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What Imay hated most of all was the trough.

Over her years as a captive pet of Lord Faustof's menagerie, the wingless red dragoness had slowly come to tolerate her situation. Not accept; never enjoy. But tolerate, yes. She tolerated the way that Faustof's gryphon, Ghern, used her as he pleased. She tolerated Ghern insisting that they were mates, that breeding her again and again and again was just his way of showing affection. She tolerated his talk of how they were both dumb beasts. She tolerated the scar on her thigh where she'd been branded, the indignity of being forced to sleep in a stable with hay for a mattress. She tolerated the heavy weight of the enchanted collar about her neck, the way it nipped at her with cold if she thought of loosing flame. She even tolerated the way her womb was heavy more often than not and the fact that when she was sore and birth-weary, Faustof's men would come and steal the eggs away. She didn't want them. She had no affection for them. She could tolerate that.

But the trough.

It was such a little thing. So small. But every morning, as she plodded over and dipped her head into it to gulp down the feed that Faustof saw fit to give her, it was nothing but a reminder of what she was--captive, cursed, scarred, scaled, bound, beastly--and what she was not: free, independent, feared.

Human.

At some point into her captivity--how long had it been now? Years, at least... she'd had probably a good half-dozen clutches by Ghern--Imay had started at the realization that she'd internalized something about herself. She'd started to think of herself as a dragoness. A beast. The realization had filled her with a nameless terror. She'd spent the rest of the night whispering to herself that she was human, that she was a sorcerer, that this was only a setback. But the eggs squatting in her womb made it hard to believe it, and just the next day, she caught herself thinking of it again. A beast like me...

Her intellect could insist all she wanted that she was not this; changes of the subconscious were harder to shake. In a moment of clarity while she was weary from one of her layings, she realized her ambitions had changed. Ever since the gods had cursed her with this terrible scaled form, her foremost dream and desire had been to change back.

But in her years as Faustof's breeding stock, those dreams had gradually shifted. In the early days, she'd had images of escape and vengeance--against Faustof, against Ghern, against anyone who got in her way--and then resuming her quest to regain her old shape. But gradually, the dream had changed. The gratuitous, violent visions of revenge she imagined inflicting on Faustof and Ghern faded away. She stopped being indignant about the brand on her haunch. And her escape from the estate, which had formerly been merely a middle step towards a further goal of resuming her humanity, ended up becoming her endgame. She had neglected her desire to return to normal, save for the scarce moments where she remembered that she had forgotten it and with a hasty, almost frightened air, told herself she would be human again someday.

One morning, with a clutch curving her belly, her pussy still sore from the attentions she'd received from Ghern the previous night, Imay trudged over to her water trough. After she drank, she stared at the water as its surface stilled, studying the dragonic face looking back at her. And then it hit her with a start--she no longer remembered what her old face looked like.

Desperately, the dragon tried to summon an image of an arrogant, amoral human sorcerer, ready to spite even the gods--but while she could conjure up vague approximations, it was like a doll's face, more a parody of a human appearance than the real thing.

She had forgotten her old self.

The knowledge of this sunk in her stomach like a lump of unworked metal, weighing her down far more heavily than her clutch. And as she staggered about the estate, real fear ate at her--fear that she really was becoming a beast.

That night, sleepless, Imay devised a plan. It was an act of desperation more than anything; something that would require her to sacrifice her pride in a number of places. But the alternative was staying as her very self was beaten down until she became what they said she was, just a submissive, egg-making machine. She had to get out before that happened. And whatever sacrifice she made to get there would be worth it.

By morning, she had alit on a course of action. The key to it would be Ghern.

---

A few weeks after that clutch was laid, Imay put her plan into action. She had recuperated from her most recent breeding and was not yet impregnated again. Her body was recovered and healthy and fertile, feminine in a wild--some might say beastly--way. She hated this stupid body (she had to remind herself to hate it) but it would be a useful tool.

Ghern was lazing in the woods near the edge of Faustof's estate, not far enough that it triggered the spells in either of their collars. When she found him, Imay steeled herself and then did something she never had before:

She initiated sex with him.

The half-sleeping gryphon rose with a start as Imay strolled in front of him, moving with what she hoped was a coquettish sway to her hips. "What--" he began.

"It's been a few weeks," Imay said, "and it's hitting me bad... the heat. The need for young." She presented herself to him. "Please, Ghern..."

He trotted over to her with confusion palpable in the very way he held himself. She had spent years alternating between vainly fighting his attentions and accepting them only sullenly. "What... but you..."

"Just the one time," she snapped with a whiff of her old bite. She couldn't afford him to get suspicious. Let him think that she considered this an anomaly. "I--it's too hard to control! So just..."

"Hmph!" Ghern's confusion settled into a smug surety. "Still in denial, are we?" He mounted her. "I told you that the sooner you accepted this life, the better."

"I'm not accepting it," she muttered. She wasn't sure who she was trying to convince, him or her.

"So you say," he crowed, and then he took her right there in the glade. She didn't bother fighting it and the sex actually felt... good, though she told herself it didn't. Afterwards, Ghern nuzzled her and told her he loved her. Imay didn't agree with him--but she didn't spurn him as usual, either.

It didn't take long for her to start feeling the weight in her stomach after that.

---

It was a delicate dance she had to follow the next few weeks. Ghern always showed affection to her whenever she grew pregnant and she had to indulge him this time, though playing it as if she was gradually coming around--swatting at him half-heartedly, grumbling when he nuzzled her, insisting that she hated it. Ghern ate up her played surrender, especially when, two weeks after her conception, she'd willingly presented to him again.

The following week, she mustered all the embarrassment she could fake and asked if she could be moved into his stable.

"Mates should stick together," Ghern had said approvingly, and Imay had permitted herself an unsure nod.

"Yes... yes. Mates," she said, and he had glowed with pride.

As she swelled, Ghern lavished attention on Imay's tummy and on Imay herself, and the dragoness indulged him. She opened up to him as if they were real mates--talking to him about his past, how he got enjoyment. Ghern wasn't forthcoming at first, but his lips loosened after sex, and a slow change crept over him the more he talked about life before Faustof; he started to glow as he spoke about his childhood flying over the hills. Sometimes his voice grew wistful, and he insisted more forcefully that he was a beast afterwards, as if trying to remind himself.

During these moods, Imay played at being a beast herself. This was a careful line she had to walk; she was afraid of what would happen if she embraced the role too heartily. She plied Ghern with lines like 'my mate;' hesitantly at first, yet opening up more and more as the clutch matured, as if she was coming around.

(And she didn't dare admit to herself that sometimes her hate for Ghern was diminishing she hated him less and less she told herself it was because he was a toy that's right he was just a toy a tool she didn't enjoy the feeling of his claws on her body or his eggs in her stomach and any affection she had would be like the affection for a slave or a dog just a useful thing not anything special it couldn't be like that she would never permit it)

One night, she surrendered the last thing she had withheld: her name.

"Imay," Ghern said, playing it around his tongue like a fresh berry. "Imay. Imay." Though he had acted as if he hadn't cared, Imay knew that her refusal to tell him had needled him over the past few years.

"That's right," she said. They were cuddling, her body loose and pleasantly sore from sex. It's just a tool to convince Ghern, she told herself. That's all. You don't like it. "What do you think Faustof names our babies?"

"I don't know," Ghern murmured back. He had stopped referring to Faustof as 'the Master' as of late, a change he didn't seem to realize he had engaged in. He stroked her belly with a paternal air. "I..."

"I hope they are being treated well," Imay said. She had no idea what Faustof was doing with them, but she doubted they were happy. He was not the sort of man to be gentle with his merchandise. "If they aren't, then as their m-mother..." (And here she cursed herself for stumbling over the word, which was so hateful and alien to her, but Ghern thankfully was too absorbed to notice.)

"...you'd have failed them," Ghern finished for her. The unspoken failure of a father failing to secure his offspring was almost tangible in his voice.

She sprung her trap a week later.

"My mate," Imay said, tugging at her collar as she spoke. They were in a quiet part of the estate. "I was thinking about what you said, about our clutch and failing them.

That's right, Imay. Think about what he said. This isn't your idea, it's his. He needs to think he came up with it. He has to.

"I don't want to fail them," she continued, "but Faustof won't safeguard them. I... we need to..."

Ghern cut her off. "Faustof is our master," he said with the fire of one mired in uncertainty. "He's in charge, he's intelligent, we're just--"

"Beasts?" she finished for him. "But Ghern, is a beast's first duty to its owner... or its mate and offspring?" Uncertainty danced in his eyes and she pushed further. "It's our job to safeguard them, you said so yourself! We need to rear them and teach them how to fly!"

One of the stories Ghern had regaled her with was a tale of his own father teaching him how to take to the skies. It was the gryphon's most beloved, treasured memory.

"...no," he spat at her after shaking in silence for a long moment. "No, no, you're talking nonsense--we can't--we're not--!" He spread his wings and flew away from her.

That night, as Imay slept alone, Ghern arrived late and curled against her, waking her. She no longer tensed at his touch; she was used to him at night. (A necessary evil, she'd told herself.)

"Imay, my mate," he said. "I've been... thinking."

That was a good sign. Faustof didn't like his pets thinking.

"We... you're..." He swallowed. "You're right. Our first priority should be to our young, and each other. We need to escape."

Triumph exploded through Imay like a sunburst. Finally. Finally! Her trap had borne fruit!

"Thank you, my mate," she said. And then, after a moment, unable to keep a current of glee from trickling into her voice, she added: "I have a plan."

Ghern listened to her tell it, looking shocked, but when he was finished, his eyes were still. "As you say. We'll do it... my mate."

Satisfaction threaded through her. Finally, she was going to escape this place.

She was going to be free.