Off the Beaten Path
While wandering away from a tour through the ruins of an old castle, a teenager comes across a strange artifact that will change his life forever, and give hints to legends of old.
Off the Beaten Path Written by Leo_Todrius Commissioned by MrExplosive
Voices echoed down the old hallways, muffled by portraits and vases, urns and statues, and the dust of centuries of accumulated time. They were words that had been repeated day after day, time after time as new sets of feet trudged up and down the same passageway. Steps had been taken to keep the visiting masses from eroding the historical landmark; special carpet had been laid out on the tour path and velvet ropes blocked doorways of the castle so visitors could see in, but not enter.
The tour had been going on for almost an hour, though it was a commonly held fact that any tour group could only move as fast as it's slowest member and great aunt Rosalie was keeping the group at a turtle's pace after her double hip surgery. Coen couldn't blame her, after all she was getting around really well for someone in her early nineties... But it hadn't been his idea to go on the tour at all., not while his parents were at some wine tasting.
Coen would have blended in fairly well back home in the states. He was five foot ten, wearing a red hooded sweatshirt. His brown hair was a touch greasy from missing a shower that morning, and his white headphones contrasted pretty much everything else on the tour. He kept checking his phone, but for some reason the ancient ruins didn't have a good wifi connection.
Coen's green eyes darted around the hall, looking at the suits of armor and the weathered paintings. It was hard to get a good feel for history, especially that far back. It wasn't really a period castle, it was a place that had been lived in. Generations after generations had updated and modified the castle over hundreds of years. It wasn't purpose built like Downton Abbey.
And it was in the grand hall that the duke would entertain his guests, and regal them with fantastic stories of days gone by." the tour guide explained, "Now, if you will follow me down the stairs, we can treat ourselves to the great banquet hall. As a note, no refreshments will be served until the end of the tour." The guide amended. Coen groaned slightly, knowing that it would take at least twenty minutes for them all t o file down those narrow, cold, winding stairs. If he waited it would be faster just to catch up.
With a quick glance to the group, Coen side stepped off the main path to a side hall. In moments the group was so focused on filtering into the narrow confines that they weren't looking behind themselves. Coen checked his phone one last time before resolving to himself that there would be no connection and no updates. He slipped it back into his pocket and moved down the hall.
Getting away from the tour guide was almost refreshing. The contrast between dry speech and untouched household was gone, making it easier to imagine that people had lived there at some point in time. Coen continued down the hall, stepping past a few velvet ropes. It seemed that the restoration had only continued as far as the eye could see. Just past the last barrier, the carpet ended and the floor was bare stone. The walls were darker, not properly lit and there was a faint odor of time... Moisture seeping through the stone. Coen pulled his headphones down around his neck, turning the corner.
The ground became unsteady beneath his feet and a grin crossed the teenager's lips. This was far more interesting than the tour. He came to the end of the hall and almost missed a room to the right. The door was so narrow, he wasn't even sure if it was an entryway at first, but he turned and stepped through, coming into a larger chamber. There was a spacious stone fireplace on one side, blackened with the smoke of centuries of fires. There were swords mounted on the wall, even metallic shields. Coen was shocked none of them were secured. How easy would it have been for a robber to wander off the path? But as amazing as all of that was, there was a glistening refraction of faint light that caught his eye. Nothing in the room was lit, only a faint ambiance making it down the hall and into the room, but even in that limited illumination something was reflecting it... Something golden.
Coen moved toward the source of the reflection and came toward a broad desk. His eyes widened, the light dancing across his green irises. Sitting on the desk was a jeweled egg, transparent cobalt blue with scale like edges of gold. Coen's jaw hung open just a bit.
He reached out slowly, convinced that it couldn't have been real, left out like that, but as his hand touched the egg he felt the chilling quality of real crystal coated with outlines of gold... gold that was getting hot tot the touch.
Coen tried to step back, but as he pulled his hand back, a web of liquid gold stretched out, keeping him connected tot he egg. He tried to shake it off, but the strings of metal wobbled and shook without snapping. He tried to get tot he door, but they grew tight and held him there.
A sudden tightness filled Coen's chest. He grunted and fell forward onto his knees, panting. He felt like he wasn't getting enough air. He tried to breath in and in and in, but he knew he had to exhale to get any more. He blew out and inhaled again, but each time he repeated the process, his shirt got tighter and tighter. His chest was expanding with each breath, but it wasn't shrinking down. The gold continued to coarse off the egg, moving through the lines like umbilicals. As they slopped over his fingers, the metal stretched to take on a talon like shape. Almost at once, Coen's other fingers started to ache and throb. The nails turned black, growing thicker and curving out to points. They sunk into the skin, the flesh growing over the top before tightening and toughening up almost like leather.
Coen held up his free hand, flexing it, looking at his wicked claws. As scary as it was, as strange and unusual, there was a power that was pumping beneath the surface. There was an eerie pride in seeing how powerful they were. It was the sort of pride that sent blood down to his groin, feeding a raging erection. Coen could feel his heart nearly leaping out of his chest with each thump, and all that blood had to go somewhere. He groaned as his jeans tented, the black denim rising outward, coming to a point before it started to grow moist and pearly liquid oozed out. Coen watched his claws grow longer and sharper before bones started to crack in his hands.
His fingers spread apart from each other and the knuckles popped, the fingers growing longer and thicker and wider. The skin was tough to the point of leather, but even his palms were widening and thickening. His hands were over-sized, tipped with claws, looking almost like paws. Coen grunted hard, throwing his head back, howling out. The saliva clung to his teeth as they started to stretch and sharpen, taking on new shapes, distorting his mouth. His lips pushed out around the growing teeth into a short muzzle like shape, and then his jaw grew even more. He snorted out hot air as his lower jaw extended and soon his upper mouth followed suit. He was deafened by the sounds of popping cartilage and bone, and every inch his mouth stretched, the flatter his nose got until it was stretched and warped, manipulated outward with his skull until his nostrils were like slits.
His body was ever evolving, full of so much pleasure and pain, pride and fear, paralysis and fluid growth and change unlike anything Coen had ever felt before... but more than anything, he felt his throbbing manhood straining against his jeans. His oversized paw came down, slicing through the denim and cloth, revealing his engorged, pulsating shaft. It slipped out of the slit in black jeans, bobbing before him. Coen carefully wrapped his clawed fingers around his shaft, though at the moment only two of his draconic appendages fit. He started to slide them back and forth, gasping at the rough feel of his leathery paw.
Coen's green eyes rolled into the back of his head as he started to thrust his hips, sliding his erection into his paw. With each beat of his heart, more blood rushed into his shaft and it stretched longer and wider, growing inch after inch until he could add a third finger, then a fourth. It grew heavier, tighter, tougher and harder until the teenager was grunting, snorting hot air through his nostril slits. He threw his head back as the mushroom shaped head of his cock started to tighten and stretch outward, coming to a point. Beneath the palm of his paws he felt new ridges and ripples forming along the length, pulsing with rubbery texture and heat.
The changing teenager fell forward onto his other huge paw, his back arching. His sweatshirt rippled and grew tight as bony like protrusions pushed against the fabric before the red cloth started to tear. Sharp spikes studded out of his spine, dropping down from his neck all the way to his tailbone, but even as his claws dug into the stone for strength and support, he was hit with a new wave of sensation.
Coen's shoulders thickened, not in any normal way but they ballooned outward. The skin grew tight and dry, taking on a goldish bronze hue. Beneath the surface something was moving, changing, shifting... And as he panted and writhed, the skin tore, revealing small leathery wings that were feeble, but growing stronger every second.
The changing dragon furiously worked his rod, feeling his sack slapping against the back of his paw as he masturbated, realizing it had grown as well. No longer were his testicles small and mundane. They felt huge, at least the size of oranges and they were still swelling just like his shaft. Coen grunted, craning his head down, looking at how beautiful his cobalt blue cock was now, his dragon paw almost seeming too small. His shaft stretched out under his belly almost all the way to his nipples, dripping pearlescent cum steadily. He snorted hard, resting on his left elbow, bringing his other paw in to work himself off until he let out a roar, a hot and heavy load erupting from his shaft, pouring across the ancient stone floor.
With the heat of his erection momentarily subsiding, rational thought was able to flood back in. As sexy as the change was, as powerful as he was, Coen couldn't afford to stay there and bask in it. He had to get help. He charged toward the door, but as he hit the narrow entrance, his broad shoulders got stuck. He was too wide now. He let out a fierce roar as his tongue split into twin forks, hissing at the air as he went the other way. His tether with the egg went tight, but this time the egg fell from the desk and got dragged along with him.
The changing teenager stumbled across the room and hit the wall, the impact shattering the aged wood that had boarded up the window. The stained glass and metal framework broke, and the colorful shards came raining down into the courtyard. There was a gasp from the tour group as they saw someone, or something, fall from one of the windows. Coen landed on the hard brick in a heap, panting and shaking.
It took a few moments for him to recover from the shock, but a sudden pain flying down his spine like lightning woke him up from it. He rose up onto his feet, his shoes bursting as the flesh inside grew wider, longer, thicker and claws erupted from his toes. As he stretched upward to six feet, seven, eight and then ten feet of his magnificence, his red sweatshirt all but evaporated, falling in tiny shreds as golden wings opened up wide. Coen's chest was tight with muscle. His biceps and triceps pulsed with strength, his pectorals hard and compact. His stomach had hardened into eight pack, then ten, then twelve. His neck popped time and time again as his vertebrae parted and new ones grew in.
There was the sound of cracking plastic as his headphones snapped, falling from his elongated neck, but Coen didn't need them anymore. He could hear so well, he could hear everything. His ears had sunk into his head, replaced with leathery membranes on the side of his skull, and his brown hair had become nothing more than a thin line of orange ruff running back from his forehead down his spine until the spikes started... but all of that, all the sensation was subsumed as a new pressure filled Coen's head. It was all he could think of.
The pressure, the throbbing aching pain of too much in too tight of a space. He hissed out more before he gasped. Two drops of blood dribbled down his forehead as horns emerged, oozing out of his skull. He groaned happily as they were freed, the pressure released at last. He dropped back to all fours, shedding the last scraps of his black denim jeans and his red boxer shorts. He circled slowly as his spine continued to stretch and grow and writhe, trying to explore the world.
What had been a small tailbone elongated, writhing outward like a snake. It whipped around as the skin toughened, and with one more pulse of pressure, four spikes emerged from the spaded tip. They let out a whistling sound as they cut through the air. Coen let out a hot breath as he opened his emerald eyes, looking down his snout. He craned his neck down and looked at his muscled, elegant body... and he noticed the strange cobalt shell around his groin, protecting his most intimate of regions. The egg had become part of him. His head looked back up, seeing the dozens of eyes of the tour group, looking out from the banquet hall.
Whether it was fear, embarrassment, or an extreme rush of being free, Coen couldn't say. His instincts took over and he spread his wings before he pushed off, circling the courtyard and gaining altitude before he soared over the rooftop. He felt the wind beneath his wings, smelled the fresh countryside air. He had taken the path less traveled, and he had discovered something lost for hundreds of years... something amazing.