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Something prodded my side and I absently brought a paw forward to bat it away. The nudging returned much further up my body accompanied by a whistle.

Wake up Kimmy! Angie tittered, and nudged me again with her nose. Which was now offensively wet, making me recoil as I hissed to myself. Dammit girl, I rise with the sun, not before it! But I couldn't stay mad at her for long. If you'd shown me someone who could hold a grudge against sweet little Angie, I'd show you someone that I'd just bitten in half.

Besides, my internal alarm was blaring at me that it was time to spread my arms anyway. I fucking hate mornings. Opening my eyes, I widened my pupils as much as I could to take in the thin predawn light trickling in through the windows of my shelter. Tilting my head I met the innocent glowing eyes breaking up the formless shadow crouched next to me.

Good morning Angie. How is my favorite dragon?

She reared up onto her hind legs to flail her front ones as she spread her wings to respond eagerly. Oh! I had so much fun flying here this morning! If I go up really high I can see the sun! It makes me feel warm! And then I did loopy loops!

This had been her habit ever since the events of zero day. Much to the consternation of her parents, she had retained more than a little of the feral behavior she had had forced down her gullet by her change. Not the least of which, was to wake up at zero dark thirty to fly and/or hunt. Alex had been on the receiving end of a panicked call from Helen and George one morning when they had awoken to find their little girl with her snout buried in the abdomen of a small calf. Apparently, she had cheerfully asked them if they wanted to share. For her part, she thought nothing wrong with anything she did, much to her parent's distress.

I would like to be a fly on the wall for one of their therapy sessions. Just to see their shrink squirm as they tried to tell the eight meter long female why her parents didn't want to share the deer's blood that she was licking from her nose. Why she shouldn't make a game of surprising people by jumping off buildings. Or from what I can gather of another incident. Why she shouldn't show her mom birds that she'd found nesting at the top of 40 meter trees by plucking her off of the ground. At my side, she finished the gleeful recounting of her skylarking, and finally showed me the source of the scent that had been tickling my gaping nostrils.

I brought this for you! For you and your eggs! It is a sheep! It goes baaaah! It went baaaah when I scratched it! Now it does not go baaaah anymore because it is food!

She nudged the ball of blood-stained fleece towards me with her nose and then sat back looking expectantly at me as her tongue darted outward several times to lick some blood off her face. I looked down on it, reluctant to bitch at her, but knowing that someone had to tell her right from wrong. The blood had long since stopped flowing from the fatal gash running across its back and down its side, some of it even covering the tag stuck in its ear. Lone Tree Ranch was printed on the tag followed by an alphanumeric. I gave a heaving sigh and felt my wing arms twitch.

Thank you Angie. Why do we not go outside, so that I can ask Alex to cook this for us later? I promise I will give you half when you get back from school.

Okie! She squeaked, leaping to her paws with enough energy to go tumbling through the curtain with another titter. As her tail disappeared outside, I could hear her calling out to one of the shit heels that continued to haunt my fucking home. She was trying to get one of the Guardsmen outside to play tag with her as I made sure my husband was awake. He probably was, at least if his smell was anything to go by I think. But he needed to be up as well. I decided to take it easy on him for once, especially after I had convinced him that he'd gone blind yesterday, and gave him a friendlier wakeup call.

Stroking his tail with mine, I stretched my neck out to lick and nibble gently at his ear flap. A pleased trill came from his throat and his scales lifted as the scent of his recognition of how awesome I am made both our hearts swell. I crooned into his ear, my breathy caress making his scales flutter and causing an eye, which longed for nothing more than to gaze into mine, to open.

HA! Am I a goddamned poet or what?

Kim, one of the things that I love the most about you is... Is...

Yes? Yes? I said eagerly, thrumming with pleasure at the impending compliment.

That you can reach that itch just above my right wing. I think I am shedding some scale there.

Miffed, I flattened my ears and drew my wings tight against me. I'll scratch his fucking itch!

Lurching to my paws, I fastened my teeth to his neck just behind his head and began to back through the curtain, dragging him along accompanied by a choking noise. Just see how long before I give him a gentle awakening again! I know I can hold about 50 liters of water in my throat. Tomorrow all of that is going to be sprayed right into his fucking eyeball!

Just before my head passed beyond the curtain, I could see Irma and Jesse, tied up in their usual knot. They squirmed more closely about each other to wring a few more hours of sleep out of the morning. The two of them looked like the world's largest pill bug. Those fucking aliens were lying next to them as well. The smaller of the two vile hell spawn had its eyes open and watching while its head lay upon its paws. The thought of trying to bite the evil, world destroying, conniving, duplicitous, scum sucking, life raping, antagonistic, morally barren, cock sucking, half-aborted, shit stained... I stopped my mental tirade at the same time I let Tom go after having dragged him outside. Closing my eyes, I started my breathing exercise to calm myself. Four lives depended on me staying calm after all.

"You've been losing control more often honey." My wonderfully observant mate said, as the scent of his worry reached me.

I kept my eyes shut as I continued the steadying cadence of my lung bursting breaths, flicking a wing to acknowledge him and to keep him silent. His scales rustled and his scent diminished as he shuffled away. I focused on the sound of his movements for the moment as they tracked towards the shelter, before completing my session and lazily opening my eyes once more. He was seated before me with Angie's sheep offering to his side and looking at me with concern.

The love shining in his eyes made me want to swell with happiness. But the distress that they held mirrored my own. My eggs, my babies. I was now nine and a half months or so along. At this point with the twins I was well aware of their weight pressing down upon my hips. Even worse than lugging what felt like a bowling ball around was that I couldn't see my toes anymore. Disregard last, I wasn't carrying my twins at 38 weeks. I had 14 to 40 weeks to go, and I was carrying quadruplets encased in shells. Growing up as a human female, and having given birth to three beautiful children, I thought I knew it all. Now I was learning once more.

Since my hips were now behind instead of beneath them there was no real skeletal support. Instead the only growth I had noticed was that my body had gotten much thicker with muscle of all things. In what I can only imagine was its way of holding the weight. So, no balloon belly, thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster. As far as I could tell, the egg shells hadn't actually became all that thick yet, as I could feel the thump of four heartbeats far behind my own. A reminder that never ceased to make me coo, as I cooed. The feeling of those distant signs of life deep within the protection of my formidable body is the greatest joy of being female. Which makes me all the more of a basket case every time I lose control of my anger, and feel those tiny vulnerable hearts quicken in response to my toxic hostility. I would never be able to forgive myself if I caused them harm due to whatever is wrong with my head.

My fins drooped miserably while I replied. "I know... I'm worried that the more I'm around Thumper the angrier I'll become. Why won't it just leave us alone for now? It is going to get what it wants out of us. It refuses to change us back. So what good is it doing here, besides making me want to fucking kill that..."

I stopped my rising shout as he rubbed his cheek against my own, closing my eyes I sighed at the feeling of his soft scales brushing against mine. My anger bled from me as the smell of his calm demeanor swept it aside once more.

"I want to inflict pain on it for what it has done to us and others. For what it is doing to the world. But I can't. I don't know how to act around a creature that is beyond us."

My love drew his head back and then placed his brow against mine to look me directly into the eyes.

"Kim, we have been caught up in a plan that we barely understand. For reasons that have not, nor may ever, be given. You have every right to feel the anger that you do. But, we have already been told that there is no return to what once was. We have to choose, are we going to fight a war we can't win? Or fight for a future for our children?"

"I will die fighting!" I vehemently asserted.

"Then die fighting by my side, for our children's future." His tail found mine to embrace it, he kissed me. "I love you Kim."

My heart glowed within my breast like the sun, and deep within my womb, I felt four more stars join in filling me with warmth.

"I can speak for the ones that I hold along with myself. We love you Tom." I kissed him back, losing myself in the scent of his implacable devotion, the taste of his love coating each fine scale on his jowl. This must be what bliss tastes like, I thought.

We broke apart then as I went back inside to rouse up the twins for school. Peering into their little room at the back of the shelter I found them already awake and brushing their teeth. Pleased, I gave them both a hearty good morning that they insensibly returned around mouthfuls of toothpaste. Leaving them to their morning routine I ventured outside again to find Alex standing next to Tom and looking down at the sheep. A shout went up far behind me, and I twisted my head to look. Angie had picked up one of the Guardsmen and was flying in circles around her comrade who was yelling ineffectually. "That's not how tag works!"

Chuckling at her antics, I sauntered over to join my mate and my brother in law.

"Well someone's going to have to pay for the sheep. We can't make it less dead."

"As soon as Angie calms down we'll use her radio to tell her parents. It's only fair they should be the ones to pay for it. I'll tell them what happened, and let them explain to her why she shouldn't hunt livestock."

The radio had been her parent's idea after they realized the futility of keeping control of a rambunctious six year old that could fly and had desires that were no longer entirely human. There was a heavy leather strap running around her upper right foreleg. Attached to it was a two way radio in a pouch, a GPS tracker, and a small satchel that held various things of use to Angelina. George, her father, had even contrived a way for Angie to operate the radio to talk to Helen and himself. He had patched in an external PTT button that was on her wrist which she used to speak with her parents after its purpose had been explained to her. They had, only with incredible reluctance, allowed her this freedom after showing her with aerial maps what area they wanted her to stay within. A restriction that may have been a contributing factor to the poached sheep. I had seen the map and the boundaries they had set upon her. Hunting would be a problem for the young Angie.

"It's the limits her parents put on her. You've seen the map, not much area for her to hunt in. She probably took that sheep after running out other places to find prey."

"How hard can it be for you to find prey for yourselves? Doesn't she hunt only once every three or four days?"

"She should be able to stretch that even longer if her parents are making stew with her kills. One elk could last a month that way"

"I don't think she was hungry. I think she did this just for me."

A useful distraction for Angie arrived when she caught sight of Luke and Lucy as they trudged up towards the house to get their breakfast. With careless disregard for her playmate, the young child of the egg let go of the unwitting tag participant who crashed to the ground with an oomph and darted towards her friends. Transitioning to a run halfway to them, she eagerly trotted up to their side as the three greeted each other happily.

Tom turned his head back from watching them and put the matter to rest. "They are her parents, it is for them to decide, all that we can do is tell them the facts of what happened."

Instead of bothering Angelina for her radio, Alex took out his cell phone and dialed the well-used number for her home. Halfway through the first ring, I could hear the tinny voice of her father answer.

"Is she there?"

"Yes George, she's here."

"Is she okay? How long has she been there? Her tracker hasn't moved in thirty minutes. We haven't seen her since four thirty this morning. Are you sure she's okay? Why hasn't she been answering my calls on the radio?"

Alex set the phone down for us to reply as he went to find the answer to a pretty sensible question.

"George, this is Kim" I rumbled, to cut off his worrisome vomit.

"Kim? Kim! Is she okay? Where is she? Let me talk to her!"

"George, I know that she is only six years old, but it has been almost seven months now and she hasn't mindlessly flown off to Canada yet."

His outrage was almost visibly being emitted from the phone's speaker.

"You just said so yourself! Six years old! There is no way..."

"Whatever you're about to say, I'm going to guess, has something to do with the presumption of her still being human."

"I... She..." He said, with a defeated sigh. "You're... you're right Kim... I..." Sniffling could be heard as he broke off. Then, I felt my fins sag as sobs could be heard from the tiny speaker. This never got easier, and I hated the fact that I felt duty bound to be the one to respond to such problems. I suppose I'd always felt that way.

"You're at home right? Let me see them off to school, and then I will come meet you. I think it better if we have this conversation face to face. Is this okay for you?"

I heard a nearly silent "okay" before the connection was cut.

Alex came back with the radio and showed us the problem. The battery was dead. "Fucking civies. Don't know shit about PCCs." Was my overly generous assessment.

"You know you're a civilian now too Kim." Alex said, and then briefly paused when my eye was brought to be centimeters from his nose. "And that scared me the first few times you did it, but not so much anymore."

"Damn. I guess I'll have to find something new that won't incidentally kill you."

That, to my satisfaction, caused him to pale a little. I don't want him to forget that he should respect the force of nature that I am!

"Stop fucking with my brother."

"Let's go flying! I guarantee you that'll you be afraid by the time I'm done!"

Suddenly I felt a heavy weight slam into my side and I toppled over with an outraged shout.

"He still needs us to carry him around. It won't do him or us any good to be afraid to be on our backs."

"Fine" I pouted, from my comfortable position on the ground.

"Have you forgotten that there is nationwide gasoline rationing going on?"

"I forget nothing!" I exclaimed, riled enough by the suggestion of forgetfulness to sit up on my haunches.

This was a fact that we had, with more than a little discomfort, realized about ourselves over the last eight months. However else our minds operated now, it was apparent that we had eidetic memories. A point that been really driven home by little Angie. Her attendance at school was more for her to socialize at this point than anything, and it gave her a chance to paint, which she so loved to do. As evident by the multiple layers of it on her tail tip and her claws. A hobby that she had an absolutely stunning talent for. Her nonchalant mention of seeing the sun this morning would no doubt be immortalized into a painting by the time she returned this afternoon from school.

However, just as those humans that have had that gift before it became widespread with our turning realized, it is a double edged sword. Angie continues to be haunted by vivid, perfectly recalled memories of her torturous transformation. Mine, Tom's, and Irma's cross to bear is not so much the pain of what happened to us. But instead being all too aware of the confusion that consumed our first days as what we now are. How nothing seemed to be right, our bodies themselves not feeling right. Like being wired into an animatronic puppet that had had all its controls corrupted.

Shit was weird, going from two legs to four. Going from four limbs to six. The processing speed of our minds now being significantly faster, and able to coordinate multiple actions at once. Senses of sight, taste, and smell greatly enhanced, and the whole world seeming to take on a new depth. It made what we experienced before seem like faded old photographs in our minds, dull and lackluster. And with all of that we get the grand fucking prize of never, ever, being able to fucking forget the catastrophic dichotomy that a scant few days introduced into our lives.

But, I giddily reminded myself. WE GET TO FUCKING FLY! Oh! Ever since I was just an ankle biting rug rat I've dreamt of flying! And then in the military, getting a chance to go to Yuma and freefall! I think I came in my suit when I jumped through that door! In fact, I know I did! It was the height of pleasure! At least at the time I thought so... Now, I realize what it feels like to see after being blind. Now, I'm truly enlightened. BECAUSE I HAVE WINGS MOTHERFUCKER! Take that, the pale fleshy blob I used to be!

My gleeful inner monologue must have been on display to the outside world as I slowly became aware of my amused mate watching me and nudging his brother. Both of them had silly, fly trapping grins plastered on their faces as they observed me bounce from paw to paw with the comforting weight of my wings fully opened above me.

Hastily, I folded my arms closed, accompanied by the sound of the thick hide collapsing as my center of gravity returned to where it should be. The embarrassment of being caught in my private... No, fuck that! Why should I be embarrassed? The scent of my embarrassment was quickly overwhelmed by one of pride as I lifted my head.

"You're just jealous that you don't get as much joy as I do out of flying!"

Alex laughed, and Tom replied: "You're right." I get that much joy from something else. He whistled, while staring straight at me. I flooded the whole area with smell of my love, Alex blushed when the smell of vanilla reached him, and excused himself as he walked back to our house.

I approached him where he sat and kissed him hungrily, my tongue leaving several glistening streaks over the sides of his jaws. Tonight, after dark. We fly. I cooed into his ear. He shivered, his scales opening and closing in a rustling wave, and then he kissed me back. I was mistaken, there was one thing I loved more than flying. Making love with Tom while flying. Thickening with eggs had certainly done nothing to make that less enjoyable. If anything, as time went on my roars grew louder when my heart races and I clench around him. Even thinking about joining with him made my scent take a heady undertone. I thought about pushing him into the woods right then, it wouldn't be the first time.

Kimmy! You smell different! It makes me feel funny inside! Angie tittered next to us, with both of my human children on her back. Tom and I sealed our scales and jumped back from each other with a loud thud, and tried to whistle nonchalantly. It makes me feel warm! She chirruped to our eternal chagrin.

"Are you three ready for school?" I asked them, trying to dissemble.

"Uh huh! Are you ready Luke, Lucy?" Angie asked her passengers.

This was another necessity of convenience. Ever since Thumper, the fuck, had unilaterally decided to cut oil reserves to a 10 year supply there had been a disturbance in the force. To put it mildly. Riots, armed theft, the collapse of the petroleum industry, the wholesale elimination of employment levels in any industry that was within three degrees of an internal combustion engine. Operation of private gasoline or diesel powered vehicles was curtailed to the point of uselessness. Carjacking of electric vehicles had become prolific as their value on the black market increased by orders of magnitude. The federal government had stepped in and frozen alternative fueled vehicle prices after piratical price increases. Almost all 1-D and 2-D had now been set aside for the operation of cargo delivery, farms, infrastructure support, and emergency services. Leaving millions of pickup trucks worthless and rotting where they had run out of fuel. Households were now allotted a set number of liters per month, no more.

On the plus side, research and development into hydrogen fuel cells and electric technologies among others had grown by double digit percentages, every single week. DARPA, the NSF, and NASA were handing out multibillion dollar research contracts like candy. Dollars that were as worthless as any other currency in the world. We were witnessing the end of the financial structure that the world was built upon. Death tolls ran into the tens of thousands per day. It was biblical in scale. Nothing like this had ever been seen before, not since the K-T boundary. According to Thumper, this was the easy way out. Compared to extinction, I guess it was. But that was small consolation for the legions of others who had lost loved ones.

This was just a sampling of the effects of the sudden removal of a technology that had become an integral part of society's core. I had angrily accosted Thumper about these effects, and then attempted to stomp on it at its flippant response.

"You are intelligent Kim. Are these consequences really a surprise to you? They will fade as humans adapt. That is one thing that the species excels at above all else, and certainly above their ability to responsibly manage their own resources. Already, you see a more sensible redistribution of monetary assets. Your department of defense's budge is shrinking at a rate proportionate to the growth of the research and development sector. Corporations that made vast fortunes in killing others have turned that talent and resource pool to much more beneficial ends."

Not once in its response, did I hear any concern whatsoever about the effects these changes must have had on individuals who found themselves not only without jobs. But without entire industries in which to find new ones. I have remarked before, but I will repeat once more. The callous disregard this mother fucking computer has for the lives it has ripped apart makes me want to dig a hole, stuff it in there, shit on it, then drop a fucking 20 megaton gadget on its head. Prometheus has assured me that other than some effect that occurs fractions of a second after initiation, that it would do nothing to Thumper. Which sucks. I'd like to do it anyway.

But, I digress. So, back to the matter at hand, my two human children upon Angie's back. Many parents had been left scrambling to find alternative ways to get their children to school. Not to mention the teachers themselves. Luckily for Luke and Lucy Schwarzkopf, their consolation prize for watching the rest of their family turn into alien monsters was that they could hitch rides on the newly winged adults. As a further bonus! They now had the friendship of another girl/female just a little bit younger than themselves, with her own set of wings.

An even trade right? RIGHT? Fuck you Thumper! You fucking Satanic fuck!

Alex bought three sets of parachute harnesses for himself and the twins. Which all three of them were presently wearing. That, and judicious use of the climbing section of a local sporting goods store, enabled them to safely ride upon our backs. Little Angie had a nylon collar around the base of her neck and her tail with a pair of long straps running back and forth between them. The whole ensemble was kept from rotating by four more straps that ran around her legs. I wore a similar arrangement when needed, although mine was much more elaborate and had multiple points of attachment under the belly.

Alex had taken a picture of the look on the leatherworker's face when he had been shown these plans. It never ceased to amuse us. We were less amused when we saw the projected cost. After getting over his initial shock, he looked at the drawings, and the measurements of our sizes, and weights. Including what Alex told him we were capable of lifting. Thinking about it, he told him that leather would not do what we wanted of it, and suggested nylon webbing instead. He assured Alex, and us through the phone, that his shop was still uniquely qualified to sew such thick material, so he got the job. Yay him. Although I was disappointed to be told that leather would not work as I much preferred the smell of it over nylon.

After awarding him the contract I had flown there myself, with Alex held in my claws, to explain to the leatherworker that these devices would be used to carry our children. He and his two sons had been quite adamant that their work could be safely used as I intended. A fact that I had ensured, after having had the arrangement strapped upon me, by demanding that the three of them clip onto me for 'safety testing'. Afterwards Alex had used a hose to spray their vomit off my back and I rolled in the grass to scrub the stench away. I told the greenish craftsmen that I was satisfied, ordered another one for Tom, and the smaller arrangement for Angie.

This I had given to her at her birthday party just a little over a month ago, marked as having come from Luke and Lucy. There had been good feelings all around at the gift, accompanied by much nuzzling and aerial dancing. Even if George and Helen, forewarned as they were, continued to remain a tad apprehensive. Although that had not stopped them from both taking flight with their overeager daughter. Much to all of their enjoyment.

I bent my head down to turn one eye to look closely as my children showed me that they had all their carabiners clicked, and that the gates were locked. Satisfied, I sat back and told them to have fun at school.

Angie crouched back onto her tail, and then sprung aloft with a cheerful "Bye-bye!" while my twins shouted in joy and waved their goodbyes as they headed south towards school.

I sighed wistfully, while Alex made some observations out loud.

"You know, eight months ago I would've thought what I just saw as being strange."

I laughed and rustled my wings. "Eight months ago I would've thought it strange to say what I'm about to say. Strap me up and then get on my back."

Tom, who would've have carried Alex, but was still waiting on his own harness, sidled closer to whisper in my ear.

It only would have been strange if you said it to anyone other than me.

This time my scales did lift to signal my embarrassment as he winked his enormous eye at me.

Alex, dragging the harness underneath me in preparation, popped his head out from beneath my side to ask. "Should I know what's going on up there? I am underneath you."

"Nope!"

His head disappeared beneath me again as he continued his work. "Please don't talk about your sex lives when I'm scrambling around beneath Kim's crotch. I can smell more than you might think." There was no fooling him I guess, as my fins flattened ashamedly.

"I would kill you if you were anyone else." Tom added, to my vexation.

Alex walked out from beneath me, and brushed his hands together. "Then don't talk about your sex lives when I'm helping out and walking beneath sister-in-law."

"Alright, alright! I'm blushing enough, just stop! Sheesh, here I thought I was beyond being embarrassed about my body. Thank you for pointing out that you were walking right beneath myyyy slit and could smell me."

"Well if it makes you feel any better, I think it's pretty fucking weird to be walking beneath my sister-in-law with her gigantic vagina over my head while my brother talks dirty to her and watches me."

"Can we just not have this conversation?" I plaintively whined.

"The straps are stretched out for you Kim, just lay down and I'll buckle you up."

Out of the corner of my eye I could see Tom tap his brother on the shoulder with his tail and then pointed at his eye with it. Alex responded by flipping his brother the bird and started to work with the straps on my front legs.

Be nice you two.

I think he crossed the line.

I trust him, I do not trust anyone else. Do you want a stranger crawling around beneath me? I can ask that Guardsman over there picking her nose to do it. Or, oh wait, I know! We can get Luke or Lucy to do it, and fuck them up in the head more than the last half year already has!

Okay, okay. I know you are not shy about speaking up when you feel uncomfortable. And god knows you do not need me to protect you.

Goddamned right.

I felt Alex patting my right foreleg and asked me to move it to the left a little. "I'm sorry Alex, for putting you on the spot there." I said as I shifted my limb.

"I'm a doctor, it's nothing I haven't seen before. Especially after helping both you and Irma in the early days. It's just awkward when you two are giving each other bedroom eyes and I'm literally standing beneath your reproductive vent."

"Okay, okay, I promise we won't get frisky when you are underneath either of us."

"How about when I'm not anywhere near you either? Two days ago, when he jumped to lick you one of his rear claws almost scalped me!"

I laughed remembering what had caused the incident, although I hadn't known he had had another near death experience because of it until now.

"Pinkie promise." I held my paw forward with the outside talon pointed towards him. He touched his to the digit beneath the claw, not even bothering to wrap it around the thick finger. Personally, I was surprised I was able to feel his tiny finger on my massive one at all.

Bobbing my head, I was pleased that was settled at least. Tom opened his mouth to keep picking at the scab, but stopped when he saw my hackles raise to bristle in irritation. He snorted through his long nose, and instead moved to sit down next to me with his head across my shoulders.

As Alex threaded the strap through the d-rings around my neck and then locked it down, I stretched out to ensure it didn't bind.

He pat my neck and moved down along my side to my hindquarters at the same time that the curtain of the shelter was yanked back. Jesse's head dragged the fabric aside along its rail in his jaws, revealing a yawning Irma, and the two fuckwads next to her.

Without any effort on my part, my heartrate soared through the fucking roof at the sight of them. Alex paused, and put his hand on the swell of my ribs to feel the thunderous drumbeat of my great heart. Turning back towards my head he looked at me with worry, and waved his hands calmingly. The sight of his concern, and the gentle coaxing of my love's soothing rumble eased my spike of anger. Turning my head away from them, I lost myself in the reassuring task of grooming my mate's head scales with my eyes closed. Something else that we'd noticed ourselves doing more and more often since our change. When with our loved ones, and lacking anything else to occupy our minds, we often found ourselves preening each other like birds. Like animals.

Thoughts that we each had. Fears that we each had. The only other living creature we had told, was Alex. To say that our trust in him was absolute, would be understating the case. It's not as if we could forget who, what we used to be. I already have told you that that is impossible. Instead... It just seemed like what we were now grew more real by the day. And what we once were seems more and more like a strange dream. I worried, and still worry, that one day I will think it weird to ever have had pink skin. That it will seem surreal for us to have memories where we stood on two legs, that we wore clothes, that we didn't have wings, or tails. Every day, we redefined who we were. In time, there might not be anything human left of us.

But not as long as I had my Lucy, my Luke. With them, I, Kim, will always be human. No matter what I may look like. As long as I have them. But what... I always wondered in the darkest hours of the night. With no one but myself. But what... What will I be when they are gone? One day, they will have children of their own, before they leave us behind forever. Will that be enough for me? For us?

I shivered, my scales clacking open and shut restlessly. Tom, the damned fool, mistook the cause of my unease and doubled the vibrations of his thrum to calm me.

Distantly, very distantly, I felt something akin to an insect crawling across the skin near my ass. But I didn't have skin anymore, nor an ass really. Scales, hide, and haunches were their replacements. Alex was reaching beneath my tail to run a loop around the limb. It still blew my mind to feel sensation on my lengthened spine like that, as well as just how distantly things felt from back there. As a human I just never felt like I was so large that there was a sense of distance within my own body. There certainly was one now. Remarkably there was no lag from the impulses having to travel so far for sensation to reach my noodle. In reverse, there was no delay in my body's reaction times either. Something that never ceased to amuse me when I showed the humans how swiftly I could...

Fuck! There I go again! Thinking of the humans as something different than me! I am human!

"Kim, you are going to have to accept the fact that you are, in fact, no longer human."

"Fuck off Prometheus. Why are you even still reading my mind? How many times have I told you not to fucking do that?"

"My residual ability does not need to probe when you 'shout' to yourself in your mind."

Residual my tail, I thought to myself. These creepy fuckers don't do a fucking thing that doesn't serve some purpose. Squeezing my eyes shut I screamed in my head as loud as I could.

"It is not possible for me to invert through my own anus Kim."

Damn. Well, I tried.

"Just, just leave me alone. Isn't it enough that I tolerate you even talking to me?"

He sighed. "I do appreciate it Kim. But you should be talking with..."

"No!" I barked sharply at him.

"...Very well."

Irma finally got her lazy scales off her bed of pillows and stretched out into the brightening day. Good morning mother.

Good morning lazy. I twisted my head and nodded at Jesse as well. And you too. I would ask you how late you two were banging away at each other like a pair of bumper cars, but I already know. Half past midnight, you fucking deviants!

They flatly ignored me. Making me annoyed that I was going to have to spice up my usual shtick to embarrass them with their own sexually uninhibited shenanigans.

"Who brought their kill into the shelter earlier?"

"Angie."

She lifted her head and sniffed around. "Well, we don't want that sheep to go to waste, do we?"

I smacked her snout with my tail tip, knocking Alex down while he was strapping up my leg when my hips shifted. "Hey! Hold still!" he protested.

"Control yourself." I admonished her, as she sneezed and batted at her snout with a paw.

"Like the dragon that just decimated a herd of deer last week can speak to me of restraint."

"I" I stressed. "Am busy growing eggs. And you..." I narrowed my pupils into hostile slits. "Had better not be."

Thumper! She called. When will Jesse and I be able to have children?

"Your new body has a very complex reproductive system. You now have six ovaries within you. Of course not all of these gonads will be active at any time. But based on the availability of food, emotional well-being, health of yourself and your mate, population density, and other factors, your body will determine the optimal number of eggs to release. Based on these conditions, your body will release five eggs for fertilization in two days. Jesse has already been releasing egg cells of his own into his ejaculate for the past three days. If the eggs remain unfertilized for longer than four weeks your body will reabsorb them and recycle the specialized cells."

She turned her head back towards mine. "There, you happy?"

Distracted, I did not respond. Wait, what? Egg cells? I was so distracted by that that what it had said afterwards did not register until much later, and when it did, I would also remember the look that Irma and Jesse had shared.

"Your species originated upon another world in another galaxy. Did you truly think that you relied on the same reproductive process as multicellular creatures of this world?"

I had actually. Which I knew, that Thumper knew, perfectly fucking well. Goddamn mother fucking inbred blob of star cum, I hate that sardonic fucking thing! This is one of the reasons why I prefer Prometheus over its replacement. At least he doesn't try to needle me every fucking time he opens his goddamned jaws!

Thankfully, the feeling of Alex's shoes walking back and forth across my spine distracted me. "Did you wipe your shoes before you climbed on top of me?"

I didn't get an answer really. Just some wordless grumbling and the feeling of more steps on my back.

"Hey, dick! How about I walk on your back with muddy paws?"

"I'm pretty sure I won't care, because I'll be dead." He muttered and finished running the straps from my tail to my neck. A comment likely to be true as I knew, from a comical event at a truck scale, that I weighed a little over six tonnes. "There, you're ready. Can I latch on now, so that we can initiate whatever insanity today is sure to contain?"

"Okay, you drama queen. It's not like someone is looking in on us only when exciting things are about to happen."

So I said, but just like around the time Angie had entered into our lives. I couldn't shake the crawling sensation of an unseen observer watching me. Listening to my thoughts. Can they hear me? Fuck you, if you're spying on us. I'll bite you when I find you, you voyeuristic fuck.

Alex half jumped, half used my tail as a slide to reach the ground and went into my house to get his parachute harness. Tom was asking Irma, and Jesse, what they were going to do today. She responded with a shrug and said she'd heard reports that there was a child of the egg terrorizing the backcountry of the Lolo National Forest. She and Jesse wanted to go find out if it was feral, and if it wasn't, to ask why it was raiding campsites like a wild animal.

I couldn't say that I was eager for my oldest daughter to take flight into a large forest to find another, potentially hostile, dragon. Even if it was with Jesse by her side. But she needed purpose in her new life, so I raised no objections, and neither did Tom.

"How'd you even hear about that?"

"News on the TV, try watching the daily six o'clock broadcast. There's some pretty funny things going on."

I'll bet, thinking of what I had seen a few days ago. Apparently, in Egypt, Thumper, or whatever its local clone went by, had brought forward or recreated the Library of Alexandria. It had given a statement in Arabic, saying something about how many lessons we served to learn from its contents. In the background of the interview several M1A1s, and S-300VM systems could be seen. The Egyptian military having formed a perimeter around the library that looked capable of fighting off most modern armies. To say that there were researchers and historians around the world getting wet and soaking their panties over this would be like calling Castle Bravo a firecracker that had a few too many grains of smokeless powder.

Alex spent a half hour or so getting ready for the day, while those of us of a certain stature visited the woods to relieve ourselves and took our turns at the water trough. I was busy stretching my wings out when he reemerged wearing a daypack and his harness.

He climbed on my back once more, and then I heard the clicking of his carabiners on the d-rings spaced out all over the framework I wore.

"When will you leave?" I asked Irma and Jesse, who had stretched their wings out on the ground.

"We'll probably be gone by the time you get back."

I rubbed my head against each of theirs in turn, Tom repeating the gesture afterwards while Alex called out his own farewell from my back.

"Check with the ranger station when you get there. See if they know of any missing in the area, and let them know why you are there. Be safe, fly well."

They bobbed their heads at my awesome fucking advice and I turned away to pad to a less crowded corner of the yard. As I walked by an unhappy looking PFC sitting next to a large dry erase board he asked me where I was going. He deflated into his chair like a popped balloon when I told him to go fuck himself.

"They never answer me. What is the point of this?" I heard him mutter to himself dejectedly. I turned an eye back to look at him when I heard the squeaking of a marker and saw him listlessly writing on the board 'Possible destinations: Holbrook Residence'. So at least he had enough sense just to listen to what we had planned to do. I felt my softly waving tail crash into the message board far behind me and briefly laughed at the amount of fatalistic despair that was captured in the PFC's sigh.

I snapped my wings open and felt Alex lay down between my shoulders and grasp the base of my neck. "All set? Here we go!"