Meghanology – book 1 of girldragongizzard

There’s a human behind Poink.

Poink, who is rolling over onto their back and laying all of their heads flat on the ground. I’d have to successfully bite through eight different necks to dispatch them, if that were my goal, but the gesture relaxes me, still.

As I’m settling down and idly wondering if they are one person or eight, I notice both Chapman and Rhoda coming up behind me as well.

The human that’s standing a tail length beyond Poink’s own tail is dressed in all black, Chucks with no socks, jeans cut off at the knee, men’s tank top, and black spiked hair. And they’ve got their hands in their pockets, and are standing with their right side forward, looking down their shoulder at me and Poink sternly. Their skin is light brown and covered in tattoos, and if I have to make a guess at their ethnicity, my best bet is local indigenous. Either Lummi or Nooksack.

“Astraia and I recognize you!” they call out. “Stand down, please!”

Not Poink. Astraia.

“We and Meghan recognize you!” Rhoda calls back. “What’s your name?”

“Astraia’s boyfriend,” he replies. “What’s yours?”

“I’m Rhoda,” Rhoda says, still projecting. “And this is,” she looks over at Chapman.

Chapman nods at her and says, “Chapman.”

Astraia’s boyfriend grunts, considers Astraia for a moment, then looks up and says, “Call me Caleb, I guess.”

“Does Astraia use AAC, Caleb?” Rhoda asks.

“What’s that, Rhoda?” Caleb shoots back.

“It’s an app to make text to speech easier for some people. It works on a tablet or phone,” Rhoda explains. “Meghan’s been using it to talk to us.”

“Yeah,” Caleb says. “That got destroyed last night.”

“I’ll get Meghan’s, if she’ll share,” Chapman says, then heads back to our table. Cerce meets hir part way.

“Thank you,” Rhoda calls back to hir as sie does this.

“Yes,” I say.

I’m smart. I see what’s going on. I do my best to take control of my body and settle it down further. I even think to lower my head and make a nudging motion toward Astraia, to indicate she can get up, even though I’m feeling really iffy about that idea.

It took her a hell of a lot of courage and self control to do this, if she feels anything like my own instincts about this whole thing.

Of course. I just did something similar with Whitman the other day, and it was disastrous.

I don’t think attendant humans would have helped there, though.

Caleb looks pointedly at me and asks, “You can talk?”

“No,” I reply.

He relaxes and laughs, and that actually makes me feel a whole lot better.

Then he says, “You still need your device for more than yes, no, and stop. I get it. Still.” He gestures. “From what I’ve seen, you’ve got an advantage there. Nobody else like you is saying shit without help.”

It just comes out, from me, in his voice, “Shit.”

That makes him laugh even harder, but then he points and says, “Learn that in someone else’s voice, please. Meghan.”

I bow my head.

Astraia is getting up right about the time that Chapman arrives with my tablet and holds it out to me.

This is all holding up traffic in all directions, but people are getting out of their cars to watch, including the bus driver and passengers. And the fact that I can see that clearly without turning my head any particular direction is making me more antsy. Which I don’t need.

I at least want to find a way to let that bus keep going, but they’ve committed now. The driver must have called this in. And after the disaster last night, I imagine that dispatch is resigned to letting us dragons have our way if we’re appearing to be peaceful.

I tell myself that, at least, as I take the tablet gently in my mouth and bow low to place it on the ground between me and Astraia. Then I knuckle open the app and type, “Why here?”

Then, with a claw, I rotate the tablet around to face her (I’m assuming she’s a her at this point, I guess), and step back, bowing my head again slightly.

If she moves wrong, I’m so ready to pounce.

She seems to realize it.

She also doesn’t seem to be in complete agreement with herself about what to do about it. Her heads all take turns looking at each other and making little snaps at their frills, but never connecting.

Then a couple of them watch me, as the rest focus on the tablet.

And then I watch something truly amazing and wonderful.

Two of her heads focus on the tablet at a reasonable distance, leaving four to manipulate it.

One holds it down by a corner.

And the three remaining start typing, like fingers. Rapidly.

I really don’t fathom how she does that. I have no clue what it’s like to even think as her. What is her neurology even like? Is her brain between her shoulders? Or does she have eight brains? Or nine?

I hear my own voice speak back to me, as Astraia, each sentence spoken in succession as she keeps typing, “Hello, Meghan. I swear submission to you. I love your morning call. Even as you screamed it at me just now. I hope to allow you to be safe in my territory. I will always try to control myself. Maybe by saying this it will be easy.”

To be honest, I kind of feel like she already said all of this by rolling over on her back, but it does help to hear it all in words.

She used Swype, even! I’m floored. And honored.

I want to be honored, body, dammit. Listen to me.

“Yes,” I say, then tentatively reach for the tablet to turn it towards myself. I continue, “Thank you.”

There is a moment of quiet, and then

The. Crowd. Cheers.

And it startles both of us.

After the noise dies down, I ask, “What your email?”

It’s getting closer to council time, but I’m sitting on my roof of my building, in the afternoon sun, thinking about what just happened, while I set some things up on my tablet and online.

If I think about it, I’m pretty certain that Astraia came to me for protection against Loreena, or whatever her real name is. It really feels like a calculated move that’s a result of how badly hurt she is, and just how scary that fight sounded.

It interests me that Astraia doesn’t seem to have any gunshot wounds, and the police were definitely firing their guns a lot.

It scares me to think about how big Loreena’s claws must be.

But, I got Astraia’s email, and that’s a start to something I want to happen.

It’s really cute, too.

wecollectshinies

(I’m leaving the domain name and numbers out because she doesn’t need random people sending her unsolicited messages. Especially in today’s political climate surrounding dragons.)

So, I’ve sent her a list of my own contact information, including an invite to a discord server I just set up called Queen Meg’s Courte, that has a subtitled that says, “You don’t have to swear fealty to me to talk peacefully. Let’s do this.”

One of the channels in it is called Pecking_Orders, and it’s described as a place to let everyone in the county know how challenges between dragons have shaken down. There’s a warning on it that things can become heated in that channel, and an admonishment that the primary goal is to keep everyone informed while working toward a set of practical agreements between all of us.

I’m pretty seriously worried that I’m going about that one all wrong, though.

We need something like it.

I’m also wondering whether or not we should send actual dragons to the Council meetings. One or both of them.

It’d have to be one dragon per meeting, if that. And it’d be pretty hard to organize and decide who should go that soon.

But we should have actual representation there. We are, each of us, U.S. citizens. Or, at least, most of us probably are. We’re people. We should still have rights.

But, our territorial instincts get the better of us, and the Council chambers are more in Waits’ territory than mine. And I can’t be the only one who thought of going.

I’d just go myself, and try to sneak in without Waits noticing. But I’m scared of what would happen if others show up.

So I create another channel called Human_Politics, and start to write my concerns there.

I do feel like an old PHP_BBS forum would serve us a lot better, but that would require more setup and overhead, a whole website, and few people are inclined to use those now days.

I huff and type a little bit more, and then I hear eight loud poinks in quick succession, followed by Loreena’s high, soft, keening wail. 

I would have named them Banshee if I hadn’t been on a poet/singer kick because of Whitman. And I do love their voice almost as much as their namesake’s. Astraia broke that pattern with her poinks, though I guess I could have named her something like Spike for Spike Jones, or Wendy for Wendy Carlos.

Anyway, I think this is a cue for me to step up, so I do.

I let loose three times, cutting into Loreena’s call. And our other neighbors follow suit.

Then Astraia lets out another eight poinks, prompting Loreena to answer, and me to cut them off even sooner and as loudly as I can.

I feel like this is exactly what I’m supposed to be doing, even though it could really rattle the city.

The cycle happens one more time, except this time I answer Astraia at the same time Loreen does. Their wail and my screech that ends with knocking kind of compliment each other, but I expect Loreena’s going to feel violated and get pissed about it.

And, yep, they interrupt their challenge wail to screech back at me at an even higher pitch than I can dream of achieving. It actually sounds a lot like a rabbit screaming, followed by a Hollywood actress howling in rage.

I wonder if I’ve just challenged a harpy to a duel, when what I really want to do is get Loreena’s email address, if they have one.

The answer from the rest of the city is cacophonic. But then, when they all fall silent, no one picks up the morning routine of leading the calls. It seems like everyone figured out what was going on.

I’m feeling super calm. Super frighteningly calm.

I keep standing on the edge of the roof, looking Eastward, waiting for Loreena to take to the sky and come at me.

But they don’t, and I’m guessing that they’re nursing gunshot wounds and aren’t ready to lose a fight to me because of it.

After a while, I relax and go back to my magically charged tablet, wondering what it must be like to be a human whose girlfriend starts loud dragon shit on a Friday afternoon after baring all eight of her throats to the loudest, luckiest dragon in town.

Lucky, because I’ve got the best coffee and the best people making it.

It also occurs to me, after seeing Astraia so wounded and noting that Loreena doesn’t rise to fight me, that the reason there haven’t been more fights is that maybe most of the others recognize how costly they can be.

But, if people aren’t taking advantage of the weakened dragons and trying to claim their territories, there might be other factors at work, too. Such as simply being reasonable and taking conscious control of their actions and emotions. Or maybe, we’re all small enough, with enough support from our humans, that we’re not hurting for resources, and we’re content.

So long as I get to keep my building and my humans, I’m content. So, I think that’s a plausible explanation all on its own.

I type these thoughts into one of my discord server channels as well. I take my time to try to make my sentences as clear as possible, because I’m not making anybody wait on my words. But I still end up cutting corners, because I’m not that patient myself.

I’m looking forward to that keyboard and desktop setup.

Then, just as I’m about to switch over to my Tumblr, Astraia signs into my server and goes through the initiation process.

We end up friending each other and then talking about what we just did. I ask more questions about Loreena and get answers that are more detailed than I hoped for.

I’m finally talking to another dragon and my heart rate is staying the same. I’m not getting upset, or worried, or rattled. I’m not scared for my own hide. I’m a person and so is she.

This, I think, is big.

And Astraia and I agree to do something political together. We start writing to our City and County Council members. Emails, so that they’ll get to them as soon as possible.

I sign my letters with “Meghan the Dragon (Formerly and legally [Deadname])”, and use my apartment’s address, even though I’m not exactly living there anymore. I want them to know I’m a real person, and that’s what’s on record. And if they come to my apartment, they’ll find me on the roof, and I’m hard to miss.

We even shoot letters off to the Mayor.

Rhoda is keeping me and the rest of my humans updated. Chapman is doing the same. This is over a group SMS chat that I took the time to organize just after my letter writing campaign. Not everyone has joined it yet, but Kimberly, Cerce, and Nathan have. And they’ve invited the rest of the shop staff, the owners, and some regulars that live in the building. It’s a start.

And neither of the Councils are going well for us. Both government bodies have chosen to forgo public feedback. These are both deliberation sessions, not press releases, so there won’t be question and answer periods afterward, either. And, nearly every member of each Council is calling for some kind of strict regulation of dragon presence and/or behavior.

There’s one guy from out in the county who is calling for our extermination with the help of the national guard, and nobody is exactly shooting his ideas down. But nor are they responding much to them, either.

And both meetings are going late. Hours of interviewing police officers and administrators, the owners of the businesses affected by the fight, animal control, and a professor of ecology and zoology from the university. The Councils are coordinating and taking time to rotate the interviewees.

The stars start to come out.

And that’s when I hear a helicopter approaching from out on the bay.

It didn’t come from the airport, nor the police department.

Looking, I can tell it is coming right at me, and it’s come from the other side of the nearest island, from out in the greater sound. But, in this light, which I can still see clearly in, it’s got both its running lights and its headlights on, and maybe a spotlight. And I can’t tell what it’s shape or markings are.

Not long after that, another one does take off from the airport and starts heading this way. I don’t hear it right away, but as it fades in I can tell where to look and I can see its trajectory just as clearly. And I have the same problem visually identifying it, but I’m sure that’s either police or coast guard.

I consider whether or not they could just be headed toward Astraia or Loreena’s territories, but my visual sense of movement is much too keen. I know they’re coming at me and my building.

I probably don’t need to mention how tense and concerned this makes me.

I wish I had a cave. A shelter of reinforced concrete built on this roof.

I could break back into my apartment, but I want to stay on the good side of the building owners, even if I’m staying on their roof against their permission. I really want to stay on the good side of the nice union workers who are fixing the building, honestly. But, practically speaking, they matter a little less politically. Which is dumb. In any case, I ignore the urge to do more crimes.

I start typing out what’s happening in our group chat.

Chapman replies that sie is coming my way now.

And then, right as the first chopper starts to cross over land, I hear a bunch of sirens emanating from the direction of the police department, which is just a couple blocks away. And a fire engine from the other direction, the nearest firehouse. And my ears aren’t quite good enough to tell me which direction those are all going, but I’m pretty sure they’re coming here, too.

I switch to my discord again, ignoring all the new messages left by Astraia and type into the Human_Politics channel, “humans attack me”.

Then I put my tablet into my purse. Hanging right over my chest keel, it’s a prime target for bullets. It might actually protect me from getting hurt worse, but if things go badly I might need to get another tablet again. But, there’s no place to put it on this roof to protect it, and I might need it with me later.

I briefly wonder if Chapman’s sigil file does more than keep the battery charged. And I wonder when sie’ll get here, and what sie’ll do when sie does get here.

Sie can run right over, three blocks to the coffee shop, and sie got a head start on the cops, probably. But the cops are in cars.

However, my focus is on that chopper from over the bay. That’s gotta be either coast guard, national guard, or the navy, I’m thinking. It certainly isn’t animal control.

On the other hand, I’m not quite sure how the local law enforcement or the mayor rates in calling in the nationally military. I don’t exactly know how that works, but I seem to recall a few news stories about that sort of thing during various other disasters.

We dragons might qualify as a disaster, but I’m not sure I specifically do. Not a national disaster. And I feel like something really hinky is going on here.

And that hinky thing is coming fast now.

I turn and gallumph and then gallop over to the far edge of the building roof, away from the unknown helicopter, and leap off of it, spreading my wings.

There are no appreciable thermals at night, and there’s a lower building with more roof below me. But I’m starting from higher up than my apartment, and after a short fall to get up to running speed I pump my wings hard.

I manage to get up above my own building’s roof by the time I hit the street on the far end of the block, and I’m really proud of my flying prowess now.

It’s there that I go ahead and breathe a big gout of fire up into the air, so that it arcs over my back as I fly under it, and scatters and aerosolizes as it falls below and behind me, flaring out in a flash before it hits anything. Some of it hits my own tail, but it doesn’t hurt me.

I’m hoping that makes it abundantly clear to my pursuers and everybody watching that I’m no longer on the building. And also that I’m taking the chase over to Waits’ territory. Not that they keep track of who’s who in dragonland.

And that’s when I feel a shift from below, and I suddenly know exactly where Chapman is.

This is the end of my seventh day of my true form, and I’m flying like I’ve done this my whole life. I’m reacting to stimuli and threats like I’ve had experience, I think. I’m breathing fire for the third time in my life, and using it expertly.

I’m being hunted by the kingdom’s dragon slayers, though they might turn back once it’s clear I’m not on that building anymore. I think they were sent after me specifically to evict me by force.

I’ve got an iffy half plan that could get me seriously hurt, if they follow.

I don’t know my limits.

And I’m pretty sure that I’ve got a wizard on my side.

A wizard I’m about to leave far, far behind me.

I wonder how Whitman is doing.