Monsters and Machines - Three Days of the Dragon

Day 3

I opened my eyes slowly to a sunlit room. The wind must have blown the snow off the skylight. The light entered the room almost straight down, it must have been almost noon.

The air in the room was cool, calm, and still. I greedy sucked it in with a big yawn.

With no hesitation I rolled over on to all fours and out of bed.

I walked over to the mirror and liked what I saw. My eyes were alert and an almost iridescent shade of bluish-green. My posture was relaxed but put-together. Last night's large meal had metabolized and distributed itself evenly around my body, no more bones, and my gut a bit rounder. The scar on my stomach had almost completely faded away.

I felt calm and alert, my mind a blank slate, thoughts were simple and direct, not the tangled mess that had been before.

I felt grounded, I didn't have to move if I didn't have to, but I wielded immense strength, at my beck and call.

Without thinking too much I walked to the front door and opened it easily. Outside the day was clear as crystal, the landscape thoroughly coloured white in deep snow and the sky a solid bright blue, without a cloud in the sky.

I stepped out on the landing and closed the door behind me. I looked out and the landscape briefly and then closed my eyes. I could feel the frigid air drift softly around me, but a deep warmth within me kept it at bay. I opened my eyes again.

A day and a body like this should be celebrated.

I enthusiastically leapt from the landing, opened my wings, flapping them in strong, full stokes. I gained altitude quickly and circled around my castle. The usually black façade was a frost white, the banks of snow on the ledges and turrets, but still beautiful none the less. I felt proud of the work that loomed over the land.

The cold, dense air was easy to fly in. It had been a long time since I had flown without a destination, just for the fun of it. I really should have done it more often.

I turned away from the castle and gained altitude. I childlike voice in my head said "higher, higher"! It was an interesting idea, how high could I fly?

I pulled forward and gained speed, enthusiastically flapping my wings and gaining height. Up and up I went, the landscape shrinking beneath me. At first progress was easy, but as I kept climbing the air grew thinner and going up required more effort, but I persisted. I stole a glance down and could only make out the ridges of the mountains below, the trees, roads, and cities too snow covered were too far for even my keen eyes to see. I had never been this high before.

Still I kept rising.

Finally I could go no further, the air was too thin to climb and a somewhat strange light-headedness had crept up on me. Below me I could not make out much of anything, above me the blue sky was just a little bit darker. When I scanned the almost perfectly flat horizon I stopped in silent amazement. There was a curve in it, barely perceptible, but it was there.

"It really is round" I said breathlessly with a smile.

I flapped my wings one last time, and then enjoyed a brief moment of weightlessness as I began to fall back to the ground. Looking up at the sky I thought back to that blue beetle I was chasing.

As I dropped I gracefully twisted around, opened my wings and began to spiral down.

In the thin air I picked up speed quickly. I began to fly in a clockwise spiral as I descended to maintain control. As I did though, that same childlike voice said "faster, faster!" Another good idea.

I tucked in my wings a bit to make myself more aerodynamic and flew in larger and larger spirals as I picked up speed.

On either side of my head my ears were covered by fin-like structures that performed the neat little trick of making a subtle whistling noise as I flew. The sound's pitch and volume changed depending on my flight-speed, working as a natural speedometer. Right now the whistling was louder and higher pitched than I could ever remember. A new record for me then.