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Sunset Reset

She awoke in the midst of a mid-sleep kick. The cold sensation of steel still stung about her body as her shout bubbled up. Death had woken her up here, a dreary plunge down a many bladed pit. All those blades had torn into her. She could recall the pain from the front to back of each stab, that peculiar numbness in the center.

"I died... I died..." she muttered, still processing.

She found herself naked on the dungeon floor. Nearby one of many entryways of this peculiar place. The distinct recollection of succumbing to the pit trap had her inspecting her body for wounds. It had to have happened, and yet no wounds of any blade remained.

Small pinpricks though. Peculiar little marks under the skin quite like a wart or a pimple. Several of these ran the length of each place where she recalled the blades once resting. Something was off, and her suspicions of this place were growing in great and terrible abundance.

Standing now in this room she had once passed through she caught sight of the glyphs. A faint glow brought them to their attention. Clear visual traces of magic. She could not recall them glowing in such a fashion when she first passed through this room.

There was something more pressing she could not recall. It was a fleeting sensation, that she had forgotten something important. So lost was it to her that she hardly registered as missing until she truly tried to think of it. This was natural. How often does one think about their name in a strange place like this?

[...] she tried to speak it aloud, but silence had taken the place of her name.

Bereft of her equipment, all that lit the room was the faint glow of the glyphs. She must have walked right through the center of this circle, triggering this peculiar spell. Had it perhaps transported her here before she fell victim to the pit trap? Or had it done something more? She was not well versed enough in the magical workings of these particular glyphs to know for certain.

Stepping forward, naked as she was, the rough hewn stone of the floor felt noticeably more irksome barefoot. This was a problem exacerbated by the dark that was to come. She could dimly recall what she had on her, and hoped that it might still be there.

Praise of all worthwhile praises, the light of spell gave her just enough a glimpse along the wall to follow. How far was she from the pit trap that saw her in? The memory came back, but it was fuzzy; perhaps in part because of her prior passing, or through some fluke of that name stealing spell.

Over a mile of the darkest dungeon lay between her and her items. Grappling hooks, potions, and all manner of magical artifacts from past excursions would be necessary for any kind of retreat from this place. So she set off, taking advantage of the light of the runes whilst it remained.

Soon though it began to dim, forcing her to settle into a sprint towards where she hoped her belongings lie. Left, right, middle, or left; right? She hoped she was headed in the right direction, the occasional glimpse of chalk on the floor from adventurers prior, herself included, aided in the avoidance of the traps that had not got her before.

Lacking equipment this proved to be quite difficult, but there was a certain bounce to her step. It was easy to chalk it up to post-death jitters, but who knew what strange magics were working their way through her body already? She had a friend who might could help, but escape from the dungeon would have to come first.

Three more turns, two sets of stairs up, four sets of stairs down, and finally five locked doors each thankfully still jimmied. The grim image of her own body flashed before her mind as she approached the lip of the pit. How eerie a sight that would have been.

It was an image she was mostly spared. Just at the edge lay her backpack. She recalled trying to rope it around a spike last second only for her grip to slip. Down below, where the spikes coalesced into a cacophonous swirl and curl of blades and all pokers, lay the silhouette that had become of her armor. She was fairly certain it was empty.

She wanted both backpack and armor, skewered as it was; it might still produce some hint as to what has been happening to her. A general preference towards being clothed provided the other primary reason. Tossing caution to the wind she leaned over the pit, trying to grab the backpack.

It was just close enough to catch it with her nails, which might have been looking a bit pointier than normal, but that didn't matter right now as much as scooting her backpack closer to the pointed well. Now that it was near the lip of the pit she could unhook it from the spike that she managed to catch it on the end of.

Inside were all the things she might need to extricate from the dungeon. Donning a pair of underclothes from her backpack she unfurled a grappling hook and its constituent roping. Anchoring it well and even tying it off for good measure she set of down the pit, careful to shimming along the spots without any blades to-

"Curse of the Ever Loving All! Who in the FUCK puts invisible spikes in a spike trap? Isn't the spike trap already deadly enough!?" she shouted, sublimating her rage with shouting rather than kicking.

She could once more recall the blades piercing her. Somehow being stabbed by invisible stretches of blade and spike hurt worse than the regular ones. Ah well, at least she was back here. Whatever spell had gotten her resurrected the first time had not let up. Something to be thankful for. Alive was still better than dead.

One curiosity stuck out to her though. This time where the blades had pierced and punctured there was more than just strange bumps beneath the skin. They had pierced through from the inside, revealing tiny little feathers. She held one stretch of her arm low to the light of the spell, catching a glimpse of their coloration in the dark.

A brilliant and burnished orange had come to adorn the tips of her tiny new feathers, and any attempts to tug at them more than clearly revealed that they were indeed sprouting from her and not just glued on by some mischievous kobold while she slept naked on the dungeon floor.

***

"And so you set back out," said the sorceress, spoon swirling.

"Well judging by the fact that I'm sending you this message in armor, yes, I set back out," said the adventurer, trying to keep the crystal from catching sight of the new tail hanging behind.

"And you made it on the second try?" asked the sorceress, brow raised.

"Yes," lied the adventurer, feathers all but bursting from her clothes at the collar.

"Interesting, I'll need to run some in person tests to really get a feel for this. To perhaps test if it is in fact resurrection. Would you like to meet with me, or am I meeting with you?" asked the sorceress.

"I-"

"Oh I should probably go there, if you are being resurrected at a singular point and we decide to test the process that would set you back at the start," said the sorceress.

"Well-"

A cacophonous chant came to echo all around. A strange and iridescent blue shimmer built up upon itself. Soon it coalesced into a circular thing, and out flopped the edge of a robe. The sorceress stepped forward, glancing briefly at the adventurer's tail.

"Right, so you only died twice," said the Sorceress, her intense emerald eyes following the reddish-orange tail as it tried and failed to slip behind the adventurer's legs.

"I... well it might have been a few times. You know when you do something perfect the first time right up until the end so the next few times you start doing it you get impatient and... well... normally this doesn't happen, but if the failure state was turning into some kind of gryphon I'm sure plenty of people would have ended up worse off."

"Oh I'm certain of that. As reckless as you were back in the day you had to have something going for you to make it this far," said the Sorceress as she pulled out a bag of crystals,

"Are you certain you weren't always this way?"

"Functionally immortal and turning bird?"

"Yes."

"Yes."

"Are you sure? Because if you had not died before... you called last week, so you've been down there a week, correct?"

"I have?"

"That was when last you called, before you entered the dungeon."

"I thought the resurrection might be a bit quicker than that."

"Either way, if you had not died before last week then how would you know this would not always have happened?"

"Well, I woke up in this dungeon in particular, what are the odds I was set to resurrect here?"

"Same as all things really. 50/50. It either happens or it doesn't. It could have been a range thing, or perhaps you could always have been connected to this dungeon."

As the sorceress spoke she began offloading trinkets and tablets from her backpack. Small boxy stoneworks, symbolically cloaked. They tapped heavy to the ground as she began to arrange her workstation, a peculiar mix of many magics swirled together there and then.

"You called me on the LongTalk right after escaping the dungeon right?"

"Well, sort of."

"What does 'sort of' mean?"

"I was tired, it was hectic. I took a short nap."

"How long was the nap?"

"8 hours."

"So you slept."

"I wouldn't necessarily say slept..."

"There's a small chance your nap could make it a bit difficult to detect the magic at play. Though I suspect with the power involved we still have plenty of time."

More trinkets and runes. Little boxes of soft clay hardened to entrap the words which spelt the spells she would soon invoke. It was always strange the way people's eyes disappeared when they worked with magics this intimately, reading over incantations and extensions to the spells in front of her and how they persisted in other wayward realms lodged just to the side of their own.

Spectral hands reached out, guiding sets of the crystals up and around the feathery human. They ran all along her body, feeling along her through their affixed and faceted fascinations. A deep scan of everything she was at present concluded with a sigh.

"Why did you sigh?" asked the nameless.

"Whatever it is you bound yourself to, it is permanent. There's a kind of summoning energy at play, and I'm certain now you used your name as an ingredient. Either willingly or unwillingly this is all far above me for now."

"I don't think I willingly gave my name."

"Then why can't you say it? And why can't I say it either? I recall knowing it at one point. I even checked my journals before porting over, your name is gone from those pages as well. This seems to be powerful. You have meddled in vast and ancient magics, and must pay the price of immortality."

"A strange curse."

"There are worse fates in the world. I'll admit you have me at an envious advantage. I too seek the curse you now bear."

"Why curse though? Is this truly without boon?"

"You will come to know every sadness, and every joy, and the sum of both you will one day find wanting. This is the fate of all immortals. The doldrums."

"So what do I do?"

"Well you're functionally immortal now, what do you wanna do?"

"I... don't really know..."

***

She would see much of this endless world.

Her first long and illustrious life would be spent adventuring. At first she set out to investigate the strange dungeon she found herself in, taking in all the information that could be found of it and about it. Specifically outside. She knew how much more dangerous the traps seemed to get with every room.

Eventually she would settle for not knowing the mystery, electing instead to resume her career. She fought more bravely now. Even though she was unsure of the spell's range she had come to know death intimately. She found that it is quite hard for one to maintain a fear of death when already faced half a dozen times.

She lasted many decades, and soon came to retire in a villa not unlike her home. It was a most peculiar thing indeed, retiring. A restlessness seized her later in life, and she found herself no longer hiding the feathers that adorned so much of her body when she returned to adventuring.

This second wind went well. At least for a time. Until one day she came upon a village that did not take too kindly to tailed folk. Not yet immunized to the fire of their torches, she awoke in a cold sweat, mostly feathered, and naked on the floor of the dungeon.

Letting out an exasperated sigh of a life well lived she walked over to the wall of the half aglow room and began displacing a rock. Partway through her first long life she had considered what would become of her on death, and to that end made a number of small packs hidden in the room of her resurrection.

Here behind one such stone awaited a mostly high end version of her old armor, fitted for her younger body. Her far more human body. Feathered now as she was, the armor hardly fit, made especially difficult by the new growth of wings at her back and the extension of her core. She walked with an awkward stoop. Paws rejecting her boots outright.

Struggling with her outfit she cursed herself silently for not thinking to include a kit for just such a problem. A simple sewing could get her a long way with these problems. Instead all she could settle with was cutting holes and splaying edges of her ill fitted armor to accommodate for her lengthened body and tiny new wings.

Embarrassing. Hopeless. She had lived such a long and adventurous life only to be felled by petty squabbles over the supposed evils of a tail. It was enough to make her both reject and embrace her gift in a curious way. She was, after all, losing her humanity with every loss of life, was it really something worth preserving?

Feeling so rejected by the humans from that wayward village moments ago she felt a desire to lean into her lack of humanity. To make no efforts to hide her tail or wings away from the world. To make it accept her on her own terms, rather than to try and fit in.

She had put her time in saving this place. Of making it safer in the way she could, and she would certainly resume. Adventuring was in her blood. It was a family business she intended to resume perhaps forever given her malady. One lifetime just was not enough.

Feathered midriff exposed, she found herself at a slight advantage clambering out of the dungeon this time. The scaled talon hands that came to replace her old mortal digits enabled a swift exit.

Her lengthened core, so great for the exaggerated midriff, allowed her to tackle the ascent with great big leaps. The furred tail which had gotten her done in prior served well as a counter balance to keep her steady upon the stonework. She reveled in that little bit of knowledge.

"See, tails aren't evil, they're good for balance actually." she wanted to argue to them as she scrambled up to the exit.

All those deaths from before coupled greatly with the most recent loss. This had left little humanity about her. While she could still stride comfortably on her hind legs, fur and feathers had come to cover the lot of her. So too where lips once lay now rest a tiny beak.

Trying to practice her speech with this new adjustment proved immediately fruitless. Fantasies about returning to the town and arguing amongst the populace became at once untenable. It would be hard enough to convince a recently blood-stained mob that their resurrected villain (who looked even more inhuman than before) was somehow not a threat even if she could speak eloquently.

With her beak as it was now she could barely squawk out a word or phrase. This too rendered much of her magical items useless, as so many required vocal components. She lay there in a huffy slump at the entrance to the dungeon. The trip out of the dungeon had been easy enough, but her condition proved tiring on a more existential level.

Death through differences. It was a notion that weighed heavily on her brain. She had a number of days of travel time ahead of her to the nearest town, and so she got to her stewing and muldering quite early. The more she thought about it the angrier she got.

Her new talons, so long and sharp, were introduced to the flesh of a long dead tree. Dried and firm as it was she was still able to carve deep gashes into it as her tears began to well up. This plane, even if it was just a small town in the middle of nowhere, had rejected her in a manner most democratic. It proved difficult to refrain despising herself in the face of it all.

This of course was exacerbated by the lack of speech. She had become even more of a creature to be feared, unable to explain herself to the very townsfolk who had already once sought her doom and damnation. Perhaps in a way they were right, after all, she found herself damned to once more share a plane with them after all.

Anger poured out of her. Emotions welling with new instincts that soon progressed to rending it with her new beak. The taste of wood; unpleasant. The anger began to sublimate soon after that, her body having exhausted its ability to immediately change the world.

All her adventures before faced a great and thorough recontextualization. Living a full life as one had taken the fun out of it. She had been through so much and it found her tired. Withdrawing her biting beak from the flesh of the tree she spat up the splinters and sighed.

What a day. What a long fucking day. She sat there next to the dead tree, resting her feathery face into the curve of her talons. The thought of her remaining armor still burning in the embers of the flame filled her with an unquenchable and smoldering frustration.

Ash. They told her she would live up to her name. Pithy little peasants. Her last life had been a long one, had she taken to that name in the presence of the Sorceress so early on? She could scant recall. Perhaps it was the Sorceress who had given her the name.

She thought briefly upon her old friend, and considered for a moment trying to find her. She could perhaps help with the beak no speak problem. This would be easy enough. Ash did not want easy though. Now, after stewing on it some more, she wanted closure.

So she set out for the town once again. A two month voyage on foot that she made in a month and a half. Her body felt energized, and her plan at revenge was as simple as could be. She would do nothing to the village. Merely walk into it and sit upon the place where they burned her alive.

Crossing what would doubtlessly one day be hindlegs at a slightly odd angle she simply watched and waited. The vitriol of the town, thought to be exercised by her initial slaying, boiled and bubbled up in a far more toxic manner. Now she was not making trouble with the nobles of the village and their peculiar crimes.

She was just sitting there. Judging. Judging the whole village with her forlorn glare. She knew from the start how this newest confrontation would end, but she implemented it in such a way to drag all the fun out of it for them. The town wanted a more hot blooded victim.

Resigned as she was to her fate she could see one by one the satisfaction draining from their faces. Even the most staunch and violent of the bunch felt ill at ease as she passively stepped onto the platform for her second burning. She was using them, and they could tell. Treating the whole ordeal like a second and properly accepted baptism by flame.

They resigned to play the parts of villains now. No longer sure of themselves and their cause. Driven out of habit and hatred rather than any earnest interest in her next death. If she did not have a beak perhaps they would have seen her smile. She had stolen from them the fun of their slaughter, and forced the village to grow up a bit in the process. To take true stock of their aims and why they have them.

The second fire licked less painful than the first, and soon Ash found herself once more resting upon the floor of the largely unexplored dungeon. She squawked out a sigh. The encounter had went about as well as expected, and while this latest death had not confined her to four legs she almost wished that it had.

Her body stooped low and elongated, not quite suited for two legs just as well. Such an oddity in between. The stashes she had made for herself proved sub optimal now. She had not expected her humanity to fade quite this quickly from her body. She suspected resting on all fours as she did an unsuspecting person might take her for a gryphon with merely an oddly shrunken set of wings.

They flopped melancholic. A little feathered fan slapping at the air in a way most mournful. She wanted to fly then, but the wings told her as much that she could not. At least not without going at it like a hummingbird. The mental image alone of those half formed wings flinging out with such force was enough to summon up a laugh.

At least what she assumed was a sort of laughter emanated from the back of her throat. It sounded comically high pitched and whistley, a sort of sing-song sigh of laughter that fostered more of itself even higher in pitch and intensity. It seemed to grow stronger the more her attention turned to it. Goodness was she glad she could at least crack herself up in the face of such a grim recent time. A proper sigh now followed. Relief.

Catching her breath from the near recursive laughter she began shifting through the packs she had planted. She thought it a safe bet that this would be her last life as anything even remotely human, and so she bid much of the contents of each pack to a great and concealing robe composed of sheets sewn together to reject the elements.

Winter was near, and a great and hermetic life seemed to beckon her into the wastes. She stooped head and shoulders higher than her old body, and the cabin she set about building reflected the strange new demands of her body. On occasion she would venture into towns.

'Back in 500 years, Give or Take'

The sign on the sorceress' old shop was a peculiar sight to say the least. It was difficult not to ponder where she might have been and what she might have been up to. Whatever it was, the blatant confidence of the sign gave her a peculiar confidence that one day in the future she might meet up with them again.

Today was not that day though. Today was another common trip into a town she was fairly certain would not kill her. An acquisition of seeds and books to read to facilitate her new and lonesome life. She would write her desires on a chalkboard, squawk, and often get what she was after with little more than idle staring and the occasional concerned glance.

Leaving town was always the most anxious part of these sojourns. For that was the time when it became clear to all the interested folk that it was their last chance to capture her and produce ill intent. Her choice of locations to go proved reliable enough though, and a circulation of three particularly sizable villages tolerated the oddity of her presence well enough that she became a regular.

It was curious seeing statues of her past adventuring life be erected. Though even in that town people were a touch too busy to notice the similarities. Perhaps by some onlookers she was mistaken for the strange and extra mutated daughter of herself. The notion sparked a chuckle, and led nowhere else but her own idle imaginings.

This life was one lived at arms length from the world. She had tried engaging both earnestly and out of spite, and had found the taste on her new beak ambivalent at the best of times. A life of the lonesome mind took roost, and she would spend years isolated reading the same few books on repeat. It was odd the degree of contentment that came from such a consistent and self reliant structure.

After all, she was the only visiter and occupant, and her little town of one hut was not about to burn her at the steak anytime soon. That contentment alone, that the entirety of her acceptance was a self acceptance, kept her sane through the decades that would follow.

At a distance she would see the arrival of the Sky Folk. Visitors from a far off portion of the great Plane who mastered the art of easy air travel so proficiently that hey decided to take their cities with them when they moved. It was a curious sight seeing such a people on the move.

Hundreds of buildings cloistered like a cloud of brick and wood meandering through the sky at much the speed. Tinier airships swirling down and diving back up like great probisci stabbing at the plane. One day, the fifth time she saw them some decade past the first sighting, she took note of the airship's accompaniment.

Flanking on either side were 3 pairs of gryphons. 6 in total trussed in regal wear. Her body bristled. Feathers unfurled. The notion that she would have a place to be after fully changing in this life had not occurred to her. She had, for many days, imagined herself as a wild animal returning to this cabin and spending unknown lifetimes toiling away as best she could in this part of the world.

Now though, even as she hid from their skyward eyes in her cabin, she could almost picture herself dressed the way those gryphons were dressed. So proud and prideful. Envy. She felt herself envying them and their clear purpose. It contrasted her hermetic approach to this life so greatly that she almost did not mind how close they approached.

"Hail."

The statement from the recently landed blue scaled lizardman was followed with a steady knocking. She eyed the gryphons standing around in her yard. More complete versions of herself trussed in reins and harness. It was truly curious how much such a fate excited her, and though she was fearful of the man behind the door she guessed well what would be rid of him.

Opening the door but a crack she slid a small bag of gold through the doorway. When the stranger hesitated, she slid another. Soon the gryphons and the blue scaled lizardmen all walked away, getting set to fly off. She would see them, yes, these Sky Folk. Not this lifetime though, when the curse was more so finished with her.

Such a curious line of thinking. To go out of her way to end up trussed like the domesticates. Perhaps the isolation of the cabin was driving her to strange lines of thinking. Being a part of such a rigid pack structure would provide all the socialization she might want out of life, and in so rigid a manner as well.

Still, this stage of her being was some time away, she had a long life of reading and occasional trips to town to keep her busy. Nearly a quarter of the Sorceresses 500 year claim panned out before she found herself growing too weak to return to town. It was fascinating though, on that last trip, how much the burgeoning city had changed other than the sorceresses ramshackle little shop.

The consistency of its existence in the face of the now cities endless tendency to rebuild and reinvent itself over the decades spoke to the validity of her aims. As though the building itself served as proof of two things; the sorceress' doubtlessly long lived will, and that she sourced the lumber from a particularly superb supplier. The building retained an almost regal emaculance in how untouched it had become, and soon she began treating it as a sort of hopeful pilgrimage. Imagining perhaps 500 years had already passed, even into what presumably would be her 80s or 90s.

She did not keep good track of the years this life. It did not help that the neighboring kingdom she most visited ended up becoming vessels to the Sky Folk. The result had them redating their calendar to a new year, and by the time she was fairly certain she was in the late stages of old age with feathers as grayed out as her fur she hardly cared.

One day she fell ill, and found herself waking up suddenly inside the dungeon once more. After a fairly thorough physical she found that none of her old self had remained. She was all gryphon and phoenix now, complete with a set of wings that she had no doubt were flight capable.

Emerging from the dungeon was no longer a rote act of climbing and shuffling, but a simple flight outside. With ceilings as high and walls as familiar as this place had become she could put her wings to the test and escape with ease. She definitely did not have to start over after a head on collision with a wall. Why would you suggest that?

Out and about she kept in the air, taking to an altitude she felt comfortable with. What a view. Mountains upon mountains. She could spy the edge of the village turned city from the sky already. Wings really did feel almost like cheating.

She contemplated where to go for a moment, but only a moment. The Sky Folk, scales as blue as the skies they conquered, were known for housing her kind. Keeping them trussed up and well fed. She could very nearly feel the reins in her beak already.

It was a peculiar leap for certain. The idea of wanting to become a mount for an empire. Of seeing where such a life might lead her. As a notion it became impossible to shake though, and many sleepless nights were spent imagining what might become of her.

So she set out to find them, putting her wings to the test just as well as her newly required hunting techniques. For 40 days she flew, expanding the circle of her vision in a slow and methodical arc. Later each day she would find herself a river and hunt large geckos fatted on the tall and multicolored mosses of the region.

They were delicious to her, a new and favorite food that rested easy on the beak and tongue; less so on the mind. She felt bad for all the critters she ate. She was far from a natural predator, invading the world with her strange and wayward immortality. Perhaps slotting herself neatly into a larger organism such as an Empire-City would take the sting out of such actions.

After all, when fed by the Sky Folk it would not be by her own claws that she would hunt. The act would be abstracted away from her, becoming part of a larger thing that would leave her feeling as though it was not only fair for her to eat, but demanded of her.

This was one of many freedoms she imagined giving herself to the Sky Folk might offer. To say nothing of the fact that it would perhaps be the one way she could ever again hope to enter society. Should she try to communicate? To make herself fully known to them... Well, places of the world that advanced did not strike her as the type to punish her for such a transgression against nature.

A larger fear presented itself. Study. The cruelties of science in their alleged dispassion can of course be far more incisive than those of the more magically minded. Understanding can, when taken to a directed extreme at the cost of all comforts, be a horrific sorting of the self. Though her quest remained steadfast and pointed in theory she found herself hesitating.

There was a particularly lovely valley she found herself in amongst. It seemed untouched by her kind or any rival. A cave presented itself as well as an opportunity. To live her life, or at least one of her lives, entirely out in the wild. She weighed the option, and for a moment found domestication wanting. What was he really after?

What could one be after in her position? Really? She took a breath upon the mountain that had become the peak of her impromptu domain. There she contemplated the totality of her life as a hermit in contrast with the life of an adventurer. How many choices both had made.

To engage in some way is so similar as not engaging, for one's absence is felt not so well as ones presence yet just as impactful still. To disengage from this world. To hide herself away on her mountain lair and look down upon her domain... This was just as much a life as any.

She contemplated the concept of her study. How they might with their mages undo the spell that took her. What a peculiar risk she would be exposed to! To lose the immortality she had not asked for. To live out the rest of her days in the singular life of this creature.

But perhaps they would not bend it to breaking. Perhaps they would study and learn it well, applying it to their soldiers. If it could be replicated... By going to them there was a chance she could be handing the Sky Folk the world. By not, she might have been denying them.

They were, as far as conquerors go, a peaceful sort. More trade oriented than anything. Of course this trade they offered, these connections from one to another over such vast distances of land, came at an enriching cost. She pondered the possibilities for a time.

Her desire to belong won out. Surveying her domain she found it wanting. This was not her place. Perhaps if she stayed for a time it could be, but she did not wish this to be. She had lived a lifetime of isolation, and yearned for the hustle and bustle of interaction.

She gave a great call. A big and burly whoop of a caw that scattered all the birds and critters of the valley. Her valley; renounced. It felt empowering enough that she did not mind following it up with a quest for much the opposite. Off she flew once more, searching.

Some weeks later, with the valley far behind, she laid to rest upon another mountain top of an unknown name. Her morning rituals had become quite simple, creature as she was. A yawn. A stretch. From leg to wing to tail. Perhaps a bit of a shake from sleeping upon the stone.

She began this routine that day, but found her yawn interrupted by the sudden addition of a hoop around her neck and a net around her body. A squawk of confusion and frustration welled up within her, as the heavy netting alone already prevented any flight.

Attempting to step forward saw her stumble. Was this really what she wanted? To be trapped and taken. To be treated like some manner of sky horse? The notion, amidst the fighting and the whirling and the yanking, sparked a playful sort of laughter to part her beak.

"Sa so trala," spoke one of her Sky-Folk captives holding the rope around one.

"Trala brelloca!" hissed another as their grip slackened up slightly.

The lot of the five blue lizards all dropped their guard at once, offering up a small window of opportunity to the peculiar gryphon they had captured. Only, she did not take it. Certainly she fantasized about it. About taking flight in a boisterous show and causing them to curse in their unfamiliar language as she escaped.

The notion alone that she could do such a thing provided pleasure enough. That she could run away was enough of an option for her to permit this. After all, they suspected she was just a confused animal. Eventually, given the right training, they might make her a riding gryphon, and if that were the case it would just require she buck her rider before leaving. Given this was a feat she felt comfortable with the odds of, she followed them obediently.

"Sasa griffon!" spoke one of the Sky-Folk from behind her, "Sesh la fem."

"Doci, trella doci," said another softer spoken Sky-Folk to her side.

There was something oddly thrilling about only catching bits and pieces of the exchange. She could vaguely guess what fem meant given its similarity to another word and the location of the Sky-Folk who said it. The fact that such an aspect as her sex was something to be spotted and commented upon in her presence with no regard for her feelings.

Why did this excite her? Why did she desire captivity enough to indulge in it? Despite the threats and fear welling up within, more than anything she was excited by this prospect of life. This strange and submissive new direction promised to yield a return to civilization her prior lives had worked hard to reject in their own ways.

Even with the role of an adventurer so fresh in mind she could not help but find comfort in the passivity of it all. The worker's hands were far from gentle, but this constant guiding presence felt so much more promising than the uniquely heated rejections from before.

This was a society that wanted her. Sure, it wanted her to act a certain way, and even what it demanded of her was a mystery at present, but the demand itself offered a value she had not quite enjoyed. It was reminiscent of when people loved her heroics, but more commanding and controlling in a way she found oddly appealing.

So when the ropes took their hold and anchored her to this new life she found herself treating them like a hammock. This proved to be quite literal, as the ropes and trusses were connected to a number of lesser gryphons, and she was led limply through the sky at the flap of their wings.

She tugged experimentally at the ropes, wondering for a time if she might cut herself free and set about flying before colliding with the ground. Regardless of what might happen she imagined she could be set free, it was more a matter of the comfort said freedom might bring.

She had lived a life of freedom though. The innate freedom of the recluse so squirreled away from society. What good had that degree of freedom done for her? It had made her sick of it. Eager in fact to renounce it at the tug of a rope in the hands of another.

Obedience would be her freedom. Would be the mark by which she measured this life. Clouds now rest under her rump as she was carried all the way up to the Sky Folk fortress-city. It was a marvel how stable it felt as she was slumped onto the landing pad all roped up.

She let out a sigh. Was she really doing this? Was she really letting herself be recruited into some army? She glanced around at all the drakes and dames landing about. Their eye guards and costumes, all the pomp and prim, caused her to tilt her head to one side.

In a flash she could picture herself trussed up in all the riding gear. Made to trot or fly at command. She had stubbier legs than much of the other gryphons, her body longer and sharper. Easily mountable, even in all the costuming. She glanced around, trying not to think about the fact that her imagination had taken such a licentious turn.

The sun was setting over the far away hilltops, as it was these hilltops that had become the horizon for her. This city floated higher than she had flown herself all but a few times, what an obscene feat of engineering this place was. All to the ends of trade and raid.

A peculiar guilt welled up within her. How much would she end up helping this place? Would she get plastered up as some kind of mascot? An oddity brought forth as a brand to the conquest? The notion was as thrilling as it was harrowing, and lended to the still tied up gryphon a haughtiness that permitted her to hide her arousal.

She was a creature. More importantly, she was a creature that could not die. So she elected then and there to be driven by instincts, and as she was tied up, her instinctual response was to lie there and be inspected upon.

Various Gryphonometric Specialists were brought out to examine her. The attention of each and every one functioned like a salve for all the rejection she had received in prior lives. This was a life where not only did these serpent Sky Folk desire her, they desired to understand her.

The inspections continued, though eventually she was de-roped. The loose strands of one day recycled cables hung off her feathered hind like some manner of shredded dress. She sauntered around and shook her beak at them all with playful menace.

The Sky Folk were a friendlier manner of folk than their continence seemed to portend. While she expected more ropes and perhaps even spurs, what she got instead was an offer of a treat. All her play marching and rope swaying did little more than provoke confused laughter and barely comprehensible jokes amongst themselves. More laughter followed.

Soon she felt a certain shame for her mocking marching. Was she giving too much away by parodying how they wanted their birds to behave? Had she caught on just a touch too quick that they might suspect more than animal need laid waiting to pounce from behind these fierce orange fire eyes?

If they did suspect her, she could not tell, as one of the trainers offered up a salted snack. A bulging Sky Grub that took all attention off her performative obedience and transformed it into more active and authentic obedience. Her tail snaked this way and that as she eyed the offered grub, feeling a hunger she had not felt before.

These were the perfect snack, they rolled down her throat so easily. It was better than free protein, it was protein granted to her by the world simply through the act of being herself. Embracing her instincts had gotten her to abstract out the need to feed herself, and had placed that burden squarely upon the shoulders of the willing skyfolk.

She took a great liking to this arrangement, curling up and rubbing against the one who had offered the treat. He looked at her in a way most curious, and soon the rest of the Sky Folk surrounding him seemed to shove at him playfully. Apparently she had been bequeathed to him.

***

Salgeth had grown up in a fairly poor household. Far before he found himself living amongst the Sky Folk he bobbed along in a commodified shanty town. This was quite like a regular shanty town, only instead of finding spare metal and creating one's own shelter with it this scrap metal housing was produced by someone else who Salgeth's family owed money to.

So it was much the same, but both better and worse in complex ways that were hard to describe. Slageth was precocious, but at the same time deeply loathed his lot in life. He despised his reptilian continence. As long as he could recall the deep green of his scales filled him with a mixture of confusion and disgust.

As long as he could recall he was always taken with the natural beauty of gryphons. They were beyond perfect to his thinking. Feathered perfection in living form, made by nature to tame the skies and make it their own. He was most grateful that his father earned a position on the Sky Folk with the Sky Folk. Salgeth had already failed to seduce and marry another serpent on the ground in their small hunter-gatherer town. Slageth hoped to find a mate here amongst the clouds.

Only, now he was beginning to suspect he might never find a mate of his kind. Nor did he truly want to. He could still recall his dislike of scales. His love of feathers. The way this peculiar gryphon brushed against him... it was the most another had ever touched him like this. There was a sensuousness to it he could not shake.

So his tail straightened out and his stance grew borderline catatonic and the fiery orange gryphon looked up at him with a tilted eye that drove him towards maddening ideas and his first instinct was to run. Of course the gryphon, in all her willingness, ran after him.

The cheers of all the other Sky Folk on the landing pad spurred the two of them on into the stables. She thought he was simply showing her the new home she would take. As she made her way into stables however she found him huddled into a corner clutching at his own head.

With her own feathered head atilt she approached full of caution. He did not seem as though he might strike her, but his discomfort and scaly form lend credence to the imagined vision of a snake ready to pounce and strike. Could the Sky Folk even bite in the way snakes could? She wondered for a moment before proceeding.

With her beak pressed forward she rested it upon his shoulder, trying to impart some sense of communal comfort that the singular creature in front of her might feel. It seemed to work, as, after a brief flinch at her touch, his position loosened up, his tail uncoiled and came to rest upon the ground, and he no longer stooped so deeply into the corner.

"You're smart, aren't you, creature?" asked Salgeth.

She nodded slightly in the affirmative. Something about this particular creature interested her greatly. Something about this creature demanded a kind of attention. She was not sure how or why, but she felt as though she had stumbled into the right place.

"I... I promise I will offer to you only the finest Drakes of our flock, you will be pampered, you will be pleasured, and you will be well fed," spoke Salgeth.

His words had a reverential quality to them, and she felt awkwardly honored by his flirty fawning. It was difficult to keep eye contact with him, as his fierce reptilian eyes watched her face constantly. There was something so strange about this creature standing before her.

It was so much the opposite of the townsfolk who had torched her. These were the fearsome eyes of someone she had little to no doubt might kill for her rather than kill her. It was a lot to take in, and she desperately desired to express some manner of thanks.

The mixture of emotions was running high. How many years had it been since she had been spoken to personally? Her hermit life had been defined by solitude, and what few interactions she did get involved with were short and rather avoidant when it came to eye contact. This interaction with a seemingly random reptile seemed positively intimate by comparison. So she found herself pressing forward.

She was not the only one starved for contact of course. Salgeth himself had never known the touch of another, so when the gryphon slipped forward for what appeared to be a nuzzle he could not have possibly been prepared for what was to follow. A kiss. His first ever.

It was likewise her first in decades, she knew not why she pressed for it, but once it had begun happening there was little to contain it. Their tongues rolled upon each other, collective years of repression spelling out a strangely mutual desire for one another.

Salgeth hissed at himself in disgust, but the gryphon slipped back in fear that his self loathing was intended for her. His eyes widened, the last thing he wanted was to make her feel afraid. To feel bad. He felt plenty bad already, there was no need for anyone or anything else in this world to feel the way he felt.

"No no, I am sorry," spoke Salgeth.

With a brow raised the gryphon regarded her snakey captive with a mixture of curiosity and doubt, what was it this creature was after? Did he yearn with all his heart to be absolved of the perceived sin of enjoying a gryphon's kiss? How deeply was such activity frowned upon by the Sky-Folk among them? The gryphon wondered.

Nothing came of the kiss at first but a bashful blush from both parties. It was nothing. A non thing. Easily ignored insomuch as the rest of their lives were concerned. She was a gryphon. He was a simple Sky-Folk. Nothing more was to be done between them.

Not like that anyway. In the realm of romance and intimacy there was to simply be the hands length distancing of master and pet. A creature trained in the art of transit. The great ship that was the city rolled across winded waves of clouds below. Salgeth paced the room. A kiss. A kiss! Such energy to a kiss. What could they really do?

He hissed once more at himself, desire reddening his cheeks so as to spark a chuckle from the bird. This only further confused him. Another kiss was offered now by the gryphon, she desired the closeness he provided. She did not know how taboo it was to be this intimate with her handler.

Handler he did, reaching out and brushing the feathers, touching the neck in a way that made her feathers poof up all fluffy. She huffed in his face, a curious mixture of excitement spurred them both on. She all but marched over him, kissing down against him as she continued to experiment with what would become of her life in this place.

"No... no this can't happen..." he murmured through the kisses and cuddles.

Her feathers felt good on his scales in a way that nothing had felt in his life. It felt like fire licking at his very soul. Nibbling at his claw now it was all he could do to not kiss back again and again. Arousal had claimed the both of them through such intimate proximity.

There were many more "I shouldn't do this"es leading him all the way to her backside. She nudged him on all the while, amused at the turn the perverse owner had started taking this. She tensed her claws, knowing if she did found the situation undesirable she could muster up quite the defense.

It had been lifetimes since she had been touched there, especially with such affection. She knew if she raised her brilliant fiery tail towards the surrounding males in the stable they would claim her just as if she were an animal. But this lizard was different. A horny little pitiful thing she found entertaining to indulge.

Such a willingness to go all the way. His twin erections had made themselves known to her as she pressed a talon to his pants and tugged at them. He hissed so pitifully, as much a slave to here as he was to his own pleasure drive. Clutching his hands over his eyes he balled up into a corner, trying and failing to banish those lewd lizard thoughts.

She rolled her eyes, clutching at one of his hands and making eye contact once more. All the kisses had been meaningful, but this one perhaps most of all. It banished the last of his little defenses, and as his tongue was drawn into her beak he no longer found himself trying to hide the erections from the gryphon he had come so swiftly to admire.

"I really shouldn't do this," he stammered.

The gryphon shrugged with her wings. She was certainly not keen to force the poor fellow, but it was clear by his body's twin-shafted reactions that he was in the mood for making love. She could feel her body reacting accordingly, as much to the sight of his arousal as it was to the scent of males all around her.

"They're going to breed you... you know that... They're going to try and make more of whatever kind of gryphon you are, and they'll tie you up and force it to happen if you don't play along."

Between her lack of intimacy over the lifetimes that had preceded this, and her own curiosity with regards to her body, she found herself not minding the prospect very much at all. After all, she half expected to be a sort of war-gryphon, charging into battle with all the others. Instead she would merely replenish her stock.

Then a rather anxious thought occurred to her. Would she really hand over so willingly all the progeny of a lifetime to these people whom she had so little knowledge of. Were these sky lizards worthy of such a lifelong boon? All at once she set herself upon escape, regret, having meandered into this fate out of boredom, suddenly she yearned for freedom.

She knew this lizard could give it to her. He was so touch starved and lacking in intimacy that he was willing to stake his claim upon a gryphon. So around the back of her he went, the gryphon turning to watch him. Reading her glance as approval he pushed himself up beneath her tail.

A soft little whimper escaped his scaly maw, what a sorry sort of inexperienced lover he turned out to be. She raised her tail in pity. His twin shafts pressed up against either side of her pussy, reptilian pre dotting her feathery rump. She leaned her head forward, a few quick nods towards the front, further encouragement.

The poor lizard could hardly handle it, his growly hisses rising in pitch and frequency as he pulled back for a proper jabbing. His left cocktip struck true, parting her body for the first time. He was far from as large as the gryphon, but a great first test of what she had down there.

His clawed hands reached out to touch and tangle up with her. His scaly tail intertwined for a time with her own. His hissing grew fiercer now as his right cock was pressed firm against her feathery hide. As deep inside as he could go his cock burrowed, slit soon kissing at slit.

"Good girl..." he growled, using a hold upon her wings as leverage for his thrusts.

Confidence had swelled into him just as he swelled inside her, a flame so near extinguishing that fanning it all but obliterated him. His touch starved and needy ways quickly began to metastasize. She would be his, and his forever. Inside and out he ground against her now.

For her own part she enjoyed his touch at this time, reveling in the erotic tension's release. While not as packing as a gryphon perhaps, the scaly lady was nothing to wag a tail at. She found herself appreciating her body in an intimate way that she simply had neglected all those years. Her escape plans were firmly on hold as she pressed her hindquarters more firmly against his groin.

"Good good girl..." he hissed, tugging at her more firmly with one hand while his other reached down and gently around his other phallus.

Soon enough he was leveling its point at her, withdrawing near to the hilt with one cock so that he might intrude upon her with two. That really got the gryphon to squeal. It was a noise he was familiar with, the one all the females would make when they were being bred.

"Eager creature..." he said to her through a grin.

Buried inside with both hilts now his thrusts became a bit more unseemly and erratic, extolling upon her and within her a pitiful sort of wanton lust. It was all so flash in the pan. She turned towards him and offered up some approximation of a what she thought would be an overwhelmed face.

To him it was as though his lust was greater than all the Drake's of the ship, and he felt emboldened to finish. Suddenly and quite quickly he bit back a loathsome and nasal hiss as he slipped out of her. His cocks briefly connected by a strand of cum as he struggled to find his footing at her hind.

He slipped half a cock in, enough to give her a little more satisfaction before he finished tuckering himself out inside her. A little bit of cum still dripped now from both cockheads, beading on the back of her right leg and gently dripping from her pussy above and to the left.

Still she kept her tail held tall. In an instance she knew she could be treated like a Queen in this place. As he muttered and sputtered his apologies for not really carefully establishing the boundaries between a Sky Folk and whatever precisely a Pheonix-Gryphon even was.

Gryonix is what they settled on in the days that followed. At least she was pretty sure what that said upon the collared halter. It might well have just been her name, she paid little attention to it. She had thoroughly checked out of herself for a time.

Here in this state she persisted for some months; her so-called master waiting on her claw and foot. One a week or two he would fuck her. And once a week or two she would make it seem like he was worthy of her. It tickled his very soul in a way nothing before ever had.

Their perverse romance even got to the point where he read with her every night. They cultivated a bit of a code, and he would borrow books from the Sky Folk communal book exchange on all manner of transformative magics. He would come to know so much about her over those months.

Eventually she even allowed herself to be ridden into battle, albeit as the general's steed. Something about having a Phoenix-Gryphon on the battlefields of the sky struck enough of a cord that the Sky-Folk's already steady supply of victories garnered a noticeable bump of 5.5%, which produced a fiscal boom just too large to last.

You see, believe it or not, cities floating in the sky are thoroughly difficult to maintain. In fact it's nearly impossible to fully fix something while running it at full speed, which is exactly the sort of speed you need your equipment to be running at in order to maintain altitude.

A powerful storm rolled in. She heard the alarm late in the night. It was barely audible above the heavy drops of partly shorn raincloud bleeding so heavily upon her stable. She had slept together with Selgeth, who stirred slightly. WHen the alarm picked up his eyes went wide.

In a flash they got to work, the two of them rescuing a dozen souls and some change. The phoenix-gryphon looked out upon the wreck of what was and wondered for a time what could have been. She looked to Selgeth, who was getting a rather heroic treatment.

He shot her a nod, whatever it was they had, whatever it was that was building up between the two of them, it could be cut clean here at this moment. This moment of change. Up she went, watching down below as the wreckage of the Sky Folk city smoldered on, abandoned.

For being as catastrophic a circumstance as it was, many more than she would have thought managed to survive. The city would be grounded, built back up, both taller and shorter than it had ever been in the past. A hub of trade the world over. A shining beacon of a city. A city soon dubbed Pheoni.

Off she went, feathers slick with the rain and soot of something else besides her burning for a change. She did not at first fly with a direction in mind, but upon spying a mountain range of some familiarity she found herself returning to what may well have passed for home.

The place where she was routinely resurrected. Where she was fully changed. She sat there on another cliffside, watching over the place where she had come from so many times in the past. She let loose a huff. The place that had stolen both her name and humanity.

Some part of her felt at fault for all of this. The many years of life she had now lead as an outsider and an animal. Despite of course having no tangible knowledge as to whether or not it was. A pit trap is a pit trap. It is not picky, but pointy. Coming back as this phoenix gryphon thing though, why did it happen to her?

Perhaps she could investigate more thoroughly, map the rest of the vast dungeon circling like such deep roots beneath the mountain. If she got to the bottom of it, then what? This body, as strange as it might have been, felt more natural to her now than her old body had.

Flying and pouncing came naturally to her, and the sweetness of fresh fish was far grander than any meal she could recall once savoring as a mortal. To say nothing of her immortality, which was a gift many across the world would and perhaps had killed for in the past.

For her it was foisted upon, but with a fiery feathered caveat in the form of a dwindling humanity. She thought for a moment that, perhaps the best thing to do would not be to know the magicks of this dungeon intimately to undo what was done, but rather to ensure it would last forever.

It almost felt slightly selfish, but who was she to deny the gift of the deep dark beneath? Perhaps it would be rude to permit the decay of such magicks, and that it would be greater for the world to count among it one more immortal being.

She looked back briefly over the hills. Over to the place she had considered home for some years. And recounted briefly the good times she had managed to have in almost every cycle since the start of this. She closed her eyes, and with a beat of her wing was aloft.

Landing as artfully as ever the phoenix-gryphon broached the doorway to the dungeon. For the first time in nearly a century now she stepped into rather than out of it. It was still a great and dusty thing, it's auspicious age seemingly not changing at all throughout her brief times gracing her halls.

That it looked just as ancient as when she began her transformation gave her some amount of pause. A century plus of living was one thing, but how would she feel in another hundred lifetimes? Another thousand? There before the creature lay what felt like eternity.

There within the darkness, eternity stared back at her. Great and unyielding yellow eyes marked high near to the ceiling of the hall. She blinked, and metaphor seemed to dissolve into sharp toothed reality.

Before her stood a dragon, but only for a moment. In a flash it stooped low and jumped high, a singular beat of its wings enough to close the quarter mile's distance as she could do little more than panic and find herself at her back, threatening claws at the ready. She felt little in the way of fear, for she knew in that moment she could not die even if killed.

Up upon her it pounced, just out of reach of her claws. The dragon's fierce eyes gazed down upon them. A brilliant yellow glare of a look emblazoned all about by an inferno of purple scales. A grin slipped along its scaly lips. A hint of recognition rose up about him.

The gryphon was nervous about this. Though her immortality had born her through many a dismal fate she had never before attracted the ire of a dragon. What's more, this was a dragon who seemed to place its layer not far at all from where she would resurrect should the encounter prove fatal.

"You look so nervous, small," came the dragon's naturally growly tone.

The gryphon wanted badly to speak, but the only noise she could muster was an indignant squark. She was all trussed up in her reigns from the riding academy. She looked up towards the dragon fearfully. Obedience had been trained into her well this life, and though she had resisted and run from one fate she found herself incapable of moving before the fearsome eyes that fell so heavily upon her.

"Tell me gryphon, through nod or bow, have you been here before?" asked the dragon.

The gryphon stood quiet for a time, and then offered a bow of a nod.

"You wear the qualities of the phoenix quite well, in a past life were there those who referred to you as Ash?"

Eyes wide, the gryphon looked up in surprise. This dragon knew who she was. No doubt knew of her immortality. Such a long lived thing, there would be not escaping him should he prove a wrathful beast. A sudden reverence welled up within her, a deeper bow now of confirmation.

"Such reigns as these, they are well fitted," said the dragon, leaning near to pluck at them.

The light tug of the reins was more than enough to trigger her training. With wings down and tail up she marched two quick steps before awkwardly coming to a halt. A sudden desire for a treat made all the more foolish in the presence of such a proud creature.

"So easily lead around too. They must've trained you well," remarked the dragon as he leaned in close.

Even as a phoenix his breath burned like the sun. A peculiar comfort for so anxious a situation. She watched as the dragon trailed around her, examining all the decorations the Sky Folk had adorned her with for the parade. The dragon took particular interest in the leg band for a time, remarking on the coloration.

"If I recall correctly this band is the mark of a good breeder. I'm curious how many partners you've had. You certainly raised your tail well with little provocation. Tell me, are you with a clutch now?" asked the dragon.

The gryphoness did not have to think long to know for certain. She had fled from them just after her last clutch was taken, and had not yet felt the pleasant sting of another drake before this day. Now she found herself at the mercy of this dragon, almost wishing she were back in the breeding pens. She looked up, and shook her head no. To the number; she hesitated attempting to pantomime an answer.

"So many males it seems, your feathers hardly look mussed. Have you gotten adept at preening yourself, or have others offered you that attention as well?" asked the dragon as his claws ran about her haunches.

She moved to answer, but found herself flipped; rolled belly up before the big beast. It was a vulnerable position, but she found herself oddly at ease. This was a dragon in an oddly playful mood, and some part of her was beginning to enjoy this scenario. Especially when the dragon started rubbing along her belly, almost as if massaging the line between phoenix feather and fur just below her midsection.

"Puffy thing," teased the dragon, "Reminds me of the time I first saw what this place had reforged you as. All puffy round the neck. Now puffy all over."

As the serpent said this he leaned forward, sharp teeth leaning forward to nip sharply at the reins. They chewed carefully, and the sky-cow leather of her reigns and riding harness were removed with an almost surgical precision by those many sharp teeth. The dragon smiled, and the gryphon looked up in recognition.

The sorceress had found her own method of immortality. One that was not foisted upon her by the random trap of a dungeon, but embraced willingly. The rich bronze of the dragon's scales shined so very bright. It was hard to imagine this was the friend she once knew.

"It's the eyes that most often give it away. They're the same shade they were even back then, when my draconic blood had just awoken."

The gryphon nodded. Through some fluke of magic and luck the sorceress must have made herself... er... himself into a proud and noble dragon. What's more, is that he decided to make this dungeon of her resurrection a home. This invariably would of ensured their contact in the future, but instead the gryphon found herself arriving before the dragon in a state most embarrassing.

Reigns and riding harnesses decorated the ground as she breathed her first fully naked breath in weeks. The dragon-sorcerer seemed to read her mind, as he set about scratching comfortably along the portions of her where the reigns once clung.

A great and billowing huff escaped the gryphon then. Some small portion of her puffiness drained with her lungs as she relaxed. She was in the hands of a friend. An altered and amorous friend, but a friend nonetheless. She looked up at the dragon scratching so comfortably along her body, and gestured down for him to regard her newly splayed legs.

The dragon stirred at this. Those familiar emerald eyes seemed to glow intensely. A growl billowed up from his throat. Clear expressions of interest were being offered back and forth. How long had they known each other now? How many decades or centuries had gone by.

Paying no heed to the time that had passed the gryphon's own body found itself desiring this dragon. He smelled of many spices she recalled admiring with her human tongue, and desperately she wanted to draw near. Perhaps if only to thank him for releasing her of her reigns, but just as well to get nearer in general.

Beak to snout now. The pretense of the dragon's desires dwindled all the more as his cock stirred. It was a proud and knotted thing, a good size larger than the drakes from before, much like the rest of him. Her body seized up in an aroused anticipation.

"Eager little thing, I take it your time alone with all those drakes made you a more carnal creature than you once were," spoke the dragon.

The gryphon could merely nod. Clutching meekly around one of his scaled arms, her own talons mixing meekly with his own as she gestured down below with pointed jabs of her beak. She wanted him fully aware of her growing interest. All the fear and trembling before, how quickly it had morphed into desire. Into need.

With the drakes from before it had always been so impersonal. Loaded into a pen and tied up nice and tight. Breeding. In her time with the Sky Folk she had come to enjoy the sensations the drakes provided. It became the one recourse from all the regimented behavior she had to do.

Now though it was different. A dragon loomed above her. A friend and would be lover. Her body seized up in anticipation as his lengthy tongue worked to ruffle feathers along her chest. She could do little more than squirm in his hold, and though she did not doubt she could roll from his grip and flee if she wished; the gryphon yearned very much to remain pinned beneath the beast.

"These draconic instincts, quite something. Your trespass upon my lair... It produces designs upon you, Ash," spoke the dragon.

The gryphon, pinned as she was by tongue and claw, could merely look upon the larger beast and nod in an understanding manner. A tightness between her legs from his presence alone was proof enough she needed. She had learned well through the years of captivity and breeding the peculiar desires so innate to the body she had been given.

"Ownership. I desire you as treasure. Another little prize easily won. I will it to be. To see you jewelled, dripping. Coated in all manner of gold and lust... Tell me in the way that you can gryphon, as you exude such submissive pheromones, do you desire my command?"

The gryphon offered a nod.

"Good girl," intoned the dragon.

Leaning in her spread her already parted legs all the wider to accommodate. Another lick, this time. Two wet things pressed against her. One the tongue. One something else. Such a powerful scaly thing. She was at his mercy and would not have it any other way.

Her tail dipped forward, encircling the base of his shaft and giving it a playful pull. The dragon approved, grunting out a spurt of precum that trailed between two sets of her teats onto the way to the dungeon floor. She decided to give herself to him completely then.

"Are you ready to present?" asked the Dragon, cock still being tickled by tail.

The gryphon could nod again, but could not quite get up. A dragon was laying and rutting atop her. This posed a challenge when it came to turning over, though such a feat became easier as he withdrew his great scaly weight. Oh but how she yearned to feel it atop her again.

"Turn, and raise your tail," spoke the dragon, giving her hind a playful scratch.

His talons scooted her up, and she quickly turned over. Her own talons and paws straddled the ground now. Widely distributed she splayed her hindpaws nice and wide for optimal weight distribution. Awkwardly her talons trailed close together, sharp claws fidgeting one over the other was she worked on the nerve to raise her tail.

With tongue the dragon assisted. His powerful muzzle pressing forward to gryphon hind and pressing tail up just as forcefully as his tongue now parted her. Just like that, with tongue alone, she felt herself being fucked more thoroughly than any gryphon.

A belly full of eggs was the goal with them. They were more than content to slip atop her back and spill themselves swift, often leaving her lewdly begging for more. It would take at least five drakes to finally satiate her lusts. Now a forked tongue alone was easily doing the world of two such males, splaying her pussy wide as his snout rested well in the curve of her rump.

"I am going to take you as mine," continued the dragon, tongue withdrawn.

Cock swiftly took its place. Just the tip was as long as the males before. She choked out a cry as his teeth found their way at the nape of her neck. A sharp jab. Twice as much inside now. Oh how she squawked and squalled. Noises which did nothing but encourage him deeper.

What was it about the innate magic of dragons that made the creatures they claimed so accommodating? This was a question that could wait to be answered later. The satisfaction of a good three quarters of his cock jabbing inside her was enough to distract from any curiosity.

"Mine mine mine..." growled the dragon now, pressing her front more firmly into the ground.

He rutted her with purpose. Drive. Centuries of pent up need dripped from the end of him into her. She would prove as a more than suitable substitute for a dragoness. A little gryphoness fuck toy he could keep chained and preened and dripping.

She brought out the best and worst in him. Ennobled in a most totalizing and tantalizing way. Incomprehensibly filling, the dragon lurched forward with a grunt. All in. Paws off the ground. He took great pleasure from the way her paws dangled off the ground on account of his forceful insertion. Her body felt as good as he had suspected.

"Such a warm little thing," hissed the dragon as he gripped her so tightly.

Hindpaws dangling just above the ground she could do nothing more than tighten herself up and squawk lewdly. It was a familiar mating cry to her by now. A loud whistling declaration of her submission. As best she could she offered up her neck for his toothy kisses.

Happily the dragon obliged, sharp teeth intermingling with neck feathers as her wings offered up a feeble little flap of appreciation. Such a hefty dragon above. The lift generated offered little more than a playful tug on the dagon's cock as he growled.

It was a throaty thing, that growl. Deep and overflowing with a bass that seemed to shake its way through all of her, vibrating all the way to her clamped his ignoble end resting so heavily inside. So swiftly he had made of her a fuckable little thing. How eager she was now to count herself among his hoard. To be treasured and loved.

His own bronze wings now beat to the tune of his thrusts, helping to lurch himself forward with yet more force as he drove inside. It was now she was introduced to the last and staying part of him. She already felt so full, but now the round of his knot rested heavy at her back.

She wanted it quite badly, feeling pent up gryphoness desires finally able to blossom without the shame of the crop and harnesses from before. This was a male she had given herself to entirely. A male that had in turn taken her entirely and then some.

Her body proved accommodating, and with a growl and a bite he drove all of himself within her now. It was all she could do to hold herself straight, balancing there on her front talons alone as the dragon drove in, popping the bulk of his knot within.

His slit kissed lewdly to her parted pussy. The drakes from before had splayed her not even half as much as this dragon now did. Squawking cries and flaps of wings, all joyful little celebrations of her new station beneath him. Her new and true mate.

Before, her body had desired eggs. It was an innately biological and grunting need that left her raising her tail for other birds. Now even her soul rang out in accord with this desire. She wished badly that a dragon's seed might contain within enough magic to sire a proper and partly feathered clutch. What kind of life could she live with this creature? As this creature's prized property...

"Mine."

A click. Chain dangling down. A gold clasp rests where his bite once lay. She craned her neck to get a view, a glowing emerald hung off her now. Looking beneath herself as she was, it proved a most fruitful glance, allowing her to gawk at the way her hindlegs dangled just above the floor, powerful dragon thighs pressed tight to either side.

[Yours.]

The thought she had in mind seemed to echo more loudly in her hormone flooded head. How willingly she gave herself to him. Joy of joys to be desired by such a creature. To feel his power build up and lock itself away so deep inside her body. She could feel his cock twitch.

Their first union had him pouring deep within her. Such a warmth spilling out, rolling out as the cock twitched inside with every spurt and sputter. Such a delectable abundance of cum now pooled within her belly as the dragon above growled and growled.

It was a low trill of a growl. Welling up on the back of the throat pouring into her body as abundantly as his seed. He seemed to growl over each spurt of cum, building up his vibrato as each spurt spilled forth. Such an abundance, even past the knot the fur and feathers of her hinds became rank with his excess.

They breathed their haggard breaths, fuckspent and tired. Soon the erratic thrusting of growly release gave way to the more subtle jabs of his dripping tip. For a moment, the gryphoness found her hindpaws once more resting on the floor. He rolled them both over though, carrying her on his cock and resting her well against the curve of his belly.

Oh the way his clawed hands unfurled and massaged her concealed teats across chest and belly. Each time he found one he would soon mark it well with his tongue, sending sensitive little tingly sensations through her body even as the orgasm still rolled on throughout.

"Mine," repeated the dragon.

[Yours... yours...] she affirmed, emerald all aglow.

"Good girl," complimented the dragon.

It was a compliment that chased her further into his hold, she sprawled her body out in a tacit invitation to tease and touch. Just the notion that someone else could understand her, even through the mental link of the necklace collar, was enough to make her fall in love.

The sex had certainly helped. The satisfying scent of draconic cum bubbling up from her stuffed full form was enough to entice the fully gryphoness half of her. She played at flapping her wings upside down, massaging the creature beneath her as he situated and resituated.

They had such awkward and complicated bodies, and knotted inside of her as he was there was a certain amount of waiting that had to be done. Deep inside that cock of his continued to drip seed inside of her. The dragon's restful growls shook her to her core.

A squark. A little cry, thank you. She felt so welcome in his hold. A piece of his property. A treasure to be prized. She felt his desire for her nestled so deep inside, and it was a most thorough and welcome addition to her body as well as her life.

"You are immortal, I can feel the magic seeping through you, the completion of the spell. Your only chance to break it lay before you lost the last of your humanity. Even on the inside you're a gryphon now, you took too much enjoyment of rein and riding crop to return," spoke the dragon.

He encircled her neck with his claws, and tugged gently at the emerald as he spoke. It was the emerald that had given him this knowledge of her. So much more of her had been made available to him than she realized. Reading her mind through like a book, exploring the years of memories she had built up, he continued to tease her.

"Even now, with you knowing I can read your mind, you jumble up your thoughts. You take your linguistic understanding of your past and claw and bite and gnash. How sick you were of the human tongue you were taught so long ago, preferring the growls and scents of beasts," spoke the dragon.

It resonated a great deal, striking at the core of how much she had come to love her inability to communicate in the ways she once relied. Even the thought of speaking to the dragon had become a sort of burden. An act of willful and wordy thinking to be done in a manner so similar to speech.

"You reject words even internally. A creature of symbolism and sensation. Of urges nice and true. Total desires, and nothing more. You have made yourself a creature of profane pleasures. I can scarcely imagine how low you wish to stoop. How utterly you wish to surrender yourself to another. Perhaps even to the world," spoke the dragon.

The gryphon pushed back, clawing feebly at the dragon's scutes. It was the mere image of resistance. A false savagery. His verbal jabs were as welcome inside her mind as the dragon's cock had been earlier. She wanted this treatment. This new position in life.

"Years of living with the Sky Folk did well to train you, but even before you were departing from your old life. You were rejecting humanity more thoroughly than the spell which remade you had. Poor little Ash, so scorched by the flames. I can understand the appeal, but dear, to take it so far? This almost feels a natural urge, a baser instinct unleashed and now trussed up so prettily," spoke the dragon.

Such a grip he had on her mind and body. She pulled herself in close, wings flapping feebly against the cold stone of the dungeon as he rested himself down atop her. Unsure of when the whole routine morphed from sex to a particularly incisive therapy session, she settled in for the ride. He wanted to have more than just her body. He wanted to have her mind. She was happy to offer it.

"I think I shall sleep upon you now. Such a cuddly soft thing. It has been some time since I have so savored the flesh of others."

And so the dragon did, and slept indeed quite suddenly. It rested upon her and offered up great billowing huffs. Snoring as loudly as it did, she had trouble sleeping as well. As the intense sensation of mutual satisfaction dripped free from her form, she found herself an urge to pry free.

How quickly and cutely he was to fall asleep after such a time, oh, but what a good time it was. She pressed forward to her new dragon lover, gently placing her beak against his brow and closing her eyes nice and tight. She thought over the years she had spent alone, and the months she had spent with that particular Sky Folk.

This felt better for certain. Someway more true to her life. Was she, like he, not now just the sort of beast to guard a dungeon such as this one? She wondered now if her life was what lured him here, he simply must have been looking for her, and now she was found.

The dungeon had its way. Two guardians, one in love with the other, and both immortal or near as such. What power could this place possibly hold that needed such defending? She turned towards the dark of those dimly familiar halls and walked on, her talons guiding her true.

At first she was not sure why she stepped away from her exhausted lover. Well, at least besides the dragon size snoring. Soon though she found herself retracing a few key steps she had taken nearly a century ago at this point. A large pit lay before her.

Glancing inside it she caught a glimpse of a small pile of ash where once her first body lay. She blinked. There was nothing truly of her essence in that pile, there was a deep and abiding sense that this was the case, but nevertheless, the inert soot that was once herself.

She wondered silently how much this could go on for. She found herself hoping at least for the lifetime of a dragon. It felt oddly fitting, that this of all places should be her home of homes.

Laying her beak gently over the edge she watched over her old form, contemplating the choices made over those long and fretful years. If her beak could have contorted into a smile it would have, for despite or perhaps at the cause of those slings and arrows of fate, she had found herself residing in a life most assuredly worth living...

To be continued, ad infinitum.