A commission for  Vynthisthefox

Thumbnail art by  Ink_Menagerie

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Another Scaly Calamity

Tangerine morning sun washed the back of the lavender jacket of the grey fox Vynthis as he tread up ridged, morning-dewed slope that led to the cave of the dragon Sini. The adventure between the cave (whose mouth was, perhaps, a quarter mile wide) and the closest settlement of sentient creatures spanned about ten miles. The length the mage had crossed to meet the owner of the Calamity Scale attested to his drive and dedication.

Though, he had not come to the abode of such a powerful beast out of ignorant bravery. In fact, his humility enforced his need to have the scale and had enforced the quest in the first place, for the Calamity Scale rendered for its holder the ability to analyze the strength of his enemies. Vynthis acknowledged his vulnerabilities, such as his size and his lack of armor. He risked perishing from the breath attack of a dragon if it would save him from calamities in the future.

He stepped through the mouth of the field-spanning cave, taking a slow breath to calm himself. After a few minutes of treading into its depths, the shadows of the mountainous maw devoured most of the morning light on him.

He walked along a smooth, natural foyer between rocky slopes of jagged pillars and neon moss and stalactites several storeys in height. Being out in the open served him; he would have ample time to react if the dragon sprung from hiding. Such a large dragon would make a sound easily detectable by his keen vulpine ears before he could be ambushed.

Except, when Vynthis trudged into the heart of the cave and his eyes adjusted to the dim light, he saw Sini lounging on the crest of a cliff about one storey high; and the dragon with his deep purple eyes regarded the fox as one he had awaited with a mirthful patience. His forelegs were crossed, and his head slowly tilted with a toying gaze as Vynthis made to the foot of the cliff.

“Back so soon, snack?”

The rumble that resonated with such rich tone and self-assured nonchalance did send Vynthis one dragging step back, along with the words themselves. Surely, the dragon had him mistaken for another fox, for the two—flesh and blood—had never met: only the fox and a wanted poster of the dragon. Sini had a steady diet of foxes, Vynthis concluded, although the explanation did little to comfort him.

Either way, the dragon likely expected a reaction from him, one that he wouldn’t indulge Sini with.

Vynthis tipped the leaf-shaped lid of his violet cap over his head, then spread his gloved hands like an orchestrator. With a swift gesticulation, he conjured a pair of floating hands that were thicker than his torso—thicker even than the floofy white tip of his tail. One of them launched at the narrow crest of the cliff, while another cleaved toward the dragon’s cheek.

But when the first fist smashed the cliff into a trickle of stone, Sini had leaped with grace and spread his wings and assumed a state of flight already; and he pranced off the second fist as it swung where it had planned on Sini being. While Vynthis was still orchestrating his magic, the echo of the dragon’s thump broke through the cavernous space behind him. Vynthis whirled—the coattails flapping above his tail—and glared with grim stoicism up at Sini, whose form loomed more than twice as tall. An amused rumble rolled from flaring nostrils. From the dragon’s spreading maw broke a few puffs of dense poison breath, which rode a steady stream of poison miasma now blasting into the face of the mage.

“Wise enough not to play the game of words with me, but not wise enough to learn from your past mistakes. I suppose you can’t help it, if dementia is a side-effect of your returns.”

As he talked, the rancid, meaty miasma transformed to Vynthis’ senses. What previously reeked began to smell crudely pleasant. The powerful magic hands of the mage slumped against his sides, loose and relaxed, while the head of the mage reeled to delighted sniffs from his vulpine nose. He inhaled those rich wafts with obsession; he hobbled forward, reaching out with shaky paws for the jaws that produced the terrific pluot-odored reek; and when the dragon huffed one potent blast upon him, the wash of pleasure seized control of him and snagged away his will and struck him to his knees. His eyes fell behind their lids. He trembled in a more serene variant of the ecstasy state that the ritualists of the plains sometimes enter.

As he convulsed in his fit, from his jacket pocket tumbled a device with a display. Would you like to revive back home? the screen asked him.

The words blinked on and off again. Sini regarded the device as an adult regards a silly children’s toy. He plucked it up between a claw and thumb-claw, then crushed it. “For your never-ending service, I thank you, Vynthis. You truly are the snack that keeps coming back.”

The dragon slumped onto his belly, spread forward and slurped Vynthis with his large tongue from groin to snout. The slick, sticky appendage measured thicker than the torso of the fox, drenched his clothes and left him with chin perked and fur satisfyingly fluffed up. His trance deepened—wove with the dragon’s intimate treatment of him and assured an untieable knot of devotion.

His goal was transformed. The Calamity Scale seemed superficial, seemed to be misting away from the edifice of his mind and making way for a fervid resolve to serve the handsome, intoxicating beast.

Beseeched into bliss by neurotoxins unignorable, he let his paws scrabble and grope along the fleshy wall of tongue before him, before the jaws closed on him with gentle slowness. With this same patience, they arced upright as they lapped over the soggy clothes of the fox and, here and there, caught the smoky, minty, exquisite flavors of his fur.

Vynthis gave a goofy grin, ignored that his hat had been flicked to the glistening floor of the maw. He crawled forward on that strong sentient bend of pink. But he grew lazy as tantalizing fantasies of the dragon’s acidic stomach assailed his thoughts, and sprawled like a tanned hide, humming deeply and swishing his tail.

The dragon chuckled.

The behavior was typical of the seduced fox.

The grooved flesh of his jowls loosened and wobbled as he clenched his teeth together and let his snout tip toward the cave stalactites. Dispersing through the quiet, clammy space came the pleasant, acoustic sound of a dragon tongue clicking against its palate, of warm flesh sucking and squelching on a small meal. The dragon shuddered with glee. He sprawled further and beat his tail on the cavern floor, breaking the underground silence with the sounds of his carnal, routine relishment.

White hot mists of predator breath hazed around the fox as great throaty muscles softly popped his ribs and slicked fur over his face and syruped his body with copious ropes of thick saliva. The fox let out a joyful whine without realizing it. Puffy silken rings of the dragon esophagus throbbed hard to encase his frame and compress his muzzle with tight, sloppy caresses to the mighty throbs of the dragon’s heart. A haze of mesmeric purple clouds seemed to follow Vynthis down to the lower digestive system.

GULP!

Warm fur and fabric stretched the lower length of the dragon’s esophagus before the weight plunked into the bubbly pool of his grand paunch.

This internal cave was clammy like the external one, but unlike it in that it felt meltingly humid, and smelled harsh and rancid rather than dank and draconically musky. And unlike the external cave, this one posed no place for Vynthis to hide from inevitable doom.

Not that he wanted to. The hypnotised fox bathed in the corrosive glop that would soon digest his body in full with only infatuation, with the satisfaction of someone who has reached the end of their life’s greatest journey.

He and Sini shared an intoxicating feeling of fullness and reciprocity. Gradually, the mage was processed into the stuff of himself for the dragon—magic. The chyme sheared his clothes into nothingness and his fur left and left him bare and his body devolved into raw magic, which would infuse the dragon with greater physical, magical and poisonous strength.

Sini folded in his wings and hugged his stomach as the magical essence bloated the belly into an ovoid shape. The membranes squeezed like a bellows, before the dragon’s hide shook with the kinetic energy of a volcano. He bellowed a grand, stalactite-dismantling belch; and the hearty, heart-filled burp rocked stirred the insides of the earth with deep, lumbering sonic tones.

“BwwwrRRruuuuuhhuUUuurrwwwrhhHHpp!”

At length, the raunchy haze of poisons quit gushing from his carnivore lips; and with his ears blown back from the gust and his digestive system slammed into a time of great taxing, Sini hummed with satiation and then cradled his head on his forechest. He dozed off, awaiting the return of the reformed mage on the morrow. Awaiting another challenge that would prove to be fruitless for the mage, but rather fruitful—or, at least, meaty—for the dragon.

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