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Slivers glinted through darkness that blocked stars. Air warmed. Mist. Breaths. Facing away from him.

Adre palmed his sword's pommel. Sweat trickled to the hilt. He raised the torch. Behind the dark, basalt declined. An escape from his foolish plan and this mesa.

The dark clinked. And clinked. Quieting.

As he sidled across pitchstone, he hugged the cliff edge: a dizzying scarp below.

Torchlight flickered. Then it went out.

Shoving down a gasp, he slowed. Each step clacked. Halfway.

A snout thrust down from the dark above.

He tossed the dead torch at it and leapt to the—he slipped. His shoulder thumped on pitchstone. The slope: he reached towards it to grip an edge in the rock and heave himself up while his ears thudded and it clinked.

The backside of a clinking talon scudded under him. He froze. Three more. They hooked his waist.

His grip tightened; calluses bled as his arms screamed.

The talons pressed up, digging into his shirt.

With a grunt, he let go of the edge and it started raising him. He rolled over in the talons and drew his sword, thumb under crossguard.

Its face hovered an inch away. His eyes widened. A dragon. The dragon.

Corik the Black.

His blade clanged on the rock below. He held a hand to the pouch that concealed the vial.

Corik snorted, exhaling vapour at him before it spoke, thunderous voice falling upon him like gravel. “A wise choice; groundless murder be immoral, and a mere blade would ne'er slayeth me forbye."

It wound its neck around his body till its slim head hung beside his, a black eye gazing at him sidelong, its chest revealed from the dark: long keeled scales clad its forequarters. Whenever it breathed, warm, incense-filled air wafted out sideways from its maw, soaking him but fending off the chill from his shirt's new rift.

“My name, whereof ye may know, is Corik. Yours?"

“O M-mighty Dragon, I am A-Adre."

“Adre…Adre!" It near roared it—head turned to the sky—making its owner tremble. “A powerful name, fit for shouting, much to my liking. Now, beest forthright with me, and I shall let thee off; for what hast thou trespassed?"

He gulped. He was in it now. This majestic being. Hindlegs shrouded in dark. Short spikes which lined his back just visible. Wings. A dragon. The immense power of its presence, born not of malice or rage. One not trapped inside a dungeon. Strong enough to break chains.

But lacking a sense of personal space.

Overlooking that, it treated him honourably so far, and it deserved respect. But he couldn't divulge his true reason. He could lie, say he skulked here to steal dragon eggs; he'd have to pray it wouldn't beget his death … after he explained it, Corik laughed and laughed, and laughed, booming along with the nearing clouds.

“Oh, how I laugh at thy innocence. Natheless, knowst I abhor thy plan; I solely find humour in thy poor choice of lair." Its head began dipping closer while its slender tail wrapped around the blade's hilt to bring the sword to its free left hand.

“Poor choice?" A moment silent, save for the pattering of droplets, went. “O Mighty Dra—"

“O Intrepid Thief,"—its face hovered a twip from his, stubby chin and jawline spikes poking his padded shirt—“I am Corik, not only dragon. Wouldst thou preferest I call thee human, mayhap sword dropper? I think not. To answer thy query: nought eggs lie inside my lair or within my domain, for I am male, and there is no dragoness with who I desire to lay."

“M-my mistake." To what ends did this dragon play by promising acquittal? 'Twere not as though dragonkind and humanity had once been bunkmates.

“I have met scant few sapients within my borders, thou needst knowest. 'Tis been long since I have heard a voice so pleasant, too long. For it to be from one possessing, for a human, sharp features: refreshing."

“Wait I shan't bed—"

He guffawed, but his effort was strained, and he took in air.

“Never. I had planned no such thing." He began to twirl the sword through his left's five fingers, four of which bore talons, the thumb having a well-kept claw. “I intend to deliver thee unharmed to the south village 'fore the storms unfold." His voice: it oozed something, something which he could not… no, no. No. He refocused.

Leaving would not do. A lie to tell: the south village, where a quarrel had led to a bounty on his head? Yes, but also offer an impossible alternative.

“I can't go there. They'll hang me on lies. Could ye take me to the north village?" Beyond reach.

“The north is over far; the storms would utter during my return, and I cannot fly 'midst lightning."

Capable of flight many measures outwith that of those used for… His fists clenched. For making more. The greater strength of this one's wings shouldn't have surprised him, considering all the others he'd seen were always chained, except during the few watched flights allowed, when they could soar for a lone cloud pass before atrophied muscles would give.

“Careful of squeezing those hands so tight; for an egg thief, thou hast rather unblemished skin."

Those dragon breeders: their skins were rash covered and pockmarked. Handling dragon eggs must induce long-term rashes. How could he forget?

“I, u-unless it's unsafe, might I stay with you, this night? Wherever it is ye repose."

That black eye narrowed.

“I meant, O Mighty Drago—"

“Pray thee, doest away with pompous honorifics. I shall allow thee to abidest below, by my side, for the stars' passing, or night, as thy species calleth it."

“By your side? Below?" And why?

Closing his fist, he dove from the edge; Adre inhaled all he could. Black scales hid most of the world. Wings spread to yonder as Corik commenced an elongated spiral wounding down around the mesa. Halfway down, he banked inwards, towards the pitchstone walls, and tilted obliquely to fly into a vertical crevasse. Rock zoomed by Adre's limited view, then gave way to darkness. Infinite darkness.

A faint glow lit the leftward air. They slowed. Paws thudded; Corik curved his forelimb along with the force to lessen the impact for Adre, who released his breath and panted.

“We have arrived at my lair." His digits peeled off him. “Welcome." He was being kind. Perhaps he would understand. Afterwards.

They stood on a wide platform that both jutted out into the darkness and from a wall of rock spanning past the light's reach. Crackling: four braziers on the right, another four on the left. A stone grid tiled the floor. Ahead rested two massive stone slabs. A cut ran between them.

Corik lowered his hand and nudged him off with his other, whose fingers were still fiddling with the sword when Adre glimpsed its gleam—only then did Corik close his fist around it. He commenced a tread that seemed anticipant, almost, towards the slabs, slinking if not for the clinking of his talons. His form was sleek, inhuman, but sleek…

“What of my sword?" Adre blushed, in fear, surely, as soon as he'd said it.

“A fair recompense for trespassory."

Unwilling to test his magnanimity further, he nodded and jogged to his side, passing shorter flank scales.

The claws of his hindlegs' paws were shorter than his talons—talons he already resumed to delight twirling the sword along through as that hand touched the ground, shuffling the sword from the leading talon to the next and repeating till it reached his thumb which then tapped it upwards into the air for the first talon to catch when rising.

“Dost thou favourest paws?"

“No, no. But your dexterity is admirable."

“I should think so. It appeareth otherwise, but few match my loomwork."

“That saveth not my shirt." His eyes searched for garments on him. They, of course, found none.

“Looms flee not from me."

Adre chuckled, eliciting the slightest of smiles from the dragon.

Corik placed a palm on the left slab and pushed it open with ease. Doors.

Behind which a lamp sat. He lifted it and spread his maw: he breathed fire and it lit, illuminating a long, long, grey stone hall stretching onwards into darkness.

“Yes, my home soureth me as well…" Corik trailed as they walked.

Many steps went. Plus many more. Sinewy muscles made Corik's easy, the near musical quality of which was all that filled the hall, the elsewise deafening silence ramming Adre's heart up into his ears. Each step made harder by what he had to do.

Two grey rectangles faded in. At last, they reached another pair of slab-doors, through which light crept. Upon blowing a counter-flame to smother the lantern, Corik set it down, then opened the left door.

A cave, massive. Lit by faint dying moon rays falling from three crevices in the ceiling. Slate paved the ground, and in the centre rose a flat-topped hillock of thickly moss-padded stone. Above, to the distant back right, spilled a cascade wherefrom the purls of glowing water rung. At the linn below it, the water flowed out, snaking alongside an ashlar wall, rather, a knee wall for Corik, till its path stopped dead and it fell down into the abyss.

That abyss which divided them from the cave. A sudden drop waited in front of the door.

Before Adre, whose curious way of looking had not gone unnoticed, would say aught, teetering on the edge as the man was, he seized him and flew over. When they alit, he released he, who then staggered rearwards from blue-tinted fungus blooming in the dark spaces hidden from the moon. They were harmless, albeit hardy hard to harvest, mushrooms, but letting visitors, rare as they were, think otherwise kept them safe.

“…till I enter the main chamber."

“Indeed?"

“Humans and their fleeting memories. Thinkest back and returnest in a moment.

“Art thou finished backpedaling? Good. Thou mayst restest there." He levelled a talon at space by the hillock.

“Forgive me, but I shall struggle to sleep on stone. Might I…"

“Beside me?" He grumbled as if in deep thought. “Very well." After all, the human was polite, for a would-be egg thief.

Corik strode up the hillock to lie on the moss at the top. He loafed on his ventral side. Adre followed yet remained on his feet.

“Please, sitest."

“Is it right for one such as I to sit anext one such as you?"

Corik hmphed. Again, manners. “Should I bid so, yes. This is my font of respair, aft all."

And a fine home it was. Adre sat, not so subtly studying the corner opposite to the cascade, where the rock walls split into a reasonably wide passage that curved.

“Thou swathest thyself in a plethora of clothes. 'Tis a shame, for I spot a trim form through the result of my indelicate handling of thee."

Adre made to raise the slack fabric over his chest, but stopped, instead opting to overtly leer back at him. Finally. He might be small, but, with a bit of body-hugging on his part, if keen, and deft tongue plying on Corik's, 'twould be a fine passing of stars.

From his belt pouch, Adre began to pull out an object, a cork on its top. “Do ye enjoy drinks?"

“As it happens, I mast quite a few. Something of a brewer, in sooth." More, once.

“I see." He slipped it—a red slosh, a vial?—back into its pouch.

“And I spot the glint of glass; dost thou worriest I would judge thy work? Fretest not, for mine seemeth to always fareth worse than that of others."

“No. It's, too little to appreciate, would go to waste, I shouldn't have brought it up." Damn. He'd sensed something was amiss. Still, he'd lend him a chance, borrowed as his time now was. Mought get himself out of this yet.

“Dragon tongues be sensitive to the smallest of quantities." Two talons descended and stayed his wrist. “What art thou concealing?" No response. Say something. It can't be viler than stealing eggs. Though, had that truly been his plan? He prised his fingers, careful to not cut them, and plucked the vial to hold it up to his face, black eyes squinting. Red, specks of salmon, Lenyitas. Uncorked, decanted it out onto the moss. A brownish-yellow core. Valerian.

“It's not wha—"

“Confess your design, no, I already sense it, avow your goals whole, forthwith."

“It's a philtre that maketh its drinker persuadable."

“ 'Docile.' I grasped that; my dry claws rage." Steam jetted from his nostrils as he stood.

“I was going to ride you, just once, to prove ye could trust me to not harm you."

“Had ye said ye were to slay me, a swift swipe would be your end. But ye say ye aimed to ride me. For this, I shall make you suffer."

“W-what, how is riding graver than trying to kill you?"

“Ye planned to degrade me!"

“Degrade? No, I—"

“To be on top, to assert control, to try to dominate—do ye think I fail to see the visual hierarchy ye would foist upon me? Or that I would find, learn, joy in being ridden? I feel no disgust. No revulsion. Only detestation." The steam was fleeing. “Save some of those originally human, there is not a dragon, gender regardless, there is not a winged being, able to ever submitteth to such without being broken. I see your scheme, human. And. I. Burn."

His maw opened and fire erupted; Adre jumped over the hillock's edge, out of the fireball's path. The ball hurtled down the side then across the ground, blackening the slate before bowling off the edge.

“Ye would try to 'tame' me, 'train' me, like a dog! Ye humans and your unthoughtfully wanton uses of your inherited ways."

While Adre tumbled, twain fireballs chased, charring moss to bits of black curls. As he lurched into the mushrooms and turned, his sword clunked beside him, the fireballs closing in.

He shut his eyes, but the singeing didn't come; it quieted.

The fireballs had stopped on the mushrooms, which soaked up the fire. The front row had melted.

“My ingredients." Corik rushed over and knelt on his forelimbs, sparing not a glance at him. “I burn my own lair. I am shamed."

“I'm sorry."

“Begone lest I tarnish more of my lair, more than ought ever be risked of a dragon's lair, to smother your rapacious flame, human."

“Ye judge my kind with one brush stroke; I had no plan to hurt you."

“The human concept of suffering is narrow, ye clod. Your best intents be at best cruelty, humiliation."

“Mayhap ye are right, but I can learn. We could discuss this."

“Ye are still not fled. Speaking instead. Fine." He rose and pivoted to start stomping towards him. “Ye beguiled your way here to attempt to bind me—or bond with as your kind put it—and attain glory for foolish aims similar to ones I have fought against in bygone suns during the passing of neither mere nor grand ill-begotten fiends, such as those of your ilk whom against ye would lead, nay, dare ride, nay, use me to stoke the flames of your ego-ridden, ego-addled mind, common human character. Ye expect me to discuss being ridden with you? To that request, to that dream, I say no. Burn it, or I shall."

“No."

“Then die in vain for your dream." He raised talon and lunged at him. Adre closed his eyes but stayed standing.

The edge touched his cheek yet slowed—to start incising into flesh.

“Why do ye stand?"

“All my life, I have wanted to fly. Be that hopeless, I should die."

“Routinely lofty purpose—born of what, eyes set upon riches and bosoms?"

“When I was little, I watched birds. Who all flew, free, unfettered, unlike me. They caged those birds. I saw Eltrav the Red flyeth over the plains, wings eclipsing the sun. I saw as he fell. They caged him, too."

“Eltrav, old rival…"

“We could save them."

It stung. “Is that it, ends so noble ye would use me to achieve them?" The surface of skin split.

“I would take your freedom if it meant theirs. But it doesn't. I came here to fly." He pressed his cheek up into his talon. “Death over life without flight."

The talon stilled.

“Thou. Art incomplete." He span to begin slinking to the split in the walls. “Followest."

While doing so, Adre kept a hand to his bleeding cheek, his other pulling a cloth from his belt to stanch his bleeding.

They passed the curve in the passage. It led to a square room lit by sconces. At the backwall stood a slate bench whereon sat beakers, cups, and bowls, a few half-filled, the rest cleansed. An array of vials hung from a double-row rack inset into the wall, most full.

“What is to be my fate?"

“Realisation." He took vials from the rack to the bench, where he set about mixing. After a while, he poured some of the liquids into a tiny one, and ceased, simply staring at it.

“Provided thou beest devoted to, in love with, freedom…"—he snatched it to hold it in front of Adre—“…this will turneth thee into a dragon. Shouldst thou beest not as so, 'twill endeth thee." The vial he suspended delicately, pinched between twain talon ends.

Adre's lips parted, his eyelids spreading. “The legends. The legends be true?"

“I did hint at them. And 'fore it springeth to mind, fearest not losing thyself in transforming, for the humans who permanently turned still be so alike in mind to thee and thy kind that, e'en well aft their reshaping, they welcome riders, heedless or oblivious of their self-abasement."

“Permanent? I have family to go back to. There are people counting on me." He gazed at Corik's wings, and his eyes lit. “There are people counting on me, even if they know not it yet. I've come this far. I'll do it."

“Thy concern is misplaced; this one's effects be temporary, chosen for I shan't yet entrust gloried form to thee past a full sun and moon pass."

“I think your concern sound, or understandable, at least." The liquid sludged. “To proffer this to me withal; I could not have ever envisioned this to be."

“Only shouldst thou vowest thou wilt doest all thou canst to servest liberty shall I give this elixir to thee."

“I vow to serve liberty, for all."

Corik turned his head and huffed, the corners of his maw upturning. “Takest it, or resummonest my wrath. Wingkin."

He grabbed it. The top hovered near his lips.

A tilt. The viscous liquid oozed; it took a spell. But he drank it all.

And slumped into Corik's palm, keeping on his feet. The empty vial rolled.

It was subtle, at the outset: body tinting orange, eventually flaky bronze. Scales began breaking out across skin, reabsorbing blood in the process and healing his cut. Corik tried to comfort him by patting his back.

But Adre screamed as his limbs stretched into skinny appendages that made his forming snout gape in terror, relieved when they started thickening, torso and neck following the same path, clothes tearing while he grew. To his credit, he stayed standing till hindquarters forced him down onto fours. A nub pushed itself out from his lower spine to sprout past his now-hindlegs and trail across the floor, limp for a sharp breath, then animated, waving wildly. It whacked Corik's right forelimb till he clamped its end between talons' flats, wary of the burgeoning bladed tail tip.

Two shadows shot out high, reaching the ends of the room.

Wings, wings!

A second after. When they finished growing outwards. They hurt.

A lot.

His limbs flailed and raked Corik's chest; patting switched to wrangling.

The twain shadows fell from his sides, folding in on his vision, as fatigue pushed him deeper into the chest of Corik, who lay on his side.

Over what felt like an aeon, wails slowly waned to sniffles, to finally oh so exquisitely, rumbles and roars. And then fire.

The brief flame singed one of Corik's chin spikes. He grimaced.

“I…have wings. I have wings!"

Wings whose beige membranes scintillated, near large as his despite Adre being smaller overall—as was the way with the elixir, the reordering of form took on his desires; the yearning for flight whelmed any others he held.

This, silken, display of lust, of hope, his hand caressed.

“Hushest, hushest." He resumed stroking his dorsal side while removing the remnants of clothing. “Thy wings be unready, as be the rest of thee. We need limber thee through"—the tip of his snout touched his—“vigorous physical activity; I advise capering."

“Dancing?"

“That is one way to call it, seeing as thou like I preferest discreet manner, although I imagine thy prudence will soon fadeth. Now, art thou interested, and dost thou consentest? I shall not force thee to doest aught thou wishest not."

“But I am not of the valprehending sort."

“Nor I."

“Then yes, I do, please."

“Steadiest; thou oughtst to allowest me to splayst thy limbs, as so." He gently angled his forelimbs up and hindlegs back before he splayed his fingers then toes.

“Shall we, shall we move to comfort?" Adre asked.

A fine proposal, best accompanied by oils, scented candles, and a cloth from behind the bench. He strapped them onto his side, and, with Adre leaning on his other, through the passage they went, the hillock they scaled, its top they lay.

His fondled hands along his ventral side to explore the lower, softer cycloid scales, then trailed upwards to the sturdy bronze ones on his chest, taking in his anterior: a willowy neck, fit for carrying a proud, narrow wedge-shaped head. When he skimmed up his limbs, they quaked, full of verve. He lowered his chest to—

“The pain. It's l-lessening. Keep, stretching me, it feeleth incredible."

Still, that flaking; excess as some of those shards were, he would wait to indulge himself. For the nonce, his mat—Adre's pleasure, and health, came first.

“One tick." After he doffed the strap, he placed the candles in a line on a yard to the left and another a yard to the right. He breathed fire to light them. He sat his four assorted oils, initially acquired for acts pined for more often than had, beside himself, a smidge past limb's reach to prevent any movements from toppling them.

The largest was a jug of nourishing grapeseed oil that he, in quite careless fashion, deluged onto the scales which ran down along Adre's forelimbs, zigzagged across his chest to mid, and curved into his hips, staring between his legs to skirt the edges of his mound. This was going to be so much better than it would have with a human Adre, a false Adre.

“It's so much, how will…oohh." His thirsting waist scales tilted inwards beneath the downpressing of Corik's hands. The massaging drew in the oil, and the last remnants of the viscous liquid swept down slopes to the thin gaps between the curved ends before they joined their brethren.

He wiped the scutes of his hand's backs on the cloth, but found them dried, Adre's body having greedily subsumed it all. A greed he knew well and confirmed by burnished bronze. “Thou art yet parched." The second, an avocado oil, sank into the scales themselves. He let his right palm roam all over, his right palm gripping, his right palm brushing across his chest—

“Corik?"

“Oh."

“Ye know, left-handedness betokens devilry."

His left, of its own accord, was squeezing Adre's vent.

“I tire of knowing things, I ache, crave"—he traced his thumb around the mound of his slit, which, as it had his, the oil had sealed over—“to feel thee."

The third, an evening primrose, he applied, as the moonrays gave their last unclouded beam, to soothe him.

When no more flakes fell from swipes, he leaned over for the jug. Adre dragged his right forelimb to shield his face as Corik lifted it above his own head and flipped it.

It got everywhere. Between both dragons, slathering itself down Corik's back, each li'l spike warming the further down it went, the closer to his sex which felt accompanied, hangingly dripping like breaking sheets from his legs and pooling under Adre.

And he found his legs had straddled Adre's waist, those soft scales tender against his thighs.

He'd planned to tease himself out, to let Adre feel the slithering of it onto his groin. But he could withstand it no longer; his veinless taper parted his slit and glid out. The thicker base pushed against Adre, and the pointed tip faced high. Its prehensile body curved towards him till Corik willed it to stop. Three muscle-like lengths comprised its underside as one connected whole, all together pulsing as a metal weighted ribbon in a breeze. The skin of each gently declined into two grooves that trisected the surface of its underside.

The topside, Adre must have found when he abruptly clasped it with his right, was roundly smooth; Corik gasped as a jolt surged from his chest to below. No talons, and carefuller with claws than expected. All the same, the firm squeeze almost had him shrill. Fingers set to roving across it, and Adre propped himself up with his left.

No, not yet. His needs first. He slipped himself from his grasp, provoking an uncharacteristic growl—for which Adre admonished himself aloud—and tore himself away to shimmy backwards while he rubbed his partner's sides.

His face arrived at his loins. From parted maw lolled forked pink tongue: its flat broadness belied undermuscles apter, owing to thick bases, at tending than one would expect.

Raw from the transforming, Adre's length naturally had yet to reveal itself, but when he kneaded his mound with his tongue, a point drove the two folds up, trying to escape its durance.

He moved the end of his snout to the bottom of his slit. He looked up at him and, holding his gaze, dragged up to the top.

A point nudged the softer scales under his chin. He shifted his head an inch left and drifted backwards; his right eye locked onto the shaft that grew beside him: like his, a taper, but completely smooth all over. It curved slight, stiff. Kind in its shape. Fitting for one with such manners.

He stayed like that, gazing at it while it stood there, till it quivered, rousing him. He wrapped his tongue's revealed end around the tip, then, without having to lower his head—still level with Adre's—glissaded the end downwards, grinning as Adre gawked at his tongue sliding out, the cosying tissue encircling his shaft inch by inch, to its full length. Saliva flowed along his tongue, seeping to between it and the oil layer. After reaching the base, he began wrapping a second layer of boiling snugness upwards. With a comfortable length of tongue to spare, he finished. He shimmied his fork to show off before he used it to pat his tongue clad tip.

“I'm burning I'm—"

“Thou'll be fine." 'Twas naught but several dozen degrees above that of its housing. It hadn't gotten all that hot. Yet.

Pre somehow osmosed through the oil. Nevertheless, its scent couldn't pass his tongue's solid, airtight seal. The pre glid, likely clear, and left a hint of savoury sweetness with each trickle, a creamy dab, too, that hinted at what was to come. It mixed well with the oil, enriching the already heady flavour and adding a streak of thinner texture that slowly wound its way down. As a blink stirred him, he found his tongue was hastening to sate itself.

He pounded stretches of tongue into Adre's length, each welt a wet daub of searing heat. It began to weave back and forth while pre soused his tip. The bulk of his efforts hugged the nerves he knew resided below the tip, drubbing harder against the underside of it.

Every quiver, every throb he induced. Each little shiver. All of them. Elegant, subtler than a mere wingkin's ought to be. Adre was all except selfsame as a dragon. Save those whimpers, unbefitting of a dragon.

When he readjusted his tongue to level the pressure, two abutting loops of tongue parted, allowing for a whiff to flit. He closed the gap too late; his nasal slits itched, dazed by the pungent odour, but he did not flinch. No. He inhaled, letting it sting to gauge its ardour before dispersing it with a single breath. Yet remnants lingered: sweet, piquant, but heavy and dark, needy.

He almost missed Adre's left hand move to try to grip the back of his head; he darted left, dodging it and reeling out tongue, and seized his wrist.

“I shan't fall prey to restraint, no matter how slight. I'm watching."

“Sorry." Eyes averting. Tightly shut maw. An uncomfortable leg twitch. Nervous spreading of claws on moss. Truth. Mayhap he'd learn to love the inner dignity that oft lay with freedom.

“Thou shalt atonest soon." Pre gushed, enough to start suffusing the oil beyond the borders of its southward spiral.

As he returned to his rhythm, he re-examined his lower efforts. Inadequate. He snorted. A tiny flicking whip he made inwards at the base. Followed by an upward rush of undulating waves that finished at his tip then restarted. Twice, thrice, continuing…

His hand still wasn't free, yet he had letten go of Adre's wrist. Coolness snuck through and between his fingers as claws embraced his talons.

“Oh, Adre, thou…"

“Corik, I-I'll—"

The first spurt made Adre stutter, Corik clenching his tongue around his shaft, and the next cut speech off. Creamy white flooded that enclosed space. The ebbing oil and pre were subsumed by its weight as it filled their environment. All throughout, the rhythmic thumping of tongue continued, in tune with each shaft pulse.

Those whimpers loudened to moans, soft but certain in their joys, as fluid sloshed.

Alongside the downturn of Adre's climax, Corik slowed but kept clutching and maintained the upward undulating to coax out every drop.

The tight space was glutted, but his tongue held fast, neither yielding an inch nor ceasing its wringing. He would not stretch his own flesh even though it did mean he mildly compressed Adre's; yet he didn't squirm. Draconic nature imbuing by the second.

He began unravelling his tongue. With each band of the first layer uncoiled, steam streamed, and with each of the second layer, rivulets of a weakly adherent oil and saliva mix coursed down his tongue, which, before the liquid could pool, he tilted towards the ground in front of Adre's right leg. The mixture seeped into the moss, fading.

“Ye…let it go?"

“I dislike swallowing." He'd enjoyed his taste, the texture too, but it would have irritated his throat and eupepsia.

Much more remained on his shaft. But that, plus the oil, would only enhance the next act.

“Should I go down on you?"

“I have a better idea. Relaxest."

As he climbed up to straddle him, his tip touched the base of Adre's, then, followed by his underside, planed up along it, the simmering wetness slickening him.

It glided in a straight line, from his base to the tip, only stopping when he managed to make himself grab its end, holding it as if he could not bear to let it go and hugging it against his as it beat in his palms. Adre's hands, in turn, enclasped their bases, squeezing. Both purred, though Corik's rumble drowned out his.

“Allow, me to show thee, how to—"

His moans broke his quavering words, for Adre's grip surpassed his. In lieu of words, he fought with zestful, albeit not as much as his, pumping that forced a series of sharp gasps from them both. As their hands ran up and down their embraced members, the mixed liquids spread further, thoroughly coating both shafts; so fluid did their thrusting become that it would have mesmerised Corik but that he would let naught distract him, not now, though their lengths glided with the speed and timing, the wilfulness, of a joined sapient actor: the perfect dance partners. And with the mixture coating them, they moved in easy unison.

“Shall we career our lances?"

Between his ensuing laughs, he managed to ask, “W-what? Yes, of course!"

They slid their members across each other again and again, the squelching echoing in the cave. Every time he bade him slow lest he injure himself, Adre only strengthened his jolts. There was only one way to lull the beast he was becoming: overwhelming pleasure.

He curved his length to wind it around his once to set to stroking, wresting sigh after sigh from his wide-eyed bronze lover. Their mixed moans spurred him on to start pumping and pumping, squeezing as it dragged down then back up.

Claws clitched his as Adre rose to mash chest to chest, snout to snout, his tongue boldly daring to face his. Challenged, Corik snaked his tongue out to wrap it around his, only for him to weave away and lick his face. He lay back down, his turn to grin.

Corik huffed, eyes crazed enough for Adre to yelp before he lowered himself and their tongues met again, embracing in truth.

With a pulse he flexed his tip so that it pointed downwards and lay against Adre's, and with one last sublime thrust, white ichor streamed out of his tip and sailed down their undersides, spreading and coating. Halfway through, Adre joined him, second outpour flying past his own head.

He fell to him, murmuring sweet nothings, and they dozed off to a slumber.

When sunlight fell from the crevices above, Corik led him to the edge. Adre hesitated. His wings were taut, and his scales had gleamed in the light, but the abyss made a coward of the bravest of land lovers. For that reason it made a good lair, not a training grounds, although it had the room for a full flight course.

“If thou wilt not trustest in thy wings, then trustest in mine."

They leapt off in tandem; Adre flapped his left wing, supported under his right side by him, and they landed on the other side. While they walked through the hall to repeat for the distance to the outside, through the crevasse and up to the mesa, he espied Adre wagging his tail. Humans.

Scales warmed, they flew in low circle above the mesa, stopping as needed to drink from its waterlogged crevices. At a stop, he had to tug on Adre's tail, the overeager afreshborn he was, to keep him grounded. He needed to demystify his earlier deeds.

“I was justified in lashing out against thee. I was. But not in trying to murder thee. I apologise. 'Tis a matter of solemn dignity for born dragons to never be ridden."

“I won't say I get it, but I forgive you, and I will respect your dignity. I promise. Howbeit, we have a direr issue"—his tail wriggled out from his hold and he leapt—“ye are too slow!"

His wings tested, he soared, for the movements all the came easily to him. Almost as if he had spent time observing how an atrophied dragon flew, a touch ahead of him.

A scale flittered by Corik's face, bronze. Whatever thoughts occupied him were forgotten. The reverting was of course inevitable. When it did occur, ensconced inside his lair, it drew no fewer wails from his maw to then mouth than before, though less blood splattered the floor. He would work on bettering the formula, soon; any more screams would rupture his ears.

Besides, one couldn't let their mate be hurt needlessly.

Adre lay against his chest, puffing.

“I shall give thee the elixir for as long as thou keepest thy vow."

Starry eyes answered.

“Thank you."

“And you."

“Now, now what?"

“Thou wilt stayest at my side and learnest. When thou art not as dragon, I shall carry thee to show thee my aerial manoeuvres."

“Didn't I already outfly you?"

Corik chuckled. “I cannot decide if thy pride maketh thee more human or draconic."