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“I don't intend to eat you,” teeth flash in what I imagine to be a terrifying smile, “not yet anyway.” Heat rushes to my cheeks, and more shockingly, it blooms lower.
“Does my human delicacy have a name?” The lasciviousness coating their question has me rebelling against common sense, melting into the tight hold at my waist—a massive tail with scales rippling along its length as it constricts around my hips.
“Aurelia,” I breathe out. There is no logical reason for my sudden subservience. I mentally push back, trying to resist the baffling pull towards this monster.
“Aurelia” they repeat, soundingpleased. Their head moves, the snout coming so close to my face that I react without thinking and fling my hands up right against their nose to prevent them from getting any closer. My eyes widen at the realization of what I’ve just done. At the same time, enormous claws gently remove my hands, but do not release them.
“I have been searching for you, Aurelia,” their nose nuzzles against the side of my head, “for lifetimes, I have sought to find you.” They move slowly to nuzzle the other side of my head, “Given up on ever finding you,” pulling back, they look directly into my eyes, “and now that I have, I’m never letting you go.”
The finality of those words, along with a tone that leaves no room for rebuttal, has my stomach swooping in panic and a deepening, confusing desire.
Have I been so lonely, and lost, that a monster of myth laying a possessive claim on me makes mefeel something.
There has always been a constant feeling of emptiness, drifting in and out of relationships, jobs, hobbies. A perpetual state of being unfulfilled. Forever seeking something to help fill this void inside. I worry that I’m just reacting to words of need, that I’m entertaining ridiculous thoughts based on the inherent need to beneeded. Something sparks behind my ribs and I rub the center of my chest while struggling with the fact that I am in the grip of a dragon.
Adragon.Who has zeroed in on where I am rubbing at my chest. I drop my hand, shaken by the way their eyes smolder with possession and…reverence.
“Can you… could you please put me down?”
“No.” The answer is immediate.
“Please? I just need to… I need…” I need to think, I need to get a better grip on the reality I feel like I'm losing.
“No.” This time much more firmly with a rumble that makes my bones tremble inside of my skin.
“But—” before I can finish, the tail around my hips loosens, lowering to the ground while claws pull me into a scaley chest and those great big wings snap open. “No, no, no!” I yell but it's no use.
We're soaring high at a rate that causes my heart to plummet through the soles of my feet, to the ground, disappearing below us. My car, a speck that is now lost to the night.
I take a deep breath, and lay my forehead against the scales in front of me. It’s frightening how easy it is to just accept defeat in my current predicament. If I give up and give in, I won't have to go back to the monotony of my vapid life. Their claws tighten slightly around me and I allow myself to believe it is an embrace.
When I got into my car, I was only seeking solace from the melancholy that had been crushing me. Drive until I was able to mend the cracks in my mask, then turn around and return with the facade of normalcy back in place. But how many times have I fantasized about leaving everything behind and not returning? It's an indulgent thought, and one responsibility and obligation quickly dash.
The rushing air slows, bringing me out of my thoughts. I lift my head in time to see us descending towards the peak of the mountain that seemed so far away only moments ago. I watch as the wings behind them cease flapping and stretch out and up, slowing our descent until I feel the impact of their feet hitting the ground. They do not release their hold on me while they climb down from the peak toward an opening in the rock.
Submission is unavoidable
Once we enter my lair,I’m reluctant to let go of her, so I simply don’t. Surveying the space that I’ve lived in for longer than any recent memory serves, the hazy recollection that humans require much more than I to live surfaces and in order to keep my flame burning brightly, I’ll need to adapt the environment to suit her better.
Or adapt to her.A voice inside me suggests. I will do everything to keep what is mine, by compromise or force. If that means leaving the isolation of the mountain…
“Do you have a name?” Her softened voice asks with some hesitation. There was a moment when her glow dimmed again during flight, like the fire inside of her was being stifled. It is worrisome, and I must find a way to stoke the flames, to feed her fire so she can ignite mine.
Adapt.Setting her down carefully, I step back and sit on my haunches. Curling my wings around my body, I call on the power I have let sit dormant for too long. It takes a significant amount of will to shift, and having lost all desire for this weak form millennia ago, I selfishly allow my appearance to retain certain attributes of my full form.
There was a time when the strongest of my kind were able to walk amongst humans undetected, save for the few gifted with heightened sense but even then their paltry brains could not comprehend in full what their instincts were screaming. We existed before humans, and we will exist long after they have exhausted themselves. Though so few of us ancients still remain, even fewer are dragons, but all have scattered. We no longer prevail as a species, and are reduced to contemptible myths.
It was not unheard of for us to mate a human while satisfying our youthful whims. There were the rare instances when we bonded with a human, but a human's life is nothing compared to that of dragons and so the few who lost their bond to mortality often gave themselves back to the earth, not willing to be parted. The only thing stronger than a bond is one's flame. The former is given and taken freely, willingly between two beings, the latter is nothing short of inescapable fate. There is but one flame for a dragon and if they find theirs, it is eternal euphoria.
She will challenge it—human doubt is a plague all its own—but she will learn her submission is unavoidable. There is no one and nothing for her but me.
Releasing the power called upon to shift, and stretching out wings much smaller than accustomed to, I hear a sharp inhale from Aurelia.
“You’re… you’re…human!?”
Rational thinking is overrated anyway
“Hardly,”he scoffs. His voice, still deep, doesn’t reverberate through my ribcage in this new form.
