Dragon Dreams

Chapter 12: A Friend (1/3)

He stood behind me, wide-eyed and mouth agape. I hardly glimpsed him, the intruder, before I dove into a nearby thicket of ferns for cover. I don't know why; he had already seen me, seen too much. But I found myself hunkered in the leaves, peering out at the one who found me.

The messy-haired boy leaned casually on a nearby tree and cast an amused smile in the direction of my hiding spot. "I can still see you, you know," he said. Skinny and small, he looked to be about six or seven. He had a slight lisp, probably from his missing front teeth. It appeared he had been walking through the forest for a while, as his clothes were wrinkled and dirty. Dark hair stuck out at wild angles above his round face, and his blue eyes shone in the afternoon light.

"You have got to be kidding me," I thought. "I can't believe I came all the way out here to have some twerp get the drop on me!" I didn't move or speak. My face burned. I didn't know if I was capable of blushing, but I was feeling pretty embarrassed about my silly instinct to take cover.

The kid decided to fill the silence with more talking. "Are you a real dragon? Are you gonna eat me? I don't think so 'cause you don't seem very scary. Why are you hiding? Aren't dragons supposed to be bad and scary?"

"Hey, sorry to interrupt," I said. "But do you think you could just leave me alone? Give me some peace and quiet?"

My words had the opposite effect. The boy's hands flew up to grab fistfuls of hair in his excitement. "Oh man! It's a talking dragon—you're a talking dragon ohmygod this is the best day ever! You're not gonna eat me right?"

"Kid," I said in a low voice, peeking my head out of the thicket, "don't tempt me. Now, can you please just leave me alone?" I said it a little more forcefully, and his face fell.

"Oh, I'm sorry Mr. Dragon. Um, I just thought you were cool and, like, I didn't think dragons were real. So I was like, maybe it would be cool to be friends with one." He sat down heavily on a tree root and stared at his shoes. "I don't know if you have any friends. I don't really have any friends, and it's just me and Mommy back home, and she's in one of her quiet times. There's nothing else for me to do, so I like to walk around. Sometimes I go really far and then I make friends with the animals. It's just not the same when you got nobody to talk to." The kid looked up at me, sniffling, and I could see the gloss of tears on his cheeks.

That softened me up, for sure. "Geez, I'm not made of stone. All this poor guy wants is a friend to talk to," I thought. "I might be the only one he has." Emerging from the ferns, I took a step toward him and tried to sit in a non-threatening pose. "Wait, no, I'm sorry," I said. "I didn't mean to upset you. It's okay, I won't eat you or anything. I'm nice. If you want to talk, let's talk."

"Really?" The boy's face immediately split into a crooked grin, his eyes still shining as he wiped them with a sleeve. "Wow, uh, I don't even know what to say now! Oh, my name's Wesley, but everyone calls me Wes. What's your name?"

"Josh," I replied, extending a paw. I decided it would be better to just stick with my human name. Wes looked at me quizzically but shook my claws anyway. I was reminded of my introduction with Rofar, but with the roles reversed. I chuckled inwardly at the thought.

"Josh?" he repeated. "That's a funny name for a dragon."

"Well, it's a bit of a long story, but I haven't always been this way. Only very recently, actually."

"Whaddaya mean?"

"It all started with this dream I had." I proceeded to tell Wes about my transformation. Starting at my encounter with Rofar, I talked about my first change in the dream and then making that wish and waking up in my bed looking the way I did. The part about fighting Ares I left out, not wanting to frighten the kid. I also was a little vague when I described my flight up to Canada, simply saying I left to get more space.

By the end of my story, Wes was looking at me with wide eyes. "So you were a person who turned into a dragon? That's so cool! What's it like? Can you really fly? Can you breathe fire?" He was almost bouncing up and down with excitement.

"Uh, well, it's not as great as you might think," I said, fidgeting and curling my tail around in front of me. "I can fly and breathe fire and all that stuff, but the problem is, I still want to be a human, and I feel less and less like one every day. I have these...these thoughts that I can't control, thoughts that belong to a wild animal. It's been a little hard for me to deal with those."

"You seem pretty normal to me. As normal as a talking dragon can be, I guess." He had plucked a nearby leaf and was staring at it absently. "Who says you're not still human? My mommy says she has thoughts sometimes that she doesn't like. Thoughts that make her sad or something. She tells me it's okay, though, and that I shouldn't worry. Is that why you were hiding? Are you scared of something?" He threw the leaf away and looked back up at me.

"Damn," I thought, "this kid is pretty insightful." Holding his gaze, I responded, "I was hiding because, well, I don't want anyone to know I'm out here. Unlike you, most people would be very afraid of me. And I don't want to know what they would do if they found out about me. That's why I told you to leave me alone."

Now it was Wes's turn to feel bad for me. "So you're all alone out here? Whaddaya do for fun?"

"Fun?" I said, punctuating it with a short chuckle. "I mostly worry about finding food and staying hidden. I guess I didn't do so well with that second part." I tried to shift the conversation away from myself. "Do you live around here, then?"

"Yeah, it's just me and Mom and our house is not too far away. Where we are, it's pretty much woods all around and not too many other people. There's a town, Granite Bay, where I go to school. That's it. It can be pretty boring around here sometimes. So, I take these walks a lot."

"Well, Wes," I said, standing up on two legs and smiling down at him, "I think your life is going to be a bit more interesting from now on. Mine too. I'll tell you what: we can be friends, just as long as you keep this a secret. What I said about hiding from people, that was serious. I need you to promise not to bring anybody else when you come to see me. Can you do that?"

Wes practically jumped up to his feet, beaming so the gaps in his teeth were on full display. "Okay, I promise," he said, tracing a cross over his heart. "I got the best secret friend ever!"

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