The Meaning of Strength - Part 2
#2 of The Meaning of Strength
Juneas' guards led him along the crowded main streets that led back to King William's castle at the center of the city; the square they'd been repairing was the usual home of one of the city's biggest markets, and all the buyers and sellers who spent their days there had packed into the nearby streets instead. The guards did their best to clear a path, but he still had to be careful not to step on any humans, most of whom barely glanced up at him as he shuffled past. Ten years of living there--plus Asara's time before that--had allowed them to grow used to a dragon's presence, and while the younger children would still stop and stare in wonder whenever he or Asara passed, the adults barely seemed to notice. Not that he would prefer them to notice him; when he'd first arrived in the city he had been the target of more than enough anger and mocking, and being ignored was better than being hated.
He stepped in a puddle of dirty water, splashing one of his forelegs, then stumbled in a moment of confusion as he realized that he'd barely noticed it. His white scales dirtied easily, and before his capture he'd spent hours each day grooming in an effort to keep his hide spotless--not that he was vain, he just liked to keep himself clean, and clean, well-ordered scales were one of the best indicators of a healthy dragon. But he'd had to give up the habit, like so many other things: he couldn't groom with the bridle on, as it was too tight for him to get his tongue through his teeth, and aside from washing the absolute worst spots after meals, he'd been forced to let his scales go mostly untended. At least he didn't have to worry about impressing a dragoness anytime soon...
And it hadn't deterred Asara at all. She'd kept up her teasing for months, doing everything she could to make him desperate enough to be willing to masturbate the way she had wanted him to, but after realizing that was what she wanted he'd begun to ignore her as best he could, no matter what she said or did. She never had ordered him to do so--she'd seemed to want him to beg her for the pleasure, instead of her making him do it--but her teasing had grown more and more explicit, progressing from suggestive whispers to touching herself in front of him to even tying him down and either teasing him with a paw or making him tease her. He'd done his best to sit stoically through her attempts, and after a few more months she'd had to go after him with her paws if she wanted any hope of getting him hard if he didn't want to be--which had only frustrated her more. He hadn't especially enjoyed trying to so hard to keep himself under control, but it had certainly been better than the alternative, and the more frustrated Asara had become, the more likely she'd been to give up and just mate with him.
He growled a little at the thought.
"All right, fine," Asara sighed, unprompted, as he finished cleaning his claws and fangs after dinner. "As happy as I am to be out of your horrible dungeon, I did enjoy some of the things we did there, and I just can't go any longer."
Juneas paused and growled low, suspicious. She'd done nothing but tease and torment him since his arrival here... Surely she didn't mean it. It was just another attempt to arouse him and make him desperate, just another trick, another--
But then she continued, "so I'm going to tie you down and mount you."
Before she could have a chance to beckon his guards forward to bridle him again, he had to ask: "is that really what you're going to do? Or are you just trying to tease me again?"
"If you want my answer to be the one you'd prefer, then do not question me again," she snapped. "But yes, I am telling the truth. Even if I can go back to my cave and deal with it afterwards, teasing you works me up just as much as it does you, and tonight I want you to give me that pleasure."
He growled again, certain that it was a trick, that she'd somehow find a way to keep him from enjoying the experience, but she'd stated her intentions so plainly that he couldn't find any way to twist her words into something he wouldn't like. "Very well," he lowered his head to her.
She snorted. "I wasn't asking. Bridle him and bind him down the way I told you earlier," she said to his guards, leaving the cell for a moment to bring them some chains from a small side chamber.
The men took them from her, bridled him, motioned for him to lie down on his back, then fastened short chains to the manacles on his hind paws and bound them to the floor so he had to extend them away from his body, not spread out wide but pulled down along his tail as far as they could reach. His forepaws were shackled tight together, then they had him extend his neck all the way and bound the center strap of his bridle to an anchor in the floor so he had to hold his head straight and against the floor, facing upside-down towards the wall behind him. Next his forepaws were pulled up his neck as far as they could go, then tied there with something he couldn't see--his reins, he realized, as he tried to test his range of motion and felt the bit in the back of his mouth dig into his gums in response; he could barely move them the width of a claw without the bit starting to hurt him.
"How helpless you look," Asara murmured, running a claw over the scales of his chest as he wriggled restlessly back and forth in his restraints. "How much I love to see a dragon as powerful as you bound and at my mercy, to do with as I wish... I can't wait to use you--and yet I must," she snarled, and struck him hard enough to knock the air from his lungs. "How am I supposed to take you inside me if you aren't aroused? Hurry up and get hard before I lose my patience!"
He moaned and squirmed, breaths gusting through his nostrils as he tried to get his wind back. It shouldn't be difficult, he thought; her scent was strong in the air, he'd waited months for this moment, and it had been so long since he had been allowed to feel anything like what was to come... He dug into his mind for the memories he'd been doing his best to suppress for the past few months and flexed his hips upward as he felt the familiar congestion forming in his hindquarters, and--
Asara growled and tickled his growing erection with a paw to speed up the process. "Finally." He moaned again and couldn't help but thrust into her touch at the sensation, but she took her paw away after a moment and chuckled as he bucked in a brief attempt to search for something else to hump against, whining softly as he found nothing within his restricted reach. "You made me wait before being able to mount you. If I was any less heated up by the little show you're putting on for me, then I would make you wait, too--" She paused as a thought struck her. "But maybe..."
She was silent for a moment and he continued to squirm helplessly, then he felt her paws on his tail. "I teased you, so you should tease me. I didn't bind your tail, and I expect you to put it to good use."
Juneas groaned, but brought the rocking of his hips under control after a few moments and flexed his tail instead, curling it upward until he felt its underside press against her scales. It was hard to tell precisely where he was touching her without being able to see what he was doing, but she let out a soft moan as his tail rubbed against her, and after twitching his tail to both sides he discovered that it was indeed between her hind legs. So he rubbed back in the other direction, grinding harder against her this time and listening as she moaned again, more loudly, and pressed him still more firmly against her with a forepaw. Another stroke and this time he felt the shape of her vent against his tail, then another one, slower, so firm against her that he could feel dampness on his scales, and she gasped, shuddered a moment, then let go of his tail and stepped forward to straddle him. Her forepaws pressed down on the base of his neck and he let his tail go limp, thrusting up at her, but she was still out of his reach.
He grunted softly and tried again to thrust as she continued to stand motionless over him; surely she could see how needy he was, surely her desire was just as strong as his own after how she'd reacted to his tail... What was she waiting for? He whined and squirmed, trying to turn his head to give her a pleading look, to see why she might have stopped, arching his back to bring himself as close to her as he could...
"You're so cute when you're desperate," Asara--giggled? "Oh, that was more than worth waiting a few moments, to see you like that! Don't worry, my poor captive dragon," she nuzzled his exposed throat, "now you'll be getting everything you wanted and more..."
Finally she lowered herself onto him, moaning and digging her foreclaws into the scales of his chest at the feeling of him pressing into the depths of her sex. He grunted in response, shivering all over as finally she gave him the sensation he'd waited so long for, and tried to thrust, but her weight was too much for him to move against in his position. But her own lust was strong enough now that she only pinned him there for a moment, and soon she began to raise herself off of him. She didn't bother trying to keep things slow at first; he was far too eager at this point to control his pace and she didn't seem to mind enough to try to force him to slow down, so she rode him as wildly as he thrust into her, reaching forward to press her fangs against his throat, wrapping her tail around his own, and all the while humping hard against him, panting with soft little cries of ecstasy at the feeling. His bridle muffled his own grunts of effort as he continued to pump in and out of her, then all of a sudden she reached climax, digging her fangs into him hard enough to draw blood, pulling on his reins to encourage him to thrust still harder, still faster as her insides seized against his length.
Then it was over and she collapsed against him, but he kept going, pressing up against her over and over again despite the effort it took to keep up the stimulation he needed; he was so close, but it was so hard to thrust with her weight pinning him down, and if she'd just give him a little help... He whined again, and thankfully she responded as he'd hoped, beginning to thrust and finally bringing him to the orgasm he'd wanted for so long. He bellowed and thrashed in his restraints, humping even harder against her as he emptied himself, then let out one last moan of pleasure and lay still.
But she didn't stop. Juneas groaned with pain and squirmed again, trying to get away from her attentions, but she kept going, kept taking him in and out of her... "Stmm!" he cried; the bridle wouldn't let him tell her to get off him, tell her that this hurt, that the sensation was too intense, it had to stop! He howled and struggled again, this time trying to escape rather than to thrust, but still the chains kept him helpless, his paws bound, wings pinioned, mouth made useless by the bridle, tail trapped coiled with her own... He couldn't curl his body with his restraints anchored to the floor, he couldn't press against her with his forepaws when it pulled on the bit in his mouth and hurt so much to try, but what she was doing hurt more! Oh ancients, why wouldn't she stop...
"Did you think we were done?" she finally growled. "I don't want just one climax from you... Maybe I want two, five, ten, however many it takes to satisfy me, and you're going to lie there and keep thrusting until I decide it's time to stop. So if you want to have any say in this, you're going to have to try as hard as you can to please me!"
He whimpered, but despite how much he wanted her to stop, to get off and let him rest, he obeyed and began to thrust again. "That's it, that's a good dragon," she purred, and nuzzled him for a moment before throwing her head back to cry out as she shifted her weight and his cock found some especially sensitive spot inside her. He couldn't help but continue to struggle even if he was still humping her, some part of him still wanting to get away from her, but finally the pain faded and he began to enjoy it again--just in time for her second orgasm. She howled, squeezing his tail with her own, gasping and going limp against him, motionless except for the spasms of her sex squeezing at his cock as he continued to thrust into her.
It wasn't sheer obedience that kept him going anymore; the sensations of her vent pressing tight against his shaft were good, but they seemed muted now, not nearly as powerful as they'd been before his orgasm, and though thrusting even harder brought the feelings back up near the pleasure he was used to it took so much effort to keep going, and only after a little while did she begin to raise and lower herself again, but it wasn't seeming to help, it wasn't getting him anywhere... He growled, pressed even harder, and finally managed his second climax as she reached her third, groaning and humping roughly against her, but it felt different, strange, less incredible than his first had, and it felt like only a little seed had escaped him that time--
Asara was still going! Three wasn't enough? He let out a muffled scream and thrashed again, claws clenching and unclenching, but she just growled and tugged pointedly on his reins. Oh, it was horrible, why wouldn't it stop... His belly was on fire, his joints ached, he was so exhausted, every nerve in his body screamed for him to pull out somehow, to get away from her! He wanted to, he wanted to so badly, but he was trapped, and her orders... It took every ounce of will he had, but eventually he found a way to ignore the agony, somehow, and continue to thrust in and out of her. It hurt, it hurt, it hurt, but she had told him to keep going until she said otherwise, and he was so helpless... The only way he could make it stop was by continuing to please her, and hope that her next orgasm would be enough to satisfy her.
This time the tingling pain lessened but refused to go away entirely, and he had to press on through the pain and weariness without the eventual return of pleasure to help him; but at least it seemed the more she peaked, the more quickly her next orgasm arrived. Before too long she climaxed a fourth time, hunching over him and nuzzling at his neck until her spasms ceased, and this time she collapsed against him and did not start to hump again, then after a moment shifted enough to let him slip out of her.
"Such a good dragon you are," she purred, and nuzzled him. "Oh, I haven't felt anything that wonderful in a long, long time... I may have to do something like this to you again before too long."
He sighed with relief as she called the guards back in, and they removed all his bonds--even the bridle!--before bringing him a trough of water and letting him drink, having to fill it and watch him drain it again four times before his thirst was quenched.
"I..." She was still panting, and had needed her own water while he'd been given his. "I think I understand some of what appealed to you so much in forcing someone to mate with you. I knew mating could be fun when one was willing, but to have such control over the act, and to be able to make you do whatever I wanted no matter how much you might hate it... No wonder you enjoyed it so much."
He moaned weakly and sprawled out on the floor, his own sides heaving as he tried to regain his breath. "Easy for you to say... I never made you do so much for me. And please... Please do not do anything like that to me again... You don't understand how bad it feels."
"You are my slave, and I will treat you however I wish," she growled, but her expression softened after a moment. "I just... You forced me to mate against my will so many times, so I wanted to find a way to mate with you where you would be unwilling, and I wanted to really feel what it was like to have complete control of our mating. But really, climaxing more than a couple of times is more tiring than it's worth, so... I can't promise that it won't happen again, but if we do mate again, I don't think I'll make you work so hard."
"Thank you," he said softly, and closed his eyes to rest.
Asara continued to tease him for several more months, but as Juneas grew better and better at ignoring her she grew bored of it and eventually stopped trying. They did mate a few more times, but when she continued to find ways to keep him from really enjoying it he started to ignore her more direct advances as well, and while she did manage to work him up and torment him a couple more times she confessed that it wasn't nearly as fun when he wasn't hoping for sex and mostly left him alone after that. Juneas missed getting an occasional chance to mate, but decided he would just rather not mate than mate but also have to put up with her incessant teasing.
It was the removal of that barrier of sex between them that allowed them to grow close. Without lust to drive their thoughts of each other they began to speak of other things: their pasts, their ancestries, what they thought of the world, of their species, and of humans... More and more often Asara would leave his bridle off after meals so they could talk, stay with him throughout the day just to keep him company, and even take him completely unrestrained to fly or romp around the fields outside the city for exercise.
Unfortunately it was impossible to avoid sex entirely; Juneas couldn't prevent himself from occasionally becoming aroused, and she had to learn to just ignore it instead of either teasing him or lusting after him. But he couldn't ignore when she went into heat: it caught her completely by surprise, Asara claiming she couldn't even remember the last time it had happened, and they were forced to spend her whole cycle apart. Thankfully she was aware of how strongly her pheromones would affect him and told his guards to allow him to masturbate--however he wanted!--if he asked to, while she stayed as far as she could from him, both so he wouldn't be constantly aroused and so she wouldn't feel the urge to raise her tail for him.
But aside from those occasional interruptions, the term of his sentence progressed smoothly after a rocky first year. He never did grow to enjoy the work he was ordered to do, but he didn't hate it as much, and while he thought he would never get used to having to spend so much time in chains he at least was able to stop growling every time he was given an order, or his guards put his bridle or shackles on.
Then a couple years ago Asara had begun to grow restless, and after talking to him briefly had left the city for close to a month; he'd thought it had coincided with another heat cycle but couldn't be sure, but she had admitted upon her return that she had left to search for other dragons. She'd left a second time three months ago, again without saying where she planned to go or why, and there had been no news of her, either a message or a traveler having seen her. Juneas couldn't help but be worried by it: what if she had been attacked by unfriendly humans, or lost a duel, or been captured like he had first captured her... The world was a dangerous place, even for a dragon, and to think of what could have happened... He shook his head and growled, trying to clear the thoughts from his mind, only to draw a tug of his reins from the human leading him.
"Settle down, we'll get you your dinner as soon as you're back in your cell," the man said, and the other guards drew a little closer as they passed through the gates at the outer walls of King William's castle. They led him across the grounds to a wide staircase at the back of the castle that led down underground to his cell, passing by a squad of castle guards and the party of some visiting dignitary, who stopped their conversations to watch him march by. He saw their eyes move to his restraints and his guards, and knew what they were thinking, but just kept his head low and walked meekly past as they began to point and chatter to each other about him. His tail drooped at the humiliation--they weren't even trying to hide their interest in him and his enslavement!--but he'd already been forced to learn how to deal with such a feeling and did his best to ignore them, quickening his pace a little so he could just get to his cell and out of their sight as quickly as he could.
His guards didn't seem to mind speeding up with him, fortunately, and a few moments later they turned the corner of the castle and descended the stairs to his prison. The layout wasn't much different from the cell he'd made for Asara at his old fortress: the staircase led to a short hallway, with the thick bars separating it from his cell on the castle side of the hall and a door on the end that led to a smaller storage room. The cell itself was large enough for him, his guards and Asara to fit inside together comfortably, and at Asara's request there were scattered anchors for his bonds set into the floor and walls. Light from aboveground came down from the top of the stairs (though thick wooden doors could be closed over the top of the stairway if necessary) and from a couple of small, barred windows in the ceiling of the hallway, while torches on the walls lit the dungeon at night.
A pair of humans were already in his cell with his dinner, two sheep that had been shorn and slaughtered recently enough for their blood to still be pooling beneath them. Juneas walked over to them so fast he nearly pulled the man holding his reins off his feet by accident, but he barely noticed; his work that day had left him starving, and the sooner his bridle was off so he could eat, the better.
"I know, I know, you're hungry," the guard grumbled as Juneas put his head down, and he and two other guards worked together to open the straps. They tugged on them for a moment, then pulled them open and stood back, and Juneas paused only to shake the bridle off his snout before burying his nose in his meal.
He tore quickly through the first sheep, which was delicious, then worked through the second more slowly, taking the time to enjoy the flavor and texture, to crack open and drain the larger bones, and was just finishing the last of the meat when there was shouting from above, he heard a gust of wind, and a massive thud shook the ground. "Asara's back!" Juneas exclaimed before her scent even reached his nostrils and before a soldier raced down the dragon-sized stairs to tell them. "Tell her I want to see her," he told the man, then settled down to wait and busied himself cleaning his snout and foreclaws.
A quarter of an hour passed before Asara's loud footfalls could be heard from the surface, then the sound of claws on stone as the green dragoness slowly descended the stairs and came into view on the other side of the bars. "Asara, you're back!" he leapt to his feet, purring towards her, but hesitated and lowered his head when he stopped to take in the sight of her: eyes low and dark, head and tail drooping, claws dragging the floor...
"Hello, Juneas," she growled, but softly.
He walked right up to the bars and sat back on his haunches. "What's wrong?"
She growled again and looked away.
"...you didn't find a mate, did you?"
Her tail lashed with agitation and the whole castle shook when it struck the wall. "I told King William not to tell you--"
"He didn't."
She cocked her head to one side. "Then how..."
He snorted. "I'm not a fool, Asara. You're happy here, yet you've also told me before that you want to be a mother; what else could you have left to search for but a dragon to be your mate?"
Asara sobbed and sank to the floor, hiding her head with her wings. "No dragon will accept me as a mate... I searched for months to find dragons, and none wanted me! Why?" she raised her head again to look at him, blinking away tears. "Why will no dragon mate with me?"
"Because they are fools," he said softly, pressing his snout against the bars even though he knew it wouldn't fit through, and passing his tail through them to wrap it around one of her forepaws. "How could any dragon say no to you? What reasons could they possibly have?"
"I..." She curled her paw to hold onto his tail, and pulled it a little almost as if she wanted to snuggle against it. "I found four dragons in my travels. One was mated, though he was nice enough to tell me where I might find other dragons... The next only thought I wanted his territory, even though he was of age, and would not listen. The third was more civil, but claimed he wasn't ready for eggs, and the fourth..." She let her head fall again. "He said I was not strong enough for him, then when I tried to prove myself he defeated me and sent me away. Why... Why wouldn't they mate with me? That fourth dragon was the strongest I have ever seen, but the rest... How could they say no when I offered to mate?"
"Perhaps they were telling the truth... You cannot know their full stories from a brief meeting. It's all right," he murmured, and squeezed her paw with his tail. "You will find other dragons, and one of them will be willing to mate with you. I'm sure of it."
She whimpered and huddled even smaller against the floor. "No, no they won't, they won't, not after what you... You-- You!" She leapt to her feet, wrenched her paw from his grasp and roared at him. "Who do you think you are to try to comfort me? This is your fault! None of them will take me as a mate because they can tell I am weak, that I'm damaged, and I am that way because of what you did to me!"
He pressed himself flat against the floor of his cell, turning his head to the side to show her his throat. "I do not think you are weak."
"Only the weakest dragoness would allow herself to enjoy being raped, as I did," she snorted.
"After defying me for ten years! Any other dragoness would have given up so much sooner than you did... You are the strongest dragoness I will ever meet, and do not let anything make you think otherwise."
"Maybe before," she looked away. "But I did give in to you, and after that... I did everything you told me to, no matter how humiliating it was, no matter how much I hated it. Whatever will I had, you destroyed."
He growled. "If I had destroyed your will, you would not have brought back an army and captured me."
"That was different," she snorted. "I couldn't let you abuse Toma like that... I had to stop it, and I had an army to support me."
"And that you summoned the courage to come back and defeat me should tell you that you're still just as strong as you ever were! You must remember the determination you felt that made you come back for her... There is nothing stopping you from drawing upon that same determination again, whenever you need to prove your strength."
"It's too late for that... You-- You broke me," she sobbed. "Setting me free didn't change that, and now... Now no dragon will ever see me as a worthy mate."
He raised his head again. "Don't tell yourself that! Asara, you are a strong, intelligent, beautiful dragoness, and any dragon fool enough to deny you doesn't deserve to be your mate. Don't let rejection get to you... It happens to everyone. You will find a mate."
"Yet every dragon I meet refuses me."
Juneas hesitated for a moment; he knew he shouldn't say it, that she wouldn't want to hear it, but he just couldn't stop himself. "I wouldn't. If you asked me, I would mate with you in an instant."
"You just want a chance to feel that kind of pleasure again," she snorted.
"Asara, I mean it! We've been together for more than twenty years... You know how much I care about you. If you asked me to sire eggs with you, I would."
She growled and bared her teeth at him. "If you had wanted to have eggs with me, then you could have had them when I was the slave you mounted every single day."
"I wasn't ready for eggs then, and you know it. I would have been a horrible father! Things have changed now, I've changed... If we had conceived then, I would have hated it because it would have meant I couldn't mate with you as I had before, and I would have been concentrating so much on continuing to mistreat you that neither of us would have been able to raise hatchlings properly. Now... Now, if we conceived, I would be happy not just because I would have offspring of my own, but because you would be happy too."
A snarl this time. "But if it were possible for us to have eggs, then we would have. How could we have mated nearly every day for twelve years and never conceived? Even if I did want to mate with you, we must be incompatible."
He braced himself for the anger his words were sure to bring, but he had no choice: he had to tell her. "I prevented us from conceiving while you were my captive. I drugged your meals with a compound that suppressed your body's heat cycle."
Asara roared at him at the top of her lungs, then a second time before stopping to regain her breath. "You-- You fixed me!? What did you think gave you the right to do something like that to me? How could you risk damaging me so severely, without even telling me? I-- Of course every dragon has rejected me; they can tell I might not even be able to have eggs anymore!"
"I was assured it would not be permanent!" he put his head on the floor again. "And that you went into heat after being set free means that it was not. You're healthy, you can have eggs again if you try..."
She glared at him, teeth bared, snarling, sides heaving as she tried to control her anger.
"It's all right," he said, more quietly. "And I mean it, I really do. If you asked me to sire eggs with you, not as my master but as a dragoness searching for a mate... I would."
Asara gaped at him, shock freezing her for a moment. He looked hopefully up at her, that she might consider it, that she might say yes and he might be able to help her forget how painfully she had been rejected... "Bridle him," she snapped, then turned and went into the store-room for some more equipment.
He lowered his head automatically when the guards approached, letting them strap his bridle on. She still seemed angry... What was she doing? Was she binding him because she believed him and wanted to mate with him, for the first time in years? Or was she going to punish him for what he'd said--either admitting how he'd prevented them from conceiving, or how he felt about her, or both?
"You should not have drugged me like that," she passed a few things to his guards, "but it is in the past now, and as you said, I seem to be fine now... so I am not going to punish you for that. But you cannot think you can just toy with my emotions like this, claiming that you feel close to me just so you might be able to get some pleasure out of it, hoping that I'd be willing to believe you because I felt so sad when you said it... So I will be tying you up for the night as punishment, and I hope it will help teach you not to do this again."
He whined softly, tonguing the bit in his mouth. But I really mean it! he wanted to say, I'm telling the truth! But the guards had already gagged him, and he had no choice but to follow them to the center of his cell, lie down on his side and let them bind him as Asara told them to.
First they shackled his forepaws tight together behind his back, then took his reins and bound them to the shackles, forcing him to arch his neck up almost painfully far. His hind paws were also bound together, and another chain was run from those shackles to those on his forepaws, so short that not only did his hind paws point the same direction as his back but he had to arch his back just for the chain to reach from front paws to hind. Finally they made him tuck his tail between his legs, curled all the way around so it could be bound against his chest by the chains that pinned his wings to his back. They made sure all that was secure, and finally blindfolded him to even further isolate him in his confinement.
"I hope this teaches you not to try to take advantage of my emotions," Asara growled, and he could hear her footsteps retreating up the stairs while the guards closed and locked the door of his cell, then he was alone.
He grunted and squirmed briefly, trying to get more comfortable. His forepaws were already back as far as his shoulders could reach, so they wouldn't be moving until he was released, and his hind paws were also at the limit of his flexibility, but his back and his neck had already begun to cramp and ache from being forced to curl backwards so much. He could try to straighten his back, but the chain linking his two sets of paws would put even more strain on his legs, and if he tried to unbend his neck the reins would pull the bit still harder against the back of his mouth.
Why had she done this to him? She'd said it was to punish him for trying to take advantage of her--but he hadn't! All he had done was admit how he felt about her, how much he cared about her after spending so much time with her... Why was that something he deserved to be punished for? She had been so distraught, so hopeless after returning unsuccessfully from her search; she had needed for someone to compliment her, and tell her he would do what other dragons would not, and he really had meant it... How could he not have said it? He had just wanted her to feel better.
Or maybe she didn't want to hear it. Maybe she'd never considered how he might feel about her, and hadn't wanted to know that someone who'd done what he had done to her felt the way he did. It would make sense for her to not want to hear him say that, especially if she didn't feel the same way about him... And even if she did have some feelings for him, even if she had mated with him after enslaving him, there was sure to still be some part of her mind that hated the thought of mating with him, whether he was bound and at her mercy or not. Still, though, he didn't regret it; even if she had denied and punished him for it, it had distracted her from the sadness she'd felt just before, and as long as she wasn't so depressed...
Not that he actually wanted to be chained like this, of course. He moaned and wriggled his paws back and forth; if he could just find some way to reverse his hind paws, get them against his belly instead of out away from it, then he wouldn't have to arch his back so painfully... But the chain was too tight to let him work his way out of it, and he stopped struggling after a little while when fighting to get out of the position only made it more painful. His neck was trapped just as securely, and no matter how much he twisted and strained all trying to bend his neck the other way did was make the bit hurt him more. Of course he stood no chance of breaking any of the restraints--though even if he probably could work his tail free if he tried, it wouldn't do any good--so after squirming a moment longer he went limp in his bonds, panting from the effort his struggles had taken and doing the best he could to ignore the pain, and rest.
But as the night went on his position only made him feel more and more cramped, and he couldn't help but begin to struggle again just to try to loosen up his tight muscles. His jaws ached from the bit digging into them, his neck hurt, his shoulders were sore, his lower back felt strange, and his hind paws had gone oddly numb... And fighting was only making it all worse. He couldn't keep from letting out a howl of frustration as he accidentally rolled onto his back, making everything hurt even more, and had so little room to move that it took nearly ten minutes just to thrash hard enough to fall onto his side again. His claws clenched helplessly as he tried as hard as he could to ignore the pain and wait it out, to figure out a way to make the time pass more quickly until morning came, but blindfolded as he was he couldn't see any movement of the sun, moon, or stars, and his cell was just isolated enough to keep him from hearing the sounds of nighttime creatures, or even the guard changing on the walls. He could only guess how much time had passed, how long he had been trapped like this, and how much longer he would have to put up with it...
Juneas groaned and tried the best he could to lie still, if only for a moment; he could only hope that eventually he would pass out from exhaustion, and that the position he was trapped in wouldn't cause him any lasting damage.