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South of the City of Greyhawk, and along the coast of Wooly Bay, lies the Bright Desert. Or that is what it was called, a century or two back. These days most people called it and the hills around it the Land of Lions.

Several prides of dire lions had moved in, back then, and over the decades the great cats only grew in size and number. These days the smaller ones were a couple of tons of muscle on softly padded paws, and many were far larger.

What was more, many had a scattering of metal-hard scales amongst their fur, and an abnormal strength and durability. If you were brave enough to sneak past these, past the hills and into the desert, you found less fur and more scales until you finally met great cats covered from nose to tailtip with scales. Dragonnes, they were called, normally a very rare thing to find. Here, though, there were as many as the prey would support.

Ships ceased to land on the shores of the desert, for the cats hunted in packs and quickly learned that a ship contained many small, crunchy foodstuffs in the form of its crew.

Bands of adventurers sometimes hunted them, hoping to bring away pelts and scales to make into armor. The less cautious and powerful groups ended up wearing that fur in a whole different way, for as long as it took the cats to digest them.

With dragonnes in the deep desert and equally giant cats in the Abbor-Alz hills which surrounded it, nearby countries built watchtowers. Powerful patrols hunted down and killed, or at least drove back into the hills or desert, any of the scaly cats who thought to leave it for greener hunting grounds. The dwarves and gnomes living in the hills stayed underground lest they be hunted like mice.

It was a problem, but a manageable one. If you made it difficult enough to for the cats to leave their hills and desert, there they would stay.

The desert was never a well traveled place, but these days it was a no man's land. And it was all the fault of one person. Or rather, one dragon.

A dragonne looked up from its perch atop a butte as a shadow passed over it. Rocs and other great fliers sometimes hunted the cats. There was a vague stirring as the half dozen less scaly cats lying still nearby looked up as well. Motionless, they blended perfectly with the sand, waiting for a flier to take the bait and become their next meal.

On other occasions the gold dragon had seen a solitary cat padding across the dry sands, in places where the great worms sometimes rose to the surface to hunt. Any worm trying that would have to be quick, for the pride mates were waiting, motionless so not to give away their location to the underground monsters.

The gold stayed up among the clouds until she saw the sand-colored spire in the deepest part of the desert. She circled once, flapping her wings like thunder to announce her approach, and came in for a landing atop the butte.

Here was a levelled area surrounded by cave openings in the butte. Nearby, two great-maned dire lions bigger than some dragons yawned lazily and watched her land. Guards, servants, lovers of the lady of this land they were, and they well knew the visitor.

"Lady of the sands," hissed the Gold, and ducked her head respectfully.

"Lady of the mountains," hissed the Great Brass Wyrm coiled on the warm stones. Brass dragons are the smallest and least powerful of the metallic dragons, but the Lady of the Sands was the exception. She was larger than the gold, older, and more powerful. A Great Gold Wyrm would outstrip her size and might, but nothing less. The prevailing opinion was that bloodline was not purely Brass, as happens among dragons. She was sired more than a thousand years ago and few were still alive from that time to puzzle it out.

"There are more lions in the desert than when last I visited," hissed Aurelia. "Don't you worry about, well, inbreeding?"

The great brass wyrm laughed. "Oh, not so much," she hissed. She gestured at the two massive lions lazing nearby. "When it is my time they will put a clutch in me, and when those eggs hatch and the young can fend for themselves I will shoo them out into the desert. Proper scaly dragonnes they'll be, living and mating with the lions.

She turned her head and gave the closer lion an affectionate nibble behind the ear. He turned amber-eyed and began to rise to his feet, but before he could step over her to mount she waved a claw and he settled back down.

When I have the itch for lovers, I look about for the biggest, the strongest, and the furriest. These two are many generations down the chain for me, with the dragonne blood much diluted." She smiled a toothy smile. "It's only a little incestuous."

Aurelia nodded. Dragons find ways to amuse themselves. You don't live to a thousand or more without developing an idiosyncracy or two.

"What brings you by," asked the Brass.

"I thought I might introduce you to one of my sons," hissed Aurelia. "His mate is brooding her eggs and tetchy. I thought he could use an excuse to be away from her for a little while."

"Which of your sons?" Aurelia was half her friend's age, but that was still five centuries. She'd had many lovers, and many clutches.

"You'll know when you see him," Aurelia said with a smile.

"By all means then," hissed the Brass, and pointed firmly toward the edge of the stony platform. One of the great lions rose, bumped the sleeping one awake with his forehead, and ten tons of lion in two five ton packages padded over to a shady spot that left more room for the dragons.

Aurelia's eyes drifted to the hind end of the lions as they padded away. They were handsome, muscular beasts, mostly lion, but besides the scattered brassy scales she saw another difference from the norm.

"I notice a bit of a change from the usual cat," Aurelia hissed. A lion's sheath is normally short and its penis narrow and barbed. Judging by the thickness and length of the sheaths she saw, these were well endowed lions. "Have you been tinkering?"

"Well, you know," the Brass hissed. "Dragon blood does pass down, and it makes a few changes. And when I go looking for lovers, I am choosy."

"So it's not like Ard and her cats," Aurelia hissed. The arch-mage Ard liked lions a bit more than is proper, and went on to create the khardaki lion people. Khardaki men are not hung small or thin.

"There may have been a little bit of tinkering," the Brass admitted. "But that was a long time ago."

Aurelia gestured with a claw and stared into the distance. "Son," she hissed. "I'd like to introduce you to someone, if you can get away for a little while."

The Brass couldn't hear the other end of the conversation, but the Gold nodded and crooked a claw as though to beckon someone closer. "All right then. Come on through."

The dragonesses looked up and the Brass gestured with a claw. No one could Teleport this close to her lair unless she permitted it. She so permitted, and a moment later a second Gold flickered into existence.

This Gold was closer to the eastern form, with a long snakey body that left room for a lengthy bulge. The Brass considered the shape of the meal as the heavily laden Gold came in for a landing. A dragon almost as large as this Gold was folded double in its long stomach.

The Gold came down with a great thump and it breathed a sigh of relief. Though dragon flight is partially magical, an innate form of levitation, hauling around a belly this full is some work.

"You didn't tell me you'd eaten someone recently," hissed Aurelia.

The Gold took the time to duck his head respectfully to the Brass. From the desert environs and the great cats nearby he knew where he was and who she was. "Lady of the sands, I greet you."

"Fat dragon, I greet you," she hissed, and mother and son dragons grinned.

"A Black tried to sneak into my mate's territory while she was brooding her eggs," the Gold hissed by way of explanation. "I spied him out and taught him the error of his ways."

"Still very solid," hissed Aurelia. She poked an inquisitive claw into the long bulge. Softened flesh sloshed, but the bones were still firm. "How long ago did you eat him?"

"A week, eight days perhaps," hissed the Gold.

"And he's still that solid?" Hissed the Brass.

"Black dragons are hard to digest," hissed the Gold. Aurelia and the Brass nodded. Black dragons spit acid, and if they weren't resistant to it they'd dissolve themselves. "But hard is not impossible. It takes longer, is all."

"Coppers as well, I hear," hissed the Brass.

"Yes," hissed the Gold. "A saw what was left of a Copper that was swallowed by a Red. The Red used the Copper's scales as a bed. They went through him perfectly intact. The acid eventually gets in somewhere, though, and the rest dissolves. A lot of Black scales are going to come out of me in a while."

"That is the Red who's the mayor of some little town, right?" Said his mother.

"He is," hissed the Gold. "He is a good mayor. I told him when I first visited that if he didn't keep his scales clean I would do to him what he did to the Copper, but I needn't have worried. Maybe he has some long term plan, but as far as I can tell he has no ambitions at all. He just runs his little demesne, and the villagers are happy to have him. About the only dragony thing he does is eat troublemakers."

"I remember you," hissed the Brass. "You're the Gold with the Silver mate. She's older and more powerful, but you courted her and ate her daughter when she misbehaved."

"Yes," hissed the Gold. "She asked it of me as a favor. I feared it would poison our reputation, but the Silver was doing evil things. For the sake of all our reputations, someone had to do something."

Aurelia nodded. The old chestnut was that dragons are color coded for your convenience, with all Good metallic ones and all Evil chromatic ones. It wasn't that simple, but it mostly held true, and it made it easier for metallics to negotiate with Good countries.

"She gave me her daughter's True Name," said the Gold. A dragon's True Name is a closely guarded secret and can be used as a weapon against them. Naturally, Aurelia's True Name is not Aurelia. "I bound her with the name and swallowed her."

"As one does," hissed the Brass. "On to other things. Aurelia, you're the envoy this year, yes?"

"Yes," hissed Aurelia. "I've been to Ulek, Keoland and Verbobonc so far. Next is Greyhawk, then Dyvers, Furyondy and Veluna."

"Better you than me," hissed the Brass. She shot the she-Gold a sly look. "Broken any statues this flight?"

"That was one time," grumbled Aurelia. "It was more fragile than it looked."

A long digestive gurgle emerged from the lengthy bulge in the Gold. He didn't apologize. Dragons rarely do. "I probably don't want to know this, but...statue?"

"Oh, you haven't heard?' The Brass rubbed her claws together gleefully. "Well, you know your mother's mood when she goes traveling."

The Gold let out a longsuffering sigh. "Yes. Yes, I do."

"So last time she was in the Envoy, and in the Principality of Ulek -"

The Gold wiggled a claw as he mentally visualized where this was all happening. "The Principality's capital is on the coast. It was a dolphin statue, wasn't it, mother?"

Aurelia shrugged. "I didnt think it would break. Getting it a bit wet wouldn't have hurt it."

The Brass tapped her claws on the stone. "It broke off in her! Middle of the night, invisible dragoness fucks a statue, and it breaks in half!"

"I fixed it," Aurelia grumped. "Squeezed it out and stuck it back together. I couldn't find one of the fins, though."

"So," hissed the Brass. "What have you been up to this time?"

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean," said Aurelia.

"Am I going to have to ask my friends along your route whether there are any mysteriously broken statues?"

"No statues," Aurelia said firmly.

The Gold sighed. "I'm not going to enjoy this, will I."

"Is your mother embarrassing you?" Hissed Aurelia. "Poor dear. I'm sure you've never done anything strange with your loins."

"Fine," sighed the Gold.

"So," Aurelia said brightly. "By the time I got to Verbobonc I was bored with the whole thing. Part of the town guard assembled as an honor guard, and there in the ranks a saw an animal in a city surcoat."

"What sort of animal?" Hissed the Brass.

"I didn't know! I could see it had six legs and some fur sticking out, but it was mostly covered in armor and a guard surcoat. So I said 'Is that a guardsman? What is it?' They said 'That is Corporal Bartleby. He is an Awakened dire badger'."

"A badger?" Hissed the Brass. She held two claws close together. "Those little things?"

"Dire badger," said Aurelia. "He was bigger than a lion. Not your lions," she gestured at the Brass's dire lions, one of whom was asleep again and other of which was licking its balls. "Bigger than a normal lion. About the size of three or four humans, and with six legs! I was curious."

"I bet you were," muttered her son.

"So I said 'I want the badger as my escort around town' and they of course made it so."

"Of course," hissed the brass. "What else could they do?"

"Now this badger could talk and he was ever so stodgy and polite. 'But you won't fit in town, ma'am,' he growled. I turned into an elf and put a saddle on him, so I could ride him around town."

"And then have him ride you," muttered her son.

"Hush, you. The badger was on firm orders to be on 'best behavior' and showed me around town, bought me flavored ice. Now it happens I had just seen a magical recording of a dire badger and displacer beast. Not a six legged badger, but still."

"Those are the six legged black cats with tentacles, I think," hissed the Brass.

"Just so. I mentioned this to him and he said it was based on him and a displacer beast he knew! He ate her, and grew an extra set of legs."

"That shouldn't happen," hissed the Brass.

"I said the same thing. I said 'I should like to meet this displacer beast'."

"And he said 'she's exploring the sewer system right now'," hissed the Gold

"Hush. Turned out she was Zathras's pet monster. He bought her back to life after the badger ate her."

The Gold and the Brass thought about that, and the Brass said "Zathras dropped off the map last year. I heard they found his tower abandoned, all his treasures gone. Some think he went into hiding to do research, or to avoid some enemies."

"He went into hiding in his pet's stomach, and researched what it's like to be digested," Aurelia hissed. "The displacer didn't admit as much, but I am certain that is what happened."

"Good riddance," hissed the Gold, and the Brass nodded. "One less wizard to worry about."

"Now as soon as I met the displacer, who was in humanoid form, I could smell that she and Bartleby were lovers."

"Who?" Said the Gold, who against his better judgement was drawn into the story.

"The badger. Try to keep up, dear. Now he'd been terribly well behaved so far, and I think he was afraid he'd hurt an elf if he fucked her, and cause a big stink. Or he was afraid of me, because he knew the elf was a dragon. So I turned into a she-badger to egg him on. I may have turned up my scent a bit, to get his attention."

"Of course," hissed the Brass. "That is what a lady does."

"It got his attention all right. I could see his little mind working as he resisted the urge to climb up my back and give it to me. He was under orders to be on his best behavior. What a struggle for the poor little thing! To tease him a bit, I told him I only mate in dragon form."

"I can see where this is going," groaned her son.

"Eventually he so anxious it made me anxious, so I carried him off to a private place."

"And stuffed him into yourself," said her son with a sigh.

"And stuffed him into myself. Don't worry, he's fine. I had a six legged badger in me, wriggling around at first, then he started going at my insides."

"Not with his claws I hope," hissed the Brass.

"With his penis. He was big enough and more than strong enough for that to be great fun, so when we were both done I squeezed him out and told him it was our little secret."

"Your little secret," hissed the Brass amusedly. "Like the secret about you and the statue, and you and that storm giant, and you and any one of a dozen other monsters I could name."

"Mother," said the Gold disapprovingly. "One of these times someone's seed will stick. It's going to be hard to explain when your eggs hatch as badger-dragons, or giant-dragons, or statue-dragons."

"Don't be silly, dear," hissed Aurelia. "A statue couldn't give me eggs."

"That big stone lion you fucked a while back could," hissed her son.

"Stone lion?" Inquired the brass. This was right up her alley, to so speak.

"A sort of gargoyle that masquerades as a statue," hissed Aurelia. "This one looked like a really big lion. A well hung really big lion, it turns out."

The Brass looked at her two attendant lions and and flicked out her tongue. The Gold suspected she'd be calling upon their services as soon as she was alone, or maybe before.

"As for you," hissed the Gold to her son. "That is the pot calling the kettle black. You have a wonderful mate now, but I seem to recall a certain indiscretion a few years back."

"That was one time," muttered the Gold.

"Two times, as I recall," hissed his mother.

"Well, don't keep me waiting," hissed the Brass.

"My son was hunting a White that was causing trouble, up in the icy lands," hissed the Gold.

"That is a chilly meal," hissed the Brass.

"I expect he laid on the protective spells so he could swallow it without freezing. He crept up on it in the ice fields and swallowed its head, but a great behir burst from the ice below it and swallowed its rump at the same moment."

"Behir, behir," muttered the Brass, and made a gesture with her claws like a lot of legs running. "Big centipede thing?"

"Breathes lightning," confirmed Aurelia. "So they are in this argument as to who gets to eat the White. They are the same size and when their jaws meet in the middle maybe he'll swallow her and the White together, or maybe the behir will swallow the White and him."

"So they fucked," hissed the Brass, with a keen knowledge of his dragon sex works from time to time.

"She was on heat," admitted the Gold, "and smelled enough like a dragoness in season. It just sort of happened."

"Of course," said Aurelia. "Sometimes you just fall on a Behir penis first."

"Mother," grumbled the Gold.

"So he fucked the behir and let her swallow the White," hissed Aurelia. "Everyone was happy. Except the White. Then later he hunted down the White's lair to loot it and the behir was there first. There was an argument, and the behir of course didn't want to split the hoard."

"So they fucked again," the Brass hissed reasonably.

"She was too full to fight," hissed the Gold, "I could have swallowed her, but it would have been a huge meal. The White was causing problems, she got rid of the White and wasn't causing any problems as far as I knew. It seemed wrong to eat someone who I had just mated with."

"That is quitter talk," hissed the Brass. "Some time back a big Copper tried to court me. He was jealous and tried to chase off my lions. I can confirm," she said with a look at the Gold. "Coppers take a while to digest."

"You could have mentioned that earlier," the Gold said crossly.

"So you tripped and fell on the behir penis first again," retorted the Brass. "And with two loads of dragon seed in her, minimum,"

"Just two," grumbled the Gold.

"And a belly full of White to feed her," continued the Brass,

"Yes," groaned the Gold. "Somewhere out there is a litter of dragon-behirs. Gold dragon-behirs. It's only a matter of time before they become public knowledge and it's bound to be traced back to me."

"These things happen," hissed Aurelia. "No one is pointing any fingers at the Mother of Dragonnes here."

"The lions eat all the ones that do," said the Brass cheerfully.

"Do you ever worry," hissed Aurelia, "That Tiamat will take offense to you eating so many evil dragons and send someone to kill you?"

"I am beneath the Dragon Queen's notice," hissed the Gold, but he still didn't say the Name. Names have power, whether they be dragon names or dragon-god names. "I am only middle sized for a Gold. Any dragon that loses to me she would probably think didn't have what it took anyway. Bahamut didn't send anyone after the Red after he swallowed the Copper."

"That Copper had it coming," hissed the Brass. "Well, my Copper did anyway."

"I did have a band of kobolds show up and want to serve me a while back," hissed the Gold. "I sniffed out the poison they were trying to sneak in. They served a Red who sees me as his enemy and while they weren't ordered to do it, sought to rid their master of a 'turbulent dragon'."

"And?" Hissed his mother.

"Kobolds are much easier to digest than dragons," hissed the Gold, and the dragonesses nodded.

Just then the Brass's own kobolds appeared, having laboriously filled basins with wine which they wheeled out for each dragon. One of the lions perked up at this and the kobolds soon reappeared with basins for them as well.

"No," hissed the Brass firmly, and the larger lion reluctantly spit out a kobold it was about to swallow. "Bad."

"Was the red the one who works for Monstertown?" Hissed his mother.

"I believe so. Colonel Firewing promises to do to me what I have done to other dragons, should I ever go there."

"I should put in a word for you," hissed his mother.

"It's his territory, mother. I do not speak for the Council of Dragons as you do, and have no diplomatic excuse to go there. The simplest way to avoid a conflict is not to go there."

The dragonesses nodded. Firewing was a Red Wyrm and powerful enough to send the Gold on a tour of his bowels, especially with the other puissant members of the Greyston city guard to help. The best way to avoid a messy incident that could lead to diplomatic arguments was for the Gold to stay away.

"So," hissed the Brass. "Whence are you bound for next, Aurelia?"

"Greyhawk," hissed the dragoness. "The usual round of diplomatic niceties, treaty re-ratifications and so on."

"Better you than me," the Brass said again. "Any particular statues you plan to visit?"

"Why, Lady of the Sands, you wound me," Aurelia hissed. "I just sated my urges with the help of a six legged badger."

"So," hissed the Brass conspiratorially. "You're looking for another beast of some sort."

"Well, I have heard there is a feral gul working there," Aurelia admitted. "And one that can grow in size, too. A wolverine is a lot like a badger. His normal form could serve me as the badger did, but maybe his big form can have its way with me more conventionally. I may have to help him get big enough, but I'm willing to put in the effort."

The Gold sighed and looked up at the sun, the draconic equivalent of checking his watch. "I should get back. I am too full to easily fly, but I can watch the eggs while she patrols the territory."

"Lady of the sands," he said deferentially, and ducked his head to the Brass.

"Fat dragon," she said cheerfully, and gestured with a claw. The two great lions rose to their paws and the Gold Teleported away just soon enough to miss seeing one mount his mother and the other the Brass. He did see enough to confirm that they were hung excessively well for cats their size.

"Welcome back, dear," hissed his mate Mirabet. She was a Silver Wyrm and he was well aware he'd mated above his station. "How is your mother?"

"She's well," the Gold hissed. He settled down atop the long bulge of half digested Black. "I can watch the eggs if you want to patrol."

"In a little while, dear," Mirabet hissed. "You were visiting the Lady of the Sands?"

"Yes," hissed the gold. "She and my mother are old friends. Aurelia is doing the diplomatic tour and stopped by to say hello."

"What did you talk about?"

"The usual dragon stuff," hissed the Gold.

"So, mostly sex," hissed Mirabet.

"Mostly sex," admitted the Gold, and nibbled his mate affectionately behind her horns. Because when you live to be a thousand, you need things to keep your interest, and politics and geneaologies and magical research only go so far in the regard.