My father didn't have the tiniest bit of magic in him, he couldn't understand it. He was a farmer. A practical man. So he did what his father had done before him, and any good father would do - his absolute best in raising his daughter. He knew he couldn't educate me in the ways of magic, so he tried to educate me in the ways of the world.

I remember it as clear as anything - the day he taught me to ride a horse. I was small and puny in my childhood, as most magic users are. We grow to rely on the magic for simple things, you see. This prevents us from growing large muscles and hampers our control of our bodies. My father didn't care. He put me on that horse and told me to ride. It was a gentle mare but I had not learned to control minds yet. What felt to me like a humongous beast underneath the saddle terrified me and I fell.

I woke up in my bed. My father had carried me there. He seemed both apologetic and disappointed at the same time. He told me then the most important lesson in my life - the lesson that would come to define me. He said "You can never let go, never give up control. If you do they will never respect you. And you'll be just another fool along for the ride."

I dreamed that night a powerful nightmare that seemed to go on forever. It was me riding the mare. At first gently walking, then trotting, then galloping around the farm trying to cast me off. But no matter what it did, how it moved, I held on. I kept my control. In this dream I was a master. I woke up the next morning and my father taught me some actual ways to ride - how to respect your mount, how it was an agreement between you and the horse, as well as practical things that would have been great to learn the day before.

But always in my nightmares I remembered the horse from my fall. A caricature of a horse, more vicious and evil than you could possibly imagine. Always the same - me, in control, riding the whirlwind of insanity masquerading as a horse. Holding on no matter what - or fall forever.

The dream stayed with me as I grew up and came into my real magical strength. Only now it wasn't just the mare from my childhood. When I was at the Colleges to further my studies in magic, it appeared as a feisty stallion. Young still, but four times the strength and twice the temper. Then, when I joined the Guilds and started adventuring, I dreamed of a mighty knight's steed in armor and covered in garish flags. The kind of mount that had seen the glory of combat and not just lived through it but grown from it. The more dangerous the world became around me, the greater the danger the mount posed in my dreams. I held on.

I will not say that the dreams didn't affect me. I needed control of everything in my life, and as a result lived a fairly lonely life. If someone were to describe me as controlling, I will say they were being gentle. But it was the way I was, the way I had been raised, and the way I lived each night. It gave me self-control as well, and that allowed me to develop my magical talents faster and farther than any other. Giving up - letting go - was simply unthinkable for me. If I gave up the reigns for even a second the world would cast me out.

I suppose it was inevitable that I would try to ride a dragon. My group of adventurers had done a marvelous job tracking it down and fighting the beast. It had roamed the countryside, burning villages, extorting Kingdoms for gold. A true terror. I wouldn't have gone with less than those hunters against the dragon for they the best, but I do want to credit them for the dragon's defeat. As it lay dying on the ground - as large as two buildings with a wingspan as tall as twenty - I felt that I had to try to ride it.

I was compelled. Not by magic, not by mind control. There wasn't a person in the world that could breach my mind then. But the dragon was a challenge. Like a musician playing a lonely note that can overwhelm you with emotions, seeing the dragon brought me back to my father's advice. I had to ride it. I had to be in control.

So I did. The dragon agreed. One last flight. Its wounds were too great, its nature too dangerous to be kept alive. But I did connect with the dragon during that one last ride. I suppose it imparted in me its wisdom and knowledge of dragon magic. The scholars told me later that it was a great honor. All I could feel riding the dragon was an unattainable level of accomplishment. Like I was doing what I was always meant to do.

It should come as no surprise to you that when I dreamed, I rode the dragon still. It was not mad like its dreamlike predecessors, but calm, submissive even. And me in control on top of it. I was not one to pour lavish words onto my own self confidence. I did experience a sense of nobility. A sense of right, with no determinable source. Every mad dreamride in my life had brought me to this point. I was on top of the world, master of all. As long as I held on, no danger could touch me.

The dragon's magic had further boosted my magical powers and with that my reputation in the Kingdoms. As in all things, it was windy on the top of the mountain. Years later, I was no longer working for the Guilds but running them. And they prospered under my rule - mightier than any king in the lands. Anything else would have been beneath me.

I had dealt with the odd assassin in my days but this change in me and my status brought about a change in the quality of people that came after me. Still, even I was surprised when the dragon hunters came after me. I was shocked even, a word I never would have used to describe myself before that day. It was the dragon hunters that had helped me slay the dragon all those years past. Though they were never my friends, nevertheless I couldn't help but feel a sense of betrayal.

They told me I reeked of dragon. "Impossible", I said, "I haven't ridden a dragon for a decade. You were there - or don't you remember?" They launched their attacks, their manipulative strikes, their carefully planned traps. All that was inconsequential for me now. I had grown too powerful. Though they were masters in their own crafts, to me they seemed sluggish, predictable. I flew between them, striking them one at a time and receiving not a single cut on my body.

But I did respect them for trying. When it came down to the last of them, I paused for a moment. None would accuse me of being melodramatic in any other moment. For this moment, I would concede the point. I supposed I felt a tinge of sadness at the passing of the old masters. "Why?" I asked them. I wanted to know what madness had driven them to this foolish endeavor.

At first they said nothing, so I pressed them, my breath hot in the air. "Were you so envious of the power I gained from the dragon? Or was it the reputation I received, did you feel stubbed? That your role was underplayed and less known? Or was it the riches that I spent wisely while you squandered it? Or were you simply unable to move on - stuck in your life trying to relive the old glory days?" The last of them looked me right in my eyes and uttered their last words. "You're the dragon."

I dreamed that night, as I had every night before since my fall from that mare my father tried to teach me to ride. For years, ever since we defeated the dragon, that dragon was what I had been riding in my dreams. But now, this night, everywhere I searched in my dreams - I couldn't find myself. I saw only the dragon roaming the lands, going where it wanted, doing what it wished. No matter what villages were burnt, what kings that begged for mercy. A true terror that none dared resist. The perfect image of control that nothing could threaten.

Where was I in the dream?