Dragons Wild

Griffen’s mind flashed in an instant, even as his hand reached for the door handle. This didn’t make sense. What skill was involved in this? Cutting an ignition when he was nowhere near the car? Or was there something worse in store? A bomb perhaps, that would have detonated if the turn of a key had worked? And a card he wouldn’t have seen without the impact of his hand…

The door was open just a crack when the crash slammed it shut again.

A beer truck, easily four times the size of the Goblin. It had been parked half a space back, Griffen had noticed it only in passing. Plenty of clearance to back up.

That clearance was closed in half a second, with the roar of the larger engine. It crunched into the back of the Goblin and threw Griffen forward against the dash. Only his awkward position of trying to open the door saved his head from cracking against the steering wheel.

The second crash came a few moments later. The truck backed up enough for another rush. Griffen clung desperately to the steering wheel of his car, not trying to escape, just enduring. If he allowed it, the whiplash from the impacts could have snapped his spine.

Metal screamed and buckled. The strongest part of the Sunbeam Tiger was its massive engine. Compared to the truck behind, the back of the car was as sturdy as tissue paper. Griffen felt the seat smash into his back as the car folded. He was pi

Another blow never came.

Griffen saw the truck drive away, but blurrily. He couldn’t focus on the license, or the details, and realized he had blood in one eye. A scalp wound, he didn’t know when or how it had split. Nothing is perfect it seemed, not even dragon skin.

The visor hung crookedly. The blow of the truck would have dumped the card. Nice to see the George pla

People gathered, a hand landed on his shoulder. He almost struck out, but realized at the last moment it was a police officer. He couldn’t quite make out the cops questions, his eyes were all for the Goblin. A crumpled, broken mess of metal in black and racing green.

Griffen knew he should be afraid. But looking at his prized possession shattered and bent, his car, his friend, he trembled. Not with fear. With fury.

Forty-one

Griffen soared.

Everyone had dreams of flying, or of falling. Of hurtling through the air, currents buffeting over skin. How much control one had often depended on the type of person.

This wasn’t like that. Griffen wasn’t at the mercy of the winds, wasn’t free flowing through the air. He could feel the power of muscles straining with each powerful beat of his wings. Muscles that he knew, on some level, he didn’t have in the waking world, but here they felt right. He didn’t question them, just exulted in the pounding of his blood through them, the effortless strength that kept him aloft.

He cut through the currents of the air as a shark did through water. Utterly confident, fulfilled, free. He was as much a part of the world as the clouds that passed under him. Sunshine beat down, and felt odd against his skin. As if it weren’t skin at all, but something rougher that soaked in the light and sent small waves of pleasure through his body.

He twisted in the air, tucking arms and legs beneath him, folding wings around him, unquestioning suddenly being a six-limbed being. Dreams have logic of their own. He dived under the clouds, saw a city before him. Lines of energy coursed, etching their own pattern above the web-work of streets and buildings. The city called to him, pulled at him. He gave into the pull and sank lower in the air.

As he circled over the city, making lazy patterns through the air, he saw a part he recognized. A small patch of lower buildings, older; a square of green in front of a great cathedral; river on one side. It was like the cities garden, if one had pla

Griffen looked upon the French Quarter and saw something beautiful. Something his. Warring emotions mixed in the young dragon’s beating heart. A need to explore, to protect, to build. He looked down from the skies and saw his territory, his home.

He landed in Jackson Square, and for the first time something about the dream disturbed him. He was alone, completely. No people stirred in the Square, no sounds of cars or carriages filled the air. It felt lonely, wrong. In so many ways, the Quarter was the people inside it.

Griffen lifted his head high. Now that he had been unsettled, he slowly became more conscious of himself. His head was higher off the ground than it should have been. He could see farther; he could smell the river beyond Decatur Street. In the odd silence of the empty Quarter, he could hear the lapping of the water. Something about the scent and smell drew him.

Without consciously moving, he found himself at the waters edge. He stood on the set of wooden stairs that led from the Moonwalk to the shore. He found himself drawn more and more to the water, fascinated by the swirling currents and small waves. The river smelled of mud and of age and of power. An ever-changing steam, that had lived and ran and thrived long before there was ever a city.

Griffen peered closer.

He fell into a trancelike state. No longer could he feel the body he inhabited. No longer did he smell water or city. It was as if the swirling reflection of himself in the water became the entire dream, his entire world. It swelled in his sight. Obscure, detailless, just a green blob in the muddy waters.

Then it cleared, and a scaly monster stared back at him.

Griffen awoke with a start, lurching up in bed. Then smashing back down as his head cracked into the ceiling above. Stars burst into his already blurring vision, and the bed collapsed under him.

He lay, absolutely stu

The clock showed five thirty. He reached up, clumsily and groggily, trying to turn the lamp on and only managing to drop it off the dresser, earning his head another impact. He finally got it turned on, lying on its side on the floor, and by then Valerie was pounding on his front door.

“Hold on!” Griffen called and pulled himself to his feet.

“You alive in there?” Valerie yelled back, not managing to hide her worry.

“Think so. Hang on.”

Griffen stepped out of the wreckage of his bed, still more than a little shaky. He leaned on the wall and surveyed what was left of what had been a lovely piece of cherrywood furniture. Griffen had always thought a bed should be more than a few bars of metal to stick a box spring and mattress on. Sadly, he looked at several planks that had been broken right in two.

Then he looked upward, and the last remnants of sleep slipped away.

“Griffen! I will break this door down!” said Valerie.

Hastily, Griffen grabbed a bathrobe and wrapped it around himself as he went to let his sister in. She looked him over from head to toe, even turning him by the shoulder as she surveyed for any obvious damage. Seeing no blood or bruises her expression quickly changed from worry to anger.

“What did you do?” she said.

“I was dreaming…I was flying. I saw my face, a dragon’s face, and it scared me awake.”

“And that resulted in a crash that probably woke people up three streets away how?” his sister said, unrelenting.