girldragongizzard

[girldragongizzard]

Book!

[girldragongizzard]

[girldragongizzard]

Dragons & Folklore de France

Translation below

The Tarasque dwells in the waters of the Rhone river near the town of Tarascon, where it devours travelers and destroys dikes and dams to flood the Camargue. Saint Martha chained it, and the people of Tarascon killed it.

The ruins of the amphitheaters of Metz were infested by hundreds of snakes. The largest of them, the Graoully, had a venomous breath, a mouth bigger than its body and devoured men. Saint Clement chased it away into the Seille River.

King of serpents, the Basilisk takes many forms throughout history and appears in many tales. One of them takes place at the Gate of Saint-Eloi in Bordeaux, known today for its Big Bell, where a well was occupied by a Basilisk. It petrified with its gaze anyone who went there to fetch water. It was defeated by a man returning from the Egyptian crusade, who petrified the beast with its own gaze using a mirail (mirror).

The Cocatrix is born from a rooster's egg incubated by a toad. The egg has magical properties but must not be broken. People who cross its gaze die immediatly.

Made of wicker and covered in flowers, the Grand Bailla wanders the streets of Reims three days a year and feeds on gold and sweets. It was banished by Archbishop Charles Maurice le Tellier.

The Grand'Goule haunts the marshes of Poitou, the waters of the Clain and the flooded cellars of the abbey of Sainte Croix. It feeds on nuns and casse-museaux (snout-breakers, cakes). Saint Radegonde chased it away with holy water.

In the rivers of the Jura and the Alps there is a group of diverse dragons, the Vouivres. They are generally flying serpents covered in fire and guardians of treasures. Many have for a single eye a gigantic carbuncle with extraordinary powers, desired by those in search of wealth and power.

Hidden in the caves and cliffs of la Pointe du Roux near La Rochelle, the Rô Beast traps and devours travelers in the coastal marshes. It was impaled by seven heroic pagans from the seas.

Mythical dragon of the Basque Country, Herensuge gave birth to the Sun and the Moon, swallowed all of Creation in ten days then regurgitated it in flames. Now asleep in the mountains, it sucks up flocks and shepherds in his sleep. When it wakes up, it will destroy the world in flames and blood. (illustration)

Durandal is the mythical sword that Charlemagne gave to the knight Roland. Some claim that it was inherited from Hector, the warrior of the Trojan War. At war with the Saracens in the Pyrenées, Roland wanted to break the sword so that it would not fall into the hands of the enemy but Durandal split the mountain. So he threw the sword, which went to stick miles away, in the rock of the town of Rocamadour.

The belief in the Tooth Fairy is widespread in several countries in Europe, and is sometimes amalgamated with La Petite Souris (little mouse). It exchanges baby teeth for money. No one knows what it does with all these teeth.

The Camecruse is a bogeyman that haunts the moors and marshes of Gascony. It is agile, can jump and hide in the night to better devour lost children. No one knows exactly how it feeds.

The caves under the hill of the town of Hastingues are home to Lou Carcolh, a monstrous snail, long, slimy and hairy. Its shell is as big as a house. With the help of its tentacles, it grips people to devour them.

The Questing Beast is hunted by kings and heroes in Arthurian legends. It symbolizes evil, incest, violence and chaos, and takes it name from the loud noises that come out of its stomach, similar to the barking of dozens of dogs.

The fairy Mélusine, cursed princess of Albania, was condemned to change into a snake below the waist every Saturday. She married Raymondin de Lusignan with whom they had 10 prodigious children. But Raymondin broke his promise never to see Mélusine on Saturday : he surprised her in her monstrous form, and she left her family forever.

[girldragongizzard]

Our relationship to humanity

OK, to start, there are times where we'll call ourselves human and emphasize that we're human, because humanity tends to use "human" to mean "worthy of respect that no other beings are worthy of." So, essentially, we're using it to mean "we're conscious entities that should be afforded human rights, empathy, sympathy, and all that."

Also, we need to be legally recognized as human in order to be relatively safe(r) in any given country.

And while we're about to say we're not human, we're not saying that we don't have the same responsibilities as humans do while living on this planet. That's really important. We have to recognize where our body came from and the culture we were raised in, and how people are going to react to us. (But the way people have reacted to us is part of what informs this.)

Also, it's pretty clear our body was born from a couple of humans and it shares close enough to 100% of its DNA with humans. Scientifically, our body would be classified as human. But we're going to argue with that a tiny bit.

Now, we know we're not human, and have always known. For a certain definition of "know".

Like, when we were children, in a very young body, being raised by our parents, whenever we said things like, "I am a dragon" we were told by everyone that we were playing make believe and that that was an OK thing to do. And really early in our life, we sort of took that as a truth, because we were learning what words meant by our parents pointing at things and using those words. So, to us, "make believe" was defined as what we were doing.

It's the same thing as being told, "You are a boy," or "You are a single individual" and that single individual boys feel and experience things like you do, when you are neither of those things. Until you learn it is possible to be something else, you take it for granted and define those things by your own experiences.

Also, when you're really, really super different from everyone around you, masking those differences becomes a matter of survival. And some beings who experience that kind of adversity end up telling themselves they are what other people say they are in order to blend in and be safe. We did that. We did that consciously.

We erected a strong barrier between our subconscious minds and our collective consciousness that made it so any one of us fronting would forget what we knew about ourselves subconsciously and accept the party line given to us by the outer world.

And here's the thing. We love humanity. We think it's interesting a fun. (We also deeply hate it, but you can feel both things.) Humanity is one of our big special interests, and learning how to interact with it gives us a great sense of power and belonging. A sense of expertise. A sense of peace and safety. Because it is a matter of survival. But also, so many of our favorite people, friends and family, are human beings.

But we're not human, and never were.

"But how can that be?" you might ask. Or, "What do you mean by that?"

Here's how it works:

First of all, all words are constructs subject to fluctuations in definition and meaning. Context does a lot of that work. And that includes all categorical labels, like "human" or "dragon". It also applies to the words "real" and "actual".

Take "dragon" for instance. It already literally refers to leafy sea dragons, bearded dragons, komodo dragons, mythological dragons of various types, metaphorical dragons (like "you have a lot of dragons to slay"), a drug, etc. It also refers to a kintype and a gender, and both are often different things. Each of these things is a literal, actual dragon, but different from the others. Dragon is a set of homonyms.

We, the Inmara, are literal, actual mythological dragons.

We can fly, breathe fire, use magic, collect hoards, eat cattle, sleep for decades, and all the other things that other literal, actual mythological dragons do. And, in fact, more authentically than they can, because we're not stuck in the pages of a book or the words of a story told by a human. We exist in the psyche of a human-like brain in a way that a lot of other dragons don't get the chance to do for more than a few minutes or hours at a time. And we get to control this human-like body and experience it aging and interacting with the outer world.

Our body can't fly or breathe fire, of course. But we can, within the psyche hosted by our body, or on the pages of a book, just like any other mythological dragon.

But, also, our human-like body is that of a dragon, because it is inhabited by dragons. Our body is a dragon that strongly mimics a human, mostly because it was born from humans.

This works exactly the same way as how a trans woman's body is the body of a woman, and is female if she sees it that way, because she is female. Same thing (we are also a trans girl, so...). But, again, like with so many other people and beings, it's more than that.

Our body and brain do not fit the societal standard of "human being", our body is a literal mutant, and that has had significant consequences.

We have always been sexually incompatible with humans, and unable to breed with them. We have never acted like humans. We have never thought like humans do, only managed a near simulation of it that is a strain. And we are rarely ever treated like a human.

All of those, of course, are things that can be experienced by other marginalized groups to varying degrees, many of which we belong to: intersex, ADHD, autistic, trans, non-binary, women, etc.

It's not the strength by which we claim our inhumanity. But it's certainly a huge factor. We claim it simply on the strength of our identities, just supported by collective lifetimes of experience.

So, the word "otherkin" was coined in the 90s, when we were in high school. We didn't hear it until the 00s.

Our existence predates the word, and we were not an active part of the community that coined it (elves, from what we've read). Of course, beings like us and those that call themselves "otherkin" have existed since the dawn of humanity.

But this twist of history means that the word has always felt like an outsider's word to us. We didn't agree to it. We'll use it in the same way that we use "human", in order to access communities where we'll be relatively safe and amongst similar beings.

There are a bunch of other words like "alterhuman" and "therian" that could work, too, but we have the same relationship with them as we do for "otherkin", with varying degrees depending on their etymology. Like, we're reticent to use "alterhuman" because it etymologically means "different or changed human", and that's not accurate, but we like the community. They're mostly good beings.

We are the Inmara, the alliance of dragons, outsiders, and their children that inhabit this body. And this body is a gyndracomorph, its sex being half female and half draconic (as a sex). Those are the words that have meaning to us as what we are.

[girldragongizzard]

Book for sale!

If you'd like a paperback book of my series, it is now available for order from lulu.com

[girldragongizzard]

Hey, could a bigender transfem get a little help, need money for food if any of yall are willing. It's not like, desperate yet but I know it's gonna be pretty damn tight, if yall could help it'd be greatly appreciated.

blue pay option

[girldragongizzard]

Here's the proposed cover for my book (I really like it myself). The space at the top is for promotional text. And here's the rough draft of the blurb to put on the back (and in the online shop description):

Meghan used to think she was a man. Sort of. She'd had her doubts, but she'd rolled with it as best she could.

She would sit in the darker corner of her favorite coffee shop and watch the staff and regulars interact with each other, drinking her usual cup of drip. If anybody mentioned anything about dragons, she could join the conversation.

She lived upstairs in one of the low income apartments above the shop. Until just a few days ago, when she woke up in her true form.

Now, everyone can see clearly that she's a dragon. And strangely, they're all treating her better, more naturally. Like this is how it should have been all along.

But the transformation does bring its challenges.

And it isn't just her life that's going to change forever because of this.

The whole world must reckon with dracomorphosis, and what it means for survival of life on Earth.

[girldragongizzard]

I'm currently working on a digest sized printed volume of my series of novels.

It's going to be all in one book because I'm at a loss for cover art, but I do have one illustration I can use for the digest.

Pocket sized books might be in order sometime down the line if I can get someone to help with the covers.

It'll be available through lulu.com, and it will be proofread and edited, and at least a second draft and new edition from the original web serial.

But mostly it's for those people who want to help archive my work!

I plan to get it done as soon as possible by the end of the year. So, when it’s ready I'll just share the link!

[girldragongizzard]

This kind of stuff is SO fun to write, too!

In my story, I did introduce a bit of magic in the central transformation that smoothed over recognition and acceptance problems. It was kind of critical to do that in order to have the story I wanted to write.

So, getting a new state ID as a dragon wasn't an utter disaster.

But consider pooping.

When you're a big honking dragon that eats a LOT of ground chuck and seagulls because you're still growing, where do you poop?

Do you think you poop in a toilet?

(I didn't actually write about my final solution to the problem because it's not exactly legal or environmental, but writing about the discovery of the problem was definitely a blast.)

Like, what I'm saying is, don't just write this stuff for your readers. Write it for yourself. It's hilarious fun.

And, also, amazing therapy for any therian.

I wanna see more post tf stuff where you have to adjust to your work with your new form, or try and fail spectacularly. Yeah sure you just got turned into a dragon, but we have this very important business meeting you need to attend. Claws gouging the doors while trying to be careful on the handles, frustrated growls setting off smoke detectors because the printer is being deliberately annoying.

Trying to line cook while you're now a pooltoy and cant grab any handles. Gotta make sure your new robot body is intrinsically safe before we let you work near the grain powder and flammable vapors. Your little kobold legs are so short you can't drive yourself anymore, but its even more of a problem cuz you're supposed to be driving a semi 7 days of the week.

Can you confirm its you anymore when you need to show id? This dog is trying to buy some fireball whisky, but her id says shes a human. "Do you know why I pulled you over?" "Is it because I'm made of slime?"

I need to see the adjustment period

[girldragongizzard]

Epilogue 7: Egg

The burden of being a person is that you can look around at the situation of the world at large, your own circumstances, and the instincts and drives that push you toward certain reactions to that situation, and you know that as a person you have the willpower and agency to make a choice. So you feel the responsibility of trying to figure out the right choice and to push yourself through to do it, even if it's against those instincts and drives. And then you watch yourself follow those instincts and drives anyway.

It's how humanity got here.

I was born in 1974. I was conscious and building memories before Reagan was elected, and I remember one of his debates with Carter. I don't remember it well, but I remember it was important to people. And after that, things got dark and scary.

I was raised during the end of the Cold War, during a time when no one who took it seriously thought it could or would end in any way but nuclear holocaust. And on top of that, I was educated by my teachers and parents about just how imminent and deadly global warming would be.

And then I watched as seemingly everyone forgot about all of that.

But, there are still way too many nuclear weapons on the planet, and way too many close calls with them. And, oh, look, there's that climate change. And the predicted conflicts and genocides as a result of that climate stress have been ramping up for the past several decades, becoming a backdrop a lot of us take for granted. The world's forests burn while militaries bomb the shit out of civilians and cut off their routes of escape.

And, lo and behold, the sixth global mass extinction has begun, and we dragons are, according to the Artists I've spoken to, the final confirmation of it. Never mind that seventy or so species of life form go extinct every day. Gone. No more. Something weird and alarming has happened as a result of the chaos and now the world has us dragons.

Except that we might turn it all around.

When I look back on my life, before dracomorphosis, I don't remember ever thinking that I would have children. I figured I'd die single and unmated. And that if I ever did find a partner, I'd never be able to support a child. I couldn't support myself. And, I had this weird unfounded suspicion I was sterile or something, which I think was an emotion rooted in fatalism and self loathing, really. But, you know, it's hard to have any sort of hope or sense of self worth when you're raised in a world that's obviously been doomed from before the start of your own life and nothing you ever do measures up.

I also certainly didn't see bringing a child into this world as any sort of ethical thing. I resented being alive, myself, and I saw all birth as a profound cruelty.

Though I mostly kept that to myself, because I didn't want to make anyone else feel more miserable for any reason.

I think that when I was freed from my prison of a previous body, my personality did change pretty fundamentally, though. I'm way more aggressive and fearless than I have ever been in my life. Impulsive beyond my own belief. And despite having fewer words, I talk to way more people way more often. I'm outgoing, and I'm enjoying life, and I recognize myself.

And now I'm proud to be having a child.

I feel like I'm making the world a better place by doing it. And I don't believe my child is going to suffer. I think they are going to thoroughly enjoy whatever life they have, in a way I don't think other lifeforms can ever be sure of.

It isn't fair at all. But, it's what I'm doing.

And I may not have even had a choice in the matter, except to eat my own egg after laying it, effectively aborting it. That is an option that did briefly occur to me and repulse me. But, if I hadn't bred with anyone, I'd very likely have produced a parthenogenic clone. Which would have been sort of a disappointment, but I'd still have been so proud and protective of her.

Instead, I got to experience a whole variety of sex this Spring, and then lay this precious, wonderful egg.

An egg with a surprise in it!

And laying that egg was a trip and a half.

It's about the size of my head, and almost oblong. It's nearly cylindrical, with straight but tapered sides, capped with rounded ends. Clearly shaped to roll in a circle, and to have as much interior space as possible while still being able to pass out of my cloaca without tearing anything.

I woke up in the middle of the night to contractions that felt an awful lot like an urgent shit, and I knew I couldn't make it to the outdoors fast enough. It felt like shapeshifting would have just squeezed it out faster. But, then, what started coming out wasn't soft feeling in any way, so I knew exactly what it was.

I stood up and arched my back, lowering my haunches to the ground and looking back between my legs with my head upside-down. And I got to watch it come out!

And seeing my own cloaca stretch like that was weird. Humans who give live birth can sometimes see that kind of thing when viewing it in video afterward. Or, their partners get to watch sometimes. But seeing your own body do that in real time feels like it's extra alarming. The egg came out big end first, and it is quite a bit bigger than a human baby's head. So, there was this red and yellow smeared mottled green surface in the middle of my stretching vent, and it just kept getting wider and wider, and I had no idea how wide it would have to get.

But, what you have to understand is that my haunches are much, much wider than any human's hips now, and my body is bizarrely, magically malleable.

It didn't hurt much.

It felt, at most, like being badly constipated with explosive diarrhea behind it. My gut was cramping and burbling and roiling, and I realized I also hadn't really had the sense of being pregnant before this. I'd just thought the mass was all part of my growth, and was worried I didn't even have an egg to lay. But now that it was moving, I had a sense of where it was and what it had been displacing.

Arching my back like I was doing then felt like it was helping to keep the rotated egg from pressing against my stomach and diaphragm. Which, I'm not sure makes sense compared to other vertebrates, but that's how it felt. And resting my head against the floor made it feel like I had something to push against during a contraction.

And then my cloaca got as wide as it needed to be and slipped around the bulkiest curve of the egg, and my butt went up in the air as the rest of it fell out and rolled to the floor in less than a second.

What followed was that feeling of needing to push more of something out of my gut very urgently, but having nothing there for the muscles to work on. And I felt so much lighter.

And then I really wanted that little sucker and my own ass to be as clean as possible, and I made that happen.

No need to tell you how. Though, it settled my gut to do it.

And now the egg sits on the least used cushioned chair in our living room. Green against green, at least to my eyes.

I put it there, carrying it slowly and carefully in foreclaws, before shrinking myself down enough to go wake Rhoda up and tell her what happened, to drag her out and show her our greatest prize.

That was about a month ago.

I'm not a mother quite yet, but I sure do feel like one.

—

It's a summer evening. I'm digesting three seagulls with the help of some rocks while I watch Joel snooze in the middle of his park. A family is eating takeout dinner at a picnic table near him and the kids keep trying to get up to go over and bother him, but their parents keep telling them to finish their food first. I can't hear them, of course, but their body language says everything.

I'm wondering if Joel would let our child play on him, too.

I also idly wonder if Astraia will teach them how to play D2R and other computer games.

And will Anurak go flying with them and teach them about the spawning habits of salmon?

I have this weird mix of draconic and human child rearing ideals in my head, and I don't know which ones are relevant. And, in part, that's because so much of it gets to be cultural, apparently. The dragons in the Southern hemisphere are each having their own experiences, and it's different by region as well as culture. And really, truly different dragon by dragon.

The draconologists who've started compiling the data have identified a few trends, similar to with human children. Like I said before, dragon whelps mature faster in some ways. But whether they stay with their parents or strike out for their own territories, or mingle with humans or other dragons really varies a lot.

I just don't know what my own whelp will be like until they hatch, so all I can do is daydream and make contingency plans.

And the way that Joel tolerates strange human children really makes me hope he'll do the same for a little dragon.

I know I would. But the more dragons that can socialize with my child, the better for everyone, I think.

And then I hear a familiar voice. One I haven't heard for several years, accompanied by the sound of a couple of children, and two other, deeper sounding familiar voices.

Familial voices.

They're right below me, where car doors are now slamming.

My body shudders and rumbles. And I pull myself closer to the edge of the building, so that I can hang my head over it and look down. My claws sink into the stone trim.

I can't clearly identify my emotions.

I'm maybe startled, excited, scared, anxious, and eager. I feel like when I'm hungry and I see a particularly doofy and vulnerable seagull below me.

But what I see is my sister, her husband, their two kids, and our parents walking toward my coffee shop from their cars.

For a very silly moment, I imagine bullseye targets on the tops of their heads, like that Farside comic with the caption, "How bird's view the world." And my rumbling stutters like a laugh.

I feel a sudden growing affection and a hope that I don't trust is well placed. But they're here!

Why are they here?

Do they even know who and what I am, now? I haven't messaged any of them. I've been too scared.

I can't go down there and appear to them as I used to be. It's the one shape I absolutely cannot bring myself to take. It's not even that I can't stand the dysphoria of it. I just can't do it.

But I know that shouldn't actually matter.

People who know me will always recognize me. It's like a little weakness. A flaw that sometimes comes in handy. Bewildering and strange, but reassuring.

I've gotta go down there.

They're here for me. They have to be. There's no other reason they'd come all the way up to Fairport and my coffee shop. And they look happy, and I need to see them, even if it goes badly.

I push myself away from the edge and pull myself up into princess form to quickly message Rhoda, "My family are here! At the shop! You can meet them!"

Then I message Chapman, too, realizing sie might like to see them as well.

And then I slip into my smaller natural self and leap off the building.

—

Sometimes, as a person, you've got to grapple with your instincts and drives, even as you watch yourself following them, and steer them in a new direction.

Like, making the decision between hunting a living scavenger or eating grass fed beef.

And sometimes, you can call a halt to them. Like, after a long, lovely dinner with the Artist of Being A Dragon where nothing went wrong, you might still be able to decide, "Nope. My child is going to have only the people I love to draw their traits from."

And sometimes when you've made a choice like that, it helps you face the harder things.

Like telling your seventy-six year old parents that you still think of them, even though you haven't said anything to them for years.

You hold the pride of having stuck to your principals in your gizzard, and you digest it along with your seagulls, and it nourishes you as you do the hardest thing you've done since October.

—

As I cross the street toward the shop from where I landed, I can see my family clustered around two of the big rectangular tables pushed together in the dining area. There's six of them, and maybe they're expecting me, so that makes sense. The audacity of them to rearrange the furniture pricks my secondhand embarrassment a little, but I ignore it. Nobody's bothering them about it.

The shop isn't terribly crowded, either.

Nathan is working alone, but I see Bri and Miriam hanging out doing the books on another table near my family and talking to my Dad and Mom.

It's my nibling, Rika, who sees me first, pulling on my sister's sleeve to point me out to her. Emelie lights up and smiles.

Everyone else looks and I get a mix of half viewed expressions through the windows from them, and feel myself under scrutiny. It's too much for me to tell how each person seems to be feeling, and I've never been great at that anyway. But I definitely feel put on the spot in a way I haven't felt since my first interview with the Mayor.

I feel my body stiffen up and start to strut, and I try to make it stop. I want to be relaxed, like this is normal.

I can't really manage it directly, and I feel like various parts of my body are the wrong size or misshapen or something. But I'm not shapeshifting, thankfully. I do almost balloon out to my full size, but I manage to focus on the door handle as my goal well enough to calm down and get there without doing so.

But just before I press the door latch with my nose to open it, I remember something.

I haven't even come out to any of my family as trans.

My hatching and transition was just all so sudden, and then followed by so much stress, I never messaged any of them. At least, I don't recall doing so.

I've daydreamt about doing so. I've made lots of different tentative plans that I've never followed through on.

And I know that, because of Rika, they're probably cool with trans people. Apparently. Now, at least.

But, I didn't communicate. And I should have.

And if they're looking at me now, because of the way the dracomorphosis worked, the way it resonates in the minds of the people who know us, they can already see.

That might explain some of the expressions.

I push down on the latch. And then I push against the door with the top of my head. And I walk inside.

And before I look up, I can already see that my Mom is coming into the lobby, arms out for a hug, looking sideways and the other way to figure out how to do so, and saying something about hoping to see her new grandchild.

I'll need to get my tablet out to tell her that it's too early for that, but that they can all see my egg if Rhoda invites them up.

I do briefly wonder how she knows that much.

—

It turns out that I've been memed.

There've been a few news sites, some of them garbage AI clickbate sites, that have run copycat articles on me, taking words from the Weekly's and Daily's articles. And screenshots of those have gotten around the social media sights I don't frequent. But that Rika does.

One of those articles deadnamed me, because the police did, and a bunch of trans people jumped on that to write corrections, and that got spread around. And that all happened nearly overnight, so it was one of those little corrective memes that Rika first saw. And it still had my deadname on it, so they knew it was me. Then, when they dug a little further, they found a photo of me that the Weekly's photographer had taken and that clinched it for them, and they got excited.

The first thing they told my sister was, "Your sister is trans!"

Not that I'm a dragon, but that I'm trans.

It turns out that being near a billionaire when he gets swallowed by a nightmare, and being the last person seen flying around the sky with him, kind of makes you an icon, apparently.

Weirdly, my Tumblr blog has not yet received the fallout from that. No one's found it yet, except the handful of followers I already had. So I didn't know.

I think, maybe, Rhoda's no bullshit field is still at work, since I also have yet to experience any legal trouble from any of this, either.

Is that also having an effect on the mood of my parents?

I don't know.

Possibly.

They are being way more understanding than I feared they'd be.

—

The hallway in front of our apartment is really crowded with us, and soon, the apartment will obviously be too small. I've been subtly shrinking myself to fit better.

At first, I was deluged with so many questions that I couldn't answer them even if I had taken princess form for the thumbs. Dragon's blood boon of universal language would have helped, but I still don't want it. And I don't want to shapeshift in front of my family yet. I want them to get used to me being truly me, even if I'm now smaller than I was when I first walked in the door of the coffee shop.

Shapeshifting would spur so many more questions, too. So many more.

Nathan had had to intervene, with his strong voice, and remind everyone that I use AAC to talk, and to slow down for me.

Then Rhoda showed up, and then Chapman, and it got a little easier, because both of them could talk for me.

But they both inspired even more questions.

I settled a lot of them by finally remembering this blog, and pulling it up and shoving it in front of Rika, who smirked because they've already been reading it. Natty leaned in to get an eager look, too. And then when everyone else saw my pinned post with the table of contents they realized just how much I'd already written.

And shortly after that, it was decided and agreed upon by everyone, including Rhoda, that they needed to see the egg.

So here we are.

I like to visualize the egg sitting in that quiet, empty apartment in silence just before the flood of humanity about to hit starts filtering in through the opening front door.

As Rhoda unlocks and opens it, the noise of a couple of excited children and their equally excited but hushed parents washes over the space and finds the egg. And maybe the fetus that's inside is already complex enough to recognize a few words. Maybe it knows, somehow, instinctively, that it's about to be surrounded by family.

And then Rhoda pushes the door wide, walks inside just far enough that there's room, and Rika and Natty jostle their way around her and start rushing to the living room. But Emelie calls out to slow them down, reminding them that this is Rhoda's apartment, not theirs. Justin, her husband, apologizes, and Rhoda dismisses it.

"I am so glad to be in the presence of children," she says. "With my cane, I'm not as unstable as I look. And I don't get enough of it. Please, come in."

"It should be safe to touch the egg, if you don't jostle it," Chapman says. "If Meghan and Rhoda are OK with that."

"Yes," I say, feeling apprehensive but wanting that contact to happen anyway.

"I'm OK with it, since Meghan is," Rhoda says.

That quiets the kids down significantly, as they start whispering instructions to each other while crouching down to look at and touch the egg before the rest of us can even see it.

I'm taking up the rear, because I've already seen the hell out of that egg. I shoved it out of my ass. I know what it looks, smells, tastes, and feels like.

And, also, being at the door allows me to guard the entrance, to make sure no rival dragons are coming through it to eat my egg. Not that that would happen here, or in that way. My brain just insists this is a reason, so I let it think it's a good one.

Rhoda stays in the kitchen as she watches my family file by, one eye on the too small tea kettle.

"Don't worry about it," Chapman says to Rhoda. "We've all had drinks downstairs anyway."

"I know," she replies.

And, I make it into the apartment and turn to close the door by the time my parents make it into the living room to see the egg.

There's a pause of quiet. It makes me wonder what they're all thinking. I listen carefully to see if I can catch anyone whispering or something.

I feel a little tense.

Then my Mom exclaims, "It's so small!"

And I turn to face the wall and bonk it with my head. Maybe a little too loud for the neighbors.

[girldragongizzard]

Epilogue 6: Molly

I am so much more calm now that I've laid my egg.

It sits in a chair in our living room, and I think Rhoda feels more obligated to watch it than it actually needs. I keep telling her this, that she needn't fret about it or keep an eye on it. It's secure in her apartment and will be fine. But I think that does go against everything her human instincts are telling her, and I can't exactly convince her to be a dragon about it.

I was going to leave it on the roof for everyone to see, but she would not hear of that.

The thing is, I need to surround it with a hoard, and there isn't really room in the apartment for that.

I'm trying to pretend that all her belongings are hoard enough, but I know that's wrong.

So, while I'm much more calm and centered, and back to my not-horny self, I'm still feeling tense and conflicted as I walk into the coffee shop to distract myself with people and sugar.

I've been practicing my shapeshifting in subtle ways. My favorite thing to do is reduce my size to where I was when I first experienced dracomorphosis. It's very convenient, I can fit through doors, and I still feel like myself. I also feel like I communicate best while being myself. However, I really only do this when I'm planning on going into a building somewhere. And I still can't hold it when I'm unconscious. I take up the whole kitchen now when I sleep. But, this is to say that I've shrunk myself down to a manageable size to visit my friends, but I haven't gone faerie princess or anything else.

It feels a little bit like making the whole world bigger. I've gotten that used to my recent growth.

"It's always wild when you do that where I can see you," Jill says as I enter the cafe. "It looks like you slide away from me for a moment. Or like when they do that thing in movies where they zoom out the lens but move the camera closer? My eyes don't like it much when it's not on a screen."

"Sorry," I say.

"I didn't say I didn't like it much," she smiles. "Oh! We've got a message for you. Like we're a post office or something. The outside of it is signed 'Molly's Parents, Tim and Adelle'."

Oh. Oh, shit. I hope it's not a restraining order or a sternly worded rebuke or something. But it's also been so many months since I encountered her. All of the ideas I can come up with for why they'd be trying to contact me now are Not Good.

But, I'm a dragon who has challenged, faced, and refused to back down from a clearly bigger dragon. And letters are flammable.

I tell myself this in order to approach the counter and slip into a form more suited to opening and reading letters without inadvertently ripping them to shreds, even though I'd rather Jill read it for me.

"That never stops being wild, either," Jill whispers. "Can I get you your yooj?"

"Yes. Please," I say. Then I pick up the envelope and tear it open with a claw-like fingernail, to pull out the letter itself.

Dear Meghan E. Draconis, Our daughter, Molly, has been speaking about you ever since she met you last September. You seem to have made quite the impression on her, and we'd like to thank you for treating her kindly. I have to admit, it has taken both my husband I a while to come to terms with the idea that she might also be a dragon, and that her games of make believe as a dragon were not a fanciful phase. It did not seem like the same kind of serious thing that being transgender is. Even with actual dragons like yourself walking this world, now, it was hard to take seriously. In any case, it seemed like you were very busy with dangerous things. So we have been avoiding your neighborhood ever since, despite how much Molly would like to talk to you some more. However, last month, we left the city to visit Molly's grandmother, Tim's Mom, out in the county. Suffice it to say, the next morning was a bit of a challenge, despite how much Molly had warned us it might happen. She has been paying more attention to the news regarding dragons than we have, much to our collective embarrassment. And she is, in fact, a beautiful little dragon. And we don't know what to do. Worried about the other dragons in the city, Molly has opted to stay with her grandmother for the time being, and we stay there to be with her as much as we can. And we've been following her lead, just as we have done with her earlier transition. However, I think we are all overwhelmed, and Molly is still very much interested in talking to you. Do you think you could pay her, and us, a visit, so that she can ask you her questions? Regards, Adelle & Tim.

The header of the letter includes the county street address, along with a phone number and a couple of email addresses, giving me a choice of ways to respond.

I feel a profound sense of relief that helps me ignore my itch to lavish my egg with riches I really can't afford.

I pull out my tablet and use it to tell Jill, "It's good news. Molly hatched. I'll answer this while I have my coffee."

Jill looks back at me and asks, "You still want it in your big bowl?"

I stare at her for a couple blinks, and say, "Yes."

"Okidoke! Just checking," she chirps, and continues making my drink. "How's the egg?"

"Rhoda is reading it Star Trek fanfiction," I report. "But the egg wants gold. Mounds and mounds of gold."

"Oh, that's gotta be rough. How about you compromise and read it the Hobbit?"

"The egg does not need to know about the Hobbit," I respond. "We do not need to give it an anxiety complex before it hatches."

Jill snorts a little snicker and says, "OK."

We have a bit more of a conversation where I ask her about her plans for school next year, and she tells me what Cerce has been up to since she moved to Seattle.

I hate when the staff has turnover, or when regulars move away. But I know it happens. Humans often have a nomadic inclination, even if I don't really understand it. They are persistence predators. They are used to following their prey into new territories to tire them out and eat them then. I'm an ambush predator. I stay near the shore in this nice little town so that I can dive bomb seagulls and slam steak like shots.

Later, I send an email to Molly's parents telling them that I would very much appreciate a visit. And I give them a list of online resources for newly out dragons, including an invitation for Molly to join my server. I tell them that it is the best way for her to negotiate travel through the city with the other dragons. And I ask them what times work best for Molly.

Then I relax back into my slightly smaller than true form and go about drinking my coffee the way nature intended me to.

—

"Now you've totally got to go meet her," Kimberly says, barely refraining herself from pounding the table and upsetting our tacos.

"Yes. I. Go," I say and then stuff my mouth with food and tilt my head up to swallow it.

"Good!" Kimberly says, then bites down on half a taco.

Nathan turns to Rhoda and asks, "Are you going as well?"

Rhoda shakes her head, "The bus doesn't go there, and Meghan's flying. Someone has to stay home with the child, anyway."

I glance at her, still working on my on my food.

"Mmm!" Kimberly exclaims though her mouthful.

"Didn't Meghan say dragon eggs are fairly independent?" Nathan asks. "I could drive you both."

"Nah. I never met Molly, and I don't really care what Meghan or the internet says about dragon eggs," Rhoda says. "That's my child, too, and I'll take care of it how I see fit." Then she adds, "No offense, Chapman."

Chapman shrugs and says, "No, I get it. I appreciate your lead, too."

Rhoda nods, then says, "Jacob always wanted a baby sibling, so I'm giving him one, and I'm doing it right. Even if that mostly means reading it stories for the time being. People made fun of me for doing that for Jacob, and he turned out hyperlexic, so I think I win."

"Yes," Kimberly says, swallowing. "But Spirk?"

"Listen, girl," Rhoda says. "No child of mine is going to go without their queer history. And it is every child's right to hatch already knowing everything there is about Our Lady Uhura."

"OK. Super fair and reasonable. Forget I questioned it."

"What are you going to tell Molly?" Nathan asks me.

I pick up my tablet and hit it with both thumbs, "'Welcome out.' Of course. Then I will answer questions. Whatever she wants to know."

—

She's literally trans pride colored. More or less. There's some gold and purple there, too, like in her eyes and claws and horns.

Imagine you have an even morph of a fox and a cougar, and then you give her bat wings, horns, and iridescent white fur with blue and pink striped diamonds along her back. Blue on the outside, pink on the next ring in, and white spots in the middle.

And I am not by any stretch the smallest dragon in the county anymore. She's not much bigger than a coyote.

And she bounces and rolls and prances about, whining and growling giddily, as I make my landing on her grandmother's blueberry farm. She can also make infrasonic noises. I think all dragons can.

She's basically saying, "Meghan, Meghan, Meghan, Meghan, look!" over and over again. Then, "We both have diamonds! See?"

I'm not the only one who can understand her, I'm sure. Her body language is pretty obvious. But I'm probably the only one that recognizes the combination of gestures and sounds as actual words.

It's not quite the season to start picking the blueberries, so the work on the farm is minimal, and there's only a couple of people watching from ladders or other farm equipment. The ladders are for a handful of pear and apple trees, and one of the barns.

And then there's her family, all human, as far as anyone knows. Her parents, her grandmother, and someone I'm told is her uncle.

"Hello," I greet her family with my syrinx. And then, I say in draconic, "Molly. Pay attention to me."

She stops her frantic gyrations and asks, "Yes? What?"

"You've grown," I tell her, even though it seems she physically shrank. "It looks like your shedding will be different than mine. Can you understand what I'm saying?"

She just tilts her head in confusion.

Ah, OK. So, she's instinctively shouting what's on her mind in draconic, but she doesn't know how to really read it yet. Simple commands from me might get her attention, but anything complex is maybe something I'll have to teach her somehow.

I'm not sure how to do that, honestly.

So, I turn into my princess self and reach to adjust my purse and pull out my tablet. And everyone's eyes get real big, including Molly's.

Oh, yeah. Not everyone has seen me do that. The news articles may have mentioned it, and I thought the rumor mill would have taken care of the knowledge for everyone else by now. But, seeing it is different than reading about it, probably.

Molly immediately starts dancing again, wanting to know if she can do it, too.

I sigh.

"How do you talk to your parents?" I type into my tablet, and let it speak for me.

Molly stops and holds up her racoon style hands. She has them on her hind legs as well. And now I can imagine her climbing all over everything, and carrying food home with all fours while flying.

And her mom holds up a large phone and smiles and Molly scampers over to her to receive it.

Then she quickly turns to me and swipes out, with a voice that sounds like an anime character, "I can't say words, so I have to use the phone. Thank you for coming! How do you change shape? Can I do it?"

"Hold up," I respond, hitting talk after each sentence, as usual. "First. Thank you, Molly, for allowing me to visit you in your territory. As a gift I bring you what I know. I will be happy to answer any of your questions. I'd also like to talk to your family as well. As for shapeshifting, it is one of my natural defenses. I was taught how to explore it by the Artist of Being a Dragon. They are long gone, touring the world. If you can do it, I can teach you what they taught me. But you might have to take the first step yourself. Perhaps I can try coaching you later." Then I look at her parents and grandmother.

"Thank you for seeing us, Meghan," her Mom, Adelle, says.

"What about moving back to town?" her Dad, Tim, asks.

"There isn't much room there," I tell them. "I believe this is her territory now. I don't think she will want to move."

"Yeah, no," Molly says with her phone.

Her parents get disappointed looks, and her uncle screws up his lips like he's thinking hard about it, but her grandmother appears delighted.

"Ah, we were hoping it could be negotiated," Tim admits.

"What if she learned how to shapeshift like you?" Adelle asks.

"There are always tells," I tell them. "Clues. And everyone who knows me recognizes me. No matter what shape I take. And every dragon recognizes me as a dragon."

"Oh."

"She might be different. We are all very different. But I don't want to mislead you," I say. "Also, I can only hold a shape that isn't mine for a couple hours, and revert if I sleep. If that is the same for her, even if she can truly hide, it will be a risk. But, that doesn't matter. This is her territory. This is where she belongs, and wants to be. It is part of who and what she is."

They both take deep breaths, while Molly looks more excited by my words.

"Have you been making your morning calls?" I ask her. "Have you heard your neighbors?"

"Yes," she responds, bouncing and rumbling a little in her excitement, incidentally repeating her word in draconic.

"When you do that, you're speaking in draconic," I tell her. "We have our own language, and you know some of it instinctively. Those calls tell you how big your neighbor's territories are and where their boundaries are. It's subtle. You are also telling them the same thing about yourself, especially if you know your territory. You unconsciously put it into your call."

She pulls her head up and swivels her ears toward me, saying without typing, "Tell me more."

I turn toward her Grandmother and ask, "Should we go where you can sit?"

"Oh, yes, please!" she says. "Come on inside! Do you like pie?"

"Do you have tea or coffee?" I ask.

"Folgers?" she asks.

"Tea, perhaps?" I try to smile like a human for her.

"Red rose!"

"That would be lovely, thank you." Then I turn to Molly as we start walking toward her house. "I can't teach you how to speak or read draconic. I was taught through magic. But, I think I can show you examples and tell you what I'm saying, and that might help."

—

It's been a long day of hard conversations with Molly's family. I came out in the morning, planning on being there all day, and so I have. I've had lunch and tea with them, and it looks like dinner is on the table for me, too.

It's late afternoon, and the two of us are playing in one of the dirt roads on the farm.

Technically, I'm training Molly while her uncle watches. But it feels like play to me, and I'm enjoying myself.

I'm wondering if I might get to enjoy this with my own child. It's not exactly what I imagined for draconic motherhood, but I want more of it.

It started with me showing her some simple phrases and individual words in draconic, then spelling them out on my tablet or saying them with my syrinx. And then repeating them.

And she took to that very fast. She seems primed to learn how to talk to other dragons. And maybe we all are. It does seem to be an instinctual language that just needs conscious verification that we're speaking and reading it. We do hear it, too, but since it's mostly expressive and gestural it feels like the word "reading" is more appropriate.

So then we started having simple conversations very quickly, which almost immediately turned into a game of chase, because the quickest, easiest things to say in draconic involve chasing, dodging, hiding, seeking, pouncing, and negotiating whether or not it's still a game.

I've shrunk myself down to her size, to make sure it's fair, and we check in on each other a lot. Which means repeating phrases and making them second nature for her.

And then, I throw in something tricky for her. I take the form of a snake and slither right under her, only to appear as a frighteningly huge dog when she turns around, startling her. Then I give her the play pose and wait.

"No fair!" she responds immediately.

"Yes, fair," I reply, bouncing and becoming a raccoon and clapping.

When she tries to pounce on me, I run under her as a rat.

The way this feels is hard to describe, and I expect harder for most people to imagine.

I've studied each of these shapes by watching examples of them, animals, in person, and visualizing what it would feel like to have their bodies. And then, I simply took their shapes, much the same way that I learn how to imitate various noises and calls of other things. My body just seems to know what to do.

And when Molly turns again to face me, I'm my full sized self, saying, "It's easy if you can do it. Hold on. Let me use my tablet."

I'm pretty sure she got the gist of that. So then I walk over to her uncle and hold out my claw for my purse. He seems relieved to give it to me.

And I pull out my tablet and drop it to the ground, to turn it on and knuckle out, "Try human. Visualize what human feel like. Fold yourself into shape. That what it feel to me."

She tilts her head, "How?"

"Do not know. Try," I respond.

Her ears go back flat on her head and she snarls, leaping forward a short distance, crouching at the end of her leap.

"Not like that," I say.

"Hard," she complains.

I think about this for a second.

It looked like she was saying, "no," in the most stringent of terms before attempting it. Maybe she really doesn't want to be human. So, I quickly consider some alternatives, and the quickest that comes to me is a trans girl stereotype and already partially present in her draconic form.

"Try a cat," I tell her.

And it comes so easily to her, she's startled by it and pops right back out to her natural self.

I give her a big draconic smile, and type, "Do fox."

She quirks her head to the side, ears tall, and suddenly she's a fox.

I'm taken aback and very pleased for her.

She's going to be better at this than I am, and she doesn't have any tells that I can see.

[girldragongizzard]

Epilogue 5: The Artist of Being a Dragon

In early May, I guess, Chapman and Nathan got together again at the Makerspace and made me a set of bluetooth headphones I can wear.

Because Chapman is involved, they have a mix of retro-radio and classic cyberpunk styling. They have a cherry wood finish with a gorgeous laser etched esoteric circuit print on them. The metal parts have a rose gold color. And the pads are real leather. And they are weirdly durable. I am unable to scratch them.

Still, Chapman begged me not to take them into a fight.

They're pretty special, because, like my tablet they have an indefinite battery life, and they don't block much outside sound. Wearing them is like having a surround sound system arrayed out on my rooftop, with me in the middle of it. The music can end up being louder than other noises, but if it isn't, there's nothing in particular keeping me from hearing anything else.

Before dracomorphosis, I would have preferred sound blocking headphones, to manage my sensory processing disorder. But now my ears work the way my brain expects them too, and I really need to be able to hear what's going on in the rest of the city. Especially if another dragon is calling out. Especially right now, while I'm still constructing an egg in my uterus.

I kind of feel like "uterus" is the wrong word for that, as much as I like having one. Mine's more of a fucking crucible.

"Fucking" is the operative word there, you know.

Anyway, they did this because several of my humans thought that music would help calm me down and help me bide my time between suitors and other distractions. And, I honestly really appreciate it.

So, then, Kimberly gave me Chappell Roan's "The Rise of Fall of a Midwest Princess" and holy shit. Lesbian music is Like That now?

If you were to reread my trilogy while just listening to that album, I think it would make a pretty good soundtrack and give you an overall better feeling of what it's like to me. Though, I have some other music now to add to it.

Incidentally, I've been listening to that album almost nonstop on repeat, except for when I'm exploring her other music, and going down little pop culture rabbit holes. For instance, a few days ago, I heard her cover of "What's Up?!" by 4 Non Blondes, which I absolutely remember losing my shit to when I was a teenager. So, I had to revisit their music, and that particular album, "Bigger, Better, Faster, More!".

Did you know the lead singer of 4 Non Blondes was an out lesbian while she was singing for that band?

I did not.

I would have thought at least Kurt Loder on MTV would have told me, but nope! I do not remember that happening. Maybe I missed it.

It turns out that nearly every female led band I loved when I was a teen was queer in some way. And also, like, Billie Joe Armstrong of Greenday. What?!

So, anyway, I had a little week of collecting both old and new queer music, and that's my whole playlist now. I've also got Mary Lambert in there. And Karen O and Metric, though I'm not sure if either of them are queer, but they fit in the mix really damn well anyway. Oh, oh, and Halsey's song "I'm not a woman, I'm a god." And then the Nimona sountrack led me to Santigold, and she led me down the path of Black queer artists, and now I've got Jackie Shane and Janelle Monae. And I'm asking Kimberly to hook me up specifically with trans artists.

And she's like, "Darling, I'm in five bands. Here's my Bandcamp."

If I had a bedroom wall of my own, it would be slathered with posters by now.

I've never understood that, but I do now.

We might be headed toward the latest hottest Summer on record, with an utterly devastating hurricane season to follow, and I might be a harbinger of massive evolutionary upheaval during one of the world's biggest and fastest mass extinction events, but humanity sure is showering me with the best music ever at just the right time.

Sorry if that seems like flippant disregard for events that are killing way too many people and other animals, but things are changing. It's not going to turn out the way it was going to just a year ago. The future is different now. And you're part of it.

All of this is to say, though, that on this afternoon I'm listening to that Chappell Roan cover of "What's Up?!" while lounging on my rooftop, giving everyone else a break from my intensity. And my tail is flipping back and forth to the music, kind of like a cat's. If a cat had a little single-horned thagomizer to make a satisfying thump with.

I have no visits scheduled for the next three days, and I'm just letting myself get lost in the music.

I've listened to this song enough, I might be able to sing portions of it. Not as words I understand coming from my mouth, but as music. A sort of whistling that sounds a lot like the instruments, and maybe occasionally the vocals.

I might actually be trying to do that. And it might not sound great to anyone without my headphones on, but I'm alone up here and no one can stare at me or tap my shoulder.

And yeah, some of my neighboring dragons might be complaining occasionally. Or, they're reacting to something, but I've got my eyes closed and I don't care.

And then I feel it. My Artistry sensing nerve gets plucked.

It feels like a chittering skitter, with some snaps and ratchety clicks. There's a rhythm to it that matches the music I'm listening to, and reminds me a little bit of a dolphin and a little bit of Nine Inch Nails. And in particular, I find it soothing. Soothing and energizing.

My muscles want to relax every time it repeats, and I also feel the need to look.

Which I do.

I've already pinpointed where it's coming from, so my head has turned and is tracking the source before I even open my eye.

There's an Artist in the sky.

And like Fenmere, they are a dragon.

Their colors, in the crudest of terms, are green, gold, blue, and brown. But, like, whole gamuts of each of those colors. There are too many words to pick from to describe them. They're almost opalescent in places. It's like if a forest were a sunset with wings, talons, tail, and the most glorious head of teeth, horns, wattle, eyes, and scales.

Holy crud, that face. That pattern of scales!

Have you seen the wattle and jowls of a dragon iguana? Do a search and look. It's like that, but shaped a bit different, because their head is more like a cross between a melanosuchas (a type of really cute caiman) and an ankylosaurus. And I might have more visions of more animals in my head than I've ever realized.

I'm wondering if there's more to it than nearly fifty one years of an intense special interest in dragons and animals that look kind of like us. I almost distract myself from the wonder that's circling me by thinking about this, but I really can't.

If you could just see the flight muscles at work on this creature.

The shape of those claws!

My child must —

I mean.

I don't see any kind of material offering in this person's possession, so they must be here on some other business, Artist to dragon, or dragon to dragon. Or they are mistaken about my willingness to bend on my own demands.

Unless they're carrying it in that generous crop of theirs, and they'll barf it up for me. That'd be —

Um.

This is an Artist, Meghan. Do not fuck with them.

I touch my tablet twice to turn off the music, sort of to irritate myself out of my infatuation, and manage to call out, "What?"

As I do that, I notice that I also jerk my chin up once, slightly gaping my jaw, and slam my tail down on the roof. And I know that that means exactly the same thing as the English word I've just uttered.

"I come, your Highness, bearing the gift of language for you and many enticing traits for your egg to choose from," says my latest suitor. Only, they say it by jerking their chin up twice, chirping and trilling, tilting their left wing down toward me ever so slightly, and wiggling their ass mid flight as they circle.

The "Your Highness" part is just my brain's interpretation of servile deference, and I have to say I react to it as if it is genuine and not at all embarrassing.

But, OK, as I'm succumbing to this rakish drake, I do need to take an aside to address something that's been bothering me. Irking me. In the wake of defeating a very wealthy and powerful white supremacist, it feels pretty gross to be so focused on collecting desirable genetic traits for my child. Even now, I'm reacting to it by thinking about who I should fuck next to compensate, and that's not a charitable way to think about whoever that might be.

Except, look. We're not here to breed a new master race. I do not believe we're meant to replace any lifeforms on the planet. We're here to mix things up, and inject more creative diversity back into all the species of the planet when they might need it the most. I don't know exactly how, when all we can work with at the moment are the more complex and larger animals.

But, like, imagine this. This is just a wild hypothesis I just made up on gut feelings and instinct, and maybe something that's going on between me and this draconic Artist. What if we're not actually changing anything for the current megafauna of the planet? What if what we're doing is actually on the microscopic level, with bacteria and single celled eukaryotes, with fauna, flora, and fungus? All of it? Maybe even viruses?

What if every time we have sex with another creature, we're collecting more than just their reproductive gametes, but also their microbiome? And mixing that with our own?

What if our own microbiomes are as diverse as we are? And spreading and breeding with the rest of the world on that level?

What if my child is to be a culmination of all of the life I've sampled, maybe even eaten, so that they can carry that diversity with them as they go find a new territory?

And you might worry that we might bring new and wildly dangerous diseases, and that might be the case. But we live in harmony with humans now. We are part of your lives and well being. A symbiotic relationship forged in myth and dream. What if, for those of you who are close to us, we're also sharing some of our immune system, because that's what all our microbiomes can be?

Like, all of this is just raw speculation, with no evidence sparking the thought. Just wishful thinking based on horniness and some internal sense of identity and purpose I feel I was born with. And this sex drive that makes me want to fuck everything that's willing.

With a mythological being such as myself, there's got to be a reason for that, and this is what I've come up with.

Maybe I'm lying to myself and to you, but I think we represent the opposite of what the racial purists are fighting for. That's what I want us to be, at least. I want life on Earth to live long and diverse and beautiful, and to explore all the ways it might do that.

But still, for my first time around, I'm restraining myself and focusing on people I can talk with in some way for potential mates.

And by the Shadows of the Moon, this dragon that's cruising around me is using the language of my own dreams to talk to me, and I'm talking back!

"My name is Dragon," they say. "And I am visiting every Dragon Queen to offer myself to her egg and elucidation."

Dragon. Are they the Artist of Being a Dragon? Is there such a thing?

And Dragon Queen? Is that what the whole "queen" thing has actually been about? The term we're going use for this year's egg layer? I kind of like that.

"Elucidate me, Dragon. What do you know?" I demand.

"Allow me to land."

"Do, and prove yourself."

They circle one more time and swing wide so that they can come in straight and slow to land in front of me on the very edge of my roof, giving me as much room as possible. Then they take a few steps forward, bowing their head low, tail and wings high in the air, talons to the ground. Their tail is rigid and shaking, reminiscent of the convulsions of a cloacal kiss.

The royal audacity of them!

"Go on," I say. I could dash my tablet on the sidewalk below and it would not impair my ability to speak with this one. And the only noises we're making are infrasonic to humans and quiet enough that dragons a block away wouldn't clearly hear us.

"My Art is being me, and I am very good at it," they brag. "But I did not fully understand it until nearly a year ago, during dracomorphosis. I have always been a dragon, but I did not know the word for it until it was invented. And I couldn't speak to other dragons until you existed. You have given me the meaning I've been seeking my entire life. And I am here to thank you for it."

"Humans would call you Silvertongue," I observe, masterfully withholding my true feelings behind a mask of indifference, I think. But, ooh, if they aren't lying, that's some valuable information! "Tell me more. But drop the act."

I feel their skittering shift, and then they lick the air with a tongue that is silver colored.

"Like the grandest of stories, I can change my shape to resemble any creature I like. My form is as malleable as your own voice, and so is yours. You can already take another form. I can and will gladly teach you the rest of that skill, and set you on the path to exploring it for yourself," they report. "Also, anyone who drinks a portion of my blood can speak to any animal, including humans. And I am prepared to give that gift to you, should you accept it. In return, I only ask of you to accept my sweetest intercourse, and whichever of my natural traits your child wishes to retain for themself."

"You are very bad at not talking like a courtly suitor," I comment.

"I am a courtly suitor, My Queen," they say, bowing again.

"You are also an Artist, and I've been told not to trust Artists. By other Artists," I say.

"Wise," they admit. "I would tell you the same. I would tell you not to trust me. But you need not. If I offend you at any point, strike me down and consume my body. I will let you."

My body is telling me that I have never heard anything so hot in my entire life. I feel myself going a little crosseyed with it.

I take a very deep breath and let it out slowly through my nose, knowing that even that gesture is an expression that speaks volumes to Dragon, here.

Also, I have to say. As a trans person and therian who has experienced a significant amount of physical dysphoria, this talk of my child choosing their own physical traits from the samples I collect for them? The idea that they could have some kind of agency before they even exist? That's making me melt, even if I don't know if it's true.

I want it to be true.

Still, I feel like I should test this individual definitively somehow. Something to get them to show me their true devotion. I want the dragon magic that they say they can teach me, but if I already have it I can figure it out myself. No, it has to be something personal for them.

But what?

Oh. I know what I need, actually.

I reach for my tablet and use it to message Rhoda. And I make Dragon wait so that I can tell her, "I have a strange Artist here courting me. They call themself Dragon." I look meaningfully up at Dragon, then back down at the tablet and send the question, "May I ask you to judge them in your own way, and give me or revoke your consent for them to court me? I'll take any answer, including figure it out myself. I just wanted you to have a say, if you want it."

After a little bit, I get the reply, "Meghan, that's a lot."

"It is," I reply. "I am a little overwhelmed and about to say, 'yes'."

"Cool yourself, and make them wait," she tells me. "I'm on my way up now. I want to get a look at them."

"Thank you. I love you," I respond.

I get a black heart emoji in return. It's her thing for me when she's too busy to type anything else, and she's being reassuring.

"Wait," I tell Dragon.

"Very well," they reply.

And we both settle down and loaf. They're smiling. I'm not. I'm watching them like they might steal my food.

Then I think, Rhoda shouldn't have to open that hatch by herself, so I get up, keeping on eye on Dragon, and go to open it for her.

I'm well ahead of her movement, of course. She takes the elevator, and I'd expect nothing else of her. But also, she doesn't walk all that fast. And I sit there on my haunches, resting on my foreknuckles, tail wrapped around me, watching Dragon.

Eventually, I hear her cane. And then she softly curses before climbing the ladder, cane clanging against it, and coming into view.

I hold up a limp-wristed claw for her to use as a handhold, and then gently help to lift her out of the hatch, so she can step easily onto the roof.

And she steps forward and hunches over her cane and squints at Dragon.

"Can you talk, or do you need a device?" Rhoda asks.

I feel that stuttering shift again, and then Dragon replies, "I can talk."

"You're too fancy," she states.

"I am the Artist of Being a Dragon," Dragon responds. "How else can I be?"

"Crude. Monstrous. Of the people," Rhoda tells them. She gestures expansively at Fairport, and I know she's indicating my neighbors. "You know. Good qualities."

"Ah."

"Eh," she waves a hand at them. Then she turns and heads back toward the hatch. Stopping there, she looks up at me and says, "This isn't my business. This is dragon stuff. It's up to you."

I expected her to say something like that, but I still feel an incredible amount of disappointment. I don't want our relationship to be that divided, particularly over this. She matters to me, and the impact that I have on her life matters to me. Since I am going to lay an egg and see to it that it hatches, I want that child to be as compatible with her as possible. If she wants nothing to do with my child, that's fine. I just want her to have every opportunity to negotiate that relationship herself! I want her to know that it is her business if she wants it to be.

This breaks my resolve and I feel the need to tell her. Before I can stop myself, I'm stretching to reach my tablet and pull it within talking range to say, "I want this be your child too. If you want."

The look on her face startles me, such an intense mix of emotions, and she asks, "How?"

"Somehow," I respond. "Maybe Chapman help."

She is fully informed by now about how my breeding works. She knows I'm opening myself up to every dragon in town, and why, and she agrees with it. And she knows I've marked myself as not open to humans on my app account. And I've already said multiple times I intend to take all of the childcare into my own claws and mouth. I'll accept help from my family, meaning her and my other humans, but I won't expect it. It should be disappointingly light work, in any case.

She closes her eyes and relaxes every muscle with an exhale of breath, then turns more calmly and looks at Dragon again.

"I can see what you see in them," she says. "I imagine they can teach you a lot, too, of course. And the more we both know, the better." She squints at me with a grim but satisfied smile, considering me in some way, and then points at Dragon and addresses them, "You. Come down to our apartment and have dinner with us. You and I have gotta talk some shit before I let you court my girl, you hear?"

"Yes, Ma'am," says Dragon.

"That's a good start." Then she turns to me, "And you. You shoulda asked me sooner. But I get why you didn't. You were thinking of me and tryin' a give me space, and I appreciate that. But you should know that if you hadn't a asked just now, we'd a had a talk later tonight." She grins, looking really smug. "And it sounds like it mighta gone well anyway."

—

After a long talk with Dragon, I decide I do not want to be able to talk to or understand seagulls, so I forgo that particular offer. Even if it means I won't ever be able to speak a human language fluently, I'm fine with that. I can fully speak and understand draconic now, and people can learn that if they need to.

[girldragongizzard]

Epilogue 4: Mating Season 0.2a

As Spring has developed into a full blown season, Meghan has become downright silly. And it's been fun to watch.

She's been wanting to have boudoir photo shoot done with her as the subject for a while now, nearly since her dracomorphosis. And when she found out that Rhoda took almost all the photos in her apartment, she's brought it up with more frequency. And, why not? It could be healing for her. She spent so much of her life trapped in that human body that was ruled by testosterone, anatomy she didn't vibe with, and all the baggage of the social expectations of being a man, when that's definitely not what she was. A girl should get to feel hot and sexy in a safe way at least once in her life.

And now that Meghan's hormones are so obviously putting her in a certain mood, it was agreed by everyone that soon would be the best time for that photo shoot.

And as Meghan stretches and rolls into a new pose, rumbling like a subwoofer, Rhoda looks down at her phone and smirks.

As much as she misses her old Canon AE-1 35mm film camera and the smell of the darkroom, a good photographer can make any camera sing. And she doesn't hate what her phone can do. It's certainly faster, and a better fit for where these photos are going. It's not, by any means, a good camera. But she knows its limits, and how to take advantage of them. And being able to see your photo right after taking it saves so much work and storage space.

She can delete what she doesn't like immediately, and ends up with a high percentage of good shots.

On the screen is the last photo taken, a closeup of Meg gaping, eyes closed, left foreclaw laid on her snout like a bashful cartoon character reacting to attention. The contours, scales, and spines of the rest of her body create a landscape behind her head, fading into the blur beyond the focal range, engendering a sense of atmosphere perspective. And Rhoda flicks it between the different filters to get an idea of what she might like better. But she saves it untouched for now.

With this pose she wants to start another series of shots that include more of the setting.

See, Meghan doesn't really have a boudoir. She has Rhoda's kitchen. And they did have to talk about this. Maybe six months ago they could have done this photoshoot there, which could have been funny. But Meghan's now too big for that. Rhoda can't fit in the kitchen to take any photos when Meghan is sprawled out in there trying to look all fetching and ready for a dragon. It just doesn't work.

The roof of the building is her other bedroom, and the city as a backdrop would be so fitting, but there's no furniture there. No props. And getting something up there and arranged is just a bit more work than anyone wants to exert for this. Especially since if was left up there it would be exposed to the weather, so they'd have to take it all back down again.

There's a local independent theater troupe that offered to lend them their stage and set pieces, but Meghan wanted something that she associated with herself. And while she's been an avid audience member of their productions, taking advantage of the free community tickets, she doesn't act there, so it didn't seem to fit for her.

And it was right when they were in the middle of talks with Bri and Miriam of the coffee shop, to see if they could use it for a set, when Meghan was hit with that itch on the back of her neck, and Rhoda saw the first signs that another draconic molt was coming on. Certain scales here and there looked dull as the outer layer of skin over them started to lift away.

"Meghan," she'd said, quietly. "Molting is a bit like stripping, you know. And your scales look particularly gorgeous right afterward. Why don't we go and do the photoshoot in the alley right now? It's definitely one of your more private places, even if it's not yours."

And so, that's where they were, with the molting kit and everything.

Instead of eating her skin right away as it was peeled off, Meghan agreed to let it sit about here and there as part of the backdrop. It didn't come off all in one piece, or even significant sheets, like a snake skin. But the pieces were large enough to provide interest in the background, and to turn the ground around her into sort of a bed of flakes.

And the greatest fortune was that this shed had started in the mid afternoon and had progressed through sunset, so there'd been a variety of light to work with.

When the twilight of the alley had obliterated any shadows, Rhoda got to work on helping Meghan finish up the shed, cleaning the last irritating bits of dead skin away.

And now, in the darkness of the night, the streetlights were casing a new kind of glow and set of shadows throughout the alley. And Meghan has become downright prancy.

The fact that she's on her back, struggling to remain still enough for photography, stretching her muscles as slowly as possible and taking some direction on what to move to catch the light just so, is clearly a testament to her willpower. And probably short lived.

Rhoda kneels down to get a quick shot over Meghan's shiny belly scales, a bit of her gleaming knee and her twisting tail, and taps her finger on the dumpster in the background, so that Meghan is hazy and twinkly in front of the comic page grunge of the nighttime alley, bricks of the building wall stretching up through the frame. And then a second photo focused on Meghan.

She steps back a few paces to get all of Meghan in the shot, then, with the flaky ghostly white remains of her old skin around her, adorning the stains of the alley pavement, next to months old gum splotches and a cigarette butt smashed flat by Meghan's gyrations earlier.

"My dearest girl," Rhoda says then. "You are nigh well climbing the walls. Why don't you go ahead and do that for real? Over there, near the corner of the building! We'll get you silhouetted against the street light. And then from the outside with the alley behind you."

By the time she's done talking, Meghan has already scrambled to her feet and bounced over to the corner of her apartment building and is quickly clawing her way up.

“Ok, stop right there, like that!” Rhoda calls. “And let me get over there to get a good angle.”

As she makes her way, she realizes two things. One, a really fantastic angle would be from directly below, with Meghan looking back over her own haunches. And two, Meghan’s claws are capable of sinking a full inch into rock and brick. She’s damaging the building by climbing it.

—

Back in November, someone in Chili made a dating app for dragons and named it exactly the same thing I would have named it. Mating Season.

It's still in alpha, but there's been some updates, and it's not too terrible.

It actually allows humans and other species of people to use it, too. You just have to agree that by setting up an account on it that you are agreeing to be courted by a dragon. There are some filters for region, and a territory map with a dispute resolution chat.

It needs a lot of work. But it was clearly started by someone who recognizes therians. The inclusion of other species isn't just about anticipating other mass metamorphoses. Though, it does seem hopeful for that, too, even though nobody I talk to thinks it's likely. Not without some massive cooperative Artistry. The dracomorphosis is a dragon only thing, but people are working on it. On the app and other transformations.

I'm very nervous about using a dating app. Especially when it's more of a mating app. It's just a kind of scene I know shit about.

But, fuck, I have never been this horny and excited for this long before. The whole season feels like fucking Christmas, and everyone is a present I cannot wait to unwrap.

It's amazing to me that I've been able to keep my flirting with Rhoda to the minimal half dancing I've managed.

But, I know her and where she's at emotionally, and I don’t want to push the idea of adding her DNA to my first child. Her offering to take hopefully sexy photos of me for my Mating Season account is plenty wonderful and meaningful.

But. I can't stop thinking about how excited I'd be to help her have another child. And also trying to figure out how we could even make it work.

In theory, if we can get an egg from her inserted up into my reproductive organs, my body will take care of the rest. It can dismantle the gamete of anything and pull useful DNA from it, according to every relevant Artist who's scanned me or another dragon. It's just what we dragons can do. It's maybe why we exist, originally.

Humans gave us more meaning than that over the past few million years, though. Which might be why we all have trouble seeing them as a separate species a lot of the time.

Anyway, I think if I write too much more about this, I'll make myself a target of prudes and purists. If I haven't already.

And, you know what, screw them.

I'm actually hoping to get myself several draconic mates, but I'll settle for one. And what the Hell is wrong with me?

I have never understood physical attraction. The way that most of humanity has gone on about getting wet or cumming in their pants at the sight of someone hot, and having lists of celebrities they get to fuck even if married to someone already, has just always baffled me.

Like, having a life partner or three? Yes, please! Finding out what sex is about? Sure. Lots of naked cuddling and sleeping together? Absolutely! And I've certainly had some physical preferences for those things that I never actually got to test.

I've literally dated no one. And if you'd ever asked me what I'd like in a partner, it'd have been a list of personality traits. Completely. And most of those traits would match Rhoda and Chapman.

Most importantly, I've never daydreamt about having sex with someone else before. No one in particular.

Oh, I've had my sexy time daydreams, but they were, uh, well… I might be about to fulfill most of them now, if I'm lucky, I guess.

Because, like, right now, if Anurak, Joel, or Astraia came dancing on my block, I'd do any one of them. Astraia particularly, but I'm not feeling ultra picky.

I have my family. Right now, I'm looking for how to fill my egg with strength. And while I have a strong emotional preference for fellow girls, my sex drive is utterly indiscriminate.

OK, another thing.

Apparently, not all of us dragons yearn to lay an egg this year. It's maybe one in twenty-five of us, while the others seem content to sit it out or contribute DNA to someone else's egg.

This played out in the Southern Hemisphere last year, and us Northies are now experiencing the same thing.

The result in realizing this is that since I feel the yearn to get broody, I feel an urgency about it, too. I am going to lay an egg, my body tells me, with another parent or not. And it better damn well hatch! Because it might be 25 years before I feel the need again. Maybe.

So, this is what I'm thinking about while clinging to the wall of my building, claws slowly sinking further and further into it, muscles vibrating.

It seems daunting. Chapman did the math for our local population, and depending on how fast whelps mature and whether or not they stick around, we could be seeing upwards of 133 dragons present in Independence County by the time I feel the urge to have a second egg (assuming it takes that long for me). That seems like a lot? We feel really packed in at around 50 or so. Of course, there's some room to expand out in the rural areas and the wilderness, if anybody is willing to move. And our children may wander out that way. Though, we also know that some dragon therians are doing that already, hoping to undergo dracomorphosis, and often succeeding.

Nobody really knows how many dragons the Earth can sustain. It's not so much a problem of food supply, no more so than for humans, where that's a problem mostly caused by capitalist hoarding for price gouging and profit. It's more our territorial nature.

You'd think our instincts would adapt to our population density. But, then, maybe they have, and that's why I'm the only dragon in the Southside that's gearing up to bear an egg.

Anyway, based on what's happened elsewhere in the world, I think I can expect my egg to come out sometime in June, and to hatch sometime in late August. Which, in olden times, would be just in time for harvest. So, human support of their local dragons could include a variety of food, including slaughter of elderly livestock.

But, then, whelps, or infant dragons, are not terribly dependent on their parent. Within a month, they can typically hunt on their own, but they'll also learn to depend on anybody offering them food. And none of the new generation are particularly old yet, but we know that most of them have learned to understand a number of words. Some can already imitate sounds and some language, even. It really, really varies, of course, but there are so many other trends we can see, too.

For instance, I know that if I mate with mostly humans, my child can come out looking almost entirely human. It should be possible with two humans even, making me sort of a surrogate mother. It depends on what my body wants to do. And while there are a handful of dragon parents who've reported that they could consciously decide what their baby was like, most didn't or couldn't. And scientists and dragons alike are still doing the numbers to try to figure out what the natural influences might be. The speculation, or hope, is that it's somehow based on what the local ecosystem needs. That would be cool.

But, the few dragons who've had mostly human babies had to help their children hatch, and they were the equivalent of preemies. They got enough draconic DNA and whatever metaphysical inheritance we have to offer that they're doing fine and growing fast, but it's a concern.

There are two humans I'd accept for mates, and one of them is only nominally human, and I think we'd need medical assistance in making it work between us. But, as I said, I'm looking at mating with at least one other dragon.

My profile on Mating Season 0.2a so far reads:My name is Meghan Estragon Draconis (she/her) I live in downtown Fairport WashingtonYou know who I am. And if you don't, you can look me up.I will be laying an egg this year. If you want in, bring a steak, a seagull, or sushi, and be polite and respectful. I'll return all favors that I like. Please RSVP.(I'll be uploading photos soon. You know, to brag and entice you.)

Ah, Rhoda's waving that she's done. Next step is to go up to her apartment for tea and to review the pics.

—

So, this is what I look like!

I mean, I've seen myself in enough mirrors and windows now, and by just turning my head and looking down at my body, that I've got a pretty solid idea of how I appear and how my body is built.

But there's something about seeing a photograph that your own very skilled partner has taken. Never mind nearly 200 of them.

I think I've described how my body looks and works in terms of comparisons to other animals before. I don't think those comparisons are completely off, particularly in how my snout, jaw, and brow really do look like some photos of caimans I've seen. But when you do things like add in the larger cranium, dragon eyes, and the goat horns it really changes how it all looks.

And I've got this little hole at the front of my mouth where my tongue comes out, like a lot of snakes and lizards have, and I think it's the most adorable thing. I think if another dragon had that, I might not be able to resist their advances even if they were an asshole.

Well, I can draw a line at people like Säure pretty easily, still.

But anyway.

Rhoda got this one photo of me bounding down the alleyway, looking over my shoulder at her, wings partially spread, tail whipping in a little corkscrew. I can even see the toe beans of my right hind foot. My scales are sparkling in the streetlight, my back spines casting stark pointy shadows across them.

I see myself.

I remember doing that.

I can put my mind back in that moment, and feel where my limbs were and what I was thinking.

I remember hoping she'd chase me through the streets of the city, but knowing she couldn't really do that.

And I wonder.

When other people look at photos of themselves, especially cisgender humans, is this what they experience?

I think I love myself.

I think I love being myself.

I think I love being alive now.

And I think that, for the very first time in my life, I won't feel ashamed to bring another being into this world.

If there's a chance they'll feel like this, it will be worth it.

[girldragongizzard]

Epilogue 3: The Fenverse

"People say that my experiment failed dramatically," Fenmere the Poet says to me as we watch the proceedings. "But those that do weren't there. And they fail to acknowledge the beneficial repercussions of what the Harmless Free Radicals did. But, of course, I never finished the comic, so there's no record. Still…" She gestures at the two Artists working to restore the wooded wetland of her old vacant lot.

I've read what remains of that comic, what's left online, and I really can't see how it was part of anything big. There's very little that's special about it, and it's messy and weird. But, then, the outward appearances of the works of the Artists are often like that.

What I can see now, however, is that Chapman is crouched down working with Scilla the Botonist, quietly and carefully, murmuring in low relaxed tones. I am, in fact, in the presence of three Artists and they are not bickering, arguing, snapping at each other, or otherwise showing any sort of friction between them. And that is profoundly, disturbingly unusual. And nice.

This work started with the new year, actually. Every month, Chapman and Scilla have made their rounds to each of Säure's burn scars, and started prepping them for a year of intense, planned but wild growth. It only took that long to get started because they had to form the business and strike up a contract with the city to do the repairative work instead of someone else. Though, that was helped along thanks to certain connections I'd already established, and a few strategic pieces of poetry by Fenmere.

This is my first time going along for the rounds, though, so Fenmere is bragging to me about what she's done to make this possible.

I'm genuinely interested, of course, because this is Fairport and Artist history, though I was even alive for a lot of it.

"I was the first, you know," Fenmere says. "This is why I've called myself 'the Worm' for so long. A reminder of my first form, but also of how lowly we all truly are. A reminder to myself to be humble, though I'm still very terrible at that." She looks at me for a moment as if to see if I'm about to react to what she's said, but I'm afraid I'm a disappointment to her. She continues after a breath, "I got to see the hatching of each of my siblings, and watch them grow with the help of the others in a way I didn't get to experience. And almost immediately, there was fighting. We've never all got along. Too many differences."

"Ah," I say.

I've been constantly working on my vocabulary, but I seem to be coming to the limits of it. So, I've started collecting noises that are as versatile as possible. The various grunts of acknowledgement that English speaking humans use to keep a conversation going. It seems that I can learn to imitate an unlimited number of noises, really, but only remember a small handful of them as words. So when I practice and use a new word for long enough, my memory of a less used one will become less available when I need it. I'll never talk like a human without my AAC, and I'm totally OK with that. Often, I prefer it.

"Now I know what people like Säure and his ilk say about us Artists. I know they call us the Architects, or other terms and phrases of similar provenance and intent. And that my work, my Fenverse, must seem like playing into their expectations," the Poet explains in her strange, rough, lispy voice, mouth opening a minuscule fraction to let the air and sound from her syrinx escape, her nostrils doing most of the work. "But, I don't give a flying shit about them. Whether we're talking about ants or gods, cooperation is better than eternal conflict. And the world really has seen too many eons of chaos as it is. I think it is high time for some more harmony. Don't you?"

"Yes," I agree.

She gestures with her right claw at the ground of the land surrounding the creek, which gleams in the morning sun, and says, "When they are done planting this round of seeds, I'll bless the lot with some of my words, and we'll be ready to go to the next location. This should never have happened. But we can bring it back to its original half-assed glory of municipal environmental posturing within the year, and to something much better by the next. The raccoons and deer will love it!" She turns to smile at me, eyes doing the same slow blink that I do. "Of course, the Earth needs far more work than this. And if something isn't done soon, this lot will burn down again in no time. But I think with how us dragons have turned out, and how we may be shaping humanity and the world itself in ways that we Artists could never achieve, there should be some hope!"

I bob my head.

"But I am still inordinately proud of what I did," she mumbles. "The Fenverse was probably my greatest work."

"How?" I ask, happy that that word bubbled up in time to use it.

"Did you know that not all poetry must be written or spoken in words to be considered poetry?" she asks me.

"No," I reply, honestly. That sounds like bullshit.

"It is true," she says. "I've been composing poetry since billions of years before language existed, so I should know, of course. In any case, it was simple. I used the ridiculous shenanigans portrayed in my comics to lure representatives from the various cliques and factions of my siblings. And then, when all the important players were here, I bound them in a poem, the Fenverse. And despite what they think, it worked. I was so cunning, I disgust myself."

As I said, having read the comics myself I still find that hard to believe. But, again, Rhoda once said that the Artists are like the scientists to the ants that are the rest of us. And I certainly know that the Artists can Do Things. Chapman, for instance, can draw a few careful lines on a paper cup and turn it into a megaphone. Or with a few different lines, and a hole in the end, it becomes a small jet engine. So I don't discount anything Fenmere is saying, as hard it as it is for me to emotionally accept it.

—

Way back. Thursday, October 24, 2002, if I recall correctly.

The new coffee shop finally opened its doors where the old Donut Kitchen used to be. The sign on the brick column in front of the door had the business' logo as big as a child. And it was a child. A cartoon of a black haired girl holding a huge steaming cup of coffee.

I was the first customer. I'd been checking their "opening soon" sign every day to be sure I remembered the hour correctly. 6:30 am, October 24.

It was a different set of owners at the time. They'd eventually sell the place to their employees, after starting their own roastery. All such good people, even if they occasionally had their differences.

That day, I put up with the company of others to start a line at the door at five o' clock. And the owners, who were staffing the counter that morning, were bewildered and delighted by the enthusiasm of these five people, as if they found themselves hosting a rock show with first come first serve seating or something. I don't know why, but when the doors opened, the other four people stepped aside and insisted I go first.

I was wearing New Balance shoes from K-Mart, a pair of jeans I found at Good Will that were a bit too baggy and held up by a belt my grandfather gave me, and a huge gray hoodie. The biggest hoodie I could find, hood up, with my beard poking out from it. There was a crumpled up collection of dollar bills in my fist in the pocket.

This was before I'd become fully disabled. I think the job I had at the time was at a record store. It wasn't going well. The boss was a high strung anal-retentive dick.

Look, I've never really used words like that to describe anybody before. It's not my style. But there really isn't a better way to describe this guy.

I'd already put myself on the waiting list for the Magnolia apartments, though. I think I knew where I was headed already.

Anyway, I did not look or smell like someone anyone should give deference to. But for the brief few seconds, I was treated like a lady, and it hurt in such a good way. And I'm sure none of the people there knew or would have guessed why.

I ordered a cowboy cookie and a double tall mocha with no whipped cream, and then immediately saw my favorite seat, off in the far corner.

The golden upholstery, high back with wings, and deep shadows of the twelve buttons punched through the padding all called to me, but the location was the best part. I could watch the whole cafe from there, and the parabolic array of my hood would channel sound from the front into my ears.

So that's where I was sitting when the wild haired, goateed person in a navy blue trench coat walked in, shoving their hand deep into their satchel to pull out a stack of neon orange quarter page handbills. They were so excited. And, now, I know that most people looking at this person would have gendered them a man, just like what they would have done looking at me. But, I know better now, so I'm using they/them in retrospect, even though their name is a stereotypically male name.

I really don't know many enbies named Jonathan.

After placing their order, and introducing themself, which they did with excruciating politeness and care, they pushed their stack of handbills forward on the counter and said, "I'd like to ask if it's OK for me to distribute these weekly comics here. They're kinda weird, but my friend draws them, and we both thought this would be the perfect place, because your logo looks like one of her characters!"

Both owners of the shop leaned forward over the counter to look at the sample of the comic, Andi up on her tiptoes in order to see, and Henry leaning in sideways, hands busy wiping down a freshly cleaned mug.

"Oh, yeah!" Andi said. "These would be great! We'd be honored to carry these!"

"Oh, sweet. Thank you!" Jonathan said, then took most of the stack and turned to put them on the windowsill near the counter. "Is this a good spot."

"You bet," Henry said.

Then Jonathan, waiting for their drink with hands in pockets, looked my way and pulled a hand out to wave.

I guess I waved back.

They grinned, then kept looking around the shop in awe of it.

The decor was the same back then as it is now, but the colors of the walls and ceiling were different. With the new owners came a fresh look, but still in the same basic "actually the Victorians really loved color" theme. The fixtures and collection of strange glassware in the windows have remained. The glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling were added much later. They were absent when Jonathan took in the place.

Walls the color of milky coffee were trimmed with golden orange molding, and the ceiling was an amazing yellow. The furniture and counters were painted in a circus rainbow of reds, blues, greens, yellows, and the occasional purple. The radiator was painted a dark russet.

"Great Scott, I love this place," Jonathan said.

"Thank you!" Andi exclaimed, handing them their drink in a to-go cup.

Then Jonathan left.

Andi shot me a smile before returning to her place behind the counter.

The other four customers who had been waiting with me outside the door were also scattered around the shop, and had watched the exchange. One of them stood up to go look at one of the comics. I watched them flip it over and read something on the back, then put it back down, grunting. Then they left.

After a couple of hours, I was the only customer in the shop, so I got up to see what the fuss was about.

The comic was titled Harmless Free Radicals and was marked as copyright 2002 by Fenmere, the Worm. It was printed in thick black toner on this Astrobrite card stock, four up and then trimmed into these little handbills. This one had only one panel. It was a scratchy cartoon of a girl, a lot like the one on the shop's logo, sitting on the floor next to her bed, with some kind of little dragon made entirely of shadow perched on her bed looking over her shoulder. She was holding a set of the comic handbills.

"More cards?! How? I thought they came out once a week! It's only Thursday!" the little dragon exclaimed. I felt like I could hear her voice.

"Shush! Stop breaking character! We have to maintain a suspension of disbelief in order for this to work," the girl replied in low tones, I imagined.

There was a url. It was a webcomic in the early '00s. Of course self-referential meta fourth wall breaking bullshit was totally in at the time. Well, all the webcomic authors seemed to think it was a hit.

—

After an hour or so of listening to Fenmere talk about her big scheme, her Fenverse, I'm maybe ready to say more than just a word here or there.

During a pause in her speech, while she's busy observing the work of her siblings, I turn and plod my way over to the sidewalk and pull out my tablet to put it on the concrete. Then I look at her and wait for her to notice. She has fully forward facing eyes, like a human's, so her peripheral vision isn't as great as mine.

"So, in any case," she starts saying and then looks over to where I was. Then she notices where I am and how I've pulled out my tablet. "Yes?"

"Ian and Brenna starred in comic," I tell her. "What about Ink and Jenifer?" Ink was the little dragon and Jenifer the girl.

"Oh, yes," Fenmere says. "Everyone in the comic was a real person who lives today. Though, Ink is Jenifer's imaginary friend. She's sort of a special case."

"And Jonathan?" I ask. "They aren't a hampster."

"Oh, yes they are," Fenmere says.

"Like Kimberly a poodle?" I ask.

"Oh, beans, no," Fenmere chuckles. "That's 'Hamster, with a capital 'H' and an apostrophe before it. The cartoon was a liberty to throw people off, but Jonathan is from Bellingham. A Bellinghamster."

"Bellingham? Where that?" I ask.

"Somewhere else," Fenmere says. "It's unimportant now. In any case, as I was saying, in order to make the whole thing work I had to bind Fairport in the treaty as well. It's inherently part of the alliance. So, when my siblings come here, there's a minimal amount of trouble they can cause each other. And when I'm present, it's peaceful."

"Wait," I say.

"Yes?"

"You started comic in 2000?"

"I did."

"And you finish in 2015?"

Fenmere cringes and says, "I stopped in 2015. The Fenverse was completed then, but not the comic. I'll always regret that, but there are more important things to do now."

"What is Fenverse?" I ask, even though she sort of already explained it. I want a more detailed description. Something's itching at the back of my mind.

"My entire life's work," Fenmere says. "A poem written with the fabric of reality itself, where my siblings are the words, and this city, Fairport, is the signature. I had to use the inherent magic of humanity to make it work, though. Other people, other animals, would have eventually sufficed. Humans were just lucky enough to put together the right mix of dreaming, beliefs, and science, I think."

"Why Fairport?" I ask.

"Because I was here at the time," Fenmere replies. "It's nothing that special, except maybe it tends to isolate itself from the rest of the world too much, and lies to itself about its own nature. Like a lot of small cities across the world. So that isn't all that special, either, just the right properties for what I needed. Also, I like the coffee here."

"Are people of Fairport part of Fenverse?" I prod, getting to the crux of my itch.

"Oh, I suppose yes, they'd have to be, since the city wouldn't exist without them," she responds, looking up in the air at something in her mind.

"I bound by Fenverse," I say.

"You were here, so yes," she says.

"Rhoda bound by Fenverse," I point out.

"Oh."

I get up and walk away. I've got some thinking to do.

I think I'm going to want to compare notes with Chapman, when sie is free to think about this kind of thing. And I want to figure things out more clearly before I talk to Rhoda about it. And, I also wish I was in better touch with Ptarmigan. There were a bunch of things the Artists were doing when we were fighting Säure that didn't have obvious effects, and they didn't explain what happened. I feel like the same thing is going on here with the Fenverse, whatever it really was.

More particularly, I think the Artists aren't always fully aware of the side effects of their Arts. Or they don't care.

I have no idea if it could be true, but Fenmere's exclamation when I pointed it out seems to indicate it's a distinct possibility.

If Rhoda and I are part of the same enforced treaty that was meant to bind all of Fenmere's siblings to some sort of harmony and peace, maybe that was a force in the way the dracomorphosis unfolded. It might be how Rhoda became the Bellwether, or the Dreamer.

Because right about the time Fenmere was putting the final touches on her life's work, a poem that was billions of years in the making if we believe her, Rhoda was freshly grieving the loss of her child, Jacob. Only a handful of years into that grief, at most. Not a perfect coincidence, and other people in the city must have been grieving things. But still.

I'm not sure it's relevant in the grand scheme of things, though, besides giving Fenmere something to think about. To bring her up short next time she's doing something that big.

Things still happened the way they did, and a bunch of other things that were going very badly have started turning around.

I'm not sure anyone would really want to risk rewinding things and doing them differently, even if we could do that.

I know I don't.

[girldragongizzard]

Epilogue 2: Valentine's Day

The afternoon walk from Fairport Communications Company inc. (Printers) to Meghan's coffee shop is meditative today.

The sky is mostly blue, with those smallish clouds that look like cartoonists had something to do with them. And, that means that in about an hour and a half, when the sun sets and starts turning things pink, the whole sky is likely to become a trans pride flag of sorts for a moment.

Everything feels light and relaxed. Even the birds, which are usually fighting with each other over scraps, or dodging a particular dragon, are chill and just chatting with each other.

There is a moment of absurdity, though, when Chapman comes within three blocks of Mandy's Botanical Hand Basket, which mostly sells flowers. The thick flow of almost entirely cis het men to and from that shop is almost identical to the behavior of ants, as if the shop is the colony. With just a few things reversed, since they're taking bouquets away from the central location, rather than to it. But most of them are following the same trails as the others, because there are only a few parking lots nearby, and all the street parking is full.

Upon first seeing this phenomenon, which sie has definitely seen many times before, Chapman can't help but stop to watch it.

Courting rituals are an ancient tradition across all the species that exhibit sexual reproduction. And, really, Chapman has seen it all. But there is something about experiencing this particular ritual while also inhabiting a human body, especially one that isn't obligated to participate on either end of it. There's this weird mix of feelings. The feeling of, "this is what my people do," combined with the feeling of, "they don't want me to be a part of it," and, "thank Entropy I'm not!"

Because of hir experience of recently growing up in this culture and in this time, Chapman hasn't been immune to the socialization surrounding Valentine's day in any way. Sie remembers first experiencing the day when buying mass printed cards for all of hir classmates in first grade. Sie also remembers receiving flowers from a boy as a senior in high school, despite the fact that sie had already come out as asexual and non-binary at the time. But, sie has always been seen and treated as an outsider to it by most people, and knew that hir developmental path as someone inhabiting a human body would be one that deviated from the norm.

And as sie stands now, no cis het man is likely to feel obligated to buy hir flowers or chocolate, and none of hir partners have expressed a desire to receive them.

Though, Meghan, being a dragon, will almost certainly always appreciate a gift of some sort. She hasn't talked about that much, but every time someone has given her a gift, Chapman has noticed a particular gleam in her eye and a restless resettling of her posture that indicates some kind of excitement. And it's totally within the history and makeup of dragons to yearn for gifts.

The problem is that Meghan doesn't really have much space to keep anything. So most gifts for her work best if they're food, or consumable in some way. But Rhoda's apartment would probably have room for flowers.

Huh.

Chapman wonders if sie is seriously considering participation in the activities of that throng of compelled men over there.

Flowers really would be a good idea. Meghan is a trans woman, after all, still within her first year of coming out. She should get to experience that. If the flowers have any sort of a scent, she's going to find tasting it on the air interesting. And, again, Rhoda will appreciate them, too, probably. Probably.

Sometimes, flowers are really a bother, or feel pointless. But Rhoda will almost certainly understand even if she doesn't care for them herself.

But maybe not chocolates.

Maybe…

Sushi.

Oh.

That would be another bouquet of scents for Meghan, and a kind of food that would be easy on her digestive system and full of nutrients. And it might be closer to what her body needs than what she's been eating lately. That tail barb has always struck Chapman as something useful for catching fish.

And a sushi party would be so good!

Hm.

OK, fight for the flowers first, then grab sushi from the Co-op on the way to the cafe. It'll make hir late, but then it'll give hir a chance to mix it up with the guys, which should be amusing.

Chapman straightens the skirt of hir heart print dress, adjusts hir waistcoat, then flicks the brim of hir top hat, and steps into the fray.

—

Rhoda's been in and out of the shop all day, checking in on people she knows at times they're usually there. And Kimberly has just not left the place, even though her shift has been long over.

The girl is practically melted in her seat against the wall and draped across a third of her table, with hooded eyes and the kind of relaxed grin of someone stoned and amused by a particularly complicated dust mote. But as far as Rhoda knows, she hasn't popped outside for a smoke. She's been in that spot, in that pose, ever since she clocked out and flopped there, apron still on.

Occasionally, someone will ask her how she's doing and she'll say, "Yes!"

There's an untouched to-go cup full of cappuccino on the table near her right hand.

Now, since Meghan has extended her rounds to include the territories of her favorite neighbors, she can be expected to be gone until late afternoon. And she'd said something about trying to return around 4:30 to meet her and Chapman, which is why Rhoda's here now. But neither dragon nor Artist have shown up yet.

So, after ordering and receiving her tea, Rhoda chooses to sit at Meghan's favorite table, facing the door, which puts her right in front of Kimberly.

Then she looks slyly over at the off-shift barista and observes, "You've been like this for two days now."

"Woof," says Kimberly. And then she breaks into uncontrollable soft giggles that jerk her whole body just a little bit.

It was a full moon the night of the twelfth. So, for the whole time that the moon was visible in the sky, Kimberly got to be a big poodle. And from what Rhoda understands, she just spent the whole time lying around her apartment because she forgot to arrange for someone to come give her a walk or something. But clearly that was just wonderful.

"So, that was a good choice for you, then?" Rhoda asks.

"Oh, yes. I think so," Kimberly says, without moving or opening her eyes any further. "I do think so."

Although she herself does not understand the need to be a dog, even for a short time, or what it's like to be a dragon, Rhoda finds herself wanting to cry over it anyway. In happiness for Kimberly, and in sadness for those who won't get the chance to be their true selves. But, here in public she chokes that back, and says, simply, "I'm so glad."

Watching the world become this new thing, a place where the secret, the spiritual, the soulful, and the fantastical can become something physical in a way that was never, ever before possible, has been a powerful experience. One that shakes her heart deeply, every day. And, even though she's somehow supposedly the catalyst for this transformation of reality itself, she somehow feels more like an observer. An auntie watching her nieces and nephews coming of age and reaching for the stars and actually grabbing them successfully.

And she thinks she is really so fine with that, honestly.

She really can't wrap her mind around the idea that she's the incidental center of it all. She'll take the protection that offers, but she's not sure she can ever fully believe it. Better to be a person amongst people. And if everyone else is more relaxed and happy because they get to be who they are, so much the better.

It's nice, and maybe today can be another good one.

And then Nathan has to have the audacity, during a lull between customers, to look up from the till and ask, "So, Rhoda? What are you all doing for Valentine's day?"

"What?" the word leaps from her mouth before she's even aware that she's uttering it. "We all for what, now?"

"It's the fourteenth," he says.

"Yes?" she prompts him, narrowing her eyes.

"Valentine's Day."

"Please don't say those words together again," she tells him, spearing him with a meaningful stare.

"OK," he says. "But you are aware you've got yourself a girlfriend who's experiencing this day for the first time as a girl, and she's a dragon, and she has a personfriend who has a lot of experience with this sort of thing."

"You do not have to lecture me, young man," she quips. She's pretty sure he's older than she is, but he deserves it right now. "She can get the lovey dovey shit from me every other day of the year, and I'm not withholding it today – mind you – but I ain't having nothin' to do with this." She gestures at the world expansively. "Got it?"

"Got it," Nathan says. "That's fair. It's a shitty day for a lot of people. Forget I brought it up."

"Thank you." She appreciates he doesn't delve any further or ask anything, and that Kimberly is too out of it to get into it too. She'd rather not recount that part of her history.

"Want a day old?" Nathan asks, holding up a plastic wrapped cookie with a look on his face that's not not a smirk. "It's on me."

"Is that a snicker doodle?" she asks, squinting at it.

"Yep!"

"You do know the way to an old woman's heart," she says, reaching her hand out across the room to wait to receive it.

"It's my pleasure, young lady," he says, taking a few steps out from the counter to place it in her hand. And then, in the process, he sees Kimberly out of the corner of his eye and stops to look at her. "And you, my dear, should go home. Have you even touched your cappuccino?"

"Huh?" Kimberly raises an eyebrow and cracks an eye open to peer at him. Her hand that's near her drink doesn't even twitch.

Nathan steps up to her, to loom over her, fists on hips, and fills his gruff, stern voice full of mirth to say, "You know, we need these seats for paying customers. I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to move along."

"Wrong coffee shop," Kimberly snorts.

"You got me there," Nathan says. "You need anything, kiddo? You doin' alright?"

"Like a… big bowl of water, maybe?" Kimberly asks.

"You got it," Nathan chuckles. And then he says over his shoulder as he goes to get the drink, "But you're getting one of the big cups, because the salad bowl's claimed and its owner is due any minute."

"Oh, of course. Thank you!"

"OK," Rhoda says, placing the cookie down on the table next to her tea, and turns to Kimberly. "I'll bite. What's it like?"

Kimberly perks up, sitting up straight and stretching, her eyes widening, "Oh, OK." She looks up at the ceiling for a moment, jaw slack, then says, "So, it happens more than just the one night. It doesn't have to be a completely full moon, so I get the effects for like, six to seven days a month. Which, for me, is like, I guess I get to call it my period or something. And that's pretty fun. But, then. For several hours each night, I don't have to worry about shit, Rhoda. Nothing." Then she tilts her head and stares at something in the middle of the room, and furrows her brow a little. "OK, I do need to worry about shit, specifically, and pee. But nothing else. Like, I don't have thumbs. It's fucking great."

"Do you notice a difference in the way you think and feel?"

"Well, I'm still me, if that's what you're asking," Kimberly says, leaning forward with elbows on knees. "But, yeah, like. I'm colorblind when I'm a poodle, and that's different. I notice that. And everything smells different. My whole body's different, too, and I feel a big relief from that, actually. It's so freeing. But I haven't really been around people yet, so I have no idea if I understand, like, words, or anything like that. But when I have to make decisions and shit, I'm just me. I know what I'm doing. I think the part I don't like is the loneliness. But I've never liked that. I need to find some cool roommates."

"Do you think you'd get along with another dog?"

"Sure! Maybe? Depends on the dog, of course. Same with people."

And then Kimberly's head twitches as something behind Rhoda, outside, catches her attention. So Rhoda turns to see.

All the tension and stiffness in her body loosens, and all the coldness in her bones warms, as she watches Meghan land on the corner across the street. A fizzy golden light rises in her being from her heart to her head.

Meghan in the afternoon sun truly is like a piece of heraldry in stained glass come to life, the indigo diamonds along her back glowing almost as strongly as her eyes. The way that her muscles and bones work together under her gleaming scales to accept the weight of her body and fold those intricate wings safely against her back, is as beautiful a sight as any other creature on Earth. And the way her head snakes around on that swan-like neck to peer into the window of the shop, to see if she, Rhoda, is already here, conveys the eagerness between people. To make a reconnect after a time apart, even if was just a day.

Yeah, that's her dragon.

Already her mind is slipping into the patterns of planning what they'll do together. The things to share and talk about. The work she's done on her book, the passages she's eager to share with her partner. To hear word from around the city, to learn what their friends are up to. Which tea to drink tonight. And maybe talk about what camera to save up for, someday, to get back into photography maybe.

Meghan is getting a bit big. She'll have to take her protective coloration, as she likes to put it, to get through a door. But that just makes her a more formidable doorstop when she's asleep at night, and Rhoda likes that, too.

There isn't much that she doesn't like about Meghan right now, and a whole lot that brings her joy and excitement, and she knows that's a distortion. Seeing only the good because things are going so well for once, like at the beginning of a relationship. But she'll take it for as long as she feels it.

It's been too long.

—

There's Rhoda in the coffee shop, in my spot.

She knows that's where I like to sit, so I can watch the other customers as they walk in and order their drinks, but she got to it first fair and square. She's waiting for me!

I now what the day is and how she feels about it. We talked about that a long time ago, and how the abuse from her ex has made it hard for her.

So, our goal is to treat it like any other day between the two of us, and I'm so cool with that. I never really thought of it as my holiday, either. I gave up on it a long, long time ago. And then I started seeing all the commercial pressure heaved upon men to perform for it, and honestly, it felt contrary to absolutely everything I'd been taught about feminist theory and fighting the tyranny of the division of the genders and binary sexism.

Also, we're not truly a romantic couple, are we?

We're something different, I think. An autistic ace dragon and her wise woman. We're certainly not doing anything straight, in any case. It's a friendship, of course, at the very least. Though it's definitely more than friendship, too, and has room to grow.

Before the dracomorphosis, cross species relationships were always referred to as pets, service animals, charges, and things like that. But the vast majority of us dragons have human parents and human relationships of all sorts. Some say we're the children of humans, and humans are the parents of dragons. And though I know that that's not truly the case, it's close enough to help everyone feel a bit better about how it all might work.

Now, related to that, it turns out, of course, that for the Southern hemisphere dracomorphosis happened just before their mating season. So we actually now know something of what to expect about that, since those of us up North calmed down enough from our own turmoil to read up on their experiences. It was chaos for them, because there was the political upheaval around all that at the same time as millions of horny dragons started courting everything.

I think I've got a better handle on my instincts now than I did a few months ago. I'm feeling prepared for it. So, I think I can ultimately restrain myself when necessary.

But, Hailing Scales as Chapman would say, I sure as fuck can't keep myself from skipping and strutting when I see that look in Rhoda's eyes!

To try to contain it, I start to put on my royal ball gown of starlight halfway through the crosswalk, feeling the weight of that tiara settling into my braided hair. But it doesn't help all that much.

I bounce lightly on bare feet up to the front door and open it with a flourish.

"No shoes, no service!" Nathan calls out to me, the smirk on his face betraying the joke.

I am the one exception to that.

"Hi, Rhoda," I say, and curtsy in front of her on my way to the counter, pulling the bottom of my dress out wide and high between thumbs and middle fingers, pinkies flared. And then I twirl to the counter and relax out of the camouflage, claws clicking on the floor. "The yooj," I chirp.

"You got it," Nathan says and turns to reach for my stainless steel salad bowl. "Put it on your account?"

"Yes," I confirm, and then hop over to our table, pushing the chair aside to settle down into what's usually Rhoda's spot. Then I pull my third tablet, a brand new one, out of my third purse, a near identical replacement for my last one, and put it on the table in front of me. And as I'm turning it on, Rhoda speaks.

"You took your time," she says. "Everything OK out there in Dragonland?"

I notice the huge stupid grin on Kimberly's face as I lift my knuckle to do my typing. And I spare her a thought, mentally congratulating her on her second transition. I'm so glad it's going so well for her. It gives me so much hope for others, and I feel an echo of her euphoria as a kind of compersion.

"Well," I say. "Astraia and Caleb trying get me play D2R with them, but need gaming rig. I had explain that."

"I don't even…" Rhoda starts to say, then her gaze lifts up as the door chimes again with the entrance of someone else.

My head twitches to the side enough to put them in the center of my right eye's vision.

I see a heavily laden pride striped grocery bag with a huge bouquet of roses and lilies above that, swaying precariously through the door in front of a gray and black top hat with a red and white heart print dress, and a pair of self decorated Doc Martins. Of course there's a person in there.

Before I can piece the visual clues together, my tongue lashes out to taste the air, and in addition to the scents of the coffee shop I pick up fresh fish, vinegared rice, wasabi, soy sauce, the flowers, and…

It's Chapman!

[girldragongizzard]

Epilogue 2: Valentine's Day

The afternoon walk from Fairport Communications Company inc. (Printers) to Meghan's coffee shop is meditative today.

The sky is mostly blue, with those smallish clouds that look like cartoonists had something to do with them. And, that means that in about an hour and a half, when the sun sets and starts turning things pink, the whole sky is likely to become a trans pride flag of sorts for a moment.

Everything feels light and relaxed. Even the birds, which are usually fighting with each other over scraps, or dodging a particular dragon, are chill and just chatting with each other.

There is a moment of absurdity, though, when Chapman comes within three blocks of Mandy's Botanical Hand Basket, which mostly sells flowers. The thick flow of almost entirely cis het men to and from that shop is almost identical to the behavior of ants, as if the shop is the colony. With just a few things reversed, since they're taking bouquets away from the central location, rather than to it. But most of them are following the same trails as the others, because there are only a few parking lots nearby, and all the street parking is full.

Upon first seeing this phenomenon, which sie has definitely seen many times before, Chapman can't help but stop to watch it.

Courting rituals are an ancient tradition across all the species that exhibit sexual reproduction. And, really, Chapman has seen it all. But there is something about experiencing this particular ritual while also inhabiting a human body, especially one that isn't obligated to participate on either end of it. There's this weird mix of feelings. The feeling of, "this is what my people do," combined with the feeling of, "they don't want me to be a part of it," and, "thank Entropy I'm not!"

Because of hir experience of recently growing up in this culture and in this time, Chapman hasn't been immune to the socialization surrounding Valentine's day in any way. Sie remembers first experiencing the day when buying mass printed cards for all of hir classmates in first grade. Sie also remembers receiving flowers from a boy as a senior in high school, despite the fact that sie had already come out as asexual and non-binary at the time. But, sie has always been seen and treated as an outsider to it by most people, and knew that hir developmental path as someone inhabiting a human body would be one that deviated from the norm.

And as sie stands now, no cis het man is likely to feel obligated to buy hir flowers or chocolate, and none of hir partners have expressed a desire to receive them.

Though, Meghan, being a dragon, will almost certainly always appreciate a gift of some sort. She hasn't talked about that much, but every time someone has given her a gift, Chapman has noticed a particular gleam in her eye and a restless resettling of her posture that indicates some kind of excitement. And it's totally within the history and makeup of dragons to yearn for gifts.

The problem is that Meghan doesn't really have much space to keep anything. So most gifts for her work best if they're food, or consumable in some way. But Rhoda's apartment would probably have room for flowers.

Huh.

Chapman wonders if sie is seriously considering participation in the activities of that throng of compelled men over there.

Flowers really would be a good idea. Meghan is a trans woman, after all, still within her first year of coming out. She should get to experience that. If the flowers have any sort of a scent, she's going to find tasting it on the air interesting. And, again, Rhoda will appreciate them, too, probably. Probably.

Sometimes, flowers are really a bother, or feel pointless. But Rhoda will almost certainly understand even if she doesn't care for them herself.

But maybe not chocolates.

Maybe…

Sushi.

Oh.

That would be another bouquet of scents for Meghan, and a kind of food that would be easy on her digestive system and full of nutrients. And it might be closer to what her body needs than what she's been eating lately. That tail barb has always struck Chapman as something useful for catching fish.

And a sushi party would be so good!

Hm.

OK, fight for the flowers first, then grab sushi from the Co-op on the way to the cafe. It'll make hir late, but then it'll give hir a chance to mix it up with the guys, which should be amusing.

Chapman straightens the skirt of hir heart print dress, adjusts hir waistcoat, then flicks the brim of hir top hat, and steps into the fray.

—

Rhoda's been in and out of the shop all day, checking in on people she knows at times they're usually there. And Kimberly has just not left the place, even though her shift has been long over.

The girl is practically melted in her seat against the wall and draped across a third of her table, with hooded eyes and the kind of relaxed grin of someone stoned and amused by a particularly complicated dust mote. But as far as Rhoda knows, she hasn't popped outside for a smoke. She's been in that spot, in that pose, ever since she clocked out and flopped there, apron still on.

Occasionally, someone will ask her how she's doing and she'll say, "Yes!"

There's an untouched to-go cup full of cappuccino on the table near her right hand.

Now, since Meghan has extended her rounds to include the territories of her favorite neighbors, she can be expected to be gone until late afternoon. And she'd said something about trying to return around 4:30 to meet her and Chapman, which is why Rhoda's here now. But neither dragon nor Artist have shown up yet.

So, after ordering and receiving her tea, Rhoda chooses to sit at Meghan's favorite table, facing the door, which puts her right in front of Kimberly.

Then she looks slyly over at the off-shift barista and observes, "You've been like this for two days now."

"Woof," says Kimberly. And then she breaks into uncontrollable soft giggles that jerk her whole body just a little bit.

It was a full moon the night of the twelfth. So, for the whole time that the moon was visible in the sky, Kimberly got to be a big poodle. And from what Rhoda understands, she just spent the whole time lying around her apartment because she forgot to arrange for someone to come give her a walk or something. But clearly that was just wonderful.

"So, that was a good choice for you, then?" Rhoda asks.

"Oh, yes. I think so," Kimberly says, without moving or opening her eyes any further. "I do think so."

Although she herself does not understand the need to be a dog, even for a short time, or what it's like to be a dragon, Rhoda finds herself wanting to cry over it anyway. In happiness for Kimberly, and in sadness for those who won't get the chance to be their true selves. But, here in public she chokes that back, and says, simply, "I'm so glad."

Watching the world become this new thing, a place where the secret, the spiritual, the soulful, and the fantastical can become something physical in a way that was never, ever before possible, has been a powerful experience. One that shakes her heart deeply, every day. And, even though she's somehow supposedly the catalyst for this transformation of reality itself, she somehow feels more like an observer. An auntie watching her nieces and nephews coming of age and reaching for the stars and actually grabbing them successfully.

And she thinks she is really so fine with that, honestly.

She really can't wrap her mind around the idea that she's the incidental center of it all. She'll take the protection that offers, but she's not sure she can ever fully believe it. Better to be a person amongst people. And if everyone else is more relaxed and happy because they get to be who they are, so much the better.

It's nice, and maybe today can be another good one.

And then Nathan has to have the audacity, during a lull between customers, to look up from the till and ask, "So, Rhoda? What are you all doing for Valentine's day?"

"What?" the word leaps from her mouth before she's even aware that she's uttering it. "We all for what, now?"

"It's the fourteenth," he says.

"Yes?" she prompts him, narrowing her eyes.

"Valentine's Day."

"Please don't say those words together again," she tells him, spearing him with a meaningful stare.

"OK," he says. "But you are aware you've got yourself a girlfriend who's experiencing this day for the first time as a girl, and she's a dragon, and she has a personfriend who has a lot of experience with this sort of thing."

"You do not have to lecture me, young man," she quips. She's pretty sure he's older than she is, but he deserves it right now. "She can get the lovey dovey shit from me every other day of the year, and I'm not withholding it today – mind you – but I ain't having nothin' to do with this." She gestures at the world expansively. "Got it?"

"Got it," Nathan says. "That's fair. It's a shitty day for a lot of people. Forget I brought it up."

"Thank you." She appreciates he doesn't delve any further or ask anything, and that Kimberly is too out of it to get into it too. She'd rather not recount that part of her history.

"Want a day old?" Nathan asks, holding up a plastic wrapped cookie with a look on his face that's not not a smirk. "It's on me."

"Is that a snicker doodle?" she asks, squinting at it.

"Yep!"

"You do know the way to an old woman's heart," she says, reaching her hand out across the room to wait to receive it.

"It's my pleasure, young lady," he says, taking a few steps out from the counter to place it in her hand. And then, in the process, he sees Kimberly out of the corner of his eye and stops to look at her. "And you, my dear, should go home. Have you even touched your cappuccino?"

"Huh?" Kimberly raises an eyebrow and cracks an eye open to peer at him. Her hand that's near her drink doesn't even twitch.

Nathan steps up to her, to loom over her, fists on hips, and fills his gruff, stern voice full of mirth to say, "You know, we need these seats for paying customers. I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to move along."

"Wrong coffee shop," Kimberly snorts.

"You got me there," Nathan says. "You need anything, kiddo? You doin' alright?"

"Like a… big bowl of water, maybe?" Kimberly asks.

"You got it," Nathan chuckles. And then he says over his shoulder as he goes to get the drink, "But you're getting one of the big cups, because the salad bowl's claimed and its owner is due any minute."

"Oh, of course. Thank you!"

"OK," Rhoda says, placing the cookie down on the table next to her tea, and turns to Kimberly. "I'll bite. What's it like?"

Kimberly perks up, sitting up straight and stretching, her eyes widening, "Oh, OK." She looks up at the ceiling for a moment, jaw slack, then says, "So, it happens more than just the one night. It doesn't have to be a completely full moon, so I get the effects for like, six to seven days a month. Which, for me, is like, I guess I get to call it my period or something. And that's pretty fun. But, then. For several hours each night, I don't have to worry about shit, Rhoda. Nothing." Then she tilts her head and stares at something in the middle of the room, and furrows her brow a little. "OK, I do need to worry about shit, specifically, and pee. But nothing else. Like, I don't have thumbs. It's fucking great."

"Do you notice a difference in the way you think and feel?"

"Well, I'm still me, if that's what you're asking," Kimberly says, leaning forward with elbows on knees. "But, yeah, like. I'm colorblind when I'm a poodle, and that's different. I notice that. And everything smells different. My whole body's different, too, and I feel a big relief from that, actually. It's so freeing. But I haven't really been around people yet, so I have no idea if I understand, like, words, or anything like that. But when I have to make decisions and shit, I'm just me. I know what I'm doing. I think the part I don't like is the loneliness. But I've never liked that. I need to find some cool roommates."

"Do you think you'd get along with another dog?"

"Sure! Maybe? Depends on the dog, of course. Same with people."

And then Kimberly's head twitches as something behind Rhoda, outside, catches her attention. So Rhoda turns to see.

All the tension and stiffness in her body loosens, and all the coldness in her bones warms, as she watches Meghan land on the corner across the street. A fizzy golden light rises in her being from her heart to her head.

Meghan in the afternoon sun truly is like a piece of heraldry in stained glass come to life, the indigo diamonds along her back glowing almost as strongly as her eyes. The way that her muscles and bones work together under her gleaming scales to accept the weight of her body and fold those intricate wings safely against her back, is as beautiful a sight as any other creature on Earth. And the way her head snakes around on that swan-like neck to peer into the window of the shop, to see if she, Rhoda, is already here, conveys the eagerness between people. To make a reconnect after a time apart, even if was just a day.

Yeah, that's her dragon.

Already her mind is slipping into the patterns of planning what they'll do together. The things to share and talk about. The work she's done on her book, the passages she's eager to share with her partner. To hear word from around the city, to learn what their friends are up to. Which tea to drink tonight. And maybe talk about what camera to save up for, someday, to get back into photography maybe.

Meghan is getting a bit big. She'll have to take her protective coloration, as she likes to put it, to get through a door. But that just makes her a more formidable doorstop when she's asleep at night, and Rhoda likes that, too.

There isn't much that she doesn't like about Meghan right now, and a whole lot that brings her joy and excitement, and she knows that's a distortion. Seeing only the good because things are going so well for once, like at the beginning of a relationship. But she'll take it for as long as she feels it.

It's been too long.

—

There's Rhoda in the coffee shop, in my spot.

She knows that's where I like to sit, so I can watch the other customers as they walk in and order their drinks, but she got to it first fair and square. She's waiting for me!

I now what the day is and how she feels about it. We talked about that a long time ago, and how the abuse from her ex has made it hard for her.

So, our goal is to treat it like any other day between the two of us, and I'm so cool with that. I never really thought of it as my holiday, either. I gave up on it a long, long time ago. And then I started seeing all the commercial pressure heaved upon men to perform for it, and honestly, it felt contrary to absolutely everything I'd been taught about feminist theory and fighting the tyranny of the division of the genders and binary sexism.

Also, we're not truly a romantic couple, are we?

We're something different, I think. An autistic ace dragon and her wise woman. We're certainly not doing anything straight, in any case. It's a friendship, of course, at the very least. Though it's definitely more than friendship, too, and has room to grow.

Before the dracomorphosis, cross species relationships were always referred to as pets, service animals, charges, and things like that. But the vast majority of us dragons have human parents and human relationships of all sorts. Some say we're the children of humans, and humans are the parents of dragons. And though I know that that's not truly the case, it's close enough to help everyone feel a bit better about how it all might work.

Now, related to that, it turns out, of course, that for the Southern hemisphere dracomorphosis happened just before their mating season. So we actually now know something of what to expect about that, since those of us up North calmed down enough from our own turmoil to read up on their experiences. It was chaos for them, because there was the political upheaval around all that at the same time as millions of horny dragons started courting everything.

I think I've got a better handle on my instincts now than I did a few months ago. I'm feeling prepared for it. So, I think I can ultimately restrain myself when necessary.

But, Hailing Scales as Chapman would say, I sure as fuck can't keep myself from skipping and strutting when I see that look in Rhoda's eyes!

To try to contain it, I start to put on my royal ball gown of starlight halfway through the crosswalk, feeling the weight of that tiara settling into my braided hair. But it doesn't help all that much.

I bounce lightly on bare feet up to the front door and open it with a flourish.

"No shoes, no service!" Nathan calls out to me, the smirk on his face betraying the joke.

I am the one exception to that.

"Hi, Rhoda," I say, and curtsy in front of her on my way to the counter, pulling the bottom of my dress out wide and high between thumbs and middle fingers, pinkies flared. And then I twirl to the counter and relax out of the camouflage, claws clicking on the floor. "The yooj," I chirp.

"You got it," Nathan says and turns to reach for my stainless steel salad bowl. "Put it on your account?"

"Yes," I confirm, and then hop over to our table, pushing the chair aside to settle down into what's usually Rhoda's spot. Then I pull my third tablet, a brand new one, out of my third purse, a near identical replacement for my last one, and put it on the table in front of me. And as I'm turning it on, Rhoda speaks.

"You took your time," she says. "Everything OK out there in Dragonland?"

I notice the huge stupid grin on Kimberly's face as I lift my knuckle to do my typing. And I spare her a thought, mentally congratulating her on her second transition. I'm so glad it's going so well for her. It gives me so much hope for others, and I feel an echo of her euphoria as a kind of compersion.

"Well," I say. "Astraia and Caleb trying get me play D2R with them, but need gaming rig. I had explain that."

"I don't even…" Rhoda starts to say, then her gaze lifts up as the door chimes again with the entrance of someone else.

My head twitches to the side enough to put them in the center of my right eye's vision.

I see a heavily laden pride striped grocery bag with a huge bouquet of roses and lilies above that, swaying precariously through the door in front of a gray and black top hat with a red and white heart print dress, and a pair of self decorated Doc Martins. Of course there's a person in there.

Before I can piece the visual clues together, my tongue lashes out to taste the air, and in addition to the scents of the coffee shop I pick up fresh fish, vinegared rice, wasabi, soy sauce, the flowers, and…

It's Chapman!

[girldragongizzard]

Epilogue 1: The dog days of Winter

We've taken to using my rooftop for the experiments.

Or, rather, we continue to do so. We never stopped.

The building management has completely given up. It's become clear that I'm a permanent non-rent-paying resident of the property and that I will go where I please, and that any authorities that are called will not do a damn thing about it. But, also, since around the time that Säure mysteriously disappeared one Saturday afternoon, after his last horrific rampage back in October, things have been going remarkably well for the whole block. The city and county at large, really, but particularly well for the Magnolia apartments and all the businesses that shared the first floor.

Because of that, it's possible that some see me as good luck, though I know I'm really just another feature of that luck.

A lot of the horrific shit going on in the rest of the world seems to be taking kind of a break, but I don't know if that's related at all. Still, it does give us some emotional room to enjoy the smaller things. In any case, a lot of people are writing about the global effects of dracomorphosis, and you can read their blogs and articles, so I'm going to remain focused on my local experiences. They're what I can write about best.

So.

The experiments.

On the rooftop with me today, on a cold Saturday in January, is Chapman, Kimberly, and a new person.

And Kimberly is so goofy with nervousness. She does know how to dress warm in her style, with fuzzy black mittens, a thick black scarf and knit wool toque, fat furry black boots, long johns, quilted jacket, and a poodle skirt. This should be good enough for 55 degrees, really. It's not that cold. But she's shivering, and I know it's a mammalian response to excitement, akin to shock. And she occasionally jumps up and down, and claps her mittens together. Then, while most of the time she's very quiet and serious looking, she gets a wild grin on her face and it looks like she just wants to run wildly around the rooftop.

Any time someone asks her a question, it takes her a second to respond, and it's either too subdued and quiet to understand, or she just responds with a loud, "Yeah?"

So, for anybody who's familiar with the conversations she's been having with Chapman, it should be pretty obvious what's going on.

And I'm just watching.

I can't not be here for this.

I've gotta be here for Kimberly.

And I've gotta spend time with Chapman when I'm not spending time with Rhoda.

But it's the new person I'm paying particular attention to right now.

She's kind of a tall, skinny woman, with short, spiky blond hair, dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt with broad horizontal stripes under a lab coat. And the way that she's standing next to this huge cardboard box from a refrigerator delivery and talking to Chapman about the particulars of how to render hir circuitry, I feel like I'm being deliberately reminded of a huge chunk of my childhood.

She looks to be in her twenties, close to Kimberly's age, but I know she's much older than that.

I guess when you're the Artist of Transformation, you can appear however you like whenever you'd like.

She's going by the name Jones, though, which breaks the visual illusion a bit, if you were following me in the first place. (It's OK if you weren't, I'll explain it to you in the comments if you need me to.)

So, here she's pointing at the box and saying that Chapman needs to put the circuitry on the inside because otherwise it will break the aesthetics of "the transmogrifier". And Chapman is holding hir chin with one hand, hir elbow with the other, and sighing and nodding. While Kim grins really big and beams at me with what looks like utter embarrassment.

"That is going to be harder," Chapman says. "I can do it, but it will take longer. The more surface area I can utilize, the faster it will be to draw the channels needed, believe it or not."

"I know," Jones says. "But my work is almost all about appearances, you know. And that's sort of important on my end. It's a compromise."

"Really."

"Yes," she nods definitively. "Before we can transform Kimberly into her true self, we're going to have to transform this box into its true self, which is a transmogrifier. And that requires things like this." She pulls out a plastic game spinner from her coat pocket and a brad from her other pocket. "And we're going to need to draw up a dial on the side of it. Also, a visual representation of some rivets and vents and other controls and dials would be really cool, but less necessary."

Chapman rolls hir eyes.

"Don't give me that."

"I want to trust her on this," Kimberly says. "Can we do it her way? Please?"

"Yes," Chapman says. "It's just… Yes, OK. No, this is way cooler, obviously. Let's do it."

Jones claps her hands and beams at everyone. "Perfect! So, we've got two Sharpies, right? I'll work on the outside while you do the inside. Common, let's tip it over. We'll rotate it as we go."

Chapman's sigh sounds like it could give me lift.

"Is this what you usually do for transformation?" Kimberly asks.

Jones shoots her a deadly serious look and says in a flat voice, "No. This is specifically for you."

"Oh." Kimberly looks like she instantly regrets being there at all.

"Relax," Jones says, loosening back up. "I know exactly what I'm doing, and I love it."

Kimberly's hesitant grin looks more like a grimace, but Jones doesn't notice because she's now entirely focused on working with Chapman.

"We are absolutely going to be doing this differently for the larger populace," Chapman says as sie pushes the box over, and then reaches down to adjust what is now the bottom flap so that sie can work on it.

"I was thinking, like, pills, or something," Jones says.

"I definitely cannot do shit with pills," Chapman grumbles as sie gets into the box.

"Well, that's a you problem," Jones quips cheerfully.

Getting Jones to come here was a trick.

Getting her attention was easy, once we'd located her and devised a way to deliver to her the pendant Chapman had made. And all that work had been done with some massive scanning circuits drawn in chalk on my rooftop, and many, many nights of Chapman frowning and cussing about it. Which was then followed by the use of an artistry fueled homing rocket, which sounds as utterly ridiculous as what we're doing today. But when Chapman explained that using hir Art to channel kinetic energy was really the simplest thing sie could do, I guess it made sense.

The rocket just had to be designed to survive the trip, and to not hurt anyone upon "landing".

In the end, it turned out to be a simple hobbyist's rocket with a payload bay that was then covered in Chapman's signature decorations. But the rocket part was converted into a cardboard jet engine of sorts with the strategic application of physical intakes on the sides of the fuselage. And that was part of the steering mechanism as well, apparently. And before I could protest that it looked unworthy of the task, it had been launched with the pendant aboard, and gone.

"It's the next phase that I hate," Chapman said, heading back to the roof hatch. "Now we've got to talk to each other."

Two days later, sie received an email from Jones, upon which sie informed me by texting me, "It begins."

Over the course of the following month, I didn't see much of Chapman. And when I did, sie insisted on talking about other things. But sie eventually explained, apparently when things were starting to go well, that Jones needed to be argued into visiting and working with hir. And, not persuaded by good arguments, but enticed simply by being argued with. At a certain point of investment, she would lose patience with the email and need to do the arguing in person.

And then, theoretically, once she was here, they could settle the arguments and get to business.

And then I'd asked Chapman, "Why?"

Chapman had then looked directly at me with exhausted eyes and simply waited until I apologized.

Now, as I'm watching the two of them, it really looks like Chapman is doing the bulk of the work. There's a constant shifting come from hir while sie is in the box. While the grating static that comes from Jones only happens when she puts her pen to the box, and she does that for about a second or two every few minutes. The rest of the time, she just stands staring at the box and frowning, taking various poses of exaggerated concentration.

After a while, I can't contain myself and I key up a question I soon regret, "Are you putting on an act?"

Scowling at the box, Jones says, "Do you know what a magic trick is, Meghan?"

"Yes," I say.

"It's theater," she says anyway. "I'm not the Artist of Metamorphosis, thank everything. But that means I don't work biologically. I'm the Artist of Transformation. That's magic, and that's theater. Everything I do is theater." She gestures sideways at Kimberly, "And our volunteer, here, needs a good show. Otherwise, why participate in it?"

"Oh."

"Now, the reason we're getting away with using a simple cardboard box is three fold," she says, stepping forward and adding a circle to represent a rivet near one of the corners of the box. Just so. "For one, Chapman's Art is absurd. Have you seen what sie can do? It defies all logic."

"No it doesn't," Chapman protests.

"Please don't interrupt," Jones retorts. "Anyway, sie can do things like slap some kind of esoteric squigglies on a piece of paper and cause an explosion with it, and that's in hir sleep. So, the substrate that sie uses is nearly irrelevant."

"Also very not true," Chapman says.

"Shush."

"You shush."

"Secondly, we're combining Arts, which is totally a big no-no for anything nuanced or careful, which, thankfully, we're not doing in any way," Jones explains.

"Oh, Hailing Fucking Scales," Chapman shouts. "OK, turn."

"Not yet!" Jones yells back. Then she jabs at the top of the box with her Sharpie to place another rivet, and then says more quietly, "OK, now."

Chapman starts getting out of the box to carefully turn it over while Jones steps forward to try to forcefully roll it while Chapman is in it, and it just hits me I am actually, yes, watching siblings interact with each other.

They are acting entirely like little children, too.

"Stop, stop, stop, stop," Chapman is saying, while Jones continues her explanation.

"Thirdly," Jones says. "My magic only works while no one is looking, so we've got to put Kimberly in some sort of box. We can't see her transform, after all. That would be too weird for it to happen. And we're doing this on the cheap, because we're cheap."

"Oh," I say again.

"So, yeah, it's an act," she kicks the box, and Chapman pops out of it and throws hir Sharpie at Jones.

Kimberly has been sidling over to me while this has been going on, and now she's right by my side.

She leans over and murmurs fairly quietly, "Maybe we shouldn't be annoying the immortals with questions."

"No, it's fine," Jones turns to her and says.

And Chapman waves hir hand dismissively, saying, "Yeah, no, you're good. Keep it up."

And then they go back to the business of constructing the transformation device. And the afternoon proceeds pretty much like that until it's done.

In the process, I learn pretty definitively that while I can sense the use of Art, I don't sense every use of it. Though, it doesn't have to be aimed at me to trigger the sensations. And I'd already worked out that the amount of energy being harnessed or altered will affect the range of my sense, a lot like being able to hear sound. But, it is some other specific quality of the act of an Art that causes the notable vibration, or whatever it is that I'm picking up. I don't know what it is, but I do get Jones to tell me when she's using her Art and when she's not. And it turns out she's been using it constantly since before she arrived. Chapman confirms something similar about hirself.

Also, because each Art is so different, it's probably going to take a while to learn just what it is that I'm sensing. But Chapman is all about helping me figure it out, when we're done with this.

So, with that, it starts to sink in that the whole act of arguing and bickering with each other, and the occasional roughhousing, is an indelible part of combining their Arts. And I end up thinking about Ptarmigan and how she talked about working with nightmares and what was a nightmare and what wasn't. And how she'd sometimes engage with them through her scribbling, and sometimes she wouldn't. I think, sometimes, it seemed like the strongest use of her Art was when she was talking to someone, and I never sensed anything then.

I remember that a while ago Rhoda said that the Artists were to us as humans were to ants. That when they talked to us, it was like when scientists were communicating with ants by laying down pheromone trails. To one party or the other, it might seem like something that makes sense is being communicated, but really neither the scientist nor the ant has any way of knowing what the other is thinking or intending.

And I also remember when Ptarmigan tried telling me that the world was a plural system, like a person with DID or OSDD, that we were all its system members, and that Rhoda was its frontrunner in a nightmare.

So, that's got me thinking, what if the universe is like that, too? What if reality itself is just one big colonial entity. And what these two Artists are doing right now is trying to act as translators between Kimberly and the rest of the universe, in order to negotiate some sort of agreement?

Which.

It's.

I'm probably completely wrong. But I kind of like that thought at the moment. It helps me make sense of what I'm seeing. It helps me be OK with how this act between the both of them sort of feels like when a Kindergarten teacher talks to an adult as if the adult is one of their students.

And then, when the two of them are done, they both physically relax and smile at each other. I think they've completely dropped the adversarial posturing.

"OK," Jones says. "All we do now is lower this thing over Kimberly here, with your consent, of course. And then I rotate the spinner from human to werepoodle, as you see written on the box. And we give it a second, then we remove the box."

"Yep," Chapman says.

"What?" Kimberly asks in obvious disbelief, a hint of nervous laughter in her voice.

"We just did all the seriously hard work," Chapman says. "The rest is just activating the device, and we made it that simple. It's really like when Meghan puts the pendant on. Five years went into that piece, too, you know."

Kimberly half points at the box and protests, "But five years didn't go into this cardboard box, though. Right?"

"No."

"It was synergy," Jones says. "And also, when Chapman made that pendant, sie was working way outside hir wheelhouse. This time you've got me involved."

Kimberly looks at me and asks, "What does it feel like?"

"Nothing much," I knuckle into my tablet. Then I sigh and take my princess form to deploy my thumbs, "I didn't notice the change until I started doing things. Moving made it feel wrong right away, but that's because I'm not Chapman."

"I based the human form on my pre-transition self," Chapman explains. "She felt physical dysphoria over it."

"You had to transition?" Kimberly asks.

Chapman waves fingers to the side. "That's off topic, but yes. I'm just always most comfortable as a post transition trans masc enby, if I'm human. Which requires going through the process every life. It's a thing."

"I have a similar problem that's harder to describe," Jones says. "Every Artist has these quirks. Even when we're other animals, or storms, or computers, or whatever, we're queer in some way. I mean, by human standards. I prefer the word atypical. It's more accurate and broad enough. But queer people are cool, so queer works, too."

"Yeah. I like queer a lot," Chapman says.

"OK. Fuckin' cool," Kimberly says. Then she slaps her thighs. "I guess I'm ready for this? I'm kind of scared, actually. It's a big, weird step."

"Oh, if you don't like it, we can turn you right back," Jones says. "That's super easy. We just put the box over you again, and turn the dial the other way. Boom. Done."

"Oh," Kimberly says. "It's still scary."

"Like transition?" Chapman asks.

"Yeah? Kinda? But this is magic. Or Art. It's weirder."

"We did this entirely to your specs, your request," Chapman says. "In theory, based on my scans to back you up, you'll just feel even better. It'll be like taking HRT. You know, when you took those pills and nothing obvious happened, but you felt better right away? Like that. But even more reversible."

"OK! Let's do it! Let's get it done before I jump off the roof to avoid it!"

Jones holds up a hand. "Don't do that.

"I won't," Kimberly says. "I want this too much. But I'm getting that intrusive thought from all the adrenaline."

"OK. Come stand right here, in the middle of the roof, then, please."

"Got it."

And then, once Kimberly is situated, Chapman and Jones both pick up the box and lower it over her.

"You doing OK in there?" Chapman asks.

"Yep!" Kimberly says. "I think so!"

"Okidoke," Jones says, and then reaches out and twists the dial to aim it at the word "werepoodle". And then she says, "One Mississippi."

"Huh," Kimberly's muffled voice comes from the box.

"Picking up the box," Chapman tells her, and then sie and Jones remove the box.

Nothing about Kimberly appears to have changed. I didn't even feel any kind of shift when the dial was turned. Though that's similar to what happens when I use the pendant. Or, what doesn't happen.

Kimberly looks confused and disappointed, holding her mitten clad hands up and turning them over. She's obviously clenching and unclenching her fingers within the mittens.

"You did say 'werepoodle'," Chapman says.

"Right," Kimberly responds.

"It's not a full moon."

"Oh, right!"