How to be Megnificent – book 2 of girldragongizzard

By the time Joel wakes up, I’ve bitten through the ballistics webbing that has bound him, and through the cable of the radio tag that was wrapped around his front left ankle. Or wrist. Whatever you want to call it.

He wouldn’t have been flexible enough to bite it himself, and he couldn’t have clawed it off without hurting himself. But my teeth and jaws made quick and easy work of it without even bruising him.

So, as he’s coming to, I’m sitting upright at a respectable distance from him and looking off to the side. Which puts one eye on him, and the other on our surroundings. Perfect relaxed standing guard pose. From his position, the burning helicopter is behind me. I may have gone out of my way to make sure of that.

And watching him wake up is a little like watching a dog come to after surgery at the vet. He’s a little goofy and a little unaware of his surroundings at first, just trying to figure out how his body works again. And he makes it to his feet before he really gets a good take of his surroundings.

And then he sees me posing with the burning helicopter behind me, and tenses up. He shakes his head a little to clear it.

Having guessed well with my encounter with Harold and Ginnie, I decide to try a similar tactic, and I drop to a loafing position and slowly close my eyes. But then, I add in the word, “Yes.”

Just, straight up, pure positivity.

He clearly decides that I’m absolutely not a threat, which is good, and he turns around this way and that, making sure no one else is around. Fortunately, the humans had managed to get completely out of sight by the time he woke up, so he doesn’t have any immediate targets to attack. But he’s obviously suspicious, because there’s the helicopter but no sign of them.

Oh, I wish I could say, “come with me,” or, “fly.” But, I’ve got to do that with body language.

I let him stomp around a bit more, and watch as he circles me to examine the helicopter.

When I call it a flaming helicopter, or say that it’s on fire, it’s probably important to visualize it right. I can expel quite a bit of burning fluid from my chest, for a creature that has the same rough weight as a large man. But I can’t exactly coat a whole helicopter in it, and I concentrated it on one spot. You know that photo of a duck that looks like its head is on fire that’s been circulating Facebook for a few years? The effect is like that.

The damage I’ve done to the chassis and rotors is by far much more evident than the flames now, especially since my biological napalm is starting to burn itself out. It’s just, I’m a fire breathing dragon, and I’m proud of that!

Joel sniffs most of the wreckage just like a dog might do. And then he sniffs the air and turns to peer northward.

“No,” I say, anticipating his intentions. “Peace.”

He yawps quite loudly in response.

I don’t give him a challenge in return. It was clear to me that he was shouting at the humans who’re somewhere north of us, and I don’t want to fight him.

Also, he can have this mountain now if he really wants it. I’m headed home.

I get up, walk past him and the helicopter, downhill a little ways but toward home, and then pause with wings partially outstretched and look back at him.

“Go. Yes,” I say, hoping that makes some kind of sense to him. But mostly, I’m just getting his attention and relying on my body language.

And then, I just take off.

I care about him, I realize. I want him to come home. I like the idea of having him live near me. He’s part of my city, and leaving him here to fend for himself is not appealing to me. Especially since I want to stick it to the assholes who dragged us out here. And I think he can be a valuable ally in fighting what’s happening back home.

But I can’t explain that to him right now. I can’t explain much of anything, even my plan on how to get home, which is simply to keep flying and to eat what we can on the way. I can’t even tell him he gets first dibs on any food.

I can only hope he follows me.

Which he does.

Not right away, though. It takes him a bit to decide what to do and what his priorities are, but he eventually takes off after me. And instead of circling to watch and be sure, I just keep going and glance over my shoulder occasionally to see what he’s doing. He doesn’t catch up, but he doesn’t fall too far behind, either.

What he can’t seem to do, after a bit, is make the same altitude as I can, and he’s not made for soaring.

I’m still really baffled that he can fly at all, honestly. His anatomy does not look flight worthy to me. But there he is, plodding along behind and below me, and I don’t bother to outpace him.

We are going to have to weave through the mountains to get home. But I think that’s going to work out OK, even if it makes us take longer. A mid morning stop at Ross Lake should be good for him, and we can rest and sun ourselves on the dam before following the river a ways.

I’m not sure about my geography, or what river that is. I just know Ross Lake, because it’s big and notable and has that dam, and we camped near it when I was a kid. I’m pretty sure the river it lets out into is going to take us south of Fairport, but it’ll be the fastest way to where better food is, and it’ll be low enough for Joel to fly along it, and we can always drink the water.

On the other hand, though, if we hit any towns or cities, we might encounter other dragons.

Shit.

“Shit,” I say.

Well, first things first. A dip in the lake and a hunt for some food for Joel.

Unfortunately, when we get there I’m considerably more discouraged, because Joel is clearly wiped out. And he ends up sunning himself on the dam before doing anything else. And this trip is going to take even longer than I’d hoped.

I circle and soar for a little bit, resting in the air, to get a good look around. I note that Harold and Ginnie’s camper is still in its spot. And so are the other campers across the lake from them. And I don’t see any other birds that I feel like I can catch and eat.

I wonder if I’ll ever get big enough to eat a deer or something like that. Part of me wants to, but part of me really doesn’t. I’m a nice size for living amongst humans, honestly. Anyway, it’s not something anyone has a lot of control over, and I’ll be as big as I get, eventually.

And then I make my way over to the dam and come in for a landing next to where Joel is resting.

The moment my feet touch the pavement, however, Joel gets up, shakes himself off, and then takes a big flapping leap out over the lake behind the dam and plunges right into it.

Well, that’s one way to get a drink, I suppose.

So, I crawl over to that edge of the dam and settle down to watch, wings outstretched in the sun to soak it up.

I can’t really see him, he goes deep and far out enough that the reflections of the sky on the murky water make it impossible to see much below the surface. But I watch for him.

If he can exert himself and hold his breath this long on that short of a rest, maybe I don’t have to worry too much about our progress after all. We’ll just have to stop frequently for five minute breathers, and maybe more food.

I wonder what he eats.

For having just fought a group of eight humans with four guns and a helicopter, it’s a quiet and lovely day, actually. And sitting here in the sun for a while is doing good for my owl, which feels like it’s finally really starting to settle and digest with those two rocks I swallowed after it.

There are whisps of cloud and the smoke column from the forest fire, and smaller birds are chattering lightly at each other, and really not much else going on. Maybe the lap and splash of water occasionally against the wall of the dam. Maybe fish jumping, but I never catch a glimpse of them and I’ve got good eyesight for that.

There’s the blue sky above me, the murky water reflecting that below me, and green tree covered mountains all around. So much green!

And I have a moment to let my mind wander and the thought of green reminds me of the experiment Chapman did with me just last week with the Pantone Color Matching booklet. And I finally pull up short about colors and really have a puzzle on my mind about them. I’m a little bamboozled that I didn't think about this before, but I’ve had so much else on my mind I guess I just didn’t pause to consider it.

There is definitely a color I see as a vibrant orange.

I see it on myself in a few places, what I’d call a flame orange, here and there. And my new purse, which Chapman gave me, is the same color.

But when I looked at my radio tag yesterday morning, and Joel’s radio tag this morning, I saw a dull, dark green, and thought, Ah yes, the human orange. I almost have a memory of glancing at a Pantone color that was marked as orange but appeared a dull green to me.

But I don’t remember noting what my own orange was labeled when I was looking at the chart. I hadn’t been startled by the differences in colors until I’d gotten to the huge swaths of greens.

So, now I’m wondering what my orange looks like to humans!

I’m so stymied and bemused by this train of thought, I totally miss the other thing I could be worrying about, which is what happened to my purse and the tablet and magical amulet that was in it.

That’s probably going to occur to me later, though. Watch out for that moment. I’m sure it will be rough.

Maybe right about when my brain is going to latch onto that problem and worry it down to the bone, though, there’s a huge splash further out as Joel surfaces, lifting his head fully into the air and working his jaw to swallow something properly.

He’s eating a fish!

Oh, that’s great! If he can take his fill of fish here, we’re probably set for the rest of the way home.

Joel seemed reluctant to leave the lake, but once I set out again he begrudgingly followed.

And it doesn’t take us long along the river until we find another, much smaller lake, which he dives right into.

This one also has a dam with a small community of houses and a couple industrial buildings below it, and I seem to recall that it’s called Diablo lake.

I want to keep moving because I’m concerned that there’s another dragon here.

I soar and circle to keep an eye out while Joel swims and tries to find a few more fish.

Then he suns himself on the dam for a little bit, drying off enough to fly, and then we’re off again.

And from there, I guess I just let him decide when to rest on his own. And usually I circle to rest in the sky and watch while he does that. Occasionally I join him on the ground, when I feel safe about it, and he lets me.

I can’t say we’re becoming companionable, or even comfortable with each other’s presence. But we do seem to be on the same page, with the same plan, and I’m noticing little ticks of non-verbal communication between us that seem to go smoothly and are understood well.

He twitches his ear if something bothers him, for instance. And, if either of us gets up and stretches, and then faces downstream, it’s a clear message that we’re ready to keep moving.

Also, the fact that he doesn’t rest for too long, and half the time is the one to tell us when to head out, indicates he wants to get back home as badly as I do.

I like that.

But, because we’re not great conversationalists, this is giving me a lot of time to think to myself, and my mind is turning toward what I’m planning on doing when we do get home.

I just can’t assume that destroying that chopper and stranding that team will put a stop to the campaign to relocate dragons. However that’s happening, it has to be stopped either legally, through edict from the Mayor or something like that, or by utterly destroying the means to do it. And the latter is what I want to do, emotionally speaking.

But, I’m probably going to want to check in with Chapman and Rhoda first, and let everyone know I’m home. Which means I’ll need my tablet, and…

Oh.

Yeah.

Haa that, like, been lying on the roof this whole time, discarded when I was kidnapped? Or does Equisetum Wildlife have it? Or did they throw it away?

Oh, shit. Was it on the chopper?

I didn’t see it in the chopper, but I wasn’t exactly looking for it specifically. Well, I’m sure I would have recognized my bright-orange-to-me purse, though.

My purse with my tablet, my magical amulet to disguise myself as human, and my debit card, SNAP card, and enhanced Washington state ID. I also had a change of human clothes near the access hatch of the roof.

Imagine what a person could learn from all of that if they really thought about it.

I nearly fall from the sky in rage and horror.

I definitely let out an anguished squawk.

Joel yawps back, and I knock a few times as I work to regain my composure.

But I keep going and he seems to accept that.

If I find out that my purse has gone missing, or that my tablet is destroyed from exposure or something, and that Daniel Säure is behind the dragon abductions like I think, I’m pretty sure I’m actually going to eat billionaire. I just might do it.

A trip that would take a family car around six to seven hours via highways and dirt roads, if the roads went far enough, takes us nearly eighteen hours to fly, and we come in over the water to Fairport well after sunset.

I fly right over Joel’s territory to get to mine, and he drops easily and wearily to his to land in Bayside Park where we last fought side by side against the Sheriff and the police.

Shortly after he lands, he lets out his loudest yawp.

I wait until I’m landing on my roof to consider returning mine, but by then our surrounding neighbors are returning their cries, in the middle of the night. So, I add mine to theirs near the end.

We don’t do the full morning circle, where we each take turns leading the call and response song. But everyone hears that we’re both back, and it feels really good.

Nothing of mine is left lying on the roof, but I’m too exhausted to care.

I led Joel out of the mountains following the Skagit river and then through farmland, between cities and towns to avoid other dragons we didn’t know as best we could. The winding flight was long, and there wasn’t much opportunity to rest for the last leg of it. I think we may have flown nearly 250 miles.

Maybe a little less. I’ll need to map it out on my tablet, if I can find it.

But I pass out pretty fast once I settle down.

The next morning, Joel is the first to cry out and start the dragon song of roll call instead of me.

It’s usually me.

I feel a little taken aback that he beat me to it, but not exactly insulted. I’m more just absolutely ready to make it known that we’re still here, and I start the next round.

It does make me wonder if he started the song first thing for the mornings that I was gone.

What day is it today? How long has it actually been?

I need my tablet.

I need my purse.