I was right. Dad gave me an earful upon my return.

“You promised you’d ask me!”

I sighed. I didn’t try to explain myself, and just listened to his words.

Father eventually calmed down. “Your first flight was beautiful. You should be proud.”

I smiled, looking up at dad. “Thank you, father.” Dad smirked and put his wing over me. “You know I care about you very much, right?”

I embraced his warm and inviting wing, sighing. “I do. I just... Something is bugging me.

Father looked down at me with a curious look on his face. “Oh? Do tell.”

I thought about Loki and the strange knight who had taken him away. “Do you remember when I went to the human village for the first time? I met a child. Their name was Loki. I have been thinking about him a lot, and I wanted to find out what happened to him.”

Father looked at me in thought. “Why are you so concerned with the humans, daughter? Are our lives as dragons not enough for you?”

I frowned, looking away from father for a moment. “No, it’s not that... I love our family and our way of life... I just, I don’t know. That kid seems... special.”

Father’s face contorted into one of sympathy. “I understand.” He looked deep in thought for a moment, before speaking again. “Come. I’ll show you something.”

With that said, he launched off the floor. I could tell he was flying toward the mountain peak, and it didn’t take long before I followed right after him.

It didn’t take very long for me to reach the peak. To my surprise however, dad was sitting there on a rock, in a humanoid form.

“Since you are so interested in humans... I can show you how to transform into something that’ll let you blend in easier. Both your mother and I were taught this by our parents, I had planned to teach you eventually, but I felt the situation called for more... immediate action.”

I landed with a soft thud, looking at father. “That sounds very useful. Thank you.”

Father nodded before standing up from the rock he was sitting on. “Okay, first close your eyes. I now want you to imagine a human, it doesn’t have to be anyone in particular, just the rough shape will do.”

I nodded, picturing a rough outline of a human person in my mind. “Sure, got it. What now?”

My father’s face contorted a little into that of mild confusion. “The next part is very tricky to explain. In your mind, imagine packing your dragon body inside this human frame. I know it sounds weird, but as soon as you transform once you won’t need to imagine it again, you can just follow the feeling of transforming.”

I tilted my head in intrigue, trying to imagine pushing my dragon body into the human frame. “Okay... I got it.”

Dad's voice sounded glad. “That should be it. All you need to do is wait a second and your body will do the rest.”

I suddenly started to feel a very strange sensation. It was as if someone were pushing on my body from all directions, trying to cram me into a confined space.

I tried my best to stay calm and let it happen, but it was actually rather painful. My scales felt like they were being ripped off, and I had to hold myself from screaming.

“Come on, you’re almost there! Just don’t open your eyes just yet...”

I nodded, focusing on keeping the image of the stuffed-up dragon in my mind. It wasn’t too hard, apart from the pain from transforming.

Suddenly though, the pain stopped altogether.

“You did it. Open your eyes and see your new form.”

I did as he told me and found myself now slightly lower than dad. I looked down at my hands, seeing, well, human hands. They seemed to be clad in armor, however, which I thought was strange.

“Woah! It worked!”

I tried to clasp my hands, closing and opening them a few times before finally looking up at dad again. “Well, uh, how do I become a dragon again then?”

Dad snickered slightly. “Already tired of your human body?”

I scoffed in annoyance. “No, I’d just like to know how.”

Dad let out a little laugh. “I’m teasing you. All you have to do is think of your dragon body and have the intent to transform back. Think of it as telling yourself “I want to transform”, and it’ll happen.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

I let out an impressive hum. “Oh, that easy huh? Good to know.”

I noticed that I still had my tail and wings on my body, and I experimentally moved them to check if I still had control of them. It seemed to be the case, however I also noticed that my wings were a lot smaller than they were in my dragon form. They still felt just as powerful as they did previously though, so I didn’t imagine it’d impact my flying all too much.

“Now, dad, can I go to the human settlement, please?”

Father smiled warmly. “Thank you. Yes, you can go. Be back before sunset though.”

I nodded, smiling back at father. “Thanks, dad.”

Dad continued his warm smile. “Oh, one more thing, you might have noticed you are wearing armor. Some dragons are able to conjure their scales into armor, all you have to do to make it disappear is, well, absorb it.” He took one more look at me before he jumped off the cliffside. I imagine he was going back to the cave.

Absorb it?

I thought about his words, then looked at myself. Indeed, it appeared that I was entirely clad in armor. The armor was strange however, it was purple and almost looked like it was made of scales. I also noticed that I had a belt, also made of scales. There seemed to be a sheath attached to it, holding a sword.

And all of this was part of my body?

I tried to grasp the sword on my waist, pulling it carefully in case it was still attached to me.

-Ssshhk-

I guess not.

The sword’s handle was made of overlapping scales, looking like a dragon's skin. The blade, however, was one long, sharp scale.

I took a moment to admire the blade before sheathing it back into place.

Huh. I wonder what dad meant about absorbing my scales... I tried to think of how to do it, when I suddenly felt very cold.

I- What happened?

I looked down at myself, and noticed I was now standing completely naked. Oh, well I guess that is how you do that.

I imagined myself wearing normal clothes, and what do you know. I was suddenly wearing normal clothes, made of scales.

I guess being a dragon is all about having a good imagination...

I had begun flying toward the mountain of Pillan once again. I decided to stay in my humanoid form and decided to be clad in my knight armor for the time being.

I once again spotted the wyvern flying around the mountain. Strange, maybe it has nested on the mountain somewhere? Wyverns don’t usually stick to one area for prolonged periods of time.

I landed on the mountain peak again, looking down at the ground below. I could see the city of Valentine pretty easily. Before I started to fly again, I looked at the sun. It was more or less directly overhead, meaning I had plenty of time to explore the city.

I bent forward over the mountain peak, falling casually off the edge.

As I came closer and closer to hitting the mountain wall, I eventually stretched out my wings, coming precariously close to hitting the wall before straightening out again.

I glided on the wind, using my built-up speed to carry me most of the way to the decently sized human settlement. I flapped my wings once or twice to get me the final distance, and eventually came into contact with the grassy plateau outside the city walls.

Now, where could the kid be...

I stopped a passing human, asking if they had seen any knights entering the city lately.

“Uh, none except for you...”

I sighed, saying goodbye to the person before looking into the city through its gates. Maybe they had some sort of garrison where I could ask for the knight?

There were guards stationed outside the city walls. They greeted me upon my approach, which I thought was very nice.

“Good afternoon, knight.”

I nodded hello to the two guardsmen and entered the heart of the city. It wasn’t that big, but I could immediately see the pretty sizeable town hall, it was more or less exactly in the middle of the city.

I decided to go check it out. After all, if anyone knew the outline of this city, I figured it’d be the mayor.

Upon approaching the building, I was immediately intrigued. There appeared to be two elderly fellows sitting there, both seemingly having the role as mayor. Maybe they ran this city together?

I greeted the two. “Hello, knight. What brings you to our humble town?”

The other elderly man gave the first a small shove. “David, this person isn’t a knight, look at her armor! This is clearly-”

I could see that he whispered the last words into “David's” ear, probably not wanting everyone to hear what he was saying. David’s eyes widened, then he looked back at me.

“Is it true that you are a...” He got closer to me, much to my discomfort. “Dragon?”

I nodded slightly. “That is true, yes. Now, if you don’t mind, keep that a secret or I'll eat the both of you.”

The two elderly fellows let out a laugh. “Ooh, you’ll eat us, is that so? Well, good luck. We’re both... well, we’re kind of immortal.”

I raised an eyebrow in intrigue. “What?”

David moved closer to me once again, and I was seriously starting to feel uncomfortable by his forwardness. “We’re... well, demons. Groundlings, to be more precise. Our master, well, he died, so we’re now just roaming the earth with no real motive besides running this town.”

I sighed, pushing David out of my face. “Yeah, cool. Stay the hell away from me or we’ll see exactly how immortal you really are.”

David put his hands up in defense, laughing a little. “Woah, she’s got bite too!”

I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Would you just listen?! I need to find a knight and I got intel that he might be headed here with a small child.”

David hummed with an intrigued tone. “You must be talking about Alexander. Yeah, he went out looking for his kid a few days ago. Crazy, too, he was the only survivor of that Naga attack a few days ago.”

I put up my hand, signaling them to be quiet. “Yes, that’ll be quite enough. Hope I never need to see you again, goodbye.”

I launched off the ground with a harsh flap of my wings, heading back to the mountain of Pillan. If this Alexander was a normal human, traveling all the way over here would take weeks unless they used the shortcut over Pillan, but... he wouldn’t take a child over those dangerous mountains, would he?

I landed upon the peak once more, looking down at both sides of the mountain. The paths looked clear, but you couldn’t see all of it from the top. They might be inside one of the internal passes, or in a cave if they were making their way up the mountain.

Scouring the entirety of the normal route around the mountain would take days, so I decided to just go back to the cave for now. The sun had begun to drop too, and being back a little too soon would definitely make father happier than if I'd had arrived too late.

I jumped off the mountain, beginning to glide back to the cave.

It’ll be nice to see my family again.