Frost

A note to the general audience: this is an oddball, and I'm not entirely sure it belongs in Sci-Fi and Fantasy (though it would probably fit even worse in any other category.) Don't worry, though, as unlike my last story this contains no masochism--it's closer to the "transformation" end of things.

A note to those like Mack: I tried to research your lore, but you don't seem to have a unified mythology. No one can agree on where you lived or what you were like, from the most important aspects to the simplest details. I consider this a reason not to believe, but many ages have passed, after all, and memories can no longer be expected to be clear. Thus, if this story does not match the feelings inside you, treat it as an alternate view, subject to exaggeration and lies, but perhaps with a core of truth.

"Frost?"

The man spoke with a note of bemusement, drawing Trisha out of her thoughts more effectively than the many drunks who'd tried to flirt with her. She turned around on her barstool and looked him in the eye, trying to gauge his intentions.

He looked away in apparent embarrassment. "I'm sorry--I thought you were someone else." But it was too late for him. She looked him over--his tall, muscular frame and Nordic face, so different from her smaller, darker self--and she decided she liked what she saw. "Wait. I'm not Frost, but you look like you need a friendly ear. Sit down, and tell me what's on your mind." He sat down on the stool and took a moment to settle in, and then he talked. For an hour, he talked.

She listened without interrupting, apart from occasionally ordering drinks for him, and at the end of that hour she knew his name (Mack), his job (construction worker), his favorite color (white), and even what he ate for breakfast (plain oatmeal, every day.) It was obvious to her long before the outpouring finished that there was something he was hiding, but she was hardly the type to pry. When he was done, she told him her name and the bare minimum of information about herself, and they exchanged phone numbers. She hid her smile until he was out the door.

---

"He's adorable," Trisha told her friend Betty. They were on lunch break at the office where they both worked, and Betty, as usual, had turned the topic to Trisha's love life. "He acts like he's a superhero or something, but he's so scared inside. I'm not sure whether I want to comfort him or drag him into bed by his ankles."

"You'll pick the ankles, I just know it," Betty responded.

"He looks like he stepped off a plinth in the park! It would be immoral of me not to take advantage of him before someone else does. But I've got to wonder what he's so afraid of. He never mentioned any friends, any family, or anyone he trusts at all--it's like he doesn't want to get close to anyone."

"You were doing just fine before those last couple sentences. Give it a few years, and you'll be just like me."

They had a good laugh at that. Both of them knew that no matter how low Trisha sunk, she would never be like Betty. Then the topic turned to the latest unfortunate man Betty had her hooks in, and Trisha put herself on autopilot, saying as little as possible and thinking about Mack.

---

Their second date was a proper one, with flowers and a meal at a nice restaurant, but Mack's limited budget and Trisha's dislike of fancy food soon had them realizing they were better off keeping things informal. They met for the third time at his apartment, where they sat down on his bed and had themselves another talk. When he exhausted his discussion of the present (and showed no willingness to talk of his past), she found herself filling the gap in the conversation, telling him more and more about herself. Something in him invited trust, and she told him things she'd only said before to Betty, and even a few things she'd never told anyone before. When she, too, finished, they just sat there for a minute, close in body and feeling closer in mind.

"Who was Frost?" She didn't realize she'd asked him the question until a second after she'd done so, and then only from his startled expression.

Within five seconds, he was fully composed again, and his voice was neutral as he responded "Just someone I knew, a long time ago."

"I remember the way you said her name the other night. I can tell you've got some issue with her, something you can't forgive yourself for." She chuckled. "Confession is good for the soul, and who better to confess to than me? I don't know you well enough to blame you or judge you--it'll be like talking to a wall, unless you want me to talk back."

He eyed her for a long moment, and she could tell he was debating how much to tell her. Then he slumped forward and looked off into space.

"We called her Frost because she looked like she'd been snowed on, pale and strange, with funny-colored eyes that could never see very far ahead. None of us had ever seen an albino before, and the older folks told me her birth caused quite an uproar, though I was too young then to remember it. Half of us thought she was cursed. Even her parents wanted her abandoned to die. But my father thought she deserved a chance, and he was the closest thing we had to a leader. He and my mother wound up raising her alongside me."

"She was always a sickly girl. I don't know much about medicine, but I think something went wrong before she was born, something bigger than just albinism. She was never very strong or very fast, and she got tired so quickly. But she tried--believe me, she tried--and over time she strengthened up."

"The other kids thought she was an easy target, but only when I wasn't around. And I was around most of the time. There was something about her that made me want to protect her. It wasn't that she was different, or even that she was weak. It was that she didn't seem to care. There was something in the way she held herself that showed that she wanted to be more than she was; that someday she might be greater than all the rest of us. You have that something too--that's why you reminded me of her, even though you don't look anything like her."

"And then . . ." He trailed off.

"If you're not ready to talk about all of it yet, I'll understand," Trisha said.

Mack didn't respond directly. "It's getting late."

Before she ushered herself out, she asked him one last question. "How long ago was this?"

He only said, "A lifetime."

---

"You asked him about his ex? What were you thinking, Trisha?"

"It seemed like the right thing to do. I think he only trusts me because he thinks of me as her. I need to know what she was like so I don't scare him off. I've already found out that I need to act like I want to be 'greater than all the rest of us,' because she acted that way."

"The goal here is to get him to think of you instead of his ex! A guy who's fucking a memory makes a lousy lay. Trust, me, I know a lot about it."

"I don't know. It's so strange. Sometimes I feel like I've met him before . . ."

"Oh no you don't! You're trying to get laid! Don't start getting all weird and romantic!"

Trisha was silent for a moment. "Yes. I'll try to remember that."

---

Neither Trisha nor Mack brought up the subject of sex, instead gradually approaching it through touching and petting during their time at his apartment. The night she finally "got laid" was simply one where she took the initiative in trying to remove his clothes, and he took no initiative in stopping her.

Shirtless, he was magnificent, toned by the labors of his job. Pantless . . . She barely stopped herself from laughing at how embarrassed he looked. "Don't worry, it's perfectly normal for it to be that size. You're no porn star, but you'll do."

For a moment, he seemed very far off. "I could do better."

"What do you mean?"

"Do you trust me?"

She, too, was briefly distant. "Yes, I trust you. Why do you ask?"

In response, he leaned in close to her, and he whispered.

She wasn't sure what he said. She remained mostly unsure even as his voice grew louder and he leaned away. She couldn't tell whether he was speaking or singing, and whether it was in English or another language altogether. And then she couldn't tell what she was seeing, either--there were two of him at once, mirror images in the same space.

His words turned into a hiss, and black scales rippled across the cheek of one image. They spread across its face, then along its body. The duplicate grew and grew, till it was half again her height, and wings unfurled from its back. A tail hung low behind it, and its face pushed out into a reptilian snout as its fingers grew into claws. A snake's tongue poked out between its lips, tasting the air.

Are you afraid? the dragon asked, or words to that effect, at least. Part of her wanted to scream in terror. Another part could still see Mack's human body, and knew this wasn't real. But a third part of her repeated "I trust you" and waited for its response.

It reached for her shirt, but she gently pushed its claws away. "You'll tear it." She removed her clothes, then lay back on the bed with her legs spread wide, a maiden sacrificed to the wicked dragon. It extended its tongue, longer than she would have thought possible, and took a taste of one of her breasts.

Then it feasted.

Its tongue seemed to be everywhere at once, tasting, touching, bringing ecstasy. That part of her mind that was still rational noted that Mack was using his hands as well as his tongue, but when both Mack's and the dragon's tongue found their way between her legs, she ceased to care about the distinction. She rocked, and she screamed, and she hoped she wasn't waking up Mack's neighbors, because how could she ever explain about this wonderful dragon?

Sated at last, she lay still for a moment, basking in the feeling. Then she got up off the bed and took a good long look at the creature before her. "Turnabout is fair play, dragon."

Bringing her eyes to the part upon which she might direct this fair play, she found it too large to fit comfortably inside her. Too wrapped up in the illusion to even see Mack anymore, she wrapped one hand around the dragon's member, barely able to touch her forefinger to her thumb around its mass, and moved her hand up and down it, delighting in the strangeness of the scales. She bent over and licked the tip as her hand worked at the length, unable to provide as much pleasure to the dragon as it provided to her, but determined to try.

She ran her other hand down the dragon's back, disappointed to find no ridges like she had expected, then paused in disbelief as her hand encountered resistance. The scales were one thing, but her fingers should have gone right through the tail! But she didn't question it for long--she stroked the dragon's tail and penis together, trying to match both rhythms to her tongue's licking, and a satisfied hiss told her she'd made the right choice.

It didn't take long for the dragon's back to arch, and for a bitter taste to fill her mouth as a familiar fluid spattered her lips. Then she came back to herself, kneeling before Mack, with one hand on his dick and the other in empty air. She rushed to the bathroom and spat into the sink, then washed her face as Mack quietly laughed. "I almost feel insulted."

As she returned to the room, he stopped laughing. "So . . . now you know."

"I don't think I do," she responded. "What was that?"

"The last bit of magic I have left, one that makes me a bit like what I was in another life. Not as impressive, of course. Back then I could have wrapped you three times in one wing!"

"Then Frost . . ."

"Yes, she was a dragon too."

---

"That must have been one hell of a lay, Trisha."

"How could you tell?"

"You know the way those young guys walk when they've just gotten laid for the first time, like God just came down and congratulated them for it? I hardly ever see girls walk like that, and never an old hand like you."

Trisha did not, in fact, know what Betty was talking about, having significantly exaggerated her sexual exploits in an attempt to compete with her, but she did not feel like admitting it. "I'm not sure he's human."

"I've had a couple of guys like that. Just wait till he's leaving his dirty socks in the middle of the floor--he'll be human enough."

Whatever her faults, Betty had always been able to keep a secret, even one as big as Mack's. "I mean I'm not sure he's human. If it had happened to someone else, I'd have called it really, really good hypnotism, but . . ."

"What, a vampire? Did he suck your blood?" Betty was almost laughing.

"A dragon. I'm not joking. I can still feel the scales."

Betty gave Trisha a long, hard look. Then she relaxed. "Whoo-ee! He must really have fucked your brains out!"

---

Over the next few weeks, Trisha and Mack met almost every day. Sometimes she talked about her day-to-day grind, and Mack shared his stories of abusive supervisors and unsatisfiable clients, but the topic always turned to dragons.

He could not tell her where or when they had lived, only that there was water on three sides of their rocky aerie, and that snow covered the region in the winter. But he could tell her of the time he had spent there, of his friends and foes as he grew up, and even of some of the stories that the eldest dragons had told him. A few times he mentioned his father, stern, proud, and never quite as wise as anyone thought. Many times he talked about Frost, and the closeness the two had once shared.

By day, she never believed a word of it. By night, how could she deny it, when a dragon's long tongue licked her face as its tail penetrated her and its claws dug into her skin? She learned to enjoy the dual life, and not to wonder or worry.

But at last she had to ask the question. "How did Frost die?"

"What?"

"She must have died. That's the only way it all makes sense. If you don't want to talk about it, you don't have to, but . . ."

For a moment he looked very old. He looked straight forward, away from her, and spoke quietly. "Men came."

"We didn't know what they wanted. We'd never even seen their kind before. But the first of us to go and talk to them was spitted on their spears."

"Father called together all the best hunters, then led them off to fight the invaders. I was among them, though I asked to stay behind. I was worried about leaving the aerie unguarded. But Father was certain there was no danger. There was no way the humans could reach the aerie without passing by us."

"Father was an idiot. I broke ranks halfway to the invaders' camp, and avoided the ambush that killed him and everyone with him. I don't know how the humans got up the cliffs, but by the time I'd gotten back, the aerie was in ruins as well--I guess they knew that if someone escaped the ambush and got back, everyone else would flee."

"Frost was mostly in the hatchery, though parts of her were outside it. She'd tried to block the way to the eggs, which were stolen long before I got back. Some of her hide was gone--I think they wanted to see if it could be made into armor."

"You know the legends. A dragon can't go to its final rest until all of its hide has been burned to ashes. When the invaders left, I burned the dead in the aerie and at the ambush. Then I stuck the end of my tail in my mouth, and I bit down hard. I hid it on top of the tallest peak in the aerie--the flesh inside might have decayed, but I think the hide is still there."

"So many years searching for the last piece of Frost's hide, with no idea where to look. A shield, a helmet, a wall decoration? I searched as a dragon, until at last the humans killed me too. I think I searched as a man, though I can't remember any lives between then and now. I'm still searching, even though I don't know if the hide still exists. If I can find it, or find proof that it was destroyed, then I can look for the aerie again, and maybe I can rest."

"Or maybe there's another way." He leaned closer to her. "Maybe I can find Frost . . ."

She stared at him. "You still think I'm her?"

He smiled. "I don't know what to think. Some days I'm certain you're her. Some days I'm certain you're not. But I'm not sure I care. You're you, and I love you. Even if I hate the humans, I love you. I'm not going to give up on finding that hide, but Frost can wait for the end of this life."

---

"How're you and dragon-boy doing?"

"I think I know now why he's so afraid of people. I think I can fix everything."

"Sheesh! It's not like he's a broken vase! And you don't owe him anything, remember."

"He needs help from somebody. I might as well be the one to give it to him."

"You always were a bleeding heart. I'll roast popcorn in the dragon-flames when this goes wrong."

---

That night, like so many others, Trisha and Mack undressed themselves for bed. Mack transformed as soon as he'd finished taking off his pants, and Trisha was as aroused as ever. But before casting her shed jeans aside, she took a condom out of a pocket and waved it in front of the dragon. "See this?" she asked.

It'll never fit, replied the dragon.

"Oh yes it will. Do you trust me?"

As the dragon nodded, she leaned in and whispered to it. Then she leaned back, and spoke, or maybe sang.

Kneel, she told it, and its eyes widened as it obeyed.

Are you afraid? She ran her fingers across its cheek, and the scales vanished, replaced with soft pink skin that spread across its body.

You are human, she said as she pressed down on its shoulders, compacting it into a more manageable size. It stood again, but found itself no longer tall enough to escape her ministrations.

The dragons are long since dead, as she massaged its snout into a face.

You can never bring them back, as she touched its claws, then kissed its now-human hands.

Tell their stories, as she folded in its wings.

But let your rage die, as its tail vanished in her hands.

Lock your memories inside a corner of your heart. With that her words stopped. Her tongue was occupied with the dragon's penis, which softened and diminished under her care, becoming a still-serviceable human erection.

At last Mack stood before her, staring at her in disbelief. "You're Frost," he said, and it was not a question.

She looked up at his face. Does it matter?

She slipped the condom on him, and their sex was fumbling and awkward and human. They lay there together, and she whispered a few more words to him before they both fell asleep.

You will never again live as a dragon. But maybe you could still be a man.

---

"It's over now. He could probably still be a dragon in bed, but I don't think he's a dragon at heart."

"And they say you can't change a man. Sometimes you amaze me, Trisha."

"I don't know. I just don't know. I thought I saw a way to give him a happier life. I still can't be sure whether any of it was real, and I don't know whether we'll be able to stay together. He's got too many issues for me to treat all of them. But he tapped into something."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"I don't know if it was hypnotism, or magic, or if we really were both dragons. But I did something last night that I shouldn't have been able to do. And it won't go away. The feelings won't go away."

"Earth to Trisha. You're a soulless hedonist, and you're talking to another soulless hedonist."

Trisha leaned close to Betty, and whispered a few words. As she leaned back, she spoke, or maybe sang, and for just a moment white scales rippled across her dark face. Then she drew silent, and they vanished as if they'd never been there. Betty and Trisha stared at each other, neither speaking for several seconds.

Are you afraid? I am.