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The view from so high up was so beautiful that he briefly forgot the situation that he was in and tried craning his neck for a better view. To Blake’s dismay, the costume resisted his movements and he heard a growl of displeasure echo in his ears. Did the thing expect him to just be a passive passenger the whole time? It only took a few more moments for Blake to finish filling out the costume. His toes merged together so that he only had three digits before extending into the costume’s taloned feet. As his hands slid into place within the wings, he felt his fingers get pulled into the individual sections of the costume’s gloves. The following sensation of his fingers growing impossibly long to fill in the wings was probably the strangest part of the transformation. Once the suit’s gloves were completely filled, he felt the wings flex his newly transformed arms as if testing them and fitting itself more tightly around him. Finally, his tail and horns finished growing in, completing the transformation. At least, Blake thought that was going to be the end, but was quickly proven wrong when the suit seemed to begin melting around him. Then, starting from his chest, the sensation of the suit against his skin vanished and he felt wind against his skin… no, his scales. As the process spread across his body, the suit’s strength seemed to weaken and the strain of flying began falling upon his own body. Blake panicked and tried to keep the glide going, but had no idea of how to operate his transformed body. Within moments he began spiraling out of control. The wyvern costume growled around him again, and he felt the skin-tight mask around his head melt and merge with him. As it did so, he felt a powerful presence push into his thoughts. With no warning Blake felt control of his body get wrenched away from him, and he felt his wings begin flapping to halt their descent. The wing membranes seemed different than before, they felt more like real hide than thin rubber. Finally, the last vestiges of the costume finished merging with Blake’s body, and he found himself flying through the sky as a living, breathing dragon. His fully transformed eyes were able to see so well that he nearly forgot that it was nighttime. Every flap of his powerful wings sent him higher and higher into the sky. He felt like he was living through an extremely vivid dream where he was flying freely over Sunrise Valley. The only problem was that he was not in control of the body, so Blake wasn’t truly the one who was experiencing the flight. The creature had somehow pushed him out of the driver seat and was taking them both who knows where. For a few minutes Blake didn’t even try to fight the thing’s control out of fear that he might cause them both of fall to their deaths if he struggled. However, he quickly began to fear that he might be trapped like this forever, and started testing the costume’s control. His first few attempts at regaining control were immediately thwarted. Whenever he seemed to regain control of his body for a moment, it felt as if his own skin began fighting against him. The living suit had control over him from both with and without! However, he found that if focused upon a single part of his body at a time, the thing had much more trouble resisting him. First, he managed to begin wiggling his toes and bending his legs before they began moving on their own again. Then he forcibly regained control of his neck and was able to get a better look at his draconic body before it snapped back into place. It was slight, but he was slowing finding that the creature’s power over him wasn’t absolute. Blake found himself suddenly growling, and a flood of anger washed over his mind. Somehow, he got the sensation that the suit was angry at him, and that it had no desire to share control. The question was, why would the thing that had chosen to attack him now be angry at him for being inside it? Whatever the suit thought of him, Blake was starting to fear that if he didn’t do something, he would be a prisoner in his own body for the rest of his life. He began to fight more earnestly, struggling to regain control and take over the flight. The suit fought him, and the conflicting impulses sent their body into a spasm. For a dizzying moment they spiraled out of control, and Blake was forced to let the wyvern take over again so that it could keep them alive. After the wyvern suit had corrected their flight again, Blake began wondering if fighting the suit for control in mid flight was really the best idea. Another wave of emotion from the thing interrupted his thoughts just then, and this time it felt both angry and defiant. The sheer intensity of the feelings shocked him. Slowly and carefully, he tried talking to the thing with their draconic maw, “Why… are you angry at me?” Blake said, both surprised that he was able to speak as a dragon, and that the suit was letting him do so. In response, Blake felt images flood into his mind. For a moment, he saw a view from inside the costume shop, and then he saw himself walk by the shop’s window. It took a moment for him to realize that he had just seen one of the suit’s memories. The memory faded and was replaced with another vision of the costume shop, but the lighting was different as if it was another time of day. Once again Blake saw himself walking by the shop’s window. More and more images followed, with the same scene but each one seeming to be from a different time. “Wait… you were only awake whenever I walked by the store?” Blake asked as he started to understand the implications. The suit responded with more emotions and images. A sense of loneliness and longing flooded Blake’s mind. He got the sense that the living suit had kept calling to him and waiting for him to claim it, but he never came. Eventually, the suit’s emotions within the memories became filled with anger and frustration. After what seemed like an eternity of being left alone, the suit had begun storing up its strength to come after him instead of waiting for him to come to it. “Why me though?” Blake found himself asking as he tried to process what exactly he was dealing with, “What are you?” As he spoke, the wyvern continued flying them further and further from town. It looked as if it was heading for one of the nearby mountains, perhaps to find a cave to make a home in. Despite the situation he was in, Blake found himself wondering what the life of a dragon would be like. A few vague images and sensations flowed into his mind again, but he couldn’t make sense of them this time. It seemed like the wyvern was more of an emotional creature than a sapient being, so it wasn’t possible for it to communicate complex concepts. However, Blake did get a growing sense that the costume had no intention of ever letting him go. Blake thought over what he had figured out so far about the insane situation he was in, and considered ways he could escape it. A part of him felt sorry for the living costume, but there was no way he could let it keep him trapped like this. Even though Blake felt like a lifelong dream of his was coming true in a strange way, he was beginning to fear that he would never be allowed full control. Plus, even if he could live out his life as a wyvern, he knew that he couldn’t just throw his old life away. Still, he found that he wanted to at least try out flying as a dragon, despite the risks that might be involved. “Can you… at least let me be in control for a bit?” Blake asked, while making a slight effort to reclaim control of his arms… no, his wings. “I’m sorry about what happened, I really am. I had no idea that you needed me, but you can’t just take my life awa...” Suddenly, his jaws slammed shut. After spending a moment struggling to speak again, he realized the suit had apparently decided it was done listening to him. Another flood of anger and something that felt like accusations flooded into his mind. It felt as if the creature blamed him for what it went through and felt he didn’t deserve what it offered. Since he was no longer able to form words, Blake panicked and tried to think of some way to get through to the living suit. Eventually, he reasoned that if the creature was mostly emotional, then maybe the best way to speak with it was through emotions. He wasn’t exactly sure how it was sending its feelings to him, but it was the only option that he could think of. Blake tried focusing on his own thoughts and feelings about what was going on. He first started with how sorry he felt for not noticing the costume before. Then, he focused on the terror that he felt whenever he thought about being stuck like this, and also just how much he wanted to try flying on his own. In fact, the more he thought about it, the more Blake found himself surprised by just how much he wanted to be the one flying. It wasn’t just because he wasn’t in control of his body, it was because he was so close to achieving his dream. Flying freely as a wyvern was something that he had dreamed of for years, and now that he was being blocked from it… it was incredibly painful. At first nothing seemed to change, and the wyvern continued on its path to the mountains. Blake persisted however, and kept trying to somehow project his feelings to the other mind he was sharing his body with. After a while Blake felt something from the wyvern’s mind which seemed like indecision and fear. It wasn’t handing back control, but it seemed as if it was at least rethinking what it was doing. After several more minutes passed, Blake felt his jaw and a few other parts of his body slowly loosen. It felt as if the wyvern suit was allowing him to speak again. After breathing a sigh of relief, Blake decided that suggesting a middle ground might be the best option for now. “Is there some way we could share control?”