FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

This is a continuation from the past few chapters, but you don't need to have read them to understand this story.

---

Over the past half year, the four dragon fledglings had held many study sessions. Though the most common location for these sessions was Caden's house, Knaster's home was the second most common location, followed by various other places like libraries, cafes, community centres, or even parks. Nevertheless, Reylin had visited Knaster's house enough times to become familiar with the layout of the place, especially the living room and Knaster's bedroom.

Now instead of sitting at the table to pore over schoolwork, she was in Knaster's bedroom looking through a stack of board and card games in the cupboard. Picking one at random, she looked over the box. "Hmm, this looks interesting," she murmured.

Glecion was sitting beside Reylin, though of course the blind fledgling couldn't see what her sister had picked. "What's it about?"

"It looks to be a card game about lying and chance--" Reylin started to say, only to be interrupted by the sound of the door swinging open and banging noisily against the wall.

Caden had headbutted Knaster's bedroom door open, and she came strolling in like she owned the place. "I'm back! And we've got food." After they had all arrived at Knaster's home, Caden had vanished off for a few minutes and Reylin had assumed she was just going to the washroom, but apparently she had been to the kitchen.

Knaster was following behind Caden, pulling a small, metal trolley cart with his tail coiled around the handle. "We brought some snacks from the kitchen," he explained.

"Oh yes, snacks. I must say it is nice to actually have a pantry filled with proper food. It's much more convenient than having to go out whenever I feel like eating something." Caden helped pull the small trolley over to the centre of the room, then she flourished her paw across assortment of small bowls. "We've got... cookies, candy, nuts, and Knaster even said we have to be healthy so he cut up some fruit. But more importantly, drinks! Tonight we must celebrate! Reylin is _officially_in clan Taslin now, and we must commemorate her grand success!"

A stack of four drinking glasses had been placed on a lower level of the trolley, and Caden unloaded them right onto the floor as she sat down on a cushion. She unclipped a pouch from her flight harness, and from within it she pulled out a glass bottle that had been jutting out from the top of the pouch. The bottle was made from dark glass and filled with bubbly liquid swirling around inside. "Tonight we drink!"

Knaster looked suspicious. "Where'd you get that?"

Caden waved her paw at him dismissively. "It's not from your kitchen. I snagged a gift pouch from the clan meeting just before we left."

"They gave out gift pouches at the Taslin clan meeting?" Glecion asked.

"Not for everyone. Just the people who received prizes, scholarships, merit awards, or those who just got mated or had hatchlings," Caden explained. "Or in my case, I know a friend who was working today helping to pack and give these out at the clan meet, and she gave me a spare gift pouch."

Reylin took off a similar looking pouch that had been clipped onto her own harness. "Oh, they gave me one of those right after I left the stage! I was so excited I just clipped it onto my harness and didn't even remember to take a look inside. Let's see what's in here." Reylin opened up the pouch and rifled through the contents. "Looks like... a whole bunch of candy... and some stationary... and a notebook. Ooh, it's hardcover. Very nice. And... is this another wing pennant with the Taslin insignia? No, wait--it's a banner for hanging on the wall. And here are some more pennants. And a healing crystal... how useful!"

Caden gestured to the pouch she was holding. "I think this one was from a batch for giving out to the newly officiated bonded mate pairs, so that's why it contains different things from your gift pouch, which is one of those for scholarship recipients." Caden pulled out another rolled up, red and silver coloured cloth. "Oh, look at this. They put a Taslin banner in this one too. There's no way I'm putting this up."

Reylin beckoned. "Give it to me, then! I'll hang them up in my new room, when I move into the residential hall later this week."

Caden rolled her eyes, but she put the rolled-up cloth banner on the floor and slid it over to Reylin. "If that's what you want, sure. But they didn't give you a bottle?"

Reylin continued searching through her gift pouch, then she shook her head. "No bottle of drinks, but there is this." She took out a large sealed inkpot and squinted at the label. "Oh, this is some very expensive, very fancy ink. Harvested from a wild deep-sea colossal squid. I've always wanted to own something like this."

"Really? You've always wanted to own expensive ink from some... some horrendous sea monster? Strange life goal, but I don't judge. Regardless, the important thing is that we have this." Caden extended her claws and tapped them against the bottle she was holding.

"What is that?" Glecion asked curiously.

Using her claws, Caden grabbed the bottle's cork and pulled it out with a soft pop sound. There was the faint hiss-crack from a frost enchantment, and wispy condensation spilled out from the bottle's bore. "It is a drink in honour of Reylin's grand success! Tonight we drink until we can drink no more!"

"Is that liquor?" Knaster asked disapprovingly.

Caden laughed. "Haha. I sure wish it was! But no, my friend who was working at the clan meeting said that they didn't pack liquor or anything intoxicating into the gift pouches this year. I'm not even really sure what this is." Carefully tipping the bottle, she poured out the beverage into each of the four glasses from the kitchen. The liquid was clear, but it bubbled up to form thick foam that occupied half the glass. "Drink!" Caden happily said, passing the glasses out to the other fledglings before taking her own.

Reylin peered at the tiny bubbles inside her drink, then she sniffed at it. Cautiously she raised it to her mouth and took a sip. The foam layer was thick but cooler than air temperature and it seemed to dissolve in her mouth, whereas the liquid itself was sweet, fruity, and tangy against her tongue. "Mmh. This is nice. It's bubbly." Knaster had just been holding his glass and not drinking, but Reylin nudged his side and put her own glass in front his snout. "Try it."

Knaster stuck out his tongue and lapped up some of the liquid from Reylin's raised glass, and the taste seemed to surprise him. His neck frill twitched, and then he took a larger sip from his own glass. "This is... this is just fruit juice with fizzy gas added and a frost-hold enchantment on the bottle. And lots of sugar added."

"Close enough to a real drink to do, I suppose." Caden gestured around. "Reylin, I wanted to throw you a huge surprise party to commemorate getting into a clan that would have involved inviting all your friends from your old school and the clanless shelter over for a grand celebration. But organizing parties is hard. Then Glecion said that you didn't like surprises anyway, and that you might appreciate having a smaller, cosy, relaxed little celebration instead."

Reylin smiled, and she bumped her snout against Glecion's shoulder affectionately. "You know me."

Mirroring the motion, Glecion bumped her snout back against Reylin's shoulder. "Indeed I do."

"So it's just the four of us--friends now, friends later, friends forever!" Caden grandly declared. She raised her glass high, then clinked it against Reylin's glass. "A toast to you, Reylin, saluting your success. Welcome to the clan, you crazy fledgling, you."

"Congratulations again," Knaster agreed, and with a smile he tapped his glass against Reylin's.

Glecion held out her own glass so that Reylin could tap their glasses together, as she couldn't see it. She adjusted her blindfold, then took a deep gulp from her glass. "You new life is just beginning, sis. Tonight's your night!"

"Thanks! Hee..." Reylin made a happy, giggling sort of sound, and she took a fast slurp of her drink before nodded towards the cupboard again with the stack of board and card games. "So what are we playing?"

---

---

The four fledglings narrowed the list of game choices quickly, eliminating games that looked overly complex or time consuming, and also seeing if there were any that could accommodate Glecion's lack of sight. In the end they settled on a fairly simple game of cards and tokens which was based around making bets. The printed ink markings on the cards were raised, meaning that Glecion could play along by feeling her cards to know what they were. Besides that requirement, the game also seemed appropriate--winning was partially reliant on calculation skill and the ability to deceive other players, yet it was mostly about luck, and each round could be completed in just a few minutes. Ultimately, the simplicity of the game was a benefit because with less focus on calculation, long-term planning, or even strategy, and they could instead chat without being distracted.

Reylin took a long gulp from her glass, emptying out the last of the juice drink from it. Slamming the glass down on the carpeted floor with a dull thunk, she grinned widely and nodded at Knaster. "You're bluffing."

Knaster grinned back at her, but his expression revealed nothing. "Sure I am. Go on, then. Call the bluff."

"You're bluffing!" Reylin insisted. She peered at her own cards again, then squinted at Knaster as if she might somehow be able to discern what cards he held just from staring hard enough at his face. The four fledglings were in a circle, sitting or lying on floor cushions as they held cards and played their game. Piles of tokens stood in front of each of the young dragons, with several already bet in the centre as the prize pool to be won for the round. Glecion and Caden had both already dropped out of this round, so it was just Reylin and Knaster playing to see who would win the current pool of bet tokens.

Stretching out a wing, Reylin tapped Glecion's shoulder. "I can't tell if he's bluffing. He's distracting me with his smile and I can't tell! Glecion, is he bluffing? Help me!"

At Reylin's prompting, Glecion perked up her ears and turned towards Knaster. "Ok! Vocal analysis time. Knaster, tell me--are you lying? You wouldn't lie to your friends, would you?" she asked.

Knaster chuckled. "Hehe. Yes. Yes, I'm lying. My cards actually have nothing, so Reylin should match my bet, and in fact also raise the bet with more of her tokens."

Glecion's ears twitched. "Hmm. Uh, he's very good at this. I do detect liar voice, but I can't tell if he's lying about the bet or just lying about lying about the bet. Vocal analysis conclusion: Inconclusive! But my hunch is that he's bluffing--he can't be so lucky two rounds in a row, can he?"

Reylin laughed, but she shook her head. "Haha. I don't know? I thought he was bluffing last round, but then he wasn't and I lost! Now should I match his bet or concede the round?"

"I don't think he's bluffing. Knaster's too honourable and upright to lie for nothing," Caden decided. Picking up the bottle of juice, she topped up their glasses and then took a draught from her own glass.

Reylin bounced up and down on her floor cushion, shifting even closer to Knaster. When they'd first started playing, their four floor cushions had all been placed at equal distances apart in a circle, but over the course of time Reylin's sitting position had been slowly but steadily migrating closer and closer to Knaster's. When Knaster had first noticed this, he though she was the one moving, but then after a few more minutes he'd realized that he'd subconsciously shifted his position too, getting closer to her as if there was some hidden magnetic force attracting them together.

Now the two fledglings were close enough that their seat cushions were touching, and Reylin utilized this proximity to casually lean against his side. Her scales felt pleasantly warm and smooth against Knaster's, yet he stayed focused and held his cards close to his chest so Reylin wouldn't see them.

"Knaster, would you lie to me?" Reylin asked, putting on a faux sweet voice and giving him a wide-eyed, innocent look.

"To win this game? Absolutely." Picking up his own glass, Knaster took another swig of the cool, bubbly, fruity beverage.

Reylin's neck frill perked up, but she put down her cards. She made a noise that was half whimper, half laugh. "Ehehehe. Ok. I concede..."

"Thank you, thank you." Standing up, Knaster stretched out a wing to sweep up the central pool of tokens that had been bet this round, and add them to his own stack.

"So what were your cards?" Reylin asked. "Were you really bluffing or not?"

Knaster smiled smugly, and he slid his cards back into the deck. "The world will never know."

Reylin pretended to pout at him. "You wouldn't keep secrets from me, would you?"

"Hahaha!" Knaster laughed, and then he leaned in close to whisper directly into Reylin's ear. "It wasn't a bluff."

Something about his voice in her ear, or the feel of his breath, or perhaps how close they were, made Reylin shudder all over. "Oh. Good thing I conceded, then..." she muttered. Grabbing the deck, she took back all their cards and started shuffling them up for the next round, putting them in a pile on the ground and just mixing them all up. Knaster had once seen another one of his friends shuffle cards while still holding them in his forepaws, but that sort of action took particular dexterity. Most dragons only had enough dexterity to hold objects (such as cards) with their paws, but not quite enough manipulate them well. Tail tips were the preferred appendage for a highly precise grip, or actions such as writing.

Caden made a frustrated growl. Flailing her paws, she gestured to the state of their game--they had all started with equal stacks of tokens, but Knaster had pulled ahead and was now winning with the largest stack. Glecion had made modest gains, but Reylin and Caden had both lost significant portions of their starting value. "Grr... Reylin, we're losing! Stop it!" Caden grumbled.

"I know we're losing! Stop what? It's not like I'm trying to lose?!" Reylin replied.

"You're throwing the game to Knaster with your bad bets, and because I'm bad at betting too we're both just losing." Caden pointed accusingly at Knaster. "Stop letting him distract you!"

"Hehe. There's no shame in losing. It's just a card game," Knaster said with a chuckle. He gave Reylin a compensatory series of pats on the head--she had been gathering up the cards back into a stack, but her grip slipped and some of the cards dropped back onto the ground because she immediately leaned into his touch and made a soft rumble in her throat.

"Hmmrr..."

Caden growled again, but now with any real anger. "Grr, Reylin, noo! You're letting him distract you again!"

"I can't help it! I like it when he pets me on the head and scratches under my chin!" Reylin replied. "Ok, no pats for now. Save them for later." She firmly lifted Knaster's paw off her head, then started dealing out cards for the next round.

Glecion let out a soft laugh. She had been munching on a slice of rainbow melon, but now she licked a paw clean and then shifted closer to Caden to start patting her head too. "Maybe you'd like it if you tried it..."

Caden shook her head, but she didn't pull away from Glecion's touch. "Don't you try distracting me now! Unlike Reylin, my concentration is not so easily disrupted by physical affection. I am focused on winning right now." Glecion kept it up for a few more seconds, then she licked Caden on the side of her snout and went back to eating her slice of melon.

"It's just a game. Winning isn't everything," Knaster said.

"Bah. Easy for you to say when you're winning," Caden retorted. She picked up her cards, which Reylin had now finished dealing. "Maybe we're going about this the wrong way. Maybe instead of defence, we should be doing offense."

Reylin peeked at her own cards before putting them face down again. "How? You mean by making more aggressive bets? I tried, but I can't seem to bluff Knaster. He just knows."

Knaster reached over towards one of the bowl of snacks and ate a cookie. He was really having fun tonight. What greater enjoyment was there to be had then spending quality time with close friends--playing games, eating snacks, making jokes, and chatting? "It's because the tip of your tail twitches whenever you're trying to bluff," he told Reylin, which instantly made her do it again. Those long, shiny, red and silver silk ribbons were still coiled around the length of her tail, and the loose ends emphasized the motion whenever her tail tip moved.

Reylin frowned at him, trying to figure out if he was being serious. Just to be sure, she slid the tip of her tail underneath her own floor cushion and sat on it so that he couldn't see it move. Caden laughed, and she murmured something to Glecion--presumably describing to the blind fledgling what had just occurred so she would understand it too. Then she said, "I didn't mean offence as in more aggressive bets. I meant offence as in we should distract Knaster too! Bother him and divert his attention."

"Oh. Ok!" Reylin agreed enthusiastically, and her neck frill sprung up from excitement. "How do we distract him? Ooh, wait I've got an idea." She grabbed Knaster's glass and then refilled it from the bottle of fizzy fruit drink. "Here, drink this."

Knaster took his glass from her, and he obligingly took another gulp of the drink. "We've already established that this isn't liquor or anything intoxicating. So... enjoying a refreshing beverage is your attempt to distract me?"

Reylin grinned, and she refilled his glass again. "Yes. We're going to make you keep drinking until you really need to use the washroom, and then we're not going to let you, so that you just have to squirm about and be all distracted and uncomfortable! Haha!"

All three other young fledglings burst into laughter, and Glecion chortled so hard that she almost spit out some of the melon slice that she'd been eating, covering her mouth just in time. When Knaster could control his breathing again, he smiled but shook his head at Reylin. "Is that the best you got?"

Reylin glared right back at him with her proud determined grin. "That sounds like a challenge. If you want to challenge me, then I will distract you." Leaping to her feet, she playfully leapt towards Knaster and grabbed the quick release straps of his flight harness--one strap with a paw, the other strap with her jaw. Taking a step back, she yanked on both straps and the buckles released with a click. Knaster's flight harness slid off his shoulders, with the frame and pouches dropping down to rest around his paws. "Ha! Got your harness!"

Knaster remained sitting upright, but he did raise an eye ridge as he watched Reylin's antics. Standing up, he stepped out of his flight harness and kicked it aside, sliding the grid of straps and pouches towards the side of the room. "This is... my bedroom, in my house. Taking off my flight harness isn't a distraction--if anything, it's just more comfortable." He sat back down again on his floor cushion.

"Oh yeah? Well what about now? Are you distracted yet?" Reylin extended her claws and lightly ran them over Knaster's now completely exposed side, just below his wings and near his ribcage, in an attempt to tickle him. It didn't work.

Knaster grinned, but he shook his head. "I'm not ticklish. But I do know that you are..." Using the tip of his tail, he jabbed Reylin's side in return, right in an open spot between two of her harness pouches.

"Eeeyah!" Reylin let out a squeak and flinched backwards with enough energy that she actually leapt up from the ground. She hurriedly lowered a wing to protect her side. "Noo, you're not allowed to retaliate! Help! Caden! Glecion! How do I distract Knaster? He seems undistractable!"

Glecion had just finished off her slice of rainbow melon, and she put down the rind. "Try a psychological assault? Ask him awkward, deeply-searching personal questions," she suggested.

"Ok. How about--Knaster, what's the most embarrassing thing you've ever done?" Reylin asked.

Knaster laughed again. "Hah. I don't know? I don't keep a record of the most embarrassing moments in my life."

Caden snorted. "Pfft. Not an answer! You can't write 'I don't know' on an exam prompt or you'd fail. You fail, Knaster!"

Knaster shrugged his shoulders, making his wings bob up and down. "I honestly don't know."

Reylin frowned at him. "Really? You mean you never just... you never randomly have flashbacks to all the most terribly awkward and embarrassing moments in your life?"

"No?" Knaster thought about it, then shook his head. "No, I don't. I just... move on. You mean you do always remember embarrassing moments? Why worry about some small mistake made in the past? I reserve mental space for worrying only about things that are actually important."

"Oh. You make it sound so easy. I wish I had that much certainty and confidence in my life. Maybe I'll learn it from you eventually," Reylin muttered. "Whatever. What other sorts of embarrassing questions can we ask? Uh, Knaster, uh, have you ever walked into a wall?"

Knaster nodded. "Of course. Hmm, yes, definitely. At night when I wake up thirsty but the house is all dark, I've walked into a wall trying to find water to drink. Bumped my nose. That's not embarrassing--that's just normal life."

Glecion tapped a paw against the ground for attention. "Let me try! Ok, what about... Did you use to sleep with a stuffed toy?"

Knaster nodded again. "Yes...? Ever since I was just a tiny hatchling, and I still do." Standing up, he hopped up onto his bed and pushed aside the pillows and quilt to uncover a small, raggedy old stuffed toy shaped like a dragon out of soft cloth. Long ago this toy had been almost as big as he was, but now it seemed much smaller in comparison to even an adolescent dragon's size. Knaster carefully picked up the soft toy in his jaws, carrying it by the portion of cloth right behind the neck like you were supposed to carry a real dragon hatchling, and he brought it over to show to the others. "Here. His name is Fuzzy, because he is." Knaster rubbed the stuffed toy's cloth snout against his cheek, enjoying the feeling of soft velvet against his scales.

Reylin beckoned with her paws, and Knaster passed the soft toy to her. She also tried rubbing the cloth dragon's snout against her cheek, then she hugged it against her chest. "Ooohh! Soft. I remember when I was a young hatchling I used to have a soft toy too! But it broke so I had to use a blanket instead. And sometimes when the blanket wasn't soft or comfortable enough, I would just squeeze into Glecion's bed and hug her instead so I could sleep."

Glecion grinned, and she nodded. "It was cosy... Wait, we were trying to embarrass Knaster so he would be too distracted to keep winning the card game. Bother! He really is difficult to embarrass."

Caden let out another snort. "Pfft. That's just because you two are giving him easy questions."

Reylin was still hugging Knaster's soft toy against her chest, but she glanced up at Caden and put the toy down. "Oh? Why don't you ask him then, since you know harder, more embarrassing questions?"

"Sure." Caden smiled at Knaster. "Knaster, have you ever kissed someone? And not counting just a friendly lick on the snout from your parents, but a proper kiss mouth to mouth?"

Knaster let out a bark of laughter. "Hah! Yes, yes I have," he replied. After some consideration, he added, "In fact, I think we all who I've kissed."

"Mhhmmmm...!" Reylin made a soft whining sound, and she suddenly seemed obsessed with examining one of the scales on the back of her forelimb instead of making eye contact with any of the other fledglings.

Caden's smile widened, but she didn't relent. "Oh really? So how many times do you think you've kissed in your whole life?"

"Oh, that's an interesting question." Knaster was starting to feel a tinge of awkwardness and embarrassment from the probing and intimate nature of these questions, but not enough to avoid answering. Instead, he leaned towards Reylin and casually put his wing around her back and shoulders. "What do you think, Reylin? Any count?"

Reylin grit her teeth, and she let out a soft hiss. "Ttsss... You are not supposed to redirect to me! And... I don't know... Maybe around a hundred?"

"A hundred?" Caden looked surprised but impressed. "I thought you two only started dating a few weeks ago, just after the exams finished? You've been busy."

"Really? Because I would have loved it if that number was even higher. I feel we could have scored higher. A hundred in single day is very doable if we tried for a record, so a hundred in two weeks is low compared to that." Turning her head towards him, Reylin nuzzled the side of Knaster's snout, which made him smile. "Though it also depends on your definition. If we're kissing but then we stop to take a breath but then immediately kiss again, does that still count as multiple kisses, or just one kissing session?"

"I think it counts as multiple," Glecion decided.

"Ok we've probably done more, but we'll just round it to a hundred and then work from there." Reylin tilted Knaster's head to the side, then she kissed him again, snout to snout. It was a quick action, yet Knaster felt his heartrate pick up, and his neck frill perked up. He could detect a faint sweetness in Reylin's mouth--just from the fruit drink they'd been drinking, and his own mouth probably tasted the same way.

When Reylin pulled back after just a couple of seconds, Knaster let out a soft, satisfied sigh. "Mhm..."

They two young fledglings held eye contact for another short moment. Then Reylin licked her lips, and she tapped him gently on the nose. "A hundred and one," she murmured, sounding pleased, then she turned back to the game and picked up her cards again.

Glecion leaned over to Caden. "Did they just...?" she asked quietly, though not quietly enough that Knaster couldn't hear.

Caden nodded. "Yes, they did. It was... passionate."

"Oh. Uh. Hmm." Glecion's neck frill perked up. "Did it work? Does Knaster look distracted?"

Caden grinned and nodded. "He's trying to not let it show, but yes, I think he's at least mildly distracted. Good enough! Maybe he'll stop completely trouncing us now. Well done, Reylin! Let's start the next round--I raise by one." Caden picked up her cards and tossed a single token from her stack into the betting pool.

---

---

As the round played out, Knaster was more than just mildly distracted. He had enough experience with this card game that he could play without his full attention, but even that brief exchange had siphoned off a considerable amount of his mental focus to keep it locked onto Reylin instead.

Before she'd kissed him, it had just been the four fledglings all playing games, spending time together just as they had many times over the past few months during their numerous study sessions--but now that relationship dynamic had changed. Before, they had all just been friends and study mates, and Knaster had no problem treating the other three fledglings just like any of his other good friends.

But now Reylin was different. In the past few weeks she had solidified her status as more than a friend, and now she had eagerly reminded him of that fact. Knaster felt his hearts leap in his chest just anytime he even looked at her. He was distracted from their card game, but not enough to immediately lose. The next few rounds played out straightforward, with Caden winning one, Glecion winning two, and then Knaster winning the next.

As the cards were being shuffled again for the next round by Knaster, Caden reached into the gift pouch she'd gotten from the clan meeting and started searching through it once more. "Huh! Curious..." The green-scaled fledgling pulled out a small, rectangular glass bottle with an elaborate cap and a fancy-looking label sticker. "Is this what I think it is?" Caden wondered aloud. She unscrewed the cap and sniffed at the liquid inside.

"What is it? What did you find?" Glecion asked.

"Hmm. It's a bottle of... hmm." Without saying anything else, Caden held the opened bottle up to Glecion's snout. "What does this smell like to you?"

Glecion took a sniff, paused for a few seconds, then she took a deeper inhalation. "Um, I smell rainclouds?"

Reylin chuckled and she gestured towards the open balcony window of Knaster's bedroom, which provided a view out over the darkened, night-time cityscape. "Rainclouds? That's just from real clouds. It looks like the city's going to be flying through some rainstorms later tonight." Reylin briefly searched through the gift pouch that she had received from the clan meeting, before shaking her head and looking at Caden again. "I don't have anything like that in my gift bag. What's that thing, Caden?"

"Another drink?" Knaster guessed. The bottle was mostly filled with some sort of yellow-tinted clear liquid, but it was barely large enough to fit in a paw and seemed far too small to be another drink bottle.

"It's not a drink. It's supposed to be... but I'm not sure" Caden sniffed at the bottle again, then she beckoned to Reylin. "Hey, come smell this and tell me what you think."

Reylin trotted across the room and curiously sniffed at the bottle. "I... I don't smell much. What is this supposed to be?"

Caden tilted the bottle to show Reylin the label. "It's perfume. This is a bottle of perfume, and it's an expensive brand."

"Is it really? Snnrt." Reylin raised a paw to her snout and pressed on one side of her nose, then the other, snorting as she inhaled sharply to clear her nostrils one at a time. Then she tried sniffing at the perfume bottle again. "I smell nothing. My nose isn't fantastic, but if that's an expensive brand of perfume then I shouldn't need an incredible nose to tell if this is perfume or coloured water. Maybe someone cheated your clan--I mean, _our_clan? Sold a bunch of perfume bottles that don't actually have perfume?"

"It's not that easy to cheat the logistics department--they have contracts and testing and all sorts of procurement processes," Knaster replied. "Maybe it's supposed to be a placebo? I don't know. I'm no fashion expert."

Caden looked thoughtful, but then she flicked her wings in a casual shrug. "Here, let Knaster smell it," she suggested, passing the bottle to Reylin.

Reylin strolled back three-legged, carrying the small bottle in a forepaw. Sitting down right beside Knaster, she sniffed at it a third time and shook her head again. "No, this is just like sniffing water," she decided, and then she raised the perfume bottle to Knaster's nose.

Knaster had just finished shuffling the deck of cards, and he obligingly lowered his snout and inhaled deeply. He had been expecting a subtle scent, if any at all, but the odour that slammed into his nostrils was anything but subtle.

"Mnrrahhhh!" Instantly Knaster let out a choked, shocked grunt and he recoiled sharply, tripping up on his own tail and falling backwards. He managed to twist smoothly and land on his side, but he still lost his grip on the deck of cards. Playing cards scattered over the floor and even over him. "Ehhh!?"

Knaster immediately rolled back into a position sitting down on all fours, but there was no taking back his earlier reaction. Reylin had a shocked expression with neck frill fully perked up, and she still had her paw extended, holding up that perfume bottle in the same position as before. "Woah."

"Oh wow. It's real. It's actually real." Caden also looked surprised, but then her surprise quickly transmuted into amusement--she murmured something to Glecion, and the two fledglings had a quick, quiet discussion that Knaster couldn't hear.

Reylin blinked a few times, they she frowned at Knaster. "Woah, woah, woah. What was that?" Again she sniffed at the bottle and again she seemed to detect nothing, which made her give Knaster a very confused look. "Wait, what? What just happened?" She hesitantly extended the bottle towards him.

Knaster shook his head, which made him realize his neck frill was fully perked up. It took some deliberate force of will to lower it. "You can't... you really can't smell that?" he asked. Even now, the scent still seemed to linger in his mind after just that brief exposure.

"No?" Reylin looked extraordinarily curious. "So you... can smell something? Fascinating! What does it smell like?"

Knaster tried to think about it, but he wasn't sure how to explain. In the same way that catching the smell of the ocean could trigger the memory of a trip to the beach that he'd taken with his parents back when he was a young hatchling, or the smell of good food might make him salivate, the scent of that perfume seemed to have gone straight to his brain--except instead of calling back a vivid memory, it made him feel something new. Knaster had been calm before, but now both his hearts were pounding hard in his chest, and a shiver ran down his back just from thinking about that baffling, maddening scent which he had never experienced before.

"Yeah, what did it smell like, Knaster?" Glecion asked, and Knaster snapped his attention to her. For some reason he had been staring at Reylin, almost forgetting about the other two fledglings.

"Uh..." Knaster took a few breaths and tried to regain his calm composure. "Sort of... earthy?" he hesitantly said. But it was more than that--it was strong, enticing, and intensely distracting in an odd way that made it difficult to think about anything else.

Caden looked smug. With Glecion's wing over her shoulder for guidance, she walked over until the four fledglings were all sitting closer together, and then she spoke in a soft, conspiratorial voice. "It's real. It's actually real! You saw his reaction? There's no way Knaster faked that."

"Faked what?" Reylin asked. She turned to Knaster. "Huh?"

Caden took the perfume bottle back from Reylin. She put the cap back on, then gestured to the bottle's label. "You know how I said that the gift pouch I got was from the batch which was intended from newly officiated mate pairs? This perfume is made to imitate the scent pheromones of a drakka in_heat_. That's why we can't smell anything, but Knaster here is... biologically tuned to respond, like most any drake would."

Reylin let out a soft gasp. "Huh! Ohhh, I've heard about that! They mentioned it during the lessons in school when they talked about sexuality and growing up--how going into heat was a... a thing that would happen. And how you would feel weird and your smell might change because of the fertility." Frowning, Reylin tilted her head. "Wait, I thought you were supposed to use deodorant or suppressors to stop the smell? Why would anyone want perfume to smell like they're in heat if they aren't in heat?"

Caden gestured at her gift pouch. "That smell is the most effective aphrodisiac that exists, at least for drakes. This perfume was meant as a gift for mated pairs, so maybe it helps with increasing the yearly egg count? I bet Social Engineering Department would love that. Or I suppose it could just be fun to make the drake react like how Knaster did."

"It was pretty fun to see!" Reylin agreed. She nudged Knaster's side. "Did you like the perfume?"

"It was just a smell. Just a normal smell," Knaster replied slowly, but none of the other three fledglings appeared convinced.

"Bluff!" Reylin exclaimed. "You were all, 'aaahh' about it earlier," she said, pretending to fall backwards as she imitated Knaster's earlier reaction. "What does it smell like, honestly? Did you like it? Describe it."

Knaster shook his head. "I don't know. I only got a small sniff, so I'm not sure I could..."

Reylin got a _look_on her face. It was an expression Knaster had seen before, where she simultaneously had a slight frown and a slight smile--a look of concentration, where she had found some problem or challenge and was determined to solve it. "Are you embarrassed?" she demanded.

The way she said it made it sound like it was a challenge, and Knaster suddenly felt unwilling to back down. "No, I'm not."

"Do it again, then." Reylin swiped the perfume bottle out of Caden's paws and casually flicked off the cap.

Knaster first tried breathing through his mouth when Reylin put the bottle right up against his snout, but she noticed and put her other paw over his mouth, forcing him to breathe through his nose. He could have pushed her away or even moved his own head away, but he didn't. This time he was at least prepared for the scent and he didn't recoil, but the pheromones made a shiver run down his back and his neck frill perked up again. Without even thinking about what he was doing he found himself breathing heavier, his nostrils flaring as his body tried to get more of that scent.

Reylin relented after a few seconds, capping the perfume bottle and passing it back to Caden. Caden had been watching their exchange with a surprised look, and she had been again quietly murmuring with Glecion. Now she said to all of them, "Wow. To be honest, when we first started our study sessions and Glecion suggested that we invite Reylin along, I agreed because I thought her workaholic nature would keep Knaster so busy that he would focus on helping her study instead of bothering me to study. But you two really hit it off."

"Definitely," Glecion agreed.

"And Reylin, you are bold," Caden continued. "You just do with Knaster what you want, don't you? And he lets you do it."

Reylin spread her wings in a carefree, proud manner. "It's my night! Tonight I officially got into a clan, and if I can do that, that means I can do anything!" Knaster had still been sitting down on all fours, and Reylin assertively put her wing around his back in a possessive manner, hugging him against her side. "This here is my drake. Mine. Rrrrr..." The grey-scaled female fledgling pressed her snout against his neck and made a noise that was half growl, half rumbling purr, which Knaster found completely adorable and endearing.

After a second, Reylin glanced at him, with her confident expression lightening back to nervous hopefulness. "You don't mind if... if I say that, right?"

Knaster nodded. "You can say it. I'll be your drake."

Reylin looked happy, and she giggled cheerfully. "Hehehe. Mine," she repeated, patting Knaster on the head. "So... what exactly does the perfume smell like? What does heat smell like?"

"You're asking me?!" Knaster replied. "I'm the drake. You three are the drakka. I don't go into heat, you three do. Shouldn't you know better than me?"

"No? Because as we have just established, we can't smell it but you can," Reylin countered. "Come on, don't be shy! I'm curious about this. I remember in biology science class they talked about the reproductive system, and in sexual education class they talked about health and safety and relationships and all that, but I don't think I've ever read or heard about what heat actually smells like. Do the pheromone chemicals smell real?"

Knaster wasn't sure if he ought to be embarrassed. This was a deeply intimate and possibly private topic, but they were all friends after all, and he didn't want to act shy by backing out. "It was... I don't know? How would I know if the perfume smelled like real heat? I've never smelled anyone in heat before."

"Oh. Right. But then... what did the perfume smell like?" Reylin asked.

Knaster sighed, but he did try to answer the question. "It was... faintly like a spice or burnt wood, but not really. It just smelled unique. I don't know how to describe a smell except by comparing it to other things, and this doesn't smell like anything else I've ever smelt before."

"Interesting," Caden said.

"Very interesting," Glecion agreed.

Reylin still looked intrigued. "Ok, so then why did you react so dramatically? I wouldn't have reacted like that if I'd just smelled spice or burnt wood."

Knaster shrugged. "It was unexpected. Something about that smell...? It was... as if I wasn't only smelling it with my nose, but smelling it with my brain. Does that make any sense?"

"I guess it does," Reylin said.

"Like how smelling food makes salivate, smelling that makes... uhh..."

With a tilt of her head, Reylin gave him a curious look. "Makes you what?" she prompted.

"React," Knaster muttered, which was a euphemistic way of describing things.

Reylin briefly busied herself gathering up the playing cards into a messy stack again, but then she frowned at him. "Umm. I have another question." She turned to Caden and Glecion, searching for some confidence, then she glanced at Knaster again. "Are you... are you aroused right now? Cause you don't normally sit like that. Usually you always sit upright with such good posture."

Knaster was currently sitting down on all fours, lying on his front with his limbs folded against his sides. Sitting in that position kept his chest and underbelly pressed against the floor, which also meant his genital slit was out of view. Dragons didn't wear flight harnesses for modesty or out of any concern regarding nudity, but revealing an erection was blatantly sexual and in public it was either accidental and humiliating, or intentional and indecent.

As a young male fledgling, Knaster was no stranger to his body acting up, and multiple times in any day he was used to the feeling of blood rushing to his underbelly--sometimes it was random such as during a boring class lesson or while he was flying, whereas other times it was with good reason like when he kissed Reylin, or hugged Reylin, or when Reylin smiled at him, even when he just thought about Reylin. Regardless, Knaster, as did any other young drake, had quickly gotten used to the practice of tensing up muscles in his underbelly to keep his genital slit firmly closed and prevent his penis from emerging and enlarging as it reflexively tried to grow erect. But sometimes the firm pressure of blood flow meant his reproductive organ won out against the muscles of his slit, and in those scenarios, sitting down on all fours at least kept his erection out of sight.

A flash of embarrassment ran through him. Knaster glanced at the three female fledglings--Reylin looked very curious, Caden was mildly amused but also slightly embarrassed too, whereas Glecion just seemed calm and collected. "Uhhh." Knaster made an uncertain noise and shifted his position slightly. Sitting down on all fours was something he had done automatically just in case, but it wasn't fully clear to him whether he was actually erect--he could feel the insistent throb of blood flow as his penis tried to enlarge, but his underbelly was pressed down against the floor cushion and maybe his genital slit was still keeping his erection contained. "I think not. Probably not."

Reylin picked up her glass of fizzy fruit drink and took a slow gulp. "Really? Be honest. Are you aroused? It's just the perfume and the pheromones, right? You can admit it."

"I'm not!" Bending his head down, Knaster twisted his body and shifted a hindleg just to check. Right between his hindlegs on his light-grey underside, his genital slit was slightly puffy, but he wasn't erect. "I'm not. I am in control of myself." Straightening his forelegs, Knaster sat back up and brought his underside back into view. "I'm not aroused. All's normal."

Reylin's eyes darted about, staring at his underbelly for long enough to be considered improper. "Oh. Well," she murmured. Her voice sounded almost disappointed, but then she got that look of determination in her eyes again. "Hmm." Before Knaster could say anything, Reylin slid closer and suddenly she was right against him, leaning against him until their chests touched, kissing him, pressing her snout against his in a hungry, eager manner.

"Are they...?" Glecion asked.

"Yes, yes they are," Caden replied.

Knaster wasn't listening to the other two fledglings. Every scrap of his attention had been seized by Reylin. She gently placed a paw on his cheek to hold his head, and he flipped open a wing and wrapped it around her back to pull her close. "Mhmm..."

Knaster's hearts had been beating hard, and now the warmth and pressure that had been building in his underbelly spilled out of him. He didn't even need to look down--he could feel_his penis pushing its way out of his genital slit, sliding out of the internal compartment that normally kept it housed and then rapidly swelling as it was no longer contained. Getting an erection was such a common thing that happened to him every day, yet this was the first time he had someone else there to _watch, or beyond that, who had caused it.

Reylin pulled back after a few seconds. Her gaze caught on Knaster's for a few seconds and she smiled, then she glanced down, and what she saw made her grin even further. "Oh! That worked. Wow. Now that's new."

Knaster had one wing around Reylin's back, and he tried to shift it so that he was covering himself. "New for you, maybe. Not new for me," he muttered, babbling to hide his embarrassment.

"Is he...?" Glecion asked.

"I think so. I can't quite see it," Caden replied.

Reylin was still grinning. "He is! He totally is! Oh wow. I've been curious for so long about this! Wow, wow!" Stepping back, Reylin waved her wings about and wiggled her body in a short, excited dance.

Knaster didn't know what to do. How to react in such a social situation was completely unknown to him, and he awkwardly tried to cover himself up with a wing and conceal his underbelly. Idly he wondered what his parents would think--but they were still at the clan meeting and wouldn't be back for at least another hour, and anyway he was a fledgling now. He was supposed to be more independent and more grown up. Having an erection in public was most improper behaviour, but then again this wasn't a public place--they were in his bedroom, and they were all good friends.

Reylin paused her dancing. She was grinning widely, looking nervous, excited, and curious--which was largely similar to exactly how Knaster was feeling. "Was that from the perfume? The chemicals getting you aroused?" she asked.

"That wasn't the perfume. That was from you," Knaster replied, which seemed to make Reylin even happier. "Every time we kiss the reflex just... and this time I couldn't hold it in."

"Nice. Very nice! Move your wing! I want to see it," Reylin said, gesturing with her paws.

"I'm not... I don't know if this is fully... proper behaviour," Knaster muttered. He glanced at the other fledglings, then at the window. The night sky outside was increasingly filled with clouds, illuminated by the lights of the city--as unlikely as it was, Knaster wondered if anyone might be flying in the nearby airspace who might see them. "Uhh, at least draw the curtains and shut the door."

Reylin thumped her tail against the ground in a firm manner. "Deal. We'll do that, then you'll have no more excuses." She scampered to the bedroom door and pushed it shut. Then she went to pull the curtains across the balcony window door, cutting off any view to or from the outside, though there was still a faint breeze as the windows weren't closed.

Looking pleased with herself, Reylin sat back down in front of Knaster. Glecion and Caden were also sitting a short distance behind her, in the periphery, but they were just observing as Reylin took the lead. "Knaster have you ever... have you ever done anything like this before?" Reylin asked.

Knaster shook his head. "No? What exactly are we doing? I guess we're done with that card game now."

"I feel like this is more fun. And it's my night, so I can decide that we're changing games." Reylin nudged Knaster's wing, which he was still using to cover himself, then she grabbed her floor cushion and threw it behind him. Without any warning she stepped forward and shoved him. Knaster could have resisted--he was roughly the same size as Reylin, but not as thin as she was--yet instead he allowed her to put her paws on his chest and push him backwards. Knaster threw open both wings, catching the air to slow his fall as Reylin put him on his back. Lying back on the two floor cushions with his underbelly so exposed made Knaster feel vulnerable, but he didn't stop her.

With firm certainty Reylin sat down over his tail, and put one forepaw on his thigh. Then she stared at his underside--his erection was jutting out from his underbelly, pointing upwards now without his wing or anything else to cover it. Reylin tilted her head and peered at it from various angles, then she pointed with her paw. "That's a penis," she concluded, in a matter-of-fact voice.

Knaster let out a short chuckle. "Hah. I see now why you did so well in the biology exam," he joked.

Reylin laughed too. "I know! Hehe. First time I'm seeing one of those up close."

"You've seen one from a distance?" Knaster asked.

"Yes. Back at the clanless shelter, I've seen... I've caught glimpses. We sleep in shared dormitory rooms with twelve other fledglings and hatchlings--some of the fledglings like to sleep on their back, and in the mornings sometimes they just get aroused from dreams or whatever. Though not like this. Not up close." Reylin looked thoughtful. "It's bigger than I expected. Looks nice."

"Uh, thanks?" Knaster said.

"You're welcome." Reylin glanced towards Caden and Glecion, who hadn't said much in the past few minutes. "Look. It's a penis," Reylin said to them.

Caden nodded. "It sure is."

Glecion fidgeted with her blindfold, tightening it around her head. "What does it look like?"

Caden hissed, inhaling sharply through her teeth. It was rare to see Caden looking embarrassed, but now she seemed unsure and awkward too--perhaps she was less experienced with these adult, sexual matters than Knaster had expected. Despite Caden's outgoing confidence and social grace, she was still a young dragon fledgling like the rest of them, riding the vague border between adolescence and adulthood. "It looks... like a... penis."

"Hmm. Could you possibly be more descriptive than that?" Glecion asked with a smile.

With a snort, Caden playfully nudged Glecion's side. "What do you want me to say? Knaster's lying on his back, and right between his legs is... it's... it's his... his penis! An erect penis. An erection. You know what they look like."

"Not really, I don't. Unlike you three, I've never gotten to see one before," Glecion replied.

"Maybe you haven't _seen_one before, but you took the same biology class, and you attended those sexuality health and relationship lectures in school too," Reylin said. "I remember they printed out the handouts for you with the special ink and parchment that created raised text."

Glecion gestured with her paws, pretending she was feeling over paper. "It's hard enough for me to read normal words if they don't print them extra big, and diagrams are even harder to understand if they aren't specially made. I listened in those special sexual education classes, but I didn't get much out of the pictures on the handouts. It was printed too small for the detail to be feel-able. So I do know that drakes have a slit in which they have their penis, but I don't have a clear idea of what it's supposed to look like."

"No problem. I don't want to boast, but I did get great marks for writing class, so I bet I can be more descriptive," Reylin said.

"I thought you took the class on argumentative essays? Not the prose and poetry class?" Caden asked.

Reylin waved aside this distinction. "Doesn't matter. Language is language. I can be descriptive and eloquent." She tapped with her paw which was touching Knaster's inner thigh, and she gestured with her other paw. "It's very... very male. Kind of sexy. And definitely handsome."

"Are you talking about Knaster, or about his erection?" Glecion asked.

"Both," Reylin replied instantly. "Let me try to describe his arousal specifically. Ok. It's... got a very healthy looking, reddish-pink, fleshy colour--the same shade all over. And it just protrudes out from his underbelly, spreading apart the lips of his genital slit." Reylin's neck frill perked up even further as something occurred to her. "Ho! I just realized that with Knaster's light grey underbelly and his reddish pink erection, he matches the silver and red Taslin colours! Hahaha!"

Glecion giggled and Caden guffawed. "Baahhaha! Reylin!"

Knaster just let out an awkward chuckle. "Heh. Uhh..."

"It's true!" Reylin flicked open her wing and placed it such that the pennant flag tied around her wingtip was resting against Knaster's underbelly. "Partially true. If you had a banner or flag that was slightly faded, I think it would be a reasonably close match."

All of the four fledglings had red and silver pennants tied around their wingtips (though Glecion's flags didn't have the Taslin insignia, just the colours). Knaster still had his own pennants on, but those were the only things he was wearing as he had removed his flight harness. Thinking about it, Knaster realized this was the first time he'd ever been with Reylin while not wearing his harness. A dragon's flight harness was about utility for carrying objects while flying, or for fashion and accessorizing their appearance, but it was perfectly normal for a dragon to go about without wearing a harness. Nudity was not a concept to be embarrassed or modest about, yet just as a personal choice Knaster always wore his flight harness when leaving the house, including to all their study sessions and even his recent spate of dates with Reylin. Just by comparison that made him feel very exposed now as Reylin slid her paw against the inside of his thigh, then lightly rubbed his underbelly, even coming close to his genital slit--she didn't seem to have worked up the courage to go even further and actually touch his penis, but the lack of direct contact hadn't caused his erection to soften at all.

Reylin tapped her paws against Knaster's abdomen, feeling his muscles under the layer of skin and scales. "So, light reddish pink--that's the colour. Not that colour makes much sense to you, Glece, but anyway. Ok! The shape is... I would say it's cylindrical, but also conical, like a... rod of flesh. The lower half is roughly even in thickness, but then the upper half tapers off to a point with a... small little opening right at the tip where I assume stuff comes out. Um, it's pointing at an angle about halfway towards his chest. It's all very organic and sleek and it looks much more impressive than I'm making it sound."

"Impressive, you say?" Glecion asked.

"I think so." Reylin smiled, and she nodded at Knaster. "I like it!"

"Of course _you_would. You're head over heels about Knaster. Not to say that he's a bad looking drake. Knaster is... reasonable easy on the eyes." Caden was still sitting beside and behind Reylin, but Knaster could see that she was wide-eyed and curious too. When he looked at her, Caden glanced away. She seemed embarrassed for a moment, before she shook her head and glared right back at him. "What?"

Knaster blinked. "Thanks. It's just... unexpected that you would give a compliment."

"I can take it back, then," Caden muttered sourly.

Reylin was still grinning. "No you can't! Knaster's great. He's my drake and he's lovely. I like his smile and his neck frill, and his eyes because he stares at me when I stare at him, and his paws cause he pats my head, and his tail cause it entwines with mine just so perfectly, and yes I think I like his penis too. It's an appealing colour and a good shape and size. I think. Yes!" She continued her description. "Near the base, just above his genital slit there's a part that's different. There's a slight bulge that looks like a... lobe or..."

"It's called a knot," Caden murmured. She shrugged when Reylin glanced at her. "That's the name for it."

Glecion nodded agreeably. "Oh yes. There was mention about that in some of the magazines Caden read to me. I found it very interesting! I wish I could have seen the pictures."

Reylin grinned happily. "All this is... it's really a great thing to see. It almost makes me wish I had one, just so I could try it out and see how it works." Her grin widened. "I suppose I sort of do have one, since Knaster's my drake and I own him now."

"Um." Knaster was still lying on his back on the floor cushions, with his wings half unfurled and his forepaws both resting on his chest. He was feeling rather like a demonstration prop as the three female fledglings curiously discussed him and his anatomy--and, on reflection, he was completely alright with this.

Reylin was quiet for a moment, then she glanced towards her twin. "Glecion, do you want to... uh... to see it? Not see it--you know what I mean--_feel_it so that you find out what it's like?"

Glecion's neck frill snapped all the way up, and she looked surprised. "Oh! Really? Can I?" She put her head against Caden and whispered something to her, and Caden whispered back--too quiet for Reylin or Knaster to hear what the other two fledglings were discussing. Then Glecion spoke up, "You wouldn't mind?"

Reylin shook her head. "I don't mind. It's just a learning experience for all of us. A practical demonstration! As long as all you're doing is touching it." Then she frowned. "Wait, or were you asking Knaster if he would mind? Knaster, do you object if we let Glecion find out what a drake's penis actually feels like?"

Knaster took a few seconds to think about it, but he did consider Glecion and Caden both good friends, and after some consideration he didn't see any harm with continuing. "I... I don't object," he decided.

"Nice. Ok, let's do that." Reylin beckoned to the other two female fledglings. Caden stepped forward, leading Glecion. Reylin was still sitting on Knaster's tail, and Caden sat on her left side while Glecion sat on her right. Reylin again had that earnest, curious look on her face, but now with an added dose of hungry, possessive desire. "I have to be first, though. First to touch it, since he's my drake." And then she grabbed him.

"Mhm." Knaster made a soft grunt and twitched when Reylin casually grasped his erection. Her touch was firm but gentle--first she used one paw, then both paws to curiously feel and squeeze his reproductive organ.

"It's warm. And smooth. And squishy on the outside but also stiff on the inside, like... warm, living, spongy velvet over steel," Reylin murmured. Her investigation involved touching Knaster's length from base to tip, examining it curiously, then pushing his erection around just to see how it responded. "This feels nice to hold, though it really is bigger than I expected."

Caden let out a soft chuckle. "Hah. I think it's just a normal size. How big were you expecting?"

Reylin slid her paw down Knaster's length to about midway. "I don't know. Maybe... maybe this big? I've only ever gotten glimpses of what a drake's penis might look like from across a room, and I never stared! Besides, I just expected something more manageable?" Reylin gestured down towards her own underbelly, which Knaster couldn't see but which was pressed against his tail base since she was sitting just in front of him over his tail, then she glanced to the other two female fledglings. "Just... you two have also thought about this sort of thing, right? I know I've got a genital slit, and I've seen that males' genital silts look a bit shorter than ours, so I just assumed..." Reylin pressed down on Knaster's erection, pushing it towards his chest as if trying to bend it down or slide it back into his genital slit, though the stiffness of the organ kept it from flexing much or retracting. "I thought it would... fold out of his genital slit?"

"A reasonable assumption," Caden agreed.

"And it did, but then it kept getting bigger and longer too. Much bigger. And it's all just _blood_making it swell up and stiffen--where does all that spare blood come from? Does getting an erection affect blood pressure?" Reylin wondered.

Knaster was no expert in anatomy, but he did have some experience as an owner of the anatomical feature in discussion. "I don't think I've ever felt faint from having an erection. That would defeat the point of having one."

"Haha. True." Reylin let go, and Knaster's erection sprung back upwards to its natural angle, halfway pointing between vertically upwards and horizontally towards his chest. She didn't leave it alone for long though, immediately grabbing it again. "Just look_at this thing. You know what it's _for!? How is something this size possibly, ever going to fit inside me?" Reylin's neck frill twitched and she glanced up, locking eyes with Knaster. "Uh, I mean, fit inside a drakka... a drakka's genital slit. Who may or may not be me."

Caden bumped her shoulder against Reylin and nodded smugly. "It'll be you. You know it's going to be you. At some point--maybe tonight, maybe not tonight--but when you both are ready, you'll make it work. And it'll fit."

Reylin looked thoughtful. "Hmm..." For a moment she just loosely held Knaster's length, then she continued her intimate examination. One of her paws wrapped around his knot and gave it a light squeeze, which made Knaster draw a sharp gasp as a burst of gentle pleasure rolled through his underbelly. His erection twitched as certain internal muscles tensed up, responding to the sensation reflexively.

Reylin noticed his reaction and she did it again, squeezing his knot with her paw. "This part here is _extra_squishy. Is it sensitive?"

"Yesss..." Knaster sighed. "Very sensitive. That feels good."

"Which part? Which part are you touching?" Glecion asked.

Caden answered the question on Reylin's behalf. "His knot, right near the bottom of his length. Some drakes have a knot there, which swells up and gets all big. Other drakes just have some ridges. I've read about it. The knot will swell up right as he's about to release, and if he's inside you he'll get stuck during his climax to make sure all his seed goes deep, where it'll be most effective at its job."

Reylin swallowed. "_That's_a mental image."

Caden looked amused. "You're thinking about it? Wondering what it will feel like inside you when it happens?"

"Yes, I'm thinking about it! I think about lots of things," Reylin retorted. She put both paws around Knaster's knot, though she simply held it loosely without any pressure. "How big exactly does it get? How much diameter are we talking about?"

Knaster felt a mild flash of embarrassment again. As for that one specific part of his penis, he could recall it not being so noticeable when he was younger and still a hatchling, until one fateful day when he had been showering and gotten a random erection for no particular reason, and he'd noticed that at the base of his erection there was a part that was starting to bloat up slightly. Very shortly after he had discovered that part was especially sensitive and it felt good to squeeze, and then shortly after he'd made a mess of the shower floor, and for the first time he fully started to appreciate that the growing transition from hatchling to fledgling involved many more bodily changes than just to his wing muscles and overall size.

Now faced with questions from a curious member of the opposite gender, Knaster wasn't quite sure how to respond to Reylin's inquiry. Being a curious young drake, he had certainly tried using a ruler to measure the length of his erection before, though this number was fairly meaningless since he was still in the midst of growing up, and he couldn't even recall the exact figure he'd obtained. He had also once been curious enough to try measuring his knot with a piece of string wrapped around it, trying to compare size before and then while he was touching himself. He'd ended up too distracted to keep a good hold on the string--that particular session of exploration and self-discovery had ended up unsatisfying in terms of gathering knowledge, though it had at least been very physically satisfying.

Knaster's neck frill twitched, and he made a vague gesture with his paw. "Maybe... fifty-percent bigger? Or twice as big? I'm not exactly sure. It gets hard to concentrate in the moment."

Reylin loosened her grip around his erection, estimating that size. "Huh. Woah. Is that normal? That seems like a lot."

"I think it's normal and expected, at least from what I've read." Caden chuckled. "Heh. Why don't you just make Knaster demonstrate it for you? Keep touching him and you'll work him up to a climax. Whether its ridges or a knot, for most drakes that is one of the parts most responsive to stimulation. I've read that too."

"In-teres-ting!" Reylin said. "Where do you read about these interesting things?"

"Despite how much Caden dislikes studying, she does a good amount of reading," Glecion replied. "There are sections in certain magazines that talk about this stuff. Articles about how to... have fun. Normally it's articles about news or fashion or entertainment, but sometimes there are articles about sex."

Reylin glanced at her sister and gave her a look. "Naughty..."

Glecion shrugged. "Hey, you did ask."

"I did," Reylin agreed. "It seems those articles were right about this part being sensitive." She kneaded Knaster's knot again, which earned her another soft moan from the young drake as his whole penis twitched and stiffened even further.

"Ooh..."

"It fits right in a paw. Almost like it was meant to be grabbed and... and squeezed." Reylin firmly massaged his knot, testing the spongy flesh there as if seeing if she could somehow squeeze something out of him--and given how sensitive that part of his penis was, she probably could if she kept it up for too long. A short touch wasn't yet enough to coax him into releasing his semen, though a bead of clear, slick liquid began oozing from the tip of his length.

"The tip's wet," Reylin noted, brushing her paw against the tapered, pointed end of his penis. Her other paw touched the base of his erection right where it anchored into his genital slit, where the same liquid was also slowly leaking and pooling around his length. "Wet here too."

"That's called pre-ejaculate. Or pre-seed," Caden murmured.

"I know that. I did take sexual education in school too. It's so that he will slide in easier, right? It's the same sort of fluid that gets my slit wet, to make things slippery when aroused," Reylin replied.

A question occurred to Knaster and he voiced it. "And is that... is that happening right now?"

Reylin answered instantly. "Yes. It is. I can feel it." The grey-scaled fledgling glanced down, and even moved a paw to touch her own underbelly. "Oh, some of it got onto your tail. Sorry."

Knaster's tail twitched, and he felt his arousal climb even higher, pushed up just by the mere thought of Reylin being aroused. He tried shifting his tail, wondering if he could even feel her slit as she sat on her haunches, but Reylin coiled her tail around his to keep him still. "Stop fidgeting." With one paw holding onto Knaster's length, Reylin waved for the other two fledglings. "Hey, help me hold his legs."

At Reylin's prompting, Caden grabbed Knaster's right hindleg, while Glecion grabbed his left, both holding his ankles. They weren't too forceful, but Knaster felt very much exposed with three female fledglings just sitting right in front of his lower half, holding his legs open and staring at his underbelly with a varying scale of curiosity. Reylin was by far the most curious and she looked like she was having great fun, while Glecion also seemed mildly curious but amused instead of delighted. Caden's expression was very controlled as if she was trying to hide some embarrassment about the situation, though her gaze was still on him and she didn't shy away.

More of that clear, natural lubricating fluid was leaking from Knaster's tip and his slit, such that Reylin's slow exploratory strokes started to spread it over his length and get it slick, which made it even easier for her to smoothly slide her paw up and down. After another moment that felt far too quick, Reylin let go of him. She opened and closed her paws a few times, feeling some of the pre-ejaculate that had gotten onto her, and she sniffed at a paw curiously. "This is fun." Using her wing, she nudged Glecion on the shoulder. "Ok, you want a turn?"

Glecion's neck frill perked up. "Sure! Can I?"

"Mmm hmm. Here. Right... there." Reylin took Glecion's left forepaw--the one which she wasn't using to hold Knaster's ankle--and then she guided her to grasp Knaster's erection. This time the young drake was expecting the sudden sensation of a warm paw touching his sensitive length, and he didn't grunt or flinch.

Glecion let out a soft exhale, and she grinned, then laughed. "Oh. Heh. Hahaha." Her paw wasn't moving, but simply just loosely grabbing his erection.

Meanwhile, Reylin's curious touch had lingered elsewhere. Even though she had relinquished her hold on Knaster's erection to Glecion, Reylin couldn't seem to keep her paws away from him. She started gently prodding and touching the sides of his genital slit which were now spread apart wide by the firm girth of his erection. Reylin even tried to slide one of her digits into the tight gap between his slit lips and his erection, but without any success. Knaster's penis fully filled his genital slit while it was unerect, and getting erect didn't mean that it left that fleshy compartment empty--instead, the base of his erection fully filled his slit while the rest of his shaft pushed out, meaning that there was never really any chance to fit anything in his slit except what was already meant to be there.

In comparison Glecion was more hesitant than Reylin, but after a moment she began moving her paw and altering her grip, getting a full feel of the masculine anatomy in her hold. "I'm seriously... seriously touching a drake's penis. This is a first! Hmm. Reylin, you were right."

Reylin nodded happily. "Of course I am! What about?"

"About size. This thing _is_bigger than I imagined it would be. It seems like a more modest version would still be fully capable of accomplishing... eeeh... transfer of genetic material for reproduction. But then I don't know. I've never tried." Glecion's grip gradually shifted up and down the length of Knaster's erection as she got a sense of its overall shape and proportions.

On reaching the base of his penis, instead of sliding her paw back upwards like Reylin had been doing, Glecion started feeling around his genital slit, and then she moved to explore his thigh and his abdomen. "Oh. Knaster, you've got muscles. Woah."

"Hmm? Everyone has muscles."

Glecion shook her head embarrassedly. "That's not what I meant! I just... I've never actually seen_you, but I've always had a mental model of what I though you looked like merely from your voice. Time for me to update that mental model... with some more _muscles." She tried wrapping both of her paws around Knaster's thigh, but she couldn't reach.

With a chuckle, Knaster smiled. "Hah. What did you think I looked like based on my voice?"

"I could tell you were average-sized overall, maybe slightly bigger than me from the height of your mouth when you speak. Then again, Reylin also mentioned how you always sit up straight and have good posture, so maybe that was why I heard your voice coming from a higher angle. Beyond that, the only other thing I can tell from your voice alone is that you were a male fledgling. So I just assumed that the rest of you was average and normal."

"I am just average and normal," Knaster replied.

"No you're not!" Reylin cheerfully insisted. "You're super above average. Top pick. High-class quality! Very handsome. Very nice. My drake, mine." With one paw still touching Knaster's erection, she used her other paw to tap his thigh, then his abdomen. "You've got muscles here! I like."

Caden let out her breath in a dismissive puff. "Pfft. You're really smitten with him, aren't you, Reylin?" Knaster glanced at Caden--whereas Reylin had a curious, excited expression, Caden was more neutral and she looked him over with a critical, more impartial gaze. "Knaster... is decently attractive. He's always clean with well-groomed scales, along with dressing properly all the time, which already makes him look good. As for musculature and general body form... he's not bad. I'd say average, maybe slightly above average."

"Whaaat?! No way." Reylin playfully smacked Knaster's abdomen, making a slap sound against his scales. "You telling me these aren't muscles? Knaster's like a brick wall compared to me. When I hug him, he just doesn't move even when I throw my weight against him."

The other three fledglings laughed. "Haha, yes," Caden continued, "Knaster is in shape, but he isn't brawny or excessively muscular. He's a normal level of healthy and fit."

Knaster nodded agreement. "I have friends who have a regular daily schedule of working out. They build their whole lifestyle and routine around it, and they get results. You can _see_the muscles on them. I'm not that dedicated--I just exercise a couple of times a week. And nothing fancy, just an hour's flight around the city or a visit to a fitness centre."

Now it was Reylin's turn to make a dismissive sound. "Pfft. Not that dedicated? You call that undedicated? I haven't exercised in years, right until approximately two weeks ago when you made me." Reylin used her wings to tap Glecion and Caden. "He just said, 'Let's go for a flight!' And then I said, 'Ok, where are we going?' And then he says, 'Nowhere. Let's just fly a lap around the city together. The weather this evening is great.'"

Knaster smiled. "It _was_good weather. Not too sunny, not too windy, not too cloudy, and with plenty of thermal columns but not much wind shear. Great conditions to fly."

Reylin shook her head, but she was smiling back at him. "Flying just for the sake of it? With no destination in mind? What a novel idea! And then we just flew! What?! Even in flight school we practice in short bursts, not so much prolonged flying. That was the longest time I've ever been in the air continuously."

Glecion nodded her head apologetically. "Part of that is probably my fault, since I can't fly and I've been keeping you grounded to guide me about. Sorry."

"No apology needed," Reylin replied. "You would do the same for me."

"So did you actually fly all around the city?" Caden asked.

Reylin immediately shook her head. "Of course not! The city is so big! I managed to keep up with Knaster's flying for maybe... half an hour? Then I got too tired to flap my wings and we had to spend more time gliding and soaring on thermal updrafts. Until eventually I was too tired to even hold my wings open and we had to land."

Knaster's tail was still coiled up with Reylin's, and he gave her tail a reassuring squeeze. "It was a good flight. You did well and I'm proud of you, and you should be proud of yourself too for putting in the effort. You'll be able to fly longer with more practice."

"My wings were sore for two whole days after that!" Reylin muttered.

The other three fledglings laughed good-heartedly. "Exercise is healthy," Knaster said. "I'm definitely going to have to drag you out for more flight sessions, I think."

"You always keep trying to be a good influence--do you think I haven't noticed?" Reylin grabbed Knaster's erection again. "I'm going to make you pay for that," she murmured, and then she started stroking him again, firmly rubbing him up and down. Her paws made a soft, wet sound as her touch slid over his flesh.

Simultaneously Glecion moved her paw back from touching Knaster's abdomen and legs, and she touched his genital slit and then his penis again. Reylin adjusted her hold, only rubbing the upper half of Knaster's erection while Glecion starting handling the lower half.

"I forgot to check this part out earlier." With her paw barely touching his knot, Glecion made a small, hesitant squeeze, feeling how the flesh there was different--softer, more sensitive, and slightly bulging out from the rest of his shaft. "Heh. Squishy. That's the... hmm... the knot. It does fit right in a paw."

Reylin nodded enthusiastically, making her perked-up neck frill wobble. "I told you! It's perfectly sized to grab and hold."

"Maybe? This... is a weird thing for me to say, but it reminds me of one of those rubber stress ball toys that you can squeeze and play with. Except much warmer," Glecion said.

"And much sexier!" Reylin happily declared, which made Caden snort softly and roll her eyes.

"It's sensitive. And I suppose you can say that I have squeezed it to relieve stress, in a way," Knaster muttered.

Wrapping her paw entirely around Knaster's knot, Glecion gave him another experimental clench, and then she suddenly tried tightening her grip, squeezing far harder than Reylin had, and even making her paw tremble from the effort. That harsh compression caused a tingling sensation to fire through Knaster's underbelly, making his muscles tense up--he flinched and his hindpaws curled. "Oh!" he groaned.

Glecion released her grip immediately, and she snatched her paw back. "Sorry! Was that too much? Did I hurt you?"

"No, no, I'm fine. That was just... unexpectedly intense," Knaster quickly replied.

Knaster's sudden movement had also made Reylin release her grip on him. She pretended to frown, and used her wing to lightly, playfully smack her sister on the back of her head. "Hey! Don't you hurt Knaster! He's my drake and you are not to put even the slightest scratch on him. Especially not on that part of his body. I've got _plans_for that."

Caden and Glecion both chuckled. "Hahehe. That sounds ominous. Or enticing," Caden said.

"Mmm hmm," Reylin hummed.

"Sorry, Knaster. I got a bit carried away there," Glecion said, dipping her head in an apologetic bow.

"No harm done," Knaster quickly assured her. Glecion's earlier tight grip had briefly succeeded in deflating some of the blood from his knot and compressing it in width till it was flattened and less noticeably bulging from the rest of his shaft. Yet within a few seconds it started to engorge again, rapidly reinflating with blood until it was even larger and more noticeable than before, though from Knaster's experience with self-pleasure he knew it was still only partially inflated.

"Not a setback. Onwards!" Humming to the catchy beat that had been playing back at the exhibition hall, Reylin playfully slapped Knaster's abdomen like she was playing a drum, then she slid her paws back onto his shaft. By now all the touching had fully smeared Knaster's pre-ejaculate all over his length, and some of the slick fluid was beginning to wet the surrounding scales around his genital slit. Reylin continued to touch him, holding his knot and gently massaging it again, occasionally using one paw to slide up and down the rest of his length. It was far slower and more casual than the strokes Knaster would have used if he had been in control, yet the sensations were exquisitely pleasurable and prolonged, way beyond anything he had tried doing to himself.

Knaster was getting dangerously close to a release as the pleasure continued to build, rising and falling with each movement of Reylin's paws, but always rising more than it fell. If she didn't stop then eventually it would reach the point where all that tension would become impossible to contain within him. Knaster didn't want it to end and he tried to hold back from the edge of orgasm, but Reylin's efforts were impossible to fully ignore. Tension started to build up within him as his pleasure slowly but unrelentingly climbed. Without thinking about it Knaster started to pant softly, then those quiet sounds became steady moans every time Reylin moved her paws, especially when she squeezed down on his knot. That fleshy bulb at the base of his erection was still holding at half inflated, and it wouldn't fully bloat up until Knaster was right on the edge of climax, thought that wasn't too far away.

"How does that feel?" Reylin asked him.

"Oh... oh... yes..." Knaster moaned again and he nodded his head. "It's good. So good. Feels... Your paws are nice. Please continue."

"I will." Reylin's grin faded slightly as she watched him with a serious, focused expression, alternating between staring at his length and at his face. She was observing to see how she could get the biggest reaction, trying to coax his erection into doing what it was meant to do when given such attention and stimulation. "Are you going to...? Will you... ejaculate? The thing where you release your semen?" Reylin peered closer at the very tip of his erection, where the small slit-like opening to his urethra was slowly oozing pre-ejaculate. "You haven't done it yet, right? I remember that in the sex health class they said a clear liquid may come out when a drake is aroused but that's only for lubricating, and a different white liquid comes out which will contain all the sperm when you climax."

Caden had been quietly observing her friends, with her only physical contribution being to hold one of Knaster's ankles to keep his legs spread wide. Now she spoke up again. "I don't think you would need to ask him if it had happened. I've never witnessed it in person, but I have seen some pictures and some light-field projections, and I suspect you would definitely know if Knaster had climaxed."

"Hmm." Reylin frowned slightly, looking thoughtful. Her strokes slowed, then stopped. For a moment she just held Knaster's erection, watching in throb slightly in time with each heartbeat, and that gave him a chance to calm down and drop back from that climactic cliff edge that she had rubbed him up to but not yet pushed him over. "So it should be obvious? How much will there be?" she wondered. Knaster panted softly but he wasn't quite sure how to reply, so Reylin turned to Caden.

"I don't know. Why ask me?" Caden replied.

"You seem to know the most about sex, out of us four?" Reylin suggested. "Have you ever... ever done it?"

Caden raised an eye ridge. "You mean sex? That depends on your definition, but I'd say my answer is yes."

"Eh?" Reylin made a confused noise. "Either you've had sex or you haven't, right? What's this about definition?"

"Well now! Though you obviously haven't realized it yet, sex is a broad range of possible activities," Caden explained. "If you define it purely by the biological process of mating--that is, having a drake insert his erection into a drakka's slit--then no, I haven't done that. The most I ever did with a drake was with... another one of my classmates and friends, when we were doing project work at my house. We were lying on the floor, and he just happened to get an erection for some reason. When I noticed, I asked to see it, and he let me touch it. Then I let him touch my slit for a bit since he asked, and that was only fair. Then we just went back to doing the work. Never even kissed or hugged."

"Oh?" Reylin's brow furled slightly as she thought about it. "But then you said that you did have sex? Does a bit of touching count as sex?"

Caden was unbothered. "I've done more than that."

"What else is there? Do you mean... uh... you mean that a drake touched your privates with his tail, or... or he licked your slit?" Reylin's voice got slightly higher pitched and she looked more embarrassed with each query, despite the fact she was still holding Knaster's erect length and had seemed unembarrassed about that.

Knaster smiled, and his neck frill perked up from hearing the ways Reylin had just inadvertently suggest he could (and would) reciprocate, which made her look even more embarrassed when she realized what he was thinking.

Caden smiled too, but for a different reason. "I haven't done any of that either, at least if we're talking about with a drake. Hehehe." She let out a short mischievous giggle, and her gaze darted towards Glecion.

Glecion was still sitting on the right side of Reylin, and though she obviously couldn't tell that Caden had glanced at her, her neck frill perked up slightly and she looked embarrassed but amused.

Reylin seemed oblivious to this, and she frowned confusedly at Knaster. "What now? I don't understand."

"Uh..." Keeping his head still, Knaster glanced between Caden and Glecion, then back to Reylin.

Caden laughed, and she shook her head. "Don't you bother about what I've done, Reylin. Bother about what you're doing right now."

"What an excellent suggestion," Reylin agreed. She had been loosely handling Knaster's erection while they talked, just sort of holding the organ and manipulating it about with her paws without seeming to think about it, but now she grabbed it properly again. The lull in activity had allowed Knaster's arousal level to drop down from almost being about to release, though he was still fully erect. Then Reylin gave him a squeeze on the knot and a few firm strokes over the rest of his length, and that started getting him worked up again. After just a few seconds though, Reylin paused. "Hmm, Caden, you want a try? Glecion got a chance to touch Knaster too, so do you want to?"

Caden made a lazy, indifferent shrug of her wings. "I don't particularly feel a need, buuut... since you two both did it, I might as well." She reached out a paw and touched Knaster's thigh, then she grabbed his erect length.

Unlike Reylin or Glecion, Caden wasn't so hesitant. The other two female fledglings had touched him all over to get a feel of his anatomy, but Caden was more confident and she seemed to know what she was doing. "I might regret saying this, but Knaster, you've got a nice looking male member."

Knaster almost laughed just out of surprise. "Why, thanks. Never expected I'd hear that from you, of all people!"

Caden gave him a dismissive look, but then her expression lightened and she smiled faintly. "Don't let it get to your head. And if you ever repeat that remark to anyone else, I will vehemently deny ever having made it."

Reylin snickered. "Hehehaha. Too late! We all heard you saying it, so you can't take it back! Not that it matters. I absolutely agree." Smiling widely, she gestured towards Knaster's underbelly. "So Caden, you're... you've got the most experience of all of us. Do you know how to... how to, uh... do it properly?"

"What, you mean stroke Knaster off? I thought you were doing a pretty fine job yourself," Caden replied. "And it's not like I'm an expert on this. I only touched one other male before, and I didn't even make him finish."

"Fair enough, but you read articles and magazines which talk about sex and things," Reylin said. "Whereas the only thing I read is schoolwork, and maybe also the news if I have any spare time."

Caden let out a soft chuckle. "Heh. Reading articles is interesting, but I'm sure it's no substitute for real experience. Plus, not everything that's printed is accurate. We can find out, though." Reylin had still been loosely resting her paw on the tip of Knaster's erection, as if she didn't want to let go of it fully, and now Caden put her paw over hers.

Guiding Reylin, Caden slid her grip down the length of Knaster's erection, right to the partially-inflated bulb of flesh at the base. "Uh, I remember reading that the knot is pretty sensitive." Still holding onto Reylin's paw, Caden squeezed through her, and then Reylin tightened her grip too.

Knaster let out a soft sigh as a jolt of pleasure rolled through his underbelly. "I can confirm that's true... It feels good when you squeeze."

"Fun to do it too!" Reylin happily agreed.

Caden laughed again. "Haha. Alright. You don't just have to squeeze. I think you can also..." Caden peeled Reylin's paw off Knaster's penis, then she flipped it around and put it back so that Reylin was once again grabbing him, but with her paw gripping it from the other direction. "Let's try..."

Still holding onto the back of Reylin's paw, Caden instead put a firm grip on the very base of Knaster's erection, below his knot and on the short portion of his shaft just where it anchored into his genital slit. Rather than squeezing Knaster's knot, she tugged on it, as if trying to gently pull his whole penis forward and away from his body. "Don't just squeeze the knot. Pull it. That makes him get the same feeling as if he was stuck inside you."

"Whoa..." Knaster moaned. Caden did it once, then she took her paw off Reylin and let her try.

"Is that good for you?" Reylin asked him, and when Knaster nodded, she did it again, and again, and again, each time sending a jolt of deep, tingling pleasure flooding into his underbelly, building up his arousal again.

"Uhh!" Knaster found that the sensation of pressure against the back of his knot was unexpectedly pleasant. His ankles were still being held by Caden and Glecion, but now his hips bucked instinctively, pushing him forward into that intense, almost too intense sensation. "Ooh! Ah, ah, yes... ohh...!"

"Hmm?" Glecion made a short, inquisitive noise. Knaster and Reylin were both too engrossed to pay much attention to her, but Caden stood up and leaned across behind Reylin to whisper to Glecion something, presumably just filling in the blind fledgling on what was going on.

Reylin wasn't stroking Knaster's full length, just holding onto the base of his erection and tugging on it, but that spot was sensitive enough. With her paws more loosely wrapped around his knot, Reylin noticed this time as he nearly approached orgasm. "Hey, your knot is getting even bigger. There it is! Wow, I can actually feel it swell."

Knaster was panting softly, and he nodded. "Yes... I'm getting... almost..."

Caden sat back down again next to Reylin and tapped her paws, which made her slow, then stop what she was doing barely in time. Knaster could feel muscles beginning to tense up deep in his underbelly as his body prepared to release, and just about any more stimulation would probably have been too much to tolerate.

Reylin let go of Knaster and rested her paws against his thighs, and she and Caden both watched as Knaster's erection twitched--that masculine length of flesh had reached maximum stiffness, coated with pre-ejaculate and throbbing repeatedly, with his knot bloating up with blood and growing to its full size to form a spherical bulge twice as large as before.

"Gnuuuh...." Knaster's jaw was half open and his gaze had gone all distant, as intense pressure felt like it was building up in his underbelly only to not actually release. He was forced to linger right on the edge of a climax for a good few seconds, but then the moment passed and his arousal slowly dropped back down. "Oh... Uh... Ahh!" Knaster panted, but then he let out a needy moan when Reylin moved her paws and grabbed his length. His knot had started shrinking back down to normal size, but when Reylin gave it a gentle squeeze that touch made it start to enlarge again.

Through it all, Glecion could only hear what was happening. Her ears were fully perked up, and she made another curious noise. "Hmm? Did Knaster... did he...?"

"Not yet," Caden replied. "Almost, though. I think he was just right about to do it right before Reylin stopped. His knot got all big, and that means he was almost going to release."

"How big?" Glecion asked.

"Here, feel it for yourself." Reylin grabbed Glecion's paw and moved it back to Knaster's length, making the male fledgling grunt when his sensitive and partially inflated knot was grabbed again. "It was... even bigger than this, actually. Big enough that I couldn't wrap my paw all around it. It's gone back down again now."

"Wow," Glecion murmured. She felt him for a moment, then she pulled her paw back. "Wow."

Reylin had a curious, happy smile, and she nodded. "This is great. Just great!"

"From the noises he's making, I think Knaster thinks so too," Glecion said.

Caden nodded. "No doubt about that."

"Yes..." Knaster groaned.

Reylin looked pleased with herself, and she glanced at Caden. "Any more advice? You know any more... tactics or special techniques or whatever?"

With a shrug, Caden lazily gestured towards Knaster's erection. "Uh, the knot's sensitive, but so is the rest of it. Try the tip?"

Without hesitation, Reylin slid her paws upwards, from the base of Knaster's erection and to the tip. "Ok! What do I do? Rub it? Squeeze it?"

Caden grit her teeth as if debating what to say, then she leaned forward. "I... I feel I should reiterate that I am not an expert on this, so I don't know. But maybe try... I've read that the knot is sensitive because it only gets stimulated when he's deep, and the tip is sensitive for the exact same reason. So you can tap the tip." Caden used one paw to hold Knaster's shaft stationary, and then she held her other paw horizontal and over his tip. Bouncing her paw up and down, she repeatedly started tapping the pointed tip right against her paw pad.

"That's... new. I didn't know... That actually feels decently good," Knaster admitted.

Reylin sat up straight. "Really? I want to try, then." Caden let go, allowing Reylin to take over and start doing the same thing, just holding Knaster's erection still and then bumping the flat of her other paw against his tip. It was a strange, unexpected sensation. Knaster had never tried doing such a thing to himself, but he unexpectedly found that action was oddly pleasurable, even though it was so unlike the stroking or squeezing movements he was used to.

Knaster had completely lost track of time and of his surroundings. His sense of propriety and even any lingering concerns about modesty had faded away in inverse proportion with his arousal, steadily eroded by all the intense physical and mental stimulation that Reylin was putting him through. There was something deeply, intimately more arousing about pleasure being given by another, which made his mind and body respond far more than they ever had before.

"That's... very... very nice..." Knaster's erection was fully rigid, and as Reylin gently but repeatedly pressed against his tip, the sensation coaxed him closer and closer to release until he was right on the edge once more. Yet again Knaster felt the waves of pleasure in his underbelly start to surge into something inevitable and overwhelming, and his knot pulsed and then began to enlarge, swelling with blood as his body ran through irresistible reflexes in the final build up to climax.

Reylin stopped. She halted the motions of her paw and instead slid it down to just loosely hold Knaster's knot, feeling that thick, warm, blood-filled bulge of flesh as it throbbed helplessly, waiting for that last signal that he could release. "Mmmh!" A desperate, choked moan found its way out from Knaster's throat, and he shuddered all over. "Please...!" It felt like even the slightest bit more stimulation would have tipped him over--a good few strokes to his shaft, or a firm squeeze of his knot, or if Reylin had just kept going with his tip for a few seconds more. But whether knowingly or not, she seemed distracted by watching his knot bloat up, and she left him wavering right on the limit of orgasm, just holding his penis but not giving him anything more that would pushed him over into climax.

Caden seemed to notice this too. "Uh, you have to keep going, or he isn't going to do it."

"I know." Again Reylin had that earnest, curious, yet hungry look on her face as she grinned at Knaster. "I just... enjoy watching Knaster react. This is great. I never knew I could make him make those sorts of noises." Her grin widened slightly, and she nodded towards his head. "Your neck frill is all the way perked up! I don't think I've ever seen that before either."

Knaster panted tiredly, and he didn't bother trying to exert the force of will to lower his frill back down. "Oh. That was... oh, I was so close. Why'd you stop? Please keep going."

"I will," Reylin assured him, but she made him wait for it. She waited for the half-minute or so that it took for Knaster's arousal to dip back down, and for his knot to deflate again, before finally she started once more. "Ok, this time I'll go all the way."

Using both her paws together, Reylin gripped his shaft and quickly stroked it up and down, rapidly pushing him right back up towards orgasm. "Oh yes. Guh, ahhh, ahhh, ahaha... yes, yes, yes, ohhh," Knaster moaned, making more of those pleasured noises as delightful sensation rolled through him again. The moment he got anywhere near to orgasm and his knot started to bloat up again, Reylin grabbed it and started repeatedly massaging it. It was intense, undeniable stimulation, and after all this time there was no resisting it. The pleasure climbed even higher, spiking beyond the limit that Knaster could hope to tolerate. Tingly tension pooled up in his underbelly, deep inside his genital slit as muscles clenched hard and internal glands prepared for what had to come next.

His forepaws grabbed onto the floor cushion he was lying on, with his claws extending involuntarily as he just tried to hold on. Caden and Glecion were still holding onto his hindlegs by his ankles, and Knaster jerked against their hold as a shudder ran through his body. His legs trembled and hips bucked automatically, thrusting up and down in a mindless attempt to seek more stimulation that was completely unnecessary given what Reylin was doing to him. Then he made one last thrust and just held still, before the tension inside him explosively released.

"Arhkkk..." That deep pressure in his underbelly flooded out through the rigid length of his erection in a blissful burst of wonderful, wet warmth, forced out by muscles in his slit clenching harder than he'd even known was possible. His tail was still entwined with Reylin's and it twitched, while simultaneously his penis flexed in her grip, spewing out a jet of cloudy-white liquid that streaked across his abdomen. More pulses immediately followed in a steady pattern, and the next few shots of semen were even larger as they splattered against his chest and his wings. One shot even made it so far as to hit his neck frill, which was fully perked up, not that Knaster noticed in the moment.

"Grahhh...! Ah... arhh!" groaned the young drake. He had completely lost control of his body as his mind went on hold, with any conscious thought or action overridden by reflex and instinct. Nothing mattered except the deeply rewarding sensation of releasing his seed, bringing overwhelming pleasure and blinding intensity. His wings were thrown open and they beat against the floor uncoordinatedly. Knaster had his eyes tightly shut and his snout scrunched up from the sheer intensity of the moment--he tossed his head from side to side, barely able to stay conscious as pleasure wracked his body.

Reylin's paw was tight against his knot, and her other paw kept up her steady, firm strokes, keeping up the simulation and coaxing him into releasing the lust and arousal that had built up over the entire night. Pulse after pulse flowed out of him, making him moan and twitch as the waves of pleasure rendered him incoherent.

It couldn't last forever, though it almost felt like it did, and it definitely took more time than any climax Knaster had given himself previously. But eventually the pleasure started to wane, receding from his mind and giving him a chance to regain his sanity. The rhythm of orgasm slowed, then wound down completely, leaving his body drained. He was left slumped loosely against the floor cushions, panting tiredly and feeling the warm afterglow of an intense release. "Oh... woah..."

Reylin was still stroking him, and she eked out the last few shivers of climax from him before she finally stopped. Knaster had his eyes shut and his head resting back against the floor, but he distinctly felt when she gave one final rub to his erection, gently squeezing it almost like a paint tube as if to coax out every last drop from him.

"Oh, wow," Reylin murmured. "By the sky spirits, that was amazing. Knaster that was... wow."

"It was... quite a thing to see," Caden admitted.

Knaster blinked his eyes open. He had made a considerable mess all over himself, with streaks of his semen coating the scales of his underbelly and chest with a warm, wet feeling. Caden and Glecion had let go of his ankles, though Reylin was still loosely holding his erection.

Reylin was grinning widely, looking victorious with the same expression Knaster had seen from her when she'd learned that she had aced one of her hardest exams. "What a mess! You just... How did you even do that? Where did all of this come from? I remember in school they told us that even a single drop of a drake's semen is... is able to make you gravid if you did anything while in heat, but that is not a single drop. That is a... a mess! Wow."

Caden was wide-eyed too. "You really got him worked up, I guess. You sure didn't hold anything back, did you, Knaster?"

Knaster wasn't quite sure how to respond. "It's not something I can consciously control. It's a reflex."

Reylin was still grinning elatedly at him. "Was it good?"

"Very good. Maybe the best thing I've ever felt," Knaster admitted.

Glecion's ears and neck frill were fully perked up from curiosity. "Hmm_?!_" she made high-pitched, curious whine. "Knaster was making those _sounds_like he was dying or being tortured, except in a good way, I assume. What did it look like? How much is there?"

Reylin threw both of her paws into the air, gesturing dramatically. "It was a fountain of... of this whitish liquid that shot out from his penis, again and again and again. And then it just kept going. It's the most impressive, sexy thing I've ever seen in my life."

Caden chuckled softly. "It might also be the most disgusting thing I've ever seen in my life. It's all over his chest."

Glecion swallowed. "_Really_all over his chest?"

Sliding into a stand, Caden strolled over behind Reylin to stand right next to Glecion. Caden gestured, running her paw over Glecion's chest to demonstrate. "All over. In streaks of liquid like he sprayed glaze in a huge mess across his groin and his chest. Super disgusting. But yes, maybe also sexy, if you're into that sort of thing."

Reylin nodded. "I think... I can officially confirm that I have discovered I am into this sort of thing, if that sort of thing refers to making my favourite drake make a huge sexy mess all over himself by rubbing his privates."

Caden snorted, but she smiled faintly, looking amused. "Ugh, yuck. It's all over Reylin's paws too. Gross."

Reylin glanced down at her paws, which had already been wet by Knaster's pre-ejaculate, and now also had some quantity of his actual ejaculate. She hesitated once, then she raised her paw towards her snout, only to be interrupted by Caden groaning.

"Oh, no! Don't _eat_it!" Caden exclaimed, sounding horrified.

"I wasn't going to eat it!" Reylin hurriedly replied. "I was just going to smell it...?"

"That's not much better!" Caden retorted.

Reylin shrugged. "I'm just curious! How can I not be curious about this? I've never seen anything like this before. This is... the living liquid sperm semen sex stuff. It's Knaster's genetic material and his... his essence that can somehow make an egg if it gets inside me while I was in heat. And if you think about what an egg even is, that's like going to grow into a brand new person who just came out of nowhere who is half him and half me and so yes of course I'm curious about this stuff which can do that! And so I just... I wondered if Knaster's semen would smell like him?"

Caden and Glecion were both silent and motionless for a few seconds, then in unison they both burst into laughter. "Hahaha!"

Knaster and Reylin couldn't help but chuckle too. "Hehe... It's a perfectly logical thought!" Reylin insisted. Her gaze caught with Knaster's, and then slowly, defiantly she raised her paw again and sniffed it. The smell made her frown curiously, which just made Knaster laugh again. "Huh. Ok, so it turns out that it smells like--"

"NO!" Caden exclaimed, which made Glecion snicker even harder. "No, do not tell me. I do not need to know what Knaster's seed smells like."

Reylin looked thoughtful. "I wonder if it smells the same across all drakes, or if each one is different? Because if we're talking about scales or skin then clearly there are many different smells for different people, but I don't know if--"

"Aht-tut-tut! Stop right there." Caden clicked her tongue and held a paw up at Reylin. She put her head again Glecion's and the two fledglings had another quick, quiet, whispered discussion. After a moment they seemed to come to a decision and both of them stood up. "I think we're done here. We are officially moving beyond harmless curiosity and exploration, to the point where this is becoming voyeurism. Time to go."

Reylin's neck frill drooped. "We're leaving already?"

Glecion chuckled. "_We're_leaving, but you can stay here since you clearly want to do... um... more with Knaster." Glecion reached out and used her wing to find Reylin's shoulder, and then leaned in slightly with her snout, but then she stopped and just patted her shoulder. "I would give you a hug or a lick on the neck, but then I don't want to get Knaster's semen on me. That activity is reserved for you alone."

Reylin hissed softly, pretending to be annoyed. "Tss. It only got on my paws. He shot it all over himself, not over me!"

Caden let out a mischievous cackle. "Haha_he_! I'm sure if you ask him nicely, he'd be glad to do it again but all over you_this time, or maybe all _inside you."

"Hey!" Reylin squeaked, and she threw a glance at Knaster that was both embarrassed yet also intrigued.

Glecion laughed and gave Reylin another pat on the shoulder, then she moved her wing and placed it around Caden's back instead. "I'll see you back at home. Congratulations again on getting into clan Taslin."

"Yeah, congratulations, Reylin." Caden took out what looked to be a cylindrical scroll tube from her flight harness and moved to pass it to Reylin, before changing her mind and putting it on the floor instead. "This is my present for you... though maybe wash your paws before you take a look at it. Welcome to the clan." Caden led Glecion towards the bedroom door, making a short little farewell flick with her tail. "And thanks for having us over, Knaster. You two have fun together now. We'll see you around. Byeeee!"

Knaster tried to roll back onto his feet, but Reylin was still sitting on his tail, which limited his movement and meant he couldn't move much beyond half rolling onto his side. "Uh... I can see you out the house," he said.

"No need! You two just stay put. I am fully capable of operating your front door," Caden assured him. She and Glecion strolled out, only pausing to slide the bedroom door shut after them. After a few more seconds Knaster heard the front door swinging open, then shut again with a thump.

And then it was just him and Reylin.

---

---

TO BE CONTINUED

Next chapter HERE