Eventually, Ada stirred, lifting her body and stretching long like a cat. She yawned, revealing her hand-size fangs and her long, forked tongue.

Pasco looked up at her and smiled, the way that she looked up at him when she was between his legs. She was impressed with herself that the thought did not lead her immediately into frenzied arousal, and she suspected that it was the combination of the song and Pasco’s calming presence.

“How do you feel?” he asked.

“Really… relaxed. It’s nice.”

“I was thinking, if you want to, you might try to take a flight like this. You wouldn’t have to worry about falling.”

Ada stood up so quickly that a wave of water surged from the pool and drenched Pasco. He laughed good-naturedly.

“That is a great idea!” She’d been yearning to fly since she’d left her tower, but hadn’t really had the chance to. When she’d been alone in her fields she could keep enough of a handle on herself to at least land before she transformed, but she hadn’t trusted herself since she’d started on this voyage, and especially not after the incident with the sirens.

But, she had just thoroughly tested the locket’s magic, and was sure that it could contain even her draconic urges. The soothing melody was more of an invitation than an insistence, but if she let it, it really did calm her down.

She had also very thoroughly tested Pasco’s resolve, and she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she could trust him with this. Ada was starting to understand something about herself that explained a lot in her life, which was that even before the tower and the curse, stress aroused her. The pressures of royal life, the disapproval of her parents, her frustrations with her studies, all of that had set her hunting for sex.

It had not just been the lingering exhaustion from the sirens that had seen her libido relax over the past few days. It had been that she herself had been relaxed. There was little to stress about out here in this island paradise, and many ways other than sex to alleviate any stress that lingered.

She’d helped haul cargo to and from the boats that came and went, she’d gathered around fires to eat ripe fruit and listen to pirate stories and tell her own, and she’d set about learning the names of each of the children that careened around the town. One of them had made her a headband with little conch shells like her horns and a frill of mismatched parrot feathers, and she had put it on and pretended to be her dragon self and had chased them all around the huts and jungle brush and miles of sand until they had collapsed in a laughing heap at the center of town.

Pasco, for his part, did not seem aroused by stress and that seemed like a good thing. Their different inclinations created a delightful tension. Pulling at the ropes felt good not because she wanted to escape, but because they assured her that she couldn’t.

She’d have to tell him about this, later, but for the time being the sky was calling her.

She spread her wings in a spray of water that Pasco ducked playfully, but he was soon dry again as the powerful down-strokes of her wings washed over him and set the surface of the pool rippling.

And then she was in the sky. She started low, skimming the tops of the trees, her dragon eyes incredibly sharp, noticing every fluttering parrot and leaping monkey making their way through the treetops. She flew in no particular direction, then banked, tracing larger and larger circles out from the grove.

She angled towards the cluster of huts, sweeping low a couple of times and enjoying the way that the pirates stepped out to marvel, clapping and cheering as she flew over, the king and queen themselves waving up at her.

But that was just the a warm up. Ada pumped her wings, gaining height. Each island in the chain was a ring of sand around clumps of green vegetation, like emeralds set in gold. Even as she rose, the song never became any quieter. It stayed, soft and soothing, as if playing inside her very mind. And, she realized, it probably was.

She climbed even higher, and the song did not fade, and she suspected she could have flown to the other end of the earth and still she would have heard the melody of Pasco’s locket, just the same. That was a limit she had no interest in testing, however. She very much liked to be on the same end of the earth as Pasco.

Ada spiraled higher until she could cover the whole image of the island with her outstretched claw, and then something draconic and primal swelled urgently inside her.

But it was not arousal. It was play.

She twisted into a dive and then snapped her wings wide, catching herself with a wonderful spin in her stomach. She flapped hard and then angled her wings so that she spun through the air like a streamer, then banked into a spiral that drew tighter and tighter.

Like a ribbon kite she twirled and fluttered through the air, undulating through maneuver after maneuver that she had no idea she was capable of.

Joy surged out from her chest in a gout of flame and she soared through the hot air, which tickled her scales. She did that over and over again, creating flashes of red in the sunny sky, until she could breathe no more fire.

The sun had been high overhead when she had started her flight, and it was not until it was sliding down over the blushing horizon that Ada finally tired.

She started to glide down over the island in long, sweeping circles, taking in the scenery again. From this height she could still see the whole island chain, which had turned to a ruby necklace in the sunset.

Even though she had paid no conscious mind to mapping her surroundings, she knew exactly where to go to return to the glade, another surprising ability of the dragon. She swept low over the huts with the sun at her back, watching her shadow roll ahead of her as if she followed another dragon that knew the way.

She angled her wings and glided back towards the glade, where the waterfall tumbled down like red wine into the violet pool below.

Pasco was still there, his back against a rock next to the waterfall, and he waved at her as she approached. There was no where large enough for her to land except the center of the pool. As she dropped into it, a wave washed out over the borders of the pool and Pasco jumped up so as to not get soaked again.

The water had been warm before but now it felt cool and refreshing, perhaps because she’d built up so much heat from her vigorous exercise. Instinctively, she let her wings stay unfurled and dipped them into the water, sighing happily as the water pulled the heat from them.

Pasco settled down again on the rock that was even with the pool’s edge. He was naked, his shaft flaccid. Like when he had petted her snout, the experience was sensual and not overtly sexual. It was nice to finally be able to see him both ways.

“How was your flight?” He asked.

“It was amazing,” Ada said, her voice rumbling softly like the waterfall.

“You looked like you were having fun!”

“You saw?”

“A little bit.”

“What have you been up to?”

“Taking a nap. This is one of my favorite spots on the island.” The locket still rested on his chest, open, the soft song flowing out.

Ada tucked her wings in and settled deeper into the pond. She had never felt so content in her life.