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Fire in the Air

A sea of green was all that Ray could see as he peered over Kalios's head. The young dragon rider sat silently between his blue dragon's gently beating wings and watched as a mass of brown feathers hovered in front of Kalios and blocked away the green forest.

Marinai, the lightly brown gryphon that flew in front of Kalios, maneuvered a little closer so that her rider, Eliza, could converse with Ray.

"Hey!" the gryphon rider called, "wanna head down now? I'm getting kind of hungry."

"As am I," Marinai said, her bright yellow beak flexing in an oddly expressive way.

"I could continue to fly on for several more hours," Kalios said with a grin, "but for the ladies' sakes I would gladly share a rest."

Marinai, with her regal beauty, twitched her head away from the dragon while her rider smiled a bit.

Ray lightly kicked his dragon since he was actually somewhat afraid he had seriously offended the gryphon, but Eliza's smile diffused his fears for the most part. They knew Kalios was a dragon, and even though he was less proud of that fact than most dragons were, they knew he still possessed that trait.

The four of them were part of the Royal Air Service, the kingdom of Minos's premiere aerial fighting force. Ray and Eliza had received their steeds only a year ago, and both Kalios and Marinai were relatively young when they were assigned. Ray was a knight, mostly, and he wielded a sword quite finely for a man, or rather a boy as some would still call him, his age. The dragon rider was also a good shot with a bow and he was rather accurate with one even in flight. Eliza was training to become part of an aerial mobile medic team, and her affinity with healing and light magic made her a perfect candidate for it.

They were paired with steeds that covered their deficiencies. Kalios, as a dragon, possessed an innate affinity for natural magic that filled in for Ray's mastery of none. Marinai, however, possessed no magical ability of her own, but she was much swifter and much more maneuverable than her scaly counterpart. She was meant to learn to dodge and avoid attacks so that her rider could perform her medical duties on the fly and attack when needed.

"I'm sure you could," Ray said with a smile, "though I'm sure Marinai could also fly hundreds of circles around you before she truly tires out from hunger."

The dragon was about to offer a counter-argument, but then Ray felt a rumble emanate from his scaly blue body. The human barked out a laugh, and then said, "You damn bloke, you're hungry too!"

Kalios raised a pointed claw, opened his mouth, huffed, and then shut his mouth again before dropping the claw back down. "Shut up, fine let's rest!"

The other three laughed the entire way down to the forest floor while Kalios only frowned. Embarrassed, the blue dragon vowed to catch a bigger lunch than Marinai would that afternoon.

And indeed he did. He had tracked and chased after a deer, one only slightly smaller than himself. Still, the larger adult deer he put to the cooking fire, courtesy of Eliza's magic since he was not a fire breather, wasn't acknowledged by anyone, and he still felt mildly negative despite defeating his rival in a competition he had started only in his own head. There was something else, though. He felt a great respect for the gryphon since she was his wing mate after all. He was not a front-line dragon since his size was far too small for such assignment, but instead he would serve as the rear guard for protecting the medical team, particularly to his wing mate. Marinai and Kalios would always be wing mates: the Royal Air Service believed the bond formed during training was one stronger than any forced one later.

Training: that was why they were flying over this seemingly endless forest. The king of Minos wished to scout the lands south of his kingdom for more resources, more land. It was mostly forest, however, and the southern way led to nowhere as far as any citizen of Minos was concerned with. No ship, air or seafaring, had ever mapped the southern lands since Minos was constantly at conflict with the neighboring northern kingdom of Eio. Sure, some private sea ships had managed to map the shoreline, but what the dense forest contained remained a mystery to all northerners. Eio was larger and had more troops, but Minos had always kept them from full scale invasion with their aerial superiority and technological mastery.

Minos possessed five airships, the beacons of its air force. Each was a massive mobile base of operations, and they were the central command points for the rest of the Air Service. Dragons, gryphons, and their riders made the bulk of the fleet while experimental single-pilot mechanical crafts of widely varying designs and reliability made up the rest. The Spartan was always at the forefront of any major Eiosian conflict, the Vigilance patrolled the borders unceasingly, the Wisdom served as the main base for espionage and intelligence operations with a mostly magic-adept crew, and the Salvation served as a floating hospital.

The fifth airship, Flameseeker, had just recently finished construction. It possessed several experimental long-range artillery and siege weapons, and since the border along Eio had been relatively quiet for the past decade, the king found it fit to send Flameseeker south with a skeleton experienced crew: the meat of the crew consisted of the engineers that had to test the ship's weapons, and the trainees. The airship was able to test its weapons on the forest while mapping the southlands and be a base for training operations all at the same time.

Everyone perked their ears while they were eating their cooked venison. Even the human riders could hear the loud boom from the distant Flameseeker. They were testing out the magnetic siege cannon: a weapon that the master mage-engineers of Minos boasted could accurately blast a hole through a castle wall from twenty-miles away.

They found comfort in the sound. Their current training mission had them simulating a lost behind enemy lines scenario: they were to fly for at least five hours a day for twenty days without returning to the Flameseeker. The riders had to make the most of what they had in their emergency packs while Kalios and Marinai had to find food every day. They were on their ninth day now, and in another day they would start flying back northward while following the Flameseeker's return path to Minos. But first they still had another two hours of flight to finish in the afternoon.

Kalios stared at Marinai while he chewed on his venison. The dragon admired her: she was two years his elder and despite his rivalry with her, he often looked to her like a big sister. The furry gryphon knew more than he did, and he enjoyed learning from her despite his ever latent desire to best her.

But there was more. The young dragon had started growing into that age when hormones clouded his mind. He started seeing Marinai as more than just his training partner, and his eyes intensified as he watched the gryphon's powerful beak cut a piece of meat. They wandered lower so he could see the way she sat on her powerful legs, wrapped in fur, and his thoughts began to swim towards desires he didn't understand. He felt his loins tingle as he stared at the area between her furry legs, and even though her brown fur covered all of her sex he still thought of him mounting her and taking her.

There was another boom that echoed through the forest, and the sudden noisiness jolted Kalios from his thoughts. He wondered if Marinai ever thought the same of him, and that perhaps she wanted to take him: the prospect of her demanding to top him had passed his mind before, and he wasn't sure he would refuse if she tried. But alas, he was afraid of what would happen if he were to ask the gryphon to mate with him, and if she refused then their friendship would become very different, perhaps.

But what was he to do? He was a young male dragon entering his sexual prime, and he needed release. He needed a mate. His fore-claws were too difficult to use to pleasure himself with, and he found himself unable to find relief through that method. He couldn't crane himself low enough to pleasure himself with his tongue either. He wished he could have a pair of dexterously soft human hands just to find relief: he had seen, and heard, how pleasurable they were for Ray whenever he sneaked off at night. Humans had particularly bad night vision as he could tell by how often Ray trips over his tail at night, whether he's just moving about or sneaking away from camp, but Kalios could see very well even on the nights with a birth of a new moon. Actually, it was because his rider kicked his tail one night that he was woken enough to follow him to where he had pleasured himself by a river that burrowed its way through the denseness of the forest. Even as he thought about that encounter, his loins twitched. Kalios wanted to feel Ray's hands rub his length, to feel what he feels on those nights.

The blue dragon tried to contain his sexual tension, and he managed to keep his length inside the slit on his white underbelly scales. He could wait until night fell. Tonight would have a full moon. He couldn't bring himself to ask Marinai to mate with her, but he was resolved to make his rider pleasure him. Kalios was sure that that Ray, as a dragon rider of the Service, would do what was best for his dragon, to give what his dragon needed. He just wasn't sure what he would do if Ray refused.

Ray's voice nudged him out of his thoughts. "Kal, are you alright?"

"Yes," the dragon said, "why?"

"You stopped chewing."

The dragon stammered a bit. "It's a bit overcooked is all."

"Oh, would you like some of mine then?"

"No, that's okay. Just need to get used to the somewhat off taste."

Ray shrugged, and then he went back to eating his meal while Kalios mentally sighed in relief.

The four lifted into the sky again shortly after their rest. The Flameseeker had grown larger: its flags were visible now in the distance compared to the tiny speck the entire airship had been before they decided to take their break and bright glares were shining from its metal hull. Marinai could make out all the details of the airship, from the man staring at her through a looking glass on the edge of the deck to the blue tapestries embroidered with the symbol of the sun that represented Minos that draped around the captain's room, with her gryphon eyes. Kalios could only see the shining chrome and gold accents that lined the hull along with the eight massive fans, caged in their protective steel circle on the underside of the ship, which held the Flameseeker aloft. Ray and Eliza couldn't see any of those things as well as their mounts could, but even their human eyes couldn't miss the most defining feature of the Flameseeker: the huge main cannon that took up, width-wise, half of the space on the deck and extended from the middle of the airship to where a figurehead would normally be.

They all took a moment to appreciate the craftsmanship and artistry that the mage-engineers of Minos had put into constructing such a beautiful weapon. The moment passed, and then they flew on southward for another hour or so, noting down the winding path of the river but otherwise bored with the never-ending forestry.

Marinai directed their flight towards a strange gap she had seen in the forest sea. Through the treetops, an opening in the ground caught her sharp eyes. Kalios remained silent until he too could see the cut in the earth so that he would not dignify the gryphon further despite the fact that she did actually see it before he did.

As they flew closer, however, it became clear to the gryphon that the gap wasn't just a little cut in the ground and she flew higher to see deeper. Kalios followed her, and then they realized that the gap was in fact a deep chasm. It was an odd thing too: the trees just seemed to stop growing past a fine line near the perimeter of the cliff edges.

They flew over for a closer look, but the sun did not penetrate into its depths. Even Kalios's eyes while enhanced with his draconic magic could not pierce the darkness.

"Shall we go into it?" Marinai asked.

"If we go just a bit lower, I can drop a flare of light down into the trench," Eliza said.

Ray nodded his head. "Works for me, I must admit it's a little scary to dive into the unknown."

Kalios chuckled a bit. "Aww, my rider's afraid of the dark!"

Ray kicked the dragon on his side a bit and smirked. "Of course I am! What if the damn cliffs are crawling with poison ivy?"

The blue dragon shuddered at the thought. He had a rather unpleasant encounter with the plant before, and he would rather not spend an entire day in a bath again. "Point taken. We'll do it Eliza's way."

Marinai and Eliza hadn't bothered to stay for their opinion, however, and the gryphon had already positioned herself closer to the mouth of the gorge. With her gryphon's wings gently beating to hover in place, Eliza pointed a finger down to the darkness and gathered a ball of light around the tip. At the moment Kalios had lowered himself to hover alongside the gryphon, Eliza released the light and let it fall into the chasm. It lit up the walls and Marinai and Kalios could easily see what was inside. Their riders, however, could only see faint shadows and dim red circles. As the ball dropped further, more red circles opened up above the walls. Before the riders could figure out what was inside, their mounts had already torn themselves up and flew away as fast as they could.

Eliza had grabbed onto her harness reins in time, but Ray had toppled backward so that only his waist belt held him to his dragon. With his head facing rearward and nearly upside-down on Kalios's featureless tail, he could see a black shroud emerging from the quickly shrinking valley. The shadow was fluttering and moved towards them.

Eliza pressed herself down to the back of Marinai's fluffy neck, brushed the strands of blonde hair that had stuck to the front of her face back, and yelled through the sweeping air. "What happened? What did you see?"

The fast and steady beats of the gryphon's wings did not falter when she spoke. "Folbats, the entire canyon was lined with them!"

Eliza took swung her head back for a glance and saw the mass of black bodies flying towards them. She knew Marinai was flying as fast as she could so she didn't waste time asking her to fly any faster. Instead, she held out her palm and concentrated on calling Light-Commander Ilia Roslyn, the light mage in charge of all the new recruits assigned to the Flameseeker.

Moments later, particles of blue light erupted from her palm and formed the shape of the training master as she answered her call. She was used to seeing the commander clad in armor, but she was in her quarters wearing her ship-casual clothing now. The little image of her stared at Eliza and spoke before she could react.

"Eliza, you do understand that you're not supposed to communicate with me during this training mission unless it's an extreme emergency, yes?"

"Yes, I do," the gryphon rider replied, "but I believe we do have an extreme emergency." She held her palm behind her so that the commander could see what was behind them.

Ilia's voice sounded distant from behind, but Eliza could hear her still even through the howling of the wind. "By Mir's grace, how many are there?"

"I don't know!"

"Then estimate! Perform a spin-about maneuver!"

"Oh, of course! Standby!" Eliza closed her palm, putting the commander on hold, and called out to Marinai, "Did you hear?"

The gryphon bobbed her head up and down.

Eliza grappled tightly around her reins in preparation for the maneuver. "In three, two, one, now!"

Marinai swept her right wing up and dipped the left one down. She turned around and stayed looking back for three seconds while she and her rider guessed at how many of the black winged folbats were chasing after them. Then she swung herself away again and regained her lost speed, though during the maneuver Eliza had noticed that Kalios had, expectedly, fallen behind her faster counterpart. When her gryphon was back to her steady speed, Eliza brushed her hair back again and quickly glanced to her left and noted that Kalios had managed to catch up to their side during the maneuver, but the dragon was slowly falling behind again.

"I'm guessing around fifty?" Eliza called out to her gryphon.

"Fifty-six."

Eliza opened her palms out again and waited for the Light-Commander's figure to reform again. She shifted her eyes a bit to the side and saw that the Flameseeker must've been at least twenty miles or so away. The blue light in her palm took shape and Ilia looked at her expectedly. "Fifty-six," she said.

"Alright," the commander said, "I'll get up to the ship's captain and tell him to head to you full speed."

The light dispersed from her palm, this time the commander put Eliza on hold.

Meanwhile, Ray was still laid back against his dragon and looking toward the south. He had hoped his eyes were playing tricks on him, but there could be no denying that the mass of ravenous wings had grown larger. Folbats were ill things that had leather wings similar to bats or dragons, but their bodies were thinner and furred. Their heads looked like a goat's, complete with horns and all, but they stood upright like gargoyles. Folbats were savage beasts, the complete opposite of the dragons and gryphons of Minos, but the beast masters of Eios had managed to tame enough of the creatures to pose an actual threat to aerial parties not supported by an airship.

Still, it completely surprised the dragon knight that there had been a whole enclave of them hiding in the uncharted south. Ray felt the slight bobbing of his dragon as his wings flapped and had been trying to time it so that his attempts to sit up would be most assisted. He had managed to right himself a few moments after the Light-Commander had put Eliza on hold, and it was then that he called out to his dragon.

"Kal! They're catching up to us!"

"Oh, you've finally gotten yourself back up! I was getting tired of having your head slap my tail every time you failed."

"I'm serious Kal! Tell Marinai and Eliza before they fly too far ahead of you!"

The dragon grunted with a touch of disapproval, but survival was far more important than his pride. He wasn't that stupid anyway so he shouted out towards the gryphon as loud as he could. "They're gaining on us!"

Marinai heard, and she slowed down to fly along the dragon.

"They have no riders or gear," Kalios said, "that's probably why."

Eliza looked back and saw that the folbats were definitely getting closer. She looked back down at her open palm and hoped that their training master could conjure up a plan.

On the Flameseeker, Light-Commander Roslyn had run up to the boxed section of the ship past its giant cannon and above the main stairs. She pulled open the metal door of the bridge and saluted to Captain Riko. The captain was standing over a table on the opposite side of an older-looking gentleman that was scribbling onto a map on the table.

Ilia put her hand down and said, "Forgive me for my attire, captain, but we have an emergency situation."

The captain laughed a little and took off his dark red coat, lined with golden buttons, to reveal that he too was wearing ship-casual clothing underneath. "I'm not one of those sort of officers, commander. Go ahead."

Ilia told her of Eliza and Ray's predicament while a young but white-haired man was pointing out buttons on a panel to the helmsman that sat on the left side of the bridge. His ears perked as she spoke about the number of folbats that were chasing after them, and then he gestured his hand to the helmsman and tore away.

"Excuse me," the white-haired man asked, "did you say there was a swarm of fifty-six folbats all bundled up and chasing after a group of recruits headed this way?"

"Yes, and who are you?" Ilia asked, a little upset that she was interrupted.

"Master mage-engineer Robert Pulli," he said, "And captain, I do believe I have a solution for you!"

"Sorry," the captain said to Ilia, "he's the chief of engineering. Testing the Flameseeker's weapons has made him jittery."

"Hey, I'm right here captain! I can hear you! But never mind that, I believe this would be the perfect opportunity to field test the Scattershot!"

Ilia raised an eyebrow and asked, "The Scattershot?"

"Aye, it's exactly what its name says it is. Think of it as a long-ranged shotgun. Now hold on. Directly south of us, you said?" Robert turned back to the helmsman and looked out the clear window to the front of the ship. He stared out, and then tapped his right index finger over the side of his head. The finger started glowing, and then his right eye shown with a red light. "Do you see them, helm?" he asked. The helmsman shook his head. "Never mind, I have them now. Range estimate, twenty-four miles and closing. Perfect!"

Captain Riko could only see the back of Robert's head, but he just knew the engineer was sporting a massive grin. "What do you have in mind, chief?"

"Hold on," he said. He released his finger and the red faded from his eyes, and then he looked up as if calculating something. A few seconds later, he reached for a blue button that was between a row of different colored buttons below a speakerphone on a side-panel and pressed it.

"Engineering," he said into the microphone built inside the speaker, "Load up a Scattershot ball. Set the explosive enchantment to engage exactly five point six seconds after it's shot out the main cannon." He released the button but then quickly pressed it down again. "And make sure Ratherion does it, he's the only one I trust not to screw up the magic enchantments. Besides myself, of course. And make sure the hypersonic booster spell in the main cannon is still strong."

He let off the button and then waited for a reply. Instead, he heard laughter come through the speaker, and then he heard a voice. "Chief, it's Rath. Really now?" There was another light chuckle and then he continued, "Anyway, I'll get it loaded in a minute. Despite all the testing we did yesterday, the cannon's holding up fine."

Robert completely ignored his lieutenant's laughter and replied, "Good, signal the light on the bridge when you're done."

"Will do, chief."

The white-haired mage-engineer then turned back to Captain Riko and Light-Commander Roslyn and explained. "Alright, we'll fire the Scattershot and then we'll see what happens. Commander, tell your recruits to dive, hard, as soon as I fire the main gun. They'll only have five seconds to get out of the way, so make sure they dive as hard as they can!"

"Alright, I got it," Ilia said. She opened her palm again to communicate the plan to Eliza.

"Now let me zoom the glass so we can all watch the show," Robert said. He pressed his hand against the forward window and glided it along until the hidden runes embedded in it revealed themselves, and then he willed some power of his own into them to make the glass enlarge the section he wanted to see. Zoomed in, everyone on the bridge could now see the gryphon, dragon, and their riders. Even the old man charting the map stopped to look out.

"Maneuver the ship so the cannon faces directly towards them," the mage-engineer said to the helmsman. "Unfortunately we haven't finished installing the motor to move the cannon separately yet, but this will do for now."

The helmsman moved his yoke a little, and then a green light lit up on his control panel.

"Ah, right on time," Robert said.

"So that's the plan?" Eliza asked. "We trust our lives to an experimental weapon that might kill us if we maneuver a second too late?"

"We don't have any better ideas," the blue light form of her training master replied. "And as you said, they're gaining on you so unless you'd like to become mince-meat that's our plan."

Eliza sighed, and then nodded. "Alright then. Let me tell Ray and then we'll wait for your mark." She knew Marinai had heard everything, so she told her to move closer so she could tell Ray.

She called out once her gryphon was within earshot of the blue dragon. "Kalios! Ray! They're going to try a new weapon: we have to get out of the way as soon as they fire, so get ready to dive on my signal!"

Kalios nodded and Ray shouted out, "Okay!"

Marinai flew a little ahead of them on the right, and then Eliza held out her left hand flatly like a paper slicing through the air while keeping her right hand facing up with Ilia in her palms.

A minute or so passed, and then Ilia piped up. "Get ready! On my mark, three, two, one, mark!"

Eliza pointed her left hand down as soon as she said one, and then she closed her right hand around her reins on the mark. Marinai dived, and the sudden change in wind noise blocked out any sound that may have come from the Flameseeker's cannon.

On the airship's bridge, everyone watched the window like a hawk. Mage-Engineer Robert had pressed the button to fire the cannon as he waited for Ilia's countdown, and then he too had looked up in anticipation.

The show did not disappoint: both Marinai and Kalios dived like their lives depended on it since they did, and they avoided the massive iron ball that would've smashed into them. The ball flew a little further past where they previously were, and then it exploded into thousands of little fragments and pellets that continued flying towards the folbats at deadly velocities.

They fell, most of them, and the black cloud dispersed. The few that avoided the Scattershot retreated as they watched their brethren's bloodied bodies fall to the forest sea whose greenery swallowed their black flesh away.

Robert raised his arms and started jumping and laughing as he saw how marvelously his weapon had worked.

"Well I'll be damned," Captain Riko said, "one of the new weapons worked on its first try!"

Robert perked his head at the captain's direction. "Hey! That incident with the Pulverizer only happened because of those incompetent junior grade engineers!"

Ilia forced her own words in before Riko could respond. "Thank you captain, I'll take my leave now."

The captain nodded and then continued trading words with the engineering chief while Ilia walked out the door and shut it.

The Light-Commander opened her hand again and called out to Eliza.

Marinai had pulled out of the dive much higher than Kalios did, and the black bodies had all been swallowed by the forest by the time Eliza felt the training master call to her. She released the death grip she had on her leather reins and opened up her right hand again.

Ilia appeared on her palms again and Eliza said, "Thank you, commander."

"You're welcome, and I'm glad you're all safe. By the gods, if I lost four trainees on a simple training mission I'd lose all my command ranks!"

"Well, we'll try not to do anything too rash then. I assume we don't have to restart the day clock because of this little incident?"

"Oh Heavens no! Eleven more days, and then you're back with us. You all did splendidly, though, and I'll be sure to note it down on your logs."

Eliza took her left hand and saluted to her training master. "Thank you again, commander."

"Until the eleventh morning," she said, and then the light faded.

Kalios rose up until he was hovering right next to the gryphon. They conversed with each other while their riders celebrated.

"Did you see that?" Ray shouted. "That gun could blow up an army! And the Flameseeker is still miles and miles away!"

"Yes, it is quite impressive," Eliza called back. "Hit almost all of them too!"

Kalios coughed and then spoke towards the riders. "We're really tired, can we take a quick rest?"

"Oh," Eliza said, "Of course we should. It must've been hard for the two of you to fly at your maximum capability for so long."

They didn't bother moving any further since they were sure the folbats had learned their lesson and wouldn't bother them anymore. They just let themselves land directly under where they were and took a long break. Marinai and Kalios spoke no further and went to napping soon after they landed. Their riders went off to forage whatever food they could find.

Ray and Eliza only woke them up when it was nearly sunset. They still had a little less than an hour to fly this day, and they really wanted to do it before darkness fell. They all ate a variety of fruits that the humans had gathered during the evening; an odd mix of oranges, grapes, and bananas.

They flew the hour northward instead of south, and they stayed near the river. They went at a slow and easy pace, and they finished right before twilight had faded. Marinai and Kalios landed near the river that winded through the forest and had their riders dismount before they dipped themselves into the cool water to soothe their aching muscles.

Night fell, and they made their camp a little bit further from the river so that they would not be directly exposed to the sky. It was not too far and the sound of the stream could still be heard. Kalios was sore and weary, but that all changed when everyone else was preparing to sleep. He was invigorated by anticipation and couldn't wait for Ray's night urges to call to him. He pretended to fall asleep with everyone else after they put out the campfire, but he was actually waiting until midnight when Ray usually went out.

His patience was rewarded: he heard the man stir and step lightly away from the camp. Kalios waited another two minutes before going out to the river, his own steps made lighter and silenced by his magic.

As he had grown to expect, Kalios found his rider lying naked on a sheet against a rock stroking his hardened length and moaning lightly in pleasure. His body was lit only by the moonlight, but it was more than enough for his dragon eyes to see. Ray was thin and only lightly muscular, though his arms bore noticeably more muscle mass than the rest of his body. His hair was normally a dark brown, but it looked like it might as well have been as black as the folbats under the moonlight.

Kalios tore himself away from watching those delectable human hands pump up and down his rider's cock, his own loins starting to harden at the sight, and then he focused on his plan. He, with the help of his spell and the sound of the river, slowly crawled around and dragged his tail into the dirt until he had drawn a complete circle around Ray. He was afraid the reflection of the moonlight upon his scales would reveal him to the human, but the man was too lost in his pleasure to even open his eyes.

With the circle complete, Kalios ended the silencing spell and poured a similar one into the circle surrounding Ray. Outside, he noted that it had worked very well since even his ears could no longer hear the human's moans.

"Now or never," the dragon whispered. He took a step in, and then another. With his long muzzled head inside the circle, he could no longer hear the river but could hear Ray's ever loudening moans again. "Hi Ray."

The human's eyes shot open and he instinctively reached for his clothes to cover himself, but the dragon jumped over and landed a paw onto the pile so he couldn't pick them up. He was also over the human now, and he tilted his head down to look into his rider's eyes.

Ray's cheeks flushed scarlet, and it was noticeable even with just the moonlight. "K-Kal, what?"

"Yeah, it's me. Hi Ray."

The human was stunned. He wanted to cover himself up with his hands, but Kalios was over him and had leaned down to press his smooth belly scales onto his cock.

The dragon smiled. "I've been watching you, you know?"

"W-what? What do you mean? How long?"

"Since the third night, don't you remember? You tripped over my tail, so I snuck out after you. You look really happy when you're stroking yourself, Ray. And cute."

The human could feel something hard poking at his thigh now. He couldn't see well in the night, but he didn't have to look down to know what it was. He took a moment to compose himself and try and figure out what to say. "So," he finally said, "what do you want to do with me?"

"There are no soft cushions out here in the wilderness, Ray. I haven't been able to pleasure myself in-" the dragon paused to look up at the position of the moon. "In ten days. And then I find out you can relieve yourself every night with those oh so soft skinned hands."

"I don't like where this is going."

The dragon pressed a forepaw down onto his rider's arm and readjusted himself until his now hard shaft rested in that arm's hand. The warmth of the hand, and the silky smoothness almost drove the dragon mad with need then and there.

He contained himself, however, and asked politely. "Please Ray, help me find relief?"

"No! This is absolutely wrong!"

"How about a trade?"

Before Ray could figure out what he meant, Kalios had retreated himself down and rested his muzzle over the human's softening cock. He lapped at it with his tongue, eliciting a surprised gasp from Ray, and then took the entire length into his maw while carefully avoiding scratching it with his teeth.

The dragon could feel the member harden again inside his mouth and the beats of his rider's heart pumping blood into it to make it rise. It drove Kalios mad with anticipation, and he started brushing the warm member around with his tongue. The dragon quickly learned which areas of the shaft brought out the loudest moans, and his eyes watched the man's body as it rose and fell with his breathing.

Ray stammered between his moans of pleasure as he watched the blue dragon's muzzle suckle around his groin, "B-but this isn't right!"

The dragon released the warm human cock and looked up into his rider's eyes. "Does it feel right?"

The human had to admit that the dragon's ministrations were not unpleasurable. Quite the opposite, in fact. "Well, y-yes, but that doesn't make it okay!"

The dragon pressed a forepaw to Ray's chest and felt his heartbeat at the source. "Why not?"

"A murderer feels he is right when he kills, and clearly that is not okay!"

"Sometimes you surprise me, Ray. Sometimes." Kal retreated his head a bit, but kept a forepaw against his rider's chest. "Do you love me, Ray?"

"What? No!"

The dragon frowned and made a small whining sound.

"N-no, I mean," Ray stammered, "I mean I love you as a rider loves his dragon, not in that way!"

"Do you love me enough to consider me a good friend, at least? Or am I just a dragon to fly on to you?"

Ray blinked rapidly a bit. He was hurt by the fact that Kal thought he was just using him as a mere mount. "No, no, no! Of course you're my friend, Kal. I don't want you to ever doubt that."

"Then please," the dragon pleaded, "As a friend, I am asking for your help." He scrunched his face and angled it along the moon so there was enough light for him to look as pitiable as possible. "Please?"

Ray paused to consider it. The dragon was right about one thing: getting sucked off by his tongue did feel very good. And when he thought very good, he meant very good. He had never had the time to find a woman in his life and was satisfied with jerking off, but someday he wished Eliza would take an interest in him. Their relationship didn't seem to be headed that way, however, and he could not deny the pleasure Kalios had given him. Even if he was a dragon, and male, he supposed it shouldn't matter: the pleasure was there all the same. At the very least, he could help him this one time.

Ray pressed his right hand between his dragon's brown horns and rubbed his forehead affectionately. The scales there were soft, and he took a moment to appreciate how handsome the dragon looked under the moonlight with his blue scales shimmering a darker than normal tint. "Okay Kal, this one night then. Finish me off first, will you? I'm so close."

The dragon's face gleamed with joy, and then he sunk his maw over his rider's member and licked at it enthusiastically. The shaft was different from his own: it had a fat head but after that the girth was the same. He quickly figured out that the base of the head was the most sensitive part of the human's cock, and he focused his efforts there. His lower chin rested on the top of the human's ball sack, and he felt he should do something with them. They were an odd sight when Kalios had first stumbled upon a naked male human a long time ago, but he had become used to seeing them on Ray the past few nights. They were still funny little things to watch, he had thought, especially with the way they bounced in time with the human's pumping. He remembered how Ray would rub them as he stroked, so he tried to add to his knight's pleasure by lowering a forepaw to knead his balls as sensually as he could, but just as he could not bring himself to climax with them, he knew he couldn't play with them as well as Ray had with his own hands. He more than made up with it with his nimble tongue; though it was much more maneuverable than a human's, it was not much longer and he couldn't lick himself with it, sadly.

As Kalios continued sucking and slurping the human's cock, the desire to hump into Ray's mouth rose. He wanted more, to feel more, and to take more. He wanted a nice warm hole to fuck, and his mind desired more. By the time the human was near his peak, Kalios was already imagining mounting him and taking him from the rear, just as he had imagined taking Marinai.

But he was not entirely irrational, no. If he suggested such a thing, even attempt to suggest him to pleasure him orally tonight, he might turn off the other male so that he would never do this again. No, he thought, it would be best to keep tonight's bargain and slowly progress to more. He knew he could get Ray to rub him off more, even if he protested against it earlier. The human's moans did not lie: he was enjoying this far more than when he rubbed himself off.

The human's body writhed along the rock, and his breathing became erratic. Kalios knew that Ray couldn't last long: the man had already stroked himself for a while before he interrupted him and he knew his rider hadn't had any previous sexual interaction with others before. This experience was entirely new to him, foreign, and before long he could feel the human's balls tense up under his paw and pull up toward his body. Kalios had seen the human pleasure himself enough times before that he knew what it signaled. He was prepared to swallow what his rider was going to give him, and soon his tongue, wrapped around the human's cock, felt the pulsing begin as the man shouted in climax.

Kalios saw Ray's body arch as it tried to instinctively thrust as much of his length into him as it could. Warm seed shot into his mouth, more than he thought there would be. He had seen how much Ray sprayed onto himself before he would wash himself in the river, but there was definitely more this time. He kept all of the human's seed in his mouth until the pulsing died down and nothing more came out. Then he pulled back and released the human's cock from his maw, closed his mouth, and tasted the fresh load of cum before swallowing it.

Kalios purred, and then he said, "That was good."

Ray was still catching his breath: being touched by another was far more pleasurable than he had ever thought, even if it was with a dragon. But he doubted a human tongue could've been as dexterous as a dragon's. "It was," he eventually said.

"Now my turn?" Kalios asked, his eyes hungry with need.

The human peered down between the dragon's legs and, even through the darkness, could see the outline of the dragon's cock. Ray sighed, and then said, "Alright, a deal's a deal. How do you want to do this?"

"Stand up."

Ray did as he was told, and he stood up. Kalios watched his spent shaft flop against his tightened ball sack as he did so and thought again about how inconvenient it was for a human's stuff to always be outside. It was no wonder that they wore clothing if only so that their genitals would stop slapping each other and be made silent.

Kalios then laid down and then rolled over onto the sheet so that his back was now splayed out and resting against the smooth rock, his wings curled out and relaxed.

Now that his dragon's belly faced the sky, Ray could see him better as the moon bathed him in its light. Kalios would've looked adorable laying there against that rock, except that there was another rock jutting out between his legs. Funny, Ray thought, he had liked giving dragons belly rubs as a child, and now he was going to rub one the same except a little lower now.

"Well?" the dragon asked.

Ray replied by moving his hand down to feel his dragon's hard rock. He glided it over the entire length and admired its size: Kalios was not a large dragon but his cock was, from what he could feel, as thick as a horse's though much shorter. The dragon's shaft came out through a normally nearly invisible slit in his white belly scales, and expectedly his balls stayed inside him. There were three bumps near the base along the spine, and he smoothed his hands over them again when he heard the blue dragon whine louder as he rubbed those little nubs. He moved on up the length and felt a couple of ridges, and he dug his fingers in to stimulate each one. Every ridge he felt into brought another groan from the dragon, and he whined when his hand left those and went up the rest of his shaft to the tip.

Kalios was sprawling in pleasure: the human's hand felt even better than he could've ever thought. Though he had mounted a female once before for enjoyment, Kalios did not emotionally connect with that particular dragoness and felt a deeper connection with Ray that amplified the pleasure from his touch. And compared to the cushions he often used to relieve himself, well, there was no comparison.

Ray actually felt glad that his dragon was enjoying his touches, and he endeavored to work harder. He started pumping the dragon cock with his left hand, making sure to let the gaps between his fingers rub over every bump and ridge, and with his right hand he started rubbing places he knew the dragon liked. He soon started a rhythm where his left hand slowly increased in tempo while his right hand wandered between the dragon's belly scales, wing bases, and the thickest part of his tail near his butt.

When his right hand wandered to the dragon's hindquarters, however, he started imagining him taking the dragon like a man would take a woman in bed. He imagined lifting the blue tail and thrusting his fat cock into the dragon's ass, and it stopped seeming so taboo. He wondered what Kalios would think, however, to be asked to be taken like a bitch in heat. No, the dragon would sooner mount him if he even suggested it. Then again, would that be so undesirable? Ray wasn't so sure anymore. Hell, here he was stroking his dragon off! Whatever disgust he possessed had already long been thrown out the window!

After a while, Ray took both of his hands and rubbed them on the dragon's shaft. His left hand continued stroking the lower bumps at a faster speed while his right hand slowly went over his ridges and took its time feeling into them.

Kalios's body began twitching more and more. The dragon wouldn't last much longer: he had been pent up for so long and the human's hands were too enjoyable to hold back for long.

At last, the dragon curled his tail tightly around one of Ray's legs and then his body shuddered. With a sensuous roar, Kalios came and released his pent up seed while his cock throbbed in his rider's hands. The human didn't stop pumping while he came, and his white seed sprayed all over his belly. The first shots even went up to his neck, and the life-giving fluid melded with the white of his scales under the moonlight. The dragon had been very pent up, however, and soon his seed started pooling and dripping down his sides. The pools of cum on his upper half fell onto his wings while the ones on the lower half dribbled down onto the sheet.

When he finally finished, Kalios sported a very content smile as he rested his head onto the rock.

Ray released the dragon's cock from his grasp, stood up, and took a step back. His own length was fully erect again, but he decided to leave his satisfied dragon alone for the moment.

"I'm going to go wash up," Ray said. "Get to the river when you're ready."

Kalios purred, "Okay."

"And don't forget the sheet!"

The dragon raised a forepaw and shooed him off.

Ray walked out of the circle and became aware of it when he noticed that the river's trickling sound had returned. He had completely forgotten about it, and now that he heard it again he realized that the dragon had silenced their little area off. It wasn't even one of his worries back when they were pleasuring each other, but now he was thankful that Kalios had planned enough: if Marinai or Eliza heard them that would have been most disastrous. Maybe. Or maybe Eliza would understand? He didn't know, and he didn't want to know. He would keep this a secret.

Ray moved silently to the edge of the river and started stroking off his hard member. It didn't feel anywhere near as good as Kalios's mouth, but he didn't want to bother him since he seemed very happy and content already.

Truth be told, Ray enjoyed seeing his dragon happy. And if they both made each other happy, then why should he allow cultural norms to interfere? No, he decided, if Kalios came to him every night from now on he would help him, and he knew his dragon would return his favors.