Day fifteen of Mayternity. This story is set in the world of Too Heavy to Fly and The Dragon's Power, continuing the latter.

Now a dragoness, the young woman decides to find a place to stay the night.

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The continent of Fel was divided into three main regions. There was the blood covered Savage Desert that was home to the massive Dragon Blood Temple, the human ruled kingdoms to the south underneath the Maxin Empire, and the vast forest to the east known as the Beast Kingdom, separated from the desert itself by a massive mountain range which was called the Chains of Fel. Around the continent was an even grander ocean, with sights and dangers barely known to its residents. Naturally, there were other continents, but the journey towards them took nearly months to complete if one had insufficient strength.

While the Savage Desert was considered to be devoid of life due to its staggeringly scarce concentration of life force, or Mana, the Beast Kingdom was generally described as having an overabundance of such by the Maxin Empire. Unlike the desert being separated from the forest with the Chains of Fel, the many creatures that dwelled there could easily venture into the many human cities and kingdoms alike. Just like the desert, within the forest, there was only survival of the fittest.

Many mages and sages alike tried to figure out the reason why there was such a distinct divide with the two main regions, but besides speculating that the Chains of Fel had a possible role in such a phenomenon, no other theories could be truly made. Of course, this was not to say that resources could not be found within the Savage Desert despite its low Mana concentration. Even so, it could not be compared to the Beast Kingdom in any way, though despite numerous attempts, humans were unable to claim much of either main region.

Within the Beast Kingdom itself, as the night had fallen, humans were even more prone to casualties occurring if they were not adequately prepared. After all, for both regions, even the smallest creature could potentially have the means to kill. In the green ocean that was the forest, one could easily be walking one minute, and a rotting corpse the next. Because of this, it was required to have a certain amount of strength or tools in order to survive.

Of course, the same didn’t apply for dragons, who could be considered as one of the highest if not the absolute lifeforms anywhere. To actually defeat a dragon was an astonishing feat, let alone potentially killing it. Though such might have been done in the past, it was still said that the initial reaction to seeing a dragon if one was unable to fight, was to flee and hope that it did not feel like using its flames. With such information spanning centuries, the Beast Kingdom then became the perfect place for the newly transformed dragoness to stay.

With the body of a dragon, even if she was more of a human in terms of her stature and shape, she could exert the natural pressure of her bloodline against all beasts. This ensured her safety, which was crucial considering that she was currently carrying eleven young dragons within her womb, having been turned into a Dragon Vessel by the Dragon Elder within the Dragon Blood Temple. The sheer swell of her substantially stretched stomach was enough for her to take extra caution. Perhaps it was also a result of the sudden motherly instinct that she had gotten.

After all, those eleven imposing golden statues were now developing steadily within her body though the dragoness had no sense of time as to when they would be born. When that happened, she didn't plan to immediately go back to the Maxin Empire. The person that had destroyed her old life would not be going anywhere, and her main priority would be to breathe new life into the world because of her pregnancy.

While her bloodline had been transformed, and she found herself able to exert an imposing aura which was like the Dragon Elder, she had decided to look for a suitable place to stay for the night. Not counting the Chains of Fel themselves, there were actually quite a few other hills within the Beast Kingdom. The only difference was that they were not clustered like the Chains of Fel, and only a few could boast the same type of height as the mountain range. The dragoness flew over to a small hill and using her new claws, found it easy to destroy part of it to carve out a cave that could fit her taller, stronger body.

Perhaps it was a combination of her having been changed, as well as the weight of the young within her womb when she flew over the Chains of Fel to get to the Beast Kingdom, but as soon as she had deemed the cave and its surroundings safe, the dragoness felt very tired and relieved at the same time. It was as if whatever had been weighing down her shoulders had been finally lifted away, allowing her tension to decrease. If she was still human, sleeping in such a place would have made her uncomfortable. Now, however, the hardness of all of her scales erased any complaints.

Now alone and safe, she began to take a better look at herself. Reaching the Dragon Blood Temple was simply a stroke of luck, possible by a few that had traveled with her and sacrificed their lives within the desert. She had still been injured and almost lost her arm during the trip as well, since her own strength was subpar. It was a miracle to have gotten to the temple, and then another to have been accepted, further raising her shock at her experience.

Others had also seen her flying away from the temple, and stories would easily spread. After all, there were no Dragons' Chosen that came out being able to fly, at least in most people's eyes. Thinking of this, the dragoness breathed out softly. It made no sense to think about those things.

Instead, she decided to take in the details of the blood red scales running across every inch of her body. Their shape reminded her of the countless leaves within the forest, growing steadily from the trees. They were also reminiscent of how humans would describe teardrops. Compared to the Dragon Blood Temple, she almost felt like she was actually bleeding out if not for the fact that nothing dripped onto the cavern floor. As for her hands, while she still had a thumb, it seemed that one of her fingers had fused with the next during her transformation, since she had four razor sharp claws and not five. She could still move them with the same ease, however.

While she could fully check her wings, she could feel the muscles twitch with but a thought, an instinct that had allowed her to escape pursuit at the temple. Her wings also felt like they could be deadly, or at least used as a shield of sorts.

Finally, she looked at the gravid expanse of her stomach, which shifted slightly in her touch, letting her realize that she might be giving birth to live dragons, and not eggs as humans had claimed that they would hatch out of. Perhaps this was a result of her being a Dragon Vessel. As she began to softly rub her massive motherly middle, she felt something pushing back against her claws. That caused her to flutter softly, a slow smile on her face.

Such continued for a little bit, where she saw the dragons within her womb react to her touch, feeling them shift around and causing her scales to move about. It made the dragoness even more tired, feeling her eyes slowly closing. Just before she was about to go to sleep, however, she had heard something outside of the cave.

Slowly, the sound got louder and louder before she could instinctively tell that it had come inside. Before she was able to exert her pressure to drive it away, she suddenly stopped.

What greeted her sight, not obstructed by the dim lighting in the cave, was a massive wolf covered in snow white fur. Even though it was on all fours, it was taller than her by a few inches at least. The main reason for her stopping, however, was due to the fact that crimson had been splattered across the snowy canvas of its body. Clearly, it was injured, limping as it came inside and closed in on her.

Such reminded her of how she was possibly an hour ago. She still didn't know how long she was inside of the Dragon Blood Temple, so instead of it being merely a few hours, she might have been in there with the statues until the next day. Seeing its state, the dragoness decided not to do anything to it. Surprisingly, it came over to the gravid expanse of her dragon packed belly, resting before her body as if taking in the warmth of her new form.

Nothing else could be sensed. With her still uncertain about how to fully use her new body, she decided to push away unnecessary thoughts. Instead, since the wolf didn't seem to want to harm her, she wouldn't push it away. Once she was certain again that nothing was coming, both of her arms rested against her swollen stomach.

With her body leaned against the cave, a pregnant dragoness and a bleeding snow colored wolf slowly fell to sleep...