

"Do you really want to stay awake now? You really look like you would fall asleep any moment. By the way, I'd like to sleep too. You think that someone will notice it if sleep behind the house?"

"You want to sleep outside? Why that?"

Matt was really startled about this comment that the dragon wanted to sleep in his garden. He barely survived his coma three days ago and now he wanted to sleep in the cold garden, with the possibility of another autumn storm.

"You have to know, I've never been in this small, human like form for so long. I feel so...so...just small, like my entire body is not big enough for me. That's why I want to change back into my big form and since I can't fit into your house, I guess I will have to sleep outside."

"Oh no, you will stay inside. I just got the right place for you to sleep. Come, I'll show you your sleeping place." he said, grinning at the thought of Syrren's sleeping place.

Syrren followed Matt into the room next to the one they were just in. It was nearly the same size but instead of furniture there were several pot plants. And behind the big windows it seemed that there was another room. Matt went through a glass door next to the big windows. When Syrren followed him, he could see that the room was built differently than the rest of the house. This room was attached to this edge of the house and the walls were made out of metal frames and glass panels, that were protected by metal window shutters. It was also a lot bigger and higher, as high as the first floor and each side of the room was at least fifteen meters long, so it would be no problem for Syrren to fit into the room. And everywhere were pot-plants.

"What is this room?"

"This, Syrren, is called a conservatory or winter garden. During the day this room can collect the heat and store it, because of all the windows, and with the meal shutters, it won't loose the heat during the night. That's why I can use it to grow several plants that need a lot of warmth. Just help me with the pot-plants to get them to the side."

Matt walked to a small tree, that had small, strangely shaped, yellow colored fruits on it. They took the pot and carried the heavy plant to the side of the room. They carried seven other plants of the same size and a lot of other, smaller ones , until there was enough space for Syrren in his big form.

Matt waved friendlily to the center of the conservatory, looking into Syrren's eyes. The dragon walked to this place and knelt down, his hands on the floor. Then he concentrated on how powerful his muscles were in his big form, and how wide his wings would be and all the other remarkable features that made up his feral form. Then he could feel, how his muscles began to grow and his bones elongated, some joints began shifting. His thumbs became smaller bat where still opposed. He felt his teeth lengthening, getting sharper and pointier. He could feel the weight of his wings growing, gravity dragging them down, so he folded them on his back.

After not even a minute Syrren was finished, his long tail curling along his body. Then he looked at Matt, feeling and seeing the respect the human felt towards him. When Syrren put his head on his forepaws, Matt went towards the dragon and petted the dragon's snout. The touch of the skinny palm of the human felt good, Syrren even pushed a bit towards the hand, replying the touch.

"You think that you will be okay sleeping here?"

"Sure, it's very pleasant here. The only thing that is the same as in my cave is the cold stone floor."

"I can make it even more pleasant." With that Matt turned around and walked towards a small screen that was built into the wall. Syrren couldn't see what he was doing, only that he pushed several buttons then he turned around and walked to the dragon again. Even before he reached him Syrren suddenly felt that the stone floor was actually...heating up? Syrren looked directly at Matt.

"How did you do that?"

He couldn't hide his astonishment. All these miracles he had seen in the last hours....what will he see the next day?

"So many questions. I'll tell everything tomorrow. I just saw on the screen that the people on my working place did grant me four days off, more than I expected. So I can be at home tomorrow too. So we got plenty of time to discuss everything you want to know. Sounds good?"

"More than good." The dragon smiled, unable to hide his joy and excitement for the next day.

"Okay. Just for the case that you will hear something in the morning going around, it will be just me and Toby going for a little walk, so he can do his 'business', if you understand." Matt said grinning.

"Sure." He grinned back. "Good night Matt."

He patted Syrren's snout a second time. "Good night, big one."

Matt walked towards the door and when he was just about going inside, Syrren held him back.

"Hey Matt. Can I.....ask you something, something....personally?" The dragon seemed a bit unsure if he should even ask this question.

"Okay, Syrren. But only this single question. I'm really tired now."

"Matt,....why did you help me?"

"Why did I help you? I mean,...wasn't that obvious? You were in troubles and needed help."

"That's a not-explanation. I mean what was your motivation to help me, personally."

Matt thought about this for a few seconds than he simply said: "I helped you Syrren, because....simply because it would have been wrong not to help."

Both of them did not say another word, but instead smiled at each other.

When Syrren had his eyes closed, Matt walked outside the conservatory and to the first floor. Normally he would have taken a shower, but he was simply too tired, so he just brushed his teeth and washed his face. Then he walked into his bedroom, where Toby was still hiding under the bed. Matt closed the door, slamming it a bit so the dog could hear that the door was shut.

"Toby, come here. Le dragon ne veut pas te blesser." He could hear the dog whining, still hiding under he bed. Matt undressed himself, now only wearing his briefs and T-shirt.

He laid himself on the bed cautiously, not to hurt the dog beneath it. It took another minute before Toby was brave enough to crawl out of his hiding place. He looked a the door, like he was making sure it was really closed. Then he jumped onto the mattress and laid himself next to Matt. The young man crouched a bit nearer, his hands scratching through the fluffy fur on Toby's belly. He could feel the dog was trembling, still a bit scared by Syrren.

But as soon as Matt intensified the belly-rubs, the dog began to calm down. His leg began to twitch back and forth and got faster as Matt continued. The dog was so happy that Matt had finally returned. He liked the neighbors a lot, but Matt... he simply admired him. He trusted him without the slightest shadow of a doubt.

After a few more minutes of gentle cuddling they became both really sleepy. Toby was now lying in a fetal position, his back touching Matt's belly. When Matt was soon drifting into slumber, feeling the warm and fluffy fur, Toby's tail swinging every now and then, he couldn't help but to think at Syrren all the time. The mental connection between them was now on the lowest level, so each of them could just feel the presence of each other.

*I've got a dragon in my conservatory, a real dragon.*

With that thought, Matt fell asleep.

---

Syrren woke up the next morning because of quiet footsteps. Although Matt said that he would be around the next day, the sensible ears of the dragon noticed the steps of the human and the dog.

He did not fell asleep after they left the house, he dozed only a bit. After about half an hour they returned, but still he did not open his eyes. He wanted to enjoy the warm stone floor a bit longer. Then he heard the glass sliding door open quietly. Matt walked by very carefully, he hadn't noticed that the dragon was already awake, because the mental connection was disrupted during the night.

He could hear the human walking by, then he heard the noise of another door sliding open and he could feel cool air flowing into the conservatory behind him. Now Syrren opened his eyes, looking first at the door that was leading into the house. There he saw Toby standing right behind the glass door. But in that moment their eyes met the dog backed into the house, out of Syrren's sight.

The dragon bent his neck to look for the door behind him. It seemed to lead directly into the garden. Actually Syrren didn't want to change back so soon. But he didn't want to stay in the conservatory all the day either, so he thought it would probably be better to change in his human-like form.

After not even a minute of transforming he was in his bipedal-shape. He went to the door and looked into the garden. It was bigger Syrren expected it to be, at least five times his feral snout-to-tail-tip length at one side and two times his length on the other side. He could see several plants growing in various areas. Syrren knew some of them from the human's fields during his flights over the city, while others looked alien to his eyes.

And in the middle of the garden there was a very high metal rod. No, it was flagpole, because now Syrren noticed Matt, who was just pulling the flag into his final position. Syrren couldn't tell what the flag showed because it was really foggy, although it was already late morning. All he could say that there was a lot of light blue on the flag.

When Matt neared the conservatory, Syrren waved Matt a good morning and he waved back.

"Good morning Syrren. Slept well?"

"Yeah, your winter garden was really a pleasant place to sleep."

Before he had the chance to say another word, his stomach began growling. He couldn't help but to blush, or in his case, the dragon equivalent, his ear-sails reddened a bit. This time Matt noticed the change of color, what made him smirk.

"Sounds like someone here is hungry? Let's see if we can find something to satisfy the dragon."

Syrren smirked only a little bit at this comment. For him it was a bit embarrassing. Normally he would now go hunting, but he still had to rely on Matt's stocks to not get discovered.

They went into the house straight into the kitchen. Matt offered the dragon a chair in the dining room, which run seamlessly to the kitchen. The dragon had a seat on the wooden chair, his tail hanging through the gap at the back of the it. The stool made some crunching noises, but it did withstand the dragon's weight.

Syrren watched with great curiosity what Matt was doing now. The young man decided since it was already 11 am they could have a brunch to safe some time for teaching lessons. Matt took some sausages, eggs, some slices of ham and bacon out of the fridge and began to fry them in two pans. While the food was crackling on the induction cooker, Matt took a baguette out of his bread drawer and began cutting it into smaller slices. Then he opened the fridge again, taking a block of butter and two glasses of home-made jam.

Syrren was really impressed how smooth and fast Matt was moving around in the little room between the cooking-island in the middle of the room and the cupboards. He was even more impressed when he realized that Matt was not using an open fire to fry the food. Another thing he had to ask how it worked.

After another ten minutes Matt placed a plate, with the necessary cutlery, together with fried sausages, ham and eggs, fried bacon, grilled tomatoes and two slices of toasted bread in front of Syrren, placing a second plate with the same for him on the opposite side of the table. Then he put a bowl with the baguette slices and two mugs, one with water, the other one with orange juice, between their two plates. At last Matt took the ketchup bottle and sat on the other side of the table, looking at the dragon.

Syrren looked at the plate with astonishment.

"Enjoy your meal. There is more where that comes from, if you want to."

After that comment Matt started with his meal. It took him another ten seconds to notice that Syrren wasn't eating at all. Instead he was just holding the knife and the fork, examining the metal tools with a desperate look. Seems that Mat had to push forward the teaching lessons, so the dragon could enjoy a warm meal.

---

"Still hungry?" Matt asked the dragon.

"No. Thank you for the meal, it was delicious."

Syrren really enjoyed the meal, especially the orange liquid Matt called orange juice. There was only a odd moment when Syrren came to the sausages, because he couldn't figure out from what part of an animal they were and he refused to eat them until Matt explained what they were made out of. Syrren also liked the bread slices, he had never eaten something so crunchy before.

Matt was really surprised how good the dragon could handle the cutlery now, after just a few minutes of trying. Despite his big claws he could handle them very good, but since they were built for human anatomy he couldn't handle them as well as Matt. Despite Matt's assurance he wouldn't mind if he would eat like he did in his cave, Syrren insisted to use the cutlery like Matt did.

"Great, just give me a minute to clean the dishes."

Matt took both plates, the cutlery and the pans and began to wash them in the kitchen sink. Although he had a dish-washer, he had never used it since he moved into the house. Since he was living on his own he only used so little of his kitchenware it was simply not necessary.

After just a minute of washing (the dragon was really impressed by the water flowing out of the tap), Matt was ready for the teaching lessons. Just then he noticed that his T-shirt was kinda sweaty and he his armpits started to smell a bit.

"Okay, Syrren before we start with your teaching lessons, I'll just have to wash myself. It won't take long, so just have a sit in the living room and wait a bit. I try to be as fast as I can."

"You don't have to rush. I'd like to rest a bit anyway, the meal was so great, I think I overdid a bit with eating."

Matt wasn't surprised when the dragon ate another three plates like the first one, since he had seen the dragon eating nearly twenty kilogram of meat in three days. He had to remind himself to take some of the frozen meat from his freezers in the cellar into the fridge, so it could unfreeze .

"Okay then. The living room is where Toby did greet us yesterday, so just have a seat and relax a bit. Or whatever you want to do. I'll be back as soon as possible."

Matt left the kitchen, looking behind himself to see how the dragon swiftly walked into the living room, so Matt hurried to the bath-room. He didn't want the dragon to wait longer than necessary.

---

When Matt finally felt the hot water running down his nude body, it made him feel so much better, to wash off the dirt and sweat from all the hard work and to sooth his sore muscles. Of course he made sure that there was no mental connection between them, so not to embarrass them both. But although Matt tried not to think at the dragon, he couldn't help but to think if Syrren could fit into the shower. Unlike a normal shower cabin, with a separate shower tray, here the shower was part of the room only to be separated by a opaque glass sliding door. When he thought about that there would be even enough room for Matt to fit into, his thoughts began wandering, imagining how it would look with both of them in the shower.

While he thought about this scenario, his manhood began to harden with each second he imagined the picture. It took him a minute to realize how hard he had gotten, and he hadn't even thought about how Syrren's dragon-hood would look like. He was really startled how easy his thoughts wandered to the dragon. The thoughts of the dragon did attract him more than any of a human man. But Matt had never thought about starting a relationship with someone, he simply admired the bodies of someone else.

Since he didn't want to face with such a big hard-on, and the dragon's presence wouldn't help the situation either, he tried to take care of his problem right here. He brought his hand to his hard-on, slowly pulling his foreskin back. He suppressed a silent moan. Since he didn't had a chance to satisfy himself the last three days, his shaft and especially his glans were much more sensitive now. When he moved his thumb over his glans again, circling his slit, he had to bite his lower lips to silence himself. It felt so good, he was sure he wouldn't last very long. He hoped that he would be able to stay that silent enough that Syrren would not notice his actions.

---

Meanwhile in the living room, the blue dragon was walking around, examining the furniture. He tried several times to sit on the couch before he found a comfortable way to sit without his tail and wings being in the way and how to fold his wings, so he could lean back. Then he looked at the strange mix of walls that were protruding out of the main wall. He examined the odd looking compilation, then he noticed a glass door at one side. He opened it and was surprised to find that the thing was hollow and partially filled with ashes. So it had to be a fireplace.

Then the bookshelves caught his attention. According to the amount and size they were surely very important for Matt. They were covering nearly all walls up to the ceiling and even a free standing one was aligned along the wall opposite to the big windows, forming a small alley.

Syrren walked towards the shelves, taking one book and opened it. To his disappointment the sites of the book were only covered with a great number of sings he was not able interpret. From his few mental excursions he knew that some humans used these signs to write things down they were afraid of forgetting. But he was not able to read them, despite the 'learning-lesson' he had with Matt.

So he put the book back into the shelve, looking for another one that contained maybe some pictures. Suddenly he heard something behind him, something small. He turned around just to see Toby watching around the corner of the door. But as soon their gazes met, the dog scooted backwards, only to try to have a look at the dragon again a few seconds later. It seemed that the dog had lost a lot of his anxiety of the dragon, but was still so much afraid that he did not want him to be near him. Nevertheless he was curious about this person.

Syrren turned around again, showing his back to Toby, trying to ignore him and give him the chance to look at him a bit longer. Maybe he could see then that he is not as dangerous as he looks.

When the dragon's view wandered around the shelves, he saw several magazine racks that were filled with objects that resembled the books on the other shelves, but their covers were different, not hard, but instead as thin as the other sites, and a lot of them were bigger than most of the books.

He took one of these big, thin books. The cover was showing a picture of a car, similar to the one of Matt, but the logo on the front was different, four intertwined rings. Syrren skipped through the magazine, stopping from time to time, when he saw a picture. Most of them showed cars, some bigger, some smaller, some of such a size that Syrren was sure he could fit into the back part of the car in his quadrupedal form. But still, most of this book was filled with more signs than pictures.

He put the magazine back into the rack and skipped through the other magazines in the rack, looking at the cover pictures. Then he stopped and skipped to the previous one. He took it out of the rack to examine it. While most of the other covers showed weird looking machines or humans doing some to Syrren unknown work, this one showed a dragon. Or at least Syrren thought at first it was a dragon. It was without doubt reptilian, but the creature had no wings and it was also walking on two legs, his small forelegs held before its chests. The creature seemed to roar towards the viewer.

When Syrren thought about what this creature could be, the dragon noticed the horrific background. A gigantic ball of rock seemed to fall from the sky, pulverizing the mountains beneath it, the area where the ball touches the ground glowing white. Syrren skipped through the magazine, to find more pictures of these dragon like creatures. Some of them at a lake, watching an enormous high wall of water approaching them. Others were running away from the red glowing rubble that was flying away from a mushroom shaped cloud. A great part of the magazine seemed to deal with this topic.

Although Syrren couldn't read a single word, he tried to figure out what this could mean. Did this maybe show something Matt called a 'war', a fight between humans and these reptilian creatures? But Syrren shook the thought off, because Matt said that humans thought dragons to have never existed, so it was unlikely that there would have been a fight between them.

Syrren skipped through other books and magazines, trying to find other ones that were dealing with that topic. But he didn't find one despite he looked at every magazine.

"Already looking for a topic for your school lessons?"

Syrren turned around to see Matt just walking into the room, now wearing a blue T-shirt and gray sweatpants, drying off his hair with a towel.

"Just looking. You have an impressive collection of books. It's a pity I can't read them."

"Since you can talk so well I guess you will learn it very fast." Matt saw now that Syrren was holding a magazine in his hands. "Found something interesting?" he asked, pointing at magazine.

"More confusing than interesting. You said that humans thought dragons to be mythical creatures. But what's this?" He handed the magazine to Matt.

The young man stopped drying his hair and put the towel on his shoulders, taking the magazine. He was surprised that Syrren found something about the cretaceous-tertiary extinction event that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs.

"Interesting that you found a magazines about this topic. They may look like dragons, but they are not. We humans call them dinosaurs, which means powerful or terrible lizard. But they do not exist anymore. They were extinct a long time ago, long before humans even existed."

"But how?"

Matt sighed. If the dragon was so eager to learn, it would take a little bit longer than he thought it would. Matt had planned only to teach him things about humans and their history, technology and such things. But it was understandable that Syrren wanted to learn something about dinosaurs, since they resembled dragons in many ways.

"Okay then. Have a seat while I get everything necessary."

---

"Stop it. Please. I can't take it any more. This is torture."

"What?" The dragon looked up from the tablet computer, confused by the human's reaction to the question why the 'Wars of the Roses' in 1455 did start. For Syrren it may have been a simple question, but Matt couldn't stand it anymore. He had heard the question 'Why did they do this or that' so often - it was simply enough. Mostly because he didn't knew what to answer. The dragon may look like an adult, but as Matt learned he was just six years old and like a human child the question he asked the most was 'Why?'.

The first thing Matt taught Syrren was the human concept of measuring the time. It took him about an hour to explain everything, from how a day was divided into hours and they were divided into minutes and seconds, the way a calendar works and also the concept of counting years, which was still a strange concept for the dragon, although he understood now why it was necessary for humans.

Then Matt taught him reading and writing which went a bit smoother. After just half an hour Syrren was able to read everything without any problems and the writing took him about another half an hour.

Matt was surprised that the dragon could use a pencil or a biro so perfectly, despite his claws. He was even more surprised that the writing style of the dragon resembled his own in nearly every way. But since he did not write that much until now it would maybe take some time to develop his own one.

Matt wanted to concentrate on human history, but Syrren insisted that Matt should teach him everything he knew about the dinosaurs he saw in the magazine. So it took Matt several hours more than he had planed. Because of that and the fact that Syrren wanted to know everything in detail they only came to the middle ages. And now Matt was bend forward, his head on the table, covered with his hands, his brain feeling like jelly.

But Matt was not the only one to teach something. Syrren described a lot of dragons too, their way of living together, how their society works and things like that. For Matt it was really interesting to hear how a non-human-society was working, but for Syrren it was a bit embarrassing, because compared to what Matt told him about humans it was barely nothing, because Syrren had only met another dragon-clan until he was left by his own one.

They both decided that this word was the best one to describe a group of dragons, because similar to the clans in Scotland or Ireland the members of a clan didn't have to be relatives through a bloodline. Everybody who has proven his value for the leader of a dragon-clan, can join the clan.

Another fact that surprised Matt that these clans were semi-democratic, or at least Syrren's clan was. Once another clan, which was looking for new territory, asked if they could stay for two days in their territory to recover from a three-day flight. Although Syrrens father didn't want them to stay here, he was outvoted by all the other clan-members. This was one of the few times he did not get his way. Most times the other dragons did not dare to contradict him. Syrren's father was elected by the other members of the clan when his father died, but it was not really a democratic decision, more a succession, because already his father and grandfather had been leader of this group.

But the thing Matt wanted to know the most was the dragon's ability to change their form. But for dragons it was nothing they really thought about, it was simply a natural ability. But dragons use their bipedal-form only in close-combat with other dragons. It seemed it was a unwritten law, not to fight each other in their feral form.

"Uuuungh. Syrren please give me a break. We've been working now for..." he looked at the digital display of the clock built into the wall "...what? Five and a half hours?!" He couldn't believe it. Although history lessons were one of his favorite ones at school, he never thought he could last that long.

Then Matt heard Toby whining. He was staying at one door to the living room trying to get Matt's attention. Matt realized that he wanted to go for a walk again, and he was glad about it. He needed really some fresh air.

"Well Syrren, Toby wants another walk. Do you mind if I go now?"

"No, no. I'll be fine. I will just read a bit more about human history. It's really interesting."

Matt didn't know what to say about that comment. In that part of human history one war followed the other, so he wouldn't call it interesting. But when he thought about it for a moment....when had there ever been a time in human history when there was no war? Never, especially in the last three years.

Matt had just put on his wind coat, when Syrren appeared at the entrance of the wardrobe, looking slightly ashamed. It seems he wanted to ask Matt something he hoped he didn't have to.

"Uhm, Matt...I don't really know how I should ask you about this ..." His ear-sails were hanging down and reddened a bit. "I... let's say that Toby is not the only one that needs to do his...'business'."

It took Matt a few seconds to realize that Syrren had to relieve himself, so he showed him the toilet room and how to use the toilet, aswell as the wet and dry toilet paper. Luckily toilet paper was one of the few things that was not rationed, so Syrren would have a lot of material to experiment with.

After that Matt and Toby left the house and headed to the forest path, where Toby would heave enough space to romp around as much as he wanted to. But Toby couldn't wait any longer. As soon as they passed the gate, Toby started pulling at the leash, which made Matt stumble. It took him a few seconds to keep up with the dog. Soon they were both running through the forest just so fast not to stumble over the tree-roots. Toby was happy, just like his relatives in Siberia, he loved to run and pull something behind him. Here it was Matt, who had problems to keep up with the dog.

After some ten minutes they reached the other side of the forest. Toby stopped and looked at the exhausted human. Matt had to bend down, trying to catch his breath. The dog took a few steps closer, licking Matt's cheeks. Matt could read from the dog's tail movements, he was ready for some "catch-the-stick".

Matt released the leash from his harness, giving the dog now the ultimate freedom to run around. While Toby was already running through the gras, Matt looked for a wood stick Toby could use as a toy.

After ten more minutes of playing catch-the-stick and stick pulling, they were both sitting in the grass, panting hard. When Matt was looking at the happy dog, he was sure that if his tail would swing a bit faster he would probably take of like a helicopter.

Suddenly a flash lit up the clearing, followed by a dry, crackling thunder.

"Damn. Toby, retourné à la maison." Matt hoped that they would make it home in time before it would start to rain. Unfortunately his wish was not fulfilled.

---

At Matt's home Syrren was waiting in the kitchen, holding his right hand under cold water from the tap, trying to ignore the pain in his palm. He cursed himself for being so stupid, to forget what Matt said. That you have to know how to use a tools so they are not dangerous. He had been holding his hand now under the flowing water for several minutes but it was still bleeding, it must be a real deep wound.

Suddenly he heard the main door open.

"Crap, crap, crap. God damn it!"

Something serious must have happen if Matt was cursing in such a way. Syrren nearly feared to ask what happened.

"Matt......are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine, I just feel like a fish. Can you please bring me some towels? I don't want to spread the water in the entire house."

Although Syrren wondered what that could mean, he tried to follow the request. He took a napkin and placed it on the wound, folding his hand to a fist to stop the bleeding. He suppressed a pained groan and headed to the bathroom directly next to the toilet room.

When he came into the wardrobe with two big white towels in his left hand, he could see what Matt meant with feeling like a fish. Syrren didn't notice that it started raining and it seemed Matt and Toby didn't make it home in time. The young man was so soaking wet, Syrren was sure there was no dry spot left on his entire body. But Toby just looked funny. With his fur now totally soaked with water, it was all hanging down, showing how slim his body actually was. He had tried to shake the liquid out of his fur, according how wet the wardrobe looked but his attempt was in vain. It was just too much water.

The dragon handed both towels to the human who took them gratefully. But instead of starting to dry of himself he just cleaned his glasses first and the began to rub the dog's fur, who really seemed to enjoy it.

When Toby was dried properly and Matt had taken off his shoes, coat and sweater, Matt noticed that the mental connection between them was built up again. It was not like Syrren did it on purpose, it seemed more like Syrren was subconsciously trying to establish a similar environment like the one he knew from his clan.

When he took a closer look at Syrren he could somehow see/feel that something wasn't right.

"Syrren, did something happen while we've been away?"

"Uhm...nothing life-threatening."

"What should that mean? Come on Syrren, your Pokerface is not really good, neither physical nor mental. Please tell me what happened."

Instead of answering the dragon showed Matt his hand with the blood drenched napkin. Matt was shocked by the red-stained piece of paper.

"Syrren, what did you do with your hand? Did you cut yourself with a kitchen-knife?"

Matt took the blue scaled hand, carefully removing the napkin from the palm. As soon as the paper was away two small streams of blood began to flow out of two little wounds in the center of his palm. But before Matt could even think about what Syrren had done, he saw the small piece of metal that was protruding of Syrren's palm.

"Gods, have you been in my study and experimented with my staple gun? I told you to ask me before you use something you don't know what it's for." Matt's voice was louder than he wanted it to be, but the sight of the bleeding wound simply shocked him.

The dragon didn't say a single word. Matt could feel/see that the dragon was at the brink of breaking into tears. He realized that he had been too harsh to the young dragon. Since he had lived on his own for so long, it was difficult for him to deal with such an emotional situation.

"I'm sorry Syrren. Please sit down in the dining room, I'll get everything necessary to remove the staple." he said with a calm voice.

"Okay Matt." The dragon still seemed quite intimidated by Matt's emotional outbreak when he walked into the dining room.

While Matt hurried to the first floor to get some dry clothes and of course tweezers together with a variety of plasters and a antiseptic ointment, the blue dragon was now sitting at the brown table holding the napkin pressed on the wound just that tightly that he stopped the bleeding without hurting himself.

He was so occupied with his hand he didn't notice that suddenly Toby was sitting directly to his left. Syrren was surprised to find him that near.

"Hey there. Seems like your not afraid anymore, are you?"

Toby's response was that he did put his forepaws on Syrren's knees. The dragon slowly moved his unharmed hand to the dog's snout, letting him decide what to do. To his surprise Toby started to lick at his palm, removing several blood stains.

When Matt rushed into the dining room, he was really surprised to find Toby trying to comfort the dragon. He could feel/see how much this simple act meant for Syrren.

Matt put the small medic-box with all the medical stuff on the table, sitting next to the dragon.

Very cautiously Matt took Syrren's wounded hand with his right one, tweezers in his left. He told the dragon to hold the napkin with his other hand in such a position that it was sucking up the blood, so Matt could better see where he was working with the tweezers.

According to some scratches on Syrren's palm he had already tried to remove it, without much success, the staple had penetrated the dragon's sensitive skin very deep. His claws may be very lethal weapons for hunting or during a fight, but they were not made for such a precise work. While working on the dragon's palm, Matt noticed that Syrren's palm was not just a plain, leathery surface. Just like a human hand, the skin there had a complex pattern, but unlike a human's hand with curved lines, it resembled more the pattern of scales on the other parts of Syrren's body, just tinier.

Matt had to try several times to get a grip at the staple, each try accompanied by pain-filled grunt or a squeal by the dragon. But finally he managed to remove the staple in a quick move to spare Syrren more pain. But still it was everything else than painless. Luckily Toby did a great job as a nursing dog, his presence calmed the dragon down.

For Matt it was quite difficult to remove the staple, because he had to deal in three ways with the wounded dragon. He got distracted very easily by the sudden yelps, the unexpected movements of his hand and of course by the sudden mental expressions.

With nothing now blocking Syrren's blood anymore it started to flow much faster than with the staple. Syrren already wanted to withdraw his hand, but Matt stopped him. He was not done yet with tending his wound.

After a few minutes Matt had stopped the bleeding with a sterile cotton pad, a small drop of an antiseptic ointment and everything covered with a spray plaster.

When Matt was done with tending Syrren's wound, the dragon flexed his hand trying how he could move it with the plaster on his palm and without the wound starting to hurt. He watched the cotton, a slight red dot appearing in the middle. But the blood did not flow outside the plastic layer.

"How does the plaster feel?"

Syrren looked at the transparent plastic layer. He was surprised how it sealed the cotton-pad to his skin.

"It feels like there is nothing, just the pad."

"Great." While watching the dragon getting used to the plaster, he began to clean up table.

"Thank, you Matt. Thank you so much. I'll promise you from now on I will not use anything before I asked you how to use it."

"It's okay. I'm sorry that I yelled at you. I guess I was just shocked when I saw you being hurt."

With that words Matt leaned forward, their foreheads touching again. Syrren blushed, it was weird for him that Matt as a human used a dragon-expression to comfort him.

"So, the next time you want to know what something is used for, please don't be afraid to ask. I will tell you all in detail how it works."

When Matt looked at the clock at the wall he noticed that it was nearly time for the TV-news. He nearly gave the computer of his house the order to activate his foil-TV. But he thought better not to do so, not yet. First he would have to explain the dragon what a TV was. Since he had already seen the projection in the cave it shouldn't be that difficult for him to understand.

"...and that's why nearly every household has a TV at home, mostly for information and entertainment."

Syrren looked at the place at the wall where Matt pointed at. Syrren could not see a projector so he wondered how this should work.

"How does a television work? It doesn't look like the thing you used in my cave."

Matt thought about it, then he covered his mouth with his hand, muffling a strained sigh.

"You don't know how it works?"

"Actually I do know how a television works, in contrary to most other people. But I don't know how I should explain it to you. I mean I haven't been able to teach you even the basics of physics, so you wouldn't understand a single thing. So...let's talk about this later, okay? I want to know if something important happened today. Computer, activate TV foil-screen, channel one."

When Matt had told Syrren that he could activate nearly all machines in his house just by ordering them to do so, it seemed impossible for the dragon, like talking with a stone .

But apparently it did work. On the wall left to the masonry heater, the foil-screen lit up, showing first the company label, then switched to the news channel. It seems they were just right for the evening news at 8 pm.

<< JUST HERE ON EURONEWS. IT'S THE 21TH OCTOBER 2020. I'M THOMAS CRONKITE AND THESE ARE THE LATEST NEWS, THE MOST RECENT ONES FROM FROM SOUTH AMERICA,....>> picture switches from the anchorman to a film, showing a city with several big, black columns of smoke rising from a lot of buildings, several lines of tracer ammunition shooting into the sky, <<...WITH CONQUERING THE PRESIDENTIAL PALACE AND THE PARLIAMENT THE FIGHTS ALONG THE BORDERS OF BOLIVIA AND CHILE HAVE STOPPED, BUT NOW FIGHTS ARE SPREADING ALL OVER THE COUNTRY. THE REVOLUTIONARY ARMY HAS ORDERED ALL REGULAR MILITARY UNITS TO WITHDRAW FROM CHILEAN TERRITORY IMMEDIATELY. MANY SOLDIERS DO OBEY THE ORDERS, BUT THERE IS STILL A GREAT NUMBER OF LOYALISTS THAT ARE FIGHTING FOR THE OLD LEADERSHIP. THE WHERE-ABOUT OF PRESIDENT MORALES IS STILL UNKNOWN AT THAT TIME, BUT HE IS STILL GIVING ORDERS TO ALL FORCES LOYAL TO HIM. MEANWHILE THE FIGHTS ALONG THE BORDERS OF COLOMBIA AND VENEZUELA HAVE STOPPED FOR NOW, BUT INTELLIGENCE SOURCES ARE TELLING THAT BOTH SIDES ARE PREPARING FOR A FULL SCALE INVASION OF THE TERRITORY OF EACH OTHER. JUST TWO HOURS AGO THE UN-SECURITY COUNCIL ANNOUNCED A RESOLUTION THAT WOULD ALLOW AIRSTRIKES ON THE MAIN FORCES AND COMMAND POSTS OF BOTH COUNTRIES TO PREVENT FURTHER FIGHTS. THE FORCA AEREA BRASILEIRA AND THE USAF ARE PREPARING FOR BATTLE AT THIS VERY MINUTE, WHICH MIGHT BE THE REASON THAT THESE TWO COUNTRIES HAVEN'T STARTED THEIR INVASION YET. THE EUROPEAN- AND THE SOUTH AMERICAN UNION HAVE SENT DIPLOMATS TO BOTH COUNTRIES TO FIND A PEACEFUL SOLUTIONS FOR THIS CONFLICT.

ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE PLANET, IN SOUTH-KOREA, UN-FORCES FROM FRANCE, THE UK, JAPAN AND INDONESIA MANAGED TO REPEL A HEAVY MISSILE STRIKE OF THE NORTH. NEARLY ALL RODONG 1 AND HWASONG-6 SHORT-RANGE BALLISTIC MISSILE HAVE BEEN DOWNED, BUT TWO MANAGED TO FLY OVER THE DEMILITARIZED ZONE, HITTING THE CENTER OF SEOUL AND CAUSING SEVERE DAMAGE IN TWO EMPTY SKYSCRAPERS. SEVERAL DOZENS PEOPLE WERE INJURED BY FLYING DEBRIS BUT NO FATALITIES HAVE BEEN REPORTED YET.....>>

The anchorman suddenly stopped talking, holding his hand at his right ear, covering his earpiece with the bone crusher.

<< AND WE ARE JUST GETTING IN NEW INFORMATION ABOUT THE OIL WASTE SPILL IN CENTRAL CANADA. LAST WEEK THE MAIN DAM OF THE SYNCRUDE MILDRED LAKE, WHICH WAS NOTHING MORE THAN GIGANTIC RETENTION BASIN FOR THE WASTE OF THE OIL-SAND INDUSTRY, DID GIVE IN AND BRAKE, CAUSING A MASSIVE CONTAMINATION OF CENTRAL ALBERTA. THE CAF NOW MANAGED TO SEAL THE CRACK IN THE DAM BY DROPPING A GREAT AMOUNT OF CONCRETE BLOCKS INTO THE CRACK VIA HELICOPTER. BUT THE CONTAMINATED AREA HAS REACHED NOW AN AREA OVER 1000 SQUARE KILOMETERS, FORCING MORE THAN 100 000 PEOPLE TO FLEE THE AREA. BECAUSE OF THIS TRAGEDY SEVERAL CANADIAN POLITICIANS WANT THE GOVERNMENT TO TRANSFER MORE MONEY TO THE ITER-PROJECT IN SOUTHERN FRANCE, WHERE MORE THAN 20 000 PEOPLE ARE CURRENTLY FINISHING AN EXPERIMENTAL NUCLEAR-FUSION-REACTOR, STATING THAT JUST SIX OF THESE REACTORS COULD PROVIDE ENOUGH ELECTRICAL ENERGY FOR THE ENTIRE COUNTRY AND FOR A HYDROGEN-FUELED ECONOMY. SEVERAL POLITICIANS OF THE OPPOSITION...>>

In that moment first the TV-foil went black, the next second all lights in the house went out.

"God damn-it. That's the third time this month." Matt cursed.

Three seconds later some lights went on again, but they were very dimmed, just enough for a human to see where he was walking.

"COMMANDER, WE HAVE A TOTAL LOSS OF ALL EXTERNAL ENERGY SOURCES. SWITCHING TO EMERGENCY H2-CELLS AND ACTIVATE THE HEAT AND POWER COMBINATION GENERATOR."

Syrren winced at the unexpected statement of the computer. He looked everywhere around him to track the source of the strange, synthetic sounding voice.

"Calm down, Syrren. Relax. That was the house computer. He is able to tell me if there is something unexpected happening, so I can give orders if needed." The order he gave the computer not to talk was overwritten in a case of emergency, and the loss of energy was one.

"You mean that thing you told to activate the TV? This....thing...can talk??"

"Yeah. I mean it's not intelligent or a sentient being, it's...it's...it's complicated. Let's leave it at that, okay? I have to look of the blackout has caused any damage."

"Okay, just one thing. Why did it call you 'Commander'?"

"Uhm, because I said so. I thought it would be cool,if someone would call me like that." Matt blushed a bit at that. He hoped that Syrren wouldn't think he was suffering from an inferior complex or something like that.

---

While Syrren was holding a LED-torch, Matt checked all the circuit breakers in the cellar and if all emergency H2 cells together with the lithium-ion-batteries that supported now all the ten freezers in his cellar together with other vital systems were working.

Then they walked to the second floor. The only room there was Matt's study, where Matt wanted to check the computer mainframe. The first thing Matt noticed was the blood stained staple gun lying on the floor. He took it together with other stuff Syrren could hurt himself into a drawer, locking it. After checking his computer, he looked outside the glass door that leaded to the balcony. He noticed that it had stopped raining, but he noticed something else.

It was not only his quarter like the last time, no, the entire city was out of energy. Matt walked outside, the dragon directly behind him. Now Syrren could see that Matt house was indeed angling down in only one direction, the balcony built directly into the roof. What surprised the dragon that the entire roof was covered with glass, some stars reflecting in the polished surface.

Since Matt's house was built in an area that was a little bit higher than most of the city, they had now the opportunity to examine the entire town. Both watched the dark city for several minutes. It was a odd scene. The whole city and all villages in the valley were dark. The only buildings that were lit up were the ones of the police department, the main fire station and of course the local bureau of the UNMC. If Matt concentrated a bit he was even able to hear the sirens of the police cars in the inner city.

"What happened? Why did all the lights went out?" Syrren looked from one side of the valley to the other, trying to locate other buildings with working lights.

"The power grid broke down again, but this time on a much larger scale, it seems."

"Power grid?"

"Wow, how should I....you see these metal towers there, carrying the metal cables?" He pointed to the left of the valley. "We call them transmission towers, they transport the energy for our houses from buildings we call power stations. But a big number of them together with a lot of electrical substation that control how much energy is distributed were damaged during the the mega-solar-storm in late 2013."

"Solar-storm?"

Matt rolled his eyes. He had forgotten that Syrren's knowledge just reached till the late middle-ages. So he thought about how he should describe it.

"To say it simple: from time to time there are very heavy storms on the sun, like a thunderstorm and although the sun is very far away from us, it can effect our modern technologies. Some of us knew about the danger but we ignored it. Most people didn't even knew that it could affect us, so we didn't protect our technologies."

Before Syrren could ask another question they heard someone from inside the house calling them. First Matt thought his computer wanted to give him further information, but then he realized that it was a human voice.

<< Allo, quelqu'un est la? Allo? Ici c'est Camargue trois. Repondre s'il vous plait.>> (Hello, anybody there? Hello? It's Camargue three here. Respond please.)

Matt realized that someone tried to call him over the amateur radio. Matt joined the community for emergencies like this, so he could coordinate or call help if needed. Matt went into the house so the computer could hear him. While he gave the computer some instructions, he took the small microphone from his desk, attaching it to his glasses.

"Computer connect the amateur radio with my bone-crusher."

"YES, COMMANDER"

<< Allo, ici c'est Alpes neuf. Tu as des problemes, Camargue trois?>> (Hello, it's Alps nine here. You have some problems, Camargue three?)

Matt was surprised to hear something from Camargue three. From the few times he was able to chat with him Matt knew that normally in southern France they had less problems than they had here in central Europe.

<< Oui, nous n'avons plus de l'electricite. Sans avertissement tous les villages dans l'environ sont sans l'energie. Tu sais ce qu'on s'est passé ?>> (Yes, we have no more electricity. Without warning all the villages in the area are without energy. You know what had happened?)

Matt took a deep breath before he answered. If the blackout had reached southern France than something very serious with the European power grid must have happened, like the mega blackout in 2006.

<< Non, nous n'avons pas de l'electricite aussi. Je ne sais pas ce qu'on s'est passé. Peut-etre il y a un probleme avec une grande centrale electrique en l'allemagne ou france. Essaye contacter Pays de Galles sept. Je pense que les Britanniques ont encore de l'electricité.>> (No, we have no electricity too. I don't know what happened. Maybe there is a problem with a big power plant in Germany or France. Try to contact Wales seven. I think that the British still have electricity.)

<< Oui, je veux essayer lui contacter. Merci, Alpes neuf.>> (Yes, I'll try to contact him. Thanks Alps Nine.)

Matt laid the microphone in his desk again. Since the UK was not that much connected to the rest of the European power grid, he hoped that they would still have electrical energy.

"Was that the computer or another human?" Syrren pointed at the little microphone.

"That was a human. His codename is Camargue three and he lives in southern France. And it seems that he has the same problems like we have."

Before Syrren could say anything else, anther person was calling, a woman this time.

Matt sighed, then he took the microphone again, preparing himself for another talk.

---

"Oh - my - god." Matt exhaled deeply.

He had now talked for nearly thirty minutes with several people all over Europe and even in Africa. The last call was a young man from Morocco, even there they were suffering a total blackout. Fortunately for him they regained the power supply during their talk, so Matt hoped that the same will happen too very soon here in Europe.

He let himself fell into his big office chair. He asked himself why all these people were asking him for help. It wasn't like he didn't want to help. But why him? It would make more sense to call Wales Seven, or even better Brussels One. He had a direct link to the European commission, so he should exactly know what happened. But no, they were all calling him, many at the same time, so it was very difficult for Matt to handle the situation.

Syrren could see that all the talking with all these people from all over the continent had worn him out pretty much. He also noticed that the while watching the news, Matt got more and more nervous, while he continued listening. Syrren didn't really understand what was going on, but from Matt's facial and mental expressions the news were really bad, so he would not ask what they would mean, at least not now.

Syrren was also really impressed how he managed to talk with so many persons, sometimes it sounded like he was talking with several persons at the same time. He patted Matt's shoulder and said:

"You did really good. I doubt that somebody else could have done it that good."

The young man looked up, his maroon eyes locking with the jade colors of the dragon.

"Thanks, Syrren. But I'm not really that type of man, you know to coordinate things and stuff like that. I'm more...on the receiving end, taking orders and fulfill them properly. It's easier for me.... Are you hungry? I could need something to eat." The young man didn't really want to talk about that so he tried to change the topic.

The dragon nodded, feeling now the hunger in his guts.

A few minutes later they were both sitting in the dark dining room, eating some sandwiches Matt had made, their faces illuminated by some candles. Matt wanted to save as much of the sawdust that was fueling his generator.

Syrren didn't mind the cold food. In fact he rather enjoyed the raw ham. He only ate them without butter. Matt expected, since Syrren was reptilian, that he would possibly not be able to digest milk-based products.

Both didn't say a single word during their meal. Syrren did not need to see/feel Matt's mood to see that the news of the fights at a place called South-America concerned Matt.

Syrren couldn't know how serious these news were. The threat of another Korean War, a civil war in Bolivia, a smoldering conflict between Venezuela and Colombia, but the worst thing was that it seemed that the United States of America have decided to end their self-chosen isolation in the international community. A cold shiver ran down Matt's spine at this thought. It was impossible to say what would happen next.

After they finished their meal and washed their dishes, they looked at each other, unsure what to do or say.

"Okay, since we can't watch any movies now or anything else that runs with electricity, you maybe wanna play a board-game?"

"A...board game?"

Syrren didn't know how humans played games, most humans he had seen were working nearly all the time. But he doubted that humans would play like dragons would do. When Syrren played with his brother mock-battles, so he could learn how to fight, he always won. His older brother was unable to work against Syrren, even in a mock-fight.

Matt didn't say something, he just indicated Syrren to have a seat, while he went into the living room. After a minute or so he returned with several boxes in his hands, dropping them on the table. Syrren was frowned. This should be a game?

Matt smirked. He could see the confusion on Syrren's face, but he was sure, since he had been so fast with learning, it would surely be no problem for him to understand the rules of a simple board-game like Scrabble or Mensch Aerger dich nicht.

---

"I don't believe it!"

That was now the fourth time in a row that the dragon managed to throw a six with the red dice. He somehow managed to use his claws to give the dice a certain spin. Matt tried to copy this technique but failed every-time.

They played Mensch Aerger dich nicht several times, before Matt gave up. Syrren had defeated him at two thirds of all matches and he did it with an incredible speed. But since Syrren was still lacking many words, Matt was able to beat him at Scrabble most of the time.

For Syrren it was a new experience, playing with somebody else not in a physical manner. Playing with another dragon means normally to exhaust themselves physically, not sitting somewhere and using his brain to defeat your opponent. But the dragon had to admit that it was quite funny, especially when Matt threw up his fists in a pained way, when Syrren had defeated him again.

When they stopped playing Matt was surprised how fast the time went by. It was already 1:30 am. They went both to the balcony at the top floor, sitting on the bench and watched the dark city for nearly ten minutes before Syrren started to talk.

"Matt? Do you think that...that I may probably fly around a bit? Do you think that is late enough?"

The young man thought about it for a minute, then he said: "I think that should be not a problem. People do not go outside that late anymore."

Matt stood up and led the dragon through the winter garden into his what he called his 'cultivations area'. They went to the other side of the free area, near the adjacent forest. Just when Syrren started to change Matt remembered the wound on the dragon's palm.

"Syrren, wait your palm...."

But the dragon did not stop. It seemed he was not able to stop the change once he started it. After one minute of change, Matt's gaze wandered from the dragon's eyes to his left forepaw. Syrren turned his left paw around, showing it to Matt. The young man got nearer, examining the leathery surface that had the size of a big plate. The plastic plaster with the cotton-pad was still connected to his skin, bit it was ripped. To Matt's surprise the two little wound were now barely bleeding, just two little drops of red blood escaped the two holes. The young man ripped off the remains of the plaster, wondering if he should use the plastic-plaster again to seal the two wounds. But he decided against it. The dragon surely wouldn't have survived, if he would get an infection because of every little wound.

Matt took a few steps back to get a better view of the bit reptilian. The dragon stretched his wings to their full wings-span, waving the lazily, like he wanted to make sure they were still working. Now Matt could see that each wing alone was as long as his entire body.

When Syrren thought about taking of, he first looked Matt. He could see/feel an emotion he was not able to define at first. It seemed like a mixture of curiosity, fear and several other emotions. Syrren needed a few moments before he realized what the human was actually thinking.

"Hey Matt, do you...*sigh*...do you wanna fly with me a bit?"

"Wha...what?"

"If you want to fly with me. I could show how it feels to fly."

Just a few days ago Syrren would have never considered something like that. But now... everything was different.

"I...you...But Syrren...I...I can't use you like a mount. That is just ridiculous."

"I wouldn't see it from that perspective. You don't force me to bring you somewhere where want to go, like you would do with a horse. I'm offering you this possibility from my own free will."

"Okay, if you see it like that. But still...."

"You don't have to if you don't want to."

"No wait. If you...if you are really giving me such a chance then...then I guess I will take it."

"Do you just guess or are you sure?"

Matt blinked at that comment. Since when did the dragon got so... self confident?

"I'm sure...as long as you make sure I won't fall from the skies." The thought of a free fall without a parachute was not very pleasant for Matt.

"Of course I will. And even if...I'm sure I can catch you in the case I'll loose you somehow."

Although the dragon smirked from one ear-sail to the other, showing his fangs, Matt was not sure how serious the dragon meant that statement that he would watch not to let him fall.

"Okay then. Just wait a minute, will you? I want to get dressed right for such a flight, you know wind-tight coat and stuff like that."

With a lot of butterflies in his stomach Matt returned to the house, still a bit unsure if this was a good idea.

Syrren waited...and waited...and waited. He waited for nearly ten minutes and was already getting quite impatient. He asked himself if the human was now just sitting somewhere in the house, too scared to tell him he is afraid of flying around. He was nearly that far that he would just take off, when the glass door slid open, showing Matt in some kind of full body armor, a helmet in his left hand.

When the young man approached the dragon, the reptile couldn't help but to smirk at the sight.

"Matt, were just doing a little bit of flying, not fighting."

"I know, but my Paintball gear is the only stuff I could find that could protect me properly from the wind, you know? I'm not made for flying around."

"Okay then, ready to fly?"

Matt had just put on the helmet, looking somehow confused.

"Ehm, where...where should I sit?", his voice now sounding a bit muffled.

The dragon knelt down, bowing his head a bit forward, giving Matt access to his neck.

A bit unsure how to do this, Matt tried to sit himself on Syrren's neck like he would sit on a horse, just that his legs were now hanging in front of Syrren's shoulders. He had to try for several times until he was able to swing his left leg over the dragon's neck. When he was sitting stable, he leaned forward, trying to grab the big scale covered neck. He was not able to reach around the dragon's neck to lock his hands together, so he just grabbed the his neck as best as he could.

"Am I chocking you?"

"No, not at all. Are you ready?"

"I guess so. But...just do me a favor. Please don't fly any loopings, barrel-rolls and nosedives. That would be great if you could do so."

The dragon nodded, although he only understood that Matt didn't want him to fly up-side-down and sink fast. But he didn't want to wait any longer, his wings were already itching in anticipation.

Matt prepared himself for the take-off. He had been riding a horse only once and at that time the horse went totally nuts, jumping and kicking around like crazy. He somehow managed to stay inside the saddle, but he has never been even near a horse since then. This now felt very similar, the sudden up-and-down-movements because of the waving wings, made a similar movements, just even more powerful.

At first it seemed like Syrren wouldn't take off at all, despite the fast moving wings. But then all of a sudden the dragon got onto his hindlegs, pushing himself into the air, his talons cutting deep into the lawn.

Matt didn't really notice anything of that. When they got into the air he just grabbed the blue neck in front of him, while he pressed his legs tighter around the dragon's neck-base, hoping he wouldn't hurt him. With his eyes closed tightly he only noticed now the fast moving air, that was pulling at his clothing.

Syrren did notice that the human clenched at his neck, scared by the unfamiliar way of moving. But as soon they would reach enough altitude, he could sail around without much movement of his wings so the flight will be more calm.

With constant gaining height, Syrren could get a better view of the valley by each second. The last time he flew, there was just a small city at the point where the river makes a curve and several farms scattered all over the valley. Matt told Syrren that the city did not have even 5000 citizens back in the 14th century. And now the city was stretching from one side of the valley to the other, with a population of nearly 200 000, for Syrren an unbelievable number.

After some more minutes of flying Matt suddenly noticed something wasn't right. His chest seemed somehow too small, as if he could not get enough air. Matt opened his eyes. It was hard for him to concentrate, his view seemed a bit blurred. He looked around. They were still ascending, the gray layer of clouds below them, several other big white cumulus clouds at their height. Just then Matt realized that even the tops of the mountains were below them. Matt guessed that they were nearly 1000 meters above the highest mountain that was near the city, maybe even higher. That meant they were now at more than 3500 meters above sea-level. That was too high and too fast for Matt.

"Syrren,...please...get us a bit lower."

But the dragon did not respond, he was still gaining altitude, the air rushing past them

Matt got really scared. *He cannot hear me.* The young man was not even able to freak out because of the lack of oxygen. His view was already becoming more tunnel like, his grip was getting looser with every second. But he was afraid he would fall down if he would take off one of his hands of the scaly neck in front of him. But when he wasn't even able to see the wings waving at his sides he had no other choice. He hit the side of the dragon's long neck three times and yelled out as loud as he was able in his weakened state.

" GET - US - DOWN!!!"

He couldn't remember what happened next.

---

"Matt. Hey Matt, are you alright?!"

Who was talking to him? Matt couldn't tell whose voice it was, there was somehow a loud noise that nearly drowned the voice of the person that was talking. It sounded like.....Wind?

"Come on Matt, say something!"

Matt tried to focus his thoughts. What had happened? When he opened his eyes slowly and saw the clouds passing by just a few dozens meters below them, he remembered the incident that must have happened just a few minutes ago. He looked forward, seeing the dragon trying desperately to bend his neck in such a way so he could actually see Matt.

"Matt,....please answer me." The dragon's voice nearly cracked.

Matt reached his arms forward, grabbing Syrren's neck again and stroked it to calm the dragon down.

"I'm fine Syrren. Thanks for flying lower." Syrren was flying much slower than before so he had not to shout out that loud, but it was still difficult.

"I'm so sorry Matt. I should have known that humans are not able to survive at such a great height."

His wings were now waving at a much slower rhythm, just that fast that he could halt the altitude.

Matt looked from one side to the other. With the flight being much calmer, without the up and down, you could nearly call it comfortable. He thought he wouldn't be able to look somewhere else than at Syrren's neck when they where on the ground. But now Matt felt somehow....safe, despite his near suffocation. Matt had the opportunity to fly with a small variety of air-crafts, normal air liners, small propeller air-crafts, helicopters, and even once with a hang glider. But this....this here felt so more...how should he call it? It felt....natural.

"As long you will remember it the next time we will fly together."

"Next...time?" Syrren was so stunned he even forgot to use his wings for a few times.

Matt smirked. "Sure. I can't wait for the next time."

Syrren didn't know what to say. That the young man still wanted to fly with him, made him feel so happy. Now that they both knew what altitude Matt stand, he would show him how flying really felt.

"We still got this flight. Brace yourself Matt. It may be a little bit rough for you."

Matt clamped himself at the dragon's neck.

"Ready when you are."

Matt expected a ride like that would maybe feel like a roller-coaster ride. He got more than that.

---

"Whoa. Hell, this was so....awesome."

They have now been flying for about fifteen minutes with a lot of fast maneuvers. The flight was simply pure adrenalin.

"I'm glad you like it."

Now Matt was even so brave to fly with Syrren through barrel rolls. Only loopings and nosedives where something he didn't want to live through.

"I'm sorry Syrren that I didn't want to fly with you. This feels so great." Although Matt had nothing to do than to sit on Syrren's neck, he was totally out of breath, so the talking was a little bit hard for him, also yelling over the wind was not easy.

Syrren did notice this. He flew for another couple of minutes, thinking about their communication problem. Then he decided to ask Matt something.

"Hey Matt. I noticed it's pretty hard for you to talk with me while we are flying. I would like to try something out, with this thing you call telepathy. Do you want me to go on?"

Matt had to think about this for a couple of minutes. He had already experienced the somewhat loose mental connection. Should he really go further?

"How far would this connection would go, Syrren? Would this mean we would just hear each other what we want the other one to hear or would it go further, you know...that you could really feel my emotions and read my memories?"

"Well, although I've never done this with a human it should only be to a level where we could hear each other's thoughts. Not any further."

Matt hesitated for a moment. Then he said: "Okay Syrren, I trust you. You can go on."

"Good. But I will stop immediately if you want to."

At first Matt noticed nothing but the string-like mental connection between them. But then the feeling began to change, like some sort of shell was now exerting a little bit of pressure onto his brain. Then suddenly his hearing began getting duller, like his ears were getting stuffed with cotton. But he could still hear, the noises were only muffled.

< "Matt, can you hear me?">

It was weird. This communication seemed to work without words, although Matt could understand the meaning of Syrren's message perfectly. It was hard to describe.

< "Yeah, Syrren I can hear and even understand you. Wow, this is so...it's simply awesome Syrren.">

< "Do you feel anything bad, headaches or something else? I don't know if humans can do this kind of communication without taking damage, so please tell me if there something wrong, so I can disrupt the connection. I don't want you to get hurt.">

Matt felt really touched by Syrren's concern about his well-being. He lent forward in an attempt to snuggle up at the dragon's long neck, but then realized he was still wearing his helmet, so it was a quite unsatisfying touch. So he just gently stroked the his long neck.

Syrren couldn't help but to smile inwardly. It was really a shame Matt couldn't feel how flying really felt. Or could he....? It may be a crazy idea, but it could work....

< "Hey Matt. I thought about this flying stuff. You know...I could maybe deepen this a little bit.">

< "What do you mean 'deepen'? Do you mean to enforce the mental bonding between us even further? But you won't....well, you know."> Although Matt was talking mentally, Syrren could hear/feel Matt's concern.

< "Just wait and see. I promise you that I won't breach this last barrier.">

Matt felt a bit uneasy about Syrren's vague description what he is gonna do, but the feeling vanished very fast. He knew this powerful dragon wouldn't do any harm to him.

He waited, his grip tight around Syrren's neck ready for everything about to come. He didn't have to wait for long.

Matt noticed that the pressure on his brain was increasing a little bit, just enough to notice it. His vision began to blur and his body began to feel numb. After not even five seconds it was like he was looking through milk-glas. But only a few seconds later he could see again. But what he saw now was beyond anything he could have imagined.

He was literally looking through Syrren's eyes. But not only that. He could feel every movement of the dragon's body, the waving wings, the flight-corrections he was doing with his long tail,...he could even feel himself sitting on Syrren's neck. Matt could not believe it. He tried to move one leg, but it did not respond. He was just a passenger in Syrren's body. Or was it just like that all the nerve impulses his brain was receiving from his human body were cut off and replaced by the impulses of Syrren's body? Heck, why was he even thinking about that? He could worry about how it was working later.

He - was - flying!

It was simply incredible. Matt couldn't find the words to describe the astonishment and joy he was feeling. When Matt noticed that Syrren was speeding up, he knew he was eager for some more flying. And how they flew.

---

They flew for only another ten minutes, until Matt could feel that Syrren was getting tired. When they were both in a calm position, Matt's vision began to blur again, this time it took him just three seconds before he could feel his human body again. The young man had to hold the dragon back to fly too risky maneuvers since Matt was not able to move his human body to react to the dragon's maneuvers.

It took Matt a few seconds to get used to his body, but finally he was himself again.

< "Syrren this was so...so..."> Matt could barely held back his tears of joy. The dragon had given him the chance to really understand why flying was so important for him. Until then for Matt flying was nothing special for him, a simple form of transportation. But flying like a bird or like a dragon....it was so different. The only thing that Matt could compare to this was his flight with a hang glider. He nearly crapped his pants that time, he only did the flight because it had been a birthday present of his family. But now he was sure he could do it again, without being scared.

< "Great that you enjoyed it. I was a bit concerned if you would like it if I would connect our minds that strong.">

< "How many other levels of this connection are there?">

< "Only one, If I would go any further we would both feel each other's deepest emotions and I guess we would even be able to read each other's memories. But as I told you I will never do that.">

< "This kind of telepathy...that I can see with your eyes and feel everything through your body - this is so awesome. Is this something dragons do often?">

< "I don't really know. The dragons of my clan used this ability mostly to watch through the eyes of our prey, you know deer and so, so we could see from which side we can attack without being seen. And I thought that it should also be possible the other way.">

Matt couldn't help but to smirk <"A remarkable way of hunting.">

Then Matt got Syrren's attention when he yawned so long and loud that he could even hear it over the wind.

< "Should I bring you home?">

< "Yeah, that would be great. Will you stay at my place?">

< "Ehm, if you won't mind I'd like to fly to my place. I want to stay a bit longer in this form, you know, and at your place it simply not possible.">

< "Okay, I see. You know the way?">

< "Wait a second please. I have to orientate.">

Syrren stopped waving his wings, now slowly gliding downwards. When they flew into the clouds, Matt could feel how the water began to collect on his air-tight coat and trousers and he began to shiver. After ten seconds of nearly blind-flight the broke through the layer of thick gray clouds. Matt could see now that they have been flying nearly fifty kilometers to the west of his homevcity.

< "You have to turn around and then to the right there is the valley where we...">

< "I can see it. Luckily the mountains did not change since the last time I flew here around.">

They turned around, slowly gliding through the dark, moonless night with Syrren waving his wings only that fast to stay just below the clouds. Now that they were below the layer of gray clouds and with the cities in the valley still without power, it was hard for Matt to see much, so he just lent himself at the Syrren's neck, closing his eyes and enjoyed the gentle ride.

< "Hey Matt, what is that?"> Although Syrren called him via telepathy, Matt flinched at the sudden call, he was still not totally used to this.

< "What do you mean?">

Instead of answering Matt could feel the pressure on his brain again, a few seconds later he could see through the dragon's jade colored eyes. Now he was able to see what Syrren meant. There was a big squared-place between two small villages. Both were still dark, but the big area between them was illuminated by a lot of big floodlights, maybe powered by some local generators.

Syrren was obviously perplexed by the big, white colored excavators, bulldozers, trucks and cranes that were preparing the construction site, driving around and moving great amounts of soil and other stuff from several excavations and to semi-finished houses. The dragon noticed the four flagpoles at the corners of that place. The flags were of the same blue as the flag Matt pulled up earlier. The middle showed two white branches, forming nearly a perfect circle and in the middle of these two branches was a stylized human, together with two hands that were forming a house-like shape to shelter the human. Below that sign were some letters but it was no word Syrren has seen before.

Syrren released Matt from their connection and asked him what the word means.

< "That's not a single word. It a short form. You take the first letters from each word to build such a form. This means U-N-H-C-R. United Nations High Commission for Refugees. It's a construction site for the refugees from southern Spain and Portugal. The Saharan desert did spread over the Mediterranean Sea two years ago and the Spanish and Portuguese governments weren't able to take care of over six million refugees, so many of them were brought to other countries in Europe. That's why they built camps like this all over the continent, where the people can stay until the situation on the Iberian Peninsula is under control again.">

Syrren thought about that for a moment. He didn't overhear that Matt was not very confident about what he said.

< "You don't believe that they can return, do you?">

< "I really hope that they are able to stop the desert from spreading but...I doubt it can be done. And these camps...they tend to become permanent settlements."> Matt said in sad manner.

Hearing his mood Syrren didn't ask any further questions. He simply flew further towards Matt's hometown.

But after just a few more minutes of flying he saw something else that caught his attention. It looked like...but it couldn't be. Syrren blinked a few more times, but the object was still there. A blinking red tip at one side, a green one at the other and a white one at its tail and it was moving very fast towards them.

< "Hey Matt. Sorry to disturb you again, but there is something you have to see. I can't tell what it is or if it's dangerous. Can you tell me what it is?">

Matt gripped Syrren's neck, preparing for the mental transition. When he was looking through Syrren's eyes and saw what Syrren meant it took him not even a second to realize that he had done a terrible mistake.

"NOSEDIVE!! NOW!!" Matt's outbreak was so powerful that it shattered his part of the mental-connection between them, making him yell the order out loudly.

< "But I thought you...?">

"DOESN'T MATTER NOW. JUST BRING US DOWN AS FAST AS YOU CAN." Syrren could hear the urgency in Matt's voice, so he drew his wings closer to his body, bringing them into a fast near-free-fall.

It was this what Matt feared so much of flying, the feeling in your stomach when it lifted during the free fall. But the situation has changed now. If Syrren was not fast enough now - they would be dead.

Matt saw the ground coming nearer and nearer each second. His thoughts were racing like mad, trying to figure out what to do. When he saw the silver colored line of the river, he got an idea.

"SYRREN, HOW GOOD CAN YOU SWIM?" Matt had to shout over the wind, since his mental connection was disrupted and Syrren was to occupied with the nosedive to rebuild it.

< "Quite good, Why, should I fly into the river?"> his mental voice was full of concern.

"YEAH, STAY UNDER WATER AND SWIM WITH THE CURRENT AS FAST AS YOU CAN!"

When they were still at about two hundred meters in the air Matt suddenly noticed small bright dots passing by them.

*Crap, crap, crap, tracer ammo.*

Syrren had seen the ammo passing by too and he was really scared to death by that sight, so he sped up his fall even more. Matt braced himself for the inevitable impact. Just seconds before they would have hit the surface, Syrren spread his wings to full width, slowing them down incredibly fast, before they hit the water.

The ice cold water hit Matt like a concrete wall. He nearly yelled out by the sudden impact and the cold, but he managed to stay calm, saving his oxygen. His helmet was now filled with water and he was unable to see anything.

< "Matt, are you allright"?>

< "I'm fine, but I don't know for how long I can hold my breath. There should be a sidearm a few hundred meters downstream. Try to reach that spot, we should be able to hide there.">

< "Okay Matt."> Syrren began to swim downstream, slithering through the water like a water snake.

Matt tried to hold his breath as long as possible but after not even a minute he couldn't hold it any longer. The cold water was sucking out his body warmth much more effectively than the wind, weakening him with every second

< "Syrren, I need air. Stay at the surface just for three seconds and then dive again.">

Syrren did as Matt told him. He would have needed to get to the surface anyway to orientate. When they broke through the surface, he could hear Matt gasping for air, his breathing going erratic. Syrren looked around, searching for the side-arm of the river Matt described him. He discovered it, about three hundred meters away.

< "I'm diving again Matt. Prepare yourself.">

Matt took a deep breath, just moments before Syrren submerged. The water felt even colder now, he was not sure if he could make it without another air-break.

Just about thirty seconds later, he couldn't suppress the need for air any longer.

< "Syrren, I need to breath again.">

< "Hold on a bit longer, we are nearly there. I can already see it.">

Matt presses his lips together, trying to ignore the pain in his lungs. But eventually he couldn't hold it any longer. He opened his lips for a fraction of a second, the water flowed into his throat, making him cough and letting escape more of the so valuable air.

Just by that moment they breached the water surface again. This time they were in the side-arm of the river, the sky above them covered by several trees, so it would be hard for anybody to detect them visually in the dark night.

But Matt didn't notice that at all. All that mattered for him now was air. He tried to breath in deeply but the water in his throat made him cough hard, so hard that he thought he may throw up. Syrren swam to a small strip of sand at the shore and walked under a tree to safe them from curious viewers from the air.

Syrren knelt down to give Matt a better chance to get off him, but Matt just fell off Syrren's neck, hitting the ground hard. He lay there in the ground, barely able to catch his breath. He brought his hands towards the helmet, unlocking it and took it off. Small streams of water ran down from his soaked hair and the isolation inside the helmet, his glasses nearly slipped if his nose.

With his helmet now off he had finally the chance to take several deep breaths, but still he couldn't get rid off the water in his throat properly. He was stuck in a state between the need to breath and the need to cough, each urge gaining the upper hand for a few seconds just to be defeated by the other one the next second.

Syrren was standing by his side, thinking how to help him. But he couldn't figure out how he could help him, even in his human-like form. He winced and whined because of his helplessness. But eventually Matt calmed down, Syrren could only hear his steady breathing.

"Are you okay Matt?" The dragon got on his knees, his muzzle near Matt's head. The young man could feel the warm breath wash over his cold and wet face, making him shiver a bit. He looked into the eyes of the dragon and the sight of the worried dragon made him already feel a little bit warmer.

"I'm fine now" *cough, cough*, "kind of. But there is no time, I have to look for the PC-7."

He got onto his feet, feeling still exhausted and stumbled towards the small beach strip, from where he could see upstream. He didn't hear the propeller of the PC-7, but the plane could just be too high to be heard.

Suddenly he could see several flying lights approaching the spot where the dived into the river, maybe six or seven of them. Matt unzipped his pocket and got the little army-binoculars, a X-mas present of his younger brother Jake. He brought them to his eyes, just to find out they were filled with water.

"Great, god-damn EDA-stuff. Syrren, can you see what's going on there?"

The dragon stepped to his side, trembling at the sight of these flying things, his long tail slashing around nervously.

"I see...I see..I don't know what I see." He looked directly at Matt, his eyes filled with fear. "What are these thing??"

"Let me see it Syrren, please. I can't see a damn thing."

Syrren looked at the flying objects again. They were now hanging in the air, just at the point where he had hit the water, several searchlights at their underside wandering around.

After a few seconds of milkglas-view, Matt was finally able to see what was there. What he saw was a group of helicopters flying over the river and the surrounding areas, obviously looking for Syrren. There were two Black Hawks, two NH-90, even a Chinook. Suddenly he saw another chopper approaching. When he realized what kind of chopper it was, he froze.

* A tiger. A god damn freaking tiger. Why is there a tiger? They should all be in Afghanistan, the Sudan and the DRC.*

When Syrren disrupted the connection, Matt slowly took several steps backwards, obviously frightened by the sight of the Tiger. Matt was really scared about Syrren's safety now. Although his friend was a very powerful creature, he would be no match against a Tiger gunship. They have proven their fighting capability during the Seventeen-Minute-War, so Matt knew he wouldn't stand a chance if they would find him.

"You know what they are?" Syrren got even more scared when he saw Matt facial expression. What were these things?

"Yeah I know what they are. That are helicopters from the EU military and they are definitely searching for you, Syrren."

"These things are....by human built machines? You humans are able to fly now?" He looked at the choppers again. They were still hanging in the air, some flying small circles, while others simply hovered in the air. Syrren couldn't believe it. In the middle-ages dragons were the dominating power in the air. But now...he was rivaled by machines, made out of cold steel and glass, a horrific thought.

Matt wasn't sure if they were equipped with infrared-sensors or night vision or other stuff they could use to find Syrren, but if, they surely would find them fast.

"Syrren, we have to leave maybe very fast. They probably will...."

But before he could end the sentence, all helicopters turned around at the same time, flying away from them.

A great sigh of relief escaped Matt's lips. Since air-fuel was very scarce nowadays it was clear that they couldn't spend much time with the search for a ghost. That was maybe the reason they sent a propeller aircraft after them and not a jet fighter.

He turned around and walked towards a large tree, a Babylonian willow, and supported himself so he could stand without falling over, but still he had to bend down. He felt simply horrible. It felt like a giant fist was clenching his bowels, dragging them from one side to the other.

"Are you really okay Matt?" The dragon was now sitting beside the young man, obviously worried if the nose-dive and the swimming during their escape had done any damage to him.

"I don't know Syrren, I don't know."

He didn't say a word for several minutes, then he just mumbled: "Stupid."

"Wha....what? What do yo mean?"

"I was so stupid. I should have known that they would be able to track you, but I didn't think that far. I'm such an stupid idiot. So good damn stupid."

Each time he said the word 'stupid', he hit the tree with his left hand, each harder than the one before. Suddenly he began hitting the tree with his forehead, emphasizing the word each time he hit the tree.

"Matt. Stop it."

But the young man didn't stop. Instead he intensified his hits, the bark cutting into his skin.

"MATT! CUT IT OUT!" Syrren's left paw shot towards Matt, grabbing him by his chest and pressing him at Syrren's neck-base, stopping him from hurting himself. "STOP IT!"

It took Matt a few moments before he felt the big leathery paw at his chest, Syrren's claws carefully bent backwards, so he wouldn't hurt the human. Then he went totally limp, only supported by Syrren's paw.

At first Syrren thought he may have passed out, but then he heard a silent whimper from Matt and he realized.....he was crying. He slowly descended his paw, carefully watching not to hurt Matt with his talons until he was sitting on front of the dragon, the dragon's paw still on Matt's chest. He even felt some warm tear-drops falling on his paw.

"I'm sorry." Matt whispered. If Syrren would have had the hearing capability of a human he wouldn't have been able to hear him, so quiet was his apology.

"For what Matt? You don't have to...."

"Syrren, you don't understand. They chased you, they shot at you, if these helicopters would have found you they would have killed you. And all because of my stupidity. I knew about the radar station at the military base near my city. But when we took off I only thought about the basics of radar-technology, that just a metal object can be detected, totally forgetting that several times a swarm of birds had nearly caused the Third World War. If I would have just thought a little bit longer we could have avoided this...this...incident."

He tugged at Syrren's paw, signalizing him to let him go. Syrren did so reluctantly. He was afraid that the young Matt could hurt himself again. But he just went two steps away from, then he turned around, facing the dragon. Now Syrren could see that Matt had cut himself at his forhead, a small stream of blood running down the bridge of his nose to its tip, while two trails of tears were running down his cheeks.

"You understand now Syrren? Because of ME you nearly would have been killed!" His voice cracked when he said the word 'ME'. He had never felt like that before, he would have nearly caused the death of his best and only friend. That he would have died too didn't matter, only that he had made this mistake.

Syrren lowered his head a bit until both their heads were at the same level and they could face each other. Suddenly Syrren moved a bit closer and opened his maw, his tongue licking gently and very slowly over the small trail of blood on Matt's face. He managed to avoid the glasses from being covered in saliva, but it still slipped a bit downwards. Syrren tasted the iron-like flavor of Matt's blood, wincing inwardly at the thought that Matt had hurt himself because of him.

Matt was totally caught off guard. He would have never expected Syrren would do something like that. He drew back a little bit, but Syrren followed his movement and proceeded with licking his forehead and the bridge of his nose. Matt managed to stay calm and let Syrren continue. Despite his shock of their escape, he knew the dragon only wanted to comfort him. After a few more licks Syrren stopped, lowering his head a bit more so Syrren was now locking up at Matt.

"Don't be annoyed by that, Matt. We are allowed to make mistakes, otherwise we never would learn something. If you have learned something by this incident than it's not bad that it happened."

Matt was really surprised by that statement.

"Wow, that is really....a very wise conclusion."

"To be honest, it was something my big brother once told me, so it's not like I'm wise at all."

"But you remembered it Syrren, so you are wise too." He walked closer to the blue dragon and embraced his neck. The close touch made Syrren purr silently. "Thanks Syrren for sharing your wisdom with me." His voice was still shaking, but now in a more calmed manner.

"As you said once: That what friends are for."

Matt heart was suddenly filled with total content, with Syrren here in his arms, right here in the middle of the dark night, despite their near-air-battle - it felt so right.

When Matt released the dragon he noticed he was still totally wet. He took of his shoes, the wind tight coat and trousers and started rubbing the water out of his clothing. After a minute or so got as much of the water out of his cloths as possible. They were still kinda moist but it was better than being totally soaked. He also brushed off Syrren's saliva from his forehead with his moist sweater, surprised how slimy and sticky it was. When got his his outfit on again he looked at Syrren who was watching sky.

"Do you think these...'helicopters' will return?" The dragon's worried gaze wandered into the direction where the helicopters disappeared.

"Naw, I don't think so. But the soldiers at the radar-station will surely be quite cautious now. So it's maybe better we wait a little bit before we fly again."

They sat down under the Babylonian willow, with Syrren at Matt's back and his tail over Matt's legs, to warm him. They started talking about how the EU military did find Syrren and how humans developed airplanes and stuff like that.

When Matt described Syrren what else they would have used to fight him except for machine-guns, they both shuddered. For Syrren it was so awkward, the thought of being beaten by nothing more than a flying metal tube humans called missile. Matt knew that if the pilot of the PC-7 that chased them would have been more aggressive and would have fired his Meteor AAM, they would have been dead within seconds. He had seen the videos of German and French Meteors and IRIS-Ts taking out all hostile F-16 and SU-35 all over Europe within minutes.

After about ten more minutes Matt began to shiver, despite Syrren's warm body.

When Syrren offered him, that he would lie on his side and embrace him with his forelegs, Matt felt a bit uneasy about this. He feared that a contact so close to the dragon would cause an embarrassing situation, like when he first had a closer look at the dragon when he was asleep. But since he felt so cold he finally gave in, scooting over to the dragon's chest. Matt laid himself that way that Syrren's chest was at his back. Syrren brought his forelegs and paws to Matt's chest and abdomen. He was surprised how warm he was. His leathery skin and his scales seemed to isolate him from the cold water and the air pretty good. He could feel the powerful and steady heartbeats of the dragon rights inside his chest so powerful were they. Somehow the heartbeats of the blue dragon gave him a feeling of protection. After a minute or so he noticed that his own heartbeat began to synchronize itself with Syrren's until both their hearts were beating unison. It was like they were one creature, their hearts beating at the same pace and the mental bonding between them....And when Syrren finally began to purr quietly, Matt felt just wonderful. He was warm, comforted, protected,.....it was so perfect he didn't even have a chance to think about something naughty. Never had he felt so...loved? Was it really love he was feeling for Syrren? Since he never had a romantic relationship with somebody else it was hard for him say so. But maybe he was just totally caught by the close contact to the big dragon in his back.

Slowly Matt began to hum. When he was in a pleasant situations like this one, he always got one of his favorite songs in his head and sometimes even hummed to it without noticing it.

"This sounds nice, Matt."

Just then Matt noticed he had been humming all the time, while being in the embrace of the dragon.

"Yeah, I like that song very much. It is called 'Imagine'. If I just could remember the entire text....Let me think a bit, maybe I can remember it."

After several minutes of thinking he had the text in his minds again. When Matt began to sing softly, Syrren was really impressed by the human's voice and how he sang. Since dragons did not talk they sang without any words. Instead it sounded a bit like what Matt showed him, the songs of the whales, just deeper and more complex.

finally Matt stopped singing and Syrren couldn't help but to smirk. This kind of singing - with words. He was really envious now.

"That was really great, Matt. "

"Thanks Syrren, but I think it wasn't that good. I don't sing that often anymore since I left school."

"I think it was really good Matt."

They rested there for about another hour, both enjoying the near presence of each other. When Matt's clothing was finally that dry, that it wouldn't feel like cold steel during the flight, they decided to have another try. But this time they stayed as low as possible to avoid radar contact.

And it seemed to work. They reached Matt's home by avoiding all villages and great roads, flying always at a height of just twenty meters. When they finally landed in Matt's garden, Matt felt colder than ever, like walking through Antarctica just in pants. Syrren already wanted to take off again but Matt held him back. He wanted to give him his tablet-PC together with some other stuff he need for his cave and studies. Since Matt was sure it would take some time before they would meet again, he thought that Syrren could also read the rest about human history and their technologies by himself. His skills in reading and understanding of human tech and society was now that skilled that he shouldn't have much problems.

When Matt went inside his house, Syrren noticed the blue flag was still waving. Now he had the opportunity to see what it was showing. Just like the flags at the construction site it was entirely light blue. It also had the two white branches that formed nearly a complete circle. But in its middle was something Syrren had difficulties to say what it was. It finally dawned him that the concentric circles with the, at first sight, undefinable white spots were showing a world map. But the world map was covered by something Syrren could tell immediately what it was. Two crossed swords, covered by a shield that was showing a small green branch. And below that sign were the letters UNMC. He assumed that the first two letters would mean United Nations too, like the UNHCR sign. But the rest....it could mean anything.

Then he heard Matt opening the door, carrying two black bags. He said that in one were several more briquettes he could use for a fire, while in the other one was some more food, together with the tablet-PC. They shared another forehead-touch before Syrren lifted off. Matt watched the dragon flying low and fast with the two black bags in his claws until he was out of sight. He sighed, hoping that the dragon will follow his advices he just gave him until he would be able to meet him again.

---

Several hours later in an office in the Air-dome in the semi-finished site of Europa-City. An obvious excited young pilot was sitting in front of one the highest Generals of the European Defense Agency, or EDA for short. The general was reading several memos, before he looked at the young soldier.

"Now that I've read these reports here, I'd like to hear it from the person that has encountered that strange phenomena. Just by the side this conversation will not be recorded, so just tell me what you had seen and what you think what it could have been."

The pilot swallowed hard several times before he was able to talk. He would have never thought to meet General Longuet in person.

"Sir, as I've already written in my report, I took off immediately when we detected the strange aircraft on our radar. But it had been able to dodge me for quite a time before I've been able to get even near it. I tried to make radio-contact, but it stayed silent, it did not respond to my calls. Then it maneuvered itself into a nosedive so fast I could barely keep up, although I was nearly four times faster than that object. I thought it tried to escape to I called it a last time before I opened fire with my machine-guns. But suddenly the object was gone. I was caught off guard so fast that I nearly crashed the plane into the river. I tried to find the object again, but...I couldn't. It was gone."

"Hmm, je comprends. Was there anything else? You wrote several times in your report that you've been able to see the object for a few seconds, but there hasn't been a decent description. Is there a reason why you left that out, soldier?"

The young man got even more nervous. Should he really tell the General what he had seen?

"Well Sir,...I didn't write a description in my report because I thought....my local superiors may have thought I....could be mentally unstable or something like that. When the object was over the river.... for a second or so I could see the shape of the thing because of the light reflection of the river. When it moved its wings it thought it..."

"You didn't wrote that it was able to move its wings, soldier. What do you mean with that, did it swept its wings back like a Tornado-Bomber or F111?"

*Crap, did he really left out this detail in his report?* Although the General sounded angry that the pilot didn't mention that fact, it was just a surprised statement. A statement that nearly made the pilot pass out because it came so sudden.

"No Sir, it looked more like......"

"Yes, soldier?" The general was getting quite impatient, when he didn't say something for some more seconds, .

"It looked like its wings were waving like... a bird or a bat. I know this sounds crazy, but...it's the truth Sir. And Sir, from my point of view....this object did not behave like a normal aircraft. More like....a living thing. It did maneuvers that would have been impossible for any normal aircraft. The only other explanation that would sound 'logic' to me that it is probably powered by some sort of Anti-Gravitation device, according to its maneuvers."

The general listened to the pilot carefully. When he ended, the military leader didn't say anything for a while. Suddenly he stood up and walked to the window, looking outside, his right hand slightly pulling at his beard.

The young pilot was really worried now. Did he say too much? Would he be sent to some kind of institute for people with mental disorders? Or just be dishonorably discharged from the air-force?

What the General did say next - he would have never expected an answer like this.

"Young soldier, you did a great job. You truly proved yourself for the union. I count on you that you will keep your mouth shut about this incident. You may dismiss."

The young pilot jumped up, saluting. "Sir, yes Sir."

When the pilot closed the door of the General's office behind him, he felt the weight of the world falling off his shoulders. He had already seen himself inside a padded cell, wearing a straitjacket. And now he could just go home to his unit? He couldn't believe it.

"Man, maybe the duty with the Blue Berets would have been a better choice."

---

When the General read the memo with the flight-path of the object, recorded by the radar, he had to admit that it really didn't look like a normal aircraft. He already had some suspicions but now that he had been able to interrogate the pilot, his suspicion was confirmed. He was sure it was some kind of American spy device. But what kind of?

He went to the table and took the only photograph he got of the object, made from the on board camera of the PC-7. Unfortunately both the infrared-camera and the night-vision camera were built out of the plane due to maintenance, so it was just a normal photograph.

It was blurred, and way too dark to tell in detail what it was. It was made directly from above the object. It showed some characteristics of an airplane with the long rump and the wings. But if you had a closer look at the wings....they were slightly bent, and there was something that looked like reinforcing bars, but with a little bit of fantasy it also looked like...fingers, like a bat wing.

The general thought about the possibilities what it could be. Just like Sherlock Holmes said: 'If you have eliminated all impossible possibilities, then the remaining possibility, regardless how impossible it seems, must be the truth.' Since the scientists at CERN didn't report they had a major break-through in Anti-Gravitation technologies, there must be another explanation.

Could it really be that this thing was a living creature? The Americans were always very eager to play god when it came to genetic engineering. He just remembered the black mustard pest. A genetic altered mustard plant in Canada got crossed with a wild sort, transmitting the genes that made them invulnerable to herbicides. The new plant spread so fast that it overgrew all other plants. In the end the Canadian Airforce had to bomb over one hundred square-kilometers with Napalm to get rid of that pest. It was not like he was totally against GMO's, his wife for example relied on Insulin, produced by genetic manipulated germs. But they had been tested over and over again for years and these American companies were throwing these GMO's on the market without testing them properly, so it had been clear that earlier or later there would have been an accident.

And now there was probably their next creation.

It may be possible that they have created a creature, that is capable of intercontinental flight and acted as a spy plane. During the Cold war of the 20th century the US-Navy did some research on brain implants with dolphins, so they could control them remotely, like a toy car, to make sea-mines explode. Maybe this was something similar, a giant bat, with a head-mounted camera and brain implants, controlled by some US-Army guy in Tampa or Washington DC or where ever.

It would absolutely make sense to use something like that. The global hawk and predator drones the Americans normally used weren't hard to detect. The USAF was now frequently breaching European airspace, just last week a Spanish Barracuda drone had downed a global hawk drone over the Pyrenees, which was definitely searching for the Spanish PODSS command post. But this thing was right in the center of the EU before they have been able to detect it. And as fast as it was detected it vanished.

General Longuet walked outside on the small balcony of his office, watching the city. It would still take another year before the last buildings would be completed, and maybe even two additional years to build the city-dome. That means if the request for the dome will get through the European Parliament. Some extremists in the green party tried to delay the request as long as possible claiming that such a dome would have a too great impact on nature. But it would now be only a matter of days before they could begin with the construction of the dome, since nearly three quarts of all members of the EP said they would vote in favor of the dome. The General looked from one side to the other. To his right he could see the Aqua-dome, the command post for the naval forces of the EU. In the middle of the river on an artificial island was the new European Parliament, while on the other side of the Rhine, on the German side, were the Earth-dome and mostly important, the Space dome.

The General shook his head when he thought about the Americans. Why can't they just see that the time of the so called Pax Americana was over and the time of the Pax Mundi was coming? They were still so eager to dominate the world in all parts they think they should...politics, military, economics....Their constant tries to find the PODSS command posts.....it was nearly like some kind of obsession. But he could see why they tried so hard. They have dominated the entire world for decades, acting unilateral when necessary for them. And now they didn't want to reorient in this new multilateral world.

When the general thoughts wandered to the mysterious object, he shivered. The thought of a giant bat, capable of flying all over Europe without being noticed, maybe even here near Europa city - a frightening though. They had to be really cautious now.

He went inside his office. Since he was only a Three-Star-General of the Franco-German Armed-Forces, he had not the right to raise the Alert-status higher than condition gamma, a higher level would need an approval of either the EDA defense commissioner, the council of the defense ministers of the EU or the President of the European Council. But still...if he would raise the status to gamma, all member states could be warned quicker than with the official way.

The longer he thought about that the more he was convinced it had to be done. He already wanted to call his secretary, when he noticed he didn't even have a name for that object. Calling it 'the object' or 'the bat' was too simple, not mentioning that latter reminded him of Batman. His gaze wandered through his office, but eventually stopped at the small book-shelf. He got closer, taking one book about ancient European myths and legends. He browsed through the book and stopped at the Scandinavian myths.

Fafnir, a giant in dragon form. A very fitting name for a creature that nearly looked like a dragon.

When he got all the stuff of the object together, he put them all in a folder, writing the word 'FAFNIR' in big black letter on top of it. Then he called his secretary.

"Oui, General?" Hearing her unmistakeable German accent over the intercom, he couldn't help but to smirk,

"Madame Schmid, I want you to copy something and send it it as fast as possible to the Defense ministries of all thirty member states of the EU. And quick, please."

"I'm on my way, General."

The general lent back in his seat waiting for his secretary to come. He looked at the big foil-screen at one wall of his office. With the EU in the middle, the new Russia to the east, as well as the reformed China, the new democratic countries in northern Africa, as well as the civil war areas in southern Africa and the Middle East,.... and to the West was America.

Europe had matured and they wouldn't allow to be ordered around anymore, at least not by a state that was using a new form of Bio-weapon to spy them out. Despite the Free-Info-Act of 2018 this was something the public would have to wait to become public knowledge. It was simply too dangerous to bring it to the public now.

The general pushed two buttons at his small desktop, that was built into his desk, enlarging the view on Europe, bringing most of the yellow arrows that indicated the possible way of the radioactive fallout out of his view. His view wandered around the continent.

Where will Fafnir appear next?