I fold my wings around her gently, and grasp her forepaw tight. She's quivering, taking short, sharp breaths through now-slit nostrils. Her eyes - newly opened to a scintillating orange - are darting around, taking in the world, filled with a mixture of wonder and panic.
"Hey, hey, calm down" I whisper, squeezing her forepaw with my own. "You're safe. Deep breaths. You're free now."
Her voice is distant, a little weak. "Everything's so small", she mutters. Her wings are flopped down by her flanks, twitching haphazardly. She isn't used to their presence.
I draw closer to her, embracing her in a hug of both forepaw and wing, my head over her shoulder. Her gaze is now fixed ahead at the forested mountains in the distance, her tail swaying unconsciously. But her breath begins to steady, her muscles relax. The panic that comes with a surprise change is subsiding - and she's turning her attention outwards, adjusting to new senses, new limbs, and her real self. She gingerly raises her wings, flexing them half open and back closed, experimentally moving the associated muscles.
I release her from the embrace, letting her slump onto her belly. Her snouted face is locked in an expression of wonder - smelling the earth, the woods, prey on distant winds. I trot around to her side and lounge similarly next to her.
"You changed really fast, honestly. Looks like your flame was really raring to light. You holding up good?"
She shakes her head, trying to gather herself, emerging from the enraptured state she was in.
"Y-yeah. Yeah, yeah I'm OK. Just..." she takes a deep breath, deeper than any breath she she had ever taken as a human.
"- it's a lot to take in all at once, I know."
There's a long, quiet moment. She sits up and starts staring at her claws, flexing her wings, and does that for a good minute or so before opening her maw again to speak.
"H-holy shit." she mumbles. "I'm- I'm a fucking dragon."
I turn at her, beaming with a smile. "Isn't it great?"
She looks back at me, her eyes welling with tears of joy. That most wonderful joy - a joy I had felt myself so many years ago, and that echoes in me again as i see stray tears of happiness falling across her shining, teal-blue scales. She just silently nods, quivering again, but now with barely contained happiness.
I chuckle, and nod back. "Welcome to the flock, kin."
That breaks the dam. She hurls herself at me with a powerful pounce, and eight tons of happy-laugh-bawling dragoness slam into me, holding me in a joyful embrace with both forelimbs and wings, tail thwacking the ground behind her. I can't help but laugh along with her, and hug her in return.
She tilts her head back and unleashes a roar into the afternoon sky. A roar of joy, declaring her presence. A dragon's way of shouting, "you better watch out cuz I'm in a good fuckin' mood right now!"
And I join in, with my own roar. We roar from our hearts, our flames. A duet of two dragons, sure in what they are, freed from what once bound them, and united in joy.