Dragon(s)layer

14


Personal Collusion


{Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning Soundtrack: A Swamp Hide and Seek}


Taliopia was hunting people.

Well, only if they were dragonflies.

At least she wasn't actually hurting anybody. Maybe, there was some emotional scarring, but other than that, it was fine. Some of the younger dragonflies even seemed to like it.

"Cuddles from the draggy!" –A little female one had cried, promptly being swiped and bundled in Taliopia's arms, the medic humming compliments on her wing color and glow as she snuggled the insect.

"Is she usually like this?" The Fallen quirked a brow and sipped on a clay mug just a little bigger than a thimble filled with this amber-beer stuff the dragonflies had been on about. He preferred alcohol really sweet, and this drink was perfect. If only there was more of it...

"You should see her when it's anything small and fuzzy." Morinth wriggled her talons, sitting beside him and watching the spectacle of bug-snatchery and Taliopia's squees. She was munching on a pear. "She has a huuggee collection of stuffed animals at her home in Warfang. Her family's rich, and her father buys her all kinds of plushes. He used to, anyway, before they signed her up for the draft."

"Your people have a draft?" He glanced at her.

"Yes." Morinth took a nibble out of her pear, sighing around the bite. "The war with the Dark Continent has been going on for so long, that there are years where we can't get enough soldiers."

"…Casualty rates?"

"No, but they aren't something to dismiss either. There simply aren't enough of us that are young and physically fit enough to cover all the fronts. That's why we rely on the Moles and their technology so much. Their cannons and flintlocks have held many a theatre no dragon could." Morinth twitched her wings and sized him up out the corner of her eye. "You have an awful lot of military-speak about you, Fallen."

"I have an awful lot of military experience." He clarified. "With habits comes the talk. I've had to fight way more than I initially wanted to."

"Initially?"

"…Well," He refilled his bottle-cap cup with a quick dip of the pitcher on the platter behind them. "after a while I… might've started to get some mild enjoyment out of it all."

"Mm." Morinth tossed the core of her pear in one of the wastebaskets lying around the gathering. "So you like killing?"

"If the targets did something to deserve it. Upfront solutions normally pave the way for a better future." He shrugged. "The trouble is, I'm constantly having to fight people who I don't want to fight. But many times, folks leave me without a choice. So ole' Fallen has to run in and dropkick them in the balls."

Morinth laughed.

"Tell me your real name. I promise, I won't let it sliiiippp~." She sang, her emerald eyes shimmering.

"I don't have a name." He was staring in those green pools.

That perfumy scent slapped him upside the head.

He turned around, abandoned his little cup and came back with the whole pitcher, drowning anything that might've started in a wash of amber-beer as he tipped it into his mouth.

"Everybody has a name, even if their parents weren't around to say it was official." Morinth pressed. "When I was living in the underways of Warfang as a hatchling, there were plenty of vagrants who had named themselves, and that was what everyone called them. Fallen's a title. What do you go by?"

"…pwah…" He gasped, finishing off the pitcher and punching his chest for a little belch. "…usually I'm just- 'that guy' –but everywhere I go seems to like Fallen. It follows me, like a really bad smell. Every world I go to, people always think I'm falling, or that I fell. I don't know why, I have pretty good balance."

"Is that always how you make your entrances into worlds? You fall from the sky in an asteroid?"

"…It's happened once or twice." He looked around as he put the little pitcher back. "Look, the monkey literally named his new octopus-buddy after a sound the thing made. If I want to name myself after the catastrophic sub-orbital impacts I've suffered repeatedly I have that right."

"Cheeky, 'course you do." Morinth chirped, her eyes wandering down his legs. "…Do humans have any hobbies?"

"I'm sure plenty of them do, me myself, ones that I'm unable to pursue."

"How come?"

"…Ahm," He gestured to himself and everything around them. "…I'm the Fallen. Falling in a world near you right after the last freaking one."

Morinth giggled.

"You're funny." She smiled. "Are all humans funny at least?"

"Only the screwed up ones." He sighed.

"Do you sing?"

"If you like the tune of dying ox, I suppose I could indulge you."

"No!" She laughed. "Have you ever tried? It's real easy once you get the hang of it. You just, sit back, close your eyes, aannddd leettt the song taakkkkee youuuuu~."

"So, why don't you sing for everybody?" The Fallen asked.

"…What?" Morinth shrunk back, and brought her tail around to hold in her paws. "No, no, that would be silly… besides, my CO isn't exactly endearing in his attitude every day, and half my squadmates are boobs."

"Boobs?!" The Fallen stood rigid. "Where?!"

"What are you on about?" She blinked.

"-What-?! B-Boobs- I- oh…." He sulked. "…I keep forgetting that those are alien around these parts." He glared at her sloping, gunmetal chest. "Though the rotundness of your bodies is quite lovely."

Morinth giggled and let her tail go, where it started to whip about in a frenzy behind her.

"If I were to sing… would you listen?" She asked.

"Of course I would."


{🐉}

"-so that's when the dynamite went off, and kerblammm! The tower started to come down, and me and the Fallen jumped out the gates just in time!" Spyra recounted for Firefly, Lightnux and Cometcu, all of whom had gathered around her with a few other dragonflies and Ignitia and were listening intently. "…I don't want to say it so bluntly, but eh… we were kinda' sorta' badass."

"He sounds like a very skilled fighter." Lightnux scanned the village. "I'm glad he has dedicated his talents at least to a side of seeming good."

"Warfang is interested in preserving peace." Ignitia said nearby. "We seek to abolish the Dark Army and restore the world to its natural order. Today was a great step towards that goal."

"All in one battle too," Spyra shook her head. "Chieftain Visigoth, his whole rat-ass tribe, a whole flight of Dreadwings, all gone! And we captured Cyndy-Two-Shoes."

"I sense great darkness in that creature." Cometcu's antenna were poking towards the edge of the village, where a dark, secluded thicket house stood, a torch lit in the entryway clearly illuminating a quad of dragonflies guarding the arch from the dragoness tied up inside. "She has been molded into something by very evil powers. Yet, for all that blackness seething inside her, I couldn't help but feel pity for the mournful presence underneath it all."

"What was it? A lingering sense of jealousy 'cause of how cool I am?" Spyra joked.

"Only as cool as an old salamander pie." Firefly quipped. Spyra threw a cup at him and nearly hit Lightnux.

"…a tiny voice screaming to be let out." Cometcu silently recanted. "That poor dragon."

"Hey! Could everyone, stop what they're doing? Look over here! Hey! HEY!" The Fallen tried waving his arms a few times, but only a few folks took notice. With a disgruntled puff through his lips, he picked Spyra out across the village and waved at her. "Spyra!"

"Yo! It's my human!" Spyra leaped up, her wings flapping to keep her in a hover. "Whatchyu' need, my boi'toy?"

"I need a crowd-silencer!"

"You got it, babe!"

"Did she just call the alien 'babe'?" Firefly leaned over to his father.

Spyra landed on her haunches and reared back, a jet of fire spilling into the air and illuminating the whole village in a shade of amber.

There were a few startled shouts, but after the flames crackled and whooshed, Spyra cut the breath attack and staggered back on her hinds, grinning dopishly.

"That got all yer' attentions!" She laughed. "The Fallen's trying to say something!"

Dragonflies, Moles and dragons all put their eyes in the center of the village, where the human stood, nodding gratefully at Spyra.

"…Yeah, uhm, thank you Spyra, for clearing that up. Everybody," He held a hand out to his flank. "Morinth would like to sing for us."

A few coos of interest rose up from the crowd as the black and gunmetal dragoness stepped to the fore, her wings preened and her head high.

The Fallen smiled. She was so nervous that she was shivering.

"Hey," He whispered in passing as he went back to the crowd. "you're a soldier, crowds are the least dangerous thing you've encountered."

That actually got Morinth's spirits up, she smiled, bowing her head to hide the flush as the human scurried between some Moles, kneeling down and waiting for her to start.

Morinth breathed, and looked around, opening her mouth to speak-

"Morri-poo!" Taliopia's call echoed across the village. The medic appeared inside the crowd, a pair of struggling dragonflies caught in the crook of her forepaw as she waved at Morinth. "Woooo! I'm your number one fan!"

"I love you, dearie." Morinth chuckled, reaffirming her focus to the crowd. "…Cheeky that, all that time in the academy, with courses on public speaking, and I still have this ole' tremor in my wings. Fancy that, right?"

Some chuckles rung out. Morinth swallowed and looked back at the Fallen, and then Taliopia.

"…I know so few of you passionately. Most of us have been sort of thrown together these last few days whether by the workings of fate, or chance, or maybe even a little outside influence…" A grin in the Fallen's direction. "But even so, I'd like to share something with you, my passion, to bear my heart literally for your judgment, in the hopes of a fantastic end to the evening. I have a song in mind, one mam', in the rear row there, might be familiar with."

Ignitia stood taller and smiled at Morinth.

One more glance at the Fallen. He gave her a nod.

Just go with the flow.

Morinth slapped her chops, cricked her neck and flexed her wings, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. Her voice crept into a single note, emerging into the evening like a ghost drifting between the trees.

As the first words began to take shape, Moles, dragonflies, dragons and one human all listening, Ignitia was the one who was most impacted, and the quickest to be.

The Cant of Flight, the song for dragons who went off to war for glory.

Our brave children

Caught in bronze starlight

Masked in shadow

Off in the wind

Eyes of eternal light, forever gazing westward

For the gold in our souls, whispered in the night

Temper thy heart and remember

The winds come at the rise of winter

We shed that which we love for good

Our brave children, whisked into the wind

Wings high and heads taller

Blood upon the seas

We search our souls for the answers we know

That our brave children are always home

…Upon the third iteration, Morinth fell silent, and the night was serene like that for a long while.

Then the applause started, first among the Moles, then the dragonflies. It became riotous when Spyra whistled through her talons and Taliopia dropped all her dragonflies, ran out and tackled Morinth in a wing-hug, kissing her full on snout to snout.

The Fallen pumped a fist and clapped too, joining the noise.

Helping out did feel good every now and then.

But he hadn't been lying to Morinth earlier.

Which reminded him…

Carefully, making sure Morinth saw him clapping before Taliopia kissed her again, he slipped through the gathering. The Fallen snagged a leftover salamander steak from a platter and some apples in a passing movement at the banquet row. He stepped around the dark back of a thicket home and crossed a clearing of trees at the edges of the torchlight.

The dragonfly sentries had- of course –wandered closer to the village to listen to the song, and were now fully absorbed by their kindred. The Fallen even picked out Torrdonal madly clapping, Corrinthol pouting right next to him.

"-Mozzletoffff-!" Palmet screeched, before tripping over a basket and nose-diving into a pile of little dragonfly buckets with a hideous crash. The applause was mixed with jeers and laughs.

All the better.

The Fallen slipped into the dark archway of the abandoned thicket, taking in the very silent, eerie atmosphere inside. The noise of the village was dim, even though the arch was open and bare.

A pair of unblinking, white eyes glared at him in the dark. Just in the right angle, a sliver of blue moonlight cascaded into the center of the cell, and it was through this that Cynder's beak-like snout slowly fleshed itself out in full revelation.


{Halo Wars OST: Flollo}


The black dragoness grinned, and her tail started jerking against the rope restraining it.

"I figured you would come." Cynder said. "Which is very good, because I can sense the tension only created by a desperate need for talking. Yes, Fallen, we need to talk, and desperately."

"We'll get to that." The Fallen sighed, holding out the platter he'd nabbed. "Just in case you were hungry."

"A gift~?" Cynder breathed, her eyes impossibly glowing more in the dark than they already were. She eagerly shimmied her tied-up form to the edge of the palette as he crossed the cell, and put the platter down in front of her before kneeling behind it. "…How exquisite. Courtship should be proper, even between such radically different species. I assume you have a rudimentary knowledge of our kind? It is… eager of a male to bring a female parcels for her appetite or hoard…"

"You could call what I know rudimentary." He shrugged, slipping one of his stolen Ape blades off his hip. Cynder eyed him with the most intense interest he'd ever seen as he stepped over to her.

"…What is this I see?" Cynder purred, eyes darting between the steel and his face. "Having second thoughts? Or this all part of the coaxing of our situation into something much more intense?"

"Neither." He slipped the blade through the tethers on her wrists, and snapped one of the lines free, allowing her forepaws some degree of wiggle room. "Unless you plan on eating out of that platter like a dog."

Cynder trembled as he stepped back and took his seat again. She was slow to react- which was uncharacteristic, given the astonishing speed she'd demonstrated in battle with him –and wriggled her sore wrists around before flexing her front limbs.

Of course, she tried to boast her breast to him with the movement, and he did not shy from staring.

"I was designed to be an embodiment of envy." Cynder said very quietly, reaching forward with both paws to tenderly clasp an apple. "What I do, the words I speak, and how I appear, are all weapons that have been honed since my hatching. Do you know what that means?"

"It means you sure are desperate to talk." He creased a lip.

"Talk." Cynder parroted, twirling the apple in her talons absentmindedly. She looked considerate as she examined the little thing, and he admitted that seeing her normally scowling face laxed into such a studious expression was quite jarring. "Yes, there is much talk, talk needed, talk unspoken. I have questions…"

"So do I."

"…Maybe we should make a game out of it. What say you? Winner takes precedence first, and will receive all their answers before indulging the other." Cynder's eyes flared covetously at him, her serpentine tongue licking about the apple like it was a lollipop. "…I already have one of my answers…"

"Which one is that?" He shifted on the floor.

"My form drives you crazy." She twirled her tongue about the apple and slurped the whole fruit into her break, crunching it quietly in the dark, watching him examine every curve and batch of fat she had. She boasted her breast more and moved her hips. "But as I already said, it was designed to do that. At least some things work the way they should."

"Yes." The Fallen sheathed his blade. "Some things."

"All of your friends and allies seem quite preoccupied outside, which is very good. Was that the Cant of Flight that I heard that half-breed singing? She does have a marvelous voice, so much talent to bleed from her at will, I can deduce. You encouraged her?"

"I might've nudged it a little." He nodded. "…So, uhm… chatting with the enemy."

"Fallen, I am not your enemy." Cynder purred, and all the ropes tethering her body snapped free at once, flailing briefly and discarding themselves around the pallet like dead, thin snakes. The black dragoness stood and stretched out all her limbs and wings as best as the cramped cell let her. "I want you to think of me more as a Deuteragonist, pulling strings always for others."

"Is that what Malefora corrupted you to do?" The Fallen darkly watched as Cynder stepped off the pallet, her gunmetal body gleaming in the moonlight as she twisted about and displayed herself for him. "To manipulate and in turn be manipulated?"

"It's a symbiotic relationship on the best of days and a necessity more commonly." Cynder sighed, casting a dismissive glare to the center of her back. "Tsk, that old crone really has let herself go, her magic is drying up like a carp left in the sun."

She uttered a canting word and the burning sigil emblazoned on her scales vanished in a purple wink of light. Cynder flexed her hips and sighed happily.

"Much less stuffy now. Very good." She turned an eye back on the human, who was not keeping silent. "…Right, an unspoken truce?"

"You've got it."

"For the pursuit of knowledge…?" Cynder intoned, carefully laying herself on the opposite side of the platter, her tail-blade giving off a keening rring-! –as she pushed the pallet away from her and into the bramble wall.

"Uh-huh."

"Excellent, why don't you start first?" Cynder plucked the second apple off the platter and crunched half of it in one bite, her normally battle-ready expression keened and overridden by a pleasant sort of smile as she chewed. She was looking right him, making lighthearted conversation.

Damn this dragoness was scary as shit. He didn't know whether to get a terror-fueled erection or to piss his own pants like some kind of on—the-spot-converted exhibitionist.

Maybe a combination of the two.

Cynder swallowed and stuffed the other half in her mouth, wriggling her wicked talons free of crumbs as she waited for him.

"Speak, human, I'm quite elated to finally have a civil conversation with you." She said. "No Warfangian champion would admit it, but I see the dark looks of guilt upon males' faces. I am coveted. If treason were not at risk, and my standards nonexistent, I could have any champion of the north I wanted in but a heartbeat. But I'm forgetting all of that…"

She picked up the steak and bit it in half, chewing silently as she leaned over the platter and placed her snout just before his lips.

"…I want to hear what you could offer me instead." She whispered.

"Starting first? That's about the best I got for you at the moment." He reached up and glanced a thumb over her lower chop. Cynder shuddered and took her neck back from him.

"Yes." She said haughtily. "But do remember, that this must be kept within the night's limits. Neither of us have the ability to see through each of our faction's threats to completion."

Cynder of course did not specify why that was. Perhaps she was assuming he would garner the answer just as she had for herself.

Though she might also just not care.

Still, he had to mull on it. Cynder patiently waited on her side of the dragonfly platter, munching away at the little bits of food, her eyes never leaving him.

Where did he start?

"You've been magically altered, with shadow mutation mixed with… something else." The Fallen's eyes swam over her. "…Right?"

"Correct." Cynder mused. "I was just about to wonder aloud if that was a question. Tell me, if I had answered no would that have changed anything?"

"It might've made me feel a little less sad for you."

Cynder bristled, swallowing the building rage in light of other, more potent interests.

"…Be that as it may: I am what I am. A living weapon, designed from the egg to serve my Mistress, of which I have done well for the last twenty-five years."

"That's how long it's been for you?"

"Indeed. War sees fit to never leave a day dull." She huffed, flexing her mighty wings. This brief slippage to something glum turned the moment she smiled again. "…This is very exciting. My exposure to competent conversation is, as you can imagine given my station, very rare and cherished. My Mistress is not one for much discussion, and Visigoth is a dimwitted old man whose glory days have abandoned him."

"Visigoth… hairy guy? Really big? Two axes and nasty disposition?" The Fallen held his fists up to demonstrate.

Cynder surprised him with a tiny giggle, this sort of squeak of laughter. She touched her mouth with a talon and hopped her shoulders.

Her face shifted in front of him again, making him jump in the seat of his pants.

The transformations done by the mutation… what had Malefora done to this dragon?

"An apt description. Yes, that sounds exactly like him." Cynder put her chin in her palm, utterly fixated on him. "He is the one who plucked my egg from the temple's collection, upon request by my Mistress. He is also the one who underwent the ritual to transform me into her child as I currently am."

"Do you…love him?"

"Visigoth?" Cynder flinched, an uncertain grin spreading down her snout. "Obviously you're joking. Oh, or do you speak of a paternal suggestion? I'd humor the latter but: no. I loathe him, truthfully, for how he challenges my throne and decided for me my current state of affairs."

"So you hate him?"

"Hate might be a strong word…. But it is also an accurate one, depending on who you ask."

"What would you say if I told you that I killed him?" The Fallen asked.

Cynder's smile dampened but still remained. There was a long pause after he had spoken, the black dragoness utterly unreadable for a good and long minute.

Cynder suddenly slipped back into casual action, adjusting her position on the floor, wiping away the now empty platter, and tapping her talons on the dirt.

"Good riddance." She muttered. "Perhaps it is the shock of the moment, but I feel little about this development. Things have already gotten as worse as they can be, and I have spent the long trek here contemplating my failure and trying to accept it. Creatively speaking, I fully admit to a fellow intellectual like you that I struggle to adhere to my own preaching. But understand this: Visigoth is-" She paused. "-was a lynchpin and mediator between the collective ego of his Apes and the true hand of direction giving them purpose. Apes are simple-minded barbarians. They esteem other Apes above each other and rely on a hierarchy in order to keep their definition of peace. Such a machine runs on parts granted a coin a dozen. Visigoth was not irreplaceable, at least not in entirety."

"And there's three of them left? These Chieftains?"

"Nownow, Fallen, I stay here for you and me, not to divulge information for the war effort…" Cynder annoyed him by wagging a paw finger.

"Okay…" He thought for a second, Cynder watching him eagerly yet still. Outside, the crowd's racket was dying down a bit. Cynder noticed, and her wings sagged.

"How unfortunate that this is coming to a close so quickly." She sighed.

"Don't worry about them, I have that under control, you have as long as you need." The Fallen brushed a hand at her. Cynder blinked, flattery spreading through her chest.

"Much obliged." She breathed.

"How are you able to master so many elements like Spyra?" He asked. "I've noticed when you were trying to kill us-"

" -Her! I was… only trying to kill her." Cynder quietly objected, looking embarrassed.

"-okay, so I've noticed while you were trying to kill Spyra that you have a multitude of breath weapons. Green icicles, wind currents and pure terror? The shadow fire too."

"Poison, Wind, Fear and Shadow." Cynder said each one like it was a separate delicacy to be consumed on a queen's table. She described her powers like sweetmeats or pastries of only the finest import. It both fascinated and disturbed him. "Malefora knew I would need the variety to deal with the Northerners. She gave me just a touch of her own purple ancestry so that I may more easily adapt to elements outside the four known to most dragons."

"So Malefora was the first purple dragon?"

"Of course she was, any sage worth her salt knows that…" Cynder smirked. "Her desire to reshape things fairly drove her into rebellion against her kin. It is the same thing that drives me."

"Because you like hurting people." He said.

"Hmmph~." Cynder giggled. "How touching. Not entirely, though I'm afraid that the act of killing has provided a certain rush throughout my life."

"For me too."

"…To see the life seep from someone who so strongly opposed your view that they were willing to risk themselves to take you down." She heavenly mused. "Spyra must know that feeling too. She did kill so many of my men. But anyway, no I do not fight for Malefora out of some primitive need for homicide. I fight for her to change the organization of our world. It is exclusionary, it is minute, and the dragons and Moles have all become small-minded and self-serving. The Dark Army would see everything erased as to create a clean slate, so that the world may be remade."

"With Malefora at its head." The Fallen darkly stated. "You're fighting for an ego-maniac and a murderer."

"There's a lot alike between you and her." Cynder scooted closer to him on the floor, bowing her snout as to only be from his nose by a few inches. He smelled her minty breath as she spoke. "…Normally, this is the part where you outright deny this, as the hero."

"I'm not a hero and it would be untruthful of me to deny it." He said flatly. "Your views don't necessarily diverge from mine. It's your methods I can't deal with. Reform can happen, even if it needs to be done against people's wills in the interest of a greater good. That needs to be done without mass murder, at least of non-combatants."

"Who could wage such a war!" Cynder roared laughter. "As to eliminate collateral? You're more lofty-minded than I thought."

"Call my standards higher." He shrugged.

"Agreeing to disagree." Cynder dismissed. "Ask me something else."

"Haven't you wondered who you might have been if you had actually been allowed to live a normal life? From egg to young adulthood?"

Cynder mulled over this.

"…What might have been," She carefully said. "is never part of what comes next. Doting in the past is frivolous and stupid. Do you wish for times past? Rolling in your nest at night asking what you could have done differently? Shaming yourself for past inactions and wrong choices?"

"Every night of my life." The Fallen nodded. "Look in my eyes and tell me that you see nothing but ignorance. I dare you."

"No, not ignorance surely…" Cynder scooted even closer, until her forepaws were resting over his legs, and her snout was in his face.

The black dragoness began to develop a minute rumble in her breast as she kneaded her wicked talons into the jumpsuit sleeves over his thighs, and brushed the tip of her hard, warm beak across his nose and lips. Her white eyes were staring deeply into him, unblinking in the dark of the thicket cell.

"…I can pick apart much pain inside of you. Anguish, a pinch of angst, self-loathing and an astounding amount of destructive energy directed back at your own mind." Cynder whispered. "I see a lot of these things, and a heavy dollop of lust."

The Fallen growled and pressed his lips into the tip of her snout, flexing his mandible. Cynder gave a tiny, muffled moan and leaned into the link, one of her paws sliding up his thigh, making him shiver as her metal-sharp talons grazed across his sensitive flesh. She cupped his groin and squeezed her pads, feeling around for the twitching organ inside his jumpsuit.

"You seem much more eager for the future." She uttered, wetly disconnecting from him, her eyes hungrily darting to his lap. "…Your species has a tendency for clothes as do cheetahs. It's no wonder the cat-folk's own women are such hateful creatures, and their men spiteful."

"…Cheetahs?" The Fallen huffed, his hands gliding down her soft, scaly neck. "Where are they?"

"I want to ask some questions." Cynder giggled, giving his crotch a squeeze and making him grunt. "We'll deal with this later…"

The Fallen's heart leaped into his throat.

Dragoness, his mind pulsed. The perfumy scent of draconic arousal was now stabbing him in the cerebral cortex like a deranged murderer.

"Mmmyes…~" Cynder licked her fangs, bumping her chest in between his legs and pressing the length of her beak into the bridge of his nose. Her paws hooked his narrow hips and pulled him into her. "…But first…"

"-H-Hnhh-?" He drunkenly kissed her nose.

"Surely you have hobbies." Cynder demonstrated unbelievable resolve when she immediately tore away from him and left him cold and very blue balled.

His arms were still hovering where they had come to rest on her shoulders. The Fallen looked shocked as Cynder lounged on the floor where she was earlier and grinned at him.

"Tell me of them." She chirped. "Our flesh can wait."

"…b-but-" He found himself stammering like a child denied a cookie.

"It c-can wait." Cynder growled with more force in her tone, her expression briefly turning dark. She rubbed her breast tenderly and huffed. "Speak."

"….right." He coughed, sheepishly trying to cover himself with his legs. "…Hobbies? Maybe at one time, there used to be, but I can't exactly pursue a lot of them anymore. There's no time."

"This is because of your ability to jump worlds?"

"Yeah."

"How many worlds have you been to?"

"Hundreds."

"Really." Cynder breathed, her chin back in her palms as her tail thudded behind her. "How many of them have possessed beings such as myself? I've overheard some of the mutterings of your Wing outside, and they say that you have said that dragons are common outside of this realm."

"They exist, I don't know if they're common." He tried. "But you bunch aren't a unique thing, I'll tell you that much."

"And your magical capabilities? How did you learn them?"

"I don't know any magic." He blinked.

"What? B-But your touch…" Cynder reached out a paw, shivering when he ran his palm over its back, desperately seeking out to have the black dragoness pressed against his body again. "…Electrifying. That isn't natural, there is some kind of enchantment you have inside of you that impacts dragons, specifically hens."

I've just got style- he almost said as a quote from Spyra. But something told him Cynder wouldn't be too happy having the purple beastess brought back into the conversation.

"I can't explain that to you." He shrugged.

"Can't or won't?"

"Can't. It's always just been that way."

"Interesting…" Cynder drummed her claws. "I'm a writer. What about you?"

"I've dabbled." He shrugged again. "Is that what some of the papers Ignitia collected are?"

"Yes, the Guardian absconded with many notes and entries I had penned in Forlorn. Luckily, the majority of my craft is sealed away back home…" Cynder smiled. "I'm certain you've been told about Concurrent Skies."

"Your castle." He nodded. "It's apparently a pretty dark place."

"If you love sunshine it will not be your cup of tea." Cynder hummed. "But it is secluded, and the architecture speaks with my inner muse."

"I've never shied from Gothic, but I prefer cleaner cut and brighter, usually a mix."

"Indeed?" Cynder's eyes lit up with genuine interest. She felt a brief glaze of cold before a settling warmth that sloshed in her body. It wasn't a feeling of arousal, but something more… social. She couldn't remember a conversation that she'd had with anyone on such a personal level.

After all, how often was someone willing to listen to the Terror of the Skies, purely to just listen?

Nobody had ever cared to know her before.

Surging with hope, Cynder scooted back into his space and rested her paws on his ankles, rubbing them idly as she cast her horns back and smiled, searching the ceiling for her next sentence.

"…So let me ask you this then… What do you know about weaving and stoneworking? I fancy interior design of all things…"


{🐉}

Ignitia was flipping through one of the books she'd recovered, only half-reading every stanza she grazed over. Her mind was swirling around so fast that words were difficult to absorb right now.

It was an original copy of the Darkseep Tome, a black book written long ago by unknown authors claiming to be survivors of the disaster that had befallen ancient Stormwatch. There were sages across the Dragon Realms willing to risk their lives to get their claws on it.

Returning it to Warfang would allow the scribes ample material to release updated editions. Maybe Ignitia could make that market just a little less fierce.

But awakened knowledge, ancient pacts and forgotten sayings aside… Spyra's words earlier…

"Wingleader?" She startled when Harad appeared just behind her, his eyes brimmed with a bit of surprise as he observed the clutter of papers around her forepaws and her open hipsash bag. "I hope I'm not interrupting something."

"No, not at all, Captain." Ignitia quickly shut the book and started gathering all the sheets up to stuff them back in the bag.

"A moment of your time then, ma'am?"

"Certainly."

"We need to decide who is to be the runner for our return to Warfang." Harad stepped closer, subtly nodding for the gathering of Moles in the center of the village. "I think you'd agree with me that leaving without someone to watch our new flock would prove most irresponsible."

"Indeed, we need to organize for transport for the records, the prisoners, and the Fallen." Ignitia sounded strange after the last bit. Harad ground his fangs but did little else to signify any impact.

"I volunteer myself, alone." He stated. "The Wing will be under your command in my absence, and I shall return with aid."

"You fly clear skies, Captain." Ignitia stood up and rolled her hipsash over. "The entirety of Visigoth's tribe was slaughtered inside the tower, along with the Chieftain himself. Why, even Jute and his entire flight of Dreadwings couldn't have survived…"

"While Dark occupation of the south may be lifted, they still control the bogs north of the geyser fields, Tall Plains and Monkano Island. The Frontier Sea is still dangerous." Harad reminded. "I'll make preparations to leave early in the morning."

"Fly swiftly, Captain." Ignitia smiled. "I think tomorrow I will lead an expedition back to the ruins of the tower to sift through the wreckage, perhaps uncover any other secrets Cynder and Visigoth had been hiding."

"What of the pool?" Harad asked. "Can the Dark One still use it? Or do you think it was smashed when Forlorn's chute collapsed?"

"Either-or could have occurred." Ignitia shrugged. "I think right now, though, what is more important is rest. Lay low, Captain, just for tonight, and I consider that an order."

"Yes, ma'am." Harad didn't look any less stern as usual. "And a request?"

"Yes?"

"I want to act as standing sentry for the Cloud Ripper." Harad muttered. "These insects have kind hearts but are weak. We can't rely on them to watch for her trickery."

"Corrinthol and Torrdonal and myself were all to gather around the thicket soon." Ignitia said. "You may join us as well. It's all auxiliary, really, because that seal I put on Cynder should hold her in addition to the ropes."

"She is weaker than I expected, perhaps age has caught up with her." Harad chuckled. "The Fallen really did strike a great blow to the enemy today, I begrudgingly give him that."

"Hey! Who wants to see me chug amber-beer until it comes out my nose?" Spyra shouted nearby, earning whoops from several dragonflies and her brother.

"…I can't believe Spyra is the result of generations of prophecies." Harad huffed. "She is practically an infant, fresh from the shell."

"She's smarter than you think." Ignitia frowned at him. "Let me get her to the academy, and put her in the elemental training ring. Me and my sisters will shape her into something even you could never frown upon."

"I hope you're right." He sighed. "…Will Guardian Terradora be present to see her?"

"I imagine she would, once word begins to spread that the Purple Dragoness has been recovered." Ignitia smiled wryly. "Remember who she is and what she practices, Harad."

"It was merely a professional curiosity," Harad said blandly, his eyes suddenly locking on the spectacle that Spyra was centered in. "…Ancestors, is it natural for a dragon to be able to drink that much?"


{🐉}

"…that was when I had enough. I turned around, and I saw this guy sitting at the bar-"

"-This bar you speak of, is like a tavern?"

"It's similar. Anyway, he was drinking, and he was muttering about my client, right out in the open, with no attempt to hide anything." The Fallen shook his head. "Like a complete idiot, he sold himself right in front of me."

"So what did you do?" Cynder asked, wide-eyed.

"I put his head through the counter." The Fallen made a gripping motion and brought his hand down, making a 'cshhh!' –noise under his breath. Cynder chortled loudly. "All I had to do was drag him outside and throw him in the back of the truck. Easy payout."

"Fascinating." She tapped her talons on his leg. "So many words unheard of here… bars, trucks, guns…? These other worlds sound like they are troves of knowledge."

"They're a lot of things." He said in the pause. "…It's hard, being a portaljumper."

"Yes." Cynder huskily huffed. "Hard."

"...What about what you were saying before? This corruption that Malefora embued in you. You have no free will?"

"...Of course I have free will." Cynder snorted, her attention having drifted in the lull. "The mutations have grown relaxed over the years, and more and more did I start to prove capable of not only directing my own armies, but even refusing Malefora's orders. She did not punish me for this but rather rewarded me with more power, and more security, lest I ever become too greedy."

"So why not kill and usurp her and become the new Dark Mistress?"

"...Tah." Cynder quietly laughed, looking down at her talons. "You make things sound so straightforward, Fallen. I admire your singular drive for things spoken or gained. You must be a trier."

"I am." He nodded. "...But trying to figure you out is really hard."

"Hard, yes..." Cynder licked her chops, her eyes lowering.

The conversation had been taking a turn towards the end anyway, but she hadn't actually made a move until now. The Fallen felt her paw brush over his lap and center between his legs. He watched her squeeze him through the jumpsuit, hearing that thrumming purr redouble in her chest.

"…Ah~…." Cynder hissed, rubbing her thighs together, her tail sweeping across the floor.

"Are you okay?" He blinked, eyes swimming over her plump backside and the curve of her spine.

"…It's nothing. Continue your discussion…" Cynder eyed him quietly. "…What about these plains you speak of? These… pine-forested woods and coastal islands?" All of the body art down her face and shoulders was beginning to glow pink.

"It's all behind me now." The Fallen breathed. "Then I came here."

"…Fascinating." Cynder squeezed his groin again, thinking about something. "Why don't you tell me about the experience you've gathered as the mate of the purple dragoness of legend?"

"Mate?" He parroted. "W-Well I-"

"Don't lie to me. I knew her scorning words had truth, but now, as I breathe in your scent, I can smell it." Cynder pushed her snout into his chest, inhaling deeply and making him shiver. "I can smell her. She's been all over you. Her mouth, here, here…" Cynder's long, sinuous tongue flicked out and started to graze over every spot she mentioned, each little lick eliciting a grunt in the back of his throat.

"Her vagina." Cynder grumbled, eyes flickering to his for a moment as she teased the sleeve of his suit's groin with a single lick. "Only here. Her mouth…? Curiously absent… perhaps you two simply did not have enough time?"

"I-It wasn't-"

"I am the Terror of the Skies. I have never had to compete for something I desire. I take what I want." Cynder's teeth revealed themselves, making him gasp when they hooked on the hem of his suit in a little love-nip. "…Oh, do not make me ask, human."

"But we're out of time-"

"Now." Cynder snapped, her wing blades lowering to hang just over his head. "Now, Ancestors damn you, remove this barrier from me."

The Fallen glanced at the archway of the thicket, the village still murmuring distantly outside with conversation.

"Fallen." Cynder whined, bumping him with her snout. "You speak of time… so hurry up…"

The Fallen snatched the lower half of his stomach hem and fiddled for the detachment straps. He wriggled, and Cynder growled as she roughly gripped a growing flap of black material dragging down his hips.

He jolted as she dragged the hem down to his knees and stopped, a pink, lightly haired pair of balls and a dick flopping out, the latter already hard as a diamond.

"…Non-retractable." Cynder muttered, her minty breath washing over his head as she leaned closer and tentatively reached for it with her paw. "…And grazed with just a touch of fur… Humans are so interestingly constructed…"

Cynder paused, her pads torturously close to him as she hovered over the twitching rod.

"Does she scream?"

"Who?" The Fallen blinked.

"The purple dragon, does it make her scream?"

"She wasn't disappointed, if that's what you're asking."

The Terror of the Skies smiled wryly.

"Do you know how absent the Dark Army is of suitable mates?"

"Good thing I showed up and wrecked your tower." He breathed. Cynder laughed at him before snatching his dick up in her paw and giving her pads a good flex.

The Fallen grunted and his hips bucked, Cynder coyly eyeing him as she gave his spear a few experimental pumps.

"…She must gush over it, but has she really played with it?" Cynder tormented him, grazing two of her talons through the pubic hair ringing his balls. She took glee in watching him twitch, seeing the organs roll up instinctively from the sharp cold of her claws. "Speak, human, tell me what you want."

He murmured something, his hands reaching over and cupping her wrists.

"I couldn't understand." Cynder purred. "What?"

"…my…"

"What? Say it louder, please."

"Suck my dick." He grunted, eyes snatching shut as her pumps increased in volume. Cynder whined lowly and wrung her thighs tightly together as she felt herself leak.

"…You did destroy my tower…" The black dragon whispered. "…but, you did also save my life… I suppose the latter deserves some kind of compensation…"

Cynder opened her mouth, and her tongue flicked over his head. The Fallen's hands grabbed two of her larger horns and tugged, the Cloud Ripper giving a muffled, singsong moan as her chops parted, and her tongue started to slowly snake down the underside of his mast.

It coiled to the base and began to circulate in tight rings until almost his entire length was sheathed in a wet, slippery sleave. Dragon gob ran down his balls and pattered onto the floor, Cynder rattling his whole body as a followup moan sent vibrations coursing through his hips.

The Fallen was beside himself as he leaned back and worked Cynder by her horned crest, grunting as wet slaps echoed out from her working tongue and chops. Cynder suckled on him tenderly, keeping her fangs wide and her tongue active, moving it completely down and up in a repeated cycle. It felt like his penis was being thrust into some kind of flesh vortex lubed with draconic spit.

"…No wonder you're so good at twisters…" The Fallen chuckled. "…You can do it outside and inside."

Cynder surprised him with a deep gag as she sunk the tip of her snout into his groin and her jaw to his sack. He groaned as his dragon-conquerer was pinned completely inside the tongue-slapped interior of her beak, quivering under the attentions of her throaty hums.

Physical limitations meant that he couldn't fill her entire snout, but Cynder was in no state to complain. He certainly wasn't small, and his taste was an interesting mix of saltiness and masculine tint. He leaked little beads of pre that she eagerly sucked up in the vortex her tongue was making and swallowed.

The Fallen shoved her horns down and humped into her beak, his motions giving off subdued, but present squelches as Cynder's saliva ran down to the floor and dripped from her chin, rendered silver and glinting from the moonlight peaking in through the thicket's arch.

"Slow down." He muttered, groaning when Cynder did the exact opposite and started to speed up. "-wait, don't make it s-so quick…"

Cynder silenced him by doubling her efforts, her eyes lidding half-shut as she gripped the base of his slathered rod and started to bob her long, regal neck. His creamy meat slipped in and out through the crimson-colored tornado of her serpentine tongue, reams of gob now dripping down her wrist and the silver cuff capping it. Cynder rumbled and hiked her backside in the air, displaying herself for him as she battled his restraint in an effort to finish him off.

The Fallen couldn't see straight as wet slaps, muffled gasps for air and pained dragon moans meshed with the consistent purr building in her breast. There was a heavy thwmp thwmp thwmp… -as Cynder's tail smacked against every surface making the cell behind her in its efforts to whip and curl.

"…Cynder…" The Fallen gave in, defeatedly calling her name as the black dragoness went down on him harshly and rapidly.

Cynder shivered as his words stabbed her right in the belly. She jammed his meat inside her mouth at a proper angle and gagged loudly, dragon spit spattering his groin and thighs in a pronounced, and moist singular burst.

His hips left the floor as one of her paws slipped under his butt and cupped over his cheeks, lifting him to aid in his drive to face fuck her.

The Fallen then started to grunt with each wet impact of her snout hitting his pubes. Cynder purred louder and pinched an eye open to watch him with delight as she did her work.

"-Cyn-der-" He growled. "…I-I'm…"

Cynder let him quickly slip out of her tongue's grasp and from her beak. He gasped as cold air entreated his blade in the blink of an eye. Cynder followed through and gripped him with both paws, nudging the corner of her snout across its side to lick up and down like it was a dogbone.

She egged him on with lurid little moans of intrigue and wet noises from all her lapping and kisses. The Fallen cast his head back and humped through the ring of her paws and against her beak, her own saliva and his pre glistening as they stained her scales and subdued the glow of whatever runic art they touched on her cheek.

So close…

The Fallen couldn't keep it contained any longer. He was on a precipice that was taking its sweet, torturous time in reaching him. His humps became fevered and his breath ragged. Cynder kept pumping and licking, her eyes wide and pleading in the dark.

With one last thrust, the Fallen exhaled and a white ream of semen shot out and into the air. It draped like a silver ribbon over Cynder's snout, its tailend slapping wetly just below her eye, which she instinctively closed.

The black dragoness moaned as his musk filled her nose and ream after ream of cum latched onto her beak, her cheeks and her forehead. Some of it shot straightly up and cascaded over her wrists, and more of it simply bubbled out like lava erupting from a volcano. Rivers seeped and meshed with all of her saliva, a hearty mess developing in a series of puddles on the floor underneath them whilst the Cloud Ripper pleasured him.

She kept squeezing as she lapped up everything she could, coaxing a few last pathetic droplets and a squirt from him before the Fallen gasped and draped on the cool ground, exhausted, and utterly ball-drained.

"…Good god…" He panted, watching her as she cleaned him from base to tip, and went over everything for secondary licks, his gradually dying erection flopping among her motions and slapping against her nose. "…Maybe I chose the wrong side…"

"…Mmmmm~, maybe…" Cynder moaned, giving a last few twirls of her licker over his crown, before giggling and slipping her paws from him, she leaned back and brought up her talons to her mouth to clean them too while also working at the cum ribbons across her face.

Her tongue was really long...

"…No matter what Spyra says, you are my human, mine and mine only."

"…If agreeing with that gets me more head, then sure, whatever you say, baby…" The Fallen weakly pumped a fist in the air.

"Hmmph, males…" Cynder smiled, rolling her eyes as she worked on her last nail. "You're so easy to please. Play with their cocks, embellish their egos, and treat them with gifts of food… You can almost guarantee loyalty."

"…L-Let me do you too…" He tried to sit up, Cynder's eyes locking onto him as he fumbled onto his knees, his expended dick swinging underneath him. "It's been a while since I've had some nice derg-puss to eat."

Cynder rumbled and started to lean back as he crawled over to her.

"…When I told you what I did in Forlorn," She whispered as the Fallen straddled over her waist, his palms rubbing down her shapely inner thighs as he spread the large dragoness on the floor. "that she says yes? Fallen… I mean it… she says yes, yes… so much so yes…"

Cynder gasped and her wings twitched when he met her nose to nose and kissed her on the snout.

"…You know what I'm going to do tonight…" She said.

"I know." He started moving down to her chest, kissing the rotund, crimson length as he went.

"…Let me take you with me." Cynder pleaded. "Ride with me, human… To Concurrent Skies. I will bring us to paradise. You, and me, secluded from all else and everything. The Blue Hurricane is impenetrable, only I know how to get through it. I will abandon Malefora, and we will make our nest in my castle, our den."

The Fallen dreaded when opportunities like these came, and they always did when he got involved with the natives.

Happened Every. Single. Time.

He had spoken with more logic when he'd first come down, and less morality. A few fights here, some sex sprinkled in there, and his whole perspective had been warped.

"I can't." He muttered, feeling Cynder's plush body go stiff at the muscles. He expected her to lash out, or berate him, she was, after all, a poetically abrasive dragoness.

"…why?" Cynder whispered, burying her snout in his hair. She suddenly laughed, muffled in his scalp, her forepaws linked over his back, and her tail carefully coiled over his ankle and constricted. "-Oh, why? Just tell me why. I believe you. But tell me why."

"Because to get back to where I came from, I have to beat Malefora." The Fallen told her.

"I didn't ask you to pick a side." Cynder's voice cracked. "I asked you to pick me."

"I know." He shut his eyes.

"…Yo…! Where my human at…?"

It was Spyra, calling out to him in the night outside. There was murmuring around her intermittent shouts. She had others with her. He could pick out Morinth, Taliopia and Firefly…

"You don't have to leave." He told her.

"I do." Cynder swallowed, her eyes becoming puffy as she stared at the thicket arch with dread. Her longing gaze locked onto him, perched on her curvy belly. Cynder made a distressed sound and embraced him with all her limbs and her wings, squeezing him like a comfort blanket. "I'm going to find you when this war ends."

"Not if I find you first."

Cynder kissed him, wrapping her tail around his ribcage to carefully lift and deposit him from her.

"I actually am sorry." Cynder winced, white light building in her throat, causing a slight draft in the thicket. "But it should at least look convincing."

"My lips are sealed." He said, cringing as Cynder's Wind element began to ramp up in a staccato howl. "Just go easy, would you? I had a rough day."

"Noted. And Fallen," Cynder stood to her full height, spreading her wings into the thicket's bramble roof. Roots snapped and wood started to chip, the very structure moaning around her. "thankyou." –She whispered.

Fwoooshh~! –the Fallen was airborne, cast like a discarded tissue on a hurricane's breeze.

He hit the ground squarely on his back a distance off, grunting.

"-Fallen?" Spyra cried, her voice getting closer as she and the other dragons bounded over. "What happened?"

The Fallen scrambled to pull up the lower hem of his jumpsuit as Spyra, Morinth and Taliopia all gathered around him.

"-Oh!" Taliopia gasped, shielding her eyes with a wing, and then peaking when she thought no one was looking.

"My my, cheeky that," Morinth didn't even bother. She just grinned. "at least I know what aliens look like now."

"The fuck are your pants down for, dude?" Spyra took his shoulder sleeve in her teeth and helped him to his feet.

"Well-" The Fallen started to say.

Then the thicket where they were keeping Cynder exploded.

There was a flash of blood-red light, and the unnatural screech of a monstrous, but feminine beast. Chunks of the abandoned structure whipped in all directions, and a cloud of dust plumed from the iris of the burst. They all could hear some people screaming in the village behind them.

Cynder was rising towards the woodland canopy, spinning on her axis gracefully as her wings spread and caught her in the updraft. For a moment she was a hellish sight, a black, pale-eyed dragoness whose underside was shaded crimson from the blaring magical light still pulsing where the thicket had once been.

The Fallen was the only one not hollering about to prepare for battle. He met eyes with Cynder across the distance, his face riddled with sadness.

Cynder could be heard making a chuffing noise, her gaze locking onto the Fallen's feet, and hatefully narrowing at Spyra who was standing just beside him.

Her wings flapped, and thunder struck. A sonic boom wriggled through the air and Cynder shot through the trees like a bullet. Nobody needed to see her past that point to know it was all over.

"What happened?" Captain Harad tucked his wings and landed in front of the steaming wreckage of the thicket. "The ward! There was supposed to be a magical ward entrapping Cynder!"

"…Fallen?" Spyra stared at the debris and then looked at him.

"…She got out." The human stammered.

"No!" Ignitia shrieked, bounding up to the exchange and screeching to a halt besides Morinth and Taliopia, her amber eyes wide and burning with panic. "She broke through the ward! She-"

Ignitia's jaw flapped.

"-I-I have failed all of you…" She muttered.

Harad opened his mouth to speak, but apparently discovered that he could not. Little embers continued to rain down through the dark night as the last of Cynder's exit strategy dissolved to nothingness. Where the thicket had once stood, was now a blackened skidmark with a few stumps of the bramble's foundation sticking from it like ribs.

"…That's not good, right?" Firefly hovered by Spyra's horn. "That was Cynder? And she's your new nemesis?"

"That bitch." Spyra snapped. "I used to play in that old thicket when I was a hatchling!"

"…You know where she's going." The Fallen spoke up, guilt bleeding into his veins. He couldn't have stopped her from leaving anyway, but… he hadn't exactly tried. "Her fortress in Concurrent Skies."

"And how would you know that?" Harad growled, turning from the blast mark and snarling at him.

"She said so before she broke the ceiling."

"What about Monkano? Or the Dark Continent itself? Cynder could be limping back to her master right as we speak." Harad rebuked. "Malefora isn't going to simply liquidate a living weapon like her even after such a failure."

"We can't chase her." Morinth eyed the pitch-black sky. "That slippery hen is long gone."

"So… you're saying we're fucked?" Spyra sneered.

"Cynder is one of the fastest flying dragons who has ever lived." Harad darkly explained. "It's where she earns her title: Terror of the Skies? Her wings create a sonic scream when she dives, it can be heard for miles. I've only heard it once before, years ago."

"We're fucked." Spyra grunted, kicking a scorched stick.

"This must be like a passing weekday for you people, right? Right?" Firefly tried to joke. Nobody laughed.


{🐉}