Face Your Worst Fear

• Chapter 18 in the Chronicles of the DragonRider

Humans had always been big on naming things. This was a peculiarity of their kind that seemed perfectly natural to them, but left most other races somewhat bemused. Oh, certainly, the Elves and the Dwarves had names too, but only inasmuch as they were needed. Humans who had not taken the trouble of learning how to speak the native tongues of these people rarely realized that the Great Forest of Niläeriae, home to the Sun-Temple of the Elven King was really just called 'Our Forest' in the tongue of the Old Elves, or that the legendary Dwarven Mines of Khak-za-ra-Khuum were simply 'Lots of Gold Here' in the local dialect of Dwarven. To them, such designators were perfectly suitable since they didn't usually need to contend with a lot of places, lacking humankind's wanderlust and urge for expansion.

But humans never stopped there, and when they traveled out into the world - as they tended to, whether as merchants, adventurers or conquerors - they habitually named every last forest, plain, mountain, lake, and oddly-shaped rock they came across. And for the most part, the other races just shrugged and let them, using the names the humans had chosen, should they find reason for it. Thus, when you came across a 'nameless' place, it was a good sign that you were well and truly off the beaten path - an area where even humanity's notoriously courageous (or, as the other races tended to put it, 'bloody suicidal') explorers hadn't ventured.

Of course, that usually just meant that it was a really unimportant and unimpressive sort of place. A nondescript forest sandwiched between the foothills of the Goldpeak Mountains and the vast expanse of the Western Steppes, it contained... trees. Bushes. Little forest-animals. No rare herbs or plants, no unusual monsters, no towers built by reclusive wizards... nothing whatsoever to make it noteworthy. Better yet, the Goldpeak Mountains was home to a colony of dragons - who tended to be somewhat intolerant of intruders - while the Western Steppes hosted a large number of Centaur-clans... who tended to happily trade with large, well-armed caravans, and just as happily raided and robbed lone travelers. With no reason to go there and several good reasons to stay away, this forest had thus been untouched by the travel-worn boots of mankind... until, that is, a half-human DragonRider set her sandaled feet on the lush grass.

It was, she thought, a rather pleasant place - particularly compared to their previous destination. The forest was neither particularly dense nor particularly sparse, so they had located a clearing large enough for Blake to land in fairly easily. Right now she was leaning on one of Blake's flanks while comparing her map with the one on the clay tablet for the twentieth time, feeling her lover's lungs expand behind her as he breathed in deeply, scanning the scents of the forest for any sign of danger... or game large enough to be worth his time to bring down.

"Any luck?" she asked him after having once again ascertained that they were, indeed, exactly where they were supposed to be - despite the notable absence of anything trial-like, or indeed anything at all fearsome. He shook his head. "A few small herds of deer, nothing bigger... and those things are too fleet-footed and jumpy to be worth the trouble for how scrawny they are." She lightly twatted his nose with the rolled up map while laughing, and he grinned back at her. "Oh, you mean anything dangerous or unusual? Nope, not a thing. Trust me, if I caught a whiff of anything interesting, you'd be the first to know."

She sighed and fidgeted a bit, trying to get comfortable as she listened to the birds resuming their song around them - they had fallen silent when Blake descended, but when it had become clear that he wasn't hunting for anything as small as them, their courage had returned. "Well, I guess all we can do is wait here. Might not be bad to have a little rest." She put her hands behind her head and leaned back fully, staring up at the clear blue skies. Blake shrugged, making the muscles she was leaning against flex for a moment. "True, I suppose. It's not like we're on a schedule or anything. Let's just keep a lookout and wait to see what happens..."

Anitra was woken up in about the most abrupt fashion imaginable. One moment, she was sleeping peacefully in the clearing, leaning against the comforting bulk of Blake's flanks - the next, she was swinging through the air with his teeth clamped around her armored waist, while he galloped through the forest. The first thing she noticed as her eyes opened was that it had gotten dark. The second thing she noticed was that it wasn't quite as dark as it ought to be, thanks to the roaring inferno behind them, which had already entirely consumed the clearing they'd both been resting in seconds earlier.

Dammit, Anitra! Wake up already! Blake's mental voice was sharp, with an edge of panic to it she hadn't heard before. She shook her head to clear the last cobwebs of sleep from it, while he continued to rush forwards, dodging between the trees and tearing through the undergrowth as his long talons dug into the forest-floor. "I'm awake, I'm awake!" She shouted, while noticing out the corner of her eyes that the fire behind them was spreading unnaturally fast, in their direction only. Nervously licking her lips, she reached up to grab one of Blake's horns, before nodding at him. His mouth opened, and she quickly used the inertia of her fall to swing herself up and around his neck, gliding down it to awkwardly grab hold of the saddle. It took precious seconds to get herself turned around, feet in the stirrups, and lowered along his back. That a low-hanging branch didn't appear out of the darkness to sweep her off in the meantime was mostly luck.

Finally properly seated, she glanced back at the pursuing flames, and conversationally queried Blake over their mental link. So... now that I'm fully alert, would you mind telling me why we're fleeing from a forest-fire? Last time I checked, both of us are pretty much fireproof. Blake didn't answer immediately, apparently concentrating on dodging between some trees, then making a radical change of direction to run perpendicular to the tongue of fire pursing them. Well, for starters, there's the ORIGIN of this little bonfire... came the reply in a rather dry, mental voice - along with the mental image of a golden shape glimmering against the night sky high above.

"A golden dragon?!?" she gasped out loud, but Blake heard her nonetheless. Yes. Nice, big, full-grown specimen. Almost certainly a magic-user. Popped up outta nowhere and lit this place on fire. Obviously targeting us directly. Well, targeting ME, to be specific. Which means it knows what I am, which means that it probably didn't just randomly throw something harmless at me. Anitra licked her lips nervously at this tirade, and glanced over her shoulder again. The tongue of unnaturally-accelerating fire hadn't changed direction to pursue them, but it was still spreading in all directions, and now that she looked closely she could see a magical glow suffusing the flames. She passed her observation on to Blake, who nodded mentally.Figured as much. Spellfire. It burns magic along with mundane matter. Wouldn't hurt my scales, but it WOULD drain my magical reserves. Nice opening move for someone picking a fight with a black.

He clicked his tongue in a fashion she recognized as thoughtful - but he didn't say anything more over their mental connection, and she didn't want to distract him further while he was dodging trees at high speed in the dark. Then, a couple of minutes later, they emerged into another clearing, and he skidded to a stop. "Quick, get off." He said abruptly, and she naturally complied. "What's the plan?" she asked as her feet hit the ground again. He shrugged. "I go kick goldy's ass. You wait here." She blinked in confusion, and could not stop herself from giving him a pained glance, which he recoiled from slightly. "Sorry, love... but in an aerial battle with another dragon, that sword of yours wouldn't be much good - you'd only make me slightly less aerodynamic, and risk getting injured or killed by something I could've shrugged off."

She knew he was right, but it still hurt to be reminded that the only thing she could do to help her beloved was to stay out of the way while he fought for his life. "I understand... I'll wait here for you." He nodded, and gave her a pained smile while he spread his wings. "You do that. Oh, and don't worry about the fire. Spellfire isn't self-sustaining unless it's burning something enchanted, and I suspect he'll find a better use for his magical juice once I'm up there with him." With a nod, he leaped into the sky, where he quickly became invisible save as a dark silhouette against the stars. Now that she was standing still, she could also see their opponent - a golden glimmer in the darkness, reflecting the moonlight.

Standing in that clearing, she watched the dark silhouette speed towards the glimmer of shining gold. Through the mental link, she could sense Blake's elation and anger, the adrenaline pumping in his veins as he faced down a serious opponent. It made her wish once more that she was up there with him, fighting alongside him... but that obviously wasn't possible. All she could do was watch as the two beasts collided in the air, flashes of magic and fire lighting up the night sky between them. As Blake had predicted, the forest-fire died moments later, the all-consuming flames disappearing as swiftly as they had appeared, leaving behind ashes and devastation as a black scar on the spring-green forest.

The aerial battle was fast-paced, and highly mobile. The two dragons chased each other through the sky, gradually moving further south towards the foothills of the Goldpeak Mountains - which, she knew, were named not for any significant gold-deposits, but rather for the golden dragons living around their peaks. Including, presumably, this one. The movement brought them closer to her, however, and her eyes were starting to adjust to the darkness now that the fire was gone - by now, she could see the fighting more-or-less clearly. It looked rather lopsided - the golden dragon was far bigger than Blake, nearly as large as old Inferand had been. But Blake was holding his own, dodging around spells and fireblasts while sending his own back, and already the golden interloper was starting to look worse for wear. And yet, it pressed on, seemingly fearless even in the face of a black dragon's power.

Then, over the mountains, the balance of power suddenly shifted. With a shriek that reverberated all the way down to the forest-clearing where she stood, a second golden dragon appeared from behind a nearby peak, and divebombed towards Blake like a suicidal falcon. Clearly caught by surprise - she could sense his confusion and momentary panic over their mental link - Blake pivoted in the air to meet the charge, only for the first golden to redouble its attack. A barrage of spells and dragonfire slammed into Blake's back, and while his scales absorbed most of it, it still stunned him long enough for the second attacker to reach him.

The impact tore him from the sky, plummeting down amongst the foothills with the berserking gold wrapped around him, tearing at his wings. She was sensing his pain and consternation now, but the initial surprise had also worn off, and the fact that the first attacker's impressive spell-barrage had failed to inflict any real damage also served to buoy his confidence. Said dragon was, in the meantime, pursuing the struggling pair down amongst the canyons and hills, out of Anitra's line of sight. No longer an observer, she could only sense the flow of the battle from Blake's mental feedback - loose, undefined emotions and feelings. Needless to say, he didn't have enough attention left over to keep her informed with specifics.

The battle dragged on as the minutes ticked by. Then, maybe half an hour after she had been so rudely awakened, she saw him rise over the hills once more - with one of the golds in close pursuit. The gold caught up to him, and she felt a tangible shock as she saw the golden dragon's claws shred his wings. He fell from sight again with a roar, the golden dragon still in pursuit. Then, moments later, a shock went through her. Her mental connection with Blake was no more. When she reached out, she felt nothing. It wasn't like one of those times where she'd been stuck behind a magical barrier that their signal couldn't get through - instead, it was like he wasn't there to reach in the first place. Like he didn't exit.

Like he was dead.

The thought hit her not like a punch, but more like a sword through the chest. She collapsed onto her knees, all of her muscles seemingly giving up at the same time. With a colossal effort, she managed to lift her head, fixing her sight at the point where she'd last seen Blake disappear from view. Tears ran down her cheeks as she sat there, waiting. She could think of nothing else to do. She did not utter a sound, and her face was frozen in an expressionless mask. There she sat, as the night began to brighten into dawn.

Three days later, at dusk, she was sitting there still. The tears had stopped flowing some time ago, presumably because she didn't have any tears left to cry. She sensed someone entering the clearing behind her, but it definitely wasn't a dragon, so she didn't care. Another being entered alongside the first. She could hear them talking, but their words were insignificant, and she paid them no mind. Then one of them walked up in front of her. It was a centaur - odd creatures, those. The body of a horse, but with the upper body of a man where the horse's head should go. She's heard much about them in the past, but never met one before. This was presumably a member of one of the nomadic bands that lived in the nearby Western Steppes, come to investigate the lightshow from the battle.

He waved a hand in front of her face. She didn't blink. He leaned down to inspect her face while touching her neck. He shouted something over her shoulder back at his partner. A waterskin appeared in his hand, and he forced the tip past her lips, squeezing the skin to fill her mouth with semi-cold water. She swallowed it without any particular thought, feeling her dry throat constrict as she drank for the first time in three days.

When they tied her up and slung her over the back of the first one, she briefly considered putting up a fight. But she had no will with which to do so. There wasn't any real point in watching the hills or waiting here, after all. She knew that he was gone. She didn't care what happened next. So she just hung there, swaying slightly as the two centaurs galloped through the forest, across the swathe of devastation wrought by the battle, then out into the Steppes. Along the way, a couple of other centaurs joined them, and words were exchanged. She didn't care what they were saying, thought. She wasn't even sure if they were speaking a language she understood.

It was nearly dark when they reached the encampment. A cluster of huts made from easy-to-pack tanned hides rose up from the steppes as they rode over a low hill - it was fairly large, indicating a prosperous tribe, and dozens of other centaurs came out to greet the new arrivals. More words flew over her head unnoticed. An aged-looking centaur wrenched her head upright with a firm grip around her chin, and spoke in slow, carefully-elucidated syllables. "You. Do you understand?" It was the trade-tongue, spread by humans wherever they went. She understood, certainly, and half-opened her mouth to say so. Then she decided that it wasn't worth the trouble, and closed it again, her eyes focusing on a point far past the head of her annoyed-looking interrogator. He exchanged some words with the others, but she ignored them.

The ropes holding her to the back of the centaur who'd found her were cut, and she slid limply to the ground to find herself kneeling on the grass and staring into space - no different from before. Then the old-looking centaur grabbed her chin again. "You. STAND UP!" It had the tone of an authoritarian command, spoken by someone used to being obeyed. With no particular reason to resist it, she simply allowed his will to substitute itself for her complete lack of same, and somewhat shakily got to her feet. Her face did not change, and she still spoke no words - she had merely switched to STANDING in the grass and staring into space, as requested. The centaur - who she was now eye-to-pectorals with - rubbed his chin with an annoyed look on his face, then turned to speak to the other centaurs - there was several of them assembled around her. Maybe because of his authoritarian tone, she found herself loosely paying attention.

"Her mind is clearly broken, but her body still functions, and she can obey orders. I doubt she's good for anything complicated, but... well, we can still find a use for her, can't we?" The last bit was said with a nasty grin, and a few jeers and cheers went up from the surrounding mob in reply. A couple of rough-handed centaurs behind her started pulling off her armor, which she saw no reason to prevent. They were somewhat stumped by her chest-armor, though, finding no seams or joints in it. Finally, one of them just told her - loudly - to take it off. With a minimal concentration of will, she did so - releasing the magical seals that held it together. The last bits of her armor clattered off, to the surprised exclamations of the nearby centaurs, leaving her naked.

The old centaur - presumably their chief - barked some quick orders and gathered up her fallen armor (which included her sword, still attached to the back of her breastplate) himself, walking off with it in the direction of the biggest, most ornate of the tents. She, meanwhile, was bodily picked up by a burly specimen of a centaur, and carried off to another tent. This one was elongated, primitive, and rather worn. It also smelled none too sweet. The reason was obvious once she was carried inside - this was the slave-tent. It was 'decorated' to resemble a stable, which was apparently a common reflection of centaur humor. They liked to compare their keeping of human slaves to humans keeping their 'equine cousins' as beasts of burden. Turnabout is fair play, after all.

In one end of the building, a number of high-walled stalls held a selection of unwashed humanoids - mostly humans, with a couple of dwarves and orcs mixed in. All male, from the looks of it. The other end of the tent held the women - each given her own separate enclosure, unlike the men who were packed into their stalls like fish in a barrel. The reason for this, however, was quite clear. A couple of the stalls were occupied by a centaur in addition to the women - specifically, with the centaur on top of her, and piteous moaning and crying rising from beneath him. Yes, she'd heard about this; many centaur tribes enjoyed using captured women as sex-slaves, particularly since - by some quirk of the chaotic magic that had spawned them - they could impregnate women of other races with centaur foals. And since their magically-created race had a pronounced majority of males (presumably since they were originally designed as cavalry-replacement warrior-thralls), they had solid reasons to indulge in such things - no matter how painful it was to the other party.

Into one of these stalls, she was shoved. It was quite bare - a pair of troughs for food and water, a bucket for _processed_food and water... and a nice little construction in the center of the stall specifically designed to make it easy for centaurs to mount humanoid women. It was quite simple - a bale of hay with two sets of shackles run under it for fastening the struggling female by wrists and ankles, and at the end of it, a pair of fenceposts with a stout bar nailed to the top of them, to support the weight of the stallion. Considering the lack of anything else softer than the stamped earth floor, it apparently doubled as a bed.

The burly centaur who'd carried her there ordered her to get on her hands and knees on the bale of hay. She complied, once again lacking a will with which to override his. He fastened the chains - quite unnecessarily, but she saw no reason to tell him that - and then apparently decided to be the first to sample her. She could hear him grunt something along the lines of "Hope you don't bleed out too fast, little girl" when he jumped on her back, front-legs cradled by the crossbar at the end of her 'bed', while his stallion-sized tool jabbed at her exposed crotch.

It soon found her labia, and as the centaur above her grunted in astonishment, they easily parted before his flared cockhead - easily the size of two clutched fists, by the feel of it. The rest of her pussy was equally receptive, and when his full two-foot shaft disappeared inside - even as her cervix stretched around his cockhead to welcome it into her womb - the grunt turned into an outright gasp of disbelief.

Of course, his astonishment didn't stop him from taking advantage of this to fuck her with unrestrained violence. It had been a long time since she last had sex with an equine, she foggily realized. She'd missed it, somehow. The size was just right - filling her out without stretching her beyond capacity - and the broad, flat head provided lots of friction and sensation going in and out. Her pussy rapidly lubricated in response, allowing the centaur to increase his speed further and further, until his hindquarters were a blur and his breathing grew ragged and pained from exertion. She came a couple of times - little flashed of pleasure exploding against the dullness of her brain, failing to create any real impact.

But her body was quite capable of reacting even without prompting from her detached mind, and responded by squeezing down on the equine cock with superhuman might - eliciting a surprised wheeze from the centaur, who apparently didn't have enough air left in him to grunt or gasp anymore. Shortly after, the centaur reached his climax, briefly inflating her uterus with his cum, before it escaped back down along his shaft to dribble out unto the hay-bale. Then, still panting for breath, he pulled back his rapidly-deflating member and staggered out of the stall while mumbling to himself.

Afterwards, she got a lot of visitors. Word of her talents had, apparently, gotten around, and the rest of the day was a steady stream of centaur stallions, eager to make use of her pussy. Soon enough, one of them found his way into her ass by chance, and found it just as receptive. The rest of her visitors followed suit, going anal more often than not - apparently, it gave them a more convenient angle, making it easier for them to work up a good rhythm, as well as allowing for a deeper penetration. Normal women probably didn't handle that well, though - but for her, it was no big deal. Her asshole eagerly wrapped around the equine intruders, milking them for vast torrents of cum, which proceeded to kickstart her enhanced metabolism into a Quickening... which, however, found that her mind was entirely unreceptive to its enforced clarity. While it strengthened her mind, it also strengthened her memories, pushing her even deeper into depressed passivity.

The stallions continued to come well into the night - and when finally they stopped, she could not sleep. She just laid there, a steady stream of equine cum dripping from both of her holes, starring into the darkness. The next day, she was moved to another stall, in a tent of its own. It was bigger and roomier than the old one, though no less sparsely appointed. The main difference here was, apparently, that there was enough space for several centaurs to enter at the same time - and circle around to her front if they wanted to. Which, as it turned out, they did.

During that day, she was visited by what was most likely every last stallion in the tribe. They'd ride her from behind like before, but afterwards - even as the next centaur lined up behind her - they'd trot around to the front of her 'bed' and command her to clean their shafts properly. So she did. Whether she was licking off sweet pussy-juice or the bitter residue of her ass didn't matter to her - it was all tasteless to her, just like the thin gruel they fed her morning and night, and which she only ate because they told her to.

This routine continued through days she didn't bother counting. After the first few days, the number of daily visitors dwindled - presumably as the newness wore off. But she could still count on at least a couple of dozen stallions coming by every day. Some days brought significantly more, and though she couldn't be bothered to memorize her rapists, she thought she saw unfamiliar faces in those crowds - merchants or guests from other tribes, sampling the local color, presumably. It was all the same to her, though - they all did the same things, after all. 'bout twenty minutes of vigorous fucking in whichever hole they'd picked, followed by a tongue-cleaning and done.

However... ever culture has its deviants. Even the centaurs, who considered it standard practice to capture, enslave, repeatedly rape and forcibly impregnate members of other races. And in the night, they came to her. She had a tent of her own, obeyed any order spoken to her, never talked - and thus couldn't tell any of the 'normal' centaurs about the perverts who came by at night. They were quite a varied lot, and would pop up at all times of the night - which she could not complain about, since the near-constant state of equine-powered Quickening she was in seemed to reduce her need for sleep to nearly nil. Having them show up to force her to participate in their perverted games merely offered a distraction from starring numbly into space.

One of the first to show up would prove to be a true regular. He would, without fail, show up in the early hours of the night, just after everyone else had gone to bed and the camp had fallen silent. He then mounted her from the front, thrusting his cockhead into her mouth - the fact that she could easily take it all inside had surprised and delighted him significantly on the first night - and commanded her to drink. Then, a torrent of hot horsepiss would flow across her tongue and into her gullet. It always went on for several minutes, until his bladder had been entirely emptied. Then, he came - blasting a middling load of cum (mixed with whatever piss remained in his urethra) into her stomach as well. This repeated itself every night. Based on the sheer quantity of urine - and the rather delicate way he walked coming in - she speculated idly that he probably saved up the whole day's worth of it. Either way, once he had emptied both his bladder and his balls, he'd swiftly leave with an expression of intense satisfaction on his face - making way for later visitors.

The oddities who followed were a mixed bag. One twitchy fellow would have her lick his asshole while jacking him off at the same time - she could only reach the first foot or so of his shaft like that, but it was apparently enough to satisfy him, since he always came messily all over the floor within ten minutes of this treatment. Amusingly, he'd then spend another ten minutes carefully cleaning it up so as not to leave clues.

Another seemingly enjoyed fisting her immensely, and would spend upwards of half an hour with a hand buried to past the wrist in each of her holes, vigorously thrusting in and out, while his cock slowly hardened. Then, when he finally mounted her, he'd reach down to pull her head up, and force the fingers of one of his hands into her mouth, ordering her to lick them clean while he jerkily fucked her. It was usually the hand that had been inside her ass, though for some reason, he'd sometimes give her the one from her pussy instead. She wasn't sure if he was just being random, or if he sometimes forgot which hand went where.

Others were stranger yet. One muscular fellow would sometimes come in and command her to lick his balls clean - they would, inevitably, be soaked through with the sweat of a hard day's labor. Once she was done cleaning his ballsack - which took a while, since each testicle was the size of a large fist - he'd be sporting a full erection. At which point he'd leave. What he went to do after that, she did not know, and she couldn't be bothered to speculate.

One occasional visitor was apparently really into kissing. He'd lift her entire upper body and grope her tits while sloppily making out with her. Initially she'd simply taken it, allowing his tongue to freely explore her half-open mouth, but when he instructed her to 'kiss back', she obeyed. So whenever he came in, they'd spent ten to twenty minutes drooling all over each other's faces, tongues intertwining and lips grinding against each other - before he'd finally sport a hard-on, and move around her to mount and ride. Whether he was unaware of what she usually did with her mouth or if that was actually part of his fetish, she wasn't sure.

Not all of her visitors left satisfied, though. One frustrated fellow was apparently a full-on sadist, and came in the first time with a paddle made from rough wood. He spent nearly an hour spanking her ass and paddling her dangling tits, bruising both red and blue - but while she vaguely registered the pain, she gave no sign of it, her face expressionless and her mouth closed. Finally, the centaur left, having apparently failed to even get an erection.

He came back some nights later, with new weapons. A set of tiny thumbscrews, which he attached to her nipples and clit, tightening them as much as he could. Undeniably painful, and yet, she could only shrug inwardly while thinking "Yep, that's pain all right. So what?" He left them in place for nearly an hour, hoping for a reaction, before leaving again. Not that he gave up, mind. He visited several more times; First he brought a set of needles, with which he painfully perforated her nipples, clit and - when that failed to cause a reaction - the rest of her pussy and tits. But even with what seemed like a hundred needles buried in various sensitive parts of her anatomy, she didn't react.

The fourth time he brought a heavy whip, and after chaining her down with legs spread, proceeded to wail away at her ass, pussy, tits, stomach, and basically everywhere else, until she was covered in angry red lines. She still did not respond. At that point, another centaur came in, and an argument ensued - something about 'damaging the breeding-slaves', and the sadistic one left with his head hanging. He was the only one of her nightly visitors to ever get 'caught in the act', having apparently overestimated the sound-dampening effect of the thick hide her tent was made of. He never came back again.

However, of the 'deviant' centaurs who visited her in the night, one in particular stood out - by the frequency of his visits, among other things. While others visited just once - to indulge in a long-held fantasy - or perhaps once or twice a week - to scratch a persistent itch they couldn't get seen to anywhere else, there were two that visited her nightly. One was the full-bladdered fellow mentioned earlier - the other had a somewhat related kink, but a much longer plan.

The first time he appeared - in an hour so late, it was arguably early morning - he simply spread her legs, sucked noisily on one finger, spread her labia widely with his other hand - and then carefully worked his finger into her pisshole. It wasn't the first time she'd endured a urethral insertion, nor was it the largest, nor was it even particularly long since that first time... so to the surprise of the centaur - but not her - his digit easily slid in to the root, leaving the tip of his finger poking straight into her bladder.

After checking that he really WAS in the right hole, he experimentally lubricated a second finger and pushed that in alongside the first. That, too, had little trouble entering, but he now found the sort of vise-like tightness he'd been expecting to begin with. Apparently satisfied, he started finger-fucking her urethra with a moderate, steady rhythm - and carried on doing so until the sun began to rise and he swiftly retreated, clearly worried someone would come by to have a bit of morning wood seen to and catch him in the act.

This repeated itself the next night, and the one after that. And for another week after that. Gradually, her urethra loosened from the wear. Then he added a third finger, which - considering that they were fairly thick fingers - was fairly close to the width of the mass of tiny tentacles that had stolen her urethral virginity not so long ago. The shape of the hand, of course, also ensured that the resulting three-finger plunge was somewhat cone-shaped, growing wider towards the palm. The three fingertips entered somewhat easily, but around the root of the three, her urethral sphincter was painfully stretched. Of course, she gave no notice of this, and so, the centaur carried on, steadily ramming his fingers into her peehole for hours before disappearing into the morning sun.

He carried this on for two more weeks, again loosening her up bit by bit - then he added a fourth finger. The stretching was more than just severe by now, but with the gradual approach and the centaur's apparent determination, she was handling it. The first night of it, he barely got the first joint of his little finger inside along with the other three fingers, but he carried on like that, and over the next days, he was gradually able to push more and more inside. By which point his determination was starting to stir what minimal curiosity she had left - and so, she glanced behind her one morning.

The reason for his dedication became instantly clear when she saw what he had dangling between his legs. Somehow, it had never occurred to her that horses - and, by extension, centaurs - would also have unfortunate guys born with severely sub-par gear in that department. Compared to the other stallions of the tribe, this guy was truly pathetic in both length and girth. It would still compare favorably to a human's cock, but hanging under his huge, muscular body, it looked downright laughable. He was fully erect while fingerbanging her and from what she could tell, even fully-flared his cockhead was somewhat smaller than her own slender hands. Presumably, he'd found it hard to get anything approaching a tight ride from local centaur mares, or even from slavegirls already 'broken in' by other, better-hung centaurs.

Her curiosity thus satisfied, she turned her head around again and resumed starring into space, while the hard-working centaur continued to labor at opening up the only orifice that the other centaurs hadn't overstretched already. He continued at this for another two weeks worth of late nights, eventually reaching the point where he was fitting his four fingers inside right to the edge of his palm. Then, for the first time, he spoke to her - an order, as usual. "Hey - reach back here and hold this open with a couple of your fingers!" And as usual, she obeyed, for lack of any will with which to refuse. Reaching back between her legs, she hooked two fingers from each hand into her gaping urethra - vacated by the centaur's hand only a second earlier - and pulled it open while spreading the finger-pairs to help spread it further.

Then, as expected, he mounted her. His tiny equine cock first found her pussy - not surprising - and he quickly thrust in and out a few times to get it properly lubricated. Then he pulled out, and aimed lower. It took a couple of tries for him to finally hit the mark - even with Anitra doing her best to hold the door open for him - but finally he managed. His cockhead squeezed in past her fingers, and she pulled them out to let the once-tight outer sphincter of her urethra snap closed around it. Above her, he gave a low moan - the sound of a man reaching a long-held goal. Then he started thrusting... or at least, tried to. Even with a layer of lubricating juice from her pussy, it was almost impossible for him to move - her urethra was clamping down on his hardened shaft with enormous strength.

But even if his dick was small by comparison, he DID still have the huge and heavy body of a centaur - and that meant a lot of weight and strength to put behind it. It felt like her entire pussy was caving in from the pressure as he continued to throw himself forwards, but finally, he managed to get some movement going - pushing forwards, deeper, as her urethra reluctantly absorbed a few more inches of his cockshaft. It didn't have many inches to give - it was maybe 14 inches from the head to the radial rim that generally marked the limit of insertable length in this position, and reaching all the way down to her urethra took another couple of inches off. But small though it was, her urethra was smaller yet.

Another couple of inches, and the cockhead popped past the inner sphincter, into her bladder. Suddenly, the pressure was working in the other direction, as her tight urethra sought to expel the head - which was starting to expand into a flare as the centaur became increasingly aroused - into the somewhat-more-roomy bladder. With a *plop*, it happened - three more inches or shaft was pulled inside her overstretched peehole, and the fist-sized cockhead now rested entirely inside her bladder - more or less filling it to its normal capacity as it finally blossomed into a full flare. With a bit less than half of his theoretically-insertable length still out in the cold, he'd reached the bottom of the well - but at least he couldn't fault it for lack of tightness.

Like that, he fucked her. Or at least did something that could be loosely termed as such. His shaft could barely move, and his head was entirely caught inside her bladder - so when he pulled back, he basically pulled her urethra and bladder along, causing the top of her crotch to bulge out dangerously. When he thrust inwards, they went along too, pushing deep inside her body. It seemed unlikely that he was deriving much pleasure from it, and sure enough, as the minutes ticked by, his movements became increasingly frantic. It seemed unlikely that he would be able to pull out absent the deflation that would result from a climax, and he clearly didn't want someone to walk in and find him in the middle of it... though, likely less due to the deviancy inherent in it, than due to fear of the resulting teasing.

It was well past the time he'd normally leave when he finally managed to reach an orgasm. The quantity couldn't be faulted, though - it filled her sealed-off bladder beyond capacity, painfully expanding it like a balloon. The resulting bulge above her venus-mound was just as big as the last time her bladder had suffered a sperm-inflation, and this time she wasn't getting a boost from her beloved's presence. It was agonizing, but dwarfed into insignificance by the painful memory that had been stirred up by it. Anitra's face showed no emotion, nor even any sign of discomfort as the centaur pulled his wet, rapidly-deflating dick out of her, a small deluge of cum following in its wake. The centaur, meanwhile, wore a panicked look on his face as he checked around to make sure nobody had snuck in while he was busy, then rapidly left.

He didn't return for several days, and for a while she thought that the previous fiasco had dissuaded him. But when he finally showed up again, half a week later, he came prepared. A large dildo, seemingly improvised from some animal-bone hung from his hand, slightly smaller than the fully-erect dick that swung underneath his flanks. It even had a bulbous, spherical tip the size of his (un-flared) cockhead. Inserting it fully into her pussy to lubricate, he then went to work with his fingers again, stretching open her urethra like he'd done previously - before finally deeming it suitably stretched and grabbing the bone-dildo.

It slid in painfully - the hard bone was far less yielding than the engorged tissue of his cock, or even his bony fingers. But she gave no sign of this, and he gave no notice, simply continuing to push the wet bone deeper until the spherical tip forced its way into her bladder. Then, clearly not wanting his new toy to get stuck, he immediately pulled it back out again, tormenting the internal sphincter of her peephole. He continued this for hours, drilling her bladder and urethra with his customary determination. And, of course, he came back the next night to do the same - and the one after that.

After a couple of weeks of this, her urethra - and, particularly, her bladder - had grown accustomed to it. There was barely any resistance when the spherical tip was pulled out of it, and her peehole would hang slightly open for hours after he'd left, unnoticed by the centaurs who eagerly used her pussy and ass. Then, he brought in a new toy - same design, but bigger. It had an advantage of perhaps half an inch in diameter over his own cock, and included a tip seemingly scaled after his FLARED head. As unyielding as the last, it brooked no argument as it was forced into her increasingly stretchy peehole.

Once again, her urethra burned with pain as it was stretched open. The size of the thing seemed impossible at first, but each day it became easier, and the pain receded. She was, after all, inhumanly stretchy - even something like that, she could handle if it was done gradually. By the end of the week, the muscles around and inside her urethra had become well-trained, much like the muscles in her pussy and ass had, long ago. Her urethra's inner sphincter no longer tried to clamp down on the bone's spherical tip when it punched into her bladder, and the outside hole would hang wide-open for minutes after he'd finished - as if inviting a fresh penetration.

Thus, when he finally felt brave enough to give the peehole-fuck another shot, he didn't need her to lend a couple of helping fingers - after a vigorous session with the bone dildo, he simply jumped on her back again. After a quick dip in her pussy and a couple of seeking thrusts, he found the still wide-open hole beneath it. The added stretching had certainly made a lot of difference - her urethra was still tight around his shaft, of course, but not so much that it restricted his movement. His cockhead easily reached her bladder again, with half his shaft behind it - and this time, it plopped back out again when he pulled back.

With a goal he had worked towards for several months finally achieved, he wasted no time taking advantage of it. That is to say, he fucked her with the vigor of a particularly horny and blueballed centaur. This time, it didn't take long before he came - less than ten minutes, it seemed. But while the resulting load certainly ballooned up her bladder visibly, the reduced tightness of her urethra meant that it now had a means of escape - back down along the shaft that had brought it up there in the first place. And as the cum flowed around it, the briefly-softening dick hardened again, and the fucking resumed.

With his slimy seed adding even more lubrication, his thrusts got faster and harder. Again and again, he bounced off the back of her bladder, deforming and stretching it up inside her body by a tiny bit. And this time, he lasted for the better part of 20 minutes. A second load re-filled her partially-drained bladder, and squirts of high-pressure cum were blasted out along widely-stretched circumference of her outer urethral sphincter. They flew impressive distances. More impressive yet, the centaur continued for a third run. And then a fourth. His virility seemed boundless, and it was just as late - or early - as always when he finally stopped and left. And even then, it was because of the time rather than an inability to continue, she sensed.

That, thus, was the new routine. He'd come in, stretch open her urethra with the dildo, ram it like that for a bit to get it nice and loose, and then mount her to ride it for hours. As the nights rolled past, the repeated stretching of her bladder - and the pounding of its roof - stretched her in a new direction. As her bladder was forced higher up inside her body, her urethra was lengthened by a solid inch, and the top of the bladder was deformed to give it a more oblong shape - more suitable for its newfound purpose as a cock-sheath. This entire process was, needless to say, excruciating, and the pain in her groin never really went away. She could feel it pounding inside of her all during the day, while she was busy servicing other stallions.

And yet, she loved it. She enjoyed it more than anything. It was, in fact, her only true pleasure at this time. Her face still did not betray this, but she spent her days looking forwards to her nightly visitor. She knew when he was due to arrive, and always made sure to empty her bladder of piss - as well as she was able to, considering how messed-up the muscles in that area were - so that he wouldn't be bothered by it when he was stretching her open. And while she wasn't sure if the centaur noticed it, she would often push herself back against his insistent thrusts of her own accord - a service she normally did not provide her lovers unless they directly ordered her to.

So while the centaur gradually reshaped her abdomen to accommodate his wishes, forcing inch after inch of his cock into a hole that would never normally support it, she silently cheered him on. The reason had less to do with the interesting, stretchy sensation she was getting from both the outer and inner urethral sphincter, or the bladder-stretching cumloads - and more to do with unfamiliarity. After the initial jolt, the pisshole-fucking had become, in effect, the only sex-act that didn't remind her of her lost love. When a centaur fucked her pussy or ass, or forced her to lick his cock clean, or even when one had her drink a bladderful of hot piss, it inevitably reminded her - to some degree - of doing those very-same things with Blake. And that hurt far more than any torment or rape. But this - this was something she'd never done with him. The gradual deformation of her insides that were turning her old liquid waste excretion-point into a fully-viable fuckhole was effectively setting the entire experience apart from any of her memories.

When he rode her, his hard cock creating burning waves of pain as it ground over the overstretched, rubbed-raw tissue of her urethra, she was briefly free of her memories. The far-worse pain in her heart receded. So she welcomed him, and silently celebrated along with him when - after a couple of months worth of 'training' - he managed to penetrate to within an inch and a half of his radial ring. Which was as far as their respective anatomy would allow for, as his haunches came into full contact with her ass-cheeks. Even then, she silently urged him onwards. When he came by the next night, she carefully bent her waist further than she normally would, pushing her stomach down towards the bale of hay that elevated her to a fuckable height. By thus angling her groin towards him, she made it easier for him to reach her urethra - and sure enough, he was once again hitting the bottom of her bladder before his groin hit her ass. Another inch could potentially be pushed inside, and she could look forwards to another few weeks of him deforming her insides in order to do just that.

An inestimable amount of time had passed. A routine had been settled. Morning meal, then a day filled with stallions riding her pussy and ass, followed by tongue-cleaning their cocks. Then an evening meal, followed a couple of hours later by a load of stallion-piss and cum chasing the gruel into her stomach. Then whatever odd perverts had decided to come by THAT night - she wondered if they had a schedule set up, since she'd never seen a couple run into each other. And finally, 3-4 hours of having her bladder brutalized - the only bright point of her schedule. Then it started over again.

The only break in her schedule was when the clan packed up their nomadic settlement and moved to a new location - then she spent a day or two tied up and stacked in a wagon with several other girls. In the evening during these moves, the centaurs would gather around a campfire and command her to service the other girls - licking their pussies and assholes. It had presumably started as just an amusing party-game, another use for her willingness to obey any order. But when they saw how quickly and copiously the girls she serviced came - the result of oral skills she'd picked up in far-flung places from the Forest of Faeries to the Sultan's Harem of Mirage City - they apparently expanded on it.

During subsequent journeys - and sometimes during her otherwise-regular days - they'd set her on specific girls. Word of her skills had apparently spread in the stalls of the regular slaves, and the girls eagerly spread their legs for her tongue. Presumably, she had become a reward of sorts, for slavegirls who performed their duties well. No doubt, her skillful tongue was a pleasant change-up from their daily routine. She didn't mind - it was another one of those things that didn't remind her of Blake.

Then, suddenly, everything changed in a flash. It was a day like any other, with a centaur riding her ass as hard as he could. Then there was screaming and roaring and explosions outside, and she felt a strangely familiar prodding in her mind. The centaur on top of her looked behind him in shock, and quickly pulled out - trotting out of the tent with his cock still swinging fully-erect and wet between his hind-legs. There was a scream outside that she was fairly sure came from him. Then the entire tent disappeared above her, torn away by a great force and sent fluttering through the air. Above her loomed a black shadow that made her chest suddenly ache with familiarity.

A set of razor-sharp talons descended, neatly cutting through her steel chains before gripping her arms so gently they didn't even break the skin, lifting her upright. "It's me, Anitra! Look at me! I'm here - please, come back to me my love!" The voice echoed in her dull mind, and with a shudder, she pulled her head upright to look up at the draconic face she knew so well. It was strange, though. She didn't know that dragons could cry. She felt her own eyes sting while her face shuddered with unfamiliar exertion, pulling her delicate features out of the stone-faced look of despair it had been frozen in for so long. The edges of her mouth came up while her eyes opened wide. It was him. But it couldn't be. And yet, now that she was breaking through the haze, she could hear him in her mind, too - no words, just an ocean of conflicting emotions. Anger, relief, uncertainty, fear - all dwarfed by a wave of all-consuming love, sweeping through her mind and bringing her back to life after what had seemed like an endless nightmare.

"It's... you... but... you..." she coughed. She hadn't spoken a word in... who knew how long? Her throat wasn't used to it. He lowered his head and rubbed it against her. "I'm fine. I've been searching for you. And I finally found you. You're alive." Carefully, he released his grip on her arms, allowing her to sink back into a sitting position on the hay-bale that had been her bed for so long. His eyes narrowed with hatred as he took in the conditions of her 'home' - then he looked around. There was several smoking corpses littering the ground around the tent already, but further back, amongst the other tents, the rest of the clan were circling. They were armed to the teeth, but their faces showed undisguised terror. "Just rest here for a bit, and get yourself together..." Blake said, between clenched teeth. "I'll just go deal with your 'hosts' in the meantime."

His wings were already spreading, and his claws were raised with terrible magic trembling at their tips, when she staggered to her feet and cleared her throat with a few coughs. "No... wait. Don't. Let them live." He looked down at her in surprise, but lowered his claws. She shook her head and took a deep breath, struggling to clear her mind. "We need to find out what happened to my gear while there's still someone around who can talk. And besides... while they might not have been ideal hosts, they DID save my life. If they hadn't picked me up then they did, I'd have sat where you left me 'till I died of thirst. So I'd say it's a wash."

Blake winced visibly when she mentioned dying, but he nodded. "I suppose so. Yeah. Makes sense. All right, then just wait here while I go NEGOTIATE with them..." In a jump, she was at his side, climbing up to seat herself in the rather weatherworn saddle he was still wearing. He turned his head around to look at her with surprise written across his face, but she returned it with flinty eyes. "I'm not letting you out of arm's reach anytime soon, buster. I'm still not even entirely convinced that you're real, and not just a particularly vivid dream come to torment me. But if you ARE real, keep in mind - from now on, whenever you tell me to 'wait here', I will attach myself to you - with chains, if needs be."

He opened his mouth to reply, then sighed and nodded silently. She wasn't sure if she saw another tear roll down his cheek as he turned his head around again, or if it was just her imagination. Either way, she remained seated on his back as he trotted towards the surrounding centaurs, bellowing at them. "ALL RIGHT YOU LOT! If you want to keep your lives AND your pretty little camp, send someone forwards to negotiate! Preferably someone who knows his ass from a hole in the ground!" The centaurs stopped their circling motion in confusion, and a murmur rose from them as Blake stopped moving and looked out towards them with raised eyebrows. Then, an old centaur emerged from the group, pushing off several younger centaurs that seemed to be trying to physically restrain him. She dimly recognized him from when she had first arrived.

"I am the chief of this clan. If you would speak with us, you can speak with me." He spoke in a clear, strong voice, with only the barest tremble of fear in it. Blake nodded and began to open his mouth, when Anitra jumped to her feet, ran up his neck, and draped her naked body across the top of his head. "Oh, good - that's convenient. I remember you." Her voice had caught up with her mind at last, and lost the shakiness that had come from disuse. She sounded like herself, now, and the centaur clan-chief recoiled in surprise as she grinned down at him.

"Back when I first arrived here, you took off with my armor AND my sword. I'm afraid I'm gonna have to ask for it all back, now that I'm leaving your hospitality behind." The chief swallowed something, then nodded. "Of course. I've kept it safely in my tent since then. I'll just... go and get it, then." He trotted towards the large, ornate tent she'd noticed during her initial arrival, moving like someone who really wanted to run like mad, but was afraid of what would happen if he did. Blake's eyes rotated to look up at her while she grinned down at him. "Seems like we're in luck." She commented lightly. "I was afraid he'd have sold it off by now." Blake's face split into a reptilian smile, and she could feel the muscles working through her naked skin. "Not a lot of merchants out here, let alone anyone with the purse to buy something like that. He was probably hoping to find a buyer for it all at the Conclave of the Clans, a month from now."

She blinked down at him. "Conclave of the Clans? When did you become an expert on the movement-patterns of nomadic centaurs?" He shrugged, sending a ripple up his long neck. "Let's just say I've found reason enough to study. We can talk about it later." She nodded silently, realizing that she could pretty much figure out the answer to that question herself, now that she thought about it. A couple of minutes later, the centaur chief reappeared, carrying her equipment in his arms, and deposited it in a pile a respectful distance from Blake.

Enjoying the feeling of physical activity after spending so long getting little to no exercise, Anitra leaped from Blake's head, did a quick flip in midair and landed on her feet in front of the pile while the chief quickly backed off a few steps - apparently uncertain about whether he could leave yet. While pulling on her armor, she glanced up at him and gave him a half-grin. "Well, chief, like I said, I'll be leaving now. Your scouts saved my life, and for that I am grateful. But I think I've already paid you back in full - and then some. So we'll call it even. But in the future, you might want to think twice about enslaving mysteriously catatonic adventurers wearing exotic, enchanted armor. Ya never know, right?" The centaur nodded jerkily, then swallowed hard and walked back towards his fellows at a measured pace, keeping an eye on Blake all the way.

With her gear back in place, she swiftly leapt back to Blake's back and gave the assembled centaurs a quick wave before the powerful wing-muscles underneath her shuddered, and a mighty flap of his huge, black wings sent them skywards. She'd almost forgotten the joy of flying - it felt like the wind blowing through her hair was washing away the silent despair of the past months. What it was not washing away, however, was the smell. There's a small lake not far from here. We'll set down there - you can get a bath, and we can talk. Okay? Blake's question was curt, and she could feel the emotions still whirling within him like a remote thunderstorm. She sent him an affirmative thought, while experimentally sniffing at herself. Yes, she definitely smelled like horse - and then some.

The lake was really more of a watering-hole, as it turned out. Many of the animals of the steppes frequented it, but none were brave enough to stick around when Blake landed at its edge, and so Anitra found that she had the place to herself. Stripping off her armor again, she waded into the water and started thoroughly scrubbing herself down while glancing up at Blake. "Well, I suppose we both have stories to tell, but I'm going to be busy washing myself for a while - so why don't you start?"

He nodded, then sighed. "Right, then. I assume you were watching my battle with the golds up to the point where it moved down into the foothills of the mountains?" In a momentary flash of recall, she saw him rise above the edge of the hills, only for a gold to rise with him and tear him from the sky. She shuddered at the memory. "Yes... right up to the point where one of them shredded your wings." He glanced at his wings thoughtfully for a second, and as he spread them, she could see vague lines indicating recently-healed wing-tissue. Then, strangely, he grinned.

"Well, I DID get my wings shredded... but that wasn't what you saw. THAT was an illusion. Turns out, fighting two fully-grown, magic-trained, combat-experienced golden dragons at the same time is just exactly more than I can handle. So I figured I'd divert one of them with an illusional copy of myself. Divide and conquer, y'know? Worked pretty well, for all of two seconds." He scratched his chin, clearly lost in the memories now. "While the lady was chasing my shadow, the big daddy was cooking up the biggest Sphere of Negation I have EVER seen, or even HEARD of." "Sphere of Negation?" she queried, briefly breaking him out of his reverie. He nodded, holding up three talons. "Ah, right. That requires a bit of explanation, I suppose. See, there are three spells commonly used to disable magic. The most basic is the Sphere of Silence, which shuts down all noise and thus any magic that requires words, which is most of it. Useful for other stuff too - I've used one a few times. It's useless against a reasonably-skilled Sorcerer, though, since they can throw magic with nothing more than a gesture and a bit of concentration. Also no good on any magic-charged item, like a wand with stored spells, unless it needs a command-word to trigger." He folded down one talon.

"The second is the Antimagic Sphere - it creates a magic-absorbing field, which effectively disables ALL spellcasting, regardless of source. It's got a pair of weaknesses, though - firstly, while it will prevent the use of any item designed to release magic - like a wand, for example - it still has no effect on enchanted items. Second, since it literally absorbs magic, it's possible to overload the field by channeling sufficient magical force into it fast enough. Which is exactly what I would've done if he'd tried throwing up one of those." A second talon was folded down.

"Third... the Sphere of Negation. Very high-level magic. It effectively removes all magic within its circumference. Magic just stops existing. You can't cast any kind of spells within it, and even enchanted items and artifacts become powerless. Completely impossible to break from within." He sighed as he folded down the third talon. "Since all magic within the sphere is completely negated, our telepathic connection was nullified in a rather traumatic way - I suppose it would be exactly the same effect as if I had actually died."

"Not that what _actually_happened was particularly pleasant. My magic is my main advantage over 'ordinary' dragons, y'know. Of course, they knew that too - that's why they did it. When I avoided the Spellfire, the Sphere of Negation was Plan B, and a pretty damn good one at that. It negated their own magic too, of course, but I was on the ropes to begin with, and in a straight-up physical fight with two golds, I wouldn't stand a chance."

"So, I started thinking like a rogue. I outran them, hid, launched ambushes and hit-and-runs while using my speed and agility to stay out of harm's way. Figured I'd run them into exhaustion. Maintaining a Sphere of Negation is no mean feat, especially not at that size. But the clever bastards started trading off on it - one keeping an eye out for me, while the other focused on maintaining the Sphere. I tried to run away altogether a few times, but they always caught on before I reached the edge of the sphere. Sharp eyes and sharper noses, that's dragons for you."

He sighed. "So it dragged on. I hurt them a few times, they hurt me a bit. Days passed, then more of them, while we played cat-and-mouse throughout the foothills, and then up into the mountains. Along the way, I overheard them talking to each other several times, and figured out who they were." Another sigh, this one deeper than the first. "They weren't just some random pair of golds out hunting for blacks just 'cuz we aren't supposed to exist. To them, it was personal. That's why they were chasing me with such fanatical zeal."

A sneaking suspicion was catching up with Anitra while she continued rubbing down her ivory-colored limbs, and his next sentence confirmed it. "They were the parents of that young goldie we 'met' back on that island with the knight's Mausoleum... Aurelia was her name, I believe. They were out for revenge, understandably enough. I dunno how they tracked me, though. Perhaps the tablet just guided them here for the 'trial', or maybe it just placed us directly in their path. Either way... same result." She nodded, remembering the events on the island. It had been fun, helping to humiliate a golden dragon. She hated 'normal' dragons by default for casting out blacks like her beloved just for being what they were. These kinds of far-reaching consequences hadn't come to mind at the time. "So... should we be looking over our shoulders for any avenging aunts or uncles now?" she asked, affecting a lighthearted tone.

Blake shrugged. "Maybe, maybe not. Hopefully not. The same thought occurred to me along the way, y'know. That if I killed them, someone else would just come for vengeance. In the end, I managed to separate them - though it cost me most of my wing-fabric. I had the female at my mercy, my claws closing around her neck. Then I asked her who would look after her daughter if they both got killed fighting me. It... confused her, understandably. But she listened. I told her to go home, and not waste her life on pointless revenge. Kind of a hypocritical thing to say, I suppose, since I'm not shy about revenge myself. But it got through to her. When I released her, she left - along with her mate."

"Unfortunately, I was rather far from where I'd left you by then - far enough that I was out of telepathy-range - and it had been... maybe a week? My wings weren't in any condition to fly, either. I started walking back towards the forest, but without a birds-eye view, with hills and mountains everywhere, I could barely pick out the cardinal directions. I doubt I made much progress over the next couple of weeks, while my wings healed. When they finally did, though, I reached the forest within the hour. But of course, you were long gone - and still out of range."

She could hear the pain in his voice as he continued. "I didn't know where you'd gone at first. I panicked a bit. Then I noticed some old hoofprints around the clearing where I'd left you. Figured out that you'd probably been grabbed by one of the centaur-clans that live out here on the Western Steppes. Unfortunately, that was somewhat less than a tangible direction - these steppes are pretty large, and the centaurs are nomadic. They can cover a lot of ground in a day, and don't move in predictable patterns. I found out the hard way - first I spent weeks flying randomly all over the place, hoping to stumble on you. When that didn't work, I flew a grid-based search-pattern over the entire steppes, and still came up empty-handed."

She could imagine his despair as his only lead seemingly came up empty, and wasn't surprised that he needed to take a deep breath before continuing. "Well, after feeling down about it for a bit, it occurred to me that if they were on the move, they could've avoided my search entirely by accident. So I captured a random scout I spotted running around alone, and questioned him about the migration-patterns of his people. He wasn't much use, despite obviously being scared silly of me, but he told me about the Conclave of the Clans. It's apparently a big, annual meeting where nearly all the clans gather around some sort of sacred spot, to trade and exchange stories. The Conclave was still more than a month away, but I figured it was my best shot."

He shrugged, as if shaking off the memories. "So I spent the next several weeks camping out near the conclave-site, flying a circular pattern around it every day. Finally, it paid off, and I detected you. I could feel that your mental state wasn't... particularly healthy, though. My telepathic messages weren't getting through. So I went straight in for the rescue, and the rest you know." She nodded, walking back to the shore while droplet of clear water rolled lazily down her naked body.

"I guess I understand what happened, now. But at the time, I just thought you'd gotten killed right in front of me. If the centaurs hadn't found me when they did, I... well, that doesn't matter, I suppose. They found me, and carried me back to their clan. As for the rest..." While Blake used his heated breath to dry her off, she told him - with minimal detail - of what had happened to her amongst the centaur.

"They weren't really all that bad..." she concluded. "I always kinda' enjoyed having sex with equines, y'know? They're the second-best thing after dragons, albeit a distant second." She winked at him, and he grinned back at her. "Frankly, if I hadn't been so messed up in the head, I probably would've enjoyed myself there a lot. I got to try out some new stuff, too. And the only one of them that was actively trying to hurt me got told off by his friends and kept away afterwards." Blake nodded, affecting a thoughtful expression. "I see, I see... indeed, it would seem that out of all the bands of nomadic raiders who routinely enslave women of other races as sex-toys and breeders, they are by far the best hosts." She swatted him playfully on the nose, but couldn't resist grinning. "Come, now, you're hardly one to talk - you rather enjoyed that slave I bought you back near Mirage City, didn't you?" He shrugged offhandedly. "Guilty as charged, I suppose. But then, I DID admit to being a hypocrite not long ago."

She laughed at his admission as she let her hands slide down his long, slender neck. She was still naked, though now dry, and she enjoyed the shiver she could feel working its way up his neck as she touched it. A dawning realization reached her. The past several months seemed like a vague dream to her - she'd practically fallen into a daze from the start, and not noticed the passage of time - while, simultaneously, having lots of sex on a daily basis. Meanwhile, Blake had been fully-alert and searching desperately for her all over the steppes - and, of course, being celibate. Theoretically, he might've picked up a nice centaur-mare - though the clans guarded their women jealously, they wouldn't have much of a chance against a horny dragon... but she had a feeling that if he had, he'd have told her about it. Obviously, he'd been too worried about her to worry about satisfying his urges... making it, from what she could figure, by far the longest period of celibacy he'd had to endure since reaching sexual maturity.

She licked her lips as she rubbed her naked body against his chest, slowly sliding downwards and enjoying the sensation of the rough scales against her stiff nipples. She'd heard that men would build up larger and thicker loads from prolonged sexual abstinence. Was the same true for dragons? She was eager to find out, and judging from the way Blake shifted and fidgeted as she rubbed herself against him, he was more than eager to cooperate with that particular experiment...

He was sitting, as he often did, in the style of a gigantic, scaly cat - rear-legs hunched, front-legs stretched, and his tail wrapped around them. Thus, she only had to lightly step over his tail and slide between his front-legs to find what he was hiding behind them - a huge, throbbing hard-on, as expected. He began to shift, probably intending to lean over her and assume the 'doggystyle' position that their lovemaking usually wound up in sooner or later, but she stopped him with a though and a soft touch to one of his legs. There was something else she wanted to do first.

Stepping up close to his muscular belly, she slid down to her knees while spreading them wide, enfolding his cock in an odd embrace. Leaning into it, she caressed it with her thighs, pussy and belly, while enfolding the upper end of the shaft in the heat between her breasts, squeezing them tightly together with her hands. Then, she leaned her head forwards to lightly encircle the pointy cockhead with her lips. She could feel the soft texture, the steel-like hardness, the pumping of his blood and the steady heat-radiation, from her legs to her face. And when she started gently sucking on the sensitive tip of the huge shaft, she could also feel it pulse as muscles contracted in preparation of orgasm - clearly, he was on a hair-trigger. Much as she wanted to taste his cum, however, she knew this wasn't the way to do it - in her present position, the pressure of the first jet of thick sperm would inevitably push her head up and away, leaving most of it to go to waste.

So instead of continuing for the couple of seconds it would've taken to bring him off like that, she lifted herself back to her feet, pushed her groin a few inches further forwards, and lowered her pussy down on the pulsing cockhead. Her well-trained labia parted easily before it, and as she sunk into a spread-legged crouch again, her body absorbed two feet worth of his thick shaft with delight. The entire length of her birth-canal, and her womb besides, embraced it with elastic enthusiasm - and she was once again reminded of how wondrous it was that his enormous girth could not just comfortably fit inside her, but also felt undeniably RIGHT somehow.

Blake, meanwhile, shuddered in pleasure as he felt himself teetering on the edge of a long-delayed orgasm, his restraint crumbling like a sand-castle before an onrushing wave. With a barely-restrained roar, he shifted his massive bulk - not merely thrusting upwards into his beloved, long-missed Anitra, but actually pushing his entire body in that general direction. As he jumped, the remainder of his cock lodged itself inside of her, making her spasm as a sudden jolt of pure pleasure shot through her brain like a miniature climax. She didn't even notice her feet leaving the ground as Blake pounced forwards with her still attached to his groin.

Next thing she knew, she was lying on her back in the soft grass, feeling Blake's cock spurt its hot load inside of her. She rested one hand gently on her stomach as it started to distend and stretch under the pressure of her rapidly-expanding uterus, feeling the thick, hot cum churning under her touch. Her hair was streaming out behind her, floating on the surface of the water - the jump had pulled her all the way to the water's edge. Her peripheral vision picked up Blake's forelegs, sunken into the mud, trembling as he unloaded several months of accumulated desire into her.

It continued for several minutes, and Anitra marveled as her previously-flat stomach continued to grow. She knew that it would normally have taken two entire loads to stretch her womb like that - it seemed as if the enforced celibacy had somehow turned his balls into a bottomless reservoir of cum. But alas, end it finally did, with what had to be nearly two gallons of cum filling her belly. Blake rested above her for a moment, but she could feel that his shaft was as hard as ever - he wasn't going to go soft on her anytime soon, of that she was certain. Meanwhile, she could feel a slight tingle inside of her as her body started to absorb the cum. That was new - she'd always been able to feel it disappear (though she had no idea how it worked), but it had never tingled like that before. Maybe it was just because it was so much thicker and richer than normal. She could feel it sloshing around inside of her, the consistency reminding her of cream cheese.

But Blake recovered quickly, and he wasn't about to wait for her body to catch up. His first orgasm had pretty much been brought on just by her touch, but with the worst of the pressure let off, he was finally able to get started on actually FUCKING her. And so he did - with great eagerness and energy. It was an unusual position for them - with her flat on his back, he had to bend his rear legs just to keep his thrusts low enough. But with his forelegs buried in the mud at the water's edge, he not only had a decent angle there, he also had a solid foundation for bone-shakingly powerful thrusts.

The thrusts poured into her, rapidly accelerating despite the awkward angles. As his pointed cockhead repeatedly blasted into her over-filled womb, it set the huge, thick load of cum already in there moving back-and-forth. Normally it would have flowed around like a sea in a storm, but the thickness of it prevented that - and so, instead, the viscous fluid began to jiggle like a tub of jelly. Her inflated belly bounced up and down as the repeated thrusts shook her entire body, and the hand she had placed there soon found itself busily occupied keeping the bouncing to a minimum. Her other hand, meanwhile, was gripping the tough grass underneath her to keep her body from sliding into the lake as her pleasure began to peak.

Her back arched, lifting her above the grass by her heels and head as the climax washed over her. It was incredibly intense, even by the standards of the pleasure Blake usually bestowed upon her. Despite having been anything but celibate for the past several months, it seemed like her body had never really been satisfied with 'just' an entire herd of centaurs to pleasure it. Only Blake could really reach her like this. Lights flashed before her eyes as she struggled for breath, her mind awash with a heady cocktail of pleasure, lust and love.

Blake, meanwhile, easily followed her body into the air, never missing a stroke. With her now-raised pussy suddenly much easier to approach, his thrusts redoubled in speed, and before Anitra had finished absorbing the intensity of her climax, he followed suit with one of his own. It was less sudden and violent than the first, since he had at least had a chance to build up to this one... but it was just as intense, for it was not the lacking opportunity to empty his (admittedly aching) testicles that had torn at him in the endless months leading up to this day. It was the desire to feel his beloved pressing against him, wrapped around him. Not just to feel the pleasure of her well-trained snatch milking his cock with hungry eagerness, but to SHARE that pleasure with her. He could feel her convulsing beneath him, her pussy clamping down like a vise without quite squeezing hard enough to slow him down, and it was that - not the sensual pleasure radiating from their intertwined genitals - that left his fang-filled jaw hanging open in a broad grin as he panted in exertion.

Ignoring the emotions and thoughts flashing between the two lovers, however, the biological basics of their mating played out as they always did. His balls boiled over once more, and a fresh torrent of hot cum washed down through his thick cock, flowing into Anitra's already over-filled womb. The pressure rapidly expanded her belly still further, pressing it up against his scaly hide as her back continued to arc - but this load lacked the solid thickness of the first, and with both her womb and pussy thoroughly softened up by his repeated thrusts, they lacked the strength to keep all of the free-flowing sperm inside. Enough flowed down along the sides of his shaft to seep our around the edges of her widely-stretched labia, coating them in the slimy white liquid while slowly dripping to the ground beneath.

They lay like that for several minutes - he on top of her, his shaft still hard inside her as his cum slowly seeped out around her taut labia. Both breathing hard, both feeling the rising tide of lust mingle with their shared love and passion, robbing them of what little restraint they had. When he finally pushed himself upright and backed up, pulling his still-undiminished erection out of her, they both also knew that this was not the end of the session, but merely a concession to physics: If they'd continued as they were, Anitra would soon find herself needing to learn how to breathe underwater.

But no sooner had Blake turned his cock towards the endless grasslands again, than Anitra was on it, unhinging her jaw to swallow it whole. Her tongue danced desperately around the shaft as she gulped down inch after inch of it, relishing the familiar taste of cum, pussy-juice and - most importantly - Blake. He, of course, was eager to cooperate, and soon his thrusting hips were helping the immense shaft penetrate deeper into her gullet. The sight of the thick meat-whistle arching from her mouth, to the scale-covered set of balls below his sheath, made her feel even hornier - and the thick scent rising from said shaft to tickle her nostrils didn't hurt either. Dimly, she remembered having reminded herself, some time ago, to have Blake throat-fuck her more often. She didn't recall where or why, but she'd definitely been right!

Her well-practiced throat eagerly contracted around the hot shaft as Blake started fucking her face in earnest - not gagging, but deliberately massaging it, even as her tireless tongue added abundant stimulation to whichever part happened to be inside its reach at any given time. It was a blowjob that only a DragonRider could've performed, and the familiarity of it made Blake's heart soar even as his balls began to boil again. A third load soon burst from them, making his cock swell slightly as he flooded Anitra's gullet with his hot cum. Her stomach hungrily devoured it, powering the first Draconic Quickening she'd had in more months than she'd care to count.

It flashed through her like a crown-fire, sweeping away the lingering pains and memories of her long, depressing stay with the centaurs, reinvigorating her body and spirit. With renewed energy, she continued to suck her lover off, adding new twists to her technique as she sought to tease another hot meal out of him. Rotating her head as she pushed it forwards to meet his thrusts... letting a slight 'hummmm' thrum through her throat to stimulate the length of the shaft... contracting her throat in its entirety as hard as she could whenever he was pulling out, as if she was literally milking him...

Even as she exercised her creativity, however, a different idea occurred to her. Something all-new, never done before. A suitable way to greet her returned lover. The idea was irresistible. She just needed to tease him RIGHT to the edge of another orgasm, but not let him quite get there. Fortunately, she was intimately familiar with her big, black lover's sexual performance, and she could see the signs: The slightly increased sharpness of his thrusts, the minute vibrations in his tight, scale-covered testicles (which were conveniently hanging right in front of her face), and the slight swelling of his cock that served as the final warning.

Feeling them all come together, she let one of his thrusts into her throat carry her along instead of resisting, skidding back on the slick grass - then, before he could adjust, she pulled her head back just as he instinctively pulled back for another thrust. The bright-red, rock-hard cock popped out of her mouth and hung before her, covered in saliva and vibrating slightly. Blake groaned above her, confused by her actions but too caught up in his horniness to put it into words at this time - and she fully intended to let him feel the explanation before he got around to asking for it.

Rolling onto her back, she lifted her legs to wrap them around the thick shaft above her, using her weight to pull it down. It followed her directions easily, and she grabbed the pointy tip to guide it carefully towards her pussy. Her real target, however, was just a bit higher than that... her urethra. Needless to say, there was no way Blake would EVER be able to actually penetrate her there, but... his cock WAS quite pointy, and the tip WAS quite sensitive. And, well, after that one centaur had put so much work into getting her all stretched out there, it seemed a shame to let his labor go to waste.

Licking her lips in concentration, she pushed her hips forwards to meet the carefully-steered cockhead, guiding the very tip - containing the tiny hole of HIS urethra, and no bigger around than her thumb - into the once-narrow hole. The tissue, having been stretched, tempered and trained without benefit of her full, dragon-accelerated powers, parted easily before it, and she gasped as the first three inches of her lover's enormous cock disappeared into her. Blake, feeling the incredible tightness around his sensitive cockhead, instinctively thrust forwards and - with this final stimulation - reached his orgasm.

The thrust pushed another two inches of his length inside, her outer urethral sphincter stretching enormously around the rapidly-tapering shaft as it was forced further open than ever before. The rest of the thrust's impact just pushed her across the grass by several inches, skidding on her ass. With this level of penetration, the very tip of his cock was left just outside her bladder when it started releasing its gooey load, rapidly filling her. Her bladder ballooned up, its elasticity buoyed by her lover's presence even as it pressed against her already-full womb. A new bulge formed on her lower abdomen, like a little sister to her pregnant-looking belly, and she groaned as the still unfamiliar pain and pleasure of the stretching washed over her.

Blake, panting slightly as he recovered from his climax, reached his head down to her to get a look at what had happened. "Well, THAT'S new..." he commented drily as he pulled out of her, his cockhead perusued by a small torrent of sperm before her inhumanly elastic urethra snapped back shut and sealed the rest of his load inside. Then he looked down at her, scaly eyebrows lifted inquisitively. Anitra grinned up at him, one hand caressing the two sperm-filled bulges on her abdomen. "Well, I didn't ENTIRELY waste my time while we were separated... one of the centaurs put a lot of time and work into helping me explore this new frontier, and I was curious to see how far I could go down that road now that you're here with me."

Then she licked her lips and gave him a naughty smile as she rolled over on her hands and knees again, waving her ass in the air. "And besides, I want you filling every part of me! My pussy, my womb, my mouth, my stomach, my bladder... oh, look! You've missed a spot." Not one to pass up such an invitation, Blake returned the smile and stepped forwards to maneuver his still-hard cock into her waiting asshole. Eagerly, her sphincter stretched around his girth, and his entire length quickly disappeared into her hungry body as he began to hump her vigorously. It wasn't new or fancy, but the good ol' doggystyle ass-fuck was a reliable performer that they never really got tired of...

But of course, even after he deposited a couple of thick loads inside her tight rectum, she wasn't satisfied. The freshly-boosted Quickening gave her the energy to carry on, and his long deprivation provided him with greater staying-power than ever before. The relief of seeing each other again hung between them like a chain, and neither one of them were interested in breaking it. Instead, they just kept going, reaffirming their love for each other as they worked their way through every position, kink and perversion they'd learned and practiced throughout their journey. Eventually, Anitra's body started reaching its limits - while capable of absorbing vast quantities of dragon-sperm regardless of where it was delivered, it couldn't keep doing it forever.

So, just as she'd desired, her entire body was soon packed with Blake's seed. It filled her stomach, her intestines, her womb, and indeed her bladder. Her belly was arching out in that '9 months pregnant - with twins' look she'd sported a couple of times before, but this one FELT better, she thought. The other times, it had just been ONE orifice packed to overflowing. This time, she had three different sperm-filled balloons inside of her, pushing against each other, sloshing whenever she moved...

But still, Blake's cock remained hard, and his balls remained productive. And so, Anitra refused to stop. When there was no more room in her womb, she jacked him off with only his cockhead inside her labia, filling her stretchy birth-canal with his cum as well. When her stomach would hold no more, she swallowed anyway, filling up first her esophagus and then her mouth - refusing to spit it out even when there was nowhere else for it to go.

It was only after this, while the sun set over the steppes, that Blake's accumulated virility began to run out. She managed to get him off one more time - teasing him to one last orgasm with his cockhead lodged just within her sphincter, ensuring that every cubic inch of her stretchable intestines were packed with his seed as well. Then, with a weary sigh, he fell over on his side as his friction-worn shaft shrunk back into his sheath. Anitra would have followed suit, but she still had a mouthful of cum she refused to let go of - so she skipped the sigh and just went straight to the bit where she laid down on her back and let sleep claim her. For the first time in many months, her dreams were merry (and wet), no longer just an endless repeat of that one fateful moment she now knew to have been an illusion...

It was nearly dawn when she woke up. Her body had caught up with the previous day's debauchery during the night, and had reassumed its normal, lithe shape. Needless to say, she was brimming with energy... but nonetheless, she felt oddly restrained. There was a sedate peacefulness to this pre-dawn darkness, as if the world was waiting with bated breath for the light to return. Her eyes, of course, cut through the gloom easily, and beside her she could see Blake - looking down at her with a gentle expression on his handsome, reptilian face. She sensed that, despite his exhaustion, he hadn't slept that night. Most likely, he had just lain there... watching her sleep.

Feeling comforted by the thought, she smiled at him as she got to her feet and went back to the watering-hole to wash herself again. Much of yesterday's entertainment still clung to her hair and skin, and there was no saying how long it'd be before she got another chance to bathe - possibly not 'till they reached the Dragon Utopia at the end of their journey. There were no words exchanged between them as he watched her bathe. Only the steady flow of shapeless emotions through their telepathic link, like a mental embrace.

Once she'd cleaned herself, she pulled on her armor - it felt familiar against her skin, a comforting presence not least because it was forged from her lover's scales. Her sword strapped across her back once more, she grabbed Lutan's Tablet from Blake's saddlebag, and then sat down on one of his forelegs, leaning against his scaly chest to listen to the sound of his powerfully beating heart for a few minutes. Silently, he lowered his head to hers, and she wrapped her arms around it. Telepathic hugs were all well and good, but sometimes you just needed the real thing...

Finally, as the sun rose above the mountains far behind them, chasing the stars away from the sky, she released her grip and - with a sigh - raised the tablet to read it by the light of the newborn dawn. "These 'trials' are getting worse and worse..." she said, as much to herself as to Blake. "I don't relish the thought of having to face another one. I don't know what could be worse than what we've already been through, but I've got a bad feeling Lutan does." Blake nodded, and echoed her sigh. "And yet... we've come too far to turn back now. One more trial, and our goal will be within reach."

She nodded, glancing down at the tablet's map as it shifted into a new appearance. "The last trial... 'Face Yourself', eh? I wonder what that's all about. At least this last trial was pretty straightforward in that sense. We both knew what our 'worst fear' was before we even started, didn't we?" Blake looked somewhat embarrassed for a moment, then nodded and gave her face a lick. "Yes... yes we did. Fighting two pissed-off golden dragons, alone, was scary, but not even a fraction as frightening as the thought of losing you." Even now, he found it difficult to put his feelings into words like that. It made him feel... exposed. Vulnerable. Not a feeling he was particularly accustomed to. But still, he kept talking, deliberately using his voice - even though saying things like this over their intensely private mental link would've been far, far easier. "Whatever the last trial is, we face it together. As partners, lovers, soul-mates... whatever you want to call it."

She smiled up at him, her face soft in the delicate morning light, and her heart so light, she was afraid it might leap out of her chest and float away. "As husband and wife, perhaps?" She said it in a joking tone, but they both knew it was more than that. Blake barked a laugh in reply. "If you can find a priest crazy enough to marry us, sure! I mean, hey, we wouldn't want to live in SIN, would we?" They laughed together at that private joke that wasn't quite a joke, while Anitra pulled out her collection of maps to find out where they'd be going next. One more trial, one more battle, and they'd finally reach the place where they could live together in peace.

THE END

The final trial awaits in Chapter 19 of the DragonRider Chronicles: Face Yourself! Look forwards to it...