Quicksilver

The darkness hung over Niphi. Once it would have been a hindrance, something to make her enemies feel that bit closer. Once, but not anymore. Now Niphi was a hunter, now the darkness was her ally. It cloaked her, letting her move unseen. An onlooker would consider themselves lucky if all they saw was a glint of her red eyes. Anything more, a sliver of metal perhaps, and they had something to worry about.

It was a cold night, a thin crisp layer of frost on the grass at her feet. High above, The Scintillations could just be seen. Dim shimmers of light from something far away. It could have been a beautiful evening. Were she not at work, Niphi might have taken a moment to look up and watch the light twisting and turning in the night sky. But not tonight. Tonight she had a job to do.

The carriages had been built expecting an attack, which was exactly why the soldiers manning them were not expecting an attack. That was the weakness of the gods, they had lived so long unopposed that they assumed no one had a chance at harming them. Finally, thanks to Sarrus, Niphi was beginning to see how wrong they were.

She wore a thin black cloak over her soft brown fur. Since her transformation, she had found that the cold did not bother her, even in those moments when she took back her Irali form. Maintaining a swift pace, she moved silently towards her target.

She had once been taught the principles of stealth. It was standard practice for a rebel officer to be taught how to operate behind enemy lines. Never the less, it had not been her favorite lesson, most of all because the training had covered escaping from soldiers, not running headlong into them.

The eight carriages she tailed, now becoming clearer as she approached, were heading down a road towards one of Svaneth's war camps. The God of Industry had many convoys just like this one that traveled throughout the countryside though they were not the focus of rebel attention. This one was special. General Savos had 'dreamt' about it. He was convinced that Vissin, one of Svaneth's generals, was being carried in one of the carriages.

Niphi chuckled to herself, Savos' dreams were a constant source of amusement to her. She had to admit to herself that her humor was one of the many things that had been changed by Sarrus' magic - the very same magic that he had been using to influence the general's dreams in the first place.

Niphi kept pace with the convoy, staying far enough away to avoid being seen until all eight wagons passed into the Dagoda forest. Moving between the trees on the left hand side of the road, Niphi sped up so as to shorten the distance between them. A minuet later she was in line with the rear wagon, still out of sight.

These were not ordinary wooden carriages. They were heavily armored iron wagons. The rebels used them for the protection they offered from fire though the gods, unaware of the rebellion's dragons, used them more for a show of strength. To Niphi, they no longer looked as impenetrable as they once had. Now, their impracticality made them almost laughable. The great contraptions weighed massive amounts and had to be pulled by three large horses each. Not only that, they had a habit of digging themselves into the ground if they went over soft earth. What was worst about the carriages, though, was how they put the lives of their guards at much greater risk. An attacking dragon knew that any precious cargo would be safe inside and so could happily incinerate both the driver and any foot-soldiers alongside or on top of the wagon, without worrying about destroying the content.

Preparing herself as she ran, Niphi held out her right hand and summoned her flame. A warmth ran up the inside of her arm, channeled from between her hearts. As the magic ran through her bicep, it passed underneath a leather pouch, strapped to her upper arm. Something cold slivered out of the pouch and began to run down the underside of her arm, along the path her flame took. Thick and silvery, the mercury pushed her soft fur aside as it went up her forearm and into her palm. There the strange substance, shaped by her magic, began to form the hilt of a sword. There was no grip, just the cold silvery metal. Still escaping her pouch, more of the liquid ran down her arm and along what had already formed of her sword, coming into place on the extending tip. Where the mercury stopped it solidified, becoming as tough as steel, held in place by her magic.

The last of her quicksilver ran to the tip of the weapon, hardening into a sharp point. The falchion she now held was the same shape as her old one, though far more beautiful. Niphi had surprised herself by how quickly she had given up the steel blade when shown such a worthy alternative.

Because the mercury reformed every time the blade was summoned, the surface was completely untarnished and shaped so perfectly that it could be used as a mirror. What was truly incredible, though, was how sharp it was. Even freshly sheared glass could not rival the edge that her magic put on the weapon, when combined with the extra weight the liquid metal held over iron alloys, it felt like it could cut through anything.

The shape of a falchion came naturally to Niphi's mind, though she quickly reminded herself that she had not come for a sword fight. Holding the weapon out in front of her, she changed the image she had of it in her head. As she did so, the sword reformed to match the image, a second hilt growing on the other end. Niphi gripped it, then separated the weapon into two. Quickly, the mercury reformed into two curved daggers which she flipped within her hands so that they pointed backwards.

Niphi looked out between the trees at the last wagon in the convoy. Keeping up the rear behind it was a single human soldier wearing Svaneth's colors, dark green. Every now and again, the man would look out into the forest or over his shoulder, keeping an eye out for anything suspicious. Niphi could tell that he was not well trained. The man's lookout was far too predictable.

Choosing her moment carefully, Niphi stepped out of the forest behind the trailing wagon, just as the guard at the rear began to look away from her. She dashed up behind him, putting her arms over his shoulders and crossing her blades over his neck, then, before the man had a chance to cry out, Niphi drew the tips of the two blades back, cutting two parallel lines into his throat.

The guard's blood hit the ground, followed by his corpse a moment later. Niphi barely spared him more than a passing glance as, blood dripping off her knives, she crossed behind the carriage and came out the other side.

This side of the carriage bore its heavy iron doors and so was covered by an additional guard. Niphi dashed up behind him and put her arm around his neck, cutting off his windpipe. The man began to kick and struggle but Niphi held fast and let the carriages move away until she was back behind them again, then she pulled the man into the shadow of the rear wagon and withdrew her arm, bringing the tip of her dagger along the man's neck as she did.

Niphi moved back out around the carriage again. As she did, she brought one of the daggers up to her mouth and ran her tongue along the blade, tasting the metallic blood and making herself hunger for more. She couldn't help it any longer, the taste had become far too palpable to her. Perhaps the old Niphi would not have approved of such blood lust. Now, though, she let it slide. That hunger gave her an edge.

At the front of the wagon, steering the horses was a single soldier. He was sitting on a bench looking forward. Niphi let her fire flare within her and climbed up, sitting down next to him.

The man looked round at the strange figure that had just slipped into his field of vision. Adrenaline pumping he made to cry out but the sound caught in his throat. He couldn't make out the features of the person sitting next to him, all he could focus on was a pair of red eyes that glowed brightly enough to dazzle him.

The figure spoke but the man could not quite put his finger on what it was saying. The words seemed to slip past recognition, burying themselves deep within his mind. He stared at the figure for a moment before it broke eye contact. The man looked forward once again, trying to focus on the carriage in front but finding it difficult to concentrate on it. "Just keep driving..." He thought to himself, the words reverberating around in his head.

Niphi hopped down and began making her way to the next cart, the seventh out of a convoy of eight. She kept count carefully, her target was in carriage five. Once again, this carriage was guarded by a single man walking alongside the heavy iron doors built into it. Niphi moved up behind him as fast as she could, any second now and she would be upon him.

The man looked round, his eyes went wide as he saw Niphi's shadowy form before him. He drew his sword and held it out, a little unsure. Niphi lunged at him and the man jumped back, then he lifted his sword up and brought it down towards Niphi. Anticipating the move, she put her two daggers together and with a loud clang she caught his sword. Before the guard had a chance to lift his weapon, the mercury in Niphi's daggers lost some of its solidity for a moment and reformed, trapping the guard's blade. He cursed but the sound was quickly replaced as Niphi drew a sharp breath then blew a plume of searingly hot red flame at him. The guard suddenly cried out in agony as his upper half was engulfed. He dropped to the ground, releasing his sword. Niphi cut off her fire and let her daggers reform and come apart, as the man rolled on the ground, trying to put out the fire that was rending his flesh, Niphi drove one of the blades into his neck and the guard went still.

Niphi took a moment to catch her breath, looking up the row of carriages, she winced as she realized how much noise she must have made. Already, two more carriage guards were running towards her and with a growl of irritation she realized that carriage six must have been a troupe of guards as eight more men poured out of it.

"ASSASSIN!" A guard cried out as the group ran towards her, the carriages coming to a halt as the alarm was raised. Niphi took a moment to decide how to face the attackers, then, becoming consumed in a rush of her red fire, Niphi took her dragonic form. Once her original transformation had completed, Niphi had become able to switch between the two forms at will, as Sarrus had done when she had first met him. Now that both forms had been ingrained into her soul, the transformation was easy and took mere seconds to complete. As the fire died down the guards stared on in shock at the dragoness that now stood before them.

Niphi drew a breath, then let out an ear shattering roar. Whatever bravado the guards may have had evaporated in an instant and they cowered back before her. Niphi eyed the men for a moment, before drawing another breath and unleashing the full force of her flame.

Never in all of her previous fights with dragons had Niphi ever imagined just how good it felt to breathe fire. It was the embodiment of a raw, primal fury that she had grown into since her transformation. For a while, she had been afraid of using it but now she had no restraint. Now she let her dominating power wash over the weak men before her.

In her dragonic form, Niphi could produce much more fire and she succeeded in engulfing five of the ten men in one breath. As they cried out in pain, some part of Niphi felt for them, knowing the despair of facing a dragon head on, especially with such small numbers. Yet the primal joy of the combat overshadowed this a good deal. She cut off the flames as five charred corpses dropped to the ground. The remaining five had begun to flee, narrowly escaping the conflagration that Niphi had unleashed.

Niphi charged the remaining men, Her four legs letting her move at impressive speed. As she reached them, she reared up and slammed two of the men to the ground, each under a set of her front talons. As she came down, she caught another man in her mouth and bit down hard, driving her teeth into his torso and feeling him squirming. She let out more of her fire, burning the helpless soldier caught between her jaws, then tossing him aside.

As Niphi rounded on the remaining two men, a loud voice called out behind her. "What is the meaning of this?"

Niphi turned to see a tall man in an impressive dark green uniform that was well decorated. She bore her teeth at him and let out a feral growl. This was her target, Vissin, the man she had to kill.

Vissin

Niphi opened her maw and let out another plume of red flame, aiming right for the general. To her suprise, though, he deflected it with a simple wave of his hand, the flames splitting to either side of him. Niphi looked shocked, a question catching in her throat for a moment that was quickly answered as the general became engulfed in his own blue flames. A moment later, a great green dragon towered over her, his impressive size a shock to Niphi. He was larger even than Sarrus.

Knowing that agility would be her advantage, Niphi pushed off from the ground, spreading her wings and taking to the air. She had not been prepared for this, had not been taught how to fight another dragon. After all, neither the rebels nor Sarrus had known that Vissin was a dragon himself. Niphi found that despite this though, something drove her on, a powerful instinct that had come with her new body. Under it's guidance, she quickly beat her wings to gain height.

Vissin quickly took to the skies himself, pursuing Niphi upwards though he seemed to struggle to gain height as quickly as she did.

Suddenly, Niphi let herself drop, shooting downwards, going for his neck. Vissin had predicted this, though and banked sharply to the left as she got close. Rolling to the side, he lashed out with his foreclaws and managed to cut a gouge into Niphi's underbelly.

Niphi howled out in pain, the feeling somehow serving to spur her on. She quickly dropped down, then flew away from Vissin and began to gain height once again. This time, though, having come out lower than the other dragon, Niphi could not gain height quickly enough. This misjudgment surprised her, while she had practiced flying a lot, she found that she had begun to grow heavier.

Within a moment, Vissin was on her tail. He beat his wings once to bring himself up over her back, then brought his weight down on top of her.

Niphi let out a growl as she felt herself suddenly pushed downwards. She tried to struggle out from under Vissin's talons but he clamped his jaws around her neck and forced her to go still.

Niphi was forced to land hard by the dragon's weight, her legs collapsing under her. Vissin chuckled, then used a set of foreclaws to push her head into the ground, allowing him to free his jaws.

"My my..." he said in a slow voice "Whoever sent you has excellent taste..."

With a shudder, Niphi felt his tongue run along the back of her neck. She struggled, trying to throw him off but he was too heavy.

"Was it Varion? He certainly does like cloak and dagger..." He chuckled "I think this deadly assassin just turned into a gracious gift."

Niphi growled furiously as she felt his tail wrap around hers, lifting it upwards. "Get off me you piece of shit!" She yelled.

Vissin just chuckled. "Temper, temper, little one. You're mine now..."

Niphi's eyes went wide as she felt something hot brush against her nethers. "Don't you dare!"

The male just chuckled again as he lined himself up.

Suddenly Vissin looked up, just as something shot out of the shadows and hit him with such a force that he was thrown off the dragoness below.

Sarrus roared as Vissin was thrown onto his back by the headbutt. Quickly, the black dragon pinned him to the ground, holding the green upside down.

"You took your sweet time." Niphi said matter-of-factly as she got to her feet.

"You attacked early" Sarrus scalded her as Vissin thrashed beneath him, quickly Sarrus bit down on his neck, forcing him to go still. The green dragon looked a lot more pathetic now. Pinned in place by a smaller male, the green's hard pink cock clearly visible.

Niphi stepped up to Vissin's head but looked slightly confused. "Why don't you finish him?" She asked.

Sarrus gave her an irritated look.

"Me?" She asked.

Sarrus nodded. Vissin started to struggle again and so the black dragon was forced to bite down harder.

Sarrus had explained in principle how dragons killed each other to Niphi but she had never actually done it. She eyed his mouth uncomfortably. "You will bite down if he starts to overpower me, right?"

Sarrus nodded urgently.

Niphi hesitated for another moment, then awkwardly gripped the bottom of Vissin's jaw with a set of foretalons. Hesitating again for a moment, she leaned down and used her mouth to grip the upper part of his snout and prize it open. Vissin clenched his jaws hard but Niphi had managed to block his nose with the positioning of her bite and he was eventually forced to release. As soon as he did, Niphi let her mouth slip downwards and she locked herself into a kiss with the green.

Once again, running partly on instinct, she unleashed her flames. This time it did not feel good as it was instantly met with resistance as Vissin's blue fire came out to meet hers. Niphi found herself straining, pushing with all her might to beat back the enemy dragon's fire.

Their flames formed a sort of front line with each other, fighting to push the other back. Despite what Niphi had thought she had known about the nature of fire, these two flames would not mix, they reacted violently to each other and Niphi could feel an immense heat being released between their jaws.

The heat began to rise up, traveling away from Vissin's mouth and into Niphi's instead. Her eyes went wide with fear, dreading what would happen if the flames breached her body. Higher and higher they went and Sarrus did not appear to be cutting off Vissin's windpipe. Primal panic came over Niphi as she found that she could not pull away, could not escape the deadly embrace.

Just as she felt it descend down her throat, a wave of survival instinct kicked in and brought with it more force.

Blue and red flames escaping through the gaps between their teeth, Niphi pushed with all her might. It began slowly, the rising flame front coming to a halt, then slowly beginning to descend back towards Vissin. He struggled against it, but Niphi would not yield and the front accelerated, dropping down into his throat. As it did, Sarrus released his neck, then stepped off him, watching with interest.

Vissin began to thrash wildly, his eyes wide while Niphi maintained the kiss, forcing more and more fire into him until her flames reached their target, right between the green dragon's hearts.

Vissin's thrashing became more violent and less controlled as red light began to escape out from under the scales on his chest. The light spread out, further and further as the great rush of inferno tore through him, accelerating. Within a few seconds it had spread to his limbs and tongues of flame were visible underneath his scales. He gave one final thrash before going suddenly still, the light fading from his eyes.

Niphi finally let her fire die back and broke the embrace. She stepped away, her head spinning from the exertion and looked over the corpse that lay before her. What had once been a dragon was now a charred mess, a feeble wisp of smoke rising from the corpse's open mouth.

Niphi slumped onto her haunches, catching her breath. "I... I did it..."

Sarrus nodded "Nicely done."

Niphi could not help but notice a hint of pride in his voice.

"It's no mean feat to extinguish another dragon's soul. The fire which burns within us both does not go out without a fight."

Niphi nodded "Tell me about it." She looked up at the lilac eyed dragon for a moment, still catching her breath.

Sarrus looked back at Niphi and held her gaze for a moment, pursing his scaled lips as if to say something. A moment later, he broke the gaze with a polite nod, then turned and flew away.

Niphi thoughtfully ran her tongue over her teeth for a moment before getting to her feet and taking to the sky herself.

New Life

Everything was difficult now. To Niphi, even the simplest tasks seemed to take an immense effort. Now, it had gotten so bad that she could not transform; trapped as a dragoness but unable to fly.

She looked around herself at the cave she was in. Once again, her imprisonment was within Sarrus' lair.

Niphi groaned with discomfort and shifted herself slightly, still lying on the hard stone ground. She had felt a good deal of self loathing when she had first become a dragoness, consumed by images of what such creatures were capable of and what they had done to her comrades. Now, to her surprise, Niphi found herself wishing she was like that once again.

After taking a moment to relax herself, Niphi sighed and looked down her body. There was a distinct bulge visible between the middle of her underbelly and her hind legs. She was not uniformly misshapen but instead a number of large round lumps were visible under her blue fur.

Niphi had never been pregnant before, or rather, 'gravid' as Sarrus had called it. She lay her head back down on the ground, not wanting to think about that particular dragon.

"Oh yes," she thought to herself, "its easy to find this funny when your not the one swollen with eggs."

Closing her eyes, Niphi found herself left with Sarrus' grin floating lazily in her mind. Part imagination and part memory, she groaned again as the mouth in her head began to chuckle. "Always so full of himself." She continued to think. "A typical male, thinks he can just gush his seed wherever he likes with no consequences. He doesn't even think about what I will have to go through, feeling like I'm going to burst and trapped, alone, away from all the fighting and war, bored out of my mind."

Outside the cave, Niphi could just hear the beating of wings getting gradually louder. "Oh, that's just great, now I suppose he will just saunter in here, all pleased with himself for some grand escapade while I can barely move. 'Evening, Niphi' he will say, 'how are the eggs, my dear?' Well I can start off by telling him that I am most certainly not his dear. 'Oh?' He will say and pretend to be surprised. I will tell him yes, and give him a proper explanation for why his presence brings me great displeasure."

A moment later, the large dark form of Sarrus landed in the mouth of the cave. Niphi did not open her eyes, lying still and pretending to be asleep.

"Evening, Niphi" Sarrus said in a perky voice. "How are the eggs?"

Niphi did not open her eyes or even move more than what was required to open her mouth and let out a long loud groan.

Sarrus chuckled and walked over to his bookshelf. "That good, huh?" He selected a large leather bound tome and a bottle of ink which he carefully levitated out of their places. "You are quickly gaining a mastery of grumpy dragoness speech."

Niphi let out a soft growl.

Sarrus continued to grin, letting his book come to rest in the center of the cave where it opened and set itself down on the floor, accompanied by the ink a moment later. Carefully, the male dragon sat down on his haunches in front of it and began to write. Expertly, he manipulated a single talon to ink words into the page.

Niphi did not open her eyes, she knew that if she did, Sarrus would interpret it as interest. The last time she had done this, he had spent what felt like hours explaining how he had had a talon hollowed out so that it could hold ink.

"Dear Diary," He began, pretending to write as he spoke. "The struggle against the gods goes on but I am unable to dedicate my mind to it as a much more pertinent issue dominates my attention. This issue watches me, even now, making sure that I do not forget myself."

Niphi continued to keep her eyes shut but let out another groan, this one intentionally loud enough to drown out Sarrus' speech.

Sarrus smiled, amused at the reaction he provoked before going silent and beginning to write properly.

Niphi found herself slowly becoming relaxed. She found it hard to admit to herself that Sarrus' presence was doing that to her though she did feel surprisingly comfortable around him. Opening her eyes slowly she looked over at the black dragon, now thoroughly absorbed in his writing.

Even now he was still an enigma. She knew what he was capable of, as it turned out, Sarrus was a direct descendant of the God of Dominance, Varion. He could produce an incredible amount of fire and could control people with ease, an art Niphi was still trying to master.

Niphi had initially assumed Sarrus to be a clever coward. A dragon that had seen the true threat in the rebels and had switched sides. Now, though, she knew better.

Niphi lifted her head up. "What have you really written?" She asked.

Sarrus took a moment to respond, not out of rudeness but more because the writing seemed to put him in a sort of odd trance. This, Niphi had decided was one of his more subtle skills. It was hard to pick up on but he seemed capable of bursts of intense concentration where he could dedicate his entire mind wholeheartedly to a single task.

Sarrus looked up at Niphi for a moment, then back down at his writing and began to read aloud.

"F, Terse 1DA3:

The struggle against the gods goes on. Today, I found myself at yet another crossroads of morality. This, it seems, is the burden of a dragon living in defiance. Under Varion, I was not expected to weigh decisions on the grounds of their consequences, only on weather or not he would approve. Now, I am expected to decide if what I choose is the 'right' thing to do. This is both a new and an old concept to me.

I have, in some part, always known when I have done something 'wrong'. Even when I was a fanatic, dedicated wholeheartedly to my god, there would be times when I would stand on the edge of a smoldering abyss of ruin and feel that some part of me had fallen into the death and destruction that I had dealt out. Every time, I was certain I would get used to it. Every time, I would find more innocence to loose.

What triggered this sense of moral disgust? I am not entirely sure. Perhaps it was seeing lives torn apart by the very core of my being. Perhaps it was experiencing the ease with which I could take life. Most likely, though, it was the aftermath of the pleasure I felt when committing the atrocities for which I am responsible.

I believe this is what sets me apart, this shadow that haunts my ferality. Others can ignore it, some can even kill it. I know many loyalists and rebels that have. For me, though, it is too strong. I cannot run from it any more.

The moral crossroads that I faced today was over the creation of more dragons. Niphi, of course, is doing well and is expected to lay any day now. Unfortunately, young hatchlings or even eggs will be of little use until they are fully grown.

The spell that I initially used on Niphi proved effective, producing a fully functional, fertile dragoness. Not only that, but Niphi has adopted her new form extremely well, in just under a year she has gone from hating the dragoness within her to reveling in it. Something which leads me to believe that she may not have been entirely happy as an Iral.

The next candidate for transformation is a young male human called Thim. My decision was whether to offer him a choice or to simply kidnap and transform him as I did with Niphi.

I deliberated on this for some time before eventually deciding to kidnap him. Here, on paper, I can go on for hours about how wrong it is to force someone through something like that but in truth the benefits are too great to risk letting someone I have spent months vetting slip away.

I have never had the courage to ask Niphi if she hates me for what I did to her. At first it was something I expected. Now, though, I feel different. Even as she watches me write this through half closed eyes, I wander... She is both beautiful and intelligent, witty and brave. The fact that I am now afraid of what she might feel towards me must say a lot about what I feel towards her..."

Sarrus looked up and met Niphi's gaze. There had been times where, willing or unwilling, she had been subjected to his controlling stare, yet in that moment, Niphi realized that he had never looked into her eyes without his magic to hide behind. Now, though, she saw a different intensity, one she had not experienced before.

Drawing a breath, she opened her mouth to speak.

"Sarrus I... Ah!"

With a spasm that coursed through her whole body, Niphi let out a squeak, then instinctively rolled onto her side.

Sarrus' mouth opened in surprise and he quickly stepped over to her. "Its happening..." He said, the slightest hint of disappointment in his voice. His vulnerability evaporated in a moment, though, and he quickly began to speak with more control in his voice. "Keep breathing deeply and, as best you can, try to relax."

Niphi's whole body felt electrified and she spasmed once again. As she did, her slit parted slightly and a steady stream of clear liquid began to pour out and pool on the floor beneath her.

Deep inside, something began to shift. It felt like the eggs that had lain dormant in her for so long had suddenly come to life. She opened her mouth with some intent to speak but instead found herself moaning.

Sarrus slowly padded around her and, to Niphi's surprise he lay down on his back behind her.

Niphi spasmed once again and she felt an egg separate from the rest of the clutch.

Sarrus rolled onto his side, then shuffled against her, pressing his belly to Niphi's back.

The egg began to travel and Niphi could feel it heading towards her exit.

"That's it," Sarrus said softly in Niphi's ear. "Concentrate on your breathing." As he spoke, he carefully wrapped his tail around hers. He was bigger than her and so the end of his tail stuck out a little.

To Niphi, Sarrus seemed very distant, yet with her mind running almost entirely on instinct, his voice and his touch gave her something to hold on to. "I..." She said through gritted teeth, then found herself letting out another moan as a wave of the strange sensation crashed over her and the egg slipped and suddenly pressed itself against her slit, trying to get out.

"Don't try and speak." Sarrus said, his voice so low and gentle. "Just relax yourself, let nature take its course."

Niphi shut her eyes. It was so hard to concentrate and every time her mind began to wander her breathing would become quick and shallow. When it did, Sarrus pressed his snout gently against the back of her neck and Niphi felt herself regaining control and slowing her breaths.

Her body felt almost like it was fighting itself. The muscles of her tunnel pressed the egg against her opening, trying to force it out. At the same time, the muscles of her parting tried to stay closed. It was loosing, though, and through the internal battle she felt it slowly begin to open.

Sarrus lifted his head up to look, peering down her body. Niphi wanted to do the same but she could not muster the force to move her head, stretched out as it was.

Seeing that Niphi's breathing was becoming shallow again, Sarrus moved his head back and gently nuzzled the back of her neck, causing Niphi to relax once again. With this encouragement, Niphi was able to shift her head a little and look down at her now bulging cunny. There, visible between the open lips, was something dark gray and leathery. With another spasm, she saw her lips part more and the egg slipped free and rolled to the ground. Before her stretched pussy could close, a gush of fluid escaped behind the egg, causing the puddle on the floor to grow considerably.

Niphi found a short respite from the spasms and she used it to observe what had just escaped her. Had she still been an Iral, the egg would have seemed enormous. It was easily as big as a hominid's head. "How in the Nether..." Niphi said between breaths, "Did you get that inside me?"

Sarrus smiled and slowly got to his feet to get a better look at the egg while Niphi caught her breath. To her surprise, Niphi could see that Sarrus' slit had also parted in order to let his erection out. The thick purple length hung in the air underneath him. "You're enjoying this!" She exclaimed. Sarrus just chuckled, his cock bobbing slightly as he did.

"You should roll onto your back." Sarrus said. "It will be more comfortable, I think."

Niphi let out a long groan but did as suggested and slowly shifted herself over so that her belly faced the roof of the cave.

Just as she laid her head back, she felt herself tense up again and another steady stream of fluid began to ooze out of her slit. Sarrus stepped forward and lowered his snout down, taking a deep inhale of her feminine scent. Niphi spasmed again and Sarrus parted his lips and let his long tongue descend into the fluid running down Niphi's side. He let out a soft hum as he tasted the salty liquid.

Suddenly, Niphi let out a surprised squeak as she felt something else brush against her hypersensitive quim, glancing down, she could see that Sarrus had slipped the tip of his tongue into her. She opened her mouth as if to protest but no words came, just another long moan. She realized that the entire experience was starting to become pleasurable.

Sarrus grinned and Niphi could see that her reaction amused him. "Why does he always get that look in his eyes when he discovers a sensitivity in me?" She thought to herself though she soon gave up trying to think altogether. Every time Sarrus' tongue moved, even slightly, within her it jumbled her thoughts.

Sarrus allowed his tongue to slowly snake deeper and deeper into the dragoness beneath him. Eventually, he felt the tip bump up against something comparatively hard. The egg, traveling on a slow wave of contractions began to push back against his invading tongue.

Niphi let out an involuntary moan as she felt the tip of Sarrus' tongue dig into the gap between the soft flesh of her tunnel and the egg sliding through it. As the male began to run his tongue around the outside of the egg, Niphi's hind legs began to vibrate, her talons splayed upwards towards the roof of the cave.

Encouraged by the gentle circular massage it was receiving, Niphi's passage pushed the egg up to her exit and Sarrus could begin to see its leathery shell. This one was a much lighter colour, almost white but with a series of thin dark gray stripes on it.

Suddenly, the black dragon pushed his tongue in hard and slid it past the egg. This unexpected intrusion caused Niphi to squeal out in ecstasy, not least because Sarrus had chosen to align his tongue with her swollen clit. As he shoved the appendage in, it brushed roughly against the super-sensitive nub and this was simply too much for the smaller dragoness' body.

Waves of pure ecstasy crashed through her and Niphi's tunnel began to contract around the egg. No longer concerned with pushing it out, her soft walls simply gripped the intrusion repeatedly while Sarrus writhed his tongue.

Finaly, Niphi's orgasm died away and her body relaxed. Her contractions did not immediately restart, instead, his tongue still hooked behind the egg, Sarrus began to pull it out of her.

Niphi let out a feeble moan, her body wanting (but unable) to tense around the egg. Painfully slowly, her slit-lips were parted until finally Sarrus slipped the egg out of her and cautiously, almost reverently, set it down next to its sibling.

As Niphi was afforded a short rest, Sarrus withdrew his tongue back into his mouth and made a show of how much he enjoyed her taste.

"That was..." Niphi said between large gulps of air. "Totally unnecessary."

Sarrus smiled at her. "I was being a gentleman."

"That was not gentle..." Niphi moaned. "Oh no..." Slowly she felt herself begin to tense up again.

Sarrus stepped forwards, overshadowing her smaller form and bent his head down to gently nuzzle her neck. Niphi tried to relax into the gesture but with the spasms growing ever stronger within her it was becoming difficult.

"I think I know of a way to expedite the passage of this egg" Sarrus said, yet another grin spreading across his face.

Niphi looked a little confused and, by way of explanation, Sarrus looked down his body at his throbbing cock.

As Niphi followed his gaze, Sarrus parted the four tines at the end of it, then closed them again with a gripping motion.

Niphi's protest came as another moan which did not seem to do any good in convincing Sarrus to change his mind. His concern for her well being had evaporated once he had seen that she was not in pain and the devious breeder part of his mind had replaced it with a desire to make the best of Niphi's helplessness.

She moaned once again as he lowered the weapon down towards her slit. As he began to push in, Niphi found no way of resisting, the doors to her tunnel far too swollen to stop him. Sarrus let out a long groan of pleasure as he slid himself in. Niphi's subconscious clearly shared her desire to stop him from entering her while still laying eggs and her tunnel contracted to push the intrusion out. This, however, seemed only to spur Sarrus on as the muscular ripples brought him great pleasure.

Sarrus' pre-cum, his own natural lubricant, mixed with the thick fluids that had built up within Niphi to ease the passage of her eggs.

Niphi threw her head back with a loud moan as Sarrus hit her cervix. This time it provided little resistance and the male was easily able to enter her most sacred chamber. There, waiting for him, was one final egg. Testingly, Sarrus pressed his closed tines against it, pushing the egg back against her rear wall.

Niphi moaned again, louder this time as the large object shifted within her, then almost seemed to grow thicker as Sarrus spread his tines around it and gripped it tightly.

The male braced himself, tensing his powerful hind legs on either side of Niphi's nethers. She managed to look up and see this, letting out one final whimper of protest before Sarrus began to withdraw.

To Sarrus, the exit was much easier, now working with Niphi's body to remove the egg. To Niphi, though, it was like nothing she had ever felt before. While the egg had been smaller than Sarrus' knot had been it was buried as deep as physically possible within her and now was parting its way through her detached from the control of her muscles. It spread her cervix while the ring of muscle was trying to contract. The result was a mixture of pleasure and discomfort that made Niphi shake, all four limbs thrashing uncontrollably.

As the egg finally exited her womb, Niphi was offered little respite as Sarrus continued to tug insistently on the fertilized ova. Her body, confused half way between birth and breeding allowed Sarrus and the egg to make it half way to the surface before yet another orgasm crashed over the smaller dragoness, her whole body locking down and firmly holding the intruder in place.

Unbeknownst to Niphi in her addled state Sarrus too had been teetering on the edge of orgasm. The bizarre but extremely pleasurable experience of having his cock lain like an egg had brought him quickly towards his climax. Knot swollen, he tried to maintain as much control over himself as possible as the first wave of pleasure hit. This 'control' did not hold at all and with a tremendous roar he bucked against the egg, trying to thrust it back into Niphi's body and causing it to descend a little even against the powerful tension of the dragoness' muscles. His tines then spread open, releasing the egg and digging into Niphi's soft flesh. Finally, as if trying to propel the egg further towards its origin, Sarrus' cock blasted it with the first of many hot gushes of cum.

Niphi felt herself forced through the longest and most powerful orgasm of her life. Deep within her, two objects that were too large for her tunnel to handle suddenly tried to separate from each other in the most spectacular fashion. A great pocket of boiling heat grew within her as cum flooded the cavity between the egg and Sarrus' cock head. Trapped with nowhere to go, the thick white fluid could only expand, pushing the egg backwards and pressing Sarrus' tines deeper into Niphi's walls.

With so much raw feeling coursing through her body and mind, Niphi lost all sense of the passage of time. The entire experience seemed to slow and for what felt like an age the cum, egg and cock within her each did everything in their power to stimulate her further until finally it became too much and the entire experience faded to darkness...

Epilogue

Hours, weeks or months could have passed from that moment. To Niphi waking up, it certainly felt like it had been a long time. Long periods of unconsciousness were no longer a foreign concept to her. It seemed that most dragons could sleep for days at a time, their bodies resting after the extravagant activities that they often involved themselves in during the waking hours.

Parting her eyes groggily and slowly looking up, Niphi saw that she was not the only one who had been asleep. A short distance from her lay Sarrus curled nose to tail with a peaceful expression on his face.

Unsure of her feelings towards him after recent events, she let him sleep. After a short time, though, Sarrus woke of his own accord and uncurled himself, pausing when he noticed that Niphi had finally woken up.

She opened her mouth to speak but held herself as she saw what the male had been curled around:

Three beautiful eggs.

Smooth, round and now clean they sparked an emotion within Niphi that she had never felt before. Something ancient and primal, subtle yet powerful.

She closed her mouth again and for a moment simply looked across the cave at the dragon guarding her eggs. In the end, it was he who spoke.

"You are beautiful, Niphi."

This was so unexpected that Niphi could do nothing but hold her silence a moment longer.

"I don't think I expected you to stay with me after what I did to you when we first met." He paused. "I have no intention of making excuses for myself, you can conclude on your own why I did what I did. But before you do I would like you to know this:"

He drew a deep breath and Niphi could see him steel himself in order to let out something he had held deep within; Something he had known for a long time but had been unable to admit until now.

"I love you."

Niphi was taken aback by this statement. In just a few months, this dragon had turned her entire world upside down. For whatever cause he had so fanatically followed, he had changed her beyond all recognition. Never in a million years would she have imagined herself a dragoness. Now, she had become the very thing that she had once hated with every fiber of her being.

And then, this. He loved her? He actually had the gall to say it out loud. His master plan had fallen at the last hurdle; It had gone wrong in a way he could never have imagined. The creature that he had intended to manipulate had unconsciously snared his own emotions.

What did he expect her to do? To love him back, after everything he had put her through. Logically, she could see no way to reciprocate his desire.

But, logic can only take you so far.

"I don't expect-" Sarrus began.

"I love you too." Niphi said, her mouth moving, her larynges tightening all on their own.

"You...You do?"

Niphi sighed. "I have hated you. Gods know you have given me some good excuses too. But I think in the end, from the moment I set eyes on you, I knew that I could not keep it up forever."

"I..." Sarrus began, but Niphi cut him off once again.

"I think that this is something you have always wanted to hear: You are a good person. Some day, we will be free of the gods and you have helped me and my brethren in a way we could not have imagined. Perhaps, at times, you have taken pleasure from it where it might not have been justified but the ends are their own justification and I know from experience that you would have had far more opportunities to be a dominating, corrupting force if you had remained loyal to Varion. It is more than debt, though. I see the same beauty in you that you see in me. You fulfill the primal desire that I know I have always had, while not sacrificing warmth and affection." Niphi stopped, her voice had been cold and steely, but her eyes had softened and the fine trails of tears had run from them down into the fur that covered her snout.

For a moment, neither dragon spoke. Breaching the silence, Niphi got to her feet and stepped over to the creature she loved. Bending her head down just a little, she parted her lips as he did the same and the two joined into a passionate kiss. Their flames, the very cores of their beings joined, running down the two curled tongues to meet; They melded together to form a magnificent union. The love of the two beasts running to their very souls.

While Niphi's constitution strengthened, Sarrus showed vulnerability as he blinked and threw tears down the sides of his own scaled snout. Oddly, this relaxed him in a way Niphi had never seen before and for the first time in centuries the male was at peace.

When the kiss finally broke it was Niphi that separated them. Softly at first, but growing more insistent, she nudged his side, rolling him onto his back away from the eggs. The fire within moved from her mouth and glinted within her eyes as she grinned down at the dragon beneath her.

"Now" She said, straddling him. "I think its time I paid you back for everything you've put me through..."

The End