Arro needs a walk to burn off some steam (if not some calories). He might decide to go to the park again, as long as nothing embarrassing happens this time. He certainly wouldn't want to get stuck again, or anything like that. What would be the odds of that happening to him more than once?


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Yayy, a fun chapter :3

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Hive Mind
Chapter 9


“Technically, you’re distantly from Karraden, you know.”

Arro raised a brow as he took a long sip of his milkshake while walking alongside the dark gray dragon. Rangavar had forced Arro to go on another walk. The promise of more milkshakes had helped. “How so?”

Rangavar gestured around at the busy streets. “Karraden was the original testing site of the type one gene mutation. Long, long ago, one of your ancestors must have been part of the experiments here, and that’s why it’s in your blood.”

Arro rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I’ll go change the world of origin on my ID right away.”

“I’m just saying, you belong here as much as anyone else, and nobody gets to tell you otherwise.”

Arro gestured down at his pale-red scales, standing out starkly against the common pale-gray colors of most other dragons in the streets. “Yeah, I fit right in.”

Now Rangavar rolled his eyes.

Arro took another sip of his milkshake. The conversation had started with him mentioning the rude dragon at the gym earlier, trying to intimidate him into leaving. Trying to imply that Arro didn’t belong.

“You know I can sense every time you start thinking about earlier. There’s a little surge of anger.”

Arro sighed. “Sorry.” He wasn’t sure how to verbalize that all he really wanted was to choke the other dragon out and throw him off a bridge.

“You’re still thinking about it.”

Arro groaned.

Rangavar looked up at him. He had his own milkshake, albeit far smaller than Arro’s. And they both knew that he wouldn’t finish it, and would hand it off to the larger dragon. It always happened. “We could always go for a walk through that park again, and try to take your mind off it. For real this time. No picnic tables.”

Arro thought about that for a moment. “No picnic tables?”

“None.”

He knew he really ought to get out more. Especially while the weather was still manageable. It seemed to be getting colder every day. “Okay. Fine.”

Rangavar brightened. “Really?”

“No tables.”

“No tables,” Rangavar promised.

The park was beautiful, as Arro remembered it. The trees were shedding crunchy orange leaves that were similar to the types of trees he’d grown up with. They walked down an actual trail this time, Arro finishing up Rangavar’s milkshake, like they’d both known he would, even though neither of them had said so. It was good, but it was also making Arro feel a bit cold, particularly due to the chilly air. He tucked his wings in a bit tighter. For the most part, his large body gave off more heat than they did.

Rangavar didn’t seem overly concerned about it, having thick fur on his own wings and apparently complete disregard for any other part of him, as usual; he veered off from the path occasionally to stomp on large branches or walk on logs while Arro watched with amusement. The brisk weather seemed to make the Darkal oddly energetic. Or, Arro realized, sometimes being in a good mood did that too. It was nice.

At one point, they came upon a tree with extremely low branches. Arro could already tell what he was going to do without even looking over at the mischievous glint in the Darkal’s eyes. He fucking loved climbing things.

Sure enough, he took off at it with a running start, and Arro was amused to see him actually skip the lowest branches as he used the momentum to kick off the ground with one foot and the trunk with the next while reaching with his arms. Grabbing hold of a higher branch, he continuously pulled himself up the branches after that, which were conveniently thick and numerous, his scrabbling claws carving into the bark.

The much larger dragon on the ground put a paw up to the side of his snout and called, “Having fun up there?”

Rangavar paused for a second, straddling a thick branch about halfway up where the tree forked. The tree wasn’t actually super tall, mostly thick from years of outward growth. He looked from the surrounding view back down to Arro. “It’s beautiful up here. You can see all the other trees.”

“You can see all the other trees from down here.”

Rangavar wrinkled his snout. “You should come up and look.”

“What?” Arro spread his paws. “Do I look like the type of dragon who climbs on things?” He’d actually just had this conversation earlier today.

“Ugh. Fine. Miss out, then.”

Arro glowered at the trunk of the tree, the thick, unmoving branches tantalizingly close to the ground. Even he could probably lift his leg onto the bottom one. He just knew better than to try.

He paused for a moment, his brow furrowed as he thought about the other dragon making fun of him earlier. Taunting him. Telling him he was too fat, or whatever. Too fat to climb.

Arro glanced back at the tree. Maybe the asshole was wrong.

The Faerian tentatively walked over, looking around to make sure no one else was nearby who might see him. Rangavar was sitting way up, watching him. That was okay, though. Although it did make Arro blush a bit. “Waiting to watch me embarrass myself?” he called up.

“I wouldn’t miss it,” the Darkal grinned.

Arro gritted his teeth and put one foot on the lowest branch. Thankfully, it didn’t even budge beneath his weight. The squat tree was sturdy. Arro reached up for the nearby branches over his head to hold while he lifted his other foot to the branch. It went smoothly. He just stood there for a moment in shock. He was only a step off the ground, but he couldn’t believe he’d made it this far.

He heard Rangavar snickering at him from up in the tree. Arro shot him a look. “Hey, you’re the one begging me to come up.”

Rangavar readjusted himself on the branch, flicking his tail happily. “I just know that when you get up here, you’ll enjoy it as much as I do.”

Arro wasn’t as sure, but appreciated the other dragon’s confidence. He got ready to move up another branch. One that wasn’t barely hovering off the ground, preferably. He surveyed the tree, searching for his next target. It seemed like a lot of branches to look at as a whole, but in reality, the selection was limited; it was still just a tree, after all.

He tried to squeeze his fat gut as close to the trunk as he could manage, otherwise pushing him too far away to reach. It hung heavily over his legs as he tried to step up, making them hard to lift. Rangavar was sitting up there all full of himself or whatever, but Arro was expending ten times the effort, so who was really better at climbing, huh? Rangavar wouldn’t last two minutes in this body.

Arro continued to feel the Darkal’s eyes on him as he miraculously, somehow made his way up yet another few branches, ever so slowly. He started to feel proud of himself. He really was climbing! That other dragon at the gym could suck it.

“You’re doing great,” Rangavar called down at some point. It felt like Arro had been at it for hours, even though it had been maybe five minutes at most. It was an infuriatingly slow climb. But he was doing it. It was happening.

The higher he climbed, the thinner some of the branches became, and he had to be more careful of where he rested his weight so they wouldn’t bow. The branches also became more numerous, though, giving him more options. His more prominent problem became the way that he had to wriggle and heave his sprawling belly over some of the less moveable branches that were closer together. He was almost worried that they might become too dense and block him from climbing the rest of the way. It seemed like his upward journey would come to an end when he reached that fork in the tree right beneath the smaller dragon; there were a lot of branches on either side, and the fork itself made the higher trunks a bit narrower than the main tree. He’d come too close to give up, though. He wrapped his paws around one of the trunks and hauled himself up to use the fork as a foothold, all the rolls of fat bunching on his body at every crease, and with a mighty heave, he pushed against the fork to take another step.

Against all odds, he reached the part of the tree where Rangavar was perched, sweating and breathing heavily, although doing that thing where he was pretending not to. He wasn’t sure why he bothered; just habit, maybe. It weren’t as if Rangavar couldn’t tell.

He expected Rangavar to laugh at him or something, but the Darkal actually looked genuinely happy to see Arro join him in the tree. It gave Arro the motivation to pull himself up the last couple of branches, his muscles burning with exertion. He was sure that to anyone else in the park, it would have been a comical sight; a fat Faerian squatting in a tree, gasping for air after wriggling his way up. But right now, at Rangavar’s side, he felt proud.

The smaller dragon pointed a finger at something outside the tree. “Look.”

Arro looked. It was late enough in the day—and early enough on Karraden—that the sun was just starting to set. It was turning the sky pink. The endless trees beneath that stretched away in a vast forest. Their leaves, changed different colors with the season, were bathed in its glow. The two dragons stared. “You’re right, it is beautiful up here,” Arro finally agreed.

Rangavar looked down at him and extended a paw. Arro took it and held it, but wasn’t going to climb up any higher. He just squeezed it in his own. Rangavar seemed to understand.

They stayed like that for a while, watching the sun descend towards the horizon. Arro was glad; it gave him time to stop gasping for breath. Not that the sunset also wasn’t beautiful, of course. It really was. He wouldn’t give up this moment for anything.

He really wasn’t looking forward to the climb back down. He hadn’t really thought about that until the sun eventually disappeared, leaving only a soft glow.

Rangavar leaned back on his branch, pressing his wings against the firm trunk of the tree behind him, and let out a satisfied sigh. “Thanks for giving the park another try.”

“Yeah.” Arro stared out over the forest as it darkened. “I’m glad I did.”

When they got ready to climb down, Rangavar asked, “Do you want me to go first, so that if you slip, I can catch you?”

Arro snorted. “It’s adorable that you think if I fell on you, you’d even survive.”

Rangavar scowled.

“Besides, I’m pretty strong, and I’ll be careful.” He tried not to sound too unsure. He twisted slightly, feeling the way that all of the smaller twigs and branches around him poked into his doughy body. He was sure he’d be finding leaves in all sorts of crevices over the next few days.

Bracing his paws against both of the two forked trunks on either side of him, Arro stepped off the fork of the tree onto the next branch down. Or, er, not quite. He had to shimmy a bit to get his huge, bloated body through the fork of the tree. He reached out his leg to step down again, the firm, unmoving trunks pulling on his love handles. He was startled when his progress was unexpectedly halted again, and started to blush.

“Maybe you should try climbing down on the other side, like on your way up.”

“Thanks for pointing out the obvious.”

Rangavar was perched patiently on one of the branches almost level with Arro’s head, looking down at him with an amused expression. Arro ignored him and twisted around to step back out of the forked trunk on the other side, which he supposed he should have done to begin with, although he wouldn’t give Rangavar the satisfaction of admitting it.

When he twisted, he felt his progress halted again as his belly squeezed by the trunk, and he realized he couldn’t move back any farther because the other trunk from the fork pressed tightly into his back. He sucked in and tried to wriggle through, but now his protruding gut was tightly enveloping the other trunk in front of him, his back still pressed into the unmoving trunk behind him. He sighed, having to spread one of his chubby thighs a little farther to give his gut extra room to hang. Or that’s how he thought things would work; with his leg out of the way, his body actually slipped slightly farther down into the fork, his fat legs practically straddling it, if only they weren’t too thick to part far enough.

Rangavar finally started to laugh a bit at his antics as Arro blushed harder.

“Yeah, hilarious. This is just great.”

“I wouldn’t have worried about catching you if I’d known the tree would just do it for me.”

Arro playfully punched one of Rangavar’s legs, the only part of the smaller dragon he could reach. “Don’t expect me to catch you if YOU fall, then. Let the tree do it.”

He turned back to the task at hand, looking down at his uncomfortably wedged middle. One of his dangling legs searched for something to push himself back up with, but he couldn’t see around the wobbling curves of his bulbous belly. He felt only open air and smaller twigs snapping as he kicked around. Same results on his other side. Out the corner of his eye, he saw Rangavar put his head in one paw while he watched, his patience visibly waning.

Arro started to blush harder.

“Do you need help?” The other dragon’s voice was either tired or amused. Or both.

“Nah, I got it,” said Arro, hoping that didn’t come out as a lie. Even he wasn’t sure. He decided to stop kicking around for purchase, since there was obviously nothing helpful nearby. Instead, he squeezed his legs around the main trunk of the tree beneath him for support, and reached over his head with his arms to find another strong branch he could use to just pull himself back up out of the fork and start over. He started to grow anxious as his searching arms found empty air. He’d sunk down too far in the gap to reach the sturdy branches he’d been hanging onto before.

Rangavar didn’t say anything more to him, but eventually looked away, which signaled to Arro that he’d reached the point of ‘genuinely’ embarrassing. No wonder the Darkal always dragged him out to the middle of nowhere. He was probably embarrassed to be seen with him.

“Hey, uh, Rangavar?”

It forced the Darkal to look back towards him. “Yeah?”

Arro tentatively reached up towards him, his palm outstretched. “Give me a paw?” His face was warm against the chilly night air. “I just, uh, need something to pull against for a second.”

Rangavar maneuvered himself so that he was more firmly braced against his branch before reaching down to take Arro’s paw. Arro gripped it tightly, hoping he didn’t merely pull the much lighter dragon off. He pulled, hearing the other branch creak, seeing Rangavar’s face tighten with strain, and feeling the bark of the two trunks around him scrape as his scales moved over them. He wriggled a little and sucked in his gut.

Apparently, that was a mistake. The moment he sucked in, without anything to push against with his hind legs and more room opening between the tree trunks, gravity pulled him deeper into the crevice, wedging him tighter. He let go of Rangavar’s paw before the short slide could drag the smaller dragon down from his own higher branch, but was startled to find his gut now pressed more tightly in front of him, the fat pushed higher over his chest, the doughy padding that usually hung off his middle squished up in a bunch of small wrinkles and rolls.

He heard Rangavar smack his forehead.

“Sorry. I guess that didn’t work, huh.”

“No shit.”

He heard creaking and rustling leaves as the Darkal slipped his lithe body past a few branches on his way down closer to where Arro had sank. Arro didn’t dare lift his head to look at him. He didn’t twitch a single inch, afraid that any movement might make the situation worse. The force of his bulging stomach pressed so tightly against him was already making it hard to breathe. Or, well, maybe that was the anxiety. He tried not to panic as he realized that he might actually be stuck.

“Hey, it’s alright.” Rangavar was suddenly at his side, his arms reaching out to grab several of the branches around them. The Darkal leaned in to give him a kiss on the forehead. “You don’t have to be scared. I don’t think you could fall right now. Heh. Even if you wanted to.”

Arro gulped. Rangavar was misinterpreting that not being able to fall was the real reason he was starting to panic.

Rangavar grabbed one of his thick, pudgy arms and heaved. The effort was laughable. Arro suddenly thought back to that other worker’s comment earlier, that he probably needed a crane to lift his weight. He sure felt like they would right now.

“Hey, Arro, don’t cry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry about the joke.”

Arro tentatively reached his other arm up to wipe his eyes. He hadn’t even noticed, too lost in his own head. He wasn’t too surprised. But it wasn’t Rangavar’s joke, it was that mean comment from earlier. When people made fun of his weight, it was upsettingly easy to make him cry. He was just that pathetic. He supposed he should probably be more embarrassed about that than his weight, actually. Being too sensitive.

Suddenly Rangavar was cupping his chubby cheeks in his paws, and gently lifted Arro’s head to look up at him. “We can fix this, okay?”
Arro nodded slightly, Rangavar’s palms feeling warm on his cheeks despite his face already hot with embarrassment. He felt better when Rangavar reassured him, though. Rangavar made things okay.

Since pulling hadn’t worked, the smaller dragon worked his way down a few branches until he was lower than Arro, closer to the Faerian’s thick thighs. “I’m going to stand here and push on your leg, and you’re going to use me for leverage, okay?”

“I’ll crush you into the branch.”

“What’s your other brilliant idea?”

Arro glowered at the firm trunk of the fork in front of him. “Okay, point taken.” Although he absently thought back to that other Faerian’s crane comment and felt ashamed again, if only for a moment.

He felt the Darkal’s significantly smaller fingers sink into the fat padding around one of his massive thighs. “Usually when I’m under your thighs, it’s for very different reasons,” Rangavar said.

Arro could tell he was trying to lighten the mood. He wasn’t sure it worked, but he could appreciate the effort. “Hopefully this time, you don’t get smothered.”

After another moment, he felt the other dragon stop shifting his weight around as he found a good angle to push from. “Okay, I’m ready.”

Without further prompting, Arro began to push against him like a step, first gently, then straining as he realized he hadn’t begun to move. He was too afraid to suck in his stomach again. He was certain he’d only sink deeper; he was pretty sure Rangavar wouldn’t be able to hold him up to prevent that. Not that he didn’t trust him to give it his best effort or anything. He just had a feeling.

He pushed against Rangavar’s determined, outstretched arms, trying to wriggle and squirm a bit to loosen the tree’s unbending grip. The love handles on his sides, free of the embrace, bounced and shook with the back and forth motion, although the gut pressed up in front of him had very little movement by comparison. To be fair, he wasn’t sure he was giving it his best effort, since he felt just as likely to slide down further during the struggle.

“Can you push any harder?” Rangavar grunted.

Yeah. He could. “No.” Wait, shit, Darkals could hear lies. “If I go any harder, I’ll push you down and probably fall farther.”

“You have un upsetting lack of faith in me.”

“I’m being realistic.” He was also really, really scared of the possibility.

After another moment of heaving, Arro gave up with a sigh, and Rangavar gave up the fight to catch his own breath as well. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t been trying. “Maybe pulling from above would have worked better after all?”

Arro squirmed a bit. “Maybe I can twist myself out the side.” That seemed as likely to work as their other plans so far. Which was admittedly, not much at all, but pursuing other options seemed like the logical next step.

The Faerian pushed his paws against the trunk in front of him, deciding that his left side seemed more promising for escape, and tried to turn that way. The thick trunk pulled tightly against his rolls, stretching his belly, causing the fat to surge against it with the movement. It bunched up on the opposite side, continuously pulling him back when his effort wavered even for a moment. He gritted his teeth. He fucking hated this park and Rangavar wasn’t going to talk him into coming here again.

He gave up for a second to gasp for breath, the cool night air soothing his overheated body.

“Do you need me to push upward again to give your belly more room?”

Despite not being strong enough to actually lift him, the Darkal had given him some good leverage before. “Sure,” Arro said less hesitantly than last time. He was getting frustrated and impatient. And still anxious at the prospect of being really trapped.

He felt Rangavar move more fully under him. Arro desperately tried to twist his way out again, which was how he’d gotten himself into this whole mess, so he was hopeful that twisting back might reverse it somehow. Admittedly, he hadn’t been wedged as far into the crook of the tree earlier, but he tried not to think about that part. Rangavar pushed up on him, his smaller paws on his butt now, but Arro barely even noticed as his own tugs became more frantic.

Beneath him, he then felt Rangavar move so that he had his shoulders up against Arro’s wide behind instead, pushing with his legs. That seemed to help, Arro suddenly realized, as he noticed himself lift just the slightest amount. “Keep going,” Arro gasped. “It’s working.”

The Darkal moved himself farther under Arro’s thighs, bracing both of his paws against the fork of the tree by now, directly under him next to his chubby tail. He heaved, and Arro twisted slightly further to the side, his fat gut squeezing ever closer to freedom. Encouraged, he strained more, twisting his chubby tail out of the way.

That was where it ended. His tail smacked the smaller dragon and he lost his balance, paws sliding out from under him, and Arro immediately sliding back down to fill the small amount of room he’d gathered.

Rangavar fell forward across the fork of the tree, and Arro slammed down on top of him, causing the dragon to let out a short exclamation of pain. They were still for a moment before they both seemingly realized the same thing at the same time; with Arro effectively sitting on him, Rangavar was now pinned into the fork of the tree beneath the fat dragon’s weight.

“Great.” Arro felt the Darkal squirm, pressed tightly into the narrowest part, his shoulders and hips too wide on either side compared to his relatively slender middle. As reality sunk in, Arro heard the scrabbling of claws, felt Rangavar kicking against the tree with his hind paws, and winced at the yelling and string of curses that followed.

Arro winced. “I’m sorry!”

“I’ll accept your apology when you get your huge leg off the back of my head.” He seemed to hear himself a moment later and groaned, even without being able to see Arro tear up. Reading his emotions was enough. “Sorry.” he sighed, although Arro still heard him stifling the frustrated growl he actually wanted to emit.

Arro knew he was fat. Could everyone stop pointing it out today?

They were both silent a long moment, the sound of the two dragons catching their breath seeming louder in the empty night air.

“So… now what?” Arro tried not to let his voice betray his nervousness.

“We have to wait for nature to take its course.”

Arro scowled. “Yeah. Okay. What do we do right now?”

“Nothing. This is really just natural selection at work.”

“Rangavar, I’m serious!”

He felt the Darkal wriggle back and forth slightly and heard him make an upset noise in his throat. “What do you want me to say? I can’t help from here. You’re on your own.” There was more wriggling and some scrabbling noises of claws against bark. “If anything, now I need the help.”

Arro bit his lip and looked up at the wider space between the two trunks, just barely higher than he was, taunting him. They were marred by lighter-colored scratch marks from digging his claws in to try and stop slipping. His best idea was still twisting out the side; he’d already been a little successful, even though it had been short-lived. He didn’t want the effort to be for nothing. He shifted the weight of his legs somewhat as he looked for a good part of the trunk to press them.

A pair of horns poked into the underside of one of them. “Ack!”

“Sorry,” Arro muttered. “Guess you just have to deal with my ‘fat legs’ for now.”

The Darkal went back to being quiet.

Arro shoved against the trunk in front of him, once again trying to give himself more room. At least he couldn’t slide down any farther; Rangavar was helping him out after all. Just not in the way they’d expected. He still felt bad as he heard the smaller dragon grunt and wince a few times whenever Arro shifted his weight.

“This fucking sucks.”

Arro would have frustratedly banged his forehead against the opposite trunk if he could lean that far over his gut. “No shit.” He squirmed uncomfortably again. Then he paused. That word had caught his attention. Sucks. Now that he couldn’t slide down any farther, he could suck in as far as possible.

He took a deep breath, sucked in his gut, and heaved his body to the side with all his strength.

“Aach!—” Rangavar’s exclamation of pain turned into a growl as he was crushed harder into the unforgiving crevice.

Arro would have to apologize later. He couldn’t afford to lose his momentum. He twisted more, now able to put one paw against the opposite trunk, jabbing his elbow into the one that had been behind him, forcing his fat body out of its prison. The tree resisted, fighting to keep him there, pulling back on his rolls. He wriggled and shoved, feeling so, so sorry for the dragon he was sitting on.

He continued to suck in, despite beginning to pant shallowly at the same time, realizing he couldn’t keep this up much longer. He thrashed forward several times, one of his chubby legs kicking—not the one over Rangavar’s horns—and tried to use the hind claws of his foot for purchase. He also suddenly felt a shove from underneath; the Darkal giving his best effort to push upwards for any extra inch he could muster.

With another shove, Arro’s belly finally slid out of the gap, his fat hips briefly catching on the sides, and he tumbled forward. The world turned upside-down for a moment, until he put his arms in front of his face to ward off an oncoming branch, and smashing over it flipped him back, his hind feet now smacking another sturdy one until he was spun over again by other crashing branches before falling out to the ground. He landed heavily on his back, the wind completely knocked out of him.

From where he lay, he could see Rangavar high over his head finally scramble out of the crevice where he’d been trapped and begin slowly and painfully making his way back down the tree. Arro didn’t move as the dragon finally dropped down beside him, the large Faerian still catching his breath.

They stared at each other in silence for a moment, Arro’s expression apologetic, Rangavar’s annoyed. Then the Darkal extended a paw. Without saying anything, Arro took it, and tried not to put too much strain on the other dragon as he pushed himself onto his feet.

More silent staring, both dragons taking in how much the other looked like shit.

“I’m sorry I called your legs really big.”

“They’re fat. I know they’re huge. I know you only said that because they are.”

Rangavar shifted his eyes away.

Arro was okay. Rangavar hadn’t said it to be mean.

“Maybe we shouldn’t come to the park anymore.”

In spite of everything, Arro began to laugh. “Please, let’s not.”