Mad About The Dragon

by Selene Griffin

  The day before he was due to see Maia again, he chose to wander his way into the travel plaza along route 15. Considering it was the nearest shop of any kind to his home, he frequented it roughly once every other week to get supplies. Every time he came, he could count on the same friendly face to greet him from behind the counter.

  “Johnathan!” He said with a hearty bellow as he walked through the front door, seeing the older gent right where he always was.

  “Ho there! Nearly knocked me from my chair this time, Ignacio!” Johnathan said with a hint of laughter behind his words. “I didn’t expect to see you until next week, my friend. What can I get for you today?”

  “Advice, to be honest, Johnathan.” He came right out with it, approaching the counter in order to lean against it. It was better than any therapist's couch in Vegas, and that's saying something.

  “Advice?” Hemmed the old man. “Pretty sure we don’t keep that in regular stock here,” he said with a wink. “And I’m not too sure what an old piece of leather like me could help you with. But ask away, my young friend.”

  Ignacio laughed and shook his head. Johnathan had been a long-standing fixture at the edges of this desert dweller life. Never once had the man questioned why Ignacio preferred to live alone in the desert or why the life he lived never seemed to take a toll on him. Johnathan simply offered friendly conversation and assistance where he could, with never a lick of judgement in any of it.

  “Well, I’ve met a girl…” He started.

  “Ahhhhh. I see. My advice is to do whatever she tells you,” Johnathan interrupted, though by the tone in his voice and the look in his eyes, he was just having a go at Ignacio.

  “Even I know that much, Johnathan, come on,” Ignacio fired back at him with a smirk. “I was actually hoping you could help me with a gift idea I had for her. It’s been a hell of a lot tougher to find than I expected, though.”

  Johnathan arched his eyebrows up and thought for a moment. He was a wise man who had seen and heard a great many things in his time. Ignacio was of little mystery to him and he had a strong feeling who this girl was that the young man had just met. After taking those thoughtful moments to choose his words, he offered up the bit of advice Ignacio had come seeking.

  “Well, in my experience, hand-made gifts tend to curry the most favor from the ladies.” He watched Ignacio’s face as the lad pondered the words he had offered. “Of course, things that sparkle and shine do the trick sometimes as well. If you have the means to make your gift, my advice is to do so.”

  Johnathan could see the thoughts working themselves out inside Ignacio’s head and the old man smiled before shaking his head.

  “It seems as though you already know what you should be doing, my friend,” he said in a kind and almost fatherly tone. “I suggest you stop trying to go about it the hard way, eh?”

  He reached across the counter to grasp Ignacio’s shoulder before giving him one of those tight-lipped yet reassuring smiles that only a person of wizened years could ever seem to manage.

  “Let me know how it goes, hm? Best of luck.” A quick pat to Ignacio’s shoulder and Johnathan let him go and started to move out from behind the counter. His long, salt and pepper braid swaying across his back as he headed through the store. “Be safe out in the sands, Ignacio.”

  Ignacio raised a hand in goodbye to his friend, smirking casually until the look was smacked right off of his face by realization and inspiration. He knew exactly what he was going to do and turned to take off out the front door and head back home.

  *

  His home, a little metal camping trailer perched atop the plateau of a red rock formation roughly 10 miles from the Moapa Paiute travel plaza, was simple and modest. A model from the mid 80s, at best, in a faded reddish-brown color that had seen better days. A generator and rain collections system were tucked off to the side and out of the way. The trailer looked as though it had been pinched or caught somehow, perhaps nabbed by a junkyard crane. Either way, the top of the metal structure had a few puncture holes, now patched up, along with some crumpling in the metal. Despite the structural damage, it was in more than livable shape.

  It had been parked just in front of an opening in the rocks that lead deep down into a cave system hollowed out over millennia by rain waters. Upon his return home, climbing a painstakingly carved set of steps in the rock face, he seemed to ignore the trailer and went right for the cave opening.

  The opening stood a solid 15 feet easy, leading into a passageway that was fairly equal in size. A gentle stope down with the occasional pitch went on for 20 or so yards before the space opened into a cavern of sorts. It was large enough to qualify as a one-bedroom apartment, if you went by square footage, and roughly 30 feet or so in height. All along the sandy red rock of the cavern walls there were large gouges, as if something had carved away at the rocks repeatedly. The crumbled stone and red dust coating the cavern floor supported this theory.

  After taking a look around, Ignacio snorted with a laugh and shook his head. He really couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of this on his own. Stripping out of his clothing, he set it off to the side, no sense ruining another set. Closing his eyes for a moment, he rolled his neck getting a few good pops from each side before taking in a slow deep breath.

  His body began to change all at once. His skin stretching as his bones grew and thickened, snapping and rearranging themselves as if following a plan. The process was quick and fluid and seemed to cause him little pain. His eyes remained closed as his skin began to grow thick, rock-hard scales from head to toe. A russet red color bloomed over his entire body, the edges of each scale turning a bright crimson. He lurched forward onto his hands and knees with a grunt, his shoulder popping and realigning themselves closer together on his back before spouting away from his body to take the form of massive, bat-like wings that settled across his back. His hands dug into the dirt, his fingers stretching and growing larger as the scales and red color took them over and soon they were replaced by massive claws.

  His neck grew thicker and at the same time stretched out, his face following suit as it changed and formed into the face of a dragon. When his change was complete, his eyes snapped open and focused in the dim light of the cave. They retained that same vivid amber but had the hard, slit-pupil fierceness of his kind. He stood there in his cave, a proper dragon, massive body filling nearly half of the space around him even as he lowered himself into a crouch. Reaching out with one of those massive claws, he grabbed a good-sized rock and pulled it close.

  A strong heat began to boil in deep within him, rising up his scaly neck before bursting from his open maw in the form of brilliant yellow flames. He blasted the rock, holding the fire as long as he could manage before cutting it off to see what had happened. Unfortunately, all he’d managed to do was half-melt the rock into a molten puddle on the floor of the cave. Snorting, he looked around for a few more rocks.

  Maia had told him that the glass formed from intense heat followed by rapid cooling. Setting up another rock, he dug in and focused on creating the hottest fire he could manage. When he blasted the rock, the fire came tinged in blue and he knew he had something that might work. The result was a red-hot rock, cooling to glass but with a melted and blob looking base to it. Close, but no cigar.

  The following few hours were spent getting the process just right to avoid melting the rocks yet still heat them enough to cause to glass. It was tricky and in the end, while he had managed to create one or two pieces that he felt she might like, he was still frustrated. Maia deserved better than what he had done so far. The thought of trying this out on a larger rock crossed his mind and he made the decision to scour the desert for the perfect one. Snatching up his folded clothes in one clawed hand, he headed out of the cave.

  Though he was massive in his dragon form, he could still slither his way up through the cave entrance and out onto the plateau where his trailer stood. Out in the open, his wings took the opportunit
y to stretch themselves to their full length under the light of a slowly setting sun, the crimsons and purples of the sky acting as a perfect camouflage. It was always difficult to resist the urge to fly while he was in his dragon form, but he had far more important things on his mind and turned away from the clouds above. Instead, he folded up his wings once more and crawled down along the face of his rocky home to reach the desert floor.

  The area around his home was sparse in larger rocks and so he spent quite some time walking the desert to find what he was looking for. By the time he had found it, the sky had gone dark with stars, the moon hiding itself amongst the clouds. When he came across it, a rock large enough for a man to fully hide behind, he had traveled a good seven or eight miles northwest from the location of his trailer. Not that the distance mattered to him. What mattered was finding the best rock for Maia.

  The rock was large, enough so that one of his massive claws could barely cover it. A quick inspection had him realizing he would have to muster an impressive amount of heat to make this work. He set his bundle of human clothing a bit some ways away to keep it from catching fire and moved to place his massive body a few feet from the rock.

  Those serpentine amber eyes closed tight, his focus narrowing in on the furnace in his belly and the power he could produce from it. Maia flashed in his mind’s eye. Her smile, the way her laughter seemed to fill the space around her with light. The way she seemed so confident in herself, enough so to say whatever she felt without anxiety. Even though their time together had been short, it had been more than significant to him. Never in his life had he met someone who instantly gave him a sense of completion, a sense of calm and contentment.

  Thoughts of her filled him, the fire stoking in his belly growing hotter and fiercer with every flash of her face through his mind. His heart began to race as his mind began to envision their next encounter. The possibilities fueled the furnace within him as he lost himself in his imagination. The image of sharing their first kiss blossomed in his mind and his heart felt like it would nearly explode. It was then he realized that, despite how little time he had spent with her, he loved her.

  In that moment, his eyes snapped open, a fiery and brilliant light burning behind them. His maw opened and a pure burst of white-hot, intense flame spewed forth. The power behind it pushed him back and in his shock, he lost control. Instinct kicked in even as the fire continued to pour out of him and he took to the air. Massive, ruby and crimson wings spreading and beating to lift his body up into the air. The fire still raged from him, consuming and burning everything within sight with a continuous white-hot intensity.

  When he finally managed to regain control of himself, the air around him boiled, a great wave of steam and heat rising from the landscape as if it were molten lava. Such a description was not too far off. As he hovered there, his wings blowing away the clogged air with each heavy beat, he began to see the result of his efforts.

  The desert, for as far as he could see from his vantage point a dozen or so feet in the air, glowed a deep and almost pulsating red. In the darkness of night, it was as if the entire landscape around him was illuminated by a continuous red light, though it quickly faded as the cooler temperature of the desert night began to fight its way back in. It was then he realized what he had done and his heart began to race once more.

  Glass. Solid, near perfect glass as far as the eye could see. The entire desert floor, the rock he had selected…everything. A desert of glass for miles. As it cooled rapidly in the night air, he lowered himself down towards the ground. When he was sure this newly formed glass floor would hold his weight, he settled down fully and looked around. What had he done?

  Perhaps it was shock, perhaps it was something else. But he shifted back into his human form and stood there in pure awe at the expanse of glass that unfolded before him. A series of emotions washed through him, everything from fear to elation, but the one that stuck with him was pure joy. Joy at the thought of Maia’s face when she saw what he had created just for her. He could imagine her surprise, the look on her face when he brought her here tomorrow. The one thing he couldn’t imagine…was what she would say. With his heart full of excitement, he took off across the landscape of his creation, naked as a jaybird and filled with more thrill than he could have imagined. He had to explore every inch of this glass desert. He had to find the most beautiful spot for Maia.

  Chapter Four

  Maia still couldn’t believe she had agreed to a date with Ignacio after knowing him less than 24 hours. Hell, she had known him less than 6 hours when she’d agreed to come and meet him out here again a few days later. Even though it had only been three days, it had felt like pure torture waiting for them to pass. Aside from the grueling practice schedule that had her dancing for nearly 4 solid hours every day, Ignacio had given her no way to contact him during those three days and it was almost unbearable for her to wait to hear his voice again. Something about that sweet and tender voice and that gorgeous accent just turned her into a puddle when he spoke.

  When the day had finally arrived, she could hardly contain herself. She knew that looking cute was probably the last thing she should be worried about when she was going out into the desert…but could you blame her? The last time Ignacio had seen her she had been in a pair of khaki capris, a t-shirt and a wide brimmed hat with sunglasses. Sure, they were her cat-eye glasses that made her look like a vintage movie star when combined with the hat, though that didn’t mean she had been dressed to impress.

  Not this time. This time she put a little effort into it and came up satisfied with the results. Those sometimes unruly, dark curls had been tamed into two pigtails bound just below her ears. The result was an adorable poof of hair by each of her shoulders. Combined with the wide brimmed hat, cat-eye sunglasses and a quick swipe of pink lip gloss, she looked pool-party ready from the neck up. From the neck down, she wasn’t half bad either, sporting a cute button-up top in a creamy yellow shade with shell sleeves and a flattering fit. A pair of skinny jean capris and a cute pair of hiking shoes and she was both cute as hell and ready to hit the sands for a few hours.

  The drive out to Crystal seemed to take forever and with every mile she grew more and more excited to see Ignacio. He’d suggested they meet an hour before sundown and she guessed it was so they might watch the sunset over the desert together. She had been swooning about it from the moment he’d first suggested it and she couldn’t wait.

  As she came to the Moapa Paiute Travel Plaza in Crystal, she decided she’d grab a few drinks and snacks to bring along with them as sort of an impromptu picnic out in the Valley of Fire. After zipping through the store quickly, she was all packed up and had her spare backpack loaded with a few bottles of water, two bottles of hard cider, and a fun array of snacks including fruit gummies, mini cookies, cheesy crackers, and a turkey sandwich she was going to suggest they split and share.

  While she stood next to her car waiting, she stared idly out into the desert surrounding the travel plaza. The light was just beginning to reach that pre-twilight phase and she could already feel the heat of the day beginning to leach away from the ground. When you were out in the desert, you could feel the temperature change even by the subtlest amount and it was something she loved. The desert never lied. That didn’t mean it was forgiving, however. So, she was glad she had packed a light jacket as well in case things got cold.

  When Ignacio arrived, it was not how she had imagined him to. He didn’t pull up in a car or on a motorcycle. Hell, he didn’t even show up on a peddle bike. Nope. He just walked up, seemingly right out of the desert itself, and approached her with a smile. He was as handsome as ever. So tall with those strong, broad shoulders and his narrow waist. He could have been a model for one of those super posh men’s magazines. His long hair had been pulled back into a ponytail the first time they’d met, but now he had left it loose and Maia could feel her jaw trying to drop. That thick, straight dark hair hung nearly to his shoulders and framed the str
ong yet smooth features of his face in the most perfect way possible. Even the way he wore a brown satchel bag at his side was sexy. Maia cleared her throat a bit and got her face back under control, flashing a smile at him as he closed the distance between them.

  “Hey there. Glad to see you didn’t stand me up,” she said, and immediately regretted it. Sometimes her cynicism got the better of her and she made comments she probably shouldn’t.

  “I would never,” he said, in mock offense with that alluring accent of his. Going so far as to put a hand to his heart in a show of earnest before that sexy-sweet little half smile of his broke free.

  Maia fought the urge to both giggle as well as chew her lower lip relentlessly in response to his playful reaction. Every moment that passed between them seemed to be better than the last and he was quickly becoming the most perfect man she had ever met. But it was just when you thought or said something like that…and suddenly here came Karma with her sister, Jinx, to ruin the party on your behalf.

  “Come with me, Maia. I have something I want to show you,” he said.

  “Oh, really? So soon?” She joked, wiggling her eyebrows at him a bit. “Usually that’s a third date sort of thing.”

  “What? Oh no! No, it’s not that,” he protested, a hint of nervous laughter in his voice. “I promise, you’ll like it.”

  “Oh, I’m sure I will, even if that’s not what you wanted to show me,” she continued to poke at him. Though part of her wondered if she should have.

  “No, seriously.” He laughed, smiling as he shook his head slightly. “Come on, it’s not that far of a walk.”

  “Alright, lead on then,” Maia said as she shrugged with a smile and began to walk with him, the two of them heading out into the late-afternoon desert.