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Thousands of wings beat outside. The quadrupedal dragoness, Gerlis, walked down the hall, plate blood splotched. The stripped dragontal Kerith thrashed while she dragged him by the neck with her left forelimb.

From the right side of the Hall of Remembrance, stretched from the entry to the left side of the palace, poured light, the city of Renait, built within the hollowed out mountain of Filk, below with its many towers crested by cubes of chalk that dragonesses used to begin raking to announce the ruling to come, and those thousands outside rushed to find their places on the balconies.

'Unhand me!' his tail dug furrows through the tiles. Her grip tightened, squeezing his throat, for what little good it was worth, a green scale of his flicked away. This one was a well grown 'tal, a rare sort, that, in some disgusting flight of fancy, took a liking to a human unable to walk: a woman, auburn hair, whom Gerlis had added to her demesne after she found their forest retreat and drubbed him, a little cabin down south unmerited of residence, as he shielded his 'rider' with his body, till the woman begged she spare him. She granted her the right to not see it.

On the left the alcoves, recessed deep, housed life-sized statues of every past Matriarch, all dragonesses passed from life plated in colour, not a plaque to be found, knowledge predicted foreheld. From each, lessons dual, one taught to 'ness; the other, to 'tal.

First Matriarch Calai, reared up: slayer of a foe struck from record and foremotherer of the spirit of Renait, entitled by the third Matriarch. With azure scales and a broad face which wings that reached past the recess backed, her size was second only to Her Grandeur, Dorissa. Calai was lesser studied, her example a struggle courtiers failed, rare echoed. Twenty years.Strike. Worship.

He tried to prise her hand but to tear his fissured claw folds and to whimper. This was warranted.Shut heart.

Berlu, Ravisher of Calai, trident in hand: a lady after Gerlis's heart. Umber scales restrained brawn that near eclipsed her own. Not entitled, but still sculpted. She left no heir of blood, that urge to breed humans attributed to all in their self-projecting defied; the clans fought thereafter, the peaks afar later to secede. Fourteen years.Dominate. Fear.

She slammed him to the tiles, a few whereof cracked, to quiet him. 'Hear the Matriarchs.'

The fourth...saddened. Broken. Couldn't look.

One of his fangs chipped on her vambrace. This was justified.Shut soul.

Visar the Ruler, looking down her snout, the establisher of Renait as a queendom, almost marked to rule by scales rare crimson and golden alone. Her sternness befit one of grandeur. Many offspring, yet a bloodline lost. Accomplishments reachable and often studied. Fifty seven years.Rule. Respect.

'Ye need not do this.' His eyes welled as though punishment unforeseen was to befall him. The law spoke clear: the crime, sacrilege; the sentence, to be judged by the Matriarchs. It was justified.Shut mind. Be the beast.

Queen Jazin the Cunning, offering a chalice, motherer of the bloodline of Loft, that of Her Grandeur. She schemed title after title out from under the hitherto ignored under-nobility to ascend to Matriarchhood. A silver-scaled, unruth murderer, she was taught second to Visar, only not first for that she failed to grasp war. Thirty two years.Covet. Serve.

'Sorrow ate away at her till she flew atop my back.' Abasing.Be Gerlis, the Warlord.

Xerasia the Sybarite, in repose, spindly yet graceful predecessor of Her Grandeur, was all decadence, a furtherer of the divide and strengthener of the tribadic, otherwise notable but for that she expanded the underground flyways, albeit Dorissa did speak fondly of her and her orgies. Fifty years.Lust. Pleasure.

A scale slid from his chest.

The yet to be statued place of Her Grandeur, Dorissa, who reclaimed the peaks. Twenty years thus far.Play games. Be awed. Were she to guess.

And the end of the hall, an unrailed precipice above the expanse amidst the towers.

'Don't do this. She'll kill herself. Please.'

'For that you were ridden, saddled, how do the Matriarchs judge thee, horse? Tell me.'

He kept attacking her left forelimb and said, 'They don't; ye do, sadist.'

'Answered right. Now choose: to die, or to have your wings ripped.'

That struggle, those kicks, ceased, and he held her gaze with eyes no longer narrow, no longer wide. Only, regret. The words came slow, but sure, and final: 'Death over life without flight.'

She nodded; to be unwinged, to rip off wings--both were abominable, even if done to a 'tal.

As she lifted him over the edge by the neck, the chalk raking ceased, all silenced, and she claspe--

His eyes glew cyan and from a gaze the fiercest ever she had beheld she recoiled and grunted; he grabbed her hand, his bones breaking from the effort, to prevent her snapping his neck long enough to say, 'The oldened will come. Ye will have a choice. Make the right one.'

She snapped his neck and let go; those before death often hallucinated at the last...yet that burst of strength, he and rider's wavelengths so harmonised that even here, so far...it mattered not. His cadaver fell, inevitably to splatter against the roughened base or any 'tal that erred enough to have ignored the rakes of execution.

Some of the flying, that of the young, resumed.

Then stopped after nine seconds. The sound of the crack lingered.

And then all resumed. As always.

She walked towards the front of the palace, handing her plate to the nearest guard, and entered the main hall, thence shoved open the doors to the second throne room.

Crowne Princess Sia, first and only daughter of the Queen Matriarch of Renait, the Dragoness Queendom of the North, lain sideways on throne raised, normally peach scales vivid orange in the signs of her season and concave snouted, within her keep jutting from the mountain of Filk, in raiment bejeweled wreathed, bodied elegance. Femininity. Some objected to her being the heiress on that account, predicting she would fail to head the Matriarchy.

And they objected damn right.

The black and quadrupedal dragoness Gerlis marched up the throne room, broad face lit by rays cast tween each pillar, backswept horns and prominent chestplate, dark purple and bone-like scales, flashing at each pass. The marble tiles shook ever so, so slightly. Her contoured black clothes, doublet, neither tight nor loose breeches, not robes dragging across the floor, highlighted her muscly frame without bulging.

'Sia,' her deep voice boomed, head tilted down to stare at the teal eyes of the heiress, a title the Queen ought to have given to another years ago.

'Thou shall ever-refer to me with, "Your Highness." ' Quavering. 'For what reason does thou again bother me?'

'Let the dragontals forget that when they have you?' She crossed the rim of the dais.

'Guards!'

None moved an inch. Why would they? Gerlis held the rank of Marshal, council voted, battle tested. A third of these very guards even bulked up her harem, both groups being 'nesses, of course. Humans performed contract work then left, mainly furnishings, engravings, at most.

'Must a queen be dominated to sate shaming desires of submitting, she should only so be by her fellow dragoness.' As tradition stated, quoted. She halted a foot before her throne, light orange ventral in plain view. "Differs not for a princess.'

'I have not been bred, Marshal.' For all her softness, she composed herself with a certain, firm, alluring rigour. 'Nor have I been knowledged with these desire of which thou speaks.' Lying in the second.

'That pleases me; we've discussed that I am to be your first, after all.' Sia's tail, needle-like thing, pierced Gerlis's shoulder, but brawn stopped it going far enough to scar. After a second, her own tail trapped hers under its weight, but otherwise she ignored the sting. 'And 'fore ye say it, yes, I grasp the extent of your obsessing with your own heiress being of your blood, so simply lay, if you truly must, with Caldain then ignore his ilk.' Too many dragontals made the hunting parties these days, his solely of them.

'Oh the one male thou'll allow near me, and even him thou openly mocks. Any decision will come of my choosing, not--'

Gerlis kissed her, snout end pressed to snout end. She struggled. Almost sweetly. Had to be done; else Caldain, Grand Huntsmaster and so-called tall, dark and handsome, might sneak a few ideas in. A hunting coup afterward, given their outnumbering the retinue. The nobility fairly earnt decadence by default, but too many forgot the joys of hunting. Needed to keep a closer eye on him; 'Tals like him grew resentful once they peaked, no matter how high they'd risen; ungrateful sort.

Sia punched her and pulled back and spat at her. 'I am not my mother.'

'No. You are dwarfed by most despite having long since physically matured, you submit too easily, and even the dragontals scheme around thee, let alone thine own court. You need me. Besides, this arouses you, and don't lie, because I sense how much you're warming.' She pressed in, trapping her with her body. 'Now, this feels best with a 'ness.' Sia's lips barely resisted hers and her tongue, though, not for lack of trying. Like her mother's did, those scale edges to bloom at the lust, her lips softening, willing or not, instinct, sweetened, so gentle: by Fire Ungiven, right here, she could go down...

The doors to the throne room opened, and a dragoness began approaching.

'Hmpf. The next suitress; my time ends. We'll finish this in two days' time, Your Highness.'

'Nay, we shall not. Sate thyself on my mother as thou are wont to do. Do not tease me again.'

'All three, planned.' Would help hasten the inevitable passing of those yearnings to breed that the Princess had confided to her handmaiden.

She turned from the shrunken Princess and walked towards the exit, passing the newcomer, definitely from afar, southern, at halfway, glancing down at her. Eyes glinted red; scales, white. Robed in white too. A leaf-laureated rubied brooch lay pinned to the notch of her robe's high neck, and a scent wafting dragoness oddly enticing, for her, anyway, nobility, yet with a face impressing a decent measure of strength. Pleasing. Would delight after the Princess rejected her.

***

Klek, a grey-scaled dragon, donned the armour while standing in front of the mirror within Gerlis's chamber; the armour hunters wore. He wasn't meant to wear it.

But it accentuated his forequarters, plating him all over too.

'Klek, take that off,' Gerlis said after entering her chamber. 'The dangling plates covers too much, hung from straps unfitted.'

'Ye didn't lay my egg or raise me.'

'That I didn't. Fair enough, wear it, but blame thyself when a 'tal strikes you.'

Nothing fazed her. Out of all the dragontals she treated only him nicely, her pet project and messenger. It made him so fucking angry. He suppressed a scowl, scant it would have been worth forbye, to avoid drawing this little daily interaction out. She always made him like this, made him think about these things. She was going to say more. He knew it. And Mishra yet looked up to her. He didn't even want to wear the armour anymore; it didn't hide the slight inwards curve of his snout, but he wouldn't give her the satisfaction of his doffing it.

Hitting her wouldn't relieve any stress; she'd just laugh, that burly frame shrugging off anything and envied by him, and any other 'tal too, though not the size. Dragontals beat dragonesses in height only for the first quarter of life, outgrown after which.

'About halfway down south, thou'll meet with Caldain; tell him that, and ensure he learns this comes from me: either he yields his half of the seed to her Highness, Princess Sia, should she request it, upon his return, or I have him executed.'

He frowned; the books said denial hadn't been called as grounds for execution in over a century. 'Yes, I'll inform him, should I chance to see him at all.' As if; Caldain had cast his parents two years gone by. He'd have no need to traverse the tamed paths. Nor want to remember how they went. The fires still marked Klek's left thigh. Two years, made to wait. By Gerlis.

'You will, believe me, you will'--she exited the chamber--'Tell me when thou returns to the right side.' She said the last often. Now he wouldn't forget for hours.

The trip south was for his parent's ashes, from which he would not be distracted, but getting to catch up with Caldain did spur his packing, odds regardless.

On the shelf spanning and carved into the inner wall stood the urn, which, carefully, he stowed in his satchel before walking to the balcony precipice, and then he spread his wings.

And then Mishra pressed a hand to his left forequarter. Klek's growth had thankfully stunted, so those claws near stretched across his chest.

'Klek, promise to avoid danger.'

'Humans tend the south. It's hardly tamed. Danger always lurks.' Let go.

'I claimed you, Klek, my male. With reluctance, I allow you to depart.'

It felt good, hearing that. He leapt without saying anything and flew southwards towards the fields, legs and forelimbs tucked tight, nictitating membranes slid over his eyes, the hundreds of balconies of the upper chambers hollowed into the mountain shrinking. Many didn't get to live in the parts with light access, deeper in the mountain instead.

She understood; he should've just let himself be with her.