A very long overdue story for featuring Napther! Everyone's favorite, loveable, and hungry kaiju dragon. And for a change this time, it's not Azar who's getting bigger, but Napther himself! How will our hero deal with a growing friend who's focused only on eating?

Art by the always awesome


“Hurry! Hurry! He’s going to be arriving to the city any minute. Everything needs to be here before he arrives.”

All around Azar was a flurry of movement. Carts of food were being wheeled in from what seemed like all over the city. And at the center of it all was the white dragon, trying to direct everyone as best as he could. He had spent all day getting this feast ready. Most people who passed by assumed that Azar was preparing for some sort of massive group gathering, but that was far from the case.

As he was busy pointing to where the latest cart of pastries needed to be set up, Azar felt someone tapping his leg for his attention. Looking down, he spotted a rather young, blonde-haired elf woman standing next to him. From what he could recall, her name was Layla and she was one of the group managers he had helping him organize everything this day. “Sir Azarosna, I’m confused. You said this was all for a friend of yours. Yet you seem so nervous. Is there something wrong? Is he not your friend?” she asked.

Azar shook his head before taking a moment to tell one of the crews to move the barrels of drink more to the left so that there was room for another table that needed to be filled up. “Oh, he most certainly is my friend. A very good once I’ve known for quite some time now. It’s just that…well, if he’s not well fed on his visits here he may get bored. And if he gets bored, he gets hungry. And if he gets hungry, then it’s a real problem when he starts navigating the city in search of food. He doesn’t exactly fit down most streets well, and the last time he was here several buildings were damaged just by him passing by,” he explained to the elf.

Layla took a moment to look around at everything Azar had gathered for his friend’s arrival. The Dragon Knight and inventor of fame had cleared out the entire city square of the southeast side of the city and had packed it all with table upon table of food. The feast looked like it could feed an army. Yet Azar had managed to pay every bakery, restaurant, farm, and shop he could to bring food out for this event. The elf was having a hard time imagining that one dragon could eat so much.

The dragon’s tail suddenly flicked out as he looked over to the clock tower in the distance. “He’s going to be arriving soon! I have to get to get to the keep,” he said, starting to tip-toe his way past all the people carrying various foods around him.

“Is he not coming straight here?” Layla asked, trying to keep up with Azar.

“There’s no room for him to land here without knocking everything over with his wings. I told him to meet me at the Keep where there’s room in the courtyard and I’d lead him down the streets that he’ll fit in to get here. Think you can handle managing everyone to finish up here while I’m gone?” the dragon asked Layla as he finally broke free of the crowd of people.

The elf gave a smile and nodded, using a bit of magic of her own to float a clipboard with a checklist over to her. “I think I can manage. Good luck!” she said before waving Azar off as he made his way to the Keep.

The white dragon hurried through the streets, and up the large causeway that led to the Dragon Knights Keep at the center of St. Heimself. And he arrived not a minute too soon. The moment he was in the courtyard, Azar heard the beating of wings and a roar of greeting. Well, less of a roar and more of something that sounded like “skreeooonk!”

Napther always did have a very impressive and unique roar.

Looking up, Azar spotted the blue and gold dragon swooping in quickly. He took a few steps back to give his friend even more room. Another few seconds and Napther landed with a loud thump that practically shook the grounds of the Keep.

After landing, the blue dragon rose back up and the hard plates that ran along his back and limbs clicked into place with each muscle motion. Napther was several feet taller than Azar was, and even more-so in width. Napther’s species of dragon was one Azar had never heard or seen before in his life, and so far only knew of Napther as the only one.
Something called a “kaiju dragon”. Part of the blue dragon’s uniqueness was that he was always on the tubby side. The yellow plates that covered his friend’s belly hung low, almost to his knees. And his sides bulged out to give Napther a more barrel bodied appearance. Part of his friend’s “puffy” appearance had to do with inflating hydrogen gas in his stomach that allowed for flight on a dragon with such heavy plating all over his body.

Though the extra weight came strictly from Napther’s love of food.

"Azar! There’s the Dragon Knight I was looking forward to seeing!” Napther boomed out as he took several heavy stomps closer to Azar. The white dragon just grinned and nodded.

“It’s great to see you again Napther. It feels like it’s been so long since you were last here at the city. I’m glad you could find time to come back,” he said, motioning for Napther to start following him.

“Getting here is a lot tougher than it looks. And the flight’s a rather long one. But I couldn’t miss out on another chance to dine on St. Heimself food. Definitely some of the best in the land,” Napther said, licking his maw hungrily as he started to follow Azar.

“I thought you might say that. So for this special occasion, I arranged a feast just for you. And a bit for me too. But mostly for you,” Azar told him with a chuckle.

Napther grinned at the thought of a feast, his stomach rumbling in anticipation. “I knew you’d treat me to something nice. But where is this feast? And where are we going?” he asked, looking around as the two descended the causeway back into the city.

“Well I couldn’t fit all the food at the Keep’s courtyard. Then there wouldn’t be room for you and me. So I set the feast in one of the city squares, not too far away, so you wouldn’t blow it all over when you flew in,” the white dragon explained.

Napther’s green eyes widened, and he could feel his hunger rising. A feast that had to take up a whole city square? In a city like St. Heimself, that had to be a lot. Napther’s hunger was practically legendary, and he was glad to hear that his friend was providing his belly with much needed, if extensive, sustenance. “I can’t wait,” he said eagerly as they started navigating the city streets.

As he had explained to Layla, Azar took Napther down the largest streets that would lead back to the Southeastern square. As they walked, Azar was explaining how the city had been since Napther had last visited. What changes had happened, what projects the white dragon had been working on and completed, and what else he had been up to since the two were last together.

Napther listened of course, but his mind started to get distracted when he began catching the scent of food. A lot of food actually. It made him even more eager to see what Azar had prepared for him, but was also making him even hungrier. He wasn’t sure if he was going to make it to the feast without a snack!

However, luck seemed to be on Napther’s side that afternoon. As the two dragons were making their way down one of the longer streets on their path, Napther caught sight of someone approaching them holding something. The blue dragon’s keen eyes quickly picked up that the food in hand was a pie.

The stranger was covered in a cloak, hiding their identity, but must have noticed Napther’s staring. Whoever it was quickly passed Azar and walked straight up to Napther, offering the pie up to him. Azar was so busy talking that he didn’t even notice Napther had a visitor. A visitor with food no less! What could be better?

The dragon smiled and bowed his head in thanks to the stranger for the treat, figuring that he was being offered the pie out of some sort of respect the stranger had for dragons. He would question why Azar wasn’t offered any later when he wasn’t so hungry. With one quick snap of his jaws, Napther devoured the pie whole. “Mmm…apple,” he said before thanking the stranger once more and going to quickly catch up with Azar.

The pie was little more than a light snack for Napther, but he figured it would hold him over until he was at the feast. However, after only a few more blocks, Napther’s hunger started growing again. Not only growing, but practically exploding! This was the kind of hunger that needed to fed, and it needed to be fed right away!

Once again, Napther didn’t think he’d make it to the feast. He needed something to eat and he needed it now. Azar was still talking, explaining some sort of new invention he had come up with. Something about using steam-powered toothbrush device that would automatically move in brushing motions so that people didn’t have to do it themselves, yet he couldn’t figure out how to keep the steam exhaust from burning people’s faces when they used it.

Napther took Azar’s distraction to his advantage. As the two passed by a small fruit stand, who’s owner appeared to have left for the afternoon, Napther quickly swooped his jaws down and ate up two whole boxes of the fruit. He didn’t even bother spitting out the wood of the boxes, but ate it all. One of the kaiju dragon’s special traits was the ability to eat and digest almost anything.

Napther glanced back to Azar, making sure his friend hadn’t heard that. When it looked like he was clear, the kaiju dragon began grazing along whatever food items he came by on the streets. He was fortunate in that they passed by several other food stands, as well as a few carts that appeared to be getting loaded up with food for some sort of event.
Napther ate them all, not caring if people were starting to notice. The more he ate, the fuzzier his head felt and the hungrier he became. Something was definitely wrong, yet Napther’s mind was so consumed with hunger that he couldn’t focus on figuring out what was happening to him.

Yet just eating food was not the only problem happening. After every quick meal Napther managed to swipe up, his body grew a few more inches to a foot bigger. Another stand, another foot. Another cart half-full of food, and another foot. His growth was not contained to just his belly, which itself had started to round out more and sag, but his whole body was being affected.

Yet even as he noticed he was getting bigger and bigger, Napther didn’t stop. He was so consumed by hunger by this point that he had forgotten why he was even worried about it in the first place. There was so much good food around! What else did he need to focus on?
By the time Napther’s belly started to scrape along the ground, wobbling heavily from side to side with each step the blue dragon took, Azar started to notice something was off. Napther had been unusually quite during their short trip. Azar’s suspicions were quickly brought to alert when he heard a loud belch behind him.

The Dragon Knight quickly whipped around and was met by his vision being completely taken up by yellow belly scales. His gaze went up higher and higher until he finally saw Napther’s face, just as he was devouring a pawful of food. “N-Napther?! What’s happening to you?!” he called out to his friend. Azar was quick to notice his friend’s increased height and girth, yet he had no idea how this came to be. Where Napther only stood a foot or two taller than him before, now the blue dragon was easily eight to ten feet taller. “Napther! Stop eating all that! What are you doing?!” he shouted when the kaiju dragon grabbed a whole food stand and began greedily eating its contents.

Napther didn’t even register what Azar was saying to him. He was sitting on his hind legs, rubbing one paw along his belly as he looked around for more food. With luck, he spotted yet another pie sitting out on a house’s ledge just a street over. With a smile, Napther landed back on all fours with a heavy thud and lumbered his way over to the food.

Unfortunately, to get to said pie, Napther had to take a path that Azar had worked so hard to prevent Napther from doing. The big blue and yellow dragon started to squeeze his way down a narrow alleyway. He grunted as he struggled to get through, before choosing to just use a bit more force. This plan, of course worked, but the large rotund dragon’s plated body scraped into the sides of the buildings he was passing. By the time he reached the other side of the alley into the street, there were large gouges into the sides of the buildings. Azar feared they would collapse any moment, but they stayed up miraculously.

“Oh no, oh no, oh no, this is bad!” he said as he chased after his friend. Thankfully Azar had a much easier time navigating the narrower spaces. When he got into the other street, Napther was already heading for his next meal. But his tail kept smashing into buildings along the way, denting sides and breaking through a few walls. Azar quickly chased after Napther and grabbed hold of his tail. “Napther! You…have…to…stop!” he shouted, grunting as he tugged on the tail to desperately pull Napther away from more food.

But the kaiju dragon was far too strong for Azar now, even with all that added blubber around him. He simply lurched forward a little more and closed his jaws around the pie on the window’s ledge. Of course, he was so big now that he took not only the pie, but a bite-sized portion out of the corner of the house the pie belonged to. Even the little bit of pie now added more to Napther’s size, and he grew even as Azar had his forelegs around his friend’s tail.

Azar stumbled back when his friend grew even bigger and fatter. “What is happening? Why is he doing this?” he thought out loud to himself. “What was the point of a feast if he’s just going to eat the city. I’ve got to stop him somehow…” Azar said, pausing a moment to try and think of some way to incapacitate his friend from eating even more food and the city.
Suddenly, a very worrying thought hit Azar. “The feast!” he shouted to himself, quickly getting back up on all fours. If just the food Napther had eaten caused him to grow this much, how massive would he get if he ate all the food that was at the feast Azar had prepared for him?

To his dismay, it seemed Napther already had the idea to go to the feast first. Or he had caught the scent of so much food and was being driven by his hunger to go there. Already the dragon was bigger than most buildings, and even on the larger streets he was crushing walls and even a few smaller buildings just trying to move past them. Even the spaces between Napther’s armored plates were starting to glow a light blue, showing that he was turning more and more into his kaiju form the bigger he got.

Napther had also gained a considerable amount of weight, most of it focused in his belly. The yellow belly dragging on the ground left deep gouges in the road, making it easy to track the dragon for anyone who couldn’t take a moment to look up and see him above the structures. His limbs had thickened and wobbled with each heavy step, and his barrel-bodied appearance looked a bit more ball-like now. Yet even with his mobility slightly impared, Napther was still able to keep moving due to his body getting taller as well as wider.

Azar quickly chased after his friend, trying to think of something he could do. Deciding he would be better trying to get rid of the food at the feast, Azar took to the air and flew past Napther over to the city square. Maybe he could burn the food away before Napther reached it? Even if that didn’t solve Napther’s growth, it would at least prevent him from ballooning to a size bigger than the city. At least, for the time being.

When he landed at the feast, people were running about in a panic. Many of them believed the city was under attack, that some sort of great destroyer had arrived. Some just seemed angry that it looked like St. Heimself was going to be destroyed by yet another dragon.
As he landed, Laylay came running up to Azar. “Sir Azarosna, what’s going on? What is that thing?” she asked, sounding quite terrified of the oncoming dragon.

“That’s, uh…my friend,” he said. He knew exactly what Layla was going to ask next, and he quickly stopped her before adding, “He’s not normally like this. Something’s wrong with him and I can’t get him to stop eating food. If he keeps eating, he’ll keep growing. We have to get rid of all this before he gets to any of it!”

“But…”

“I know, I know. It’s a waste of all this good food. But we have no choice. I’m going to have to burn it before Napther gets here. I need you to help get everyone out of here. Once this food’s gone, I’ll have to work quickly to try and find a way to stop him before he finds and eats even more,” Azar said, looking around to see where he should start first.

“But sir Azarosna…”

“Don’t worry, you should all be safe. He doesn’t eat people, that much I know. Everyone just needs to stay out of his way so he doesn’t accidentally crush anyone,” the dragon added, heading for the foods he thought would be the most burnable: vegetables.

“Sir Azarosna!” Layla finally shouted out, trying to get Azar’s attention.

“What?”

“Why don’t you just break the spell on him?” she said, letting out a sigh of relief once she finally got it out.

“Why don’t I…huh?”

Layla pointed to the approaching kaiju dragon. “He’s under some sort of mind-altering spell. I can sense it from here with how huge he is. Plus his eyes look rather cloudy. That’s a clear sign of those kinds of spells. If we break the spell, he should stop continually eating.”

Azar had completely forgotten that Layla was a mage. He had been so wrapped up in trying to keep more of the city from being destroyed that he hadn’t even considered that his friend was under some sort of spell. “Well, I don’t think we’ll get him to stop eating, but we can definitely stop him from uncontrollably growing while he’s eating. Do whatever you have to do,” he said to Layla, giving her an approving nod.

Layla put her hands together and began muttering some sort of incantation language that Azar didn’t understand. Though he could barely hear what she was saying as a loud “SKREEEOOOOONK!” echoed through the area, and the thunderous steps came ever closer. Azar looked up and saw the massive form of Napther waddling ever closer. He was looking hungrily at all the food just behind Azar and Layla. By now, Napther was easily four or five stories tall, and his belly pushed out to the sides so far that more buildings were being crushed by it.

But just as he was lowering his head down to take the first bite of food, Layla shouted out something in elvish before sending a ball of pale-green light at Napther’s head. It zoomed through the air and hit the kaiju dragon square between the eyes, splashing over his head. Napther groaned, swaying a bit from side to side before falling forward into the Southeastern square.

It was several hours later before Azar could take a sigh of relief. Cleanup crews had gone to work immediately after Napther had been subdued. The damage his friend had caused was bad, but thankfully contained to only one area of the city. It’d probably be a few weeks before everything was completely fixed.

Napther had returned himself to his normal size, something Azar was very thankful he could do. Though all that food added a considerable amount of staying weight to the blue and gold dragon’s figure, and he was currently stuck on top of his belly that lifted him several feet off the ground. Not that Napther seemed to mind.

“It was the strangest thing. One moment I was being gifted a delicious pie, and the next I’m here. I can’t remember a thing,” Napther explained to Azar and Layla with a shrug. He was very apologetic for the damage he caused, and even offered to help fix what he had broken. But that would have to wait until he was mobile again. But thanks to his powerful metabolism, might only be a day or two.

“Hmmm…I’ll bet it was someone who knew your abilities, and knew that if they got out of control like that it would mean destruction to the city. Hard to tell if this was an ill-concieved prank or something more nefarious,” Azar said as he thought about the issue.

“Well at least it’s over for now. I’ll make sure anything fed to Napther isn’t laced with magic for the duration of his stay in St. Heimself,” Layla assured Azar.

“This may be a bad time to ask, but since I wasn’t fully conscious during that ordeal, I never got to actually enjoy any of the food I ate. Do you think I might have some of this amazing feast you had set up for me? I don’t mind if it’s a bit cold from waiting out so long,” Napther asked, smiling at both Azar and Layla in the hope they’d take pity on the hungry kaiju dragon and feed him.

Azar looked to Layla, then to Napther, before sighing and smiling a bit. He reached behind him and pulled up an entire roasted pig for Napther. After all, that's what good friends did. “Just keep it all under control this time.”