FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

WARNING: This story does not contain dragonslayer clichés. (Actually contains exposition and reference to vore)

I wasn't always this way, I used to be human, what a great time that was. I can still remember my old life back in a village so small, the people in it would only feed me for a week, and I'm a light eater, well, for a dragon anyways. The village was called Whitefork because the main road that ran through the village had unusually white gravel, It split into two directions half way through the town, one going north towards the mountains and one going west towards the sea. Both were a fair trip, a two days walk for the mountains, and a four days walk to the coast. I had just turned eighteen and was ready to start my own life. I knew that I wanted to try to live on my own, without the aid of anyone else. I felt strong enough to take on what life could throw at me and find a way to keep going. I mean, I had already had some experience with the cruelty of life.

I helped my mother forage for food most days. She had me late and even before I had come of age, she was unable to do quite a few things around the house. I feel that I had realized that growing up had less to do with freedom to do as you pleased and more to do with freedom to make decisions that have an impact in lives other than your own. I knew at this point in my life I could not move away, my mother needed me far too much at that point in her life. My father was one of the guardsmen that protected the small village from attack in the first few years of my life. They always talked about how essential their job was as protectors of this land but none of them actually did anything from day to day. I'm sure that deep down, they knew that their job was useless, I think everybody knew. Guards were useless because we had a much more efficient form of protection around our land: a dragon. Few had ever seen it and lived and the ones that had come back to tell the tail had undoubtedly lost a large group of people in the process. This was because the only way that dragon would allow someone to live was if it was too full to eat them as well. Those people never came back the same, it was as if they were a ghost just like their fallen friends or family. It was almost as if they wished that they had succumbed to the same fate. The dragon rarely let outsiders into Whitefork so guarding an empty road seemed quite useless. Every so often, someone would make it into town but we all had our doubts on whether they would be able to continue their journey after they left.

Early on in my lifetime, when the dragon had selected its home near our settlement, I remember the townspeople trying to convince anyone who had made it to town to stay. They warned of the dangers of leaving. Some heeded the warnings but others did not. We never saw the others again. Foragers would find remains of the people that had left, bones, torn clothes, old boots. The villagers learned to remember the clothes on the people who left town in order to identify them later on. As time passed, so did the amount that people in town cared about outsiders. They would usually just let outsiders make their own fate without interference.

Some believed that the town was a safe haven from the dragon but I had doubts. If the dragon had really wanted to, it would have eaten all of us without mercy. I think that it had planned to keep us from the beginning. Just as we would keep cattle for our use, the dragon would keep us for its use. We were a source of food that it could pick from at any time and it wasted no opportunity. If a forager or a hunter had strayed too far from the town, they would become the foraged or hunted. When someone hadn't returned by sundown, we assumed the worst. Nobody really dared to leave town and, as a result of our fear of the area beyond, we learned to become self-sufficient.

I knew from a young age that life in this town was not for me. My parents tried their hardest to dissuade me from thinking that way. They knew that leaving would surely mean my demise but I decided not to listen to them. I had a plan and I knew just who I needed to help me complete it.

Josthaan, although one of the most well-known villagers, was not the most socially outward person that resided in Whitefork. Most people knew very little about him, save for the fact that he was a recluse and a man with a gift for magic. I knew that if I wanted to leave Whitefork, I would have to ask for his help. In my adolescence, I had underestimated the power of reclusively. During my thirteenth year, I went to his house every day and knocked on his door, begging for him to help me out. Even to this day, I still am not sure if he was ignoring me to test my persistence on the subject or if he really was uninterested in anyone else's affairs, I assume the latter. As I was on the brink of giving up, he opened his door and asked what I wanted, an apathetic expression painted on his face.

"I want to leave Whitefork" I stammered, completely astounded that he had finally opened his door. He looked quite old but without the characteristics that you would expect from a sorcerer. He was quite well kept, his face shaven clean every time that I saw him. His hair was as black as coal but with a shine to it that came from some sort of substance that kept his hair well groomed.

"... And you're not going to leave me alone?"

"No sir, I need your help." I said.

"Very well, I guess if you're this persistent, it is something you really must want."

I smiled as I followed him into his house. All manner of substances lined his shelves, all very well organized, but with a creepiness that came along with the sort of objects that he had so carefully arranged. Tongues, eyes, scales, fur. All manner of body parts sat suspended in a murky yellowish liquid. Everything was labeled but I didn't see much use to the labeling seeing as the house was so dim. I wondered why that was and looked around for windows. A few skylights lined the roof of the house but had been left to collect dust for what looked like years. I heard a snap and looked over at him. He had snapped his fingers and pointed to a jar on the shelf. I walked over and picked it up, looking at the content of the glass container. 'Lizard limbs' the label had said and sure enough, tiny scaly appendages floated around in the water. I handed him the jar and he reached in carefully, taking six limbs out and placing them on a wooden cutting board.

"Now," he started, "This potion is going to take quite a while to make, years in fact, but once it's done, you will be able to leave town unhindered."

"What does it do?" I asked.

"It turns you into a dragon." He said, smiling excitedly.

TO BE CONTINUED