"I'd love to keep coming out here to play, but Dad said that he'd finally start showing me an' Donny how to track down criminals and maybe take us along on some of his Marshal work, and even without that, I'm going to have to start having to work extra hard in school if I want to be able to get into college in a few years," the boy who wasn't nearly as little as he had been when they'd first met said, choking back a sob which sounded suspiciously like it was a prelude to saying goodbye forever instead of for a few hours or days, and the dragon wasn't having any of that, not yet.

"Then I'll come play wherever you are instead," the dragon said and gave one last laughing blast of flame up into the sky before banking his inner fires as low as they could go without going out, shortening his tail, hiding his shiny dark copper scales under fur and hair of the same color with a few small splashes of white added to the face and feet for dramatic effect, trading his claws for hooves, and, at the very last, folding his glorious wings away out of sight.

When he was finished, the newly made horse shook out his mane and gently nuzzled his boy just like he had always done while in dragon shape, because Comet was willing to give up flying for a handful of decades if it meant getting to stay with Brisco longer.