Wyvern's Reward
#7 of Racer's Reward (Standalone stories)
A lone wyvern returns to his tribe with a special request. Although his life has been changed for the better, there are still things he has missed.
This is a short one-off story which can be read independently and requires no background knowledge, as is the case for most of the stories in this folder.
Two wyverns were perched atop a lofty cliff, overlooking a dense forest far below. One of them was peering down and watching carefully for the subtle movement of prey, while the other was looking upwards and staring dreamily at the clouds.
"Rrrr... Tsssta, rmmsts nnrts..." The first wyvern let out a soft growl followed by a series of clicking and chirping sounds, speaking in the natural language of their kind. "Switch, this hunt would go much faster if you made yourself useful."
The second wyvern, whose name was Switachirin, used a wing-claw and casually scratched an itch on the underside of his neck. "With your masterful hunting skills I'm sure you don't need my assistance, Thyso. I would only get in your way."
"Nrghh..." Thyso made a soft grunting noise which was the wyvern equivalent of a sigh. "You've changed since we last met. You've gotten more useless."
"Have I?"
"No, not really. You were always useless. It makes me wonder why I even missed you."
Switcharin made a happy squawking noise and waved his wings. "Awk! I knew you missed me. Has it really been a whole year since we last spoke?"
Thyso continued peering keenly at the forest below, looking out for prey. "Indeed. Why have you returned now? Have you finally come to regret going to live with the humans?"
"Not at all! Living with the humans is rewarding. I get a warm comfortable bed to sleep in, and food without ever needing to hunt. All I need to do is carry a human on my back and fly her around to places."
Finally getting distracted from her hunt, Thyso glanced at Switcharin and looked him over. Wyverns were aerial creatures, adapted for flight and ungainly on the ground. With two wings and two legs, their general body form resembled that of a bat, but they were both much larger than the little flying mammals.
Switcharin was still smaller than she was, though her friend did look somewhat better than before. His scales were a glossy, healthier colour and his wing muscles looked stronger. Previously he'd been underweight and scrawny, but now he was just slender and slim. "Your voice is different. You words are less smooth... More distinct, and not blended together," Thyso also noted.
"Human speech is different from our own, but it's not that difficult to learn! They call me 'Switch', just like you do, because they have trouble pronouncing my full name. But I've been trying hard to pick up English. Ap-ple. Box. Cat. Dragon." The male wyvern shook his head and reverted back to their native language. "I'm sure you would have no difficulty learning if you decided to leave these hills and go live in a city."
"Leave? Our tribe has lived in these hills for countless generations." Thyso used her wing and gestured across the vast hilly forest. "We have lived, loved, hunted, and roamed here for so long, and you want me to leave to go work with humans, lending them my wings because they are too useless to be able to fly by themselves?"
Switcharin bobbed his head. "Yes! I think it is an easier, better way to live. In the past year I've been away, I have never spent even a single night hungry. The humans respect and take good care of me. And I've met so many other dragons, of all different types! From all across the country, and all across the world. We can do much more, all of us together."
"So you've come to persuade more of our tribe to join you, and go work for the humans," Thyso summarized.
"Partially? I also came back because I missed some people in our tribe. Not everyone, but some people, you included. Nice to see you again!" Switcharin rubbed his snout against Thyso's neck affectionately, and she let him do it. "Also, I have a separate request to make." Leaning back, Switcharin used his wing-claws to carefully lift off the satchel bag which had been around his neck and resting against his back. He took out a small glass jar and flipped open the swing lid, revealing some sort of translucent membrane covering the jar's top.
"What is that thing?" Thyso asked.
"It's a milking jar for venom." Switcharin opened his jaws and bit down on the top of the jar, and his fangs smoothly pierced through the membrane.
As Thyso watched, a few drops of clear liquid dripped into the jar. The sight made her lick her own fangs, feeling that small hole in the tip of the pointed teeth through which venom could be injected into prey.
Lowering the jar, Switcharin closed his mouth and swallowed. "Mm. My human happens to be a researcher working in one of their universities. She does pharmaceutical research, and--"
"Pharma--what?" Thyso asked, not understanding what Switcharin had just said. It wasn't a word of the draconic language.
"Uh, in the human language that means medicines. I'm working with a doctor human, and normally I just fly her between her house and the university, or between research labs. She's a very nice person! Very friendly. She specially requested that I be assigned as her transport because Green Cliff Wyverns--_that's the specific human name for us--because we're one of the rare few dragon species which have venom." Switcharin tapped the jar, which he'd placed on the ground. "And they want to do research on it, to see if it might be useful in medicine. Apparently our venom has _paralytic, analgesic, and antiseptic properties."
Thyso swished her tail and slapped Switcharin's side. "Now you're just showing off. You know that I don't understand any of those human words."
"Medicine! Our venom may be useful in medicine, but they aren't sure and are still doing knowledge explorations," Switcharin explained. "Isn't that an unusual idea?"
"Not really. Perhaps for you, because you're an inept hunter. Any good hunter knows the value of venom in the correct situation." Thyso playfully poked Switcharin's side with her tail, and then she stared out over the forest again. "Venom can paralyze prey, but it isn't useful for hunting normal, small creatures. It's only useful for hunting bigger prey while we fly in packs--which you would know if you'd ever paid any attention when the elders were teaching us, back when we were both fledglings."
"I did pay attention! I'm not an inept hunter, I'm just not as good as you are." Switcharin pretended to look offended, though they both knew that he was an inept hunter, and that had been a major reason for his decision to leave the tribe and swap out the feral lifestyle for becoming a tamed wyvern. "But anyway, my pet human needs more venom for her research, more than I can produce just on my own. So when I decided to take this trip and visit the tribe again, I also thought that I could ask around and collect venom from everyone."
"Collecting venom from the whole tribe? How bold of you." Opening her mouth, Thyso let Switcharin get a look at her fangs. "It's a waste of venom to use it on prey. Much better to bring down a deer with your claws or teeth. You do know what venom is actually for, yes?" she asked.
Switcharin's gaze darted from her eyes to her pointed teeth. "I... Yes, of course I do."
"Do you? Venom is a show of strength. The stronger your venom, the stronger you are." Again Thyso licked her fangs, running her tongue against the pointed tips of her teeth. She leaned closer towards Switch, and the male wyvern remained perfectly still as she sniffed at his neck. "More than size, or speed, or even hunting skill, a good dose of venom proves that you are strong and worthy enough. Which is why a good bite is the proper start for mating."
Switcharin blinked. "I know that! Venom is, uh, a sexually selected trait. My human explained it to me using her science. When a wyvern bites another wyvern, the neurotoxins get metabolized rapidly and partially inactivated. The altered chemicals act as hormonal stimulants, thus tying reproductive success directly with venom potency--"
"There you go again, using those long fancy human words. You could be completely making up words and I wouldn't know." Thyso stretched her wing and picked up the jar. A decent amount of Switcharin's venom was already inside, enough to form a layer of that clear liquid on the bottom of the jar. "So you want my venom, do you?"
"Yes, please." Bobbing his head, Switcharin shifted his weight between his legs and his wings. "I know that normally me asking for your venom would mean I'm asking for something else, but in this case I actually do just need the venom. It's for the good of medicine!"
Thyso let out a huff of amusement. "Hff. Alright then." Holding the jar up between her wing-claws, she extended her fangs and bit down on the membrane covering the top. Her fangs pierced into the jar, but then nothing else happened. "How...did you do this?"
"Oh. You need to inject the venom in, just like how you would do it for prey. There's this muscle in your jaw you have to clench."
With her fangs still stuck in the jar, Thyso stared at Switch. Her speech came out sounding muffled. "That's not helpful. I wouldn't waste my venom on prey, and this doesn't feel anything like biting into prey anyway."
"For me, it took a few tries to learn how to do it into the jar," Switcharin said. "I didn't consider the fact that it takes some practice to learn how to envenomate a collection jar. Just...try and do it...? I'm not sure how to explain. It's a muscle reflex that you need to manually activate."
Thyso slid her fangs out of the venom jar and snapped her mouth closed. "How badly do you want my venom?"
Switcharin fluttered his wings in the draconic equivalent of a shrug. "It would be very useful? My pet human was quite insistent on the potential pharmaceutical benefits of wyvern venom. So if you could give me some of your venom, that would be great."
"Alright, since you ask so nicely..." Thyso spun around and head-butted Switcharin's chest, shoving the smaller wyvern onto his back.
"Awkk!" Switcharin let out a surprised squawk, but Thyso leapt forward and pinned him down before he could react. "Thyso! What are you--? You are sitting on me now. What?"
"You wanted venom? Well this is how you're supposed to get it." Thyso shifted her weight, making sure that Switcharin was fully held down. She growled softly, enjoying the warm feeling of her friend under her, his scales rubbing against hers. "Pretend that we're mating and that I'm going to bite you."
Switcharin looked rather wide-eyed, but he didn't object. "Oh! Oh, I understand. If this helps you produce venom, then go ahead."
Thyso stretched out her wing and snagged over the venom collection jar, which had gotten knocked aside. Still crouched atop Switch, she put the jar right next to his neck. "Don't just be limp! Try and resist, like you're a good proper mate who needs to subdued and given a good dose of venom so I can hump the seed out of you. Rrr..."
"Uh... This isn't really... I guess I could do that...?" Switcharin blinked, looking awkward for a moment. Then he briefly tried to struggle, but he was smaller than her and he didn't even dare to use his claws.
Thyso didn't budge. Her friend was so amusingly, adorably terrible at acting like how a proper wyvern ought to. "Switch, don't tell me you spent a whole year away from the tribe, living in a human city with tens of thousands of other dragons, and you never even made any friends."
"I did make friends! But none of them were wyverns who pinned me down to jab me with their venom."
"So you've never been bitten?" Thyso asked, staring at the wyvern lying underneath her. "You don't know what you're missing out on."
"Well, my pet human sometimes uses a hypodermic needle to inject me with venom so she could study the metabolized compounds for their various properties--"
Thyso swung her wing forward and draped it over Switcharin's head to shut him up. "Again with the big words. Big words from a big brain, belonging to a small wyvern who's bad at hunting." Sweeping her wing away, Thyso looked over Switcharin's body with a hungry gaze. "But I don't care. I'm going to mate you anyway. Grr... You're _mine_now. And I think you need a good dose of venom to shut you up. Yes you do." Shifting her hips, she rubbed her underbelly against Switcharin's, then picked up the venom jar and bit down. Thyso could feel her venom glands tensing up, but she didn't try very hard to inject her venom into the jar. "Hmm. It still isn't working," she told her friend.
Switcharin blinked and glanced at her, his head right next to hers. "If this doesn't work, I don't think there's anything else we can try to help you figure it out."
"Nonsense. There's plenty more we can do." Thyso put down the jar and pressed her snout against Switcharin's neck, inhaling his warm, familiar scent. She licked at his neck, running her tongue over his scales. They'd been close friends for a long time, far before he'd decided to leave the tribe and live in a human city. How had they never managed to do this before?
"I want to bite you... I'm _going_to bite you," she muttered, voicing out her decision as soon as she'd made it.
"Hmm? No, the venom is supposed to go into the jar, not into me," Switcharin replied, though he was still watching Thyso curiously and made no move to stop her.
"It'll just be a dry bite. Just enough to get my venom glands flowing, then I'll bite the jar and collect the venom." Thyso licked her fangs, hungrily staring at her friend. They were supposed to be hunting wild game, but instead she was going to hunt him. "Or maybe it won't be so dry. We'll see."
"Alright, if that's what it takes--ohh." The moment Switcharin agreed, Thyso opened her jaws and bit down on his throat, letting her fangs pierce through the soft scale plates of his neck. Wyverns had rigid scales covering most of their body, but not at that spot. The thin points of her fangs jabbed into Switcharin's neck muscles, and her venom glands immediately squeezed, pumping a dose of highly potent venom through the hollow centres of her sharp teeth and right where it needed to go.
"Grrr..." Thyso let out a soft, dominant growl from just how instinctively correct this felt. It felt perfect to be lying atop her friend, pinning him down and injecting him with her venom. With their chests pressed together, she could feel Switcharin's heart beating rapidly, quickly working to spread her venom through his bloodstream.
"Ooh. That was not a dry bite at all!" Switcharin exclaimed, and Thyso could feel his throat vibrating as he spoke. "Thyso, that wasn't even close to a dry bite."
Opening her jaws and releasing Switcharin's throat, Thyso leaned back and stared at him, waiting to see the effects of her venom. This was the first time she was doing this to him, but she'd bitten others wyverns before and been bitten herself. "Whoops. I got carried away."
"I hope you still saved some venom for the jar," muttered the smaller male.
Thyso snorted dismissively. "Don't you worry, there's plenty more where that came from. How are you feeling?"
"Cold. It feels like ice right where you bit me, and it's spreading up and down my neck." Shifting his left wing, Switcharin rubbed his wing-claw against part of his neck. "I can't feel anything... My scales are all numb. My limbs are getting weak too." His wing trembled, then dropped back down onto the ground as the venom started to affect his skeletal muscles, making it hard for him to move. He managed to keep his head up, still staring back at Thyso. "That really was quite the dose! You didn't hold back at all," he gasped.
"You were too delicious looking. I couldn't resist." Thyso started carefully licking the two puncture marks on Switcharin's neck, but there was hardly any bleeding at all. Now all she had to do was wait. The immediate effect of a wyvern bite was numbness and weakening of muscles as the venom took effect, but soon Switcharin's body would react to the toxin and alter its effects to something far less debilitating and rather more exciting.
Switcharin knew this too, and they both knew what was coming next. With her chest pressed against his, Thyso could feel Switcharin's heartrate slowing as the paralytic took hold. Wyverns were immune to the most dangerous effects of their own kind's venom, so no amount would have been able to stop his heart, but it did slow that rhythmic beat. But after about half a minute, his heartrate began to pick up again, beating even faster than before.
"It's not cold anymore. Feels warm, warm all over." Switcharin was breathing heavily now, and his pupils looked slightly dilated. Thyso spread out her wings and pushed herself upright, lifting some of her weight of his body. She glanced down, and unsurprisingly saw that all that increased blood flow induced by her venom was having an effect. Switcharin was becoming erect.
Right between his legs there was a narrow cleft--his genital slit--and now Switcharin's penis was inflating with blood and pushing out of that compartment, quickly growing to full size. As with the case for all male wyverns, Switcharin's phallus was rigid rod of tumescent flesh--smooth and aerodynamically sleek like the rest of its owner, yet unscaled and sensitive looking. Its reddish, veiny colour made it stand out against the rest of Switcharin's leaf green scales, and Thyso let out a pleased rumble as she examined her friend's intimate anatomy, now so very well exposed.
"Hmr...!" This was a part of him she had never managed to get a good proper look at. They'd curiously explored each other's bodies back when they were both young hatchlings; then after they'd grown up, Thyso had gotten glimpses of Switcharin's phallus when they gone to the lake to bathe, but this was much better. Male wyverns were smaller than female wyverns, and Switcharin was small even for a male, but in this particular regard he wasn't so small. He wasn't freakishly big, but he certainly looked large enough to please.
In a rare event, it appeared that Switcharin had nothing to say. The normally chatty wyvern had fallen silent, and that seemed to make the moment even more special. Thyso looked back up at her friend, then she adjusted her position and lined the tip of his erection against her own genital slit. Without much ado she slid him in, letting his phallus spear into her. He felt warm and delightfully filling inside of her.
Wyvern mating was a fast, frantic affair. Thyso slid her hips up and down, rapidly bucking against the male underneath her. That quick stimulation felt delightfully pleasurable as Switcharin's erection rubbed against sensitive spots inside her. Yet Thyso also knew that whatever she was feeling, Switcharin was feeling double. Wyvern venom (when used on other wyverns) had an aphrodisiac effect--it made you feel warm, flushed, and so easily aroused. It made the reproductive organs even more sensitive, and it sent lustful thoughts rushing through your head.
Switcharin writhed around underneath her, instinctively moving his own hips to accentuate their thrusts. He was breathing heavily, but then he blinked and managed to find his voice. "Thyso? I... What are we doing?"
"You know what we're doing." Thyso muttered. She didn't relent. Her hips continued to move, driving her pleasure higher and higher. She locked her wing-claws with Switcharin's, and their tails became entwined up as the two wyverns pulled close. "You wanted my venom, and you got it. Now you owe me your seed."
"I don't remember making that deal," Switcharin muttered, though he kept thrusting his phallus upwards into Thyso's slit. "This feels incredible..."
Despite the fact that Switcharin was the only one who was intoxicated by venom, Thyso was reasonably sure that she was just as aroused as he was. Her body was running wild as lust clouded all her rational thoughts. "I let you get away once, and you ran all the way to the city, going to live with the humans. You aren't getting away again. This time... this time you're mine. My male. My mate. Mine."
Switcharin didn't say anything in return. Instead, he let out a quiet, obediently submissive chirp. "Mrrp..."
"You're going to give me your seed. All of it. You're going to put an egg into me, like the good little male you are."
Switcharin blinked, and then his eyes refocused and he met her gaze. "Wait, seriously? Are you... are you in heat? You know what happens if you're in heat and we mate, right? I guess you do, because you just said what happens. But I mean, are you sure that you want to--Eek!"
The male wyvern let out a soft squeak as Thyso bit down on his neck again--not piercing him with her fangs, but simply letting all her teeth press up against his scales, possessively letting him know that she was in control. She gently gnawed on his neck, then opened her jaws and licked his snout. "Shut up. You always talked too much, you know that? And I used to find it irritating, but then you left and I realized how much I hated the silence you left behind."
"Really? That's nice of you to say. I've missed you too!"
Thyso didn't know too many human words, but she did know one special word for which the natural language of dragons had no lexical equivalent. "Shut the fuck up and fuck me, Switch," she growled, and Switcharin twitched as he did just that. Of all her years of life, Thyso had never felt quite so aroused as she did right now, mating with the male she truly wanted. "Cum for me. Fill me up. Now," she ordered.
Switcharin's whole body jerked, and he went fully stiff as he did as she asked. His mind and body were in her grasp, his desires entirely matched with hers. "Mmgnnrrhh...!" Making a shocked, overwhelmed noise, his snout scrunched up into an adorable grimace, and his eyes clenched shut as instinct override all conscious thought. His phallus throbbed, and then Switcharin began to pour out his warm, life-creating seminal fluids directly into Thyso, flooding her oviducts with his sperm.
Coupled with the sight of her friend totally lost in pleasure, that sensation was enough to kick off Thyso's orgasm too. She slammed her hips down, pressing her underbelly against Switcharin's and making sure that the male was penetrating her deepest. Much as she felt an instinct to bite down on his neck again, Thyso bit down on the jar instead. Venom spurted out of her fangs and into the collection jar, even as muscles in her underbelly clamped down too, squeezing and kneading Switcharin's erection and coaxing him to spurt all his semen into her.
In that moment there was no thinking, no planning, no analysing. There was nothing but raw pleasure and primal instincts, as the two intelligent creatures writhed against each other like animals. Thyso could feel a warm, wetness spreading inside her as Switcharin emptied out his pent-up arousal into her egg chambers, breeding her thoroughly.
The rhythmic waves of pleasure eventually weakened and slowed, and Thyso found herself back in control of herself. Switcharin's wing-claws were still locked with hers, and the smaller wyvern had gone limp. He was panting softly, his eyes still closed. Thyso tugged her fangs out of the collection jar, but she made no move to lift herself off Switch, and his phallus remained buried inside her. Looking at that jar, she observed that despite all the venom she'd first pumped into Switcharin, she'd still added a decent amount. Rather like how he'd added quite a bit of liquid to her insides.
The male wyvern continued mumbling incoherently for a few seconds before he found his voice again. "Gnnnrmrr... Thyso! Mnggg... Ok... Ok...! That was... You aren't actually in heat though? Right?" He opened his eyes and stared at Thyso. "Seriously speaking--we didn't just make an egg, right?"
Thyso licked Switcharin's snout affectionately. "It's been about...five and a half months since I was in heat. I shouldn't be due for a few more weeks. Probably. Or maybe my heat came early, and we did just make an egg. Hmm, that would be interesting."
"I'm feeling conflicted now. I don't like the idea of having just put an egg into you, but I also sort of really like that idea," Switcharin admitted. Suddenly he paused and frowned as if he was just realizing what they'd done. "Wait, we just mated? We just mated! Wow. Why didn't we ever do this _before_I left to go to the city?"
Thyso let out an amused grunt. "Mhf. I guess I didn't realize how much I liked you until you left. And now you asked me for my venom, so I gave it to you."
Switcharin's gaze darted from Thyso to the jar, then back again. "Thank you? I got way more than just venom."
"You're welcome." Again Thyso licked Switcharin's snout, and gave him a pointed look. Finally he got the message and returned the gesture, licking her back on her snout with enthusiasm but not much technique. That was alright. He would learn, for she would teach how to act like a proper mate ought to.
"I doubt I'll be getting this sort of treatment from the rest of the tribe," Switcharin said.
Thyso let out a soft, possessive growl. "Grr... No, you won't. Don't ask the rest of the tribe for their venom. You're mine."
Switcharin blinked, and he nodded his head towards the venom jar. "Uhh, but it's for the good of science and progress and medicine. My pet human needs of our venom for research."
"No. If you need more venom I'll provide it to you myself, not the rest of the tribe."
"Just you? Even still considering that lots of people won't help me, there's no way you can outproduce the whole tribe," Switcharin replied.
"Not all at once. But over time, if I keep giving you venom you'll get much more than just a one-off collection from the tribe." Thyso straightened herself up, though she remained crouched on top of Switcharin, not taking her weight of him. "So now I want you to tell me about what it's like in the city, because I have been considering leaving the tribe and the forest. Everyday there are transport dragons flying by the forest, and they tell me that life is good for dragons who work with humans. But I want to hear it from you. I want to hear about what the humans are like, and about the sort of work they make you do, and what your life has been like over the past year."
"And if I convince you, you'll come live in the city with me?" Switcharin asked, looking hopeful. "I... I've missed you very much, Thyso. You with your boldness and your confidence. You were my only real friend in the tribe, and sometimes I think that was because you were the only one confident enough to ignore what everyone else said about how I was a useless wyvern. Would you come to the city with me?"
"That is a possibility." Thyso made a non-committal shrug of her wings, though she was already reasonably certain that she would do it. Because despite his overall lack of size, strength, and hunting skill, Switcharin had always been smarter than her, and his decision to live amongst the humans didn't seem unwise.
Switcharin nodded, but he glanced around the clifftop. "I'll gladly tell you about my life, but maybe we should clean up first? If anyone comes flying by, it'll be very obvious what we've been doing with the way we're...lying against each other."
Thyso flicked her wings indifferently. She was feeling warm and comfortable with Switcharin pressed up against her. It wasn't even sexual--just the physical intimacy was nice. "I'm not embarrassed that I mated with you. Are you embarrassed to have mated with me? That's what I thought. Now tell me about what you've been doing."
Switcharin blinked, and then he did as she asked. "The city is busy, noisy, crowded, smelly, and completely amazing..."
END
Feel like reading more of my stories? Try: The Communal Rut. It's a story which sounds like it should be just sex, but instead it's emotions and feelings and character and stuff.