Trying to learn to walk was hard enough, now our Human-Turned-Dragon had to learn how to drink. And nothing he had in his head was proving to be of any help.
Learning to walk again was probably the most difficult thing he had done. At one point he even tried to walk on two but it was harder to maintain his balance for long periods of time on two than it was to easily walk four, the bulk of his wings were also not helping. But he still wanted to at least have the possibility to walk on his two hind legs so that he knew he could if he needed too.
He quickly found out the tail of a dragon had all sorts of uses from balance while standing with both four legs an especial two, but also with clearing room, and if necessary acting as a spring board of sorts; stuff like that.
While he walked he grew bored, so that he flexed his wings in all directions some more, and also to get a feel for them.
After what felt like an hour for most creatures, it felt like two to him, he finally heard the sound of water and head straight in direction he thought it originated from. The water proved to a bit father than he had originally thought, thus proving that a dragon's hearing was better than his previous form. When he did get there, he found he had yet another dilemma. How to drink?
First he tread to drink like a dog, that just felt wrong and the tongue a dragon has is not really meant to lap of things. Then he just stuck his whole mouth, muzzle now he was still getting used to being a dragon instead of a human, and sucked in the water. That seemed to work so he just went with that. He might have to find some other way later, but right now he was going with what worked.
When he was done drinking he decided to relax and try and learn a few more things about his new body. So he gazed at himself in the water.
What he saw was dragon with, now that he had cleaned a little from the water, more brownish than white color scales but still one in the same. His eyes were light brown just like as a human. He had horns coming out the top of his heads that looked almost like maces; they looked like they were made out the same thing as his tale as well. He smacked the water a bit, not easy given their location, with that he found that they would be a good alternative to head butting, not that he had ever done so nor really did he ever want to do such a thing. He also found something round in front of his eyes.
When he scratched a bit at this area he found something resisting his claws and that the item could be removed. With a bit more work, he got them removed and he found his eye sight was terrible.
He then suddenly remembered that as a human he needed glasses to see, thick glass as that. He figured that these had to be the dragon version of glasses; again it was odd how that came to be.
"They look a lot like goggles. I guess that would make since but still this is just so weird." As these thoughts ran through our friend's head he put the goggles back and took another look into the water. He noticed that the goggles appeared to not even exist. They were evident when you knew what you were looking for but if you weren't looking you never would have known that they were there.
This meant that whatever material they were made from was even better than glass, and given that they had yet to break also showed that they were strong. How they worked was something he would have to figure out because they did not appear to have be concave/convex like his old glasses, they appeared rather flat. But with his life already throwing strange at him, this was probably the lowest on his list of strange this day.
With his mind started to wonder again, he started to remember all his time playing video games and reading stories at his home, the Human world as he was now calling it. He remembered that all dragons have some kind of breath, well more element to control, in some stories they were only fire, some had fire with another element while others still had a whole host of powers depending on the element that dragon was.
As he was remembering this he again started to get the weird feeling that he could again "feel" the area around him, it was different than when he first woke up, but with this version it was more an annoyance than anything. He tried to block it out, but he just could not get himself to do so. His mind kept going back to it like it was the answer to his element problem, and given the odd stuff already floating in his brain he would not have been surprised. But the feeling seemed to have no source, at least not that he could easily see.
All he could see around him was trees, bushes, and the river all swaying lightly with the calm breeze flowing by. And when he tried to sit, close his eyes and concentrate on the feeling, it only got worse. The feeling was there, he could tell what was around him, but not what it actually was, just that it was there.
Eventually he got so frustrated with trying to figure it out that he concentrated only on the feeling with the desired thought to know what it was, and the natural instincts downloaded into his brained acted on it from there.
This meant he opened his mouth and let lose a small tornado.
He immediately closed his mouth making the Tornado die out without its source. He looked at the path that the force of nature had taken and was he surprised at the result. He had knocked down at least three fully grown trees roots and all without even trying. The Blast of wind had been short lived, but strong and very directed.
"Hole crap" was the only words that escaped his muzzle, the first coherent sounds to escape his muzzle that day. "If I did that by just opening my mouth and "blowing air", Could that mean I'm a 'Wind' Dragon? If does, I guess that solves one problem. Now I just need to learn control so that what just happened doesn't happen again. Or if it does, only when I want it to."
With that thought placed firmly in his head he went for a swim in the river that he was next to, hoping that the swim would help him relax and calm his mind enough to let him figure out his next step. It had nothing to do with the fact that his weight had finally caused the wet ground he was sitting on to finally decided it wanted to slip into the water taking him with it, no not at all.
Regardless of how he got in, he now had to relearn to swim, much like he had to learn to do everything else. He tried a few things to figure how best to swim, after splashing around in shock, he eventually found that acting like a dolphin and using his wings as extra thrust and, coupled with his tail, direction control was the best way to swim. This being completely contradictory to the fact that as a Human, he could not do a Dolphin kick for the life of him. He had been taught the school year previous, but only barley and even then he was no good at all. So given that Dolphin Kick was easiest as a dragon, which just added another layer of odd.
The other method he could have done was a style of freestyle. This style involving using his giant wings in place of arms and both sets of legs doing a flutter kick. It was this method that he used to get back to solid ground.
After he had plopped himself on the shore, his mind no calmer than it was before. Swimming was tiring, and he knew it. But from his experience, the how tired he currently felt was beyond how he should have felt. This meant that he should, probably would, only really swim when necessary. Or at least until he had gotten used to swimming a bit more.
He stayed in one place while he dried off, a little bit further from the edge of the river. Once he had done so, he then thought of another problem. How does a dragon go to the bathroom and better yet where?
Let us not go over how he figured that one out but he none the less figured it out. By now the sun was almost half way into the sky he figured it must be around nine or ten. He knew his body wouldn't normally let wake him any were from seven–eight and since the sun was just coming over the horizon when he woke up he figured he woke up around seven. All of this reliant on if where was had the same planetary characteristics as where he came from.
The Dragon-Still-Learning-To-Be-A-Dragon was getting hungry by this time so he got up quickly found/ate some berries that looked and smelled edible, hoping they would not rebound on him, but some information in his mind telling him the berries were common and safe.
Some in fact were not safe for most creatures, but dragons are special cases when it comes to means and plants.
With his stomach now satisfied he had a new goal in mind, figuring out how to fly.
With no cliffs nearby to jump off and learn that way, not that he really want to. He went with plan B, flapped his wings around a bit, and he started with his wings fully extended.
On his first flap, one with the start being perpendicular to his body and the end being as far down as he felt he could get them, he used as much strength as he could. The upward force of such a flap did in fact cause his body to rise of the ground…for a few seconds. It was just long enough for him to realize that yes his paws where not touching the ground and also yes that he was hanging in air there for a bit.
When gravity decided to reassert itself into the equation it brought our Flappy-Happy-Dragon back down onto his legs rather had. This rattle his whole body and caused him a good amount of shock and thus him freezing up. Soon enough though a large smiled stretched across his muzzle and without thinking too far ahead he tried again.
This time instead of one flap, he remembered to constantly move his wings. The only problem was that when he first tried he did not change the positioning of his wings causing them to catch just as much air going up as going down and in doing so throwing the large-winged-dragon back down to the ground.
His second try at multiple flaps worked much better, with him able to quickly contort the wings to catch much less air while also getting them back to the fully raised position. But this time his speed was lacking meaning he any altitude he was able to get was minimal at best.
Further attempts would provide the Human-Turned-Dragon with a better understanding of ways to move his wings faster as well as provide less resistance when he wanted to. And so all too soon he found himself rising further and further from the ground.
So engrossed with newly found flying abilities he almost did not notice when he had reached the canopy of the trees next to him. When he did, he completely froze, his wings in the down position. He had just enough time to realize how high up he was and that his wings had stopped before he started to fall to the solid unforgiving ground below.
He quickly let lose a frightened scream and fully extended his wings again. This instantly slowed his decent and even started to move him forward had vertical speed was partially turned into horizontal speed thanks to aerodynamics and his wings. So in a way he was flying, the only thing was…Could he land?
The major problem was that he had zero clue on how to land. Every time he tried, he would put one paw on the ground, then before he could comprehend he would end up in a heap. He hurt after each time, but he was determined to figure it out. The most notable of his crashes was when his right wing tip brushed the ground by accident causing him to lose all momentum on the right side, but since his left still wanted to keep going, he ended up doing some uncontrolled cartwheeling, until he had lost all of his moment with a splash into the water nearby. He made a mental note to never be turning when that close to the ground again.
After many, many crashes, our friend finally figured out a semi safe way to land. He had to land running bleeding out his moment that way. It was the most basic way of landing that he could safely come up with, and until his bruises went away he had no plan to try anything else. He also figured that if he had more room he could throw his entire body backwards using his wings to catch as much air as possible and use that as sort of air brake, or a parachute, and land that way.
With all of these attempts he never allowed himself to get very far off the ground, so he knew better how launch and glide than to actually fly.
The next bit was to connect launch and gliding to actually flying. His main problem was that it just took him too long to get airborne. His wings, while powerful, where too large to be able to flap fast enough for a decent launch. He wanted to be able to quickly get into the air, with as few flaps as possible.
To do this he turned to his power. While he did not fully understand his new control over the winds, he did know a few things. The main thing was that it responded to his call. So with his mind set and a plan decided on, he tried something new.
The Hopeful-Dragon call on power over the wind at the same time he gave a strong flap. In this method it caused there to be much more extra air, as well as a strong updraft, for the wings to catch onto and thus in forcing it to move caused acquire a much greater upwards momentum and thus Launching him up into the air and almost out of the trees with the first try.
Now successful on the first try, the dragon decided to land back on the ground and repeat the process multiple times so that he could get the hang of it better, and in doing so made the process almost instinctual. Once it was he used the same method, several times in a row to get himself fare enough the above the trees that he was able to properly fly.
His use of the wind/air caused his brain to make a connection from how it felt to use the wind to what his "feeling" of the world around him was like. He was not feeling in the literal sense; he was sensing the wind, however slight, move around and hit an object.
He thought was kind of cool but then went back to thinking on fly and how to avoid any more crashes. He knew he had to get somewhere, he could not stay where he was. And so, he directed himself to what the thought was east.
After about five minutes of flight though, he was getting bored again. So he decided to experiment with his wings and how his fling reacted. And with being at the much higher altitude he had less to worry about in the terms of crashing.
He found out the finger like portions of the wing and the many muscles in his wings allowed him to turn in several different ways. He also found that when flexed the right way he could make the claws on the end hold the entire wing for very fast spinning. And many other interesting reactions, some uncomfortable some others felt right.
But his favorite was the Claw trick, and he did a few times, but after those few times he began to get dizzy, so he cut it out and started to fly straight…ish.
He rarely had to flap his wings, which when fully extend was not easy anyways so that was of little problem. He was able to glide very well thanks to the size of his wings, and when he did flap it allowed him to greatly change how high, and which direction he was flying. He could use his new found Wing Boost if he wanted a little extra power, but for the most part the strength of the wings was enough.
When he was done with that he again started to work with his wind powers to again, wanting to also get a better understanding of them in some way. He started with his strangest, "feeling" the area around him.
At first it was difficult but then he closed his eyes and suddenly he could "see" everything. His wind compensated for his eyes at an instinctual level, everything about him seemed to work more at an instinctual level.
He could easily feel/see the wind around him, the tips of trees below him and if he concentrated enough he could feel the animals in the trees themselves. And with doing that he found he was being followed.
AN: oops, sorry for the wait there. I got myself a bit too distracted and thus forgot to post what I had. Sorry about that again.
This chapter...its original version was much shorter and had quite a few plot holes in it. As I was editing it there were spots that I had to delete then completely change. The end result is something that I am quite proud of for it makes far more sense and left room for the rest of the story. You also get to see what I meant by me reading too Much Harry Potter fanfiction. I have yet to reveal my OC's name, and thus I have to use other methods to do so. This will be going on for several more chapters.
Anyways, It is at this point that I reveal my view on the elements, or at least a part of it. More is revealed later in the story. But let me say this little tid bit, I see no element as truly dark, for it is not the weapon that choices to be evil but the one that holds the weapon. You'll understand this more as the story goes on.
Spots are still open for OCs, I have already received two messages for OCs and both present interesting and unique complications. And yet I look forward to when I can attempt to work on them. So if you wish to be apart of what is to come, message me and I'll see about adding your character.
And I'm now done, so until next time, Happy reading.
27 FEB 15 EDIT: Modifying the section dealing with flight, and a few other items.