I let hot tears flow freely down my cheeks, but I carried on holding his hand. I laid my head down on the table next to his and wept myself to sleep.

Half way between consciousness and dreamland I felt something strange enter through the hand I was holding Dorrans with. It flowed like liquid, but was lighter than a feather. It traveled up my arm, through my shoulder, and entered my chest, coming to a stop next to my heart.

Then, I felt a kind of slow pulsing, circling sensation throughout my chest. Then, searing pain as the two things inside me collided.. I tried to scream but my body did not respond.

Heat traveled throughout my body, making me feel as if I were on fire.

I felt Dorrans hand vibrating wildly, but I couldn't tell if it were he or I that was causing it to do so. Intense heat flooded through me, and as it reached my head, I blacked out.

As I drifted back to consciousness I was aware of a slight throbbing resounding in my chest, but apart from that I felt more or less normal. Weird.

I thought back on what had happened last night, but all I could recall was shaking, then blacking out. I rubbed my hands over my closed eye lids and clasped my head in them. I took deep breaths and I soon felt less likely to throw up.

I opened my eyes again and noticed something was seriously wrong.

Dorran was missing.

I leapt to my feet, almost toppling over the stool in the process. The dazzling morning light filtered through the windows and reflected off the mirrors and onto the colorful assortments of healing plants that were hanging in bundles from the ceiling.

I quickly regained my balance and dashed out of the room, almost tearing the thick oak door off its hinges.

I skidded on the wooden floor into the small kitchen and immediately halted as my brain registered the scene before me.

My grandmother was sitting at the tiny pine table eating a breakfast of bacon and eggs, but that was not what made me do a double take.

Sitting next to the wrinkly old woman was Dorran, greedily devouring a strip of bacon that was half hanging out of his chewing mouth.

"Well good morning sleeping beauty, finally decided to get up now did we?" my grandmother teased as she saw me standing like a statue in the doorway.

Dorran looked up, saw that I was gawking at him, then hurriedly swept his gaze downwards and put all of his attention into slowly pulverizing a fried egg with is fork.

I straightened up, closed my mouth, then gracefully walked into the room with a more civilized manor, never taking my eyes off of the boy sitting at the kitchen table.

Afraid that if I did, he would drop dead onto the floor.

I'm seriously going to talk to that guy about this, I thought to myself.

Just then I saw Dorrans head whip up from his plate and turn towards me, his eyes wide and alarmed.

What did you just say? He asked, but what freaked me out was that his lips hadn't moved when he's spoken.

I cocked my head at him, confused.

I am talking to you with my mind, and apparently you can hear me, he said.

My mouth formed a small 'O' in surprise as his deep voice echoed around in my head, then comprehension dawned on me.

You can hear my thoughts? That's kind of an invasion of privacy don't you think? I didn't really like the idea of him being able to tap into my mind whenever he felt like it.

He smirked a bit as he heard this, but then his face turned serious again.

Listen to me, your grandmother is going to ask you to collect some roses in the dark woods, I will meet you near the rose bushes around the clearing, he told me. I nodded slightly so that only he could see, then turned my back on him to eat the rest of the eggs and bacon.

"Kalanie", my grandmother said after I had finished, "I still need you to gather the roses." I sighed, and wondered how Dorran had known she would say that.

"Yes grandmother." I replied, then stood, pushing the swinging bunches of healing herbs away from my face as I made my way to my room.

I quickly washed and dressed, choosing a blood-red thin woolen dress, found my boots, grabbed my cloak from the healing room, then went to the front door to retrieve my basket that I had dropped yesterday.

I fastened my cloak around me once more, then proceeded to leave the house and enter the hot summer sunshine.

As I entered Grimshaw, or the dark woods as Dorran had called it, the golden yellow light was instantly extinguished by the dense trees that swallowed me whole.

Most people never ventured in here, afraid of the dangers that lay deep within, but I was never scared, for I had been traveling into the forest ever since I was old enough to carry a basket without falling over from its weight.

The soft earth squished under my feet as I trudged through the shadows where the sunlight never reached.

It became increasing difficult to keep my feet from sinking into the wet mud, and my leather boots got stuck a couple of times.

I was nearing the clearing Dorran had talked about, and I still couldn't get over the fact that we could read each others minds, it was strange. It made me wonder if he had search through my mind and seen things I wouldn't have wanted anyone else to.

The though made me shudder, he wouldn't do that, would he?

I most certainly would not, Dorrans hurt voice resounded through my head.

You were spying on my thoughts? I snapped back, what part of 'invasion of privacy' do you not get?

For your information I was not spying on you, I was just checking to see that you hadn't gotten eaten or anything.

How generous of you, I thought back to him, but I was secretly glad that he did care.

While we were talking, I was so occupied with the thoughts that were swimming around my head that I hadn't been looking where I was going and I accidentally tripped over a tree root.

I let out a muffled yelp as I fell to the ground, managing to catch myself with my hands before I did a face plant.

I could hear Dorrans worried voice in my head, but I wasn't paying attention to it, I was too preoccupied with what I was now looking at.

Imprinted into the mud in front of my face were huge animal prints.

It resembled a wolfs, but was too big to be one.

The print looked fresh, and that meant that the beast was still lurking around somewhere.

Dorran, get back to the house quick, there's a beast roaming around the hillside. It's HUGE! I franticly thought to Dorran, hoping that he's listen to me and do as I told him.

Don't worry about that, it wont attack you, trust me, just run to the clearing,

I'm not coming to the clearing, I have to get home, and so do you before the thing eats you, I was getting angry now, he wasn't listening to me in the arrogant big headed way that males have when females tell them what to do.

It is not going to eat you, just get to the stupid clearing, he growled in my head.

There was obviously no way to convince him to get out of danger, so apparently I had to make him get out of it.

I pushed myself to my feet, trying to scrape the dirt off my hands and dress, but not doing a tremendous job at it.

I sighed through my teeth making a hissing noise as I made my way to the small, dim-lit clearing.

As I entered I saw Dorran sitting on the grass with his back to me.

Why did you want to meet here? I asked in his head, afraid that if I spoke out loud whatever made that print would hear us and find us.

That though sent shivers down my spine, I had nothing to defend myself with, and if such a huge monster attacked, there would be no way to stop it from ripping us to shreads.

"I've already said that it shall not attack", Dorran said, his back still to me.

His know-it-all attitude was starting to get on my nerves and I could feel the heat rising to my face as I got increasing angry.

"Oh really Mr. I-know-everything, what makes you so sure? If it attacked us now we would be dead within seconds, doesn't that bother you?" I shrieked at him, unleashing all my anger at the boy sitting in front of me.

His back didn't move and stayed as stone-like as ever, and this just infuriated me more.

"AT LEAST LOOK AT ME WHEN I SCREAM AT YOU!" I screamed at him so loud that the birds in the trees for miles around scattered with loud shrieks of anger and fear.

I heard him chuckle a bit at what I had said. Now he'd done it.

I clenched my teeth and my hands curled into fists as I tried to control the feeling of pouncing on him and ripping his throat out. But my method of anger control wasn't as affective as I hoped it would be.

Bone-jarring vibrations wracked my whole body and I felt the thing that had collided in my chest last night emerge out of its hiding place next to my heart and spread throughout my entire body.

Searing pain flashed up and down my skin like an electric shock.

I fearsome growl escaped my lips and I could feel my bones elongating, very painfully might I add.

Then my nose stretched and formed a type of snout and my spine extended and formed a long lizard-like tail.

Dagger-sharp teeth erupted in my mouth and there was a loud shredding sound at the skin on my back ripped down the middle and two huge, magnificent silver wings appeared from under the flesh.

I roared in pain, but the sound that escaped my jaws was more like a beasts than a humans.

My fingernails grew and curled into talons and silver scales erupted all over my newly formed body.

Two slightly curved horns sprouted from the back of my head and I fell forward as my neck lengthened and I landed on all fours.

As suddenly as it had come, the thundering vibrations ceased and I fell onto my side in pain.

I gulped at the air, trying to fill my lungs with sweet oxygen.

I was shaking violently with my eyes screwed tight in pain and fear.

When I had calmed down a bit and my breathing had slowed slightly I felt a hesitant hand lightly stroke my brow.

My eyes sprang open to look into the face of Dorran who was studying my carefully, but the weird thing was that the look on his face looked as if he had expected this to happen.

I shook my head to clear it of the vibrating-induced fuzziness that had clouded my mind.

I looked down at myself and gasped in shock.

Elegant silver scales that glowed like tiny stars, each with a light of their own, covered my entire body.

I had velvety wings attached to my back, probably twenty times as long as my body length.

My tail was sleek and graceful, or as graceful as a tail could be.

I looked down my muzzle and saw two nostrils and the top part of two curving fangs that extended to the bottom of my jaw.

I wasn't stupid, I knew what I had become.

A dragon.

Dun Dun Dun, this was probably the hardest chapter to write, so don't jump down my throat if you don't understand some of it. A special thanx to EragonPeep for being the first, and only! person to review, come on people, I love replying to reviews! constructive critisism is appreciated :D

For some reason it won't let me correct any mistakes on the other chapters, so sorry about that..

Hope you like the story so far, there will hopefully be many chapters to come :D

-Firesilk :D