Melody couldn't quite explain why she felt the way she did, but she did. She was already tired, sore, and profoundly upset...the last thing she wanted to have to deal with right now was a couple of strangers moving in on her airspace! Let them find their own! Wasn't there enough room in the area?
She was too drained to really want to fight right now, but she was also cranky as all hell, and if they didn't start respecting her boundaries, she'd have to make sure they got a lesson on leaving her alone. Wings pumping, she soared up towards them.
Alex and Sally were winging their way through the sky, taking a bit more laid-back approach than the earlier chase-and-dive games they'd engaged in. Everything looked so different from up here, and distances seemed much smaller than on the ground - before they knew it, they were a good seven or eight miles from their neighborhood.
Alex was the first to notice, about a half-mile off and approaching fast, a winged figure. She was surprised to find that she could see the person quite clearly at this distance - it was another dragon-girl, about twelve, with green scales and warm brown hair. And...she looked pissed.
"Sally!" she said, raising her voice to be heard over the wind rushing past. "Look!"
Sally did. "Is...is she coming for us?" she asked. "Wh-what's she so mad about?"
Before they had a chance to discuss it further, the younger girl made her first pass, opening her mouth and spewing bright flames. Alex and Sally yelped and pulled away, though they noticed that she hadn't actually been aiming at them. Away, in fact.
"W-was that a w-warning?" Sally gasped, as they wheeled around to face the direction the other girl had gone. "Maybe we should go home..."
Alex scowled. "After that? No way! She doesn't get to just push us around!"
Melody frowned. She was still tired and uncomfortable, but the encounter had got her fired up - figuratively as well as literally. Still...she hadn't anticipated them being older than her...not by much, but they were definitely bigger, and with two of them...but she was pretty well pissed off now, she wasn't just going to give up. She turned back for another pass.
The twins saw the green dragon-girl coming back towards them. "Look," Alex said, "what we don't want is for her to be able to make any more attacks. If we can get ahold of her..."
Sally nodded. "But if she sees us coming..."
"Right. She won't. Follow me."
As the two parties rushed to meet each other, Alex and Sally saw the girl angle outward slightly, probably for another warning shot. Was she just trying to make them go away?
No matter. They kept to their course, watching as she approached. She began to breathe fire again, and the two red dragons noted where she was pointing. When they were nearly on top of her, Alex gave a signal. They angled sharply towards their opponent, reaching to grab her.
Neither had quite counted on the speed at which they met, and the first attempt had the green dragon-girl careening out of control, cutting her flame short in shock, while Alex and Sally felt her slip right out of their grasp. Alex gasped as she saw the other girl tumbling earthward, and dove towards her.
This time the force was lessened, since they weren't travelling in exactly opposite directions, and Alex managed a firm hold on her - it helped that she was too scared to fight it. That said, the speed of her fall was already pretty significant, and Alex took a sharp dip before managing to pull back up into a controlled descent.
Both of them landed pretty hard on the grass in a little municipal park, but they rolled with it well enough to escape injury. The green dragon-girl lurched up to her hands and knees, but couldn't find the strength to stand, dropping back to the ground and panting heavily. Alex was more than a little out of breath, too - and oh, were her wings aching.
"Wh-what did you do THAT for!?" she gasped, when she'd got her wind back. "We didn't do anything to you!"
"Y-you invaded my t-t-territory!" Melody stammered, trying to keep from crying. Stupid hormone rush! First she was angry and spoiling for a fight, now she was losing it...
"Your territory!?" Alex yelped. "We're in a city! Who do you think owns all these houses we flew over, you!?"
Sally touched down much more gently beside her sister. She looked first to Alex, who seemed all right, and then to their attacker...
"You've been crying," she said. "Are...are you okay?"
Alex stared at her incredulously. At a time like this, she was worried about the person who'd come after them? The other girl seemed lost for words, too, but not for quite the same reason.
Melody scowled at captor's twin, hardly believing what had happened. They invaded her airspace, took her down, and then had the gall to ask her questions? And...and on top of...on top of...
She burst into tears, and Sally knelt down beside her and put a hand on her shoulder. Melody tried to pull away, but couldn't even manage that. "There, there," the older girl said. "What's wrong?"
She couldn't even stop herself as she related the whole story of her awful afternoon to these strangers. She had been embarassed enough to let her parents know, let alone people she didn't even know - but they were dragon-girls too, so they would understand, right?
The twins gawked as a stunningly unsettling fact of dragon life was laid out for them. Sally had more context for the idea, but Alex had picked up a lot of vividly terrifying imagery from the mentions her mom had made of childbirth, and hadn't even considered the fact that she had a monthly cycle now at all...neither were happy to learn about this.
"It's...it'll be o-okay," Sally said, not actually sure that it would. "It's...it could be worse..." Not by much, she thought, but it could. Surely they would be built for this kind of thing, if they had to deal with it so regularily?
"It's awful!" Melody wailed. "It hurts, and it's so freaky...it's a mess, you can't just flush them..."
Sally sighed. "Well, yeah, but it was a painful mess to begin with..." She remembered quite well how freaked out she'd been when it first happened to her...even despite her mom's warning her ahead of time. "It's nothing to be ashamed of, it's...just how it is."
Melody moaned, unable to think of a more articulate response. Sally nodded. "It'll be okay. You'll get the hang of it, just like before..." It wouldn't make it not uncomfortable, of course, but knowing what to expect did help...
They remained there for a while while Melody let it all out, Sally trying to comfort her and Alex mostly just staring into space in shock and disbelief. Finally, the younger girl took a glance at her watch.
"I...I gotta g-go," she said. "S-supper's probably ready...s-s-sorry for...for...coming after you..."
"It's all right," Sally said. "See you around sometime."
Melody nodded and took off, drifting off towards home. Alex frowned. "You just let her go? She..."
Sally sighed. "Yeah...but I know how easy it can be to...let your emotions run away with you during this. And if she's telling the truth...that'd make anybody cranky."
Alex swallowed hard, trying not to picture it.
Muriel stood at the door and knocked. It was a nice house, not exactly a mansion but definitely a more upscale urban home. She almost hesitated to be here...people in houses like this tended to make her nervous. Still, Billy and Stacy seemed nice enough...their parents had to be all right.
The door opened to reveal an attractive human woman in her mid-forties, dressed casually but tastefully, and noticeably pregnant; Muriel wasn't an expert, but she guessed she was about four months along. She briefly balked at the sight of the woman in patchwork armor, but collected herself quickly. Muriel was used to that reaction...and points to her for realizing she was doing it, at least.
"Hello," she said, smiling. "Can I help you?"
"Mommy!" Billy said, edging around the insect-woman and clinging to her mother, "I made a friend at the park, an' she came home with us!" Jenny peeked out from behind Muriel and waved hello.
"My name's Muriel Walsh," Muriel said, "and this is my little girl Jenny." It was going to be so interesting getting used to saying that... "Your...daughter?" She hung on that word for a moment, until the other woman nodded, "was wanting to know if Jenny could come over to visit. If this isn't a good time for you..."
"Oh no, we don't have anything going on," the woman smiled. "Come on in. I'm Abigail Gordon; it's a pleasure to meet you."
Muriel smiled. "Nice to meet you as well." She went in, followed closely by Jenny and less closely by Stacy, who shut the door behind him. He was back in a more upright stance now - it would be hard to navigate the hallway when he measured ten or eleven feet stretched out horizontally.
"Mommy," the squirrel-girl said, "is Daddy awake yet?"
Abigail smiled. "Daddy's talking to one of the labs right now, sweetie. He'll be down in a little while." She turned to Muriel. "My husband and I...don't exactly see eye-to-eye on how to deal with...our children's changes. He's very hopeful that he can get a way for them to change back, and he's very concerned about me changing..." She sighed. "Myself...I kind of wish we could just...move on."
Muriel nodded. "It's a difficult question, to be sure. I can certainly understand his concern for you...I've never heard of the sun harming anybody in the process of a transformation, but even to chance it..."
"I know, I know," the other woman said, "it's just...ugh, I've been cooped up in here all day for the past month, and just when I'm starting to get my energy back after the first trimester...you know how it is."
Muriel frowned. "Uh, not really. Jenny's...adopted."
"Oh?" Abigail looked curious, glancing from the insect-woman to the little white-haired girl, who was off playing with Billy. "I see. If you don't mind my asking..."
Muriel nodded. "Well, I found her on patrol..." She noted her host's confused look. "I'm with the police department. I found her and brought her back to the station...we couldn't find anything about her in the missing-persons files, and she just sort of...latched onto me." She smiled. "We kept coming up dry, and she was so attached to me...and I was to her..."
Abigail smiled warmly. "That's wonderful. I'm sure you'll doing a fine job, dear."
