Meghanology – book 1 of girldragongizzard

Because of my new communication issues, although I do get the full hour, it’s a shorter counseling session than I’m used to. Fewer questions and fewer responses, because it just takes me longer to say fewer words.

And that’s OK by me, really.

My mind is on other things.

Apparently, my counselor has been waiting on the edge of her seat for me to come out as trans to her. She’d figured it out on the second day, years ago. And just patiently waited.

But she does have to point out that now that I’ve got a draconic metabolism and a draconic neurology, I’m no longer disabled in the same way as I was before when I originally filed my claim. And, all the testing that needs to be done periodically to maintain the claim is going to come up with different or even unreadable results. But she also reminds me that there’s some time to figure this out.

My next disability review is not for a year and a half. And maybe somebody can figure out how to list “dragon” as a development of my original diagnoses of CFS/PEM and C-PTSD.

On the other hand, I feel great now, and I’ve got all sorts of confidence I didn’t have before, and maybe I can find a job.

The idea of getting a job as a dragon sounds like it’s completely counter to the point of being one, though.

I can’t quite figure out how to justify it, but I feel like I shouldn’t have to work in order to eat whatever I want and sleep wherever I want.

“No knights,” I say.

“What do you mean by that?” she asks.

“No more knights,” I elaborate. “I can be dragon.”

She rocks back in her chair and purses her lips at me. “I don’t think it works that way,” she says. “Besides, how do you know there aren’t any knights anymore?”

I snort and grunt, and then rumble subaudibly to humans. She might be able to feel it in her chest.

“What do you think the police are?” she asks. “Or. I have a trans client who identifies as a monster, and they’ve pointed out that transphobes are basically the modern monster slayers. They think of themselves as knights in shining armor, out to save humanity from the monstrosity of trans people. And you’ve just told me that you’re trans, too, right, Meghan?”

I jerk my head up a couple times like I’ve seen iguanas do on T.V. I don’t really know what it means, of course, but it feels like the right thing to do.

“Anyway, I think this is just something you should consider,” my counselor says. “I’m here to help you figure out how to do what you feel you need to do. I’m not going to push you to do something that’s outside of your nature, OK?”

I try bobbing my head like a bearded dragon. And it works better than I expected. I meant it as an expression of frustration, and I am starting to feel frustrated and stressed. But the repeated movement is soothing. I find myself doing three more sets of it, it feels so good.

“Is that nodding?” she asks. “Are you agreeing?”

I turn my head to the side and knuckle the “no” on my tablet screen. “No,” it says.

“What does the head bobbing mean?”

I knuckle out the response, “Feels good.”

“Oh, like how rocking feels to some autistic people,” she says.

I smile.

“Well, our time is up,” she declares. “I just want to tell you that you can take your time to figure things out. It’s OK. But it feels like you’ve made a huge breakthrough here, and I’m really excited to see what you can do now.”

I cannot figure out if she’s referring to me coming out as trans or that I’m actually a dragon. But I don’t want to ask, either. It doesn’t really matter to me, and I’m pretty focused on going flying.

So I smile some more, then pick up my tablet and put it into my purse. Then I bob my head a couple more times and turn to leave.

“See you same time next week?” she asks.

I squawk cheerfully over my shoulder.

This side of her door has a lever for the knob, so I pull down on that and push it open, stepping out into the waiting room.

There’s a man (I think) in one of the chairs there, reading his phone.

He looks up at me briefly, and seems to decide I’m nothing special and goes back to his phone. He doesn’t move until my counselor calls him in.

I can fit in the elevator, but I go to the stairwell anyway. Something about being stuck in a box with no exits I can push myself through makes me feel panicky now.

When I say that I go flying, what I actually mean is that I go to a park with a playground, climb to the top of the play equipment, and leap off of it.

From twelve feet above the ground, I glide as far as I can and try steering a little as I go. And then I repeat it.

I’m practicing as safely as I can.

I yearn to go much higher, and really get around. But I just don’t know what I’m capable of yet, and I don’t know how to do it.

It’s like I’m a fledgling without parents, and I’ve gotta figure all this out myself.

But it’s pretty damn cool, because I can tell my wings are capable of catching a hell of a lot of air, and it isn’t much of a strain at all to hold them out and rigid as I fall and put my weight on them. I’m built to do this, at least.

The second part of my routine is to run out into the field and prance around, leaping into the air and flapping my wings to see how much lift I can generate.

I’ve only been at this a few days, and getting the hang of it is surprisingly hard. There’s a skill to moving more air with a downstroke than with an upstroke. And it seems like it should be intuitive. I’ve seen slow motion videos of bats in action. I understand the principle, I think. But I’m using a whole set of limbs I didn’t have before.

I suspect that if I was a wyvern, with my arms having become my wings, it would be easier. But I’ve got four legs, a set of wings, and a tail. And though my neurology does seem to be designed for that, and I can move them all without much confusion, I think I’m too distracted by the newness of it and overthinking everything.

Anyway, there are children in the park, along with their parents, and they're all running around me and cheering me on as I try to learn how to fly. And every time I get more altitude, they shout variations of, “Yes!” and “You can do it!”

And if this is what my life is now, I’ll take it, even if I never figure out actual flying.

But as I glide softly to the ground after making my highest assisted leap yet, I notice a police officer sauntering past the park, watching me with casual suspicion. He’s giving me a look that says he feels like he is in such a position of power that he doesn’t have to tense a single muscle, but he’s going to watch my every move anyway because that’s what he’s there to do.

And I find that I hate it.

I’ve never had anyone look at me this way before, and it’s so insulting.

Unfortunately, my head jerks to a new position with every shift of my visual focus, so I feel like it’s impossible to avoid telegraphing that I’m staring back. But my own gaze doesn’t seem to phase him.

While he’s there, though, I keep doing what I’m doing and try not to let him get to me.

But now I’m asking myself if police even get training on how to deal with a dragon. I’ve never seen any news stories about other dragons. I’m pretty sure I’m the only one in the world right now, despite how everyone seems to take me in stride.

I wish I had the nerve to brazenly walk up to him and pointedly ask. But he’s got a gun, and I don’t think my scales are that armored, and I haven’t tried breathing fire yet. So, I don’t have the nerve, because it’s a scary idea.

So I try to focus on the excitement of the kids, and giving them more of what they obviously want, pushing myself higher and higher.

But after three more jumps, I decide I do need to go somewhere else.

I bow to the kids, like a playful dog, by way of a thank you, then turn and bolt off.

A couple of bounds with all four legs, and then I’m up to speed and running with just my hind legs, forelegs pulled up to my breast, and using my wings for balance. I’m really just trying to ride the excitement of the moment to make a dramatic exit in the direction of another park, but then my wings feel like they need to move.

I pull them up quickly and then stretch them out and pull them down and I’m up in the air about a yard. And then it happens again, and I do it again. And again and again and again. And I’m flying right over a line of trees, a smattering of cars, and an antique shop.

And that’s when I realize I can see thermals.

It’s something I was able to see while wandering around on the ground. But I didn’t have the proper context for it there. In the air, however, it’s obvious.

And I can’t describe exactly what it looks like, because there’s no human analog and no real language for it.

The air has a color. And it’s different where the thermals are.

And once you hit one and feel it lifting you up, you can associate the right color with feel of it happening, and easily recognize it elsewhere. And aim for them.

And it turns out I think I may have instincts for flying after all.

I’ve got a few more hours until my cleaning date with Rhoda, and I realize that I haven’t eaten lunch yet. Except I still feel full from eating half the contents of my fridge yesterday.

Food sounds lovely if it were to present itself in an easy to acquire form, but maybe I don’t actually need it right now.

Instead, I decide to settle down atop the roof of the transit center and do some people watching.

Only, I remember, just as I’m alighting near the edge of the building, that there are usually cops hanging around this place.

And, sure enough, the movement of one of them pointing me out to their partner draws my eye, and I recognize them for what they are immediately. They both shield their eyes as they look up at me, and then one of them pulls at their radio and talks into it.

I decide to leave.

Maybe, when I’m walking around the streets, and meeting people face to face, or having fun in a park, a dragon is just another kind of person to everyone. Maybe even to the police.

But people aren’t supposed to climb or land on government buildings. So maybe I shouldn’t do that?

It’s a shame, because perching on buildings is something I’ve always wanted to do.

I wonder if a private building would be OK, but decide that the way the cops were looking at me, it probably wouldn’t be. They’d find a way to decide it’s not OK.

Then I wonder if by flying around the city am I breaking any sort of aircraft ordinances.

I mean, I’m not an aircraft. I’m a dragon. A living being. And a person. But I might be considered a hazard, like for drones or something.

This line of thinking really annoys me.

So I decide to go get some more coffee.

Maybe the stuff is really bad for me now, but I'll be damned if I give it up. And so far it hasn't made me feel sick.

I go and land in front of my coffee shop and amble through the door, using my muzzle to press down on the thumb latch and my forehead to push the door inward. It closes on its own behind me, so I drag my tail against it to keep it relatively open until I'm clear.

Now comes the tricky part.

I've been buying coffee with my card, which I'd been carrying in my mouth. But now that's in my purse, and it's much harder for me to fish it out of there than my tablet.

So, I saunter up to the counter, looking at Jill and Cerce, who are on shift today. Then I pull out my tablet and put it in my mouth. And I use my mouth to place it carefully on the counter, because I don't trust my claws to have the finesse to do that gracefully.

Then I rear up and put the knuckles of one claw against the bottom edge of the tablet. And carefully use my other index claw at the top of the tablet to press the power button.

Then I knuckle open the AAC app and select the word, “Help.”

“Oh, that’s cool!” Jill exclaims, stepping forward to watch me work.

Cerce steps up to look over her left shoulder.

“Credit card in purse,” I say, proud of the ease with which I found those words. “I cannot.”

The voice I've chosen for the app sounds like a stuffy British woman. And it pleases me to hear it. She sounds almost as old as I am. Though, it's really a voice synthesizer, so she's definitely younger. I was born before voice synthesizers were a thing, I think. The ones that were around when I was a welp were really crummy.

Cerce says, “Oh, don't worry about it,” waving a hand. “We'll cover you today.”

I tilt my head.

“Your usual, right?” Jill asks.

“Yes.”

“Can we get you anything else?”

I stare at the screen of my tablet for a bit, and don't feel like taking the time for a full sentence, so I search for the one relevant word and hit that, “Name.”

“Oh, you want a new name?”

“No.”

Cerce nudges her and says, “No silly, she has a new name and she wants us to change it in our system!”

“Oh, of course!” Jill beams at me.

But I'm too distracted by trying to figure out how Cerce knew about my pronoun change to answer right away. I've tilted my head the other way and pushed it further, as if by doing so I might be able to see into her mind. I can't.

“So, what’s your new name, Sweetie?” Jill asks.

I pull myself out of my wonder, and go back to my tablet. The app does have a keyboard for this kind of situation. I use it to say, “Meghan.”

“Oh, that’s a good name for you! You seem like Meghan,” Jill says as Cerce gets to work on my drink. “Same last name?”

I hadn't considered that.

I don’t have a lot of feelings about my legal last name. I never hated my family, but I was never really attached to them either. It's like there's a history that isn't even there, and I could reminisce about it, but I don't want to hold up the line.

A quick flick of my head and I see that there's no one behind me.

Remembering my conversation with Rhoda earlier this morning, I decide on something and take the time to type out, “the Dragon.”

“Oh, of course,” Jill grins and goes to enter that into the shop's computer.

While she's doing that, I take the time to compose a complete sentence.

“Cerce, how did you know my pronoun?” I ask.

“What was that?” she asks, turning off the steam wand.

I hit the repeat button, “Cerce, how did you know about my pronoun?”

She wrinkles her nose and squints at me, like she can't believe I even asked that, but then says, “The way you first reacted when we used your old name the other day was my first clue. But I didn’t figure it out then. But today, you're carrying yourself differently. Lighter, happier. And you've got a way to tell us your new name and you are downright giddy about it. And I guess it could have been they/them or xe/xyr, or even it/its, but she/her just kind of slipped out. It felt right. Like the whole dragon thing. It's you.”

So, I'm not only outwardly a dragon, but I'm obviously a girl dragon to people. I'm a trans girl dragon, and I'm not getting misgendered like other trans people do this early in their transition.

I'm having another moment where this all feels like it has to be a dream. But my dreams are always way more frustrating than this.

Whatever is going on, it's my literal childhood dream come true, and it's really not fair to anyone else.

Why do I get to experience this and nobody else?

Am I really the only one?

If there's a way to find out, how would I go about looking for it?

Well, I'm quickly getting better at this AAC thing. And if I take my time to compose my questions beforehand I can ask some pretty sophisticated things. The app allows me to save them, so I can ask them later.

I decide to spend my time at the shop to make a list of questions for Rhoda. Maybe she doesn't know anything, but I'm gonna follow my first hunch anyway. She seems eager to help, after all, so even if she's not a witch and doesn't know what's going on, she'll at least know the questions I'm hoping to find the answers for.

But I’ve got a question I want to ask everyone, so I hold up a single claw as best as I can in the gesture for “one moment”. Then I work on typing it out. But it takes me a little longer than the last question, because I’ve gotta figure out just how I want to word it.

I decide on, “Why aren’t you freaking out about me being a dragon?”

I hear the bell on the door behind me chime as Cerce is carrying my drink out to my favorite table, and Jill says to me, “Sweetie, Meghan, you’ve always been a dragon. Why would anyone freak out about it now?”

But before I can answer to that, or question it further, my head flicks to the side so that I can see behind me, and I catch a glimpse of the pinked haired person with the “I am Nimona” T-shirt standing agog just inside the door.

They look like they don’t know what to do.

They look like they’re about to bolt.