The journey of an exile first 3 chapters

Story by Cheetahs on SoFurry

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This is a story commission that avatar?user=508610&character=0&clevel=2 Nulkurrak has written for Saphirafafnar( https://www.furaffinity.net/user/saphirafafnar/ )

Hey there, I'd like to start doing something a little different on this account. Instead of simply copy pasting the stories I upload over on Nulkurrak, I'll try to upload finished stories and clusters of chapters here on cheetahs. I wish, with this method, to avoid the carbon copy feeling of these two accounts, and to also have a lesser number of submissions and better organization. If this goes well, I'll aim to only upload finished projects here, but for longer ones, I'll do clusters of chapters like in the case of this. If you prefer to read stuff as soon as it comes out head over to the Nulkurrak profile, though if you're the type to prefer longer, more thorough reads, I think this method will suit you better.

This also comes equipped with chapter descriptions so that you can get a quick synopsis into what every chapter contains.

Khaeldran(c) and Rhaedra(c) are my characters

Nalu(c) belongs to Saphirafafnar

***Chapter 1: Choices***

Chapter 1 description: After falling prey to the temptation of discovering the pleasures of mating alongside his most beloved sister, the green dragon Khaeldran leaves his family in self-imposed exile to ensure that nobody suspects or discovers the taboo affection they bear each other.

***

"Why do you have to be such a good hunter?" Rhaedra asked in that teasing way of hers, hazel eyes bearing into his. Her tongue strolled across the left and right of her slim snout to collect some of the blood marring her softer colored green scales, leaving enough mess for Khaeldran to clean up in the same way that they had done since their first meal as hatchlings.

But before Khaeldran had the chance to assume his rightful role, her nose horn poked right at the soft scales of his throat, its decently sharp tip cutting his breath away.

"Better that you don't speak," she said, settling a padded paw over his nostrils, the pink-mottled, leathery tissue scented as soft as its surface now that she had licked them clean. "I already know what will come out of that too elegant muzzle of yours. If you didn't prove me wrong, I'd have continued to believe you are a female like the rest of us."

He wanted to shake her off, to snarl and perhaps bite some sense into her pads, but he restrained himself at the last moment. At the back of his mind, deep down in a dark corner, a sliver of the bleak truth portraying his current situation persisted, nudging him towards the surface of this surreal landscape in a barely perceptible way.

He wasn't truly here, together with his dearest of his four sisters. He had not feasted on twin-tusk boars for weeks after fleeing their native territory, and he no longer had any family to bathe him after a hunt. Not after he had left all that he held dear due to a mistake that should never have happened for longer than he cared to remember.

Rhaedra's paw fell off his muzzle, planting into the ground as the leaf-green female leaned back on her haunches, her lighter-hued, bronze-flecked frills perking in indignation. Any other male might have found her terrifying, given the size of her spines and her thorny horns, but Khaeldran never took her seriously because of her paws. True, her toes housed claws sharper than his, but of all his sisters, she ended up as the only one with father's soft feet.

"Leave, then," she growled, pointing her leaf-shaped tail tip at the sky. "Your mind is already there, and you have indulged in this habit of ours for far longer than you had to. But we're no longer hatchlings, and I have to accept that despite your promise to me, mrrrrhm."

Just as she got up and prepared to head for a lake with a dour growl sizzling within her throat, Khaeldran grabbed her by the tail, behind the frilled tip, to stop her, then licked across the scales that his fangs bit into reassuringly.

"It will always be our post-meal ritual. No matter how old we grow, it shall remain part of us."

When Rhaedra turned her head, she regarded him not with the warmth he had grown so accustomed to, but with a sharp, almost critical glare that made his wings fold and his ears droop.

"Then prove it," the dragoness challenged him by fanning out her wings and frills. "Show me that it is truly how you feel, because I no longer trust your words on the matter."

Khaeldran froze. A similar dare had led him down this perilous a path before. It had tempted him to stray away from the familiarity of her muzzle and the safe softness of her paw pads and delve lower down her body, too close to the forbidden area between her legs. Her young honey had just begun to leak out of her, and regardless of his mental fortitude and reticence to give in to his sister's dares, Rhaedra found a way to slip through his defenses and convince him to explore his first female in the safest, most harmless of ways.

But once he started, Khaeldran found it impossible to stop. He had drunk too deep of her, enough for his addled mind to find solid logic in her request that they should be each other's first; that her most trusted and loved brother ought to show her how mating feels, even though its intricacies were foreign to him as well.

So, instead of wrestling himself out of her like they both agreed to so that his seed shot over the cold, uncaring soil, Khaeldran found her depths too tight, too stimulating, and far too intoxicating to leave them, and so he...he...couldn't...not in time...not before he started to turn soft over the hearty purr and fulfilled licks of his blissfully ignorant sister.

"It is a dream," he spoke out loud words that were meant for himself. "You are a dream for your future mate," he then corrected himself, unwilling to give up on this magical moment just yet. It had already happened once before, and he took the proper measures to ensure that such a union would not come to pass a second time.

Unless it took place in the realm of dreams, where the burdens of reality no longer applied.

"Such an uncharacteristic thing to say," Rhaedra purred, her featuring softening, eyes beaming with the affection in which Khaeldran had drowned one too many times. "You did not even meet him. Perhaps he is a scarred brute. Or maybe he is a petite whelp who hardens at the mere sight of me, yet who can never muster the same courage you have displayed by entering me."

Courage, she called it. Khaeldran knew it by a different term, a more inelegant one that outlined naught but a base need, such as hunting, eating and sleeping. Instead of correcting her, he made his way to her snout so that he could rub cheeks with her.

"I trust you, Rhaedra. Be it a brute, a cowardly youngling, or a black dragon from the dark lands beyond the Great Ravine, you have made the right choice."

"And what if I didn't?" his sister insisted, nipping on his ear playfully, then licking at its olive inside to trigger that annoying, instinctive shake of Khaeldran's head. "What if I simply wanted to fill the empty life of a male who others would avoid? To be the glimmer of hope previously denied to them?"

She had one such side, a dangerously benevolent one that forced Khaeldran to outgrow their hatchling frolic faster than all of his sisters. As the sole male left in a family of females after father's untimely demise, the responsibility of looking after them fell on his wings, a weight that had since kept him grounded into the harsh reality of their world.

For the most part, at least. The more his mother urged them to leave their nest in search of their precious other half so that she could try her chance at happiness once again, the harder it became to keep all of his sisters focused on the importance of their choices and decisions. That, of course, led to him being the one to slip in a moment of great weakness. How ironic, that the male who urged caution and self-control at every turn ended up falling prey to Rhaedra's desire to see him happy and fulfilled by ridding himself free of his agitated, sweltering mating dreams.

"If that is your life's ambition, to mend the broken and provide a sense of belonging to misunderstood outcasts, then who am I to stop you?"

He knew that purr; that soft, intoxicating sound that wrapped its warm, electrifying coils around him to pull him towards the inevitable.

I have a choice, Khaeldran thought as his sister elegantly strolled in front of him, her tail waving from one side to the other in sluggish arcs meant to emphasize the translucent desire coating the soft, paler scales surrounding her sex.

I don't have to do this, he tried to convince himself when her tail flicked upwards to give him a furtive glance at the concealed isle where the same drenched scales from before progressively faded into smooth, rosy skin that outlined the puffy, aroused edges of her slit-shaped entrance.

She is my sister. Not my mate, but my sister, the young green dragon attempted to invoke the truest and strongest of reasons as to why he should avoid giving in to the will of the throbs wracking his too hard and eager shaft.

It did not help. Nor did it matter. This dream was his only connection to a family that he had abandoned for reasons that Rhaedra certainly considered selfish, and despite the regret that strangled his heart for being such weak-minded fool, Khaeldran's snout approached her sex.

She smelled far better than he remembered, her smooth yet potent fragrance lush with pheromones that bespoke of her fertility. Khaeldran deeply inhaled the maddening perfume of her first heat, his breath shuddering, his temples pounding, and his cock stiffening to the point where it felt as if his seed would shoot straight out of him. He only managed a quick lick across the dragoness' fevered lips before Rhaedra skipped forward, her tail hugging his neck lovingly.

"Mind yourself, my beloved. You are overeager, impatient and far too sensitive. It is far better that you seek shelter inside me, and pour within me all those worries and frustrations you have harbored for far too long."

She spoke too true for Khaeldran to mount any defense against the perverse lust that coursed through him. Upon reaching sexual maturity, Khaeldran began to trust the scent of his sisters more than he believed their words. Far too worried that they might let a young, inexperienced male inside them simply because he knew how to court them and where to lick them, he sniffed them for signs of heat whenever the opportunity arose, intent on protecting them from the brashness of their instinct. Of all of them, Rhaedra was the only one who not only teased, but playfully wooed him, aware of the effect her scent stirred within his underbelly.

"Look at yourself," she impishly chided him, loosening her hold on him so that she could glance between his legs and at how awfully erect he was. "Your tip grew so prominent that a single lick will be enough to coax your seed out, and your ridges..." she paused to let out a lustful growl at how the taut formations adorning the underside of his cock stood out. "Your ridges never looked so sharp and appealing. Why must you always deny yourself this simplest yet most meaningful of pleasures?"

He didn't respond. Not before his snout tip connected with the warm, soggy flesh of her rift a second time, causing Rhaedra's purr to raise along with her inviting tail. It uncoiled from his neck with the grace of a serpent, giving him free reign over her sex.

Lost in the moment, and with such a ripe offering presented to him, Khaeldran's first instinct was to absorb as much of her scent as possible; to learn as much about the state of her heat as his senses allowed, and to savor every pheromone-laden breath. His flaring nostrils desperately skipped along the length of her pussy, her smell stronger and rougher towards the end of her slit, where he was supposed to enter. The intensity of her aroma enraptured him, causing the drake's nostrils to kiss her lips in his desperate attempts to savor all that Rhaedra had to offer.

"Mriiiiiiih," Khaeldran whined, dabbing his snout against her bare, throbbing flesh, uncertain whether to lick or not. The heat oozing through her convinced his tongue to finally loosen, all so that he could soothe that portion of his sister which clearly suffered from the toll of heat.

"Mrrrrmmmm, eager. Too...hrrrhhh...too eager," Rhaedra barely wrestled those ominous warnings out of her while caught in the fetters of pure bliss. Khaeldran felt her muscles ripple with great longing while caressed by caring tongue; he tasted her desperation on the thick yet smooth honey trickling from her vent, and he smelled her dire need to be bred. Rather than speak words that would fall on deaf ears, the dragoness' tail found his neck again, hugging him as tight as she wanted him to hug her.

Khaeldran didn't think. The way Rhaedra's tail grip softened and hardened in an enticing, almost erotic massage seduced him beyond the defense his frail resolve hoped to mount. So, he simply acted according to the will of the burning, overpowering lust that had welled within his throbbing erection, rearing on his hind paws and hugging Rhaedra by her middle with his fores while his tip probed for her entrance. With every missed thrust that glanced against her underbelly scales and slid frustratingly close to his mark, the nubs surrounding Khaeldran's spaded tip flared harder and ached with renewed urgency. If he didn't find his way inside her within the next five strokes, his pent-up seed would burst forth regardless of where it landed, as was the case for any male who had not been with a female in months.

"Take it slower. Breathe. Relax your uptight wings," Rhaedra said between the loving licks she planted on his scrunched snout. "Then again, you always rushed head-first into the pleasures life offers."

Such a sweet, serene, arousing voice. It wasn't just her scent, the sight, the appeal of her soggy sex, and her willingness to invite him into the depths of her being that aroused Khaeldran to such extent. He had known Rhaedra all his life, and had groomed every scale on her far too familiar body so many times he lost track. They hatched together, and in an irrational, almost perverted way, he believed himself the only male capable of satisfying her needs, for who else could ever know or love her more than he did?

She wanted to whisper more of her allure into his ear, but her words faltered when his tip finally kissed her lips. The slick, inviting warmth of her folds tugged on the deepest, most intimate part of Khaeldran's instinct, urging his back to arch and his hips to buck so that he plunged the entirety of himself into her.

"Grrrrh," Rhaedra growled and moaned at the same time, her head resting against his throat, so that the two different tonalities of their purr could intertwine. Khaeldran couldn't see her face, but he definitely imagined her eyes squeezing shut at how good it felt to have her wet emptiness filled by him. Her muscles twitched and shuddered around him erratically, as if to savor every taut, fleshy nub crowning his tip, every pointy bump adorning the bottom of his shaft, and every ridge lining the base of his fully erect shaft.

Having his most private part of his body completely engulfed by the softest, most intimate part of her being, as well as pressing his body against hers in such profound and meaningful of ways, caused Khaeldran's pent-up, over-eager seed to shoot far quicker than he meant it to. Against his will and expectations, the river of pleasure he had tried to hold back flooded his very senses, causing his tip to bulge to refuse shortly before his essence exploded into Rhaedra.

Khaeldran did not roar. He moaned, whined and whimpered, his hips jerking weakly against the thicker, stronger haunches of his sister as he attempted to both enhance his climax and satisfy Rhaedra to the best of his abilities. The warmth and strength of his spurts did a far better work in stimulating her, however, causing her muscles to rapidly clench and relax around his throbbing shaft to ease the flow of seed out of him.

Completely overwhelmed by the sheer bliss of his second mating, Khaeldran's efforts to do a male's duty ceased, his forepaws focusing on hugging his sister as tight as he could, hindpaws frantically seeking for better purchase so as to keep his member lodged as deep into her as possible. During that moment of utter abandon, it mattered not that his seed risked getting her heavy with his clutch. Such worries drowned in that ocean of pure elation, where nothing else but their union mattered.

"Mrr...mrriiiih," Khaeldran whined one final time after his senses began to recover from the too demanding toll mating took on them. This was when the reality of their union dawned on him as well, bringing forth those dark, menacing, inevitable clouds that he could never hope to outfly. The storm was upon him, and all that he could do was accept its ancient truth, that no dragon could escape it, but weather it.

Khaeldran did that by remaining inside Rhaedra, so that her far stronger scent dwarfed his and thus blissfully covered the fact that he filled her to the brim with his young yet fertile seed.

"Rrrrrh," she rumbled her fulfillment, licking over one of his half-closed eyes to tease him. "Your eagerness flatters me more than anything you will ever say. I find it regretful that as a male, you can never experience the utter satisfaction of being claimed with such enthusiasm, and of being filled so quick and so thoroughly that your heart swells close to bursting. It...it always makes me feel like you have anticipated this moment so much, that when it is finally here you are overwhelmed with its sheer greatness."

The rich, excited purr rippling through Khaeldran's throat amplified the affection she bore him despite it being laden with regret on his side for failing to bring her to her peak. He did that with his tongue prior to their first mating, so his failure to accomplish that in the same way other males did weighed harder on him than she suspected. His upbringing made him too good at shrouding his emotions and intent, to a point where that tiny portion he kept secluded from Rhaedra began to grow to uncomfortable levels.

He'd tell her of his failures. One day, he would confess his sacrifices, frustrations and worries to his entire family. But for the time being, he cherished her licks and savored her content hum too much to spoil the moment.

"What is there for us to learn?" Khaeldran repeated the first question she posed after their first mating as he attempted to lick her at the same time she did, thus causing their tongues to meet. "Perhaps I know you so well, that we skip to the end of our mating before it even begins."

"Mrrh, always turning your weaknesses into strengths."

Before he had the chance to react, Rhaedra's body shifted forward. His limp forelegs acted too late to prevent her from fleeing his embrace, and gravity did the rest. He unceremoniously fell on his fours, dazed and confused as he watched trails of smooth, gooey seed dribble down Rhaedra's sex on their way to meet the grass. His heart skipped a beat when she lifted a hind leg and twisted her neck to steal a glance, only for it to settle back down when she lounged and rolled in the grass in pure fulfillment.

"That is why I love you more than life itself, brother. No matter your lacks, your mistakes, or the misfortunes that befall you, there is a bright flame that burns within you, one which stokes the faltering ones of others. You might be weak, but you help others feel strong. You shoot your seed quick, but you make your dragoness feel like your most treasured of possessions."

She stopped with her forepaws tucked to her chest and her legs spread to the sides in an almost comical position, all so that her entrancing eyes bore into his.

"You will abandon me one day. Could be this very night, when I sleep, a moon or a year later, but a moment will come when you will have to choose between the love you bear me, and the guilt that will slowly consume you."

He...he would never do such a thing! He cherished Rhaedra with every fiber of his being, and had lived his entire life with her! Why would she speak of such false and vile things?

"I know you just as well, my sweet, overly concerned and pent-up brother," she said as she beckoned with her tail for him to join her, which he did in the span of a breath. Her soft, padded forepaws hugged his neck, holding him tight against her chest while she licked him over the tip of his snout, where only his mate ought to.

"It won't be enough to you that I accept the risks and outcome of our union. It's not relevant that I procured myself a mate to protect ourselves and retain our territory, and it will hardly matter to you that I was ever willing to entwine my life with yours. I understand what it entails to be the sole male in a family of females, just as I am perfectly aware that your sense of duty towards me will eclipse everything else."

No! That wasn't true! But for an inexplicable reason, Khaeldran lacked the strength to correct her erroneous judgment. It all felt eerily familiar, as if he had lived through this very moment before, and had paid severest price to ensure that Rhaedra lived the life she deserved, and not the one they both foolishly fantasized about.

And so, he simply savored the sluggish caress of her tongue over the pebbly scales lining his nostrils. Those soft dabs of her toe pads against the tips of his ears, and the exquisite way with which her fangs nibbled on the softer hide covering his throat to show him just how tender she could be with the same teeth that could end the life of another dragon.

"I love you," he wanted to say, had his too vibrant purr not prevented him from it. "I will always love you, and everything that I do is in your best interest."

His sister's words still echoed in his head when Khaeldran roused to the cold, lonely reality of his current situation, one where he apparently shot his seed all over himself instead of filling his beloved sister to the brim, as was a male's duty towards his female.

Half numb and disoriented, the green dragon blinked back the haze of blissful ignorance, his eyes skipping to the edges of his vision to take in his surroundings before they fled back down to the sight of his forepaws. An agitated pounding thundered in his chest as a wave of unbridled shame washed over him, so strong it almost made him dizzy. He knew it to be true. Why look at it, when the wind revealed the location of each patch of liquid humiliation? Why confirm that which his nostrils already stung with, to the point where his lips pulled into a disgusted snarl with his weakness?

When he finally mustered the necessary willpower to accept the outcome of his decision to fly far, far away from the embrace of Rhaedra, Khaeldran slowly, timidly turned his head around, if only because he needed to know the extent of the cleaning he required.

Half of his member had yet to flee back in his slit, his ridges still reasonably stiff, the nubs encircling the edges of his tip somewhat deflated. His wilted spade laid limp in a small puddle of his essence that turned thicker and stickier from the cold, a clammy sensation that Khaeldran only now began to notice.

The Ivory splotches marring the softer, lighter colored scales of his ribs or the dark green plates protecting his belly fared the same fate, and the strings of seed that had pelted his wing resembled tiny white snakes that clung to the olive membrane.

The pungent scent of his loneliness hung all around him like a smothering veil, a constant reminder of how a simple dream of his sister was enough to trigger his climax, now that he no longer had her to help tame his lust with her skilled, silky paws.

A plaintive whine fled Khaeldran's throat, his jaw hanging limp at the sight of his stained self. He wanted to whimper in disgrace at finding himself in such a sorry state, or roar his anger at being brutally torn from that realm of happiness and fulfillment. He did neither while he inspected himself in silence, his snout approaching different patches of seed, yet always drawing back with a hiss at the musky tang of too great a craving. After more than a moon without release, his body had betrayed him in the most vile of ways, turning his greatest of mistakes into one of the most fulfilling dreams he ever had. He missed Rhaedra so, so much, and for a split second, he wondered what she would make of his current condition. Would she find it amusing? Deplorable? Or become overtaken with guilt for allowing his lust to reach such a critical point without interfering?

Khaeldran did not know, nor did he dwell on that for fear of turning tail and fleeing back into her comforting embrace. That temptation always hovered at the forefront of his mind, conjuring worry after worry, reason after reason to cease his self-imposed exile and finally accept that what he did was natural. That such intimacy happened between siblings, and that Rhaedra was not in heat, contrary to what his perverted dream portrayed, and thus highly unlikely to bear his eggs. But if she did...what then? Would she lie to her mate and have him believe it was his clutch? Tell him the truth, or live a lonely, scorned existence, abandoned by everyone who had once loved her?

No. Better not dwell on that. He made the best choice for the both of them, and it was too late to reconsider. He would return to her, but years later when the memory of their accident would be swept away by the necessities of the hatchlings she raised at the side of her loving mate. And he...he would keep searching for...for...

The goal did not matter. Only the journey did. And right now, in the predawn chill of autumn, Khaeldran's foremost concern was to leave behind the scene of his disgrace and wash away the too strong a scent he carried before a wyvern tracked him.

Without even swiping away the more accessible gobs of sticky, ivory seed, Khaeldran began to climb his way out of the hollow in which he rested for the night, weaving his way between the thick trees with rich canopies, perfect for hindering the landing or advances of a bumbling, wing-shuffling wyvern. As soon as he made it within a clearer portion with enough room to comfortably unfurl his wings, the green dragon took to the skies, cringing at the appalling feeling of thick, persistent seed slithering down his scales before dislodging from his frame.

Cold, humid winds battered him, carrying traces of sleet that pelted at the nictitating membranes shielding his eyes. They blew from the heart of the wyvern territory to the north, a frozen, desolate landscape of tall cliffs and icy canyons in which dwelled their mysterious allies, the mountain leopards. Rhaedra would have loved to meet a wyvern, to visit a settlement of bipedal felines known for their enchanted leathers, and venture past the canyons and deeper into the valleys of the nomadic Icetalon drakes.

Khaeldran never harbored such curiosities. He did his best to avoid any encounter with any creature, intent on finding a secluded territory between the borders of two human kingdoms. Nobody would bother him there, and the further south he went, the gentler the climate turned, and the richer the prey.

Since a bigger body of water risked inviting the early rousing wyverns for an easy meal, Khaeldran settled for a brook worming its way down a slope. Barely thicker than his torso and shallow enough to only pass his wrists, the green dragon struggled to roll, wriggle, squirm and trudge through the frigid waters to clean himself. Where the water did not reach, his paws, wings and tail did, which he promptly washed off that foul, persistent slime that left a jarring, sticky feeling between his toes.

Trembling, agitated and fatigued from the prolonged flight sessions that pushed him to his limits in the hope of reaching his destination without crossing paths with any creature that posed a threat to him, Khaeldran scrambled for the nearest patches of bushes to curl behind. His coloring, together with the dappling shadows caressing his frame, often hid him in plain sight, so the young male sheltered his head under a wing and drifted off into uneasy slumber.

***Chapter 2: Vulnerability***

Chapter description: Khaeldran's ire sparks his carefully planned hunt in a new and dangerous territory is interrupted by a gryphon who seems as out of place as he does. Yet, no matter how much he enjoys venting his frustrations on the gryphon, the green dragon's vulnerable side is made apparent when she tugs on the most susceptible part of his instinct.

The need to breed.

***

Gentle chirps and reassuring insect buzzing greeted Khaeldran when he opened his eyes, the ebony slits within the golden pools thin against midday's sharp glare. Almost instinctively, the young male lifted a haunch to peer under it, heart pounding, temples throbbing with irrational fear at having humiliated himself a second time, this time even deeper within the heart of foreign, wyvern territory. Only the barely perceptible line that marked his gender's opening stared back at him, however, the only pink belonging to the aforementioned region that hardly registered amidst the deep, dark green of his protective belly plates.

"Hrrrr," his stomach rumbled a jarring reminder that he had not eaten at all the previous day. Intent on crossing through this treacherous part of the wyvern lands, where the territories of multiple species converged as fast as possible, Khaeldran forsook comfort in favor of speed, a decision that he now began to regret. Although subtle, the spicy, unmistakable scent of wyvern markings floated upon the light breeze, bearing not one or two, but several hues, each pertaining to a different individual belonging to a separate species.

Crossings--or common territory as referred to by wyverns--served one too many purposes, each detrimental to Khaeldran's intention to remain inconspicuous. He might prevail against a young wyvern in search of a mate, but a coalition of wing shufflers who intended to form a heterogeneous clan would certainly corner, entrap, and tear into him before he had the chance to inflict a bite or claw scratch on one of them. No dragon ought to have flown over wyvern territory by himself given the still smoldering tensions between their kinds, and Khaeldran had not only missed his best chance to leave this area early in the morning, but left a marking of a different kind to herald his presence.

One bound to attract the fiercest, most prejudiced of attention.

The instinct to flee blazed to life within him, spurring him onto his feet and carrying him towards the nearest clearing in a mad dash. Right where the shadows grew thinner and the light brighter, Khaeldran stopped, veering a hard turn to make for a precarious hill littered with rocky outcrops of various shapes and sizes. Only after he made it close to its half, where the slant began to require proper use of his claws, did the green dragon stop, his tail coiled around the nearest tree to tether him to this highly inaccessible place for wyverns.

"I can't simply fly off," Khaeldran spoke out loud to make sure that his instinct did not get the better of him this time around. "Even a wyvern runt will be able to best me when my mind is fogged by hunger and my wings burn with strain. I have to hunt on the ground to keep a low profile, hide the carcass deep into the underbrush, and escape in the direction that is least likely to hold wyverns. Wind is unimportant. The scavengers will alert them long before it becomes relevant."

His words soothed his inner panic a little, providing a comforting, well-established plan amidst a sea of churning thoughts. Rather than tame his emotions, Khaeldran remained focus on his immediate goal, maintaining a low posture while climbing down the slope, nostrils alert for signs of a small herd or if luck would have it, a pregnant doe that was about to give birth.

He found neither. Animals that grazed in larger groups attracted too much attention or could have been targeted by other wyverns lying in wait, so he took the longer, more tedious route of tracking down unworthy males who have lost the right to mate to their betters. It took until the sun lowered more than halfway into the sky for him to find a proper target, and in an advantageous location too.

The young buck who rubbed the shedding skin off his horns chose a bough at the edge of a small clearing populated by trees with thick canopies rich in branches, far too much of a bother for any wyvern or dragon to dive through. The splintering wood always alerted the prey, and if not careful, the snapped twigs could graze and even cut through the wing membranes. Khaeldran's gambit paid off big time as he skulked about for the best angle to attack his quarry, approaching from his behind and gaining small but immensely valuable steps whenever the buck's motions intensified and his eyes closed in glee for ridding himself of the pesky, dangling, useless fur.

Ten more steps. Then nine, eight, seven. At the sixth, Khaeldran paused, lowering himself on his belly in the field of weeds, grass and wildflowers, his coloring and the wind's direction adding to his advantage. The buck scouted his location, head held high, nostrils visibly shuddering in search of possible threats, but finding none. When he next returned to his task, he did so with more frequent, less careful movements, almost inviting Khaeldran to break into a dash and claim his prize right then and there.

He didn't. Not yet. Not before he further thinned the critical distance separating predator from prey. So, he took the sixth step, the fifth, fourth, his mouth beginning to water so profusely that his tongue had to wipe away his almost overpowering hunger.

A swish cut through the air above Khaeldran. No snapping branches, no sound of wyvern wings, no heavy thud. It was as if a shadow shot straight for his buck, reaching fourth with dark, ominous talons that attempted to seize any part of him in order to stop him from fleeing into the forest. But the buck, aware of how flying predators hunted, bolted for safety without even looking back, his instinct to survive honed by the impatience of lesser, stupid predators like the one who denied him one of the most exciting and fulfilling of meals.

Khaeldran suppressed his urge to pounce the feathered thief by sinking his claws into the ground, his shocked annoyance present in every rapid huff that fled his wide nostrils. It took all of his restraint to relax his flame sacs and prevent his flames from pouring forth to claim it instead of the buck. To him, it made no difference.

But then, the creature turned to face him and spoke. "I'm sorry. I failed to notice you in time, nor did I expect a dragon, of all things, to stalk a buck."

Khaeldran barely contained his roar within his throat, where it brewed into a constant, seething rumble aimed at the shaggy crow who denied him his meal. The gryphon--for that was what she must have been, given her avian forelegs and feline hindquarters--not only ignored his ire, but turned to face him with her crest and ears perked in curious indifference.

She looked quite different compared to what his father had taught him to expect from a gryphon. Then again, the creatures made themselves at home in most of the regions of the world, including the civilized sections that humans called kingdoms. The one in front of him bore a stark grey on most of her body, with the exception of her petite black claws and pointy, crow-like beak. Although dull at first glance, it helped bring out the beauty of her long, elegant silver crest that stood the tallest between her ears and shortened along her neck and shoulders.

The same color highlighted the dorsal side of her tail and adorned the upper backside of her haunches, a curious touch that intrigued Khaeldran. Creatures of contrast often hinted at unlikely pairings, and he couldn't help but wonder if her parents belonged to different species.

What surprised him the most in the end, however, was not her coloring, but her smell. He never would have expected her feathered kind, known for its penchant for cleanliness, to smell so strong, so tempting, so...stimulating, the spicy aroma wafting from her direction laden with a distinct yet familiar hue that Khaeldran had smelled before in his sisters when they came of age.

Heat. Fertility. Liquid lust.

"I've never seen a dragon hunt on the ground before. Prudent, if unnecessary," she said, her eyes following the shrieks, roars and screeches of various wyverns who inched ever closer to the source of the commotion.

"So long as I am with you, the wyverns shall not lay a talon on you, but I make no guarantees for those who might take your roar as a threat."

Khaeldran snuffed out his anger for the time being, aware that the gryphon had met stronger, bigger, worthier dragons from the way she carried herself. Despite the frailty of her furred body and the feebleness of her wings that even a spark would turn into a roiling inferno, the creature strolled around Khaeldran with practiced ease, absorbing his features while the excited flicks of her tail revealed something that no dragon alive had spotted before.

"I wouldn't have had to slink through the woods with my wings drooped and my head low had you not ruined my hunt, you feathered aberration."

The gryphon stopped her inspection of him, head tilted to the side. "I prefer to be called Nalu, but you can employ whichever names you wish. The more creative the better!"

As if to further taunt him, the wind changed course, carrying Nalu's ardent, noticeable need straight into his nostrils, the stale, pungent, arousing concoction making him sneeze due to its exotic fragrance. A snarl wrinkled Khaeldran's lips shortly afterwards, emphasizing his revulsion with her mixed genders.

Such a creature should never have existed, and yet, one such specimen stood right in front of him. Stared at him. Smiled at him? The way she parted her dark, tapered beak unnerved Khaeldran enough for him to slowly make his way to the safety of the forest, if only to lose sight of that ghastly hybrid.

"I owe you a kill," she said from behind. A few moments later, she appeared at his side, much to Khaeldran's exasperation. He increased his steps, but the gryphon matched them, her slender, petite paws nimbler than he expected.

"Unless you wish to be left to your own. Heat can be...troublesome for males who are susceptible to it, yet its effects are a small price to pay for the safety I offer. I know almost every wyvern in this region, barring the newly settled ones, and those who do not know me certainly remember what my kind has done for them."

"Your kind?" The ones who forsook her, most likely? Khaeldran refrained from adding that second thought, deciding to approach this matter from a less scornful angle. "You would have been with them, had they accepted you."

Nalu shrugged her wings. "Some do, some don't. The same can be applied to you, crawk?"

"Hrrf," Khaeldran snorted a puff of smoke as dark as her onyx-colored plumage. She deserved no explanation, no details of his life, not even his patience. "Leave me be. The last thing I need is a squawking gryphon of two genders reeking of desperation. Find one of those benevolent wyverns to quench your need, lest your smell irritates my nostrils so much that I accidentally snort a tongue of flame."

"Shireeek!" Nalu cawed in gleeful laughter, forcing Khaeldran to come to an abrupt halt as she cordially rubbed herself against him, the luxurious plumes of her wings softer and pleasant than he expected. "I'll keep a good distance from you, not to worry. Assuming you will do the same. I trust your judgment, just not your member."

Before he had the chance to react, Nalu shifted into a play bow, sneaking her head between his forelegs to steal a glimpse of his protruding tip.

Khaeldran froze with shame and guilt at being betrayed by his body in such a vile way, yet he showed none of that to Nalu as he maintained his grim façade. "Heat is heat. Were you a female, I would have licked and mounted you without a second thought, but the sack dangling under your entrance begs to differ."

"Does it?" Nalu rushed forward so that she could lift her bushy, silver and grey tail and reveal the charcoal colored spade that made up her female gender. It would have been well concealed by the fur surrounding it and the plump, spherical, firm orbs resting just below it, had her heat not thoroughly soaked her flesh. It made the edges of her sex glisten in a strangely arousing way, and the same fluids helped outline the dark pink, meaty center of her entrance all too well, a nest of ruby flesh that sparked unusually intense and wanton desires within Khaeldran.

"I have a female's name. I bear a female's sex. I smell like a female, I enter heat and ooze lust like a female, and I can grow heavy with eggs like any other female. My orbs and my member are simply a secondary addition, one that you need not pay attention to unless you wish to."

She turned around after making her point, flaring her crest in indignation. "Assuming you are not the type of dragon who pays uncanny attention at what lies within a fellow dragon's slit, and choose who you let approach solely based on that."

"I'm not like that!" Khaeldran growled harsher than he should have, his eerie episode of lust immediately forgotten when he realized that his chase took him farther from the outcrop-littered parts than he expected. His first instinct was to run for the more treacherous ground, but with Nalu scrutinizing him for an answer, he chose to uneasily sit on his haunches, all so that he appeared confident and in control of this whole ridiculous situation.

"You are right. Your gender is irrelevant to me. I am..." he paused to lick his muzzle and buy more time to put his thoughts in order, now that he began to realize just how crudely he behaved with a gryphon who could have been as hungry as he was. "I haven't eaten in two days. I can't hunt in the sky when there is light, I can only travel at night, and I know not where the nearest kingdom is. Yet travel I must, for like you, I chose to seclude myself from my family."

"I'm not an exile," Nalu immediately corrected him with a term that made Khaeldran's stomach sink with the weight of his sacrifice. "I'm a traveler, and fortunately for you, I have visited four out of the nine human kingdoms. I can lead you to whichever you desire, especially if it happens to be a foreign one. Traveling is far more exciting when you have a companion to seek warm with during the colder days, crrrk?"

She had a true, valuable point. Khaeldran made it this far on his own solely because few bipeds inhabited this stretch of wilderness, but once the forests began to thin and trails, paths and even roads began to meander through the drying meadows, he required more than just initiative.

He needed a companion, one who could take care of all the intricacies of civilization on his behalf and keep him from ending with an iron collar about his neck tethered to a thick iron chain in the middle of what the humans called an arena.

"I agree," he surprised both Nalu and himself with his prompt answer. His toes immediately curled around fistfuls of dew-laden soil, dark brown claws drawing visible furrows on the ground. "We will settle on which of us hunts depending on the region, and we shall sleep secluded from one another until the cold winds force us otherwise. Always back to back, never belly to belly, and our agreement lasts until I settle in a place that suits my needs."

Khaeldran lifted a tentative forepaw, only to slam it back down when Nalu's piercing, confident gaze remained fixated on him, as if in challenge. "You are a traveler, so I trust that you won't need an exile to help you find your own place of belonging."

The gryphon lifted her head and fanned out her wings. "I belong everywhere. It is why I find myself without a mate, free to sample all the pleasures the world has to offer."

Including him, her playful eyes seemed to say as they shifted between his legs, where his pink began to emerge a second time, tugged forth by the alluring fog of heat that never seemed to disperse.

"Or perhaps the quest to find a mate took you from one place to another simply because no male nor female was willing to settle for one who is both and neither at the same time."

He was all but convinced that he spoke the truth; that his words reflected the reality of Nalu's ambiguous gender. Yet even so, he felt all the lesser for attacking a part of her that she had no control over, and for what? To appear like something he wasn't? He mated his sister, after all; the safest, easiest to fall in love with female that no worthy male would ever consider for one too many reasons.

Like before, Nalu deflected his insult with a flick of her crest and a curious clack of her beak. "Are you aware of why you feel the urge to insult me? Most young males do it out of vanity and pride, but not you."

As she spoke, the gryphon began to stroll towards him, her elegant gait, sleek form and angular, majestic head adorned with that lush, silvery crest that proved to be more striking than Khaeldran initially gave it credit. Her advance unnerved him, especially after her words came to a jarring halt, replaced by a sharp look and a faint, excited warble.

The green dragon lifted himself on timid paws, backing away while maintaining eye contact with her, an ominous surge of panic rippling through every scale on his body. She appeared frail and weak, given the medium-sized grey coat that his claws and fangs could easily pierce through, but Khaeldran knew next to nothing of gryphons and their fighting capabilities. And what if she had magic? Humans did! And she...she had been to four of their kingdoms, hadn't she?

Khaeldran's heart leapt all the way up to his throat at that chilling realization, and when Nalu suddenly rushed to meet him, all that he could do was release a frightened and far too thin yelp while the gryphoness rubbed her fluffy neck against his.

"It's because your unspent seed burdens you, frustrates you, and makes you grow even from the scent and sight of an abomination you clearly despise. Why is that, my young, impressionable dragon?" she continued, draping a long, elegant wing over his back as she leaned her head against his shoulder, her beak rubbing against his twitching ear before she whispered into it.

"Because you crave for release. No matter my color, and regardless of how appalling you consider my gender, the smell and soggy look of my sex beckons to you. And you don't even have to look at me when you shove yourself inside my snug depths, as everything that I am will fade away within the ocean of unbridled pleasure that will certainly drown you."

She distanced herself from him as quickly as she made her approach, the rising intensity of her scent, together with the fleeting warmth of her fur and feathers, leaving Khaeldran dazed, fully erect, and panting for breath. Her words stirred--no, awoke--something within him, a dormant part of him that had forever been there and only she and Rhaedra seemed to understand.

"I've helped enough young males to weather their initial lusts after they came of age. Too shy and inexperienced to approach females, they fell prey to their inadequacy, a dangerous and perpetrating cycle that some never emerge from. I was there for them," Nalu said, walking up to a tree that she sprayed with her almost chocking and fertile scent.

"No matter what they called me, regardless of how they initially treated me, I made sure that they understood what I offered."

As soon as her last word fled her beak, Nalu turned her back to him to both beckon him to follow with her tail and show him the object of her topic. "Some were stubborn. Others were smug, self-centered, and even aggressive at times when I challenged their view of themselves. In the end, they all changed for the better after I milked their common irascibility from them, allowing them to soar to greater heights instead of remaining trapped within their previous shells, dissatisfied with their impeding loneliness."

"I am not like them," Khaeldran growled, hurrying after her, wincing whenever his erection swung against a haunch or worse, twitched against his belly plates. He had already mated. He knew of the pleasure she spoke of, but it had been too long, and the dreams had only intensified since then.

"So you have already mated?" Nalu stopped to turn her head around and look upon his helplessly throbbing member. "Because if you did, you would be with your dragoness and not with me."

"I haven't," Khaeldran immediately removed the temptation to bring up his sister in this and any future conversation. "But I...if I do it, I want it to be with a female. A real female."

Nalu chuckled, lifting her tail yet again to reinforce her point. "Stare at it. Or if you dare, approach it for a better look, a whiff, or a lick. Do neither, and I will assume this confusion will be put to rest from now on."

Khaeldran froze in indecision. His ears blazed with immediate panic that resonated deep within his chest and echoed across the pounding thuds that made thinking all the more difficult for him. He could barely concentrate on his course of action when faced with a female's entrance after weeks of nefarious dreams, for even the sex of a gryphon such as Nalu had the uncanny ability to enflame his senses and tug on his deepest, innermost instinct to breed.

His muscles tingling with the eerie warmth that suddenly flooded him, the dragon allowed himself to be guided by his self-esteem, aware of all those true sensations that only Rhaedra could instill within and fully denying everything Nalu conceived in his search to abolish this nonsense once and for all.

He did not want Nalu. Her vulva enticed him solely because it belonged to an exotic and intelligent creature, and if he would sniff it, all that curiosity would cease to exist. Despite his erect cock that hinted at the opposite, Khaeldran made his way to Nalu one timid step at a time, his courage amplified by the absence of her gaze and the presence of her taut, noticeable sack which made him visibly shudder. Small, elegant, and covered in a thin layer of fuzzy fur that helped it blend quite well in its surroundings, it inexplicably bothered Khaeldran. Not because it marked the male gender, but due to what stood above it.

Was she all that she pretended to be? And if so, would she experience the same sensations that an actual female did?

Eager to solve this mystery once and for all, the green dragon snuck his snout as close to Nalu's puffy, slick vulva as he could manage without wetting his nostrils with her fluids and took in a slow, deep, methodical breath that he immediately regretted. At first, only her sharp, slightly stale musk of her heat registered, a pungent odor laden with pheromones that were not entirely foreign to Khaeldran. But the moment he trapped her fragrance deep within his chest and nostrils, his mind immediately turned blank. Every thought, every meticulous plan waned before the indomitable desire to mount, to breed, to thrust into the highly receptive female in front of him.

Her pouch itself seemed to fade before his sharp, focused eyes that stared right at her entrance, one that smelled far richer and genuine than he expected. The sudden jolting of his cock agreed with him, and the jarring sensation of his cock brushing against his plates forced an audible exhale out of him which attracted Nalu's attention.

"You can mount and ejaculate inside me if you need further reassurance about the authenticity of my female gender. One thing males will never understand is how bothersome the throbbing heat and the itching is..."

Khaeldran stumbled back at the sound of her voice like a hatchling caught in an inappropriate situation. He felt vile, weak and annoyingly desperate to steal another sniff of her thick miasma, but at this point, he barely had the strength to suppress his instinct. Nalu's vulva oozed a fragrance the likes of which had never graced his senses. Mild, earthy nuances intertwined with stronger, pricklier hues above which hung a soft, alluring blanket of an unmistakable female odor specific to her and her alone. She might not be a dragon, and she might have a male's pouch and sheath, but he couldn't deny that her pheromones had the same effect on him as Rhaedra's.

But what about taste? What if masculinity found ominous ways to shroud itself from his nostrils, and thus tainted Nalu's so-called fertility? A female who did not taste as a female should could obviously bear no eggs, and much to Khaeldran's rising anxiety, he needed to put his tongue to pussy in order to validate or dismiss his concerns.

Without hesitation, the green dragon's snout darted under her tail, bifurcated tongue dashing across her sweltering lips to collect a surprising amount of her honey. It felt smoother than she smelled upon his tongue's surface and heavy with a weight that smell alone couldn't elucidate. Khaeldran rolled his slimy appendage back into his maw for a more accurate analysis...

And released a deep, guttural moan of unbridled satisfaction with her nectar. Savory traces caressed every inch and corner of his mouth, followed by a subtle, piquant aftertaste that fulfilled the sincerest definition of what Khaeldran expected from a female at the height of her heat. It wasn't at all obvious, however. Like her scent, Nalu's fluids had a silkiness to them, an arousing blend of salty sweetness clad in multiple, rich layers of taste that he could not describe from a single tongue stroke.

Spurred forth by the need to unravel her enigma and uncontrollable lust alike, Khaeldran's snout alighted upon her moist vulva, nostrils twitching from the contact with her delightfully feverish flesh. He breathed in her musk first, moaning in rumbling satisfaction at how her warmth seemed to transfer into him, a radiant snake that slithered all the way down his spine until it coiled around his member, urging it to swell to its fullest. Then, he licked, and licked, and licked again, limiting himself to the charcoal edges of her spade-like vulva yet finding it impossible to stay away from its trembling, oozing center.

Instead of licking across it, Khaeldran forced his tongue through it, his sharper moan mingling with Nalu's surprised caw. The gryphon bolted forward, forcing the dragon's tongue to plop out of her with a wet squelch and thoroughly soaked with the thicker, fresher, tastier variety of fluids. Khaeldran practically reeled on his limbs from the assault on his senses, intending to sit, walk away from her and towards her so that he could mount her, all at the same time. But she was too far away, so the dragon flopped onto his side instead, desperately licking his muzzle to collect all of Nalu's dew and fill his mouth with as much of her honey as he could manage.

"E--enough," Nalu put a sudden end to Khaeldran's lucid dream, one where he licked a female at the height of her need and not...whatever she was. "Any more, and you will shoot your seed on the ground from sheer longing."

"That's..." Khaeldran shook his head, more to dispel his haze of lust than contradict her. "Not possible. Not outside a female."

"Says the male who has never been inside one," Nalu chirped both in amusement and concern with the bead of precum that appeared on his tip. Khaeldran felt it slide down his spade until it fell to the ground, leaving a wet reminded of how dire his irrational need of Nalu truly was.

"Do I..." the gryphoness clacked her beak in noticeable alarm, her forepaws clawing at the grass. "Did I...satisfy you?"

His member bobbed with a clear, all-encompassing nod at which Nalu squeaked in glee and Khaeldran let out a soft, contemplative whine. "I have never...it was the first time I...and I couldn't hold myself back."

Nalu's crest perked up, a timid forepaw hovering in the air as a hopeful glint sparked in her eyes. "You don't have to hold back. I simply stopped you because the first time always feels better inside than outside, and your ridges are so tense..."

Khaeldran understood his burning lust better than anyone. If he spent any more moments under her tail, he was certain his seed would burst from the sheer overwhelm of licking a female's heat. It no longer mattered to him that she had a male's orbs and sheath; that she was a gryphon and not a dragon. Her wetness was too appealing, her warmth too inviting, and his need to rid himself of his pent-up seed too great to further deny himself this.

"They will lose their prominence, as they always do," Khaeldran put a stop to that fantasy before it even began. He didn't court Nalu. He didn't prove himself to her, and neither had she earned his affection. She did not even know his name, and yet, she expected him to share the very essence of his being with her!

"All I want from you is that you find us a shelter where we can rest, and the kill you have promised."

"As you wish," the gryphoness said, her crest and ears pinning back as her frost coated her voice. "But I won't wait for you to soften."

"Nor do I expect you to," Khaeldran said to her behind, waiting for his heart to settle in his chest before taking after her, maintaining as much distance as he could spare to his cock, to the point where he wobbled ungainly with his rear half.

He considered asking her about the possibility of bearing a dragon's eggs, but that vapid curiosity was quickly pushed aside by cold logic. She was a gryphon, and one of two genders at that. Even if she was a female like she claimed, smelled and tasted, he had scales and she bore lavish fur and feathers, which made such union impossible and all the more alluring as a result. With her, he did not have to concern himself with the outcome; to tarnish his greatest of pleasures with the unnecessary worries of what his seed might do to her.

"It takes more for a dragoness to attract a mate than just lift her tail," he expressed his greatest of frustrations with the way she tried to egg him on.

"I don't want a mate. I simply wish to remind a young, vulnerable male of how easy and pleasurable it is to rid himself of his pent-up frustrations."

"Vulnerable, is it?" Khaeldran snorted, unimpressed with her japes. "If you have indeed been with as many inexperienced males as you claim, then you'd know I'm simply the prisoner of curiosity. Once it passes, so will my interest in you, and the more you lift your tail, the more desperate and less in control you'll seem. But you'll blame it on your heat, of course, for that is your greatest excuse."

A new idea began to take shape in his mind, one where he turned Nalu's maddening need against her in order to make himself appear far more in control of his greatly thinned self-control. She took great pride in her twin genders, and sought to convince Khaeldran to accept that she was female by making unfair use of her condition. She wanted him, and inexplicably, against all his beliefs, he wanted to follow through with her strange custom of simply claiming her without a contest.

But he did not have to show that. He must not show that!

"We can take a pause if you wish," Nalu abruptly turned around. "I underestimated your lust's persistence, for which I apologize."

"Keep going," Khaeldran urged, adding a snarl to his already tense lips. "We only rest once we are there."

Yet in spite of what he said and no matter how hard he tried to deny it, Khaeldran found it nigh impossible to stop throwing furtive--and sometimes too long and uncomfortable glances--at her heat-soaked pussy. Nalu practically encouraged him to sate that dire curiosity of his, as her female entrance only became visible to him whenever she swished her luxurious tail to the side or playfully arched it over her back to keep it from getting tangled in the lower branches of the fir trees surrounding them.

Absorbed by her peculiar anatomy and enthralled by the scent oozing from her crevice, the green dragon found it increasingly difficult to focus on his journey and retain the distrust he harbored for the gryphon. Why did she walk rather than fly? Then again, he knew so little of gryphons and their gallivanting habits that it made for a poor choice to paint himself as an ignorant fool.

"How much longer?" He tried to instill urgency into the so-called female's elegant, almost lazy stroll.

"You can rest on the bed of grass if you'd like. Whether I deliver my kill to you or to my nest is all the same to me."

"Assuming you'd find me," Khaeldran countered, aware of how well the evergreen foliage around him concealed his presence. "What stops you from keeping me wait until dusk and then vanish without a trace?"

"Is that what you would do to a stranger who questions your gender simply because your cock doesn't come out of it all the time? Or perhaps because you lack spheres and a sheath?" Nalu teased him for the umpteenth time as a payback for a behavior he grew to regret further and further, looking back at him with those alluring, hazel eyes. "I did that once with a gryphon who put pride above sense. He probably remained hungry for days, unwilling to accept that the freak who promised him a carcass wouldn't deliver. Whether hunger finally convinced him to do the deed himself, I do not know, but you're not like that, are you?"

"I was the finest hunter in my family, and it is for that reason that I prefer to leave this hunt to you. Dragons take offense when their primary skills are put to question, and it is distasteful to decline an offer."

Right as he finished uttering that final and very particular word, Nalu flagged her tail, thus forcing Khaeldran to look exactly where she wanted him to. She kept it raised for just as long as she did before, enough for the lustful male to take in additional details that forced his ridged meat to once again spill from its shelter. Before, he simply wished to prove her wrong, but now...now he analyzed that which he previously denied, focused on certain aspects that he took for granted.

The shape of her pussy resembled that of a canine spade, only looser, plump and visibly swollen due to heat. Its engorged, dark grey edges had an appetizing smoothness to them, their slick surface causing them to glint whenever sunlight caressed her intimate entrance. And that pink, tempting, delicious flesh nestled in the middle, adorned with barely perceptible furrows that hinted at how her insides felt, bore such a rich, dark pink color that Khaeldran's breath involuntarily stuck in his throat when an ominous throb traversed his entire length.

More droplets of precum wormed their way through his almost erect shaft, its tickling, tantalizing warmth forcing his tip to stiffen and acquire prominence and his ridges to grow more distinctive. Had he not stopped to even out his breaths, Nalu wouldn't have noticed the desperate state of his cock, or how it bobbed under the influence of uncontrollable throbs, forcing it to connect with the hard, emerald plates of his belly.

Nalu's crest immediately deflated. Her ears sagged in unison with her tail, her wings tucked tighter against her body, and her mischievous, confident eyes fled him when the guilt proved too much to bear for consciously bringing him to this state.

"How often must you toy with me, gryphon?" Khaeldran growled his anger aimed at his crave for female warmth and tightness around his shaft rather than at her. "I have stared at you, smelled you, licked you. Must I openly say that you are as much of a female as any other dragoness I met?" Khaeldran spoke before she had the chance to, softening his voice when Nalu dipped her head in regret for forcing rather than obtaining his confession. "I believe this is the confirmation you sought, and the truth I wanted to share before you drive me to the point of climax with your tempting offer."

The gryphoness did not reply. She remained still and silent, letting Khaeldran take the lead.

***Chapter 3: Place of belonging***

*Chapter description * Nalu's charm and life experience guide the young dragon forward, into a place where frustrations are washed away by unbridled pleasure.

***

It felt good to be in the front; to see trees replace Nalu's rump, to smell fresh air instead of her stagnant heat. Instinctive panic pricked his scales at first, the green dragon unaccustomed with the tall, imposing posture Nalu insisted he adopted while with her. He was not a subservient dog, with his back drooped, a sunken gaze, and a stiff, uncertain tail hid between his legs. He was a dragon, one that had to exude confidence he did not possess to impress wyverns he dared never lay eyes on.

"Have you ever tried to impale an opponent with your nose horn? Or whip them into submission with your spiny tail tip?"

"We do not fight in that sort of way. Teeth and claws decide the victor, something every dragon possesses."

"And the ears? Aren't they a hindrance?"

As if in response, a chill traversed the topic of discussion, forcing them to hug his horns in an attempt to seek shelter behind them. "Yours are bigger, meatier, and more of a target."

"They are!" Nalu confirmed, a tinge of exasperation coating her voice. "At least to other gryphons. Did your mother peck and bite your ears when you went against her word too?"

Melancholy filled Khaeldran, turning his steps heavier and the soil beneath his paws colder and suddenly foreign. "She never did more than nudge me with her tail tip, but one of my sisters ceaselessly assaulted my paws while relaxed with everything she could think of after the novelty of employing her claws and tail wore off."

When he least expected it, Nalu poked the heel of one of his hind paws with a stick, causing Khaeldran to yelp and whirl to face the squawking gryphon.

"They really are as soft as they look! Though not softer than mine," she said, presenting him with the dark grey paw pads of a feline hind paw. "Mine are the main reason I dislike the cold, which is why I prefer warmer regions."

The full shape and plumpness of her paw pads stirred Khaeldran's curiosity. He only saw them from afar in willy predators who avoided dragons, and it fascinated him to see that fur grew between her toes, and not over them, just like with her vulva.

The mere thought of that involuntarily guided his eyes to that spot, one whose allure he found increasingly harder to resist. After openly accepting Nalu's gender, his mind swam with one too many erotic thoughts involving her, each more stirring than the other. Being in front meant that his tail could shield his growing want more effectively, but he didn't delude himself in assuming that Nalu couldn't steal as many glances of his precum-leaking tip as she wished.

For a short, strange moment, they both stared at each other, beak and muzzle opening and shutting for fear of uttering wrong words.

"Sunset is the second-best time to hunt, and we're both too hungry to miss the opportunity," Nalu broke the thick silence enveloping them. "Find my nest on a ledge close to the mouth of the ravine that is further ahead. Wyverns prefer spacious caverns, so it is the only one in the region. Wait for me there."

She needed some time to clear her head, and so did he. Yet for a mighty foolish reason that even he couldn't explain, Khaeldran walked up to her to nuzzle her neck. "That doesn't sound comfortable at all for two to share such crammed space. In my family, the hunter gets to eat first, and I expect that you'll indulge this tradition of mine."

The gryphoness' crest settled further across her nape as a visible tremor shook her. "Walking with a seed-filled member doesn't seem comfortable either, and I also expect that you do right by your instinct and finally mount me, given how your malehood simply refuses to make its retreat."

Her sudden boldness took the both of them aback. Nalu, in particular, immediately hid under her wing while Khaeldran simply stood his ground, frozen in shock and desire alike. Never had a female made such crude demand from him, and the very novelty of this experience hardened his member close to the point of bursting right there and then. A female struck by heat wanted him inside her, one of a different species who would not bear his eggs nor be expected to conform to his mateship rituals. It was the perfect excuse to finally bask in that far too potent pleasure that he had only experienced once in his life, a far too intense moment that ended far too quick. It also served as his best chance to guide the flow of seed into her rather than over himself like it happened the previous night, as well as the only effective way to abolish the lascivious dreams of his sister that called to him every time he closed his eyes.

"I'll assume that is your heat speaking," Khaeldran spoke with a harsher voice than he wished, his throat all dried up due to nerves. Nevertheless, he needed to be sure of her intentions; that she did not simply seek to toy with his vulnerabilities. "You're not the first female to coax me out of my slit, and this is hardly the first time I walk unsheathed, so don't flatter yourself."

That struck a nerve, for Nalu lowered her wing, stepped up to him, and brushed her cheek against his while crooning a mellow, pleasant song. "Revile my male side all you want, but I've walked the same walk, and I detested every step of it. I, too, have denied its impulses and even existence at times, only to wake up next to my pungent, sticky seed that shot without my permission during a dream I still remember..."

She did not back away like a rejected partner would have, but rubbed against him like the sleek, elegant feline that she was. Taken aback by her daring approach, Khaeldran stood idle while her bushy tail wove across his face, so thick and dense it almost made him sneeze.

"I have lived longer, traveled further, and experienced far more in the way of bodily delights. It is not my heat that drives me, dear dragon, but my genuine empathy for a male who I wish to instill confidence into by letting him shoot his first seed into a female, where it truly belongs."

She did the same to his other side, only this time, she dragged her tail along his side and neck before she turned to face him with those confident, amber eyes of hers. "It may seem like an insignificant thing, but I rejected a similar offer that led to the same outcome. Only, instead of finishing inside my female like my dream wanted me to believe, I did so over myself, and gryphons have long memories and sharp tongues..."

It wasn't only her scent which clouded his mind and enraptured his senses that drew a sympathetic whine from Khaeldran. Were it not for the dream of yesterday, he'd have considered her reasoning pathetic, obscene even. But he recalled all too well how cheated he felt; how mere, uncontrollable lust made him into a lesser dragon, one who shared his seed with the cold, uncaring ground instead of a female like males were supposed to.

And if he happened to whisper Rhaedra's name in his dreams...If Nalu discovered that side of him...

"It's not an insignificant thing," he said, taking his first hesitant step towards a creature he solely considered mating to uphold the oath he made to Rhaedra, the same promise that had him standing in front of Nalu today.

To protect her and his family by any means necessary.

"It is part of any male's existence, one that can't be pushed aside. The desire for acceptance. The pride at boasting an ability or knowledge that another doesn't possess. And the fear of being ill-suited for a female. It is the reason why I left my homeland, after all, that empty feeling of not being good enough for my own kind, the gnawing worry that I'll plant my seed too early in a dragoness with different ambitions than raising a family..."

He grew too distracted by his musings to notice Nalu's approach. One moment, she stood more than a dozen steps away, and in the next, she appeared at his side, with her wing spread over his back and her head leaned against his shoulder.

"That is how life is. The one who completes you may not live in familiar territories, be of the same species, or even of the opposite gender. Too few are the ones who bind themselves to their first partner. Most of us find joy and pleasure where it is to be found, for that is how fate works, and fate who saw it necessary for a female in heat to encounter a male of a different kind who had never mated before. All so that he fills her lack and divests himself of his frustrations in the process."

"Why...why not a wyvern?" Khaeldran's voice trembled under the weight of pretense. His stomach tied in a painful knot when she looked away, the fear of his lie unraveling more humiliating than his nightly release.

"Wyverns tolerate me, but they don't accept me. Like you, they see my sack before they see the rest of me, but unlike you, they keep a sheepish distance, enough to be courteous and abashing at the same time. Or perhaps it is because I did not frighten their quarry and promise to hunt for them," lifting her gaze to match his once again, renewed confidence burning within the golden pools. "They wouldn't accept that. It is shameful for a foreigner to hunt for their meal in their own territory, even if it happens to be a gryphon."

"I can hunt by myself well enough," Khaeldran said, losing himself for a moment in her enchanting, beady pupils. "It is only this time that I allow you to do it yourself, for a promise is a promise."

"If only you took my other offer..." Nalu sighed, closing her eyes in resignation before leaning against his throat, the warmth of her fur tempting, her pungent scent intoxicating. She tasted of raw, unblemished need that no male had satisfied yet, and it felt inexplicably wrong for Khaeldran to add to their numbers, to neglect her during her moment of great need. It took him a moment to realize why that was, and when it happened, the epiphany sent a tidal wave through his body, awakening faltering embers of lust that only one female ignited within him before.

Rhaedra, the dragoness he fell in love with, and the one who first received him into her body. Not out of pity, curiosity, or a crave to satisfy an urge, but because she wanted to be the vessel for his happiness, to be the one he could always rely on, no matter his need. That sort of love felt the most genuine to him, for it was born of unaltered empathy.

"What then?" Khaeldran whispered, ruffling the long, lush fur of her neck with his snout. "I have never mounted a female. Never guided myself inside her, and you are a gryphon and I a dragon..."

"Does it matter?" Nalu uttered between her soft chirps of bliss, slowly opening an eye to regard him with unexpected affection. "You had your chance to keep the same distance from me as other wyverns do, but you smelled me, licked me and--crrawk--grew bigger and stiffer than I expected."

That was precisely the point! Her entrance looked so soft, so dainty, so vulnerable! What if his size was too much for her? Or if he thrusted too hard, too deep, and too quick?

Such concerns were merely amplified by the faltering warmth of Nalu's neck as she shifted into motion, strolling in front of him where she leaned forward and hoisted her rump in the air, tail arched over her back to present herself to him.

Khaeldran whimpered in response, both in surreal longing to watch a female offer herself to him and from the stinging slap of his cock against his belly plates. The discomfort barely felt this time around, for his shaft tightened to such extent that his body mistook it much-needed stimulation that would finally bring him over the edge. Instead of dying down, the pulsating throbs wracking his cock fed one another, the silly, up-and-down motions working him up to climax in the most perverted of ways.

Spurred forth by the most ancient of instincts, Khaeldran rushed to mount his female, rearing on his hind legs and grabbing her torso with his fores. Then, he gradually lowered his weight onto her back to reach further with his head and to give his hindquarters more room to maneuver his hips. A noticeable shudder coursed through Nalu when his tight plates kissed her short fur and her wings slipped under his armpits, where his scales were softer and more susceptible to the caress of feathers.

"Very good posture for your first time," Nalu said, warbling in pure joy as her cheek embraced his. "Now pull your hips back to seek me. You will know when you find me, and your body will do the rest. Trust in your instinct, sweet dragon. Let it carry you."

Khaeldran huffed with barely controlled, wanton desperation as he probed for her entrance with his fully-engorged, precum-drenched tip, snarling and groaning whenever he met fur or knocked against one of Nalu's orbs or nudged between them. The spade-shaped head of his member felt stiffer and more sensitive than it had ever been, each tantalizing thrust guiding more heated pressure into it that he found harder and harder to keep from bursting forth.

"Higher," Nalu crooned in his ear, sliding her cheek along his, her affection causing his grip to tighten around her chest. "Take a deep breath. Be patient. All it takes is one well-aimed thrust and pleasure the likes of which you have never known will flood and overwhelm all of your senses."

The young drake heard her words, but found it impossible to heed them when his ridges practically swelled with seed that was desperate to shoot inside his first foreign female, and one in heat at that! The slickness coating her vulva drove him to the brink, and every glancing thrust, every skidding stroke that teased portions of his cock with the promise of ubiquitous warmth thinned his patience further and further.

Right when he considered thrusting against anything to rid himself of the maddening lust welled within his taut shaft, he found his target. His tip speared through her walls with sudden, savage momentum, sinking into her with an audible squelch before retreating as fast as it entered. The motion was so quick and unexpected, and Nalu's body so foreign to him, that Khaeldran's body instinctively arched back in fear of landing into a different hole. A panicked, frustrated whine smoldered in his throat, his teeth clenched so tight they almost drew blood from his gums as he tried to lodge himself back in, but to no avail.

Nalu's body trembled and shifted, antsy with anticipation while his hind legs desperately stomped for every possible angle to help guide him back into that most surreal and fulfilling of places. A dire, uncanny urge to seize the back of her neck within his jaws wormed its way to the forefront of Khaeldran's mind, requiring all of his concentration to keep his draconic instincts in check to avoid harming her.

"Slower. Gentler," Nalu whispered, throwing her head back to gingerly nip on the tip of his ear. "Remember your hunt, and how the careful, sluggish approach put you at a great advantage."

Easier said than done. When assaulted by the frenzy to plant his seed into a heat-soaked pussy and the promise of deep, fulfilling elation both, his inexperience trumped his more calculated, logical side, instinct driving him to pump his hips, to keep thrusting, to squeeze his mate harder, bring his haunches closer, and bite down on her neck to still and silence her.

The latter almost happened, had he not found his mark just in the nick of time.

Khaeldran's willingness of pushing no more than half of his girth into her to avoid harming the creature he knew so little about immediately faded from his mind, drowned by the overwhelming pleasure of finding his way into the warmest, slickest depths his cock had ever delved into. Following a deep, intuitive push, the green dragon buried the entirety of himself into Nalu, ridges plopping into her one by one as the dragon cried and whimpered in trembling bliss. Her heat-struck passage easily distended around him to make room for his thick girth, yet even so, she was much tighter than a dragon and far more eager to clench and squeeze at the invading thickness that suddenly stuffed her fevered, drenched emptiness.

Instead of pulling back slightly and thrust into her like a male should, Khaeldran froze upon her back, completely lost amidst the feathered wings and the furred backside that caressed his chest in strange yet very pleasant ways. His hind legs attempted to correct his hesitation by erratically dancing around for a more proper angle, but the green dragon merely clamped his haunches tighter against her slimmer, agile ones as he chose to remain inside her, overwhelmed by the potent sensations coursing through him.

He had never been upon a female's back, and while Nalu roughly matched his height and size, she had the leaner constitution of a female, a graceful body that Khaeldran couldn't help bug hug with all the passion he could muster. The lushness of her perky, silver-colored crest also provided a surprisingly good cushion to rest his chin against, its thickness perfect for muffling the soft cries that he had no strength to subdue while her nether muscles milked him for all his worth. Nalu's throbs and shudders not only amplified his own, but worked him to his climax more effectively than he anticipated.

Unable to withstand the pressure exerted on his already seed-bloated cock, coaxed forth by the cascading warmth of her insides and the abundant slickness that clung to her walls, Khaeldran's hind claws tore deep gashes into the earth as his hindquarters trembled with the finality of his orgasm. His groin desperately grinded against Nalu's opening, trying to ensure that all his ridges made it in before his seed burst forth, which it finally did while accompanied by a thin, prolonged, undignified mewl from Khaeldran.

Entrapped within a snug shelter that embraced his needy cock with all the enthusiasm specific to a female at the peak of her heat, the green dragon's essence speared out of his member and pelted Nalu's hungry insides with the greatest force and the most abundant quantity Khaeldran could muster. Familiar yet far more potent waves of pleasure coalesced within his groin, where they exploded into deep, primeval fulfillment whenever a new jolt of his cock spurred forth another spurt of his thick, pent-up seed. Khaeldran could practically feel its texture as it traversed his length, the tingling in his cock far more intense, and the aftermath much more noticeable, as if it took his entire energy to pump weeks' worth of built-up seed reserves into their place of belonging.

"Mrr....mrrrrrhhhh," Khaeldran growled a weak, continuous, pathetic moan while seeding her with the last of his essence, his faltering throbs and waning tightness reflecting the state of his entire body. Now that he transferred all of his strength into her, Khaeldran's mind swam in the warm, gentle ocean of his afterglow, oblivious to everything else but for the fading shudders traversing Nalu's nethers. Like in his case, the once tight, almost smothering clenches of her powerful muscles had all but died down, replaced by weak, pulsating, sporadic twitches that nagged his increasingly sensitive cock to pull out.

He would have done that, had he the strength to do so, but Nalu's fur was thick and soft, and her back tense and strong enough to still keep him on it. So, Khaeldran heeded the tug of his afterglow and allowed the grip of his forelegs to fail, forepaws falling along Nalu's sides, hanging as if lifeless.

She did not complain, nor did she try to dislodge him. Instead, Nalu sang a mellow tune that oozed serenity, the intensity of her chirps and chirrups calm like a river's gentle flow. From his privileged position, with the tip of his snout against her throat, Khaeldran could feel the energy of her song vibrating through it, a most curious and endearing thing.

"Rawk," Nalu cawed in dreamy satisfaction at the end of her song, rubbing her soft, silken cheek against the pebbly scales lining his jaw. "Feels far better, doesn't it? To no longer carry that pent-up, mind-addling seed inside you. To share it with a female who finds your plentiful release...mrrawk...so satisfying and fulfilling."

Devoid of the energy it took to speak and half-faded into the timeless realm of post-mating satisfaction, Khaeldran licked the side of her beak, responding with the same purr that he previously reserved for Rhaedra only. That vile disregard for his most sacred promise immediately returned his senses back to the moment at hand, his forelimbs hugging Nalu once again. This time, however, it was to provide him with extra balance while dismounting her, the absence of his cock causing an onrush of gushing seed to burst from Nalu's vulva and splatter on the ground with enough force to stain all of their paws.

"Crawwwk!" Nalu squawked triumphally while he scowled at the lukewarm, sticky feeling of his seed clinging to the soft scales lining the back of his paws. "A mating that ends with a splash is considered a great success among some of my kind who believe it to be a sign of great fertility."

"Or a sign of deep, nefarious loneliness mated to an equally potent stubbornness to avoid any other means of relief but for a female's warm depths," Khaeldran added. He was not about to tell Nalu of how he accidentally nicked his member with one of his fangs while trying to take himself into his maw, or how he scorned the scent and taste of his seed. It symbolized the impossibility of a mateship to Rhaedra, stank of desperation and probably tasted even worse!

"A trait shared by many males I came across," Nalu said, lowering onto her side and stretching a hind leg in the air to inspect Khaeldran's doing.

The green dragon's heart turned to the size of a pebble when she dabbed the tip of her beak at her thoroughly soaked vulva, where only the top still remained grey. The rest of it, along with her spheres, laid covered in a blanket of creamy seed, one that bothered Nalu not one bit given that her beak shuddered and tilted in a specific way that could only mean one thing.

That she tasted him.

Khaeldran's stomach upturned from shock and nerves alike. Rhaedra never did that. Like him, she found his scent distasteful, only that she coated it in the kindest, most loving way possible, or so he thought.

"I never expected mating to feel so good," he tried to suppress Nalu's opinion of his seed before she had the chance to give it voice. "For you to welcome me into the depths of your body. For your warm, moist passage to constantly hug me while I made my way inside, and to hold me tight, like a treasured possession when I was all the way in. It was only after the mating that I realized what I had done..." he released an involuntary whimper. "That I pushed myself in too deep and far too quick, without giving you the chance to get used to me. You're a gryphon and I a dragon after all..."

His ploy worked, for it summed up the foremost concern that nagged him after a most fulfilling union of bodies. Nalu immediately wiped her beak with her forepaws and got up to make her way to him, warbling sweetly.

"Isn't that what mating is about? To lose yourself to the passion? For your need to overwhelm you to the point where all that matters is the blissful release waiting a few thrusts away?"

When she finally reached him, Nalu rested her head against his chest, as if to melt away his worries with her tender warmth.

"One of the young males I mentioned earlier was a dragon who shared many similarities with you. Were it not for him, I would not have been so open with my hints, nor as patient."

"I am glad that you were," Khaeldran found himself saying without even intending to, an instinct that Rhaedra honed for him, to repay kindness with gentleness. Although the gryphon perplexed him in many regards, the green dragon eased a forepaw onto her shoulder, dragging her tighter against him.

"And also for proving me wrong in more than one regard."

Nalu looked up at him, beaming with happiness. "I offered to be a guide to you, rrrk? That includes everything that I can offer to make you into a better dragon, and all that I request in return are tales from your homeland. I fall asleep much easier while listening to them!"

***End of the first 3 chapters***

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