The Dragon Soared Overhead, by Hedonism

The dragon soared overhead, whipping the grass around Darren into a frenzy. He watched the behemoth’s body, built for killing, soaring like a ballerina on the thermals. One of the many magical things about the dragon was the way it ignored rigid rules of physics that should have left it stranded on the ground with useless wings.

Does it know how beautiful it is, he thought. What it would be to... damn, those thoughts again. Well, may as well ride them out.

Every facet about dragon life fascinated him. Such cruel beauty, ruling nature with utterly superior size and ferocity. It could sleep wherever it wanted and never be bothered by cold or little humans.

The dragon swept around in a huge circle and came for another run overhead. Darren didn’t exactly feel safe here, but... well, when the draconic thoughts struck, the creature could eat him up now, and he’d only be glad it did so. Last month he saw the monster swallow a cow whole. It was almost poetry, seeing it gobble up in one mouthful the equivalent of a month’s meals. What an experience it would be to just feed straight from nature like that...

It wouldn’t need to dress in the morning. What an experience, to fly around naked! No, what an experience, to fly under your own power! Surely every human had to envy dragons for that. Darren swallowed his swollen throat and wept silently. And their magic. What mysteries remained buried forever from him, stuck in a tiny, nonmagical shell that scuttled over the earth and died in mere decades. What would he never learn in his brief time here? How long would this beautiful creature be around after he was gone? Dragons lived for over a thousand years.

Did it see him? Would it ever remember him? He’d remember it for as long as he lived.

* * * * * * * * * *

Aranok swept past the tiny human form underneath, as it sat next to its car. The frigid air swept over her scaly, aerodynamic frame and the tears from her slit-pupilled eyes evaporated without a trace.

Every night she observed the human as it drove up the hill here and rejoined nature for a while, before getting back into that sleek little vehicle and returning to that mystical land of technology, the city forever beyond both her grasp and comprehension. Of course, she did hear rumours, and her crude magic sometimes allowed her to see the miracles that went on in those tiny streets every day.

Their concept of food... cleaned food – not just eviscerated, dunked in a stream and waggled about, but gutted, burned properly and served exquisitely on a shining plate. Raw cow? They served spaghetti carbonara. That was just one thing a human could have. What about... a hoard in plastic card form... what about plastic itself!

* * * * * * * * * *

Dragons never worried about money, Darren thought. No need for a mortgage, or car repair bills.

Humans had houses to protect them from the elements, thought Aranok. And beds... What did it feel like to snuggle into warm covers and sleep without worrying about the weather turning bad?

Dragons never had enemies. Who would dare to threaten a dragon?

Humans had laws. They don’t need to worry about a bigger dragon coming along and pressing them for a cut of their hoard, or mating rights. Rights? The right of strength and terror! Nature only lets the biggest and strongest win. But the might of humans are their laws, their machines... their minds. The way they pull together... they could wipe out dragons in mere months.

Dragons are their own boss, thought Darren, scratching his head. They aren’t employees, gofers, wageslaves, cogs in an machine that wears them down and spits them out without ever caring. They don’t need other people, they do fine by themselves. No human could take on a dragon. She could come down and time and just crush me underfoot...

Is she a she?

Humans, thought Aranok, can make a lasting impression. I couldn’t do anything that would let me be known by others. I couldn’t build a statue of myself, I don’t know how to write... when I die, it’ll be as if I never was.

Darren scratched his head harder and started to perspire.

But, dragons live for thousands of years. Who needs to be recorded in history when you _are_ history!

Aranok wheeled in tighter formation, circling the human like a buzzard. Never before had her mind been working so hard on the superiority of humans. It was as if a part of her was playing devil’s advocate to her own arguments.

But... Jesus, Alexander The Great, St. George... all humans, some over a thousand years old, their legacies are not only known way beyond their time on Earth, they are known by so many!

Heh, and sanitary issues, wondered Darren. Dragons go where they please. Hopefully not while above me, like she is at the moment...

Yes, but... but, humans... toilet paper. Need I go on?!? I think I will anyway. Showers. _Hot_ showers! Smooth skin that doesn’t trap dirt between your scales.

I’ve never thought like this, pondered Darren as he opened his shirt and took off his tie. To be naked as Adam and Eve, to never need clothing, to always feel completely free! To not have to wear a tie that strangles you every day!

Clothes? Clothes?? To wear clothes, to never be on show all the time! To have an extra barrier against the world and males in heat! To look different from mottled green every once in a while!

Magic! All those mysterious forces of nature, the secrets in people’s minds, fire breath, doing things that completely contradict the laws of physics, the laws of reality!

Technology! Reliable forces you can depend on again and again, forces you can understand and completely trust... to _know_ the laws of physics, the laws of reality!

Darren leapt up, his fist seemingly yanking him from the ground as he shook it in anger and misery at the monster overhead.

“YOU HAVE IT SO EASY!”

The dragon slammed into the ground like a comet, ploughing deep furrows into the ground with her scutes and claws. She landed, if that was the word, just four foot in front of the human. Darren fell to the ground, his car shook on it’s shocks and her voice thundered into his mind,

WHY DON’T YOU TRY IT THEN!

The dragon’s voice boomed in his head as he realised it was she who his mind was arguing with. In as much as the dragon’s saurian face showed emotion, she seemed to be experiencing the same revelation.

The two creatures watched each other for a minute.

Eventually, Darren reached out and very, very carefully touched her front paw. He tugged it back as if she was electrified.

Her own claw then rose into the air and she gently placed the tip of a talon on his shoulder. Expecting to be pushed painfully back from this girder-sized appendage, he was surprised to experience the barest of taps. He was shivering uncontrollably, but noticed she was too.

Can I hold you? begged the dragon in his mind. It was obvious now which were her thoughts and which were his.

Yes... God, please do! he replied, too stunned by her presence to contemplate that she could understand just his thoughts.

Darren expected himself to be grabbed in the same way his children picked up their pet hamster. But instead he was lifted with the same reverence and care as if he were a priceless piece of glass, an item she couldn’t possibly afford to break. He stroked her rough, scaly palm and wept. He still imagined that she might eat him or crush him, but he wouldn’t care even if she did.

At some deep, fundamental level they understood one new thing. They could share each other’s thoughts now, but in addition they saw the path to each other’s consciousness, and could pass over into it.

It was a magic useable by both dragons and humans. The world was seldom so merciful to it’s people, but in a rare show of generosity it had given them both exactly what they wanted.

* * * * * * * * * *

Aranok drove away in his beautiful car, using skills he never used to have in a body he never experienced before, and scanned the horizon for his old shell. But Darren had already taken her sleek form up into the clouds, where he could no longer go, at least not without an aeroplane. But that’s just one of the many new experiences he planned to try out. He also started to work out in his head the whys and wherefores and hows of getting his property sold so he could afford to buy one much, much closer to the lair of his literal soulmate.

The unity they had gained had many more facets to it, so many more things to learn. But for the moment, they were happy just to explore each other’s lives, experience both from the inside and outside what it meant to be dragon and human.

by Hedonism