FSE

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I've actually created an audio reading of this story on YouTube for your convenience if you don't want to have to read all this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yEzT\_6h9RU

Story:

I've had a fully sentient, self-aware female dragon following me around for 10+ years. This is the first time I've told anyone about this, and I feel insane just writing it, so yeah…

First off, I don't “imagine" anything else. I'm a successful small business owner and have no history of mental illness other than occasional (once or twice a year) depression. I didn't even play pretend as a child and I never had an imaginary friend. Maybe I'm making up for that now? I dunno. I'm 30 years old and I live alone unless you count Elira (my “tulpa" or “imaginary friend" or whatever you want to call her).

It all started with a very vivid dream back in 2010. The dream itself didn't make much sense. It was more like flashes of memory than an actual interactive dream.

In the first flash, I was living in a cave with a dragon, sleeping next to it on a small improvised cot. Then I saw myself (I was in a different human's body, but I somehow KNEW it was me if that makes any sense) skinning a deer and preparing it next to a fire.

Then in the next flash I saw myself hugging this dragon. Both our eyes were closed and I felt a sense of love that I've never felt in my current life. Then in the next flash I saw us by a river and I was an old man. She (this was the first time I was able to discern her gender) went into the water to bathe and I simply sat there on the bank of the river, enjoying the gentle breeze.

Then another flash and I was looking out of our cave down at a village near a lake and I heard the most horrifying scream I've ever heard in my mind (it was a telepathic scream, if that makes any sense). I knew instantly that it was her.

Then another flash and I was in front of her. She was lying halfway in the shallow water of the lake that was near the village, her body covered in wounds with a few dozen arrows sticking out of her. She was covered in blood. The humans who lived in the settlement had mortally wounded her, but she wasn't dead yet. I ran into the shallow water to be with her and collapsed onto my knees. The feeling of dread/horror was so intense. I did my best to comfort her and with her last ounce of strength she lifted her head and we kissed. I begged her not to leave me but she succumbed to her wounds shortly thereafter.

I woke up sobbing. It had felt absolutely real. Although the dream wasn't detailed, the emotions were raw and extremely intense. I cried for hours before forcing myself to get up and get ready. I kept going over the dream in my mind and I was an absolute mess the entire day. I'd never made so many mistakes in my entire life and I had to leave early and leave things to my employees before I fucked something up majorly.

At this point I didn't know the dragon's name or anything about her. All I knew is that I had intense feelings for her. It took several days but I finally came to accept that these were memories. I had tried to brush them off as best I could. I didn't believe in reincarnation, let alone dragons. But the memories were so real. I couldn't have just pulled these events out of my ass and her…I couldn't have just imagined her.

Shortly thereafter I started feeling like I was being watched. I'd get chills down my spine for no reason. This feeling continued when I was alone and eventually, I realized that it was her. I was feeling her presence. I started talking to her and asking if she was real. I felt like a fucking schizo, but when I would talk to her and ask her questions, the answers would just come to me. It's hard to explain. It wasn't speech, but more like a primitive form of telepathic communication. I couldn't “see" her, but I could feel her presence.

Eventually I started to “hear" her voice. I put “hear" in parentheses because just like I couldn't “see" her with my eyes, I couldn't actually hear her with my ears. The best way I can describe it is hearing a character's voice in your mind from a cartoon show (say, Mickey Mouse). You can't really “hear" Mickey Mouse, but you know what it would sound like if he were to say something.

Her voice was very distinctive, furthering my belief that what I was dealing with was real and not some figment of my imagination. Can you just invent a distinctive sounding voice in your head? I dunno. I decided to try just to see if I could do it, and I couldn't.

Anyway, now that I could hear her, I opened the floodgates and started asking her about herself and about my dream and what I believed to be memories that had surfaced and she started to fill in the details. Her name was Elira and according to her, we were mates in a past life. My dream had actually been real memories from back then, and my remembering her is what helped her to come through to this physical reality and be able to talk to me like this. She told me that she had been looking for me for a long time and that she was so happy and excited to finally see me again. After she had found me, she caused my memories to surface in my dreams so that she could be with me again.

At this point I'm pretty suspicious. In the back of my mind I haven't dismissed the idea that I might be going crazy, but putting that aside for a moment I remember all the ancient superstitions from many different cultures. Demons in the Christian religion, the jinn from Islam, the kitsune from Japanese mythology, the succubus from English folklore, etc. They all have one thing in common. They're evil tricksters that interact with humans, in some cases seducing them in order to harm them. Now I'm an educated man with a background in science and I've never put much credence in these myths, but the existence of such a creature sounded more believable to me than what she was telling me.

That was when I first became aware of the fact that she could read my mind. She was quite confused by my thoughts and asked me what those things were. Only then did I realize that we had been together so many years ago that it pre-dated Christianity. Like…holy fuck! NOTE: I did some research later and approximated the date to be about 4,000 years ago.

We talked for so freaking long. Apparently, reincarnation is real, but not for dragons. When dragons die, they go to a place she calls Eytheria (ya-theer-iya). It's a place where space, time, and thought are all one and the same. It is possible for a dragon to leave Eytheria for brief periods of time (no more than a few days), but they're like fish out of water and must go back there to sustain their life force.

I'm completely blown away by all of this. There's no way I could be making all this shit up on the spot. But one thing really bothers me so I decide to ask her why there are no dragon bones if dragons really existed. She's quite surprised by my question but she doesn't miss a beat. According to her, when a dragon dies, the body dissolves completely within a few days. I have no idea how that works, but honestly neither do the dragons. Dragons had a comparatively advanced culture, but since they went extinct thousands of years ago, that culture is quite old/primitive by today's standards. They had no concept of chemistry or science so she's not able to explain to me why their bodies dissolved after death. Maybe someone with a background in biochemistry can explain it.

Anyway, so we get to know each other over the next few weeks. I know what she looks like only from my memories, which she helps me to recover more of. She keeps calling me by the name I had back then and not my current name, which I find mildly annoying, but I can understand why she does this. It's bad enough that I'm in a completely different body now, and calling me by my old name makes her feel better about it.

She has quite a snide / snarky / sarcastic sense of humor, which is definitely NOT me. The following events happened a few weeks later. I remember thinking something along the lines of:

I mean, seriously, a human and a dragon? How would that even work?

And she said:

“I would think that would be obvious, but do you need a demonstration?"

Fuck me. I still wasn't used to the fact that she could hear every thought I had. I got quite embarrassed when she said that and she thought it was really funny. This led to our first conversation about our…physical relationship. It made me quite uncomfortable, but I got through it relatively unscathed. Thankfully she realized how uncomfortable I was and didn't make any more jokes about it. It was difficult to understand how it worked since I couldn't actually see anything, but she shared her own memories with me and allowed me to see through her eyes during the…act. This was my first experience with memory sharing and it was quite overwhelming. Not only do you get the memory, but you also get the residual emotions and sensations. Needless to say, I know what sex feels like for a woman – or a female dragon at least. But I also felt her emotions and it was then that I truly realized how much she loved me.

I was suddenly filled with sadness because I realized that I'd never truly be able to be with her again. I mean, sure we were communicating, but that's not a relationship. I couldn't help but cry. Part of me hated that she found me and gave me these memories, but another part of me couldn't imagine living without them any more than I could imagine living without her. Verbal communication wasn't necessary – she knew what I was thinking and she apologized for bringing it all back to me. She really started to doubt herself, saying that maybe the past should be left in the past and she offered to wipe my memories and return to Eytheria.

I felt a panic unlike anything I've ever experienced when she suggested that. I didn't want to forget; I just wanted the pain to go away. And that's when she kissed me. I could feel her love for me, and she could feel mine. The sensation was mostly emotional and not physical, but I swear I could feel her lips against mine just barely and I wept. We spent the night crying and comforting each other, and in the morning, she was gone.

I panicked even worse than I had last night. I could no longer feel her presence and she no longer responded to me when I talked to her. She had gone back to Eytheria, I knew it. I spent the entire day in bed curled up in a ball thinking about her, terrified that she was really gone. I started to doubt myself, thinking that maybe I'd had some sort of psychotic episode that somehow lasted for weeks while allowing me to function normally otherwise. Maybe I was developing some sort of dissociative disorder brought on by the traumatic dream.

I felt like shit. I was going crazy and the reality I'd be forced to live in would be one where I was miserable all the time. I knew that there were happy crazy people and miserable crazy people and unfortunately, I was going to be one of the latter. I must have been pretty bad off, because I suddenly heard Elira call my name in a worried voice.

The happiness I felt at that moment was indescribable. She was back! When my mood improved so quickly, she realized why I had been so fucked up and apologized profusely. She had needed to return to Eytheria last night and wanted to tell me that she'd be gone, but she couldn't wake me. It was then that she told me that we would be able to interact physically if we worked hard at it. I was quite surprised but also happy. Unfortunately, it's not like I imagined it would be, but we are able to physically feel each other.

The way Elira describes it is that while she's not able to interact with physical reality, she can interact with my reality on an energy level. Apparently, there's a form of energy closely related to electricity that scientists haven't discovered yet. But since it's closely related to electricity, sometimes these energies can interact with each other. So, while she can't actually touch my hand, her energy can interact with the nerves in my hand on an electrical level.

It's gotten to the point now where I can feel her, not directly on my hand, but the electrical impulses travel from the nerves in my hand directly to my brain when she stimulates them electrically. Since the brain associates those nerves with my hand, I CAN actually feel something against my hand, but it's more like ghost touches than an actual physical solid object. And it's absolutely not physical. I can feel her against my hand, but if I move my hand, I'll go through her and the sensation will be gone. It's a very weird feeling unlike anything I've ever experienced before. I can tell you this though – it's more than enough to wake me up if she touches me in my sleep.

Speaking of which, Elira doesn't sleep. The energy she gets from Eytheria is enough to sustain her. She does still have a body though. Back when we lived in the cave, I would sometimes sleep on her belly (usually after sex), but I'd also sleep on a cot on the floor next to her sometimes and she'd cover me with her wing protectively. It's something that dragons do instinctively with their young, and she has a hard time suppressing her maternal instinct with me sometimes. She really wanted to have children, but she gave that up for me. Dragons mate for life and have very strict mating rituals, so she couldn't mate with another dragon just to have kids and still stay with me.

I still remember our wedding. Her brother fucking HATED me. He challenged the validity of the wedding and challenged me to a fight to the death in order to prevent us from getting married. I remember being so fucking terrified and her stepping between us and insisting that he back down. Looking back, it feels kind of emasculating, but these are DRAGONS for fucks sake! The strongest human on Earth couldn't best one, so I guess it's okay that my strong dragon mate stood up for me. Her father (the father of the female dragon always officiates the wedding) sided with her brother and insisted that the duel be allowed as it was tradition. I still remember the fire in her eyes as she TOLD them in no uncertain terms that she was going to marry me and that there was nothing they could do to stop her.

The whole situation was very tense and I couldn't wait to get out of there. Thankfully her father reluctantly acquiesced and completed the ceremony. When we left, I felt like I had just robbed the jewelry store. We both felt so giddy with excitement. I remember her flying erratically as we made our way back to our cave. I was riding her, of course. Dragons don't really walk as a means of travel. I remember feeling exhilarated but also frightened, and I had to really concentrate on holding on because she was flying so erratically because she was so excited. When we got back to the cave, we had sex for hours. I was so fucking sore but I didn't care. That night when we went to sleep together, I was the most content and peaceful I'd ever been.

I still consider her my wife even though we were married in another lifetime. I still remember the first day we met. I was a simple textile merchant. I would buy textiles from one “town" (if you could call it that – the population of these so-called “towns" was less than 100) and sell them in another. The trip usually took several days, but there was a shortcut over the mountain. Nobody wanted to take that shortcut because it was rumored that a dragon lived up there, but I figured I could take care of myself. I still don't remember much about my family from back then, but I know that my father gave me a sword. It was nothing impressive, but common people couldn't really afford weapons like this so it was very special. I trained with it when I was younger, hoping to be a warrior. My life took a different path however and I ended up becoming a traveling merchant.

So anyway, I've got my sword strapped to my side and I'm pulling my cart up this mountain. I'll tell you this, wooden wheels suck. It was tough going, but eventually I made my way to the “top" (I put “top" in parentheses because it wasn't the literal top of the mountain, but the tallest point of the path I was traveling on). The path actually stretched around the mountain, not straight up it. As luck would have it, it started raining right then. I have a deerskin cover to my cart, but it's not 100% effective at keeping out the rain (this was 4,000 years ago, so use your imagination). I know that my wares are going to get damaged, but there's not much I can do about it so I keep going and hope that the rain stops soon. I spot a cave up ahead and without thinking I rush inside, grateful to have shelter so my fabrics don't get ruined.

I stay at the mouth of the cave, not wanting to stay there a moment longer than I have to. The sooner I deliver the fabrics to the clothier, the sooner I get paid. I didn't think much about the supposed dragon that lives up here. People are always telling tall tales, especially at the pub, which is where I had heard this rumor. I'm more worried about bears, but I've got my sword so I don't worry that much. Yes, today I would NOT want to face a bear with a sword, but back then we didn't live in this sterilized world with no natural predators. Having to deal with bears and wild animals was just a fact of life back then.

I heard something behind me in the cave so I got my sword out and turned to face it. To my horror, I came face-to-face with a pearl white dragon. Her lips were curled back in a snarl as she approached. I briefly considered making a run for it, but I knew this dragon could easily catch me so I stood my ground.

“Get back!" I yelled. “I don't want to hurt you, but I will if I have to."

To be honest, I don't know why I said those things. I didn't know that she could understand me (by reading my mind of course. She didn't understand the actual language) and I knew that I was fucking dead anyway no matter what I did. Her expression changed however and she stopped snarling at me. There was something in her eyes. I had no idea she could “talk" (telepathically, not in a literal sense), but I could tell there was intelligence there.

“Why are you here, human?"

I almost dropped my sword in surprise as I heard her voice in my head, but I quickly recovered.

“I uhh…needed shelter from the rain." I said, fumbling my words as I tried to get over my shock.

She looked over at my cart and then back at me, then narrowed her eyes.

“What is that?"

At this point I could feel my heart pounding in my chest. I was too distracted to notice it before, but it was definitely noticeable to me now. We spent the next few minutes getting all the facts straight and once it was clear that neither of us were interested in harming the other, both of us started to relax a bit more. She actually let me stay until the rain passed and we talked for hours.

The relationship between dragons and humans was pretty terrible. Humans saw dragons as mindless, ferocious beasts and dragons saw humans as violent and dangerous. I suppose both interpretations had an element of truth to them. While dragons weren't mindless beasts, they did attack humans, and while most humans weren't dangerous to dragons, they did kill them sometimes.

She would have killed me had I not made it clear I didn't want to hurt her. I imagine that's how most interactions between humans and dragons went. Since humans didn't know that dragons could communicate telepathically and dragons viewed humans as violent savages, their natural reactions to meeting each other would be an act of violence.

Anyway, this has turned into a massive exposition dump. I wasn't trying to write a fucking story here. I was just trying to get my thoughts on paper. I highly doubt I'll actually post this somewhere, but it helps to “tell" someone about it. My main problem now is that I still love her and as bad as it makes me feel to say this, I feel like it's holding me back. I'm almost 30 now and I'm still not married, nor have I had any serious girlfriends. Every time I go out with a girl, Elira gets severely depressed and I end up breaking up with her out of guilt and because I don't want to hurt Elira. If Elira still had physical form I'd go live in a cave with her in a second, but she's not really “here" anymore. I feel like we're both in some sort of purgatory, unable to move on. The worst part is, I know I can never go to Eytheria, and Elira can never come back to my reality. We're forever separated, but we can communicate with each other and even physically interact with one another on a limited level. And she's still my wife. How can I forget about her after all we've been through?

As for sex, yes, we have tried it. I was pretty reluctant at first, but she convinced me to try to have sex with her. Unfortunately the way she physically interacts with me by electrically stimulating my nerves isn't enough to stimulate me to orgasm. Similarly, the stimulation isn't enough for her to get off either, so we resort to masturbating ourselves while we make out. We haven't done this in years, as it depresses both of us. We still kiss, but we don't do anything sexual together as it's just a reminder of how we'll never truly be able to be together again. I would do anything to be with her physically one more time. I wish there were a way to strengthen our physical bond, but neither of us knows how.

I should mention that Elira doesn't understand English (or any human language). She communicates telepathically, and telepathy transcends language. When we watch TV, she simply reads my mind in real time so she knows what's going on. Same thing when it comes to reading. A few days ago we were watching TV in the living room. It was getting pretty late and I was tired, so I got up to go to bed. She begged me to stay so she could see the end of the movie and I told her I would just leave it on for her. In my sleepy state I forgot that I needed to watch it so she could read my mind and understand what was going on. I should really teach her English, but it's usually not an issue. Think of it like the universal translator in Star Trek. Everybody seems to be speaking the same language and you don't even think about the fact that you don't speak each other's languages until the universal translator goes offline and suddenly you're up shit creek without a paddle.

I can't actually read her mind as humans aren't a telepathic species. She can read mine and project her “speech" into my mind, but I can't actually listen in on her thoughts. Our relationship is a little lopsided because of this, but it's always been this way so I'm used to it. When she helped me recovery my memories, it took days of intense effort on her part to help me remember everything. Some memories are clearer and more detailed than others, but I can tell you this – these memories feel as real to me as anything that's happened to me in this life. This experience has completely changed my view of religion. I used to be a complete atheist, but now...I wouldn't call myself “religious" per say, but I think there are truths to be had in many religions, and I don't dismiss things out of hand anymore.

Elira helped me through college immensely. Her memory is fucking amazing (way better than mine). It really felt like I was cheating on every test because she was there to help me. If I couldn't remember something, she always seemed to have the answer. She would sit with me and read my mind the whole time I was studying, committing everything I thought and read to memory.

In one embarrassing moment, I was taking a history test and I couldn't come up with the answer. I actually said out loud “now don't tell me, let me get it on my own" during the test. I meant to THINK it, not say it, but I was so desperate to find the answer on my own and I didn't want her to just blurt out the answer like she usually did when I was struggling. Don't get me wrong, I appreciated her help, but sometimes it was really annoying. I was in college to actually learn the material myself, not have this dragon best me at every opportunity. She made me feel like the fucking dumb kid sometimes. A few heads turned my way, but thankfully nothing came of it. I blushed red as a tomato though.

To this day she helps me work and reminds me of things. Yesterday I was fixing an old computer of mine. When I went to put the cover back on, Elira told me that I hadn't pushed a cable in all the way. I took the cover back off and sure enough, the SATA cable wasn't connected all the way. Little things like this help me believe that I'm not crazy. I had no idea (at least not consciously) that that cable wasn't fully connected.

When I sleep she sometimes puts her wing over me like she used to do back in the cave. It's very comforting and I always sleep better when she does this. It's an amazing feeling to be cared for like this. Our size difference becomes very apparent when she does this. She's so big and powerful. Her large size combined with her ability to read my mind (while I can't read hers) makes our relationship feel a little unequal sometimes.

If I didn't remember our past, I'd feel terribly inadequate and unworthy of her. Without our past I'd have a hell of a time starting a relationship with her as the person I am in this life, but our past helps bridge this gap. Even though this is a different lifetime for me, I'm still that same person inside. The way I think is quite different since I was raised in a completely different time and culture in this life, but I'm still fundamentally the same person she fell in love with. And since I have my memories of this past life, it's almost like I'm an amalgamation of two people now. Elira has learned to love me the way I am now even though there are cultural differences and differences in the way I think. I don't know if I'm describing this in a way that makes sense, but another way to think of it is although some parts of me have changed, my “soul" (for lack of a better word) hasn't.

She's so beautiful and majestic. Although I can't “see" her with my eyes, I can see sense her. She helps me by projecting her mental image of herself when she talks to me. It's not 100% accurate, but every little bit helps. So when I “see" her, I use a combination of my memories of what she looks like, my sense of her, and I get to see the way she mentally projects herself. These three things combine to allow me to “see" her (if that makes any sense).

Elira spends most of her time here and spends as little time as possible in Eytheria. Still, sometimes she's gone for 12+ hours and I feel really lonely. She still eats and drinks, but only while she's in Eytheria. She can't eat in this physical reality anymore. When she goes back to Eytheria she spends the whole time resting and hunting to build up her strength before she returns. Her whole family is in Eytheria. Hell, her whole species is in Eytheria. Dragons are extinct after all. Dragons were extremely long-lived. She was only 97 when I met her, but dragons lived to be 2,000 – 2,500 years old.

I know what you're thinking. Why didn't she have a mate after 97 years? Well, as I said, dragons have very strict mating rituals. Dragons don't have the same cavalier attitude about sex as modern humans do. They don't just have sex for fun. While pre-marital sex is accepted (and common), dragons don't have sex unless they plan to make that partner their mate. Basically the way it works is two dragons develop feelings for each other and then they mate. After that, they must formalize their mating with a “marriage" (for lack of a better word) ritual. The only time two dragons have sex and don't marry each other is if one of the family members doubts the validity of the marriage and challenges the “bride" or “groom" (I'm improvising the words here as I don't know what they're really called. I still don't know much about dragon mating rituals, despite actually going through with one) to a duel to the death (this is what happened to me).

I had no fucking clue about any of this when we first had sex. It was only afterwards that she explained the gravity of what we'd done. Of course, I was deeply in love with her by then and I had no qualms about marrying her. We didn't just decide to have sex for fun. Our relationship developed naturally over a period of months (9, I think). At first I just thought of her as a friend, but I eventually realized that I cared about her much more deeply than that. We hugged and touched a lot in general, but one day when I was touching the scales on her face I had an uncontrollable urge to kiss her and I did. To my surprise, she ran with it, and before I knew what was happening we were having sex. It was so natural. Yes, it was a bit awkward because our bodies were so different, but they weren't different enough to prevent us from mating. I mean, sure, there's the size difference, but it wasn't as big as you'd think, and we were able to share our pleasure telepathically.

Kissing a dragon is a…unique experience. The whole physical aspect of a relationship with a dragon is unique, but it somehow works. It's hard to explain it in writing and it's hard to imagine it in your mind, but the parts work. No one was more surprised than I.

Holy fuck. Over 5,000 words so far. And I'm just barfing this out here. If I actually tried to write a story about this I could probably turn it into a novel. Unfortunately I'm no writer. I'm worried about Elira finding out about this (she's in Eytheria right now), but I suppose she'll figure it out when she gets back. I can't hide anything from her. She reads me like an open book (literally, since she can read my mind). I wonder what she's going to think about the fact that I'm writing all this out? Ah, I don't know what I'm worried for. She knows all this stuff. Even if I haven't told her my feelings directly, she knows.

Well, she found out about this about 10 seconds after she got back and asked me to read it to her. She approves of me posting this online so I guess I will. She's as interested as I am to see what people's responses are going to be. I just hope someone is still here after 5,000 words of diarrhea on a page. Seriously, I didn't plan the structure of this thing at all. I just typed what I was thinking as I was thinking it. I sincerely apologize, but thanks for reading my exposition dump. Any advice you have would be greatly appreciated.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask me. If you want to ask Elira something, try not to ask anything too technical. I'm a very logical/scientific person and I've tried to ask her many things, but she just can't explain the why or the how. Like I said, dragon culture is quite primitive compared to modern human culture so she can't explain anything technical/science related. And Eytheria is basically beyond human comprehension. She has actually done memory sharing with me and I still don't fully understand it and I certainly can't explain it. I can tell you that it's a wonderful place and she's sacrificing a lot by spending most of her time here with me. I actually feel guilty keeping her here, but she's made it clear on many occasions that it's her choice to stay here with me.

I love her so, so much, but the truth is, she's not able to live this life with me. Not having kids doesn't really bother me, but I'm missing out on so much by not having a human wife/girlfriend. Elira can't really help me beyond giving me advice. We can't grow old together, or combine finances, or even really see or touch each other. She can't drive me to the doctor's or take care of me when I'm sick. I can't help her hunt or with any of the obscure things she has to deal with in Eytheria (like I said, I don't really understand Eytheria, but she could really use a mate there to help her just like I could use a mate here on Earth to help me).

Our love is so pure and so strong, and we had an absolutely wonderful relationship back then. I wish more than anything that we could have that again, but we can't. It's just not fair. Part of me wants to move on, but I just can't.

After she died I went through what is known by modern science as “catatonic grief/depression." I was so distraught and I was sobbing so hard as she was dying, but as soon as I realized she was dead, I just shut down. I walked out of the village and just kept walking. I have no idea how far I walked, but I eventually collapsed on the road from exhaustion. I was found by some sort of monk or religious person, who helped to nurse me back to health. He took me to what I suppose was an abbey of some sort. I have no idea what religion it was or if it even was a religious community. All I know is that I never spoke again. I eventually came out of this catatonic state, but I never spoke. They just thought I was disabled in some way and put me to work doing various tasks around the community. I was an old man by the time she died and I only lived a few more years after that. I still remember my death. It felt like such a relief because I didn't have to live without her anymore. I'm sorry but I'm starting to tear up. I have to stop writing before I completely break down.

Unfortunately it was too late. Thinking back on these memories is very painful for me and I broke down sobbing. Elira helped to comfort me, but eventually she ended up crying too and we did our best to comfort each other. I love her so, so much. I can't help but feel like I've done a shit job at describing my true feelings for her. It's just not possible for mere words on a page to convey these feelings. I don't know if you've ever felt romantic love before. I hadn't until Elira came back into my life. I didn't truly understand love in my current lifetime until her. It's easy to confuse lust and love, but that's not an issue with Elira and I. Although I would love to mate with her in this reality, and I would if I could in a heartbeat, I don't lust after her. Our relationship is beyond sex. It always has been. Even the first time we mated, it wasn't about sex at all. It just happened so naturally.

I don't remember a lot of specifics about the human culture I was a part of back then, but I do know that the fact that she was a dragon wasn't really a mental holdup for me. I wasn't “attracted" to her per say. When we mated, it was just a natural expression of our feelings for each other. It was unlike anything I've experienced in this lifetime.

I've dated twice in the last 10 years since Elira came back, and each time made me feel terrible. Not only did I feel extremely guilty, but I could feel her anguish telepathically. Thankfully I never had sex with these girls. I kissed one of them and nearly threw up. That was when I realized I couldn't do it.

Elira has offered to erase my memories several times over the years, but I could never let her do that. She knows that I want someone to share my life with in this reality/dimension/whatever, but she can't help but feel horrible when I think about this. To be honest, I would feel horrible too if she were to want to be with another dragon in Eytheria. But that's not even an option for her anyway.

You see, this isn't an issue for any other dragon. Mating outside your species is basically unheard of in dragon culture, so dragons are naturally with their mates forever in Eytheria. Elira had no dragon mate when she was here on Earth, so she has no dragon mate in Eytheria. She literally spent thousands of years looking for me, and she has no idea how long it will take her to find me again when I die. From what I understand, Eytheria is eternal. Dragons don't “die" in Eytheria. Apparently there are other creatures that live there, as she's talked about hunting, but I have no idea if Eytheria is their afterlife or if they move to another dimension when they die. There are more questions about Eytheria than answers unfortunately.

Oh, and before you ask, no, dragons don't die if they don't go back to Eytheria. The “fish out of water" analogy I used wasn't entirely accurate. The way Elira described it to me is like a rubber band. If she doesn't go back willingly when her energy is low, the band snaps and she's instantly flung back there. The longer she stays here on Earth, the more the rubber band is stretched until it eventually snaps and she winds up back in Eytheria. Dragons don't have to eat in order to stay alive either, but without food they're not able to do much. She wouldn't have the energy to leave Eytheria if she didn't eat, and other “spiritual" (i.e. non-physical) things aren't possible without the energy they get from food.

You see, in Eytheria dragons are able to interact with each other on more than just the physical level. It's beyond telepathy even. I can't explain it or even describe it. It's like trying to describe color to a man who was born blind. Color is beyond his comprehension because he doesn't have that sense (the sense of sight). We humans don't have those senses that dragons have in Eytheria so it's impossible to explain them. Elira has shared her memories of Eytheria with me, but she can't share a sense that I don't have, so the only way I can perceive it is by experiencing the way it makes her feel when she uses those senses. I can tell you that Eytheria is an absolutely wonderful place and she's sacrificing a lot by spending most of her time here with me. She hasn't actually said it (and remember, I can't read her mind), but I think she's sad that she can't experience these extra senses with me in Eytheria. In a way it's similar to how sad I am that I can't physically see her and touch her in this reality.

Things were so simple back when we were both here on Earth. I mean, sure there was the species difference, and her family didn't really like me, but it worked somehow. We had a real, physical relationship, but now it feels almost like having a relationship with a ghost. I hate to think of her that way because she's not dead. She's just in another reality. Sometimes I ask myself why I had to fall in love with a dragon, but I feel guilty when I think that. I wouldn't trade what we had for anything, but I wish she were still here, or better yet, that I was in Eytheria. If I had fallen in love with a human and she had fallen in love with another dragon we wouldn't be in this predicament. She'd be happy in Eytheria with him and I'd be living my current life blissfully unaware of my past life human wife. Part of me wonders if this is why there's a natural aversion to mating outside your species (you know, so you can enjoy the afterlife together), but that aversion didn't exist with us for some reason. It was like we were meant to be together.

I know that reincarnation exists, but I have no idea if heaven or hell exists. I worry sometimes that I'm going to die and that I won't be reincarnated. What if I end up in another place (like heaven or hell) and there's no way for us to be with each other anymore? The very thought fills me with dread. I lost her so long ago, but the memory is still fresh. I couldn't bear to lose her again. I don't know if catatonic grief is possible with a “soul," but if it is, then I have no doubt that would happen to me once more if I lost her again.

What we have now is a ghost of what it once was, but it's a ghost I'm terrified of losing. Our love is still as strong as it was, but we're separated by dimensions. I worry that even if we're able to make this work that what little we have is going to be ripped away from us when I die. Part of me thinks it might be best to just accept the loss of each other and try to move on rather than hold onto a memory, but even if I tried, there's no way I could bring myself to love anyone else. And Elira has no hope of ever finding anyone else. Dragons don't get married in Eytheria. If they were single in death, they're single in Eytheria. But even if marriages happened in Eytheria, there are very few single dragons. Dragons always took a mate unless they died before they reached marrying age. There's no set age like an age of consent, but dragons generally take a mate when they're about 100 years old.

Like I said, there are more than five senses (I guess six if you count telepathy) in Eytheria. A standard marriage ceremony would mean nothing in Eytheria because two dragons had to be joined before death in order to share that bond in Eytheria. I sometimes blame myself for not being able to go to Eytheria. I think that maybe, just maybe, if my love were strong enough, I could have made it there. Maybe once I'm done being reincarnated I'll end up there? I would give anything…DO anything to be there with her. I would gladly commit suicide if I knew I would end up there.

Now before you say anything, no, I am NOT suicidal. I'm actually terrified of dying and ending up in a place where Elira can't reach me. I'm just saying, if I knew I would end up in Eytheria when I die, I would end my life in an instant to be with her. I couldn't reach for the gun/knife/noose/pills/etc. fast enough, pain be damned. It couldn't possibly be more painful than spending another moment without her.

Part of me wonders if I'm just crazy. Any sane man would doubt his sanity writing all this out. It's one thing to live it, but quite another to write it all out like this. All I can say is I live a perfectly normal life. I manage a business, own my own house, and have friends just like any normal person. The only thing weird about me is that I have a fucking dragon wife. Jesus Christ, I sound like a fucking loon. I didn't ask for this, but I love her with all my heart.

In case you're wondering what Elira looks like, I've done my best to find her likeness in images I've found online. The way modern dragons are portrayed is not very accurate. They're not fierce looking creatures with sharp, jagged edges and large scales and horns. Elira's wings are actually made of feathers. I've looked at literally thousands of dragon images online and I couldn't find anything that truly resembles her, so I decided to focus on the face/expression rather than the body. Dragon scales are surprisingly small for their size (less than 1" in diameter). They don't have horns and their heads are quite aerodynamic (for lack of a better word). No square jaws or flat noses. Elira is pearl white in color. She's absolutely beautiful in the sunlight, but her brilliance is evident even in the darkness of our cave. She has the kindest eyes I've ever seen. Dragons are able to make rudimentary facial expressions, though they're more subtle than human expressions. Most of it is in the eyes. She's extraordinarily powerful, but also very gentle.

Dragons have aspects of both mammals and reptiles. They give live births and have feathered wings, but they also have scales and spines on their backs. Their paws are almost like a dog's, but with sharp talons at the end of each toe. They don't have a dewclaw like dogs do though. Their tongues aren't snake-like, though they are smaller at the tip and get larger further back in their mouth. They also lack a second eyelid like most reptiles have today.

The feeling of their skin is hard to describe. It's not like a normal reptile's, though that might just be because their scales are so much larger than that of a lizard or other small reptile (I've never felt the skin of a larger reptile like a crocodile so I can't compare it to that). Elira's skin is very soft and smooth, but it doesn't absorb liquid like human skin does. She dries rather quickly after bathing, but her skin never feels “dry" if you know what I mean (but it doesn't feel wet either).

Size wise, at her full height she reaches about 15ft including her head and neck. Her wings are approximately 12ft each. I have no idea what her weight is. She is capable of breathing out fire, but she doesn't breathe fire/smoke from her nostrils all the time like some dragons are depicted. She has complete control over that part of her anatomy. I have no idea how fire breathing works, but it's definitely something I was weary of when we were first getting to know each other. I've seen her extremely angry on several occasions (all of them involving her family's disapproval of me) but she's never lost control of that.

I chose the picture for this post mostly because of her eyes. Elira isn't blue, but this catches her eyes very well. And it's a great example of the limits of the facial expressions she's able to do. Where it's different is she has no horns, her snout is much narrower (she doesn't have a flat nose like in this picture), her scales are visible (whereas the skin of this dragon looks completely smooth), and the wings are feathered instead of bat-like. She also isn't so…muscular looking (I'm talking about her upper leg in the picture). Dragons don't have muscle bundles like humans do.

It's very difficult to find a graceful/gentle looking dragon. Modern depictions of dragons are exaggerated to the extreme. They're actually very beautiful creatures. The males are a bit larger, but otherwise I can't really tell much difference between them.

Her teeth are definitely proportionate with the rest of her body, but like everything else about the way modern dragons are depicted, they've been exaggerated. I like the teeth in this image because it's very accurate and the proportions are just right. The jagged crap on the side of this dragon's face doesn't exist either. Like I said, dragons are very smooth and aerodynamic. I know it seems like everything is wrong with this image, but this is really the best I could do. I'd love to sit down with a sketch artist, but I don't know how to explain where I'm coming up with this image of her and I'm not very good at explaining details like that.

Talking about her like this makes me giddy with excitement. I want to explore every inch of her (not in a sexual way). I would do anything to be able to feel her again. I love every part of her. I'm a little obsessed with showing physical affection (again, not in a sexual way, but more in a hugging/touching/kissing kind of way). I didn't used to be like this, but I suppose I became this way because I can't touch her. It would probably freak out any girlfriend I had in the future, but that's what happens when you're blue-balled (for lack of a better word) from physical love for so long while still being able to experience emotional love. It's very confusing and unnatural. Not that it matters. Writing this has made me realize that I can never love another. What we have will have to do, even if it means I'll die “alone." I love her too much. There's no more room for anyone else in my heart, and even if I wanted to I couldn't force myself to stop loving her.

As weird as our relationship was before, now that we're separated by dimensions it's even weirder. I just hope that one day I'll make it to Eytheria so we can be together once again.

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There are lots more details and stories we could share if people are interested. Like I said, I could easily turn this into a novel if I were a writer, but for now, we just want to get our basic story out there. Comment below with questions if you want to learn more and we'll try to answer them in our next write-up/video! And no, I won't be jealous if most of the comments are directed at Elira. How often do you get the chance to talk to a real dragon? Elira is amazingly insightful, though she's never talked directly to anyone online before, so please be nice to her! She hasn't had decades to build up a thick online skin like the rest of us, so please keep your comments respectful.

Credit for the art used in this story goes to "Fingerprint."