How to be Megnificent – book 2 of girldragongizzard

While Rhoda finally joins us at around 10 o'clock, a police SUV saunters up the street to the intersection and waits there just a bit longer than it takes for the light to turn green.

“Yyyyep,” Rhoda says, glancing obliquely at the vehicle as it turns the corner and drives out of sight.

“What?” Chapman asks.

“You two aren’t here all day like I am, and I think Meg’s probably not noticed while she’s up on that roof,” Rhoda says. “But there’ve been more patrols around this block since she got back from her impromptu camping trip. They’re keeping an eye on her, at least. Figures.”

She’s right. I didn’t notice. I’ve been focusing on a lot of other things.

“No, I noticed,” Ptarmigan says. “I’m around here more often than you think.”

“You keeping an eye on her, too?” Rhoda asks.

“Yep.”

“Huh.”

Ptarmigan nudges Chapman and says, “Tell her about the thing.”

Chapman, dressed kind of like a mime, opens hir mouth and then doesn’t say anything, but instead glares at Ptarmigan.

Ptarmigan looks at me, and I snort.

“What thing?” Rhoda asks.

Ptarmigan sighs and leans back, folding her arms and saying, “There are more dragons.”

“Oh, dear. How so?” Rhoda asks.

“Reports in the news. A few cases,” the Artist of Nightmares says, grumbling. “What we think is going on is that untransformed dragons, dragons that are still hidden as humans, can’t metamorph until they’ve got the room for it. It keeps happening to people who get out into the rural areas or the wilderness.”

“Mmm,” Chapman hums and nods, gesturing a bit with a rolling motion with hir fingers.

“So, say, if Molly were to go on a camping trip with her parents,” Ptarmigan says, “she might come back in her true form. And people are figuring this out pretty quickly.”

“That’s… I don’t know what to say to that,” Rhoda says. “I want what’s best for Molly. What she knows what’s best for her. And people like her. But after yesterday? What does this mean?”

“Increased stress in the system,” Chapman says. “Of course. Same as when more and more trans people started coming out in 2015, and the backlash that happened then. And is still happening. Only, with dragons.”

“I thought this was what y’all wanted?” Rhoda asks, adjusting herself in her seat.

“Oh. I still do,” Ptarmigan says, looking and sounding as dour as ever. She doesn’t elaborate.

“I think this is better than what Ptarmigan actually wants,” Chapman says. “But we still don’t need the increased chaos. And it also suggests this might be a natural occurrence. Which would be harder to control.”

“OK. You know I said I’d only tolerate you if you agreed to work toward a world where you all immortal things eventually fuck off, right?” Rhoda says. “But I’ve got to know what you two actually want. Why are you mucking about in Meghan’s affairs? And this… this… dracomorphosis.”

Chapman glances nervously around the street, while Ptarmigan looks directly at Rhoda for a few moments.

“It’s a nightmare on the outside,” Ptarmigan says. “Meghan is in the center of it, in some way. So, she’s a good place for me to study what’s going on. It’s my Art. It’s what I do.”

Chapman leans in so that sie can talk more quietly and says, “Dragons. Physics. It’s my special interest plus my Art. Of course I’m here. Also, I like Meghan. A lot.”

Rhoda points at Chapman, “You, I understand. Or, I think I understand you as long as I pretend you’re human.” Then she points at Ptarmigan, and says, “You, I don’t trust.”

“Sorry,” Ptarmigan says. “I try to be worthy of trust.”

“Explain some more, then, please.”

Ptarmigan sighs, “Do you know what a nightmare is?”

“I'd like to think so, yes,” Rhoda says. “But what does this have to do with Meghan?”

Ptarmigan explains anyway, “A nightmare is a re-enactment of trauma. Sometimes it's a faithful recreation of the traumatic event. But often it's a synthesis of its original stimuli and a mutation, absorbing like elements that its system associates with it. And it doesn’t have to occur just in a sleeping brain. Any system can have a nightmare, as far as my Art sees it. And it means something. It's a thing to be addressed.”

Rhoda grunts.

“Now, the whole world is having a nightmare,” Ptarmigan says. “A waking nightmare. That’s significant. It’s unusual. It really means something. And part of what I’m trying to figure out is if it’s the nightmare of an old, ancient being that’s been through a lot. Or if it’s the nightmare of an infant, remembering the lessons of its ancestors through instincts. But I can’t psychoanalyze the Earth by interviewing it. I’m stuck in the nightmare myself, so all I can do is participate and try to understand it. And going to the center of the nightmare is usually a really good way to unlock its secrets. So far, my divinations say that that’s Meghan.”

Chapman sighs really loudly and dramatically.

“What?” Ptarmigan asks.

“You really are like a hammer that’s trying to paint with oils, aren’t you?” Chapman asks.

“No, that’s you,” Ptarmigan doesn’t move except to turn her index finger to point in Chapman’s direction.

“Not everything is a nightmare in a pan-dimensional psyche, Ptarmigan. Sometimes it’s just the result of chaotic fibrillation,” Chapman chides her.

“Same thing.”

Rhoda closes her eyes and lifts her head, “Can I have less bickering and more airing of motives, please?”

“I’ll vouch for Ptarmigan,” Chapman says.

“Gonna love this,” hir sibling in immortality says.

“She wants to resolve what she sees as the nightmare,” Chapman explains. “With nightmares, you typically do that by identifying the actual monster, facing it, and then talking to it. And if Meghan is not the monster, then whatever force that chose her as the first to transform is. And finding that and examining it, or talking to it, should yield results and calm the whole mess down pretty fast. According to her Art.”

“You pay attention,” Ptarmigan says.

“To me,” Chapman continues, “it’s more like you look for the standing waves that are feeding into the system, and you counter them with inverse waves until the overall energy goes back down to reasonable levels and you stop getting chaos.”

“Same thing.”

“But different,” Chapman disagrees. “Because, from my perspective, the fact that Meghan transformed first is just another random data point. It’s not necessarily a clue.”

I’m actually really done with this conversation, and I’m about to climb the wall. And I think Rhoda might climb it right along with me.

I do like Chapman’s take, though, because it removes a lot of pressure from off of my shoulders.

“What’s your standing wave, then?” Ptarmigan asks.

Chapman thinks about it, frowning down at the table, and seems reluctant to say. But then sie utters, “The current mass extinction, probably. Or whatever’s causing it.”

“OK, you’ve got me there,” Ptarmigan says. “You’re probably right. But then, how do we counter it? That’s not something any of us have successfully done.”

“I can’t,” Rhoda says, starting to get up. “I just can’t be involved with you two. Meghan, I’m sorry.” She gestures at the table, “But we’re dealing with beings who don’t see us. These are not my gods, and I won’t fuck with them.”

“Rhoda,” Chapman says gently but firmly, trying to get her to stop and listen. As she keeps going, however, sie says, “We’re not gods. We’re people who share this planet with you. Yes, we’re older. And we have tools that you don’t have. But we do see you. That’s why we’ve been sharing a table with you, and trying to work with you. I, at least, want you to have agency that you maybe wouldn’t have otherwise.”

Rhoda wheels on hir and hisses, “Why me? Why Meghan? Why not someone else who ‘needs’ it?”

Chapman blinks slowly and asks, “Why were you helping Meghan out before she even became who she is now? Why did you stick with her after her change?”

Rhoda chokes on an emotion and gasps, blinking several times. Then she shakes her head, and says, “It can’t be the same thing.” And turns and walks back toward the entrance to the apartment lobby, leaving her tea half finished and snickerdoodle with one bite out of it.

Without really thinking about it, I get up to follow.

I don’t go terribly fast, but I catch up to her at the door, where she turns to face me.

“Meghan, don’t follow me, please,” Rhoda says. “I need to be alone.”

And I’m left standing on the sidewalk outside the door I used to think of as my own stoop.

It’s probably just as well, because I left my tablet on the table with the two Artists. It would be well taken care of, but I wouldn’t have been able to use it to converse then. And, I’m probably not in a terribly lucid frame of mind if I’m forgetting it.

I’m really worried about Rhoda, though.

But am I worried about her because she’s hurting? Or because she just said she doesn’t want me around her, and I don’t know if that’s for right now or ever?

If humans and dragons really could co-exist, what would you like that to look like?

It’s a really tough nut to crack, when you don’t really know all the variables, though. Isn’t it?

I do think we dragons need a bit more space than we currently have. Between each other, I mean. We fit OK-ish right now, but we’re growing. I know I’m growing, at least.

And we all eat just a bit more than when we had human bodies, so that’s actually taking a toll on the economy and the ecosystem. But mostly, I think, because the human institutions of food production and distribution aren’t budging for us. There’s already a lot of waste there that could be adapted to our presence, but it’s not happening, and a lot of dragons are dumpster diving, or worse.

More of us have ended up living in garages of people who just think it’s way too cool to be friends or family with a dragon to charge us rent than anyone might have guessed happening. There’s still a lot of us sleeping on rooftops or under bridges, though.

Some of us are keeping our jobs, even. Even in government, of all things. Though, some prime ministers and parliament or congressional members are being ousted in votes of no confidence, in the countries that allow that. And others are fired.

And murders, between the two species (if you can call dragons a species), are happening both ways. If you have enough socio-economic stress, it’s going to happen. Add some good old bigotry ala religious denominations that villainize dragons, as a matter of medieval tradition, and it’s inevitable.

But we’ve been over all that, and I’d like to think we could start building pockets of relative peace and community.

Take my building, for example. I live on the roof of the Magnolia apartments. Against the wishes of the building owners, yes, but they’ve illegally evicted me for events that were outside of my control, and have not provided adequate alternative housing. My rights there are protected by HUD, but that’s beside the point I’m trying to make.

I don’t hurt the building.

In fact, it gets a lot less birdshit on it than it used to, and there’s less minor hate crime on the block now that I’m regularly both visibly and audibly present. I’d say something about less graffiti, but I like graffiti and I’m annoyed there’s less of it.

More importantly, the people who live and work here go out of their way to make sure I can heal from my wounds and illnesses, get the food I need to thrive and keep growing, the technology I need to communicate effectively, and the community I need to be happy. And they don’t do it because they’re afraid of me.

I don’t threaten them.

I don’t hurt them.

I do my best to take responsibility for any damage I do cause inadvertently, within my means.

I don’t know exactly what it is that I give to them in return that makes the exchange worth it to them. But I know that they keep letting me into their lives, helping me out, and telling me that they want me here.

And if they want me here, I’m going to stay.

As evidence of this, I’m writing this letter using an oversized keyboard my friend Nathan purchased for me and hooked up to an old computer he’s not using anymore. And the owners of my favorite coffee shop are letting me use their office to do it in.

I think, maybe, in my own life there might be an example of where to start in all of this, to work things out. It’d be awfully nice if there was institutional support for my way of life, though. Government funding for some things. More permissive and protective laws. Laws that clearly include dragons as part of their definition of people.

Maybe if the nations of the world could learn from their citizens what it is that we dragons offer, it would be a no brainer, as they say.

I’m sending this to both my local newspapers, in hopes you’ll both publish it. I’m also putting it on my blog to read publicly by anyone. It’s an open letter. I want it to go further than this.

Please, in the name of negotiating a peaceful coexistence, consider spreading this around.

Thank you,

Meghan Estragon Draconis

Sometimes telling the truth feels like lying because you’re leaving out the unfortunate details that you really hope will clear up.

Sometimes saying something about how you wish things could be is all that you can do.

“Meghan Estragon Draconis, please allow me to attend an audience with you. If you will not come to me, allow me to come to you. I wish to discuss our options,” says the message Wentin has sent me.

Leaving my rooftop, I fly to the southern edge of my territory and let out a simple squawk from about three stories up as I circle there.

Joel climbs out from under one of the preserved acid tanks from the old paper mill that are in Bayside Park, and looks up at me and gives a rather cheerful sounding, “Yawp!” Then steps forward a couple paces and bows his head briefly.

I see a police car slowly driving by the entrance to the park as I alter course to glide in and meet Joel.

When I land, Joel takes a step back to give me some room I don’t actually need. It’s a subservient gesture. We haven’t been interacting a lot since we returned from the Pasayten Wilderness, but every time we do, he submits to me. As if I’m his queen.

I’m not exactly comfortable with it, when I think about it, but it puts my instincts completely at ease, and I think it means we can work together.

I pull out my tablet and show him Wentin’s message to me. I do this by holding my tablet up with both claws, so that Joel doesn’t have to try to look down at it, which is hard for his anatomy to do.

He gets up so close to it, it’s like he’s sniffing the tablet with his gigantic nose, his nostrils on my knuckles. And then he snorts and pulls away.

Then I put the tablet down, switch to my AAC app and hit talk. I’ve copied and pasted a little speech that I’d composed on my new computer, just for this moment.

I say, “Joel. I want to meet with Wentin, but I do not trust it. I would like you for backup. But you appear neutral. Would you be willing to host an audience between me and Wentin in this park during daylight hours?”

Joel yawps and bobs his head once. That’s a “yes.”

I take a moment to copy and paste the next bit of text, “I’d like to invite two other people. Chapman and Ptarmigan. You don’t know them very well. But they are friends of mine and could be helpful in keeping things peaceful. I want to explain who they are.”

Another “yes” from him.

The next bit is the long part. I tried to keep it relatively short, but I didn’t know how to better explain Artists to someone who hasn’t seen one in action.

“They call themselves Artists,” I say. “They are like wizards, but very specialized, and much, much older. They have been around longer than nearly anything. Chapman is the Artist of Physics, and Ptarmigan is the Artist of Nightmares. I trust Chapman. But, also, Wentin is a nightmare, and a very old one, too. Ptarmigan recognizes it from way back. I think she can help me interpret Wentin’s intentions. But also, dragons might be as old as the Artists. I have a question. Do you remember anything from before you were born?”

Joel takes some time to think about that, but then gives out a sputtering sneeze, shaking his head a little. An affable “no.”

“Okay,” I say. Then, “Do you trust Wentin?” I ask, another canned question. One of many I prepared for this interview.

“No.”

“Are you scared of Wentin?”

“Yes.”

“Are you scared of me?”

“No.”

Well, that’s interesting. I hadn’t really anticipated that response. Then, he’s being friendly and supportive of me for other reasons. Maybe gratefulness. Or basic trust.

It takes me a moment to pick out the next best question.

I skip to the end, “Given all that are you OK with this?”

“Yes.”

“Can I invite Chapman and Ptarmigan, too?”

“Yes.”

Later, I let Wentin know my plans, and it approves.