Camping with dragons

Inside the classroom the air was heavy as usual and much hotter than any of the thirty plus students could remotely be comfortable with in any way, especially since it was nearing summer and the AC was broken yet again. Thus, the mass of bodies not only generated more heat, but also filled the room with the smell of sweat and the occasional fart from the ones in the back, though few cared about those. Each one of them was too busy either making sure they’d not melt or to prevent stray drops of sweat from falling on the precious test papers they had under their noses.

In that hot climate and unbearably swampy class, populated by an equal amount of swampy armpits between both sexes, the teacher tried to get through the two hour long test just as much as his students. There was one important difference though: while they could go and spend the rest of the summer out in the world and have fun, he’d have to grade their papers and check for errors and put them in the system like all the others. If the man had any luck, it’d take a week or more and only then, he’d have his well deserved half a day of vacation until his wife decided to take him shopping or worse, at the flea market that had just opened for the summer sales. With the usual sigh, the teacher got up and hoped his back wasn’t too damp or stained with sweat and walked between the thirty desks in the class, looking for phones, extra sheets of paper, whispers or anything that could send one of them home before the due time.

“Fuck…” his attention was captivated by the soft curse of one of the male students and was followed by the sweet jingle of metal rings hitting each other. James looked at the young man with a stern expression, paying special attention to the metal piercings attached to his horns.

“Language mister Bryburn.” The boy whispered a soft ‘sorry teach’ that didn’t help his case and made James frown more than before. His gaze scanned the student, roaming from the sports t-shirt he had to the sweatpants, to the slightly tanned skin and the messy hair that cluttered over the horns that curled from the sides of his head to the front in convoluted arches of what was a perfect example of a young dragon. “Also, I think I warned you not to wear jewellery in class, it distracts the others.” And during the final test to boot… Quite a few people near him rolled their eyes and silently agreed with the teacher who was now checking for the time. He could have him take them off but he’d waste time, which he lacked given how many blanks answers were in the paper and he’d bother the class even more. “Fifteen minutes left.”

Richard, or Rick for his friends, wanted to curse again and hoped to see a few answer from the nearby best student but the short girl protected her sheet with the same tenacity that his kind had used to show before man started having too much of an effect on them. The short arm was akin to a giant wall and prevented him from peeking, craning his neck would result in a grave mistake, mostly due to the rings on his horns, and looking on other desks wasn’t a guaranteed point. Blaming the indifferent heavens for his plight, Richard regretfully lowered his head and crossed five boxes at random hoping that lady luck would assist him, although she seemed to have missed the past hour and a half completely.

While most of the students reviewed their answers, he was still making sure he’d get at least a passing grade by getting through as many simple problems as he could. The bell rang just as he crossed the last multiple answer question and scribbled a few words here and there to fake some sort of effort. The rings jingled loudly as he got up and gave the paper to the teacher, getting a weird look from the man, one that didn’t promise anything good for the dragon. Richard just hoped for the very bare minimum, that’d be just fine, he needed that and then he’d be set with a scholarship for sports and go to the best college possible in the state, finish his courses and play as professional until he retired. By all definitions, his dream was as average as it could get, seeing as millions of young men and women had the same plans for their lives, but since he was a dragon and a fairly talented athlete he had a special spot in many categories and teams. Handed over the paper, he ran out of the class and disappeared behind a wall, moments later those still inside could hear cheers and the name Richard yelled loudly as the jock was welcomed by others of his own kind and headed out for drinks.

A few of the remaining students sighed in relief now that he was gone, chatting softly and smiling or comforting each other while handing their own papers, some silently praying that they had not done too many mistakes. Among the group was a young man, painfully average in appearance, lanky, not too fat or too thin, maybe slightly taller than the rest of the class at a six feet two and otherwise not worth mentioning save for the pair of horns jutting from his head and curling up and backwards around a second set, smaller and hidden by the curly hair but definitely there, who was staring at the spot where the other male of his kind had disappeared. Of the few dragons in the school, totalling less than ten over the thousand of humans, he had to end up sharing half of his classes with the one that valued being cool over having some respect for his ancestry.

“Hmmm, excellent work Damian, as always.” James took his paper, the last one of the pile and looked at it, immediately finding that he had gotten a passing grade just from a glance. Standardized tests were all the same and the teacher had pretty much memorized every answer and relative question after fifteen years of those excruciatingly boring tests. “Any plans for the summer?”

“Not really to be honest.” Damian scratched his neck and peeked at some of the other tests, finding that a great number of them matched with his own. “I had a few ideas but the friend I had asked to help me book the one trip I could afford bailed on me after his parents found out he didn’t pass two classes and now he’s got to go to a summer cram school until he does pass.”

“Sounds like you’re free then.” The lanky dragon shrugged and shifted the backpack he had on his shoulders, the contents cluttering even more than they already had. James looked at the young man for a few moments as he checked his phone, tapping the screen with casual movements and once more had to agree that he was a good student. “I always get baffled when the two of you are together…”

“Me and who? I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Damian looked around the class with a confused expression, searching for someone that might be linked to him.

“You and Richard.” As soon as the jock was mentioned, Damian’s chest heaved and all the air left in a sigh, making James chuckle just a tiny bit, a chuckle that went away as soon as the student turned around and stared at him with yellow eyes whose pupils had shrunk to mere slits. It took a second for both of them to get their bearings together. “You always react that way when I talk about him and I never got around to ask you why… do you have something personal going on between you and him?”

“Oh, gods no, that would be even worse than it already is.” Damian rolled his eyes, now back to more human form and mentally apologized to the teacher who was now the one being confused by his words. “I don’t like the guy, he’s somewhat of a… musclehead as you noticed already: he’s more interested in being popular with the humans and far less interested in learning or being faithful to his species than the average dragon.” James let out a soft ‘oh’ and started packing his stuff just like the last few students. “I don’t mean to say that he’s a bad person but… he acts more like your average jock than, well, what he, what we are.” He was loud, social, cheerful all the time, save for tests of course, though he showed the same pride as the rest of his species and a bit more but definitely in the wrong way.

“Some fit more in areas that others find less interesting. Now, I don’t know about the other… eight dragons in this school or the hundreds in the state, but I doubt they are all the same, take yourself for example.”

“Me?” Damian pointed a finger at his face. “In what way?”

“I had something like, five of your kind in my classes over fifteen years and I’m sure you are the only one that likes to be on the sides of the scene and doesn’t flaunt his body or species in some way.” The dragon sighed softly and patted the slight belly he had, not a rarity under any point of view, there were obese dragons, but definitely unlike what the greater public deemed ‘draconic’ or ‘dragon-like’ and not at a fault. “I’ve had a musclehead even bigger than Richard a few years ago, a very buff student, Kryo I think was his name.”

“Ah, that guy, I know him.” The mental image of a tall body that leaned more on the bronze than tanned like Richard was, heavily muscled and striking a pose to highlight his biceps, triceps and everything else all at once, popped in his head. Damian snorted and much to his teacher’s surprise, and the one of the three remaining students, a thin puff of smoke came out of his nostrils, it was very faint but the scent of incense and burnt wood still reached James’ nostrils. “He’s somewhat of a celebrity between dragons, with him being a very peculiar individual and a rare subspecies, a Kirin if you want a name. And I want to inform you that, well, most dragons do not tend to be as noisy or energetic as whoever you seem to have had as students, since for the past few centuries any ‘energetic’ dragon was met with a little too much… opposition, let’s say. I guess you got a good batch of bad apples.”

“Here’s a thing I also meant to ask you or my past students but always kind of forgot to come around: just what’s with that subspecies thing?” The teacher felt a little embarrassed but the few times he searched on the internet, he never got much as answers. “I know your kind is very secretive about that but I think it’s a very common question.”

“Unlike humans, we developed much faster than mammals back in the day due to the very nature of our bodies, with most of us being fairly distant from each other and any contact we used to have being fairly rare and full of incidents and misunderstanding on the human side.” Not to mention the global hunts for their hides, but Damian wasn’t going to mention that: decades had passed since the last law to keep dragons away from human cities had been thrown out of the window, centuries in the most advanced of nations. Making a man born much later than that period feel bad for something his ancestors did was rude and kind of pointless: being punished for the sins of your forefathers was outright idiotic. “Some populations mutated and got… perks, let’s call them as such, mostly different colours or sizes, to adapt better to the lands that even the malleable human race didn’t go to until they got the right tools. Some are more eye catching than others, take the eastern variants and some have very special abilities, like the water dragons, although it doesn’t really affect the overall fertility and it’s possible to have mixed children.” He didn’t know that behind him the three humans were listening with curious expressions. It was rare to get a dragon to spill the beans so easily, with them being all mysterious and all that jazz. “A few value their subspecies much more than necessary and cause trouble often, kind of like your own issue of skin colour, in fact, it’s pretty much the same thing, but without the wars for that.” Dragons never had the chance to go at war with each other, hunted by most of the human race even when not in their normal forms, too busy surviving. Experts day that it was the pressure from the humans that made the subspecies compatible on a global scale, that or their magic, probably a combination of both. The students and James felt a little poked in their conscience for the horrible deeds they had done not only to their own species but to Damian’s as well.

“That’s a really useful way to put it, thank you for clearing the issue.”

“No problem, but that’s just my own take, others aren’t really of the same idea as me, but that’s a given, right?”

Damian smiled and for one moment the gloomy air he always had was gone, though it returned instantly as soon as he relaxed his muscles. He bade farewell to James and the three behind him, who hurried to pretend they weren’t actually listening to his conversation and instead chatting among themselves even though he hadn’t heard anything other than his voice for the past ten minutes or so.

With the class behind him and the whole summer in front, Damian felt weirdly empty and free, mostly free of course but the feeling that he had nothing to do and no one to do said nothing with, as boring as lazing around eating ice cream could be, was a real bummer. Being a dragon made things slightly easier since most of his time was spent alone in a room studying or watching something interesting rather than in a field under the eyes of hundreds like Richard at his games in the school’s field.

Though it was the last day for him and close to the school’s complete shutdown for the next few weeks, the canteen was open and Damian didn’t hesitate to take advantage of his special dietary requirements and scholarship to get as much food on the small tray as dragonly possible, giving the ladies behind the tens of pans and pots the usual headache. He sat in his usual corner, not too far from the exit and a few feet from the machine to refill his drinks, the perfect spot to take out his phone and be the asocial creature he was born to be, with less gold and virgins than the human legends of course. He never understood why they’d think dragons valued gold and women, when they couldn’t have children with them even in human form and having metal around benefitted no one. Maybe it was all an excuse for the kings and leaders to send armies on their asses and drive them away when the population increased too much and they needed space. Selfish, stupid and most of the time unforgivable but understandable nonetheless: dragons retaliated often and until the humans invented the airplanes it was rather easy to escape or drive them off.

Luckily for his species and the humans, neither had ever done more than necessary to ensure survival and putting aside the racist laws, the hunts, war had never truly been waged and any conflict was resolved locally. For once the human’s tendency to hate themselves more than others in all of their magnificent pettiness had taken their species’ attention for the most part.

“Hey Damian, do you mind if we sit here?” He took his eyes off his phone and raised them just enough for him to see that a guy and two girls, no, three counting the one that was rapidly approaching them, were standing in front and waiting for an answer. He shrugged and returned to his phone, reading a novel he got on digital format. “Thanks.” Damian muttered something that got interpreted on the lines of ‘you’re welcome’ and the four sat opposite him, a little clustered on the small bench.

They didn’t have trays of food and instead had only backpacks and empty hands. Only at that point he remembered they were in his classes, all four spread across the five or six courses that he took. The girls had somewhat similar hairstyles, each a variation of the classic braid but one with dark hair that complemented well the brown eyes and delicate features while the other had clearly dyed them of a lighter colour, turning a possible brown into something creamy. A weird choice but it was strangely fitting for her overall face and shape. She must have spent a lot of time to make the perfect choice. Other than that the guy whose name he couldn’t remember right now had features that would put him on the handsome end of the spectrum or somewhere down there but that was as far as he went in terms of outstanding characteristics.

“What it is?” Hopefully they weren’t bothering him for nothing. “Do you need something?”

“Well yes, we were going to go to this incredible park east of the country, it’s right at the border and they say it has some amazing areas to visit and the food is to die for.” The guy, Chris, pulled out a series of pamphlets from his pocket and put them on the table, shifting his dirt blonde hair a little to the side. Damian moved his eyes from the phone again and looked at them: images of pretty flowers, trees and all around nature untouched by man, cottages and other rustic buildings, campfires… a park open to visitors and campers it seemed. “It’s amazing how much freedom you have there, it’s not really an issue to set up camp, if you follow the instructions and don’t cause trouble, next to it there’s even this place where you can work with animals… ok, it’s a farm and it’s some sort of job in exchange for free food and lodging right next to the park…”

“What’s any of that going to do with me?” Damian felt that the guy wasn’t going to shut up anytime soon and would instead break into more dumb praises for a place he hadn’t actually went to. The girl immediately to his right, Monika or Marika, one of the two, stole the one pamphlet he hadn’t shoved in Damian’s face and spread it carefully on the table. “And this is?”

“The park and the farm are all managed by a family of dragons that have lived there for close to three hundred years and kept the land due to their cooperation with the humans for all that time.” She flipped the paper and the image of a fully transformed dragon appeared. Damian felt a little impressed by the female they had chosen as mascot: she was probably around eight feet of height, a pretty aquamarine colour for scales and extremely elegant in the way she craned her neck and looked at the reader. If he didn’t know any better, she looked like she was trying to charm any male dragon that read it, bordering a full blown cry for courtship. “See?” Her finger was pointed at a small section that explained the history.

“Again, what’s that got to do with me?” The frustration for not being able to enjoy his meal in peace was getting increasingly noticeable.

“The thing is that… though most of the areas are public with the addition of a small fee, the rest are closed off and available only to dragons, mostly because the owners want somewhere for you to rest without having to suffer us.” He was starting to get the point of this long and convoluted ploy but let the girl continue. “There is an option where one dragon can take two humans along in the reserved area for tourism and camping.”

“So I’d be your ticket in to the secret land that is clearly not meant for you to see?” The rule that they could enter with a guarantor in tow was surely just a way to make the government happy, no dragon would willingly drag two humans around when they had the chance to sleep in peace. “I’m not sure you’re making this interesting for me.”

“Yeah but… you said you’re free and the only plan you had has been pretty much ruined because of someone else.”

“How do you?” How in the seven hells they knew that? He hadn’t told anyone except his teacher and even then… “Oh, you.” He turned his head slightly to the guy’s left where a girl was busy looking everywhere except in his general direction. He hadn’t paid any mind to her but now that he stared at her with some degree of anger for the violation of his privacy he seemed to remember that she was one of the three that had stayed behind eavesdropping. “Now I’m even less interested since you not only listened to a conversation that I had with a teacher but used it to jump on me with a proposal.” Chris and the others eyed the one that had let that small detail slip before sighing.

“Come on, you’ve got nothing better to do, the whole summer is free, we don’t have homework or projects to finish and… this city is boring as hell.” The last one to join, a redhead with shiny emerald eyes, placed her elbows on the table and winked. Damian grumbled. “Don’t be such a wuss, it’s the only vacation you’ll be able to afford and what’s more is that for dragons the entrance is free and you get half off the meals if we eat at the restaurant of the park.” The idea ticked him. “So, you’d have a trip in a place with only us as humans around, free entrance, save on the food and maybe have fun.” Damian stared at the girl with a decent degree of admiration: she had pushed all of the right buttons he had with extreme ease, making an offer that had been put together with not honest methods into a very enticing one, despite his innate tendency to stay alone. He raised his eyebrows and she did the same.

“Fine, I’ll come.” The three next to her cheered loud enough for the ladies cleaning the tables to shush them up, after which they cheered softly, hugging each other whereas the redhead just smirked and didn’t break eye contact. “But I won’t sleep in any tent you bring.” He took the last pamphlet and gave it a good look, reading the parts that had been written in dragon tongue and not in English, discovering a few interesting things they didn’t know about for sure. “I have my own stuff and you have yours.”

“Sure, as you wish.” Chris was quick to grant him his little request. “We were planning on doing our own stuff anyways. We have our route prepared already and we just need you to take us in and guarantee for us that we are with you.”

“There is one little detail that it’s not written in English though.” Actually there were two but that was a different detail. “This here…” He put his finger on a small line of hieroglyphs that had no meaning for the humans. “This says I need to be with you at all times. All. The. Time.” Damian put a lot of emphasis on the last words. “The human area is safe but the rest is… well, there’s wolves and bears, a few packs of coyotes and I think… eagles.”

“What?” The girls were quick to snatch the pamphlet and read it, or try to, dragon tongue was as much known as Finnish among the general public and far less easy than that, at most some could read a few words here and there but speaking?

“That’s a huge bummer.” The redhead seemed to be as disappointed as the others.

“Guess it’s called a dragon-only area not just for any reason.” It probably was just because they wanted to further scare them away: a bear was strong sure but they rarely attacked something bigger and armoured as a North American dragon, humans though, that was different. “I’ll still go with you but I’m not so sure you really should press on.” Damian struck back, making the proposal still interesting for him but far less palatable for them.

“We’ll go.” Again the redhead, he needed to learn her name, put him into a hard spot, turning the tables just as fast as he had turned them in kind. “We’ve got you with us and encountering bears is very rare.” He doubted that but shrugged anyways.

“Do your parents even know where you’re going?”

“They have a general idea but I don’t think they need to be informed about all the bears and wolves.”

“They really, really should be, I think.” Maybe that way those four would be forced not to go. In the end, it was indifferent for him, stay or go, he could find something else to do for… two months. Eh, maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea anyways. “It’s me and who else?”

“We have called three more dragons and we’re waiting for an answer.” Chris looked at the phone and opened an app where three different requests had been sent to the aforementioned dragons. Another door that could possibly stop the incredible group who seemed to have way too much luck with him and the redhead around. “Then we’ll go now and get ready for the trip, it’s going to be next week. Here’s my number, call me for details.” He took Damian’s phone with a quick swipe and since it was already unblocked he punched in his contact information and registered it.

The dragon felt wronged and planned on refusing the trip again for that but he’d feel the wrath of the red haired temptress again and he wasn’t planning on that. In the few seconds he had his phone, Chris actually managed to also register the contacts of all of the girls and make three photos that he used as profile pictures for his contacts list. If anything, he had to concede he was good with his thumbs. They waved him goodbye and thanked him several times for his help whereas the redhead, Kara, winked at him again and followed them out of the canteen. With a sigh that marked his defeat, Damian took a bite of his food and found it cold.

“Damn.” And he just wanted to have lunch in peace…

Returning home was something of a relief for him, though the matter of getting ready for the camping trip and telling it to his parents was going to be a hassle, especially the latter part. With the special perks granted by the owners of the park, camping would be far more interesting than anything he had ever tried before, there was one thing that bothered him deep down.

“Are you still worried others will look at you funny? Is that it?” His father, Geralt, was always the one he went to for advice in case he needed it, since Frida, his mother wasn’t as good as him and didn’t really understand the issues of a teenage dragon. She eyed him from the opposite side of the room and changed the channel on the tv. “Damian?” The older dragon, barely over fifty, was already grey haired with streaks of white here and there, more because of his subspecies than anything else and

Damian was more than happy to have taken almost everything in regards to appearance, or at least hair wise, from his mother: he had her hair, of course, her slender frame which he took to a higher level, her eyes and slender hands, though his character was more like his father’s. Both came from a proud German dynasty, strong even at their age and would grow stronger with time as all dragons did, each not even halfway through the minimum lifespan for their species.

“Kind of… it’s been so long since I transformed.” It had been months if not almost a year and even then he hadn’t been in front of anyone but his own family.

“Damian, you don’t have to worry about the humans: they’ll get a look at you, snap a few photos, ask you to let them on your back and you’ll be done.”

“He’s not worried about the humans Geralt.” At this point his mother revealed a skill that even he didn’t have. “He’s concerned about what if a dragoness come along.” She cleared her throat and smiled. “There are ten dragons, six of which are males, four females left, with the odds being forty percent, he thinks he’d look bad in front of the girl that may come. Did I hit the spot?” Damian nodded and Geralt took the reins of the conversation again.

“It’s ok, you’re young and you can get over this, sure you’re a bit different than the American dragons but there’s no reason to be worried this much, nor ashamed of who you are.” The young dragon rolled his eyes but had to agree. “Girls at this age search for studs who can take them for a quick trip and then be done, even if they’ll look at you funny in a few years they’ll come for you and raise their tails in seconds.” The expression was ancient as their species and made Frida slap his head with the remote she had in hand. He didn’t really care and laughed whereas Damian blushed and gripped his pants. These days few dragons opted for courtship like in the old days, preferring a more ‘compact’ and ‘proper’ ritual such as ‘dating’ rather than following something that had been going on for far longer than civilization itself. Some still went for that way but with phones and the act being sacred and all that not one was willing to do it in public.

“Let’s hope so…”

The rest of the day went by without anything else of importance, they ate, chatted together and complained about the poor choice of films from the tv’s channels, found one that was decent enough and passed the evening. Damian went to bed rather early but kept looking at his phone for a good while before finally shutting it down and falling asleep. In the apartment, a couple rooms over, his parents were still awake and reading a book on their sides of the large queen sized bed that was in the centre of the room. Geralt put down his and leaned on the headrest behind him.

“Will he be ok?” He was concerned for him, much more than usual, it was an occasion far different than anything his boy had ever experienced before. The last time they went camping it was when he was twelve and it ended with him covered in head to toe in water and catching a cold.

“I’m sure he will.” Frida was worried as well, but as all mothers she knew her son better then he knew himself and was sure that he could pull through it. “It’s just a silly couple of days with some friends.”

“They’re not really his friends, they wanted him because he was free and they knew how to approach him.” His wife frowned: he wasn’t technically wrong but still… “They may be nice kids but he’s so self conscious for his age, he should be out there, exploring the world and getting a girlfriend, not cooped up in here with us and our scaly asses.”

“Last time I checked, you asked me to date you when you were well over twenty five years old and it took you a lot to get out of your way to transform in front of me.” He chuckled and remembered those days that looked so far and distant. “But hell, you were a sexy man, all strong and virile, a little too eager maybe.” He was about to say something but a hand placed on his lips shut him up. “And that’s what I love about you.”

“I know, but I had to go through a lot to, you know, let you see that part of me, few have what our family has, we’re particular even for other dragons, you should know that.” To this day he didn’t exactly feel happy to shapeshift but he had learned to cope with the consequences of being himself just as many of his ancestors had to. Family reunions were the least terrible of events in which all of them went around without human form but those had a different kind of suffering that didn’t come from the stares.

“And do you think I cared when I let you under my tail? I loved you but what you had down there was by far the most juicy part of you.”

“And here I thought you married me for my excellent crepes, turns out that you just like sex.” The two looked at each other for a while, holding hands. Had Damian been there he’d have found the whole thing exceedingly sweet and cringy. “He’ll be fine, right?” She nodded and then switched off the lights for the night.

Damian kept contact with Chris and the others for the rest of the week, which was but at the beginning, the test being on a normal Tuesday and the agreed date for their trip on Monday morning. A couple of days in and they told him that Kara had found another dragon, male he was assured after a message that he hoped wouldn’t betray the nervousness he had. It made things easier and didn’t bother to ask who it was, he didn’t know any of them well enough to matter in any way for him, he was hopefully going to have little in the way of discussion. The deal in the end was that he’d take them in, watch over them and in the meantime do his own stuff, which meant look at the sky or anything that prevented cheesy talk with teenagers.

At the same time he was preparing his equipment, consisting in a small tent, a sleeping bag, spare clothes and emergency food for both the trip and the park with cash stashed inside a secret spot in his clothes just for the most urgent of purchases. He had his credit card, received from a grandmother for his most recent birthday that had close to a thousand dollars and hadn’t been used before. Even if he ate his fill everyday he doubted he could even get near that amount, especially with the discount they gave him and that he made sure actually existed. Damian wasn’t going to take chances when it came to money, dragons may not have real piles of gold but it wasn’t a chance that more than half of the richest beings on the planet were dragons. Long lives and a good sense of value and trends had taken their species far and wide, mostly to save their own asses when the occasional lord wanted money to let a family move in their land and get guards and mercenaries. A dragon attacking a human meant death but if said dragon hired a hundred guards, that was different. It was ironic really, with how strong his species was and with the occasional magic spell here and there, most of the time they resorted to using human to fight humans, except in life or death situations and the occasional mad dragon here and there. No wonder some thought the illuminati were actually either dragons or controlled by an even higher and more secret organization of scaled bastards.

Time passed and Monday came and despite all that he had said to himself and the mental preparation, Damian was nervous to meet the humans at the train stop. He didn’t really care and just wanted to get on his vacation but his heart and mind had a different opinion. The sun wasn’t going to come out for a while according to the forecast and at the moment the sky threatened to break into a downpour of the serious kind, once more proving that meteorology was a far from perfect field of science. Damian stood with his decent backpack on his shoulders and waited for the others to come, scrolling through his phone as per usual, not bothering to look around since the time of the meeting was still a ways off. That was the reason why when he heard the voice of a familiar redhead he jumped and hissed at whoever had caught him in surprise, a hint of claws emerging from his fingers and eyes slitted.

“Whoa! Calm down tiger!” Damian released Kara from the grip he had on her arm, looking at the girl as she massaged the offended area of her limb with some pain showing on her pretty face. In an instant his form returned to normal, or as normal as he could get and scratched his neck in embarrassment. “Damn, you’re quick.”

“I… apologize.”

“There’s a reason why they say never bother a sleeping dragon, even if said dragon is on the phone and… reading a sci-fi novel.” Once more he was left somewhat speechless by her behaviour and had to concede that she was way too comfortable with being next to a dragon. The small incident seemed to not have fazed her cheerful persona one bit and when the other three arrived, she wasn’t even massaging her arm anymore. “Hey guys.”

“Good morning, I hope you brought emergency umbrellas or a poncho or something, I just looked at the forecast and it says it might rain soon.” Damian checked immediately and grumbled with the same subtlety of a pissed of rhino. “Forgot the waterproof stuff?”

“No, I have something, I just don’t like being in the rain that much.” There was a compact umbrella in the backpack but the fact that he’d still get wet wasn’t all that pleasing for him. “I’m not a water dragon after all.” The name of that particular subspecies and all variants included was the Udasi, the english cannibalization of a Greek word but they’d probably forget anyways so he wouldn’t tell them.

“Now that you mention it, what kind of dragon are you? I know you’re from Germany and all that but I really don’t know what subspecies.” The girl that had ratted him out, Daisy, fished out that little bit of knowledge she remembered from his conversation and pushed the fatidic question on him.

“Now, now… it’s rude to ask a dragon his subspecies, it’s like asking a woman her age!” The attention of the small group was shaken immediately by the appearance of a sixth person, or in this case, counting who was present, a second dragon. Damian’s heart skipped a beat not because he was nervous to meet the other one of his kind, but because he already knew who it was. “Sorry I’m late, I got tangled up with ehm, let’s say polishing my scales.” Richard laughed and strode forward with the same attitude he always had, meaning overbearing and somewhat cocky, at least in Damian’s eyes, one hand free and the other holding his stuff, stashed in a duffel bag of pretty low quality. Every single scenario he had secretly devised so that he’d not act like a total idiot were thrown off the table and shoved into a grinder.

“You’re not late, we all arrived here early but Damian here beat us to the punch.” Chris extended an arm to welcome him into the group and received a well placed smack on his back, right between the shoulder blades. The dragon’s over the top horn rings jingled ever so loudly, these new ones shining even more than the ones he had on the day of the test. Chris suppressed a grunt and thought of a way to make his back hurt less as he had to carry his backpack for the rest of the day with what was probably going to be sore muscles.

“Damian?” The jock looked at him with the expression that said ‘I don’t know him’, making the opinion of the concerned dragon towards his kin drop even lower than it already was. “You’re… in class with me right?” Damian nodded, grunting again. “Never saw you around.”

“I mind my own business most of the time.” Unlike a certain someone. “Since you arrive late, leave early and only hang out with your team, it’s hard for someone… so popular, to notice me.” That was probably the best way he could have put it. Still, he extended a hand for him to shake it but Richard ignored it, shifting the attention to the girls.

“So I take we are all ready? Nobody left behind?” Richard placed a hand on Monika and Daisy’s shoulders, smiling all the while he pushed them forward towards the board where the tracks and relative trains were displayed for the passengers. Chris rushed to get behind them, going back to grab the large duffel bag that Richard had forgotten on the floor right where he stood and then scuttling with two heavy bags on each shoulder.

“Sounds like he’s going to be a handful.” Kara seemed to be the most level headed one and lightly patted the increasingly grumpy dragon on the arm. “Come on, wouldn’t want to be left behind already.” Damian mumbled a low ‘sure’ and followed after her.

The group jumped on the train that would lead them to their goal around twenty minutes after they gathered together but not before eating something at the nearest bar and Richard shooting what felt like a premiere for the cold coffee drink he took. His explosive personality and warm attitude balanced the slight cockiness that even Chris had noticed, making him well rounded and a decent person to strike all manner of conversations with, the polar opposite of the other dragon who rather enjoyed sipping on his espresso in silence and maybe say a few words here and there when he was called.

Once on the train, they quickly found out that the seats were ordered in groups of four, which meant that they’d have to split and, without too much in the way of surprises, Richard, the girls and Chris bunched up together and left Kara and Damian not alone but separated by a fat woman and a man that had a bit too many tattoos on his body. Two minutes after they boarded the train, the engines started and the journey officially began. For the most part the trip was uneventful, with Damian spending close to two hours either listening to music or reading books and the others talking about the most broad of topics, though a large part of those put Richard at the centre. Tales of his trips and deeds across the country and the world struck awe in the hearts of the two girls and admiration on Chris’, barely bothering Kara who found that bringing that much attention to himself was a little boorish and self-centred.

“After school I’ll try and get into a decent college and work to become a designer.” Chris tried to change the topic that once more had shifted to Richard’s adventures and went as far as pulling out from the deepest depths of his backpack a block of drawing papers with dozens of models and whatnot on them. “I like the idea of making concepts for items and things that can help people’s everyday lives.”

“Damn, you’re really good at drawing. Look at this one!” Monika pointed at a few sketches and praised Chris for his rather obvious talent. “You should become a painter or something, a designer is soooo boring.” Daisy was a little bit of a basic girl though she had remarkably high grades.

“That’s cool and all but art is tricky these days, with critics being critics, it’s hard to make a living unless you’re a genius or get to know the right person soon.”

“I bet if you drew me you’d get rich as fuck, once I got famous of course.” Richard chimed in once again and the three sitting with him at the table made a somewhat confused expression. “I mean, like this I don’t look like much I know, even with all these muscles, but if I were to, I don’t know, transform and let you paint me, that’s be worth a truckload of money.”

“Then hurry up and become a… footballs star or something.” Chris took the interruption to his topic well enough once again, a testament to his patience and goodwill. “Speaking of transformations, how that that work? Like, you need to drink something, bathe in moonlight…?”

“It’s a simple thing to be honest, it takes a little concentration and some space to do it, no silly stuff like that and no, it’s not a magical thing, kids do it too.” For the first time during the trip and most likely for the first time in several weeks if not months, someone had interrupted Richard, well, spoke before he could say anything but that was right near that alley and that someone was Damian. The girls looked a little underwhelmed by his words, spoken by someone that experienced the event directly.

“Come on man, it’s so much more than that.”

“It’s really not…”

“That’s such an understatement: the power swelling in your muscles, the incredible feeling of freedom, the sensations of new senses… Tell me again that it’s not magical.” Richard made his best to speak with a proud expression taking the disappointment of the girls away from them. “The ability to fly and block bullets…” Damian rolled his eyes while his kin started going in on the most basic of dragon perks and abilities, most of which well in the human realm of knowledge. “How long do you take to shift?” Damian exhaled loudly, considering whether to answer or not.

“Two, three minutes tops.”

“So slow… I need but a minute.” Seemingly satisfied with his little triumph, Richard returned to his tales and Chris began drawing something on his notebook.

The trip lasted for but an hour or so more, taking it to three hours, not too far from home and not too near. The train came out of the tunnel with the usual bang that accompanied a not so well designed nose of the first wagon and proceeded onto the rest of the tracks but from that point on, the usual city in the distance or small town where human lived, were gone.

Dragon cities were not real, not in the sense of human imagination: they weren’t tall rocks with hundreds of holes on the side, they weren’t full of screeching and colourful creatures that flew all over the place and definitely there weren’t hundred all at once. Dragons were, by force of evolution, solitary at the worst and used to live in small enclaves with relatives and a few others at best, going for a hundred in most cases. The fact that humans feared large groups of dragons all at once had forced into the species’ collective knowledge the idea that ‘too many together makes them take on arms and come to bother you so stay in small groups, ready to leave at a moment’s notice’. Already Kara, sitting in the left side of the train, could see that dragons had made the place their home, with extremely large spaces between houses and tall building not intended to house as many people as possible as much as to allow any dragon an easier take-off from somewhere elevated.

The town they had slowly come to stop to was just like that, save for the occasional human patch of buildings, though all had the same rough appearance, it was clear that few humans could build here and those block of flats and high-rise constructions stood out much more than normal, despite their average appearance. The rather unimpressive look of the only dragon settlement in that side of the state quickly pulled down the expectations of the four humans, though the stunning scenery was enough to make it rise just as fast and when the group saw from afar a bluish dragon flying above them and land on the nearest house, the morale shot through the roof.

Just out of the train station everyone dropped their belongings on the floor, carefully, and breathed in the fresh and clean air, looking with rapt attention at the extremely high amount of dragons walking around and minding their business, which meant that there were currently twenty at best on the street. Humans already exceeded that number by a lot since the place was something of a tourist attraction and it was summer vacation. Half of the signs were written in english and the other half, sometimes a mix, was in dragon tongue, at least the local dialect.

“Why don’t dragons fly in the cities? That’d look so fucking cool…” Chris grabbed his notebook and hurried to sketch the dragon that had just landed, rough but decent enough, trusting in his memory to replicate it better later whereas the others took a normal photo. On the rooftop of the three story building the eight foot tall dragon chatted with someone that was hidden by his large body and took off moments later with something held in his claws. “Awesome.”

“Because the buildings are all cluttered and there is little space to move around, plus there’s helicopters these days and laws about noise pollution.” For once Richard gave a very sensible answer and looked at the disappearing male in the distance. “Also they’re jealous of how good we look.” And then he had to brag. Damian was regretting taking up this offer more by the second.

“Maybe they just don’t want to look up and see a giant scaly ass dangling from the rooftops.” Kara stared at Damian as she said so, making him quite confused. “I’m sure your scaly ass is just fine though.” Again he was left without a word to say, shrugging as his best response when she pushed her way into a conversation.

“Alright, enough chitchat, we have a couple of things to check and then we can get to the park.” Chris clapped hands and took the attention to himself. “First: nobody lost anything? No?” The answers were pretty satisfying though everyone confirmed that they had indeed not lost anything on the train that was just now leaving for the next station. “Next: does anyone need to buy anything at all? There’s a shop right there and I don’t want to hear words like ‘I forgot to bring spare underwear’ so come out right now and let us be done with it.” Nobody said anything, Chris slapped his palms together with a pleased expression. “Then follow me, I’ve got the map downloaded and ready to lead us to the area where we need to go.”

Following the weirdly charismatic and parent-like Chris, the group started walking towards the park, heading south and very excited, Damian too though he didn’t really admit it and it was the same for Richard too. The both of them hadn’t been near these many of their kind in years, more so for the jock who was well used to live with humans rather than dragons and even when at home, only his father was there for him. The town of Heleya, closest thing to the draconic pronunciation for the real name, was incredibly more populated by the scaled race than any other place in the country and still the number was barely over a hundred and fifty. Still, it was a lot for a place that was that small and had only five hundred people on average and reached the eight hundred on a good day of high affluence.

The group was somewhat amazed by the incredible number of dragons of all sizes, well, all human for the most part, save that one they say earlier on the rooftop, but the range of horn shapes was something very interesting to see. Damian counted at least five different subspecies, an incredible range for such an isolated place if one took in consideration that there were around six or seven in the whole state. For a country town it was a real hub for draconic life and only by dragon standards because by human ones this was but a hamlet with little to offer other than a nice view.

“Still, there is space here, so why not be… real dragons?” Richard took the Daisy’s words far too personally but held himself back. Did that mean he wasn’t a real dragon just because he had skin and not scale, even if at the moment? “It’s kind of disappointing.”

“Come on Daisy, do you think they’d be able to answer the phone or go around shopping and… driving cars if they were ten feet tall and just as long?” Damian blessed Kara in his heart. “Imagine a dragon trying to type a message onto a six inch screen.” Knowing their sizes, Damian and Richard chuckled. It’d be a funny thing to see alright.

“I’d still think more would fly around.” This time it was Chris. “Do you two plan on, you know, shifting? In the park?” The two looked at each other, Damian shrugged.

“I’m not sure, it’s not something I like to do.” He wasn’t going to say that if a female were around, he’d have at least tried to. Richard picked up the slight hesitation and embarrassment in his voice and swiftly poked at his sides, literally and figuratively.

“What? Embarrassed?” Damian grumbled. “Please, a dragon should be proud to be who they are, you too…” Attacking a teenage male with his pride was not something that should be done, ever, not even for a prank. “I know you’re slow at changing. Look, I’ll be nice and won’t shift unless you want to do that as well, so that you don’t feel left out.”

“How… nice of you.” It was painfully obvious that he was trying to make him mad, needing the attention and the feeling of being ‘superior’ to others as jock and dragon as well, a bad combination. Seeing that the jab didn’t work Richard gave up, for the moment at least although Damian felt like the other dragon in the group was doing this only because he said he didn’t want to do it, like his response would have been different had he said yes.

The entrance to the park was near the edge of the small town, around a couple of miles from the train station and nestled right at the foot of a hill but, judging from the map placed right outside, the offices and the other facilities were another mile inside the gates. The girls voiced their complain and as such, the guys, be it human or not, had to carry extra stuff to make them pleased. Richard forced Chris to give him his extra share and so was now encumbered by three people’s worth of camping equipment, which in all of his pride he didn’t show to be bothered in any way. Behind him Damian was just carrying his and Kara’s stuff since she had basically thrust it in his hands right at the entrance with a smile plastered on her face.

As soon as they lost sight of the parking lot and the last few buildings, the atmosphere changed and suddenly they really felt as if they had gone deep, deep into an uncharted forest and were now exploring it. The immersion was broken by the poles that indicated the direction they should follow but soon they’d really, really, really feel the boundless nature around themselves and that was enough for the moment. Reaching the offices, in form of five small cottages attached to a larger one, all made out of logs but without the classic ‘rustic’ feel to them, the same that everyone saw in movies and tv series: the cottages were modelled after an ancient style that perfectly fit the area around them, with curled edges and large spaces between each column that supported the slanted roofs. Around the edges of the area Damian saw large footprints, three-toed and belonging to someone really heavy. A few seconds later the others also saw it and giggled in excitement and expecting to see a proper dragon soon and much to their happiness, their wishes were granted. The thunderous steps reached them faster than the creature itself: everyone gasped at the sight of the dragoness that had they instantly recognised as the one on the brochure that had started this whole thing: tall, slender and perfect as Damian had imagined her to be, only missing that seductive look that she had on paper. Still, he felt nervous and straightened his posture just to be sure, running a hand in his hair to make sure he wasn’t looking like an idiot. Richard laughed at him in his mind but secretly did the same thing, behind everyone’s backs.

“Welcome to the park ladies and gentlemen, my name is Lorena.” Each one of them presented themselves with respect and some form of awe. Her voice was deep but held a thrill that the puny human ears didn’t quite catch, registering it as a mere baritone sound, he wondered if they even understood she was a she. “Aren’t you all a lovely bunch? Humans and dragons together on a trip. It’s a rare and very much welcome thing.” She bowed her head and the two dragons did the same immediately. “And polite too.”

“We want to stay here for five days, where do we need to register?”

“Register? Oh, planning on camping deeper inside the park, correct?” The group nodded. “Well, that’s a damn shame. We have a designated spot where we have campers stop to spend time but we have had a little accident and the road there has been blocked by last week’s torrential rain. The landslide completely ruined the road and we are still working on clearing the debris.”

“What?”

“It’s a real problem, we already lost twenty campers that have had booked the spots in advance and lost quite a bit of revenue.”

“What about the… dragon only area? Is that available?” The dragoness lifted a paw at Daisy’s question and then placed it back on the ground, displacing dirt in the process.

“I see, you’re planning on taking advantage of your friends.” Lorena frowned and snorted softly, displeased just as Damian had been at the proposal last week but conveying a completely different feeling because of her look and size. “That area is for us and for us only, a place to rest and be ourselves not for humans to rest in, I am very sorry, but those are the rules.”

“It’s fine, we just want to have some fun, who we take with us or why is our business.” Richard stepped forward and tried to look cool in front of the girls and Chris, turning the dragoness’ frown deeper. She looked at Damian who shrugged and made to agree with the ‘courageous’ dragon. “Is that a problem?”

“Not as long as you cause trouble for yourselves or the management of this park, and that includes taking four humans with yourselves into an area that is marked as dangerous.” The green eyes of the dragoness shimmered, making the humans flinch.

“But the brochure said that we can take two humans with us and it’d be ok.” Richard tried to voice his mind again.

“If you read it carefully, you’d have noticed that we referred to adult dragons, not ones such as you, young and clearly not as strong as they should be.” Now it was Richard’s turn to frown. “Trying to make up for a lack in your other form by putting some muscle on your human body, typical of insecure males.” He looked angry and weirdly offended by her words. “Your friend there instead, he’s very interesting: he looks like he has a nice body underneath that pale skin.”

“Then what about you, huh? Talk bad about how I look but surely you aren’t so perfect when not in this form.”

“Too bad I never transformed once in my life, so I wouldn’t know what I look like as a human.” Damian raised his eyebrows. She was a puritan? They were a group that refused to shift to human form, living in the ‘wild’ or wherever they had space to move, an increasingly rare thing. “My family owns this place and we have enough land for us to never have to shrink ourselves to human proportions, work is handled by your species, it’s a win-win for all the concerned parties.” Lorena hummed softly. “Returning to the subject at hand: you cannot enter the dragon area and camp there, even if you took another one to help you make up for your lack of personal integrity…” The look in the humans’ faces told at lot about how they felt. “But there are a couple of lodgings not too far from here, call them special suites that we keep for those with a reservation. I’ll let you spend the duration of your stay in one of those, even if it’s just to keep you away from the restricted zones of the park.”

“You think we’d sneak there and camp anyways?” Richard scoffed and tried to strike a pose in front of her. He didn’t look cool.

“I know you’d do it, you’re a dragon and even if you’re clearly far too used to human contact, like many of us are these days, you’d dash there and camp your human buttocks right where I don’t want them to be.” Richard frowned again and huffed loudly, angry at the poisonous words of the dragoness. Damian couldn’t be more happy at the sight of someone putting him in his place. “I am offering you a special accommodation at the price of five nights of camping on the cold ground. It’s a damn good deal for you and I suggest you accept it or pack your things and go.” Richard opened his mouth but a hand placed on his chest, Chris’ hand, prevented him from saying something that would have made things worse than they already were.

“We’ll take it of course, Ms Lorena, thank you for your generosity. It’s been a really long trip and we are all tired. Are the lodgings near here or?”

“No, they’re quite close in fact, just over there, follow the signs. Stop by the office and register yourselves into any of them and try to enjoy yourselves. Have a good stay.” The somewhat arrogant attitude vanished as soon as Chris told her they’d take the offer, smiling and pointing both in the direction of the office she mentioned and the trail that led to the cottages. Lorena lowered her head and whispered in Damian’s ear in dragon tongue. “Be sure not to let your friend out of your sight, he’s too proud for his own good. It’d be nice if he were like you.” The young male cocked an eyebrow again. “I can tell you’re strong and I can smell a good dragon hiding underneath this flabby skin.” She poked at his stomach with a dangerously sharp claw that didn’t faze him all that much. “Good day to you all. Call me if you want to hang out with a real dragoness…” Lorena broke into a gallop and headed where they had come from. Moments later they all heard the sound of wings opening and then saw the figure of the blue female soar into the air and climb upwards. Daisy let out a soft ‘whoa’ as she looked up and squinted her eyes to see the disappearing shape.

“What a bitch!” Richard didn’t waste time to curse at her now that she was gone. Quite the low blow for him and petty, very petty. “What did she say to you? Did she make fun of me?”

“Huh? She wasn’t even whispering. Didn’t you hear?” Richard was still angry but that look wavered a bit at his question. “You can’t understand dragon tongue?” He didn’t get an answer. “Really?”

“Fuck off…”

“Is that like, a big deal?” Kara had been on the sides for the whole encounter and now chimed in to ask her questions.

“It’s like when you have parents from two different nations and not knowing one of their languages in the least… only worse. Dragon tongue cannot be spoken by humans but it can be understood and read, it’s like a version of english exclusive to dragons. Our universal tongue.” Not knowing it was far worse than just being hot headed or preferring humans to his own kind. How would he go about life without being able to read it, especially with all of his ‘pride’ for his heritage and all that. Unless it was pride only in front of a bunch of clueless humans.

“Ok, that’s fine, no need to get worked up about it.” Chris saw that Richard was tightening his fists into white balls and eyeing Damian with a very angry look so he rushed between them and mediated the two, well, only Richard to be honest. “How about we get our cabin and rest a little? We can leave the bags there.” The human looked around the rapidly demoralizing group and proposed the only thing that could make them feel better, even if just a little. They all nodded, even Richard, though later than the others. “Good.”

He dragged the problematic dragon with him and Monika to the office and returned ten minutes later with two copies of the cabin number five, one of which he gave to Damian for safekeeping and then led the group to the path that would take them to said cabin. The terrain was a bit bumpy and not as well maintained as the one they had walked on before, though it was larger and marked by dozens of heavy sets of footprints. Five minutes later they reached the cabin, after passing four more on their way there, each a little bit different from the other and each in the same style as the cottages back there. The cabin number five wasn’t exempt from the usual style and followed it by heart but the particular location of the building made it stand out more than the other four that had preceded it: instead of being on the left of the path, going further inside the woods, it rested on a large clearing and looked onto the wider valley that opened beneath. The view was incredible and the soft breeze that carried the smell of the forest and the sound of the river than flowed at the centre of the depression made them forget the mess that had brought them there in the first place.

Looking on the far right Damian could see that there was a series of bare patches in the foliage a ways off north, where cranes and timbermen were currently fixing the road and removing the fallen trees. Further away there was a number of clearings that must have been the designated areas for campers.

Kara was the first one to enter the cabin and gasped in surprise at the spacious interior of the place, slumping immediately on the enormous couch that was at the centre of the living room, followed by Monika and Daisy, each taking up a third of the queen sized piece of furniture.

“That’s some space for you.” Chris’ gaze locked onto the giant door at the back of the room and hurriedly showed it to Richard and Damian. “There’s even a door for dragons there!” He had looked carefully among the ten cabins that were available for them to choose and the number five was one of the few that had that feature. “So if any of you two wants to shift, you can even stay inside with us without having to transform all the time.”

“Thanks Chris, maybe I will do that.” Now it was Damian’s turn to tease the other dragon, armed of the insight that Lorena had given him. She could’ve been wrong but the reaction he had at her words told him there was a hint of truth and he bet on that hard. “It’s really nice. How many rooms?”

“Well, there’s a kitchen, two bathrooms inside and a mega-shower outside for you guys.” His eyes gleamed with excitement at the idea of seeing one of them taking a shower in dragon form, though he had no idea of what they looked like, not in the slightest. “Then we have the living room and… three bedrooms.” He looked away as he said that. The girls gave him a weird stare. “Hey, the other cabins either had two bedrooms or just one, this is the best we had at hand.”

“I’ll sleep on the couch.” Damian was quick to give himself an alternative and escape whatever mess was going to happen in the next few moments. The other choice was to camp outside.

“Then we can… the girls can share one bed, one takes it and me and Richard can try and see if there’s space in the last bedroom?” The dragon looked at him and then at the couch, already claimed by Damian. A couple seconds later he muttered something that Chris took as yes for his idea though Kara didn’t seem all too pleased with the situation.

“Wouldn’t it be more interesting if we made a boy-girl situation? We’ve got three rooms, three beds, three girls and three boys, I think the conclusions to be drawn are obvious.” Monika hadn’t said much for the whole trip up until this point and now she came up with a fairly interesting and naughty idea, one that clearly suggested that she had special plans for the night. Chris swallowed his saliva and felt a tingle of worry mixed to excitement at the idea of sharing a bed with any of them. It would be a lie to say that he hadn’t made preparations for such an occasion. “Come on guys, don’t be pussies, that’s our job.”

“Let them rest first and then we can… see if they are up to it.” Kara spoke with a curious tone, Monika and Daisy giggled, making even the stoic and rather expressionless Damian feel uncomfortable. He had never even thought of seeing such a peculiar turn of events, much less live in one. “We’ll each take one room and you boys can, I don’t know, fight to the death for the right of sleeping with any of us.” Within the next minute, the girls decided who went where and rushed to claim their respective rooms, leaving three confused guys, two of which a bit aroused by the prospect and one slightly annoyed, guess who.

“Sounds like we’re in a pickle guys.”

“Shut up.” Richard only said that and got out of the cabin, sitting on the edge of the wooden patio that covered half of the small garden that was in front.

“Ok…. That was weird.” The human turned to look at Damian who had the same expressionless face as before. “Alright, ehm, this is embarrassing and incredibly sexist but……. Could you let me go with Monika?”

“You like her?”

“Dude.” Chris gave Damian a ‘are you serious’ expression. “She’s hot!” He leaned in. “And I heard that she’s not reserved in bed.” Why was he whispering? They were the only ones in the room. “Also I thing Kara has a thing for you…”

“What thing?”

“Didn’t you see how she looks at you? The puppy eyes, how she prefers to talk at you rather than me? The mention at the fact that ‘your scaly ass would probably be fine’ back on the train? That went over your head?” The dragon stared at him for a few moments.

“But I’m not human and…”

“Shut up, I don’t want to hear you say that since you are not human you cannot be with her.” Chris steeled his expression and placed his hands on Damian’s shoulders, his arms a bit too high due to the height difference. “You can have all the raw sex in the world and you’ll never have to worry about getting her pregnant so, take this chance, get a tag under your belt or whatever floats your boat and relax for fuck’s sake. I know your character is the broody and mysterious guy but try and enjoy life every once in a while, ok?”

Chris smiled and gathered his stuff to bring it to the room he’d had chosen, heart thumping wildly at each step that brought him closer to it. Behind the door Monika was reading a message it just arrived and didn’t notice him entering or pretended not to notice. Damian remained there, standing for a few minutes, outside Richard was cussing and sulking therefore he had but one choice.

He grabbed the backpack he had and walked upstairs to the room that Kara had chosen as her own and strode in with a little but of nervousness: the girl was sitting on the bed, still dressed, of course, legs draped over each other. Her eyes locked onto him on the moment he opened the door and walked through it.

“How interesting that you come here of all places.”

“There were only four places… including the couch.” She rolled her eyes. “Figured I’d let Richard sulk on his own for the night.”

“Still, you came to me.” He shrugged and sat on the bed’s edge, opposite her, dropping his backpack at his feet. “That was nice of you.” Damian shrugged. “Thanks for coming with us.”

“Not that you need me anymore, now that you can’t enter the restricted area.” Kara exhaled loudly and flopped on the mattress. “What?”

“You think we asked you just because of that?” He nodded, of course they had, they weren’t friends, talked a few times in class and that was about it. Kara punched him on the arm after scooching over to his side. “You’re really dense Damian.” She crossed her legs and arms. “You’re a nice guy, a bit too broody and alone, so we thought you’d enjoy having something different other than being alone for a change. Also we really, really wanted to go there.”

“Nothing more?” Kara shook her head. “Sure?” Again. He leaned in. “Really sure?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake! I kind of like you but that’s beside the point!” Was it? “It doesn’t have anything to do with taking you here, hell, we didn’t even know you had plans but when Monika heard you got dumped by your friend we had the idea of taking you in.” Kara blushed all the while she spoke and refused to look at him. “Jeez, what a way to have a girl confess to you. You have no tact whatsoever, like an elephant in a glass shop.” There was a pause. “Like a dragon in a glass shop.” He was waiting for that, sure she’d make some kind of joke.

“I still do not understand why me, why you’d like me. It’s not like I made any effort to be likeable or attractive.”

“I prefer the broody boys rather than… Richard type ones, they try too much to be cool and all, you just do your own stuff and not bother anyone too much.” She never seemed to cease to surprise him, one way or another. First she picked at his weak sides, then she drags him here, then it comes out she likes him for being slightly antisocial. A weirder human couldn’t be found even by searching for them. “And you’re clever, and a dragon to boot.”

“I thought that would lower any woman’s interest for me.”

“Just because you can’t get me… pregnant?” It was hard even for her to say that. “Dragons… always so worried about not making enough babies. We’re in the 21th century Damian, there’s millions and millions of dragons all over the world, I think trying to make eggs all the time can be put aside for a few years.” He coughed in embarrassment. “I always liked your species, not because of all the media and the legends: my father is a doctor for your kind, he taught me a lot and I like how you can go from a tiny six feet tall scrawny kid to… whatever you look like the other way.”

“Ok… if you say so.”

“And I know it’s a banal thing for you, shifting I mean, but birds can fly too, they don’t make it a fuss and look at how many of us wish to fly. It’s something we are all jealous of, a lot. I’m not going to ask you to shift but, just know that I’d really like it.”

“What about Richard?”

“He can go stick up a lamp post up his ass for all I care. I may have planned to ask him, tease him into doing it but after the words of the owner of the place, the way she made him look like an idiot, I kind of got the idea that he’d not be as impressive as you.” Kara had been leaning closer and closer to him and now she was pressing her head against his shoulder, just staying still. He was calm and expressionless most of the time, dragon blood helping a little in keeping his cool but now he felt the pressure of her body against his and her scent around him. “Look at me, Kara being Kara and bothering dragons.”

“It’s not a bother, really.”

“That’s… reassuring.” Damian looked the other way. “Can I ask you a favour? Can you look at me the same way you did this morning? Without trying to break my arm of course, I just want to have a peek at the dragon underneath.” Damian wasn’t sure what to think anymore: all his life until now had passed with him being outside most circles, not really being friends with anyone and now a human girl not only had said she liked him but she wanted to see him for who he was and not what. Requests of shifting had been asked for years, he never even considered them but hers was different somehow, genuine if anything. “Please?”

“Ok.” He really couldn’t say no to her. Damian closed his eyes and when he opened them, the brown irises were gone, replaced by a vibrant yellow and slitted pupils, giving him an air that a few had described as ‘demonic’ many times before. “Well, here they are.”

“Damn they’re sexy.” That was the last word he thought he’d hear regarding his eyes. “Really sexy.”

“Thanks…?”

“You do need some boost in confidence Damian.” Kara laughed softly. “A lot of it. You’re a damn dragon, not some teenage kid.”

“I am a teenage dragon though, what does that make me?” His heart beat faster than normal, trying out a cheesy and corny line that was similar to her style. Kara smiled, a wide smile that sent his soul into even more confusion.

“It makes you all the more interesting.” Well, that was it for her: she grabbed his head and pulled him in for a kiss, shocking herself just as much as him when their lips met. Damian froze like a piece of ice and every muscle in his body tensed as she kept kissing him for but five seconds. “We need to work on your kisses too.”

“W-we?”

“Of course, it’s not like I’m going to let you go now that I’ve come out as a dragon-lover.” The unexpected hidden meaning in her words made both blush. “That came out a little wrong.” But she wouldn’t have minded that one bit if it came true. Kara got off the bed and up on her feet, reaching for the door. “I’m hungry, you want a snack?”

“I’ll come down in a moment.”

“Don’t keep me waiting then.” She winked at him and closed the door behind her. He focused on the steps until she was on the first floor and probably in the kitchen, looking for any snacks that someone had left there and then slumped on the bed, heart racing. It took a moment to notice all the blood had gone somewhere that it shouldn’t have and the raging hard-on he had was now straining his pants. “Stupid teenage body, calm down.” He’d have get his shit together first and then his body would calm down. “Who’d ever have imagined this happening?” Everything went down so fast: first he was in the same room and only a moment later she was clinging to him and saying she loved dragons. She was never going to stop surprising him, was she?

“Hey man, you ok?” The head of the only male currently in the house other than him peeked from the door frame. Damian muttered something. “What happened?”

“Kara happened.” Chris sighed.

“Why do I know exactly what you mean? She’s a real handful, isn’t she?” Damian looked up and nodded, lifting himself up with his elbows. “Good luck with her, you’re gonna need it.”

“I guess.”

“Come on, get down or she’ll start plotting something crazy.” The dragon remained motionless for a few moments and then got off the bed. Chris patted his back and pushed him out of the room with a wry smile. “But you are one lucky fucker.” Damian didn’t feel so lucky at the moment though.

Downstairs the three girls were sitting on the couch and watching a movie on the giant tv that had been turned on moments before and tuned in on a random show, something about cooking which had made the three hungry enough to take out quite a few packs of chips and a couple of sandwiches. The two guys that had just arrived didn’t join them but rather headed to the kitchen themselves and grabbed some of the bars of chocolate that had been stashed away by the staff in one of the shelves on the walls. Armed with snacks and drinks, Chris sat on the couch next to Daisy and passed her a bar in exchange for the remote, while Damian moved to the only human sized piece of furniture, a decent chair with soft cushions. Kara didn’t wait long before grabbing more junk food and sitting on his lap, holding a bar of something sugary right in his face until he opened his mouth and ate it. The girls chuckled and asked Chris to change the channel to something more fun and prompting a huge discussion about what to watch for the next five minutes, a discussion that Damian didn’t pay attention to as he was too busy dealing with an internal one at the moment.

With a girl strapped to his body, leaning onto him like a pillow and casually with her buttocks against his groin, every neuron was firing on all cylinders not to get another boner, which would cause many complications in such an open area and with three other people in the room. Kara seemed to notice but didn’t move at all, making him understand why Chris had mentioned ‘something crazy’. Unfortunately for him, this was far less crazy and more contained than he expected and would experience during those five days with her. About half an hour later Richard returned inside and threw himself on the couch, forcing the three already on it to move a little to the side and offer him something to eat, which he did without saying so much as a thank you. The confident and cheerful Richard that had dominated the conversations up until that point was gone and left a sad hunk of meat and muscles in his wake. Pretty much everyone tried to cheer him up, save for Damian of course, who felt a little bit sad for him but much more satisfied at the sight to care that much.

“I’m going for a walk, want to come?” When the discussion about the channel settled down and the romantic comedy of the year had been chosen as the ultimate thing to watch, Kara decided to whisper in Damian’s ear. He looked at her and then nodded, making her smile. “Thanks.” He followed her meekly out of the living room and out of the cottage. Between arriving and all the shenanigans, it was past the heart of the afternoon but being summer, the light was still strong and made the path easy to walk.

“It’s nice here.” Damian wasn’t good at small talk and the events of the past hour had made it all much harder to talk to Kara. She nodded, just as awkwardly. “Sorry.”

“For what?”

“I’m not really sure I am what you need or look for in a dragon.”

“Even if I’m prepared for everything?” He nodded. “Look, I don’t know what you think I want or what I search for in my life, right now… right now I guess I’d like to get to know you. As antisocial as you are, I’ve had far more problems with other dragons and you are really easy to read.” He raised an eyebrow. Was he that easy? “Like now, you’re worried you’re not up to whatever imaginary standard I have.” Damian nodded, regretfully and not without embarrassment. “See? Easy. Don’t worry, I have nothing in the way of standards or expectations, I just want to see you, the real you.”

“Am I not real enough like this?” Kara stopped walking and gave him another full-body scan.

“Fine by me but, you know, a little treat for the eyes wouldn’t hurt.” He found himself at the middle of the road, staring at her with worry and deep down, excitement. Other than his family, not many dared or bothered to stick with him long enough to find out what he wanted or tried to be friends with him, something that went both ways. Now, he met someone that had enough guts for the both of them and then some. “Only if you want to, I’m just here to have some fun, anything else is just icing on the cake to be honest.” She did hope to get a lot of icing though, no second meaning implied in her words.

“Alright…” She froze just for a moment. “I don’t know how or why, but you keep… pushing all the right buttons, every single time I try to be myself you do something and I do things I wouldn’t do normally, like coming here and not hating the whole thing from start to end.” Kara felt pride and happiness for having moved the historically misanthropist dragon and resident loner of the school. She didn’t really do anything, speaking her heart and her mind whenever and it just so happened to work well enough to have made him slightly happy. “You’ve got something that I can’t quite place and my instincts are telling me I have to know what that thing is.”

“And how do you plan on doing that?” She leaned on a tree, more to hold herself up than to look cool, but that was the effect she had on him. Damian stared as she casually leaned on the great oak tree and stared back with mysterious eyes.

“I guess we’ll have to find out.”

Damian closed his eyes again, this time keeping them shut for close to ten seconds, leaving Kara in a confused state for those few moments, breathing deeply. When he opened them, she shivered at the sight: she had looked into his changed eyes twice that day but the gaze he had now, it was different, wild, heavy with unbridled emotions she couldn’t understand. He inhaled once more and exhaled, releasing a thick cloud of smoke from his nostrils that rose high in the air before a gust of wind scattered it. Kara thanked that she decided to lean on the tree as soon as a loud crack echoed in the forest and made her shiver again.

She looked with apprehension and a growing curiosity that was overriding her fear whenever each pop made his body snap left or right. Damian moaned and growled but not in pain, relishing the sensation of release coming from the deepest parts of his soul. The lanky build he had all the time seemed to disappear at first, filled up from within his body, skin stretching without sound and squirming as muscle built on his thin bones. Already his clothes were getting more fitting for his growing frame, the empty space between skin and synthetic fibres smaller and smaller until it was no more and they clung to him. He was changing under her eyes and he was doing only for her. She knew that he considered it a boring thing but it was still a sight that few in the modern age were able to see, as weird as it was, considering all the phones and cameras. Regulations prohibited dragons to shift in urban centres and they didn’t need it anymore now, only a few choosing to do it in their homes, those lucky that could afford space where space was expensive. Damian growled again and opened his mouth in a silent cry, showing her a set of growing teeth inside it, shimmering in the afternoon sun.

He looked at her in a short moment of pause, when the sounds stopped and he breathed in peace, clearly not used to do this under an audience but still keeping his words. The cracks and pops resumed with renewed strength, his spine visible under the tight shirt and hoodie he had, bone poking through the fabric like creepy spears. It was ghastly to look but she didn’t care. Another crack, the loudest so far and Damian fell on his knees, gasping for air, his spine lengthened by a few inches all in one go. The shirt pulled up and got even tighter, revealing a disappearing belly and more skin and muscle. Another pop and his hips widened enough to make his pants stretch and rip along the seams and buttons pop one after the other, baring his white underwear to her, she didn’t care at all. Damian breathed in deeply and closed his mouth shut, face red in a titanic effort to grow faster and make the shifting less long than it needed to be. In the next few seconds that came, he put up foot after foot of height, going from six feet to nine quicker than expected, turning him into a lankier pole with thin muscles. The condition lasted a brief instant and enough muscle to make him look like a god on earth appeared out of thin air, ballooning all around him, shoulders, thighs, arms and chest, shredding the cloth and revealing even more skin. Then his shoulders dislocated, the left one first, then the second, adjusting to a new configuration and forcing Damian to spread them to his sides as his chest broadened to fill in the gaps in musculature.

On the ground, panting, sweating and with little to no clothing, she still saw him as incredible, majestic despite the obvious pain in his eyes and, grudgingly attracted to his muscular backside and growing body. Seeing that she wasn’t afraid made him less worried and afraid to go even further, inhaling again. Another push and the rest of his torso followed his chest and broadened, thickening with corded muscle in waves, contrasting with his head that was still at the dimensions he had before the start. Yet another loud crack and his hips shifted in their sockets as the bone modified itself, locking him into a four legged stance, wobbly since his arms were far shorter than his legs and his torso took half of his entire length rather than height. Moments later his shoes burst open, first the toes pierced through the tip and then the rest of the feet grew to match the growing legs. Just as his fingers thickened and grew outwards, his toes did the same, with his big toe and the little one shrinking and pulling upwards into dewclaws. The three remaining digits grew enough to fill in the gap left by the other two on each foot and spread into the cold dirt when the first signs of claws and talons appeared. At this point, Damian’s skin started turning green, a pale lime getting darker and darker in pulsating waves that spread the colour all over his body, spreading from his chest to his torso and then the arms, hips, legs and digits. When the colour reached his neck, the muscle ballooned outwards and his skull grew inches by the second, elongating at the same time into a pointed and less blunt shape. The nose disappeared immediately and soon followed his ears, stretched into the skin and leaving two small holes at the sides but the most beautiful thing happened next: the short horns squirmed and extended, two inches at first, five, ten and then more than a foot in instants, the second set growing in tandem but remaining only ten inches long and pointed outwards instead of backwards.

For a few long seconds the long appendages looked too big for him until Damian exhaled and growled loudly enough for the vibration to carry over to Kara, letting her feel just how strong his throat was now. Spreading his limbs outwards and bracing himself, the dragon exhaled until there was no more air in his lungs, the scent of smoke and incense spreading on the pebble and dirt in front. Once his body was void of air, he opened his eyes and inhaled through his slitted nostrils. Every single part of him grew in unison, not one at a time, not two by two, all at once and all in equal proportions, arms, legs, horns and torso pushing up and out, left and right at the same time. His arms matched the length of his hindlegs, allowing him to level his torso to the ground that was getting farther and farther from him, his claws dug into the soft soil and left deep marks in it. The remains of his clothes hung tattered on his thickening skin, now a marshy green and still darkening in certain areas of his chest and back. The last strips of his pants snapped and fell on the ground as he reached the seven feet mark of height, as well as his underwear that, as stretchy as it was, still failed to hold on and let out it contents.

Kara blushed as his privates were bared for her and Damian hissed due to the cold air against the sensitive skin of his sack for the second that it took to thicken and grow as well like the rest of him. The moment the dragon feared had arrived but he couldn’t stop now, not at this point and gritted his teeth, now fangs, and continued to push out and grow. His nethers rushed to follow his body and grew, his nuts fattening by tens of times and lowering as they did so, matching the idea of a strong male in his prime, large grapefruits covered by the growing tail above. His stiffening member twitched and rose in the air, standing proud with its six inches at first and then ten and more, the foreskin loosening in one wave and thickening in the next as it formed a protective sheath for the flesh it contained. The mushroom shaped head flattened and then elongated in a tapered tip, thick ridges popping up on the underside, one followed by three more, each marking a quarter of the two feet long erection that was starting to shrink into his sheath.

With his embarrassing bits almost gone into hiding, as little as they could hide from her curious gaze, Damian inhaled one last time and muscle multiplied tens of times even faster than before, struggling to match an ever bigger frame, only to catch up when it reached twelve feet of height. Again the lanky limbs received a new look with bulging muscles, thick as steel cables and bundled up in even thicker cords all over his body. A few more pops marked the last phases of growth of his neck, not too long and not too short and supporting a massive head filled with deadly fangs and elegant horns. The ten feet long tail lashed behind his frame and snapped left and right, scraping off bark from a couple of tree trunks that looked thin compared to his hindlegs at this point.

Damian sighed in relief and shook his entire body, skin breaking and hardening into a billion scales over his chest and back, neck and limbs but leaving the joints and tail mostly free, only covered by thick skin of a creamier colour than the deep green that populated the rest of him. As the shifting completed, the dragon stretched his limbs like a cat would, yawning and sheathing and unsheathing his claws in a test run. Behind him his nuts jostled in the protective pouch and settled for medium sized watermelons under his tail. Now that he was done, Damian craned his neck and looked at the small human next to him who hadn’t closed her mouth in the past two minutes. He didn’t say anything but leaned in to see if she was still alive, feeling her short breaths on his snout and kept silent for close to a minute, waiting for her to wake up. Kara batted her eyelids ten times to see if there was something wrong with her eyes but no matter how hard she squinted her eyes, the giant green dragon in front of her didn’t go away and instead got even closer to the point he touched her heaving chest with his nose. She lifted a hand and placed it between the nostrils, feeling the soft scales mixing with the skin like pebble on sand, giggling at the impossible rare chance to do so.

“Are you alright Kara?” His yellow eyes locked onto her and his voice reached her core through the arm that connected them, making her shake from the vibrations.

“I’m…. I’m… oh, god that was amazing!!!” After half a second, she regained her composure and then threw it out of the window, screaming into the sensitive ears of the dragon. “That. Was. Fan-fucking-tastic!! I can’t believe you actually did that for me!” Damian looked away, the broader side of his head brushing against her clothes, blushing a bit under the scales.

“You asked nicely and I thought it’d be polite to grant you a little wish.”

“Damian, you’re a dragon, you don’t do ‘nice’ or ‘polite’.”

“For you I may.” He smiled and the normally terrifying teeth only made him look cute to her.

“Sounds like someone found a little courage, guess all that muscle isn’t for nothing.” Kara slithered from under his neck to his sides, caressing the flanks and the muscle hiding under the scale and skin with her hands. “That’s a lot of muscle right there. That lady was right: you’re fucking gorgeous…” Even if she wasn’t all that familiar with dragon behaviour when in this form, she cold tell from the way his tail swished and his digits tapped the ground that she had made him a very happy dragon, or was it drake now? “Fucking gorgeous I tell you.”

“Yeah but I ruined my clothes.” As he mentioned it, he tore away the last few strands clinging to him with his teeth and tail, tossing them with the rest.

“You could have taken them off before.” She blushed a little at her own words though deep down she really wanted to see that.

“And shift in my underwear? No thanks, I do have some dignity.” Damian chuckled.

“I meant naked but that’s also ok, I guess.”

“Oh… ok.” He tried not to think about such a scenario and looked all over the place to see if someone was getting close to them from any direction, finding with some relief that it wasn’t the case.

“Speaking of which, you’re naked now mister.” The attempt was thwarted in milliseconds. “I can see it aaaallll from down here.” Damian yelped and realized only at that point that Kara was but five feet five or so in height and he was more than double that, which made her just tall enough to walk under him and make the strategically placed tail be useless as his lizard brain. “Holy…” She was at a loss just as him if not more: under that massive body, nestled between his legs was a fat sheath, thicker than her arm or her thigh and hiding, or trying to hide two orbs of incredible size that seemed not to be able to stop wobbling. “That’s… a whole lotta dick.” The clever persona vanished in a puff of smoke.

“Ok, that’s enough!” In a fit of shame he grabbed her with his tail and hoisted up on his back in one fluid motion. “That’s my privates you’re staring at.”

“Not so private now, sir footlong dick.” He craned his neck enough to look at her and found she was sticking her tongue out in a very childish manner but still hit the mark. “I though dragons had… internal stuff.”

“German subspecies with a little twist, dad’s side: green hides because we used to live in the Black Forest and, ehm, external equipment for faster courtship or something. There’s a few other subspecies like me around the world but mine is kind of the most…”

“Hung?”

“Visible, I was going to say visible.” Though she wasn’t wrong, technically speaking. “I belong to the bigger variety in Europe so I guess that’s a given.”

“Yeah, wouldn’t want those dragonesses miss on some action.” Damian hissed at her. “Come on, I know you must have gotten down on some, or is it over, since…”

“I’m a virgin.” That was enough to shut her up.

“Even with that thing…?”

“Yes! Can we stop talking about my dick and sex life now?” He was getting hard pressed not to rise on his hindlegs and let her fall on her ass. “Please? I’m not here going around asking about who you bang and your chest size or anything…”

“Fine.” She hugged his neck as he started to move, trying not to fall down. “You… don’t have any wings I noticed.” He rolled his eyes, though she didn’t see that.

“Unfortunately not all dragons have them, again something that has to do with evolution or whatnot. We probably lost them a few hundred years ago if not a thousand. It’s not a big loss, we don’t exactly travel much like this anyways.” Kara had to nod at that: she imagined a large guy such as him, especially one as large as him down there flying. It would have been a nightmare, all that stuff wobbling while airborne. Luckily he didn’t understand the real reason she was agreeing and rather misunderstood it.

“Does it hurt?”

“Only at the beginning, breaking and reshaping bones is not a simple process but you get used to it.” He put it down as nothing, as a slightly difficult exercise, but she knew he was lying. She hugged his neck tightly and used the long horns as support every now and then, looking far from her new position. “Really, it’s not much when you think about it, it took me what… three minutes, tops. I’m fine.”

“Still, you did it for me.”

“That I did.” He smiled but she didn’t see it well from her seat on his back. “I’d probably do it again but not for a while, it really takes a lot in terms of concentration and I’m very hungry right now.”

“Then can I suggest a quick meal? Or a full one?” Damian stopped rather abruptly and almost made Kara fall on the ground, barely catching her with his tail as Lorena trotted towards him. The dragoness was smiling and eyed him with a weird look, closing in with light steps. “Sorry to disturb you two.”

“Were you following us?” Damian asked, feeling a little bit embarrassed by the sudden appearance of the dragoness, covering his backside with his tail. She nodded.

“I was flying when I saw the two of you alone, heading for the camping site so I landed and looked at you from afar as well as searching for your friends since they might not be so… calm and composed as you are.” He wasn’t composed at all, just frozen in place. “Then you started shifting and oh, damn, that was amazing.”

“Y-you saw me??” Now his life was over: not only had a woman had seen him change, but a dragoness as well. He stepped back and Kara reminded him not to move too fast. “That’s peeping! It’s wrong…” Lorena stared at him with the expression that was the best equivalent of ‘is that the best you’ve got?’.

“That was incredible, we get many dragons here, some change to relax a little but seeing such a drastic difference in forms and seeing you shred your clothes, well, that was hot.” Kara found herself agreeing unconditionally with her. “She thinks so too.” Lorena raised one paw and scratched his chin with a claw, making him step back again. “Gods, I was right, you’re one hell of a dragon.”

“German descent.” Kara spoke for him.

“Really now… German, well, I can see that.” Her wings opened and closed a few times, Damian wishing deep down to grow a pair right now and escape her and her words right that instant. “No wings, a lot of muscle, nice horns…” Her words of praise, weird as they be, were getting through his hide and scales. In a few hours he’d gotten two females praising him and telling him how awesome he was, that had only happened at a family reunion, from his older relatives at that. “And a nice equipment as well…” He quite literally jumped to the side as he felt her head slither under his belly and inspect him. Kara slid off his back and was luckily caught by her with a snap of her jaw, not before she screamed a little and promptly put on the ground.

“What the fuck?? Who told you that you can sniff my privates?”

“I wasn’t going to but now that you say that.”

“Do. Not. Try!” Damian steeled himself and presented his teeth to the dragoness who remained most unimpressed by him and only watched as the muscles rippled and moved under his scales with what he understood to be a hungry look. “Please…” he added at the end. He had to.

“Isn’t he just the cutest little thing?” Lorena chuckled and looked down to Kara, who was just now getting up on her feet and dusting her pants.

“He’s hardly little.” The dragoness cocked an eyebrow, waiting for something. “In all aspects.” Kara raised a fist in the air and Lorena did the same, letting the small human tap it with her own. Damian felt surrounded by danger, a weird feeling for him. Could he run? No that would make him look like an idiot. “He’s a big boi.”

“I bet he is.” Lorena licked her lips and he shivered, curling up to protect himself. “Now, now, two girls are saying that you have the best tools they have ever seen and you shy away like that? What do I need to do to get some young stud to help me? Oh the dilemma!” The dragoness faked a desperate voice and placed a paw on her head, making Kara smile and laugh a little. Damian huffed

“Could you please stop referring to me as some kind of hunk without personality? I’ve got feelings you know? I’m not a bag of flesh attached to a dick…”

“Poor thing, you don’t know just how incredible you are.” Lorena eyed him for a few more seconds and then sat on her haunches. “He’s got a little bit of an inferiority complex.” Kara nodded. “It’s because of what you have behind there, right?” Damian refused to answer. “Look, that’s nothing to be ashamed of, it’s just who you are and because most dragons don’t have anything outside to show, doesn’t mean you’re weird or anything. I mean, look at me, I barely remember when was the last time I shifted to human form, at least ten years ago or even more…”

“That’s nothing to do with me.”

“It has: I have lived as dragoness for far more than what most of our species even dream to do these days: they change to dragons, real dragons, only when they can, I go human only when I have to. In the years I have seen many subspecies and hundreds if not thousands of our kind come and go, shift and relax in these woods so I think I can call myself something of an expert when I say that you are definitely in the top ten of the most attractive young dragons I have seen.” Damian stopped looking away and inched his head towards her. “You’ve got it all: muscle, height, a perfect colour and let’s be honest, you’re hung, a lot.” The male dragon blushed heavily. “It’s good, very good, there are so few dragonesses who are willing to shift for mating and what you have will make sure everyone will drop at your feet, tail raised.”

“You’re way too comfortable speaking about sex.” Even Kara felt a little weirded out by the sheer casualness of her words and the not so casual topic.

“Well sorry for being honest with my body.” The dragoness wasn’t fazed in the least and seemed even a little bit proud. “By your definition I am always naked, every time I lift my tail everyone can have a look of what’s under so I guess I just got used to being carefree. I’m a dragoness, not some kind of nun, your rules do not apply to me. I love the way I am and if that means being a little bit indecent when a stud comes along, then I’ll be happy to do everything, and he looks like he needs to get a taste of what he can do. You with me or what?” Lorena lowered her head until it was right in front of Kara’s, each looking in the other’s eyes for a long moment, Damian waiting for them to do or saying something for far too much time. Eventually Kara sneaked a peek at him and his body, fidgeting visibly on the spot.

“Fine.” He young male felt as if something terrible was going to happen while Lorena smiled and let Kara shake her paw as best as she could. “Now what?”

“Now you two follow me.”

“And if I don’t?” Damian curled up a bit more, fearing the response.

“Then I’ll do what I want and do you right here in the open, your choice…” The evil grin and the hungry look in her eyes told him she’d actually follow that idea so he got on his feet and lowered his head. “Good boy.”

Lorena smiled again and turned around, allowing Kara to hop on her back and then head further away from the cabin and into the forest. Damian waited a second or two before following her to wherever she was planning to go, glancing left and right for signs of more dragons who could find them and make the embarrassing moment even more so. The dragoness wasn’t done teasing him though and a minute later raised her tail right in front of his face, stopping rather abruptly on the path. The dazed dragon didn’t see her stop and slammed his snout right between her legs, since he had been walking with his head low and instantly he found it surrounded by something warm and covered in a subtle scent like he’d never smelled before. It took him a few sniffs and a couple of seconds to understand he was pressing his nose under her tail, eyes widening as he saw that her vent was right in front and ever so slightly covered in a sheen of glistening fluids. Damian didn’t hesitate to take one more whiff, more due to his instincts kicking in rather than a conscious one and then moved back, noticing that Lorena was smiling again.

She resumed walking but never lowered her tail, letting him look at her privates all he wanted and though his brain tried to make him look away, his body had other plans and didn’t move an inch from the fragrant prize she was clearly offering. Kara was but a spectator in this weirdly sensual acts but just as him, she couldn’t do anything but watch and hope for the best, glancing ever so often at him. Lorena knew he wasn’t able to shy away now and teased him even more, stopping two, three more times, letting him linger under her for longer periods, feeling his hot breath over her scales. Damian wasn’t sure what to think anymore: he knew she was teasing him, he knew what she wanted, he knew he should be embarrassed about the open way she presented herself and yet he loved it, he loved how she clearly wanted him and told him so. His instincts begged him to take her, she wasn’t going to go away, but still he restrained himself and ignored the burning feeling under his belly.

Five minutes of teasing later, the dragoness stopped altogether, turning around to face him with the same sly smile on her muzzle. Damian didn’t move or say anything while Kara was carefully picked up by her tail and gently put down on a large rock.

“Well, now we are in a little place where we can be sure no one will come or peep, happy?” He wasn’t sure about that but his body told him to say yes, he nodded. “Excellent! Now, in accordance with the tradition, I must ‘check the goods’ before I actually decide to let you do the deed.” Damian blushed again and inched away as she got closer and closer to him, stopping a moment later when he felt her body brush against his, the entire frame of the dragoness, now slightly smaller than him, circling around him, tail lashing behind and spreading a delicate scent all around. “Follow your instincts.” How was he supposed to do that? He had probably spent only a few weeks in dragon form, less than five months total in all of his life, how could he stand up to someone that had spent her entire life without even seeing her human form? “Relax.” He was stiff as a board, especially since Kara was there, watching, pretending she wasn’t but he knew he stared at them each time his nose led him somewhere and broke eye contact. “Relax.” She rubbed her head under his chin and suddenly every muscle in his body melted in a heap of warmth, the beat of his heart slowing ever so slightly but enough to make it easy for him.

In the next moment, Damian lowered his head enough to rub it against hers, scale sliding on scale and skin, softly despite their massive sizes. Lorena purred happily, glad to see he was finally unwinding a little, he needed that. She gave him a coy smile and resumed going around him but this time he didn’t stay still and followed her, then going in the opposite direction, their heads near the other hindquarters and taking in their scent with powerful whiffs. The two rotated around a point between them for long minutes, not speaking, not stopping at all, then the dragoness slithered under him and brushed the entire length of her back against his belly scales, her left wing colliding with the taut skin of his sheath and drawing a pleased moan from Damian. In moments both females could see the tip of his flesh, a dark red now, emerge from the confines and slide out inch after inch. The look of hunger in the dragoness’ eyes became stronger and despite the new spike in embarrassment, he didn’t move and allowed her to get below him once more and inhale his new scent: it was raw, pure, deep and had the taste of burnt wood and ash. In one quick movement, she lapped at the glistening tip and taste him for real, relishing the strong flavour of his fluids as he grew another ten inches in one go.

Kara blushed and tried to look away but couldn’t move an inch: this was a ritual as old as recorded history, a relic of the past and something few humans throughout time had the chance to witness with the approval of both parties involved. Though alien to her and far too… feral for civilized being, she found them beautiful, pure in their own way, sharing a kind of behaviour rooted in their DNA rather than simple social pressure.

Lorena’s licks became longer and more frequent, teasing his underside and leaving wet trails along the slimy fluids that kept the member warm when inside its protective pouch, her own sex releasing her special nectar, which Damian didn’t hesitate to lap up. She shivered as she felt the warm tongue glide over her vent with the rough style of a virgin male at his first steps into dragonhood, rare as a unicorn among the humans, magnificently inexperienced and a welcome break from males of her own age. He tried to make it more pleasurable for her but his brain was hardwired to get his own share first and she allowed him that much, soon he’d make up with experience but not today, today was his first time and he’d get all the pleasure he deserved. The dragoness purred heavily and he felt the vibration run from her throat all the way to his groin, releasing more pre onto and her tongue and in her open muzzle.

“I think you’re ready and judging by that tongue back there, I’m ready too.” She removed her snout from his underside, coaxing a whimper of dissatisfaction from the male, one that was replaced by glee as she turned around and bent over for him, hindlegs spread wide. “Come get it.”

“Really? Is it ok? I’m not… too big?” Lorena huffed and looked down again, gasping at the sight of his fully engorged tool: in the three seconds she had been away, it had grown to full mast, going from a mere foot to the three and a half he was capable of, dripping with pre and visibly throbbing.

“Oh, you’ll do just fine.” She licked her lips and raised her tail to the highest degree she could muster and purred. “Come on…” Her hips swayed and got the attention of the male once again, Damian moving forwards and pressing his snout against her warm folds, member slapping against his underbelly with wet sounds. “Come on… split me apart.” He inhaled her scent one last time and then jumped on his hindlegs, balancing himself just enough to land on her back. Lorena grunted as the full weight of the young dragon fell on her but she held her ground, toes and claws digging into the earth for traction. “Come… on…” her mouth was open when he thrust forwards and in a lucky moment hit the mark without any issues, going a dozen inches inside her in one go. Her breath was knocked out and her eyes watered. Maybe he was a bit too girthy for her with so little preparation. He didn’t care and pulled back only to slam more of himself inside him, a foot already buried in her warm confines. “Fuck you’re big.”

“I know…” she wouldn’t have expected such an answer from him. Lorena looked above her and saw him smirking in triumph, teeth bared and with a different look in his eyes. The meek boy was dead, or asleep, and now she was under a male that wanted nothing less than get his due and fuck her senseless. “I was more afraid for you than me to be honest.” So, he wasn’t so meek and reclusive because he was embarrassed but rather because he knew he was too big for his peers? Even if it wasn’t like this, he seemed to know just how big he was. “But I guess we’re in too deep to pull back.” In a horrible pun, he thrust inside her and pulled two feet back out as he said that, enhancing his words with facts. “Right Kara?” His gaze moved from the dragoness to the human female, who was sitting on a rock and had her panties dropped on the floor, legs spread and finger buried in her crotch. “Sounds like she needs a hand or a tongue, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Look… look who’s grown a pair.” The dragoness was downright shocked by his change in attitude, though it was welcome. “Meek and submissive all the… time and then… going in rut in seconds.” He smiled and licked her neck, possessive as all males were when mating. She shivered and looked at the human who seemed so terribly alone. “Let me help.” As he resumed thrusting, she bent over further and reached her even if just by a few inches, tongue lolling out and breathing on the tuft of hair sitting on Kara’s crotch.

“Go for it.” The dragoness cocked an eyebrow and yelped, pushed just a bit forward by a particularly strong thrust, nose pressed against crotch just as she had done with him before. Was it intentional? It didn’t matter now. Lorena found the scent of the female new and tantalizing, another new addition to the day and licked her folds with a tongue big enough to cover the human’s face. “Fuck that’s hot…” She had started the day thinking that it’d be nice to get a little closer to Damian, maybe ask him about shifting for her, maybe even sneak a peek when he did so in private and now she was getting her pussy slathered by the tongue of a dragoness he was fucking raw. Saying that the events had taken an unexpected turn was a severe understatement. “So hot.” It wasn’t a metaphor: her tongue, exploring every crevice and prodding her depths was really warm, as if someone was plunging a hot pocket several inches inside her and outside all at once. She eyed her and moaned.

“Not going to last much longer…” Damian was panting heavily, eyes out of focus and engrossed in the bliss that his every fibre was experiencing, his neck twisting and brushing against hers and entwining with it for a quick kiss. She was already far more satisfied than she’d been in a few years and surprised he’d lasted as long as he did.

“Do not dare hold back.” It wasn’t a request he was going to disobey.

It still took a few more minutes, full of pants, licks and grunts, his member ravishing her passage with the same energy as he had started with despite the fact that he had never done this before. Kara slumped to the side after her climax and moved to the side to better look at him when he’d seal the first time with a bang, dripping with saliva and letting it run over her thighs. Damian roared and lightly bit her neck, barely making her feel any pain and making her feel all the weight he had as he slammed himself against her hips and grabbed her shoulders with his forelimbs, holding on to his life. Lorena squealed as the first shots hit her chamber, deeper than she thought, then again, he kept surprising her, filling her in wave after wave. Damian trembled and kept pumping under the massage of her inner walls, begging his body not to stop for a few more minutes. His wish was granted and he held high his family’s name, his seed flowing through his member for five minutes, breaking the seal of her vent with sheer pressure and trickling down his legs and hers all the same.

When the flow stopped, both dragons were beyond exhausted and fell to their left sides with a loud thump, kicking up dust and pebbles, still connected. Nobody said anything for a while, catching breath. Lorena pressed her back against him and rubbed her head on his chin, purring with evident satisfaction, still feeling him shoot a few weak loads inside her, still hard and still bearing the promise of more pleasure, but not now.

“For your first time you’ve exceeded my expectations, quite a lot too.” He licked her neck in appreciation. “You’ll make an excellent husband or partner, I’m not going to judge.” Damian made to say something but withheld his words in his mouth, smiling wryly as his only answer.

“That was… I don’t even know what it was exactly.”

“That, my dear, is why I love going around in my true form and not like most dragons, it takes away all the fun.” She didn’t doubt that sex as humans was pleasurable and interesting but having such large tools and all that strength and raw power, that wasn’t possible for something so frail as a six feet tall man or woman. “Big is better and our dear Damian is the champion of ‘big’.”

“Happy to hear that.”

“Hmm, you must come back every year, or at least pay me a visit when you’re all grown up. If you’re this amazing at your first time, I cannot imagine with a few notches under the proverbial belt.” He couldn’t imagine that either. Could anything ever top this? The pure, unbridled freedom of mating as his ancestors did, in the open, with no one to bother him? Had he ruined his sex life for just this one time? “It’s a pity you’ll return to human form.”

“Well… I suppose I can stay like this for a while. I did shred what I had before and I cannot exactly get back naked. As a dragon though, the others might close an eye for. Even if it’s for a few days.” Both Lorena and Kara’s eyes shimmered in happiness, and some unspent lust as well.

“Now you sound like a real dragon.” Had he not been one before? By her standard he guessed not. If Richard were to hear this, he’d go mad.

“I have an idea: how about we go back to our cottage together? Make little old Richard very, very angry and jealous?” He put the idea on the table and he didn’t have to wait long before he got his answer.

Chris had been eyeing the path where the two had disappeared for close to an hour by now, going back to his phone every few minutes to check it for messages but he already had little signal where he was so he severely doubted that they had any deeper in the forest. Monika and Daisy had gone out to buy some pizza, or rather to the entrance of the park to get it from the one restaurant that also made deliveries to their area and pay the pizza guy. Richard was feeling a little bit better now but he wasn’t anywhere near the cheerful and energetic dragon as that morning.

“Rick, can you please stop being so sour? You’ll ruin your holidays this way.” He huffed. “Come on man, I’m trying to have some fun over here, the girls are the same and if I have to be honest, you’re really being an asshole.”

“Shut up.” Chris put his hands on his face and stretched his skin. That was the one thing he got as answer for the past hour or so, nothing else seemed to come out of that mouth and all the snacks had gone in in that same timeframe.

“Oh, fuck it! What the fuck Rick? What the fuck? You’re all ‘I’m the best’ and ‘I’m a proud dragon’ all the fucking time and then one old lady tells you that you’re not so hot compared to people she knows and you deflate like a balloon with a hole.” Richard glared at him. “Do no look at me like that.”

“Fine! I’ll smile and be a happy little dragon so that you can have your vacation and bang those bitches.” He didn’t expect the slap that came for him. Chris’ hand connected right with his cheek at a speed he could have avoided were he not so deep in a sea of pent up emotions. “What the fuck?”

“Do not say that, the only bitch here is you. Is your famous pride so fragile you need to pick up the pieces after only that? My sister told me worse things after I stole a cookie for fuck’s sake!” Chris yelled at him and stormed off. “Get a fucking grip.”

“Chris!!” He had just taken the phone out to attempt a call to Kara’s number again but a familiar voice reached his ears before he dialled the first letter of her name on the contacts list. “Chris!” He recognised Kara’s voice at the second time and rushed to look at the path where he saw them head in: the slim figure of his friend could be seen atop a green dragon that walked alongside the dragoness they had met earlier that day. “Hey! We’re back!” The two dragons hurried a bit and reached him in a couple of seconds, making him feel the ground shake as they approached with the same momentum as two semis at once. He could see that Kara had to hold on to the green one’s horns to stay on his back. When they stopped, he swallowed his saliva in one go: the green dragon was a testament to pure strength, far above any picture he had seen in his life and he was basically ten feet from him.

“H-hi…” Chris couldn’t help but feel afraid of him. The dragoness helped Kara get down and as soon as she was on her feet, she rushed to hug him. “Welcome back? I guess… Where in hell have you gone and where is Damian? Did you two get separated?” Kara looked at him with a weird expression, hard to decipher and a bit suspect, like that time he had busted her pulling a prank on him before the deed. “Kara?”

“Oh, I can’t hold it anymore. Say hi to Damian!”

“Damian?” He followed the direction her hand was pointing at and found that it led straight through the green dragon. “Is he behind him?” The three next to him rolled their eyes all at the same time, which was extremely weird.

“Come on Chris, try to make your brain work a little.” The dragon spoke softly, mixing some disappointment to embarrassment and something else as well, staring at him with… yellow eyes?

“Damian?” The dragon nodded slowly. “Oh…” In the next ten seconds he connected all the dots and his jaw fell but by bit until it was wide open and… Damian closed it with his left paw. “Fucking hell…”

“I had the same reaction when he shifted.”

“Was that why you two went out?” Chris kept moving his eyes from Damian to Kara until she grabbed his head and shook it like a pinata to make him stop.

“No, but it was a nice addition to the walk.” Kara laughed and leaned on Damian’s head, the dragon supporting her with ease. “Lorena was a nicer addiction.” The commotion caused by the arrival of a ten ton dragon made the ones in the house come out due to curiosity and soon the two remaining girls and even Richard were out. The two didn’t take nearly as long as Chris to figure out who the giant green thing was but had unfortunately missed the words that would have made sense to their female minds.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Damian blushed at Chris’ words but the human failed to notice the signs of it and he was thankful for that, very much so, Richard, on the other hand, he knew what had happened and worst of all, he could smell it. It didn’t take a genius to figure it out but smelling the faint, not so faint to be honest, scent of a couple of healthy dragons after mating, made it worse for him. He didn’t even need to shift in any way to feel the heat and the pheromones.

“Secret.” Kara stuck out her tongue and yelped when Lorena nudged her shoulder and made her notice the rather pissed off expression that the one other dragon had. Their objective was already completed but there was no reason to stop. “She’ll stay with us for a while, maybe spend the night around here.”

“Really??” The two girls’ eyes shot wide open and Lorena nodded, further heightening the excitement: it was rare to see a dragon after shifting, not to mention being near one for a long time and now they could see two at the same time. It was a thing to go down in their families’ history if anything and the fact that one of those dragons was their friend, well, that was the icing on the cake, though there was one little detail that would have made it better still. “Hey Richard…. How about you change too?” He cocked his head towards the human girls, shocked. “I mean, the only two other dragons are already transformed or whatever, you’re the only one that isn’t.” Kara asked every god in existence to bless that innocent little girl, who had further pushed Richard into a corner.

“I don’t feel like it, plus… there’s not enough space around for me to stay.” Richard looked away and both Lorena and Damian called bullshit on that.

“Oh, does this mean that you’re bigger than Damian?” Daisy stared at the two male dragons and imagined all sorts of things. With how much the jock bragged, he must have been quite the big guy.

“Of course, I’m a proud American dragon, he’s just a tiny thing. Where are you even from? I didn’t ask before.”

“German.” Damian spoke softly, calmly, but the imposing frame he had been bestowed with and his deep tone made that single word shake him. Lorena purred and rubbed her shoulder on his flank, smiling but Richard didn’t look impressed at all by that.

“You don’t have wings. Are you even a dragon? Maybe you’re related to a lizard instead.” He scoffed and smirked, satisfied with his ‘clever’ insult. “Seriously, what kind of dragon doesn’t have wings?” As Kara had seen before, Damian, though armoured to hell and back, was very sensitive to comments about his appearance, especially as he was now, and Richard’s words made him flinch, become jittery and worried, which in turn made the other dragon all the more satisfied with his position. Lorena snarled softly. “Seriously.” He didn’t bother saying anything after that, merely turning around and going back into the cottage.

“Don’t mind him Damian.” Kara patted his flank as best as she could, given their size difference, the dragoness had the same look of support in her eyes and to an extent so had Chris and the girls. “Well, now that the party pooper is gone and it’s getting awfully late, how about we eat?” Her suggestion was more than welcomed by everyone on site. “Who’s going to get food? Oh… wait…”

“What?” Daisy looked at her for a moment until she pointed a finger at the two towering dragons next to them and then she understood what she meant. Chris was a few seconds slower and when everyone was finally briefed on to what was happening, the situation turned out to be weird one as no one knew just how much food was necessary or who could even get it there.

“I guess you didn’t really plan that thoroughly.” Lorena chuckled and made the humans, and Damian as well, frown and blush at their own lack of preparation. “Good thing I am here.” She placed a paw on her chest and puffed it. “I can call for the restaurant to deliver us something nice on the house.” The entire group went wide eyed. “I had a lot of fun… chatting with Damian and Kara and I think they earned it.” There was nothing else said for her purring softly and rubbing her tail on Damian’s thighs, a little thing that the humans missed and that the male dragon was very much happy to keep under wraps. But it didn’t make Daisy miss one particularly big detail.

“Hey, now that I think about it: you’re naked now Damian!” She almost screamed it, instantly making the far larger dragon shake and shiver in embarrassment. His tail moved to cover his bits but once again, being as he as he was, he couldn’t quite make it and anyone standing beneath the swathe of his body could see it. Chris blushed at the sight of such hefty package whereas the girls, Kara included as to… mask the fact that she was already familiar with it, whistled loudly. “Such a big boi.”

“Please can you not stare at my junk? It’s very uncomfortable for me.” He squirmed around but it wasn’t doing much in the way of helping him conceal anything and, if anything, it made his sack sway, drawing even more attention to itself. He knew that they weren’t going to let him rest.

“Well, he isn’t naked to be honest” Lorena came to his rescue and took much of the gazes towards her own body, her tail slightly raised so that if any human eye wandered too high they would see her nether region quite clearly. “Our situation is a bit like a dog’s if you would: we have no need for clothing and so we don’t wear them. I take you people don’t go staring at their privates, right? It is quite rude.” Her words made the humans blush in embarrassment and a little bit of shame much to the concerned dragon’s relief. “Only dragons can, which means that I can stare at this stud all day long.” Damian wasn’t sure whether to be happy, proud, tired or embarrassed, so his brain resorted to a mix of all of that, leaving him confused but somewhat happy that the older dragoness appreciated him that much.

Inside the house Richard was sulking alone in one of the rooms that weren’t made into bedrooms upstairs but the loud chattering of the others in the cabin was more than sufficient to make him look and see what the commotion was about. In the several minutes he had been in that room, the group had settled in the large living room and were laying around, chatting loudly: the four humans were sprawled on the couches, clearly relaxed and comfortable around the two massive dragons resting mere feet next to them. Damian was taking up much of the space with the bulk of his body and Lorena wasn’t able to stretch her limbs as much as she wanted, thus, she was laying extremely close to him, effectively trying to share the same spot as the German dragon. Her softer scales rubbed against his stronger ones and the streamlined nature of her contrasted with Damian’s in a way that didn’t allow anyone to take off their eyes. Not even Richard. But as a dragon, he could see and feel other things that they couldn’t: the scents of sex, the pheromones clustering on their bodies as if to scream in his face that they had mated, with a human around them to boot. Yes, he could smell them on Kara, the female dragoness’ scents so strong on the girl it was making him regret being from a subspecies with such a sensitive nose. His hands tightened on the railing that was on the upper catwalk, shifting partially into claws covered in shiny purplish scales, mixed with green specs, leaving a dent into the wooden beams and scratches with the jet black nails that were emerging from his fingertips. Pissed and alone, Richard turned around and bolted out of sight and out of the cabin. Lorena saw this and purred, happy to have the only party pooper away from her and her company.

Soon enough the catering service arrived: it was a large truck, driven by a regular human, but that brought forth a dragon sized meal, which meant dozens of kilos of meat and everything a twelve feet tall behemoth and one that wasn’t far behind. The humans now understood why dragon enclaves never used to be big or be too close to human civilizations: merely two of them requested enough food for ten human and more, a small community of fifteen dragons could virtually annihilate entire farms in mere days. There was a reason why they moved around in human form, most of the time. Even Damian was shocked by the amount of food Lorena was giving him, not skimping on the human side either. Although over nine tenths of the truck’s content were for the two of them, there was also a little corner filled with human sized meals, snacks, drinks and anything they might have wanted to eat. Dragon taste buds were wildly different from theirs but as this was a mixed camp, they had cooks that could make human food taste heavenly, thus making the four hungry young teen scarf down every last bite of it. On the other hand, Lorena had her share of fun seeing Damian try to familiarize himself with proper dragon food, nibbling on a cow leg roasted to perfection instead of tearing chunks of like she did. He eventually gave up on being careful with his share and dove for the kill, mimicking the aquamarine dragoness in her every action and finding out that he enjoyed it far more than before. Lorena felt quite pleased with herself now.

Richard looked at the group from outside the building and felt even more pissed now than ever before, so, after a moment of thought, he turned around and started following the signs that led to the area where Lorena had forbidden them to go to. Step after step, he ventured deeper into the forest, angry, spiteful, a bit cold and definitely more than hungry, wondering whether he should go back and try to mooch something off… but Damian always popped up when his pace slowed down and his stomach began to talk loudly. He wanted to make him disappear, to make the dragoness understand he was the better one but he couldn’t, he’d just look like an idiot, a desperate guy who wants attention. It wasn’t wrong, not entirely. Richard picked up the pace and tore off his jacket, tossing it on a bush as he kept walking. He passed several signs, a few hinting to other paths, other telling about the fauna and one warning that the camping area had been blocked for a slide, he ignored that one too. His mind kept wandering to Damian and Lorena, the hints in their behaviour that told him that something had happened, the faint smells of sex… A crack echoed in the otherwise empty forest and Richard grunted as his skin began to take on a faint shade of orange under his clothes, spreading, thickening, taking on a light greenish sheen around his face. More cracks, more pops of his bones startled sleeping animals as he picked up the pace yet again and started to run, one foot in front of the other, faster, faster, breathing heavily. His body refused to stop transforming or moving, he just headed for the camping grounds, his eyes watery and everything around him blurry for just about a second as his pupils slitted and allowed him clarity and a much longed for night vision. The world became brighter all of a sudden, startling him enough to miss a low hanging branch and hit square in his nose. Richard tumbled on the ground, heaving because of the run and the change, far enough from anything and the cabin so that he could be alone for a while. He looked up at the moon as his spine popped several times, then a dozen, as his bones lengthened and shifted, forcing him to hug the ground for long painful minutes.

“Fuck…”

It had been far too long since he had done this and so his pain was greater than Damian’s but he didn’t know that or he didn’t care. He tore the rest of his clothes, the shirt he wore under the jacket, leaving torn pieces all over the ground, white confetti over dark mud, a mud that stained his chest when his hips shifted, making him grunt and complain under his breath. The growing and expanding network of scales on his skin deepened in colour, no more a pale orange but a brilliant and vibrant tone that contrasted with his mouth’s deep green. Richard’s growls got louder as two almost invisible nubs poked from his back, right where his shoulder blades were, a little to the side, attaching to the bone underneath the skin, growing out while stretching the thickening layer of scale on his back. With his growing claws, the changing dragon attempted to cut his pants, allow himself some breathing room but his body did it for him before he could even reach halfway to his waist: the fabric of his jeans was put to hard work for long seconds as the seams and threads strained to hold bundles of thickening muscle and bone. The sounds of thread snapping and popping was overshadowed by his grunts and curses.

His arms lengthened to match his legs, shifting in their sockets to match the stance, forcing him to hug the ground still while his claws dug into the soft earth and thickened. Richard held back a howl, clamping his mouth shut and his tongue at the back so that his teeth wouldn’t cut it as they sharpened and thickened inside it, the soft muscle still far too small and far too feeble to match the maw it was housed in for the moment. His nose sunk into a growing muzzle and disappeared altogether as two thin slits at the very end of a vibrant green snout covered in scales and took in the now more pungent scents of a forest in which rain had passed but a few days before, leaving behind a wet smell of moist soil and soaked leaves. The two bony protrusions on his back were now as long as his arms were and matching the growth of hid body, inch by inch but paling in comparison to the feet he was putting on in length. Richard felt his crest grow over his back, the many small bones filling in with a leathery film of skin, a darker shade of orange and looked up, kneading the ground with thicker digits and claws, putting strength in his hindlegs. Then he sprung forth and resumed running.

“Hey, where is Richard?” Daisy looked around and even up on the balcony but the other dragon was nowhere to be seen in the cabin. The others also looked around but didn’t put in nearly as much effort or concern in the action.

“I don’t know and I do not care.” Kara wasn’t being subtle in the least, showing the contempt for his behaviour. “He acted like an asshole, but if he wants to hide in his room until we go back to the city, let him.” Daisy shot her a look that told her she shouldn’t be so rude and headed upstairs to get him to at least eat something. She knocked on the door several times but didn’t hear anything no matter how much she knocked or called, so, the girl opened it. “Richard? Come on, we’ve got some really nice food downstairs.” Her eyes wandered on the furniture, on the many items scattered on the bed and the floor: Richard’s stuff was still inside his bag and he wasn’t in the room, nor in the bathroom for that matter. “Guys… he’s not here.”

“So what?” Chris was also a little bit pissed because of him and answered not as politely as he would have done normally.

“Then where is he?”

“He’s a grown man, he doesn’t need us to babysit him, does he? I mean, he’s also a dragon, it’s not like there is anything that can harm him around here.” Kara scoffed and gave her friend a side glance, one that was repaid by an exasperated sigh. “What?”

“You don’t know him well but he is a stubborn idiot sometimes and he’s pissed right now for some stupid reason, meaning he’s going to do something just as stupid.” Daisy rolled her eyes when nobody in the cabin seemed to understand what she was saying. “He’s gone out, alone.” Still no response. “He’s going to the camping grounds.”

“Are you sure?” At this point Lorena looked at her instead of the cow leg she had been scraping the last bits of meat off, still holding the large bone in between her claws. “Are you really, really sure?” The dragoness stood up high enough to allow her neck to stretch and stare at the girl on the balcony straight in the eyes even though she was far high above the ground. Daisy fell deep in thought for a few moments.

“I… he’s a friend with my best friend, well, ex-boyfriend if I have to be honest, they had a relationship a while ago so she told me everything about him, pretty much all of his flaws and good points so, yes, I can say I know him well enough to be able to say that he is definitely angry and going to do something stupid.” Lorena kept staring at the girl, looking if there was even the slightest hint of doubt: there wasn’t.

“Alright, I’ll head out and see if I can find him anywhere. Damian, would you come with me? In case I need help dragging him back here.” Damian looked at her with a very unwilling look in his gaze but under the begging of the girl that had brought this matter up in the first place, he had to accept.

“He’s an American subspecies though, if he belongs to some beefy and violent ones like a Plains Watcher, I will back off. I have seen the kind of damage their tail spikes can do and I am not willing to go to the hospital for him.”

“It’s fine, you won’t need to: if he refuses to do anything, I can call the police and have him shot with tranquilizer darts. It’s not the first time we get a rowdy dragon around here and drunk idiots have ended up in jail more than once.” Lorena tapped his shoulder with hers, tiptoeing a little to be able to do that and then headed out of the cabin. “You stay inside, we’ll try to be back soon.”

The two dragons got out and closed the giant sliding door behind them with a flick of their tails and then moved to an open area. Lorena took a deep breath and unfolded her wings in the clearing made specifically to allow such a thing to be done without having any dragon hit trees or rocks and hurt themselves and damage scales or anything else. Her lungs inflated with air and her muscles burst forth with power and, after a small run, she jumped. Damian felt his heart skip a beat as she plunged down the cliff that was near the cabin and picked up speed, tempted to rush and look after her, but he didn’t need to: with a loud, rhythmic sound, low and powerful, the aquamarine scales of the dragoness slowly popped up from under the edge of the cliff, foot by foot. Her wings were unfolded and supported her weight in the air so gracefully and perfectly he had no words to say to her, merely looking as the moonlight that was just now peeking from the clouds shone for milliseconds through the leather of her wings. His hear sank but not in fear as he hadn’t ever seen something so perfect in his life.

“I’ll look by air, you follow the path, try to be careful, the ground is still soft and a landslide may happen at any time.” The state of adoration he was in was broken and the prospect of having to search for a dragon he did not care in the least ruined the mood. “Come on.” Her wings pushed her up in one fluid motion, kicking up dust and small pebbles with ease as she gained altitude by the second, flying away from him but still in line of sight.

Damian sighed and began to run, heading for the path he remembered lead to the camping area and looking for Lorena every now and then. His nose was glued to the ground but that didn’t hinder his speed, testament to a subspecies apt to live on the ground, wingless sure but stronger than what any other flight-capable dragon was because of that, far more armoured too. He worried about that armour not being enough in case there was an angry dragon waiting for him: any number of American subspecies could knock him out flat, be it by venom or tricks that he wasn’t prepared to counter as fighting was not his forte. Still, if the need were to arise, he could hold his ground, somewhat. After a minute he found tatters of a jacket he knew belonged to Richard, it carried his smell and looked the same as the one he wore all day. Lorena saw this from up above and hurried to the destination. The German dragon did the same, his claws digging into the ground for support and every muscle in his massive body working to push him forward, even the trees he hit barely stopped his advance. If he had been captivated by Lorena’s flight and grace, she was just as captivated by the brute force of a machine that clearly had been made to plough through battlefields as if they were gardens, the charm of a creature bound to the land it was born on but that thoroughly dominated it. She had felt something when she saw the scrawny cover that was his human side, but she didn’t expect him to be as handsome as something out of her dreams. Too bad the girl loved him and he didn’t even know.

Damian eventually found the other remains of Richard’s clothes, all torn up and scattered around a trail that clearly headed for the closed off area and where a bunch of footprints cluttered and gave off a very draconic scent. Richard was shifting on the run, something that was proved by the increasingly large strides of his steps, the depth of the prints and the fact that soon a second set joined the first, meaning… he was running on all fours. The dragon’s speed was truly something as the marks of claws and dirt dug up for traction was almost comparable to his own. Lorena looked down and steered Damian around whenever he lost the scent, warning him that Richard had began to fly around and avoid complicated points of the path and large potholes that had formed due to the rain. He had to avoid them the old fashioned way and it slowed him down quite a bit, to the point that Lorena was circling above his head and not lose him in the forest. Then they heard a cry, guttural, of something not human and very much in need of help. Giving up the caution he had kept until now, Damian rushed to whatever was crying and, under a rock that had very, very recently slid down the side of the mountain, there was a dragon covered in mud and pinned down by a few tonnes of stone. He couldn’t shift of there could be permanent damage to the wing bone and thus, he was stuck.

Richard shut up in the moment when he saw Damian come up from the path he had followed and stare at him from his higher point of view and snarled loudly, baring his teeth at the larger dragon that didn’t even flinch. Damian had wondered just what kind of subspecies would he be faced with several times on his way to this place, Plains Watcher, Kathiris, Winnepeg Hounds, all of them were dangerous, strong, peak predators back in the day and still in this era but…

“A Copper-mouth.” Damian almost wanted to laugh at Richard: a Copper-mouth was, well, not really that much to be honest. They were a small subspecies born near the Rocky Mountains, lived by eating fish that swam in the rivers and that had nothing much to its name other than pretty colours and frills. Richard as he was now stood at probably six feet tall at best, but his body was very long and lean, made to swim and run and fly away from danger, not fight or stand any kind of ground, the cheetah of the draconic world, a cheetah that got his wing pinned under a rock that slid down a slope. “Really, I was worried about finding some big hunky male and I get a Copper-mouth.” Richard snarled again and attempted to pull his wing out but the pain stopped him. Lorena landed moments later in a spot where the trees weren’t as thickly packed and waited because she sensed that something was going to happen.

“Fuck off.”

“Alright.” Damian turned around and began to walk away, following Richard’s suggestion, not even looking back, but stopped when he heard a very faint and guilty.

“Help me… please.”

“And why would I do that?”

“Because I am fucking… pinned down by a rock! That’s why! Can’t you see it? Or your balls are too big to make you see anything?” Richard shouted and bared his teeth again at the larger dragon. Damian sighed and then roared as loudly as he possibly could in his face. The copper-mouth shivered at the sight of a maw that could possibly swallow him whole without too much as a hiccup, teeth the size of his talons and pissed, oh, so pissed.

“Look here, you idiot, I have come here to get you back because someone was sure that you’d do something stupid like getting yourself stuck under a boulder.” Damian paused for a moment, taking his breath. “So now you are going to apologize for being a dick and making Daisy worry.”

“Yeah, you say that only now that you’re bigger than me, were you in human form I’d kick your ass to hell and back.”

“Yes, but we’re not, right? And I’m the only one strong enough to lift it without having to call a squad so…” There was a long pause. “Seriously dude, what’s wrong with you?” Richard was puzzled and didn’t answer, he didn’t know what to say at the sudden question and just stared at the green snout that was much like his own. “I mean… you act like a human, you brag, you talk loudly all the time, you lie about what you are under the skin… I don’t understand what you thought you’d gain from it because the girls would pester you to death until you shifted and sure as fuck you wouldn’t live up to the expectations. Hell, as soon as they see you they will be disappointed.”

“Shut the fuck up, what the hell do you know about being ashamed of your body? It’s not like you’re small or have any defects or all sorts of rumours about you. Look at me! There are two hundred subspecies in America alone and I had to be born in the smallest one of all and the one that gets more stereotyped in the entire country!” Damian sighed loudly. “What?”

“Dude… you’re such an idiot.” Sure that he’d regret this on the spot and that he’d never hear the end of it were this idiot tell anything to anyone, Damian rotated at showed his body, in its entirety, to Richard who at first didn’t understand what he was trying to accomplish with such an action. Then he saw it: he hadn’t noticed it but there were no wings on his back, nothing at all, just smooth scales and between his legs, hidden by tree-trunk-thick thighs, a sight unlike any other dragon he had ever seen, he had no slit to hide his privates. “Yeah.” The trapped dragon for a moment forgot that he was trapped and just… stared: his eyes followed the fat sheath all the way to a pair of watermelons that wobbled visibly with each step the male made. Richard was beyond shocked. “So, you think being small is bad? At least you can fly and your junk doesn’t wobble under everyone’s noses when you walk.” Behind the trees, Lorena thought that it wasn’t so bad. “Which means you have to stop being so ashamed and begging for human approval all the time.”

“I-I am not!”

“Richard, we see you play with them, hang out with dozens of people all at once, talk loudly about what you do and what you like… the only time in my life when I consciously wanted to be with that many people was a family reunion and it had twenty two people tops. School doesn’t count.” Damian looked at him while putting all of his strength in his limbs, lifting the boulder inch by inch and sinking in the mud at the same time. Richard was quick to pull out his wing and free himself at last. “I hate being like this too, you know? Being different, not like the others. It sucks, I get it, but there is no need to act like a stuck up asshole.” However Richard wasn’t hearing any of it and just stared between Damian’s hindlegs as if his eyes had been magnetised to the male’s sheath. “Dude you’re staring way too much.” Again, Richard seemed to be spacing out but even in that state he managed to rush under the other dragon’s belly, stand up on his hindlegs and press his snout to the sheath. “Whoa there.” Damian froze and held back a hiss when he felt hot breath over his most sensitive bits as the copper-mouth sniffed at them, pressing his snout so tightly on the soft scales and flesh that he could feel the intake of air.

“S-sorry.” It took Richard a good half a minute to get out of that daze and stumbled back on all fours when he did, almost tripping on his tail like a newborn. “It’s… it’s the change, tends to make me antsy and excited. More than anyone I have ever known.”

“Same.” Damian pretended to cough and hide the fact that his body had liked that a little too much to be decent, muttering under his breath a prayer so that what was about to happen wouldn’t happen at all. It did. “Fuck.” Under the eyes of the copper-mouth and a dragoness now forgotten that couldn’t believe what was about to happen, Damian felt his sheath give in to nature and his needs as his member poked from it and dropped a fat dollop of pre right on Richard’s snout. “Sorry… tends to happen when someone shoves their snout so close to it.” For a moment he thought nothing would happen but then he felt something small and wet touch his tip and he looked under his belly where Richard stood, licking his lips, balancing himself on his legs so that he could face the growing spire of his cock. “Dude what the fuck?” The copper-mouth looked at him with a meek expression and tongue lolling out.

“Sorry.”

“Sorry doesn’t cut it. What the hell are you thinking?” Damian moved out of the way, almost slipping on the mud again as he distanced himself from the other male. “Seriously.” Despite everything he still felt himself grow hard and spill out of his sheath by the second, spreading a scent of arousal that was clearly recognised by Richard who still stared at his junk with an even more intense expression as his own member spread his slit. The copper-mouth was small in comparison to the German dragon, far smaller, but that wasn’t what concerned Damian in the least, it was that Richard wasn’t looking like he would stop or even want to and that Lorena was nowhere to be seen. “Richard? Why are you… doing this?”

“You just smell too good.” Damian froze a second time and the male didn’t let the opportunity slip, unlike the larger dragon who constantly had to find footing in order not to and lapped at the slick flesh of his member. “Taste good too.”

“What has gotten into you? You hated me not even five minutes ago and now you’re all up in my legs like some kind of slut.” His claws desperately dug into the soft mud to get the smallest hint of traction and avoid slipping, something that could have spelled more than a few broken bones for the smaller dragon. That was something the little one knew and it emboldened him, pushing him further down a path Damian couldn’t have even imagined to be in.

“I know, I know…” The copper-mouth opened his mouth and took in several inches of the other male’s cock, his maw opening wide to take in a member several times the size of his own. Damian hissed and sunk his claws down, finally able to stop sliding all over the place but allowing the smaller dragon access to his cock as one movement and he’d fall. “I’m sorry for that.” The German dragon had no idea of what was happening at all but even if he had no clue, the hot breath washing over his member, that tongue lapping at his flesh and collecting drop after fat drop of pre, they all felt far too good.

“What is even happening?” Damian hissed as the small male took in several more inches and watched as that tiny throat bulged out with his ridges and as a look of pleasure washed over him to the point that he wondered whether he was dreaming.

“Copper-mouths, also called ‘America’s biggest dragon sluts’ by the locals, are a weird, weird breed.” Lorena popped out of nowhere and startled Damian quite a bit but not Richard, no, he started bobbing up and down his shaft, coating it in saliva and spit as wet sounds of a sloppy blowjob echoed in the otherwise empty forest, along with the clinks and tanks of the decoration stuck to the dragon’s horns. “Something went wrong sometime down the evolutionary line and now they are just little horny bastards.” Despite the mean comments, the dragon in question didn’t flinch and only took in more cock, moaning and stroking his own footlong erection with his thin tail. “They can’t hold themselves back when they see a juicy steak.”

“I don’t understand…”

“Nobody does actually, but there is a saying between the dragons of the rocky mountains and that is ‘Cops makes the best parties’ and they do not mean policemen” Lorena giggled and watched as Damian hissed and panted, holding back in from shoving his entire length down that tight throat and humping the smaller male to orgasm. The dragoness was utterly fascinated by the desperation with which the copper-mouth sucked on that cock, taking in almost half of the entire length. “I take you didn’t know that and you showed your assets to a copper… Anyone else would have braced themselves as soon as they saw that cute little snout of his.” Richard purred at the compliment and made Damian shiver in pleasure as his cock was surrounded by vibrations so pleasing he felt his sack tighten and pump a hefty load of pre inside a stomach already bloated. “You got him interested.”

“But… wait… wait a moment… is that why he hates to shift? Because he’d change into some… sex crazed lunatic? Is that it?” Damian couldn’t quite believe it but Lorena didn’t help much with his doubt and merely giggled again. “Jesus that’s dumb as fuck.”

“He’s good, right?” The male nodded, albeit unwillingly as Richard pawed at his sack and played with it, kneading his orbs with care and a good sprinkle of devotion. “They all are, it’s genetic some say. . It’s likely to be the only way they were able to survive, considering that they are small and weak: raising tail to any aggressor must have worked just fine for them…Anyways, you got a free bj from a pro, aren’t you happy?”

“It feels… amazing but…” his hips gave in and lurched forward, shocking the copper-mouth with a good foot more of cock to swallow. “I don’t know what to think: he’s… a popular guy at our school, he’s an athlete and… god, a bit of a dick.” Though at the moment he was more of a… Damian didn’t manage to even finish the thought because the small male currently on his dick began to purr even harder and that did it for him. Damian roared and every muscle in his body tensed up to deliver shot after shot of hot seed inside of that hungry maw. Richard squealed and came himself, his own length spurting relatively weak ropes of come on the muddy ground as he was filled to the brim and beyond. Lorena was close herself after watching such a show and her vent was glistening from excitement and Damian knew it very well: the scent of arousal in the air was thick, extremely so, mixing the overpowering musk of two males and the sweet sting of a female. “Fucking hell.” Damian felt as if the copper-mouth was still sucking the life out of him with every pump of his orbs, every shot drank, swallowed and replaced by another. The small male was more shocked that he still had something to give. A minute went by and when Richard was so full his belly was bulging out obscenely, only then the copper-mouth pulled back and much to his surprise, Damian was still hard, but now his shaft glistened with layers of saliva and seed in a frothy mess. He made to open his mouth again and lap at the messy cock but the dragoness shouted, startling him before he could do it.

“No, you don’t get a second round you pervy little…” Lorena jumped, almost shoving Richard out of the way and lapped at the remains of seed on the red flesh jutting from Damian’s sheath. “My turn now.” She grunted as the large dragon sniffed at her vent, trying to get a feel like he had done earlier that day but she wasn’t in the mood for slow: gnashing her teeth, the dragoness shifted her body under his and bent her tail over her back, coaxing Damian into taking her again with a few licks and teasing his member with a hindpaw. “Come on big guy, I know you still have something in you.” Damian panted hard but being young and only recently no more a virgin, he strapped himself on top of the needy dragoness and humped wildly until the tip of his cock pierced her folds and made her squeal. There was no technique, no gentleness, no charm, just a male coming down from a climax and working his way up another, rutting a female just as needy as he was. “Harder!”

Lorena yelled and Damian, in the haze his brain was in, mindlessly replied by biting her neck, not too hard, but definitely picking up the pace and the force behind his thrusts. The mud slid beneath them and somehow the two didn’t slip, barely holding on to the little of soft dirt they had found. He was in heaven and so was she, a pleasure much more raw and unrefined than the one they had showed Kara earlier that day, because they were dragons after all, they had a wild side to them, one that was made of snarls, bites, licking and grunts. Damian clawed at her shoulders, leaving tiny nicks and marks in her scales that would only fade in long months but that were so worth it: she came over and over again as he built up another climax like the one he had given her and to the little slut watching them from the sides. He had come twice that day, so he was quite tired and even his hefty assets were bordering their limit, smaller than before but still packing enough to make her a very happy dragoness. The wet sounds of soaked scale on soaked scale echoed in the forest until the last one and then there was a soft hiss, lasting long seconds and then silence. It took far longer than his first time to reach his peak, closer to half an hour of long, desperate thrusts, of growls and possessive licks that made them feel like animals pretending to be civilized beings. Wild like their ancestors had been. Perfect like her fantasies at night. At last, with one last pump of his hips, Lorena felt the hot seed run through her, fill her up once more and splatter on the scales of her thighs only to be lapped up by a hungry tongue as they tricked down her scales. Damian grunted, giving a few more thrusts and then pulled out, looking as his hard work was cleaned up by Richard until she was spotless, though shining with saliva and reeking of sex, her chamber packed with warm seed, sloshing with her every movement and keeping her well above a mere afterglow.

“That was so nice, thank you dear.” Lorena walked up to the exhausted male and licked his snout several times. “You too cutie.”

“Do not speak of this… ever.” Richard blushed and curled up in a slightly dry spot, looking at the other two every now and then as he weakly licked his wasted seed. “I’m going to die of embarrassment if anyone finds out that I sucked you off.”

“Well, it is your fault that you shoved your snout in my sheath minutes after I found you.” The copper-mouth blushed once again. “If you were worried about that, why didn’t you try to resist?”

“Oh, come on Damian! You flaunted yourself like some kind of… hot stud on the cover of a magazine! My brain was screaming to let you fuck me into the ground but that would have killed me so I did the best thing I could.” If Damian still had eyebrows he would have cocked both of them. “Yes, I hate myself for being like this. When I told you how I don’t like being what I am, I thought you knew about Copper-mouths! But no, you had to show your… cock to me like that!” Despite yelling and being clearly angry, it was hard to take him seriously, especially when he looked so horny still and spoke of ‘not helping hold back his need to get fucked’. Still… “Look, I am sorry, I was an asshole and I was very rude. I didn’t really mean it.”

“You also snuck into an area closed to the public and I could get you arrested.” Lorena smirked and looked as the small male looked positively scared. “I’m kidding.” That didn’t help much.

“I don’t know what to say Richard, you acted like a jerk to me for so long I am not sure I can let your behaviour go. And you did suck me off without my consent. I could file for rape.”

“Oh, come on!” Richard slammed his paws on the ground, frustrated. “I… please. I am a jerk sometimes I know that, but I didn’t know you before coming here and I get real competitive with other dragons around, more so than with humans. There were a bunch of nice looking girls and I wanted to impress them, then Miss ‘I don’t Transform into a human’ comes and belittles me and everything goes down the drain. I can pretend not to be a subspecies famous for raising tail near them, even if it’s for a short period of time. They don’t know much about us even to this day and that’s why I hang out with them, they don’t care about what Copper-mouths do when they shift, they just think ‘dragons are cool’ and they leave it at that.” The two stared at him and began to re-evaluate their actions and his, keeping in mind that, as a subspecies that was always made fun of, he didn’t have much in the way of standing or pride to keep his spirits up. Eventually they started thinking of him as just a poor boy with a bad reputation because of how he was born that only wanted attention from those that didn’t know what other dragons thought of his breed. “I just wanted to have fun.”

“First: you say you hate this but, you aren’t exactly helping your case either.” Richard shot Damian a glance full of anger and frustration. “Second: I said I understood you before but I didn’t know about the past of the Copper-mouths because, well, I’m not American, I just studied about the various subspecies in a book when I was about to come here and it’s not like I have that many friends around these parts. Now, my subspecies’ name is roughly translated in English as ‘Lizard Horse’ because of we can’t fly for shit, because of what I have between my legs and… because a monk thought it would be funny to record us as such in the ‘Encyclopaedia Draconica’ in the thirteenth century. The entirety of our identity was based on our uncommon trait, most of the other European dragons only wanted to mate with us to see what it was like or because they liked big tools, we hated it, most of us at least. If anything, we were even worse than you because we go back at least two thousand years, the Copper-mouths are relatively new I think. We’re the Coppers of Europe, in the complete opposite direction though.” Richard stared at Damian essentially telling the not so darkest secrets of his breed to him, showing him that he was similar to him in some way. “So when I say, I understand that you are made fun of because of…” His mouth was blocked shut by Richard’s snout as the small male kissed him, shoving his tongue onto his own, wrestling for control. “What was that?”

“An apology for behaving like a douche. You’re a nice guy Damian, the first that didn’t know about our reputation and the first that didn’t jump on me as soon as they learned about it.” He had been the one to jump after all. “Can we start fresh? Friends?” Damian sighed and licked the copper’s snout which made him giggle in happiness.

“You do shift gears way too fast.”

“I know, hyperactive and all that shit. I’m bipolar, I think, definitely got ADHD though. That’s why I’m not good at school.” Damian couldn’t help but feel bad for him.

“I think I can help with that, I’m pretty good and we do share most of our classes.”

“Really?” Richard looked very happy but that happiness vanished a moment later. “You’re not going to ask for sex as payment, right? Because if that’s the case I am not willing to get anything from you, got it?” That single sentence made Damian wonder just how many dragons thought of them as mere sluts instead of people and by the looks and behaviour of Lorena when she arrived on him sucking the living life out of him, he may have had a glimpse. “Then again, if you make me pass I might consider raising my tail just a little.”

“Dude, you’re really not helping your case.” The large dragon sighed heavily, his nostrils letting out a dense gust of tangy smoke.

“Whops, sorry, but you’re just too hot of a stud to pass. I hate the urges and the bad rep but I do love getting some action.” Despite his denial and all the attempts to hold himself in, he had to admit it was nice to unwind with someone that didn’t have the prejudice that made him and his subspecies what they were. Normally, he’d have run from any other dragon, refused to get near them while changed but Damian, he wasn’t like the others, he understood what it meant to be different, what it meant to have others see you as a sex toy instead of a person. He liked him, now that he knew his secret and deep down he really didn’t mind that the bigger dragon knew of his.

“He is as stud alright…” Lorena chuckled and began to head back to the cabin with Richard to her side, his wing still mostly limp on his back, asking her questions about Damian who just looked at them go with an expression so tired he didn’t even have the energy to ask them to stop talking about him as if he wasn’t there to hear them go about his size or taste.

Going back to the cabin was slow, as Richard couldn’t fly because his wing hurt and he was far smaller than the others, forcing him to run or trot often, like a tiny dog chasing a larger one in one of those videos that go viral on the internet. It took roughly one hour to do so, on top of the other hour spent searching and screwing around in the mud and the result that they were all tired, dirty and Damian really, really wanted to sleep. As soon as they arrived at the cabin, all of them collapsed on a big scaly pile in front of the entrance under the eyes of the humans who didn’t feel like waking them up to answer questions was a good idea in the least.

The rest of the vacation was weird to say the least and not only because the humans got to see that Richard wasn’t impressive or big or as scary as they thought he’d be, reaching only a few inches taller than Chris even transformed: the normally oblivious teens noted that the relationship between the dragons had changed significantly as if something major had happened. First of all Richard didn’t berate against Damian so much and then Lorena wasn’t so cold towards him anymore even though he had run off and did do something very stupid but, not knowing the details and not being able to smell them either, it was bound to be a secret for a long while. Kara had some suspicions because she was quite the evil mastermind behind the scenes and figured out that whatever happened wasn’t entirely SFW material, but she let the matter go on her own. Despite the secrets, they all enjoyed the vacation much more than expected now that the only hindrance, namely a grumpy Richard, had been eliminated and thus, when it came the time for goodbyes, it ended up being a little more emotional than expected. At the entrance of the park, Lorena stood and looked at the group from above and especially at Damian’s human form, already missing his bulk and his scent around her as they slept. Richard wasn’t as happy to leave either because he had found the one place where he could be himself and not worry too much about appearances, though he did have the humans promise not to tell about what he looked like under the skin to others because of… safety reasons and other bullshit that nobody bought in the least. Going back to school was far harder than expected but the promise to get back one day was surely something that helped them cope with that feeling for a few days.

“So, Damian, how was the trip?” Frida jumped on her son in the moment he walked inside the house, hugging him tightly after his first ever trip with friends. “Did everything go alright?”

“It was fine.”

“No other dragons making fun of you?” When Damian shook his head a massive weight was lifted from his parents’ chests in an instant and all the worry disappeared in thin smoke. “Did you make any friends?”

“I did actually. The owner of the place decided to hang around us for a while because all the other dragons were gone and it was a low moment in the season, plus the camping area was blocked by a landslide.”

“Oh, sounds bad.”

“They gave us a cabin for the same price though so we got to spend some time in bed rather than on the ground and I did have the chance to shift.” He put it down without thinking too much of it and then he remembered just how concerned he had been before leaving but his parents understood that he had gotten over that silly fear of his in the meantime and didn’t comment too much on it.

“Did you find yourself a girl?” Later that night, when Frida wasn’t around, Geralt caught the chance to peek around his son’s private life like a good parent and like a good father, he asked the one thing that Damian was still embarrassed about. “That face tells me you got some tail.” As the younger dragon blushed, his father grinned and pumped a fist in the air. “Ha! I knew it! And you that were so worried about it.”

“I mean… yes dad, I did find some time to have fun that way, but it was a one-time fling.”

“Never say never, who knows. So who was the lucky dragoness?”

“I’ll leave it a secret but I will add that… I met a Copper-mouth dad.” The older dragon cocked an eyebrow. “We didn’t start off in the best way but he was nice after a while…”

“He?” Geralt smiled at his son’s words, winking with the same charm as a beached whale several times. “My son is a player, though… copper-mouth… very nice. At work we have one and let me tell you: she is one hell of a woman. She even asked your mother for a threesome because she wanted to know what a European dragon is like.” Damian felt sad because that was exactly what Richard didn’t want to be seen as and he’d try his damn best not to be like everyone else, though he too was quite the handful, both as a human and a dragon. He had to put the matter in a little box for the moment though.

“And… I decided to date a human female that was with us and goes to school with me. Ok, thanks for the chat dad, good night.” Damian yelled that sentence all in one breath and then ran upstairs, leaving his father to process everything he had said for a long while. Then the older dragon smiled again and thought about his own past and all manners of things that had happened to him before he met Frida.

“He’s going to be fine.”