FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Pushing with my front legs, I squatted back onto my tail and sprung upwards using rear legs and tail alike to make a stomach dropping leap. With one flap I rose higher, with two I was above the trees, and with three I was making gentle circles as Tom jumped to catch up. Looping back over our yard, Tom made the watching Guardsmen scatter like roaches as he swooped down to grab the sheep and we gained altitude to head to the northwest. It wasn't going to be a very long flight, so I couldn't really soar as I would have liked. You don't get on the interstate to do 129kph when you're going to the store to get a few liters of milk after all.

Falling into the usual cadence of flight my mind was lulled into tranquility by the motions required. The feeling of my back raising the wings, then the powerful downbeat being pulled by my chest and driven by my back. My legs tucked beneath me I could feel the wind whipping by, flowing along my length until it teasingly departed from the very end of my tail. With my nostrils flared so much that they stood out on the end of my snout I took great breaths into my huge lungs, feeling my ribs expand and contract with each cycle. Using tiny movements of the fingers holding my wings outstretched along with my tail, I gently rocked back and forth. Not able to contain my joy at being aloft, just like every other day, I spiraled upwards with Tom following, and roared. I roared at the feeling of being in the air, of being... A child of the egg.

The only other feeling that this sensation could ever be compared to, was the first time I held each of my children. That was how beautiful, how grand, how life changing, flight felt. It was... everything.

We banked downwards out of consideration for Alex, who was no doubt freezing his balls off, and continued on our way. Beneath us we could see the effects that Thumper had had on our world. On the roads beneath us, cargo trucks had almost uncontested use of the roads in delivering the goods that kept life grinding on. Bicyclists by the thousands wove amongst each other, going to and fro to whatever jobs they were lucky enough to find or keep. There were a few passenger cars and trucks, but other than them, some electric vehicles, and a variety of motorcycles, pedal power was the new normal.

Far above us, we heard the distant whining roar of turbofan engines. One thing that had been severely curtailed but not eliminated had been commercial flight. In an effort to substantially reduce air traffic, combi aircraft configurations had become widespread once more. Nowadays a flight did not leave the ground with one gram less than its maximum takeoff weight, either in people, cargo, or both.

This was of course problematic to those of us that now shared airspace with those strange looking metallic birds. If the FAA had had its way, we probably would have had all our wings clipped clean off to keep us out of the air. Instead, air traffic maps had been generated for widespread dissemination and were regularly updated. At this point, children of the egg were likely more knowledgeable of traffic corridors and terminal control areas than any pilot with less than twenty years behind the controls.

Even with these maps, I knew we still had other reasons for being careful. As an experiment once, Alex had put an altimeter app on his phone and given it to me. I had called myself satisfied after it announced I had gone a little over ten thousand meters, deciding I didn't want to kill my unborn children in a low oxygen environment. Alex had spent a good hour chewing my pregnant ass out after he saw how high I reached. I didn't really listen. But I did when Tom chewed me out over the same considerations. Sometimes I didn't even really know when I had crossed the line. Apparently, this had been one of those times.

But at least I knew that if I ever felt froggy, I could land on Mt. Everest and scare the shit out of some people. Hey! That's an idea! I wonder how much people would pay for a dragon to airlift them to the roof of the world? Tourism aside, we could perform rescue operations beyond anyone's wildest dreams. We could even be repaid in goats! My rolling laughter startled Alex and I felt his hands scrabbling at my scales.

So yeah, children of the egg had good reason to be wary around flight paths. It wouldn't be like the Miracle on the Hudson. We weren't geese. A collision with one of us when our weights could be measured in number of elephants would kill everyone involved. Guaran-fucking-teed. One more reason why it was so important for the feral to be 'reclaimed' from their condition.

I paused my ramblings as our target came into sight. A nondescript house set in a cookie cutter development of nondescript houses. The only thing that set this one apart was that in their postage-stamp front yard there was a circle of blinking red lights with five more making an 'X' through the middle. Angie had gone to the wrong house at night once. Once. The next day the local HOA had presented the family the gift of the signals. It was so kind of them. It even had a claw marked stomp pad in one corner for Angie to turn it on or off.

Tom swept in and dropped the sheep in the yard before turning and making a running landing on the street in front of the house. Thoughtfully leaving me the softer ground of the lawn to make my own hovering descent. By the time the wind of my landing settled, George and Helen were outside to greet us. At the same time, I heard panicked yelling and the sound of many doors being slammed shut. Fuck 'em I thought, they're going to have to get used to us eventually. Tom nudged a car on his way back up the street in retribution for the rudeness, making its alarm blare before the battery died. Most of these vehicles hadn't moved in months.

Helen began talking as I crouched down for Alex to dismount.

"I'm glad you count us as friends you two. But really, did you have to bring us a sheep?"

George was more harried in his questions. "Why didn't my little girl answer me this morning? What's wrong with her! I'm going to spank her when she gets home tonight!"

I laughed at the thought of that, while Alex slid down my shoulder to the ground. Digging into his backpack he tossed the radio to the father who fumbled with it before getting control.

"Before you punish her, you might want to punish yourself. When's the last time you checked its battery charge?"

"Um, well..."

"Yeah, that's what we thought. Is this going to happen again?"

"It better not." Helen said waspishly. The garage/bedroom behind her was open and she was wheeling her bicycle out. "Now that I know that she's safe and at school I need to get to work."

They were a single income family now as George had been one of those unfortunates who lost his job when his entire career field effectively disappeared. Helen was a pharmacist at a local drug store and almost the sole bread winner for the family. Angie herself now took on odd jobs that she could understand in order to supplement their incomes. Sometimes with mixed results. Last week she had delivered a thousand kilograms of lumber, by dropping it from twelve meters when she had become distracted by a puppy.

"Helen, can you give us five minutes? The sheep is why we are here."

She put the kickstand down and turned to look at us warily.

"She killed it, didn't she?"

Tom bobbed. "Look at its ear."

George flipped the sheep of over with his foot and looked at the orange tag before groaning.

"How much is this going to cost us?"

"Dunno, call that ranch."

Helen looked at her husband. "Do we have the money to spare?"

He didn't look happy, but he nodded.

Helen didn't look happy either as she looked at her hands before looking up at me with tears in her eyes. "How... How can I tell my daughter why it's bad to hunt some animals but not others! How can I explain that to a six-year-old? I don't even know how to relate to my little girl anymore! When I was her age I played with stuffed animals that looked like sheep! She...she...she kills... Why us? We were happy... We were normal... Why?"

I lowered my head to give her support, and she reflexively wrapped her arms around my muzzle as I felt her tears running down it. My eyes watered in sympathy and I cooed to her reassuringly. It was obvious that their therapy sessions weren't completely successful. I sure as shit couldn't blame them. They were the ones that had had a healthy response to what happened to them. I knew that the way that my family responded to what happened to us was outside the bounds of normal. I also knew that that was a very big reason why we'd been chosen for this "honor".

Tom made a ticking noise and I opened my nearer eye to glance at him. He pointedly flicked his snout upwards at the roof. Rolling one eye to the peak of the house I saw Thumper sitting there watching us. The watery sheen building in my eyes boiled away as they glowed with fury.

Mother. Fucking. Thumper.

That fucking thing. I knew it didn't have to appear to know what was going on here. No. That fucking thing wanted us to see it watching us. I can't fucking stand the way that thing operates. It's like a puzzle within a puzzle, ad nauseam. There is just no way to understand the depth of that thing's fucking plans.

My scales bristled, and I flooded the area with the smell of my rage, causing Helen to say 'eep' and recoil. They knew what the scent of ozone indicated.

I flattened my scales and hummed soothingly.

"Sorry, sorry. It's not you, I was just reminded of something else."

Unfortunately, George had seen Tom point his snout to the roof and was staring fixedly at the golden eyed creature himself. "You..." He snarled. Now I knew at least one level of the reason it had shown itself. It was reminding them of their anger. Anger motivates, despair does not. And one thing I knew about George and Helen Holbrook, was that they were far too quick to slip back into despair.

It did not react in any manner. It just continued to sit there, like a golden eyed gargoyle. Watching. Waiting. Calculating.

I put my body between them and Thumper where I could raise my wing to block their sight.

"Anyone could tell you that I'm the last one to tell you not to be angry. But that is what it is doing. It is trying to make you angry on purpose. Don't focus on it... Focus on your daughter. Does it really matter what she looks like now? What she does? Any six-year-old will make mistakes, you are just going to have to accept that her mistakes may look different but are really not. I want you both to look at me. I was like this for almost two months before you knew your daughter was changed. Do you know how many times I begged that creature, begged it! To let me go back to holding my children in my arms. To see my other daughter once more as the child that I gave birth to?"

I was keenly aware of the level of hypocrisy of my next words, but they didn't need to know how disingenuous they were.

"We don't have the power to undo what it has done to us. Nor do we have the power to make it do what we want. Our path must go forward. You must let go of your anger, and your despair. You must look past her appearance, her instincts, and recognize that you face a challenge that is fundamentally no different than any other parent's. To raise your child to be better than you are yourselves. To laugh more, to love more, to live more. Your little girl is still there Helen, George. Don't treat her any differently than before. This situation is no different, show her right from wrong. Teach her, be the parents she deserves."

I rolled my eye up at the roof and saw that Thumper was gone. Another level of its latest gambit came into focus, and I forced myself to remain calm for the two gathered into the crook of my neck. I retracted my wing from over their heads and saw Alex sitting on Tom's fore leg while they quietly conversed.

Helen and George were holding each other, and I let them take as much time as they needed. Eventually they separated and wiped at their eyes. Helen put her hand on George's cheek and he leaned down to kiss her. They nodded to each other and Helen turned back to her bicycle to get to work.

"Thank you, Kim. Are we still on for Friday night?" She was referring to our planned barbeque.

"Of course!" I said, flicking my tail tip dismissively at the obviousness of the answer.

She pedaled away after refusing our offer of a ride to make up for lost time.

"What do you want to do with this?" George asked, kicking at the sheep with his shoe.

"I already told Angie that I'd share it with her tonight when she dropped my kids off. It's really up to you if you are the one that is paying for it."

"Well, since it was her gift to you, and you already promised to share... I don't see why not... Is she even hungry? She ate two days ago."

I watched Alex cut the tag free from its ear and hand it to George before responding.

"That may be, but she likes to fly a lot. It does tend to make one hungry."

God knows how many calories we burned flapping around. I read once that an elephant could eat 70,000 kcal per day. How we made do with so much less was beyond me. Probably had something to with the fact that children of the egg didn't evolve on this world. That'd be my guess. Our bowel movements were actually pretty rare, I guess our bodies were just better at wringing every bit of energy out of whatever we ate.

"George" Alex spoke. "Are you all right after this morning? You didn't sound all right earlier."

He sighed and sat down on his front step to rub his face. "No. But like you said, the only way is forward. I just wonder... How you are able to adjust so easily. We have a hard time reconciling our daughter with what a six-year-old should be, would have been. But you live it! I would be so lost if I found myself in your... shoes."

"Oh?" I dragged a rear foot forward, leaving pale scratches in the cement driveway to present it to him. "Have you seen shoes that will fit? I checked Payless, but they just screamed at me to get my paw out of their store." I chuckled at my flimsy joke, and he gave a halfhearted snort of amusement.

"I guess I can see how you've made do."

I dropped my whimsical snark. "It's been hard George, it's been hard."

He looked up at me earnestly. "You don't know how much you've helped us with your example. You and Tom both. If you hadn't been there for us, and Luke and Lucy for Angie. I don't know if we would have been able to pull through this."

I hummed thoughtfully. "Well don't back off the throttle yet. We've all got a long way to go."

He sighed. "I know. I know. Well, I'm going to call that ranch, you are free to make yourselves at home in my yard. There's a water barrel in the garage if you can fit your heads in there to drink. Stay as long as you'd like."

"We appreciate it, but we have other errands to run as well. Do you need us to get you anything?"

Alex went forward and grasped George's arm in his hand. Like we would never be able to again. "George are you really okay?"

He was faced away from Alex when this was asked of him, but from the way his shoulders were bowed we knew the answer. Turning towards my brother-in-law he revealed his watery eyes. "No... No, I am not. And no matter what Helen says, neither is she... I still... We still don't know... What... What..." He clapped his hands to his face and cried.

Alex drew the slightly taller man into his embrace and looked at us. Flicking his head away, he made his intentions known and we both bobbed our heads in agreement.

He mouthed to us silently "Come back in one hour"

I nodded and gave one more bit of encouragement before we turned away.

"George, you are both strong. Strong enough to ask for help. Never forget that."

At that, Tom and I left. Chased by Alex's voice, and George's grief. As we walked down the street, keeping our heads steady, we discussed the Holbrooks in our language.

They are fucked. I started with.

They do not know that, and we certainly do not.

It does not make it any less true. Their daughter adapts, while they do not. I fucking hate Thumper for what it has done, but this is the world that we are in now. And Thumper is correct, there is no going back. If humans do not acclimate, they will die.

Humans... My mate reminded me. As much as we rail against the idea, already, less than a year later, we have separated us from what we were.

Before I could answer, a loud strident voice could be heard off to our left.

"You lizards! We don't want your kind here!"

I nudged Tom with my distant hip and pointed my snout at the elderly woman for him to take lead as I sat down in the street to present a slightly less intimidating posture. As if one dragon could be more calming than two...

"Don't come any closer!"

"Woman"

"You can't even speak right you animal! You sound like a rock slide!"

"Woman, we mean you no harm. We are just walking and talking."

"Walking and talking you say? I say you brutes are as big as my home, whistling at each other like angry kettles, and rampaging down my street! What do you have to say to that?"

I lifted my head to see if she spoke the truth, and she was, my eyeballs were level with the roof of her home. Tom replied for us.

"And? Would you yell at one of your neighbors walking down the street?"

"Damn right! Life's too short to mince words! Rotten kids, walking on my grass, now I have you tearing up my yard with your devil's hooves!"

I think I liked the old bitch.

Tom withdrew his paw from the yard with clods of dirt and grass falling from between his toes.

"See? Scoundrels!"

"We are sorry for tearing up your yard. We will go now."

"Now, now. Don't be hasty you scaly brutes." Leaving us perplexed at her mercurial shift. She hobbled back up to her porch and collapsed heavily into a chair.

"I have a question for the two of you. You see my son's wife and my grandson up and disappeared eight months ago. Not hide nor hair to be found. Worthless cops say that they can't be found. I have my own ideas what happened to 'em. I think the two of them are like you. Freaks! Flying freaks! But freaks that are a part of my family." She sighed and wiped at her eyes with a cloth.

"I would like to have them back and talking. Heard what you'd done for the little Holbrook girl. Now I finally get a chance to talk to you. Wanted to ask you in person, didn't trust others to ask for me, and those soldiers you have at your house won't let me talk to you while you're there."

Those motherfuckers! I screamed in my head. Tod flinched and turned his head back to look at me when he heard the snick of my fangs being gnashed together. He waved his wing at me to calm myself before the poor old bat's heart failed her.

"So, you know who we are."

"A course I know who ya are! All the other flapping squirrels around here fled north away from the city! Ya family and Angie the only ones left that can talk!"

Squirrels?

"You're Tom Schwarzkopf!" She waved the cane next to her at my husband. "And yer Kim!" She flailed the wooden stick at me as well. "I can tell by your marks, and your eyes. You can't hide one from the other from me!"

"The law told me it was no good. Stopped looking for them a month ago. Said they had too many missing to spare the people. Buncha quitters, is what I say! I feel it in here!" She thumped her breast. "They're out there, alive!"

"Where, when they'd go missing?"

"I told ya! Eight months ago! Off in Boise! Found her car crashed into a tree with the door ripped clean off! Staties tell me that a bear tore the interior up, but I know better! Quitters have a hole in their head too big to hold their brains in if they think a bear would rip a car door off! Don't care what the rest of the car looked like. I've seen the videos of what happened to ones like you on the youtubes. I think, I know, one of ya could rip a door off twisting and squirming the way you do."

That, I thought, was a rather mild way of putting the wracking pain we'd felt as our bodies burned in the fires of hell. Even now, my nerves lit up in sympathy just thinking about it. It had felt like child birth or getting shot. But spread through every muscle, tendon, and bone of our bodies. It sucked, and I do not recommend the ride for anyone. Or, you know what, go ahead and take the plunge. Everyone should feel what it's like to be run over by a semi. When the last wheel has rolled across your torso, and you try to get up, you find out that the truck has somehow turned you into a four-legged alien. Whee! It should be the next Disney world attraction! Stand in line kids! One in seven loses their mind and forgets who they are! The rest get to vomit blood! Everyone has fun as the skeletal structure of their body tears itself apart! What parent could resist the experience of watching a tail erupt out of their children's asses while they fall onto four paws and scream from their extending mouths until they seize?

"What is your son doing about this?"

She shrugged helplessly. "What can he do? He hired a private detective and tried to look himself. But no signs were to be found. No sightings. Just poof, gone. I'm telling you, I think they are probably flapping around somewhere down south in the woods. I read in the newspapers that there are whispers of something large and new down there. The same kind of reports about the two dozen or so around here And that's all I need to know. Will you help my family come back together again?"

I looked at Tom as he glanced back at me. I tilted my head towards the house we had just left, and he nodded. Swinging his head back he made our reservations known.

"If what you think happened, has. We can find them. But old woman, you must know that we cannot undo what was done to them. We can bring them back if they are there to be found, but they will not be the humans you once knew. They will be children of the egg. Dragons. We can bring them back from the wilds. But only you and your son will be able to release them from their own minds. That is all that we can speak for. Do you understand? Your lost family will never be human again. You will have to accept them as they are from now on."

"I didn't ask you for philosophy rug rat! You bring them home, and we'll deal with the rest. Will you do it?"

I took my chance to speak up. "I have children too. We need money to raise them. We lost our jobs working in the ceramic factory, broke too many tea cups."

"Hah!" She tottered to her feet. "I wondered if you'd ask." She shuffled inside her home, and a few minutes later came out with a canvas bag on a tiny cart. "Take this. I'll give you another when you find them."

Tom crept closer and reached out with his paw to pluck the sack up between two talons. I could hear the clinking of coins within it, and as he set it down in the yard a few tumbled out.

"That bag has more than ten thousand dollars of silver coin in it. You bring my family back, I'll give you another bag with two hundred thousand in gold coin. I can't take it with me when I die, so I might as well use the rest of my savings to make me son happy again. What do you say?"

"You place a lot of trust in us. What is stopping us from peeling your house open like a sardine can and just taking it from you?"

She shrugged. "Notin. But then everything that I had heard about you will be wrong. Then you will have lost the moral compass that I heard you'd had, Kim and Tom Schwarzkopf, veterans of our nation's military. What will it be dragons? Rob an old woman and prove to everyone that you are aliens who no longer care about the humans you once were? Or earn the money to keep your children fed, and prove to others that you can be trusted?"

Tom scooped the bag off the ground and plopped it back upon the cart. "Keep it. Give us what you think we've earned once we've succeeded. Kidding aside, we demand nothing." I bobbed my head in agreement.

"Our home is ours, and for now our children want for nothing. Keep your money until we have brought you your family."

She grinned, pleased at our response. "Kim, Tom, call me Greta, consider this old woman happy that aliens like you are more human than humans."

Well fuck it, it was a start.

Tom looked back at me "Only one of us should go." I agreed with him, already knowing who it was going to be, and that Tom wasn't going to like it. But he was going to find out later why I made the logical choice. He brought his head back around to Greta.

"Will you be happy if just one of us went?"

"As long as you think just one of you can do it. If I was there, would it help once you found them?"

"Yes... IF, we find them."

"I understand yer reluctance to put false hope in an old hag's head. For that, you have my thanks. If you come back here tomorrow at noon, I'll be ready."

Tom looked down and plucked the spilled coins from the ground one by one with his opposing claws. Greta watched, visibly impressed, as he returned them to the sack. A display of the remarkable dexterity we kept, even at our size. It was a show that never ceased to amaze others, along with our preternatural speed.

"We will need three days. Will that be okay? If they've lived this long it won't hurt them. We will be here, at sunrise, three days from now. Dress warm, you'll be cold in the air."

She gave her acknowledgement.

Tom backed away from her into the street, his tail making a truck on the other side of the road tilt onto two wheels before rocking back and forth with a creak. I rose to my feet and bobbed my head in farewell while she trundled her little cart back inside.

Beep beep beep large load backing up.

I would like to see how often you check behind your ass to ensure clearance for your tail when you are backing up!

Are you calling my ass fat?

I trotted out that age old marriage trap to see what he'd do. He never failed to disappoint.

Yes, I am. And if we are going to play out tired tropes, I want you barefoot and pregnant at our home, not going off to find a lost family. Like I know that you are already planning.

Damn. He's onto me. Coming to an intersection we made a left onto a main road and a flurry of bicyclists cried out in alarm while swerving around our towering legs. Oblivious morons, it's not like we just appeared out of nowhere. Ignoring their panic and anger we continued padding along as we talked.

Just hear me out before you go full caveman on me. Yes, I am pregnant. But since only one of us is going to be able to go, it should be me. We already know that there is no way they will attack a gravid female. They may run, but they will not attack. That is advantage one. Advantage two, I already have my harness and you do not. Advantage three, I need to get away from Thumper. Yes, I know that you cannot really get away from the creature, and that I am its primary focus. But putting some distance between myself and where everything has gone so wrong will be what I need. Tom, my anger cannot possibly be good for our little ones. I can feel their hearts race with mine.

I stopped in my argument and my tracks to bring my head over and kiss him several times.

I love you Tom. You know how much I do. But I need to get away for a few days. I think it is best for our young.

He sighed through his nose, nostrils flaring, and I felt his head bob in acknowledgement beneath my affections. His tongue flashed outwards to tickle the underside of my jaw as he returned my kisses.

"Get a room you two! Hahahooof" The literally dickless comedienne had her laughter cut off upon contact with the grassy median as my tail helped her see the error of her ways.

I guess we will have to finish this tonight.

Yes, tonight, we soar!

Do not threaten me with a good time! I tweeted saucily and nipped at his jowl. Hey. I looked around conspiratorially. Want to make national headlines and rack up some indecency charges? I looked back at my hips and rocked them suggestively while I raised my tail up and away revealing the finer scales hiding their secrets beneath. He laughed, and I joined him, much to the startlement of all those moving around our legs. Relaxing my tail to its normal neutral position, level with my spine and lashing gently in counterpoint to my stride, we continued on. We made our way, slowly so as not to crush anyone, to a park and lay there coiled about each other to enjoy the morning as we gave Alex time to comfort George.

I placed my head across Tom's shoulders as we each looked our separate ways and took in the subtle, and not so subtle, looks we were given. I don't want our earlier walk to be misconceived as something that was abnormal to those around us. I, and my family, had months ago decided amongst ourselves to interject our presences into normal everyday life whenever we could get the chance. It was an unashamed PR campaign to show others that we could coexist as we are. It was not without its challenges. Not everyone was so keen to interact with those of our... stature. And it wasn't just the psychological hang ups of the humans around us that made things difficult, which were by-and-large pardonable if regrettable. But there were much more prosaic concerns as well.

As we were almost as large as most two-story houses, and long, so very long (damn near thirty-three meters at this point). There were not many places we could fit. A point that I liked to make at times to my unceasing amusement, and to the terror of others. Like when I had crawled through the high bay doors of a hardware store and stood blocking their aisles demanding that all their car wax be brought to me immediately or that I would go get it. They had been so helpful. They hadn't even asked for an ID when I waved the credit card I had taped to my paw at them. Although, I did dock them a point from their customer service when a trio of forklifts were used to crowd me out the door when I had overstayed my welcome.

Another significant setback was others inability to tell us apart. Only where my tribal tattoos had dyed my hide silver distinguished me from the others, a benefit that none of them enjoyed. And we all sounded the same to others as well. It was a serious problem that our identities were solely to be based upon what we told humans. A situation just waiting to be exploited. Thumper had told us that children of the egg hold the moral high ground on humanity. But we were made children of the egg from humanity, and I saw problems on the horizon. Irma and I had even brainstormed up the idea of using tattoos as a manner of differentiation. We weren't the only ones either, anecdotal reports had reached my ear fins from all around the globe of others using external decoration of one kind or another for identity purposes.

Another problem had been one of actually paying for/acquiring things. As much as it would amuse me to keep Alex around as a trunk monkey for the rest of his life I knew it wasn't fair to him. Currently he was on a year-long assignment from the CDC to: "Monitor the long-term effects of the unknown process introduced on zero day and tentatively titled 'Coactus fieri humana commutatio draco'". But eventually the good times would end, and we'd need to find another arrangement.

The world's increasing reliance on technology may make it easier for us to order things but paying for things could be problematic. I hated the idea, but it might be a good option for us to be embedded with RFID tags. I hated the idea because: One. It made me feel like someone's fucking pet and played right into a world view like Sparrow's. Two. Because it could be cracked in plain view without our knowledge and our identity stolen.

The best answer to most of those problems might be developing in Silicon Valley. Half a dozen of these pencil necked tech geeks had become dragons. An outcome I'm sure they'd spent decades jacking off to as a fantasy. As children of the egg they had recognized those problems even more swiftly than I had and were allegedly already working on solutions. Half of the work had already been done for them with the development of augmented reality glasses and the like, so I didn't think it'd be very long before we had a new electronic tether being worn over one or both of our eyes.

In the interim, Alex had gotten us one of the latest home assistant speaker widgets and it had solved a good number of our problems. At first it hadn't responded to our voices, but after Alex had made a recording of Tom's voice and sent it to the manufacturer an update had fixed that. Soon enough, the drones that had replaced delivery vans began to make visits fairly often to our door step. One had even crashed into Angie on one of her early morning visits, making her cry, and making me snap the damaged UAV off the ground and maul it into pieces. The next day another arrived bearing a letter with an apology for striking little Angelina and begging us not to eat their delivery vehicles in revenge. That one was a keeper that went up on our refrigerator.

Tom made a coughing noise to get my attention and I raised my head to see what he was staring at. Another fucking idiot that was about to do something stupid. This was another situation that had not gotten better since the early days when a fully armed militia had tried to kill us. Almost every time we went out, there was some degree of hostility. Sometimes we could talk them around, sometimes we could scare them away, and sometimes they got hurt. What always worried me was what could happen to innocent bystanders. These jackasses just flat out refused to believe that their squirt guns would only fire projectiles that would skip right off our scales. They wouldn't listen to logic, their own experiences, or the fates of other idiots like them.

To some extent I couldn't blame them. Thumper was an invader, and we looked like Thumper. A+B=C. But we also knew many things that they did not. However, they had no excuses, they had been told enough to know that we were on their side. That this was all part of the test that we had been thrown into together like lab rats just to prove that we were worth being allowed to live. Their stubborn resistance to seeing the writing on the wall just pissed me off. This was why Thumper had changed those of us who could effect change. To see a situation objectively, you have to remove yourself from it. And removing myself from the human race was never something I would have done on my own. Thank you, Thumper, you fuck.

Back to douchebag with gun. I could see what had drawn Tom's attention, this was just one more military age male with too much sperm in his ball sac and not enough sense in his head. He also had not apparently worked up the nerve to pull the trigger yet either. Walking away, he would spin on one foot and pace quickly towards us while fingering the handgun that he was carrying in a belt holster beneath his jacket. After a few steps of doing this, he would drop his hand and turn away again. He repeated that sequence three times as I watched more and more beads of sweat collect on his forehead. He knew he was going to die doing it, but he wanted to do it anyway.

"If you're going to do it. Then fucking do it! Just remember when you squeeze that trigger that those bullets have to go somewhere when they skip off our scales. Which of the hundreds of innocents around you do you think will die because of you?"

Startled, his hand dropped before snapping back upwards to rest on the grip.

"It won't be my fault!"

"Try that excuse in front of a jury, let me know how it goes."

"This is our world! I will sacrifice all of them to be rid of you! NOW DIE!"

His grip around the gun handle tightened and he started to pull upwards. I exploded from the ground and used Tom's body as a starting block to launch myself across the park. He had been pretty far away, because after all, how close do you need to be to hit the broad side of a barn? But Tom and I could strike like vipers, and the distance between him and I vanished faster than his pupils could twitch in surprise. I'm sure it was terrifying to see something as large as us move almost quicker than the eye could track. The handgun was at his chest and swinging upwards when I hit him like a Mack truck.

Screams of "gun!" and "dragon!" came at me from all sides as I towered above the kid. He coughed wetly, and a bloody mist flew from his mouth. The impact had driven him clean from his shoes and shattered his sternum. At least one of his ribs had been driven into his lungs and his right arm lay beneath him completely dislocated from his shoulder, he was god damned lucky he wasn't dead. He might not have long though, blood was soaking through his shirt and leaking from the compound fracture in his other arm. His eyes had become fixed and unmoving. My assessment of him was that he was expectant.

Two more armed bystanders ran forward. One pulled the gun out of the kid's hand and threw it to the side, the other stood beneath my head and pointed his up at me.

Welcome to my life, just careening from one armed conflict to the next one.

"If you were close enough to respond, you were close enough to hear what was said. Put that gun away before you get someone killed."

I curled my head around to place my thick neck between it and the muzzle, and once I heard the sound of a handgun clicking back into its holster I straightened myself again.

"Get your foot off him. He's been disarmed, and if he hasn't died yet there's no reason for you to kill him now."

I took my paw off him and a woman from the watching crowd ran forward and began examining the kid as blood ran from his mouth. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the one who had pointed his handgun at me scurry over to pick up the kid's piece. The other Good Samaritan stepped on it just as he started to pick it up and shook his head. For his integrity, he was called a traitor to his species and spit on. This was the mixed bag that we had to deal with almost every day. And we would keep on doing it until the change that was needed finally set in. When people would see us as their ally in this existential test, and not their enemy.

As he wiped his face off with his shirt Tom asked him his name.

"Roland Elba"

"Well met, Roland Elba. Thank you, for making sure nothing about what just happened was hidden."

"Guys like that, hiding the wrongs that others have done, isn't that the reason why you are here?" He waved his hand at us.

I ignored his misconception of me and Tom and latched onto what I wanted to hear. Yes! This was what we needed! All the scales along my spine lifted as everyone around me sneezed at the overwhelming scent of cinnamon and I fidgeted in place barely able to contain my satisfaction.

"What the hell is that? Why does it smell like someone just blew cinnamon powder into my face? Why are you wagging your tail and flapping your wings?"

"Oh, this is good! Soooo good! Do you want to run for congress?" I jabbered excitedly. Tom slunk up next to me and pinned me against his side with his wing as I continued to jitter enthusiastically.

"What my wife is saying is that she is glad that you we were willing to stand up and prevent a bad situation from becoming worse."

I finally sobered enough to stop my giddiness. "You are wrong on one point Roland. We've always been here, we're the Scwharz..."

"I know who you say you are. Everyone knows who you say you are."

Ah, so that's where this was going.

I was distracted from responding however. As the scent of satisfaction diminished I was able to pick up the cloying odor of blood. Not just any blood either, the incredibly iron rich smell of our nearly black blood. I turned my head away from the conversation to look at Tom's opposite flank, two sets of four deep gouges marred his scales with blood spattering to the ground beneath him. From the easy way that he continued to talk with Roland I did not think he even noticed. In my haste to stop the dumbass from opening fire I had harmed my mate.

I nudged Tom, interrupting the conversation, to tell him to lay on his side. He looked at me with ears flared inquisitively.

"You're painting the ground." I rubbed my bloody claws against the grass. "Sorry."

He followed his nose to the wound. "I didn't even feel it. Just you pushing off me."

Sirens wailed and drew closer. First a police cruiser (surprise, surprise), then another, and finally the paramedics. The cops started by shouting at us, asking us what we'd done now. Then they spotted the dying figure on the ground behind us and waved the paramedics forward. They rushed towards him with their gurney to load the shithead and speed away with a great deal of noise. The other one seemed to be in no hurry, and I saw a certain paramedic that I remembered from an event a few months ago. She saw me, gasped, and hid inside her vehicle again. Her two partners came over at my shout for help and saw Tom's bleeding side.

They scratched their heads and looked at each other, I couldn't believe the idiots.

"It doesn't matter if you know our biology or not, stop his fucking bleeding! Fucking morons! What life form could possibly be healthy when its insides are leaking outside through cuts in their flesh?"

One of the patrolmen had to ask the one question that I didn't want asked. "And what was able to cut through scale that can deflect small arm rounds? How does that work anyway? What literary magic is this that let's bullets skip off but allows overgrown fingernails to penetrate?" He looked pointedly at my bloody claws.

"And what the fuck happened this time Kim? Did he steal your ice cream cone, like last time? Three people in the psychiatric ward because of you Kim! Now this asshole, do you know those medics told me his chances are less than 10% and falling? If I told you that you were under arrest would it even matter to you? Or would you just step on me?"

"I already know you won't believe anything I say. Ask the witnesses. Ask them what he shouted right before he drew his weapon."

"Don't tell me my job!" He snapped. "We already have rounded up the dozen closest to it. One of them is screaming that you killed in cold blood."

I had a pretty fucking good idea which one that was. "Yeah, I'll bet. Let me know when you find footage of what he tried to do with the evidence on scene." I pointed my snout at the handgun still laying on the ground.

Another squad car arrived, and crime scene tape started to appear as everyone was pushed back out of the park square. A lieutenant showed up and stalked towards us.

"You, you two. Again! If ever there were two that would serve the public good by being ordered to stay out of sight it would be you two! How many more are going to die because you want to take a stroll?"

So, the little pecker head had bought it on his ride to the ER. Fuck him.

"You know damn well what we are trying to do. If I had let the shit heel open fire, an innocent would be the one breathing their last in that ambulance. I don't know how you can blame us for those other two. Those were accidents caused by their own dumb assery."

"Your little PR campaign causes nothing but trouble."

"If you think for one second that I'm going to let these militant assholes lurk in the shadows and endanger my children you've lost your goddamned mind."

"Something that those soldiers guarding your home are meant to prevent!"

"Fuck Sparrow. If he didn't have someone watching him he'd open the gate for the Mongol horde himself."

I would've liked to explain to you what had happened since the day we'd first met the cocksucker. But, fuck him, the mother that shit him out into the world, the horse he rode in on, and his pet fucking cat. So, no, no mental exposition on this matter, tough shit reader. Suffice it to say that one week after he'd left Ulysses had made good on his promise.

"Besides, you can make all the outraged squeaking that you like. If I have to suffer being like this, I'm going to make humans worth saving. And that means weeding out the problem."

"Judge, jury, and executioner eh? Good thing we're living in North Ko... Oh, wait, we're not. Bring them to our attention and let the courts do their fucking job!"

"I can't help trouble that seeks its own end. I want them in the light, exposed."

Exasperated, he gave me the middle finger and walked off to give direction to a detective that had arrived.

I laid down next to Tom, glaring at the fools that were trying to figure out how to bandage his side. Apparently, adhesive doesn't stick too well to hundreds of small independently moving scales.

"Hey! You!" A surprised rookie, that looked like he'd just stolen his dad's razor to try to shave for the first time, glanced around and then pointed at himself.

"Yeah you! Come here, do you have a cell phone?"

He gave me a strange look, right, of course, that was a dumb question. But the look on his face was dumb, so we were even!

"Call this number and put it on speaker phone for us please." I rattled Alex's number off to him and he dialed it after checking with his supervisor.

"Please tell me those sirens aren't related to you." Alex answered on the first ring.

"Do you want the truth or a lie?"

"What the hell? Are you both okay? Is my brother okay? Kim, I swear to god if you've gotten him hurt again..."

"Him?" I asked incredulously. "What about me, I'm pregnant!"

Tom cut off his brother's indignant outburst before it could even get rolling.

"I'm fine Alex." At the same time, he twitched his body away from the medics attending his side.

"Just the fact that you're on the phone telling me your fine tells me you aren't."

"It's just a few cuts."

His answer was the connection going dead.

"See what you've done?" He rounded on me. "He's probably running here right now."

"Don't know why he's worried. Your tongue probably weighs more than he does."

"He's my big brother Kim."

Does big brother need to come protect little Tom? Little Tom, little Tom!

I cannot believe you right now. What are you? Twelve?

Older than you, little Tom!

I actually was, by three years. 46 to his 43. If you call me old, I'll kill you.

Wait till he figures it out that you are the one that cut me. Which should take him about three seconds.

Well, I will burn that bridge when I come to it.

Which was right............. now, as I saw Alex jog into the park with his pack on.

Tom was wrong however, I think Alex figured it out in one second, tops.

"Goddammit Kim! What did you do to him?"

"Well you see, Tom bet me that I couldn't jump that tree over there, and naturally I needed something soft to land on in my delicate condition. And so, here we are."

He came over and thumped the tip of my snout fairly hard (for him) with his fist, causing me to recoil and snort in surprise.

The cop he ran past at the cordon caught up to him and yelling at him tried to drag him away. I put a stop to that when my paw came crashing down in front of him.

"Wait, wait, let me wrap my tail around this. Did you just punch my nose?"

"I don't know, did I? Did you cut my brother open for a reason that you'd like to share with me?"

"Hey, you two, I'm right here." We ignored him of course.

"Some asshole was about to open fire on us in a park full of people. I stopped him."

"At what point in there did my little brother become injured?"

"When I used him as a spring board."

I flicked a wing dismissively, taking note that the detective was hanging on my every word and scribbling furiously.

"Just come forward and ask me the questions that I know you have."

The plain clothes cop looked up at me, and then down at his notepad again. "Keep talking, I'm just waiting for you to slip up and implicate yourself."

I rolled my eyes.

"Am I going to be charged for saving innocent bystanders?"

"How in the world do you think you were saving anyone's live but your own?"

"What are you, new? A fucking militia attacked me months ago and couldn't harm me. What makes you think that dickweed's 9mm was going to do it?"

"If you knew that then why'd you attack him?"

My eyelids lowered in annoyance, as did my assessment of his intelligence.

"Ballistics 101. If a bullet skips off a hardened surface, where does it go? Candyland? The proof that I have in how many were in danger can be shown by the number of witnesses you have."

"Fair enough. I need a sworn statement from you and your husband? Is this Tom? Whoever it is, they need to give me a statement. I'd take you to the station, but even if you fly there we'd have to do it outside." He walked away for a minute and returned with a cop wearing a body camera. "Here's the witness, and the camera. Let's do this."

And that's how I spent the next two hours of such a nice day. With my head laying on the ground, so that it was in the camera's field of view, answering questions. Judging by the direction that he took them in he obviously thought I had provoked the walking colostomy bag into drawing down on me. If by provoked he meant being alive, then I suppose I had.

After two hours of him trying to get me to say that I had launched my attack before he drew his gun he gave up and turned to Tom for his statement.

Alex was laying against his side, and every so often got up to check the wounds on his flank. He had to push my head out of the way a couple of times as I sniffed them over myself. Crime scene technicians were busy taking pictures of various things. Including my starting location and point of impact with the twat. One came over and timidly asked me if she could get samples of the blood on my front claws. I held them up for her, and she used swabs to collect the material before running away from the talons that were as long as her skinny little twig of a forearm.

Finally, the detective was done with Tom.

"Kim, until the investigation is complete, and you're either charged or cleared, you are not to leave the area. At this time no charges against you will be filed until the DA can review the case. This is not standard procedure, because we don't have one for you. I can't fit you into a squad car, and I can't contain you. I can't even ask you to surrender your passport. You leave me little choice in the matter. There isn't even a point to a bond hearing. I've already talked to the DA's office, they will expedite their review of witness testimony and my report. Expect a court date two days from now."

God damned right, I thought. Perhaps he had seen the videos of me doing some of the exercises Tom and I had contrived. 4 million views, 600 death threats, 2 semi tractors, and counting!

"In three days, I'm going to Boise for a week or so. Is that a problem?"

"Don't leave the state. Oh, and my Chief called. He says; 'damn you to hell you overgrown lizard'."

"How sweet, tell Jerry I love him too."

"When is this going to stop Kim?"

I raised my voice to a low roar to ensure everyone heard our conversation. Just maybe I could convince a few of those watching.

"When Thumper tells us we've passed its batshit test, that's when!"

"I'm going to tell you Kim, I don't think we will. At least if I've understood its terms correctly. I'm too cynical to see a future for humans."

He very well may be right. But that didn't change the fact that I would do all that I could to maintain a future for my children, and their children, and their children. As any parent would. Thumper continued to hint however, that I may be able to do more than most parents ever would be able to.

"I won't give up, and I won't run from those who are more interested in maintaining the broken world that got us into this situation, than fixing it and embracing change!"

"I hope you, and the others like you, succeed Kim, I really do. But you tell that creature that did this to you, to others, that it might have picked a better way."

"I have, and it is adamantine about what it has done."

"I think it has just given humans a target for their anger."

"Well, I think, I fucking hate the fact that we have created a situation where a race of transdimensional aliens felt they had to step in to keep us from destroying our world. But, here we are, and here I am, on four legs. I don't think you realize the depth of what my husband and I have lost."

"And what is that Kim?"

"Are you a parent detective?"

"No."

My voice grew hoarse as bitter feelings rose up my long neck and boiled out. Still raw and enflamed nerves making me act much more openly and emotionally that I certainly liked to. Instead of tamping it down, I let it go.

"Then you will not know what it feels like to realize you will watch your children grow old and die hundreds of years before your own end. You're not a woman, so you won't realize what it felt like for me to feel the child I held in my womb split into four and warp into something as alien as I was. And after all that, without a single moment to come to terms with what I am now, or what had just happened to the life within me. I have assholes chasing after me with their guns because they see me as the face of the enemy. I have a fucking alien, telling me that I and all the others were changed to help humanity prove to it that we are worth saving."

"As if I had been given a single fucking choice in the matter. From militias, to confused individuals who self-indoctrinate, every day I fight that misplaced rage. Every day I struggle to convince others that fighting amongst ourselves is going to lead to oblivion. Every day, I must deal with the fact that E fucking T has beamed itself to our world and told us we are fucked unless we pass the test it turned the world upside down to orchestrate. Every fucking day, I must open my eyes, and look at my children, who are no longer even the same fucking species as me."

I felt my eyes burn with scalding hot tears as I let it all hang out. "Do you think you see what we've lost now?"

"Kim, I'm... I'm so..."

"Keep your sympathy. Be a part of what this world needs. Help me find a future for our children. Help me convince these fucking aliens that we are worth keeping alive. If you can't or won't do that then get the fuck away from me." I finished with a snarl.

He opened his mouth and began to raise his hand to point at me, before drooping and remaining silent. I waited, hoping that I could convince one more human that day to do what was right for the future. For the world. For all the children that will never be if we don't get this shit straightened out.

"Kim, I..." He reached up and drug his hand down his face. "Let me talk to you when I'm not on duty. After my investigation of you is over, we will speak again."

Yes!

I bobbed my head and he walked away to discuss matters with the watching lieutenant who looked thoughtful himself. The crowd, still gathered around the edge of the crime scene, began to murmur to each other in low debate after having fallen silent as my echoing shouts rolled over them. I was heartened to see Roland among those who were nodding their heads as they listened.

Yes!