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The Fox and the Dragon

by _SeHT

TWO

"Carrying on is hard to do"

I AWOKE THE NEXT MORNING with cramp in one of my forelegs, and a feeling as if the tip of my tail had been surgically excised. After a brief moment of panic, I then felt the weight of the fox against my body, and I smiled; his weight had cut of part of my blood flow to these extremities. I shifted my weight a little, trying to restore sensation to the numb spots, but only succeeded in causing more pain as blood flowed back into semi collapsed veins.

I smiled at the fox as I watched him sleeping... how his whiskers twitched involuntarily; his hind paws would flick as if he were running; his eyelids would blink just a little as his dream scene shifted... I ran a loving paw down his furry back and was rewarded with a sigh of love as he changed position, not waking, nuzzling closer against my cool scales.

The fire had burned low, so I breathed new life into it and moved so that I could trap its heat and so warm the fox. I wrapped my foreleg back around him and purred, my eyes slowly closing, now I was once again certain that my love was well and comfortable.

***

I MUST HAVE SLEPT FOR SOME HOURS, for when I next opened my eyes, the sun was high in the sky, its golden rays shafting through the gaps in the foliage, sending shifting arabesques of light dancing across the floor as the wind moved the branches of the trees. Somewhat groggily, I raised my head, looking for the fox. I could not see him, and I allowed my head to slump back to the ground. I heaved a deep sigh.

"Why so miserable, sleepyhead?" came a cheerful voice from behind the trees on the other side of the glade. I looked up, and there he stood, chuckling softly as he urinated. "Looking for someone?"

I smiled, getting to my feet and walking over him. As his flow began to cease up, I put my forelegs around him and embraced him, nuzzling my chin into my left shoulder. //Yes,// I said. //You.//

"Me?" he asked in mock disbelief. "Little moi?"

I grinned toothily and shook him a little. //Yes,// I reiterated, //you.//

He turned and began to kiss me, his tongue sliding against the outside of my mouth. I held my lips only a little apart, so that the kiss was not as deep as I knew he could make them... We nuzzled thus for a while and then the subject of breakfast was mentioned.

"I cook a mean pancake," he said as we sat by the fire. It was a cold day - for some reason, the late summer sun was not as warm as on previous occasions, and there was a delicate hint of mist floating between the trees. The birds sang only sporadically, and there was a slight nip to the air. It was the dusk period between summer and autumn, and although the sun was bright, it provided less warmth... so the fire was most welcome.

I chuckled. //I've never eaten a pancake before,// I said. //To be honest, I don't think I could digest it.//

He looked up at me, puzzled. "Whyever not? it's just flour, water and eggs."

I smiled sadly. //I'm not set up the way you are, love. I have practically no liver and a very short gut... I'm a meat eater... and not much of that, either.//

He smiled pleasantly. "Not a problem," he said. "I like my meat." A beat. "Ever had it cooked?"

I laughed uproariously. //No!// I said when I had breath to speak. //You'd think I would have done, by now me being a toast breath, and all!//

He smiled, and produced a couple of raw steaks from a tin box. Pronging them on the end of a sharp stick, he held them over the fire for a while. The air began to fill with the most delicious smell of charred flesh, and my mouth began to fill with saliva. I had to swallow to stop myself from drooling. He grinned. "It looks like you're hungry," he said. "Not much longer."

//Bloody good job, too,// I said with feeling. My stomach had begun to grumble as I thought about food. Mostly I don't think about it, and consequently I don't get as hungry as often. But concentrating on that steak, thinking how much easier it would have been if I had char grilled it personally, smelling that delicious smell that wafted around the glade... boy, was I hungry.

He finally pronounced them done and pulled the meat from the end of the stick. Gingerly he passed me one - they were still hot - and took a bite from his. Mine, I am ashamed to say, vanished in short order. Table manners are one area in which I, as a dragon, am somewhat deficient - the old phrase "smack, gobble, burp" tends to apply. And so I was watching him sit and eat his steak for several minutes, feeling myself digest my meal, feeling its heat slowly cooling in my gut. Finally he was done. The first thing he did was to chuckle.

"Watching you eat is quite an education," he said. "On how not to behave at polite dinner parties."

I growled playfully and pounced him, jumping and gliding over the fire to knock him over backwards and roll on top of him. I breathed in as he breathed out, scenting him and the smell of the cooked meat. I licked his muzzle tenderly, snuggling into his fur. His paw traced along my back, scritching me softly.

"I love you," he whispered. "I love you so very much."

I smiled. //I know, little foxy,// I replied. //And I love you, too.// We kissed again, deeply, gently, purring and myrring as the one's tongue explored the other's mouth. Finally, we broke apart and lay there for a few minutes, just smiling and gazing into each others' eyes.

"What shall we do today?" he asked. I pondered a moment. /Well... there's somewhere I'd like to take you... somewhere very special to me... and I think you'll like it.//

"Sounds good to me," he said, climbing onto my back. I made sure he was comfortable, then began to make my way out of the glade, into the 'real' world. //Lead on, MacDuff,// I said, and he laughed.

***

UH-OH! the ol' caped banana skin rides again! It had happened... I was in love. Truly, deeply, eternally in love with a black and silver fox... and I was happy. Happier than I had been for... a long time.

It was true what the fox had said about finding support and comfort in the strangest places, and in the strangest ways... Well, I honestly don't think that we could have had any more of an unusual meeting none of this cliched "across a crowded room" stuff here. No, this was a genuine Act of the Gods or, if you don't believe in such deities, a genuine miracle.

But fer-ankly, my dear, I don't give a damn. Nope, not even one little one. Because, truth to tell, I don't have any to give. I damned my last damn the day I vapourised eighteen gryphons, several thousand feet above both a rock face, and what was left of my eight eggs.

I was in love. I was so happy, I felt I could fly which is, perhaps, rather a strange thing to say, my being a dragon. But I did fly, my heart soared and dipped and dived, swooping over the trees and playing tag with the fleecy clouds as they blew on the last breaths of the summer breeze. Life was good. Ah yes... life was good.

***

I TOOK THE FOX to the top of the Palace of Dragons. Very few people ever come here, or want to. I mean, perching on a spire tip about the size of a postage stamp, with a heavy gale blowing past you and nothing much in the manner of land below for a few thousand feet is not everybody's idea of a fun time. I, however, found the isolation somewhat restful. From up here, you could watch most of the western part of Furry's major continent, and see people scurrying hither and thither, about their errands. And you could also see people entering the four pools of the Palace and if the wind was from the south, you could sometimes get vague indications of what was going on there, too. I, however, remained quietly aloof.

The fox clung to me as I alighted, wind buffeting his eyes and plastering his pointed ears back against the crown of his skull. I found a place where he could stand secure, mostly out of the wind - a small corner where three roofs intersected to form a niche. There was a small pressure maintenance hatch there, too - presumably so one could get into the guts of this flying pleasure palace - but judging from the rust streaks, nobody had opened it in some time.

He smiled at me, panting, his green eyes slightly closed in the wind, his vulpine features made even more pointed by the efforts of the breeze, and his tongue hung out of the side of his mouth, fluttering like a wind sock. "It's very nice up here," he said, risking a glance over the edge of the roof. "But it's a little higher than I normally go."

I chuckled at that. //Well, for one who nips off to the asteroid field,// I said, //I would have thought a few thousand feet was neither here nor there.//

He had to laugh. "I guess you're right," he said. A pause as he drank in the scents I could not catch, and watched me shift position, wrapped around the spire. "You look like a piece of tinsel on a Saturnalium," he said with a chuckle.

I giggled. //You ain't seen nothing yet,// I said, //just wait until I start to glitter!// With a little effort, I began to ripple my strong abdominal muscles, sending small waves of risen flesh along the length of my body. By concentrating hard and timing the waves carefully, I sent several along my length, from the base of my neck to the tip of my tail. When I opened my eyes again, the fox was on his back, laughing helplessly. "Silly dragon!" he said, rolling back and forth. "Silly, silly dragon!"

I grinned the grin of the slightly insane. //But of course,// I said. //It's in the contract. "Dragon wanted, must be able to give 24 hour service. Insane candidates given first preference."// I shrugged. //See?//

A shake of a furry head and a wave of a paw was my only reply, as the fox held his sides and tried not to bust a gut laughing. I stepped carefully down beside him and took the waving paw in my own and kissed it. He stopped laughing, but his smile remained, albeit changed. It was warmer, less outrageous. I nuzzles him and purred. //I love you,// I said. I must have said it a thousand times... he must be getting tired of it by now...

He shook his head - I had forgotten he was an empath too. "Don't be silly," he whispered, lapping my muzzle, sending tingles down the length of my body which promised delights yet to come. "I love you, too." We kissed there, in the wind, my wings providing a little more seclusion from the buffeting blasts. It was when I held him in my forelegs that I noticed he was shivering.

//You're cold,// I said. //We should go.// He nodded. "I want to take you somewhere now," he said. "But it's down there," he said, indicating the ground with a wave of a paw.

//Not a problem,// I said. I held him tightly. //Hold on - going down!// I said with a giggle, and stepped backwards, turning around to slide down the spire and off into the air. The fox screamed as we plummetted earthwards faster and faster, scrabbling against me as we fell. And then I opened my wings and pulled out of the nose dive, gaining enough speed to loop upwards, over, and down, and come out of the turn decadently flapping my wings, as if I had just gone for an early morning constitutional. I grinned at the fox and looked smug.

Words failed him. "You - you -"

//Dragon?// I suggested with a chuckle, and licked his nose.

"Yes," he spluttered, trying not to laugh and failing. "You dragon!"

//Always was,// I said. //Now, where are we going?//

He hummed a little, and then indicated a strip of beach by the Dragon Sea. "There," he said. "That little cove."

//Your wish is my command," I said, and dove down into the cove, landing with a slight flurry of sand and a scrabbling of fox paws as they made a frenzied dash for solid land. I swear he got down and kissed the beach, because he seemed to spend the next few minutes spitting out sand.

I looked around me. The cove was only a few tens of metres across, but the sand was golden, and the sea calm and gentle. It was evident that the sea did not completely cover the beach at high tide, as there were several sand sculptures well back by the cliff, which rose about a hundred feet above the beach. The occasional sea bird screamed past, and some dove into the water in search of fish.

"This is where I come to relax," he said.

//And just what do you come to me for?// I said, pretending to be hurt.

"I come to you to relax, too," he said. "It's just that I never seem to manage it when you're around."

I chuckled. //Point taken,// I said, looking around. //Well, what do we do now?//

"We lie down and relax," he said.

And we did just that. It turned out that one of the sand sculptures was an angled bed for the fox to lie in, keeping him both at a comfortable angle and also removing the need for him to shift position, since it was contoured to match his body. I lay down beside him on my side, wings stretched out behind me, soaking up the sun's warmth. My tail twitched a little as a crab played with it - not that it could hurt me; my scales are far too tough for that - since it tickled, and I am very sensitive to such attentions.

Eventually the fox turned over onto his side, and - quite accidentally on both our parts, I am sure - our muzzles touched. I breathed his breath, and he breathed mine. We began to kiss softly, tongues meeting midway; forelegs went around the other to pull them closer, and in the midst of it all, the poor sand sculpture came to a premature and rather sad demise. We kissed and cuddled... and then we made love, there on the beach, as the sun slipped down and reddened towards sunset. There was no one around - if there had been, it would not have mattered - and we were together. That was sufficient. Could either of us, truly, have asked for anything more?

***

WE RETURNED TO MY HOME, and cooked a large meal for supper neither of us had eaten since breakfast that morning and we sat around the fire, watching the smoke curl lazily heavenwards in a lazy spiral. We were quiet; after the excitement of the day, the tranquility of the early night was almost blissful. I chewed my meat carefully - I had cooked it myself this time, and hence was not as desperate as I had been earlier - and ripped it apart with my long fore fangs. Several times a thought passed my mind, and I shook my head vehemently without realising it. I whimpered quietly - I thought.

"What's wrong?" I heard him ask.

//Nothing,// I said. //I don't want to talk about it.//

He sighed. "You should know better than to try and get out of explaining yourself with that line where I'm concerned." I chuckled softly, drily. "Now," he reiterated, "what's wrong?"

I looked up. //You want the truth?//

His head ducked back an inch or two in surprise. "Well... yes, of course I want the truth."

I paused, tearing at my meat and chewing it, swallowing past a lump that had suddenly appeared in my throat, suddenly aware of tears running down my muzzle. The fox had noticed them, too, and in one swift movement he crouched, walked around the fire and put his hands on my foreleg. "What is it, love?"

I took a deep breath. //Oh foxy,// I whispered. //I love you so...//

I smiled at his next words. "Oh, is that all?" He nuzzled my arm with his chin. "And I love you, too."

I shook my head. //Will you be my mate, love?//

His jaw dropped and bounced lightly off of my foreleg. He gagged a little. "Wh what?"

I couldn't resist. //What, deaf suddenly?// I smiled. //Will you be my mate, love?//

He looked down. "I I don't know what to say," he said.

//You could say, 'Yes',// I suggested.

He smiled a little. He sat down. "Dwaggin," he whispered. "Oh, dwaggin..." He was struggling with something.

//You don't, do you?// I said, trying to stop my heart from plummeting.

"If I could, I would," he said. Before I could say anything, he clamped his hand on my muzzle and continued. "If I could, I would... But when I become your mate, I don't ever want to leave you. Right now, I'm this far -" he held his thumb and forefinger an infinitessimal distance apart "- from saying 'Yes". It's just... I can't stay here all the time at the moment... I have to go back into space. I promised..."

I nodded, and he released my muzzle. //I understand,// I said, trying to keep my voice level.

He bapped my nose and I winced. "Don't 'I understand' me," he growled. It was the first time I had seen him this angry. "I love you, you stupid great hulk! if you knew how much I love you, or even believed I did, you wouldn't talk that way!"

I growled, and then subsided. He was right. //Love...// I whispered. //I'm frightened.// I gulped softly.

Now he looked gently sad. //Why, love?// he whispered.

//I don't want to lose you,// I said. This time, before he could speak, I continued: //I lost _raIa... I can see her even now, the day we were bonded...// My tears began to flow again; I couldn't stop them. //She loved me so very much... I swore to protect her, and I let her down... She died because of me!// I was shaking with emotion, gripping the fox's paws perhaps more tightly than I should have done. //And I lost her... I just don't want to lose you! Gods, foxy! sweet foxy! If you only knew how much I love you... I've never loved anyone as much, except for her... Oh sweet fox...//

He held me close while I cried. More and more I felt like the small eggling in the safety of its parents' paws. "Hush," he whispered, stroking the bony crest on the back of my head. "Hush," he repeated. When my sobs had stilled, he took my muzzle in both paws and looked me straight in the eyes. I was held captive by those beautiful green orbs... just like I had been the very first day I met him. "If you think you're going to lose me, I'm leaving now," he said. "Nothing and nobody is going to come between us once I'm back for good. Nothing - and nobody."

I pulled him close, and purred softly, my throat still thick from my tears. //When do you have to leave?// I asked, not really wanting to know.

"Tomorrow," he whispered, and I felt him move closer into my embrace.

I moved my head to brush against his, and lapped softly at his ears, flickering the forked tip of my tongue over the tufted tips of his furry organs. He myrrred, shifting in my arms at the pleasure, rubbing down my back, and over my wings. I smiled softly and gently, scritching his chest with my talons. A soft myrr escaped him, and he smiled.

***

THEY SAY TOMORROW NEVER COMES - and this time especially I wished that whichever wit or wiseman had said that was right. But tomorrow couldn't be held off any more than I could stop the planet from turning. I'm strong, I won't deny it, but not that strong.

I awoke the next morning, alone and cold. Autumn was setting in again, matching my mood. An early morning mist drifted across the surface of the lake, sending out exploratory tendrils into the surrounding woods and groves, including the one where I still lay, looking around drearily. Away along the Lime Grove I could see the magic encased summerhouse and surrounding gardens; they would stay in a state of perpetual summer, whatever the weather outside. Why? it's a long story; maybe I'll write it another time.

I didn't feel summery. I felt cold and lethargic and miserable. To be blankly honest, I felt sorry for myself. Yes, I did indeed: I felt sorry for myself. I felt alone, almost abandoned. But I did remember to check the mail.

There was a letter.

"Dearest Dragon,

"I can't help this. You above all people should know the value of a fur's word - or a scaly's; it's their bond. I promised this friend that I'd help him out here until it's finished. Two or three more trips after this one, and we're through.

"I love you, dwaggin. I know why you're so frightened to lose me because after _raIa died you've found it so hard to love again... Believe me, I understand better than you might think. And I know you feel weak for crying in my arms; I don't think you are. You're a strong dragon for admitting your feelings and letting them loose. After all, it's better than hurting someone with a sudden outburst of anger, isn't it?

"I want to be your mate, more than I wanted to be with anyone else. I have had other offers, yes. But I have never known love like yours from anyone else; nor have I ever felt so deeply in love with andbody else as I do with you. I always felt that whoever loved me would want to tie me down, keep them just for themselves, but you don't. I appreciate that. I understand the importance of us, just us, as a single unit, but I also appreciate the freedom to show my love for my other friends, just as you would want the same liberty for yourself.

"Beautiful golden vision... I will be back soon. My friend says that this is a short run, not much to do. Please take care of yourself... for my sake, if not for yours.

"All my love, now and always, ..."

I folded the letter carefully and put it back into the envelope that it had come with. I sat a long time, thinking and pondering. Yes, I felt alone, and upset... but nowehere near as desolate as the first time I had 'lost' him. It was as if there was something more, a hope for the future that bound us both together. For now, we had to be apart: but in the future, sometime soon, we would be together. Forever.

The rational side of me kicked in. //You'll die before he does,// it said. I slashed it deep and hard with mental talons, and left it lying in a pool of its own blood, trying hard to pull its guts back inside itself. There's a time and a place for everything: that was definitely not one of them.

I did something then I surprised myself with. I flew off to the Palace of Dragons and went into a Truth or Dare! pool. I surprised myself even more later by actually enjoying the proceedings.