Delsinia

BOYS WILL BE DRAGONS


Delsinia the good dragon felt a bit run-down this particularly fine morning, and she could not put her talon on just why. Certainly there was a chill in the winter air (dragons, of course, prefer balmy weather), but she was sure she had long since accustomed herself to enduring the Rocky Mountain winters in her cozy lair in the Sangre de Cristos, just southwest of Pikes Peak.

Perhaps it was the run-in she'd had with that low-flying military jet last week--surely she could not be expected to recover from that little encounter anytime soon. Then again, perhaps it was just a bad case of the reds (the draconian equivalent of the blues). Lately Delsinia found herself pining for a bit of company, but not particularly thrilled with the notion of chatting with anyone. Since her mate Amadore had passed on, day-to-day life just didn't hold much appeal.

Delsinia rolled over on her back and extended her massive hindlegs into the air, leisurely stretching each golden-hued reptilian toe waaaay up toward the granite roof of her lair. With her more slender forelegs she preened the scales of her neck and breast self-consciously. "I'm not an old dragon," she told herself sternly, "and I'm certainly not an ugly dragon--if ever there were such a thing," she added with a snort, "so why should I be wasting away here all by myself?" Rolling over onto her belly, Delsinia stood and rustled her great wings, being careful not to scrape them on the nearby rock walls. She advanced to the portal of her rocky hideaway. "It's time I was up and about. I think I shall have to get myself a dash of fresh air." And with nary a further thought about it, she was away, folding up huge pockets of air--shwoosh!--with each powerful stroke of her magnificent flaxen wings.

Dragons (as you well know) tend to live in the here-and-now. Their thoughts of tomorrow are few and far between, and this has led to their capricious reputation among humans. Delsinia, therefore, had no idea when she left where she was headed, or just what she would do when she got there . . .

She had been with Amadore all of her life. They had grown up together, learned to fly together, and then they had been married: Now that her love was gone, Delsinia felt herself lost in a bleak and useless world. Inside her midsection lay a fiery gnawing hunger that would not go away--even on the wing--and this was a most rare affliction indeed, because flying generally cured any ailment a dragon might come down with. She began to suspect this was a condition which would not fade away of its own accord. And so off she flew, just like that, heading vaguely south toward New Mexico, where she had last heard from her sister, Lecinda.

Overhead shone a blazing sun, and down below were green and honey-hued fields full of noisy sheep with tiny herding dogs nipping at their heels. The pain in her belly did not entirely go away, but already she felt better--a bit lighter in the tail, as it were. Higher and higher she went, and faster still, until the thin, thin air of the heights was freezing in her nostrils and the wisps of cloud had turned nearly solid around her. She thought of the warm New Mexico skies and increased the beat of her immense wings.

If you are wondering (and really, you should be) how Delsinia could make such a bold flight in the daylight hours--crossing airline flight paths, swooping low within sight of the big highways--then it could be that you know little or nothing of the magical powers of dragonkind, invisibility being one of them. It is a talent they have cultivated over the years, driven largely by the urge to avoid extinction at the hands of ambitious and unimaginative men.

Delsinia, then, wove her way unseen, now high, now low, to the place in the New Mexico desert where her sister's home lay disguised as the lair of a panther.

When she arrived, there followed a glad, but subdued, meeting between the two sisters; dragons, of course, do not generally tend to show their emotions like humans do. On the other hand, when it comes to catching up on the current affairs of their fellows, there are a few of them who become downright enthusiastic.

"Delsinia! Tell me--where have you been? What do you hear of Telsaunia? And what of our brothers in their far-away haunts?" Lecinda cried excitedly, before her sister had a chance even to fold her wings properly.

Telsaunia was the third sister in Delsinia's clutch; Vankolio and Mugrathia were their only two brothers--by all reports, both off in Asia somewhere doing the rascally sorts of things that male dragons tend to enjoy.

Delsinia replied morosely. "I am afraid, sister mine, that I have no news for you. I find myself unusually moody of late." Lecinda's scaly face fell, and she moved to touch her sister with the tip of one bronze-colored wing. "No one has sought me out, and I have kept to myself, and I'm feeling rather lonely." With a short sigh, Delsinia turned away and waddled deeper into her sister's lair, where she dropped to the earthen floor in a most undragonlike manner. She began to groom herself abstractedly, as though she had abruptly forgotten where she was. The ache in her belly returned once more, with a vengeance.

Feeling badly about her tactless greeting, for she knew of Amadore's passing and could see that Delsinia was in need of a little tender loving care, Lecinda looked down at the floor of her grotto and shuffled her four large paws uncomfortably. But the wheels in her head spun 'round and 'round; it was really just too much, quite simply unbearable, to think that her sister might have fresh news, and yet, because of her great sadness, be unable to share it.

"I am sorry Delsinia. I'd no right to welcome you so hastily. Would you care for a sprig of fresh lamb? Perhaps a mug of warm cow's blood?"

Dragons being (as if you didn't know) a stubborn lot, Delsinia was determined not to be so easily mollified. She dug her snout into the dirt between her paws and pouted a draconian pout.

Lecinda, however, persevered. "What do you say this evening I take you to my favorite grazing field and we'll have us a hearty feast, just you and I." She batted her large eyes persuasively. "Yes?"

All good things must come to an end, thought Delsinia, and so grudgingly allowed herself to be coaxed into a night out.


* * * *


That evening, under the darkling cloak of a new moon, as they flew silent and invisible out to Lecinda's favorite fields, Delsinia's thoughts turned once more to Amadore; it seemed she could not keep her mind from returning to his image. She knew that her preoccupation with her deceased husband was not a healthy reaction--still, she could not help herself. Amadore returned to her in her dreams--she could hear his voice whispering in the winded clouds. Would there come a time when he would truly and forever depart from her presence? She could not believe it.

When the two great dragons landed finally in the fields where a local rancher's sheep stock was bedded down for the night, they did not immediately become visible, but in the distance the raucous warning of a sheepdog began, and a few individuals in the nearby herd began anxiously sniffing the air.

Folding her wings against her heaving sides, Lecinda looked up into the inky sky, paused to listen for a moment, then said, "What is that sound, sister?"

Delsinia, still absorbed in her thoughts of yesteryears, shuffled up next to her sister. "I don't hear anything Lecinda . . ."

"Shhh! There! That odd creaking sound. Hear it?"

Straining her pointed, ridiculously tiny ears in the direction indicated by Lecinda's pointing snout, Delsinia concentrated on hearing a faint creak in the darkness. But the only sounds that came to her were the pawings of the nervous sheep and the susurration of the breeze moving about in the desert grasses. Impatient to be about the night's gory but enjoyable dining routine, she made herself visible with but a thought. And there came then a clearly audible sound--an indrawn breath kind of sound, rather like a human animal groping for a breath.

Lecinda, still invisible, swung her head around, her toothy mouth opening wide in an ages-old reflex. Delsinia froze where she was, and peered into the night. A good distance away, just off the edge of a barely used dirt road, a clump of boulders sat idly on the ground, and just at the edge of one of them, the hungry dragon thought she could just make out a pale, oval sort of shape--just what it was she could not imagine. It simply didn't fit there.

Just then, it moved. With a half-smothered squawk and a hasty one-two stroke of her mighty wings, Lecinda lifted herself into the air. Delsinia still did not move, but visions of St. George the Demon flitted through her bewildered mind. Then out from behind the big rock came the round, pale shape Delsinia had been staring at, and she could see now that it was a human head, and it was attached to the body of a small human boy, who seemed to be riding through the night on an odd human contrivance of some sort--a chair with big wheels on either side of it. The boy pushed on the wheels with his arms, and he and the chair took off down the nearby dirt road at a remarkable pace. The two startled dragons looked at one another in astonishment, and then Lecinda flew off toward the rapidly fleeing child, while Delsinia opted to stay on her feet and chase after. For some odd reason, she was loathe to frighten the young lad. Of course, in the pandemonium of the moment, the notion that she might scare the boy regardless of whether she was on the ground or in the air, completely passed her by.

Dragons can make quite good time on the ground, of course--although they look a bit ungainly doing so--hence it was only seconds before Delsinia had overtaken the child. Still hoping to stop him without provoking any more dismay than she felt she already had, Delsinia rushed around in front of him and skidded to a halt, threw her rear end up in the air, and presented the stunned boy with a most unusual target--which, of course, he had no desire to hit.

Amid a flurry of gravel and dust, the boy and his wheelchair came to a halt on the dirt road. He opened his mouth wide and let fly a truly vigorous scream; the dog in the far-off distance renewed its barking clamor.

The two fearsome dragons were, by now, quite flustered. Human beings could not, under any circumstances, be allowed to bear witness to the existence of dragons, for the news would surely spread and all sorts of trouble and violence would follow.

"Hush him up, Delsinia!" Lecinda hissed loudly, hovering overhead. "You know the rules!"

Abruptly the child's scream ended. His eyes opened wide in wonder, and he looked right at the huge, scaled beast in front of him, then he looked up at the stars in the sky, and with only the slightest tremor in his voice, said, "You--you can talk . . . And there's another one of you! Only it's invisible!" Lecinda let out a mild expletive. "You're dragons aren't you? Real, live, talking dragons. Ohmigod." The boy was excited, but he seemed strangely unafraid of being eaten. Lecinda assumed he must be a bit daft. Still, his hands remained clenched white-knuckled on the wheels of his chair.

Delsinia turned around, very slowly, and gave the child a bemused stare. What sort of creature was this? To be so composed in such a dire situation . . . while her encounters with human beings had been extremely limited, those she had dealt with had been terribly cowardly, fleeing in panic at the mere sight of her. She had never had to eat one (and did not relish the thought, imagining them to be bony and tough) but had upon more than one occasion been forced to frighten off lone hikers from the region of her lair.

"I don't believe it! This is better than ET! Wait 'til I tell Danny Sullivan--he'll never believe it!"

Had he refrained from this last remark, the little boy--one Shea by name--might still have had a chance. But he did not, and Lecinda heard, and down upon him she dove.

There came a loud thump as Delsinia sent herself crashing into her sister's flank, and the two of them landed in a heap mere inches from where Shea sat frozen, his mind and frail body all a-quiver.

Lecinda was the first to untangle herself, and the first to be beside herself, too. Angry, that is. "What in the name of the First Egg are you doing?" she shouted. "You could have killed me!" As though to strengthen what she sensed was a weak argument, she added, "Besides. You know the rules! He can't tell!"

Delsinia spoke, without quite knowing why she was saying what she did. "I am sorry, sister, truly I am. But I don't think that he will." She cast a glance to where the lad sat frozen in his wheelchair, following with wide eyes the conversation of the two dragons. A strange emotion stirred within her belly, something she could not account for. "I think that if I talk to him, he will agree to keep this a secret." Casting an enormous, unblinking eye his way, Delsinia directed her next words at his small, frightened form. "Can you keep a secret, boy? --Hmmmm, can you?"

As if conversing with dragons were a thing he'd been doing every day of his brief life, the lad looked waaaay up into Delsinia's eyes and boldly replied, "If you please, mister dragon, I can promise you that if you trust me, I will never tell a soul about what I've seen." He paused, and added, a bit self-consciously, "Cross my heart and hope to die."

Ignoring Lecinda's muffled chuckle (whether at the lad's blunder concerning her gender, or his ironic choice of oaths, she did not know) Delsinia gave the boy a cold glare. "I am not a mister, young human, I'm a ma'am; you'd do well to remember that." Then, softening her tone a bit, though not her harsh stare, she continued. "I believe you, youngling. I can't imagine why. We don't lightly break the rules we've established, you know, and my sister is already quite put out with me for even contemplating the notion of letting you go. I should think that if you ever did tell, she would be easily upset enough to seek you out and eat you." Delsinia's huge teeth-lined jaws snapped shut with a clap! and she shook her head back and forth in mimicry of a pit bull with a rat in its mouth.

Though the night was quite cool, Shea wiped several beads of sweat off his slight forehead. "I understand. Ma'am. I really won't tell. I promise." And then, much to Delsinia's chagrin, a single tear eased out of the boy's left eye and ran down his cheek. It was really just too much to bear.

"Come here, then, boy, and tell me what is it your family calls you?"

Inching his way toward the great wall of scales in front of him, the child spoke haltingly. "My name is Shea, Ma'am." Suddenly, a shy smile burst upon his face and produced a quite remarkable and wholly irresistable feeling in Delsinia's heart. "What--if you have one, ma'am--is your name?"

With a raspy chuckle and a quick glance toward her wide-eyed sister, Shea's new friend responded, "My name is Delsinia, Shea. That voice you hear is Lecinda, my sister, who is a love, but lacks my own social graces."

Lecinda squinted, and gave an offended harrumph, saying, "If you must, Delsinia, then play with the hatchling. Although I'm sure I don't know what's come over you that you would behave so. When you're quite through, I'll be waiting for you back home." Shea listened with rapture as Lecinda's great wings carried the mythical beast up and off into the night.

"I always believed in dragons." The boy said quietly. "I always believed they were nice, not like in those fairy tales."

"Most of us are nice, Shea, although some of those fairy tales were indeed inspired by the exploits of a few unsavory lizards who were pushed a little too hard by thick-headed human warrior types hungry for a bit of glory. There are good dragons and there are bad dragons, and both have inspired their tales among humans." Settling back on her haunches, Delsinia peered at the boy, noting his wide eyes, his tawny hair, the crinkles around his mouth when he smiled, and the wheelchair which seemed to bind him.

"Why do you sit in that odd contraption that way?" She inquired politely.

His expression changing into something Delsinia could not quite pur her talon on, he spoke haltingly. "It's kind of difficult, really--I mean, I've never really talked to anyone about it . . . well, except my dad, and I talk to him about most things. My mom died when I was three." He paused, long and stoically. "This happened when I was nine. My first motorcycle ride." A twisted grin crossed his lips. "It was a great ride--you should have seen me!" His face fell once more. "Then I hit a big hill--too big--and I came off. I've been this way ever since."

Puzzled, Delsinia inquired, "What way is that?"

In a flash, Shea's expression turned sour. "Do I have to spell it out for you? I'm paralyzed, lame--I can't walk or use my legs. I can't even feel them!" Watching his hands knead one another in his lap, the boy muttered, "Stupid dragon."

Rather than an immediate rage--which, of course, would have been the normal reaction of any self-respecting dragon at the boy's careless words--Delsinia was overtaken with a sudden pity for the lad. In her belly, she felt an odd stirring, as though his plight had given her a quick indigestion.

"I'll tell you what, Shea." The immense golden dragon pointed a well-honed wing talon at her newfound friend. "You learn a bit more respect for my kind, and I will consider visiting you from time to time, out here among the sheep your father raises." Pausing to see what effect her invitation might have (Shea, not surprisingly, looked up with hope and excitement written deep in his eyes), Delsinia then continued. "However, if you insist on muttering unworthy anti-draconian imprecations, I'll take my leave now and you can finish out your days wondering about the night you thought you saw a dragon."

"Oh, no, ma'am. Please . . . I'll mind my tongue. I promise I will. I just--I get kind of--mad sometimes."

"And no wonder. I quite understand, Shea." She brushed the top of his head briefly and gently with a metallic wingtip. "Well then, I must be off; if you like I'll meet you here a week from tonight. One thing to remember... You must be alone, or you'll not see or hear me ever again."

With a mighty leap, Delsinia ascended into thin air and was gone. The beat of her wings could be heard just briefly, then silence descended, and Shea, tired but lighthearted, turned toward home.


* * * *


It was three days after that peculiar encounter that Delsinia became aware that the odd sensations in her belly had a much more unlooked-for explanation than indigestion or grief. She was, in fact, pregnant. And she was, to say the least, very surprised. Shocked. Dumbfounded. And just a teensy bit mortified.

"Whatever am I to do, Lecinda?" she wailed, lying on the floor of her sister's cave and fanning herself desperately. "I mean, not that anyone can tell just looking at me, but I'm no spring wyrmling anymore! Long past my prime bearing years. I can't do this! I'm not prepared. Not that one ever is, of course . . . oh, what am I to do?"

To her credit, Lecinda recited all the right things at what was indubitably the right time. "Now, Delsinia--in the first place, you're not old, not a bit of it. As for what you are to do, why, you'll lay an egg, and you'll warm it and watch over it until it cracks open and gives us one of the most beautiful and noble dragons our kind has ever known--that's what you'll do!" Lecinda waddled over to where her sister lay sprawled on the floor, woebegone, and reached out ever-so-gently and stroked the sides of her head, just above the cheekbone, near to the temple--a delectable sensation among dragonkind--and Delsinia slowly let herself relax. "Everything will work itself out just fine; in the meantime, why don't you tell me what happened the last time Telsaunia came to visit . . ."

The sun reared up a brilliant rosy red the following morning, only to find a drowsy and somewhat cantankerous dragon lazing around her sister's cavern. Lecinda was long arisen and gone away to seek out breakfast. Pregnant dragons need a lot of blood, and before long there would be stories in the local newspaper speculating on the livestock mutilations in the area, puzzling over the strange markings left upon the bodies and demanding an explanation as to why the bodies were left with marvelous scalpelesque incisions and no tracks to indicate the nature of the predators responsible for the travesty.

But then, dragons care little for the ruminations of the morning paper, and so it was that soon after Delsinia finished stretching and blinking the sleep out of her scaly reptilian eyes, Lecinda arrived with fresh victuals... Messy and plentiful. Her appetite suddenly raging, Delsinia attacked the food with fervor, dipping and shaking her head about. Presently, around a tasty morsel of haunch, she managed to greet her sister, who had been watching with genuine admiration.

"Delicious, Lecinda." Delsinia declared, at last getting enough of a grip on her hunger to express her gratitude. "Thank you so much. But I do so hate the thought of continuing to be a bother--I'll hie myself away tomorrow, back to my own cave where I'll be out of your scales."

"My but you are the silly one, Delsinia. You'll do no such thing you know. And furthermore, while you're here, you'll mind me when I tell you to rest and you'll keep yourself quiet and warm in my lair until this wyrmling has been given a chance to hatch."

"But I'll just continue to be a bother, sister, and I would most certainly promise you to take care of myself once back home."

"Nonsense, dear. You're simply being ridiculous; you're here with me, and here you'll stay. Now, no more of this talk--you get yourself a wink or two, and I'll see you in a bit with a nice fresh snack." Delsinia smiled wide, Lecinda returned it, and the beastly sisters embraced--an awkward sight indeed.


* * * *


Several days passed by, and came the evening when Delsinia the good dragon had promised to meet Shea once more. Although it seemed a bit odd, she found herself earnestly looking forward to the rendezvous. The youngster had taken a grip on her heartstrings and now held them fast; she took it to be a sign of premature maternalism.

In order that she not be bothered with any pesky arguments concerning her fitness to fly, Delsinia waited until Lecinda had gone a-hunting, then launched her ungainly and invisible frame into the night air.

Shea was waiting, parked near the dirt road down which he had recently been chased by dragons, whistling in the dark to keep himself company. Rustling her wings a bit to give the lad warning, Delsinia landed nearby and allowed herself to be seen. Shea gasped, but quickly recovered himself. "I don't think I could ever get used to that. How do you do it?"

"You mean the invisible trick? It's a simple matter, really. You just think yourself invisible, and no one can see you."

Screwing up his face, the young boy concentrated for a moment, remaining completely visible the while. Delsinia stifled a chuckle. She moved closer, sat back on her rear end. "I'm not sure it will work for you, sweets; my kind has been at it quite a long time now, and rather managed to perfect the art."

"If I work at it real hard," asked Shea, "do you think I could learn to do it?"

"I'm afraid not, lad. At least, I've never heard of it working for a human before . . ." The ticklings of an outlandish thought brushed against Delsinia's brain.

"I wish I were a dragon, Delsinia. I wouldn't need this crappy wheelchair anymore. I'd fly all over the world, doing nice things for other kids and beating up on creeps." Shea, being as young as he was, can be forgiven--perhaps even applauded--for his moral insouciance (For, as we all know, it is children and their eternally optimistic notions who keep the world spinning properly on its axis).

"I believe that that is exactly what you would do, my boy," a touched Delsinia replied softly.

"I've tried to be happy--you know, put a good face on--since the accident. It kills my dad to see me moping." Shea paused. He fumbled about for a moment, trying to gather the words together and release what was inside. "You can only go around feeling sorry for yourself for so long, and then it just starts to eat at you."

"You," the great golden dragon noted, "are quite a grown-up little boy, Shea."

"I tried to figure out why this had to happen to me, and since I couldn't, I decided to forget it. Waste of time." Shea looked up into his friend's tiny eyes. "But then when I met you, I thought, 'If I was still able to walk, I'd have never met Delsinia and her sister. I'd have missed out on the most beautiful sight I've ever seen.'" He reached out a tentative hand, as though to stroke her shiny scales.

For the first time in uncounted hundreds of years, Delsinia allowed herself to be petted by the hand of a human; in return, she enfolded the young boy gently within the span of a single wing. In the distance, a dog began barking. Overhead, a dead cow soared through the night, on its way to dinner at Lecinda's cave.


* * * *


Delsinia the good dragon did not apprehend the effect of her last meeting with Shea for two days. But a funny thing happened as she was laying the egg she had conceived with Amadore her love--it occurred to her that she was more than a little fond of the lad; she loved him as a child of her own. 'Now,' she thought, 'it is of course possible that I have merely been carried away by my surging hormones: Having brought forth my child's shell I surely will turn my affections from that human boy toward my own youngling . . .'

But it was not to be. A strange and unique event in the annals of draconian history had befallen poor Delsinia, and she found that, although her own tiny package of joy held her heart firmly, so did the small two-leg. Dragons and humans had long been adversaries, and Delsinia was ashamed, and confused, and she did not tell Lecinda of the untoward sentiments which had arisen within her breast . . .

Three days after her last meeting with Shea, Delsinia was lazing about and feeling just awful. Though aware of a certain melancholy within her sister, Lecinda continued her appointed duties as nursemaid, certain that the arrival of the wyrmling would repair things. There came just then a scraping noise without the cave entrance, the sound of crunching rocks and a queer squeak-squeaking. The wan and sweat-moistened face of Shea appeared a moment later, looking all about for the friend who had lifted up his heart. "Delsinia?" he called. "Lecinda? Hello?" More sounds of crunching rocks. "You must be here somewhere--oh please help me find you!"

At that moment, within Lecinda's lair, the egg upon the floor began to rock. Delsinia looked at it, watched a tiny crack spread across the mottled surface. Lecinda looked at her sister, her eyes wordlessly pleading for some indication of what to do. A mixture of elation and agitation roiled within Delsinia's breast; she called out to Shea, motioned to her sister to remove the mild enchantment which helped disguise the cave entrance.

Delsinia the Good Dragon had abruptly made her fateful, irreversible decision, thus doing her secondary appellation justice. "Come in here, child. I've something to show you."

Shea's hesitant figure appeared at the cave mouth, his small arms straining with the effort he was making to roll his way over the uneven ground. Then he was inside, where he saw his friend, her sister, and the egg, rocking and cracking where it lay on its nest of pine boughs. His eyes got very big, and he stopped just inside the entrance, unwilling to disturb the magnificent event he saw unfolding before him.

"Come over here, Shea," Delsinia's voice was warm and downy-soft, "and sit beside me, that I may give to you the gift you have asked for." Doing as he had been asked, Shea gazed raptly into his friend's eyes. Tentatively, he reached out and touched her scaled hide, just where he thought a tender heart might lie slowly beating.

Off to one side, Lecinda, having slowly realized the momentous course events were taking, spoke up. "Delsinia, are you sure . . . ?" But Delsinia was already moving her egg close up next to her own body and that of her slight companion; she turned her head and, looking down, met Shea's rapt gaze with her own, then shifted it to look upon the shell which contained her hatching child.

Drawing breath as though for a final time, she closed her eyes and said to Shea, "Hold still, now, dear Shea, this may hurt just a bit." A grimace passed across her features, there came an anguished cry from the boy, and then--his exhausted and half-wasted body falling limply upon itself in its chair--the deed was done, and Delsinia began to quietly weep.

Accompanied by a sharp crack! the moist and pointed snout of a baby dragon emerged from its birthing chamber and waved unsteadily about, seeking a familiar reference point in a strange new world. Delsinia wrapped herself about the egg and its questing occupant, dancing the dance as old and as new as life itself. In a trice, the body entire of the warm little wyrmling stood rocking unsteadily upon the floor of Lecinda's lair. Presently, its watery pupils focused a bit, enough to find its mother's form, then her head, and eventually her eyes, where it long rested its gaze, with a trace of wonder and bereavement. He (for it was indeed a boy) spoke then, but haltingly, troubled by an unfamiliar pointed tongue, and said, "What have you done, Delsinia?"

"What I wanted to do, dear Shea. I have given you a fine new body to match the unflagging spirit you already possessed." Lecinda looked upon her sister and knew great awe and admiration and a deep respect welled up within her.

"I owed you a gift, my boy, for you gave me one, though I knew it not when I received it. I had been wallowing in my depression and self-pity and loneliness and when I met you I soon became aware of my shameful plunge--you reminded me that I was a lucky and blessed creature on this world, Shea, and I have given you now only that which you truly deserve."

In the history of the world, there have passed but a handful of truly noble deeds. Delsinia's would join their ranks swiftly and honorably.

Shea well knew this when he managed to squawk, "Thank you . . . mother?"

Delsinia smiled wide.

"But," a disconsolate frown creased Shea's already wrinkly newborn visage, "what have you really done? I mean, what of your true son? You, you've . . ." he choked on the words.

"Not to worry, small one. Nothing has been lost here. You see, a dragon's soul does not enter into the world the way that a human's does. Already attached, that is." Delsinia embowered her newborn within a single wingspan. "Only after the wyrmling's body has become sufficiently able to defend itself does its spirit migrate hence; this method was sensibly adopted long ago in the days when our kind were given no quarter by vicious men." She paused, then added thoughtfully, "For the same reason, you should find yourself able to fly in a few moments, though you have never done so before. Try flapping a few times to see if the proper muscles are working yet."

With an odd little grimace, Shea worked his new wings a bit, not coordinated at first, but gaining confidence with each flex. Before long, he actually felt his feet rise up off the floor a couple of inches as his wyrmling's body exerted its natural powers.

Poking his snout tentatively into the folds of Delsinia's rough hide, Shea mumbled something unintelligible.

"What was that, my lovely?" asked his new mother.

"I said, 'If I'm dreaming, I hope I never do wake up.'"

"It's no dream, dearhearted child. You are a dragon now. And it's time you were up and about. You've spent enough time on the ground--why don't you find out what the world looks like from up in the air?"

And so he did. With the wind at his back, the sun in his eyes, and a brilliant newborn glow in his heart, Shea the good dragon went flying off toward his father's ranch house, where he knew he would be faced with the nearly impossible task of explaining just who and what he had become. As he lifted himself into the air, he heard his Aunt Lecinda asking his mother about news of Delsinia's last visit to see Grandma Calisenthia in Florida and was she still enjoying her run of capricious exploits with human airplanes and boats in the Carribean Sea . . .?



The End