The Whisperer

Although the season wasn’t very far from the period of the heavy rains and rising tides in the country, the air was heavy and dense, a weird moistness that permeated everything and everywhere in the mainland. Those that lived by the sea got to enjoy the breeze of the oceans and those that lived by the rivers that descended from the mountains down to the seas could swim or at least dip their feet to cool down a little. Some felt as if a warm, unescapable curtain had descended over the entire western region of the peninsula, trapping a kingdom and the alliance of republics and merchants that were nearby under the same sky. It was a hard period for anyone who ventured outside the areas where fresh water was available and travelling under the sun was strongly discouraged, not that anyone wanted to do so anyways, it’d be a death sentence, almost. Still, some had to go places and they had to suffer through it all, among them was a carriage, a fancy little thing, made of spruce wood and old oaks, outfitted with suspensions and cushions even for the driver, wheels bound by metal hoops with iron spikes for traction, lanterns in front for night illumination and leather seats for the lucky passengers. On the side it bore a crest with a snake clutching a heap of swords, fangs bared and dripping venom over an imaginary enemy, proof of the identity of the man inside of it, though few would be around to see it at that time of the day and at that specific location of the country. At the very front, no horses were pulling the carriage, no normal animal was fit for the owner and as such, two gryphons bound by soft straps and huffing heavily pulled the heavy box of wood forward. The two creatures were hard at work, just as under the influence of the merciless warmth and sun as everyone else but as their job was to pull, they pulled and pulled, adding mile after mile on top of the dozens they had already crunched under their paws over the past day.

“How long till we get there?” From inside the carriage came a voice that had the driver roll his eyes so hard his head moved along with them: that very same question had been asked over a dozen times since that morning alone, not counting the day that preceded it or the countless other times the man sitting on the coach seat had led the wooden box all over the country.

“One more time he says that and I am going to cut off my ears.” The driver muttered under his breath, a sound so feeble that no one could have heard it.

“Did you say something?” It was as if the man inside knew that the one driving had said that, almost as if he was sure that his question would have caused that reaction, or maybe hinting at some supernatural hearing sense. The driver groaned inside his heart and swallowed the tiredness he was feeling.

“Not much, sir, probably an hour if the gryphons need to rest.” The answer wasn’t well welcomed as grunts and curses boomed from the inside and the very distinct sound of a foot or hand stomping on something on wood made that all the more clear.

“Then don’t have them rest! I have business to attend to, I don’t have any time to waste!” This time even the gryphons pulling the carriage cringed inside, with the only difference they were allowed to groan louder and accidentally hit a bump in the road, followed by three pot holes that made the carriage sway left and right, up and down for a few long seconds, punctuated by dozens of curses. It was possibly going to bite the driver in the ass later but the fun at the expense of the one cursing was worth it in the eyes of all the others around him.

Time seemed to slow down even more and the two creatures began to pant even more as the temperature and humidity rose once again and with that, the complaints of the noble that owned the carriage. Merciless and boiling, the weather only seemed to calm down somewhat as noon passed and the clouds parted to reveal an awfully grey sky over them, no rain in sight for another week perhaps, too humid for that. In the city, where the air was thicker still and so warm one could faint in the streets, some joked that even if it did rain, the drops would stop in mid-air, with how thick it was. A good joke to laugh at for a few seconds before the temperature returned to bother the citizens. Fortunately for the carriage, the countryside wasn’t nearly as hot and near the mountains a faint breeze arrived and descended over the overheating gryphons, granting them what little energy they needed to make the final push, or pull, and finally reach their destination, a farm, out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by miles of forest and small crooks. It was a pretty sight for the eyes, though it wasn’t nearly as interesting or appealing as the prospect of rest and a cool shade to sleep under but it was something and definitely better than nothing at all. At last the carriage pulled over the compacted dirt road into a smaller one that headed for a cottage visible from the mass of trees and stopped in the spacious area near the wooden building. The gryphons chirped happily, the immense weight of the box now the burden of the ground itself to bear and not theirs anymore while the driver sighed and hopped down from his seat. His feet kicked up some dust that fell on his shoes, once a glossy brown and now not nearly as clean, stained with mud from that morning when he had to gather water for the gryphons and himself. With practiced movements, the man hurried to the side of the carriage and pulled out a plank that was quickly unfolded into makeshift stairs that went all the way down to the ground and opened the door.

Moments later, without the usual flurry of grunts and complaints, the owner of the carriage, first son of the merchant company founded by Frederick Bastion, Almay Bastion, one of the richest men in the country and surrounding nations, slowly made his way out. He had worn his best travel clothes for the occasion, a pair of comfortable pants that the king himself used for hunting, padded leather shoes and a thin but durable shirt up to par with the latest trend in the capital. All that money was now drenched with sweat and clinging to the back of the man and what little moisture he had left was on the seats of the carriage. For a man who prided himself for being able to bear anything anyone could throw at him, he suffered the heat quite a lot.

“Where is he? I remember he was supposed to meet us at our arrival.”

“Sir, we’re a bit early as a matter of fact.” The driver handed a fresh towel to Almay and pulled a parchment from his bag. “We were supposed to arrive during the evening but your lordship had me urge the gryphons to go faster and thus…”

“Shush Virgil, I know. He still should be prepared to welcome us, it is unwise to offend a customer by letting them wait outside of their house for hours on end.” Almay scoffed and grabbed the parchment from the man’s hands. Virgil almost frowned in front of the man who loved making his clientele wait half a day before even looking at their request whenever he was in a slightly sour mood after a bad deal, or that outright made them waste days only to refuse the audience without even giving a reason. Hypocrisy was a mean bitch. “Are we in the right place? I thought this was the residence of the best expert in the entire country but I see only a shack.” Virgil looked at the cottage that he would have described as a masterpiece of carpentry and elegance, with its smooth angles and perfectly cut wooden boards and pillars that held the roof up. Merely said roof was worth more than the carriage itself as red tiles made up the majority of it, rendering the house waterproof and safe thanks to the marvels of dwarven craftsmanship. But in the eyes of a rich man such as Almay it wasn’t much.

“He must be out for some reason.” The driver who now had to act as temporary butler, went to the front door and knocked several times, getting nothing out of it, despite the many times he slammed his fist against the wood and the constant nagging of his master. “No response. Maybe he’s out…” Virgil was about to speak when the sound of wings flapping above them took all of his attention and the attention of the gryphons as well, all craning their necks to look up at the sky: a long, dark brown shape whooshed past them, faster than a horse at full speed, soaring tremendously close to the trees before going back up in a flash. “What the hell was that?” He looked at his master and he seemingly had no idea as well but the two gryphons looked quite excited for some reason, chirping when the shape passed over them a second and then a third time, a little slower each time and then, in a flurry of dust that ended up all on Almay’s expensive clothes, ruining them just a little bit more, the shape landed in the clearing in front of the house. “Cough… what the hell was that?” Virgil rubbed his eyes with his palms for a few seconds before he was even able to see something through the dust and when he did, in front of him was bared the most stunning gryphon he had ever seen: taller than the two he was used to ride with by a good head, putting it at six feet tall, a coat of fur and feathers so smooth and pristine it glistened in the sun, muscle rippling under it in all the right places. If there was a perfect image of a gryphon, that was it.

“I take you are the clients I was expecting.” A voice came from on top the gryphon and moments later, a man jumped down from the back of the creature. Was the man riding it? A quick look revealed no saddle whatsoever around the beast’s midsection, no clamp on its beak. Was the man riding it… bare? High in the air with no way to hold on but his hands and thighs? If so, he was either mad or the best rider in the world. “Hello, I’m Caellus, Cae for my friends.” The man was clearly young, barely in his thirties, taller than the middle aged driver, more muscular, better looking, shaved with but a shade of a brown beard on his face. Just like the gryphon, he was near perfect, had it not been for a large scar on his eye that ran all the way from his forehead down to his jaw, making him look a tad more rugged and blind in one eye. It had healed well over the years but it had been a tremendous injury back then and it showed. “You must be… Alamo?”

“Almay…” The rich merchant frowned and out of mere reflex and courtesy extended a hand that Caellus shook after a moment of confusion. His depth perception wasn’t the best, clearly. “You weren’t here when we arrived.”

“Well, you’re… a whole day early, according to what you wrote in your letter. How was I supposed to know that you’d be here? You’re lucky Ran decided that she was feeling tired and that she wanted to come back here, else I’d have been back this evening as per accord.” Almay frowned more visibly, angered by the apparent disrespect he was being shown. Still, that didn’t make the normally quick to anger merchant, burst out in a rant about manners. “My, my… look at these two beauties here. Hello…” Caellus smiled as wide as his face could, half of the warm expression partially warped by the scar and approached the gryphons tied to the carriage. Virgil was about to warn him that the two were quite the troublemakers around strangers, but he was too late and, instead of hearing a screech of protest, the seasoned driver saw the two creatures sniff the hand of the man in front of them with curiosity and calm down. Shocked more than the time Almay had given him a raise for a quick trip to a distant city, he stared as Caellus reached for the beasts’ beaks and rubbed their undersides, scratching softly the furry chin of each of them.

“Mister Caellus, we have business to do.” Almay clearly had no idea of what was going on and tapped his foot, displeased, but the man didn’t care or didn’t seem to care, stroking the gryphons’ necks softly. The two chirped and tapped the ground softly with their claws, eager to do something but blocked by the many straps that held them to the carriage.

“That won’t do.” With a few quick motions, lock after lock fell to the ground, once again faster than the driver could act and Caellus freed the two beasts and… they didn’t flee or run or attack, no, they looked at the man with curiosity, their sharp eyes locked onto him as he backed off and pulled them out of the contraption that fell limp and useless on the floor. “There you go, isn’t it better?” Much to Virgil’s shock, they nodded, chirping and brushing their beaks on his chest playfully, as if near another gryphon themselves and not a man at all. “Sorry were you saying something?” He turned back, his hands still caressing the powerful neck of the closest gryphon to him and looked at the increasingly pissed Almay that now stood under his porch.

“I said… I am a really busy person, I have hundreds of clients all around the kingdom and this trip will take away three to four days of my time if I am lucky, so I would like to be done as fast as possible if you please.” The merchant looked positively annoyed and eager to be done with the whole ordeal even though he had been the one to ask the man’s services well over a month ago. Caellus looked back at the two creatures around him, smoothing their fur with his hands and murmuring something softly.

“Ran, go and get these two males to the watering hole, give them some food too, they need it.” He turned his head towards the giant gryphon that walked calmly over to the other two, who immediately bowed their heads and tucked their tails behind their hindlegs, not even looking up at the bigger specimen. She chirped something and then began to trot away from the three humans, headed for the woods.

“Wait! What the hell do you think you’re doing with my animals?” Almay shouted, stopping all three in their tracks.

“I am going to provide them free water, food, and a place to rest for as long as you stay here, sir Alamo.” The merchant’s eyebrows twitched and Virgil had to turn his head so that the man wouldn’t see the face wide smirk he had: never had someone so intentionally warped the noble’s name, even if by mistake and went away without a severe lashing. It might have been the gryphon taller than himself or the fact that it was him that needed help this time around but there was no serious retaliation other than a glare.

“How do I know that they won’t run, or that that thing won’t do something to them?” Now it was Caellus’ turn to frown.

“You two, sit.” He looked at the two and slowly put his palm up towards the sky and turned it until it faced the ground, lowering the hand as the gryphons looked and sat down as he had ordered. Virgil’s jaw might have fallen off for all it mattered. “See? They have been nicely trained and I believe that Ran will be able to handle them. She is a good hen and no gryphon can say no to her.” Now that the man had said it clearly, Virgil noticed that the big gryphon was indeed a female, meaning that she was far bigger than any other he had ever seen. He had missed the hints because he was rapt with the size and plumage, but between her hindlegs was no sheath and no male attributes, instead, there were two teats, fat, plump, with two black nubs to top them. Any normal gryphoness would have had two small ones, similar to a mare’s, a pregnant hen may be near the size of a human woman after the eggs hatched, but this one was somewhere close to a cow’s, heavy and plump.

“That is no mere hen, she’s a broodmother.”

“I see we have an expert.” Caellus smiled and winked. Virgil had heard of them, gryphonesses of great value, more than any regular hen, able to dominate any other gryphon with ease, proud mothers of the best breeds there were. But the most important thing was that they laid clutches in the double digits as a rule, ten at the very least, twenty for exceedingly large ones whereas any young and fertile hen laid at most five or six. “She is indeed a broomother, been with me for well, ever since I hatched her when I was a teen and helps around the place, keeps the more… feisty of gryphons in check.” All of a sudden the driver understood why the two of them hadn’t fled or acted aggressively with the man: they knew to behave instinctively around her and for that reason they sat down without making their usual fuss. No wonder he was so calm or considered the best gryphon handler in the country and beyond. “But now onto your precious business. They will rest and we will talk. Is that alright with you?” Almay nodded. “Follow me then.”

Caellus opened the door to his house and welcomed his guests in, tossing his shoes in a messy heap to the side of the entrance and walking barefoot inside. Almay scoffed and didn’t follow suit, forcing Virgil to do the same as he hadn’t received the order to take them off. The interior of the house wasn’t as impressive as the outside, very much lived in and lacking a serious pass of a dust rag in almost every surface that wasn’t at eye level or arm length, meaning the man wasn’t cleaning whatever he couldn’t see. Behind the wardrobes chock full of embalmed gryphon feathers for display or the hundreds of snacks for beasts and the occasional human food, there were webs thick enough to house spiders bigger than normal. At least there were no flies or mosquitoes around. Crude, hand drawn pictures of other gryphons and various creatures littered the walls and, if the experience of the driver was true, probably hid some stain or hole. For such a magnificent looking house, the décor was horrendous.

“I apologize for the mess and the dirtiness, I haven’t been here for… around a month? I have been going around for so long I may have spent only three days at best in my own bed.” Caellus scratched his head and bumped into the corner of the one and only table in the room, sitting in a chair and pointing at the one that was padded to the merchant. “I was in Temeria last week to see the king’s personal flock and it took a little while, else I’d have cleaned up beforehand. I hope you understand.” Almay dusted both the chair’s cushion, the backrest, the table before even sitting down opposite the man.

“No matter. Mister Caellus, I have urgent need for your services.”

“That much I got by the letter where you didn’t bother to tell me the reason of your visit. I love a good surprise as much as any other person but had I been not nice to agree to a meeting, you’d have had to spill the beans already.” Caellus smiled softly and popped several seeds of unknown variety in his mouth which may have been bird feed for all the other two knew.

“I have come across a very rare and special specimen, one that I am sure not even you have seen before and if things went the right way, I wouldn’t have been here.” Almay sighed. “Once I bought it, everything started going wrong: it doesn’t eat, it doesn’t follow orders, doesn’t respond to anything I do or say and it tried to bite me several times. I had to chain it in a barn and feed it with the help of several strongmen around my farms.” The merchant clearly was in distress by the looks of it. “It has already killed a man.” Caellus frowned deeply.

“I am sorry but… I don’t deal in ‘it’s.” Almay looked up, confused. “So, you either tell me whether I am going to have to deal with a male gryphon or a female, whether it’s a female in heat or a male in rut because based on that, I will have to try different approaches and I do not want to just freeball it like some amateur.” He crossed his arms, highlighting a lean but powerful physique. “I hate when people say a gryphon is an ‘it’: they are living beings with a sex, not amorphous jellies or weird things we do not understand anything about. You sir, for example, are quite fat, would you be happy if I defined you as an ‘it’ because I can’t make up whether your boobs are a result of being a female or one too many chicken legs?” Virgil had to excuse himself from the room and head to a particularly far area of the house and shove a fist in his mouth so that the man wouldn’t hear him laughing: ten years he had served him and never had anyone said that. Almay was as red as a tomato, fist white in anger and still said nothing back. Blessed be the power of an expert when in need.

“It’s a… male… probably, haven’t really… checked myself.” The merchant somehow managed to calm himself down for the moment but he’d have had the mam hanged and flailed alive were it not for his usefulness. “Bought it… him from a breeder my family has been partners for decades with who in change has gotten him from a wandering trader.”

“How can you not be sure? Even if he was to be quite feisty and aggressive, one look beneath the tail and you either see a sheath or a vulva, a quite easy way to determine sex in my opinion.” It might have been a mere stating facts but it was heard as an insult and a proof of the merchant’s incompetence. Almay slammed his fist on the table, knocking over an old cup full of dust and startling his driver who had just returned.

“I have been raising gryphons for a decade, my father for twice that time, I have trained a few and sold more than I can count, I know what a male gryphon looks like.” He paused, sat down, fixed his ruffled hair and stared at the man. “I am having trouble because… I haven’t exactly bought a gryphon.” Caellus cocked his eyebrows.

“Yet you come to me, a gryphon handler.”

“Were it a mare or stallion I wouldn’t have had to.” Almay rubbed his hands together, feeling the sweat on his palms, his heat beating faster for some reason. “It’s a dragon.” Caellus froze in place as the words slowly soaked into his brain and hit him hard: a dragon. Something that was so rare and insanely precious, only kings may have been able to afford one, creatures so mystical that mages had made them legend for the common folk, so powerful in their own right even the strongest of gryphons would have a hard time dealing with the smallest of them. A dragon could grow past ten feet in height, twenty in length plus the tail, could spit fire and fly faster and only those with serious courage and immense stupidity would even dare to think to capture one, not even considering the countless attempts to kill one. “I heard it was an injured specimen but when I came to see it, the broken wing was fine, not that I was able to check because it attempted to bite my throat as soon as I put it into my barn. I gave it meat and water but it doesn’t respond to my training.” Caellus slumped in his chair and sighed. “What?”

“You do know dragons can understand human speech just as well as gryphons if not better, right?” Under the confused expression of the merchant, Caellus took a single book, thin and leather bound, from the library that was in the far left corner of the room. He opened it and flipped through several pages before reading the words from one passage in particular. “A dragon is much like a man, were he clad in scales, armed with claws and wings and given a thousand years to hone skills and intellect. They are more clever than even the best broodmother, who at best can reach a human teen’s intelligence at their maturity, they can learn languages and thus understand people just as we do, provided enough time and a conversation partner.” He closed the book and tossed it to the merchant who almost let it hit his own face and read the title etched on the spine: A Guide to Dragons.

The book was worth its weight in gold ten times over for the man holding it as no such book had ever hit the markets of the kingdom or any other nation for all that mattered: no one had gathered enough knowledge on dragons to even make a pamphlet, much less an entire book. Any king that owned dragons didn’t get to spend much time with them, most of them flew away first chance they got, some killed themselves, some had to be put down young or their uncontrollable temper would result in more deaths. Even kings knew that those beasts were a fleeting dream, a risky purchase to be shown to everyone and then hope to be able to keep for a few years. The last dragon sighed in the area had been a hundred years ago, a brief encounter between it and a farmer who lost a flock of sheep to its hunger and an eye when he got a tad too close. For breeding one, well, the ancestor of the current king Almay served had two and that was what had given him the leverage to conquer an entire country and ascend to the throne in less than a decade. A once in a million years occurrence, to be able to see a man with two quiet dragons by his side, obeying him. After that man, no one was able to replicate the same actions, hence the reason why so many kings prided themselves in owning dragons for five to six years at best, always locked up in dungeons, always out of sight. The same children of that one man saw the two beasts fly away as soon as he was dead, gone in minutes with the eggs they had laid while helping him create his dream.

“How did you…”

“The book? Not going to tell you because the person I got it from is long dead and I got it by… pure chance, let’s leave it at that.” Caellus sat down again. “Now, let me put the whole situation in more simple words so that there won’t be any doubt whatsoever: you bought a dragon, injured, probably young and afraid since he didn’t escape, from what is essentially a kidnapper, chained him in a barn, fed him raw meat and water from a trough and ordered him to do whatever you wanted without even attempting to put up a semblance of discourse or see if he can understand what you said. You treated a creature as intelligent as you and me potentially, as an animal, worse than a dog, and you expected him not to try and eat your face? What a gall you have.” As Caellus spoke, Almay got more and more worried because the facts quickly put themselves in place and the picture they gave wasn’t a pretty one, not in the least and it might have been because of ignorance and misinformation, but it was entirely his fault for treating a special creature like any other young gryphon with a bad temper. On one hand Caellus couldn’t really blame the man, on the other, he could only hope the dragon was young enough not to figure out how to spit fire in the next few days. “I will help you because if I don’t I will feel the weight of his suffering for the rest of my life until I do. I will leave for your… wherever you put the dragon, tomorrow morning first thing.”

“But I need your help now!”

“And I have just come back from a week long contract with a fucking king and tended to well over fifty gryphons of royal blood! You are going to wait, and as much as I want to get on Ran’s back and fly there this instant, I need rest and so do your steeds.” Caellus was getting heated but he calmed himself down much better than Almay had. “I suggest you stop using them as beasts and work them that hard: their claws are dull and their beaks have a bad coloration. Give them some Brionia and let them rest for two weeks after you get back, mix lavender and these herbs here in their feed to get them back in top shape fast and for the love of god, brush their fur and let them preen their feathers…” As Caellus spewed out orders and suggestions, Almay could do little than nod and grab the pouch of herbs he was given, silent. There was a reason why he was the best gryphon handler around and even an arrogant man such as the merchant had to at least listen to him, because if he did what he said, his gryphons would surely get better. “I will clean your bedroom and let you stay the night, there is only one so you will have to share the bed with your driver. There is a bathroom and in about an hour I will have hot water run for you to clean yourself: you stink enough that Ran sneezed around you.” The merchant lifted an arm and sniffed himself not so subtly as he probably should have done and he was forced to agree.

“Thanks.”

The two travellers were given food, warm water and one single bed that Almay hogged for himself and let Virgil sleep on the floor, much to the driver’s back’s complaints that night but before that could even happen, Caellus had to clean and fix everything himself. He couldn’t get a shower because the water was barely enough for two and making food took a while, luckily he was a good host, or the two would have had to eat whatever he had offered due to the lack of time to prepare anything decent. It was barely the beginning of the afternoon when they arrived but before dinnertime, Caellus barely had a rest, working to make sure the one night was comfortable and that no spiders fell on the merchant’s face as he slept, as much as he wanted to. The sun lowered and lowered until little light was left to see outside but the handler still moved around just fine and after eating his share of stew, he made his way to the stables where he knew the gryphons were. Ran of course had her own special spot in his house, a giant room and a soft pillow all for herself but with two newcomers she wasn’t there to enjoy it at the moment. Caellus felt bad for the young males, forced to work for someone that only saw them as beasts with a purpose in life but he couldn’t exactly free them and take them in, like he had done years ago. They were unfortunately born under the wrong sky, unlike his Ran who was as free as the wind: he hatched her when he was sixteen, now he was thirty one, the bond they had was strong, she could do whatever and fly around and he knew she’d come back for her treats and pillow and his brush at night. She was a tad spoiled but that didn’t make her any less precious or strong, if anything, she was all the more equipped to take on any dumb male that thought she’d be easy prey. For example, the young breeder that he was tasked to tame last year, who tried to mount her as soon as they landed in front of his owner’s stable. The poor thing ended up with a lot of scratches and a few plucked feathers on his wings, whereas she came out fine. Unlike that far too eager stud, the two in his stables were behaving just fine and when he opened the doors and barred them behind him, Caellus could do little but smile and watch, thankful for the thick wooden beams that made up the building. Ran was sprawled on the floor, haunches wide, belly up and bared to the two gryphons on top of her, each to one end of her body, each with their cocks out of their sheaths, thicker than Cae’s wrist at the swollen base, enough to spread any regular hen nice and wide, but that only gave the experienced broodmother a small stretch.

The two lengths, a generous footlong each, were already baring their knots, proof that they had been going on for a while, a proof further marked by the scent of sweat and matted fur and feathers, her belly stained with ropes of clear pre that clumped her brown hide. Her beak was nestled under one of the males’ sheath, where his balls hung, heavy and ready to unload, huffing deeply his scent, letting him hump at the air on top of her. The broodmother always had a thing for young and virile males, especially when they were all nice and worked up after a day of pulling of flying. It took out all their masculine scent. Her backside wasn’t any less hard at work, rubbing her folds on the cock that hovered near it, smearing the red flesh in waves of sticky pleasure that made her slick and wet for him. The young stud, either unaware of the human presence or uncaring of it, couldn’t resist the temptation anymore and screeched loudly, pulling back his haunches and then thrusting forward, missing the mark entirely. Ran, in all of her experience, helped him penetrate her with a clever little trick, cooing and cawing happily as that cock entered her snatch, big and reaching deep inside her vent. The male growled softly, his forelimbs clutching her sides and using her as leverage to push his member deeper inside until his sheath bumped with her folds, staining it a darker shade of brown, the fist sized knot already lodged within, but clearly he wasn’t done and neither was she, despite the throes of orgasm wracking her body. Her teats, fat and bigger than any other hen, swayed and bounced around and along with his thrusts, giving her more reason to caw in pleasure when the hard muscles of the male’s belly brushed against the hard nipples, small electric shocks running throughout her entire body. A broodmother didn’t need to be in heat to mate, like any other male in existence and it was for such a reason that Cae never had any issue with any arrogant gryphon, not even the females: he just needed her to have her way with them and they’d melt in her wings like butter. Most of the time he did all the work himself but it was always fun to see an inexperienced stud try to mate her when she was being playful or wanted him under her talons. The two males in front of him however, they weren’t new to this, the one spearing her snatch rutting her with methodical thrusts, each strong enough to make her wobble and screech in pleasure, whereas the one on top of her beak, knew how good it was to have a tongue lick his cock. It was another thing that the beasts had in common with humans: the knowledge of what could make mating even better and the concept of using tongues and cocks for more than procreation. More than a few males in rut and lacking females resorted taking turns with each other, it was a very well-known fact. Ran cooed and opened her beak wide, catching the shaft bucking over her nostrils, flooding her with the scent of a male in rut and sweat, and welcomed it in her beak.

The gryphon screeched, feeling suddenly a tight throat and a warm feeling envelope his tool completely, the wet sounds of her gullet swallowing every inch he had to offer with ease. Now his preseed was all going down her stomach and his knot was fighting with the hard beak for passage and for the right to jam itself inside her fully. Ran warbled as best as she could, urging them to go faster and faster they began to hammer at her, the plaps of their nuts echoing over their very own cries of lust, wet, loud and lewd. The knot of the male slipped in and out of her snatch, sending the two time father in a rut unlike any other he had ever went through, the welcoming tunnel milking him for all he was worth despite her not being in heat and just as warm and needy. With a final thrust he slammed his knot inside the broodmother, felt it expand one more inch in a mad fit of desire and cawed as his seed spurted inside her in thick, long and virile ropes. She’d not bear his eggs but it mattered little with how good it felt to breed a hen of her calibre and skill. Her belly slowly began to swell with essence, pump after pump of his nuts sending more within her womb, the twin orbs rising and falling, marking each shot as the talons of the female played with them, jostling the soft fur among her digits. The other male didn’t last much longer, his knot still out due to the size it had grown to but still deep enough to block most of his seed inside, the heavy shape of his member bloating her very throat as it unloaded a wave of seed not unlike his companion. Her stomach greedily took it all in, her throat squeezing just as her snatch, forcing the males to give her all they had until they collapsed in a messy, sweat-soaked pile of fur and feather on top of each other. The knot lodged in her passage slipped free and a considerable waterfall of spunk stained her thighs white and more sticky than her own arousal did, her breath smelling of seed and chest covered in what little had spurted from the exhausted male’s shaft as she pushed him off her. The fur stuck to her chest and the ropes of seed on her beak and face and beneath her tail stole the air of strength and nobility she had, leaving a horny and messy bird in their wake, a bird that didn’t hesitate to get close to Caellus and lick his face, blasting him with a breath that didn’t hide her lewd actions.

“Had fun with the boys, did you?” He stroked her chin and the hen cooed happily, her beak lowering itself on reflex until it bumped with a very damp and wet spot on the man’s crotch. “You’re such a needy little hen, Ran, always with your tail up, raised for any male with a cock big enough. Turn around dear.” The idea of disobeying wasn’t even in her small dictionary and so she turned, her tail rightfully up and baring her soaked and leaking snatch to her human who slipped a finger in the mess that the gryphon had left behind. “Look at you, all full and still twitching. Seems like you need another round.” Ran cawed, agreeing with him in her own language that he understood just fine and smiled. “Too bad they are so tired and spent…” Her eyes showed that she didn’t enjoy the joke he had just made and her tail slapped him on the head as her hips bucked backwards and slathered him in a lusty mix of spunk and female juices. “Come on Ran, I was just kidding.”

She wasn’t amused and turned around, her beak homing in on his belt and with incredible dexterity of her talons, unbuckled the belt. His pants fell down and the scent of the human distinct smell wafted inside the stable, overpowering the reek of sex and damp fur with ease. Caellus always had a particular scent that seemed to make any animal eager to obey him or at least behave around him with less complaints, no matter what species they belonged to. It was a gift from the gods, was how many put it, those that didn’t know it was his smell and not his skills, though the two were one and the same for him. Cae made full advantage of his natural scent and the skills he learned from his father, which made him a far more effective trainer than any person he had ever met at the cost of a tenth of the work. He could have been a horse trainer or a dog breeder for all it mattered but as he had found Ran he knew gryphons were his calling and she had proven him right. Of course it was frowned upon to mate with animals such as them, he knew it but it wasn’t the reason he lived so far from anyone else. It felt good sure and for some gryphons with a passion for males instead of female, it worked just fine for training and convincing, though he kept it as a plan B or C of sorts. Cheating wasn’t what he wanted. The reason why his scent was so alluring to males and females of any species, was a far more well-kept secret, one that only his father knew and that the man had carried to his grave a decade back. Ran’s beak slowly approached his groin and pushed against it, slowly sinking in a tight and wet slit between the man’s legs. Soft scales populated the area around it, running down his legs like a cascade of green sapphires, going as far up as his chest and back, glittering in the light of the lamps.

Some would recoil at the sight of such a mutation, some would think him a girl were it not for his muscle and beard, but to the hen whose beak was parting slit, he smelled and tasted very much like a male. Caellus drew in a sharp breath as her tongue slithered out of her beak, teasing the extremely sensitive flesh of his slit, licking the fluids that pooled inside of it with eagerness that made the desire for gryphon cock she had earlier look like a mere fling. Her hips swayed violently from side to side as her nostrils and taste buds were smothered by the scent and taste of someone so tremendously male she had never gotten used to it no matter how much she inhaled his musk. Drunk with it, she didn’t notice that something was pushing out of the slit, pushing her back as well and making Cae hiss and grip her neck fur with his hands. The man let out a groan of satisfaction as his member grew out of his slit, inch by inch: it was a red shaft much like a gryphon’s own, but covered in slick fluids, the underside marked by several ridges of increasing size as they neared the base, parting the soft flesh around it even more than her beak did. He grabbed the thick base, not even able to encircle it fully and run it all the way up to the tip, shivering until he reached it, more than twelve inches above his groin. The gryphons saw it, saw the cock that was almost bigger than theirs and on the human’s frame it looked far more out of place, smelled him even in the haze of their afterglow and understood why he wasn’t like the other humans around them, why he smelled so good. His father never referred to his condition as a curse, once or twice saying that the only thing a woman might be scared of would be his size the day he was caught red handed, but as Cae desired not to be burned at the stake, he never bedded anyone and no one knew. Ran knew, she knew from the day she got her first heat and sneaked inside his bedroom, when she was still able to do so and her scent made him grow hard. Her beak opened for her tongue to lick his underside, the musky and salty taste of his fluids making her feathers stand on end all the way to her wing tips like a hen at her first breeding session.

“Ran… do you want to play a little or just go straight to the fun part?” His hands scratched her neck and slowly coaxed her into laying down on her back once again, her hindlegs still parted and her snatch even more slick. “Eager today, aren’t we?” Cael chuckled, kneeling near her and let gravity make his cock fall right between her cow-like udders, forcing a soft squeal from her beak as the hard flesh slapped her sensitive nubs. The man grinned, his palms overflowing with her teats as he squeezed the twin mounds around his cock, warmth and softness enveloping every inch that was able to be squeezed, only the tip of his monster of a tool poking from the other end. “Soft as always…” His left hand grabbed her teat and made her back arch in a semblance of an orgasm as it was pulled up and down, her human pretending to milk her like a cow over and over, slowly dragging her to another orgasm that made her caw ever so loudly. His cock was spewing pre all over her belly fur, thicker and denser than what had previously been dumped on her, strengthening the stench of male in the stable more and more. “Beg for it Ran, I want to see you beg.” Cae smiled as the hen’s hips bucked upwards, smearing her lust on his thighs, her hindlegs and talons attempting to grab him and manoeuvre his body so that she could make him spear her more comfortably in a dance that had been practiced over and over. “Good hen.” Cae decided he had enough fun teasing her and pulled back from the valley of her teats, leaving behind a trail of increasingly cloudy pre right between them, cementing once again his scent on her and then pushed his cock inside her folds. “God I love sloppy seconds…”

She squealed again and held him closer with her hindlegs, barely able to move him in the weak state that breathing in his musk where it was stronger had thrown her into, her limbs trembling and flopping useless on her belly at the mercy of the human on top of her. His cock hilted inside of her relatively easily, lacking a knot to halt his progress but with a fair few extra inches of length to push inside, reaching even deeper than knot fucking her like the gryphon had done, hit tip poking through her very womb with every thrust he made, leaking gushes of pre inside her tunnel and inside her chamber. Her breasts wobbled pleasantly and Cae did what he knew would make her snatch clamp down on him and took her nubs in his mouth, tasting gryphon pre, his own and the faint sheen of sweat she had worked up during her mating. Her vent gripped his cock like a vice, tighter than before, her walls rippling in climax after climax and attempting to milk him for his seed. But he wasn’t as tired or unaware of her skills like the other two males, he knew where to hit and prod to make her more ready for what was to come and make it more pleasurable for him. He suckled on her nipples, missing her heat a little and the sweet taste of her milk, but loving the feeling her needy folds gave him when he bit those nubs. Ran was no more the proud hen that could beck other gryphons around, left a shivering mess even before her human had come, testament to his inhuman gifts and endurance. As much as he loved to drag things on, he wanted to hit his climax as well and let himself go, slumping on her belly, nose deep in her chest fur, taking in her sweet scent and focusing only on the wet walls around his cock. Less than a minute later, thirty after he had started rutting her like a mere hen in heat, Ran felt his shaft pulse harder and a flood of seed seep inside her. Her bloated belly rose even more, filling up with fresh batches of spunk that never seemed to end, thicker and more powerful than the two males she had mated with, hitting the back of her womb with enough force to be seen under her fur. She loved him like no one else, he fulfilled her more than any dumb beast, the apex of human virility as she was the peak of gryphon fertility and power. His seed leaked in loud splatters from the seal of her snatch, hitting the hay floor in dense ropes and staining the ground for close to three minutes straight. At the end, she was left panting, far too full, far too tired and bloated to even caw her pleasure, Cae much in the same boat as her, drained after a week of being around males in rut and needy females all day long. The trip didn’t allow them to find pleasure in each other and the contract he had taken with Almay forced him to go away again, but he’d be damned if he didn’t give her what she wanted and what he needed. Some would hate him, but what was he supposed to do? She was no beast but a clever girl covered in fur and feathers and he was, well, not entirely human. Ran saw the small hint of sadness in his eyes and licked his face, leaving behind yet another spunk filled trail of saliva as she fell asleep.

Cae couldn’t rest with his cock inside her, it’d arouse suspicion and the smell the next morning would be so dense even a human would be able to pick it up and so he got up, drying his shaft on her sleek fur before patting her. He had a quick bath in the now mostly cold water and went to bed, rising early in the next morning to clean her up as well in the stream outside the house. The naughty broodmother wasn’t fine with just a bath of course and as Cae was cleaning her, she accidentally bumped into him, sending the man on the ground and shoved her beak inside his loose pants, her nostrils filled up with his musk and the scent of the slitfluids that he leaked when aroused. Now that she was worked up as well, the man couldn’t let her go around dripping like that and had to clean her for good, his hands roaming her wet snatch for a second time, pumping in and out of her passage until he felt her squeal and clamp down on his arm all the way up to his elbow. Cae knew well that all of her actions were aimed for that moment, and had her clean him from her fluids, her tongue hard at work while he waited for her to lick every drop of arousal from his arm. The two males clearly remembered his performance and acted all the more nice around him, to the point that their beaks slid under his legs to whiff at his crotch when no one was looking. He ordered them not to, unless they wanted to have his cock shoved down their throats, something that often backfired on him, especially with the less straight of gryphons. Luckily these two were straighter than arrows and steered clear, but the occasional sniff wasn’t punished as harshly, if anything, they found it funny and amusing, getting a tad more daring while the two humans groggily woke up and ate their meal together.

“Mister Caellus we need to leave. The gryphons are well rested so there is no reason to wait anymore, get on the carriage and we shall depart at once.” Almay made to head to the box but Caellus didn’t and stared at him.

“I was thinking of going with Ran, it’ll be faster and that way there won’t be as much need to push your gryphons.” The large female puffed her chest and preened her feathers, showing off her assets as much as possible, earning a warble of admiration from her new friends. Almay didn’t look too convinced.

“I have ordered my men not to allow anyone to approach the barn, not without me being present, no matter what. No paper authorization will do: either I am there, or you won’t get a hundred paces from the dragon.” Caellus frowned: the man was being overly cautious and greedy in his opinion but he couldn’t exactly force him to authorize access or anything of the sort. The quick flight towards the estate went up in smoke in instants as the realization he’d be stuck with the man for close to two days straight in a cramped space landed. He really didn’t want to sit for that long a time, much less with a person he didn’t know and evidently didn’t like very much. The feeling was mutual but their relationship was one of convenience and such both would have to suffer through it.

“Then I will come with you but… Ran comes with us. She’ll be my ride home and she can help pull the carriage, I trust her assistance will make the trip… far shorter than it needs to be.” For both himself and the gryphons more than the man that owned them. Still, Almay found the idea interesting and worthwhile. “I’ll go get the special saddle.”

Ran put up a fuss she normally didn’t resort to as he fastened several straps to her back, protesting because her fur would be ruined by the leather belts but Cae promised her that she could have all the fish he could buy at the market when they’d arrive at the city or at their return, plus a little extra on top. That was about enough to convince her and get strapped on to the carriage. With her help, the two gryphons didn’t have nearly as much weight to pull as before thus making their work easy and raise their speed by a good deal, surprising Virgil and annoying Almay since the suspensions didn’t work as nicely as the dwarf that made them promised. Travelling with the merchant proved to be a far harsher thing than he had imagined: he had brought some books to read, not the one about dragons as it was far too precious to be taken out of the house and before he went out of the house the day before, he locked it in a box inside a safe, so that the merchant couldn’t touch it or read it. It was a secret he had shared only for a very important reason, which meant that no one could know about it. If the merchant were to tell anyone about it, he’d risk being ridiculed and Caellus would end up being pestered with visitors and never do any business with the man again. A secret it would remain.

“Why did you even come to me anyways? It’s not like I have you knew I had a book about dragons beforehand…” Almay looked up from the stack of papers in his lap where the various contracts he was signing determined his company’s business plans for the remaining year and took off his glasses.

“They say you have a way with beasts, of any kind and I have a friend that worked with your father, once upon a time: he was a mere horse merchant back then, one of the many at least, when your father arrived to help him deal with a very fiery stallion, a black one, so dark and unruly it was a danger to anyone. He told me that a great tamer such as your father didn’t do anything because you merely had to talk to the horse for it to calm down, half an hour later it was as docile as any other one he had. That horse went on to breed and sire some of the best race horses of the past twenty years and as such it made my friend filthy rick.” Caellus cocked an eyebrow because he only remembered vaguely having to do something with a black maned horse long ago, a fading memory of no importance. “I asked around, mentioned you to all the breeders I knew and most either told of stories of you and your father or had dealings with you, especially the various gryphon owners of the kingdom. Everyone thinks you have a gift, now that I have seen how easily those two beasts have accepted your orders, I too think you are different. I just hoped you’d accept and put that gift of yours to work.” Almay shrugged and went back to his papers, leaving Caellus to his own reading.

The journey would be drastically shortened thanks to Ran and her frankly superior everything but it’d still take more than a day because of some issues that the cart ran into, meaning that one of the wheels broke as they arrived near a town. It was close to the settlement but the blacksmiths and the carpenters were all closed and no amount of coin Almay fished out of his pockets made anyone move past dinner around the place. In the morning there would be someone to tend to it but not before that and so, Almay rented a room for himself and Caellus, though he refused the offer and claimed to be intending to sleep with his gryphon because she didn’t like being alone in a place she didn’t know but she just wanted to have a walk before going to sleep and she wouldn’t accept anyone but him to accompany her around. Since he was around, he also decided to have the other two gryphons have an evening stretch and made sure to bring his special brush in case he felt like giving them a good fur treatment. Under the eyes of many surprised people, the few that still were around that late, he slowly made his way out of the town, no walls or gates to bar him in and no real guards to check whatever he was doing but a couple of semi drunk old men in tattered clothes sitting on a bench near the tavern. With not one but three gryphons in tow, Caellus walked out and wandered on the paths that led to the forest around the small town, going wherever his gut told him the air was better and where flowers bloomed under the moonlight. He had a soft spot for late night walks just as Ran did, or maybe it was the opposite but that mattered little to either of them. The two males he had freed were ecstatic, able to walk without any kind of contraption on their backs and with no nagging humans barking orders they barely understood, their wings free to be stretched and flexed, free to take flight and run away. They didn’t run though, meekly following Cae as he went deeper into the woods. Suddenly, Ran grabbed her human by the neck of his shirt, lifting him up and began to run through the woods as fast as she could. The gryphons didn’t know what to do and immediately rushed to follow her, fearing some punishment from her or their masters back in town, their muscles pumping hard to keep them close to her and still losing ground to the bigger female. She stopped at last near a rock that jutted from the ground, a weirdly placed boulder that seemingly had no place in the flat plains the forest grew on and dropped Cae near her.

“Ran, what the hell?” He got up, angry because she didn’t listen to his commands and orders at all and kept going far from any path around them. Ran grinned as only gryphons can do, barely moving her beak and staring him from her higher stature, tail wagging behind her. “What has gotten into you?” The other gryphons arrived, panting slightly from the sudden run and workout, not entirely used to such burst of energy and having been bred for endurance rather than speed or flight. Her eyes glittered with intelligence and before her human could ask her what she was doing, she dropped her chest on the ground, hindlegs spread wide to her sides and wagging her hips so that her plump hindquarters swayed enticingly and her breasts wobbled in such a way that drew the attention to them. “Ran…” He sighed but deep down he knew she had planned the whole thing the very moment he had taken the other gryphons out of their stable and decided to have them stretch their legs. She was as clever as a human teen and somehow she had gotten the same unrelenting lust and desire as a human teen. She cooed and shook her hips again, her tail lifted up, baring her sex to three males who couldn’t take their eyes off her. “You… you really are a horny little hen.” She warbled, pleased with herself, her breasts swaying freely left and right, her nubs hard and ready to be squeezed and played with. “You got mated twice yesterday by three males, isn’t that enough for you?” She cawed, her rump pressing ever so close to him and his body, lowering so that he could reach it with ease. Cae rubbed his temples with a hand and with the other he slapped her hindquarters as if she was a human female, causing her to squeak happily. The males behind him closed in, their noses going for her folds as the scent of a female in need spread around the area but a loud hiss made them stop: she wasn’t going to let them take her from behind as Cae had dibs, according to her. Her beak, on the other hand… “I know, she’s a handful.” He patted one male’s shoulder as he unfastened his belt and tossed his pants on the mossy ground, his cock already peeking from its slit, glistening in the moonlight. The gryphon to his right slowly but surely got closer and closer, his nostrils picking up the heavy musk he carried, beak slightly open and tongue lolling out. “Oh… hell.” The male tentatively gave his cock a lick, dragging his tongue a mere fraction of an inch over that towering shaft, his taste buds lighting up with a flavour he never thought could exist and under his belly, much to the gryphon’s surprise, his cock hardened even more, shooting ropes of pre all over the grass. “Seems like we have a curious little male.” Cae smiled, standing still as the male once again dove for his cock, this time the lick longer and more decisive as he grew to like the taste, going for another lick, then one and two, bolder and bolder. Inexperienced, eager, hungry for something forbidden, the gryphon grew aroused because of the human far more than for any female he had ever mated, the heavy, dense musk was captivating him. “Go on.” He had jokingly threatened him with his cock that morning, but apparently his threat was now a treat, as the male opened his beak and held it there, for him. Cae grabbed his head and steadied it in his grip, slowly but surely shoving his shaft inside the male’s mouth, barely a third inside and already bulging his throat nicely with it, the shape visible under the neck fur. Ran complained as her snatch wasn’t being used at all. “Sorry Ran, he got to me first.” He shrugged, hissing softly as the eager gryphon pushed against his hips and accidentally pushed his beak inside his slit, making him groan at the sudden spread of his lips and at the feeling of his gullet swallowing every last inch of his shaft, massaging it with the same inexperienced contractions the male used to eat. The gryphon found his nostrils flooded by a scent so dense his knees began to wobble and his own cock ached harder than it ever did before, leaking pre in spurt after spurt, his head swimming in a sea of male musk. Cae slowly pushed him out but the stronger muscles the creature had made him go back in and his eagerness sent the human to his climax. “Fuck…” He was too eager, to aggressive, too hungry for something he never had and too good not to enjoy: Cae groaned as his cock sent dense shots of seed down the gryphon’s throat and into his stomach, every one expanding the stretchy flesh a bit more. Those shots were drank with greediness not unlike Ran’s own, but with far less control over it, the male outright sucking the salty treat out of him like a vacuum. “Holy… such an eager little…” Cae pulled back in a moment of relax, his shaft still pumping seed that now landed on the beak of the gryphon, on his head, on his chest and forelegs, rope after rope staining his fur in odd clumps for a good minute, turning the brown coat into a white one. Ran saw this but her beak was far too full of her own share of cock to give up and merely wagged her hips to drag her human’s attention back to her needy snatch. “Alright you horny hen, I’m coming.”

Hearing this, the male now covered in his spent seed, dripping white stuff all over the place, bent down on his forelegs, head low and rump raised in the air. His tail was tucked up and he attempted to sway his hips in the same way Ran had done before, clumsy, his sheath and grapefruits balls swaying madly under him in a somewhat cute and pathetic attempt to get his attention. Cae smiled and slapped the gryphon’s toned ass, promising that he’d satisfy that need of his one day, after a very thorough cleaning and in a more comfortable position. Ran chirped, her throat milking the cock in her beak with far more strength as her human pulled her backside down and spread her legs with a light kick, which she eagerly agreed to. With her folds right where they needed to be, Cae grabbed the soft expanse of her rump and used her tail as leverage to slam himself home, her walls welcoming his cock like a soft wet glove that rippled with her every breath. She came a little and both males inside her felt that, both beginning to thrust inside her rather than letting her do all the work. A set of heavy furred balls hit her beak time and time again, smothering her with the musk and sweat seeping from that overly full pouch whereas her snatch was assaulted by soft skin and stretched wide by the human’s ridged shaft, his bumps hitting all the right spots over and over. Once again the proud hen was reduced to a warbling mess of fur and feather, at the mercy of the males that happened to be on top of her and filling her with their cocks and fluids. Sensitive from the previous sloppy blowjob the male had given him, Cae didn’t last much longer and his seed flowed from his cock inside her chamber, splattering and painting her walls white with virile essence as her stomach was flooded with a similarly potent spunk. Her muscle spasmed and drained the males for all they had, their climaxes lasting for minutes and hers going from one to the other without end, her fluids staining Cae’s thighs with sticky stuff and the overflow of his essence. The male left alone dove in to taste it, lapping carefully every inch of skin and fur until he was left with the las dribbles that formed thick droplets on her teats. With a playful bite, the gryphon bit one of her nubs, sending her into a higher form of pleasure and clamping down on her partners, rekindling their orgasm and getting another dose of spunk from each. The one below her suckled on her teats like a good hatchling, getting no milk but whatever leaked from above until nothing else was left and Cae flopped on the ground, his back on a patch of moss, panting loudly and heavily. The third male shoved his beak inside her folds, licking every last drop of the mess he had helped cause, his objective no more the sweet nectar of the female but the dense seed of the human male, sloppy licks marking the end of their small break from the world.

It was a hard thing to explain why the gryphons smelled so much of sex the next morning and why the female was so very clearly leaking seed from her folds, but Caellus told Almay and Virgil that Ran had recently came down from her heat, so he had taken them outside town so that he’d not disturb the regular folk. The prospect of maybe getting a clutch of broodmother eggs in the future and the rights to have half quickly silenced the merchant as he calculated the profits that might come if the hen was receptive enough at the end of her cycle to still get egg heavy. Of course, such a thing couldn’t happen as she wasn’t anywhere near her heat because if that were so, just two gryphon males couldn’t hope to sate her, as he had witnessed himself several times. But he didn’t have to know it, did he? The only reason why no one mentioned the mess that the second male had become after Cae had showered him with spunk was because Ran had licked him clean over the course of their trip back, which took a considerable amount of time as all four were rather tired. Morning came quick and the carpenters did a decent job fixing the carriage that had been dragged near the workshops the night before, mostly because Almay was there as incentive, both with insults for their lack of professionality and the hefty amount of coin he was wagging in their faces.

Done with the repairs, the gryphons were all strapped into their respective positions, Ran first of course, and their journey resumed immediately. Taking in consideration the lost time and all that, they’d arrive soon, though not soon enough for any of them, especially Caellus who was quite nervous and worried. A weird feeling in his gut had taken root just outside the town and it wasn’t willing to go away no matter what, which made the seven hours remaining all the more insufferable without Almay’s help at all. The hours felt like they were being grinded down by a rock, a slow, hard, and sometimes painful process that did nothing to soothe boredom. Caellus tried to stand outside, sit on the coach’s passenger seat but even that wasn’t as fun as riding Ran and he couldn’t do it because of all the straps around her body to pull the carriage. He had offered Almay to ride them to their destination when the wheel broke, but the merchant had insisted that the box itself was worth too much to just leave it there and it was his father’s favourite one among the dozen they had, before he passed away and left the company to him. So, no flight at all, not even riding them to speed things up, though Caellus suspected that the man didn’t know how to ride one without a special saddle at all or feared to do so. In a sense the two were polar opposites: one lived in the capital, surrounded by comfort, servants, leaving the travelling to others, and one was always on the move to see his clients in person, sleeping outside or on Ran’s back in flight strapped with a security belt when the trips were far too long. When he was young, Caellus’ father joked that, among the other things, having no groin and no balls to squeeze when riding a gryphon made him the best rider, and his (un)naturally strong physique all the more advantageous. One was rich and flaunted it, the other was just as rich thanks to his incredible talents but preferred not to be noticed as much. Life is a funny thing after all.

The capital was in sight at long last, after an eternity, but there was still some distance between the city and the stables where Almay kept his gryphons and horses for breeding and training: it was outside of the walls of course, where there was enough space for all of them to have some manner of exercise and freedom, under the watchful eye of a hundred humans and the occasional dwarf for maintenance and building facilities when needed. Ran sped up as soon as she heard the driver tell Almay it was but a couple miles away, almost to the point that she was single-handedly pulling the carriage and dragging along the two gryphons. A little coaxing on Caellus’ side and she was calmed down. That didn’t stop her from trying to bite her straps off when they stopped at the front gates of the stable complex though and Caellus had to step in once again to calm her down. The sight of a human handling a gryphoness her size with such ease drew just as much attention as the female in question, a few recognising what she was from the clear signs jostling under her belly. Many gathered to look and find out just who was it that brought a broodmother to the stables, including a small host of gryphons that eagerly chirped in the vain hope of wooing her. A glare and a couple of caws and the army of excited males shut up, further cementing the legend of a broodmother in the humans’ minds. It wasn’t as if her breed was a secret even among the laymen or the more inexperienced trainers, but actually seeing one live and the effect such a powerful hen had on the gryphons was another. Deep down they knew that if they behaved nicely she’d give them a chance to mate her, regardless of whether her heat was present or not and thus behave they did.

“Master Almay…” A man in his late fifties rushed over and bowed to the merchant before getting up and waiting for permission to speak, which came in the form of a casual wave of hand. “You’re early. We weren’t expecting you for another half a day at least.”

“I could have arrived a little early but a wheel of the carriage broke. See that it’s repaired fully, I do not think that the work of a carpenter from a small town can fix it properly.” The man nodded. “Is there anything I should know, Karl?”

“Yes, master…”

“What is it?” Almay frowned and urged him to speak but the man still didn’t say anything, his hands rubbing against each other nervously, visible worry on his old face. The merchant didn’t care and jammed a finger on his chest. “Listen, either you tell me or when I find out myself, I will have your hands chopped off and fed to the gryphons.” Ran snorted hearing that and the servant paled, still hesitating to speak.

“M-master, I-I know it must sound… impossible but… today one of the men, he, ehm, went to feed the… beast.” The word was whispered, meaning that the merchant hadn’t told everyone of his latest find and that probably the others were only told that a very angry and aggressive male was in there and that no one was to get near but a select few. “He… gave the beast some food and was about to get out when i-it… it talked.” Caellus cocked an eyebrow while Almay sighed, on the verge of screaming at him for saying such a stupid thing.

“Karl we are talking about a…” A little idea popped inside his head: he had a man with him that was more informed than anyone about dragons and that was there just for that very matter and he turned around to look at Caellus who, silently and discretely, nodded to him. Almay’s eyes went as wide as dinner plates when the small movement of Cae’s head translated into coherent thoughts and the anger and distrust towards his servant vanished in a puff of smoke. “Alright Karl, take me to it.” The old servant was a tad shocked that his master hadn’t screamed at him or threatened to fire the person that had claimed such a thing and instead just… believed him?

“Right away.” Decades of servitude showed themselves and Karl was up and running as a near perfect inspector once again, his hands folded behind his back, the fear of repercussion a thing of the past now. He led his master and the famous Whisperer with him to the special stables where the most aggressive of gryphons were kept. Karl was well aware of who the man was, since he was the reason why Almay had left the complex and his business right when things started to get heated up, though he didn’t understand why he called a gryphon expert for a creature like the one locked in the stables, albeit the best one of their time. “Aside from the… talking, the beast has injured one man during feeding and he was sent home with a decent remuneration and the usual disclaimer.” Almay nodded, not really worried about any injury and since there was no issue with that person leaking something to others, as the contract stated very clearly that any hint about what was inside the stable or any personal testimony after the reveal would mean a fine several dozen times greater than the remuneration for that injury. “Not much else to report aside from that.”

“Good.” The three of them stopped in front of a large building, one with steel bars at its windows, reinforced wooden beams for structural support, locks on every opening and guards at the entrance, all of whom bowed to their employer as per custom. Almay turned around to look at Caellus once more and waited. “What are you going to do once you are inside?” Caellus hesitated: he had made many plans, prepared himself mentally but at the moment he was drawing a blank picture and no good idea came to him. The silence was thankfully interpreted as deep pondering from those that knew of his role instead of panic.

“I want no one with me, no guards, no servants, doors barred, windows closed. I have to be alone in there to avoid anyone ruining my work.” And to possibly prevent someone from getting chewed up in case he failed and got chewed up first. There was a long pause and then Almay waved a hand: immediately the guards around began to slam the windows shut using the outside handles, locking access to the entrance of the area and putting a hell of a lot of distance between them and the building, sighing in relief at last. Only Caellus, Almay and Karl were left in front of the door. “I don’t know how long I will be in there, but if I knock three times very fast, you will open the doors. Anything other than that will not work.” He hoped that if things went wrong he’d have the time to get to the door and get out, it was a risk he felt like he had to take, considering how aggressive the dragon had shown himself to be and how clever he suspected he was. “Give me the key to his lock.”

“Why in hell would I ever do that?”

“Bargaining chip.” He was met with a confused stare. “I told you that he probably views himself as a prisoner, given how you treated him, so if I come in with the promise of a momentary freedom or something, I may have a little more space to work with.”

“What if it escapes?”

“I’ll take the risk and the responsibility, pay you back by training every gryphon you buy for the next five years for free, I’ll throw in even some herbs and specialistic medical assistance if needs be. Think about it.” It was hard for the merchant: he had paid a handsome sum for the dragon and the secrecy, more than for any gryphon he had ever bought or sold, hoping to make even more when the creature was trained and domesticated to be sold to a king or an emperor somewhere in the continent for enough coin to buy a small nation. But taking in account the risks he had already had to go through, the danger of not ever being able to achieve his goal and the unique skill of the man holding his hand for the key to the dragon’s collar, he had to try. Was it worth it? Hardly. Would have the best gryphon handler in the continent work for free, treat his beasts for free for five years, possibly even lend him the broodmother if he pressed the right button here and there, work as a compensation? Yes. “Thanks.” Caellus took the key and put in the secret pocket inside his shirt that he used to safekeep items when in flight.

The door was opened with extreme care and he was shoved in faster than he could have reacted or gone in himself, closed just as fast if not more in fear of some incoming tragedy. The inside of the stable was well lit, as much as a place that had just been barred shut in every sense of the word barely two minutes prior to his entrance, the lamps helped with the rest of the darkness. There was straw on the floor, watering throughs on the sides, traces of blood from prime meat cuts for the dragon all over the place and… human blood as well, on the walls. Claw marks of a size he had only seen on Ran marked the wooden beams for support and a heavy, metallic smell with undertones of soot and sandalwood topped it all off. Only the smell was nice, the rest made the environment look like a veritable jail cell that not even human prisons would tolerate and yet, a sentient creature had been trapped in there. From the far side of the stable, sounds of chains and claws dragging on the stone slabs of the floor startled Caellus and made him look at the area where the source of the noise came from and his jaw fell. The dragon wasn’t as huge as he imagined him to be, surely bigger than his gryphon but not overly so, maybe standing he’d reach seven feet at the very best, huge sure but it wasn’t the size that shocked him: a long neck stretched from his body on top of which was a head covered in the same blue scales as the rest of him, claws thicker and longer than Caellus’ finger dug small trenches into the stone and cedar planks underneath and a tail slapped against the pillars, splintering the wood. The dragon opened his mouth, revealing a set of teeth so sharp he felt his skin being cut at the mere sight and a deep, throaty rumble echoed the stable. Instantly Caellus knew the dragon was trying to scare him and it wasn’t mere instinct that said that.

“Hello, I’m Caellus, I have… come to talk.” The dragon didn’t say anything, giving the man’s heart a good run for its money as he approached, getting closer and closer. “I know you can speak, it’s no use pretending that you aren’t able to, plus a man heard you and I am aware that dragons are far more clever than most think.” Still nothing said.

Caellus frowned and plan B was set in motion: he cleaned a small patch of floor from hay and bits of wood, sat down, crossed his legs and began staring at the dragon’s emerald eyes, his mouth shut. There was a moment of confusion but then the dragon just curled his wings over his head and ignored the man. Caellus smiled and took out a very tiny drawing pad with an inky black stick and began to draw: he had always wanted to see a dragon from up close and now he could, whether he would respond or do anything was to be seen but for now, he just drew. Every scale, every muscle, every curve of a body so perfect, slender, lean and made to tear through the air like a hot knife through butter. The book didn’t have much in the way of drawings, no details nor full body pictures, merely settling for descriptions and small notations and just that was enough to make it worth more than its weight in gold, with the addition of his work, it could go for far more than that. Caellus drew and drew, slowly, silently to the point that the dragon lifted his wing and stared at him, giving the chance to draw his irises and eyes. That seemed to piss him off and, after a deep breath, he roared, the chain and collar shaking under the force, maw open and some spit flying about the room. Outside some were scared shitless but Caellus kept drawing, now going over his teeth, counting them even, not scared at all.

“What… do… you… want?” The words were a mere hiss coming from that maw, but it marked the success of his plan: annoy the dragon by doing absolutely nothing. Everyone was scared and showed some reaction, so he’d not show any, see if it worked. He smiled and put down the charcoal stick.

“I told you I want to talk.” Smoke came out of the dragon’s nostrils a moment later.

“I talked, now fuck off.” The same wing was draped back again over his head and silence fell in the stable once more, Caellus resuming his drawing soon. Less than a minute later, the dragon peeked from the gaps in his shield and scoffed loudly enough for a cloud of thick smoke that smelled of burnt wood to flood the stable. “I said fuck off.”

“No.” Caellus smiled and kept drawing.

“Do you want me to kill you? Eat your heart? I can do that with ease: humans are so fragile, weak, soft. I could eat one of you a day.”

“Then kill me, I am here and I dare you to try.” The dragon’s eyes widened as his pupils thinned, becoming smaller than a hair, his maw open, teeth bared and nothing happened: the bluff had been called. Caellus knew how long the chain was because no intelligent owner would make it long enough for it to be useless and allowing a dangerous creature to have far more reach than needed when training. Though unfamiliar with dragons, he wasn’t some newbie at the first day on their job and he wasn’t about to lose his cool. “I see. Look… I have come here to mediate your side with the man that bought you and until we talk like civil beings, I am not moving.” He was used to spending long days with stubborn gryphons, especially older ones that didn’t like to be around humans, this was vastly different but the principle remained. “So, what will it be? You can talk with me or you can stay silent. I have… about a hundred more pages to fill in and I bet I…”

“Fine. We’ll talk.” The creature was clearly displeased but locked up and essentially forced to stay there with a man that didn’t appear to be interesting in leaving anytime soon, he had little choice in the matter. A very particular thing.

“How old are you?” The question was far weirder than the dragon had imagined and left him speechless for a few moment.

“A hundred and fifty years old.”

“Liar, liar.” Caellus smiled at the confused expression of the creature and pointed at the horns on his head and then right behind his jaw with a finger. “Your horns are still small and behind here you do not have any barbs, meaning you are too young and a liar, at the very best you’d be a late but still… twenty… twenty nine years old.” Another smile left the dragon all the more shocked at the realization that the man wasn’t as clueless as the others. “You see, my father met one of you back in the day, chatted a lot, learned some things here and there, so I’d advise against lying to me since I have the keys to your freedom.” He patted his chest where the key was, hinting both at a real thing and at a more metaphysical concept. “So, let us start again, fresh slate: what’s your name?” There was more silence, minutes passing without anyone saying anything, Caellus made to grab the drawing pad once more.

“Dai, name’s Dai.” The human smiled.

“Good, that wasn’t hard, was it? Why is such a young dragon alone? How did you get captured?”

“Trap: they followed me where I lived, set up rocks to fall on me when I’d come back, hit my wing and got knocked out cold. I lived, but with a broken wing and a concussion they felt it was more… profitable to sell me to some other human.” Memories flashed inside Dai’s mind and an ugly expression twisted the already scary visage he had. He snorted and the floor was flooded with even blacker smoke. “Chained me to a hundred different walls from there to here for the past two months, fed me raw meat of such bad quality I would have preferred to chew on sewer rats and had me drink from those… things, like some common animal.” His tail lashed out, snapping against a watering trough and shattering the fragile wood in a million splinters. “Ordered me around, tried to have me sit and obey without even asking me if I could talk!”

“Why didn’t you talk then? Show them that you could?”

“And have them actually attempt to convince me to be their slave? Better let them think I was some dumb aggressive beast rather than that, clearly they never thought of me as anything more. At least they left me alone once I started hurting them. Would have burned the whole place down had I been older.”

“But you are not of age yet, and you don’t know how to spit fire or use magic I assume.”

“You are… well informed. It’s weird to speak to you.” Dai slumped on the floor, limbs limp on the cold stone, huffing smoke all over the place, the only thing his still immature body could do. “And it is damn annoying too: you know I am young, can’t breathe fire nor use magic, you know something about me and you have the key to this goddamn lock. I could rip your face out were it not for that.”

“Are you really that violent Dai? Or is it just the anger speaking? Am I talking to a beast that just so happens to be able to speak or what?” The dragon opened his maw to speak but no sound came out. “I know you are angry, scared maybe, tired of sleeping on the floor like that, but unless you behave and try to at least talk to me without threatening, I am not going to help you get out of those chains, am I being clear?” More silence, then Dai nodded. “Alright.” Progress tasted sweet, so very sweet and the excitement of being able to see it on such a different creature made Caellus’ heart beat faster. He inched closer. “Now, Dai, do you know of a dragoness called… Brianna? She looks like this.” Cae pulled out an old and worn piece of paper from a hidden compartment inside the notebook he held and presented it to the dragon. He saw Dai’s head snap towards him with the force of a whip, pure shock and surprise plastered on the scaly muzzle once his eyes had a good look at the paper and the drawing of the emerald dragoness on it, so evident even he understood it at a glance. “You do know her…”

“I-I do, yes but… how do you know? You’re a human!”

“My father, he was the one who met her, years ago, before I was born, she explained everything about dragons to him and he left me a book to learn about your kind after he died. I wanted to thank her for helping my dad.”

“How did they meet?” Dai asked and Caellus hesitated. “No backing down, you asked an awful amount of questions to me, now it’s my turn to get some in.”

“Alright, I suppose you deserve it, but… I want you to tell me where she is right now, if you do know.” The man sighed heavily, scratching his neck for long moments. “She was injured, badly: in avoiding a ballista bolt some hunters had shot at her, she crashed inside a forest, the broken top of a tree had made a mess of her flank, ripping scale and muscle, her wing shattered almost completely. She was dying but… in the same forest lived my father, where he raised horses and cattle, tended to some animals that were brought to him every now and then. She collapsed on his front porch and fainted, my father didn’t know jack shit about dragons, he was scared that she’d eat him given how gruesome are the legends about you around these parts. The details are all messed up but it seems he did his best and over the course of… several months and eventually an entire year, she got better and better, they talked and dad began to write his book in the hopes of selling it for an obscene amount of money. One day she just disappeared, leaving behind nothing, dad decided not to let the book known by anyone and asked me not to show it to anyone who wasn’t worth it. It was a memory of her and selling it would have been a great waste.” Caellus did show it to Almay but he had his reasons after all. “I just want to talk to her, ask her about my dad when he was younger, that sort of thing.” Dai seemed captivated by the story, listening very carefully to each word he said. “That’s about it. He didn’t really tell me much about her to be honest: I was too young at first and then he was too old to remember most of the time, read the damn book to help himself when he forgot the most important parts.” He paused for a moment. “How do you know about her?”

“Truth be told, I don’t know much either: I have seen her for a brief amount of time when I was still a hatchling and it was only because of my mother who told me about her at a later date that I have something more than just a memory. My mother and her were more than mere friends, lived together for a long while. What I remember of Brianna is fuzzy, but something I know and that is that she decided to follow the tradition to go out of the clan and the region she lived in much like I did. It is very risky as you have realized by now, that, or me and her have a terrible luck, to end up like this, in the hands of humans. Mother told that she never heard of her for years and when she finally came back one day, she was weaker than before and with a huge scar on her flank that made flight painful and exhausting. She told us she missed us so much that she wanted to come and say hello, told us of someone that helped her heal as best as they could while she was gone, never said who it was or… that it wasn’t a dragon that did it.” The beast raised his head and looked at the human, searching for signs of anything in the man’s eyes, on his face, traces of something he himself didn’t know. “She… died as she was flying back to her new home.” Cae’s hands tightened, fists so clenched they were white. “A storm caught her mid-flight, her wound flared all of a sudden, she lost control and my mother and my father had to drag her back to their lair. She didn’t ever recover and the wound only got worse with time.” Both of them had heavy feelings in their hearts and showed it clearly, no masks, no pretending about it, in a sense, they understood each other. “I’m thirty five, keep that in mind.” Caellus felt that the last part was a little out of place but he didn’t really care and got up, taking the key from his hidden pocket and walked over to Dai. “What are you doing?” The human held the metal piece in hand and inserted it in the complex lock of the collar around Dai’s neck. A moment later, the ten pound block of metal fell to the ground with a heavy thud and dented the few wooden boards still not broken as Caellus unlocked the dragon’s limbs and wings. “What… why?”

“I got what I wanted from you.”

“What?”

“I came here because I heard of a dragon and wanted to ask you if you knew her. I never expected you to know anything, I was prepared to let you go anyway if you proved not to be dangerous. No one should be a slave of anyone, much less that annoying prick outside.”

“I could still be a danger.”

“Yes but… I doubt anyone could fake tears like that.” He pointed a small drop forming under the dragon’s eyes, sparkling in the lamp lights, which Dai promptly wiped. “I pride myself in being a good judge of character and I feel that you’re a good dragon, much better than the human who employed me. Please don’t make me regret doing this.” Dai got up, stretching his limbs after what felt like forever even for a creature that could easily live for hundreds of years, every bone and joint that could pop, popped and made the dragon hiss in relief. Then, a weird glint flashed in his eyes and, with a swipe followed by a groan and a thud, Caellus was on the floor, a heavy paw pressing against his chest, pinning him down. “Do I need to scream?” Dai didn’t utter a single word and closed in: his eyes were so near the human’s each could make out the tiniest details, the dragon’s breath washing over him, smelling of ash and sandalwood. “Do I?”

“Shut up for a moment.” Dai closed his eyes and took a deep breath, nostrils flaring, several seconds went by and the only sound was that of air flooding his lungs. “I thought I noticed something off as soon as you came here and closed the doors: you smell weird, a good weird…”

“Thanks? I always smell like this, it makes the animals calm down around me. Must be the soap I use.” The dragon cocked an eyebrow, as much as a dragon can. “Is there something I have to do to take you off me? Do I have to ask and say pretty please?” Dai growled and opened his maw, globs of saliva began to drip on the human’s face and the fear that he had forgotten surfaced again as teeth far sharper than swords latched onto his shirt and began to tear it apart. Caellus paled, worrying he had indeed made a mistake, judged the dragon wrongly, shivering when the hot breath washed over his chest and lower, his clothes ripped by claw and tooth, until his entire torso was bared. At the sight of the pale green scales that littered the pink skin, Dai snorted and with his claws tore apart his pants. Ashamed, scared, Caellus tried to cover his nethers, but the dragon’s paws pinned his arms down and the far longer neck allowed him to inspect the area, the huffs and puff of his breath sending the man into a weird state. “I knew you had something different about you, but I didn’t expect it to be this different.” Dai grinned wide. “Guess you dad didn’t just talk with Brianna, did he?” Caellus didn’t say anything, prompting the dragon into giving his slit a long lick, the taste of a male, so very similar to his own in a way, settling on his tongue. The smell of the human spread around the stable, now that he was essentially naked and the one of the dragon thickened ever so slightly. “I’ll tell you a secret that not even you know: Brianna isn’t the name she used to give to other dragons, it was the name she gave herself, it was her identity, her true name, something she’d never have given a random human, no matter how in debt she felt towards him: it’s something for family, trusted friends and… lovers.” Dai smirked even more his tail folded between his legs, teasing the man’s slit, prodding his depths.

“Alright, fine! She’s my mother!” Caellus blushed, a secret only two people in the world had known and then only he, laid bare before the dragon. “They fell in love, vowed to be together forever, raise me, then she disappeared but I couldn’t find her no matter what, no traces of her anywhere, no one saw a dragoness fly around. I came to ask you because I wanted to see her: I was three when she left, I barely remember what she was like, her voice, dad has this one picture and a lot of memories but that was it.” The man felt Dai’s paws move away from his arms, leaving him free to move and yet he couldn’t, too embarrassed to do so, the dragon moving lower until his muzzle was met with his slit. “What are you…” His breath leaved him when Dai’s tongue plunged inside him, spreading his slit wide, going deeper and deeper, letting the man feel the very sharp ends of those teeth, prickling his skin as more of that broad tongue slipped inside him, “Wh…” Caellus arched his back when the dragon’s impossibly long muscle latched onto his hidden member, tugging and pulling, making him squirm in a pleasure he didn’t know was possible, the fluids of his slit flowing freely around the tongue, oversaturating the taste buds with a flavour that made the dragon grow. “Why?” Dai slowly pulled out his cock, tongue still coiled around it, tasting his very essence, slathering it in his saliva, leaving him breathless and begging for air in the increasingly heavy atmosphere of the stable. Dai licked his stiff lips, pressing his snout against the hard member right where it emerged, where the musk of a male was stronger.

“I wanted to know the dragon in you, simple as that plus I don’t like this air of… sadness and lost chances.” Caellus wanted to say something but words were hard. “I saw the human, talked to him, he talked to me, told me his story and I listened. Now I want to feel the other you, but since he’s… hiding, I had to coax him out. Of course, I won’t be shy: there are few ways better for a dragon to know another than to do this.” Dai gave him another smirk and slowly turned around, the heavy steps echoing like thunder in Cae’s ears and heart, only becoming stronger when the haunches of the creature were right above him, his head nestled under the male’s nethers. The dragon was aroused himself and Cae could only blush more: he was hung for a male, though not in a human way, but Dai was ridiculous. A cock the length of his entire arm, thicker than his own at the base, more ridges populating the girthy underside, more fluids making it shine in the light of the lamps, three feet of pure draconic shaft, bobbing up and down in front of him. Dai was long and stretchy enough to be able to lick the human’s inhuman tool and present his own to the man, the tip practically shoved on his face, spewing globs of pre so musky and dense that Cae shivered, but a tiny drop slipping in his mouth and setting his tongue aflame. “Come on, you may not know what to do, but I am sure part of you does, listen to the dragon inside you.” The dragon put his snout back on the human’s cock, taking in the scent once more, his tongue lapping at the slit fluids and the pre that he leaked from the tip. “Small for one of us, though for a human you must be very impressive.” Cae wasn’t sure whether to be proud of ashamed of what was going on but deep down, somewhere in a corner of his mind, things began to click in position, his hands moving on their own to stroke the immense length swaying fat on top of him, drawing a pleased hiss from the dragon. “There you go.” Dai opened his maw and took in the human’s cock, carefully avoiding his teeth, suckling on the hard flesh with sloppy sounds. Cae shivered, his back arched and relaxed, his hands squeezing over the throbbing mast time and time again, making the dragon squirt ropes of pre all over his stomach and his own scales until both were a slick mess. Cae’s tongue slithered out of his mouth, unable to be stopped and licked the fluids that pooled around the base of Dai’s cock, his taste buds lighting up once again with pleasure untold, drawing him to lick harder, with broader strokes, making him more daring and swallowing the first few inches of shaft inside his throat with unnatural ease, the soft flesh parting around the tip, massaging it. “Fuck… very good… for a human…”

Dai was having a hard time not spilling his seed: hands weren’t a real thing among dragons and so the stimulation those tiny things gave him were far harder to resist, each finger a smaller tongue that stoked the fire inside him and every squeeze reminding him of a wet female eager to be bred. The smell was getting intoxicating for each of them, a cloud of lust so dense and virile not even the dragon was immune to it, so different from a usual draconic rut, lighter but stronger at the same time, somehow far more addicting than a female’s heat in its own way. The dragon rocked his hips, forcing his cock deeper inside the human’s mouth, bulging his throat so much that the ridges were more than visible, each pump of his hips followed by a lewd series of squelches and slurps as his own mouth sloppily sucked on the entirety of the human tool. Both Dai and Cae were lost in their respective little heavens made of musk, slitfluids, cocks and gushes of preseed, the smells and tastes of the other’s girthy shafts thickening with each second. Outside nothing could be heard because everyone was far too scared to listen closely, but if they did, they’d hear soft moans and grunts as each pumped their cock inside a wet, welcoming maw. Cae was the first to spill, his cock lurching, bulging out obscenely with seed, filling up the large draconic maw with his lust, dense goopy ropes splattering on Dai’s tongue, triggering the dragon’s own release. The pressure of the larger cock made it fly out of the human’s throat, the first shot landing inside but the other were all outside, rope after rope, sticky, musky, salty, potent beyond anything, coming without end. Dai shivered, his claws digging into the stone underneath, his shaft flexing with every pump, utterly coating his belly and the entirety of the human that gripped his length, stroking it to further heighten his pleasure, to make him release more spunk. Minutes went by and the mess growing and pooling around the two only grew bigger and more dense, the dragon coming over and over without an end in sight, only to shoot one last spurt, weak and feeble, onto the utterly soaked human below, who opened his mouth once again to welcome it inside, the taste lingering around even after he had swallowed several large gulps of the stuff. Dai was panting, his muscles were shaking in the aftermath of his release but still his cock wasn’t softening and neither was Cae’s. The dragon rolled him over inside the puddle of their lust and helped him get up.

“Are you dragon enough to go again or will you chicken out?” Dai threw in the challenge and grinned wide, the ropes of drying spunk on his muzzle giving him a far less dignified expression than he had imagined for himself. Cae nodded, almost out of breath. The dragon shoved him aside with a push of his hips, giving himself some room to move in and bent down low, his tail curled up, pushing his slit lips apart and baring his tailhole to the man. “Then prove it to me.” Cae swallowed a glob of saliva and another mouthful of seed, his heat skipping a beat. “I know you do not hate laying with a male, no sane dragon would ever say no as long as it feels good.” The human suddenly understood why he never found anything wrong with liking men whereas most of the human society seemed to retch at the mere idea, maybe that was also the reason why he had accepted Ran’s advances all the way back then, but it mattered little at the moment, because there was only him and a dragon willing to bottom for him.

“You’re… such a magnificent creature.” He almost hugged the wide rump, feeling the hardened muscle give in around him, sturdy scales feeling like feathers under his touch, his cock rubbing against the base of Dai’s own. “Perfect beyond anything man knows.”

“Shut up, leave the compliments after you drain yourself inside me.”

“Why… why are you doing this?”

“Does it matter?” Dai craned his neck to look at the human who shrugged. “Then start rutting me like the hen that I smelled on you.” Cae blushed a little and felt the dragon chuckle, a deep guttural sound that made his very core shake, while he rubbed his rump against the man’s chest.

Cae took a deep breath and pressed his nose against that soft rim, not so subtly sniffing at the heavy leathery musk that overpowered the one in the air, no traces of anything foul anywhere, not even at a weak tentative taste that sent the man in fourth gear instantly. Whereas he had been familiar with the taste of seed and his own length, having been alone for far too long and being far too well-endowed not to try, he had never been interested in tailholes, too dirty for him, but the dragon’s slickened hole was far from dirty. It smelled heavenly, delicate in comparison to the choking stench of his cock, but it was wildly more enticing. Though he wanted to spend hours with his nose smushed against it, his cock had its own needs. Dai lowered himself again, his shaft bobbing heavily under the effects of gravity, flinging ropes of spent seed all over the place, his neck craning so that his tip barely entered his own maw, tongue lapping at his flesh. As Cae gave his first thrust, that shaft was pushed inside, spreading the taste of spunk and human saliva over the dragon’s taste buds as the shape of that cock spread him and made Dai feel every ridge he had. It wasn’t the first time he had bottomed but, just as everything else the human had done to him, there was something different in how he did it: his thrusts were weak compared to the last dragon he bedded, not sending him on the ground or making his hips sore with sheer force, but careful, methodical pumps, hitting all the right spots and some that he didn’t know he had. The man’s hands once again reached for his cock, squeezing the far too wide base, prodding the slit lips with a finger or two, slapping his rump every now and then, making Dai feel like some flimsy female at her first heat, knees weak and wobbly. The shaft in his maw wasn’t nearly as feminine though, despite the hefty climax that unloaded months’ worth of pent up stress, he was still hard and unloading pre by the mugful down his very own throat. Sensitive from their fist climax, it didn’t take long for them to come once again, this time their cocks spurting freely inside a willing hole rather than wasting everything outside, both ends of the dragon filled up by gallons of spunk. His stomach bloated and so did his bowels, splatters of seed hitting Cae’s belly and crotch time and time again until he pulled out and a small flood of white stuff flowed from the ruined tailhole, splattering loudly on the floor. Dai came more once again, a mere two minutes this time, his throat hard at work not to spill even the last of his spurts and drank it all down. At the very end, both were tired, smelly, wet and covered with layers of seed, one from head to toe, the other merely all over his belly and still leaking from his tailhole like a well-bred hen.

“See? Nothing better than sex to understand what a dragon really is.” Dai smiled, licking several strands of spunk from his hair.

“I still think there might be a better way.”

“Content with only sniffing my tailhole? If you’d like…” the dragon raised his tail once again, wagging his soiled behind to the man. “But I think we might have to leave it for today.” He looked at the mess they had made with pride and worry. “As pleasing as it was, I doubt we can explain what happened here.”

“There are water hoses for cleaning somewhere around here, they use them to mop up gryphon waste down the drains over there. Sometimes they are necessary.” Dai didn’t feel like inquiring further as to what that meant and instead smiled, hopping over to a pillar and hiking his hindleg out, his softening cock letting out a warm stream of waste all over the wall. “What are you doing?”

“I needed to go and since you said that there are hoses to clean I felt like going right now. Up until now I was led outside at night with pikes and crossbows aimed at my face. It is quite hard to relieve yourself under the eyes of a dozen men armed to the teeth.” Cae looked in some manner of disbelief as the dragon pissed all over the place, probably in defiance of the owner of the place among other things and then sighed, choosing a corner for himself before plugging one the pigskin hoses and hooking it up to the water system. A jet of cold water hit the dragon first and then moved to the floors and the walls, washing away the spunk and recent waste from every surface, not before the dragon let him know of his complaints for the cold water on his bits.

“Oh, shut up, we need to clean ourselves as well.” He pumped more water and dumped it all over his head, shivering at the feeling but relieved that he’d not come out looking like an orgy of gryphons in rut had used his entire being as a toy.

“I’d be in favour of a nice tongue bath, much more pleasing.” Dai gave the human a long lick that casually ended right around his slit, the pesky tongue slithering inside just a few inches before Cae moved the stream on the dragon’s muzzle. “Argh! Stop it!” After a while he stopped complaining and just accepted the boring way of bathing, only stopping to praise the man’s expert hands. “I can trust you now, more so than before.”

“A weird way to do it.”

“It’s just how we run: baring yourself to someone, giving them everything you have, shows trust, friendship and is one hell of a way to relax. Of course, I won’t raise my tail for just anyone, especially not rude males or any human other than you.” Cae chuckled, not sure whether to be honoured or embarrassed by his actions. “Now what?”

“Well, you’re free, I could free you, let you go. Almay would skin my ass but I promised him to train his gryphons for five years in case things went terribly wrong. I can live with that, it’s not like it isn’t my job anyways and I have more than enough coin to pay for food and expenses for twice that amount of time.” He didn’t just throw in that proposal willy-nilly: he had already made the plan when he had heard the word ‘dragon’ all the way back at his house. “You will be free to go back to your family.”

“I can’t…” Silence fell on the stable, only the sound of water running over the floor and wiping dense spunk down the drain could be heard. “I left home because it was time to do so, explore the world, I literally cannot go back for a few years at the very least. I was supposed to search for a companion or a mate down the coast where water dragons live, maybe settle down, have a few eggs, move on after a decade, pop back home to say hi…” He sighed. “My wing is fine now, but I am not in the mood to fly for hours on end, much less to go searching blindly for love.”

“You could stay at my house.” Dai looked at the man. “I have space, a giant bed inside my house for my gryphoness, she won’t like sharing but I can hire some workers and expand it.”

“Why?”

“Well… I don’t know. I guess I like you that much.” Dragon sex worked wonders… “We still have to find out how to get you out of here first though but I may have an idea…”

Five hours after Caellus had gone in, aside from some weird sounds, nothing major had happened and Almay was beginning to worry and tempted to open the doors and see what was going on in there, but true to his words and some fear, he hadn’t even come close nor had his guards. He waited, had dinner, wine and a coffee, and still inside the man he had hired wasn’t giving signs of wanting to go out. Either he was dead or he was making some sort of progress, he hoped. Then, three knocks broke the calmness of the area, three more and the guards were on their feet, three more and everyone was at the doors, ready to open them and free the man, a hero, a brave soul like no other in the world. But it was no man that came out: a dense cloud of black smoke filled the entire front of the stables, thick, forcing everyone that didn’t inhale it to back down as those that did began to cough their soul out. The night was dark and without a moon, the light of the torches outside wasn’t enough to light everything up decently and so the figure of the blue dragon, marching out, growling, teeth bared, claws scraping the ground, only looked more fierce than naturally possible. Cloaked in a cloud of darkness, the dragon opened his wings and took flight just as Caellus rushed out, covered in cuts and scratches on every inch of his body, barefoot and naked as one could get.

“Stop it!” He chased the dragon for a few steps before giving up, the creature was already too far and the night too dark to see where it might have gone. “Come back you fucker!” Anger could be felt on the skin of everyone present.

“Caellus! What the fuck happened? Why is my dragon flying away and why are you naked?” The man turned around, furious, fist tightened so much they were white. “You’d better tell me before I get the guards to convince you to…”

“Shut the fuck up!” Caellus shouted, startling everyone that was watching. “Everything was going fine: he was responding to my words, he was receptive, calm even… but I was too careless! I had put the key out of his reach but he pinned me down and used magic to bind me, I fought and tried to convince him not to but the son of a bitch cursed me!” He pointed at his crotch where, to the horror of anyone around and to the sounds of a few vomiting their dinner on the grass, more than a dozen pairs of eyes settled onto a smooth, scaly cleft. “He stole my dick!” Almay had some doubts before: maybe the man wanted the dragon for himself, maybe there was something afoot but no man would willingly lose his manhood. His own stomach twisted and every man reached for their own family jewels and found relief in knowing they were still there. It didn’t help with the feeling of seeing a man without them. “He said he’d give it back if I freed him, so I said yes but he still flew away! Fuck!” Deep down Caellus was laughing, both at them and at himself: he had kept the secret for thirty years and now he had basically walked naked in front of a crowd to save a dragon he had met a few hours before and he didn’t mind at all. He could rest easy because now he had an explanation for his ‘condition’ and even if someone were to find about it, ‘a dragon stole my dick’ was far more believable than ‘ my father fell in love with a dragon and I hatched from an egg like a damn chicken’. Hopefully. “I am sorry but after this, I want nothing to do with you! Ran! Come, we’re leaving.” The broodmother rushed to the rescue and Caellus hopped on her back as per usual and as she took flight and left the other men behind, he could do little than break into laughter. The hen didn’t know what this was about but she cared little, now that she could finally go home.

Caellus laughed till his lungs hurt more from that than the lack of oxygen or the cold air, wheezing, slapping his thighs, happy that everything had gone as planned and immensely relieved that he had come out as not entirely human even though the reason was much different. It was straight out of a bad joke a drunkard made.

The trip back was far shorter by air, a mere four hours instead of almost two days, the winds seemingly helping them out of their own personal amusement for what had just happened on the ground. Caellus dozed off on her back, used to sleep like that from time to time and the gryphoness knew to slow down a little and to control her movements when he did, letting him rest for a little while, in a way that no other human could even imagine possible. She landed right in front of their house and Caellus hopped off, stretching every muscle on his body that screamed and protested while the hen picked up a curious smell on her human. She began to sniff at him, licking his wounds softly, easing his pain, but that smell kept annoying her: it was as if he had went through a crowd of other Caelluses and they all had sex together. As much as she liked it, she knew it wasn’t his. Then the owner of the scent appeared from under the bushes of one of the trees around the house, smiling. Ran screeched and put her body between his and the dragon’s, talons clawing at the ground, wings open wide to make herself look bigger and stronger than she was, an act she hadn’t done since she had outgrown every other gryphon in existence.

“Calm down you silly bird, he’s a friend.” She didn’t believe him: her human smelled like him and he smelled of her human. It didn’t take much for her to understand and rage filled her clever little brain: Ran pulled him closer and rubbed her snatch on his bare chest, marking him as her own once again, chest fur puffed to let the dragon know she was in charge. “Sorry, she’s not used to having to contend with others.”

“I do not mind, I am sure she’ll come around.” Dai let a small hint of cock peek out from his slit, sure that the sight would at least arouse the interest of the hen which worked, more or less: her nose picked up the thickening musk and that clearly made her a tad more mellow but at the same time the confusion and the fact that he wasn’t human annoyed her beyond anything else. “But that doesn’t matter now, I have to thank you for helping me escape.” The dragon closed in and licked his face, Ran hurrying up to lick him back on the other side, trying to shoo the bigger creature away from her human. “When my parents found out that Brianna had left all those years ago, they were worried sick, searched all over the country and went as far as the ocean to the north for her but to no avail, mother was afraid she had lost her sister and father his second wife. The day she came back was one of joy but she never seemed to be as happy as before, she never did tell what happened while she was gone and I am deeply sorry she did the same thing to your father before she took off to come to us, maybe it was just the way she was.” Caellus was confused: had he heard wrong or was the dragon messing with him? Dai chuckled, licking his face over and over. “But now I am relieved and happy to learn she was happy while she was here and that she made a family for herself. Our father will be so happy when he learns she left behind a son. Sorry to have kept the fact that your mother and mine were sisters by the way, take it as a payback for not being honest with me when you asked me of Brianna. That said… welcome to the family, little brother.”