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The Dragon and the Tentacle Monster

A tale by UAFFO

CHAPTER ONE

The awesome Disco Ball beneath the shimmering black sky

The dragon was pushing harder to get higher even though he had never been so high in his life; he was a young adult with a soft off-white belly and black dorsal plates, dark brownish scales where one would expect them and on his four paws stood taller than most trees. He was struggling in a hopeless attempt to reach the Disco Ball which was ominously suspended in the black shimmering sky, still high above and in front of him; well below the proportionally minuscule dragon, impervious mountains covered by glaciers in the half-light, darkened as they were by the great round shadow of the Disco Ball.

The mysterious object known as Disco Ball had been there since the beginning of time, placed above the exact center of the cone-shaped Wedge of Earth which ended abruptly, bits of rock crumbling down and all; while indubitably awesome in size, the Disco Ball was tiny compared to the continental width of the Wedge of Earth.

Being as close to it as he was, it was easy to notice the tight bundle of near transparent filaments coming out of the top of it, which opened up as spokes would from a hub; two hundred and forty thousand of them, straight as beams to form a flat, straight and faintly shimmering barrier just above which extended way beyond the horizon. The near-invisible spokes went straight to the edge of the Wedge of Earth where they curved down, going all the way underneath to project upward roots before coming out the other side and reconnecting to the hub above the Disco Ball as individual loops. The space in between the spokes was shielded by invisible magic which had always protected the world from the pitch-black Void within which the globes of the Sun and Three Moons orbited the disc-shaped Wedge of Earth.

Although it was possible for dragons to fly only thanks to the same natural magic forming the barrier, which also shielded them from the freezing wind, that unprecedented climb, which required more flaps the less air his massive membranous wings pushed down upon, was starting to wear him out -- and if one knew anything about dragons, that one looked exceptionally boney. It had been, indeed, two weeks since he had fled.

At first he had no time to do so, then he only managed a few catches in the wilderness not to mention he had nothing to eat since he entered the Forbidden Wasteland of Icy Death three days earlier. He had expected to be smithed by lightning cast by the Disco Ball, yet for some reason he was flying closer to it than he had ever hoped to.

There was no other place in the whole world for him to go, no turning back and no regret as he had taken charge by doing something totally wrong which felt so perfectly right.

He was in fact to be put to death for having disrespected horrible traditions he had been following, blindly driven by his draconic lust for blood, and was now among those very few who had refused the Law; he wasn't, however, going to change his mind about death, even though for the past few days he had taken a liking to identifying with the Void rather than angrily resenting it as he had been taught.

Unlike any other, he was the first to truly see beyond the selfishness and the fear which so strongly constricts the otherwise limitless draconic mind; he had experienced crying alone in a cave and the extent of feelings he had not known to possess nor had been given words to describe, as these were not feelings a dragon was allowed to have. The decision of fleeing came the day he had to prove his own maturity -- the ritual involved eating a helpless human child captured during a raid on a poorly hidden mining outpost in the Middle Zone, the wide stretch of land separating the Dragon Empire from the Human Kingdom. This kill had to be done in front of all others present if he was to be accepted as a competitor for the possession of females, that also being the time when he was to earn his very own name.

While crushing angry and fearful bipeds had not bothered him before, something snapped right before swallowing that crying little one; a strange warm feeling informed him he would be sealing his destiny by taking that life, accompanied by a revulsion so strong he would rather die than taste human flesh again. While the dragon couldn't possibly know what it was, what he had in fact discovered was empathy and, without thinking twice, he had taken that child in his mouth and somehow managed to get it away from the others; he left it on a road nearing the Great Walls before setting off to the center of the Wedge of Earth where the impenetrable Disco Ball mysteriously kept the Void out.

Living in the wilderness and hiding like a coward was not an option for him: more than once he pictured what dragons would do to him once they found him, it being much worse than being taken down by any of those sadistic elven magic wielders who really enjoyed skinning dragons alive. He smiled at his own horrible thoughts as appropriately large tears from his big dark slanted eyes fell from the sky -- the strain from the climb helped a much needed emotional release and soon became unbearable -- he sighed stretching out his wings, starting to glide somewhere in between the faintly shimmering barrier under the black sky above the ice and snow, lazily descending towards the round shadow of the Disco Ball over the serrated peaks of the Forbidden Wasteland of Icy Death; even with all energies at his disposal he would have never found sufficient air to reach the rectangular reflective panels which, standing to his very keen sight, were perfectly joined and showed no way in.

While he did enjoy flying he had never appreciated it as much, fully confident that truly had to be his last time in the air as he had just about enough energies to land; while every other dragon would be enraged knowing the time had come, he felt so connected to the Void it had been hard for him to slaughter those animals he forcefully ate to satisfy the hungry curiosity which had brought him closer to the Disco Ball than any other ever managed or dared.

Unfortunately, the magic which so far protected him from the cold gave way and, weak as he was, it started to get to him right away -- the decreasing rush given by waiting for the mighty Disco Ball to zap him was replaced by the sudden shock of realizing he had not expected to run out of the natural magic which had so far kept him cozily warm; he felt a tremendous pit in his stomach as he was forced to close his eyes against the extreme cold.

He was way too high to ever make it to the ground before freezing to death but he still went for the steepest nose dive he could sustain. While having taken lots of physical abuse, flesh being ripped away where he couldn't protect it with his four limbs was his most painful experience ever. He was still holding the nose dive when he lost all feeling in his tail, his lungs burning and his eyes frozen shut, he managed to reopen his wings and keep them firmly open only to rip one as it too was frozen, so beginning a downward spiral towards the none too gentle side of a mountain.

His thumping heart would not give up trying to escape its cavity as he no longer felt pain but only the giddy warmth of doom.

CHAPTER TWO

The Bunny Man inside the Disco Ball

When he came around the first thing he tried to do was to bat his eyelids but they were too heavy, he was extremely hazy and only aware of aching all over. When he wondered why he was down on his back he recalled having died and still that didn't fully wake him up as he thought it should have. Barely managing to open one eye he was confronted with terribly blurred vision, and while very weak he tried to but couldn't budge. Strangely enough he could tell he had his magic back even though he had nothing in his stomach which was very odd to him. He then slowly came to the realization that he had been immobilized, and something like a large spear was sticking inside his front left leg which was held in place by straps just like the rest of his body.

He struggled a little which only made the white blurriness spin so wildly he lost consciousness.

* * *

When he woke up he felt stronger but just as intoxicated: while never qualifying for all the smoking and drinking dragons did, he sure knew what a drug was. This one gave him a sensation of lightness and while he sure was aching all over he wasn't in all the pain he should have been; somehow, someone had wrapped his whole body, including his snout, in soft white bandaging underneath which the bare feeling of the injuries sustained was proof enough for him to ascertain he was, indeed, alive, although he had no explanation as to how he got some of his strengths, as well as his natural magic, back.

Beneath him what had to be very strong bedding, and he was no longer restrained or being fed intravenously. His vision was still quite blurry as he turned his whole body to one side, folding his wings over his back; that was when he recalled how he ripped his right wing trying to pull up from his nose dive, and so he checked to notice how the large tear in the fragile membrane had been finely stitched back together. He made himself comfortable on a side as he brought his long neck up to have a good look around, and while focusing still hurt he hadn't gone blind and that alone made him so happy he just cried a bit -- not to mention Disco Ball destroyed anyone who had ever attempted approaching it, a very popular tale among all sentients; no one had ever returned from the Forbidden Wasteland of Icy Death and no one knew how Disco Ball had come to be.

He was sitting on a springy square mattress placed right in the middle of a circular room underneath a rather large, rather tall, perfectly even dome-shaped ceiling. There were no windows and no outside to see and the curved white wall itself, just as the smooth floor around the mattress, seemed to be giving off all the light in there and provided absolutely no evidence of a door or hatch. Clearly having no way out was no cause for worry for that dragon who, having been given a second chance, was not about to become anxious or upset about being captive, especially considering he didn't want to offend whoever had so kindly treated his wing and lovingly bandaged his wounds... it belittled him to consider how that person had the power to somehow break his fall and bring him inside Disco Ball or wherever else he was, and for a moment wondered if it could have been the very God dragons had always refused to believe in -- but he discarded said thought as God was to be found in the afterlife and his heart was certainly still beating in his chest.

He had to leave all thoughts for a moment as he cried other kinds of tears; it proved impossible for him to put any weight on his badly wounded paws. As he fell heavily on his side he was both surprised and relieved to be cushioned by the springs inside that robust mattress which was exactly level with the luminescent floor. He felt queasy from the pain caused by just trying to stand up and that drug must have been wearing off as he suddenly rediscovered all his unanswered physical needs at the same time: weak and damaged as he was, he let himself tremble a bit at the thought of being completely at the mercy of whoever had rescued him from certain death.

Down on his side and with his eyes closed for a few minutes, he was suddenly brought back by a waft carrying unprecedented smells. It caused him to raise and turn his ivory-horned head toward a semicircular opening in the evenly curved wall behind him, tall enough for him to go through and to whatever outside... if he only could get on his four paws, as he would pass out from the pain if he even attempted to crawl out of there by wiggling on his side like a worm.

All kinds of tropical fragrances crept in with the fresh and salty air, but strongly above pungent jungle odors an acid sweet aroma in the form of a bank of thick white smoke. While across its dissipation he could make out the hairy trunks of palm trees at the end of a sunny clearing, from right in the middle where it was thickest a bipedal silhouette gradually emerged calmly stepping towards him, making the burning red tip of a huge blunt redder -- it was a snow white furry bunny-man with digitigrade legs followed closely behind by a very odd looking machine which was moving by itself on four large wheels; the latter had an open tubular frame twice as tall as the bunny-man on top of which a hammock-like net was secured.

The bunny-man stopped in his tracks and so did the apparatus once fully inside the dome.

While being completely covered in white fur he must have cared not for modesty or decency as he wore no clothes and had very evident genitals; a bunny's nose and long rabbit ears and whiskers, but his white fuzzy face was otherwise human looking with piercing blue eyes, reddened and teary, which were fixed impassibly on him as he stood not far from the edge of the mattress making a hissing sound as he took another lung-filling drag -- and considering the blunt was the size of his forearm and as large as his fist, the smoke would have already filled the entire room if it had been closed.

The fully bandaged dragon, resting on his side, was giving his armor plated back to the bunny-man, his neck raised and twisted around and his long pointy face returning a truly blank stare; he didn't know what to say or if he would even be understood by that very unusual being -- he knew of bunnies but not of bunny men, of smoking but not of weed and was completely clueless about that strange device which reminded him of a ballista with no firing mechanism.

"This room will clean itself -- but you'll still have to go outside for it to do so," said the bunny man in dragon tongue, raunchily. He then took yet another deep drag standing still and straight on those strong-looking bunny legs as the dragon carefully rolled over so to properly face the proportionally long limp penis and fuzzy balls of his interlocutor; he then instinctively tried to curl his tail around his body as he normally would when sitting down, but couldn't because of the damage to his underbelly.

"Have you done this to me?" he asked, trying to suppress his otherwise huge voice, lifting his bandaged forearms and paws by pinning his elbows on the large white square mattress in the center of the otherwise featureless interior of the white dome.

"There is plenty of time for questions, nameless dragon... but first we have to get you on this thing," said the bunny man squeezing his red blue eyes as he cheekily smiled before glancing back at the machine behind him, casually pointing it with the smoking torch he was holding in his right hand before it was brought back to his lips. This time a puff of thick smoke got all the way up and into the dragon's nostrils; the latter stared back as it had become appallingly obvious how the bunny man knew everything there was to know about him. He was about to open his great big maw to timidly utter something but was stopped short by whirring metallic noises from above -- he instinctively ducked, bringing his head and neck all the way down. Before he could even try to move out of the way he was snatched by a number of flexible metal snakes which managed to wrap around his body, tail and neck and effortlessly suspend him in the air above the mattress in a matter of seconds -- not having resisted in any way, stiff as he was, it had hurt just a little.

"Good," said the bunny man as he started walking back toward the opening, "I'll leave you two together and see you later."

And having said so he turned right right outside the dome leaving a trail of smoke behind him.

The metal snakes lined the dragon up with the self-maneuvering hammock on wheels and gently set him on top of it before whirring back into their hidden sockets -- while he had betrayed fear before the bunny man's devices, at least he got to know how it had been possible to be handled and treated.

Dragons who sustained injuries as severe as his were simply put out of their misery as only royal dragons were allowed by the Law to receive medical treatment when needed -- considering he had given up on his life, being allowed to recover and being assisted in that way was way more than he could have ever hoped for and it urged him to give or do something in return when he had always either taken or died... which was a truly unprecedented sensation, even for him.

The hammock adjusted itself exactly so he could brush the ground with his four paws without putting any weight on them; this way, when he tried to step forward, the motion was carried out by the hammock on wheels. While weak because of his injuries and the fact he was severely underweight and without having eaten any solids in days, by all means broken according to dragon standards, he increased the machine's pace smiling happily very relieved to be heading out as he had almost soiled his mattress when being suddenly grabbed from above.