The Celtic Dragon

Chapters

1: Awaken
2: Encounter
3. Cold
4. Explore
5. Village
6. Friend
7. Vision
8. Home
9. Flight
10. Third
11. Trip

1: Awaken

Light filtering in through the curtains struck my face as I yawned and stretched my arms before rolling back over in bed. My limbs felt incredibly stiff and cramped, as though I didn't quite fit in my bed anymore, but I ignored that in favour of getting a few more minutes of sleep. The house was quiet, offering me a gentle environment to slowly wake up in. I was so glad it was almost summer. Summer here didn't mean good weather, but it did mean no school.

My eyes shot open. School! Damn, I was late! I scrambled up and out of my bed...only to land flat on my face. I froze as an eerily unfamiliar, yet somehow familiar sensation hit me. It was the feeling of something attached the end of my body swishing about. I didn't want to turn my head to look, but I had to. My neck felt longer than it was supposed to, and more flexible too as I swung my head around to look at whatever it was. To my immense surprise, there was a long, golden, scaly, tail lazily waving about on my bed. I used my hands to push myself off the ground, not really wanting to acknowledge the fact that I suddenly had a tail, but started when I saw that they were gone, replaced by claws covered in the same golden scales.

I had to get a look at myself and figure out just what the heck was going on. Hoisting myself unsteadily into a standing position, I almost lost my balance and fell. My whole centre of gravity was messed up, and I seemed to be a little taller than I was last night. Ignoring the fact that it felt completely unnatural to be standing on two legs, and leaning on the wall for support, I made my way out into the hall to look in the mirror. For some reason, the mirror had a series of cracks that I'm sure weren't there last night, but it worked well enough. My jaw dropped as I beheld the image in the mirror.

Instead of a petite teenage girl, the image in the mirror was that of a large reptile with golden scales and sharp claws. A long serpentine neck supported a head with a maw full of sharp teeth. The long tail that had been on my bed had a spike on the end. Blue plates covered the underbelly, with strange fins on the head and down the neck, also blue. A set of wings like a bat's were folded at the sides, the membrane coloured the same shade of blue. Green eyes with slit pupils blinked in surprise as I realised that the creature in the mirror was mimicking my movements.

I lifted my arm, it lifted its arm. I nodded my head, and it copied me perfectly. I looked to the side, and surprise, surprise, the thing in the mirror did too. There was no denying it.

Somehow, I had become a dragon in my sleep.

As I contemplated how this happened, I couldn't help but notice how much sharper my senses were. I could hear everything that was happening in my house, including the creaks of it settling and water dripping from a tap. My sight seemed better too. Everything was in crisp detail, with colours that were just a little more vibrant than I was used to. But what really got my attention was the smell. There was a horrible, rancid smell coming from downstairs, and I honestly couldn't tell if it was that strong because of heightened senses or because it was just that bad.

Something came to me. What would my parents say? Would they call the government to take me away and do experiments? I shook my head. No. They wouldn't do that, because they loved me, right? I decided to go downstairs and find them, if only to get a bit of comfort. I half walked, half fell down the stairs and walked down the hall, adopting a four-legged gait that felt much more natural, if unfamiliar, along the way. Oddly enough, there were some strange marks on the walls and the front door was wide open. Choosing to ignore that for now, I made for the kitchen, and the horrible smell only got worse the closer I got.

I pushed the door open with my nose, and the smell hit me full force, making my eyes water. I nearly threw up, but somehow managed not to. To my surprise, the kitchen was totally empty. My dad wasn't in there making breakfast or drinking coffee, and my mom wasn't sitting on her laptop working. Even the fat cat who always sat by the door crying for food wasn't there today. The fridge door was wide open, and that seemed to be where the smell was coming from. Gagging, I approached it. The fridge's light was off, and it didn't seem to be as cold as it should be, even with the door open.

I finally managed to identify the source of the foul odour—a steak that looked like it had been there for a month, some eggs that were clearly rotten, some old chicken and a lot of sour milk. The fridge must've lost power overnight, and someone had left it open by accident. But something didn't add up. The food in it still shouldn't have decayed this much overnight. Just what was going on?

Turning away from the fridge and closing it before last night's dinner made a reappearance, I realised something I hadn't when I'd first walked in. The sliding glass doors were broken, and it wasn't an accident if the rock on the floor next to them was any indication. The kitchen also had several broken cupboard doors and it looked like most of our canned food was missing. That, combined with the strange markings on the wall and the open front door led to an obvious conclusion—someone had broken into my house.

Was that why I couldn't find my parents? Had they been...kidnapped? Or worse? I needed to call the police, ASAP. I climbed up the stairs on all fours like a giant scaly dog, up to the study where I had left my phone. I hoped my new claws would register, but if not I still had a stylus. After pushing on the 'lock/unlock' button a couple of times, my phone flashed the image that let me know it was dead. But that didn't make any sense. I knew it was charging when I went to bed last night, heck, it was still plugged in now. So why was it dead? I decided to try my mom's phone that was lying nearby, but I got the same result. The exact same thing happened with my dad's phone.

So I was dragon, I couldn't find my parents, someone broke into my house and none of the phones were working. This had been a weird and frightening morning, to say the least. If I couldn't call the police, I'd have to go directly to the station. If my almost useless sense of direction was to be believed, it was in town. Or maybe I'd run into a stranger who'd let me use their phone. I'm sure they wouldn't be too freaked out by the golden dragon asking to use their iPhone.

With no real options, I left the house through the open front door. I tried calling for my dog, hoping that she at least would still be around, but she didn't come. In order to get to town, I had to pass the local supermarket, so I'd surely run into someone there, right?

My neighbourhood was totally barren as well. Some of the neighbour's cars were missing, and most of the houses looked like they'd been broken into, same as mine. As much as I wanted to go check if they were alright, my family came first, and so I kept walking towards town. Aside from the occasional crow, dog, or cat, there was absolutely no movement in the street. The roads were devoid of cars, aside from a few parked ones.

The Supervalu that was just down the road from my house had a full parking lot, which was odd considering it looked closed, with all the lights turned off. The automatic doors refused to open, but as it turned out they didn't need to, because someone had broken them. Whoever was breaking into all these places sure had a penchant for breaking glass. The travelators inside weren't running, so I just walked down them, my new claws skidding as they tried to find a grip. Once I reached the actual shop, I suppressed a sigh as I came to another pair of broken glass doors.

I entered the shop, if you could even still call it that. It had the same smell of decay, and it wasn't hard to see where it was coming from. The place was in complete chaos, with the bakery bread all mouldy and disgusting, the milk gone sour, the fruit and vegetables rotting, and the meat turned putrid. Several shelves had toppled over, and whatever products had been on them were scattered all over the floor. The crisps and other sweets had been torn into by animals, and it seemed that those same animals had made a home in this place if the group of angry cats hissing at me was anything to go by. There was a huge puddle of spilled Coke that was being pecked at by a group of crows. As with my house, there was a weird lack of canned food remaining here, so whoever had broken in must have taken it.

How exactly had this all happened overnight? I came to this shop at around six yesterday and it was perfectly fine. Business as usual. So what was going on? Even if the shop was broken into, how had all these animals wound up in here, and how had all the food gone so rotten after just a day of exposure? And why was the power off?

With so many questions and no answers, I decided to keep going to town. Maybe there'd be someone there who had answers. Walking up Park Road, there were a few more break-ins, but not as many as there had been in my neighbourhood. What was driving the perpetrator to rob from so many homes, and why were they doing it in the most unsubtle way possible? Furthermore, how had I not noticed someone breaking a window to get into my house and steal my food?

As I pondered these questions and more, I became aware of a smell. Not the disgusting, rotting smell of the kitchen and the shop, but a nicer, sweet smell like shampoo. Maybe there was somebody up ahead! I broke into the fastest gait I could muster, which wasn't much to be honest, just a loping stride that was slightly faster than the cautious walk I'd been using up until this point. I spotted a pale figure further up the road, walking around the yard in front of the church.

As I got closer to them, I became aware of the fact that they weren't human. Whoever they were was standing on all fours, glancing around as though looking for someone. Maybe it was another person who'd been turned into a dragon like me? No, they were way smaller than me, so maybe it was just a big dog or something. But then why was the shampoo smell getting stronger?

I kept going anyway, if only to see just what the figure was. When I finally reached them, my jaw dropped for the second time this morning.

Standing on the footpath in front of me, and staring with me with wide, curious, and above all hopeful eyes, was the most adorable little horse-creature I'd ever seen. It had creamy coloured fur, with a long straight cut red mane and tail that was striped with two different shades of purple. The bit of hair that would normally fall onto its face was swept up in a high ponytail (hah), and it wore a large pair of glasses and a black sweater that looked really itchy. A spiral horn stuck out from its forehead, and there was a little tattoo on its butt, an image of three purple stars and a purple crescent moon. It was only about half my height, and it was so cute! A tiny little pocket-sized unicorn.

So why was there a little voice in the far reaches of my head telling me to either kill it or scare it into serving me?

I decided that maybe having it for company, if it could speak, would be better than having it as a corpse or a servant.

"Hello," I said, shuddering a little at my voice. It was still unmistakeably my voice, just extremely gravelly and intimidating.

The little unicorn looked frightened for a brief moment, before it spoke. "Hello. Are you a leader among ponies?" it asked, in a voice that was obviously feminine.

"A leader among ponies? I'm sorry, I don't know what that means. Do you happen to have a phone?" I said to the unicorn.

She looked sad for a moment, and then said, "No. I'm sorry, but those don't work anymore. Have you seen or met any ponies other than me?"

"No. Is that what you are? A pony?" I asked.

"Yes," she said. "My name is Moondancer."

"Mine's Deirdre. Deirdre Rourke," I said. 'Moondancer'? What kind of name was that? She obviously knew way more than me, so I figured I'd try to learn from her.

"Nice to meet you. You're a dragon," she said.

"I'd gathered that," I said back to her, with a little more venom than I'd meant to.

There was an awkward pause in which the whole area around us was totally silent, until Moondancer spoke again.

"Were you something else?" she asked.

How much did she really know? I supposed that I'd best be truthful with her, and said, "Yes. I was a human last night."

A look of confusion crossed her face, followed by one of understanding. "Well...I can't help you very much, unfortunately. But there are other ponies around, ponies who were humans like you. If you find them, then I might be able to help you."

"Why can't you find them yourself?" I asked. "Or even help me find them?"

"I can't tell you that. The same way I can't tell you why I'm here, or help you myself. I'm sorry," she said, looking at the ground.

"That's, uh, that's ok. Really," I said, trying to comfort her. It worked a little bit, because there was a small smile on her horsey little face.

"I'll have to leave in about a month, but I promise I'll come find you again before then. But until then, can you promise not to tell anyone you saw me?" asked Moondancer.

Her eyes were just so full of hope that I couldn't say no. It would be like refusing a puppy, and just as guilt-invoking. So, without really thinking about the consequences, I said, "Yes. I promise."

"Thank you so much!" she said. Her horn suddenly lit up and flashed, and then she was gone. If I didn't know any better, I'd say she was a dream.

So according to Moondancer, there are other people that have been transformed, only they've been transformed into ponies like her. Honestly, as cute as she was, I think I got the better deal. I get to be a fire-breathing flying lizard, and they get to...prance around and look pretty? Yeah...not much of a comparison.

Though I'd much rather be a human again, sitting with my iPad, or maybe one of my video games, talking to my family or friends and just generally having one of those lazy days you have when you scare the crap out of yourself in the morning thinking you're late for school, only to realise that it's actually a Saturday. As much as I love the mythology surrounding dragons and unicorns, I never wanted to become one.

But maybe I'd find my parents in town. Maybe there was a pair of bigger dragons, circling the town looking for their equally scaly daughter.

Well. There was only one way to find out. I turned towards the town and set my claws in the path determinedly. Into the breach!

2: Encounter

As I walked towards town, I began to wonder if Moondancer had been lying about other former humans being here. There was literally nobody around as I walked the rest of Park Road, and I looked in every house I could get into without breaking in. They were all empty, and a lot of them had been looted by somebody. The most commonly stolen things were blankets, canned food, and batteries. It was like the houses were all being robbed by a crazy doomsday prepper who probably had an emergency bunker or something.

But, hey, if crazy doomsday preppers were all I was going to find, then I'd just have to deal with that. At least I wouldn't go hungry. It was eerie how quiet it was. This street should have been bustling with activity, but it was a total deadzone, with the only life being the crows and the cats they were fighting with. I shuddered as I passed a garden with a dead dog lying in the yard. It was still tied to its post, unable to get away and reach food. What kind of horrible person would leave their dog to starve in the garden?

The dead dog reeked, so I left it and hurried on. The route was familiar—I had to walk it every morning to get to the bus stop. But unlike those mornings, the grey sky overhead cast a shadow on an empty world. Why was I alone? Had everyone else left and just forgotten to take me with them?

After passing my usual bus stop, I realised how hungry I was. Since our mysterious thief had been so kind as to break into the Outlet Centre for me, I just went in through the broken window. I hadn't noticed it before, but the shards of glass weren't leaving so much as a scratch on my scales. I guess dragons are more resilient than people. Once I was inside, I immediately went to the cafe. Everything had rotted, like the shop, but there were a few granola bars left. I tore one open with my teeth and tried to eat it, but it didn't smell, look, or taste appetising, so I spat it out.

That was odd. I usually loved granola bars. I nosed around the cafe some more, but there wasn't anything that wasn't rotten in there aside from granola bars. My search for food would have to start elsewhere. Thankfully, I was in town now. Maybe the other people were all hiding out here.

I found a shop with intact doors and took a leaf out of the thief's book by smashing them, though I'm sure that the thief didn't break the glass by throwing their whole body at it like a battering ram. Once I was inside, I poked around looking for something to eat. The fresh food was rotten (as usual), but there was canned beef that probably hadn't gone off. Now the problem appeared of how to open the can without a can opener. I tested my new sharp teeth but all that happened was I started crushing it like one of those compressors at scrapyards, and the beef just kind of exploded out of the ends and all over the floor. What little did end up in my mouth was delicious, so I grabbed another can.

This time I tried my claws. That worked. The aluminium can didn't stand a chance. My claws sheared through it like a hot knife through butter. Lacking any silverware, I just dumped the whole can into my mouth. I'm pretty sure I was supposed to cook it first, but it tasted fine to me, even raw. I ate another full can and left the shop. Like my neighbourhood and Park Road, town was deserted. Animals that would never normally be in town, like foxes and deer, were wandering around, but they ran when they saw me. I guess that if I was a deer the sight of a giant lizard with sharp teeth and even sharper claws would probably terrify me as well.

I was starting to think that maybe I was alone. That everyone was gone, and Moondancer had lied when she said there were others. Were they dead? Maybe whatever turned me into a dragon was so strong that it just completely vaporised everyone else. There weren't even bodies, at least not that I'd seen. I still couldn't believe that this all happened overnight. How had everything managed to go so wrong over the course of twelve hours?

A droplet landed on my snout, followed by several more up and down my back. I glanced up at the depressingly grey sky. It didn't look like it was going to be a sudden shower, more like one of those patented Irish days where it rains steadily all day and you can't do anything. According to some statistics I'd looked up when I was bored, it rains 225 days of the year in the southwest. And here in Killarney, the heart of the southwest, it rains more than it does anywhere else in Ireland because there's so many mountains and we're fairly close to the sea. A chilly wind was whipping up as well, so I figured I'd best find somewhere to wait it out.

I went to the nearest hotel, a nice place called the Royal. It was open, but not broken into, so I pushed the door and went in. It looked, weirdly enough, like someone was living in the lobby. There was a pile of blankets in one corner, and a massive heap of cans in another. A couple of phones and radios were strewn about behind the receptionists desk, as well as some books, mostly on outdoor survival. There were also a few books on caring for farm animals, particularly horses.

Whoever had set up camp here didn't seem to be around, so I decided to wait for them to come back. If I could talk to them, maybe they'd be more willing to share information than Moondancer was. I laid down on my belly, my legs naturally folding under me like a cat and my tail coming up to lay alongside me. I sat like that for a while, watching the rain drip down the windows, daydreaming about nothing in particular, when a flash of movement and bright colour caught my attention.

Outside, standing on the footpath, was another pony like Moondancer. This one was pink, with a short purple mane and tail. It didn't have a horn, and I couldn't see if it had a tattoo or not, but I did notice it seemed kind of muscular. Leaner than Moondancer had been. Still very cute, and according to that little suggestion at back of my mind, an ideal snack/slave.

The pony stared at me for a second, and then it dropped the bag it had been holding in its mouth and bolted. My legs uncoiled in an instant, sending me forward in a bounding leap that I hadn't been aware I could do. An exhilarating rush of adrenaline filled my brain.

I gave chase.

The pony was fast. I was fast too. Faster than her.

She turned a corner. I did too. I was getting closer.

She turned another corner and skidded. I didn't skid.

She couldn't see in the rain. I could.

She ran down an alley.

She didn't see the dead end.

She stopped. I caught her.

She raised a hoof. I opened my mouth.

The hoof came forward at blinding speed.

Everything was black.

I woke up feeling as though I'd been kicked in the face by a very angry horse. I slowly cracked an eye open. It was still raining, but it was almost getting dark. How long was I out?

A blurry pink and purple shape standing over me came into focus. The pony from before, I guess. Wait. The pony I had chased around town and almost killed!? Why had I done that? I had wanted to talk to her, not fucking eat her. She was glaring down at me with a look of contempt.

"Don't move," she said, placing a hoof on my nose. "Or I'll crack your stupid scaly snout." She snorted, then added, "Again."

"Wasn't planning on it," I mumbled. She still didn't remove her hoof.

"So you can talk?" she said, the venom dripping from her voice. "I didn't expect the murderous predator to want to converse with me."

As the world around me finally decided to settle on one image, I saw that the pink pony did have a tattoo, and it was a pair of boxing gloves. How fitting.

"What's your name?" I asked. Half of my face was still lying on the ground, so it sounded a little slurred, but she seemed to understand.

"Why should I tell you, predator?" She spat the word out like it left a bad taste in her mouth.

I ignored that, though and instead said. "My name's Deirdre. Why do you keep calling me a predator?"

"Oh well, maybe it's the fact that there's a horrible feeling in my gut telling me to run away from you, the fact that you appear to be some sort of dragon, and hmm, what's that other thing? Oh yes, the fact that you tried to eat me!"

I winced. I still didn't understand why I had done that in the first place. It had just felt so natural. She had run, and I had chased her. Something told me to do it, the same thing that popped up when I met Moondancer. But then why didn't I chase Moondancer? Was it because she didn't run like this pony did?

I still wanted to talk to this pony and share knowledge with her. And to do that, I needed to apologise. "'m sorry," I said, slurring a little because I still didn't dare to move my head.

The pony snorted again. "Hmph. Not really accepted. But it's a start, so I suppose I'll tell you my name. I'm Tina O'Sullivan." She lifted her hoof. "Don't try anything funny, or I'll knock you back out and this time I'll make sure you don't wake up."

This Tina sure was violent. 'Tina' sounded more like a normal human name, so maybe this pony had been a human at some point as well. I lifted my head. "Were you ever a human?" I asked, getting straight to the point.

She grimaced. "A while ago. I've been alone like this for a month."

"A month?" I said. What the heck? She'd been alone as a pony for a month? How had no one noticed and tried to help her?

"Unless I've been keeping track wrong, yes. You're the first person I've seen since I woke up on May 23rd. Figures the first person I'd run into would try to kill me," she said.

"But isn't today May 23d?" I asked. She must have been wrong. There was no way a whole month had passed without me noticing.

"Today is June 23rd, if I'm not mistaken," said Tina. "Where the heck have you been?"

"In my bed asleep until this morning. I couldn't find anybody. You're the first person I've met as well." I didn't mention Moondancer. I'm sure she had a good reason for wanting to be a secret.

"If you were sleeping through this whole month, I'd have found you for sure. I broke into almost every house up and down Killarney, and I didn't find any sleeping dragons." Tina narrowed her eyes. "I think you're lying."

Seemed I'd found my thief. And that meant I couldn't deny that she had been in my house. Someone had clearly broken in, and I was guessing it was her. "I'm not lying!" I said. "I swear, I just woke up this morning. You were definitely in my house at some point, so why didn't you see me?"

"I don't know, and quite frankly, I don't care. As nice as it has been talking to someone other than my reflection, I'm not going to deal with a dragon who makes me want to run screaming and who may or may not try to kill me in my sleep hanging around my area. You'll have to carve out another place for yourself," said Tina.

"What? Shouldn't we stick together?" I said. No way. I'd finally found somebody, and then instantly made them hate me. Good job, Deirdre.

"I'm not 'sticking together' with someone who'll try to eat me. Sorry. Stay out of town, would you?"

With that, Tina turned and strutted away like nothing had happened, leaving me alone in a smelly, grey alleyway with rain pouring down on top of me.

Tina had been alone here for a month. She hadn't seen anyone else. So that meant that my parents weren't here. None of my friends were here either. They weren't anywhere. They were gone. And now I was alone again.

I curled up in a ball and rested my head on my claws. That moisture on my face?

That was just rain. Honest.

Author's Note

I feel as though the whole first half of this chapter is just me playing a game of 'how many times can I write "there were no people around" before I run out of different ways to phrase it?'

Also, this turned out way darker than I had meant it to.

3. Cold

I'm not entirely sure how long I lay there, but when I finally lifted my head back up, it wasn't raining anymore and it was fully bright out. I guess I must've fallen asleep. Tina was nowhere to be seen. I'm sure she was back in the hotel reading her books and waiting for someone who wouldn't try to kill her to come along.

She'd told me to leave town. There wasn't anything for me in town anymore, so I supposed there was no reason for me to not do what she asked. I stood up and stretched my limbs, disappointed to find that they were still scaly and that the whole thing hadn't been one huge lucid dream. I felt kind of weak, and shaky. And I was really cold. It was weird, because I could tell that it wasn't too cold out today. The cold seemed to come from within.

I didn't care why I was cold, honestly. All I knew was I wanted to be warm, right now, and moving would help with that. I set out from the alleyway, careful not to move back towards the hotel. I found myself drifting through the abandoned streets, seeing evidence of what I now knew to be Tina's exploits over the month that I had missed. If Tina was right and today was June 23rd, then I'd slept through my seventeenth birthday.

But Tina had been in my house and not seen me, so I can't have just been sleeping there. It was like I simply didn't exist for that month. Maybe my parents would just randomly show up one day. Or my friends. Or just anyone. Then I could talk to them again, and it would be like the apocalypse hadn't just come and quietly swept across the world.

I needed to find someplace to set up a 'base' of sorts, but if I was missing for a month and there weren't any people anymore, then I guess the power wasn't working and the phones were out. So there wasn't much point in looking for someplace that had electricity, Internet or phone signal.

I wandered aimlessly around town for about an hour. I passed the Sem, the Pres, and the cathedral and found myself standing in front of a pair of tall gates with a few cars parked out front. I'd subconciously made my way over to my favourite part of town—the Demesne. The Demesne was part of Killarney National Park, and it was my absolute favourite to place to relax and unwind after a long day at school or at work. I'd spent countless hours here just sitting on the benches and doing my homework surrounded by nature, and afterwards I'd always go for a walk down by the river.

There was all sorts of creatures living here, like deer, foxes, dippers, herons, bats, stoats, pine martens, ducks, swans, otters, squirrels, everything. And none of those creatures would ever try to harm you, so you could relax knowing you were safe. Killarney National Park was massive, and it housed the world-famous Lakes of Killarney and the highest mountain in Ireland. It also had a castle, an abbey, and two old manors. Best of all, it wasn't considered a part of town.

Tina's base was in the Royal hotel, and she had only told me to stay out of town. That meant that the National Park was up for grabs, and this dragon had got here first. I squeezed through the pedestrian entrance (it obviously wasn't built to allow dragons through) and into the park. Right in front of me was a little cafe that had always had bizarre opening hours even before everyone had vanished and a little shack that I think the park rangers used to store equipment. A path shrouded in trees leading up a hill to my right would take me to Knockreer House, one of the two manors in the park, although it had been converted into an ecology lab.

I could hear the river rushing by to my left, though I couldn't see it because of the trees. The walking paths stretched down the hill towards Ross Castle, across fields that were filled with herds of deer and Kerry cows. Birds chirped overhead, and the bright colours and fresh scent of nature put a genuine smile on my face for the first time since I'd woken up yesterday morning.

Not only was the logical and human part of me telling me how amazing the park was because of its size, natural resources and lack of dependency from electricity, but the more bestial, instinctual part that I was getting a little sick of was telling me that the park would make the perfect territory, with high mountains surrounded by updrafts to try and fly from, herds of deer and cows to, ergh, hunt, and great lakes and rivers of fresh, clean water.

If I set up camp here, then the huge amounts of space could be used to farm, I could fish in the lakes, and if push came to shove I could hunt for food. It was wide and spacious, so when/if I found other people and didn't immediately scare them off, we could all work together but still have our own space. Best of all, the buildings here were already suited to a time when running water and electricity weren't a thing, so I wouldn't even have to modify them.

I'd made my decision. I was setting up my base here. I clawed a message into the dirt of one of the fields. Though the handwriting was awful, it did manage to somewhat legibly read 'DEIRDRE WAS HERE'. I was hoping that anyone who saw it would take that as a hint that there was another person hanging around here. I was still shivering with cold, though. The walk hadn't helped it at all. If anything, it was worse now.

Ignoring the cold, I left the park to gather some supplies. Even in a place filled with nature's bounty, I still needed basic provisions. Despite its proximity to the Royal, and thus Tina, I went back to the shop I'd broken into earlier. I grabbed as many cans of food as I could, finding that my wings made for a useful extra set of arms, and awkwardly waddled my way over to the Outlet Centre, pausing every now and then to grab a fallen can. There was an outdoor store in there if I remembered correctly. Sure enough, after climbing through the broken door and pushing in the door to the shop with my nose, I was in.

I grabbed the biggest rucksack I could find and loaded all the cans into it. I also filled it with flashlights, batteries, flint and steels, tinder, a little gas stove and some gas canisters. I grabbed another rucksack and filled that one with as many blankets, sleeping bags and pillows as I could. I also managed to cram a whole tent bag into it. Even I'm not sure how I managed that. I picked up way more stuff than I needed. I just sort of felt like I had to own it, y'know? If I'd had a method of carrying it, I probably would have taken everything in the store.

I grabbed a third rucksack and tossed a few outdoors books into it. I picked up the mostly empty rucksack and carried it upstairs in my mouth. Upstairs there was an army surplus warehouse, and that had outdoorsy kind of things as well. I grabbed a couple of enamel plates, some more flashlights, a camouflage sheet, a thermal blanket and some flasks. I was shaking almost steadily at this point. I was so cold, and I had no idea why. I wrapped the thermal blanket around myself, but it didn't really help.

I made my way back down the stairs, shivering all the while and dragging the rucksack with me. Even as my claws started going a little numb from the cold, I still managed to hang all three rucksacks from my tail and lift it high enough so they wouldn't fall off. Gazing at my scales, I noticed that they weren't quite as vibrant as they had been. The golden colour had dulled to a dirty, faded yellow. No way that that was healthy.

I'd rather be stuck slowly freezing to death in a place where Tina couldn't find me and bash my face in with her hooves than somewhere she could, so despite the encroaching cold, I persevered. It took way longer than it should've, during which time it started raining again, but I eventually reached the park. There wasn't a sign of anyone else having been there, so I kept walking, heading towards the river bank to get shelter from the rain under the trees.

My legs felt heavy, like they were made of lead, and my thoughts were unfocused and hazy. The chill was unbearable. I just wanted to sleep...

I collapsed by the side of the river, my nose resting on the rocks the made up the bank. As my eyes started to close, a random thought popped onto my head, crystal clear.

Those rocks smell delicious.

Without really thinking about it, I grabbed a rock in my mouth and started crunching on it. It was hard, but my teeth seemed harder. It was dust in seconds, and I swallowed it before instantly grabbing another one. The first rock had been nice, and was it just my imagination, or was I not quite so cold anymore? The second rock vanished as quickly as the first, then the third, then the fourth, and so on.

In minutes I had eaten all the rocks in the area around my head. Though I was still cold, I wasn't freezing anymore. I lifted my head and scooped up more rocks in my jaw, grinding them up and relishing in the fascinating, earthy taste and texture. Some of the rocks tasted better than others. The smooth brown ones didn't really taste of anything, but the jagged grey ones had a stronger taste. The huge black ones were my favourite. They had a really rich taste, but I had to eat them in bites.

Ten minutes later, I was chewing on the gravel that had been under the rocks. I still didn't feel like moving, but instead of an awful chill, I now felt pleasantly warm inside, and my scales had regained their healthy colour. If anything, they were even brighter than before. I still wanted to sleep, but now I felt safe in the knowledge that I'd wake up afterwards.

Author's Note

For anyone who can't figure out how 'Deirdre' is pronounced, it's pronounced 'deer-drah'.

Also, to any other authors writing Ponies After People stories involving dragons: the end of this chapter is deeply rooted in my own personal headcanon, and Starscribe hasn't offered any 'official' information regarding dragons. So don't feel like any dragons you write about have to have that feature. We can just say they're different species of dragon.

4. Explore

I woke up actually feeling rested for the first time in I don't know how long. I wasn't cold anymore, but to be safe I stood up and munched on more of the rocks. I had to wade across the river to get to them, but it had never been a very deep river, even after rain. I had no idea why the rocks warmed me back up, but I'm pretty sure I would have frozen to death in my sleep if I hadn't eaten them.

As I crunched some of the rocks, doing my absolute best to avoid thinking about what I was doing, I realised something. After my trip to the outdoor store and all the faffing around I'd done to actually get the stuff, I hadn't used any of it. I'd literally eaten a dinner of rocks (still not willing to confront that particular issue yet), and then fallen asleep on the riverbank. I could probably just dump some of this crap in town for Tina to find. Even though she hated me, I could still be nice to her.

For some reason though, when I thought about giving the stuff I'd gathered to Tina, I got this strange, bad feeling. Not like, 'this will come back to haunt me' kind of bad, but more like 'I'm obviously being a greedy bitch because I want to keep this stuff even though I probably don't need it' kind of bad.

I chose to ignore that feeling and just left the stuff in the pile where it already lay. Today, I was going to explore my new home as best I could. Oh sure, I loved the National Park even before I was suddenly turned into a dragon, and I was very well-acquainted with it, but I wanted to get really in-depth so that I knew every inch of it. And for some reason, I also had a desire to climb one of the mountains. Don't ask me why.

So, the first part of my epic journey was obviously to head up towards Knockreer House. Which unfortunately meant a gruelling walk up a very steep hill that was usually covered in damp leaves, lying in wait to trip up an unsuspecting stroller. But, once you got to Knockreer House, there were a lot of places that were available to you.

After cracking open and downing a can of some meat or another, I scrambled up the wet, slippery path, wheezing all the while, until I eventually made it up to the familiar garden. I remember I used to go to summer camp here when I was little. We used to catch mice and voles, look at insects under microscopes, and play games based around nature. We used to always knock over the sundial in the garden, but the counsellors would always forgive us because we were only around seven or eight years old.

If I closed my eyes, I could almost imagine that there were small children around me, screaming and laughing as they tried to catch insects in the hilariously named pooters or played the Owl and Mouse game. I could almost imagine I was there with my mom and dad, laughing at their antics as we went for one of our weekend strolls in the park to see if we could spot the deer. I could almost hear my dad as he pointed out some hidden animal that no one except him could possibly be expected to see.

Almost.

Shaking my head to clear the nostalgia and the tears that were definitely not in my eyes, I moved on. The manor was locked, but I didn't feel like breaking the old wooden doors, so I left it. There's only so much an ecology lab can offer you at the end of the world, after all. I kept walking, up a lane of trees where a bunch of bird-feeders were set up. The food in them had long been eaten, but there were still birds hanging around, patiently waiting to be fed. Some of them were singing. In the total quiet, their chirping notes were the most gorgeous music I'd ever heard. Their cheerful calls turned to terrified squawking as I walked by.

I spotted something unusual in the field beyond the bird-feeders. The field would normally be empty, with only the occasional person walking through it in an attempt to take a shortcut across it. Most of the animals were scared of the big fields because they were very open and tended to have walking paths running past them. But now there was a group of deer nonchalantly grazing in the field. Some of the deer were larger, reddish brown Irish Red Deer, and some of them were the smaller, brown Sika Deer.

All of them screamed in that very unsettling way that deer do and scattered once they saw me. I couldn't help but notice something in their eyes though. It was hard to describe, but their eyes seemed more...soulful? It was like they weren't just animals anymore. Like they were more than just prey for hungry dragons who were doing their absolute best not to chase them. Maybe some of them were former humans?

"Hey! Don't leave!" I called after them. They ignored me. I knew I was just being stupid. I was already going insane, how wonderful.

At least, until I realised that one of the deer, a red doe, had actually paused and turned to look back. She looked at me for a second before scampering off after her herd.

Was I crazy? Had the doe actually considered what I said, or had she just stopped to investigate the sound?

Hurrying on, I continued exploring, moving away from the man-made paths and into the wilder, densely forested parts of the park. I found that I was able to bulldoze my way through some of the foliage by using my claws, but I tried to avoid doing so because I didn't want to disturb the ecosystem. I instead chose the more laborious process of awkwardly squeezing in between trees and stepping over rocks, logs, and bushes. Occasionally I would come across a clump of bamboo that was too thick to be navigated through, and that's where my built-in garden shears came in handy. I felt a little less guilty about it because bamboo isn't native to Ireland.

The woodland was alive with panicked calls from the locals as they warned one another of my presence. It was very difficult to resist the temptation to pounce on them when they were close by, but I somehow managed. Now if only I'd had that same restraint with Tina...

After a while, I exited the dense forest, finding myself in another huge field. This one also had a path, but it also had herds of deer and cattle wandering around. I did my absolute best not to frighten them, trying to come across as minding my own business, but it didn't exactly work. Screaming, the deer took off, and I didn't call after them this time. The cows looked at me, mooing in an anxious manner, shifting between their hooves. Like the deer, they also had some weird intelligence in their eyes. They still looked, however, like they were considering stampeding at me, so I slunk off, away from them and over in the direction of Ross Castle.

The cows glanced at each other for a moment, as if deciding whether or not to try and trample me to death. One of them slowly approached me. I don't know why, but I tensed up, like my body was preparing for a fight. The cow was massive, about the same size as me, and I was a good five and a half feet tall. As it drew closer I became tenser and tenser, until...

"Moo?"

I relaxed, the tension draining out of me. Why had I been under the impression that the cow wanted to fight? It was just a large herbivore that probably couldn't kill me.

I sighed. "Hello to you too," I said. To my immense surprise the cow actually tilted its head slightly and mooed again, as though greeting me.

Feeling incredibly stupid and slightly insane, I said, "So I suppose you and the rest of your herd have gone native. Guess you're just not as skittish as the deer. Or maybe, since you're all dairy cows, you can just tell that I used to be one of your former masters."

The cow actually seemed to nod. Still feeling ridiculous, I continued. "Maybe you and your girls wouldn't mind letting me have a drop of your milk sometime, eh?"

The cow was definitely nodding now. It bobbed its head up and down vigorously, mooing all the while. A chorus of moos sounded up from behind it, as the rest of the herd joined in. As strange as the whole situation was, I actually found myself smiling.

"I'll hold you to it," I said, turning away from the cows and continuing on my exploration.

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. I ran into a few more herds of deer and cows, but I didn't try to talk to them again. Instead, I focused on exploring the park in more detail than I ever had before. I investigated the Lakes of Killarney and Muckross Estate. I poked around Ross Castle, with its restored ancient furniture. I took a surprisingly relaxing shower under the mighty Torc Waterfall. And now, I found myself at the base of Torc Mointain.

Remember that weird desire to climb a mountain? Well I was acting on it. I'd made a brief stop back to where I'd left my stuff and grabbed a few cans to eat along the way. I'd picked an easy mountain, that was for sure. Torc only barely qualified as a mountain, and the path up was built with railway sleepers so tourists didn't have to climb over the rocks and stuff. The mountain was a small, rugged thing, covered in dry mountain grass and rocks that looked and smelled extremely delicious. Small streams ran down from the mountain and fed into little ponds, which flowed in turn as trickles down the hill. A river was rushing, fast and furious, down the same hill across the footpath, opposite the mountain.

It was here that I met a few more animals: sheep. The sheep were just as skittish as the deer, if not more so. There wasn't any strange conversation to be had here. There were also little frogs hopping around in the ponds and puddles on the mountain path, their backs shining in the evening sun as they jumped from leaf to leaf. Very cute. And also tempting.

Munching on a can of beef, I started climbing up the railway sleepers, making slow progress in the utter silence of an empty world. At first, I climbed with no problem, but after a short while I got quite winded. I had never been a very fit person, and although becoming a dragon had helped that problem a little, walking around the park all day hadn't. I was gasping and panting by the time I finally reached the top.

It was worth it. Up here, the air was so clean and fresh, so much that I could practically taste it. The view was absolutely stunning, taking my breath away. I could see all of Lough Leane and Ross Castle, glinting in the light of the setting sun. A gentle evening mist was rolling across the lake, creating an illusion of mystery and intrigue. Birds called from below, my new sensitive hearing picking up on their dusk chorus despite the distance.

But the best part was far and away the wind. I could feel it on my scales and under my wings, which were folded at my sides. The wind was strong, but not violent, firm, but gentle. It was almost beckoning me to take off, to see if those wings on my back actually had a purpose. Tentatively, I opened my wings, their fanning membrane capturing a little of that wind. I gave a slight jump, and for a brief moment, I felt it. That sensation of weightlessness. Of somehow being apart from the world below, as though it could never even hope to touch you.

But all too soon it was over, and my claws were back on the summit of the mountain. I must say, that feeling was so exhilarating, and so addictive, that I actually considered throwing myself off the mountain just to feel it again. But as much as I wanted to experience it again, common sense got the best of me. No use in killing myself by jumping off a mountain and trying to fly.

As the sun went down and the stars came out, pure and untainted by light pollution, I remained on the mountain. It was freezing cold and the wind was still blowing, but that didn't bother me. Eating some of the rocks that were laying around had stoked my 'inner fire', so to speak. I didn't have any need of the things I had left by the river, so why not sleep up here? Was I kind of acting like an animal? Yeah, totally.

Did I have a problem with that? No. Definitely not.

Author's Note

Sorry this took so long, but school started back up and I didn't have much time to write. Not to mention I've been competing in the OC Hunger Games, so I've been paying more attention to that too. Updates will be a little sporadic from here on out, but I'll do my absolute best to stay fairly regular.

5. Village

Fun fact. Sleeping on a mountain summit? Best idea I ever had. The wake up call for the morning came in the form of gentle light striking my scales and warming them slowly. I got up and stretched at a very leisurely pace. The view from the peak was just as glorious in the morning as it had been in the evening. A rising mist was hanging over the lake, blowing along gently in the wind. It was actually a nice day for once, with only a few high clouds to be seen in an otherwise blue sky. It was fairly warm too, which was nice.

My wings seemed to be acting like natural solar panels, catching some of that heat and using it to warm me up. I basked for quite a while like a massive lizard, almost falling asleep again, but alas, all good things must come to an end. I had to move from my perch, because today, I wanted to something I'd never do voluntarily.

I wanted to go to school.

It sounds stupid, but I just wanted to see if any of my friends were there. If there was even a chance of knowing for sure, of getting to meet with someone I knew...well I wanted to find out. To not be alone anymore.

Making my way down the mountain, eating another can of beef along the way, I found a few more sheep. They ran, as before. The frogs were back out, still shining in the sunlight. I paused momentarily at the base of the mountain to drink from the river, and then I was moving on once more.

The biggest issue with my plan, I'd realised, was the distance. I was one of those weird people who wanted to be fluent in Irish even though it's seldom used nowadays, so I attended a Gaelcholáiste. The problem was, the nearest Gaelcholáiste was in Ballyvourney, so that's where I went to school. It's a twenty-five minute drive, but on foot? Well, I had no idea how long it would take. Which meant I'd best start now.

Once I got back to the riverbank where the things I'd collected were, I dumped everything out of one of the rucksacks, and then shoved a few cans into it. There's absolutely no shortage of water in Ireland, so I didn't really see too much of a need to bring any. I know for a fact that there's a bunch of little streams and mini-waterfalls around Glenflesk that I could drink from. I used to see them every day from the bus before everything went wrong.

I had no idea how long my little trek was going to take me, but I figured that there'd be stuff worth looting in Glenflesk and Ballyvourney, even if there wasn't anyone else there. So I emptied the other two bags and hung them off my tail as well so I could put stuff in them later.

I walked out in the direction of Ballyvourney, careful to skirt around the Royal. I did get a brief glimpse inside, but I didn't see Tina. I didn't want to meet her, but I guess some part of me just wanted to know that she had actually been real. Which was a ridiculous notion, considering my snout was still a little tender from where she'd punched me.

In order to reach Ballyvourney, I had to pass my old house. I was having conflicting feelings about going back. I wanted to, just to check and see if someone else had randomly appeared, but at the same time, if I don't check then there's still a chance, right?

I ended up using the argument of needing to stay focused on heading over to Ballyvourney in order to avoid having to go to my house. As I walked up the main road, I was half expecting to see a horrifying amount of crashed cars along the way, seeing as everyone had just up and disappeared, so surely the cars had just kept driving and eventually crashed, right? Strangely enough, there weren't any cars at all, crashed or otherwise. It was like they vanished along with their drivers.

Which now begs the question, if people are just going to randomly appear like I did, would their cars also randomly appear? Yikes, maybe I shouldn't walk on the road then, if there's a chance of a car with a very confused and possibly transformed driver suddenly appearing on the road.

I decided to take my chances. I kind of feel like if I got hit by a car now, the car would have more damage done to it than me. So, with that in mind I walked down the main road. There isn't too much of an interesting story to tell about it, really. A lot of animals had colonised the road, mostly sheep and cows. Like before, the sheep took off when they saw me, but the cows held their ground. These ones seemed more aggressive than the ones in the park, so I steered clear of them.

The road from Killarney to Ballyvourney is a very straight and simple one. Just one small roundabout and that's about it. No need to make any turns or anything. After a solid two hours of walking, I finally reached the pitiful little village of Glenflesk. A journey that would have taken me ten minutes by car, took two hours on foot. You don't actually realise how much of a difference cars make until you're without them. Seriously.

I called Glenflesk a 'pitiful' village because that exactly what it is. It has a small church, a petrol station, and some houses that are halfway up the hills that are all around it. There's one pub, but it's back up the road towards Killarney, and it's more of a halfway house than an actual pub in Glenflesk. Back in the days when Irish towns were classified by the amount of pubs they had, Glenflesk probably wouldn't have even qualified as a cluster of houses, never mind a town.

Still, that petrol station? Intact, meaning there's food in there. After smashing myself through the glass and seeing how everything but the fresh food was exactly the way it had been, I figured I'd help myself to a bag of crisps. Crisps were always my guilty pleasure, I could just eat them for hours and not get sick of them. The Glenflesk petrol station had always had a variety of them, including my absolute favourite, 'Thai Rings'. Sweet and spicy and delicious...mmm.

There were a couple of bags on the shelf, and after shoving all of them into one of my rucksacks, I nosed around some more looking for other stuff to bring. The petrol station only had canned soup and things like that, which I found myself opposed to for some reason. It seems that dragons favour meat over vegetables, but as tearing into one of my bags of crisps demonstrated, grains and artificial flavouring were a-ok.

I tried to open a bottle of Coke but ended up cutting it with my claws, so Coke just spilled everywhere, including onto me. Still, when I licked it off of myself like a cat, it tasted fine. I tried again, being much more careful this time, and I managed to get my prize, which was awesome, even if it was a little warm. I know my mom used to say that Coke isn't natural so it never goes off, but I'm pretty sure that isn't true. Might as well drink it while it's still fresh, yes?

I tried to use that as my rationale for literally putting all of the Coke in the shop into one of my bags, and the same with the crisps. And I managed to find the storeroom, where crates of Coke and crisps were hiding. I took as much as I could, i.e. all of it. And now I realised that I had just taken enough luxuries to fill up two entire bags with nothing that was useful in the long run. And yet, when I thought about putting it back, I got that same feeling of 'I don't want to even though I don't need it'.

The exact same thing happened in the outdoor store. I took more than I needed, on the basis of 'I want it'. I'd never been so greedy before, but now? Maybe it was a dragon thing, because dragons are usually shown as hoarders in traditional depictions. Though they usually hoard gold and jewels rather than Coke and crisps.

I tore myself away from the petrol station and continued on my journey to Ballyvourney. The rest of the trip took me another solid four hours. I was nearly dying by the end of it, my legs burning and chest heaving for breath. How I miss cars. My long and now forked tongue was hanging out of my mouth as I finally turned the corner into my school. The doors were locked but an extremely clumsy body slam was enough to fix that problem. I was a little too tired to pay attention to the fact that locked doors equals no people inside.

The smell of the school was odd. It was partially that familiar smell of books and too many sweaty teens in one place, but there was also a slight scent of rot from where students had left their lunch in the school by accident over the weekend. I found myself instinctively headed towards my locker, banging on the door with a clawed fist to open it. My books were all exactly as I'd left them, complete with a timetable on the inside of the door. My books smelled and looked as secondhand books do, shabby and overused. Most of them were falling out of their spines, pages threatening to go everywhere.

I'm not entirely sure why, but I put one of my 'leisure books' that I would bring to free classes into one of my rucksacks, a book called The Element Encyclopedia of Magical Creatures. It was a vague and ridiculous notion to hope that a book written to tell myths and legends about various creatures would have some actual reliable information on dragons, but I took it along anyway, for entertainment purposes if nothing else.

The school didn't have much to offer me other than a little warmth and familiarity, so I left and went out into Ballyvourney once I'd caught my breath. I'd probably come back and sleep in the school later, but for now I was on a mission. Search for evidence of another person around, and then gather supplies if I can't find find anyone.

Ballyvourney was a lot bigger than Glenflesk but a lot smaller than Killarney. It was one of those little places where everyone knew everyone and everyone was related to everyone else. The sort of place where a typical conversation would go like something along the lines of 'I was with Pat Reedy over the weekend', 'Oh, were you now? Sure he's my brother-in-law'. The sort of place where everyone has really thick West Cork accents with a little bit of Kerry mixed in, and almost everyone is a farmer or knows about farming. There weren't very many chain stores in Ballyvourney, in fact there weren't any at all aside from a Centra. Most of the shops and pubs were owned by families.

It was normally full of life, despite its small size, and seeing it so barren like this was just...sad. It didn't feel like Ballyvourney without all the people milling around chatting with their thick accents and strange slang. It just felt like a ghost town populated with broken hearts.

I poked my way through all of the little shops and pubs, not finding too much of use aside from a few cans of beef and lamb stew, as well as some tuna. It was very difficult to resist the temptation to grab everything and leave anyone else who might be around with nothing, but if there was someone else here then they weren't being as obvious about it as Tina had been considering that none of the doors or windows were broken.

I sat in the middle of the basketball court at my school. I had a decent haul, but I hadn't found any evidence of someone else being around. No broken doors or windows, no strange markings. Nothing. I curled up and put my head on my claws. Maybe Tina really had been my only shot at making a friend and not being alone. And I tried to murder her.

As I lay in the court feeling sorry for myself, I felt those ear frill things on the side of my head perk up at a strange sound. It sounded like the static crackle from a TV that wasn't working, or from a radio. I followed my ears to the source of the sound, and found, put under a plastic cover to protect it from rain, a small handheld radio. The radio was spitting out static, but I could just about make out words amidst the crackling.

"...Anyone...there?....farm....up...road...from...Bally...ney. Find...I'll be...ting...you."

Author's Note

If anyone managed to catch the subtle reference in the previous chapter (which was also made this chapter as well, only slightly more subtle), I applaud you.

Also, 'crisps'? Those are what you Yanks call 'chips'. To us Irish and British, 'chips' are what you call 'French fries'.

6. Friend

I couldn't believe it! The voice was heavily distorted by the static, and it was hard to make out exactly what the speaker was saying, but who cares! It was a person, and that's all I needed. The voice was masculine, and had a thick West Cork accent with a little Kerry mixed in. It sounded vaguely familiar, but then again most Cork people tended to sound more or less the same over the phone, so why should the radio be any different?

Shame the message was so vague. All I could gather was 'farm—something—road—something—Ballyvourney'. Which doesn't help me at all because West Cork is around ninety percent farm, especially around Ballyvourney. An address, or at the very least, a direction would have been nice.

It would have to do. It would be getting dark soon, and I wanted to make a fair go at finding this person before it did. I was getting a weird impression that if I went out at night I wouldn't find any ponies. Call it one of those annoying predatory instincts.

I decided to go thorough Ballyvorney and try the road leading out to Macroom. There are a few farms along the main road there that are easy to get to, including several that belong to some of my friends. Though the voice on the radio was clearly male and I didn't really have very many male friends, maybe one of my friends was with him? One could hope.

The road leading out to Macroom was one of those narrow affairs that terrified the tourists. The kind of road where there's a lot of bends and only one lane, but it isn't a one way road. Also, there's a lot of very big, very slow-moving tractors that are usually towing trailers. Watching American tourists try to drive on Irish roads is the best kind of free entertainment. They grip the steering wheel for dear life and move at the pace of a dying snail, like they think the tractor in front of them will suddenly roll backwards and hit them.

Obviously there were no tourists today. The road was quiet aside from the first chirpings of the dusk chorus and the occasional mooing or bleating from the roaming farm animals. There were puddles in the field on the side of the road, leading me to believe it had rained here recently. I could just about hear the babbling of a stream somewhere around. I couldn't see it, but my sharper hearing let me know it was somewhere to my right.

I checked every farm I passed, but I couldn't find any sign of another survivor. Only empty animal pens and rotting food. After a while, I thought that maybe I had just gone in the wrong direction, but then I saw something odd. In the distance there was a stone wall, but there was something white smeared on it. As I got closer, the white blotch came into focus, and I saw it for what it actually was.

It was an arrow. It looked like it had been painted by someone who had never held a brush before in their life, but it was definitely an arrow, and it was definitely pointing up the road.

In all likelihood, it was just left over from before everything went wrong, but that didn't stop me from following it. If there was even the slightest chance that it was new, well what did I have to lose? So I followed it. I may or may not have also eaten part of the wall, and it may or may not have partially collapsed onto the road, but it's not like anyone was using it.

I walked in the direction the arrow was pointing, and I saw that there was a trail of them. Whoever had left them there had left a whole path to follow. I kept following the arrows until eventually they stopped. And guess where I was?

I was at a farm.

The farm had a pretty big house with a massive garage. I couldn't really see into the yard from where I was standing, but there was a field out front where a few sheep were grazing. There was also one cow, and a whole flock of chickens pecking about. But that's not the best part.

The best part was that, in the middle of all the animals, struggling to milk the cow, was a pony. Like Tina, he didn't have a horn, but he did have the little butt tattoo. It looked like a red tractor with some sort of shape in the tyres. His coat was a brown the colour of milk chocolate and his mane was a pale blonde. His wide eyes were a very unnatural purple, but I suppose that was the least unnatural thing about him.

"Right now girl, will'ou hold still so I can get a grip. Jaysus, I don't have anything to use but my mouth so you'll just have to put up with it," he said in a very annoyed tone. The cow mooed but stayed still.

I stifled a laugh, because his accent was just as thick here as it was on the radio. It was without a doubt the same speaker. He still sounded vaguely familiar to me, but I still couldn't put my finger on it. It looked like he hadn't seen me, so I walked closer to him. I didn't want to frighten him, because that little whisper was starting back up and I was scared that if he bolted I'd lose control again. And that was the last thing I wanted.

Unfortunately for me, subtlety isn't my strong suit. I stepped on a small pebble, but I suppose a heavy dragoness walking along small stones and gravel is bound to make some noise. One of the sheep looked up, followed by the rest of them. Which led to the chickens looking up. The cow stared at me for a moment, before mooing in alarm.

The pony lifted his head from under her. "What now?" he asked. Then he saw me. "Ah, shite," he said, right before he took off running behind the house. The rest of the animals followed him, and soon he was leading a whole stampede.

As for me, well I did exactly what you'd expect. That is, take off running after them because I'm a violent and aggressive predator and I hate it.

Unlike with Tina, my thoughts were perfectly clear this time around. Which made it worse because I still couldn't stop myself. The pony and his herd tore off into the farmyard, where they ended up startling a couple of pigs. The pigs joined in the mad rush to get away, but they weren't as quick as the other creatures. I caught up to one of them in no time, still trying to stop myself and failing miserably.

I caught the pig in my claws and dragged it down. It was still alive, but there were scratches on its back, not deep, but still bleeding. The thing was squealing as though someone was trying to slaughter it. Which I suppose is pretty accurate. It kicked and flailed, but I was stronger. I wasn't stronger than myself, however, and I prepared to strike the killing blow, but then I heard a shout.

"Hoi, stop!"

It was the pony, for some insane reason having turned around. I tried to scream at him to run, to get as far away from me as possible, but all that came out was a primal growl. He ignored my warning and charged up towards me. I released the pig and stared him down. He wasn't anything like as threatening as Tina had been. He looked absolutely terrified, shaking like a leaf and tensed to run away. His ears were flattened back against his head, but still he held firm. I'd have applauded him if he weren't being so stupid.

"Right so, whatever you are, you need to leave, and not k-kill my lads," he stammered out, putting on a show of bravery. And then I pounced on him.

I hadn't meant to, but I just couldn't do anything about it. I wasn't in control of myself at all. No matter how hard I begged my body to stop what it was doing, to not murder this pony, I just couldn't. I had the pony pinned under my claws, and for all his struggling he couldn't get free. I opened my jaws wide and...

"Please don't kill me."

In that one instant, all of the maddening viciousness left. With that single, desperate plea, I stopped. I tried to close my mouth, and found myself able. I hesitantly lifted my claw from him, my arm trembling. He scrambled backwards and stood up, unharmed aside from a few light scratches. He was trembling like crazy, but he didn't move. He looked as though he wanted to bolt, but he held his ground. He looked up at me, and I looked back down at him. I wore a small smile to try and calm him down, but I think I only made it worse.

"Are you...going to try and eat me?" he asked.

"No," I said. "Not anymore."

He looked a little surprised. "I didn't think you could actually talk. I thought you were like my lads over there." He gestured to the animals, who had stopped their mad dash and now watched with curiosity. "I thought you were just smarter than the other fellas."

"I'm like you," I said, hoping I was right. "I used to be a human."

"Is that right? Then why'd you go arseways and try to eat me there?" asked the pony.

I snickered and then started laughing. Something about the fact that he'd called my little rampage 'going arseways', like it was only a strange, minor inconvenience was just funny to me.

"I suppose I did go a bit arseways didn't I?" I said, still giggling a little. He looked a little disturbed, but he wore a small smile, and he looked less tense. I sobered up, and said, "I'm sorry. I couldn't control myself. If you want me to leave, I will."

He cocked his head like a puppy. "Leave? Why would I want that? Sure, you're the only other thing I've met that can talk for over a month. 'Tis clane dung, I'd say."

"But..." I protested, "I attacked your livestock. And I nearly killed you! And you're just willing to let me stay?" I wasn't expecting this. Not after what happened with Tina. And I'd come much closer to killing this pony than I had her.

"Look," he said, straightening up. All traces of fear were gone from his pose. He now stood tall and firm, his ears pointing up again. "I'd say 'twas also my fault. If I hadn't ran, you mightn't have lost the plot. I lost control just as much as you did. I'd be willing to let it go, no bother."

I couldn't believe this. He was actually willing to forgive me? "Do you mean that?" I asked.

"Of course! Consider yourself forgiven. Now, what's your name? Mine's Rian," he said.

"Rian? As in, Rian Willems?" I asked. Of course! That's why he sounded so familiar. Rian was in the year above me at school. I'd seen him around, but I'd never really talked to him. "I'm Deirdre Rourke. I went to the same school as you before everything got all ballsed up," I said, channeling my inner Corkwoman.

"Oh yeah, sure! You're in fourth year, right?" he said, eyes wide.

"Was in fourth year, but yeah. And you were in fifth year, yes?" I said.

"I was indeed. 'Twas pure shite, all the stress they throw down on top of you. 'Tis all Leaving Cert this, studying that. Pure sickening," he said, making a face.

"Fourth year was a pure doss. We didn't do shit the whole year. I'd say we spent more time out of school than in school," I said smugly. I know how much fifth years would always miss fourth year. Fourth year was a gap year, a year where you just went on trips all the time. It was a load of fun, but fifth year was like a wake up call afterwards with all the work.

"I know. I missed fourth year so much, I thought about asking to be held back. Would have been great craic I'd say," he said, laughing a little.

The sun was going down, but Rian and I kept talking. We talked about everything and anything, from school, to our plans for the summer that inevitably had to be cancelled, to the last bits of gossip we'd heard before everything went wrong. And it was almost normal. For that entire conversation, we weren't a dragon and a pony. We were just a fourth year girl and a fifth year lad, talking about nothing in particular.

When night fell, Rian nearly fell asleep on his hooves almost instantly. He showed me I tot he farmhouse and told me I could take any bed. I couldn't fit in any of them, so I fell asleep on the floor in front of his wood burning stove.

Y'know, despite the rocky start, I had a feeling that me and Rian were going to get along just fine.

Author's Note

I might put in the occasional illustration (like in this chapter) but nothing on the level of the original story's. Still, I need to practice drawing more than just characters and no background, so here we go. Might as well do it for this story.

Also, if you want to better imagine how Rian speaks (and also for a bit of a laugh), watch this video and pay attention to the part where he talks about Cork and West Cork. That's what Rian sounds like.

7. Vision

I moved a little bit, the blanket shifting on top of me. The floor below might've been cold, smooth tile, but the fluffy blanket of varying texture that was draped across me was warm and inviting.

At least until it started bleating. My eyes snapped open, and I realised that it was, in fact not a blanket that was thrown over me, but rather Rian and his assortment of farm animals. The sheep that I startled by moving had scurried off of me, leaving a disappointing cold patch in its wake, followed by several more as the rest of its flock joined it. The cow started mooing, and then I heard Rian's voice.

"Jaysus lads, will ye quieten down? Some of us are trying to sleep."

The animals had all left by now, but Rian had stayed where he was, snuggled against my side under one of my wings. How had he and his animals gone from running terrified of me to cuddling up with me while I slept? I felt him get up to his hooves and wriggle his way out from under me. He walked up to my face.

"Hope you don't mind, girl. Twas fierce cold last night, and you're like an aul' hot water bottle," he said.

'Fierce cold'. Yep, that's Ireland for you. Middle of summer and it's 'fierce cold'.

"I don't mind," I said. "I guess dragons are warm because they're associated with breathing fire?"

Rian's eyes widened. "You can breathe fire? Shite, aim it away from me."

I raised a claw to calm him down. "I can't breathe fire. I mean, maybe I could, but I don't know how," I said. That was actually an interesting idea. I hadn't given it too much thought, but I suppose if I was anything like the dragons of legend then I probably could breathe fire if I wanted to. I resolved to start trying as soon as we got back to the park.

Which reminded me that I needed to see where Rian wanted to go. I hoped he'd be ok with moving. The park was wide and open, and a lot bigger than his poky little farm. There'd be plenty of room for his animals. Or his 'lads', as he called them.

"So..." I began awkwardly. "What do we do now?"

"Look for other people I s'pose. I didn't plan ahead very much. Just minded my lads so I wouldn't slowly go insane from loneliness," said Rian, a hint of melancholy creeping into his voice.

"Would you...like to come home with me?" I asked, then realised what I'd said and smacked my face with a claw.

Rian laughed, a nice sound after his previous sadness, even if he was laughing at me and not with me. "Jaysus, 'tis a bit early for that wouldn't you say?"

"That's not what I meant!" I said, my face still under my claw.

Rian sobered up a little and said, "I know. Where are you on about? I won't go anywhere that can't support my lads."

"Trust me, there's more than enough room for your 'lads'. I'm talking about Killarney National Park," I said, lowering my claw and standing up. Rian flinched a little as I did so but held firm.

"Wow," Rian said, whistling. "The park? I'd say there's plenty of room there!"

I nodded. "There's even a massive herd of Kerry cows that I sort of made friends with there. You could make friends with them as well."

Rian laughed again. "Don't you know anything about Cork, girl? I'd say I can't make friends with anyone from Kerry. Sure, I'm a Rebel and they're from the Kingdom. It wouldn't ever work out."

"Then I guess we can't be friends," I said, laughing along with him.

He stopped laughing abruptly and stared at me. Uh oh. Did I strike a bad chord with him?

"I'd take anyone over being alone again," he said solemnly.

There was something behind those words that hit me, right in the heart. So much so that I actually felt it in my chest.

And then I started crying. I can't explain why. I just did. Apparently dragon tears are boiling hot, because they steamed on the ground. But I ignored that in favour of bawling my eyes out. Something about the way he'd said it was just so heartbreakingly sad. He didn't want to be alone. I'd been alone for only a few days and I was already desperate for a friend. How much worse had it been for someone who'd been alone for a month, nobody but animals who couldn't talk back for company? Imagine how bad it would get if someone was left alone for longer. Months, years, decades? How sad would that person be?

Rian looked taken aback by my tears. "Why are you crying? Please don't cry!" he said in a frantic manner, stroking my snout awkwardly.

I surprised him by drawing him into a hug with one scaled hand. He struggled a little at first but then relaxed, falling into the embrace. After a minute of silent hugging, I managed to stop crying, my face wet and nose runny.

"I won't have to cry anymore soon. And neither will you, or anyone else. Because I swear that I'm going to make sure that no one else has to go through this alone. I'm going to find everyone I can and I'm going to welcome them to my home in the park. I'll make it the ultimate paradise of trust and companionship, a place open to all and closed to none. A place where everyone can share their sorrows and their happiness, where everyone, dragon, pony or otherwise, is free to stay as long as they like, to make friends and above all, to not be alone.

"That's my goal, from now until the day I die."

Rian said nothing for a moment, the two of us still locked in an embrace. He finally extricated himself from he and looked me right in the eyes.

"I think that's a lovely goal. I don't want to be alone ever again. Am I welcome in your utopia of friendship and companionship?" said Rian, putting on as thick of an English accent as he could. The result was a hilarious mix of stereotypical English people and a Cork accent that made me laugh a little.

"Of course you can, good sir," I said, putting on an accent that was just as bad as his, if not worse. "You, in fact, shall be the first resident."

"I'd be honoured," he said, still holding up his silly accent.

"Shall we adjourn to said utopia?" I asked, losing the accent about halfway through the sentence.

"Not before I get some stuff for my lads," said Rian, his thick West Cork accent returning. "I need medicine, and food, and general things to take back. I'd say you don't have much at the park right now, do you?"

"I have some miscellaneous things that I looted from an outdoor store and that's about it," I said. "I also have some bags filled with stuff from around Ballyvourney and an entire petrol station's worth of Coke and Thai Rings. Those bags are at our old school though."

Rian raised an eyebrow, a gesture that looked extremely strange on a pony. "Coke and Thai Rings?"

I felt myself blush, but I'm not sure it showed through scales. Hopefully not. "It was an impulse, ok?"

"Right," said Rian, rolling his eyes a little. "Anyway, I need to gather my stuff from around the farm. I need milking equipment for those Kerry cows you mentioned. They're dairy cows, I'd say they've an 'oul infection by now from not being milked."

"Maybe now's the best time to mention that I don't have electricity? I didn't think I'd really need it out in the park. I'm sure the internet doesn't work anymore, and neither do the phones. Radios can use batteries, so I'd say we can just break into a two euro store and take all the batteries from it," I said.

"Yera," said Rian, nodding his head upwards. "I don't have any electricity either. I need more non-electric milking equipment for that many cows. While I get things sorted here, you go to the co-op and get more feed and equipment."

I nodded. "Got it. I'll be back soon."

Should've told Rian that I know absolutely nothing about farming. I didn't even know what the stuff he was talking about looked like. I also didn't know cows got infections from not being milked. Now I felt really bad for that herd. And maybe a little impressed. They didn't look like they'd were in any great pain. They were doing a good job toughing it out.

The co-op was back in Ballyvourney, but it was at the end closest to the farm, so I wouldn't have to haul that crap too far. It was still a bit of a walk though. At least it wasn't in Macroom, which was a solid fifteen minutes up the road from Ballyvourney by car, so god only knows how long it would take to walk there.

After about half an hour of walking I'd reached the co-op. And then I realised that I hadn't brought anything to carry the stuff with. I face palmed—er, faceclawed again as my mistake dawned on me. I poked around in the dusty shop looking for a wagon or something, and I managed to find one. It was a small trailer meant to be pulled by a horse. I'd been under the impression that it was a lot faster and a lot more efficient to pull things with a car or tractor, but whatever.

I poked around for a harness or something to pull it with, and I did manage to find one. I fiddled with it for a while, trying to figure out how to attach it to the wagon. In the process I ended up tearing the leather with my claws, so I had to go get another one.

After quite a bit of faffing around, I did manage to attach it to the trailer. I left it like that and set about getting the things I'd actually gone there to get in the first place.

I grabbed a few sacks of chicken feed from the shelves. Something had already eaten one that had fallen on the floor, but the rest were untouched. I tossed the sacks into the wagon, and then moved on to the sheep section. I grabbed a few sacks of sheep nuts and a set of shears, even though Rian hadn't asked for them. I figured that since the electric shears wouldn't work when Rian needed to shear the sheep again, these manual ones would come in handy. I also picked up this stuff called sheep dip. I hadn't a clue what it was for but Rian had told me to get it.

I wandered over to the cow section, where I picked up some cow nuts and some medicines that Rian had told me to get. Again, I had no idea what they did, but the farmer had spoken. Finding the milking equipment he wanted was surprisingly difficult. I suppose since most farms now used electronic milking parlors, the old stuff wasn't being used as much. I managed to find a few sets, but not a whole lot of them.

Rian had also asked me to get him some stuff for crops, which I guess made sense. I picked up a lot of seeds and chemicals that I didn't understand the purpose of, as well as some random pieces of equipment, like rakes, a hoe, and another harness for a horse. I hadn't seen a horse while I was at the farm, but I supposed he probably had one. It had probably just stayed well away from the stampede yesterday.

The wagon was decently full by the time I was done, and weighed a tonne. I struggled in to the harness I'd left attached, my wings awkwardly getting in the way and the whole thing being a size too small. Still, it worked as intended. The wagon rolled along behind me as I walked, being careful to turn in such a way that it wouldn't roll over when I rounded a bend.

I pulled it out into the street and turned, not toward the farm but back towards the school. I wanted to pick up my bags, in case it rained, and also so I didn't forget them. I reached the school quickly, my bags exactly where I'd left them. I tossed them over my back and into the wagon, then turned to leave, but something stopped me.

I could feel a weird pulling sensation drawing me towards the school football pitch. As much as I wanted to ignore it, I felt like I had to go investigate whatever it was. I wriggled out of the harness and left the wagon behind, cautiously approaching the pitch. The pulling sensation got stronger the closer I got to the field. It didn't feel ominous, but it didn't feel good either. It just sort of felt.

I followed the strange feeling until I reached whatever was causing it. And how strange it was.

Near the centre of the pitch, a circle had been burned into the grass and soil. It was a perfect circle with a smaller circle inside it, but the weird part was the strange symbols in between the two circles. It looked like a code of some kind, or maybe a foreign language. It seemed vaguely familiar to me, like I'd seen that type of code somewhere before, but I didn't know where.

I felt compelled to look into the circle, and I did. And slowly, surely, I felt myself being drawin in...

Author's Note

Fun fact: Deirdre's speech about her vision for the park? Completely improvised. I'd had a plan for what the park would eventually be like, but after writing this chapter I've changed it, and I honestly think I like the new version better.

8. Home

Strange lights and colours swirled all around me. I heard things that tasted like the colour blue; saw things that smelled like love. Bright flashes of light dazed me and messed up my vision. What's happening? Where am I? I thought. The complete sensory overload was actually painful at this point. Would it ever end?

As a matter of fact, it did. Very abruptly, I saw a picturesque landscape spread out below me. I didn't appear to have any body per se, but I did have a bird's eye view of the rolling hills below me. Dragon's eye view, even. Whatever force was showing me this sped my viewpoint towards a mountain that had something sticking out the side of it, but before the mountain was a fluffy white mass.

It was a city, but one totally unlike anything I'd ever seen before. Instead of being built on the ground like a normal city, this place was floating in midair! It almost looked like it was made of clouds, and rainbows seemed to be used as casual decorations. Pillars and arches were the main motif here, with most buildings looking like miniature versions of the Greek Pantheon.

The most interesting part? The inhabitants of the city. They were al ponies, like Rian, but these ones had wings! It was amazing that their tiny little bird wings could even hold them up, but somehow they worked. Flying ponies hovered with other flying ponies and chatted, laughing and making conversation as if they weren't defying the laws of physics and reality.

According to whatever was showing me this, I wasn't supposed to be looking at these ponies because I was quickly pulled past the cloud city and towards the mountain. I still couldn't quite tell what was sticking out of it, but I supposed I'd find out soon.

As I drew closer, I caught sight of what it was—a castle taken straight out of a Disney princess movie. Tall, elegant spires of polished stone rose up into the air, pennants waving from the pinnacles. The castle was surrounded by a massive garden of neatly trimmed hedges and brightly coloured flowers. A menagerie of animals hopped, ran, and flitted about the garden. Below the castle was a city with equally fairytale-esque architecture.

Like the cloud city, the inhabitants of this city were all ponies. But these ones were more like Moondancer. They didn't have any wings, but most of them had horns, and some of them were even lighting up those horns and using them to float things around. It was like telekinesis from a sci-fi movie, only a lot frillier and cuter. Also I sort of wanted to eat them, but we don't talk about that.

But I was only given a few brief moments to look at the ponies before my view was dragged off in another direction. I sped away from the mountain city and across plains and hills. I caught sight of an old-fashioned steam train chugging towards the mountain city, but it passed through a tunnel in a hill and I lost sight of it. But no matter, because the forces on high had given me something else to look at.

Rolling hills gave way to flat plains, and eventually a huge, tangled mass of a forest appeared on the horizon. There was a little village near the edge of the forest, filled with ponies once more. But these ones had no wings and no horn, and their village was the most normal out of all of them, if you ignored the fact that there was a very high proportion of thatched roof cottages in the town. All of the wingless and hornless ponies were going about their business, a lot of them having decided to farm or garden.

Still I was pulled off, past the forest and into flatter ground as the land turned from green to brown. I caught sight of a few more pony-filled towns, but then I was pulled into a barren, rocky plain that seemed to stretch forever. There were no more pretty towns. Just sad, empty wasteland.

As I was pulled above the scorched ground, I very briefly spotted a sickly green structure that looked like it was dripping slime, surrounded by creatures that looked like a sick hybrid of a pony and an insect, but I wasn't given very much time to look at them. I was picking up speed now, being flung towards a distant plume of smoke coming from a tall ridge of mountains.

When I finally reached the mountain range, I stopped above a huge ring of spiked mountains, several pools of lava glowing eerily in the center. I couldn't move anymore, but I found I didn't want to, because what I saw took my breath away.

Dragons. Nothing but dragons as far as the eye could see. Big dragons, small dragons, dragons with six legs, dragons with two legs, even a few dragons with no legs. Massive piles of scale and muscle lounged about on the mountain peaks, while smaller dragons fought in the centre of the ring of mountains. I saw a big dragon push a very small dragon into a pool of lava with its snout, only for the small one to start swimming in it like it was nothing.

A few smaller dragons, closer to my size, were clawing their way up a huge pile of gold and jewels, trying everything they could to throw one another off. One of them finally made it, only for someone else to leap up and knock him off. The victor picked up something that looked like a diamond and started eating it. I guess dragons aren't very good at money management.

A few more small dragons were challenging each other to a fire-breathing contest. So we could do it after all. Red fire, green fire, yellow fire, every dragon had a different colour. One of the dragons only sputtered out a pitiful little purple ember, and the others dogpiled him. Violent creatures, aren't we?

One of the gigantic dragons suddenly lifted its long neck and stood up. It was only about halfway up the mountain, but it clambered up to the top, simply going over the other dragons and disturbing them in the process. Once it had reached the top, it spread its wings and leapt off. I could almost see its wings catching the warm air from below and lifting it. The dragon beat its wings slowly and evenly, and it simply soared off and away from the mountains.

I wanted to be able to stay longer, to see what else the dragons could do, and maybe to learn how to do those things myself. But it wasn't meant to be. I felt the dream, or whatever it was, slipping away. The scene of the dragons blurred, and then suddenly I was back in Ballyvourney, standing next to the strange circle in the soggy football pitch as though nothing had happened.

I heard a faint hissing noise, and looked back down at the circle. It was sparking, and a light steam was rising from it. I got the impression that this meant 'get the hell away', so I scrambled backwards and tried to put some distance between me and the circle. I slowly walked back over to the wagon and struggled back into the harness. I think something may have fallen out of the wagon, but I didn't bother picking it back up. I was too busy thinking about what I'd seen.

Was it another world or a vision of the past or future that I saw? Could I learn to fly and breathe fire like the dragons in that mountain range? If it was the future, I sincerely hoped I'd still be around long enough to see that cloud city. I wondered idly how big I would eventually get. Some of the dragons in those mountains were huge.

Still thinking about the mysterious world beyond the circle, I began to walk back towards Rian's farm.

Man, Rian really knows how to get things done. By the time I got back, he had already gathered some essential supplies from around his farm and loaded them into a massive trailer that he'd attached to the back of a tractor. He had also managed to coax all of his animals into the trailer as well. Don't ask me how he did all of that with no hands.

He was in the middle of loading up some cans of something marked stabiliser when he spotted me walking up to him.

"Jaysus, what kept you?" he asked.

"I took a...detour," I said. I wasn't quite ready to tell him about the weird circle yet. He'd probably think I was crazy.

"Did you get the stuff at least?" he asked, hopping down from the trailer. I turned to show him the wagon I was pulling.

"Class!" he said. "Help me load it all up and we can be heading off."

I did exactly that. For all their sharpness, my claws were actually quite useful for moving things around. Watching Rian struggle with his mouth was both upsetting and uplifting in a sadistic manner. Still didn't stop my claws from tearing things though. It took us about half an hour to load everything onto the trailer. Rian scrambled up into the cab of the tractor.

I couldn't help but notice that he had climbed into the passenger's seat.

"Think you're in the wrong place there, Rian," I said, looking up at him.

He looked back down at me like I was stupid. "No, you're driving. Christ, how d'you expect me to hold the steering wheel with no hands? Sure my back hooves can't even reach the feckin' pedals."

"I know that, but I've never even driven a car before, never mind a tractor," I said.

"Sure 'tis easy," he said. "Now get in. I want to be at the park before it gets dark."

Says the farmer, I thought. I sighed, resigning myself to my fate, and climbed into the driver's seat. It was horribly uncomfortable. Though it didn't hurt to sit upright, it did feel very strange, and my body seemed to want to sit on my haunches like a dog, or on my belly like a cat. That's not even counting the fact that I had a frill thing on my neck, a tail, and two wings, none of which were happy to be crushed up against the back of the seat.

Rian tried to talk me through the process of driving the tractor. It didn't go very well.

"Easy off the clutch!"

"You said this was easy! You lied to me!"

"Hit the brakes! Hit the feckin' brakes!"

"Why didn't you tell me not to drive into the wall?"

"Jaysus, Deirdre, will you shlow down?"

"I'm going too fast! I'm going too fast!"

After a lot of screaming and shouting from both of us, I managed to steer the tractor out of Ballyvourney and onto the main road. I nearly rolled it over a few times, and the trailer did start jack-knifing at one point, but no one died and nothing fell off, so it was largely ok. It was certainly a lot faster than walking. All I can say is thank god there was no one else on the road.

It did the job though. It was only half an hour until we were back at Glenflesk. That was still twice as long as it should have taken, but it definitely beat out the several hours it took me to walk there. After Glenflesk it was a short twenty minute jaunt back to Killarney. Navigating through town was a struggle. Too many bends, kerbs, and overgrown bushes. The tractor was too big to drive through the gate to the Demesne, so we had to slowly and painfully unload everything and drag it through the gate.

Once that was done it was an even greater struggle to get all of the stuff from a pile by the gate, to our chosen home base. We'd decided to use Ross Castle as our base, since it's big, located by water, easy to get to, and the most intact building besides the very impractical Muckross House and Knockreer House. Unfortunately, Ross Castle was a fair hike away from the entrance to the Demesne. And we had a lot of stuff, which meant several trips, even after Rian somehow managed to convince his animals to carry some things.

All in all, it took more than three hours for us to move most of the stuff. During that time, the sun started going down and Rian once more got very tired all of a sudden. Partway through one of our supply trips, of all times, he couldn't stay awake anymore and dozed off while walking. I had to carry him on my back, as well as everything I had already been carrying and everything he had been carrying. I was a very tired dragon by the end of it, so I just half-assedly threw an open sleeping bag over Rian and curled up on a patch of gravel by the lake.

Despite the fact that I was horribly tired I still couldn't stop thinking about that weird world beyond the circle and the creatures within. Not just the dragons, but the ponies as well. Some of them could fly, and some of the normal ponies were farmers. The horned ones seemed to be psychic or something. Even those weird bug-pony monstrosities had caught my attention. The dragons still intrigued me the most, but the rest of the creatures that world had to offer were just as fascinating.

Maybe someday I'd find out what they were. For now, I was just going to sleep.

Author's Note

If anyone can tell me what the line "Jaysus Deirdre, will you shlow down?" is a reference to, I will honest to god follow you.

9. Flight

A series of cracks stirred me from my slumber. I lazily opened one eye to identify the source of the noise, which revealed itself to be Rian, rolling onto his hooves and stretching each one of his legs out in turn. He was absolutely covered in dust and grit, as well as a sizeable amount of mud. I did just drop him on the ground by the edge of the lake, so I guess that was partially my fault. His legs were what was making the cracking. It sounded quite painful.

I lifted my head. "Jesus, Rian. Do you need a massage or something? I'd say you might've just broken something."

"Well what the fuck do you expect when you just throw me on the feckin' ground? Sure there's gravel and all stuck to my fur now," he said, shaking himself like a dog. A clump of mud flew off of his fur and landed right on the end of my snout.

I snorted, the earthy, damp smell filling my nostrils. "If you want to clean yourself there's better ways to do it," I said. I stood up and gestured to the lake, which was currently filled with ducks and a few swans. I remember I used to come here and feed them bread when I was younger. I also remember the time I fell in and got bitten by one of the swans. Ah, good times.

Rian looked incredibly skeptical. "I'm not going in there," he said, shaking his head vigorously. "Sure 'tis probably perishing. I'll stick to trying to shake myself off."

He did just that, to little effect. Some of the dust and gravel came off, but most of it didn't. I grinned. I don't know if it was the look on my face or the fact that my sharp teeth were showing, but Rian flinched.

"Lake it is," I said. Rian's already huge eyes widened and he made to run away, but I was a little too quick for him. I managed to get my snout underneath him and lifted him up. He figured out then that it wasn't a good idea to struggle. Instead, he used his hooves to cling on for dear life. He was still glaring at me as I carefully walked over the rocks towards the edge of the lake.

"Put me down!" he shouted.

"Alright," I said, and tossed my head.

Rian lost whatever grip his hooves were providing and fell right into the lake. There was a splash, and all of the ducks and swans quacked and hissed in surprise before flying or swimming off. For a brief moment I couldn't see Rian, but then his head popped up, his soaking wet mane falling over his eyes. He shook his head to try and get the hair out of his face.

"J-jaysus! 'Tis fucking freezing!" he said, his teeth chattering a little.

I smirked. "Well, at least the mud and gravel is gone, right?"

From the flat stare he gave me, he probably wasn't impressed. Suddenly, his eyes lit up, and his annoyed expression turned to a devious one. He raised a hoof and brought it down, splashing me with a spray of icy water.

"Oh," I said, water dripping down my face. "That's how you want to play it?"

He said nothing, he only splashed me again, that same smug look of deviousness on his face.

"You call that a splash?" I grinned and backed up. "I'll show you a splash!"

I started running towards the lake. Rian seemed to realise what was about to happen, because he started back-pedalling in the water. "Wait!" he said. "Stop!"

I ignored him and leapt into the lake. Have you ever wanted to know what a dragon cannon-balling into a lake looks like? Well just ask Rian, because he'll tell you that it looks like a huge fountain of water and a cloud of steam. Or maybe he would, if said fountain and steam weren't blinding him. Even more ducks and swans were frightened away by the massive splash and loud noise.

Rian coughed a bit and used a hoof to try and wave away the steam. "Jaysus," he said. "You're after boiling half the lake I'd say."

"I suppose you were right when you said I was like a hot water bottle," I said. I couldn't help but notice that I was feeling a little chilly now, but it was probably just the temperature of the water.

Rian paddled his way over to me and pressed himself against my side. He had to stand on the tips of his hooves to keep his head above water, but it only came up to about my belly. I laid down in the water to give him better access to my apparently warm scales.

"Yeah," he said. "The water is definitely warmer over near you."

For a while we just sat there in the cold lake, just enjoying one another's company. We didn't say anything, mostly because we didn't need to.

I found myself admiring the gorgeous scenery of the lake. The lake itself was the largest of the world-famous Lakes of Killarney, Lough Leane. Right next to us on the grassy lakeshore, past Rian's grazing animals, stood the stunning Ross Castle. Standing tall and proud for the longest time, it really was a testament to the skills of those old medieval people that they could build the whole thing with no mortar and still have it standing today.

The towers of the castle were an imposing shade of grey, and they loomed over you when you stood near them. The arrow slits and spiked oakwood doors gave the whole place an intimidating atmosphere. Of course, the somber majesty and power of the castle was offset by the serenity of the lake. Without obnoxious tourists standing around butchering the pronunciations of the town and landmark names, it was certainly a lot more peaceful than it used to be.

The lake was calm, as always, shimmering under the light of the sun and dotted with little islands here and there. Some were little more than barren rocks jutting out of the water, others had miniature forests on them. I couldn't quite see it from here, but I knew that out on the lake was the peaceful island of Inisfallen, where an ancient monastery stood and a herd of wild deer ran. Once upon a time the place was home to a group of revered monks, back when even Ross Castle was still inhabited.

All of the beauty of the lake would be woefully incomplete without the grand, rolling mountains that surrounded it. Like all Irish mountains, they were neither tall nor jagged, tending instead towards the softer, more curved shapes of a hill. But each and every one was covered almost to the top with a thick layer of trees that gave them a striking green colour. It was a delightfully clear day that saw the mountains rendered in almost perfect clarity. It's no wonder that Ireland is often called the Emerald Isle, because it's just as green and just as beautiful.

The gorgeous scenery served only to remind me why I loved the park as much as I did. No matter how bad things were, I could always count on the mountains and lake to stay as strong as they ever were, unaffected by my own struggles. I suppose those mountains were my rock, both figuratively and literally. And, as far as I knew, those mountains would still be there for me during what appeared to be the end of the world.

After a short while of lounging about in the water, the cold finally started to get to me and I had to get out. Rian looked like a drowned rat when he stepped out of the lake and stood on the rocks, his fur slicked back and dripping water.

"Right," said Rian, still shaking a little. "Today, I'm going to set up my lads over by that one house. And I'll start planting a few seeds. 'Tis the right time of year for it and all."

"What 'one house'? There's more than one house out here," I said.

"The big one with the fields and all that shite out in front of it."

"Muckross House?" I guessed. Rian's description really hadn't narrowed it down very much.

"That's the one. That place. Help me carry this stuff out there now," said Rian, turning to pick up a bag full of seeds.

"Wait," I said, picking up a rake in my mouth and talking around it. "If we were going to be using this stuff at Muckross House, rather than out here, why the hell did you have me haul it all out here in the first place?"

"I weren't thinking. You scared the smarts clane out of me when you were trying to drive the tractor," said Rian. "Now gather up all this shite and we'll be away."

I grumbled a little, but did as I was told. After a moment of Rian tossing things onto my back and herding his animals out in front of us, we were off walking down the path.

The path was probably flat at some point, but years and years of jarveys driving their horses and carriages over it had created a huge groove in the middle from where the horses' hooves had hit the ground. Now, even after all the jarveys had vanished and the horses had broken loose, there was still a horse (or pony) clip-clopping along on the path. Except now there was also the awful clacking and scraping of my claws on the concrete as well.

Tall trees stretched their branches overhead, darkening the path even though it couldn't have been later than one o'clock. Birds chirped all around us. It was a surprisingly nice day, though I didn't expect it to last. I remember reading a news article on the internet that said we were in for a really bad summer this year. A gentle breeze was blowing through the trees, drying the water off of my scales. I was still a bit cold though. It would probably go away later.

It only took us around twenty minutes to walk to Muckross House. It was about halfway between Ross Castle and the entrance to the Demesne. A big, elegant looking mansion, the whole place was needlessly luxurious. I'd only been inside of it once, because it's a tourist attraction and you have to pay, but I remember it being really grand and full of stuffed animals. I felt bad for those animals. People shouldn't have been hunting for sport. That was just needlessly cruel. Anyway, I remember all of the furniture and decorations being made of really expensive materials. There's an amazing garden behind it, full of beautiful and exotic flowers that surprisingly never spread to the rest of the park. Those flowers looked a little overgrown and weedy at the moment. Maybe I'd try and fix them later. I'm sure a lot of love and effort went into making the place.

A shame Rian seemed to have plans to turn the space in front of it into a farm.

I think I remember reading somewhere that Muckross House was done up in Victorian times because the Queen was supposedly coming to visit. In the end she cancelled on them and the family that owned the place struggled for money. History can be fascinating sometimes. There's a lot of history surrounding the National Park, but at that particular moment, Rian was only interested in the quality of the soil.

"Deirdre, get a clump of the soil for me there," he said, kicking a shovel towards me.

"What am I, your slave?" I asked, grabbing the shovel.

He sat on his haunches and waved his hooves at me. "Do I look like I can be holding any shovels?" he asked.

I made a show of slowly and painfully pushing the shovel into the ground, a task made much easier by my weight as a dragon, before I oh-so helpfully tossed a ball of damp muck at Rian.

It hit him square in the chest. "Funny," he said.

I laughed and brought him the rest of the soil. He tutted.

"'Tis poor soil all right. 'Tis feckin' soaked through. But I suppose I'll have to make do. Help me dig a few furrows now," he ordered.

I gave him a flat stare before doing as I was told. The soil was wet and gloopy, making it hard to dig. It was also full of rocks, which I tossed into a pile for later use. It took me almost an hour and a half to dig all of the furrows, by which point I was sure that the cold I was feeling was something similar to what happened my first day. I was coated in soil and dried mud by the time I was done.

"Grand out," said Rian, nodding his head in approval of my work. He grabbed some of the seeds and started dropping them into the little trenches, holding the bag loosely in his mouth. I can't imagine he had much control over the bag, but he managed to go through the whole process with very little need to correct any mistakes. While he did that, I casually munched on a few of the rocks I'd gathered. The cold was definitely tied to the rocks. Just eating a few small ones made me warm up a little.

Rian turned his head to the sound of me crunching up a piece of what I think might have been sandstone.

"Are you eating a...rock?" he asked, raising one eyebrow.

"They taste good," I replied, tossing another small rock up into the air and catching it in my mouth. "Also, I think they might stop me from freezing to death for whatever reason."

Rian looked at me for a moment before shaking his head and carrying on with his seeds. "Well, enjoy your food then," he said.

It wasn't long before Rian was finished with the seeds, and then I had to fill in the soil again. We didn't have any fertiliser, so Rian was really just going on a wish or something when it came to growing these plants. Hopefully it'd work out for him, or else I really didn't know what to do. I'd be fine even if things went really bad. I could fish, or...hunt. But even the sight and smell alone of the canned tuna I'd eaten for breakfast today had grossed Rian out. I honestly thought he was going to throw up. I guess he could eat the grass, but I can't even imagine how humiliating that would be to him.

Once I was done filling in the soil, Rian turned to me and told me to 'feck off', to use his words.

"I don't want you getting in the way of me while I'm trying to sort out my lads. They're clane terrified of you after you were chasing them and trying to kill them with the tractor. Feck off and go eat more rocks, or something. Come back later," he said.

"Erm, alright," I said. Rian was probably right. I wouldn't be doing him any good while he tried to build a pen or whatever it was he was doing. I'd only be getting in his way. With nothing better to do, I decided to use my unexpected free time to go back to the mountain.

Torc Mountain was a fair distance away from Muckross House. Normally in order to get there I'd have someone drive me, but that wasn't really an option anymore. I have a horrendous sense of direction, so it was a miracle I even managed to find my way there at all. It took me almost an hour to find the base of the mountain, and another hour and a half to climb back up to the peak where I'd fallen asleep the other day. I could probably have gone back to Rian at that point, but I decided to leave him to his own devices for a bit.

Once I was at the peak, I looked back out over the lake. From the top of the mountain, it's possible to see Ross Castle and the whole lake on a standard day. On a really good day like today, it's possible to even see Muckross House. With dragon super-vision? I think I might have been able to see Rian and his animals if I squinted.

I turned around to face the other side. That view was no less stunning. I could see all of the nearby mountains, from Mangerton to Carrauntoohill, the tallest mountain in Ireland. A winding river meandered its way through the valleys, and the Old Kenmare Road walking path followed it fairly closely. Brownish-gold mountain grass covered the whole area, and random pools of water collected in the boggy soil. A few herds of sheep wandered about, freed from the confinement of their farms.

Aside from the path, there really was no sign of human influence anywhere around here. No buildings, no telephone poles, no radio masts, nothing. Even the path was starting to become covered by the grass after a month with no upkeep. I found myself wondering if the whole world would look like this eventually. Wild and untamed, like nature always intended. Would whatever had happened to the world ever reverse? Or would the world be left to only a few changed survivors, left to eventually forget the old world?

As I thought about the future, I found myself subconsciously opening my wings to the breeze. The wind was much stronger up here, and it felt amazing on my wings. I gave them a little wiggle, and they responded fairly well, to my surprise. I tried moving them up and down, like I would if I were to actually try and fly someday, and though it was a little clumsy at first, I eventually got them moving at will. After that, I just sat and let the wind blow over me some more, enjoying the sensations that came with it.

And then suddenly I wasn't on the mountain anymore.

My claws were grasping at nothing, and my open wings were acting against me as they caught the air and lifted me higher and further away from the mountain peak. A particularly strong gust of wind had picked me up and pushed me away from the mountain, and now I was half gliding, half falling backwards. Through a tremendous effort I managed to flip myself over in the air right as the wind died down and I started to dive.

The rocks and trees below were approaching far too fast for my tastes. The force of the air was extremely painful on my wings, probably because they weren't angled right. They were open, but that only counts for so much. If I could just get the damned things angled correctly, whatever the correct angle was, then maybe I could glide into the lake. It wouldn't exactly be a soft landing, but it would be a lot better than ploughing face first into the rocks.

Moving my wings was almost impossible at the speeds I was going, something that was not helped by my complete and utter lack of fine control. Any second now I was going to smash into a large tree, and I couldn't see that ending well.

Close to the last possible second I managed to tilt my wings ever so slightly. The wind was knocked clean out of me as I suddenly switched direction from plummeting almost straight down, to gliding up in a curve. I lost speed, until I seemed to stop for a moment before I went down again. This time I was ready, and with a little bit more fiddling, I went up again. Then down again. Then up again. After a few more up and downs, I eventually wound up travelling at a leisurely pace over the lake water. Another few moments and I was in the water.

I was near the middle of the lake, and it was quite deep, but I was more than happy to awkwardly doggy-paddle my way to the shore by the castle. The water was not any warmer than it had been earlier, and I was shaking a bit when I finally reached the lakeshore. Surprisingly enough, Rian was standing there waiting for me when I hauled myself out of the water.

"Well, that was fair odd. I came back here to look for you, and sure what do I see but you crash landing in the middle of the feckin' lake?" he said.

"I was just sitting on top of the mountain minding my own business, but the wind had other plans. But hey, at least I know I'm capable of flight! Sort of," I said, shaking my legs a bit to try and dry myself off.

Rian gave me quite the flat expression. "That wasn't flying," he deadpanned.

"Well, gliding, but still. Gliding surely leads to flying, right?" I said hopefully.

"Maybe," said Rian, though he didn't sound very certain.

"Well whatever," I said with a toss of my head. "Toss me a few rocks, I'm freezing."

Rian's stare was absolutely priceless. "After your...meal, come and see what I built over by that one house. 'Tis grand out I'd say, though I might be wanting to fix it better later. But I'd still say 'tis fair good for not having any hands to work with."

"Lead the way," I said.

After Rian showed me his very ramshackle animal pen, which looked like it had been constructed with no screws (which is probably true), we went back to the castle. We spent quite a bit of time talking, both making plans and messing around. After a few hours it was still bright out, being the middle of summer, but we both knew it was later than it looked. Rian was the first to fall asleep, which was quite convenient because it let me eat my meaty meal without feeling bad about it.

After my dinner, I curled up next to Rian and let myself drift away to sleep. Even though I nearly died plummeting off a mountain today, I still think it was a good day. I wonder what tomorrow will bring?

Author's Note

Have a longer chapter to make up for the delay in between chapters. It hopefully won't take as long this time.

10. Third

Waking up was an unpleasant experience. Instead of the fairly nice days we'd been having, I was greeted by a torrent of rain and a chilly breeze. Aside from a little warm patch which I presume was Rian, I was cold all over, and my legs were all stiff from my little hike yesterday. The dirt beneath me had turned to a cold sludgy mud overnight, and I could feel it caking onto my scales and in between my claws. Ergh.

I cracked open an eye to look up at the depressingly dark and grey sky. Sure enough, there was no sign of anything even resembling the sun for miles around. Rian was still sound asleep, and seeing how his farmer habits had been leading to him waking up early, I guess that meant it wasn't quite morning yet. His fur was soaked, and slicked onto his body like a wet dog.

I figured it probably wasn't healthy for him to be lying there in the cold and wet, so I stepped away from him as gently as I could and trudged through the muck towards the castle. I wasn't sure what kind of a lock was on the door, but hopefully I could break it so we could go into the castle. We hadn't bothered so far, seeing as the weather had been so nice, but now I was realising that I should really learn not to tempt fate.

The wooden door was thick and had metal spikes on it, with a padlock keeping it closed. I picked up a nearby rock and tried to smash the lock, but it didn't work. Next I tried my claws. I managed to scratch a pretty deep gash in the metal, but it would take me quite a while to whittle it away with my claws at this rate. So instead, I gave my teeth a try. I admit, I was a little apprehensive that my teeth, while certainly capable of handling rock, might not be able to handle metal, but my fears were unfounded. My teeth tore straight through the padlock like it was nothing.

The padlock had a surprisingly nice taste, which I enjoyed as I slid open the bolt and pushed open the door. The inside of the castle was not much warmer than the outside, but it was dry and there was no wind, so it was definitely an improvement. Aside from the draughts coming in from the arrow-slit windows, the air was stagnant, and it smelled stale and musty. Dust coated the floor and floated up into the air as I walked around. My nose itched a little bit, and after a couple of twitches, I sneezed loudly. A little plume of blue fire curled in the air as I did.

I just sneezed fire.

Holy crap.

I would need to see if I could do that without sneezing later, but for now I climbed up the spiral staircase to the bedrooms to see if I could open them. There was more dust up here, and I tried my absolute best to avoid sneezing again. It would be quite a shame to accidentally burn all of the ancient furniture. The doors weren't locked, so I made my way back to the lakeshore. The rain had actually gotten worse while I was in the castle, so I prodded Rian awake.

"Hmm? What's the ska?" he mumbled with half-closed eyes.

"I have no idea what time it is, but it's pissing rain, so you should come into the castle. Which I opened. You're welcome, by the way," I said.

"Yera grand," he said, standing up and stretching his legs.

He followed me into the castle and up the stairs, where I showed him the ridiculously luxurious medieval bedchambers.

"Pick a bed and fall in it," I said. "Use those antique bedsheets as towels."

"Will do," he said, still half-asleep.

"I'm going to go for a wander about and see what I can find," I said on my way out of Rian's chosen bedroom.

"Grand," I heard him say.

I climbed higher up into the castle, poking my head into the doors. They were all more or less the same, very large, very ornate bedrooms that hadn't been used for their intended purpose in centuries. Past the bedrooms, just below the roof, was the dining hall. According to the tour books you can find in the office on the ground floor, they used to pretend they were richer than they actually were by polishing lead plates to make them look like silver. No wonder they all died young.

I'd always wondered what the roof was like. People weren't allowed up there, but there was no one around to stop me. It didn't take me too long to find the hatch that led up to the roof. It wasn't that impressive, to be honest. It was the top of a big stone tower, and while I'm sure it looked much better on a nice day, the depressing grey and misty scenery wasn't doing it any favours. It was higher up than I thought. You don't really realise how tall things are until you sit on top of them.

I got an idea. A terrible, stupid idea. But I really wanted to try it. Yesterday's little escapade involving the mountain had been terrifying, yeah, but it had also given me a brief taste of the sky. If I could learn how to use my wings for real, then traveling would be so much easier. I wouldn't have to drunkenly drive an old tractor around or walk for hours to find other people and supplies if I could just fly to them.

I didn't know too much about how dragons of old supposedly learned to fly, and the book I had said nothing about it. But when it came to large birds like albatross and condors, as well as ancient pterosaurs, starting from a high place was supposed to help. It might not be a mountain or a sea cliff, but this tower was fairly high. High enough for a makeshift launch pad, at least.

I perched on the edge of the tower and spread my wings. I looked them up and down, the blue membranes glistening with moisture. They'd saved me yesterday, even if they had been the cause of the problem in the first place. And hey, the lake was right there, just in case, right?

Right?

Thinking about what I was about to do would only scare me. So instead, I took a deep breath, steeled myself, and leapt off the tower. My wings responded by catching the air and sending me into a gentle glide. Unlike yesterday's confusing tumble, this was deliberate, and a lot less painful. Now for the hard part. I was headed down at a fairly quick clip—down to the rocks on the lakeshore. I wasn't going to make the water, not unless I got a little boost.

I tried to beat my wings. Neither my wings nor the air was pleased with my efforts. The wind resistance made pushing my wings down ridiculously difficult, and the fact that I didn't know what I was doing and was thus probably doing it wrong made my muscles complain. Long story short, I stopped gliding and started falling. I landed in the mud with a loud squelch and equally loud swear. I was absolutely covered in mud, from tail to snout. A good long swim in the colder-than-usual lake was in order.

At least I didn't hit the rocks.

I just laid there, defeated, for a moment. That was a stupid idea. A very stupid idea. I should have set my sights lower and started with trying to get finer control of my wings. By flapping them. On the ground. I can be quite the eejit sometimes. After a few minutes of lying in the mud, I heard the clopping of hooves on stone. Rian, still looking a little sleepy, trotted out from the castle and paused to look at me.

"I was just drifting way there, and sure what do I hear but a huge feckin' splash and a shout from outside," he said with a raised eyebrow. "What the hell were you at?"

"I made the huge mistake of trying to fly by jumping off of the top of the tower," I said. It sounded more ridiculous when I said it out loud.

"Jaysus, girl, how the fuck am I meant to be getting any sleep at all if you're going to be firing yourself off of buildings?" said Rian. "Well, I s'pose there's nothing to do now. I'm up now so we may as well get on with it. What did you want to do today? Besides go lepping off of buildings."

"I wanted to go towards Tralee, but that doesn't look like it'll be happening today," I said, casting a glance at the gloomy sky.

"Tralee? Why the hell d'you want to go there? 'Tis miles away, and you won't find much there that you won't find in Killarney," said Rian.

"Well...um..." I said. "Killarney is off-limits for me."

Rian's eyebrow reached the heavens. "Off-limits? Girl, what do you be doing when I'm not looking?"

"I had, um, an...altercation with someone there, and they more or less told me fuck off away from town. So, it's off-limits," I said sheepishly, poking my claw in the mud.

"'Someone'? Like, another person? Well whatever happened is pure shite, I'd say. We should all stick together," said Rian.

"Yeah, that's what I said."

"Who was it?" asked Rian.

"Some woman with a mean right hook," I said, rubbing my snout where Tina had punched me. For her to whack me hard enough to hurt through my scales...what were her hooves made of? Diamonds?

"Bhuel*, let's go and find her."

We did exactly that.

The trip through town was fairly uneventful, aside from spying few deer near the cinema. The Royal was on the other side of town, but we kept an eye out for Tina as we walked. At one point we passed a jewellery store, and I really wanted to break in and take the stuff that was in there. Rian talked me out of it, saying that we didn't have any bags and that they'd still be there when I came back, but after meeting with Tina I was definitely going to come back to get those sparklies. They were just so pretty!

Once we reached the Royal, a flash of pink and purple let us know straight away that Tina was home. The plan was for Rian to go in ahead of me, before I'd walk in and see if another apology would help us make amends. Rian gave me a quick smile and pushed open the door. It knocked over a couple of empty cans that Tina had clearly put there as a makeshift alarm, and she turned, ears straight up, eyes alert. Those eyes narrowed when she caught sight of me through the glass door.

"Dunno who you are, strange pony who just walked through my door, but I thought I'd let you know that there's a vicious psychopath right outside the door behind you," said Tina, punctuating the phrase 'vicious psychopath' with a stamp of her hoof.

"If you mean Deirdre, I know she's there. But I wouldn't say that about her," said Rian, more than a little bewildered. He hadn't believed me when I'd told him how confrontational Tina was. Now he was seeing it for himself.

"Trust me, fella, if you saw what I saw, you'd be barricading yourself in here right along with me," said Tina.

"What'd you see?"

"She chased me all around town trying to eat me until I cracked her on the snout." Tina snorted. "I told her stay away, but I guess she didn't listen."

"Is that all?" asked Rian, cocking his head.

Tina stared back at him. "What do you mean 'is that all'? She tried to kill me!"

Rian shrugged to the best of his ability, impressive given that he needed those shoulders to stand up. "Yera, she did the same to me. 'Twas a bit of both our faults, so I forgave her. 'Twas the right thing to do."

"Are you seriously telling me that someone twice your size chased you around and tried to eat you, and you forgave her?" asked Tina incredulously.

"To be completely fair, I didn't know what I was doing, and I apologised afterwards. It was a complete accident," I said, choosing that moment to step through the door.

Tina tensed as I walked in. "Oh look. The huntress returns to stalk her prey."

This was just getting obnoxious now. "For the fifth or sixth time, it was an accident! I had only woken up hours before, and I was confused, and I didn't have much fine control over my brand new body. Did you know that over the past few days I've gotten chills that almost killed me, tried and failed to drive a tractor for the first time, almost killed someone else by accident, fallen off of a mountain, and thrown myself off a castle tower, all while getting strange urges to kill things, hoard things, and eat rocks! Compared to me, you've had it easy."

Tina's eyes were wide, but that last statement seemed to tip her over the brink to anger. "Oh, I've had it easy, have I? Because I don't think tripping over myself for a week, having no one but my reflection to talk to for a month, having the first real person I meet try to kill me, and crying myself to sleep half the time because I know I that I'll never see my husband or son again is 'easy'. Do you?"

"Erm...I think that both of you girls have had problems," began Rian. When it was clear that neither me or Tina was going to bite his head off for it, he continued. "Deirdre's had more physical problems and you've had more emotional ones. But at the end of the day, sure weren't we all human at one stage? I think we'd be better off if we just started again and tried to work as part of a crew this time."

He looked between the two of us. "I'll start. I'm Rian Willems. I'm from Gaeltacht Mhuscraí. I used to be a farmer. I s'pose I still am."

It only took me a moment to cop on to what he was trying to do. Hopefully Tina would accept it. "Me next, then. I'm Deirdre Rourke. I went to the same school as Rian, but I'm from Killarney. I used to be a small, impractical teenager. Now I'm a large, impractical dragon. I'm only realising the 'impractical' part now."

Tina looked the two of us up and down and sighed. "I'll give this a shot. One shot. If either of you mess up, I'm out. I'm Tina O'Sullivan. I'm from Killarney. I used to be a boxer and a fitness instructor, and I used to have a loving husband and a beautiful son, both of whom I'll never see again."

There was a bit of an awkward pause after that. What exactly are you supposed to say when someone says something like that? 'Sorry for your loss'? I dunno. It seemed like those kinds of words would only be false comfort.

It was Rian who broke the ice. "Well, there we go. 'Tús maith leath na hoibre'**, as the seanfhocal*** says."

"Well," said Tina, a little impatiently. "What now?"

"Well...now I guess we'll show you where we've been staying," I said, walking out of the door. "We'll come back for your stuff later."

"A castle? Really?" deadpanned Tina, gazing up at our chosen base.

"It seemed like a good idea at the time," I said, a little defensively.

"The beds are feckin' comfy!" added Rian.

"But seriously. You never once thought of the 'dragon in a castle stealing princesses' cliche?" asked Tina.

"Do you see any princesses around here?" I shot back.

"She has a point to be fair," said Rian.

"Not you too," I groaned.

"Well, I suppose if we're staying in this old medieval heap, I'd best start working on making it livable. You two should stay out of the way. It'd be best to not have a farmer and a self-proclaimed 'impractical dragon' getting under my feet. Or hooves, even."

Having Tina around was certainly going to make things different around here. For better or for worse, well, the jury's still out on that one.

Author's Note

*Bhuel= an Irish word that means more or less the same thing as the word 'well', used in that context. It's pronounced the same too, but with a very slight 'u' sound between the 'w' and the 'e'.
**Tús maith leath na hoibre= an Irish proverb. It means 'A good start is half the work'.
***Seanfhocal= the Irish word for proverb. Literally translated it means 'old word'.

This took a little bit too long, and I actually had to cut it short because it wound up getting too long. This chapter was originally supposed to have Deirdre's flying attempt, joining up with Tina, and the start of the trip to Tralee. Obviously the third one didn't happen this chapter, but it'll happen next chapter for sure.

Last chapter someone asked when/if Tina would be meeting up with Rian and Deirdre, and I told them 'between the next chapter and the one after it', and I really did mean 'between'. Originally, Rian was going to recruit Tina himself 'off-screen' while Deirdre was in Tralee. It was only while writing this that I realised how bad that would be, so I reworked it into what you got here. I think it's better this way.

On an unrelated note, putting the Irish translations down here makes me realise how much they must look like gibberish to someone who's never had contact with the Irish language. I can't imagine how you're all trying to pronounce them. Would you prefer it if I left them in Irish and translated them here, or if I just italicised/bolded them to signify that Irish is being spoken?

11. Trip

Getting Tina settled was the first order of business that day. I spent quite a while hauling stuff back and forth for Tina (who very helpfully didn't carry any of it herself). We were nearly done by what I presume was about one o'clock. Just when I was finally getting to take a break, Rian started demanding that I fetch planks of wood for him from Homebase. I was too scared to try and take the tractor, so I resorted to carrying the planks around on my back like a pack mule. And let me tell you, it is not a short walk from the park to Homebase.

I was finally done by about three. Rian wanted to work on his little farm some more, and Tina wanted to move the last of her stuff from the Royal to the park. The rain had let up, so I wanted to go to Tralee, but neither of the others seemed inclined to come with me.

"Sure what's the point?" said Rian when I asked him why not. "Tralee's a shithole."

"Yes, I know that. Every Killarney person knows that. But Tralee is also bigger than Killarney, and it's a hell of a lot bigger than Ballyvourney. The way I see it, if there was one person in Ballyvourney, and two in Killarney, then surely there'll be loads in Tralee," I said. I was laying down in the grass taking a well-deserved break and watching the two of them them try to make Rian's fence a bit sturdier. The glares and envious glances at my claws were not lost on me, but after a whole day ferrying Tina and Rian's crap around for them, I had no intentions of doing any more manual labour.

"You really sure you want to recruit Tralee people to your little group?" chimed in Tina from where she was holding a plank steady for Rian. "Someone from Tralee would stab you as soon as talk to you."

"You really think that a tiny pony could stab their way through these scales? I'll take my chances, thanks," I said with a snort.

"I could give it a shot," said Tina, gesturing with her muzzle to a nearby trowel.

"Uh, no thanks. I'll let these hypothetical Tralee stabbers do that," I said. There was little doubt in my mind that Tina probably could stab me if she wanted to, even with something as blunt as a trowel. Other ponies? Well, I still wasn't convinced they could do it. Hopefully I was right.

"Yera, 'tis your funeral," said Rian. It sounded a little garbled because he was talking around a hammer, but the meaning was clear.

I looked between the two of them. "Are you seriously both refusing to come with me?"

"Yeah. I have things to finish. Fences that would be a million times easier to build with claws, a pile of stuff that would take me four trips but take a dragon only one, you know. All that standard stuff," said Tina with a little bit of a glare.

"I can take a hint. I want to strike out for Tralee before it gets too dark. If I help you two finish this fence, and move the last of your stuff, will you come with me?" I asked.

"Probably not," said Tina nonchalantly.

"I'm with her," added Rian.

"What? Seriously? What's it going to take to convince you people?"

"Well, you might not have to worry about being mauled or murdered, but us pony folk operate by a different set of rules. Stuff that couldn't even touch you could easily kill either of us. A fox could get one of us, or a feral dog. Hell, a few cats could probably have a fair go at us. So, it's probably safer for us if we don't go with you," said Tina. "But we'd love your help with this fence," she added with a sickly sweet smile.

I groaned. I was getting roped into more manual labour no matter what I said. And I would still be alone on my trip. With a resigned sigh, I stood up and walked over to where Rian was tilting his neck at an awkward angle to try and hammer a nail.

"Gimme the hammer," I said. Rian wasted no time in dropping it. I wiped as much of the spit as I could off and got to work hammering the nails. I received some very 'helpful' comments along the way.

"Jaysus Deirdre, you made a right balls of that one. Take it out and do it again."

"Ow! Watch my hoof, you overgrown lizard!"

"How in the name of almighty God and all the saints and angels is that straight? Do it again."

"I could do a better job with my back hooves. Are you even trying?"

I got sick of it after about twenty minutes.

"Fuck both of ye, I'm going. See you later, or tomorrow, or whenever," I said, dropping the hammer and stomping off. I know they were only messing with me, but it was getting annoying.

"Have fun!" I heard Tina cheerfully call out after me. I couldn't tell if she was being sarcastic, or if she genuinely cared.

I was trying to adapt to my still unfamiliar form, so I decided to practice running as I went to gather stuff to bring. I didn't exactly master it. Running was harder than walking, because the way my legs had to move was completely different. I hadn't really been paying too much attention to how I'd been walking. I guess it was instinctive. Running, not so much. For some reason, I found that trying to canter like a horse was kind of hard, but running flat out like a cheetah was easier. Maybe it's the fact that dragons are predators? I dunno.

I had to stop to think about that for a moment. Dragons are clearly predators, as evidenced by the sharp fangs and claws, and the awful instincts that sometimes told me to hurt my friends. But what did that really mean for me? What would I do when the canned meat I could scavenge inevitably ran out? I'd have to hunt. I could eat grains and other plants, but I'd imagine predators need more protein than herbivores. They wouldn't be enough. What would I hunt? Deer? Cows?

Shaking my head, I resolved to cross that bridge when I got to it. For now, it was just me, these bags of sweet, spicy, heavenly Thai Rings, bottles of Coke, cans of briny tuna, and a trip to Tralee in my future. Tossing my supplies into a rucksack and slinging it over my tail, I braced myself for another long walk. No way I was taking the tractor without someone who actually knew how to drive it to guide me. Unfortunately, it takes forty minutes to get to Tralee by car. It took me several hours to walk to Glenflesk. And that was only a fifteen minute drive.

It was clear I wouldn't be getting there today, so I picked up a few dry leaves and thick bits of wood to make a fire, in case the place I decided to sleep was far from former civilisation. I very deliberately didn't bring a flint and steel. The way I saw it, not having any other option to light the fire might make my own natural lighter kick in.

The road to Tralee was largely straight. Aside from a couple of roundabouts, there weren't really any bends or forks in the road. Thank god for that, because my sense of direction is practically non-existent. At the very least, I knew this road. I've travelled along it so many times, to visit my great aunt in Ballybunion when summer rolled around and to visit my grandparents in Listowel the rest of the year. Come to think of it, I should check on Listowel sometime. Poor Nana was in a wheelchair after her stroke and if she's stuck like that as a pony then I shudder to think of what could have happened. That said, she and Granddad had probably vanished like everyone else.

Before all of that, though, I had to make it to Farranfore. Farranfore is a small town about the size of Ballyvourney, lying around fifteen minutes away from Killarney by car. I planned to make that my rest stop for the day. Like the rest of Ireland, the road out there is lovely and scenic. On either side of the road are emerald green fields filled with sheep, peacefully grazing on the soft grass. They weren't quite so peaceful when I walked past, but once they saw that I wasn't going to harm them, they calmed back down.

The road was long, and completely quiet, leaving me to my thoughts as I walked along. My pace was slower than I would've liked, since my legs were already aching from hauling Rian and Tina's stuff for them earlier. I glanced at the sun to try and get a rough estimate of what time it was, but I've never been good at that sort of thing. By the time I was halfway to Farranfore, the sun was still on its way towards the horizon, but sunset at this time of year is usually at around ten or eleven, so I truly had no idea what time it was. I wish I'd thought to grab a watch or something. I might've been able to find a nice shiny one in the jewellery store that Rian wouldn't let me go into.

In a bid to ease the burden on my tired legs, I gave my wings a few experimental flaps. I didn't even start to come off of the ground. Next I tried hopping while flapping. That was a lot harder than I thought it'd be. My time in the air was so short that I barely had time to open my wings, nevermind beat them. With a sigh, I gave up and continued walking. I'd figure out this flying thing someday. Who knows? Maybe I just wasn't old enough to fly yet. A shame there weren't any reference guides on dragon biology.

I kept walking for another while, but I still wasn't at Farranfore. The bright blue skies overhead had given way to the orange hues of sunset when I came to a hill. I knew this hill. Stupid thing used to absolutely murder the battery on the electric car my parents used to drive. It would murder my already failing legs too.

That was all the convincing I needed to stop here for the night. I didn't want to sleep on the road in case of spontaneously appearing vehicles (I still wasn't sure if that could happen, but I wasn't taking any chances), so I found a relatively dry spot in a field to make my nest for the night. After munching on a can of tuna and a shameful amount of Thai Rings, I dug out the tinder I had stuffed into my bag earlier and tried to arrange it into a makeshift fire pit. After gathering a few stones and some more dry leaves and stuff from a nearby treeline, I had a nice little campfire just waiting to be lit.

Now came the hard part.

How would I breathe fire? I sneezed fire earlier, but I didn't actually know how to do it consciously. I tried everything I could think of, from exhaling really hard, to holding my breath and then exhaling. Nothing worked. It occurred to me that perhaps the fire didn't come from my lungs, but rather from somewhere else. Only problem was, I didn't know where that 'somewhere else' was and I didn't have the necessary muscle memory to access it even if I did know where it was.

Now I had a choice to make—sleep in the cold or find a way to make myself sneeze. I decided to go for the latter. Shame I didn't have any pepper on hand, but maybe a pollen-filled flower would do the job if I could find one. That was much harder than it seemed. As the sun went down the flowers were starting to close, and it took me a while to find a good one. In the end I found a dandelion clock, which was even better than I could hope for because it would definitely make me sneeze.

One well-aimed sneeze later, and I was frantically blowing on a little ember trying to get it to grow into a proper fire. The flicker of blue flame that had come out of my mouth was tiny, but I paid close attention to where it came from. It felt like it came from somewhere in or around my stomach, and I did my absolute best to hold onto that location as I drifted away to sleep.

Author's Note

I'm sorry that took so long. Writer's block is a bitch.

On another note, if anyone is interested in getting a sneak peek at the future of these characters, you can take a look at my other Ponies After People story, School Tour. It's a good bit darker than this, but several characters from this story appear, as well as a few who haven't appeared here yet. Nothing too spoilerific, I assure you, but anyone interested in the future might give it a read. Or you can read it for its own content as well. Or even not at all. Your choice, really.