And then he took a deep moment to think and came up with. “Are you sure you’re not gonna have to eat me if I ask?” He joked.

                Silly little mut thought he could play me. “Well… I’ll make no guarantees… Never had a redmane before and you do look tasty.” I gave him a little flick on the nose.

                He blushed and covered his face. “AZRETH!!” It was just so easy to mess with him.

                “You started it silly pup…” I bleeped my tongue out at him. But got back to what was at hand. “… But enough of that, what are your questions?”

                He thought long and hard… I gave him all the time he needed, I never had to explain everything from the very start to anyone before, so this was likely to be a fun experience for us… Surprisingly, his first question was a very good one. “Is it ok if it’s not a question and instead a demonstration?”

                “What do you have in mind?” I asked… As if it wasn’t obvious.

                “You said you are huge… That you just shapeshift into this form… Show it to me! Your real form!” He sounded genuinely excited.

                “My real form? Are sure you want to see it?” I was a bit embarrassed. I didn’t expect a request like that, and as a bonus I always made a point to remain as kin as possible. Seeing him so excited about that made me fluster... It was like showing a personal secret to a friend.

                “I do… How often do you think people like me get to be close to a real dragon? I want the whole experience!” He smiled, and just like that I knew I couldn’t say no anymore.

                “Okay… Just give me some room.” I stood up and headed a few meters away from camp.

                I can’t accurately describe how it feels to change, you feel your muscles growing and expanding and it’s this mildly painful process that also feels really good, like the bliss after an intensive workout. But as you do change, you feel the added weight, you feel the muscles responding stronger and suddenly even the slightest of moves feels a lot bigger and heavier.
                As you gain weight the ground begins to sink and suddenly dirt that once held you perfectly feels like sand, trees that felt big and mighty shift to your touch and everything feels more fragile.
                The increased weight on the back end you compensate on instinct, like you’re trying to regain balance, I didn’t even noticed I got on all fours.
                But the biggest change is in the senses, as my eyes change it’s like the world loses a bit of depth and I began to feel dizzy, but once that’s settled the eyes adjust and suddenly everything feels… Smaller.
                As I change I also fell like smells that were faint before become a lot stronger and easier to trace.
                But the biggest change comes in the form of hearing. Everything feels… Quieter… The sounds everyone makes feels dampened, people start getting harder to hear, but normally dragons and half-breed are just as easy to speak to.
                The last bits to grow and spurt off were the wings that spread out like two extra arms stretching as far as they could before settling back down, mine were a bit worn out and flailed… Oh, And the horns! They felt like two spears propelling themselves off my head, that bit hurts like a bitch!
                One thing I always noticed when the transformation finished was how big and clumsy, I felt, suddenly I was bumping my head on the lower branches and my horns got mixed in with foliage… The wings were a pain too, but I could retract those into a less bothersome position.
                Another thing I noticed, was just how small Vernon was compared to me I reached out putting a paw in front of my eyes and measuring… I could fit him there, and a part of me wanted to just reach out and grab him! It was hard to refrain from that particular impulse.

                When you don’t count the few times I did this to save my own skin, I hadn’t willingly been like this in quite a long time, it certainly felt odd… “So?” I asked waiting for a compliment.

                “You are indeed quite big.” He responded with a little less excitement than I hopped… Strangely, he didn’t sound as damp as I remembered other kin sounding.

                “Just that? I’m big?” I raised my voice just a bit, I didn’t even notice it, but suddenly he covered his ears. “Oh! Sorry… I forgot!”

                He shook his head as to regain his senses. “I deserve that one…” He looked me up and down, from my head to my tail… It felt like he was more serious, like he was looking for real, so I even dared to pose a little. “You’re… the biggest thing I’ve ever seen!”

                “Now that is a compliment I can get behind.” I smiled mighty and proud… Strangely, I usually didn’t feel very proud of this form, but he made me feel that way… I puffed my chest in excitement.

                His fur stood on end, he looked scared for a second, but not the bad kind of scared, it was excitement. “Wow… I can hear you breathing from all the way over here, it’s so loud.”

                “He… Sorry, you’re just gonna have to get used to it.” I smiled again and felt my tail wave a bit, probably made a lot more noise than I realized too.

                “So, you can just go back and forth? Can you be something else?” He asked curiously.

                “Some dragons have more than one shifted form, but I only ever trained that one… It’s not even training now that I think about it, it’s just how you feel, you know?”
                “We’re very different from you kin that are born one way and stay like that, when a dragon feels fast and agile, he gets skinny and slender… When he feels tough you see their skin harden over the days… A young dragon will usually be just a small ball of fat and scales, but as we grow, we acquire characteristics of our own, sometimes we look like our parents, sometimes we don’t… You can tell a lot about a dragon just from how he looks.”

                “I see… What do you think your look means then?” He pondered.

                “That I’m a sexy beast…” I puffed my chest some more… He chuckled, and I was proud of myself, but I added. “… To be honest, I don’t know, it’s easy to analyze the forms of others, but not so when I do it to myself… You have any thoughts?”

                “We will stick with sexy beast for now…” He answered with a chuckle and I puffed my nose happily as well. He continued his careful analysis and pointed out a detail I completely forgot about… “Your teeth, it’s missing…” Guess it was easier to notice now than before.

                “Ah! I gave it to Alex as a gift… I wanted to do something nice for his daughter… Don’t worry, it grows back.”

                “He has a daughter?” He asked… Again… So naïve.

                “You really are clueless in these subjects, aren’t you?” I criticized.

                “How was I supposed to know?”

                “Nevermind…” I rolled my eyes. “Anything else of note?”

                This one came almost instantly. “Where did the pants go?”

                “Good question…” I moved around and showed him my tail where a metallic ring magically appeared a few minutes prior. “… Compartmentalized pants, it’s a magic sigil, they shift when I shift.”

                “Clever…” He pointed out. But then…
                He took a long hard look, then the squinted a bit… I knew exactly what he was looking at, honestly, they drove me back to bad memories, I hesitated, but since it was with Vernon, I felt like it was okay to show… I motioned one of my wings closer for him to look.
                Throughout our whole exchange past he had remained sitting, but now he stood, he motioned himself closer and tried to reach them taking the leathery part and rubbing it softly, when he did his eyes felt heavy and sad like they usually do. “Your wings… They’re… Torn.”

                “It happened a long time ago.”

                “Why would anyone do that to you?” He seemed so sad… He genuinely felt upset to see it, like it was something that was just wrong in his mind.
                It was ironic, at least to me, that he would say that when his body is almost completely covered in scars and old wounds… Compared to that a pair of shredded and useless wings feels like just a mild inconvenience.

                “Sometimes, people are just assholes Vernon, I’m sure you know too well… That applies doubly so for dragons.” And specially to my father.

                “I wished I could help you…” He lamented.

                “Don’t worry…” I tried to lighten him up. “At least it looks cool. I shouldn’t be so down about them… Right?” Yet he didn’t respond.

                Not out of misery, but out of distraction.
                Like suddenly he forgot all about the fact that he is supposed to be the brooding type… Instead, he approached me and gently touched his ear to my side listening to my breathing. 
                He didn’t even notice it, but he was rubbing along my flank like you do a feral to make them calm, I guess I knew now what a feral horse felt like.
                I had never had someone look at me the same way he was doing, it was like he was truly marveling in it, marveling in me... I was something exciting to him, and that made me proud to just… Be me.
                You’re not supposed to be so careless with a dragon like that as it’s a disrespectful to touch us on a blind spot, but I guess that wasn’t as much of a problem to him… It certainly was more tender than any other moment he allowed himself to get close to me, it even made me blush at first.
                I purposely said nothing… I wanted to see how long it would take him to realize. When he turned to me, I had the biggest and cockiest grin on the planet, that surely tipped him off as he immediately removed his hand and flustered beyond belief.

                “Why did you stop? It was rather nice…” I teased and kept grinning to myself.

                “I’m so sorry!” he flustered and cowered hiding his face with both his hands… Like he had just been caught doing something naughty.

                “Don’t worry… It was nice to see you explore me… You can keep going, rub to your hearts content.” I encouraged.

                 “No, that was inappropriate… I really can’t do that.” He was so adamant about it, I wished he was a bit looser, you know… Get a little frisky with me.
                But if that is what he wanted, I wasn’t going to bother him for some rubs, as pleasant as they might be.

                It was however getting really late, my body felt heavy and my eyes were having trouble staying open… I’m not usually one to sleep, dragons don’t need it as much, but I felt strangely comfortable and calm. “I should probably shift back, and we should get some sleep…” I said then stretched and yawned really loudly causing him to flinch again and every single animal around to cower and hide. “Ops… Sorry again!”

                “You can’t sleep like that?” He pondered again… he was a curious one.

                “I can, and it feels more comfortable actually…” Argument for it.

                “So…?”

                “I can also crush you in my sleep…” And also, a counter argument.

                His eyes widened and he shivered at the realization. “That does sound bad.”

                “It does, doesn’t it?” I pointed out sarcastically.

                “Well… I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable… Maybe I can sleep a little farther?” Even after I pointed out I could easily kill him he was still trying to make ME feel better… He really was something else.

                “Nah…” I started shrinking back down, the process feels exactly like the opposite. Sounds get louder, smells get fainter and the vision blurred for a bit… Muscles sored, but nothing I couldn’t handle.
                Once I felt more appropriately sized, I looked back and admired the small crater I left behind where the ground sunk and the trees spread apart, it made me feel strong.
                I turned back to Vernon, stretched my body again to get more used to it and pointed out. “Well… Off to bed then.” To which he nodded and then laid back looking over to the sky and the few stars we could watch beneath the trees.