Josh approached from the south side of the canyon. He scrambled down the loose rocks like a lizard. As dragons go, he might be old enough to be useful, but was too young for much of anything.

“Off the rocks! You are destroying the patterns,” Marth yelled at the youngster.

Josh unfurled his wings and attempted to glide the rest of the way down the canyon wall. It was a notable effort. Even if it was unsuccessful. He landed on his nose. Didn’t break his neck, though. Must be tougher than he looked. He got up quickly, dusted himself off, and bowed in Marth’s direction.

“Gramps gave me a quest.”

Marth uprooted a pine. He calculated the angle to swing the tree to swat Josh out of the canyon. He had no use for younglings. Most died of stupidity before their second century, so what was the point? He couldn’t see how Alex, aka Gramps, found them entertaining. But then Alex, aka Dad, was a few centuries older than Marth. Perhaps it was dementia.

“I am going to Cleve land. I need to shape shift into a human.”

Marth paused to look at the youngster. Either the youth was lying, or Alex was emptying the ranks by sending out dragons too young to possibly succeed.

Josh opened the messenger bag strapped across his chest. His hide was a perfect, golden bronze. Almost blinding in the sunlight.

“I brought cherries.” He took a twig out of the bag and set it on the ground. The branch swelled to the size of a tree limb. Covered with cherries.

Marth sniffed the air. His tongue flicked to further sense the aroma. The cherries were good, at the peak of ripeness. The youngster knew his manners.

“I wouldn’t bother you if it wasn’t really important.”

Every young dragon on his first quest believed the world would end if they weren’t successful. It was never true.

“I’ve studied your book. I believe I understand the principles. But is as if you’ve left somethings out. Between chapters three and four, it feels like there ought to be another chapter.”

Indeed he had. This one had perception beyond his years, it seemed.

“Show me what you’ve got.” Marth put the tree down. This might be interesting.

Josh closed his eyes to concentrate. After a couple of minutes he exhaled and produced an illusion of a blue-green dough ball. His wings vanished and ball elongated, bits separated into a sort of oval head, pudgy arms and long, skinny legs. Behind, his tail twitched like a severed member disconnected, and separate from the illusion.

“Well?”

“Well what?” Marth tried not to laugh. “What are you trying to look like?”

“A Cleve man, of course.” The kid had gumption. Too bad Cleve land would chew him up and spit him out like so much spoiled chicken.

Marth remembered his last trip to the place. He’d spent the evening in a bar with a guy named Jack Rock, though there was nothing stoney about the man. Couldn’t hold his liquor at all. Marth transformed himself into his likeness.

“Humans have no blue or green pigmentation. Their features are distinctive, not doughy. They apply clothing ritualistically and for vanity. Try copying the human I am representing.”

Josh dropped his illusion. “But—it won’t do to look like someone already there.”

There was no way the young dragon’s skills could pull that off. “Study the form carefully. Do not miss any details.”

The younger dragon walked around Marth several times. Had to give him credit for that. It usually took a dragon a century to develop that kind of patience. Josh was what? Less than thirty years, for sure, given the state of his wings.

After the third go around, Josh got to work. He managed the general proportions, but again forgot about his tail. A common problem for beginners. Colors came next. His approximations were fair, but he needed pointers on human eyesight to get the perceptions right. He missed the difference between skin and clothing completely.

“That’s enough,” Marth said. “Go back to the library and study human physiology. Pick five actual humans to copy. Come back when you can shape shift into each.”

“That’s it? Then I will be ready to go to Cleve land?”

Marth let out a belly laugh. Nearby trees cracked. “Once you get the visuals correct, you can work on vocalizations and mannerisms. You can’t simply look like a human. You must behave like one.”

Marth turned back to his study of the rocks. He’d wasted enough time. Josh’s sliding down the scree left some interesting patterns. Perhaps the youth was good for something.

 

#

 

Rockslides were not uncommon. Lady Earth shifted her gowns regularly. The patterns this cycle were unusual. Something was up, and not in a good way. Marth collected omens the way other dragons collected gold or precious stones.

This day, he was teasing out threads related to weather. Drought was everywhere and building. The question on his mind was whether the dragons should adapt to the new conditions or identify the source of the problem and fix it. It was a complicated snarl and the solution either way would not be simple.

“I’ve done as you asked, Uncle.”

Standing at the edge of the canyon was a small dragon pretending to be a human wearing red plaid trousers, a black shirt and a yellow cap. His skin was brown with hints of magenta and olive. He had black hair and eyes with a scraggly beard that went half way to his waist. He looked to be, in human terms, mid-life. The illusion was ridiculous, but matched the profile image perfectly.

“Did you bring cherries?”

“I have dragon fruit today.”

Marth swooped up, grabbed the pseudo human in one hand, and set him down on the canyon floor beside a pool of still water. He could feel Josh’s form beneath the illusion. The young dragon might be a quick study, but real shape shifting, rather than illusion, was beyond his abilities.

“Well?” Marth watched a few rocks fall from the ridge. Their impact on the patterns below was negligible.

“Well what?”

“Show me the fruit.” How could the youngster be so dense?

Josh brought his sack from behind the illusion and withdrew five dragon fruit. They smelled divine.

“Your illusion is small. Try about ten per cent larger. Also, tone the magenta accents to a decaying apricot. And make the hat red to match the plaid in the pants.”

Josh crept closer to the water’s edge to see himself in its reflection. He managed the colors without difficulty. He could not make the size of the illusion any larger. If anything, it shrunk. Still, he was much more accomplished than a week ago.

“That’s enough. Pick a younger human next time.” He wanted to say, closer to your own age, but that would be too young to garner any respect in the presence of humans. Respect was a tough aspect to get right. “Your proportions are close, but need more work. Have you started on language yet?”

“There seem to be a plethora of dialects available.”

“There is some correlation between dialect and appearance. Choose your look, then research the best matching dialect. Next time you interrupt my work, I’ll expect you to both look and speak the part. You may exit through the break in the north wall.”

“Yes, Uncle. Thank you, Uncle.” Josh backed away from the pond toward the north. As soon as he reached the trees, he bolted and ran.

Marth turned his attention back to the rockslide on the southern wall. Yes, there was a common thread running through weather changes. If Josh survived Alex’s quest, perhaps he could send the young dragon out for some sample collecting. He seemed pretty good with following directions, even if he was much too young.

 

#

 

Daily, the rocks changed. Little changes were to be expected. Occasional big ones also. But this was different. Too much was changing from one day to the next. Some days it was all Marth could do to keep up with recording the changes. That the transitions from one day to the next were important was not in question. Largely, it was the transitions telling the story. The story was changing from a pastoral romance to a gritty post apocalyptic nightmare.

It scared not only Marth but also the other senior dragons with whom he shared the details. The good news was that they still had time. The bad news was that they were still clueless about what to do. Throughout their long partnership with Lady Earth, she was the principal agent of change. Dragons need only watch and observe. This time, it seemed that wouldn’t be enough.

He worried a little about the young ones like Josh. The world Josh would inherit would be nothing like the current one. Not that it ever would have been, change being the only constant in the universe. So far, the older dragons were going on with life as usual. They would not burden the younger generations with the disasters in the outside world as long as there was some way to mitigate the effects on the dragon community. Marth was not in disagreement with that. He wondered whether there was any way to successfully mitigate Lady Earth’s problems. But then, the planet didn’t see what was going on as a problem.

Both Lady Earth and the dragons felt that if there were problems, they stemmed from human activities. They were too many and they were too short lived to develop much intelligence.

Not that dragon kind had to do anything about that. Either the humans solved their problems or they suffered catastrophic losses. Either way would not impact dragons too much. All the dragons had to do was stay out of their way, which is something that came naturally at this point.

That’s not to say that the burgeoning human population hadn’t had an effect. Though bigger and smarter, dragons would be extinct had they not elected to set themselves apart. That had happened before Marth hatched. As a youngling, he’d wondered why dragons and humans couldn’t co-exist. Each time he’d visited a human establishment over the years, it was obvious why. Humans suffered no one to be their superior.

Still, young dragons had to learn that lesson for themselves. Hence the quasi-quests that would lead them into human settlements for a while to see how the other world lived. Josh seemed a little young, but there was something about the youngster. Marth was still trying to get his claws around it.

 

The next time he visited, Josh brought elderberries. An interesting choice. Probably implied that Marth was too detail oriented for his taste. Marth could play that game. But didn’t.

Josh appeared as a young human reaching the end of adolescence. The hair on the top of his head was yellow and stringy. His eyes were powder blue. His complexion was pale, as if he spent little time out of doors. His clothing, blue and gray, was ripped at the knees and elbows. He was thin and too long for his pants and shirt.

Marth waited to hear him say something.

The young pseudo-human slowly kicked a stone across the dirt (nicely done).

Marth nudged a boulder at the top of the canyon wall to start a small landslide. He was bothered a little bit by destroying the current patterns, but not much, he’d recorded them earlier.

Josh noticed that the scree was unlikely to come close to him and ignored it. He continued to move the rock along the canyon floor.

There were some interesting conjunctions forming along those gravel trails. The third one suggested Josh might become a good judge of character. That was a useful asset.

Marth transformed himself into a human about the same age as Josh. But with short, strawberry blonde hair, a more swarthy complexion, and a little more meat on the bones. He picked up a rock and threw it where Josh’s tail left faint impressions in the sand.

Josh turned. “Hey, whatcha done that for?” He spoke in credible human.

“Humans don’t have tails.” Marth still wasn’t sure this one was old enough for a quest.

“I know that.” He twisted around to look. “It’s not showing.”

“You are performing an illusion. Not shapeshifting. It won’t do.”

“Ya coulda said sumthin about that sooner.” Josh sat on the ground, holding the illusion, but barely. He looked dejected.

He had a gift for translating his feelings through an illusion. Few could do that.

Marth was annoyed to be the one to decide whether this youngling was old enough. Anyone could have taught him how to shape shift. Yes, he was better at it than anyone else, but that was hardly relevant. Someone thought Josh was old enough, probably several someones. But Josh was younger than average and no one wanted to be blamed for elevating him too soon.

He gazed at the stones displaced by the young dragon’s game. They hinted that there was less time than anyone thought. He sighed and sat down.

“As illusions go, it’s as good as any I’ve seen.”

“Really?” Josh said in dragon. “Oh, um,” he corrected in human, “that’s good, I guess.”

“An illusion, you wear as a second skin.” Marth drew a circle in the sand, then a square around it. “In shapeshifting, the new shape is your skin.” He erased the inner circle.

“I dunna know how to do that.” He closed his eyes. “An I read your book three times already.”

“How old are you? Dragon age.”

“Um. Twenty two winter solstice.”

“Stand up.” Old enough to fly. Barely, anyway. “Drop the illusion and extend your wings.” Marth dropped the human form and assumed his dragon shape, but sized to match the younger dragon. He extended his wings. “Take a good look at my wings. Notice the differences between them and yours.”

Josh walked around him several times.

“Besides color, I guess that the muscles are better developed.”

“But you exercise your wings, don’t you?”

“Every day.”

“So why aren’t your wing muscles as developed as mine?”

“They are puny and won’t grow.”

“Dragonetts develop sufficient wing strength to fly by their third winter.” Marth watched the wind dancing in the trees. “As you can imagine, flying toddlers are a danger both to themselves and the clan itself. So we use shapeshifting to regress the muscle development.”

“What?” Josh stood stiff and tall.

“This muscle, right here.” Marth traced the muscle group reaching up Josh’s back and into the base of his wings. “Concentrate. Think about freeing it.”

It took the younger dragon a few minutes to think about it. Then the muscles gradually plumped.

“Good. Now these.”

The second group went faster than the first. Marth stepped back. He extended his wings and flapped twice, rising from the ground half his height.

“Your turn.”

Gullible enough to try, Josh found himself lifting off.

“Now you can fly.”

Josh lifted himself higher into the air. He did the seven First Flight exercises in rapid succession. His execution was flawless. Older dragons being released for the first time rarely did so well. Maybe this wasn’t going to be a mistake.

The young dragon gracefully returned to the ground.

“Now you have experienced the muscles of your wings in two ways. The first was weak and ineffective, the second strong and powerful. That is what shapeshifting is about. Being able to understand and express your physiology as that of another being.”

Josh thought about that for a while. He worked his wings into different positions, felt how they felt.

Marth turned away, resumed his natural size and went back to studying the rocks. Young dragons when first given their wings needed some time to work things out for themselves. Most got drunk on flying for the first time and acted stupidly. Couldn’t really blame them. The transition from lizard to dragon was life changing.

The rocks were confusing. Josh was perplexing. He was not off gallivanting in the sky, trying out his new wings. He sat in the dirt, drawing with his claws, two hands and one foot. Amazing dexterity.

“Uncle?”

“Yes?” He did not turn around. He did not want to appear anxious to help.

“I get shifting into the human form.” He closed his eyes and shifted into something credible for the first try. The tail and wings were gone. His eyes were too wide on the sides of his head and the legs were too short.

“Fair.”

“But what about the clothes? Is there a way to translate my messenger bag into a shirt, for example?”

Hadn’t expected that question.

“Well, that would be practical.” Marth changed the bag into an Oxford Button Down. A style popular thirty or so years ago. “It’s a highly advanced technique. Takes decades of study to master. You can create the illusion of clothing over the shape shifting. It is extremely difficult to keep a credible illusion of cloth, particularly if it is loose and flowing, for any length of time. Mostly, we pick up clothing once we’ve reach a human settlement.”

“That makes sense.”

“Always look for the simplest solution first.” Marth felt himself wanting to insure that the youngling survived his first quest. This one would be important in the future.

“The library could probably make something.”

“That will get you there. But our manufacturing technology is much different from theirs. Humans are suspicious creatures. Best to work with as many local materials as possible.”

“Thank you, Uncle.” Josh stood.

“Give yourself at least a full lunar cycle to research and practice the character you wish to become. Make sure you can hold it for at least a week, day and night, before declaring that you are ready.”

Marth backed up. Josh might now have the muscles for flying, but he did not have the experience. His take-off wasn’t bad. Steering was problematic, but as he circled the canyon, he was getting the hang of it.

 

#end#