I suspected a drink of water could douse my firebreath, but that turned out to not be necessary: there had been a much simpler answer, one that didn't require me to immediately untangle my legs. Obviously I couldn't breathe fire if my mouth was closed, so shutting my mouth tightly for a few seconds made the valves in my throat close.
While I waited for my fish to cook, I practiced warming up and shutting off my fire; it was much easier than manipulating the wings (though my chest did feel sore by the time dinner was ready). Stood to reason - my wings could open and close, move in a circle, wrap around my chest, but the fire-sac-thing in my chest only did one thing. Produce flame, at varying degrees of intensity.
I wondered what would happen if I did cough.
Anyway, after dinner I found a nice clear patch of ground (with no grass) and used my fire to warm a sleeping spot. Without even thinking I lay down on the glowing embers I'd made - and discovered that fortunately my weredragon scales were immune, or at least highly resistant, to my own flames.
My pants were not. Ha ha.
Since I was alone and I would need my pants when I finally got out of here, I just took them off and tossed them a safe distance from my bed. I wondered if my weredragon form would shut off while I slept and hoped it would at least not happen until the embers had cooled to safe levels for human skin.
I dreamed of lightning and death; of the horrible raging fire that nearly ended me. It was in my blood, in my lungs, in my brain; consuming my breath, consuming my thoughts...
Then I dreamed of what happened after I fell into the cove and glided into the lake. Cold water met hot skin and very hot wings, with the surprisingly dramatic but somehow expected result of a loud hiss and massive clouds of steam. My wings and various fins tried to fold in on themselves - tried to put themselves away to escape the cold; I somehow managed to maintain control over everything that was basically just skin and blood vessels, and kept them open until they stopped sending up clouds. At which point I finally felt more comfortable, though still abnormally warm.
The next morning I was still a weredragon. My legs were twisted around each other in a way that would have been very unnatural for a human, and my wings were encasing me like a blanket. And yet somehow my body was completely relaxed in this awkward position.
I had to struggle a little to get myself untangled. Those large wings were a bit inconvenient, but my dream had put them in a new light. That concoction would have killed me if I hadn't been able to get rid of all that excess body heat, and those bat wings gave up heat very quickly.
After catching breakfast and setting it to cook in the firepit, I got back to flight practice. Nothing but fish, day in and day out, wasn't healthy for a human (I refused to think that an all-fish diet was my new reality), and I wanted out of here.
I seemed to be doing better - but my landing still needed work. A lot of work. Since my landing gear was my arms, I had to approach the ground like I was planning to slide in on my belly; I always felt like I was going to dig a trench with my face, especially since coming in slow was nearly impossible. I started looking for patches of thick grass to come in on - for extra security.
The first patch taught me something else about my new dragon form...
At first, it was nothing; I just crushed a lot of blades, first by slamming onto them and then by trying to get my legs to stop acting like half-tails so I could get back up. Then I got a good whiff of the bruised grass. It had a nice smell...a very nice smell, far better than just a newly-mowed lawn; it was spicy and chilly all at once, tingling in my nostrils and up my sinuses. There was also an undertone...heavy and sweet like thick honey, oozing through my brain and...
And then I slowly came up from a truly delightful time rolling around in the grass, feeling completely relaxed and even at peace with the world but also with a stuffy nose and a heavy head.
"Ugh."
I untangled my legs again, crawled out of the grass and rubbed my face, trying to recover - and piece together what just happened. Not like I needed to think very hard: obviously that grass was like catnip for weredragons, and I was susceptible. Maybe even highly susceptible.
It would be a good idea to check the area for more of that grass before I restarted flight practice.
No, not to get high again! My intent was to avoid getting high so that I could focus on my flight practice, therefore I needed to not crash in that particular type of grass again. Also, if I could figure out a safe way to gather and carry it, maybe when I got out of here I could drug-bomb some of those other weredragons; find out if it worked on them, as well as on me.
After a few minutes my legs started obeying my brain properly again, and I scouted the area for more dragon-nip; my nose was still stuffy, so at least I wouldn't be affected by it again. Also I returned to human form, hoping that that would at least slow any reaction after my sense of smell came back.
There were two large patches of dragon-nip; I marked their locations and made a mental note to avoid them.
Author's note: I know this chapter took a very long time to come out. I've been struggling with anxiety since the end of October 2017, and it's been making it difficult to write. Also this was sort of a nothing-chapter - not much happened, not much could happen, but I couldn't just jump straight from the end of the previous chapter to Hiccup getting out of the hole.
Next chapter will be a time-jump though.
