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He stepped forward with his hand out to shake mine before he realized his error and shook Alex's instead. Turning to me again he gave me a lighthearted salute that I smartly returned with my wing talon while I could hear running feet come up behind me. The bureaucrats that I had frankly forgotten about rushed forward to introduce themselves to Stout and clustered around an inventory of all the equipment and supplies that he handed off to them. The Colonel turned and gave another two-finger salute to Tom who returned it just like I had.

"So, what's the plan Stout? I think you'll be the first person we can talk to about what is going to become of our home that might know the full answer."

He pulled out a much larger sheet of paper and unfolded it on the hood of his Humvee to show what looked like a layout plan. "Your home" he stabbed his finger down on a rectangle dead center in the plan. "Will be the center of the Governor Little Regional safe zone. If you have any last reservations about this, now is the time to say something. All this behind me." He waved his hand at the workers standing idly by their trucks as well as the city, county, and state officials watching with their hands wringing apprehensively. "Is going to be building on your property, and on the fields that the farmers on these sides used to own."

"Used to own?" I asked, miffed. "Did you give them a choice? Or do I have a new group of people looking to turn the hides of children of the egg into fucking wallets because of something that was done in our interests?"

"Both ranches are owned by banks. The Feds have told them that that land is now government property. Compensation will arrive when it arrives."

Tom and I looked at each other and made our decision. Looking back at Stout, we both bobbed our heads. Our home was no longer ours alone. It was now the center of housing for everyone seeking safety in the area. Safety in numbers was our hope. Only time would show us if it was a valid hope.

As soon as he got our agreement the Colonel reached into his ride for a Harrison and spoke words into it that I couldn't hear over the cacophony of diesel and jet turbine engines. At his signal all the ground vehicles shut their engines off, and the four helicopters overhead spread apart to begin circling my home. Before I could even begin to wonder what they were setting up for, a black Chinook and two black Blackhawks dropped through the low cloud cover. The Blackhawks took up another inner line of circling while the Chinook fairly well fell from the sky only to flare up at the last moment and slam to the ground with its tail open. Immediately afterwards, four people wearing suits ran off the ramp and puked on the ground.

I was jumping up and down in excitement. It was my last unit! I spent three years with them at JBLM! I hadn't heard from those guys since my change! What were they up to? Did I know any of the crews here? I had to be content to wait until the engines shut down and all the suits on board were out before I darted forward to introduce myself by jamming my head into the opening of the cargo bay.

"NIGHTSTALKERS!"

I didn't get the reception I thought I was going to get.

"GET THAT FUCKING THING AWAY FROM MY BIRD!" Screamed the pilot after ripping his helmet off. The crewchiefs looked at me, looked at their red-faced screaming pilot, and then began walking towards my head to crowd me from the helicopter.

I crept backwards in dismay. This... These are my brothers! My sisters! I... I tried again.

"I am Major Kim McConnor... I was with... you...guys?"

They turned away from me without ever even raising their visors or speaking to me. Stunned, I sat down and felt the heavy impacts of my wings spilling from my back to the ground in my reeling confusion. My brothers, my sisters... We don't...we don't turn our backs on each other...

Tom's wing wrapped around my shoulders, and he used his foreleg to lift my attention away from a rock in front of me to look at him. His eyes showed his grim understanding of what I had just witnessed, making me sigh while looking away again. I resettled my wings and rose from my crouch to distract myself in my usual fashion. By throwing myself into the thick of things.

"That was wrong..." Stout tried to ease the strain the snub obviously had on me. Which I gave him a crooked grin for but couldn't muster much else.

"Yeah...It was...But it was also something that I should have known could happen. Just..."

"I could talk to..."

I cut off his attempt to make the situation better. It wouldn't have ended well. "I appreciate it Stout. However, it might be better just for them to watch and know that I'm not whatever threat that they think I am. Do you have a list of people that are coming here for safety?"

"Yes." He produced a folder and handed it to Alex. "There was an old woman that was particularly keen on talking to you as soon as she got here. I'll have someone escort her over, but I need to dance in the dog and pony show right now. Alex, when the three of you are done reading over that packet put it back in the Humvee. I don't need the press running off with that." He eyed the media scrambling from one VIP to the next with a jaundiced eye before leaving us for the largest gaggle of business suits.

Alex picked the packet up and turned to the page of the targeted who have come to live here now it seems. Running his finger down the list, he looked up at Tom and I and then down at the paper again. "Well, this is pretty much every single human that you two have interacted with since you could fly."

"Let us see." Tom said, releasing his hold on Silent Grass to edge towards his brother. As soon as her comfort zone disappeared, she leapt into the air. Her long but slim teenage form was enough to make most humans in the area cower against the ground. However, as she made several hawk-like cries of 'Noisy! Not like!' and settled in a far corner of our ranch, it was swiftly realized she was no danger and wanted as little to do with the humans as many of them did with her.

"Hey, demons! Crouching in your lairs to hide from an old woman? Pour honey in an old woman's ears and then run off braying to each other about what a trick you had played, Lucifer's children! It's about time we're going to go!" A loud cackle pinned my ears back. Well, I thought to myself, it's not like the criticism isn't deserved...

The baffled and scared construction worker helping Greta hobble across our yard looked like he had resigned himself to being eaten for his loudmouth charge's words. I reached out with my hand to pick the old woman off the ground to help her the last few dozen steps, and the coward ran without a look backwards to see if I had harmed the old bat or not. "Pussy", I snorted derisively.

"How long ago did you agree to help me? No, don't answer, every word you'll say will probably be a lie! Fiends! Are you ready to go get my daughter-in-law and my grandchild back now? Hhmmm?

"Of course we are going, just as soon as..." Tom tried to placate her.

"What! What? For Mars to align with the third nearest moon of Jupiter, Hell spawn?"

"You know your grandchild and your son's wife are like us too, right?" I muttered from the side of my snout at her continued snipes. Of course, she heard me, my mouth was better than two meters long after all.

"I know!" She snapped. "That's the only reason I'm not shooting you with holy water from a squirt gun! Because I don't want to know the truth about what some of my family might be!"

I rolled my eyes. For Christ's sake... "Alex give me your cross." I held my paw next to his head and he looped the chain around a claw and laid it in my palm. "There, you happy? I'm not on fire, and I'm not screaming in pain. Can you stop with the religious hysterics?"

She cackled to herself again. "It's funny to see you take me so seriously."

"Kim!" Yet another voice that morning shouted to me. Spinning on my tail my gaze fell on Athena. My friend! I was glad to see that she was safe, but ashamed that I was the reason why she was in danger. All this size and strength, and my friends were still in danger...

"Thena!" I laughed as she wrapped her arms around my neck and scratched at the scales there. "Where's Carla, Harry?"

"Carla caught a military ride to the lab, she's safe there. Dad though, he's not here. I couldn't talk him into coming, instead he's bunkered in the parlor. He locked me out to force me to come here. I would have helped him!"

I was at least a little relieved. "I am glad that he did. It is getting far too dangerous out there. Hey, I know that you just got here, and that I'm sure you are a little scared and confused, but I will be leaving this morning."

"Where are you going? Should I go with you?"

"No! I'm sorry but I don't want any more people exposed to harm than absolutely necessary. It's bad enough that I am about to fly half the state to deliver Granny Clampett over here..."

"Hey!" Granny Clampett shouted in outrage.

"...to her family. We don't know what we'll run into. Please stay here Athena. It would mean a lot to me know that you are safe. I am sure your father would say the same thing."

She pouted, but gave in, to my relief. I pointed her towards some people that looked like they were in charge of something, to get her settled into the nonexistent living quarters.

Tom interrogated ole' Greta to make sure she was ready for what was going to be a long, and cold, flight. He then began speaking with his brother, hopefully figuring out whether he was going or not. I gathered Irma and Jesse along with Stout, Asuka, and Haruto. "Stout, these four will answer for Tom and I when we leave. You need authorization for something, these are the four that can give it to you." Much bobbing of heads acknowledged my words, and I gave more specific instructions to the quadrupeds.

Security. Keep taking turns patrolling the perimeter. In your off time, keep chatting it up with the others. See if you can get people to relax around you.

And no one but Alex is allowed the master bedroom. No fucking with my house! Okay? I am serious! Tom?

Do not get into confrontations. Kim has already found three that despise us for what we have become. I think, they did not actually say a word to us, so I am not entirely sure where their animus is coming from.

We were all in firm agreement. Tom lay down as Alex began the laborious process of getting his harness on him. While that when on we both lowered our heads to say our goodbyes to our human children. I wasn't terribly surprised that they both cried when we told them that we were finally leaving for Boise. On top of everything else that my poor babies had been through I was probably well on my way to giving them some kind of attachment disorder. Eventually, coupled with a timely distraction from our dogs and Kazane, we got them to accept that we would be away for a few days.

Alex would be coming with us after all. Which was just as well considering that we would be travelling in winter, at a thousand meters, at speeds averaging around 85 kph, with a woman that looked like she was older than most of the trees in the area. I didn't want the old bat to die. Stout had shown Alex to a crate of surplus ECWCS clothing, and by the time he was satisfied, the old woman was wearing so many clothes she could barely move.

Two non-comms with Stout made a hodge-podge clam shell for Greta and Alex to hide in on Tom's back as a windbreak. He launched himself up and made a series of diving twirls, that drew my fascination as I watched his sexy tail coil and twitch behind his acrobatic moves, but was making Greta sick as she observed what he could do. I was half crouched to jump and tackle my husband when she spoke up to me.

"Um... I know I give you two a lot of grief. But...are you actually going to fly like that when I'm onboard?"

I looked at her with my fins spread and wings half opened and gently flapping to cool my...need for Tom "You do know why there are so many people here right? Why there is so much military equipment, correct?"

She nodded, and so did I.

"Good. Because then that means you know that if we start flying like my husband is right now it is because we are being fired on. That is why you are not being tucked up just behind his chest where you would be warmest, and also completely exposed to gunfire from the ground."

Actually, there was one more reason as well. But I spared her the detail that she might not enjoy learning of. Tucking her into the hollow of Tom's belly behind the sheltering bulk of his chest put her directly in sight of the opening for the sleeve for his dick. I didn't have an underbelly hollow at all, that space being taken by eggs and muscle. I had told Tom I didn't want him getting distracted by the sight of my tail on our multi-day flight, fantasize about what was beneath it, and forget he had a passenger. Bludgeoning the old woman to death with his swinging boner is probably one of the least classy ways I could think of to accidentally kill someone. Of course, he had become embarrassed and proved my point when his weasel went pop just from him thinking about it. Males, embarrassing themselves since...ever!

Just behind our reproductive gear were our assholes/urethras (Serena called it an anal vent) as well. As this was going to be a long trip, let me just say that Tom and I weren't stopping if we had to go, so sucks to be you if you're underneath us when we rip loose. No reason to subject her to that experience. Which was really a shame, because that underbelly region really was the warmest part of our bodies. For the eggs, Serena had guessed, and I had agreed, as every time I pictured myself holding my new children it was against that same area.

All that running through my mind must have shown to Greta. If I'd had to guess, it was because I kept staring at my mate's undercarriage. Some of the green around her gills faded as her erratic humor returned and she snickered.

"He must have a lot of love to show for how big he is!"

My tail slithered back and forth on the frozen grass, the coolness helping as I fought to keep myself from succumbing to my own wicked, wicked thoughts. "Enough love to beat you to death if we put you too close to it and he starts daydreaming."

Tom thudded to a landing and threw one wing over me with his always easy grin on his face. My tail slithered back and forth faster as he settled next to me. "Rock solid. Let's give everyone a brief and go. I don't know about you, but I hope that a couple days of flat out flight clears our minds a little a bit."

Thinking about our home, our friends, Me Too, and of course our children. All of it together made me think that the mindfulness exercise that was level flight might just be what we need for now.

Alex spread out the state and aerial deconfliction maps to show Stout the route that we had agreed on. Two days there, stopping overnight at a hotel along the way for Greta and Alex. Three days there, two days back. Cake walk. Stout gave us one last gift, a short-range two-way for Alex. Figuring that Tom could be loud enough for his own passengers to hear him, Alex took one of the radios and clipped it right onto his brother's ear fin. Tom folded his ear forward, tucking it securely against his ear canal, and asked Alex to give it a try.

Alex's voice was loud enough for me to hear the static underneath it from six meters away. With a bellowing roar that silenced all the noise of conversation around us Tom slammed a front paw into the ground hard enough to leave a depression half a meter deep. Alex jogged to pick up the little radio where it had been thrown when his ear flapped wildly to dislodge it. I could see Alex was thinking up some joke to make in his mind but swallowed it as he watched his younger brother grind his ear and the side of his head against the ground while whimpering loudly. When he lifted his head, I could see blood pooled on the ground. Alex put the radio in his pocket and clambered onto his brother's back to retrieve his medical go-bag. Sliding down his shoulder, he hit the ground running for Tom's head. I was there already, humming to Tom and trying to keep his head still as Alex peered into the canal with his penlight. He looked up at me, and then excused himself as he went to call Brian and Serena.

Now, I won't call what happened afterwards wasted time when it was spent with my children on my forelegs, and my dogs nestled against my side. It took a hot minute for things to move forward from that Charlie Foxtrot. But eventually my love finally stumbled to his legs and trotted around to get his bearings once more with cotton padding glued over his ear canal. While he honed those skills, Sora and Angie were describing to me an idea to get other children to paint or draw with them. An idea that appealed to me on many levels and I nudged my twins with a paw to ask them if they would be onboard with helping them.

My husband slammed into the ground next to me and cut off my job proposition to the spellbound audience. I looked him over in concern. He had a dodgy look to his eyes. Like they were slightly askew.

Are you okay? You look like a black, cross eyed, soggy noodle. Why do you not give me the harness and stay here? I am sure there are others here who would come with me...

"No...You are right...At least partially... Anyways, I think you should have the harness. You should take the radio as well. I...I am having a hard time hearing you right now... Is that what you said?"

So, that wasted another hour as Alex showed me that he was turning the volume of the radio all the way down and then clipped it onto my own ear. The weight was miniscule and when I flapped my ear forward to cup the gadget against my ear canal, I could hear Alex, if still a little loudly, at least at a comfortable level. Enlisting some help from the scores of people wandering around looking lost and uprooted from their lives (as they had been) my brother-in-law had the large nylon harness exchanged onto myself.

After the feeling of people walking on top of me faded (I don't think I will ever go used to that feeling) I stood and shook myself to check the fit. I asked Alex to tighten the supporting straps running to my hind legs before I covered the area that I stood in in shadow and threw myself upwards to give a full shake down of the harness and shelters. At first the air currents over my back felt odd against my scales and wings. It took me a couple of tiny finger adjustments until I felt as easy in the air as I normally did.

Which, compared to the lost ones I could see flitting around watching the intense activity in the area, made me look and feel like a wallowing river barge. Thinking like a human gets in the way of truly graceful flight I and the others had learned. The lost ones, even after they had been recovered, seemed to have had their instincts 'reset' in ways that psychiatrists were still learning about. If their mind-body connection had been affected...were they still the same individuals that they once were? So far, no one had found a Phineas Gage. Leaving the prevailing wisdom to be that if you were Kim McConnor before you were a child of the egg, then you were Kim McConnor when you were a child of the egg. And to all those out there just looking for reasons to dismiss us as not being the sentient, familiar, individuals that they might have known before, I have this to say...Fuck you.

Trying to get the shelter and harness to move so that I knew what needed adjusted. I did do some showing off with the few graceful movements that I could make in the air. Shooting straight up through the middle of the patrolling aircraft, I tucked into a ball and spun earthward before uncurling and whipping through the bedlam below. Turning on my side I slalomed among the trucks with my wing trailing near enough to the ground that I saw the grass move with my passing. Soaring upwards again, I flung my tail up above my back, and with the shifting of the thick appendage upset my balance enough that I began to flip end over end until I straightened out. Flaring, my wings beat back and forth touching tips at each end of their range of motion while I hovered above my shelter, before landing on my hind legs and then touching down with my front. Standing tall, I reveled in the feeling of joy coming from the four bundles in my belly at the feeling of weightless flight. Jumping from the roof with a thud that knocked some water bottles off a nearby truck I was surprised to notice that I had gained an audience.

Shouts of 'cool!' and 'wow!' came to my fins and I saw a group of children of clapping and bouncing in excitement after watching me show off. The expressions of their parents ranged from interest of their own, to closed off hostility. I picked up my right foreleg, twirled my paw, and crossed it across my chest while I bent my other foreleg and lowering my head in a theatrical bow before heading back to Alex and Tom. The children's shouts of excitement followed me across the yard, it wasn't until I felt cool wind flowing over some moving part of my body that I realized my raised tail was wagging happily. Fuck, that is weird! I wouldn't even know how to explain that feeling to myself before I was changed! Nor the fact that making my way back to my husband I looked down on everyone I walked over. It was funny to see how far back people had to tilt their head or stand to look up at my face when I hadn't lowered my head. Now I know what a basketball player felt like when he stood on the stacked shoulders of three of his teammates and tried to talk to someone.

Dealing with crowds like this wasn't all fun and games though. No one had enough sense to be wary of how large and heavy I was yet, and I had to bring my head near to the ground and sweep it side to side to nudge people out of the way of my legs. "Excuse me. Pardon me. Coming through. Please watch out. Sorry didn't smell you there. No, I can't walk around with my head underneath myself to watch where I put my own hands and feet. Hey little one, watch out now!"

I settled next to Tom with a grunt and stretched my hind legs out alongside my tail. "The harness and shelter are five by five. But we are going to have to do something about...I don't know...making set paths for all these people to walk around on so we don't have to worry about stepping on them with the force of a falling car."

"Well" Tom said, while watching the tails of a pair of lost children disappear into a cargo container that they had just effortlessly ripped the locks off of. "I suppose that is the type of thing we're just going to have to adapt to because I can't imagine anyone having thought of that before this crazy experiment began."

"This isn't just a one-off experiment." A suit standing next to Colonel Stout said. "There are going to be two dozen areas just like this one spread throughout the country. In rural areas within 15 miles of a population center of at least 50,000 people, and within 50 miles of an international designated airport. Supported by disaster relief funds and agencies, National Guard, and city, county, state, and federal resources. With people being attacked and spreading to the four corners of the world we can't protect them."

The woman lowered her sunglasses to look at us with a disproving and skeptical look on her face that made my scales bristle. "You all can go lay in the wilderness in the middle of Montana in the dead of winter for all that I care. Feed yourselves with Bambi or whatever. I'm worried about all the humans" she stressed the word humans, letting us know just where her opinions were. "that seem to be attached to you. The FBI keeps giving me reports that entire brigades of militia are being formed with the sole purpose of hunting you down. While other groups are attacking anyone that looks like me in the confusion." The... I don't know what fucking nationality she originally called her own... Indian I guess... woman said.

"Thank you for the overwhelming display of sympathy for me and others like me that had no choice in becoming aliens. Who the fuck are you?"

"I am Ananya Patel, Deputy Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. And before you ask who I answer to, the last time anyone saw my boss he was biting the throat of an elk in Virginia while growing a tail and hissing at my colleagues. So, as far these regional shelters go, there is me, the president of the United States, and then God. Any questions?"

"Uh, yeah." I raised my right wing and waved it to get her attention. Like she hadn't noticed everything around her falling into the shadow of the black sail towering above her. "By God, do you mean little g or big G? Because lately there seem to be a lot more gods than there used..."

"What your alien masters do is not my concern!" She snapped at me, pushing her MIB issue sunglasses back up her nose. "I can't control them. The military can't control them. No one can control them. They interfere when they choose to and explain nothing useful in return. Most importantly, we cannot harm them or force them to leave. We are lab rats locked in a maze, and since we can't get out, the only thing we can do is stabilize our situation as much as we can while we try to hold civilization together and they watch us flail around navigating whatever sick plan they have laid out for us.

If I had my way, I would have you all rounded up at an abandoned airfield with all the security we are about to set up pointed in at you, were it belongs, and not outwards to protect you. So, if there is any part of you left that is intelligent or thinking Kim Schwarzkopf, shut your grotesque mouth and stop talking back to humans. The rightful owners of this world."

Instead of clapping my jaws shut, as she had ordered, they opened wider of their own volition as my breath grew ragged in anger. With my nostrils flaring, I glared at her in hostility as I could hear the patter of drops of my spit falling from the exposed fangs lining my mouth. Behind me, my tail was raised with its tip quivering and my wings were raised to make me look larger. I couldn't believe I was intimidated by this tiny thing. The stench of burning metal was thick around me and I saw Tom edging around to where he could jump between us if I snapped.

"It is thinking and statements like that that are the reason why I and others have lost their humanity. I am no one's slave, and I have no master. That goes for all children of the egg. We are just as intelligent, independent, and concerned for our country and our species as we were before we were changed. My home is not open to you Ananya Patel, leave."

"Gladly, you foul, fallen, creature." The bitch snarled at me, before going somewhere that I hoped was far enough away that I didn't have to smell her nasty ass and whatever the fuck she had just ate that had curry in it.

You know it would be better if we talked to people like her instead of just banishing them. Tom rumbled at me way too loudly, causing the humans around us to look up in alarm at his grunting hissing chirp.

Would it be better? Hell yes. But I am not going to tolerate some bitch like that coming onto our land with her pissed attitude and running her mouth right from the start. If she does not like it, she can go join the rest of the humans that are shooting at us to make herself feel better. I watched her make her way through the crowds with an angry eye. I wasn't terribly comforted when I saw her make a beeline right for the SOAR personnel that had already so subtly told me to go fuck myself earlier and turned to point at me while talking to them. They were still wearing their AV gear, hiding their faces. Pussies. No one I served with was such a fucking coward. Maybe things had gone downhill since I left six years ago. Or, maybe it had something to do with why the Pentagon would like nothing more than for me to die.

"It would probably be better if you didn't bite the hand that feeds." Stout remarked, conversationally. My unabated anger led me to loom over him menacingly, even if he didn't cower like most people did that were less used to me. "Don't be like that Kim." He said, looking up at me from the shadow of my own head and neck. "Use words to express what you are feeling, not the fact that you are better than twenty feet tall and can swallow me whole."

I deflated with a sigh as I slumped to the ground once more. He was right. "I am sorry, Stout. My anger has nothing to do with you. Do you know what happened here last night? Who is in a freezer in my garage right now?"

"Marissa Tomei? Or I believe she was also lately known as Me Too? Yes, actually. Her parents have sent word, I am told, from Missoula that they want her body back."

I didn't want to ask, so Tom did when I hesitated.

"Do they know that..."

"They've been told."

I rumbled uneasily, the growl making some human workers escorting a backhoe past me jump and hide behind the machine. "Closure won't be easy for them to find when they won't recognize their little girl and have only us to go by in telling them that it is indeed the child that they had raised."

Stout scratched at his arm with the same uneasy expression on his face that I felt. "However true that may be, it is not our place to question their wishes."

"Why don't they come here?"

"What?"

"Well, why not?" Tom continued. "Isn't there going to be a large gathering of psychiatrists here to help with everything associated with children of the egg? Separations, reunions, disbelief, adjustment, regret, anger? Body image issues? Self-identity?"

"That's up to them, all I can do is pass the recommendation along."

With that, Stout went off to coordinate the efforts ongoing around us while Tom and I stared glumly at each other. Me Too...I'm sorry...

Alex returned with his medical bag resupplied and two more bags of what I presumed were filled with food, water, and survival supplies. He had also armed himself with one of Tom's assault rifles and was wearing an LBE with several mag pouches filled. (We had sold all of mine and kept only three of his. What were we going to do with them, throw them? Two of them were going to be for Luke and Lucy when they were old enough.) Holding my paw out, he heaped his baggage into it before climbing into my palm. Setting him down on my shoulder, I felt his footsteps moving back and forth as he clipped the bags on using carabiners. Once he had hunkered down to grab the harness, he said he was ready. Shaking myself out like a dog, I felt no movement and told him I was set.

Once I put him back on the ground, he looked over Greta's harness once more, tugging on each strap as my eye watched closely for the second check. I had gone through MFFS at Yuma after all, just like Tom had, and we had both instructed him tirelessly on how to inspect the harness. But since she was going to be my responsibility, I was the one who doublechecked her equipment. It was an arrangement Tom and I had agreed to and told Irma and Jesse that we both expected them to learn from us before we would trust them with carrying their own passengers. Greta did the same check on Alex as I watched, following both of our instructions to make sure his harness was green. Lately, Tom and I had had Alex looking into getting the actual parachutes for these harnesses and talked about what we could sell to pay for them. I wanted my children to have a safety net when they flew with us. Maybe with all this investment in making my home a "safe place" we could demand some.

"Do you bounce a lot when you fly?" Greta asked me as she climbed arthritically into my paw, Alex helping her after he had collapsed her walker. "These old bones can't take a rollercoaster."

I looked at Alex for his opinion, fuck if I know how rough the ride is on my back when I'm the one flapping. Everything seems fine when you are both the Captain and the aircraft itself, I suppose.

"Takeoffs are pretty violent. But once she gets some air beneath her wings its smooth sailing."

I twisted my head around to look at them before they ducked behind the wind break and gave them a Cheshire grin. "It will be a lot less violent if I run off a cliff. Would you prefer a few jerks up and down or for your stomach to wedge itself in your throat?"

It sounded like Greta threw up in her mouth, but she was able to choke out her demurral for my idea of fun. "If only I was thirty years younger..." She looked around herself, forward to the base of my neck, and back all the long way between my folded wings to my tail waving slowly back and forth with the tip curling at random. Which it tended to do when I wasn't actively thinking about it. "I can't get over how large you are!" She exclaimed. "You might be bigger than some jets I've been on."

"Bigger, probably. But much slower too. One thing you won't have to worry about is this at least: Unless I'm shot down or struck by lightning, I'm not going to fall out of the sky."

"Please don't talk about falling out of the sky. Can we go get my family back now? Remember, there is a bag of gold and one of silver waiting for you."

I had not forgotten. Neither had I forgotten the very agreeable sound of those coins clinking together. Maybe there was some truth to dragons being treasure hoarding fiends after all. I wondered what children of the egg did on their own world. For all I know their might not have even been gold and silver. Or they might have held no value to them all. Anything was possible, they were aliens after all. Maybe they traded in acorns or something.

I kissed my children goodbye telling the twins to mind their older sister while Alex and Tom told Stout more about our travel and commo plans. Irma, I told not to fuck anything up, and that my home better still be there when I got back. She responded by kissing me back. "Yes, mom. I love you. Thank you for trusting me to manage the family property. Be back soon, and please be safe."

"Hey!" I protested. "It's me!"

She rolled her eyes. "The only reason I'm not worried is because I know you'd never put my brothers and sisters in the line of fire without a damn good reason." Her tail curled forward and caressed my belly. I could feel the tiny lives thrum with happiness as they felt their sibling's presence, their eggs shifting as they rocked inside them.

I curled my neck around hers to hug her, and then I hugged Jesse as well. Whispering in his ear as his thick neck blocked the sound from Irma.

I like you Jesse, and I think you and my daughter are a good match. But if I come back and hear that you two keep fucking while she is in season or whatever, with everything that is going on right now... I am going to reach up into your holster and pull your dick out so that I can rip it off. Understand?

He made a pained whining noise and shifted as his tail drew beneath himself protectively. Irma noticed of course and narrowed her eyes at me.

Do not go all snake eyed on me daughter of mine. We have not seen the worst of this fight yet. It is better that you do not get knocked up with children that others in this world see as existential threats. If I hear of you trying to get your eggs soaked in cum again to fertilize them, I am going to glue your fucking pussy shut with epoxy. Let your imagination run with the thought of that feeling for a while. Bye!

By the time I left them two of them they were both laying against each other on the ground with their own tails covering their equipment protectively and looking terrified. Good, but I had to accept the chance that my dumbass impatient daughter had already gotten what she wanted.

To clear room for ourselves to launch, we both turned once in a circle telling everyone to get back. Then, extending our wings, we finally launched for the horizon.

"Alex! Can you hear me? Are you both good?" I shouted into my own slip stream as we arrowed Southwest for US-95. Tonight, we were going to stop in Riggins and let our passengers sleep somewhere more comfortable even if we likely had to look forward to sleeping in a parking lot or empty field. I could hear his response just fine over the rushing wind with my fin pinned against my ear canal.

"Good copy Kim. We're both set."

"Alright! Let me know if you need me to land. Don't expect much conversation!"

We were about thirty minutes into our flight, holding steady at one klick and really eating up ground as our widespread wings scooped at the air with huge strokes. Far below, we passed over a glade and I could spot a herd of elk in their winter grounds. My stomach grumbled, sending shuddering tremors through my thick body until it reached my passengers. Alex's voice came into my ear.

"Did you just fart Kim? At least you did it in flight this time. Last time you almost killed four people and set the shelter on fire."

I laughed. "Haha, yeah I remember. No, just hungry. Tom! Since I am flying with the load can you go snatch me a meal dearest bravest husband? I do not think my passengers would appreciate our hunting techniques."

He looked at me and did that weird head bob/neck weave thing we did to mean agreement and peeled away from me as neatly as any wingman I ever had. Keeping my altitude, I began circling with my head pointed down to watch. Not bothering with minding his shadow (Why should he? What the fuck do game animals know about aerial predators big enough to eat them?) I saw him glance over the herd and pick out a male standing off to the side. The big buck never knew what hit it. As the rest of the herd fled in terror Tom snaked his head down to bite the antlers off and grind them into powder before ripping the neck and head from the kill. That morsel vanished into his mouth as he grabbed the carcass in one paw and heaved his way back up to me.

I yelled back to Greta that if she was squeamish, she might not want to watch what happened next and that I would not be able to talk again for a few minutes. Matching his wing beats to mine as we slowed to a crawl Tom lowered the leg he was holding my meal in until I could get my jaws around it. Bringing it down where my own hands could sink their talons into the decapitated elk, I started eating mid-air. Giblets of flesh fell away streaming ribbons of blood into the air but I got most of it down into my throat, and threw my head upwards to help pass each bite down my long neck. It always made my neck and throat sore if I didn't let gravity help me swallow. Licking my claws and then jaws clean, I opened my scales as Tom and I slowly chased each other in circles to let him know my gratitude.

Thank you, Tom. Are you ready to go?

Yeah, but before we do you should look behind you to see who has been following us.

I braced myself, hoping that it wasn't Irma, any of the lost ones, or worst of all Angie with my twins on her back. But it was none of those. Instead a source of vexation that I had hoped I wouldn't have to consider for a week or so. It was Prometheus, sluggishly flapping towards us with his legs dangling below him as if he was too fucking lazy to tighten up his form.

"Hey Alex, check out my six."

His voice sounded in my ear. "Who is that? Is it someone we know?"

"It's Prometheus can't you tell?"

"By what, his fucking eye color? He's still two kilometers away!"

"Didn't you bring the binoculars?"

"Yeah. But it's cold and I don't want to clamber out from behind this dam and dig them out of the bag they're in."

"Well, do better with your packing layout next time. It would help if we needed you to spot things on the ground."

Prometheus had caught up to us by the time I was done arguing with my brother-in-law about loadouts and Tom got a chance to snap at him.

What the fuck do you want?

I am here to guide you. I cannot do that if I am not with you.

I didn't particularly want to deal with him right now and told him so.

If you are coming along, as if we could really stop you, stop fucking moping along behind us and keep up. Fuck! Just do not fucking talk to me until I tell you too!

"Greta wants to know why you three are hissing and screeching at each other like banshees." Alex reported to me.

"Greta is about to have an accident if she doesn't shut up!"

"What's gotten your tail in a knot?"

"Fucking Prometheus, that's what! C'mon Tom, let's go."

"You should know" Prometheus told me lethargically, like I had all the time in the world to listen to him grind out whatever vaguely useful information that he had. "That you are being followed." He pointed his head above our spiraling orbit to a point high above us. A black chinook was partially obscured by a cloud. I snorted at it in distaste.

"Fuck 'em. There are no airports between us and where we are stopping, and Chinooks cannot loiter at the speeds we're going to the distance that we are. I don't know what they want, but if all they want to do is tail us, they're wasting their own time. We already told Stout where we are going."

"I don't like this." Tom said, watching the lofty helicopter. "Alex call back to Stout and tell him we got a SOAR Chinook following us. See what he says."

Tom wheeled around me, wingtip to mine, and we kept beating our way Southwest until I saw the narrow ribbon of US-95 and we turned South. Instead of trailing behind us, Prometheus moved up until he was on my other side and I was flanked by a slightly smaller, and slightly larger, male on both sides. Looking behind me, I could see the antenna of the sat. phone sticking up above the shelter on my back and could vaguely hear Alex jabbering away. Seeing the communication going on, I was struck with an idea of my own.

Hey, Tom! What do you think about us doing something useful and try to find other children of the egg along the way?

How?

By yelling hello every half hour or so.

His nostrils opened wide as his chest swelled. I gave a quick warning to my passengers, and Tom's body clenched visibly, driving all that air out in a deafening roar that they might have been able to hear back at our home.

HELLO! I TOM! WE FRIENDS! COME MEET?

We continued to orbit the hovering Prometheus as we listened and watched for a response. There were none of course. We were pretty close to my home still and any children of the egg in this area would have run across our paths before now. Continuing on in our journey southwards, my mind settled into a meditative state at the smooth repetitious feeling of my back and chest muscles working in tandem to power the herculean strength of my wings through the smooth rhythm of flight. Tom and I roused from our fugue states every half hour to roar 'Hello' into the air but other than that it was the usual Zen experience. My mental timer told me it was about three and a half hours before I heard Alex's voice in my ear again.

"Do you see anywhere safe to land? We both need to piss, and it will be good for Greta's health to get up and get her blood flowing."

I called out to Tom that we needed to land. He spotted a clearing below and circled down to check it out while I descended to about five hundred meters. I saw him patrol the perimeter of the forest opening with his nose to the ground before he called the all clear. Winging into the air again, he orbited the clearing as a lookout while I banked into an easy glide that ended in the middle of the field. I looked around with my own suspicion to see if Tom had missed anything before curling my head around to give the all clear to my passengers.

Greta wandered off to find a bush or something to water after Alex had done his own business and returned. He came near my head while I had it bent to lick the front of my chest clean of the blood from earlier.

"I wanted to wait until Greta was away so I don't alarm her with what I learned from Stout. That Chinook is not the one that is at your home. He asked around and was told to mind his own business. I don't know about you, but when a full bird Colonel is told to fuck off when he asks why military equipment is following private citizens, I am worried."

It worried me and Tom as well when I relayed it to him in our tongue. Looking upwards in his patrol he told me he could no longer see the Chinook. Which, given its fuel limits, didn't terribly surprise me. But he did report hearing a high-pitched buzzing far overhead. We were now being followed by a UAV. Which definitely did have the fuel and the range to follow us for as long as we were in the air. I stood up, my spine flexing as I braced myself upright with my tail, and swung my head back and forth looking for a grey speck in the blue sky. Which, of course, I could not spot. I thumped to the ground and told Alex what I was looking for.

"This is getting stranger and stranger. Do you two feel that this place is safe enough to stay for a little while? I want to call Stout again."

"As safe as anywhere." Which wasn't much of a reassurance these days, but we were better than five klicks from the highway and I had only noticed a dozen semis on it the entire time we'd been flying. Sitting down, I stretched my wings all the way out to the sides and looked up to see where Prometheus was. He was zigzagging back and forth aimlessly, and I was amazed at the fact that his eyes were closed. What the fuck was he doing?

"Aren't you tired from all that flapping?" Greta asked as she hobbled back from her bathroom break.

"No." I was barely paying attention to her, absorbed in thought about our observers. Why? That level of equipment seemed excessive, even for me I suppose. What could we be getting scoped for? Can't I ever lead a normal fucking life?

Alex looked up at me and mouthed the words 'no idea' after ending the call with Stout. Fuck. Flying blind. Not good. I watched the two of them check each other's harness again after their bathroom break until I was satisfied then set them back on my shoulder. With a scathing glare I reminded Alex to get his damn binoculars out this time and, once they had settled, I rejoined Tom and Prometheus in the air.

The rest of the day was uneventful even if we were now concerned enough about the eye in the sky watching us that we now added that into the things we checked for twice an hour. I, and Tom, both knew we should have been more militant about keeping our minds focused on it at all times. But holy shit is it hard for your mind not to wander when all you have is the relaxing sameness of your body going through the same pattern of motions for hours on end. Much more so for me than Tom, as I spent most of the time distracted by sending playful mental pokes at my unborn children who made me feel giddy when they returned feelings of love and happiness of their own.

The sun was going down on our right when Tom and I started to spot the buildings and infrastructure of a small town coming up. Alex confirmed it was Riggins and we began to search for the motel that was just off the highway. Tom spotted the sign for the lodging we had picked and plummeted to tree top height rapidly to check it out. Calling to me, I again did a long gentle glide to land in the parking lot in front of the motel at a trot. Tom stood alertly watching outwards while I focused my attention on unloading my passengers and then watching the front door. No one emerged to see what the enormous wind storm my mate and I had kicked up was about, oddly enough. Their open and vacancy signs were on so someone must be here to attend to the half a dozen semis that I saw parked off to the side. Only one pickup truck was in the lot and parked right next to the entrance.

Placing Alex and Greta on the ground, I uneasily told Alex to be careful as he fingered the safety on his slung borrowed rifle and headed in. Greta remained between my arms, huddled against the bend of my elbow and shivering in the freezing air as she tried to absorb the heat radiating from the muscles of my leg. No gunfire came, thank Zeus, and eventually Alex returned leading another male into the parking lot to look us over.

"Have you seen anyone else like them around here?" Alex asked him as he pointed at Tom and I.

"Naaah." The man said laconically. "Don't care to see these two things on my property either. Might scare what few customers I get away. I need four rooms a night occupied to break even."

"Is there a field or something we can sleep in behind your place?" I asked him in what I thought was a nice and restrained manner.

He screamed. "Holeee shit! They really can talk!"

My eyes narrowed angrily, and I made a rumbling growl that had the motel owner yelling at Alex to shoot me.

Alex shrugged the frantic male off him. "Of course they can still talk, and the dragon speaking to you is Kim, my sister-in-law. She has something of a short fuze, so please be careful about pissing her off."

"I do not, fuckwad!" I grumbled, miffed. Why is it that I'm the one with problem when everyone in the world seems intent on pissing me off?

"See?"

"Is it going to eat me?"

"She..." I stressed.

"You're a woman? Like, biologically?" He shouted incredulously. I ignored him and continued on.

"...Is not going to fucking eat you! Nor am I going to tear down, destroy, or incapacitate you, your business, or anyone or anything else. Unless I am attacked. Then all bets are off and I'm going to start throwing things. Like parts of the semis over there or maybe your truck."

"Maybe you should just shut up for now Kim. Not everyone appreciates that kind of humor from someone who weighs better than six thousand kilograms."

Who was being funny? Tom whapped my tail with his warningly as I made my grunted and chirped aside.

"Kilograms? Metric? Are you all Canadian? Is that a lot? Did you just snarl?"

"Yeah, it's a lot. This cute, extremely sexy, tantalizingly curved female weighs almost 15000 pounds." I replied with a smirk and my fins flared and trembling eagerly. "I'm a whole lot of woman, can you handle me?" Facing the road and watching both ways, Tom was still able to hear me through his damaged ear drum. His tail smacked the back of my head. I smacked his head. And before we knew it the whipping sound of tail strikes filled the parking lot as we beat each other slap stick style. It, at least, disarmed the wary hotel owner. Which was the point of it of course! Hahaha! I can assign meaningful purpose after the fact whenever I want! This is my story!

"You are funny. As long as you aren't going to be like some of the others that have been seen flying around here lately scaring people witless, I guess you can lay in the back parking lot."

The fucker lied to us! He froze as I thrust my head towards him until he filled my left eye and I could see my slit pupil reflected in his own. "You just told us you hadn't seen any like us around here! Speak the truth to me or not at all!"

"I ain't lying...Kim. I said I haven't seen any like you and I haven't. All I got are stories from others about town. Please don't eat me." He sputtered off at the end. Why is it that the first thing people always do is to assume that I am going to fucking eat them? Accidentally step on them? Maybe. Walk by and obliviously slap them with my tail? Probably. Eat them? Never. I backed off and he began to breathe again.

"Your website said you have a heated pool. Does it work? Is it open? Can I lay in it?"

"What? Why?"

"Kim here is..." Alex began. I tapped his shoulder with my thumb talon and swung my head negatively when he looked at me.

"...sick. Yes, she's sick. Dragon flu. If she doesn't keep her lungs warm she'll sneeze. You don't want her to sneeze. Last time it was like the 'Three Little Pigs', except she blew down the brick house as well as the other two."

"Look, I'm hard up for money to keep this place open. If these two are going to be sleeping in or around my pool, then you both have to pay a full night's rate as well."

"There are three children of the egg here." Prometheus reminded the oblivious hotelier by snaking his head down from where he had slunk up on to the roof of the motel. The owner screamed again and ran inside. Alex sighed, and trudged in after him along with Greta. He came out a few minutes later to give us the low down.

"We're set. He's removing the cover for the pool and Greta is headed to her room. Let me get my stuff and I'll meet you in the back. Try not to damage anything please. Jerry is already fucking terrified of you three and if he sees you accidentally launch something heavy into the air I don't know what he might do."

Laying down after we had agreed not to fuck anything up, I rolled over until I could feel his tiny hands scrabbling at the carabiners hooking the luggage to my dorsal harness. Once he was done, he entered the lodge while Tom and I walked around the building. As we went we saw a couple of rooms where the curtains were moving as if someone had hurriedly shut them. The obnoxious blaring of an air horn deafened us as one of the semis jolted into motion, coming nearer and nearer before jerking away, and tore off down the highway making its excessive racket all the way. Was it my imagination, or did it look like that semi was trying to sideswipe us?

James was winching the tarp off the pool to reveal the steam already coming off the water in the freezing evening air. Prometheus remained on the roof, as was his wont, but Tom used the length of his body to block off sight to the patio area while I slid into the warm pool. Being all of 1.4 meters deep at its max (fucking lawyers!) I was nowhere near capable of fitting my whole body in the pool. Thinking wistfully of the of the days when I was 0 meters long (who the fuck measures how long they are when they're human?) and could fit quite comfortably in a corner or hidden beneath the pool side stairs or somewhere equally small and inconvenient, I tried to ignore the mass of my body displacing almost all the water in the pool. In the end, my lower body was zigzagged back and forth across the pool bottom with my upper half piled on top. Now I could die content knowing how a fucking noodle or an extruded piece of play-doh felt. My life was at last complete.

Setting my head on one of Tom's forelegs, he draped his neck across mine and we spent our time in idle bullshitting until Alex came out again. James was with Alex and looked anxiously at all the pool water that I had displaced into the parking lot where it would freeze overnight. I gave him a sheepish grin and a quiet chuckle that I'm almost positive he mistook as a death threat. He drew himself together and asked us if we would like breakfast. Explaining that the days of just making food and then throwing it away if no one ate anything were long gone. Alex said he would eat and that Greta would as well.

"How much oatmeal do you have?" Tom asked him.

"Ah! I have more than enough to feed..." James trailed off when the realization that he wasn't being asked about his food supplies by a human. "...uh...a lot? How much will you need?" He asked with the despair of someone who quickly realized they've taken on a project that's over their head.

"Two fucking barrels of oatmeal! With sugar! And apples! And more apples! And two eggs and a strip of bacon that looks like a smiley face! Or I will eat your fourth born grand nephew's twin daughters!"

I tried not to laugh as James' face scrunched up like when you don't know if what was just said was a joke or not and he made a few tentative hesitant laughs. "Haha, right...oatmeal, apples, eggs, and bacon. Um...well...I guess I can make five gallons for each of you? What about the one on the roof? Does it want anything? Can it please get off my roof?"

"Prometheus get off this poor guy's roof before your fat ass collapses his livelihood or something. If you're going to annoy us with your presence at least share your body heat down here. I'm in a delicate condition!"

James gasped at my words. "You're...you're pregnant! You're not sick, you're pregnant! My wife said the same thing when she was carrying our son!"

Not thrilled that he knew my secret, I looked at him piercingly. "...And?"

"And? And! And you can't stay out here! It's going to drop into the single digits tonight! You'll freeze!"

"Your concern is cute. But look at me, there's nowhere that you have that I can fit within. Trust me, with this heated pool that my belly is in and with these two to keep me warm I'll be fine."

"What do you think about us?" Tom cut him off when he opened his mouth to argue further (seriously where else was there for me to sleep through the night at?), highlighting the pertinence of his question by displaying his own body when he raised his wing to cover me.

He seemed to deflate at the question. "Oh...I don't know. I mean, your all over the news and what happened to you is terrible. But I don't really know you. You're so big and powerful now that, frankly, I'm a little scared to be near you and talking to you. I saw the videos on the internet, you used to be human too. I can recognize that much. But are you still human? In your heads? I didn't know you before, how do I know now? If you're aliens in mind as well as body will you attack if I do the wrong thing? Say the wrong thing? And what are your plans for the future? How do I or anyone else know that you don't have something in mind that won't end well for humans?

And you...Kim. You're pregnant! What will your children act like? Like you? A human woman in the wrong body? Or like something completely different? Will these children care about humans? I guess what I'm trying to say is...I want to see what you and others like you are really like before I make my choice. Like so many have already, one way or the other."

Seemed fair enough to me. At least he was watching and waiting before deciding. "For what it's worth. I still think I'm the same. Just ask him." I nudged Alex with my nose. "Or Greta, the old woman. Perhaps she'll tell you why we're here. It is her story to tell. Maybe knowing the mission we are on might inform your decision."

"Maybe." He raised his hands to blow into them and rub feeling back into them. "From what I've seen of you so far you seem alright. Huge, and sloshing all the water out of my pool, but alright. Certainly not what some others have said about you."

My ears pricked up. "Others?"

"I won't tell you who they are. But..." He fished a sticker out of his pocket and handed it to Alex as Tom and I craned our heads to look. It was a white circle set against a black background. Nothing more, nothing less. "If you see a house, a business, a car, anything with this sticker on it. Be wary and don't look for any kind of hospitality. In fact..." He stopped and looked at all the nearby windows. I couldn't be sure, but I swear I saw movement behind the curtains once again. "...if you see this sticker, treat whoever is associated with it as someone who may open fire on you."

Tom grumbled uneasily as he, his brother, and I shared a look. Alex fingered the rifle he was still carrying, and Tom pressed himself closer against me.

"I've seen that sticker." My husband said.

James face went pale with horror and he whispered. "Where?"

"On that semi-truck that left when we got here. It was on the passenger side of the front windshield."

"No! No, no, no, no..." He ran inside, leaving us alone.

"Maybe we should leave." Tom suggested.

"No!" Alex vehemently yelled while pocketing the sticker. "It would kill Greta. At these temperatures she could have frost bite within minutes on her toes and fingers."

"Staying here might not be good for James here either. Or Greta for that matter if she gets killed by gunfire instead of hypothermia."

"We've already been seen!"

"We could go, and you could stay..."

"Stop!" I snarled. "Before we get our fucking wings tangled with each other's we should see what James wants us to do."

"It won't matter if you leave now, you've been seen." James said after Alex brought him back, panicking.

"What? Who?"

"I don't know! A few weeks ago, three guys that looked like they were in the military came by and asked a lot of questions about dragons. I told them I didn't know anything! They left that sticker and told me to call a phone number when I did know something. They told me that if I knew what was right for the world, I would keep faith with my own race and my own species."

Military types. We were being followed by military equipment. What was going on here?

"What was that phone number?"

"They told me to dial 111319 and to follow the instructions. I've never heard of a phone number like that! I've never called it!"

"What would you like us to do? Leave? Protect you? Report this?"

"I don't know!" He yanked at his hair as he yelled.

"Just tell them the truth. That we paid for our lodging and were headed to Boise. That we caused no harm even if we scared you." I offered.

He began to calm. "Okay...okay...That might work. In the morning, when you leave, I want you to take my wife and our child to Boise with you. We have family there they will be safe with."

My scales opened to mark my disbelief. "You really think they'll attack you?"

He shrugged. "I don't know, and that's why I'm scared. A lot of strange things have been happening since zero day. Folks tell stories of seeing others like you flapping around east of here. A few families in town have gone missing. Lots of people hear heavy gunfire in the woods, strange aircraft, and lights are seen. Please, tell me you'll take my family!"

"I'll take your family, if you are with us. How about that?"

"But...but...my hotel!"

"I'm not splitting up families. Either you all come with us, or none of you do. That is the help we can offer you. If you want another option, why don't you call the police?"

"We don't have a police department. And the Idaho county Sheriff has not been seen or heard from in three weeks."

"What kind of backwoods frontier bullshit is that? Look, if you fear for your life just because you were seen talking to us, you will have to make a choice. Stay, or go. You don't have to decide now. We'll be here all night on account of our elderly passenger. Go talk to your wife about this. Stop trying to make decisions on your own."

"We'll take turns through the night doing look out for you." Alex added while Tom and I bobbed our heads in agreement. "It's something that we've grown used to doing ever since..." He coughed and glanced at his brother. "...uh, yeah."

The fretting hotel owner finally retreated inside, not quite willfully, as a walkie talkie on his belt began to beep.

"What the fuck!" I roared. "Can't we go anywhere without shit going sideways on us? Is that too much to fucking ask?" Emotional feedback from my children made me stop writhing in the pool.

Alex dragged a chair over and sat down with Tom's rifle across his lap before sticking his hands in his jacket. "Fuck, it's cold when the sun goes down!"

"Just remember to think of your dear little brother when you're pumping heat into your room with your feet up on your comfortable bed." Tom said after a minute of silence.

"Shut up Tom. I know how high your body temperature is, and how insulative your scales and skin are. You'll be fine."

"Maybe. But you still have pillows. Where are my pillows?"

I bit my husband's neck to keep his sibling rivalry from escalating. Seriously, now of all times? When his anguished wail finally stopped echoing off the building we were behind, I let go.

"Both of you! Shut the fuck up! Holy fucking fuck! My pillows? My fucking pillows?" My tail lashed out of the pool and slammed into Tom's head before I slapped Alex with it much more softly. "Fuck!"

"Ow, bitch!" Both yelled at the same time.

"Fuck you both! Settle down!"

I glared at both of them as I felt my children cheer me on with energetic tumbles inside their eggs. God damn right! My husband and his brother both rubbed their heads in their own ways while shooting me incredulous looks that I was completely immune to.

Blinking slowly, I continued at a more moderate pace. "Alex, what did Stout say earlier about the drone and Shithook following us? Speaking of which, can either of you hear the flying lawnmower?"

Four sets of ear fins extended (or not, in Alex's case) as our heads lifted to cock this way and that. That was a negative ghost rider, none of us could find it.

"Call him up." Tom told his brother. "Let's figure this out."

At first when the connection was made, I thought we had accidentally dialed hell or something. The only din I could hear coming from the speaker of the sat. phone was a symphony of children of the egg roaring instructions to each other in the back ground accompanied by the clatter of diesel engines and machinery.

"Alex? Anything new unfold?"

He was told about the sticker, the phone number, the military types, and how frightened the hotel owner had become just by being seen with us.

"That's a real pickle that's for sure." Was his measured response. The sounds of construction faded away as he moved somewhere more private before he continued. "This must have something to do with all those service personnel disappearing."

"We had wondered that as well." Well, I had wondered that. I don't know what Tweedledum and Tweedledee had been thinking.

"Who was that? Yes, just as the news reports have said. What they haven't said, and what the Pentagon cannot admit to without looking like it has lost control, is that military equipment is going missing too. Big ticket items like vehicles, aircraft, weapons, munitions, the works."

"Like perhaps MH-47Gs and drones?"

"Yes, whoever that was. We've been planning contingencies for such things at these safe spaces as well. I don't know if you realize what this means but..."

Tom finished for him. "We're standing on the edge of a new civil war. With modern weapons."

"Exactly, whoever that was."

"Jesus, Stout, is it really that hard to tell one of us from the other?" I asked, as my frustration at his unnecessary 'whoever that was' statements reached its peak. I spoke again, trying to add the airy, empty headed, tones of an overexaggerated woman to my speech to see if he could differentiate us. "Like, can you tell who I am now? Ugh, I can't, like, believe that you thought I was a maaaan. Eeeeew! What do you mean this city doesn't, like, have a Starbucks? That's like, ugh! Soooo 2008!"

"Tom? Why are you talking like that?"

Stars danced in my vision after I slammed my head into the concrete in disbelief.

"What was that cracking noise?"

"Kim's sanity." Alex said matter-of-factly.

"No, I can't tell one of you from the other, and listening to Kim's valley girl imitation makes me want to stick my 1911 in my ear."

"If the Lt. Governor is still there can you get them to address this situation down here?"

"I'll do you one better, I'll let you address him yourselves." He handed the phone to someone and we had to explain the situation all over again. Alex went inside to grab James again, who this time returned with his wife, Patricia, who in turn held their son, Robert.

Patricia was obviously terrified of us as soon as she had looked through the glass door to the lobby and spotted one of Prometheus' hind legs blocking the view through the door entirely. Unsympathetically, as I watched the scaredy cat, I wondered if she had ever been this scared when she saw an elephant or a giraffe for the first time. Her son Robert on the other paw, was far less alarmed than his mother clearly desired him to be. His face lit up when he finally spied ours where we were looking down upon him from and he ran towards us with a toddling gait until he was swept into his mother's arms and had his eyes hidden from us.

"Don't worry." I told her, as she did exactly that, shifting her feet away from me in the first motion towards running away. "I'm a mother too. I have three children, and four more due any day now. We mean you no harm, and as long as you and your son are out here, we will not move and run the risk of accidentally fuc...harming your little one."

Not looking one bit relieved, she shook her head madly and continued to hide behind her husband. What safety she thought that might offer her I could not for the life of me think. Maybe she was just stupid, I thought with my usual acidic nature. Outwardly, I sighed with disappointment. I would never hurt a little one!

As James and Patricia explained their concerns to the acting Governor, I made goofy faces using my tongue and my fins at the toddler still in his mother's arms when he looked back up at me. Grinning, he tried to squirm from his cage and, not being able to help myself, I lowered my head so that he could see me better and grab at my scales. Patricia noticed my head coming closer of course and screamed her husband's name while jumping away from my nose. The governor on the phone began yelling to find out what was going on while chairs fell, and James grabbed his wife to keep her from tripping over the fallen patio furniture in her panic. She looked over his shoulder one more time, saw my frozen surprised face, and fainted. As she collapsed, her hold on her son failed and he tumbled towards the ground headfirst.

Time slowed as a wall of water erupted from the pool and splashed against the side of the hotel when my tail surged from its impromptu bed. Shooting my tail tip beneath the child, I coiled it with the spike adorning its end pointed away with the speed of a flash of light and young Robert bounced to a stop in its hold. Everyone froze, fearing the worse, until he giggled and squirmed against the scales of my tail tip to grab for the base of the spike pointed away from him.

Exhaling heavily, James bent to pick up his young boy. Who, as soon as he was lifted out of the basket I had made with my tail began to cry and reach for the wet, but warm, appendage that had saved him from cracking his noodle open.

"Thank you." James said, looking up at me and patting his son on the back while Alex calmed the frantic governor on the phone. "Can...will you hold him for me while I check on Patricia?" I bobbed my head, and he set him back into the coil of my tail end as he went to splash some nearby water into his wife's face.

I watched the little tyke fondly as I bounced him with my tail, making him giggle once more. It wasn't until Patricia spoke to me again that I realized she was on her feet, reaching for her child, and looking at me with new respect.

"I didn't believe you when you told me earlier. But your eyes. Those are the eyes that only a mother could have. Thank you, and I'm sorry."

"Don't worry about it. Let me tell you about when I..."

She interrupted my whimsical anecdote. "...No, I mean I'm sorry that this happened to you. Anyone who could look at a stranger's child with as much love as you just did...doesn't deserve...this."

I looked away from her. I was sorry too, but I was trying to make peace with this change for my children, for all children. I could feel a tear leave my eye and track down the side of my face. Tom hugged me as the scent of my melancholy filled the air.

"Thank you." I murmured to her in return. Looking up at me, I could see her trace the tear rolling down my upper jaw as she seemed to come to a decision. Much to my surprise she put her son down into the heated coils of my tail where he eagerly began to clamber onto it once more. I smiled at the little one as he happily played within the pen that I curled my body into and that kept the cold bite of the night air at bay.

I listened as the acting Governor painted a fairly alarming picture. Acts of violence across the U.S. had had these images, or stickers in our case, posted nearby. Across Idaho, the businesses and homes of minorities of all types had been attacked, and often burned. No attacks on children of the egg had been documented yet but, given how few had remained within sight of civilization, that did not necessarily indicate anything. What could be confirmed was that wherever dragons had been sighted significant reports of heavy weapons fire accompanied the sightings. He also confirmed that Idaho National Guard weapons and equipment had been reported missing. Refusing to tell what exactly had gone missing, he nevertheless gave a good indicator of what was out there now by confirming the large helicopter escort he and the other governors had arrived with was for that very reason.

Which wasn't good. To say the least. It could be anything from M4s and M9s to fucking M1A2s and M2A3s! And, at Orchard Training Area, ammunition!

The Governor's advice to the Perkins? Leave with us. He couldn't promise their safety. He had nothing left to ensure their safety with! He reiterated the idea behind the safe area, if you are being attacked or threatened come to the temporary safe zone until order can be restored. Which meant that, at least in Idaho, anything outside the safe zone or a city with its own substantial police force had just become the wild west.

By the time those back at my home had hung up, the Perkins were all onboard with leaving with us. Facing reprisal by shadowy groups that may or may not have stolen military grade equipment will do that to people. They went inside to pack everything that they would need for at least a week or two, and to warn their guests, and left us to wind down our night.

"All three of you did very well in doing what you can for this family."

Alex took a swig from the bottle of liquor he had next to him before replying. "It takes some of the shine off what we did knowing that it is nothing more than dealing with the consequences of what you had started, Prometheus."

"It is true that children of the egg did not exist on this world before our involvement. However, we have, at no time ever, directed humans to act this way. You look for things to blame for your own nature, when you should really be seeking ways to change it. An act of kindness, instead of spite. Creating, instead of destroying. Wisdom, instead of impulse. You do not know this family, only that they have made themselves the target of hate just by seeking to provide for their own as they sell their services to others. Yet without a moment's hesitation you have chosen to burden yourselves to ensure their survival. As I said, all three of you did very well in doing what you can for this family."

"But you could have done it all with just a wave of your hand."

"Yes, and it would have been an act that was as meaningless to you as it was easy to us."

"Care to elaborate?"

"You look for favors and gifts that you have not earned. You have brought yourselves into a position that was so intractable that you came to our attention because your world was in danger. Now, you cast blame at us when we set you on the path toward change, real, lasting, beneficial, change. Just as before, everything humans do is at their own initiative. Now, however, there is one more target for you to direct your rage. This one you might not find so willing to lie down, powerlessly, and absorb that irrational hatred. While we may encourage or discourage certain behaviors, ultimately it comes down to your own free will. Do you have what it takes to prove yourselves?"

No one had an answer. Alex took another long pull at his bottle, making Tom look worried.

"Are you okay?" He asked his older brother.

"A few days ago, a young girl's life slipped through my fingers. No, I'm not fucking okay." He drank again. Tom's tail wrapped around the bottle and pulled it from his hand before he could have a third go at it. Alex looked angrily at Tom, but instead of confrontation, he found himself face to face with the worried looks in mine and Tom's eyes. "What? I'm fine! Give me back the bottle!"

"Alex..." Tom consoled and wagged his reproachfully. "She took shrapnel and the blast from an IED at point blank range. You did what you could for an alien life form that you know almost nothing about. Don't do this. Just like you told Kim, don't do this to yourself."

"What do you know about failing at saving lives, huh? What do you know Tom?" Alex snapped at his brother.

I gasped as Tom's eyes narrowed to hostile razor-sharp slits. That was the wrong fucking thing to say.

With a speed that outpaced even my saving Robert earlier, Tom's tail dropped the bottle and whipped to knock his brother to the ground and pin him there with the end of the limb across his throat and the spike buried in the concrete. Alex lay there, stunned, before trying to push against the tail tip, but it was useless, and Tom folded his body in half to bring his head and eye dangerously close to his brother's.

"You dare? YOU FUCKING DARE?" He spat, as he fixed his nearest eye accusingly on his brother. "ALEX, YOU FUCKING ANSWER ME! DID YOU JUST QUESTION THAT I HAVE NEVER KNOWN FAILURE? ALEX! I KNOW, YOU KNOW, WHAT I HAVE TO LIVE WITH EVERY FUCKING DAY OF MY LIFE! ALEX, ANSWER ME! YOU FUCKING DARE?

Alex's face paled when he began to realize what he had said to his brother in his bitter self-loathing. His younger brother. The Air Force PJ who had deployed three times to Afghanistan and once to Pakistan. Tom, my husband, who had the dog tags of two soldiers in a glass case over the mantle of our fireplace at home.

"Tom..."

NO! MY BROTHER NEEDS TO KNOW HOW WRONG HE IS!

Tears began to run from his eyes as he howled at me. Alex, seeing this, knew he had crossed a line that shouldn't have been crossed. Turning his head away from mine, he screeched at Alex in wordless anguish for what he had said. Tom's bleary eyes no longer seemed to recognize what they were looking at.

"To..." Alex trailed off with a gasp as he began to choke, Tom in his anger and pain did not even realize that he was crushing his brother's neck as his spine and tail tensed with hundreds more Newtons of unconscious force. When you were strong enough to lift a car, almost any kind of accidental contact could be fatal. Tom could have flattened Alex and never even realized it at the time.

Waves in the pool crashed back and forth as I leapt from it to intervene. Sliding my tail beneath his, I lifted, and Alex's hands flew to his throat as he curled into the fetal position and began coughing uncontrollably as air flowed into his lungs once again. Raising myself upwards until I could reach with my fore legs and hug Tom, I drew him into my embrace as he tried to hide his face from me beneath his wing. Backing off a pace, I traced my arms along his long neck until I felt the back of his jaw with one paw. Bringing his head from its shelter, I placed one hand on each side of his jaw and curved my neck until I could rest my brow against his. His tears continued to flow as I held him, humming softly, until the convulsive hiccups racking the length of his neck stopped and he sagged in my embrace. Guiding one of his hind paws with mine, I placed the sensitive sole against my belly where I knew he could feel the thundering confusion of the four hearts that we had made. As I had hoped, his own heart rate, and his breathing, ramped downwards until he was calm once more.

Taking a chance, I let go with my right hand and reached out for Alex and nudged him towards his brother until he threw his own arms around Tom's foreleg.

"Tom...little brother...I don't even have the excuse of ignorance...I'm...I'm sorry..."

Tom dropped from my hold until he was flat against the ground. Dragging his leg forward until he could cup his brother in his hand, he brought him against his jaw where heavy tear drops fell on his head. I nudged them both with my nose to comfort them and then looked up at Prometheus as I pulled them both against my side. He looked like he was fascinated by what he was witnessing, but this was not his place. This was not his family. And I didn't like him looking at mine like they were a fucking exhibit in a museum. I caught his attention and then flicked my head to point my nose at the roof of the building. He cocked his head in incomprehension. Annoyed, I pointed at him with my wing talon, and then stabbed it in the direction of the roof while I looked at him meaningfully. Getting it, he bobbed his head once and slunk upwards onto the top of the structure to keep watch, leaving me to comfort the siblings beside me as they had it out.

Nothing more of consequence beyond the ensuing conversation happened that night. And, at Tom and Alex's request, that will be all I have to say on the matter. It is not my story to tell, and they do not want it known.

...