A serial tale of a hero/ine whose Manifestation offers hope to an entire mythical species, and gives promise to many awakenings in a sleeping world very much like our own.

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A re-imagining of several old story concepts that never saw anywhere near as much love as they should have. Now they're back, combined and fused into one whole. Hopefully I didn't mess up the formatting too badly; although I will hopefully learn to do better in time.

-Arianrhod.
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Panicking, I felt a sudden surge of mental strength and shook off Ice's dominance. As I felt the new sensations flooding in from all over my new body, I realized that I didn't have any way of telling if the body that I was inhabiting currently was male or female. After all, just because Ice was female didn't mean that the transformation she had enacted on my body necessarily transcended the boundary of sex as well as species.

I wasn't given the opportunity to really explore my new body more, though, as faculty (and a few students, as well) began to emerge on to the roof. I realized belatedly that Will's dying screams were probably not the best way to stay hidden. I could feel Ice in the background, trying to reassert her control, demanding more food.

Stuck between staying roofside and letting more people see the first real dragon that human eyes had laid eyes on for centuries at least or trying to fly, I did the only thing that seemed logical at the moment: I jumped off the edge.

Luckily for me, my body did indeed come pre-programmed with the knowledge of flight. The feeling of my wings pounding the air was a strange one, but somehow thrilling, too. I had never really been too scared of heights, but I wasn't exactly what you'd call fond of them, either. Now, though, it seemed my perspective had changed. Everything was too new for me to really make any hard decisions, but I privately admitted to myself that I loved flying.

I hadn't yet really given any thought to where, exactly, I was heading. My body was pretty much on autopilot. All I had really known was that I had to get away from humans, but I had yet to actually decide on a course of action. Studying the buildings beneath me as I cruised, I got my bearings and swung around to the north. My destination was a little-known state park that I sometimes visited when I wanted to be alone to think...I could hardly think of a more perfect spot. It was isolated, peaceful, and certainly not dangerous to me...at least not anymore, I thought to myself.

I touched down just about fifteen minutes after departure, which I figured put my flight speed at somewhere around sixty miles per hour, even when considering that I was able to take a direct route instead of having to follow the road network. Ice was still sullenly lurking in the back of my mind, protesting about the lack of solid food that my body was in desperate need of. The problem was that I was in even more desperate need of things less corporeal: a plan, somebody to talk to, and some knowledge of what the hell had just happened to me.

I quickly decided that the plan was the most important thing, and analyzed the situation, breaking it down as thus:

First, I was now a dragon. This caused a number of logistical problems, not the least of which was making contact with other human beings, such as my family. It also contributed the problem of food, which was going to be a big deal. I guessed that transforming had taken a dramatic amount of resources to enact, and flying probably wasn't helping my energy situation either.

Second, I didn't know much at all about my capabilities. I knew from the basic kind of pop-culture knowledge that one accrues throughout life that most dragons have a breath attack of some kind, and usually have a plethora of other abilities to complement this primary weapon. I knew that some at least were shapeshifters as well.

Third, I needed to figure out why this had happened. It obviously had something to do with my family lineage, since it had triggered based on a combination of being in both mortal and societal danger (the ominous bells of outcastdom still echoed faintly in my head). The draconic form that I had assumed was also frighteningly reminiscent of that which graced the foreground of the Nebel family crest...add to that the family legend, and it was all too much to be a mere coincidence.

I quickly decided that humoring Ice was probably wise, since she doubtlessly knew a lot more about what my body needed than I did at this point. Eating more humans was out of the question, though, so I decided that the next best thing would be to poach a sheep or two (or five, Ice thought hungrily) from a nearby farm. Sighing, I ordered my body to lift off...and was met with nothing. Apparently it wasn't just that simple.

Okay, then I'll find a nice cliff to jump off of, then, I thought. Hauling myself through the narrow trails proved to be a bit of a chore, which surprised me, since I figured I was only about the size of a SUV or a small van.

Wings

That gave me a bit of a pause. I hadn't actually thought about it before, but while my wings were pretty large, they shouldn't have been enough on their own to actually enable me to fly. The proportions just weren't right. Stumbling through the woods, I had finally found my cliff, though, so I shrugged it off as magic and went about getting dinner.

A couple of farmers lost some pretty plump sheep that afternoon.

Now that I wasn't hungry anymore, Ice receded further into the background of my mind, lurking quietly. I was starting to get an uneasy feeling that Ice represented my instincts, sort of like a sixth sense. It was unsettling that I thought of my instinct-persona as female.

Wheeling back around towards town, I decided that I would have to try to get in touch with my female. I hadn't actually tried to talk yet, and frankly I doubted that this body would be capable of making the necessary sounds to emulate human speech. But I was confidant that I could at least right in the dirt with a claw or something. Family was always a strong motivator for me, and whatever lay ahead in my future, I couldn't just leave them hanging thinking that I had vanished into thin air or something. My family lived on a quiet cul-de-sac in the quiet town of West Heights. I had always found it strange that there was no East Heights or any other directional Heights, for that matter, to go with it. Such was the way, I supposed. Hovering above the neighborhood, I could see several police cars parked along the curb in front of my house. My family was on the porch, talking with the policemen in a frenzied manner.

I continued to watch for a few more minutes, slowly despairing of the cops ever leaving. Finally they turned to go back towards their cars, which was good, because my wings were starting to ache. Apparently hovering is a lot more work than actually flying is. I could see that my father was shaking his head and holding my mother closely. I couldn't be sure from how far up I was, but I think she was crying. My little sister had already run back in the house, and I had heard the door slam from my location hundreds of feet up. I wondered idly at my amazing hearing, when I hadn't noticed if I even had ears anymore. My good eyesight surprised me less...for a predator of the skies, sharp eyesight was a prerequisite.

I quickly surveyed the neighbor situation. None of them were actually out on their lawns or porches, which was good for me. That didn't mean, though, that they weren't home...and having an SUV-sized black dragon land on the front yard and attempt to converse with the house's owners wasn't exactly the best way to evade notice. I decided on the next best course of action: kidnaping.

Gritting my teeth, I dove several hundred feet, and landed on top of the breezeway, making sure that my claws made all kinds of peculiar clicking sounds. Sure enough, my mom and dad both scurried out to the yard to take a look...and then they were safely clutched in my arms, and I was flying again.

They both struggled, of course. They punched and kicked and screamed, but I paid them no heed and instead flew straight to the woods in the nearest middle-of-nowhere I could find; locales of which West Virginia has many. Eventually I decided that we were far enough out, and landed in the first clearing I found. First I carefully released my parents, and then began trying different forms of communication.

As I had feared, I quickly discovered that forming human speech was impossible, although I did end up producing some fairly disturbing and probably spine-chilling sounds. I thought that they sounded attractive and musical, but from my parents' reaction, I guessing that was a dragon-only opinion.

Next I tried clawing the dirt. I tried to scribble out "I am your son," but my parents, who were on the other side of the clearing by now and still trembling with fear, were either unable to read it or unwilling to try.

Telepathy was next on my list. I tried to open my mind and see if I could feel them psychically, but all that succeeding in doing was perturbing Ice again...and I definitely wanted to let that sleeping dragon lie.

The minutes began to tick down, and I grew increasingly frustrated. My parents tried to run away once, but I discouraged that. Eventually my father got brave, or tired, or both, and tried to talk to me. Unfortunately, I found to my horror that I could not understand the words coming out of his mouth. I could see his mouth moving clearly enough, and I could hear the sounds, but I couldn't make any logical sense of them.

That brought me to the shocking conclusion that ever since I had transformed, I hadn't even been thinking in English. I swiveled my long neck around and peered at the words that I thought I had scribbled in the dirt. They said what I had wanted them to say, but drawing upon my human memories, I could discern well enough that whatever language I had written it in was definitely not English.

This made me begin to feel very depressed. Whatever had happened to me, it had stolen away more than my humanity. It seemed like it had also taken my memories...which was strange, because I still had my memories. Then I tried accessing them again. I knew who the people in front of me were, of course. They were my meal for the evening.

Wait, that wasn't right.

Straining mentally against the fog that was increasingly blanketing my mind, I pushed everything else away except my parents and my sister. Above all else, I thought frantically, I must remember them.

Depression turned to frustration, which turned to anger. It wasn't enough that this thing had stolen my body. Now it needed to steal my very identity too, or so it seemed. Well I wasn't going down without a fight.

My raw anger led to me accessing what seemed like a mental corridor as my vision blurred. At the distant end, I saw Ice resting peacefully. On either side of Ice were two platforms. As I looked closer, I realized that Ice was sleeping coiled around the base of a giant scales, rising hundreds of feet into the darkness. Golden chains fell gracefully to the platforms, which were as broad across as a house. The scales were slipping. One of them, on Ice's right, was raising itself up, while the other was moving downward steadily, as if being pushed by an invisible force.

I didn't need much time to realize what I had to do. I flew down the hallway, and landed on the upward-bound scale. It seemed like a good idea...until I realized that I apparently had no weight within my own mind.

Weight...what has weight within my mind... I thought urgently. Memories...I can try to put my memories on it!

Now, if anyone had told me earlier in the day that I was going to be heaping my memories on top of a golden scales within my own mind in order to regain my humanity, I would have told them that popping acid was bad for you. At the moment, though, it seemed like the most natural thing in the world and made all the sense therein.

Eventually, as I forced myself to remember detail after detail, the scales slowly, grudgingly began to even out. Still I piled on. I went systematically through my life, remembering Christmases from years past, relatives long dead, and hurts that I thought -- and hoped -- I had forgotten.

*Click*

A resounding rightness filled the mental vault, but Ice remained asleep, as if it were all part of the plan.

Slowly coming back to my senses, I realized that I had apparently fallen asleep in the real world, mirroring Ice's behavior while my consciousness struggled to define its own identity against the flow of dragon-ness that had threatened to consume me.

My father seemed to have thought that I had up and died randomly, since he was awfully close. My mother was clinging to a tree a little ways back, and was calling worriedly to her husband.

"It's awake! Lars, get back quick!"

I had never been so relieved to hear -- and understand -- simple human speech before. I cycled through my various attempts at communication once more while my father retreated to the supposed safety of his wife's tree, but to no avail. So, failing all other alternatives, I tried the final option.

I closed my eyes, and willed with my entire being that I was human, and that my body would match who I was inside.

To me, it merely seemed as though the world was growing. I couldn't see the bright glare of light that filled the entire woodland clearing. My parents recoiled and hid behind the tree to avoid being blinded, but I saw it as another attempt to run away.

I stretched my hand out in silent terror, wanting to beg them not to go...and saw a human arm extend before me.

Kind of.

I looked a little closer and noticed that it wasn't entirely human, but I didn't have time for more than a cursory glance. I had to catch my parents before they got too far away. I began running forward towards the tree that my parents were hiding behind, and abruptly realized two things: my parents were coming back around the tree...they hadn't run away after all; and my center of gravity was horribly, incredibly wrong.

I considered the latter for only the briefest of seconds, putting all emphasis on running forward to my parents. Ignoring the strange sensations from all over my body for the second time in this weird day, I ran. Calling out to them, I ran. "Mom! Dad! It's me, Roger!" I called, but then I no longer ran.

My voice told me plainly and simply everything that was wrong with my center of gravity.

As I stood there, trembling, I dared to look down, and was met with all the proof that I could ever want that Ice had indeed changed more than just my species. While my mind shied away from certain aspect of anatomy that were going to take a long time to get used to, it also noticed at the same time that I was most definitely not entirely human. I held an uneasy arm out in front of my face, and noted that I still had claws instead of fingernails, and had patches of black scales on each finger, the back of my hand, my palm, and my forearm. A wicked-looking hooked claw also still protruded from my elbow.

My parents, meanwhile, had actually started moving towards. Once we were almost at arm-length, I realized that I was a heck of a lot shorter than I used to be, too. My father, Lars, now towered over me at his 6'4", and my mother, Susan, also had a few inches on me even at her moderate 5'7".

"What do you know about my son, monster," my father said finally. I flinched, but stood my ground.

"I am Roger, believe it or not," I replied. This earned me a punch in the face, but to my surprise it was my father who recoiled in pain, shaking his hand as if he'd just hit a brick. I lifted my clawed fingers to my face and carefully felt it. It seemed to be a normal human face from what I could feel, but my fingertips also couldn't miss the telltale texture of scales covered my cheeks.

"Are you really my boy?" my mother asked then, with tears in her eyes. I could feel myself tearing up too, and I just simply nodded.

"This beast is just trying to trick you. It probably devoured our son already and it's trying to season its meal with deceit," my father said hatefully. In response I spun my head and stared at him, letting my eyes do the talking for me. The result was not what I expected.

My father dropped to the ground and began writhing about. My mother quickly rushed to his side, casting a fearful glance at me. I followed a little slower, but still knelt down at his side.

"What did you do to him?" my mother demanded. I could only shrug my shoulders. "I don't know. I just wished for a second that he could see what I've been through this afternoon, and then he started doing this," I replied.

Then he started clawing at the top of his skull, and I realized what was happening. Apparently I was telepathic...I just couldn't figure out how to do it before.

"He'll be okay, Mom," I said then. "I think he's just seeing what happened to me today...or maybe experiencing is a better word."

"Are you sure?" she said worriedly, glancing back at my father's still-writhing body.

"As sure I can be about anything right now," I answered.

We tended a silent watch over him for the next couple of minutes until at last he started to come out of it.

"Hell of a day you've had there, son," he said finally. I just grinned back at him. I was too out of it to do anything more than that.

"So...uh...how are we getting home now, exactly," my mother prompted.

I suddenly realized that this was a very good question, since I had made sure we were miles away from any town when I selected the location.

I told my parents to wait a moment, and furrowed my brow in deep thought. Nothing seemed to work. I knew that I had transformed from dragon to human off of willpower alone, or so I had thought. I tried remembering the events that had led to me to become a dragon in the first place, and concluded that Ice must have something to do with it. I pictured the mental corridor again, and was pleasantly surprised to see Ice still sleeping, coiled about the balanced scales. I walked up to her, this time in my human-ish form, and kind of nervously poked her in the side. She woke up instantly, and seemed to understand.

I had a peculiar sensation of growing, and my parents were forced to look away from the brilliant glare that once again filled the grove. When it dissipated, I was once again in full dragon mode. I carefully scooped up my parents again, and we were off. By the time we had reached the outskirts of West Heights, twilight was settling into night, and I realized that I was nearly invisible against the cloudy and starless sky. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that my eyes were every bit as good in the dark as they were during the day. It was as if the shroud of night didn't exist for me.

This enabled me to land in our backyard, much to the annoyance of our dog, Hanzel, who had been sleeping beneath the old elm tree that occupied the center of the lawn. I focused on shapeshifting back to human-ish, which led to the offensively bright glow filling the entire neighborhood. I was sure that there would be questions in the morning about that.

It also led to my sister coming out of the house, with our cat, Gretyl, following on her heels. I was around about then that I realized for the first time that my human-ish form was stark naked.

Now, it was just my sister, and technically we were the same gender now, so she wasn't exactly seeing anything that she didn't see on a daily basis. Even so, though, something about being completely unclothed in front of my sister disturbed me greatly, and I tried to hide behind my father, who chuckled at my efforts.

"Michelle, come welcome your brother back," he called mirthfully, then grimaced when I punched him softly (or so I thought) in the back.

I could hear her approaching softly, her slippers crushing the blades of grass underfoot. Apparently my hearing as every bit as good in this form as it was in my other one. I pulled a face behind Dad's back, and then decided to just get it over with and stepped out in front of her.

Her reaction was shocked, as was to be expected, but it was also somehow cool at the same time. It wasn't cold, or unhappy...but it wasn't exactly enthused, either. Now, my sister and I had always gotten along relatively well. We didn't fight much, probably because we largely avoided each other. She had her life, and I had mine. Both of us were happy with the arrangement.

It was clear from Mom's reaction that it was expected that we were going to be a lot closer now that we were sisters.

I just shrugged and walked inside without a word. Let my parents update her on what happened. Icy was alert again, and I was learning to listen to her, if not trust her just yet.

Sleep

I had to say that I agreed. I furrowed my brow as I walked up the stairs to the second floor, trying to remember what day it was. My mind lazily replied that today had been Friday, and then asked me why I cared, exactly. It wasn't like I could go back to school anyway. Roger Nebel was, for all intents and purposes, dead.

In his place, though, this thing that I had become stood if not proudly, then at least defiantly. I rounded the corner at the top of the stairs, and was confronted with the full-body mirror at the end of the hallway. I was definitely surprised at my reflection.

I saw mirrored back at me what could only be described as a half-dragon, half-human girl. I'd pretty much expected this from what I'd found out about my body thus far, but I definitely wasn't expecting some of the specifics.

Chest-length black hair cascaded around my shoulders, but also revealed a number of spiky white protrusions emerging from my scalp and my spine. Two especially prominent horns curved gracefully from the back of my head, ending about a foot or so back. My face was not unattractive, but carried a slightly haughty look on it that seemed almost built-in. Two patches of polished ebon reflected in the mirror, one on each cheek, as expected. I did, however, have human ears...a fact which surprised me greatly.

Continuing my self-examination, I noticed that my upper arms were also sporting black scales. I started to avoid looking at my chest, and then reminded myself that I was definitely female now and that I would have to deal with this body for the rest of my probably-greatly-extended lifespan, so I'd damn well better get used to it.

I wasn't exactly knowledgeable about womens' chest sizes aside from what looked visually appealing to a teenage male...which I'll be the first to admit doesn't exactly qualify as the most realistic of measuring systems. Mine appeared moderately sized, which suited me just fine. I was very glad that Ice or whatever other powers-that-be had engineered this body had decided not to make my body into the sexpot that a half-dragon girl would have the potential to be.

Underneath my breasts, I noted rows of gleaming jet scute scales that covered much of my stomach, and extended all the way down to The Final Frontier. My legs resumed the patchy splotches of black scales, and two evil-looking hooks curved out of my knees, similar to my elbow-claws. My feet were the biggest surprise, as they were almost completely draconic. I wasn't forced to walk digitigrade, but my feet were most definitely all dragon, all the time. Three clawed toes extended from the long foot, and another claw poked out from my heel. They were also completely covered in my trademark black scales.

My tail was still present, as were my wings, but both were greatly diminished. It was weird for them to be there, but I had felt their presence in some form or another all day, so I was kind of almost used to it. My tail stretched about three or four feet behind me, still as thin and whip-like as in my dragon form, and still capped by the same cluster of spikes. My wings almost looked like a draconic version of a little girl's butterfly or angel wings that she might wear when playing outside on a nice summer day. It seemed like there was more to them, though, so I focused on them a bit...until I noticed that they were growing, that was. Standing in a hallway wasn't exactly the place to extend them to full, but I was pleased that it seemed like I could fly in human-ish mode if I had to.

Shrugging, I decided that it wasn't a bad body. It certainly wasn't what I was used to, but I would adapt. I could work with this. I meandered to my room, and was quite literally asleep before my head even hit the pillow.