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Draconic Dominance

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Written by Arian Mabe (Amethyst Mare)

Commissioned by anonymous

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Maybe it should have been obvious just what was going on in the bustling town of Davon but sometimes people simply could not see the truth that lay right beneath their noses. On the edge of the mountains, which cut right down to the sea and shockingly steep cliffs, a drop that could easily kill the strongest, most vital of men, it was a popular trade route and had flourished during the course of recent years, even amidst the calls of gulls and other sea-faring birds. Sometimes they even saw puffins and pelicans, one nesting far out on the rocks while the other merely passed through, gulping down fish that fishermen would have much rather have had in their nets.

It was an endless battle between nature and humanity to survive but that was only one of the problems that Davon faced, the town coming, quite literally, under fire every few months or so, give or take. There never was a set day or date to it but the working town heeded the roar when it blasted over the mountains, the fire that rained down from above, flickering, dancing destruction glaring in their eyes. The wooden palisade could not keep out this fire, regardless of how often they painted it with fire-resistant sap, hardening and solidifying on the wood that they had initially cleared for the foundations at the very beginning of the town. They could build their walls as high and as strong as they liked, however, as their enemies would fly straight over them and laugh at the folly of a notion that they could, in any way, shape or form, be stopped.

For the beasts that plagued the town, which still flourished and grew, despite the threat of them, were dragons that hunted on the wing. Two grown ones, they assumed, had reached a staggering three-hundred foot height, obscene and deadly, and it really didn't make any sense at all why they would lay the town in their shadow, ripping deadly swathes of fire down the streets and rumbling their mirth and sordid pleasure as townspeople ran in fear, death on their heels. One younger one flew with them sometimes too, although that one had only appeared more recently in their history, nearly driving some merchants away from bringing wares there entirely.

Some considered it foolish to the extreme to go to Davon at all but, alas, it was situated right where it needed to be, the trade excellent and the surrounding land and ocean exceptionally fertile. It had everything that they could ever have wanted and the only obstacle to their success was the plight of the dragons that picked off human beings, carrying them off screaming in their jaws or, sometimes, dropping them from great heights just to watch their bodies crack and splatter on the ground so very far below. To say that they were cruel would have been an understatement.

Oh, no… No, they could never be intelligent, mere beasts, after all. But that was just where the dragons had, for so very long, been underestimated. The townsfolk would never know that their neighbour was a dragon, the tall man with black hair and a moustache that hid his smile – not that he ever seemed to smile anyway. He didn't say much and neither did he do much but Navir had brought his wife, Helena, there many, many years back and found it a spot that could sustain their bodies well enough without resorting to a nomadic lifestyle. Dragons, after all, had to roost somewhere and make a nest, but the beauty of a woman with long, brown hair that reached her mid-back had had hatchlings on her mind, the pair of shape-shifters setting their minds on the sights of the next generation.

But humans didn't believe in shape-shifters, which was the crux of the very problem they faced. Just because someone didn't believe in something did not mean that they could not be real, shrouding the truth in a lie that covered up what may well have saved them. Yet that was all to the advantage of the draconic shape-shifters as they ravaged the town as it pleased them, not caring whether it flourished or even sustained itself, as long as they had their fun, scales glittering in the sunshine or slinking by under the cover of darkness, invisible to weak, human eyes. They, of course, could see regardless of what light there was or was not and nothing would faze them as they took stock of their kingdom, the great black along with his ruby dragon-wife and the family that they claimed for their own.

The youngest and smallest of them, although he was still a good one-hundred-and-fifty feet in height, give or take the growth of months, landed in a clearing as the sun set over the sea, painting the foam in shades of ruby and gold, the riches of the ocean laid out for all to see. There may not have been physical treasures in the depths that the dragons could make use of – maybe if the humans dredged them up themselves so that the dragons, the ones truly in power, could pick and choose what they wanted from the resulting booty – but there was sustenance aplenty for those who knew where to look for it. And a dragon needed plenty of sustenance indeed in the form of much larger prey when the likings of sport and toying with the humans that, in all reality, they lived among fell short of filling their ever-ravenous bellies.

And just what he had caught was a catch indeed: a pilot whale, dead in the eye and glistening with the moisture of the sea still. It was a fine kill for a dragon of his size and the yellow drake tore into the flesh hungrily, the line of spines down his neck and back shivering from one side to the other as he twisted his neck back and forth to get his teeth into the most succulent portions. He would strip the carcass bare, not wasting a scrap, but dragons, to those in the know, were notoriously finicky about the process of eating. Everything had to be utilised for the efficiency of their large bodies, despite the hollowness of their innards, the sacks filled with gas that made them light enough to take flight and spread their wings.

So intent was he on his meal that he didn't notice the rustle in the bushes surrounding the clearing, his back rising above the trees as the sun dipped lower and lower, casting the land into sweetly liquid twilight.

“Isn't it early for you to be hunting?"

The dragon barely looked up as his younger sister of a few years emerged from the woods with a scowl on her face, spotted with freckles in thick blotches. They were more like birthmarks, really, and her mousy, brown hair would not have turned many heads, not even cut evenly around her chunky, small face. Nothing about her seemed to be in proportion, although she was well past the point that she should have been maturing, lips turned down in a permanent frown and worry lines across her forehead.

The yellow dragon grunted and mantled his wings over his back, massively towering over her as she wrapped her arms around her torso for some semblance of warmth, longing for just a little of the fire that burned in his belly.

“Leave me to my meal, Blue," he growled under his breath, sinking his teeth into the blubber and tearing another delicious chunk free. “You wear on me… I don't have time for runts like you."

The words sliced through Blue as if they had been carefully thought out and so staged to hurt her, but it was just the way he saw her. Her parents love, well, that was a given, but her brother held something dark inside him that should have sent her fleeing, running like the hounds of hell were hot on her heels. And, yet, for some reason that she could not explain, she stayed, rooted in place with her hands on her hips and fury blazing in her sharp, blue eyes, one of the only striking things about her.

“Jacob, that's not fair. You won't say things like that to me when I'm a dragon like you!"

That had his attention and the dragon laughed, throwing his head back to bellow out his mirth, massive sides vibrating even as she staggered backwards.

“What – you? Sure thing, little sister, you'll be a dragon one day too but you'll always be a runt to me."

Maybe that was true or maybe it was not but Blue was sure, quite sure, that all was about to change. At nineteen, she was not far off reaching the age where her shape-shifting abilities would arise too and then she'd be able to join her family each and every night to hunt and lust after life itself as dragons until morning, the break of dawn sending them quietly back to their human forms and a play of a life that held their secret safe.

Soon, she promised herself as Jacob sat back on his haunches, licking his claws, tongue curling between each one in turn so that no delicious fat was missed. She'd soon show them all and everything would be different when she could defend herself, match up to his size and strength. Of course, there was nothing she could do as a human and if Blue had not already known that well enough for herself Jacob's constant mockery, a dull drone in the background, would have told her so. Weak, he called her. Useless, he said. Good for nothing, not a real dragon, ugly little duckling. But he never thought or even said that she'd blossom, one day, into a sawn, leaving her to cry herself out in the dirt time after time again as if that's as far as his relationship with her went.

Without thinking, she turned to go, eyes on the sights of the town again. Maybe she could have a hot bun for dinner, leave her family to their after dark antics until she could join them. That day would come. She was not expecting the ground to shake as her brother charged past her, a yellow blur of muscle and rippling scales, thundering around and stomping like a creature possessed as she squealed and flailed, swinging madly to regain balance that simply was not hers to have.

“Whoops!"

But the dragon was far from sorry and his grin and smirk told that tale clearly enough, Blue pushing herself up from the muck, where she had inevitably ended up, with dirt in her mouth. She tried to spit, grime between her teeth, face contorted in disgust even as he laughed, snaking his head back and forth in his own amusement at the folly of what he'd done.

“You fucking…"

Jacob didn't give her a chance to say more, however, an impossibly large, heavy forepaw pinning her down and shoving her back down into the dirt, grinding her there. She screamed and beat her fists on the ground, flushing hot with humiliation – but she had a more pressing problem at hand. She couldn't breathe! But what Blue could feel was the tiny bones and muscles, which were still huge to her, in his foot pressing her down and down, toes curling around her shoulders and head, claws pointed and lightly curved down for grip and, of course, to hook into unwilling prey.

“What's the matter, Blue? Are you stuck? Is little, weak Blue stuck under my foot?"

Dropping his head down to her height, Jacob chortled throatily, blinking slowly as he swung his head back and forth to take her in first with one eye and then the other, getting a good look as he wriggled his toes over her. His soles had already been dirty from the hunt and shuffling about in the mud to enjoy his haul and he rubbed that muck and grime into his sister, lifting his foot only enough to allow the motion, toes closing around her once more the very moment where it looked like her ridiculous squirming was going to get her out from under him. Power flushed through the dragon even as humiliation raced through her veins, Blue's mouth a gaping, dark hole of embarrassment as she opened and closed her lips over and over again, eyes wide and bulging, gasping for air that her brother simply did not think was hers to take.

“Weak, Blue… You'll never be anything, not even a dragon. You're not worthy of being a dragon."

Squeezing his toes around her as her vision greyed and wavered, he pressed down, forcing her to submit beneath him, the weakling brought to rights by her dragon overlord. She was nothing to him even if they'd grown up together, his ego inflated with being a dragon, powerful and indestructible – at least in his own mind. Only time would tell if a titan could fall as he spewed names like bile in her direction, Blue's struggles growing weaker and weaker as her hand fell, shakily, from his foot, slipping away from reality.

How far would he have gone if wing-beats had not shattered the air, cupping and shaping it with leathery membranes, right then? They'd never know but their parents arrived, quite aptly, in time to stop the play, for that was all that they ever saw it as. With a rumble and a growl, the black dragon shook his head at Jacob, Navir's eyes narrowing as he commanded his son with nothing more than a look that meant more than any snap of his teeth or swipe of his claws could, despite the devastation that both would leave in their wake. With a grumble, Jacob stepped back, releasing Blue as she gasped and sucked in blessed air, scrambling away without even a curse on her lips when she needed them for something far more urgent.

“Don't play with your sister, Jacob," Navir growled, red eyes dark with intent. “She is too small for you as yet."

The older drake shot him a look that didn't really convey the depth of the meaning behind it as Jacob rolled his eyes, the second eyelid sliding down and up again to complete the motion. Clad in black scales, his father shook his head, rattling the large, chunkier plates that covered and protected his back in natural armour, tail swinging back and forth lazily. He did not even notice the trees he took out with the thickly muscled appendage, the tip bulky and club-like, yet still light enough to assist him in quick changes of direction while in the air.

His father was not interested in what Jacob had to say – not at that time – and turned his muzzle to Helena, his wife, as the ruby-scaled goddess of death pressed up to his side, their affection brief but certain. Whereas dragons mated for life, their courtship was ongoing and fraught as a result but only time would tell whether they would need to strive for another egg or not. No, first they needed to see what came of the two-legged, scrawny wreck of a creature down in the muck, whether or not she would burn and spread her wings, joining them into a realm of draconic shape-shifting.

“It will be her time soon," their father added as he settled down, eyes on his son's kill. “And then this family will fly as one."

Time, time, time… Was that really all there was to it? Would that really be the answer to her problems, traitorous tears rolling fatly down her cheeks? Blue would not let them see her sadness, however, as the dragons prepared to fly for the night, enjoying the spoils of their draconic forms, leaving the only one of them who was not yet old enough to access her shifting abilities behind where she belonged.

Only… It was not Blue's time. Her brother continued to mock her, tease her, increasingly cruel as the months went by and he gorged himself, growing more and more with all he ate, fuelling and sustaining his colossal body. In full adulthood, it looked like he was going to be even larger than their father, as impossible a task as that may have seemed. She reached the age of twenty-one and expected fireworks, her first change reachable at long last, and yet…nothing came. Nothing at all. And her brother crowed triumphantly at the nothingness, proclaiming that he had been right to consider her the ugly, worthless one, the one who would never amount to anything where shape-shifting was life itself.

Down and down, she spiralled and she didn't even need her brother's goading or a swipe of his tail to shove her there. He didn't need to hold her in the mud or knock her into a pond to display his dominance over her, the inadequacy of the runt who would never reach the potential of her dragon-family. Blue just didn't have the gene in her, Jacob stated imperiously before a raging bonfire many leagues down the cliffs where humans did not venture, their family sitting in a ring around it. They could well have forgotten about Blue perched down on a rock, tiny and useless, but she hugged her knees to her chest and pretended that she, indeed, was not there as her family's conversation rumbled seamlessly around and above her. She knew she wasn't invited to be part of it.

However, trialling times would come to pass too and she tried to make the best with what she had, working in the bakery in town and maintaining as normal an appearance of life as she could. Her parents would not feed her, growing more and more distance, and it was not as if raw deer carcasses appealed to her all that much either, even though she wanted them to. She wanted to relish sinking her teeth into flesh and spreading her wings in the evening glow, frost glittering on the membranes. But Blue never grew her wings and stayed away from her family, the home empty of them bar when they were slumbering during the day in their human forms, although they would never use the term 'human' as anything other than a slur. To them, that's all that humanity really was: a negativity and a scourge that they would do well enough, if they could be bothered, to wipe out. They enjoyed toying with the screaming ants a little too much to really rage and rain down death though.

Several months passed quietly and the pull of darkness called her once more, hands covered in flour from the bakery. Blue had to go again, had to see her family up close as dragons, their nightly tradition carrying on without her even when it became apparent that she did not have the potential to become one of them in the greatest sense of the term. There was work, of course, to finish up before she could forsake her duties and scurry off for the night, tossing her apron aside as her heart leapt. Maybe they would all welcome her back, be glad to see her? It was a nice thought and a good hope to hold lightly in her heart, even if it was one that, truly, would never become the essence of her reality.

They met that night on the cliff, rather close to town but still secluded away enough that they would not be stumbled upon in a hurry. Anyone approaching would have only heard dragons conversing and communicating in growls and the like anyway, although Blue could well enough understand them and ensured that she was hidden, if anyone did spy. Before they had had a problem with humans who thought better of themselves slinking like rats out of their tinderbox homes after dark, seeking to hunt them, but a message written in blood had soon put an end to that. Still, they could only be cautious and aware of the potential for harm, the threats that could send them off to another town or find their eternal selves of a need to destroy the town that they had, duly, forced to become their home regardless of how people felt about their unwelcome tenants.

Late, late, late… Flushing hot, Blue seated herself timidly outside their circle, Jacob and her father swapping hunting stories that she wished she could be a part of. It just wasn't the same to hear things like that said out loud and she knew that it was far better to experience, for herself, the quiet pleasure of baking too rather than just listening to someone telling her what it was like to knead dough, readying the bread for baking.

Tales of the hunt riled her father up, however, and the great, black drake did not even spare a word on his distant daughter before hurling himself skyward, using the updraft from the cliff-face to guide his flight, lifting him up and up into the arms of the sky. Helena, their mother, followed him quietly, although she did pause for the barest fraction of a second even if draconic eyes could not lock with human ones. Maybe there was still some sentiment there, some manner of motherly warmth and love, and Blue clung to that with the desperation of a woman drowning, kicking and floundering and struggling for anything, anything at all, to cling onto in a sea that threatened to drag her down into the cold, dark depths.

With her parents gone into the twinkling night sky, she was left alone with her brother, who did not seem all that partial to taking flight, at least at that time. The yellow dragon's scales reflected the moonlight, painting him in unearthly shades, as bright in himself as the sun that he no longer allowed the sun to brush his scales. They kept themselves completely hidden under the cover of darkness those days, secluded away from humanity so that they only emerged to human beings when they wanted to pick people off for their fun and amusement alone.

Silence had never been Blue's strongest point, however, and it stretched between them, a tentative fragile force. Shifting her weight awkwardly, the stone that she'd perched on digging into her backside, she sighed lightly, tucking a strand of hair back behind her ear. More put together in herself than she used to be, she was still want to keep her lips pressed down over her teeth, not even showing them when she did dare to smile, the notion of being the ugly one lingering with her even as the distance between her and her family grew and grew.

“How have you been, Jacob?" She said quietly, breaking the silence as he lingered, cleaning off his claws. “It's been a…while. Even though we all live together."

Of course, Blue moving out would have been out of the question and no one needed to say that; she knew too much about dragons, even if she was not a shifter. Jacob stirred quietly, eyeing her as he lifted his wings, stretching out first one and then the other. If she did not know dragon-kind as well as she did, Blue would have thought that her brother was stalling for time but, really, there was far more seedy darkness to it than that. Maybe if she'd paid attention to that, things would have gone better for her.

“It is well, sister," he said, voice rising in a low, gravelly tone that surprised her, curling her toes within her worn boots. “Hunting is well. It is only a shame that you cannot join us."

There could have been sincerity there but, of course, there was not and she knew that there never would be. Hardening her gaze, she stared straight ahead, ignoring the pang struck through her heart, the re-opening of an old wound that she had thought that she'd stitched up good and proper this time. He meant it as he did and he intended it to cut even deeper than it actually had, Blue flinching away even if he was not looking at her. Whether or not he noticed her shift her weight away from him, taking a deep breath that did nothing at all to steady her nerves was by the by, her lips dry and not a drop of relieving moisture left in her mouth.

“Well…" She said quietly, hunching down into herself. “That's just how things are, really. I'm not a shape-shifter and…I…I think that's okay. It's not my fault…"

“No, sister, actually it is."

That caught her, drawing her back as she gasped, eyes wide and fingernails, all of a sudden, biting into the palms of her hands. When she'd made fists with her hands, she could not have said, but the dull thud of her heart pulsed and pounding against her eardrums, reality sinking into a blaring roar that seared through all else, shutting off the sounds of the night that she in herself knew so well.

“What? How can you even say that?"

“Well, there is just something wrong with you, you're not one of us anymore – you never really were." Jacob rolled his eyes, grunting in the back of his throat as if he was working the words up from somewhere where he had stored them deep inside. “There's nothing right with you, Blue, and there never was. You're beneath us, like you always were. You were never meant to rise!"

“Shut up!"

On her feet, she screamed at the dragon, a pitifully small and shrill voice cutting through the darkness, although there was no one there to hear that cared one bit about her. She may as well have been an ant screaming at a mountain to stop being a mountain, however, as the dragon laughed without humour, for once, lifting his head high, so very high, as he looked down on her.

“You're not my sister anymore… Not anything that a sister should be to a dragon-shifter," he declared, tail swinging back and forth, although she could not tell in her daze of reality if that was agitation coursing through his shivering muscles. “You're worse than human scum, useless to us. I don't know why our parents still let you live with us but, well, they do. But it's high time you got on your knees and worshipped us as the lords that we are over you!"

“This is madness," she snarled back, stomping a petulant foot on the rock, putting herself upon a tiny, little pedestal as if that would make any difference at all. “I am your sister and I always will be! You're just a mean, vile older brother and maybe that's all you will ever be to me too – not that you care! You've always bullied me, these last few months have been fucking quiet for me! It's been nicer without you!"

They were things that she really should not have said but the words flowed and flowed, spilling from her lips crudely, once they'd begun. Stored-up emotion demanded release and she near enough slammed her fists indignantly into the ground, although it still felt as if she was pounding a solid wall, perhaps a barn that had stood for years on years, something that could not be moved. All the while she spat and seethed, Jacob stared down at her, the light awakening in the backs of his eyes, just the very tip of his tail curling back and forth like the farm cat that had spotted a mouse in its sights, scenting its prey.

“Oh, little human girl…"

Family did tend to bring out the worst in people, sadly so, but that did not stop her from flailing and acting like a child, perhaps missing the childhood that one who was not a dragon-shifter should have had for themselves. Jacob shook his head, snapping his jaws seemingly at nothing before slamming a foot down and belting out a roar that rolled over everything more that she could possibly have had to say like a tidal wave, powering her back and bowling her over, even though the more resilient Blue scrambled up again but a moment later, defiant to the last.

Yet the dragon had an idea in mind to make the puny human before him see how the new world order was going to lie, for the fact that she knew about their family, a family that, truly, she was no longer a part of, would not protect her forever. Weak, pink-skinned hands and no scales to protect her would not outlast a dragon's wrath and fire licked up at the back of his maw as if, even then, it begged to be released, to spew itself into a trail of destruction across the turf and rocks before him, regardless of where his sister was.

“Oh, quiet yourself. You're so noisy, I can't even think. If you really think you should still be a part of this family," he pronounced the word with a sneer, lip curling back from his teeth, “then get down on the ground. Go on, do it."

Blue glared at him with all the anger she could dredge up from the depths of her soul.

“I am not getting on the ground."

But what he said next sent an icy chill down her spine, a trickling lick of fear seeping into what made up the essence of her soul itself.

“Oh, you will and you will kiss my foot too, weakling. It's only fitting that you show us our due now, because it's only because of us dragons that you're still allowed to live."

Gaping, Blue stepped back, giving the inch of ground that he needed to take everything from her. Something tightened in her throat and, for a moment there, she believed him that Jacob no longer saw her as his sister, not in the slightest. The brother that she'd grown up with, for all his faults, was no longer there and all that remained was the towering figure of a dragon that could snap her up, end her life at a moment's notice. He was no more than a feral beast without any care for the humanity that she'd been forced to embrace and adopt for her own, relishing what she could and learning what she could not become for herself, the imagery of being a non-shifter in a family of them.

But…just what was she to him then? Regardless, she would not degrade herself. She was a woman and she would stand tall and proud before him, chin tipped up defiantly as her blue eyes blazed. Maybe there was dragon-blood in her soul after all.

“No… She said slowly, the words coming thickly and slowly from her mouth as if they were being drawn up through molasses. “No… I will not, Jacob. Never again ask me anything like that. I mean it."

Strangely, the very act and notion of proclaiming that she did indeed mean it only served to soften the perceived force of her words and Jacob rumbled a chuckle, once again up and in a position of power that he could flaunt over her.

“You mean it… Oh, isn't that sweet? Get down where you belong, scrawny wimp, and maybe I will show you mercy."

It was not the smartest thing in the world for her to do but one could not always be held accountable for the rage that filled them at such moments of heightened lust, anger coursing through her as Blue clenched her jaw. She could not sink her teeth into him as she had imagined doing so many times over as a dragon but she could release her pent-up fury in one way and she charged at him with a feral cry, boots pounding the scraggy, rough turf. Emotion had to be let out one way or another but slamming that boot into his foot was not wise, not very wise at all.

Still, in a strange sort of way, it was satisfying to connect with him, that throbbing zing of touch that had been denied to her since they had all realised that she would never be a shifter, not like them. Yet the pain that throbbed through her was far, far from anything at all that could have possibly have been construed as satisfying, Blue screeching like a banshee as his thick, heavy scales did not jolt or jostle in the slightest, her raw-blooded attack completely and utterly ineffective to the extreme.

“What are you doing?"

Jacob sneered down at her, lips pulled back in disgust as tears burst in her eyes, pain getting the better of her. Skin prickling hotly even in the cool of the night, she staggered away from him with every ounce of energy she had left in her body, heart pounding and nausea roiling vilely in the pit of her stomach, bile sloshing.

“This proves my point, you ugly scrap… Get down and kiss my foot – now!"

“No!" She howled back, hopping about with such a lack of balance that it was a wonder indeed that she didn't fall over herself. “No, I will never do that, you sick fool! No, no, no!"

Yet she would swiftly come to realise that that was the wrong answer, although it was one of those situations where there simply did not appear to be any kind of a right answer ready to be given. It took pathetically little effort on his part to swipe a paw out, knocking her clean off her feet and introducing her to a new kind of pain completely as her hip cracked into a rock. Blue gasped but he moved too quickly for her to react in time, a huge, clawed foot coming down on her as he had so much time ago. And, all over again, she was nineteen and begging him to get off her, not to squash her, the older brother that she had looked up to so many years ago turning crueller than she could have ever imagined.

Seconds stretched out as her ragged gasps for futile breath resounded through the air, an owl calling out somewhere nearby. The colossal size of his paw was drawn into stark definition as it dwarfed her, several times the size of her body with her head not even between the toes. He shifted his weight back to the heel and squeezed down and down on her legs, letting her feel the weight of him, bare rock pressing up from below as wave crashed on the rocks at the base of the cliff. So close to freedom, she could have escaped it all, yet it seemed that her life was destined to take a sharp turn into the unknown in a spot that had, before, held such beauty for her.

She struggled but even blue knew that every effort she made was a wasted effort, turning her cheek stubbornly from the stinking sole of his foot, crumbly bits of dirt falling off. Was he even bigger than he'd been the last time he'd trapped her like that? She would not have been at all surprised to learn that that was the case but terror overruled all else as she tried not to breathe in the rancid stench of him, eyes watering, and yet she needed to breathe something too, caught up in a conundrum from which there was no easy way out.

“Stop," she tried to say, lips moving without any discernible sound coming out. “No… Don't…"

Maybe he heard her or maybe he didn't. Either way, the drake laughed.

“Lick it, Blue," he growled, eyes burning intensely, a glow in them that she had never seen before. “Lick my foot…or else I won't let you up."

“No…"

That's what she tried to say, at least, but it was so quiet and small, trapped under him, that she may very well have said nothing at all. Something wet slithered against her face and she screamed inwardly, imagining a slug or a snail or some other manner of slimy critter falling off his foot onto her. It wasn't as if dragons made particular note of washing their feet – they just kind of 'cleaned themselves' when they were in the ocean or something. Yet she had to breathe, had to get out, and, seeing only one way out, she wrinkled up her face, holding what little breath she had left, and pressed her lips into the underside of her foot.

His leather-like scales, rough and tough for his soles, tickled her lips, leaving a smear of dirt against them, and she whimpered, eyes closed to the horror, heart thudding, adrenaline up. There was nowhere to run and yet her body hollered at her to break free, to writhe, to fight, to do anything to escape the situation she had been caught up in, his paw crushing, stealing the life from her. Yet the kiss was not enough.

“A kiss is all well and good, Blue, but you need to pay me your due homage now. Lick it. Do you know how easily I could crush you?"

And, oh, how much so that was clear to her, the weight of him pinning her down without Jacob even having to exert a drop of effort himself. On the contrary, he had to hold himself back from shattering her ribcage like a cluster of twigs, only pushing down slowly so that she could feel the force of him, his restrained power. Really, she should have been thankful that he was not breaking her entirely, just toying with her, and he shuddered in glee as he finally felt that tiny, little sensation that he had been waiting for.

Her tongue slithered out over his sole as she brokenly sobbed, although she didn't really have the breath to do so. And yet the pressure of him lifted just a little as she licked and lapped, just using the very tip of her tongue, unable to bear any more. Blue could not have said what was worse with the rock beneath her forcing her back into an unnatural position, muscles screaming for respite: the vile, sickening taste of his foot or the fact that he could keep her there. And she was thankful for what little breath he allowed her, sucking it in greedily while she tried not to think about just where his foot had been. Would there be blood on it from his last kill? Faeces? Mud? She hoped it was only the latter, even though it was not much of a lesser evil.

“I…" She panted, forcing the words out as her chest expanded once more. “I'll… I'll tell our parents. They'll…be mad…"

“Oh, sister… Did you not hear them come back?" He mocked her, lifting his foot entirely off her at long last to reveal the punch line of his joke. “They've been here all along… Most of it anyway."

And the truth was there for her to see, her parents smirking and laughing, showing their teeth as their heads bobbed back and forth in raw, rancid amusement at her plight. Scrambling up as if she'd been caught with her hand in the cookie jar, Blue wiped her hands over her face, cleaning herself as hastily as she could, although she would later find that she only managed to smear more grime and muck over herself, appearing quite as if she'd crawled out of a pit of despicable disposing, something that those in power dropped what they longer needed into to fester and rot.

“Mom… Dad…"

But she couldn't even get out the words that she needed to say, heart beating slowly, faintly, dropping away from all sense of reality. No… No, it could not be, but they were there, not even hiding behind their wings as they may have done before when Jacob mocked her, abused her, bullied her… She could use whatever names she liked to describe what was happening now, for it was all horrific and she just could not escape from the truth of the situation as her father grinned and clapped his son on the shoulder with one wing.

“He hurt me, dad! Come on, you can't just let him do that!"

Appealing to his better nature, of course, was doomed and her father shook his head at her, attention brief and fleeting and for all the wrong reasons.

“Good job, son."

Blue should have run then.

*

As it was, it all proved to be the beginning to the end, even though Blue had cast a veil over her own eyes, refusing to see what was clearly laid out before her. She didn't want to go but something dragged her to the next gathering, a sickening pull in her gut bringing her back to her family all over again. They met down on the beach with tiny shards of shells littering the sand, rock and shell broken down to make the not so fine, sandy grains in golden and grey shades. Spots of pink could have been interspersed from the light, fine shells but she would have had to have daylight to see them, squatting awkwardly so that she didn't have to sit on the damp but firm surface.

But things were not to be so easy as her father sat back on his haunches, presenting his foot to her from a hind paw. He seemed to calculate the angle perfectly so that the sole was perpendicular to her, toes wiggling not so invitingly as she reeled and eyed it suspiciously, the truth of it all lodged in her throat.

“No…"

“Lick it, Blue," he taunted her. “If you want to stay a part of this family, that is…"

She stared at it, the swell of the ocean crashing in the background, her heart in her mouth. It surely could not be in her chest any more for it had been ripped out, ugly and throbbing on the sand itself. The gargantuan paw loomed before her and she shrank from it, bits of sand and kelp stuck to it. She could smell it from where she was too and it didn't seem like she was even anywhere near her father, his foot so very easily dwarfing her as if Blue's size was inconsequential to absolutely anything else her family could possibly lay out before her.

The pads too were leathery and tough, perhaps even tougher than her brother's. Rumbling quietly, her father wriggled his toes, eyes narrowed, and a clump of seaweed flopped out from between the toes of one. So disgusted was Blue, however, that she did not see his tail snaking out like the lash of a whip, dragging her to him and lifting his feet just in time to plant her beneath them, the heels digging down and down and down into her gut.

Gasping, she howled and struggled, fighting and begging to no avail. The words must have been waiting behind the barrier of her lips to be released, so quickly did they come, but the stream of tears flowing down her cheeks was entirely unwelcome in a moment where she had to, at all costs, appear strong.

“No… Please, please, don't make me, let me go, dad, I'll do anything, anything you want, let me go!"

It was more a stream of consciousness than any kind of active thought, perhaps knowing, even then, that it was useless. Her father smirked and shook his head slowly at her, pressing his feet down harder against her, keeping the angle so that she was treated to the best-worst view, the tiny little cracks in the leathery pads evident to even her weak human eye.

“Oh, no, Blue… This is your new station here now. Lick them. Kiss them. You were too ugly for anything else anyway. Jacob had the right idea to use you like this."

She begged and she begged but the words she used didn't even seem to matter as she whimpered and sobbed, having lost the father she had, at least at some point, looked up to.

“Come on, Blue… You're only dragging this out. You're ugly, so horrible to look at… Make yourself useful. You should be grateful that I'm not letting your brother turn you into a snack, you know!"

Her head whipped to the side, fearfully taking in her brother at just the moment where he licked his lips with a lewd, wet smack, tongue snaking out along the side of his muzzle as if to show her just how hungry he was. And she would have only said that it was fear that pushed her on, the fear of being crushed or eaten, turning her sobbing, tear-stained face to her father's feet and licking and kissing every last bit that she could reach.

“Better…"

He was only making use of her but her tears dripped onto his foot all the same, her sobs meaning nothing to the family that only saw her now as something to be utilised, put to work in a way that they considered quite entertaining. Rocking and grinding his feet against and into her, Navir crooned throatily to her, the mocking of her brother casting a dull undertone to the stink enveloping her. Could a smell be heard too? If so, it was the throbbing pound in her skull that commanded her senses, taking over all else as her father goaded her on to slurp and suckle, even going to such lengths as to clean his soles with her tongue.

That session, however, was just what gave her family the idea to make use of her as their personal servant, cleaning all the dirty bits that they could not reach or did not deign to do for themselves. On all fours, she was forced to lick between her father's toes after a hunt several nights later, peering at his feet in the flicker and dance of a fire that was too small, really, to cast any significant amount of light.

“Go on, Blue, make them shine for me, you ugly thing…"

She tried not to let her father's words get to her but the sight of her brother licking his lips lingered in her mind, a threat that she was sure they would not follow through on and yet still struck an icy shard of fear into her heart. Would he really try? Her father would stop him though, she was sure, her father loved her. He'd never made her think otherwise but the words that passed his wise, kind lips now…well… She shivered. He'd never talked to her like that before and she wanted to please him, wanted him to love her again, regardless of how rancid the task he put her to was.

And, so, she licked his feet, working as quickly as possible even between the toes, although there was too much to really give any illusion at all to working swiftly. His pads may have shone by the time Blue was finished, gagging with the rank taste of him stuck in the back of her mouth, but she knew with due certainty that they would soon be filthy all over again for her to tend to. And there were still her brother's feet to work on too…

Making sure their feet were clean was not the only thing that they set her to, oh no. The claws too required attention, although she tried to stay away from the sharp tips as much as possible, polishing and working on them with new cloths that she bought from town until they gleamed. The same cloth could then be put to work on their gigantic maws, allowing her some light at dawn and dusk to work with as she picked out bits of meat from between each tooth, face wrinkled and a hand over her mouth as, hoping against hope, she fought not to retch.

“Oof… No…"

A moan of disgust wasn't going to get her anywhere though as she was coating in dragon-drool, stinking and wet and filthier by far than she had been when she'd begun, working on each individual tooth in turn. It was all the worse for having to peer into their maws as she cleaned and shined, the gaping caverns shivering and threatening to snap shut at a moment's notice, ending her life all too swiftly. Light glittered off their saliva-shined teeth, each one larger than her head, and she struggled not to shudder away in complete and utter revulsion, the stench of old, devoured meat thick and heavy in both her father's mouth and her brother's.

Of course, after such dirty work, Jacob thought it was hilarious to grab her just as she was done, hefting her up in his maw, trapped between his teeth. Too shocked to even fight him, freezing at that tentative point of fear, death imminent in the mind of a prey animal, she could not even scream, mouth opening and closing in silent, gaping horror as she was carried to the ocean. But he was not set on eating her right there and then dropped her from a respectable height, plunging into the depths with a scream and a gasp and a mouthful of water.

She bobbed back to the surface, hair plastered to her face, gasping and indignant, but it should not have been the worst thing that he'd done to her, the threat of drowning somehow not as bad as being eaten.

“There you go!" He roared, staggering with the hilarity of what he'd done. “Now you're clean too!"

But she didn't feel very clean, most certainly not so when he teased and humiliated her, dirtied by the mere presence of him. She tended to her family as they commanded but one of Jacob's favourite games was to chase her around, forcing her to run even as her quads screamed for respite, lines of pain strung out down her hamstrings, snapping and goading her to an even more breakneck pace. At the point where she should have toppled over naturally, he moved in for the 'kill', a cat toying with a mouse, stomping and charging so that she fell and shrieked breathlessly, doing all that she physical could to dodge his clawed feet.

He played with her too, taking her into his mouth every time he 'caught' her, rolling onto his back and holding her up high as if he was going to allow her skinny, ugly body to slide down his throat right there and then. His tongue slithered grossly around her and Blue tossed and turned whenever she was allowed to sleep, dreaming of being eaten and of having gross feet pressed down on her, trapping and crushing a body that should never, truly, have been born. No longer did she belong with the shape-shifters but there was something there too that meant that she didn't belong with human beings either, caught up in the middle, as Jacob was all too keen to remind her, mocking her for her lack of placement in the world.

“You have to stay here, sister," he smirked, on his back with her pressed between his forepaws, kneading with his extra filthy pads. “You're too ugly for anything else, your squashed in face… But you can serve your worth by licking my paws, treat me like a king…"

He never stopped asking their father to let him eat her either, but each and every time their father shook his head, reminding Blue, in her heart of hearts, that he did indeed love her. And that was just what she had to cling onto, remembering that she was just different to them now, not a shifter, and this was her new place in the family. At least, that was, until she could bear being their foot-servant no longer, yet one would go through much worse when their mind was already so terribly twisted, warped and broken beyond all repair.

Would that time ever come? There was no way to tell as she was passed between her father and her brother night after night, her job at the bakery lost as she was forced to simply become a toy for them to use. Maybe it was her rightful place there, too dull and stupid to do anything else, the stench of them staying with her day in and day out as they refused to allow her to bathe unless it was at Jacob's paws. And his favourite way of giving her a 'bath' was to swill her around in a hefty dose of saliva within the bounds of his mouth, gargling and churring as she moaned and begged for him to let her go, not to gulp her down, to let her just be, be who she was. Of course, he didn't care for her pleas, although he did eventually spit her out, proclaiming her as clean as something so vile could be, whimpering and sobbing in a heap that left her with the image of his sharp teeth implanted in her mind.

_ _

More and more… There was no rest or respite for one that they only saw as there to be used and, on a dusky evening set with a pleasantly warm glow, her father pinned her down with both of his front feet as he lay beside a lake, having made his feet extra dirty for her beforehand. It was a running joke between the dragons, by that point, that the males used the daughter as a mat on which to wipe off their paws, the only one who didn't find that funny being the one abused. And yet she had sunk so far that any attention felt like something she should remember, live for, hating how she loved being close to them, despite how they treated her.

She'd run away, she resolved to herself as her father pinned her, rolling his feet on top of her, squeezing her between them, the toes rank with a stench that she didn't even want to pinpoint. And she had to say something, rebellion rising up thick and full in her, a curling rage of a serpent that perhaps was her true calling rather than being a dragon herself too.

“Your feet stink, dad!" She complained, choosing her words as she would have as a girl, for that's all that she still felt she was beneath them. “Get off! You know this isn't fair, I'll wash them for you…something else…"

Wrinkling up her face, poking out from between his toes, she tried to shake her head, nose all scrunched up as if to stop the scent from seeping further up into her nostrils than it already had.

“I can't take it anymore! No, let me go – let me go, let me go, let me go!"

Her wailing, this time, did not fall on deaf ears but Blue would forever regret the cry of despair, desperation getting the better of her, that she gave then as her father squeezed her tightly between his toes, her relief not to be had. She did not see him nod to her brother, however, the first thing she noticed of Jacob's change in position and attitude being when his head, jaws dripping with ropes of thick saliva, loomed into her line of sight.

Finally! He was going to get her out of between her father's feet, there was some respite at last! Moaning in relief, she did not fight him but allowed him to take her on his tongue, lying easily in the cavern of his mouth without even touching his teeth. Even if she stretched out her arms on either side of her body, she would not have been able to touch the razor-sharp edges and so she let her defences drop, relaxing the muscles that may have, if she'd been quick enough, been enough to propel her to blissful freedom.

And yet the cruel drake had absolutely no intention of releasing her at all and it was destined to be the last time that she felt anything at all, Jacob rumbling out a laugh as he rolled her around inside his mouth. Curling his tongue around her, he twisted it along the length of her body as she squealed, trying not to breathe as the stench of his breath and his last meal seeped up the length of his throat – a considerable feat bearing in mind just how long his neck was. His tongue easily slathered her in a hefty dose of saliva as she gasped and tried not to be, holding her breath as long as she felt was possible, forced to gulp down a stale lungful of air that did not, in all honesty, fuel all that much oxygen into her bloodstream. It would not be needed for much longer though, oh no…

But he wasn't letting her go and panic set in, surrounded by sharp teeth and the cavern of his throat gaping at her, opening and closing as he played with swallowing. There was a fire there too, a charcoal-like twang, and she clawed at his tongue, holding on for dear life as he played with her and teased by pushing her right up to the back of his mouth, threatening to drop her entirely.

The cavern of his mouth loomed around her, teeth glistening as he parted his lips, showing her off to the rest of the family. There was too much drool in there and it splattered out hotly as she screamed and begged him to let her go, terror sending her words awash in a flood from which she could not free herself. Navir was right there, staring at her carefully with what she may have thought was a hint of sadness in his eyes, although she should have known long, long ago that dragons simply were not capable of feeling such emotion. Maybe knowing that would have saved her but it was too late for remorse on that count.

“He always said you were ugly," her father said, staring at her with a morbid fascination, the last view she would ever have of him. “I think he was right. Go ahead, son."

“Noooo!"

But one last scream was not going to help her one bit as Jacob caught her deftly with her head poking out between his teeth, whipping back and forth. And then there was a paw pressed against her head – her father's paw! With one last whiff of his stomach-turning stink, Blue shrieked with what little breath was left in her lungs as Jacob tossed his head back, gulping her straight down his throat as fear clashed with disbelief that he had actually gone and done it, after all the many, many times he had teased her, mocked her… He had done it.

Yet there were greater problems at hand as she bellowed and fought and sobbed and beat her hands against his throat from the inside as she went down the length of his throat, a long, long fall to her resting place of eternity. The muscles of his throat constricted and massaged to force her down as much as she struggled, unable even to feel true terror as survival, the need to survive, kicked in too late.

The dragon family laughed around her, their amusement audible even through the muffling effect of his body as she dropped down and down, past a sphincter and into the cesspool of his stomach. There would be nothing more for her as acid burned her skin, digesting her bit by bit, his sister alive and screaming in abject horror as she lost the life that she had not even realised that she wanted so much, what light was left fading from her eyes.

It was a slow death. Jacob flew, relishing in the slow, steady sensation of digestion, her struggles weaker and weaker, although she fought for longer than he had thought she would. Self-satisfaction thrummed through him and he curled his head down to where there was a little bulge in his stomach, even as he flew, smirking and mocking her even in the final moments of her life, digested alive and nothing that could even be called such anymore. Just the way she should have been, always. Blue made a fine meal, a little snack, but the peace that her absence left was sweeter than any of them could have imagined prior to her devouring.

That was the way it had always been meant to be.