Mickey Reichert - The lost Dragons of Barakhai

To Collins' surprise, he found the ride to the lowlands more exhilarating than frightening. To decrease their chance of being discovered, Prinivere glided low over the mountaintops and hills, skimming the tops of the trees and using her wings mostly for balance and banking. She made the occasional leathery flap with a slow solidness that barely stirred the air around them. Clinging to her back, rather than suspended from a claw, Collins settled into a sturdy crevice between back and wing muscles and enjoyed the view. The ground did not seem that far below him; he believed he could survive a fall. The wind felt like gentle fingers rushing through his dark brown hair and caressing his face. Bathed in twilight, the world seemed vibrant with magic, the greenery a vivid emerald untainted by smog or artificial light.

In rat form, Zylas planted his forepaws on Collins' knee to look out over the landscape without losing the safety of the inner crook of the American's jeans. Falima settled into another niche in Prinivere's musculature. Korfius sat between the humans, doggy head outstretched to catch the wind in his face, tongue lolling, ears flying like streamers. Aisa perched near the base of Prinivere's tail, flapping her wings and squawking every time a movement off-balanced her.

They touched down on an outcropping that jutted into dense forest. Prinivere folded her wings and lowered her head, her breathing a heavy wheeze beneath the rustle of autumn leaves in the wind. Still in place, Collins looked out over the trees. Leaves in myriad shapes and sizes clung to the branches, their green shot through with amber, shades of ginger, and brilliant slices of scarlet. He especially liked the star-shaped leaves of a gnarled tree that did not exist in his world, and he wondered if he could drive the botany professors wild by claiming to have found it on one of Algary's walkways.

With a squeak, Zylas leaped over Collins' leg and slid down Prinivere's side, a reminder for Collins to do the same. Careful not to hurt the dragon, he scooted across her scales on his buttocks, not daring to stand on her back. When they had all dismounted, Prinivere wordlessly trudged into a cave, leaving Collins, Falima, Korfius, Aisa, and Zylas outside. The animals scampered after the old dragon, leaving Collins and Falima alone, both studying the vast expanse of forest.

Falima cleared her throat. "I'm going to switch again soon and won't be back until after you and Zylas… go."

Collins turned to look at her. The twilight sparked a rainbow of highlights through her ebony hair, including blue and green. It brought back a long lost memory of a fifth-grade babysitter who had watched him after school while his mother worked. The sitter had a black Labrador retriever named Shelby who was very shy around adults but loved and protected the children. One day, an anxious three-year-old girl who was the sitter's only African-American charge approached a Caucasian preschooler with a deep tan.

"Look," the first girl started, excitedly comparing their arms. "You're black, just like me."

"No." The second one glanced at the two arms, brow scrunched, obviously thinking deeply. Collins recalled holding his breath, wondering what a guileless preschooler might blurt out when it came to a child of a different race. "Shelby's black," she finally said. "We're brown."

And, Collins realized now with an adult biologist's perspective, the girl was right. The racial differences that seemed so important to some people came down to little more than the quantity of melanin in their skin. All humans, except albinos like Zylas, were some shade of brown. Human hair, too, varied only in the amount and intensity of its brownness, which was why so many elderly men appeared to have smeared shoe polish on their heads when they tried to recapture the "black" of their youths. Falima's long tresses, however, defied the rule: true, deep, animal in their blackness. It was only one of several exoticisms that might make her seem freakish in his world, that made her consider herself unattractive in her own. Too animal, she had once told him, too much overlap between her horse appearance and her human one.

The timing of Falima's change also made her less desirable to the men of Barakhai, as daytime humanity was considered superior. The conventions seemed arbitrary to Collins, who found her beauty nontraditional yet definitive. He enjoyed her solid, sinewy curves, though they did not resemble the gaunt perceived perfection of American models. Her unaugmented breasts, though not huge, complemented her figure; and the width of her hips and boy-roundness of her buttocks might turn away the men of his world. Collins found her attractive despite the flaws she noticed in herself, and even the unnaturally golden skin added an interesting touch to an already extraordinary appearance.

Falima's voice broke the reverie. "You've got that look again."

"The one where I stare at you and look… hungry?"

Falima nodded. "Yes. That one."

Collins wondered if she still worried that he wanted to eat her. He had tried to convince her that no one in his part of the world consumed horsemeat and that he never wanted to try it. "Can't help it. You're beautiful."

Falima looked away demurely. "I don't believe you, but I like when you say it."

"Believe it," Collins said, meeting and holding her gaze. Her eyes glimmered like sapphires in the dawn light, the windows to a soul equally charming. He knew he and Zylas could not leave for another six hours; Prinivere needed the albino's man-face on which to cast her illusion. He also realized that, if they planned to attend the castle's midday meal, they could not have touched down far from the palace. It was an enormous risk, but a necessary one. If they waited, Falima would have become a horse, difficult or impossible for Prinivere to carry. Everything they did had to revolve around switch times, and Collins realized again how inconvenient that became and how much power it granted full-time humans like Barakhai's royalty. And me.

Falima took Collins' hands. "Be careful," she whispered.

The interaction had grown too intense for Collins, who resorted, as usual, to humor. "Careful? Naah. Far more interesting to dive in there, battle-screaming, guns blasting, and go down in a blaze of glory."

Falima blinked slowly. "I-I didn't get everything you just said, but it sounds dangerous. Foolish."

Falima's hands felt warm and sturdy. Collins laughed. "Tome, too." He stroked his chin in a mockery of thought. "So I guess I'll go with your way. Careful, wasn't it?"

"Be careful," Falima repeated emphatically. She leaned forward and kissed him.

Surprised, Collins could do nothing but stand there, enjoying the moist, spongy softness of her lips against his. Then, before he could move, before he could even think, she vanished into the cave, leaving him with the lingering taste of sweet clover and a smile creasing his face.

Collins sat on a rocky outcropping and looked out over the forest. The sun turned fiery, intensifying the colors of autumn. Not long ago, he would not have needed to ponder the significance of a beautiful woman's kiss. It meant good luck and, if things went awry, good-bye. He had another year and some months under his belt: his scrawny little bespectacled self transformed to a more average height and weight, his glasses more stylish, his dark hair cut to a proper length rather than the shaggy disarray his lack of time and cash usually left it in. He dared to hope Falima's kiss meant something more.

The thought practically banished itself. What am I thinking? If I brought her back to Algary, she'd be a full-time horse. Miserable. And what kind of a relationship could we have? The mere contemplation of it struck Collins as silly, and he rolled his eyes at his own attempts to create an attraction where, surely, none existed. We're friends, nothing more. And it's perfectly normal to kiss a friend about to go off on a life-threatening mission. Finally, he headed into the cave with the others.