READ NOVEL ONLINE Chapter 4: A cause for alarm
I’m being chased through the sky by someone that looks like they were drawn by Mercer Meyer. And I don’t really know what I’m going to do about it.
It’s extremely frustrating, because now that I can think a little, I’d really rather stop and talk. But my tablet was almost certainly destroyed in the initial attack, and I don’t have it anyway. I can only communicate in non-verbal cries and squawks, and body language I feel like I’ve adopted from an array of other animals.
It’s ironically much easier for me to communicate with a human right now than it is for me to talk to another dragon.
And it really feels like it shouldn’t be that way.
And, if I’m honest, I have no idea if this dragon spent any time as a human (or resembling a human) like I did. How should I figure out whether to call them “it” or “they” or what?
Anyway, in the air I’m more agile and faster than them, just like when we were both in the apartment. And they’re bigger than me and have that terrifying mouth, with teeth the size of… Very Big Things.
This means that, while I really don’t want to face them in physical combat again, I can get away. I’m pretty sure neither of us have a hell of a lot of stamina, though they do seem more mammalian than I am. I don’t think that we can go by appearances in judging those things though. But, in the moment, I can leave them in the dust and am in the process of doing so.
The problem is that I’m scared that if I keep fleeing, I’m going to cede the entire city to them, and I don’t want to do that. Shit, I want to protect my claim to my block with my coffee shop, and I’ve already given that up.
I need to find a way to humiliate them, and make them back down. I need to show my dominance, and as the dragon fleeing I don’t exactly have that position right now.
I’m headed out over the bay, which means I’ve still got city on three sides of me, and an island in front of me. We can fight out here without hurting anyone, but then they have the advantage. Unless it turns out I’m more aquatic than they are, but I’m feeling a wariness about the water. And they’re hippo-like and I don’t have webbed toes.
And if I keep going and truly leave the city limits, they probably won’t follow me, and just assume they own my home town now.
If I turn us right or left, I have an array of waterside parks I can lead us to. Or, I have a choice between residential neighborhoods to fly over. But a sharper left turn will take us over the south hill and the university to the arboretum, a very large park on a hill filled with trees.
And if I can draw the conflict into the thick of those trees, I think I can find the leverage I need to overpower my opponent.
God, I should name them something.
You know? They yawped. They declared their presence with a mighty yawp.
I’m going to fucking name them Whitman.
So, I’m turning a sharp left and heading back over buildings and houses, and hoping that Whitman here will follow me into the arboretum.
And I’m also wondering if either of us can or will breathe fire.
There’s this book called The Flight of Dragons by Peter Dickenson. And in it, Peter speculates that dragons could breathe fire because they filled themselves up with hydrogen to float like blimps, and it’s a simply matter of igniting the gas with an electrical spark upon expelling it. And I’ve always liked the goofiness of that theory, but I’m pretty sure we don’t work that way. Or, I don’t, at least.
I fly a heck of a lot like how a pterodactyl would, just with an extra set of limbs. And I haven’t been able to watch Whitman fly to be really sure of how they work, but they’re just a little too fast for how I think the blimp concept would work.
If Whitman was a biological blimp, I think I could get away just by soaring, and I’m not doing that. I’m burning a lot of calories by constantly pumping my wings. And the few glances back I’ve taken indicate that Whitman’s doing the same.
We’re going to be so exhausted when we make it to where I’m going.
But I make the peak of my flight over the south hill, which is taller than the arboretum, and I’m aiming for a more open space near the entrance to the park. I can glide down to that and gain speed and momentum. And the small field there will look less threatening and worrisome to Whitman, I hope.
Of course, I’ll be able to dash into the trees rather easily after insulting the other dragon.
I take another glance back and see that Whitman hasn’t gained quite as much height as I did, and is having to work harder to keep up. And I’m getting a bit of a rest with this glide.
Perfect.
Well, it’s an advantage, at least.
As I come in low over the southern part of the university campus, students playing ultimate frisbee stop and point at me. Others notice Whitman and point at them. I can hear them shouting in excitement, but I can’t understand what they’re saying. But they definitively are not taking the sight of dragons in stride now. They’ve stopped striding to gawk.
Dorms and conifers fly by as I rocket into the park.
I swerve and weave to get exactly where I’m going, briefly following the drive in and gliding in between sets of reasonably tall trees. And I realize that I’m going to leave some significant divots right before I do.
I do my best to land running, but my heels skid and my tail slaps the ground, and then my claws are digging up moss and grass as I change directions and wheel around to face Whitman to shout at them.
I do a repeat of my first challenge cry, drawing up a good rumble for a couple seconds as I watch them flapping madly into the park after me. And then I screech as loudly as I can, and rear up and flap my wings.
That should do it.
They come right at me, jaw slowly opening wide as if to try to swallow my head.
I drop and bow like a playing dog, and use that maneuver to spring to the side and gallop toward the woods to my right, uphill. And again, after a few strides I’m up on my hind legs, using my wings for balance and a bit of lift.
If Whitman is a local, they should know that just on the other side of the road here, a few paces beyond the tree line, there’s a short cliff of rock, about twelve feet high. I’ve got my eyes on a spot between the trees that I can leap up into and pull my wings tight to fly through like a spear or a rock.
If I can leap high enough at just the right moment, I can make it safely to the top of the cliff. I can see it through the trees. A clear shot.
And I’m hoping that Whitman will try to do the same thing in rage and indignation, and fail.
I rattle and clack as I go, cackling like a wood block, and it kind of sort of works!
When I land atop the cliff, I do have too much momentum and as I try to turn to face Whitman I slide sideways uphill into a tree.
Whitman lands right on the edge of the rock ridge, the corner of the cliff right into their gut, with a sharp exhale of breath and foreclaws scrabbling on stone and dirt for purchase. I’m suitably surprised that they made it between the trees, but they are sliding backward, at least, and look stunned.
I huff and stomp and turn to face them, taking a couple of steps in their direction. Then I rear up, close the translucent nictitating membranes of my eyes, which I hadn’t really known were there until just now, and take a really deep breath into chambers of my chest that don’t quite feel like my lungs.
Is this going to work?
Is this going to work?!
Holy shit!
It’s going to –
I’m a flame thrower.
What I expel isn’t just flaming gas, it’s an oxygenated fluid, a lot like biologically produced napalm. And I have no idea how to explain it. I just know what it feels like and how it behaves once it leaves my throat.
I aimed for just over Whitman’s head, not right at their face. But the liquid falls and creates a trail of fire from me all the way to the road, and right down Whitman’s spine, from snout to tail.
And from how I feel, I don’t think I can do that again right away. I’ve got to generate more of that fluid. I feel empty, thinner.
Whitman is clearly nonplussed, for possibly both of the definitions of that word. Conflicted.
I rear up and cackle, flapping my wings half open to avoid hitting trees.
Then I drop and stomp a few steps closer, menacingly, but stopping short of any sort of lunging distance they might have.
And then I start rumbling again, and wait for them to make the next move.
They were foolish to follow me into the trees, but I think I got lucky in learning how to breathe fire first. They might be able to do it themself right now, though I suspect their physical position will make it hard to project the liquid. That is, if they can even do it.
I’ve known I was a dragon since I was nine years old. I’ve done a lot of reading. And when I talked to Chapman earlier today, I learned a few more things. It turns out that there’s so much material out there about dragons that two dragon lovers who’ve researched the shit out of them for a few decades will still end up with information that the other won’t have learned. And we agreed that there was one thing for certain about mythical dragons, and that’s that no two dragons are alike.
In the original myths, dragons weren’t originally dragons. They weren’t a single species of monster, but a collection of individual creatures tailored for their individual stories. And while breathing fire became a common trait after the word dragon began to be applied to them all, it wasn’t universal.
And we’re real, actual dragons here? But here’s Whitman looking so different from me that I’m pretty sure we both feel like we should be called different things.
They might have a completely different surprise.
But the look in their eyes as they continue to slide back off the cliff suggests not.
I really, really want to ask them, “Why are we fighting, asshole?” But I just can’t.
I can only watch them decide to let go and land with a thump on the ground below, and then try to roll to put out the flames.
I don’t know if the flames are hurting them all that much, but they certainly are charring the shaggy fur that lines their back, and threatening to spread.
I walk to the edge of the little cliff and look down at them, and then cackle-chatter again.
Then I remember the chime sound I managed to imitate by accident earlier, and have an idea for a roasting taunt.
I take a little breath and imagine what the noise I want to produce should sound like. Like I said, I’d been practicing a lot at home, and I have a pretty good idea of the limits and range of my vocal apparatus now, and what I’m going for is a fairly constant tone, with a long, slow worble.
Before I do it, I take a full breath so I can maintain it.
And then, as Whitmat struggles to put out the flames on their back, the sound of a fire engine’s siren begins to wail from my open throat, keening and changing in pitch and tone just like the real thing. Just as obnoxiously loud. Then, to add insult to injury, I add in the brap and double horn honk as well.
Slink away, Whitman, slink away, I think to myself. Maybe if you approach me meekly sometime in the future, we won’t have to do this.
It also occurs to me that if we dragons are going to make a habit of doing this, the humans are probably going to stop being so mysteriously reasonable with us.
And shit.
Now my lair is half destroyed.
I’m starting to see the appeal of a cave.
Fortunately, I know of one just to the south of here, an old abandoned coal mine. But there might be another dragon already there, if Whitman and I are not the only ones that have manifested in the county. Heck, it might be Whitman’s cave now.
If I decide to claim it, I’ll have to approach it with due caution.
But, first, I really need to check on Rhoda.
After I catch my breath.
Also, I should probably make sure I haven’t just burned the whole arboretum down.
So, I end up having to wait until Whitman leaves, which they eventually do. Skulking away down the road into the southside neighborhoods. I don’t suspect they’ll leave town, but between us I guess I’m top dragon. For now.
Then I spend some time tearing limbs off of trees and bushes that are on fire, and kicking dirt over all of the flames that I can. There isn’t much dirt I can kick, and it’s not working. And I consider just lying down on top of the flames myself, but I don’t know if I’m impervious or not and don’t feel like testing it.
It turns out that someone saw the fight and the flames and called the real fire department, and I decide to leave when I hear the actual sirens.
Maybe I need to reserve fire breathing to more extreme circumstances, if I’m going to care about the local trees and neighborhoods.
We sitting in Rhoda’s apartment, listening to the local news radio station over her internet connection, waiting for a story about my fight to hit. So far it hasn’t.
We’re both surprised about this, but we also don’t really know how the local news works in cases like this.
She’s lending me her phone to talk, which is not as good as my tablet, but does work. And I’ve been slowly and carefully explaining what happened in words as sparely as I can.
And I have a salad bowl full of water to drink.
I’m being super gentle and slow moving, keeping my body as small as I can. I feel oafish and dangerous, and I don’t want to mess up her apartment too.
For her part, she’s just listening to me talk. I think she’s taken some sort of medication to calm her nerves. If it’s like the propranolol I used to use for my C-PTSD, it will help to have something soothing to relax to, though, and I don’t know if what we’re doing is that. But she seems subdued enough.
When I get to the point where I make the sound of a siren, she holds up a finger and gestures for her phone. Then, picking it up she uses her thumb to navigate to an app and activates a ringtone. A pretty simple one, a classic bell, like the phones we both grew up with as children.
Then she points at me.
I lower my head and turn my left ear toward the phone, blinking, and wait.
She plays it again, and I listen carefully.
It’s a high pitch with a quick warble, with some harmonics. I think it’s going to feel a little bit like fizzing bubbles in my chest, so I lift my head and open my mouth and shoot for that feeling.
The siren wasn’t actually perfect when I did it. It was recognizable and loud but off.
My ringtone is also off, at first. But now I’ve got the time and patience to concentrate and adjust. So I try it again and get it much closer.
Rhoda grins and laughs, and then quietly but firmly says, “Stop.” She looks meaningfully at me, and then says, “Say ‘Stop.’”
Hm. That’s a word. That’s actually way more complex than I think she realizes. If I do the glottal stop like sound at the end of it, it might sound like a labial plosive. So, I need to do a kind of hiss, a stop, an open vowel sound, and then another stop.
Again, I try to visualize what that will feel like before attempting it. But what comes out is just not right.
I try it three more times, failing miserably each time, until Rhoda shakes her head and waves her hand, then passes her phone back to me.
I’m about to knuckle a couple of words into the device when there’s a knock on the door.
Rhoda gets up and goes to the door to look through the peephole.
“It’s the police,” she says.
