Somewhere in Faerûn, a man catches an eye of the local red dragon.

2500 Words

I CLEARLY do not have enough derg OCs, so here is another one.

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Edit 1: A small revision


The fiery heart

Part 1





“I’ll have two tomato salads, a potato salad… large, a focaccia with extra dip, a caprese, two carbonaras, one with cheese, and a large pint,” Fulvio rapidly recited his wishlist to the waitress.

She stared at him, her eyes betraying the rapidly growing urge to take it all as a bad joke or bizarre opening of a robbery. Thinking quickly before she could call for the guards, he placed a generous amount of gold on the table and encouraged her to take it… Which she did, her gaze turning even more confused once it became clear he was serious.

“Alright… Will take some time though, so should I serve them as they come?” the waitress asked, looking for a different way to put the pieces together. “Are you waiting for someone, Sir?”

“Give me everything as fast as possible. Time is of the essence,” he urged.

“Alright…”

With that, the woman disappeared in the tavern’s kitchen, leaving Fulvio anxiously tapping the wooden table. It was probably a bad idea, but he just could not take it anymore – he had to eat something… something that wasn’t game. Predictably, the cold dishes arrived first – his beer, two bowls of tomato salad, one of which he destroyed in seconds, visibly startling the poor girl serving him… At least before something worse did more than just startle.

An enormous rumble somewhere outside made him freeze for a split-second, before a horrified scream dispelled all doubts.

“DRAGON! DRAGON!” a male voice cried, before getting drowned by a sky-shattering roar.

Panic erupted within the – admittedly sparsely populated at this hour – tavern as people rushed for the exit, desperate to get away, and tripping over the poor halfling among them. All except one person.

Fulvio returned to chewing his vegetables with far less urgency than before. It was over.

“Hahaha! Run, little ones! Run!” a deep, feminine, and awfully familiar voice commanded, before getting interrupted by a sound of collapsing building.

A rancid stench of burning hay invaded his nostrils, making him grit his teeth as the thumps approached the tavern, getting louder with each iteration.

Tomato. Lettuce. Olives. White cheese. Taste, texture, the pleasant coolness of it - those were the only true, the only real things in existence – or at the very least, his exhausted mind tried to convince the universe of that. Predictably it failed, with the sudden wail of wooden beams above being a testament of it.

The tavern’s roof got peeled off like an orange skin and flicked aside with a monstrous strength he came to know way too well, flooding the interior with sunlight.

“Found you, little sweetling.” The enormous dragon smiled at him from above and reached down.

Fulvio did not resist – it was pointless. He learned early on that her getting a hold on him in literally any way was a sentence. A human could not overpower the power of a dragon… The power of…

“Hey, Ceirys,” Fulvio sighed, reluctantly staring into the vividly crimson eyes of the red dragon.

The dragoness bared her teeth at him in what was half a genuine smile, half an intimidation attemp. He refused to give her any reaction – not at this, and neither at the vista of the burning, leveled village and the distant silhouettes of people fleeing for their lives.

“See what you’ve done?” She waved at the burning buildings.

“Of course it’s my fault,” he scoffed. “Not the dragon’s who actually lit the place up.”

“Indeed. You forced my hand again.” She nodded, barely containing an outburst of cruel laughter. “Also, you’re still trying to hide from me? Really?”

“No. I just came here to eat.” He tried to shrug, but the iron grip prevented any movement.

Ceirys pushed up her glasses and petted his head more than a bit forcefully, yet at the same time carefully enough to keep her razor-sharp claws away from his skin.

“You should learn to pack up more food then,” she replied, booping his nose. “Smooch for being quick?” She moved him to her cheek.

No way in hell it was happening, yet she refused to acknowledge that. He turned away and after a few seconds, her hand withdrew to the previous position.

“You’ll come around eventually.” Ceirys chirped, sending a puff of hot smoke against his face, sparking a small coughing fit.

The dragon looked round, admiring the destruction she caused with glee until her eyes fell upon a nearly untouched brick building. Her eyebrows twitched almost imperceptibly – a sign of finding something unacceptable, and the impending correction.

Which in this case meant kicking it and sending whatever remained of it in all directions with a force comparable to a wagon of smokepowder going off – and even that would probably be an understatement.

“That’s better…” She hummed with satisfaction, glancing at the destruction again, a bit more inquisitively this time. “…nine, ten, eleven… and this thing here,” she mumbled to herself. “That’s like twenty grand… Let’s say twenty-two.”

With that extremely cursory estimation in mind, Ceirys reached for one of her many pouches and produced two sacks of gold from it.

“For the trouble!” she yelled, throwing the money at what once was the main square, before turning around and leaving the devastated village behind.





***





Ceirys decided to have a little road trip, which was exactly what he expected – she caught up with him in less than a day, meaning they would comfortably get back ‘home’ before nightfall. In her mind, there was no reason to rush.

It meant that Fulvio had a lot of time to think… again. It’s not like he could do much else, with his arms still neatly restricted by scaly fingers. What went wrong this time? Or rather, what could have went better? As usual, he loathed lacking a horse, yet was also acutely aware how frighteningly fast Ceirys could fly. Speed wasn’t the real problem – her ability to track him was.

Just as his frustration was reaching its limit, Ceirys suddenly stopped to look around herself. “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever been here before.” She raised him above her head, letting him see the vista. “Nice place.”

Fulvio reluctantly agreed – the place was pleasant. Untouched by humans nor monsters, tall grass rolling across the hills until it met with the forest further north. A small herd of deer enjoyed the quiet place, feasting completely undisturbed by the fifteen-meter-tall dragon towering over the expanse, finding the threat she posed too distant to concern themselves with, at least for now. It was just peaceful – a place one could settle in and spend multiple lifetimes without a single outside visitor.

“Sure. Whatever,” he scoffed, pretending to be unimpressed.

“I appreciate that you chose south this time – north and east have gotten a bit stale lately.” Ceirys decided to take a small break and sat down, keeping him tightly against her belly. Refusing to incite a conversation or even engage with her at all, he was forced to endure getting pressed against downright obscene abs capable of grating hardened mithril into fine powder. And it wasn’t just a metaphor – her muscles were genuinely the hardest thing he had ever witnessed.

“Sooo… How about that smooch you’ve promised?” She glanced down at him.

“Bah!” Fulvio scoffed. “I didn’t promise you ANYTHING, and that’s not going to change!”

“No again? No matter, I can wait.”

Fulvio took a deep breath but failed to calm himself in time. His limbs pushed against her grip with desperate rage and hatred of a cornered animal. It got a reaction… but not the one he hoped for. Her hand pulsated around him with the glee of a cat observing a struggling mice dismember itself on said cat’s claws. After a few minutes of it, he finally exhausted the overspilling rage and fell limp.

“You’re cute when you’re mad, sweetling,” she cooed, petting his head with her thumb.

Fulvio took a deep, shaky breath, before looking straight up with defiance. “You know what, I’ve changed my mind.”

That got an immediate reaction out of her – he instantly found himself hovering mere inches from the tip of her snout. “You can do it wherever, but I’d prefer it over here.” She pointed to the right of center of her lips.

He snarled. “I changed my mind on making promises. I’m going to escape. I promise I will run from you. Again, and again, and again. Every single day, every single opportunity I get, I’m going to run. Until you get bored, I succeed, or die.”

Ceirys blinked… And rolled back her head, bursting into a rumbling, deafening laughter that quite literally rattled his bones and probably flattened some grass around them with its sheer intensity.

“Reaaally…” she wheezed, rubbing her eyes. “Go ahead then. Run.” Ceirys placed him on the ground in front of her. “One… Two… Three…” she counted, beginning to clean her glasses with a piece of cloth.

When seven rolled around, he finally grasped that she was serious about it and was apparently giving him a grace period… Too bad he didn’t know how long of a…

“I’d hurry if I were you. Ten,” Ceirys commented, not gracing him with a look.

Everything finally clicked and he sprung into a desperate dash towards the trees that were promising at least a theoretical fighting chance. He made it maybe a hundred meters – not even a fifth of the way – when he heard a rumble.

“Ready or not, I’m coming!” she yelled, making him glance behind.

He caught her monstrous form lazily stretching as she warmed up her joints and muscles… before giving chase. It forced him to push past his limit and speed up out of sheer desperation.

Fulvio felt the mercilessly approaching quakes, desperate for any more speed, any more distance. The approaching thuds were scaring off the animals hidden along her path, creating a literal stream of rodents fleeing between his legs. And that’s when he heard a footfall right behind him.

The quakes suddenly slowed down. Not disappeared but got considerably less frequent. Daring a look behind, he found Ceirys following less than ten meters behind him, her gait only marginally faster than standing still. She grinned at him and nodded, almost ordering him to continue.

With his only options being giving up, or continuing this farce, he chose the latter – purely because his pride refused to give up without a fight after giving a promise, its circumstances notwithstanding.

And so, he ran. As fast as he could, with his tormentor following close behind. She let him reach the forest and continued on undeterred, her massive frame easily bending and breaking the trees he hoped would give him a modicum of cover.

A few minutes later his path was blocked by a small, yet sizeable river flowing perpendicularly to his path. Deciding to run upstream for no reason in particular, he continued for a few more minutes before noticing a new sound growing in intensity between Ceirys’s footfalls. Something artificially resembling the hum of the river accompanying them, just far, far more rough and intense. A true rumble. A rumble of a waterfall.

Fulvio reached what was effectively a nine-meter-tall cliff with no visible path leading upwards and stopped with no idea what to do.

“Awwww… And you were doing so good…” He felt the ground tremble when Ceirys squatted behind him.

Next thing he felt was a finger patting him on the head… And then, fingers closing around him…

“You know what, go ahead.” She placed him on the top of the cliff. “I enjoy evening walks. Very romantic.”

Taking a deep, shaky breath, Fulvio opened his eyes… just to see another cliff not ten meters in front of him. Because of course. He slowly strolled towards to rocky wall and felt Ceirys jump onto the rock shelf behind him. The game was up.

“Well… You tried,” Ceirys whispered straight into his ear in a way made his skin tingle.

Everything afterwards happened quickly, but not exactly because of the speed itself. Ceirys sat on the edge of the cliff, letting her legs dangle from it and placed Fulvio in an extremely precarious spot between her thighs, before beginning to bathe herself in the waterfall.

Beaten, exhausted, defeated, and above all, trapped between a cliff and two mounds of flesh, Fulvio considered if a fall from that height would have been enough to kill him. The answer was a resounding yes… The only problem was that Ceirys would have just caught him, had he gone through with it.

“I gotta admit, you have a knack for taking me into nice places,” she mused with mockery that was downright palpable. “You sure you’re not hitting on me?”

Pressing his hands together, he asked all gods known and forgotten for saving, mercy, or – at the very least – strength to endure her…

A waterfall of icy water flooded him, making him jump from the immense cold.

“What the fuck, Ceirys?!” he yelled, breaching another one of his limits.

“What? You’re dirty. We need to bathe you properly, sweetling,” she announced, dropping another handful of water on top of him.

“FUCK! Do you have to do this?!” Fulvio whimpered, finally breaking the taboo of ignoring eye contact.

“No,” she admitted, dumping water on top of him again.

With cold and humiliation added to his list of misery, Fulvio couldn’t help but tremble. It was so cold – he somewhat felt colder than when he was literally digging through ice… and the setting sun promised things would only get worse.

The flesh around him radiated warmth, the dragon was a source of heat. No, more than that – it was heat incarnate… And something he refused to touch. Despite being able to force him into anything, Ceirys refused to do so – instead, she resorted to constant coercion and blackmail. But he would not yield, even if the alternative was spending the entire night trembling from cold.

“Pff.” Ceirys scoffed after a few minutes of his inaction. “Have it your way. You know, I was gonna be lenient, but… you escaped today. Twice. You know what that means.”

Fulvio inhaled shakily, trying to find words short enough for him to pronounce in this trembling state before it was too late. “P-please, don’t…”

“That’s right!” she gleefully interrupted. “You’re getting thied!”





***





Acceleration and thump. Acceleration and thump. Acceleration and thump. Acceleration and…

Was he not used to it beyond what any human ever should, it would have been a nightmare – for him though, it was merely unpleasant. With his body wrapped with cloth to the point of resembling a cocoon and attached to the outer side of Ceirys’s right thigh via ropes as she continued her march back home.

Each step was a challenge but… at least it was warm…





***