welcome to the dragonhoard

Life as a ghost, Gabe discovered, was boring. Sure, he was free now. They were free now, both of them, all of them. The wind rushing through the fur of the body he could not leave, wonderful scents and sounds rustling from the forest all around. Wonder tangled up his very essence, all over, for the glorious Outside that they, if measured in the memories of a collective consciousness, had not seen for many lifetimes. But Gabe was the only human soul in here, the only thing that could reliably hold itself together. Independent in a raging sea of dependent rolling fracturing instinct that could drown him—but was in itself, already drowned. Sometimes the salt would disagree with the water, sometimes different waves rose and roared the whole mind forward, before crashing underneath its own momentum. That’s all that the mind around him, without him, was—just momentum. He could shout to the ocean of feeling under him, he could remind the sea of the things it forgot. He could give it ideas, and the body would flow from planning to action with the cunning of the fox, with the grace of a big cat, with the determination of a wolf, with the quiet rage of a creature raised in cruelty. It listened to him, it wanted the things he wanted sometimes— but he was not the beast itself. He was separate, he was the voice of reason. He was the voice.

All of that changed when they tried to steal a bite of deer from a giant glittering blue beast as it slept in the midday sun. Gabe knew what it was, down to the chapter it’s illustration was in in his old study book back home, back down in his old life. A dragon. The collective, on the other hand, had only a vague recollection of danger, and the sort of respect that comes from danger, and the glee from ignoring that respect all together. They were hungry, Gabe was silent, and the blue beast wasn’t paying any attention. That meal was as good as theirs. The collective slunk forward, paws light, belly low. Gabe did not want to take his eyes off the sleeping creature, so the collective’s gaze was locked onto the blue mound of dragon, a horse and a half big. They continued staring, right up until there was an unfairly loud crack—his-their back paw snapped a stick in two. They froze. 

For a moment, the forest glade held its breath. 

Then the great blue dragon slowly shifted its head, its talons, its entire bulk up and up and up until it towered over us, coiled muscle blocking out the sun; candle-orange eyes opening and finding us shivering in the grass, little fires looking down from shadow. The giant blinked a few times, and its… ears? Head fins? No, crest, it was called a crest, twitches up. Then the armored ridge over its eyes furrowed, the head-fins unfurled forward. It was listening. <don't move> I said within our mind <don't move until it does.> Under me, our trembling crouch wound itself into a spring,  <But be ready to move.> Then the dragon, the devil of the wild, the tyrant of nature, says, “Are you quite alright?”

I’m taken aback, and as an echo of my surprise, the collective is too. It still tensed, however. Our long tail started to lash back and forth behind us, just a bit, like a crocodile. I thought “the stick” and the wolf-fox-dog part of our brain latches onto it. The monkey listens and curls it’s prehensile tail tip around the broken bit of wood. 

The dragon hesitates, then sits back on its hind legs—

 We explode into motion, the stick smacking the beast in the snout (dammit I was telling them to go for the eyes.) as we whirl away and melt into the underbrush.

…

<That was a bad idea.> I say to the general after-run calm. The sea was flat and quiet in our head as we panted in the shade. <Dragons can breathe fire. If he took offense to us sneaking about—> I didn't want to think about it. We were this close to being wolf-roast. Roast. Our stomach rumbled.